MRCPsych on the Go: Revision Essentials
Hello! My name is Dr Aalap Asurlekar, a Core Psychiatry Trainee in the UK and the creator and host of MRCPsych on the Go: Revision Essentials.
Having experienced firsthand the challenge of preparing for the MRCPsych exams alongside full-time clinical work, I created this podcast to make high-quality, structured revision more accessible.
Each episode focuses on key syllabus topics, explained in clear and structured language to help you understand and retain the most important concepts.
Whether you are a psychiatry trainee preparing for Paper A, B, or CASC, or a medical student looking to strengthen your psychiatry knowledge, this podcast is designed to fit around your schedule. Episodes include exam-style questions and clinical scenarios to support active recall, so you can revise during commutes, walks, or between shifts.
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/mrcpsychonthego
Email: mrcpsychonthego@outlook.com
Music: Good Energy by Aylex https://soundcloud.com/alexproductionsmusic
License: https://freetouse.com/license
*MRCPsych is a registered trademark of the Royal College of Psychiatrists. This podcast is independent and not affiliated with or endorsed by the Royal College of Psychiatrists. *
Episodes
31 episodes
31. Type A Personality Explained: Stress, Vulnerability and Coronary Heart Disease
Two people can experience the same stressful event and respond in completely different ways. One develops depression; the other seems unaffected. Why?In this episode, we explore the factors that determine individual differences in vulner...
30. Complex PTSD Explained: ICD-11 Diagnosis, Self-Organisation and Treatment
What happens when trauma is not a single event, but the air someone has breathed their entire life?In this episode, we explore complex PTSD. This is the ICD-11 diagnosis that captures the lasting impact of prolonged, repeated and inescap...
29. Understanding PTSD: Diagnosis, Neurobiology and Treatment
Why does a sound, a smell or a flash of light have the power to pull someone back into the worst moment of their life, years after it happened?In this episode, we explore post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in depth. We cover the ICD-1...
28. What Is Motivational Conflict? Kurt Lewin, Approach-Avoidance and the Psychology of Trauma
Not all stress comes from outside events. Some of the most corrosive stress arises from within, when we are pulled in opposite directions at the same time.In this episode, we explore the psychology of conflict and trauma. We cover the th...
27. Can Stress Make You Sick? The Social Readjustment Rating Scale and Daily Hassles
Can a single life event make you physically ill? Research suggests it can, and the evidence is more precise than you might expect.In this episode, we explore the social origins of stress. We cover Holmes and Rahe's Social Readjustment Ra...
26. What Is Stress? Selye's General Adaptation Syndrome and the Biology of Cortisol
We all talk about feeling stressed, but what is actually happening inside the body when stress strikes?In this episode, we explore the physiology and psychology of stress. We cover Hans Selye's landmark General Adaptation Syndrome, the h...
25. Do We All Feel the Same Things? Ekman, Plutchik and Emotional Arousal
Can the same emotion mean something different depending on who is feeling it, or where in the world they live? And does being more emotionally aroused always mean you perform better?In this episode, we explore the differentiation of emot...
24. Can the Same Feeling Mean Different Things: The Two-Factor Theory and Cognitive Appraisal of Emotion
Can the same physical sensation produce completely different emotions? Schachter and Singer proved that it could, using nothing more than an adrenaline injection.In this episode, we explore cognitive appraisal theories of emotion, includ...
23. Does The Brain Lead the Body: The Cannon-Bard Theory of Emotion
What if your fear and your racing heart arrive at exactly the same moment, neither one causing the other?In this episode, we explore the Cannon-Bard theory as a direct challenge to the James-Lange theory. We cover Cannon's four key criti...
22. Why Does Your Heart Race Before You Feel Afraid: James-Lange Theory of Emotion
Have you ever noticed your body reacting before your mind catches up? In this episode, we explore what emotions actually are, breaking down the physiological, cognitive, behavioural and subjective components of emotional experience....
