0:00

ABC Listen, podcasts,

0:02

radio, news, music

0:05

and more. Hello,

0:17

welcome to Big Ideas. Natasha Mitchell here

0:19

with you. And in my work as

0:21

a journalist reporting on mental health and

0:23

the mind sciences over many years, I've

0:25

read a lot of powerful memoirs about

0:27

mental illness. Even quite

0:30

as nuanced or powerful as

0:32

New York author Jonathan Rosen's book

0:34

The Best Minds, a story of

0:37

friendship, madness and the tragedy of

0:39

good intentions. It's

0:41

a tender read, it's a tough read and

0:43

in light of the recent Bondi shopping centre

0:46

killings of six people by a man

0:48

allegedly with a history of unmedicated

0:50

psychosis, the discussion you'll

0:53

hear today was horrifyingly prescient.

0:55

It's important to say though that it was recorded

0:58

in March at the Adelaide Writers

1:00

Week that every story is individual. This

1:02

one happened a long time ago. But

1:05

it is a story that highlights

1:07

many of the present day failures

1:10

and the complexities of treating severe

1:12

mental illness. Jonathan Rosen

1:14

joined me on Ghana Country with

1:16

psychiatrist Patrick McGorry, professor of

1:18

youth mental health at the University of

1:20

Melbourne, the executive director of Origin and

1:23

founding director of the Youth Mental Health

1:25

Service, Headspace. There's

1:30

a lot to this story and the full telling

1:33

of it will be in the book obviously, but

1:35

we'll see what themes we can connect with today.

1:38

And so Jonathan, take us back to

1:41

1973 and you're 10 and you moved

1:43

to New Rochelle just

1:45

outside of New York and a

1:47

kid introduces himself to you. He

1:49

lives across the road. Very

1:52

kids unique, but Michael was

1:54

an especially exceptional

1:56

individual, wasn't he? He

1:59

was. I met him right away. We lived

2:01

on a very short street. It was one

2:04

little block. There were about seven houses. I was

2:06

at the top of the hill. He was at

2:09

the bottom. Just enough hill to ride a skateboard

2:11

into a parked car. But

2:14

Michael was enormously precocious.

2:17

And he read

2:20

at lightning speed. I

2:22

was a very slow reader and a troubled reader. He

2:25

had a photographic memory. He

2:27

would always engage while I was waiting for him

2:30

to finish so we could go play basketball with

2:32

my parents, who we immediately called by their first

2:34

names. The details

2:36

of the Watergate scandal. He

2:38

knew all the ins and outs. And

2:41

as a kid, as I'm talking

2:43

about as a 10-year-old, I

2:45

knew who Nixon was and I knew he was a

2:47

crook. That was the limits of my knowledge. He knew

2:50

every member of the cabinet and what they had done. And there

2:57

was just an immediate connection between us, different as

3:00

we were. His

3:02

house was completely different from

3:04

my house, although his father was a

3:06

college professor and my father was a

3:08

college professor. And you were both bookish?

3:10

We were both bookish. Big time. Big

3:12

time. He read them all.

3:14

Sometimes at the same time, in class

3:16

he had stacks and he would just

3:19

randomly read from them during class. He

3:21

had permission to read during class because he'd

3:24

zipped through these required readings called

3:26

SRAs. And I did not

3:28

do that. But we were both bookish

3:30

in that we had, and we both wanted to

3:32

be writers. And so we had that in common.

3:34

He was constantly introducing me to writers, to

3:37

books, to words, ideas.

3:40

At the same time, he needed someone who

3:43

listened to him. We shared a sense of humor. And

3:47

that was how our friendship began. What I was

3:49

going to say is his father taught economics. His

3:51

father wore a leather bomber jacket and

3:54

had this very aggressive Way of meeting the

3:56

world. And His name was Chuck. And his name was

3:58

Chuck. Yeah. And he might imagine. Even his

4:00

name was a verb as I said. Much

4:03

My father was a refugee from Vienna,

4:05

used to walk backwards across the street

4:07

when Chef was coming towards him, even

4:10

though they agreed about a lot of

4:12

things. politically. my father was very soft

4:14

spoken person, he taught German literature, and

4:16

so although they were. Bookish homes

4:18

they were very different. he has Michael had

4:21

two brothers he was the youngest of to

4:23

large older brothers and there was a kind

4:25

of wonderful Miles hint energy in the house.

4:27

I had a sister we would always defer

4:29

to we chance her and so it was

4:31

wonderful to get up, go over there for

4:33

a little while just to absorb that. I'm

4:35

going to hell out of era and he

4:37

wanted to come over and sit in our

4:39

garden and talk to my mom and she

4:41

was gardening or my sister when she was

4:43

doing our own work. But you get

4:45

the sense that to Michael was very

4:48

much slumming it in childhood. He'd grown

4:50

up way before. Childhood began. Yeah, he

4:52

reminded me of Merlin in the once

4:54

and future King who would lived backwards

4:57

and he was just at the very

4:59

end, but he'd already had a whole

5:01

adulthood. Ah, he had tinted aviator glasses.

5:03

Kids did not were tinted glasses but

5:05

the same time. There was an enormously

5:08

forward leaning quality to and even the

5:10

way he walked his nickname was toes.

5:12

he bounced forward. He was very tall.

5:14

I was only slightly taller but no

5:16

and necessarily with thought of me as

5:19

call him. he was always sort of.

5:21

Rising up to meet his future Had such

5:23

need to see my footing had he had

5:25

multiple nicknames i think another one with professor.

5:27

Sat out of that

5:29

relationship. Site use

5:31

on to. Your teens and

5:33

then again seem to university. We

5:37

were very competitive despite our

5:39

great differences. When

5:41

we had to dress up as an

5:43

historical figure in fifth grade, he was

5:46

Str and I had to push him

5:48

around in the wheel chair of the

5:50

swivel chair of the teacher. I

5:53

was Hawthorne, which my mother, whose a

5:55

writer had suggested. I wasn't even sure

5:57

who I was and nobody gets to.

5:59

I was. Pretty much dressed like my

6:01

mother I was wearing her let her velvet vast

6:03

and are roughly shirt that I thought was right

6:05

early. About we

6:08

were a associated with each other. We

6:10

did. we saw each other almost every

6:12

day and then. We. Became. Competitive

6:15

at a different way. As we got older,

6:17

we both wanted to be the editor in

6:19

chief of the high school paper. I. Wound.

