the goop podcast

In the medical community, miraculous recoveries are typically dismissed as flukes and outliers. Because they can’t be explained within the constructs of typical modern care, they end up in the dustbin. But some doctors, like today’s guest Jeffrey Rediger, MD, believe that this is a grave mistake and that our insistence on clinging to old systems and beliefs leaves much lifesaving science out. Redi...

Tom Philpott is a veteran journalist, a former farmer, and the current food and agriculture correspondent for Mother Jones. Philpott has spent years researching how and why American agriculture has gone so disastrously wrong and all the ways our political and economic infrastructure exacerbated its downfall. But as grim as the situation is now, Philpott believes there is much to be hopeful about—i...

Dolly Chugh is a psychologist and professor at the Stern School of Business at NYU. She studies how—and why—most of us, however well-intended, are still prone to race and gender bias, as well as what she calls “bounded ethicality,” which are the systemic, unethical behaviors we engage in without awareness. For example, Chugh believes that being an ally isn’t about being a “good” person—and that ou...

Mark Wolynn is the director of the Family Constellation Institute in San Francisco. The focus of his work is healing trauma. Wolynn believes that the traumas of our parents, grandparents, and even great grandparents can live on in us—particularly if they are unresolved. If you’re triggered by something and can’t figure out why, Wolynn says the answer might lie in your family history. He wrote a bo...

David Wallace-Wells is a lifelong New Yorker. He is not a lifelong environmentalist—“at all,” he says. He came of age in the ’90s, drank a lot of “that development, globalization, neoliberal Kool-Aid and really felt the world was getting better and richer.” But learning more about climate change scrambled a lot of his assumptions about the world and our place in it. Today, Wallace-Wells is a colum...

“That taboo dark energy around our sexuality can be a place of great expansion,” says somatic sexologist andeducator Jaiya, who has spent the last two decades studying what turns people on. Jaiya developed something called the Erotic Blueprint, an arousal map that reveals your specific erotic language—sensual, sexual, kinky, energetic, or shapeshifter. She explains how we can discover our own lang...

“When you push people to be colorblind, not only are you pushing them to not see color; you’re pushing them to not see the harm that comes from color,” says Jennifer Eberhardt, PhD. Eberhardt is a social psychologist, a Stanford professor, and the author of Biased, a thoroughly researched, compelling, and comprehensive book on uncovering prejudice and addressing it. Everyone is affected by racial...

“The urge to absolve oneself is a kind of low-level thing where we’re trying to get away from our own complicity,” says psychiatrist Mark Epstein, MD. Epstein is the author of Advice Not Given, and his work lies at the intersection of Buddhism and psychotherapy. Today, he’s teaching us about what motivates people and what happens when we let guilt guide our decision-making. He also teaches us abou...

“Whatever is emerging, we want to help people explore it and experience it,” says Rick Doblin. GP interviewed the founder and executive director of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) about the impact MDMA-assisted psychotherapy may have on PTSD, eating disorders, alcoholism, and other forms of trauma. Doblin explains the landscape of psychedelic research, how it’s cha...

“The more logical you are in your approach to your sleep, the more you’re going to screw it up,” says sleep specialist Rafael Pelayo, MD. Pelayo is a clinical professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the Stanford Center for Sleep Sciences and Medicine and the author of the forthcoming book How to Sleep, which will be published in December 2020. Today, Pelayo answers our most pressing sle...

“If you get to some of the fundamental issues that are causing the unrest, you don’t need these Band-Aids,” says Julie Holland, a psychiatrist who specializes in psychopharmacology. Holland is the author of Weekends at Bellevue, Moody Bitches, and most recently, Good Chemistry. Today, she’s explaining the science of connection—with self, with partners, with family, with the cosmos. Holland has res...

“We have all these mini minds that interact all the time,” says Richard Schwartz, PhD, the founder of the Internal Family Systems Institute. Schwartz believes that different subpersonalities—which he calls parts—make up the capital-S Self. In his audiobook Greater Than the Sum of Our Parts, Schwartz explains how traumas (minor or major) can cause certain parts to deviate from their natural state....

“I like a lot of different topics, and I like to be around a lot of different types of people,” says Arlan Hamilton. “And that keeps me flexible.” Hamilton is the author of It’s About Damn Time and the founder of Backstage Capital, a venture capital seed fund that invests in underrepresented founders. She built the company from the ground up—while experiencing homelessness. In this conversation wi...

