We spoke about the state of dissent in the United States with Bruce Levine, practicing psychologist who connects the dots between society, politics, culture and mental health. He is also a social commentator and author of Get Up, Stand Up as well as other books. Levine writes about the mental health profession’s increasing trend to treat healthy challenges to authority and a dysfunctional society as abnormal. Psychologists in the US also do not recognize alternative worldviews such as anarchism and so attempt to coerce youth into adopting what are considered to be cultural norms within a hierarchical framework. Levine also writes about the influence of the pharmaceutical industry on the mental health profession and even the new DSM-V.Join us to explore this and more.
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How America Stifles Dissent By Medicating Normal Behaviors with Bruce Levine by Clearingthefog on Mixcloud
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Relevant Books, Articles and Websites:
Living in America will drive you insane — literally by Bruce Levine
Why the Dramatic Rise of Mental Illness? Diseasing Normal Behaviors, Drug Adverse Effects, and a Peculiar Rebellion by Bruce Levine
Psychiatry’s Oppression of Young Anarchists—and the Underground Resistance by Bruce Levine
The More a Society Coerces Its People, the Greater the Chance of Mental Illness by Bruce Levine
How the Occupy Movement Helped Americans Move Beyond Denial and Depression to Action by Bruce Levine
Get Up, Stand Up: Uniting Populists, Energizing the Defeated and Battling the Corporate Elite by Bruce E. Levine
Guest:
Bruce E. Levine is a practicing clinical psychologist in Cincinnati, Ohio, and he writes and speaks widely on how society, culture, politics, and psychology intersect. Dr. Levine’s most recent book is Get Up, Stand Up: Uniting Populists, Energizing the Defeated, and Battling the Corporate Elite . Earlier books include Surviving America’s Depression Epidemic as well as Commonsense Rebellion (2003). He is a regular contributor to Salon, AlterNet, Truthout, CounterPunch, Z Magazine, and the Huffington Post, and his articles and interviews have appeared in Skeptic Magazine, Adbusters, The Ecologists, and numerous other publications His website is www.brucelevine.net He serves as Assistant Secretary of Health for Clinical Mental Health on the Green Shadow Cabinet.