

ReThreading Madness
Bernadine Fox
Bernadine Fox brings a rare and powerful combination of lived experience, long-term disability rights advocacy, and creative insight to her role as host and producer of ReThreading Madness, the award-winning radio show and podcast that dares to shift how we think about mental health.A recipient of the 2022 Courage to Come Back Award, Bernadine is a white settler of Scottish, Irish, and French heritage with a familial connection to the Tsuut'ina nation. She has spent over 30 years advocating for those with lived experience of mental health challenges including survivors of trauma and therapy harm. She is an intersectional feminist, artist, and author of Coming to Voice: Surviving an Abusive Therapist—a memoir that confronts the devastating misuse of power in therapeutic relationships.Bernadine is not a clinician, but she is a deeply informed mental health advocate with firsthand knowledge of trauma, CPTSD, and disability. Her background includes decades of work as a support worker for survivors of severe childhood trauma, a trauma consultant, and public speaker. She has led expressive arts groups in collaboration with Richmond Mental Health and Gallery Gachet, where she also served on the board and helped publish The Ear magazine. She has served on the board of such organizations as Kickstart (Disability Arts and Culture) which focused on breaking down barriers to creative access for people with disabilities.What sets Bernadine apart as a radio host is her unwavering commitment to telling the truth—even when it's uncomfortable. She doesn't shy away from difficult conversations; she invites them. With compassion and clarity, she brings forward voices that are often silenced, challenges harmful narratives, and explores the messy realities of mental health, trauma, and recovery.ReThreading Madness is more than a show. Under Bernadine's guidance, it's a platform for unfiltered, survivor-centered dialogue—one that refuses to pathologize trauma and instead builds community through shared truth. RTM won the Breaking Barriers CRABO award through the NCRA. Bernadine currently lives in the forest with two cats, raises her grandchild, and continues to create, speak, and advocate for a world where mental health care is ethical, accessible, and just.ReThreading Madness is produced and aired on the ancestral and unceded traditional territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations. We extend our gratitude and appreciation to the Indigenous people who have been living and working on this land from time immemorial.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/rethreading-madness--5675300/support.
Episodes
Mentioned books

Dec 20, 2022 • 58min
Living as an Internet Meme while Falling through the Cracks Unseen: A Talk with Paint AF w/ Poem from William MacPherson
Paint is polygendered, disabled, autistic, and mad. He uses his work to craft a future where we are free to be and thrive as our unique selves. His art is also part of a broader quest for healing and regaining lost abilities. Today, we talk about what happens when you are abusively used as an internet meme and how being his uniqueness meant he fell through cracks within the mental health system. Its an odd contrarian position to be in. And then William MacPherson shares with us his poem about living with mental health challenges. Learn more about ReThreading Madness at www.rethreadingmadness.ca(music used "It's Alright by Shari Ulrich)Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/rethreading-madness--5675300/support.

Dec 13, 2022 • 1h
Scapegoating: The Dirty Cousin to Bullying with AJ Klein
Scapegoating is unfortunately an all too common occurrence around us. We see it. Sometimes we unwittingly participate in it. AJ and Bernadine talk about the history of and mechanisms in scapegoating especially as it pertains to those who live with mental health and physical challenges.Andrea is a Policy and Technical Assistance Coordinator working on tobacco policy with a health authority and university in the Midwestern area of the United States. Andrea recently moved back to the States after living abroad for fifteen years in New Zealand and Canada. She has an undergraduate degree (honours, distinction) in Health Sciences from Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, British Columbia and is currently finishing a Master of Public Health and Social Policy at the University of Victoria in Victoria, British Columbia. Before beginning her career in public health, Andrea worked for a decade in social justice organizing with a primary focus on climate justice, Indigenous solidarity, racial justice, and intersectional equity movements and issues.(music used "It's Alright by Shari Ulrich)Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/rethreading-madness--5675300/support.

Dec 6, 2022 • 56min
Suzanne Venuta on living with Dissociative Identities
We all dissociate. However, some of us use dissociation as a primary coping skill and create a complex system to deal with what are usually difficult lives. Misinformation about Dissociative Identities (multiple personalities) including stereotypes has been promoted in popular culture complicating the issue even further. Suzanne and Bernadine sit down to unpack what is Dissociative Identities. Every wanted to be a fly on the wall to hear the real goods on dissociation? This is the conversation to hear. Join us for an interview with award winning, recent TEDx speaker, Suzanne Venuta who lives with dissociative identities. (Photo Dan Toulgoet)(music used "It's Alright by Shari Ulrich)Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/rethreading-madness--5675300/support.

