PhilosophyPodcasts.Org

The Splendid things we planned: A family portrait Canceled lives: My father, my scandal, and me Blake Bailey https://www.skyhorsepublishing.com/9781510771215/the-splendid-things-we-planned/ https://www.skyhorsepublishing.com/9781510783317/canceled-lives/

The Melville Effect: A Literary Afterlife across the Arts. Joseph Allen Boone Columbia University Press 2026 https://cup.columbia.edu/book/the-melville-effect/9780231222198/

Prof. John Lurz (Tufts University) The Barthes Fantastic: Literature, Criticism, and the Practice of Language University of Chicago Press https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/B/bo246540373.html

Peter E. Gordon Walter Benjamin: The Pearl Diver. https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300289459/walter-benjamin/

Roderick Frazier Nash Wilderness and the American Mind https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300190380/wilderness-and-the-american-mind/

Katie Ebner-Landy The Character Sketch as Philosophy: Manners, Mores, Types https://www.hup.harvard.edu/books/9780674294127

Susan Stewart Poetry's Nature

Joshua Landy (Stanford University) Proust: A very short introduction

Caleb Smith Thoreau's axe: Distraction and discipline in American culture Today, we're driven to distraction, our attention overwhelmed by the many demands upon it—most of which emanate from our beeping and blinking digital devices. This may seem like a decidedly twenty-first-century problem, but, as Caleb Smith shows in this elegantly written, meditative work, distraction was also a serious concern in American culture two centuries ago. In Thoreau's Axe, Smith explores the strange, beautiful archives of the nineteenth-century attention revival—from a Protestant minister's warning against frivolous thoughts to Thoreau's reflections on wakefulness at Walden Pond. Smith examines how Americans came to embrace attention, mindfulness, and other ways of being "spiritual but not religious," and how older Christian ideas about temptation and spiritual devotion endure in our modern ideas about distraction and attention. Smith explains that nineteenth-century worries over attention developed in response to what were seen as the damaging mental effects of new technologies and economic systems. A "wandering mind," once diagnosed, was in need of therapy or rehabilitation. Modeling his text after nineteenth-century books of devotion, Smith offers close readings of twenty-eight short passages about attention. Considering social reformers who designed moral training for the masses, religious leaders who organized Christian revivals, and spiritual seekers like Thoreau who experimented with regimens of simplified living and transcendental mysticism, Smith shows how disciplines of attention became the spiritual exercises of a distracted age.

Henry David Thoreau A Very Short Introduction Lawrence Buell The first concise account of Thoreau's life, thought, work, and impact in more than half a century Builds upon the explosion of new scholarship on Thoreau during the decade of the bicentennial of his birth Treats Thoreau's two most famous and influential works - Walden and "Civil Disobedience" - both as an interdependent pair and as a window into the evolution of his thought and writing as a whole

