Madness Radio

In this guest podcast, Jason Wright of Oddball Magazine sits down with Madness Radio host Will Hall, author of the Harm Reduction Guide to Coming Off Psychiatric Drugs, to discuss mental health abolition, harm reduction, democratic socialism, and more in a far ranging conversation. You may have noticed the world is falling apart, time to […]

At the Madness Radio book launch a few years ago writer and poet Susie Meserve read her creative nonfiction essay “A Little Crazy,” included in the anthology Show Me All Your Scars: True Stories of Living With Mental Illness and featuring an intimate (and not entirely flattering) portrait of her boyfriend at the time in […]

You’re shut inside and it’s time for a children’s book! For this episode we’ve selected 1999’s The Iceling by Will Hall.

Jyl Ion hears voices, but she refuses to view these non-ordinary experiences as a sign of mental illness. Instead Jyl came off 16 years of multiple toxic medications, talks to her ancestor spirits and has reclaimed access to unsanctioned knowledge. She struggled through the aftermath of sexual violence and was bedridden for two years of […]

Do bipolar and psychosis have a healing potential blocked by suppression, medications, and avoidance? What if we could help people safely and intentionally explore, express, and understand these frightening states? Can breathwork ceremonies open the doors of perception like psychedelics — but without the drugs or risks? Are journeys into altered states too dangerous for […]

Do early psychosis programs serve healing – or function as surveillance and control? Are treatments for paranoia actually themselves forms of paranoia, based on scientific racism and white supremacy? By defining and enforcing “normal” does psychiatry wage a war on the imagination? Rachel Jane Liebert is a multi-media artist and Critical Psychology senior lecturer at […]

After taking the psychedelic drug ayahuasca Martha Sneyd went into an extended altered state diagnosed as psychotic. Her terrifying ordeal ignited a spiritual initiation that eventually brought gifts of awakening, insight, and compassion. How did Martha emerge from her ecstatic journey through a mythic, archetypal world to become an advocate and teacher? What lessons can […]

What is at the root of world violence? How does psychiatry re-create dynamics of humiliation and shame that drive people crazy? Is there a just and equitable way out of the spirals of attack and counterattack tearing humanity apart? Evelin Lindner was nominated 3 times for the Nobel Peace Prize for her work internationally to […]

Audiobook mp3 of Introduction and Chapter 1 “Persons and Experience”, from The Politics of Experience and the Bird of Paradise, by R.D. Laing, read by Will Hall. Additional chapters on this YouTube playlist (full audiobook as a single .mp3 forthcoming) www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLMya78GAdrpxtOjEayvMp1lC88ce21kUb https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._D._Laing          

What does it mean to be called “crazy” in a crazy world? Listen to the free audiobook of the Preface to Outside Mental Health: Voices and Visions of Madness, written and read by Will Hall. Outside Mental Health: Voices and Visions of Madness reveals the human side of mental illness. Based on ten years of […]

Voice hearers, mystics, visionaries, and mad people are found throughout the scriptures of Judaism. What does Jewish theology have to teach us about madness and psychiatric diagnosis? How can modern Judaism show the way to new responses to extreme and altered states, in our communities and ourselves? Caroline Mazel-Carlton is a survivor of psychiatric crisis […]

What are the key ingredients of alternative mental health programs – and what makes them different and successful? Connor Tindall followed his calling to become a a therapist after confronting mistreatment by a psychotherapist as a teen. He went on to work at the innovative Soteria House Alaska, a hospital alternative where compassionate respect for […]

Can the breakdown of psychosis show the way forward to spiritual breakthrough? Is there a path through the depths of mental health crisis independent of hospitals, doctors, and therapists? Adrian Bernard was labeled a chronic schizophrenic and spent 20 years living on a disability check. After surviving a spiritual ordeal tested by God he is […]

Has modern psychiatry lost its soul? How can dreams, storytelling, and imagination help people in emotional crisis – including psychosis and madness? What lessons can we learn from shamanism, the placebo effect, and the importance of the doctor’s “bedside manner’? George Mecouch MD, psychiatrist, Jungian therapist, and author of While Psychiatry Slept: Reawakening the Imagination […]

How is psychotherapy different when the therapist is also a survivor? What vital lessons must therapists learn from people who have experienced psychosis? If therapy is an imbalance of power between therapist and patient, how can therapists avoid the misuse of power and protect clients from harm? Olga Runciman, voice hearer, psychiatric nurse in locked […]

What does healthcare become when science is limited by a mechanistic, machine view of reality? How does a mechanistic view shape concepts of mental health and illness – and deny the fundamental aliveness of human beings? What does the study of living systems teach us for creating a different, more holistic vision? Fritjof Capra, theoretical […]

Does a diet without animal products improve mental health? Why can changing to plant based nutrition be so hard to sustain? And are people’s food ethics a symptom of eating disorder or neglected self care? Sabrina Louise, a vegan educator, consultant at Portland Community College, and ecstatic dance DJ, discusses how to transition away from […]

How can people come off psychiatric medications in the safest way? What are the key lessons and vital ingredients for leaving psychiatric care? Is there life after meds? Laura Delano spent 14 years as a psychiatric patient before she left behind her psychiatric diagnoses and reclaimed herself. Today she is Director of the Inner Compass Initiative […]

What’s it like to be a teenager in a psychiatric hospital? What’s it like to be a queer pregnant teenager? And is it true that friends do make the best medicine? Nina Packebush explores these questions and more in her groundbreaking debut young adult novel, Girls Like Me. Girls Like Me is an In the Margins 2018 […]

Is psychosis a journey and a breakthrough to somewhere more authentic? Should unhappy people be made to adjust to a mad society? Scottish psychiatrist R.D. Laing was a fierce critic of the mental health system, and saw madness as a rational adaptation to irrational family and social constraints. Laing’s compelling prose, acute intellect, and spiritual […]

Is madness breakdown or initiation into a spiritual calling? Crazywise is a documentary film that explores the meaning of psychosis from the perspective of traditional cultures and shamanism, following the stories of people struggling with extreme states, spiritual awakening, and the mental health system’s failures. Filmmaker Phil Borges is an award winning photographer and filmmaker […]

