As a child of Palestinian parents displaced to Beirut, Karim Dajani became interested in psychoanalysis at a young age. These days, he’s justifiably interested in the field’s own exiles, particularly Trigant Burrow, who theorized as early as the 1920’s that the unconscious is structured in concordance with the social world, only to be expelled from the APA shortly thereafter. Dajani explains how the field has time and time again, invested in the erasure of the social unconscious, in a misguided ...
Jun 25, 2025•59 min
This week, we continue our conversation with Eyal Rozmarin. If belonging is a powerful force compelling us to identify with groups, it follows that our collectives must imprint themselves on the foundation of our very subjectivity. Drawing on the work of Foucault and Giorgio Agamben, Rozmarin paints a portrait of personhood that is always in conflict between the warm acceptance of the State, and the terror of being cast out into the wilderness as bare life. But what if we were to transcend the S...
Jun 11, 2025•1 hr 1 min
In the premiere of season six, psychoanalyst Eyal Rozmarin joins our host John Totten to discuss the constitutive power of belonging. A native of Israel-Palestine, and an objector to his compulsory military service, Eyal has a unique take on the respective costs of belonging and its counterpart abandonment. From Oedipus to the superego, Freud is subverted here; Rozmarin posits it is not that society protects us from our own nature, but that belonging turns us into killers. Is it possible that ou...
May 28, 2025•1 hr 9 min
Orna Guralnik joins host John Totten in our season finale. When John discovered Orna’s show, Couples Therapy, it was a breath of fresh air as depictions of psychotherapy in media go. However, Orna’s presence as a protagonist who is not the main character raises all sorts of questions about disclosure and authority; the line between anonymity and transparency is curious territory for a televised analyst. Orna discusses with John her commitment to transference and the paradoxical places where her ...
Aug 07, 2024•1 hr 24 min
Avgi Saketopoulou’s work challenges our notions about trauma and much more. Her concept of traumatophilia asks us to consider not what we do about our trauma but what we do with our trauma. These theories are profoundly disruptive to our therapeutic sensibilities- the value we place on safety and the import of language. Favoring Freud’s earlier, frenzied model of sexuality, Avgi draws connections from the erotic to the violent, providing a framework for understanding sadisms and the horrors happ...
Jul 24, 2024•1 hr 25 min
Donna Orange is a foundational figure in the world of intersubjective psychoanalysis. A philosopher-practitioner who carved out her niche as the radical ethicist of the field, she discovered the work of Emmanuel Levinas to provide an alternative to mutuality. His description of the hierarchy of intersubjective space, in which the Other is always primary, became integral to her progressive ethos. As John and Mason explore the limits of symmetry and the Zionism of their favorite thinkers, Donna di...
Jul 10, 2024•1 hr 22 min
Lynne Jacobs joins us for our first ever live episode. In 2023, the International Forum for Psychoanalytic Education hosted John in Pasadena to interview Lynne for the conference theme, “…but is it psychoanalytic?” As a therapist with loyalties both in psychoanalysis and gestalt therapy, Lynne has much to say about the use of presence and emotional process in the treatment room. This focus has been particularly useful to her in cross-racial relationships, where she makes the case that it is impo...
Jun 26, 2024•54 min
Steven Kuchuck was taught by classical psychoanalysis that his subjectivity was an artifact to bury. However, through his interest in social responsibility he found a relational revolution, and a promising way for therapists to stay more alive in the room. As a dedicated guardian of the contemporary perspective, he speaks with John about the importance of examining the humanity in all of us, including the darkness that lurks in our dissociated corners and the supposed bad guys we lose when excom...
Jun 12, 2024•1 hr 2 min
Nancy McWilliams is a renowned psychologist with many foundational books to her name. Her work has been particularly groundbreaking to psychoanalytic psychotherapists in reshaping how practitioners all over the world think about diagnosis and personality. In an extensive conversation, she discusses the beginnings of her career, how her personal tragedies appeared in her own analysis, and the faith she has in this iterative process that can withstand change due to its unique capacity for making c...
May 29, 2024•1 hr 5 min
Mick Cooper is a British existentialist who is most interested in how humanistic psychology can play a role in social change. As a leader in pluralistic psychotherapy, he is wary of the monoliths we espouse even down to the most basic concepts that the relationship is curative. In this week’s episode, he discusses how research has made him more open to difference, the influence of Emmanuel Levinas and Martin Buber, and his own development through therapy, ever closer to dancing in the proverbial...
