Mad Studies and Mad–Positive Music

Abstract

In this paper I unpack how Mad–positive music may disrupt pathogizing mental–health discourses and affirm Mad subjectivities. I draw on the field of Mad Studies to discuss how Mad–positive music recognizes the subjugated knowledge(s) of self–identifying Mad persons, troubles the dominance of psy–disciplinary knowledge(s), and opens complex Mad–positive spaces. I empirically draw on Mad musicians’ lyrical work to demonstrate how Mad music may be epistemologically–dissonant with dominant mental health biomedical paradigms that pathologically root mental illness in individuals. Lastly, I suggest that Mad–positive music inserts Mad counter knowledge(s), complex radical narratives, and draws directly on Mad persons’ lived experiences in ways that offer new pedagogical insights into contemporary mental–health systemic practices.

Keywords

Mental health musicology pedagogy activism adult education

“Songs were sung, speeches were made and a moment of silence was held for those who were remembered at the end of that first [Mad] Pride Day” Geoffrey Reaume (2008, p.3)

Madness or what we understand to be madness is learned. Mad identities are also lived and crafted. Music represents a pedagogical site where Mad musicians teach others about their lived experiences, and through self–expression carve their own identities. In this paper, I argue that the discursive meanings of Mad–positive music provide pedagogical insights into mental health systems, psychiatric violence, Mad experiences, Mad pride, and consumers/survivors/ex–patients (c/s/x) subjectivities.

As an amateur musician, I experienced music as a form of self–expression. I come from a musical family where music binds us. My musical history is also a family history. My grandfather Settimio Castrodale was a conductor and professional musician; he played for the local philharmonic orchestra, wrote and transposed music, founded and was the conductor of a local Italian–Canadian community band.

When my mother died from breast cancer I was fifteen years old (See also Castrodale & Zingaro, 2015) and I turned to my vinyl collection listening to the Beatles–while my guitar gently weeps, and Beach Boys Pet Sounds entire album on repeat. My grandfather continued to give me extensive piano lessons. I also found ways to socialize by playing drums, which I learned from my father. Practicing in the basement, playing along with album tapes of Nirvana, Foo Fighters, Pixies, Sloan, Weezer got me through my tough teenage years. I joined a band and practiced and played live often hiding behind my deliberately angled cymbals. I still write music and play from time to time. For me music represents a means of expression and was personally instrumental in times of grief. My history of loss and connections to Mad–identifying individuals and communities has lead me to take up this trajectory of inquiry.

In my work, I view my research, teaching, and writing as interconnected praxis aimed at promoting peace, empathy, and social justice. I draw on Disability Studies, Mad Studies (See LeFrançois, Menzies & Reaume, 2013), and Geographies of Disability (Castrodale & Crooks, 2010). My positionality (Castrodale & Zingaro, 2015), lived experiences, and previous research with self–identifying Mad student activists (See also Castrodale, 2015) have motivated me to examine Mad–positive music.

Mental health language and imagery often represents mentally ill subjects as out of control, immoral, and violent individuals (LeFrançois, Menzies & Reaume, 2013). There is a paucity of critical perspectives unpacking sanism in music. Arts–based practices, such as survivor engagement in music may facilitate compassion, care, trust and recovery (Crawford, Lewis, Brown, & Manning, 2013). I outline the field of Mad Studies and discuss how Mad–positive music may represent a site of pedagogy. I argue that more research is needed that draws directly on psychiatric survivors’, consumers’, ex–patients’ (c/s/x) knowledge(s) and perspectives on music. How do c/s/x understand the role of music in their lives? How do c/s/x use music to actively challenge sanism and psy–violence? How is music linked to Mad pride?

I write this paper as an engaged academic (Castrodale, 2017; Cresswell & Spandler, 2012) drawing on Mad Studies and survivors’ narratives, and hoping for a more loving world. I discuss music therapy to unpack how music has been linked to discourses of wellness and the mediation of persons’ conduct. Music therapy may thus represent a tool aimed at producing normal, subjects complacent with the status quo, who are certainly not Mad. Critical orientations toward understanding music as an anti–oppressive practice are needed to address power inequalities, social injustices (See Baines, 2000, 2013, 2014) and counter sanism. Subsequently, I introduce themes and avenues serving as platforms from which one may critique dominant mental–health–related discourses in mainstream music. Lastly, I draw on Daniel Mackler's, Blue Panthers Party and Evan Greer & Friends lyrics, who as psych–survivors trouble pathologizing psy–approaches, psy–violence, and psy–expertise. Through their song lyrics they introduce ideas of mental–health distress and recovery, and demonstrate music as a transformative radical site linked to their own subjectivity and self–care.

A deeper sustained analysis of Mad–positive music and lyrics is needed along with an examination of the pedagogical value of Mad music drawing on c/s/x knowledge(s). Mad pedagogies have been absent from adult education, critical pedagogy (McLaren & Kincheloe, 2007) and teacher education (Castrodale, 2017). This paper represents my attempt to catalogue the works of Mad–musical artists and ponder the pedagogical–value of such music. Mad Studies represents a site of education offering pedagogical insights drawing on c/s/x knowledge(s) to countering sanist oppression (Costa, 2014) and psychiatric violence (Brustow, 2013). Mad–positive music holds pedagogical value informing new Mad–subjectivities and countering sanism. Such music allows Mad and non–mad adult learners to make sense of subjectivities in relation to mental–health oriented discourses, as well as constituting Mad–positive identities. Music can be instrumentally educative in countering sanism and crafting Mad–positive ways of being.

