Podcast appearances and mentions of Susannah Cahalan

Best known as the wife and partner of Timothy Leary, Rosemary Woodruff was in fact a central figure in the psychedelic movement in her own right—a political radical, underground fugitive, and neglected architect of the counterculture. In this episode, Phil and JF speak with journalist and author Susannah Cahalan about Woodruff Leary's life and legacy. Cahalan's new book, The Acid Queen: The Psychedelic Life and Counterculture Rebellion of Rosemary Woodruff Leary, brings its subject into focus as a complex and courageous individual whose story has been overshadowed for too long. The conversation follows the threads of the biography while branching into the weirdness of biographical writing, the ongoing relevance of the 1960s counterculture, the troubling figure of Timothy Leary, and the enduring promise—and peril—of psychedelics. Susannah Cahalan is the New York Times bestselling author of Brain on Fire, a memoir about her experience with autoimmune encephalitis. Her second book, The Great Pretender, which investigated a seminal study in the history of mental health care and diagnosis, was shortlisted for the the Royal Society's 2020 Science Book Prize. She lives in New Jersey with her family. Photo from the Los Angeles Times Photographic Collection at UCLA, via Wikimedia Commons. REFERENCES Susannah Cahalan, The Acid Queen Weird Studies, Episode 189 with Jacob Foster Marion Woodman, Canadian feminist author Peter Braunstein and Michael William Doyle, Imagine Nation: The American Counterculture of the 1960s & '70s Fred Turner, From Counterculture to Cyberculture Eric Davis, TechGnosis Lutz Dammbeck, The Net: The Unabomber, LSD, and the Internet Robert Greenfield, Timothy Leary: A Biography Anthony Storr, Feet of Clay Blanche Hoschedé Monet, French painter Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Susannah Cahalan's new book about Rosemary Woodruff Leary is "The Acid Queen: The Psychedelic Life and Counterculture Rebellion of Rosemary Woodruff Leary." It is a portrait of Rosemary and her critical role to Timothy Leary's rise to high priest—and her trailblazing role for women in ‘60s American counterculture.

In this episode, meet comedian and podcast host Zarna Garg, journalist and public speaker Susannah Cahalan, and poet, performer, and educator Sarah Kay. Hear the hilarious Zarna Garg describe her experiences in the recording booth, Susannah Cahalan on what inspired her to write about the life of unsung counterculture icon Rosemary Woodruff Leary, and Sarah Kay on what she's most excited for listeners to hear. This American Woman by Zarna Garg https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/773166/this-american-woman-by-zarna-garg/9798217082490/ The Acid Queen by Susannah Cahalan https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/697209/the-acid-queen-by-susannah-cahalan/9798217013104/ A Little Daylight Left by Sarah Kay https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/762977/a-little-daylight-left-by-sarah-kay/9798217065417/

#1 New York Times bestselling author, Susannah Cahalan, spoke to me about her writing process, witch candles, and stepping into the shoes of psychedelic pioneer Rosemary Woodruff Leary in her new biography THE ACID QUEEN. Susannah Cahalan is a #1 New York Times bestselling author, journalist, and public speaker. Her first book, Brain on Fire, has sold over a million copies and has been translated into more than twenty languages. Her second book, The Great Pretender, was shortlisted for the Royal Society's 2020 Science Book Prize. Her latest biography The Acid Queen: The Psychedelic Life and Counterculture Rebellion of Rosemary Woodruff Leary, “...chronicles the life of Rosemary Woodruff Leary (1935–2002), a prominent figure in the 1960s psychedelic movement and Timothy Leary's wife from 1967 through 1976.”  Kirkus gave THE ACID QUEEN a glowing review, calling it a “well-wrought narrative that brings deserved attention to a lost figure in the counterculture,” and Publishers Weekly called it a “... stranger than fiction story [that offers] a vivid portrait of how flower power cracked up in the '70s.” Susannah Cahalan has been profiled in the New York Times, featured as an answer on Jeopardy!: delivered a TEDx Talk, and appeared as a guest on The Today Show, PBS, BBC's Inside Science, and Fresh Air, among many others. [Discover The Writer Files Extra: Get 'The Writer Files' Podcast Delivered Straight to Your Inbox at writerfiles.fm] [If you're a fan of The Writer Files, please click FOLLOW to automatically see new interviews. And drop us a rating or a review wherever you listen] In this file Susannah Cahalan and I discussed: The throughline that connects all of her books Synchronicities that led her to the life story of a psychedelic icon How she used the research process to fully immerse herself in Rosemary's persona What she's learned over the course of her writing career Why you need to find time for “deep work” to get the pages And a lot more! Show Notes: susannahcahalan.com The Acid Queen: The Psychedelic Life and Counterculture Rebellion of Rosemary Woodruff Leary By Susannah Cahalan (Amazon) Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World by Cal Newport (Amazon) The Modern Library Writer's Workshop: A Guide to the Craft of Fiction by Stephen Koch Susannah Cahalan on Facebook Susannah Cahalan on Instagram Kelton Reid on Twitter Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In Episode 189, author Karen Thompson Walker talks with Sarah about her career to date and her newest novel, The Strange Case of Jane O. Karen discusses her writing journey, including each book's inspiration and research process. She also touches on the challenges of promoting her latest book without giving away too much and her current work in progress. Plus, Karen shares her book recommendations. This post contains affiliate links through which I make a small commission when you make a purchase (at no cost to you!). CLICK HERE for the full episode Show Notes on the blog. Highlights Books by Karen Thompson Walker: The Age of Miracles (2012), The Dreamers (2019), and The Strange Case of Jane O. (2025) Karen talks about going from working as an editor to a being published author The genre Karen feels her books best fit in The real-life inspiration for The Age of Miracles  A peek into her research process and which book required the most work Karen's thoughts on writing about an epidemic (in The Dreamers) just before the real-life  COVID-19 pandemic A brief spoiler-free overview of The Strange Case of Jane O. and the inspiration behind it Some of Oliver Sacks' interesting case histories that inspired Karen The difficulty in trying to promote and talk about a book like The Strange Case of Jane O. without giving too much away How Karen sees the relationship between her three published books A bit about Karen's current work in progress Karen's Book Recommendations [36:20] Two OLD Books She Loves The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides (1993) | Amazon | Bookshop.org[37:22] The Buddha in the Attic by Julie Otsuka (2011) | Amazon | Bookshop.org  [39:26] Other Books Mentioned: The Swimmers by Julie Otsuka (2023) [40:51]   Two NEW Books She Loves The Antidote by Karen Russell (March 11, 2025) | Amazon | Bookshop.org[41:20] The Light Eaters by Zoë Schlanger (2024) | Amazon | Bookshop.org [42:39] One Book She DIDN'T Love My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante (2011) | Amazon | Bookshop.org [44:39] One NEW RELEASE She's Excited About Audition by Katie Kitamura (April 8, 2025) | Amazon | Bookshop.org [47:22] Other Books Mentioned:  The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden (2024) [49:20]  A Separation by Katie Kitamura (2017) [49:35]  Intimacies by Katie Kitamura (2021) [49:39]  Last 5-Star Book Karen Read Trust by Hernan Diaz (2022) | Amazon | Bookshop.org [50:14] Books From the Discussion Brain on Fire by Susannah Cahalan (2012) [22:54] Awakenings by Oliver Sacks (1973) [24:16]  

Susannah Cahalan, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Brain on Fire, joins the Lobotomommies today! She talks the doctor who saved her life, the importance of holistic mental health care, physiological causes of mental health conditions, and more. As the 217th person to be diagnosed with anti-NDMA receptor autoimmune encephalitis, naturally escaping the psych ward or death, Susannah has made it her mission to raise awareness about autoimmune encephalitis and how the body can attack the brain. You don't want to miss this! This podcast is made possible by NOCD. NOCD offers effective, affordable, and convenient OCD therapy. Schedule a free 15-minute call today at ⁠https://learn.nocd.com/alegrakastens⁠ Follow Alegra on ⁠Instagram⁠! Episodes edited by ⁠Donny Hadfield

Maddy, and her sister Ava, discuss the Netflix movie 'Brain on Fire' which is based on the real life story of NY Post journalist Susannah Cahalan. Buckle up for a wild ride where Maddy and Ava discuss the long road to diagnosis of autoimmune encephalitis!

Susannah Cahalan is the award-winning, New York Times bestselling author of Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness, a memoir about her struggle with a rare autoimmune disease of the brain. She writes for the New York Post. Her work has also been featured in the New York Times, Scientific American Magazine, Glamour, Psychology Today, and other publications. She lives in Brooklyn. Buy the book from RJ Julia: Brain on Fire - Susannah Cahalan Sign up for our podcast newsletter Just The Right Book Subscription Promo Code (15% off): Podcast Email us at: podcast@rjjulia.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Journalist Susannah Cahalan discusses her book "The Great Pretender," about a 1973 experiment, led by Stanford psychologist David Rosenhan, that was conducted to test the legitimacy of psychiatric hospitals in America. For the experiment, Prof. Rosenhan and seven other healthy individuals checked themselves into mental asylums claiming that they were experiencing hallucinations. Once inside, they acted normally and told doctors that the hallucinations had subsided, but they weren't allowed to leave until they admitted to having a mental illness and agreeing to take antipsychotic drugs to treat their conditions. Susannah Cahalan talks about the experiment and the impact that the resulting study – "On Being Sane in Insane Places" – had on the psychiatric profession. This program originally aired in November of 2019. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Journalist Susannah Cahalan discusses her book "The Great Pretender," about a 1973 experiment, led by Stanford psychologist David Rosenhan, that was conducted to test the legitimacy of psychiatric hospitals in America. For the experiment, Prof. Rosenhan and seven other healthy individuals checked themselves into mental asylums claiming that they were experiencing hallucinations. Once inside, they acted normally and told doctors that the hallucinations had subsided, but they weren't allowed to leave until they admitted to having a mental illness and agreeing to take antipsychotic drugs to treat their conditions. Susannah Cahalan talks about the experiment and the impact that the resulting study – "On Being Sane in Insane Places" – had on the psychiatric profession. This program originally aired in November of 2019. Make your donation at: c-span.org/donate Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Susannah Cahalan is a well-known author, journalist, and advocate for mental health awareness. Her book "Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness" chronicles her own experience with a rare autoimmune disease that attacked her brain and caused a range of symptoms including seizures, hallucinations, and memory loss. On this week's show we discuss:Susannah's personal journeyThe importance of mental health awareness and the need for strong advocacy Writing about personal experiences and how authoring her story aided in her recovery The future of mental health care, the importance of names and how proper care will save lives  Go check out all of our episodes on our website: https://womeninthearena.net/If you are ready to tell your story or want to refer someone, please email me at audra@womeninthearena.net ***Last thing- I'd love to interview the following women: Joan Jett Dolly Parton Viola Davis Ina Garten Maybe you can help me get there****Thank you all for supporting this show and all of the Women in the Arena!!

Lisa is joined by Susannah Cahalan, the author of the New York Times Best Seller, Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness.  It's been 10 years since the release of BRAIN ON FIRE…Susannah Cahalan's bestselling memoir about the medical mystery that changed lives forever.  When the book came out in 2013, Susannah was a guest on Lisa's NPR health radio show It's Your Health. There has bee a significant advancement in autoimmune encephalitis research, symptoms are better recognized leading to an earlier diagnosis and recovery. Writes Susannah, “I can say with certainty that my story has even saved lives. (Writing that sentence will never stop astounding me.) It's impossible to know how wide my story's reach has been, but I can say that hundreds of people have contacted me with stories of how my book helped them find a diagnosis.” After over a million copies...and a Netflix movie starring Chloë Grace Moretz…Susannah is available to talk about the major events in her life (married the boyfriend, has twins!)…and in medicine…since the book came out!BOOK DESCRIPTION: When twenty-four-year-old Susannah Cahalan woke up alone in a hospital room, strapped to her bed and unable to move or speak, she had no memory of how she'd gotten there. Days earlier, she had been on the threshold of a new, adult life: at the beginning of her first serious relationship and a promising career at a major New York newspaper. Now she was labeled violent, psychotic, a flight risk. What happened?In a swift and breathtaking narrative, Susannah tells the astonishing true story of her descent into madness, her family's inspiring faith in her, and the lifesaving diagnosis that nearly didn't happen. “A fascinating look at the disease that...could have cost this vibrant, vital young woman her life” (People), Brain on Fire is an unforgettable exploration of memory and identity, faith and love, and a profoundly compelling tale of survival and perseverance that is destined to become a classic.

This week Dr. Audrey Nath speaks with author, speaker, and podcaster Jackie Stebbins about her experience with autoimmune encephalitis. Jackie shares how the neurologic condition affected her and her family's life, her journey to recovery, and what she is doing to raise awareness about the diagnosis. Next, Dr. Daniel Correa talks with Dr. Gregory Day, a neurologist and specialist in cognitive neurology at Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Florida. Dr. Day shares information about the diagnosis, treatment, and possible causes of autoimmune encephalitis.  Additional Resources:  https://www.jmstebbins.com/  Unwillable written by Jackie Stebbins   Brain & Life Podcast: Susannah Cahalan on Anti-NMDA Encephalitis and Her Journey to Diagnosis  Brain on Fire written by Susannah Cahalan   Encephalitis Society  Autoimmune Encephalitis Alliance     We want to hear from you!  Have a question or want to hear a topic featured on the Brain & Life Podcast?  Record a voicemail at 612-928-6206, or email us at BLpodcast@brainandlife.org.  Social Media:    Guest: Jackie Stebbins @jmstebbs (Twitter); Dr. Gregory Day @GDay_Neuro (Twitter)  Hosts: Dr. Daniel Correa @neurodrcorrea; Dr. Audrey Nath @AudreyNathMDPhD 

Welcome to another inspiring episode of "In the Rising" podcast. In today's episode, we have Eric Daddario, a mentor, and coach who has dedicated his life to changing the lives of youth. Eric shares his personal tragedy and how it has fueled his passion for helping young people make better life decisions.By sharing his powerful story, Eric enlightens the youth he speaks to on how they can change their lives and impact others. He emphasizes the importance of making better life decisions now to lead a fulfilling life.If you're looking for inspiration and guidance on how to change your life or help others, this episode is a must-listen. You can also learn more about Eric and his work through his website.In addition, we recommend checking out episode 123 featuring Dr. Anna Lembke, a renowned author, and expert on addictive behavior. She shares valuable insights on how our brains change and create addictive behavior.Another great episode to check out is with Susannah Cahalan, who almost lost her life due to a misunderstood illness. Her story is a reminder to stay focused on finding the true cause of our behavior and actions.Tune in now to "In the Rising" and discover how you can change your life today.Dr. Anna Lembke on Dopamine and Our BehaviorAn Inspiring Story of Survival: Susannah Cahalan's Battle with Autoimmune Encephalitis  Cheryl Ilov: Barely Coping With Trauma and PTSD to Full-Fledged Ninja Warrior I invite you to listen to In the Rising Podcast- a show dedicated to helping others create change and a life that they really want. "Living the life I want" was a phrase that I heard often while working with clients going through cancer, and so I created this podcast. I also saw that there is a gap in knowledge about cancer, lymphedema and how to manage recovery, so I created Fit after Breast Cancer.Thank you for your time and interest in this podcast! I invite you to leave a heartfelt review on whichever podcast platform you listen to. It does so much to bring exposure to the podcast and helps lift others up! Connect with me! Website: In the Rising Podcast Website Email: Bettina@intherising.com In the Rising Pinterest: In the Rising Facebook Many of my guests have come through Podmatch. If you are interested in joining this, or feel that you have a story should be on a podcast, check this out. * This is an affiliate link *

