Life Uncut - Why are we all obsessed with true crime and reality TV?

Episode Date: August 9, 2021

Some of us are more willing to admit it than others, but isn’t it just so therapeutic to chuck on some trash reality TV at the end of a busy, hectic day? Whether you like keeping up with the Kardashians, or following the drama filled shit show that is married at first sight, I think we can all admit that there’s something about escaping into a different world to our own that we find intriguing. But what exactly is it that makes us want to be a fly on the wall in other people’s lives? Why are we so obsessed with serial killer docu-dramas and podcasts? Are we sick to be utterly engaged in a “who did it and how?” episode about some pretty messed up things?Psychologist and criminology expert Sandy Rea joined Laura and Britt on the podcast to tell us exactly what the heck is going on in our brains and why we are so into reality TV and true crime!She shares her wealth of knowledge from working as a psychologist in maximum security prisons in Australia, to her time spent working as a psychologist on reality TV platforms!Speaking of true crime, the girls have some recommendations for you this week and they’re all about “Dr Death.” Laura recommended the new series on Stan titled Dr Death, and Britt recommends the podcast! You can find Sandy Rea here: https://www.sandyrea.com/If you love the episode and see the irony in us sharing a love of reality TV when that’s potentially where you met us (haha) then please share it with a friend! Flick us a rating on apple pods if you feel inclined and share the love, because we love lovvvvve!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey guys and welcome back to another episode of Life Uncut. I'm Brittany and I'm Laura and welcome to the rest of Australia who are now also in lockdown. It sucks and I'm sad that you're all here with us. Who are the only parts of Australia not in lockdown now? Is it just Western Australia? Oh, who's keeping track? Everyone. Everyone's life is shitty and if it's not, I don't want to hear about it. So what's been going on with you then? The fun thing that's been happening in our household is that Lola is cutting two teeth and she's currently teething and there is nothing more wild and feral than a teething toddler. I feel like the last two years for you have been teething. Not teething, just like children. It's either there's something

wrong with the youngest one or there's something wrong with the oldest one they're never in time and there's always some sort of drama but we thrive in chaos and we love every second of it and you want to keep on going woman it's weird but yes I do I have this like weird crazy hormonal like now I just want to be like this mother earth woman who just has lots of children lives out in Byron Bay okay but this is going to blow your mind but yesterday and this is not happening also just FYI so here we go am I finding that news with live with the rest of Australia yesterday as you guys know if you listen to last week's episode I got my first period after having Lola which is big because I haven't had a period in like over a year and you know just about to finish and I was

like look Matt this means you have to be really really careful now like lots of protection I want you to double bag that thing before coming to bed you glad wrap that you glad wrap that you foil that i was like matt double bag it i'm back on the pill i'm gonna get a marina put in let's go for gold and matt was like why don't we just like give it one crack with no contraception and see what no matt what is wrong with that man not and i hope you oh my god did you look at your face oh god dick it's like we have time to have sex we've had a teething child come on britney okay because i feel like that is like russian roulette i don't feel like that that is a good thing for you and matt to do i do also think it's more like the odds are on our side because let's be real

like the man is fertile look I got a little bit sad this week because the Olympics finished now I assume I'm on board with the rest of Australia I was so the rest of Australia except you Laura I was so into the Olympics I loved it I cried so many times I had all the feelings and it's finished and I just feel like they need to come around more often I think we need to put a petition out for maybe like every two years we have the Olympics I know I said on last week's episode that I hadn't gotten into it but I did a real backflip like I really got into it this week what at the finals you're not allowed to just blow in and start to be a supporter in the finals you have to watch from the start from the first week the first week was boring I got really okay

I just watched the marathon guys I'm so invested I watched a marathon race no I got really into it and then I feel the same I'm like what am I gonna do with myself now that it's finished now I also feel sad and I feel robbed that I didn't watch it earlier like I I feel like I've missed out on a fundamental part of something that was really important. And I didn't get on board until it was too late. I am glad that you got on board with the Olympics because there is something that I wanted to ask you. Did you see the marriage proposal that happened at the Olympics? Yes, I did. Okay. So anyone that didn't see it, please look it up. And I want to talk to you about it, Laura. I want your opinion. There was an Argentinian fencer. Her name is Maria Belen

Perez Maurice. Now say that 10 times fast. Long story short, she was doing an interview after her very, very unfortunate early exit in the Olympics. And she was feeling really down in the dumps. And then in the background, her partner and coach, now this is a long-term partner and he's her coach and his name is Lucas Sacedo. She's doing the interview. Marie is doing the interview. She's doing her best to stay happy. And in the background, he pops up with a sign, basically says, will you marry me she doesn't know he's there yet this is on the live cross on tv and the reporter's sort of like oh like maybe you should turn around kind of thing and she turns around and she sees him holding up this sign now i want to make a really really strong point that the sign that

he's holding up this isn't like some big beautiful sign that's on cardboard that's covered in glitter and diamantes and colored not like you would think a marriage proposal would be at the olympics it was literally a piece of it's like he found a note like an a4 piece of paper and he's like a menu or something and he's flipped it over he's just grabbed a black text out and he's scribbled will you marry me please and it's this really really awkward moment now I don't know how you feel or I want to know your opinion but when I watched it I was so uncomfortable like I could barely watch it okay I have so many feelings I am a middle child like if I made it to the Olympics I just want to have my time in the sun.

Like do not come for me. Do not try and propose to me. That is a separate occasion and I want to be able to celebrate that on a separate day. I agree. Like you train for years to be at the Olympics. It's your one little time in the spotlight. And on top of that, it's the sign.

If you're going to steal my thunder, steal it with a glittery sign, like a big piece of cardboard. Well, I think it just goes to show that it was like really poorly thought out. He did actually come out and say that had she won, he probably wouldn't have done the proposal on tv he would have allowed her that moment but also who cares if she won or didn't win she made it to the freaking olympics and that was her opportunity to be able to share how she felt about her experience about how hard she trained about all the things she did and then it turned into a marriage proposal which obviously she was happy

she said yes i'm sure like there are parts of this that are really exciting for her now but something that you guys might not know is that it's not his first rodeo her coach he did this 11 years ago at a different competition where she had actually won he proposed to her at that competition as well and she said no he said it so it was the world championships 11 years ago and he did exactly the same thing and she turned around and she said are you kidding me like how dare you he went and sat back he bide his time for 11 years and then he did it again he's like surely at the olympics it's not going to be a no like he's he probably knew that was his chance to get a yes out of it because he's like she won't say no at the olympic it feels a little bit

inconsiderate like i think if you're going to propose to someone that is a day that is special in and of itself you don't have to take and make the one thing that they have worked for so hard about you and about your relationship because it's not about that okay i have something even better I need to trump it. When I was looking up this story about this proposal, I stumbled across another proposal and this happened at the same Olympics. This just happened, I think, today or yesterday. He is the German football captain. His name is Max Kruse. Now, I could have pronounced that incorrectly, but this is, Laura, the most awkward proposal you will ever see. So, his team had just won 3-2. He's live on TV. Now, I don't know if a lot of people know, but partners, etc.

