All In The Mind

They know the machinations of the mind better than many. So do mental health professionals have a legitimate role in the interrogation of prisoners of war or detainees, in the interests of national security? The American Psychiatric Association and Australia's equivalent have said 'no way'. The peak body for US psychologists have taken a different position. Torture, tough interrogation or treatmen...

Brain Surgery - Live on the Wireless!

Don your gown and mask, and prepare yourself. Natasha Mitchell takes you into the operating theatre of leading neurosurgeon Professor Jeffrey Rosenfeld at the Alfred Hospital, and inside the head of Kia, his patient, as she has an arteriovenous malformation extracted from her frontal lobes. A repeat chance to catch this rare audiophonic insight into a craft of impressive dexterity, patience and co...

As Australians stand in front of the cardboard voting booth next week what's going on in our minds? In choosing the future direction of the nation -- do we weigh up policies and promises with a rational mind, or are we emoting with our pencils? And new research has sent the left and right of the scientific community on a political bender with the idea that we're neurologically wired to support our...

Quieten your mind. Attend to the moment. Mindfulness-based meditation is being touted as beneficial for any number of afflictions: from anxiety to asthma; social phobia to psoriasis. But what is it, and how can science scrutinise subjective states of mind? Three scientists at high powered institutions discuss how they've turned a personal passion into a professional investigation.

Are we really more vulnerable to colds when we're stressed? Does depression increase your risk of heart disease? Could a bad bout of the flu during pregnancy cause schizophrenia in your child? Science has long struggled with the question of whether states of mind influence the body, and vice versa. But the historic mind-body divide is being challenged as cardiologists, immunologists and neuroscien...

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...

Germany's extraordinary Prinzhorn collection of art was drawn from 19th and 20th century asylums. Psychiatrist Hans Prinzhorn was on a quest to find a 'more authentic' art, made by minds liberated from the constraints of rationality. Avant-garde artists turned to the works for inspiration, but the collection went on to be exploited by the Nazis in their horrifying campaign against 'degenerate' art...

Germany and Australia are home to two of the largest collections of art by psychiatric patients gathered from old asylums - the Prinzhorn and Cunningham Dax collections. The Nazis exploited the European works in their horrifying campaign against 'degenerate' art. But what are the ethics of displaying the art now? Are they clinical records, or orphaned creations? Some see them as diagnostic tools,...

Medical anthropologist Monique Skidmore has conducted field work in Burma for over a decade, carefully probing the ways the state manipulates the emotional life of the Burmese, and the psychological strategies they adopt to survive under a military regime. Fear threads through every conversation and gesture. Also, updates from a health worker in the longstanding refugee camps on the Thai-Burma bor...

The Internet is celebrated and castigated in equal measure -- but is it good for your mental health? Are you compelled to check your email morning, night and day? Some believe Internet Addiction Disorder is a very real and growing concern. Others aren't at all convinced it exists. Also, the rise of psychological therapies online -- from depression to social phobia or bulimia -- can a computer real...

Psychologist Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela was on South Africa's historic Truth and Reconciliation Commission, chairing many of its tortuous public hearings about atrocities committed in the apartheid era. In an unprecedented dialogue she met with one of apartheid's most abhorrent killers, in jail, to explore forgiveness, psychological redemption and the symbolic language of trauma. She joins Natasha Mi...

Lover or carer? Partner or dependant? This week, when a partner is afflicted with a severe mental illness, how is the relationship redefined? Do they feel like the body and soul you first fell in love with? Two couples -- Lana and Paul, Gerard and Brendon -- share the trials and triumphs of confronting illness and prejudice together.

Gut feelings, hunches - some people swear by them to make the really big decisions in life. But is there really anything to the idea of trusting a deep, inner sense? Or is intuition little more than superstition? From jam tasting to speed dating - a sceptical neuroscientist delves. Please note: the podcast for this week is a highlight from our archives, not this show which is a feature produced by...

From terrorist threats to bushfire anxiety, the rise of panic disorders to political game play - are we living in an era of fear? A world leader in psychopath research; a personality psychologist, top political scientists; and author of The Chemical Weapons Taboo join Natasha Mitchell to take on a hot topic of the times. The good, the bad and the ugly of that visceral human emotion - Fear.

Where does the Self go when it is battered and bruised beyond recognition? Traumatized after head injury; altered through autism; deconstructed by delusion? TV columnist Ruth Ritchie and neuropsychologist Dr Paul Broks join Natasha Mitchell to navigate the wilderness from very different perspectives, and opposite sides of the doctor's table.

Your brain hijacked -- possessed by a chronic, relapsing brain disease. Scientists now view addiction as a disease, not a behavioural problem. Brain circuits involved in reward and pleasure, planning and control are dramatically changed. The priority is medical treatment, not shame and blame. But others challenge what they dub the 'disease rhetoric', arguing it's fatalistic and reductionist. Do we...

Being gay was considered a mental disorder by psychiatry - until 1973 - when the battle lines were drawn. In this final episode, reporter Alix Spiegel continues the gripping story that spurred a radical rethink. It's the story of a closeted cartel of powerful, gay psychiatrists; of confrontations with angry activists; a shrink dressed in a Nixon mask, and a pivotal encounter in a Hawaiian bar. Fro...

Homosexuality was once labelled a mental disease by psychiatry. But in 1973 the challenge came from within. The American Psychiatric Association had a change of heart. And with the tweak of the 81-word definition of sexual deviance in its own diagnostic manual, lives were reclaimed, and values confronted. Reporter and narrator Alix Spiegel tells the gripping story from the inside, revealing the ac...

In 1971, 23 American college students' lives were changed by the now notorious Stanford Prison Experiment. For the eminent psychologist responsible, Philip Zimbardo, the parallels to the atrocities at Abu Ghraib are palpable. In an exclusive Australian interview, he joins Natasha Mitchell, to reflect on the capacity in all of us to commit evil. It's a case of good apples put in bad barrels.

A rare glimpse from the inside. An Australian neuroscientist and an animal welfarist share their experiences of working together on animal experimental and ethics committees. Personal philosophies are challenged, compromises are made, and change happens through dialogue. Good animal welfare equals good science, they argue. But does good science always underpin animal welfare? And, a vet turned ani...

That old chestnut - what defines human nature? Genes or experience? Are we free agents or genetically determined souls? These questions have fuelled a fierce fight - polarizing a battleground of social scientists, biologists, parents and politicians. World renowned science writer Matt Ridley is calling a truce, and arguing the case for Nature via Nurture. Genes aren't Gods, he argues, they're cogs...

'How do I get them to talk?' Hinted-at events, listening to the silence, roundabout stories. Mental health and other professionals inexperienced at working with Indigenous clients struggle with the limits of their cultural awareness, with language barriers and with the historical legacies of mistrust and misunderstanding. Cultural competency is more than sharing a joke. So what is it? And how can...

Our lives are increasingly under surveillance. Is the mental wilderness between your ears your last truly private space? Scientists are uncovering new ways to fish for your thoughts, and to decipher the brain's neural code behind your thinking. The applications are potentially revolutionary -- from probing the mental capacity of patients trapped in coma, to lie detection or brain-machine interface...

'But officer, my brain made me do it!' Brain scans are becoming commonplace as evidence in US courts, in the bid to convict offenders or free them. But is the technology half-baked? Can we biologically categorise people as criminals -- mad, bad and dangerous to know? Free will, privacy and personal responsibility are all up for grabs in the collision between science and the law.