Mad in America: Rethinking Mental Health
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Top 10 Mad in America: Rethinking Mental Health Episodes
Goodpods has curated a list of the 10 best Mad in America: Rethinking Mental Health episodes, ranked by the number of listens and likes each episode have garnered from our listeners. If you are listening to Mad in America: Rethinking Mental Health for the first time, there's no better place to start than with one of these standout episodes. If you are a fan of the show, vote for your favorite Mad in America: Rethinking Mental Health episode by adding your comments to the episode page.
Peer Support and Resistance - Becky Brasfield’s Vision for Mental Health Justice
Mad in America: Rethinking Mental Health
01/08/25 • 40 min
Becky Brasfield has emerged as a formidable advocate for change in the complex landscape of mental health care. A certified recovery support specialist and policy researcher at the Human Services Research Institute, Ms. Brasfield has dedicated her career to elevating the voices of service users and dismantling systemic inequities. Her lived experience with psychosis, combined with her leadership in peer support, has made her a powerful critic of traditional psychiatric models that often marginalize those they aim to help.
Her resume includes service as president of the NAMI Illinois Alliance of Peer Professionals, the state’s first peer professional association, and recognition as one of Crain’s Notable Black Leaders and Executives. She has been a fellow with both the IL Care and HSRI Behavioral Health Policy programs and was appointed Commissioner of the Southeast Expanded Mental Health Services Program.
But Ms. Brasfield’s work is as personal and political as it is professional. In this interview, she speaks with Mad in America’s Ayurdhi Dhar about her path to recovery, the harmful impacts of medical gaslighting, and why the future of mental health justice depends on centering the expertise of those with lived experience.
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Thank you for being with us to listen to the podcast and read our articles this year. MIA is funded entirely by reader donations. If you value MIA, please help us continue to survive and grow. https://www.madinamerica.com/donate/
To find the Mad in America podcast on your preferred podcast player, click here: https://pod.link/1212789850
© Mad in America 2025. Produced by James Moore https://www.jmaudio.org
2 Listeners
The Anatomy of Anxiety: An Interview With Ellen Vora
Mad in America: Rethinking Mental Health
11/20/24 • 44 min
Ellen Vora is a board-certified psychiatrist, acupuncturist, and yoga teacher. She's the author of The Anatomy of Anxiety and takes a functional medicine approach to mental health. She considers the whole person and addresses imbalance at the root. Dr. Vora received her BA from Yale University and her MD from Columbia University.
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Thank you for being with us to listen to the podcast and read our articles this year. MIA is funded entirely by reader donations. If you value MIA, please help us continue to survive and grow by becoming a subscriber. https://www.madinamerica.com/donate/
To find the Mad in America podcast on your preferred podcast player, click here: https://pod.link/1212789850
© Mad in America 2024. Produced by James Moore https://www.jmaudio.org
2 Listeners
John Read and Jeffrey Masson - Biological Psychiatry and the Mass Murder of “Schizophrenics”
Mad in America: Rethinking Mental Health
08/10/22 • 63 min
On the Mad in America podcast this week, we hear from the co-authors of a paper published in the journal Ethical Human Psychology and Psychiatry which documents the mass murder of a quarter of a million people, mostly diagnosed as “schizophrenic” in Europe during the Second World War.
Later, we hear from Dr. Jeffrey Masson, who is an author and a scholar of Sanskrit and psychoanalysis. But first, we talk with professor of psychology John Read. Regular visitors to Mad in America will know of John’s work. For those that don’t know, John worked for nearly 20 years as a clinical psychologist and manager of mental health services in the UK and the USA, before joining the University of Auckland, New Zealand, in 1994, where he worked until 2013. He has served as director of the clinical psychology professional graduate programmes at both Auckland and, more recently, the University of Liverpool. He currently works in the School of Psychology at the University of East London.
John has many research interests, including critical appraisals of the use of psychiatric drugs and electroconvulsive therapy.
Jeffrey Masson has had a fascinating career in which he studied Sanskrit and psychoanalysis and became director of the Sigmund Freud archives. A prolific author, he has written more than 30 books and has become an advocate for animal rights. He is currently an Honorary Fellow in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Auckland in New Zealand.
We discuss how John and Jeffrey came to write a paper which examines a grim period in psychiatric history.
