Podcast appearances and mentions of Paula J Caplan

This week on MIA Radio, we chat with Paula J. Caplan. Paula is a clinical and research psychologist, author of books and plays, playwright, actor, director, and activist. She was born and raised in Springfield, Missouri, attended Greenwood Laboratory School, received her A.B. with honors from Radcliffe College of Harvard University, and received her M.A. and Ph.D. in psychology from Duke University. Currently, she is an Associate at the Du Bois Institute, Hutchins Center for African and African American Research, Harvard University. She has been a Fellow at the Women and Public Policy Program of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard; a Lecturer in Harvard's Program on Women, Gender, and Sexuality in the Psychology Department. She is former Full Professor of Applied Psychology and Head of the Centre for Women's Studies in Education at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, and former Lecturer in Women's Studies and Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Toronto. Paula is also a passionate and steadfast advocate for service members, veterans and their families. She has written: When Johnny and Jane Come Marching Home: How All of Us Can Help Veterans and has founded the Listen to a Veteran! Project. In this interview, we discuss Paula’s work to support service members, veterans and their families, and the role psychiatric drugs have played in harming these communities. We discuss: Paula’s experiences that drove her towards working in mental health and advocating for veterans, which came from her father’s service in World War II. This included combat in the Battle of the Bulge. After hearing her father’s story that had been recorded as part of a history project, she learned her father had been a forward observer, and as result learned he had been on the front lines of the war. This led to her realizing that most American’s don’t understand military service and the only way of doing this, is through hearing veterans’ stories. Prior to the invasion of Iraq, she became concerned about the care of service members of veterans and veterans upon their return from war, and more concerned of the “psychiatrization”, diagnosing and prescribing psychiatric drugs to veterans. To get started in her efforts, she began by listening to a veteran share his experiences with her. The veteran talked for three hours, and Paula just listened. The next day, he called her and thanked her for listening, as he got a good night sleep for the first time in years. This led to her starting Listen to a Veteran, which was originally called “When Johnny and Jane Come Marching Home”. As part of this initiative, a veteran of any era can meet with another person who has volunteered to listen to the veteran share any stories or experiences they’re interested in sharing. Paula has faced barriers in getting this program expanded to the VA or throughout the “mainstream” mental health community because the system has been created to function based upon current “evidenced-based” best practices. How Paula is positive that we are currently causing harm to veterans and that alternative approaches need to immediately be implemented throughout the Department of Defense and Department of Veterans Affairs. How “therapy” needs to be dropped from the terms “art therapy”, “music therapy” and the like, so we can stop pathologizing individual experiences, and instead support people in doing things that improve their overall well-being. Any veterans who want to be a listener as part of Paula’s Listen to a Veteran initiative, or would like to have someone listen to them, they can go to listentoaveterans.org.

Written by Harvard psychologist Dr. Paula J. Caplan, Shades looks at the dynamics and complexities of families who all carry war trauma – particularly how people who love each other keep their differences from tearing them apart. Shades opens in New York on November 17, with previews starting on November 9th, at the Studio at Cherry Lane Theater. We would love to invite you out to one of the earlier performances in the run should you be in NYC. And we wondered if you might be interested in interviewing Paula on 2 Boomer Babes Radio Hour. The moving and powerful story – which has been described as “Eugene O’Neill meets ‘All in the Family’” –revolves around four people in Springfield, USA. Val, a nurse whose husband has recently died, has come to visit her WWII veteran father, who is about to retire from work that has defined him, and her brother, who is plagued by a mysterious illness after fighting in Vietnam. While visiting, Val goes to work as a home nurse for a Black woman veteran, June, whose war experience left her paralyzed from the neck down. With an instinctively caring nature, Val desperately fights the reticence of her family to share their feelings and tries to help everyone else recover. However, Val herself is being torn apart by a dark secret about her late husband. With her relationship with her family and June developing, more and more secrets surfacing, and Don’s health getting dire, love and connection confronts the unprecedented challenges of trauma and truth. Paula began her work with veterans more than a dozen years ago and in that time, among other things, started the ‘Listen to a Veteran!’ project which pairs any veteran with a non-veteran who will solely listen in respectful, total, wholehearted silence. Dr. Caplan has come to the unavoidable conclusion that for both women and men, for people of color, and for veterans, the sad truth is that cycles of hurt never end until they are able to speak up. And connection and love can make that possible. You can click the link to a press release for more information: http://twoshepsthatpass.com/ShadesPressRelease.pdf

