Psyche

When  Bella Freud —great-granddaughter of  Sigmund Freud —sat down with  Esther Perel  on  Fashion Neurosis , I knew I had to listen. What unfolds is not a conversation about trends or aesthetics, but about identity, masculinity, desire, and the psychology of being seen. In this solo reflection, I explore clothing as a kind of “second skin”—a psychological boundary between self and world. Drawing...

More and more men are showing up in therapy convinced that desire is a technical problem—something that can be solved through optimization, symmetry, and self-correction. Jawlines, ratios, bodies, images.  Looksmaxxing  promises certainty, control, and relief from rejection, but what it actually delivers is anxiety, perfectionism, and a dead end. In this episode, I bring together several threads t...

In this solo episode, I reflect on  Bad Bunny ’s Super Bowl halftime performance as more than a cultural moment—it becomes a doorway into memory, migration, colonial history, and the psychology of diaspora. Born in Puerto Rico to a Puerto Rican mother and an American father, I weave my own family story into a broader reflection on what it means to live between worlds, shaped by love, economic prec...

In Part Three of this  Heated Rivalry  series, I turn my attention to Ilya and the moment in Episode Five that changed how I understood his character entirely. When Shane lets Ilya speak in Russian — without translation, without explanation — the series opens into a deeper story about borders, belonging, and the cost of building a life far from home. This episode explores Ilya not just as a romant...

In this episode, I’m joined by Elisabeth Schilling for a slow, careful conversation about  Eros —not as romance or scandal, but as a force that shaped the early history of psychoanalysis itself. Using  A Dangerous Method  as a starting point, we explore Carl Jung’s relationships with Sabina Spielrein and Toni Wolff, and the ethical, psychological, and relational tensions that emerge when desire en...

In Part Two of this ongoing reflection on  Heated Rivalry , I slow down and focus on the interior life of Shane Hollander and why his character has resonated so deeply with autistic and neurodivergent viewers, even without the show ever naming him as such. Rather than treating this as a question of diagnosis, I explore Shane as a way of being in the world — his pacing, his relationship to regulati...

In this episode, I sit with  Heated Rivalry  not as a show to review, but as a story that quietly pushes against the emotional tone so much of our culture has normalized. In a media landscape saturated with cynicism, distance, and dystopian assumptions about intimacy, this series lingers on warmth, pleasure, and the slow, imperfect development of trust. From a therapeutic perspective, I explore wh...

In this solo episode, I reflect on a moment from my clinical work with a young male client who brought in a conversation from the Joe Rogan podcast, where online debater Andrew Wilson suggested that therapy is ineffective and that what people really need is simply a good friend. Rather than responding defensively, I take the question seriously and explore a deeper philosophical and psychological i...

I don’t usually post public criticism. It’s just not really my mode. I’m far more interested in dialogue, curiosity, and building ideas than tearing other people’s work apart. But in this episode, I reflect on why I found a recent Jungian podcast on polyamory genuinely disappointing—not simply because I disagree with its conclusions, but because I expected more depth, more reflexivity, and more ps...

On a drive home after dinner with my kids, listening to Tim Henson’s  Original Sin , a constellation of ideas came together around the work and life of psychoanalytic philosopher Mari Ruti. This episode is a personal, creative reflection on Ruti as a kind of “meek rebel” — someone deeply relational, politically engaged, and radically committed to inner freedom without ever surrendering herself to...

In this solo episode, I reflect on two recent conversations that have been quietly reshaping how I think about faith, love, and identity—my dialogue with theologian David Congdon on polyamorous Christianity, and my conversation with Rami Kaminski on otroversion and  The Gift of Not Belonging . On the surface, these episodes come from very different worlds. But as I sit with them, I begin to hear a...

What if not belonging isn’t a flaw—but a form of freedom? In this episode of  Psyche , I sit down with psychiatrist and author  Dr. Rami Kaminski  to explore his powerful book,  The Gift of Not Belonging: How Outsiders Thrive in a World of Joiners . Together, we unpack his concept of  otrovertness —a way of being in the world where a person may appear gentle, kind, and socially capable on the outs...

In this episode of  Psyche Podcast , I’m joined by theologian David Congdon for a deep, wide-ranging conversation about desire, love, polyamory, and the future of Christianity. For centuries, Christian theology has treated eros, sexuality, and pleasure as something dangerous — something to be controlled, disciplined, or confined to narrow moral boundaries. David’s new book challenges that entire f...