Man-Devil: The Mind and Times of Bernard Mandeville, the Wickedest Man in Europe John J. Callanan A lively and provocative account of Bernard Mandeville and the work that scandalized and appalled his contemporaries—and made him one of the most influential thinkers of the eighteenth century In 1714, doctor, philosopher and writer Bernard Mandeville published The Fable of the Bees, a humorous tale in which a prosperous hive full of greedy and licentious bees trade their vices for virtues and immediately fall into economic and societal collapse. Outrage among the reading public followed; philosophers took up their pens to refute what they saw as the fable's central assertion. How could it be that an immoral community thrived but the introduction of morality caused it to crash and burn? In Man-Devil, John Callanan examines Mandeville and his famous fable, showing how its contentious claim—that vice was essential to the economic flourishing of any society—formed part of Mandeville's overall theory of human nature. Mandeville, Callanan argues, was perfectly suited to analyze and satirize the emerging phenomenon of modern society—and reveal the gap between its self-image and its reality. Callanan shows that Mandeville's thinking was informed by his medical training and his innovative approach to the treatment of illness with both physiological and psychological components. Through incisive and controversial analyses of sexual mores, gender inequality, economic structures, and political ideology, Mandeville sought to provide a naturalistic account of human behavior—one that put humans in close continuity with animals. Aware that his fellow human beings might find this offensive, he cloaked his theories in fables, poems, anecdotes, and humorous stories. Mandeville mastered irony precisely for the purpose of making us aware of uncomfortable aspects of our deepest natures—aspects that we still struggle to acknowledge today. "Entertaining. . . .[Callanan] has convinced me that exposing Mandeville and his writings to a new generation of readers is indeed worthwhile."---Howard Davies, Literary Review "John Callanan's Man-Devil: The Mind and Times of Bernard Mandeville, the Wickedest Man in Europe (Princeton University Press) is by far the best discussion we have of this paradoxical, and immensely influential thinker, and everyone interested in the history of moral, social, or economic theorising should read it."---David Wootton, Engelsberg Ideas "[A] superb book."---Joseph Hone, History Today "Callanan, a philosopher at King's College, London, has produced an engaging, expansive and effortlessly erudite study of a man who today too few people know. Man-Devil is a fascinating and welcome corrective, not least because Bernard Mandeville was amongst the first to argue that we don't really know ourselves."---Peter West, The Critic "Bernard Mandeville was one of the most controversial writers of early eighteenth-century England, famed for coining the paradox 'private vices, publick benefits' as the subtitle to his major work, The Fable of the Bees. While John Callanan never loses sight of this satirical, even mischievous, bent, he convincingly shows the reader why Mandeville became such an influential figure in eighteenth-century thought, taken up by David Hume and Adam Smith among others. Well-researched and original in its approach, his book is highly recommended."—Malcolm Jack, historian and Mandeville scholar "Mandeville is the first great social theorist, and everyone who comes after him—Rousseau, Smith, Marx, Hayek—is deeply in his debt. But he is slippery and paradoxical. John Callanan at last makes Mandeville's core doctrine clear and brings out his continuing importance for understanding human beings as sociable animals. This is an important, long-needed book."—David Wootton, author of Power, Pleasure, and Profit: Insatiable Appetites from Machiavelli to Madison "Callanan sensibly and sensitively places the infamous Fable of the Bees in the wider context of Mandeville's other writings and intellectual context and, thereby, illuminates him as a diagnostician of human self-concealment and satirist of human pride. He reveals the Dutch physician with a successful London medical practice as an original pilferer of other people's useful ideas and with a relish for the urbane. And for those who recognize a good bargain when they are offered one, this book also instructs in the art of living, even points the way to the path of wisdom."—Eric Schliesser, author of Adam Smith: Systematic Philosopher and Public Thinker "John Callanan's enjoyable account of Mandeville explains clearly both why the author of The Fable of the Bees was notorious in his own day and why major figures such as Hume, Rousseau, and Smith felt the need to engage with him so closely. It tells the reader what we know about Mandeville's life, and explores the full range of Mandeville's writings. Mandeville's ideas are put in context, but are also brought to philosophical life. This is the best account in English of Mandeville's thought as a whole."—James Harris, University of St Andrews "This is the book on Mandeville I've long hoped for, and it is even better than I could have hoped. It is beautifully and engagingly written, as befitting a book on a great, extremely funny—not a common virtue of philosophers—and often scurrilous prose stylist. The Mandeville which emerges in Callanan's book is provocative and subtle, a humane exponent of Terence's dictum "nothing human is alien to me" but also a sharp-witted critic of hypocrisy possessing a medical remove from which to examine our paradoxical species."—Aaron Garrett, Boston University "John Callanan's Man-Devil strikes a balance between a 'forensic' investigation of Mandeville's engagement with reactions to his ideas in his own time and an examination of the Mandevillean tendency to cross disciplinary boundaries and enrich contemporary controversies in human and social sciences. 'Nothing human is alien' to Mandeville, including the human animal's wondrous potential of being in denial about its own bottomless self-deception."—Spyridon Tegos, University of Crete John Callanan is reader in the history of philosophy, Department of Philosophy, at King's College London. He is the author of Kant's Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals and the coeditor of Kant and Animals.

