The Proper Mental Podcast

Welcome to episode 140 with Lucy Nichol, who is a writer and mental health campaigner. Her recent book, Snowflake, takes a deep-dive into some of the most harmful mental health stereotypes and in this episode Lucy and I chat about where these stereotypes come from and the impact that they have. We chat about Lucy’s own experiences with anxiety and panic attacks and how the conversation around ment...

Welcome to episode 139 with Matty Caine, who is the CEO and founder of First Person Project C.I.C First Person Project is a not-for-profit social enterprise who are on a social mission to promote empowerment in communities across Liverpool City Region, improving mental health through socially progressive action. Matty has 17 years’ professional experience working in the field of mental health with...

Welcome to episode 138 with PC Leon McLeod! On 3rd June 2017 three terrorists drove a white van into pedestrians on London Bridge, then leapt out and started attacking bystanders. As the attack took place, Leon was just starting a night shift and happened to be walking through the area as the attack took place.  He was one of the first officers on the scene, giving chase to the attackers and admin...

Welcome to episode 137 With Harriet Dyer, who is a stand up comedian, writer and mental health advocate. Growing up, Harriet just thought that she was just eccentric but as she got older, and people kept trying to have her sectioned, she came to realise that there might be more going on. She would eventually be diagnosed with bipolar and has incorporated her experiences with mental illness in to h...

Welcome to episode 136 with Dan Osman, who is a health and wellbeing coach and educator. In this episode I chat to Dan about his background, how he got in to the world of fitness and how he became a coach. We chat about his own experiences with mental ill health and the impact that has had on his coaching process, the way he works with his clients and how he sees the world. We chat about identity,...

Welcome to episode 135 with Eddy Temple-Morris, who is a musician, DJ & Broadcaster. He is also a patron for My Black Dog, a mental health charity and ground breaking peer-to-peer service that’s hosted by volunteers that all have lived experience so anyone who’s struggling can web-chat with someone who really gets it. In this episode I chat to Eddy about his work with My Black Dog and his own expe...

Welcome to episode 134 with Suzy Reading, who is a Chartered Psychologist specialising in wellbeing, stress management and facilitation of healthy lifestyle change. She is also a yoga teacher, author and coach who is recognised as one of the world’s leading self-care experts. In this episode I chat to Suzy about her life experience of motherhood colliding with the terminal illness of her father th...

Welcome to episode 133 with Adam Nutter who is a guitarist, musician and songwriter. Adam formed The Music with some friends (Robert Harvey, Stuart Coleman, Phil Jordan) while still at high school and the band were quickly called the best unsigned band in Britain by the NME. When the group turned 18, they released their debut album which went in to the charts at number 4 and they set off on tour w...

Welcome to episode 132 with Michelle Thomas who is a writer and the author of My Sh*t Therapist and Other Mental Health Stories. One day Michelle started crying at work and couldn’t stop.  She would end up spending the next two weeks in bed and would eventually have to leave her job. As part of her recovery journey, she started medication and started going to therapy and began looking at different...

Welcome episode 131 with Tim Clare who is a writer, a poet and a coward. Tim Clare is a writer, a poet and a coward. Tim has experienced anxiety and panic attacks for over a decade, sometimes having attacks several times a day.  These would often leave him curled up in a ball on the floor, screaming for help. Eventually Tim got to a place where he could no longer go on living in fear and he made t...

Welcome to episode 130 with Thom and Katie from The Lottery Winners! The Lottery Winners are a four-piece indie-rock band hailing from the Leigh area of Greater Manchester. Their latest album, Anxiety Replacement Therapy, contains collaborations with the likes of Boy George, Shaun Ryder and Frank Turner and recently charted at number one in the U.K album charts. The album has strong mental health...

Welcome to episode 129 with Richard Mabey, a writer and broadcaster who has been writing about the natural world for more than 50 years and is considered by many to be the father of modern nature writing. His first book Food for Free was published in 1972 and has never been out of print.  He has written over 30 books since. At the age of 61 Richard endured a series of life events that led to a bre...

Welcome to episode 128 with Rachel Walker Mason, a multi-award-winning songwriter and mental health campaigner who has written songs with Grammy nominee’s and Billboard 100 artists. She also runs song writing workshops for anyone who has experienced or been affected by post-natal depression and has been described by Prince Harry as ‘an inspiration’ for her mentoring and charity work. Rachel experi...

