Caring for patients with kindness and connection
Bear Psychology Podcast
This guide for mental health professionals offers an insightful, conversational approach to mastering empathic communication with clients. Dr. Douglas Flemons invites readers to join him in a dialogue that incorporates voices from clinical research and practice, philosophy (both Eastern and Western), neuroscience, and the arts. In his book, “Empathic Engagement in Clinical Practice,” Douglas explains the nuts and bolts of empathy and offers guidelines for how therapists can make sense of clients’ thoughts, feelings, and choices from inside their worldview. He also shows how the...
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The Strength to Serve: Mental Health for First Responders & Care Providers
Bear Psychology Podcast
First responders and healthcare professionals are trained to manage crisis — but repeated exposure to trauma, loss, and high-stakes decision-making can take a cumulative toll. Over time, this can lead to emotional exhaustion, sleep disruption, irritability, and disconnection — not because of weakness, but because the nervous system has been under sustained demand without adequate recovery. In this podcast, psychologist and author Tania Bielak, Ph.D. shares insights from her book The Strength to Serve, offering practical, evidence-based strategies to support mental health in...
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Addiction and the Journey to Enlightenment
Bear Psychology Podcast
Addiction isn’t just about pain—it can also be a call to something greater. The darkest paths can sometimes lead to the brightest truths by walking the path from suffering to self-discovery. In his book, “The Shadow of a Figure of Light: The Archetype of the Alcoholic and the Journey to Enlightenment” (2024) Cody Peterson explores the essence of Psycho-Spiritual transformation. Peterson looks at addiction as a pathway to wholeness. His book serves as both a guide and a mirror for those seeking to understand the hidden patterns behind self-destruction and the redemptive power...
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Using Polyvagal Theory for Healing
Bear Psychology Podcast
Listen to us as we discuss how you can rewire your nervous system for lasting calm, connection, and resilience with cutting-edge, polyvagal theory-based activities. Whether you have suffered a single traumatic experience or faced repeated difficult life events, you can be left feeling hypervigilant, irritable, and disconnected. Daily tasks like attending a work meeting or social gathering can feel overwhelming or even frightening. Most therapies for treating trauma require you to “revisit” your traumatic experience in potentially triggering ways. Best-selling author Dr. Arielle Schwartz...
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The Relationships Workbook for BPD
Bear Psychology Podcast
The Relationships Workbook for BPD - Bear Psychology Radio hosted by Dr. Anna Baranowsky with guest Dr. Daniel J. Fox. When intense emotions, fear of abandonment, or distorted expectations consume you, relationships can slowly erode, replaced by feelings of resentment and hostility. Unstable and high-conflict relationships are a hallmark of borderline personality disorder (BPD). In his book, “The Relationships Workbook for BPD”, Daniel J. Fox guides you step-by-step to help explore beliefs, behaviours and patterns that sabotage connection. Instead you learn how to repair relationships...
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Inner Growth for emotional healing
Bear Psychology Podcast
Many people associate the term "enlightenment" with images of a solitary figure sitting atop a distant mountain peak or a monk focused intently on meditation, but what does this concept look like when navigating our lives in today’s complex society? Enlightment, at its core, is about gaining awareness and awakening ourselves to the interconnected nature of existence. Dr. Steve Taylor, a renowned spiritual psychologist, has devoted his life to investigating spiritual awakening. His previous bestselling books provided case histories of dozens of people who experienced profound shifts in...
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The Power of Psychoanalysis
Bear Psychology Podcast
From alleviating recurring nightmares to finding oneself by discovering your family’s secret past, psychoanalysis is a turbulent but rewarding form of psychotherapy. Sigmund Freud was the founder of psychoanalysis establishing it in the 1890’s. The approach includes a focus on the unconscious mind, dream interpretation and talk therapy for addressing mental disturbances. Psychoanalysis continues to be a valuable path for gaining inner freedom from a host of mental struggles. In her book, “Untangling: A Memoir of Psychoanalysis” Joan Peters takes us through her journey of...
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Divorce and New Beginnings
Bear Psychology Podcast
Using Self-Compassion practices after divorce can help both parents and children. Divorce and/or separation is a stressful but quite common experience for both parents and children. Children often carry guilt, shame, and anger along with many other big feelings that parents often feel ill-equipped to address. In her book, “Two Times as Much Love” Eileen Beltzner tells the story of Alexander, a third-grader struggling with the emotional aftermath of his parents’ divorce, and his journey toward self-understanding and personal growth. Beltzner uses engaging storytelling and...