Best-selling author Susannah Cahalan joins host Dr Ava Easton for a special World Encephalitis Day edition of The Encephalitis Podcast. Ten years ago, Susannah published Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness, the award-winning memoir and New York Times bestseller, which quickly become a Bible for members of the encephalitis community and many more people around the world. Brain on Fire follows Susannah's struggle with encephalitis and, in particular, her diagnosis and recovery. It was later developed into a Hollywood film by Charlize Theron and starred Chloe Grace Moretz. Susannah chats to Ava about the 10th anniversary, why the book resonated with so many people, its legacy, how she reacted when Hollywood came calling, and the impact it has had on the encephalitis community. The 10th anniversary edition of Brain on Fire is available from all good booksellers, including UK readers (Kindle and Paperback) https://www.amazon.co.uk/Brain-Fire-My-Month-Madness/dp/1451621388 USA - https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Brain-on-Fire-(10th-Anniversary-Edition)/Susannah-Cahalan/9781451621389 For more information about World Encephalitis Day on Wednesday, 22nd February, please visit www.worldencephalitisday.org If you have been affected by encephalitis and are in need of some support, please visit https://www.encephalitis.info/support If you have been affected by encephalitis and would like to become a member of the society, you can sign up here (membership is free and global): https://www.encephalitis.info/Pages/Category/membership If you would like to donate to help fund research, information and support for those affected by encephalitis, please follow this link: https://www.encephalitis.info/donate/ Follow the Encephalitis Society: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/EncephalitisSociety/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/encephalitis Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/the_encephalitis_society_/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-encephalitis-society  

Thank you for being part of the conversation. This is Play It Forward. Real people. Real stories. The struggle to Play It Forward Episode 555 With Susannah Cahalan Author Of Brain On Fire An award-winning memoir and instant New York Times bestseller that goes far beyond its riveting medical mystery, BRAIN ON FIRE: is the powerful account of one woman's struggle to recapture her identity. One day in 2009, Susannah Cahalan woke up alone in a strange hospital room, strapped to her bed, under guard, and unable to move or speak. A wristband marked her as a “flight risk,” and her medical records—chronicling a month-long hospital stay of which she had no memory—showed hallucinations, violence, and dangerous instability. Yet only weeks earlier, she had been a healthy, ambitious twenty-four-year-old, six months into her first serious relationship and a promising career as a cub reporter at a major New York newspaper. BRAIN ON FIRE is Susannah Cahalan's astonishing true story of her inexplicable descent into lunacy and the brilliant, lifesaving diagnosis that nearly didn't happen.

Susannah Cahalanhttps://www.susannahcahalan.com/There has been a significant advancement in autoimmune encephalitis research, symptoms are better recognized leading to an earlier diagnosis and recovery.The 10th Anniversary Edition of the Award-Winning MemoirWith a New Chapter by the Author Updating Her StoryBRAIN ON FIRE:My Month of MadnessBy Susannah Cahalanoriginally aired 04.06.2022Steven Josepheveryone's favorite crankiness expert is back with a new book for kids and adults to help them laugh a little while embracing crankiness. He is the author of the new book, Snoodles, Kidoodles, Poodles and Lots and Lots of Noodles. https://www.stevenjosephauthor.com/Sean Ibanibohttps://afrosoundzradio.com/

 In 2009, Susannah Cahalan was only the 217th person diagnosed with autoimmune encephalitis.  Susannah went through an long month of numbness, seizures, headaches and into the depth of madness.   Through her story, she highlights the wisdom and focus of Dr. Souhel Najjar,  who identified the condition she had.Susannah was able to overcome her rare condition and write the book, Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness. Her story is an inspiration to all who face difficult challenges in their lives.  I invite you to listen! Thank you for your time and interest in this podcast! I invite you to leave a heartfelt review on whichever podcast platform you listen to. It does so much to bring exposure to the podcast and helps lift others up! Connect with me! Website: In the Rising Podcast Website Email: Bettina@intherising.com Pinterest: Facebook

It's been ten years since the release of Brain OnFire. Susannah's best selling memoir about the medical mystery that's changed lives forever...

It's been ten years since the release of Brain OnFire. Susannah's best selling memoir about the medical mystery that's changed lives forever...

It's been ten years since the release of Brain OnFire. Susannah's best selling memoir about the medical mystery that's changed lives forever...

12-19-2022 Susannah Cahalan Learn more about the interview and get additional links here: https://thedailyblaze.com/reissuing-of-bestseller-bring-important-updates-to-serious-condition/ Subscribe to the best of our content here: https://priceofbusiness.substack.com/ Subscribe to our YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCywgbHv7dpiBG2Qswr_ceEQ

This book reignited an interest in neurology and also really made me interested in what “yourself” really is and what truly encompasses it. So listen to me talk about my thoughts on what our blind spots are to ourselves, and how grateful I am to have control over myself where Ms Cahalan didn't. Goodreads Summary: An award-winning memoir and instant New York Times bestseller that goes far beyond its riveting medical mystery, Brain on Fire is the powerful account of one woman's struggle to recapture her identity. When twenty-four-year-old Susannah Cahalan woke up alone in a hospital room, strapped to her bed and unable to move or speak, she had no memory of how she'd gotten there. Days earlier, she had been on the threshold of a new, adult life: at the beginning of her first serious relationship and a promising career at a major New York newspaper. Now she was labeled violent, psychotic, a flight risk. What happened? In a swift and breathtaking narrative, Cahalan tells the astonishing true story of her descent into madness, her family's inspiring faith in her, and the lifesaving diagnosis that nearly didn't happen.

In this episode, Clerika discuss Susannah Cahalan's The Great Pretender: The Undercover Mission That Changed Our Understanding of Madness. The book covers the famous Rosenhan experiment, which took place in the late sixties and early seventies and involved regular people faking their way into insane asylums. The experiment helped justify the closing of the asylums and the revamping of the DSM, so it was kind of a big deal. But wait--there's a shocking twist! Which we will annoyingly NOT reveal in the show notes! Links: https://www.tumblr.com/blog/pleasestayontopic https://clarehwang.substack.com/archive Got something to say to us? Email us at pleasestayontopicpod@gmail.com

Annie and Tessa talk with Susannah Cahalan, author of Brain on Fire and The Great Pretender. She is maybe the coolest person we've ever met, and we hope you love the conversation. Susannah's books:  Brain on Fire The Great Pretender Also discussed:Deep Work by Cal NewportSupport the show

In this episode, Dr. Nath is joined by journalist and New York Times bestselling author, Susannah Cahalan. Susannah recounts her journey as one of the earliest individuals to be diagnosed with anti-NMDA encephalitis and speaks about the writing of her memoir Brain on Fire. Dr. Nath is then joined by Dr. Josep Dalmau, professor at the Catalan Institute for Research and Advanced Studies at the University of Barcelona and adjunct professor of neurology at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Dalmau shares how he and his colleagues discovered anti-NMDA encephalitis and the future of treatment options for patients. Additional Resources: https://www.susannahcahalan.com/ https://www.aan.com/research/patient-service-award-recipients Social Media: Guest: Susannah Cahalan @suscahalan Hosts: Dr. Daniel Correa @neurodrcorrea; Dr. Audrey Nath @AudreyNathMDPhD

Mais um episódio do novo segmento do podcast Livros para Pessoas Normais: A Joana lê. Aqui estão os 3 livros mencionados: As Raparigas, de Emma Cline https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/32937073-as-raparigas Um terrível verdor, do Benjamin Labatut https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/51053737-um-terr-vel-verdor Insana: meu mês de loucura, da Susannah Cahalan https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/24828991-insana

On March 1, 2022, Jackie interviewed "Brain on Fire's" Susannah Cahalan for a Humanities North Dakota event, "One Book, One ND." Jackie and Susannah had a riveting conversation about autoimmune encephalitis, life, motherhood, mental health, writing, and more. Humanities North Dakota graciously permitted Jackie to share this interview (complete with an introduction from Jackie's neurologist at the Mayo Clinic) on Brain Fever!If you want to become a Humanities North Dakota member, click here to donate and join. You can then watch the recording of the interview.Thank you to Susannah and to Humanities ND for such a wonderful event!

Susannah Cahalan a NY based journalist was a normal 24-year-old woman just living her best life, when she started to exhibit some strange symptoms. She described life as feeling strange, brighter, louder, and more painful! Her health declined rapidly into paranoia, strange behavioural outbursts, seizures, and ultimately a catatonic state. Despite all the doctor's best efforts, they could not find a cause for her condition, until one bright doctor asked her to draw a clock! FB/IG @robotsforeyespodcast podbelly.com retrovague.com suikerapparel.com robotsforeyespodcast.com

Susannah Cahalan is an American journalist and author. She's best known for her memoir Brain on Fire which chronicles Cahalan's struggle with a rare auto-immune disease called Encephalitis. We talk through her diagnosis journey and the disparities between mental and physical healthcare.

It's October, and you know what that means: the spooky season is upon us! To celebrate, Rachel and Leah spoke with several library staff members about their worst fears & phobias. This episode is a digest of all that dark matter, so listen at your own risk! Check out what we talked about: Books mentioned: "The Butterfly Garden" by Dot Hutchison. "On Death and Dying" by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross and "The Bright Hour: A Memoir of Living and Dying" by Nina Riggs. "Prey" by Linda Howard and "Hatchet" by Gary Paulsen. "The Great Pretender: The Undercover Mission That Changed Our Understanding of Madness" by Susannah Cahalan and "Archival Quality" by Ivy Noelle Weir. Movies and TV shows mentioned: The Wicker Man (2006), Director Neil LaBute My Girl (1991), Director Howard Zieff The Walking Dead, AMC Networks The Body Snatcher (1945), Director Robert Wise Over the Garden Wall, Cartoon Network To access complete transcripts for all episodes of Not Your Mother's Library, please visit: oakcreeklibrary.org/podcast Check out books, movies, and other materials through the Milwaukee County Federated Library System: countycat.mcfls.org hoopladigital.com wplc.overdrive.com oakcreeklibrary.org

John interviews Susannah Cahalan, author of the bestselling memoir “Brain on Fire.” In 2009, Susannah's reporting career at the New York Post was derailed by a frightening set of symptoms. She grew paranoid, lost touch with reality, and alienated those around her with aggressive, seemingly inexplicable behavior. This culminated in multiple seizures, a hospital stay, and a diagnosis of anti-NMDA-receptor autoimmune encephalitis — Susannah's body was essentially attacking her own brain. While recovering, she reported on her own case, piecing together the details of a monthlong episode she only partially remembered, and turned it into the subject of her first book. John and Susannah talk about their common experience with different forms of autoimmune encephalitis; her second book, “The Great Pretender,” an investigation into a landmark study in psychiatry; and her next project, a history about women and psychedelics. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Dr. Pejman Katiraei is a board certified pediatrician who is also board and fellowship trained in integrative and holistic medicine. He completed his undergraduate at UCLA and then obtained his osteopathic medical degree at Western University of Health Sciences. He then went on to complete a pediatric residency at Loma Linda University, where he stayed on as teaching faculty for over 4 years. Dr. Katiraei has also completed two fellowships in integrative medicine, one with the University of Arizona and another under Dr. Kamyar Hedayat in a French model of integrative medicine called Endobiogeny. Dr. Katiraei is now in private practice in Santa Monica, where he focuses on helping children with severe behavioral challenges.  On today's podcast Nicolette talks to Dr. K. about his Holistic Minds digital portal that he is working on to better help kids with their stresses and anxieties. Computers will ask the questions so the doctors can have more time and focus on the physical side. They discuss how kids are born into environmental stressors and how kids are being raised into digital technology which causes cumulative stress responses like aggression, anxiety and depress. Dr. K. deals with what he calls 'Train wreck kids' – children who don't have the ability to regulate themselves and he offers solutions to help transform these children into healthy and thriving children. Find Dr K at: Website: www.wholistickids.com Facebook: @wholistickidsandfamilies Instagram: @wholistickids Discussed on the PODCAST: ‘Simplicity Parenting' Kim John Payne - https://www.amazon.ca/Simplicity-Parenting-Extraordinary-Calmer-Happier/dp/0345507983/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr= PANDA or PANDS - https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/publications/pandas/ ‘Brain on Fire' Susannah Cahalan – https://www.amazon.ca/Brain-Fire-My-Month-Madness/dp/1451621388/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1627924598&sr=1-1 Inlight Films – www.inlightfilms.ca If you are currently battling a Chronic Degenerative Disease, Nicolette is doing one on one consultations again. Go to www.nicolettericher.com to set up an appointment today! Our 22M Bike tour is still happening once the world returns to its new normal. Find out more about and support our 22 Million Campaign here - http://www.richerhealth.ca/ Want to improve your health… Click here to access our FREE resources so you can live your best life! https://nicolettericher.com/free-stuff Find out ways you can work with Nicolette to improve your health here: https://nicolettericher.com/work-with-me Join Nicolette at one of her retreats https://richerhealthretreatcentre.com/ Find out more about our non-profit society Sea to Sky Thrivers - https://seatoskythrivers.com/ Want to know more about Nicolette's Green Moustache Café's https://www.greenmoustache.com/ Sign up for the Eat Real to Heal Online Course - https://nicolettericher.com/eat-real-to-heal Buy the Eat Real to Heal Book here: https://www.amazon.ca/Eat-Real-Heal-Medicine-Arthritis/dp/163353782X/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1567629190&sr=8-1

When he was working as a manager at Imo's Pizza, Michael Devlin put up a pretty good front. He was personable. Well read. Friendly. But back at his apartment, Michael was a different man. He was rude and quiet. His son, Shawn, appeared to have adopted Michael's habits. Neighbors said they never saw Shawn smile. But what they didn't know was that Shawn wasn't really Michael's son. His name wasn't even Shawn Devlin. It was Shawn Hornbeck. But the truth wouldn't come out until much later, when another boy, Ben Ownby, went missing.  Then Brandi tells us about a kidnapping that shook Long Island, New York. It was July 4, 1956. Betty Weinberger's one-month-old infant, Peter, fell asleep in his carriage on the patio. As the little boy slept, Betty went inside the house. When she came back out a few minutes later, her baby boy was gone. Betty's husband later found a ransom note at the scene. In it, the kidnapper demanded $2,000 in exchange for the baby. The kidnapper warned the Weinbergers not to involve the police, but the couple felt they had no choice.  And now for a note about our process. For each episode, Kristin reads a bunch of articles, then spits them back out in her very limited vocabulary. Brandi copies and pastes from the best sources on the web. And sometimes Wikipedia. (No shade, Wikipedia. We love you.) We owe a huge debt of gratitude to the real experts who covered these cases. In this episode, Kristin pulled from: “Monster next door?” by Malcolm Gay for the Riverfront Times “One search, two boys found: The Missouri miracle 14 years ago,” by Tim O'Neil for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch “Michael Devlin stabbed in prison with ‘ice pick,'” by Todd Frankel for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch “I am still too scared to tell my mom and dad, ‘kidnap' creep admits,” by Susannah Cahalan for the New York Post “Shawn Hornbeck,” Crime Museum “MIchael J. Devlin,” entry on Wikipedia In this episode, Brandi pulled from: “Held for Ransom” by Michael Dorman “Mark of a Murderer” by Mike McAlary, Esquire “JUSTICE STORY: Tragic kidnapping of Long Island infant shattered two young families” by Robert Dominguez, New York Daily News “Weinberger Kidnapping” FBI.gov “Vincent LaMarca” wikipedia.org   YOU'RE STILL READING? My, my, my, you skeezy scunch! You must be hungry for more! We'd offer you some sausage brunch, but that gets messy. So how about you head over to our Patreon instead? (patreon.com/lgtcpodcast). At the $5 level, you'll get 19+ full length bonus episodes, plus access to our 90's style chat room!  

