Video version of this podcast episode at https://youtu.be/aBD0yaUyGms We kick off season 4 of Mental Illness in Pop Culture by adding video, reintroducing ourselves. and getting authentic about mental health and pop culture during the pandemic. We each talk about personal mental health issues during this crisis as well as how our professional lives have been affected: Leanne as executive director of a homeless shelter, and Joe & Scott as educators. We also reflect on pandemic pop culture. We finish with the full version of our theme song, bringing together "Mental Illness in Pop Culture" with Scott's lifetime of embracing being "weird." Next week: We analyze mental health issues and professional helpers in Donnie Darko. Check out all of our podcasts and social media pages: https://open.spotify.com/show/2zS57s6LwstXGD9gkoKWsC https://www.mentalillnessinpopculture.podomatic.com https://www.facebook.com/MentalIllnessinPopCulture https://twitter.com/MIinPC4 https://www.instagram.com/mentalillnessinpopculture

Recovery and redemption: It’s who they are and what they do. The Ain’t Saints Radio crew join Mental Illness in Pop Culture’s team for a podcast about their podcast. Each Ain’t Saints Radio episode features guests’ stories of addiction, recovery, and redemption while also incorporating banter, music, and humor. We discuss their motivation and individual backstories as well as relate their show to its inherent therapeutic factors and the core conditions of person-centered counseling. We also wax nostalgic about Waukegan East High School (Go Bulldogs!) and share personal examples of the importance of diversity in education. Ain’t Saints Radio is available at http://aintsaintsradio.com/, iTunes, or your app of choice!

Vulnerability, generativity, and a search for intimacy emerge as pervasive themes as we process and make sense of comedian and actor Robin Williams’ life, based on the HBO documentary Come Inside My Mind. We talk about hypomania, addiction, depression, amazing films that people are better for having seen, and, ultimately, suicide related to Lewy Body Dementia. In this podcast series, we focus on pop culture portrayals of mental health issues and professional helping, believing that public perception is both reflected and influenced by popular media

In this episode of Mental Illness in Pop Culture, we explore age-related cognitive impairment, alcoholism, rural midwestern culture, family dynamics, and the psychosocial development stage Ego Integrity vs. Despair in Nebraska, directed by Alexander Payne and starring Bruce Dern. Guest podcaster Ethan Conner joins his dad Scott and colleague Joe Flynn to discuss this father-son road-trip film. We frame our discussion with the Bruce Springsteen album Nebraska as we reflect on the film’s stark, black & white, and often plainspoken themes, concluding that “Reason to Believe” could just as well have been used as a subtitle. In this podcast series, we focus on pop culture portrayals of mental health issues and professional helping, believing that public perception is both reflected and influenced by popular media.

In this episode of Mental Illness in Pop Culture, Beach Boys superfan Mark McGowan joins us as we explore family dynamics, birth order, addiction, schizoaffective disorder, creative genius, Love and Mercy, Charles Manson, the ethics of 24-hour therapy, and cousin rivalry, related to Brian Wilson, the Wilson family, and Mike Love. Podcaster Scott tries to make a case that Pet Sounds IS “God Only Knows,” arguably the greatest pop song of all time, plus a bunch of other “really interesting” songs (in the same vein as “A Day in the Life” hypothetically would be to Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band) but gets overruled by Leanne, Joe, and Mark, who make a convincing point about those two records marking a drastic turn for albums needing to be heard as a complete unit as well as how personal and vulnerable all of Pet Sounds' songs are, combined with gorgeous harmonies and precise orchestration. In this podcast series, we focus on pop culture portrayals of mental health issues and professional helping, believing that public perception is both reflected and influenced by popular media. Next episode: Nebraska, with guest podcaster Ethan Conner!

In this episode of Mental Illness in Pop Culture, we analyze the impact of early familial Alzheimer’s in Still Alice, with Julianne Moore in the Academy Award-winning title role. We focus not only on how Alice and her family deal with her increasing cognitive impairment throughout the film but also reflect on identity loss, family dynamics, birth order roles, existential themes, the film’s importance for counselors and other professional helpers, and our own fears as we contemplate how this topic relates to our families and possible futures. This episode is dedicated to my birth father, Joe Rowland, 1939-2018. In this podcast series, we focus on pop culture portrayals of mental health issues and professional helping, believing that public perception is both reflected and influenced by popular media.

