Your Mental Breakdown

Drew is experiencing the oxytocin honeymoon feeling with his partner as they are now brand new parents. He acknowledges the feelings as well as the triggers for how he was parented. Doug challenges Drew to think through his ideas and ideals of what it means to be "the man of the house." Drew may have baby brain, but he is expressing his emotions well. He is able to sit with them and process them i...

Doug and Kenzie go back in time to Sarah's 2 nd session. The breakdown for this episode happens in real time throughout the session. Sarah begins to tell some of her story about growing up in a cult. Doug acknowledges her strength and resilience in the "survival" of her experiences while paving the way to work towards the "thrival" of her life going forward. We explore Sarah's parenting style and...

Sarah is confronted with her past trauma history after learning that a parent at her child's school knows about Sarah's upbringing in a cult. She navigates a conversation to clear the air because that parent is reluctant to allow her child over to Sarah's rumored "cult house." Doug acknowledges that Sarah handled the situation without going into "justice warrior" mode, even though her emotions wer...

Doug and Kenzie go back in time to Drew's first therapy session - and their breakdown happens in real time throughout the session. They have the benefit of listening to him then while knowing where he is now in his therapeutic treatment and progress years later. You can listen along with them to this initial meeting as Drew shares some of his history and Doug lays the groundwork for their future w...

Join us for a personal and open conversation with two very special guests: actress and comedian, Maria Bamford, and podcast host extraordinaire, Georgia Hardstark. These amazing women, whose memoirs have each reached the New York Times bestsellers list, chat with Doug and Kenzie in this intimate and vulnerable episode. They discuss their perspectives and experiences as public figures being authent...

Doug and Kenzie go back in time to Sarah's first therapy session - and their breakdown happens in real time throughout the session. They have the benefit of listening to her then while knowing where she is now in her therapeutic treatment and progress one year later. You can listen along with them to this initial meeting as Sarah shares some of her history and Doug lays the groundwork for their fu...

We're back from our summer break, and getting right back into it with Drew and his brand new baby. We hear a lot in this session that Drew needs to dump out. He is feeling like he's not enough - as a dad, a partner, and a person not taking care of his own needs. Drew struggles to find balance and expresses feeling uncomfortable in the extremely lukewarm middle. He says he's done himself dirty over...

Doug throws a little science and neural linguistic programming at Kenzie to demonstrate how using certain language in session with clients can help in their pursuit of change. Kenzie and Doug highlight Sarah's progress as it's becoming more natural and instinctive for her to ask for help when she needs it. Sarah acknowledges the evolution of her relationship to control and boundaries. She continue...

Kenzie is jacked up on caffeine and we're getting existential in this one. In the session, Drew emotionally retells the story of the birth of his child and the traumatic experience he went through in the hospital. Along with a new baby boy, comes a heaping dose of existential anxiety. Doug bears witness and helps Drew process an emotional release. He already feels a parental responsibility for his...

Doug and Kenzie discuss the hotly debated topic of whether or not repressed memories are real. In the session, Sarah revisits some traumatic memories of growing up in the cult. As she moves towards her own emotional experience, Doug helps explain her dissociation and offers tools with an intellectual understanding of her trauma response. Sarah can see it objectively by looking at a sibling's rigid...

Doug and Kenzie discuss the question of whether or not people can actually change. In Drew's session, his thoughts meander so Doug throws a few things out to see what sticks. They work through Drew's thoughts about being prepared for fatherhood and his feelings about protecting his son from the bad experiences he had growing up. Drew expresses feeling like he's missing out on mile markers of havin...

Doug and Kenzie break down codependence and answer a listener question about having contact with your therapist outside of your regularly scheduled sessions. In Sarah's session, she processes some family drama involving her ex-husband. She shows progress by not getting drawn into the crisis and by letting her son have his own feelings without going into "fix-it" mode. Doug helps Sarah acknowledge...

