Mad In America: Science, Psychiatry And Social Justice

This week on MIA Radio we present a special episode of the podcast in advance of the events being held to mark World Benzodiazepine Awareness Day, July 11, 2020. The reason we are sharing this interview early is to help draw attention to a special screening of the film Medicating Normal which will be shown on World Benzodiazepine Awareness Day itself. Following this special screening of the film, there will be an online panel discussion featuring people with lived experience of taking and coming off benzodiazepines. If you haven’t yet seen the film, this screening is not to be missed. The film will be shown at 1 pm EST on July 11 and you can get tickets here. The film is presented by the Benzodiazepine Information Coalition, a non-profit organization that strives to educate about the potential adverse effects of benzodiazepines taken as prescribed and the Periscope Foundation which is a non-profit organization that funded the making and continues the outreach of Medicating Normal. For our interview this week

MIA’s Justin Karter interviews psychiatrist Awais Aftab about how “conceptual competence” uses philosophy to transform psychiatry. Awais Aftab is a psychiatrist in Cleveland, Ohio, and Clinical Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at Case Western Reserve University. He is a member of the executive council of the Association for the Advancement of Philosophy and Psychiatry. He has been actively involved in initiatives to educate psychiatrists and trainees on the intersection of philosophy and psychiatry. He leads the interview series Conversations in Critical Psychiatry for Psychiatric Times, which explores critical and philosophical perspectives in psychiatry and engages with prominent commentators within and outside the profession who have made meaningful criticisms of the status quo. He is also a member of the Psychiatric Times Advisory Board. In this interview, he explores his journey into both philosophy and psychiatry and how he understands the relationship between these two disciplines. Aftab goes on to d

This week on MIA Radio we turn our attention to electroconvulsive therapy (known as electroshock in the US). It’s fair to say that ECT remains a controversial subject with proponents and detractors regularly disagreeing on its safety and efficacy. The number of psychiatrists willing to administer ECT, particularly in the UK, is in decline but we are still using it to administer electric shocks to the brains of an estimated 2,000 people each year. In this interview, we discuss a recent paper from the journal Ethical Human Psychology and Psychiatry. The title is ‘Electroconvulsive Therapy for Depression: A Review of the Quality of ECT versus Sham ECT Trials and Meta-Analyses’ and it is written by John Read, Irving Kirsch and Laura McGrath. On MIA we have previously written about the study and its findings. We hear from two of the authors, Professor of Psychology John Read from the University of East London and Professor of Psychology Irving Kirsch from Harvard Medical School. We discuss: That the work aimed t

Scott Greenspan recently received his doctorate in School Psychology from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. As a mental health counselor, he works to create opportunities for schools to be "hubs of wellness interventions." Scott's research draws from his own experiences working with youth in a variety of capacities, as well as his understanding of the vital role exercise plays in wellness. His research has focused on the integration of physical activity within school-based mental health programs as well as gender-affirming school-based interventions for sexual minority and gender diverse youth. Scott is currently completing his pre-doctoral clinical internship at Judge Baker Children's Center in Boston and holds an appointment as a Clinical Fellow at Harvard Medical School. In this interview, Scott discusses how a social justice approach informs his work and why it matters for schools to focus on gender diverse youth in sport. He addresses the influence that the COVID-19 pandemic may be having on adole

Dainius Pūras is a medical doctor and human rights advocate. He is currently serving the final year of his term as the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health. He is also a professor at Vilnius University, Lithuania, and the director of the Human Rights Monitoring Institute, an NGO based in Vilnius. Pūras has been a human rights activist for 30 years involved in national, regional, and global activities that promote human rights-based policies and services, with a focus on mental health, child health, disabilities, and the prevention of violence and coercion. He was a member of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child from 2007 to 2011. From the time he was appointed to the United Nations Human Rights Council in 2014, Pūras has pushed for a paradigm shift in mental health care. During his mandate, he has written several reports that emphasize the importance of the social determinants of health and criticize the dominance of t

Sunil Bhatia is a professor and chair of the Department of Human Development at Connecticut College. He is the author of two books and over 50 articles and book chapters. He has received numerous awards for his work in the field of decolonizing psychology, cultural psychology, and qualitative methods and for studies of migrant and racial identities. Most recently, his second book, Decolonizing psychology: Globalization, social justice, and Indian youth identities,received the 2018 William James book award from the American Psychological Association APA). The movement to decolonize psychology is led by interdisciplinary scholars demanding a move away from the biomedical model of mental health and its colonial roots, especially in the Global South. Bhatia has been writing about these issues for over two decades and has often encountered resistance for speaking against mainstream voices. He is now one of the foremost experts in the field of decolonial studies. His work asks vital questions: Who decides what

