Mad In America: Science, Psychiatry And Social Justice

Erick Turner is an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the Oregon Health and Science University (OHSU). He is also a senior scholar with OHSU’s Center for Ethics and Health Care. Dr. Turner has been an FDA reviewer and has dedicated his work and life to improving research transparency. He’s well known for his work on publication bias and antidepressant trials, but his findings show that psychotherapy research is also riddled with problems. What happens when those we trust with knowledge in our society betray us? In today’s interview, we discuss how dubious research practices are not simply the work of a few bad apples but instead built into the way we produce knowledge. We further explore the consequences of these practices on patients and the dangerous tradition of journal worship before exploring how many of these problems can be solved. *** 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, p

On our podcast this week, we hear from Dr. Adam Urato. Adam graduated from Harvard Medical School in 1997 and has been practicing medicine for over 25 years, specializing in obstetrics and gynecology. He cares for pregnant women on a daily basis as an attending maternal-fetal medicine physician at MetroWest Medical Center in Framingham, Massachusetts. He writes and lectures regularly on antidepressant use during pregnancy. Adam has contributed to Mad in America’s continuing education efforts and his free course "Antidepressants and Pregnancy" can be found on Mad in America’s education section. It is an informative and comprehensive look into a little-discussed but very important area of women’s health. For this interview, Adam joined me to discuss what we do and don’t know about the effects of antidepressants on babies and mothers and also the importance of counselling in order to aid families in making important decisions about pharmaceutical drug use. *** Thank you for being with us to listen to the podcast

Owen Whooley is an associate professor of sociology at the University of New Mexico. His book On the Heels of Ignorance: Psychiatry and the Politics of Not Knowing deals with the tumultuous history of psychiatry and its equally unstable present. In his book, he documents psychiatry’s ignorance, insecurity, hubris, and hype. Owen Whooley is an expert in the field of the sociology of mental health, sociology of knowledge, and sociology of science. In this interview, we will cover his histography of psychiatry, engage with his writings on the DSM, and talk about what gives psychiatry its almost supernatural powers to rise from near death over and over and over. *** The Mad in America podcast is sponsored this week by Drs Rani and Suraj Holistic Psychiatry and Mental Health Coaching. Are you Ready to make a lasting change in your life? Then join Dr Rani Bora's 12-month group coaching programme named "Beyond Diagnosis". Visit their website drsranisuraj.com today for more information and to join this unique program

The Mad in America podcast is sponsored this week by Drs Rani and Suraj Holistic Psychiatry and Mental Health Coaching. Are you Ready to make a lasting change in your life? Then join Dr Rani Bora's 12-month group coaching programme named "Beyond Diagnosis". Visit their website drsranisuraj.com today for more information and to join this unique programme. *** Last fall, the New Haven Register reported that a group of Yale University students and alumni filed a federal lawsuit against the university challenging its policies and practices around students with mental health disabilities. But according to our guest, a lack of access to appropriate support, as well as discrimination against students struggling with their mental health, are all too common on American campuses. Stefanie Lyn Kaufman-Mthimkhulu is the founder and director of the non-profit Project LETS, which stands for Let’s Erase the Stigma. Project LETS is a national grassroots organization and movement focused on creating innovative, peer-led alter

In December 2019, we wrote about the Hurdalsjøen Recovery Center, which is a private psychiatric hospital located about forty minutes north of Oslo, on the banks of stunning Lake Hurdal. The hospital was set up by its director, Ole Andreas Underland, to provide “medication-free” care for those who wanted such treatment or who wanted to taper from their psychiatric drugs. In this interview, Robert Whitaker talks again with Ole Andreas to understand both the success of this pioneering approach and why this success might threaten its future. *** 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

Today we are continuing with our look behind the scenes of Mad in America for our 200th podcast. Mad in America got started in January 2012 and so to celebrate a decade of critical comment and appraisal we thought it would be interesting to reflect on Mad in America’s mission and work by speaking to the people behind the scenes, who keep it running day-to-day. Before we move on to our interviews, I want to pay tribute to the people at MIA who couldn’t join us for these interviews for one reason or another. Susannah Senerchia is our Assistant Editor and amongst other things, manages our Around the Web section. She is always finding interesting articles from the corners of the internet that help to tell of a shift in thinking about mental health. Also, of course, Mad in America relies heavily on the science news team as we discussed in part one of this podcast and for overview, we have our Board consisting of Robert Whitaker, Kermit Cole, Louisa Putnam, Olga Runciman and Claudia Esteve. So, on to our interview

This week is a special one for us at Mad in America, as it’s the 200th episode of our podcast. Our first interview was with attorney and author of Zyprexa Papers, Jim Gottstein, back in July 2017. For this and the next podcast, we’ll be talking to the people that make Mad in America what it is, the people behind the scenes, who keep it running day-to-day. Later in this podcast, we will hear from staff reporter Amy Biancolli, science news editor Justin Karter and arts editor Karin Jervert, but to kick us off today, we hear from Mad in America founder, Robert Whitaker. Bob worked as a newspaper reporter for a number of years, covering medicine and science. He is the author of five books, three of which investigate the history of psychiatry and the merits of its treatments. Those books are Mad in America,published in 2002; Anatomy of an Epidemic, from 2010, and he was co-author along with Lisa Cosgrove of Psychiatry Under the Influence, published in 2015. He was also a director of publications at Harvard Medical

