Madness and the demand for recognition

Mohammed Abouelleil Rashed is Wellcome Trust ISSF Research Fellow at the Department of Philosophy, Birkbeck College, University of London, and Visiting Lecturer at the Department of Philosophy, King's College London. Before moving on to full-time research in 2007, Mohammed studied medicine at Cairo University Medical School and trained in psychiatry in London on the Guy's, King's College, and St. Thomas' Hospitals training scheme. He is the author of several papers and chapters in philosophy and psychiatry on the concept of mental disorder, the concept of culture, the nature of the diagnostic process, madness and disability, empathy and understanding in mental health, and psychiatric ethics.

• Part 1: Madness 1: Mental health activism and the demand for recognition 2: The problem of distress and disability Part 2: Recognition 3: The concept of recognition and the problem of freedom 4: Identity and the psychological consequences of recognition 5: Misrecognition: Political reform or reconciliation? Part 3: Routes to recognition 6: Mad culture 7: Mad identity I: Controversial and failed identities 8: Mad identity II: Unity and continuity of self 9: Madness and the limits of recognition Part 4: Approaches to Mad Activism 10: Responding to the demand for recognition of Mad identity 11: Conclusion: Pathways to reconciliation

Madness and the demand for recognition amplifies the value of Mad Movement efforts to bring about societal transformation, and may offer us some theoretical anchors, emerging from our own descriptions of our work, to bolster our activities.