Dan Zahavi Phenomenology: The basics, 2nd Edition Two footnotes to the podcast. 1. Walter Hopp's beloved Boston University course is distilled in his Phenomenology: A Contemporary Introduction (2020), an excellent companion to Zahavi's text that focuses on philosophical phenomenology. 2. Paul Møller's Psychosis risk and experience of the self (2023) is the text mentioned in the podcast that uses phenomenological experience to predict psychosis risk. Description of Phenomenology: The basics, 2nd edition. Phenomenology: The Basics is a concise and engaging introduction to one of the important philosophical movements of the twentieth century and to a subject that continues to grow and diversify. Yet it is also a challenging subject, the elements of which can be hard to grasp. This lucid book provides an introduction to the core ideas of phenomenology and to the arguments of its principal thinkers, including Husserl, Heidegger, and Merleau-Ponty. Written by a leading expert in the field, Dan Zahavi examines and explains key questions such as: What is a phenomenological analysis? What are the methodological foundations of phenomenology? What does phenomenology have to say about intentionality, embodiment, intersubjectivity, and the lifeworld? How do ideas from classic phenomenology relate to ongoing debates in qualitative research and the cognitive sciences? This second edition has been thoroughly revised and expanded. It contains a new chapter on critical phenomenology and updated discussions of the application of phenomenology in psychiatry, psychology, and qualitative research. Including a glossary of key terms and suggestions for further reading, Phenomenology: The Basics is a superb starting point for anyone seeking a concise and accessible introduction to this rich and fascinating subject. Table of Contents Preface to the second edition Introduction Part I: Foundational issues 1. The phenomena 2. Intentionality 3. Methodological considerations 4. Science and the lifeworld 5. Digging deeper: From surface to depth phenomenology 6. Merleau-Ponty's preface to Phenomenology of Perception Part II: Concrete analyses 7. Spatiality and embodiment 8. Intersubjectivity and sociality 9. Critical and political phenomenology Part III: Applied phenomenology 10. Classical applications: Psychology, psychiatry, sociology 11. Current debates in qualitative research and the cognitive sciences 12. A method, an attitude, a theoretical framework Conclusion Glossary References Index Author(s) Biography Dan Zahavi is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark, and Director of the Center for Subjectivity Research in Copenhagen. His book The Phenomenological Mind (third edition, 2021), coauthored with Shaun Gallagher, is also available from Routledge. Critics' Reviews "Clear, engaging and insightful, there is no better introduction to the past, present and future of phenomenological philosophy than this new edition of Zahavi's book." - Dave Ward, University of Edinburgh, UK "Nuanced, problem-driven, and accessible, this is simply the best introduction to phenomenology. Lucidly written, it presents clear explanations of key concepts and theories while covering the breadth of the phenomenological tradition. The revised edition now also provides an introduction to Critical Phenomenology, likely the most-discussed trend in phenomenology today." - Tobias Keiling, University of Warwick, UK Praise for the previous edition: "For the one seeking a way into phenomenological thinking today, or a way to help others find one, it has not been obvious, in the English context, what resource should serve as the best point of entry. The first great merit of Dan Zahavi's book, Phenomenology: The Basics, is to change this calculus for good. Offering English readers an entry point into phenomenology that is accessible, lucid, and engaging, presents key concepts and insights faithfully (but not ploddingly), along with their pertinence in multiple fields of contemporary research, and doing this without obvious error or negligence, is no small achievement." - Karl Hefty, Reading Religion "A lucid and authoritative introduction to phenomenology including its practical applications in sociology and psychology from one of the world's leading phenomenologists." - Dermot Moran, Boston College, USA "Zahavi's Phenomenology: The Basics will guide several generations of philosophers and scientists in the study of consciousness, embodiment, communality and normality." - Sara Heinämaa, University of Jyväskylä, Finland "Dan Zahavi, one of the most prolific and insightful phenomenologists of his generation, has provided a concise, clear and intellectually stimulating introduction to the study of phenomenology."- Alessandro Duranti, University of California, Los Angeles, USA "This lucid book gets to the core of what phenomenology is all about, and is essential reading for any students of that tradition." - Piet Hut, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, USA https://www.routledge.com/Phenomenology-The-Basics/Zahavi/p/book/9781032396378 ?

