TherapyPages Podcast

Content note: This episode discusses child abuse, restraint, forced medication, institutionalization, and family estrangement. If any of these are close to your own experience, please take care of yourself. You’re welcome to skip the episode or come back to it when you’re ready.

Learning to Hold Two Truths: Notes from Our Episode on In the Shadow of Eight

Some books ask us to sit with a story that is painful, contested, and deeply personal all at once. Collin Gosselin’s memoir, In the Shadow of Eight: Surviving the Reality of My Childhood, is one of them. In our latest TherapyPages episode, April and I talked through the book, and we want to share some of what came up.

The Story Behind the Picture

Collin is one of the sextuplets who grew up on Jon & Kate Plus 8, a family many people felt they knew from television. The book’s publisher describes it as the story hidden behind that picture-perfect facade. In his account, Collin describes years of abuse by his mother, including being separated from his siblings and placed in a basement bedroom that he says was monitored by camera.

Kate Gosselin denies these allegations. In a 2023 statement that Collin includes in the book, she says he has received multiple psychiatric diagnoses over the years. Collin says those diagnoses were wrong. We think it matters to name this dispute openly. We’re discussing Collin’s account, and it is one person’s perspective on events that others remember differently.

Public Childhoods and Private Harm

One thing that stood out to us is how a child’s life on camera can leave little room for being a child. Constant attention can look like love from the outside while hiding something very different within. When a family’s image is carefully managed, a child’s distress can be easy to miss, and easy to explain away.

Being Cast as “the Problem”

Collin writes that he felt treated differently from his siblings. Large families sometimes develop roles, and the child who carries the family’s struggles can end up isolated. Family scapegoating is painful to witness and painful to live inside, and it often shapes how a person sees themselves for years afterward.

Surveillance, Isolation, and the Body’s Alarm System

Being monitored, shut away, and separated from the people you rely on can erode a child’s sense of safety. Chronic isolation and hypervigilance don’t always disappear when the situation does. Adults who lived through these experiences may find that their nervous systems still scan for threat, even in places that are safe.

Who Decides for a Child in Crisis?

Collin describes being placed in a treatment facility and given medication as a minor. This raises hard questions. Who makes decisions for a child in crisis? How much does a child’s voice count? How can we tell necessary care from harm?

We want to be clear that mental health treatment can be both needed and imperfect. Some children are helped by hospitalization and medication, and some are harmed by them. The honest answer is that these decisions require ongoing scrutiny, and that a child’s experience of care deserves to be taken seriously.

Survival Isn’t a Straight Line

The publisher promises a story of escape and a way back from the dark. We appreciated that the book doesn’t tie everything up neatly. Collin still describes being estranged from most of his siblings. Recovery is rarely linear, and some relationships may never be fully repaired. Naming that is part of telling the truth.

Reading Memoir with an Open Heart

A question we’d like to leave with listeners: how do we take someone’s account as truth while acknowledging that others remember the same events differently? We don’t have to choose between believing a survivor and staying curious about the complexity around them. Holding both is harder, and it is often more honest.

If you’ve read In the Shadow of Eight, or if this episode brought something up for you, we’d like to hear from you. And if you need support now, please reach out to a trusted person, a counselor, or the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline if you’re in the U.S.

Welcome to TherapyPages, the podcast where we talk about books through a clinical lens. This week we’re turning to The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, a novel that gives voice to depression, the pressure to conform, and the loneliness of feeling unseen. Esther Greenwood’s story is painful to read, but it’s also an honest portrait of a mind struggling to be heard. Join April and me as we explore what Plath captures so vividly, and what it might mean for anyone who has felt trapped under a bell jar of their own.

Edith Eger was a teenager when she, her sister and her parents were sent to Auschwitz, where she was forced to dance for notorious Dr. Mengle. After Liberation, she built a new life in the United States, earned a doctorate in psychology, and became a clinical psychologist who worked with trauma survivors for decades. The Choice weaves her own story together with case vignettes from her practice, including her work with veterans and others carrying profound pain.

The central idea is that even in the most constrained circumstances, we retain some measure of choice, especially over how we relate to what happened to us. Eger describes the “prison of the mind” that keeps survivors tethered to the past, and she distinguishes between being a victim and being a survivor who chooses to reclaim their life. She is also clear that forgiveness is not an obligation, and that healing often begins with self-compassion rather than with forgetting or moving on, on someone else’s timeline.

In this episode of Therapy Pages, we discuss Building a Life Worth Living by Marsha Linehan — a deeply personal memoir about suffering, recovery, and the creation of Dialectical Behavior Therapy.

As psychotherapists, we reflect on how DBT has influenced not only our clinical work with clients navigating trauma, emotional overwhelm, and hopelessness, but also our own personal lives. We explore the balance between acceptance and change, the importance of vulnerability, the healing power of validation, and what it really means to build a life worth living in the midst of pain, uncertainty, and everyday humanity.

Listener Reflection Question:When in your life have you truly felt seen, validated, or safe enough to be vulnerable?

