Mad in America: Rethinking Mental Health

Mad in America
  • 5.0 (3)
  • Mental Health

Welcome to the Mad in America podcast, a weekly discussion that searches for the truth about psychiatric prescription drugs and mental health care worldwide. Hosted by James Moore, this podcast is part of Mad in America's mission to serve as a catalyst for rethinking psychiatric care. 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 we 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 psychiatric care around the world. For more information visit madinamerica.com To contact us email podcasts@madinamerica.com

  1. Mercy, Magic, and the Medical Humanities: An Interview with Jussi Valtonen

    2d ago

    Mercy, Magic, and the Medical Humanities: An Interview with Jussi Valtonen

    Jussi Valtonen is a neuropsychologist, an adjunct researcher with the Finnish Centre for Evidence-Based Orthopedics (FICEBO), a professor of writing at the University of the Arts Helsinki, and a columnist for the Finnish Medical Journal. He works clinically as a neuropsychologist, and his research and writing sit at the crossroads of mind and brain through the health humanities. Jussi is an award-winning novelist as well. His novel They Know Not What They Do won Finland's top literary prize and has been translated into multiple languages. Alongside his scholarly work, he leads the Health, Narrative, and the Arts initiative at Uniarts Helsinki, which offers training in narrative skills for professionals in healthcare and social work and brings literary, artistic, and humanistic ways of thinking into conversation with clinical care. In this conversation, we turn to Jussi's recent work helping to build narrative medicine groups in Finland, first with clinicians and now increasingly with neurological patients, as well as to his broader effort to show why the humanities are one of the rare places where clinicians and patients alike can recover forms of attention, listening, interpretation, and moral imagination that dehumanized healthcare systems work to erode. *** 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/ To find the Mad in America podcast on your preferred podcast player, click here: https://pod.link/1212789850 © Mad in America 2026. Produced by James Moore https://www.jmaudio.org

    49 min
  2. Anthropology, Arctic Iceland and Antidepressant Withdrawal: A Conversation With Fiona Frenzen

    Jun 3

    Anthropology, Arctic Iceland and Antidepressant Withdrawal: A Conversation With Fiona Frenzen

    Born in Germany and raised in Denmark, Fiona Frenzen is a qualified teacher with a master's degree in anthropology. For years, she had a dream about living in Iceland, seeking the grounding and healing effect of nature. But due to her health challenges and severe withdrawal syndrome, this dream seemed unrealistic. However, this past fall, she moved to a rural part of Iceland where she began teaching at the local elementary and high school. She dreams about putting her degree in anthropology to use by working in research and contributing to the awareness of the risks of antidepressants and the difficulties of withdrawal. *** 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/ To find the Mad in America podcast on your preferred podcast player, click here: https://pod.link/1212789850 © Mad in America 2026. Produced by James Moore https://www.jmaudio.org

    38 min
  3. Meeting Life Unmedicated: Aging, Protracted Withdrawal and Healing - A Conversation With Marsha Zaritsky

    May 27

    Meeting Life Unmedicated: Aging, Protracted Withdrawal and Healing - A Conversation With Marsha Zaritsky

    Marsha Zaritsky is a licensed mental health therapist certified in Internal Family Systems. She joins us to explain how her experience with polypharmacy and psychiatric drug withdrawal has changed and informed how she practices. *** 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/ To find the Mad in America podcast on your preferred podcast player, click here: https://pod.link/1212789850 © Mad in America 2026. Produced by James Moore https://www.jmaudio.org

    32 min
  4. Faith, Culture, and Coercion: An Interview with Cultural Psychiatrist G. Eric Jarvis

    May 20

    Faith, Culture, and Coercion: An Interview with Cultural Psychiatrist G. Eric Jarvis

    Eric Jarvis is a Professor of Psychiatry at McGill University whose work brings attention to areas often overlooked in mainstream psychiatry, including religion, coercion, the social determinants of psychosis, and culture. He directs the Cultural Consultation Service, the First Episode Psychosis Program, and the Culture and Psychosis Working Group at the Jewish General Hospital, and is Editor-in-Chief of Transcultural Psychiatry. His research looks closely at how religious belief, spiritual practice, moral worlds, language, migration, racism, and social context shape how people experience distress, meaning, and healing. In this conversation, we explore how faith, culture, and power shape mental health practice. We discuss Jarvis's work on religion and spirituality in cultural psychiatry, his research on culture and the social causes of psychosis, and his studies of coercion in first-episode psychosis. We also talk about category fallacies, looping effects, and what happens when biomedical explanations of suffering collide with spiritual, familial, and community-based understandings of distress. *** 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/ To find the Mad in America podcast on your preferred podcast player, click here: https://pod.link/1212789850 © Mad in America 2026. Produced by James Moore https://www.jmaudio.org