6:22

Up being the editor but

6:24

Michael's. Quit. Because he didn't

6:26

want to work for me whereas I

6:29

would not have quit, pride been him,

6:31

he had a colossal ego that I

6:33

think a shaded gradually into a kind

6:35

of grandiosity, but I was so shy

6:37

that I saw it as a part

6:39

of the an almost an admirable quality

6:41

because his ability to project himself into

6:43

the world and to take up space

6:45

without. Apologizing for it. Let's

6:48

say, whereas in my family I'm named

6:50

for a murder grandfather, my sister's name

6:52

for a murdered grandmother was killed in

6:54

the holocaust, just to be alive was

6:56

already hit. You might think it was

6:58

just an affirmation of survival, but it

7:00

was also almost a guilt inducing problem

7:02

because that you should be there at

7:05

all. And so we just had very

7:07

different approaches to the world that I

7:09

was certainly wasn't aware of any of

7:11

these things. you just accept. People.

7:14

And yourself as you. Are.

7:16

I sense of but we both

7:18

got in to yell and. I'd

7:22

had started to divulge. Then really, our

7:24

paths started to divergent and Michael said

7:26

to me the summer before we went

7:28

that he didn't think he'd see much

7:30

of me and I. I said why

7:32

and he said well, you're you're too

7:34

slow and I was always in my

7:36

mind and like the tortoise to his

7:38

hair and so on the one hand

7:40

it was very very hurtful in the

7:42

other hand made it a kind of.

7:45

Grim, painful sense. But it was

7:47

also just as a spur to

7:49

my. Desire to

7:51

not be so defining. A

7:53

defining friendship. Those says friendships that

7:55

we we saw Manassas twenty and

7:57

that sustain us three. Those. The

8:00

either side? vital and and so

8:02

definitional for the rest of our lives.

8:04

really don't I am face and

8:06

any insights T been strangely enough

8:08

guys to be that management consulting

8:10

firm. It's the what the eighties

8:12

and seven that say these by

8:14

the and isn't Yeah So so

8:16

you know the rise and rise

8:18

of management consulting Sams and he

8:20

he's brought series he swept into

8:22

that world he wants to be

8:24

reached that doesn't make him happy

8:26

and he ends up. Cuisine.

8:29

But when did things start to unravel

8:32

or went? Women women they saw and

8:34

what with the early as signs that

8:36

that he was struggling. Well,

8:38

his plan was to he graduated college and

8:40

three years or with highest honors and went

8:43

to work for management consulting firm which

8:45

was a newish thing. And as he himself

8:47

said, it's because he could talk about anything

8:49

with total conviction. and he really could. so

8:51

why not monetize it? And he was

8:53

going to work for ten years, make a

8:56

ton of money, and be a writer? I

8:58

was going to take my tortoise path to

9:00

victory. I wasn't sure how that was

9:02

going to work, but I had gone to

9:05

grad school, but already in his first year

9:07

he had begun hallucinating. I did

9:09

not know that and I'm not sure the

9:11

people around him know it but he felt

9:13

they were out to get him. I met

9:15

someone who knew someone who went I went

9:17

to school with who said that he was

9:19

always. Convinced. That the

9:21

higher ups were. Sort. Of after

9:24

him but would also never let him

9:26

leave because he was too valuable so

9:28

he left after a year. Moved into

9:31

the attic of a grand house owned

9:33

by psychiatrists who played a large role

9:35

eventually and his care and wrote stories

9:38

so I might have known that something

9:40

was wrong, but when you grow up

9:42

assuming he's the hair you just think

9:44

he's taking a nap and you better

9:47

keep running. Doesn't occur to you and

9:49

didn't occur to me because he was

9:51

doing anyway. What I most. wanted to

9:54

do which was live in an attic room

9:56

with a view of the long island sound

9:58

and write stories all night even he

10:00

was isolated in his own head and

10:03

convinced that there were Nazis in

10:05

the streets of New Rochelle trying

10:07

to run him over. Yeah

10:11

and so this household will talk about that

10:13

because it was part of a whole movement

10:16

of social psychiatrists who

10:18

really saw the

10:20

institution of psychiatry as a devastating

10:24

cause of mental illness or contributed to

10:26

mental illness and so they were trying

10:28

to provide a different type of model.

10:30

A response to an insane society was how

10:34

insanity manifested. Pat let

10:37

me bring you in here because you're

10:39

very involved and have spearheaded a

10:41

movement to support young people in

10:44

the early stages of psychosis. Tell

10:47

us about what we understand about

10:49

the the risk profile of early

10:52

psychosis and early psychotic symptoms. I mean

10:54

certainly some are drug induced but it's

10:56

a much more complex story there and

10:58

we're still piecing it together and we

11:00

may never do so. Well

11:03

it doesn't discriminate against anyone anyone

11:06

can become psychotic so that's the

11:08

first thing. It is more, there is more

11:13

risk in disadvantaged and marginalized

11:15

sort of communities and for

11:18

example in immigrants there are higher

11:20

rates there because of the two

11:23

theories there but so but

11:26

the main thing is that it does come

11:28

on in exactly this age group teenagers and

11:30

young adults as Jonathan described and

11:33

what we've tried to do is detected early

11:35

because if you if you don't pick it

11:37

up early that the outcomes are worse they

11:39

are with any potentially serious or persistent

11:42

illness. You've got to get it

11:44

right at the beginning to have the best chances of

11:46

getting better and there's really great data on that now

11:49

that you not completely but you largely

11:51

miss the boat in achieving recovery if you

11:53

don't actually pick it up in the early

11:55

weeks and the months of the illness. What

11:57

are we talking about in those early weeks?

12:00

weeks and months and days? Well some

12:02

people think that the brain is sort

12:04

of less responsive to the treatment if

12:06

it's delayed but you don't even have

12:09

to invoke that and that's not proven.

12:11

Just think about what's happening to someone's

12:13

life if they're untreated for

12:15

weeks or months at that stage of life

12:17

when you're supposed to be like... Michael

12:20

actually managed to get through to graduation

12:23

before it struck him but

12:26

more commonly it happens to

12:28

people before they've established themselves you

12:30

know academically or career-wise

12:32

and all with relationships

12:35

and networks. So it's just an

12:37

exquisitely sensitive period of life to

12:39

develop any kind of mental health

12:42

problem and most mental health problems

12:45

conversely happen in this transitional phase.

