Richard Benthall is a Professor of Clinical Psychology at the University of Sheffield in the UK. His research has focusued on the psychological mechanisms of severe mental illness (such as hallucinations and delusions) and social factors that affect these conditions. His work along with the work of other researchers is responsible for psychological interventions (such as cognitive behaviour therapy) being included in national guidelines for the treatment of psychotic type conditions. Bentall alo...
Jan 24, 2025•58 min
Dr. Adam Hunt (PhD) is a post-doc researcher at the University of Cambridge and the host of the Evolving Psychiatry podcast which provides interviews, insights and an introduction to evolutionary psychiatry, with guest appearances from leading academics and psychiatrists. His upcoming book Specialised Minds which seeks to explains the existence of long term, common mental disorders, and common personality traits as products of the same evolutionary process, specifically of cognitive specialisati...
Jan 17, 2025•1 hr 25 min
Today Alex chats with Dr. Alex Meaburn, a speciality doctor in psychiatry who has been working on the podcast behind the scenes. They discuss some of the limitations of psychiatry including problems with the biomedical model of depression, social-cultural reasons for mental health problems, crticisms of anti-depressants, dysfunctional attitudes towards suffering, the pros and cons of psychotherapy, the value of medication for ADHD and much more. Dr. Alex Curmi is a consultant psychiatrist and a ...
Jan 10, 2025•1 hr 6 min
This podcast is a guide to making any kind of resolution towards long term behaviour change. It includes a step by step guide to implementing a new behaviour including choosing an area to work on, framing your resolution appropriately, setting an intention, making a plan, measuring your results, leveraging positive and negative emotions to your advantage, anticipating identity level change, and much more. Dr. Alex Curmi is a consultant psychiatrist and a UKCP registered psychotherapist in-traini...
Jan 03, 2025•35 min
This week's episode is a live Q & A recorded at Trinity Rugby Club in South London. Dr. Alex is interviewed by Andrew Edwards the Director of Rugby at the club and they discuss various topics such as: - Modern problems men face - Difficulties with dating and relationships - Preventing anxiety and depression - Making friends with failure - The value of introspection - The importance of facing conflict directly - Using aggression in a healthy way And much more. Dr. Alex Curmi is a consultant p...
Dec 27, 2024•1 hr 9 min
Dr Hamilton Morrin is a psychiatrist at South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust and an NIHR academic clinical fellow at King's College London researching neuropsychiatric disorders using neurotechnology. He is a Trustee for Gaming the Mind, a charity that promotes positive mental health within the gaming community and the games industry by raising awareness of mental health challenges and reducing the stigma surrounding these issues. Find out more here: gamingthemind.org BlueSky/X: @gamin...
Dec 20, 2024•1 hr 4 min
Mark Horowitz is a training psychiatrist, now working as a Clinical Research Fellow at UCL. He is an Associate Editor of the journal Therapeutic Advances in Psychopharmacology and has edited a collection of papers in the journal on Discontinuing PsychiatricMedication. He has a PhD in psychopharmacology and the neurobiology of depression from the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience at King’s College London. He also co-wrote the Maudsley Deprescribing guidelines. Mark has his own ...
Dec 13, 2024•1 hr 1 min
Matilda Gosling is an author, social scientist and researcher, with two books that cover parenting, development and mental health. Evidence-Based Parenting came out in January 2024, and Teenagers: The Evidence Base will be published in the new year. Her latest book uses evidence from social and experimental psychology, neuroscience, family systems and adolescent development (among others) to examine parent-teenager relationships, the online world and other connections, mood and maturity, mental ...
Dec 06, 2024•1 hr 7 min
This week we're taking a well deserved break, so if you're looking for something to listen to you can check out one of our recent episodes - including our episode last week breaking down the factors that make for successful psychotherapy, our recent conversation exploring the fundamentals of self-development, and our November episode illustrating 8 lessons we learned making our first 100 episodes, which are applicable to anyone considering embarking on a change in their career, or a creative sid...
Nov 29, 2024•3 min
Today Alex discusses 16 factors common to most kinds of therapy which help people to improve the quality of their lives including skills development, gaining new insights about old patterns, forming a reparative relationship with the therapist, being challenged, having their experiences normalised and much more. The book referenced in this podcast is Integration in Counselling & Psychotherapy by Lapworth, Sills and Fish (2001). Dr. Alex Curmi is a consultant general adult psychiatrist with a...
