Dr Will Dobud shares insights about his experience of writing and publishing a non-fiction book - a lessons learnt kind of a chat. Rather than focusing on insights from the book content, we talk about the mechanics, processes, and experiences behind bringing together a non-fiction and mental health focused book.

Will Dobud, PhD, MSW, is a Senior Social Work Lecturer at Charles Sturt University and an award-winning practitioner, educator, and researcher. He is recognised as a practitioner with international experience working with children, adolescents, and families. Will’s research focuses on improving young people’s experiences in therapeutic interventions and outdoor therapies and how clinicians can become more evidence-informed in their decision-making. Will also advocates for youth affected by unethical treatments and interventions, highlighted by the Troubled Teen Industry in the United States. He is a sought-after speaker and trainer for youth-serving organisations, travelling internationally to help organisations enhance their services for those they serve. Will and I collaborate on a wide range of topics and create practice resources together.

Connect with Will on various social media platforms: Facebook, X / Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram

Experiential Practice Symposium
Will is also the co-convenor for the first Experiential Practice Symposium held from 21-23 November on CSU’s Port Macquarie Campus. This is an affordable and accessible event with the theme of “Conversation as Experiential Learning.” Everyone is welcome to attend and facilitate an experiential workshop on learning, mental health, or the philosophy of experience. Learn more here: https://experientialpractice.csu.domains/

Other episodes featuring Will
25. Kids these days: Understanding and supporting youth mental health
9. Exploring outdoor therapies

Cite this episode

MacDonald, J. B. & Dobud, W. (2025, April 12). Writing and publishing a non-fiction book (No. 26) [Audio podcast episode]. In Psych Attack. www.psychattack.com

Transcript
The transcript for this episode was developed using transcription software. There may be errors in the content as I do not have capacity to review for accuracy.

Acknowledgements

Psych Attack is created and hosted by Dr Jasmine B. MacDonald. The video and audio for this episode was edited by Morgan McRae. Special thanks to Dr Will Dobud for sharing your time and expertise.

Related Psych Attack Episodes

22. Digital phenotyping: Using smartphone metadata to predict mental health symptoms
13. The role of animals in mental health practice
7. Mental health disorders and child development

Related practice resources
Building resilience in children and young people
Engaging young children (0-5 years) in nature play

Related blog posts
Child and adolescent mental health conference 2025

In this episode, I catch up again with Dr Will Dobud about his latest book called 'Kids These Days', which is currently only presale.

'Kids These Days' is essentially a protest for protecting the heroism and spirit of youth. Will co-authored 'Kids These Days' with Professor Nevin Harper from the University of Victoria in Canada. This anticipated book offers a frank exploration of the rising rates of youth mental illness and the ways in which increased interference, intervention, and ideology have influenced these trends. To develop the book, Will and Nevin consulted with experts in therapeutic interventions, parenting, education, outdoor play, social media, and environmental toxins. They examined how mainstream media may, in fact, incite heightened moral panic without representing the best available evidence.

Will Dobud, PhD, MSW, is a Senior Social Work Lecturer at Charles Sturt University and an award-winning practitioner, educator, and researcher. He is recognised as a practitioner with international experience working with children, adolescents, and families. Will’s research focuses on improving young people’s experiences in therapeutic interventions and outdoor therapies and how clinicians can become more evidence-informed in their decision-making. Will also advocates for youth affected by unethical treatments and interventions, highlighted by the Troubled Teen Industry in the United States. He is a sought-after speaker and trainer for youth-serving organisations, travelling internationally to help organisations enhance their services for those they serve. Will and I collaborate on a wide range of topics and create practice resources together.

Connect with Will Dobud and Nevin Harper on various social media platforms:

Will: Facebook, X / Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram
Nevin: LinkedIn, Substack, Instagram

Cite this episode

MacDonald, J. B. & Dobud, W. (2025, March 27). Kids These Days: Understanding and Supporting Youth Mental (No. 25) [Audio podcast episode]. In Psych Attack. www.psychattack.com

Transcript
The transcript for this episode was developed using transcription software. There may be some errors in the content as I do not have capacity to review for accuracy.

Acknowledgements

Psych Attack is created and hosted by Dr Jasmine B. MacDonald. The video and audio for this episode was edited by Morgan McRae. Special thanks to Dr Will Dobud for sharing your time and expertise.

In this episode, I catch up with Rahim Thawer about envy and its impacts in our social and sexual lives.

Rahim is a racialized, queer social worker who works as an instructor, psychotherapist, clinical supervisor, consultant, public speaker, podcast host, and writer. He calls Toronto home and currently teaches at The University of Alabama. His work explores the intersection of mental health and systemic oppression. He has a particular interest in examining innovation in queer relationships and exploring how anti-racist, queer-affirming psychoanalytic frameworks can support social workers, training therapists, and organizational leaders.

