38: Integrating Yoga into Therapy | Chris McDonald of the Podcast, Yoga in the Therapy Room
Release Date: 09/19/2024
EP 47: What the Research Actually Shows About AI Therapy with Dr. Nick Jacobson
The Mental Health Evolution
Rachel speaks with Dr. Nick Jacobson, associate professor of biomedical data science, psychiatry, and computer science at Dartmouth's Geisel School of Medicine and director of the AIM HIGH Laboratory, about the first clinical trial of a fully generative AI therapy chatbot — and what the results actually show. The access crisis in mental health care is the starting point for understanding why Dr. Jacobson's team built Therabot. In the most well-resourced mental health settings in the United States, there are approximately 35 providers per 100,000 people. In any given year, roughly one in...
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Ep 46: The Crisis Text Line with Dr. Shairi Turner
The Mental Health Evolution
Rachel speaks with Dr. Shairi Turner, Chief Health Officer at Crisis Text Line, a nonprofit that provides free, 24/7 text-based mental health support and crisis intervention through a community of trained volunteer counselors. In 2025, Crisis Text Line had more conversations than any year since its founding — over 1.5 million — and the data from those conversations tells a story that every clinician and practice owner needs to hear. Dr. Turner walks Rachel through how Crisis Text Line actually works: what happens from the moment someone texts HOME to 741741, how volunteer counselors...
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Ep 45: Stop Doing What Worked Ten Years Ago with Dr. Elizabeth Carr
The Mental Health Evolution
Rachel speaks with Dr. Elizabeth Carr, a clinical psychologist and the founder and CEO of Kentlands Psychotherapy in Gaithersburg, Maryland. Elizabeth leads a team of 20 doctoral and master's-level clinicians and has spent over two decades building a community-focused, financially sustainable practice through some of the most disruptive periods in the history of mental health care. A former Navy psychologist and sought-after speaker on practice management, she recently published a piece on strategic positioning during industry upheaval that is the centerpiece of this conversation. The mental...
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Ep 44: They Knew and They Profited Anyway with Matthew Bergman
The Mental Health Evolution
Rachel speaks with Matthew Bergman, founding attorney of the Social Media Victims Law Center, about the landmark KGM verdict — the first social media addiction case in the United States to reach a jury. In March 2026, a Los Angeles jury found Meta and YouTube negligent in the design of their platforms and awarded $6 million in damages to a young woman whose mental health was seriously harmed by her use of Instagram and YouTube beginning at age six. Matthew has spent four years building the legal case that made this moment possible, and the theory at its center is straightforward: this was...
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Ep 43: When Payers Own the Data: What the CAQH Rebrand Means for Providers
The Mental Health Evolution
In this solo episode, Rachel Harrison takes a break from her usual guest conversations to address something that has been generating a lot of discussion in the mental health community this week: the rebranding of CAQH as DataSpring. If you have been in mental health practice for any amount of time, you know CAQH. It is the credentialing portal most clinicians and practice owners have relied on for years to maintain licensing, training history, liability insurance, and practice information for insurance credentialing — a system designed so that providers enter their data once and it flows...
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Ep 42: What Clinicians Need to Know About AI Law with Dr. Nick Shumate
The Mental Health Evolution
Rachel Harrison speaks with Dr. Nick Shumate, a psychiatrist at the Division of Digital Psychiatry at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School, whose background is as rare as it is relevant: before medicine, he was a regulatory attorney practicing before the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. That combination of clinical training and legal expertise is exactly what drove him to lead a sweeping 50-state review of how the United States is governing artificial intelligence in mental health — research that produced findings every clinician and practice owner needs to...
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Ep 41: The Coverage Gap Is a Policy Problem with Cara Cheevers
The Mental Health Evolution
Rachel Harrison speaks with Cara Cheevers, Vice President of Coverage Policy at Inseparable, a national mental health advocacy organization working to win better mental health care for everyone in this country. Cara brings more than fifteen years of experience in health equity advocacy, including leading Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act enforcement at the Colorado Division of Insurance. In this conversation, Cara and Rachel dig into something that sits at the heart of the mental health access crisis: the workforce shortage is not simply a supply problem — it is a policy problem....