can't go to the Olympic. Partners can't go. Now this Max, he's the captain. He's just won. He's on a live interview cross and he stops halfway, takes his shirt off. And everyone's like, I don't understand what he's doing. He's taking his shirt off. And underneath he had another shirt, like a black t-shirt. And in writing on the shirt, he asked his girlfriend to marry him. Now the real kicker in this part is his girlfriend's not even in the country. She's just watching on TV in like another country so she got proposed to when she wasn't even there now I don't know what you think about this but if you propose to me when you're on a high and you're winning in another country and I'm not there on live television it's probably going to be a no no way I completely disagree with

you I actually think that that is so adorable but they can't even be there to kiss or cuddle or like anything he didn't even know the answer because it's not like he organized for her to be like their live and answer. It was just, he just put it on TV and it was so awkward to watch. You have to look at Laura. Even the person that was interviewing him didn't know what to do. She's looking around so awkward. She's like, okay, do we, do we just cut here? Or I felt awkward watching it. Okay. The reason why I think that this is cute and it's not awkward when I haven't seen it. So like I'll reserve my judgment until I do, but I think it's cute because his girlfriend couldn't be there. She was obviously, she would be watching it on TV. She would be so excited for him and him

doing that is like a way of him bringing her into that experience like he's just one this is his high and he wants her to be a part of that I think that that is like beyond beautiful even if it makes every other person uncomfortable watching it I would like you know what if someone wanted to propose to me when they just won whatever sport they were playing and I was there amazing but I want to be present at my own proposal I feel like that for me that is you know I have a few things that are non-negotiables and me being there when I'm proposed to is one of those things Well, I mean, if you come back to Australia and you and Jordan keep doing long distance, it could be over Zoom.

So who fucking knows? But also, Matt, to this day, has never actually proposed to me. Like, I don't even know 100% if we're engaged. Whoa, whoa, whoa. What do you mean? Matt has never asked me to marry him. He never said, will you marry me? Didn't you have a really, some sort of romantic thing on a beach in Fiji or something from memory?

Yeah, it was very romantic. Matt set up a GoPro. He did all the things that you're- set up a gopro first things first content hashtag love um he set up a gopro we're on this beach in fiji he like i was eight months pregnant i was so pregnant and like i was past the point where you're supposed to fly in pregnancy but i was like i am goddamn having a baby moon so we went to fiji anyway i was like let's go and have a photo of the sunset just out the front of the villa which was literally just out the front of

where we were staying and Matt was like no let's walk up the beach there's a really cute spot up the beach the beach was exactly the same no matter where you were it was just flat you're like I am a beach ball I do not want to walk up the beach just flat identical beach the whole way up the coast I was like okay so we went for this walk walked past because there was lots of people around so we walked past all the people all the way up he then sets this GoPro up and I was like something is happening hang on so the GoPro wasn't prepared he said it he was like wait a minute while I set the GoPro up. Stop it. I'm dying. Matt, be prepared or prepare to fail. That's the saying. So he sets the GoPro up and then he just starts crying, like crying, crying.

And I went from thinking maybe he was going to propose to me to like telling me that he had a terminal illness. And I was like, what is happening? It's the GoPro content. Everyone loves the tears so he gets down on one knee but he doesn't really get down on one knee he's he's crying still crying and his knee literally just touches the sand and he gets straight back up and then that was it he didn't say anything he just cried hang on why why couldn't he keep his knee on the ground I have so many questions in this proposal and then he pulled a ring out and then I was like no then he said some really nice things about how much he loves me and how I'm the best thing blah blah blah blah like it was all very cute but he never actually said will you

marry me and maybe that's why we're still not married two and a half years later so was there a yes to the question he didn't ask or was there just like some tears and then some cuddles and then I think there was just tears and cuddles and then I put a ring on and then I was like we're getting married it's like the end of this like the bachelor finale all over again totally yeah we're just gonna be this is it right we've got two kids we don't need to get married to be honest and I know I've said this before but but a wedding is so not something that's important to me like a wedding I know it's going to be the best day with our friends I know we're going to have so much fun when and if it actually happens but it's just not the thing that's important to

me you know and I think that that comes from having broken families and broken relationships like you know my parents being divorced but having a wedding has never been something that I've envisaged as a little kid and I know some people really kind of fantasize about what their wedding is going to be like to be honest I have a very strong feeling that our wedding's going to be postponed because of COVID, which is really annoying. Don't put that out to the universe. It's supposed to be in November guys, but I'm thinking at this rate, it's probably going to be postponed. Honestly, who knows? Like you actually don't know what's going to happen anymore. Like maybe the world goes back to normal. The vaccination seems to be rolling

out really quickly. Maybe we're perpetually in lockdown. I think every day as it comes. Yeah. Yeah, I know. But you know what? Even if it does get delayed, I know there's so many other people out there who have done the same thing and then they've still had a wonderful wedding at the end of it anyway so another day in lockdown we live to tell the tale it'll be something we tell our kids when we're older we have a awesome episode for you all today and this is something that we've been sitting on for a little while we interviewed a psychologist her name is sandy ray she's amazing she is amazing and the thing about this episode is because we're getting into i mean you guys know we're balls deep in bachelor time already but it goes from the bachelor season to

Bachelorette and then straight into maths and we thought that because we're getting well and truly back into reality TV time we would sit down and talk to a psychologist who is an expert in reality TV. Now what this interview is is unpacking why are we so obsessed with reality TV, what are the psychological implications of being a contestant on reality TV and also what is the moral and ethical responsibility of production and editing when it comes to how people and characters and I say that in quotations, how characters are portrayed on reality TV. And I know so many of you who listen to this podcast have kind of come to us because originally you were Batchy fans. And I really think that you're going to enjoy this episode. Sandy is such an awesome,

warm woman, and she has such a really unique insight into reality TV and what she thinks is morally okay. I absolutely love speaking to Sandy. And the second that we hung up the phone from that interview I said to Laura we have to get Sandy on for so many other things in the future because she's so so knowledgeable she's so so researched and she's just a barrel of fun but before we get into that and before we get into our accidentally unfiltered Laura you did tell me you had a recommendation for me and I have been sitting on this waiting for you to tell me what is it okay so for everybody who's sitting in lockdown and needs some more content to consume on their TVs. My recommendation is Dr. Death. Now. Yes. Okay. It is so freaking good guys. It is

eight episodes. They're all about an hour long. So they're like, it's really like sitting down and watching a movie, maybe 45 minutes. Maybe I'm exaggerating, but it's got the guy who used to be in Dawson's Creek. You know, Pacey from Dawson's Creek. Josh Jackson. I don't know his name, but he grew up. Joshua Jackson. And he is so good in this. So the series is about this doctor in the United States named Dr. Christopher Dunch, who ended up being convicted of crimes against the elderly or something of that vein. But it follows his series of like 30 different cases over a really short period of time where he maliciously and with intent caused so much harm to his patients. Two of the patients died and one of the patients who was actually his friend

ends up horrifically injured from his surgeries. Now, this is based on a true story. It only happened like in the last sort of 15 years and it is just incredibly harrowing if you're into true crime it is such a epic mini-series and Matt and I are hooked we're up to the last episode which we're going to watch tonight and then apparently there's also a documentary about Dr Death on Stan as well and there's a podcast like it's a whole thing you can fully immerse yourself in this man's weirdly screwed up messed up narcissistic psychopathic mind I highly recommend I haven't seen the series yet but I listened to the podcast years ago like sort of when podcasts really started to come out and because I love true crime you guys all know that I can highly highly recommend

