People First Radio – September 19, 2024People First Radio – September 19, 2024
People First Radio
Clinical psychologist Jonathan Stea discusses wellness-industry pseudoscience, mental health literacy, and evidence-based care. The team behind the game She Could Fly then shares how their project portrays obsessive-compulsive disorder and challenges common misunderstandings about OCD and treatment.
0:00•19 Sept 2024
Science, Pseudoscience and OCD: Cutting Through Wellness Noise
Episode Overview
- Pseudoscientific wellness services can financially and emotionally exploit people by offering unproven or fake treatments for mental health problems.
- Protected titles and regulatory bodies help ensure ethical, evidence-based care; unregulated roles such as some "wellness coaches" may offer risky or unsupported treatments.
- Testimonials and anecdotes are not enough to show that a treatment works; rigorous research such as randomised controlled trials is needed.
- Building mental health and science literacy helps people question bold claims, spot pseudoscientific language, and protect themselves when seeking support.
- OCD is widely misunderstood and trivialised, which can delay diagnosis and treatment; recognising the intrusive thought–compulsion cycle is key to understanding the condition.
“"The solution to the faults of mainstream healthcare is not the wellness industry."”
What insights can experts and survivors share about addiction, mental health, and recovery? This edition of People First Radio brings together science, scepticism, and lived experience to answer that question. Clinical psychologist and author Jonathan Stea talks about spending five years challenging online myths around cannabis, addiction, and mental health. He explains why he sees it as an "ethical imperative" to promote evidence-based care and to call out "pseudoscientific propaganda or grift" in the wellness industry.
Stea breaks down the difference between wellness and mental illness, why unregulated "wellness" coaches concern him, and how alternative medicine can become an ideology that fuels distrust of mainstream care while selling unproven treatments. He stresses that mainstream medicine has flaws, but argues that "the solution to the faults of mainstream healthcare is not the wellness industry".
Instead, he wants people to sharpen their "grift detectors" by building science and mental health literacy, and by recognising red flags like miracle cures, testimonials in place of real evidence, and titles such as therapist or counsellor used without regulation. The second half shifts to obsessive-compulsive disorder through the game *She Could Fly*, a documentary-style escape game built around OCD.
Producer Sarah Kenny and co‑producer with lived experience, Mireille Duran, explain how a looping apartment escape becomes a metaphor for looping intrusive thoughts and compulsions. They outline the OCD cycle, why trivial phrases like "I'm so OCD" cause real harm, and how poor understanding leads to years-long delays in diagnosis. They also share four key change goals: ending trivialisation, recognising and counting OCD in health systems, ensuring timely access to recommended treatments, and funding research into social factors.
If you’re curious about separating science from spin and want a clearer picture of OCD and evidence-based care, this conversation might give you plenty to think about the next time you see a wellness claim or a casual OCD joke.
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