Second Start

In this fourth episode of Second Start, I sit down with Dr Reenee Singh, one of the leading international voices on intercultural couples and systemic psychotherapy.  The conversation touches me personally: I come from an intercultural couple, and I now live in one. But the themes we explore go far beyond individual stories. Reenee reminds us that intercultural relationships shouldn't be patho...

A solo episode exploring psilocybin through two different bodies of research: Michael Pollan's How to Change Your Mind (2018), which gathers a wide range of what was known at the time about psychedelic-assisted therapy, and a 2023 study by Jules Evans and colleagues on something the trials don't usually cover, namely the difficulties some people report after psychedelic use, sometimes long...

In this first solo episode, I talk about a book: Perfect Pain / Perfect Shame: A Journey into Radical Presence, by the psychologist Jerry Duvinsky. Drawing on the book, I am talking about what shame really is, how it seeds itself in childhood, through what is said and through what is not said and done. And the paradox, which is that trying to control or eliminate shame reinforces it. Along the way...

Amy went through addiction, an abusive relationship, and was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, hearing voices in Cantonese telling her to end her life. After waking from a coma, she decided to live differently. A leaflet for Reiki in a mental health clinic opened a door. The work that followed, daily meditation, therapy, and discipline, that's what built the change. Today, Amy is a certified...

A new podcast about the courage to change your mind. Second Start is where personal stories of courage meet expert perspectives from psychology, health, and beyond. Every episode is a real conversation, filmed in person in London, about what it really takes to understand ourselves and others, ask better questions, and start again. New episodes coming soon.