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 medical model of emotional distress.

http://csw.fsu.edu/faculty/tomi-gomory
http://bit.ly/LoqI1L

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 48:29 — 44.4MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | RSS

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, discusses healing the deep wounds of intergenerational trauma in Indian Country.

http://www.tessasdance.com

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 49:55 — 45.7MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | RSS

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 context of our lives.

http://talkingbacktodrphil.com

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 50:16 — 46.0MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | RSS

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 and political context for the controversial “Borderline Personality Disorder” diagnosis.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 55:57 — 51.3MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | RSS

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 Healing together, discusses practical methods for turning family relationships into tools for healing.

http://www.familieshealingtogether.com
http://www.practicerecovery.com
http://kristamackinnon.net
http://www.familymentalhealthrecovery.org

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 46:35 — 42.7MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | RSS

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 his recovery journey from psychiatric drug addiction.

http://us.macmillan.com/deathgrip/MattSamet
http://www.madinamerica.com/2013/05/matt-samet-climbing-out/

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 50:52 — 46.6MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | RSS

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 communicating with memory loss and how to make an end of life transition with dignity.

http://www.comacommunication.com

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 50:11 — 46.0MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | RSS

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 Rolling Stone, discusses the politics behind psychiatry’s new Bible.

http://www.garygreenbergonline.com

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 50:17 — 46.1MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | RSS

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 Model,” discusses the politics of language and innovative programs to truly help people in distress.

http://www.westernmassrlc.org
http://www.madinamerica.com/author/sdavidow/

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 49:51 — 45.6MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | RSS

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 person, surviving with a broken heart, and how to travel the path from madness to the wounded healer.

http://www.ashley-mcnamara.net
http://www.theicarusproject.net
http://www.crookedbeauty.com

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 49:51 — 45.7MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | RSS

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 May Be Your Problem, discusses the role of social context in constructing how we experience psychiatric medications.

http://www.criticalthinkrx.org
http://bit.ly/15tSAXH
http://rscphsw.fiu.edu/social_work/faculty_cohen.html

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 52:06 — 47.7MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | RSS

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 now directs BodyWhys Canada, supporting youth with peer education.

www.meaghanbuisson.com

(more…)

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 40:32 — 37.1MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | RSS

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 history of her native Ireland, and was inspired to take poems about madness — by Anne Sexton, Theodore Roethke, James Clarence Mangan, Gwendolyn Brooks, and others — and set them to music in her album “Singing in the Dark.”

http://www.susanmckeown.com
http://irishphiladelphia.com/singinginthedark

(more…)

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 51:08 — 46.8MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | RSS

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 Mankind: Neuromania, Darwinitis and the Misrepresentation of Humanity, exposes the bad science and faulty logic behind pop obsessions with the brain and evolutionary psychology.

http://www.raymondtallis.com
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/the_tls/article3712980.ece
http://www.newstatesman.com/culture/books/2012/09/your-brain-pseudoscience

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 51:34 — 47.3MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | RSS

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 physical pain — and the calling to be a healer. Today visionary painting and Native American spirituality transform her pain into a creative pathway as a Process Oriented therapist, coach, and energy healer.

http://www.anusuyastarbear.com/

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 52:26 — 48.0MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | RSS