Conversations with Annalisa Barbieri

I am not a fan of the saying “let’s agree to disagree”, it can be so passive aggressive. But it’s the title of Gabrielle Rifkind’s new book and maybe this pass-agg comment deserves an upgrade. Regular listeners may remember Gabrielle from a podcast we did four years ago called The Delicate Art of Managing Differences. The world has - sadly - become ever more fractured, which trickles down to our every day relationships so who better to get to help us navigate these schisms than Gabrielle who, as well as being a psychotherapist is the founder and director of The Oxford Process, which is a conflict resolution organisation. She’s also an expert in human conflict, and, as a mediator, often goes into war torn areas to reduce tension between warring parties. She’s worked in the Middle East, Asia and Europe. But as we’ll hear she’s not always great at managing conflict in every day life - as she is human!In this episode we talk about why you can’t agree with everyone, or - annoyingly - get everyone to agree with you. How to manage tricky family or social situations where you’re with someone with really opposing views.Why that’s not necessary to be friends with someone, or even particularly like them. I know that sometimes I find myself feeling contaminated even just talking to someone with really opposing views, almost as if I’m complicit simply by listening.We also discuss how to stop a disagreement turning into an argument. And we look at what’s at the heart of most people’s disagreements and need for harmony.This episode gave me a lot of food for thought and I hope it provides that for you, too.If you'd like to listen to this episode, past or future ones, ad free then consider becoming a Substacker: https://pocketannalisa.substack.com/. From £5 a month or £50 (2025 rates) a year you'll get access to all new podcasts as soon as they are available and before general release and ad-free.You can also support us by sharing this podcast far and wide, it's available wherever you listen to your podcasts. And leaving a review if you can. Thank you so much.Produced by Hester Cant. Art work by Lo Cole. Music by Toby Dunham.

This episode was not easy to name. The subject is highly topical, but the take on it is original and thought-provoking. Alessandra has written her 25th book: ‘Psychotechnical Becomings: Psychoanalysis, Identity, Desire and Mourning in Times of AI and Digital Mediation’. It looks at how technology shapes us, and has changed the way we interact with each other; from being able to tolerate differences and disagreements, to sex and mourning. We look for a frictionless life but is that possible, or even desirable (spoiler alert: no and no)?This the most ground-breaking podcast I’ve done. And Alessandra’s book will really make you look again at what technology gives but what it also takes away. It’s not a ‘tech is bad’ approach but it will make you really think about who we are and who we’re all becoming.If you'd like to listen to this episode, past or future ones, ad free then consider becoming a Substacker: https://pocketannalisa.substack.com/. From £5 a month or £50 (2025 rates) a year you'll get access to all new podcasts as soon as they are available and before general release and ad-free.You can also support us by sharing this podcast far and wide, it's available wherever you listen to your podcasts. And leaving a review if you can. Thank you so much.Produced by Hester Cant. Art work by Lo Cole. Music by Toby Dunham.

In this episode I’m in conversation with David Robson. David is an award winning science writer and author of three books, one of which The Laws of Connection, we really delve into here. David graduated from Cambridge university with a maths degree, has worked as features editor at the New Scientist, was a senior journalist at BBC Future and his work has appeared in various newspapers and journals such as The Guardian and The Atlantic.Loneliness isn’t just a psychological or mental state, it can and does affect our physical state: it’s as bad for our health as smoking. Loneliness can increase the risk of early mortality by a whopping 26%, in part because of the stress associated with feeling lonely. Of course, being alone doesn’t have to equate with feeling lonely and that’s an important distinction to make but studies show that at some point or other, pretty much half of us will report feeling lonely at some time or other with 7% *of the population feeling loneliness pretty much all the time.If you'd like to listen to this episode, past or future ones, ad free then consider becoming a Substacker: https://pocketannalisa.substack.com/. From £5 a month or £50 (2025 rates) a year you'll get access to all new podcasts as soon as they are available and before general release and ad-free.You can also support us by sharing this podcast far and wide, it's available wherever you listen to your podcasts. And leaving a review if you can. Thank you so much.Produced by Hester Cant. Art work by Lo Cole. Music by Toby Dunham.

