Therapy in a Nutshell - podcast cover

Therapy in a Nutshell

Therapy in a Nutshell -Emma McAdamtinpodcast.podbean.com
I’m Emma McAdam, a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and my mission is to make mental health resources more easy to access. I take therapy skills and psychological research and condense them down into bite-sized nuggets of help. I’m here to spread the message that while mental illness is real, it’s common, it’s debilitating, it’s also treatable. There are dozens of research-backed approaches to treating depression, anxiety, and other mental illness. Change, growth, and healing are possible. Please keep courage! Try one little thing every day to improve your life and health and things can get so much better! Therapy in a Nutshell, and the information provided by Emma McAdam, is solely intended for informational and entertainment purposes and is not a substitute for advice, diagnosis, or treatment regarding medical or mental health conditions. Although Emma McAdam is a licensed marriage and family therapist, the views expressed on this site or any related content should not be taken for medical or psychiatric advice. Always consult your physician before making any decisions related to your physical or mental health. Therapy in a Nutshell and it’s logo are Registered Trademarks of Therapy in a Nutshell, LLC
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Episodes

How to Be Less Emotionally Reactive - Black and White Thinking

Get the free guide to this episode: reframe black and white thinking guide Looking for affordable online counseling? My sponsor, BetterHelp, connects you to a licensed professional from the comfort of your own home. Try it now for 10% off your first month: https://betterhelp.com/therapyinanuts... Learn more in one of my in-depth mental health courses: https://courses.therapyinanutshell.co... Black and White thinking is when you take a situation and think about it in an extreme way, you push out ...

Jan 19, 202312 minEp. 78

The Brain-Gut Microbiome Axis and Its Impact on Mental Health

Your gut health directly impacts your mental health. From nutrient absorption that impacts the physical building blocks of the brain, to inflammation which can lead cytokines to damage the brain, to your microbiome which impacts your physical and mental health, your gut health is actually a huge contributing factor to your mental health. So in this video you’ll learn 4 1/2 ways to improve your gut health, which can improve your mental health. Looking for affordable online counseling? My sponsor,...

Jan 12, 202310 minEp. 75

Guided Walkthrough to Stop a Panic Attack

So, you’re having a panic attack? If you’re right in the middle of a panic attack, this video is for you. For many people, a panic attack feels like a lot of intense physical symptoms. Maybe your heart is pounding, you feel faint or tingly, you’re afraid that you’re going to pass out or have a heart attack. In this video we’ll walk you through how to know if it’s anxiety causing those symptoms and some practical steps to stop the panic cycle. Because you’re going to be ok. You are safe. These se...

Jan 05, 20239 minEp. 70

Atomic Habits for Mental Health

FREE habit tracker: https://courses.therapyinanutshell.com/pl/2147583979 Online Courses: https://courses.therapyinanutshell.com/?utm_medium=YTDescription&utm_source=Podcast Why would I think a vitamin could improve mental health?The short answer- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dqXHHCc5lA James Clear's Blog: https://jamesclear.com/marginal-gains There’s two ways to think about mental health, and I think a lot of people don’t realize they’re stuck in the first one. Most people believe that y...

Dec 29, 202215 minEp. 76

The Surprising Way Alcohol MakesYour Brain More Anxious with Amber Hollingsworth

Looking for affordable online counseling? My sponsor, BetterHelp, connects you to a licensed professional from the comfort of your own home. Try it now for 10% off your first month: https://betterhelp.com/therapyinanutshell Check out Amber's channel here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCT8PE1v0xFR9zLXOijxM6hg Alcohol use changes your brain chemistry in a way that makes you more anxious. It also changes how you think- which can make you more anxious. And when you’re drunk, you might do stuff th...

Dec 24, 20228 minEp. 74

How Genetic is Mental Illness Actually? Heritability Estimates for Mental Health and The Role Genes Play

If one of your family members has a mental illness, does that mean you’re more likely to have it too? Can you inherit a mental illness from a parent? If your mom has, let’s say, social anxiety disorder, and you do too, does that mean that she passed it down genetically or that because she didn’t take you out much, and you watched her being nervous around other people- that you learned to be anxious around other people? In this podcast we’re going to talk about heritability estimates- what the re...

