Dr. Rick and Forrest open up the mailbag to answer listener questions about trauma and its impact on personality, boundaries, anger, and burnout. They discuss how to distinguish the authentic self from the patterns we needed to learn to survive, how to balance duty to self with duty to others, and how to work with explosive anger by first joining with it. Finally, they discuss the importance of moving from empathic distress to compassion in order to prevent caregiver fatigue. Topics include cognitive defusion, taking a bird’s eye view, filling your own cup, and being with your feelings without judging them.

Key Topics:

0:00: Introduction

01:30: Question 1: Trauma or Personality?

07:53: Question 2: Managing Boundaries with a Depressed Partner

28:32: Question 3: Dealing with Explosive Anger

37:45: Question 4: How to Prevent Caregiver Fatigue

47:16: Recap

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Dr. Rick and Forrest explore the silent killer of relationships: resentment. They discuss resentment as a combination of perceived grievance (“I was wronged”) and helplessness (“and I can’t fix it”), before talking about how over-functioning and control tendencies can lead to resentment in relationships - one person shoulders more of the load while quietly stewing about it. Topics include the role of rumination in keeping resentment alive, the difference between legitimate grievances and toxic rumination, and why resentment can feel protective. Rick shares a step-by-step framework for handling resentment when repair isn’t possible, while Forrest highlights how communication and claiming agency can be powerful antidotes.

Key Topics:

00:00: Intro

04:14: Legitimate grievances vs. unhealthy resentment

09:44: How perceptions of injustice and helplessness fuel resentment

20:04: Claiming your agency

34:41: How to work through resentment with others

50:11: How to work through resentment when you can’t work through it with others

1:02:51: Recap

Support the Podcast: We're on Patreon! If you'd like to support the podcast, follow this link.

Sponsors

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Dr. Rick and Forrest explore humanistic psychology, the mid-20th century movement that redefined how therapists relate to clients. It challenged the pessimism of Freud and the mechanism of behaviorism, offering a more hopeful alternative: that our nature is fundamentally good, and our job is to let it shine through. They discuss Carl Rogers’ work, including self-actualization, conditions of worth, unconditional positive regard, trusting your experience, and the central role of the therapeutic alliance. Throughout, they focus on what you can take from these ideas into your life.

Key Topics: 

00:00: Intro

03:40: Humanism as a response to psychoanalysis

09:53: Humanism’s core principles: inherent goodness, wholism, self-actualization, agency, and subjective experience

21:35: What does humanistic therapy actually look like?

32:46: Congruence, conditions of worth, and authenticity

40:54: History and context: post-WWII and the civil rights movement

56:09: Critiques of humanism

1:02:40: Lessons we can all take from humanistic psychology

1:13:41: Recap

Support the Podcast: We're now on Patreon! If you'd like to support the podcast, follow this link.

Sponsors

If you have ADHD, or you love someone who does, I’d recommend checking out the podcast ADHD aha!

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AI chatbots may already be the largest providers of mental health services in the United States, raising big questions about safety, effectiveness, and oversight. Dr. Rick and Forrest are joined by Dr. Nick Jacobson to explore the risks and opportunities of AI therapy: Can a chatbot be good at therapy? Will it replace human therapists? What about AI psychosis? How should we think about privacy, bias, and regulation? Is this a silver bullet for mental health access, or are we just opening a new can of worms?

About our Guest: Nick is associate professor of biomedical data science, psychiatry, and computer science at Dartmouth, and directs the AI and Mental Health Laboratory there. He’s also the developer of Therabot, a generative AI therapy chatbot that predates ChatGPT, and he’s one of the first researchers to run a clinical trial on AI therapy.

Key Topics:

02:35: Is AI going to replace human therapists?

05:00: Risks of using ChatGPT as your therapist, and general vs. therapy-specific AI

14:30: What should people be worried about?

19:14: Is AI good at therapy?

29:58: Bias, values, and “who’s watching the watchers”

39:17: Is there something unique about a human therapist?

52:21: Oversight and the self-driving car analogy

1:00:51: Personhood, consciousness, and risks of anthropomorphizing AI

1:11:00: Recap

Support the Podcast: We're now on Patreon! If you'd like to support the podcast, follow this link.

Sponsors

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Dr. Rick and Forrest explore how to use a life crisis productively, drawing on developmental stage theories, existential philosophy, literature, personal experience, and Rick’s clinical work. They examine the anxieties of death, freedom, responsibility, and choice that often underlie these crises, and discuss how we can not only cope with these anxieties but also harness them to build a more authentic life. Throughout, they simplify, summarize, and invite you to focus on not just the next 10 years, but the next 10 minutes.

Key Topics:

0:00: Introduction

5:26: Life Stages: Erickson and Levinson

15:34: Healthy vs. Unhealthy Discontent

17:18: Inner Conflict and the Anxiety of Choice

24:18: Guidelines for Having a “Good Life Crisis”

29:36: Seizing Each Day

33:00: Coping with the Anxiety of Choice

35:17: Authenticity, Values, and Living True to Yourself

44:17: Roles and Life Transitions

46:28: Clarifying Your Values

52:09: Taking Action

57:28: Recap

Support the Podcast: We're now on Patreon! If you'd like to support the podcast, follow this link.

Sponsors

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Forrest and therapist Meg Josephson explore the fawn response, a survival strategy where safety is sought by pleasing other people. They discuss how fawning can start as self-protection in childhood, but later morph into overthinking, hypervigilance, and self-abandonment. Meg shares her own experience, including how fawning creates resentment and makes it difficult to find a healthy relationship or figure out your authentic needs. Topics include becoming aware of unconscious habits, building distress tolerance, grief, self-compassion, healthy boundaries, and speaking up for ourselves.

