Feminism & Psychology

Psychology, like society at large, continues to be baffled by the persistent belief that men and women differ in important psychological ways, in spite of countless studies that fail to demonstrate such differences or that capture them for only a brief moment. New approaches avoid the polarization of `male' and female' traits, emphasizing how and why these qualities change over the life span, across cultures and throughout history. To understand where the differences are, we must look to narrative, power, and the conditions of our lives.

Survivors Speak Out (SSO) is a self-advocacy network composed primarily of psychiatric system survivors and our allies. This paper describes very briefly the emergence of SSO and, in greater depth, reflects on the meaning of Survivors Speak Out and its significance and implications for all those working in (and writing about) the area of `mental health' or what I shall refer to as emotional and mental distress and dissent, including those experiences of hearing voices, overwhelming despair, deep-seated and unremitting fear-all of which get labelled `illness'. It is also written for other people who have experienced, or are experiencing, distress to consider as part of our collective effort to understand our experiences.