Therapy on the Cutting Edge

In this episode, I speak with Louise about her journey from switching careers as a retail buyer, to going to university and getting a degree in psychology, and working as a behavioral therapist. She discussed being introduced to Acceptance Commitment Therapy (ACT) and really liking the model, and applying it in her work with adolescents. She explained that the developmental differences between ado...

In this episode, Tony discusses being inspired as an early career clinician to track his outcomes with clients, and upon doing so, saw that 50% of his clients were not progressing. He was concerned about this, and reviewed the research, he found that is within the average range of progress that clinicians were having. He explained that psychotherapy is one of the only fields where students and int...

In this episode, I speak with Shafia about her path to becoming a health and sex educator. She discussed how she had worked in case management and social work with kids who were experiencing dual and triple diagnosis, and a common theme was having a history of being harmed. She decided she wanted to try to help increase the prevention of such harm, and was fortunate enough to work at a great schoo...

In this episode, Terry discusses his experience initially being trained psychodynamically and psychoanalytically, but finding that it did not seem to be a good fit for the population whom he was working with, which were families in Chinatown in San Francisco, many of which were immigrants. He discussed how a training at the Mental Research Institute (MRI) had a profound impact on him when he heard...

In this episode, Mary Jo discussed her background in community psychology, which lead her to start her career working with child abuse, leading to a lifelong career working with interpersonal violence, family therapy, and community interventions. Mary Jo discusses her Collaborative Change Model (CCM), which is a meta-model, being concept driven , as opposed to intervention based. The two main conc...

In this interview, Dick discusses how his work with families lead to him learning from clients about their parts. He discusses how his clients talked about their parts, and at first he and his client tried to argue against that part and try to get rid of it or for it to not be doing what it was doing. When this wasn’t working, he and his clients began to have compassion for those parts, and learn...

In this interview, Michael discusses his work with patients with bipolar disorder, and his own background as an entrepreneur, and how this has lead him into research and treatment of entrepreneurs with bipolar disorder. Michael explains what bipolar disorder is, and how to accurately diagnose Bipolar Disorder I, Bipolar Disorder II, hypomania, and mania and how they are different than Major Depres...

In this interview, Dave discusses his career in researching suicide and how Marsha Lineman encouraged him to go beyond his assessment work to create an intervention for therapists working with clients who are suicidal. He discusses how many therapists struggle to know how to effectively assess suicide risk and intervene in a manner that can build the therapeutic relationship as well as keep client...

In this episode Rachel discusses her career in treatment and research of schizophrenia, and particularly, her research at the University of California, San Francisco, studying the prodromal phase of schizophrenia, which refers to early signs and symptoms, in an effort to detect and prevent the development of a full blown disorder. She explains the differences between prodromal symptoms and the Cli...

In this episode, Keith talks about his unique experience of being deployed in Iraq with his wife, and after a roadside bomb (IED) attack, she struggled with PTSD. He discussed how after she received treatment through the military mental health system, which was retraumatizing, he started taking classes in Psychology and learned all he could about trauma, and together they worked through her PTSD....

In this interview, Scott discusses how he came to his work focusing on Feedback Informed Treatment and deliberate practice. He discussed how when working with the Solution Focused Therapy founders, independent research found that the approach was effective, but not so significantly more effective than other approaches. He explained how this was surprising to him, and when he looked into it more, h...

In this episode, Jane discusses her own experience of growing up in a privileged white community and the subsequent development of her career in social justice. That was the beginning of her journey working with different organizations concerning the effects of wide-spread oppression particularly in education in the United States and in Israel at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. When she became...

In this interview, Lisa and Silvina discuss their path to sex therapy, both being couples therapists trained in Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy. At their weekend Hold Me Tight Workshops for couples, there was never enough time after all the relational work to delve deeply enough into the couple’s sexual relationship; so they dove into deep study over several years and developed an integrative...

In this episode, Paul discusses how his seeking connection with other African-American clinicians in the Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy (EFT) community, in order to translate the EFT approach into his and his colleagues experiences with their African-American clients, lead him to write his book, Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy with African American Couples: Love Heals. He discussed how at...

In this episode, Celia discusses how her experiences of growing up as a child of immigrant parents who fled Eastern Europe to Argentina, and then her own experience of immigration to the United States has lead her into a career in working with systems, both at the family level, as well as the community and large cultural level of systems. Celia discusses how her interest in the family system grew...

In this episode, Ryan discusses his career as an Interventional Psychiatrist, using neuromodulation treatments for clients who are not responding to medications and therapy. He discusses the use of TMS (transcranial magnetic stimulation) which is FDA approved for both depression & OCD and often turned to after multiple antidepressants have not been effective. He discusses how TMS stimulates brain...

In this episode, I speak with Shana about her work with adults with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder at UCLA’s intensive treatment program. We discuss Exposure with Response Prevention, the effective, evidence based treatment for OCD, as well as Shana’s experience with the Obsessed tv series on A&E. We discuss how I use clips of her work with one of the clients and how impactful that reality tv show...

In this interview, Rachel Walker explains how trauma-informed psychotherapies like EMDR, Parts Work, Attachment Theory, and Structural Dissociation work better in collaboration than they do alone. She discusses her journey to this realization, and the integrative treatment model which she developed and now practices as a result. This model, which Rachel teaches throughout the United States, moves...

In this interview, Marco discusses how he was invited to do a study on EMDR, to understand the neurological mechanisms behind the processing of the trauma. He discussed his career being a MD and a neuroscientist interested in memory. He discussed using EEG to measure what was happening in the brain during bilateral stimulation during EMDR. He explained that they were able to determine that the del...

In this episode, Rona discusses how her work as a nurse conducting parenting classes led to her hosting a radio show to reach a wider audience of parents about safe and effective parenting methods, and how to better understand your child. She emphasizes how knowing the temperaments of both the child and the parent are key for successful parenting and better understanding of the child. She discusse...

In this interview, Steve discusses his path to working in the field of mental health after growing up in a family where his father suffered from misdiagnosed bipolar disorder, but it was never discussed due to doctor's orders. He discusses his book about growing up in silence and stigma, "Another Kind of Madness: A Journey Through the Stigma and Hope of Mental Illness", and his interest in working...

In this episode, I speak with Steven Friedlander, Ph. D. about working with families involved with “high conflict” divorce, as well as parental alienation/parental rejection situations. Steven discusses his career and how his work led him to researching and writing about parental rejection/parental refusal, and his approach for this work. He described the different roles that clinicians can play i...

In this podcast, Patricia Papernow discusses her experience as both a stepparent and a parent in a stepfamily, and how this led to first a dissertation on stages of development in becoming a stepfamily, and then a life-long interest in studying and working with stepfamilies. She discusses how stepfamilies are different from first time families, particularly regarding the time and space for the cou...

In this episode, Phil discusses his career and his early experience with EMDR and how this became a focus of his work as he went on to become an EMDR trainer. He discusses the controversy around EMDR, and its mechanisms of action, and issues related to research and funding. He discusses his theory on how EMDR works, and talks about the technique he has developed called the Flash Technique. He disc...

In this episode, Dr. Palfy discusses how her work in law enforcement, specifically investigating and arresting child sexual abusers, led her into a career of psychology. She discusses how when we think of childhood sexual trauma, we often think of women, although 1 in 6 men were sexually abused prior to age 16. She explains that of those that were abused, only 5 in 1,000 go on to disclose their ab...