This book expands upon the previous volume of De-Medicalizing Misery. It seeks to extend the critical scope of that original project into a wider social and political context, with a view to developing the critique of the psychiatrization of Western society in particular. It draws from the work of a number of international critical scholars to explore the contemporary mental health landscape and to pose possible alternative solutions to the continuing problem of emotional distress and disturbance.

By turning a critical lens to ongoing processes of recovery, resilience and the expansionist project of psychiatric classification, this book seeks to undermine these processes through the development of realizable alternatives to this psychiatrization of misery and distress.

De-Medicalizing Misery II is dedicated in part to the work and memory of Mark Rapley, who was a central figure in the development of this critical project.