Madness Radio

Can psychotherapy work against the mainstream system? What does it take to be truly compassionate as a professional? And what are the downsides of promising alternatives such as Open Dialogue? Michael Montgomery grew up in Ireland and experienced firsthand the impacts of trauma and violence; a meeting with a visionary friend introduced him to psychiatric oppression. Today he is an existential psychoanalyst in the tradition of R.D. Laing and trained in Open Dialogue, and he joins Madness Radio guest producer Nicki Glasser and host Will Hall to discuss his work. (transcript) (58 min version) www.drmontgomery.com

Is “schizophrenia” a broken brain — or shamanic journeying to ancestral dimensions? Is being “out of touch with reality” actually visions of deeper truth and racial healing? Dick Russell – author of 17 books including on the JFK assassination and a biography of Jungian James Hillman – followed doctors’ advice when his son Franklin was diagnosed psychotic. But Franklin, who is of mixed race, only got worse — until Russell and Franklin’s mother Etta Russell-Scott joined West African traditional healer Malidoma Somé on a spiritual quest. Franklin’s creative flourishing helped repair the relationship between father and son, and with Franklin’s support, Russell wrote My Mysterious Son: A Life-Changing Passage between Schizophrenia and Shamanism to bring crucial lessons for all of us. (transcript here) (58 min version) https://www.skyhorsepublishing.com/9781629144870/my-mysterious-son/ https://dickrussell.substack.com/ https://dickrussell.org/

How do decriminalizing drug use and sex work advance mad liberation? What lessons can psychiatric survivors learn from the harm reduction movement? Caty Simon’s activist leadership spans the low-income rights, psychiatric survivors, sex worker, and drug users union movements, and she was a key organizer at Freedom Center in Western Massachusetts. Caty is on the leadership team of National Survivors Union (NSU), the US drug users union; is a founding co-organizer of Whose Corner Is It Anyway, a mutual aid group by and for low-income, street, and survival sex workers who use opioids and/or stimulants and/or experience housing insecurity; and leads Narcofeminism Storyshare, a collaborative autobiographical story development and key publics training stigma reduction project at NC Survivors Union, the flagship affiliate group of NSU. Caty is currently a research assistant at the Yale School of Medicine, and in 2023 received the International Drug Policy Reform Conference’s Alfred R. Lindesmith Award. C

Legendary psychiatric survivor activist Irit Shimrat escaped psychiatric incarceration to become a leading anti-psychiatry organizer. Co-founder of the Ontario Psychiatric Survivors’ Alliance, Irit edited the Canadian magazine Phoenix Rising: The Voice of the Psychiatrized and wrote Call Me Crazy: Stories from the Mad Movement, bringing together the stories of many leading activists. Irit shares her experiences from the inside of locked wards, and from the outside – organizing to abolish them. (Transcript) 58 min version Call me Crazy: Stories from the Mad Movement by Irit Shimrat Spotlight on Institutional Psychiatry Edited by Irit Shimrat Phoenix Rising: The Voice of the Psychiatrized Don Weitz Legacy Project Lunatics Liberation Front web archive Go Nuts!

Do grieving goats lick psychedelic lichen? Altered states are part of nature, used by plants and animals for survival(!). How does ecology reveal the evolutionary – and spiritual – purpose of psychosis? Steven Morgan, psychiatric survivor and trainer in Intentional Peer Support, led the Another Way sanctuary and was project director for Soteria Vermont. Today he journeys in the wilderness to find healing and spiritual renewal, and with host Will Hall discusses psychosis as part of evolution, psychedelics in natural ecology, personal visions of Christianity, and communicating with bacteria through expanded consciousness. (Transcript) 58 min version stevenmorganjr.com www.madnessradio.net/madness-radio-reinventing-bipolar-steven-morgan/ Music by Steven Morgan The World We Used to Live In by Vine Deloria Jr. Intentional Peer Support Soteria Vermont