Music and the psy–sciences

The therapeutic value of music has been well noted (Clarke, 2016). The (a/e)ffects of music are of keen interest to psy–investigation. Psy–informed mental–health–related music literature predominantly discusses the potential of music as therapy to restore normative positive emotional states of unwell subjects (Legge, 2015; Lin, Yang, Lai, Su, Yeh, Huang, & Chen, 2011; Patterson, Duhig, Darbyshire, Counsel, Higgins, & Williams, 2015). Music has been linked to discourses of health and well–being, alleviation of stress, and the overall promotion of positive mental health (Ansdell, & Meehan, 2010; Lee & Thyer, 2013; Västfjäll, Juslin, & Hartig, 2012). Performing music and singing can foster a sense of community and promote overall well–being (Dingle, Brander, Ballantyne, & Baker, 2013). Involvement of clients in music therapy is also viewed as beneficial in shaping the quality of music therapy (Rolvsjord, 2014). There is a need for more research on music drawing directly on the perspectives and experiences of service users (Baines, 2000, 2013, 2014; McCaffrey, 2014). The link between music and mental health represents an important area of investigation and scholarship.

When an individual or group of people do something nonconformist, distasteful, criminal, delinquent, immoral the question posed “what music were they listening too?” becomes part of the psy–investigation peering into the depths of human subjectivities. Music is broadly linked to the moral hygiene of the population (Baker & Bor, 2008). Music may alleviate individuals’ distress, anxiety and depression (Chen, 2014; Chen, Hannibal & Gold, 2015; Choi, Lee, & Lim, 2008) and severe mental illness (Grocke, Bloch, Castle, Thompson, Newton, Stewart, & Gold, 2014). Yet, there is little critical examination of music as disciplinary and regulatory tool aimed at conditioning behavior in relation to discourses of relaxation, therapy, and resilience (Spelman, 2012). In this way, music may be used as a way to normatively (re)align ‘mentally ill’ subjects’ thoughts and conduct. As Baker and Bor (2008) attest music genres are often seen to play a role in shaping the attitudes, emotions, and conduct of individuals. Musical taste is thus conceptualized in some speculative psy–literature as having profound impacts on a persons’ (anti)social thoughts, behavior(s), conduct and actions (Suetani & Batterham, 2015). The music to which one listens and the mental health of individuals are thus discursively connected. Music is implicitly said to play a role in shaping individuals’ mental health, shaping their mood and mind in some way. This has implications for peoples’ health and well–being.

If music is conceived to have therapeutic potential, I would also suggest that some music therapy might also represent a tool aimed at disciplinary regulation of subjects’ conduct (Foucault, 1999, 2003, 2007). Music as therapy seeks to calm, render complacent, encourage coping with the present world injustices. In much music therapy, the radical potential, rebellious, angry, loud, punk, and alternative is vacated. Music that screams, bashes, grapples with dissonance, cacophonies of sound, unintelligible noises are thus not of therapeutic value.

Mad Studies

Mad Studies represents a growing field of inquiry and activism opening new ways of examining mental health discourses (Beresford & Russo, 2016). The term Mad stems from madness where Mad is reclaimed from its pejorative roots by self–identifying Mad persons as a source of pride and resistance. Mad Studies as a field draws on the knowledge(s) and perspectives of consumers, survivors, ex–patients (c/s/x) and people who have direct experiences with psy–oppression (Beresford & Russo, 2016; Burstow, 2013; Castrodale, 2015; Liegghio, 2013; LeFrançois, Menzies & Reaume, 2013; LeFrançois & Diamond, 2014; McWade, Milton & Beresford, 2015; Procknow, 2017; Price, 2011; Reville & Church, 2012; Russo & Beresford, 2015). Mad Studies rips madness out of the biomedical clinical psy–expertise discursive grip that speaks with authority on all matters relating to ‘mental illnesses’ where Mad Studies offers counter narratives of madness and Mad knowledge(s) (Costa, Voronka, Landry, Reid, Mcfarlane, Reville, & Church, 2012).

Mad Studies as a field represents:

An area of education, scholarship, and analysis about the experiences, history, culture, political organising, narratives, writings and most importantly, the PEOPLE who identify as Mad; psychiatric survivors; consumers; service users; mentally ill; patients; neuro–diverse; inmates; disabled –to name a few of the ‘identity labels’ our community may choose to use. (Costa, 2014, What is Mad studies?, para.1)

Mad Studies as a field has been greatly informed by the Mad movement that has been instrumental in exposing the systemic oppression, violence, and power of the mental health system (Everett, 2000). As an area of education Mad Studies offers pedagogical value. Mad Studies draws on Mad knowledge(s) to teach others about Mad experiences, counter sanism, and proudly acknowledge Mad identities.

Mad positive politics values the subjectivities and knowledges of Mad persons and respects their human dignity. Mad–positive politics is intersectional, often seeking social justice and equality. Within this politics Mad histories are valued and Mad pride is celebrated. Importantly, Mad positive politics carves out a place for madness in society (Adame, 2014). Allies may also take up Mad positive positions by supporting Mad persons’ rights and agency (Church, 2018).

Mad Studies makes central psychiatric survivors’ narratives whose direct experiences with psy–regimes of knowledge, expertise, practices, therapies, cures, onto–epistemological violence and torture are brought to the fore. Mad–positive activism has been instrumental in protesting the dominance of biomedical individualizing pathologizing psy–based interventions and treatments and in advocating for the human rights of c/s/x populations (Everett, 2000). Mad persons may celebrate madness, trouble distress (Rimke, 2016), value c/s/x histories and narratives, and seek to forge new compassionate networks of support, respect, mutual aid and care.

Some Mad persons also align with anti–psychiatry as a means to contest and refute psy–authority and the real violence and harms done by psychiatry. Not all Mad persons share this political positioning. Nevertheless, “Mad studies is not colluding with Big Pharma, piss–poor fabricated research on the ‘mentally ill,’ vapid neo–liberal imperatives, and the morally bankrupt psy–enterprise” (Castrodale, 2017, p. 52).

