[This post is--again--inspired by a breathtaking mixed media project of Timothy Kelly's that he will hopefully one day post; and in honor of mother's day. Best viewed on a full screen.] …………….. Every time I tried to talk to my grandfather about my mother before he died, the story was the same: “it was the … Continue reading »
Category Archives: First-person account
"Mad Studies" / First-person account / Language / Politics / Research methodology / Schizophrenia / Theory
On “first person accounts”
As I’ve almost certainly mentioned before, I have extremely ambivalent feelings about “first person accounts”–accounts which, all too often, “reduce [their author] from a whole and usual [thinker/citizen] to a tainted, discounted one.” (Yes, I’m intentionally riffing on Goffman.) The conviction that recovery stories are empowering, to some extent understandably, endures, and yet from the … Continue reading »
homecoming
Several events have conspired to prompt a more personal post on this eve of eves: first, I am currently en route to a family gathering in Boise, my childhood home and a city I have not set foot in since I was 15; second, before leaving this morning, I received an email from my brother … Continue reading »
Madness & writing
Recent exchanges at the Centre for Medical Humanities blog have prompted me to think more vigorously about why I virtually never actually write—particularly in any remotely academic context—from a “place” of madness. (“Madness” employed here in the admittedly narrow sense of that which involves or implicates a fundamental break from the normative or socio-consensual “real.”) … Continue reading »
Excerpts from the journals of E
What follows is actually a re-post of excerpts (and limited commentary) from the journals of my mother’s first husband, during the approximately one and a half year period following his first psychotic break and ending, as I’ve described before, in commitment and life-long institutionalization. In re-reading my own, admittedly minor, attempts at thematization and contextualization, … Continue reading »
Schizophrenia Bulletin, the BJP & the Politics of First-Person Accounts
[Edit: Be sure to check out Felicity Callard's continued reflections on the BJP letters here. Also note that Paul Hutton (co-author of the original editorial) has 'made inquiries' at the BJP--see his note below.] A few years ago, I posted a brief reflection regarding a conversation I’d had with the editor of Schizophrenia Bulletin concerning … Continue reading »
maeror meror (in mourning)
[Edit: to complete the e-trail, see also David Dobbs commentary at Wired, and Maia Szalavitz' (very over-simplified) article at Time. Both "re-mix" and quote parts of this post.] I suspect it would strike most people as ‘mad,’ particularly perhaps, to those who know me, to identify any sort of kinship, any common bond, with James … Continue reading »
an intergenerational narrative of psychosis
Yesterday I watched Being Flynn—far from the masterpiece of the memoir on which it was based, but still provocative, particularly with respect to the intergenerational experience of trauma, substance use, homelessness, and various forms of madness. And so I decided to indulge in some familial self-reflections. (Forewarning: what follows is an explicitly personal reflection, not … Continue reading »
