All In The Mind

An unusual behaviour, an enlarged head, a limp, or a superb musical talent -- ability, disability or difference? In Northern Ghana, disabled children labelled as evil 'Spirit Children' are killed. Acclaimed African BBC reporter Sorious Samura reports. For copyright reasons, this week's podcast and online edition is an alternative from our archives, Beyond Coma: The Plight of the Persistant Vegetative State.

Good comedians push us where few of us dare to go -- we find ourselves rolling in the aisles with shock and delight. Two top-of-the-bill acts at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival reflect on Freud, the comedic psyche and the power of the potty mouth. And, New Yorker columnist and science journalist Jim Holt unravels the rollicking history and philosophy of jokes.

Controversial psychiatrist Professor Thomas Szasz wrote The Myth of Mental Illness in 1961. Nearly 50 years later, on the eve of his 89th birthday, he continues to both ignite and inspire -- as the huge number of comments on the All in the Mind blog indicates after our extended interview with him. This week, two psychiatrists respond to their profession's most vigilant critic.

In 1961 maverick psychiatrist and libertarian Professor Thomas Szasz published his controversial and influential epic, The Myth of Mental Illness. Half a century later he maintains we live in a therapeutic state—a 'pharmacracy'—and that psychiatry is a 'pseudoscientific racket'. On the eve of his 89th birthday he joins Natasha Mitchell in conversation. Next week, psychiatrists respond.

In 1961 maverick psychiatrist and libertarian Professor Thomas Szasz published his controversial and influential epic, The Myth of Mental Illness. In it he argued that mental illness is a fiction and a medical metaphor. Half a century later he maintains we live in a therapeutic state—a 'pharmacracy' where psychiatry is synonymous with coercion. On the eve of his 89th birthday he joins Natasha Mitchell in conversation over two weeks about his contentious legacy.

Monosyllabic, messy, self-conscious and sleepy—science now has the tumultuous teenager in its sights. Are they risk-takers with brains still under construction? Or competent adults grossly misinterpreted by modern science? From evolutionary theories to the bright lights of the brain scan—a provocative debate is being waged.

Look in your doctor's kitbag, and you'll probably find a stethoscope, a thermometer, a first-aid kit. But a copy of Charles Darwin's Origin of Species too? 'Darwinian Medicine' asks: why do we get sick, and why didn't the body evolve to be better? Psychiatrist Randolph Nesse argues physicians ignore evolutionary theories at the peril of their patients. All in the Mind continues Radio National's celebrations of Darwin's 200th birthday...

Archaeologists in Yorkshire have dug up a 2,000-year-old human skull, incredibly with brain tissue still intact. When this brain last saw the world, the Romans were yet to invade Britain and tribes occupied the North. And in another stunning find -- the first ever fossilised brain -- that of a 300 million-year-old fish, last alive in the Late Paleozoic.

Dreams feel meaningful—drawn from a mishmash of content from our waking lives. But it's a hot debate among scientists, who are yet to confirm why we sleep, let alone dream. Neuroscientist Matthew Wilson's extraordinary experiments involve eavesdropping on the sleeping minds of rats. He proposes dreaming is central to how we remember and learn.

Jungian psychoanalyst and psychotherapist Robert Bosnak is a dream worker. To him dreams are an ecosystem of imaginings—powerful bodily experiences populated by characters with their own intelligences. When you encounter the images of your dreaming mind do you find one Self, or many? And, next week, a leading neuroscientist probing the possible link between memory and dreaming.