How can seeing visions and hearing voices be transformed into a spiritual gift for healing? What does the initiation ordeal into becoming a shaman involve? Gogo Ekhaya Esima was diagnosed with psychosis and confined in psychiatric hospitals before she became an initiated Sangoma healer in the Zulu tradition of South Africa. Today she is a certified Peer Recovery […]

What is it like to hear voices — and are all voices harmful or can they also be helpers? What does voice hearing say about the human mind – and the society we live in? And how can we support people who hear voices? Lisa Forestell has heard voices since she was a child. She […]

Is mindfulness meditation about calming the mind and accepting things as they are? Or is it a force for social change and challenging oppression? Can meditation help us become intimate with our wild, primal and untamed creative force? Nirali Shah, certified UCLA mindfulness facilitator and teacher at Spirit Rock, has spent thousands of hours meditating, as […]

Now available as an audiobook!  Based in more than 10 years work in the peer support movement,The Icarus Project and Freedom Center’s 52-page guide is used internationally by individuals, families, professionals, and organizations to support reducing and coming off psychiatric drugs. Includes info on mood stabilizers, anti-psychotics, anti-depressants, anti-anxiety drugs, risks, benefits, wellness tools, psychiatric drug withdrawal, information for people staying on […]

What is it like to flee a war-torn country as a child? What lasting psychological effects do refugees face? Can peer support and trauma informed care lead to lasting recovery? Khatera Aslami Tamplen, an Afghan-American and the Consumer Empowerment Manager for Alameda CountyBehavioral Health Services in California discusses war trauma, the activist struggle to end […]

Are psychiatric treatments, experts, and medications the best way for traumatized communities to heal their mental health problems? Could indigenous practices, including traditional Chinese medicine and acupuncture, offer a different way forward — through grassroots community development? Herman Garcia is the Vice President and Ryan Bemis Founder of Crossroads Community Supported Healthcare, which offers practical skills training to local healers […]

Are beliefs in witchcraft and “voodoo death” not real? Do magical explanations of disease mean people are primitive and less educated? Or are stories and beliefs at the heart of reality for all cultures – including yours? Frank Bures, author of The Geography of Madness: Penis Thieves, Voodoo Death, and the Search for the Meaning of the World’s Strangest Syndromes, […]

How does the legacy of colonialism affect mental health in India? Are women’s rights, spiritual freedom, and ant-colonialism intertwined? Do women who choose a path of spiritual renunciation have the same freedom as men? Where are human rights more respected: in traditional temples, or in hospital locked wards? Bhargavi Davar’s mother Bapu was a psychiatric abuse survivor persecuted for her religious devotion. […]

What if psychotic experiences express historical and intergenerational trauma? Does one person’s emotional crisis reach beyond their own individual mind? Could synchronicities and meaningful coincidences guide recovery instead of just being “symptoms”? Naas Siddiqui, a psychiatric survivor and therapist in training who founded the Spiritual Emergence and other Unusual Experiences student group, descended into altered states after withdrawing from psychiatric […]

What if psychiatry recognized that schizophrenia does not exist? How might diagnostic categories (left over from the asylum era) be replaced by spectrums of experience that show how psychotic experiences can also be normal? What if services were oriented around individuals, not the statistical groups of “evidence based” research? And could the mental health system as we know it, which defines health […]

The Families in Mental Health Crisis Act HR 2646 — The Murphy Bill — proposes drastic changes to US mental health policies. Will the Murphy Bill curb violence and improve care? Or will more forced treatment, medication, and hospitalization only enrich pharmaceutical and medical industry power and reinforce stereotypes at the expense of real human […]

Is mental health about individual diseases, or the health of communities and countries as a whole? How do economic policies after the 2008 crisis impact disability rights, suicide rates, and community wellbeing? Are cuts in social spending really necessary for economic growth, or do they cause more problems in the long run? Guardian columnist Mary O’Hara, author […]

Psychiatric survivor leader Oryx Cohen was at a national conference when a seizure suddenly launched him out of his body and into a visionary state of madness. Avoiding medications or hospitalization, friends held a hotel room vigil for Oryx for many sleepless nights, and then drove him 4 days across country to safety. What surprising lessons – about the usefulness of […]

Is thinking a cognitive process of information input and output? Or do consciousness and emotion take place in our bodies – animated, moving, and responsive to the environment? And what would Darwin think of today’s focus on brains and neuroscience – is there an evolutionary way to understand the mind instead? Maxine Sheets-Johnstone, dancer, philosopher, and author of more than 70 journal articles and 9 […]

Celebrated US President Abraham Lincoln also suffered from life-threatening depression. Did he view his “melancholy” as a treatable illness, as a punishment from God — or as a source of his gifts? How did Lincoln’s extraordinary leadership abilities arise from his struggle with extreme pain? Joshua Wolf Shenk, author of Lincoln’s Melancholy: How Depression Challenged a President and Fueled His Greatness, […]

What if you were the only one seeing coded messages, covert realities, and elaborate plots all around you? Does that make you out of touch with reality, “paranoid” and “psychotic?” Or is it real — but you are just so upset that everyone thinks the problem is you instead? Tim Dreby, a psychotherapist and author in the San Francisco […]

In schizophrenia really an “incurable illness” — or a state of chronic terror? Are there ways for psychotherapy to reach people in different realities? And does Freudian psychoanalysis offer a humane and empowering approach? Bert Karon, psychoanalyst since 1955, co-author of the classic textbook Psychotherapy of Schizophrenia, and Professor of Clinical Psychology at Michigan State University, […]

Are there ways to reach people in states of madness? How do talking with ghosts, hearing voices, and seeing visions — as well as enduring family turmoil — relate to psychotic crisis? When Dina Tyler discovered the meaning of life in an altered state, the treatment she received only inflicted further trauma. Dina instead embraced her madness as a guiding […]

What if ordinary families could provide care for people psychiatry has given up on? Is there a way out for people stuck long-term as mental patients? Can human relationships and living together be more effective than medications, diagnosis, and hospitals? Carina Håkansson’s values wouldn’t allow her to work in the traditional psychiatric system in Sweden. […]