As a field of activism and inquiry Mad Studies appreciates a polyphony of Mad voices (Clarke, 2016), experiences and perspectives that are in some ways commonly tied to the pursuit of countering sanism and the dominant ways Mad persons are often subjugated, alienated, pathologized, and treated violently. Thereby recognizing a multitude of Mad identities, alterity, and various consciousnesses validating different experiences (Burstow, 2003) Mad Studies holds important lessons for adult education in teaching about sanism and rejecting deficit models of madness (Burstow, 2003). This also teaches about the oppression encountered by Mad persons, ways to understand trauma, and the need to understand and value alternate experiences (2003). Adult education can apprehend discourses on mental health through applying a Mad Studies informed theories and onto–epistemological perspectives. Adult educators may incorporate teaching and learning that draws directly on c/s/x and Mad–positive knowledge(s) in ways that challenge labeling practices and deficit understandings of Mad identities in education.

Conceptual framework

Music represents a site of resistance to psy–oppression and also a site for celebrating Mad pride identities. Madness has been a subject of popular music (Spelman, 2012). Yet, as Spelman (2012) attests: “to date, very little research has been conducted with respect to representations of madness in popular music…this paucity is quite surprising” (p. 9).

I draw on Spelman (2012) as a useful conceptual analytic framework. Spelman (2012) offers relevant thematic avenues to critique mental health discourses prevalent in music: 1.

Characterizations, depictions, and representations of mad subjects

Madness and familial units and relations

“Criticism of psychiatric treatments” (p. 146)

“Criticism of involuntary psychiatric confinement” (p.150)

Anti–psychiatric stances and sentiments.

Spelman (2012) demonstrates Mad subjects as delinquent, deficient, abnormal, violent criminal and in need to intervention, treatment, cure. Madness is represented as lacking and lesser than purportedly sane/normal individuals. The family is evoked as a center of relationships with familial bonds relating to mental health and well–being. Family relations play a role in shaping ones mental–subjectivity. Psychiatric treatments and violence such as confinement have a punitive torturously violent history. Psychiatric science when subject to scrutiny can be revealed as imperfect/flawed. Regimes of cure may also discipline individuals to shape their conduct (Spelman, 2012). Last, anti–psyciatric stances share a deep history of skepticism and rejection of the authority and expert status (Rose, 1998; Spelman, 2012). Such themes inform the basis of my discussions of Mad–positive music and represent conceptual threads for a deeper critical analysis of the political terrain of mental health discourses in music. Spelman's (2012) approach is commensurable with a Mad–positive politics in offering a critique of the ways madness is understood and represented while advocating for the inclusion of c/s/x perspectives to transform existing understandings and practices.

I also draw theoretically on Foucault (1995, 1999, 2003) to examine psychiatric knowledge(s) and highlight the ways Mad subjects discursively understand themselves in relation to psy–knowledges to affirm Mad–positive subjectivities. Mad–positive music characteristically questions biomedical disciplinary knowledge(s) that constitute mental normality (Foucault, 1999; Frances, 2014) and conversely mental abnormality advocating for alternative understandings (Spelman, 2012). As with any movement the Mad movement has tensions where some Mad persons may have more favorable relationships with psy–sciences, pharmacological interventions, psy–professionals and psychiatric practitioners while others may not.

Methodology

I adopted a qualitative exploratory case study approach (Denzin & Lincoln, 2010; Stake, 2000). In order to select Mad–music I engaged in an extensive search. I connected with people in the Mad community and through social media to compile lists. Songs and artists were selected that addressed the considerations advanced by Spelman (2012) and my Foucauldian (1995, 1999, 2003) discursive analytic approach. Songs from self–identifying c/s/x individuals, Mad persons and Mad allies were examined. Songs that demonstrated lyrics that most readily resonated with emergent analytic themes (Patton, 1990) were subjected to greater analysis.

Noteworthy musicians were compiled and songs were examined for their lyrical content where I drew on Spelman (1995, 1999, 2003) and Foucault (2012) analytically. Artists included; The Avalanches – ‘frontier psychiatry’ [song], Michael Adams – SSRIs SSRLies [anti–psychiatry song], Blue Panthers Party – “Murda Murda” [song], Eels (band) – “electro–shock blues” [song], Bonfire Madigan Shive [musician], Wombats – Anti–D, Wendell Woody Cormier – [psychiatric survivor musician], Defiance, Ohio [band], Johnny Matteson –“Rave” “Mad Musician” “crazy people” [songs], Sills and Smith (band) “Etched” [Album] and “Would it all be different” – [song about Mad experience], The Mad Pride (band) – “fade away” [song], Evan Greer & Friends – “Adderall song” [song], Howie the Harp – “Crazy and Proud” [song], and Vara Adams – No means yes [album], This list is partial, it is my own effort to catalogue, organize and compile. I had help from peers and friends to which I am grateful. I encourage other Mad–positive advocates to share these songs, build this list, proliferate and disseminate, support Mad artists and create more music. Key illustrative songs were selected from this list for deeper analysis and discussions. These selections represent an exploratory case (Stake, 2000) intended to encourage other researchers to expand this tangent of research examining the pedagogical value of Mad–music.

Mad–positive music

Mad–positive music often refutes psy–authority, affirms Mad identities, counters sanism, and draws directly on c/s/x knowledges. Mad–positive musicians trouble psy–expertise, Big Pharma, psych–violent regimes of cure and treatment and the pathologization of distress. Through tone, imagery, and lyrics Mad–positive music plays in the face of psychiatric oppression and sanism. Raw, powerful, vulnerable, angry, eloquent and beautiful, Mad music seeks to authentically tell powerful counter–narratives about mental health without normalizing experience or flattening emotion(s).

Mad music may also reflect Mad–pride, the Mad persons’ movement, Mad–positive identity politics, and celebrate Mad–subjectivities. Mad identities may thus be recognized and acknowledged as sites of difference, joy, and pride.

