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Women and Psychosis: Trauma, Testimony, and Structural Violence (Hybrid)
Sunday November 8, 2026 11:00am - 12:00pm EST
Student Dining Hall, John Jay College of Criminal Justice
Women's experiences of altered states, crisis, and recovery are profoundly shaped by social, institutional, and gendered contexts. This interdisciplinary panel brings together professional and lived experience, clinical critique, feminist analysis, and trauma-informed perspectives to examine how systems of care can both respond to and reproduce psychological distress. The first panelist explores common electronic medical record notation of Black women as "poor historians," examining how clinical documentation can undermine testimony, suspend recognition of suffering, and determine whose accounts are deemed credible. Drawing from her personal psychiatric records and poetic inquiry, this presentation interrogates what is lost when institutions control the narrative of distress. The second panelist offers a feminist and trauma-informed framework for understanding psychosis, informed by both her lived experience and work in the domestic and sexual violence field. This presentation argues that experiences commonly labeled as "paranoia" may emerge within contexts of genuine threat, while gendered violence, socioeconomic inequality, and the dismissal of women's emotions contribute to both suffering and misrecognition. The third panelist examines the discourse around postpartum psychosis through the lenses of sexism and sanism, exploring how gender bias can exaggerate perceptions of risk, shape clinical decision-making, and contribute to coercive or carceral approaches to care. The fourth panelist addresses the cumulative impact of trauma and traumatic systems on women's mental health, highlighting how institutional responses to psychosis can reinforce cycles of harm when left unchallenged. Together, the panel invites critical reflection on testimony, trauma, power, and the possibilities for more just and humane approaches to understanding psychosis in women. 
Speakers
avatar for Marie Brown, PhD, ABPP

Marie Brown, PhD, ABPP

Program Director, Northwell Health Lenox Hill Hospital
Marie Brown, PhD, ABPP is a licensed clinical psychologist and the Program Director & Team Leader at the Lenox Hill OnTrack and Early Treatment Program. She is President of the US Chapter of the International Society for the Psychological and Social Approaches to Psychosis (ISPS-US... Read More →
avatar for Leah Giorgini, MS

Leah Giorgini, MS

Executive Director, ISPS-US
Leah is a British-Indonesian immigrant who moved from England to the United States in 2016. As a psychiatric survivor, childhood domestic violence survivor, former foster youth, and a person who has previously experienced homelessness, Leah is working towards a world free of oppression... Read More →
avatar for Nadia Naomi Mbonde, PhD

Nadia Naomi Mbonde, PhD

Implemetation Specialist, Crisis Response Engagement and Skills Training New York (CRESTNY)
Dr. Nadia Naomi Mbonde is a sociocultural anthropologist, multimedia artist, and Mad Black mother based in Brooklyn, New York. Her research centers Black reproductive mental health, tracing how psychiatric governance, obstetric management, and family regulation accumulate harm across... Read More →
EC

Erika Carr, PhD

Associate Professor / Director of Inpatient Psychology Service / Director of Behavioral Intervention Service, Yale University School of Medicine
Erika R. Carr, PhD, is an Associate Professor at Yale School of Medicine and is also the Director of the Inpatient Psychology Service and Director of the Behavioral Intervention Service at Connecticut Mental Health Center in New Haven, Connecticut. Dr. Carr’s primary research and... Read More →
Sunday November 8, 2026 11:00am - 12:00pm EST
Student Dining Hall, John Jay College of Criminal Justice 524 West 59th Street, New York, NY 10019
  Breakout Session, Hybrid

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