Nov 22, 2024•23 min
Today Alex chats with Dr. Alex Meaburn, a speciality doctor in psychiatry who has been working on the podcast behind the scenes. They discuss some of the fundamentals of self-development including how to audit your time, break out of unhelpful patterns, some of the problems of modern living, the importance to cultivating your intuition, why play is fundamental to our lives, and much more. If you would like to invite Alex to speak at your organisation please email thinkingmindpodcast@gmail.com wi...
Nov 15, 2024•1 hr 17 min
What is the effect of nature on our mental health? Today Alex speaks with Prof. Chris Dayson & Dr. Annette Haywood, who have conducted research involving 8000 people, who were given nature-based interventions (such as nature walks, community gardening, tree planting and wild swimming) to help them with their mental health difficulties across seven different sites in the UK. See below link to an article about their work: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/sep/04/better-than-...
Nov 08, 2024•54 min
In this episode Alex discusses 8 lessons he learned from making the first 100 episodes of the podcast, including how to deal with success and failure, internal and external obstacles, creativity, peristence and much more. Audio-Essay by Dr. Alex Curmi. Dr. Curmi is a consultant general adult psychiatrist with a sub-speciality in addictions who completed his training in the South London and Maudsley NHS foundation trust. He is also a UKCP registered psychotherapist in-training, and has a special ...
Nov 01, 2024•25 min
In this week's podcast we discuss five different problems facing the modern world, including the decline in critical thinking, political polarisation, the overreliance on technology and more, and how they are contributing to a rise in mental health problems. Audio-Essay by Dr. Alex Curmi. Dr. Curmi is a consultant general adult psychiatrist with a sub-speciality in addictions who completed his training in the South London and Maudsley NHS foundation trust. In addition to general adult psychiatry...
Oct 24, 2024•31 min
Nancy Gee, Ph.D is a Professor of Psychiatry in Human Animal Interaction, and the Director of the Centre for Human Animal Interaction at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) in Richmond, VA. The Centre is the only one of its kind to be housed in a School of Medicine, and in addition to research and educational activities it also houses the “Dogs On Call” therapy dog program. With over 90 DOC volunteer dog-and-handler teams, this program engages in upwards of 100,000 meaningful interactions wit...
Oct 17, 2024•1 hr 1 min
This is a recording of a Q & A session at Riddlesdown collegiate, a secondary school in South London. For this session, specifically aimed at male staff, Alex was interviewed by Deputy Head of College Andrew Edwards. Today we cover topics including male mental health issues, lifestyle factors influencing mental health, work life balance, the economics of discomfort, the signs of burnout, cultural trends affecting dating & relationships, criticial thinking and much more. Dr. Alex Curmi is...
Oct 10, 2024•1 hr 14 min
Dr. Camilla Nord leads the Mental Health Neuroscience Lab at the University of Cambridge, where she holds dual positions as Programme Leader at the Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit and Assistant Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience at the Department of Psychiatry. She also holds a Wellcome Career Development Award fellowship, and co-leads an international team of researchers via a Wellcome Mental Health Award. Dr Nord has a longstanding interest in science communication, including many public le...
Oct 03, 2024•55 min
Prof. Ulrike Schmidt is a Professor of Eating Disorders and Director of the Centre for Research on Eating and Weight Disorders at King’s College London. She is also a Consultant Psychiatrist at the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust. Ulrike works to understand fundamental biology and psychological determinants of eating and weight disorders, including obesity. Her research includes multiple trials of new treatments and led to the development of MANTRA, a NICE-recommended psychotherap...
Sep 26, 2024•1 hr 6 min
Dr Tennyson Lee is a Consultant Psychiatrist in Psychotherapy and General Adult Psychiatry. He is a psychoanalyst and a member of the Institute of Psychoanalysis. He is a supervisor in Transference Focused Psychotherapy. He is presently clinical lead at the Dean Cross Personality Disorder Service in East London. He is Co-director of a research and training unit, the Centre for Understanding Personality (CUSP) which has a number of collaborations internationally, including with colleagues in Chin...
Sep 19, 2024•57 min
This week we're taking a well deserved break, so if you're looking for something to listen to you can check out one of our recent episodes - including our recent interview with Dr. Roberto Mezzina about the Triste model of mental healthcare, our recent compherensive guide to ADHD or our recent Q and A episode where answered questions about topics like self-harm, addiction, delusional disorder and much more. We realy enjoyed doing the Q and A episode and we're collecting questions for the next on...
