The Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015 states that specified authorities, including healthcare bodies, must ‘have due regard to the need to prevent people from being drawn into terrorism.’ In this podcast Dr Jonathan Hurlow identifies how psychiatrists and other mental health professionals can carry out this duty, and how they can work within the Government’s wider framework in cases where potential risks are identified.

Psychological science has made extraordinary discoveries about the human mind, but can we trust everything its practitioners are telling us? In recent years it has become increasingly apparent that a lot of research in psychology is based on weak evidence, questionable practices and sometimes even fraud. Here Dr Raj Persaud talks to Professor Chris Chambers about his recently published book ‘The Seven Deadly Sins of Psychology: A Manifesto for Reforming the Culture of Scientific Practice’, in which he diagnoses the ills besetting the discipline today and proposes sensible, practical solutions for change.

Dr David Sellu was a surgeon with a distinguished record extending over 40 years, but in 2010 a patient died under his care in a private hospital, resulting in Dr Sellu's GMC suspension, criminal prosecution and prison sentence. The conviction was later appealed and shown to be an unfair trial with tinges of racism, but the damage had already been done. In this podcast, Dr David Sellu talks openly and frankly to Dr Raj Persaud about his ordeal, and about his fight to create a fairer, more accountable medical justice system.

In this podcast, Dr Raj Persaud talks to Dr Henrietta Bowden-Jones prior to her talk on gaming disorder at the 2019 RCPsych Congress. Here she shares her expertise in the behavioural disorders of gambling and gaming addiction, discussing the factors that make people more prone to developing these disorders and the most effective preventions and treatments available.

Dr Raj Persaud talks to Professor Eileen Joyce prior to her talk entitled ‘All you need to know about Tourette syndrome’ at the 2019 RCPsych Congress. In this interview Professor Joyce defines the various forms of tics and Tourette syndrome, discusses the work being carried out in specialist clinics, and outlines some of the most effective treatments being used for both children and adults who present with these disorders.

Here Raj Persaud talks to Professor David Taylor after his keynote talk at the 2019 RCPsych Congress about the right and wrong ways to discontinue psychiatric medication. He explains why antidepressant and antipsychotic drugs should not be stopped abruptly, and outlines the methods that can be used to effectively taper down these drugs with a view to eventual discontinuation.

Prior to the Second World War mental illness was largely untreatable, but all that changed when an Australian doctor and recently returned prisoner of war, John Cade, made the monumental discovery that lithium could serve as an effective treatment for manic depression, now bipolar disorder. In this podcast, Dr Raj Persaud interviews Professor Greg de Moore about the life and work of John Cade, discussing his remarkable – but often overlooked – contribution to the history of mental health treatment.

Aphorisms – or philosophical short sayings – appear everywhere, from Confucius to Twitter, the Buddha to the Bible, Heraclitus to Nietzsche. Yet despite this ubiquity, the aphorism is the least studied literary form. In this podcast Professor Andrew Hui talks to Raj Persaud about his work on aphorisms, and explores how their use could be applied in a meaningful and helpful way when working with patients.

Our everyday lives are shaped by geological processes that vastly predate us, and our habits will in turn have consequences that will outlast us by generations. So could a greater awareness of this ‘timefulness’ give us the perspective we need for a more sustainable future? In this compelling podcast, Raj Persaud talks to Professor Marcia Bjornerud about the concept of timefulness, arguing that opening our minds to geology could benefit us all psychologically.

In 1969, psychiatrist Anthony Storr published an essay that established very firmly in the public imagination that Sir Winston Churchill suffered from recurrent attacks of severe depression, which he termed the ‘black dog’. But how much evidence is there to support this diagnosis? In this podcast, Dr Raj Persaud interviews Dr Anthony Daniels about his recent paper which calls into question this supposed diagnosis, and considers the extent to which Churchill’s low moods could be accounted for by circumstance and simple human nature.