Better Thinking

In this episode of Better Thinking, Nesh Nikolic speaks with Paul Fitzgerald about the development of novel brain stimulation treatment options including repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) for patients with depression, schizophrenia, obsessive compulsive disorder, PTSD, autism and Alzheimer’s disease.

Paul Fitzgerald is the Head of the School of Medicine and Psychology at the Australian National University. He is a qualified psychiatrist, has a MBBS degree, Masters of Psychological Medicine and research PhD from Monash University.

He has conducted an extensive range of more than 20 clinical trials, especially focussed on the development of novel brain stimulation treatment options including repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) for patients with depression, schizophrenia, obsessive compulsive disorder, PTSD, autism and Alzheimer’s disease. He has had continual NHMRC grant support for over 20 years and over $10 million in research support in the last 5 years. He has published several books, over 500 journal articles and been cited over 20,000 times.

He has established multiple clinical rTMS services, founded several device and clinical service companies and the first rTMS training program in Australia. He led a national application to the Department of Health at the Federal Government level and this resulted in Medicare funding $283 million in year 1 of rTMS therapy for patients with depression in 2021.

Episode link at https://neshnikolic.com/podcast/paul-fitzgerald

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In this episode of Better Thinking, Nesh Nikolic speaks with Divna Haslam about child maltreatment and the findings of the Australian Child Maltreatment Study, which conducted the first prevalence data of child maltreatment in Australia.

Dr Divna Haslam is a clinical psychologist and family researcher based in the Faculty of Law at Queensland University of Technology, working in the area of childhood adversity. She holds an adjunct appointment at the Parenting and Family Support Centre at the University of Queensland where she conducts parenting-related work and research supervision.

The overarching theme of her research is how to best ensure all children have the opportunity to thrive and have safe, loving, non-violent childhoods. This has spanned clinical intervention development and evaluation of evidence-based behavioural family interventions (Triple P), specific work with families in different contexts (e.g., working parents, parents across different cultures), and epidemiological and population health in Australia and parenting in China. Her work uses a population health perspective with a prevention focus.

As an academic she has over >60 published peer-reviewed papers primarily in Q1 journals as well as invited chapters and a range of clinical resources including a number of clinical and research instruments including the Work and Family Conflict Scale and the Guilt About Parenting Scale and the Workplace Triple P Program. she has received $>1.7 million in external research funding. She has substantial experience in consulting with various governments (eg Australia, Canada, the Netherlands, the UK) about the implementation of evidence-based parenting programs and more recently about the identification and prevention of child maltreatment and other childhood adversity.

Episode link at https://neshnikolic.com/podcast/divna-haslam

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In this episode of Better Thinking, Nesh Nikolic speaks with Helen Joyce about the complexities society faces with trying to support and understand transgender people’s experiences while also trying to preserve commonly held societal rules. 

Helen Joyce is an Irish journalist and critic of the transgender rights movement. She studied as a mathematician and worked in academia before becoming a journalist. Joyce began working for The Economist as education correspondent for its Britain section in 2005 and has since held several senior positions, including finance editor and international editor.

She is the author of Trans: When Ideology Meets Reality, which was named as one of the books of the year in 2021 by the Observer, Spectator and Times. It analyses the recent trend towards sidelining biological sex in favour of self-declared “gender identity”. The Sunday Times praised it as a “searing and at times devastating analysis”, and the New York Times as an “intelligent, thorough rejoinder to an idea that has swept across much of the liberal world seemingly overnight”.

Episode link at https://neshnikolic.com/podcast/helen-joyce

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In this episode of Better Thinking, Nesh Nikolic speaks with Dr Jodie Fleming about understanding chronic illness management to finding values during difficult times.

Dr Jodie Fleming is a Clinical and Health Psychologist; Positive Psychology Practitioner; Australia’s only certified Run Walk Talk Therapist; author, and wellness retreat leader. Jodie has an extensive history of working in the areas of mental health and chronic illness, but currently enjoys working as a School Psychologist in Warrnambool, and running her private practice, The Psychology of It. 

Her latest venture as co-director of Being Well Collective is where Jodie truly thrives, having turned a career into a calling, helping humans flourish, in collaboration with one of her favourite humans, Eve Drew. 

Episode link at https://neshnikolic.com/podcast/jodie-fleming

Links:

Dr Jodie Fleming of The Psychology of It (website)
Being Well Collective
A Hole in My Genes (book)
@drjodiefleming (social media)

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In this episode of Better Thinking, Nesh Nikolic speaks with Ilan Dar-Nimrod about the effects of perceived genetic aetiology for various phenomena.

Dr. Ilan Dar-Nimrod is an Associate Professor at the School of Psychology, University of Sydney. Ilan has completed his BA with a double major at Haifa University and his MA and PhD (social psychology) at the University of British Columbia.

