"If capitalism fundamentally harms our wellbeing, then mental health is political by its nature. In her penetrating debut book, Micha Frazer-Carroll shows how our struggles for liberation intersect with mental illness. It’s a galvanising call to action; drawing on the history of psychiatry, diagnosis and resistance as an antidote to our ineffective online culture of ‘awareness campaigns’."
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‘A radical antidote to the constraints of our current conceptualisation of mental health’ – Dazed
Mental health is a political issue, but we often discuss it as a personal one. How is the current mental health crisis connected to capitalism, racism and other social issues? In a different world, how might we transform the ways that we think about mental health, diagnosis and treatment?
These are some of the big questions Micha Frazer-Carroll asks as she reveals mental health to be an urgent political concern that needs deeper understanding beyond today’s ‘awareness-raising’ campaigns.
Exploring the history of asylums and psychiatry; the relationship between disability justice, queer liberation and mental health; art and creativity; prisons and abolition; and alternative models of care; Mad World is a radical and hopeful antidote to pathologisation, gatekeeping and the policing of imagination.