Dr Sophie Behrman is a is a general adult psychiatrist and works in a community mental health team in Oxford. She’s set up an NHS menopause and menstrual disorders clinic, open to women who fit a certain criteria. She’s also edited a book called “Menopause, Menstrual Cycles and Mental Health” which is published by Cambridge University Press in June 2026. In the last series Sophie and I talked about the menopause and its impact on a woman’s brain and in this one we are talking about how the menstrual cycle, and the fluctuation of hormones can affect us physiologically. We also discuss PMS (premenstrual syndome); PMOS (polyendocrine metabolic ovarian syndrome, what was known as PCOS, polycystic ovary syndrome); PMDD (premenstrual dysphoric disorder), and endometriosis. Some useful links:Sophie’s book.The International Association of Premenstrual Disorders.The PMDD Project.If you'd like to listen to this episode, past or future ones, ad free then consider becoming a Substacker: https://pocketannalisa.substack.com/. From £5 a month or £50 (2025 rates) a year you'll get access to all new podcasts as soon as they are available and before general release and ad-free.You can also support us by sharing this podcast far and wide, it's available wherever you listen to your podcasts. And leaving a review if you can. Thank you so much.Produced by Hester Cant. Art work by Lo Cole. Music by Toby Dunham.

I first came across the concept of dissociation when I saw a film called Sybil starring Sally Field and Joanne Woodward. It was about a young woman with multiple personalities. Sybil would dissociate and her various personalities would take over. I’ve since come to realise dissociation can take place as part of the trauma response. Here I'm in conversation with Dr Joanne Stubley who is a consultant psychiatrist in psychotherapy with years of experience in the mental health field. She leads the adult section of the trauma service at the NHS Tavistock Centre and is a member of the British Psychoanalytic Society. Jo and I have spoken over quite a few podcasts and a really good companion episode to this one would be the one we did on Trauma. In this episode Jo and I talk about what dissociation is and how it’s very different to dissassociation. We discuss why it happens - how it’s the brain trying to protect us from highly traumatic events. Dissociation, like many things, is on a spectrum from the every day when we can all zone out, to the very much more serious and complex resulting from severe trauma: dissociative identity disorder or DID which is what the film Sybil was about - and what used to be known as multiple personality disorder.  We also talk about what to do if you suffer from this, with some good grounding techniques.  If you'd like to listen to this episode, past or future ones, ad free then consider becoming a Substacker: https://pocketannalisa.substack.com/. From £5 a month or £50 (2025 rates) a year you'll get access to all new podcasts as soon as they are available and before general release and ad-free.You can also support us by sharing this podcast far and wide, it's available wherever you listen to your podcasts. And leaving a review if you can. Thank you so much.Produced by Hester Cant. Art work by Lo Cole. Music by Toby Dunham.

Daisy Fancourt is a professor of psychobiology and epidemiology and head of the Social Biobehavioural research group at University College London. She has a Phd in psycho-neuroimmunology and is also director of the World Health Organisation’s Collaborating Centre on Arts and Health, as well as a member of it’s technical advisory group on cultural and behavioural insights on health. Daisy led the award wining Covid 19 social study which was the UK’s largest study into the psychological and social impact of the virus.Daisy has written three books and Art Cure is her latest one. I was so impressed by this book that it’s one of very few books that I have in hard copy, audio and kindle format. In her work on NHS wards, Daisy saw something: how the arts could influence people’s well being. So she went on to study neuroscience to prove the science to what she was seeing.Her book, and this podcast isn’t just about art as we may understand it (ie not just looking at paintings). What we’re talking about really is creativity, imagination and curiosity and how to fire that up and engage that in ourselves and others and why it matters and how it can impact our health. Warning: it will make you very angry at all the cuts to the arts we see, as if the arts isn’t important and is a fluffy add on. As we’ll see it’s actually really important and vital. As Daisy says in a piece for the New Scientist: ”…if a drug had the same catalogue of benefits as the arts, we’d be telling everyone about it, fighting to get our hands on it, paying premium prices, taking it religiously every day, investing billions into further research and development." If you'd like to listen to this episode, past or future ones, ad free then consider becoming a Substacker: https://pocketannalisa.substack.com/. From £5 a month or £50 (2025 rates) a year you'll get access to all new podcasts as soon as they are available and before general release and ad-free.You can also support us by sharing this podcast far and wide, it's available wherever you listen to your podcasts. And leaving a review if you can. Thank you so much.Produced by Hester Cant. Art work by Lo Cole. Music by Toby Dunham.

