ReThreading Madness Historical Mad Voices from Inside the Asylum with Michael Rembis
Feb 25, 2026
59:59
Historical Mad Voices from Inside the Asylum with Michael Rembis
What happens when we stop telling the history of psychiatry from the doctor’s perspective and start listening to the people who lived it? In this powerful and wide-ranging conversation, historian Michael Rembis, author of Writing Mad Lives in the Age of the Asylum, joins Bernadine Fox to explore what changes when Historical Mad Voices from Inside the Asylum with Michael Rembis we center the voices of those labeled “mad.” Drawing from firsthand accounts of institutionalization between 1830 and 1950, Rembis reveals a long and often hidden history of resistance, reform, abuse, survival, and self-advocacy. The asylum was never a neutral or purely benevolent space. It was contested from the very beginning. Together, they examine psychiatric power, forced treatment, gendered confinement, trauma pathologization, violence narratives in the media, and the enduring struggle to be heard within systems that claim to help. This episode moves beyond simplistic binaries of “care” versus “control” and instead asks deeper questions: Who gets to define madness? Who holds authority? And what happens when we reclaim our own stories? This is a conversation about history, yes—but also about the present moment, and the ongoing fight for dignity, agency, and community care.
Music by Shari Ulrich and Sia
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/rethreading-madness--5675300/support.
What happens when we stop telling the history of psychiatry from the doctor’s perspective and start listening to the people who lived it? In this powerful and wide-ranging conversation, historian Michael Rembis, author of Writing Mad Lives in the Age of the Asylum, joins Bernadine Fox to explore what changes when Historical Mad Voices from Inside the Asylum with Michael Rembis we center the voices of those labeled “mad.” Drawing from firsthand accounts of institutionalization between 1830 and 1950, Rembis reveals a long and often hidden history of resistance, reform, abuse, survival, and self-advocacy. The asylum was never a neutral or purely benevolent space. It was contested from the very beginning. Together, they examine psychiatric power, forced treatment, gendered confinement, trauma pathologization, violence narratives in the media, and the enduring struggle to be heard within systems that claim to help. This episode moves beyond simplistic binaries of “care” versus “control” and instead asks deeper questions: Who gets to define madness? Who holds authority? And what happens when we reclaim our own stories? This is a conversation about history, yes—but also about the present moment, and the ongoing fight for dignity, agency, and community care.
Music by Shari Ulrich and Sia
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/rethreading-madness--5675300/support.