Social Justice

When GlaxoSmithKline was caught lying about the risks of its blockbuster anti-depressant Paxil, it set off ongoing investigations. How did New York state take on one of the world's most powerful companies? Was NY Governor Eliot Spitzer driven out by his corporate enemies? Pulitzer-nominated Boston Globe journalist Alison Bass, author of Side Effects: A Prosecutor, A Whistleblower, And A Bestselling Antidepressant On Trial, discusses legal battles to clean up drug company corruption, including pay-offs to the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill. www.alison-bass.com/

Is depression a result of poverty? How can community development and economic empowerment affect mental health? Psychology professor Alisha Ali discusses the dangers of turning social problems into medical disorders, including bias in diagnosis, limits of "cultural competency" and "anti-stigma" initiatives, and the experiences of immigrant women. http://steinhardt.nyu.edu/faculty_bios/view/Alisha_Ali

Editor Sabrina Chapadjiev discusses the new Seven Stories Press anthology Live Through This: On Creativity and Self Destruction, a rich collection of women artists sharing intimate accounts of cutting, alcoholism, suicide, abuse, madness and other self harm and how it relates to their creativity. Authors include bell hooks, Bonfire Madigan Shive, Patricia Smith, Annie Sprinkle, Inga Muscio, Kate Bornstein, and Nicole Blackman. http://sabrinachap.com/LTT

Harvard University faculty Paula Caplan, author of They Say You're Crazy: How The World's Most Powerful Psychiatrists Decide Who's Normal and editor of Bias In Psychiatric Diagnosis. Paula was on one of the writing committees for the DSM and offers an insightful perspective on the politics behind psychiatric pseudo-science. She discusses mental disorder labeling, including bipolar and post-trauma stress disorder, from a feminist perspective. www.psychdiagnosis.net http://paulajcaplan.net