Written and published on the 31st of January, 2026.
When I say I am against psychiatry, when I say I support Mad liberation and psych abolition, what I mean is that the system called "psychiatry" was founded by people who were very racist, sexist, ableist and sanist doing things that were very racist, sexist, ableist and sanist.
Examples of this are the early psychiatric hospital called "Bedlam," the fact that "normal" was defined by what upper-class white men thought was how people should behave, and that early psychiatrists were often also abusive to their patients.
Because the foundations are bad, we can't just change what's on top if we want to make it safe for people. Instead we have to build a new building! By this, I mean that we need to start over again and work out what psychiatry should be. We should design it in a way that isn't based around "how we do make people be normal?". Instead, it should be based around "how do we help people have their needs met?"
When I say I am against psychiatry, I mean that no doctor should be allowed to hurt people. I mean that no nurse should get to take away people's communication. I mean that the help I get should be the help I need, not the help that my family want me to get.
When I say I am against psychiatry, I mean that nobody should be criminalised or harmed because of the way that their brain works. I mean that nobody should be too afraid to ask for help. I mean that the only way we can stop people being too afraid to ask for help is to stop hurting people when we're meant to be helping them.