Owen Flanagan James B. Duke University Professor Emeritus of Philosophy & Professor of Neurobiology Emeritus What Is It Like to Be an Addict?: Understanding Substance Abuse "A brilliant and unparalleled synthesis of the science, philosophy, and first-person phenomenology of addiction. Owen Flanagan is a distinguished philosopher who ... is also an ex-addict. This book is beyond excellent. It is wise. Everyone who wants to understand addiction must read it." -- Hanna Pickard, Bloomberg Distinguished Professor of Philosophy and Bioethics, Johns Hopkins University "This elegant and clear book ... deserves to be a landmark in the study of addiction." -- Carl Erik Fisher, M.D., Assistant Professor of Clinical Psychiatry, Columbia University, author of The Urge: Our History of Addiction Owen Flanagan is an internationally acclaimed philosopher of mind, consciousness, ethics, and comparative philosophy and author of 12 books translated into many languages. A powerful and important exploration of how addiction functions on social, psychological and biological levels, integrated with the experience of being an addict, from an acclaimed philosopher and former addict. What is addiction? Theories about what kind of thing addiction is are sharply divided between those who see it purely as a brain disorder, and those who conceive of it in psychological and social terms. Owen Flanagan, an acclaimed philosopher of mind and ethics, offers a state-of-the-art assessment of addiction science and proposes a new ecumenical model for understanding and explaining substance addiction. Flanagan has first-hand knowledge of what it is like to be an addict. That experience, along with his wide-ranging knowledge of the philosophy of mind, psychology, neuroscience, and the ethics and politics of addiction, informs this important and novel work. He pairs the sciences that study addiction with a sophisticated view of the consciousness-brain/body relation to make his core argument: that substance addictions comprise a heterogeneous set of "psychobiosocial" behavioral disorders. He explains that substance addictions do not have one set of causes, such as self-medication or social dislocation, and they do not have one neural profile, such as a dysfunction in dopamine system. Some addictions are fun and experimentation gone awry. Flanagan reveals addiction to be a heterogeneous set of disorders, which are picked out by multifarious cultural, social, psychological, and neural features. Flanagan explores the ways addicts sensibly insist on their own responsibility to undo addiction, as well as ways in which shame for addiction can be leveraged into healing. He insists on the collective shame we all bear for our indifference to many of the psychological and social causes of addiction and explores the implications of this new integrated paradigm for practices of harm reduction and treatment. Flanagan's powerful new book upends longstanding conventional thinking and points the way to new ways of understanding and treating addiction.

Agnes Callard Open Socrates "[C]harming, intelligent…Open Socrates encourages us to recognize how little we know, and to start thinking." —Jennifer Szalai, New York Times An iconoclastic philosopher revives Socrates for our time, showing how we can answer—and, in the first place, ask—life's most important questions. Socrates has been hiding in plain sight. We call him the father of Western philosophy, but what exactly are his philosophical views? He is famous for his humility, but readers often find him arrogant and condescending. We parrot his claim that "the unexamined life is not worth living," yet take no steps to live examined ones. We know that he was tried, convicted, and executed for "corrupting the youth," but freely assign Socratic dialogues to today's youths, to introduce them to philosophy. We've lost sight of what made him so dangerous. In Open Socrates, acclaimed philosopher Agnes Callard recovers the radical move at the center of Socrates' thought, and shows why it is still the way to a good life. Callard draws our attention to Socrates' startling discovery that we don't know how to ask ourselves the most important questions—about how we should live, and how we might change. Before a person even has a chance to reflect, their bodily desires or the forces of social conformity have already answered on their behalf. To ask the most important questions, we need help. Callard argues that the true ambition of the famous "Socratic method" is to reveal what one human being can be to another. You can use another person in many ways—for survival, for pleasure, for comfort—but you are engaging them to the fullest when you call on them to help answer your questions and challenge your answers. Callard shows that Socrates' method allows us to make progress in thinking about how to manage romantic love, how to confront one's own death, and how to approach politics. In the process, she gives us nothing less than a new ethics to live by.

Wouter Kusters A Philosophy of Madness: The Experience of Psychotic Thinking MIT Press: https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262044288/a-philosophy-of-madness/