12:47

So this is why we focus

12:51

so much on detecting it early

12:53

and making sure there's a comprehensive

12:55

holistic response to recovery and an

12:57

optimistic approach because when I started

13:00

psychiatry I've told you this in an attacker before but

13:02

the pessimism the kind of yatrogenic

13:05

pessimism that was transmitted to people with

13:07

schizophrenia in particular that there's no hope

13:09

of recovery. That was such a toxic

13:11

thing that psychiatrists used to say to

13:13

people. More than what they said I mean

13:16

it manifested as a reality because of the

13:18

intense stigma around psychosis. Yeah and the

13:21

neglect of the care which is as you

13:23

say you know that institutionalized

13:25

movement was what everyone wanted to

13:27

see happen at that time because it appeared that

13:29

that was a 19th century model that had

13:32

no hope of recovery just warehoused people and

13:34

wrote them off out of sight out of

13:36

mind so there had to be something better

13:38

in the 20th century 21st century for the

13:41

people but a tragedy is

13:43

that they just dismantled that system and

13:45

didn't build the new one. It's complicated

13:48

though and there

13:50

has been robust debate about

13:52

how early do you intervene

13:55

you know with a kid like Michael who

13:57

was an eccentric genius from the moment you

13:59

you know arrived from his mother's womb into

14:01

the world, there's

14:03

a risk of pathologizing children, isn't

14:05

there? And that is happening. I

14:07

think we can absolutely say that

14:10

is happening. Yeah, there's a risk

14:12

of overtreatment and there's a risk of undertreatment,

14:14

but by far the most

14:16

common experience is undertreatment. But you're

14:18

seeing with ADHD and ASD now,

14:21

the risks of overtreatment or

14:23

over-diagnosing. But with psychosis,

14:26

I mean, it's like with any

14:28

other area of healthcare, there's a risk-benefit

14:31

ratio. So what's the risk of diagnosing

14:33

too early? We see that with breast

14:35

cancer and prostate cancer as well. You

14:37

can go too early and expose people

14:40

to risks that are not

14:42

justified, or you can be too late

14:44

and the person doesn't recover. So finding

14:47

that sweet spot is what we've been working on in

14:50

our research. So Jonathan

14:52

Rosen, this was an interesting

14:54

time when Michael started to

14:57

experience these symptoms,

14:59

I guess we could call them, with

15:02

the benefit of hindsight, you

15:04

write so beautifully about the whole

15:07

context within which you were growing up

15:10

in and the challenge to medical models

15:12

of mental illness. You had the

15:15

psychiatrist Thomas Satz, I think I did the last

15:17

interview he ever did actually, just before he died in

15:19

his 90s, extraordinary hour to spend

15:22

with him, who wrote the Myth

15:24

of Mental Illness. You had

15:26

a Scottish psychiatrist, Adi Lang,

15:29

who declared insanity as

15:31

a response to an insane world. And

15:35

then there was the, you were doing literature

15:37

at university. There was a whole literary

15:41

movement that I

15:43

think you described it as mental illness was kind

15:46

of a literary elixir almost. That's

15:48

not quite how you said it, but just give

15:51

us the context that you explore in

15:54

this book, this sort of political,

15:56

social, cultural, philosophical, literary suit.

16:00

I don't know if I can say what

16:02

eventually happened or if you want to eventually

16:04

say that, but I would only

16:06

say now then something dreadful

16:08

winds up happening and

16:10

I knew what happened. Is

16:12

it, I mean, and what happened is that

16:15

after being celebrated for

16:19

heroically going to Yale Law

16:21

School despite his schizophrenia, that

16:24

was going to be the subject of a movie for which he

16:26

was paid an enormous amount of money and Brad Pitt was going

16:28

to play him, but

16:31

you can say where this story's going, it's

16:33

phenomenal. But he went off

16:35

as medication and he killed someone he loved

16:37

very much. But

16:39

what I wanted to say was that in encountering the

16:41

story, I didn't think of it as

16:44

a story, even though it has an arc, it

16:46

was that something dreadful had happened to

16:48

my friend, to whom I was so

16:51

deeply connected in all sorts of unexpected

16:53

ways and

16:55

what it started to feel like was like,

16:58

almost like a murder mystery in which everyone

17:00

was a potential suspect. Why was it

17:03

that when he was ill, there was no care? Why

17:05

was it that we grew up in a world where

17:08

you losing your mind was

17:10

a form of mind expansion? And

17:13

how did all of these things happen?

17:15

Why was it that in my literature

17:18

classes, you read Foucault's madness

17:20

and civilization and learned

17:22

that it was only a social construct and

17:24

that there was no such thing as mental illness.

17:27

It was just a form of othering

17:30

people who were different. And of course,

17:33

there's always abuse, but the

17:35

idea that it was merely a

17:37

semantic affliction and could therefore be

17:40

cured rhetorically is itself a

17:42

kind of madness. And

17:45

I was inside of all

17:48

of these things. And I would add

17:50

to that that my family, and I

17:52

think Michael's two, were both steeped in

17:54

psychoanalysis. And That was

17:56

the dominant mode of psychiatry,

17:58

that these anti-psychiatrists, Mentioned rebelled

18:00

against the chairman of every

18:03

psychiatry department at every medical

18:05

school was a psychoanalyst and.

18:08

In Psychoanalysis does not accept the

18:11

medical model. With illness it believes

18:13

that you are made l everyone

18:15

is made A for the same

18:17

reason that there is a repressed

18:20

emotions or conflict in childhood. And

18:22

if you. If it affects

18:24

you a tremendous amount, perhaps to become

18:26

psychotic, and if it doesn't maybe he'll

18:28

just been erotic and that in the

18:30

same way that I. It's like applied

18:32

mythology out of his. make a Greek

18:35

myths makes you sick and telling your

18:37

story makes you well. It was a

18:39

fantasy for literary people. My parents who

18:41

were both very literary is as is

18:43

assumed, it made perfect sense. Telling your

18:45

story would heal you. and the problem

18:47

is that he was Freud borrowed from

18:49

people who were severely ill. but he

18:51

didn't treat them and there was a.

18:53

Time when psychiatrists recalled alien this

18:55

and they all functions inside of

18:57

psychiatric hospitals. But if you could

19:00

be the psychoanalysis, a psychoanalyst then

19:02

you could just have an office

19:04

like a dentist and abnormal hours

19:06

and three people formally to sit

19:08

of. Well and then you know,

19:10

go home at the end of

19:12

the day. And so first of

19:14

all they got. they danced to

19:17

slice themselves. But also the psychiatry

19:19

against which anti psychiatry was rebelling

19:21

was in many ways already a

19:23

departure from. A medical biological

19:25

world and in the aftermath

19:27

of the Second World War

19:29

and the Holocaust were genetics

19:31

was applied erroneously to demonize

19:33

people. Everyone wanted to get

19:35

as far away. you know,

19:37

Hitler's doctor called Nazi ism

19:39

applied biology And so you

19:41

the idea of biology itself.

