Between Us: A Psychotherapy Podcast

This week we continue our conversation with Dr. Medria Connolly and Dr. Bryan Nichols on the psychological case for reparations. From white privilege and its deconstruction to the fantasy of American democracy, Dr. Connolly and Dr. Nichols shed light on some of our more provocative cultural issues, making it clear that we are not living in one America, that we have unfinished business as a society...

Dr. Bryan Nichols and Dr. Medria Connolly had collaborated for several decades when their discovery of Ta-Nehisi Coates shifted the course of their work to making the psychological case for reparations to the descendants of African-American slaves. As psychologists of color, they were intimately aware of the ghosts that haunt our society, even within their own field. What they discovered was a ric...

It’s impossible to watch the news without witnessing the horrors sustained by people of color in America. The psychological traumas take a physical toll as well. Never has that been more clear than the covid-19 pandemic which has lowered African-American lifespan more than any other group of people. Ashley McGirt is a therapist and educator who works at the intersection of Black bodies and Black m...

Between Us returns with Dr. Usha Tummala-Narra, an author and professor of counseling at Boston College. Dr. Tummala-Narra is our first guest in a series of interviews that ask the question, “Does psychotherapy address what is happening in the news?” Psychoanalysis has not always welcomed issues of culture and diversity. She believes there are theories that need updating and makes the case for a d...

This is a repost of our fifth episode featuring filmmaker Lynn Shelton who passed away May 16th, 2020. Originally posted in January of 2017. --------- There is no better week to discuss the brokenness of humanity. Lynn Shelton is a filmmaker whose films such as Touchy Feely and Your Sister's Sister capture her unique vision of regular people and the ubiquity of psychological pain. She also directs...

We are back from a long break for a one-off episode in which our hosts, John and Mason, discuss therapy in the time of coronavirus- how it changes the practice, how it changes the collective conscious, and how it brings into focus not the modality or technique, but the relationship.

Dr. Karen Maroda is an integral voice in contemporary relational psychoanalysis who has literally written the book on psychodynamic techniques. In the finale of our third season, she spoke with John Totten on a wide variety of topics ranging from current misconceptions of enactment, to when the therapist should withhold his expressions of love, and how we, as a community, are often ashamed of the...

Mason takes the wheel this week as he explores with his wife, Dr. Katie Neely, what it was like for her to experience his emergence into a career in psychotherapy. In a vulnerable and intimate moment between husband and wife, the Neelys process the ups, downs, and crazy-making moments of this emotional journey and how their disciplines of psychotherapy and medicine compare and contrast. Support: w...

What is it like to grow up the child of a therapist? Megan Griffiths is a filmmaker whose dark characters and tragic situations are undoubtedly influenced by her mother’s work as a social worker. Her latest film, Sadie, is a modern critique of the American culture of violence as it effects a young girl whose father is away at war. It is streaming now on Amazon Prime and available for rent or purch...

In the last few years our culture has shined a light on men behaving badly. But what do we do with perpetrators of sexual and intimate partner violence? Bethany Hendrickson is a therapist who provides treatment to both survivors and perpetrators of this epidemic. In this conversation, she discusses with John the cycle of violence, the similarities in working with both offenders and victims, and wh...

What are the different ways that psychotherapists hide from their patients? It has long been our assertion that many of us enter this work to stay behind the analytical lens and to guard ourselves from exposure. But what about those who don’t have the option? Rachel Newcombe is a psychoanalyst and writer who works on rural Orcas Island in the furthest corner of the Pacific Northwest. She sat down...

On today's episode, John sits down with his friend and colleague Katie Wilson to discuss her relationships with other therapists, how she uses her anger in session, and her discovery of her own limits as a woman in the field. Support: www.patreon.com/betweenus Contact: betweenuspodcast@gmail.com Facebook: www.facebook.com/betweenuspodcast/ Twitter: twitter.com/BetweenUsPod Instagram: www.instagram...

Whitney Erickson is a young therapist who is constantly emerging into further layers of herself: from coming out as queer, to leaving the Mormon Church, to a recent epiphany about her own eating disorder- while working with clients who suffer from eating disorders. She takes the discoveries in stride with a sense of wonder about herself, her clients and the world around her. Principles of authenti...

