The Radical Therapist #143 – Mad Youth Organise w/ Chloe Yates & Rosie Williams

In this episode of The Radical Therapist, Chris sits down with youth organizers Chloe Yates and Rosie Williams of Mad Youth Organise to explore a radically different approach to the so-called “mental health crisis.” What happens when we stop treating distress as an individual pathology and start understanding it as a rational response to social, political, and economic conditions?

Drawing on their work with Just Treatment, Chloe and Rosie challenge the dominant narratives of awareness culture, diagnostic labeling, and therapeutic individualism. Together, they make the case that rising rates of youth distress cannot be separated from the influence of Big Tech, precarious futures, and systems that privatize suffering while avoiding accountability.

We explore how Mad Youth Organise reframes lived experience as leadership, critiques the role of algorithms in shaping identity and mental health, and calls for collective action over individualized solutions. This conversation pushes beyond therapy as a site of healing alone and asks what becomes possible when care is reimagined as something political, relational, and shared.

A conversation for anyone questioning the limits of contemporary mental health discourse, and for those interested in what it might mean to move from coping within broken systems to organizing for their transformation.