Reframing Women’s Trauma as Mental Illness
Dr Jess discusses the harmful practice of medically gaslighting traumatised women into thinking they have mental disorders
One of the most harmful practices in modern psychiatry is the pathologisation of women’s trauma.
Instead of acknowledging trauma as a natural response to violence, abuse, or life’s difficulties, psychiatry often reframes it as a mental illness. This approach not only discredits women’s experiences but also silences their voices by labelling them as "sick" or "disordered." In my second book, ‘Sexy But Psycho’, I dive deep into how this practice is rooted in the need to control and dismiss women’s trauma, rather than truly support them.
Women are regularly diagnosed with psychiatric conditions when they are, in fact, responding to traumatic events. Their feelings of distress, anxiety, or depression—all valid reactions to harm or violence—are often reframed as signs of mental instability. This misdiagnosis leads to women being medicated or institutionalised rather than heard, understood, or supported in their healing process.
The Consequences of Misdiagnosing Trauma
When women’s trauma is reframed as mental illness, it has devastating effects on their lives. I’ve encountered so many women who have been told that their emotional distress following an abusive relationship or a violent experience is a sign of a psychiatric disorder. Rather than being offered the trauma-informed care they need, they are given a label—often borderline personality disorder or bipolar disorder —and prescribed medication that doesn’t address the root cause of their pain and distress.
This misdiagnosis shifts the focus away from the traumatic events that caused the distress and places the blame on the woman’s mind or body. Very often, this process also completely erases abusers and perpetrators.
Instead of recognising that her symptoms are a rational response to what has happened to her (or what someone did to her), the medical system tells her that something is inherently wrong with her brain. This not only exacerbates her sense of isolation and shame but also prevents her from receiving the kind of support that could genuinely help her heal.
Trauma is a complex, deeply personal experience, and it requires an approach that centres on understanding and validating the survivor’s feelings. But the psychiatric model often dismisses these emotions as mere symptoms of a mental disorder. This not only pathologises women’s trauma but also allows society to avoid addressing the systemic issues—such as violence, abuse, bullying, oppression and inequality—that cause such trauma in the first place.
Trauma Responses vs Mental Illness
One of the most important distinctions we need to make is between trauma responses and mental illness. Trauma responses are natural, instinctual reactions to distressing or harmful events. These reactions can manifest as anxiety, hypervigilance, nightmares, or depression—none of which are signs of a mental disorder but rather expressions of the body and mind trying to cope with overwhelming experiences.
However, psychiatry has long sought to medicalise these natural responses. For example, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is often used to label those who have experienced trauma. While PTSD can sometimes be a useful framework for understanding the effects of trauma, it is over-medicalised and used to justify unnecessary treatments. In my view, PTSD doesn’t exist as a disorder at all - since post traumatic stress is not a disordered response. This medicalisation doesn’t help women process their trauma; instead, it reinforces the idea that there is something fundamentally wrong with them - and frames their post-trauma responses as a mental disorder.
We need to stop treating trauma as a mental illness and start understanding it for what it is—a deeply human response to inhuman events. Trauma is not a defect or a disorder; it is a reaction to something that has gone wrong in the world, not in the person’s mind.
How Psychiatry Fails Women
The psychiatric system, as it currently stands, often fails women who have experienced trauma. Instead of being seen as survivors of violence or harm, women are often labelled as mentally ill and medicated accordingly. This is particularly true for women who have been subjected to sexual violence or domestic abuse. Rather than receiving care that acknowledges the gravity of their experiences, they are often met with psychiatric diagnoses that further marginalise and silence them.
What’s more, these diagnoses can stick with women for life. A woman labelled as borderline or bipolar is likely to carry that diagnosis with her throughout her interactions with healthcare systems, police, court systems, employers, and even within personal relationships. It can shape the way she sees herself and how others view her. The psychiatric label becomes another layer of trauma—one that is even more difficult to escape.
I’ve seen how psychiatry continues to perpetuate harmful gender stereotypes, especially when it comes to how women’s emotions are viewed. Women are more likely to be diagnosed with mood disorders or personality disorders when they express emotions that society finds uncomfortable, such as anger or fear. This not only discredits women’s experiences of trauma but also reinforces the idea that women’s emotions are irrational, unpredictable, and dangerous.
My Call for Trauma-Informed Approaches
We need to move away from a model that pathologises trauma and instead adopt trauma-informed anti-pathology approaches to mental health. Anti-pathology, trauma-informed care recognises that emotional distress is a normal response to harm and that healing comes from addressing the trauma, not treating it as a medical condition. This approach focuses on empowering women, helping them regain control over their lives, and validating their experiences rather than labelling them as disordered. I wrote a free guide for all professionals on how to implement our APTI approach into their work - so just give me a shout if you would like a free copy - or find it here: VictimFocus Tool Kits
It’s time to challenge the psychiatric model that reframes women’s trauma as mental illness. We need to create spaces where women can share their experiences without fear of being sectioned, medicated, labelled or judged. Healing from trauma is a process, and it requires compassion, understanding, and support—not medication or institutionalisation.
Final thoughts
Reframing women’s trauma as mental illness is a dangerous practice that silences and discredits survivors. This is why I oppose psychiatry. It shifts the blame from the perpetrators of violence and abuse to the women themselves, pathologising their valid emotional responses. To support women in healing from trauma, we must stop labelling them as mentally ill and start listening to their stories. Only then can we begin to address the root causes of their pain and provide the care they truly need.
This shouldn’t be controversial, and yet, apparently my position is radical and dangerous. And that tells us all we need to know!
Thank you so much! I am an incest survivor and domestic violence survivor who has been forcibly psychiatrized, coercively medicated, and institutionalized. I live in fear of psychiatry. In a recent mental health crisis following my mother threatening to sue me for writing about the sexual abuse in my family, my (former) best friend threatened to call 911 and have me institutionalized because I was having thoughts of self injury. I was not suicidal. And this (former) friend insists that she was within her rights to subject me to the violence of psychiatry “for my own good.” I know that psychiatry is not for my own good. Thank you for saying this.
That is where the term “hysterical” came from. Abused women were often institutionalize, for being hysterical. Men would abuse them for years, and then get rid of them by institutionalizing them.