Therapy: Deconstructed

In this episode of Therapy Deconstructed, Dr. Bonnie Wims speaks with mindfulness teacher and coach, Courtney Schulnick about her unique journey from being an attorney to embracing mindfulness as a way to manage stress and anxiety. They discuss the challenges of balancing professional and personal life, the transformative power of mindfulness practices, and the importance of being present. Courtne...

  Ed Coambs is the founder of Healthy Love and Money, a financial planner and marriage and family financial therapist. Ed shares his unique background, having transitioned from being a firefighter to a financial planner and becoming a therapist.  He was interested in how family dynamics and financial behaviors intertwine, and this led him to study therapy to understand these deeper connections. He...

 Willpower isn't real, it's just a myth. What's real is creating a healthy environment where habits can thrive.  Ethan Schiff is an Integrative Health Coach and the founder of Optimized Health. He has a passion for helping everyday people unlearn the harms caused by diet culture, achieve their health goals, and sustain results for life! Ethan shares that, for the majority of his life, he has been...

Mental health is rooted in emotional health. Douglas Robbins is an authentic and creative person, a bestseller author of six books, and a podcast host. Douglas explores diverse genres—sci-fi, romance, and contemporary literature while focusing on characters undergoing personal growth, navigating life’s complexities, and embracing introspective narratives. In today’s deep exploration of childhood e...

Women are conditioned to turn compliments into self-criticism, even in casual settings. The societal pressure to look a certain way often overshadows self-appreciation, and that causes so many women to focus on perceived flaws. Nicole Christina is a psychotherapist with over 30 years of experience, specializing in anxiety, depression, grief, food and body issues, and positive aging. Today Dr. Bonn...

I went into therapy the first time with the attitude that it wouldn’t work. The second time, I gave it another shot, and it changed everything for me. Jen Schwytzer is a licensed social worker, foster parent, coach, and CEO of KINDfulness Coaching. She specializes in empowering individuals to unlock their full potential. She helps women navigate stress, overwhelm, or burnout, enhancing their leade...

You can't give in to the fear, because healing won't happen. Susan Snow is a speaker, coach, and author of the book “The Other Side of the Gun”.  Susan describes the overwhelming shock she felt when her father - a Los Angeles detective - got ambushed and shot in front of her brother’s school on Halloween.  Her world was painted black and her young teenage life was thrust into a world of pain and l...

 “Therapy was like a big warm hug... It was cathartic and freeing. I wish I had these tools years ago. Having somebody to talk to who wasn’t a friend or family member... It was invaluable." Gretchen Shoser, also known as G Rex, is a mental health advocate and co-host of the podcast ”Sh!t That Goes On In Our Heads”. Gretchen shares her journey of a severe mental health crisis on Christmas Day 2022,...

**Trigger Warning: Suicide** The following content discusses topics related to suicide. This may be distressing or triggering for some individuals. If you or someone you know is struggling with suicidal thoughts, please seek help from a mental health professional or contact a crisis hotline immediately. ____________________________________________________________________________________________ Sh...

We are wired to be dependent, to connect, to love, and to feel a sense of belonging. Phyllis Leavitt is a podcaster, author, and psychotherapist for over three decades. In her book, America in Therapy: A New Approach to Hope and Healing for a Nation in Crisis, she discusses in-depth how abusive family dynamics are playing out in America, especially in politics, and how we can use the best of what...

We are not broken, we just need help to understand ourselves.  Jennifer Dawn is an expert business coach, creator of Best Planner Ever, author and podcaster. She very openly shares her story that started with a mix of trauma but also entrepreneurial creativity. Her childhood wounds affected her life, relationships and business. Jennifer discusses her experiences with trauma and abuse. Therapy help...

Self-care and boundaries are ever-evolving, just as our identity evolves! Olivia Verhulst is a psychotherapist, adjunct professor, Forbes Health Advisor and She Leads LIVE conference speaker. With a strong focus on self-care and boundaries, Olivia believes it is important to allow ourselves to have needs and address them. Self-care is a deep-rooted sense of what it is to care for ourselves, and we...

