Emotion as Taboo: Emotion as Dissent

The dismissal of the internal emotional lives of individuals at the bottom of a power hierarchy is a taboo which I’d like to transgress. In particular, it is interesting that emotion is discounted in culture. First of all, its immediacy is discretely invisiblised by the cultural reflex of saying this is not a reality – it does not happen; and by saying this tacitly is stated the assertion that the internal emotional lives are misapprehending things as they are. People often apologise after their emotional expressions. Read more…

Madness and Civilisation: David Cooper on Michel Foucault

This is a series of notes made on David Cooper’s introduction to Michel Foucault’s famous text Madness and Civilisation. The construction of madness is a chimera running through many different ages and societies, and changing in form over time.  Now we face the chemical age, the age which superseded the use of straight jackets as restraints and destructive physical surgery to pacify people placed under the medical authority.  Indeed the modern medical models came from attempts to use pre-operation anesthetics to sedate patients as managed inmates. 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…

Photo Collection: Mad World Exhibition 2017

This is a collection of photos showing the work which was brought together that made the Mad World Exhibition in 2017.  You can read about the ideas by following THIS LINK.  The exhibition held at its heart a space where questioning of attitudes to mental health, mental illness, madness and identity was encouraged particularly in light of the Psychiatric Survivors Movement which legitimately challenges and drives forward understandings today.
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Podcast: Interview With Sonia Soans of Asylum Collective

This is an interview with Sonia Soans, part of the Asylum magazine collective which is a platform for democratic psychiatry.  Having experience in clinical psychology and teaching in India, she has focused her study on gendered representations of addiction. Having recently finished her PhD in Manchester, she regularly contributes to critical psychiatry as she helps bring together the new editions of Asylum magazine. Read more…

Inspector Rosenhan Visits The Asylum

As part of the Mad World exhibition which examined missing voices from the story of psychiatry. The word ‘Madness’ is a rich word, and in its labyrinths are held important stories of humanity. It means a lot of different things to different people, and for me it has come to be a word which sometimes symbolises the best qualities in humans. Billy, a man who is part of ‘the old and the bold’ that keep our ambulance service running told me:
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