Representations of "Mental Illness" and Madness in Icarus Project Books

The Icarus Project is an international radical mental health community that calls itself a "support network and media project by and for people who experience the world in ways that are often diagnosed as mental illness."... [ view full abstract ]

The Icarus Project is an international radical mental health community that calls itself a "support network and media project by and for people who experience the world in ways that are often diagnosed as mental illness." Decentralized local chapters do various activities including activism, group healing, psychology consumer/survivor groups, teach-ins, and community art. Tying the Icarus Projects' practices together are shared representations of “mental illness” and madness, which I illustrate through a disability studies reading of two Icarus Project books - /Madness and Oppression/ and /Friends Make the Best Medicine/ - and the Icarus Project's online mission statement. These representations include: Using diverse primary sources, against essentialism of experience; positivity about "mental illness"; the notion of a mad world; healing as a communal practice in a relational-empowerment model of disability; and nature metaphors illustrating hope for a better future. These representations expand and challenge mainstream White US medical/psychological models of “mental illness” in empowering ways.