In These Times: Speaking for the mind

Racism is a psychological problem. It has been failed by the law, education, history and culture studies in stopping violence, hate and aggression towards different ethnic groups. Previn Karian highlights the stuckness of racism in colonial history alone. It results in white shaming which guarantees the white backlash of nationalist populism and fascism seen in the US and Europe. Karian turns to Freud's group psychology to explain the origins of group hate which is the psychological root of racism, and to John Stuart Mill for fundamental principles of free speech and hate speech that are currently confused in democracies. For Karian, "we are all racists" living in what he calls "multicultural hate" . Listen to the full analysis here. A late tribute to the work of Bishop Desmond Tutu in South Africa. We rely on public participation to shape our future broadcasts. Please send us your thoughts, feelings or comments through our Contact Us page. Find out more about the ITTMind project and subscribe.

It's not about weight loss. It's not about body dysmorphia. It's not about relapses. What are the psychological roots of the anorectic? Previn Karian discusses the structures of mind that lead to the prevalence of anorexia in young girls and women. What is required is an emotional space where the anorectic can begin to connect with their feelings. This can be a surprise. Whilst anorexia is a protest against something in the family system, it conflicts with a deep love of the family. Self-persecution through food phobia, the dominant emotion of fear, the need to be invisible yet wanting to be seen, the relentless logic of torment, are all explained by Karian as the emotional chaos in the anorexia world. Karian illuminates how talking therapies help the anorectic client to give their feelings a voice, make sense of the persecution from parents, peers or society, and connect with their own feelings, their own will, their own desires and their own mind. We rely on public participation to shape our future broadcasts. Please send us your thoughts, feelings or comments through our Contact Us page. Find out more about the ITTMind project and subscribe.

Female hate crimes, humiliation, harassment, degradation, rape and murder have been celebrated in cultures and religions for centuries as the acceptable norm. The idea that this might be wrong is a modern one. Hence the word: "misogyny". Previn Karian discusses the psychological origins of men's hatred of women in the profound inferiority of the male brain structure as it cannot relate to life (birth) or pleasure (erotic zones). Like no other animal on the planet, the male brain obsessively destroys its own kind and kinship group, but especially women. This bio-wiring is a psychological sickness implanted in all "civilisations". The failure to understand this has resulted in the failure of laws and even feminism to dent male aggression and its specific targeting of women. This discussion is a necessary starter on the psychological origins of men's hate and fear of women. Until men confront their own darkness and shadow between themselves, there can be no progress in clearing out the roots of misogyny. We rely on public participation to shape our future broadcasts. Please send us your thoughts, feelings or comments through our Contact Us page. Find out more about the ITTMind project and subscribe.

Soaring energy prices and cost of living are driving millions into financial stress. This in turn leads to depression. As the house of cards starts falling down, the human response is to bury your head in the sand, hoping it will all go away while the problems get bigger, more urgent, and more legally threatening. Enter the Citizens Advice Bureau. Benefits Advisor Zoe Blyth is one of many at CAB who have taken on numerous cases of extreme financial distress - AND WON! Her work is sensitive, compassionate, understanding and legally informed. Chrissie Pollard interviews Zoe on a wide range of cases that CAB can take on to help you get out of menacing financial debts. We rely on public participation to shape our future broadcasts. Please send us your thoughts, feelings or comments through our Contact Us page. Find out more about the ITTMind project and subscribe.

Susie Orbach is an iconic psychotherapist in the women's movement, author of insightful and bestseller books, co-founder of Women's Therapy Centres in London and New York, and therapist to the late Princess Diana. Chrissie Pollard interviews Orbach, asking what has changed for women from past movements to present social realities. With a subtle yet powerful aura and precision, Orbach highlights key themes of "internalised misogyny", the self-degrading and self-attack of women learned from male social structures and male social behaviour. Women are still subject to these external forces mentally and emotionally. The rise of the independent woman created pressures to be there for everyone except themselves. But Orbach sees these forces acted out more and more in our bodies - something she intuited in the early 80s with her Fat Is a Feminist Issue book. Her other concern is the mental vulnerability of young generations who grow up and live in nothing but the internet. Bodies and minds now seek out groups to share their misery and alienation, becoming more divided from others as they do so. Whilst great progress has been made for women to be recognised as equal human beings, there is still a long way to go. Women may be good at listening to others. Orbach urges them to listen to themselves, and to trust and enjoy doing so. We rely on public participation to shape our future broadcasts. Please send us your thoughts, feelings or comments through our Contact Us page. Find out more about the ITTMind project and subscribe.

