Challenging Western-Centric Child Psychology: An Interview with Nandita Chaudhary
Ayurdhi Dhar interviews Nandita Chaudhary about children’s lives across cultures, the problems with global aid agencies and their interventions, psychology’s bias in the study of children, the limits of attachment theory and more.
When Healing Looks Like Justice: An Interview with Harvard Psychologist Joseph Gone
MIA’s Ayurdhi Dhar interviews Joseph Gone about how a history of dispossession, conquest, and colonization shapes mental health outcomes in Native American communities.
Robert Whitaker Answers Reader Questions on Pharma Marketing and Psychiatric Drugs
In Part 2 of our reader Q&A podcast, MIA founder Robert Whitaker answers questions on pharmaceutical marketing and issues with psychiatric treatments including psychiatric drugs and electroconvulsive therapy.
How Grief Became a Disorder and What This Means About Us: An Interview with...
MIA’s Zenobia Morrill interviews psychologist Kaori Wada about what the creation of Prolonged Grief Disorder reveals about our culture and the current status of psychology.
Chemicals Have Consequences—Antidepressants and Pregnancy: An Interview With Adam Urato, MD
Adam joins us to discuss what we do and don’t know about the effects of antidepressants on babies and mothers and the importance of counselling in order to aid families in making important decisions about pharmaceutical drug use.
Fighting for the Meaning of Madness: An Interview with Dr. John Read
Akansha Vaswani interviews Dr. John Read about the influences on his work and his research on madness, psychosis, and the mental health industry.
Psychiatry’s Cycle of Ignorance and Reinvention: An Interview with Owen Whooley
Ayurdhi Dhar interviews sociologist Owen Whooley about psychiatry's stubborn perseverance in the face of recent DSM embarrassments and the failures of the biomedical model.
Jock McLaren – The Biopsychosocial Model is a Mirage, Time for a Biocognitive Model?
Dr. Niall McLaren joins us to talk of his experiences working in Australian psychiatry and explains why the models that purport to guide psychiatric diagnosis and treatment are not what they seem.
Addressing the Roots of Racial Trauma: An Interview with Psychologist Lillian Comas-Díaz
MIA’s Hannah Emerson interviews Comas-Díaz on the need for culturally competent care in a medicalized and individualistic society.
Learning a Different Way: An Interview with Maori Psychiatrist Diana Kopua
MIA’s Ayurdhi Dhar interviews Diana Kopua about the Mahi a Atua approach, the global mental health movement, and the importance of language and narratives in how we understand our world and ease our suffering.
Uncovering Radical Psychiatry and Institutional Psychotherapy in Postwar France: An Interview with Camille Robcis
MIA's Micah Ingle interviews historian Camile Robcis about radical and liberatory forms of psychiatry and psychotherapy in postwar France.
Breaking Academia’s Silence on Inpatient Psychiatry: An Interview with Researcher Morgan Shields
Morgan Shields discussed her experiences in inpatient psychiatry and her efforts to bring patient-centered care to this oft-neglected field.
Pathologized Since Eve: Jessica Taylor on Women, Trauma, and “Sexy but Psycho”
Our guest today is Jessica Taylor, author of Sexy But Psycho: How the Patriarchy Uses Women’s Trauma Against Them, which was published in March...
For Native People, the Past is Present: David Edward Walker on Oppressive Mental Health...
David Edward Walker is the author of Coyote’s Swing: A Memoir and Critique of Mental Hygiene in Native America, which was published in February...
What Does Our Species Require for a Healthy Life? An Interview with Peter Sterling
In his book "What is Health," Peter Sterling asks this provocative question: What does our species require for a healthy life? And can we achieve this with drugs?
Responsibility Without Blame in Therapeutic Communities: Interview with Philosopher Hanna Pickard
Hanna Pickard on the elusive middle ground between personal responsibility and systemic factors in our understandings of addiction.
The Social Unconscious and Character Formation in Neoliberal Culture: An Interview with Lynne Layton
MIA’s Javier Rizo interviews Lynne Layton about social psychoanalysis and how normative unconscious processes can help illuminate how oppressive systems get internalized and reproduced.
The Failings of “Mental Health”: How a Seemingly Benign Concept Might be Dangerous
MIA’s Ayurdhi Dhar interviews Bruce Cohen about dismissive psychiatrists, pervasive psychiatry, and the field's ties to neoliberal capitalism.
Tanya Frank—Zig-Zag Boy: My Family’s Struggles With Broken Mental Healthcare
Author Tanya Frank discusses her book 'Zig-Zag Boy A Memoir of Madness and Motherhood', which chronicles the experiences of her son Zach who experienced psychosis as a 19-year-old.
Toward a Critical Self-Reflective Psychiatry: An Interview with Pat Bracken
MIA’s Justin Karter interviews critical psychiatrist and philosopher Pat Bracken about the necessity of challenging received wisdom.
Trauma and Mental Health in Social Movements: An Interview with Janice Haaken
MIA's Emaline Friedman interviews psychologist and filmmaker Janice Haaken about how mental health discourse impacts social movements.
Jill Nickens – The Akathisia Alliance for Education and Research
This week on the Mad in America podcast we turn our attention to prescription-drug-induced akathisia and joining me to discuss this is Jill Nickens. Jill is the president and founder of the Akathisia Alliance for Education and Research, a nonprofit organization formed by people who have personal experience of akathisia.
Looking Beyond Self-Help to Understand Resilience: An Interview with Michael Ungar
Ayurdhi Dhar interviews Michael Ungar about how complex systems make us vulnerable and how resilience emerges in context-specific ways.
Psych Concepts Creep Into Our Everyday Experiences: An Interview with Nicholas Haslam
MIA’s Ayurdhi Dhar interviews Nicholas Haslam about how psychiatric terms get diluted and creep into everyday language, altering our experiences.
Climate Change, Mental Health and Collective Action: An Interview with Jennifer Freeman
In an interview with MIA's Akansha Vaswani, narrative therapist Jennifer Freeman calls for a shift away from individualistic approaches to 'eco-anxiety' and toward responses that connect us all to a counter-tsunami of action for the planet.
