Mental Health and Addiction

A key difference between this chapter and the previous one is that mental health was, at least until recently, rather ignored by society more generally (if not social geography as well). Despite recent advances that came with the pandemic, think about the lack of recognition in terms of diagnosis: if cancer was as undiagnosed and untreated as mental ill-health, it would be a scandal whatever the geographical context. When treatment is offered, it is more place-specific than for something like cancer, with some places primarily using community-based care, and others still wedded to a highly institutional, if not custodial, model. What passes for mental ill-health also varies considerably; in some nations, being part of the LGBTQ+ community can be construed as a mental illness, anti-social at the very least. But, as in the case of physical disability, mental ill-health is always a space of encounter, a relationship between the individual in question and the wider publics, in how society frames and manages it, and how the individual responds. This chapter oscillates between (1) mental good health and mental ill health, and for the latter, (2) between severe and stigmatising mental ill health and more mundane issues of anxiety and societal malaise, with each setting coming with their own encounters and relationalities. We end with a discussion of addiction, which overlaps with many of the issues raised previously.