Between Us: A Psychotherapy Podcast

By Between Us

What's Between Us: A Psychotherapy Podcast about?

Psychotherapists John Totten and Mason Neely bring you this psychotherapy podcast that explores what is happening between therapists and patients, from both sides of the relationship.

Download our free app to listen on your phone

Between Us: A Psychotherapy Podcast episodes:

04.17.2024
Episode 42: Brothers From Another Good Enough Mother
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...
04.03.2024
Episode 41: The Years Between Us
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...
06.09.2021
Episode 40: Radical Openness
In the finale of our fourth season, John discusses therapeutic stance with Dr. Anton Hart who views openness as a key component of healing in the treatment room, especially in regard to societal trauma. Dr. Hart makes the case that...
05.26.2021
Episode 39: The Embodiment of the Uncanny
Carlos Padrón personifies the concept of psychoanalysis as applied philosophy. As a Venezuelan living in New York, he has witnessed both the horrors of the pandemic and the projections of the immigrant experience. Both phenomena challenge our American fantasies of...
05.12.2021
Episode 38: The Empirical Wears No Clothes
Dr. Jonathan Shedler is dissatisfied. As both a researcher and a practitioner, he is frustrated with the misinformation that permeates the counseling field, much of it promulgated by an academia with little clinical experience. His contrarian voice is best known...
04.28.2021
Episode 37: What Makes Us Useful
As we investigate the role of the therapist-as-citizen, John pauses to interview his own therapist, Lane Gerber, about their relationship and what it means to be useful- useful to our patients, useful to academia, and useful to our interpersonal worlds....
04.14.2021
Episode 36: ...Our Unfinished Business
This week we continue our conversation with Dr. Medria Connolly and Dr. Bryan Nichols on the psychological case for reparations. From white privilege and its deconstruction to the fantasy of American democracy, Dr. Connolly and Dr. Nichols shed light on...
03.31.2021
Episode 35: Rupture and Reparations...
Dr. Bryan Nichols and Dr. Medria Connolly had collaborated for several decades when their discovery of Ta-Nehisi Coates shifted the course of their work to making the psychological case for reparations to the descendants of African-American slaves. As psychologists of...
03.17.2021
Episode 34: Black Bodies, Black Minds
It’s impossible to watch the news without witnessing the horrors sustained by people of color in America. The psychological traumas take a physical toll as well. Never has that been more clear than the covid-19 pandemic which has lowered African-American...
03.03.2021
Episode 33: Indigenous Narratives
Between Us returns with Dr. Usha Tummala-Narra, an author and professor of counseling at Boston College. Dr. Tummala-Narra is our first guest in a series of interviews that ask the question, “Does psychotherapy address what is happening in the news?”...
05.18.2020
Episode 32: Lynn Shelton, in Memoriam
This is a repost of our fifth episode featuring filmmaker Lynn Shelton who passed away May 16th, 2020. Originally posted in January of 2017. --------- There is no better week to discuss the brokenness of humanity. Lynn Shelton is a filmmaker...
04.15.2020
Episode 31: Therapy vs. The Pandemic
We are back from a long break for a one-off episode in which our hosts, John and Mason, discuss therapy in the time of coronavirus- how it changes the practice, how it changes the collective conscious, and how it brings...
06.05.2019
Episode 30: We Are Not Saints
Dr. Karen Maroda is an integral voice in contemporary relational psychoanalysis who has literally written the book on psychodynamic techniques. In the finale of our third season, she spoke with John Totten on a wide variety of topics ranging from...
05.22.2019
Episode 29: So I Married a Therapist
Mason takes the wheel this week as he explores with his wife, Dr. Katie Neely, what it was like for her to experience his emergence into a career in psychotherapy. In a vulnerable and intimate moment between husband and wife,...
05.08.2019
Episode 28: Social Worker's Daughter
What is it like to grow up the child of a therapist? Megan Griffiths is a filmmaker whose dark characters and tragic situations are undoubtedly influenced by her mother’s work as a social worker. Her latest film, Sadie, is a...
04.24.2019
Episode 27: Domestic Violence
In the last few years our culture has shined a light on men behaving badly. But what do we do with perpetrators of sexual and intimate partner violence? Bethany Hendrickson is a therapist who provides treatment to both survivors and...
04.10.2019
Episode 26: No Place to Hide
What are the different ways that psychotherapists hide from their patients? It has long been our assertion that many of us enter this work to stay behind the analytical lens and to guard ourselves from exposure. But what about those...
03.27.2019
Episode 25: The Outer Limits
On today's episode, John sits down with his friend and colleague Katie Wilson to discuss her relationships with other therapists, how she uses her anger in session, and her discovery of her own limits as a woman in the field. Support:...
03.13.2019
Episode 24: Faith Crisis Management
Whitney Erickson is a young therapist who is constantly emerging into further layers of herself: from coming out as queer, to leaving the Mormon Church, to a recent epiphany about her own eating disorder- while working with clients who suffer...
02.27.2019
Episode 23: That Which Haunts Us
Dr. Adrienne Harris is a foundational figure in the world of contemporary psychoanalysis, both as a faculty member at the NYU Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis and as a prolific writer on the topics of gender, trauma and subjectivity....
02.13.2019
Episode 22: Unsilencing the Normal
What are the everyday tragedies you experience? From the universal affliction of aging to the specific harm of racism and sexism, our culture is talented at ignoring the daily trauma of human existence, and normalizing the grievous. In our episode...
