History

Will Hall greets community FM station Valley Free Radio for its 20 years anniversary celebration! Founders Will and Ed Russell sparked the volunteer-run station in Northampton, Massachusetts, dedicated to peace, ecology, and social justice — and home to Madness Radio. Congrats on 20 years of amazing volunteer run community programming and an antidote to our corporate drive media! Video here: https://youtu.be/yz2ZI2LXQMo
https://valleyfreeradio.org/
https://www.northamptonchamber.com/blog/investor-spotlight-valley-free-radio
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DNDnCWBx0Nb/
https://valleyadvocate.com/…/20-hours-to-celebrate-20…/
Low Power To The People | Valley Advocate

Legendary psychiatric survivor activist Irit Shimrat escaped psychiatric incarceration to become a leading anti-psychiatry organizer. Co-founder of the Ontario Psychiatric Survivors’ Alliance, Irit edited the Canadian magazine Phoenix Rising: The Voice of the Psychiatrized and wrote Call Me Crazy: Stories from the Mad Movement, bringing together the stories of many leading activists. Irit shares her experiences from the inside of locked wards, and from the outside – organizing to abolish them. (Transcript) 58 min version

Call me Crazy: Stories from the Mad Movement by Irit Shimrat
Spotlight on Institutional Psychiatry Edited by Irit Shimrat
Phoenix Rising: The Voice of the Psychiatrized
Don Weitz Legacy Project
Lunatics Liberation Front web archive
Go Nuts!

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Is madness dysfunction and breakdown – or part of human evolution that helps us survive? Writers going back to Hippocrates saw madness as the organism’s way to cope with its environment, so why has this view almost disappeared today? Justin Garson, professor of philosophy at Hunter College and author of Madness: a Philosophical Exploration, joins co-hosts Will Hall and Jessica Gallinger to discuss madness as a strategy, beyond the biological vs psychological debate. (Transcript) 58 min version

Justin Garson’s website Madness: A Philosophical Exploration

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What can R.D. Laing, madness, and Star Trek teach us about the end of the world – and saving it? Will Hall reads “Can Madness Save the World? Where R.D. Laing—and Star Trek—Meet,” published on Mad In America March 14, 2024. The essay draws on the original series Star Trek episode City on the Edge of Forever and on The Obvious, Laing’s speech at the 1967 Dialectics Of Liberation Congress. (Trust us, this all does makes sense!)

www.madinamerica.com/2024/03/can-madness-save-the-world-where-r-d-laing-and-star-trek-meet/

Audiobook mp3 of Chapter 7 “A Ten Day Voyage”, from The Politics of Experience and the Bird of Paradise, by R.D. Laing, read by Will Hall.

Full book .mp3 (cntrl/rtclck save as to download):

https://www.madnessradio.net/audio-extra/RDLaingPoliticsOfExperienceLaingAudiobookFULL.mp3

Full book as chapters on this YouTube playlist:

www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLMya78GAdrpxtOjEayvMp1lC88ce21kUb

Individual chapters as .mp3 (ctrl/rtclick to save as):

https://www.madnessradio.net/audio-extra/RDLaingPoliticsOfExperienceLaingAudiobookCh1.mp3

https://www.madnessradio.net/audio-extra/RDLaingPoliticsOfExperienceLaingAudiobookCh2.mp3

https://www.madnessradio.net/audio-extra/RDLaingPoliticsOfExperienceLaingAudiobookCh3.mp3

https://www.madnessradio.net/audio-extra/RDLaingPoliticsOfExperienceLaingAudiobookCh4.mp3

https://www.madnessradio.net/audio-extra/RDLaingPoliticsOfExperienceLaingAudiobookCh5.mp3

https://www.madnessradio.net/audio-extra/RDLaingPoliticsOfExperienceLaingAudiobookCh6.mp3

https://www.madnessradio.net/audio-extra/RDLaingPoliticsOfExperienceLaingAudiobookCh7.mp3

https://www.madnessradio.net/audio-extra/RDLaingPoliticsOfExperienceLaingAudiobookCh8.mp3

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._D. Laing

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The essay from Mad In America Sept 2021 “Ending The Silence Around Psychedelic Therapy Abuse”, read by Will Hall:

Michael Pollan’s hugely influential new book on psychedelic medicine, How to Change Your Mind, is overly enthusiastic and largely uncritical. All the new hype and questionable science about miracle treatments as the next wave of cures for mental disorders leaves out huge risks, including the risk of therapy abuse…

Also check the companion essay with more detail about my personal experience with psychedelic therapists Aharon Grossbard and Francoise Bourzat of the Center for Consciousness Medicine at www.medium.com/@willhall, with updates and links at the end of that essay.

