Being Well with Forrest Hanson and Dr. Rick Hanson

By Rick Hanson, Ph.D., Forrest Hanson

Education Alternative Health

What's Being Well with Forrest Hanson and Dr. Rick Hanson about?

Forrest Hanson is joined by his father, clinical psychologist Dr. Rick Hanson, and a world-class group of experts to explore the practical science of lasting well-being. Conversations focus on the key insights from psychology, science, and contemplative practice that you need to build reliable inner strengths, overcome your challenges, and get the most out of life. New episodes every Monday.

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Self-Help Fads and Finding ...

05.22.2023

There’s an enormous amount of advice out there in the self-help world…and much of it isn’t very good. Jason Wachob, the Founder and Co-CEO of mindbodygreen, joins Forrest and Dr. Rick to separate fact from fiction and clarify what really ...

Being Well with Forrest Hanson and Dr. Rick Hanson episodes:

05.22.2023 Self-Help Fads and Finding What Really Works with mindbodygreen CEO Jason Wachob There’s an enormous amount of advice out there in the self-help world…and much of it isn’t very good. Jason Wachob, the Founder and Co-CEO of mindbodygreen, joins Forrest and Dr. Rick to separate fact from fiction and clarify what really ...
05.15.2023 Attachment Theory and Emotionally Focused Therapy with Dr. Sue Johnson Dr. Sue Johnson, the founder of Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT), joins Dr. Rick and Forrest to explore how insights from attachment theory can transform our relationships. They discuss how attachment theory provides a map for understanding relationships, the challenges of ...
05.08.2023 Mailbag: Power in Relationships, Self-Worth, Motivation, and Personal Responsibility Forrest and Dr. Rick dive into the mailbag to answer questions from listeners. They explore age gaps in relationships, relating to people as ongoing processes, and avoiding having your personal growth practice turn you into a doormat. You’ll learn how ...
05.01.2023 How to Create Massive Change with Dr. Benjamin Hardy Forrest Hanson welcomes Dr. Benjamin Hardy to explore how we can create massive change by applying "10x thinking.” This mindset involves embracing a radically different version of ourselves and our lives, and they share how we can apply it to ...
04.24.2023 Learning from Nature with Mark Coleman Buddhist teacher Mark Coleman joins Forrest and Dr. Rick to share how we can learn from nature and incorporate it into our practice. Mark shares his insights and experiences from years of leading wilderness retreats, and explains how reconnecting with ...
04.17.2023 Releasing Obsessive Thoughts: Rumination, OCD, and Dealing with Fear Forrest and Dr. Rick delve into a frequently requested topic: how we can let go of obsessive and intrusive thoughts. They explore why we get trapped in certain thoughts, the negative effects of rumination, and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). They also ...
04.10.2023 Cognitive Bypassing: How to Get Out of Your Head and Into Your Life Cognitive bypassing occurs when we overthink to avoid feeling uncomfortable emotions like sadness, fear, or anger. In this episode, Forrest and Dr. Rick share their personal experiences with cognitive bypassing, and explore how we can step out of our heads, ...
04.03.2023 ADHD 2.0: Debunking Misconceptions, Revealing Hidden Strengths, and Effective Treatments w/ Dr. John Ratey ADHD is often misunderstood as a simple "lack of attention." But in this episode of Being Well, Forrest and Dr. Rick are joined by ADHD pioneer Dr. John Ratey to explore the true nature of this complex condition. They debunk ...
03.27.2023 How to Become Psychologically Flexible (from two formerly rigid people) Join Forrest and Dr. Rick, two “reformed rigid people,” as they explore how to become more psychologically flexible. Just as physical flexibility is the amount of stretch in our muscles, the ability they have to bend without breaking, psychological flexibility ...
03.20.2023 Complex PTSD and Learning to Live With the Past with Stephanie Foo Author Stephanie Foo joins Forrest to share her journey with Complex PTSD. They talk about what it was like to receive a diagnosis, the various techniques and modalities she used (and what really helped), the importance of social support, self-acceptance ...
03.13.2023 The Unconscious Mind: How to Access, Understand, and Use It Most of what's occurring in the mind lies outside our awareness. In this episode, Forrest and Dr. Rick Hanson explore the unconscious mind and the material we might find there. They talk about what the unconscious mind is, the purpose ...
03.06.2023 What We've Learned From 100 Experts On the (roughly) 300th episode of Being Well, Forrest and Dr. Rick share what they’ve learned from the many experts in psychology, personal growth, and mental health they’ve talked to on the show. They explore the importance of individual context, ...
02.27.2023 Somatic Psychology: Using the Body to Heal the Mind with Elizabeth Ferreira Somatic therapist Elizabeth Ferreira returns to the podcast and joins Forrest for a deep dive into somatic psychology. They explore what a somatic therapy session looks like in practice, how it differs from traditional talk therapy, the connection between the ...
02.20.2023 Daddy Issues: Attachment Wounding, Dealing with Common Symptoms, and Becoming More Securely Attached If you listen to a podcast like ours, you’re probably familiar with the phrase “daddy issues.” A more accurate way to understand daddy issues is as a form of attachment wounding, which describes situations where our adult relationships are affected ...