I’m very pleased to see the menopause is being discussed more that it ever was. It does, after all, potentially affect a great many of us: directly and by proxy.About fifteen years ago, I wanted to write an article for the Guardian about it but kept hitting not so much brick walls as cul de sacs. The questions I was asking kept coming back with “we don’t really know” answers. As you’ll see from this podcast there are still a lot of unknowns. But what I do talk about in this episode on the Menopause brain with Dr Sophie Behrman is about what we do know is happening in the brain: the rewiring that goes on that can make women feel unsure and anxious, the effects of dropping levels of hormones and the subsequent effect on the GABA and glutamate system of the brain.Sophie is a general adult psychiatrist who works in a community mental health team in Oxford and has set up an NHS menopause and menstrual disorders clinic, open to women who fit a certain criteria. Sophie is a member of the Royal College of Psychiatrists’ Menopause Working party and is currently doing research into suicidality and the perimenopause. She’s also edited a book for the Royal College of Psychiatrists called “Menopause, Menstrual Cycles and Mental Health” which will be published by Cambridge University Press in 2026. Do look out for it.Thanks again to Emily Tammam for the idea for this podcast and the introduction to Dr Sophie Behrman.If you'd like to listen to this episode, past or future ones, ad free then consider becoming a Substacker: https://pocketannalisa.substack.com/. From £5 a month or £50 (2025 rates) a year you'll get access to all new podcasts as soon as they are available and before general release and ad-free.You can also support us by sharing this podcast far and wide, it's available wherever you listen to your podcasts. And leaving a review if you can. Thank you so much.Produced by Hester Cant. Art work by Lo Cole. Music by Toby Dunham.

In the spring of 2020, I got a letter. It was, quite possibly, the worse letter I’ve ever got and I’ve had a few. It was full of bile and unhappiness, unfair and harsh. I recognised immediately that the letter writer was talking about herself and projecting onto me but that didn’t stop it hurting because I realised in that moment that the letter writer would never accept responsibility for her own behaviour and always make it someone else’s fault: primarily mine. So I decided to move out of her way so that, hopefully, her beam of dissatisfaction with life could be aimed elsewhere. Projection is a defence mechanism. It’s used when people cannot bear certain aspects of themselves and project them onto others. We all do it to a degree (none of us is perfect!) but some people do it habitually and without ever looking at their own place in things. It’s the subject of this podcast where I talk to psychotherapist Ryan Bennett-Clarke about what exactly it is, how to recognise it and how to deflect it so that each person deals with their own behaviour. If you’ve ever left a meeting with someone feeling utterly drained and crap about yourself the chances are that person is projecting something not-positive onto you. You’re going to love this podcast, and I hope you find it fabulously useful in every day life.If you'd like to listen to this episode, past or future ones, ad free then consider becoming a Substacker: https://pocketannalisa.substack.com/. From £5 a month or £50 (2025 rates) a year you'll get access to all new podcasts as soon as they are available and before general release and ad-free.You can also support us by sharing this podcast far and wide, it's available wherever you listen to your podcasts. And leaving a review if you can. Thank you so much.Produced by Hester Cant. Art work by Lo Cole. Music by Toby Dunham.

Claudia Hammond is an award-winning author and broadcaster. Listeners may recognise her name and voice from her Radio Four programme All in the Mind, or Health Check on the BBC’s World Service. Claudia is Radio’s Four ‘voice of psychology’ and Visiting Professor Of The Public Understanding of Psychology at the University of Sussex.Claudia’s sixth book is Overwhelmed, Ways to Take The Pressure Off which came out in January 2026. Side note that there’s also an audio book narrated by Claudia which is beautiful to listen to.So what’s the book, and this podcast, about? It’s for those of us who have too many browser windows open in our heads, a feeling I’m sure many of us will identify with. Are To-Do lists a good idea? Why is rest important? How much doom-scrolling is permissible is okay? What can you do if you feel overwhelmed (isn’t that all of us at some point?).Claudia brings lots of (fascinating) evidence based research to help us develop very practical strategies on how to maybe close some of those browser windows, or at least ignore them for a bit.This is the last episode in Series 11. Series 12 will come out in the spring and we’ve already started recording and I’m very excited about it!If you'd like to listen to this episode, past or future ones, ad free then consider becoming a Substacker: https://pocketannalisa.substack.com/. From £5 a month or £50 (2025 rates) a year you'll get access to all new podcasts as soon as they are available and before general release and ad-free.You can also support us by sharing this podcast far and wide, it's available wherever you listen to your podcasts. And leaving a review if you can. Thank you so much.Produced by Hester Cant. Art work by Lo Cole. Music by Toby Dunham.