In this episode I speak to three guests with their own perspectives on how diagnosis relates to the social context we find ourselves in. Many people consider a diagnosis from a mental health professional as "true", but they have changed over time with some diagnoses being struck off the lists as no longer valid, and new ones being created or nuanced to give a better experience to those receiving them. The discussion intends to ask whether they're useful, if so how, and how much is this just society putting parameters on what it considers acceptable or not.

Today's episode is a further talk about Internal Family Systems and how it works further into the process when the work has been done and the system has been unburdened - the point of what we call Self leadership. What does this look like? How does life work when we achieve this? What does it feel like to embody this? Find out in this episode.

My guest today is someone I've really wanted to have on the podcast for a while - my supervisor Paul Cristelis. In this episode we talk about our thoughts on the different kinds of approaches that exist within therapy, what therapists call modalities. Due to some of these being older than others there has formed a sort of conservative vs new wave spectrum between the different approaches and Paul and I explore and discuss this.

Today we talk about the space that exists between what is safe, and what is dangerous: the brave space. This is where learning, growth and development happen, and if we can enter it we can challenge ourselves to new things that lead us to places we haven't gone before.

This week’s episode is an interview with a psychologist and author called Dr David Ley. His work centres a lot around the field of sexual disorder and compulsion, and in his book “The myth of sex addiction” he took a stand against the sex addiction therapy industry and their proponents. This hasn’t made him popular, but as someone who is sceptical themselves of this area of work with people I wanted to have him on the podcast and talk about what prompted this work and what we can do to help people with issues around sex without resorting to pathologising their behaviour.

What is bad therapy?

Therapy is not supposed to be forever, it’s to help someone who has come to a place where they realise they need help and that things aren’t okay, to a place where they are eager to go out and live their life taking what they have learnt about themselves from the process. I look forward to the day with each client where I can set them free to fly away again.

In my episode today I welcome author and graphic artist Kevin Siembieda - the creator and main writer of Palladium games books - where we discuss his work and how it impacted me as a child, and what we can learn from stories about ourselves (including trauma and healing).

This week I continue my theme of understanding context and resources introduced in episode 7, and after having examined internal resources in episode 8 now turn to external resources.

In this week's episode we talk about the crucial foundational stage of wellness, having security in our own lives. Without this the rest of our wellness is almost impossible to put into order. I talk about how lack of security hurts our wellbeing and how important it is to acknowledge its necessity in our wellbeing growth.

Today I talk about the importance of understanding one's spirit and connecting to it in order to find meaning as part of a happy and well existence. Without spirit, there is not meaningful purpose, and we can become empty and hollow wondering what the point of anything is. I talk about how this can impact us, the negative impact of lack of connection to spirit, and how we can build it in order to have richer and more meaningful lives.

In this episode I talk about the importance of connection to other people as a vital component of our wellbeing, how loneliness can tangibly affect our ability to function and thrive, and the roots of this in our human condition.

This week we discuss the role the mind plays in wellness - spoilers: it’s a big part of it. Learn about the lenses and hall of mirrors we live within, and the hope for change that therapy can give us.

EXCERPT

Understanding body wellness

In this episode we talk about the five areas of wellness and the internal dimension of them, and how we can create more resources inside of us to deal with the challenges of both our external and internal needs. The model is linked below.

What is the situation you live in like? Is it okay for you, or is it difficult? Do you have the things you need to manage in your situation? Can you handle the challenges of every day with what you have, or do you sometimes fall short of that? How about long-term? Are you finding that it’s hard to cope daily? Today I talk about the idea of our needs and wants as the context we exist in, and what we have available to us within us and externally in our lives as the resources we need to deal with it. Not every day is the same, sometimes we’re coping and sometimes we’re not. Learn more about this in today’s episode.

We don’t need to compare suffering, we need to accept it

A podcast about the modality of internal family systems therapy (IFS), how it works, and why I am such a great proponent of it as a way to heal trauma and change our internal worlds.