Psychology After Dark

By Dr. Jessica Micono and Dr. David Morelos

Society & Culture Science & Medicine Philosophy Social Sciences Religion & Spirituality Other

What's Psychology After Dark about?

Two professionals in the field of psychology from wildly different theoretical and practical orientations getting together to take a look at the dark side of the human condition.

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Psychology After Dark episodes:

01.12.2022
Bonus Episode - The Secret Teachings of Mary Magdalene
The story of the life of Jesus Christ is one of the most quintessential in all of humanity, and is celebrated across many cultures. And yet, many argue that parts of his life are still shrouded in mystery. His complicated...
11.08.2021
Episode 46 - Sexual Abuse and the Catholic Church
In January of 2002 the Spotlight investigative team for the Boston Globe dropped a bombshell when they revealed a story about sexual abuse within the local archdiocese of the Catholic Church. Boston, a heavily Catholic city, was left reeling as...
10.25.2021
Episode 45 - Artistic Expression and Mental Illness
After his death, Vincent van Gogh’s work became some of the most instantly recognizable paintings ever laid to canvas. While he was alive he was relatively unknown, broke, in poor health, and suffering from what was most likely a severe...
10.11.2021
Episode 44 - Twin Studies
1980 would change the lives of Robert Shafran, Edward Galland, and David Kellman forever. Each had been living separate lives as young men growing up in New York during the 1970s. When a case of mistaken identity led Shafran to...
09.27.2021
Episode 43 - The Ken and Barbie Killers
TRIGGER WARNING: This episode describes extreme acts of sexual violence and murder. Listener discretion is advised. Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka met on a balmy summer night in Toronto, Canada, in 1987. They had an instant attraction, as each seemed to...
09.13.2021
Episode 42 - Interview with Dr. Richard E. Nisbett
From a humble beginning in Littlefield, Texas, to Professor Emeritus at the University of Michigan Ann Arbor, Dr. Richard Nisbett has lived an extraordinary life as a widely influential social psychologist, the key points of which he explores in his...
08.30.2021
Episode 41 - Abraham Lincoln & Precognition
According to legend, President Abraham Lincoln once had a dream that foreshadowed his death at the hands of an assassin. In the dream, he even saw the exact location his body would be laid to rest. Legend also had it...
08.16.2021
Episode 40 - Andrea Yates
On June 20, 2001, a woman named Andrea Yates called her local police dispatch and requested the presence of officers to her home, refusing to give any specific reason for the request. When officers arrived, they found that Andrea had...
08.02.2021
Episode 39 - Project Stargate
In the 1970s, the CIA, motivated by intelligence about Soviet espionage experiments, developed a program to create so-called “psychic spies.” Using first-person accounts of astral projection popularized by the New Age movement of the 1960s, the military began experimenting with...
07.19.2021
Episode 38 - Interview with Molly Maeve Eagan, Trauma-Informed Writer
Molly Maeve Eagan met Lizzy Hershberger when Lizzy was working on a book about her experiences growing up as a daughter in a devout Amish family. Molly, working as a memoir coach and ghost writer, eagerly agreed to help. Something...
07.05.2021
Episode 37 - Israel Keyes
On February 1, 2012, barista Samantha Koenig was abducted from her job in a small coffee kiosk in Anchorage, Alaska. Samantha’s disappearance kicked off a frantic manhunt for her kidnapper who used her debit card to withdraw money across the...
06.28.2021
Interview with Jen Iacino-Taylor, Founder of Little Man's Legacy Foundation (Bonus Episode)
Approximately 3,500 babies die unexpectedly each year. This often kicks off a spiral of grief that parents will carry with them for the rest of their lives. In this special bonus episode, Drs. Micono and Morelos interview Jen Iacino-Taylor, founder...
04.19.2021
Interview with Jess Costa - Writer/Director of Sleep Talking (Bonus Episode)
Ever wonder what goes through the mind of a horror film creator? Mix yourself a libation, get cozy, and find out how some of our dark psychological corners can inspire some amazing art. On this dark and stormy night, Drs....
03.01.2021
Episode 36 - The Wrongful Conviction of Ronald Cotton
In July of 1984, a man broke into the apartment of Jennifer Thompson in Burlington, North Carolina, and raped her at knifepoint. During the attack, the perpetrator uttered a threat that became forever imprinted in the mind of Thompson....
02.15.2021
Episode 35 - The Philip Experiment
In 1972 Dr. George Owen, a university lecturer, geneticist, mathematician and member of the Toronto Society for Psychical Research, recruited eight other members of the TSPR for an experiment. The experiment, designed to determine if ghosts were real or mental...
02.01.2021
