All In The Mind

Chained in a concrete cell, involuntarily medicated, and isolated. Leading psychiatrist Vikram Patel has amassed a series of shocking photos from asylum settings around the globe -- some taken by 'inmates'. He's challenging his own profession to take action. And, the new Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Will it make a difference? In a historic process, self-identified 'psychiatric survivors' have been closely involved in its development.

They know the machinations of the mind better than many. So do mental health professionals have a legitimate role in the interrogation of prisoners of war or detainees, in the interests of national security? The American Psychiatric Association and Australia's equivalent have said 'no way'. The peak body for US psychologists have taken a different position. Torture, tough interrogation or treatment - where do the boundaries blur for healers who have taken the Hippocratic Oath?

Brain Surgery - Live on the Wireless!

Don your gown and mask, and prepare yourself. Natasha Mitchell takes you into the operating theatre of leading neurosurgeon Professor Jeffrey Rosenfeld at the Alfred Hospital, and inside the head of Kia, his patient, as she has an arteriovenous malformation extracted from her frontal lobes. A repeat chance to catch this rare audiophonic insight into a craft of impressive dexterity, patience and courage. And, on next week's show, 11 months after the surgery, we meet Kia again for an update on life post-op. Surviving major brain surgery has been the easy bit.

As Australians stand in front of the cardboard voting booth next week what's going on in our minds? In choosing the future direction of the nation -- do we weigh up policies and promises with a rational mind, or are we emoting with our pencils? And new research has sent the left and right of the scientific community on a political bender with the idea that we're neurologically wired to support our team. All in the Mind probes your political brain.

Quieten your mind. Attend to the moment. Mindfulness-based meditation is being touted as beneficial for any number of afflictions: from anxiety to asthma; social phobia to psoriasis. But what is it, and how can science scrutinise subjective states of mind? Three scientists at high powered institutions discuss how they've turned a personal passion into a professional investigation.

Are we really more vulnerable to colds when we're stressed? Does depression increase your risk of heart disease? Could a bad bout of the flu during pregnancy cause schizophrenia in your child? Science has long struggled with the question of whether states of mind influence the body, and vice versa. But the historic mind-body divide is being challenged as cardiologists, immunologists and neuroscientists meet across the lab bench.

Why do we often avoid speaking our mind? Does swearing have an evolutionary function? What do linguistic taboos do to your brain? How are new words born? Acclaimed author of The Language Instinct and How the Mind Works, Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker is a self-confessed verbivore. To him language offers a window into the human mind and how it works. He joins Natasha Mitchell in a feature interview to argue there's nothing mere about semantics.

Germany's extraordinary Prinzhorn collection of art was drawn from 19th and 20th century asylums. Psychiatrist Hans Prinzhorn was on a quest to find a 'more authentic' art, made by minds liberated from the constraints of rationality. Avant-garde artists turned to the works for inspiration, but the collection went on to be exploited by the Nazis in their horrifying campaign against 'degenerate' art, and those with mental illness. Prinzhorn curator Thomas Roeske joins Natasha Mitchell to discuss the difficult history of art, ethics and asylum.

Germany and Australia are home to two of the largest collections of art by psychiatric patients gathered from old asylums - the Prinzhorn and Cunningham Dax collections. The Nazis exploited the European works in their horrifying campaign against 'degenerate' art. But what are the ethics of displaying the art now? Are they clinical records, or orphaned creations? Some see them as diagnostic tools, others as deeply private expressions of tormented, incarcerated minds.