Ilan’s main research focus is social cognition – the manner in which our social world affects our cognition. Within this focus, he concentrates on understanding how a deeply rooted psychological mechanism – Psychological Essentialism – is involved in categorising people into groups, leading to a host of effects on people’s beliefs, emotions, and behaviours.

In addition to this main line of research, he maintains ongoing research foci on a number of topics, such as existential social and clinical psychology, sexuality, gender psychology, and the psychology of religion. His research on this topic appeared in myriad of prestigious journals, such as Science, Psychological Bulletin, Nature Human Behaviour, and Genetics in Medicine.

Episode link at https://neshnikolic.com/podcast/ilan-dar-nimrod

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In this episode of Better Thinking, Nesh Nikolic speaks with Professor Kristie Miller about the nature of time, perspectives of time, and temporal experience.

Professor Kristie Miller took up an Australian Research Council Postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Queensland in Jan of 2006. In July of that 2006 Prof Miller moved to Sydney with the grant and in January of 2009 she was awarded a University of Sydney DVC Postdoctoral Research Fellowship. Since 2011, Prof Miller has been a Senior ARC Research Fellow and is currently joint Director of the Centre for Time.

Prof Miller joins me today to discuss the nature of time, perspectives of time, how we make decisions and some fascinating empirical finding she has worked on. I really enjoyed this discussion as it stretched my mind and raised lots of questions for me to continue considering in my therapy and also in myself. Hope you enjoy the conversation.

Episode link at https://neshnikolic.com/podcast/kristie-miller

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In this episode of Better Thinking, Nesh Nikolic speaks with Alexander Holcombe about the replication crisis, trust in science, and the causes of the replication crisis.

Alex Holcombe is a professor at the University of Sydney, who received his PhD in psychology from Harvard University in 2000. He has a strong interest in improving scientific practices and has been involved in the Association for Interdisciplinary Meta-research and Open Science, the Free Journal Network, PLoS ONE, the WikiJournal of Science, and the creation of the tenzing.club web app to promote scientific collaboration. As well as doing meta-science, Alex conducts psychology experiments on topics such as how humans keep track of moving objects.

Episode link at https://neshnikolic.com/podcast/alexander-holcombe

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In this episode of Better Thinking, Nesh Nikolic speaks with Dr. Celine van Golde about the reliability of children as eyewitnesses and how that research has informed memory for repeated crimes (such as domestic violence) in adults.

Dr. Celine van Golde is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Psychology at the University of Sydney. Her research focuses on the reliability of eyewitness memory in children and adults, both for one-off and repeated events. Specifically, how interviewing techniques in forensic settings, such as those used by police, lawyers and judges can affect memory accuracy.

She gives annual guest lectures within the NSW Police Force Child Abuse Training Program, as well as advising judges and lawyers on issues related to eyewitness memory. She is further the founder and director of Not Guilty; the Sydney exoneration project, which assesses cases of potential wrongful convictions. While applying her work in in a legal context, her expertise lies within psychology.

Episode link at https://neshnikolic.com/podcast/celine-van-golde

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In this episode of Better Thinking, Nesh Nikolic speaks with Dr Fiona Kumfor about social cognition in clinical syndromes with a focus on dementia and other neurodegenerative diseases.

Dr Fiona Kumfor holds a Masters of Clinical Neuropsychology from Macquarie University and a PhD in Neuroscience from University of New South Wales. She is currently an NHMRC Career Development Fellow, Associate Professor in the School of Psychology and registered Clinical Neuropsychologist with AHPRA. Combining her clinical training in neuropsychology and research expertise in cognitive neuroscience her work investigates social cognition in clinical syndromes with a focus on dementia, and aims to improve diagnosis and prognosis of dementia, while also informing neurobiological models of complex human behaviours.

Episode link at https://neshnikolic.com/podcast/fiona-kumfor

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In this episode of Better Thinking, Nesh Nikolic speaks with Dr Micah Goldwater about understanding the psychology of pseudoscience and conspiracy theories.

Dr Micah Goldwater received his BA in Linguistics from the University of Rochester in 2003, completed his PhD in Psychology at the University of Texas at Austin in 2009, and then held a Postdoctoral Fellowship at Northwestern University until joining the University of Sydney in 2013.

Dr. Goldwater's research investigates the nature, acquisition, and use of knowledge. This work focuses on how children and adults can look past the superficial to recognize when disparate situations, problems, or ideas share deep structural commonalities. He examines both basic processes of cognition and development, their underlying neural mechanisms, and develops applications to improve education and public health.

To achieve these broad research goals, Dr. Goldwater investigates a number of interrelated topics such understanding the psychology of pseudoscience and conspiracy theories.

Episode link at https://neshnikolic.com/podcast/micah-goldwater

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