By Madisyn Hahn
Oct. 18, 2019

The Real Psychobabble Podcast is a new podcast from the local radio station KZUM 89.3. The podcast is put on by hosts Cody Solesbee and Raul Palacios who record episodes once every two weeks in KZUM’s podcast production studio. The show is produced by two psychology lovers babbling about the world we live in through the lens of psychology. The creators wanted it to speak to everyone regardless of anyone’s educational background – breaking topics down, making it easily understandable.

Co-creator of the podcast, Cody Solesbee said, “The true origin of Psychobabble can be traced to a Minneapolis road trip where we first discussed the idea of podcasting. We both recognized that we have a passion for psychology and really enjoyed talking about it at conferences, or just with friends. Talking about psychology is a skill we’ve developed over our years as students and we thought podcasting would be a great medium for people who might also share similar interests.”

The two first met when Palacios recruited Solesbee for the School Psychology program at UNL.

Co-creator of the podcast, Raul Palacios said, “Since applying and interviewing can be very stressful and expensive, our program had Cody stay with me. I like to think that my recruiting skills are pretty solid because he ended up moving to Lincoln with his wife and their two dogs. We just really had this connection.

As this connection snowballed into a friendship the two realized the many common interests they shared – even briefly performing in a band together.   

“Our partnership was borne from a unique friendship where we were constantly collaborating on projects, presentations, and research. When you spend as much time together as we have you start to develop a level of chemistry that translates well to things like podcasting,” Solesbee said 

An important aspect of the podcast the hosts try to convey is that the information they are talking about come from reliable sources. With the advances in technology and the introductions to various social media outlets, everyone is able to say what they want even if it’s factual or not.

“There is so much unreliable content that is being produced and shared across social media platforms so we thought we could use the research skills that we have gained in our Ph.D. program in a fun and translational way,” Palacios said. 

The podcast topics vary from bullying and mental health to the representation of the brain in Batman, as a way to keep the audience on their feet.

“We are driven by the desire to create translational content, and the best indicator of our success would be to get the information we discuss in the hands of people that can learn from it. I hope we continue to find ways to highlight members of our community that are doing amazing work in the field of psychology and science,” Solesbee said.

You can listen to all episodes of The Real Psychobabble Podcast here.

Madisyn Hahn is a multimedia intern with KZUM.