19:43

He was falsely apply. But

19:45

even if it had been

19:48

accurately applied, our morality doesn't

19:50

come from biology. And so

19:52

all of these complexities suddenly.

19:54

became things i needed to think about instead

19:56

of just wow wouldn't it been great to

19:58

have been a teenage in the 60s and everybody

20:01

was so free. But

20:04

you articulate your teenage life in the

20:06

60s in such a beautiful, evocative way

20:08

in this book. It's

20:10

extraordinary. Pat McGorry, you came of

20:12

age as a psychiatrist, as a

20:14

doctor, and then a psychiatrist through

20:17

this time, didn't you? So

20:19

were you responsive to that as someone who's

20:22

a progressive thinker and has wide interests

20:25

and passions? Did you

20:27

walk into psychiatry going, this is the model that

20:29

I'm going to follow? Thank you very much. Well,

20:32

I thought the way Jonathan has covered this in

20:35

the book is just incredible. Just

20:37

the best piece of writing about this I've ever

20:39

seen, actually. And

20:42

the dilemmas that it sort of raises. But

20:45

I was a medical student in the 70s

20:47

when anti-psychiatry was at its peak. I was

20:49

very taken with it because of the human

20:52

rights aspect of it, that the people were

20:54

so badly

20:56

treated by society, others I think you

20:59

use that word, and their

21:01

care was just on a

21:03

different level to any other part of healthcare.

21:05

And it was still in these 19th century

21:08

asylums or in those systems of care which

21:10

were split off. But then I

21:12

realized it was a real thing. It

21:15

was a real illness, especially those more severe forms

21:17

which I was very interested in, schizophrenia

21:20

and psychosis. But I

21:23

think psychoanalysis was one form of reductionism,

21:25

seeing everything in a psychological frame and

21:27

then you had this reaction

21:29

to it which was biological reductionism which

21:31

was a return to that sort of

21:33

very brain disease type thinking. And both

21:36

of them are inadequate. This

21:38

is what attracted me to psychiatry because you're

21:40

able to think about the brain, you're able

21:42

to think about the psychology of the mind. And

21:45

the heart trajectory and the impact of trauma? Yeah,

21:47

exactly. And also I worked with refugees a

21:49

lot too so I saw that. But

21:52

also the social context and thinking of

21:54

refugees, the environment that we have here

21:56

in Australia that's made the mental ill

21:59

health. much worse by the

22:01

social and political health.

22:05

So psychiatry offers you a chance to learn about

22:07

all of those causes and

22:09

the influences on mental health. But

22:13

the system doesn't allow you to really

22:15

practice in that way to deliver holistic

22:17

care. So that's what I've tried to

22:19

do, build holistic systems of care that

22:21

don't throw any babies out of the

22:23

bath. And that's the

22:25

hard thing to do because the funding

22:28

and the philosophy have these ideological fights

22:30

still these days in mental health.

22:33

Let's come back to Michael Lorde's

22:36

story, Jonathan, your childhood friend. And

22:40

so Michael quits the management

22:42

consultancy job and he is

22:45

spiraling into psychosis. He

22:47

then spends eight months inside

22:50

a psychiatric hospital and

22:52

emerges from that experience

22:56

and you visit him inside the hospital, but

22:58

he emerged from that experience very

23:01

much changed, didn't he? In

23:04

some sense you get the sense that he's, and this is a

23:06

common experience for friends who I know

23:08

who have experienced psychosis, you

23:11

profoundly grieve who

23:14

you were and you profoundly grieve

23:16

what you've lost. And

23:19

so despite the fact that there's hopeful

23:21

pathways for you, you still know that

23:23

you've lost something very profound and you've

23:25

seen something very dark. So

23:27

why did he end up at Yale Law School?

23:30

And why was that possible? Because in fact he

23:32

was very unwell while he was

23:34

doing that degree, but people rallied for him,

23:36

didn't they? Such was his charisma. Yes.

23:39

He had applied to law school before

23:42

his whole psychotic break.

23:45

What I described was prodromal,

23:47

I guess is the word you'd use. These

23:49

were these gradually escalating

23:52

episodes, but then he had One

23:55

very intense break where he was

23:57

convinced his parents were Nazi- Replicas

24:00

of his actual parents who had been

24:02

killed and is dead bodies were in

24:04

the attic and so he armed himself

24:06

with a kitchen knife and eventually his

24:08

mother called the police and he wound

24:10

up in the hospital. But

24:13

sit. And then he spent his

24:15

long spell in the hospital, where

24:18

yes, he was grieving, but he

24:20

was also chastened in many

24:22

ways, full of self recrimination. It

24:24

was a very different person I've

24:27

ever encountered before, and he was

24:29

also medicated. And the medication itself

24:31

had an effect powerful effect on and

24:33

it was very imprecise. The always described

24:36

himself as a broken television sets and

24:38

he said the doctors to sweat me

24:40

on the side or mood the and

24:42

centers around. ah but even with that

24:44

crude. Those. Crude instruments, they were

24:46

able to. Sort. Of restore him

24:49

sufficiently so that he could then

24:51

gradually begin a path back and

24:53

he went to a halfway house.

24:55

but it was while he was

24:57

in the hospital he learned he

24:59

gotten into every law school. He

25:01

rejected them all as he put

25:03

his except for Yale which he

25:05

deferred were had his brother differ

25:07

and then he was in a

25:09

halfway house. and although he did

25:11

grieve for his last that last

25:13

sense of promise, the paradox I

25:15

think for him of being medicated

25:17

was that. In a way he

25:19

did not entirely see himself as

25:21

ill, he always described himself as

25:23

the Mic Mercy Character with Mercy

25:25

is the smart Our lives are

25:27

the only one flew over the

25:29

cuckoo's nest, especially the movie, which

25:31

is what we knew although he

25:33

rents a book to of course.

25:35

And the point is that Mic

25:37

Mercy isn't mentally ill. he's almost

25:39

like a Kafka characters, a victim

25:41

of mysterious circumstances. Somehow he's just

25:44

there, and so every effort to

25:46

accommodate his illness or set. Him

25:48

on a slope of passive recovery seemed.

25:50

almost like an insult to him his

25:52

father heard the third sites one of

25:55

the doctor suggested maybe could work at

25:57

macy's and michael's used to say why

25:59

would i Why would I bag

26:01

groceries as he put it or work at a checkout

26:04

counter when I could go to Yale Law School?

26:06

Yeah. The reality was though that he was,

26:09

he experienced all the things that people do experience

26:11

because there's a lack of support.

