The struggle for the social: rejecting the false separation of 'social' worlds in mental health spaces

How are we to best grapple with the notion of the Social in mental health landscapes? This piece of speculative work explores a series of tensions that emerge in our attempt to contemplate, engage with, and address the social in mental health spaces. First, I will explore the tensions created by disciplinary demands for specialisation, questioning the value of this with regard to treating social and emotional bodies which continually reject such fragmentation. This line of inquiry then leads to reflection on the value of a social topology—enabled through the application of intersectionality principles, Black Sociological analytical frameworks, including the worldview approach, and societal psychological perspectives on knowledge and action. I argue the possibilities in actioning these approaches emerge through the application of a social-political economy of mental health, that holds the complexity presented by the totality of social life as it potentially relates to mental health. The piece seeks to advance a space of thinking on how we transition global mental health projects to be more effectively situated in a needed commitment for social justice as a remedy and repair to broken social worlds.