the podcast if you're interested and it's probably a good thing to flow on if you listen to the podcast first then go watch the series I feel like they go really well together because you'll get a lot of information from the pod that probably doesn't make it into the series but anyway I'm backing your recommendation on that one Laura 100%. I guess one of the really interesting things as well as how different the American healthcare system is from the Australian healthcare system and how he was able to get away with it for so long because none of the hospitals wanted to report him for malpractice or have his license revoked because what it would mean was that then they would open themselves up to being sued so any of the patients who had been hugely affected by

his just like no one knows whether it was on purpose or whether he was just like poorly trained but the hospitals didn't want to take ownership for it but it also meant that all these patients who were so horrifically injured by him weren't given any support or any funding it was just this like oh accidents happen kind of mentality but bad things were happening in every single one of his surgeries and it's oh it's so good please go watch it add it to your list it's on stan cannot recommend it enough all right let's jump into some accidentally unfiltered i have a very sweet accidentally unfiltered today so i'm hoping that you've brought one that's saucy dirty and a little bit messed up mine's pretty funny it's not that dirty but it's pretty it's

pretty funny that's so uncomfortable you can go first okay hey girls I will never live this down so I was trying to spice things up with my boyfriend because we'd been together a while and well you know how it is missionary they did a doggy go crazy we were at a huge work event slash presentation for my company I'm talking maybe about a hundred people it was so fucking boring my boyfriend was sitting across from me at this big table so I decided to send him a sexy nude that I took the week before I just had it banked you know for those nude sending emergencies I love that she had a nude sending emergency bank for some reason I decided to airdrop this nude to him so the name Jason popped up on the screen I watched as it says picture accepted I look up with

a smirk to see his response and I give him these sexy eyes from across the table only to see him in deep conversation with the person next to him his phone is on the table nowhere near him it is then that i get the sinking feeling and i know i have made a grave error my eyes dart around the room and i finally catch a man eyes wide looking at his phone he's in his mid-40s and i have never seen him in my life i see him glanced around until we lock eyes and i swear to god we had a whole panicked conversation without even saying a word the look on my face must have said it all i'm now dying so sorry that wasn't for you and he nervously chuckled and looked away i have absolutely no doubt that that photo is still in this man's phone in my defense I can't blame him because it was the

best nude I've ever taken oh my god I think the best bit the best bit is that she has to then sit there in the room with him with his with her nude on his phone but the moment that you look up with the sex eyes to your boyfriend and you're like hang on the phone's not even in his hand you're like this happens to me okay not to me I don't send nudes but this happens to me all the time where people send me the wrong things because I don't have my name on my phone. It just says iPhone. Yes.

So I'm always copying like random pictures of people's dogs or people's kids or anyway. Yes. Just say no. Never accept an airdrop unless you know that you're supposed to be accepting one. What was he thinking? So this happened to me literally last week.

I didn't send a nude, but Jordan and I were in a line to pick up some lunch and I was trying to send him some photos. He was right next to me. I was trying to send him some photos and I kept pressing send and he kept pressing decline and there were like 15 photos and I did it about four times I was like mate if you fucking decline this one more time I'm not sending you the photos he's like what are

you talking about and then this little there's about like a 15 year old boy behind me says oh you keep trying to send them to me like I'm so sorry he's like I didn't want to say anything but I just kept pressing send and he was like decline decline decline but his was iphone as well oh god all right I haven't accidentally unfiltered for you guys it is very innocent it's not like me. Wow, I'm actually really proud of us today. Not one mention of a poo story. No poos and no farts. Oh, it's so weird. When aren't we maturing? Here we go. Okay. As part of my job, we take passport style photos. Rules are pretty simple, but there are quite a few stipulations around how passport photos can be taken. Looking straight at the camera, I usually

hold my hand above the camera so that they look right at that spot. No smiling, neutral expression. the idea is that it needs to show your face in the most natural state possible so this one day an elderly lady comes in to have her passport photo taken I've run through with her the details around how the photo needs to be taken and we have a little chat back and forth when I'm like okay could you just have a seat over here she asked me if she can smile and I say oh you can do a little smile but unfortunately no teeth she looked at me with a confused look on her face for a second and then she goes oh okay they want it really natural then she bends forward brings her hand up to her face and pulls out her fucking teeth so here we are yes queen in the photo booth the lady sitting

there smiling a little smile with absolutely no teeth in holding her teeth in her right hand waiting for me to take the passport photo it took everything within me not to burst out laughing but he didn't have the heart to tell her that she could put her teeth back in so he took the photo with her no teeth no no you did her dirty you should have told her that she can put her teeth in because those passport photos last for 10 years and now she's got 10 year photo with no teeth and like a gummy smile it's so funny you did her so dirty the thing that i think is so great about this i'm not even laughing about this like elderly lady having no teeth i love that she just doesn't care she was

like oh whatever like the person who's the most uncomfortable in this is the person taking the photo like the old lady who's got no teeth she doesn't care she's baller she's like whatever i'll take my teeth out i think when you get to that point of your life you've seen some things and you've lived some days i don't think anything bothers you anymore oh i well there's one part of me that's like i can't wait for that and the other part of me is like i'd still like to wipe my own ass 100 i'm done the second i can't wipe my own ass oh you just need one of those bidets you know in Italy they have a bidet that like spurts the hose on your butt. I thought you were gonna say you just need like one of those sticks with like a little wiper on the end. I was like yeah

I think I want to tap out. Like a back scratcher. Anyway guys let's get into the chat with Sandy Ray. We hope that you love it. We hope you get something out of this and a little insight into the world of reality TV. Today on the podcast, we have Sandy Ray joining us. Now, Sandy's a leading practicing psychologist. She's based in Melbourne and she has more than 30 years professional experience. She has her own private practice, Sandy Ray and Associates. So we were like, bingo, let's get this woman in. She has so many qualifications in the psychological science, which is why we have her here today. She also holds a Masters of Criminology, and that is something that I'm actually very, very interested in. All you listeners know that I froth true

crime. You guys might also know Sandy from Channel 9's Today Show, The Chat Room, or The Herald Sun 2. But today we have Sandy here for a different sort of reason. We want to talk about reality TV because, well, we all know we've both been on it. We all know we're sick for it. So Sandy, thank you for joining Life Uncut. And please, let's get into why we're so obsessed as humans with reality TV. Well I'm obsessed too so there we go completely and utterly so that's good we're all on the same page. Wonderful so thanks so much for coming to join us today. Why do you think you are obsessed with reality TV? Why do you think we all are obsessed? Well I think all of us are psychologists in some way. I mean we all love looking at human

behavior that's really the core of it. We like understanding our own behavior, we like understanding other people's behaviour. We get feedback about what am I thinking? Is it right? Is it wrong? We get a chance to explore all the emotional range of indignation, of anger, of identification. We get the opportunity to be judgmental in the privacy of our own home. We get the opportunity to talk to our girlfriends or our partners about gaslighting or abuse or arguments and things like that. So I think what it is, of course, is a reflection of what goes on behind closed doors. or I think that's what a lot of people enjoy that experience yeah Britt and I were kind of saying earlier we were like I am sick for it and the weird thing for me is though I was never really

into reality tv until I did The Bachelor until I had a bit more of an understanding of the back end of it and then I was like ah I kind of really like this now and also knowing how much it actually really can change people's lives like I know that that sounds a bit fluffy but like for us obviously it's had a huge impact on our lives but I think one of the things for me that I was like i really enjoy now as an observer and as a watcher is that i can go to work and i can talk to the girls that i work with about what we've seen on tv and it's it's this sounds bad but it's almost like gossiping about people that we know without actually gossiping about people that we know and i know it leads into this behavior of like oh i want to did you see that thing that this person