26:14

He experienced poverty for the first time in

26:16

his life. He was from a privileged

26:19

household. He was complicated to

26:21

deal with for his family, wasn't he? So

26:23

he did experience some of those challenges of

26:25

living in a halfway house and trying

26:27

to make a go of it.

26:29

But he did land in Yale Law School and

26:32

people really rallied for him, didn't they? And he

26:34

started to find, at some

26:37

point, he finds the voice

26:39

of advocacy. He does, but

26:41

I think what I was astonished to discover when

26:43

I was researching the book

26:45

was that his professors

26:47

both recognized him as brilliant and

26:49

also as someone who could not

26:52

do the work. And

26:54

one of his professors said to me, a wonderful

26:56

man, said, I assumed, I didn't

26:58

think he would be a Yale lawyer. I

27:00

thought he would be someone who had been

27:02

to Yale Law School, who could

27:04

be an advocate for people with schizophrenia. They

27:07

all assumed he was a genius because

27:10

he carried himself like one and

27:12

he still had a

27:14

remarkable mind. It's just that he couldn't

27:17

sustain the thought or do the work.

27:19

And in some sense, he described that

27:22

genius became a mask for what his

27:24

needs really were, which

27:26

was more medical support. And

27:28

he writes a piece or a

27:31

story in the New York Times and

27:33

really everything changes after that. It's

27:35

such a powerful story, this story

27:38

of reclamation and from

27:40

Bedlam to Yale Law School. It

27:44

really captures the hearts and

27:46

minds of a community of

27:48

people who are living with mental

27:50

illness who desperately need

27:53

role models, positive role models

27:55

like Michael. There is a

27:57

profound need for these stories

27:59

to... connect with people

28:01

to de-stigmatize the experience of

28:03

psychosis. And Ron Howard

28:05

gets in touch, a

28:07

Hollywood director and they buy the

28:09

option to his story. They want

28:11

to turn his story into a Hollywood blockbuster and

28:14

so that that starts to happen. The

28:16

profile in The Times was

28:18

written by a reporter, a

28:20

very well-meaning reporter. Everyone remembers

28:22

it as a piece

28:25

he wrote because he is the

28:27

governing intelligence in it and

28:30

his formulations are all the ones that were

28:32

quoted. And then, but it ends with a

28:34

quote from the Dean of Yale Law School

28:36

saying he's conquered his illness as

28:39

if it were a mountain you climbed, which

28:42

was a misrepresentation of his illness

28:44

because he was deeply, he was

28:46

still hallucinating. But it

28:48

also, these, I

28:51

felt rotten reading it because

28:54

I was impressed, happy

28:56

for him, but deeply disquieted

28:59

because he was asked

29:01

if he ever became violent as he

29:03

reported as a way of saying that

29:06

the people interviewing him for a job

29:08

as a professor of law somehow

29:10

held what he called a hateful stereotype,

29:12

which is a hateful stereotype, but I

29:15

knew he'd patrolled his kitchen, his house

29:17

with a kitchen knife because he was

29:19

defending himself against his Nazi replica

29:22

parents. And so nobody

29:24

inquired into the nature of

29:27

that. The story itself was

29:29

built around him. The headline

29:32

said a voyage from Bedlam and

29:34

halfway back. It's an echo of the

29:36

title of a collection of poems by

29:38

Anne Sexton, who is a Sylvia Plath's

29:41

friend, a wonderful poet who committed suicide,

29:43

who suffered from bipolar disorder, who often

29:45

didn't take medication, but it was more

29:47

about the echo of literature as if

29:49

he had been gathered into the arms

29:51

of poetry and that was

29:53

somehow bestowing on him a promise

29:56

of recovery through art,

29:59

through literary. the actual headline,

30:01

that was the headline, and the deck

30:03

said, like a

30:05

brilliant student encumbered by an

30:08

invisible wheelchair, and that's

30:10

because the dean spoke about building ramps

30:12

for him, but

30:15

it said he was encumbered by the

30:17

wheelchair, not encumbered by his illness. And

30:19

Michael had a way of always describing

30:21

what burdened him as the

30:23

medication, never as the illness. And

30:26

having watched the difference between him

30:28

in his unmedicated state, and

30:30

what a transformation it was for

30:33

him to receive medication, again,

30:36

that those little illusions

30:38

of reality, or truthfulness,

30:40

obviously done as

30:42

a way of sparing him what

30:44

people feared might be stigmatizing,

30:47

were in fact the kind of

30:49

subtle falsification that already

30:52

made his story almost

30:54

the Hollywood version of itself, so when

30:56

Ron Howard read it, and read, here's

30:58

a brilliant young man who

31:00

with the help of his heroic father,

31:03

who was going to be a hero in

31:05

the story, and these amazing

31:07

professors graduated from Yale Law School, the

31:11

arc of the story had already been written, and

31:14

it had partly been written by Michael, who

31:16

loved heroic stories. And Leonardo DiCaprio was going

31:18

to play him, and then I think it was Brad

31:20

Pitt. And then it was Brad Pitt. Yeah, yeah,

31:22

and what Danny DeVito is, his father,

31:24

was it? Well, no, but Michael loved to

31:26

say to all the Yale professors,

31:28

who do you think should play you? How about Danny

31:30

DeVito? And so in a sense,

31:33

he was casting them in the movie of

31:35

his own life that was going to be

31:37

projected on the great, on the

31:39

big screen. And then he had

31:41

to also write his own story, and got a

31:43

book offer, and that was, as part of it

31:45

all, very complicated, and a lot of pressure on

31:47

his shoulders to perform and do what he really

31:50

wasn't able to do. And Pat McGorry, as you're

31:52

listening to this story, and as you read Jonathan's

31:55

book, How did

31:57

you reflect on that tension that you...

32:00

The author thing every day and I do with. People. That

32:02

you're supporting and your practice, Of

32:04

of wrestling with a medication and

32:06

medication has been a really blunt

32:08

instrument for many years. Cellphones: It's

32:10

been quite hard for people to

32:12

say that makes them feel bad,

32:14

but it ironically also makes them

32:16

better. For a thing where Joe

32:18

put it from the medication is not used

32:20

in the careful Nerf way. he doesn't have

32:23

to be like them. And one of the

32:25

things that we did research or was it

32:27

was tough to show that very very small

32:29

doses of medication and her and her a

32:32

sufficient in the very early stages of illness

32:34

and people get over over Medicaid is a

32:36

lot spicer. they present late in and that

32:38

accuse episode spend a ton you could you

32:41

can estimate and haven't even had. studies have

32:43

shown in a brain scanning sons of showed

32:45

that you find the sweet spot. That the

32:47

thousand as below the side effects are

32:49

shown but and is clinically effect of

32:51

that can be done if if you

32:53

pay for my son and then you've

32:56

got them from the right environment to

32:58

actually do that have a listen to

33:00

this I think he do seen as

33:02

a very challenging diagnosis to incorporate into

33:04

your identity of this stage of life

33:06

especially if you got a healthy goes

33:08

com is a natural things that to

33:10

to sit denial is a very protective

33:12

some defense mechanism against any threatening illness

33:14

so this is a journey to I

33:16

see. Come to some acceptance of it

33:18

and need a little help with that.