How do we recover from childhood violence? When Lauren Spiro was 14, her father was murdered. Eighteen months later, she began to have unusual spiritual experiences and was diagnosed with schizophrenia. Today she works to promote peace and healing in communities, fulfilling the vision she had in her extreme state. Lauren is co-director of Emotional […]

What if researchers collaborated with patients rather than treating them as “informants” and objects of study? Nev Jones survived her mother’s frightening extreme states — and then her own mind unravelled into different realities. She was herself diagnosed with schizophrenia, and began a lifelong exploration of the uniqueness of madness. Today Nev is a post-doctorate fellow […]

Adverse effects from prescription drugs are the 4th leading cause of death in America. How can we know if the pills we take are actually safe? What can we do if they aren’t? Dr. David Healy, internationally renowned psychiatrist, whistleblower, and author of 20 books, discusses industry corruption of pharmaceutical regulation and proposes better ways […]

If madness isn’t like other illnesses, what is it? Should psychiatry have the power of legal coercion? How can the legacy of Thomas Szasz inform new ways of helping people? Tomi Gomory, associate professor of social work at Florida State University and co-author of Mad Science: Psychiatric Coercion, Diagnosis, and Drugs, explores thinking beyond the […]

How is the legacy of colonialism impacting American Indian mental health today? Does the Indian Health Service meet the needs of the people on tribal land? Can Native peoples revitalize cultural traditions and reverse centuries of racism? David Walker, mixed-heritage Cherokee, psychologist working at the Yakama Nation, and author of the award-winning novel Tessa’s Dance, […]

Does psychotherapy cover up issues of power and social justice? Are talk show therapists providing help, or blaming individuals for their problems? David Bedrick, counselor, attorney, and author of Talking Back to Dr. Phil: Alternatives to Mainstream Psychology, discusses how to discover profound meaning in our struggles by taking the time to understand the deeper […]

Why are so many trauma survivors, especially women, diagnosed “borderline?” Is the label useful — or sexist and degrading? How can people who live through intergenerational violence be understood and supported — instead of discounted and silenced? Rita Marshall, human rights activist and former psychiatric inmate from a family of Holocaust survivors, examines the social […]

How can family members help a relative in extreme crisis — instead of worsening the situation? Is there a way out of treatment power struggles and arguments about “insight”? And what do families need to change about themselves? Psychiatric survivor Krista MacKinnon, formerly at Toronto’s Family Outreach and Response program and now Director of Families […]

Are Xanax, Klonopin, Ativan and other benzodiazepines really more addictive than heroin? How can these common drugs for anxiety actually worsen the symptoms they’re prescribed to treat? What are the dangers of protracted withdrawal? Matt Samet, former professional rock climber, Outside Magazine writer, and author of Death Grip: A Climber’s Escape From Benzo Madness, discusses […]

Are elders living with forgetfulness, Alzheimer’s, and dementia unreachable? Are there parallels with states called psychotic? Can meaning be found in the confusion of brain injury and coma? Stan Tomandl, MA, DiplPW and author of Coma Care & Palliative Work, and An Alzheimer’s Surprise Party: Unveiling the Mystery, Inner Experience, and Gifts of Dementia, explores […]

Why did the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistic Manual become so controversial? Is it possible to alleviate human suffering without classifying it as a mental disorder? Gary Greenberg, psychotherapist, author of Manufacturing Depression and The Book of Woe: The DSM and the Unmaking of Psychiatry, and journalist for Harper’s, the New Yorker, and […]

How do psychiatric labels shape our perceptions of others – and ourselves? Are there better ways to understand emotional distress? Does the “peer movement” offer real alternatives — or present new problems? Sera Davidow, psychiatric survivor, director of the peer-run Western Mass Recovery Learning Community (RLC), and co-producer of the new film “Beyond the Medical […]

Is trauma also a source of creative inspiration? Can sexual passion be a force for healing? And do we have to live in either/or boxes — or is there somewhere else? Artist and activist Jacks McNamara, co-founder of the Icarus Project radical support community, discusses their recently-published anthology Inbetweenland, including poetry about being a genderqueer […]

Why does the same psychiatric drug help one person – but harm another? Do psychiatric medications “work” by chemistry alone – or through expectation, placebo, and social factors? What is the difference between prescribed medications and mind altering substances like alcohol? David Cohen, social work professor at Florida International University and co-author of Your Drug […]

Is a champion athlete more powerful than madness and psychiatric medications? When Meaghan Buisson said she wanted to break the world record for inline skating, her psychiatrist thought she was mentally ill. Two years later, she won the title — only to face the even greater challenge of self-harm, starvation, and psych meds withdrawal. Buisson […]

Is poetry the way to truly understand madness? Do rituals and music — such as Ireland’s tradition of keening — have the power to heal emotional suffering? Susan McKeown, Grammy award-winning singer/songwriter and folklorist, supported her partner through an extreme state. She began a journey to uncover intergenerational trauma in her family and in the […]

Can people’s behavior really be explained by neuroscience and our evolutionary needs as hunter-gatherers — or is this just a popular fad? Does understanding the brain really solve the mysteries of being human? Neurologist Dr. Raymond Tallis, philosopher, Academy of Medical Sciences Fellow, and author of Why the Mind is Not a Computer and Aping […]

Is it possible to navigate the “multiple worlds” that emerge during psychotic experiences? Are voices and altered states also like a shamanic journey, needing guidance to find your way? Anusuya StarBear has heard voices and gone through altered states her whole life. A tragic near-death experience 20 years ago left her with severe and chronic […]

What if people struggling with madness could explore their emotions in a supportive sanctuary? Do frightening ‘psychotic’ experiences have the power to transform and heal? Is breakdown also breakthrough? Michael Cornwall became a therapist after surviving his own crisis — without medication or psychiatric treatment. For more than 30 years he has worked in the […]

What do you do when medications for your emotional problems become worse than the problems themselves? Laura Delano went to a psychiatrist at age 18, and for the next decade was prescribed nineteen different psychiatric drugs. After devastating physical and emotional effects, she began a journey to become medication free — and re-discover who she […]

Childhood sexual abuse is pervasive in our society, leaving lifelong wounds that affect men as well as women. Is it enough to hold perpetrators accountable, or are there deeper causes of abuse? Do police, courts, and child protection services help heal — or lead to more trauma? And how can body-oriented approaches move beyond the […]

Hearing voices is strongly connected with traumatic experiences, but are voices a brain malfunction or a creative strategy for protection? UK psychologist Eleanor Longden survived a diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia and went on to be a leading researcher around voice hearing, trauma, and dissociation.   [Read more...]

