The Affirming Minds Podcast

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Therapists are trained to reduce suffering—but what if that’s only part of the work?

In this episode, I’m joined by Dr. Jessica Rabon to explore positive psychology as a scientifically grounded approach to wellbeing. We break down what it is, what it isn’t, and how it moves beyond symptom reduction to help clients build meaningful, engaged lives.

We cover the PERMA model, the role of flow and relationships, and how to integrate positive psychology into clinical practice—without slipping into toxic positivity.

If you’ve ever felt the gap between helping clients feel less bad and helping them actually feel fulfilled, this conversation will meet you there.

**Want CE/CEUs for this episode?**  

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In this episode, I’m joined by Grace Berman, LCSW, to explore evidence-based approaches for treating children with anxiety, ADHD, and behavioral challenges.

We break down how therapists can integrate Behavioral Parent Training (BPT) and SPACE (Supportive Parenting for Anxious Childhood Emotions) to reduce parental accommodation, improve child behavior, and build emotional regulation through parent-mediated interventions.

This conversation highlights how to move beyond diagnosis and use a functional approach to child behavior, including reinforcement, extinction bursts, natural consequences, and parent consistency to support long-term outcomes.

**Want CE/CEUs for this episode?**  

View course information and earn CE/CEUs here: https://www.affirmmentalhealth.com/courses/bf4ab7cf-9249-4a7b-bfe5-4c22f8715fdf 

Looking for more? Explore our convenient, affordable CE bundles or browse our full library of podcast courses, on-demand webinars, and live virtual trainings at affirmmentalhealth.com. 

In this episode of the Affirming Minds Podcast, Dr. Laurie Gallo interviews host Shaina Siber-Sanderowitz about the ideas behind her new book, Using ACT and CFT for Burnout Recovery: The Beyond Burnout Blueprint. Together they explore how burnout develops in high-demand professions and why many traditional approaches to burnout fall short.

The conversation examines how principles from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) and Compassion-Focused Therapy (CFT) can help clinicians support burnout recovery by addressing shame, overcontrol, and chronic occupational stress while cultivating psychological flexibility and self-compassion.

Using ACT and CFT for Burnout Recovery: The Beyond Burnout Blueprint by Shaina Siber-Sanderowitz

Publisher link:
https://www.routledge.com/Using-ACT-and-CFT-for-Burnout-Recovery-The-Beyond-Burnout-Blueprint/Siber/p/book/9781041074304

Amazon link:
https://www.amazon.com/Using-ACT-CFT-Burnout-Recovery/dp/1041074301/

Goodreads link:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/242051083-using-act-and-cft-for-burnout-recovery

**Want CE/CEUs for this episode?**  

View course information and earn CE/CEUs here: https://www.affirmmentalhealth.com/courses/67c2d1e2-d8c7-403e-91b8-d9b99a8ed753  

Looking for more? Explore our convenient, affordable CE bundles or browse our full library of podcast courses, on-demand webinars, and live virtual trainings at affirmmentalhealth.com. 

In this episode of The Affirming Minds Podcast, Dr. Janeé M. Steele joins the conversation to explore social anxiety through a culturally responsive CBT lens. The discussion examines the core mechanisms that maintain social anxiety — including anticipatory processing, safety behaviors, and post-event rumination — and how these patterns intersect with lived experience, systemic bias, and stereotype threat.

Dr. Steele outlines practical strategies for differentiating between irrational fear and rational responses to discrimination, adapting exposure hierarchies with attention to real-world risk, using broaching to explore identity within the therapeutic relationship, and integrating micro-interventions and self-affirmation into clinical practice.

This episode offers clinicians concrete tools for delivering evidence-based treatment while honoring the broader social and cultural context in which anxiety develops and is maintained.

**Want CE/CEUs for this episode?**  

View course information and earn CE/CEUs here: https://www.affirmmentalhealth.com/courses/5091efde-ee15-40c0-a7e9-51841da856f7  

Looking for more? Explore our convenient, affordable CE bundles or browse our full library of podcast courses, on-demand webinars, and live virtual trainings at affirmmentalhealth.com. 

  Are today’s teens truly more anxious — or are we simply seeing anxiety more clearly?

In this episode, we unpack the narrative of “the anxious generation” and explore what current research actually shows about adolescent anxiety. We discuss adolescent brain development and expected shifts in mood, sleep, and emotional intensity, and how to distinguish developmentally expectable distress from clinically impairing anxiety.

We also explore how contextual factors — COVID-19 disruption, social media and parasocial relationships, and expanded access to telehealth — shape our understanding of youth anxiety reporting without assuming pathology.

Finally, we delve into a critical relational factor: how caregiver anxiety and over-accommodation can unintentionally reinforce avoidance — and what differentiation looks like in practice when supporting teens.

Joining me is Sophia Vale Guarino, LCSW, author of Calming Teenage Anxiety — a practical guide for caregivers who want to support teens with clarity and steadiness.

