Madness Radio: Voices And Visions from Outside Mental Health explores 'madness' from beyond conventional perspectives and mainstream treatments, featuring survivors, authors, advocates, professionals, and artists.

Hosted by Will Hall, Madness Radio launched in 2005 on Valley Free Radio and aired more than 200 shows since then. We've been broadcast on KBOO in Oregon, syndicated on other stations through Pacifica, and currenrly podcasting on Spotify, Stitcher, iTunes, Pandora, and Google Play. More info on our About page.

Check out the Madness Radio book! Outside Mental Health: Voices and Visions of Madness gathers edited show interviews and additional content, and is available in print and as a free download.

Madness Radio is an affiliate of Mad In America Radio!
Check out www.madinamerica.com. Theme music courtesy Bonfire Madigan. Thanks to past Madness Radio Producers Jenka Soderberg, Nina Packebush, Leah Harris and Jeremy Lanzman. And thanks to our 190+ Madness Radio Kickstarter donors for supporting the show!

Listen to recent shows below or find us in your favorite podcast app, subscribe to be notified of new episodes on the right, browse by topics, search by keyword, or see a list all 200+ shows by date and title, in the archive. (Shorter versions are also available.)

Madness Radio is creative commons copyright! Please copy, post, and share freely. And get involved: send topic ideas, leave comments, ask FM stations to air us, leave an iTunes review, or make a donation.

Visionary Ecology | Steven Morgan | Madness Radio

First Aired 08-05-2024 | Add comment

Do grieving goats lick psychedelic lichen? Altered states are part of nature, used by plants and animals for survival(!). How does ecology reveal the evolutionary – and spiritual – purpose of psychosis? Steven Morgan, psychiatric survivor and trainer in Intentional Peer Support, led the Another Way sanctuary and was project director for Soteria Vermont. Today he journeys in the wilderness to find healing and spiritual renewal, and with host Will Hall discusses psychosis as part of evolution, psychedelics in natural ecology, personal visions of Christianity, and communicating with bacteria through expanded consciousness. (Transcript)
stevenmorganjr.com
www.madnessradio.net/madness-radio-reinventing-bipolar-steven-morgan/
Music by Steven Morgan
The World We Used to Live In by Vine Deloria Jr.
Intentional Peer Support
Soteria Vermont

Electroconvulsive Therapy Survey | John Read | Madness Radio

First Aired 07-11-2024 | Add comment

Please share widely! Survey on electroconvulsive therapy – electroshock therapy – for patients, family, and friends. John Read, survey researcher and professor at University of East London, is interviewed by Jessica Gallinger. www.ectsurvey.com www.electroshocksurvey.com

Grand Rounds UCSF Psychiatry – Will Hall – Madness Radio

First Aired 07-08-2024 | Add comment

Will Hall’s June 2024 Grand Rounds talk at University of California San Francisco Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences – where he was locked up as a young man! – titled “New Visions of Psychosis: Abolition as Clinical Best Practice.” Revenge is a dish best served cold. Video here: https://youtu.be/adYrzmJ2w50?si=nwAQBM2F6oYmbShe transcript here. 58 min version

Philosophy of Madness | Justin Garson | Madness Radio

First Aired 06-13-2024 | 1 comment | Add comment

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.

Justin Garson’s website Madness: A Philosophical Exploration Transcript

The End of the World | Will Hall | Madness Radio

First Aired 04-08-2024 | 1 comment | Add comment

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/

Crazy or Religious? | Alison Smith | Madness Radio

First Aired 02-01-2024 | 1 comment | Add comment

Does hearing God’s voice make you mentally ill? Will psychiatry help you cope with grief and rejection – or make things worse? After a distressing romantic breakup Alison Smith went to her college clinic for help – and was locked up, drugged, and labeled psychotic. Positive and mysterious voices – including visions of Jesus – suddenly turned dark and persecutory, and Alison was driven into psychiatry-induced madness. Co-hosts Will Hall and Jacks McNamara join Alison to discuss religious voices – and psychiatric violence to suppress them. Alison’s writing has appeared in Granta, Real Simple, and PBS’s Stories from the Stage, and her acclaimed memoir Name All the Animals was named a ten best books of the year by People magazine (yes, that People magazine). A coming of age story, Name All the Animals opens on the day Alison’s brother died in a car crash and explores themes of grief, faith and sexuality. Alison lives in Northampton, MA and is working on a new memoir about hearing voices. www.namealltheanimals.com Transcript 58 min version

UCSF Grand Rounds | Dina Tyler | Madness Radio

First Aired 12-07-2023 | Add comment

Dina Tyler’s FANTASTIC, heartful, brilliant December 2023 Grand Rounds talk at UCSF Medical School, “Improving Outcomes for Psychosis: Psychiatric Survivor and Critical Psychiatry Perspectives.” Also available as a video. (Transcript) (Slides from talk) (58 min)

www.dinatyler.com

A Ten Day Voyage | R.D. Laing Politics of Experience Audiobook | Madness Radio

First Aired 09-17-2023 | Add comment

Abolish Psy? | Craig Newnes | Madness Radio

First Aired 07-05-2023 | Add comment

Are psychotherapy’s assumptions completely misguided? What is really at stake in the research and practice of psychology? Is it possible to take a step back and see “psy” for what it is? Craig Newnes is a Jewish dad, grandad, musician, writer, and former director of one of the UK’s largest NHS Psychological Therapies Directorates, and he joins Will Hall to discuss a critical view of the entire psy industry. Past editor of the British Psychological Society clinical psychology division newsletter for 19 years, Craig has doctorates in History and Clinical Psychology and currently edits the Journal of Critical Psychology Counseling and Psychotherapy. He has published over 200 articles and 25 books, including the upcoming Psychomusicology, available from Egalitarian Publishing. (58 min version) (transcript here)