Episode 34 - Jane Toppan
On October 29, 1901, police inspectors arrested Jane Toppan on suspicion of the murder of four members of the prominent Davis family to whom Toppan was employed as a private nurse. Generally well-regarded by her peers, “Jolly” Jane, so-called for...
01.18.2021
Episode 33 - Fyre Festival
On the morning of April 27th, 2017, flights carrying roughly 500 people from Miami began landing on the island of Great Exuma in the Bahamas for what was promised to be the most luxurious and exclusive musical festival ever produced....
01.04.2021
Episode 32 - The Silk Road
In October of 2013, a crypto-anarchist named Ross Ulbricht was arrested and charged with being the primary administrator of a website called The Silk Road, a place hidden in the so-called dark web where illegal drugs could be bought and...
12.21.2020
Episode 31 - The McMartin Trial
In 1983 a mother named Judy Johnson accused teachers at a preschool in Manhattan Beach, California, of physically and sexually abusing her young son. A number of other employees, many of whom were related to the owner and founder of...
12.07.2020
Episode 30 - The Death of Candace Newmaker
In April of 2000, 10 year old Candace Newmaker was treated with a controversial therapy meant to help her deal with her mental health diagnosis of Reactive Attachment Disorder. Referred to a well-regarded clinic in Evergreen, Colorado, Candace and her...
11.23.2020
Episode 29 - Instincts: Friend or Foe?
Has anyone ever told you, “You are your own worst enemy?” Even the smartest people can make incredibly bad decisions, often sabotaging their own goals and even bringing harm to others. Drs. Rob Barrett and Louis Francescutti have taken this...
11.09.2020
Episode 28 - The Watts Family Murders
In November of 2012 Chris Watts married Shanann Rzucek, two years after a chance meeting on Facebook. For the next six years, it seemed that Shanann and Chris had everything they dreamed of, including a large house in Colorado,...
10.26.2020
Episode 27 - The Amityville Hauntings
On November 13, 1974, Ronald Defeo Jr. burst into a local bar pleading for help. When bar patrons arrived at his house they found six of his relatives dead, each shot at point-blank range. The grisly murders then led to...
06.22.2020
Episode 26 - MK Ultra Mind Control Experiments
In the anti-communist furor of the 1950s, the newly formed Central Intelligence Agency or CIA began a clandestine program dedicated to the interrogation of foreign agents. It was believed that if techniques could be perfected to control someone’s mind, spies...
06.08.2020
Episode 25 - Waco Part 2: The "Good" Guys
On the morning of February 28, 1993, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms arrived with close to 100 agents to serve a warrant for illegal firearms in what they called Operation Trojan Horse. What followed was one of the...
05.25.2020
Episode 24 - Waco Part 1: The "Bad" Guys
On February 28th, 1993, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms attempted to serve a warrant on a religious group at their compound outside of Waco, Texas. Known as the Branch Davidians, the group was an offshoot of the Seventh...
05.11.2020
Episode 23 - Conspiracy Theories
In December of 2019, medical officials began noticing several mysterious cases of pneumonia in residents of Wuhan, China. As they began to investigate, patterns started to emerge. On January 11th, 2020, China reported its first death associated with a novel...
04.27.2020
Episode 22 - The Stuff of Nightmares
At the age of 10, Dr. Micono had a nightmare that she clung to the Colossus of Rhodes while the island was shaken by a terrifying earthquake. The images and feelings from this dream would go on to influence her...
04.13.2020
Episode 21 - The War of the Worlds Mass Panic
On October 30th, 1938, a young actor by the name of Orson Welles, in collaboration with a number of other radio actors, presented a dramatization of H.G. Wells’ famous novel, War of the Worlds. According to legend, many people, believing...
03.30.2020
Episode 20 - The Sandy Hook Shooting
On December 14, 2012, 20-year-old Adam Lanza shot and killed Nancy Lanza, Rachel D’Avino, Dawn Hochsprung, Anne Marie Murphy, Lauren Rousseau, Mary Sherlach, Victoria Leigh Soto, Charlotte Bacon, Daniel Barden, Olivia Engel, Josephine Gay, Dylan Hockley, Madeleine Hsu, Catherine Hubbard,...
03.16.2020
Episode 19 - Abu Ghraib
After the fall of Saddam Hussein’s brutal dictatorship in Iraq, American forces requisitioned a number of prisons he had once used to house prisoners suspected of terrorism against American soldiers. A series of leaked photographs of American soldiers and prisoners...
03.02.2020
Episode 18 - The Cult of Santa Muerte Part 2
While there will always be a legitimate form, an official version, or an orthodoxy, sometimes it seems the “unofficial,” the “illegitimate,” or the “unorthodox,” can be just as powerful, and representative of an even more potent truth. The case of...
02.17.2020
Episode 17 - Ed Gein
