Susannah Cahalan: The Acid Queen takes listeners deep into the extraordinary story of journalist and author Susannah Cahalan, whose bestselling memoir Brain on Fire documented her battle with a rare autoimmune disease that was misdiagnosed as psychosis. She went on to write The Great Pretender, an investigation into the blurred lines between sanity and madness and the legacy of 1970s psychiatric experiments.

In this episode, Cahalan turns to her latest book, The Acid Queen, a bold exploration of counterculture, experimentation, and the shifting frontiers of psychiatry. With sharp insight and fearless curiosity, she examines how society defines mental illness, who gets to draw those boundaries, and the profound consequences for people’s lives.

This episode, The Acid Queen, originally aired on Radio Reverb, Brighton’s community radio station.

https://www.susannahcahalan.com/