Between Us: A Psychotherapy Podcast

Orna Guralnik joins host John Totten in our season finale. When John discovered Orna’s show, Couples Therapy, it was a breath of fresh air as depictions of psychotherapy in media go. However, Orna’s presence as a protagonist who is not the main character raises all sorts of questions about disclosure and authority; the line between anonymity and transparency is curious territory for a televised analyst. Orna discusses with John her commitment to transference and the paradoxical places where her subjectivity shines through the analytic projection screen, including a particular confession of her Israeli heritage to a Palestinian patient. Fantasies abound here- of mutual recognition, of utopia, of separating ourselves from our violent collectives. And yet, while Orna lives in the tension between sovereignty and her associations, her work thrives when surrounded by those with incompatible histories.

Produced by John Totten and Mason Neely

Music by Mason Neely

Research Assistant: Rose Bergdoll

Website: www.betweenuspodcast.com

Contact: [email protected]

Instagram: www.instagram.com/betweenuspod

Facebook: www.facebook.com/betweenuspodcast

YouTube: www.youtube.com/channel/UC4pPUTf_wRjNxHcCsFJoSSQ

Avgi Saketopoulou’s work challenges our notions about trauma and much more. Her concept of traumatophilia asks us to consider not what we do about our trauma but what we do with our trauma. These theories are profoundly disruptive to our therapeutic sensibilities- the value we place on safety and the import of language. Favoring Freud’s earlier, frenzied model of sexuality, Avgi draws connections from the erotic to the violent, providing a framework for understanding sadisms and the horrors happening in the world. As John and Mason discuss political violence and its psychoanalytic influence, Avgi dares us to rethink our investment in containment, pacification, and repair itself.

Produced by John Totten and Mason Neely

Music by Mason Neely

Research Assistant: Rose Bergdoll

Website: www.betweenuspodcast.com

Contact: [email protected]

Instagram: www.instagram.com/betweenuspod

Facebook: www.facebook.com/betweenuspodcast

YouTube: www.youtube.com/channel/UC4pPUTf_wRjNxHcCsFJoSSQ

Donna Orange is a foundational figure in the world of intersubjective psychoanalysis. A philosopher-practitioner who carved out her niche as the radical ethicist of the field, she discovered the work of Emmanuel Levinas to provide an alternative to mutuality. His description of the hierarchy of intersubjective space, in which the Other is always primary, became integral to her progressive ethos. As John and Mason explore the limits of symmetry and the Zionism of their favorite thinkers, Donna discusses how her own violent origins might have led her to the Holocaust survivor Levinas, the respect she shares for Martin Buber, and the importance of good, ethical fun.

Produced by John Totten and Mason Neely

Music by Mason Neely

Research Assistant: Rose Bergdoll

Website: www.betweenuspodcast.com

Contact: [email protected]

Instagram: www.instagram.com/betweenuspod

Facebook: www.facebook.com/betweenuspodcast

YouTube: www.youtube.com/channel/UC4pPUTf_wRjNxHcCsFJoSSQ

Lynne Jacobs joins us for our first ever live episode. In 2023, the International Forum for Psychoanalytic Education hosted John in Pasadena to interview Lynne for the conference theme, “…but is it psychoanalytic?” As a therapist with loyalties both in psychoanalysis and gestalt therapy, Lynne has much to say about the use of presence and emotional process in the treatment room. This focus has been particularly useful to her in cross-racial relationships, where she makes the case that it is important for white therapists to lean into their own racialized shame. Lynne discusses with John the journey that brought her to this stance, including her own treatments and the experience of losing her analyst, Daphne Stolorow, in the midst of their work- a loss into which John now shares some insight.

Produced by John Totten and Mason Neely

Engineered by Ian Knippel

Music by Mason Neely

Research Assistant: Rose Bergdoll

Website: www.betweenuspodcast.com

Contact: [email protected]

Instagram: www.instagram.com/betweenuspod

Facebook: www.facebook.com/betweenuspodcast

YouTube: www.youtube.com/channel/UC4pPUTf_wRjNxHcCsFJoSSQ

Steven Kuchuck was taught by classical psychoanalysis that his subjectivity was an artifact to bury. However, through his interest in social responsibility he found a relational revolution, and a promising way for therapists to stay more alive in the room. As a dedicated guardian of the contemporary perspective, he speaks with John about the importance of examining the humanity in all of us, including the darkness that lurks in our dissociated corners and the supposed bad guys we lose when excommunicated from the psychoanalytic lineage.

