Headcase explores themes of mental health,
mental illness, and the experience of mental health care services by members of
the LGBTQ community. The editors state, “We initially conceptualized Headcase in 2014 as a curated collection
of personal pieces including essays, poems, illustrations, and photographs by
writers and artists both established and new.” (p. xxviii) They further decided
to include a broad array of patient, provider, social, racial, and ethnic
perspectives to “present a broader, more in depth, and balanced conversation.”
(p. xxviii)
Schroeder
and Theophano divide their anthology into five topical sections: (1)
conversations about health and illness, (2) stories of survival, (3) encounters
of a mad kind, (4) pushing boundaries, and (5) the poetics of mental health and
wellness. Among pieces in the first section, Arlene Istar Lev’s “Queer
Affirmative Therapy” (p. 12) introduces a concept that appears repeatedly
throughout the book. Unlike traditional conversion therapy, which tries to
“cure” gay persons, or even the more neutral DSM V approaches, queer affirmative
therapy not only accepts LGBTQ identities, but considers them normal healthy
variants. Fidelindo Lim’s and Donald Brown’s more personal essay, “Sa Kanyan
Saring Mga Salita” (p. 38), explores the gay experience in Filipino culture.
Among the sad stories in section two, Chana Williams tells the tale of her
mother’s lobotomy as a treatment for depression and lesbian relationships.
Lobotomy also appears in “Fix Me Please, I’m Gay” (section three, p. 169),
where psychologist Guy Albert discusses the era of conversion therapy.
In addition
to essays, the conversation in Headcase
includes poems, artwork (see, for example, Gabrielle Jordan Stein’s “This Work
Is About Digested Socks,” p. 156), a suite of black-and-white images), a series
of glyphs, and even a graphic story about J.R. Sullivan Voss’ attempts to fit into
society as a trans-man, “Sisyphus (Or: Rocks Fall and Everyone Dies.” (p. 88)
In the final section, Guy Glass presents an excerpt of his play, “Doctor
Anonymous,” about the 1972 American Psychiatric Association meeting in which a
closeted gay psychiatrist wearing a mask
asserted the normality of gay identity. (p. 260) To contemporary
viewers, the most shocking revelation in the play is the fact that at that time
homosexuality was considered a mental disorder and conversion therapy was a
standard practice.
