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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

 

Nov 18, 2017

This week on MIA Radio we interview Dr Joseph Firth. Dr Firth is a postdoctoral research fellow at Western Sydney University. His research focuses on the role of exercise and nutrition in first episode psychosis in young people.

In this interview we discuss:

  • That Dr Firth completed his PhD in Manchester, UK, which focussed on the role of exercise in the treatment of psychosis in young people.
  • That he now works on a programme of adjunctive and novel treatments for psychosis, particularly the role of exercise and nutrition and including technology and mobile health.
  • How results show that exercise can reduce symptoms in young people such as the cognitive deficit, lack of motivation and social withdrawal and that these are symptoms that the medications don’t really help with.
  • That, in the very early stages of psychotic illness, there are currently few interventions other than therapy, so exercise and nutrition could have a role in reducing the need for antipsychotic drugs and even potentially affect the onset of psychotic symptoms.
  • That qualitative research has shown that young people report that their symptoms are reduced or become less troubling when they exercise.
  • How exercise and nutrition have key roles in reducing the health inequalities that are seen in young people treated with antipsychotic drugs.

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

© Mad in America 2017