See https/://CorriganIPU.com for updates on Human Rights Complaint submitted to Mass DMV regarding alleged human rights violations in this Fall River, MA facility. Corrigan IPU patients deserve a real, substantive right to access the outdoors. It is gross really to see the Corrigan IPU patients staying inside day after day, week after week, and in some cases month after month. And it is still more alarming when Corrigan staff blithely and complacently point to the four times a day when a minority subset of patients (youthful patients) can go outside. (Roughly 25% to 50% of patients [depending on the patients on unit at a particular time) can access the outdoors because, for example, they do not suffer neither obesit], paranoia exacerbated in groups, social anxiety, catatonia, or dementia, and do not present fall risks). For the other patients (the majority [especially when weighted by length of stay]). they are inside constantly, and it is disgusting to see. Their skin can be as white as white-out. The outdoors breaks are valued by the employees, but the employees aren't able to extend the courtesy to their fellow humans. It is a case of domination of the medical professionals over the neurodiverse. Some Corrigan staff no doubt get off on this. Most would get off on it indirectly and subliminally. Maybe a few get off on it consciously and directly. On the other hand, there is also another factor at play: the way we can get used to things that are odious, simply because others aren't clamoring about it, and we simply stop paying attention. If you went to Corrigan IPU, you would be appalled by the majority of patients who never go outside. But I venture if you shunned it for a year or so, you would eventually get used to it. You would be able subconsciously to suppress how disgusting it is for these humans (who happen to be patients) to be tortured by not having a real substantive, right of access to the outside. How does this happen? Rousseau in his Confessions said it was human nature. "I have derived an important moral principle, perhaps the only one of any real practical use, which is that we should avoid situations that bring our duty into conflict with our interests … since I am certain that in such situations, … we will sooner or later weaken, without noticing it, and become unjust and wicked in deed without having ceased to be just and good in spirit" I first raised this issue with Corrigan in October 2024 to Larry Weiner who is the Director of Human Rights at Corrigan. He simply ignored me. Danielle Keogh, LICSW, actively resisted my efforts. I then decided to make a formal Human RIghts Complaint. I assumed this would get a response. However no one from Corrigan would even acknowledge they received it. I sent it to: Jose Afonso ("provider" where a "provider" is sometimes called a "prescriber". It is essentially someone who can prescribe, so it is a nurse practitioner, DO, etc.) Maxwell I. Mayer (provider) Larry Weiner and Jeanne Crespi, social worker. Nb: I have invited each of these people to come on to this podcast or contact me in writing to correct me where I am wrong. To work at Corrigan you need to develop the ability to shun. You shun recognition of how many patients don't get to go outside. You shun the nausea you probably had when you first saw this. You also learn, it seems, to shun other people, people such as me who are raising the issue. A social worker or mental-health counselor would in fact claim that such shunning constituted "self care" or "an adaptive coping mechanism." Until they correct me, I would attribute Afonso and Mayer's non-response to their occupational or characterological contrariness and sense of superiority. They are "providers." They also have a vested interest (which is subliminal [see Rousseau]) as they possess the big swinging dicks at Corrigan IPU, are used to being kowtowed to, and, on information and belief, seem to use the Corrigan IPU as the IPU for their personal (presumably middle-class, white) patients. (The nurses will hold a bed open when they know that one of the providers' patients will soon be needing a bed. On information and belief, they also keep their own patients there longer ceteris paribus. Also as the golden goose: Corrigan IPU apparently requires an MD be on call all the time in case of an admission. The upshot is that it is good to have one of them as a provider. From the perspective of their patients' families, keeping this small (16-bed) unit open is a godsend. It only starts to look sketchy when you think of the anonymous payers of taxes and insurance premia. Why did I send it to Jeanne Crespi? She is the interim "Person in Charge," meaning she is the person you are supposed to contact with a Human Rights Complaint. It was thus quite surprising to me that neither she nor Larry Weiner even acknowledged my Complaint, or were willing to indicate to me that my Complaint would be taken seriously. I mean: that is one of their official, professional duties, as the Human Rights Officer and Person in Charge. In each case I was specifically--and increasingly plaintively--asking that they person please acknowledge receiving my Complaint, as a matter of simple courtesy. To no avail. Repeatedly shunned, I felt myself in full Karen mode. I went up the chain of command until, finally, I reached Star Sims, JD, Director of Human Rights for all of DMH. I appreciate attorney Sims responding quickly and professionally, acknowledging receipt of my complaint. Below are: (I) my exchange with Attorney Sims (II) timeline dates, factoids, and gossip mentioned in the podcast (III) my letters to Corrigan staff (each of which was met with the silent treatment) (I) my exchange with Attorney Sims On Tue, Feb 18, 2025 at 9:38 AM Sims, Startese (DMH) wrote: Good Morning Mr. [sic] Baker, I am acknowledging that I have received your email. I have forwarded your email/complaint to the DMH Office of Investigations for processing. The Human Rights Office does not investigate complaints. Thank you, Star Star Sims, J.D. Director of Human Rights Department of Mental Health 25 Staniford Street Boston, MA. 02114 From: August Baker Sent: Friday, February 14, 2025 6:58 PM To: Sims, Startese (DMH) Subject: Human Rights Complaint Startese Sims, JD/ Director of Human Rights / Massachusetts Department of Mental Health Dear Attorney Sims, It is well-known that all detainees should be provided at least one hour daily of outdoor air and outdoor light. This is for example the longstanding and well-established position of the United Nations (as codified in the Nelson Mandela Rules). If a facility does not provide daily outdoor access, that is considered a form of torture (e.g., the Association for the Prevention of Torture). Massachusetts state law and state regulations concur. A patient of a facility must be provided daily access to the outdoors, individually or in groups. 