This week on MIA Radio, we interview Nicole Beurkens, PhD, about the impact of the COVID-19 crisis and “quarantine life” on children with different types of behavioral, emotional, and neurodevelopmental challenges. Families may be understandably worried that the stress of lockdown may aggravate their child’s struggles. Yet, we hear some parents say the situation has changed their child for the better. Why might that be? A unique combination of psychologist, nutritionist, and special educator, Dr. Nicole Beurkens has over 20 years of experience supporting children, young adults, and families.  She is an expert in evaluating and treating a wide range of learning, mood, and behavior challenges. Dr. Beurkens holds a doctorate in clinical psychology, master’s degrees in special education and nutrition, and is a Board-Certified Nutrition Specialist.  She is the founder and director of Horizons Developmental Resource Center in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where she leads a multidisciplinary team dedicated to exceptional

This week on MIA Radio we share the audio from our first Town Hall panel discussion. Mad in America, Open Excellence and the HOPEnDialogue project have collaborated to create an ongoing series of Town Hall discussions exploring the challenges, learnings and opportunities for personal and societal growth found through dialogical responses to crisis in the age of COVID-19. The title of this first discussion is: Are We Living in the Most Dialogical Time Ever? And the hosts are Kermit Cole and Louisa Putnam. COVID-19 has forced us all into new ways of being, new ways of relating to each other, and new ways of responding to each other in a time of crisis. These new ways reveal more clearly than ever how essential dialogue is to the human experience.  What are dialogical practitioners doing — and learning — in this time of crisis? What do these learnings suggest or make possible that might have previously seemed unattainable? What insights do people who have lived with a sense of crisis, often cut off from “mainstr

This week on MIA Radio, we interview Sam Himelstein, PhD, about the impact of the Coronavirus crisis and “social distancing” policies on adolescents, taking a look at the unique needs teenagers and young adults may have and the challenges they may present for parents, caregivers, and other family members. Relevant Links Center for Adolescent Studies Family First Psychotherapy Sam Himelstein’s website

Ian Puppe is an instructor and research associate in anthropology at the University of Western Ontario in Ontario, Canada. Puppe’s work focuses on the anthropology of First Nations peoples, global studies, social justice, and peace studies. As an instructor at the university, he teaches anthropology of tourism and Indigenous Studies. He also currently serves as the Canadian Anthropology Society’s (CASCA) archivist, assistant editor/research associate with the Franz Boas Papers: Documentary Edition and Co-Principal Investigator/Research Lead for the Sioux Lookout Zone Hospital Archives Project (SLZHAP). Puppe has done ethnographic work on Algonquin Provincial Park in Ontario, and his research and writing investigate the relations between First Nation peoples and Canadian settler-colonial society. In this interview, he explores how Western approaches to mental health impacts Indigenous peoples, and how the imposition of psychiatric treatments can lead to harmful, unintended iatrogenic effects. *** Please Suppor

Mab Segrest is Professor Emeritus of Gender and Women's Studies at Connecticut College and the author of Administrations of Lunacy: Racism and the Haunting of American Psychiatry at the Milledgeville Asylum, and Memoir of a Race Traitor, both from the New Press. A long time activist in social justice movements and a past fellow at the National Humanities Center, she lives in Durham, North Carolina. Please Support Us: Our work is made possible by the generous support of our readers. To make a donation please visit this page. Thank you. https://www.madinamerica.com/donate/

This week on MIA Radio, we chat with Paula J. Caplan. Paula is a clinical and research psychologist, author of books and plays, playwright, actor, director, and activist. She was born and raised in Springfield, Missouri, attended Greenwood Laboratory School, received her A.B. with honors from Radcliffe College of Harvard University, and received her M.A. and Ph.D. in psychology from Duke University. Currently, she is an Associate at the Du Bois Institute, Hutchins Center for African and African American Research, Harvard University. She has been a Fellow at the Women and Public Policy Program of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard; a Lecturer in Harvard's Program on Women, Gender, and Sexuality in the Psychology Department. She is former Full Professor of Applied Psychology and Head of the Centre for Women's Studies in Education at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, and former Lecturer in Women's Studies and Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Toronto. Paula is also a p

Welcome to MIA Reports, showcasing our independent and original journalism devoted to rethinking psychiatry. We take selected MIA Reports and provide them as audio articles. Click here for the text version of this and all of our MIA reports. Medication-Free Treatment in Norway - A Private Hospital Takes Center Stage Written by Robert Whitaker, read by James Moore with thanks to Birgit Valla for pronunciation assistance, first published on Mad in America, December 8, 2019. The Hurdalsjøen Recovery Center, which is a private psychiatric hospital located about forty minutes north of Oslo, on the banks of stunning Lake Hurdal, 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. Norway’s health minister was urging public mental hospitals to offer such treatment, and this private hospital stepped forward before any public hospital had taken the plunge. Hurdalsjøen opened on April 1, 2015. The fi

