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What if the most powerful tool in psychiatric care isn’t a prescription, but a relationship built with skill, ethics, and presence? We sit down with Dr. Kathleen McCoy to trace a career shaped by Hildegard Peplau’s interpersonal theory—from a 25-cent used book to leading practice, mentoring clinicians, and resetting norms in systems that push for eight-minute med checks.

We talk about building a practice that stands on clear values and measurable outcomes: fewer revolving-door returns, deeper engagement, and care plans that actually fit a person’s life. Kathleen shares how she set time standards, documented with rigor, and earned trust across teams, all while refusing to let psychotherapy get crowded out by coding and speed. She explains how to right-size caseloads, make fast, ethical referrals for higher-acuity needs, and use community connections as clinical infrastructure—case managers, primary care, jobs, child care, and simple resources that stabilize daily life and reduce stigma.

Mentorship runs through every story. Kathleen shows why mastering paperwork and credentialing frees you to focus on people, how precise language shifts culture—moving from adherence to participation—and how to teach interviewing and motivation so patients become advocates for themselves. Finally, she opens up about sustaining the therapeutic self with prayer, color, painting, swimming, dance, travel, and friendships—whole-person living that keeps compassion sharp and burnout at bay.

If you’re a psychiatric nurse, NP, therapist, educator, or anyone trying to deliver human care in a high-pressure system, this conversation offers a grounded roadmap. Subscribe, share with a colleague who needs a boost, and leave a review with the insight or quote that stayed with you.

ISPN Article of the Year 2025: McCoy, K. T., & Williams, K. A. (2024). The Williams and McCoy model of motivational spirited cognitive behavioral change communication. Archives of Psychiatric Nursing, 48, 1-6.

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Dr Dan Wesemann

Email: [email protected]

Website: https://nursing.uiowa.edu/academics/dnp-programs/psych-mental-health-nurse-practitioner

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/daniel-wesemann

Dr Kate Melino

Email: [email protected]

Dr Sean Convoy

Email: [email protected]

Dr Melissa Chapman

Email: [email protected]

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What if the most powerful change in a “med check” isn’t the prescription, but the pause? We sit down with two newly minted PMHNPs who started in primary care and rural health, then shifted into psychiatry after seeing how often medication alone fell short. Their journey reveals a simple truth: when we pair pharmacology with person-centered psychotherapy—even inside 20–30 minute visits—patients build skills they can carry for life.

Dr. Beth Hunt and Dr. Sam Jurak open up about early fears, the weight of imposter syndrome, and the moment therapy “clicked.” From a teen discovering it’s okay to be herself to adults untangling long-held patterns, they show how presence, validation, and a few targeted CBT tools can spark momentum. We unpack the art of “third ear” listening—hearing themes beneath the words—and how to reflect emotions without pushing an agenda. You’ll hear concrete ways to integrate supportive, solution-focused, and CBT techniques into short follow-ups, plus how to know when to pull back if a patient isn’t ready.

We also address the real barriers: productivity demands, pressure to stick to medication management, and the myth that therapy only counts if it’s a 16-week protocol. Beth and Sam share how mentorship reframed their role—you don’t have to be everything to them, just somebody for them—and why combining meds and psychotherapy in one seat reduces fragmentation and burnout. As anxiety and uncertainty rise, PMHNPs can lead by making therapy accessible, practical, and evidence-informed right where patients already are.

If you’re a clinician looking to do more than refill scripts—or a curious listener who believes mental health care should feel human—this conversation offers playbooks, language, and hope. Subscribe, share this episode with a colleague, and leave a review telling us your favorite micro-therapy move. Your insight might fuel the next breakthrough.

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Dr Dan Wesemann

Email: [email protected]

Website: https://nursing.uiowa.edu/academics/dnp-programs/psych-mental-health-nurse-practitioner

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/daniel-wesemann

Dr Kate Melino

Email: [email protected]

Dr Sean Convoy

Email: [email protected]

Dr Melissa Chapman

Email: [email protected]

Send us a text

A cigarette rolled on a classroom desk. A challenge to choose steak over hamburger. That’s how Hildegard Peplau first hooked a young Nancy Valentine—and set a course for a lifetime of nursing influence, autonomy, and unapologetic change. We sit down with Dr. Valentine to trace the real story behind the “psychiatric nurse of the century,” from working-class beginnings to rooms with the greats of psychiatry, and the unflinching decisions that helped save the American Nurses Association.

We share vivid moments that reveal Peplau’s method: build interdisciplinary alliances, follow through when doors crack open, and keep the focus on doing care with patients, not to them. Dr. Valentine reflects on how nurses advanced psychotherapy from a handful of trainees to thousands of practitioners, why recognition and reimbursement still lag, and how professional associations remain essential to policy wins and referrals. If you’ve ever wondered how to hold your ground in rooms full of power, this conversation offers a blueprint: influence over titles, persistence over popularity, and a core of steel.

