Shrink Rap Radio

Psychiatrist, Philosopher, Writer, and Wine-Lover Neel Burton MD was born in 1978 in Curepipe, Mauritius to a Mauritian father and a Zanzibari mother, and grew up in Geneva, Switzerland. From 1996 to 2002, he studied medicine and neuroscience in London. He then moved to Paris, where he worked as a strategy consultant and, later, as an English teacher. In 2003, he returned to medicine and the UK, and, in 2004, went up to Oxford to specialize in psychiatry while simultaneously reading for a Master’s in philosophy in the University of London. He currently lives and teaches in Oxford, where he is a Fellow of Green-Templeton College. He is the recipient of the Society of Authors' Richard Asher Prize, the British Medical Association's Young Authors' Award, the Medical Journalists' Association Open Book Award, and a Best in the World Gourmand Award. His work has been translated into several languages, including Chinese, Japanese, German, Italian, and Portuguese.  The book he discusses here with Isabella Clarke is Growing From Depression.

Paul Gilbert, FBPsS, PhD, OBE is Professor of Clinical Psychology at the University of Derby and Consultant Clinical Psychologist at the Derbyshire Health Care Foundation Trust. He has researched evolutionary approaches to psychopathology for over 35 years with a special focus on shame and the treatment of shame based difficulties - for which compassion focused therapy was developed. He was made a Fellow of the British Psychological Society in 1993. In 2003 Paul was president of the BABCP and a member of the first British Governments’ NICE guidelines for depression. He has written/edited 20 books (including Living Like Crazy) and over 200 papers. In 2006 he established the Compassionate Mind Foundation, a charity with the mission statement “to promote wellbeing through the scientific understanding and application of compassion” (www.compassionatemind.co.uk). He was awarded an OBE in March 2011.

Ian Spencer, M.A. writes: I am a Los Angeles based psychotherapist working in Echo Park. I did my undergraduate studies at Bennington College and received a BA in Literature. I completed my graduate studies at Pacifica Graduate Institute in Santa Barbara focusing on Depth Psychology. I am a LMFT with a MA in Counseling Psychology. I did my clinical training and internship downtown at the Midnight Mission working with chronically un-housed individuals with dual-diagnosis' and at the Children's Institute in the Compton/Watts office focusing on home visits with families and school age children. Between undergraduate and graduate I worked as a film editor for two decades. I was present and active during the birth of reality TV and watched it evolve into the multi headed beast it is today - broadcast, streaming, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and Tik-Tok. As an editor I had a unique window into this new form of storytelling where the stars were not professionals who only pretended to be someone else, but amateurs who became stars for just being themselves. Even before I became interested in changing my career I was aware that this new medium represented a psychological shift in the way the culture was understanding itself and reflecting itself. I knew we weren't making documentaries, but we weren't making fictions either. In addition it was clear that the effects of the fame was different for reality TV stars than professional actors - a reality TV star was someone who put their real emotional states on the screen for entertainment - emotional gladiators of sorts. The harder they battle the more they are loved or hated, often to devastating psychological consequence. It was after my training as a psychotherapist that I began to realize that reality TV held the shadow material for our culture, and as such it was no wonder that those who lived in shadow material paid a heavy price. It was this population that I became interested in treating.

Social media and other platforms have grown up interwoven with reality TV. Now anyone with an internet connection has the possibility of becoming internet famous. One viral moment on Instagram, YouTube or Twitter can change the course of a life. There are hundreds of thousands of people across the globe who would love nothing more than to have the spotlight of the world shown on them, yet most are unprepared for the true cost of this kind of attention. Celebrity brings a flood of projections upon the star. These projections are powerful and often succeed in destroying the stability of the receiver's Psyche - Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Elizabeth Taylor, Michael Jackson, Lindsay Lohan, Brittany Spears, to name just a few. In addition single projections can be fatal such as the murder of John Lennon. The smartphone essentially takes projections from fans and creates a lazer-beam that focuses them directly into the user's eyes. If you are an Influencer or otherwise a 'star' of an internet platform you will be exposed to many of the same challenges that Reality TV stars are exposed to.

The healing community is lagging behind in its understanding of the vulnerability social platforms present to our psyche. Most are focused on defending our social norms against smart phones - a battle I compare to past generations who burned comic books or Jazz records. This defensive attitude is reasonable considering that the digital revolution is threatening our understanding of reality by disrupted everything we thought was solid - our workplace, our parenting, our privacy, our leisure activities, our romance, even our therapy services. Our human endeavors are all strategies evolved over the millennia to contain the energy of our consciousness - work, play, religion, intimacy and art are the vessles that define us and ground our reality. Each time a new hill is crested there is a psychic dilemma that must be overcome - I am reminded of the openi...

Dr. Sarita Robinson completed her PhD in Cognitive and Neuroimmune responses to Survival Situations under the supervision of Dr John Leach at Lancaster University. Her PhD research was carried out using simulated emergency situations (such as Helicopter Underwater Evacuation Training) to examine how the biological changes in the body and people‘s perceptions of threat impact on mental processing. Prior to this she obtained a BSc (Hons) in Psychology at Lancaster University, and a Masters degree in Cognitive Science at Manchester University. Once being awarded her PhD in 2004, Sarita has gone on to expand her research at UCLan and has focused on the three main stages of a disaster, preparedness, response and recovery. As well as lecturing and researching in Survival Psychology, Sarita is also a committee member of the British Psychological Society’s Crisis, Disaster and Trauma Section. She also offers consultancy under the University of Central Lancashire’s PROTECT programme.

