Bonnie Burstow

Bonnie Burstow (March 6, 1945 – January 4, 2020) was a Canadian psychotherapist, author, and anti-psychiatry scholar. She was a professor in the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE) at the University of Toronto. In 2016, the University of Toronto launched the Bonnie Burstow Scholarship in Antipsychiatry, which is awarded annually to students at the OISE conducting research in anti-psychiatry. It is the first anti-psychiatry scholarship in the world, and it provoked a controversy regarding academic freedom after it was announced. It was criticized by a mental health activist, who noted in the Huffington Post that the scholarship had been praised by the Canadian division of the Citizens Commission on Human Rights, a non-profit organization established by the Church of Scientology. Burstow insists that attempts to connect her to Scientology are "bogus smear tactics". In 2019, she gave $25,000 of her own money to create the Bonnie Burstow Scholarship for Research into Anti-Semitism. She has written several nonfiction books, including Psychiatry And The Business Of Madness (2015), as well as the novels The House On Lippincott (2006) and The Other Mrs. Smith (2017).

Burstow died at the age of 74 on January 4, 2020.