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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. Sacred Conversations: A Talk with Susan Swim and a Father Whose Daughter Found Healing

Sacred Conversations: A Talk with Susan Swim and a Father Whose Daughter Found Healing

Sep 13, 2023

We have two guests today. One is Susan Swim, executive director of the Now I See A Person Institute, which she created in 2007 to provide therapy and counseling to kids, teens, adults, families and others who haven’t found healing in the usual approaches to therapy and treatment. From its base in Los Angeles County, California, the Institute provides both in-person services, including equine therapy, and virtual sessions—and offers training as well. 

An expert in collaborative dialogical practices, Susan Swim is also a researcher whose topics include family reunification, helping people recover from trauma after previously unsuccessful treatments, and process ethics—which she’s described as “what is right and good for every client in therapy.” 

She’s also on the faculty of the Houston Galveston Institute, where she first started teaching in the early 1980s. In the past she worked for the Taos Institute and taught at Loma Linda University in Loma Linda, California. She’s written extensively on many topics and is the former editor of the Journal of Systemic Therapies. 

Our other guest today is the father of a daughter who was first hospitalized at age 13 and endured years of psychiatric treatment, diagnoses, drugs, and more hospitalizations before embarking on a path to healing at the Institute. 

The father will remain anonymous. 

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Thank you for being with us to listen to the podcast and read our articles this year. MIA is funded entirely by reader donations. If you value MIA and its mission to rethink psychiatry, please help us continue to survive and grow by making a donation.

Mad in America podcasts and reports are made possible, in part, by a grant from the Thomas Jobe Fund.

To find the Mad in America podcast on your preferred podcast player, click here