Welcome to the Madden America podcast, your source for science, psychiatry, and social justice.

Welcome back to the Marin America podcast. This is your host, Ayurdi Dihar. I am an academic, a spotlight interview of a

in America, and the editor of Mad in South Asia. Today, we are joined by Eric Javis from McGill University,

whose work brings attention to areas often overlooked in mainstream psychiatry, religion,

coercion, social determinants of psychosis, and culture. His research looks

closely at how religious belief, spiritual practice, and moral worlds shape how people experience

distress, meaning, and healing. At the same time, he critically examines the role of power

in psychiatric systems, especially the history and ongoing realities of

course of treatment. Beyond this, Eric's work sits at the intersection of anthropology,

psychiatry, and ethics. He's known for engaging deeply with people's lived experience and for

asking difficult questions about how mental health care can better respect autonomy and dignity.

In this episode, we explore how faith, culture, and power shape mental health practice

and what a more humane psychiatry might look like.

Thank you for being here, Dr. Jarvis.

Thank you.

So I want to start by talking a little bit about religion and spirituality.

And there is a beautiful quote in one of your papers.

You write, religions provide meaningful responses to the universal problems of suffering,

mortality, human finitude, and injustice.

This may include solace for inescapable pain, ethical and moral

systems, forms of communal life, healing practices, and reassurance in the face of uncertainty.

Attention to religion then must be central to the theory and practice of cultural psychiatry.

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