May 15, 2024•49 min
For Kj Swanson, an upbringing in Christian purity culture did not metabolize as trauma. It wasn’t until her queer awakening that she realized just how much it aligned with her identity. As an academic working in theology, Kj has always been interested in the heart of matters. This week, she discusses with John the various ways this commitment to meaning permeates her entire personality, including an emerging language signaling her place apart from compulsory sexuality. Produced by John Totten an...
May 01, 2024•55 min
For our first guest in years, John speaks with his friend Caleb Williams, a fellow psychotherapist in Seattle. Over dinner, they discuss Caleb’s affinity to the British psychoanalyst Neville Symington, their thoughts on narcissism and the neediness of masculinity. Less of an interview and more a study in the relationship of friend/colleague, John and Caleb reminisce about their own camaraderie and make meaning of the current discourse as two oldest brothers grappling with their own ambivalence. ...
Apr 17, 2024•49 min
In the premiere of season five, our host John Totten checks in with co-producer Mason Neely as they reflect on the last season of Between Us, the hiatus that followed, and the boundaries of the therapeutic purview. In a meandering conversation, John and Mason look inward at their own creative and family lives and forward to the upcoming season, a collection of dialogues and reflections that, in spite of an aimless production, emerged as far more thematic than intended. Contact: betweenuspodcast@...
Apr 03, 2024•46 min
In the finale of our fourth season, John discusses therapeutic stance with Dr. Anton Hart who views openness as a key component of healing in the treatment room, especially in regard to societal trauma. Dr. Hart makes the case that foreknowledge is in opposition to curiosity and that curiosity is necessary to introduce new prospects to the therapeutic relationship. As a psychoanalyst, teacher and co-producer of the documentary Black Psychoanalysts Speak, Anton has a unique perspective on the use...
Jun 09, 2021•1 hr 13 min
Carlos Padrón personifies the concept of psychoanalysis as applied philosophy. As a Venezuelan living in New York, he has witnessed both the horrors of the pandemic and the projections of the immigrant experience. Both phenomena challenge our American fantasies of purity and pit us face to face with that which unsettles us as the uncanny takes form. In a broad-ranging interview recorded last summer, Carlos discusses the political potentiality of psychoanalysis, its invitation to new possibilitie...
May 26, 2021•1 hr 5 min
Dr. Jonathan Shedler is dissatisfied. As both a researcher and a practitioner, he is frustrated with the misinformation that permeates the counseling field, much of it promulgated by an academia with little clinical experience. His contrarian voice is best known for his deconstruction of so-called “evidence-based therapy,” its research methods, and his staunch defense of psychodynamic psychotherapy. Since a seminal paper, a decade ago, he has separated himself from the psychological establishmen...
May 12, 2021•1 hr 1 min
As we investigate the role of the therapist-as-citizen, John pauses to interview his own therapist, Lane Gerber, about their relationship and what it means to be useful- useful to our patients, useful to academia, and useful to our interpersonal worlds. Lane describes his experience growing up in a community of Jewish immigrants, what it was like to rebel against his family’s plan for his life, and how he made use of his time learning from renowned theorists Carl Rogers and Heinz Kohut as a youn...
Apr 28, 2021•44 min
This week we continue our conversation with Dr. Medria Connolly and Dr. Bryan Nichols on the psychological case for reparations. From white privilege and its deconstruction to the fantasy of American democracy, Dr. Connolly and Dr. Nichols shed light on some of our more provocative cultural issues, making it clear that we are not living in one America, that we have unfinished business as a society, and that even in their own academic origin stories, the systems in this country are replete with p...
Apr 14, 2021•47 min
Dr. Bryan Nichols and Dr. Medria Connolly had collaborated for several decades when their discovery of Ta-Nehisi Coates shifted the course of their work to making the psychological case for reparations to the descendants of African-American slaves. As psychologists of color, they were intimately aware of the ghosts that haunt our society, even within their own field. What they discovered was a rich potential for healing that extends to Americans of all races, but not without the difficult confro...
Mar 31, 2021•59 min
It’s impossible to watch the news without witnessing the horrors sustained by people of color in America. The psychological traumas take a physical toll as well. Never has that been more clear than the covid-19 pandemic which has lowered African-American lifespan more than any other group of people. Ashley McGirt is a therapist and educator who works at the intersection of Black bodies and Black minds as a hospice counselor. Her experiences in a nursing facility and her dedication to her communi...
