The podcast episode featured a conversation with Professor Sharon Lawn about mental health systems, lived experience, and the importance of humanising care for individuals with mental health challenges. We discuss the need for more person-centered, compassionate approaches in mental health services and the value of incorporating lived experience perspectives into research, policy, and practice. The conversation emphasized the significance of community support, everyday acts of kindness,...
Jan 22
51 min
Episode #207 marks a moment of deep gratitude and reflection. In this special episode, I look back on the journey that shaped Thriving Minds from the early days of questioning how the brain works, through decades of neuroscience, to the new era we are stepping into together. This episode explores how early life experiences shape the nervous system, why connection is a biological regulator, and how compassion, presence and daily habits drive real neuroplastic change and where AI and digital te...
Dec 9, 2025
24 min
2025 has felt like a turning point. Across this year’s Thriving Minds conversations—from brain health and dementia, to stress, team flow, near-death experiences, and the “neuroscience of two”—one message keeps rising to the surface: We are only just beginning to understand how powerful we are for each other’s brains. In this special reflection episode, I explore what we learned in 2025 and where Thriving Minds is heading next, at the intersection of neuroscience, healing, neuroplasticity and ...
Dec 6, 2025
16 min
Thriving Minds Podcast Deep Dive: Building a Child Sexual Abuse Prevention Team Hosted by Professor Selena Bartlett Expert: Feather Berkower, Author of Off Limits: A Parent’s Guide to Keeping Kids Safe from Sexual Abuse The top 5 things to keep children safe in the digital age. Feather challenges the outdated belief that children should be responsible for protecting themselves. Instead, she empowers adults to take charge by building what she calls a “Prevention Team.” This team includes ever...
Nov 8, 2025
8 min
Neuroscience now shows us that human connection changes the brain. Walking high above the forest floor on the Valley of the Giants Treetop Walk in Western Australia, I felt what real strength looks like. The giant tingle trees reach for the light, but their power doesn’t come from standing alone. Under the soil, their roots and fungi form a living web, sharing water, nutrients, and information. Each tree depends on the health of the whole forest. That is what thriving organisations do too. ...
Oct 21, 2025
34 min
Today on Thriving Minds, I’m sharing a special replay of my conversation with Dr. Renee White on her Science of Motherhood podcast, where we explored what I wish I knew then—now that I know this—about screens, resilience, and protecting our kids’ mental health in the digital age. Screens are part of everyday life, but learning how to manage them while protecting our children’s mental health can feel like an uphill battle. In this candid conversation, Professor Selena Bartlett shares the lesso...
Aug 21, 2025
1 hr 8 min
“The brain wave is not just a scientific object—it’s a cultural one.” – Dr. Caitlin Shure What is a brain wave? How “brain waves” became a metaphor for mind control, telepathy, and spiritual resonance. That’s the question we explore in one of the most surprising and thought-provoking episodes of the Thriving Minds podcast to date—with science journalist and technologist Dr. Caitlin Shure, whose PhD work traced the strange cultural journey of the brainwave from telepathy and spiritualism to mo...
Jul 24, 2025
48 min
For most of my career in neuroscience, I believed the brain alone governed who we are—shaped by genetics, evolution, and early life experiences. I trusted in the power of brain imaging and genomics to reveal the answers. But after decades spent mapping neural circuits, a deeper truth emerged: We are not isolated minds in skulls. We are wired to connect. In this episode, I explore the revolutionary science of interbrain synchrony—how our brains light up in rhythm with others when we’re emotion...
Jul 10, 2025
24 min
🎧 Thriving Minds with Professor Selena Bartlett welcomes Dr. Bruce Greyson, a pioneering psychiatrist and Professor Emeritus at the University of Virginia, for a profoundly moving and scientifically grounded conversation on near-death experiences (NDEs) and the nature of consciousness. In this episode, Dr. Greyson reflects on his 40 years of research, the development of the Greyson NDE Scale, and his acclaimed book After, which explores what NDEs reveal about the mind, death, and what might l...
Jul 9, 2025
44 min
Can you be both a scientist and a mystic? In this extraordinary episode, Professor Selena Bartlett speaks with Dr. Anona Blackwell — a Lancet-published academic, former consultant physician, and author of From Medic to Mystic — about the turning point where evidence-based medicine no longer had all the answers. Raised in rural poverty in Wales and rising to the heights of British medical academia, Dr. Blackwell quietly navigated a parallel world of intuitive experiences, energy healing, and p...
Jun 18, 2025
36 min
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