Dr. Doug Pucci graduated from New York Chiropractic College, Long Island, NY, in 1987. His inspiration to be hands-on with patients and chart his own course as a clinician led him to open in private practice in 1990, in Oradell, NJ, where he still devotes himself to caring for patients using holistic, drug-free treatments. In his thirty years, he has become acutely aware of the limitations our current medical system has in treating chronic diseases using “conventional” methodology. In response to this, Dr. Doug Pucci began studying functional disciplines of medicine and neuro-endocrine-immunology together with testing technologies and nutraceutical supplements that are known to reverse disease. The root of his treatment philosophy is about asking relevant questions and discovering why systems are imbalanced. In addition to clinical observation and proper testing, Dr. Pucci also strives to educate patients by spending sufficient time with them explaining the results of their tests, while also supporting them in a broader lifestyle context. On today’s podcast Nicolette and Dr. Pucci discuss Covid, the health care system, chronic diseases, testing, sleep and more. Dr. Pucci is skilled at making the science relevant and relatable when he describes the nature of disease and the ways to reverse disease. When he works with his patients, he takes into consideration the entire body: the brain, central nervous system, spine, organs and glands, immune and endocrine systems and the nutritional chemistry for total healing. You’ll also better understand the role of inflammation in the body, the connection between the gut and the brain, and how 80% of your immune system is actually in your gut ultimately driving your immune system. Dr. Pucci also has a mini course that will take you deeper into the science of healing so that you, too, can achieve optimal health. Find Doug Pucci at: Website: www.drdougpucci.com Minicourse: www.getwell-now.com/minicourse Facebook, Twitter & Instagram: @drdougpucci Discussed on the PODCAST: Book - The Brain that Changes Itself, Norman Doidge, MD - https://www.amazon.ca/Brain-That-Changes-Itself-Frontiers/dp/0143113100 Book - Brain on Fire, Susannah Cahalan - https://www.amazon.ca/Brain-Fire-My-Month-Madness/dp/1451621388/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1615230946&sr=1-1 PANDAS & PANS - https://www.anxietycanada.com/disorders/introduction-on-pandas-and-pans/ Alzheimer’s link Panel – Cyrex Laboratories - https://www.joincyrex.com/the-cyrex-system/alzheimers-linx If you are currently battling a Chronic Degenerative Disease, Nicolette is doing one on one consultations again. Go to www.nicolettericher.com to set up an appointment today! Our 22M Bike tour is still happening once the world returns to its new normal. Find out more about and support our 22 Million Campaign here - http://www.richerhealth.ca/ Want to improve your health… Click here to access our FREE resources so you can live your best life! https://nicolettericher.com/free-stuff Find out ways you can work with Nicolette to improve your health here: https://nicolettericher.com/work-with-me Join Nicolette at one of her retreats https://richerhealthretreatcentre.com/ Find out more about our non-profit society Sea to Sky Thrivers - https://seatoskythrivers.com/ Want to know more about Nicolette’s Green Moustache Café’s https://www.greenmoustache.com/ Sign up for the Eat Real to Heal Online Course - https://nicolettericher.com/eat-real-to-heal Buy the Eat Real to Heal Book here: https://www.amazon.ca/Eat-Real-Heal-Medicine-Arthritis/dp/163353782X/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1567629190&sr=8-1

Recording of Off the Shelf Radio Show from WDLR with co-hosts George Needham and Nicole Fowles.  This week, we talked to author Kate Quinn about her new book The Rose Code. Don't miss our Friends of the Library virtual author visit with Kate and Martah Hall Kelly on Thursday, April 29th at 7:00 pm. Head over to our events calendar to register for this event here! Other books reccommended include Brain on Fire by Susannah Cahalan. Read more about the episode here.  Listen live every Friday morning at 9am https://wdlrradio.com/program-schedule/off-the-shelf/  This episode originally aired on April 16, 2021.

Summary:   "Not a real Grandma." This week we all feel a little emotional after watching Minari. Also discussed: Lucky Grandma, our best bathing practices, and the graphic novel Stone Fruit.     Show notes:   “Minari” Star Alan Kim Gave a Sweet, Emotional Critics Choice Award Speech (Teen Vogue)   The Specificity of ‘Minari’ (The Ringer)   Make the Case: The Restraint of Steven Yeun in ‘Minari’ (The Ringer)   Recommendations: Andrea W.:  Stone Fruit by Lee Lai (graphic novel) Andrea G.:  Lucky Grandma (Crave) Lisa: Brain on Fire by Susannah Cahalan (book)   Music credits: "Good Times" by Podington Bear From Free Music Archive  CC BY 3.0   Theme song "Pyro Flow" by Kevin Macleod From Incompetch CC BY 3.0 Intro bed: "OLPC" by Marco Raaphorst Courtesy of Free Music Archive CC BY-SA 3.0 NL   Pop This! Links: Pop This! on TumblrPop This! on iTunes (please consider reviewing and rating us!) Pop This! on Stitcher (please consider reviewing and rating us!) Pop This! on Google PlayPop This! on TuneIn radioPop This! on TwitterPop This! on Instagram Logo design by Samantha Smith Pop This! is two women talking about pop culture. Lisa Christiansen is a broadcaster, journalist and longtime metal head. Andrea Warner is a music critic, author and former horoscopes columnist. Press play and come hang out with your two new best friends. Pop This! podcast is produced by Andrea Gin.  

Hosť podcastu: BRANISLAV HROZIENČIK, literárna agentúra Insiders Zhovárame sa o novej úžasnej encyklopédii Knihy, ktoré ovplyvnili dejiny. Čím je originálna? Čo v nej nájdete a prečo by nemala chýbať vo vašej domácej knižnici? Venujeme sa niektorým konkrétnym knihám, dizajnu, grafickej stránke knihy. Hovoríme aj o nadnárodnom vydavateľstve tých najlepších encyklopédií Dorling Kindersley. Ako funguje spolupráca vydavateľstiev a literárnej agentúry Insiders, ktorá ich zastupuje v 29 krajinách? Čo znamená pojem category killer? Ktoré témy a oblasti v encyklopédiách letia u nás najviac? Ďalšie tipy na knižné novinky: Parížska knižnica - predstaví autorka Janet Skeslien Charles + úryvok číta Lucia Hurajová detektívka Čierne leto - viac povie autor M.W.Craven + úryvok číta Matej Landl krimi Vražda na ostrove Camino - hovorí John Grisham + úryvok číta Vlado Kobielsky detektívka Agathy Christie Vraždiť je hračka psychologický príbeh Majster pretvárky - viac povie autorka Susannah Cahalan a šéfredaktorka Danka Jacečková dojímavý príbeh Dom z iného sveta predstaví autorka Malgorzata Strekowska-Zaremba a prekladateľka Silvia Kaščáková Fyzioterapeut a bežec Chris Napier z Kanady predstaví svoju knihu Beh nová detská séria Zvierací agenti - Už letíme, zvieratká 3.diel série Holubí agenti - priblíži prekladateľ Peter Slížik  

Susannah Cahalan är ung, framgångsrik och lever sitt drömliv i New York, men sakta men säkert börjar hennes tillvaro långsamt förändras och tillslut tappar hon helt kontrollen över sin värld. Brandon Soules är en helt vanlig kille som jobbar på en bilverkstad, men hans pappas gömda skatt i öknen gör honom till ett hett byte. Se bilder från fallen på vår Instagram Gilla oss på Facebook See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Wherein Beth and Matt discuss why we watch horror, choke holds, psychic driving experiments and the CIA, St. Sebastian, and asking why Netflix or someone won't just pick up season 4 already.  Some things we cover: Saint Sebastian: History's first gay icon? by Kittredge Cherry The Manchurian Candidate 25 Years of Nightmares (David Remnick on psychic driving) The Birth of Soft Torture (Rebecca Lemov on psychic driving) Errol Morris' Wormwood on Netflix The Great Pretender by Susannah Cahalan

Susannah Cahalan tells the astonishing true story of her descent into madness, her family’s inspiring faith in her, and the lifesaving diagnosis that nearly didn’t happen. Her New York Times bestselling book “Brain on Fire” was adapted for a movie starring Chloe Grace Moretz as her. It’s an unforgettable exploration of memory and identity, faith and love, and a profoundly compelling tale of survival and perseverance.    She was a healthy young person working at her dream job, The New York Post when she began having grand mal seizures and babbling. Her increasing paranoia and seizures were misdiagnosed by a neurologist as partying too hard combined with stress. Eventually, she’d become catatonic, trapped in her body unable to speak, write, or get thoughts out.    Susannah was diagnosed with a schizoaffective disorder with video of her in the hospital heartbreakingly capturing her real panic as she hallucinates she’s on the news while using the remote to try to call for help. After many misdiagnoses and on the verge of being “locked up” in a psych ward, a miracle doctor, Dr. Najjar comes along and asks her to draw a clock. The lopsided image opened up clues leading to a brain biopsy and spinal tap, she’s diagnosed with autoimmune encephalitis, a medical explanation pretending to be psychiatric.    Her personal experience leads her deeper into the study of other “Great Pretenders,” the same name as her second New York Times best-selling book. She’d blow the lid on a groundbreaking 1973 study called “On Being Sane in Insane Places” that rocked the psychiatric world and still does. Susannah lives in Brooklyn with her husband and twin toddlers.   SHOW NOTE LINKS:   Susannah Cahalan Website   Video of Susannah When Her Brain is On Fire   Rachel's List- Fourteen Incredible Memoirs about Mental Illness and Addiction   Rachel's List- Four MORE Insightful Memoirs and Non-Fiction Books about Mental Illness and Addiction   The Angel and the Assassin by Donna Jackson Nakazawa   Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chobsky   I’m Telling the Truth, but I’m Lying: Essays by Bassey Ikpi   My Age of Anxiety by Scott Stossel   CONNECT WITH US! *Dear Family, Podcast Page *Write Now Rachel Website *Rachel's Blog @Medium *Rachel’s Twitter *Facebook *Instagram   PLEASE JOIN: *Dear Family Members, the Private Facebook Group     WAYS TO HELP THE PODCAST: *PLEASE Leave a 5-Star Review and Subscribe! Thank you! Your support means the world to me. Wishing you love, happiness, and good mental health always.  

Hey guys, it's Christmas 2020! Erika is a practicing Christian, and Clare is an atheist who really enjoys presents, so we're audi today. However, we do have a minisode to tide you over until next week! When we were recording episode one, about Susannah Cahalan's "The Great Pretender," we ended up having to cut a section for time. Now, here it is! You should definitely listen to episode 1 before diving into this week's ep, but otherwise it should be fairly self-explanatory. Happy Holidays! See you next week! Got Something to Say to Us? rudehistorypodcast@gmail.com Social Media! @rudehistory on twitter, instagram, and facebook rudehistoryeducation on tumblr

What to Read Wednesdays comes at you every other Wednesday and is your one stop for reading, watching and listening recommendations from your favorite library staff members!  This week's episode features recommendations from podcast host Annie, Mark at Powell, Jenny from Outreach, & Kristen from Orange! Books recommended include Brain on Fire by Susannah Cahalan, The Benedict Option: A Strategy for Christians in a Post-Christian Nation by Rod Dreher and The Electric Hotel by Dominic Smith.  Read more recommendations here: https://libraryaware.com/279157  Email us with book recommendations, suggestions, & feedback at whattoread@delawarelibrary.org

Today Robin is joined by author and journalist Susannah Cahalan. Her first book, Brain on Fire, was a smash hit memoir about contracting a rare auto-immune disease, anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis that was turned into a film of the same name with Chloë Grace Moretz playing the role of Susannah. Her new book is The Great Pretender in which she investigates the work of prominent psychologist David Rosenhan and how is famed experiments may not hold up to scrutiny. Note: This was recorded on the same day as last week's episode when Josie was indisposed. To hear an extended edition of this episode subscribe to Patreon on patreon.com/bookshambles

Trigger Warning: Mentions of suicide, graphic self-harm, and general discussion of mental illness. And we are BACK! We're going to a new season system so that Clare actually has time to research, and we're starting off with a Social Justice Book Club entry. This week, we cover Susannah Cahalan's The Great Pretender. Cahalan's book begins as an investigation into the Rosenhan experiment, in which a handful of people faked their way into mental institutions back in the late 1960s/early 1970s. From there, the book spirals out into a broader discussion of the history and present state of mental health care in the United States. Spoiler: It's real bad, folks. Got Something to Say to Us? rudehistorypodcast@gmail.com Social Media! @rudehistory on twitter, instagram, and facebook rudehistoryeducation on tumblr

If you contracted COVID will you then be protected from further infections and illness from SARS-CoV-2 in the future? We’re starting to hear about cases of people being infected by the novel coronavirus for a second time. A handful of these cases have been published in peer reviewed journals. Nottingham University’s Professor of Virology Jonathan Ball discusses how big the problem of reinfection might be. Is it likely to be a common event which could hamper efforts to bring the pandemic under control? In the latest in our series interviewing the shortlisted authors from this year’s Royal Society Insight Investment Science Book Prize, Susannah Cahalan talks to Adam Rutherford about her investigative journalism into the scientific mystery that is mental illness. Her book ‘The Great Pretender - The Undercover Mission that Changed our Understanding of Madness’ focuses on a fundamental experiment carried out in the 1970s by renowned Stanford University Professor of Psychology David Rosenhan. His famous study was published in Science under the title ‘Being Sane in Insane Places’ and describes using ‘pseudo-patients’ to test whether they would be spotted presenting at psychiatric institutions in the US. They weren’t! His findings proceeded to shape modern psychology and psychiatry. It has been a study that Susannah, has come to find rather mysterious, with elaborate descriptions that don’t always seem to add up. Mental illness and applied neuroscience remain tricky disciplines to navigate, but Susannah has had personal experience with her own misdiagnosis of schizophrenia when she has an autoimmune brain disease. COVID does funny things to your sense of smell: Adam got a heightened sense of smell, producer Fi totally lost her sense of smell, and Inside Science reporter, Geoff Marsh – well… his sense of smell just got weird. To find out why, Geoff called in Professors Mathew Cobb, an expert on smell at the University of Manchester, and Tim Spector from Kings College London whose symptom tracker app was instrumental in getting changes to sense of smell on the symptom list for COVID. Presenter – Adam Rutherford Producers– Fiona Roberts and Andrew Luck-Baker Produced in collaboration with the Open University

