Rob Wipond's Blog

Launch of PsychForce Report on Substack

I’ve launched PsychForce Report on Substack, where I will be tracking and reporting on the expanding uses of coercion, incarceration and force by mental health systems. Subscribe and get PsychForce Report regularly in your email inbox! The vast majority of the content is free — but there are also opportunities to provide financial support for my work, if you are able to, and so inclined. Click here to read the first post, “Why I’ve Launched PsychForce Report.”

 

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Discussing Unwanted Health Care with Rob on the Medicare For All Podcast

Jesse Mangan, host of the Committable podcast, joins me with the Medicare For All podcast team. “Usually on the Medicare for All Podcast, we talk about people who want healthcare but can’t get it, but today we’re talking about people getting healthcare they have specifically refused: folks who have been involuntarily committed. For plenty of our listeners, the idea of being held against your will at a psychiatric institution feels like a nightmare from another time – something out of gothic fict...

The Radically Genuine Podcast Hosts Rob to Discuss 988

Dr. Roger McFillin hosts Rob for a second time on his Radically Genuine Podcast to discuss the dramatically rising rates of unwanted call tracing and policing interventions on 988 callers. “We cannot consent unless we are informed. In this episode I welcome back Rob Wipond, a freelance journalist known for his work on psychiatry, civil rights, and privacy, and we explore the troubling reality behind the 9-8-8 suicide and crisis lifeline, launched in July 2022. While intended as a compassionate s...

More Discussions about 988 Hosted by Wildflower Alliance

During and after the first discussion about 988 hosted by Wildflower Alliance in January of 2024, I, Jess Stohlman-Rainey, Emily Wu Truong, and Sera Davidow received many questions we did not have time to answer. So, six months later, we did a follow-up discussion, including newly obtained data and insights about how frequent call tracing and policing interventions are, and how the system itself is managed. See the second part of our discussion here.

 

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Rob Discusses Misleading Mental Health Law Education in British Columbia, and 988 in Canada

On Rethreading Madness, radio host Bernadine Fox and I discuss an educational brochure being handed out to people in British Columbia educating them about the BC Mental Health Act — where a lot of the information in the brochure is wrong, and sometimes dangerously so. Listen here. And on an earlier date, we discussed some of the problems with the new 988 line, with specific reference to the Canadian context — listen here.

 

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Lost Debate’s Ravi Gupta Interviews Rob

“Lost Debate is a weekly podcast from The Branch that brings you news, ideas, and arguments from around the political spectrum. We engage in the good-faith discussions that too much of our society and media miss. It’s hosted by Ravi Gupta, a former Obama staffer turned school principal.”

Ravi and Rob “explore the realities of abuse and exploitation within the psychiatric system, the growing movement to expand involuntary commitment powers, which often target homeless individuals, and whether men...

“Confidential” 988 Conversation Records Shared with Corporations

Recordings of 988 callers’ voice, text, and chat conversations are being shared with researchers, AI developers, and corporations without consent. .

The post “Confidential” 988 Conversation Records Shared with Corporations appeared first on Rob Wipond.

Beyond the Stereotypes: Homelessness, Community Coercion, and Extreme Cases

From the ISPS description: “The International Society for Psychological and Social Approaches to Psychosis brings together investigative journalist Rob Wipond, author of “Your Consent is Not Required,” Philip Yanos, PhD, professor, researcher, ACT team clinician, and author of “Written Off: Mental Health Stigma and the Loss of Human Potential,” along with Patrick Mureithi, a father, musician, and documentary filmmaker who will discuss his personal journey through self-medication, psychiatric abu...

Lori Ashcroft Interviews Rob for Viva La Evolution

Lori Ashcroft of Recovery Resilience Solutions hosts a podcast called Viva La Evolution that’s “not just a place to receive information, but a place where together we can make authentic connections and feel safe enough to talk about the real things that help and hinder our mutual goals of creating opportunities for people to recover. We want to talk about the approaches that really work and bring us and those we serve hope, joy, resilience, and recovery. And we also want to examine the hard thi...

Rob with The Explorer Poet, Josh Mortensen

In his Explorer Poet podcast, Josh Mortensen and I discuss a wide range of topics related to my book, including as he describes it on his website “theater, poetry, acting, Canada, the United States, journalism, involuntary commitments, Carl Jung, Stanislav Grof, Robert Whitaker, psychology, North America, money, fraud, forced psychiatric intervention, difficult times, electric shock therapy, psychiatric drugs, depression, mortality, stories, transference, projection, frame of references, patholo...