Drew Holguin was born in a predominantly black neighborhood to mixed-race family. "I was too white in my neighborhood, but not white enough at the white dominant schools I attended. Regardless of where I was, I wasn't accepted." Holguin began delivering drugs as a way of getting attention and friends. Holguin is one of 3.45 million kids in this country who are suspended or expelled from public school, with few options for what comes next. Open School is an innovative education program for studen...
Jul 08, 2019•27 min•Ep. 24
Narcissistic Personality Disorder or NPD is a condition characterized by an overwhelming need for attention and admiration, a heightened sense of self-importance, and a lack of empathy toward others. It is difficult enough to encounter a partner or business associate with NPD, but Liz Scott grew up with narcissists as parents. Like an archaeological dig, Liz Scott’s memoir This Never Happened goes in search of the answers to the mysteries of her family. In her relentless quest to uncover the tru...
Jul 01, 2019•26 min•Ep. 23
Storm Large: musician, actor, playwright, author, awesome. She shot to national prominence in 2006 as a finalist on the CBS show Rock Star: Supernova, where despite having been eliminated in the week before the finale, Storm built a fan base that follows her around the world to this day. Storm joins us to talk about growing up with a severely mentally disturbed mother and the message she received from her mother's doctor, "Oh yeah, you will absolutely end up like your Mother. It's hereditary." B...
Jun 24, 2019•54 min•Ep. 22
Skye Fitzgerald is an Oscar-nominated documentary filmmaker whose work on issues of social justice takes him to the epicenters of suffering. We talk with Skye about how he maintains his sense of self while covering brutally difficult topics. Skye's most recent film, Lifeboat, forced this choice: "When you see someone drowning after falling or being pushed from a boat filled with refugees, do you get the shot or do you pull someone to safety? I put down the camera and grabbed people from the wate...
Jun 17, 2019•27 min•Ep. 21
Today’s show with Nyna Giles exposes the good and bad news about psychological suffering. Let’s start with the bad news first… Psychological suffering doesn’t discriminate. It doesn’t care who you are, how wealthy your friends are, how beautiful you are, or what circles you run it. Psychological suffering can and will affect us all. Of course, privileges give certain people access to resources that may help those people cope more effectively with the suffering life deals them, but the suffering ...
Jun 09, 2019•29 min•Ep. 20
Anorexia has the highest mortality rate of any mental illness. Without proper treatment, binge-eating disorder and bulimia can also bring misery and death. Robyn Cruz struggled with food throughout much of her adolescent and adult life, most notably, an eating disorder that crippled her spirit. Now, Robyn is traveling the country with her husband and two daughters, determined to raise awareness about the deadly nature of eating disorders and the long journey she traveled to make peace with her b...
Jun 03, 2019•31 min•Ep. 19
Sophia Shalmiyev was eleven when she immigrated to New York City from Leningrad, motherless, displaced, and terrified. Shalmiyev is clear-eyed and unsentimental about the trauma and poverty she endured as a child and how it shaped the woman she is today as a feminist, artist, and mother. Shalmiyev is fiery and unapologetic in her views of what it takes to raise a feminist son. Her opinion of her newly adopted country is equally as compelling. "I love America," she says, "It's broken, like me." S...
May 26, 2019•34 min•Ep. 18
Anna Debenham is the founder of the Insight Alliance, an organization that works with men and women in prison and in the community sharing two simple, but profoundly life-changing ideas: We have everything we need inside ourselves to lead a good life Our experience of life is being created moment to moment from the insight out by our thoughts. At the heart of much of our suffering is our experience of life as something that is happening to us, rather than moving through us. As Anna puts it “We a...
May 19, 2019•39 min•Ep. 17
For the last few years, Laurel Braitman, has been teaching writing and communications skills to medical students and doctors at Stanford University, helping healthcare professionals connect more meaningfully with their patients, their peers, and themselves. Nearly 30% of American medical students are depressed and one in ten have thoughts about suicide. Practicing physicians are even worse off with some of the highest suicide rates in the nation. It's how we learn to communicate with one another...
May 13, 2019•28 min•Ep. 16
Nate Botsford says he grew up with mental illness in his home, unable to comprehend until much later who much it shaped who he is as a singer/songwriter. Nate began writing music at the age of thirteen and recognized how much of his songwriting was influenced by the dysfunction of growing up in a household where depression, sadness, and malaise was part of the norm. Today, Nate writes directly to the source of the negative voices he hears in his head. Listen in to the extraordinary sound and art...
May 06, 2019•28 min•Ep. 15
If you've ever felt like giving up or wondered what the point of life is, Scott Erickson wants you to know you're not alone. Through performance art, story-teaching, participation, and image curation Scott talks about the overwhelming voices he encountered that told him three things--nothing new will ever happen, you are sick and ugly, and dying is better than living. Then, Scott got curious about his interior life. And by examining his own existential crisis, Scott began to see this moment not ...
Apr 30, 2019•43 min•Ep. 14
Meet Eleven-year-old Heather, whose quote book carries these bits of wisdom. "Don't judge by the outside. Dig deeper." "I was an easy target. Now I'm not." And "I was bullied when I was younger and I've never been the same since." Heather was recently diagnosed as autistic, but, for a long time, kids just called her weird or different. She was bullied and terrorized for much of her elementary school experience. Finally receiving a diagnosis allowed Heather and her Mom access to tools to understa...
