The Nice-ish Ramblings Podcast The Nice-ish Psychologist

If you are like most human beings, you will likely have made a fair few New Year's resolutions in your life... and like everyone else, you may not have been able to stick to them as much as you would have liked. Personally, I am not one for resolutions or the whole "new year, new me" idea. But if you are, here are some reasons why you may not have stuck to your resolutions in the past. And (more importantly) how to make sure you can keep them... and just in time for New Year's Eve. It's like I planned this or something.
Sources
·      The top 3 reasons New Year's resolutions fail and how yours can succeed (Caprino, 2019);
·      A psychotherapist says there are 3 common reasons so many people's New Year's resolutions end in failure (Abadi, 2019);
·      10 Reasons Why New Year's Resolutions Fail (Wallen, 2020);
·      The Transtheoretical Model of Change Prochaska & DiClemente (1983)

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hi there. How are you? Hopefully, you’re having a nice day. Today, can we please talk about Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk wanting to fight each other? I have been fascinated by all of this since the initial reports of this fight being declared. However, when it all kicked off, I didn’t say much about it as I wanted to see how it all played out. But it doesn’t seem to be fizzling out at all. So here we are to think about how all of this – how this very public display of bravado – relates to a concept known as precarious manhood.
In case you are unaware, two of the most prominent tech bros, Zuckerberg and Musk, have been embroiled in a highly publicised feud. There’s obviously been some longstanding animosity between the two, given the fact that they both own two of the biggest social media companies. Still, things seemed to turn up a notch around the time that Zuckerberg was set to launch Threads. Which bears a striking resemblance to Twitter (now currently known as X, but I will continue to refer to it as Twitter because I can’t bring myself to call it X. I just think it’s a really fucking silly name. But anyway). Reports suggest that Musk was quite displeased about this development, and on June 20th, 2023, he took to Twitter to challenge Zuckerberg to a cage fight. I mean, the Tweet literally reads, “I’m up for a cage match if he is.” Which, I’m not going to lie, doesn’t feel like a very thought-through Tweet. The challenge was met with a response from Zuckerberg, who took to Instagram to inquire about the location, with Musk then suggesting the UFC Octagon in Las Vegas.
Now you would be forgiven for thinking that the situation would just have stopped there; however, it seems to have only escalated as time’s gone by.
While nothing has been set in stone – like no date or actual venue has been set – allegedly, UFC president, Dana White, wants the fight to happen and is trying to make the fight a reality. He’s been quoted as saying: “This would be the biggest fight ever in the history of the world, bigger than anything that’s ever been done. It would break all pay-per-view records.” So, we can see what his motivations might be to make this fight take place. More recently, Elon Musk has noted that the fight would be live-streamed on Twitter and that any money made would go to a charity for veterans. It seems like Musk might need to let Dana White know about what’s gonna happen with all that pay-per-view money. But, in discussing how likely the fight would be to happen, Dana White was of the opinion that Zuckerberg is taking this very seriously.
And he’s not wrong.
It’s been recently reported that Mark Zuckerberg has been training in Jujitsu for over a year and has recently been awarded his blue belt (no idea if that’s good or not, but it sounds impressive) and has also been winning competitions while he’s been at. In training for the fight, he’s reportedly been consuming 4,000 calories a day and has also reportedly (and if this is not a sign of escalation, then I don’t know what it is) had his own cage-fighting octagon installed in his garden, which his wife is apparently less than pleased about. Also, it’s been reported that Zuckerberg has been training with actual UFC stars Israel Adesanya and Alex Volkanovski (I have no idea who these people are, but if you’re into UFC you might be impressed). Volkanovski has noted that he believes Zuckerberg is serious about fighting Musk and is quoted as saying: “Man, I'm telling you he [Zuckerberg] is serious. I don't know how serious Elon is, but I'm telling you, he [Zuckerberg] is training.” So, it seems that at least one of the billionaires preparing for a fight.
Musk, on the other hand, seems to be somewhat less prepared. In all fairness, Musk has reportedly often spoken about being in “real hard-core street fights” while growing up in South Africa, with his father, Errol Musk, noting that Elon had once “aced a p

Last weekend some text messages were released by Sarah Brady, a surfer, model, and the former girlfriend of Jonah Hill. The messages were released on Brady’s Instagram stories. They quickly went viral, most notably for highlighting what Brady inferred to be controlling and demands requests made by Hill, which he described as his “boundaries” for their relationship. The release of these messages sparked some heated debate across social media with some polarizing views.
In this discussion, Dr Bekah Shallcross joins me in a rambling conversation that covers the nuances of what boundaries are, what they are not, how boundaries are upheld and agreed to between men and women In a patriarchal society, and what can be done to change this.
As always, please get in touch to let me or Dr Shallcross know your thoughts. And if you think anyone would benefit from hearing this episode, please do share it with them. Also, if you could leave a rating or a comment to let others know this show isn’t a bag of shite, that would be wonderful too.
All the best,
Nice-ish.
Music
* Opening: “Chilled Ambient Minimal”
* Closing: “Seven” - Tobu


