All In The Mind

Brain surgery is bloody, messy, and dangerous. Britain’s foremost neurosurgeon Henry Marsh likens it to a blood sport—but his love for the practice of neurosurgery has never wavered and he shares with us his victories, mistakes, and musings on consciousness and death.

Psychiatrist Daniel Fisher would like to shift the paradigm of mental health services and empower people to play a strong role in their own recovery—so he’s teaching emotional CPR.

New research on anxiety and depression is looking at the underlying emotional processes which trigger mental distress, and this is leading to a transdiagnosic approach to treatment.

People who spend a lot of time at the pokies could be familiar with ‘the zone’—a state of mind enhanced by the gambling environment to keep them at the machines.

We all have different approaches to how much stuff we accumulate. But what happens when your attachment to things becomes so strong that a decision to let go of anything is impossible?

Your brain is divided into distinct hemispheres which work together to give you different experiences of the world. But has the balance between the two halves of your brain got out of whack—and what’s the impact?

If you enjoy All in the Mind you may be interested in this Science Friction episode on the psychological impact of working on the U.S. drone program.

We contemplate the nature of consciousness with a philosopher, a neuroscientist, and a Buddhist scholar.

Racism can be blatant and violent but often it's subtle and insidious. We explore the psychology and neuroscience of racial bias.

When we’re bored time drags, and wouldn’t you swear that time seems to speed up as you get older? Drawing on the latest insights from psychology and neuroscience we explore the mystery of time perception, it’s connection to our sense of self and how we could be the architect of our own perception of time.

When you are young the last thing you expect is to be diagnosed with cancer and have to face your own mortality. Psychologists are working on ways to support young adults through their diagnosis, treatment and life post treatment.

How to renegotiate your relationship with your smart phone.

It may well be that the most significant factor to determine sustained happiness is a sense of purpose and meaning in your life.

The context in which we sense pain can change the experience of it—but there are things to learn about how this happens.

The science behind our judgement of faces for their trustworthiness, competency, and character.

Maude Julien was imprisoned by her father in an isolated mansion in France and subjected her to endless horrifying endurance tests in a plan to create a superhuman.

Are the emotions we experience the same as everyone else's? New research shows that emotions are not 'hard-wired', and are developed by our brains and our bodies as we go through life.

Scientific studies have shown that your brain can be trained to be more compassionate; and together with altruism, it can generate a positive outlook for everyone.

Depression is the most disabling chronic condition worldwide and research is now underway to precisely identify the genes associated with it—the results may lead to dramatically improved and personalised treatment.

Emerging theories of child development suggest that a babies have agency over their movements even in the womb, and that their actions help them to make sense of the world.

Sex, drugs, and rock ‘n' roll. It’s a winning trifecta—no matter what the potential dangers are. Hear about the discovery of LSD, and the wide-ranging effects that music has on our brain.

The psychology of paedophilia. Are there differences in the brains of paedophiles or is attraction to children on a universal continuum, controlled only by socialisation?

At a specially designed palliative care unit at a leading Sydney hospital we hear from a patient about his needs and expectations for the final stages of his life—and the staff reflect on what they learn about their own priorities in life by caring for others.

We’re bombarded by blogs and social media with rules for healthy eating: quit sugar, go gluten-free, cut out carbs, eat paleo. But taking the rules too far could lead to an unhealthy obsession with healthy eating.

In the emerging field of nutritional psychiatry, the evidence is now building that particular foods could have a significant influence on our mental health—particularly depression.