Can psychotherapy be a replacement for medication for psychosis and extreme states? Should therapists hospitalize suicidal clients against their will -- even when they could be traumatized by the very care intended to protect them? Dr. Toby Watson, clinical psychologist, discusses how to be an ethical therapist in an era of medications, diagnostic labels, and forced treatment.   [Read more...]

Why are so many children being diagnosed bipolar? Do medications treat disease - or just keep children under control? What else can parents do when faced with difficult behavioral problems? Sharna Olfman, Psychology Professor at Point Park University and editor of the book Bipolar Children, discusses the growing social and economic pressures to label children bipolar.   [Read more...]

Shamans of the Amazon jungle heal the spirit by communicating with plants and singing people back to health. Can indigenous medicine, including the psychedelic ayahuasca, help anxiety, depression, and addiction? What do healers of Peru have to teach us about mental health? Metsa Niwue, a curandero who has studied for more than sixteen years with the Shipibo and Quechua Lamista peoples, discusses the promise and potential dangers of traditional Amazonian plant medicine for the west.   [Read more...]

Could a young man's overwhelming visions of Christ and apocalypse be a creative response to life trauma, rather than signs of paranoid schizophrenia? Does madness unfold differently depending on whether it is supported - or feared? Irish activist and punk musician Grainne Humphrys, herself a survivor of an extreme state, discusses the campaign for the release of former partner John Hunt. John has been incarcerated and drugged against his will since 2005, sparking international outcry.   [Read more...]

How can we truly help combat veterans facing the aftermath of war? Is veteran trauma a sign of mental illness, or a healthy response to violent situations? Are medications and therapy the answer? Paula Caplan, author of When Johnny and Jane Come Marching Home: How All of Us Can Help Veterans, discusses healing the wounds of war by listening to the stories of veterans in our communities.   [Read more...]

Why are nearly a third of all elders in nursing homes given anti-psychotic drugs, despite life threatening side effects? Are medications being used as chemical restraints? Can nursing homes be places of dignity -- or should they be abolished? Carole Hayes-Collier was diagnosed schizophrenic at 19 and left to a lifetime of hospitalization. When she recovered, the abuses she witnessed inspired her to join the Gray Panthers and dedicate her life to elder rights and mental health.   [Read more...]

How common are suicidal feelings? Is a psychiatric illness behind suicidal despair -- or a meaningful and even spiritual life crisis? Does forced hospitalization really provide help? Suicide attempt survivor David Webb, author of Thinking About Suicide: Contemplating and Comprehending the Urge to Die, discusses how speaking openly about suicidal feelings, rather than reacting with panic and fear, is the best form of suicide prevention.   [Read more...]

What is reality? Why do people in extreme states feel connected to the universe, and experience uncanny and even supernatural events? Does quantum physics have something to teach us about madness? What if therapists were like indigenous tribal shamans, entering into clients' "psychotic" worlds as if stepping into a dream? Arnold Mindell studied with pioneering scientists Richard Feynman and Norbert Wiener and then became a Jungian therapist and founder of Process Oriented Psychology. He discusses his more than 40 years of work with individuals and groups, including people diagnosed with psychosis, and the ancient belief in a purposeful dreaming reality behind everyday events.   [Read more...]

How did pharmaceutical giant Glaxo Smith Kline create "depression" in Japan -- and a billion dollar market for its anti-depressant drug Paxil? Why do people diagnosed with schizophrenia recover more in Tanzania than they do in the US? Can western-style psychotherapy help tsunami survivors in Sri Lanka? Ethan Watters, author of Crazy Like Us: The Globalization of the American Psyche, discusses how mental disorders are cultural products, defined in the US and then exported around the world.   [Read more...]

Can therapy reach people in extreme states of "psychosis" -- without using medications? Do we need to give a diagnosis to help someone? Why are counselors afraid to listen to their "mad" clients? New York psychotherapist and filmmaker Daniel Mackler discusses how be defied social work training in his work with people labeled with schizophrenia and bipolar, and what he learned from recent visits to successful treatment alternatives in Northern Europe. Daniel is the filmmaker of Take These Broken Wings and co-author with Matthew Morrissey of A Way Out of Madness.   [Read more...]

Seamstress Agnes Richter was locked away in a mental asylum in the 1890s, and was so determined to have a voice that she embroidered her personal story onto the jacket she wore on the ward. What is the hidden history of people writing their own narratives of going insane? How important is it to listen to the experiences of "mentally ill" people? Is there meaning in madness? Gail Hornstein, Mt. Holyoke College professor and author of Agnes's Jacket: A Psychologist's Search for the Meanings of Madness, discusses the work of the Hearing Voices Movement in the UK, peer run support communities including Freedom Center in the US, and why professionals should let patients speak for themselves.   [Read more...]

How did the New York underground of punk rock music, squatting, and homeless protest give rise to a thriving and innovative peer-run mental health community? Are there creative gifts to be found in the depths of madness? Does the future of Mad Pride lie in the joining of activism with spirituality? Icarus Project co-founder Sascha Altman DuBrul discusses his escape into apocalyptic visions and psychiatric hospitals, and how he was inspired to challenge the identity of bipolar disorder.   [Read more...]

Is bipolar disorder a disease? Can medications like lithium correct chemical imbalances and stabilize mood? Do psychiatric drugs act completely differently on the brain than recreational drugs? UK psychiatrist Dr. Joanna Moncrieff, author of The Myth Of The Chemical Cure: A Critique of Psychiatric Drug Treatment, discusses how seeing psychiatric medications as treatments for disease misleads the public about how they actually work, and obscures their potential for abuse as tools of social control.   [Read more...]