did or did you see that thing that was said and i mean you have this insight and you feel like you're so connected to these people but we don't actually know them and it's a really interesting point. There's a thing called social comparison theory in psychology. And I think that's what operates a lot of the time in looking at reality TV. And social comparison theory, as the name implies, is comparing ourself to others. And I think then when we go to work or, you know, the people who have parties together, say when Married at First Sight's on, all the girls have girls nights on. And then, of course, you see all the Twitter feeds. And it is this comparison. It's this, not illusion, but it's this comparison of what does my life look like? I think that's the

big pull you know the big draw card I'm so interested in the social comparison theory because we try to preach and we try to say don't compare yourself to others and I think that that's a very romantic and a very beautiful idea and I think that's where it ends and we all should be trying not to compare ourselves because we are different humans living different lives on different paths but I think deep down you can never 100% not want to compare yourself to someone else's life in some aspect I know that I still if I'm honest I still do it now I even other people's relationships like you know 10 years and I'm finally in a relationship and the first thing I do is start to compare it to other people's because I don't have a relationship of my own to compare it to

can we ever really 100% stop that well you know comparing ourselves to others actually has a lot of value so the idea of you know negating that and saying you know oh it you know don't be judgmental but actually has it it's a safety mechanism for a start because we're making judgments is that the right person to be with for a start so you know fight flight or freeze you have you ever heard of those responses before? Not the freeze one. It's an evolutionary response. So fight or flight. And then the third one they now introduce is freeze. So the idea of assessing what's going on in our environment, which is what judging is, is actually a really good survival mechanism. It determines, do I need to connect any further with this person? Or there's something

that I don't quite like about this person, I'm going to pull back and move away. So I would argue that being judgmental is actually quite a good instinct to develop i've got three girls and you know this argument about let the kids explore their own you know dynamics with their peers and things like this and i used to go if i see things i'm going to teach them because i'm ahead of the game so i used to say for instance when girls were bullies or something was going on i'm telling you now and i should teach the girls that watch and listen there will be something going on in that child's family that they're a bully or that they're being vile at school or something like that and sure enough it would all unfold and I would actually teach my girls very

explicitly to look and watch and observe and with that comes judgment but you know there's this sort of as you say that stereotypical view of don't be judgmental but in fact judging has a really good social and protective function. What do you think that we can consciously learn from watching other people's behavior? I think the overarching word that I would say is learning empathy. If I had to just nail it in one word, I could give you lots of sentences, opportunities and a capacity to look at our own emotions and how other people develop and relate and all the rest of it. But if there would be one salient word, I think it's empathy on all the spectrum. There's a famous marriage relationship person called Gottman. And he says, there's lots of things that create

relationships and fractures in relationships, blah, blah, blah. And he said, if there's one word that I could say that causes fights and competition in relationships, and that's a lack of empathy. And again, I direct to hear that what these programs often don't fail to identify is the empathy as a result of being trolled and that person at the other end of the trolling behavior. I don't know if it's because I've been on a reality TV show or not, but I feel so sorry for like almost every contestant because I know that in some capacity there's something that we're not seeing or there's something that's being shown because it is highly produced and I definitely do look at reality tv different now so it's going to be hard for me to talk about it in a way like I

haven't been on the show but before I did reality tv and I saw a little bit more behind the scenes I don't want to admit it but I was very judgmental I was constantly like you're an idiot you're a moron you're so toxic you're disgusting like and I took no but tell me what you really think for it but you would take because the show would show you the character that they want and I'm putting these characters in inverted commas but because people do look at you like you're just a character and they forget that you're a human being a real human being that is coming to a type of experiment but I used to look at them and be so judgy because I would take at face value what I was shown not knowing there were 23 more hours worth of filming that we didn't see there's more storylines that

we didn't see and so now I'll still look at and say you're stupid but I'll know that there's more to it i'll be like that was a dumb comment but there's probably a reason you've said that so i'm trying to be way more understanding knowing that what we're shown is not the whole spectrum and it's interesting you know i was co-hosting a show called the last resort i don't know if you have ever heard of that was a channel nine show and we did the opposite of married at first sight so married at first sight they start off really well and then they the relationships typically explode whereas last resort was they have got very fractious relationships and we were trying to rebuild them and in the light of Married at First Sight we spent an enormous amount of time

so and I was sort of the psychologist in charge and so we spent enormous amount of time safeguarding and you may may or may not remember well you probably don't but there was no fallout at all because I was very very concerned we didn't have late night sessions we guarded the participants really well they were really well looked after in their own villas and with great food great dynamics and so we had no fallout at all so i think a lot of this sort of behavior and the characters that are created really depend on our duty of care to the participants and i think that that's something that's becoming more and more glaring with the number of suicides and the uk are now having a guidance framework put in place and i think that this is going to become front

and center that if we don't really safeguard and it's all very well to have characters that are edited on reality tv but if we don't seriously take on board our duty of care and follow up psychological counseling but even more than that it's the pre-testing that needs to be assessed and understood and you know having vulnerable personalities going on tv is something that i take very very seriously and it was something that i spent a lot of time safeguarding and as a result none of our participants went into New Idea or Woman's Day complaining about any mistreatment or maltreatment you know so I was that to me was a very proud thing that they were all well looked after. Well I do think that there's truth to that sort of old adage where there's smoke there's fire

and I think that you know there are definitely some reality tv shows that people speak really highly of who come out as contestants and then some that are far more heavily criticized and actually my partner Matt he just finished on Dancing with the Stars which I had never even really thought about the psychological implications or the social implications and going on a show like Dancing with the Stars I was like everyone would be happy it's dancing you get to go dance what could you possibly it's the time of your life you got seven hours a day away from your children it's fantastic and what happened nothing negative happened at all but it was managed really really well one of the things I was so impressed by was just the follow-up care and the check-ins

with the psychiatrist and they have dedicated psychologists on all reality tv shows but on this one as well they had so much follow-up and he had to have these mandatory exit interviews with his psychiatrist to make sure that he was in the same place that they left him before the show basically and even he was a bit like why do they keep wanting to talk to me I'm fine but I think it's such a necessary part that goes hand in hand with reality tv there is a duty of care and responsibility to the people who are participants because I think from my own experience even though everyone thinks you deserve this because you signed up for it you often don't actually know what it is that you're signing up for like you sign up because you think it's going to be a fun

experience you think that you're going to meet new people and hey maybe you'll meet a guy and you'll fall in love who knows but I don't think that everybody has the full awareness of what they are actually signing up for and that's you know there is there's a huge part of that as well Yeah, but it's a poor reflection on society as a whole that we can say, you signed up for reality TV, you knew you were going to get those death threats, you knew you were going to get that hate. Reality TV should not equal, oh well, you know you're going to get death threats. That's a poor reflection on us. Look, I couldn't agree more. You know, I was really angry about Chappelle Corby going on SAS. To exactly your point, Brittany, that it's all very well saying that adults, they've got informed consent. But when you're not mentally in a well place, it's a very predatory cluster of behaviours that I think some producers pounce on to get ratings,

