Theses / Unpublished

Activism

Alexander, Kathryn. Writing up/writing down a textual ethnography: Documentation practices in a mental health boarding home. Unpublished MA thesis, Simon Fraser University, 1993. Thesis examines the daily log from a community mental health boarding home written by mental health workers and discusses daily work shifts and social relations and some “forms of reading and writing [that] may also open up possibilities of resistance, creativity and connection within institutions.”

Balfour, G. C. A qualitative study of feminist therapy in Kingston’s Prison for Women. Unpublished MA thesis, University of Ottawa, 1994.

Carson, J.P. From the voices of experience, the road to recovery. Unpublished MSW thesis, University of British Columbia, 2000. Thesis looks at the stories of six individuals and their experience in the psychiatric system- discusses forming groups to “resist the disempowerment and helplessness learned in the psychiatric system.”

Carten, Ron, Representatives, Informed Consent and Psychiatric Rights: Participatory Action Research by Psychiatric Patients in Vancouver, BC, Unpublished research paper, 2016.  Paper reports on the findings of a working group of persons who had been treated in the psychiatric system and conducted focus groups around the question of representation agreements for patients who do not have the right of informed consent to treatment. 

Coates, Jacqueline S. “I wouldn’t tell them anything personal”: Women’s experience of psychiatric intervention. Unpublished MA thesis, Simon Fraser University, 1997. Thesis considers women’s experience of the psychiatric system as a source of oppression, including psychiatric ideology, treatment, stigmatization. Also presents stories of how women resisted the psychiatric system.

Colls, M. H. Role of the mental hospital in the provision of service to adult psychotic patients by the government of British Columbia. Unpublished MSW thesis, University of British Columbia, 1976. Thesis discusses the role of BC’s Riverview Hospital within the development of mental health policy and alternative mental health resources, including MPA.

Epp, T.D. People first: Voicing disability, embodied identity and social policy in Ontario. Unpublished PhD thesis, York University, 1999.

Everett, B. L. (1997). A Fragile Revolution: Consumers and psychiatric survivors confront the power of the mental health system. Unpublished PhD thesis, York University, 1997. Thesis discusses mental health reform, and the involvement of ex-patients and practitioners in change. Considers how ex-patients have become political activists.

Gordon, R. M. Mental disorders, law, and state: A sociological analysis of the periods of reform in Canadian mental health law. Unpublished PhD thesis, University of British Columbia, 1988. Thesis discusses mental health law reform that reflect changes in psychiatry, economy and human agency, including the patient’s rights movement.

Hagman, Robert John. Mental illness, the mental health movement and the trend toward a therapeutic society. Unpublished MEd thesis, Simon Fraser University, 1974. Thesis examines the theories, assumptions and practices used to define, identify and classify mental illness.

Kent, T. Representations of family: The effect of the national alliance of [i.e. for] the mentally ill provider education program on assertive community treatment provider representations of family. Unpublished MSW thesis, McGill University, 2003.

Kress-White, M. The Quest of Inclusion: Understandings of Ableism, Pedagogy, and the Right to Belong. Unpublished MEd thesis, University of Saskatoon, 2009. Thesis discusses how people with disabilities are discriminated against in cultural systems, such as the education system and considers resistance to oppression and the advancement of inclusive education.

Libbiter, A.P.  Asylum, commitment, and psychiatric treatment in historical context. Unpublished MSW thesis, University of British Columbia, 1994. Thesis discusses asylum-based care, the dominance of psychiatry, mental health legislation and how these systems interacted. One data source is interviews with four mental health consumer-activists.

Macdonald, T.L. The Daughter’s Consolation: Melancholia and Subjectivity in Canadian Women’s Paternal Elegies. Unpublished PhD thesis, University of Victoria, 2005. Thesis investigates notions of female filial piety and subjectivity through writings about loss and mourning, including material regarding “politicized subjectivities.”

McKenzie, E.J.C. The Experience of Family Members Living with a Relative with Schizophrenia. Unpublished MS thesis, University of Calgary, 2000. Thesis discusses the experiences of families living with a family member with Schizophrenia, with reference to political activism.

Pranger, B. Mental health consumer involvement in service level decision-making: Rhetoric and reality. Unpublished PhD thesis, University of Toronto, 2000.

Reid, Jenna.  Materializing a Mad Aesthetic Through the Making of Politicized Fibre Art. Unpublished PhD thesis, York University, 2019.

Smandych, R. C. The Rise of the Asylum in Upper Canada, 1830-1875: An Analysis of Competing Perspectives on Institutional Development in the Nineteenth Century. Unpublished MA thesis, Simon Fraser University, 1981.  Thesis discusses the origin and development of the institution as an instrument of social control. Also considers patient petitions, public commissions of inquiry and other forms of official protest.

Truchan-Tataryn, M. (In)Visible Images: Seeing Disability in Canadian Literature, 1823-1974. Unpublished PhD thesis, University of Saskatoon, 2007. Thesis discusses Canadian literature depicting disability as an aspect of Canadian identity. Includes a section on “recognizing resistance.”

Voronka, Jiji. The Race to Space Madness: Making Respectability Through Mad Sites in Ontario. Unpublished MA thesis, University of Toronto, 2003.