Psychopathology and Social Prejudice

Book excerpt: This volume offers an innovative set of critical examinations of the field of psychopathology. It investigates the social formation of psychopathology across different cultural, discursive, and political contexts and draws upon theory from two traditional domains of psychology social and abnormal psychology. The diverse topics covered include xenophobia, anorexia nervosa, witch hunting, post-traumatic stress, homosexuality, race categorization, and crosscultural issues. The various topics work in concert to unseat the notion of psychopathology as comprising decontextualized, individualized, essentialist categories of organic illness. "