In this episode of Mental Illness in Pop Culture, our analysis of Ingrid Goes West starring Aubrie Plaza leads to an exploration of obsession, social media, and “like” culture -- in the film . . . and our lives! Ingrid’s IRL identity focuses on avoiding pain through attachment to online celebrities who have gained status by masking authenticity. Along with guest podcaster Diana Mondragon, we debate the ending’s humor and find the film’s overall ideas reflective of what may currently be trending in life. In this podcast series, we focus on pop culture portrayals of mental health issues and professional helping, believing that public perception is both reflected and influenced by popular media. Next episode: The Beach Boys

In this episode of Mental Illness in Pop Culture, we explore revelation and restoration in Wild, starring Reese Witherspoon, based on author Cheryl Strayed's 1,000-mile walkabout to overcome addiction and depression following grief and loss. We examine the archetypal "hero's journey" -- transformation by prevailing over wounds and challenges. We also discuss some of the film's other symbols and archetypes, its carefully chosen music, and, ultimately, its reflection of the human condition. In this podcast series, we focus on pop culture portrayals of mental health issues and professional helping, believing that public perception is both reflected and influenced by popular media. Next episode: Ingrid Goes West

In this episode of Mental Illness in Pop Culture, guest podcaster Andrew Plath joins us to explore mental health issues related to Pearl Jam and “Jeremy,” a song and video about a boy who finds voice by bringing a gun to school and killing himself. We debate the source of Jeremy’s angst, whether his retaliation was mental or physical, and interpret the song’s often-bleeped “f” word, while speculating singer Eddie Vedder may have drawn on personal issues in his vocal and video performance. In this podcast series, we focus on pop culture portrayals of mental health issues and professional helping, believing that public perception is both reflected and influenced by popular media.

In this episode of Mental Illness in Pop Culture, we examine The Stanford Prison Experiment, in film and real life. A coin toss determined whether volunteers would be “guards” or “prisoners” in this controversial research project. We welcome guest-podcaster and doctoral student Andre Joaquim as we explore the relationship of power to imprisonment, gender, groupthink, displacement, conformity, and ethics. We also reflect on professional helper and educator Dr. Phillip Zimbardo’s decision-making while the experiment took place as well as his atonement afterward. We find the film both hard to believe and true to life while remaining uncertain about its implications for human nature. In this podcast, we focus on pop culture portrayals of mental health issues and professional helping, believing that public perception is both reflected and influenced by popular media.

Pepe Le Pew, Bugs Bunny, and Wile E. Coyote are among the Loony Toons characters whose mental health issues and identities we dissect in the first episode of Season 3 of Mental Illness in Pop Culture. Other cartoon characters mentioned: Foghorn Leghorn, Speedy and Slow Poke Gonzalez, Sylvester, Tweety Bird, Elmer Fudd, Yosemite Sam, and Penelope Pussycat. We also contrast Warner Bros with Disney and briefly analyze Rick and Morty. All of the above are informed by guest host, counselor-in-training, and cartoon aficionado Chris Gonzales.

We preview season 3 of Mental Illness in Pop Culture and welcome Dr. Joe Flynn to the podcasting team!

2016 Academy Award winning Moonlight intersects race, gender, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, interpersonal violence, and emotional neglect, all swirling around together with the identity development challenge of intimacy vs. isolation. These issues come together in three compelling chapters from the life story of a character known alternately as “Little,” “Chiron,” and “Black,” representing names he was referred to as a child, adolescent, and adult, initially set in Miami during the War on Drugs. The film challenges traditional assumptions about right and wrong as well as who people can trust to get their essential needs met, showing the infused mental health issues that come about and (sometimes) get resolved, in a perpetual and often generational cycle. In the podcast, we tentatively disagree with each other about the idea of how much “choice” is involved in some choices, but we ultimately agree the film represents the inherent beauty of human nature: flawed people doing the best they can under complicated circumstances and seeking relationship. In this podcast series, we focus on pop culture portrayals of mental health issues and professional helping in film, believing that public perception is both reflected and influenced by popular media.

The cult classic and dark romantic comedy Harold and Maude puts a humorous yet existential gender spin on the May-December motif, with 20-year-old Harold Chasen (Bud Cort) proposing his love to 79-year-old Dame Marjorie “Maude” Chardin (Ruth Gordon). Filled with attention-seeking attempts at shock and awe, we discover Harold’s avoidant attachment style to have originated from lack thereof with his mother, known only as Mrs. Chasen (Vivian Pickles), who may be well intentioned but doesn’t know what to make of Harold’s morbid fascination with death (Thanophilia) and multiplicity of fake suicide demonstrations. In contrast, Maude represents utter fascination with life itself, and we learn an implied bitter backstory has led her to choose an optimistic and vivacious embracement of living life fully until its end. Through their relationship, and underscored by a pre-MTV almost magical juxtaposition of song with image via the artist formerly known as Cat Stevens, Harold experiences emotional entropy of Maude’s sheer joy for life and living in the moment. In this podcast series, we focus on pop culture portrayals of mental health issues and professional helping, believing that public perception is both reflected and influenced by popular media.

