296 - Resigning from Roles: Estrangement and Authenticity with Annie Schuessler Zam
Conversations With a Wounded Healer
Release Date: 08/27/2025
Therapists Need Community (Not Just CEUs) with Kathryn Esquer, The Therapy Network
Conversations With a Wounded Healer
What happens when therapists stop performing growth and actually practice it together? Kathryn Esquer shares how The Therapist Network emerged from a real need for authentic connection—and why community, vulnerability, and accountability are essential for sustainable clinical work. You know how I’m always going on about a) doing your work, and b) doing that work alongside others? It occurred to me that many therapists don’t know where to begin, especially with “everything” happening to our profession and the communities we serve. Kathryn Esquer felt that same deep desire for...
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Legal Reality Check for Therapists with Employment Lawyer Lori Goldstein - Group Practice (R)evolution
Conversations With a Wounded Healer
Group practices are changing fast—and the legal stakes are rising. This episode unpacks the employment risks, structural tensions, and workplace dynamics shaping the future of therapist employment. This realignment impacts you whether you’re a group practice owner OR a therapist staffer. If you take only one lesson away from my conversation with Lori Goldstein, award-winning employment lawyer, let it be this: If you’re not sure, then ask a lawyer. Common group practice legal issues include: Misclassification: 1099 vs W-2 Therapists Non-Competes & Non-Solicits in Work...
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314 - The Future of Therapy: Psychedelics, Spirituality & the Courage to Feel with Christian Snuffer
Conversations With a Wounded Healer
If therapists can’t feel, they can’t help. Christian Snuffer dives into psychedelics, spirituality, and the future of therapy—and why curiosity and compassion matter more than any modality. We met on Instagram and immediately bonded over, well, everything! While every tangent in this episode is just so compelling, three topics really reinforced my belief in the future of psychology and the clinicians who are dedicating themselves to its evolution: self-compassion - for the twisty journeys that bring many of us into this field and home to our own healing coachability - old...
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313 - You’re Not Broken: Wholeness, Recovery & Spiritual Healing with Jamie Marich
Conversations With a Wounded Healer
What if the biggest problem in therapy is therapists who haven’t done their own work? Jamie Marich explores recovery, spirituality beyond religion, and why no modality, guru, or system can replace embodied healing. I love show-and-tell as a teaching method, especially because it emphasizes the importance of therapists doing their own work. Dr. Jamie Marich is the perfect participant. They have a substantial catalog of “personal artifacts” to share: growing up inside evangelical Christian nationalism recovery from addiction and participation in AA processing their queerness in an...
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312 - No Wellness Without Justice with Frank Gruba-McCallister
Conversations With a Wounded Healer
Frank Gruba-McCallister on why therapy is political, compassion is nonnegotiable, and healing must include social change. If I had to choose one episode to light my way through the collapse of capitalism, it would be this conversation with Frank Gruba-McCallister. Truth is, there’s no escaping the darkness of our current timeline. That said, there are dozens of reasons to remain hopeful, and thousands of people (like Frank) fanning the flames of optimism. There’s also hella work to do individually and collectively. The end of capitalism will come whether we act or not. Frank offers...
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How to Grow a Practice Without Losing Yourself with Dr. Kristen Wynns - Group Practice (R)evolution
Conversations With a Wounded Healer
How Kristen Wynns built an award-winning practice without insurance dependence and with a good dose of humor. Group practice owners have a decision to make right now: continue treading water or get more creative in how they operate. The field of therapy is lucky to have many examples of group practice owners who embody innovative leadership. One of those is my “conference bestie”, Dr. Kristen Wynns, author, speaker, and founder of Wynns Family Psychology. Three things practice owners take away from this conversation: You’re the owner, not the micromanager. How you delegate tasks,...
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311 - Invisibility, Trauma, and Becoming Seen: Therapy + Spirituality with Caroline Fernandes
Conversations With a Wounded Healer
Are therapists ready for the next era of healing? Dr. Caroline Fernandes on complex trauma, mediumship, and what the therapy field has to learn from the spirit world. I’m spinning all the hits on this episode: grief, ghosts, and the energetic shifts that happen when we incorporate the spiritual into processing personal, cultural, or systemic wounds. That’s little “s” spirituality, not the patriarchal-sponsored kind. The addition of spirituality is important in light of my conversation with Dr. Caroline Fernandes. She’s a holistic psychotherapist specializing in complex trauma,...
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310 - Healing at EVERY Level: Mental Health and Clinical Leadership with Sarah Buino and Lane Essex
Conversations With a Wounded Healer
In this special 9th birthday episode of Conversations With a Wounded Healer, Sarah Buino and Lane Essex explore healing at every level—from individual mental health to group practice dynamics and systemic transformations in the therapy field. What does it mean to sustain a therapy career in these challenging times, while embracing authentic and clinical leadership approaches that foster collective healing and healthy organizations? This episode offers insight for therapists interested in evolving their practice and creating meaningful change within mental healthcare systems. Learn how...
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309 - Happy Funerals, Sad Funerals: What Death Teaches the Living with Rachel Hauck
Conversations With a Wounded Healer
A funeral director turned therapist on meaning-making, unfinished business, and why grief needs more truth and less cheerleading. Ready for a life-affirming episode about death? I’m excited to introduce you to my longtime friend Rachel Hauck. She’s a funeral director and embalmer. After 20 years in business, she’s decided to go back to school to become a therapist. I love chatting with people who are in midlife career shifts. Why did she make the switch? How will her previous career shape her identity as a therapist? What sets this conversation apart from the hushed, almost...
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Power, Pay, and Permission to Leave with Alicia Murray, The Therapist HQ - Group Practice (R)evolution
Conversations With a Wounded Healer
When the world is burning, old business paradigms collapse—here’s what replaces them. Self-assessment time. For group practice owners: Do your internal systems align with the company’s client-facing messaging? For group practice employees: Is fear (of failure, of retaliation) holding you back from calling out harmful behaviors or leaving altogether? Alicia Murray, LMHCD, is the creator of Therapist HQ, a digital platform for therapists ready to transition into entrepreneurship. I invited Alicia to discuss how group practice employees can protect themselves against extractive...
info_outlineWelcome to Part 2 of my catch-up with Annie Schuessler Zam. If you haven’t already, I recommend starting with Part 1: A Continuum of Connection: Parent-Child Relationships, Caregiving, and Self-Healing. I consider Annie as a case study in remaining open to possibility. She embodies a fearlessness that we all possess but often shy away from activating. Courageousness is scary, after all.
GUEST BIO
Annie Schuessler Zam (she/they) is a therapist turned healer and the host of the Rebel Therapist™ podcast. She helps people who are estranged from a parent or caregiver who want to heal trauma and live their most beautiful lives.
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