Mar 17, 2021•48 min
Between Us returns with Dr. Usha Tummala-Narra, an author and professor of counseling at Boston College. Dr. Tummala-Narra is our first guest in a series of interviews that ask the question, “Does psychotherapy address what is happening in the news?” Psychoanalysis has not always welcomed issues of culture and diversity. She believes there are theories that need updating and makes the case for a deeper investigation into how cultural narrative is experienced both consciously and unconsciously by...
Mar 03, 2021•57 min
This is a repost of our fifth episode featuring filmmaker Lynn Shelton who passed away May 16th, 2020. Originally posted in January of 2017. --------- There is no better week to discuss the brokenness of humanity. Lynn Shelton is a filmmaker whose films such as Touchy Feely and Your Sister's Sister capture her unique vision of regular people and the ubiquity of psychological pain. She also directs television shows such as Fresh Off the Boat, Casual, and Master of None. She sat down with John fol...
May 18, 2020•33 min
We are back from a long break for a one-off episode in which our hosts, John and Mason, discuss therapy in the time of coronavirus- how it changes the practice, how it changes the collective conscious, and how it brings into focus not the modality or technique, but the relationship.
Apr 15, 2020•36 min
Dr. Karen Maroda is an integral voice in contemporary relational psychoanalysis who has literally written the book on psychodynamic techniques. In the finale of our third season, she spoke with John Totten on a wide variety of topics ranging from current misconceptions of enactment, to when the therapist should withhold his expressions of love, and how we, as a community, are often ashamed of the anger we feel toward our patients. In this candid discussion, Dr. Maroda lays forth several challeng...
Jun 05, 2019•54 min
Mason takes the wheel this week as he explores with his wife, Dr. Katie Neely, what it was like for her to experience his emergence into a career in psychotherapy. In a vulnerable and intimate moment between husband and wife, the Neelys process the ups, downs, and crazy-making moments of this emotional journey and how their disciplines of psychotherapy and medicine compare and contrast. Support: www.patreon.com/betweenus Contact: betweenuspodcast@gmail.com Facebook: www.facebook.com/betweenuspod...
May 22, 2019•40 min
What is it like to grow up the child of a therapist? Megan Griffiths is a filmmaker whose dark characters and tragic situations are undoubtedly influenced by her mother’s work as a social worker. Her latest film, Sadie, is a modern critique of the American culture of violence as it effects a young girl whose father is away at war. It is streaming now on Amazon Prime and available for rent or purchase on iTunes. She sat down with John to talk about the psychology of her films, her mom’s impact on...
May 08, 2019•42 min
In the last few years our culture has shined a light on men behaving badly. But what do we do with perpetrators of sexual and intimate partner violence? Bethany Hendrickson is a therapist who provides treatment to both survivors and perpetrators of this epidemic. In this conversation, she discusses with John the cycle of violence, the similarities in working with both offenders and victims, and what it means to find humanity in even the most inhumane people among us. Support: www.patreon.com/bet...
Apr 24, 2019•43 min
What are the different ways that psychotherapists hide from their patients? It has long been our assertion that many of us enter this work to stay behind the analytical lens and to guard ourselves from exposure. But what about those who don’t have the option? Rachel Newcombe is a psychoanalyst and writer who works on rural Orcas Island in the furthest corner of the Pacific Northwest. She sat down with John to discuss how she holds an intimate framework in a place where patients are certain to ru...
Apr 10, 2019•41 min
On today's episode, John sits down with his friend and colleague Katie Wilson to discuss her relationships with other therapists, how she uses her anger in session, and her discovery of her own limits as a woman in the field. Support: www.patreon.com/betweenus Contact: betweenuspodcast@gmail.com Facebook: www.facebook.com/betweenuspodcast/ Twitter: twitter.com/BetweenUsPod Instagram: www.instagram.com/betweenuspod/
Mar 27, 2019•34 min
Whitney Erickson is a young therapist who is constantly emerging into further layers of herself: from coming out as queer, to leaving the Mormon Church, to a recent epiphany about her own eating disorder- while working with clients who suffer from eating disorders. She takes the discoveries in stride with a sense of wonder about herself, her clients and the world around her. Principles of authenticity and integrity allow Whitney to trust the Universe and herself as she heals and sheds “maladapti...
Mar 13, 2019•44 min
