Michael Alcee, PhD, is a clinical psychologist in Tarrytown, NY, and is a Mental Health Educator at the Manhattan School of Music. In his first book,Therapeutic Improvisation: How to Stop Winging It and Own It as a Therapist, Michael demonstrated how all clinicians are artists, reading the changes like well-versed jazz musicians, finding the poetic…

Canadian (Nova Scotia) Psychiatrist Dr. Patricia Celan’s personality type is INFJ-T (Advocate). When she's not working on improving the mental health of her patients or advocating for human and non-human victims of abuse, Patricia enjoys creative writing, photography, film, travel, music, singing, dancing, yoga, and spending time with her cats, fri…

I want to be happy. You want to be happy. But maybe our best pathway there comes by focusing instead on "living well.". MIT philosopher Kieran Setiya's book Life Is Hard helps Dave Schmelzer navigate those choices, with a particular look at how it applies when we feel like a failure or when we're hunting for meaning. Mentioned on this podcast: Kier…

Lisa Marchiano, LCSW, is a Jungian analyst, author, and podcaster. She is the cohost of the popular depth psychology podcast This Jungian Life. She is on the faculty of the C. G. Jung Institute of Philadelphia, and she lectures and teaches widely. Lisa is the author of Motherhood: Facing and Finding Yourself published by Sounds True in 2021. She li…

Here at The Pocket Contemplative, we do deep dives into some of the richest Christian wisdom one can find about getting close to God. But one revolutionary thinker suggested that, while that's all wonderful and we should learn all we can from such people, these great saints did live in a very different world with very different spiritual dynamics t…

Alexey Tolchinsky, Psy.D. is a clinical psychologist in private practice in Maryland. He specializes in trauma work and anxiety disorders. He works in psychotherapy with neurodiverse patients, including individuals with Asperger’s disorder, dyslexia, and other conditions. A part of his practice includes working with immigrants struggling with adapt…

Professor Brett Kahr has worked in the mental health profession for well over forty years.He is Senior Fellow at the Tavistock Institute of Medical Psychology in London and, also, Visiting Professor of Psychoanalysis and Mental Health at Regent’s University London.Kahr is the Chair of the Scholars Committee of the British Psychoanalytic Council, an…

Paul Francis studied philosophy and social anthropology at university, primarily studying tribal (animist) cultures. After graduating in 1979, he variously worked in a hospital teaching sign language, a pre-school nursery, and in an anarchist bookshop. In his spare time, he immersed himself in his real passions, exploring psychotherapy and various …

BiosMatthew S. Keene, MD (Director)Dr. Keene is a physician, entrepreneur, and business leader. Dr. Keene attended Georgetown University School of Medicine on a full military scholarship and graduated with multiple honors. He received his residency training at the prestigious Cleveland Clinic Foundation. Upon completing his residency, Dr. Keene ser…

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:LORETTA NAPOLEONI A Fulbright scholar at Johns Hopkins University and the London School of Economics, in the early 1980s she began her professional career as an economist in Hungary, Russia and the city of London. In the mid-90s, when she was one of the people chosen by the Red Brigades to relate their story, she began analyzing te…

Christian Contemplative Spirituality--alternately called Christian Mysticism--has gone in and out of favor over the millennia, but has rich roots from the Hebrew Bible forward. With help from the work of Carl McColman, Dave Schmelzer will help orient you as you look to navigate this vital, essential stream. Mentioned on this podcast: Carl McColman'…

BioWill Van Derveer, MD is co-founder of the Integrative Psychiatry Institute, which offers comprehensive training for mental health professionals in psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy and other continuing education programs. He is medical director of Integrative Psychiatry Center of Boulder, CO, providing integrative psychiatry for a broad range o…

James Champion D.O. is a psychiatrist practicing in Appalachia. He supervises psychiatry residents, teaches medical students, and collaborates with nurse practitioners. He has a D.O. degree from an Appalachian medical school and lives in Tennessee. Adventures of an American Medical Student, a novel, is his first book.Sign up for 10% off of Shrink R…

Is there a secret of life? Contemplatives of many stripes suggest it surround cultivating a kind of trust and openness that endures through the hardest of times. Dave Schmelzer dives into wisdom on this from the most optimistic of contemplatives, Julian of Norwich (C.S. Lewis and Thomas Merton both said she was their go-to contemplative teacher). J…

Dr. Heather Sandison is a renowned naturopathic doctor specializing in neurocognitive medicine and the founder of Solcere Health Clinic, San Diego’s premier brain optimization clinic, and Marama, the first residential memory care facility to have the goal of returning cognitively declined residents to independent living. She has dedicated her caree…

Bio:David Borkenhagen is a Post Doctoral Fellow at the Mathison Centre for Mental Health where he researches community-based interventions for mental health. He completed his PhD in Psychology at the University of Waterloo under the supervision of Dr. Colin Ellard and holds a Bachelors in Neuroscience from McGill University. He uses the methods of …

