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/

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:11:59 — 164.8MB)

Subscribe: RSS

When Karin Jervert withdrew from 5 psychiatric medications the conflicting voices and forces in her head became pathways to art and spirit. Through Buddhism and earth-based ceremony Karin discovered a new world – and a new sense of self – from her suffering. Co-hosts Jacks McNamara and Will Hall discuss art, ancestors, and the nature of reality with Karin, who today is arts editor for Mad In America. Karin creates nonfiction essays, visual art, graphic narratives, and poetry that explore transforming trauma – including the trauma of forced psychiatric treatment. (Alternate 58 min version here.)

www.eventbrite.com/e/504023888017

www.something-wonderful.net/art-as-alchemy

www.medium.com/@karinjervert/five-poems-minus-one-7f2dce663908

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:08:43 — 157.3MB)

Subscribe: RSS

When Cassie Wilson experienced mental distress due to an internship setting triggering past trauma memories, she called student counseling – and then police came to her home, handcuffed her, and detained her in a hospital for 6 days. In this episode Cassie, a psychiatric survivor and student of human rights and neuroscience, discusses with co-hosts Jacks McNamara and Will Hall her experiences in the psychiatric system and how this experience aligns with the violent and carceral dynamics of prisons. Cassie wrote about this experience in an essay entitlted “At the Forefront of Medicine: My Summer Involuntary Hospitlization” which can be read in the Chicago Maroon. You can contact her at cassidyw312 (at) (gmail) (dot) com. (Alternate 58 minute version here.)

At the Forefront of Medicine: My Summer Involuntary Hospitalization

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:04:57 — 148.7MB)

Subscribe: RSS

Mad Camp is coming! July 20-24 2023 – and annually – mad people are gathering for summer camp in the forested mountains two hours north of San Francisco. You heard that right! Swimming, hiking, campfires, hanging out, napping, dancing, music, art, dancing, the stars… Mad Camp is all about community friendship and connection. And there are also stirrings of mad camps on the east coast in Europe! The all-volunteer Mad Camp organizers are now raising funds for scholarships — and we need your help and more volunteers!

Check out the Mad Camp website: www.madcamp.net!

Make a donation on our Donation page! www.madcamp.net

Mad Camp Email List Join Here: https://madcamp.substack.com/

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 8:26 — 19.4MB)

Subscribe: RSS

The essay from Mad In America Sept 2021 “Ending The Silence Around Psychedelic Therapy Abuse”, read by Will Hall:

Michael Pollan’s hugely influential new book on psychedelic medicine, How to Change Your Mind, is overly enthusiastic and largely uncritical. All the new hype and questionable science about miracle treatments as the next wave of cures for mental disorders leaves out huge risks, including the risk of therapy abuse…

Also check the companion essay with more detail about my personal experience with psychedelic therapists Aharon Grossbard and Francoise Bourzat of the Center for Consciousness Medicine at www.medium.com/@willhall, with updates and links at the end of that essay.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:01:15 — 140.2MB)

Subscribe: RSS

What if we just started having conversations about how to help each other through hard times? And took the time needed to really have discussions and hear the experiences of mad people? Erick Fabris is a psychiatric survivor activist and organizer based in Toronto Canada, and was part of the West End Survivors in Toronto that set up the first Mad Pride event in Canada, For ten years he worked with a patient’s council advising one of the country’s biggest hospitals, the Center for Addiction and Mental Health Care CAMH. Erick is the author of Tranquil Prisons: Chemical Incarceration Under Community Treatment Orders, a searing indictment of forced psychiatric drugging in the community. He is the founder of Crazy Talks and Mad Stories, a creative community event in Toronto, and is researching with the Mad Canada Shadow Report Group. (Alternate 58 minute version here.)

https://www.erickfabris.com/crazytalks/  https://madcanada.wixsite.com/shadowreport

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:40:41 — 230.6MB)

Subscribe: RSS

What does a life dedicated to love and freedom look like? Laura-Marie River Victor Peace Nopales joins co-hosts Jacks McNamara and Will Hall to explore the most important questions of all — by way of dreams, peace activism, and living in community. Laura-Marie is a queer traveler, maker of zines, radical mental health-er, fat liberation-er, queer liberation-er, and autistic liberation-er, and co-creator of Disabled Resilience Permaculture. (Alternate 58 min version here.)

Laura-Marie’s sites:
www.listeningtothenoiseuntilitmakessense.com
www.ilikeyourstims.com
www.instagram.com/xtrikeslutsx
https://www.facebook.com/listeningtothenoiseuntilitmakessense
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3gDcxFhXldzUWozp26ykGg
https://soundcloud.com/robotmad

Las Vegas Radical Mental Health Collective:
https://lvrmhc.org

Jacks’ website: https://jacksmcnamara.net

And check out Jacks’ awesome podcast So Many Wings! https://somanywings.org

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 42:52 — 98.1MB)

Subscribe: RSS

Join us for an in-depth and practical deep dive into trauma therapy — from the perspective of three counselors/coaches at the leading edge of personal healing and social change.

