History of Oppression and Resistance in the Addiction and Mental Health Field
| Course Code | AMHW-104 |
|---|---|
| Lecture hours per week | 3 |
| Lab hours per week | 3 |
| Course Availability | Open |
| Description | This course will survey the historical social, medical, political, economic, cultural and religious factors that have influenced how we think about and respond to mental health and addictions. By the end of the course, learners will have learned key events, policies and debates as they relate to the history of mental health and addictions in Canada. The first half of the course will offer a history of: how “Madness” has been explained throughout the ages; asylums, institutionalization and de-institutionalization; the emergence of the consumer/survivor/ex-patient (CSX) movement; how psychiatry has supported oppression, as well as attempts to resist and rectify this legacy. The course will highlight how psychiatry is based on the Western model of understanding what is “reasonable” and show how this negatively affects bodies that live outside of what has been considered “normal”. The second half of the course will address the history of drug prohibition and resistance; the war on drugs; and drug treatment / addiction medicine, including how this history intersects with histories and developments of incarceration and criminalization. The course will highlight the grossly disproportionate racial patterns of drug enforcement, and how drug prohibition policies and treatment methods evolved and were shaped by white supremacy, colonization, race, class and gender discrimination. We will conclude the course with this question: What are social services really about? Do they actually improve the situation for the people who use those services? Let us step back, unsettle our current beliefs, and think about how, why, and to what effect we think about mental health and addictions. |