All In The Mind

If you saw a crime, how clearly would you remember it? What about if you were questioned years… even decades later?
Eyewitness testimony is an important part of the justice system, so how much do we know about our ability to recall details?
In part three of our four-part series, Forensic, we take a deeper look at eyewitness memory. Because it's not just about what we can or can't recall, there's also the risk that we may not even recognise a crime as it's happening. It turns out we're sometimes less observant than we think, because of a phenomenon called inattentional blindness.
Don't forget to send us your questions based on the Forensic series, you can reach us at [email protected]
Guests:
Celine van GoldeAssociate Professor in Legal PsychologyUniversity of Sydney
Hayley CullenLecturerSchool of Psychological Sciences, Macquarie University
Credits:
Presenter/producer: Sana Qadar
Senior producer/reporter: James Bullen
Producer: Rose Kerr
Sound engineer: Roi Huberman
You can catch up on more episodes of the All in the Mind podcast with journalist and presenter Sana Qadar, exploring the psychology of topics like stress, memory, communication and relationships on ABC Listen or wherever you get your podcasts.

You might remember Dr Lindsay Gibson from our 2021 episode titled 'The damage done by emotionally immature parents (and how to heal)' — it was our most popular episode ever! Turns out a lot of you have emotionally immature parents…
Lindsay is coming back on the show in a few weeks, so this time, we want to ask her your questions in a mailbag episode.
Dr Lindsay Gibson is a clinical psychologist, bestselling author and an influential figure in the parent-child relationships space, so we're keen for questions about everything from narcissistic parents to family estrangement to modelling good parenting behaviour when you have your own kids…
Send your questions to [email protected] with the subject line "question for Lindsay Gibson". Please let us know if you're happy for us to use your first name or if you'd rather be anonymous.
The deadline for questions is May 26.
Thank you!

Imagine police are interrogating you over a crime you didn't commit. 
If you're innocent, you're safe, right? Wrong.
Sometimes, being innocent can make you more likely to confess. How is that possible?
In part two of our four-part series, Forensic, we learn about the police interviewing techniques that make false confessions more likely, and the bizarre cases in which people come to believe they really, truly did commit a crime – despite being innocent.
Guests:
Saul KassinDistinguished Professor Emeritus at John Jay College of Criminal Justice Professor Emeritus at Williams College
Lisanne Adam Lecturer in Law, RMIT University School of Law
Celine van GoldeAssociate Professor in Legal Psychology, University of Sydney
Credits:
Presenter/producer: Sana Qadar
Senior producer: James Bullen
Producer: Rose Kerr
Sound engineer: Roi Huberman
You can catch up on more episodes of the All in the Mind podcast with journalist and presenter Sana Qadar, exploring the psychology of topics like stress, memory, communication and relationships on ABC Listen or wherever you get your podcasts.

Criminal profiling promises a lot — being able to piece together a picture of a suspect through clues, intuition and psychology sounds great. But how reliable is it?
In our first episode of Forensic, a four-part series unpacking the psychological tools used to solve crimes, we examine the history of criminal profiling. How it got popular in the 1950s after bombings in New York City, its shortcomings when scrutinised by researchers, and the techniques it is built on that police deploy today (but with a lot more data).
Guests:
Michael CannellAuthor, Incendiary: The Psychiatrist, the Mad Bomber and the Invention of Criminal ProfilingFormer Editor, The New York Times
Professor Craig JacksonProfessor of Occupational Health PsychologyBirmingham City University
Dr Victoria BerezowskiLecturer, Forensic Science, Deakin University
Credits:
Presenter/producer: Sana Qadar
Senior producer: James Bullen
Producer: Rose Kerr
Sound engineer: Isabella Tropiano
You can catch up on more episodes of the All in the Mind podcast with journalist and presenter Sana Qadar, exploring the psychology of topics like stress, memory, communication and relationships on ABC Listen or wherever you get your podcasts.
Further Information:
Incendiary - Michael Cannell
The Organized/Disorganized Typology of Serial Murder: Myth or Model?
Is criminal profiling dead? Should it be? Psychology Today
George Metesky, the ‘Mad Bomber’ – Wikipedia
Unmasking the Mad Bomber – The Smithsonian, 2017
A 16-Year Hunt For New York’s ‘Mad Bomber’ – NPR, 2011
An overview of offender profiling – International Journal of Police Science and Management, 2024
Offender profiling: a review of the research and state of the field – Police Psychology, 2021
The Grit, Glamour and Gall of Criminal Profiling – The University of Arizona, 2021
Casebook of a Crime Psychiatrist – James Brussel, 1968
Dangerous Minds - The New Yorker

Forget everything you’ve learned from crime dramas.
Forensic is a new podcast series from All in the Mind on ABC Radio National that takes you behind the psychological tools used to solve crimes.
Across four episodes, we investigate criminal profiling, false confessions, eyewitness memory and lie detection, revealing what actually works, what doesn’t, and the surprising ways things can go wrong.
Forensic gives an evidence-led look at the cracks and complexities inside modern forensic psychology.
Our first episode drops this Sunday! 
In the mean time, check out our other true crime themed series from 2025, Criminal Psychology. 
You can catch up on more episodes of the All in the Mind podcast with journalist and presenter Sana Qadar, exploring the psychology of topics like stress, memory, communication and relationships on ABC Listen or wherever you get your podcasts.