It might sound silly, or even impossible, to have a theory of everything that might show up in our clinical work.

And yet, when we’re sitting with people who are stuck or sitting with people that are suffering, so often it comes back to one of a few fundamental feelings, and all of the emotional gradations that come from them: safety, grief, and shame.

Today, we’re digging into these emotional primary colors that are at the root of so much of what we see in our clinical practices, how they show up and shape family dynamics, and how our personal experiences shape the lens that we bring to our work and how we frame the world.

Listen to the full episode to hear:

• The patterns of behavior shaped by safety and belonging that Gillian recognized in her clients as parallels from her childhood
• Why nurturing an environment that is consistently safe and loving is a lot harder than it sounds
• How feelings of unsafety, grief, and shame show up for parents and kids
• How shame functions as a product of survival fear and also a measure of if we deserve to be seen and loved
• Why family and child counseling often needs to start with the parents and the family system 

Learn more about I Hate You. What’s For Dinner?

Learn more about Gillian Boudreau, PhD.:

• Website
• Instagram @clearconnectionpsychology

Learn more about Rob Galligan, PhD.:

• Instagram @dr.robert.galligan

Resources:

• Extreme - More Than Words
• Hurvich, Marvin. (2003). The Place of Annihilation Anxieties in Psychoanalytic Theory. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association. 51. 579-616. 10.1177/00030651030510020801. 
• Winnicott, Donald W., 'Fear of Breakdown', in Lesley Caldwell, and Helen Taylor Robinson (eds), The Collected Works of D. W. Winnicott: Volume 6, 1960-1963 (New York, 2016
• Melanie Klein
• Donald Winnicott
• Ep 09 - Fear, Resistance, and Flow: Paula Tursi on Letting Parenting Happen
• Trauma and Recovery The Aftermath of Violence–From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror, Judith L. Herman, MD
• The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma, Bessel van der Kolk, MD
• Wilfred Bion

Fear has a way of obstructing our development as people, as parents, and partners and friends. Our anxieties make us grasp for control when what we really need to do is get out of the way and let things unfold.

Easier said than done. 

Today, we have Gillian’s dear friend and “soul mother,” Paula Tursi, with us. Paula is a New York-based yoga and meditation teacher, spiritual guide, writer and thinker who is at once deeply spiritual and highly pragmatic. In our conversation, we talk about the role of fear in the challenges we face, how she transformed her relationship to fear, and how getting out of our own way can change our lives and our parenting. 

Listen to the full episode to hear:

• Defining the roots of fear through the lens of survival and internal resistance
• How the way we’re seen in childhood ripples through our lives, for good and ill
• How the way we assign meaning to our visceral feelings impacts how we live and parent
• Balancing parental guardrails and trusting kids to know themselves and what they need
• How accepting where we are in the moment helps us move forward and live more fully
• How to show kids they’re loved, safe, and seen even at the hardest moments

Learn more about Paula Tursi:

• Website
• Instagram: @paula_tursi_life_design

Learn more about I Hate You. What’s For Dinner?

Connect with Gillian Boudreau, PhD.:

• Website
• Instagram @clearconnectionpsychology

Connect with Rob Galligan, PhD.:

• Instagram @dr.robert.galligan

Establishing safety and trust is how we create connections and personal change, in therapy and in life. If we aren’t open to new experiences or perspectives, it’s a lot harder for any of us to get to all the good, gushy, connected stuff that helps us grow. 

Today, we're with our friend and colleague, Dr. Matt Morrison, who is the training director of Long Island University's Psychological Services Center. Matt brings his experience supervising student psychologists and joins us to talk about his work on the therapeutic stance (aka how to be as a therapist). We get into how discipline and discovery in the therapeutic relationship counteract anxiety and fear, how that connects with stepping out of self-fulfilling prophecies and allowing for surprise in parent-child relationships, and the advice we’d give to student and early-career therapists.

