Between Us: A Psychotherapy Podcast

Three men at three stages in life. Three different manifestations of bipolar disorder. Often consisting of manic episodes, delusions of grandeur, and days without sleeping, bipolar disorder is a widely misunderstood illness that sci-fi legend Carrie Fisher spent much of her days demythologizing. In the first episode of our two-part interview, three men who volunteer for the National Alliance on Mental Illness sit down with John Totten to describe the onset of their mental illness and how they began to cope with bipolar disorder in a world that didn’t often understand. Season Two of Between Us is sponsored by MetaFi, a free download on iOS and Android. Contact: betweenuspodcast@gmail.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/betweenuspodcast/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/BetweenUsPod Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/betweenuspod/

Poet Molly Peacock had a relationship with her psychoanalyst for forty years, even after her analyst had a career-ending stroke in 2012. Molly’s new collection, titled The Analyst, is inspired by the relationship she describes as “Oliver Sacksian” in reference to the renowned neurologist who, himself, was a patient for five decades. Is psychotherapy a treatment that should be ended like a course of antibiotics? Molly sits down with John to share her unique experience of long-term psychotherapy, and in the epilogue, professor Paul Jaussen discusses the intersection of poetry and psychoanalysis. Season Two of Between Us is sponsored by MetaFi, a free download on iOS and Android. Contact: betweenuspodcast@gmail.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/betweenuspodcast/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/BetweenUsPod Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/betweenuspod/

It is one of our premises for this show that the work of healing in a relational context is countercultural. On this episode, Roy Barsness, a professor and psychologist, sits down with John Totten to discuss his new book, Core Competencies of Relational Psychoanalysis. In the qualitative study that formed the foundation for his work, Roy found a particular way of being in relationship that included radical healing through genuine encounter and ultimately, love. Season Two of Between Us is sponsored by MetaFi, a free download on iOS and Android. Contact: betweenuspodcast@gmail.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/betweenuspodcast/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/BetweenUsPod Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/betweenuspod/

Does music have a real effect on our emotional health? Do the songs that speak to us actually speak to us? Jason Dodson is the singer and songwriter for the band The Maldives. Their new album, Mad Lives, was written as a therapeutic process in response to a fracture in Jason’s life. In this discussion, he tells us about that process and his own mental health journey, including his struggles with anxiety and dissociative tendencies. And John reveals the classic rock song he listens to for affect regulation. Season Two of Between Us is sponsored by MetaFi, a free download on iOS and Android. Contact: betweenuspodcast@gmail.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/betweenuspodcast/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/BetweenUsPod Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/betweenuspod/

Psychoanalysis has not been a field that is particularly progressive in its deconstruction of prescriptive gender roles. The feminist presence that exists today had to be forged. Our guest, Sally Bjorklund, is an alumni of that feminist movement. She has a keen sense of her own outsiderness, from her childhood as an adopted tomboy in the evangelical midwest of the 1960s, to finding her path as a psychoanalyst thirty years ago. Sally and our host, John Totten, discuss her experience of being outside- within a family, within a culture, within a profession- and how it influences her to work with patients who have schizoid tendencies. Season Two of Between Us is sponsored by MetaFi, a free download on iOS and Android. Contact: betweenuspodcast@gmail.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/betweenuspodcast/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/BetweenUsPod Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/betweenuspod/

For our premiere of Season Two, we attempt to get topical. What happens next in healthcare? Is our mental health coverage in jeopardy? Professor Aaron Katz teaches health policy at the University of Washington. He has a knack for explaining complex policy in layman terms. Aaron sat down with our host, John Totten, to discuss the Affordable Care Act, what it does, why some people like it, and why some people don’t. Season Two of Between Us is sponsored by MetaFi, a free download on iOS and Android. Contact: betweenuspodcast@gmail.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/betweenuspodcast/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/BetweenUsPod Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/betweenuspod/

For the finale of our first season, we are joined by renowned psychoanalyst and philosopher, Dr. Robert Stolorow. Dr. Stolorow’s writing on intersubjectivity and emotional trauma has shaped the field of psychotherapy for forty years. In this conversation, our host John Totten and Dr. Stolorow discuss a wide range of topics- from his own experience of emotional trauma after losing his wife, to the role of delusion in American narcissism, and even how Harry Potter has helped shaped his concepts. Perhaps most notably, Dr. Stolorow makes his case for integration, especially of our own existential vulnerability. Contact: betweenuspodcast@gmail.com

Jonathan Merker took part in so-called "gay conversion" ministries as a young college student. In this episode, we continue our three episode arc on culture and trauma as we discuss his journey out of a harmful religious culture and into his own career as a therapist, much in part due to the help of his own subversive counselor. Contact: betweenuspodcast@gmail.com

To close our first season, we begin a three episode series on cultural trauma. Jennifer Henderson is a therapist who has worked in the trenches of traumatized communities, all while having her own family history of suffering due to racism and police violence. In this episode, we discuss the ubiquity of systemic racism, transgenerational trauma, and the effect it has on her as a therapist and a mother. Contact: betweenuspodcast@gmail.com

Dr. Heide Island is a researcher and professor of psychology at Pacific University. Her research on neurochemicals and their relationship to temperament has been used by dating services to understand attachment and companionship. In this episode, she discusses the anticipatory effect of dopamine, the neuroscience of attachment, and how change happens. Contact us at betweenuspodcast@gmail.com