All In The Mind

Do you privately shake with nerves or shyly blush when the attention is on you? Most people experience some form of shyness but others are so immobilised by the fear of being judged negatively that they can barely function. Social phobia is the third most common mental illness after depression and substance abuse. We hear about one woman's 20 year struggle with social anxiety and some recent scientific findings about the brain activity associated with this disorder.

Keeping up with phone calls, sms messages, Facebook updates, tweets ... sometimes it feels like technology rules our lives. Psychology of technology researcher Dr Larry Rosen warns that our technology is causing us to develop symptoms of disorders such as narcissistic personality disorder and obsessive compulsive disorder. He points out the warning signs of what he calls 'i-disorders' and suggests some strategies to maintain our humanity.

Adolescence and young adulthood is a time of life dominated by highs and lows – it’s part of normal development, but it’s also the time when people are at greatest risk of developing mental illness. We hear about some new approaches to assisting young people when they are at the most vulnerable. 

In 1961 Stanley Milgram conducted a controversial series of experiments which were said to show that we're all capable of evil in certain circumstances. Many of the participants are still traumatised. This is a panel discussion about the lessons and ethics of these experiments..

We feel we should be able to recall all sorts of things at will—but how often do our individual memories fail us? As part of a study on social memory, a group of cognitive psychologists and philosophers heard the shared histories of long term married couples to investigate how they combine their memories. The strategies they use could help people with dementia.

Is there anything different about the brains of extraordinary creative geniuses like Michelangelo, Coleridge or Mozart? World renowned psychiatrist and doctor of English Renaissance Literature Dr Nancy Andreasen unravels the 'creative brain' and explores how we can foster creativity in ourselves and throughout our society.

For centuries scientists have grappled with the concept of memory—what is it, how does it work and can we really rely on it? US historian Alison Winter traces the history of the way we have conceptualised memory—from the use of truth serums and hypnotism to the science of forgetting. She describes the way memory has been compared to filing cabinets, flashbulbs and motion pictures over the past century.

Pioneering neuroscientist Richard Davidson deepens our understanding of the mind-body connection. He’s identified six unique emotional styles and explains the brain chemistry underlying them. He explains that there are simple strategies and interventions which we can use to change our emotional styles. He believes one effective example is through mindfulness meditation, after studying the brain scans of people who practise it.

According to a large study on self injury conducted in 2008 by the University of Queensland, 220,000 Australians injured themselves deliberately, without meaning to suicide, in the month prior to the survey. For some people, hurting themselves is a way of coping with overwhelming psychological pain. In this program we hear about what mental processes go on behind this behaviour and we hear from a young woman who openly shares her experience of self injury in order to educate health workers about the best ways to treat people like her.

Are you a sensitive flower -- like a vulnerable orchid, or more like a hardy dandelion? We explore the intriguing orchid–dandelion hypothesis which suggests that the genes that underlie our greatest weakness may also be the basis for our most positive traits, given the right environment.