obviously. And I think Chappelle Corby was a perfect example of that. I don't know if you watched SAS. We did. When she got a one-on-one with the SAS team in that interviewing room and she just said, I think words to the effect of, I'm not well, I need help. Oh, it was heartbreaking. Well, I just got goosebumps. As a psychologist, I went, what the hell? And how did you get assessed? There's so different parts of this that I was just uncomfortable by. And like, I get it. I get that what the training that it's depicting, I get the emphasis and this idea that you can kind of recreate. I think the big onus on that show was that people were going in who had compromised

stories, you know, they compromised past stories, whether they'd done something where they wanted to redeem themselves socially. And so by doing this hard training, they had the opportunity of showing their vulnerability and that way they can redeem themselves socially in the eye of the audience, which it's an obscure path, but I mean, it seemed to work for a lot of people. A lot of these people had the opportunity to show their vulnerable sides and that's what changed public perception about them. And actually that kind of leads me into a whole other question on this, but what do you think are the positives then as a contestant going on a show or on a reality TV show, or even from the viewer's perspective, watching a reality TV show, we hear so many of

the negative things that can come from reality TV, but I genuinely think that there are so many positive things that can come from reality TV as well. And I'd love to know your opinion and perspective on that. I mean, you met me, Laura, so. And we have a podcast, baby. We have Life Uncut Was Born. Podcast, there's a positive. Look, I think, and it's a really good point. I think there are lots of positives. You know, some of those are what we've talked about for the observers, you know, the empathy, the social interaction, comparing and affirming, understanding what gaslighting behaviour is, for instance, getting cues about, you know, inappropriate behaviour, consensual behaviour, et cetera. There's lots of cues that I think the audience can actually get

from can i just quickly finish off about chapelle so the only thing i could come up with was that she got forty thousand dollars and perhaps that forty thousand dollars great was for therapy or counseling or whatever she needed so there's a plus that if there's no other income source or limited income source there's a really good way of perhaps generating some income getting your self-esteem batting an order redemption as you rightly said but there are certainly benefits to you know to business if you want to go on reality tv to increase your business profile you know you might want to be an actor you might have a small business and this expands the viewing audience so you're prepared to take those sorts of risks it might be because i've been lonely for 10 years

and i've never been in a relationship well i've got nothing to lose you know whatever character they carve out for me i mean i'm getting the opportunity to experience something which i otherwise would never have access to if not for the development of reality tv for some people it would enhance their self-esteem they get feedback that they look gorgeous so I think there are lots of benefits in relation to Chappelle I think that's a prime example of when we say redemption because Australia had this one idea of Chappelle you know for the last however many years we knew that she was accused of drug smuggling she was in prison and that's what we knew of her that was literally it now we saw her on and whilst it wasn't good for her mental health it has done

something really great for her in the public eye I do believe everybody gets a second chance to say who they are and shape their life but we would never have seen another side to Chappelle and we only know this because Laura's partner Matt was on Dancing with the Stars Chappelle was on Dancing with the Stars too and Matt just sung her praises he was like she was the nicest person on there she was so generous and it wasn't for show she would go and give food to the homeless after the show and it wasn't in front of anyone it wasn't so anyone would talk about it she was just a really good human and you know then we we went and spoke about on the podcast and put that out to however many people listen and we've now been shown chapelle in a different light for who she

is on the inside and that doesn't excuse anything she may or may not have done in the past but it's just a prime example of what reality tv can do in terms of showing australia and showing the world who you actually are we always hope that we're the exception like i know when i signed up for the bachelor and i think that that this would probably ring true for anybody who has signed up for a reality TV show you know that there is a possibility that you could come off badly and that it could end poorly but you always hope as a person that you're the exception you always hope that well maybe this will be my chance to meet someone and maybe this would be my chance to you know put my life in a different trajectory and I think for me personally I was at a point where I

was a bit bored in my life I was making the same relationship mistakes over and over and only in reflection now I can see like why I had that pattern behavior in my relationships we've got a whole podcast. I was really codependent in my relationships and I really kind of just monkey branched into the same thing, just fully put myself and the same thing into the new, into a new person who is the exact carbon copy of the old person. And reality TV for me was a chance to break that cycle because I met someone who really wasn't someone I would have dated in the real world like my partner now is probably someone who had I met I would have kind of thought oh yeah he's super handsome but he's way too nice and he's not a challenge and he likes me too much

and why is he like and this is going to sound dumb but every girl has done this oh my god why is he so obsessed with me like oh boring. I've never done that. They have but because there was a bit of a challenge in actually meeting him and it was interesting and it was fun and it exposed me to someone who I would never have really connected with or met properly in the real world and then I realized just how much I loved him and wanted to be with him and how our lives are intertwined and I guess for me that was a huge positive because it gave me some distance from my own personal life to reflect on the things I was doing wrong like it fully takes you out of your normal life it disrupts everything and you are forced especially in something like The Bachelor

or in a in a love related reality tv show you have to spend so much time being introspective and thinking about your feelings and thinking about what you want and nobody spends three months just examining themselves and thinking about what they want for their relationship we always have these other distractions and for me that was so invaluable and what about the intensity of having so many other women around you so that that part of it was good for you because you could be mindful but how that like looking that social comparison theory sort of blows my mind a bit all the women together it's a bit maddening and I think you have to be a pretty strong person to be okay with it for me the reason why I was okay with the whole dating him and a whole lot of other people dating

him was because I was like well it's pretty much the same as me in Sydney anyway a lot of the guys I dated in the past cheated on me and I'd been sharing them without knowing so I was like well if this is happening to me in the real world but I'm being lied to at least this is happening to my face and I'm okay with it like I'm accepting of what's happening and nothing is going on behind closed doors so I actually felt a lot safer in that environment because I was like I know exactly what's happening. And that was like a sort of transparency and honesty that I was not receiving in my normal relationships. No, my ex was marrying two people simultaneously whilst cheating with eight other women. So this was like a holiday for me. I was like, mate, I was like, this is

fantastic. Sandy, the dating game is vicious. It is vicious. I think we need to have a talk about your capacity to perceive what's going on. Oh, we definitely, in all seriousness, the and I think that this is something we do get a lot of questions and like it's something that people do need to consider when they want to go on reality tv for me I was lucky and I can say this I was maybe it's because I what I went through in the past but as a human and I'd been traveling the world I just got back from a three-year round the world trip I was fiercely independent I had been through a lot of shit and I was really thick-skinned water off a duck's back a lot I felt going into that situation yes I knew what it was but I I wasn't worried in the slightest

because I thought you know what this is going to be a really great experience and I feel like I've been through worse I wasn't I didn't have a sheltered upbringing I wasn't wrapped in cotton wool and I literally found in all honesty and I don't know how many people can say this I found it so easy the stresses didn't really bother me the other women dating Nick didn't bother me because I was able to compartmentalize what it was why I was there and just just focus on myself but when people write to me and say should I go on the show or not my first thing is you need to be so so okay in yourself and thick-skinned but from a psychological perspective what would you say to people that are thinking of not just The Bachelor but like any reality tv show what would

what's your advice? I think the very first thing you have to again that being introspective I think is a really good point what are your vulnerabilities and you know you know Laura you just talked about you know codependent relationships and you could see a pattern unfolding I think if you don't understand your vulnerabilities when you go and do an audition because what is it that differentiates all the men and women who audition it's their mental health there's lots of blonde pretty girls there's lots of articulate women there's lots of everything but what really differentiates people is their mental health so if you feel that there's a vulnerability I would have really red flags about going on because that's what the producers will hook into and I can tell you quite unethically

