Women and Madness: Revised and Updated [Paperback]

Phyllis Chesler (Author)

Book Description

Release date: October 13, 2005 | ISBN-10: 1403968977 | ISBN-13: 978-1403968975 | Edition: Rev Upd

Feminist icon Chesler's pioneering work--2.5 million copies sold--revised and updated for the first time in 30 years. This definitive book was the first to address critical questions about women and mental health. Combining patient interviews with an analysis of women's roles in history, society, and myth Chesler concludes that there is a terrible double standard when it comes to women's psychology. In this new edition, she addresses head-on many of the most relevant issues to women and mental health today, including eating disorders, social acceptance of antidepressants, addictions, sexuality, postpartum depression, and more. Fully revised and updated, Women and Madness remains as important today as it was when first published in 1972.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Praise for earlier editions:
"Intense, rapid, brilliant. A pioneer contribution to the feminization of psychiatric thinking and practice."--Adrienne Rich, Front Page, The New York Times Book Review
"Challenges the definition of madness itself. No serious future studies will be able to ignore its theories or its very existence."--Gloria Steinem, Ms. Magazine
"A stunning book...absolutely fascinating...necessary to every woman in America."--Los Angeles Times

About the Author

Phyllis Chesler is the author of seminal works including the 2.5-million copy bestseller Women and Madness, as well as Letters to a Young Feminist and Woman's Inhumanity to Woman. Her most recent book, The New Anti-Semitism, has won her international acclaim and sparked huge debate.
She is an Emerita Professor of psychology and women's studies, the co-founder of the Association for Women in Psychology (1969), the National Women's Health Network (1974), and the International Committee for Women of the Wall (1989). She is currently on the Board of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East and is also affiliated with Haifa and Bar Ilan Universities. She lives in New York City.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 432 pages
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan; Rev Upd edition (October 13, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1403968977
• ISBN-13: 978-1403968975
• Product Dimensions: 1.1 x 6.3 x 9.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #362,243 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A GROUNDBREAKING WORK ABOUT WOMEN AND PSYCHIATRY September 9, 2011

By Steven H. Propp TOP 500 REVIEWER

Format:Mass Market Paperback

Phyllis Chesler (born 1940) is an American writer, psychotherapist, and professor emeritus of psychology and women's studies at the College of Staten Island. She has written many other books.

She wrote in the Introduction to this 1972 book, "This is a book about female psychology... This is a book about the dramatically increasing numbers of American women of all classes and races, who are seen, or who see themselves, as 'neurotic' or 'psychotic,' and who seek psychotherapeutic help and/or are psychiatrically hospitalized. This is a book about the many 'whys' of such help-seeking behavior; about 'what' is experienced and viewed as in need of help; and about 'how' those women are---or aren't---helped."

Here are some additional quotations from the book:

"Today more women are seeking psychiatric help and being hospitalized than at any other time in history... There were significantly more women being 'helped' than their existence in the population would allow us to predict." (Pg. 33)
"I think (Dr. Thomas Szasz) underestimates the deeply conditioned nature of woman's compliance with her literal and psychological self-sacrifice. Many female mental patients ... commit themselves, quite voluntarily, to asylums or to private psychiatrists. The fear of economic, physical, and ... punishment teaches women to value their own sacrifice so highly that they quite 'naturally' perform it." (Pg. 106)
"Each woman, as patient... wants from a psychotherapist what she wants---and often cannot get---from a husband: attention, understanding, merciful relief, a personal solution---in the arms of the right husband, on the couch of the right therapist." (Pg.... 109)
"Paradoxically, while women must not 'succeed,' when they DO succeed at anything, they have still failed if they're not successful at everything... A woman has failed if she succeeds at winning a legal or intellectual battle and has hurt another woman's (or man's) feelings in the process ... Ironically, mothers are often seen as 'failures'... because they haven't also achieved careers or independence from their families." (Pg. 277) Read more ›

21 of 28 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars We have paid the price for patriarchal privilege September 8, 2000

By Cathleen M. Walker VINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

Dr. Chesler casts her clear eyed vision over the field of psychiatry/psychology and unveils the sexism that underlies the history and the practice of the "art." Who knows how much untold damage has been caused by those who understand little about women as a sex and could care less, as long as they establish their careers? Incorporating the mythology of women as metaphor, Chesler also paints a picture of how we, as women, have paid the price for patriarchal privilege. I read this book 20 years ago, and I just read it again. It was an enjoyable this time as it was then, maybe even more so, with the deeper understanding I have now about the roots of feminism.

