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  Now we face the chemical age, the age which superseded the use of straight jackets as restraints and destructive physical surgery to pacify people placed under the medical authority.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 Repeat Prescription 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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Mad World: An Exhibition on Sane People in Insane Situations

From individuals interred for their homosexuality, to women who wanted divorces; from teenagers who wanted to write for a living, to malnutrition – discover the history and explore if you can logically spot madness.

Art Exhibition at St Margaret’s House From 27th May to 21st June

Edinburgh: 29th May: Mad World Art Exhibition Opening

Come along and to an art exhibition which is to challenge the world to discover the insane. The concept of ‘madness’ has been a part of human society for arguably millennia, many places – times – and peoples have shaped how we perceive ‘mental health’. Now, in the UK and western world, the dominant perspective is one which medicalizes behaviour, and the medical world has become the overriding voice which gets to speak about what meanings are attributed to these phenomena, and what they represent. Read more…

Asylum: A Journey Through Madness and Back by Dina Poursanidou

How I became involved with the Asylum magazine and what such involvement has meant for me:  a journey through madness and back by Dina Poursanidou

My first encounter with the Asylum magazine occurred in the spring of 2010 – when the magazine was relaunched after a 3-year break. I was introduced to Asylum by Helen (Spandler), a friend and colleague from the University of Central Lancashire and member of the Asylum editorial collective, and I have been reading it religiously ever since. In the autumn of 2011 Helen asked me whether I would be interested in being involved in the Asylum editorial collective, stressing that ‘the collective is open to anyone who wants to help produce and develop the magazine, working in a spirit of equality’. I was pleased to be asked and I have been a member of the collective for about a year. Read more…