Guiding Questions

• Who has the power to define what counts as “madness”?

• How has mental illness been treated — or mistreated — in the name of justice?

• Can the concept of “sanity” be used as a tool of control?

What Is “Madness”?

Across cultures and centuries, people have been labeled mad, insane, or mentally ill.

Sometimes, these labels reflected genuine suffering.

Other times, they were used to silence:

• Political dissidents

• Women resisting gender roles

• Artists and visionaries

• Victims of trauma or oppression

Who gets to decide what is “normal” — and who benefits from that decision?

Madness as Social Control

Mental health systems are not neutral.

Historically, they have been used to:

• Lock up women who challenged patriarchy

• Diagnose enslaved people as “mentally ill” for running away

• Institutionalize queer and trans people

• Force conformity to dominant racial, cultural, or gender norms

• Suppress spiritual or cultural experiences deemed “irrational”

When psychiatry serves power instead of healing, madness becomes a political weapon.

Philosophical Perspectives

Michel Foucault

In Madness and Civilization, Foucault argued that madness is not a medical truth, but a social construct. Institutions define it to reinforce power.

Thomas Szasz

Believed mental illness is a metaphor, not a disease — and that psychiatry can be used to punish nonconformity.

Frantz Fanon

Wrote that colonialism itself is a form of violence that drives people mad — and that “madness” can be a rational response to an insane world.

Plato

Interestingly, saw “divine madness” — such as prophecy or love — as a potential source of truth and wisdom, not just disorder.

Two Perspectives

Medical Model of Mental Illness

Mental disorders are biological conditions that require diagnosis and treatment, like any other disease.

Critical or Social Model

Mental suffering often reflects deeper social injustice, trauma, or alienation — not just chemical imbalance.

A Thought Experiment

Imagine a person who hears voices — but the voices are kind, and the person lives a peaceful, creative life.

Should they be treated as sick? Or just different?

Now imagine a person who hears no voices, but works to oppress others.

Who is truly “mad”?

Justice for the Marginalized Mind

• Right to informed consent and freedom from forced treatment

• Culturally sensitive and trauma-informed care

• Decriminalization of mental health crises — no more prisons as asylums

• Peer-led support movements and alternatives to hospitalization

• Recognition of neurodiversity — that minds work in many ways

• Funding mental health as a public good, not private luxury

Reflect and Discuss

• Have you ever felt misjudged, misunderstood, or mislabeled?

• Is sanity defined by science — or by culture?

• How should a just society respond to mental and emotional suffering?

Suggested Readings

• Michel Foucault – Madness and Civilization

• Frantz Fanon – Black Skin, White Masks

• Thomas Szasz – The Myth of Mental Illness

• Kay Redfield Jamison – An Unquiet Mind

• Bessel van der Kolk – The Body Keeps the Score