Depsychiatrization

Contributors

On this page you’ll find each of the contributors who have donated their valuable time and skills to our project. Each of these amazing people have agreed to contribute a chapter. Follow @depsychiatrization on Instagram for contributor portraits.

These are the voices of change

Meet the team of contributors who have pledged their time and insights to the Depsychiatrization anthology

Jonas has been a strong voice in the psychiatry-critical movement in Denmark for the past half decade. Contributing articles, podcasting, books, public talks as well as grassroot activism, Jonas has made a lasting impact on the way in which mental distress is discussed in Denmark. The concept of depsychiatrization originates in Jonas' own practice as therapist, where he discovered the immense potential for living better lives that could be realized by dispelling both psychiatric treatment regimes as well as psychiatrically induced self-concepts. Currently Jonas is involved in several projects that center around systemic paradigm shifts towards rehumanization of systems and culture.

Jonas Vennike Ditlevsen

Activist, psyhologist, author

Lead editor of Depsychiatrization

Marlice is an activist, writer, and student at the University of Copenhagen, with years of experience in crisis care. Having herself grown up in foster care and group homes, her experience with this human-shattering system has made her uncompromising in exposing how psychology operates as a site of violent power. Her work is grounded in critical theory, decolonial thought, psychoanalysis, and psychopolitical and psychosocial studies. She is particularly concerned with how knowledge systems especially within psychiatry and psychology uphold colonial and pathologizing logics, and how resisting them requires both intellectual and embodied work. Marlice's writings bring the lived, the structural, and the psychic into dialogue, refusing easy distinctions between them.

Marlice Larsen

Psychology student, lived-experience expert, activist

Editor of Depsychiatrization

Bruce is a clinical psychologist in Cincinnati, Ohio. His most recent books include A Profession without Reason: The Crisis of Contemporary Psychiatry―Untangled and Solved by Spinoza, Freethinking, and Radical Enlightenment (2022) and Resisting Illegitimate Authority: A Thinking Person’s Guide to Being an Anti-Authoritarian (2018).

Bruce Levine

Ph.d., clinical psychologist

Author of several psychiatry-critical books

Trond F. Aarre is a Norwegian medical doctor specialized in psychiatry and addiction medicine. He is head of department at Nordfjord Psychiatric Centre and medical director at Department of Mental Health, Helse Førde Health System. His main interest has been developing decentralized services in cooperation with patients and local municipalities. He has voiced increasing opposition to the medical model of mental health problems and their treatment in his writings and oral presentations.

Trond F. Aare

M.D., psychiatrist

Voicing critical thinking from within

    Noël Hunter

    Clinical psychologist, speaker, author

    Bridging professional expertise and lived experience in therapy, books, and activism

    Sera Davidow

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    Ian Parker

    Psychoanalyst, author, marxist

    Challenging capitalistic and discoursive oppression

    Razzan Quran

    PsyD, researcher, professor

    Anti-oppressive and feministic psychodynamic approach to mental health

    Farhan Shah

    Ph.d., philosopher, writer

    Uniting philosophy, existentialism in mental health and related fields

    Kristoffer Olesen

    Daycare Institution Leader, cand.pæd.psych.

    Exploring hindrances and possibilities in the institutional approach to children

    Amanda Griffiths

    Lived experience expert, trauma survivor, debater

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      Philippa Lund Frederiksen

      Psychologist, activist, writer

      Exploring human rights intersections with psychiatric oppression and stigmatization

      Pernille Frandsen

      Lived experience expert, author

      Inspiring change and opening up dialogues through active participation in mental health talks and activities

        “Emma”

        Psychiatry survivor

        Anonymous case study in psychiatric harm. The real identity is known to the editors.

          Susan Swim

          Ph.d., executive director at Now I See A Person

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            Ashley Lopez

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              Mads Bruun Pedersen

              Debator, psychology student

              Dedicated to bringing reason back into scientific discussions on mental distress and human development

                Agnes Marie Frey

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                  Hanna Skov Hansen

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                    Clementine Morrigan

                    Writer, activist, change maker

                    ‘A brazen truth teller’, Morrigan’s voice inspires both compassion and resistance.

                    Mie Leer

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                    Kelsey Zazanis

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                    Maria Winther Osmundsen

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                    Kevin Mikkelsen

                    Psychotherapist and founder of CEPDA

                    Bringing the biopolitics of health and the potential in psychedelics together

                    Allan Holmgren

                    Psychologist, narrative therapy expert

                    The alternative to psychiatry is already here – We just have to use and embrace it!

                      Sarah Liv Vangsgaard Vinge

                      Debator, lived-experience expert, podcast-host

                      Examining and educating on the long-term impacts of sexual abuse in childhood

                        Anders Stjernholm

                        Comedian & journalist

                        Writing on the depsychiatrization of the divergence that psychiatry labels ‘ADHD’

                          Jaakko Seikkula

                          Psychologist, co-founder of Open Dialogue

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                            Divya Babbar

                            Licensed clinical psychologist

                            Creating spaces rooted in anti-oppressive liberatory healing practices

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                            Lucia Sarmiento

                            Psychotherapist, writer, researcher

                            A decolonial and anti-oppressive lens on mental health and therapeutic practices

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