01.30.2019
Episode 21: Bad Company
Between Us finally returns. In our Season Three debut, host John Totten discusses his long absence, his ambivalence about his colleagues, and the social graces of the therapist community. Do you like hanging out with therapists? We listen to your...
08.30.2017
Episode 20: The Sex in Everything
Dr. Galit Atlas joins us for the finale of Season Two. Her new book, The Enigma of Desire: Sex, Longing, and Belonging in Psychoanalysis, is a comprehensive study of sexuality and desire through her unique dual lenses of pragmatism and...
08.16.2017
Episode 19: The Kink Controversy
One of two episodes about sex, our episode today is a reactionary one. Reactionary against the dogma that John and his guest, Leanna Ramsey, respectively grew up struggling against. What does it mean to be sex-positive? Our premise today is...
08.02.2017
Episode 18: The Millionth Pebble
Writer Ijeoma Oluo is angry and that’s okay. She wants white men to be okay with their anger too, as long as they understand where their anger actually comes from. She is a powerful essayist and cultural critic who is...
07.19.2017
Episode 17: ...Must Come Down
This week we continue our discussions with Steve, Jeff, and Nick- three men in three stages of life, all managing three different manifestations of bipolar disorder. They sit down with John to talk about the path to living happy, fulfilling...
07.05.2017
Episode 16: What Goes Up...
Three men at three stages in life. Three different manifestations of bipolar disorder. Often consisting of manic episodes, delusions of grandeur, and days without sleeping, bipolar disorder is a widely misunderstood illness that sci-fi legend Carrie Fisher spent much of...
06.21.2017
Episode 15: In Retrospect, A Shape
Poet Molly Peacock had a relationship with her psychoanalyst for forty years, even after her analyst had a career-ending stroke in 2012. Molly’s new collection, titled The Analyst, is inspired by the relationship she describes as “Oliver Sacksian” in reference...
06.07.2017
Episode 14: Courageous Speech
It is one of our premises for this show that the work of healing in a relational context is countercultural. On this episode, Roy Barsness, a professor and psychologist, sits down with John Totten to discuss his new book, Core...
05.24.2017
Episode 13: Troubled Water
Does music have a real effect on our emotional health? Do the songs that speak to us actually speak to us? Jason Dodson is the singer and songwriter for the band The Maldives. Their new album, Mad Lives, was written...
05.10.2017
Episode 12: An Outsider Within
Psychoanalysis has not been a field that is particularly progressive in its deconstruction of prescriptive gender roles. The feminist presence that exists today had to be forged. Our guest, Sally Bjorklund, is an alumni of that feminist movement. She has...
04.26.2017
Episode 11: Affordable Care
For our premiere of Season Two, we attempt to get topical. What happens next in healthcare? Is our mental health coverage in jeopardy? Professor Aaron Katz teaches health policy at the University of Washington. He has a knack for explaining...
01.25.2017
Episode 10: Finitude
For the finale of our first season, we are joined by renowned psychoanalyst and philosopher, Dr. Robert Stolorow. Dr. Stolorow’s writing on intersubjectivity and emotional trauma has shaped the field of psychotherapy for forty years. In this conversation, our...
01.11.2017
Episode 09: Gay Conversion
Jonathan Merker took part in so-called "gay conversion" ministries as a young college student. In this episode, we continue our three episode arc on culture and trauma as we discuss his journey out of a harmful religious culture and into...
12.28.2016
Episode 08: Generations of Trauma
To close our first season, we begin a three episode series on cultural trauma. Jennifer Henderson is a therapist who has worked in the trenches of traumatized communities, all while having her own family history of suffering due to racism...
12.14.2016
Episode 07: Neurochemistry
Dr. Heide Island is a researcher and professor of psychology at Pacific University. Her research on neurochemicals and their relationship to temperament has been used by dating services to understand attachment and companionship. In this episode, she discusses the anticipatory...
11.30.2016
Episode 06: Post-Trump Stress Disorder
No interview today. Just pure, unadulterated processing. John and Mason discuss their reactions to the election, through tears and laughter, and we hear contributions from people who might feel it the most.
11.16.2016
Episode 05: Wounded Healers
There is no better week to discuss the brokenness of humanity. Lynn Shelton is a filmmaker whose films such as Touchy Feely and Your Sister's Sister capture her unique vision of regular people and the ubiquity of psychological pain. She...
10.31.2016
Episode 04: Dreams
For our spookiest episode yet, John sits down with Brian Koch. Brian is an actor and a musician. Most notably, he is the drummer in the Portland band Blitzen Trapper. But he is also a devoted archivist of his own...
10.19.2016
Episode 03: Love
After checking in with our co-producer Mason Neely, John sits down with Tony Fulgham, a filmmaker and musician, who has an unconventional yet profound relationship with his therapist.
10.05.2016
Episode 02: Origin Stories
Doug Hansen is a psychotherapist, clinical supervisor, and professor. In this episode, Doug and John discuss the origins of a psychotherapist: the forces that shape the mind of a therapist and how Doug has been shaped by his own grief...
09.21.2016
Episode 01: Alienation
Ro Reyes is a psychotherapist and an immigrant. On our inaugural episode, Ro and our host, John Totten, discuss alienation, psychological life, language, and Star Wars.
05.24.2016
Episode 00: An Introduction
Between Us is a psychotherapy podcast produced by John Totten and Mason Neely. This episode is an introduction.

