VR WOMEN focusses on female voices exploring virtual reality. Find out more at: www.vr-women.com
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Julia Bruton Podcasts
Have you ever wanted X-ray specs into human behaviour? Then this is the podcast for you. Listen to ‘brilliant, insightful and wise’ agony aunt and journalist Annalisa Barbieri, as she releases exclusive conversations between her and the trusted specialists she’s consulted over the years, who put a life time’s learning into each conversation. Every week you can learn more about yourself and the people around you. Series 10 launched 1 September 2025. Make a one off donation: https://supporter. ...
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As the years have gone by I've noticed a real shift in the sort of problems I get and friendship is a subject which is rearing its head again and again now. From young people to old the question is: how do I make friends? Making friends at school may not seem natural but you are forced together with others of the same age, giving you a natural pool…
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The sibling podcast in series one remains the most listened to of all the Conversations with Annalisa Barbieri podcasts. So it seemed only right to re-visit this with a Sibling 2.0 episode. In this episode I’m in conversation with award winning radio presenter, producer and author, Catherine Carr. She’s writing a book about siblings to be published…
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#17 - Dagmar Schürrer and Mariam Rafehi: How can the Aurora School for Artists and the Immersive Technology Hub help you with your VR projects?
26:21
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26:21VR Women meets with Dagmar Schürrer from the Aurora School of Artists (https://aurora.htw-berlin.de/en/current/) and Mariam Rafehi from the Immersive Technology Hub (https://projekte.htw-berlin.de/hochschule/immersive-technologies-hub/). We talk about the possibilities Berliners have in getting support for their VR projects, and about their ideas a…
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Facing Adversity with Professor Lucy Easthope
56:42
56:42
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56:42In this episode Lucy and I discuss how to do hard things, such as face adversity. Much as we all like to believe in an Enid Blyton [insert whichever imaginary world brought you comfort as a child] world the reality is often very different. We talk about Professor Lucy Easthope's new book: Come What May, Life-Changing Lessons for Coping with Crisis …
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Should I have a(nother) baby? with psychotherapist Julia Bueno
41:33
41:33
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41:33Welcome back! This is episode 1 of Series 10. Here I'm in conversation with UKCP registered psychotherapist and author Julia Bueno (who joined us in Series 4 talking about the Inner Critic, so do have a listen to that one, too). I get a lot of letters asking either 'should I have a/nother baby' full stop or 'I want one/another one but my partner do…
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#16 - Ana Monte: How does spatial audio influence our awareness of presence in VR?
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30:32Ana Monte is a sound designer and co-founder of Delta Soundworks (https://www.deltasoundworks.com/) - among many other things. She shares her insights on working with spatial audio and speaks openly about the situation of the ratio of women in the field of audio (which is currently at 7%) and what we can do to change that. Knowing how audio has thi…
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Womb Life. Life before we are born with psychotherapist Graham Music
56:58
56:58
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56:58This podcast was inspired by Graham Music's book of the same name, Womb Life which is the best book on pregnancy I've ever read. Graham and I talk about the secret life of twins in the womb and how their observed behaviour (via ultra sound) can translate to life outside the womb, too. Why did one little boy shake all his toys? What was he looking f…
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The Parentified Child with psychotherapist Lisa Bruton
36:29
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36:29In this, the penultimate episode of Series 9, I talk to UKCP accredited psychotherapist Lisa Bruton who is also a guest tutor at the University of Oxford. We talk about the Parentified Child. Which is? A child who has been given too much responsibility - either physical or emotional - too young. The impact of this is interesting. Do you often find …
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Hope and Loss with psychologist and psychoanalyst Dr Stephen Blumenthal
50:09
50:09
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50:09In this episode, an idea suggested by my conversationalist, clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst Dr Stephen Blumenthal, we explore the big, painful emotion of loss. We tend to body swerve feeling or thinking about loss, and who can blame us? It hurts, it’s horrible. But loss is essential to growth - think of a snake shedding its skin. In order t…
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Retirement: should you, could you? From a psychological POV with psychotherapist Chris Mills
44:56