Matt also shares his experiences of growing up with a depressed parent, how being the center of a parent’s world creates pressure and conflict, and how honesty and hanging in there together can bring healing to the relationship.

Listen to the full episode to hear:

• The basics requirements of a therapeutic stance that promotes reflection, positive risk-taking, and change
• Why therapy and parenting require a capacity for surprise, along with discipline 
• How anxiety blocks coming from a stance of curiosity as therapists and parents
• The challenge of balancing curiosity and honesty in relationships
• How developing self-awareness of our internal competing interests builds agency to create change
• How Matt’s parents modeled honesty and willingness to engage in conflict, even at the toughest times

Learn more about Dr. Matt Morrison:

• Connect on LinkedIn

Learn more about I Hate You. What’s For Dinner?

Connect with Gillian Boudreau, PhD.:

• Website
• Instagram @clearconnectionpsychology

Connect with Rob Galligan, PhD.:

• Instagram @dr.robert.galligan

Ask any activist or philanthropist why they do what they do, and they’ll likely have a story about why they care so deeply about their causes. Sometimes those stories go even deeper than they consciously realize.

Today’s guest, Bradley Tusk, philanthropist, venture capitalist, author, and one of Rob’s dearest friends, is committed to ending childhood hunger and saving democracy through mobile voting. Our conversation delves into progressive politics and the tensions that can exist between implementing policy and lived realities, especially in schools. 

And while it does get heated, we ultimately uncover a deeper, more vulnerable understanding of the parts of Bradley’s story that motivate him to do this work. Per usual, it comes back to childhood.

Listen to the full episode to hear:

• What working in city and state government in his 20s taught Bradley about tangible impacts and the psychology of politicians
• How social inadequacy, superiority, and othering show up across the political spectrum
• The challenges Bradley sees to government that more effectively and equitably serves its constituents
• The tension between the needs of students and the needs of teachers and administrators in educational policy and funding
• Breaking down the roots of Bradley’s intense motivation to put children first, politically and personally   
• How mobile voting could bring real constituent accountability to politics

Learn more about Bradley Tusk:

• Website
• Substack
• Connect on LinkedIn

Learn more about I Hate You. What’s For Dinner?

Connect with Gillian Boudreau, PhD.:

• Website
• Instagram @clearconnectionpsychology

Connect with Rob Galligan, PhD.:

• Instagram @dr.robert.galligan

Resources:

• Solving Hunger
• The Mobile Voting Project

Survival brain impacts the way we parent, and in many ways, it’s the bedrock of our cultural myths. A survival mindset frames the world as a zero-sum game where we have to fight each other for resources. In this model, individualism and pulling yourself up by your bootstraps are the only ways to succeed, and are equated with moral goodness.

We see the impacts of survival-based thinking all around us. People seek external, material markers of status and success that have them always reaching for the next thing and, therefore, never reaching satisfaction.

Our guest today is Ron Williams, a venture builder, systems thinker, and Gillian's bestie.  Ron’s big idea – that there is enough for all of us and we’re in this together –asks us to rethink our metrics for success to create positive change for individuals and communities. We talk about evolutionary and psychological underpinnings of selfishness and empathy, and swapping out greed with social good.

Listen to the full episode to hear:

• How zero-sum, short-term thinking contributes to social instability and unsatisfying lifestyles
• Why leaning too hard on one survival strategy often backfires, whether in parenting or in business 
• How the relentless pursuit of money, status, and power breaks down capacities for empathy and connection
• What it takes to shift the narratives about wealth and status and inspire people to think collectively
• How Ron’s early exposure to both possibility and inequality in America shaped the ways he questions our systems, and informs how he parents

Learn more about Ron Williams:

• Co-Created
• Connect on LinkedIn

Learn more about I Hate You. What’s For Dinner?

Connect with Gillian Boudreau, PhD.:

• Website
• Instagram @clearconnectionpsychology

Connect with Rob Galligan, PhD.:

• Instagram @dr.robert.galligan

Human beings need connection. We’re social creatures. But we are increasingly isolated, lonely, and dissatisfied.

