It's Not Just In Your Head

In this ep we talk about evictions and the trauma they cause, with some emphasis near the end on data showing that race better predicts eviction rates than income. Max shares his own eviction story and educates listeners about the difference between "soft" and "hard" evictions, as well as how extreme the power differential is between landlords and tenants. How helpful are "tenants rights" compared to property rights? Who has access to lawyers? When the landlord retaliates for you exercising your rights, what recourse do you have? Do mental health professionals understand, care, or have any involvement in addressing the extreme housing crisis in America or do they just want you to talk about your childhood and meditate?  To get involved in tenant organizing: atun-rsia.org  Resources/references:  The coming eviction crisis will hit Black communities the hardest https://www.brookings.edu/research/the-coming-eviction-crisis-will-hit-black-communities-the-hardest/ The hidden health costs of eviction https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4SEBxf7mU4 Eviction: The physical, financial and mental health consequences of losing your home https://journalistsresource.org/economics/evictions-physical-financial-mental-health/  Email us with feedback, questions, suggestions at itsnotjustinyourhead@gmail.com. Become a patron at patreon.com/itsnotjustinyourhead to gain early access  to episodes, our discord server, and monthly reading/discussion groups. ATTENTION! This is a Boring Dystopia/Obligatory 'don't sue us' message:  This podcast provides numerous different perspectives and criticisms of  the mental health space, however, it should not be considered medical  advice. Please consult your medical professional with regards to any  health decisions or management.

We interview award-winning investigative journalist Bob Hennelly about his new book "Stuck Nation: Can the United States Change Course on Our History of Choosing Profits Over People?" Learn more about Bob here: https://www.stucknation.com/bio.html Email us with feedback, questions, suggestions at itsnotjustinyourhead@gmail.com. Become a patron at patreon.com/itsnotjustinyourhead to gain early access  to episodes, our discord server, and monthly reading/discussion groups. ATTENTION! This is a Boring Dystopia/Obligatory 'don't sue us' message:  This podcast provides numerous different perspectives and criticisms of  the mental health space, however, it should not be considered medical  advice. Please consult your medical professional with regards to any  health decisions or management.

Some listeners suggested we do some case conceptualizations so we decided to use the liberation health model to conceptualize two past cases we had. We plan to try doing something like this once per month or so. Identifying aspects of these cases have been modified so that previous clients could not be identified if listeners, people they knew, or they themselves heard the episode.  See here for information on the liberation health triangle which puts a problem at center, with personal, cultural and institutional factors mapped out at each corner of the triangle to both understand and try solving the problem. http://www.liberationhealth.org/documents/s12.pdf Email us with feedback, questions, suggestions at itsnotjustinyourhead@gmail.com. Become a patron at patreon.com/itsnotjustinyourhead to gain early access  to episodes, our discord server, and monthly reading/discussion groups. ATTENTION! This is a Boring Dystopia/Obligatory 'don't sue us' message:  This podcast provides numerous different perspectives and criticisms of  the mental health space, however, it should not be considered medical  advice. Please consult your medical professional with regards to any  health decisions or management.

In this episode we learn from Bob Hall about the concept of "conflict literacy" and how it relates to addressing different forms of interpersonal violence. Bob Hall is  the founder of Learning To Live With Conflict, Inc., a company he  established in 1987 to provide education and training in the analysis  and resolution of conflict. His academic background includes a Bachelors  Degree in Business Administration from the Rochester Institute of  Technology and a Masters Degree in Conflict Resolution from Antioch  University; as well as a host of informal study and research on sexual  violence, human sexuality, addiction, violence, conflict, nonviolence,  and Girardian Theory on mimetic rivalry, sacrificial violence, and  scapegoating. Learn more about his work at nonviolentsexuality.com. Email us with feedback, questions, suggestions at itsnotjustinyourhead@gmail.com. Become a patron at patreon.com/itsnotjustinyourhead to gain early access  to episodes, our discord server, and monthly reading/discussion groups. ATTENTION! This is a Boring Dystopia/Obligatory 'don't sue us' message:  This podcast provides numerous different perspectives and criticisms of  the mental health space, however, it should not be considered medical  advice. Please consult your medical professional with regards to any  health decisions or management.

Ron Purser, Ph.D., author of McMindfulness: How Mindfulness Became the New Capitalist Spirituality, joins us for this episode. We ask him how mindfulness became a multi-billion dollar industry, why Silicon Valley has designed hundreds of mindfulness apps, and whether mindfulness is just a capitalist form of spirituality. Is mindfulness actually a secular medical intervention that improves focus, mood, and compassion? Is mindfulness in its modern Western form in service of anything beyond The Self? Ron helps us figure all this out and more. -- Ron Purser, Ph.D. is the Lam Larsen Distinguished Research Professor of Management at San Francisco State University. He is the author of eight books, including McMindfulness: How Mindfulness Became the New Capitalist Spirituality (Penguin Random House/Repeater Books), the Handbook of the Ethical Foundations of Mindfulness and the Handbook of Mindfulness: Culture, Context and Social Engagement. He writes for such media outlets as Tricycle, The Guardian, Salon, Alternet, Tikkun, Pando Daily and Transformation. He is also the host of The Mindful Cranks podcast. ronpurser.com mindfulcranks.com @ronpurser (Twitter) --- Email us at itsnotjustinyourhead@gmail.com. Become a patron at patreon.com/itsnotjustinyourhead to gain early access  to episodes, our discord server, and monthly reading/discussion groups. ATTENTION! This is a Boring Dystopia/Obligatory 'don't sue us' message:  This podcast provides numerous different perspectives and criticisms of  the mental health space, however, it should not be considered medical  advice. Please consult your medical professional with regards to any  health decisions or management.

