Depression in Japan (Part 2): Transcultural Psychiatry with Dr. Hiroe Hu

Climate Anxiety & Resilience: Navigating the Path to Climate Justice with Dr. Jen Myers

Welcome back, everyone! Thanks for waiting as we gathered up our mics and agonized over the editing software. While Matt is visiting his old stomping grounds in China, I (Hannah) am producing this show all on my lonesome. That’s why you’ve experienced a woeful gap during April. But now, fret not! We’re bringing you belated Earth Day content with a whole episode on ~Climate Anxiety~, tools for resilience, and vulnerable conversations on growing as activists. This conversation covers: * What is climate anxiety? * The “Window of Tolerance” that balances our nervous system * How to cultivate resilience * Stories of climate resilience in Puerto Rico * Identifying racial inequities in climate justice * Tools for working through climate anxiety and climate grief I hope you enjoy it! Like, SUBCRIBE to the Substack, and leave some lil’ comments to let me know what you think and what you’d like to see more of. Saddle up, because this summer we’ve got a bunch of excellent content lined up. We’re bringing you everything from welcoming back the river dolphins to the healing power of drum circles right here on Root Shock. Thanks for listening! -Hannah Resources Climate Mental Health Network Toolkit: https://www.climatementalhealth.net/climate-emotions-toolkit [https://www.climatementalhealth.net/climate-emotions-toolkit] Environmental Amnesia: https://rebeccalexa.com/environmental-generational-amnesia/ [https://rebeccalexa.com/environmental-generational-amnesia/] Cited Works Viques, PR (higher cancer rates): https://fxb.harvard.edu/blog/calendar_event/the-environmental-legacy-of-war-human-environmental-health-consequences-on-vieques-puerto-rico/ [https://fxb.harvard.edu/blog/calendar_event/the-environmental-legacy-of-war-human-environmental-health-consequences-on-vieques-puerto-rico/] https://theeternalsong.org/the-films/ [https://theeternalsong.org/the-films/] People Bayo Akomolafe: https://www.bayoakomolafe.net/ Janelle Baker: https://www.athabascau.ca/humanities-and-social-sciences/our-people/janelle-baker.html [https://www.athabascau.ca/humanities-and-social-sciences/our-people/janelle-baker.html] Dr. Mindy Thompson Fullilove: https://www.mindyfullilove.com/root-shock [https://www.mindyfullilove.com/root-shock] Dr. Arturo Ornelas: https://www.jstor.org/content/pdf/oa_chapter_monograph/j.ctt13x0pzq.11 [https://www.jstor.org/content/pdf/oa_chapter_monograph/j.ctt13x0pzq.11] Guest Dr. Jen Myers earned her PhD in Sustainability Education from Prescott College, with a focus on environmental psychology. Her doctoral fieldwork in Puerto Rico explored place-based identity and resilience, examining how communities navigate and adapt to climate change. She is a sustainability educator who lives and works at the EcoVillage in Ithaca, New York, where she serves as Project Director at the Center for Transformative Action, part of the Thrive Ithaca EcoVillage Education Center. In addition to her work in Ithaca, Dr. Myers collaborates with the Global Ecovillage Network on climate resilience initiatives—developing climate action plans for ecovillages and facilitating workshops on climate anxiety, with a focus on how communities can support one another and cultivate resilience in the face of ecological polycrisis. Get full access to Root Shock at rootshock.substack.com/subscribe [https://rootshock.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

Dopamine Regulation as Resistance: How Algorithms Hijack Your Brain

Your attention is your true wealth. In a world engineered to extract it, choosing where it goes is an act of resistance. This episode is a deep dive into dopamine, phone addiction, and the attention economy. We break down what dopamine is, what it does in the brain, and how your brain’s motivation-reward system is being exploited. You will also get five practical tools for breaking the dopamine addiction cycle, reducing compulsive phone use, and retraining your brain toward effort, presence, and real satisfaction. Your doom scrolling feeds the corporate overlords—your awareness feeds you :) Share, Please! If this episode shifted something for you, send it to a friend, subscribe to the show, or leave a review. This episode was produced by Matthew Kendrick. Get full access to Root Shock at rootshock.substack.com/subscribe [https://rootshock.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

Depression in Japan (Part 2): Transcultural Psychiatry with Dr. Hiroe Hu

“Historically, mindfulness is embedded in an understanding of collective belonging and interconnectedness, not just as a tool for self-regulating stress. What often gets left out in Western versions are the broader ethical and communal dimensions of contemplative practices.” -Dr. Hiroe Hu In Part 2 of our deep dive into transcultural psychiatry, we’re joined by Dr. Hiroe Hu. Hiroe is a practicing psychiatrist at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). Born in Japan, she studied Contemplative Psychology at Brown University before completing her medical residency at Georgetown MedStar Hospital in Washington, DC. In this episode, we deepen our understanding of explanatory models of disease. We explore what happens when mindfulness is exported from the East into Western cultures and frameworks and, even more interestingly, what happens when those practices are then “reverse imported” back to the East in a Westernized package. And of course, we talk about all of these mental health and meditative traditions in the context of capitalism. We talk about power: how capital drives medical research and how translating culturally bound practices into the clinical trial structure changes their texture. We talk about tech-bro meditation competitions and what we’d each say to Mr. Elon Musk if we could get a trillionaire on the therapy couch. (Babe, what are you so afraid of?) Finally, we’re visioning our ideal, pluralistic healthcare futures, where a socially conscious psychology is the norm and everybody gets to heal holistically. Share, Please! If this made you pause or rethink something, subscribe to the show, share it with a curious friend, or leave a cute little comment. This episode was produced by Matthew Kendrick. Get full access to Root Shock at rootshock.substack.com/subscribe [https://rootshock.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

Depression in Japan (Part 1): How Big Pharma Changed Mental Health

In the early 2000s, pharmaceutical companies looked to Japan with yearning dollar-bills in their eyes. They had a hot new antidepressant just off the assembly line: Paxil. But the Japanese people weren’t into Paxil like that. In fact, they thought the American idea of depression was kind of bizarre. Nobody wanted to buy the company’s drug :( With no market, and an expensive product—what’s a corp to do? Invent a market, of course! This is the story of how a company invented a disease to sell the cure, shifting Japan’s mental health landscape in the process. In this first episode of Root Shock, we explore how antidepressants were positioned as the answer to distress in a cultural context where sadness had long been understood through social, moral, and relational frameworks rather than biomedical ones. This is not an argument against mental health care or medication. It is an inquiry into how economic incentives shape which forms of suffering become visible, legible, and treatable. Drawing on anthropology and political economy, we zoom out to ask larger questions about mental health in the context of capitalism. What happens when the authority to define illness is closely tied to markets designed to sell solutions? Key Takeaways * Sadness became pathologized in order to make its treatment marketable. * Mental health categories are shaped by culture, language, and economic forces. * Pharmaceutical power influences not only medicine, but how societies interpret suffering. Sources Watters, E. (2010). Crazy like us: The globalization of the American psyche. Free Press. Kitanaka, J. (2012). Depression in Japan: Psychiatric cures for a society in distress. Princeton University Press. Share & Subscribe If this made you pause or rethink something, subscribe to the show, share it with a curious friend, or leave a little comment. Perfection is the enemy of done, my friends. So here we are. Get full access to Root Shock at rootshock.substack.com/subscribe [https://rootshock.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]