ABSTRACT
One source of the mental health challenges facing contemporary people, especially younger people, is the increasing commodification of experience: phases of life, human encounters and so on, which were once part of a connected narrative are seen as items to be purchased/acquired/accumulated by a curiously contentless desiring ego. But the effect of this is a sense of pervasive loss – characterised as loss of rhythm, narrative and future. There is a loss of connection with the processes and agencies of the natural world, a loss of a continuous narrative of the self and a loss of a manageable or desirable future (individual and social). Creating the conditions for mental health (not simply providing ambulance services) requires cultural resistance in all these areas; it is important to identify and nurture signs of such resistance as part of any strategy for improving mental health.