Dr. Robinson is interviewed here by our Isabella Clarke.

Robert T. Muller, Ph.D. trained at Harvard, was on faculty at the University of Massachusetts, and is currently at York University in Toronto. Dr. Muller is a Fellow of the International Society for the Study of Trauma & Dissociation (ISSTD) for his work on trauma treatment. His recently-released Trauma & the Struggle to Open Up was awarded the 2019 ISSTD award for year's best written work on trauma. And his award-winning bestseller, "Trauma & the Avoidant Client" has been translated widely. As lead investigator on several multi-site programs to treat interpersonal trauma, Dr. Muller has lectured internationally (Australia, UK, Europe, USA), and has been keynote speaker at mental health conferences in New Zealand and Canada. He founded an online magazine, "The Trauma & Mental Health Report," that is now visited by over 100,000 readers a year. With over 25 years in the field, he practices in Toronto.

Vishvapani is a writer and teacher of Buddhism, mindfulness and meditation. He discovered meditation and Buddhism when he was fourteen and became a Buddhist soon after. In 1996 he founded Dharma Life Magazine and edited it until 2005.  He writes on Buddhist themes for various publications and since 2006 has been the Buddhist contributor to BBC Radio 4’s Thought for the Day. In 2011 Vishvapani published a biography of the Buddha with Quercus: Gautama Buddha: the Life and Teachings of the Awakened One. He has also published an anthology, Challenging Times, of powerful stories of courage and hard-earned wisdom showing the rewards of opening our hearts when things get really tough Vishvapani also works as a trainer in Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR/MBCT).

Sara Winokur is a geneticist, researcher, and author. Sara has a master’s degree in cytogenetics and a Ph.D. in molecular genetics. Her research helped identify mutations underlying muscular dystrophy, Huntington’s disease, dwarfism, and a rare craniofacial syndrome. She continues to work as a consultant on potential therapies for genetic disease. She is also the author of the Icelandic mystery, Double Blind: The Icelandic Manuscript Murders.  Dozens of her articles have been published in scientific journals. Her research has appeared in Human Molecular Genetics, Nature Genetics, and Cell Stem Cell. Sara is a well-respected figure in the scientific community. As an ovarian cancer "thriver", Sara has a sense of gratitude, strength, and perspective. She resides with her husband and writes in Southern California.

Hello Shrink Rap Radio Listeners,

Here's something a little different, a promo for a podcast I think you might enjoy. It's called business wars. Business Wars digs deep into some of the greatest corporate rivalries of all time. Each season of Business Wars digs deep into some of the greatest corporate rivalries of all time.Think Facebook VS Snapchat or Nike VS Adidas. On each weekly episode they give you an inside look at what inspired entrepreneurs to take risks that drove their companies to new heights --  or into the ground. In this season “Starbucks VS Dunkin”, they follow these two java giants in a war that started brewing in the 1950s and is now hotter than ever.  Coffee is a 100 billion dollar plus global industry with these two duking it out at the top, but their battle is about more than coffee. Here's a 4-minute sample.  For the full episode go to: wondery.fm/shrinkrapBW

Gary Trosclair, DMA, LCSW is a psychotherapist and Jungian analyst in private practice in New York City and Westchester County, New York. President of the New York Association for Analytical Psychology, he also serves on the faculty of the C.G. Jung Institute of New York and the C.G. Jung Foundation of New York. He serves as clinical coordinator for the Jung Institute Low-Fee Clinic.His book, The Healthy Compulsive: Healing Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder and Taking the Wheel of the Driven Personality (Rowman and Littlefield, 2020), and his blog The Healthy Compulsive Project, have provided inspiration and encouragement to thousands of readers who have been affected by OCPD.His previous book, I’m Working On It In Therapy: How To Get The Most Out Of Psychotherapy (Skyhorse 2015), serves as a client’s guide to using therapy effectively and productively, offering ten practical tools, illustrated with clinical vignettes and stories from film, literature, and mythology.

KIRK J. SCHNEIDER, Ph.D., is a licensed psychologist and leading spokesperson for contemporary existential-humanistic psychology. Dr. Schneider is past editor of the Journal of Humanistic Psychology, adjunct faculty at Saybrook University and Teachers College, Columbia University, and president of the Existential-Humanistic Institute (EHI), He is also a Fellow of four divisions of the American Psychological Association (Humanistic, Clinical, Theoretical and Philosophical, and Independent Practice) as well as a frequent speaker at conferences and in the media.

Dr. Schneider is also the recipient of Honorary Diplomas and Memberships from The Society for Existential Analysis, UK; The East European Association for Existential Therapy; and the Living Institute, Toronto, Canada, whose diploma in “Existential-Integrative” Therapy is based on Dr. Schneider’s original model of this approach. He has authored or coauthored twelve books, including *The Paradoxical Self, Horror and the Holy, Existential-Integrative Psychotherapy, Awakening to Awe* and the forthcoming Wiley World Handbook of Existential Therapy. Several of these works have been translated into Chinese, German, Russian, Greek, Turkish, Portuguese, Slovakian, and Korean languages.