{"id":33719,"date":"2022-11-19T08:00:37","date_gmt":"2022-11-19T08:00:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.redpepper.org.uk\/?p=33719"},"modified":"2025-08-17T13:23:12","modified_gmt":"2025-08-17T12:23:12","slug":"key-words-magical-voluntarism-mark-fisher-david-smail-mental-health-neoliberalism-mindfulness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.redpepper.org.uk\/key-words\/key-words-magical-voluntarism-mark-fisher-david-smail-mental-health-neoliberalism-mindfulness\/","title":{"rendered":"Key words: Magical voluntarism"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Around a decade ago, Mark Fisher<\/a> invoked the psychologist David Smail\u2019s term \u2018magical voluntarism\u2019 to describe the trajectory of mental health discourse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This concept draws on the individualistic notion that we are all masters of our destiny \u2013 meaning we can and should become masters of our mental health too. As David Cameron\u2019s \u2018Big Society\u2019 took shape and social provisions were pruned, this focus on the individual became an essential component of neoliberal ideology<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Neoliberalism\u2019s predominance has since been propped up by a media that\u2019s in tow with this messaging. TV personalities, influencers, and even celebrity money-saving experts have co-opted the work of the ruling class in propagating magical voluntarism. They remind us that we live in a meritocracy – we all have the same 24 hours in a day –<\/em> where social mobility is only bound by us not trying hard enough to change our fortunes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Seen through the lens of a cost of living crisis, this means foregrounding things like budgeting advice, cooking lessons, and obligations to sacrifice leisure. A deep sense of shame can then be interpolated onto those who aren\u2019t able to utilise such brittle means to haul themselves out of the poverty that is swallowing them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Simultaneously, anti-stigma campaigns have gained traction in the language of mental health, with well-meaning but often facile mantras like \u2018it\u2019s time to talk\u2019. Naturally, this has proven to be low-hanging fruit for employers and politicians \u2013 it allows them to disavow responsibility, placing the onus back onto the individual to initiate, and ultimately control, their own recovery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The role of therapy in society has also fallen prey to this kind of aspirational language. We should consider therapy to be a useful outlet for processing emotional trauma or finding solutions to existential problems, but this too is being subsumed into our growing obsession with self-improvement rhetoric. Therapy is now seen as an individual selling point \u2013 evidence that we\u2019re working on ourselves \u2013 and reduces valuable mental health resources to commodities to be compared.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even on the left, we have seen an emphasis on ‘self-care’, which promises to address \u2013 very real \u2013 problems of burnout, exploitation, and underfunding in activist circles, but again focuses on individuals<\/a> rather than systems or structures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These approaches also conveniently adhere to neoliberal ideology \u2013 the more you put in, the more you get out \u2013 <\/em>meaning the duty of care is again pushed back onto us; we must take responsibility for how well we are. But when people are facing precarious employment, eviction notices or struggles to feed their children, the role of talking therapies and self-help skills is seriously diminished. Techniques like CBT and Mindfulness are increasingly presented as non-medical panaceas, and while I\u2019ve seen how useful they can be in managing stress and anxiety, they are often misemployed and their benefits overstated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ultimately, magical voluntarism steers us into the trap of minimising the impact of material disaffection. By ignoring social causation and the kinds of adversity that can be endemic to working-class lives, we are inadvertently contributing to mental health\u2019s depoliticisation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This article first appeared in Issue #237\u00a0The war racket<\/em>. Subscribe<\/a> today to support independent socialist media and get your copy hot off the press!<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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Further reading<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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