The SelfWork Podcast

Compartmentalization (sometimes called stuffing away feelings) is a healthy skill much of the time. And you can tell when people don’t have that skill. Their emotions govern their lives and their choices. Something unpleasant or unwelcome ruins their day or causes them to have to leave their job or to yell at their kids. Or at you. So learning how to monitor and evaluate a situation – using mindfu...

Today's "You Get the Gist" explains the four different types of narcissism. All of them share the major features of a constant need for admiration, an unrealistic sense of self-importance, a lack of empathy, and great difficulty forming meaningful relationships. What are they and how are both similar and dissimilar to one another? You'll find out more.. but they are the grandiose n...

  As many of you know, I was a professional singer before I began my journey to become a therapist and a psychologist. The only thing I knew about therapy was that I’d had lots of it and had never laid down on a couch. And that it had been extremely helpful many times. My decision was made in 1984 and I became licensed in 1993. Nine years is a long time. So, I couldn't wait to use all I'd...

Jenny Lawson is a blogger, known as The Bloggess, has literally thousands who follow her. She's also a mom, a wife, and luckily for us, an author. Broken (in the best possible way) is her newest book. In all her books, she’s more than open about her struggles with chronic mental illness, including severe social anxiety and chronic debilitating (at times) depression. So debilitating that for mo...

Welcome to SelfWork's You Get the Gist, five minutes of some ideas you can ponder for the rest of the day. Today YGTG is about saying goodbye. When I knew back in 1992 that my husband and I were going to leave Dallas and move to Arkansas, I distinctly remember a conversation I had with my therapist. I was wondering how I would say goodbye to all these friends and family that were so important...

In today's episode, sponsored by BetterHelp, we’'ll be talking about enmeshment. It sometimes can be confused with codependency, terms which some use interchangeably. We'll focus on not only enmeshed families or couples, but also parent/child enmeshment. And I'll offer seven steps to slowly and carefully begin to gain more of your independence and sense of self. Families are extrem...

Today's YGTG, or "You Get the Gist," deals not with who's right and who's wrong in the ongoing drama between Meghan Markle, Prince Harry and Great Britain's royals. Nor about the very serious allegations of racism. As a psychologist, what I'm concerned about is how this focus on talking about suicidal thinking is affecting those whose loved ones have already died by sui...

It's Women's History Month! And I’m excited to announce that SelfWork has a new sponsor -  Premium Jane. You can visit them at  premiumjane.com  and use coupon code  SelfWork  to get 20% off your purchase. Today we’ll talk about women who’ve been important crusaders for mental health awareness, both present-day celebrities and historically important female voices, Their brave words and act...

    How can you prevent something that may be seemingly inconsequential or something "I should be able to manage" from becoming the straw that breaks the camel's back? Here are seven ways to prevent that from happening. We’re all handling isolation, quarantine, job loss, financial troubles, boredom, loneliness, grief, fear – a new brand of anxiety that’s literally about taking your nex...

We're killing two birds with one stone on this episode of SelfWork, one again sponsored by BetterHelp. I talk about a recent Ted Radio Hour interview I heard with A.J. Jacobs. He's the author of the recent new book Thanks A Thousand . He did a fascinating and arduous life study of how to make himself happier - and wondered if expressing gratitude would get him there. What did he do? He cha...

This is the first in a series here on SelfWork about careers that can kill. Over the next few months, we're going to interview people who are led to careers that hold within them the ever-increasing danger of suicidal ideation or suicide itself. Doctors, police officers, the military. We are losing the people that we, as a culture, expect to do very difficult jobs psychologically. Yet the prof...

  Today I’m sharing the work of Stacey Wright, a psychotherapist in Georgia whose work is frequently featured on The Mighty. She specializes in the treatment of highly sensitive people. I thought what she had to say was very clear in her latest article on The Mighty. And she further distinguishes those who are highly sensitive (HSP) people to those she terms true "empaths." And yet there&#...

