Mad Topics

Dangerous Gifts: Rethinking Madness, Meaning, and the Edge of What We Know

What if the experiences we call “mental illness” sometimes carry insights the world isn’t ready to hear? In this talk, Sascha Altman DuBrul — co‑founder of The Icarus Project and author of Dangerous Gifts — shares stories from locked wards, grassroots movements, and ancient spiritual traditions to explore the thin line between breakdown and breakthrough.

Drawing on lived experience and years of community work, Sascha invites us to look beyond labels, to ask what might be hidden in the struggles of those who see and feel differently. He challenges us to consider that in every community, the people we call “too much” or “too sensitive” may hold pieces of wisdom we all need.

About the Speaker

Sascha Altman DuBrul is a writer and educator whose work lives at the crossroads of mental health, mutual aid, and personal transformation. As co‑founder of The Icarus Project and author of the forthcoming Dangerous Gifts, he brings the perspective of someone who has been both a psychiatric patient and a change‑maker inside the system. His work invites people from all walks of life to imagine new ways of caring for ourselves and each other.

Time & Location

This impactful and empowering Center Stage event will be an official event of Mad Topics and will be hosted at 7 pm on Thursday, September 25th, in Stonecipher 113 on Tennessee Tech’s campus. This event is open to the public and is free!

 Our inaugural Graduate Student Speaker Series has concluded, and it was a great success! We are thrilled to celebrate the outstanding work of our brilliant graduate student partners and look forward to making this a recurring event.

Worried about having missed the live event? No problem, the recording of the event can be found at the link below. 

View the recording »

We are excited to announce the launch of the Mad Topics International Scholarship: Graduate Student
Research Series, our first-ever initiative designed to foster academic exchange and provide valuable presentation experience for graduate students. This series will take the form of a virtual, informal mock-conference session. Each session will offer 2-3 graduate students the opportunity to present their ongoing research to the Mad Topics research team, fellow students, and a broader audience of interested professionals, including researchers, evaluators, and community members.

This inaugural session marks the beginning of what we hope will become a regular speaker series surrounding impactful work in Mad studies and practice, featuring presenters from diverse locations and fields. The first session will be on Friday, August 29th at 10:00 a.m. CST and will include 15-minute presentations (followed by 15-minute discussion/Q&A) from: 

• Louise Struwe, MS, from University of Vienna in Ljubljana, Slovenia (phenomenological psychopathology and philosophy)
• Yongmei Shi, MA, international graduate student from China at Tennessee Tech (holistic mental health trainings for educators and international connections spanning Mad Topics)
• Wenyong Qu, EdS, international graduate student from China at Tennessee Tech (remote Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports in China) 

We believe this series will be an invaluable platform for graduate students to refine their presentation skills, receive constructive feedback, and engage with a wider academic community. Please encourage your graduate students to consider participating in future sessions. More information on how students can apply to present will be shared soon.

2025 Mad Topics Panel Symposium on General Anxiety Disorder (GAD) & Depression in Education

Welcome to the 2025 “Mad Topics: General Anxiety Disorder (GAD) & Depression in Education” professional panel symposium discussion resource page, where you can find all things Mad Topics, anxiety and depression-related and can even rewatch the symposium recording once available, or link to the live stream on April 5th! This year, we are adding a pre-tabling event, where attendees can arrive 1.5 hours early and visit various tables with representatives from mental health organizations and centers, resource centers, the health department, and more. 

What: 2025 Mad Topics: General Anxiety Disorder (GAD) & Depression in Education

When: Saturday, April 5th, 2025 | Doors open & pre-tabling event begins at 1:30PM-3:00PM CST | Panel symposium begins at 3:00PM CST

When: Stonecipher Hall (on-campus)

Who: This year, we are excited to welcome panelists Katie Mixon, B.S. (Graduate Student in Curriculum & Instruction, speaking on lived experience with general anxiety disorder); Todd Schultz, Ed.D (Liberty University faculty, speaking on lived experience with PKU & anxiety, as well as importance of diet + medication); Derrick Edwards, PhD (Assistant professor of counseling & psychology at Tn Tech, speaking on clinical perspectives of anxiety and depression); and Ben Craft, M.S., LPC-MHSP (Head of Education & Training and Licensed Professional Counselor at Nashville OCD & Anxiety Treatment Center, speaking on clinical perspectives and lived experiences with depression). Doug Hensley, M.S. (Senior lecturer in Counseling & Psychology) will serve as the moderator. 

Sponsors: The 2025 Mad Topics Panel Symposium was granted funding by sponsor and partner Rural Reimagined through the 2025 Rural Reimagined Faculty Grant Fund.

