Hans Skott-Myhre - Can Critiques of Psychiatry Help us Imagine a Post-Capitalist Future?

Mad in America: Rethinking Mental Health

Hans Skott-Myhre is a Professor of Human Services at Kennesaw State University in Kennesaw, Georgia. Over the last 50 years, he has worked within a wide variety of human service settings, including residential homes, community health centers, inpatient psychiatric units, homeless youth shelters, transitional living programs, and prisons. About two decades ago, he transitioned into academia, where he now does research at the intersections of human services, psychology, cultural theory, and literature.

His recently published book titled “Post-Capitalist Subjectivity in Literature and Anti-Psychiatry: Reconceptualizing the Self Beyond Capitalism” explored how we might be different types of people if we didn't live in a capitalist society. The book draws on Marxist and post-Marxist theory and presents a nuanced analysis of antipsychiatrists' professional writings, including Franco Basaglia and R. D. Laing, as well as the work of fiction writers, including Franz Kafka and Gabriel García Márquez. Through this analysis, Skott-Myhre identifies alternative conceptualizations of self and community that take us beyond capitalist subjectivity.