33:20

This is where the psychological therapies a

33:22

very potent than and earth and the

33:24

relationship with a sensible practical a skilled

33:27

therapist in own a you conscious devolved

33:29

to low skilled workers. It's very it's

33:31

very It's very challenging than one was

33:33

nice to have miss and the other

33:35

thing was are are are are remember

33:37

that time on that optimism better intervention

33:39

was was pitching around the time the

33:41

Michael's so I can understand why he

33:43

is or poster boy for recovery would

33:45

have been very attractive to the field.

33:47

But at the same time the drugs has

33:50

a plane which had been here shield so

33:52

about ten years oh for many as I

33:54

say you and revived in the early nineties

33:56

as a result of some extent research done

33:59

in New York. That is

34:01

a drug, he was still not fully

34:03

recovered as Jonathan said, he still had

34:05

persistent symptoms even though he was better.

34:07

So he's only partially recovered but clozapine,

34:09

a third of patients offered clozapine will

34:11

completely recover at that point. He wasn't

34:13

offered that, it doesn't seem like. So

34:15

he did have a chance of more

34:17

complete recovery if he'd been properly treated.

34:20

What happened in 1998? So

34:24

it looked to outsiders, to

34:27

me, that he had achieved

34:29

everything we had always wanted. He was

34:31

a millionaire because he'd been

34:33

paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to

34:35

write this memoir and

34:38

much, much more for the movie that was going

34:40

to be based on the memoir but that they

34:42

were going ahead with anyway because as

34:44

the screenwriter said to me, sometimes it's easier

34:46

if you don't have to wait

34:49

for or adhere to the story. So

34:52

when he had met Michael and they did

34:54

in order just to get the feel for what

34:56

he was like, the screenwriter said to me, he

34:59

looked like someone wearing a five point

35:01

harness, he was incredibly stiff. He

35:04

was determined, he felt, to demonstrate

35:07

that he was in fact not ill at all.

35:10

Although he told them a story that

35:12

they loved which was that he managed

35:14

his hallucinations like a giant TV where

35:16

he had multiple screens and

35:18

there was the suicide channel and there was

35:20

the murder channel but then there was the

35:23

paradise channel and then there was reality

35:25

and he would just enlarge the reality.

35:27

And of course people who make movies

35:29

and Ron Howard was a child television

35:31

star feel like well that makes perfect

35:33

sense in its way which

35:37

is not to say that somebody might not in

35:39

fact gain that kind of control. There was

35:41

a profound rationality to the way

35:43

he articulated some

35:45

of his experiences. If anything, he

35:48

was hyper rational. And you were co-opted

35:50

into that narrative in a way, all of

35:52

you in a way. When I visited Michael

35:55

the first time in the hospital,

35:57

he called me back with all

35:59

these instructions. He wanted a book,

36:01

The Literary Guide to the Bible, Frank

36:03

Kermode and Robert Alter, but no

36:06

one could see it because they didn't want him having

36:08

it. So I had to wrap it up and bring

36:10

him a tape recorder. And I was getting

36:12

ready to wrap up the book and my

36:15

wife, who I was then not

36:17

married to, but was much

36:20

more sensible even then and worked

36:22

in hospitals, said to me, I

36:24

think that that is not true. I think that

36:26

that is a delusion. Partly,

36:29

I was used to listening

36:31

to his authoritative voice. Partly,

36:33

it was told to me with such conviction,

36:36

partly because I think a lot of people

36:38

don't realize that someone

36:40

who might have severe mental illness could

36:42

have an irrational premise from which many

36:44

rational things are then deduced. So

36:47

in fact, if you think your parents

36:49

are Nazi replicas, arming yourself with

36:51

a kitchen knife is probably a perfectly reasonable

36:54

thing to do. And so

36:56

all of these outward tokens of reason

36:59

or rationality were present. So

37:02

that was already my first thing to do. I

37:04

want to acknowledge the Hearing Voices movement because

37:06

it is a network that

37:09

is trying to have a

37:11

more nuanced conversation about the experience of

37:13

living with voices. So we won't probably get

37:16

into that today, but it is part of a

37:18

network who are trying to talk about this

37:20

stuff, but it's damn complicated. Back to

37:22

you. And adding to the complexity, I

37:24

think, with any of these things is

37:27

when you extrapolate from some

37:29

examples or experiences and establish

37:31

a norm as a result

37:34

of it. Everybody

37:36

assumes even today that

37:38

antipsychotic medication is horrible.

37:40

Now I would never

37:43

pretend that it was a good thing, but

37:45

as Pat was saying, there are doses of

37:48

it that are enormously effective, not for

37:50

all people, but for many. And

37:52

the idea, though, that it is horrible

37:55

is partly because Michael isn't the only

37:57

one who attributed all of

37:59

his difficulties to the burden

38:01

of his medication and

38:03

nobody ever says I had

38:06

the best chemotherapy last week

38:08

everybody Understands that it's a

38:10

burdensome intervention that is better

38:12

than the alternative But

38:14

if you are not convinced as he

38:16

would never really was that you're ill

38:19

then this burdensome

38:22

aspect that you're now dealing

38:24

with Would only seem

38:27

like something may be introduced against your

38:29

will or that it was inimical

38:31

and that is an enormous problem And

38:34

in all this he had partnered And

38:37

was living with his fiance Carrie

38:39

Caroline and I

38:42

can't imagine what she was experiencing

38:44

limboing around this these

38:46

alternate realities That

38:48

he was living with and wrestling with no doubt

38:51

and so they'd moved in together And and

38:54

that was a positive thing But

38:56

but what happened was a complete and

38:58

utter tragedy as a result of his his

39:01

lack of medical support Michael

39:04

went off his medication. He couldn't write his

39:06

book. He very much wanted to

39:09

he went off his medication and Became

39:13

increasingly delusional there were times when he would

39:15

not let Carrie in because he felt she

39:17

was an alien or a spy and The

39:21

people caring for him knew this But

39:24

they were so intent because of the

39:26

world the social psychiatry world They'd grown

39:29

out of were so intent on saving

39:31

him from the system that

39:33

they didn't really rank

39:36

saving him from his illness or

39:39

saving Carrie from the worst effects of it

39:42

higher than their prime objective and

39:46

he stabbed Carrie

39:48

to death with the

39:50

kitchen knife and

39:53

then fled in and actually

39:57

fled to a Cornell University where

40:00

Both he and I had received, had

40:03

won a fellowship as teenagers. I always

40:06

was convinced that he had fled there

40:08

because it was at a time when

40:10

his mind was his friend. It

40:12

was a very difficult fellowship to get

40:14

into. We hadn't told each other we were applying.

