It's Not Just In Your Head

Harriet and Max interview two therapists who also act as "shop stewards" with the National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW) - Jackie Schalit LMFT and Elizabeth White LCSW. Both talk about what got them involved in union organizing within the mental health field, and why the labor movement still matters more today than ever. Why was there a "civil war" within Service Employees International Union...

"We are a cooperatively-run mental health practice located in Bushwick, Brooklyn" - from the Alliance Psychological Services website which also reads "Seeking Licensed Clinical Social Worker to Join Radical Psychotherapy Practice." Meet worker-owners Juliet, Kara, and Billy - who run this cooperative. What makes a worker cooperative different from regular business enterprises? Are co-ops inherentl...

We try to answer Patron questions as often as we can. In this recording, we answer Jake's question about how to avoid harming relationships with your politics (a summary of his question). If you haven't check out Harriet's program with Julianna Forlano called Capitalism Hits Home: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPJpiw1WYdTNYvke-gNRdml1Z2lwz0iEH ATTENTION! This is a Boring Dystopia/Obligato...

Will a Joe Biden presidency be better for our collective mental health? Harriet thinks having a neoliberal president is better than a fascist president, Max mostly agrees. Both therapists encourage listeners to stay (or to get) active, because Biden likely won't unilaterally do much to improve healthcare, education, housing, workers rights, fight climate change (etc) without being pushed "from the...

In this episode we interview leftist civil engineer Justin Roczniak (aka "donoteat01" on YouTube) to better understand the history of single family homes, suburbs, the real estate industry, and try to figure out better ways the built environment can facilitate mental and social wellness among those who... live somewhere. We wanted to talk with Justin about this because in our last episode on the n...

Harriet describes the invention  of the nuclear family as part of the transition from European feudalism to capitalism, with attention to the function of the patriarch as the familial feudal lord, and children as chattel. Max shares his initial reaction to the idea of the nuclear family being flawed or unnatural, asking: what came before, what alternatives are there, and what options to peopl...

Thanks to helpfully critical feedback we received on our W.A.P. episode, we were lucky to make contact with guests Gemma Paradise and Dr. Heather Berg. Gemma is a full service sex worker (which she says many know better as "escort" or "prostitute") and Marxist sex worker organizer. Dr. Heather Berg is a feminist scholar who teaches Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Washington University in S...

In this episode we interview Christian minister and anti-capitalist psychotherapist Bruce Rogers-Vaughn, whose deep and calming voice happens to be an FDA approved anti-anxiety medicine.  One of Bruce's students emailed to inform us about his writings, and we discovered there is yet another therapist in the U.S. who openly believes capitalism is bad for our mental health. Bruce is associate p...

We answer four questions from our Patreon community Support us at patreon.com/itsnotjustinyourhead   Contact us at itsnotjustinyourhead@gmail.com     Check  out Harriet's program Capitalism Hits Home at  https://www.democracyatwork.info/chh_episode_list_s2, or at  harrietfraad.com. Also be sure to get to know Democracy At Work better  at their website democracyat...

(Note from the future: thanks to helpfully critical feedback we received for this  episode, we recorded a follow up one with sex worker Gemma Paradise and  feminist studies scholar Dr. Heather Berg, who helped us better  understand the world of sex work and the various societal nuances within  that world. Go here to listen to that follow up episode: https://anchor.fm/itsnotjust...

Harriet and Max interview one of their listeners for this episode and cover a wide variety of topics from immigration to gender and cross-cultural expectations, to discrimination and colorism and European colonialism within Africa, to the strengths and limitations of the Black Lives Matter movement -- and, of course, whether these three should start a band called Marxists From Mars. Our guest Russ...

USA National Suicide hotline: 1-800-273-TALK (8255) Max does a solo episode on the topic of suicide (Harriet will be back next week!). Topics he explores include the correlation between higher suicide rates and lower minimum wage, as well as the "suicide paradox" of white men having the highest suicide rate and black women have the lowest. Max looks at suicide from Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (...

