Welcome To Icarus

The Icarus Project envisions a new culture and language that resonates with our actual experiences of 'mental illness' rather than trying to fit our lives into a conventional framework.

We are a network of people living with and/or affected by experiences that are often diagnosed and labeled as psychiatric conditions. We believe these experiences are mad gifts needing cultivation and care, rather than diseases or disorders. By joining together as individuals and as a community, the intertwined threads of madness, creativity, and collaboration can inspire hope and transformation in an oppressive and damaged world. Participation in The Icarus Project helps us overcome alienation and tap into the true potential that lies between brilliance and madness.

Read Our Mission and Vision statements
Read the Co-Coordinators Organizational Blog
Read our publications online
Visit our community discussion forums
Make a donation
Icarus t-shirts

NYC Benefit Party for The Icarus Project

Submitted by sleepingbuffalo on Sun, 11/08/2009 - 2:01pm.

Date:

Sunday, November 22, 2009 7:00pm – 11:00pm

There is a an amazing icarus party on the horizon, with mad music, mad art, and mad love. Lots of Icaristas will be in town for http://intar.org.

Icarus in Wiretap Magazine: College Mental Health: A Different Diagnosis

Submitted by Icarus Project on Fri, 10/16/2009 - 6:37pm.

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Annie Robinson's article "College Mental Health: A Different Diagnosis" is in Wiretap Magazine, a leading online youth activist website: School health providers are supposed to act in the best interests of the student. But who it is that gets to define these "best interests" is a subject for debate among students and counseling staff.

New Crooked Beauty Trailer Online

Submitted by silverelf on Fri, 09/25/2009 - 1:11pm.

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A new trailer is up now for the forthcoming indie documentary film Crooked Beauty following the powerful words, insights and narrative of TIP co-founder Ashley McNamara with the music of TIP founding collective member Bonfire Madigan (bmad)!

Seeking Collaborators for New Reader on Trauma

Submitted by Icarus Project on Fri, 09/18/2009 - 5:51am.

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Ashley McNamara writes:

Our aim is to create a beautiful, creative, readable document about trauma and resilience, drawing from a diversity of communities and backgrounds and addressing a wide range of topics and experiences.

We believe it is time for a reader that tells our stories and gathers our poems, radiates with our art and speaks our thoughts. Understanding and being able to relate, calling out and hearing other voices can help us to find individual and collective strength in the face of ecological, social and personal trauma.

This project is a collaboration of the Icarus project, the Bay Area Radical Mental Health Collective, and Activist Trauma Support.

Harm Reduction Guide in German Translation - Harm Reduction-Leitfaden zum risikoarmen Absetzen von Psychopharmaka

Submitted by Icarus Project on Sat, 09/12/2009 - 8:54pm.

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The Harm Reduction Guide to Coming Off Psychiatric Drugs, published by The Icarus Project and Freedom Center, is now available in German - thanks to the dedicated volunteer translation work of Inez Kochius.

Icarus in Wiretap Magazine: Navigating Madness On Campus

Submitted by Icarus Project on Tue, 09/08/2009 - 9:43am.

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Icarus co-coordinator Annie Robinson just had an essay published in the activist youth web magazine WireTap: Landing With Icarus: Navigating Madness On Campus:

I remember vividly the day I met my first psychiatrist.... She was going to help me find a way to deal with the raging voices that had been telling me to seek control of my life by abusing my body, to quell the debilitating sadness and lethargy that kept me sunken in my bed nearly every day. The fact that my best friend was dying of bone cancer came up, but had little to do with her treatment plan. Eventually she came up the answer: Seroquel. Over the following eight years I was subjected to an onslaught of chemical cocktails corresponding to a long list of diagnoses cast upon me...

The Icarus Project Late Summer 2009 Update

Submitted by Icarus Project on Thu, 08/20/2009 - 4:43pm.

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River swimming, cross country touring, backyard (vegan) barbecuing,
bicycle rambling, gardening/ harvesting/ gleaning -- summer is here. Late summer, to be precise, which is the fifth season in chinese medicine, with a tempo and mood all its own. The Icarus Project has been spreading and connecting, swarming and flowing in multiple omni-directions over the past four months, gathering and connecting a community of radical-minded visionaries to change the world and nurture mental wellness. Here's a recap and some website art as we enter the last few weeks of glorious summer and welcome the coming fall...