Madness: Fighting for Justice in Mental Health is an upcoming conference created by the Disruption Network Lab. The Lab examines the intersection of politics, technology and society, exposing the misconduct and wrongdoing of the powerful. This year, the conference will investigate systems of mental health care focusing on the prevailing discourses and practices, biases, and inequalities. It will explore the questions: What does it mean to have a just mental health care system and who has access to it? Who decides who is labelled as mad? The conference is being held in Berlin, Germany, as well as streamed online free on November 25th through the 27th. You can view the conference live at disruptionlab.org/madness. In this podcast, Mad in America’s Arts Editor, Karin Jervert, interviews the curator of the conference, Elena Veljanovska, and three artists—Dolly Sen, Anika Krbetschek, and Marcello Lussana—about art and transformation, human rights, and justice in mental health. Dolly Sen is an internationally renow

On the Mad in America podcast this wweek we are joined by renowned psychopharmacologist Dr David Healy. David is a psychiatrist, scientist and author. Before becoming a professor of Psychiatry in Wales, and more recently in the Department of Family Medicine at McMaster University in Canada, he studied medicine in Dublin and at Cambridge University. He is a former Secretary of the British Association for Psychopharmacology, and has authored more than 220 peer-reviewed articles, 300 other pieces, and 25 books, including The Antidepressant Era, The Creation of Psychopharmacology and Pharmageddon. He has been involved as an expert witness in homicide and suicide trials involving psychotropic drugs, and in bringing problems with these drugs to the attention of American and European regulators, as well raising awareness of how pharmaceutical companies sell drugs by marketing diseases and co-opting academic opinion-leaders, ghost-writing their articles. David is a founder and CEO of Data Based Medicine Limi

Morgan Shields is one of the few health policy researchers who focuses on quality of care and issues of coercion within inpatient psychiatry. Her research exposes how current healthcare settings are influenced by power imbalances, profit structures, and organizational priorities that are fundamentally misaligned with the human needs of individual patients. Dr. Shields completed her Ph.D. in Social Policy at Brandeis University and is currently an Assistant Professor at the Brown School of Social Work at Washington University in St. Louis, where she also directs her own research group. She has published over 25 peer-reviewed articles in outlets such as Health Affairs, Psychiatric Services, and the JAMA Network. She has also completed several policy reports for entities such as the U.S. Health and Human Services Office, and has served as a legal expert in cases related to psychiatric patient discrimination. In doing so, her research has effected change at the state and federal levels, prompting internal inve

This week we are sharing a special interview that’s being done as part of World Tapering Day. World Tapering Day is being held on the 4th, 5th and 6th of November 2022 and it aims to raise global awareness of the need to safely taper psychotropic drugs. It has been organized by people with personal experience of the severe difficulties that can arise when stopping antidepressants, antipsychotics or benzodiazepines. If you would like to find out more or participate, you can visit the website WorldTaperingDay.org where you can sign up for a range of free-to-view webinars. Our guest today is Anders Sørenson. Anders is a Danish clinical psychologist with a special interest in psychiatric drug withdrawal. He has undertaken research which assesses the state of guidance on psychiatric drug withdrawal. He has also paid close attention to tapering methods with the aim of identifying approaches which might make withdrawal more tolerable for people.  In addition to his research work, Anders utilizes psychotherapy in his

Justin Karter is a staff psychologist at Boston College University Counseling Services. He is a recent graduate of the doctoral program in Counseling Psychology at the University of Massachusetts Boston, where he completed his dissertation research on the experiences of psychosocial disability activists in the Global South. He has served as the editor of the research news section of the Mad in America website since 2015. In addition, he has held executive board positions with the Society for Humanistic Psychology and the Society for Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology. Despite being a recent graduate and early career psychologist, he has published over 25 papers and textbook chapters on topics in critical psychology, critical psychiatry, and philosophy of psychology. While he has often been the interviewer for our MIA podcasts, today, we get to turn the mic around and ask him some questions. In doing so, we discuss his journey into the field and what he has learned through his work with MIA, research i

This week on the Mad in America podcast, we are joined by activist and artist Jim Flannery. Born and raised in suburban Weathersfield, Connecticut, Jim was committed at four mental hospitals across the United States. There he received the best care available in the modern world… torture, which included seclusion, restraints, forced drugging, coercion, and a psychiatric diagnosis. Later, he turned to the arts to speak out publicly about his experiences with the mental health system through performing stand-up comedy under the pseudonym Flim Jannery and now through music with his new album, "Sorry, It's Not Funny," which will be released on Friday, October 14. In 2020, Jim began hearing voices, which opened his eyes to what he terms a genocide against neurodiverse people. He shifted his creative efforts towards hip-hop, believing the genre was the best medium to communicate his perspective. You can hear the new album on the website jim-flannery.com. It’s also on Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube, Pandora, SoundClou

