Author Talk: Laura Delano and "Unshrunk" (NWL)

Laura Delano, author of UNSHRUNK, in conversation with Dr. Javeed Sukhera

In UNSHRUNK, Laura Delano recounts her first psychiatric diagnosis and her subsequent experience as a decade-plus patient in the mental health system. Weaving Delano’s medical records and doctors’ notes with an investigation of modern psychiatry and illuminating research on the drugs she was prescribed, Unshrunk questions the dominant, rarely critiqued role that the American mental health industry, and the pharmaceutical industry in particular, plays in shaping what it means to be human.

After a reading from her book, Delano will be joined by Dr. Javeed Sukhera, Chair of Psychiatry at the Institute of Living and Chief of Psychiatry at Hartford Hospital, for a conversation about the complexities of psychiatric care today. Together, they will explore psychiatric drug prescribing and deprescribing, the importance of informed choice in mental health treatment, and how clinicians and laypeople can come together to collaborate on alternative pathways to well-being. Their conversation promises to be a rare meeting of expertise on taking and safely tapering off psychiatric medications: one gained from many years of clinical training and experience, and the other gained from many years of having lived it firsthand.

About the Speakers

Laura Delano is a writer, speaker, and consultant, and the founder of Inner Compass Initiative, a charitable organization that she founded to help people make more informed choices about psychiatric diagnoses and drugs. She is a leading voice in the international movement of people who’ve left behind the medicalized, professionalized offerings of the mental health system to build something different. Laura works with individuals and families around the world seeking guidance and support for the withdrawal journey and life post-psychiatry. She lives in West Hartford, Connecticut with her family.

Dr. Javeed Sukhera is the Chair of Psychiatry at the Institute of Living (IOL) and Chief of Psychiatry at Hartford Hospital in Hartford, Connecticut. He is also the Founding Director of the Center for Research on Racial Trauma and Community Healing. He is Professor of Psychiatry at the Frank H Netter MD School of Medicine at Quinnipiac University, an Associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at the Yale School of Medicine and Associate Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Connecticut School of Medicine. In his role as Chair/Chief, Dr. Sukhera is responsible for advancing the IOL's clinical, research, and educational missions including training programs in psychiatry, psychology, social work, and nursing, as well as several endowed research centers. He is an internationally recognized health professions education researcher and thought leader. His research program explores novel approaches to addressing stigma and bias among health professionals and he has also been involved in advocacy and cross-sectoral work in education, policing, and community services.

Registration required. Registration opens one month before the program at 7:00pm.