MIA Radio

How a mysterious debilitating illness created a human foundation for breakthrough conversations in research and innovation.

How a ski accident gave a practical philosopher the insight to liberate his own self worth from the judgments of others and to discover his own career path.

In our science news podcast, Peter Simons covers a study that found both therapy and medication to have very limited effectiveness.

Frank Bures, author of The Geography of Madness: Penis Thieves, Voodoo Death, and the Search for the Meaning of the World’s Strangest Syndromes, looks beyond travel literature’s colonial superiority and explores how meaning, perception, and belief shape what we think of as “real” in disease and health.

Breaking the cycle of secrecy and shame: How his own mental health recovery process helped a consulting firm partner understand his past and bring his whole self to work.

Daryl, who was only 9 years old when he was taken into mental health services and medicated, talks about being made to take both antidepressant and antipsychotic drugs and he describes the lies told to him to justify treatment.

Doctor Peter Groot from the User Research Center of the Maastricht University talks about Tapering Strips, which help users who want to withdraw from their psychiatric drugs safely and in a controlled way.

Jim van Os, professor of Psychiatric Epidemiology at Maastricht University and member of the Royal Dutch Academy of Science with more than 700 publications, is one of the top one percent highly cited scientists in the world.

In this episode, we explore how the tendency to attach our personal value to our businesses or professions can push us to overwork ourselves, the body's incredible creative ways to bring itself back into a state of balance and safety, and how trauma works itself both through the body and through our relationships.

Has modern psychiatry lost its soul? How can dreams, storytelling, and imagination help people in emotional crisis – including psychosis and madness? What lessons can we learn from shamanism, the placebo effect, and the importance of the doctor’s “bedside manner’? George Mecouch MD, psychiatrist, Jungian therapist, and author of While Psychiatry Slept: Reawakening the Imagination in Therapy, discusses how to recover the lost art of healing in an era dominated by technology.

Kevin is a filmmaker, writer and journalist and his films have won numerous international Film and Television awards, he talks about his approach to film making and his thoughts on how we treat people that ask for help with their mental health.

Simone talks about her experiences of postnatal depression, fibromyalgia and her treatment with antidepressants.

Olga Runciman, voice hearer, psychiatric nurse in locked wards, and survivor of a diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia, brings her experience with recovery to her work as a psychotherapist in private practice.

Stevie describes her experiences taking antidepressant drugs and her severe and protracted reaction to trying to withdraw.

Nirali Shah, certified UCLA mindfulness facilitator and teacher at Spirit Rock, has spent thousands of hours meditating, as well as serving in one of the largest slum communities of Asia.

Jyl Ion hears voices, but she refuses to view these non-ordinary experiences as a sign of mental illness. Instead Jyl came off 16 years of multiple toxic medications, talks to her ancestor spirits and has reclaimed access to unsanctioned knowledge.

Professor John Read of the University of East London talks about the overuse of psychiatric medications and the alarming growth in the prescribing of antidepressants, benzodiazepines and other psychoactive medications.

What do depression, loss, frustration, and conflict have to do with global transformation? You can find the answers in this introduction episode to the Break Down. Wake Up podcast

Christopher describes his transformational journey starting with a very difficult childhood which led him to be treated for many years with various psychiatric medications. After successfully withdrawing, he now works a Program Manager for Heart & Soul inc in California, an organisation which offers a variety of mental health recovery-oriented and wellness support opportunities.

How experiencing both an abortion and motherhood inspired an approach to activism that transcends ideological divisions.

Professor Peter Gøtzsche is Director of the Nordic Cochrane Centre in Denmark and discusses his background in research, his views on antidepressant prescribing and how pharmaceutical manufacturers have influenced mental healthcare.

From Mad in America Hispano Hablante. With one of the highest mental health expenditures in Europe, the Netherlands is going through a period of...

Megan talks about her experience with anxiety and insomnia, her attempts to withdraw from her medications and how she approached her tapering more carefully to minimise withdrawal effects.

An interview with Michael Guy Thompson, a psychoanalyst and founder of the Gnosis Retreat Center, who worked with R.D. Laing in London and has created hospital alternative sanctuaries for people struggling with experiences called psychosis.

Marion Brown is Psychotherapist who works with the Human Givens approach to supporting people in emotional or psychological distress, she has become increasingly concerned about the effects of psychotropic medications on patients.