The Royal Society’s Insight Investment Science Book Prize’s shortlist has just been announced. Over the next few weeks, Marnie and Adam will be chatting to the six authors in line for the prestigious prize. They’ll be getting a guided tour of ‘The Body – a Guide for Occupants’ with Bill Bryson; Discussing ‘Life According to Physics’ with Jim Al Khalili; Explaining Humans: Discovering ‘What Science Can Teach Us about Life, Love and Relationships’ with Camilla Pang; Linda Scott will be exploring ‘The Epic Potential of Empowering Women’ in her book ‘The Double X Economy’ and Susannah Cahalan will grapple with the definition of mental illness and what counts as insanity in ‘The Great Pretender: The Undercover Mission That Changed Our Understanding of Madness’. This week Gaia Vince discusses her shortlisted book Transcendence - How Humans Evolved through Fire, Language, Beauty, and Time. Last week the non-COVID news was all about how we’d failed yet again to halt the rate of biodiversity loss. The 2020 Living Planet Report showed that across the globe, the populations of mammals, birds, fish, amphibians and reptiles have declined on average by 68% since 1970. These declines, and the less well-documented loss of abundance of many plants and invertebrates, mean that our ecosystems are less diverse, less resilient and less able to provide the ecosystem services that we rely upon. Add to this that The Convention on Biological Diversity’s Fifth Global Biodiversity Outlook reports that we have failed to meet in full any of the 20 ‘Aichi Targets’ adopted by the world’s governments a decade ago. We haven’t reduced the loss of biodiversity, addressed the pressures, adequately tackled the underlying drivers or effectively facilitated the enabling conditions. We are not currently on track to meet the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD)’s Vision of a world living in harmony with nature by 2050. If all this is making you feel depressed and despondent, be reassured that it's is not all doom and gloom, as there are still plenty of reasons for hope and optimism, according to Dr. Stuart Butchart, chief scientist at Birdlife International. The Science Museum group look after over 7.3 million items. As with most museums, the collection you see on display when you visit is only the tip of the iceberg of the entire collection. Up until now, many of the remainder (300,000 objects) has been stored in Blythe House in London. But now the collection is being moved to a purpose-built warehouse in Wiltshire. The move is a perfect opportunity for curators to see what’s there, re-catalogue long hidden gems and to conserve and care for their treasures. But during the process they have discovered a number of unidentified items that have been mislabelled or not catalogued properly in the past and some of them are just so mysterious, or esoteric, that the Science Museum needs the aid of the public to help identify them, and their uses. This week, Jessica Bradford, the keeper of collection engagement at the Science Museum is asking Inside Science listeners if they recognise, or can shed light on the possible use of the brass object with a folding fan at the end’ in the picture above. Send suggestions to Email: bbcinsidescience@bbc.co.uk or mysteryobject@sciencemuseum.ac.uk Presenter - Marnie Chesterton Producer - Fiona Roberts

For this episode we will follow a story where a seemingly healthy individual rapidly declines into psychosis and catatonia due to a very rare neurological disease: Anti-NMDA Receptor Encephalitis. A mouthful to say and a mission for medical professionals to diagnose. Be sure to follow our twitter & instagram accounts to stay connected @itsasickness_ Cheers! Topics covered: The real life story of Susannah Cahalan and her battle with Anti-NMDA Receptor Encephalitis The "Brain on Fire" Documentary available on Hulu The "Brain on Fire" book written by Susannah Cahalan The mechanisms of Anti-NMDA Receptor Encephalitis The heroic Dr. Souhel Najjar whom helped properly diagnose Susannah Cahalan --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/itsasickness/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/itsasickness/support

Understanding Madnesswith Susannah Cahalan  --------------------------Susannah was an ambitious young adult starting an exciting life in New York City when she began having seizures, experiencing a bout of mania and depression, and even hallucinating. After nearly a month of hospitalization, she was wrongly diagnosed with bipolar disorder before eventually being diagnosed with a rare auto-immune condition that was affecting her brain. We often think of mind and body as two separate systems, acting independently - but this is flawed thinking. Thoughts chains of amino acids, physical movements impact your neurotransmitters, and this distinction between mind and body quickly becomes irrelevant. The two are inextricably linked.On this week's show, Susannah will share her story, her research into mental health, and how she took charge of her own health.  Listen & Learn:  How mental illness is often treated like a character flaw, not an illness How important it is to take control and responsibility for your own health  Why we lack proper care and treatment for mental illness How the mentally ill are ending up homeless, imprisoned, and lost in society  Links & Resources:  Brain on Fire book The Great Pretender book ABOUT OUR GUESTSusannah Cahalan is a journalist and author of the books, Brain on Fire and The Great Pretender. She has worked for the New York Post. A feature film based on her memoir was released in June 2018 on Netflix. Nutritional Tip of the Week: VitD-Covid Got Questions? Send me a voicemail here: Ask Lucas a Question Or write to us: podcast@yogabody.com  Like the Show? Leave us a Review on iTunes

Journalist Susannah Cahalan talked about her book, The Great Pretender: The Undercover Mission That Changed Our Understanding of Madness, about a 1973 experiment, led by Stanford psychologist David Rosenhan, conducted to test the legitimacy of psychiatric hospitals in America. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Susannah Cahalan is the award-winning, New York Times bestselling author of Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness, a memoir about her struggle with a rare autoimmune disease of the brain. Her second and most recent book is called The Great Pretender. Recommended Reading: The Collected Schizophrenias by Esme Weijun-Wang The Friend by Sigrid Nunez This episode is brought to you by Catapult, publishers of Rough Magic by Lara Prior-Palmer. "If you like your memoirs to revolve around singular experiences, Lara Prior-Palmer’s Rough Magic delivers." That’s what The New York Times said about Rough Magic, the extraordinary true story of one young woman’s experience riding what’s billed as “The World’s Longest and Toughest Horse Race”—The Mongol Derby. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Tara Westover detailed her life growing up with survivalist parents in the Idaho mountains and her introduction to formal education at age 17. She was interviewed by author and journalist Susannah Cahalan. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode, Zack and Renee dive into the 1973 movie The Exorcist. They tell you the true story behind it, the exorcism of Roland Doe. Sources: https://allthatsinteresting.com/roland-doe-the-exorcist-true-storyhttps://www.riverfronttimes.com/stlouis/hell-of-a-house/Content?oid=2491650&showFullText=trueAllen, Thomas B. Possessed: the True Story of an Exorcism. IUniverse.com, 2000.The Devil and Father Amorth https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/longterm/movies/features/dcmovies/exorcism1949.htmBooks mentioned: The Exorcist by William Blatty Possessed A True Story of An Exorcism by Thomas B. Allen Brain On Fire by Susannah Cahalan

Stance asks: Is This For Real? as we explore authenticity through the growth of lab-grown diamonds within the jewellery industry with filmmaker and journalist Harriet Constable and with 77Diamonds co-founder Tobias Kormind; we speak with bestselling author Susannah Cahalan about her book Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness which uncovers mental health misdiagnosis and her new book The Great Pretender which investigates a famous study about the line between sanity and insanity; and we end our topic with a conversation about the growth of Deepfakes - digitally manipulated content, oftentimes, used for nefarious purposes - and touch on whether the tech industry is using language to manipulate the increasingly blurred lines between real and fake. We hear from children to get their views on life in quarantine. Finally, we profile comedian and writer Sophie Duker to find out more about her rise in the comedy scene and life growing up. Join the conversation @stancepodcast.com

It’s Book Club week! Join us and special guest, Jamie, as we discuss our January book club pick, The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick, and our February book club pick, Brain on Fire by Susannah Cahalan. Have questions? Send it to us at floralcouchconversations@gmail.com and we will discuss on a future episode. Our March book club book is The Girl They Left Behind by Roxanne Veletzos. https://www.amazon.com/Girl-They-Left-Behind-Novel/dp/1501187686 Please leave us a review! Follow us on Instagram! @emjewen @alyssabenzick @floralcouchconversations --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/floral-couch-conversations/support

This week on the floral couch, we are catching up on our favorite articles. We discuss how it pays to read the fine print, a MN daylight savings time update, synesthesia, the longest NCAA women’s hockey game ever, and of course some reality tv updates. Plus, we end with a dose of wholesome. Pop into our DM’s and let us know your thoughts! https://synesthesia.me/see-your-name Have questions? Send it to us at floralcouchconversations@gmail.com and we will discuss on a future episode. Our February book club book is Brain on Fire by Susannah Cahalan. https://www.amazon.com/Brain-Fire-My-Month-Madness/dp/1451621388 Please leave us a review! Follow us on Instagram! @emjewen @alyssabenzick @floralcouchconversations --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/floral-couch-conversations/support

This week on the floral couch, we sit down again with our friend Dani. We discuss her reiki practice, mediumship, and our psychic gifts. Plus, we have some fun readings and so much more! www.daniheals.com Discount code: FLORALCOUCH @daniheals Have questions? Send it to us at floralcouchconversations@gmail.com and we will discuss on a future episode. Our February book club book is Brain on Fire by Susannah Cahalan. https://www.amazon.com/Brain-Fire-My-Month-Madness/dp/1451621388 Please leave us a review! Follow us on Instagram! @emjewen @alyssabenzick @floralcouchconversations --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/floral-couch-conversations/support

We meet author Susannah Cahalan whose new book, ‘The Great Pretender’, unpacks the complicated history of the treatment of the mentally ill. Plus: photographer Martin Andersen on his photos that capture his love of Tottenham Hotspur football club and painter Ryan Mosley discusses his participation in a new group show at London’s Whitechapel Gallery.

This week on the floral couch, we are getting all caught up post our Mexico vaca. We discuss the Super Bowl, political children’s books, celebrity sightings, cancel culture, and so much more. Pop into our DM’s and let us know your thoughts! Have questions? Send it to us at floralcouchconversations@gmail.com and we will discuss on a future episode. Our February book club book is Brain on Fire by Susannah Cahalan. https://www.amazon.com/Brain-Fire-My-Month-Madness/dp/1451621388 Please leave us a review! Follow us on Instagram! @emjewen @alyssabenzick @floralcouchconversations --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/floral-couch-conversations/support

This week, we chat to actor and writer Katie Arnstein about the final play in her It’s A Girl! trilogy, Sticky Door, which covers her year-long journey of sexual exploration. Journalist and author Susannah Cahalan tells Jen about her book The Great Pretender, about understanding “madness” and the blurring of lines between physical and mental health. In Jenny Off the Blocks, personal trainer and author of Train Happy, Tally Rye, tells us about giving #fitspo the middle finger, and it’s a right old pa-lava in Dunleavy Does Disaster as we scale the dizzy heights of Dante’s Peak. Plus there’s Brexit, Stateside shit-housery and sports bantz in the Bush Telegraph. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

This week on the floral couch, we are getting all caught up on pop culture. We discuss the a famous singers recent hair style change, the bachelor, Valentine’s day, the MLB, and so much more. Pop into our DM’s and let us know your thoughts! Have questions? Send it to us at floralcouchconversations@gmail.com and we will discuss on a future episode. Our February book club book is Brain on Fire by Susannah Cahalan. https://www.amazon.com/Brain-Fire-My-Month-Madness/dp/1451621388 Please leave us a review! Follow us on Instagram! @emjewen @alyssabenzick @floralcouchconversations --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/floral-couch-conversations/support

In 1961, Michael Rockefeller went on an adventure and was never heard from again.  Theories and speculation have been plentiful since then but one man went to check it out for himself and came back with horrifying answers.  What happened to Michael? What Really Happened to Michael Rockefeller. Carl Hoffman. Smithsonian Magazine. March 2014. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/What-Really-Happened-to-Michael-Rockefeller-180949813/ The Story of Michael Rockefeller and the Cannibals Behind his Disappearance. Gabe Paoletti. November 28th, 2017. https://allthatsinteresting.com/michael-rockefeller New Documentary Said to Confirm that one of the Rockefellers Was Eaten By Cannibals. Hunter Walker. December 23rd, 2014. https://www.businessinsider.com/michael-rockefeller-eaten-by-cannibals-2014-12 The Mysterious Disappearance of Michael Rockefeller. Tim Sohn. February 9th, 2015. Outside Online. https://www.outsideonline.com/1929556/mysterious-disappearance-michael-rockefeller How a Young Rockefeller Died at the Hands of Cannibals. Susannah Cahalan. March 15th, 2014. The New York Post. https://nypost.com/2014/03/15/how-a-young-rockefeller-died-at-the-hands-of-cannibals/ Savage Harvest. Carl Hoffman.  

This week on the floral couch, it’s book club… Okay, actually it’s not book club because life (you’ll hear all about it). However, we do hope you are entertained by some of our fave jokes! Please weigh in on whether we should quit our day jobs to focus on our comedy careers. We’d also love to hear some of your favorite go-to jokes. Have questions? Send it to us at floralcouchconversations@gmail.com and we will discuss on a future episode. Our February book club book is Brain on Fire by Susannah Cahalan. https://www.amazon.com/Brain-Fire-My-Month-Madness/dp/1451621388 Please leave us a review! Follow us on Instagram! @emjewen @alyssabenzick @floralcouchconversations --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/floral-couch-conversations/support