The future comes into view as we explore telepsychiatry, AI-assisted summaries, and nurse-led consortiums that expand access without losing the interpersonal core Peplau championed. We talk concrete strategies to keep new nurses in the field—structured first-job choices, yearlong coaching, and honest forums that catch burnout early. Dr. Valentine also shares insider lessons from VA care: mission-driven teams, nurse access to research funding, and a model that blends specialized in-house expertise with community referrals.

Subscribe, share with a colleague, and leave a review to help more nurses find this conversation. What’s your next step to build influence—and where will you bring Peplau’s spirit to work tomorrow?

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Dr Dan Wesemann

Email: [email protected]

Website: https://nursing.uiowa.edu/academics/dnp-programs/psych-mental-health-nurse-practitioner

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/daniel-wesemann

Dr Kate Melino

Email: [email protected]

Dr Sean Convoy

Email: [email protected]

Dr Melissa Chapman

Email: [email protected]

Send us a text

What if stability starts with a warm relationship, a full fridge, and a Medicaid card—then the meds can do their job? We sit down with clinician Dr. Ann Roselle, DNP, and advocate Leslie Carpenter to unpack how serious mental illness care goes right or goes wrong, and why the difference often isn’t a new pill but a better system.

We explore the real-world work of engagement when insight is limited: showing up without an agenda, finding common ground in music or pets, and using motivational interviewing and CBT to keep people coming back. Leslie breaks down what assisted outpatient treatment (AOT) actually does—no forced injections, no jail threats—and how it holds systems and teams accountable to stay involved. Together, we look at the “black robe effect,” why patients get quietly dropped without AOT, and how small fixes like transportation, food access, and scheduling make adherence possible.

Families are the missing link. We clarify HIPAA myths and share a practical playbook for bringing relatives into care without breaching privacy: gather collateral, offer general education, and plan periodic updates with consent. We also challenge the meds-versus-therapy false choice. Long-acting injectables can anchor stability, but therapy, skills training, and community resources turn stability into recovery. Payment models should require psychosocial care across settings so people don’t get “a bed and a pill” and little else.

We close with what training leaves out: the political and social determinants that decide who gets housing, benefits, and follow-through. You’ll hear concrete steps to advocate locally—town halls, targeted emails, sharing proven models—and simple clinic moves that change lives fast: enroll Medicaid, arrange warm handoffs, and measure success by responsible transitions, not speed. If you care about schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, AOT, family engagement, and real outcomes, this conversation gives you tools you can use today.

If this resonated, subscribe, share with a colleague, and leave a review with the one policy or practice change you’ll push for this month.

Let’s Connect

Dr Dan Wesemann

Email: [email protected]

Website: https://nursing.uiowa.edu/academics/dnp-programs/psych-mental-health-nurse-practitioner

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/daniel-wesemann

Dr Kate Melino

Email: [email protected]

Dr Sean Convoy

Email: [email protected]

Dr Melissa Chapman

Email: [email protected]

Send us a text

What if the most powerful clinical upgrade is the simplest one: clean your station, fix sleep, and show up prepared to do therapy that fits the brain in front of you? We sit down with Dr. Pam Wall—Navy veteran, psychiatric nurse practitioner, professor, and legal nurse consultant—to map a practical path through complex mental health care. From Marine divisions to university classrooms, Pam’s rule book blends scope-and-standards rigor with hands-on psychotherapy that actually sticks.

We dig into why sleep is the keystone for anxiety, depression, and recovery after traumatic brain injury, including the underrecognized link between mild TBI and sleep apnea. Pam walks through when to shift from cognitive work to behavioral focus, how to control the therapy environment for overstimulated brains, and why functional medicine basics—movement, nutrition, and inflammation control—amplify every intervention. Her take on trauma care is candid: medications can help, but therapy drives healing; pills without processing are a stall, not a solution.

Students and clinicians get a masterclass in professional durability: know the national standards, respect scope, anchor to guidelines, document clearly, and prepare before every clinic session. Pam’s story of a Marine who “wasn’t supposed” to click with CBT—and did—challenges bias and celebrates the quiet power of structured care. Along the way, she reflects on serving as one of the first female nurses embedded with a Marine division, the realities of military training and opportunity, and what’s working—and not—in psych NP education, from simulations to faculty engagement.

If you’re building a sustainable practice or sharpening your therapy toolkit, you’ll leave with an approach that is calm, repeatable, and battle-tested. Subscribe, share with a colleague who needs a recharge, and leave a review with your top clinic ritual—we’ll feature our favorites next week.