Dr. Adrienne Harris is a foundational figure in the world of contemporary psychoanalysis, both as a faculty member at the NYU Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis and as a prolific writer on the topics of gender, trauma and subjectivity. Several years ago she formed a consultation group with her colleagues Dr. Susan Klebanoff and Dr. Margery Kalb. The journey this group took to...

What are the everyday tragedies you experience? From the universal affliction of aging to the specific harm of racism and sexism, our culture is talented at ignoring the daily trauma of human existence, and normalizing the grievous. In our episode today, John sits down with Dr. Karen Weisbard to discuss her process of waking up to these realities and what it means to occupy different spaces as a t...

Between Us finally returns. In our Season Three debut, host John Totten discusses his long absence, his ambivalence about his colleagues, and the social graces of the therapist community. Do you like hanging out with therapists? We listen to your responses. Find "Between Us: A Psychotherapy Podcast: Original Soundtrack" on iTunes today. Support: https://www.patreon.com/betweenus Contact: betweenus...

Dr. Galit Atlas joins us for the finale of Season Two. Her new book, The Enigma of Desire: Sex, Longing, and Belonging in Psychoanalysis, is a comprehensive study of sexuality and desire through her unique dual lenses of pragmatism and enigma. A renowned psychoanalyst, professor, and contributor to the New York Times, Dr. Atlas spoke with our host, John Totten, about the process of writing the boo...

One of two episodes about sex, our episode today is a reactionary one. Reactionary against the dogma that John and his guest, Leanna Ramsey, respectively grew up struggling against. What does it mean to be sex-positive? Our premise today is that a stance of curiosity is the only way to therapeutically address differing sexualities, and yet the field continually fails to approach the topic with suc...

Writer Ijeoma Oluo is angry and that’s okay. She wants white men to be okay with their anger too, as long as they understand where their anger actually comes from. She is a powerful essayist and cultural critic who is not afraid to be vulnerable in public about things that anger her, things that terrify her, and even her own mental health. In this discussion, Ijeoma talks with our host John Totten...

This week we continue our discussions with Steve, Jeff, and Nick- three men in three stages of life, all managing three different manifestations of bipolar disorder. They sit down with John to talk about the path to living happy, fulfilling lives full of gratitude and how they keep themselves healthy. Season Two of Between Us is sponsored by MetaFi, a free download on iOS and Android. Contact: bet...

Three men at three stages in life. Three different manifestations of bipolar disorder. Often consisting of manic episodes, delusions of grandeur, and days without sleeping, bipolar disorder is a widely misunderstood illness that sci-fi legend Carrie Fisher spent much of her days demythologizing. In the first episode of our two-part interview, three men who volunteer for the National Alliance on Me...

Poet Molly Peacock had a relationship with her psychoanalyst for forty years, even after her analyst had a career-ending stroke in 2012. Molly’s new collection, titled The Analyst, is inspired by the relationship she describes as “Oliver Sacksian” in reference to the renowned neurologist who, himself, was a patient for five decades. Is psychotherapy a treatment that should be ended like a course o...

It is one of our premises for this show that the work of healing in a relational context is countercultural. On this episode, Roy Barsness, a professor and psychologist, sits down with John Totten to discuss his new book, Core Competencies of Relational Psychoanalysis. In the qualitative study that formed the foundation for his work, Roy found a particular way of being in relationship that include...

Does music have a real effect on our emotional health? Do the songs that speak to us actually speak to us? Jason Dodson is the singer and songwriter for the band The Maldives. Their new album, Mad Lives, was written as a therapeutic process in response to a fracture in Jason’s life. In this discussion, he tells us about that process and his own mental health journey, including his struggles with a...

Psychoanalysis has not been a field that is particularly progressive in its deconstruction of prescriptive gender roles. The feminist presence that exists today had to be forged. Our guest, Sally Bjorklund, is an alumni of that feminist movement. She has a keen sense of her own outsiderness, from her childhood as an adopted tomboy in the evangelical midwest of the 1960s, to finding her path as a p...