Better Thinking

In this episode of Better Thinking, Nesh Nikolic speaks with Professor Gordon Parker AO about the gut–brain connection and how it could transform our understanding and treatment of mood disorders such as depression and bipolar disorder.Professor Gordon Parker AO is Scientia Professor of Psychiatry, UNSW, was Founder of the Black Dog Institute, Head of the UNSW School of Psychiatry, Director of the Division of Psychiatry at Prince of Wales Hospital and Area Director of Psychiatry in the South- Eastern area. His positions with the Royal Australian & New Zealand College of Psychiatrists include having been Editor of its Journal and initiating its Quality Assurance Committee. In 2018 he was a finalist for the NSW Senior Australian of the Year and in 2020 was recipient of the Australian Mental Health Prize. His research and clinical practice have focussed on the mood disorders. His 25 th book on a radical new therapy for bipolar disorder (faecal microbiota transplantation) was published in March 2025 – “A Gut Brain Solution” and published by Allen and Unwin.His first novel was published in 1966 and his second in 2017. In the 60’s, he wrote for The Mavis Bramston Show and OZ Magazine, was an ABC Science broadcaster in Sydney and London, and in 2004 he had a play (“Personality Games”) produced by La Mama in Melbourne.

In this episode of Better Thinking, Nesh Nikolic speaks with Dr Matt Bernstein about the emerging field of metabolic psychiatry and how metabolism, nutrition, and lifestyle factors influence mental health.Dr. Matt Bernstein is a respected clinical psychiatrist for more than 20 years. He is also Accord’s chief executive officer and one of the leading voices in the emerging field of metabolic psychiatry. After graduating summa cum laude from Columbia University in New York, N.Y., with a bachelor’s degree in English literature, he received his medical degree from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, PA.Dr. Bernstein then trained at the MGH McLean Psychiatry Residency Program in Belmont, Mass., where he served as chief resident. He remained at McLean Hospital after residency as a psychiatrist-in-charge and later served as assistant medical director of its schizophrenia and bipolar inpatient program. Dr. Bernstein has developed his passion for community-based care as the chief medical officer at Ellenhorn, a sister program of Accord, where he has pursued alternative ways (such as a focus on metabolism, nutrition, circadian-rhythm biology and exercise) to help individuals achieve their best levels of functioning without relying solely on traditional psychiatric approaches. In addition to serving on the clinical advisory board at Metabolic Mind, Dr. Bernstein is known for organizing the first-ever public conference on metabolic psychiatry in 2023.

In this episode of Better Thinking, Nesh Nikolic speaks with Dr Joanna Moncrieff about her latest book: Chemically Imbalanced: The Making and Unmaking of The Serotonin Myth.Dr Joanna Moncrieff is a practising psychiatrist, part-time academic, and author with a deep interest in the history, philosophy, and politics of psychiatry. Her work focuses particularly on the use, misuse, and misrepresentation of psychiatric drugs.She became interested in drug treatment because of its dominance in contemporary approaches to managing the suffering and disturbances labeled as mental disorders. She recognised that embedded in the understanding of drugs such as ‘antipsychotics’ and ‘antidepressants’ was an unexamined assumption: that these drugs ‘work’ by correcting a hypothetical abnormality or ‘chemical imbalance.’ Moncrieff has termed this the ‘disease-centred’ model of drug action and has developed an alternative ‘drug-centred’ model, which highlights the ways psychiatric drugs alter brain and body function, modify feelings and behaviour, and interact with the difficulties associated with mental disorders.Alongside colleagues from around the world, Moncrieff has worked to expose the misconceptions that arise from the disease-centred model, clarify the effects psychiatric drugs produce, and question the narratives that sustain current prescribing practices.She also emphasises that psychiatry is a profoundly political enterprise, shaped by social and political imperatives to neutralise distress and manage disturbing behaviour. Beyond her work on psychiatric drugs, she is interested in how emotional and behavioural problems might be conceptualised differently, as well as the broader politics of healthcare.

In this episode of Better Thinking, Nesh Nikolic speaks with Associate Professor Jacqueline Anderson about the long-term impact of traumatic brain injuries and how they affect cognition, identity, and daily life. Jacqueline Anderson, PhD, is an Associate Professor in Clinical Neuropsychology in the Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences. She is also the Convenor of the School’s flagship postgraduate training program in Clinical Neuropsychology. As well as undertaking research in the area of clinical neuropsychology, she has more 25 years of experience working as a Clinical Neuropsychologist in both the public and private health sectors; for most of this time she has also provided training to postgraduate clinical neuropsychology students. Clinical work roles have primarily been in acute tertiary referral public hospitals, but have also included roles in rehabilitation settings; she has worked in private practice for many years, including undertaking medico-legal work.A/Prof. Anderson’s research program specialises in abnormal cognitive functioning. She and her lab members use a combination of clinical and laboratory-based tools to investigate adult patient populations with neuropsychological disorders. Her research interests primarily relate to outcome after mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) in community-based adults. In particular, she is focused on investigating the neuropsychological (cognitive, behavioural, psychological) and neuropathological aetiologies of individual patient variation in outcome after mTBI as well as developing interventions for individuals who experience poor recovery. She has a further specific interest in abnormalities of attention and memory, executive function and subcortical cognitive networks in the context of neuropsychological disorders.