Let’s Connect

Dr Dan Wesemann

Email: [email protected]

Website: https://nursing.uiowa.edu/academics/dnp-programs/psych-mental-health-nurse-practitioner

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/daniel-wesemann

Dr Kate Melino

Email: [email protected]

Dr Sean Convoy

Email: [email protected]

Dr Melissa Chapman

Email: [email protected]

Send us a text

What happens to psychiatric mental health nursing when the job is squeezed into a prescriber’s chair and the classroom forgets its own theory? We sit down with Dr. Hugh McKenna to unpack a global reality: staffing shortages, overextended faculty, and policy moves that risk diluting mental health specialization just as community needs spike—especially among young people.

Hugh takes us across Europe and the U.S. to compare models and trade hard-won lessons. We explore why defending the PhD matters for nursing’s knowledge base, how interdisciplinary teams actually accelerate better outcomes, and where American programs’ commitment to theory and collaboration can inspire change abroad. Then we bring Peplau back into focus, not as nostalgia, but as a practical roadmap: validate the therapeutic relationship, prioritize prevention, and co-produce care with service users so change sticks. When waiting lists stretch years and therapists are scarce, upstream work is not optional—it’s the only scalable plan.

We also test the limits of evidence-based practice. Publishing is not the finish line; the real measure is impact. That means moving research through uptake and implementation until policy and practice shift—and making sure faculty remain clinically credible enough to lead that work. Along the way, we defend expert intuition as a hallmark of mastery, not a rejection of science. And we end with a challenge: identify high-potential leaders early and get them to the table where resources are decided. Peplau had a core of steel; the field needs more of that energy now.

If this conversation lights a fire, help us grow the movement. Subscribe, share with a colleague, and leave a review with one action you’ll take to strengthen therapeutic nursing where you work.

Let’s Connect

Dr Dan Wesemann

Email: [email protected]

Website: https://nursing.uiowa.edu/academics/dnp-programs/psych-mental-health-nurse-practitioner

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/daniel-wesemann

Dr Kate Melino

Email: [email protected]

Dr Sean Convoy

Email: [email protected]

Dr Melissa Chapman

Email: [email protected]

Send us a text

The number that surprised us wasn’t just the downloads. It was how clearly the most-played conversations pointed to one idea: listening changes more than medication ever could. We close the year with a wide-angle reflection and a deep dive into Sean’s journey from Navy psychiatric technician to nurse leader, tracing how psychotherapy, narrative, and cultural humility shape outcomes that stick.

We start with what resonated: candid talks on when pills aren’t enough, a fresh look at psychoanalysis, and a grounded tour of psychedelic-assisted therapy. Then we pivot to the craft behind the care. Sean explains how studying English and Latin sharpened the way he uses metaphor to translate complex concepts for patients and how writing notes is not clerical work but clinical reasoning in action. Creativity isn’t a side hobby here—it’s a clinical asset. Nursing narratives, he argues, can teach nuance better than slides, preserving the lessons that actually help at the bedside.

The heart of this episode lives in two stories. One is a hard truth about suicide that underscores our limits and the need for rituals of meaning in psychiatric care. The other is a simple kindness—a weekend of laundry duty—that became a patient’s lowest point and pivot toward long-term recovery. We connect these moments to Peplau’s interpersonal theory and share field stories from deployments that reveal how context matters: a grieving woman mislabeled “crazy” needed space, not meds; a patient eating a blanket needed food, not a diagnosis. Across it all, we make a case for protecting psychotherapy training in advanced practice nursing and for holding onto the slow skills that build trust.

If you’re here for mental health insights that are practical, human, and unvarnished, you’re in the right place. Subscribe, share this episode with a colleague who needs the reminder that presence is treatment, and leave a review telling us the small act that changed your practice.

Let’s Connect

Dr Dan Wesemann

Email: [email protected]

Website: https://nursing.uiowa.edu/academics/dnp-programs/psych-mental-health-nurse-practitioner

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/daniel-wesemann

Dr Kate Melino

Email: [email protected]

Dr Sean Convoy

Email: [email protected]

Dr Melissa Chapman

Email: [email protected]

Send us a text

What if the most powerful part of therapy is the space between the boxes on our diagrams—the arrows where trust lives and change begins? We invited researcher and evaluator Dr. Melissa Chapman-Hayes to sit in the guest chair and talk candidly about why she stayed close to psychotherapy, how early mentorship shaped her lens, and why relational work is the quiet engine beneath good data.

We dig into nursing’s unique role in psychotherapy: clinicians who spend the most time with patients often have the strongest relational skills, yet face billing, time, and visibility barriers. Melissa lays out a practical roadmap for building the case: tailor messages to audiences, combine defensible outcomes with human stories, and treat credibility as something defined by the people you need to persuade. From hospital leaders to accrediting bodies to the general public, evidence lands when it feels useful, plainspoken, and real.