The Untethered Soul by Michael A. Singer invites us to step back from the constant chatter in our minds and find a little more space, calm, and perspective. For many people, that shift alone can feel freeing.

At the same time, the idea of simply “letting go” can feel easier said than done—especially if you’ve been through hard or overwhelming experiences. It’s a meaningful and helpful book, but not always the full story when it comes to deeper healing.

In a world that constantly pushes us to move faster, The Things You See Only When You Slow Down invites us to pause—and notice what we’ve been missing. Through gentle wisdom and practical reflections, this book reminds us that clarity, peace, and connection don’t come from doing more, but from being more present.

In this episode, we explore how slowing down isn’t about escaping life—it’s about fully experiencing it. From relationships and self-compassion to work, anxiety, and meaning, we unpack how mindful awareness can shift the way we see ourselves and the world around us.

Sometimes the most important changes don’t come from pushing harder… but from finally giving ourselves permission to slow down.

Here is a listener reflection workbook.

In this episode, we explore the healing power of connection through the whimsical and moving novel We'll Prescribe You a Cat. From attachment and emotional regulation to purpose and presence, we discuss how this story mirrors real therapeutic themes - and why sometimes healing doesn't come in a bottle, but with whiskers

In this episode, we dive into Junot Díaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao through a mental health lens. We explore how Oscar, a self-proclaimed “ghetto nerd,” navigates the heavy intersection of familial trauma, social isolation, and the crushing weight of cultural expectations.

Beyond the magical realism of the fukú curse, we discuss the very real “curses” of depression and the struggle to belong when you don’t fit the mold of traditional masculinity. It’s a deep look at how storytelling can be a lifeline—and how Oscar’s search for love is ultimately a search for self-worth.

RESOURCES

    ∙    988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline — call or text 988

    ∙    Crisis Text Line — text HOME to 741741

    ∙    Therapy for Latinx — therapyforlatinx.com

    ∙    NAMI Helpline — 1-800-950-6264

Today we are talking about the book The Gift. We both found this book very powerful and filled with life lessons for anytime but especially relevant today. Come hang out with us for an hour and learn about this wonderful book, which truly is a Gift!

Listener Reflection Worksheet — The Gift by Edith Eva Eger

Before You Listen — Emotional Check-In

Right now I feel (circle or note what fits): Overwhelmed • Numb • Hopeful • Anxious • Tired • Curious •

Other: ____________

Part 1 — Psychological Prisons

Which emotional patterns feel familiar right now? Fear of change • Self-criticism • Avoidance • Feeling

stuck in the past • Perfectionism • People pleasing • Other: ____________

What might this pattern be protecting you from feeling?

______________________________________________

______________________________________________

______________________________________________

Part 2 — Choice & Agency

One small choice available to me right now is:

______________________________________________

______________________________________________

What makes this choice difficult?

______________________________________________

______________________________________________

Part 3 — Identity Beyond Survival

I learned to survive by being:

______________________________________________

Today, I might also allow myself to be:

______________________________________________

Part 4 — Self-Compassion PracticeSomething I often say to myself when struggling:

______________________________________________

Rewrite this as if speaking to a close friend:

______________________________________________

What do you notice emotionally?

______________________________________________

Part 5 — Living With Grief or Difficulty

What am I still carrying?

______________________________________________

______________________________________________

What helps me carry it more gently?

______________________________________________

______________________________________________

Integration Reflection

One idea that stayed with me:

______________________________________________

One feeling that surfaced:

______________________________________________

One small action I want to try this week:

______________________________________________

Healing is not becoming someone new. It is learning how to live more freely as yoursel

Have you ever felt overwhelmed by things and behaviors in your life that no longer serve you? What would it be like to take time to curate your belongings and not buy anything unnecessary for a year? Join us as we discuss The year of less: how I stopped shopping, gave away my belongings, and discovered life is worth more than anything you can buy in a store by Cait Flanders

LISTENER WORKSHEET

—

THE YEAR OF LESS

Use while listening or as a post-episode reflection.

1. First Impressions

What stood out most to you from this conversation?

2. Your Relationship With Spending

When do you notice you spend the most?

☐ When stressed

☐ When bored

☐ When lonely

☐ When celebrating

☐ Other: __________________

3. Emotional Spending Check

What feelings tend to drive your purchases?

What do you hope the purchase will give you?

4. Attachment to Possessions

Is there an item you keep even though you don’t use it?

What does it represent emotionally?

5. Enoughness Reflection

Complete the sentences:

I feel like I have enough when…

I feel scarcity when…

6. Space + Time Inventory

If you spent less time shopping, scrolling, or comparing…

I would have more time for:

I might feel:

7. Gentle Experiment

Choose one:

☐ 7-Day No-Buy

☐ 30-Day No-Buy

☐ Unsubscribe from marketing emails☐ Declutter one drawer

☐ Track emotional spending triggers

What is your intention?

8. Closing Reflection

What is one area of “less” that might create more peace in yo