BioStephen P. H. Whiteside, Ph.D. is a Board-Certified Clinical Psychologist, Professor of Psychology in the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and Science, and Director of the Pediatric Anxiety Disorders Program at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN. He received a BA in Psychology from Northwestern University and Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the Unive…

Christianity's most potent and lasting advice on aging well comes from one of its most remarkable contemplatives: Hildegard of Bingen from the 12th century. She was an explosion of creativity: she wrote the first known opera (by hundreds of years). She was an architect, a physician, a poet, a painter, a composer, a theologian and a leader of women.…

Dr. Javanbakht is a psychiatrist and neuroscientist, founder and director of the Stress, Trauma, and Anxiety Research Clinic (STARC), a renowned research clinic at Wayne State University School of Medicine.He researches the neurobiology of stress, anxiety, and PTSD in Syrian and Ukrainian refugees, and first responders, as well as emerging treatmen…

Maybe the most-influential Christian mystic, Meister Eckhart, had profound thoughts about how our spiritual practice is meant to--even must!--empower our creativity. Dave Schmelzer dives into Eckhart's deep, generative waters here. Mentioned on this podcast: Meister Eckhart: A Mystic-Warrior for Our Times, by Matthew Fox…

Kieran Setiya--a philosopher at MIT who wrote the terrific book Midlife: A Philosophical Guide that Dave Schmelzer talked about on the last episode--joins Dave for a lively conversation about how philosophy can help with our deepest questions and about how it interacts with the spirituality we talk about here. Mentioned on this podcast: Midlife: A …

Philosophers and theologians offer different answers to how we should feel about the losses we confront in midlife. Kieran Setiya, a philosopher teaching at MIT, wrote a terrific recent book on midlife crisis. Dave Schmelzer highlights some of Setiya's best stuff, including Setiya's takes on missed opportunities, why we can simultaneously regret an…

Ami Harbin is Associate Professor of Philosophy and Women and Gender Studies at Oakland University (Michigan, USA). Her research is in moral psychology, feminist philosophy, and bioethics. She is the author of Fearing Together: Ethics for Insecurity (Oxford 2023) and Disorientation and Moral Life (Oxford 2016). https://oakland.edu/phil/faculty/Harb…

STEPHEN AIZENSTAT, Ph.D., is the founder ofPacifica Graduate Institute, Dream Tending, and the Academyof Imaginal Arts and Sciences. For more than 35 years, he hasexplored the power of dreams through depth psychology. He hascollaborated with Joseph Campbell, Marion Woodman, RobertJohnson, James Hillman, and Native elders worldwide. Heconducts dream…

When Dave Schmelzer first started exploring contemplative spirituality, he had a hard time finding teachers who would get pragmatic in the "just do this, and then do this, and then do this, and here's what you should discover" sense. Mo Gawdat has written a bestselling guide along those lines called Solve for Happy. Dave walks us through Gawdat's p…

Enrico Gnaulati Ph.D. is a frequent contributor to national publications like The Atlantic, Salon, and The Huffington Post, Gnaulati is also sought-after public speaker and radio guest. He is a nationally-recognized reformer of mental health practice and policy, has published numerous articles in both academic journals and popular magazines, and is…

W. Keith Sutton, Psy.D., is a clinical psychologist and director of the Institute for the Advancement of Psychotherapy. He has been working with children, adolescents and their families since 1998 in teens shelters, a residential treatment program, a wilderness program, drug and alcohol outpatient program, schools, community clinics, an in-home the…

Matthew Smith is Professor of Health History at the University of Strathclyde’s Centre for the Social History of Health and Healthcare. He is the author of The First Resort: The History of Social Psychiatry in the United States (Columbia UP, 2023) and has written or co-edited many other books on the history of mental health and psychiatry, food and…

Stephen Rowley, PhD, is a psychotherapist practicing on Bainbridge Island, Washington. With the publication of his new book, The Lost Coin: A Memoir of Adoption and Destiny (Chiron Publications), he also has become an author.He previously enjoyed a 40-year career as an elementary school teacher and principal, and a school district superintendent in…

BioDr. Royce Fitts is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist in five U.S. states, an ordained minister, and lover of Process Theology. He holds a Doctor of Ministry in pastoral counseling. Royce is a certified Spiritual Care Professional in The American Association for Clinical and Pastoral Education and a Clinical Fellow in The American Associat…

Dr. Mark Gregory Karris is a compassionate and dedicated licensed marriage and family therapist, empowering individuals and couples to embark on transformative journeys to healing and self-discovery. Based in the vibrant city of San Diego, California, Mark's extensive expertise encompasses the realms of religious trauma, men's issues, and couples t…

Dr. Karbelnig practices psychoanalytic psychotherapy in Pasadena, California, working with individuals, couples, families, and groups. He’s earned two PhDs, one in Counseling Psychology from USC in 1986, and another one in Psychoanalysis from the New Center for Psychoanalysis (NCP) in 1996. Shortly thereafter, he achieved Certification in Psychoana…

By David Van Nuys, Ph.D.