How did the definition of schizophrenia change during the civil rights and Black Power era of the 1960s? Why did a disease primarily affecting withdrawn white housewives suddenly become focused on angry and "paranoid" African American men instead? Psychiatrist and historian Jonathan Metzl, author of The Protest Psychosis: How Schizophrenia Became a Black Disease, discusses racism and social control in psychiatric diagnosis, and how Black protest was turned into a mental disorder.   [Read more...]

Is a 'psychotic' crisis inside one person's mind -- or does it happen between people, in their relationship? Can therapy untangle the web of madness by addressing the family, providers, and entire social network? Smith College social worker and Fulbright scholar Mary Olson discusses the innovative work of Jaakko Seikkula and colleagues' Open Dialogue Approach in Finland, which has achieved dramatic success helping people through extreme states labeled 'psychosis' and 'schizophrenia' -- while relying much less on medication and hospitalization.   [Read more...]

People who hear voices are no more violent than anyone else -- but what about the small number of voice hearers that do actually commit violent crimes? Are medications and locked wards the best way to help those who act on their aggressive "command hallucinations?" What is the relationship between trauma, violence, and voices? Dutch psychiatric social worker and Hearing Voices Movement member Erica van den Akker discusses her innovative counseling work with violent offenders in the Netherlands.   [Read more...]

The US incarcerates more people than any country in the world - and 70% are people of color. Do we need better mental health care inside prisons -- or do prisons themselves cause trauma and madness? Psychiatrist and civil lawsuit expert witness Dr.Terry Kupers, author of Prison Madness: The Mental Health Crisis Behind Bars and What We Must Do About It, discusses overcrowding, racism, sensory deprivation, isolation, and sexual abuse in the disgraceful US prison system.   [Read more...]

Can a severe, chronic case of "schizophrenia" ever recover? Is psychotherapy an alternative to medications? What role does trauma play in madness? Hear the inspiring story of how Catherine Penney, RN, was catatonic and locked in a hospital back ward for years, and then emerged to create a new alternative healing community.   [Read more...]

Leah Harris was orphaned after both parents were diagnosed with schizophrenia and died from medication toxicity. Today she is a leading voice in survivor activism, and her powerful spoken word poetry, including "I Was A Teenage Mental Patient," has been featured in publications including Word Warriors: 35 Women Leaders in the Spoken Word Revolution, and DC Poets against the War: An Anthology. Leah is also the co-coordinator of the US Network of Users and Survivors of Psychiatry.   [Read more...]

Can recreational drugs be an opening to genuine spiritual awakening? Brian Hartnett's passion for rave dance music -- as well as alcohol and ecstasy -- cost him his career. Doctors labeled his paranoia, telepathy, and voices symptoms of schizophrenia. But Brian went on to become one of the founders of Hearing Voices Ireland, and discover a new, heightened spirituality.   [Read more...]

How can a chaotic and oppressive family life lead to trauma and extreme states? Do medications and diagnosis provide help, or can they make things worse? Psychiatric abuse survivor Lisa Darbyshire, Massachusetts organizer with the Freedom Center and the Recovery Learning Community, discusses her personal experiences of hospitalization and recovery, including the struggle with learned helplessness and dependence.   [Read more...]

What does it mean to be autistic, have Asperger's, or be on the autism spectrum? Is autism a disease to be overcome, or a difference to be embraced? Is autism advocacy like mad pride activism? Ari Ne'eman, a person on the autism spectrum and director of the Autism Self Advocacy Network, discusses the autism movement's challenge to what we consider "normal."   [Read more...]

What do modern psychiatric drug treatments have in common with lobotomy? Is informed consent possible when patients' judgment is impaired by medication? Should psych drugs be banned? For more than 50 years Dr. Peter Breggin has been a leading crusader against psychiatric abuse, Big Pharma, and medication dangers. His latest book is The Conscience of Psychiatry: The Reform Work of Peter R. Breggin, MD.   [Read more...]

How do we respond to bizarre beliefs like CIA brain chips, abduction by aliens, hearing voices, spirit possession, or telepathy? Is respect for a different reality "colluding" with a delusion? Or is there meaning in madness? Medical doctor Tamasin Knight was hospitalized for delusions, and went on to write the practical guidebook Beyond Belief: Alternative Ways of Working with Delusions, Obsessions and Unusual Experiences, available as a free download at http://www.peter-lehmann-publishing.com/books/beyond-belief.pdf (PDF).   [Read more...]

When GlaxoSmithKline was caught lying about the risks of its blockbuster anti-depressant Paxil, it set off ongoing investigations. How did New York state take on one of the world's most powerful companies? Was NY Governor Eliot Spitzer driven out by his corporate enemies? Pulitzer-nominated Boston Globe journalist Alison Bass, author of Side Effects: A Prosecutor, A Whistleblower, And A Bestselling Antidepressant On Trial, discusses legal battles to clean up drug company corruption, including pay-offs to the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill.   [Read more...]

What is the mad movement's best response to science? How is mad pride different from gay pride? Do we want to become equal with "normal" people -- or challenge the idea of normal itself? What about suffering and the risk of romanticizing madness? Icarus Project organizer, psychiatrist, and theorist Bradley Lewis, author of Moving Beyond Prozac, DSM, and the New Psychiatry: Birth of Postpsychiatry, discusses the identity politics of madness.   [Read more...]

More than 100,000 people die in the US each year from prescription drugs -- used as directed by their doctor. How did aggressive marketing make our health care system a cause of widespread sickness? Why haven't government regulation or medical research been able to protect the public? New York Times health reporter Melody Petersen discusses her new book, Our Daily Meds: How the Pharmaceutical Companies Transformed Themselves into Slick Marketing Machines and Hooked the Nation on Prescription Drugs.   [Read more...]

Does modern art, such as Artaud, Beckett, and Duchamp, parallel the mad frames of mind that get labeled "schizophrenia?" Is extreme sensitivity and inner self-consciousness behind artistic innovation and breaks with reality? Rutgers University psychologist Louis Sass, author of Madness And Modernism: Insanity in the Light of Modern Art, Literature, and Thought, discusses art as an insight into the subjective inner world of madness.   [Read more...]

What is it like to hear voices? How do people learn to live with their voices, and are voices sometimes positive and helpful? What is the connection between voices and trauma? Jacqui Dillon, voice hearer and director of the UK Hearing Voices Network, discusses how the movement of people who hear voices is creating self-help alternatives to traditional and often abusive mental health care.   [Read more...]

