It's Not Just In Your Head

Get early access to our full episode with Dr. Bethany Morris at patreon.com/itsnotjustinyourhead

Sarah and Mo join Max to talk about the many reasons why a universal childcare program in the U.S. would be good for the mental health of children, mothers, parents-generally, families, teachers, and society-at-large. Rooted in her "whole worker" labor organizing struggle in Appalachia (Southwest Virginia) as a childcare worker, Sarah realized that lack of access to quality childcare for working mothers and families, and the low pay and poor working conditions for childcare workers generally, is as much of a crisis in America as is is our lack of affordable healthcare. Mo, a trained doula, professional caseworker, and healthcare organizer, shares some of her insights about the struggles moms can face when they lack access to childcare. Mo recently ran a public good campaign and believes guaranteed childcare is something socialists need to fight for in a member-funded organization as hard as they do for universal healthcare.

Listen to the full episode at patreon.com/itsnotjustinyourhead.

In this episode, Harriet gives a broad "macro" zoom out view of what's going on in America right now economically and politically. Next, she zooms in to the "micro" level to look at how our crumbling political economy is impacting people's relationships and individual mental health. Max shares his frustrations around wanting for us to be able to move from "diagnosis" to "treatment" in this context, and both therapists explore possible solutions to the economic and political problems facing all of us today.

Listen to the full episode early at patreon.com/itsnotjustinyourhead

We reached out to Migration Policy Institute (MPI) to discuss their research on immigration enforcement and Latino adolescent mental health, resulting in this conversation with their director of research Randy Capps. In this episode, we ask Randy about MPI's research findings on how immigration policies impact the mental health of migrants in the US, with attention to Latino mental health. We ask Randy his thoughts on abolishing ICE, the "open borders" debate, and what kinds of immigration policies would promote the best mental health for migrants in the US.

Through email, we asked Randy about how US military and trade interventionism in South America has impacted migration patterns and he made clear he does not know much about this - if you know of researchers with knowledge in this area let us know so we can address that important aspect of US migration and mental health. Also, this episode is more policy focused than usual, and does not draw on personal narratives to help listeners understand the mental health struggles associated with fear of loved ones being deported. If you are someone with such a story and feel comfortable sharing, please email us at [email protected].

Voice of Randy Capps from Migration Policy Institute. In full episode we talk about this:

Fellow mental health counselor Kevin Gallagher joins us to talk about the history of addiction in America, its causes, and cures. Kevin shares  what he learned first-hand about America's broken approaches to addiction treatment while he struggled through his own past addiction, which led him toward intensive research and writing on the history of addiction and why we approach and conceptualize it the way we do today.  Is addiction a moral problem? Why did the "war on drugs" position addiction around (highly racialized) individual criminality? Are people born with "addictive personalities" as a result of defective brains and chemical imbalances? What's missing from today's so-called "trauma informed" approach to addiction popularized by experts such as Gabor Maté?

Read Kevin Gallagher's 10 part Mad In America series on the history of addiction here:

In this episode we interview Roy Grinker, cultural anthropologist and author of Nobody's Normal: How Culture Created the Stigma of Mental Illness. His book is broken into three sections: capitalism, wars, and the mind and body.