Racism in Psychology
Finniendo – an illustrated saga for children
https://www.egalitarianpublishing.com
Survivor Poetry
52 Ways to Change Your Life
Tearagh’t: a novel 
Teaching Critical Psychology 
A Critical A to Z of Electroshock 
Clinical Psychology: A critical examination 
Inscription, Diagnosis, Deception and the Mental Health Industry: How Psy governs us all 

Flight From Trauma | Paris Williams | Madness Radio

First Aired 05-10-2023 | Add comment

How does the terror of child abuse inspire the heights of spiritual awakening? Are risky behaviors with drugs and extreme sports also a search towards healing? Co-hosts Dina Tyler and Will Hall talk with Paris Williams, who has a PhD in clinical psychology and went through his own experience of extreme states and madness. Paris took flight from extreme childhood trauma and became a world class hang glider pilot, competing world wide, soaring miles above the earth, and risking his life again and again. Today he works as a therapist for people with psychosis, including from a spiritual emergence and trauma perspective and as a teacher in Hakomi psychotherapy, and is the author of the book Rethinking Madness. (58 min version) (Transcript here)

https://youtu.be/JRCRYLB5FWs
https://pariswilliamsphd.com
https://rethinkingmadness.com

Rethinking Therapy | Will Hall and Ryan Hofrichter | Madness Radio

First Aired 04-25-2023 | Add comment

Therapist Ryan Hofrichter flips the mic on Madness Radio host Will Hall for a wide-ranging discussion about madness, psychiatry, and being a therapist. Topics include power in therapy, psychiatric diagnosis harms, naming ethical and professional dilemmas, working outside of the mainstream mental health system, understanding emotional distress in context, tragedy as potentially transformative, the psychiatric survivor movement, preventing mental health crises by creating healthy communities… and more. Thanks Ryan for listening! (58 min version)

Full interview transcript and details on Ryan’s website here.

Youth Leadership | Felicity Krueger & Oryx Cohen | Madness Radio

First Aired 04-03-2023 | Add comment

Can teens lead their own mental health education? Are suicidal feelings and self harm “contagions” that young people shouldn’t talk about? How can mutual aid and peer support solve our youth mental health crisis? Felicity Krueger emerged out of trauma, anxiety, and the challenges of multi-racial adoption to become a leading teen advocate in Kentucky and nationwide. Felicity joins Oryx Cohen and co-hoist Will Hall to discuss her work today, including training youth in Emotional CPR – a peer support response to distress and an alternative to police and pharma. (Transcript here.)

https://www.amazon.com/Healing-Voices-PJ-Moynihan/dp/B0821RFTJY
https://youthmovenational.org
https://kypartnership.org/ky-youth-m-o-v-e
www.power2u.org
www.emotional-cpr.org

Lyme And Dyskinesia | Monica Cassani | Madness Radio

First Aired 03-09-2023 | Add comment

Are trauma, medication injury, and holistic health connected? Does Lyme disease infection relate to tardive dyskinesia from psychiatric drugs? Is there a spiritual purpose to debilitating illness? Monica Cassani is a psychiatric survivor and early leader in internet support with the Beyond Meds – Everything Matters website and community. Monica’s struggle with chronic iatrogenic illness led her to discover personal renewal and spiritual awakening – and gain a deeper understanding of illness, healing, and the ecological nature of the self. (Alternate 58 min version here.)
Tardive Dyskinesia, Chronic Lyme Disease, and Infection – Mad In America 
Everything Matters – Beyond Meds 
MDs and systemic infections (Lyme and Tardive Dyskinesia)

Consent Not Required | Rob Wipond | Madness Radio

First Aired 02-27-2023 | Add comment

Read this book! Is discriminating against people who have — or are labeled with — psychiatric disabilities ever justified? Is denying equality before the law necessary in times of crisis – or does it open the door to widespread abuse and violence? Journalist and community development activist Rob Wipond’s new book Your Consent Is Not Required: The Rise in Psychiatric Detentions, Forced Treatment, and Abusive Guardianships is a devastating investigative exposé of the normalized assault, kidnapping, and torture that is forced psychiatric treatment. It is hard to conclude anything other than this abusive practice must be brought to an end. So what can be done? Rob and Will Hall discuss these issues and more, and delve into what voluntary alternatives are possible — and how to stop the current dominant medicalized system from suppressing these alternatives. Rob has written a blistering account of some of psychiatry’s biggest lies; please read this book (if you can – advisory of upsetting content), join the abolition movement, and help sound the alarm to finally put an end to forced treatment based on disability. (58 min version) (transcript)
https://robwipond.com/

Abolish Psychiatry | Vesper Moore | Madness Radio

First Aired 02-08-2023 | Add comment

Should we reform – or abolish – psychiatry? Can capitalism provide mental health, or do we need some kind of socialism or anti-capitalism? Vesper Moore is a leader in the youngest wave of the psychiatric survivor movement; he was radicalized against psychiatry as a teen when his mother sought help and met medical violence instead. Vesper joins co-hosts Jacks McNamara and Will Hall, two veterans of 15 years of movement organizing, to envision ending psychiatric harm and achieving real care for people in emotional distress. (Alternate 58 minute version here.)

https://linktr.ee/vespermoore
https://www.vespermoore.com/
https://madnessnetworknews.com/