Mad In America: Science, Psychiatry And Social Justice

This week on the Mad in America podcast we are joined by Dr. Chris van Tulleken. Chris is an Infectious Diseases doctor at the Hospital for Tropical Diseases in London. He trained at Oxford and has a PhD in molecular virology from University College London, where he is an associate professor. His research focuses on how corporations affect human health, especially in the context of child nutrition, and he works with UNICEF and the World Health Organization on this area. Chris is also one of the BBC's leading broadcasters for children and adults and his work has won two BAFTAs. In this interview, we talk about Chris's new book Ultra-Processed People: Why Do We All Eat Stuff That Isn't Food and Why Can't We Stop? The book takes a deep dive into the science, economics, history, and production of ultra-processed food. In particular, we discuss some of the effects of UPF on our brains and bodies and how the food industry positions UPF to dominate our diets. *** Thank you for being with us to listen to the podcast

This week on the Mad in America podcast, we hear from drug safety advocate David Carmichael. David has personal knowledge of the effects of psychiatric drugs, having experienced a family tragedy in 2004. David now uses his knowledge and experience to help people make informed choices about prescription drug use. In November 2023, he will embark on a tour of 15 U.S. cities, aiming to educate and inform about the possible risks of antidepressant treatment. In this interview, we talk about David's experiences, his upcoming antidepressant safety tour, and the importance of fully informed consent at the time of prescribing. *** Thank you for being with us to listen to the podcast and read our articles this year. MIA is funded entirely by reader donations. If you value MIA, please help us continue to survive and grow. To find the Mad in America podcast on your preferred podcast player, click here

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

Pata Suyemoto is a feminist scholar, educator, curriculum developer, activist, and artist. Her work focuses on promoting racial equity in mental health and suicide prevention through teaching and advocacy. She advocates for equity and inclusion at all levels of mental health care, from grassroots organizations to state-level policy institutions. Dr. Suyemoto has spoken and written about being a suicide attempt survivor and about her struggles with chronic depression and PTSD. Dr. Suyemoto earned her PhD in Education from the University of Pennsylvania, where she researched multicultural and anti-racist education. She currently serves as the Training Director for the National Asian American Pacific Islander Mental Health Association and leads the National Asian American Pacific Islander Empowerment Network. She is also a leader in suicide prevention at the local and national levels, serving as the Equity Coordinator for the Massachusetts Coalition for Suicide Prevention and co-chair of the Greater Boston Regio

Camille Robcis is a Professor of History and French at Columbia University. She is the author of two books, The Law of Kinship: Anthropology, Psychoanalysis, and the Family in France, and her more recent book from 2021, Disalienation: Politics, Philosophy and Radical Psychiatry in Postwar France. Her areas of interest and expertise include European Intellectual History, with a focus on 19th and 20th Century France. In her latest book, Disalienation, Dr. Robcis explores the highly experimental mid to late 20th Century French psychiatric efforts that, while sharing some similarities with other anti-psychiatric movements of that time, offer many novel insights into forms of psychiatry and psychotherapy that prioritize community and liberation. Dr. Robcis offers a comprehensive account of the distinct approach to radical psychiatry known as Institutional Psychotherapy. In this interview, I had the opportunity to delve deeper into Dr. Robcis's interest in this approach and gain insight into what sets Institutional

Erick Turner is an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the Oregon Health and Science University (OHSU). He is also a senior scholar with OHSU’s Center for Ethics and Health Care. Dr. Turner has been an FDA reviewer and has dedicated his work and life to improving research transparency. He’s well known for his work on publication bias and antidepressant trials, but his findings show that psychotherapy research is also riddled with problems. What happens when those we trust with knowledge in our society betray us? In today’s interview, we discuss how dubious research practices are not simply the work of a few bad apples but instead built into the way we produce knowledge. We further explore the consequences of these practices on patients and the dangerous tradition of journal worship before exploring how many of these problems can be solved. *** Thank you for being with us to listen to the podcast and read our articles this year. MIA is funded entirely by reader donations. If you value MIA, p

