Robert Whitaker appears on the Psychophobia podcast hosted by Dr. Michael Montgomery.
“Stevie Nicks lost her creativity, her zest for life, and her body to a benzodiazepine cocktail prescribed by a psychiatrist she trusted. A friend who tried the same regimen was on his back by evening. It took three months in a clinic to detox – and her life came back. Stories like hers are the ground Michael and Robert Whitaker walk in the second half of their conversation, alongside Tony Stanton’s residential center for the “worst of the worst” kids who “came alive again” once the medications stopped, and the polypharmacy patterns that, as Bob puts it, have “zero, zip” evidence behind them. From there the conversation widens into what Mad in America has built, the alternatives operating at scale in Norway and Israel, and a philosophy of care that fits on a notecard: how can I be of help to you? If recovery and hope have somehow become the conspiracy theories of modern psychiatric culture, perhaps the revolution is simpler than a new model of care.”