Sep 12, 2024•2 min
In this episode we discuss ADHD in depth, including the common signs and symptoms, how ADHD is diagnosed, the common risk factors and how ADHD symptoms can be managed both with and without medication. We also discuss whether or not ADHD is over diagnosed, whether ADHD being induced by our lifestyles, and common signs of impairment due to ADHD. Useful links: https://www.additudemag.com/ https://adhduk.co.uk/ https://aadduk.org/ Dr. Alex Curmi is a consultant general adult psychiatrist with a sub-...
Sep 05, 2024•50 min
Roberto Mezzina is an Italian psychiatrist and a prominent figure in the field of mental health, known for his leadership in promoting community-based mental health care and his role in advancing the principles of the Trieste Model . Mezzina has been a strong advocate for deinstitutionalization and the rights of people with mental health conditions, continuing the legacy of Franco Basaglia, the pioneer of the Trieste Model. Throughout his career, Mezzina has worked to implement and expand the Tr...
Aug 29, 2024•1 hr 9 min
Today Alex answers listener questions on a variety of topics including self-harm, talking to complicated people, the function of dark humour, delusional disorder and benzodiazepene addiction. If you would like to submit a question to a future ask me anything episode, email thinkingmindpodcast@gmail.com . Audio-Essay by Dr. Alex Curmi. Dr. Curmi is a consultant general adult psychiatrist with a sub-speciality in addictions who completed his training in the South London and Maudsley NHS foundation...
Aug 22, 2024•50 min
Sam Kotadia is a Chartered Sports Psychologist. He has worked with high profile clubs such as Colchester United and currently Wrexham AFC, and has featured on the Disney documentary about the club and town “Welcome to Wrexham”. He also oversees the flagship programme at Empire Fighting Chance (https://www.empirefightingchance.org/), a Bristol-based charity. Sam developed a non-contact boxing programme to help disengaged young people understand resilience and their mind. They work with 5000 young...
Aug 15, 2024•52 min
In this episode, we dive deep into the concept of the Insecure Overachiever —a driven, high-performing individual whose success is rooted in insecurity and self-doubt. We'll explore how this psychological pattern manifests in both popular culture and professional environments, from the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders to high-profile law firms, to Simone Biles and the healthcare industry. We'll also discuss the importance of self-esteem, the dangers of relying on external validation, and practical st...
Aug 08, 2024•24 min
Prentis Hemphill is a writer, an embodiment facilitator, political organiser and therapist. Prentis has offered embodied practice during moments of social unrest and organisational upheaval, serving as the Healing Justice Director of Black Lives Matter Global Network from 2016 to 2018. Their work and writing have appeared in the New York Times, and the Huffington Post. They are a contributor to “You are Your Best Thing”, edited by Tarana Burke and Brene Brown, “Holding Change” by adrienne maree ...
Aug 01, 2024•52 min
Allen Frances is an American psychiatrist and psychotherapist. He is currently Professor Emeritus of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Duke University School of Medicine. He is best known for serving as chair of the task force overseeing the development of the fourth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV). Frances is the founding editor of two well-known psychiatric journals: the Journal of Personality Disorders and the Journal of Psyc...
Jul 25, 2024•1 hr 2 min
This week Alex dissects the 1999 Sam Mendes classic " American Beauty ", exploring the lives of the Burnham family and their neighbors, delving into themes of suburban superficiality, repressed desires, and the search for meaning in modern life. We also discuss the process of personality growth and individuation, and why its so important to continuing growing psychologically across the lifespan. Dr. Alex Curmi is a consultant general adult psychiatrist with a sub-speciality in addictions who com...
Jul 18, 2024•25 min
Alex chats about how our backgrounds shape us and how we can use different ideas psychiatry, psychotherapy and philosophy to make sense of it all. We'll break down the idea that "It's not your fault but it is your responsibility," and explore how finding the right balance between acceptance and responsibility can help us lead better lives. Dr. Alex Curmi is a consultant general adult psychiatrist with a sub-speciality in addictions who completed his training in the South London and Maudsley NHS ...
Jul 11, 2024•12 min
Alex chats about the distinctions between coaching and therapy through the lens of the "accelerator vs. brake" analogy. Whether you're trying to overcome a personal challenge, find a fulfilling career, or break a habit, understanding when to press the accelerator (taking action and making changes in the external world) versus when to release the brake (addressing internal psychological barriers) is crucial. In this episode we explore real-life examples, practical applications, and the delicate b...
Jul 04, 2024•12 min
