Toronto Reference Library Blog

Psychiatry and related practices

Our collection at the Toronto Reference Library holds a spectrum of research and opinions on the very complex area of mental illness and treatment. We do not take a point of view on medical practices or therapies. However, often authors and program guests do.

Controversy exists regarding methods of treatment for all kinds of mental health conditions. Controversy has often surrounded psychiatry and its practice, in particular.

Some terminology

Psychiatry: a branch of medicine that deals with mental, emotional, or behavioral disorders. Psychiatrists are medical practitioners.

Psychologists and psychotherapists have intensive training but generally are not physicians.

Anti-psychiatry: a term coined by David Graham Cooper (Psychiatry and Anti-psychiatry 1970).

Our collection

You will find a wide range of books and journals on the history and practice of psychiatry written by psychiatrists and medical practitioners, therapists and analysts to sociologists, philosophers and artists.

Examples:  Thomas Szasz, R.D. Laing, Erving Goffman, Michel Foucault and many, many more.

Moral and ethical issues

The moral and ethical issues of psychiatry are discussed by some critics of the ideas and practice of psychiatry. Psychiatry is seen as a coercive instrument of oppression due to an unequal power relationship between doctor and patient, and a highly subjective diagnostic process. Bonnie Burstow is one such author.

Some of the contemporary issues reflected in our library collection include freedom versus coercion, racial and social justice, the harmful effects of anti-psychotic medications, personal liberty, social stigma and the right to be different. Also covered are treatments including electro-convulsive therapy, brain lobotomy, insulin shock therapy and the use of psychiatric drugs for children. Use the subject headings in the catalogue to lead you to more material.

Join Dr. Bonnie Burstow for a discussion on

Psychiatry and the Business of Madness

Bonnie Burstow, Toronto professor, philosopher and feminist therapist, has written extensively on psychiatry and anti-psychiatry since the 1990s.

Her works include Shrink resistant: the struggle against psychiatry in Canada; Psychiatry disrupted: theorizing resistance and crafting the (r)evolution; and Psychiatry and the business of madness; an ethical and epistemological accounting.

Burstow makes the case that psychiatry's tenets are unfounded, that psychiatry intrinsically harms, and calls on society to admit that the turn toward psychiatry was a colossal misstep. Join the dialogue over how instead we might approach the problems to which human beings are heir.