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 the University of East London, using feminist research to decolonize modern psychiatry. Her new book Psycurity: Colonialism, Paranoia, and the War on Imagination brings her background as a Pakeha (white/settler) New Zealander to free madness from whiteness and express the imaginative potential of states labeled paranoia. 58 min version

https://bit.ly/2ohWcQI
https://racheljaneliebert.com/
https://uel.academia.edu/racheljaneliebert

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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 overcome the roots of violence and war. Her Dignity and Humiliation Studies initiative is showing a new way to treat each other — from our most intimate relations to our international foreign policies — and also in our response to mental health crisis.

www.humiliationstudies.org/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evelin_Lindner
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQZMxS7UI_k

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.

Full book .mp3 (cntrl/rtclck save as to download):

https://www.madnessradio.net/audio-extra/RDLaingPoliticsOfExperienceLaingAudiobookFULL.mp3

Full book as chapters on this YouTube playlist:

www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLMya78GAdrpxtOjEayvMp1lC88ce21kUb

Individual chapters as .mp3 (ctrl/rtclick to save as):

https://www.madnessradio.net/audio-extra/RDLaingPoliticsOfExperienceLaingAudiobookCh1.mp3

https://www.madnessradio.net/audio-extra/RDLaingPoliticsOfExperienceLaingAudiobookCh2.mp3

https://www.madnessradio.net/audio-extra/RDLaingPoliticsOfExperienceLaingAudiobookCh3.mp3

https://www.madnessradio.net/audio-extra/RDLaingPoliticsOfExperienceLaingAudiobookCh4.mp3

https://www.madnessradio.net/audio-extra/RDLaingPoliticsOfExperienceLaingAudiobookCh5.mp3

https://www.madnessradio.net/audio-extra/RDLaingPoliticsOfExperienceLaingAudiobookCh6.mp3

https://www.madnessradio.net/audio-extra/RDLaingPoliticsOfExperienceLaingAudiobookCh7.mp3

https://www.madnessradio.net/audio-extra/RDLaingPoliticsOfExperienceLaingAudiobookCh8.mp3

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._D. Laing

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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 diagnosed as psychosis, Director of Training at the Wildflower Alliance – Western Massachusetts Recovery Learning Community, Hearing Voiced and Alternatives to Suicide support group facilitator/trainer, and part of the Jewish Renewal movement studying to be a rabbi.www.westernmassrlc.org/ https://aleph.org/

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 physicist, systems theorist, and author of several international bestselling books including The Tao of Physics, The Web of Life, and most recently The Systems View of Life (co-authored with Pier Luigi Luisi), discusses a shift in scientific consciousness with far reaching implications for our understanding of mind and mental illness. www.fritjofcapra.net www.capracourse.net Photo: Basso Cannarsa

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. Bapu’s struggle inspired Bhargavi to found the Bapu Trust, where she leads advocacy for mental health reform and community development throughout Asia. Bhargavi is also a lead organizer with INTAR, the International Network Towards Alternatives for Recovery.

www.baputrust.com http://bit.ly/1Mkn3u9 http://bit.ly/1TY2Ap0

http://bit.ly/25KXMp2

www.intar.org

https://www.hrw.org/news/2014/12/03/india-women-disabilities-locked-away-and-abused

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 medications. She discovered how her Bangladeshi heritage shaped her madness, and found a unique pathway to use her visionary states to heal personal and family trauma.

http://www.madinamerica.com/2015/10/transmuting-historical-trauma/

https://www.madinamerica.com/author/nsiddiqui/

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, explores the famous President’s battle with despair, suicide, and intense sorrow, and discusses what people with depression – and the medical establishment empowered to treat them – can learn from Lincoln’s suffering. www.shenk.net www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2005/10/lincolns-great-depression/304247/ www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2009/06/what-makes-us-happy/307439/ www.shapell.org/manuscript.aspx?lincoln-mccullough-civil-war-condolence