All In The Mind

Born into the bloody horror of war, Sudanese rap artist Emmanuel Jal was 9 when he was recruited into the Sudanese Peoples' Liberation Army as a child soldier. Incredibly he survived, and his music reaches a generation of Lost Boys. And next week, a remarkable dance and movement therapist helping former child soldiers in Sierra Leone express and heal the traumas of their psyches through their bodi...

When Professor Irving Kirsch and colleagues got hold of the unpublished data from drug company trials of antidepressants, it hit the headlines. But their analysis – that antidepressants and placebo pills have about the same clinical impact – was widely misreported. Hear it from the horse's mouth, from the stage of the 2009 Happiness and Its Causes Conference.

News of the largest studies on the genetics of autism to date is out, paving the way for genetic risk testing in the future. And, Australian research suggests autistic behaviours can be detected as early as eight months. So should we be screening newborns for neurological disorders like autism? The ethical debate unfolds on All in the Mind.

Impulsive behaviour, anger, mood swings, poor concentration, memory loss. A knock to the head that qualifies as a brain injury can transform your behaviour in unexpected ways. Confronting research suggests acquired or traumatic brain injuries - past and recent - are rife in prison populations, with little to no screening or targeted interventions in place.

An unusual behaviour, an enlarged head, a limp, or a superb musical talent -- ability, disability or difference? In Northern Ghana, disabled children labelled as evil 'Spirit Children' are killed. Acclaimed African BBC reporter Sorious Samura reports. For copyright reasons, this week's podcast and online edition is an alternative from our archives, Beyond Coma: The Plight of the Persistant Vegetat...

Good comedians push us where few of us dare to go -- we find ourselves rolling in the aisles with shock and delight. Two top-of-the-bill acts at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival reflect on Freud, the comedic psyche and the power of the potty mouth. And, New Yorker columnist and science journalist Jim Holt unravels the rollicking history and philosophy of jokes.

Controversial psychiatrist Professor Thomas Szasz wrote The Myth of Mental Illness in 1961. Nearly 50 years later, on the eve of his 89th birthday, he continues to both ignite and inspire -- as the huge number of comments on the All in the Mind blog indicates after our extended interview with him. This week, two psychiatrists respond to their profession's most vigilant critic.

In 1961 maverick psychiatrist and libertarian Professor Thomas Szasz published his controversial and influential epic, The Myth of Mental Illness. Half a century later he maintains we live in a therapeutic state—a 'pharmacracy'—and that psychiatry is a 'pseudoscientific racket'. On the eve of his 89th birthday he joins Natasha Mitchell in conversation. Next week, psychiatrists respond.

In 1961 maverick psychiatrist and libertarian Professor Thomas Szasz published his controversial and influential epic, The Myth of Mental Illness. In it he argued that mental illness is a fiction and a medical metaphor. Half a century later he maintains we live in a therapeutic state—a 'pharmacracy' where psychiatry is synonymous with coercion. On the eve of his 89th birthday he joins Natasha Mitc...

Monosyllabic, messy, self-conscious and sleepy—science now has the tumultuous teenager in its sights. Are they risk-takers with brains still under construction? Or competent adults grossly misinterpreted by modern science? From evolutionary theories to the bright lights of the brain scan—a provocative debate is being waged.

Look in your doctor's kitbag, and you'll probably find a stethoscope, a thermometer, a first-aid kit. But a copy of Charles Darwin's Origin of Species too? 'Darwinian Medicine' asks: why do we get sick, and why didn't the body evolve to be better? Psychiatrist Randolph Nesse argues physicians ignore evolutionary theories at the peril of their patients. All in the Mind continues Radio National's ce...

Archaeologists in Yorkshire have dug up a 2,000-year-old human skull, incredibly with brain tissue still intact. When this brain last saw the world, the Romans were yet to invade Britain and tribes occupied the North. And in another stunning find -- the first ever fossilised brain -- that of a 300 million-year-old fish, last alive in the Late Paleozoic.

