Why mental health is a political topic and what patriarchy has got to do with it
Becoming depressed because of the political state of things, becoming sick because of racist structures, emancipatory activism resulting in burnout, a nihilist sense of powerlessness as a slowly encroaching state of normality. These are only some causal relationships of mental health in times of fascist crisis.
Topics revolving around “psychological problems” are strongly individualised in neo-liberal societies. Those with problems are individualisd and expected to find their own solutions, looking for a spot in therapy and becoming operational again as fast as possible in order to be usable for capitalist structures. It is seen as an individual sensitivity, decoupled from prevailing societal relations.
In the workshop, we want to put the topic of mental health into the existing political context from a emancipatory and intersectional feminist perspective and thus discuss possibilities of collective prevention, intervention, support and solidarity as a form of anticapitalist resistance.
We want to discuss examples from projects in which activism and mental health issues were contemplated together and put into a political context.