During this weeks radio show you will learn about female aggression towards other females, forced marriage, competition between co-wives, glass ceilings in the workplace, the wide reach of betrayal blindness, how women fail to recognize when they are being betrayed, speaking our truth

During this weeks radio show you will learn about female aggression towards other females, forced marriage, competition between co-wives, glass ceilings in the workplace, the wide reach of betrayal blindness, how women fail to recognize when they are being betrayed, speaking our truth

Rex Pratt has been involved in various film and video projects over the past decade. His interest in a project is always based upon the ability of the film to move and inspire the viewer. Between Iraq and A Hard Place is a project that became personal as it progressed. It began by documenting the difficulties of troops' transitioning back to normal life after combat. After almost 2 years of meeting with returning troops, Rex has developed a special attachment to the troops. He defines himself as "not easily converted to a new cause". However, the personal stories that he became involved in have stirred his filmmaking talents and inspired a film that will move you and touch your heart as you experience up close what is in the heart and minds of our young troops. He is currently working on his next project that also deals with war and assisting in the completion of the book Between Iraq and A Hard Place with his partner/brother, New York Times best-selling author, James Michael Pratt. Paula J. Caplan is a clinical and research psychologist. She received her A.B. with honors from Radcliffe College of Harvard University and her M.A. and Ph.D. in psychology from Duke University. She is currently Associate at the DuBois Institute, following two years as a Fellow in the Women and Public Policy Program of Harvard Kennedy School, both at Harvard University. She is the author of 11 books, co-editor of one book, and author of dozens of book chapters and articles in scholarly journals, as well as of numerous articles and essays in popular publications. Her most recent book, When Johnny and Jane Come Marching Home, won the Association of American Publishers' PROSE Award for best psychology book of 2011, Independent Publishers' Groundbreaking Book of the Month Award the month it was published, and Independent Publishers' Silver Medal in the psychology/mental health division for 2011.

Rex Pratt has been involved in various film and video projects over the past decade. His interest in a project is always based upon the ability of the film to move and inspire the viewer. Between Iraq and A Hard Place is a project that became personal as it progressed. It began by documenting the difficulties of troops' transitioning back to normal life after combat. After almost 2 years of meeting with returning troops, Rex has developed a special attachment to the troops. He defines himself as "not easily converted to a new cause". However, the personal stories that he became involved in have stirred his filmmaking talents and inspired a film that will move you and touch your heart as you experience up close what is in the heart and minds of our young troops. He is currently working on his next project that also deals with war and assisting in the completion of the book Between Iraq and A Hard Place with his partner/brother, New York Times best-selling author, James Michael Pratt. Paula J. Caplan is a clinical and research psychologist. She received her A.B. with honors from Radcliffe College of Harvard University and her M.A. and Ph.D. in psychology from Duke University. She is currently Associate at the DuBois Institute, following two years as a Fellow in the Women and Public Policy Program of Harvard Kennedy School, both at Harvard University. She is the author of 11 books, co-editor of one book, and author of dozens of book chapters and articles in scholarly journals, as well as of numerous articles and essays in popular publications. Her most recent book, When Johnny and Jane Come Marching Home, won the Association of American Publishers' PROSE Award for best psychology book of 2011, Independent Publishers' Groundbreaking Book of the Month Award the month it was published, and Independent Publishers' Silver Medal in the psychology/mental health division for 2011.