Ian Parker is one of the most important contemporary critics of the discipline of psychology. A prolific writer, with over 25 books to his name, he has a formidable reputation in the fields of critical psychology, Marxist psychology, and psychoanalytic theory. He is a fellow of the British psychological society, Emeritus Professor at the University of Leicester, and the managing editor of the Annual Review of Critical Psychology. Parker is also a practicing psychoanalyst analyst and a member of the Centre for Freudian Analysis and Research and the London Society of the New Lacanian School. His career reflects the principles he talks about – the importance of challenging powerful institutions and the need for collectively mobilizing against discrimination and exploitation. As the "Psy-disciplines" face increased scrutiny for involvement in past abuses, continued collusion with powerful and unjust institutions, and deep criticisms over current psychological research and practice, Parker's work has particular

This week on MIA Radio, we chat with Beatrice Birch who is the initiator of the residential healing community Inner Fire. For over 35 years, Beatrice worked as a Hauschka artistic therapist in integrative clinics and inspiring initiatives in England, Holland and the USA where the whole human being of body, soul and spirit was recognized and appreciated in the healing process. She has lectured and taught as far afield as Taiwan. Her passionate belief in both the creative spirit within everyone and the importance of choice, along with her love and interest in the human being has taken her also into prisons where she has volunteered for many years offering soul support through Alternatives to Violence work and watercolor painting. In this interview, we discuss how Inner Fire works to help the people that attend, and how a core principle of their healing work is that ‘human being are creators, not victims’. We discuss: Beatrice’s background and experiences as someone providing alternative help and support for men

This week on MIA Radio, we interview Laysha Ostrow. Laysha is the founder and CEO of Live & Learn, a research and consulting company that specializes in the inclusion of people with lived experience of the mental health system. She researches community-driven interventions that present safe and effective pathways to independence and empowerment. Ostrow earned her PhD from the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health and holds a master's degree in public policy from Brandeis. Ostrow is passionate about improving the experience of mental health service users, partially due to her personal experience with mental health systems. She has discussed some of her previous research on Mad in America.

Peter Stastny is a New York-based psychiatrist, documentary filmmaker, and a co-founder of the International Network toward Alternatives and Recovery (INTAR). He has been working on the development of services that obviate traditional psychiatric intervention and offer autonomous paths towards recovery and full integration. Stastny has frequently collaborated with psychiatric survivors in conducting research and writing projects, including the book and major exhibit at the New York State Museum, The Lives They Left Behind: Suitcases from a State Hospital Attic(together with Darby Penney) and the edited volume Alternatives Beyond Psychiatry (with Peter Lehmann). He has directed several documentary films.  

Psychiatric diagnosis has come under increased scrutiny in recent years following the release of the fifth edition of the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-5) in 2013. Two organizations that played a prominent role in challenging the Bible of psychiatry prior to 2013, the British Psychological Society and the Society for Humanistic Psychology (American Psychological Association - Division 32) subsequently joined to form the Task Force for Diagnostic Alternatives (TFDA). Today, February 12th, 2020, the TFDA released a new Open Letter regarding the reform and revision of diagnostic systems. MIA spoke with two leaders of the Task Force, Sarah Kamens, and Peter Kinderman about this effort. Sarah Kamens is an Assistant Professor of Psychology, at the State University of New York (SUNY) College at Old Westbury and co-chair of the Task Force for Diagnostic Alternatives for the Society for Humanistic Psychology. Her research examines the intersections between extreme emotional

This week on MIA Radio we share what is something of an anniversary for us at MIA. This interview marks one hundred episodes since we launched our podcast in July 2017. And for this episode, we interview David Joslin. David is a retired army medic, having served in Iraq in 2003 and Afghanistan in 2008. David currently works as a senior healthcare administrator and he has co-founded Remedy Alpine, a veterans therapeutic recreation non-profit dedicated to providing wilderness therapy adventures in Alaska. David has also written for Mad in America, having published Broken is Not All I’ll Ever Be in August 2019 and he has recently launched a new podcast called Bullets to Beans, which is a military and veteran-centric podcast focused on current military and veteran topics, blended with discussions on mountain oriented recreational and adventure-based therapy programs. We discuss: How upon leaving the military, David felt that he had lost his identity, suddenly working in private healthcare and not being able to

This week on MIA Radio we chat with Professor John Read of the University of East London. John worked for nearly 20 years as a Clinical Psychologist and manager of mental health services in the UK and the USA, before joining the University of Auckland, New Zealand, in 1994, where he worked until 2013. He has published over 140 papers in research journals, primarily on the relationship between adverse life events (e.g. child abuse/neglect, poverty, etc.) and psychosis. He also researches the negative effects of biogenetic causal explanations on prejudice, the opinions, and experiences of recipients of antipsychotic and antidepressant medication, and the role of the pharmaceutical industry in mental health research and practice. John joins us to discuss the UK licensing of esketamine nasal spray (Spravato) for so-called ‘Treatment Resistant Depression’. John led a group of 12 academics and professionals who wrote to the UK regulator expressing concerns about esketamine. We Discuss: Concerns about the basic con