1 Listener
Our Medical System Protects Wrongdoers and Punishes Whistleblowers: An Interview with Carl Elliott
Mad in America: Rethinking Mental Health
08/07/24 • 45 min
Carl Elliott is a distinguished professor at the University of Minnesota with joint appointments in the Department of Philosophy and the School of Journalism and Mass Communications.
An influential voice in bioethics, Elliott is known for his critical examination of the medical and pharmaceutical industries. His latest book, The Occasional Human Sacrifice: Medical Experimentation and the Price of Saying No,describes the harrowing experiences of whistleblowers who expose corruption and malpractice in clinical trials and psychiatric research.
Originally from South Carolina, Elliott's diverse academic background includes a medical degree and a PhD in philosophy from Glasgow University in Scotland. His extensive postdoctoral work has taken him to institutions such as the University of Chicago, the University of Otago in New Zealand, and the Nelson Mandela School of Medicine in South Africa. Elliott is the author and editor of several influential books, including Better than Well: American Medicine Meets the American Dream and White Coat and Black Hat: Adventures on the Dark Side of Medicine. His articles have been featured in prestigious publications such as The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, Mother Jones, and The New England Journal of Medicine (as well as Mad in America). Elliott's critical work in bioethics has earned him numerous accolades, including the Erikson Prize for Excellence in Mental Health Media and a fellowship at the Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University.
His investigative work has shed light on numerous scandals, including the tragic case of Dan Markingson, a young man who died during a controversial clinical trial at the University of Minnesota. In this interview, Elliott discusses the systemic issues that protect wrongdoers, the personal and professional toll on those who speak out, and the broader implications for ethics in medical research and practice.
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Thank you for being with us to listen to the podcast and read our articles this year. MIA is funded entirely by reader donations. If you value MIA, please help us continue to survive and grow.
To find the Mad in America podcast on your preferred podcast player, click here
© Mad in America 2024. Produced by James Moore
1 Listener
One Person's Journey from Medical Model Advocate to Skeptic: An Interview with Rose Cartwright
Mad in America: Rethinking Mental Health
11/06/24 • 39 min
Rose Cartwright is a screenwriter and the author of Pure, a hugely successful memoir which was then turned into a series for Channel Four. She is also a writer and producer on Netflix’s 3 Body Problem. Pure portrayed Rose’s autobiographical account of finding that she had OCD, a “mental illness”, and the breakthrough that this medical framework provided her. This was short-lived. In her new book The Maps We Carry, she writes about the dawning realization that the “illness” story she had believed in and publicly advocated for, was wretchedly incomplete and often dangerous.
In this interview, Cartwright charts her journey of painful and lonely disillusionment with the “mental illness” framework. She talks about understanding the place of her own childhood trauma and also the limitations of simplistic trauma narratives. She speaks about the place of psychedelics and meditation in helping her uncover her disconnection, eventually to realize the importance of trusting relationships and communities. In this brutally honest book and interview, Cartwright reflects on the importance of holding all our understandings around mental health and suffering, lightly.
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Thank you for being with us to listen to the podcast and read our articles this year. MIA is funded entirely by reader donations. If you value MIA, please help us continue to survive and grow. https://www.madinamerica.com/donate/
To find the Mad in America podcast on your preferred podcast player, click here: https://pod.link/1212789850
© Mad in America 2024. Produced by James Moore https://www.jmaudio.org
1 Listener
Why Does a Parent Medicate a Child? An Interview with My Mother
Mad in America: Rethinking Mental Health
10/09/24 • 45 min
In this interview, Brooke Siem, who is the author of a memoir on antidepressant withdrawal, May Cause Side Effects, interviews her mother, Dee Barbash, to discuss the circumstances that led to Brooke being prescribed a cocktail of antidepressants at the age of 15. Today, her mother is a therapist who helps her clients taper from psychiatric medications – a profession that she took up after she came to understand the harms that Brooke suffered from having been prescribed these drugs for 15 years.
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Thank you for being with us to listen to the podcast and read our articles this year. MIA is funded entirely by reader donations. If you value MIA, please help us continue to survive and grow.
