Better Thinking

In this episode of Better Thinking, Nesh Nikolic speaks with Robert Whitaker about how the disease model of mental illness emerged, what evidence it was built on, and why it may not be as scientifically grounded as many believe.Robert Whitaker is an American journalist and author who has won numerous awards as a journalist covering medicine and science, including the George Polk Award for Medical Writing and a National Association for Science Writers’ Award for best magazine article. In 1998, he co-wrote a series on psychiatric research for the Boston Globe that was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service. His first book, Mad in America, was named by Discover magazine as one of the best science books of 2002. Anatomy of an Epidemic won the 2010 Investigative Reporters and Editors book award for best investigative journalism. He is the publisher of madinamerica.com. He is a Clinical Assistant Professor (Adjunct) in the Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Science.

In this episode of Better Thinking, Nesh Nikolic speaks with Professor Dianna Kenny about understanding gender dysphoria in young people and the complexities surrounding their care and wellbeing.Dr Dianna T. Kenny is an experienced psychologist in Sydney who offers a range of services including individual adult psychotherapy, child, adolescent, couple, and family therapy, mediation and family dispute resolution, and medico-legal consultancy.A former professor of psychology at The University of Sydney, Dianna is now a consulting, developmental and educational psychologist and psychotherapist who provides a range of psychological services to adults, children, adolescents, couples and families, including psychological assessment, psychotherapy, specialist treatment for music performance anxiety, mediation, family dispute resolution, and medico-legal consultancy. She is also an expert court report writer, researcher, and author. She has authored bestselling books on child development, child sexual abuse, psychotherapy, gender dysphoria, and music performance anxiety. She has consulting rooms in Concord (Inner West), and Glebe (near Camperdown, Newtown, Ultimo, Darlington, and Annandale).Dr Kenny provides a range of services covering psychological assessment and therapy, parent management training, mediation, family dispute resolution, and medico-legal consultancy.

In this episode of Better Thinking, Nesh Nikolic speaks with Arthur Thomas Ware about fostering long, happy, and purposeful years in retirement, and how psychology can help us create meaning beyond work.Arthur Thomas Ware (He prefers to be called, Tom) will be turning ninety in April next year. He was born in the U.K. and came to Australia as a “Ten Pound Pom” in 1951. From that year he had a variety of jobs: Post Office, Navy, Aviation, Electrical Power, Truck Driver, Foundry Laborer, Lab Assistant, NSW Police and even a year as an Antarctic Expeditioner. His final work was the usual 9 to 5 in a government office job. He worked for 44 years and took voluntary redundancy in 1995. Since that time, Tom has been engaged in a dozen or so different types of volunteer work. Mostly, though, he has stuck to his three main passions: Creative Writing, Speaking to Audiences, and pursuing Self-knowledge and greater Self-understanding. Thirty years retired, Tom’s current focus is on enabling upcoming retirees to find their “Why” so that they, too, can live long, happy, and meaningful retirements. Tom has been married to the same little lady for 65 years. He and his wife, Rita, are parents, grandparents and great-grandparents. They live in Sydney.

In this episode of Better Thinking, Nesh Nikolic speaks with Paul Rhodes about moving beyond individual psychology to explore systemic thinking, family therapy, eco-psychology, and affect theory.Professor Paul Rhodes is a clinical psychology academic and at The University of Sydney where he teaches family therapy, community-based approaches to mental health and a new lived experience co-designed course exploring insider knowledge of recovery. His current research is diverse including eco-psychology, liberation psychology, the decolonisation of the field and innovations in qualitative methods. He is currently writing a book from Thames and Hudson called Liberating Psychology: Anti-Fascism in a Post-Human World. He also works as a clinician at Mind Plasticity in Ultimo, Sydney. In his private time on weekends he is a fine artist at Lennox St Studios in Newtown and currently has an exhibition at The Dax Centre called Troubled/&beyond about the life of the therapist. Last month he released a travel book about Italy called A Psychogeography of Florence, blending psychology with poetry, art and history.

In this episode of Better Thinking, Nesh Nikolic speaks with Professor Zoltán Sarnyai about his recent randomized controlled trial on ketogenic metabolic therapy for serious mental illness and the broader implications of this emerging field for the future of psychiatric treatment.Professor Zoltán Sarnyai, Director of the Margaret Roderick Centre for Mental health Research at James Cook University, is a medically trained neuroscientist with an internationally recognised expertise in the neurobiology of stress and mental health disorders. Before moving to Australia, he was University Lecturer in the Department of Pharmacology, University of Cambridge and a Fellow of Pembroke College, where he was Director of Studies for Medicine. He trained at McLean Hospital at Harvard Medical School and at The Rockefeller University, supported by the DuPont-Warren Award and a NARSAD Young Investigator Award, respectively. His group described the role of stress neuropeptides oxytocin and corticotropin-releasing factor in addiction, for which he was awarded the Richter Prize by the International Society of Psychoneuroendocrinology. More recently, he discovered the efficacy of ketogenic metabolic therapy in preclinical models of schizophrenia and is currently conducting the world’s first randomised controlled clinical trial to investigate this in clinical populations. Zoltán was appointed Lady Davis Visiting Professor at Technion-Israel Institute of Technology to study the neuro- metabolic aspects of schizophrenia. Zoltan has published over 150 original research papers, reviews and book chapters, his works have been cited over 10,000 time, with an H index of 50. He is Associate Editor for Nutritional Neuroscience and Frontiers in Neuroscience, and editorial board member of Nutritional Psychiatry and Stress.