Today, we’re joined by our friend and colleague James Ellis, who’s here to help us understand the deep cultural roots and uniquely modern influences of our modern loneliness epidemic. This one goes beyond parenting as we dig into the ways our culture narrows our view of who can meet our emotional needs and has us chasing perfection in those relationships. 

We also get into why social skills and adaptability are just as–and maybe more–important as good grades for our kids’ futures. We also discuss how loneliness begets violence against the self and others. And of course, we can’t talk about the loneliness epidemic without talking about social media and pop psychology’s impacts on how we relate to each other.

Listen to the full episode to hear:

• Three major factors that have reshaped the social landscape 
• Why we avoid seeking connection, even when we know we want and need it
• How our modern illusion of infinite choice turns us into perfection-seekers in relationships
• Why we have to learn to tolerate disappointment from our loved ones, and how cultivating more close relationships helps
• Why parents need to emphasize soft skills like flexibility, adaptability, and sociability in order to future-proof their kids 
• How forging connections really does boil down to making the effort to show up, over and over again

Learn more about James Ellis, PhD:

• The Loneliness Doctor
• Instagram: @lonelinessdoctor

Learn more about I Hate You. What’s For Dinner?

Connect with Gillian Boudreau, PhD.:

• Website
• Instagram @clearconnectionpsychology

Connect with Rob Galligan, PhD.:

• Instagram @dr.robert.galligan

Resources:

• Melanie Klein
• Donald Winnicott

How do you raise kids who approach the world with curiosity, compassion, and the drive to make their communities more supportive and inclusive?

Today, we’re talking to Gillian’s dear friend Lauren Hough Williams about how her childhood shaped her into an expert in building systems where everyone has a place. 

In this episode, we dig into how Lauren’s position as the eldest of five siblings helped to create her community mindset. We discuss the role of privilege and its attendant sense of safety in facilitating risk-taking. And, we learn how Lauren’s mom crafted a happy, chaotic home, all the while imparting wisdom and sly humor in equal measures. We also learn how professional experts in childhood become “experts” in their own home, winning some and losing some as we try to parent well and bring our professional knowledge into our parenting our own kids.

Listen to the full episode to hear:

• How volunteer basketball games helped teenage Lauren recognize that inclusive environments benefit everyone
• How Lauren’s family and early education modeled community orientation and compassion as core values
• How Lauren’s parents created a supportive, safe environment inside the inherent chaos of a large family
• What Lauren learned from her mom about letting go of perfectionism and urgency, and maintaining a sense of humor as a parent
• Why Lauren’s professional life as an educator and coach doesn’t seamlessly integrate into her parenting

Learn more about Lauren Hough Williams:

• Program for Inclusion and Neurodiversity Education
• Connect on LinkedIn

Learn more about I Hate You. What’s For Dinner?

Connect with Gillian Boudreau, PhD.:

• Website
• Instagram @clearconnectionpsychology

Connect with Rob Galligan, PhD.:

• Instagram @dr.robert.galligan

Most parents set out with the best of intentions to prepare their children for the world. Of course, our actions and behaviors don’t always have the intended effect. Parenting is hard, and sometimes we screw up in ways that damage our kids and our relationships with them.

So what do we do with our parenting regrets?

Today, comedian Ash Diggs joins us to talk about the regret and repair in parent-child relationships, using the classic Harry Chapin tear-jerker “Cat’s in the Cradle” as our jumping-off point. We dig into why that song hits some of us so hard, how class and race impact parental survival brain, and the evolution of parent-child relationships when everyone is willing to look at themselves and try something new.

Listen to the full episode to hear:

• How parents’ focus on achievement and stability can affect mental health and relationships
• Why turning real-life pain into comedy can be a double-edged sword
• How his parents’ willingness to engage in hard conversations has allowed their relationship to positively evolve
• The not-so-simple relationship between material safety and psychological safety

Learn more about Ash Diggs:

• Instagram: @ashdiggs_

Learn more about I Hate You. What’s For Dinner?

