Mad in America

Get Well Soon. Series about Psycho_Healthpolitics under Capitalism

The series is motivated by a frustration with the place that a radical critique of the institutions and disciplines of Psychiatry and Psychology currently occupies within emancipatory social criticism. During the 1960s and 1970s, a critical assessment of these institutions and their power/knowledge was a constituent element of leftist societal analysis. Today, in contrast, most of the left has little to offer in reply to a “professional” authority in moments of personal crisis or madness. In our view, it is necessary to come to grips with the profound changes in the mental health system over the last decades, and to develop a critique that matches the current conditions. We thus aim to create a space for radical commentary on the social function of psychiatry and psychology and so contribute to filling some of the lacunae that the antipsychiatric movement currently faces. We see this space in explicit opposition to the superficial critique of the pharmaceutical industry’s “ruthlessness” presented in mainstream discourse.

Therefore, a particular focus of this series will be the intersections of psychiatric/psychological concepts with oppressive racist, sexist, and economic power
relations as well as their effects within a neoliberalised health care system.

The Second Volume

The first book ‘Gegendiagnose’ put the focus on an update of anti-psychiatric theories.
Many items dealt with the functioning of the psychiatric/psychological system into society. With the second part, we’d like to put the focus on self-control and self-normalization. We are mainly interested in the ways in which ‘we’ govern and form ourselves in relations to psychiatric/psychological categories. We are similarly interested in ways of resistance and alternatives to and against the existing system and structures. Nonetheless, we’d like to encourage you to send your abstracts in, even if they are not in this planned emphasis. Likewise, we’d like to extend the textual range in the meaning of the title of our book-series and like to open it up for health-political topics, which walk the thin line between ‘psychological’ and ”physical’. Especially because biologistic and neuronal concepts question this separation.

Topic Suggestions
• In which ways, did the psychiatric_psychological system expand and is now part of the
everyday life and not just relevant for those which were diagnosed?
• What would an up-to-date analyses look like, which criticizes the power of the
psychiatric/psychological system and includes voluntarily chosen self-control?
• What does the psychiatric/psychological system in the projections of political
conflicts into the tier of a single person's health mean?
• What is the meaning of diagnoses in the context of recognition and marginalization
• Reports of own experiences
• Tensions/ Conflicts/ Ambivalences between anti-psychiatric and other movements
• Todays critical view about the anti-psychiatric theories of the 60′s and 70′s
• Which techniques and strategies of self-care did help me and what would I wish for
from my supporters?
• In which way is it possible to include psychiatric/psychological (self-)control in an
analysis of capitalistic structures combined with historical and local specifics
• Correlations between psychiatric/psychological knowledge and racism, colonialism, sexism and other ways of oppression

The raised questions are in no way finished and should only be seen as suggestions.
There is no final concept yet, which is why we explicitly invite you, to bring foreword
your own ideas. However, when selecting articles,  simple language is important to us, as well as a critical-sovereignty reflection of the used method and a reflection of ones own social/job-wise/involved-position in the respective topic. Furthermore, we expect
the willingness to work together with us on the specific papers, as far as it seems
necessary for the fitting into the textual direction of the book-series. We’d like to especially
invite people with own experiences in the psychiatric/psychological system to send us papers.

Submission of abstracts
To give us a better chance to orientate the content of your book contribution, we like you to ask to send us a short, half a page or a page long sketch, which describes your topic and
your methodological approach to: [email protected] by May 1st, 2017.

You can also use this email address to contact us anytime you have any questions or
concerns. We will tell you in July if we are interested in your article or if we have comments about its content. Accepted articles should be finished in November 2017. Their length should be 3000 to 4000 words (10-15 pages). We and our supporters will proofread the articles. We’ll make every effort to get each article proof read from different perspectives.

The release is scheduled for Autumn 2018.

The book will be published in German. All English articles will be translated into German by us and professional supporters.

About the publishers

Alex is active in anti-psychiatric contexts as an ally. He practices by supporting others
and tries to fulfill his personal political demands in structures of wage labor.

Cora is active in anti-psychiatric contexts and has published the first book in the series.

Esto is doing support work in her local environment and has published an article in the first book of the series.

Kim is active in anti-psychiatric contexts and has published the first book in the series.