In the violent history of serial killers, one name seems to stand out among the others. Ed Gein, known as a shut-in by the townsfolk of Plainfield, Wisconsin, was found to have murdered a local woman named Bernice Worden. What...
11.18.2019
Episode 16 - The Case of Shirley Mason (AKA Sybil Dorsett)
In 1973 psychologist Dr. Cornelia Wilber was suddenly thrust into the spotlight for groundbreaking work she had done with Shirley Mason, known to the world as Sybil Dorsett. This work, published in a book by Flora Schreiber, documented the years...
11.04.2019
Episode 15 - The Slender Man Stabbing
On the evening of May 30th, 2014, three adolescent friends, Anissa Weier, Morgan Geyser, and Payton Leutner whose friends called, “Bella,” all spent the night playing games and celebrating Morgan’s 12th birthday. The next morning, Anissa and Morgan tried...
10.21.2019
Episode 14 - The Salem Witch Trials
Between 1692 and 1693, Puritans in the British colony in Salem, Massachusetts, became hysterical believing that they were under attack by people in league with the devil practicing the sinister magic of witchcraft. What began with the strange physical ailments...
10.07.2019
Episode 13 - The Unabomber Part 2
Where is the line between a strange belief and a true delusion? This week, Drs. Micono and Morelos use the Unabomber's "manifesto" to begin a discussion on his motives toward violence and the forces that, according to him, will eventually...
09.28.2019
Suicide Prevention Month (Bonus Episode)
September is National Suicide Prevention Month so Drs. Micono and Morelos wanted to take a few minutes to discuss this important topic. Please take care of yourselves out there!
09.23.2019
Episode 12 - The Unabomber Part 1
In 1996 the FBI, in conjunction with other law enforcement agencies, caught one of the most elusive and terrifyingly effective domestic terrorists in history. It was then that America got its first look at Theodore Kaczynski, otherwise known as the...
09.09.2019
Episode 11 - Out of Body Experiences
Millions of people throughout history and across cultures have described the sensation of leaving their material body behind. Is the out of body experience a profound characterization of disembodied consciousness, or the result of our brain responding to ordinary stimuli?...
08.26.2019
Episode 10 - The Stanford Prison Experiment
Prisons have become an ubiquitous part of our collective culture, with the United States, for better or worse, being a leader in the number of people we incarcerate. What is the nature of the relationship between the captured and...
08.12.2019
Episode 9 - The Murder of James Byrd Jr.
On June 7, 1998, a 49 year-old African-American man was brutally killed in one of the most horrific hate crimes the country has ever seen. His death brought to the surface racial and cultural tensions that had been simmering just...
07.29.2019
Episode 8 - The Jonestown Massacre
They went into the jungle looking for paradise. They found hell. What draws people into cults? What is it about our psychology that yearns for something a cult promises to fulfill? This week, Drs. Micono and...
07.15.2019
Episode 7 - Alien Abduction
On the night of September 19, 1961, while driving home from a brief holiday, Betty and Barney Hill claimed to be abducted by beings from another planet. As pieces of their story emerged, what became even more clear is our...
07.01.2019
Episode 6 - The Central Park Five
On April 19, 1989, 28-year-old Tricia Meili, was brutally beaten, raped, and left for dead in Central Park. Five boys, each between the ages of 14 and 16, were quickly identified as suspects. Initially coerced into confessions, each...
06.17.2019
Episode 5 - The Cult of Santa Muerte - Part 1
In 2016 my father and I travelled to Mexico to see the impressive pyramids of Teotihuacan. An intriguing invitation from an old friend and fellow scholar led to something much darker and yet somehow perfectly representative of the contradictions that...
06.03.2019
Episode 4 - The Case of Gypsy Rose Blanchard
On June 14th, 2015, the body of 48 year-old Dee Dee Blancard was found in her home just outside of Springfield, Missouri. She had been stabbed repeatedly in the back as she slept. Police originally suspected that her murder was...
05.16.2019
Episode 3 - Unexplained Illnesses
Millions of people suffer from physical illnesses that they cannot explain. There are often no clear answers on what causes these illnesses, leaving many people desperate for any kind of relief. Using recent stories from the lives of some...
05.16.2019
Episode 2 - Psychopaths
On April 3, 2014, serial killer Tommy Lynn Sells was executed for the murder of 13-year-old Kaylene Harris. It is believed, however, that Sells was responsible for up to as many as 70 murders across the country. What...
05.15.2019
Episode 1 - Demonic Possession
In 2007, Janet Moses was a 22-year-old Maori mother who died after being subjected to an exorcism by her family who believed she was possessed by a demon. Was this a case of a malevolent presence exacting revenge over...