In this extra-long episode of Mental Illness in Pop Culture, we examine The Soloist, featuring Jamie Foxx as the titled character, Nathaniel Ayers, Jr., a homeless musical prodigy with severe mental illness, and Robert Downey, Jr. as Steve Lopez, the L.A. Times writer whose columns about Ayers formed the film’s basis. We find the film to be an authentic portrayal of mental illness, struggle with whether or not the movie is yet another cinematic example of the White Savior Complex, conclude the portrayal of relationship (or lack of) as the core of mental health consistent William Glasser’s Choice Theory, and discuss how power/privilege plays out in mental health treatment and being homeless. In a #momentofauthenticity, podcaster Leanne discloses her personal story as a homeless adolescent being cared for by a parent with severe mental illness at 1:20:43. In this podcast series, we focus on pop culture portrayals of mental health issues and professional helping, believing that public perception is both reflected and influenced by popular media.

In this episode of Mental Illness in Pop Culture, we explore abandonment, complex grief, depression, pain, New England masculine identity, forgiveness, dysfunctional coping strategies, anhedonia, family trauma, binge drinking, lack of professional helping, and acceptance of personal limitations in the Academy-Award-winning film Manchester by the Sea. We consider the film perhaps one of the saddest movies ever made and a realistic portrayal of the human condition. In the podcast, we acknowledge main character Lee Chandler (Casey Affleck) “doing the best he can” despite many flaws and shortcomings in the aftermath of tragedy. We also applaud the film’s refusal to “tie everything up in a neat bow” with a Hollywood ending. Still, we reflect on Lee’s subtle development and transformation through his relationship with nephew Patty (Lucas Hedges), hinting at the potential for eventual hope. In this podcast series, we focus on pop culture portrayals of mental health issues and professional helping, believing that media both reflect and influence popular perception. This particular episode is dedicated to all the close people in our lives we’ve lost, most recently Anne Bloede and Dr. Jim Tolan.

We examine a variety of mental health issues, seeming contradictions, and tragic beauty in Amy, the 2015 Academy-Award-winning documentary about vocalist, musician, and songwriter Amy Winehouse, who became known as much for her "gobby" lifestyle/self-presentation, search for love, and exploitation by significant others in all domains of her life as for her music. Winehouse’s songs captured her powerful story, culminating in the refrain and lyrics of her mega-hit: “They tried to make me go to rehab; I said ‘No! No! No!’ . . . My daddy says I’m fine. . . . I don’t ever wanna drink again; I just, ooh, I just need a friend.” In this podcast series, we focus on pop culture portrayals of mental health issues and professional helping, believing that media both reflect and influence popular perception.

We explore themes of freedom/oppression, empowerment, and escape as well as rampant religious symbolism within this Academy-Award-sweeping film that still holds up 40+ years later. Randall Patrick "Mac" MacMurphy (Jack Nicholson) bluffs his way into a mental institution to avoid hard labor and prison time despite his skeezy conning and conniving ways. However, during the time Mac spends as an informal helper among the hospital's patients and seemingly in contrast to professional helper Nurse Rached, Mac comes to have compassion, empathy, and a servant-leadership style that seems to facilitate transformational growth and development for all other patients, including his making the ultimate altruistic sacrifice. All characters experience redemption, find freedom from or within oppression and authenticity despite marginalizing and oppressive external forces. We also explore cultural identity and gender within what on the surface seems to just be a film about crazy white guys and one Native American. In this podcast series, we focus on pop culture portrayals of mental health issues and professional helping, believing that media both reflect and influence popular perception.

In this introductory episode to our second season of Mental Illness in Pop Culture, we introduce ourselves (including new team members Broc and Leanne), talk about our interest/experience with mental health issues and professional helping, and plan for upcoming episodes!

In this episode, Adam, Anna, Olivia, Toni, and Scott summarize what they've learned through the first season of Mental Illness in Pop Culture, going meta- on film and episode highlights, the collaborative process of working together, and podcasting itself, all based on the idea that popular media reflect and influence cultural perceptions of mental health issues and professional helping.