It's Not Just In Your Head

“Prison walls don’t separate the good people from the bad people” In this second part of the conversation we cover Covid and the other health issues prisoners face, how long a prisoner should prep for a successful transition, the feeling of not belonging and the fear of having the rug pulled from you once outside. We also discuss how prisoners become societies boogieman, American Exceptionalism vs solving social problems, the different treatment & support systems with women vs men and how society believes women can change but men can’t. We hear about the details and need for a structured re-entry plan, the importance of savings and... The Power of Cake! "The Journey Project provides the opportunity for those desiring to create a new future and want to turn a positive system of beliefs into positive ways of action.  We will support you, encourage you, and provide you with tools for inner personal change." References: A Progressive Reentry Program Assisting Disenfranchised People: https://www.thejourneyproject.info/ Journey Project GoFundMe: https://www.gofundme.com/f/the-operational-cost-for-the-journey-project?utm_campaign=p_lico+share-sheet&utm_medium=copy_link&utm_source=customer -- Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/itsnotjustinyourhead Email us with feedback, questions, suggestions at itsnotjustinyourhead@gmail.com. -- Harriet’s other shows: WBAI Interpersonal Update (Wednesdays): https://wbai.org/program.php?program=431 Capitalism Hits Home: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPJpiw1WYdTNYvke-gNRdml1Z2lwz0iEH -- 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 take a deep dive into the world of prison life and the challenging transition back into society, with Joshua Bryant and Jeremy Williams. We discuss popular misconceptions about crime and the role of punishment, what locking people up does to their mental and physical health, policies that need to change and many other topics. The second part of this discussion will be out next week or if you are a patreon member you can listen to it right now at patreon.com/itsnotjustinyourhead. "The Journey Project provides the opportunity for those desiring to create a new future and want to turn a positive system of beliefs into positive ways of action.  We will support you, encourage you, and provide you with tools for inner personal change." References: A Progressive Reentry Program Assisting Disenfranchised People: https://www.thejourneyproject.info/ Journey Project GoFundMe: https://www.gofundme.com/f/the-operational-cost-for-the-journey-project?utm_campaign=p_lico+share-sheet&utm_medium=copy_link&utm_source=customer Other references: “I might deserve punishment but I don’t deserve abuse” One Woman's Story of Leaving Prison | The First Day Out | Marie Claire: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYRS6lCylOg Leaving Prison: How an Inmate Spent Her First Day Free | A Hidden America with Diane Sawyer PART 5/6: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCtSs5UYJ6U Cody Lachey - On Re-adjusting to life after prison: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPxTxDB1WMc -- Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/itsnotjustinyourhead Email us with feedback, questions, suggestions at itsnotjustinyourhead@gmail.com. -- Harriet’s other shows: WBAI Interpersonal Update (Wednesdays): https://wbai.org/program.php?program=431 Capitalism Hits Home: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPJpiw1WYdTNYvke-gNRdml1Z2lwz0iEH -- 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.

