Exploring Mental Illness, the Brain, and Psyche with Daniel Bergner 06/15/22

<p><em>Daniel Bergner</em> is a contributing writer for the <em>New York Times Magazine</em> and the author of five previous books of award-winning nonfiction. His writing has also appeared in the <em>Atlantic</em>, <em>Granta</em>, <em>Harper’s Magazine</em>, <em>Mother Jones</em>, <em>Talk</em>, and the <em>New York Times Book Review.</em></p> <p class="p1">Finally, his newest book, the most personal, is "The Mind and The Moon: My Brother’s Story, the Science of Our Brains, and the Search for Our Psyches."</p> <p class="p1">So many issues are explored in this fascinating episode. From questioning our understanding of psychosis to biological treatment modalities, and from exploring the differences between brain and mind to how biological psychiatry has contributed real harm to millions of people, this is one.big.episode.</p> <p class="p1">Meticulously researched, Daniel's latest book lends weight to the growing national conversation questioning the medicalization of mental illness.</p> <p class="p1">Daniel and Melanie talk about some of the many paradigm-shatteirng interviews he did with renowned neuroscience researchers. A few examples are:</p> <ul> <li class="p1"><em>“The more drugs [antipsychotics] you’ve been given, the more brain tissue you lose.”</em></li> <li class="p1"><em>“Psychiatry has lacked a ground truth. It’s a house of cards built on serendipitously discovered drugs. How people could think that mediocre — important but mediocre — drugs like the SSRIs could give us any comprehension is beyond me.” <span class="Apple-converted-space">Steven Hyman</span></em></li> <li class="p1"><em>“The big picture is that we really know very little about psychosis and what is going wrong in the brain. It’s remarkable why we don’t know." Donald C. Goff</em></li> </ul> <p>What happens to your psyche (translated from ancient Greek as "soul") when your brain works differently from the norm, and is too medicated to function?</p> <p>What's the result when mental illness has been medicalized based on faulty or non-existe