Implicit Bias, Dehumanisation and the Necessity for Legal Companions in Official Spaces

In this essay I am going to explore how prejudices based on stereotypes affect the support which gets extended to individuals and how legal companions and accessible legal documentation may be needed as a corrective to implicit bias. I reflect on how bureaucratised and managerial professional organisations can lead to the depersonalising of agent/client relations resulting in the ultimate dehumanization of both the principle agent and the client. The effects are however most felt by the client who is at the bottom of a power differential. I draw on principal-agent theory to analyse the power differentials found in the support-need juncture. Read more…

Bosch Hieronymus The Garden of Earthly Delights

Critical Analysis of the Medical Institution With Special Focus on Madness

In this online version of a paper written as a part of a Masters course at Queen Margaret University I have used visual screengrabs from the original texts. For the purposes of review and education I have chosen to integrate excerpts from each cited reference inline to assist the reader in learning more deeply the arguments which are being laid out.  The reader is encouraged to work through all the reference texts as each one offers a series of nuances important for unpacking the complex issues being dealt with. Read more…

Im mad as hell Network

Mad Studies: Setting the Tone

“…Ive written and published such and such, blah blah blah…. It would be very valuable to me personally to be a part of the Mad Studies course as it would provide me with important opportunities to bring together my collected thoughts on mental health and continue to be a part of a vibrant critical mental health movement. Read more…

Smartphones

Giving Up The Smartphone and Gating Technology: Managing Information, Media and Technology

Over the last several years the number of conversations which I have had with people about smartphones and the effects of digital technology in our lives is numerous.  In particular, many conversations have oriented around giving up a smartphone and living without technology cemented into every part of your life.  After some time I decided to give it a try to see what it felt like not to have a phone with the purpose of discovering whether a phone is as important as it had come to feel to be. Read more…

Cult Behaviours: Compliance with the Group – Reviewing Prof Arthur J. Deikman’s Work

This is a study article which is a review of Prof Arthur J. Deikman‘s work on cult behaviours in everyday life.  Deikman was clinical professor of psychiatry at the University of California, San Franscisco and published ‘The Wrong Way Home; Uncovering the Patterns of Cult Behavior in American Society’ in 1990.  The book lays out his analyses of certain characteristics found in cults emphasising the point that, far from being unusual rarities of behaviour found in the easily led or weak minded, these ways of thinking and acting are widespread and nestled in the comfort of our own tendencies.
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