MEDICATION WITHDRAWAL | ADELE FRAMER
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.
COMPASSIONATE PSYCHOTHERAPY | OLGA RUNCIMAN
How is psychotherapy different when the therapist is also a survivor? What vital lessons must therapists learn from people who have experienced psychosis? If therapy is an imbalance of power between therapist and patient, how can therapists avoid the misuse of power and protect clients from harm? Olga Runciman, voice hearer, psychiatric nurse in locked wards, and survivor of a diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia, brings her experience with recovery to her work as a psychotherapist in private practice.
UNMAKING DIAGNOSIS: GARY GREENBERG | MADNESS RADIO
Why did the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistic Manual become so controversial? Is it possible to alleviate human suffering without classifying it as a mental disorder? Gary Greenberg, psychotherapist, author of Manufacturing Depression and The Book of Woe: The DSM and the Unmaking of Psychiatry, and journalist for Harper’s, the New Yorker, and Rolling Stone, discusses the politics behind psychiatry’s new Bible.
LIFE AFTER PSYCH MEDS | LAURA DELANO
How can people come off psychiatric medications in the safest way? What are the key lessons and vital ingredients for leaving psychiatric care? Is there life after meds? Laura Delano spent 14 years as a psychiatric patient before she left behind her psychiatric diagnoses and reclaimed herself. Today she is Director of the Inner Compass Initiative and The Withdrawal Project, working to support drug withdrawal and build community beyond the mental health system. www.theinnercompass.org
LEGACY OF R.D. LAING | MICHAEL GUY THOMPSON
Is psychosis a journey and a breakthrough to somewhere more authentic? Should unhappy people be made to adjust to a mad society? Scottish psychiatrist R.D. Laing was a fierce critic of the mental health system, and saw madness as a rational adaptation to irrational family and social constraints. Laing’s compelling prose, acute intellect, and spiritual insight made a huge cultural impact worldwide, shaping the psychiatric survivor movement and calling to overturn social conventions during the U.S. war in Vietnam and the revolutionary 1960s. How are Laing’s provocative insights about politics and culture still relevant today?
AUDIOBOOK: COMING OFF PSYCHIATRIC MEDICATIONS HARM REDUCTION GUIDE
Based in more than 10 years work in the peer support movement,The Icarus Project and Freedom Center’s 52-page guide is used internationally by individuals, families, professionals, and organizations to support reducing and coming off psychiatric drugs.
NEW VISION FOR PSYCHIATRY | JIM VAN OS
What if psychiatry recognized that schizophrenia does not exist? How might diagnostic categories (left over from the asylum era) be replaced by spectrums of experience that show how psychotic experiences can also be normal? What if services were oriented around individuals, not the statistical groups of “evidence based” research? And could the mental health system as we know it, which defines health as the absence of disease symptoms, be replaced with a new definition of health, health as empowerment in life?
RISKY PILLS: DAVID HEALY
Adverse effects from prescription drugs are the 4th leading cause of death in America. How can we know if the pills we take are actually safe? What can we do if they aren’t? Dr. David Healy, internationally renowned psychiatrist, whistleblower, and author of 20 books, discusses industry corruption of pharmaceutical regulation and proposes better ways to protect patients and prevent harm.
FAMILY HOMES | CARINA HÅKANSSON
What if ordinary families could provide care for people psychiatry has given up on? Is there a way out for people stuck long-term as mental patients? Can human relationships and living together be more effective than medications, diagnosis, and hospitals?
MEDICAL COERCION: TOMI GOMORY
If madness isn’t like other illnesses, what is it? Should psychiatry have the power of legal coercion? How can the legacy of Thomas Szasz inform new ways of helping people? Tomi Gomory, associate professor of social work at Florida State University and co-author of Mad Science: Psychiatric Coercion, Diagnosis, and Drugs, explores thinking beyond the medical model of emotional distress.
MANUFACTURING DEPRESSION: GARY GREENBERG
Gary Greenberg, journalist for Harpers, the New Yorker, Rolling Stone and others, discusses being a subject in a clinical drug trial, how depression is manipulated by advertising and Big Pharma, and the social medicalizing of experience.
POLITICS OF LANGUAGE: SERA DAVIDOW
How do psychiatric labels shape our perceptions of others – and ourselves? Are there better ways to understand emotional distress? Does the “peer movement” offer real alternatives — or present new problems? Sera Davidow, psychiatric survivor, director of the peer-run Western Mass Recovery Learning Community (RLC), and co-producer of the new film “Beyond the Medical Model,” discusses the politics of language and innovative programs to truly help people in distress.
MEANING OF MEDICATIONS: DAVID COHEN
Why does the same psychiatric drug help one person – but harm another? Do psychiatric medications “work” by chemistry alone – or through expectation, placebo, and social factors? What is the difference between prescribed medications and mind altering substances like alcohol? David Cohen, social work professor at Florida International University and co-author of Your Drug May Be Your Problem, discusses the role of social context in constructing how we experience psychiatric medications.