Getting to know yourself so that you may be kinder to yourself. Yuri Chu Su is a digital nomad who embarked upon a 20-month transformative journey around the world. Growing up in a household where emotions were not openly discussed, Yuri felt alone in her struggles with stress and anxiety.  In a critical step in college, Yuri found a female Chinese therapist on campus and her therapy journey began...

Men often get left behind when it comes to therapy. Owen Marcus, a coach who works with men to connect so that their relationships work, believes men are hungry for an environment where they can feel safe, and get connected in authentic ways to other men. Owen trained and often taught with leaders in the fields of somatic and relationship therapies in the late 1970s and 1980s. Ron Kurtz and Peter...

Progress is not achieved by sudden flight but by gradual steps of introspection, adaptation, and perseverance. Together with Dr. Wims, let’s analyze the shortcomings of New Year’s resolutions, attributing their lack of success to unrealistic expectations and the absence of a structured plan for change. By shedding light on James Clear’s concept of making 1% changes through consistent habits, she e...

 We are all unknowingly wearing our limitations within ourselves.  Dr. Bonnie Wims talks about her transformative journey deep into the heart of the Costa Rican jungle, which was a source of anxiety but also a profound exploration of self-discovery. In the internal thickets of fears, limitations, and negative self-talk, she understood that we are wearing all that as a coat on a daily basis. This h...

We all have the thinking traps that hinder resilience, such as jumping to negative conclusions and personalizing mistakes. It’s important to realize what our patterns of thinking are.  In this episode, you'll explore the profound notion of self-judgment and the remarkable practice of rediscovering your inner self. Dr. Bonnie Wims skillfully guides you through the process of letting go of the myth...

Change is hard and it can impact our psychological health. We all have expectations and plans of how we want things to go, and change can make us feel like we are losing control of that. When change disrupts our comfort zone and challenges us, it can force us to look at ourselves in a new light, which can lead to anxiety, fear and negative self talk. The truth is that being scared of change is com...

Fully processing our losses is essential for overcoming prolonged grief. When the grieving process is disrupted, and we can't properly acknowledge our loss and integrate them into our lives, we can get stuck in prolonged grief. When we have unresolved grief, memories can bring back strong fight-or-flight reactions and cause emotional responses that can be hard on our bodies and our lifestyles. Gri...

Your childhood experiences can elicit emotions and behaviors in your adult life. Many of us have characteristics that we brush off as being "just the way we are," or we may experience emotional responses and triggers to seemingly mundane activities. To get in touch with our feelings, we must challenge them, and attempt to gain insight into why we respond this way. If we can find the root cause of...

 Your personality is not hardwired into your brain. Many people believe that some of their behaviors and beliefs are a default setting in their brains, but this is simply not true. Our personality has grown and evolved with us throughout our whole lives and continues to be shaped by every experience we have. Therapy works on this principle by helping us to learn new ways of thinking about and unde...

Calming activities are not a replacement for real therapy. Activities like “goat yoga” can offer a relaxing and decompressing experience that can help manage stress, but calling them therapeutic is a mistake. If you are suffering from trauma that is negatively impacting your sense of self and your ability to cope, it may be best for you to seek out genuine therapeutic help to overcome those strugg...

A common myth about therapy is that therapists offer their patients advice. This is actually something that therapists are not supposed to do, as it gives away your power to someone else. Therapists are not trained to be expert advice-givers or to dish out solutions to problems.  Rather, therapists are trained to deeply listen and serve as a guide for you to explore within and discover your own an...

The media has misconstrued and sensationalized the truth about therapy for far too long.  The stigmas created by the media’s representation of “crazy people” has tainted its reputation, which prevents many people from getting the help they need. Therapy is just a form of self-care that focuses on our mental health rather than our physical health and is just as mundane as going to a dentist or a gy...

Growing up in an abusive family and years of therapy helped Dr. Bonnie Wims to understand the reasons why we think and behave the way we do. Life is hard and it happens to all of us. No one escapes the challenges and unfairness that life can throw our way. Challenges sometimes can have us feeling helpless or less equipped to manage our lives the way we want to.  Let’s talk about the benefit of men...