Abstract
Legal and psychiatric systems respond to parents in distress-oriented altered states (often labeled “postpartum psychosis”) in ways that reveal deep structural failures. Rather than providing genuine care, these states are criminalized, pathologized, and met with coercive treatment, family separation, and surveillance. Drawing on Silvia Federici’s Caliban and the Witch, this article traces these systems to the rise of colonial-capitalist-patriarchy, when land was enclosed, reproductive labor weaponized, and community healing knowledge expropriated. Clinical mental health and family regulation systems continue this legacy today, punishing Madness, disempowering caregivers, and undermining community capacity to respond to distress. The author examines cases of postpartum altered states resulting in child fatalities, demonstrating how racialized narratives shape access to psychiatric care and protection, even as all parents remain subject to coercive, carceral systems. Grounded in Disability Justice and abolitionist frameworks, the author argues for community-rooted, non-pathologizing alternatives, including peer crisis care, wraparound postpartum doula support, family defense work, and collective healing strategies that reclaim care on communal terms.
Recommended Citation
Stefanie L. Kaufman-Mthimkhulu,
PARENTING WHILE MAD: ALTERED STATES, CARCERAL PSYCHIATRY, AND THE FIGHT FOR ABOLITIONIST ACCESS,
34 J. L. & Pol'y
29
(2025).
Available at:
https://brooklynworks.brooklaw.edu/jlp/vol34/iss1/3
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