In this episode, I draw the second film from my New York Times Jenga movie deck— Anchorman —and end up somewhere I didn’t expect: a surprisingly intimate reflection on masculinity, emotional development, and the quiet fragility beneath alpha performance. Using both the film and stories from my clinical work with men and couples, I explore how so many of us were taught to  perform  masculinity with...

What if intimacy was never meant to come with guarantees? In this solo episode, I explore how psychotherapy often inherits a quiet promise—that if we choose the right relationship structure, heal enough, or communicate well enough, intimacy will eventually become safe and predictable. Drawing on my clinical work, reflections on anti-mononormativity, and insights inspired by Eduardo Viveiros de Cas...

In this episode, I sit with a question that’s been quietly shaping a lot of my clinical work and personal reflection:  What kind of masculinity are we actually bringing into our relationships? Inspired by a provocative appendix from Jorge Ferrer’s  Love and Freedom , I explore his contrast between the “Alpha Male” and the “Omega Man”—not as fixed identities or ideals, but as relational patterns th...

Jealousy is one of the most misunderstood human emotions. It’s often either justified as proof of love or dismissed as something we should simply get over. In this episode, I take a different approach—exploring jealousy as a complex emotional signal that can sometimes serve us, while also examining the ways it becomes shaped and intensified by cultural scripts like patriarchy, scarcity, and compar...

In this episode, I explore the idea of  mononormativity —the assumption that there is one correct structure for love, desire, maturity, and even healing—and how deeply it shapes religion, psychology, and spirituality. Drawing on the work of  David Congdon ,  Angela Willey , and  Jorge Ferrer , I examine how appeals to “nature,” normality, and spiritual maturity often function less as descriptions...

In this episode of  Psyche Podcast , I’m joined by psychoanalyst, writer, and host of  Rendering Unconscious ,  Vanessa Sinclair , for a wide-ranging and deeply human conversation at the intersection of psychology, film, culture, enchantment, and resistance. We begin by tracing Vanessa’s journey from Miami to New York to Sweden, her early adoption of telehealth long before it became the norm, and...

In this episode of  Psyche Podcast , I’m joined by my friend  Phuc Luu  for a wide-ranging and deeply personal conversation about  Letter to His Father  by  Franz Kafka . Kafka’s letter is often described as one of the most raw and devastating documents in modern literature—and for good reason. Written as an attempt to explain his lifelong fear of his father, the letter becomes an unflinching exam...

In this episode, I spend time with Franz Kafka ’s Letter to His Father —one of the most intimate and unsettling texts he ever wrote. Kafka famously tells his father, “My writing was all about you.” And it’s hard to deny the profound psychic impact fathers can have on their sons: the shaping of authority, judgment, fear, and the inner critic. But this episode doesn’t stop there. Drawing on postmode...

Before I ever watched  Stranger Things , I read J.F. Martel’s philosophical essays on it. That reversal mattered. In this solo episode, I offer a close, reflective reading of  J.F. Martel ’s  Reality Is Analog  essays, using  Stranger Things  as a lens for thinking about  the Real —that dimension of reality that resists explanation, control, and reduction. This is not a plot analysis and contains...

In this wide-ranging and intimate conversation, I’m joined by writer and former sex worker  Liara Roux  to explore her provocative and deeply human book The Whore of New York, alongside her online essay Pussy Capital. My partner and wife, Amy Galpin, joins us for this episode, helping shape a conversation that moves fluidly between psychology, sexuality, capitalism, religion, neurodivergence, inti...

In this solo episode, I offer an in-depth exploration of  Psychotherapy and the Daimonic , a remarkable essay by  Rollo May , originally published in  Myths, Dreams, and Religion , edited by  Joseph Campbell . Rollo May introduces the  daimonic  as any natural force within the human being that has the power to take over the whole person. Far from equating the daimonic with evil or pathology, May a...

In this solo episode, I reflect on Lars von Trier’s  Melancholia —a film often described as dark or depressing, yet one I found strangely clarifying and alive. After briefly situating the film within von Trier’s long career, I offer a grounded overview of its structure and themes before moving into deeper psychological and philosophical territory. Drawing on psychoanalysis and existential therapy,...