I thought this subject was quite interesting. I wrote a population of “exile” in the title because to me, the groups mentioned in the definition of what “Mad Studies” is, there were psychiatric survivors, consumers (of services?), the mentally ill, patients, inmates, and so on and so forth. To me, if you examine history and the patterns of how people interact and behave to each other, there is a pattern of exile of which is portrayed onto a certain population. I enjoyed Lucy Costa’s presentation mainly because to me, Canada is the most similar country to the US. Since I will be working in an environment with inmates, addiction services, and other mental health professionals, I thought her talk on the empowerment council brought up a great idea on advocacy, making rights accessible. This is a deficit in which is being filled from the organization mentioned, but does not fix it for everyone. Yesterday, while looking at the itinerary for today, I was wondering what “Mad Studies” was. Was it the study of “mad persons”, “psychotic persons”? Is this “Mad Studies” based off of diagnosis or just others assumptions about other people throughout history with no facts behind what is said? (Which of course differs in each culture) I had the idea that it was the study of the “mad (people)” throughout literature and history. I guess my definition was a bit broad for what I learned today. This session has inspired me to read into more about “Mad Studies”. This type of advocacy seems so strong when people were speaking about it in the conference but I know in real life it is an area that is not easily discoverable for many people. I didn’t expect inmates to be mentioned in the group of “identity labels” but it does make sense. It’s sad to me that on a realistic level, the above groups and more have been exiled throughout history in almost every culture throughout the world. When I think about the patterns of how people treat other people all across the world in history, it becomes apparent to me that excluding the “different” instead of providing services or addressing needs to be met is the easier route, but not the more humane one. I look forward to looking more into “Mad Studies”.