In this episode we interview Prof. Jennifer Silva, author of Coming Up Short: Working-Class Adulthood in an Age of Uncertainty. Silva interviewed 100 working class young adults for the book (published in 2013) and found that most interviewees attributed their life problems to psychological issues located within themselves rather than economic or political problems located outside of themselves. While Silva initially found it almost bewildering that none of her interviewees thought of their problems as related to declining wages and working conditions, and other economically and politically determined factors, she later concluded that the more internally focused and psychologized shift was a kind of survival mechanism for working class millennials. If traditional institutions such as churches, unions, the family, government, had failed their parents as well as themselves, the self would be the most rational place to retreat to "work through" struggle. This may explain why millennials are "the therapy generation."    Silva's most recent book is called We're Still Here Pain and Politics in the Heart of America, which you can find here: https://global.oup.com/academic/product/were-still-here-9780190888046?cc=us&lang=en& Email us at itsnotjustinyourhead@gmail.com Become a patron at patreon.com/itsnotjustinyourhead to gain early access  to episodes, our discord server, and monthly reading/discussion groups. ATTENTION! This is a Boring Dystopia/Obligatory 'don't sue us' message:  This podcast provides numerous different perspectives and criticisms of  the mental health space, however, it should not be considered medical  advice. Please consult your medical professional with regards to any  health decisions or management.

Piggybagging off of last week's episode on death, Harriet and Max focus on aging. What's it like to grow older in a capitalist society that devalues anyone who doesn't produce wealth for the 1%? Why do older people tend to get lonelier over time, go into more debt than ever, and have some of the highest rates of bankruptcy? Harriet speaks on her experience as a 79 year old with more privileges than most - a nice place to live, healthy eating and exercise habits, having attained lots of education. But what's it like to age in poverty in America? Email us at itsnotjustinyourhead@gmail.com Become a patron at patreon.com/itsnotjustinyourhead to gain early access  to episodes, our discord server, and monthly reading/discussion groups. ATTENTION! This is a Boring Dystopia/Obligatory 'don't sue us' message:  This podcast provides numerous different perspectives and criticisms of  the mental health space, however, it should not be considered medical  advice. Please consult your medical professional with regards to any  health decisions or management.

Max shares about the recent passing of his estranged father and about some very odd and possibly supernatural experiences surrounding it, as well as some expected political economy commentary (his father was homeless in a world where housing is a globally financialized hyper-commodity).  Tying the personal to the political, Harriet and Max both remark on how the materialist roots and emphases within Marxism seem sometimes devoid of attention to the seemingly non-materialist phenomena such as supernaturalism, the occult, etc. Harriet shares about her experiences with people dying, being 79 years of age and having seeing so many people go. Email us at itsnotjustinyourhead@gmail.com Become a patron at patreon.com/itsnotjustinyourhead to gain early access to episodes, our discord server, and monthly reading/discussion groups. ATTENTION! This is a Boring Dystopia/Obligatory 'don't sue us' message:  This podcast provides numerous different perspectives and criticisms of  the mental health space, however, it should not be considered medical  advice. Please consult your medical professional with regards to any  health decisions or management.

Harriet explains what is cruel about a form of optimism that people internalize which says everything will be fine if they just work hard and follow the rules within this economic system and society. The US capitalist economy is pitted against the vast majority of people and waking up to this and understanding the collective situation we're all in is the first step. Become a patron at patreon.com/itsnotjustinyourhead to join monthly discussion groups by zoom, early access to episodes, and a private chatroom for fans of the show, email us at itsnotjustinyourhead@gmail.com ATTENTION! This is a Boring Dystopia/Obligatory 'don't sue us' message:  This podcast provides numerous different perspectives and criticisms of  the mental health space, however, it should not be considered medical  advice. Please consult your medical professional with regards to any  health decisions or management.

Clinical psychologist Dr. Lucy Johnstone, one of the lead authors of the Power Threat Meaning Framework (PTMF), joins this episode to talk about the most ambitious, comprehensive challenge to the mainstream diagnostic mental health models used in Western society ever proposed. The PTMF, which was developed over a 5 year period under the British Psychological Society, attempts to replace the entire DSM-5 and ICD-10 and to re-conceptualize human distress as occurring within and often caused by complex social and political situations. Harriet and Max excitedly interview Dr. Johnstone to understand this framework, and encourage listeners to learn more about it and to tell us what your reactions were to this discussion at itsnotjustinyourhead@gmail.com Learn more the PTMF website, which has documents, videos, resources, practice examples of PTMF application here: https://www.bps.org.uk/power-threat-meaning-framework Here is an accessible short guide for anyone who wants to construct, or support someone to construct, a PTMF narrative: https://www.amazon.com/Straight-Talking-Introduction-Meaning-Framework/dp/1910919713/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=johnstone+boyle+straight+talking+power&qid=1626454216&sr=8-1 Follow-up on issues related to challenging diagnosis and medical model understandings - with resources, videos, online festivals and discussion events. Join an  international online festival on Sept 17th. www. adisorder4everyone.com --- Support the podcast and get early access to full episodes, our discord server, and monthly reading and discussion groups at patreon.com/itsnotjustinyourhead. ATTENTION! This is a Boring Dystopia/Obligatory 'don't sue us' message:  This podcast provides numerous different perspectives and criticisms of  the mental health space, however, it should not be considered medical  advice. Please consult your medical professional with regards to any  health decisions or management.