02.13.2023 What Addiction (and Recovery) Can Teach Us About Change with Eric Zimmer Eric Zimmer, a behavior coach and the host of The One You Feed podcast, joins Forrest and Rick to explore what really supports us in changing our ingrained patterns of behavior through the lens of Eric’s journey with addiction and ...
02.06.2023 Repairing with Family, Dealing with Difficult People, and Recognizing Power: Mailbag Dr. Rick and Forrest open up the mailbag and answer questions from listeners related to how we can build better relationships (particularly with our families) and deal with difficult people. They explore the common traits of happy families, how to ...
01.30.2023 How to Navigate Common Arguments All of our relationships include some conflict, the big question is how skillfully we handle that conflict when it appears. Dr. Rick Hanson joins Forrest to walk us through some effective ways to deal with common forms of interpersonal conflict. ...
01.23.2023 Letting Go of Our Conditioning with Caverly Morgan The main topic we explore on the podcast, in many different ways, is change. How can we come to understand ourselves better, let go of who we were, and become who we wish to be? In this episode Dr. Rick ...
01.16.2023 The Keys to a Great Relationship Before becoming the “brain guy” Dr. Rick spent over 30 years working in private practice as a couples counselor and family therapist. Today we’re leaning on that experience, and learning what we can do to build healthier, happier, and more ...
01.09.2023 Becoming Our Best Selves with Dr. Scott Barry Kaufman and Dr. Jordyn Feingold We often know what we “should” do, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy to do it. Today Dr. Rick and Forrest are joined by Dr. Scott Barry Kaufman and Dr. Jordyn Feingold to explore how we can learn to consistently ...
01.02.2023 Why Don't We Get Better? Forrest is joined by Dr. Rick Hanson to explore why we often struggle to change in the ways that matter the most to us, how much change is realistically possible, what makes change hard, the hidden barriers to real change, ...
12.26.2022 How to Reinvent Yourself (in 2023) We’ve come to the end of another year, and it’s a good time to take stock and consider how we’d like to grow and change during our next trip around the sun. In this episode, Forrest and Dr. Rick focus ...
12.19.2022 The Science of Stress with Dr. Elissa Epel We think of stress as “bad” for you, but what if some forms of stress could actually help us grow and change for the better? On today’s episode Forrest and Dr. Rick are joined by Dr. Elissa Epel, a psychologist ...
12.12.2022 Responding to Criticism, and Accepting The Way Things Are Criticism is an unavoidable part of life. But even though we’re all going to be criticized from time to time, many of us spend much of our lives living in fear of criticism. Then, on the flip side, we’re all ...
12.05.2022 Untangling Ourselves with Sensei Koshin Paley Ellison “All the time I work with dying people, and only a few of them know they are dying.” On this episode of Being Well, Soto Zen teacher Sensei Koshin Paley Ellison joins Forrest and Rick to explore living, dying, and ...
11.28.2022 How to Understand Anxiety and See Threats Clearly We’re living in an anxious time, and part of the reason we’re anxious is because there are very real challenges we face both individually and collectively. But we’re also affected by the natural tendencies of the brain, which is easily ...
11.21.2022 Moving Beyond “Fair” to Build a Great Relationship with Nate and Kaley Klemp These days couples often shoot for 50/50 in their relationships: an even split of responsibilities in the home or at work. But 50/50 often leads to fights over fairness, and this fixation on fairness can be the death of many ...
11.14.2022 Choosing the Roles We Play in Life If you’re the kind of person who listens to mental health podcasts, you’re more likely than average to get pulled into an impromptu “helping role” with your family and friends. Sometimes we seek out these roles, but they can also ...
11.07.2022 Authentically Developing Self-Worth It’s one thing to feel good about what we do, and another to feel truly worthy from the inside out. When we increase our self-worth it allows us to take our needs more seriously, get on our own side, and ...
10.31.2022 Saying No to Your Past, Embracing Growth, and Becoming Lighter with Yung Pueblo Diego Perez, widely known by his pen name Yung Pueblo, joins Forrest to explore how we can deepen our personal practice, refine the mind, break old patterns, relax the self, and feel lighter than we were before. This was one ...
10.24.2022 How to Forgive Yourself We all make mistakes in life. When we do it's important to take appropriate responsibility, feel the "wince," and make amends as we can. But after we've done that...then what? Many people find it easier to forgive others than they ...
10.17.2022 Evolving Our Approach to Treating Trauma with Dr. Bessel van der Kolk On today’s episode of Being Well, Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, the author of The Body Keeps the Score, joins Rick and Forrest to explore how trauma keeps us stuck, and how we can use imagination, self-expression, and creativity to ...
