Dr. Tom Insel is a psychiatrist, a neuroscientist and an influential voice in the national conversation that is gaining momentum around the failures of the American mental health system and the need to do better for the humans that are suffering as a result. His new book, released in February 2022, is a worthy read, Healing: Our Path from Mental Illness to Mental Health.
In this episode we talk about how his life journey informs his current work and advocacy as he enters this chapter in his life. He speaks with a certain humility about how assumptions he made early in his career, or even while head of the National Institute for Mental Health, have changed as he has spent time with families and people with lived experience. His eyes were further opened to the challenges in our communities as he toured the state on a listening tour in behalf of California’s new governor, Gavin Newsom.
He speaks with eloquence about the profoundly simple idea (yet hard to implement or fund in our current system) to focus on People, Place and Purpose to support an individual’s recovery from their mental illness.
Dr. Insel joined our delegation in September 2019 when we attended the international mental health conference in Trieste Italy and he shares some memories from that experience.
Additional links and resources:
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/02/american-mental-health-crisis-healing/622052/
Additional articles from his website:
Press — Thomas Insel, MD (thomasinselmd.com)
Finally, Dr. Insel is part of a team that has created a new information source MindSite News.
From their Mission Statement:
MindSite News is a new nonprofit, nonpartisan digital journalism organization dedicated to reporting on mental health in America, exposing rampant policy failures and spotlighting efforts to solve them. We seek to create and sustain a sense of national urgency about the workings and failings of the U.S. mental health system and to impact that system through our reporting, making it more equitable, effective, transparent and humane in its care for individuals and families struggling with mental illness.