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Mental Health and Wellbeing in the Anthropocene

A Posthuman Inquiry

  • Book
  • © 2019

Overview

Authors:
  1. Jamie Mcphie

    1. Science, Natural Resources and Outdoor Studies, University of Cumbria, Ambleside, Cumbria, UK

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  • Truly interdisciplinary in scope, ranging across art, psychology, therapy, environmental humanities, mental health, human geography, continental philosophy, animism and social science
  • Provides unique accessibility to traditionally challenging content due to the creative nature of the inquiry
  • Offers a controversial and more ethical account of mental health and wellbeing than currently exists, which will appeal to a wide audience of scholars, researchers and students

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Table of contents (12 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xiv
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  2. Introduction

    • Jamie Mcphie
    Pages 1-20

  3. The Material (Re)Turn—to Mental Health

    • Jamie Mcphie
    Pages 21-57

  4. The Accidental Death of Mr. Happy and the Medical Gaze

    • Jamie Mcphie
    Pages 59-84

  5. The Birth of Mr. Messy: Post-Qualitative Inquiry, Rhizoanalysis and Psychogeography

    • Jamie Mcphie
    Pages 85-113

  6. The Healing Power of Nature(s)

    • Jamie Mcphie
    Pages 115-139

  7. Agential Dancing

    • Jamie Mcphie
    Pages 141-162

  8. Extended Body Hypothesis (EBH)

    • Jamie Mcphie
    Pages 163-188

  9. Interlude: Liverpool ONE—Liverpool Too: A Therapeutic Tale of Two Cities

    • Jamie Mcphie
    Pages 189-209

  10. The Aesthetics of a Teletubby Landscape: A Short History of a Romantic Gaze

    • Jamie Mcphie
    Pages 211-227

  11. The Depression of POPS

    • Jamie Mcphie
    Pages 229-273

  12. Posthuman Therapeutic Inquiry

    • Jamie Mcphie
    Pages 275-294

  13. Conclusion: There Is No Such Thing as Mental Health

    • Jamie Mcphie
    Pages 295-309

  14. Back Matter

    Pages 311-316
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Keywords

About this book

This book makes the unorthodox claim that there is no such thing as mental health. It also deglamourises nature-based psychotherapies, deconstructs therapeutic landscapes and redefines mental health and wellbeing as an ecological process distributed in the environment – rather than a psychological manifestation trapped within the mind of a human subject. Traditional and contemporary philosophies are merged with new science of the mind as each chapter progressively examples a posthuman account of mental health as physically dispersed amongst things – emoji, photos, tattoos, graffiti, cities, mountains – in this precarious time labelled the Anthropocene. Utilising experimental walks, play scripts and creative research techniques, this book disrupts traditional notions of the subjective self, resulting in an Extended Body Hypothesis – a pathway for alternative narratives of human-environment relations to flourish more ethically. This transdisciplinary inquiry will appeal to anyone interested in non-classificatory accounts of mental health, particularly concerning areas of social and environmental equity – post-nature.

Reviews

“Mental Health and Wellbeing in the Anthropocene takes the reader into radical and provocative territory. Jamie Mcphie’s proposition that mental health is distributed and ecological rather than individual and psychological opens up fields of possibility, and challenges what we think we know—about “health”, “therapy”, “nature”, and more. Methodologically innovative, and as playful as it is intense, we read this text and we can no longer think the same.” (Jonathan Wyatt, Professor of Qualitative Inquiry, The University of Edinburgh, UK)

“Tackling the conceptual and ethical implications of posthumanism for thinking about health and wellbeing, Mcphie’s absorbing new book leads the reader through continental philosophy, neuroscience, environmental studies, post-qualitative methodology and creative practice to assemble a novel ecology of mental health. The implications of this ecology for thinking about health in the Anthropocene are profound indeed, breaking with all dualisms to deliver a powerful new ethics of care for an age of perpetual crisis.” (Cameron Duff, RMIT University, Australia)

Authors and Affiliations

  • Science, Natural Resources and Outdoor Studies, University of Cumbria, Ambleside, Cumbria, UK

    Jamie Mcphie

About the author

Jamie McPhie is lecturer of cultural landscapes and aesthetics in the outdoors at the University of Cumbria, UK.

Bibliographic Information

  • Book Title: Mental Health and Wellbeing in the Anthropocene

  • Book Subtitle: A Posthuman Inquiry

  • Authors: Jamie Mcphie

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-3326-2

  • Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Singapore

  • eBook Packages: Social Sciences, Social Sciences (R0)

  • Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2019

  • Hardcover ISBN: 978-981-13-3325-5Published: 05 February 2019

  • eBook ISBN: 978-981-13-3326-2Published: 22 January 2019

  • Edition Number: 1

  • Number of Pages: XIV, 316

  • Number of Illustrations: 28 b/w illustrations

  • Topics: Human Geography, Philosophy of Mind, Community and Environmental Psychology, Psychotherapy

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