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44:56Increasingly I get asked this question a lot in my Guardian column. Not from a financial POV but the 'should I retire and what will life be like afterwards?' question. Welcome to episode 3 in this series. It's all about a word that has rather negative associations- retirement - but after listening to this hopefully you'll look at it differently. On…
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#15 - Lara Rohde on creating a safe space in VR to explore the topic of menstruation for a younger audience
19:33
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19:33Lara Rohde recently graduated with the VR project "Planet Puberty Menstruation" which aims at a younger audience (6 - 20 years). It just won the XR Science Award 2024. In episode 15 we talk about the challenges and advantages VR presents to the audience when creating a world around a topic like menstruation. Especially when it provokes shame in oth…
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Should We Move? With psychotherapist Mark Vahrmeyer
45:44
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45:44Welcome to episode 2 of Series 9 (Series 9 will be released sporadically). Should We Move? This has always been a question I've been asked a lot via my Guardian column (and in real life) but after the pandemic it was a question that reached, dare I say it, epidemic proportions. It's a simple enough question but the reasoning behind it can really te…
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Body Image, with Professor Alessandra Lemma, chartered clinical and counselling psychologist and psychoanalyst.
50:54
50:54
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50:54I'd been wanting to do this podcast for a while. Professor Alessandra Lemma is one of the most experienced, and insightful, specialists I work with. Every word she shares is a gem. But Pr Lemma's diary is packed and so this took a while to organise. I hope you think it was worth it. The idea for this episode - the first in Series 9 - came to me las…
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A Problem In the Family (and navigating CAMHS) with psychotherapist John Cavanagh
1:10:34
1:10:34
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1:10:34This is the last episode, episode six, in Series 8 and in it I talk to UKCP registered family and systemic psychotherapist and John Cavanagh who is also a registered mental health nurse. John specialises in child and adolescent mental health. Often children will manifest with a mental health problem that is indicative of what's going on in the fami…
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Family Estrangement with Psychotherapist Chris Mills
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50:50Very early on in my career as The Guardian's Agony Aunt the letters started coming in about family estrangements - the "should I cut X out of my life" style questions. Back then, cutting a family member out was anathema to me but over the years, i came to understand why some people sought it out. The thing is, cutting someone out is rarely the end …
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Attachment with psychotherapist Dr Graham Music
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55:18
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55:18What is attachment and how does attachment theory different from the primary real-life attachment we learnt as babies? The two often get confused. In this episode I talk to child, adolescent and adult psychotherapist Dr Graham Music who has been described as "one of the most deep thinking child psychotherapists in the world." We talk about these di…
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#14 - Celine Tricart: The differences between creating VR experiences or VR games and what is important for a female audience
37:43
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37:43Celine Tricart is been creating and producing in VR for many years; together with her co-founder Marie Blondiaux she started we are coven. Her VR experiences like „The Key“ or „Fight Back“ were invited to many festivals around the globe. Now she dives into the world of gaming with the VR game „Masters of Light“. VR Women talks with her about the di…
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Forensic Psychotherapy with clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst Dr Stephen Blumenthal
55:44
55:44
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55:44Forensic psychotherapy is psychotherapy with people who have committed criminal offences. In this episode I talk with clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst Dr Stephen Blumenthal who is registered with the British Psychoanalytic Council and has over thirty years experience in treating people. Stephen started his professional life as a clinical psy…
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Self-sabotage with psychotherapist Ryan Bennett-Clarke
53:38
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53:38Did you know that procrastination, risky behaviour, blaming others and even infidelity may be a sign of self-sabotage? There are a host of other symptoms, too. In this, episode 2 or Series 8, I discuss with psychotherapist Ryan Bennett-Clarke why we might self sabotage, what it tells us about ourselves and of course, what we can do about it. If you…
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Baby Loss with Professor Lucy Easthope
1:06:04
