146 - Jessica Fern - Polysecure: Attachment, Trauma and Consensual Nonmonogamy
Conversations With a Wounded Healer
Release Date: 01/20/2021
276 - Elle McAlpine - An Intimacy Coordinator Sets the Stage for Consent and Authentic Connection on Screen and in Real Life
Conversations With a Wounded Healer
Let’s play fill-in-the-blank: Sex is _____ . The possibilities are endless! But, my word of choice is intimate. It’s a perfect shorthand for the spectrum of desires, experiences, and, yes, traumas that inform every sexual encounter––even if the act in question is fake. As in: part of an acclaimed Hollywood film in which sex represents the main character’s evolving agency. Intimacy Coordinator Elle McAlpine has worked on some impressive projects, including the award-winning film, Poor Things and the award-winning Netflix series Baby Reindeer. Co-host Anne Remy engages Elle in a...
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275 - Marc Mathys - Uniting the Collective Beyond Right and Wrong Despite Disagreement
Conversations With a Wounded Healer
Oh, fellow therapists, how I love you! That said, I'm super-concerned about our capacity to move through interpersonal challenges exacerbated by, among other things, a volatile election season. My question is: How do we model being with folks outside the profession––even those we disagree with––if we can't make space for complexities of thought and motivation within our own community? Marc Mathys considers Spiral Dynamics a solid foundation on which to build. You may have already guessed that Marc and I spent the bulk of this episode exploring the trajectory of the collective. What...
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274 - Jo Darling - How to Honor Healing as a Collaborative Act
Conversations With a Wounded Healer
Self-care is a basic human right. Sadly, intuitive healing practices like acupuncture are often dismissed, especially in Western society, as woo-woo or pseudoscientific time-wasters. Thank goodness for practitioners like the delightful Jo Darling in Brighton, UK! Jo is passionate about women’s health and healing, and she’s also co-host Anne Remy’s acupuncturist, so we’ll finally get to the core of Anne’s cross liver sitch. Are you curious about how acupuncture works and why this Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) has stood the test of time? Jo offers clear, supportive...
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273 - Deborah Ooten - How to Make Sense of These Tenuous Times Using the Enneagram and Spiral Dynamics
Conversations With a Wounded Healer
Discomfort doesn’t automatically denote danger. Identifying the difference and holding those nuances takes practice. Let this episode be part of the lesson plan. Deborah Ooten, PhD., is the founder/director of the Conscious Living Center, and she’s the first person to successfully merge the teachings of the Enneagram with the Spiral Dynamics evolutionary model. I’m a fan of both models; my co-host Anne Remy isn’t. Friction can rub us the wrong way AND expand our capacity for complex conversations. As Anne says, it’s possible to engage with concepts that you vehemently disagree...
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272 - Alex Jones - A Digital Storyteller Connects With Strangers to Find the Soul of Humanity
Conversations With a Wounded Healer
Disclaimer: No! Anne’s conversation isn’t with that Alex Jones. Instead, it’s with Alex Jones, the creator of Humans of Brighton And Hove, an Instagram account featuring candid street photos and stories of folks in the UK’s eclectic, beloved seaside village. While Alex’s photography is stunning, the captions create a broader community of compassion. They’re real, raw glimpses into the subject’s world. And they reveal how kindred humans are despite the manufactured divisions of race, religion, or economic status. GUEST BIO Alex Jones is a storyteller, interviewer, and...
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271 - Tiffany Konyen - Student Loan Debt is a Social Justice Issue!
Conversations With a Wounded Healer
If you’re one of the 43 million Americans currently living under the crushing weight of student loan debt, that’s by design, not personal failure. Under our late-stage capitalist system, the cost of a college degree has far outpaced the wages offered to pay for it. Tiffany Konyen, a Doctoral Candidate in the Anthropology and Social Change department at the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco, wants to change how America thinks about financing education for its citizens. Their research offers insight into the impacts of student loan debt on material life...
