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Discourses Of Madness And Me: Critical Examinations Of Western Discourses Of Madness And Psychiatry, Erin E. Casey

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This paper is a critical examination of western medical paradigms alongside histories of psychiatry that argues for a culturally situated approach to mental health advocacy that maintains the importance of the physiological foundations of traditional biomedical approaches to disease. In doing so, I examine the discourses of madness, and society’s attempts to control and “fix” what is deemed “mad” through a historical lens. My position and critique utilizes a reflexive narrative process embracing my identities both as a consumer of mental health services and as an advocate for those with mental illnesses.