“…do I really want to do that? 'cause my knee jerk reaction is to say yes most of the time. And in order to have all of our faculties to do that, we have to have a calmer nervous system because it's like building a whole new skill.”—Nicole Byrne, LMFT

Join Bethany Valenti as she chats with Nicole Byrne, a licensed marriage and family therapist specializing in people pleasing.

“There's a book about ADHD called You're Not Lazy, Stupid or Crazy. I feel like a lot of people who could benefit from executive functioning coaching have already diagnosed themselves with one of those three things” —Dr. Sophia Haeri

Executive functioning coaching can help you get things done without shame.

“Well, yes, that is God's preference that we don't divorce, but. It is not his preference for us to stay and be, abused. It's his preference that the person who is doing the abusing will come to repentance and never do it again.” —Michelle Croyle

Wondering if you can bring your faith into your therapy experience? Listen to Michelle Croyle discuss her work with Christian women dealing with trauma, religious abuse, and how she integrates faith into her practice.

“There was someone who had had a recent trauma. It had really, really impacted them like so much, like can barely, you know, get up to go to work…kind of things going on. Well we met for a three day intensive and at the start I always do…questionnaires and it's rating your trauma symptoms. She scored like off the chart, like top as high as you can, well over the threshold of PTSD, like meeting the criteria. And then…we went through, you know, EMDR for those three days....And at the end, we did the screening tool again, and she did not meet criteria for PTSD anymore” —Steffeny Feld, MSW

Therapy Intensives provide an alternative to the typical weekly therapy option. What if it could fit your needs better and still get you where you want to be?

It can be hard to find the right therapist for you.  Trying to find a therapist as a man, or as a black man?

“So right now I'd say a lot of my passion is working with men. Like there are 14 black male therapists period…I'm one of like three or four psychologists in the city that are male…And so in that…since the moment I stepped into the field, people wanted black male kids to come to me. I did a lot of kid work 'cause nobody else wanted to do it.” —Dr. Ritch Hall, owner of PsychWorks Clinic and the president of the Cincinnati chapter of the Association of Black Psychologists

“You might feel challenged, you might feel stretched or emotionally raw afterwards because it's stirring up those old patterns and behaviors. That is not a red flag, but if you at any point in therapy feel unsafe, belittled, manipulated, or just you leave the therapy feeling worse about who you are, not just what you're processing and what happened to you, that would be a red flag.” —Anna Khandrueva

“The way I like to put it to people is that therapy is the space where you feel comfortable being uncomfortable.” —Bethany Valenti

Learn about the Red Flags and Green Flags to keep in mind when choosing a therapist.

"The way I like to frame it is like therapy itself is the main quest that we're gonna be working on to achieve. Like whatever objective you brought into session, I'm giving you these side questing to try outside of session. 'cause if you're not, you know, practicing and learning skills, we’ll get to the end of our objective and go like, we don't have anything. Like we are still level two and this is a level 50 boss. We're kinda f*****.” —Tiffany Graves

Did you know you could incorporate things like D&D and other fun things into your therapy work?

“So that's another huge piece of couples therapy that I'm trying to infuse is like, Hey, we're gonna mess up. We're gonna hurt each other. Let's just try to figure out how to apologize and try and minimize it in the future and like improve our ability to be humble and admit when we've messed up.” —Dr. Carly Deremo

How do couples therapy and sex therapy actually work?

I've had plenty of tough conversations with people impacted by the disease of addiction Hey, like this isn't working. We can't have this going on. But it's coming from a place of care and concern. Dare I use the word, like healthy love for that person you know, you can't talk about substance use, you can't talk about things like that without understanding like trauma”

—Eric Stone

How do we define addiction, and how does trauma and support influence your experience?

"It feels a lot like meditation. I think about meditation where you are creating more like a stillness in your mind…hypnosis is where you're creating that clearing and that space adding something called a post hypnotic suggestion…that the mind can now sort of like receive hold on to and take with it once the hypnosis is over.“ —Dr. Monika Sharma

Learn about the use of hypnosis in therapy (aka hypnotherapy), its applications, and how it could be helpful for you.

“I was looking for a therapist. I found this woman who had every credential under the sun. I mean the most advanced degrees, all of the certification. She was clearly brilliant and very well-trained. I went to see her and she knew all the right techniques, but it was so clear that she was not particularly invested in me. She was seeing 40 plus clients a week to earn enough through insurance to pay her bills.” —Dr. Amber Lyda

Looking for a therapist? Why do some take insurance and some don't? How do I find the right therapist for me? Gain a deeper understanding of the complexities in the therapy landscape and learn how to make informed decisions about your mental health care.

A podcast where I get to sit down with fellow mental health professionals and have real talk about the work that we do!