Episode 145: Today's episode is the third of a three-part series on research design (and the second of a two-part series on Experimental Research Design) with Dr. Bruce Thyer, Distinguished Research Professor and former Dean with the College of Social Work at Florida State University. In today's episode, Dr. Thyer unpacks how social work practitioners can think about experimental research design. We explore why you don't need to be embarrassed if you find experiments intimidating, but why critic...
Jul 07, 2025•19 min
Episode 144: In today's episode, I spoke with Dr. Bruce Thyer, Distinguished Research Professor, former Dean with the College of Social Work at Florida State University, founding and current editor of the journal Research on Social Work Practice, and author of the 2023 Columbia University Press text Experimental Research Designs in Social Work: Theory and Application. Today’s episode is the first of a two-part series about experimental research designs—what they are, why they matter, and how soc...
Jul 01, 2025•22 min
Episode 143: In today's episode, I spoke with Dr. Bruce Thyer, is Distinguished Research Professor and former Dean with the College of Social Work at Florida State University about Single System Design. We start our conversation diving into why social workers should know about single system design, its core components, and the kinds of measures and assessments that work best and where to find them. We discuss real-world examples, the nuances of designs like AB, ABC, and beyond, and how to use si...
Jan 13, 2025•33 min
Episode 142: In today's episode, I spoke with sociologist, Anna S. Mueller, PhD. Luther Dana Waterman Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology and the Senior Research Program Leader of the Mental Illness, Suicide, and Addiction Section of the Irsay Institute at Indiana University. Anna and I spoke about why Anna and her colleague, Seth Abrutyn, looked at the social roots of youth suicide at Poplar Grove, the social factors that they found contributed to youth suicide contagion and clus...
Dec 30, 2024•30 min
Episode 141: In today's episode I speak with Jessi Gold, MD about her 2024 book, How Do You Feel? One Doctor's Search for Humanity in Medicine, a powerful, honest, and often funny exploration of mental health and well-being, both in and outside of healthcare. Today's conversation covers the importance of vulnerability and storytelling in addressing mental health stigma; practical tips for healthcare providers to prioritize their own mental well-being; and wow societal expectations around medicin...
Dec 16, 2024•42 min
Episode 140: In today's episode I talk with David Lay Williams, Professor of Political Science at DePaul University about his 2024 book, The Greatest of All Plagues: How Economic Inequality Shaped Political Thought from Plato to Marx. Today's conversation will provide you with a deeper understanding of the historical roots of economic inequality, insights into the ethical, social, and political implications of economic disparities, exposure to various philosophical arguments and proposed solutio...
Nov 25, 2024•52 min
Episode 139: In today's episode, I speak with Tia Dole, PhD, Chief 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline Officer, about updates to 988. We talk about how 988 provides services to Deaf and hard of hearing people, crisis support in Spanish, and the September 17, 2024 launch of geo-routing for T-Mobile and Verizon customers. We talk about how geo-routing is different than geo-location, and what people should know about contacting 988 in a suicidal crisis. You can read a transcript of today's interview at...
Sep 19, 2024•9 min
Episode 138: In today's episode of the Social Work Podcast, I speak with Dr. Patricia Gianotti, author of the book, Embracing Therapeutic Complexity, and Academic Director of The Institute for Advanced Psychotherapy at Loyola University Chicago. Patricia and I speak about the neurobiology of shame, why depth work is important, and how to think about human complexity in a therapeutic context. She emphasizes the impact of attachment failures on a person's sense of self and the role of shame in the...
Jun 06, 2024•41 min
Episode 137: In today's Social Work Podcast, I speak with ChatGPT-4o about the role of AI in child welfare and community organizing and how we can use Bronfenbrenner's ecosystems framework and an antiracist perspective. That's right. I'm interviewing OpenAI's LLM, ChatGPT-4o. This is the first time I've interviewed a chatbot. I'd love to hear your thoughts about the interview. Please text me or leave a voicemail for me at (215) 948-2456. If you leave a voicemail, please let me know if you're ok ...
May 23, 2024•31 min
Episode 136: In today's Social Work Podcast, we speak with Allan Cole about his experiences with Young-Onset Parkinson's Disease. Parkinson's Disease affects nearly 1 million people in the United States and more than 6 million people worldwide. It is a a progressive neurological disorder that primarily affects movement. I spoke with Allan Cole, a person who lives with Young-Onset Parkinson's Disease. He also serves as the Dean of the Steve Hicks School of Social Work at the University of Texas a...