About our Guest: Meg Josephson is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and author of the new book Are You Mad at Me?

Key Topics:

0:00: Introduction

1:18: Self-sabotage as self-protection

4:01: Bringing the unconscious fawn response into awareness

9:51: Silencing wants and needs, conflict avoidance, and resentment

14:33: Rediscovering wants and needs after people pleasing

18:05: The healing arc: grief, anger, and relationship

25:30: Viewing people pleasing as a “part” rather than an identity

30:11: Nice vs. compassionate

51:36: Hypervigilance and the NICER practice

57:22: Authenticity as “uncovering” rather than “fixing”

1:03:02: Recap

Support the Podcast: We're now on Patreon! If you'd like to support the podcast, follow this link.

Sponsors

If you have ADHD, or you love someone who does, I’d recommend checking out the podcast ADHD aha!

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Dr. Rick and Forrest open up the mailbag to answer questions about complex situations where good process really matters. They discuss whether to get back with an ex who has seemingly changed, relationships with someone with addictive tendencies, the difference between Narcissistic Personality Disorder and narcissistic tendencies, and why genuine change requires more than insight alone. Other topics include how much to tell your therapist, fears of being misunderstood, and how to approach meditation if you have an underlying vulnerability.

Key Topics:

0:00: Introduction 

2:00: Should I get back with my ex?

13:40: Dating someone with long-term substance use

19:30: Narcissistic traits vs. narcissistic personality disorder

32:40: How much research to bring into therapy

39:50: Fear of being misunderstood and hyper-rationality

47:40: Safe meditation practices for people at risk of depersonalization

55:50: Recap

Support the Podcast: We're now on Patreon! If you'd like to support the podcast, follow this link.

Sponsors

Level up your bedding with Quince. Go to Quince.com/BEINGWELL for free shipping on your order and three hundred and sixty-five -day returns.

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Forrest and therapist Brandy Wyant discuss limerence, an intense and often one-sided state of romantic obsession. They explore how limerence differs from both love and ordinary crushes, why uncertainty fuels it, and how it can take over a person’s inner world. Brandy shares both clinical insights and her own lived experience, describing the obsessive thoughts, compulsive behaviors, and shame that often accompany limerence. They examine its overlap with OCD and addiction, and discuss practical strategies from CBT and ACT.

Key Topics:

0:00: Introduction

2:00: What is limerence?

5:26: Limerence vs. a crush

11:28: Why research and treatment lag behind

13:38: Treatment approaches and practical strategies

24:47: Attachment, susceptibility, and shame

29:05: How limerence shapes relationships

38:12: Online communities and reinforcing obsession

49:18: Self-worth and validation

53:41: Recap

Support the Podcast: We're now on Patreon! If you'd like to support the podcast, follow this link.

Sponsors

Level up your bedding with Quince. Go to Quince.com/BEINGWELL for free shipping on your order and three hundred and sixty-five -day returns.

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Dr. Rick and Forrest are joined by Mingyur Rinpoche, a renowned Tibetan Buddhist teacher, to explore calming anxiety with awareness, relaxing unhealthy wanting, and finding a deeper sense of our innate goodness. Rinpoche shares how a near-death experience during his four-year “wandering retreat” transformed his relationship to fear and deepened his gratitude for life. They discuss practical ways to see the true nature of the mind, soften the grip of aversion and attachment, reframe fear as care, and embrace impermanence as a path to freedom.

Learn more about Rinpoche's live teaching in South Africa and join for free online at https://tergar.org/southafrica.

Key Topics:

0:00: Introduction

3:33: How a near-death experience dissolved Rinpoche’s fear

7:06: Learning not to fight panic attacks

10:25: Seeing anxiety as clouds in the sky

14:18: Awareness, wisdom, and love as innate qualities

18:39: Recognizing basic goodness even in self-hatred

25:28: Courage to be with doubt and uncertainty

27:51: “Anytime, anywhere” meditation practice

33:57: Awareness and emptiness as inseparable

46:49: Letting old selves die and embracing change

52:41: Recap

Support the Podcast: We're now on Patreon! If you'd like to support the podcast, follow this link.

Sponsors

Level up your bedding with Quince. Go to Quince.com/BEINGWELL for free shipping on your order and three hundred and sixty-five -day returns.

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Dr. Rick and Forrest explore the evolution of psychoanalysis after Freud, highlighting key ideas from figures like Adler, Klein, Winnicott, and Hillman. They track how the field expanded from focusing on the individual ego all the way out to exploring the existential forces that shape who we are. They focus on what lessons we can take away from each of these influential thinkers into our everyday lives. Topics include inferiority complexes, defense mechanisms, object relations, authentic vs. false self, developmental psychology, adaptation, and our confrontation with life's ultimate concerns like death and meaninglessness.

Key Topics:

0:00: Introduction

4:20: Alfred Adler: Inferiority, contribution, and healthy striving

14:05: Anna Freud: Ego defenses and real-time coping

20:09: Erik Erikson: Lifespan development and identity crises

33:20: Melanie Klein: Object relations, splitting, and managing complexity

46:46: Donald Winnicott: True self, good-enough parenting, and holding environments

51:09: Heinz Kohut: Self-psychology, mirroring, and healthy narcissism

1:02:32: Wilhelm Reich: Somatic therapy and character armor

1:08:25: Neo-Jungians: Archetypes, imagination, and symbolic mind

1:18:18: Irvin Yalom: Existential psychotherapy and meaning-making

1:26:50: Recap 

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