Back from the Abyss: Psychiatry in Stories | Psychotherapy, Trauma, and Psychedelics

After seven years and so many powerful stories, Craig announces a tectonic shift in the BFTA plates. Support the show!  https://www.buzzsprout.com/396871/support Closing song-- "Come and go" by Timber Choir Bringing Therapy into Med Management-- An intensive workshop for psych NPs and PAs, June 3-6 2026 in Ft Collins https://www.craigheacockmd.com/bringing-therapy-into-med-management/ &q...

Amidst a long catalog of previous BFTA stories featuring complex or developmental PTSD, today’s story is one of classic DSM-style PTSD, it’s a story of both medical and parenting trauma, of facing the fear of annihilation and death.  In this three part story,  first we hear Tracy tell of the increasingly severe medical challenges of her children, then Tracy flashes back to describe her own terrify...

In this solo episode Dr. H shares his thoughts on the unexpected risks of feeling too much positive energy and/or identification with a patient.  This talk is also a sneak preview into the workshop that Dr. H teaches with Dr. Hillary McBride called "I Love You I Hate You...Are You My Mom?' Support the show!  https://www.buzzsprout.com/396871/support Bringing Therapy into Med Management--...

Today’s story is one of genetic predisposition, environmental triggers, and finally a psychiatric flame thrower.  Whitney’s uncle had a particularly severe form of bipolar disorder and she too began to develop mood instability and depression as an adolescent. When we think of environmental triggers for mania, we tend to think of sleep deprivation, substances, and the postpartum period. And through...

The US has a major suicide problem, around 50,000 people every year, and 60% of these suicides are gun suicides. The number one risk factor for completed suicide is not depression or anxiety or addiction….it’s access to means, and it turns out that it’s actually not that easy to impulsively kill yourself, unless you have ready access to a gun.  We are finally starting to talk about ways to keep gu...

Today’s story explores how we love, how we grieve, and how we eventually find some sort of equilibrium thereafter. This episode is a heartbreaking, yet beautiful story by Colorado-based somatic therapist Darci Meyers about her journey through multiple losses, grief, and ongoing recovery. Support the show!  https://www.buzzsprout.com/396871/support Darci Meyers http://www.darcimeyers.com/ Bringing...

Kari reconnected with her birth mother in her 40s and finally began to understand the suffering for which she had no words. This is a story of adoption and reunification, of forgetting and remembering, of finding a truth without words in the wisdom of the body.  Kari’s birth mother was able to see something deep in Kari that she had never had words for….and thus began her path toward healing. Supp...

Kate started her addiction journey at a young age, using substances as a salve for her terrible grief. Later, drugs and alcohol helped her to cope with the transition to nursing and the unending demands of a hospital setting.  But as with all addicts, this strategy worked until it didn’t….Kate eventually had to find a new way to cope if she was going to survive past her 30s. Support the show!  htt...

Dr. H dives deep into a patient's scary, confusing, and ill-advised list of psych meds to illustrate some deeper truths and lessons about psychopharmacology and the med management model of psychiatry. Support the show!  https://www.buzzsprout.com/396871/support Bringing Therapy into Med Management-- An intensive workshop for psych NPs and PAs, June 3-6 2026 in Ft Collins https://www.craigheac...

Dr. H sits down with Dr. Elizabeth Fenstermacher, Medical Director of the TMS Clinic at the University of Colorado- Anschutz to explore the growing role of TMS and neuromodulation in psychiatry.  They explore questions such as: •How should we think about TMS vs ketamine in the treatment of depression? Trauma? OCD? •Who are the best candidates for TMS?  •What are the relative merits of intensive TM...

There is a growing awareness in psychiatry that not all psychiatric illness is psychiatric— some percentage of what presents in psychiatric settings is actually triggered by autoimmune responses to various pathogens and insults.  In the late '90s a syndrome called PANDAS (pediatric autoimmune neuropsychiatric disorders associated with strep) came on the scene with cases of sudden onset OCD an...

Psychotherapy can often get stuck in a there and then storytelling mode....how do we shift the therapeutic encounter into the immediacy of the Here and Now?  Here Dr. H shares 10 questions which shine a spotlight on what's happening (and not happening!) between therapist and patient.  Support the show!  https://www.buzzsprout.com/396871/support Bringing Therapy into Med Management-- An intens...

