The US incarcerates more people than any country in the world – and 70% are people of color. Do we need better mental health care inside prisons — or do prisons themselves cause trauma and madness?

Psychiatrist and civil lawsuit expert witness Dr.Terry Kupers, author of Prison Madness: The Mental Health Crisis Behind Bars and What We Must Do About It, discusses overcrowding, racism, sensory deprivation, isolation, and sexual abuse in the disgraceful US prison system.

http://www.afsc.org/stopmax
http://www.criticalresistance.org
http://www.aclu.org/prisoners-rights

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 52:29 — 48.1MB)

Subscribe: RSS

Can a severe, chronic case of “schizophrenia” ever recover? Is psychotherapy an alternative to medications? What role does trauma play in madness?

Hear the inspiring story of how Catherine Penney, RN, was catatonic and locked in a hospital back ward for years, and then emerged to create a new alternative healing community.

http://www.dantescure.com
http://www.desertgathering.com
http://www.iraresoul.com/dvd.html

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 47:56 — 43.9MB)

Subscribe: RSS

Leah Harris was orphaned after both parents were diagnosed with schizophrenia and died from medication toxicity. Today she is a leading voice in survivor activism, and her powerful spoken word poetry, including “I Was A Teenage Mental Patient,” has been featured in publications including Word Warriors: 35 Women Leaders in the Spoken Word Revolution, and DC Poets against the War: An Anthology. Leah is also the co-coordinator of the US Network of Users and Survivors of Psychiatry.

Buy her new cd “Take Refuge” at the National Empowerment Center: http://bit.ly/7f5kyN

http://www.myspace.com/dharmamamaleah
http://www.usnusp.org

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 52:14 — 47.9MB)

Subscribe: RSS

Can recreational drugs be an opening to genuine spiritual awakening? Brian Hartnett’s passion for rave dance music — as well as alcohol and ecstasy — cost him his career.

Doctors labeled his paranoia, telepathy, and voices symptoms of schizophrenia. But Brian went on to become one of the founders of Hearing Voices Ireland, and discover a new, heightened spirituality.

http://www.voicesireland.com

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 50:13 — 46.0MB)

Subscribe: RSS

How can a chaotic and oppressive family life lead to trauma and extreme states? Do medications and diagnosis provide help, or can they make things worse?

Psychiatric abuse survivor Lisa Darbyshire, Massachusetts organizer with the Freedom Center and the Recovery Learning Community, discusses her personal experiences of hospitalization and recovery, including the struggle with learned helplessness and dependence.

http://www.freedom-center.org
http://www.westernmassrlc.org

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 47:01 — 43.1MB)

Subscribe: RSS

What does it mean to be autistic, have Asperger’s, or be on the autism spectrum? Is autism a disease to be overcome, or a difference to be embraced? Is autism advocacy like mad pride activism?

Ari Ne’eman, a person on the autism spectrum and director of the Autism Self Advocacy Network, discusses the autism movement’s challenge to what we consider “normal.”

http://www.autisticadvocacy.org

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 51:58 — 47.6MB)

Subscribe: RSS

What do modern psychiatric drug treatments have in common with lobotomy? Is informed consent possible when patients’ judgment is impaired by medication? Should psych drugs be banned?

For more than 50 years Dr. Peter Breggin has been a leading crusader against psychiatric abuse, Big Pharma, and medication dangers. His latest book is The Conscience of Psychiatry: The Reform Work of Peter R. Breggin, MD.

http://www.breggin.com

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 54:05 — 49.6MB)

Subscribe: RSS

How do we respond to bizarre beliefs like CIA brain chips, abduction by aliens, hearing voices, spirit possession, or telepathy? Is respect for a different reality “colluding” with a delusion? Or is there meaning in madness?

Medical doctor Tamasin Knight was hospitalized for delusions, and went on to write the practical guidebook Beyond Belief: Alternative Ways of Working with Delusions, Obsessions and Unusual Experiences, available as a free download at http://www.peter-lehmann-publishing.com/books/beyond-belief.pdf (PDF).

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 48:25 — 44.4MB)

Subscribe: RSS

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.

http://www.alison-bass.com/

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 51:47 — 47.4MB)

Subscribe: RSS

What is the mad movement’s best response to science? How is mad pride different from gay pride? Do we want to become equal with “normal” people — or challenge the idea of normal itself? What about suffering and the risk of romanticizing madness?

Icarus Project organizer, psychiatrist, and theorist Bradley Lewis, author of Moving Beyond Prozac, DSM, and the New Psychiatry: Birth of Postpsychiatry, discusses the identity politics of madness.

http://www.theicarusproject.net
http://www.nyu.edu/gallatin/about/bios/bradley_lewis.html

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 56:59 — 52.2MB)

Subscribe: RSS

More than 100,000 people die in the US each year from prescription drugs — used as directed by their doctor. How did aggressive marketing make our health care system a cause of widespread sickness? Why haven’t government regulation or medical research been able to protect the public?

New York Times health reporter Melody Petersen discusses her new book, Our Daily Meds: How the Pharmaceutical Companies Transformed Themselves into Slick Marketing Machines and Hooked the Nation on Prescription Drugs.

http://www.ourdailymedsthebook.com

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 51:12 — 46.9MB)

Subscribe: RSS

Does modern art, such as Artaud, Beckett, and Duchamp, parallel the mad frames of mind that get labeled “schizophrenia?” Is extreme sensitivity and inner self-consciousness behind artistic innovation and breaks with reality?

Rutgers University psychologist Louis Sass, author of Madness And Modernism: Insanity in the Light of Modern Art, Literature, and Thought, discusses art as an insight into the subjective inner world of madness.

lsass@rci.rutgers.edu

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 53:50 — 49.3MB)

Subscribe: RSS

What is it like to hear voices? How do people learn to live with their voices, and are voices sometimes positive and helpful? What is the connection between voices and trauma?

Jacqui Dillon, voice hearer and director of the UK Hearing Voices Network, discusses how the movement of people who hear voices is creating self-help alternatives to traditional and often abusive mental health care.

http://www.intervoiceonline.org
http://www.caslcampaign.com

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 51:04 — 46.8MB)

Subscribe: RSS

What are the lasting impacts of taunting, teasing, and physical harassment between children? Why are kids who are different singled out and picked on? What can parents do if their children are victims of bullies?

Psychotherapist, parent, and process worker Dawn Menken, author of Speak Out! Talking About Love, Sex & Eternity, discusses her work with public schools and families to break the cycle of bullying.

dmenken(at)igc(dot)org

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 51:51 — 47.5MB)

Subscribe: RSS

Why is ECT, electroconvulsive therapy or electroshock, so widely used today? How is the ECT industry manipulating research and public perceptions the way tobacco companies did about cigarettes? What are the real dangers of this lobotomy-era treatment?

ECT survivor Linda Andre discusses her groundbreaking new Rutgers University Press book, Doctors of Deception: What They Don’t Want You To Know About Shock Treatment.

http://www.doctorsofdeception.com
http://www.ect.org

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 51:31 — 47.2MB)

Subscribe: RSS