How do you become a science writer? What if you didn’t even think you liked science as a kid? What if, instead of “serious journalism”, you spent the first half of your career covering celebrities and royals, even becoming the London Bureau Chief for People magazine?Then you’re in perfect shape, at least if you’re our guest, Lydia Denworth. She tells us how she made that transition, going from People through Redbook to Scientific American using the dual powers of curiosity and ignorance (and more relevantly, the willingness to admit it). We also discuss getting grants for non-fiction research, pitching scientific topics and the literary aspect of science writing—and Friendship, which just happens to be both the topic and the title of Denworth’s latest book. Episode links and a transcript follow—but first, did you love last week’s #WritersTopFive: Top 5 Ways to Win at Newsletter Subject Lines? Because I did (and I’m winning.) This Monday: Top 5 Things to Do When Your WIP Feels Like It’s In Flames. Support the podcast you love AND get weekly #WriterTopFives with actionable advice you can use for just $7 a month. As always, this episode (and every episode) will appear for all subscribers in your usual podcast listening places, totally free as the #AmWriting Podcast has always been. This shownotes email is free, too, so please—forward it to a friend, and if you haven’t already, join our email list and be on top of it with the shownotes and a transcript every time there’s a new episode. LINKS FROM THE PODCAST#AmReading (Watching, Listening)Jess: Open Season (Joe Gunther Mysteries #1), Archer MayorKJ: Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine, Gail Honeyman (catch it on my #BooksThatWon’tBumYouOut series HERE)Lydia: The Great Pretender: The Undercover Mission that Changed Our Understanding of Madness, Susannah Cahalan The Ruin, Dervla McTiernanBonus Book Rec for Lydia: The Mountains Wild, Sarah Stewart Taylor (because “those Irish really know how to do dark”).Our guest for this episode is Lydia Denworth.This episode was sponsored by Author Accelerator, the book coaching program that helps you get your work DONE. Visit https://www.authoraccelerator.com/amwritingfor details, special offers and Jennie Nash’s Inside-Outline template.Find more about Jess here, Sarina here and about KJ here.Follow KJ on Instagram for her #BooksThatWon’tBumYouOut series: short reviews of books that won’t make you hate yourself and all humanity.If you enjoyed this episode, we suggest you check out Marginally, a podcast about writing, work and friendship.Transcript (We use an AI service for transcription, and while we do clean it up a bit, some errors are the price of admission here. We hope it’s still helpful.)KJ:                                        00:01                    Hey there listeners, it’s KJ. Our guest today is a science writer extraordinare, and we’ll be talking everything from grants to the literary and storytelling aspects of that form of nonfiction—but before we do, here’s something else for the nonfiction authors out there: If that’s the your kind of work, our sponsor, Author Accelerator, can help—and you don’t have to go all in with full-on book coaching if you’re not ready. Check out their new four-week long nonfiction framework program that will help you nail down your structure before you start to write (or after you’re writing and realizing—dang, this thing needs a backbone!). Authors of self-help, how-to and academic texts will find the shape of their books, create a working one-page summary that reveals that shape at a glance and develop a flexible table of contents to guide you through the drafting and revision process. You can find a lot more (including previews of much of the material) by going to https://www.authoraccelerator.com/nonfictionframework. Is it recording?Jess:                                     01:11                    Now it's recording.KJ:                                        01:13                    Yay!Jess:                                     01:13                    Go ahead.KJ:                                        01:14                    This is the part where I stare blankly at the microphone like I don't remember what I was supposed to be doing.Jess:                                     01:14                    Alright, let's start over.KJ:                                        01:14                    Awkward pause, I'm going to rustle some papers.Jess:                                     01:14                    Okay.KJ:                                        01:14                    Now one, two, three. Hey, I'm KJ Dell'Antonia and this is #AmWriting. #AmWriting is the podcast about writing all the things. Writing fiction, nonfiction, short fiction, long nonfiction, short nonfiction, I could probably go on like that forever. We are the podcast about writing pitches, proposals, essays, and essentially, as I say, every week, this is the podcast about sitting down and getting your writing work done.Jess:                                     02:00                    I'm Jess Lahey. I am the author of the Gift of Failure, How the Best Parents Learn to Let Go So Their Children Can Succeed. And a forthcoming book about preventing substance abuse in kids. So I'm not so much writing this week as I'm deep, deep in the edits. You can find my work at the Atlantic, the New York Times, Washington Post, and at jessicalahey.com.KJ:                                        02:22                    I am KJ Dell'Antonia. I am the author of the forthcoming novel, The Chicken Sisters as well as How To Be a Happier Parent, which is out in hardback now. And will be coming in paperback soon to a bookstore near you and you can find me on Instagram at kjda and everywhere else at kjdellantonia and kjdellantonia.com.Jess:                                     02:48                    We have a guest today. We have a very patient guest. We've had to reschedule this guest an embarrassing number of times and I'm so excited that she's finally with us. And this is really timely because we've had some questions about exactly what this writer does in the #AmWriting Facebook group. So I would love to introduce to you Ms. Lydia Denworth. She is a science writer. She is a contributing editor to Scientific American, she writes the Brainwaves blog for Psychology Today, she's written three books, one called Toxic Truth on lead. A book that I really, really love called I Can Hear You Whisper. I keep it in the literacy section of my bookcase, actually, along with some other fun books, like Language at the Speed of Sight and her new book that will be coming out at the end of January on January 29th called Friendship. So this is a really appropriate and wonderful and exciting book to talk about on this podcast. Since of course I get to podcast with my best friends. So Lydia, welcome so much to the podcast.Lydia:                                  03:59                    I am so happy to be here. Thank you.Jess:                                     04:02                    Well and again, thank you so much for your patience. We've had a couple of recording dates fall through and so I'm just so glad you stuck with us through our timing snafus.Lydia:                                  04:12                    Not a problem at all.Jess:                                     04:15                    Well, we have burning questions. Not only ours, but some of our listeners, but we always love to start with the question of how you got started, how you got started writing and how you landed in the genre that you landed in.Lydia:                                  04:30                    And that in my case is a pretty interesting story because it is absolutely the case that science was the last thing I would have predicted that I would do. I was the person who took the bare minimum of science classes all through high school and college. And I was intimidated by it, I didn't think I was all that interested in it. I always wanted to be a writer and I wanted to be a nonfiction writer. So I was that kid who read the New Yorker and John McPhee and things like that when I was in high school and said, 'This is what I want to do.' But science did not come into it and I have had a relatively long career. And the first half of it was all general interest journalism, kind of. I worked for People magazine, if you can believe.Jess:                                     05:37                    Do you feel the need to go back and comment on the important social issues of our day?Lydia:                                  05:41                    I so do not, but at one point, I was a London Bureau Chief at the time that Princess Diana died for People magazine. So I have this whole past as a celebrity journalist and I worked for Newsweek for a bunch of years. And it was only when I was writing my first book, so about 15 years ago, after let's say a good 15 years in journalism, I that I really sort of became a science writer. And at that point I was doing - the way I describe it as I was freelancing and I was doing those social issue features that you would find in women's magazines, like Redbook and Good Housekeeping. So maybe it was sex harassment or lead poisoning. But I came to the issue of lead from a children's health perspective more than anything. I wrote a lot about education, Jess, you'll appreciate that. And you know, I did things like that and it was in writing that first book that I suddenly found that this, it's basically a dual biography of two of the men who were way out ahead of people understanding that lead was as harmful as it was. And then they got into this massive fight with industry over it and you know, their scientific careers were almost ruined, but they fought on, they are heroes, and they got lead taken out of all kinds of things. We know now with Flint that the story's not done. I first got into this because I was interested in a guy named Herb Needleman who was a psychiatrist and was looking at lead in kids' bodies, but the other guy was a geochemist at Cal Tech. And he was the one that understood that lead was all around the environment. And I started having to read his journal articles and oh my God, they were impenetrable to me.Jess:                                     07:42                    It's such an education, not only just being able to get through the language, but getting at the statistics. I mean, that's a big part of understanding whether you've been looking at something worth reading or citing.Lydia:                                  07:55                    Absolutely. And so, the long story short was that in working on that book, though, I found that I actually was better at all of that than I thought. And I happen to think, that to some extent, my lack of background in science has worked in my favor. I am not afraid to admit complete ignorance. I do it on a regular basis with really brilliant people. And so I just keep asking questions and I think that everybody has to do that as a reporter. But you're especially humbled when you're digging into something that you don't know anything about.Jess:                                     08:42                    Well, and your second book, you started writing about hearing because of your own personal experience. And that happens to be the area of nonfiction that I love - when it's sort of your own personal investment and personal experience that then turns into scientific exploration. So it's not just about intellectual curiosity, it's about emotional curiosity as well. And that's what really comes through in I Can Hear You Whisper because it is also partly your story.Lydia:                                  09:10                    Absolutely. So I had done this one book of popular science in the lead book, but then the question is always, you know, what are you going to do next? And here was my kid, my youngest son, Alex is is now 16, but he was just little then and and he is deaf and he uses a cochlear implant. And so I kind of felt like I had this story sitting there. But then the thing that I came to realize is that because he had this cochlear implant relatively early in the world of cochlear implants that I was essentially living a cutting edge science story. And in addition to the technology piece of it, I realized it was really a story about the brain because sound getting into the brain and what comes from that oral language and literacy. And I'm thrilled that the book is in your literacy section, by the way. That's just perfect. But you know, there was so much that I didn't know about deafness, and hearing, and sound, and reading and how it's all related until I had a kid. I mean, the first deaf kid I ever knew was my own son (in any meaningful way). So you're just starting over, and it was several years before I said, 'Oh wait, I think I really need to write about this.'.Jess:                                     10:37                    So your most recent book, the book that we're just really excited to talk about, this book Friendship. This came at a really, really good time for me. In the sense of one of the statistics that you quote is that the strengths of your friendships at around 50 predicts your health at 80. And I'm just about to turn 50 and I feel like I'm at a phase in my life where I have really strong friendships and so I am feeling good about my health at 80.KJ:                                        11:09                    Me too. I really loved that line.Jess:                                     11:09                    I really liked that.KJ:                                        11:11                    I think we're all at a moment when (and it may be sort of a cohort moment) but when everybody's looking around and just going, you know, what really matters to me is my people. Like my people, people. I mean some of those are digital people and that's cause some of those are real friendships, right? But lots of them are real people, or you know, real people that are like really right in front of you, and I just feel like this sort of decade or two of segwaying away from being able to touch the people you love when you're with them has sort of really changed our perspective in a great way and I think your book really informs that.Lydia:                                  11:54                    Yeah, I hope so. I mean, I do feel, and I'm hearing from people, that yes, my timing might be good here because everybody's thinking about this. People have seen the headlines that loneliness is a killer, which it is - as deadly as smoking. That's always been the story. But the flip side of what does friendship actually give us and how is it protective and how does it make us resilient? And the fact that there is a biology and an evolutionary story to friendship is the piece that most people do not know. And you know, this is a book of science. It's the science of friendship. But it is so personal and relevant to people's lives and what I hope they do is come away understanding why friendship and relationships are as important as diet and exercise for your health. And I'm not trying to add to people's burden for what they have to do. I think instead, I'm hoping to give them permission to go hang out with your friends. Your body will thank you.KJ:                                        13:01                    Well, I have questions about how you pitched the book because it has that dual identity, but let's not start there, right, Jess?Jess:                                     13:13                    I know KJ and I have some very specific questions about the way the book Friendship came about in terms of not just the pitch, but also the funding aspect. And I wasn't sure if that's where you wanted to start, KJ, but I'm dying to know about your funding.KJ:                                        13:31                    Which came first, Lydia?Jess:                                     13:31                    Lydia has funding from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and every nonfiction writer wants to know, Oh my gosh, how can I get money to do this project? Because research is expensive. In fact yesterday I was just thinking about this because someone texted me yesterday saying, 'If I don't get a book contract soon, I'm not going to be able to write this book because I'm out of money to put into the resources.' This is actually an AmWriting listener, so hopefully she's listening to this episode. And I texted back, 'I just dumped almost 200 bucks on a textbook that I must have in order to just make sure I'm really where I need to be with the research.' So how on earth did you get the funding and which came first - the contract for the book or the funding for the book?Lydia:                                  14:20                    The contract for the book came first. So I had a contract with Norton and I had an advance, but I will say it wasn't a stellar advance. My advances - so I've had three and they are all over the place and the middle one was by far the biggest. And so I was a little disappointed not to get more this time, but it also meant I had to get my butt in gear and get more money if I was going to do this. So fortunately the Sloan Foundation does do these grants for science writers, in particular. They are also (since a lot of this audience is female) people might be happy to know that they are looking to support female science writers and they are looking to support projects that are about women. In my case, this book is not specifically about women, but there happened to be quite a lot of female scientists featured in the book. They're kick ass, they're wonderful and they are all through the book. And so the combination of my being a female science writer and what I was writing about, they happily gave me a grant. The only thing I wish is that I had applied a little earlier. Since you all like to get into the nitty gritty of things, you have to make up a budget and there is a lag time from when you apply to when (should you be so fortunate as to get any money) when you start getting money. And so my budget, I originally had it for an entire calendar year that I was going to be writing the book. But I discovered that it couldn't start until, let's say I originally said January to December and then in fact, and I had like a monthly salary for myself in there, and then it turned out that they said, 'Well, our fiscal year is June, so you can't start till June 1st. So I basically had to lop off five months' worth of that money I was asking for, so had I known and gotten the application in even just a few months earlier, I probably could have made it from January to December and gotten myself more money. So let this be a reminder to not let this stuff linger.Jess:                                     16:43                    Well can you apply for funding before you have a book contract or did they require you to have the book contract before you apply?Lydia:                                  16:49                    You know, I can't remember exactly. I do believe that you can do it either way, but they did want a copy of my contract. So if you don't have a contract, I think there are some other requirements. I'm forgetting. it's been a little while since I did all that. And I will say, the reason I was aware of this in the first place was because I had met one of the people from the Sloan Foundation at at a party, at the World Science Festival here in New York several years earlier. And at that point my previous book I Can Hear You Whisper would have been perfect because they also are very interested in technology and the science of technology and things like that. But I didn't know about their grant program in time. Now in that book, I happen to have gotten a healthy advance, so that was okay. So the time around, I said, 'All right, I'm gonna write to him.' They added some money in order for me to be able to hire a science advisor who actually was one of the people who's featured in the book, but I paid him. It's Robert Seyfarth, it says so in the book so I can say, he's one of the leading primatologists in this work. And he would have read some of the book ahead of time anyway, but he read it all multiple times and was so in my corner and so helpful. And also so demanding and critical. I could see what it would be like to be their graduate students. So anyway, but it was so helpful and I wouldn't have done that if it hadn't been for the Sloan Foundation request. But it was really helpful.Jess:                                     18:49                    Maybe we'll include the link for applying for these kinds of grants in the show notes so the people can know exactly what we're talking about.KJ:                                        18:55                    I think the Kaiser Foundation does something similar, too. I know they do it for journalism.Lydia:                                  19:04                    I'll have a look and see. At one point I did find a link that had kind of a list of grants and fellowships that give you some money. I'll see if I can find it for you. But at the Sloan Foundation it is through the public interest piece cause it doesn't sort of jump out and say books right away. So just FYI to people. It does have to be pretty sciency for Sloan. but there are, as KJ just said, there are these other things like Kaiser that maybe if it's more health related and other things. You know, there's more out there than I think people realize.Jess:                                     19:41                    Absolutely. There's USC Annenberg School does it for health writing as well. There's just a bunch of great places to go. So, you have the money, you have the book contract, and so you get started on the research. The question I get most often from the nonfiction writers is (and the reason I talk about it so much) is about organization of research. And I have a multipart question having to do with this. But how do you organize your research?Lydia:                                  20:11                    Not as well as you, Jess. I look at what you do and I when you show pictures of your shelves, I think, Oh boy. That's something to aspire to. So one thing that I do is that I am still the kind of person who prints out everything. I just find it very, very hard. First of all, I would like to make sure I have the hard copy. And when I'm reading through complicated scientific work, I find it a lot easier to do it with a pencil in my hand and kind of marking it up. And I don't know, it helps me. Maybe I'm showing my age, I'm just over 50. I'm 53 now as of three weeks ago. I do plenty online, so I have piles of files. For this book. I filed everything according mostly to the individuals that were at the forefront of whatever piece of science it was I was writing about, or by subject, if that made sense. Like social media. I have a couple of files about the science of social media that were by subject. I think that the trick about research, cause I can go so deep, and there's always more to research. And so figuring out when to stop...Jess:                                     21:44                    That actually leads to my next question. Someone specifically asked, how do you know when it's time to stop and when it's time to start the writing? Because the research can go on forever, as you stated.Lydia:                                  22:01                    Yes. So for me it has been very important. There comes a point where I decide to start writing, in part to figure out whether I'm done with my research or not. Because there are holes sometimes that pop up when you start to actually write it and you think you might think you've got everything. So this book, people will see, mixes animal research and human research because there's been a lot of both in this subject and the animal research is actually where the big strides and understanding biology and evolution have taken place, in terms of social behavior. But I will say that I went to a whole bunch of conferences about monkeys and apes. And finally I was at one and I said, you know, Lydia, you've done enough, you know enough about monkeys, you have permission to stop on this front. And so that was just one piece of it. But I knew I was going like sort of too far down. But then writing helps me to discover. I mean by that point you may not have heaps of time to really go far on some new tangent. But for instance, the social media chapter, there was new work happening right up until the last second. And so I was changing that chapter quite a bit between having turned in my book and turning back in the first past proofs. Because there was new science and I had been to new conferences and been talking to new people.Jess:                                     23:37                    I actually just hit pause on editing a chapter because of that textbook I mentioned. And then three or four new studies and one meta study that just came out. And in order to make sure that what I'm writing about today and fingers crossed you know, when the book comes out is as up to date as possible. But it's really hard to say, well now I'm done. For me there tends to be this moment. I continue to do online classes, and webinars, and things like that. And there tends to be this moment where I'm listening to the webinar and I'm like, I know all this and that's when I know, okay, if I know this it's probably time for me to put a lid on researching this topic.Lydia:                                  24:22                    I think that is exactly right. And I have definitely had that experience, too. But I will also say that there are some pieces of it where, especially with science, where if you're feeling that your grasp is maybe not as strong as you'd like it to be, but sometimes you do just have to wade in. I mean, I do anyway. And see where it goes and see how... My problem in my writing often, is that I have a tendency to get into the weeds and then I have to cut all that out, but I've got to write it. I've got to write it. This is not relevant to the organization and research, but I do feel that an important thing about writing about science and even if you don't really write about science, if you adopt a little bit of a science writer's approach, you're really forced to think about whether your audience is with you. And whether you've given them enough handholding, and enough signposting so that they can follow along with the story, and what's important, and why, and what's not. And so then when I go back over what I've written, I'm usually trying to figure out, tracking along with someone who doesn't know it as well as I do and see, do they really need to know this?Jess:                                     25:50                    I was going to say, that's the question I constantly have. Which is when I was going through and I realized, oh my gosh, I have a chapter that's like 20,000 words. Does my reader really need to know how many casks of beer there were on that first ship that sails?KJ:                                        26:07                    That's our new standard for too much research is if you know the details of what was in the hold of the first ship that your topic involved. Yeah, that's it. We've got a black line there, people. This is good.Jess:                                     26:40                    The problem with me is I love those details. And in some places it paints an incredible picture, like your ability to say here's how many bananas might be useful, but for the most part it's really important to say, does my reader, does my listener need to know this thing in order to understand the broad concept? And that's usually my last pass edit when I'm cutting is, oh wait a second, these next four paragraphs are so irrelevant to anything.Lydia:                                  27:15                    Just for the record, I want to state that part of why I had that detail and part of my point in the story was that these monkeys were a source of fascination for everybody at the time and so much so that they were featured in the New York Times at the time that they were traveling and then in Life magazine. And so I was sort of making the point that the New York Times was so interested that they counted the amount of pounds of bananas. But you're still right. They still didn't need to know that.Jess:                                     27:47                    The line I often say is from On Writing where Tabitha King criticizes Stephen King for writing too much about these intervening years in this one character's life. And he's like, 'Yeah, but it's really important.' And she said, 'Yeah, but you don't have to bore me with it.'.Lydia:                                  28:02                    Exactly. You maybe need to know it, but your reader might not need to know it.Jess:                                     28:14                    KJ, did you want to jump in? I've been hogging the mic.KJ:                                        28:20                    No, it's been great. I'm riding along and taking notes.Jess:                                     28:25                    Excellent. Obviously for me, this book came along at a really great time for me because I love talking about adolescents, and relationships, and friendships. But what I was most interested in with your book right now is thinking about virtual friendships and in-person friendships. And you talk a little bit about how much time you need to spend in what you call sort of togetherness makes for a friend. And there's a quote in the book about the fact that it takes 50 hours of togetherness to make a friend and 200 hours to make a best friend. So what if we spend 50 hours, you know, chatting about stuff, maybe tweeting at each other, are we allowed to still be friends or do we have to have 50 hours of in-person time?Lydia:                                  29:14                    We can still be friends. But I will say that what's interesting about social media is that most people, their online life and their offline life sort of mirror each other. People talk all the time about how the word friend is devalued currency by Facebook and things like that. But the truth is, most people know who their real friends are, who their closest friends are. And we sort of all have concentric circles of people really close, and then a little further out, and a little further out. And I would argue that if you only have a relationship online, it's more likely to be in the outer reaches of your social circles, which is fine. That's an important place to be. Those relationships have all kinds of benefits. But most of us, our closest friends, we use social media as kind of an extra channel to deepen the relationship but not exclusively.Jess:                                     30:21                    I like thinking about it that way. And you also mention that quality is important over quantity, anyway. So the quality of those relationships and you also give me a license to sort of let go of some of those fraught relationships that may not be in my best interest because you talk about the fact that ambivalent or the sort of frenemy relationships are not necessarily good for our health in the same way that all positive relationships are.Lydia:                                  30:50                    They turn out to be actually bad for your health, which surprised the researchers. They thought maybe the good outweighs the bad. But no, biologically speaking, if when they look at your blood pressure and the aging in your cells and your immune system, they see that relationship... So, just to define our terms since we are talking about science writing. So an ambivalent relationship is one that makes you feel both good and bad. Like a frenemy, like you said. And also it's important to say that the people who've done this research had a pretty broad way of measuring that. If you weren't a hundred percent terrific all the time about this relationship or it wasn't 100% positive, then it was ambivalent. And the truth is that's like half our relationships though, have some negative to them.KJ:                                        31:43                    I was going to say, that's pretty broad.Lydia:                                  31:46                    It is pretty broad and they're still sort of perfecting. You know, this research is relatively new, but it's kind of pointing to an interesting and important idea though. Which is that yes, we don't actually have to maintain every relationship. Like some of your older friends where you have shared history but who now are actually quite draining. Maybe you don't have to stay friends with those people. I'm giving you permission there, too. But for the relationships where you can't or don't want to end the relationship or sort of really minimize the relationship, then you should be working on the quality of it. Because that is really the critical thing. The research is so clear that the quality of relationships matters most and matters more than whether it's a relative or not. So that's another thing I think I would just like to point out about friendship is that the science kind of blurs the lines that we've always clung to about the importance of family over friends and things like that. Friends tended to be dropped down to the bottom, but we actually use the word friend. Like if you say your spouse is your best friend, you're trying to convey something about the quality of your relationship. Right? And not everybody would say that about their spouse. Some do, some don't. And in fact there's a hilarious study that found that in Jacksonville, Florida, something like 60% of the people said that their spouse was their best friend. And in Mexico city it was like 0%, which I don't think tells us about...KJ:                                        33:29                    It has more to do with how we define it, more than anything else.Lydia:                                  33:32                    Exactly. Exactly. But you know, the point is let's at least think about this.KJ:                                        33:40                    I like that they both start with F. It's one category for me. You know, important time with friends or family, that's one thing. That's the F section. So I wanted to come back to this question of here you were as a writer with this idea that encompassed a really deep scientific piece, but also what I think we could call a service piece. You know, the idea of friendship and how it helps us. Exactly what we're getting into talking about right now. How did you structure the pitch for this book to include both of those things?Lydia:                                  34:24                    So I think of myself more as a literary science writer, for lack of a better phrase. And that is a thing compared to really self-helpy science. So I wouldn't exactly say that this book, (and I didn't pitch it as self-help), and yet, if you read this book, you will absolutely come away knowing that you should invest in your friendships and here's a bunch of ways to do it.KJ:                                        34:59                    I wondered if there was pressure to push it in that other direction.Lydia:                                  35:02                    So some, and this is a constant tight rope that I feel I walk as a science writer is because yes, most of what's out there and that has a really big audience is the stuff that is so super accessible that it doesn't include a lot of the details that I find really interesting and important. I will say this. To specifically answer your question, what I did was pitch this book as the kind of friendship book that has not yet been written because it would have serious science in it. And that is what is new, and interesting, and important to know. And it sort of informs everything that's in those self-help articles. And so I was positioning myself in my pitch and it helped that my previous two books were similar. You know, so I have a certain style of writing. And if you are (like I am) a contributing editor at Scientific American, people do expect you to be on the serious side of science, but still completely accessible. I mean that is the thing - no matter who you are, you have to write it as if anybody will understand it. I try hard, you know.KJ:                                        36:25                    Your scientific audience is not necessarily experts in everything.Lydia:                                  36:29                    No. And in fact, one of the things that's really interesting is this book covers so much ground and so much territory that some of the experts in it, when they read it then said, 'Oh, but I, I love how you wrote about my piece, but I didn't know anything about this other thing.' And I found that I was bringing them together, somewhat. Because I was talking to everyone across the board, you know, not in the little silos that people tend to work in. But, I just want to say though, that there's a real tension. So, you know, my agent would say, 'You really need to come up with a way to pitch this that will appeal to everybody.' But then for instance, the Sloan Foundation, their question was how sciency will this be? Because we are only really interested in it if it is in fact a science book. But you can write a science book that has all kinds of story in it. I mean, science is story. You know, it's figuring out how we know things, and there's a lot of plot twists, and intriguing problems, and it's the evolution of thought in some ways. So I ended up deciding that I have to be me. You know, you do you, right? Don't you guys say that? And that I was pitching it as not self-help, but yet in the overview of the proposal, it really did say that this book will put friendship at the center of our lives. It will show us these important things we need to know. And one of the things I say a lot is that is that we think we know all about friendship because it's familiar. But in fact there's a huge amount we don't know. And also we do not in fact prioritize it always quite to the extent that we think we do. And so those kind of larger statements that are in the proposal and that I talk about when I do publicity are very much about sort of trying to pull people in and tell them why this is relevant to their lives.Jess:                                     38:36                    I think one of the reasons that I loved - I mean I love this book - but I really loved I Can Hear You Whisper because there was this really personal element and that I love reading science books that are also part memoir and that's also a really difficult line to walk. In fact, the book I'm editing now turned out to be so much more memoir than I ever expected it to be. In fact, I was really scared of it becoming a memoir and yet all of a sudden now I'm at the other end after a couple of years and it is very much a memoir. So much so that we've amped up that side of it. But I think that's what makes the science personal. And I think that's what helps people say, 'Oh, Oh, so that's why it matters. That's why these numbers matter. That's why these statistics matter because they're about personal stories.' And I think you do a beautiful job of walking that line, which can be really hard to see sometimes.Lydia:                                  39:27                    It can. And thank you, I appreciate that. I will just point out (as a sort of craft example) that the introduction to this book starts on this island in Puerto Rico where people are studying monkeys and that's a pretty surprising place to start a book on friendship you might think. And yet, I think it's interesting because it's surprising, and it makes for a really great scene, and it also sort of signals that this is a new way of thinking about friendship. So I wrote all that with some other stuff about the big picture stuff in that intro. But I ended that chapter with me coming back from Puerto Rico and finding my then 17 year old son on the couch with his best friend where they were playing video games and it felt like they had never left from when I went to Puerto Rico to when I came back. It was as if they had never left. So there's a scene there in which I am doing the typical parent thing of don't you guys have anything better to do? And don't you ever get up off this couch and all that stuff. And then I suddenly realized, and this did really happen, I said, 'Oh wait, hang on a minute, Lydia. They look a lot like those monkeys you were just watching in that they are hanging out together, and they are laughing, and they're joking, and they're literally sitting in proximity on the couch, and maybe you are only seeing the video game as a parent and you are not seeing the visceral connection that is going on between these kids. And so I put that scene at the end of that first chapter or the introduction specifically to get at exactly what you're asking about. To show why and how this stuff is useful in thinking about our own lives and our own relationships and friendships.Jess:                                     41:20                    And that's great storytelling. I just, I love that. I am smiling from ear to ear. I mean, to me that's when you have those moments when you're writing. I talk about this all the time about that buzz, when you really feel like, oh my gosh, it's happening. The writing is coming together. And in those moments where you say, 'That's the story.' That's when my heart just flutters. I just get so excited.Lydia:                                  41:46                    Exactly. I tried to do that all through this book. I didn't really want to just sort of throw in a whole lot of random people that you only meet briefly. So I decided that the memoir part, I do have sort of myself, and my family, and my good friends kind of sprinkled through the book because that seemed like the most organic way to get at what's true about relationships. And I fully recognize that we are a little subsection, that doesn't make it a diverse thing. But that's not the point. The point is just to sort of provide those kinds of moments of recognition and resonance for readers.Jess:                                     42:31                    That's what it's all about. Speaking of which, cause we are getting to the end of our time. I hate making these jarring transitions cause I could talk about this book for ages because I love it so much and I love science writing so much, but we are running out of time and so I would love to talk about what you have been reading and what KJ and I have been reading. Do you have anything you'd like to shout out book wise?Lydia:                                  42:53                    I would love to. On the sciency front, I have been reading Susannah Cahalan's new book, The Great Pretender. Have you read it?Jess:                                     43:04                    I'm really excited because I loved Brain on Fire.Lydia:                                  43:06                    Yes. And this is such an interesting book because it really is about the history of psychiatry and mental health. But it's this totally great story about a study that was done years ago that kind of where they sent sane people into insane asylums essentially, and tried to reveal. You know, it was like the investigative journalism of science about what does it take to get out of an insane asylum?Jess:                                     43:38                    But that's why I haven't started reading it yet. Because frankly, I know about this experiment. In fact, we were looking at the book and my husband pointed to it and he said, 'Oh, I know that experiment.' And he was explaining it to me and I said, 'That is terrifying to me.' Like being a sane person in an insane asylum and then having to like prove that you're not insane, yet that makes you look insane. That whole concept freaks me out.Lydia:                                  44:05                    And then there's a real plot twist though in this whole book. But it turns out that that study is not everything that we thought it was. And so there's an extra

