Mad in America: Rethinking Mental Health

On the Mad in America podcast this week, we chat with author and educator Tanya Frank. Tanya has worked as a college and university lecturer in the UK and taught middle school children, teens, and elders in the US. She has also trained as a wildlife guide in California and has been an advocate for people with lived experience of psychosis. Tanya’s work has appeared in the Guardian, the New York Times, and the Washington Post, as well as appearing in literary journals, including KCET Departures and Sinister Wisdom. In this interview, we talk about Tanya’s recently released book entitled Zig-Zag Boy: Madness, Motherhood and Letting Go, which chronicles the experiences of her son Zach, who experienced psychosis as a 19-year-old. The book is a heartfelt and beautifully written account of dealing with mental distress and speaks movingly and honestly about the family’s struggles with broken healthcare systems in the US and the UK. *** Thank you for being with us to listen to the podcast and read our articles this year. MIA is funded entirely by reader donations. If you value MIA, please help us continue to survive and grow. To find the Mad in America podcast on your preferred podcast player, click here

Pata Suyemoto is a feminist scholar, educator, curriculum developer, activist, and artist. Her work focuses on promoting racial equity in mental health and suicide prevention through teaching and advocacy. She advocates for equity and inclusion at all levels of mental health care, from grassroots organizations to state-level policy institutions. Dr. Suyemoto has spoken and written about being a suicide attempt survivor and about her struggles with chronic depression and PTSD. Dr. Suyemoto earned her PhD in Education from the University of Pennsylvania, where she researched multicultural and anti-racist education. She currently serves as the Training Director for the National Asian American Pacific Islander Mental Health Association and leads the National Asian American Pacific Islander Empowerment Network. She is also a leader in suicide prevention at the local and national levels, serving as the Equity Coordinator for the Massachusetts Coalition for Suicide Prevention and co-chair of the Greater Boston Regional Suicide Prevention Coalition. Dr. Suyemoto co-wrote an educational resource called “Widening the Lens: Exploring the Role of Social Justice in Suicide Prevention – A Racial Equity Toolkit.” In this interview, Dr. Suyemoto discusses how her identities as a Japanese American woman and lifelong educator have influenced her work promoting racial equity in mental health and suicide prevention. She shares her efforts to build a national network of Asian Americans with lived experiences of mental health challenges and emphasizes the importance of equitable partnerships with those with lived experience in research, advocacy, and therapeutic contexts. *** Thank you for being with us to listen to the podcast and read our articles this year. MIA is funded entirely by reader donations. If you value MIA, please help us continue to survive and grow. To find the Mad in America podcast on your preferred podcast player, click here

Camille Robcis is a Professor of History and French at Columbia University. She is the author of two books, The Law of Kinship: Anthropology, Psychoanalysis, and the Family in France, and her more recent book from 2021, Disalienation: Politics, Philosophy and Radical Psychiatry in Postwar France. Her areas of interest and expertise include European Intellectual History, with a focus on 19th and 20th Century France. In her latest book, Disalienation, Dr. Robcis explores the highly experimental mid to late 20th Century French psychiatric efforts that, while sharing some similarities with other anti-psychiatric movements of that time, offer many novel insights into forms of psychiatry and psychotherapy that prioritize community and liberation. Dr. Robcis offers a comprehensive account of the distinct approach to radical psychiatry known as Institutional Psychotherapy. In this interview, I had the opportunity to delve deeper into Dr. Robcis's interest in this approach and gain insight into what sets Institutional Psychotherapy apart as a groundbreaking form of radical psychiatry within its broader European and French context. *** Thank you for being with us to listen to the podcast and read our articles this year. MIA is funded entirely by reader donations. If you value MIA, please help us continue to survive and grow. To find the Mad in America podcast on your preferred podcast player, click here

Erick Turner, an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at OHSU, discusses publication bias in research studies, especially in antidepressant trials. The podcast explores the prevalence of bias in psychiatry and medicine, different types of biases in research studies, and the complex nature of blame. It also highlights the importance of publishing trial results and introduces the concept of registered reports.

On our podcast this week, we hear from Dr. Adam Urato. Adam graduated from Harvard Medical School in 1997 and has been practicing medicine for over 25 years, specializing in obstetrics and gynecology. He cares for pregnant women on a daily basis as an attending maternal-fetal medicine physician at MetroWest Medical Center in Framingham, Massachusetts. He writes and lectures regularly on antidepressant use during pregnancy. Adam has contributed to Mad in America’s continuing education efforts and his free course "Antidepressants and Pregnancy" can be found on Mad in America’s education section. It is an informative and comprehensive look into a little-discussed but very important area of women’s health. For this interview, Adam joined me to discuss what we do and don’t know about the effects of antidepressants on babies and mothers and also the importance of counselling in order to aid families in making important decisions about pharmaceutical drug use. *** Thank you for being with us to listen to the podcast and read our articles this year. MIA is funded entirely by reader donations. If you value MIA, please help us continue to survive and grow. To find the Mad in America podcast on your preferred podcast player, click here