Lyrically, music may represent and shape human subjectivities constituting forms of mental subjects. Mental health imagery and language figures prominently in the contemporary music industry (Spelman, 2012). Music may reinforce systems of dominance such as patriarchy, racism, classism, sexism, sanism, ableism or may be a tool to unpack and speak back to such intersectionally contextual layers of privilege, access and/or oppression (Spelman, 2012) There is a need to examine intersections of race, gender, sex, dis/ability, class and in/sanity as these identity vectors are lyrically inscribed in popular mainstream music. A focus on complex identity markers and music as constitutive necessarily troubles dominant representations of mental health and the imagery, language, and associations attributed to ‘mentally ill’ subjects.

Self–identifying Mad persons’ and psychiatric survivors’ perspectives are largely absent from existing mental–health music–therapy research (Rykov, 2006). Mad persons’ knowledges may illuminate how music, situated in particular sonorous mental health–oriented terrains, composed music, and music as political art may shape our mental–lives. Self–identifying Mad musicians are radically using musical forms of expression in ways that critique psychiatric violence, oppression, and pathologizing biomedical discourses.

Representing madness

Mad and non–Mad musicians through mental–health–related lyrics represent madness. Madness may be represented in familiar tropes such as the imagery of being out of control, in need of a straightjacket, and medicated. However, Mad–allies or Mad–musicians may take Mad stances that challenge conventional discourses on mentally ill subjects. Some artists’ music lyrically takes an openly Mad activist tone. Eels album ‘electroshock blues’ deals with electroconvulsive shock his mother underwent. In this way, Mad–positive accounts can document the hardships encountered by others, speak against torturous treatments, and reflect upon Mad lives. Electric–convulsive therapy (ECT) has been viewed as a torturous treatment lacking beneficial efficacy (Breggin, 1994; Spelman, 2012). Mad Studies has troubled this practice particularly when lacking consent and forced (Breggin, 1994; Burstow, 2013; Burstow, 2015).

Non–Mad identified popular artists play with mental–illness related imagery. As an example, Rapper Marshall Mathers (aka Slim Shady or Eminem) has played extensively with Mad imagery and lyrics. He appears in straightjackets and sings lyrics about taking pride in being out of ones’ mind and out of control. Such imagery depicts delinquency and madness as linked to violent dangerous unruly conduct (Burstow, 2015). Devices such as straight jackets and ECT represent devices and mechanisms that are part of a historic trajectory that seeks to discipline and control the conduct of Mad individuals (LeFrançois, Menzies, & Reaume, 2013). Mad Studies as a field has refuted the notion that Mad individuals are violent and instead posits and provides support to the contrary, where Mad persons are far more likely to be victims of violence than perpetrators (Burstow, 2015; LeFrançois, Menzies, & Reaume, 2013).

Lyrically he evokes madness–oriented discourses. In his song “I'm Friends with the Monster” he sings:

Maybe I need a straightjacket, face facts. I'm nuts for real, but I'm okay with that… I'm friends with the monster that's under my bed. Get along with the voices inside of my head. You're trying to save me, stop holding your breath. And you think I'm crazy, yeah, you think I'm crazy… (Eminem, Rihanna, Bellion & Rexha, 2013)

This rejects a desire for cure regimes and instead posits that he is comfortable with who he is despite others’ opinions. In the song Monster he also states: “I think I'm getting so huge I need a shrink. I'm beginning to lose sleep: one sheep, two sheep. Going cuckoo and cooky as Kool Keith. But I'm actually weirder than you think.” (Eminem, Rihanna, Bellion & Rexha, 2013)

In this passage, Mathers lyrically makes reference to rapper Keith Thorton who was reportedly/disputably institutionalized to a mental hospital thereby interjecting his name into mainstream music. In my belief Mathers uses the term “shrink” a term that strips psy–expertise of authority and power and devalues the professional status and nature of psy–disciplinary knowledges to shrinkery. However problematic and imbued with stigmatizing imagery, Mathers draws on mental health language and imagery in his music lyrics and videos.

Popular Non–Mad identified artists such as Queen with “I'm going slightly mad” and David Bowie “Aladdin Insane” and Ozzy Osborne among others have also delved into topics of madness (Spelman, 2012). Madness has been a popularized music–lyrical topic explored by mainstream musicians. It matters who creates music and how such music needs to affirm and represent the experiential accounts of c/s/x persons without reducing, stigmatizing, or othering Mad lived narratives. Non–Mad identified performers may reflect accounts that do not resonate with the experiences of self–identifying Mad folk. Such accounts could reaffirm stigma. However, it is possible for Non–Mad musicians to create positive accounts of madness particularly when adopting allied stances and drawing on Mad–persons’ lived experiences.

Mad music lyrics

Daniel Mackler, Howie the Harp, Blue Panthers Party, and Evan Greer offer lyrical insights into Mad lives. Artist Daniel Mackler (2016) whose examples of Mad Music include anti–psychiatry perspectives including “Bullshit–antipsychiatry and anti–medication song” and “The psych–med song” off the album “Songs from the locked ward”. His music provides insights into his experiences with the psychiatric system and the violence and harm caused therein. In his “Bullshit – antipsychiatry and anti–medication song” (sung to the tune of “Bring back my Bonnie to me”) Daniel Mackler (2016) sings:

They tell me my problems genetic, I'm born with a flaw in my brain, they tell me I need medication, and force me to bury my pain.

[Bullshit Chorus]

Bullshit, Bullshit, I've learned to smell bullshit from miles and miles [Repeat] I've learned to smell bullshit from miles.

Their pills make me shaky and sweaty. I fear they're breaking my will.

They told me that this is quite normal, and added another new pill. [Bullshit Chorus].

They put me inside a straight jacket. They locked me inside of a cage.