What are the lasting impacts of taunting, teasing, and physical harassment between children? Why are kids who are different singled out and picked on? What can parents do if their children are victims of bullies? Psychotherapist, parent, and process worker Dawn Menken, author of Speak Out! Talking About Love, Sex & Eternity, discusses her work with public schools and families to break the cycle of bullying.   [Read more...]

Why is ECT, electroconvulsive therapy or electroshock, so widely used today? How is the ECT industry manipulating research and public perceptions the way tobacco companies did about cigarettes? What are the real dangers of this lobotomy-era treatment? ECT survivor Linda Andre discusses her groundbreaking new Rutgers University Press book, Doctors of Deception: What They Don't Want You To Know About Shock Treatment.   [Read more...]

How can people recover from serious drinking problems? Are 12-step and Alcoholics Anonymous programs right for everyone? Anne Fletcher, author of Sober for Good: New Solutions for Drinking Problems, discusses how people successfully overcome alcohol abuse and regain control of their lives.   [Read more...]

Has society's embrace of psychiatric medications led to recovery -- or chronic disability? What would honest medical policy and treatment standards be if they were free of pharmaceutical company corruption? Pulitzer Prize finalist Robert Whitaker, author of Mad In America: Bad Science, Bad Medicine, and the Enduring Mistreatment of the Mentally Ill, discusses medications as a failed paradigm of care, and imagines what a sane alternative would look like.   [Read more...]

Do pharmaceutical companies control the social definition of normal? Can advertising and public relations campaigns turn acceptable personality differences into unacceptable disorders? British-American literary critic and historian Christopher Lane discusses his book Shyness: How Normal Behavior Became a Sickness, including the way politics and profits drive the bible of mental health treatment, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual.   [Read more...]

Blogger and former social worker Gianna Kali discusses her experience going into the mental health system after taking psychedelic drugs, spiritual emergence, decades of treatment with more than 30 different psychiatric medications, and the difficult process of coming off meds, drug withdrawal, and regaining her life. Gianna is the creator of the Beyond Meds blog about mental health and coming off medications.   [Read more...]

Psychiatric survivor activism is a vital force changing American mental health care, leading the way in human rights reforms and challenging pharmaceutical company corruption long before the scandals of today's headlines. What is this history of the movement, what challenges does it face today, and are there dangers of cooptation and reformism? Join cultural anthropologist Gabriella Coleman to explore the lessons of the Mad Movement.   [Read more...]

UK clinical psychologist Rufus May descended into madness -- convinced he was on a spy mission and that animals were robots, he even walked into a family gathering naked. How did Rufus find meaning in these experiences, learn to live without medication, and become a successful psychologist and mental health advocate? Rufus was recently featured in the Channel 4 feature film The Doctor Who Hears Voices.   [Read more...]

Is depression a result of poverty? How can community development and economic empowerment affect mental health? Psychology professor Alisha Ali discusses the dangers of turning social problems into medical disorders, including bias in diagnosis, limits of "cultural competency" and "anti-stigma" initiatives, and the experiences of immigrant women.   [Read more...]

Labor doula and Icarus Project student organizer Annie Robinson talks about her experience in the mental health system as an adolescent, and how it led to her interest in changing medical birthing procedures and becoming a doula. Annie discusses the trauma caused by doctor interventions in childbirth and its lasting effects on both children and mothers.   [Read more...]

Internationally known advocate, psychiatric abuse survivor organizer, and clinical psychologist Ronald Bassman discusses and reads from his new book, A Fight To Be: A Psychologist's Experience From Both Sides of the Locked Door. Ron was diagnosed "paranoid schizophrenic" and left in back wards as a "chronic case," but has gone on to become a leader in the recovery movement and an inspiring teacher and therapist.   [Read more...]

Marykate Connor, founder of Caduceus Outreach Services in San Francisco, talks about her innovative work helping homeless people with mental health problems. She discusses the criminal justice system, the decline of services since the 1970s, medication policies, poverty, and what led her to create one of the most innovative and effective homelessness programs in the country.   [Read more...]

Grace Guyol, diagnosed with bipolar disorder and author of Healing Depression and Bipolar Disorder Without Drugs: Inspiring Stories of Restoring Mental Health Through Natural Therapies, discusses nutrition, supplements, and holistic health care for helping people diagnosed with severe mental illnesses.   [Read more...]

Psychology professor Randy Frost, author of Buried In Treasures, discusses his work on hoarding, people who collect so much stuff excessively that it disrupts their lives or creates a health or fire hazard, including how to help people without risking adding to the problem through intrusive or drastic intervention.   [Read more...]

Editor Sabrina Chapadjiev discusses the new Seven Stories Press anthology Live Through This: On Creativity and Self Destruction, a rich collection of women artists sharing intimate accounts of cutting, alcoholism, suicide, abuse, madness and other self harm and how it relates to their creativity. Authors include bell hooks, Bonfire Madigan Shive, Patricia Smith, Annie Sprinkle, Inga Muscio, Kate Bornstein, and Nicole Blackman.   [Read more...]

Advocate and bipolar survivor Steven Morgan talks about his experiences with spirituality and meditation, including healing through dream work. Listen to the recent profile the New York Times did of Steven, check out Steven's writing at http://www.vermontrecovery.com   [Read more...]

Long time Icarus Project organizer, open source computer software architect, and graduate doctoral student Jeffrey Goins discusses his psychiatric experiences and insights from the world of technology applied to the world of madness. Topics include the Eli Lilly Zyprexa memos scandal and intellectual property rights; freedom in a surveillance society; prophecy and ancient wisdom, and the "end of forgetting."   [Read more...]

Oregon Mental health counselor Ron Unger discusses his experiences with altered states of consciousness, and how cognitive behavioral therapy can be a useful alternative to medication and mainstream psychiatric treatment. Ron is a longtime organizer with the human rights organization Mindfreedom International, and his website is http://www.recoveryfromschizophrenia.org/blog/   [Read more...]