Produced by John Totten and Mason Neely


Music by Mason Neely


Research Assistant: Rose Bergdoll

Contact: [email protected]
Facebook: www.facebook.com/betweenuspodcast/
Instagram: www.instagram.com/betweenuspod/
YouTube: www.youtube.com/channel/UC4pPUTf_wRjNxHcCsFJoSSQ

Nancy McWilliams is a renowned psychologist with many foundational books to her name. Her work has been particularly groundbreaking to psychoanalytic psychotherapists in reshaping how practitioners all over the world think about diagnosis and personality. In an extensive conversation, she discusses the beginnings of her career, how her personal tragedies appeared in her own analysis, and the faith she has in this iterative process that can withstand change due to its unique capacity for making challenges into grist for the mill.

Produced by John Totten and Mason Neely


Music by Mason Neely


Research Assistant: Rose Bergdoll

Contact: [email protected]
Facebook: www.facebook.com/betweenuspodcast/
Instagram: www.instagram.com/betweenuspod/
YouTube: www.youtube.com/channel/UC4pPUTf_wRjNxHcCsFJoSSQ

Mick Cooper is a British existentialist who is most interested in how humanistic psychology can play a role in social change. As a leader in pluralistic psychotherapy, he is wary of the monoliths we espouse even down to the most basic concepts that the relationship is curative. In this week’s episode, he discusses how research has made him more open to difference, the influence of Emmanuel Levinas and Martin Buber, and his own development through therapy, ever closer to dancing in the proverbial rain.

Produced by John Totten and Mason Neely

Music by Mason Neely

Research Assistant: Rose Bergdoll

Contact: [email protected]

Facebook: www.facebook.com/betweenuspodcast/

Instagram: www.instagram.com/betweenuspod/

YouTube: www.youtube.com/channel/UC4pPUTf_wRjNxHcCsFJoSSQ

For Kj Swanson, an upbringing in Christian purity culture did not metabolize as trauma. It wasn’t until her queer awakening that she realized just how much it aligned with her identity. As an academic working in theology, Kj has always been interested in the heart of matters. This week, she discusses with John the various ways this commitment to meaning permeates her entire personality, including an emerging language signaling her place apart from compulsory sexuality.

Produced by John Totten and Mason Neely


Music by Mason Neely


Research Assistant: Rose Bergdoll

Contact: [email protected]
Facebook: www.facebook.com/betweenuspodcast/
Instagram: www.instagram.com/betweenuspod/
YouTube: www.youtube.com/channel/UC4pPUTf_wRjNxHcCsFJoSSQ

For our first guest in years, John speaks with his friend Caleb Williams, a fellow psychotherapist in Seattle. Over dinner, they discuss Caleb’s affinity to the British psychoanalyst Neville Symington, their thoughts on narcissism and the neediness of masculinity. Less of an interview and more a study in the relationship of friend/colleague, John and Caleb reminisce about their own camaraderie and make meaning of the current discourse as two oldest brothers grappling with their own ambivalence.

Contact: [email protected]
Facebook: www.facebook.com/betweenuspodcast/
Instagram: www.instagram.com/betweenuspod/


Produced by John Totten and Mason Neely


Music by Mason Neely


Research Assistant: Rose Bergdoll

In the premiere of season five, our host John Totten checks in with co-producer Mason Neely as they reflect on the last season of Between Us, the hiatus that followed, and the boundaries of the therapeutic purview. In a meandering conversation, John and Mason look inward at their own creative and family lives and forward to the upcoming season, a collection of dialogues and reflections that, in spite of an aimless production, emerged as far more thematic than intended.


Contact: [email protected]
Facebook: www.facebook.com/betweenuspodcast/
Instagram: www.instagram.com/betweenuspod/
YouTube: www.youtube.com/channel/UC4pPUTf_wRjNxHcCsFJoSSQ

Produced by John Totten and Mason Neely
Music by Mason Neely
Research Assistant: Rose Bergdoll