They inject me with Haldol to calm me, yet wonder why I'm full of rage.

[Bullshit Chorus].

They give me a shrink I can talk to, but she is just spiritually dead, she only repeats the same question, “are you still taking your meds”?

[Bullshit Chorus].

They force fed me E–fuller Torrey [American psychiatrist Edwin Fuller Torrey], but he is sadistic and gross. I asked them about Peter Breggin [American psychiatrist critical of psychiatry and medication] they replied by increasing my dose.

[Bullshit Chorus]

Their studies are so scientific, and based on assiduous work, but they don't share their affiliations, with Lilly and Janssen, and Merck. [Bullshit].

They absolve all of my traumatizers, the horrors that they did to me, they tell me to put it behind me, and say that I need ECT [Electroconvulsive Therapy – ‘electric shock therapy’]

[Bullshit Chorus].

I said I think I can recover, and taper off all these meds, they tell me that's just my delusion, an illness that lives in my head [Bullshit].

Mad–positive survivor anthems such as these speak to theory and practice in Mad Studies relating to Mad activism and the desire for transformative Mad politics to make our lives better. Mackler rejects his subjectivity as someone flawed with genetic brain defects. Through Mackler's anti–psychiatry lyrics there are critiques launched against forcible confinement, criticisms of harsh violent treatments of electric shock therapy (ECT) (See Breggin, 1994) and the devaluation of psy–expertise and research coopted with Big Pharma interests. A substantial body of critical mental–health–related literature discusses how psy–based biomedical understandings of mental illness are often unreliable and of untrustworthy scientific validity (Rimke, 2016). Survivors’ insights can inform mental health research and regimes of care in meaningful ways (Sweeney, 2016). Trauma inflicted is the fault of traumatizers and the consequent suffering is rejected as illness or delusion but as consequence from violence experienced. And, recovery is possible.

Mackler's lyrics speak of the side–effects experiences from pills, confinement and control, anger in the face of oppression. He attests to how his desire for freedom from psychiatric violence itself becomes pathologized. The psychiatric system insights he garnished from personal experience lead him to critique the ways medical practitioners and the politics of research production are influenced by Big Pharma–funding and affiliations (See also, Whitaker, 2010).

Mad music holds important value in documenting the lived–realities of Mad persons and Mad survivors. Survivors use art to tell their own Mad histories. The Survivors History Group (2010) attests:

[w]e seek to record, preserve, collate, and make widely available the diversity and creativity of [survivors] through personal accounts, writings, poetry, art, music, drama, photography, campaigning, speaking, influencing and all other expressions. Our basic founding principle is that [survivors] own their history (Survivors History Group, 2010).

Archival records of Mad survivor art share stories that may otherwise remain untold. In this way, music as a form of artistic expression tells rich Mad survivor's narratives.

Music also is a way for Mad–persons to engage in positive expressions of Mad identities and Mad pride. The late Howie the Harp (2018) sang lyrics to express Mad pride in the Mad pride movement. In Crazy and Proud, Howie proclaims:

Well, they're always calling me crazy

And they're always putting me down

They always say they'll be my friend

But they never come around.

‘Cause I'm not like normal people

I won't fit in their mold.

And for that crime

they either lock me up

or put me out in the cold.

‘Cause I'm Crazeeeee, and I'm Proud!

Well l won't be a 9 to 5 robot

Well–oiled and made of chrome

I'll never have your ulcers

or your split–level home.

You tried so hard to change me

You bullied and you sneered

But I'll always remain just like I am

Loony, Crazy and Weird!

‘Cause I'm Crazy … And I'm Proud

Well, you say I'll always be locked up

Unless I stop being me

But I'm not like that so stay off my back

I just wanna be free

‘Cause I'm telling all you people

Don't give me those funny looks

You think you're great but you're the

Kind I hate

American Psychiatry Crooks

‘Cause I'm Crazy … And I'm Proud

Beyond critiquing psychiatry, Howie affirms Mad identity and being loony, crazy and weird. Howie troubles the stresses of everyday work/life, troubles normalcy, and proudly identifies as crazy. He desires Mad subjectivity and freedom. As a Mad musician, Howie uses music to resist the tyranny of sane–life. Resoundingly, Mad advocacy and use of musical lyrics demonstrate madness as a source of pride, and point to social factors in society as problematic places of stress and turmoil. Mad advocate musicians can teach able–bodied/sane persons ways to critique the current state of affairs, how so many normates (Thomson, 2017) live – the mold.

Among forms of art and expression, music is a means to document survivors’ narratives, and unpack existing power–knowledge relations. Music holds rich value as a historic record of survivors’ voices and knowledges. Psy–discourses of progress, innovation, rehabilitation and cure no longer seem progressive when psy–histories are critically examined though a Mad–history lens. Yet, such lyrics may be seen as alienating for consumers who may find psy–interventions therapeutic and manage their well being through medications or other psy–informed practices.

Music holds educational value in shifting conversations around mental–health systems. Artists take political stances against diagnostic labeling practices and harms done by the collusions between medical authority, academia, neoliberalism and the psy–enterprise.

Mad music may be used to resist psy–expertise. Psy–expertise represents the unquestioned authoritative status of psy–based practitioners to make judgments, observations, and pronouncements on all matters relating to mental–illness (Rose, 1998). Mad music may challenge such authority by lyrically denouncing psy–sciences informed discourses, pathologizing gaze, and regimes of truths (Foucault, 1999, 2003, 2007). As an example of music lyrics content as pedagogical discursive refutation of psy–authority, Blue Panthers Party directly implicates the violent death dealing psy–Big–Pharma–enterprise loudly singing in “Murda Murda”:

Its funny how they don't give out degrees in fantasy.

