Drop the Disorder + Do Something!

The culture of psychiatric diagnosis causes harm. It labels people in distress. It silences them. It takes away their individuality and agency. At its worst, it removes their human rights. It only asks, 'What's wrong with you?' and doesn't ask, 'What happened to you?' It fails to acknowledge the complexity of an individual's story and their social context. This powerful follow-up to the first Drop the Disorder! book (PCCS Books, 2019) assembles 40 contributors who are challenging the culture of psychiatric diagnosis and disorder. They include high-profile names such as 'V' (formerly known as Eve Ensler, author of The Vagina Monologues), child therapist Kate Silverton and Canadian physician Gabor Mate (The Myth of Normal), leading researchers and writers, including professors Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett (The Spirit Level) and Joanna Moncrieff; Robert Whitaker of madinamerica.com, and frontline campaigner Jacqui Dillon, alongside a host of other activists, service users and refusers, poets, artists, counsellors, psychologists, psychiatrists and other practitioners and leaders in the mental health and homeless sectors who are trying to do things differently in their own spheres. This book's message is 'do something', and its hard-hitting and inspiring chapters tell us why and how.