This is the first of an intermittent series of therapists sharing their abyss stories.  Samantha was a newly minted therapist just out of her MSW program, full of hope and excitement for her new career, when she met a client whose horrific trauma story and rapid disappearance from therapy haunted her for years.  Dr. H and Samantha explore how she was able to eventually move from the grief and regret of this vicarious traumatization to a place of acceptance and self-compassion. A hea...

Therapists in the abyss: Vicarious trauma

How do we find a way out of the darkest depths of despair? Psychiatrist Dr. Craig Heacock hosts a deep dive into powerfully moving stories of hope and healing, as well as topical explorations of psychopharmacology, psychotherapy, and psychedelics.

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Mental Health

Christina grew up with a tumultuous and mentally ill Mother, an older brother who decompensated into psychosis and frightening aggression, and just one healthy family member, her Father.   We explore both the wounding of having a desperately ill parent, as well as the profound gift of having another parent able to provide love and support. Christina suffered terribly from these maternal wounds, but she was also able to finally emerge as a healthy, grateful, wise, and deeply caring adult…...

When Mom is mentally ill-- A story of resilience

Dr. Russell Carr was a career Navy psychiatrist for 20 years and served in Iraq, where today’s story begins.  This is a story of a healer, then a terrible wounding, then the healer trying to find his way amidst the chaos of war. This story is about a rite of passage, one that not every psychiatrist faces, but most do at some point-- that of losing the first patient to suicide, then trying to find the strength to move forward.Dr. Russell CarrA Psychiatrist Returns from War-- on Substackht...

A Psychiatrist Goes to War

A huge problem with current psychiatric diagnosis is that it often lumps completely unrelated things under the same vast and vague tent, such as with the diagnosis of "Major Depressive Disorder".   Here Craig sits down with his patient Rebecca to try to make sense of her complex early onset depression and how it played out via addiction, anorexia, and pathological caretaking and how she was finally able find the grace and compassion to prioritize care for herself.Bringing Therapy into Me...

My dog saved my life-- Understanding the story of depression

Here Dr. H sites down with Jenny, a psychoanalyst who shares her moving, then horrifying, then eventually cathartic tale of plumbing the depths of her traumatized psyche, first with years of psychoanalysis, then with five MDMA-assisted therapy sessions. This is a story of numbing and forgetting, then re-opening and remembering...of finding a way to make sense of a life of protective dissociation.Bringing Therapy into Med Management-- An intensive psychotherapy training in Colorado with Dr.&nb...

Psychoanalysis, Dissociation, MDMA and What Lies Beneath

In this solo episode Craig shares his current thoughts on MDMA medicalization, sleep meds, ADD, motivation vs self-discipline, benzos, how long to stay on psych meds, a change and a proposed addition to his top 10 med list, borderline vs bipolar, and marriage.Bringing Therapy into Med Management-- An intensive training with Dr.  Hhttps://www.craigheacockmd.com/training/BFTA on IG @backfromtheabysspodcasthttps://www.instagram.com/backfromtheabysspodcast/BFTA/ Dr. Hhttps://www.craigheacock...

Therapists in the abyss: Vicarious trauma

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