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All In The Mind is ABC RN's weekly podcast looking into the mental universe, the mind, brain and behaviour — everything from addiction to artificial intelligence.

All In The Mind

You've probably experienced intrusive thoughts — bizarre, fleeting, sometimes inappropriate thoughts that cross your mind without warning. Although these can be weird to experience, they're totally normal.

But for people with obsessive compulsive disorder these thoughts can become inescapable — leading to worry, compulsions and shame.

Today we're talking about OCD, because it's often quite different from the stereotype of handwashing and lining up pencils. It can venture into taboo and dangerous thoughts, from paedophilia to violent harm. 

So what does living with these unwanted thoughts feel like? And how much can treatment improve OCD symptoms?

This episode covers some heavy topics from sexual abuse to suicide. There are also a few swear words. Please take care while listening.

Guests:

Uma Chatterjee, M.S., MHPSNeuroscience PhD student, University of Wisconsin-MadisonScience communicatorMental health advocate

Martin IngleWriter and filmmaker

Professor Vlasios BrakouliasPsychiatristSydney Medical School, Westmead Hospital

Credits:

 • Presenter/producer: Sana Qadar
 • Producer: Rose Kerr
 • Senior Producer: James Bullen
 • Sound engineer: Timothy Jenkins

You can catch up on more episodes of the All in the Mind podcast with journalist and presenter Sana Qadar, exploring the psychology of topics like stress, memory, communication and relationships on the ABC Listen app (Australia) or wherever you get your podcasts.

Support:

Lifeline 13 11 14

SANE Australia

ARCVic Helpline 1300 269 438

More information:

You Can't Ask That - OCD episode

‘Taboo’ intrusive thoughts: the unspoken aspects of OCD

According to consumer psychology, there's a recipe for being cool. And surprisingly, the ingredients are similar across a bunch of countries and cultures.

So today, we explore the concept of cool: what it says about our values and how it influences us. But be warned — if you try too hard to be cool, it might unravel your attempt before you even get there.

You can catch up on more episodes of the All in the Mind podcast with journalist and presenter Sana Qadar, exploring the psychology of topics like stress, memory, communication and relationships on the ABC Listen app (Australia) or wherever you get your podcasts.

Guest:

Caleb WarrenConsumer psychologistProfessor of MarketingUniversity of Arizona

Credits:

 • Presenter/producer: Sana Qadar
 • Senior producer: James Bullen
 • Producer: Rose Kerr
 • Sound engineer: Simon Branthwaite

More info:

Trying too hard or not hard enough: How effort shapes status

What Makes Things Cool? How Autonomy Influences Perceived Coolness

Cool People

Consumer behaviour and the quest for cool

You know how certain people are just… difficult? Maybe they're prickly to be around, don't take feedback well, or act like a narcissist?

Today we're learning how to handle relationships with difficult people; from setting boundaries, to understanding the role of attachment and temperament on behaviour.

Plus, is it ever the right time to cut someone off completely? And what's a 'highly sensitive person' (HSP)?

Got a question about a difficult person in your life? Send us an email at mind_rn@abc.net.au with the subject line "mailbag episode: difficult people".

Guests:

Rachel SamsonClinical psychologistCo-author, Beyond Difficult

Dr Jessie SternDevelopmental psychologist and researcherCo-author, Beyond Difficult

Credits:

 • Presenter/producer: Sana Qadar
 • Senior producer: James Bullen
 • Producer: Rose Kerr
 • Sound engineer: Micky Grossman

You can catch up on more episodes of the All in the Mind podcast with journalist and presenter Sana Qadar, exploring the psychology of topics like stress, memory, communication and relationships on the ABC Listen app (Australia) or wherever you get your podcasts.

Extra information:

Beyond Difficult, An attachment-based guide to dealing with challenging people

Narcissist, or just a pain? How to deal with difficult people

Extreme emotional turmoil, fears of abandonment, huge amounts of stigma… These factors can make navigating a career when you have borderline personality disorder really tricky. But Rosie and Enya are making it happen.

Today, how to navigate your working life when you have BPD.

We hear from Enya, a listener who works on fishing boats while receiving treatment for her BPD, and Rosie, a teacher and author who decided to disclose her diagnosis with her workplace. How has borderline personality disorder impacted their careers? And what advice does an occupational therapist have for people with BPD entering the workforce?