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

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

The Mad in America podcast is sponsored this week by Drs Rani and Suraj Holistic Psychiatry and Mental Health Coaching. Are you Ready to make a lasting change in your life? Then join Dr Rani Bora's 12-month group coaching programme named "Beyond Diagnosis". Visit their website drsranisuraj.com today for more information and to join this unique programme. *** Last fall, the New Haven Register reported that a group of Yale University students and alumni filed a federal lawsuit against the university challenging its policies and practices around students with mental health disabilities. But according to our guest, a lack of access to appropriate support, as well as discrimination against students struggling with their mental health, are all too common on American campuses. Stefanie Lyn Kaufman-Mthimkhulu is the founder and director of the non-profit Project LETS, which stands for Let’s Erase the Stigma. Project LETS is a national grassroots organization and movement focused on creating innovative, peer-led alter

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

Today we are continuing with our look behind the scenes of Mad in America for our 200th podcast. Mad in America got started in January 2012 and so to celebrate a decade of critical comment and appraisal we thought it would be interesting to reflect on Mad in America’s mission and work by speaking to the people behind the scenes, who keep it running day-to-day. Before we move on to our interviews, I want to pay tribute to the people at MIA who couldn’t join us for these interviews for one reason or another. Susannah Senerchia is our Assistant Editor and amongst other things, manages our Around the Web section. She is always finding interesting articles from the corners of the internet that help to tell of a shift in thinking about mental health. Also, of course, Mad in America relies heavily on the science news team as we discussed in part one of this podcast and for overview, we have our Board consisting of Robert Whitaker, Kermit Cole, Louisa Putnam, Olga Runciman and Claudia Esteve. So, on to our interview

This week is a special one for us at Mad in America, as it’s the 200th episode of our podcast. Our first interview was with attorney and author of Zyprexa Papers, Jim Gottstein, back in July 2017. For this and the next podcast, we’ll be talking to the people that make Mad in America what it is, the people behind the scenes, who keep it running day-to-day. Later in this podcast, we will hear from staff reporter Amy Biancolli, science news editor Justin Karter and arts editor Karin Jervert, but to kick us off today, we hear from Mad in America founder, Robert Whitaker. Bob worked as a newspaper reporter for a number of years, covering medicine and science. He is the author of five books, three of which investigate the history of psychiatry and the merits of its treatments. Those books are Mad in America,published in 2002; Anatomy of an Epidemic, from 2010, and he was co-author along with Lisa Cosgrove of Psychiatry Under the Influence, published in 2015. He was also a director of publications at Harvard Medical

Madness: Fighting for Justice in Mental Health is an upcoming conference created by the Disruption Network Lab. The Lab examines the intersection of politics, technology and society, exposing the misconduct and wrongdoing of the powerful. This year, the conference will investigate systems of mental health care focusing on the prevailing discourses and practices, biases, and inequalities. It will explore the questions: What does it mean to have a just mental health care system and who has access to it? Who decides who is labelled as mad? The conference is being held in Berlin, Germany, as well as streamed online free on November 25th through the 27th. You can view the conference live at disruptionlab.org/madness. In this podcast, Mad in America’s Arts Editor, Karin Jervert, interviews the curator of the conference, Elena Veljanovska, and three artists—Dolly Sen, Anika Krbetschek, and Marcello Lussana—about art and transformation, human rights, and justice in mental health. Dolly Sen is an internationally renow

On the Mad in America podcast this wweek we are joined by renowned psychopharmacologist Dr David Healy. David is a psychiatrist, scientist and author. Before becoming a professor of Psychiatry in Wales, and more recently in the Department of Family Medicine at McMaster University in Canada, he studied medicine in Dublin and at Cambridge University. He is a former Secretary of the British Association for Psychopharmacology, and has authored more than 220 peer-reviewed articles, 300 other pieces, and 25 books, including The Antidepressant Era, The Creation of Psychopharmacology and Pharmageddon. He has been involved as an expert witness in homicide and suicide trials involving psychotropic drugs, and in bringing problems with these drugs to the attention of American and European regulators, as well raising awareness of how pharmaceutical companies sell drugs by marketing diseases and co-opting academic opinion-leaders, ghost-writing their articles. David is a founder and CEO of Data Based Medicine Limi

Morgan Shields is one of the few health policy researchers who focuses on quality of care and issues of coercion within inpatient psychiatry. Her research exposes how current healthcare settings are influenced by power imbalances, profit structures, and organizational priorities that are fundamentally misaligned with the human needs of individual patients. Dr. Shields completed her Ph.D. in Social Policy at Brandeis University and is currently an Assistant Professor at the Brown School of Social Work at Washington University in St. Louis, where she also directs her own research group. She has published over 25 peer-reviewed articles in outlets such as Health Affairs, Psychiatric Services, and the JAMA Network. She has also completed several policy reports for entities such as the U.S. Health and Human Services Office, and has served as a legal expert in cases related to psychiatric patient discrimination. In doing so, her research has effected change at the state and federal levels, prompting internal inve

