All In The Mind

How stressed have you been lately? Are you heading towards burn out? Time and time again, Dr Rangan Chatterjee has seen chronic stress wreak havoc on his patients' lives — contributing to autoimmune disorders, gut problems, low libido and more. But the most devastating blow struck his own family, when his father's punishing work schedule forced him to medically retire in his 50s. It’s an experienc...

Languages are so much more than words and sounds — they encode culture and shape our identity. So how do you connect to your culture, if language is lost? While many Indigenous languages have already been lost, and more are at risk of extinction, in Australia, people are increasingly trying to revitalise certain Indigenous languages. ABC Radio National presenter and Gamilaraay woman Rudi Bremer is...

At some point in our lives, we all face the question, "how will I ever get through this?". You know the moments — a sudden loss, a messy break up, an unexpected diagnosis or a career halted… These questions are close to Lucy Hone's heart, not just because of her work as a resilience researcher, but also because of her own experiences of life-altering grief. So today, Dr Lucy Hone shares her tips f...

What is it that drives a person to mass murder? It's a question forensic psychiatrist Professor Paul Mullen has made a life's study of. While these devastating events can at times appear random — he says that taken together, from Port Arthur to Dunblane to Texas — patterns emerge that tell us about the motivations of lone mass killers. It's often to do with isolation, vengeance and fame. Which is...

Should you consider estrangement from an emotionally immature parent? How do you process the grief of realising your more stable parent … might have been a passive enabler? And what should you do if you realise you are an emotionally immature parent? This week, clinical psychologist and author Lindsay Gibson is answering your questions about emotionally immature parents. Each family is different,...

If you've never had good parenting modelled to you, how do you raise emotionally mature kids? Clinical psychologist Dr Lindsay Gibson has thoughts. You might remember Lindsay from our extremely popular 2021 episode titled ' The damage done by emotionally immature parents (and how to heal) '. This week, she's back on All in the Mind, talking about the next generation. From the difference between co...

Rebecca figured out a brilliant way to catch her partner in a lie. It led to a career in forensic psychology… These days, Rebecca studies lie detection, and it turns out, people generally overestimate their ability to tell fact from fiction. All the classic clues — body language, eye contact, acting nervous … they don't really hold up when put to the test. In our fourth and final part of our speci...

If you saw a crime, how clearly would you remember it? What about if you were questioned years… even decades later? Eyewitness testimony is an important part of the justice system, so how much do we know about our ability to recall details? In part three of our four-part series, Forensic, we take a deeper look at eyewitness memory. Because it's not just about what we can or can't recall, there's a...

Imagine police are interrogating you over a crime you didn't commit.  If you're innocent, you're safe, right? Wrong. Sometimes, being innocent can make you more likely to confess. How is that possible? In part two of our four-part series, Forensic , we learn about the police interviewing techniques that make false confessions more likely, and the bizarre cases in which people come to believe they...

Criminal profiling promises a lot — being able to piece together a picture of a suspect through clues, intuition and psychology sounds great. But how reliable is it? In our first episode of Forensic, a four-part series unpacking the psychological tools used to solve crimes, we examine the history of criminal profiling. How it got popular in the 1950s after bombings in New York City, its shortcomin...

Forget everything you’ve learned from crime dramas. Forensic is a new podcast series from All in the Mind on ABC Radio National that takes you behind the psychological tools used to solve crimes. Across four episodes, we investigate criminal profiling, false confessions, eyewitness memory and lie detection, revealing what actually works, what doesn’t, and the surprising ways things can go wrong. F...

Would you want to live forever? The rich and powerful certainly do.  There are numerous examples throughout history of people going to extreme lengths in search of immortality. These days, it's Silicon Valley tech bros, testing out everything from blood transfusions to merging our brains with the cloud. Why are they/we so obsessed with dodging death? What is it about extreme wealth that makes peop...

Cosmetic procedures aren't reserved for celebrities anymore - they're becoming more and more accessible for every day people.  So if we're able to alter our looks or avoid the appearance of aging altogether, what impact does this have on our psychology? Today, we examine how changing our faces might change how we see each other. Please note, this episode includes some discussion of body image and...

