A discourse analysis of the Mental Health Survival Kit informed by post-structural theories

The purpose of this thesis is to undertake a discourse analysis, informed by post-structural theories, of the Mental Health Survival Kit to elucidate the ways it produces subject positions. Toward that end, I begin by developing a historical context that supports an understanding of the way psychiatric discourse emerged and continues to emerge through interlock with other socio-political discourses (i.e., biomedical discourses, neoliberal discourses). Through positioning my work within this historical context, I am able to illuminate the linkages between the production of subject positions and socio-political discourses that are found within the Mental Health Survival Kit. To further understand this rich constellation of relationships, I extend a theoretical apparatus informed by post-structural theories (i.e., governmentality and performativity) to approach the ways subject positions may be produced by the Mental Health Survival Kit. Thus, after completing a discourse analysis of the Mental Health Survival Kit, it is my position that, immanently, you, a subject, produce and are produced by the Mental Health Survival Kit through interpellation signified through a rich constellation of socio-political relations. These relations will be further explored in my thesis. Hence, in one way, subject positions are produced within the Mental Health Survival Kit.Health and Social Development, Faculty of (Okanagan)Social Work, School of (Okanagan)Graduat