What makes secure parents and parenting? How can parents reduce pressure, tensions and conflicts with constantly changing needs of children? Chrissie Pollard interviews co-founder and psychotherapist Previn Karian on the application of Attachment Theory to parent-infant, parent-child and parent-teenager relationships. Breaking through the "parent power" delusion that "I know MY child", and giving up this god-like position, Karian outlines how parents can understand different stages of child development. A-Theory concepts of "attunement", "secure base", "emotional contact" and the ebb and flow of dependence-independence, are discussed. They provide a psychological response to parental pressures and breaking points. Princess Diana's way of holding children in the gaze of the cameras as she gazed at a starving child illustrate the fundamentals of the parent-child bonding. Parenting is a psychological task, and children hunger for a psychological relationship and understanding with their parents. We rely on public participation to shape our future broadcasts. Please send us your thoughts, feelings or comments through our Contact Us page. Find out more about the ITTMind project and subscribe.

From the idealised beginning to the crash: how do couples relationships breakdown? How does love turn into rage and hate? Chrissie Pollard interviews ITTMind co-founder and psychotherapist Previn Karian to outline the contours of relationship breakdowns. Beginning with initial attraction through fantasies of the Other, Karian explains the shock of switching from two individuals to one couple unit. It results in a lack of privacy, the shared space and shared time where there is nowhere to hide. What emerges is the shadow, the hidden parts of ourselves, the unconscious needs we never knew we had, the irrational rage when they are not met, the fallout of power inequalities, the splitting apart of the couple container. Love turns into hate. Drawing on Carl Jung and Melanie Klein, Karian sees the predictable switch of love into hate (Klein) solved through ending the persecution of the Other. The secret of the couple lies in the mind of the individual, the ability to locate the triggered rage in yourself, to find self-knowledge through self-reflection (Jung), to know your own shadow. We rely on public participation to shape our future broadcasts. Please send us your thoughts, feelings or comments through our Contact Us page. Find out more about the ITTMind project and subscribe.

Chrissie Pollard interviews ITT co-founder Previn Karian on how anxiety generates repeating patterns and compulsive or intrusive thoughts in our minds. These patterns can become overwhelming, making cognition and re-framing your thoughts useless. This is because we are dealing with emotions - in anxiety, it is the specific emotion of fear. The difference between internal and external origins of anxiety gives us a handle on how to engage with and confront the emotion of fear in anxiety. Separating what occurs in our minds (internal) from what is triggered in our relationships, family, school, society gives a focal point of where to reduce the emotion of fear. We rely on public participation to shape our future broadcasts. Please send us your thoughts, feelings or comments through our Contact Us page. Find out more about the ITTMind project and subscribe.

Death is a unarguable fact of life from which there is no escape. It's occurrence creates the profoundest anguish, darkness and despair for the human mind.  It occurs in many shapes and forms: from the physical death of bodies to the end of relationships, jobs, or objects and places we are attached to and which then get taken away from us - against our will. Chrissie Pollard interviews Previn Karian on the necessity of grief and grieving in human life, and particularly, in these times. The Kubler-Ross model is revisited alongside a look at the deeper attachment of the mind to love objects that cannot be lost to death - or can they? We rely on public participation to shape our future broadcasts. Please send us your thoughts, feelings or comments through our Contact Us page. Find out more about the ITTMind project and subscribe.

