All In The Mind

The oedipus Complex - Dr Sigmund Freud's unusual theory that children desire their parent of opposite sex, and want harm to come to the other - has provoked much controversy. Head back to 1904, and it was a little Viennese boy's phobia of horses who became the unlikely evidence for Freud's thinking. A curious tale of castration anxiety, penis envy and the plight of poor Little Hans. NB: The All in...

Extreme cases of brain damage litter the history of neuroscience. Phineas Gage is perhaps the most famous. A railway worker in 19th-century Vermont, he managed to survive a catastrophic accident—the penetration of a metre-long iron rod through his head. What happened to Gage has become the stuff of legend, and fundamentally changed him and the way we think about the brain. NB: The All in the Mind...

In 1800, a young boy emerged from the woods of the Aveyron District in France, naked and wild. He became a scientific enigma to influential psychologist Dr Jean-Marc-Gaspard Itard, and redefined the nature vs. nurture debate. His legacy lives on today, especially in the Montessori approach to learning. NB: The All in the Mind podcast edition is a different program from the broadcast edition this w...

When a young woman, Kitty Genovese was brutally killed in a prolonged attack in New York in 1964, not one of 38 witnesses called for help until too late. The case led to the naming of the phenomenon known as the Bystander Effect. The first of four compelling programs on influential cases in the history of psychology. NB: The All in the Mind podcast edition is a different program from the broadcast...

Many people hear voices inside their head -- some are diagnosed with schizophrenia, others live privately with the experience. International leaders in the Hearing Voices Network gather in Australia this week, controversially challenging the belief that voices are a pathological symptom without psychological meaning. They argue people can find it therapeutic to 'dialogue' with the voices. Meet thr...

We live in a world mediated by flickering screens. But do 'people of the screen' think fundamentally differently to 'people of the book'? What will the brain look like in generations to come? Eminent neuroscientist Baroness Susan Greenfield paints an apocalyptic picture of an identity lost, and cognition fundamentally compromised, forever stuck in the sensory chaos of early childhood.

We can't survive without them -- and we've long underestimated their prowess. Controversially, bacteria could even have cognitive talents that rival our own. Predatory behaviour, cooperation, memory -- Jules Verne eat your heart out -- Natasha Mitchell takes you on a strange adventure into the secret world of microbial mentality.

Dementia can produce challenging and erratic behaviours. The disease itself is one cause, but so is the world outside. Which psychosocial interventions really make a difference? And, a tour through an orthodox nursing home for the most extreme cases -- there's a bus stop with no bus, a car that won't go -- and it really works.

Dementia can trigger behaviours that are deeply depressing to loved ones. Aggression, agitation and even delusions and hallucinations. Antipsychotic medications are commonly prescribed. But they are now known to increase risk of mortality and stroke, with concerns that their use is excessive in under-resourced aged care settings. Management tool or good medical practice? Natasha Mitchell probes.

The 1929 discovery of amphetamine heralded the dawn of the age of Speed -- a drug with an extraordinary and triumphant career. The first modern antidepressant, a powerful prop in warfare, a diet pill, a devastating illicit drug -- now reincarnated as a treatment for ADHD. Historian of science Nicolas Rasmussen unearths the making of modern medicine, Big Pharma, and a humble stimulant.

Nobody likes being told their most cherished beliefs are based on myth and misconception. But the global skeptics movement does just that. In the classroom and beyond, All in the Mind excavates the nature of the skeptical enquiry with magician The Amazing Randi, Mythbusters' Adam Savage and other enquiring minds.

The brain is more plastic than scientists once believed. But what does this mental malleability mean for humanity? More compelling stories from psychiatrist Dr Norman Doidge as he enters the labs and lives of the new 'neuroplasticians'. And, neuroplasticity on the couch - does psychotherapy physically change your brain?

The dogma used to be that the adult brain was a rigid, unchangeable organ, but that pessimistic perspective is now being radically revised. Psychiatrist Dr Norman Doidge journeyed into the labs and lives of the 'neuroplasticians' -- once scientific mavericks, they're challenging the old neurological nihilism. Professor Jeffrey Schwartz is one. They both join Natasha Mitchell in discussion to revea...

