Los Angeles County Jail is like the biggest mental institution in the country.

And Rikers, I think, is second.

And then the home and then the streets are, you know, maybe third.

And then there are the scarce hospital beds.

But I was always, you know, interested in what called the neo-asylum movement.

Bring back the asylums for heaven's

sakes. Now we have medication, so they would not necessarily be a lifelong residence for some

people, but they might be for years. There's just a minority. It is a minority of these folks

who just don't respond.

Welcome to the Unspeak-Easy podcast.

I'm your host, Megan Dow, and this is the podcast formerly known as the unspeakable,

but it is now the Unspeak-Easy.

Before I introduce this week's guest, Dr. Sally Sattel, a couple of announcements. The first is that I'm teaching a writing workshop early next year. Time to do one again.

This is on Zoom. It's in personal essay and memoir, and it's running for eight consecutive

Tuesdays, January 6th through

February 24th from 3 to 5 p.m. Eastern time. The way these work, they're small, not a lot of

students, but you get a lot out of it. I have many repeat customers, so get your application in. The deadline is December 5th, and you can get all the

info by going to the substack post that is linked in the show notes. You can also find that

at the Unspeakable podcast. That's the Substack link. What else? I should tell you that dates

for our 2026 unspeakasy retreats have been announced.

We've got one in the spring in Los Angeles and several on the East Coast in the fall,

including a three-night women's writing retreat and a two-night co-ed big retreat in the Hudson Valley.

...