Dr. Diana Rose wears many hats—academic, researcher, service user, and activist. She is a leading figure in user-led research and currently an Honorary Distinguished Professor at the Australian National University. Dr. Rose was previously Professor of User Led Research and Director of the Service User Research Enterprise (SURE) at King’s College. She was also lead in Patient and Public Involvement in several large research programmes at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology, and Neuroscience. Apart from an impressive set of publications, Dr. Rose’s new book Mad Knowledges and User-Led Research is about to hit the markets. In today’s interview, she brings together her vast breadth of experience and depth of knowledge to talk about the challenges service users and survivors of psychiatry face when they take space as knowers and researchers in the Psy-disciplines. *** If you find this podcast valuable, rating it and leaving a review on iTunes or Spotify or sharing it on social media helps us to get the word ou

This week on the Mad in America podcast, we are joined by Dr. Jon Jureidini. Jon is a child psychiatrist who also trained in philosophy, critical appraisal and psychotherapy. He has a continuing appointment as a professor in the School of Medicine at the University of Adelaide. He heads Adelaide University’s Critical and Ethical Mental Health research group, which conducts research, teaching and advocacy to promote safer, more effective and more ethical research and practice in mental health; and the Paediatric Mental Health Training Unit, providing training and support to medical students, GPs, allied health professionals, teachers and counsellors in non-pathologising approaches to primary care mental health. He has an international reputation for his work on the evidence base for psychiatry and is a strong advocate for addressing the social determinants of mental health. Jon, together with co-author Leemon B. McHenry, wrote the book The Illusion of Evidence-Based Medicine published in 2020. The book was fol

This week on the Mad in America podcast, we are really pleased to be announcing the launch of a new global affiliated site: Mad in Ireland. Mad in Ireland launches on August the 22nd and joins our other global sites which include Mad in the UK, Mad in Canada, Mad in Finland and Mad in Brasil amongst others. Joining me to discuss the launch and the important role that Mad in Ireland will play are Liam MacGabhann, Martha Griffin, Elaine Browne and Harry Gijbels who are part of the team that has been working hard to get the new site up and running. You can visit Mad in Ireland from August 22nd here: https://madinireland.com Please help them get up and running by visitng the site and sharing it on social media. Thank you.  

Our guest today is Beverley Thomson. Beverley is a writer, researcher and speaker with a focus on psychiatric medication including antidepressants, benzodiazepines and ADHD drugs. She is interested in their history, how the drugs work, adverse effects, dependence, withdrawal and development of patient support services. For the past 10 years, she has worked with organizations such as the British Medical Association, the Scottish Government and recently the UK All Party Parliamentary Group (APPPG) for prescribed drug dependence. She is currently part of a Scottish Government Short Life Working Group addressing the issue of prescribed drug harm and dependence in Scotland. We talk about Beverley’s latest book, entitled Antidepressed: A Breakthrough Examination of Epidemic Antidepressant Harm and Dependence published by Hatherleigh Press in 2022. Featuring compelling accounts from people whose lives have been irrevocably harmed by prescribed antidepressants, Beverley’s work provides proof that there is no such thi

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, inc

In March 2022, a new grief-related disorder was officially adopted into mainstream mental health diagnosis nomenclature. Prolonged Grief Disorder (PGD) is a recent addition to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual fifth edition text revision (DSM-5-TR). A PGD diagnosis is to be used when a person is grieving too long and too intensely. In this interview, Kaori Wada, Psychologist, grief researcher, and Associate Professor and Director of Training at the University of Calgary, builds upon her recent paper on the Medicalization of Grief in conversation with MIA Science News Writer and Psychologist Zenobia Morrill. Wada articulates a history of institutional tensions and financial conflicts behind the creation of this new PGD diagnosis. She also discusses the ways PGD could shape how we collectively understand and respond to those grieving. Wada’s work demonstrates that the creation of PGD was not based on scientific findings but appears to be entangled in long-standing arguments between camps of mental health

Our guest today is sociologist and author, Doctor Andrew Scull. Andrew is a professor of Sociology and Science Studies at the University of California, San Diego, and recipient of the Roy Porter Medal for lifetime contributions to the history of medicine and the Eric T. Carlson Award for lifetime contributions to the history of psychiatry. The author of more than a dozen books, his work has been translated into more than fifteen languages and he has received fellowships from, among others, the Guggenheim Foundation, the American Council of Learned Societies and the Shelby Cullom Davis Center for Historical Studies. In this interview, we discuss his latest book, Desperate Remedies: Psychiatry’s Turbulent Quest to Cure Mental Illness, published by Harvard Press in May 2022. Dirk Wittenborn, the screenwriter and novelist, described the book as "A riveting chronicle of faulty science, false promises, arrogance, greed, and shocking disregard for the wellbeing of patients suffering from mental disorders. An eloquen