The only thing I wish she had addressed in this revised edition is deinstitutionalization and its affects on women. Perhaps another time? Soon?

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Just as good this time around April 19, 2013

By nachrly

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

Every woman should read this, not just women who are interested in psychology. The title can be a bit misleading--it's relevant to ;any woman's life. It was an amazing work the firsdt time, and the updated version is every bit as much of an eye-opener. Plus Chesler's writing is fresh an accessible. No jargon or pop-psych here, just solid and faxcinating insights.

3.0 out of 5 stars The Good and The Bad February 8, 2013

By Louis Mauriello

Format:Paperback

Disclaimer: This review is based on the 192 edition of this book

Beyond Chesler's core concept that women are considered mad when they do not conform to man's concept of women-hood, which I can agree on, she states that the idea of monogamy works against women and is a very male idea, which makes women who have close relationships with men feel threatened by. Tied to this concept is her statement that there is a biological fact and significance of heterosexual rape and pregnancy as the primary factors in the formulation of the patriarchal family coupled with a primary factory that man's need for proof of his genetic immortality was so great that he felt entitled to colonize women's bodies.

I find fault with her theories on monogamy and patriarchal relationships. If anything I strongly believe, and there is just as much evidence to support my belief as there is her concepts, that the patriarchal family was a construe of the female race to protect themselves and allow them to control a particular man and related revenue stream. The t6raditional patriarchal woman has positioned herself to a situation where she can exist on someone else's life effort. It is to her best interests to have a monogamous relationship. The requirement of his mate's monogamy has more to do with ensuring he is supporting his genetic offspring and not someone else's.

Furthermore, she also states that the certain type of "mindlessness" and "superficiality" that men attach to female to female communications which is neither "mindlessness" or "superficiality" is in fact a higher level of communications that provides a vehicle to an emotional resolution in which their feelings are embedded which itself is "abstracted" and "summarized" in a non-verbal and/or non-verbalized form.... Seemingly unrelated facial expressions, pauses, sighs, and seemingly unrelated, or "non-abstract" responses to statements are crucial to their dialogue, with a special prescience at work, affording women a measure of emotional reality and kind of comfort they cannot find with men.

It seems she believes only woman has this "abstracted" "summarized" non-verbal and/or non-verbalized form of communication completely ignoring the male testosterone prescience, that is just as crucial to the male dialogue as what she describes is to the female dialogue.

For the most part there is a lot in this book that the average, and not so average, male should know about. Unfortunately if one does not have the ability to read between the lines they can quickly get caught up in the "Feminism" driving Chesler's work, and dismiss it all.

Society has changed since this book was first published and a good deal of what the Feminism movement, and Chesler, were all about has been incorporated into many of today's westernized society and culture.

It would be interesting to read the newer up-to-date edited edition to see if it suffers the same incorrect theories and concepts. Read more ›

10 of 49 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Good, but narrow in scope December 21, 2001

By Edwin B. Wollet

Format:Paperback

Why are so many women labeled (correctly or incorrectly) "mentally ill". Certainly, there seems to be a double standard as Ms. Chesler attests. However, what are the causes of this double standard? Ms. Chesler attributes it to an oppressive, patriarchal culture. Maybe. What is more likely is a combination of factors that include male aggressiveness and female passivity, both of which are personal choices not the responsibility of outside input. Yes, over the millenia, women have chosen to be passive and that "sets the deck" against new generations of women. But, for those females who are cultured passive and not genuinely mentally ill, the ultimate choice lies within themselves not on a psychiatrist's couch.

Overall, this book was well worth the read, and I would recommend it to anyone interested in mental health. Though rare I believe, there are real abuses that take place inside some therapists' offices, and those abuses, whether they involve women or men, should be exposed and the perpetrators punished. Ms. Chesler should be lauded for bringing up the disparity of the treatment of women versus men in the mental health field. Disregarding personal choices is however a fatal mistake in her argument.