In this solo episode, Max explains how to form a tenant's union, from inside his car. He gives an overview of what the benefits are of tenants uniting to collectively bargain with landlords, why this can be empowering and good for mental health, and what some of the first steps are to getting this done. He points out that property management companies and landlords tend to belong to "associations"...

Harriet and Max interview Dawn Belkin Martinez about the Liberation Health Model, which she and other social workers developed 20 years ago to move toward a more holistic "mental health" approach that conceptualizes people's problems within economic, political, cultural, and historical contexts. She gives an overview of "the triangle" method, centering people's problems in the center of the triang...

We have a Patreon now! To support us go to Patreon.com/itsnotjustinyourhead. In this episode, Max and Harriet talk about how neoliberalism paved the way toward our epidemic of mass loneliness and why dating now resembles a short term, extractive, free market activity wherein alienated singles try to connect through a market medium to secure a basic human need: love. The new norm is that everyone i...

Harriet and Max chat with biomolecular engineering grad student Rachel Mendelson about her experience participating in the historic Cost Of Living Adjustment (COLA) campaign that started at UC Santa Cruz in September, 2019, then spread to every UC campus in California. We explore what kinds of conditions typically lead to workers going on strike, and how those conditions can be mapped into the ind...

Harriet and Max talk with Pete Bourgelais about mental health in rural America, with emphasis on Maine because that's where Pete is from (and is running for office to push for a Green New Deal, support for local organic farmers, and public broadband). Harriet emphasizes connectivity as central to mental health, and explores with Pete questions about how people in small towns connect with each othe...

In this solo episode, Harriet talks about the many ways people are being impacted emotionally by the current pandemic. Men in particular having a hard time asking for help and being vulnerable, resulting in more substance abuse and expressions of anger. Harriet points out that single men are afflicted with dangerous levels of loneliness more, resorting to buying testosterone supplements and penis...

In this episode we cover both "macro" and "micro" points of discussion about race and racism. Harriet starts off with explaining how capitalism has always required a set of social divisions to pit workers against each other to prevent them from uniting against common oppressors. Max shares the example of how the Bacon's Rebellion of 1676 - white and black servants uniting together to burn down the...

Sorry for the long gap between episodes! We respond to some fanmail and Anchor messages covering topics such as: how we developed our views based on our backgrounds; thoughts on borderline personality disorder; food/diet and mental health; Gloria Steinem and her CIA ties. Near the end, we talk about an exciting mental health activism model called the Liberation Health Model which came out of Bosto...

Max and Harriet lay out their critique of #MentalHealthAwarenessMonth by first speaking on its origins - a big pharma funded nonprofit called Mental Health America, beginning in 1949 - then explain how the rise of the nonprofit industrial complex helped to pacify, depoliticize, and professionalize social movements to the detriment of the working class. Both counselors agree that while the 100-200k...

In the first half of this episode, Harriet lays out a thesis on four depressions in the United States. 1) Depression of wages and employment in the late 1970s caused by outsourcing and automation of mainly male jobs, causing severe economic and family systems consequences; 2) Depression of the American family resulting from the economic crisis, including a dramatic spikes in male violence, substan...

[Disclaimer: Harriet and Max are pro-meditation, pro-yoga, and pro- self-care! And want listeners to think about these practices within a broader sociopolitical context.] The mental health counselor duo guide listeners through a mock meditation that makes rent strikes, labor exploitation, climate change, and all bad-vibes-in-general, completely vanish through deep breathing. Both share thoughts on...

Recorded on May 1, International Worker's Day, mental health counselors Harriet and Max talk about the many ways covid-19 is impacting our collective mental health with emphasis on class disparities and the US proving itself to be a failed state. Bill Gates bought a $43 million dollar mansion near the US-Mexico border while undocumented workers aren't getting stimulus checks despite being the back...

Max and Harriet introduce themselves, how they met and why they're  starting the podcast with hopes of reaching other mental health  practitioners, consumers of mental health services, and whoever else  will listen. Harriet explains the mental health industrial complex  involving four co-conspirators. Both emphasize the systemic nature of  the problem so as not to blame an...