Episode 249: Clinician's Corner - Understanding the Fawn Response
Release Date: 10/03/2025
Food Junkies Recovery Stories Episode 33: Heather Miller
Food Junkies Podcast
CJ welcomes Heather to the podcast, a guest whose bright, charismatic energy lights up the conversation from the start. Heather is exceptionally open and instantly warming, sharing her journey with honesty and heart. She speaks candidly about living with diabetes, her long battle with sugar and ultra-processed food addiction, and the moment everything changed, when she realized she wanted to become a healthy, active grandmother for her grandchild. That love became her fuel for transformation. Heather’s story is one of resilience, clarity, and choosing...
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Episode 278: Dr. John Kelly | The Science of Recovery – What the Research Really Says
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What does recovery look like — and how do we measure it? In this episode, we're joined by Dr. John Kelly, one of the world's leading addiction researchers and founder of the Recovery Research Institute at Harvard Medical School, for a deep dive into the science behind what makes recovery possible, sustainable, and real. Dr. Kelly breaks down the difference between remission and recovery, shares what decades of research tells us about who gets better (spoiler: most people do) and unpacks the active ingredients that help people build lives they love. We also get into the language we use around...
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Episode 277: Dr. Rachel Herz | The Science of Disgust, Smell, and Why You Eat What You Eat
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What if the key to understanding your relationship with food isn't willpower — it's neuroscience? In this fascinating episode, Dr. Vera Tarman sits down with Dr. Rachel Herz, neuroscientist, leading expert on the psychology of smell, and author of Why You Eat What You Eat and That's Disgusting. From the evolutionary roots of disgust to why ultra-processed foods bypass our natural aversion responses, this conversation will genuinely change how you think about what ends up on your plate — and in your mouth. What You'll Learn in This Episode Why disgust is almost entirely learned — and...
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Episode 276: Esther Kane, MSW | Highly Sensitive People
Food Junkies Podcast
Are you highly sensitive — and secretly using food to manage a world that feels like too much? In this episode, Dr. Vera Tarman sits down with Esther Kane, MSW, a British Columbia-based psychotherapist with nearly 30 years of experience helping highly sensitive people (HSPs) break free from emotional eating and food addiction. Esther isn't just a clinician — she's an HSP herself who nearly died from an eating disorder and has spent decades figuring out what works. If you've ever been told you're "too sensitive," struggled to explain why food feels like your only relief, or burned out...
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Episode 275: Clinician's Corner | Recovery in Unsettled Times
Food Junkies Podcast
Life doesn't pause for recovery — and right now, life is a lot. In this Clinician's Corner episode, co-hosts Molly Painschab and Clarissa Kennedy sit down for an honest, grounded conversation about what it looks like to stay connected to your recovery when the world feels like it's on fire and your personal life is a lot at the same time. This isn't a pep talk. These are two clinicians talking real about the neuroscience of stress and cravings, the shame spiral that follows a slip, and what "minimum viable recovery" can look like when you're just trying to make it to tomorrow. If you've been...
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Episode 274: Chérie St. Arnauld | Grassroots Mobilization — How We Push the Message of Food Addiction Forward
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What does it take to turn personal pain into policy change? In this episode, Dr. Vera Tarman sits down with Chérie St. Arnauld, Executive Director of Metabolic Revolution and a passionate advocate for metabolic health, to explore the power of grassroots mobilization in the fight against ultra-processed foods. Chérie grew up in a household shaped by economic constraints and ultra-processed food. It was her sister's cancer diagnosis, and the radical dietary intervention that gave her 10 more years of life, that forever changed how Chérie understood the relationship between food and healing....
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Food Junkies Recovery Stories Episode 32: Kristy McCammon
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CJ has the privilege of sitting down with Kristy today. Today, I’m honored to introduce Kristy, a devoted homeschooling mom whose life is a powerful testimony of resilience, strength, and hope. Kristy once believed her struggles were simply about weight and exercise, never realizing she was battling food addiction. Through faith, courage, and deep self-discovery, she came to understand the root of her struggle and found freedom on the other side. She is unwavering in her belief that God carried her through every step of the journey. Now, she shares her story to encourage others, offering...