“Failure can be the best teacher if you know how to approach it properly,” says Ozan Varol, a former rocket scientist turned law professor. In his book Think Like a Rocket Scientist, Varol shows the benefit of approaching problems with a beginner’s mindset. He explains why it’s dangerous to conflate beliefs with identity and why it’s incredibly productive to ask yourself: What are my assumptions?...

“Conventional medicine failed me. It is my mission to not have it fail other people as well,” says Amy Myers, MD. The New York Times–bestselling author of The Autoimmune Solution and The Thyroid Connection sat down with Elise Loehnen to talk about autoimmunity. Seventy-five percent of people with autoimmunity are women, explains Myers, and she believes that autoimmunity is spiking in children. She...

“You’re never fully cooked,” says Chelsea Handler. GP catches up with her friend about her approach to activism, comedy, and self-discovery—which she writes about her in latest New York Times–bestselling book, Life Will Be the Death of Me. They start by talking about White privilege and why and how Handler set out to first dismantle it in her life. “How do you get okay with making yourself feel un...

Ibram X. Kendi—the number one New York Times–bestselling author of How to Be an Antiracist, Stamped from the Beginning, and Antiracist Baby—is a historian of change. This summer, he’s moving to a new academic post at Boston University, where he’ll become the founding director of the Boston University Center for Antiracist Research. In this conversation with Elise Loehnen, Kendi talks through the h...

“There is a system that is a sustainable new business model in which health becomes the determinant,” says Jeffrey Bland, PhD. “Not just production per unit acre.” Bland, who is known as the father of functional medicine, joins host Elise Loehnen for a wide-ranging conversation on how long-defended systems (in medicine and elsewhere) have failed and how we can make them work and make them just. He...

“You can’t grow up Black in America and not feel outraged by the terrible health disparities that are still going on every day,” says Nadine Burke Harris, MD, the first surgeon general of California. GP got on a video call with Harris, who is an expert on adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). Her book, The Deepest Well, explores the connection between adversity, trauma, and toxic stress in childho...

“Life is not just the beginning and the end,” says Nora McInerny. “It is all of these tiny things in the middle.” McInerny hosts the podcast Terrible, Thanks for Asking and is the author of It’s Okay to Laugh, The Hot Young Widows Club, and No Happy Endings. She’s hilarious. This episode is her very honest conversation with Elise Loehnen about grief and loss. Which also manages to be funny. McIner...

We often think the best negotiator is the toughest person in the room. Bring Yourself author Mori Taheripour explains why this is not true: “Our superpower is our ability to have emotional intelligence in a conversation.” Taheripour teaches negotiation and dispute resolution at Wharton, and focuses on the human side of negotiating. Her method isn’t prescriptive. She helps people get out of their h...

“Historically in the US, progress has meant exploitation of someone, and usually people of color,” says Rhiana Gunn-Wright, director of climate policy at Roosevelt Institute. Gunn-Wright met with host Elise Loehnen to talk about her work in developing the Green New Deal, a proposal of ideas to address climate change. At its core, Gunn-Wright says this work is about justice and equity. “It’s really...

Functional medicine psychiatrist Jeffrey Becker, MD, takes an uncommon approach to depression, anxiety, and mental health. Becker, who is also a cofounder of Bexson Biomedical, examines the genome, the gut, and micronutrient levels before prescribing drugs to a patient. He was an early advocate of ketamine-assisted psychotherapy for treating depression. “We are absolutely the nexus of body, mind,...

“The cause of all suffering is what we’re thinking and believing,” says Byron Katie. Katie is a legendary spiritual teacher, the author of Loving What Is, and the creator of a self-inquiry method that she calls “the Work.” Today, Katie guides Elise Loehnen through the Work in her life. The process involves asking four basic questions that can turn a negative belief on its head. Katie reminds us th...

“It’s not really science,” says David Michaels, PhD. “It’s public relations disguised as science.” Today, the epidemiologist and author of The Triumph of Doubt explains how frequently science is manipulated across industries—from tobacco to personal-care products to football. During his tenure as the assistant secretary of labor at the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, Michaels uncove...