Connect with Gillian Boudreau, PhD.:

• Website
• Instagram @clearconnectionpsychology

Connect with Rob Galligan, PhD.:

• Instagram @dr.robert.galligan

Resources:

• Harry Chapin - Cat's In The Cradle
• The Autobiography of Malcolm X

Survival brain is a universal feature of parenting. When our inner cave person is activated, fear dominates, as we worry about our kid’s ability to survive a dangerous world. When survival brain comes online, everything is an emergency, our ability to think rationally is short-circuited, and molehills become mountains. As our brains quickly spiral, we imagine that the kid who isn’t doing his homework tonight will be doomed to a lifetime of failure and destitution. 

While the threat-mitigation behavior coded in our DNA helps us protect our offspring from the most dire threats, it prevents us from accessing the patience and perspective we need for everyday kid problems. Survival brain eats up our mental resources when activated, and once it’s firing we can’t get to our wiser mind no matter how hard we try.       

So what is a modern parent with a cave person brain supposed to do? How do we quiet the huge reactions we have to family problems that are big, but not dire? How do we know when a threat actually is dangerous enough to warrant an emergency response? How do we tame the survival brain so it will leave enough juice  to run our wisdom-centers? 

Today we’ll talk about how primal survival instincts operate for parents. We’ll talk about how survival brain drives parents’ actions and how kids’ mental health struggles are rooted in their need to feel safe. We will also discuss how therapy helps parents navigate through even the most difficult moments with their kids, including school refusal, substance abuse, and eating disorders.

Listen to the full episode to hear:

• The way survival instincts block our ability to access higher-level thinking
• How survival brain distorts reality, causes disproportionate reactions, and spreads to others
• A reframe for shifting perspective and limiting scope to right here, right now
• How therapy gives parents a space to speak the unspeakable, and how that disrupts unhealthy family dynamics 
• The role of making sense of seemingly impossible situations, which enables new perspectives and opens up solutions to even the stickiest problems 
• How talk therapy creates a foundation of safety and understanding that other modalities (like CBT and DBT) build on for comprehensive treatment plans
• What parents can do when things are stable to support family regulation and wellbeing

Learn more about I Hate You. What’s For Dinner?

Connect with Gillian Boudreau, PhD.:

• Website
• Instagram @clearconnectionpsychology

Connect with Rob Galligan, PhD.:

• Instagram @dr.robert.galligan

If you came into our therapy rooms, we definitely would be asking you about your family of origin. It’s where it all starts.

As psychologists who work with families and who are currently raising kids, we’re obsessed with how childhood experiences impact caregiving, and how parenting transforms us. Where did our parents come from? How were they raised? How did they bring us up? And how do we parent our kids as a consequence of our family history? These are the questions that hold the key to what we do well and where we trip up as humans and as parents.

In today’s episode, we’re talking about our experiences of being kids, how forces like career and financial stability impact raising kids, what our kids have taught us “on the job,” and the role of grandparent energy in parenting.

Listen to the full episode to hear:

• How social and cultural environments influence parenting norms, implicitly and explicitly
• Our very different takes on being only children, and a commonality that bonded us
• How experiencing survival mode as adults brought new context to our relationships with our parents
• Why addressing the fears that activate survival brain is essential for being the kind of parents we want to be
• Our biggest unlocks as parents, and where we still struggle with the pressure to be perfect

Learn more about I Hate You. What’s For Dinner?

Connect with Gillian Boudreau, PhD.:

• Website
• Instagram @clearconnectionpsychology

Connect with Rob Galligan, PhD.:

• Instagram @dr.robert.galligan

Resources:

• The Parent Whisperer https://theparentwhispererny.com/about-susan/
• How to Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk, Adele Faber, Elaine Mazlish