Critical Theory of Psychiatry

The application of Critical Theory to psychiatry—examining how psychiatric knowledge, diagnosis, and treatment are shaped by power, how they can serve social control, and how they might be reformed or transformed. Critical Theory of Psychiatry asks: How are psychiatric categories constructed, and whose interests do they serve? How has psychiatry been used to confine, drug, and control marginalized populations? What role does the pharmaceutical industry play in shaping diagnosis and treatment? Drawing on anti-psychiatry, mad studies, and Foucault, it insists that psychiatry is never just medicine—it's a site of power, a tool of normalization, and a potential source of harm as well as help.

"They diagnose you with a disorder because you don't fit their norms. Critical Theory of Psychiatry asks: whose norms? Who decides what's disordered? Psychiatry has a history of pathologizing homosexuality, political dissent, and cultural difference. Critical psychiatry insists on asking: is this diagnosis helping you, or controlling you? And who benefits from the categories we use?"

Critical Theory of Psychiatry by Abzugal Nammugal Enkigal March 4, 2026