Oh wait I forgot about psychiatry

Silly me how could I forget they don't cure things

But they're good at naming things they call a disease

We all get sad but they're ‘callin’ that depression

We all get mad but they say that's aggressive

The DSM five knows a lot about problems

But they haven't published one book to get close to solve em

Correct me if I'm wrong, tell me if they made a difference

By altering the lives of family, wives, and their children

Let's get to work I'm fired up like a pistol

And if you feel the same way – it's time to get em

They think we suckas and can tell us whatever works

For their pockets but they never tell you bout the perks

Ask the doctor if he shares his kickbacks with the nurse

Its okay they still get paid while you up in a hurse

Lets gettem no longer can we hide

Lets show them that we have more than a pride

Murda Murda here comes the docta

We can't sit around we gotta get up and stop em

They've killed millions so we gonna give em problems

They tellin people they sick but nobody cured once

It's murda murda murda

To the first degree lets not let it go any further

Songs such as these draw on lyrics and imagery to trouble psy–discourses and a corrupt system that may harm persons while deriving massive profits. A system rife with kickbacks and perks is problematic and does not seek to be curative but to capture and expand mental–health clients and customers (See also Burstow, LeFrançois, & Diamond, 2014). This is particularly insidious when children and vulnerable populations are targeted. As a pedagogical intervention, Mad musicians point to collusions between psy–sciences and Big–Pharma as undermining the integrity of psy–diagnostic practices and curative interventions.

In this vein of thought Greer (2017) demonstrates intersections of pathologization of childhood, class issues, gender inequality, militarism, and his lived experiences as a former pill–taker who recovered and rejects pharmacological interventions:

mrs greer your son acts up in class, he asks the questions that you're not supposed to ask, mr. greer, it's pretty plain to see, your son has got adhd and the doctors say he needs, 30 milligrams of amphetamines, (go!) when i turned eight years old, they put me on the pills, one to focus me at school, help me follow all the rules, and one to keep my tears away, cuz little boys should never cry, one to help me through my day, one to help, me sleep at night, and i had so few memories, of what it was like before that i took those damn pills everyday, since 1994, now i recognize the, system, i see what they're really for, i'm not giving you my money, i won't take them anymore, i was in the dead center of the country, when i popped my final pill, I sold the rest of the bottle, to some kids from Chicago, then turned toward something new, and for the first time in my life, i felt at peace with who i was, i couldn't wait to share the new world out there, with all the people that i loved, and i had so few memories of what it was like before, the first week i went without them felt like i had been reborn, now i recognize the system i see what they're really for, i'm not giving you my money i won't take them anymore, that's when i got to thinking, about this society, and how there's something wrong, when a kid, so young's put on amphetamines, at first i blamed my parents, then the, doctors then the schools, but if you wanna fight back, look higher than that at the filthy frat cat with the big contract, at those puppy killing labs the results come back, taking science fiction and calling it fact, and if it screws you up they don't give a crap, cuz they can still drive home in their cadillacs, making money off a game where the decks are stacked, and if that's not enough it's bigger than that, that's just one of this system's many attacks on you, so what are we gonna do? and do i have so few memories of what it was like before, that i can write this song with smoke in my lungs, and a bottle on the floor? now i recognize those systems, i see what they're really for, i'm not giving you my money, i won't buy it anymore!

Greer unpacks woven systems of education and health. He examines childhood experience, familial relations, and psy–interventions in encountered as a child with limited agency. Lyrics demonstrate introspection in regards to being diagnosed and labeled with ADHD and subsequent psy–science interventions for not following rules. As a boy he was pathologized and relates this to gendered norms that boys are not supposed to cry. He acknowledges that his memory was negatively impacted due to prescribed pills he took. No longer taking pills for Greer felt akin to being reborn. Mad politics and disability politics converge in understanding the implications of psychiatric diagnostic labeling practices (Beresford, 2000). Greer lyrically notes his distrust in profit motivated mental health systems for being uncaring and damaging lives.

Mad–positive music as pedagogy

Mad music represents a pedagogical site. A pedagogy of madness seeks to unpack sanist oppression, and appreciate the gap in Mad–knowledge non–mad folks may miss. Mad musicians teach others about their lives and in so doing promote learning about mental health systems and Mad–positive subjectivities. Although there is no consensus or formal definition of what constitutes being Mad–positive, I would point to some anchor points to enacting and operationalizing Mad–positivity. Mad–positive stances counter pathologizing discourses surrounding mental illness and seek to transform understandings of madness. A mad–positive ethic seeks empathy, care, community, and compassion. This entails recognizing Mad histories and celebrating Mad pride.

A deficit model of Mad identities is refuted, and self–identifying Mad people often reclaim pejorative terms such as crazy and Mad. Sanism is recognized along with oppression encountered by Mad–persons. Mad–positive is also an identificatory label. Identifying as Mad–positive could indicate a person who may be Mad/non–Mad however aligns themselves with the Mad peoples’ movement and Mad political imperatives. Mad–positive, thus could mean one who aspires to be a Mad–ally. Hence, such a commitment expresses a desire to engage with Mad politics, and to learn from self–identifying Mad–persons’ knowledge(s). It acknowledges the right of individuals to be Mad.

In relation to psy–sciences and mental health systems, C/S/X may have differing perspectives toward the psy–sciences and psychiatric systems. Some Mad persons, particularly consumers, may currently view psy–based interventions as beneficial and thus may not share anti–psychiatric viewpoints.

Mad pedagogy offers insights to examine sanism in Adult Education and celebrate Mad identities. Furthermore:

Mad pedagogies may resist the influence of Big Pharma, unchecked diagnostic inflation, and the pathologization of normal, through the manufacturing of dis/ability and new disorders. Such a pedagogy can critique existing psy–dominance of ways of knowing and being in the world (Castrodale, 2017, p. 58)

Mad music represents a form of expression permitting nuanced critiques of dominant mental health discourses permeating much of our contemporary daily lives. It may create communities of Mad pride, care, empathy, support and shared experiences. Alternative non–pathologizng paths to recovery from distress might be realized. Mad musicians may reclaim normal (See Frances, 2014) and reject being pathologized or labeled as mentally ill. Mad music may teach non–Mad persons about sanism and oppression encountered by Mad persons. In this way, Mad persons’ voices, and histories may gain prominence in adult education curriculum. Moreover, in educational settings de–pathologizing/non–clinical peer–inspired approaches to support may be offered for students experiencing distress.