This episode includes mention of self-harm and suicide. Please take care while listening.

Guests:

Enya

Rosie CappucinoAuthor, Talking about BPD

Dr Suzanne DawsonOccupational TherapistSenior Research Fellow, Caring Futures InstituteFlinders University

Credits:

 • Presenter/producer: Sana Qadar
 • Senior producer: James Bullen
 • Producer: Rose Kerr
 • Sound engineer: Bethany Stewart

Thanks to freesound.org users digifishmusic and Scott_Snailham.

You can catch up on more episodes of the All in the Mind podcast with journalist and presenter Sana Qadar, exploring the psychology of topics like stress, memory, communication and relationships on the ABC Listen app (Australia) or wherever you get your podcasts.

Support services:

Lifeline 13 11 14

Beyond Blue

Australian BPD Foundation

How borderline personality disorder makes it harder to hold down a job

Long before Sarah's daughter Chloe Hayden became an award-winning actress starring in Netflix's Heartbreak High, she was a kid facing immense struggles. Chloe was sensitive to smells, lights and foods; she had no friends; she hated school.

Sarah never suspected Chloe was autistic, but that’s only because her idea of what autism looked like came from the film Rain Man.

Sarah is now a social worker and equine assisted therapist, working with neurodiverse families.

In this episode, Sarah shares her family’s story, her advice for parents navigating school refusal and food aversion – and the shock of getting her own surprise ADHD diagnosis later in life.

You can catch up on more episodes of the All in the Mind podcast with journalist and presenter Sana Qadar, exploring the psychology of topics like stress, memory, communication and relationships on the ABC Listen app (Australia) or wherever you get your podcasts.

Guest:

Sarah HaydenSocial workerEquine assisted therapistAuthor, Parenting Different

Credits:

 • Presenter/producer: Sana Qadar
 • Producer: Rose Kerr
 • Senior producer: James Bullen
 • Sound engineer: Roi Huberman

Support services:

Butterfly Foundation

Lifeline

More information:

What to do if nothing's working, Autism Australia

Planning Absences: A Guide for Parents of Autistic Students

Eating disorders and autism

Anorexia Nervosa and Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Systematic Review

Autism spectrum disorder and anorexia nervosa: Investigating the behavioural and neurocognitive overlap

Personal essay: "I was unseen, even to myself"

Adolescents With Autism Spectrum Disorder and Anorexia Nervosa Comorbidity: Common Features and Treatment Possibilities With Cognitive Remediation Therapy and Oxytocin

Disability advocates say NDIS changes disregard alternative therapy benefits

Effects of Equine Therapy on Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder: a Systematic Review

Equine-Assisted Therapy for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder: a Comprehensive Literature Review

Equine assisted activities and therapies in children with autism spectrum disorder: A systematic review and a meta-analysis

Autism and Equine-Assisted Interventions: A Systematic Mapping Review

Effects of Equine-Assisted Activities and Therapies for Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Effectiveness of Equine-Assisted Activities and Therapies for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder: An Update

A Scoping Review of Equine-Assisted Therapies on the Mental Health and Well-Being of Autistic Children and Adolescents: Exploring the Possibilities

From school avoidance to food anxieties: navigating neurodiverse parenting

We've all dreamt of lobbing our smartphone into the ocean and going off grid.

So what happens when you follow through with it?

For the final episode of Brain Rot, we speak to the people who decided they'd had enough.

From a French village, to Gen Z 'luddites' in New York City and a group of parents in regional Victoria, there are clubs, campaigns and even laws dedicated to a smartphone-free life.

But in 2025, how do you pull it off? And is it actually worth it?

This episode originally aired on Brain Rot, a series of the ABC podcast Science Friction. Sana will be back with all-new episodes of All in the Mind from Sunday 19 October.

Guests:

Stan Awtrey

Sportswriter, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Vincent Paul-Petit

Mayor, Seine-Port, France

Lisa Given

Professor of Information Sciences, RMIT University

Steph Challis

Founder, The Phone Pledge

Jameson Butler

Co-Founder, The Luddite Club

Credits:

 • Presenter: Ange Lavoipierre
 • Producer: Fiona Pepper
 • Senior Producer: James Bullen
 • Sound Engineer: Ross Richardson

Thanks to Sam Goerling for the assistance with French translation.