May 01, 2024•46 min
I am humbled and honored to let you know that I have been selected as one of 25 Social Work Pioneers for starting the first podcast by and for social workers. The NASW Social Work Pioneers program celebrates some of the most influential social workers in the nation. There is no way I would have been considered for this prestigious honor had it not been for you, the long time devoted listeners of the social work podcast. You have welcomed me into your morning and evening commutes, bus rides to cl...
Jul 17, 2023•4 min
Episode 135: Today's episode is the second of a two-part series with Lisa Damour about her 2023 book, The Emotional Lives of Teenagers: Raising Connected, Capable, and Compassionate Adolescents. In today’s episode we talk about how decades of research on the gender binary can provide insight into the emotional lives of adolescents across the gender spectrum. We talk about intersection of race and gender. We end our conversation talking about how it is important to help teens express their emotio...
Apr 05, 2023•35 min
Episode 134: Today's episode is the first of a two-part series with Lisa Damour about her 2023 book, The Emotional Lives of Teenagers: Raising Connected, Capable, and Compassionate Adolescents. In today’s episode we talk about the difference between adolescent distress and adolescent mental illness, how the COVID-19 pandemic made it more difficult for parents to distinguish between normative adolescent distress or pandemic-related mental health concerns. She talks about the most destructive myth...
Feb 21, 2023•32 min
Episode 133: In today's interview, NASW-IL Executive Director, Joel Rubin, and I talk about the legislative process that NASW-IL went through to eliminate the requirement that BSW and MSW graduates from accredited social work programs in Illinois had to take the ASWB licensing exam in order to get their LSW. Joel shares the story about how and why the legislation changed. We talked about how the legislative process works, from connecting with other social workers online about pressing issues, to...
Feb 14, 2023•28 min
Episode 132: In today's interview, Stacey and I talk about how she drew on her personal and professional experiences to write a book for families, friends and parents of someone who is suicidal. She talks about why and how families can create support teams, when and why it might not be appropriate to reach out to others, and how to navigate reaching out even when the suicidal person doesn't want you to. We talked about how to find support on social networks like Facebook. She talks about how fri...
Dec 25, 2022•33 min
Episode 131: In today's episode, I speak with Scott Miller, Ph.D. about how we can use feedback to improve client outcomes. Scott is one of the developers of Feedback Informed Treatment, or FIT - an "empirically supported, pantheoretical approach for evaluating and improving the quality and effectiveness of behavioral health services. It involves routinely and formally soliciting feedback from clients regarding the therapeutic alliance," client outcomes, and using that information to improve ser...
Dec 17, 2021•49 min
Episode 130: Today’s episode is about the 2021 revision of the NASW Code of Ethics to include self-care and cultural humility. To unpack these two new additions, I spoke with Allan Barsky, Professor of Social Work at Florida Atlantic University and former Chair of the National Ethics Committee of the National Association of Social Workers. You can read a transcript of today's interview at https://www.socialworker.com/feature-articles/technology-articles/power-podcasting-social-work-education/. L...
May 26, 2021•34 min
Episode 129: Today's episode is about the Power of Podcasting in Social Work Education. Shimon Cohen, founder and host of Doin' The Work: Frontlines of Social Change, and I read the article we wrote for New Social Worker Magazine about podcasting for social work education You can read a transcript of today's interview at https://www.socialworker.com/feature-articles/technology-articles/power-podcasting-social-work-education/. Listen to Shimon's podcast at https://dointhework.podbean.com/. You ca...
Jan 16, 2021•40 min
Episode 128: Today's episode of the Social Work Podcast is a conversation with Dr. Holly Oxhandler (https://hollyoxhandler.com/). I speak with Holly about the definitions of religion and spirituality, similarities and differences in religious and spiritual affiliation between social work professionals and their clients, how to address religion and spirituality in practice, and her experience as the co-host of the CXMH podcast (https://www.CXMHpodcast.com). You can read a transcript of today's in...
Aug 22, 2020•45 min
Episode 127:Today's episode is the audio recording of a Facebook Live discussion that happened on Tuesday, July 14, 2020 called Both/And or Either/Or: Social Work and Policing. My guests were Alan Dettlaff, Laura Abrams, Charles E. Lewis, Jr., and Terry Mizrahi. You can read a transcript of today's interview at https://www.socialworkpodcast.com. You can connect with other social workers at the Social Work Podcast Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/swpodcast, or follow the Twitter feed at h...
