Theo Cuthand, TherapyToo, and Venge Dixon on Art, Neurodiversity, Therapy Harm vand Survival

Theo Cuthand, TherapyToo, and Venge Dixon on Art, Neurodiversity, Therapy Harm and Survival

This episode brings together three voices working at the intersections of madness, creativity, survivorship, and resistance, each approaching mental health from lived experience rather than abstraction. Theo Jean Cuthand is a celebrated Indigenous filmmaker, visual artist, and game creator whose work explores Queer and trans identity, Indigeneity, love, and madness. With films and installations shown internationally, from MoMA and the Whitney Biennial to Berlinale and ImagineNATIVE, Theo speaks about using experimental media and game design to make inner experience visible. His video game A Bipolar Journey draws directly from his lived experience of bipolar disorder, challenging clinical narratives by centering self-knowledge, agency, and art as survival. Amy Nordhues joins the conversation as a survivor of therapist abuse and co-creator of the documentary series #TherapyToo. Groomed and assaulted by a psychiatrist as an adult, following earlier childhood abuse, Amy has become a leading advocate exposing harm within therapeutic and faith-based systems. She is the author of the award-winning memoir Prayed Upon: Breaking Free from Therapist Abuse and speaks candidly about what happens when systems meant to help instead exploit vulnerability, and why survivor-led storytelling is essential for accountability and change. Also joining is Venge Dixon, a writer, poet, visual artist, and contributor to Off the Map, an anthology of writings about mental health. Venge reflects on living with mental illness across a lifetime and using creative practice as a way to resist the rigid, punitive categories imposed on people labeled “crazy.” Her work explores creativity as both self-definition and responsibility, particularly for those living outside social norms and within marginalized identities. Together, these guests explore how art, storytelling, and truth-telling function not as therapy-lite or inspiration narratives, but as acts of survival, resistance, and reclamation. This episode asks what becomes possible when lived experience is treated as knowledge, and when people most impacted by mental health systems are centered in shaping the conversation.

You can find more information about Theo Cuthand at https://www.tjcuthand.com/

If you are interested in donating to the Docuseries TherapyToo information on how to do that can be found on their facebook page https://www.facebook.com/people/TherapyToo-Docuseries/61577028284959/

Venge Dixon can be found on Instragram at https://www.instagram.com/vengetable/



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