Mad Studies is an academic discipline that exists under the broader umbrella of Disability Studies. Like Disability Studies, Mad Studies rejects the medical model and the idea that disability, difference, and distress are defects located within an individual’s body or mind. Mad Studies scholars consider and explore how and why social norms, attitudes, environments, and institutions give preference, privilege and value to conforming minds while believing that others who are misfit, deviant, or disordered are of less worth (Siebers, 2008; Garland Thomson, 2002).

Emerging from the civil rights, feminist, disability justice, Mad Pride, and psychiatric survivor movements, Mad Studies challenges the idea that madness is a medical problem that needs to be fixed or cured (Pilling, 2025). Mad experiences are shaped by the intersections of relationships, trauma, oppression, poverty, racism, ableism, gender norms, sexuality, colonialism, and caregiving demands, not imbalanced brain chemistry.

Because Mad Studies centers the voices and lived experiences of people who have been historically dismissed, controlled, and silenced by the psy‑complex (psychiatry, psychology, and mental health institutions), it values activism, grassroots initiatives, and collective knowledge‑making over professional authorities. 

The lived experiences of Mad people expose how harm is systemically produced and should be shared, analyzed, and understood as valid political knowledge that can be used to reform and develop more inclusive policies and practices (Shimrat, 2022). Mad Studies is a political project that helps people reclaim their power to define, interpret, and respond to madness from the systems that have produced it (Russo, 2021).