Why Mental Health Systems Are Failing Under Neoliberalism - James Davies

Employing the Anthropology Imagination to Understand Why Mental Health Systems Are Failing Under Neoliberalism: A UK Case Study Author: James Davies is Associate Professor in Medical Anthropology and Psychology at the University of Roehampton, London, and a practicing psychotherapist. Abstract: In this presentation, Dr. James Davies recruits the anthropological imagination to illuminate the socio-political drivers of the current crisis in poor mental health outcomes. Using the UK neoliberal context as the site of analysis, he will expose how the mechanisms of medicalisation, depoliticisation, commodification, decollectivisation & productivisation have enabled the sector to expand its reach and fiscally flourish despite presiding over worsening outcomes. By struggling to survive under longstanding neoliberal arrangements, the sector has become an adroit handmaiden of economic directives, but at the expense of generating the good clinical outcomes we all want and deserve. ENPA 2025 Conference was funded by the University of Münster, The Robert Lemelson Foundation and the European Association for Social Anthropologists (EASA). European Network for Psychological Anthropology (ENPA): http://enpanthro.net/