    47 min
  5. Kindling Our Inner Fire: A Residential Program Where Drug Tapering is the Norm

    May 6

    Kindling Our Inner Fire: A Residential Program Where Drug Tapering is the Norm

    Beatrice Birch is the Founder and Director of Inner Fire, a residential program in rural Vermont, which is unique in one particular way. It provides support for tapering from psychiatric drugs, including antipsychotics, which is an essential aspect of the therapy. In this interview, Beatrice introduces Inner Fire, tells us about the programme and staff and explains how kindling our inner fire can hold up a mirror that tells people they are worthy and valuable. *** 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/ To find the Mad in America podcast on your preferred podcast player, click here: https://pod.link/1212789850 © Mad in America 2026. Produced by James Moore https://www.jmaudio.org

    40 min
  6. The Madness Pill: How Psychedelics and Stimulants Shaped Biological Psychiatry — An Interview with Justin Garson

    Apr 29

    The Madness Pill: How Psychedelics and Stimulants Shaped Biological Psychiatry — An Interview with Justin Garson

    Justin Garson is a philosopher and historian of science at the City University of New York. He has published several books and articles on biology, the mind, and madness, including Madness: A Philosophical Exploration in 2022. He also contributes to Psychology Today and Aeon. His latest book, The Madness Pill: One Doctor's Quest to Understand Schizophrenia, was published by St. Martin's Press in April 2026. In this interview, Justin joins us to talk about the work of Solomon Snyder, whose discoveries ushered in the era of biological psychiatry. We also talk about the race to develop new psychiatric drugs based on his research and the implications for our understanding of psychosis. *** 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/ To find the Mad in America podcast on your preferred podcast player, click here: https://pod.link/1212789850 © Mad in America 2026. Produced by James Moore https://www.jmaudio.org

    44 min
  7. Finding God and Leaving Psychiatry: An Interview With Kelsey Osgood

    Apr 22

    Finding God and Leaving Psychiatry: An Interview With Kelsey Osgood

    Kelsey Osgood is the author of How to Disappear Completely: on Modern Anorexia, which was chosen for the Barnes and Noble Discover Great Writers New Program. Her work has appeared online and in print at The Atlantic, The New York Times, Harper's and The New Yorker, among other outlets. In this interview we talk about Kelsey's new book Godstruck: Seven Women's Unexpected Journeys to Religious Conversion and her experiences with anorexia and psychiatric drugs. *** 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/ To find the Mad in America podcast on your preferred podcast player, click here: https://pod.link/1212789850 © Mad in America 2026. Produced by James Moore https://www.jmaudio.org

    46 min
  8. "Everybody Can Recover": Fighting Psychiatric Subjectivation and Helping Others Along the Way: An Interview with Prateeksha Sharma

    Apr 15

    "Everybody Can Recover": Fighting Psychiatric Subjectivation and Helping Others Along the Way: An Interview with Prateeksha Sharma

    Psychosis and conditions like Schizophrenia have been tainted with pessimism right from the beginning. Doctors often don't know that recovery is possible and can convey this fatalism to their patients. Prateeksha Sharma's lived experience and research work challenges this pessimism. Prateeksha is a musician, a researcher, a composer, a counselor, and a writer. However, for the longest time, she was only thought of as a patient. She is a distinguished research fellow at the National Academy of Legal Studies and Research in Hyderabad and the founder of Brightside Family Counseling Center. She received a diagnosis of bipolar disorder as a college student and has managed these achievements while navigating the horrors and the gifts of psychosis. Prateeksha's writings critically examine psychiatric systems and foreground survivor perspectives. She brings intellectual depth and personal clarity to what it means to move from being labeled a patient, to being recognized as a person. In this interview, we discuss psychiatric subjectivation, medical zombification, the silencing effects of diagnosis, and how lived experience completely reshapes the conversation about mental health. *** 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/ To find the Mad in America podcast on your preferred podcast player, click here: https://pod.link/1212789850 © Mad in America 2026. Produced by James Moore https://www.jmaudio.org

    35 min
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3 Ratings

About

Welcome to the Mad in America podcast, a weekly discussion that searches for the truth about psychiatric prescription drugs and mental health care worldwide. Hosted by James Moore, this podcast is part of Mad in America's mission to serve as a catalyst for rethinking psychiatric care. 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 we 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 psychiatric care around the world. For more information visit madinamerica.com To contact us email podcasts@madinamerica.com

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