Doc to Dock

This week, Nicole docks the conversation in a summer mixtape, starting with a bigger question: why are so many hobbies, including live music, becoming harder and more expensive to access? With Ticketmaster chaos, dynamic pricing, and the growing pressure to perform “being there” online, Brett and Nicole unpack what it means to love concerts, music, and joy in a culture that makes them increasingly...

In this episode, Nicole docks the conversation from recent reporting from CNN about a hidden network of abuse that has brought renewed attention to the scale and normalization of gender-based violence. Nicole and Brett move into a broader conversation about the systems that enable harm, from the strategies people are taught to survive violence to the ways toxic masculinities operate not as isolate...

This week, Dr. Brett docks the conversation in the concept of home work — the ongoing labor of coming to feel at home in our body minds, relationships, and communities. Brett introduces how home work was first shaped through conversations with survivors of violence and grounded in questions of community, justice, and belonging. Together with Nicole (and special guest Dr. Madison Borrelli!), they e...

This week, Nicole docks the conversation in the uneasy space where accusation becomes confession. Brett and Nicole start from the latest political flashpoints — from Trump’s AI Jesus post to Pete Hegseth’s accusations abroad — and ask why the people most loudly condemning others are so often describing themselves. From the Trump administration to the state of Israel, they trace how hypocrisy works...

This week, Brett docks the conversation in the uneasy space between celebrity culture, liberation politics, and the question of what we do when the heroes we admire turn out to be deeply compromised. Brett and Nicole start from the familiar tension of loving the work while wrestling with the artist, then push further into a harder question: if we’re serious about liberation, do we have to kill our...

This week, Nicole docks the conversation in a situationship with work (specifically academia), where the red flags are LinkedIn, Google Scholar, and the constant pressure to prove you’re worth committing to. Brett and Nicole unpack what it means to stay in a relationship that gives you just enough to keep you hooked: the love of thinking, teaching, and creating, alongside the precarity, delayed va...

This week Brett docks the conversation at the 2026 Oscars. Brett and Nicole talk about their relationship to film, from childhood theater rituals to solo movie dates, and how movies function as comfort, escape, and emotional memory. They trade takes on recent Oscar contenders and favorites…and not so favorites, unpacking the hype, the snubs, and what actually makes a film stick. From awards politi...

This week Nicole docks the conversation on the topic we were, surely, all told to bring up at the dinner table: politics. Brett and Nicole ask the question… does “apolitical” exist? If politics is about power, community, and how we negotiate space with one another, can anyone really opt out? They trace how repeated crises, platformized news, and cultural flashpoints (from sports to Super Bowl half...

In this episode, Nicole docks the conversation from a perspective of millennial angst, political fatigue, and generational survival. What begins as a reflection on the low-grade anxiety humming through millennial adulthood shifts when breaking news of military escalation in the Middle East reframes the moment in real time. Framing the past 25 years as a darkly comic infomercial — Now That’s What I...

In this episode, Brett docks the conversation from a perspective of curiosity, joy, and survival. After a candid account of living with suicidal ideation, Brett shares a clinical reframe: curiosity as an actionable, sustaining practice. Brett and Nicole explore how small pleasures, obsessive fandoms, and everyday curiosities can become lifelines. They weave personal stories (from Lord of the Rings...

In this episode, Brett docks the conversation from Minneapolis, reflecting on the visible escalation of state violence and the rhetoric surrounding ICE. Together, Brett and Nicole interrogate the phrase “American Gestapo”: why it resonates, where it illuminates, and where it risks obscuring a harder truth — that ICE is not a foreign aberration but a product of a long U.S. genealogy of racialized c...

In this episode, Nicole docks the conversation by sitting with a question that keeps coming up in her friendships and relationships: can men and women actually be just friends? Thinking about When Harry Met Sally , Nicole and Brett unpack how popular media, religion, and gendered socialization shape the limits placed on friendship. Nicole reflects on growing up in rigid religious gender worlds and...

In this bonus episode for season 1, the Docs are joined by Dr. Gabby Lout, Ph. D., to talk about friendship—the kind that travels across time zones, life phases, and shifting priorities. Together, they reflect on what it means to keep showing up for each other when careers, continents, and calendars get in the way. The conversation explores the work of maintaining connection, how adult friendships...

In this episode, Nicole docks the conversation, asking what it means to live between ambition and ease—to want success and still long for stillness. Brett and Nicole talk about the pull between striving and slowing down, and how that tension shows up in everything from career choices to the curated calm of social media. They look at the trad-wife phenomenon as an extreme expression of this desire...

In this episode, Brett docks the conversation, asking what love looks like under patriarchy—and why so many men are, well, mid . Nicole and Brett unpack how capitalism, masculinity, and social expectation shape the ways we love, labor, and stay. They talk about the pandemic’s impact on intimacy, the loneliness of settling, and why so many cultural narratives end at the chase but skip the realities...

In this episode, Nicole docks the conversation, asking what the American Dream really promises...and to whom. Brett and Nicole unpack the myth of individual success, tracing how race, class, and history shape who gets to dream and who gets left behind. They talk about the emotional and existential debts of chasing fulfillment through capitalism, the tension between visibility and belonging, and wh...

In this episode, Dr. Brett docks the conversation, unpacking the culture of self-care and asking what it really means to care for ourselves in a world that often profits from our exhaustion. He and Nicole explore the rise of the self-care industry, the structural roots of burnout, and the tension between personal healing and systemic change. From the allure of quick fixes to the deeper work of the...

In this episode, Dr. Brett docks the conversation, asking what it means to love art while questioning the artists behind it. He and Nicole talk about Taylor Swift’s ever-shifting identity, the commercialization of music, and the tricky ethics of supporting artists with complicated or problematic histories, from J.K. Rowling to Johnny Depp and Brad Pitt. It’s a candid look at how we draw (and redra...

In this episode, Nicole docks the conversation, asking what it actually means to live under authoritarianism. The hosts talk about how oppressive regimes become normalized, how family and culture shape our political beliefs, and the challenges of having meaningful conversations across deep divides. Brett and Nicole also explore how everyday bureaucracy and cultural norms perpetuate harm, and how a...

Welcome to season 1 of the Doc to Dock Podcast! In our pilot season, we are docking at the everyday realities of living through fascist times, the myth of the American Dream, self-care culture and mental health, relationships, patriarchy, and the pull between ambition and the fantasy of a quieter life. The Doc to Dock Podcast is produced by Dr. Nicole Mayberry and Dr. Brett Goldberg. Original musi...