NAVIGATING THE SPACE BETWEEN BRILLIANCE AND MADNESS

Sascha Altman DuBrul has been documenting and fomenting underground culture and radical people’s movements since he was a young teenager.  From the anarchist squatter community in New York City to the Lacandon jungle of Chiapas, Mexico, to the Earth First! road blockades of the Pacific Northwest to the rise of the Global Justice Movement, he’s been a pioneer in urban farming and creative mental health advocacy. He is the co-founder of the Bay Area Seed Interchange Library and the Icarus Project, a radical community support network and media project that’s actively redefining the language and culture of mental health and illness with over 12,000 members and dozens of peer based supports groups all over the world. http://theicarusproject.net.  Among certain crowds he is well known as the bass player of the classic 90s punk band Choking Victim.

Sascha Altman DuBrul I Talked About Mad in America on WNYC’s The Brian Lehrer Show!

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April 24, 2013

Hey I did an interview this morning on WNYC about my new book, Maps to the Other Side, and told the thousands of listeners to check out the Mad in America website if they want strong and articulate views on what’s happening in the world of mental health. I have this exciting feeling that the Icarus Project underground culture is breaking up out of the pavement and crossing paths with the mainstream. Check out the interview here and tell me what you think!
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Categorized in: Blogs

Sascha Altman DuBrul Making Plans for the Long Flight –

Re-visioning Icarus’ Next 10 Years

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April 5, 2013

It’s been the kind of contemplative, hibernating winter that’s left us ready for an action-packed spring. Jacks and I spent two months living in a little house in the woods finishing our first solo books and revising the classic Icarus text Navigating the Space Between Brilliance and Madness…
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Categorized in: Blogs, Community, Featured Blogs, Non-Drug Approaches, Recovery/Empowerment

Sascha Altman DuBrul Icarus Project Celebrates Our 10th Anniversary with Visions of Paradigm Shifts in Mental Health Culture

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September 7, 2012

We’ve managed not only to survive with our scar songs, mad wisdom, and crooked beauty, but by 2012 to grow into an international community of activists, artists, healers, scholars, lovers, fighters, and dreamers!
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Categorized in: Blogs, Featured Blogs

Sascha Altman DuBrul A Collective Human Potential Movement

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July 16, 2012

A Mental Health Recovery Movement is a good start, but frankly I am more interested in a movement that uses the language of “transformation,” a movement that recognizes the powerful of our collective potential to transform the world, that isn’t willing to compromise our visions of a better world, has the ability to capture many people’s imaginations, and is capable of building coalitions across many boundaries.
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Categorized in: Blogs, Featured Blogs

Sascha Altman DuBrul Mad Pride and Spiritual Community: Thoughts on The Spiritual Gift of Madness

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May 13, 2012

Let our Mad Pride movement be grounded in humility and kindness for each other in our diversity of life experiences, a recognition that social movements need good communicators and organizers more than charismatic leaders and messianic visions, and that the beautiful language we use to describe ourselves is only as powerful as the grounded actions we take to back up our words.
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Categorized in: Answering the Critics, Bipolar, Blogs, Community, Uncategorized

Sascha Altman DuBrul Generative Narratives and the Counterculture Psychiatrists

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March 6, 2012

For outsiders like me who are really critical of mainstream psychiatry, the first thing to understand is that “community psychiatry” is a counterculture within the larger culture of biomedical psychiatry. When I say “counterculture” I don’t mean these people had flowers in their hair or face piercings.
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Categorized in: Blogs, Uncategorized, Videos

Sascha Altman DuBrul Unraveling the Biopsychiatric Knot: the Future History of the Radical Mental Health Movement

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February 7, 2012

I did the research for this article to try and make sense of this story I carry around with me about being someone who is seen as mad, who struggles with what this society considers a serious “brain disorder.” My hope is that by the time you finish reading my words you will have more tools to analyze this hyper-complicated world around you.
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Categorized in: Blogs

Sascha Altman DuBrul A Counter Narrative for Psychic Diversity

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January 7, 2012

This is a paper I recently wrote for Prescott College with the help of my friend and mentor, Dr. Bradley Lewis. I’m finishing up my BA degree after many years in the school of life, and it’s been very gratifying …
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Categorized in: Blogs

Sascha Altman DuBrul Happy New Year From The Icarus Project!

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January 2, 2012

I want to begin by thanking Bob Whitaker for the invitation to blog on this site. I am honored to find myself amidst this fascinating cast of characters. I hope to be something like a cultural emissary from the world …
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Categorized in: Blogs