The MindStew Podcast

Dr. Adam Levin, a psychiatrist and researcher, based at Ohio State University's Center for Psychedelic Drug Research and Education (CPDRE). Adam works at the intersection of psychedelics, psychiatry and neuroscience. In this conversation, we discuss Adam's recent paper, which proposes a new theory about how psychedelics work, focusing on the intriguing role of brain lateralisation in psychedelic e...

My guests today are Bruce Wampold and Pim Cuijpers, two of the leading experts in the research of the effectiveness of psychotherapy. Bruce is Emeritus Professor of Counseling Psychology at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and author of the seminal book, The Great Psychotherapy Debate: The Evidence for What Makes Psychotherapy Work. Pim is Professor Emeritus of Clinical Psychology at the Depart...

My guest today is Dr Chris Letheby, a philosopher working on issues related psychedelic drugs who is currently a lecturer in philosophy at the University of Western Australia and a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Adelaide. Chris is also the author of the book Philosophy of Psychedelics , which was published in 2021 by Oxford University Press. In this conversation we touch on the accou...

My guest today is Ros Knight is a Clinical and Counselling Psychologist with over 25 years experience and the President of the Australian Psychological Society (the largest professional organisation of psychologists in Australia) from 2017-20 was the Clinical Director at Macquarie University for nearly 14 years. This conversation is something of a guide for people who may be considering getting pr...

  My guest today is Professor Ralph Piedmont, Professor of Pastoral Counselling at Loyola University in Maryland and a past president of the APA's Society for the Psychology of Religion and Spirituality. In this conversation, we discuss spirituality as a clinically-relevant personality trait, and how one can go about integrating spirituality into clinical practice. Ralph is also co-author (with Te...

My guest today is Professor Ralph Piedmont, Professor of Pastoral Counselling at Loyola University in Maryland and a past president of the APA's Society for the Psychology of Religion and Spirituality. In this conversation, we discuss the nature of spirituality as a personality trait (arguably the sixth personality trait!) that cuts across cultures and religions, it's relevance for clinical practi...

My guest today is Professor Jonathan Smallwood ( @the_mindwanders ), Professor of Psychology at Queens University in Canada. Jonny researches the neuroscience of the phenomenon of spontaneous, internally generated thought, as exemplified by mind-wandering and day-dreaming. To me, this is an interesting topic because it is; a) something that we do all the time, b) relevant to high-prevalence mental...

In this episode I speak with  Jay Sanguinetti , Research Assistant Professor and Director of the NICE Lab (Non-Invasive Cognitive Enhancement Lab) at the University of New Mexico, and Science Director of the SEMA Lab (Sonification Enhanced Mindful Awareness) Associate Director of the Center for Consciousness Studies at the University of Arizona.  Dr. Sanguinetti investigates the use of noninvasive...

In this episode I speak with Norm Farb , Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Toronto, and Principal Investigator of the Regulatory and Affective Dynamics Lab.  Dr. Farb studies the neuroscience of the self and emotion with a focus on how cognitive biases shape the emotional reactions that influence well-being, and how these biases and emotional reactions are af...

Today we speak again with  Professor Josef Parnas , Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Copenhagen and a co-founder and Senior Researcher at the Danish National Research Foundation: Center for Subjectivity Research. In our first conversation we discussed the implications of taking the phenomenology of schizophrenia seriously, and covered topics such as importance of clinical experience, a...

Today we speak with Professor Josef Parnas , Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Copenhagen and a co-founder and Senior Researcher at the Danish National Research Foundation: Center for Subjectivity Research. Professor Parnas has been involved in research  into the schizophrenia spectrum for about 40 years, and by using a phenomenological approach, has come to focus on the anomalous self-...

Today we speak with Professor Robert Krueger, Distinguished McKnight University Professor, Hathaway Distinguished Professor, and the Director of Clinical Training in the Department of Psychology at the University of Minnesota. Professor Krueger's work spans the fields of personality and personality disorders, psychometrics, and genetics, and is centred on developing an empirically-based system of...

