joseph sexton

R. D. Laing (1927-1989). Scottish psychiatrist who came to be regarded as an anti-psychiatrist. Laing was mostly interested in psychosis (though he didn’t have psychosis himself) and an adamant opponent of medical models. One notable project is his use of Kingsley Hall (in London) as a non-coercive, medication- and restriction-free living space for people in crisis. Make faces with him.

Frantz Fanon (1925-1961). Afro-Carribean, French-trained psychiatrist. While working at a French hospital in Algeria, he grew disturbed at the state of French occupation. Fanon joined movements for Algerian liberation and wrote extensively on the colonization as a pathology, in psychoanalytic terms, in both Black Skin, White Masks (1952) and The Wretched of the Earth (1961).

Byung-Chul Han (1959-). South Korean-German philosopher who writes about the rise of burnout, depression, ADHD, and related conditions as products of late-stage capitalism (the stage we are in now, characterized by genuinely absurd [hard to comprehend] disparities in wealth and ownership). See an amazing video on Han – including coverage of his Psychopolitics and The Burnout Society, and in relation to another philosopher Michel Foucault – here.

Susan Sontag (1933-2004). American writer and social critic. Sontag wrote about all kinds of things but is especially well-known for her devastating Illness as Metaphor (1978), where she analyzes how (and why) medical terms are used as social devices. (For example, AIDS as a religious or moral punishment; bad behaviors described as “sickening”.)

Homosexuality in the DSM. Rest assured that the American Psychiatric Association did not take homosexuality (et cetera) out of their Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) by choice. They took it out because there was a protest by the Gay Liberation Front outside an APA conference in 1972. And because scared queer psychiatrists were protesting from within the org – including John Fryer, who joined colleagues that called psychiatry “the enemy incarnate”, wearing a Richard Nixon mask and using a voice-changing mic to conceal his identity. In sum, the APA took homosexuality out because they were drowning in bad press caused by some courageous activists.

Political abuses of psychiatry. A list; enough said, enjoy (or be harrowed).

Dodo bird verdict. Virtually every therapy works depending on what outcome or timeframe you use. Psychodynamic and psychoanalytic approaches are making a comeback because – though they are hard to manualize or enter into a clinical trial, hence hard to call “evidence-based” – clients do demonstrate improvements using these methods for the treatment of depression, anxiety, and related neurotic disorders. The controversy here is that “evidence-based” therapy might just be a buzzword. Some therapies are less scientific than cognitivie-behavioral approaches, but these unscientific methods work just as well. (Why does it need to be science, anyways?) For more, see Shedler’s “Where’s the evidence for ‘evidence-based’ therapy?”

Ontology of Psychiatric Conditions: Dynamical Systems (Scott Siskind). I won’t vouch for Dr. Siskind in general, but this piece outlines what I see as the only way categorical conditions could possibly exist. For more context, the “categorical-vs-dimensional” issue wonders: does mental illness (e.g., depression) exist on a categorical (yes/no) basis, or is it dimensional (e.g., we are all depressed, we just call it “true” depression at some odd social and political threshold)? This piece is more dense and invokes math.

Last Rites (Hannah Sexton). I’m biased to include my own sister, but (part of) her experience with hospitalization is put here in a creative and elegant manner.

Ludwig Wittgenstein. Language is never really defined. Rather, conversation is a “language game” we perform, assuming the person we are talking to knows all the rules. What does it mean to you when I say “psychotic”? Why?

Ian Hacking. I love Ian Hacking’s work on looping effects. When you investigate people, and then you say they work in such-and-such a manner, you must know that even doing that investigation – and telling people “this is how you behave” – changes them. Suddenly, the person you researched doesn’t even really exist anymore. In their place is someone who has been given notions of how they should act, think, beahve. The cycle begins again. He also called this “making up people”.

Michel Foucault. French philosopher that was interested in many things. Among them, biopolitics. How can complex numerical methods – like statistics – be used to justify decisions with mortal consequences? Can we use machine learning to predict how many people one policy will kill as opposed to another (and are all lives weighed equally)? How much does a body cost? Is letting die really all that different from killing?

