Despite the recent surge in interest and research studies conducted in the field of burnout, there is still no widely accepted definition of the phenomenon. Many authors have focused on examining burnout aetiology which did not seem to provide clarity needed for better understanding of the construct. Nevertheless, burnout and work-related stress are real phenomena widely observed by different mental health professionals. To this day burnout is not defined as a mental health disorder in the dominant diagnostic classifications. Variations of the burnout diagnosis have so far been introduced in national medical systems of Sweden and The Netherlands, both high-income and developed countries. In this presentation we argue the reasoning for (not) defining burnout as a mental health disorder, drawing on diagnostic classifications and critical reviews. This question is examined from the societal context of low- to middle-income developing countries where the socioeconomic conditions impose additional strain to already overburdened workers. We argue that limited work choices and poor socioeconomic prospects heighten the risk of labor exploitation. Without recognizing burnout as a valid psychiatric diagnosis, affected workers are unable to receive adequate medical care, despite the growing body of evidence and theory in the field. We discuss whether the current neoliberal worldview hinders efforts to define and include burnout as a mental health diagnosis, therefore shaping medical and social policies in ways that prioritize economic productivity over psychosocial wellbeing. The presentation also highlights gender and social class as additional risk factors of burnout.

In dark times of global health polycrises, which are marked by pandemics, widening health inequalities, deteriorating mental health, climate breakdown, and the erosion of public care systems, psychology cannot and does not only serve as a tool to describe the human condition. Instead, it increasingly operates as a political force that shapes how health, suffering, and care are named, governed, and internalised; in short, how we become and remain (un)healthy. This paper argues that contemporary conceptualisation of health, particularly in late capitalism, cannot be understood as a neutral biological or psychological state, but must be conceptualised as a psychologically mediated and politically situated process through which individuals learn to interpret, regulate, and moralise their bodily and emotional experiences. The paper begins by defining health as a mediated psychological function, drawing on sociocultural psychology. From this perspective, health does not exist as an immediate or self-evident property of the body or mind. Instead, it emerges through processes of mediation, whereby individuals learn to recognise sensations, emotions, and states of being through culturally available signs, narratives, and institutional practices. Experiences such as pain, fatigue, anxiety, or vitality become meaningful only insofar as they are interpreted through language, diagnostic categories, educational norms, and everyday routines that teach individuals what these experiences signify and how they should be managed. As such, health functions as a higher psychological process, not a state discovered within the body itself, but a learned mode of interpretation and self-regulation that is acquired through participation in cultural practices. Building on this, the paper further draws on critical Marxist theory, postulating that these processes are not neutral, and examining why particular meanings become dominant, whose interests they serve, and how they are embedded in relations of power. To do so, the paper identifies four dominant psychological discourses through which health is produced and stabilised: health as personal responsibility, health as productivity, health as medical mandate, and health as consumerism. These discourses circulate across institutions such as schools, healthcare systems, workplaces, and digital platforms, functioning as cultural tools that organise both meaning and conduct. Through psychological mechanisms of mediation and internalisation, these discourses then shape subjectivity by translating structural pressures into individualised projects of self-management, self-regulation, resilience, and optimisation; they also link health to moral worth, e.g., being healthy becomes evidence of discipline, responsibility, and functionality. At the same time, illness or distress are implicitly coded as failures of self-management. Although these discourses often appear empowering, critical analysis reveals that they systematically shift attention away from structural, cultural, historical, and economic conditions and power relations. Dominant psychological theories and approaches also inadvertently reinforce these dynamics, particularly those grounded in individualistic models of health, rational decision-making, and behaviour choice and change. Through privileging those theories, research and practices, psychology contributes to the reproduction of widening health inequalities. The paper calls for the denaturalising of psychological concepts of health and well-being; however, it does not reject psychological knowledge or therapeutic practice, but instead asks that they be situated within the social relations that shape their meaning and use. To do so, it is critical to understand health as a relational and dialogical process rather than an individual experience; by doing so, a space for an alternative psychological theory of health grounded in solidarity, interdependence, and collective care could be opened.

In November 2025, the American Psychological Association expressed deep concerns regarding the reliance of some individuals on GenAI chatbots and wellness apps to deliver psychotherapy or psychological treatment. The APA’s health advisory emerged in the wake of a number of reported cases of “AI psychosis” and suicidality after people interacted with AI chatbots when seeking psychological support, particularly during times of crisis.

As the ISTP call for papers makes clear, these are indeed dark times. And as social scientists who are now training to be therapists (via social work and psychoanalysis, respectively), we feel more politically committed than ever to theorizing what it is that AI therapy is missing—and/or the ways in which it is, in some cases, actively deleterious to patient wellbeing. However, we are also interested in considering: is there any way that technologies of care can ever be useful? If so, how and under what circumstances—practically, theoretically, politically, and/or clinically?

By theorizing patient interactions with AI therapy bots alongside the figure of the sexual robotic companion or sexbot, we consider how and why these technologies come to stand in for both panacea and downfall. What kinds of interactions do they actually offer? How do they fall short?

We argue that by thinking specifically about the role of the other in constituting the self, it is possible to understand both the possibilities and limits of these technologies of care. In this unravelling, we utilize Glissant’s notion of the importance of opacity, Bion’s discussion of negative capability, Scarfone’s theorization (through Simondon) of autopoeisis, and broader existentialist theorizing on the possibility of self-knowledge within specific environments—or self-production within the particular environments constituted by unique Others.

In the founding texts of German/Danish critical psychology the phylogenetic development resulting in the human species is conceptualized as a historical and dialectical material process involving organism, psyche, activity, and environment. It is argued that through anthropogenesis hominins gain the ability to walk on two limbs, grip, use, and produce tools, communicate through symbols and speech, cooperate and innovate to sustain life. The brain gains in size, and the duration of ontological development extends.

In these early works the societal nature of human beings was established conceptually, which has afforded attention to sociopolitical and structural conditions in empirical analysis since. Less attention has been directed to organism and environment. However, if we accept that it is in the societal nature of humans to extend, modify, and exploit their habitat, then follows that the developmental dynamic of organism, psyche, activity, and environment has changed dramatically during anthropogenesis. Taking this changed dynamic to the ontological level as embodied subjectivity in sociomaterial worlds we may start untangling phenomena like ‘the global mental health crisis’ (WHO 2025).

Narrowing the gaze to Denmark, I start from what is known about young adults’ mental health and go on asking: what sociomaterial worlds do young adults inhabit? What developmental pathways are made available in what settings? How do these settings afford embodied subjectivities to unfold? By first exploring the characteristics of sociomaterial worlds and concrete settings, then gradually tuning in on embodied subjectivities, we may arrive at insights that do not first and foremost personalise or medicalise mental health challenges. Instead, we may point to structural reasons and solutions, shifting the main responsibility for action from the personal and the medical to the institutionalized pathways of the nation state.