40:18

I worked incredibly hard to get in. He breezily

40:20

told me he'd gotten in. But

40:25

he wound up there, flagged down

40:27

a police officer, kept trying to

40:29

explain that he thought he might

40:31

have killed his girlfriend or a

40:33

wind-up doll. They

40:35

didn't believe him, but gradually

40:38

they did call the Hastings,

40:40

where he was living police department, and the person

40:42

came on the line and said, hold him. He

40:44

did exactly what he said. Yeah.

40:48

There's much to that story. You

40:50

saw it all. Look,

40:52

you do tell in a chapter, a

40:55

very profound chapter, Carrie's story as well,

40:57

because often victims are not, their

41:00

stories aren't properly told. His

41:03

story, because of the Ron Howard factor and

41:06

the advocacy, it rolled out across

41:08

the newspapers and you saw him

41:10

splash on different pages of the

41:13

newspapers in a blue jumpsuit and

41:15

the headline, Psycho and Killer and

41:18

all of that. Again, a whole

41:20

debate around the insanity plea and

41:24

the complexities around that. He's

41:27

been incarcerated for 25 years now.

41:33

Why did you want to write this book? What

41:35

was it about the telling of this

41:38

story that you felt

41:40

compelled to do? Well

41:43

first, I spent many years not wanting to write

41:45

the book and not

41:47

wanting to tell what I

41:49

didn't even know was a story. It

41:51

was more this

41:54

sense that something

41:56

profound and terrible had happened to

41:58

my friend. That I

42:00

almost felt when I read about it

42:02

or actually I heard about it from my mother who called and told

42:04

me not to go home somehow she

42:07

had some Maternal terror

42:09

that I would be at risk because

42:11

he was still missing Which

42:14

I thought was nonsense although

42:16

in retrospect it wasn't entirely

42:18

nonsensical Not because

42:20

he would have come after me as me if you know

42:22

what I mean, but in any case Really

42:25

almost I I did feel

42:27

as if I myself might have done it

42:29

like it was I was shocked at how

42:31

Deeply entwined I was with his

42:34

story emotionally and psychologically In

42:38

the days afterwards you had terrible not

42:40

made terrible nightmares in the days afterward,

42:42

but I also Didn't

42:44

know what had happened. I'd knew almost nothing

42:46

about mental illness severe mental illness I

42:48

had a terrible haunting memory of a conversation.

42:51

I'd had just a few weeks before In

42:54

which he said I have to go

42:56

now I'm having thoughts I shouldn't

42:58

be having and I didn't ask

43:01

myself. What might that really mean? Because

43:04

and still in some way I continue to

43:06

see him as The

43:09

hair which is awful but

43:12

it what I also Eventually,

43:14

I had it. I had children.

43:16

I got married I had my when my

43:19

younger daughter was 10 the age that I was when

43:21

I met Michael and She had

43:23

a very close friend and you realize, you know, your

43:25

child is so both so small and so large and

43:27

this was her whole world I began

43:30

to feel I suppose drawn

43:32

back and Eventually

43:36

then I had to figure out what

43:38

on earth happened happened and

43:40

what was amazing is how many people I met? who

43:44

were guides

43:46

the the Psychiatrists who had cared

43:48

for him these this couple the

43:51

husband who was a very eminent

43:53

psychiatrist had joined the bag one

43:55

Sri Rajneesh who is a Guru

43:58

in India kind of a cult the

44:00

you're A but the lead. A lot to

44:02

say. that. Mental illness? That that's a whole. Other story

44:04

did indeed him and them and the

44:06

mother who's also psychiatrist and who loved

44:09

Michael died a year after. He

44:11

killed carry but is that that

44:13

their daughter who is grown is

44:15

somebody I wound up meeting and

44:18

see decided that she really wanted

44:20

me to tell the story and

44:22

one aspect of it was what

44:24

she the. all the psychiatrists and

44:27

social workers in this world refer

44:29

to themselves as the Network. They

44:31

were like an alternative mental health

44:33

care system. The Michael's actual psychiatrist

44:36

came from this world and there

44:38

was only one person in that

44:40

network who. Understood. That

44:42

the what? Was that? This was a

44:44

disaster waiting to happen. But no one

44:47

quite listened to her. But that was

44:49

one pieces it. another piece of it.

44:51

was Michael's law professors. It. Never occurred

44:53

to me he couldn't do the work.

44:55

Why did an abstract idea of genius

44:57

which had been so important to the

44:59

two of us when we were kids?

45:01

like he was going to inoculate you

45:04

against all the sars of the world.

45:06

To be smart and is And Michael

45:08

used to say i'm I may be

45:10

crazy, but I'm not stupid. As if

45:12

to say I'm not either and to

45:14

be smart is not in that sense

45:16

to be mentally ill or where did

45:18

that association conference So all of these

45:20

elements kept emerging. The professors hadn't just.

45:22

Been his law professors and mentors, they

45:25

had helped change the laws that made

45:27

it almost impossible to commit someone who

45:29

required help and so for them to

45:32

That was a kind of reckoning and

45:34

so on. The one and it was

45:36

a very private journeys. partly.

45:39

and exploration of my childhood but on

45:41

the other hand here malta lived on

45:43

the short street of mine and i

45:45

always thought of him and probably myself

45:47

is so unusual so unique and brad

45:49

pitt was going to blame and i

45:51

kind of discovered he lived on everyone

45:53

street and the number of people i

45:55

met who were once removed from severe

45:57

mental illness and whether it had had

45:59

the tragic come that Michael's story had or

46:02

had been a tragedy

46:04

averted, didn't make, was

46:06

not the distinguishing feature. What was the

46:08

distinguishing feature was that there

46:11

had been no net to catch

46:13

them. There had been no way

46:15

to help someone simply because they

46:17

were ill, as we would do

46:19

for every other illness. Violence had

46:21

become the only criterion for helping

46:23

someone. And I also think where,

46:25

first of all, the number of

46:27

people who thought they were honoring

46:29

Michael's autonomy, but were in fact

46:31

merely encouraging his illness and endangering

46:33

his own life and Carrie's life, is

46:36

astonishing. And I think that that's

46:38

really important, almost as if their

46:40

fear of doing something stigmatizing

46:42

when they knew that he

46:45

was not in his mind is

46:48

a very profound lesson for

46:50

people. And what you began

46:52

with about institutions, however

46:54

flawed they are, were always presented

46:57

with that challenge. Do we pretend

46:59

they're the Bastille and knock them

47:01

down altogether? Or do we find

47:03

what's necessary, good, and then recreate

47:07

and then save them and reform them?