Clinical Psychologist David Lukoff talks about his madness experience and the spiritual transformation it triggered. David went on to become a leading figure in the field of Transpersonal Psychology and works to bring greater spiritual awareness into mainstream mental health practice.   [Read more...]

UK video activist and writer Mel Gunasena on her mystical experiences and forced psychiatric hospitalization. Mel is the director of Evolving Minds, a documentary film about spiritual experiences and what gets labeled "psychosis" by the mental health system. She also discusses the art therapy project in Sri Lanka she helped found to assist traumatized tsunami-affected children. See a trailer for the film at http://www.undercurrents.org/minds and check out the Sri Lanka project at http://www.art-2-art.org   [Read more...]

Community organizer and writer Michael Gennarelli talks about his 8 years of psychiatric treatment as a child and his stays at Bellevue Hospital in New York City. Michael reads his poetry about these painful experiences and discusses his activism, including an after school program for kids and the Misled Youth Network.   [Read more...]

Recovery leader and survivor Ed Knight talks about Zen, Insight, and Christian meditation and "schizophrenia," including discrimination against people with psychiatric labels at meditation retreats, the link between spiritual awakening and madness, and living beyond "managing symptoms."   [Read more...]

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

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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...]

Freedom Center co-founder Oryx Cohen talks about how men can recover and heal from trauma, and creating a trauma-informed mental health system. Oryx also discusses the creation of the new Recovery Learning Community in Western MA.   [Read more...]

Psychotherapist and MindFreedom activist Matthew Morrissey discusses the deeper meaning of "psychosis," his own healing journey, and his past work at a unique center that focused on facilitating recovery from what are classified as "major mental disorders."   [Read more...]

Phenix City, Alabama mobile DJ John Rice describes how he spent decades on neuroleptic drugs after being dragged into the psych system in the Deep South, and his discovery of Jamaican dub reggae music as a pathway to recovery and spiritual connection. An amazing interview.   [Read more...]

Longtime consumer-survivor movement leader and pioneer in recovery education Pat Deegan talks about her story surviving a schizophrenia diagnosis, empowered medication decisions, and her development of innovative assisstive technology.   [Read more...]

Psychologist and advocate with the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) and the Marijuana Policy project, Mitch Earleywine discusses medical marijuana, dangers and uses, and the relationship between marijuana and psychosis.   [Read more...]

July 2007: psychiatric survivors from the Freedom Center in Northampton MA pushed a bed across town and held a rally and speakout against local mental health mistreatment, including at Cooley Dickinson Hospital and ServiceNet. With activists Molly Hurter, Keeley Malone, Chaya Grossberg, Oryx Cohen, Amy Bookbinder, and Abigail Adams.   [Read more...]

Independent journalist Evelyn Pringle writes extensively on Big Pharma corruption and the role the mainstream media plays in covering it up.   [Read more...]

Hurricane Katrina special, with Aby Adams and Will Hall of the Freedom Center discussing their trip to New Orleans to do volunteer relief work, and the questionable role of the mainstream mental health industry in recovery efforts. Check out their trip report on the Freedom Center News page.   [Read more...]

Gary Greenberg, journalist for Harpers, the New Yorker, Rolling Stone and others, discusses being a subject in a clinical drug trial, how depression is manipulated by advertising and Big Pharma, and the social medicalizing of experience.   [Read more...]

Two topics: A Northampton, Massachusetts woman talks about her near-fatal drug reaction to an off label prescription of Lamictal, and Brooklynne Michelle discusses the Mosh Knit podcast -- about knitting and bipolar.   [Read more...]

Riot Grrl instigator Bonfire Madigan Shive talks about her family, the mental health system, living outside the mainstream and her creative inspiration as a visionary musician.   [Read more...]

Longtime Freedom Center ally Mt. Holyoke College Professor Gail Hornstein discusses first-person accounts of people who have lived through madness, and previews her upcoming book Agnes's Jacket.   [Read more...]

UK psychiatrist Philip Thomas discusses the globalization of psychiatry and pharmaceutical company expansion world-wide, including how community empowerment and traditional ways of care can challenge western individualism based medical model of mental health. Check out Phil's book Post-Psychiatry: Mental Health in a Postmodern World, and his essay "Challenging the Globalization of Psychiatry", both written with Irish psychiatrist Pat Bracken.   [Read more...]

John Horgan, who has written for Scientific American, Discover, and the New York Times, talks about neuroscience, genetics, the placebo effect psychedelic drugs, and more. John is the author of The Undiscovered Mind: How The Human Brain Defies Replication, Medication, and Explanation, Rational Mysticism, and The End of Science. He also hosts a video blog at http://www.bloggingheads.tv   [Read more...]

Paul Levy, who went through psych hospitalizations as part of a spiritual emergence process and became a Buddhist teacher, discusses his book The Madness Of George W. Bush: A Reflection of our Collective Psychosis.   [Read more...]

Rocky Caravelli talks about his recovery from 25 years of methamphetamine and heroin addition and a bipolar diagnosis through treatment with Ibogaine, a visionary plant medicine from indigenous people in West Africa, and his work helping many others heal. Rocky is director of Ibogaine treatment center Awaken In The Dream house in San Francisco de Nayarit, Mexico.   [Read more...]

Long time Freedom Center organizer Chaya Grossberg talks about her experiences with madness, medications, her explorations of spirituality, being a client at Windhorse Associates, and how her healing path has brought her to be a teacher of local yoga and writing classes.   [Read more...]

Richard DeGrandpre, former editor of Adbusters magazine and author of Ritalin Nation, discusses his new book, The Cult of Pharmacology, and how the popular conception of "addiction" behind the War On Drugs is scientifically inaccurate: social context, learning, morality and meaning determine how drugs affect us, not simple addiction chemistry.   [Read more...]

Keely Malone, organizer with Freedom Center, and Arise for Social Justice, talks about her work with Quabbin Mediation training people in "Active Bystandership," teaching how to not passively witness harm such as bullying, violence, or crisis, but to become actively involved, and how this can change situations and make communities more responsible.   [Read more...]

Award winning journalist Philip Dawdy, former Seattle Weekly writer, discusses his research on pharmaceutical companies and mental heath. Philip is the writer of the excellent blog Furious Seasons.   [Read more...]