Welcome to episode 127 with Sam Delaney, a journalist and broadcaster whose work has featured in Guardian, Big Issue, Talk Sport and many others. He is also a podcaster and an author and I reached out to Sam after reading his recent book, Sort Your Head Out: Mental Health without the Bollocks. It’s a great read and I can’t recommend it highly enough!  It was great to chat to Sam about his work in...

Welcome to episode 126 with Debbie Rogers, who is the founder of Sean’s Place, a safe place for men to get social support and therapeutic support in a non-clinical and non-judgemental setting. Debbie started the service after losing her brother Sean in 2019, after a long battle with his mental health. Sean’s Place offers a range of practical, proactive support that is free to access that includes...

Welcome to episode 125 with Sally Orange, who is an endurance runner, mental health campaigner and speaker. She holds 11 Guinness World Records, has ran over 70 marathons and has completed 22 years’ exemplary service in the Royal Army Medical Corps as a Physiotherapy Officer. This included an operational tour of duty in Afghanistan. She captained the first British female team to complete the relen...

Welcome to episode 124 with Josh Fletcher, who is a psychotherapist, author, speaker and self-confessed anxiety nerd. He became a therapist after his own challenges with panic attacks, agoraphobia and intrusive thoughts and is now one of the leading voices in anxiety support and recovery. In this episode Josh and I chat about his own experiences, where his version of anxiety came from and what he...

Welcome to episode 123 with Yvette Caster, who is an award-winning freelance journalist who regularly writes for some of the most well known media outlets about travel, food, sex and mental health. She has also co-hosted the acclaimed podcast, Mentally Yours, since 2017 and in that time has interviewed some incredible people about all aspects of mental health and mental illness. Yvette has diagnos...

Welcome to episode 122 with Joanna Fortune, who is a Psychotherapist specialising in the parent-child/adolescent relationship.  She is the author of 4 best-selling books 15-Minute Parenting (0-7 years; 8-12 years and teenage years) and Why We Play and hosts her own podcast, 15-Minute Parenting. She is also a TEDx speaker and regularly contributes to a variety of print media outlets.   In this epis...

Welcome to episode 121 with Tatton Spiller, who is the founder and director of Simple Politics, which is an online platform that aims to explain politics in a way that everyone can understand. He previously worked as a teacher before starting Simple Politics in 2015. Tatton has been interested in understanding politics from a young age and found campaigning to be a useful outlet for the anger he f...

Welcome to episode 120 with Dr Lucy Foulkes is an academic psychologist at the University of Oxford who researches mental health and social development with expertise in adolescent and student mental health. She is an honorary lecturer in psychology at UCL and her book ‘What Mental Illness Really Is (and what it isn’t) explores how we talk about mental health and mental illness and explains why we...

Welcome to episode 119 with Professor Rory O’Connor, who is an author, speaker and educator who has spent 25 years working in the field of suicide research and prevention. He also leads the Suicidal Behaviour Research Laboratory at Glasgow and is one of the leading suicide and self-harm research groups internationally. In this episode I chat to Rory about suicide, suicidal thoughts and self-harm....

Welcome to episode 118 with Danny Gray, who is the founder of JAAQ and War Paint for men. JAAQ (Just Ask A Question) is a free mental health platform providing interactive responses to over 50,000 questions on topics from depression to eating disorders to anxiety and addiction. Danny has lived with Body Dysmorphia Disorder from a young age and one of the tools that helped him to manage this was ma...

Welcome to episode 117 with Elliott Rae, who is the founder of Music Football Fatherhood (MFF). MFF is a parenting platform for men which is all about open conversations around fatherhood and has been described as the ‘Dad’s version of Mumsnet’ by the BBC. After the traumatic birth of his daughter, Elliott struggled with his mental health but went without help for over a year.  He would eventually...

Welcome to episode 116 with Angela Samata, who is an Arts Professional and a suicide awareness advocate. Angela presented the BAFTA award nominated documentary ‘Life After Suicide’ which was shown on BBC1 and watched by more than 5 million people. She made the film to challenge the stigma around mental illness and suicide after her partner took his own life.  The documentary describes her own expe...