Freudian Sips

Happy hundred episodes, Sipsters! Bonnie and Anna reflect on their three years (!) in podcasting and the hundred episodes since, including talking about some of their favorite episodes in the catalog. Then they revisit their main man, Sigmund Freud. Anna gives a short-ish recount of Freud’s history, and then the girls put their heads together to unpack some of his more prominent ideas and theories. Talking points include the psychosexual stages, the Oedipus and Elektra complexes, defense mechanisms, and transference.

Armed with an extremely potent Starry Night shot, the girls are talking this week about Vincent van Gogh, perhaps one of the most famous artists of all time. Being a past art major and current fangirl, Anna tells the story of the artist’s life, including all the traumas and health struggles he experienced, and then she and Bonnie discuss what mental health struggles Vincent might have had. Hint: it was a lot, and you will probably want to give him a hug by the end of the episode.

Happy Valentine’s week! In honor of the holiday, Anna and Bonnie are talking about love, of course. Bonnie talks about the eight types of love from Ancient Greece, Anna chats about some of the wild brain stuff that happens when we feel love and attraction, and then the gals talk about various other studies and theories about how love works. So grab some chocolates in a heart-shaped box and settle in to listen, and remember: the gals from Freudian Sips love you a whole bunch!

Don't worry, Sipsters, this episode is NOT an auditory hallucination! Or is it? It's not, but Anna does have a cold, and Bonnie is on the moon! Figuratively. Physically she's sticking around to help Anna talk about schizophrenia, a particularly heavy diagnosis involving delusions, hallucinations, and disorganized behavior. Bonnie breaks down some stats about the disorder, how the media has misused the term, and how it’s treated, while Anna deep dives into the diagnosis itself to examine the symptoms and talk about some brain stuff.

To start off the new year, Anna is subjecting Bonnie to a quiz! First they talk about various personality tests and assessments they’ve already covered (and which episodes to listen to for more about them), then Bonnie takes her very own quiz to discover her MBTI type as well as a few other results. The gals use this as a chance to chat about where they’re both at in their results and what they mean, as well as giving some teasers about tests that might be covered in the future on the show.

For their final episode of 2021, and to follow up on their episode about narrative therapy, the gals are talking about role playing! They chat about role theory in sociology, how we each have roles in our own lives, how those roles might conflict, and how role playing is used in therapy contexts. Also, Anna chats about how tabletop roleplaying can be a healthy tool (because she’s a big ol’ nerd), and Bonnie talks about how some people use role play in the bedroom (because she’s a dirty bird).

Once upon a time, the gals wanted to talk about narrative therapy, a relatively new therapy that focuses on the client telling their personal stories and reauthoring them as a way to control their identities. So Anna and Bonnie got on their little microphones and chatted, including talking about the basics of narrative therapy, how it relates to other therapy modalities and arts, and how it can be applied even outside of counseling. And they all lived happily ever after!

This might be the gals’ spookiest episode yet! Anna and Bonnie are talking about exorcisms, the act of banishing a malevolent spirit or influence from the body. They chat about what an exorcism is, some historical and cultural contexts, and how mental or physical illnesses can be mistaken for demonic possession. Then, Bonnie talks about Dr. Richard Gallagher, a psychiatrist who consults on exorcisms, and Anna talks about the case of Anneliese Michel, a German woman whose death after almost 70 exorcisms led to a high profile trial for negligent homicide.

Happy Spooktober, Sipsters! And what better way to kick off than to talk about the downright scary historical practice of lobotomies? Bonnie starts us off with a history of the lobotomy and some of the famous figures who developed the procedure, but she lets Anna get into the gory details of the different types of lobotomies and how they were performed. They also talk about some famous lobotomy cases, like Rosemary Kennedy, sister of John F. Kennedy. Warning, this one gets a little gross! Not barf bag gross, but we’re talking about holes in heads, so just be warned.

Multiple personality disorder. Split personalities. Or, as it’s known nowadays, dissociative identity disorder. This week, the girls chat about this interesting diagnosis and how the brain tries to protect us from trauma. They also talk about some famous cases of people with multiple personalities, including Chris Sizemore and the Three Faces of Eve; Herschel Walker of Heisman trophy fame; and Kim Noble, the woman with 100 personalities.