104 CMR §27.13(6)(f) I hereby make this Human Rights Complaint regarding the Acute Inpatient Unit at Corrigan Mental Health Center ("Corrigan IPU"). Although the percentage varies depending on the current patient load, a significant portion of the patients at Corrigan IPU are not provided a substantive right of daily access to the outdoors. As a result, based on information and belief, many patients at Corrigan IPU can go a whole week without accessing the outdoors. Some can go even an entire month without access. The staff at Corrigan IPU do not even keep track of when was the last time that a patient accessed the outdoors. I have the right to make this Complaint and have it be taken seriously. Under Massachusetts state law and regulations, any person may make a Human Rights Complaint regarding a condition involving DMH clients which he or she believes to be dangerous, illegal, or inhumane. 104 CMR, § 32.04 That is precisely the situation here I am complaining about a condition involving DMH clients which I believe to be both illegal and inhumane. Yet I have attempted several times to bring this condition to the attention of Corrigan personnel, and their response has been to ignore my complaint. I first brought the issue to the attention of Human Rights Officer Lawrence Weiner in October 2024. I recently made my complaint known to Facility Medical Director Jose Afonso, and staff member Maxwell Mayer. I also made it known to Jeanne Crespi, who, according to the January 2025 DMH Resource Directory, is the current Person in Charge. In addition, I have made public records requests regarding this issue. (I asked, specifically, for any information regarding a Plan as defined in 104 CMR 27.13(6)(f)5. I also contacted the Ombudsman. In all cases, there has been no response at all. It appears that DMH has a policy of ignoring correspondence. I have no reason to believe that my Complaint is being taken seriously. Could you please acknowledge receipt of this email? Could you also please be sure that someone is taking this complaint seriously? Thank you so much, Sincerely, August Baker, PhD (II) timeline dates, factoids, and gossip mentioned in the podcast We start with the Kennedy Administration Mental Health Centers Act. The first MHC in the state was in Lowell, and the second was the Fall River Mental Health Center. It started out in 1961 as an annex of Taunton State Hospital and was located within Charlton (then known as Union) hospital. In August 1962, it moved to a remodeled laundry building at 680 Maple St., adjacent to its future location on Hillside Ave, which was then under construction. The Hillside Ave building originally had a 40 bed IPU on the top floor. It was renamed after a cardiologist, Dr. John C. Corrigan, in 1970. From 1992 to 1995, the Weld administration attempted unsuccessfully to privatize Corrigan. In 1992, most Emergency Services provision was privatized in the state, but Corrigan and Pocasset remained under DMH control. 2010 press reports indicated that a closure of Corrigan was prevented by the efforts of legislator David B. Sullivan, who started his career as a social worker at Corrigan. It was said then that 16 beds would be lost. I infer that the reduction to 16 beds occurred prior to 2010. 2015 Southcoast Behavioral in Dartmouth opened as a joint effort of South Coast Health and Acadia Healthcare of Franklin Tennessee. It opened as a 77,000 square foot, 5-unit hospital with 24 beds per unit. Thus, initially, it had 120 beds. It has since opened three more units. Thus, it is up to 192 beds. As noted in the podcast, what is striking is to compare the professional staff at Southcoast Behavioral (with its 200 patients) compared to 16-bed (!) Corrigan. Southcoast Behavioral no doubt has many more techs than Corrigan IPU, but it has far fewer techs per bed. It is run entirely by nurses. That is, nurses do all the work, compared with Corrigan which has redundancy between OT, Social work and the nursing staff. Even the OT staff at Corrigan feel the need to insert themselves into treatment planning generally (not simply with respect to OT). Southcoast Behavioral is built ranch-style, we might say. Every unit has direct same-floor access to the outside. It is in this respect much more humane than Corrigan. It also pays market wages and salaries, compared to Corrigan which pays labor-market rents to its unionized, public-sector workforce. That might sound like a good thing, but with labor-market rents comes discrimination. The Corrigan professional staff has zero African Americans. The Corrigan blue-collar staff is entirely white and male at the higher pay grades. There are a handfull of African Americans on the lowest end of the payscale. On January 7, 2015, the Fresh Air law (S.911, H.3805) was signed by Gov. Deval Patrick. [See https://malegislature.gov/Bills/188/H3804 ] At the time, it was estimated that 25 to 30 percent of psychiatric hospitals would be unable to pass even the 2016 regulations which DMH promposed to operationalize the law. However those hospitals which were unable to comply were required to provide a plan to DMH indicating how they would remedy the situation. It is now 10 years later, and Corrigan has still not provided meaningful outdoors access to its most physically and mentally compromised patients. (It offers only nominal outdoor access. These are taken advantage of by its youthful patients and enjoyed also by the staff. Nothing wrong with that, but what about the compromised patients?) It is this plan that I have been trying to get. I originally asked Larry Weiner for it in 2024. He shunned the entire topic. 2017 Emergency Services at Corrigan were privatized resulting in savings of $6.4 million in the first year alone without a reduction in the level of services. Unlike the early 1990s, employees did not succesfully organize resistance to the move. Kennard C. Kobrin was a psychiatrist at Corrigan until 1998. His background was in San Francisco, not Hollywood. He was married to the actress Joanna Cassidy, who described Kobrin as a "wonderful duality," "with doctors on one side and Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix and people who were selling clothes to Jefferson Airplane on the other." https://www.southcoasttoday.com/story/news/1999/04/11/trying-dr-kobrin/50529926007/ [IN PROGRESS] (III) my letters to Corrigan staff (each of which was met with the silent treatment) [IN PROGRESS]