COMING OFF PSYCH MEDS: LAURA DELANO
What do you do when medications for your emotional problems become worse than the problems themselves? Laura Delano went to a psychiatrist at age 18, and for the next decade was prescribed nineteen different psychiatric drugs. After devastating physical and emotional effects, she began a journey to become medication free — and re-discover who she is. What lessons did she learn?
DIGNITY OF ELDERS: CAROLE HAYES-COLLIER
Why are nearly a third of all elders in nursing homes given anti-psychotic drugs, despite life threatening side effects? Are medications being used as chemical restraints? Can nursing homes be places of dignity — or should they be abolished?
EXPORTING MENTAL DISORDERS: ETHAN WATTERS
How did pharmaceutical giant Glaxo Smith Kline create “depression” in Japan — and a billion dollar market for its anti-depressant drug Paxil? Why do people diagnosed with schizophrenia recover more in Tanzania than they do in the US? Can western-style psychotherapy help tsunami survivors in Sri Lanka? Ethan Watters, author of Crazy Like Us: The Globalization of the American Psyche, discusses how mental disorders are cultural products, defined in the US and then exported around the world.
OPEN DIALOGUE ALTERNATIVE: MARY OLSON
Is a ‘psychotic’ crisis inside one person’s mind — or does it happen between people, in their relationship? Can therapy untangle the web of madness by addressing the family, providers, and entire social network? Smith College social worker and Fulbright scholar Mary Olson discusses the innovative work of Jaakko Seikkula and colleagues’ Open Dialogue Approach in Finland, which has achieved dramatic success helping people through extreme states labeled ‘psychosis’ and ‘schizophrenia’ — while relying much less on medication and hospitalization.
CONSCIENCE OF PSYCHIATRY: PETER BREGGIN
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.
PAXIL ON TRIAL: ALISON BASS
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?
SANE MEDICATION POLICY: ROBERT WHITAKER
Has society’s embrace of psychiatric medications led to recovery — or chronic disability? What would honest medical policy and treatment standards be if they were free of pharmaceutical company corruption? Pulitzer Prize finalist Robert Whitaker, author of Mad In America: Bad Science, Bad Medicine, and the Enduring Mistreatment of the Mentally Ill, discusses medications as a failed paradigm of care, and imagines what a sane alternative would look like.
HOLISTIC DRUG ALTERNATIVES: GRACELYN GUYOL
Grace Guyol, diagnosed with bipolar disorder and author of Healing Depression and Bipolar Disorder Without Drugs: Inspiring Stories of Restoring Mental Health Through Natural Therapies, discusses nutrition, supplements, and holistic health care for helping people diagnosed with severe mental illnesses.
BLACK MENTAL HEALTH UK: PHILIP MORGAN
Blacks in the UK are much more likely than white people to be locked up, put on drugs, and mistreated in the mental health system. Social scientist Philip Morgan of London’s Tower Hamlets African and Caribbean Mental Health Organization (THACMHO) discusses the legacy of slavery, survivor-run advocacy for system change, and an innovative project reclaiming Black identity through historical research.
GENETIC PREDISPOSITIONS? JAY JOSEPH
Clinical psychologist Jay Joseph details medical science’s 30-year failed quest to find any link between genetics and diagnoses of mental disorders, and debunks widely held beliefs in the psychiatric profession, including the idea of “genetic predispositions” for mental illness.
PSYCH DIAGNOSIS BIAS: PAULA CAPLAN
Harvard University faculty Paula Caplan, author of They Say You’re Crazy: How The World’s Most Powerful Psychiatrists Decide Who’s Normaland editor of Bias In Psychiatric Diagnosis. Paula was on one of the writing committees for the DSM and offers an insightful perspective on the politics behind psychiatric pseudo-science. She discusses mental disorder labeling, including bipolar and post-trauma stress disorder, from a feminist perspective.
COMFORTABLY NUMB: AUTHOR CHARLES BARBER
Author Charles Barber talks about his new book Comfortably Numb: How Psychiatry is Medicating a Nation, a history of the rise of psychiatric drug marketing from “mother’s little helper” to today’s 200 million plus anti-depressant prescriptions.
GLOBALIZATION OF PSYCHIATRY: PHILIP THOMAS POST-PSYCHIATRY
UK psychiatrist Philip Thomas discusses the globalization of psychiatry and pharmaceutical company expansion world-wide, including how community empowerment and traditional ways of care can challenge western individualism based medical model of mental health.
ROBERT WHITAKER | VIOLENCE AND MADNESS
Violence and Madness with Robert Whitaker, Pulitzer-nominated author of “Mad In America,” discussing the role of psychiatric drugs in causing violence, the history of coercive psychiatric treatments, and responses to the recent murder of prominent psychiatrist Wayne Fenton by his patient.
JUDI CHAMBERLIN | PSYCHIATRIC SURVIVOR MOVEMENT
Judi Chamberlin is a leading organizer with the psychiatric survivors’ movement and one of its earliest initiators. She is author of On Our Own: Patient Controlled Alternatives to the Mental Health System and staff with the National Empowerment Center. Show is co-hosted by Cheryl Alexander.