70 - Therapy with the Breakfast Club

The Breakfast club - five teenagers in detention, each struggling and assuming everyone else has their life together. But what would happen if they were referred for therapy instead?

Join us for a Two Shrinks look at Claire, Bender, Principal Vernon, Allison, Andy & Brian as we talk through how we’d make sense of these characters and what they’d need in the therapy room.

The Molly Ringwald article we reference can be found at: https://www.newyorker.com/culture/personal-history/what-about-the-breakfast-club-molly-ringwald-metoo-john-hughes-pretty-in-pink

69 - Sexual Assault: How to Respond to a Disclosure

This episode we’re talking about an unashamedly heavy topic. Given the recent events in Australian Parliament, we wanted to talk about how psychologists, friends and family members of people who have been sexually assaulted can respond. How you can best support someone who’s beginning to share their story, even when you don’t know what to say.

If you’d like to skip to a particular topic:
9:45 Common reactions to media coverage of sexual assault & some basic coping strategies
15:30 Responding to disclosures as a psychologist
47:30 Responding as a friend or family member
53:45 Message to survivors who are considering disclosing for the first time

Supports in Australia

Lifeline: 13 11 14
1800 Respect: 1800 7377 328
ReachOut list of supports: https://au.reachout.com/articles/sexual-assault-support
CASA: https://casa.org.au/

Australian Statistics

https://www.aihw.gov.au/getmedia/0375553f-0395-46cc-9574-d54c74fa601a/aihw-fdv-5.pdf.aspx?inline=true

https://e2epublishing.info/statistics

Music

River by Leon Bridges

68 - The Seven Deadly Sins

To kick off 2021, two shrinks is getting sinful. Thanks to a suggestion from psychiatrist Dr Jackie Rakov (@psychwrite on twitter), we’re taking a look at the psychology behind the seven deadly sins. Do we find people more attractive when we’re primed with lust? Does envy make us more likely to harm others? Is pride different from straight-up narcissism? Listen in to for a light-hearted but in depth look at whether the sins really are that bad.

Timepoint/Articles:
05:30 Envy https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0146167219897660
14:30 Pride - https://europepmc.org/article/med/33180528
26:25 Gluttony - https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24411760/
40:58 Sloth - https://www.prdb.pk/article/prevalence-of-academic-procrastination-and-reasons-for-acade-8348

47:30 Lust - https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00224545.2014.933158
58:51 Wrath - https://bpspsychub.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/bjso.12357
01:14:27 Greed - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0191886918305130

Media clips drawn from: Se7en (sins), Winnie the Pooh (gluttony), The Simpsons (Sloth), U2 (pride) Pride & Prejudice (pride), How I Met Your Mother (lust), Wallstreet (greed) and Star Trek II: Wrath of Khan (wrath)

Hunter’s bonus I can’t believe it’s not sloth articles:
(from 35:00-40:58 mins)
Sloth bears: https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2019-05979-001
Bridges: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1369847820304125

62 - Schadenfreude: Is it ok to feel like this?

This week, in the wake of President Trump being diagnosed with COVID-19, the world has been going through a collective emotional experience. People who ordinarily wouldn’t relish in the misfortunes of others are feeling a pleasurable twinge of schadenfreude. We noticed people talking about how guilty they’ve felt so we wanted to pull apart this complex emotion in the two shrinks way: What is it? Why do we experience it? And is it really ok to feel like this?

As always, to wrap up we finish with Things We Came Across: why narcissists aren’t wearing masks and odd things that have happened in interviews.

We learnt about schadenfreude in:

• Schadenfreude: Understanding Pleasure at the Misfortune of Others: www.cambridge.org/9781107017504 

• The relationship between schadenfreude & sadism: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0191886916300071

• Schadenfreude & ingroup outgroup bias:
  http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~banaji/research/publications/articles/2017_Lehr_GPIR.pdf

• Integrating multiple perspectives on schadenfreude: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11031-012-9331-4

TWCA

Why narcissists aren’t wearing masks & how to approach them: https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/wellness/narcissism-mask-covid-psychology/2020/09/25/d3de1b32-fe9c-11ea-9ceb-061d646d9c67_story.html 

Teaser: Does Anakin Skywalker have Borderline Personality Disorder?

Ahead of our 60th episode “Diagnosing the Skywalkers: Mental Health in the Star Wars Universe” we decided to give you some pre-listening (reading?) to get you ready (hey don’t judge, we did do a lot of university study). Hunter covers a series of academic articles that discuss whether Anakin Skywalker has Borderline Personality (links below). This is a snippet from our 10th episode recorded way back in 2017 before The Last Jedi was released.

If you want to know more about Borderline Personality we covered symptoms and theory in Episode #25: (listen here through the website or apple podcasts); the treatment of BPD with Dialectical Behaviour Therapy in Episode #26 (website or apple podcasts) and the impact of BPD on family members in Episode #49
(website or apple podcasts)

See you in a couple of weeks to geek out on psychology & Star Wars!

Anakin Skywalker articles :

Part one - Bui et al. (2011) - Is Anakin Skywalker Suffering From Borderline Personality Disorder?

Part two - da Rocha et al. (2012) - Revisiting the Anakin Skywalker Diagnostic: Transcending the Diagnostic Criteria

Part three - Bui & Rodgers (2012) - Response to da Rocha et al.

Part four - Tobia et al. (2015) - Darth Vulcan? In support of Anakin Skywalker suffering from borderline personality disorder.

59 - Healthcare workers’ challenges during COVID-19

How are health care workers coping during COVID? On our final episode of the COVID series, we take a look at the issues facing healthcare workers. For the first time in many workers’ careers, we’re dealing with an issue that impacts everyone, including ourselves. Tune in for a discussion about issues like coping under crisis conditions, providing mental health treatment remotely, and what happens when your personal values or worries are different to those you treat.

As always, to wrap up we finish with a lighter chat about things we came across - what we’ll miss from lock down and how we knew we’d been in lock down too long.

Special thanks to the doctors who helped us prepare for this episode by sharing their experiences and concerns: Dr Eric Levi (@DrEricLevi), Dr Vyom Sharma (@drvyom), Dr Andy Tagg (@andrewjtagg) and Dr Lachie Hayes.