I know of psychologists who've been on the shows who present the results to producers and they're effectively ignored. So the best investment is not blaming producers for their selection but it's you being diligent and being introspective and being guarded about what your vulnerabilities are because if you don't know them this show or any show that you go on is not going to fix them they're going to magnify them they're going to exploit them and then you're the one that's going to suffer as a result so anyone who's going i think as a mental health practitioner would be understand what your vulnerabilities are and is this show because we've got enough evidence now of the outcomes of reality show we know trolling happens we know it

affects people's mental health we know that it can actually trigger suicide i mean the show in and of itself is not going to cause suicide there's obviously issues well established beforehand but it does impact on the life of many people so you know we've got enough evidence that that exists so you now need to be smart enough to say right what is the possible outcome for me you may not be fully aware of what it's like to be trolled you know i wouldn't have a clue what it's like to be trolled you know for weeks and weeks on end but I think you just need to be very introspective about how would it impact on your mental health it's the mental health that drives it that's the thing that the producers hook into I just wanted to say one thing back on what you had said earlier

Brit in regards to how easy you found the process I don't want to gloss over that because the reason why Brit and I actually met was because there was a period where she wasn't coping with it and I reached out to her as somebody who was in my position from the year prior and this is actually how we met and I think if you guys have listened to the podcast for a long time you might have heard this story but Britt was copying some serious backlash online and I just knew what that felt like and I knew what it's like to feel like nobody wants your relationship to work out and like at that time I didn't know whether or not the honey badger had chosen Nick I thought sorry he didn't choose himself I didn't know whether or not he had chosen Britt and I was

like it's such awful awful and soul-crushing feeling to think that nobody who's watching the show wants you to be with that person and you're with that person you know like the shows are airing on tv and that's actually your boyfriend so i reached out to brit and i was like look i know that you think that everyone hates you i just want you to know that everyone doesn't hate you and the small portion of people who are writing you messages or they're contacting you or they're whatever they're saying like they really don't matter and it goes away very very quickly like it's a very short-lived amount of aggression and that's when Britt called I was like here's my number call me if you need to have a chat it was like two minutes later and she was in tears

absolutely beside herself so I think it's one thing to say oh it was a great experience but we tend to forget the bad bits and that's true for any relationship it's true for any trauma we kind of suppress it so I think even though overall I would say my experience is great and I think Britt would also say her experience was great we both have parts of that experience which were extremely challenging what I yeah what I want to say is and I was thinking about this just before you said that Laura I was like I just made that sound way too easy and way too good when I was like it was great it was really great for me but it did and this is what highlighted this thought Sandy was when you said what is your vulnerability and that did happen for me my

vulnerability was this feeling of never been enough I had been in this no relationship for 10 years nearly or at the time sorry seven or eight years and my last relationship was with this sociopath I had this feeling of like not being enough I was like why doesn't anyone want to date me you picked him well then we'll have to talk about it again you can analyze me but that was definitely brought out the whole that was what they angled like why don't you think anyone's wanted to date you for so long and then over the three months I was like wow like is there something not right with me but I was like no this connection with Nick is so great like I honestly was like this is it this is why I've been single so long this is why all these things have happened because

I'm supposed to be with Nick and then Nick dumped me at the end and didn't pick anyone and then that was heightened so my vulnerability of not being enough for no bachelor in Australia has ever done that to be like wow there's something really fundamentally wrong with me if I'm the first person that can't even walk away with someone happily at the end so that definitely is something you need to consider what's your vulnerability will be brought out and then for me the hardest part was actually after the show like Laura said it wasn't the environment so much that was quite nice for me a lot of the girls were complaining about being in a bunk bed and they'd never been away from home I was like I've been in a hostel for three years why what this is like luxury

people making me breakfast the hardest part was after and it was the trolling and like Laura said like that for me I'd never experienced that I like to think of myself as a good person and I'm like how can these people be telling me to kill myself or telling me how ugly I am and that's why I'm single and I was like how can they do that when I know I'm a good person but they look at you like you're a character like it is the most absurd reaction and so of course how i would self-soothe from that is saying they're mentally unwell it's not normal conversation it's not a normal reaction 100 so you know there's this dissociation that you would then have to create i imagine is saying what has gone on with those people because that's what strikes me there's something

it's just so abnormal to wish someone dead from a reality show how did you reconcile you know you sort of became very close with Nick with the fallout from all that that he didn't choose anyone how did you reconcile that I didn't for a while I still just for a long time thought I wasn't good enough and there's something wrong with me and I that I needed to sort something out and I it's it's funny because deep down I'm like there is nothing wrong with you like I know there's not but there's still this soldier on my right was like you're great there's nothing wrong with you and the one on the left is like well why the hell does no one ever want to be with you so that was something I battled for a long time it was probably like another 18 months

after when I started to like regain my confidence again and realize that did you say 18 months yeah so it's probably three years ago now would it yeah yeah the show was three years ago but I mean and I think that that's why I'm really glad you brought that up Brit because I do think it sounded a bit oversimplified of like everything was awesome when you're part of a team but really there was a lot of flow on from your experience and I remember having many conversations with you before meeting Jordan where you you said I don't feel like I'm good enough I feel like there's something wrong with me a lot of that anguish had come from the show and it had come from public rejection which is a huge thing to deal with and also I mean like I also feel for the people who

go through the bachelor that and the same cycle that we've been with and they do get chosen and the relationship doesn't work out because going through a public fallout in a relationship is huge as well like that's one of my biggest fears is and I know Matt and I we always say to each other we're going to be together forever but if it didn't happen and we weren't together forever having a really public breakup is something that I have a lot of fear attached to that like that's really something I don't think I would handle very well but just coming back to something you said and I think it was really powerful because I had not thought of it in that manner at all but you're so correct the idea of like the most important thing if you are considering doing reality tv

is being hyper aware of your vulnerabilities. I had never considered that that is what sets you apart. And one of the big thing that we say on this podcast is that there's power in vulnerability. There's power in showing people how you feel, because when you express yourself and you explain your feelings, it allows someone to be softer towards you. It allows someone to actually reach out and help you if you're in need of help, instead of being like, I'm fine. Everything's fine. I think we sometimes tend to do that as women. We put up a bit of a front and say that we're fine instead of expressing our feelings however when it comes to reality tv not just your feelings but if there are some things that don't bring out the best in you if

there are different situations where you know actually i'm not my best self when someone speaks to me like that or i'm not my best self when i'm overtired and i'm overworked and i'm feeling a little bit out of control i think be really super hyper vigilant on those situations because that's when i think that you can really lose yourself in a reality tv setting if you're considering signing up and doing a show. I think that's beautifully well said. And I think we forget that that aftermath, that means you become hypervigilant, hyper aroused, you have sleepless nights, et cetera, et cetera. And I think that some of these shows, if you're not aware of your vulnerabilities, then you are at greater risk of suffering from PTSD as a result of going on this

show. Okay. I wanted to bring it back to something a bit more positive because we've just got caught in but I've read a lot of research studies that have said well a firstly more than 50 percent this is us-based but more than 50 percent of the population tunes into reality tv than not so more people are watching reality tv than not and these people are watching it because watching drama has been shown to de-stress a person why is that why is if we're really stressed and anxious Do we want it from the day? Do we walk in, put the reality TV on, and then feel better? It's because we're like, well, you know what?

