Appeal To The Man On The Clapham Omnibus

An article appealing to the common sense of everyday people to think critically about psychiatry; an appeal to the man on the Clapham Omnibus. Famously On Sane People In Insane Places was a study done by David Rosenhan, a psychologist in America. Central to the study was the question he posed, ‘If sanity and insanity exist, how shall we know them?‘. This seems a pivotal inquiry if billions upon billions of pounds are now involved in psychiatric drugs that are proffered as treatments for what gets described as mental illness. Read more…

Diagnostic Overshadowing and Psychiatric Diagnoses

The Mad World art exhibition is an aggregation of work by artists, groups, psychologists, psychiatrists, chemists, social workers, and survivors of the psychiatric industry. It starts with the question: Can you work out who here is diagnosed as Mad ? It then introduces a logic problem created by Raymond Smullyan, one of the finest logicians of our time:… Can you work it out ? Read more…

Psychiatry: An Interview With A Pharmacist

Here is an interview with a retired pharmacist talking about his recollections of pharmacy, psychiatry, social conditions and Scotland. As a dispenser of medications and someone who was trained in the science of medicines, he recollects how trends come in and pass away, how drugs were perceived and taken, and how they were sold.
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Podcast: Psychiatry; A Woman’s Account of Being Sectioned

Here is an interview with a woman who recounts her experience of being sectioned by her husband. It is intimate and she talks about all the details of how it came about, what it made her feel and what she thinks retrospectively of the experience. She went on to become qualified in the field of psychology and so it presents a particularly interesting perspective on psychiatry.
The way that women encounter the world is significantly undermined in many ways. We need only take a look at the difference in the levels of payment women get for equivalent jobs with their male counterparts. This oral history represents a signifier into the gender differentials which can exist around voice and agency. We know from records that in the past single women who had children out of wedlock – also illegitimate children – were often interred in mental asylums for the ‘social inconvenience’ they suggested to the dominant paradigm. Read more…

Interview With An Educator: Professor Ray Miller

This is an interview and conversation with Professor Ray Miller, who has spent his life teaching psychology and thinking about philosophy. The recording was made in The Chocolate Tree in Edinburgh and explores his views and interests around education. The idea is simple, have an informal conversation and see where it leads. Read more…

Podcast: Psychology of Vocal Performance by Dr Denise Borland

On the 6th August 2011 Dr Denise Borland gave the following talk on the ‘Psychology of Vocal Performance in the Edinburgh International Festival

After working as a singer, actress, and international singer in hotels and various places, I focused on teaching. I realized that my career and the lives of my students were obstructed, however not by singing technique – that was the straightforward bit. I spent nine years coaching as a Transactional Analysis therapist (ongoing) specialising on an individual basis in posttraumatic stress psychotherapy with Babette Rothschild and different body psychotherapy techniques. Read more…

Podcast: We Don’t Need No Educashun; The Brain As A Learning Machine by Prof Ray Miller

On Thursday June 6th Prof Ray Miller gave the talk ‘We Don’t Need No Educashun; The Brain As A Learning Machine’. This is the audio recording of the talk he gave…

In Psychological terms, Learning is: A process by which behaviors, skills and capabilities are acquired and/or modified though experience. Although it is related to concepts like Education, Schooling, Training and Life Experience, it actually begins even before birth and continues until the day we die. Read more…