What is the real difference between a psychopath, a sociopath, and antisocial personality disorder? In this episode, I respond to Dr. Ramani's claim that "psychopaths are born and sociopaths are made" and explain why that framing is far too simplistic. I also explain why cold psychopaths unsettle us so much and how antisocial personality disorder fits into this.    

In this episode, I break down the red flags of narcissism in women and why female narcissism is often much harder to recognize than male narcissism. Women are taught from very early on to speak the language of empathy, compassion, healing, boundaries, emotional safety and self-awareness. But that does not necessarily mean the underlying personality is agreeable, sacrificial or kind. In many cases, the narcissism is simply cloaked differently.   Subscribe on Substack to support my work and join our exclusive LIve and Google meets!

Postpartum depression is real, and in some cases it can be severe and even dangerous. Mothers who are struggling deserve compassion, support, and proper care. But what happens when a normal, difficult transition into motherhood increasingly becomes viewed through the lens of pathology? In this episode, I explore the rise of postpartum depression as a cultural phenomenon, the expansion of screening and diagnosis, and whether we are sometimes pathologizing experiences that previous generations understood differently. I also examine the role of feminism, women's media, and modern therapeutic culture in shaping how women anticipate and experience motherhood. Sponsor: Get 15% off OneSkin with the code HANNAH at https://www.oneskin.co/HANNAH #oneskinpod Chapters: 00:00 Coming Up 00:14 Motherhood as a Risk State 01:35 The Rise of Postpartum Depression 02:37 From Motherhood to Pathology 03:02 Screening Mothers Everywhere 04:16 The Baby Blues vs Postpartum Depression 05:03 What the Data Actually Shows 06:54 Why Diagnoses Feel Validating 07:49 Anticipating Illness and Self-Fulfilling Prophecies 08:24 How Women's Media Shapes Expectations 08:48 "Women's Magazines Don't Just Report It, They Stage It" 10:03 The Isolation of Modern Mothers 11:47 Does Feminism Really Care About Mothers? 12:35 Final Thoughts

Is feminism really a movement for equality or could it be something else entirely? Evolutionary psychologist Dr Dani Sulikowski joins me to discuss if feminism may be best understood as a form of intrasexual competition between women. Let me know what you think in the comments. Follow Dr. Dani Sulikowski: https://x.com/DrDaniS  https://substack.com/@drdanis CHAPTERS: 01:05 Feminism as a form of female competition 02:02 How feminism suppresses female reproductive success 03:07 The attack on attractiveness and femininity 04:22 Body positivity and competitive strategies 04:39 "Feminism was always intersexual competition" 05:05 Was feminism ever about motherhood? 06:09 Ancient Rome and declining birth rates 07:43 My challenge: is this really about resentment? 09:40 Why feminism targets desirable men 12:33 "It's not suicidal empathy, it's homicidal virtue signalling" 21:56 Feminist mothers and transing children 29:35 Activism, status, and moral superiority 32:32 Competitive strategies vs evolutionary adaptations 33:35 The attack on masculinity and femininity 39:15 Does this theory remove female agency? 58:30 Final reflections 01:00:32 "That wasn't the answer I was hoping for"

In this episode, I look at the mechanisms behind female grievance culture: externalizing blame, turning victimhood into identity, and rewarding antagonism through therapy-speak and social media. I argue that when ordinary disappointment is constantly translated into harm, trauma, invalidation, gaslighting or exploitation, this prevents maturation. When they are trained to scan for injury, keep score, and treat gratitude or accommodation as weakness, relationships are doomed to fail. Want to listen ad-free? Go to Substack: https://hannahspier.substack.com/p/71-the-3-mechanisms-behind-female 00:32 The mechanisms behind female grievance culture 01:31 Marriage, fertility and adult adjustment 02:26 How motherhood became framed as burden 02:56 Mechanism 1: Externalizing blame 04:27 Mechanism 2: Victimhood and suspicion 05:13 Mental load and the grievance lens 06:37 Are fathers really doing less? 07:28 Marriage as a zero-sum game 08:12 The burdens fathers carry 09:20 Interpersonal victimhood and personality 10:23 When grievance becomes identity 11:02 Mechanism 3: Rewarded antagonism 12:05 Why suspicion is treated as intelligence 13:32 Female venting, validation and social media 14:47 Therapy-speak and the female psyche 16:36 The three mechanisms together 17:28 What feminist wellbeing research misses

