Depresh Mode with John Moe27 Okt 2025

Is Whiteness a Mental Health Problem? Dr. Jonathan Mathias Lassiter Thinks So.

It’s a question we ask a lot on this show: do you have a mental health problem or is the problem actually rooted in the world you live in? Psychologist Dr. Jonathan Mathias Lassiter says contemporary society lives under three different assumptions: there’s not enough to go around, kill or be killed, and us versus them or divide and conquer and this results in people valuing individualism, competition, and materialism. This way of living, he says, is a result of white dominance or whiteness and it is a distortion of the way humans are meant to live and therefore leads to things like racism, sexism, homophobia, and the brutality of human beings to one another. Dr. Lassiter, author of How I Know White People Are Crazy and Other Stories says whiteness is not a mental health disorder but it is a mental health problem that we all need to face. Dr. Lassiter tells his own story, growing up with a chronic illness, gay, and Black in the South and eventually earning his PhD. in psychology. As he came to understand psychology and the way the world works, he noticed the impact of society’s built-in obstacles on his own mental health journey and among the students and clients he has helped.

Thank you to all our listeners who support the show as monthly members of Maximum Fun.

Check out our I’m Glad You’re Here and Depresh Mode merchandise at the brand new merch website MaxFunStore.com!

Hey, remember, you’re part of Depresh Mode and we want to hear what you want to hear about. What guests and issues would you like to have covered in a future episode? Write us at depreshmode@maximumfun.org.

Depresh Mode is on BlueSky, Instagram, Substack, and you can join our Preshies Facebook group.

Help is available right away.

The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 988 or 1-800-273-8255, 1-800-273-TALK

Crisis Text Line: Text HOME to 741741.

International suicide hotline numbers available here: https://www.opencounseling.com/suicide-hotlines

Help support this show and unlock bonus content! Become a member at https://maximumfun.org/joindepresh

Det här avsnittet är hämtat från ett öppet RSS-flöde och publiceras inte av Podme. Det kan innehålla reklam.

Avsnitt(300)

Maybe It IS Time to Panic Over AI Chatbots and Mental Health with Maggie Harrison Dupré

This week, we take a look at a couple of acronyms that are soaring in popularity and ask what their widespread adoption means for mental health. Maggie Harrison Dupré of Futurism has been following th...

20 Juli 55min

Jo Dee Messina on Hard Times, Jesus, and Her First Album in 12 Years

Jo Dee Messina has a long career in the music industry: number one hits, platinum and gold records, many awards. She’s a country music icon. Jo Dee just released Bridges, her first new album in 12 yea...

13 Juli 51min

Best of Depresh Mode: Hanif Abdurraqib on Cultivating a Support System, Depression, Anxiety, and Basketball

Hanif Abdurraqib is a MacArthur Fellow, accomplished poet, and critically lauded author of numerous books, including There’s Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension, which is now out in paperbac...

6 Juli 50min

We Should Praise Addiction, Not Condemn It, Says Anthropologist Elizabeth Roberts

The title of Elizabeth Roberts’ new book, In Praise of Addiction, is likely to catch your attention, maybe even set off some cognitive dissonance in your mind. But the University of Michigan’s Elizabe...

29 Juni 52min

Cartoonist Gemma Correll Saw a Therapist with a Clown-Festooned Office. Once.

British-born, LA-based author and illustrator Gemma Correll had a couple of reasons to choose the motif of an amusement park for her new anxiety book, Anxietyland. One, she loves amusement parks and ...

22 Juni 46min

RFK Jr. Wants To Take Your SSRIs Away. So What Are Democrats Doing About It?

Secretary of Health & Human Services Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is, to put it mildly, a skeptic of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) medication, a form of meds that millions of Americans use r...

15 Juni 50min

Robyn Hitchcock is Fundamentally Delusional, Welcomes Birds

If you’ve ever listened to Robyn Hitchcock’s music, you know that it can get pretty surrealistic. Some might say divinely bizarre and eclectic. Others might just say weird. All of that’s fine with the...

8 Juni 1h 4min

Blake Mycoskie Helped the World, Got Rich, Retired to a Life of Ease, Then Fell Apart

There is no Tom behind TOMS Shoes. It’s short for “Tomorrow’s.” There is a Blake, however. Blake Mycoskie founded the company in 2006 under the model that for every pair sold, a second pair would be d...

1 Juni 58min