TRIGGER WARNING: ⚠️ Please note: This episode may include sensitive or triggering content. Honor your inner knowing, and remember, our show is never a substitute for professional, legal, medical, or psychosocial guidance. Always seek support from a certified professional when needed.
Host Chris Melville opens with a content warning and introduces No Small Talk guest Tana Mcpherson-Smith, a child and adolescent trauma therapist, school mental health consultant, speaker, and author of There’s a Monkey on Your Shoulder.
Tana describes working with ages five to 25 to trace current mental health crises back to childhood vulnerability, helping clients understand the past, stabilize the present, and move toward who they want to be.
She shares her own path from 25 years in teaching and boarding to a catastrophic 2013 breakdown triggered by an ambulance, six months in a London psychiatric hospital, and the realization of core limiting beliefs, especially feeling “invisible,” alongside experiences of grief, abuse, and suppressed anger.
After a 2016 breast cancer experience and intensive psychotherapy, she reframed these events as gifts, became medication-free, and developed perspective tools like “the wall.” She closes with resources and a hope-focused example of helping a severely agoraphobic client use imagination practices to take a long-haul flight to see her grandchildren.
00:00 Content & Trigger Warning
00:39 Show Intro
01:03 Meet Tana
02:44 Youth Mental Health
06:05 Rethinking University
08:47 Her Breakdown Story
12:06 Hospital Lessons
16:00 Rebuilding Afterward
18:20 Cancer And Therapy
23:43 The Wall Perspective
25:36 Where To Find Tana
26:53 Advice And Hope
30:40 Closing Thanks
Connect with Chris Melville
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Producer’s credits:
- Chris Melville - Podcast Host
- Nicole George - Podcast Executive
- Ariane Lim - Podcast Producer + Engineer
- Sara Wagle - Audio Efficiency & Flow Manager
