The Evidence Based Therapist

The Evidence Based Therapist is back. We know. It's becoming the bit.

This time there's a reason that should hold: Bridger and Caleb are rewriting the Somatic Integration and Processing (SIP) materials against the last seven or eight years of published research, which means reading the articles anyway. So this run of episodes is the reading, out loud, with commentary.

Before the first article, a frame. When SIP was first written, the neuroscience in it was modular on purpose: amygdala, prefrontal cortex, hippocampus, the triune brain, about as far as a training room could be asked to go. The field's shared vocabulary has moved since then, and that opens room to teach from two frameworks the hosts have been circling for years. Spatiotemporal neuroscience, Georg Northoff's attempt at a common currency between brain and mind. And network neuroscience, where what we call a disorder reads as a signature of balance among the default mode, salience, and central executive networks.

One rule sits over all of it: neuroscience is useless in a clinical conversation unless it changes your presence.

IN THIS EPISODE

• Welcome back to the Evidence Based Therapist, where we read so you don't have to (but we'd love it if you did)

• What happened to the neurodivergence and religious trauma project

• Why now: "I miss you," and a SIP rewrite that requires reading everything

• What got cut from the original SIP training, and why modular neuroscience was the ceiling

• Neurobollocks, and the simple brain stories that misguide more than they guide

• The rule: neuroscience is useless unless it changes your presence

• Presence and presencing: prosody, cadence, eye contact, moving toward or away, open versus closed

• The SIP rewrite's starting assumption: life, and we as an extension of it, is utterly out of control

• A time-bound body in space, entropy, free energy, and what "adaptive" is adapting to

• Embedded, embodied, enacted, extended: four kinds of containment

• The DSM as a standardized context for conversation, and the assumptions worth questioning

• Why spatiotemporal neuroscience: Northoff's iceberg and the bottom of the ocean

• Chemicals in water: the chemical calculus between one cell and the next

• Large-scale brain networks: default mode, salience, central executive

• The whiteboard: anxiety, depression, PTSD, and a first pass at OCD in time and space

• Neuroscience doesn't make you more certain. You are still out of control.

• Carlo Rovelli, On the Equality of All Things, and a universe made of relationships

• Relating versus controlling: psychopharmacology, psychedelics, and the humors

• Enactments: why did you get into this field, and you can't say "to help people"

• Objectivity, subjectivity, relativity

• Next up: Flights and Perchings of the BrainMind, for as many episodes as it takes

• Within and Between: the SIP Substack, and a free version of the workbook on the way

NEXT ON THE SHOW

Flights and Perchings of the BrainMind: A Temporospatial Approach to Psychotherapy. Chan, Northoff, Karasik, Ouyang & Williams (2022), Frontiers in Psychology. Open access: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.828035/full

RESOURCES & LINKS

Within and Between, the Substack for the SIP model (short think pieces, articles, and a free version of the workbook as the rewrite progresses): https://somaticintegrationprocessing.substack.com/

Somatic Integration and Processing training with Beyond Healing Institute: https://connectbeyondhealing.com/?utm_source=ebt&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=EBT_SpatiotemporalNeuro_Therapists_Fall_2026

Carlo Rovelli, On the Equality of All Things: Lessons on Physics and Philosophy (Scribner, 2026)

EMDR and the Therapeutic Relationship: Reclaiming the Relational Thread, Bridger Falkenstien and Jen Savage: https://connectbeyondhealing.com/the-relational-thread/?utm_source=ebt&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=relational_thread

ABOUT THE EVIDENCE BASED THERAPIST

The podcast where we read so you don't have to. Bridger Falkenstien and Caleb Boston read peer-reviewed research and talk through what it changes about the way you show up with clients, as a psychotherapist, counselor, or mental health professional. A Think Beyond Media production, hosted by Beyond Healing.

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In this episode of The Evidence-Based Therapist, we sit down with local therapist and religious trauma specialist Darryl Schafer to explore how belief systems shape identity, belonging, and the development of the self—sometimes in deeply painful ways.

We discuss the relational nature of religious trauma, how clients internalize theological narratives as self-concepts, and why reclaiming the “abjected” parts of self is often central to healing. The conversation spans psychoanalysis, religious studies, developmental theory, grief, and the biology of belief—without collapsing spirituality into pathology or assuming religion is inherently harmful.