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1:06:04Welcome to series 8 of Conversations with Annalisa Barbieri. This episode was Professor Lucy Easthope's idea as it’s something she really wanted to talk about and I’m honoured she has trusted me with this delicate subject. In this episode Lucy talks openly about her very personal five baby losses by miscarriage. Lucy is Professor of Practice of Ris…
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#13 - Jacki Morie - On meaningful VR experiences and the question if women are predestined for Virtual Reality
40:21
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40:21Dr. Jacquelyn Ford Morie - or as the VR community also knows her - Jacki Morie is one of THE pioneers in VR. For three decades she has been creating and researching in the field of Virtual Reality focusing on meaningful personal experiences. At www.morie.org you can find out more about the vast amount of influence Jacki had and still has on the com…
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#12 - Deirdre V. Lyons and Whitton Frank: Why acting in VR is different and how to get something going together in Virtual Reality
34:04
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34:04This time VR women has two guests for the first time - Deirdre V. Lyons and Whitton Frank - both founders of the ferryman collective: https://www.ferrymancollective.com/. Together they create and execute live immersive narratives in VR and tell us, how that does not only change the way of production, but also how the medium of VR lets one get in to…
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#11 - Paula Strunden: The question of embodiment or disembodiment and how not using a controller can give you more freedom in XR
44:34
44:34
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44:34Paula Strunden is an architectural designer and a researcher in XR. Her work focuses on the possibilities of how binaries can be dissolved in XR, what exactly embodiment and disembodiment can mean and how you can be so much more free in XR without having to hold a controller in your hands all the time. On the platform www.xr-atlas.org she collects …
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Birth Trauma with Kim Thomas, journalist and CEO of The Birth Trauma Association
51:56
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51:56This is the final episode in Series 7. It's about birth trauma and I speak with journalist, author and CEO of The BTA, Kim Thomas. We talk about what birth trauma is, what can cause it (we do not go into graphic detail), how it can manifest and how to get help. We discuss the difference between Post Natal Depression and Post Traumatic Stress Disord…
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Envy with psychotherapist Ryan Bennett-Clarke
56:46
56:46
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56:46Interviewing Ryan Bennett-Clarke for my Guardian column - about something else entirely - we got talking about envy. And what he had to say fair blew my mind. What is envy? How does it differ from jealously? Where does it come from and how does it manifest? If you've ever left a person feeling like little bits of you have been taken away, well envy…
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Unresolved Grief (adults bereaved in childhood) with psychotherapist Mandy Gosling
48:21
48:21
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48:21Although unresolved grief can hit us at any stage in our lives, this episode specifically talks about childhood bereavement and the impact it can have on adulthood. My guest is UKCP and BACP registered psychotherapist and researcher Mandy Gosling who, as we shall hear, has personal experience of early bereavement. An early bereavement can lodge - i…
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Shame with clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst Dr Stephen Blumenthal
44:18
44:18
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44:18Dr Stephen Blumenthal returns (catch him in Series 2 talking about Intimacy and Trust in Series 5) and this time we're talking about shame. What it is, how it differs to humiliation and embarrassment or even guilt. Shame can make people act differently - either because they are avoiding shame or trying to cover up the shame they already feel. Where…
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Why You Can Never Plan Too Much with Professor Lucy Easthope
59:16
59:16
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59:16Professor Lucy Easthope is a UK expert and advisor on emergency planning and disaster recover. A world authority on recovery and disaster planning and its aftermath. She’s Professor of Practice of Risk and Hazard at the university of Durham and a professor in Mass Fatalities at the university of Bath. Lucy studied law at university and has a master…
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Where to Die (Home, Hospice, Care Home or Hospital) with Dr Kathryn Mannix
1:13:04
1:13:04
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1:13:04Where to die? Not everyone gets that choice but you or a loved one might and that choice may be to go home from a hospice or hospital or care home, or go into one. In this sensitively handled but hugely informative episode, I talk again to Dr Kathryn Mannix, palliative care doctor and author of two excellent books: With the End in Mind and Listen. …
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#10 - Natasha Greenhalgh: Creating physical spaces to unite new media technology
29:41