Politics, war, abortion, gun control — why do some topics make us so outraged? One theory is that our preoccupation with preventing harm is to blame. So today, we examine how humans developed morality, why we differ in what we consider right and wrong, and how that drives us to moral outrage. And after all of that, we'll find out how to have better conversations with people you disagree with (even...

In the last couple of weeks, a lot of people have been getting excited about space exploration thanks to Artemis II. So this week, we revisit an episode from our archives all about life as an astronaut and the psychological impacts of long distance space travel.  And if you enjoy this episode, check out Artemis Explained, a podcast from the Science Friction team, following the Artemis II mission....

Welcome back to All in the Mind's little sister: Mind Hacks.  In this episode, we're joined by developmental paediatrician and co-host of Pop Culture Parenting, Dr Billy Garvey. From self compassion to channelling anger into advocacy, Billy shares his own strategies for managing bad days. On Mind Hacks, we're bringing you bonus content with special guests, featuring rapid fire questions about thei...

How can I help my child with anxiety? What's the deal with sleep training? Are we supposed to ignore tantrums? This week, we've invited developmental paediatrician Dr Billy Garvey back on All in the Mind for a mailbag episode. We'll unpack your parenting dilemmas which cover questions about kids of all ages, from the littlest of newborns right through to teenagers.  So whether you're a parent, aun...

This week we're talking about something intimate… and sometimes taboo: masturbation. From self-love, to disordered behaviour and back again, we explore how our perceptions of masturbation have changed over the course of history and why it's still linked to shame and confusion for some. Also, why do humans (and other animals) masturbate in the first place? Just a heads up, if the topic didn't give...

Welcome back to All in the Mind's little sister: Mind Hacks. In this episode, health journalist and author Casey Beros on managing your inner critic, balancing competing appetites for more and less in life, and filtering out the external voices to chart your own course in life. Each week on Mind Hacks, we're bringing you bonus content with special guests, featuring rapid fire questions about their...

When Casey Beros' dad was diagnosed with mesothelioma, she knew her entire world would change.  More than three million Australians are carers — a role people are often thrust into without any kind of map. So based on her own experience, Casey wrote one. On All in the Mind this week, what it takes to be a carer for a loved one. How to get through the tough conversations and difficult moments — fro...

How do you grieve a dying parent you're estranged from? Do cheaters ever change? People say love should feel 'easy', is that true? Psychotherapist Esther Perel is back on All in the Mind, answering your questions about heartbreak, loss, and love in this extra special mailbag episode. We've got questions on how to reconnect with estranged siblings, what to do when global conflicts impact personal r...

Welcome back to All in the Mind's little sister: Mind Hacks. In this episode, cognitive neuroscientist Joel Pearson tells us how he manages his own stress (clue: it involves saunas!) Each week on Mind Hacks, we're bringing you bonus content with special guests, featuring rapid fire questions about their mental health tips and pet peeves. It's like a psychology version of eff, marry kill! We're goi...

Social media gave us brain rot; will AI give us cognitive atrophy? How can we possibly learn to cope with the sheer amount of uncertainty and change heading our way? Cognitive neuroscientist Joel Pearson is back on the show, two years after his mega popular appearance in our episode titled "Scarier than killer robots": why your mind isn't ready for AI .In this episode we cover the potential long-t...

Introducing All in the Mind's little sister: Mind Hacks. Each week, we'll bring you bonus content with special guests, featuring rapid fire questions about their mental health tips and pet peeves. It's like a psychology version of eff, marry kill! Kicking off our first episode is none other than Esther Perel. What mental health advice would she avoid at all costs? We're going to test this format o...

Psychotherapist and relationship expert Esther Perel has had a lot of 'firsts' over her four decade-long career — counselling her first polyamorous relationship, or her first gay couple navigating surrogacy. Now, she's just done her first session with a man and his AI 'girlfriend'… Did she struggle to take this ‘couple’ seriously? What kind of love can someone really form with a chatbot? And why w...