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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. Why Psychosis Is Not So Crazy: A Conversation with Stijn Vanheule

Why Psychosis Is Not So Crazy: A Conversation with Stijn Vanheule

Jun 25, 2025

Stijn Vanheule is a clinical psychologist, psychoanalyst, and professor of psychology at Ghent University. Trained in the Lacanian tradition, he has written widely on the structure of psychosis, the limits of psychiatric diagnosis, and the importance of attending to the subjective logic of mental distress.

His books include The Subject of Psychosis: A Lacanian Perspective, Diagnosis and the DSM: A Critical Review, and most recently, Why Psychosis is Not So Crazy, which offers a reorientation of how clinicians, families, and broader society might understand and engage with psychotic experience.

Drawing on psychoanalytic theory, case studies, and contemporary cultural examples, Vanheule treats hallucinations and delusions not as meaningless symptoms but as creative responses to existential disruptions. He emphasizes the importance of listening—clinically and socially—not for coherence imposed from the outside, but for the structure and logic within a person’s seemingly incoherent world. His approach challenges dominant psychiatric models that prioritize symptom suppression, calling instead for a therapeutic attitude grounded in humility and collaboration.

In this interview, Vanheule discusses the role of hallucinations in restoring a shattered sense of meaning, the necessity of admitting one’s limitations as a clinician, and the importance of everyday practices—gardening, conversation, shared meals—in building connections that can anchor recovery. Using a depathologizing lens, he discusses that to overwhelming existential challenges that make us all vulnerable, psychosis might not be a crazy reaction after all.

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Find a full transcript of the interview here: https://www.madinamerica.com/2025/06/why-psychosis-is-not-so-crazy-a-conversation-with-stijn-vanheule/ 

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, please help us continue to survive and grow. https://www.madinamerica.com/donate/

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© Mad in America 2025. Produced by James Moore https://www.jmaudio.org