Callout for submissions: depression and the class struggle

When I was new to political economy I was interested in the idea that depression can function as a kind of involuntary refusal- especially of work, but also of ideology, of consumption, of capitalist society generally. I sort of grew out of that thinking though.

Great initiative.

In my experience a lot of it comes out of learned helplessness. We have this tendency to think of people who are passive and apathetic (and often, just quietly, depressed) as not interested in reclaming control over the course of their own destiny vis a vis abolishing the wage system, but I think in reality a lot of that has to do with believing that we can't - much of which is reinforced by shitty social dynamics within activist and anarchist milieus as well.

Hello, I am 26 years old and I study Fine Arts in Barcelona, Catalunya. I am very interested in the topic of your article and your project in general. The matters of depression, anxiety, agony and alienation and their connection to the social, political and economic situations have always troubled my mind as I came very close to those issues while I was living in Greece during the first years of the greek economic crisis (I was studying History and History of the Arts in Thessaloniki from 2007 to 2012). While the crisis was getting bigger and deeper you could actually see the impact it had on the people. The change of the social environment, the change of everyday life, the never-ending shock propaganda from the media, the oppression tactics of the political system etc also transformed the people. This is very clear when you see the charts which show a decrease in life expectancy and an increase in suicide rates.
Anyway, I would like to help if it is possible with the leaflet layout. Designing posters and stickers has always been a favorite for me and I have already done some work on similar topics. Good luck with your project and please let me know if I could do something.

This sounds like it could be interesting, and I might submit something, or like it could be really quite frustrating. Tying either bi-polar or clinical depression to political persuasion is pretty wrong I think, and I think even linking exploitative society with it isn't that sensible an approach to depression. Glad that people who work with mental health are contributing, nothing would be worse than anarchists who don't know much about mental health in a medical way spouting ill-informed opinions about it! On that note, I hope there is a clear distinction made between medical depression, and just feeling down and hating society, etc. Not that the latter is unimportant but the two are very different things.

I think a lot of the perception that 'activists' or libertarian communists are more likely to suffer from depression just comes from the fact that most people keep it hidden and it still isn't talked about; 1/4 people suffer with it at some point, so it's hardly surprising lots of anarchists do!

Basically, is this project trying to, modestly and sensibly, address mental health problems and how our organisations deal with them and accommodate for mental illness? Or is it more ambitiously trying to say novel things about how depression (including bi-polar? anxiety? and other mental illnesses? or just clinical?) is linked with class struggle and capitalism?

I have some more thoughts that I'l write out later, or maybe just turn into a longer thing and submit.

Hey Chilli, great, that sounds good - and I'd imagine most sufferers of depression are relatively clued up about mental health so the personal approach is definitely good. I will try submit something but can't promise anything, pretty busy at the moment!

Hi, I have experience helping people with depression as a music therapist would be delighted to contribute to your project. I will email

Hello, I'm not sure whether you've heard of them already but the Icarus Project is an amazing project doing lots of stuff around mental health and activism. This is their main website: http://theicarusproject.net/

And this is a list of their publications and resources: http://theicarusproject.net/resources
I have read some of them and it's really good stuff. They started in the US but as far as I know there are groups here in Europe/ UK too.

Also recently found this: http://mindfuloccupation.org/

Thanks to everyone who is working on this and making submissions. I am really looking forward to seeing the finished product.

Who is 'we' in the context of putting together this?

*flaps in to annoyingly reiterate, again, the importance of remembering that people, in pursuit of relief from their suffering, may have very different interests than an industry that needs to push people back into narrow status-quo behaviors and routinely uses violence to this end*

Was this published?

Glad to hear it's still on the radar. Forgot about this and thought I might have missed it

Can I also add that it hasn't fallen into a black hole and that it's still ongoing but also to say thanks to everyone who contributed their experiences and information, I think it's really important and it's much appreciated and it hasn't been forgotten about.