Better Thinking

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.

In this episode of Better Thinking, Nesh Nikolic speaks with Lucy Johnstone about the Power Threat Meaning Framework and how it offers an alternative to traditional psychiatric diagnoses by focusing on power, threat, and meaning in people’s lives.Dr Lucy Johnstone is a consultant clinical psychologist, author of 'Users and abusers of psychiatry' (3rd edition Routledge 2021) and ‘A straight-talking guide to psychiatric diagnosis’ (PCCS Books, 2nd edition 2022); co-editor of 'Formulation in psychology and psychotherapy: making sense of people's problems' (Routledge, 2nd edition 2013); and co-author of ‘A straight talking introduction to the Power Threat Meaning Framework’, 2020, PCCS Books) along with a number of other chapters and articles taking a critical perspective on mental health theory and practice. She is the former Director of the Bristol Clinical Psychology Doctorate in the UK and has worked in Adult Mental Health settings for many years, most recently in a service in South Wales. She is Visiting Professor at London South Bank University, an Honorary Fellow of the BPS, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.Lucy was lead author, along with Professor Mary Boyle, for the ‘Power Threat Meaning Framework’ (2018), a British Psychological Society publication co-produced with service users, which outlines a conceptual alternative to psychiatric diagnosis and has attracted national and international attention. Lucy is an experienced conference speaker and lecturer, and currently works as an independent trainer. She lives in Bristol, UK.  

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