Season 4, Episode 5

Today’s Guests: Tracy Sondern is a therapist and creator of the group Ageism and the Creative Professional. She spent over 30 years working in the world of fashion, celebrity and advertising photography in both New York and Los Angeles. Much of that time was spent as the creative partner to her husband, a successful photographer. Her interest in therapy for creatives stems from supporting her husband through the emotional ups and downs of the business, through several reinventions, and helping him stay creatively alive. 

Alyce Waxman is currently training for licensure as a Marriage and Family Therapist and Professional Clinical Counselor at Southern California Counseling Center, where she sees individuals as well as run two groups: Ageism and the Creative Professional and the Relational and Support Group. She is earning her master's degree at Antioch University in Los Angeles and also holds degrees in art history from Carleton College in Minnesota and graphic design from Parsons in New York City. Prior to training to become a therapist, she had a 25-year career as a creative director for brands. Alyce is interested in working with the creative population as well as work that is collaborative and relational. As a former creative professional herself, she can relate to the unique needs of a creative.

SHOW TOPICS

• The effects of aging on creatives’ identity and self-worth
• Facing the prevalence of ageism in creative industries
• The power of collaboration and community to inspire and uplift
• Similarities between the creative process and the therapeutic process

Season 4, Episode 4

Today’s Guest: Dr. Reji Mathew is an award-winning intermodal artist, thinker, neuroscience-informed psychotherapist, expressive arts therapist, advocate, and educator. Her therapeutic expressive arts philosophy is grounded in the narratology-narrative therapy lens. Her understanding of a person begins in the context of time, place, and culture. This intersects with a commitment to understanding people's complex identities, including class, culture, location, gender, race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, and accessibility. She is an arts reporter for Disastershock.com, a humanitarian psychological first aid organization. In this activism series, she interviews global innovative expressive arts advocates on the power of the arts in healing and restoring communities in the aftermath of trauma. She is also an arts accessibility advocate and partners with Anti-Racist Art Teachers (ARAT) and the Rockland Conservatory of Music (RCM). 

​SHOW TOPICS

• Finding a lifelong allyship with the arts integration for physical and mental health & resilience.
• Breaking down what thinking and living intermodally is to help clients better cultivate their expressive range and process complex emotions
• Using the power of therapeutic play to bring clients into the here-and-now
• Advocating for inclusion and accessibility paths toward the arts

Season 4, Episode 3

Today’s Guest: Dr. Kirsten Ramey, or "Doc," as her clients refer to her, is a board-certified telemental health provider. With a background in entertainment, she used Frank Sinatra's famous line, "If I can make it there, I can make it anywhere," to influence her choice for her grad school internship placement with the department of corrections. Although Dr. Ramey has worked within the community, in the department of juvenile justice, in private practice and in academic settings, her most enjoyable work has been with creative folx. As a mother of five, one of whom is a former Broadway star, Doc uses a creative approach to help clients rewrite their own stories.
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SHOW TOPICS

• The connection between filmmaking and therapy, and how Dr. Ramey’s transition between the two made perfect sense
• The concept of bringing everything we are and everything we are not into a client relationship
• Seeing things your client may not be aware of, like an audience often does with characters in a story, and allowing your client to reach their own “aha” moment at the right time

Season 4, Episode 2

Today’s Guest: Ruby Rose Fox is multi-award-winning musical artist who charted #8 on the Heatseeker Billboard charts, has over 2 million Spotify plays, and has music featured in the game Rock Band. Over the past 4 years, Ruby has become a mental health pioneer, starting with her nervous system state-shifting class for performers, based on cutting-edge research by Dr. Stephen Porges, and then with MuscleMusic, the #1 trauma-informed app for artists. Ruby has an Acting BFA from Emerson College and studied jazz and classical singing at both New England Conservatory and Berklee College of Music. She was trained in polyvagal theory from the Polyvagal Institute by Deb Dana. She is also trained in Linklater technique, Alexander Technique, and Qi Gong. She has also coined her own performance training method, The Fox Method, which combines Integral Theory, Polyvagal Theory, and decades of experience on the stage.

