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 account given in Chris' book of the therapeutic benefits of psychedelics, and then go deep into Chris' account of the phenomenology of psychedelics. This conversation was a lot of fun, and I hope you e ..read more

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 professional psychological support for the first time. We discuss when to see a psychologist, what to look for in a psychologist, how to know if you and your therapist are a good fit and how to get the ..read more

  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 Teresa Wilkins) of the recently published book, Understanding the Psychological Soul of Spirituality. **20% Discount Available to MindStew listeners - with the code BSE20**   ..read more

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 practice and wellbeing and the nature of the FFM domain of openness to experience and its maladaptive expressions. Ralph is also co-author (with Teresa Wilkins) of the recently published book, Understanding ..read more

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 health conditions (such as rumination and worry in depression and anxiety), and c) is quite different from other most neuroscience areas that tend to be studied through specific tasks. In this conversa ..read more

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 brain stimulation to enhance cognition and well-being. We discuss Jay’s work investigating whether focused ultrasound can be used to augment meditation practice in the development of mindfuln ..read more

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 affected by cognitive training practices such as mindfulness meditation. He has led several influential studies on the mechanisms of mindfulness training and depression vulnerability, highlighting t ..read more

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, and adequacy of current systems to classify psychopathology. But after the interview I realised that we didn’t really discuss the phenomenology of schizophrenia itself and felt that I had missed an ..read more

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-experiences associated with the schizophrenia spectrum. In this conversation we discuss how we should think about schizophrenia, phenomenology and the importance of clinical experience, and system ..read more

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 grouping and delineating psychopathology. This is a topic that I think is important to the way we think about mental health and conduct research into it. And I couldn’t hope to have to have a more qua ..read more