A review by bisexualbookshelf
Mad World: The Politics of Mental Health by Micha Frazer-Carroll

informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

5.0

“After all, what is the utility of 'sanity' or 'rationality, in a world in which ‘sanity' means the death of oppressed people and the planet, and 'rationality' means the logic of the market? In this climate, it is Madness that will help us burst beyond the 'rational' confines of the asylum, of the prison, of capitalism and individualism. As the world drives us increasingly Mad, it is crucial that we take Mad knowledge seriously, and acknowledge its imaginative potential.”

Mad World: The Politics of Mental Health by Micha Frazer-Carroll is a searing indictment of the ways capitalism, the state, and carceral psychiatry conspire to control and pathologize Madness. Frazer-Carroll demands that we reject the dominant narratives of mental health as an individual pathology and instead recognize it as a site of collective struggle. Opening with a deeply personal reflection on her own experiences with anxiety and depersonalization, she frames the text with an urgent call to externalize and politicize our understandings of Madness. She argues that capitalism is not only a significant producer of suffering but that it requires and sustains itself on our dissociation and distress. Frazer-Carroll traces the history of psychiatric institutions, revealing how their rise was inextricably linked to industrialization, poor laws, and the need to sort bodies according to their perceived productivity.

The book is unrelenting in its critique of for-profit mental healthcare and the ways it obscures the root causes of distress. Frazer-Carroll exposes the failures of psychiatric science, probing the historical and political contingencies that have shaped mental health diagnoses. She dissects the DSM and the biological turn in psychiatry, demonstrating how they parallel the rise of neoliberalism, creating categories that serve capitalist interests rather than actual human needs. Throughout, she reminds us that mental illness is not merely a biomedical issue but one deeply entangled with racial capitalism, cisheteropatriarchy, and colonialism.

Frazer-Carroll does not merely critique—she envisions alternative possibilities. She highlights the radical history of Mad liberation and disability justice, arguing for an expansive neurodiversity paradigm that resists the impulse to "fix" Madness. She documents the violence inflicted on Mad people through policing and incarceration, starkly illustrating how psychiatric wards function as carceral institutions and how state violence disproportionately targets Mad people of color. In a hopeful turn, she examines international models of care that reject coercion, including Italy’s abolition of psychiatric hospitals and the work of the Fireweed Collective.

Mad World is incisive, urgent, and radical. Frazer-Carroll’s writing is bold and uncompromising, balancing sharp political analysis with historical critique. She exposes the material realities behind psychiatric knowledge, dismantling the idea that mental health is an objective, measurable concept. Instead, she reframes Madness as a site of both oppression and resistance. This book is an essential read for anyone seeking to challenge the mainstream mental health discourse and imagine a future beyond the psychiatric-industrial complex. Mad pride forever 🖤

📖 Read this if you love: radical critiques of psychiatry, abolitionist approaches to mental health, and the works of Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, Johanna Hedva, or Beatrice Adler-Bolton.

🔑 Key Themes: Capitalism and Mental Health, Carceral Psychiatry and State Violence, Neurodiversity and Disability Justice, Community Care and Mad Liberation.
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