# DOPPELGANGER: Doubles in psychiatry, neurology and fiction.

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/brainland-6744859/doppelganger-doubles-in-psychiatry-neurology-and-fiction
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/brainland-6744859/doppelganger-doubles-in-psychiatry-neurology-and-fiction.md
Podcast: [BRAINLAND](https://stenobird.com/podcast/brainland-6744859)
Published: 2026-05-19T18:48:40+00:00
Episode link: https://shows.acast.com/brainland/episodes/doppelganger
Audio file: https://sphinx.acast.com/p/open/s/6452b6516dd22500113dc7ca/e/6a0c6fca2b0a812052e51888/media.mp3
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JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/brainland-6744859/episodes/doppelganger-doubles-in-psychiatry-neurology-and-fiction
Duration seconds: 3720

## Resource

In this extraordinarily wide ranging podcast, we talk about doubles from the point of view of psychopathology, neuroscience, and what they tell us about the nature of self. Our neuroscience discussion includes the work of Head, Schilder, Damasio (around the idea of body schema/representations in the brain and their implication - a kind of neural double) followed by a fascinating deviation into Melzak's exploration of the phantom limb and the 'neural matrix' that may underlie it. Our 'double in literature' chat ranges from Euripides over 2 millenia ago to Patrick McGrath's 1999 novel 'Spider' by way of a Scottish gothic tale from 1824. Femi gives an overview of Alfred Hitchcock's double-obsessed oeuvre before discussing the Wachowski brother's 'Matrix' (1999), a kind of thought experiment on the nature of the self, detached from the brain. We end with an 'out of hours' chat about clinical cases. Brainland was created as a platform for this type of terrific conversation. Participants: Oluwafemi (Femi) Oyebode, Honorary Prof of Psychiatry, University of Birmingham, UK https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/staff/profiles/clinical-sciences/oyebode-femi Ken Barrett is an artist, writer and former neuropsychiatrist http://www.kenbarrettstudio.co.uk Femi's book 'Doppelganger': https://www.cambridgebookshop.co.uk/products/doppelganger?srsltid=AfmBOopUtJI3sepHVB0Vvakdh03zDbmDMPjwH2pfiErw9CJ2RkqX7Pin Novels discussed: James Hogg, Private memoires and confessions of a justified sinner ( ). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Private_Memoirs_and_Confessions_of_a_Justified_Sinner Patrick McGrath's Spider (1990): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spider_(novel) Frigyes Karinthy's A Journey Round my Skull (1937): https://archive.org/details/bwb_W8-BJJ-568 Penfield and Jaspers Epilepsy and the Functi…

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