On this edition of The Weekly Reader, we review two new books that explore important topics that will appeal to inquisitive readers. Marion Winik shares her thoughts on Peggy Orenstein's Boys and Sex, and Susannah Cahalan's The Great Pretender. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Susannah Cahalan is the award-winning, New York Times bestselling author of Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness, a memoir about her struggle with a rare autoimmune disease of the brain, which was made into a film by Netflix. Her latest book is The Great Pretender: The Undercover Mission that Changed our Understanding of Madness. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

For centuries, doctors have struggled to define mental illness—how do you diagnose it, how do you treat it, how do you even know what it is? Author Susanah Calahan made her way to Town Hall to explore the history of psychological understanding in our country with her book The Great Pretender: The Undercover Mission That Changed Our Understanding of Madness. Cahalan chronicled the 1970’s story of David Rosenhan, a Stanford psychologist who took himself and seven other people—sane, normal, well-adjusted members of society—on an undercover study into asylums around America to test the legitimacy of psychiatry’s labels. Forced to remain inside until they’d “proven” themselves sane, all eight emerged with alarming diagnoses and even more troubling stories of their treatment. Cahalan presented new research showing that very little in Rosenhan’s watershed study is exactly as it seems. She examined interviews with Rosenhan’s colleagues and peers, searches for the anonymous participants or “pseudo-patients,” uncovers new never-reported material and information, and unravels the mystery surrounding Rosenhan’s research. Sit in for an explosive investigation that sheds new light on the findings reported in Rosenhan’s landmark study—and unpacks what this new information means for our understanding of mental illness today. Susannah Cahalan is an author and journalist who has become a leading voice on the treatment of mental illness in America since her bestselling memoir Brain on Fire, where she chronicles her own struggles with modern medicine after being misdiagnosed with a serious mental illness. Brain on Fire has sold over a million copies, spent 52 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list and was made into a feature film. Presented by Town Hall Seattle. Recorded live in The Forum on November 18, 2019. 

In our final episode of 2019 (and the decade as a whole!), Annie and Bookshelf staffers Olivia and Lucy sit down to talk through their favorite titles of the year. These are the books that meant the most over the last 12 months: Annie's List: 1. The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead 2. The Dutch House by Ann Patchett 3. The Dearly Beloved by Carla Wall 4. Olive, Again by Elizabeth Strout 5. Family of Origin by CJ Hauser 6. Normal People by Sally Rooney 7. Ask Again, Yes by Mary Beth Keane 8. Miracles and Other Reasonable Things by Sarah Bessey 9. The Current by Tim Johnston 10. Daisy Jones & the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid Olivia's List 1. The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern 2. A Boy and His Dog at the End of the World by C.A. Fletcher 3. The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead 4. All the Greys on Greene Street by Laura Tucker 5. The Line Tender by Kate Allen 6. Red at the Bone by Jacqueline Woodson 7. Tuesday Mooney Talks to Ghosts by Kate Racculia 8. Sorcery of Thorns by Margaret Rogerson 9. This Was Our Pact by Ryan Andrews 10. The Psychology of Time Travel by Kate Mascarenhas Lucy's List: 1. Talking to Strangers by Malcolm Gladwell 2. Furious Hours by Casey Cep 3. The Glittering Hour by Iona Grey 4. Stars of Alabama by Sean Dietrich 5. This Tender Land by William Kent Krueger 6. The Great Pretender by Susannah Cahalan 7. The World That We Knew by Alice Hoffman 8. The Dutch House by Ann Patchett 9. The Innocents by Michael Crummey 10. The Organs of Sense by Adam Ehrlich Sachs -- As we close out 2019, we're so grateful to our listeners for playing such a large role The Bookshelf's success. Every purchase, every like, every comment, every email means the world. Special thanks to Chris Jensen for his work on From the Front Porch over the years. We're so grateful for his contribution to The Bookshelf and the podcast, and we wish him nothing but the best in his next endeavor. This episode of From the Front Porch was produced by Dylan Garven at Studio D Productions. Our new theme music -- a hint of what's to come in 2020 -- is by Simeon Church. Annie's got some fun things in the work for Patreon; support us there for more bonus Bookshelf content coming in 2020. From the Front Porch is going on a brief hiatus; new episodes will launch Thursday, January 30.

