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. … [click on title for the rest of the post]
UPDATE! WE DID IT! We made the goal! Thanks to everyone who helped out, with 198 donors raising more than $23,000 for Madness Radio! Hi everyone, Happy New Year! Today is the last day -- more than 150 people have become part of the Madness Radio Kickstarter campaign, and we need your help! Please join... Continue Reading →
Madness Radio needs your support! Please join the crowdsourcing funding effort on Kickstarter and support more Madness Radio episodes in 2013 and a Madness Radio book of interviews. Click here to join the Kickstarter campaign Madness Radio is hosted by Beyond Meds editor Will Hall who has producing shows since 2005. This is Madness Radio's... Continue Reading →
I posted Will Hall's story a couple years ago and at that point it was already at least a couple of years old. He updated his story six months ago and asked that I publish the newer version here as well. So here it is. Since I was a child I've struggled with extreme emotions,... Continue Reading →
From Madness Radio: Do pharmaceutical companies control the social definition of normal? Can advertising and public relations campaigns turn acceptable personality differences into unacceptable disorders? British-American literary critic and historian Christopher Lane discusses his book Shyness: How Normal Behavior Became a Sickness, including the way politics and profits drive the bible of mental health treatment,... Continue Reading →
Robert Whitaker's latest interview on Madness Radio with Will Hall. The description on Madness Radio's website is this: Has society's embrace of psychiatric medications led to recovery -- or chronic disability? What would honest medical policy and treatment standards be if they were free of pharmaceutical company corruption? Pulitzer Prize finalist Robert Whitaker, author of... Continue Reading →
Decolonizing Our Minds, Freeing Our Spirits Some thoughts on a language of liberation By Leah Ida Harris All that we are is the result of what we have thought. The mind is everything. What we think, we become. –Buddha Perhaps it might be intellectual indulgence to be writing about language while people’s rights are being violated on a daily basis, when people are suffering in institutions with and without walls, when people are dying from toxic drugs. But I think it’s a tremendously important task to begin to shift the way we think, to decolonize our minds and embrace a broader perspective on what it means to be fully human in a out of control world. I believe that we create our own realities, and it is through thought and language that we determine the course of our individual and collective existence.
Will Hall interviewed me for Madness Radio in early December 2008. Listen here: The interview deals with my experience being a psychiatric survivor and takes a look at the work I've been doing with this blog. Since December a few things have happened. I am indeed, now, completely housebound. I can no longer drive. I remain... Continue Reading →
Clinical Psychologist David Lukoff talks about his madness experience and the spiritual transformation it triggered. David went on to become a leading figure in the field of Transpersonal Psychology and works to bring greater spiritual awareness into mainstream mental health practice. His website is here. I've posted a video with him in it here before.... Continue Reading →
Psychiatrist Peter Stastny talks about his decades-long work as an anti-psychiatrist psychiatrist, problems with the hospital system and medications, and the international movement to create alternatives. Peter is one of the main organizers of INTAR, the International Network of Treatment Alternatives for Recovery. Listen to this and cry but also be happy that there are... Continue Reading →
