5th ISA Forum of Sociology (6-11 July 2025)

Over the past decades, many countries across the globe have implemented major reforms in their mental health systems. These reforms have mostly been guided by the principles of deinstitutionalisation, placing strong emphasis on public health services in which care is provided at community level. In practice, beyond clinical care, there are also many other needs that are hardly addressed by policies and public health services.

To respond to these needs, people often organise into informal groups to provide solidarity and mutual support. These groups frequently comprise people with akin demands, including caregiving friends and families, service users, members of a given ethnic community, or professionals working in similar settings. These groups address various challenges, such as the consequences of living in contexts of violent conflict, facing economic adversity, inhabiting eroding environments due to climate change, or experiencing structural racism and social exclusion. Mutual support and groups of solidarity possess a large repertoire of practices for dealing with the suffering that unfolds from such structural issues, which go far beyond psy-disciplines and biomedical frontiers.

This panel aims to gather various ethnographic testimonies to further expand knowledge about what mental health care should and could learn from these groups.

Key Questions:

• What are the political and ethical ideas that subsidise informal practices of MH support?
• How can health systems learn from these practices?
• What do these practices tell us about the needs and beliefs in mental health care for the people who seek alternative support?