Developing Meaning

Send us Fan Mail

This episode is a companion audio diary to my interview with Ted Riskin, recorded while participating in one of his five-day Internal Family Systems (IFS) ketamine-assisted group retreats in Asheville, North Carolina. Over the course of the retreat, I recorded stream-of-consciousness reflections into my iPhone each day as I moved through group process, ketamine journeys, hikes in the mountains, and conversations about healing, anger, meaning, and inner balance.

This episode is more personal and less structured than my usual interviews. Part field journal, part psychological exploration, it captures what it feels...

Send us Fan Mail

In this episode, I sit down with Ted Riskin — social worker, IFS expert, and pioneer of group ketamine retreats — after spending a week at his beautiful home in Asheville, North Carolina participating in one of his experiences. From his unusual path as a computer programmer living in an Ashram to becoming one of the leading voices in ketamine-assisted IFS group therapy, we explore how to work with protectors, why anger deserves more respect than our culture gives it, and how group healing unlocks something individual therapy often can't reach. Plus: why meaning isn't some...

Send us Fan Mail

Note: This conversation with Dr. Patricia Gerbarg was recorded in August 2025.

In this episode, we explore how breathing patterns reshape the emotional brain, restore a sense of safety, and allow meaning to return to daily life with Dr. Patricia Gerbarg, co-creator of the Breath-Body-Mind program.

From her personal development as a healer to co-creating a global healing community active in trauma hotspots like Ukraine and Rwanda, we explore the science, stories, and practical tools that help people regulate their nervous systems and reconnect with meaning.<...

Send us Fan Mail

In this New Year’s episode, I explore the very real consequences of last year’s Past Year Review. Most notably, I decided to retire from a beloved community mental health clinic and launch Park West Integrative Psychiatry — sparked by a desire for creativity, continued learning, and a growing belief in integrative trauma-informed approaches such as EMDR, Internal Family Systems, ketamine-assisted therapy, hypnosis, and breath-based practices.

This episode reflects on how intentionally examining meaning and purpose can lead to significant life changes — changes that invite both opportunity and risk, excitement and fear.

Send us Fan Mail

Happy New Year!  It's time to do a meaning inventory in order to set intentions for 2026.  Toward that end I am re-posting my meaning inventory from last year.  Our next episode will delve into how these unfolded and are leading to major career changes.

This episode invites listeners to engage in a meaningful past year review, turning away from traditional resolutions toward a more insightful approach to personal growth. By exploring the themes of beginner's mind, questioning assumptions, and the importance of consilience, Dr. Dirk Winter provides a framework for navigating men...

Send us Fan Mail

Mike Mandel is a world-leading hypnotist with over 50 years of professional experience. He's performed nearly 5,000 stage shows, trained over 10,000 students at his Toronto hypnosis academy, and co-hosts the Brain Software podcast.

Our conversation bridges hypnosis, Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy, pain management, and meaning-making—showing how different healing traditions can discover the same truths about how minds heal.

Whether you're a therapist curious about hypnosis, an IFS practitioner, or simply fascinated by how minds work and heal, this conversation will expand your understanding.

You'll hear:

Send us Fan Mail

Joanne Twombly, LCSW and author of Trauma Informed Internal Family Systems, has been treating complex trauma and dissociative disorders for over 30 years. In this conversation, she explores how right-brain modalities such as EMDR, hypnosis, and Internal Family Systems (IFS) can sometimes heal what words cannot. We also discuss the evolution of dissociative disorder diagnoses, the book Sybil and false memory controversies, the limits of traditional talk therapy, and the deeper role of meaning in recovery.

Timestamps
0:00 Welcome to Trauma-Informed Healing
2:57 Understanding IFS and Parts Work
8:40 From...

Send us Fan Mail

What happens when you combine military experience, personal recovery, cutting-edge trauma therapies, and the healing power of nature? Beau Laviolette's remarkable journey answers this question through a story of transformation and purpose.

From the sugar cane fields of Louisiana to the Marine Corps and back again, Beau's path wasn't straightforward. After military service ended unexpectedly due to seizures, he faced addiction struggles that eventually led him to recovery and a calling to help others. This deeply personal experience became the foundation for his approach to trauma healing, combining Eye Movement Desensitization...

Send us Fan Mail

In this episode, I take you inside my experience of learning Internal Family Systems therapy while simultaneously navigating prostate cancer surgery and recovery during the fall and winter of 2023-24.

Through audio diary entries recorded over three months, you'll hear my real-time reflections as I move through an intensive experiential training that forced me to find and confront parts of myself. From the corporate retreat center where it all began to the post-surgical reflections in my bedroom, these recordings capture the disorientation, insight, and healing that unfolded as I allowed myself...