Today I speak with  Dr. Vince Polito , Research Fellow in the Department of Cognitive Science at Macquarie University. Vince works on developing better measures of self representation and investigating how this capacity is altered in different contexts, clinical conditions and states of consciousness. Vince and I discuss microdosing, which refers to regularly taking very small doses of psychedelic...

Today we speak with Dr Nicolas Van Dam, Senior Lecturer at the School of Psychological Sciences at the University of Melbourne and Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York. Nicholas is a clinical psychologist and directs the Decision Making and Affective Learning in Emotional Conditions lab or DALEC lab. There he investi...

Today we speak with Dr. Rebecca Brewer, Senior Lecturer in Psychology at Royal Holloway, University of London. Rebecca studies social and emotional abilities across a range of clinical and typical populations, and how interoception (the perception of the internal states of one's body) is related to these emotional and social abilities. Interoception is a topic that I've been finding fascinating la...

Today we speak with Dr. Aliza Werner-Seidler, a Clinical Psychologist and Senior Research Fellow at the Black Dog Institute, affiliated with the University of New South Wales. Aliza works on the prevention and treatment of depression and anxiety disorders, particularly via school-based and digitally delivered, evidence-based programs. She is currently the Chief Investigator of the largest preventa...

Today we speak with Dr. Tony Rousmaniere, a psychologist in private practice in Seattle and a member of the Clinical Faculty at the University of Washington, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. Tony provides clinical training and supervision to therapists around the world with an emphasis on using deliberate practice to develop the clinical skills that enhance psychotherapy effective...

Today we speak with Dr Peggy Kern, Associate Professor at the Centre for Positive Psychology at the University of Melbourne's Graduate School of Education. Dr. Kern's research utilises innovative methodologies to investigate: (a) the understanding and measurement of healthy functioning, (b) the individual and social factors impacting life trajectories, and (c) systems informed approaches to wellbe...

Today we speak with Dr Lennart Verhagen, a Post-Doctoral Research Associate at Oxford's Department of Experimental Psychology who has bet his career on ultrasounic neuromodulation. Lennart and his colleagues at Oxford are pushing the frontier of ultra sound brain stimulation and imagery. This technology has breakthrough even revolutionary potential thanks its ability to stimulate deep brain struct...

Today we speak with Dr. Don Hine, Professor of Psychology in UNE's Faculty of Medicine and Health. Don's research is in the area of population level psychology, and specifically environmental psychology. He studies behaviour change strategies around the environmental problems that threaten the stability of life on this planet, such as climate change, pollution, resource over-consumption, and invas...

Today we speak with Dr. Maria Kangas, Associate Professor of Macquarie University's Centre for Emotional Health. Maria is a registered psychologist with dual endorsements from the Psychology Board of Australia in Clinical and Counselling Psychology. Dr. Kangas is also Director of the Clinical Psychology program at Macquarie University. Her research has focussed on coping strategies and emotional r...

Today we speak with Dr. Stephen Bright, a clinically-trained psychologist, ethnopharmacologist and Senior Lecturer of Addiction at Edith Cowan University. Stephen has over 15 years experience in Alcohol and Other Drug (AOD) research, harm reduction and mental health. He is a Member of the AOD Media Watch Reference Group, an organisation that highlights poor examples of journalism regarding AOD-rel...

My guest today is Bernardo Kastrup, a philosopher of consciousness with a background in computer engineering. Dr. Kastrup has written 7 books, numerous academic papers and many popular articles, including a slew of the most read articles on Scientific American. Dr. Kastrup makes a case for a universe in consciousness claiming that it both explains more and is more parsimonious which means its simp...

Today we speak with Dr. Nigel Strauss, a psychiatrist with over 40 years experience and Adjunct Professor at Deakin University. Nigel's career has focused on medico-legal psychiatry, in particular Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).  He is Director of Occupational Psychiatry Pty. Ltd. which integrates psychiatry into the workplace. Prompted by the extraordinary results of MDMA-assisted psychoth...

Today we speak with John Malouff, Associate Professor at the University of New England's School of Behavioural, Cognitive and Social Sciences. John has followed his broad interests across the field of psychology, but have centred on designing and measuring psychological interventions. He has undertaken research on phobias and methods of coping with stressors, problematic anger and depression and o...