In this episode of Better Thinking, Nesh Nikolic speaks with Dr. David Healy about how psychotropic drugs and clinical trials have influenced the way we understand mental health and the broader impact these developments have had on society.David Healy, a professor in the Department of Family Medicine in McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, is a doctor, psychiatrist, psychopharmacologist, scientist and author. His main areas of research are the contribution of antidepressants to suicide, conflict of interest between pharmaceutical companies and academic medicine, and the history of pharmacology. Healy has written more than 200 peer-reviewed articles, 200 other articles, and 24 books, including The Antidepressant Era, The Creation of Psychopharmacology, The Psychopharmacologists Volumes 1–3, Let Them Eat Prozac, and Mania: A Short History of Bipolar Disorder.He has been involved as an expert witness in homicide and suicide trials involving psychotropic drugs. He has brought concerns about some medications to the attention of drug regulators. He has also said that pharmaceutical companies sell drugs by marketing diseases and co-opting academic opinion-leaders. In his 2012 book Pharmageddon, he argues that pharmaceutical companies have dominated healthcare in America, often with life-threatening results for patients. Healy is a founder and chief executive officer of Data Based Medicine Limited, which aims to make medicines safer through RxISK - Prescription Drug Side Effects an “online direct patient reporting of drug effects” platform.

In this episode of Better Thinking, Nesh Nikolic speaks with Professor Jae Jung about how to better understand and support gifted students, the importance of differentiated education, and the future of high-ability learning.Jae Yup Jung, PhD is a Professor in the School of Education and the Director of the Gifted Education Research, Resource and Information Centre (GERRIC) at The University of New South Wales, Australia. His research program, which incorporates various topics relating to gifted adolescents (with a particular focus on their education and career-related decisions) has been published or presented on more than 100 occasions in the form of journal articles, book chapters, editorials, conference presentations or books in international outlets including Gifted Child Quarterly, British Journal of Educational Psychology, Research in Higher Education, Instructional Science, Journal of Career Assessment, Exceptional Children, and the Australasian Journal of Gifted Education. His research has been recognized with awards from the American Educational Research Association (including the 2023 Path Breaker Award), the U.S. Mensa Education and Research Foundation (including Awards for Excellence in Research in 2015, 2022, 2023 and 2024), and the Society for Vocational Psychology, and research grants from the Australian Research Council, the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, and the New South Wales Department of Education. He is the current editor of the Australasian Journal of Gifted Education, Vice President of the Asia-Pacific Federation on Giftedness, and President of the Australian Association for the Education of the Gifted and Talented.Episode link at ⁠https://neshnikolic.com/podcast/jae-jung

In this episode of Better Thinking, Nesh Nikolic speaks with Lisa Anne Williams about how our emotions are shaped by social experiences and the powerful, adaptive functions of positive social emotions like pride and gratitude. Dr. Lisa A. Williams is a social psychologist whose research examines the dynamics between emotional experience and social interaction. Much of her research focuses on how positive emotions that arise in the context of social interactions function at the interpersonal, interpersonal, intergroup, and societal levels. Lisa is currently Professor in the School of Psychology and Associate Dean, Equity Diversity and Inclusion, Faculty of Science, at UNSW Sydney. Episode link at https://neshnikolic.com/podcast/lisa-williamsSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this episode of Better Thinking, Nesh Nikolic speaks with Nik Steffens about how identity, connection, and purpose shape not only individual outcomes but also drive collective success within organizations. Niklas Steffens is Associate Professor and Director of the Centre for Business and Organisational Psychology (CBOP) in UQ's School of Psychology. He lived, worked, and studied psychology in Germany and Spain and completed his PhD in the UK before working at The University of Queensland (Australia). Nik conducts fundamental and applied research to uncover psychological drivers that make groups and organisations fairer, more motivating, more effective, and healthier. His expertise lies in social identity and team work processes in social and organisational contexts including leadership and followership, motivation and creativity, and health and well-being. He uses diverse methods to understand people and organisations including experimental and intervention studies, field and survey research, archival methods, psychometric scale development, and systematic reviews and meta-analysis. Episode link at https://neshnikolic.com/podcast/nik-steffensSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this episode of Better Thinking, Nesh Nikolic speaks with Dr. Zhi Yi Ong about the neurobiology of food intake, exploring how gut-brain interactions shape eating behavior and its connection to addiction. Zhi Yi Ong is a Senior Lecturer and ARC Future Fellow at the UNSW School of Psychology. She completed her PhD in Biomedical Science at the University of South Australia and later undertook postdoctoral training in the Department of Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania. Zhi Yi's research focuses on the neurobiological mechanisms of feeding behaviors. Using multiple neuroscience approaches in animal models, she investigates how gut signals interact with brain circuits to regulate these behaviors. Additionally, she also examines how environmental factors and current treatments influence the neural systems that control appetite. Episode link at  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this episode of Better Thinking, Nesh Nikolic speaks with Lana Tikhomirov about the intersection of AI and human decision-making, exploring its ethical concerns, cognitive challenges, and growing role in high-stakes fields like healthcare. Lana Tikhomirov is an AI safety researcher at the Australian Institute for Machine Learning, where she focuses on developing ethical, human-centered artificial intelligence systems for medical decision-making. Her interdisciplinary PhD bridges cognitive science, bioethics, and AI safety, examining a core question: How do humans make decisions using AI algorithms—and where should we draw the ethical line when replacing human judgment with machine logic? Lana’s work addresses the nuanced challenges that emerge when advanced deep learning systems—often opaque and difficult to interpret—are integrated into high-risk, real-world environments. As these technologies become increasingly common in critical domains, understanding their influence on human cognition and decision-making has never been more urgent. She is committed to advancing responsible and safe AI, and her research contributes to national policy and ethical guidelines for AI development and implementation in Australia. Episode link at https://neshnikolic.com/podcast/lana-tikhomirovSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.