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29:41In Episode 10 VR Women meets Natasha Greenhalgh in Amsterdam. Natasha talks with us about her background, what she believes is needed for women in the immersive arts and new media technologies nowadays and how she started Nxt Museum (https://nxtmuseum.com/) together with her business partner Merel van Helsdingen. Find out more at: https://www.vr-wo…
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#9 - Anil Altas Brug: Digital mindfulness and why we should be bold to experiment
30:14
30:14
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30:14Anil Altas Brug comes from marketing. She got into VR around 2016 and co-founded her own agency Turboslow Web3. She combines her work in new technological areas with her believe in digital mindfulness and a need to experiment. Find out more at: https://www.vr-women.comBy Julia Bruton
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#8 - Deepa Mann-Kler: Humanity first - then comes the technology
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32:21As CEO of NEON and creator of many VR pieces VR Women dives deep with Deepa Mann-Kler in this episode into the the connection of art, technology and the importance of humanity in all of it. Find out more about Deepa and her work here: https://www.discoverneon.com/ Find out more at: https://www.vr-women.com…
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#7 - Michaela Pnacekova: Expressing a feminine voice in research
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31:01Michaela Pnacekova is an XR maker, a technologist and a researcher. She talks with us about her current research work in the field of facial expressions and analysis of emotions. Will the future hold better understanding of emotions for us in VR or might it be more restricted? You can find more about Michaela's work here: https://michaelapnacekova.…
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What makes a 'real' relationship with psychotherapist Joanna Harrison
43:28
43:28
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43:28Not what makes a relationship real vs fantasy or made up, but the nubbins of relationships, the reality. Many people seem unprepared for what a real relationship looks and feels like, and this might be because of how they are portrayed on TV and on social media where many times it's only the polar opposites which are show: either people talking abo…
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Managing the In-Laws with psychotherapist Hannah Sherbersky
56:06
56:06
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56:06The in-laws, long the butt of jokes but in reality rich fodder for my Guardian mail bag. Of course, none of us think of ourselves as troublesome in-laws, but maybe we are? In this episode I talk to psychotherapist and CEO of the association for family therapy and systemic practise. Hannah has been a family and couples psychotherapist who has worked…
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Difficult Conversations Around Suicide with consultant psychiatrist in psychotherapy Dr Jo Stubley
1:05:40
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1:05:40Talking about suicide is never easy, yet it's essential. In this difficult episode both Dr Stubley and I bring personal experiences to the conversation in the hope that it might facilitate your own conversations. Dr Jo Stubley is a consultant psychiatrist in psychotherapy and leads the adult section of the trauma service at the NHS Tavistock Centre…
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The Psychology of Money with psychotherapist Chris Mills
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40:45Why do some people find it so hard to talk about money? And whilst it's not a romantic thing to bring up it's absolutely essential if you're thinking of buying a property with someone or moving in with someone. As Chris says if it's difficult to bring up at the beginning of the relationship it's a whole lot harder to bring up at the end when things…
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How to Help Siblings of Brothers and Sisters with Additional Needs with Linda Owen, Information Officer for the charity Sibs
45:53
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45:53Sibs is a charity which supports children and adults who grow up with a brother or sister with additional needs or a long term health condition. And Linda Owen is the rather brilliant, compassionate and informed (aptly) Information Officer for Sibs. A lot of the advice Linda gives can also be applied in a family which doesn’t have a child with thes…
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Everyone's a Narcissist (apparently) with psychotherapist Mark Vahrmeyer
1:02:48
1:02:48
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1:02:48Welcome to episode 1 of Series 6 A good few years ago, I started becoming aware of a term I'd hitherto not really heard much before, outside of my classics lessons: narcissism. Aside from all the s's making it hard to pronounce, I started to notice that it became a catch-all for anyone who was selfish, self centred or vain. Everyone, it seemed, was…
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#6 - Siza Mukwedini: Empowering women in VR in Zimbabwe
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20:28
