Mad Studies

Mad Studies is an emerging interdisciplinary field rooted in the psychiatric survivor and mad pride movements. It challenges dominant biomedical models of mental health and instead centres the lived experiences, knowledge, and agency of those historically marginalized by psychiatry—people who identify as mad, neurodivergent, or psychiatric survivors. This movement represents a radical shift in the epistemology of mental health research by valuing experiential knowledge on par with academic and clinical expertise.

The origins of Mad Studies lie in grassroots activism from the 1970s onward, when survivors of psychiatric institutions began to speak out against coercive treatment, epistemic injustice, and systemic harm. Over time, this activism evolved into a scholarly and political framework that critiques the assumptions of mainstream mental health systems. Mad Studies questions what counts as valid knowledge, who gets to define it, and how this shapes both policy and research.

Rather than treating affected communities as passive subjects of study, Mad Studies foregrounds co-production. Projects grounded in this framework often involve service users and survivor researchers as equal partners in all stages of inquiry—from framing research questions to interpreting findings. This creates more equitable partnerships and directly addresses historical power imbalances in mental health research. Though often under-resourced and met with institutional resistance, Mad Studies offers a powerful example of how research can be reimagined to serve justice, dignity, and inclusion.

The International Mad Studies Journal is a peer-reviewed academic journal that aims to promote the theory and discipline of Mad Studies.