My life is fucked, but their life is way more fucked than mine. Yeah, is that it? And I feel good. That's exactly it. And I have this summary. Pi, you know, imagine a pi. There's three real reasons for that. Escapism, identification, and a potential of what I could do on the show.

So that's what I think actually drives it. So the de-stressing is escapism. So if I'm filling up time, if I've had a shit day at work, I come home and I watch all these lunatics behaving in crazy competitive. We're not Geordie Shore over here. Come on. I'm joking. I take it personally, girls.

But that's how you sort of say it. Oh, they're lunatics. I don't think you even use the words. Oh, they're morons. They're stupid. They're crazy. So I'm catching up on your words, Brit. When you're distressed, you go, oh, my life is not too bad.

These people are far worse than what I am. So I think that, you know, it gives that sense of the world is okay now. And we don't really have to use our brain, do we? Absolutely. It's like we're not, it's like our brain has a break because it's just this easy watching that we're not really thinking. Absolutely. I kind of challenged that.

I don't know if we, because like, I think that for us, some of the big shows that we've watched, like, and like, it's all about human behavior and human interactions. We've had some really profound conversations off the back of watching reality TV where we've gone, okay, that characteristic is gaslighting. let's have a big unpacking a conversation around gaslighting like we have had some really thought-provoking conversations and i think with some of the reality tv shows that are coming out recently it's actually lending us to to really dissect and look at human behavior so i don't know if i switch off but i'm watching it that's after the fact when you're literally sitting down

watching like i watch your stories when you watch reality tv you're having a great time you're having a laugh you're having a wine like it's your wine down and then the conversations stem from it after one of my daughters said to me and i asked her the question what do you think you get out of watching reality tv and she said comedic relief you know you're stressed you get there and also when you come home watching reality tv whether it's dancing with the stars or sas or love island or whatever there is a certain voyeurism it gives you an opportunity to explore and look at people in a way that you would never ever get access to in a legal safe way in the comfort of my own home, I can watch what's going on. I can watch romantic behavior and even intimate behavior

in the comfort and the legality of my own home. Without putting a camera in someone's house. Just thinking of Gogglebox then, you know. I think that's part of the reason. I think that's part of why it makes sense to me that it is a de-stressor because you can unpack any sort of heaviness that you've got during the day and go, I can just watch their behavior and how crazy they look and I feel good about myself. Ah, the world's a safe place again. Well, one of the big things as well and I think that it's all interrelated like we are so obsessed with social media which I think has a very similar ethos behind it you know we get to see this insight into people's lives but reality tv social media have completely changed the landscape for what creates a celebrity

because before back in the day our true sort of like supermodels and our celebrities were held in such a high regard because they were so far away they were so untouchable and on this huge pedestal and there was some sort of secrecy to their life and that was what we found so engaging and so interesting but with the dawn of social media and with reality tv we now crave that connection we now crave that insight into people's lives and we actually form a greater love for and bond with people who show us more of their lives than less of their lives you know so even we see that some hollywood stars now have kind of the new wave of hollywood stars are far more open with their lives whereas the old school ones like your tom cruise and your nicole kimmons and stuff are

very close still. And I think that that's just going to continue to change because what we expect as a consumer is changing. What we expect people to show and to reveal is completely changing. And you've made a really good point. So there's two words there that I'll, psychology words I'll introduce. It's called parasocial relationships with celebrities is a new terminology that's evolving. And there's actually a journal of celebrity studies has now created in the last decade so it's looking at the development and evolution of celebrity and how we identify with often reality tv people is this parasocial relationship their life is like my life am i as pretty as her or not as pretty as her oh she's got how she relates to her partner

and when a celebrity engages in some sort of egregious behavior that parasocial relationship is broken because there's such an identification with the celebrity and that means that often accounts for trolling behavior and abusive behavior so if a celebrity does something wrong it actually interrupts that parasocial relationship which is what audience have identified with but sandy another thing that i really wanted to talk to you about because i'm obsessed with it is true crime now I know you have studied criminology why is it that we are so obsessed with serial killers and murders and all these horrific things that happen to people because I don't like watching it I hate what happens to people but I love listening to crime podcasts

it's like my number one no offense Laura but I listen to crime more than ourselves I love listening to true crime podcasts I love watching true crime reality tv shows I love watching where the psychologists go into the prisons and speak to serial killers why are we sickos or what well I mean I used to work in Barwon prison so I was a forensic psychologist in Barwon so which is the maximum security men's prison it's like the equivalent I think of your silver water or Goulburn jail so I have actually dealt with the state's worst offenders so I also started off having this fascination going oh my god look I think the real reason that we're attracted to it is because it's behavior that we otherwise wouldn't have access to. So you wouldn't engage

in, I'm imagining, murdering people or torturing people or sexually abusing people. So all these high rating crimes are crimes that are really just unimaginable to us that we could never. So it's a bit like, again, looking at this voyeurism, coming home, in the safety of your own home, you're actually able to see what other people do, which you otherwise would never have access to and I think that's the drawcard of looking at crime stories it's interesting you know having worked at the coalface with these criminals and offenders both you know sexual offenders and murderers and all the rest of it I actually got in my car every night and slept really well and I think it was because unlike it being all packaged and neat and clean I was

actually able to communicate on a very deep level with the offenders so I could understand their crimes and of course not condone any of it but I could actually because I could understand the developmental pathway and how they got there it was a really curious and interesting process for me in terms of how it affected me psychologically and for some reason I was able to say okay we're done for the day today's work's finished I'll get in the car and drive but when I see stuff on TV like crime stories I'm more affected the way I think also the way it's packaged up. How do you as a psychologist cope with taking on people's stories and emotions and sitting down with people every day and listening to you know the things that they're struggling with like how do you

compartmentalize that and not take that home and not allow that to emotionally impact you you do a lot of self-care that's the first thing and I don't sit hour after hour listening to people because I just think that's actually anti-therapeutic so I'm very guarded in the number of people I have and one of the core attributes of a good psychologist is having a high degree of creativity because you never know what's walking through the door so you have to be on. So you have to join lots of issues. And what excites me is formulating a story about what's going on with this person and seeing if I can offer what I'm a very strength based person. So that means offering my insights to see how we can together navigate some resolutions of whatever the

problem is. So the issues are often very big. So I've written many, many reports for women of domestic abuse and represented women. You know, and I've done family court reports, I've done children court reports so a whole gamut of reports and people have come to me and I think how I manage it is I just see them as humans no matter what f-ups have happened in their life even for offenders I get to understand developmentally what has happened and so I guess I have a great deal of empathy and it's that empathy that actually carries me through and doesn't harm me I can just go I understand where you're coming I'm not giving a moral judgment about if you become a sexual offender about the impact on the victim i just go all i'm focusing on here is why did you

get to that position in life i have a question that's based around these true crime shows the ones where the serial killers have passed over they're dead for whatever reason the ones where they're in jail they go and interview them my question is and i seem to like toggle between my two thoughts on the situation is do you think we should be giving these people a platform because a lot of them just want their name out there don't they they want to be remembered in history or do you think it's still, we're learning enough from it and it's important enough that we are airing it? So I'm always a bit between like, I'm obsessed with this

and I want to learn from you and I want to know what is going on in your head. And then there's another part that's like, your name shouldn't be infamous, like famous. We shouldn't be talking about you. We shouldn't all know that you killed 25 women. There was also this conversation that came off the back of the Ted Bundy series,

which was that, are we romanticizing a serial killer by doing this sort of insight into their life and doing this expose? Jose, is that romanticising true crime? Is it romanticising these horrific events? What's your thought on that? It doesn't help that Zac Efron was the lead. The hottest guy in the world was the lead killer.