Jul 19, 2020•1 hr 1 min
Episode 126:In today's episode of the Social Work Podcast I speak with Carol Tosone, Ph.D., Professor of Social Work and Director, DSW Program in Clinical Social Work at NYU's Silver School of Social Work. In today's episode we talked about how the concept of shared trauma can help us to understand what's going on in a global pandemic, how we can think about the role of technology-mediated services, and what social workers can do to care for themselves while caring for others. You can read a tra...
May 09, 2020•22 min
One of the solutions to the COVID-19 pandemic is physical distancing. Because there is a relationship between physical and social distancing, I am rebroadcasting Episode 70 from 2011 which deals with loneliness. I hope you enjoy. Today’s episode of the Social Work Podcast is about loneliness. According to my guest, Thomas Joiner, the Robert O. Lawton Distinguished Professor of Psychology at Florida State University, loneliness might be at the heart of one of the most perplexing contemporary publ...
Mar 26, 2020•36 min
Episode 125: In today's social work podcast, I speak with three men on a mission to prevent suicide. Matt Runnells, Kevin Hines, and Greg Van Borssum shared their stories of managing suicidal thoughts, self-care, caring for others, and building a global network of support for suicide prevention. I spoke with Matt, Kevin and Greg at the American Association of Suicidology annual conference in April 2018. These three guys were so pumped up about suicide prevention, so full of inspirational quotes ...
Sep 10, 2019•27 min
[Rebroadcast] Episode 24: In today's podcast I talked with Chris Wolf about Sex Addiction. Sex addiction has been defined as "engaging in persistent and escalating patterns of sexual behavior despite increasingly negative consequences to self and others" (Ewald, 2003). Chris is a licensed marriage and family therapist and a certified sex addiction counselor. She received her masters in counseling psychology from the University of Pennsylvania, and trained with pioneering sex addictions researche...
Sep 01, 2019•34 min
Episode 124: Today’s episode is Today's episode of the Social Work Podcast is an interview with Lori Gottlieb - NY Times best-selling author, advice columnist for The Atlantic, and therapist. We talked about how her experience as a writer influences her work as a therapist, and how her therapy informs her writing. We talked about how she takes a client’s story out of the therapy room and turns it into something that therapists can appreciate, and non-therapists can get excited about. Lori reads ...
Apr 23, 2019•41 min
Episode 123: Today’s episode is the second of a two-part conversation with Dr. Lisa Damour, author of the 2019 book Under Pressure. In today's episode we talk about rape culture; the problem with the word "consent"; and how society's criticisms of the way girls speak is really just another way of criticizing girls. In Part 1, Lisa and I talk about the difference between stress, anxiety and trauma; what "good" and "bad" pressure look like; and how schools, parents, and providers can think about p...
Feb 19, 2019•28 min
Episode 122: Today's episode of the Social Work Podcast is the first of a two part-series about Dr. Lisa Damour's 2019 text Under Pressure. In today’s episode we talk about the difference between stress, anxiety and trauma; what "good" and "bad" pressure look like; how schools, parents, and providers can think about pressure. In part two we move the conversation into issues of rape culture and how society criticizes the way girls speak as a cover for criticizing girls. You can connect with other...
Feb 12, 2019•34 min
Episode 121: In today's episode of the Social Work Podcast, I speak with Dr. Darlyne Bailey and Dr. Terry Mizrahi about the Special Commission on Macro Practice. We talk about how their social work experiences led them to co-chairing the Special Commission, the relationship between case and cause, moment and movement, and process and product. We talked about the false dichotomy between micro and macro practice, and that there is nothing wrong with focusing your energies on one or the other. We e...
Dec 11, 2018•50 min
Episode 120: Today's episode of the Social Work Podcast is an interview with Marion Bogo and Toula Kourgiantakis from the University of Toronto Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work. We talk about how simulation can be used to teach holistic competence. Marion and Toula talk about how in the late 2000s, they recognized that there were several problems with the existing model of teaching students practice skills. Their solution was to simulate real-world problems so that students could practice...
May 09, 2018•29 min
Episode 119: Today's episode of the Social Work Podcast is an interview with Stacey Freedenthal, Ph.D., LCSW about her book, Helping the Suicidal Person: Tips and Techniques for Professionals. we talk about five tips: Tip #10 - Embrace a Narrative Approach: "Suicidal Storytelling" Tip #35 - Know When and Why to (and not to) Pursue Hospitalization Tip #36 - Know Why not to Pursue Hospitalization Tip #64 - Incorporate a Hope Kit Tip #88 - Propose a Letter to the Suicidal Self You can connect with ...
Apr 16, 2018•32 min