Music serves a pedagogical function, disseminating counter–knowledges and discourses warning others about the potential risks of flirting with psychiatry. Such Mad survivor narratives may refute psy–authority and offer pedagogical value (Burstow; 2003; Castrodale, 2017) teaching others about psychiatric systemic violence through the sharing of lived experiences. Song singing is connected with recognition and remembrance, preserving those histories of Mad persons who did not survive psychiatric violence and connecting Mad pride community members (Reaume, 1998). Critical pedagogy is concerned with revealing and understanding the workings of unequal power–relations, contesting psy–authority (Rose, 1998) and hopes to generate emancipation from oppression (See Freire, 2009). Such a pedagogy values voice and agency of knowledges that are often subjugated (Castrodale, 2017) drawing directly on Mad perspectives to transgress psychiatric systemic oppression.

Mad–positive musicians are not anti–science, anti–intellectualism, or anti–evidence. Rather, they often seek greater transparency and advocate for inclusion of Mad knowledge(s) to inform mental health systems. They are actively challenging the unquestioned power–authority vested in psychiatry (See Foucault, 2003). Unchallenged psy–expertise disempowers c/s/x populations, leaves societal inequalities and psycniatric violence unquestioned, and perpetuates harms through collusions with Big–Pharma (Rimke, 2016) including confinement, forced treatments, and other damaging bio–medical interventions.

Through their lyrics Mad musicians may challenge the reported efficacy of psy–interventions, lack of reliability, under–reporting of Pharma side–effects, psy–authority, and rampant collusion of psy–sciences with systems of regulation, control. This represents a refusal to be docile (Foucault, 2003) and comply unquestionably with psy–expert orders. Mounting lawsuits against the Pharma drug cartels have exposed unethical research practices (See Burstow, 2015). Music represents an artful form of resistance, a way of speaking truth to power (Foucault, 1995, 2007) and revealing injustices. People are churned through the academia–psy–pharma research pipeline. These musicians often regard psychiatry with deep and well–founded skepticism (Rimke, 2016). Where psy–sciences are to be distrusted given its history and contemporary apparent corrupt collusions running through research networks, psy–workers, and bio–medical enterprising health systems (Rimke, 2016). The psy–web infiltrates educational systems, health, military, and human resources among other domains touching human life.

Conclusion: Fin

Music represents a political pedagogical site of learning for self–identifying mad and non–mad persons alike. Music holds rich pedagogical potential to educate and caution members of society of the potential risks/benefits associated with particular psy–informed interventions. Mad–positive music dynamically embraces a wide range of emotions, ways of being, relating to oneself and others while de–pathologizing madness. Mad music may reveal contemporary orientations to madness and dominant mental–health related discourses. Music may also be a site of resistance where pathologizing individualizing ways of being made “mental”, constituted as a subject in relation to mental health discourses, in this world may be challenged and troubled.

Mad experiences may teach us about our humanity and our world. For Mad listeners there may be commonalities, shared narrative experiences, and activist stances voiced for collective change. For Mad artists Mad music is a place of expression and self–constitutive work, a place of learning and identity carving. Non–mad persons may someday also consider themselves to be Mad and thereby encounter psychiatric systems more intimately. Both Mad and non–Mad persons may learn about psy–authority, psychiatric discourses, psy–systems and regimes of treatment as well as Mad–positive identities through Mad–positive music. Non–mad persons may also engage in crafting Mad–positive music through ethical collaborations with Mad–persons.

Music may also entail exploration, imagination, and improvisation opening safe democratic spaces of resistance (Clarke, 2016). For Clarke (2016) music expands notions of identity appreciating a multitude of voices and diverse identity constitutions. Music represents a site implicated in Self–crafting and is thereby useful for Mad persons in challenging normalcy.

Mad music seeks to disrupt normal sane complacency. Mad music is not necessarily angry, although at times anger may be evoked in the face of unrelenting oppression. In contrast to music that seeks to inspire individual resilience, ability to cope with an oppressive world, Mad music is revolutionary, inspires counter–dialogue and seeks to critique existing forms of sanist violence and marginalization.

Mad music, including anti–psychiatry inspired songs and lyrics are often integral piece of the Mad pride movement. As part of Mad organizing and events music and poetry are often components of anti–oppressive activism, education, and mental health advocacy for transformative social justice (See Icarus, 2017). For some members, music expression is part of the artistic tapestry involved in being Mad. It is a way to express one's identity, to heal from trauma, to speak against psy–based oppression, and to connect with others.

Anti–psychiatry inspired music thus represents a means to question the authority psychiatry bestows upon itself, to question the legitimacy of claims to scientific neutrality that often underpin psy–science, and realize the real harms inflicted by psy–endorsed interventions. Lived environments and social relationships with others impact our mental health and interventions need to fix our social world rather than encouraging resiliency, normalcy, and complacency. Music thus represents a mode of expression and means to speak with agency about trauma, alienation, psy–violence, forced confinement, and harsh treatments Mackler experienced in the name of cure. Survivors’ accounts and expression through music may shape better regimes of care and understanding, advocacy, and peer support that takes positions against sanism and the oppression of Mad persons toward an inclusive transformative Mad–positive politics.