Send us Fan Mail

Margaret Conley, LCSW, Minister, and IFS Assistant Trainer, joins me to explore how trauma is passed down through families, culture, and society —and how we can heal. Drawing from her own powerful story, Margaret explains the Internal Family Systems (IFS) concept of legacy burdens and how she helps clients release inherited patterns related to race, religion, gender, and family history. This episode is part of my IFS Level 1 training series and offers deep insight into how healing across generations is not only possible—but transforms how we create meaning.

Timestamps

Send us Fan Mail

Can you imagine learning at 35 that you were adopted?  In this episode Ridghaus, my friend and Level I IFS Program Assistant, shares how this discovery transformed his sense of identity and led him to advocate for adoptee rights and communities.

We also explore the profound loss of his 18-year-old son and how he has grieved. Through our conversation, Ridghaus reflects on the "golden threads" that have guided him—moments of insight, connection, and healing. We discuss how Internal Family Systems (IFS) has played a role in his process, helping him hold spa...

Send us Fan Mail

This episode invites listeners to engage in a meaningful past year review, turning away from traditional resolutions toward a more insightful approach to personal growth. By exploring the themes of beginner's mind, questioning assumptions, and the importance of consilience, Dr. Dirk Winter provides a framework for navigating mental health and self-discovery in 2025.

• Dissecting the concept of a past year review 
• Sharing personal peaks and lows from 2024 
• Introducing guiding themes for 2025: beginner's mind, questioning assumptions, and consilience 
• Exploring the significance of various healing modalities 
• Challenging traditional mental health assumptions 

Send us Fan Mail

The Internal Family Systems (IFS) Level I training is an experiential group learning process that teaches us how to identify and heal traumatized parts of ourselves and others.  In October 2023 I began this training after having recently received a prostate cancer diagnosis.  This episode begins a multi - part series in which I introduce you to fascinating healers I met during my Level I training, beginning with Jory Agate my Lead Trainer.

Jory is a minister, IFS lead trainer, a kind and gifted healer, and so much more.  In this episode she...

Send us Fan Mail

Internal Family Systems therapy (IFS) is a type of therapy that views the normal human mind as an internal family of inner conscious beings.  In this episode we unpack the key IFS concepts of 'Exiles,' 'Firefighters,' and the 'Self,' offering insights into how our childhood experiences shape our inner dynamics and how we can harmonize our mental orchestra by putting the 'Self' back into our mind's conductor seat. This episode sets the stage for a multiple episode series that brings you with me into my IFS level I training experience a...

Send us Fan Mail

Dr. Bliss Lewis is a child and adult psychiatrist, expert in integrative and alternative treatments, and creator of Mind Body 7, one of the most innovative and successful group psychotherapy practices in New York.  She learned natural healing approaches as a child in in Russia and Poland, then combined these interests with modern Western medical training at Harvard, Columbia and NYU.   She also has passion for dance, music, yoga, meditation, and her curiosity and creativity have allowed her to build heart-centered practices and holistic wellness communities around these interests. Discover how trauma-informed care, self-compassion, an...

Send us Fan Mail

Please enjoy this guided six minute coherent breathing exercise led by Dr. RIchard Brown, co-creator of Breath Body Mind.

This is a spontaneous demonstration taken out of our longer Episode 12 Interview in order for you to be able to chose the right time and place to do this exercise.

For more information on Dr. Brown's approaches to breathing listen to our full lenght episode 12, or go to www.breathbodymind.com.

Send us Fan Mail

For thousands of years  breathing has been used to heal trauma, optimize health, and build connection.  Dr. Richard Brown has spent his life mastering these techniques, and is also an expert in integrative psychiatry, and Associate Professor of Psychiatry at Columbia.  He has co-authored over 100 scientific articles, chapters, and award winning books on applying these techniques to heal anxiety, trauma, and optimize health.  Together with his wife, Dr. Patricia Gerbarg, he has co-created the Breath-Body-Mind organization, which trains health care providers in using breathing techniques to heal health workers and trauma survivors all over...

Send us Fan Mail

Deb Dana is a master healer, teacher,  author, and the creator of a unique polyvagal-informed approach to therapy that is based on The Polyvagal Theory of Dr. Stephen Porges.

In this episode you will learn about the neuroscience of human connection, and how our autonomic nervous system is composed of three distinct internal states that determine how we feel and how we create meaning.

Learn more about Deb Dana's work and workshops at www.rhythmofregulation.com

Timestamps:
00:00:18 Understanding Polyvagal Theory and Nervous System
00:18:07 Early Influences a...

Send us Fan Mail

Dr. April Minjarez is the only therapist I know who is both experienced at healing infant trauma and an end of life doula.  She is also an expert in multiple trauma healing modalities including Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) and an amazing mentor, teacher, and healer.

