The most significant changes in mental health legislation in a generation were made with the introduction of the 2007 Mental Health Act. At the time, Black Mental Health UK (BMH UK) publicly stated that the new measures within this law would be a matter of life and death for black […]

On the Vicennial of the Zapatista Insurrection Neoliberalism, as is well known – and as Dardot and Laval’s (2009) La Nouvelle Raison du Monde makes more than clear – is not simply an economic system. It is a complex machine of subjectivation; a whole technology of the self that produces […]

  Download High Resolution Version | PDF | JPEG HOW TO SPOT AN IMMIGRATION RAID How Do They Arrive? Vans marked IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT or unmarked white/blue/black vans. Sometimes accompanied by police car. What Do They Look Like? Should be wearing UKBA insignia/numbers on shoulders. They often hide them. Where Do They Go? Streets, […]

Whenever a word gains universal appeal we have grounds for suspicion. We have all seen what words like ‘democracy’ mean in the mouths of neoliberal governments and what ‘equality’ becomes when it is spoken by members of the financial class, and how these redefinitions get naturalised. The appeal to words […]

I am leaving the NHS after 18 years of working inside it as a clinical psychologist. I now want to try to work outside it to promote more emancipatory approaches to mental health. Originally, I had the idea of infiltrating the mental health system with loving kindness. I had fairly […]

Socially, the dual strategies of exalting consumerism and increasing control have been central to the neoliberal project. Consumerism and control can be viewed as opposite sides of the same coin. People are encouraged to aspire to ever greater levels of conspicuous consumption, modelled after the lifestyles of a celebrity elite […]

What is an ordered mind? As labels of disorder continue to proliferate, and diagnoses remain harmful and hard to shake, the configuration of the boundaries between sanity and insanity is of central importance to any transformational politics. In its fifth edition published last year, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of […]

The primary focus of the issue is an examination of mental health and madness; its relevance within contemporary society and its centrality within multiple struggles against the oppression of the state and capitalism.

The twenty-fourth edition of the OT will be launched this Saturday with an event at Housmans Bookshop. Following some thoughts from a few of the issue’s contributors, the majority of the evening will take the form of an open discussion of the themes raised within OT24 or by those attending […]