What's Between Us: A Psychotherapy Podcast about?

Download our free app to listen on your phone

Between Us: A Psychotherapy Podcast episodes:

Episode 42: Brothers From Another Good Enough Mother

Episode 41: The Years Between Us

Episode 40: Radical Openness

Episode 39: The Embodiment of the Uncanny

Episode 38: The Empirical Wears No Clothes

Episode 37: What Makes Us Useful

Episode 36: ...Our Unfinished Business

Episode 35: Rupture and Reparations...

Episode 34: Black Bodies, Black Minds

Episode 33: Indigenous Narratives

Episode 32: Lynn Shelton, in Memoriam

Episode 31: Therapy vs. The Pandemic

Episode 30: We Are Not Saints

Episode 29: So I Married a Therapist

Episode 28: Social Worker's Daughter

Episode 27: Domestic Violence

Episode 26: No Place to Hide

Episode 25: The Outer Limits

Episode 24: Faith Crisis Management

Episode 23: That Which Haunts Us

Episode 22: Unsilencing the Normal

Episode 21: Bad Company

Episode 20: The Sex in Everything

Episode 19: The Kink Controversy

Episode 18: The Millionth Pebble

Episode 17: ...Must Come Down

Episode 16: What Goes Up...

Episode 15: In Retrospect, A Shape

Episode 14: Courageous Speech

Episode 13: Troubled Water

Episode 12: An Outsider Within

Episode 11: Affordable Care

Episode 10: Finitude

Episode 09: Gay Conversion

Episode 08: Generations of Trauma

Episode 07: Neurochemistry

Episode 06: Post-Trump Stress Disorder

Episode 05: Wounded Healers

Episode 04: Dreams

Episode 03: Love

Episode 02: Origin Stories

Episode 01: Alienation

Episode 00: An Introduction