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Mad in America: Rethinking Mental Health

Psychology, Personhood, and the Crisis of Neoliberalism: Jeff Sugarman on Theoretical and Critical Psychology

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

Psychology, Personhood, and the Crisis of Neoliberalism: Jeff Sugarman on Theoretical and Critical Psychology

Mar 19, 2025

Jeff Sugarman is a distinguished scholar in theoretical and philosophical psychology, known for his work examining the psychology of selfhood, human agency, and the sociopolitical underpinnings of psychological science. A Professor Emeritus in the Education Department at Simon Fraser University, Dr. Sugarman has spent decades critically interrogating the ways mainstream psychology reflects and reinforces the ideologies of neoliberalism, shaping how we understand identity, mental health, and human development.

A past president of the Society for Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology (APA Division 24) and a former associate editor of The Journal of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology and New Ideas in Psychology, Dr. Sugarman has played a key role in advancing critical perspectives in psychology. His extensive body of work includes Persons: Understanding Psychological Selfhood and Agency (2010), Psychology and the Question of Agency (2003), and The Psychology of Human Possibility and Constraint (1999)—books that challenge psychology’s tendency to isolate individuals from history, culture, and power structures.

In this interview, he explores the philosophical foundations of psychology, the psychological costs of neoliberalism, and why developing a critical psychology of education and mental health is more urgent than ever.

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