## ABOUT ##
(This panel took place as part of the 2023 Conference on Critical Psychiatry. Learn more at critpsych.com.) In October 2022, a TikTok filter named “what medication are you?” was released by a mental health content creator. By December, it had gone viral, and the filter now possesses over 144,000 videos. The most popular video with the filter has over five million views; 800,000 likes; and 2,000 comments discussing what conditions users have (or, frequently, joking about the fact that they “were” an antipsychotic). Panelist Lauren Bickle placed this in context well with a TikTok of her own. She wrote: “If you think the ‘normalize mental health’ sentiment is an organically formed, grassroots movement… girl I have some news for you… once your product obtains cultural ubiquity – and especially if people attach it to their identity – you’ll never have to pay for advertising again.” This filter captures part of the mental health landscape faced by young people today. Mental health is lucrative, fashionable, progressive, and scientific; mental health is health and mental health matters. Yet, while young people can discuss mental health more openly than our predecessors, they remain just as (if not more) mentally ill. Ultimately, Gen Z has been trained to follow and promote a medicalized narrative, but as the inability to improve societal “mental health” grows only more apparent, escaping this mainstream narrative has emerged as the only honest option. Resistance, nonetheless, is isolating and difficult to come by, even among those mistreated by current systems. How can young people discover, engage, and embrace critical perspectives, and what challenges does this entail?
## SPEAKERS ##
Lauren Bickle (she/her) is a junior undergrad at New York University’s School of Individualized Study, where she is completing a self-designed major in mad studies as well as a minor in philosophy. Her coursework centers around the history and application of psychology and psychiatry as well as related discourse. Moreover, she has led projects concerning mental health in “incel” and anti-feminist online communities since early 2022. Lauren has developed and maintains a strong following on TikTok (ironically named @laurenforlobotomy), where she shares her own (usually academic) takes on mental health and other potentially disturbing concepts under late-stage capitalism. She’s evidently struck a chord with her audience, having accrued over 1.9M likes and 20K followers. Visit her TikTok: tiktok.com/@laurenforlobotomy.
Agastya Jhaveri (he/him) is a high school senior who prefers to introduce himself as a “student-researcher” (this usually gets more attention when discussing topics that typically reserved for “doctors”). He was first introduced to critical psychiatry after being receiving ineffective treatment in a diagnostic-centric biomedical system. He conducts action-research and writes a blog on these topics called “The Manas Project” (which you can find online at manasproject.com).
Crystal Widado (they/them) is a high school student journalist and intersectional mental health activist. After struggling with suicidal ideation in middle school, they became passionate about intersectional mental health advocacy. Crystal now mainly uses writing and public speaking to advocate for more critical discussions around mental health. Outside of Each Mind, they lead a state-sponsored mental health organization (MOL), coaches her school’s debate team, and also enjoys being an editor in chief of their school newspaper. Crystal won the JED foundation’s 2022 SVMHA award and is currently a member of Mental Health America’s Youth Mental Health Leadership Council. In their free time, Crystal enjoys cafe-hopping around Los Angeles, bullet journaling, and listening to podcasts. Connect with Crystal on Twitter @CWidado (twitter.com/CWidado) and/or follow their Substack (https://crystalwidado.substack.com/).
Joseph Sexton (he/him) is director of the Conference on Critical Psychiatry and a senior undergrad at Vanderbilt University (Nashville, TN), where he is triple majoring in psychology, math, and medicine, health & society (an interdisciplinary degree… medical sociology, bioethics, et cetera). He got into critical psych as a first-year undergrad after taking a med anthro course, subscribing to r/antipsychiatry on Reddit, and realizing that ‘bad genes’ are probably not the reason why he’s been on SSRIs for so long. In 2021, Joseph was named a Goldwater Scholar, the nation’s highest honor for undergrads interested in pursuing scientific research. His main research interests lay in suicide, algorithmic bias, (the implications of) computational psychiatry, and meta-psychology (bibliometrics, replicability, methodology). Connect with Joseph on Twitter @josephfsexton (twitter.com/josephfsexton).
#mentalhealth #mentalhealthawareness #youthleadership #critpsych #breadtube
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