Philosophy

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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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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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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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

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, looks beyond travel literature’s colonial superiority and explores how meaning, perception, and belief shape what we think of as “real” in disease and health.

http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2016/04/the-diseases-you-only-get-if-you-believe-inthem/479367/

http://nym.ag/2k0tKQa

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 books, including The Corporeal Turn: An Interdisciplinary Reader, The Primacy of Movement, and The Phenomenology Of Dance, explores her understanding of the evolution of mind. http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Movement_as_a_Way_of_Knowing
http://www.bodypsychyoga.com/Downloads_BCMT/ProgressiveRelaxation.pdf
http://www.amazon.com/Putting-Movement-into-Your-Life/dp/149747695X

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

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.

http://www.aamindell.net/blog/books#arny
http://www.processwork.org/
http://www.sonic.net/~billkirn/mindell_interview.html

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.

http://www.theicarusproject.net
http://www.nyu.edu/gallatin/about/bios/bradley_lewis.html

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.

lsass@rci.rutgers.edu

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 at http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2008/07/16/health/healthguide/TE_BIPOLAR_CLIPS.html and check out Steven’s writing at http://www.vermontrecovery.com

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.

http://www.aamindell.net
http://www.processwork.org