Dec 15, 20228 minEp. 73

Do Sounds Make You Anxious or Angry? Auditory Sensitivity Overlaps Anxiety and Mental Health

Auditory sensitivity can occur on a spectrum, where hyperacuity may be on the more severe end of the spectrum, and a dislike of loud noises can be on the less severe side of the spectrum. Auditory sensitivity can also be associated with sensory differences with autism, and it can stand alone- it can just be that you have really sensitive ears. Thanks to Dr. Lindsey Tubaugh for teaching me about treatment for sound sensitivities: https://littleheroeshearingclinic.com/ Looking for affordable onlin...

Dec 08, 202216 minEp. 72

Repressed Memories: Can You Forget About Trauma?

The idea of repressed memories goes all the way back to Freud, through the 90’s when therapists accidentally implanted people with false memories, through the courtrooms, and into today where the idea of repressed memories is still popular among lay people and controversial among therapists and researchers. So today you’ll learn three skills for better understanding lost memories, aka dissociative amnesia or repressed memories (or at least my opinion about it). The idea of repressed memories goe...

Dec 02, 202215 minEp. 71

9 Ways Grief Impacts the Body

Learn more about grief in this mini-course: https://courses.therapyinanutshell.com/grief/?utm_medium=YTDescription&utm_source=Podcast “Grief is unpredictable, and it will go wherever it finds an outlet. If it can’t be expressed emotionally, it may find expression in the body.” (136) Grief, like all emotions, isn’t just in your head; it shows up in your body in remarkable ways. But most people have never been taught what is common in the grieving process and how grief does show up in your bod...

Nov 28, 20229 minEp. 69

The 3 States of Anxiety or Trauma in the Nervous System

Looking for affordable online counseling? My sponsor, BetterHelp, connects you to a licensed professional from the comfort of your own home. Try it now for 10% off your first month: https://betterhelp.com/therapyinanutshell Do you ever feel hopeless, shut down, or walled off? Or do you get triggered and feel anxious, angry, or agitated? There are essentially 3 states of your nervous system: Ventral Vagal (Safe and social) Sympathetic (Fight or Flight) and Dorsal Vagal (Shut Down). Most people ar...

Nov 26, 202215 minEp. 67

A guided Walkthrough for Getting through an Anxiety Attack

Check out my Free Course, Grounding Skills for Anxiety, Stress and PTSD here: https://courses.therapyinanutshell.com/grounding-skills-for-anxiety-stress-and-ptsd Looking for affordable online counseling? My sponsor, BetterHelp, connects you to a licensed professional from the comfort of your own home. Try it now for 10% off your first month: https://betterhelp.com/therapyinanutshell Learn more in one of my in-depth mental health courses: https://courses.therapyinanutshell.com Support my mission ...

Nov 17, 20226 minEp. 66

The 6 Most Common Types of Intrusive Thoughts

Learn to drop the struggle with intrusive thoughts in Dr. Kat Green's online course: https://courses.therapyinanutshell.co... What are intrusive thoughts? Intrusive thoughts are words or images that pop into your mind unwanted, they’re often disturbing, they have little to do with what you’re doing or with reality, and the thoughts that are distressing can seem really loud, demanding your attention. Even when other people tell you a thought isn’t true or it doesn’t mean anything, the thought may...

Nov 03, 202210 min

6 Thinking Patterns that Make OCD and Anxiety Worse

Check out the course, Taking Charge of Intrusive Thoughts, here: https://courses.therapyinanutshell.com/managing-intrusive-thoughts OCD is caused by a combination of factors- genetic and biological(what’s going on with our bodies, including inflammation, nutrition, stress, etc), environmental (our experiences), and psychological- how we think. The way you think and act determines whether you feed or starve your OCD. In this video we’ll look at 6 types of thinking that feed OCD, they make it wors...

Oct 27, 202212 minEp. 65

3 Subconscious Reasons Why You Worry

Learn how to stop worrying with the online course Worry Free, taught by Nick Wignall- https://courses.therapyinanutshell.com/WorryFree Worry isn’t something that happens to you, it’s actually something that you do, that you subconsciously choose to do, because it serves a function- your brain rewards you for it. And then it becomes a habit. If you want to learn how to worry less, you need to understand why your brain likes to worry, because that will free you to find a replacement for that habit...