NPR has called Susannah Cahalan “one of America's most courageous young journalists.” Known for her memoir Brain on Fire, which details her experience with a rare autoimmune disease, Cahalan's work has since been made into a feature film on Netflix. In her newest book, The Great Pretender: The Undercover Mission That Changed Our Understanding of Madness, Cahalan explores the centuries-old struggle to define, diagnose and treat mental illness. The Great Pretender details a 1970 experiment, led by Stanford psychologist David Rosenhan, in which he and seven other people went undercover into the asylums of America. Cahalan describes how Rosenhan and the others were forced to remain inside until they could prove they were sane, and as a result, all of those partaking in the experiment emerged with stories of mistreatment and newfound mental health issues. Following the dramatic study, institutions and mental health diagnoses were changed from then on. Cahalan's research asks us to delve deeper into the Rosenhan experiment and ask important questions relating to what really happened. She argues that this episode's implications on mental illness and treatment are worth discussing, as the effects of the study are still felt today. Join us for a unique and important conversation with Cahalan as she asks us to delve deeper into our own understanding of mental health, diagnosis and treatment. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

SPEAKERS Susannah Cahalan Author, Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness and The Great Pretender: The Undercover Mission That Changed Our Understanding of Madness In Conversation with Judge LaDoris Cordell (Ret.) This program was recorded in front of a live audience at The Commonwealth Club of California in San Francisco on November 21st, 2019.

Ten years ago, Susannah Cahalan's life pivoted rapidly in a radically different direction. Recounted in her New York Times bestseller Brain on Fire, Susannah bravely shares her harrowing story of being diagnosed with a rare + newly discovered neurological disease. Fully recovered + thriving, Susannah calls in from the tour of her newest book, The Great Pretender. It dives deep into an investigation of Stanford psychologist David Rosenhan + his landmark 1970s study which led many to question the validity of psychiatric diagnoses. If you’re seeking a miraculous story of triumph, this episode is for you. Susannah will articulately show you how to overcome with gratitude, grace + tenacity. SHOW NOTES: In 2009, 24-year-old Susannah was working as a tabloid reporter for the New York Post when what seemed like depression rapidly morphed into psychosis, paranoia + hallucinations. Various diagnoses were presented during her month-long hospitalization including alcohol withdrawal, bipolar, schizoaffective disorder before a creative thinking Dr. Souhel Najjar was able to properly diagnose Susannah with anti-NMDA-receptor autoimmune encephalitis.  Road to Recovery: It took a year and a half of treatment for Susannah to fully recover. Looking back, she is able to pinpoint a belief of a bedbug infestation as the beginning of her tailspin. Before being diagnosed, Susannah vividly remembers “high emotional content” like the belief that Abraham Lincoln was following her around her father’s house. She credits her family taking her to a hospital versus a psychiatric hospital as the reason she was able to get the proper care + be alive today. Mirror Images: Susannah has met others who have diagnosed with her same illness, but were given different + unsuccessful treatments at their psychiatric hospitals.  The Half Clock: Clinician + researcher Dr. Najjar asked Susannah to draw a clock, which was the piece of evidence to the puzzle that didn’t make sense in diagnosing schizoaffective disorder. It led to a brain biopsy + spinal tap which confirmed the suspicion of anti-NMDA-receptor autoimmune encephalitis. Medical Marvel: Writing The Great Pretender helped Susannah recognize the full extent of her journey + how lucky she was to be the 217th patient properly diagnosed with her illness. In her latest book The Great Pretender, Susannah examines a 1970s experiment created by Dr. David Rosenhan, where eight volunteers posed with classic mental illness symptoms to challenge the validity of psychiatric diagnosis. Watch Susannah Cahalan's TEDx Talk here. Get a copy of Susannah Cahalan's New York Times bestseller Brain on Fire here. Get Susannah Cahalan's latest book The Great Pretender here. If you enjoyed hearing from a New York Times bestselling author, listen to our Bestselling Authors playlist, featuring my conversations with bestselling authors like Mitch Albom, Judith Viorst + Gary Sinise. SUSANNAH CAHALAN'S LIVE INSPIRED 7 1. What is the best book you’ve ever read? Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë. 2. What is a characteristic or trait that you possessed as a child that you wish you still exhibited today? I had a strong sense of tenacity. 3. Your house is on fire, all living things and people are out. You have the opportunity to run in and grab one item. What would it be? The journal I kept when I was sick. It has mine + my father’s recollections of that time. 4. You are sitting on a bench overlooking a gorgeous beach. You have the opportunity to have a long conversation with anyone living or dead. Who would it be? William Shakespeare and I'd ask, “Did you really write all of your masterpieces?” 5. What is the best advice you’ve ever received? Dr. Najjar: You have to look backwards to see the future. 6. What advice would you give your 20-year-old self? Stop obsessing about how you look, how much you weigh, the unimportant things. 7. It’s been said that all great people can have their lives summed up in one sentence. How do you want yours to read? She was curious, she was fair, and she was compassionate. *** Did you enjoy today's episode? Share it with your friends! Then subscribe, rate + review on Apple Podcasts. Live Inspired with John daily on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Instagram + get his Monday Motivation email.

Twenty-four-year-old journalist Susannah Cahalan’s illness continued to wreak havoc on her brain after a month-long hospital stay in 2009. With no change in her condition, one doctor would finally figure out her diagnosis using one simple test.

In 2009, New York Post reporter Susannah Cahalan suddenly experienced hallucinations, paranoia, seizures and catatonia. She was misdiagnosed for a month before she was finally treated for a rare autoimmune disease that can attack the brain, anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis. She investigated her experience and published the details in her 2012 book, “Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness.” Led by a concern that others suffering from this condition were being mistreated in psychiatric hospitals, she began looking into an influential 1973 study titled "On Being Sane in Insane Places" by psychologist David Rosenhan. The details of her investigation are found in her latest book, “The Great Pretender: The Undercover Mission That Changed Our Understanding of Madness.”

Journalist Susannah Cahalan discusses her book, [The Great Pretender], about a 1973 experiment led by Stanford psychologist David Rosenhan that was conducted to test the legitimacy of psychiatric hospitals in America. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Susannah Cahalan is the award-winning, New York Times bestselling author of Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness, a memoir about her struggle with a rare autoimmune disease of the brain. She writes for the New York Post. Her work has also been featured in the New York Times, Scientific American Magazine, Glamour, Psychology Today, and other publications. She lives in Brooklyn. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

24-year-old journalist Susannah Cahalan began coming down with a troubling set of symptoms in 2009. She experienced hallucinations, numbness and delusions, which grew life-threatening as doctors struggled to diagnose her.

On this week's episode, Gabriele talks about the tale of Susannah Cahalan, a perfectly normal young women who, out of nowhere, slips into actual madness. Join in on her journey through self identity in Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness. Will Susannah ever be the same? Music provided by Joseph Mcdade (josephmcdade.com).

Episode Eighty Eight Show Notes Purchase Book Cougars Swag on Zazzle! If you’d like to help financially support the Book Cougars, please consider becoming a Patreon member. You can DONATE HERE. If you would prefer to donate directly to us, please email bookcougars@gmail.com for instructions.Join our Goodreads Group!We have a BookTube Channel – please check it out here, and be sure to subscribe!Please subscribe to our email newsletter here.– 11th Readalong –Free Food for Millionnaires – Min Jin LeeThe Goodreads discussion thread can be found HERE. We will record with Min on October 30th.– Currently Reading –Ninth House – Leigh Bardugo (CW)Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life – Anne Lamott (EF)– Just Read –The Professor’s House – Willa Cather (CW)The Gifted School – Bruce Holsinger (EF)A Wagner Matinée – Willa Cather (CW)part of the Willa Cather Short Story ProjectAmerican Dirt – Jeanine Cummins (EF) release date January 21, 2020Thoughts in Solitude – Thomas Murton (CW)In Pieces – Sally Field (EF)– Biblio Adventures –Emily went to RJ Julia Booksellers to see Karl Marlantes talk about his new book Deep River and to see Daniel Leader discuss his new book Living Bread: Tradition and Innovation in Artisan Bread Making.Chris watched the movie Late NightChris hosted The Willa Cather Book Club at Wood Memorial Library where they discussed The Professor’s HouseEmily watched the first part of Big Little Lies based on the novel by Liane MoriartyEmily went on a jaunt to NYC and saw the Jefferson Market Library and saw the play Sunday by Jack ThorneChris and Emily attended the Hachette Book Group Bookclub Brunch in New York City:Sally Field in conversation with her editor Millicent BennettEmma Straub in conversation with Susannah Cahalan discussing her books The Great Pretender and Brain On Fire Nonfiction Panel:Moderator Bill Goldstein – The World Broke in Two: Virginia Woolf, T.S. Eliot, D.H. Lawrence, E.M. Forster and the Year that Changed LiteratureRyan Leigh Dostie – Formation: A Woman’s Memoir of Stepping Out of LineLeslie Jamison – Make It Scream, Make It BurnMychal Denzel Smith – Invisible Man, Got the Whole World Watching: A Young Black Man’s EducationFiction Panel:Moderator Karen Kosztolnyik, VP, Editor in Chief for Grand Central PublishingKira Jane Buxton – Hollow KingdomLeni Zumas – Red ClocksAlix E. Harrow – The Ten Thousand Doors of January– Upcoming Adventures –November 1, 2019 – Happier Hour an Evening with Gretchen Rubin and Elizabeth Craft hosts of the Happier PodcastNovember 7-10, 2019 – Charleston to Charleston Literary Festival– Upcoming Reads –Alta California: From San Diego to San Francisco, A Journey on Foot to Rediscover the Golden State – Nick Neely (CW)The Shape of Night – Tess Gerritsen (EF) All the F*cking Mistakes: A Guide to Sex, Love, and Life – Gigi Engle (EF)– Also Mentioned –How We Fight For Our Lives – Saeed JonesOn Writing: A Memoir on the Craft – Stephen KingBOOK CLUB On the GoA Lantern in Her Hand – Bess Streeter AldrichTell Me How It Ends: An Essay in Forty Questions – Valeria LuiselliThe Seven Storey Mountain – Thomas MurtonMatterhorn – Karl MarlantesPritzker Military Museum & LibraryNaNoWriMoMaxwell PerkinsLook Homeward, Angel – Thomas WolfeDoris Kearns GoodwinDinner at the Homesick Restaurant – Anne TylerDSM: Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental DisorderWill Schwalbe

Journalist and best-selling author Susannah Cahalan, ahead of her keynote address at the Global Genes’ RARE Patient Advocacy Summit September 18 in San Diego, discusses about her diagnostic odyssey, the critical role the support of her loved ones made, and what allowed the doctor who diagnosed and treated her to succeed where others had failed.

Our very first episode is finally here!First, if you haven’t already listened to the trailer or even if you have, host Emily Krauser goes a little deeper into the meaning behind the title, How to Be a Sick Kid, how her 10,000 hours of illnesses led her to start the podcast, and why it’s a blend of storytelling, hope, and a sense of community for not only anyone dealing with the aftermath of an illness but their friends and family as well. At the end, we’ll also have our first post-interview segment, Trial & Error. But the bulk of this episode is all about our very first guest, and we're kicking things off with a literally lit lady -- Theresa Mobilio. In 2018, she went from a healthy twentysomething to a coma after her brain essentially attacked itself due to a disease called Anti-NMDA Receptor Encephalitis. Though it’s not a common illness, it was well-documented by another survivor, Susannah Cahalan, in the memoir Brain on Fire.We talk about how Theresa got diagnosed, her struggle with the illness and how she had to relearn how to do everything, including talk and walk, to where she is today, which is still dealing with the aftermath while being hopeful, optimistic, and incredibly well-spoken. We also talk about Jersey a lot (#SorryNotSorry). (Note: We actually recorded this episode in December 2018, so that is why you'll hear talk about Christmas; Theresa is now almost 18 months out from her first symptoms.)       For more information: - Anti-NMDA Receptor Encephalitis Foundation- Theresa Mobilio on Instagram     How to Be a Sick Kid is hosted by Emily Krauser.Editing and Theme Music by Caymen Kwasney.Find How to Be a Sick Kid on social media: Instagram, Twitter and Facebook.

"It was through embracing my sexuality and then cultivating healing in my own life and discovering who I am that artistry blossomed.” - August McLaughlin   This episode is brought to you in collaboration with Siena Soap Company.   Welcome to the brand new Feminist Book Club: The Podcast! Today’s episode is an introduction to the podcast and an interview with August McLaughlin. Celebrate the launch by entering the giveaway: bit.ly/FBClaunch and check out our new website feministbookclub.com   August McLaughlin is a nationally recognized health and sexuality writer, media personality and host and creator of Girl Boner® and Girl Boner Radio. Her articles have appeared in Cosmopolitan, The Washington Post, DAME Magazine, HuffPost and more. She's been a featured TEDx presenter and attended the United State of Women summit, convened by the White House, as a nominated change maker. Publishers Weekly called her book, Girl Boner: The Good Girls’ Guide to Sexual Empowerment “equally fun, risqué, and informative” and “a welcome addition to sexual health literature.” The companion book, Girl Boner Journal, is now available for pre-order.   In a culture where female empowerment is used to sell everything from sex toys to soap, most sex education continues to bypass pleasure. The results are stark—we’ve grown accustomed to slut- and prude-shaming and allowed others to dictate how a “good girl” is meant to feel, act, and look.  In Girl Boner: The Good Girl’s Guide to Sexual Empowerment, August McLaughlin offers an unfiltered blend of personal narrative and practical tips on relationships, solo play, journaling, gender issues, and more. From the perks of “Jilling off” to seven types of ‘gasms, Girl Boner will “empower you to own your sexual self and enjoy … your whole life a great deal more.” So, what exactly is a girl boner? We dare you to find out.   Pick up your copy of Girl Boner: The Good Girl's Guide to Sexual Empowerment by August McLaughlin Preorder the Girl Boner Journal. Listen to Girl Boner Radio. Learn more about August McLaughlin and her work.   August’s book recommendation: Brain on Fire by Susannah Cahalan    Website: feministbookclub.com Instagram: @feministbookclubbox Facebook: Feminist Book Club Twitter: @fmnstbookclub Email newsletter: http://eepurl.com/dvRgvD   - Logo and web design by Shatterboxx  Original music by @amiofficialmusic Transcript for this episode: bit.ly/FBCtranscript1

Do memories of your past affect your happiness today? Susannah Cahalan was young and healthy when she was stricken with a mysterious illness. Learn how writing about her “month of madness” in the bestselling book Brain on Fire helped her reclaim her life.

