Conversations in Critical Psychiatry

Abstract

‘Conversations in Critical Psychiatry’ was an interview series led by Awais Aftab for Psychiatric Times from 2019 to 2022, exploring critical and philosophical perspectives in psychiatry and engaging with prominent commentators within and outside the profession who had made meaningful criticisms of the status quo. The series was well received and generated international interest with a multidisciplinary readership. This volume brings together an edited selection of interviews with new material, including a detailed introductory essay, ‘Psychiatry and the Critical Landscape’, new interviews, a new Foreword, and book reviews. The interviews cover a wide array of philosophical and scientific topics in an accessible manner without compromising scholarly rigour. The edited volume presents a sweeping overview of psychiatry’s relationship to critique, and Aftab offers a synthesis of themes encountered in critical and philosophical discussions around psychiatry. Mental health problems are complex, value-laden, and multidimensional. They require a pluralistic approach that takes into account their dimensional, developmental, and idiographic aspects. The volume makes the case for mainstream psychiatry to embrace the critical tradition and tackle the sociopolitical dimensions of madness, while urging critical psychiatry to engage in a process of self-critique and move towards a philosophically informed view of psychiatric science.