Feminist icon Phyllis Chesler's pioneering work, Women and Madness, remains startlingly relevant today, nearly fifty years since its first publication in 1972. With over 2.5 million copies sold, this landmark book is unanimously regarded as the definitive work on the subject of women's psychology. Now back in print, this completely revised and updated edition adds perspectives on eating disorders, postpartum depression, biological psychology, important feminist political findings, female genital mutilation, and more.

This book focuses on the complex patterning of mental disorder identified in men and women. The first part of the book examines the gendered landscape of mental disorder, key concepts and approaches, and the way in which gender is embedded in constructs of mental disorder. The second part considers theories of the causes of mental disorder and the extent to which the different causes can account for the gendered landscape of disorder. It concludes with a discussion of the policy implications of the analysis.

How do men make women crazy? The same way women make men crazy; through sabotaging intuition. When you know something is wrong in your heart, but choose to believe it is really okay, it makes you crazy. It may not always be intentional; in fact, most often it is done out of fear. In this book you will find a way out of the crazy-creating, intimacy-shattering, fearful behaviors that paralyze so many relationships today. Jami and Marla offer hope and wisdom in discovering how to move past the craziness and move in to a desire for deeper intimacy and love. Praise for Jami and Marlas How Men Make Woman Crazy (and Vice Versa) Jami and Marla have such heart and compassion for helping others. The concepts they share in this book are universal in their effectiveness and can work not only for married couples but for individuals as well who may want to get a better understanding of the relationships in their lives. We can honestly say without a doubt that our marriage has not only been salvaged, but we are discovering each other all over again in a new way! Deborah and Lincoln Thank you so much for your book. Simply amazing, and a blessing! I have come so far because of both of you. I cannot thank you enough for getting me through the hell and helping me find the true Jennifer. Now here I am happier than I ever thought. Wow. Jennifer We were one signature away from divorce for an entire year, but reading this book and following its concepts saved our marriage and has brought us to a new intimacy we never thought possible. Mark and Michelle

Nominated for the 2012 Distinguished Publication Award of the Association for Women in Psychology! Why are women more likely to be positioned or diagnosed as mad than men? If madness is a social construction, a gendered label, as many feminist critics would argue, how can we understand and explain women's prolonged misery and distress? In turn, can we prevent or treat women’s distress, in a non-pathologising women centred way? The Madness of Women addresses these questions through a rigorous exploration of the myths and realities of women's madness. Drawing on academic and clinical experience, including case studies and in-depth interviews, as well as on the now extensive critical literature in the field of mental health, Jane Ussher presents a critical multifactorial analysis of women's madness that both addresses the notion that madness is a myth, and yet acknowledges the reality and multiple causes of women's distress. Topics include: The genealogy of women’s madness – incarceration of difficult or deviant women Regulation through treatment Deconstrucing depression, PMS and borderline personality disorder Madness as a reasonable response to objectification and sexual violence Women’s narratives of resistance This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of psychology, gender studies, sociology, women's studies, cultural studies, counselling and nursing.

The questions of what defines mental illness and what language should be used to define it are the subject of much debate in the mental health professions. Within this debate lies the question of how the diagnosis of mental illness relates to gender, and more specifically why it is that women are frequently assumed to be more prone to mental disorder than men. In Men, Women and Madness, Joan Busfield examines the complex gendered landscape of mental disorder, explaining how the very idea of mental disorder has been used to set the boundaries of rationality and reason within society, and that societally- held notions about gender have very much permeated its category constructions. Central to Busfield's argument are two claims: that mental disorder--a category whose boundaries are contested--is best understood as a territory that marks disturbances of reason and rationality; and that gender (along with other social characteristics) permeates categories of mental disorder. Busfield argues that there is no evidence either of a greater biological vulnerability of women than men to mental disorder, or that women have had to cope with more stressful events in their lives than men. Instead, Busfield suggests that cultural factors, in particular power, are the locus of the differences in mental disorder between men and women.

Drawing on the most important studies in psychology, human aggression, anthropology, and primatology, and on hundreds of original interviews conducted over a period of more than 20 years, this groundbreaking treatise urges women to look within and to consider other women realistically, ethically, and kindly and to forge bold and compassionate alliances. Without this necessary next step, women will never be liberated. Detailing how women's aggression may not take the same form as men's, this investigation reveals—through myths, plays, memoir, theories of revolutionary liberation movements, evolution, psychoanalysis, and childhood development—that girls and women are indeed aggressive, often indirectly and mainly toward one another. This fascinating work concludes by showing that women depend upon one another for emotional intimacy and bonding, and exclusionary and sexist behavior enforces female conformity and discourages independence and psychological growth.

This incisive study explores how cultural ideas about proper feminine behavior have shaped the definition and treatment of madness in women as it traces trends in the psychiatric care of women in England from 1830-1980.