"I think in my own experiences I feel like the parts that have made me feel most whole and healthy have been when I spoke truth to a lot of the injustices I’ve witnessed or experienced and had people around me who understood what I was talking about or where I could put my experiences into a broader context and name what was happening".
"But I think that professionalization is very profitable. One, the whole course of obtaining that degree: there are certainly institutions that profit from that. And then two, how much people with degrees can profit vs those without degrees".
"I think that falls directly in line with what we’ve been saying about the medical industrial complex in that independence and isolation are not that far apart from each other, and if we’re not taking responsibility for each other, then it falls on one person to make all the decisions, even if that one person is not equipped to handle all those decisions".
"And what happens in that concentric circle is everything that happens in the family like family dynamics, family culture, and the patriarchy and how that plays out in there. And then emanating from that is your community circle, and so there are a lot of dynamics that play into how a community might engage with family, engage with trauma, and engage with different senses of healing and addressing violence in that way. And then outside of the community aspect is the institutional. And so this, you can think of as within the institution of the medical industry where there’s a way of doing things, there’s a way of addressing health that’s like legislative or in policy and just structurally enforced. Or the institution could be the state, like the nation-state or government authority, and how they want to deal with certain problems. And you would think that that’s kind of it, the way that societal institutions play out, but I think there’s another circle that emanates from it which is historical trauma or historical perspective, so the concept of historical violence that plays out on a state-wide level".
"I think a lot of time medical students and doctors are just a part of the system, and now that I’ve been doing research on it and seeing it in action, I can see it. But when you go through medical school, you become indoctrinated into everything and don’t really realize what’s going on".
"...there are aspects to naming the system and breaking it down that have helped me in thinking about a lot of these issues. In that visual [from Mia Mingus], there are four tenets of medicine and agreed-upon goals by society in how we talk about medicine. Those four tenets are: 1) Science and Medicine, 2) Health, 3) Access, and 4) Safety. These are fairly neutral terms — and possibly even positive terms — that we all would not see as dangerous to ourselves, but what the [visual of the MIC] really lays out is that these four goals are actually motivations for things that are more oppressive. So for example, the goal of Science and Medicine has led to something like eugenics — technologies that erase people, and technologies that place value on certain lives. The goal of Health is used as a motivator for desirability. The goal of Access is used as the motivator for charity and ableism. And Safety is another goal that is used as a motivator or excuse for techniques of population control."
"This reluctance to pursue complexities and to engage fully with the multitudes contained in human experience becomes most dangerous in social justice contexts. Statements about structural disparities in healthcare systems are delivered in almost the same tone as descriptions of genetic disorders: vaguely regretful, always “objective,” and ultimately removed from responsibility".
"So when we say mental health I think the focus is very much on being a functional worker in society whereas empowerment is about...a wellness model that goes beyond just being functional but feeling like you have agency in the world, and you can participate fully, and so I think that for me, a lot of my involvement in various communities have made me feel...empowered in that way that’s also another type of mental health care".
"I think it’s a combination, being able to address both the individual needs and also the larger community, institutional, and historical systems that affect your own sense of well-being".
"I once asked a paleontologist about what he thought about the role of curiosity in his own work. He said that the point of human civilization was that once we’re at the point where we can feed and house and generally care for ourselves, then we could do the real interesting stuff like make art, create beauty in the world around us, and do things like curiosity-based inquiry.
We have obviously not achieved that utopic vision yet. When curiosity-driven inquiry begins to take priority over community-driven inquiry, we are privileging the self-gratification of the elite over the lived hardships of our most vulnerable. If you are a passionate architect who spends their whole life building grand architectural pieces that only the top 1% can afford to live in, what kind of world have you helped build?
“Mr. President, I have blood on my hands.” – Robert Oppenheimer [2]Curiosity-based inquiry often masks the very real consequences of scientific research".
"...as I said, his teacher very obviously physically abused him and so he would refuse to go to school, and that was at the time seen as a manifestation of his mental illness. Whereas looking back on it it seems completely rational that someone who is being abused by their teacher would not want to go to school for that reason. And he describes that period of time especially as he was depressed and he would be tired all the time and he would just lay down on the couch and not move, and these were sort of things that the teachers around him would really incriminate him for–I don’t know if that’s the right word. But their response to that would not be like, “let’s think about why they’re doing this and let’s address that,” but more like “oh, we have to bring you into line.” Even just lying on the couch would cause them to restrain him. I’m not sure how much my parents were totally aware of that, since I think there’s also this lack of belief in people who have mental disabilities in telling their experiences because they’re labeled as “crazy” so their perspectives are kind of dismissed. But hearing his side of the story was really shocking to me, because I had just had this whole narrative of his life, and I had never really even bothered to talk to him about it".
Kelly Jiyoon Park, Andy Su and Alexis Takahashi
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