Alcohol and pregnancy don't mix. In extreme cases children are born with low birth weight, cranio-facial abnormalities, and restricted brain development. Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder is a term now used to describe the range of devastating impacts. Some believe the lid needs to be lifted on this 'invisible disability', but others argue the label has the potential to discriminate too.

A woman thought to be in a persistent vegetative state, unresponsive and unconscious to herself and the world, is asked to play a game of 'mental' tennis. Extraordinarily, brain scans reveal she can. In Australia, new ethical guidelines govern the care of people in this devastating situation. Besides new technologies and terminologies -- what prospects for those living frozen lives?

Are markets moral? Is our hunter-gatherer brain geared for modern capitalism, and do economies work like evolutionary organisms? The rise of neuroeconomics, the extinction of Homo Economicus and more -- with outspoken founder of the US Skeptics Society, Dr Michael Shermer, and shareholder activist and Crikey founder, Stephen Mayne.

Why do we often avoid speaking our mind? Does swearing have an evolutionary function? What do linguistic taboos do to your brain? How are new words born? Acclaimed author of The Language Instinct and How the Mind Works, Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker is a self-confessed verbivore. To him language offers a window into the human mind and how it works. He joins Natasha Mitchell in a feature inter...

Venerable Robina Courtin, acclaimed Australian Tibetan Buddhist nun, has excavated the suffering mind at its greatest depths of despair. Founder of the Liberation Prison Project, she's helped thousands of inmates release themselves from the prison within—their mind—using Buddhist techniques. Venerable Tenzin Palmo was one of the first Westerners to be ordained as a Buddhist nun, spending years und...

What makes someone gay? The quest for the biological roots of sexual orientation remains rife with controversy. Is it in your genes, handedness, or the hormonal soup of the early foetus? Or, is the answer hidden deep inside the brain? Homo or hetero—the science of sexual attraction captures everyone's attention.

As old as the state of Queensland itself, Goodna Mental Hospital became Australia's largest asylum, housing 50,000 people over its lifetime. During a time of major institutional and cultural upheaval, the Office of the Patient's Friend opened its doors in 1977, the first patient advocacy service to operate within the confines of an Australian psychiatric hospital. Part advocate, part whistle-blowe...

As old as the state of Queensland itself, Goodna Mental Hospital became Australia's largest asylum, housing 50,000 people over its lifetime. In this series All in the Mind unearths stories from people who lived and worked there. A nurse reflects on life in the asylum during World War II before the dramatic arrival of modern medications, and two sisters reminisce on growing up at Goodna with their...

As old as the state of Queensland itself, Goodna Mental Hospital became Australia's largest asylum, housing 50,000 people over its lifetime. In this series All in the Mind shares stories from people who lived and worked there; from a nurse who worked there from the 1940s to a woman incarcerated as a young ward of the state, now fighting for justice. Warts-and-all recollections of madness, care and...

In Austria, animal activists have taken the case of a chimp called Matthew as far as the European Court of Human Rights. Controversially, they're fighting for his right to legal personhood. And, the incredible saga of Nim Chimpsky. A landmark effort to teach a chimp sign language and raise him like a human child. Project Nim became a scientific soap opera of epic proportions.

What happens when your brain sees the world not as it really is? This week, the scientific effort to simulate out-of-body experiences to probe the limits of the self. And, remarkable stories of vision gone heywire—what they reveal about our 'seeing brain'. Two scientists join Natasha Mitchell with extraordinary insights into how your brain creates your mind...

One of the big names of the brain is Michael Gazzaniga, whose career was forged in the lab of Nobel laureate Roger Sperry. His striking experiments continue to uncover the differences between your left and right hemispheres. Today he's on the US President's Bioethics Council, heads up a major project on neuroscience and the law, and is a prolific writer of popular neuroscience. He joins Natasha Mi...