This story was made on the lands of the Gadigal and Menang Noongar peoples.

More Information:

The Luddite Club

Parents unite to ban teens from smartphones amid social media minimum age review

You can catch up on more episodes of the All in the Mind podcast with journalist and presenter Sana Qadar, exploring the psychology of topics like stress, memory, communication and relationships on the ABC Listen app (Australia) or wherever you get your podcasts.

If you'd like to access the transcript for this episode, head to its original webpage.

Brain Rot: Meet the people who ditched their smartphones

Plenty of people will say they are addicted to the internet. But how well-recognised, scientifically, is an addiction … to your screen?

In episode four of Brain Rot, we dig into how behavioural addictions work.

And we hear from self-described internet addicts about the treatment programs helping them manage their relationship with technology.

This episode originally aired on Brain Rot, a series of the ABC podcast Science Friction. Sana will be back with all-new episodes of All in the Mind in mid-October.

Guests:

Jillian and Kate

Internet and Technology Addiction Anonymous members

Hilarie Cash

Psychologist and Co-Founder, reSTART

Anna Lembke

Professor of Psychiatry and Addiction Medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine

Anastasia Hronis

Clinical Psychologist; Author, The Dopamine Brain

Dar Meshi

Associate Professor, Michigan State University

Credits:

 • Presenter: Ange Lavoipierre
 • Producer: Fiona Pepper
 • Senior Producer: James Bullen
 • Sound Engineer: Tim Symonds

This story was made on the lands of the Gadigal and Menang Noongar peoples.

More Information:

Changes and correlates of screen time in adults and children during the COVID-19 pandemic: A systematic review and meta analysis — eClinical Medicine, 2022.

Internet-addicted South Korean children sent to digital detox boot camp.

The Dopamine Brain — Anastasia Hronis.

Everyone is on their phones. But are we actually addicted? The Guardian, 2024.

Internet and Technology Addicts Anonymous.

Dopamine Nation — Anna Lembke.

Inside the rehab saving young men from their internet addiction — The Guardian, 2017

Other episodes related to focus and our relationship with smart phones:

When doom scrolling leads to actual harm

Should you do a 'dopamine detox'?

Sick of scrolling? Digital minimalism could help

Fighting for focus in the age of distraction

You can catch up on more episodes of the All in the Mind podcast with journalist and presenter Sana Qadar, exploring the psychology of topics like stress, memory, communication and relationships on the ABC Listen app (Australia) or wherever you get your podcasts.

If you'd like to access the transcript for this episode, head to its original webpage.

Brain Rot: Internet addiction

We're trusting tech with more tasks than ever — including the ones our brains once did.

We're Googling things we used to know, taking screenshots of things we'll instantly forget, and hoarding all kinds of data we'll never check again.

On this episode of Brain Rot: is tech giving your brain a holiday, or putting it out of a job?

You'll also meet a guy who's turned the tables, by using AI to help recover his lost memories.

This episode originally aired on Brain Rot, a series of the ABC podcast Science Friction. Sana will be back with all-new episodes of All in the Mind in mid-October.

Guests:

Dr Julia Soares

Assistant Professor, Mississipi State University

Morris Villaroel

Academic, Spain; Lifelogger

Max

Credits:

 • Presenter: Ange Lavoipierre
 • Producer: Fiona Pepper
 • Senior Producer: James Bullen
 • Sound Engineer: Tim Symonds

This story was made on the lands of the Gadigal and Menang Noongar peoples.

More Information:

Memory in the Digital Age — Oxford Handbook of Human Memory, 2024.

Lifelog Retrieval from Daily Digital Data: Narrative Review — JMIR mHealth and uHealth, 2022.

People mistake the internet's knowledge for their own — PNAS, 2021.

Data Selves: More-Than-Human Perspectives — Deborah Lupton, 2019.

One man's 10-year experiment to record every moment — BBC, 2019.

The case for using your brain — even if AI can think for you — Vox, 2025.

