Mad World - The Politics of Mental Health

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.

'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.

Micha Frazer-Carroll is a columnist at the Independent. She has previously edited for gal-dem, the Guardian and Blueprint, a mental health magazine that she founded. Micha has also written for Vogue, HuffPost, Huck and Dazed. She was nominated for the Comment Awards’ Fresh New Voice of the Year Award, and the Observer/Anthony Burgess Award for Arts Criticism. She is invested in using journalism to challenge systems of power.

Introduction
1. Asylums
2. 'Knowing' Mental Health Today
3. Mental Health in a Maddening World
4. Why Work is Sickening
5. Disability / Possibility
6. Diagnosing Diagnosis
7. On Disavowal and Disorder
8. Art for Mental Health
9. Law and Disorder
10. Other Possibilities
Conclusion