Madness Radio

Warsaw Poland psychologist Bogna Szymkiewicz discusses "wounded states of consciousness," what the mind and body do when trauma is activated, as well as how trauma affects our relationships and what we can do to recover.   [Read more...]

Blacks in the UK are much more likely than white people to be locked up, put on drugs, and mistreated in the mental health system. Social scientist Philip Morgan of London's Tower Hamlets African and Caribbean Mental Health Organization (THACMHO) discusses the legacy of slavery, survivor-run advocacy for system change, and an innovative project reclaiming Black identity through historical research.   [Read more...]

Clinical psychologist Jay Joseph details medical science's 30-year failed quest to find any link between genetics and diagnoses of mental disorders, and debunks widely held beliefs in the psychiatric profession, including the idea of "genetic predispositions" for mental illness. Jay is the author of The Missing Gene: Psychiatry, Heredity, and the Fruitless Search for Genes and The Gene Illusion: Genetic Research in Psychiatry and Psychology Under the Microscope.   [Read more...]

Harvard University faculty Paula Caplan, author of They Say You're Crazy: How The World's Most Powerful Psychiatrists Decide Who's Normal and editor of Bias In Psychiatric Diagnosis. Paula was on one of the writing committees for the DSM and offers an insightful perspective on the politics behind psychiatric pseudo-science. She discusses mental disorder labeling, including bipolar and post-trauma stress disorder, from a feminist perspective.   [Read more...]

Counselor and researcher Joe Goodbread discusses his more than 25 years experience working with madness and extreme states using Process Oriented Psychology, an innovative approach based in the work of Carl Jung and developed by Arnold Mindell. Joe describes listening to the meaning in experience, helping people unfold their states, taoism, dreams, rank differences, and working with the body. Joe is a senior faculty at the Process Work Institute and author of The Dreambody Toolkit and Radical Intercourse. www.aamindell.net, www.processwork.org   [Read more...]

Award-winning journalist Philip Dawdy, formerly a writer with the Seattle Weekly newspaper, discusses how forced psychiatric treatment and drugging are ineffective responses to violent crime and the so-called "dangerous mentally ill." Philip is the writer of the excellent blog about Big Pharma profiteering and mental health policy   [Read more...]

Visionary writer and thought-provoking environmentalist Derrick Jensen talks about the human-caused ecological collapse of the natural world, family trauma, technological brainwashing, indigenous societies, Scottish psychiatrist R.D. Laing, and the importance of rage in an undeniably insane world.   [Read more...]

Author Charles Barber talks about his new book Comfortably Numb: How Psychiatry is Medicating a Nation, a history of the rise of psychiatric drug marketing from "mother's little helper" to today's 200 million plus anti-depressant prescriptions.   [Read more...]

Capetown South Africa survivor activist Moosa Salie talks about mental health organizing in Africa and beyond, and work to establish the Ubuntu Center for alternative support. Check out Moosa's blog and the World Network of Uses and Survivors of Psychiatry at http://www.wnusp.net   [Read more...]

Vara Adams survived forced hospitalization, drugging, and multiple electroshocks as a teen in Melbourne Australia. She went on to become a heavy metal-influenced songwriter about her experiences as part of the healing process. Show includes several of Vara's songs.   [Read more...]

Psychiatric abuse survivor and human rights activist Celia Brown discusses working for change in the mental health system, including her ownn experiences and creating "supported decision-making" for people in distress. Celia is President of Mindfreedom International and a board member of the National Association of Rights Advocacy and Protection.   [Read more...]

Angela Shelton is an award-winning Hollywood actress and filmmaker, who traveled across the US meeting other women named Angela Shelton and discovering how widespread sexual abuse is in our society. She discusses her film Searching for Angela Shelton and her work helping people heal from trauma.   [Read more...]

First Nations Ojibway activist and psychiatric abuse survivor Stella Montour of Thunder Bay Ontario, Canada talks about colonialism and racism against native people, how they affect mental health, and her work for change.   [Read more...]

A money insider's view of how crazy and corrupt our US-led world economic system really is, including drug money, mlitary spending, and the housing crisis. Catherine Austin Fitts was Assistant Secretary of Housing - Federal Housing Commissioner under President Bush senior, Managing Director, Dillon Read & Co. Inc., and founder of Hamilton Securities investment bank. She has designed and closed over $25 billion of transactions and investments to-date and has led portfolio strategy for $300 billion of financial assets and liabilities.   [Read more...]

Two interviews on psychiatric abuse: Angela Bischoff's husband Tooker Gomberg died in a suicide after taking anti-depressants; both were prominent Toronto environmental and peace activists. Wayne Lax survived 80 shock treatments and multiple hospitalizations over thirty years. Today both Angela and Wayne are waging campaigns to reform the mental health system.   [Read more...]

After James Chasse, a man with a schizophrenia diagnosis, was killed by Portland police in 2006, reforms included improved police training. Julie Diamond discusses efforts to help teach police better de-escalation and conflict resolution techniques as an alternative to force and violence.   [Read more...]

Clinical psychologist Bruce Levine discusses his new book Surviving America's Depression Epidemic: How to Find Morale, Energy, and Community in a World Gone Crazy, an insightful exploration of the social and political causes of depression and how to heal by rebuilding communities.   [Read more...]

Latin America Program Director Alison Hillman of Mental Disability Rights International talks with Will Hall in Buenos Aires Argentina about the campaign to reform the country's brutally abusive mental health system, and the work she and Will have been doing with the Centro de Estudios Legales y Sociales to support the emergence of the user/survivor movement.   [Read more...]

Icarus Project organizers Madigan Shive, Molly Sprengelmeyer, Will Hall, Neil Gong, and Sascha DuBrul visit Virginia Tech, site of the violent tragedy, and discuss campus mental health issues with students.   [Read more...]

Psychiatric survivor and leading advocate Leah Harris reads her powerful poem "I Was a Teenage Mental Patient" and discusses how communities can work to prevent suicide by looking beyong mainstream approaches and rethinking our alienating school system.   [Read more...]