47:12

And so you understand the subtitle of

47:14

this book, The Best Minds, the story

47:16

of friendship, madness and the tragedy of

47:19

good intentions. It is extraordinary. And

47:21

I'm sure that many of you will have stories

47:23

of your own that will intersect with this one.

47:25

I do want to have a conversation

47:28

in the minutes that we've got left

47:30

about how we have a conversation about

47:32

mental illness and violence, because the

47:34

reality is that most people with mental

47:36

illness, the only violence that they commit

47:38

is against themselves. And

47:42

that's the reality. But

47:45

people and families also are

47:47

desperate for a conversation because they're living

47:50

with fear about a sense of palpable

47:52

risk as well when people aren't getting

47:54

the medical care that they need. This

47:57

is a really complicated conversation to

47:59

have. I

48:01

think it's actually more straightforward actually. As

48:04

you say the general situation

48:07

is that people with mental illness,

48:10

even severe mental illness, are much more likely to

48:12

be harmed by other people than they are to

48:14

harm anyone else. In fact their risk is lower

48:16

than the general population

48:19

as a group. But there's a subgroup

48:21

of people, particularly as in Michael's case,

48:23

when the delusions focus on close

48:26

family members and clearly

48:29

the behaviours might make sense as you said.

48:31

If you believe a

48:33

certain set of things are true

48:36

then your behaviour makes sense. And

48:38

clinicians will know that.

48:40

They'll know that the risk is there when that

48:43

type of delusion appears. Those

48:45

clinicians should have known that, even at

48:47

that time. So that's a

48:49

subgroup. And actually research in Sydney

48:51

has shown that most of those

48:53

murders are committed by people who

48:55

have never been even diagnosed. So

48:57

it's their first episode of patients.

49:00

So this is why early intervention and early

49:02

detection is so important. You'll save a lot

49:04

of lives if you actually find those people

49:06

early and treat them and make sure they

49:08

recover. You challenge in doing that right now.

49:10

We know that across Australia, particularly

49:13

post-COVID or as a result

49:15

of COVID, nothing post about it, services

49:17

are really stretched and young people

49:19

are really troubled. Well here are the facts. 50%

49:22

of people in Australia with mental ill health

49:24

of any kind only 50% will

49:26

get access to treatment and the 15% of

49:29

that treatment will be of acceptable quality. So

49:31

that's the situation. If that was the case

49:33

with breast cancer, diabetes, asthma, you name it,

49:36

the public would be out in the streets. It

49:38

would be completely unacceptable to

49:41

the public. That is the situation.

49:43

Now COVID has definitely made it

49:45

worse. Particularly for the age group we work with,

49:47

the teenage and young adults has been a jump

49:49

from 26% prevalence of

49:51

mental illness in that age group in 2007 to 39% today. So

49:53

this is a public health crisis

49:58

in youth and mental health. We've seen not

50:00

a shred of action about this. The services

50:03

that we have built are completely swamped and

50:05

shrinking at a time when we've got this

50:07

crisis. Now that's just about, not just about

50:09

psychosis, it's about anorexia, it's about the whole

50:12

spectrum of problems. But buried in there

50:14

are the emerging psychotic illnesses. And we

50:17

have got the opportunity to pick them

50:19

up early if we resource that safety

50:21

net and that entry point. But

50:24

we've got a whole other group

50:26

called the Missing Middle who can't

50:28

be properly treated in a

50:30

primary care environment like GPs or

50:32

Headspace. But they can't get into this

50:35

high bar of the state funded

50:37

sort of acute system. And

50:40

you can see why people want to

50:42

protect patients and people against entering that

50:44

system because it's such

50:47

an aversive experience even today to go into an

50:50

emergency department with a mental illness. So

50:52

you can see why people try not to act

50:54

and intervene in those acute phases like these people

50:56

did. But there's

50:58

huge risk. So we

51:00

have over 3,000 suicides every year

51:02

in Australia. It's twice the road

51:04

toll. And we have a subgroup

51:07

of homicides which are committed by people who are

51:09

untreated or poorly treated. And that's why you're continuing

51:12

to do the advocacy that you are in the

51:14

best way that you can. But

51:16

it's hard getting it in. Well, you know,

51:18

the politicians, we're meeting Mark Butler later today

51:20

about this, but the politicians

51:23

are sympathetic. But they won't act unless

51:25

you people rise up somehow and force

51:27

them to do it. And

51:32

how do you want people to do that? Well, there's

51:34

an organisation of Tony Johnson called Australians for

51:36

Mental Health that we have set up like

51:38

a get up for mental health which is

51:40

completely free of any government funding. And

51:43

it's basically intended to mobilise the

51:45

public. But I've spent 10 years

51:47

trying to raise funds for that

51:49

organisation. And it's struggling. We've

51:51

got great people on the board. We've got a

51:54

great CEO. But

51:56

that's the sort of thing, that's the missing piece. And

51:59

it's sort of a... a public momentum issue

52:01

that we need to generate. And

52:03

so we didn't get to questions, but as

52:05

you can understand, we needed to land in

52:07

a gentle place here. Thank you so much

52:09

for taking the time to join us, and

52:11

please thank Jonathan and Pat. Yes. And

52:20

that's where we leave Jonathan Rosen and

52:22

psychiatrist Professor Patrick McGorry. The

52:24

best minds, a story of friendship, madness

52:26

and the tragedy of good intentions is

52:29

Jonathan's new book. And

52:31

it's important for me to say that this

52:33

was recorded some weeks before the tragedy at

52:35

Bondi Shopping Centre. This was

52:37

recorded at Adelaide Writers Week. I'm Natasha Mitchell.

52:39

If today's program has left you feeling the

52:42

need for support, I've put some services and

52:44

help lines that you might start with on

52:46

the Big Ideas website for this episode. And

52:49

Lifeline is open 24-7. Trained

52:51

facilitators at the end of the

52:53

phone line. One-three, one-one, one-four. Call

52:56

that number 131114. Take

53:03

care.