The Psychonaut Show

Like “anal retentive,” “oral fixation,” and “penis envy,” Castration Anxiety has mostly become a joke today. This idea of Sigmund Freud’s has become a reason to dismiss psychoanalytic ideas as antiquated, irrelevant, and even sexist.  

But in this episode, we get a little help from our friend, the Good Witch, Dr. Clarice Kestenbaum, to reclaim and reframe the idea of Castration Anxiety. We see how awareness of this idea can give ...

In this episode, we go “back to basics,” and explore the original maps of the mind that psychoanalysis is based on. Where models and fashion burst into popular consciousness in the 1990s with Ru Paul, Right Said Fred, and “Absolutely Fabulous,” the 1890s were when Freud developed his models that portray the “Fabulous” landscape of our inner worlds; a landscape that includes lion tamers, a Steep Hill of Depression, and its own Borde...

Every world, whether real or Sci-Fi or fantasy, has principles that tell us how things work in that world. Our inner worlds are no different. The Principle of Multiple Function tells us that each psychic act has not one or two, but exactly eight mental functions that it must perform. That may seem complicated, but understanding this Principle frees us to act more effectively in our daily lives. 

The Principle of Multiple Function...

Millennia ago, Hippocrates wrote, “Art is Long, Life is Short.” Well, this episode is long, but the concept of the Eight Stages of Man gives us insight into how the cycle of life unfolds, however long or short life may be. 

In this episode, we turn once again to the second generation of psychoanalytic theorists after Freud, his grandchildren, so to speak. Erik Erikson suffered an identity crisis that caused him to reinvent himsel...

Q: What do President Trump and daffodils have in common?  

A: They've both been called the name of a Greek myth.  

It seems that we hear about Narcissism and Narcissistic Personality Disorder all the time these days, especially as an accusation, but what does being called "a Narcissist" really even mean? 

To investigate this idea, we go back to Freud – of course. But we also bring in our friend from Season 1, Heinz Kohut, and...

We've gotten a ton of feedback that last season's episode on The Transitional Space was very helpful, particularly for the painters, and poets, and composers among you. So we are going to travel back to the "in-between" with my psychoanalytic fairy godmother and senior stateswoman of magical realms, Dr. Clarice Kestenbaum.

With Dr. Clarice in the captain's chair, we see how the Transitional Space is a world that overlaps childhoo...

From the gym to the boardroom to the nursery, human beings are always interacting; and always dealing with each other's psychological baggage. (Except for infants, who are the only humans with no baggage.) Especially when things get tense, knowing what we bring to the table, versus what the other person is putting on us, can be mysterious. 

Projective identification is the key to solving this mystery. This is where the most power...

From "baskets of deplorables" to Saint Augstine's doctrine of "Total Depravity," it seems that finger-pointing and paranoia are often what we expect of one another. Finding the "light" can be difficult even in ordinary times, and impossible in times of hate and rage and hopelessness. 

The Testament of Birthright makes the audacious assertion that our fundamental nature is to grow, connect, and solve problems; in other words, to b...

We're still in hibernation mode and getting ready for Season 2. But halfway to spring, we are bringing out a very special bonus episode, just in time for Imbolc, the festival of newborns and the future! 

This is the podcast's first interview. Dr. Clarice Kestenbaum was recently introduced to the country as David Letterman's psychiatrist; she was featured at the Kennedy Center ceremony when he was given the Mark Twain Prize in Ame...

From the Spanish Inquisition to political correctness, curiosity has never had an easy time. Just ask the cat, the one that curiosity killed. Active Curiosity is the favorite question of little children, the one that drives their mothers crazy, "Why?"

The Testament of Active Curiosity is the second of the Two Testaments of Action. Active Curiosity builds on Neutrality and takes our exploration of inner worlds further. It implore...

It's a "meta" episode this time, Psychonauts! We apply the First Testament of the Psychonaut, Neutrality, to the other definition of Psychonaut. That is, a person who travels consciousness with the use of hallucinogenic substances.

From Joe Rogan to Harvard Divinity School, psychedelics are making a comeback – and being "judge-y" just isn't going to get us anywhere in this conversation. Especially as people with anxiety, depress...

From the Book of Genesis to HBO, dreams are everywhere. But do they mean anything, really? Is it even useful to think about our dreams? Dreams are not just random neuronal firing; our brains are way too elegant. Dreams are the language of our unconscious, which thinks about our daily lives just like our consciousness does. We just have to translate this language to something we can understand. Using Dr. JKB's Three Rules of Dream...

This is a big one, Psychonauts! From Anna O. in 1895 to Madonna in 1985, the concept of Dynamic Conflict explains (almost) everything. Without conflict, we wouldn't have movies or politics or comic books or economics or anything interesting in life. But Dynamic Conflict is the kind of conflict we can't see, because it exists in our unconscious! In this episode, we meet some of the people from the very beginning of psychoanalytic hi...

What does Euclidian Geometry have to do with Hinduism? Nothing, except that each has basic principles that serve as its unbreakable foundation. Whether spiritual or scientific, every effort to understand our world needs a foundation, and the Six Testaments of the Psychonaut are ours. Like The Declaration of Independence, we hold them to be self-evident.

The Six Testaments; the Testaments of Action, the Testaments of Faith, and th...

All little boys want to kill their fathers and marry their mothers. Wait, what, really? These days, the idea that we go through an Oedipus complex usually just elicits an eye roll; though Freud once considered it the cause of all human neurosis. Although nothing is ever that simple, we should pause before throwing out the Oedipal baby with the Freudian bathwater.

Other thinkers have drawn on other Greek myths to describe the c...

What do Teddy bears and the Catholic Eucharist have in common? Why was Stan and Kyle's saving Imaginationland the most important thing they ever could do for South Park and the world?
Transitional Space is hard to describe, but we go searching from post-war London to avant-garde Lesbian comic strips, and find out how it is a crucial part of human experience.
In his paper, “Transitional Phenomena and Transitional Objects,” t...