Oct 27, 202211 minSeason 3Ep. 36

This Skill Treats Insomnia 80% of the Time

Learn more in one of my in-depth mental health courses: https://courses.therapyinanutshell.co... If you were to ask someone, “What’s causing your insomnia?” they might say something like: “my stress, anxiety, my brain won’t shut off”, maybe they think it’s their cat waking them up or they drank too much coffee or they watched a scary movie before bed. And granted, all of these things can mess with your sleep for a night or two, or more, but they aren’t the thing that causes chronic insomnia. In ...

Oct 24, 20225 minSeason 3Ep. 59

Wait, What?! Depression is Not Caused by A Chemical Imbalance?

Here is the link to my "Change Your Brain" course: https://courses.therapyinanutshell.co... Despite 85-90% of people believing that depression is caused by a chemical imbalance, there is no evidence that a chemical imbalance causes depression or is associated with depression. A new meta-analysis by the University College London reviewed the evidence and made headlines this week. Check out my two unlisted videos on what causes depression: https://youtu.be/Tr1sOJn8Z1Y https://youtu.be/EmCkBCZdZ7M ...

Oct 17, 202220 minSeason 3Ep. 60

The Myth of the Chemical Imbalance: What Causes Depression? (Lost Connections Summary Part 1)

For more ways to manage depression check out my course, Change Your Brain: 10 Natural, Research-Backed Ways to Improve Mental Health https://courses.therapyinanutshell.com/change-your-brain Or my other courses and free resources here: https://courses.therapyinanutshell.com/?utm_medium=YTDescription&utm_source=podcast A chemical imbalance is not “The Cause” of depression. We have been systematically misinformed about what depression and anxiety are”. This is the main idea behind Johann Hari’s...

Oct 13, 202220 minEp. 68

How to Be Happy Part 3: Daily Habits of Happy People

Download the free Habit Builder here: https://courses.therapyinanutshell.co... You can learn the daily habits that happy people use to foster a lasting happiness. These are skills that you can develop. In this video we'll talk about 14 daily habits that happy people practice to create more joy in their lives. I don’t know about you but the pandemic has seemed to make it harder to feel joy. We spend less time doing things with people we love, we stay home, a lot of people feel depressed, anxious,...

Oct 12, 202214 minSeason 3Ep. 34

How to Be Happy Part 2: Why American Self-Help Backfires

Download the free Habit Builder here: https://courses.therapyinanutshell.co... Want some help to be happier? My sponsor, BetterHelp, connects you to a licensed professional from the comfort of your own home. Try it now for 10% off: https://betterhelp.com/therapyinanuts... Researchers studied the question “Does trying to be happy actually work? If you decided to consciously work on being happier, would you actually be happier down the road? They asked this question in 4 different countries. The r...

Oct 11, 202210 minSeason 3Ep. 33

How to Be Happy Part 1: 4 Steps to Be Happier in 1 Month

Download the free Habit Builder here: https://courses.therapyinanutshell.co... You can learn how to be happy. It's a skill that you can develop. But trying to make yourself feel happy immediately usually backfires- either you end up just seeking momentary pleasures like food, drugs, buying stuff, hooking up, or distracting yourself…all of which can make your life worse in the long run. Or you end up putting so much pressure on yourself to be happy that you make yourself more stressed out and mis...

Oct 10, 202214 minSeason 3Ep. 32

4 Ways to Heal From Your Past (Traumatic Memories Part 2)

Check out my free course, Grounding Skills for Anxiety, Stress and PTSD https://courses.therapyinanutshell.com/grounding-skills-for-anxiety-stress-and-ptsd Here’s the thing about trauma, even though the event happened in the past- we work with trauma in the present moment. It causes pain in the present moment, it changes your nervous system in the present moment. The hurt isn’t just “in the past” it’s right here, in your body and emotions right now. In the last video we talked about 4 ways traum...

Oct 06, 202215 minSeason 3Ep. 31

5 Foods that Naturally Decrease Cortisol (The Stress Hormone)

Check out my Grounding Skills Course here: https://courses.therapyinanutshell.com/grounding-skills-for-anxiety-stress-and-ptsd Managing stress involves a lot of things, a healthy work life balance, good boundaries, sleep, exercise, but changing what you eat can also have a big impact on your stress levels, and that’s because what you eat impacts cortisol levels. Cortisol is known as the stress hormone, it is part of the activating energizing response in your body, and it triggers the fight or fl...

