To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. I made my Recovery in (detail removed) in 1984 as a result of (carefully) coming off strong medication with the help of Psychotherapy. In other words, way too many therapists are way too quick to fall in line and defer to the authority of the medicator instead of challenging thought content and issues surrounding the diagnosis; this is a huge mistake and clear detriment to the persons in the system. Therefore, until we witness a paradigm shift in the way the developed world makes sense of human suffering and overwhelm, a reliance on biomedical language will, to some extent, be necessary. I have a (very fraudulent) SMI 10 year Record Qualification + As a (detail removed) I’m sure I’m Qualified to look after myself.

should be essential reading for anyone working within mental health and that of course includes student counsellors. One of the shared ambitions of the administrator group is that we can ultimately develop this resource into a much-needed “Mad in the UK” site. But the current promotional pitch of raising awareness often feels like it just reinforces a greater attachment to the label for me.Thank you so much to all concerned for playing this part in helping to give our humanity a chance by producing and publishing this book!

I cried, I smiled, I laughed, I was angry, I felt hopeful, I was pissed off, I was disgusted, I felt empowered and so much more. It gathers the perspectives of a diverse range of contributors with many different stakes in the debate – but all with one intention: to rid the lexicon of toxic unsubstantiated labels which pathologise our pain and justify suppressing our dissent (conscious or otherwise) to poverty, discrimination and abuse. K. is that the majority of the population have absorbed the myths of chemical imbalance, genetic ‘predisposition’ and all the rest of it as fact.When I pointed out that this was akin to wearing signs saying “I’m a n****r” or “I’m a sp*c” my comment was removed. So, I was particularly educated by the way the book encouraged the reader to explore who would be negatively impacted, and were that change to be brought about. And this is how the book describes those at the mercy of the system, diagnosed, labelled, and condemned to a process that disadvantages their recovery, and ultimately their right to be a person. I have many friends who still drink the koolaid and strongly think that their psych drugs are really helping them out and I must admit that I can totally relate to that mindset.

Adie has over 15 years of experience working within areas of mental health and traumatic brain injury rehabilitation services. But equally, from a more political or sociological position I’ve often found when systemic change is mentioned, I become instinctively interested in the movements that challenge or seek to empower what might be described as “disadvantaged groups”.What then pushed me over the edge was yet another celebrity-inspired media frenzy about a psychiatric “illness. Her activism is motivated by a belief that emotional distress is caused by what is experienced and largely rooted in social factors. The appetite for challenging the mainstream narrative was huge and by March 2020 we had taken our AD4E day event to 21 cities around the UK and involved many contributors in the process.