What's Psychology After Dark about?

Download our free app to listen on your phone

Psychology After Dark episodes:

Bonus Episode - The Secret Teachings of Mary Magdalene

Episode 46 - Sexual Abuse and the Catholic Church

Episode 45 - Artistic Expression and Mental Illness

Episode 44 - Twin Studies

Episode 43 - The Ken and Barbie Killers

Episode 42 - Interview with Dr. Richard E. Nisbett

Episode 41 - Abraham Lincoln & Precognition

Episode 40 - Andrea Yates

Episode 39 - Project Stargate

Episode 38 - Interview with Molly Maeve Eagan, Trauma-Informed Writer

Episode 37 - Israel Keyes

Interview with Jen Iacino-Taylor, Founder of Little Man's Legacy Foundation (Bonus Episode)

Interview with Jess Costa - Writer/Director of Sleep Talking (Bonus Episode)

Episode 36 - The Wrongful Conviction of Ronald Cotton

Episode 35 - The Philip Experiment

Episode 34 - Jane Toppan

Episode 33 - Fyre Festival

Episode 32 - The Silk Road

Episode 31 - The McMartin Trial

Episode 30 - The Death of Candace Newmaker

Episode 29 - Instincts: Friend or Foe?

Episode 28 - The Watts Family Murders

Episode 27 - The Amityville Hauntings

Episode 26 - MK Ultra Mind Control Experiments

Episode 25 - Waco Part 2: The "Good" Guys

Episode 24 - Waco Part 1: The "Bad" Guys

Episode 23 - Conspiracy Theories

Episode 22 - The Stuff of Nightmares

Episode 21 - The War of the Worlds Mass Panic

Episode 20 - The Sandy Hook Shooting

Episode 19 - Abu Ghraib

Episode 18 - The Cult of Santa Muerte Part 2

Episode 17 - Ed Gein

Episode 16 - The Case of Shirley Mason (AKA Sybil Dorsett)

Episode 15 - The Slender Man Stabbing

Episode 14 - The Salem Witch Trials

Episode 13 - The Unabomber Part 2

Suicide Prevention Month (Bonus Episode)

Episode 12 - The Unabomber Part 1

Episode 11 - Out of Body Experiences

Episode 10 - The Stanford Prison Experiment

Episode 9 - The Murder of James Byrd Jr.

Episode 8 - The Jonestown Massacre

Episode 7 - Alien Abduction

Episode 6 - The Central Park Five

Episode 5 - The Cult of Santa Muerte - Part 1

Episode 4 - The Case of Gypsy Rose Blanchard

Episode 3 - Unexplained Illnesses

Episode 2 - Psychopaths

Episode 1 - Demonic Possession