For decades, feminist literature has claimed that feminist identification is associated with better psychological well-being in women. But what exactly was being measured and did those measures tell us anything serious about women's adjustment to adult life? In this episode, I look at the gap between self-reported empowerment and broader indicators of functioning: marriage, fertility, divorce, emotional regulation, and the rise of late mental-health labels among adult women. I also trace how feminist ideas moved from academia into popular psychology, advertising, music, television, and social media , shaping how women were taught to interpret frustration, dependence, men, marriage, and motherhood. Chapters: 00:00 Feminism and female psychological health 00:40 What the studies actually measured 02:14 Assertiveness, empowerment, and anger 04:02 Functioning versus feeling empowered 05:17 The indicators of women's adjustment to adult life 06:29 Marriage, fertility, divorce, and mental-health labels 08:53 The feminist narrative push 09:51 Early feminist literature and marriage as exploitation 10:49 Advertising, independence, and female self-possession 11:32 Media portrayals of men, fathers, and marriage 13:35 Sisterhood, resentment, and female loyalty 15:28 Music, ridicule, and the female psyche 16:33 Why these messages reach girls early 17:06 The influence of feminist academia 18:48 Popular psychology and female grievance 19:32 From pendulum to freight train 20:11 Modern feminism, 4B, and decentering men 21:43 Social media and the divorce reflex 22:09 Grievance as a psychological orientation 22:50 What comes next: the psychological mechanisms Want to listen ad-free? Subscribe on Substack and get the epsiode straight to you inbox without any ads! https://hannahspier.substack.com/

Prevention matters because once these patterns are learned, they are extremely difficult to undo. I am not convinced we can confidently call them curable. This is a practical look at what could make a difference, first at the individual-level, and then at a societal level. Listen to ad-free epsiodes of Psychobabble by subscribing on Substack! Chapters:  00:00 The Missing Piece: Prevention 00:28 The Temperament Foundation 02:10 How it Develops 05:35 Where Parents Lose Ground 06:53 Containing Neuroticism 11:30 Training Agreeableness 13:14 Culture vs Parenting 16:06 The Danger Effects of Peer Saturation 17:19 The Role of Social Norms and External Constraints 18:11 Cultural Shift: From Restraint to Expression 21:13 Feminism's Role in Shaping Behavior Norms 23:14 A Practical Example 26:06 Preserving Innocence and Delaying Instrumentalization 27:29 What Needs to Change (Family, Culture, Mental Health Framing) 30:25 Indulgence vs Adversity (Why Traits Are Increasing Today) 31:37 Final Framework: Containment vs Expression

At first, Dialectical Behavioural Therapy sounds like good therapy: calm tone, validation, "skills," the language of care. But if you look closely, something very different is happening. In this video, I break down a real clip of a DBT therapist and show how what is presented as "help" can, in practice, reinforce the very behaviors it claims to treat. We'll go beyond the surface, beyond self-report, beyond symptom reduction and look at what these interventions actually do in real relationships. Because the question isn't whether DBT reduces self-harm in the short term. It does. The real question is: what is it training instead? ------- Want to listen ad-free? Head over to the Psychobabble Substack and subscribe to receive the episodes ad-free straight to your email: https://substack.com/@psychobabblewithspier --------    

What if borderline and vulnerable narcissism are the same traits—just executed differently? Using a real case, I break down the strategy behind. Want ad-free episodes? Go to the Psychobabble Substack and subscribe!  https://hannahspier.substack.com/  

Borderline Personality Disorder is usually framed as the result of trauma: a broken attachment system, a damaged patient reacting to early wounds. This is inclomplete. Borderline traits persist not because they are purely pathological, but because, in many contexts, they are functionally effective. This epsiode goes into the problem of the "invalidation environment" theory of Marsha Linehan, and the more plausible interpretaion of what makes this personality pathology. For ad-free episodes of the Psychobabble Podcast, subscribe on Substack:  https://hannahspier.substack.com/p/66-how-borderline-traits-develop