Decolonising global mental health: the role of Mad Studies

Abstract

In recent years, there has been a growing and high-profile movement for 'global mental health'. This has been framed in 'psych system' terms and had a particular focus on what has come to be called the 'Global South' or 'low and middle-income countries'. However, an emerging 'Mad Studies' new social movement has also developed as a key challenge to such globalising pressures. This development, however, has itself both being impeded by some of the disempowering foundations of a global mental health approach, as well as coming in for criticism for itself perpetuating some of the same problems as the latter. At the same time, we are also beginning to see it and related concepts like the UNCRPD being given new life and meaning by Global South activists as well as Global North activists. Given such contradictions and complexities, the aim of this paper is to offer an analysis and explore ways forward consistent with decolonizing global mental health and addressing madness and distress more helpfully globally, through a Mad Studies lens.Mills relies heavily on Fanon and his theory of 'colonising the mind' (Fanon, 1967). However, we cannot approach these questions solely through the work of those from Western societies, however, grounded their claims to follow Southern writers. Importantly, writers have approached decolonialising mental health from within the Global South itself calling for the resurgence of African or South

Dis/Entangling Disability, Mental Health, and the Cultural Politics of Care

“…A Mad Studies approach also affords opportunities to reclaim the term 'mad' and to challenge its negative connotations with more positive understandings (Rashed 2019). Mad Studies scholarship has critiqued dominant global North models of mental health which have generally framed human response to mental distress and difficulty in medicalised and individualistic terms, locating the 'problem' or 'pathology' firmly within the individual (Beresford and Rose 2023).…”