Psych Up Live

When I listened to this podcast again in the context of the stress so many are facing – I thought this is a holiday gift. In this episode, bestselling author and speaker Bruce Van Horn shares the ingredients of his important book, Worry No More! 4 Steps To Stop Worrying And Start Living. With wisdom and humor this “recovered worrier” draws upon the best practices of experts and integrates them with what he has practiced on a daily basis in his own life. He has faced many of the challenges we have all struggled with from illness to lose of loved ones. Crystalizing a way out of “ Worry” in 4 interesting and effective steps, he invites you to join him in living life instead of worrying about it.

In a complex culture with non-stop invitations to do and have more, parents often wonder how to raise grateful kids. In this show, Dr. Rebecca Hershberg, clinical psychologist, child expert and author of The Tantrum Survival Guide, offers parents some answers. She invites parents to consider their own definitions and expressions of gratitude and the messages they bring from their own childhood. She validates the common feelings of parental joy in giving and the fear of spoiling. She reminds us to consider expectations of request and signs of gratitude in children in terms of the child's age and what can get triggered in parent and child when extended family are present at Holiday Times. She discusses parents feeling guilty about giving and the difference when giving also involves playing or spending time with your child or teen. She invites parents to consider gratitude as a way of being in life that is felt, observed, and shared in routines and rituals with children all year round. Among the wonderful things you give to your children – Listen in for some ideas on the Gift of Gratitude.

In this show, Carol Novello, founder of Mutual Rescue™ and author of the new book, “Mutual Rescue: How Adopting a Homeless Animal Can Save You, Too” shares her story and the countless stories of others who reveal the powerful impact of adopted pets and their owners upon each other. From Parkland HS students, who lost friends in the horrific school shooting, but found the presence and adoption of dogs to be the bridges from terror and loss to love and comfort, to couples improving their relationships, to people helped with physical illness, addiction recovery or finding a purpose in life – adopting a dog is a gift that keeps on giving, even to others beyond the pet and owner. Importantly, Carol underscores stories with research science which verifies and expands what people are reporting, even tracing how it is that wolves and wildcats came to be the dogs that love to sleep in our beds and the cats that own our sofas. Listen in and prepare to feel a heart tug!

In this show noted journalist, Rachel Hills, author of The Sex Myth: The Gap Between our Fantasies and Reality, invites us to look more closely at the invisible norms and unspoken assumptions that shape the way we think about sex today.

Drawing upon six years' research, including interviews with women and men across three continents, she gives us an unexpected look at reality and a re-consideration of the meaning of sexual freedom. Don’t miss this show.

In this episode Dr. Deborah Serani, psychologist and author discusses the reality of depression as a mood disorder in later life. Drawing upon her comprehensive book “ Depression in Later Life: An Essential Guide,” she underscores that depression is too often overlooked by those suffering, their families and even at times by their physicians. In the back and forth with host Suzanne Phillips, Dr. Serani provides crucial information and illuminating examples that will be as valuable for health-care professionals, family members as well as seniors who don’t understand why they are suffering. She will answer questions like: What Is Geriatric Depression? Isn’t Depression a normal part of aging? Why is it so often missed or dismissed? What are the steps for proper assessment? What are the treatment options? Are depressed seniors a suicide risk? Adding to this, Dr. Serani considers the power of “conscious aging” as an asset to physical and emotional well-being. This is an important show for all.

Anti-bullying sites report that bullying has become an epidemic. One in 7 students K – 12, bully or are a victim of bullying. 75% of school shootings are linked to bullying and there is a strong link between bullying and suicide. Against this backdrop, Alan Eisenberg, Founder of Bully Recovery, Coach, and author of A Ladder In The Dark: My Journey From Bullying To Self-Acceptance and Crossing the Line, shares his childhood experience of bullying, his years of suffering with Complex PTSD and the path to recovery. What Alan offers is the story behind the statistics that few share and too few adults hear. Alan reveals the daily terror, shame, and self-blame that the bullied child or teen faces alone. He reports the loss of the authentic self, the need to fit in and his own misuse of violence. Bringing us to his adult story, Alan shares how his suffering continues until he seeks professional help and begins the steps and strategies that support bully recovery. His story offers answers.

Few of us have been spared relationships with emotional predators – The neighbor who wanted to share everything only to spread rumors; the boss who praised your work, asked for late hours and then promoted someone else; the fiancé who had a lover at college; the coach you trusted who made inappropriate advances. In this show, psychotherapist, mediator, custody evaluator and retired attorney, Steven Wolhandler, JD,MA,LPC draws upon his years of dealing with emotional predators and protecting their victims to pass on to us important insights and strategies. Referencing his book, Protecting Yourself from Emotional Predators: Neutralize the Users, Abusers and Manipulators Hidden Among Us, he defines the qualities and behaviors of the Emotional Predator and offers 5 important and effective steps for protecting ourselves. His discussion is as valuable a guide to knowing and empowering ourselves as to disempowering predators.

In a manner that is personal, specific, at times funny and underscored with thirty years of writing and talking about sex, Tracey Cox invites us to age-proof our sex lives. Drawing upon her 17th and newest book, Great Sex Starts at 50, Tracey invites listeners, across gender and sexual orientation to consider that an understanding of the reality of body changes from hormone depletion, sensitivity, dryness, erectile difficulties etc. are inevitable and need not be a stop sign to sexual connection and intimacy. She discusses the six truths about sex that will never change regardless of age; four steps that will revolutionize your sex life; the challenges of menopause; what to do or say if you haven’t had sex in a number of years with your partner; the differences in sexual desire between men and women; the stages in a couple’s relationship from lust to love; being over fifty, single and sexual and the Media Misperceptions of Sex that impact all of us. Listen in.

In this episode, Dr. Therese Huston draws upon her new book, Let’s Talk: Make Effective Feedback Your Superpower, and her experience speaking to academic audiences and businesses like Microsoft and Amazon to teach us how to give feedback, even negative feedback, in a way that turns it into a productive conversation. She considers why 80% of managers feel they are saying the right things; but less than 20% of employees feel appreciated. She asks why men are evaluated on work skills while women are often judged on their personality. Dr. Huston identifies and exemplifies the three types of feedback as Appreciation, Coaching and Evaluation and asks us to discern what an employee wants and needs. She discusses how and why to use praise and urges us to side with the employee rather than the problem. She reminds us that if people feel threatened their brains go into lockdown. Inherent in her message of what makes feedback powerful is the principle -“ Listen as if your job depends on it.”

If you are in a relationship, you have to hear this episode. It will be as enjoyable as it will be strikingly helpful to you and your partner. According to psychotherapist and author, Keith Wilson, if you are in a real relationship and you haven’t had a conflict yet – you haven’t been paying attention. As Keith describes, violence is the avoidance of conflict. Being able to work through clashes as a couple, offers great potential. With anecdote, metaphor and examples, Keith draws upon 30 years of practice with couples to discuss the steps for regulating conflict. He will invite you to turn off the alarm in your head that scans partner disconnection, know where and how to ask the right questions – be it about an affair or getting up for the kids. He will clarify how to give and get feedback, avoid the four fouls that contaminate any conflict and turn conflict into really knowing, trusting and loving each other. Listen in.