Mental health is a political issue, but we often discuss it as a personal one. How is the current mental health crisis connected to capitalism, racism and other social issues? In a different world, how might we transform the ways that we think about mental health, diagnosis and treatment? These are some of the big questions Micha Frazer-Carroll asks as she reveals mental health to be an urgent political concern that needs deeper understanding beyond today's 'awareness-raising' campaigns. Exploring the history of asylums and psychiatry; the relationship between disability justice, queer liberation and mental health; art and creativity; prisons and abolition; and alternative models of care; Mad World is a radical and hopeful antidote to pathologisation, gatekeeping and the policing of imagination.

Introduction -- Asylums -- 'Knowing' mental health today -- Why work is sickening -- Disability/possibility -- Diagnosing diagnosis -- On disavowal and disorder -- Art as a Mad liberation tool -- Law and disorder -- Other possibilities -- Conclusion : a future for mental health.