Politicians of all stripes now talk about 'mental health'. They tell us how they have suffered, and promise more resources to put things right. At the same time, welfare services are being cut, people are told to sort problems out for themselves, and the state is beefed up to deal with dissent. With increasing misery comes increasing anger, some of it directed at capitalism and some of it turned around against ourselves, even into ourselves, so this sick system also makes us sick. Energy that could other throw this rotten system is turned around to sabotage our collective struggles for a world beyond capitalism. Mainstream 'mental health' and well-being' programmes are too-often focused on making us change our thoughts, urging us to be happy, and fit it. But there is an alternative. The alternative comes through political action, through anti-capitalist resistance and many other political struggles, and this is where radical psychoanalysis can be our ally. But to make it our ally we need to know what it is and what it could be. Another world is possible, and psychoanalysis opens up possibilities for personal and political change.