Apr 22, 2019•36 min•Ep. 13
This is truly one of the most beautiful conversations we've had about the experience of psychosis and what it means to lose touch with reality. Sarah Townsend tenderly examines the terrifying experience of postpartum psychosis through art, film, psychology and explains why love and connection is key to finding ground again. Sarah C. Townshend, Author, Therapist, Mother. Setting the Wire, a Memoir of Postpartum Psychosis available at www.SarahTownsendwriter.com
Apr 15, 2019•55 min•Ep. 12
Jen Pastiloff speaks with clarity and honesty about the sometimes rocky path to becoming human. She battled an eating disorder, she abandoned a brilliant path as a writer to become a waitress, and finally, she did something remarkable. She asked for help and willed herself toward health. Jen's honest assessment of who she is andwhat she has to offer the world is mother-effing awesome.
Apr 08, 2019•37 min•Ep. 11
The CDC estimates that for every one person who dies by suicide, eight people are profoundly affected. The grief, shock and sadness is shared by friends, coaches, church members and community members. 48,000 people died by suicide in 2018, leaving behind hundreds and thousands of people asking the question "WHY?" Leslie Abraham's husband died by suicide after a perplexing descent into depression. Her interaction with the psychiatric system is not uncommon--medicine didn't seem to help and her hu...
Apr 01, 2019•38 min•Ep. 10
I've been talking to experts about mental health, psychology and wellness for more than a decade. But, when I finally met Dr. Brian Goff and Dr. Jenna LeJeune, I knew they were my kind of people. In this episode of Beyond Well, Brian and Jenna talk with Sheila Hamilton about their careers, and what brought them to be interested in a particular type of therapy, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. Dr. LeJeune: "So much of the conversation around psychological suffering is pathologizing it. If you a...
Mar 19, 2019•39 min•Ep. 9
Reema Zaman is the first born child of a Bangledishi family, whose parents moved to Thailand and Hawaii before Reema turned six. In other words, she became used to being considered different. Reema's experience as a young woman growing up in cultures where women were not regarded as equal humans created a litany of problems--anorexia and sexually and emotionally abusive relationships with men. Reema has wrestled free from those nightmarish experiences to not only tell her story, but rewrite her ...
Mar 18, 2019•34 min•Ep. 8
Mitchell S. Jackson grew up in Portland, Oregon, one of the whitest cities in America. He dealt drugs, he spent time in prison, and then he went on to become a critically acclaimed author and teacher. His book, Survival Math is one of the most anticipated works on racism and the conditions that shape young black men. In this episode of Beyond Well, Sheila, Brian and Jenna talk with Mitchell about why empathy may be the first step toward repairing America's fractures.
Mar 11, 2019•44 min•Ep. 7
We're thrilled to welcome Lidia Yuknavitch, author of nine books, including The Chronology of Water, The Small Backs of Children, The book of Joan, and the Misfits Manifesto. Lidia's Ted Talk, The Beauty of Being a Misfit has been viewed 2,862,000 times. We think she has something to share about how telling and retelling your story can help re-frame traumatic experience.
Mar 07, 2019•48 min•Ep. 6
Angela Schellenberg was at home watching television with her mother when the news described a vicious murder. Angela watched in horror as she realized the yet-to-be-named victim's car belonged to her Father. For weeks, Angela dealt with the fear and uncertainty of a killer on the loose, a trauma that ultimately contributed to her mother's mental breakdown. In this riveting interview, Angela talks about rebuilding her life in the wake of trauma and become a licensed therapist who helps other peop...
Mar 07, 2019•37 min•Ep. 5
Dr. Stuart Ablon is Director of THINKKIDS/Psychiatry at Massachusetts General and the co-inventor of Collaborative Problem Solving. In this interview with Sheila Hamilton and Dr.'s Brian Goff and Jenna LeJeune, Dr. Ablon talks about parenting explosive children. The well-researched truth, "They Do As Well As They Can" may change the way you think about discipline forever.
Mar 07, 2019•1 hr 9 min•Ep. 4
The message of Cheryl Strayed's memoir Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Trail has helped millions of people process grief in a new and profound way. In this episode of Beyond Well, Sheila Hamilton and Dr's Brian Goff and Jenna LeJeune talk about the potential of bouncing forward after loss, and of grieving from a place of honesty and self-compassion
Mar 07, 2019•52 min•Ep. 3
Kerry Cohen is the author of Loose Girl and is a certified sex therapist. Her work with people recovering from sex and pornography addiction is grounded in compassion and understanding. In this interview with Sheila Hamilton, Dr.'s Brian Goff and Jenna LeJeune, Kerry talks about why sex and porn addiction is often a substitute for grief, loss and meaningful attachment.
Mar 07, 2019•59 min•Ep. 2
Courtenay Hameister talks with Sheila Hamilton, host of Beyond Well, and Dr.'s Brian Goff and Jenna LeJeune. Courtenay has lived with anxiety for most of her life. Her book, Okay, Fine, Whatever, the Year I Went From Being Afraid of Everything to Just Most Things chronicles a year in which Courtenay pushes herself to try almost everything that scares her. The results are funny and profoundly heartbreaking and provide a window into the reality of living with panic disorders and anxiety.
Mar 01, 2019•51 min•Ep. 1