Drew gives an update on his medical health and it leads to a discussion about parenting. He is worried about turning into his parents while he is preparing to become a parent himself. Doug explains how we can have traits of a personality type like narcissism or borderline without it being a diagnosable personality disorder. Drew is worried about finding a balance between focusing on himself withou...

Doug helps Sarah stay in the moment and allow emotions to come up. She acknowledges being more comfortable in constant motion and hypervigilance mode when she is more focused on "doing" rather than "feeling." We hear a pivotal moment in her therapy when Sarah reads a poem she wrote as a eulogy for the motto "Keep Calm, Sarah Will Handle It." It is an emotional goodbye and homage to her old self th...

Drew digs deeper into his core thought that his self-worth depends on how good of a provider he is to his family. Doug helps Drew explore taking care of himself in a healthy way rather than working so hard to provide that he keeps spinning plates until he gets overloaded and shuts down. Doug reframes the see-saw concept of a work-life balance to it all being under the umbrella of life with a balan...

Sarah is interacting with the world around her slightly differently. Doug invites her to experiment with what it's like to be the observer, especially when interacting with her siblings. Sarah is shifting from the person that tries to fix or correct everyone to the person that can just notice something happening without taking it personally. She realizes that sometimes the most powerful thing she...

Drew sees progression and growth in his relationship with a friend, but doesn't see it with his parents. Drew has an epiphany about his relationship with them that he names "conditional love," as he is more aware of how he people-pleases in order to feel love from them. Doug helps Drew slow down and process his thoughts and feelings about the evolving relationship with his parents. Drew acknowledg...

Doug and Sarah reflect on how growing up in a cult stripped her of agency and individuality in her own life. She is reclaiming her individuality and feeling strength in her sense of self now. Doug and Sarah make the link from this to the issue she has with control. Sarah walks through a specific example when one of her sisters was driving her car. Sarah processes the anxiety and feelings around le...

Drew has a birthday coming up and a few doctors' appointments on the horizon. He is able to organize his thoughts and come up with a plan both for addressing his medical health and for celebrating his birthday. Doug helps Drew acknowledge that he is not responsible for his parents' response to him and his boundaries. Drew is adulting! Doug and Kenzie are feeling it – literally – as an earthquake h...

Sarah acknowledges being in a constant battle with herself because of how she wants to hear feedback from others for things she has done. She has a hard time accepting praise; and, she doesn't mind constructive criticism if it helps her grow. Doug helps her make sense of getting comfortable without having feedback be the validation. Doug and Kenzie break down external versus internal validation an...

Drew is feeling independence and individuation from parents, especially when he signs a lease on a new place without using them as the guarantor. He had a breakaway moment after mom didn't show up the way he wanted her to on a phone call. He felt solitude and the "solid-tude" of relying on himself not on his parents and the anxious-attachment style that often lets him down. Drew is experiencing wh...

Sarah is going through all the emotions with her teenager and the situation he got into at school this week. While she continues to practice using natural consequences to parent her kids, she is also allowing herself to have her own emotional experience. Sarah is re-parenting herself by letting her kids to come to her and giving them the space to feel their feelings and sit with it (something she...

Doug helps Drew focus on himself, not just the baby on the way. Drew admits that he isn't feeling joy in things the way he's used to feeling it and that it's taking him out of the present. Drew realizes that he's looking for the joy instead of being in the moment and letting the joy find him. This leads Drew to acknowledge the existential anxiety that he's also been feeling. Doug and Kenzie discus...

Doug helps Sarah move forward along a path toward her emotions. They discuss her learned pattern of being dismissive of herself and her feelings. The pursuit of data and facts that turns Sarah into the "justice warrior" is a defense mechanism to not feel the feelings. Doug uses an analogy with Spock and Kirk to highlight a spectrum of being logically driven versus being emotionally driven. Sarah c...

Drew is feeling like an adult and living in the world. He acknowledges feeling strength where he used to feel weakness in asking for help. He's getting support in his life by virtue of actually asking for help from others rather than doing everything on his own. Doug and Drew talk about the subtle differences between being an individual and being independent.  Doug and Kenzie discuss the therapeut...