Conversations: Psychology & Relationships

Clinical psychologist and men's mental health researcher Zac Seidler on how boys are being fed increasingly inflammatory content online, and what men can do IRL to offer a version of masculinity that is healthy and vulnerable, instead of hard and dangerous. Many young men are taking a journey on the internet right now which starts with inoffensive self-improvement videos on platforms like YouTube...

Former AFLW star Moana Hope has spent her life caring for others, including her dying father and her beloved sister Vinny, who has an intellectual disability. It wasn't until Mo was in her 30s that she realised she needed to learn how to love herself. Content Warning: this episode of Conversations contains discussion of childhood abuse, domestic violence and suicidal ideation. Moana Hope grew up w...

Antoun Issa grew up quietly aware of a profound grief in his mother's eyes. As an adult, after living and working in the Middle East, he finally knew how to ask her about surviving the Lebanese Civil War. Antoun is a journalist who grew up in the outer suburbs of Melbourne, after his parents had escaped the civil war in Lebanon in the 1970s. Growing up in Craigieburn as the baby of the family, Ant...

Toxic people are around us in our workplaces, our families and our dating lives. Research psychologist Leanne ten Brinke is here to tell you how to spot them, and get rid of them from your orbit. Leanne ten Brinke is a research psychologist whose special area of expertise is what she calls 'dark personality types'. These are particularly cruel, malicious, manipulative people who lack empathy, peop...

For journalist Kate Halfpenny, moving to a beachside town during Melbourne's lockdowns seemed like the perfect way to unwind and escape her huge mortgage. Then she had to contend with the triple whammy of perimenopause, her husband's alcoholism and distance from family and friends. For the first time in her life, Kate had an empty house, no job commitments and no city life to distract her. She was...

From relationships and loneliness, to indecision and burnout, Jemma Sbeg is your guide to navigating your 20s, and looking back on that decade with a new perspective. When Jemma Sbeg started recording a podcast in the back of her Subaru about her quarter life crisis, she had no idea just how many people she would reach. But other people her age were desperate for guidance through their 20s - a dec...

Loneliness is a universal experience, for each of us at some point in our lives. Journalist Ros Thomas travelled the world to investigate, and find the antidote.  To binge even more great episodes of the 'Conversation podcast' with Richard Fidler and Sarah Kanowski go the ABC listen app (Australia) or wherever you get your podcasts. There you’ll find hundreds of the best thought-provoking intervie...

The renowned physician discusses the role of trauma in our lives, showing up as addiction, chronic disease and mental illness — and how recognising his own led to true healing. To binge even more great episodes of the Conversation podcast with Richard Fidler and Sarah Kanowski go the ABC listen app (Australia) or wherever you get your podcasts. There you’ll find hundreds of the best thought-provok...

Two of the most important men to Gus Worland departed his life in shocking and unexpected ways. Gus' grief led him to dig deeper into what it means to be a strong man and re-frame vulnerability as something powerful. TV and radio host Gus Worland grew up with some deeply rooted ideas about what it meant to be a man and a good bloke. When Gus was just 10 years old, his father left the family home f...

Jelena Dokic overcame adversity, poverty and violence to rise to the top of the tennis world. Years later, her revelations about her father's abuse stunned the world. (CW: discussion of domestic violence and coercive control). Jelena Dokic overcame adversity, poverty and violence to rise to the top of the tennis world. Years later, her revelations about her father's abuse stunned the world. (CW: d...

Dr Tracy Westerman grew up in the Pilbara, where suicide and mental health issues have deeply scarred Indigenous communities. So this Nyamal woman decided to do something about it. Nyamal woman Tracy Westerman grew up in some of the most remote parts of Western Australia, moving from a station to a town called Useless Loop, eventually landing in the mining town of Tom Price. Tracy, the daughter of...

Joh Jarvis was a high-flying boss when grief from a terrible loss began to overwhelm her. She tried therapy, exercise and healthy eating. Then she found Vedic meditation, and the experience was 'psychedelic'. Joh Jarvis is a Vedic meditation teacher. Every week, she travels into Rikers Island Prison — a notorious jail in New York City — to teach meditation to hardened criminals. Joh grew up in Ade...

While struggling with PTSD, social researcher Rebecca Huntley chose an unconventional and underground path to healing — MDMA therapy. Rebecca Huntley is well known to many Australians for her formidable intellect and career as a broadcaster, an author and a social researcher. But despite her impressive public-facing life, in private, Rebecca's trauma from a difficult upbringing refused to leave he...

When psychologist Ariane Beeston started having delusions after the birth of her son, and hallucinating that he was a dragon, she had to learn how to become the patient. Ariane Beeston thought that when her son was born, she would feel that immediate rush of love that everyone told her to expect, and that motherhood would come naturally to her. But that's not what happened. Instead, Ariane started...

As a teenager Adele Dumont started pulling out her hair from the root. Eventually she created a bald spot the size of a 20-cent piece at the crown of her head. Adele would sometimes enter a trancelike state, covertly sitting on her bathroom floor, picking at her scalp for hours on end. The urge to pull at her hair was uncontrollable, and secret. When Adele finally put a name to her behaviour, she...

Professor Ian Hickie has spent decades trying to understand clinical depression. Where does it come from? What role do genes play? And most importantly – what works to release its chokehold? Ian Hickie has spent his career trying to help people at their darkest times. He's a psychiatrist who is particularly passionate about taming the black dog of depression. Depression is not a simple puzzle to s...

Penny grew up consumed by catastrophic thoughts and developed habits to try to ward off impending doom. It turned out she had been living with obsessive compulsive disorder for 30 years Penny Moodie grew up consumed by catastrophic thoughts and ideas - that her parents would die in a car crash, that her mother was not really her mother, or that she had somehow contracted HIV aids. It's not unusual...

Coalminer turned broadcaster Craig Hamilton was in his 30s when he had a psychotic episode on Broadmeadows train station. In the aftermath, his life was completely changed (CW: mentions suicide) Craig Hamilton began his working life as a coal miner in Newcastle north of Sydney. He worked deep underground, knocking down walls and digging through tunnels through the inky blackness. One day after man...

Dr Robert Waldinger on what it takes to live a happy life. Robert Waldinger has spent most of his working life trying to understand the secret to human happiness.  He’s Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and the Director of the Harvard Study of Adult Development. The project has been tracking what makes for a joyful life for more than eight decades and points to meaningful relations...

Mandy Nolan didn't fit in as a child, in the country town where she grew up. But later in life, her differences became her superpower (CW: discusses domestic violence and addiction)

Over her many decades as a practising psychiatrist, Veronica O'Keane developed a fascination for our memory, how it functions in the brain, and the role it has in shaping our identity

Once journalist and author Kate Legge recovered from the news her husband of 30 years was cheating on her, she uncovered four generations of infidelity through his family

Hilton Koppe on how his life as a soccer-obsessed country GP changed forever when he became a patient himself Hilton Koppe grew up knowing his parents wanted him to become a doctor. When he got the marks to make it into medicine, they were overjoyed. By the time he was 30, he'd started working as a country GP.  Hilton then became a beloved local doctor in Northern NSW, and he worked there for more...

Oceane was 18 when she attempted to take her own life. After a painstaking climb back into life, 20 years later she is a midwife, a writer and a mother of three (CW: mentions suicide and sexual assault)

Guiding daughters to become confident young woman in an age of smartphones and early sexualisation is tough. The parenting expert says in this complex arena, we can't leave these lessons to chance Maggie Dent can clearly recall her indignation at being made to wear a dress as a little girl. She was a tomboy and noticed when she was treated differently from little boys, who were allowed to be their...