Multi Media

BOOK REVIEW

Review by

Mona Behnke

Outside Mental Health: Voices and Visions of Madness reveals a human, highly subjective and intimate perspective on the experience of mental health and illness in the Euro-U.S.-American context. As the former host and initiator of Madness Radio Will Hall, who considers himself a ‘psychiatry survivor’, offers the possibility to share and listen to exceedingly personal narratives of psychiatrist survivors, practitioners, therapists, scientists, and activists who all have an alternative treatment approach in common. This gives the rare opportunity to listen to affected and involved subjectivities. Instead of biased diagnosis and a commonly used approach of “fixing” the biochemical apparatus of sufferers by medication, each of the speakers opens an insight into the backstage of life, personal histories as well as experiences with the mental health system – and finally a way out.