Deconstructing Mental Illness: An Ethnography of Psychiatry, Women and the Family

Drawing from feminist, post modern, cultural and sociological and medical anthropological literature, this work shows the complex intertwining of illness and culture in the context of mental disorder. The ethnographic context of the study is the interface between mental health professionals, patients and their families in a local psychiatric hospital in New Delhi. The book anchors the discussion around feminist thinking and praxis in the mental health realm, along with the traditions of cultural psychiatry and medical anthropology.

Deconstructing Mental Illness is relevant and contemporary, and makes an important contribution to the field of mental health and women. This important work extends the frontiers of social science research and offers alternative perspectives on women, health and disability.

RENU ADDLAKHA is Professor at the Centre for Women’s Development Studies, New Delhi. She is trained in medical anthropology, and her areas of specialisation include mental illness and the psychiatric profession, public health systems, disability studies, bioethics, gender and the family. Her doctoral work in sociology (conducted at the Delhi School of Economics, Delhi University) focussed on the psychiatric profession in India with a particular focus on gender issues, and she has been working on health and disability issues for the past two decades. Her other publications include the co-edited volume Disability and Society: A Reader (2009), Contemporary Perspectives on Disability in India: Exploring the Linkages between Law, Gender and Experience (2011), and Disability Studies in India: Global Discourse, Local Realities (2013).