Mad In America: Science, Psychiatry And Social Justice

This week on MIA Radio, we interview Jeffrey Michael Friedman, a clinical social worker and an activist in the psychiatric survivor's movement. Jeffrey provides trauma-informed therapy to victims of various forms of abuse and violence, including those who have survived abuses within the mental health system. In addition to his work in the mental health field, Jeffrey is actively involved in the harm reduction movement, which supports human rights and non-coercive services for people who actively use drugs. In this interview, we discuss why forced psychiatric treatment is a form of trauma and its impact on victims and their families. In this episode we discuss: How Jeffrey’s early experience with the alternative school system led to being othered and ostracized, which influenced his later involvement with the psychiatric survivor's movement. How the trauma-informed perspective offers an alternative framework to the traditional medical model of mental health. Why forced psychiatric treatment meets the definiti