You can catch up on more episodes of the All in the Mind podcast with journalist and presenter Sana Qadar, exploring the psychology of topics like stress, memory, communication and relationships on the ABC Listen app (Australia) or wherever you get your podcasts.

If you'd like to access the transcript for this episode, head to its original webpage.

Brain Rot: What is tech doing to your memory?

Whether it’s social media, the omnipresent smartphone or AI companions, in recent decades the way we relate to each other has been completely up-ended.

In episode two of Brain Rot, we explore the potential implications that tech poses to human relationships.

Worldwide estimates suggest there are around one billion users of AI companions — people using software or applications designed to simulate human-like interactions through text and voice.

So if the uptake of these AI companions is as rapid as is being reported, what are the ramifications? And could AI companions be both a cause and cure for loneliness? 

This episode originally aired on Brain Rot, a series of the ABC podcast Science Friction. Sana will be back with all-new episodes of All in the Mind in mid-October.

Guests:

Kelly

In a relationship with an AI companion, Christian

Bethanie Drake-Maples

Doctoral Candidate, Research Fellow, Stanford Institute for Human-Centred Artificial Intelligence

Nicholas Epley

Professor of Behavioural Science, University of Chicago Booth School of Business

Nicholas Carr

Author and journalist

Credits:

 • Presenter: Ange Lavoipierre
 • Producer: Fiona Pepper
 • Senior Producer: James Bullen
 • Sound Engineer: Tim Symonds

This story was made on the lands of the Gadigal and Menang Noongar peoples.

More Information:

Loneliness and suicide mitigation for students using GPT3-enabled chatbots — npj Mental Health Research, 2024.

Hello, stranger? Pleasant conversations are preceded by concerns about starting one — Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 2022.

Talking with strangers is surprisingly informative — PNAS, 2022.

Superbloom: How Technologies of Connection Tear Us Apart — Nicholas Carr, 2025.

You can catch up on more episodes of the All in the Mind podcast with journalist and presenter Sana Qadar, exploring the psychology of topics like stress, memory, communication and relationships on the ABC Listen app (Australia) or wherever you get your podcasts.

If you'd like to access the transcript for this episode, head to its original webpage.

Brain Rot: Will AI turn us off human relationships?

Everyone seems to have a hunch that their phone is destroying their attention span, but is there any science to back it up?

In episode one of Brain Rot, we’re doing our best to focus on the topic of attention for a full 25 minutes — and find out what's actually happening in your brain every time your phone buzzes or dings.

Is brain rot a real thing? Or just another moral panic?

And how do you know when your own screen use has gone too far?

This episode originally aired on Brain Rot, a series of the ABC podcast Science Friction. Sana will be back with all-new episodes of All in the Mind in mid-October.

Guests:

Anna Seirian

CEO, Internet People

Dr Mark Williams

Professor, Macquarie University; Cognitive neuroscientist

Michoel Moshel

Clinical Neuropsychologist Registrar; Phd Candidate, Macquarie University

Professor Marion Thain

Professor of Culture and Technology, University of Edinburgh; Director, Edinburgh Futures Institute

Credits:

 • Presenter: Ange Lavoipierre
 • Producer: Fiona Pepper
 • Senior Producer: James Bullen
 • Sound Engineer: Brendan O'Neill

More information:

Neuropsychological Deficits in Disordered Screen Use Behaviours: A Systematic Review and Meta‑Analysis - Neuropsychology Review, 2024.

Do we have your attention? How people focus and live in the modern information environment - King's College London, 2022.

Internet addiction-induced brain structure and function alterations: a systematic review and meta-analysis of voxel-based morphometry and resting-state functional connectivity studies - Brain Imaging and Behavior, 2023.

You can catch up on more episodes of the All in the Mind podcast with journalist and presenter Sana Qadar, exploring the psychology of topics like stress, memory, communication and relationships on the ABC Listen app (Australia) or wherever you get your podcasts.

If you'd like to access the transcript for this episode, head to its original webpage.

Brain Rot: Is your phone destroying your attention span?

Journalist Elfy Scott grew up in a loving and tight knit family, but there was one topic they never spoke about, for a long time: her mother's schizophrenia.

Now, Elfy is sharing her family's story, and interrogating why stigma so often silences conversations about complex mental health disorders.

The one thing we've never spoken about

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