Topics we explore:

• When religion becomes a totalizing identity structure
• The “abjected self” and why shame becomes internal theology
• Why religious trauma is relational—not just doctrinal
• Neurodivergence, masking, and leaving high-control systems
• Grief as a gateway to identity reconstruction
• The therapist’s role: not a replacement God, but a new mirror
• How belief systems shape belonging, moral vision, and connection

Whether you're a therapist working with clients of faith, someone navigating deconstruction, or simply curious about the psychology of belief, this conversation offers a grounded, relational, and non-pathologizing way to understand religion’s impact on the self.

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Religious trauma can’t be understood only through symptom checklists—it emerges from deeply internalized relational and symbolic dynamics. In this episode of The Evidence-Based Therapist, we explore religious trauma through a psychoanalytic lens, drawing from thinkers like Freud, Winnicott, Rizzuto, and McWilliams to understand how a person’s “God image” forms, fractures, or heals.

We unpack how spiritual beliefs shape personality development, how community structures can reinforce false-self dynamics, and why disentangling God from the people who claim to represent God is often a core task of healing. We also discuss the role of annihilation anxiety, the function of belief for meaning-making, and why recovery isn't always about rejecting faith, but transforming the relationship with it.

This conversation features Ethan’s research on religious trauma and neurodivergence, and the ways psychoanalytic theory offers pathways beyond symptom relief toward identity, agency, and integration.

Topics include:

• The God image vs. the God representative
• Religious trauma as relational, not just doctrinal
• Why psychoanalysis offers a uniquely useful frame
• False-self development in spiritual environments
• The intersection of religious trauma and neurodivergence
• Healing through integration rather than rejection

Whether you work clinically with religious trauma, share these experiences personally, or are curious about how belief takes shape in the psyche, this episode offers a better language for what happens when the spiritual becomes wounding—and how it can become restorative again.

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In this episode, Bridger, Caleb, and Ethan dive into Rupture and Repair in Psychotherapy: A Critical Process for Change (Moran, Eubanks, & Samstag, 2022). Through the lens of embodied relational science, they explore how disconnection and repair form the heartbeat of therapeutic change.

Together, they unpack the tension between explicit and implicit forms of rupture, the role of mutual accountability, and the difference between being disoriented versus dysregulated in the therapy room. With humor, honesty, and depth, the conversation traces how therapists and clients co-create meaning in the messy, beautiful work of relationship.

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In this episode of The Evidence Based Therapist, we sit down with Ethan to explore his emerging research on the intersection of religious trauma and neurodiversity. Together we talk about the challenges of studying a topic with so little existing scholarship, the independent study that sparked our collaboration, and how our friendship has grown through that work.

This conversation sets the tone for the season ahead: a deep dive into articles, stories, and artifacts that will help us think more deeply about these themes, shaping Ethan’s research toward publication and presentation. Along the way, Bridger also shares about his current research on non-conscious insidious adoptions and Kristeva’s idea of symbolic potential.

A season in the making, and an invitation to join us in the curiosity that drives it.

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After 14 months away, Bridger and Caleb are back at the mics. In this special episode, they reflect on where life, work, and curiosity have taken them this past year—through doctoral defenses, major health challenges, and profound shifts in perspective. Along the way, they share what they’ve been reading, exploring, and creating: from consciousness studies and epistemology to Enneagram pathways and relational EMDR.

This isn’t just a catch-up—it’s a thoughtful, playful, and deeply human conversation about being therapists, being learners, and being alive.

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Listen in to hear Caleb and Bridger dive into a new article entitled Presence Psychotherapy: A Novel Integrative Trauma Treatment Model for Thorough Memory Reconsolidation published in the Journal of Psychotherapy Integration in 2022.

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Listen in to hear Caleb and Bridger finish up their discussion on Therapeutic Presence, an article by Geller & Greenberg in the journal of Person-Centered & Experiential Psychotherapies in 2002.

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Join Caleb and Bridger as they pick back up on their conversation around Presence in Psychotherapy.

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Join Caleb and Bridger as they kick off the new season of the Evidence Based Therapist with a conversation about Geller and Greenberg's (2002) Therapeutic Presence: Therapists' experience of presence in the psychotherapy encounter. To find the article, find it here: Therapeutic Presence with Notes

Did you know? After full completion of Beyond Healing Institute’s Somatic Integration and Processing training, each participant can receive 21 NBCC hours.

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Credits 

Executive Directors: Jennifer and Ryan Savage, Melissa Bentinnedi, Bridger Falkenstein

Hosts: Bridger Falkenstein, Caleb Boston, and Melissa Benintendi

Filmographer: Tyler Wassam

Podcast Editor: Jamie Eggert

Original Music Composers: Bridger Falkenstein and Caleb Boston

Show Notes: Jamie Eggert & Jordan Murray

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