The Wise Mind Happy Hour

Send us Fan Mail Trying harder is not always the answer, especially when “trying” is really just digging. Welcome to one of our favorite Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) ideas: the Person In A Hole metaphor. If you have ever thrown yourself at anxiety, grief, shame, or relationship tension with every coping tool you can find and somehow ended up feeling worse, this conversation puts clear l...

Send us Fan Mail If your default setting is “sorry to bother you,” this one is for you. We’re back from our break with plenty of life updates and laughs, but the core of the conversation gets practical fast: how to protect your self-respect when you’re asking for something, setting a boundary, or saying no. We close out our three-part DBT interpersonal effectiveness series by focusing on self-resp...

Send us Fan Mail We'll be back next week with a FULLY ORIGINAL EPISODE! In the meantime, we hope to offset your boredom with a well-timed rerun of our classic episode about BOREDOM (and the surprising value that can come from embracing it.) - music by blanket forts -

Send us Fan Mail In honor of Halloween (and the fact that our schedules have been ESPECIALLY SPOOKY lately) we are airing a re-run of this WISE MIND classic. Values...what even are they? We all talk about values, but do we really understand them? Values are an elusive beast. More abstract than goals, but ultimately at the core of our essence. On this EXTREMELY SPOOKY EPISODE, we talk about how to...

Send us Fan Mail Welcome to Part 2 of our DBT "interpersonal effectiveness" series." Today we focus on the GIVE skill for healthier communication and relationship repair: be Gentle, act Interested, Validate, and use an Easy Manner. (And "watch that 'tude.") 😉 We break down what each part looks like in practice, how to stay in a hard conversation without escalating, a...

Send us Fan Mail WHAT IS EMDR? Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing. But...WHAT??? Don't worry, it'll all make more sense soon. EMDR-trained clinician Kelly Kilgallon, LCSW (and her NON-THERAPIST husband Josh Bayer) delve into the mysterious waters of EMDR therapy and how it helps “unstick” traumatic memories that still carry emotional charge in the present. If you’re curious ab...

Send us Fan Mail No, DEAR MAN is not a feminist manifesto. It's a DBT tour de force. Designed for interpersonal effectiveness and developed by psychologist Marsha M. Linehan, its primary goal is "objective effectiveness"—helping you ask for what you need, say "no" to unwanted requests, and navigate conflict while keeping people on your side. Describe, Express, Assert, Rein...

Send us Fan Mail A tenured professor, an open marriage with rules that suddenly don’t work, and a campus Title IX scandal that makes everyone pick a side. We just watched Netflix’s Vladimir (starring Rachel Weisz, Leo Woodall and John Slattery) and we couldn’t stop talking about it. Beneath the darkly playful humor is a surprisingly sharp look at what desire does to your mind, your body, and your...

Send us Fan Mail Your mind can be brilliant and still be wrong, especially when you’re hungry, tired, anxious, or feeling rejected. Let's "get serious" about the thought patterns that quietly run so many of our worst days: magnification and minimization, catastrophizing, overgeneralization, magical thinking, personalization, mind reading, fortune telling, emotional reasoning, disqua...

Send us Fan Mail Love doesn’t fail loudly most of the time. It fails quietly, in the space between what we meant and what our partner actually felt. Where do you land on love languages and top sheets? - music by blanket forts -

Send us Fan Mail Therapy is scary. If you're a therapist, if you're a client...SCARY. (Sorry we're releasing before Halloween.) We discuss some of the most common fears and delve deep into the rabbit hole of the vulnerabilities that therapy can unearth. 💿 music by blanket forts 💿

Send us Fan Mail So, in the name of PUSHING OURSELVES, we are pushing ourselves to run a re-run of an old episode and let go of our PERFECT PODCASTING STREAK ⚡️ is this wise? YOU TELL US. (New content coming next week!!!) 💿 music by blanket forts 💿 

Send us Fan Mail Are you an ELDEST DAUGHTER? Have you ever felt like the world rests on your shoulders? Do you ever envy your middle and younger siblings (or...gasp...your BROTHERS?) Then this episode's for you. (And if you're a curious middle or inquisitive baby, please feel free to explore as well.) We all have something to learn here. 💿 music by blanket forts 💿

Send us Fan Mail Jon rejoins us for our robust analysis of the last 3 tenets of the DBT Consultation Agreement: 1) observing limits, 2) the non-judgmental stance and 3) the fallibility agreement. 💿 music by blanket forts 💿

Send us Fan Mail Y'all seen 2026 Hulu smash hit TV show "Alive and Steve" starring Jemaine Clement from "Flight of the Conchords?" Want HELLA SPOILERS? Conflicted about aging? Well then you've come to the right place. 💿 music by blanket forts 💿

Send us Fan Mail Jon is literally on vacation (he is sorely missed) so we decided to take this opportunity to talk about our fertility journey. How wise is THAT? - music by blanket forts -

Send us Fan Mail The Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) consultation team agreements are the backbone of effective DBT consultation groups. Today we delve into 3 of these key agreements: 1) "no absolute truth, look for what’s left out," 2) "don't fragilize your clients" and 3) "leave room for multiple modalities." - music by blanket forts -

Send us Fan Mail For those of you who roll your eyes at the term "self compassion"...this ep is worth a listen. (Or at least a read through the transcript.) Many of us are so stuck in a trance of unworthiness, that it might seem like self compassion is overly indulgent (or counter to our ambitions.) In this episode, we respectfully challenge this notion...and also dive into the wisdom of...

Send us Fan Mail Today we explore a counterintuitive trend among women: intentionally seeking out straight, male therapists for their mental health care. Inspired by The Cut article "Why Would You Pay to Talk to a Man?" by Meaghan O'Connell, we dive deep into this phenomenon.  While a large majority of women still prefer female therapists, both clients and clinicians are making conc...

Send us Fan Mail Kelly Kilgallon (LCSW) and Jon Butz (LCPC) dive deep into “Therapeutic Presence: Therapists’ experience of presence in the psychotherapy encounter,” an article by Shari M. Gellar & Leslie S. Greenberg. What does it mean for a therapist to be TRULY PRESENT during a session? Should they “bracket” their personal lives and inner worlds during a session? Juggling one’s own subjecti...

Send us Fan Mail What if we told you that 96 % of your emotional impulses are counter to your values...would you be surprised? Better yet, what if we challenged you to act "in opposite" to your impulses? Maybe this sounds crazy, but studies show that it could change your life. (Let's just be a little loose with the definition of "opposite" 😉) - music by blanket forts -

Send us Fan Mail Yiddishist Mikhl Yashinsky joins us to dissect the psychology of language...what if we all spoke every language (or at least tried?) Would we have global peace? And what if we approaching learning new languages through the lens of curiosity rather than the lens of conquest? PLUS: how wise is it to "read" Audiobooks? www.yashinsky.com - music by blanket forts -

Send us Fan Mail 2 therapists get together to discuss the hit Apple TV show "Shrinking" ❤️‍🔥 did somebody say "spinoff potential?" - music by blanket forts -

Send us Fan Mail Criticism can be hard to hear...but what about the criticism coming from inside our own brains? We all have our own unique form of "inner critic." And while a hateful internal monologue can be a tough beast to tame, perhaps the first step is understanding why it exists. Maybe it wants to help us more than we think. - music by blanket forts -

Send us Fan Mail CBT, DBT, psychodynamic, ACT, EMDR...you might be familiar with some (or all) of these acronyms. Therapy can be taught in many forms, and we all have our preferences (both as therapists and clients.) BUT: is it possible that these various approaches have more in common than meets the eye?