17 year old Sonia Peterson speaks with great insight about being locked up and forced to take drugs at age 12 and living with a bipolar diagnosis. Plus a short documentaty produced by Darbey Penney and Peter Stastny on Nazi killings of psychiatric patients, and an interview with original Freedom Center leading organizer Vikki Gilbert.   [Read more...]

Psychiatric Survivor Krista MacKinnon talks about her experiences with extreme states and spirituality, and her current work as a family advocate with Toronto, Canada's Family Outreach and Response Program, an innovative way of helping families from beyond the limits of the medical approach.   [Read more...]

Dr. Pat Bracken, Irish psychiatrist, philosopher and co-author of the book Post-Psychiatry: Mental Health in a Post-Modern World, discusses community development as an alternative to individualistic and harmful Western mental health care world wide, including a critique of the PTSD diagnosis and its treatment based on his work in Uganda.   [Read more...]

Mina, a main organizer with the Portand Icarus Project, discusses her experiences diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder schizophrenia - bipolar type, coming off meds, homelessness, mysticism, and helping people through psychotic crisis, as well as reading from her 'zine.   [Read more...]

Ed Knight, schizophrenia and homelessness survivor, has become one of the leading advocates of a recovery-based approach in mental health, and is one of the main organizers of the consumer-survivor movement. Ed is the Steward of The Healing Circle, a Zen Peacemaker Circle, and a Senior in the Buddhist Zen Peacemaker Sangha, as well as Vice President of Recovery, Rehabilitation and Mutual Support at Valueoptions, and a mentor in the Prison Dharma Network.   [Read more...]

Psychiatrist Peter Stastny talks about his decades-long work as an anti-psychiatrist psychiatrist, problems with the hospital system and medications, and the international movement to create alternatives. Peter is one of the main organizers of INTAR, the International Network of Treatment Alternatives for Recovery.   [Read more...]

INTAR -- the International Network Towards Alternatives and Recovery -- had a 2005 gathering of people from around the world working on ways to help people with schizophrenia, bipolar and other diagnoses without the medical model. This hour-long show interviews 13 participants.   [Read more...]

Danielle, who works with a New York City policy NGO and is part of the activist Rockdove Collective, discusses the international Restorative Justice movement, creating effective mediation and community dialog as alternatives to the punitive prison-industrial complex criminal justice system. Danielle specifically focuses on using Restorative Justice for violent and serious crimes.   [Read more...]

Leading legal scholar Michael Perlin discusses psychiatric rights around the world and the political uses of forced treatment, at the 2006 NARPA conference.   [Read more...]

Portland Oregon police were exonerated after they beat and killed without provocation or cause Jim Chasse, a man labeled with schizophrenia.   [Read more...]

Zyprexa manufacturer Eli-Lilly covered up criminal conduct and drug risks, leaked documents show, and is using a court gag order to keep survivor activists, including Freedom Center organizer Will Hall, quiet.   [Read more...]

Culture jammer and anti-consumerist publisher of Adbusters magazine Kalle Lasn talks about the mental environment, brands, organizing for change and how toxic culture causes emotional distress.   [Read more...]

Sex workers Caty Simon and Maryse discuss social standards of normal and acceptable sexuality and how it affects mental wellbeing, from the point of view of sex workers rights.   [Read more...]

Inside Soteria House with Voyce Hendrix, original clinical director who worked closely with Loren Mosher. Soteria House was a non-medication, non-diagnostic label and voluntary residence treating severe psychotic breakdown. Recovery rates were much higher in this humane and egalitarian atmosphere -- but the project was shut down because it challenged the pharmaceutical company pro-medication interests. Voyce discusses how Soteria was different than mainstream facilities and describes the healing results it had.   [Read more...]

Visionary writer, musician, and sculptor Eddie Bartok-Baratta performs his powerful poetry, plays flute, and discusses his amazing life, trauma and violence, and his creativity.   [Read more...]

A harrowing film of six families devastated by the dangerous violence-causing effects of anti-depressant drugs.   [Read more...]

Urban Shamanism with Julie Spooner, licensed psychologist from Brooklyn New York. Julie discusses a spiritual healing approach to madness and psychosis, including journeying through visionary states into alternate dimensions and interacting with illness and imbalance in their energetic and mystical forms. Are people labeled 'psychotic' journeying to other dimensions like shamans do, but without realizing it? How can people learn to control these experiences as gifts rather than curses?   [Read more...]

Violence and Madness with Robert Whitaker, Pulitzer-nominated author of "Mad In America," discussing the role of psychiatric drugs in causing violence, the history of coercive psychiatric treatments, and responses to the recent murder of prominent psychiatrist Wayne Fenton by his patient.   [Read more...]

Commonsense Rebellion with Bruce Levine, dissident psychologist and author of Commonsense Rebellion: Taking Back Your Life from Drugs, Shrinks, Corporations, and a World Gone Crazy, discusses the social forces that drive people to depression, anxiety, and mental breakdown, and how community and caring are the way to a healthier self and world.   [Read more...]

Self-injury and cutting with Ruta Mazelis, psychiatric abuse survivor and editor for 17+ years of the acclaimed newsletter "The Cutting Edge". Cutting, burning, head banging and other self-harm are discussed from the point of view of people doing them -- as coping mechanisms that need compassion and understanding, not the force and judgment of mainstream psychiatry.   [Read more...]

Transsexual writer and activist Kate Bornstein on her book Hello Cruel World: 101 Alternatives to Suicide for Teens, Freaks and Other Outlaws. Kate overturns the orthodox either-or labels of male / female and straight/gay/bi with her postmodern sexuality of self-definition and fluid identity. Kate is the author of the highly successful books My Gender Workbook and Gender Outlaw: On Men, Women and The Rest of Us, and her new book takes a transgressive and honest approach to what it takes to stay alive in a crazy world.   [Read more...]

Delphine Brody is a psych survivor and advocate with the California Network of Mental Health Clients who has years of experience working for substantial policy change on the local, state, and national level. Delphine also addresses efforts to stop forced outpatient commitment laws in California in the wake of the recent tragic murder of psychiatrist Dr. Wayne Fenton.   [Read more...]