I’ve suffered from depression intermittently since I was a teenager. Some of these episodes have been highly debilitating – resulting in self-harm, withdrawal (where I would spend months on end in my own room, only venturing out to sign-on or to buy the minimal amounts of food I was consuming), […]

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 […]

 The impact social media has had on our daily lives – we now record where we go, what we do and what we think for the world to see – has radically changed the way we relate to ourselves and each other. As the proliferation of social media has become increasingly […]

…What Was the Question? Most debates about the pros and cons of information technology fail to ask a basic question: what is information technology for? In order to understand information technology’s functions and effects on society, we need to examine its origins. This, in turn, requires a basic understanding of the […]

‘The Stasi had a file on everybody’ was once a common trope used to favourably compare the ‘free’ West to oppressive Soviet societies. It has since become an emblem of the threat to privacy that an overreaching security state will embody. When Edward Snowden exposed the surveillance apparatus maintained by the […]

When I hear the phrase “democratic psychiatry” I immediately think of the rhetoric of “service user involvement” and the ideology of empowerment. These aren’t the directions psychiatry should take simply because this is the direction psychiatry is already taking and which it is already perfectly able to assimilate. I am […]

Sloganism for late 2013: “I feel protected by unpublished Suite A algorithms.” (J. Sjerpstra) – “I am on an angry squirrel’s shitlist.” – Join the Object Oriented People – “When philosophy sucks, but you don’t.” ­– “See you in the Sinkhole of Stupid, at 5 pm.” – “I got my […]

A home is such a basic need that the provision of adequate and decent housing should be a fundamental requirement of a fair society. But what do we require of a home beyond sound and safe shelter that can accommodate our household in a reasonably convenient location? Security of tenure […]