I guess it’s quite fitting that my first post in almost a year on substack (also my now newsletter platform) would be me raging about the mental health industry. Perhaps I will some day write about the last bit of my corea trip & how it changed me, but my substack archive will not do linear time.

None of these things are new, they are all things that I’ve said before in other spaces. But I am inspired by the recent horrendous news of the BC NDP’s decision on expanding involuntary treatment ie. agreeing with the Conservatives on criminalizing poverty & trauma, so I feel called to re-iterate these points. And perhaps this can serve as a reminder or introduction to folks on how I orient towards this darn industry of which I am a part.

The mental health industry is an extension of the state in maintaining the status quo

that is white supremacist, settler colonial, cisheteropatriarchal capitalism.

The mental health industry is a carceral industry that serves to categorize bodyminds based on what is deemed “normal” ie. acceptable & profitable under capitalism vs. what is deemed deviant, dangerous, and disposable, through the tactics of pathologization, criminalization, and incarceration.

The mental health industry requires bodyminds that are deemed that of the latter category to continue to profit and grow.

One option could be building the necessary social infrastructures such as affordable housing, accessible healthcare and safe supply, so that people can be housed and have access to dignified, affordable healthcare and regulated safe supply (as we do for alcohol). Instead, the mental health industry relies on neoliberal policies that render systemic issues as individual failings which need to be disciplined through involuntary so-called care.

What about involuntary care, forced treatment, mandated hospitalization sounds healing and helpful?

As a psychiatric survivor and creative care worker, my abolitionist dreams include futures where mental health industry is non-existent. Where systems of violence ie. the largest sources of trauma, are dismantled and care does not need to be institutionalized because we have the skills, communities, and systems to care for one another.

This is also why I call myself a therapist-ish. I think it’s embarrassing to be a registered therapist. I am not proud of my complicity in the mental health industry that acts as an extension of the state. I am a contradiction in being both a psychiatric survivor and a professionalized mental health practitioner.

At this time, I use professionalization for the benefits of insurance coverage (insurance sucks, and the medical-health insurance industrial complex isn’t quite as gross here as it is in the so-called US so it has been tolerable) and make sure I do things drastically differently from what I was taught in my schooling. This is where my political education and my own lived experiences of Madness & psychiatric survivorship come in. Those two pieces are key to the elaboration of “-ish”.

When looking for a new therapist, some possible questions you could ask are:

• What is your take on abolition? What about psychiatric abolition?

• What is your understanding of mental health industry in relation to carcerality?

• What are your thoughts on mandated hospitalization and involuntary treatment?

• What do you think is needed to prevent and/or minimize the risk of involuntary treatment when working with clients?

• What does anti-carceral therapeutic practice look like for you?

Practitioners need to be prepared to answer such questions. Remember the emphasis between so-called values and what it looks like in practice. If you couldn’t use the words, how would one know based on how you show up that you have the values you do?

Leaning into Liberatory Practice: Sept 23-27

Prospect Counselling has a training program where I teach the section on abolition and how it relates to the mental health industry. Their upcoming summit is full of generative ideas & perspectives by some rad rad people. I am in such good company.

My conversation with Bhupie and Abby for this event is on an intro to Disability Justice and Mad Liberation in therapeutic practice. We cover how it connects to real life happenings including Palestine and COVID-19.

Early bird enrollment for $67 ends September 23rd at 9:59am PST.

sign up sign up ✨

Last call for Processing Rage 💢

You’ve had plenty of reminders for Processing Rage by now and here’s the last one! Registration ends on September 23rd and program/course starts on the 30th.

Use the code “COMMUNITY10” for 10% off.

register now

Relevant shares & readings 🌻

• Ableism Is the Driving Force Behind All Forms of Incarceration, Says Abolitionist Talila Lewis [article]

• Care Beyond the (Carceral) State: Disrupting Psychiatric Violence in Our Communities and Healing Outside of the MIC by Project LETS on September 26-28th [virtual events]

• Qafila x Dr. Lara Sheehi: Psychoanalysis & Resistance on September 29th [virtual lecture] - The lecture intends to address the Palestinian genocide through the lens of psychoanalysis as a socio-cultural and political critique of society. Register here.

• The Need for Disability Justice in Mental Health Care, Part 2: Bill C-7, MAiD and Mental Illness [video with captions]

• The BIPOC Fat-Tea affinity group, facilitated by Athena - sign up form

In solidarity & with care,

Ji-Youn, they/she

Read: meaning of my name