Episode content
0:00 - Introduction
1:16 - Rahim's background and focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI)

6:21 - How Rahim got interested in envy

11:48 - The difference between envy and jealousy

17:09 - Queer experiences of envy

20:07 - Envy and systemic oppression

20:53 - How to manage envy

25:49 - Has social media made envy worse?

29:46 - Online content creators and envy

31:22 - Can envy be managed through CBT?

34:39 - Why are some people not impacted by envy?

40:19 - How to keep up to date with Rahim’s work

Works mentioned in this episode

Thawer, R. (2022, June 9). The Matrix of Envy in Our Social and Sexual Lives. Medium.

Thawer, R. (2025). The Mental Health Guide for Cis and Trans Queer Guys: Skills to Cope and Thrive as Your Authentic Self. Publisher: New Harbinger Publications. [Pre-Order]

To see more of Rahim's work, check out ladyativan.com

Cite this episode

MacDonald, J. B. & Thawer, R. (2025, Jan 15). Envy in our social and sexual lives (No. 24) [Audio podcast episode]. In Psych Attack. www.psychattack.com

Transcript
The transcript for this episode was developed using transcription software. There may be some errors in the content as I do not have capacity to review for accuracy.

Acknowledgements

Psych Attack is created and hosted by Dr Jasmine B. MacDonald. The video and audio for this episode was edited by Morgan McRae. Special thanks to Rahim Thawer for sharing your time and expertise.

To round out 2024, I have created this highlights episode.

This year, the 6 guests (from Australia, Finland and the U.S.) and I have covered:

• investigative interviewing for disclosures of maltreatment (Episode 17)
• what sex therapy is, kink and paraphilias (Episode 18)
• academic mental health (Episode 19)
• self-advocacy and professional development and relationships (Episode 20)
• human-dog relationships (Episode 21)
• adolescent mental health and the use of digital phenotyping (Episode 22).

Cite this episode
MacDonald, J. B. (2024, December 20). Psych Attack highlights 2024 (No. 23) [Audio podcast episode]. In Psych Attack. www.psychattack.com

Transcript
The transcript for this episode was developed using transcription software. There may be some errors in the content as I do not have capacity to review for accuracy.

In this episode, I catch up with Dr Taylor A. Braund to hear about his research into digital phenotyping. In particular, we discuss the link between mental health symptoms and keystroke metadata from smartphones.

Dr Taylor A. Braund is a Research Fellow at Black Dog Institute and UNSW School of Clinical Medicine, Australia. To see more of Taylor’s work, you can reach out on LinkedIn or Twitter.

Research mentioned in this episode

Braund, T.A. (2024). The continued hype and hope of digital phenotyping. Nature Reviews Psychology, 3(448).

Braund, T. A., O’Dea, B., Bal, D., Maston, K., Larsen, M., Werner-Seidler, A., Tillman, G., & Christensen, H. (2023). Associations between smartphone keystroke metadata and mental health symptoms in adolescents: Findings from the Future Proofing Study. JMIR Mental Health, 10(e44986).

Braund, T. A., Zin, M. T., Boonstra, T. W., Wong, Q. J. J., Larsen, M. E., Christensen, H., Tillman, G., O’Dea, B. (2022). Smartphone sensor data for identifying and monitoring symptoms of mood disorders: A longitudinal observational study. JMIR Mental Health, 9(5):e35549

O’Dea, B., Braund, T. A., Batterham, P. J., Larsen, M. E., Glozier, N., & Whitton, A. E. (2024). Reading between the lines: Identifying the linguistic markers of Anhedonia for the stratification of depression. CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. (Paper)

Seminal digital phenotyping papers

Huckvale, K., Venkatesh, S., & Christensen, H. (2019). Toward clinical digital phenotyping: A timely opportunity to consider purpose, quality, and safety. npj Digital Medicine, 2(88).

Insel, T. R. (2017). Digital phenotyping: Technology for a new science of behavior. JAMA, 318(13):1215–1216.

Torous, J., Kiang, M. V., Lorme, J., & Onnela, J. P. (2016). New tools for new research in psychiatry: A scalable and customizable platform to empower data driven smartphone research. JMIR Mental Health, 3(2):e16.

Some available digital phenotyping platforms

https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/onnela-lab/beiwe-research-platform/

https://www.digitalpsych.org/lamp.html

https://www.biaffect.com/

Cite this episode

MacDonald, J. B. & Braund, T. A. (2024, Oct 1). Digital phenotyping: Using smartphone metadata to predict mental health symptoms (No. 22) [Audio podcast episode]. In Psych Attack. www.psychattack.com

Transcript
The transcript for this episode was developed using transcription software. There may be some errors in the content as I do not have capacity to review for accuracy.

Acknowledgements

Psych Attack is created and hosted by Dr Jasmine B. MacDonald. The video and audio for this episode was edited by Morgan McRae. Special thanks to Dr Taylor A. Braund for sharing your time and expertise. Please note that the views and opinions expressed by Taylor in this episode are his own and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policy of his employer.