Thank you for subscribing. Share this episode.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I have the utmost pleasure of being joined once more by Dr Martha - a clinical psychologist who specialises in working with young people - in a fascinating and winding discussion about shame. Shame has received a lot of attention on social media, for good reason. But, as with anything, I was keen to take a closer look at this particularly aversive and unpleasant emotion. And who better to talk to than another psychologist, and one that specialises in how shame might serve a purpose?
Dr Martha and I discuss the prevalence of shame discussion on social media, the purposes of shame, how it helps to shape social connections and behaviours, and how it can potentially be a force for good for social change.
As always, it was a thoroughly enjoyable and through-provoking discussion and hopefully, it is for you too. If you enjoyed the episode, please do share it widely on social media (tag me in it if you do), or with someone close to you who you think might enjoy it (or benefit from it).
And if you can, please leave a rating or comment. It all goes towards letting others know how good (or totally shit) this podcast is.
Thanks as always,
Nice-ish.
Resources
* Why Shame Is Good
* Why Shame and Guilt Are Functional For Mental Health
* The Positive Side of Shame
* Is Shame Necessary?: New Uses for an Old Tool
Music
* Opening: “Chilled Ambient Minimal”
* Closing: “Seven” - Tobu




Thank you for subscribing. Share this episode.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In today’s episode, I am joined by Pierre Azzam, a psychiatrist-turned-men’s coach, in which we discuss an aspect of men’s mental health that is often not thought about or considered all that much. It was an engaging and fascinating chat, which I am glad I got to have with Pierre again (we had previously recorded this episode, but the recording software malfunctioned). Hopefully, you find similar value in what Pierre shared with me.
As always, if you liked this episode and think that someone else may benefit from hearing it, please do share. And if you have the time, please leave a rating and a comment (if you can). It does go a long way to let others know if the show is helpful or a bag of shit.
All the best,
Nice-ish.
Music
* Opening: “Chilled Ambient Minimal”
* Closing: “Seven” - Tobu


Thank you for subscribing. Share this episode.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello and welcome to The Nice-ish Ramblings Podcast with me the Nice-ish Psychologist where today I am putting a bit more of a forensic spin on the episode.
For those of you who don’t know, I am a Clinical and Forensic Psychologist, and in my actual life outside of this social media world, I sometimes get asked what kind of work I do with those in the forensic population. And how I go about trying to help these individuals turn things around for themselves. Not going to lie, it’s quite a hard question to answer. Mostly because it’s not straightforward. I mean, it’s relatively straightforward in my head, but that’s because I know what I’m doing (allegedly).
But the full answer is quite lengthy. So, I thought it could make for a good podcast episode. And so here we are, to think about how prison rehabilitation work ideally. I say ideally because human beings are complex and not straightforward. And even though we can theorise how best to help and work with individuals in the forensic population, it’s not straightforward. We’ll explore some of those reasons as we go along.
But before we get into it, as always, if at the end of this episode, you think “Bloody hell that was interesting, I bet all my friends and family would enjoy hearing this,” then please do share this episode with them. And if you could rate or leave a comment, too, that would be very much appreciated. I must admit, I found this an interesting episode to make, so hopefully you find it interesting, too. Also, I would say that if there is anything that piques your interest further and you want to know more about, do get in touch, and ask a question. I might be able to answer it then and there, or I might do a further podcast episode about it.
Now that that’s out the way and before we think about what ideal rehabilitation should look like, I thought it might be worth taking a very quick historical trip to learn about how the prison system came about. It’s a summary of three different sources, which I have included in the transcript. So, if you want to know more about something or I don’t cover something in as much detail as you’d like, do look for the relevant hyperlinks in the transcript.
So, not going to lie, the history of the prison system is a long and complex one, with roots dating back to ancient civilisations. From the dungeons of medieval Europe to the modern-day prison industrial complex, how society has dealt with crime and punishment has evolved significantly over time. In the 18th century, however, the concept of imprisonment as a form of punishment became increasingly popular. In an interview about the invention of incarceration, Ashley Rubin, a sociologist specialising in the history of prisons in America noted that there is a difference between the existence of jails and the development of prisons.
Apparently, prisons have not always been used as a punishment or deterrent for criminal behaviour, but rather as a means of keeping the perpetrator of a crime detained until the actual punishment could be carried out. Before the introduction of prisons, people were punished either through capital punishment (what we know as the death penalty and – according to good old Wikipedia – was formerly called judicial homicide”) or corporal punishment. In the 16th and 17th centuries, the sanctions for criminal behaviour were public events that were designed to shame and deter, including the ducking stool (which is a contraption that had a long arm with a seat on the end of it and was used to dunk those convicted of offences into the water and were later used to identify witches), a pillory (which is effectively a stock in which a person’s head and hands were locked in a frame at the end of a long post), whipping, branding, and stocks (which, unlike a pillory, were used to restrain a person’s feet). 
Further along in the interview, in response to a question about people being locked up long before the 18th century