July 2020 at the College marked our first celebration of South Asian History Month, where we took time to pay tribute to the wonderful Members who are a vital part of College life and contribute so significantly to the field of psychiatry.

We have four psychiatrists telling their stories, not just their journey to becoming mental health professionals, but also their relationship to their own heritage and how this has integrated with them moving to the UK.

All of the interviews are self-recorded, remotely, by our Members in their own homes. So we would like to say a huge thank you to Professor Alka Ahuja, Professor Dinesh Bhugra, Doctor Amrita Varanasi and Doctor Ananta Dave who are telling their personal stories on the South Asian History Month podcast.

We spoke to two psychiatrists who are working during the Coronavirus. Child and adolescent psychiatrist Dr. Jon Goldin, on how we support children and young people through this time, and Professor Neil Greenberg, who is a professor of Defense Mental Health at Kings College London.

To commemorate LGBT History Month RCPsych interviewed a psychiatrist and a service user, both in the LGBT Community, on mental health, education and gender identity.

Perinatal podcast by RCPsych

Forensic Podcast with Professor Pamela Taylor and Alain part 1 by RCPsych

Forensic Podcast with Professor Pamela Taylor and Alain part 2 by RCPsych

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.

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.

In his 2019 book ‘On Freedom’, Professor Cass Sunstein invites us to rethink the way we consider freedom of choice as a concept. Are we truly free to make our own decisions, or are we being guided, influenced and even manipulated in the choices we make day to day? In this thought-provoking podcast, Raj Persuad talks to Professor Sunstein about his perspective on this crucial aspect of the human condition.

The inflamed mind: a radical new approach to depression