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Ep 40: When States Step Up for Safety with Delegate Lily Qi
The Mental Health Evolution
In this episode, Rachel Harrison speaks with Maryland State Delegate Lily Qi, who represents District 15 in Montgomery County and has served in the Maryland General Assembly since 2019. Delegate Qi sits on the Economic Matters Committee, where her work focuses on consumer protection, business regulation, and positioning Maryland for the industries of the future. This conversation centers on Maryland House Bill 883, legislation she championed to require basic disclosure when consumers interact with AI systems in behavioral health contexts, and what it means that the bill passed the House with...
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Ep 39: Brain Science for Better Leadership with Dr. Lisa Riegel
The Mental Health Evolution
In this episode, Rachel Harrison speaks with Dr. Lisa Riegel, leadership strategist and creator of the NeuroWell Framework, about why most organizational change efforts fail and what brain science reveals about how to fix that. Dr. Riegel opens with a foundational idea that runs through all of her work: behavior is always the intersection of biology and context, and when leaders understand that, they stop seeing resistant employees and start seeing brains that feel unsafe. From there, the conversation moves into the gap between aspirational leadership and operational leadership, why people do...
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Ep 38: Advocacy, Autonomy and the Future of Psychotherapy with Linda Michaels of PsiAN
The Mental Health Evolution
Rachel speaks with Dr. Linda Michaels, PsyD, MBA, a psychologist in private practice in Chicago and co-founder of the Psychotherapy Action Network (PsiAN). Founded in 2017, PsiAN was built to provide a unified voice for psychotherapists across all disciplines and theoretical orientations, advocating for access to quality care and pushing back against the forces reshaping the field. Dr. Michaels brings a rare combination of clinical training and a prior career in business, marketing, and organizational consulting, and that background is evident in how she analyzes the systems bearing down on...
info_outlineChris McDonald shares how she transitioned from traditional talk therapy to integrating holistic modalities like breathwork, yoga, and meditation into her sessions, significantly improving outcomes for her clients. She discusses her journey from being a school counselor to launching her private practice and starting the Holistic Counseling Podcast, soon to be rebranded as 'Yoga in the Therapy Room.' Chris also talks about her courses on how therapists can integrate yoga into clinical sessions and emphasizes the importance of self-care. Additional topics include the benefits of yoga and meditation for mental health, her entrepreneurial journey, and advice for starting a wellness routine.
About Chris McDonald:
Chris McDonald is a Holistic Therapist, Yogi, Meditation Teacher, Podcaster and Author. She owns a group online practice called “Path to Hope Counseling”. She is a 200 hour RYT, is Certified in Brainspotting and offers gentle yoga to clients in session, and offers private yoga sessions. She specializes in treatment of anxiety, depression, trauma and grief in young adults.
To support her fellow therapists, she offers clinical consultations and supervision therapy for therapists and is the author of "Self-Care for the Counselor”. She has helped many therapists prioritize their own mental health and wellness. She created the course “Yoga Basics” for therapists to help them learn how to integrate yoga into sessions safely and ethically. She is host of the podcast “The Holistic Counseling Podcast” which will soon be called “Yoga in the Therapy Room” Podcast.
Episode Timestamps:
- (01:40) The shift from school counselor to holistic therapist
- (05:00) Benefits of daily yoga and meditation
- (06:55) Integrating yoga into therapy sessions
- (12:40) Self-care tips; practicing yoga at home
- (16:45) Chris’ podcasting and entrepreneurial journey
- (22:10) Advice for fellow entrepreneurs
Watch this episode on YouTube:
youtube.com/@TheMentalHealthEntrepreneurPod
Connect with Rachel:
Facebook Group: The Mental Health Entrepreneur
Website: traumaspecialiststraining.com
Instagram: instagram.com/trauma_specialist
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/rachel-harrison-81a4796