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.

Covering a wide variety of subjects and points of inquiry on women's sexuality, from genital anxieties about pubic hair to constructions of the body in the therapy room, this book offers a ground-breaking examination of women, sex, and madness, drawing from psychology, gender and sexuality studies, and cultural studies. Breanne Fahs argues that women’s sexuality embodies a permanent state of tension between cultural impulses of destruction and selfishness contrasted with the fundamental possibilities of subversiveness and joy. Emphasizing cultural, social, and personal narratives about sexuality, Fahs asks readers to imagine sex, bodies, and madness as intertwined, and to see these narratives as fluid, contested, and changing. With topics as diverse as anarchist visions of sexual freedom, sexualized emotion work, lesbian haunted houses, and the insidious workings of capitalism, Fahs conceptualizes sexuality as a force of regressive moral panics and profound inequalities—deployed in both blatant and more subtle ways onto the body—while also finding hope and resistance in the possibilities of sexuality. By integrating clinical case studies, cultural studies, qualitative interviews, and original essays, Fahs offers a provocative new vision for sexuality that fuses together social anxieties and cultural madness through a critical feminist psychological approach. Fahs provides an original and accessible volume for students and academics in psychology, gender and sexuality studies, and cultural studies.

“I learned about the mechanics of female sexual pleasure in my sex ed class.” “I am able to have a difficult conversation with my partner about our relationship.” “I can boldly and openly carry a tampon to the restroom in public.” “I am totally comfortable being naked in front of a new partner.” If you disagree with any of these statements (or all of them), you are not alone. You are one of many, many women who are feeling the effects of “sexual madness.” According to Jennifer Gunsaullus, PhD, sociologist and sex coach, it is time for women to break free from the labyrinth of societal baggage in relation to sexual education, expectations, and fulfillment. From Madness to Mindfulness sets out to help women empower themselves, and future generations of young women, to transition out of a state of sexual madness and into a state of sexual mindfulness. A state in which women can give themselves permission to feel more worthy of love and great sex (and then have it!). Dr. Jenn will guide you through the process of assessing levels of “mis-education” in regard to relationships, communication, sex, passion, desire, and body image and integrating mindfulness practices to overcome your own personal “madness.” Replete with personal stories and a wide array of client accounts, along with guided questions, action items, and tips to create a personal Reinventing Sex plan, Dr. Jenn will help guide you to become a thriving sexual being . . . on your own terms.

Social research yields knowledge which powerfully affects our daily lives. The 'facts' it generates shape not just how we see ourselves and others, but also whether or not we see the existing status quo as normal, just and legitimate. This book examines and questions the methods used by social researchers to produce such knowledge. It focuses chiefly on research into human sexuality and madness. It introduces and critically assesses everything from survey methods to participant observation. It opens up broader philosophical debates about the nature of knowledge, and highlights issues surrounding the ethics and politics of research. The book looks at the research community and the research process in detail before moving on to examine the main techniques used in social research: * the use of official statistics * the survey method * interviewing * laboratory observation * ethnography * the use of documentary sources * textual analysis. By exploring both technical and conceptual problems in the work of researchers like Freud and Kinsey, and by considering the difficulties faced by researchers concerned with phenomena such as rape, witch hunts and prostitution this book makes methodological issues both interesting and accessible.

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.

This book explores, for the first time in an edited collection, the intersection of three key research areas - women, madness and the law - and advances the debates on how law and the 'psy' sciences play a critical role in regulating and controlling women's lives.

Silver Medalist, 2012 Independent Publisher Book Awards in the Women's Issues category Honorable Mention, 2011 ForeWord Book of the Year in the Women's Issues Category Although conventional wisdom holds that women in the United States today are more sexually liberated than ever before, a number of startling statistics call into question this perceived victory: over half of all women report having faked orgasms; 45 percent of women find rape fantasies erotic; a growing number of women perform same-sex eroticism for the viewing benefit of men; and recent clinical studies label 40 percent of women as "sexually dysfunctional." Caught between postsexual revolution celebrations of progress and alarmingly regressive new modes of disempowerment, the forty women interviewed in Performing Sex offer a candid and provocative portrait of "liberated" sex in America. Through this nuanced and complex study, Breanne Fahs demonstrates that despite the constant cooptation of the terms of sexual freedom, women's sexual subjectivities—and the ways they continually grapple with shifting definitions of liberation—represent provocative spaces for critical inquiry and personal discovery, ultimately generating novel ways of imagining and reimagining power, pleasure, and resistance.