Thomas R. Verny is a clinical psychiatrist and the author of eight of books, including The Secret Life of the Unborn Child, which was published in 27 countries and 47 scientific papers. His most recent book is The Embodied Mind: Understanding the Mysteries of Cellular Memory, Consciousness, and Our Bodies. He has previously taught at Harvard Univer…

David H. Rosmarin, PhD, is the founder of Center for Anxiety (New York, Boston, Princeton), an associate professor at Harvard Medical School, and director of the McLean Hospital Spirituality & Mental Health Program. He is a clinical innovator in the treatment of anxiety, a board-certified clinical psychologist, and a peer-reviewed scholar. Dr. Rosm…

As Dave Schmelzer and Vince Brackett talked about in a recent episode, faith looks very different than it did a few hundred years back--and even than it did sixty years back. Professor Andrew Root--who was Vince's enthusiastic teacher on the subject--walks us into some of the ins and outs of what this looks and feels like. Faith Formation in a Secu…

Jocelyn Eve is a white, neurodivergent human, and a trauma informed group therapist serving LGBTQIA+ folks. She is a loving Auntie, dog mom, and ambivert based in occupied Massachusett Tribe / Cambridge, MA.Jocelyn dreams of radical recovery, healing & thriving! She spends her days scheming creative, integrative, healing spaces and fostering radica…

Jon Frederickson, MSW, is on the faculty of the Intensive Short-Term Dynamic Psychotherapy (ISTDP) Training Program at the Washington School of Psychiatry. He has been on the faculty of the Laboratorium Psykoeducaji in Warsaw and has taught at the Ersta Skondal Hogskole in Stockholm. Jon has provided ISTDP training in Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Polan…

BioStephen W. Porges, PhD, is Distinguished University Scientist at Indiana University where he is the founding director of the Traumatic Stress Research Consortium in the Kinsey Institute. He is professor of psychiatry at the University of North Carolina, and professor emeritus at both the University of Illinois at Chicago and the University of Ma…

Dave Schmelzer's new favorite book on forgiveness (and maybe one of his favorite books period) is by Desmond Tutu and his daughter Mpho Tutu van Furth. Mpho joins Dave from Amsterdam to talk about what she's taken from the book in years since, her reflections on it being forged out of South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission and much more…

Karl Ammann uncovers wildlife trafficking, poaching and other forms of brutal exploitation of the planet’s most iconic species. Circumventing red tape and challenging the status quo established by governments and supranational bodies, he discloses the shameful silence of international bodies and puts names and responsibilities behind the ongoing de…

Michael Gellert was born and raised in Montreal. The son of Hungarian Holocaust survivors, he was educated in rabbinic Judaism. Traveling at age nineteen overland from Europe to India and throughout the Indian subcontinent, he had a close brush with death, an experience described later in his first book, Modern Mysticism. He studied with Marshall M…

You'd think that apart from affirming that, of course, forgiving people who've hurt us is crucial to our happiness, there wouldn't be much more to say. But Desmond and Mpho Tutu wrote what seems like the final word on the subject in their wonderful The Book of Forgiving, which includes many stories from Desmond's leading of South Africa's Truth and…

Jill Stoddard, PhD, is passionate about sharing science-backed ideas from psychology to help people thrive. She is a psychologist, TEDx speaker, award-winning teacher, peer-reviewed ACT trainer, and co-host of the popular Psychologists Off the Clock podcast. Dr. Stoddard is the author of two other books: Be Mighty: A Woman's Guide to Liberation fro…

Dr. Peter H. Kim is a professor of management and organization at the Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California. His research on trust has been published in numerous scholarly journals, received ten national/international awards, and has been featured by the New York Times, Washington Post, and National Public Radio. He h…

Allen Sussman MD was a board-certified endocrinologist in private practice for thirty- four years as well as Clinical Assistant Professor at the University of Washington. As co-founder and President of Rainier Clinical Research Center, he was involved in hundreds of evidence-based studies and the development of ground-breaking technology for the tr…

In Part 1, we looked at how churches seem to be in the midst of a transition to something new. Here, Vince Brackett and Dave Schmelzer will take a deep dive into the thoughts of the big kahuna on this subject, Charles Taylor, and of his brilliant student, Hartmut Rosa. What if our world is set up to tell us that if we only had more resources we cou…

Harriet Sams researches, teaches, mentors, and facilitates ecotherapy and archaeotherapy. She works for the Buddhist ecotherapy charity, Tariki Trust, UK (www.tarikitrust.org), and co-hosts Earth Exchange Cafés for the US eco-resiliency, eco-art, and landscape belonging charity, Radical Joy for Hard Times (www.radicaljoy.org). She co-facilitates ‘T…

Paul D Corona MD was born and raised in Southern California. He attended the University of Southern California from 1980-1984, receiving a BS degree in Biology/Premed. From there he went to Medical school at New York Medical College, and then a three - year residency program in family practice at California Hospital in Los Angeles.After the first d…

Robert L. Okin, MD, is a world-recognized expert on human rights for the mentally disabled. He served as chief of service of the San Francisco General Hospital Department of Psychiatry, where he oversaw the development of crucial services for patients with acute and chronic mental illness. He was also professor and vice chair of the UC San Francisc…