Oct 03, 20229 minSeason 3Ep. 30

4 Ways Trauma/PTSD Distorts Memories

Check out my course, Change Your Brain: 10 Natural, Research-backed Ways to Improve Mental Health https://courses.therapyinanutshell.com/change-your-brain When you have a traumatic experience, your brain physically changes in structure and electrical activity. And one of the big symptoms that we see with Trauma and PTSD is changes in memory. There are 4 ways that traumatic memories differ from regular memories. In this video we’ll talk about how PTSD and trauma change your memories and 3 things ...

Sep 29, 202211 minSeason 3Ep. 29

Overcome Social Anxiety | Medication and Therapy Options With Dr. Tracey Marks

Pre-order Dr. Marks' book Why Am I So Anxious now: getyourpreorder.com Social anxiety can be paralyzing, you may overthink everything you say or worry that everyone is judging you. Social anxiety can lead to avoidance of important events and social isolation which can lead to other problems in your employment or relationships. In this video, I've invited Dr. Tracy Marks to share her top tips for dealing with social anxiety. She'll teach you two medication options for treating social anxiety and ...

Sep 26, 202214 minSeason 3Ep. 28

How to Stop an Anxiety Attack

Learn grounding skills for anxiety attacks in my free course: https://courses.therapyinanutshell.com/grounding-skills-for-anxiety-stress-and-ptsd An anxiety attack, in my definition, is when you're overwhelmed with stress, fear or anxiety, you may feel panicky or your anxiety is so strong and the physical symptoms are so intense that you can’t function very well. This video is going to teach you the psychology behind calming anxiety attacks and give you a ton of tools to try so that you can crea...

Sep 22, 202216 minSeason 3Ep. 27

7 Anxiety Myths Most People Believe with Dr. Nick Wignall

Sign up for Nick's newsletter here: https://nickwignall.com/newsletter-5/ Download my Quickstart Guide to Anxiety here: https://therapyinanutshell.com/ Anxiety disorders are absolutely treatable, but most people don't actually understand what is the real cause of their anxiety- they assume that anxiety is caused by genes or by childhood experiences, but the truth is, we make our own anxiety worse by accidentally believing these myths about anxiety. Today I've invited Nick Wignall on the channel ...

Sep 19, 202213 minSeason 3Ep. 26

Postpartum Anxiety and OCD Coping Skills

Check out my Coping Skills and Self Care course: https://courses.therapyinanutshell.com/coping-skills-and-self-care-for-mental-health Learn more in one of my in-depth mental health courses: https://courses.therapyinanutshell.com/store The number one most common complication after giving birth is postpartum anxiety- but almost no one is talking about it. It’s more common than infection, hemorrhage, or postpartum depression, but no one mentions it. But postpartum anxiety is super duper common. Abo...

Sep 15, 202215 minSeason 3Ep. 25

How to Stop Catastrophizing

Get the course: Change Your Brain-Neuroplasticity and Mental Health https://courses.therapyinanutshell.com/change-your-brain In this video, we’re going to talk about catastrophizing- expecting the worst! Catastrophizing is an excellent way to make yourself anxious and depressed and completely ruin your life! Oh yeah, and I’m going to teach you 3 things you can do to stop catastrophizing. What is Catastrophizing: Catastrophizing is a common cognitive distortion, or thinking error. It’s when we th...

Sep 13, 202218 minSeason 3Ep. 24

Quick Start Guide to Anxiety Treatment

Learn a mind-body approach to treating anxiety in my FREE course Grounding Skills for Anxiety, Stress and PTSD: https://courses.therapyinanutshell.co... An anxiety disorder diagnosis does not mean that you are defective, nor that it’s your fault, you’re not broken. The disorder is treatable. It doesn’t have to be permanent! Anxiety is a real and challenging condition where our physiology, our mind, and our experiences get caught up in a cycle of increasing worries and physical symptoms. But that...

Sep 12, 202211 minSeason 3Ep. 23

Overthinking Part 4: Social Anxiety

Looking for affordable online counseling? My sponsor, BetterHelp, connects you to a licensed professional from the comfort of your own home. Try it now for 10% off your first month: https://betterhelp.com/therapyinanutshell You know the feeling, you come out of a work meeting or a hangout with friends and start thinking “Why did I say that? I should have responded this way! I am such an idiot! What did he mean when he said…?” Or you think “I was the most awkward person at the party!” Or “I overs...

Sep 08, 202212 minSeason 3Ep. 22
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