"I want this over!!"  is being shouted from the rooftops by many after this round of holidays held little release from the sacrifices we are all making. But pandemic fatigue can easily morph into pandemic burnout, meaning that whatever skills you’d been using to dig a little deeper or find some laughter or hope – those skills are maxed out . It's easy to take frustration out on the per...

Today in this episode sponsored by BetterHelp, we’re talking about hypnosis. Not only will I try to debunk the various myths there are out there about it, but help you understand exactly how it can work. I’ve been hypnotized several times myself and I’ll explain what I experienced.  I’ve also been trained in hypnosis so I can explain what it’s like to actually do hypnosis; what you’re watching for...

Writing a book is the hardest and most labor-intensive task I've ever accomplished. And sometimes, while I was deep in the throws of its creation, I would wonder why I was doing it, even though I was so passionate about its message. What did I really hope would happen as a result? Well, two things have happened this week that remind me of why the topic of perfectly hidden depression is vital f...

Trigger Warning: If you choose to listen to this episode on sibling sexual abuse, please keep your own self-care in mind. I’ll have international sexual abuse hotline numbers in the show notes: But the US hotline is  1-800-656-4673. Sibling sexual abuse is a complex and painful subject that's vastly underreported. And it can happen in any home, anywhere. How is it different than normal sexual...

How much do you count on people "liking" or "following" you or the videos you put on Instagram, FB or TikTok?  And are you really happy or does your life appear to others as happy? Is your self-esteem found in the present or does it lie in the amount of positive attention something gets on social media? This of course is part of creating the persona of perfectionism that I stress i...

Today’s podcast is one that, if you’ve been listening to SelfWork for a while, you know that this topic has been my own personal passion – as it’s closely aligned with my work on perfectly hidden depression. We’ll talk about ten fears you face when you choose to give up or ease out of being or looking as if you're in total control. Those ten fears are: The fear of vulnerabilty The fear of unce...

If there’s ever been a time when we need to manage our emotions, it’s now. None of us are sure what these next few months will bring – or even 2021 – and that’s true on many fronts. So this week’s podcast is on managing your feelings. The term for doing this in psychology is emotional intelligence, aka EQ. Here's the definition: the capacity to be aware of, control, and express one's emoti...

There’s an  exciting new product on the market – especially for anyone who has suffered with horrible PTSD-based nightmares. I should first tell you I have no relationship with the makers of this product. But since I've treated many patients with both PTSD and CPTSD, I know how exhausting and frightening these nightmares are. It’s a newly approved product by the FDA for just this use; however,...

Thank you to all of you who contacted me these past two or three weeks! This week’s episode is a conversation – not literally  - but I’ve heard from so many of you about the last couple of SelfWork podcasts, I wanted to respond. You sent me your stories of your own struggles with a therapist, especially about termination and boundaries; I was very moved to address the core issues of what went wron...

Wow. Sometimes when I pick a subject for SelfWork, I have to dig deep to find research that I can bring that will add clarity or give you what’s new out there on the subject. People pleasing?  There are YouTube videos galore and all kinds of other resources. Most everyone agreed on how it starts - with an anxious/insecure attachment to a parent. We'll define what exactly a people pleaser is, a...

Here's a bonus episode for you during the holidays!  I couldn’t think of a better guest than Shann Vander Leek. She’s the cohost of the extremely popular podcast AnxietySlayer and the website AnxietySlayer.com. Her gentleness and broad knowledge of all things calming is incredible. She and her partner Ananga have created a complete experience of teaching you the how-to of what you can do right...

Today's SelfWork, sponsored by BetterHelp, focuses on why, how and why you might choose to end therapy, or more concisely, to leave a particular therapist. We'll cover some "good" reasons to leave, reasons that either have to do with the success you've experienced or reaching your goals, as well as the ones that have to do with disappointment with or even misbehavior or unethic...

I'd planned to do this episode of SelfWork on developing trust in others. But as I researched the question, I realized that first, you have to make sure you can trust your own decision-making. And your gut. I found the work of Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman (who made the most sense to me) on how you can determine if you can trust your gut or not.  There are three questions that need a &#34...