Tara Westover details her life growing up with survivalist parents in the Idaho mountains and her introduction to formal education at age 17. She is interviewed by author and journalist Susannah Cahalan. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's a festive episode with a special High Low nativity play; written by professional screenwriter (as you will be able to tell) Dolly - and sponsored by frankincense and myrrh. As Amazon and John Lewis declare ambitions to open their end of year sales on Christmas Day itself, and the Bishop of Cambridge descends into outrage, we talk the evolution of ‘family time' and whether online shopping during a day of rest (and/or religion) is a moral issue or merely one of ease and convenience. What about all the people that don't celebrate Christmas? And side note: HOW has Amazon only just launched in Australia? Also up for discussion, Twitter finally rules against hate speech - with the leaders of far right party Britain First suspended from Twitter for Islamaphobic fake news (which was retweeted by Covfefe Trump - natch.) We discuss censorship versus the oft hackneyed cliché of free speech: and why a bigot is not one size fits all. Two book recommendation via Pandora:Brain on Fire by Susannah Cahalan https://www.amazon.co.uk/Brain-Fire-My-Month-Madness/dp/0141975342/ref=nodl_Nobody Told Me: Poetry and Parenthood by Hollie McNishhttps://www.amazon.co.uk/Nobody-Told-Me-Poetry-Parenthood/dp/0349134359Don't forget to shop the Papier.com site with or excloooosive discount HIGHLOW for 15% off all your customisable stationary needs. HAPPY CHRISTMAS FROM THE HIGH LOW! See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Wedding Toasts I'll Never Give (W.W. Norton & Company) In July of 2015, the New York Times “Modern Love” column published Ada Calhoun’s essay “The Wedding Toast I’ll Never Give,” a strikingly honest rumination on the true challenges—and joys—of marriage. The essay was wildly popular: it stayed in the most-emailed list for a week, inspired hundreds of comments, and became one of the top 50 stories of the year for the entire newspaper. In Wedding Toasts I'll Never Give, Calhoun builds off of that first essay to provide a funny (but not flip), smart (but not smug) take on the institution of marriage. Weaving intimate moments from her own married life with frank insight from experts, clergy, and friends, she upends expectations of total marital bliss to present a realistic—but ultimately optimistic—portrait of what marriage is really like. There will be fights, there will be existential angst, there may even be affairs; sometimes, you’ll look at the person you love and feel nothing but rage. Despite it all, Calhoun contends, staying married is easy: just don’t get divorced. Wedding Toasts I'll Never Give offers bracing straight-talk to the newly married and honors those who have weathered the storm. This exploration of modern marriage is at once wise and entertaining, a work of unexpected candor and literary grace. Praise for Wedding Toasts I'll Never Give "What a witty, sexy, surprising testimony to the institution of marriage! It's the best essay collection I've read in a long time, just astoundingly honest and insightful about what marriage really means. And I say that as someone who has been married 20 years."—Karen Abbott, New York Times-bestselling author of Sin in the Second City and Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy "This unflinchingly honest, astutely balanced probe of a most perplexing institution asks all the right questions. It sets up a conversation with the reader, who is challenged to reflect at each point, choosing between 'No, that's not me' and 'How did she know that?' Most of the time, she knows."—Phillip Lopate, Author of The Art of the Personal Essay “This really spoke to me. It’s a beautiful love letter to what marriage is. Ada Calhoun seems like she’d be a ball to hang out with. Marriage: not so bad, guys.”—Kathryn Hahn, actress (Transparent, Crossing Jordan) “Ada Calhoun has written the definitive meditation on marriage in all of its mystery and imperfection. It should be required reading for anyone considering it, and highly recommended for those who want to be reminded of why they did it in the first place.”—Molly Ringwald “Brutally honest, hilarious and unsentimental -- but never unkind-- this is a book for anyone who has ever had a thought (good or bad) about the institution of marriage. I devoured this gem in one sitting. I want to marry this book.”—Susannah Cahalan, New York Times-bestselling author of Brain on Fire “A warm, tart, corrective to the persistent conviction that a wedding is the neat end of a love story.”—Rebecca Traister, New York Times-bestselling author of All the Single Ladies “Ada Calhoun is the friend we all need-- the one who lets us behind the curtain of her good marriage to help us better understand our own. She’s smart, funny, and best of all, willing to bare all.”—Emma Straub, New York Times-bestselling author of Modern Lovers Calhoun’s first book, St. Marks Is Dead, was named a New York TimesEditor’s Choice and a Boston Globe Best Book of 2015. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband and son. Davy Rothbart is a bestselling author and Emmy Award-winning filmmaker, creator of Found Magazine, a frequent contributor to public radio's This American Life, and the author of a book of personal essays, My Heart Is An Idiot, and a collection of stories, The Lone Surfer of Montana, Kansas. He writes regularly for GQ and Los Angeles Magazine, and his work has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, and The Believer. His documentary film, Medora, about a resilient high-school basketball team in a dwindling Indiana town, aired recently on the acclaimed PBS series Independent Lens, won a 2015 Emmy Award, and can now be streamed online. Rothbart is also the founder of Washington To Washington, an annual hiking adventure for inner-city kids. He lives between Los Angeles, California and his hometown of Ann Arbor, Michigan.

If you are in the coaching industry where so few coaches seem to be able to make a living from offering their services, you don't want to miss this episode! Join Amy Leo from www.escapingtheratrace.org as we speak with UK-Based coach Ankush Jain in order to trouble shooting common problems business owners and especially coaches face. Tune in to here Ankush speak about: -what's at the heart of creating a successful business (hint: it has nothing to do with getting more likes, followers, better marketing, or more sales conversations) -the impact of having top coaches and mentors -why state-of-mind and lack of confidence is NOT a problem in getting business results -seeing the truth of what you've already got going for you “You can take off your to-do list must be more confident, must be more self-assured, must be less insecure…”- Ankush Jain You can reach Ankush at: www.ankushjain.co.uk on the contact page. You can learn more about Amy and what we are up to at Escaping The Rat Race at www.escapingtheratrace.org Music for today's show Accidental Poetry by Aayushi Jain You can find Aayushi at www.facebook.com/aayushimusic www.soundcloud.com/aayushimusic Today's Real Story Brain on Fire by Susannah Cahalan

Depression or psychotic illness is experienced by hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of people in the UK. James Gallagher talks to the psychiatrists investigating this new understanding of mental illness and to people who may benefit from treatments aimed at the immune systems rather than their brain cells. “I believe this is one of the strongest discoveries in psychiatry in the last twenty years”, says Professor Carmine Pariante of his and other research on the immune system and depression. "It allows us to understand depression no longer as just a disorder of the mind and not even a disorder of the brain, but a disorder of the whole body. It shifts conceptually what we understand about depression." James also talks to New York journalist Susannah Cahalan. She began to experience paranoid delusions and florid hallucinations when her immune system made damaging antibodies against part of the molecular circuitry in her brain. Treatment to eliminate the antibodies prevented her committal to psychiatric hospital. Psychiatrist professor Belinda Lennox at the University of Oxford says she has evidence that a significant proportion of people presenting for the first time with psychotic symptoms are victims of a similar autoimmune problem. (Photo: Brain Cells © Science Photo Library)

Yoda the cat keeps jumping on my lap with his mouse toy as we play fetch and I keep reminding him that it's Your Life on Purpose work time. But he doesn't seem to understand, so if you hear a mouse squeaking toy, that's him saying hello. I just poured a delicious cup of coffee and am thinking of my students who -- about to enter their last year of school- are struggling to find clarity in their life's direction. Today's episode is all about finding clarity. Because, let's face it: we all feel a little lost at some point in time. I know I have before and it's led to some of my favorite memories. It turns out, however, that this is a good sign. It's a sign that we are pushing ourselves beyond status quo and hearing what Joseph Campbell calls “The Call to Adventure” or as I like to call it, The Call to Purpose. It's an inward journey. One that does slay dragons, meets mystical maidens and knights, and takes one far beyond the earlier reaches of adolescent maturity. It's one's collective evolution into a higher form of one's self. A journey that from the observer may look nothing out of the ordinary, but on the inside involves miles of spiritual vagabonding. -------------- Feeling lost sucks. It feels like floating on a life raft in the middle of the ocean of life as you watch a shark fin circle around and around and around. Try these paths the next time you feel a little lost: Writing for the Purpose of Investigation Yes, I'm a bit biased here, but writing is so often overlooked as a vehicle to draw out clarity in one's life. Why does it work? Because when we sit down to write (like in a journal), we bring to light meaning that has been inside us all the time. Just 5 minutes a day, trust me, with one day setting aside a bit more time to let your mind dance. This is what the Beat Generation writers are so famous for. Writers like Kerouac would hike to the top of a mountain, yell in splendor, then write feverishly in their journal writing down everything and anything that came up from the bottom of their mind. You meet a new part of your self every time you sit down to write. Meditation to Investigate The Senses Like writing, when we sit down to meditate, we grow more confident in the uncomfortable. As the mind races, we pull the mind in with the smooth and steady inhale and exhale and allow muddy water to settle. Just watch the TED talk by Amy Cuddy. Cuddy's research shows us how when we move the body into postures that display confidence, our hormones shift into actually feeling more confident. Meditation requires confident posture: spine stacked, shoulders gently rolled back, slight lift in the chest bone. Want to try meditation? Take a listen to a few meditations I made at yourlop.com or you can find them on Insight Timer. Living From The Heart The Yoga Sutras call this purusa. It basically means to practice two forms of love: self-love and compassion to others. To live from the heart means to let go of the past and to stop beating oneself up and to send love to what has brought us harm. During a meditation not too long ago, for instance, I couldn't stop from thinking about the tiny bugs that have brought Lyme Disease into my family and caused my wife (and me by extension) so much grief and torment. I kept imagining the bugs crawling throughout her body and felt carnal anger rise in me. So, instead of ignoring it, I focused on it intensely. I switched from hate to love. What happened surprised me. I immediately saw the Lyme spirochetes as living and breathing organisms just like myself. I began to feel compassion for them. They need a host and require my wife's body to fuel their life. They don't mean any harm, but instead are seeking out clarity in their own primitive life. Instead of wishing them dead, I felt love for them because I understood them. I imagined a radiant light and with a newfound appreciation for the spirochetes, I imagined telling the spirochetes that they are no longer welcome. Their harm is no longer welcome. They must move on. Since this meditation, I've gained clarity on what Lyme Disease has taught me and my family. It's deepened my love for my wife, fueled my desire for personal growth, and has brought to the forefront that which is important in my life: love, laughter, and gratitude. Vicarious Learning I'm a sucker for a good memoir. Why? Because unlike a personal development book like the many written by Dr. Wayne Dyer and Joseph Campbell (among others), a good memoir goes deeper into the anecdotes of another person's human experience. Through learning of another's struggle or suffering — called dukkha in Sanskrit — we can gain clarity in our own lives. Recently, I picked up the memoir, Brain on Fire, and have just a few pages left to finish it. I'm devouring this story because it relates so much to what I've seen my wife go through the past few years. A one-time writer for The New York Post, Susannah Cahalan, went from lexicon extraordinaire to brain-fogged flight risk in the psych ward in a matter of days. After many weeks of ambiguous doctor reports that summed up the hospitals confusion, doctors finally found out that inflammation of the brain caused Cahalan to lose her identity and motor function. Brain fog, lethargy, a roller coaster of emotions — this became the day-to-day for Cahalan. This is not much different from what I've watched my wife go through. Reading Cahalan's story, helps me empathize more with my wife. It helps me find clarity through compassion. Letting Go to Float Call it “Letting Go and Letting God” as Dr. Wayne Dyer used to say or call it Isvarapranidhana as Patanjali did thousands of years ago, it's the same thing. When we let go and realize that there's a higher power at play, it's a bit like learning to swim. When we first try to swim, we flail and exhaust our energy. Eventually, through practice and coaching, we learn how to let go into the buoyancy: we undulate our body efficiently so we can glide through water. As long as we breathe, we float. Thank you for joining me :)

The Ladies of NYAC are joined by Sara Jean-Philippe (@Sjnphil), a mental health counsellor, as we talk mental health in our communities. We discuss harmful stereotypes, self-harm warning signs, effects of past trauma on mental health, and how we can be better mental health advocates. Resources: • Robin Hammond’s Condemned Series - http://www.robinhammond.co.uk/condemned-mental-health-in-african-countries-in-crisis/ • Forming a joint dialogue about mental health - https://ethnobiomed.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13002-015-0075-6 • Mental Health Policy Development in Africa - http://www.who.int/bulletin/archives/78(4)475.pdf • Mental Healthcare in Sub-Saharan Africa - http://www.rand.org/blog/2015/03/mental-healthcare-in-sub-saharan-africa-challenges.html ---------------------- Reading/Watching/Listening to • Susannah Cahalan’s Brain on Fire • Ama Ata Aidoo’s Changes: A Love Story • Buchi Emecheta’s Second-Class Citizen • Siana Bangura’s Elephant • Siana Bangura’s Elephant book launch highlight reel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTdhw28abLs • Ndani TV’s Youtube Series Skinny Girl in Transit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBYN7uU9mpE • Ndani TV’s Rumor Has It - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jw4b1yLZOoE • WanaWana’s Room 313: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLBTJuakGKZTdxNYgP5bvES-5hYThAxj7E This episode was mixed by Ifeoluwa Olokode and theme song is Ayo by Femi Leye

Highlights from SIRS 2016, including online support for carers, machine learning for prognosis and management, new insights into the neurobiology of schizophrenia, and a special item on anti-NMDAR encephalitis with Susannah Cahalan, author of New York Times bestseller Brain on Fire.

Host: John J. Russell, MD An award-winning memoir that goes far beyond its riveting medical mystery, Brain on Fire is the powerful account of one woman's struggle to recapture her identity. When twenty-four-year-old Susannah Cahalan woke up alone in a hospital room, strapped to her bed and unable to move or speak, she had no memory of how she'd gotten there. Only days earlier, she had been leading an exciting life at the beginning of her promising career at a major New York newspaper. Now she was labeled violent, psychotic, a flight risk. What happened? Susannah's memoir tells the astonishing true story of her descent into madness, her family's inspiring faith in her, and the lifesaving diagnosis of an exceedingly rare disease which led to her complete recovery.

Host: John J. Russell, MD An award-winning memoir that goes far beyond its riveting medical mystery, Brain on Fire is the powerful account of one woman's struggle to recapture her identity. When twenty-four-year-old Susannah Cahalan woke up alone in a hospital room, strapped to her bed and unable to move or speak, she had no memory of how she'd gotten there. Only days earlier, she had been leading an exciting life at the beginning of her promising career at a major New York newspaper. Now she was labeled violent, psychotic, a flight risk. What happened? Susannah's memoir tells the astonishing true story of her descent into madness, her family's inspiring faith in her, and the lifesaving diagnosis of an exceedingly rare disease which led to her complete recovery.

Three years after a mysterious illness nearly drove her insane and took her life, Susannah Cahalan visits a patient with the same rare, dangerous condition. Every week the Story Collider brings you a true, personal story about science. Find more here: http://storycollider.org/ Susannah Cahalan is the New York Times bestselling author of "Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness." She began her investigative reporting career at The New York Post when she took an internship her senior year of high school. She has now been at The Post for ten years, three of which she worked full-time after graduating from Washington University in St. Louis. Her work has also been featured in The New York Times, Scientific American, and Glamour UK. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Join Maria as she speaks with New York Times Bestselling author, Susannah Cahalan who tells us about her new book, Brain on Fire. Amy Blankson, author of the Ripple's Effect. Lou Schuler from The New Rules of Lifting Supercharged. And the Mom's Roundtable discusses New Year's Resolutions. This show is sponsored by Lands' End and Family Circle.

"I remember them like dream-like states."

Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness

If the debate about healthcare has taught us anything, it is the consequence and impact of unexpected disease. One illness can put us into poverty.  But it can also literally make us crazy. Imagine an illness, a medical mystery at first, that exhibits all the signs of demonic possession, that takes you over the line between sanity and insanity. That's the story of Susannah Cahalan. She tell us her remarkable story in her memoir Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness .My conversation with Susannah Cahalan: var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www."); document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E")); try { var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-6296941-2"); pageTracker._trackPageview(); } catch(err) {}

Everyone around Susanah Cahalan thought she was having a psychotic breakdown. One doctor looked past the surface details to diagnose anti-NMDA-receptor autoimmune encephalitis. Brain on Fire is the story of Susannah's downward spiral into illness -- and her amazing recovery.