The Connection with Marty Moss-Coane

Eamon Dolan severed his relationship with his abusive mother when he was in his 40s. He had endured her physical and psychological violence as a child and later her emotional cruelty as an adult. He had tried to lay down some ground rules to prevent her from hurting him, but she broke them all so he broke off all contact. On this week’s episode, Eamon Dolan tells us what it took to cut ties with his mother. His new book, The Power of Parting, is about how child abuse undermined him well into his adulthood and how estrangement, while difficult, set him free. He says that society is overly protective of the family as the ideal unit, putting too many abused children at risk for a life of psychological pain and physical ailments. He argues that the mental health community over-values connection when disconnection is the right thing to do.

A new book, Talk: The Science of Conversation and the Art of Being Ourselves, reveals the hidden architecture of good conversation and how we can become better communicators.

There are songs that can transport us to memorable moments from our past, especially from our adolescence. Those memories are often vivid, conjuring up intense feelings about a first love, a broken heart, a shared experience with friends. Music, even just a few notes, has a way of unlocking forgotten events and relationships, creating a soundtrack for our lives. Our guest this week is Elizabeth Margulis, director of The Music Cognition Lab at Princeton University. She joins us to discuss why music can transport us and connect us to others, how different cultures shape our taste in music, and how melodies affect our mood. We’ll also talk about why some tunes can get stuck in our head, why repetition is central to music, where music is stored in the brain, and how music can unlock language for people with aphasia.

Slavery in America ripped a million Black families apart as they were sold, and often resold in the years leading up to the Civil War. After emancipation, desperate mothers, fathers and children placed advertisements in and wrote letters to newspapers looking for their lost loved ones. Many of their searches continued for decades, into the 20th century. Judith Giesberg has created a digital archive of the ads and letters and highlighted ten of these personal stories in her new book, Last Seen. They are an inspiring testament to the power of family and freedom and cruel realities of slavery. This week, the lost and found legacy of family separation. Judith Giesberg is a professor of history at Villanova University. Also joining us is Adrienne Whaley, an educator and genealogist.

We all have something in common: we’re going to die one day. It’s a scary thing to think about, much less talk about. But Alua Arthur thinks about and talks about death a lot. She is an end-of-life doula, helping people find some semblance of peace as they go through the dying process. Years ago, when Arthur was deeply depressed, she met a woman on a bus in Cuba who had cancer and was traveling the world before she died. Their personal conversations helped bring Alua back to life and set her on this career path. Her book, Briefly Perfectly Human: Making an Authentic Life by Getting Real About the End, is part memoir, and full of moving stories about what people want when they are dying. The organization she founded, Going with Grace, provides end of life planning, training, and support.

Stress, exhaustion and negativity can lead to workplace burnout. Kandi Wiens explains how to reset your relationship with work.

Jennifer Finney Boylan reflects on her life as a transgender women and the ongoing fight for acceptance and rights.

Psychologist Ethan Kross explains how to master your emotional life.

Psychology professor Tessa West on why job satisfaction doesn’t mean you have to love for your work. Her new book is “Job Therapy: Finding Work that Works for You.”

It’s not easy to say no or to speak up if you disagree with someone or object to something that someone has said or done because it’s wrong. It often feels easier to just comply, to go along to get along, to defer especially when dealing with people in power. Organizational psychologist Sunita Sah says we pay a big emotional price when we do things against our better judgement. Dr. Sah was a self described “good girl” growing up and has spent her professional life studying defiance, ethics, advice and authority. In her new book, Defy, she writes that defiance is not always about rudeness or disobedience, rather “it’s about acting in accordance with your values when faced with the pressure to do otherwise.” Of course that means knowing what your values are. On The Connection this week: when defiance is better than compliance…how to speak up when it matters.