Owen Whooley is an associate professor of sociology at the University of New Mexico. His book On the Heels of Ignorance: Psychiatry and the Politics of Not Knowing deals with the tumultuous history of psychiatry and its equally unstable present. In his book, he documents psychiatry’s ignorance, insecurity, hubris, and hype. Owen Whooley is an expert in the field of the sociology of mental health, sociology of knowledge, and sociology of science. In this interview, we will cover his histography of psychiatry, engage with his writings on the DSM, and talk about what gives psychiatry its almost supernatural powers to rise from near death over and over and over. *** The Mad in America podcast is sponsored this week by Drs Rani and Suraj Holistic Psychiatry and Mental Health Coaching. Are you Ready to make a lasting change in your life? Then join Dr Rani Bora's 12-month group coaching programme named "Beyond Diagnosis". Visit their website drsranisuraj.com today for more information and to join this unique programme. *** Thank you for being with us to listen to the podcast and read our articles this year. MIA is funded entirely by reader donations. If you value MIA, please help us continue to survive and grow. To find the Mad in America podcast on your preferred podcast player, click here

The Mad in America podcast is sponsored this week by Drs Rani and Suraj Holistic Psychiatry and Mental Health Coaching. Are you Ready to make a lasting change in your life? Then join Dr Rani Bora's 12-month group coaching programme named "Beyond Diagnosis". Visit their website drsranisuraj.com today for more information and to join this unique programme. *** Last fall, the New Haven Register reported that a group of Yale University students and alumni filed a federal lawsuit against the university challenging its policies and practices around students with mental health disabilities. But according to our guest, a lack of access to appropriate support, as well as discrimination against students struggling with their mental health, are all too common on American campuses. Stefanie Lyn Kaufman-Mthimkhulu is the founder and director of the non-profit Project LETS, which stands for Let’s Erase the Stigma. Project LETS is a national grassroots organization and movement focused on creating innovative, peer-led alternatives to our current mental health system. Their work includes peer support and communicative care, political advocacy, organizing, and mutual aid. Project LETS's mission looks beyond academia, though; led by and for people with lived experience of mental illness/madness, disability, trauma, and neurodivergence, it “seeks to build a world without systems of oppression where non-carceral responses to crises are the norm.” The organization is now active on about 30 college and high school campuses across the country. Kaufman-Mthimkhulu is a 2017 graduate of Brown University with a degree in Medical Anthropology and Contemplative Studies, and was a 2018 Fullbright Scholar. They describe themselves as a "white, queer, non-binary, disabled, neurodivergent care worker who shows up for their communities as a Disability Justice and Mad Liberation educator and organizer, parent, doula, peer supporter, writer, and conflict intervention facilitator." *** Thank you for being with us to listen to the podcast and read our articles this year. MIA is funded entirely by reader donations. If you value MIA, please help us continue to survive and grow. To find the Mad in America podcast on your preferred podcast player, click here

In December 2019, we wrote about the Hurdalsjøen Recovery Center, which is a private psychiatric hospital located about forty minutes north of Oslo, on the banks of stunning Lake Hurdal. The hospital was set up by its director, Ole Andreas Underland, to provide “medication-free” care for those who wanted such treatment or who wanted to taper from their psychiatric drugs. In this interview, Robert Whitaker talks again with Ole Andreas to understand both the success of this pioneering approach and why this success might threaten its future. *** Thank you for being with us to listen to the podcast and read our articles this year. MIA is funded entirely by reader donations. If you value MIA, please help us continue to survive and grow. To find the Mad in America podcast on your preferred podcast player, click here

Today we are continuing with our look behind the scenes of Mad in America for our 200th podcast. Mad in America got started in January 2012 and so to celebrate a decade of critical comment and appraisal we thought it would be interesting to reflect on Mad in America’s mission and work by speaking to the people behind the scenes, who keep it running day-to-day. Before we move on to our interviews, I want to pay tribute to the people at MIA who couldn’t join us for these interviews for one reason or another. Susannah Senerchia is our Assistant Editor and amongst other things, manages our Around the Web section. She is always finding interesting articles from the corners of the internet that help to tell of a shift in thinking about mental health. Also, of course, Mad in America relies heavily on the science news team as we discussed in part one of this podcast and for overview, we have our Board consisting of Robert Whitaker, Kermit Cole, Louisa Putnam, Olga Runciman and Claudia Esteve. So, on to our interviews and we hear from coordinator of our continuing education webinars, Carina Ruggiero, science writer and blogs editor, Peter Simons, personal stories editor, Emmeline Mead, community moderator, Steve McCrea, and family resources editor, Miranda Spencer. Thank you for being with us to listen to the podcast and read our articles this year. MIA is funded entirely by reader donations. If you value MIA, please help us continue to survive and grow.

This week is a special one for us at Mad in America, as it’s the 200th episode of our podcast. Our first interview was with attorney and author of Zyprexa Papers, Jim Gottstein, back in July 2017. For this and the next podcast, we’ll be talking to the people that make Mad in America what it is, the people behind the scenes, who keep it running day-to-day. Later in this podcast, we will hear from staff reporter Amy Biancolli, science news editor Justin Karter and arts editor Karin Jervert, but to kick us off today, we hear from Mad in America founder, Robert Whitaker. Bob worked as a newspaper reporter for a number of years, covering medicine and science. He is the author of five books, three of which investigate the history of psychiatry and the merits of its treatments. Those books are Mad in America,published in 2002; Anatomy of an Epidemic, from 2010, and he was co-author along with Lisa Cosgrove of Psychiatry Under the Influence, published in 2015. He was also a director of publications at Harvard Medical School for a time during the 1990s. Bob joined me to talk about how Mad in America got started and how it strives to achieve its aim of rethinking psychiatry. *** MIA is funded entirely by reader donations. If you value MIA, please help us continue to survive and grow. Thank you!