Dreams feel meaningful—drawn from a mishmash of content from our waking lives. But it's a hot debate among scientists, who are yet to confirm why we sleep, let alone dream. Neuroscientist Matthew Wilson's extraordinary experiments involve eavesdropping on the sleeping minds of rats. He proposes dreaming is central to how we remember and learn.

Jungian psychoanalyst and psychotherapist Robert Bosnak is a dream worker. To him dreams are an ecosystem of imaginings—powerful bodily experiences populated by characters with their own intelligences. When you encounter the images of your dreaming mind do you find one Self, or many? And, next week, a leading neuroscientist probing the possible link between memory and dreaming.

Reading the minds of others can be darned hard. Are their intentions good, bad or indifferent? Whether we hold people accountable for their behaviour depends on the answer. Scientists probe questions like this through experiments. Philosophers traditionally appeal to intuition and argument. But now a young band of experimental philosophers are taking armchair philosophy to task, and digging for da...

The human animal is a complex beast—we mate, fight, emote, and socialise in curious ways. Charles Darwin's theories continue to provoke controversy over how and why we behave the way we do. Join leading evolutionary scientists and philosophers in this one-hour special, as presenters Alan Saunders and Natasha Mitchell consider how Darwin radically influenced the life of the mind.

Wait! Before you reach for the insect spray, listen to this show. From robotic crickets to bees that see in the dark, meet a couple of neuroethologists probing the incomprehensibly small, but surprisingly brilliant, brains of bugs.

Music undoubtedly makes us feel good. But is it therapeutic? Does it have a place in healing the psychological, even physical, scars of illness? From the intimacy of a neonatal ward to the ravages of cancer treatment, enter the world of three Australian music therapists pushing the boundaries of medicine.

Meet polymath Ian Gibbins -- neuroscientist, anatomist and university professor by day; poet, performer and composer by night. In a unique audio portrait, All in the Mind takes you inside all of his worlds; contemplating cadavers, nerve cells and the creative arts.

Intuitively we sense that nature relaxes us -- even small pockets of green in the concrete urban jungle seem to make a difference. But finding good scientific evidence for how and why has been more difficult -- until now. Crime rates, academic performance, aggression and even ADHD. Could a bit of greening make all the difference? And, ecology on the couch -- a self described 'ecotherapist' with no...

Like it or not, you're not the beast of reason you think you are. Dan Ariely, a behavioural economist at MIT, argues that we're surprisingly and predictably irrational. Sex, freebies, expectations, placebos, price -- they all cloud our better judgment in rather sobering ways. Dan's unique research was partly inspired by a catastrophic accident which caused third degree burns to 70% of his body. He...

Four-year-old Tara has a very special brain. Like Rain Man, she was born without a Corpus Callosum. It's the head's superhighway -- a thick band of nerve fibres connecting the two hemispheres of the brain. Join Natasha Mitchell as she experiences a day in the life of the Ingerson family, with rare insights into one of the most complicated neurological birth defects.

Maori people believe the body is derived from the earth, and returns to the ancestral earth at death—complete. The flesh, and all its bits, are sacred. The new Human Tissue Bill in New Zealand has provoked debate over who owns your body at death—you or your family? The Maori Party argues the legislation is Western-centric and racist. And, a young Maori scientist working with post-mortem brain tiss...

The incredible saga of Ishi, California's last 'wild' Indian, is the stuff of American folklore. It's also the quest for a lost brain, taken from Ishi's tuberculosis ravaged body at death—only to be rediscovered and repatriated 80 years later. And next week—a young Maori scientist working with post-mortem brain tissue is breaking new ground, to keep her lab life 'culturally safe'.

What humans say to each other is perplexing at the best of times. But what if all you have is sight, no sound? Deaf people 'see' language through signing and lip-reading -- with surprising brain scan results. Forensic linguists often only have sound, no sight -- working with grisly sound recordings from murder scenes and covert criminal deals, to sleuth for suspects. Tune in to untangle some trick...