Stigma looms large. We explore it as a public health crisis and focus on self-stigma as the most actionable barrier. Leadership vulnerability—like a commanding general sitting in a clinic to normalize care—can reshape culture. Access is more than coverage; it’s fit. We talk about finding the right therapist, why a few sessions are a fair test, and how telehealth expands options while leaving equity gaps. The conversation gets specific about cultural relevance too, from adapting CBT for a Black man with early cognitive decline to navigating directories that rarely capture identity or modality with nuance.

We close on isolation: a modern condition that technology both softens and sharpens. Loneliness erodes mental and physical health, yet connection can be prescribed, coached, and built through groups, community touchpoints, and brave conversations. If every data point is a person, every story is a chance to shift a system—one relationship at a time.

If this resonated, subscribe, share it with a colleague, and leave a review. Your feedback helps more listeners find thoughtful conversations about psychotherapy, nursing, stigma, and the future of mental health care.

Let’s Connect

Dr Dan Wesemann

Email: [email protected]

Website: https://nursing.uiowa.edu/academics/dnp-programs/psych-mental-health-nurse-practitioner

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/daniel-wesemann

Dr Kate Melino

Email: [email protected]

Dr Sean Convoy

Email: [email protected]

Dr Melissa Chapman

Email: [email protected]

Send us a text

What happens when a treatment designed to help may also carry injuries we rarely measure? We sit down with Sarah Price Hancock, co-founder and trustee of the Ionic Injury Foundation, to unpack ionic injury as a physiologic framework for understanding electrical exposure—including ECT—and the real-world consequences that can follow. Sarah shares her lived experience after 116 ECT sessions, the profound memory loss that reshaped her life, and the delayed neurologic symptoms that only made sense once she studied electrical injury research outside of psychiatry’s usual lanes.

Together we map the biology: rapid perfusion spikes, bradycardia, and reperfusion injury; blood–brain barrier shifts that may invite inflammatory cascades; and potential acquired channelopathies that present as episodic weakness, spasms, or exercise intolerance. We contrast short-term ECT outcome data with the lack of long-term tracking and the high variability in dosing, electrode placement, and anesthetic choices. The conversation stays grounded in practice: what to add to intake questions, which referrals actually help (neuropsych, central auditory and visual processing, vestibular and balance testing), and how to route patients toward rehabilitation and accommodations that restore function at school and work.

This is also a story about trust and agency. Sarah lays out simple tools for rebuilding a sense of control, and we discuss how clinicians can presume competence, partner on decisions, and stay curious when symptoms fall outside familiar patterns. Whether you support ECT, question it, or simply want better outcomes, this episode offers concrete steps to assess, document, and treat possible electrical injury with the same rigor we give any other trauma. If this conversation sparks ideas or challenges your assumptions, share it with a colleague, subscribe for more, and leave a review with one change you’d make in your practice today.

Let’s Connect

Dr Dan Wesemann

Email: [email protected]

Website: https://nursing.uiowa.edu/academics/dnp-programs/psych-mental-health-nurse-practitioner

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/daniel-wesemann

Dr Kate Melino

Email: [email protected]

Dr Sean Convoy

Email: [email protected]

Dr Melissa Chapman

Email: [email protected]

Send us a text

What if the most powerful tool in mental health isn’t a pill or a protocol, but disciplined curiosity? We sit down with Marcus Evans—psychoanalyst, longtime psychiatric nurse, and trainer at the Tavistock—to explore how a psychoanalytic lens can make care more humane for people living with psychosis, borderline states, and severe distress.

Marcus takes us from old asylum wards to modern outpatient clinics, showing how labels help as rough maps but fail as destinies. He explains why some patients act out when supervision eases, how a harsh inner critic and fragile ego can be mistaken for manipulation, and what staff can do to contain projected fear and shame without losing boundaries. We talk through the practical balance between medication and psychotherapy: when small doses open the door to therapy, why “therapeutic omnipotence” is a trap, and how multidisciplinary support—psychiatry, OT, family systems—creates the holding environment needed for real change.

Across stories and strategies, one theme repeats: people want to be understood, not processed. Instead of chasing a magic bullet or a perfect code in the DSM, Marcus shows how to read behavior as communication and build plans that pace risk, supervision, and discharge to the person’s actual capacity. It’s a grounded, compassionate approach that protects clinicians from burnout and helps patients feel less alone with their minds.

If this conversation resonates, follow the show, share it with a colleague, and leave a review. Your support helps more listeners find thoughtful, practical mental health content and keeps these deeper conversations alive.

Let’s Connect

Dr Dan Wesemann

Email: [email protected]

Website: https://nursing.uiowa.edu/academics/dnp-programs/psych-mental-health-nurse-practitioner

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/daniel-wesemann

Dr Kate Melino

Email: [email protected]

Dr Sean Convoy

Email: [email protected]

Dr Melissa Chapman

Email: [email protected]