See CorriganIPU.com for updates on Human Rights Complaint The IPU at Corrigan Mental Health Center. This is a psychiatric IPU in Fall River, MA. It's a DMH facility. Best parts: 1) there are some excellent staff members (excellent both for patients and for co-workers), (e.g., OT Kyle, providers Max and Allison, nurses Christian and Jill, tech Sean, Social Worker Nicole). 2) As a public-sector, unionized shop, the staff can be their authentic selves. For those who don't like their jobs, they can express that openly. They are not pressured to dissimulate. 3) for patients, if you are looking for a place to stay a while, (i.e., if you are okay with being detained longer than the usual 72 hours), and if you are young and hence able to access the outdoors space, it may be a good place. If you are a patient of one of the Corrigan doctors (like Mayer, then an advantage of having Mayer as a doctor is that he is able to use this unit as an IPU for his regular outpatient clients. He can keep them there in an emergency and thus provide a respite for the patient and their family, a chance to return to stabilization) Worst parts: (a) Approximately half of the patients do not have actual access to the outside. The staff will tell you they provide four outdoor opportunities per day. But for practical purposes, many of the patients cannot--orwould not be reasonably expected to--access the outdoors as provided by Corrigan. (To go outside requires negotiating a steep set of stairs [it can be possible to take elevators but the elevators are difficult to operate, the techs don't make them readily available, and even when the techs are asked to take someone down in the elevator, they may choose not to. ). In addition, accessing the outside can only be done in a large group. Many of the patients are anxious in groups and would love to access the outside if they were able to do so individually, but prefer not to go down in the crowded group, long-stair, way with chains and locks, and authentically depressed staff). (b) Taxpayers lose big time. This is an extremely cost inefficient IPU. It is staffed 24/7/365, (including always an on-call provider apparently), and the staffing levels are such that, during the day shift alone, there are more staff than patients!!! At one time, Corrigan IPU had 40 patients. The folklore is that a patient there hung themself and, as a result, the beds were dropped all the way to 16. But there are more than 16 staff working the day shift alone (not even counting the evening shift or nighttime shift). During the daytime, there are 5 nurses (a charge nurse, another unit nurse, a med nurse, and two nurses in an administrative role (not on unit). 2 occupational therapists 2 providers 4 techs and 3 social workers That is for 16 beds, and often a bed or two is empty, so let's say 15 patients on average. In addition, there are other staff who are not full time (or who work full time, but divide their time across the IPU and other operations): a pharmacist, a nutritionist (she may be full time), a peer advocate, a human rights officer, and more layers of admin. In addition, Corrigan tends to keep people longer than other inpatient units--- much longer (e.g., instead of 72 hours, one stays for months or even, for two patients, 2 years and counting). Because of this, there are more court proceedings compared to units which churn more on a 72 hour cycle. Few if any patients bring their own counsel. So whenever there is a hearing, the taxpayers are paying for the DMH attorney, the Corrigan Staff, the patient's attorney, and the judge or magistrate. (c) Danielle Keogh, LICSW is a reckless individual. You would think that social workers would be people who will talk directly to anyone they have issues with. SW Keogh was incapable of doing this and, instead, recklessly tries to railroad subordinates by going behind their back and trying to squeeze them. You would think that she, as a social worker, would be patient-centered. In fact, she claims the patients at Corrigan are not well enough for a patient-centered approach. Her priority appears to be her career and her title / her status. (How, one might ask did she get promoted to her current position after only a few years on the job? Pretty privilege? Who was making the hiring decision? Why do they like working with her?) Her focus is entirely on appearances and, in particular, looking good to bureaucrats. Her direction to her subordinates is to lie on MIS because her main priority is to do well in audits. That is, she wants to do well when she is evaluated from above. Her going behind subordinates' back and trying to clamp them down is the sign of someone who thinks that social work is about being a tool in a hierarchy. You would think that she, as a social worker, might view social work as a place to create change and fight social injustice. But in reality, she deals with personnel matters unprofessionally--as a matter for gossip. Her view of what social work is about is doing whatever has no effect. For example, it is essential that social workers spend hours and hours--not actually talking with patients-- but arranging post-discharge PCP appointments which, if you know anything about the patients, you know they will never attend. She acts friendly to your face while going behind your back, and she lies to your face about it. She is unprofessional and insecure. She is reckless because she is dysregulated. It seems she holds anger inside, unwilling to talk with the person she is angry with. Instead, she takes it out by interfering with their lives. She is the sort of social worker who is essential a Karen. She thinks her role is to interfere in the lives of everyone around her because of her insecure attachment to some bureacratic rules she got somewhere. Very little integrity. She is not to be trusted. She is really disappointing. Or it is disappointing that whoever hired her and has been reviewing her has made her think the way she is in professional situations is ok. Very disappointing to have met such a disingenuous, dishonest, insecure, unprofessional, disregulated person. Overall. somehow when Southcoast Behavioral was created, Corrigan was not folded in. A staff of 50 to oversee 15 non-violent patients who don't have medical issues. The unit doesn't even track which patients actually get outside for outdoor air and outdoor light. On information and belief, about half of the patients never get outside, yet no accommodations are made. (Frequently, the reason given for not being able to make changes is, of course, "we don't have the staff." It should not be surprising that not one member of the professional staff is African American, and Dr. Mayer's patients (who comprise 20% of the population) are disproportionately if not entirely middle-class. Be thankful you don't get the government you pay for.

