Philosophical perspectives on critical psychiatry

Next May's meeting of the Association for Advancement of Philosophy and Psychiatry in San Diego is on "Philosophical Perspectives on Critical Psychiatry: Challenges and Opportunities" (see call for abstracts). It should be an interesting meeting.

I just wanted to comment on the blurb saying that critical psychiatry  is primarily about taking the "profession to task for being a source of oppression". There is no doubt that psychiatry can be oppressive. There is also no doubt about the role of psychiatry in social coercion, as it is expected to manage mental illness on behalf of society. Critical psychiatry does focus on the rights of psychiatric patients.

However, I have always argued that critical psychiatry is primarily about the conceptual nature of mental illness (see my attempt to summarise critical psychiatry in previous post). Reducing people's problems to something the matter with their brain is unhelpful, even oppressive at times. The reference to the Frankfurt school in the blurb may come from one of my references (eg. see chapter 12 of my Critical psychiatry book). I have also always been sceptical whether critical psychiatry is really based on Foucault's thinking, however much Foucault was concerned that the reason of the Enlightenment was oppressive.

Still, the suggested topics for the conference do merit further examination and I encourage you to contribute by submitting an abstract.