SHOW TOPICS

• Peeling back layers of generational shame around mental health
• Bringing polyvagal theory, the science of safety, to the performance art industry
• Is it worth it to suffer for the sake of art? 
• How our relationship with creativity changes once it becomes a job

Season 4, Episode 1

Today’s Guest: Eric Tivers is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and coach who lives in the northern suburbs of Chicago. He is the Founder and CEO of ADHD reWired. Since 2014, he has produced over 500 podcast episodes. Eric has become known for his innovative online group coaching and community programs, Eric's coaching and accountability groups have received international recognition. In 2021, he launched Adult Study Hall, a virtual coworking community for adults with ADHD. Eric holds bachelor's and master's degrees in Social Work. He is a father to a neurodivergent 12-year old. He identifies as bisexual and has recently started taking steps to bring more visibility and decrease stigma for bisexual men. He’s a self-taught musician, live-music enthusiast, and has seen the band Phish over 50 times. He enjoys motorcycle rides, pickleball, ping pong, and frisbee golf in his free time.

SHOW TOPICS

• Leaning into limits, routines, and accommodations as fuel and support for creativity
• Pushing for doctors to truly understand what ADHD is, what its effects are, and how it can be treated
• The downsides of the “superpower” language around ADHD
• Questioning some myths around medication

Season 3, Episode 10

Today’s Guest: Connie Glenn, LMFT, is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist in private practice in Solana Beach, California. She specializes in trauma and EMDR and is an EMDRIA Approved EMDR consultant. She also trains and works with psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy, including ketamine and clinical trials for psilocybin and 5-MeO-DMT.
 
SHOW TOPICS

• Breaking down the different types of psychedelics currently used in therapy and clinical trials
• Mystical experiences and striving for a feeling of awe
• The stages of psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy
• Working with psychedelics at the intersection of clinical psychology and shamanic practice​

Season 3, Episode 9

Today’s Guest: Dr. Kimberly Dwyer, PhD, is a licensed clinical psychologist in suburban Denver, Colorado, and provides telehealth throughout Colorado and other PsyPact states.  She excels at empowering her clients to manage stress and anxiety. Dr. Dwyer works primarily from mindfulness-based cognitive-behavioral perspectives, including MB-CBT and ACT. She also works with mental health providers and similar helpers/healers in private practice to launch, build, and refine their businesses through coaching and consultation services.  
 
Dr. Dwyer’s book credits include Mindful Mondays: Transforming the Everyday to Claim Calm and Decrease Stress, the companion Mindful Mondays Journal, Intentional Private Practice Workbook, and Rocky's Christmas Journey, a children's book with themes of individuation and separation that includes a caregiver talking-point guide. 
 
When she's not at work, you might find her enjoying the beautiful Colorado outdoors with her husband and three children, playing with her dogs and foster dogs, or with a paintbrush in hand.

SHOW TOPICS

• The human drive to tell stories and the power of stories across mediums to connect, inspire, and heal
• The creativity of applying your therapeutic knowledge to each client as a unique individual
• The ways that laughter shows up in therapy

Season 3, Episode 8

Today’s Guest: Jon Steele, LMFT, specializes in the treatment of anxiety, trauma, and grief for athletes and professionals. He runs and operates his own private practice, Jon Steele Therapy. He considers himself an active sports enthusiast and also enjoys the outdoors. He is an avid learner and is currently focused on practicing meditation and grounding. 
 
​SHOW TOPICS

• How both artists and athletes face the challenge of the inner critic
• Breaking down and addressing feelings of shame, guilt, and regret
• Shifting our inner dialogue from self-criticism to self-compassion

Today’s Guest: Blanca Lucia Bergman is the founder of Mental Wellness for Artists (MWA), a community group of San Diego artists, mental health advocates, and arts leaders. She is also the founder of a local arts business, Art Unites, and co-lead vocalist in the band Poised In The Darkness.

​SHOW TOPICS

• Meeting artists where they’re at with mental health resources
• The role that a lack of affordable housing plays in mental health and the ability for artists to live in major US cities
• The importance of community for mental health, especially for artists

Season 3, Episode 6

Today’s Guest: Katy MacRae, LCSW, is a psychotherapist based in New Haven, CT.  She has been working in private practice for over a decade, and she also works for the psychiatry department at Yale New Haven Hospital. Katy focuses on using artmaking and creativity to help people learn and remember DBT and CBT skills.  

SHOW TOPICS

• How art-making can help clients remember DBT and CBT skills
• What do you do with all of the art your clients create in therapy sessions? What about your own creations?
• Cultivating a private practice that sustains us as therapists