Even more recently, Jacinda Ardern over in the Christchurch massacres, she said we will never, ever mention his name in a public forum again. And to this day, I don't even know the guy's name because it's never been mentioned again because she didn't want to celebrate or give him celebritization of his acts of murder so it's a really it's a really good point i know and it's one i don't have an answer to because a lot of serial killers are actually sociopaths so the difference between a psychopath and a sociopath psychopath is typically born with sociopath is nurtured because of the deficits in their development you know mental

health of parents sexual abuse etc etc so that's essentially the difference so there's a lot of And psychopaths is actually a small percentage of the population, the criminal population, but a lot of them are sociopaths. So if it's a learnt behaviour, they would no doubt get a lot of pleasure from being celebrated because of their criminal conduct. And do we learn from it? I'd be very surprised if a potentially violent offender would watch a TV program and go, note to self,

must not engage in antisocial behaviour. But do you know what? they might learn hey i shouldn't wear the same shoes to a crime scene correct hey i shouldn't do this because these are all the things that these other people have been busted for i do sometimes watch these shows and think wow so much information around how that person got caught and the things they did wrong is available and now it just kind of helps someone else to go oh i won't make that fuck up that's what not to do for my sort of clinical experience most offenders most come from very fragmented dysfunctional chaotic drug-affected substance abuse lives so the idea

that they're going to be introspective when their development is pretty screwy from day one they don't have access to the normal social supports or care or or love or nurturing or home lives that you or I might come from so the idea they're going to watch tv and say you know gee how can I reflect on my life and make it a little bit better because they're just in survival mode and their mode is what can i get out of uh the community or other people that i need to make my life a bit better whichever way that there's been a lot of women that have come out and said like in documentaries and interviews that have said that they have learned things from watching as well like they learn to carry pepper spray they learn to lock their doors they learn to

share their location immediately if they feel like they're in a vulnerable position no i think that's right i think i think law abiding people probably learn a little bit more from some of these shows than offenders as i said i don't think offenders sit back and go note to self i won't murder that woman today no no because it's bad publicity you know i don't think that's going to happen but i think you're probably right law abiding people become a little bit more aware of some of the mechanisms that offenders engage in god i've learned so much from true crime podcast the only trouble is then equally it makes you it may make you a little bit more inappropriately hypervigilant so even though i've worked in the prisons i'm no i'm not

hypervigilant or hyper aroused at all like i'm not sort of like oh there's a bang there's a clue oh i better make sure i don't engage in any of that behavior but also i think i don't feed that behavior like as you say you when you're constantly watching podcasts on crime i think it starts to trigger you you know and it reinforces very again a cluster of vulnerable behaviors nothing wrong with you know being aware safety etc etc but I think also if you are finding that you're getting rather excited about when you step outside your front door because I'm on something might happen to me I think you probably need to back it off a bit you need to cancel your subscription well Sandy thank you so much I think I feel like we've covered a lot sorry we really like

pulled you from pillar to post like we have gone everywhere we were like we've got access to this amazing psychologist let's just cover everything and then have a personal therapy session in there as well yeah I'm gonna stay on the line and talk to you about my love life after this 45 minutes no but thank you so much for coming on Sandy can you please let everyone know where they can find you on Instagram or online what are your handles oh look just Sandy Ray at my handle lowercase Sandy Ray R-E-A lowercase of Instagram and I've just got a web page so if you look it up Sandy Ray R-E-A psychologist all the directions are on my website and you'll get to me you've been wonderful thank you thank you so much for taking the time with us today sandy thank you so much for

having me girls it's been so much fun well you guys know we never finish an episode without our highlight and our low light of the week it is called suck and sweet and laura you can kick this off what is your suck i just want to say as well i love that there's some of you out there who have started doing this there's actually a thread that's just started on the facebook group where people are adding their suck and sweets for the week so yes it is such a nice little way to round out what could have been a great or very shitty week up to you we love to see we love to see it my suck for this week has got to be that Lola is teething I know I mentioned at the start but it just consumes everything and we had gotten to a really good point with her sleeping she had

gotten down to like only waking up two times a night which I know for her being six months old there's going to be some people listening who are like that's not good baby should sleep through it six months my kids don't twice a night is great for us I wish my kids slept through the night but she's back to just waking up like a million times a night she's so feral at the moment and and it's it's really it hurts your heart seeing your baby in pain and you know every time she has a mouthful of food or bites down on a spoon or something she gets really upset so that hurts my soul that she is upset at the moment but my sweet for the week ah like my sweet for the week is just I think I said this last week but I'm going to say it again it's just the extra family

time that we've been having and I mean we've spent so much time inside the four of us and playing games with Marley playing hide and seek we don't usually get to have that much time doing like cute little family stuff and things that you know normally you're too busy rushing around or you're too busy trying to like get other work done but I feel like I've really got to spend time just playing with Marley and I've loved that so that's my sweet for the week there we go that's a cute sweet it's good that you're trying to take something from a bad situation you know and take the good from it. Thanks, Britt. I was like, this is where you respond something. All right, Britt, what is your suck and sweet? Okay. So I actually have a pretty solid suck

this week. I lost my phone and I don't mean lost it, like lost it temporarily. I haven't had it for five days. It is gone. My phone has disappeared. So I've been without a phone. And then of course I forgot my Instagram and hotmail passwords. Cause you know how on your phone, everything's just perpetually logged in yeah it's just automated it's such a bad idea isn't it oh and i do all my banking on there i do my business i have just been absolutely lost without it but hopefully i'm only probably two more days without a phone and then i'll get another one that was my suck wait did you have everything backed up pass no some stuff was yeah some stuff was um but not everything because i took off automatic

updates because it was really annoying me but that's a really really silly thing to do I mean not that you want to hear that now after you've just lost your phone but like wow um I put on automatic updates after having kids so I've lost my phone so many times and every single time I've lost so many so many photos but after having Lola and Marley I was like I think it would be so soul-crushing to lose photos of your kids because obviously they never go back to being that little again and I know there's going to be someone listening to this who it's happened to and I'm so sorry if it's if it's you but like that's when I was like okay I don't care if it's annoying doing automatic updates at night time we're doing it every night I'm gonna back up every single

photo and now my cloud I pay like an astronomical amount because I have thousands of shitty screenshots and just like stuff that you do not need to save it's all saved I have never gonna lose anything again bless yourself my suite to be honest it's a pretty it's pretty easy one Jordan's not playing a tournament this week it's the first week that he hasn't played since I've been here so it's the first week we've actually just hung out as a couple and not had a million places to be and you know he goes to play tennis for 10 hours a day so whilst i see him every day it's the first time i feel like we actually got some real quality time so that was really cute that is it from us today please keep your questions coming in because in a few days time we have ask uncut and we

absolutely love bringing that to you so slide on in to the instagram life uncut podcast just make sure at the top of your dm you put the heading ask uncut so we know what your questions and please keep those accidentally unfiltered coming in also guys if you have not left a review yet jump onto apple podcast leave a review subscribe and you know the drill tell your mom tell your dad tell your friends to your cousin tell your dog and just tell everyone and share the love because we love We'll be right back.