All in the Mind

Claudia Hammond finds out how MDMA assisted psychotherapy could help treat people with alcohol dependence. Trials are in their early stages but initial results are promising. Could this in the future be a new way to treat an addiction which ordinarily can have high relapse rates? Clinical psychologist, Laurie Higbe, explains how she and co therapist, Dr Ben Sessa, conduct the therapy and why MDMA...

Claudia visits a specialist personality disorder clinic in South London where she meets Jo, Susan and Chanelle to talk about what it's like to have a diagnosis of borderline personality disorder. Psychotherapist, Merryn Jones explains why long term, regular group and individual therapy can help people cope with the intense emotional difficulties often caused by traumatic early life experiences. Ne...

Happy Birthday to us! All in the Mind is 30 years old this month and to celebrate we’ve searched the archive to bring you clips of Anthony Clare, the original presenter of the programme, and a very young Claudia Hammond as a reporter. Professor Catherine Loveday is in the studio with Claudia to discuss the pieces of psychology research which have had the biggest impact on them in that time. Last m...

55,000 people worldwide completed the BBC Loneliness Experiment. It is the largest survey of loneliness ever done. The results are unique in their scope and reach and were revealed first at an event in the Reading Room of Wellcome Collection. At the live event, presented by Claudia Hammond, musician Jazz Morley and poet Daljit Nagra perform and talk about how their creativity was driven by their l...

1. Distraction - devoting time to hobbies, study or work

2. Taking up new social activities or joining a club

3. Changing your thinking to make it more positive

4. Starting a conversation with someone

5. Talking to Friends or family about your feelings

6. Look for the good in everyone

7. Reflecting on why you feel lonely

Claudia Hammond hosts the All in the Mind Awards Ceremony from Wellcome Collection in London and meets all the All in the Mind Award finalists. Back in November we asked you to nominate the person, professional or group who had made a difference to your mental health. Throughout the current series we've been hearing the individual stories of the nine finalists, and this edition offers the chance t...

Susie McKinnon doesn't have amnesia but can't remember her own past. She has Severely Deficient Autobiographical Memory syndrome where she knows an event happened but has no recollection of being there herself. She tells Claudia what it is like and memory scientist Brian Levine from Baycrest in Canada explains more about what the syndrome's existence tells us about the nature of memory and knowled...

As the population ages, Parkinson's disease is the fastest growing neurodegenerative disease. Symptoms of tremor and difficulties with co-ordination are well known, but memory problems or cognitive decline also affects over 30% of patients. Until now doctors had no reliable way of predicting which people will develop these cognitive symptoms or how serious they'd get. Now a team at Kings College L...

KIM stands for Knowledge, Inspiration and Motivation. It is a mental health group running activities for people around Holywell in North Wales and is the latest group finalist in the All in the Mind Awards. They were nominated by Hannah who explains why she sought their help as a teenager. Sophie Forster from Sussex University talks about her new research on smell blindness. One of the awards judg...

Is it possible to take the guesswork out of the prescription of medication for psychosis? Medication is available for the distressing experiences of hallucinations or delusions, but anti-psychotics only work for about three quarters of people and psychiatrists currently have no good way of working out who those people are. New research at Kings College London is trialling a type of scan that's bee...

Claudia Hammond visits the RHS Feel Good Garden at the Chelsea Flower Show. The garden is part of the 70th birthday celebrations for the NHS and was proposed by occupational therapist Andrew Kingston and designed by Matt Keightley. It highlights the benefits of gardening for mental health. After the show the garden will be replanted in the grounds of a hospital in Archway. Michael Scullin is Direc...

Claudia hears from Fiona who nominated the nurse who gave her treatment for bladder cancer for the 2018 All in the Mind Awards. Fiona explains why her experience of childhood trauma re-surfaced when she realised what her treatment for bladder cancer would involve. And why nurse Tanya went the extra mile to manage her anxieties and make the treatment as trauma free as possible. Also in the programm...

Claudia Hammond's guest is University of Cambridge clinical psychologist Tim Dalgleish The vision of autonomous vehicles on our roads is becoming a reality, but in order for driverless cars to succeed, not only does the technology need to be faultless, but it's essential they can interact with pedestrians safely. So we need to know more about how pedestrians deal with the cars. Claudia Hammond tak...

How do our minds view policies that we don't really like, once they become a reality? New research shows that once they actually take place, our mind set changes - and surprisingly we stop minding quite as much. So have we been overestimating the amount of opposition to new initiatives? Kristin Lauren from the University of British Columbia has found that we rationalise the things we feel stuck wi...

In the first of a new series Claudia Hammond meets the first of the nine finalists for the All in the Mind Awards 2018. We hear from Helen who nominated Sarah's Runners, a running group in Tunbridge Wells who helped her after her husband took his own life when she was pregnant with their second child. The group meets twice a week and their ethos is far from personal bests on the track but all abou...

All in the Mind: The Loneliness Experiment launches the world's largest ever survey of its kind on loneliness. Britain is the "loneliness capital of Europe" according to the Office for National Statistics. Loneliness is likely to affect all of us at some point in our lives and is not only distressing, but is implicated in health problems such as an increased risk of heart disease. For some people...

Claudia finds out what can be done to help children whose parents have a mental illness and who may end up becoming their carers. She talks to Kiera and Ambeya who have lived with their parents' depression and schizophrenia and she meets Alan Cooklin, the founder of Kidstime, a charity which aims to support families where one or more parent has a mental illness. Claudia talks to the psychologist w...

How good is your intuition - those hunches you follow because you're convinced you're right? Alas, if you think you're good at it, evidence shows you're probably not. Claudia Hammond hears the latest research from Dr Mario Weick from the University of Kent There's still time for you to enter the 2018 All in the Mind Awards. This is your chance to nominate someone who's made a difference to your me...

Claudia Hammond finds out why films are being made of residents of a care home in South West London. They all have dementia and the story of their lives is told through photos, interviews and music and their beneficial effects are being studied in a small NHS trial. Claudia meets 92 year old May and her daughter, Valerie to find out what the film has done for her and why this kind of reminiscence...