What Physicists Don’t Want You to Know About Quantum Physics (Dr. Fatima). An incredible, must-watch introduction to quantum physics and feminism. Good for any viewer. 30 minutes.

physics crackpots: a ‘theory’ (Dr. Angela Collier). Physicists, to a degree greater than any other scientist, get emails from retired engineers (et cetera) who claim to have solved “the” issue (e.g., found the grand unified theory). Please watch this video. The history is intense (someone dies). 25 minutes.

harvard & aliens & crackpots: a disambiguation of Avi Loeb (Dr. Angela Collier). When a certain Harvard astrophysicist decided he was the smartest person on earth (refused to swallow his pride) and spoke over countless others about why aliens “must” exist.

The $21,000,000,000 hole in Texas (BobbyBroccoli). An absolutely incredible, visually stunning compilation of three hour-long videos concerning the Superconducting Super Collider (SSC). The SSC was slated to be “the” particle accelerator, providing the US with utmost authority on matters related to particle physics. BobbyBroccoli expertly goes through the history of why the project was scrapped. It is very, very political. Alternatively, watch each one-hour segment: (1) Ronald Reagan & the Biggest Failure in Physics; (2) George Bush vomited & set Physics back by a decade; (3) Bill Clinton & the Day Physics Died.

The man who faked human cloning and How to catch a criminal cloner (BobbyBroccoli). An expertly animated, two-part series on South Korean veterinarian Hwang Woo-suk and the South Korean government’s quest for a Nobel Prize. You will not believe what he made his grad students do (though, maybe you can guess). 60 minutes each.

Giant Viruses Blur The Line Between Alive and Not (PBS Eons). A massive virus (so, not living) that might have evolved from a living organization (not a virus). Are you uncomfortable yet…? 10 minutes.

the postdoc exodus (Dr. Angela Collier). People living in cars and getting married so that they can do research. Even after getting their PhDs. This system seems great…! 37 minutes.

Is Academia a Ponzi Scheme? (Worthless Professor). The structure of academia legitimately seems like hazing to me. 5 minutes.

your personal statement sucks (Dr. Angela Collier). If you’re applying to graduate school, the one thing you should know for certain is that your personal statement sucks. (32 minutes)

The Best Science Hoaxes, Spoofs, and Nerd Jokes (Sabine Hossenfelder). Including such hits as the dead salmon that neuroscientists said was dreaming; a jello that is alive per EEG; and a woman who reinvented integration (well, the trapezoid rule – worse still) and named it after herself in a peer-reviewed journal.

Professor Flowers. Amazing content on race and politics. A selected favorite: On Black Nationalism.

Philosophy Tube. One of the staple accounts providing accessible, well-done, entertaining leftist education. A selected favorite is Ancient Therapy for Modern Problems: Stoic Philosophy Explained.

ContraPoints. Another stable leftist education account. Incredible acting and theater similar to Philosophy Tube. Truly, I don’t know how they do it. A selected favorite is her commentary “Transtrenders”.

BobbyBroccoli. I think this is my single favorite YouTube channel. Absolutely stunning design. These videos are just sitting on YouTube but might as well be considered documentaries. Super interdisciplinary.

Dr. Fatima. She recently finished her PhD in astrophysics but has a greater passion for fixing inequity in STEM. Also very interdisciplinary.

acollierastro (Dr. Angela Collier). Incredible videos on physics and related culture.

Gell-Mann Amnesia and Michio Kaku (Dr. Angela Collier).

why does mainstream feminism support the prison system? (oliSUNvia).

Byung-Chul Han: Psychopolitics and The Burnout Society (Epoch Philosophy).

Jordan Peterson vs. Deleuze & Guattari: Lobster God (PlasticPills).

Introduction to Wittgenstein (His Later Philosophy) (Why Alexander Y).

Vaccines and Autism: A Measured Response (hbomberguy). I already knew a lot about the “vaccines cause autism” affair, but I still learned from this video. Incredible, must-watch.

Mackensive Fierceton: The Problem with Elite Colleges, The Victimhood Industrial Complex, & Privilege (Kidology).