Dr. H sits down with Jade Miller, a peer support specialist and advocate for public education about DID (Dissociative Identity Disorder). In the first part of this episode, Jade shares her story and how she came to understand that the puzzling gaps and often frightening incongruities in her life were caused by her rotating through a number of dissociated identities or alters, initially protecting...

BFTA storyteller Frank shares the joy, confusion, chaos, utter fear, and deepest gratitude when he and his partner Brad adopted and raised two boys, ages 4 and 2, from the foster care system. Twenty years ago, when Frank adopted the boys, trauma was not in the public awareness as it is today, and he was told that these little boys, who had spent some time in a meth house, might well have some chal...

Rachael, a trauma therapist and today's storyteller, describes how her early childhood abuse was buried by the protective mechanism of dissociative amnesia.  As Rachael wrote to Dr. H, “The only way I could continue to live, with no way out, with no one to tell, with no words even to describe what was happening to me, was to forget what was happening to me….when our minds forget, our bodies r...

This story is a mirror to Elizabeth’s story from season 1 episode 1. Today’s storyteller Sarah was so moved by Elizabeth’s story that it helped her to trust Dr. H's recommendation to take a pretty scary medication, the extremely powerful antipsychotic and mood stabilizer called clozapine.  So why tell this story again? As they say, history doesn’t repeat itself, but it does often rhyme, and S...

In today’s story we explore what it’s like to be on the autistic spectrum, and more specifically, how a later life diagnosis can totally change the way you view the world and yourself. Aurelie, our storyteller today,  was an autism expert, a clinical psychologist who had trained with some of the premier autism experts in the country…yet she didn’t discover her own autism until she was 40 years old...

How do you rebuild trust amidst the ashes of trauma? This is the story of Sean, an up and coming star tennis player whose coach carefully selected him and then groomed him for years of sexual assault. His trust destroyed, Sean had to find a way to try to trust again…..and after many years of hiding and pretending and near self-destruction, Sean finally was able to share the details of what happene...

In this fourth annual summer psychedelic special, Dr. H sits down to hear some hard-earned wisdom from a therapist colleague who has been doing underground MDMA and psilocybin work for years. Support the show!  https://www.buzzsprout.com/396871/support "I Love You, I Hate You, Are You My Mom?"  An intensive experiential workshop exploring transference with Dr. H and Dr. Hillary McBride,...

Chris and Craig invite Antonio Sacre, an LA-based professional storyteller, author, and BFTA super-advisor into the Fishbowl to deconstruct season 6. BFTA episode recommendations/Podcast page https://www.craigheacockmd.com/podcast-page/ "I Love You, I Hate You, Are You My Mom?"  An intensive experiential workshop exploring transference with Dr. H and Dr. Hillary McBride, Feb 4th-6th 2026...

Craig sits down with his mentee and colleague Mandy Bliss, a psychiatric NP in Louisville KY,  to explore the compelling and complex challenges of meeting the ever-expanding need for psychiatric care. Unlike in psychiatric residencies, much of the current training of psychiatric NPs is done online. Does this constitute adequate training? And what of psychotherapy? Mandy Bliss MSN, APRN, FNP-BC, PM...

Craig sits down with Colorado-based psychotherapist and Enneagram expert Joy Gribble (Elemental Psychedelics; Reflective Healing) to explore how the Enneagram can predict the strengths, fears, and blind spots of both the therapist and the client/patient in the complex dynamics of therapy. Joy Gribble  https://www.reflectivehealing.com/about-joy-gribble-fort-collins "I Love You, I Hate You, Ar...

Here Dr. H sits down with Lisa, a pediatric nurse practitioner, to witness her story of developmental trauma, concomitant chronic depression, and eventually her path of healing and rebuilding trust and connection, largely through psychotherapy.  During her years of intermittently crippling and suicidal depression, she was put on various psych meds, which might have helped at the time, but later be...

Craig sits down with Colorado-based equine and somatic therapist Koelle Simpson to witness her harrowing and moving story of healing from repeated sexual assaults through a deep psychospiritual connection with horses, then learning how to trust her male psychotherapist, and finally coming to face the darkness and shame head on through the use of psilocybin mushrooms. A heads up-- this episode cont...

Dr. H breaks down the complex task of deprescribing into six clear steps, starting with the most important and challenging question of all:   Who is the patient and why are they suffering? "Bringing Therapy into Med Management"-- a psychotherapy training intensive with Dr. H for psych NPs and PAs this October in Ft Collins   https://www.craigheacockmd.com/training/ BFTA on IG @backfromth...