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Actor Sean Astin (Lord of the Rings, The Goonies, Rudy, Stranger Things) was in Houston last week (May 3) to address the health community at a Menninger Clinic event. He discussed how families interact with relatives dealing with mental health challenges – and with their doctors.
While he was in town, he stopped by the Houston Matters studios to discuss his lifelong experience as the son of a bipolar mother (the late actress Patty Duke) who addressed her mental health issues very publicly. She devoted the second half of her life to normalizing mental health issues.
“She was a part of a legion of people who were determined to talk about it and make it feel like an accessible topic, and it’s worked” Astin said. “I think were now in a time where the average American isn’t intimidated about the subject matter.”
In the audio above, he and host Craig Cohen also discuss mental health and genetics, how Astin learned about his birth father, and some trivia about some of Astin's most famous roles.
