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Recent Articles
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Does Madness Belong in Philosophy?
PsychologyToday.com
Sept 16, 2024What if experiences of madness actually advance the pursuit of truth and knowledge?
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Can Psychedelics Get us "Unstuck" from Trauma?
PsychologyToday.com
August 20, 2024A new book, The Maps we Carry, documents one woman's recovery from OCD.
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Rachel Aviv's Search for the Meaning of Mental Illness
PsychologyToday.com
May 20, 2024An interview with the author of "Strangers to Ourselves."
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How Medical Psychiatry May Worsen Mental-Health Stigma
PsychologyToday.com
April 25, 2024Seeing mental illness as due to “faulty genes” can further harm suffering people.
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Paranoid? You’re Not Alone
PsychologyToday.com
March 25, 2024I interview Peter Bullimore on the National Paranoia Network, his own mental health history, and the need for alternative approaches to paranoid beliefs.
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The Fragmented Self
PsychologyToday.com
November 17, 2023I interview Dr. Elizabeth Schechter on her research on split brain cases, dissociative identity disorder, and the plural community.
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Madness and Method: Exploring the Realm of Unconventional Reasoning
MadInAmerica.com
November 4, 2023What if madness isn’t a defective form of reasoning, but a distinctive style of reasoning?.
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A Renaissance Secret for Overcoming Depression
PsychologyToday.com
October 16, 2023Could a Renaissance masterpiece unlock the deeper meaning of depression?
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Beyond the Chemical Imbalance Theory of Depression
PsychologyToday.com
October 8, 2023A psychiatrist’s lonely battle to dismantle a broken system.
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What is the Philosophy of Madness?
The Philosophers’ Magazine
June 16, 2023Justin Garson on the philosophy of madness, and the importance of listening to what madness is trying to say.
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Hearing Voices? You’re Not the Only One
PsychologyToday.com
January 11, 2023What if the experience is only negative because we've been told it's a problem?
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Why Is Stigma Toward Schizophrenia Getting Worse?
PsychologyToday.com
December 12, 2022A massive, three-decade-long study shows that stigma toward schizophrenia is increasing, not decreasing. How can we turn it around?
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Did ADHD Evolve To Help Us?
PsychologyToday.com
November 22, 2022Evidence mounts that ADHD isn’t a brain deficit, but an evolved cognitive style with its own strengths.
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The Helpful Delusion
Aeon.com
November 14, 2022Evidence is growing that mental illness is more than dysfunction, with enormous implications for treatment.
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The Debate Over Psychiatric Diagnosis
PsychologyToday.com
October 17, 2022A small but vocal group of mental health professionals and service users promotes alternatives to psychiatric diagnosis.
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Essay Review: A Philosophy of Madness
Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews
September 7, 2022I review Wouter Kusters’ remarkable book for Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews.
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Is Borderline Personality Disorder an Adaptation?
PsychologyToday.com
August 22, 2022Some argue that traits associated with BPD represent designed responses to early life events, not brain dysfunctions.
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Depression Might Be Trying to Tell Us Something
PsychologyToday.com
August 8, 2022A growing body of evidence suggests that depression isn’t a disease, but nature’s way of showing us that something in our lives needs to change.
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Seeing Dyslexia as a Unique Cognitive Strength, Rather Than a Disorder
PsychologyToday.com
June 27, 2022Dyslexia is linked to creativity, exploration, and problem-solving. It likely evolved in early humans to enrich society.
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Are Mental Disorders Diseases?
PsychologyToday.com
June 14, 2022What if mental disorders aren’t defects, but designed responses to the trials of life?
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Mad by Design
MadinAmerica.com
April 26, 2022To propose that madness may have a function is not to deny the toll it may exact on people, but to help us understand what problem it is meant to solve.
Recent Podcasts/Presentations
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Beyond Psychiatry: Rethinking Madness Outside Medicine
June 10, 2024
I spoke for the Royal Institute of Philosophy on seeing purpose, rather than pathology, in madness - and what it means for the future of psychiatry.
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![Philosophy of Madness: An Interview with Madness Radio]()
Philosophy of Madness: An Interview with Madness Radio
June 13, 2024
I talk with Will Hall and Jessica Gallinger about my book, Madness, and how to move beyond psychiatry's medical model.
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Beyond Psychiatry: Rethinking Madness outside Medicine
February 29, 2024
A presentation in London for the Royal Institute of Philosophy on rethinking madness outside the medical model. Registration here.
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Is Madness an Evolved Signal?
February 28, 2024
I spoke with James Moore of the Mad in America Podcast on my own history with psychiatry, stigma, psychiatry’s medical model, and its alternatives.
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The End of Psychiatry: Madness, Medicine, and Mental Health
December 11, 2023
A presentation at the Britm i parë Institute in Pristina, Kosovo, on rethinking madness outside the medical model. The talk will be livestreamed here.
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Reframing Madness
October 29, 2023
I spoke with Adam Hunt of the Evolving Psychiatry Podcast on scientific concepts of dysfunction, the role of the paradigms framing psychiatry, and the possible benefits of evolutionary thinking about mental 'disorders'.
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Who Decides what Mental Dysfunctions Are?
February 9, 2023
I spoke with Ashar Khan of the Thing in Itself Podcast on what it means to shift from a dysfunction to a function-centered perspective on madness.
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Could Mental Illness be More Than Dysfunction?
Jan 29, 2023
I talk with Amanda Vanstone of Australia Broadcasting Company’s Counterpoint program about seeing purpose, rather than pathology, in mental illness.
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Did Your BPD Symptoms Develop to Help You Survive and Adapt as a Helpless Child in a Dysfunctional Environment?
September 20, 2022
I talk with Mollie from her Back from the Borderline podcast about what it means to shift from a “disease” to a “design” model of mental illness.
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Your Brain Might Be Trying to Tell You Something About Depression - Are You Listening?
August 10, 2022
Radio interview with the Elias Makos Show on Montreal’s CJAD 800AM (about 9 min)
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Madness as Strategy and Mad Resistance
May 13, 2021
The history of psychiatry isn’t a clash between mind and brain approaches to madness, but between functional and dysfunctional approaches. I bring madness-as-strategy into dialogue with the movement known as Mad Pride, mad resistance, or mad activism.
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Does Madness Serve a Purpose
July 18, 2021
Is 'mental disorder' purely a dysfunction, or are there important advantages to being psychologically different? Do depression and anxiety serve a vital role in healing and bettering one's life?
