Critical Voices Network Ireland (CVNI) is a coalition of people with lived experience, survivors, supporters, practitioners, academics, and campaigning and advocacy groups, all interested in a mental health system based on choice, respect, dignity, non-coercion and principles of social justice.
The CVNI advocates for a shift away from the current narrow focus on individual pathology in mental health practices, towards approaches that acknowledge and validate the complexity of human distress.
Lydia Sapouna and Harry Gijbels have organised the Critical Voices Conference in Cork for the past fifteen years. It’s an impressive achievement.
This year’s conference provided ‘opportunities to consider mad knowledge and the challenges involved in learning with and from Madness and distress’. We, in the Madzines Team, have been thinking hard about how Madzines can help to nurture and honour Mad knowledge. We’ve been curious about what it means to learn from these informal, DIY publications – in both informal settings and in universities. I’ve been hearing about the conference for years, so it was great to give the Madzines project its first outing there – and to take along some copies of Asylum magazine too.