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Warp & Weft

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Warp & Weft gathers together ideas, radical frameworks and reference points to explore consciousness, and ways of understanding experiences of distress as they occur within our social and systemic contexts.

It looks at what gets called ‘mental health’ and challenges the idea that our experiences of distress, struggle or variable consciousness are only ‘mental’. It challenges the way biomedicine splits mind from body and soul, and names that we are embodied beings, who are shaped by and unfold within the contexts we have inherited and live in.

It looks at some of the history of psychiatry and examines the ways it has been, and continues to be used as a colonial force. It reframes trauma; it looks at the effects of trauma in the bodymindsoul, acknowledges the intersection of personal and collective trauma, and explores ways we might move towards healing.


Warp & Weft considers how we are given cultural ‘scripts’ for experience, and how we might relanguage experience on our own, and non-medical terms. Terms which address root causes of distress and point towards holistic approaches, in order to foster liberatory personal and collective transformation.

438 pages, Paperback

Published June 1, 2021

21 people are currently reading
169 people want to read

About the author

Lisa Fannen

3 books4 followers

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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
Profile Image for Sarah Cavar.
Author 20 books366 followers
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March 27, 2023
This is a great lay introduction to a wide (if relatively shallowly-explored) array of psy-critical topics, as well as a formidable collection of alternative resources oriented toward collective healing and transformative wellness. Definitely not a substitute for a critical Mad/disability studies scholarly reader, but suitable for someone looking for what / who / how to read next.
Profile Image for Hari Sood.
58 reviews2 followers
January 21, 2025
This book is incredibly empowering and liberating.

So many texts within the health space focus solely on the individual, and rarely, if ever, touch on wider social, political, cultural and environmental factors at play. Warp and Weft centres these discussions and considerations in such refreshing clarity, allowing it to go so much further than other books.

Lisa writes wonderfully accessibly, allowing me (not trained in psychology/psychiatry at all) to really dive into the text, and with the humility of offering possible interpretations, approaches and methods that the reader may wish to explore, rather than the often used 'this is the Godsend method that you absolutely must adopt'. Especially when casting a critical lens on popular frameworks, the approach is 'where are they useful, and where may they be limited'/

The lessons within have completely altered my view of bodymindsoul health, the industrial complexes that run rife through them, and the critical importance of everyday politics and activism, and collective, community care, within these (and all) spaces. Particularly empowering were lessons around hermeneutical injustice, and the politics of disorder - and how, ultimately, no-one knows us better than we do ourselves, and we can listen to and explore for ourselves the healing journeys we find useful whatever they are, and regardless of what 'authority' they are communicated by. And more often than not, this can lie within the ways we all live and communicate together.

A must read to support anyone interested in, or exploring, wellness!
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