In this episode you will hear how a terrifying experience with gangs in middle school inspired April to become a therapist.  You will also learn how EMDR therapy stimulates healing by reprocessing components of traumatic memories, and how this modality can integrate ketamine journeys.  Als...

Send us Fan Mail

When Richard Brockman was seven years old his mother died by suicide.  He went on to become an expert in trauma and suicide, and is now a Professor of Psychiatry at Columbia, Psychoanalyst, Playwright, Author and my mentor and friend.   He recently published his memoir, Life After Death: Surviving Suicide, which tells his story of loss and healing from both a first person and a neuroscience perspective.  

In this conversation you will learn much about how to heal trauma from perspectives of story, neuroscience, and meaning.

Theme music by The...

Send us Fan Mail

In this episode I discuss how a year end review can help us prioritize and plan for the year ahead.  I review what I have learned from this podcast so far and look ahead toward upcoming episodes and topics in 2024.

Produced by Dirk Winter and Violet Chernoff

Theme Music by The Thrashing Skumz

Send us Fan Mail

"The more efficient a force is, the more silent and the more subtle it is. Love is the subtlest force in the world." ~ Mahatma Gandhi
(quote lifted from Bruce's bio page)

How can you know what type of therapy is most likely to be helpful when the number of psychotherapies is vast and growing ?  

One way is to learn from Bruce Hersey, who has 30 + years of clinical experience and a wide range of expertise, including Ericksonian Hypnosis, Psychodrama, EMDR, IFS, and Coherence Therapy.
I...

Send us Fan Mail

Join me as I share an audio diary of my first encounter with Ketamine, which is a legal psychedelic medication  that can treat depression, trauma and more. 

Set  in the serene Menla retreat center of the Catskill Mountains, this episode describes my participation in a week-long  training program designed to teach mental health clinicians how to utilize the healing power of Ketamine. 

During this immersive experiential training, I become increasingly connected with a team of peers, as we guide each other's Ketamine journeys and learn from a team of exper...

Send us Fan Mail

What would make a successful Columbia Psychiatrist and Psychoanalyst fly across the country to write a story about a one-legged wrestling superstar?  What does it mean to be Neurotic, and how can we recognize and change repetitive self-defeating patterns?
 
In this episode we explore unconscious motivations with my friend, colleague and former supervisor, Dr. David Merrill.  Dr. Merrill  describes how he made important life decisions that led him to become a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst.  We seek to understand and explain the process of psychoanalytic psychotherapy, and how lying on the couch can f...

Send us Fan Mail

Are you curious about psychedelic retreats? Join us for an insider’s perspective with Justin Townsend, CEO of MycoMeditations, the oldest and largest psilocybin mushroom therapeutic retreat center in Jamaica. We discuss the process of safety screening, and the potential of using psychedelics to overcome trauma, ease depression, and reconnect with our authentic selves.
  
Justin shares his personal journey, from tech startups, to the European psychedelic underground, to learning and teaching breathwork and meditation, and then joining MycoMeditations in Jamaica.  Having facilitated thousands of healing journeys, he shares how these retreats can p...

Send us Fan Mail

            Dr. Jean Marmoreo has been a family physician for upwards of forty years. For most of those years, she practiced mid-life medicine while breaking marathon records and hiking all around the world. Her speciality shifted in 2016, when MAiD (Medical Assistance in Dying) was legalized and she became one of Canada’s first MAiD practitioners. Having worked in the end-of-life medical spheres for the past seven years, Jean has witnessed numerous last days and multitudes of family goodbyes. 

            Many believe that denial of death is at the root of human anxiety, and that awareness...

Send us Fan Mail

Have you ever wondered what your psychiatrist or therapist has figured out about life's big questions?  In this first episode adult and child psychiatrist Dr. Dirk Winter begins his exploration of what clinicians have learned about how to build more meaning and purpose into our lives.  Also, Dr. Winter suggests a daily meaning enhancement technique that combines Victor Frankel's 4 components of meaning with hypnotist Mike Mandell's daily questions technique.

Produced by Dirk Winter and Violet Chernoff

Theme Music by The Thrashing Skumz

Send us Fan Mail

Many emerging therapies like EMDR, IFS, Somatic Experiencing, and Psychedelics target a client’s “Felt Sense” and “Embodied Knowing” rather than intellectual and cognitive insight.  The term “Felt Sense” was coined by philosopher Eugene Gendlin, who developed a peer to peer therapy process called Focusing in the 1950s.  

Here we present a conversation with Focusing expert Annette Dubreuil on the history, allure, and methodology of this internal psychotherapeutic process. Annette describes her personal connection to Focusing, her experiences as a long-time Focusing facilitator, and her specific teaching process, the Pupa process.  She also describe...