Online Talk: Rethinking Community—Beyond Diagnoses
Gemeinschaft neu denken – jenseits von Diagnosen
30 September 2026 | Online event hosted by Mad in Deutschland
The talk will be held in German.
Ingrid E. Johnson will speak about her experiences of psychiatric coercion in New York City and how they profoundly changed her understanding of support, human rights, and self-determination. Many years later, she began to understand those experiences beyond psychiatric diagnoses and to reclaim her own story.
This led her to a question: If we can understand human experiences differently and create different forms of support, what might communities look like if they were not organized around diagnoses in the first place?
This question gave rise to RECASAS, a nonprofit initiative that creates spaces for people who have experienced difficult life circumstances or violence. The community is open to everyone because difficult life experiences are part of being human. People meet through shared interests, activities, and cultural projects. At present, this primarily takes place through reading and writing groups.
In the longer term, RECASAS envisions establishing its own cultural center: a place where people can develop theatre productions, films, music, and art projects together, cook together, or participate in different cultural projects according to their interests.
The talk brings personal experience into conversation with perspectives from Mad Studies and sociology. It explores how we can create spaces in which people do not come together primarily as patients or as people defined by diagnoses, but connect through shared learning and cultural creation.
Date and registration
Wednesday, 30 September 2026, 7:00–8:00 p.m. (CEST)
Online, as part of Mad in Deutschland’s MiDEinander event series
Language: German
Participation is free. Registration will open at the beginning of September on the Mad in Deutschland website. Access information will be provided following registration.
