Erste Schritte in die Physik für Gehörlose - sonderpaedagoge.de!

Madness and Disabilities: Interview with Geoffrey Reaume
Geoffrey Reaume: I can say that madness and psychiatric disabil-
ities are as tenuous and difficult to define as they were when the
walls were built over 100 years ago at the former Toronto Asylum.
The 20th century, particularly the latter half of the 20th century,
has seen the immense influence of the medical model on interpret-
ing madness which is troubling as this leads to a reductionist ap-
proach where a person's biology is said to determine their mental
state. Yet, mental anguish and psychiatric disabilities are very
much due to social and economic factors, far more than any physi-
ological basis which has been touted especially since the days of
Kraepelin and Bleuler. The good thing is that there is far more
recognition of the material basis of madness today than when
Kraepelin and Bleuler reigned supreme, which is largely the result
of the large numbers of current and former psychiatric patients
writing about their own experiences and organizing in ways that al-
low for greater discussion of non-medical approaches to under-
standing madness than in the past. While there certainly were peo-
ple who wrote about madness and organized, including in Ger-
many, a century ago, in the last three decades this organizing and
outspokenness has helped to challenge the medical monopoly
about what it means to be mad than was previously the case. How-
ever, there is no point pretending that this means things are fine -
because they aren't fine. Discrimination is as alive as ever towards
people with psychiatric disabilities and most people and organiza-
tions who have alternative perspectives that are not medical model
don't get much funding or have the recognition that medical model
approaches have to madness to this day. So the struggle continues
to support and promote greater alternatives to the medical model
of madness.
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Heilpädagogik online 04/ 08