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20:28Siza Mukwedini started Matamba Film Labs for women in Harare / Zimbabwe, where she offers training in the field of VR for women. She talks with us about the challenges that she faces in a patriarchal society to create a safe space for women, where they can thrive and tell African stories the way they want to. Find more out at: https://matambafilmla…
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#5 - Tanja Kojic: Research in academia and the question of emotions
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40:05In episode 5 Tanja Kojic talks to us about her research in academia for VR and XR at the quality and usability Lab in Berlin (https://www.tu.berlin/qu), her focus on user experience and how something can feel in VR. And she answers the question: Is coding a necessity for VR? Find out more at: https://www.vr-women.com…
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Understanding Toddlers with child psychotherapist Rachel Melville-Thomas
1:06:18
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1:06:18A lot of people struggle with the toddler stage. Where have their lovely, compliant babies gone? I think it's got worse the later we leave parenthood and the more used we are to living in a world where we're (maybe) used to people doing as we ask. Toddlers don't give a damn about all that, and thank goodness. But it's not because they are difficult…
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Planning a Good Funeral with progressive funeral director Louise Winter
1:00:58
1:00:58
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1:00:58This is not a subject many of us discuss is it? Birth plans, maybe, weddings, definitely, but we will all die and we all need a send off, however small and modest. This episode isn't really about planning your own funeral, although it can be of course (but as we'll see, don't be too prescriptive) but it's more that this potentially distressing subj…
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The Mechanics of Birth with Lead Research Midwife Amy Sutton Cole
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54:33
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54:33The way labour and birth is depicted on film and TV has bugged me for some years and, I think, does little to make women feel empowered. This episode isn't about how or where to give birth - that's your choice - but we do talk about what happens in an uncomplicated vaginal birth. Amy is the Lead Research Midwife in the Department of Obstetrics and …
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A Question of Trust with psychoanalyst Dr Stephen Blumenthal
41:13
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41:13This is our first listener requested episode. "Joanne" (not her real name) asked us if we could do an episode on trust, after her husband had an affair. Although Joanne asked some specific questions ("how do I get the trust back/is it good to talk about it"), Dr Blumenthal and I discuss this but also what trust is at its core, beyond romantic relat…
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Talking about Rape and Sexual Assault with SARSVL CEO Katie Russell
52:16
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52:16This is a difficult subject, but an important one. I still get letters from people unsure whether they've been the survivor of sexual violence. My guest is Katie Russell, former media officer for Rape Crisis and now CEO of Support After Rape and Sexual Violence Leeds (SARSVL). Katie is a specialist in sexual violence and abuse against women and gir…
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What It Means To Belong with psychotherapist Mark Vahrmeyer
43:25
43:25
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43:25What does it mean to belong? What does it feel like? And does it even matter? I started asking myself this a few years ago, possibly because, as a child of immigrants, I wasn't sure I ever felt like I truly, 100%, ever belonged in any one place. But, does anyone? My specialist, for this episode, Mark Vahrmeyer is a UKCP registered integrative psych…
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#4 - Cathline Smoos: Sexology in VR and how it can help to raise intimacy
37:54
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37:54Cathline Smoos is a French psychologist and sexologist searching for means in VR to improve intimacy and human interactions. Her project https://www.imbuevr.com is for couples who are in for something new. We talk about how VR can help if you are in a long distance relationship, why a striptease of monsters is more alluring in VR than on a flat scr…
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An Introduction to Sex with specialist in sexology Silva Neves
41:59
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41:59Despite the plethora of information that's now available about sex, across so many mediums, it's still astonishing the misinformation that's spread on sex and the sexual organs. This is likely due to two factors: the adults in children's lives being too embarrassed or falsehoods spread around playgrounds and classrooms by children and young teens w…
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If you've even been near a baby, let alone had one, you've probably heard of baby-led weaning, the idea that babies don't need to have puree laden spoons shovelled into their mouths, but are perfectly capable of feeding themselves. Even choosing their own foods from a pre-prepared selection. Gasp. In this episode I talk to Gill Rapley, whom I first…
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