As depression and anxiety affect the lives of billions, our growing understanding of mental health and human psychology is skewed by the capitalist structure. This is particularly challenging for those of us who have decided to engage in organized political work to radically change the system. Understanding the limitations of modern psychology is crucial to help us make the best of it and to take political decisions that allow us to take care of ourselves as we engage in systemic revolutionary work.
Understanding mental health in a capitalist world
Our understanding of psychology and approaches to mental health emerged and developed in a capitalist system, and so reflects or is based on a number of its principles. This is not necessarily due to evil, deliberate efforts to infiltrate the field with capitalist values, but primarily to passive and organic reflections of the capitalist cultural hegemony that affects researchers and psychologists.
For example, living under constant threat of losing our jobs and livelihood is extremely detrimental to our mental health. But this is normalized under capitalism, and so is scarcely mentioned by mental health experts. The result is that healthy reactions to a sick situation, such as anxiety or depression when in danger of not making ends meet or when witnessing injustice, are misdiagnosed as sicknesses that need to be cured. Capitalism's and neoliberalism's inherent focus on the individual rather than society is also reflected in psychology's focus on self-work and on adjusting to external circumstances rather than on working to change these circumstances. This is inherently adaptative and conservative rather than revolutionary.
This poses a number of obvious problems for revolutionaries who tend to be neurodivergent, to be more isolated from their communities and to have needs that are harder to meet by others. Those who care about the condition of mankind also tend to have an acute awareness of suffering in the world and an acute understanding of "how wrong" the world is. This painful awareness is often what drives them to join a revolutionary organization. In Che's words, "the true revolutionary is guided by a great feeling of love. It is impossible to think of a genuine revolutionary lacking this quality." Finally, individuals engaging in revolutionary work tend to reject societal imaginaries, which are sets of beliefs created or accepted by the individual brain or by society to protect us from the pain of seeing reality as it is. It is, indeed, hard to be an empath in this world.
All of this makes self-care even more important for revolutionaries. A difficult task when there exists very little material that tackles capitalist hegemony and the political-psychological makeup of revolutionaries, and very few psychologists that grasp this.
Self-care to keep up the struggle
Not all of our recent understanding of mental health is tainted by capitalism. A number of mainstream mental health techniques and therapy methods can be helpful. This includes understanding the purpose of healthy guilt (to move us to "good" action and deter us from "bad" action) and therefore learning to recognize and let go of unhealthy guilt, such as guilt about things we can do nothing about (like stopping a genocide, putting in more political work than we can or survivor's guilt). Avoiding unnecessary exposure to traumatic material, including pictures or videos of death or destruction, also helps us avoid vicarious trauma which can sap the energy we need to keep up the struggle.
However, even these healthy habits can become unhealthy when we use them outside the scope of radical political engagement. Their purpose should not be to normalize injustice by helping us adjust comfortably to an unjust world. Instead, self-care should help us remain functional revolutionaries.
Another concept that might be particularly helpful is to accept that injustice and suffering are inherent to nature and life. So instead of seeking the complete end of suffering, we can aim to work for the relative objective of decreasing the total quantity of suffering in the world. This work-focused approach is the opposite of the all-too-common passive hope where people just wish for the best and then stand as observers—an approach that guarantees disappointment and therefore despair. Moving from observing, criticizing and well-wishing to organized political work helps us regain agency over the future of mankind. This agency can keep us functional and thwarts neoliberalism's endeavor to keep people out of radical politics. Agency is our primary tool of political self-care.
Organized political work itself is self-care
Having a solid network of friends is extremely helpful, particularly when they share our diagnosis of what is wrong, our vision for the solution and our disposition to be politically active. This includes joining a political organization that is mental health-aware and possibly helping develop this awareness within it. However, we should be aware of the fact that when neurodivergents who do not fit into traditional spheres meet, they tend to form a support community that is more of an inward-facing social club or tribe than of a outward-facing political movement. This is particularly the case when the group is already built around an identity. Just like self-care techniques, the primary purpose of political community should be to allow us to remain functional revolutionaries. A revolutionary organization is not a "well" where water sits still but a "pipeline" that channels flowing water toward a specific target.
The kind of political group we join also affects our mental health and long-term functionality. Activism often comes as a reaction to specific events and adopts specific goals that are limited in scope and time, such as stopping the genocide in Palestine. More often than not, such "reactionary" groups have not had the time to organize and grow in strength, and so are not capable of affecting the balance of forces that are making things happen. Also, the fact they often only seek one goal means that all their eggs are in one basket. Failure to affect the course of events —such as failing to stop the genocide— thus becomes extremely discouraging. On the other hand, comprehensive political approaches that analyze the relations of power that must be dismantled and present an alternative vision focus on the long-term, without failing to deal with the short and medium terms. This gives political organizations the time to grow in strength and influence and does not limit them to reacting to symptoms, which makes political/revolutionary endeavors and accomplishments meaningful, rewarding and soothing.
A healthy vision of the efficacy of political work is also important. This includes being balanced in how much effort we put in. The vast majority of people are functional enough to dedicate a couple of hours a week to political work, which is just what's needed: it's a marathon, not a sprint, and small, regular, sustainable efforts are more effective than irregular bursts. Radical change is not contingent on the history-altering efforts of one person, but on the joint, minuscule efforts of organized numbers. Being aware of this helps us be motivated by love and purpose rather than unhealthy guilt.
Another helpful decision is choosing where we put effort, i.e. choosing a kind of work we are comfortable with. For example, we might enjoy field work, like or dislike dealing with people, prefer face-to-face interactions over online ones or the other way around, enjoy working alone or in groups, like tight deadlines or slow regular work, etc. Sometimes we'll need to make sacrifices for the sake of the cause, but there's generally no reason for it to be our default stance. There are enough avenues of work for us to choose one or more we enjoy.
Of course, some aspects of life—such as loss, sickness or death—cannot be done away with. But oppressive human structures can, and nothing can replace dismantling them in favor of specific alternatives. With this long-term objective in mind, the above suggestions can help us practice self-care that is untainted by capitalism and that helps us be effective revolutionaries.