Joel Stern, a well-read acquaintance of Harriet's, brings some perspectives and critiques of the psych field - though by his own admission he has no professional background in Psychiatry, Psychotherapy etc - he nevertheless instigates a very lively discussion regarding the conception of mental health/illness and an extended debate around the anti-psychiatry position (and the stigma that that can also cause). Ikoi offers a series of very well measured counter arguments - medication is not a cure but a symptom management tool. References: "The benefit from therapy versus therapy plus medication was identical": https://www.madinamerica.com/2022/09/dilemma-placebo-psychiatry/ 'In 2011, Thomas Insel, director of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) from 2002-2015, acknowledged: “Whatever we’ve been doing for five de­cades, it ain’t working. And when I look at the numbers—the number of sui­cides, number of disabilities, mortality data—it’s abysmal, and it’s not getting any better.”': https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/09/09/what-liberal-admonishers-of-left-psychiatry-critics-get-wrong/ "Psychiatry’s definition of a mental disorder/illness is so wide that it embraces virtually every significant problem of thinking, feeling, and/or behaving, and psychiatry uses this definition to spuriously medicalize a growing range of problems that are not medical in nature.": https://www.madinamerica.com/2019/04/in-defense-of-anti-psychiatry/ Psychiatry: The Science of Lies by Thomas Szasz: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4955102-psychiatry Brain Disabling Treatments in Psychiatry: Drugs, Electroshock & the Psychopharmaceutical Complex: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3707139-brain-disabling-treatments-in-psychiatry -- Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/itsnotjustinyourhead Email us with feedback, questions, suggestions at itsnotjustinyourhead@gmail.com. -- Harriet’s other shows: WBAI Interpersonal Update (Wednesdays): https://wbai.org/program.php?program=431 Capitalism Hits Home: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPJpiw1WYdTNYvke-gNRdml1Z2lwz0iEH -- 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 makes a welcome return to discuss the fine details of running Catalyst Co-Operative Healing, with Marina Kantarovich Rodríguez. Whilst this episode is aimed more towards other therapists - rather than a general audience - there are plenty of valuable insights and information from both Marina and Max around the many quality of life benefits that come from setting up and working in a co-operative organization. References: Catalyst Co-Operative Healing: https://catalystch.com/ -- Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/itsnotjustinyourhead Email us with feedback, questions, suggestions at itsnotjustinyourhead@gmail.com. -- Harriet’s other shows: WBAI Interpersonal Update (Wednesdays): https://wbai.org/program.php?program=431 Capitalism Hits Home: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPJpiw1WYdTNYvke-gNRdml1Z2lwz0iEH -- 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.

As we approach the end of 2022 we decided to briefly discuss some of the notable episodes & guests we've been lucky enough to talk with, we also chat about the rise of remote mental health treatment and the latest AI 'ChatGPT', we discuss the chronic rise in loneliness and the cruel side effects of isolation, and we finish up by addressing a discord members sense of being overwhelmed by all the problems of the world. Harriet's notable episodes: #70: Videogames & programmable desire! (ft. Dr Alfie Bown): https://www.patreon.com/posts/70-videogames-ft-60288828 #77: Overcoming Paranoid Schizophrenia (ft. Tracey Higgins): https://www.patreon.com/posts/77-overcoming-ft-62473314 Ikoi's notable episode: #103: Life after a Cult (ft. Alisa Mahjoub): https://www.patreon.com/posts/103-life-after-1-70475184 Liam's notable episodes: #105: Escape Fantasies of Tech Billionaires (ft. Douglas Rushkoff): https://www.patreon.com/posts/105-escape-of-ft-71144751 #119: Fully Automated Corporate Capitalism - why 'cashless' is a trap (ft. Brett Scott): https://www.patreon.com/posts/119-fully-why-is-75254248 -- References: ChatGPT: https://openai.com/blog/chatgpt/ ChatGPT, what would my hero's do?: https://twitter.com/ncasenmare/status/1605612804563537928 The original chatbot, ELIZA: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84QouA9Sm4E From adolescence to old age: who do we spend our time with?: https://ourworldindata.org/time-with-others-lifetime Four panel meme: (attached to the patron post): https://www.patreon.com/posts/76504009/ -- Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/itsnotjustinyourhead Email us with feedback, questions, suggestions at itsnotjustinyourhead@gmail.com. -- Harriet’s other shows: WBAI Interpersonal Update (Wednesdays): https://wbai.org/program.php?program=431 Capitalism Hits Home: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPJpiw1WYdTNYvke-gNRdml1Z2lwz0iEH -- 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 are socialized to believe that schooling is synonymous with education, and that if you don't conform the problem is you". Today we are joined by Dr Naomi Fisher, an independent clinical psychologist and EMDR consultant and author of ‘Changing our Minds: How Children Can Take Control of their Own Learning’. We discuss how the school system often fails to meet peoples needs; the children, the teachers and the parents. How schools enforce compliance and alienation instead of educating children to follow their natural curiosity. How those early experiences of success or failure can shape ones self-conception into adulthood, and how we are taught from an early age to see others as competition. We also cover 'self-directed education', how learning is a process of meaning making, extrinsic vs intrinsic motivation, studying subjects because you’re 'good' at them opposed to what actually interests you, consent and control, why it's a mistake to demonize video games and how empowerment can't start with forced compliance. “Children are born full of curiosity, eager to participate in the world. They learn as they live, with enthusiasm and joy. Then we send them to school. We stop them from playing and actively exploring their interests, telling them it’s more important to sit still and listen. The result is that for many children, their motivation to learn drops dramatically. The joy of the early years is replaced with apathy and anxiety. This is not inevitable. Self-directed education puts the child back in control of their learning. This enables children, including those diagnosed with special educational needs, to flourish in their own time and on their own terms. It enables us to put wellbeing at the centre of education.” References: Changing Our Minds by Dr Naomi Fisher: https://www.hachette.co.uk/titles/naomi-fisher/changing-our-minds/9781472145505/ Naomi's Substack: https://naomicfisher.substack.com Naomi's Website: https://www.naomifisher.co.uk Naomi's Twitter: https://twitter.com/naomicfisher Troublemakers: Lessons in Freedom from Young Children at School by Carla Shalaby: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29502429-troublemakers -- Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/itsnotjustinyourhead Email us with feedback, questions, suggestions at itsnotjustinyourhead@gmail.com. -- Harriet’s other shows: WBAI Interpersonal Update (Wednesdays): https://wbai.org/program.php?program=431 Capitalism Hits Home: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPJpiw1WYdTNYvke-gNRdml1Z2lwz0iEH -- 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.

"This polemic dismantles the presumption that social media could be an  instrument of radical change and contends that the networks and platforms of transnational corporations are intrinsically incompatible with a habitable earth or with the human interdependence needed to build egalitarian post-capitalist forms of life." This week we are joined by Jonathan Crary author of 'Scorched Earth: Beyond the digital age to a post capitalist world'. Jonathan presents the unsayable reality: our ‘digital age’ is synonymous with the disastrous terminal stage of global capitalism and its financialization of social existence, mass  impoverishment, ecocide, and military terror. We discuss the estrangement of perception from a living world, environmental and community destruction, EMDR and consumerism, the various claims of digital products as 'here to stay' and the capacity for refusal, how 'hopium' allows things to just stay the same, the American Dream of leaving others behind, the gun as a sanctioned weapon of fate, and what is still recoverable from a Scorched Earth. Jonathan Crary is an art critic and essayist, and is Meyer Schapiro Professor of Modern Art and Theory at Columbia University. References: Scorched Earth: Beyond the Digital Age to a Post-Capitalist World: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/60299346-scorched-earth Stone Age Economics: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/28254.Stone_Age_Economics -- Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/itsnotjustinyourhead Email us with feedback, questions, suggestions at itsnotjustinyourhead@gmail.com. -- Harriet’s other shows: WBAI Interpersonal Update (Wednesdays): https://wbai.org/program.php?program=431 Capitalism Hits Home: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPJpiw1WYdTNYvke-gNRdml1Z2lwz0iEH -- 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.

Who benefits from a cashless society and who gets left behind? We talk with economic anthropologist and former financial broker Brett Scott about his excellent book 'Cloudmoney - Cash, Cards, Crypto and the War for our Wallets'. "Cloudmoney tells a revelatory story about the fusion of big finance and tech, which requires physical cash to be replaced by digital money or 'cloudmoney'. Diving beneath the surface of the global financial system, Brett Scott uncovers a long-established lobbying infrastructure waging a covert war on cash, as banking and tech companies promote a cashless society under the banner of progress." We discuss how physical cash is currently holding capitalism back, why 'financial inclusion' is actually enclosure, how money systems and capitalism are one and the same, how the dollar is NOT a single currency, financial mass surveillance and controlling people on welfare, the entrepreneurial drive to automate human interactions, the possible delusion of fully automated luxury communism, the lie of tech increasing leisure time, crypto as a speculative carnival & the need for a heroic narrative, and how corporate capitalism isolates & strips away meaning from peoples lives. References: Cloudmoney - Cash, Cards, Crypto and the War for our Wallets: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/62897686-cloudmoney The Heretic's Guide to Global Finance: A Guide to Creative Financial Activism: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17368973-the-heretic-s-guide-to-global-finance First They Came for the Poor: Surveillance of Welfare Recipients as an Uncontested Practice: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/283845413_First_They_Came_for_the_Poor_Surveillance_of_Welfare_Recipients_as_an_Uncontested_Practice -- Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/itsnotjustinyourhead Email us with feedback, questions, suggestions at itsnotjustinyourhead@gmail.com. -- Harriet’s other shows: WBAI Interpersonal Update (Wednesdays): https://wbai.org/program.php?program=431 Capitalism Hits Home: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPJpiw1WYdTNYvke-gNRdml1Z2lwz0iEH -- 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 may think of emotions as universal responses, felt inside, but acclaimed psychologist Batja Mesquita argues that emotions are not innate, but relational acts between people, both one-on-one and within larger social networks.Dr Harriet Fraad and Ikoi discuss the MINE vs OURS models and how, if emotions are not essences but situated, that this complicates the therapists and client relationship, in particular ideas around transference and why therapists must remain curious.Other topics include the emotional consequences surrounding 'in' and 'out' groups, who gets to be angry, shame as a 'positive' emotion, whether emotions always need to be 'expressed' to be authentic, the problems with positive psychology and the changing definition of happiness.Batja Mesquita is a social psychologist, an affective scientist, and a pioneer of cultural psychology. She is a professor of psychology at the University of Leuven, Belgium, and director of the Center for Social and Cultural Psychology at the University of Leuven.References:Between Us: How Cultures Create Emotions: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58999194-between-us--Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/itsnotjustinyourheadEmail us with feedback, questions, suggestions at itsnotjustinyourhead@gmail.com.--Harriet’s other shows:WBAI Interpersonal Update (Wednesdays): https://wbai.org/program.php?program=431Capitalism Hits Home: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPJpiw1WYdTNYvke-gNRdml1Z2lwz0iEH--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.

Ikoi and Liam chat with author Mike Watson about the late great Mark Fisher, the addictive pace of the internet, slow meme movements and the need for reflection, spirituality, mortality, Qanon and Pizzagate, a fair society vs archetypal heroic stories, leftist well-being, selling dirty bath water, being a digital flaneur, the dialectical image, acid communism, helping other people for the sake of it and much much more! "Watson is fast becoming one of the most impressive left analysts  of our strange digital era; helping to fill the void left by Mark  Fisher's tragic passing. In his new book-part tribute to Fisher, part  cultural analysis, part reflections on the Frankfurt school-Watson shows  the enduring power of a dialectical approach to capitalist realism and  exposes the many ways post-modern neoliberal culture has successfully  neutered liberating aesthetics. In the powerful final chapter, Watson  rethinks the potential of Frankfurt school critical theory to provide  answers, and sketches an inspiring vision of what the acid-left can be.  We may not have all the answers, but all of us should be very grateful  Watson is on hand to help us ask the right kinds of questions. --Matt  McManus, Professor of Politics at Whitman College" References: The Memeing of Mark Fisher: How the Frankfurt School Foresaw Capitalist Realism and What to do About it: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58455150-the-memeing-of-mark-fisher?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=lOOZj2mqna&rank=1 Can the Left Learn to Meme?: Adorno, Video Gaming, and Stranger Things: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/43731703-can-the-left-learn-to-meme?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=lOOZj2mqna&rank=3 Art Militancy: A Manifesto: https://www.sublationmag.com/post/art-militancy-a-manifesto Mark Fisher | Acid Communism (Unfinished Introduction): https://my-blackout.com/2019/04/25/mark-fisher-acid-communism-unfinished-introduction/ Alpha City: How London Was Captured by the Super-Rich by Rowland Atkinson: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/53986093-alpha-city -- Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/itsnotjustinyourhead Email us with feedback, questions, suggestions at itsnotjustinyourhead@gmail.com. Harriet’s other shows: WBAI Interpersonal Update (Wednesdays): https://wbai.org/program.php?program=431 Capitalism Hits Home: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPJpiw1WYdTNYvke-gNRdml1Z2lwz0iEH ATTENTION! This is a Boring Dystopia/Obligatory 'don't sue us' message:  Please consult your medical professional with regards to any health decisions or management.