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Events, Interviews, Presentations, Blog

News & Events2024-06-08T03:21:10+00:00
1003, 2024

Rob on Changing Crisis Care Podcast

By |March 10th, 2024|

Jessica (Watson Miller) Ocean interviewed me for Changing Crisis Care: The Psych Crisis Podcast. Jessica lost her brother after he had a brutal experience with involuntary psychiatric interventions.

psychcrisis.org is working to change the system that responds when someone has a mental health crisis so it actually helps. On this podcast, we interview people with deep knowledge about some part of the system to ask ‘what needs to change?’ and ‘what is in the way?'”

Click here to listen.

903, 2024

Political Uses of Mental Health Laws in the U.S. and Canada Today

By |March 9th, 2024|

After our talk got bombed by online trolls and forced to shut down, the Institute for Development of Human Arts kindly hosted me and Kelechi Ubozoh discussing “Political Uses of Mental Health Laws in the U.S. and Canada Today.” Unlike in my other talks, in this one I focus on how we understand “political” uses of involuntary detention and forced treatment, and show a range of important examples to consider. By the way, Kelechi is an amazing speaker and psychiatric survivor and well worth the listen in herself!

 

903, 2024

Rob Discussing 988 in Canada on Rethreading Madness

By |March 9th, 2024|

Bernadine Fox interviewed me for Rethreading Madness after my most recent article about covert call tracing by the new 988 line in Canada. Bernadine received the Breaking Barriers award at the 2023 National Community Radio Awards — that’s her in the picture!

Click here to listen to the interview.

2402, 2024

988: Is it Harming More than Helping?

By |February 24th, 2024|

988: Is it harming more than helping? Wildflower Alliance hosted a discussion with me, psychiatric survivor and 988 victim Emily Wu Truong, and 988 consultant Jess Stohlman-Rainey about the latest known and still-not-known about 988 in the U.S.

 

 

810, 2023

Rob Presents Seminar for Georgetown University Health & the Public Interest

By |October 8th, 2023|

I presented a talk on involuntary psychiatric treatment and discussed the issues with students as part of Georgetown University’s fascinating Health and the Public Interest series. Click here to watch it on YouTube.

810, 2023

Psychiatrist Awais Aftab and Rob Discuss Forced Treatment

By |October 8th, 2023|

Psychiatrist Awais Aftab read my book Your Consent Is Not Required and reviewed it for his “Psychiatry at the Margins” substack series, and then he and I engaged in an email discussion about different perspectives on forcing psychiatric interventions on people. Click to read part one and part two of our exchange.

810, 2023

Rob Interviewed for New Podcast & Video Series “Reimagine Mental Health”

By |October 8th, 2023|

Psychiatric survivor and yoga teacher Emmy Chahal and family member and advocate Kyle Fawkes interviewed me for their new “Reimagine Mental Health” podcast and video series. Listen to the first two podcasts in the series to learn more about their stories, and click here to watch the interview with me on YouTube or here to listen to the audio version.

1807, 2023

California’s “Inside the Issues” with Alex Cohen Brings Rob Aboard

By |July 18th, 2023|

Alex Cohen interviewed me for her show “Inside the Issues” about my book Your Consent Is Not Required and efforts in California to expand forced psychiatric treatment laws. Click here to watch the show, with the interview beginning at about 33:00 minutes.

1007, 2023

The best books for understanding contemporary involuntary commitment and forced psychiatric treatment

By |July 10th, 2023|

Shepherd is an intriguing website, where “8,000+ authors have shared five of their favorite books around a topic, theme, or mood.” It’s a fascinating way to get a little more insight into authors as they describe their own books, as well as get very personal, expert book recommendations from them. I’m a bit reluctant to use a term like “best”–especially when I know all too well how many great books I couldn’t include–so I might have instead called mine a list of  “books that, placed together, craft an insightful overall picture into contemporary involuntary commitment and forced psychiatric treatment.” In any case, I liked writing this, and if you’re an avid reader, you’ll probably enjoy meandering further through the

1406, 2023

Gabe Howard of Inside Mental Health Interviews Rob

By |June 14th, 2023|

Gabe Howard interviewed me for his popular Healthline PsychCentral podcast “Inside Mental Health.” Gabe identifies as bipolar, has personally experienced psychiatric detention, and has interviewed a wide array of guests over the years of his podcasts, and brought some deep and unique understandings of the issues from my book Your Consent Is Not Required.

A two-parter! Click here for the podcast.

1406, 2023

Rob on Abolitionist Radio and Christian TV

By |June 14th, 2023|

Jesse Strauss interviewed me for Law & Disorder, the self-declared abolitionist California radio station KPFA, about the 988 hotline’s use of call tracing to detain people in psychiatric hospitals.

I also recently appeared on the Christian cable television channel Daystar in Canada, discussing my book Your Consent Is Not Required on the show TalkTruth.

Diversity — your choice!

 

2904, 2023

LIVE May 4: “Ask Us Anything” about Mental Health Laws

By |April 29th, 2023|

“ASK US ANYTHING about how involuntary psychiatric commitment and forced drugging laws and hearings work, and the best ways to navigate them.” A live YouTube discussion event with lawyer Jim Gottstein, journalist Rob Wipond, and psychiatric survivor Janet Werner. Thursday May 4, 2023 at 3 pm pacific, 6 pm eastern. Watch the video on YouTube here.

 

2504, 2023

Law360 Canada Reviews Your Consent Is Not Required

By |April 25th, 2023|

One of Canada’s top psychiatric civil rights lawyers and legal scholars, Anita Szigeti, describes Your Consent Is Not Required: “…informative, eye-opening… Having worked as a defence lawyer representing ten thousand individuals embroiled in the justice system consequent to being diagnosed with a mental disorder over 30 years at the bar, I know that Wipond’s thoughtful analysis is right on all fronts… There has not been much, if anything of this nature available in print, until now… should be required reading for anyone involved in supporting, treating, caring for or representing persons living with serious mental health issues.” Click here to read the full review.

 

2404, 2023

Decarcerating Care: Histories of Coercion and Dreams for Liberated Futures

By |April 24th, 2023|

Hosted by the Institute for the Development of Human Arts, I participated on a diverse panel with Tatyana Nduta, James Burch, Kelechi Ubozoh, Chacku Mathai, and Theo Henderson. From IDHA: “On Monday, April 17th, 2023, IDHA hosted a community discussion that explored how institutionalization has long operated as a tool of social control, disproportionately impacting Black and Brown communities, manifesting today in the expansion of involuntary commitment directives nationally.” Learn more about the event and the presenters, or click here to watch the talk.

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