In this episode, I catch up with Dr Miiamaaria Kujala to hear about her research on human-dog relationships. Miiamaaria studies how humans understand dog communication, how dogs understand humans, and the factors affecting the interaction between the two species such as culture, human personality and dog behaviour.

We discuss:
- Her personal journey from philosophy to neuroscience and eventually to studying both ends of the leash
- The cultural differences in dog ownership between countries like Finland and Australia
- The impact of human personality traits on dog behaviour and the human-dog relationship
- How emotional closeness and perceived costs of dog ownership vary among different personalities
- The methods used to measure dog cognition and behaviour, including the fascinating "impossible task" experiment.

Dr. Miiamaaria Kujala is Academy Research Fellow in the Department of Psychology at University of Jyväskylä, Finland. To see more of Miiamaaria’s work you can access her research group’s web page.

Papers mentioned in this episode

Bender, Y., Bräuer, J., & Schweinberger, S. R. (2023). What makes a good dog-owner team? – A systematic review about compatibility in personality and attachment. Applied Animal Behaviour Science, 260. (Behind a pay wall)

Dwyer, F., Bennett, P. C., & Coleman, G. J. (2006). Development of the Monash Dog Owner Relationship Scale (MDORS). Anthrozoös, 19(3), 243-256. (Behind a pay wall)

Kujala, M. V., Imponen, N., Pirkkala, A., Silfverberg, T., Parviainen, T., Tiira, K., & Kiuru, N. (2023). Modulation of dog-owner relationship and dog social and cognitive behavior by owner temperament and dog breed group. Scientific reports, 13(1), 14739. (Open access!)

Cite this episode

MacDonald, J. B. & Kujala, M. V. (2024, September 2). Factors that affect human-dog relationships (No. 21) [Audio podcast episode]. In Psych Attack. www.psychattack.com

Transcript
The transcript for this episode was developed using transcription software. There may be some errors in the content as I do not have capacity to review for accuracy.

Acknowledgements

Special thanks to Dr Miiamaaria Kujala for sharing your time and expertise. Psych Attack is created and hosted by Dr Jasmine B. MacDonald. The audio for this episode was edited by Morgan McRae.

In this episode, I catch up with Dr Jade McEwen to hear about her professional and personal experiences of self-care, the benefits of being unapologetically self-promoting, and working out how to be heard in order to get the support you need.

Dr Jade McEwen is Assistant Director of Research, NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission, Australia. To see more of Jade’s work, you can reach out on LinkedIn or send her an email.

Resources mentioned in this episode

Hough, A., & McEwen, J. (2024). Building quality and safeguarding into disability service provision. In: Bigby, C., Hough, A. (eds) Disability Practice. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-6143-6_14

The whole book that Jade’s chapter comes from is open access. Thank you to the authors (and their respective institutions) for making this happen!

Cite this episode

MacDonald, J. B., & McEwen, J. (2024, Aug 1). Self-advocacy and professional relationships (No. 20) [Audio podcast episode]. In Psych Attack. www.psychattack.com

Transcript
The transcript for this episode was developed using transcription software. There may be some errors in the content as I do not have capacity to review for accuracy.

Acknowledgements

Special thanks to Dr Jade McEwen for sharing your time and expertise. Psych Attack is created and hosted by Dr Jasmine B. MacDonald. The audio for this episode was edited by Morgan McRae.

In this episode, I catch up with Dr Marissa Edwards to hear about her journey advocating for better academic mental health and lessons she has learned along the way.

We discuss:

• What academic mental health advocacy is and why it is important
• Our own personal challenges working in academia
• The difference between individual characteristics and systemic issues when it comes to academic mental health
• The importance of sharing success and failures
• Ways to safeguard your time and wellbeing as an academic.

Dr Marissa Edwards is Senior Lecturer in the School of Business, University of Queensland, Australia. To see more about Marissa's work, you can follow her on X/Twitter (@DrMarissaKate) or connect on LinkedIn.

Resources mentioned in this episode

Voices of academia blog

The Australian University Staff: Work, Digital Stress and Wellbeing Survey report

Research Handbook of Academic Mental Health

Emotions and failure in academic life: Normalising the experience and building resilience

Sensitive content warning
In this episode, we talk about the mental health challenges that academics face. We speak briefly about an example of an academic who experienced suicidal ideation when faced with perceived failure. Please take care while listening and if you are feeling discomfort and think you would benefit from some support, please reach out to your GP or contact a service like Lifeline.

If you are based in Australia, this resource links to helplines, telephone and online counselling services for children, young people and adults.

Cite this episode

MacDonald, J. B. & Edwards, M. (2024, July 3). Academic mental health (No. 19) [Audio podcast episode]. In Psych Attack. www.psychattack.com

Transcript
The transcript for this episode was developed using transcription software. There may be some errors in the content as I do not have capacity to review for accuracy.

Acknowledgements

Special thanks to Dr Marissa Edwards for sharing your time and expertise. Psych Attack is created and hosted by Dr Jasmine B. MacDonald. The audio for this episode was edited by Morgan McRae.