» Learn more about our primary sponsor, Rural Reimagined (RR), Tn Tech’s Grand Challenge to Transform Rural Living

» Learn more about the faculty grant fund of RR

» View our Sponsors and Partners

» View our Stonecipher Lecture Hall 2025 Mad Topics Table Set-Up

Thank you to our additional sponsor, the College of Education & Human Sciences (CEHS).

Learn more about the CEHS

Mad Topics: Terms to Know!

Anxiety: A group of chronic mental health conditions which cause fear, worry, and apprehension (American Psychiatric Association, 2022). Anxiety can occur in a wide variety of settings for a wide variety of reasons. There are multiple types on anxiety, and while we may not discuss all kinds in the panel today, please feel free to ask any questions you may have!

Depression: A negative state which ranges from unhappiness to extreme sadness and despondency (American Psychiatric Association, 2022). Depression can be an effect of many causes. While we may not be able to discuss all kinds of depression in the panel today, please feel free to ask any questions you may have!

For more information, please email Dr. Kinsey Simone at madtopics@tntech.edu.

 

2024 Mad Topics Panel Symposium on Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder

Welcome to the 2024 “Mad Topics: Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) & Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) in Education” professional panel symposium discussion resource page, where you can find all things Mad Topics, OCD & ADHD-related and can even rewatch the symposium recording.

 » Watch the recording!

"I am not alone" - A response from one of the attendees regarding their main takeaways from the Mad Topics panel, held Monday, April 8th, 2024 at Tennessee Tech University. Over 100 students, educators, mental health professionals, and community members attended to learn about OCD & ADHD in education (more watched the live stream!).

This panel represented a personal and professional dream of Kinsey Simone, PhD, an instructor in the College of Education. Dr. Simone was diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) as a child and focuses her research efforts on effectively reducing stigmas towards invisible disorders, and this symposium represented the first of hopefully many Mad Topics events.

We are so proud of our campus and surrounding community for attending this panel, which provided a unique opportunity to hear about OCD and ADHD through both a person-centered approach (shared lived experiences) and a clinical approach (available resources, treatments, and symptoms/practical strategies in the classroom).

The 2024 Mad Topics attendees heard from experts, including Dr. David T. Culkin, a prominent figure in the OCD world and author of OCD and Marriage, who traveled to Tech for the panel and shared about his lived OCD experience and the history of Mad Studies, sanism, and ableism; Dr. Kinsey Simone, an instructor of educational quantitative research and the Mad Topics founder, who shared her lived experience with OCD and the current stigmas towards OCD within education; Dr. Leann Taylor, a senior lecturer who shared her lived experience with ADHD, including challenges and successes along her journey; Dr. Edward Beason, who discussed disability stigma and ways to support students with disabilities; and Dr. Amy Callender, who discussed special education, invisible vs. visible disorders, and her experience diagnosing ADHD/OCD as a school psychologist in the past.

» Meet the 2024 Panelists, Moderator, & Student Leaders

Attendees of the 2024 Mad Topics panel symposium on OCD and ADHD in education wrote down some burning questions that they had for panelists! The below resource packet provides the responses of panelists to attendees’ burning questions.

» See the 2024 Mad Topics Post-Panel Resource Packet

Many of the panelists and the moderator from the 2024 Mad Topics symposium are currently conducting IRB-approved research on the effectiveness of Mad Topics interventions in increasing community mental health literacy and decreasing stigmas. Publications and other resources surrounding Mad Topics will be uploaded here as they become available!

Get involved with IMPACT, the student organization which makes Mad Topics possible!

What is it?

IMPACT is about bringing multicultural awareness, diversity, equity, and inclusion to campus through service and education which will provide professional/personal development and many opportunities for members to integrate service and leadership into their academic experiences at Tennessee Tech. 

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IMPACT was created by students for students as a way to make an IMPACT in our campus and community and is under the umbrella of IMPACT Cookeville, a nonprofit organization seeking to build community through community and by fostering education, empowerment, and equity. Find out more about IMPACT Cookeville.

Mad Topics wants to thank our 2025 Tennessee Tech Campus Partners. The following partners participated in our 2025 Mad Topics Symposium, through offering support and resources at our Pre-Tabling Mental Health Resources Fair

• Accessible Education Center
• ASPIRES Sane Program
• Center for Addiction Prevention & Support
• Chi Sigma Iota
• College of Education and Human Sciences
• Center for Counseling and Mental Health Wellness
• IMPACT TTU
• Office of First-Generation Student Success
• Rural Reimagined
• Women’s Center
• Launchpad Student Success Center