Abstract

The hegemonic power bestowed toward a biomedical psychiatric model of mental health aids in trivializing the impacts of the social context on managing risks and shaping the accessibility of resources. Bronfenbrenner’s (1979) ecological systems theory argues that the ecology of human development unfolds through interactions with different interdependent systems. The minority stress model suggests that exposure to discrimination in different ecological systems related to one’s “social statuses […] can result in adverse mental health outcomes” (Meyer, 2003; Schmitz et al., 2020, p.164-165). In this contemporary moment, while Black people are over-represented in care systems as already diseased prone, I wish to complicate this view by interrogating the colonial, multi-system, anti-Black, classist, sexist, homophobic, ableist, and transphobic roots of psychological distress experienced by Black 2LGBTQIA+ people. To this end, this thesis critically reviews Canadian literature examining Black 2LGBTQIA+ people’s multisystem experiences of distress and collective resistance strategies. It begins with a brief historicization unveiling the colonial roots of neoliberal understandings of mental health practice and exposing social work’s role in the settler-colonial project. Theoretical insights from decolonial and feminist approaches to social work and Mad Studies are deployed to problematize and create counter-narratives to neoliberal and biomedical models of mental health. Grounded in Black 2SLGBTQIA+ people’s collective embodied experiences and resistance strategies and the theoretical foundations mentioned above, this thesis provides recommendations for liberating marginalized people from oppressive mental health institutions at micro and macro levels of service provision.