What is the dominant emotion behind suicide? How does it create a state of mind that leads to suicidal ideation or the fatal act of suicide itself? And how do you survive the emotions when someone close to you commits this tragic act? In a sensitive and piercing interview, Chrissie Pollard discusses this difficult subject with psychotherapist and co-founder of ITT Previn Karian. Considered as the extreme end of the Depression spectrum, Karian illuminates the driving emotion and specific state of mind that is then generated. Some responses are considered to break the fatality, along with the guilt of those left alive and picking up the pieces of their lives again. We rely on public participation to shape our future broadcasts. Please send us your thoughts, feelings or comments through our Contact Us page. Find out more about the ITTMind project and subscribe.

Sam Thompson from Survivors UK talks with Chrissie Pollard from ITTMind about the trauma of male sexual abuse. It is estimated that in the UK, 12,000 men are raped every year, and  more than 70,000 are sexually abused and assaulted. We obviously do not know the full extent of unreported figures. There has never been an effective “men’s movement” like feminism which has allowed men the freedom and courage to discuss the struggles of what it means to be a man. And there are very few spaces in which men can discuss the true depths of their depression, or their sexual traumas. Sam helps to walk us through this dark area for so many men.  We rely on public participation to shape our future broadcasts. Please send us your thoughts, feelings or comments through our Contact Us page. Find out more about the ITTMind project and subscribe.

Chrissie Pollard interviews ITT co-founder Previn Karian, developing the brutal honesty which Professor Andrew Samuels presented earlier on the state of therapy. Karian examines why other talking therapies have failed to make any impact on government policy, leaving a "watered down version of CBT" (Samuels) to dominate. Although UK-centric, it is a microcosm of therapy worldwide in relation to government policy. Pollard and Karian discuss possibilities for therapy mobilisation by the public. The scandalous neglect of youth mental health is also addressed. It is merely the beginning of a much needed conversation on access to therapy in government policies across the world. We rely on public participation to shape our future broadcasts. Please send us your thoughts, feelings or comments through our Contact Us page. Find out more about the ITTMind project and subscribe.

Professor Andrew Samuels, author, international political activist, and advisor to governments in the UK and US speaks to Chrissie Pollard about the content and substance behind the claims of CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy), access to talking therapies, and the neglect of youth mental health.  Whilst UK centric, this is a microcosm of problems with government policy in mental health around the world. Co-founder of ITT, Previn Karian has developed some themes here in his Response to Andrew Samuels. We rely on public participation to shape our future broadcasts. Please send us your thoughts, feelings or comments through our Contact Us page. Find out more about the ITTMind project and subscribe.

What is the dominant emotion that drives states of depression? How does this emotion structure our minds into repeating patterns of irritability, mood swings, crashes of highs and lows, explosions of temper and rage? Co-founders Chrissie Pollard and Previn Karian take a look at possibly the biggest mental health diagnosis in populations across the world. We rely on public participation to shape our future broadcasts. Please send us your thoughts, feelings or comments through our Contact Us page. Find out more about the ITTMind project and subscribe.

What is the difference between anxiety and stress? How is the mind structured in anxiety? Co-founders Chrissie Pollard and Previn Karian discuss two key terms that shape repeating patterns of anxiety in our minds. Based on Karian's years of clinical experience, this begins a series on understanding psychological distress states. We rely on public participation to shape our future broadcasts. Please send us your thoughts, feelings or comments through our Contact Us page. Find out more about the ITTMind project and subscribe.

What makes a good counsellor or therapist? When do you need to see one? What do you do if you struggle with funding? Co-founders of ITTMind, Chrissie Pollard and Previn Karian, discuss your options to find the right psychological help for you. We rely on public participation to shape our future broadcasts. Please send us your thoughts, feelings or comments through our Contact Us page. Find out more about the ITTMind project and subscribe.

Your chance to participate, ask questions, and shape future content for mental health broadcasting across multi-platform podcast and YouTube channels. The original goals, objectives and vision from the co-founders, bringing mental health debates into the public domain with experts in the field and survivors of mental health. We rely on public participation to shape our future broadcasts. Please send us your thoughts, feelings or comments through our Contact Us page. Find out more about the ITTMind project and subscribe.