I have been accepted to present the paper, “The Carnival of the Mad: Foucault’s Window into the Origin of Psychology,” at the Psychology and the Other Conference in Boston, MA in October 2019. I am looking forward to the conference. Here is the short abstract. If you would like the longer version or a copy of the paper, please contact me.

Foucault’s participation in the 1954 carnival of the mad marked the beginning of his critical reflections on the origins of psychology. Using the cultural expression of this carnival as a starting place, this paper goes beyond carnival costumes to uncover the historical structures underneath the discipline of modern psychology. I will argue that these structures reveal motives behind certain psychological experiences, such as resistance to a mental disorder diagnosis and unexplained guilt from disordered behavior.