This week we are sharing a special interview that’s being done as part of World Tapering Day. World Tapering Day is being held on the 4th, 5th and 6th of November 2022 and it aims to raise global awareness of the need to safely taper psychotropic drugs. It has been organized by people with personal experience of the severe difficulties that can arise when stopping antidepressants, antipsychotics or benzodiazepines. If you would like to find out more or participate, you can visit the website WorldTaperingDay.org where you can sign up for a range of free-to-view webinars. Our guest today is Anders Sørenson. Anders is a Danish clinical psychologist with a special interest in psychiatric drug withdrawal. He has undertaken research which assesses the state of guidance on psychiatric drug withdrawal. He has also paid close attention to tapering methods with the aim of identifying approaches which might make withdrawal more tolerable for people.  In addition to his research work, Anders utilizes psychotherapy in his

Justin Karter is a staff psychologist at Boston College University Counseling Services. He is a recent graduate of the doctoral program in Counseling Psychology at the University of Massachusetts Boston, where he completed his dissertation research on the experiences of psychosocial disability activists in the Global South. He has served as the editor of the research news section of the Mad in America website since 2015. In addition, he has held executive board positions with the Society for Humanistic Psychology and the Society for Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology. Despite being a recent graduate and early career psychologist, he has published over 25 papers and textbook chapters on topics in critical psychology, critical psychiatry, and philosophy of psychology. While he has often been the interviewer for our MIA podcasts, today, we get to turn the mic around and ask him some questions. In doing so, we discuss his journey into the field and what he has learned through his work with MIA, research i

This week on the Mad in America podcast, we are joined by activist and artist Jim Flannery. Born and raised in suburban Weathersfield, Connecticut, Jim was committed at four mental hospitals across the United States. There he received the best care available in the modern world… torture, which included seclusion, restraints, forced drugging, coercion, and a psychiatric diagnosis. Later, he turned to the arts to speak out publicly about his experiences with the mental health system through performing stand-up comedy under the pseudonym Flim Jannery and now through music with his new album, "Sorry, It's Not Funny," which will be released on Friday, October 14. In 2020, Jim began hearing voices, which opened his eyes to what he terms a genocide against neurodiverse people. He shifted his creative efforts towards hip-hop, believing the genre was the best medium to communicate his perspective. You can hear the new album on the website jim-flannery.com. It’s also on Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube, Pandora, SoundClou

Dr. Diana Rose wears many hats—academic, researcher, service user, and activist. She is a leading figure in user-led research and currently an Honorary Distinguished Professor at the Australian National University. Dr. Rose was previously Professor of User Led Research and Director of the Service User Research Enterprise (SURE) at King’s College. She was also lead in Patient and Public Involvement in several large research programmes at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology, and Neuroscience. Apart from an impressive set of publications, Dr. Rose’s new book Mad Knowledges and User-Led Research is about to hit the markets. In today’s interview, she brings together her vast breadth of experience and depth of knowledge to talk about the challenges service users and survivors of psychiatry face when they take space as knowers and researchers in the Psy-disciplines. *** If you find this podcast valuable, rating it and leaving a review on iTunes or Spotify or sharing it on social media helps us to get the word ou

This week on the Mad in America podcast, we are joined by Dr. Jon Jureidini. Jon is a child psychiatrist who also trained in philosophy, critical appraisal and psychotherapy. He has a continuing appointment as a professor in the School of Medicine at the University of Adelaide. He heads Adelaide University’s Critical and Ethical Mental Health research group, which conducts research, teaching and advocacy to promote safer, more effective and more ethical research and practice in mental health; and the Paediatric Mental Health Training Unit, providing training and support to medical students, GPs, allied health professionals, teachers and counsellors in non-pathologising approaches to primary care mental health. He has an international reputation for his work on the evidence base for psychiatry and is a strong advocate for addressing the social determinants of mental health. Jon, together with co-author Leemon B. McHenry, wrote the book The Illusion of Evidence-Based Medicine published in 2020. The book was fol