Uncivilizing “Mental Illness”: Contextualizing Diverse Mental States and Posthuman Emotional Ecologies within The Icarus Project

Abstract

This article argues humans should not be defined strictly at their physical boundaries with clear distinctions between anatomical bodies, mental states, and the rest of the world. Rather, diverse mental states, which are often diagnosed as "mental illness," take shape within greater environmental forces and flows, including those that are constructed online. Drawing from a multi-sited ethnography of The Icarus Project, a radical mental health community, the author situates online narratives written by two of its members within posthuman emotional ecologies in which the exchange of ideas online affects mental states in a profound way. These narratives can be seen as a new type of psychiatric resistance based in new technologies, one that "uncivilizes" mental illness by searching for alternative frameworks and metaphors to understand lived experiences with mental distress. This ethnographic perspective differs significantly from traditional bio-psychiatric models and interventions and can offer both patients and mental healthcare providers with an alternative language to frame mental health.

Mad Pride and the Creation of Culture

“…The challenge facing Mad Pride activists is to generate and popularise narratives of madness that can address these inadequacies while having the potential for large-scale cultural acceptance. It is a challenge that activists have already taken on: from the narrative of 'healing voices' that restores meaning to 'auditory hallucinations', 6 to accounts of spiritual transformationin Carl Jung's (1970) sense of metanoiathat move beyond spirit influence and embrace ecological perspectives (e.g., Fletcher, 2018), to the Icarus Project's powerful notion of 'dangerous gifts', 7 we are witnessing the creation of culture in action.…”

The Identity of Psychiatry and the Challenge of Mad Activism: Rethinking the Clinical Encounter

“… 23. For details on these narratives see Rashed (2019b , Chapter 9), DuBrul (2014) , Clay (1999) , Geekie and Read (2009) , Peddie (2014) , Fletcher (2017) , Longden, Corstens, and Dillon (2013) , and the documentaries Crooked Beauty (the third movie in the Mad Dance Trilogy directed by Ken Rosenthal, 2010) and Healing Voices (directed by P. J. Moynihan, 2016). See also Eleanor Longden’s TED TALK: The Voices in my Head (2013).…”