Will Hall and co-host Jacks McNamara team up to discuss trauma healing and collective liberation with somatic therapist and coach Phillippe Citrine (ze/zir/zirs). Phillippe works with visionary nonbinary, trans & queer people and relationships. Ze is based in the blue ridge mountains of North Carolina and works with clients internationally.

www.citrinehealing.space
www.phillippecitrine.space

And check out Jacks’ previous two interviews on Madness Radio!
www.madnessradio.net/madness-radio-queer-poetry-inbetweenland-jacks-mcnamara/
www.madnessradio.net/survivors-as-therapists-jacks-mcnamara-madness-radio/

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 56:20 — 128.9MB)

Subscribe: RSS

Just in time for the holidays, a chapter from Outside Mental Health: Voices and Visions of Madness: “Christmas Vacation in the Schizophrenia Factory,” a personal account from Will Hall from a visit back to visit his family for Christmas, first published in 2015.

(Everything is better now.)

You can purchase Outside Mental Health at your favorite independent bookseller or other retailer, and download a free ebook version at www.outsidementalhealth.com.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 18:12 — 41.7MB)

Subscribe: RSS

Can survivors be therapists – and even better at it? Jacks McNamara – poet, trauma healing coach, and co-founder of The Icarus Project – joins Will Hall to discuss the calling to became a therapist/counselor/coach inspired by their own struggles and survivor mutual aid. What makes a “good therapist”? Is mutual aid and friendship enough or do we need professional healers? How does sharing your trauma and oppression with clients affect working as a therapist? What about licensing and credentials – can they get in the way of truly helping people? And is a therapist at heart a wounded healer?

Jacks McNamara is a genderqueer poet, parent, artist, activist, educator, performer, and somatic healing practitioner based on the Tewa land called O’ga P’ogeh, also known today as Santa Fe, New Mexico. Jacks is a Lambda literary fellow, and their first book of poetry, Inbetweenland, was released by Deviant Type Press in 2013. Co-author of Navigating the Space Between Brilliance and Madness, Jacks is a neuro-creative psychiatric survivor who has toured the US and Canada offering workshops and performances. Jacks is the co-founder of The Icarus Project, now the Fireweed Collective, offering mental health education and mutual aid through a Healing Justice lens. Jacks is the subject of the poetic documentary film Crooked Beauty. Also check out Jacks’ previous interview on Madness Radio!

www.jacksmcnamara.net
www.madnessradio.net/madness-radio-queer-poetry-inbetweenland-jacks-mcnamara/
www.madinamerica.com/2012/06/crooked-beauty/
www.instagram.com/jacksmcnamara/

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 56:38 — 51.8MB)

Subscribe: RSS

Nedra Deadwyler of Atlanta Georgia’s Civil Bikes interviews Madness Radio’s Will Hall about bicycles, mental health, and human liberation, for the KBOO FM Bicycle Show.

https://www.nedradeadwylerconsulting.com/

http://www.civilbikes.com/

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 47:07 — 43.1MB)

Subscribe: RSS

Jay Mahler was one of the originators of the psychiatric survivors movement in the 1960s, joining protests with the Free Speech Movement at the University of California Berkeley- the beginnings of protest against the US war in Vietnam – and then dedicating his life to ending forced treatment and protecting psychiatric patient rights. He was a much loved leader in the movement with extensive impact on the lives of everyone involved in survivor / peer / consumer mental health advocacy, in the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond. Jay passed away this May and will be dearly missed, he was a really genuine kindhearted man who touched everyone who knew him. Thanks to Dina Tyler for co-hosting this recent interview with Jay.

Pool of Consumer Champions https://www.pocc.org

Peers.net-Jay Mahler

Remembering Jay Mahler | Michael Cornwall

www.nyaprs.org/

nyaprs.org part 2

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 2:06:48 — 290.2MB)

Subscribe: RSS

Survivingantidepressants.org is one of the leading and longest running communities of mutual and and peer self-help around psychiatric drug withdrawal. Adele Framer – alto strata – founded the site in 2011 and shares her experience and learning on supporting people coming off antidepressants, mood stabilizers, antipsychotics, benzodiazepines and other medications, including the emerging field of psychiatric medication withdrawal research. (Special thanks to Oddball Magazine for production assistance.) (Alternate 58 min version here.)

www.survivingantidepressants.org

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:15:28 — 172.7MB)

Subscribe: RSS

In this guest podcast, Jason Wright of Oddball Magazine sits down with Madness Radio host Will Hall, author of the Harm Reduction Guide to Coming Off Psychiatric Drugs, to discuss mental health abolition, harm reduction, democratic socialism, and more in a far ranging conversation. You may have noticed the world is falling apart, time to think big and outside! (And seriously consider vitamin D supplementation). Check out Jason’s work and the community at Oddball Magazine here:
https://oddballmagazine.com/

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:47:59 — 74.2MB)

Subscribe: RSS

At the Madness Radio book launch a few years ago writer and poet Susie Meserve read her creative nonfiction essay “A Little Crazy,” included in the anthology Show Me All Your Scars: True Stories of Living With Mental Illness and featuring an intimate (and not entirely flattering) portrait of her boyfriend at the time in 2004 – “schizophrenic” Will Hall.

https://susiemeserve.com

https://www.creativenonfiction.org/books/show-me-all-your-scars

Madness Radio book launch on YouTube

Outside Mental Health: Voices and Visions of Madness book site

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 21:13 — 48.6MB)

Subscribe: RSS