I’ve been involved with Bay Area Icarus for over a year now.  In that time, not only have I watched internal conflict and miscommunications tear apart our group, but I have heard many stories from around the country of other Icarus Project groups falling apart over the years due to groups not knowing how to deal with conflict and disagreement. We all want to create a safe and supportive space, but unless we find a way to hold each other accountable and resolve conflict in a respectful way, it seems that we are inevitably just going to keep getting harmed.  If we want to develop long term, sustainable support networks we need to find ways to heal harm done within our communities so that everyone involved can feel respected and heard. 

"If madness isn’t what biopsychiatry says it is, what is it? If we don’t agree with what biopsychiatry says, then we probably don’t agree with the treatment practices. For us to have some kind of intelligible answer to a first-year psychiatry intern who can tell you: it’s a brain disorder and every minute that it’s not being medicated, there’s irreparable damage being done.  The people who fund the research are the big phama companies that psychiatry represents.  A psychiatrist now can see 30-40 clients a day. Psychiatry says: this group of Icarus folks can sing Kumbaya all you want, but we own it.  I don’t believe that."

This Wax and Feathers zine was a collaborative work by a group of super talented folks who post on the Icarus Project forums.

They write in the intro:

"In expressing our feelings, insights, and ideas about madness and the world around us we hope to inform and inspire others. The stories told by the psychiatric establishment, pharmaceutical industry, and the mainstream media all to often overshadow our own. By sharing our stories with others we can reclaim the right to define ourselves and our experiences. We choose to honor our uniqueness and complexity by letting our voices be heard."

Download it! Print it out! Share it with your peeps! Mad Love!

http://www.theicarusproject.net/files/waxandfeathers.pdf

Icarus member FaithRR is looking for submissions for a zine about madness and motherhood. See her thread here.

Icarus forum member maamyyrä curated a collection of writing about "depression" from this forum thread and put the words together with images. It's a big download, but worth it!

Campus Icarus student organizing materials are now available for downloading and printing!

Campus Icarus FAQ

Campus Icarus Guide-Cover

Campus Icarus Guide

Campus Icarus Postcard-Front

Campus Icarus Postcard-Back

Questions? Email: campus(at)theicarusproject(dot)net

Last week in San Francisco, local author Ethan Watters spoke to a packed room of Icaristas and friends at the California Institute of Integral Studies about his most recent book: Crazy Like Us: The Globalization of the American Psyche. Ethan's book has been a really successful mainstream critique of the Biopsychiatric model and it was a pleasure having him step into the cultural underground of the Icarus Project for the evening to share ideas. It was a lively discussion which you can listen to here (you might have to download Quicktime 7 if it doesn't work -- sorry for the technical difficulties!)

On the evening of November 5th at Small World Coffee in Princeton, NJ, The Icarus Project’s Mad Gifts Art Show debuted. It proved an environment akin to the community from which it was borne: namely, an open, diverse, and creatively warm group of people. Many came specifically to support Icarus and see Mad Gifts – traveling from New York, Massachusetts, Philadelphia and other surrounding Northeastern areas – but the event also garnered locals who stumbled into the evening – sidetracked by the warm energy after acquiring their usual caffeine fix. The evening included spoken word, live music, and of course the perusing of the many inspired pieces adorning the café’s walls.

Check out the new zine by Evergreen State College Icarus in Olympia Washington!

Hola to our friends and comrades near and far -- Here's what's happening across the rad madlands. Please feel free to forward to allies, comrades, friends, and family.

Updates on the USSF, our current financial status, art shows in the northeast, books we're reading, forum moderation changes, and more behind the link.

Local group updates on the way.

  Wednesday, July 23, 2010 at 1PM

AFSCME Building (basement of the Walker-Roehrig Building) 600 West Lafayette at Third Detroit, Michigan 

Event Info: http://organize.ussf2010.org/film-festival (scroll down to Crooked Beauty) Google Map:

http://maps.google.com/?q=42.329055+-83.054629+%28600+West+Lafayette%2C+Detroit%2C+MI%2C+%2C+us%29

Icarus was mentioned in a small article in the New York Times, 04-12-2010...  

RUNNING THE ASYLUM
Don’t really want to get “better”? Rather be yourself? With nerve and seriousness, the Icarus Project investigates the turbulent “space between brilliance and madness.”theicarusproject.net