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Schizoid Personality Disorder and a life of challenge
Bear Psychology Podcast
Blair Sorrel shares her journey of living with Schizoid Personality Disorder and learning to accept and love herself. She undercovers further elements of her life growing up in a family of origin where she experienced ridicule leading to low self-worth, social anxiety and a debilitating fear of authority figures. She explores a home life with “poor parenting” which undermined her academic and career disappointments. She reflects on the importance of nurturing caregivers to allow the flourishing of Intelligence and genetics toward success. In her book, “A Schizoid at Smith: How...
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Your Historical Trauma
Bear Psychology Podcast
Looking for a new approach for self-help or to support individual or group therapy for those who experienced childhood trauma? In his guidebook, “The Historical Trauma Programme - For Self-help or to Support Individual Therapy” Bill Wahl introduces a comprehensive and science-based model of working with trauma. With over ten years in the field, Counselling Psychologist Bill Wahl and 3 dozen NHS colleagues developed workbook-based models of trauma therapy which can be used for self-help, to support individual therapy, or as a comprehensive model of group therapy. The approach is reflected...
info_outlineRecovery from trauma is not simply about healing the mind but about healing the body as well. Often the approach when treating trauma is solely focused on the mental and emotional effects and fails to address the physiological imbalances that trauma leaves behind on our bodies.
In Dr. Arielle Schwartz’s newest book “Therapeutic Yoga for Trauma Recovery: Applying the Principles of Polyvagal Theory for Self-Discovery, Embodied Healing, and Meaningful Change”, she guides the reader using yoga practices to help release the burdens of trauma and begin the journey of healing the psyche and the body. The book utilizes a variety of principles to provide a deeper understanding of how our bodies and brains react to stress and trauma leaving the reader feeling informed and empowered.
Listen to our conversation with psychologist & author Dr. Arielle Schwartz as we learn about the importance of embodied healing in treating and recovering from trauma.
Dr. Arielle Schwartz, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist, prolific author, wife and mother with a passion for treating individuals with trauma. Dr. Schwartz runs a private clinic where she treats clients as well as trains other therapists in her Resilience-Informed Therapy approach for helping people recover after experiencing trauma. She has also been teaching therapeutic yoga since 2008 with a specific focus on nervous systems recovery after trauma.
Dr. Schwartz’s is also the author of “The Complex PTSD Treatment Manual: An Integrative, Mind-Body Approach to Trauma Recovery” which guides clinicians through successfully treating patients who have had prolonged exposure to traumatic situations. The manual focuses on utilizing mindful body awareness to build distress tolerance, cultivate self-compassion, and facilitate trauma recovery drawing from Dr. Schwartz’s own years of experience in the field. She is also the author of “Therapeutic Yoga for Trauma Recovery: Applying the Principles of Polyvagel Theory for Self-Discovery, Embodied Healing and Meaningful Change”.
If you are interested in Dr. Schwartz’s insights on healing from trauma using both the mind and body, this podcast is for you.
Links & Resources:
- For more information about Dr. Schwartz’s books visit: https://drarielleschwartz.com/books-by-dr-schwartz/
- To purchase the books visit: https://amzn.to/4trvpgR
- For more about Dr. Arielle Schwartz: https://drarielleschwartz.com/dr-arielle-schwartz/
- Find Dr. Arielle Schwartz’s Blog here: https://drarielleschwartz.com/arielles-blog/
- Dr. Schwartz’s Trainings and Presentations: https://drarielleschwartz.com/trainingspresentations/
Materials to Reference:
- Therapeutic Yoga: https://drarielleschwartz.com/therapeutic-yoga-classes-in-boulder/
- Learn about Resilience Informed Therapy: https://drarielleschwartz.com/resilience-informed-therapy/
- Somatic Therapy for PTSD: https://drarielleschwartz.com/somatic-therapy/
- EMDR as a Treatment for PTSD: https://drarielleschwartz.com/emdr-as-a-treatment-for-ptsd/
- Play Therapy Principles: https://drarielleschwartz.com/play-therapy/play-therapy-principles/