Episode 40 - Andrea Yates

On June 20, 2001, a woman named Andrea Yates called her local police dispatch and requested the presence of officers to her home, refusing to give any specific reason for the request. When officers arrived, they found that Andrea had killed all five of her young children by drowning them in the family bathtub. In the spectacular trial that followed, America became fixated on Andrea’s religious motivations, her comprehension of the wrongfulness of her actions, and the issue of postpartum psychosis, a serious mental illness that can afflict 1 to 2 women out of every 1,000 who give birth. How do we understand the nature of insanity in the contemporary legal system? Is there a deeper meaning behind experiences that we would normally label as psychotic episodes? Can we start to expand our definition of psychosis so as to more compassionately treat people having these experiences? Join Drs. Micono and Morelos as they look at the case of Andrea Yates.

You can listen to Episode 40 - Andrea Yates online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

Episode 40 - Andrea Yates is an episode from Psychology After Dark by Jessica Micono and David Morelos.

This episode is 00:54:40 long.

This episode was published on Aug 16, 2021.

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