#wood--vale

[orossii]

Hey, I just wanted to say I resonated with a lot of what you’ve posted on psychiatry and the industry in general. Can I ask if there are any book recommendations or other resources you might have? :)

absolutely!! i’ll preface this by saying i’m a sort of erratic information consumer so the big obvious people i should have read by now like thomas szasz i’ve not gotten to yet, but the books ‘mad in america’ by robert whitaker and ‘crazy like us: the globalization of the american psyche’ by ethan watters were extremely influential. ‘mad in america’ gave rise to a fantastic blog and podcast of the same name that covers a lot of different issues relating to modern psychiatry, particularly those related to the over-prescription of psychotropic drugs and psychiatric abuse. if you’re a documentary person, the RT documentary ‘overpill’ is fantastic, about the toll of widespread psychiatric drug prescriptions on individuals living with the consequences of longterm use. ‘money talks’ is another great documentary, more of a broad critique of the medical industrial complex that applies heavily to psychiatry

this one may make me sound nuts, but i’m also of the opinion that you won’t have a well-informed critique of western psychiatry unless you dig into the history of both eugenics and the decades worth of human experiments conducted by the US government under the MKULTRA projects. ‘poisoner in chief’ by stephen kinzer gets into some of this. ewan cameron’s mind control experiments on canadian citizens are a good case study, cbc’s brainwashed podcast is an accessible introduction to the topic. the aforementioned ‘mad in america’ lays out historically how the eugenics movement and psychiatry developed alongside and legitimated one another. psychiatry’s primary use to the ruling class is inextricably historically bound in the promotion of eugenics, suppression of dissidents, and development of propaganda/advertising techniques

on the propaganda/advertising front, watching the adam curtis documentary ‘the century of the self’ is one of those experiences that absolutely shocked me to my core the first time i saw it, absolutely essential viewing. touches on how psychiatric techniques were used to mold human beings into consumers of cheap, mass produced goods at the extreme detriment to our mental health and social stability

on the gender critical side of things i love the ‘gender: a wider lens’ podcast, hosted by two very pleasant adolescent therapists promoting an institutional critique of the gender identity phenomenon

marx’s theory of alienation is at the core of my opinions re: psychiatry and mental illness as well, and everything i read about psychiatry i read with it in mind. to put it loosely, marx said that what distinguishes us from all other species is our capacity for creative labor. we use labor to manipulate nature not only to satisfy our immediate physical needs, but also to express ourselves, derive pleasure, and develop socially/culturally. that impulse to create is an essential part of our psychological makeup as a species, it comes naturally to us and is the engine that allows our species to creatively adapt to our environment across time and space. when we’re not able to do that our psychological wellbeing suffers. class society divorces labor from that which makes us human by creating an antagonistic, estranged relationship between the workers and what they create. the worker is transformed from a creative producer, an enthusiastic participant in the collective construction of society whose labor they see the direct benefit of reflected in their environment, to a commodity themself. the affirmation, wealth, and status relative to the value of their labor is turned over to someone outside of themself-- the master, the landlord, the boss-- while they are reduced to an animal-like state of laboring only to satisfy their immediate survival needs

labor then becomes a source of dread, an act of degradation you do only because you’re forced to by someone with power over you, and as a result the worker engages in less of the life-affirming creative labor that makes us human and instead retreats to unfulfilling short term creature comforts during their personal time. we become less intellectually and creatively engaged with the world when we have no ability to see ourselves reflected in it via our labor. that inability to see ourselves as viscerally connected to the world also alienates us from the rest of our species, and as a social animal that alienation from the collective makes us anxious, aggressive, and self-centered. all of the social problems caused by the increasing concentration of wealth into the hands of a smaller and smaller number of elites compounds over the generations, which is a big part of why we seem to get crazier, more violent, and lazier in proportion with the economic polarization that defines capitalist development. here is a great webpage with links to marxist theory on the subject of alienation

i hope this helps! feel free to message me about anything you come across while reading or thoughts you have, i really appreciate hearing what other people have to say on topics like this. that applies to anyone reading this, too. messages are always welcome! thanks for the ask and kind words

edited to add-- this TED talk by chelsea roff was a massive game changer for me re: my own mental illness recovery, made me think radically differently about mental health. it’s about how labeling mental illness can prevent recovery. i haven’t seen it in a while and am going to probably rewatch it now