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Mad in America: Rethinking Mental Health

The Mad in America podcast, hosted by James Moore, examines mental health with a critical eye by speaking with psychologists, psychiatrists and people with lived experience.

When you hear such conversations, you realise that much of what is believed to be settled in mental health is actually up for debate. Is mental health a matter of faulty biology or is there more to it? Are the treatments used in psychiatry helpful or harmful in the long term? Are psychiatric diagnoses reliable? With the help of our guests, we examine these questions and so much more. 

This podcast is part of Mad in America’s mission to serve as a catalyst for rethinking psychiatric care and mental health. We believe that the current drug-based paradigm of care has failed our society and that scientific research, as well as the lived experience of those who have been diagnosed with a psychiatric disorder, calls for profound change. 

On the podcast over the coming weeks, we will have interviews with experts and those with lived experience of the psychiatric system. Thank you for joining us as we discuss the many issues around rethinking mental health around the world.

For more information visit madinamerica.com

 

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  2. Peter Gordon - Addressing the Divide Between the Arts and Medical Sciences

Peter Gordon - Addressing the Divide Between the Arts and Medical Sciences

May 17, 2018

This week, we interview Dr Peter Gordon. Dr Gordon describes himself as a gardener with an interest in medicine. He trained in both medicine and landscape architecture before specialising in psychiatry and now works with older adults in Scotland. In addition, he is an activist and campaigner and has a range of creative interests including filmmaking, photography, writing and poetry.

In this interview, we walk about Peter’s own experiences of psychiatric treatment and how we need to address the divide that exists between the arts and the medical sciences.

In this episode we discuss:

  • What led Dr Gordon to have combined interests in the arts and the sciences, training both in architecture and medicine.
  • How Peter was interested in the plurality of thinking required for psychiatry as opposed to general medicine.
  • How he feels that his training in both the arts and the sciences led to a more rounded appreciation of why purely biological approach might miss opportunities to help people.
  • How Peter became an activist, partly in response to the commonly taught subjective/objective diagnostic approach.
  • How we should be focussed on the potential of any medical intervention to cause harm and should consider this carefully alongside any potential benefit.
  • How we need to take account of all experiences to ensure we provide the maximum benefit and minimum harm to people.
  • Peter’s own experiences with the mental health system, taking antidepressant drugs and experiencing treatment within a psychiatric hospital.
  • How stopping his antidepressant drug resulted in withdrawal effects and led to Peter’s only episode of severe depression.
  • Why Peter is concerned that we seem to be downplaying the experiences of people who have struggled with psychiatric drugs.
  • How Peter’s experiences have influenced his approach to prescribing.
  • The dominance of the biological approach and why it should not dictate how we respond to individual experiences.
  • How the evidence is starting to show that diagnosis can often disempower and bring about ‘otherness’.
  • Peter’s plea for people to be kind to one another and work together to maximise well-being.

Relevant links:

Peter’s blog: Hole Ouisa

The caption is wrong

Paroxetine tablets [Film-coated]

Peter’s films on Vimeo

Mary Midgley

Nathan Filer, The Shock of the Fall

Raymond Tallis

To get in touch with us email: podcasts@madinamerica.com

© Mad in America 2018