Content Warning: This episode discusses Bipolar Disorder.

Long before his distinguished career as a Harvard professor of psychiatry and as Chief Medical Officer for the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), Ken Duckworth was a kid in Michigan wondering why his beloved dad was being taken away by the police again. He wanted to know why he was going to the hospital for an extended stay again. And once his dad was home and feeling better, Ken wanted to know when the whole cycle would start over. What Ken didn’t know is that his father had bipolar disorder, then known as manic depression. The desire to understand his dad’s condition and Ken’s inability to really help him, led Ken to a career in psychiatry, driven by a strong drive to help as many people as possible. Ken believes that lived experience with mental illness or seeing someone close to you deal with it provides both insight and sympathy and can be incredibly useful in healing. Dr. Ken Duckworth walks us through the sometimes intimidating topic of bipolar disorder in very human terms so we can all help more people down the road.

Content Warning: This episode discusses autism spectrum disorder.

Tera Girardin began to notice that Alex, her youngest son, seemed to be interacting with the world differently than his two older brothers did. This was when Alex was about a year old. By the time Alex was three, the family had a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder for Alex and set about getting him the best help they could for his development, his education, and to live his best life. Part of that was accepting that autism was not a problem to be solved or a disease to be cured but simply that Alex’s brain operated differently than the brains of typical children. Tera serves as Senior Director of Marketing and Strategy for Nexus Family Healing but she’s also an accomplished photographer and her skills behind the camera led to the creation of Faces of Autism: Inspiration. Admiration. Celebration. It’s a book of portraits of children on the spectrum from all over Minnesota. Tera joins Dr. Michelle K. Murray, President and CEO of Nexus, to talk about understanding kids along with understanding autism.

Content Warning: This episode discusses suicide, schizophrenia, grief, and depression.

James Longman is a veteran television news reporter who has reported from war zones like Ukraine and the Middle East for many years. You may have seen him on ABC World News Tonight, Good Morning America, or Nightline. But it took a special, much more personal investigation to get some answers for his father’s suicide and the schizophrenia and depression that preceded it. Given his own experiences with depression, James also wanted to know how much of mental health is environmental and how much is the genetic code handed from family. That effort led to James Longman’s book, The Inherited Mind: A Story of Family, Hope, and the Genetics of Mental Illness. James offers the insight he’s gained on his own family as well as what he’s learned about what science says about the human brain’s role in mental health. It’s a moving conversation with a great deal of hope if you’re trying to figure out yourself or your family.