10.10.2022 Changing Old Patterns, Using Psychedelics Thoughtfully, and Exploring Human Nature: October Mailbag On this episode of Being Well, Rick and Forrest answer questions from listeners. They explore what they’re still working on in their relationship, how we can disengage from obsessive thoughts and old patterns, Rick’s thoughts on psychedelics and how they ...
10.03.2022 PTSD, Post-Traumatic Growth, and Prioritizing Mental Health with Jason Kander In 2016 Jason Kander was a rising star in the Democratic Party. After narrowly losing the race to become one of Missouri’s Senators, he began laying the groundwork for a Presidential run. Jason unexpectedly pivoted to declaring his candidacy for ...
09.26.2022 How to Effectively Communicate What You Want On the previous episode of Being Well, we talked about how to identify our wants and needs...but identifying our needs is just the first step. After that comes the tricky business of coming to terms with those needs, and communicating ...
09.19.2022 Discovering Your Wants and Needs Everyone has needs, but many people find it difficult to identify what authentically matters to them. Even when we can identify them, shame or fear often stops us from expressing those needs to others or taking the practical steps that ...
09.12.2022 Healing Trauma in a Toxic Culture with Dr. Gabor Maté Renowned physician Dr. Gabor Maté joins Rick and Forrest to explore the many problems for our bodies and minds that arise out of our modern culture, and what we can do to meet our needs, heal ourselves, and become more ...
09.05.2022 Understanding, Recognizing, and Dealing with Narcissists with Dr. Craig Malkin We all have narcissistic traits. Having some sense of our own specialness isn’t just normal, it’s actually psychologically healthy. The problems start when people go beyond normal levels, and become addicted to feeling special. Today Forrest is joined by Dr. ...
08.29.2022 Dealing with Difficult Emotions with Mollie West Duffy We all experience big, difficult feelings, from common emotions like uncertainty, anger, despair, and regret, to difficult experiences like the pains of comparison, burnout, and perfectionism. On today’s episode of Being Well Podcast, Forrest is joined by the wonderful author, ...
08.22.2022 How to Use Your Diagnosis (Without It Using You) Receiving a diagnosis can be emotionally challenging, and leave a person with a lot of understandable questions: What does this mean? What do I do now? How do I relate to this? On this episode Dr. Rick and Forrest Hanson ...
08.15.2022 Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy with Dr. Albert Garcia Romeu There’s been an explosion of interest in psychedelics over the last 10 years, and phrases like “psychedelic-assisted therapy” have gone from the relative fringes of the mental health conversation to bursting into the mainstream. Alongside a great deal of hype ...
08.08.2022 Relating to Death, and Living a Better Life The median life expectancy for a man living in the United States is roughly 80 years. That works out to 960 months, 4,160 weeks, or about 29,000 days. Rick is sneaking up on 70 years old, which means, on average, ...
08.01.2022 Changing Your Relationship to Shame Shame is one of the most complex and difficult emotions we experience on a regular basis, and one that can have seriously negative impacts on our sense of self-worth and ability to experience healthy connection with others. On this episode ...
07.25.2022 The Grieving Brain with Dr. Mary-Frances O'Connor On today’s episode of Being Well, Forrest is joined by one of the world’s leading researchers on grief, Dr. Mary-Frances O’Connor, to help us better understand grief and grieving. They explore why grief is such a unique and intense emotion, ...
07.18.2022 Borderline Personality Disorder: Regulation, Nurturance, and Compassion One of the most important and challenging skills we can develop is learning to regulate our strong emotions. While it’s very natural to have fluctuations in how we feel about others and ourselves, for some people these ups and downs ...
07.11.2022 How to Make Learning STICK One of the most important skills we can develop is learning how to learn–how to update old beliefs about ourselves, take in new information, and build psychological resources like courage, gratitude, and confidence. We have experiences from which we could ...
07.04.2022 Rediscovering Your True Self: Parentification and the "Gifted Child" When a child is particularly emotionally intelligent, and a parent is particularly emotionally vulnerable, an inversion of the typical relationship can occur where the child devotes themselves to meeting the parent’s needs rather than the other way around. This can ...
06.27.2022 Connecting with Your Best Parts A little while ago, we had an episode on self-awareness where Rick emphasized how the majority of what people have to become self-aware of is the good inside themselves. The point felt significant enough to expand into a full episode ...
06.20.2022 Recovering from Complex PTSD with Elizabeth Ferreira Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (CPTSD) is the result of the slow accumulation of many small traumatic experiences over time. On today’s episode, Forrest is joined by his partner Elizabeth Ferreira to explore CPTSD through a personal lens. Elizabeth shares her ...
06.13.2022 Attachment, and Cultivating Nonattachment You might have heard the line “attachment is the root of suffering.” It comes from the Buddha, but you don’t have to be a Buddhist to recognize that becoming overly attached to a particular outcome, person, or view of yourself ...

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