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A review by lupetuple
Mad World: The Politics of Mental Health by Micha Frazer-Carroll
4.0
The affirmative attitude toward uncertainty, in tandem with a vision for countless possibilities and subsequently, a rejection of binaries, may strike the reader as vague or indecisive--but this is what truly characterizes the Mad experience, which is different for everyone, and necessitates unique approaches that do not hinge on the withdrawal of autonomy or dignity. To even call the concept of "dignity" into question--what might that look like? As Frazer-Carroll states, it is "simply being with someone through their experience, without forcibly imposing any particular view of the world" (176). Many will listen to or read a Mad person's perception of reality and decide that it is not dignified, not rational, and thus in need of correction--and, popularly, in need of a path to "recovery." Go to therapy! Get help. To instead allow everyone to live in a way that is dignified to them: "to build a world where we do not reactively force people to live, but one that is survivable," (165) and that means letting them appear and believe as "undignified" as they are.
And I posit that "recovery" does not mean "wellness" in any sense of the word--but conformity, as this collection of essays implies in nearly every one of its chapters, specifically conformity with state authority; in the spirit of individual responsibility, "we all must look after ourselves and maintain our bodyminds in line with the demands of the state" (159). This is exactly why "self-care" regimes and the endless, unavoidable advertisements sponsoring them will never provide true fulfillment, relief, or even that mythical "recovery"--because it places the cause of distress on the individual, and not on the forces which often cause and exacerbate distress, such as poverty, racism, and all forms of oppression.
The final lines of this book describe the most obvious yet ironically minimized helpful conditions for handling distress: social inclusion. It is said over and over that loneliness is becoming an "epidemic" yet the first response to people who are acting strangely, or violently, or in incomprehensible ways is to isolate and restrain them.
I appreciate that the author invokes disabled people as a whole as she discusses issues common to us all, while including the intersections of race in particular. She does not force a singular Mad or disabled experience--rather, encourages the reader to make their own judgments, based on various citations, personal accounts, and her own historical analyses.
And I posit that "recovery" does not mean "wellness" in any sense of the word--but conformity, as this collection of essays implies in nearly every one of its chapters, specifically conformity with state authority; in the spirit of individual responsibility, "we all must look after ourselves and maintain our bodyminds in line with the demands of the state" (159). This is exactly why "self-care" regimes and the endless, unavoidable advertisements sponsoring them will never provide true fulfillment, relief, or even that mythical "recovery"--because it places the cause of distress on the individual, and not on the forces which often cause and exacerbate distress, such as poverty, racism, and all forms of oppression.
The final lines of this book describe the most obvious yet ironically minimized helpful conditions for handling distress: social inclusion. It is said over and over that loneliness is becoming an "epidemic" yet the first response to people who are acting strangely, or violently, or in incomprehensible ways is to isolate and restrain them.
I appreciate that the author invokes disabled people as a whole as she discusses issues common to us all, while including the intersections of race in particular. She does not force a singular Mad or disabled experience--rather, encourages the reader to make their own judgments, based on various citations, personal accounts, and her own historical analyses.