Book Discussion at Perrot Memorial Library
Join me while I discuss, “Unshrunk: A Story of Psychiatric Treatment Resistant,” on Monday, May 12, at 7 pm at Perrot Memorial Library.in their Program Room, Radcliffe Building.Registration is required. To register, click here.
To reserve a copy of the book from our catalog, click here. To purchase a copy of the book from Athena Books, click here.
For more information, contact Lisa Thomas at 203-637-1066 x20 or lisat@perrotlibrary.org.
In Converstion with August Lamm
Join me at The Strand Bookstore for a conversation with writer and artist August Lamm!
In Conversation with Walter Kirn
A READING WITH THE AUTHOR OF UNSHRUNK, IN CONVERSATION WITH WALTER KIRN
This event is free and open to the public. It will be held at The Beverly Theater.
At age fourteen, Laura Delano saw her first psychiatrist, who immediately diagnosed her with bipolar disorder and started her on a mood stabilizer and an antidepressant. At school, Delano was elected the class president and earned straight-As and a national squash ranking; at home, she unleashed all the rage and despair she felt, lashing out at her family and locking herself in her bedroom, obsessing over death.
Delano’s initial diagnosis marked the beginning of a life-altering saga. For the next thirteen years, she sought help from the best psychiatrists and hospitals in the country, accumulating a long list of diagnoses and a prescription cascade of nineteen drugs. After some resistance, Delano accepted her diagnosis and embraced the pharmaceutical regimen that she’d been told was necessary to manage her incurable, lifelong disease. But her symptoms only worsened. Eventually doctors declared her condition so severe as to be “treatment resistant.” A disturbing series of events left her demoralized, but sparked a last glimmer of possibility. . . . What if her life was falling apart not in spite of her treatment, but because of it? After years of faithful psychiatric patienthood, Delano realized there was one thing she hadn’t tried—leaving behind the drugs and diagnoses. This decision would mean unlearning everything the experts had told her about herself and forging into the terrifying unknown of an unmedicated life.
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.
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 Connecticut with her husband and children.
Walter Kirn is a contributing editor to Time and GQ and a regular reviewer for the New York Times Book Review. His work has appeared in the New York Times Magazine, the New York Times Book Review, GQ, Vogue, New York, and Esquire and he is the co-founder and editor-at-large for County Highway. He is the author of four previous works of fiction: My Hard Bargain: Stories, She Needed Me, Thumbsucker, and Up in the Air. ‘
Unshrunk UK with AD4E
Join us to celebrate the publication of Unshrunk with its author, Laura Delano.
Laura will be sharing the story of Unshrunk and answering your questions.
There are limited places due to the zoom platform we have available. Get your tickets here!
In Conversation w/ Annie Brewster at Harvard Book Store
Harvard Book Store welcomes Laura Delano—writer, speaker, consultant, and founder of Inner Compass Initiative—for a discussion of her memoir Unshrunk: A Story of Psychiatric Treatment Resistance. She will be joined in conversation by Annie Brewster—Assistant Professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, a practicing physician at Massachusetts General Hospital, and author of The Healing Power of Storytelling: Using Personal Narrative to Navigate Illness, Trauma, and Loss.
Unshrunk Discussion with Advocates
Join us at Advocates, for an evening with Laura Delano, a nationally recognized author and speaker focused on the problems within the American mental health industry. Laura is the founder of Inner Compass Initiative (ICI), a nonprofit organization that helps people make informed choices about psychiatric diagnoses, medications, and withdrawal. She will discuss her new book, Unshrunk: A Story of Psychiatric Treatment Resistance, in which she shares her personal journey of spending 14 years as a psychiatric patient and explores the long-term harms of psychiatric medications, as well as how to safely discontinue them.
The Trouble with Psychiatry: A conversation about Chemically Imbalanced and Unshrunk
Join psychiatrist Joanna Moncrieff and ICI founder and writer Laura Delano for a compelling conversation about their new books, Chemically Imbalanced and Unshrunk. Together, they’ll reflect on why they wrote their books, how they’ve been received, and what they see shifting in the public conversation around psychiatric drugs and diagnoses. This is a conversation for anyone who has ever questioned the psychiatric narrative—or felt misled, dismissed, or harmed by it.
BIOS: Prof Joanna Moncrieff is a professor of critical and social psychiatry at University College London and a consultant psychiatrist in the National Health Service in the UK. She is renowned for the development of alternative perspectives on psychiatric drugs and author of Chemically Imbalanced (Flint Books, 2025).
Laura Delano is an author, speaker, and consultant, and the founder of Inner Compass Initiative, a nonprofit organization that helps people make more informed choices about psychiatric diagnoses, drugs, and drug withdrawal. Her book, Unshrunk: A Story of Psychiatric Treatment Resistance, was published in March 2025 by Viking.
Brownstone Supper Club West Hartford
The famed supper club at a fabulous venue (the real Chinese stuff) with friends of the Brownstone Institute, featuring Laura Delano, whose bestselling book is Unshrunk: A Story of Psychiatric Treatment Resistance.
Come early for cocktails and meet Brownstone Institute friends, scholars, writers, and benefactors, and celebrate victories and discuss challenges ahead. The food is wonderful and the discussion brilliant. Casual and fun, even if some people come in fancier clothing.
Brownstone Supper Club Philadelphia!
Join us at our next Philadelphia Supper Club on April 3rd, 2025! We welcome Laura Delano, a nationally recognized author and speaker focused on the problems with the American mental health industry. In January 2018, Laura launched Inner Compass Initiative (ICI), a non-profit organization that helps people make more informed choices about psychiatric diagnoses, drugs, and drug withdrawal. Laura will discuss her brand new book: UNSHRUNK, A Story of Psychiatric Treatment Resistance, in which she tells her personal story of spending 14 years as a psychiatric patient and provides much-needed insights regarding long-term harms of psychiatric medications and how to get off of them safely. Books will be available for sale at the Supper Club!
Our venue, the festive Las Bugambilias in Philadelphia’s famous Old City district, offers a buffet of all-you-can-consume Mexican food, margaritas, beer, and wine — all included. Join us for a night of eating and drinking, meet Brownstone Institute friends, scholars, writers, and benefactors, and celebrate victories and discuss challenges ahead. Dress is whatever makes you happy — casual is great, fancy is also wonderful.
LOCATION & PARKING
Las Bugambilias, at 15 S. 3rd St. is near the corner of 3rd and Chestnut Sts, right off the I-95 and 676 highways.
One outdoor parking lot is immediately adjacent to the restaurant ($20-25) and a large indoor lot is around the corner on 4th and Chestnut Sts. ($20-30)
Street parking is usually easy to find in the evenings as well (pay at kiosks or through the MeterUp parking app).
Unshrunk Book Launch Party!
I’m partnering with River Bend Bookshop to host the official UNSHRUNK book launch at Gastro Park in West Hartford - ticket includes entry and a copy of the book. (Fun fact: I did a lot of writing there so this is a real full circle moment for me!)