Psychiatry and psychology have constructed a mental health system that does no justice to the problems it claims to understand and creates multiple problems for its users. Yet the myth of biologically-based mental illness defines our present. This book rethinks madness and distress reclaiming them as human, not medical, experiences.

Psychiatry and psychology have constructed a mental health system that does no justice to the problems it claims to understand and creates multiple problems for its users. Yet the myth of biologically-based mental illness defines our present. This book rethinks madness and distress reclaiming them as human, not medical, experiences.

This book extends the critical scope of the previous volume, De-Medicalizing Misery, into a wider social and political context, developing the critique of the psychiatrization of Western society. It explores the contemporary mental health landscape and poses possible alternative solutions to the continuing issues of emotional distress.