All About Nothing With Ruth Cohn

In this episode, we have a special treat. Akillah Wali, who I met at the Boston Trauma Conference, will join us, and bring humor and fun to what is most often painful and difficult work. Hope you will enjoy it, while also growing your hippocampus!

I shamefully realized after recording the video, that it is summer in the Northern Hemisphere, but not everywhere! My one-person psychology at work: the whole world is me! Oy vey. In the Southern Hemisphere it will be getting colder and darker, but nonetheless, a good time to curl up with a good book. In this episode, I recommend three recent to me, really good reads, that broaden our focus on tra...

Do you ever despair when once again revisited by old ghosts? When parts of you that you thought you had worked through long ago, rear up again, as powerfully as ever? Although I hate and avoid the word "triggering," it can in fact feel like being shot again, by an age old "enemy." Does it make you wonder "what is wrong with me?" Or, is all this therapy "not working?" Well, even those of us who hav...

In his masterwork, The Archaeology of Mind , neuroscience luminary, researcher and animal lover Jaak Panksepp wrote that a brief interlude of tickling of his lab rats, and a single bout of rat "laughter", activated a neurochemical and affective change in the little creatures, and even sprouted new neurons in their little hippocampi! And as we know, their brains are a lot like ours. In this video,...

In this episode we discuss the neglected topic of aging: the aging body, the aging brain, sexuality as we age. Another of those seemingly taboo subjects that it seems there is no one to ask, or no one reliable, and one might be too shame or afraid to tell. Perhaps you can be slightly more aware of what to expect, and what is quite normal and expectable than I was!

In Episode 12 I invite you to join me in talking about sex, a topic so important to so many, and all too often neglected and unaddressed. On one hand we are constantly titillated and teased by it, yet most of us live with a poverty of real and reliable information. We are only scratching the surface of what I hope will become a long conversation! I invite you to become fluent and forthcoming condu...

As we see our parents age, many of us are seized with a nameless clash of often intense emotions, especially if we have traumatic memories of these parents from childhood, or mixed feelings about them at best. And especially if, as what is so often the case, our parents have their own tragic trauma stories. I have come to call this confusing and often overwhelming cacophony The Bermuda Triangle :...

In this episode we diverge a bit from the more somber topics of trauma and neglect, to celebrate International Women's Month and specifically women's sexual health, with an emphasis on women's sexual pleasure! Enjoy!

Andy Marra, a Korean American trans adoptee told the moving story of searching for and traveling to Korea to meet her biological mother. Uncertain about how she will be received, and terrified about the complicated decision to come out to her mother, who thought she had given up a male child, she is terrified. It is a story of attachment, loss, repair and love.

Recently, I was introduced to a new-to-me clinical term: "Climate Anxiety." It is a mix of overwhelm, fear, anxiety, and hopeless despair about what is, at least for most of us, the undeniably dire state of our planet – riddled with almost daily frightening news of fires, floods, earthquakes, and volcanic activity. In this week's video we revisit the power of connection as a way to combat desolati...

Today we explore the crucial subject of interpersonal need, and the immeasurable value of social support. It is perhaps the most salient and profound of missing experiences in neglect trauma, and one of the most difficult and wonderful aspects of recovery to learn and heal. I have of course been powerfully reminded of this as I navigate this foray through my thankfully temporary disability. And gr...

Before I started studying trauma and neglect, I associated the word regulation with rules and laws. Now it means so much more. And this word may be confusing because at least to me, it has two related but quite distinct meanings: One meaning corresponds to arousal, or nervous system activation, sometimes also referred to as affect regulation, to use the language of Allan Schore, my first teacher a...

This episode of All About Nothing is a visit into a chapter of my past. We touch on the intergenerational transmission of trauma, and how my internalization of my father's trauma became a drive to prove my "worthiness" through martyrdom; a look at the island of Cuba as an icon of self-reliance, much like our quintessential child of neglect; and a reflection on how unsafety can keep us stuck in way...

What do you get when you cross a person hyper-focused on the feelings, needs and reactions of the other, with a person completely isolated and alone and in their own solitary world? "A one-person psychology." In this episode we explore this often misunderstood characteristic of many a survivor of childhood neglect.

Welcome to episode 3 of All About Nothing, our bi-weekly podcast series. Today, amidst storms of feeling on the heels of the recent US presidential election, we anticipate the upcoming national holiday of Thanksgiving, by visiting the complex world of giving, receiving, and gratitude, all fraught for the child of neglect. Thank you all for joining me in contemplating difficult topics, and changing...

When I began studying neglect and looking for patterns to recognize it, one of the first that jumped out at me, is what I came to call “the Three P’s of Neglect.” They are: passivity, procrastination and paralysis. The three P's became a “dead giveaway” in recognizing a child of neglect. The child of neglect has a very difficult time initiating, following through and completing tasks, especially i...

In this episode we will explore the complex subject of forgiveness, inspired by the Yom Kippur holiday and also by the many feelings stirred in me by tragic testimonials from both sides that I heard seemingly endlessly on October 7th. So much unbearable trauma. How do people move on? My experience of forgiving my father was one of the most profound experiences of my life, and I also know that forg...