To find the Mad in America podcast on your preferred podcast player, click here
© Mad in America 2024. Produced by James Moore
1 Listener
The Maudsley Deprescribing Guidelines- An Interview with David Taylor and Mark Horowitz
Mad in America: Rethinking Mental Health
08/21/24 • 54 min
In this interview for MIA Radio, Brooke Siem speaks with David Taylor and Mark Horowitz about their publication of the Maudsley Deprescribing Guidelines, which is of particular note since the Maudsley Prescribing Guidelines is a leading text in medicine worldwide.
David Taylor is the Director of Pharmacy and Pathology at Maudsley Hospital and a Professor of Psychopharmacology at King's College in London. He is also the editor-in-chief of the journal Therapeutic Advances in Psychopharmacology. Beyond academia, he contributes significantly to public health policy as a member of the United Kingdom's Department of Transport expert panel that introduced drug-driving regulations. He is also a current member of the UK government's Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs and is the only pharmacist to have been made an honorary fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists. David is the lead author of the Maudsley Prescribing Guidelines, a role he has held since their inception in 1993.
The Maudsley Prescribing Guidelines have achieved significant success, with over 300,000 copies sold across 14 editions and translations into 12 languages. David has also authored 450 clinical papers published in prominent journals such as The Lancet, BMJ, British Journal of Psychiatry, and Journal of Clinical Psychiatry. His work has been cited over 25,000 times.
Mark Horowitz is a clinical research fellow in psychiatry at the National Health Service (NHS) in London. He is a Visiting Lecturer in Psychopharmacology at King's College London and an Honorary Clinical Research Fellow at University College London, in addition to being a trainee psychiatrist. Mark holds a PhD from the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology, and Neuroscience at King's College London, specializing in the neurobiology of depression and antidepressant action. He is the lead author of the Maudsley Deprescribing Guidelines and an associate editor of Therapeutic Advances in Psychopharmacology.
Mark co-authored the recent Royal College of Psychiatry's guidance on stopping antidepressants, and his work has informed the recent NICE guidelines on the safe tapering of psychiatric medications, including antidepressants, benzodiazepines, and z-drugs. He has collaborated with the NHS to develop national guidance for safe deprescribing for clinicians and has been commissioned by Health Education England to prepare a teaching module on how to safely stop antidepressants.
Mark has published several papers on safe approaches to tapering psychiatric medications, with contributions in The Lancet Psychiatry, JAMA Psychiatry, and Schizophrenia Bulletin. His interest lies in rational psychopharmacology and the deprescribing of psychiatric medications, which is deeply informed by his personal experiences of the challenges associated with coming off psychiatric medications.
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Thank you for being with us to listen to the podcast and read our articles this year. MIA is funded entirely by reader donations. If you value MIA, please help us continue to survive and grow. https://www.madinamerica.com/donate/
To find the Mad in America podcast on your preferred podcast player, click here: https://pod.link/1212789850
© Mad in America 2024. Produced by James Moore https://www.jmaudio.org
1 Listener
Multiplicity and Mad Studies: An Interview with Jazmine Russell
Mad in America: Rethinking Mental Health
08/28/24 • 45 min
Jazmine Russell is the co-founder of the Institute for the Development of Human Arts (IDHA), a transformative mental health training institute, and the host of the Depth Work Podcast. As a writer, educator, and scholar, Jazmine works at the intersection of mad studies, critical psychology, and neuroscience. Her work is deeply informed by her lived experiences surviving complex trauma, psychosis, and an autoimmune disease.
Jazmine's focus extends to the intersection of mental health and chronic illness, particularly exploring the overlap of psychosis, trauma, and autoimmunity. This has led her to bridge critical neuroscience communities with the mad movement. In addition to her scholarly pursuits, Jazmine continues to see clients as a trauma-informed holotropic breathwork practitioner.
She is also a co-editor of the forthcoming Mad Studies Reader: Interdisciplinary Innovations in Mental Health (Routledge, 2024). Today, we will delve into her background, her journey to co-founding IDHA, her current work and podcast, and the insights she offers in the upcoming Mad Studies Reader.
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Thank you for being with us to listen to the podcast and read our articles this year. MIA is funded entirely by reader donations. If you value MIA, please help us continue to survive and grow.
