This article examines the complex links between gender, class and the `psy' disciplines. It argues that there is a connection between those understandings of `class' embedded within contemporary `psy' discourse and the concepts utilized to render class intelligible when the working classes became a target and object of psychiatry in the l9th century. By adopting a form of historical-discursive inquiry informed by poststructuralist ideas (Foucault, 1971, 1972) the role that the `psy' disciplines play(ed) in problematizing aspects of social existence and rendering them in relation to sets of normalizing judgements is examined. The article highlights that from psychiatry's inception in the 19th century it has been bound up with governing and regulating a specific conception of personhood, arguing that `class' is one such mechanism through which this conception of sociality is governed, managed and administer-ed.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Adcock, C.
and Newbigging, K. (1990) `Women in the Shadows: Women, Feminism and Clinical Psychology', in E. Burmanet al. (eds) Feminists and Psychological Practice. London: Sage.
2.
Barrett, M.
(1994) The Politics of Truth: From Marx to Foucault. London: Routledge.
3.
Bell, V.
(1994) Interrogating Incest. Foucault, Feminism and the Law. London: Routledge.
4.
Bhavnani, K.
and Phoenix, A. eds (1994) Shifting Identities Shifting Racism: A Feminism and Psychology Reader. London: Sage.
5.
Blackman, L. (1994a) `Contesting the Voice of Reason: An Archaeology of Hallucinations from the Eighteenth Century to the Present', PHD thesis, University of London.
6.
Blackman, L.
(1994b) `What is Doing History? The Use of History to Understand the Constitution of Contemporary Psychological Objects', Theory and Psychology4(4): 485-504.
7.
Blackman, L.
(1995) `Techniques of the Hallucinatory Self' in I. Lubeket al. (eds) Trends and Issues in Theoretical Psychology. New York: Springer Press.
8.
Booth, C.
(1892) `Inaugural Address', Journal of the Royal Statistical Society60: 521-557.
Burman, E.et al.
(1996) Challenging Women: Psychology's Exclusions, Feminist Possibilities. Buckingham: Open University Press.
11.
Chesler, P.
(1972) Women and Madness. New York: Doubleday.
12.
Darwin, C.
(1871) The Descent of Man, Vol.]. London: John Murray.
13.
Donnelly, M.
(1983) Managing the Mind. London: Tavistock.
14.
Dubois, D.L.
(1994) `Prospective Investigation of the Effects of Socioeconomic Disadvantage, Life Stress, and Social Support on Early Adolescent Adjustment', Journal of Abnormal Psychology103(3): 511-522.
15.
Esquirol, J.E.
(1845) Mental Maladies: A Treatise on Insanity. Philadelphia: Lea and Blanehard.
16.
Foucault, M.
(1971) Madness and Civilisation: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason. London: Routledge.
17.
Foucault, M.
(1972) The Archaeology of Knowledge. London and New York: Routledge.
18.
Foucault, M.
(1973) The Birth of the Clinic. London: Tavistock.
19.
Foucault, M.
(1979) The History of Sexuality. Vol.]. An Introduction. London: Allen Lane.
20.
Foucault, M.
(1980) Power/Knowledge: Selected Inter-views and Other Writings, 1972-1977, ed. by C. Gordan. Brighton and New York: Harvester and Wheatsheaf.
21.
Foucault, M.
(1987) The History of Sexuality. Vol.2. The Use of Pleasure. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
22.
Foucault, M.
(1988) `Technologies of the Self', in L.H. Martin, H. Gutman and R.H. Hutton (eds) Technologies of the Self. London: Tavistock.
23.
Goldberg, E.M.
and Morrison, S.L. (1963) `Schizophrenia and Social Class', British Journal of Psychiatry109: 785-802.
24.
Gordan, C.
(1992) `Histoire de la Folie', in A. Still and I. Velody (eds) Rewriting the History of Madness. Studies in Foucault's Histoire de la Folie. London and New York: Routledge.
25.
Henriques J.
, Hollway W., Urwin C., Venn C., and Walkerdine V. (1984) Changing the Subject: Psychology, Social Regulation and Subjectivity. London: Methuen.
26.
Hollingshead, A.B.
and Redlich, F.C. (1958) Social Class and Mental Illness: A Community Study. New York: Wiley.
27.
Klovman, R.et al.
(1994) `Clinical and Cognitive Effects of Methylphenidate on Children with Attention Deficit Disorder as a Function of Aggression/Oppositionality and Age', Journal of Abnormal Psychology103(2): 206-221.
28.
Kraeplin, E.
(1913) Clinical Psychiatry: Lectures and Clinical Psychiatry. London: Bailliere, Trindall and Cox.
29.
Kraft-Ebing, R. von
(1904) Text-book of Insanity. Philadelphia: F. A. Davis.
30.
Maudsley, H.
(1879) Pathology of the Mind. London: Macmillan and Co.
31.
McNay, L.
(1992) Foucault and Feminism. Cambridge: Polity Press.
32.
Miller, P.
and Rose, N. (1986) The Power of Psychiatry. Oxford: Polity Press.
33.
Myers, J.K.
(1959) Family and Class Dynamics in Mental Illness. New York: John Wiley and Sons.
34.
Owen, R.
(1836) The Book of the New Moral World.
35.
Rose, D.T.
(1994) `Heterogeneity of Cognitive Style Among Depressed Patients', Journal of Abnormal Psychology103(3): 419-429.
36.
Rose, N.
(1985) The Psychological Complex. Psychology, Politics and Society in England. 1869-1939. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
37.
Rose, N.
(1990) Governing the Soul: The Shaping of the Private Self. London: Routledge.
38.
Rose, N.
(1996) Inventing Our Selves: Psychology, Power and Personhood. New York: Cambridge University Press.
39.
Rose, N.
, and Miller, P. (1992) `Political Power Beyond the State: Problematics of Government', British Journal of Sociology43(2): 173-205.
40.
Sayers, J.
(1986) Sexual Contradictions: Psychology, Psychoanalysis and Feminism. London and New York: Tavistock Publications.
41.
Showalter, E.
(1987) The Female Malady: Women, Madness and the English Culture, 1830-1980. London: Virago.
42.
Walkerdine, V.
(1990) Schoolgirl Fictions. London: Verso.
43.
Walkerdine, V.
(1995) `Subject to Change without Notice. Psychology, Postmodernity and the Popular', in S. Pile and N. Thrift (eds) Mapping the Subject: Geographies of Cultural Transformation. Routledge. London.
44.
Walkerdine, V.
(1996) Young Girls and Popular Culture. London: Macmillan.
45.
Walkerdine, V.
and Blackman, L. (forthcoming) Towards a Postmodern Psychology of the Media. London: Macmillan Press.
46.
White, J.L.et al.
(1994) `Measuring Impulsivity and Examining Its Relationship to Delinquency', Journal of Abnormal Psychology103(2): 192-205.
47.
Wilkinson, S.
ed. (1986) Feminist Social Psychology: Developing Theory and Practice. Milton Keynes and Philadelphia: Open University Press.
48.
Ussher, J.
(1991) Women's Madness. Misogyny or Mental Illness?Hemel Hempstead: Harvester and Wheatsheaf.