Get her book here: https://a.co/d/005IWBFj

**Want CE/CEUs for this episode?**  

View course information and earn CE/CEUs here: https://www.affirmmentalhealth.com/courses/7449633c-6755-491b-affd-39494f0573e3 

Looking for more? Explore our convenient, affordable CE bundles or browse our full library of podcast courses, on-demand webinars, and live virtual trainings at affirmmentalhealth.com. 

Family estrangement is often portrayed as impulsive, trendy, or selfish. In reality, navigating low contact or no contact with a parent is typically a painful decision — one that is rarely made lightly and almost never without history.

As public debate around estrangement has intensified — including criticism directed at therapists — this episode asks an essential question: What is our clinical role in this conversation?

Host Shaina Siber, LCSW offers a trauma-informed, ethically grounded framework for clinicians working with adult clients who are considering distance from caregivers. She argues that therapy should not treat reconciliation as morally superior — nor estrangement as inherently empowered. Instead, clinicians are called to remain outcome-neutral and harm-responsive.

This episode provides:

Estrangement decisions are complex, relational, and often grief-filled. This conversation offers therapists a grounded framework for helping clients move through these waters with clarity, agency, and care.

**Want CE/CEUs for this episode?**  

View course information and earn CE/CEUs here: https://www.affirmmentalhealth.com/courses/e98f1baa-b5c7-410e-a837-cc757459da1d   

Looking for more? Explore our convenient, affordable CE bundles or browse our full library of podcast courses, on-demand webinars, and live virtual trainings at affirmmentalhealth.com. 

Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) is one of the most empirically supported treatments in mental health, with strong evidence for reducing suicide risk, self-injury, and other high-risk behaviors. Yet access to full-fidelity DBT remains limited, raising important questions about dissemination, accessibility, and real-world use.

In this episode, Shaina Siber is joined by Dr. Shireen L. Rizvi and Dr. Jesse Finkelstein for a thoughtful conversation about DBT dissemination—how evidence-based treatments evolve, travel beyond specialty settings, and become usable tools for real life without losing their integrity.

The discussion centers on Real Skills for Real Life: A DBT Guide to Navigating Stress, Emotions, and Relationships, an accessible, visually engaging guide that presents 26 core DBT skills alongside decision trees to support flexible, context-responsive skill use.

​​Grad school trained us to practice therapy—but not the business of mental health or the range of career possibilities available to clinicians.

In this episode of The Mental Health Edit, Shaina speaks with Gabrielle Juliano-Villani and LeNaya Smith Crawford, co-founders of the REIMAGINE Business Summit, about entrepreneurship, burnout, and reimagining careers beyond the therapy room. Join the REIMAGINE Business Summit February 15–20 👉 Free General Admission:
https://lenaya-crawford.mykajabi.com/a/2148214964/hNZ7bj8U 👉 VIP Bundle ($97):
https://lenaya-crawford.mykajabi.com/offers/QkLmhfbp/checkout?ref=https%3A%2F%2Flenaya-crawford.mykajabi.com%2Fa%2F2148214965%2FhNZ7bj8U

The VIP upgrade includes extended access, business intensives, coaching, and a CE Podcast Pass for Affirming Minds (ASWB, NBCC, NYSED).  

**Want CE/CEUs for this episode?**

Earn continuing education credit for this episode here: https://www.affirmmentalhealth.com/courses/3dd8c00e-970c-4775-b7b6-fa713c0a9a07 

Looking for more? Explore our convenient, affordable CE bundles or browse our full library of podcast courses, on-demand webinars, and live virtual trainings at affirmmentalhealth.com.  

In this episode of Affirming Minds, we explore foster care and adoption through an attachment-informed lens, focusing on how separation-related grief and loss are often minimized or left unacknowledged. We discuss how separations across infancy, childhood, and adolescence can shape emotional regulation, trust, and behavior—and how clinicians and caregivers can respond with greater accuracy and compassion.

**Want CE/CEUs for this episode?**

Earn continuing education credit for this episode here: https://www.affirmmentalhealth.com/courses/9873b6c0-5046-4b28-a9a0-d59f4121ce73 

Looking for more? Explore our convenient, affordable CE bundles or browse our full library of podcast courses, on-demand webinars, and live virtual trainings at affirmmentalhealth.com.  

 At a moment of expanding awareness and increasing constraint, clinicians are more attuned than ever to the potential for harm in the therapy room—yet many feel uncertain about how to respond when identity, power, and politics arise in session.

In this episode, we explore cultural humility as a clinical stance, not a buzzword:

Our guest is Dr. Lauren Wadsworth, clinical psychologist, consultant, and co-founder of Twin Stars Diversity Trainers. Dr. Wadsworth brings deep clinical experience and a justice-oriented lens to the nuanced terrain where identity and therapy intersect.

Whether you’re a seasoned clinician or in training, this conversation will challenge you to think differently about identity, power, harm, and ethics in everyday practice.