Coffee with Comrades Episode 165: "Toward an Anarchist Critique of Psychiatry"

Coffee with Comrades Episode 165: "Toward an Anarchist Critique of Psychiatry"

From Coffee with Comrades

Chris, a psychotherapist with sixteen years in the field, joins me to critique the psych profession. We explore the history of psychology and psychiatric coercion, the violence and carceral logic implicit in locking away the "insane." We discuss the ways in which neurotypicality is constructed to serve the hegemony of the ruling class. Chris and I examine the ways that capital and the state regiment our minds, cajoling, commanding, and controling. We also touch on the emerging concept of "mad liberation." It's a pretty wide-ranging conversation. I hope you enjoy it.

Follow Chris on Mastadon. https://kolektiva.social/web/@TomMasaniello
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and the carceral world of the psyche system, the industries around it and normative societies embrace of the social policing of madness through violent imprisonment, physical assault and that there is an acknowledgement of the ultra-prevalent and pressing presence of the interpersonal policing and the cultural acceptance of humiliating and turning mentally ill people into social pariahs and scapegoats especially by control freak rich white people. I have seen time and again the overt abuse and shunning of people who are literally too poor to get "proper treatment" and are doing their best and actually trying to better their lives and then minimal effort put in by some narcissist weilding power get celebrated with often their traumas and mental illness overly exaggerated.

I have a friend who went to the psycheward and someone he was friends with ended up collaborating with psychiatric professionals in order to determine a course of treatment that my friend did not want at all. This is literally collaborating with police as the repercussions for him not "complying" is being drugged by security guards and literally imprisoned when he was in the hospital for having hallucinations that were not "negative." When he got out and tried to confront this person he acted as if my friend was being crazy and threatening...even though he only contacted him through text saying "Dude...wtf is wrong with you. We need to talk"

I have had my own experiences as well. I am saying all this because I hope to point out this actually crazy cowardly bullshit to maybe one person who will admit to themselves that crazy people are treated sociopathically or otherwise treated as infantile within an anarchist scene that defers to the socialized tendency for those in power to attempt to shape manage and control anyone who is seen as poor, other, threatening etc. The judgement, shaming and uptight control freak shit has got to go if any of us are going to be free.

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