I’m pleased to announce the release of another episode of the “Exiles in the City” podcast, which takes inspiration from my book “Exiles in New York City: Warehousing the Marginalized on Ward’s Island.” This is the last episode of season 1, and I will write a post summarizing what I’ve learned from this season’s guests in the coming weeks. If this is your first episode and you like what you hear, I encourage you to check out previous episodes.
In this episode, I speak with Dan Frey, who directs the New York City-based peer support organization City Voices. City Voices started out as a print newspaper that was available at mental health services settings in New York City, but it has recently become a multifaceted online peer support vehicle under Dan’s leadership. I’ve known Dan for a few years now and I wanted to bring his perspective into the mix as someone who has lived and lives the reality of so much of what is discussed on the podcast, including the stresses and opportunities of the urban environment.
Dan starts out by telling the story of his first psychiatric crisis in the late 1990’s, after he graduated from college, and how upsetting it was to his parents. He talks about walking for miles and miles throughout New York in an effort to work out what was going on within him. He makes it clear, however, that there was an uplifting spiritual dimension dimension to his experience that co-existed with distressing components. In our conversation we reference the work of Tanya Luhrmann and Robert Whitaker which has found that the content of voice hearing differs by cultural context, and tends to be more aggressive in the United States than in other cultural contexts.
Dan then tells the story of how his parents happened to see City Voices founder Ken Steele (who also wrote a book called “The Day the Voices Stopped”) speaking on a local TV channel, which led to his becoming Ken’s assistant, and eventually taking over the responsibility of running the paper after Ken’s untimely passing. Dan shares some of the excitement of becoming part of Ken’s orbit and going to conferences throughout the United States speaking about mental health recovery. (In addition to starting City Voices, Ken had also started the Mental Health Voter Empowerment Project, a campaign to register people diagnosed with mental illnesses to vote, an initiative that unfortunately hasn’t continued).
We also talk about why Dan has continued to be determined to help others as he was helped, and to do what he can to decrease the social isolation of marginalized people. One of the strategies that Dan discusses that I think is quite promising is bringing people who have been diagnosed with others who aren’t around common interests, such as spirituality, storytelling, drumming, art, and comedy. I think that this strategy is particularly well suited to the urban environment, where public transportation and density can allow people from all walks of life to interact. I’ve attended a number of the events that Dan has organized and can attest to the power of this approach. I remember one, held at the Fountain House Gallery on the corner of 48th St. and 9th Avenue, and seeing passersby look in at what appeared to them to be a “cool” gathering in an art gallery.
We also talk about some of the ideas I propose for Ward’s Island in the book and in the website wardsislanddesigns.org . I discuss how a vision for a National Museum of Mental Health on the island would include “experiential” and “cultural” exhibits, in addition to historical ones.
At the end of the podcast, I ask Dan about his suggestions for young people who are experiencing the type of turmoil he experienced in his early 20’s, and he recommends patience that there are people out there who sincerely care. He also discusses the importance of his spiritual beliefs and mentions the poem “The Guest House” by medieval Sufi poet Rumi.
Hope that you find the conversation interesting! Please subscribe to the Substack if you’d like to be notified of the release of new episodes:
Music in the episode is from bands that I play and have played in, as usual (credits below).
The Accidents (NYC): “Medication”
The Accidents (NYC): “Anything”
Dangaru: “Take Me Out”
Thanks again to Lexy for amazing high quality and fast editing using FLStudio!