21. Why We Need More Than Food: Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs and Self-Actualisation
Why do some people thrive after trauma, while others struggle to recover? The answer might come down to which of their fundamental needs are being met.In this episode, we explore Maslow's hierarchy of needs, one of psychology's most icon...
20. Why We Resist Change: Cognitive Dissonance, Achievement and What Drives Success
Have you ever known something was bad for you and done it anyway? That tension has a name, and understanding it could change how you think about human behaviour.In this episode, we explore cognitive dissonance and achievement motivation,...
19. The Psychology of Curiosity: Intrinsic Motivation and the Yerkes-Dodson Law
Why do some people thrive under pressure while others freeze? And why does a reward sometimes make us less motivated, not more?In this episode, we explore intrinsic motivation and the forces that drive us from within. We cover the differ...
18. What Drives Us: Motivation, Drives, Homeostasis and the Hypothalamus
Why do you reach for food when you are hungry, or feel restless when you have been sitting still too long? The answer lies deep inside your brain, in a region the size of a pea.In this episode, we explore the biology of motivation, cover...
17. Is Personality in Your Biology? Eysenck, Psychoticism and the PEN Model
Is personality written in your biology? Hans Eysenck believed so, and he spent decades building a scientific case for it.In this episode, we explore Eysenck's biological theory of personality and his PEN model, covering the three dimensi...
16. Carl Jung Explained: Archetypes, the Unconscious and Individuation
What if the stories, myths and symbols that appear across all human cultures are not a coincidence? Carl Jung thought they revealed something profound about the structure of the human mind.In this episode, we explore Jung's theory of per...
15. Personality Explained: The Big Five, Traits and Types
Are you an introvert or an extrovert? Conscientious or spontaneous? The way we answer these questions reveals a lot about how psychologists have tried to map the human personality for over a century.In this episode, we explore trait and ...
14. Are We All the Same? How Psychologists Study Individual Differences
Can personality be measured like height or weight? Or is every person so unique that general rules simply do not apply?In this episode, we explore two fundamentally different ways of studying personality. The nomothetic approach looks fo...
13. How We Think and Decide: Heuristics, Algorithms and Cognitive Bias
Why do smart people make bad decisions? The answer often comes down to the mental shortcuts our brains rely on without us even realising it.In this episode, we explore how we reason and solve problems, and where we go wrong. We cover ded...
12. Does Language Change the Way You Think? Concepts, Prototype Theory and the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis
If you do not have a word for something, can you still think about it? This is one of the most debated questions in cognitive psychology, and the answer might surprise you.In this episode, we explore the relationship between language and...
11. Why We Forget: Memory Distortion, Interference and Schemas
Eyewitness testimony has sent innocent people to prison. Memory is not a recording. It is a story we tell ourselves, and that story can be wrong.In this episode, we explore why forgetting happens and how memories become distorted. We cov...
10. High-Yield Memory Systems: Encoding, Storage and Retrieval Explained
Memory is not like a hard drive. It is a reconstructive process that is far more complex, and far more fascinating, than simply saving and replaying information.In this episode, we explore how memory works in psychology and neuroscience....
9. Selective Attention Explained: How the Brain Filters What You Hear and See
Right now, your brain is ignoring thousands of pieces of information to focus on these words. How does it decide what matters and what to discard?In this episode, we explore the psychology of attention and information processing. We cove...
8. Why Our Eyes Deceive Us: Visual Illusions, Pareidolia and the Brain
Your brain is not a camera. It is an active interpreter, constantly making predictions and filling in gaps. And sometimes it gets things spectacularly wrong.In this episode, we explore how the brain constructs visual perception and where...
7. Hearing Voices: Auditory Perception, Hallucinations and the Brain
Most of us hear a sound and instantly know where it is coming from and what it means. But what happens when that process goes wrong?In this episode, we explore how the brain processes sound, covering sound localisation, auditory grouping...