Healing Youth with Nature and Connection: An Interview with Peter Mayfield
An interview with Peter Mayfield, founder and Executive Director of the Gateway Mountain Center. Peter talks of his journey from mountaineering to his role as an educator and mentor, and how enabling children and adolescents to connect with nature has such a profound effect on their health and wellbeing.
In a PBS documentary, ECT Is Bad for “Curing” Homosexuality, but Great for Depression!
A new documentary about gay activists' defeat of the APA ends with a disclaimer that ECT is "effective" for severe depression. Bruce Levine spoke with the filmmakers.
Unheard Voices: Carlton Brown
In the first installment of MIA's Unheard Voices series, Carlton Brown talks about his life, living on the streets, the psychiatric system, and survival.
“Pollution’s Mental Toll”: A Talk with Journalist Kristina Marusic
The reporter explains how air and water pollution affect our brains, why children are so vulnerable, and what to do about it.
Ten Years of Rocking the Boat: Reflecting on Mad in America’s Mission and Work
Continuing our 200th podcast, staff members join us to discuss reinvigorating MIA continuing education, science writing and blogs, personal stories, community commenting and family resources.
Interview: How Does Climate Change Affect Youth Mental Health?
Psychiatric epidemiologist Jennifer Barkin talks about her research on the traumatizing effects of extreme weather events on youth and how caregivers can help them build resilience.
A New York City Psychiatric Hospital Patient Said Staffers Illegally Restrained and Drugged Her;...
“No one is watching these hospitals,” Miranda warned. “No one is listening. Our rights are being violated left and right. They can do whatever they want.”
Laura Van Tosh: The Life of a Psychiatric Survivor Activist
Laura Van Tosh has been a leader in psychiatric survivor circles for 40 years, working at local, state and national levels.
The APA’s Apology for Racism Omits Psychiatry’s Essential Bigotry
Psychiatry has acknowledged its history of racism, but can they ever acknowledge that the entire edifice is built on fundamental bigotry?
A New Paradigm for Testing Psychiatric Drugs Is Needed
This paper reviews the problems with the usual double-blind, placebo-controlled trials on which drug approvals are based, and advocates for a stricter form of testing psychiatric drugs with patient-relevant outcomes, real comparators, long-term outcomes, and assessment of harms.
Greg Hitchcock: Voices, Visions, and the Power of Creating
Greg Hitchcock is standing and schmoozing with a cluster of people in the soaring, glass-domed rotunda of what once was a grand old bank...
Britney Speaks: Are We Ready to Listen?
Comparing her circumstances to sex trafficking, Britney Spears told the judge she wished to sue her conservators and be allowed to tell reporters “what they did to me.”
Psychiatry’s Nightmarish 2022 & Its Hysterical Defense Against Criticism
Psychiatry's defenders are open to criticism of psychiatry as long as it stops short of acknowledging the increasingly well-documented reality that psychiatry lacks any scientific merit.
Discourse, Drug Use, and Psychiatry: An Interview with Critical Psychologist Ilana Mountian
Richard Sears interviews Ilana Mountian on drug use, marginalization, the disease model of addiction, and problems with prohibition.
Bedlam: Public Media, Power, and the Fight for Narrative Justice
A new mental health documentary awakens longstanding tensions around voice, representation, and the power to define problems and solutions.
New Perspectives on Eating Disorders: An Interview with Shira Collings
“Eating disorder recovery is about rejecting oppressive values.” Therapist Shira Collings discusses person-centered approaches to dealing with food-related challenges in youth.
Racial Justice and Lived Experience in Mental Health Advocacy: An Interview with Pata Suyemoto
MIA's Julia Lejeune interviews scholar, activist, and educator Pata Suyemoto about lived experience activism and racial justice in the mental health field.
Mutual Support in an Age of Social Distancing
Connection, whether one-on-one or in groups, is at the heart of peer support. In a time when social distancing and stay-at-home orders proliferate, the Western Massachusetts Recovery Learning Community/Wildflower Alliance (WMRLC) is finding creative ways to adapt to rapidly changing circumstances dictated by the novel coronavirus.
Psychology and Poverty: An Interview with APA President Rosie Phillips Davis
MIA’s Gavin Crowell-Williamson interviews psychologist Rosie Phillips Davis about her presidential initiative to address deep poverty.
Narrating Asylum History Through an Anti-Racist Lens: An Interview with Author Mab Segrest
Mab segrest is Professor Emeritus of Gender and Women's Studies at Connecticut College and the author of Administrations of Lunacy: Racism and the Haunting...
Tensions in Mental Health Care in China: An Interview with Zhiying Ma
Anthropologist Zhiying Ma explores mental health care in China, including tensions between Western psychiatry and socially-oriented local frameworks.
Popular Obesity Drugs Monitored for Suicidal Thinking
Concerns rise about the adverse effects and longer-term harms of GLP-1 injections like Ozempic and Wegovy.
Interview: Abuse and Neglect at Private “Troubled Teen” Centers
Parents, beware: Disability rights lawyer Diane Smith Howard shares disturbing findings on conditions at youth residential treatment facilities.
Exercise for Youth Mental Health in the Lockdown: Interview with Psychologist Scott Greenspan
School Psychologist Scott Greenspan discusses how to promote exercise and mental wellbeing for adolescents stuck indoors during the pandemic.
Can We Move Toward Mindful Medicine? An Interview with Integrative Psychiatrist Natalie Campo
MIA's Madison Natarajan interviews Natalie Campo about integrative psychiatry and holistic approaches to drug tapering and withdrawal.