Mad–positive music rearticulates a different therapeutic value recasting music as anti–oppressive, a means to constitute oneself through affirming positive identities and countering sanism. Mad music is a radical and transgressive reimagining of the relationship between music and mental well–being. Mad–positive music offers de–pathologizing arts–based survivor initiated approaches to overall health promotion. There is much that can be learned about mental health experiences and systems through survivor lyrics and narrative accounts musically expressed. More work is needed to draw on consumer offerings of mad positive lyrics who identify as Mad, relay bouts with madness and may not identify as psychiatrically oppressed. This would provide a deeper and more nuanced sample of Mad musicians’ perspectives.

There are now growing international hubs of self–identifying Mad and Mad–positive musicians. As an example Toronto Mad Pride (2018) website features a Mad music performer directory. Similarly, Mindfreedom (2017) has linked Mad politics and activism to Mad music artists. Music and song–writing is used to celebrate “free minds, and challeng[e] psychiatric human rights violations.” (Mindfreedom, 2017).

Vara Adams, a psychiatric survivor musician describes her motivations for engaging in the process of song–writing for her album as follows:

I decided that it was time to tell the world how I feel about the system that labelled, drugged and shocked me. I know the songs are raw, but they very clearly express the way I view psychiatric treatment as a whole. It makes me angry that people labeled as mentally ill immediately become nameless and are subjected to coercion and abuse. I have survived that label, and I won't be nameless anymore. (Mindfreedom, 2017)

As Vara attests, music represents a means to contest coercion, violence and a psychiatric system that shocks and harms often in the name of cure. The impetus of writing is to educate others, to inform others about labeling practices and psychiatric systemic violence.

Mad–positive music articulates a polyphony of Mad persons’ voices and perspectives that may be working harmoniously and in dissonant ways. Survivors unpack ways medical systems and society may oppress, alienate and do real harm to certain individuals. Such individuals are often understood and named as non–conforming, irrational, unintelligible, dangerous and difficult to control subjects. Subsequently such subjects are pathologized, labeled in ways to subjugate and nullify, normalize these odd subjects (Foucault, 1999; Frances, 2014).

Mad positive music may take many forms, and be expressed through diverse musical genres and by a range of different artists. Mad music represents a site of contestation and activism, to counter the psy–dominance of everything that is mental in this world. As a mode of expression, music delivers complex messages, conveys emotions, and is a language in and of itself. Lyrically music may convey meanings about mental discourses, making sense of the world, and fitting in with or contesting and complicating broader systems of thoughts and actions. As a pedagogical tool, music can be a mode to unpack the complex ways mad subjects are constituted through lyrics.

Music is also a means and mechanism for Mad subjects to construct their identities and dynamic subjectivities. There is a need for researchers to examine mental health related discourses inscribed in mainstream music, and also how Mad persons may use music as a tool to express their own knowledge(s) through music. Arts informed methods may enrich our understandings of mental health, and mental health systems (Johnson, 2010). Self–identifying Mad persons onto–epistemologically unpack the links between music and medicine. Mad positive music embraces that complex, nuanced, dynamic, dissonant potential in music to shape new and radical subjectivities.

Why not be profoundly Mad in the face of violence, inequality and oppression? The question should not be about restoring positive mental health at the level of individuals but instead, in a world so violent, with strife, war, inequality, discrimination, suffering and hardships why are not more people positively–Mad? Why are there so many seemingly fine able–bodied sane normates and neuro–typicals? Mad–positive music may provide insights into the mental health system, the distress encountered by people in their daily lives, and ways Mad people are understood and treated in society while providing new avenues for thought and action. Mad–persons may also adopt different stances towards psychiatry, psy–discourses, psy–interventions, and psych–professionals. However, a common thread is the unpacking of power–knowledge relations, a desire to affirm positive identities, to create means for care and empathy and reject individual pathologizing models often in favour of social determinants of mental health and well–being. Mental health is political, socio–cultural, and complex and needs to be understood as such beyond simplistic narrow biomedical discourses.

Pedagogically, adult learners both Mad and non–Mad alike may learn about Mad identities, Mad pride, psychiatric systems, sanism, and psy–oppression. Mad music shares narrative insights that educate listeners about their lives and Mad knowledge(s). It is far from a simple binary Mad/non–Mad but non–Mad persons may become Mad, and Mad persons may at times no longer identity as Mad individuals. Nevertheless, Mad music offers something different, a new way of unpacking mental–health discourses and rethinking psy–authority and pathologizing labeling practices. Mad musical lyrics teaches new ways of understanding how mental illness is treated in society. Mad music also provides insights to ponder who is deemed to be mentally ill, when, where, how and why and what this means in how they become subsequently treated. Music represents a site for Mad musicians to create songs with agency, to resist being pathologized, and to share their complex nuanced mental–health lived narratives.

Mad positive music could be used in medical student training to education students on Mad persons experiences with psychiatric systems and teach about Mad Pride. This would promote depathologizing approaches to Madness, discourses of recovery, problematizing the influence of Big Pharma, and rethinking sanism in mental health. Such lyrics could also be shared and circulated with Mad activists, scholars, c/s/x populations encouraging community building. Adult educators can learn new ways of understanding and speaking about mental health.

In this paper, I have drawn on self–identifying survivors’ music, highlighting songs and lyrics. Mad music may illustrate psychiatric violence, psychiatric systems, and Mad positive subjectivities. An essential extension of this work would be to directly discuss the significance, meanings, and implications of these songs with self–identifying c/s/x individual music writers, listening audiences, and Mad–positive communities. Additional research is needed on the educational implications of sanism, and how Mad persons may transform educational pedagogical possibilities (Castrodale, 2017; Procknow, 2017). Research that connects with Mad musicians and asks them to share their insights about their lyrics is greatly needed to better understand how they understand their music in relation to c/s/x knowledges(s). Mad Studies and Mad–positive music inserts Mad positive knowledge(s) in curriculum, unpacks sanism, and de–pathologizes the subjects of education.

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