Madness Radio - Voices and Visions from Outside Mental Health

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, with guest co-hosts Jacks McNamara and Jessica Gallinger, 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.

Cognitive Therapy: Ron Unger

First Aired 07-16-2008 | 2 comments | Add comment

Oregon Mental health counselor Ron Unger discusses his experiences with altered states of consciousness, and how cognitive behavioral therapy can be a useful alternative to medication and mainstream psychiatric treatment. Ron is a longtime organizer with the human rights organization Mindfreedom International, and his website is http://www.recoveryfromschizophrenia.org/blog/

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 52:06 — 47.7MB)

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Spiritual Emergence: David Lukoff

First Aired 07-02-2008 | 2 comments | Add comment

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.

http://www.spiritualcompetency.com

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 49:48 — 45.6MB)

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Evolving Minds: Mel Gunasena

First Aired 06-25-2008 | 1 comment | Add comment

UK video activist and writer Mel Gunasena on her mystical experiences and forced psychiatric hospitalization. Mel is the director of Evolving Minds, a documentary film about spiritual experiences and what gets labeled “psychosis” by the mental health system. She also discusses the art therapy project in Sri Lanka she helped found to assist traumatized tsunami-affected children.

See a trailer for the film at http://www.undercurrents.org/minds and check out the Sri Lanka project at http://www.art-2-art.org

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 47:09 — 43.2MB)

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Misled Youth: Michael Gennarelli

First Aired 06-04-2008 | Add comment

Community organizer and writer Michael Gennarelli talks about his 8 years of psychiatric treatment as a child and his stays at Bellevue Hospital in New York City. Michael reads his poetry about these painful experiences and discusses his activism, including an after school program for kids and the Misled Youth Network.

http://www.misled-youth.org
http://www.123communityspace.org
http://www.fountainhouse.org
http://www.theicarusproject.net

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 49:00 — 44.9MB)

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Buddhist Meditation and Schizophrenia: Ed Knight

First Aired 05-28-2008 | 3 comments | Add comment

Recovery leader and survivor Ed Knight talks about Zen, Insight, and Christian meditation and “schizophrenia,” including discrimination against people with psychiatric labels at meditation retreats, the link between spiritual awakening and madness, and living beyond “managing symptoms.”

http://www.professored.com
http://www.recoverycircles.org

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 52:47 — 48.4MB)

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Wounded States of Consciousness: Bogna Szymkiewicz

First Aired 05-21-2008 | Add comment

Warsaw Poland psychologist Bogna Szymkiewicz discusses “wounded states of consciousness,” what the mind and body do when trauma is activated, as well as how trauma affects our relationships and what we can do to recover.

http://www.bogna.info

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 52:03 — 47.7MB)

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Black Mental Health UK: Philip Morgan

First Aired 05-14-2008 | 1 comment | Add comment

Blacks in the UK are much more likely than white people to be locked up, put on drugs, and mistreated in the mental health system.

Social scientist Philip Morgan of London’s Tower Hamlets African and Caribbean Mental Health Organization (THACMHO) discusses the legacy of slavery, survivor-run advocacy for system change, and an innovative project reclaiming Black identity through historical research.

http://www.thacmho.org.uk

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 51:24 — 47.1MB)

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Genetic Predispositions? Jay Joseph

First Aired 05-07-2008 | Add comment

Clinical psychologist Jay Joseph details medical science’s 30-year failed quest to find any link between genetics and diagnoses of mental disorders, and debunks widely held beliefs in the psychiatric profession, including the idea of “genetic predispositions” for mental illness.

Jay is the author of The Missing Gene: Psychiatry, Heredity, and the Fruitless Search for Genes and The Gene Illusion: Genetic Research in Psychiatry and Psychology Under the Microscope.

http://www.jayjoseph.net

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 51:09 — 46.9MB)

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Psych Diagnosis Bias: Paula Caplan

First Aired 04-30-2008 | 1 comment | Add comment

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.

http://www.psychdiagnosis.net
http://paulajcaplan.net

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 56:31 — 51.8MB)

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Process Oriented Counseling with Joe Goodbread

First Aired 04-23-2008 | Add comment

Counselor and researcher Joe Goodbread discusses his more than 25 years experience working with madness and extreme states using Process Oriented Psychology, an innovative approach based in the work of Carl Jung and developed by Arnold Mindell.

Joe describes listening to the meaning in experience, helping people unfold their states, taoism, dreams, rank differences, and working with the body. Joe is a senior faculty at the Process Work Institute and author of The Dreambody Toolkit and Radical Intercourse.

http://www.aamindell.net
http://www.processwork.org

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 52:47 — 48.4MB)

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Forced Drugging and Treatment with Journalist Philip Dawdy

First Aired 04-10-2008 | Add comment

Award-winning journalist Philip Dawdy, formerly a writer with the Seattle Weekly newspaper, discusses how forced psychiatric treatment and drugging are ineffective responses to violent crime and the so-called “dangerous mentally ill.” Philip is the writer of the excellent blog about Big Pharma profiteering and mental health policy

http://www.FuriousSeasons.com

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 54:40 — 50.1MB)

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Environmental Insanity w/ Author Derrick Jensen

First Aired 03-26-2008 | 2 comments | Add comment

Visionary writer and thought-provoking environmentalist Derrick Jensen talks about the human-caused ecological collapse of the natural world, family trauma, technological brainwashing, indigenous societies, Scottish psychiatrist R.D. Laing, and the importance of rage in an undeniably insane world.

http://www.derrickjensen.org

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 53:01 — 48.6MB)

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Comfortably Numb: Author Charles Barber

First Aired 03-19-2008 | Add comment

Author Charles Barber talks about his new book Comfortably Numb: How Psychiatry is Medicating a Nation, a history of the rise of psychiatric drug marketing from “mother’s little helper” to today’s 200 million plus anti-depressant prescriptions.

http://www.charlesbarberwriting.com

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 53:07 — 48.7MB)

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South Africa Activism: Moosa Salie

First Aired 03-12-2008 | Add comment

Capetown South Africa survivor activist Moosa Salie talks about mental health organizing in Africa and beyond, and work to establish the Ubuntu Center for alternative support.

Check out Moosa’s blog and the World Network of Uses and Survivors of Psychiatry at http://www.wnusp.net

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 50:41 — 46.5MB)

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Survivor Songwriter Vara Adams

First Aired 01-30-2008 | Add comment

Vara Adams survived forced hospitalization, drugging, and multiple electroshocks as a teen in Melbourne Australia. She went on to become a heavy metal-influenced songwriter about her experiences as part of the healing process. Show includes several of Vara’s songs.

http://www.varaadams.com