Alenka Zupančič Disavowal This book argues that the psychoanalytic concept of disavowal best renders the structure underlying our contemporary social response to traumatic and disturbing events, from climate change to unsettling tectonic shifts in our social tissue. Unlike denialism and negation, disavowal functions by fully acknowledging what we disavow. Zupancic contends that disavowal, which sustains some belief by means of ardently proclaiming the knowledge of the opposite, is becoming a predominant feature of our social and political life. She also shows how the libidinal economy of disavowal is a key element of capitalist economy. The concept of fetishistic disavowal already exposes the objectified side of the mechanism of the disavowal, which follows the general formula: I know well, but all the same, the object-fetish allows me to disregard this knowledge. Zupancic adds another twist by showing how, in the prevailing structure of disavowal today, the mere act of declaring that we know becomes itself an object-fetish by which we intercept the reality of that very knowledge. This perverse deployment of knowledge deprives it of any reality. This structure of disavowal can be found not only in the more extreme and dramatic cases of conspiracy theories and re-emerging magical thinking, but even more so in the supposedly sober continuation of business as usual, combined with the call to adapt to the new reality. To disrupt this social embedding of disavowal, it is not enough to change the way we think: things need to change, and hence the way they think for us

Stijn Vanheule Why Psychosis Is Not So Crazy A Road Map to Hope and Recovery for Families and Caregivers An expert's guide to humanizing psychosis through communication offers key insights for family and friends to support loved ones during mental health crises. Are we all a little crazy? Roughly 15 percent of the population will have a psychotic experience, in which they lose contact with reality. Yet we often struggle to understand and talk about psychosis. Interactions between people build on the stories they tell each other—stories about the past, about who they are or what they want. In psychosis we can no longer rely on these stories, this shared language. So how should we communicate with someone experiencing reality in a radically different way than we are? Drawing on his work in psychoanalysis, Stijn Vanheule seeks to answer this question, which carries significant implications for mental health as a whole. With a combination of theory from Freud to Lacan, present-day research, and compelling examples from his own patients and well-known figures such as director David Lynch and artist Yayoi Kusama, he explores psychosis in an engaging way that can benefit those suffering from it as well as the people who care for and interact with them.

Peter Singer Consider the turkey Why this holiday season is a great time to rethink the traditional turkey feast.