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270 - Carolynn Bain - How a Black Independent Bookseller Celebrates Cultural Representation and Self-Care
Conversations With a Wounded Healer
Independent bookshops are magical places. But building that mix of quiet corners and convivial community doesn’t come without a lot of sweat equity. Indie bookshops thrive because of the booksellers behind them, real live humans who concentrate on more than just commerce. Carolynn Bain, founder, and owner of Afrori Books in Brighton, UK, is “that” indie bookseller, an award-winning entrepreneur whose meticulously curated titles and culturally focused events define what it means to be an indispensable neighborhood resource. Since opening in October 2021, Afrori Books has become...
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269 - Mark Fischler - Stepping Out of the Collective Trance of Society
Conversations With a Wounded Healer
With the amount of time folks invest in their news feeds, social scrolls, podcasts, and hot-takes, you’d think we’d have a better grasp on “the whole picture.” But we only operate with a partial perspective regardless of the situation or issue. This universal truth pushes many of us toward the false comfort of binary thinking. Podcast host and Professor of Criminal Justice at Plymouth State University Dr. Mark Fischler says we don’t have to pick sides. He believes that if we can get comfortable holding multiple truths at once, even if we don’t understand them, we can solve...
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268 - Khaled ElSherbini - How a Scientist Interprets Ancient Wisdom Traditions for a Modern Audience
Conversations With a Wounded Healer
If you like your woo-woo grounded in modern scientific understanding, this convo is for you! Khaled ElSherbini, PhD, is the founder of Consciousness Academy (CA), the leading IEA-accredited Enneagram school located on the Sinai Peninsula, which is, coincidentally, a place that three of the world’s major religions (Islam, Judaism, and Christianity) believe holds spiritual significance. CA quickly became a destination for seeking a deeper understanding of and connection to oneself. Students appreciate Khaled’s thoroughly modern scientific background and his ability to translate...
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267 - The Burnt Out Practice Owner: How Do We Make Wonderful, Healthy Spaces for Practice Owners AND Their Staff?
Conversations With a Wounded Healer
After 18 episodes featuring conversations with burnt-out (and not burnt-out) practice owners and some of their employees, I’ve got survey responses that prove we can band together to form the practices we desperately want to participate in. But, owners, we gotta have a chat… Employees feel underpaid, undervalued, and undersupported, while a lot of practice owners feel underappreciated and overwhelmed. The data also emphasized chasms in our understanding of daily practice life––caseloads and onboarding, supervision and power differentials, profit distribution, and benefits packages. I...
info_outline“I think as therapists, there is no such thing as true neutrality, right?...The importance is knowing and owning your bias so that we can prevent it from doing harm.” ~Jessica Fern
Polyamory. Well, now that I have your attention…let’s get into it, shall we? Ohhh, y’all, this episode is meaty with material courtesy of the brilliant Jessica Fern, psychotherapist, coach, public speaker, relationship expert, and author. Her new book Polysecure: Attachment, Trauma and Consensual Nonmonogamy* explores healthy attachments through a refreshingly non-traditional lens.
But hold up, monogamy-minded folks! You’ll want to pay close attention as insecure attachment styles can sabotage any relationship; we either feel safe and secure within them, within ourselves, or we don’t.
We can, however, foster securely functioning relationships - no matter the number of participants.
Still, too many therapists disregard the validity of monogamy, incorrectly citing it as a byproduct of childhood misattunement rather than a healthy way of being. Jessica points out that “people who are nonmonogamous are not doing nonmonogamy because they’re insecurely attached.” Instead, they’re committed to working at their relationships often with a therapist, a practice that many monogamous couples could learn from.
There’s plenty more to my conversation with Jessica including definitions! acronyms! NARM talk! Awesome links! and everyone’s favorite healer questions! Give this one a listen no matter your preferred relationship style.
Jessica Fern is a psychotherapist, public speaker and trauma and relationship expert. In her international private practice, Jessica works with individuals, couples and people in multiple-partner relationships who no longer want to be limited by their reactive patterns, cultural conditioning, insecure attachment styles and past traumas, helping them to embody new possibilities in life and love. Jessica is the author of the book Polysecure: Attachment Trauma and NonMonogmamy and you can learn more about Jessica and her work at JessicaFern.com.
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For full show notes, resources, and links to connect with our guest, visit: http://www.headhearttherapy.com/podcast
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