Nov 29, 2022 • 47min
Who is Eugene LeBlanc?
Eugene LeBlanc has been the director of the Moncton New Brunswick based self-help center, Groupe de Support Emotionnel inc, the publisher and Editor of Our Voice / Notre Voix and has advocated for the rights of the consumer/survivor and pyschiatric survivor community since 1987. Because of this work he was awarded the New Brunswick Human Rights Award in 2003.We talk about his work and the current state of human rights for mental health consumers.(music used "It's Alright by Shari Ulrich)Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/rethreading-madness--5675300/support.

Nov 23, 2022 • 11min
Ethical Boundaries in Therapy Social Situations
Bernadine chats with Amy Lyn Johnson, private practice therapist and TELL Responder, about ethical boundaries in therapy and in this short episode we talk about what are the rules around running into your therapist in a social situation like an AA meeting. Amy provides a good framework about how an ethical therapist would handle this.(music used "It's Alright by Shari Ulrich)Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/rethreading-madness--5675300/support.

Nov 22, 2022 • 52min
Transgressions and Grooming in Therapy Abuse with Amy Lyn Johnson
Amy Lyn Johnson, private practice therapist and TELL Responder, discusses therapy abuse, boundary transgressions, impact on clients, the healing power of transference, the grooming process, and the normalization of boundary transgressions in therapy abuse.

Nov 15, 2022 • 1h 1min
Losing Malachy to a Drug Overdose: A Mother Speaks Out.
Counselor and mother, Helen Thomas sits down and talks with us about the death of her son, Malachy, at the age of 18 to a fentanyl overdose. We examine our role as parents, the impact on us when we lose our children to an overdose and what could we be doing to change these fatal overdoses.(music used "It's Alright by Shari Ulrich)Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/rethreading-madness--5675300/support.

Nov 9, 2022 • 58min
Charlotte Watson talks about Estranging from Family
Charlotte Watson is an AAMET accredited, certified Advanced Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) practitioner. But here on ReThreading Madness, Charlotte describes why and how she estranged from her entire family as a young adult and how this has impacted her life. It is an provocative story of emotional trauma, betrayal, and an eventual visit with her ailing, elderly father which offered both the recognition of loss but the surprising gift of resolution despite his advanced Alzheimers.(music used "It's Alright by Shari Ulrich)Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/rethreading-madness--5675300/support.

Nov 1, 2022 • 1h
Raising Hope: Kassandra Talks about how She Survived the Trauma of Sexual Assault and Trafficking in Her Childhood
Trigger Warning: child sexual assault and child trafficking discussed. Bernadine engages with Kassandra, a former foster child, about the ongoing and severe child sexual abuse. The importance of Kassandra's story is not in the details of her trauma - it is in how she emerged from it a strong, resilient young woman.Feedback from a listener: I was driving home from my job in Abbotsford, to Surrey. I heard your conversation on Tuesday 7 June with Kassandra. Wow. Please tell her thanks for sharing her story, thanks for her courage, just thanks for her humanity. I chose today to NOT listen to the news, because it's always negative, horrible, repetitive; as if the media are all slaves to just horrifying everyone else. I was wishing for some "good news." Kassandra's story sucks, but what she has done, who she has made of herself; that is wonderful news. It was humbling, and a wonderful listen. I was scanning across the radio for something worth my time. I could not stop listening. Thank you. I don't know why, but you two really spoke to me today. Thanks for doing what you do. Jim Forliti/gr. 9 teacher, Abbotsford.(music used "It's Alright by Shari Ulrich)Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/rethreading-madness--5675300/support.

Oct 27, 2022 • 1h
Three Consequences of Therapy Abuse: Unhealthy Dependence, Betrayal, and Extreme Ambivalence
Amy Avalon, retired private practice therapist and passionate advocate for survivors of therapist abuse, and Carolyn Clement, an award-winning family photographer and survivor of therapy, child, and sibling abuse, discuss the damaging effects of therapy abuse, including unhealthy dependence, betrayal, and extreme ambivalence. They explore the loss of identity and trust in oneself, the confusion around roles and ethical boundaries in therapy, standards and manipulation in therapist-client relationships, the phenomenon of clients becoming bonded to manipulative therapists, and the difficulties victims face in recognizing and labeling therapy abuse. They also emphasize seeking support and demanding accountability for survivors.