Will Hall’s June 2024 Grand Rounds talk at University of California San Francisco Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences – where he was locked up as a young man! – titled “New Visions of Psychosis: Abolition as Clinical Best Practice.” Revenge is a dish best served cold. Video here: https://youtu.be/adYrzmJ2w50?si=nwAQBM2F6oYmbShe transcript here. 58 min version

Is madness dysfunction and breakdown – or part of human evolution that helps us survive? Writers going back to Hippocrates saw madness as the organism’s way to cope with its environment, so why has this view almost disappeared today? Justin Garson, professor of philosophy at Hunter College and author of Madness: a Philosophical Exploration, joins co-hosts Will Hall and Jessica Gallinger to discuss madness as a strategy, beyond the biological vs psychological debate. (Transcript) 58 min version Justin Garson’s website Madness: A Philosophical Exploration

Does hearing God’s voice make you mentally ill? Will psychiatry help you cope with grief and rejection – or make things worse? After a distressing romantic breakup Alison Smith went to her college clinic for help – and was locked up, drugged, and labeled psychotic. Positive and mysterious voices – including visions of Jesus – suddenly turned dark and persecutory, and Alison was driven into psychiatry-induced madness. Co-hosts Will Hall and Jacks McNamara join Alison to discuss religious voices – and psychiatric violence to suppress them. Alison’s writing has appeared in Granta, Real Simple, and PBS’s Stories from the Stage, and her acclaimed memoir Name All the Animals was named a ten best books of the year by People magazine (yes, that People magazine). A coming of age story, Name All the Animals opens on the day Alison’s brother died in a car crash and explores themes of grief, faith and sexuality. Alison lives in Northampton, MA and is working on a new memoir about

Dina Tyler’s FANTASTIC, heartful, brilliant December 2023 Grand Rounds talk at UCSF Medical School, “Improving Outcomes for Psychosis: Psychiatric Survivor and Critical Psychiatry Perspectives.” Also available as a video. (Transcript) (Slides from talk) (58 min) www.dinatyler.com Journal of Humanistic Psychology

Audiobook mp3 of Chapter 7 “A Ten Day Voyage”, from The Politics of Experience and the Bird of Paradise, by R.D. Laing, read by Will Hall. Full book .mp3 (cntrl/rtclck save as to download): https://www.madnessradio.net/audio-extra/RDLaingPoliticsOfExperienceLaingAudiobookFULL.mp3 Full book as chapters on this YouTube playlist: www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLMya78GAdrpxtOjEayvMp1lC88ce21kUb Individual chapters as .mp3 (ctrl/rtclick to save as): https://www.madnessradio.net/audio-extra/RDLaingPoliticsOfExperienceLaingAudiobookCh1.mp3 https://www.madnessradio.net/audio-extra/RDLaingPoliticsOfExperienceLaingAudiobookCh2.mp3 https://www.madnessradio.net/audio-extra/RDLaingPoliticsOfExperienceLaingAudiobookCh3.mp3 https://www.madnessradio.net/audio-extra/RDLaingPoliticsOfExperienceLaingAudiobookCh4.mp3 https://www.madnessradio.net/audio-extra/RDLaingPoliticsOfExperienceLaingAudiobookCh5.mp3 https://www.madnessradio.net/audio-extra/RDLaingPoliticsOfExperienceLaingAudiobookCh6.mp3 https://www.madnessradi

Why are assault, kidnapping, and torture legal – when you have a psychiatric diagnosis? Is psychiatry’s legal double standard unjust in the same way a double standard would be for being female or Black? Does disability justice mean psychiatric abolition – and reparations? Tina Minkowitz, survivor of psychiatric institutionalization and a human rights lawyer, helped draft and negotiate the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Tina joins Will Hall to discuss why abolition of forced psychiatric treatment means the non-negotiable right to be an equal human being. Tina is founder and president of the Center for the Human Rights of Users and Survivors of Psychiatry, and author of Reimagining Crisis Support: Matrix, Roadmap and Policy. 58 min version transcript here National Council on Disability from Privileges to Rights report http://chrusp.org/ 10th International Conference on Human Rights and Psychiatric Oppression Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabi

Are psychotherapy’s assumptions completely misguided? What is really at stake in the research and practice of psychology? Is it possible to take a step back and see “psy” for what it is? Craig Newnes is a Jewish dad, grandad, musician, writer, and former director of one of the UK’s largest NHS Psychological Therapies Directorates, and he joins Will Hall to discuss a critical view of the entire psy industry. Past editor of the British Psychological Society clinical psychology division newsletter for 19 years, Craig has doctorates in History and Clinical Psychology and currently edits the Journal of Critical Psychology Counseling and Psychotherapy. He has published over 200 articles and 25 books, including the upcoming Psychomusicology, available from Egalitarian Publishing. (58 min version) (transcript here) Racism in Psychology Finniendo – an illustrated saga for children https://www.egalitarianpublishing.com Survivor Poetry 52 Ways to Change Your Life.  Tearagh’t: a novel  Teach

How does the terror of child abuse inspire the heights of spiritual awakening? Are risky behaviors with drugs and extreme sports also a search towards healing? Co-hosts Dina Tyler and Will Hall talk with Paris Williams, who has a PhD in clinical psychology and went through his own experience of extreme states and madness. Paris took flight from extreme childhood trauma and became a world class hang glider pilot, competing world wide, soaring miles above the earth, and risking his life again and again. Today he works as a therapist for people with psychosis, including from a spiritual emergence and trauma perspective and as a teacher in Hakomi psychotherapy, and is the author of the book Rethinking Madness. (58 min version) (Transcript here) https://youtu.be/JRCRYLB5FWs https://pariswilliamsphd.com https://rethinkingmadness.com

Therapist Ryan Hofrichter flips the mic on Madness Radio host Will Hall for a wide-ranging discussion about madness, psychiatry, and being a therapist. Topics include power in therapy, psychiatric diagnosis harms, naming ethical and professional dilemmas, working outside of the mainstream mental health system, understanding emotional distress in context, tragedy as potentially transformative, the psychiatric survivor movement, preventing mental health crises by creating healthy communities… and more. Thanks Ryan for listening! (58 min version) Full interview transcript and details on Ryan’s website here.

Are trauma, medication injury, and holistic health connected? Does Lyme disease infection relate to tardive dyskinesia from psychiatric drugs? Is there a spiritual purpose to debilitating illness? Monica Cassani is a psychiatric survivor and early leader in internet support with the Beyond Meds – Everything Matters website and community. Monica’s struggle with chronic iatrogenic illness led her to discover personal renewal and spiritual awakening – and gain a deeper understanding of illness, healing, and the ecological nature of the self. (Alternate 58 min version here.) Tardive Dyskinesia, Chronic Lyme Disease, and Infection – Mad In America  Everything Matters – Beyond Meds  MDs and systemic infections (Lyme and Tardive Dyskinesia)

Read this book! Is discriminating against people who have — or are labeled with — psychiatric disabilities ever justified? Is denying equality before the law necessary in times of crisis – or does it open the door to widespread abuse and violence? Journalist and community development activist Rob Wipond’s new book Your Consent Is Not Required: The Rise in Psychiatric Detentions, Forced Treatment, and Abusive Guardianships is a devastating investigative exposé of the normalized assault, kidnapping, and torture that is forced psychiatric treatment. It is hard to conclude anything other than this abusive practice must be brought to an end. So what can be done? Rob and Will Hall discuss these issues and more, and delve into what voluntary alternatives are possible — and how to stop the current dominant medicalized system from suppressing these alternatives. Rob has written a blistering account of some of psychiatry’s biggest lies; please read this book (if you can – advisory of upset

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. Transcript.) https://linktr.ee/vespermoore https://www.vespermoore.com/ https://madnessnetworknews.com/

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

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  

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