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Episode 273: Dr. Jacob May | 🧠 How Ultra-Processed Foods Destroy Your Kids' Metabolism
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What's really happening inside your child's body when they eat ultra-processed food? In this episode, Dr. Vera Tarman sits down with Dr. Jacob May — mitochondrial researcher, registered dietitian, and Associate Professor at Pennington Biomedical Research Center — to explore the cellular and metabolic consequences of a diet dominated by ultra-processed foods, particularly in children. Dr. May leads the Mitochondrial Energetics and Nutrient Utilization Laboratory, where his team investigates how dietary patterns shape metabolism at the cellular level. He's a keynote speaker, precision...
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Episode 272: Dr. Ellen Hendriksen | How to Be Enough: Perfectionism, Shame & Self-Worth in Recovery
Food Junkies Podcast
Are you working hard, caring deeply, and still feeling like it's not enough? You're not alone, and this episode is for you. This week, Molly and Clarissa sit down with Dr. Ellen Hendriksen, clinical psychologist, core faculty at the Center for Anxiety and Related Disorders at Boston University, and author of How to Be Enough and How to Be Yourself. Ellen brings warmth, science, and radical compassion to one of the most common, and most quietly painful, struggles in recovery: perfectionism. In this conversation, we explore: 🔹 Where perfectionism actually comes from — genetics, family of...
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Episode 271: Clinician's Corner | "Nobody Ever Asked Me What I Wanted" — When Clinicians Stop Listening & Why It Harms Recovery
Food Junkies Podcast
Have you ever left a session feeling smaller than when you walked in? In this episode of Food Junkies: Clinician’s Corner, Clarissa and Molly explore one of the most important — and least talked about — dynamics in eating disorder, food addiction, and substance use treatment: what happens when the clinician's model gets in the way of the client's healing. 🔑 What We Cover in This Episode: ⬡ The Rosenhan Experiment — how psychiatric patients were misdiagnosed and then had their normal behavior interpreted as worsening symptoms, and what it reveals about clinical bias today ⬡...
info_outlineIn this episode, Molly Painschab and Clarissa Kennedy reconnect after three transformative weeks together—first in London for the International Food Addiction and Comorbidities Conference, then exploring the magic of Scotland. From castles and waterfalls to ancient standing stones, they share the joy of work, play, and community in recovery.
But the heart of today’s conversation is the fawn response—a trauma survival strategy often misunderstood as “people pleasing.” Drawing on their own stories and professional experiences, Molly and Clarissa explore how fawning develops, why it feels so challenging to change, and how it manifests in recovery and relationships.
What We Talk About
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Fawning explained: Why it’s more than people pleasing and how it functions as a survival strategy.
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Personal stories: Growing up in emotionally immature households, learning to appease, and the impact on identity and relationships.
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Adaptive vs. maladaptive fawning: When appeasement helps us survive—and when it harms us.
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Symptoms and signs: From difficulty saying no, over-apologizing, and hypervigilance to identity loss and emotional exhaustion.
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Why fawning is reinforced: Cultural, gender, and relational factors that reward compliance at the cost of selfhood.
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Professional insights: What clinicians and helpers need to know about clients who fawn—including vulnerability to relapse, self-neglect, and difficulty with boundaries.
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Pathways to healing: Building awareness, practicing small boundaries, parts work, somatic tools, and self-compassion as antidotes to shame.
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Grief and growth: Naming the loss that comes with shifting out of fawning while also reclaiming voice, choice, and authenticity.
Invitation for Listeners
This week, reflect on a time you said “yes” when you truly wanted to say “no.” What small, safe boundary might you practice instead? Notice how your body responds, and give yourself permission to honor your needs—one step at a time.
✨ Resources Mentioned
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Are You Mad at Me? by Meg Josephson
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Sweet Sobriety Membership & Groups: www.sweetsobriety.ca
💌 Email Us: foodjunkiespodcast@gmail.com
The content of our show is educational only. It does not supplement or supersede your healthcareprovider's professional relationship and direction. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified mental health providers with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition,substance use disorder, or mental health concern.