To find the Mad in America podcast on your preferred podcast player, click here
© Mad in America 2024. Produced by James Moore
1 Listener
Psychology, Personhood, and the Crisis of Neoliberalism: Jeff Sugarman on Theoretical and Critical Psychology
Mad in America: Rethinking Mental Health
03/19/25 • 53 min
Jeff Sugarman is a distinguished scholar in theoretical and philosophical psychology, known for his work examining the psychology of selfhood, human agency, and the sociopolitical underpinnings of psychological science. A Professor Emeritus in the Education Department at Simon Fraser University, Dr. Sugarman has spent decades critically interrogating the ways mainstream psychology reflects and reinforces the ideologies of neoliberalism, shaping how we understand identity, mental health, and human development.
A past president of the Society for Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology (APA Division 24) and a former associate editor of The Journal of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology and New Ideas in Psychology, Dr. Sugarman has played a key role in advancing critical perspectives in psychology. His extensive body of work includes Persons: Understanding Psychological Selfhood and Agency (2010), Psychology and the Question of Agency (2003), and The Psychology of Human Possibility and Constraint (1999)—books that challenge psychology’s tendency to isolate individuals from history, culture, and power structures.
In this interview, he explores the philosophical foundations of psychology, the psychological costs of neoliberalism, and why developing a critical psychology of education and mental health is more urgent than ever.
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Thank you for being with us to listen to the podcast and read our articles this year. MIA is funded entirely by reader donations. If you value MIA, please help us continue to survive and grow. https://www.madinamerica.com/donate/
To find the Mad in America podcast on your preferred podcast player, click here: https://pod.link/1212789850
© Mad in America 2025. Produced by James Moore https://www.jmaudio.org
1 Listener
Beyond Paternalism or Abandonment in Mental Health Care: An Interview with Neil Gong
Mad in America: Rethinking Mental Health
07/17/24 • 40 min
Neil Gong is an assistant professor of sociology at UC San Diego, where he researches psychiatric services, homelessness, and how communities seek to maintain social order. Neil's new book, "Sons, Daughters, and Sidewalk Psychotics: Mental Illness and Homelessness in Los Angeles," published by the University of Chicago Press, offers a detailed look into the starkly different worlds of mental health care in Los Angeles. He contrasts the public safety-net clinics, which strive to keep patients housed and out of jail, with the elite private care centers that cater to the wealthy. He finds that while the public system focuses on survival and containment, often providing only minimal care, the private system aims at rehabilitation and respectability, albeit sometimes at the cost of personal freedom.
Neil’s extensive fieldwork included spending nights in homeless encampments, shadowing social workers, and engaging with patients and families across the socioeconomic spectrum. His work highlights systemic failures and societal indifference but also the humanity of those working and living within these disparate treatment systems. In our conversation, we unpack the critical insights from his book and explore the broader implications of his research. How do these disparate systems reflect our societal values? What can we learn about the intersection of mental health, homelessness, and social policy? And perhaps most importantly, how can we move towards a more equitable and humane approach to mental health care?
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Thank you for being with us to listen to the podcast and read our articles this year. MIA is funded entirely by reader donations. If you value MIA, please help us continue to survive and grow.
To find the Mad in America podcast on your preferred podcast player, click here
© Mad in America 2024. Produced by James Moore
1 Listener
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FAQ
How many episodes does Mad in America: Rethinking Mental Health have?
Mad in America: Rethinking Mental Health currently has 263 episodes available.
What topics does Mad in America: Rethinking Mental Health cover?
The podcast is about Health & Fitness, Psychology, Anxiety, Mental Health, Depression, Mentalhealth, Medicine, Podcasts, Science, Health and Psychiatry.
What is the most popular episode on Mad in America: Rethinking Mental Health?
The episode title 'The Anatomy of Anxiety: An Interview With Ellen Vora' is the most popular.
What is the average episode length on Mad in America: Rethinking Mental Health?
The average episode length on Mad in America: Rethinking Mental Health is 46 minutes.
How often are episodes of Mad in America: Rethinking Mental Health released?
Episodes of Mad in America: Rethinking Mental Health are typically released every 7 days, 1 hour.
When was the first episode of Mad in America: Rethinking Mental Health?
The first episode of Mad in America: Rethinking Mental Health was released on Jun 30, 2017.
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