Therapy with my Mom

It's back to just your favorites! Julee and Ryan are here this week to discuss their perspectives on communication and conflict resolution. 

Julee and Ryan share their personal stories and what they've learned to ask for when engaging in conflict. They go over many different rules and strategies in how to manage your own emotions while still playing on the team of your partner. In this episode, you'll get to...

Need a guide on how to deal with the immature people in your life? Thank goodness we have Lindsay Gibson with us today! 

Lindsay is a clinical psychologist and well-published author with a lot of advice on how to deal with the immature parents and people that we might be stuck with.  We cover a whole lot in this episode, discussing how the media seems to elevate immature personalities more, how to handle those who don&apos...

It's rare in this day and age to hear about healthcare that truly cares, but that is what you'll find at Waterford Place in Aurora, IL.  A haven for patients and families fighting cancer, Waterford Place is an institution that our very own Thomas Barkauskas worked with extensively. We have the pleasure of talking to Omar Ramos on this episode, the Program Development and Operations Manager, about his journey to this speci...

It's Therapy with my Mom and another person from Ryan's world! This week we have the pleasure of talking to Jennifer Menendez, Manager of The Post climbing gym, Ryan's second home, and his part-time job. Jennifer has been working in and managing gyms for years and has developed her leadership methods based on her life experience and years of trial and error. 

Fresh off of a summit on gym leadership, Jennifer...

In this episode, Ryan tries to get himself a diagnosis for ADD! 

We have the incredibly intelligent Dr. Brandi Boan with us today, talking about what it means to be a neuropsychologist and the kind of work and tests that she conducts. Brandi also discusses the unique perspective of being a prescribing psychologist, one of less than 20 in her state!

We discuss neurological conditions such as dementia and how we try...

It's our 50th episode! Thank you all for being a part of that journey. Today we don't have any extra guests besides our amazing co-host Julee who talks about personal and practical perspectives on grief and loss.

Mother of the show and professional counselor of many years, Julee has personally experienced loss in so many ways and wields this now as her power to help others cope with their pain. We cover the stage...

Stuck in a pattern you can't help but repeat? If you can bring your awareness to it, perhaps then you would have the choice in doing it! 

Gestalt therapy is about "shape," "form," and "patterns." A licensed Gestalt Psychotherapist like Melissa Bennett-Heinz could be the one to help you piece it all together! Today we discuss the origins and method of Gestalt therapy, and how Melissa took ...

The old ways of raising our kids can be really focused on reacting to their behavior, and not truly supporting what their nervous systems need! Thankfully, we have Jenifer Freedy on the show to help us understand the Neuroscience of Parenting and secure attachment!

Jenifer is a brilliant psychotherapist with the knowledge and intention of helping us support our nervous systems. With Jen's help, we get into some of the...

Is it time for you to get unstuck or resolve your trauma? Thankfully we have an amazing professional with us this week ready to talk about his own treatment method for helping patients do just that!

Michael Cortina is the founder of The Cortina Method, an approach based on neuroscience and brain optimization, which is, "getting the brain to respond to life, in the most enticing and optimal way possible." Michael ...

It's TBRI, but it's also family systems and a whole lot more! In this episode we are joined by Rhonda Johnson, the owner of The Center for Counseling and Family Relationships in Fort Worth, Texas. Rhonda shares with us the foundations of TBRI and how it informs her work with play therapy and family systems.

We also get to learn and appreciate Rhonda's own story of becoming an adoptive parent, how her daughte...

It's a special no-guest episode this week as we review the Netflix Documentary, "Stutz." This film was directed by Jonah Hill and we encourage you to watch it before listening to this episode!

We discuss the dynamics of Jonah's relationship with his therapist, the "tools" that are explained and suggested, and the philosophies shared. It's a vulnerable look at both Jonah and Phil Stutz&apo...

Ever had to argue with a Narcissist and not really get anywhere? Sounds like you got caught up in the drama triangle. Thankfully, we have Dr. Greg Lester with us this week to explain how he works with the personality-disordered population, and to give us a better understanding of what is behind their motivations to stir up drama.

Dr. Greg Lester is the leading trainer on all things personality disorders, having read everyt...

Dr. Beth Plachetka usually only uses her title on Christmas cards, but that doesn't make her any less qualified to be on our show! Beth is a former educator and school social worker, now working out of her private practice, Safe Harbor Counseling in Sugar Grove. Mother to three and grandmother to nine, Beth followed the path to end up doing exactly what she needed to.

In this episode, we discuss all methods of parenti...

Karen Rose never studied how to be inspirational, that doesn't stop her from inspiring us though! Career Coach and MFT Karen Rose joins us this week to talk about her nearly 40 years of experience with career coaching, and how so much of her tenacity was born from her own struggle of trying to get hired as a completely blind person.

Karen shares her story with us, on how she suffered discrimination and eventually star...

Did you know that therapy can be funny? Well, at least when you're working with two infectiously hilarious people like Lodge McCammon and Mallori DeSalle. Musical educator and mental health counselor duo, Lodge and Mallori, teach us all about how humor can find its way into our mental health and help us take mini "vacations." Through a variety of exercises and examples, Ryan and Julee are shown how imagining the most...

Clinical Hypnotherapist and professional confidante, Hunter Moore, joins us to tell us exactly what those terms mean! Hunter is an amazing professional who is trained in many modalities and explains how this wisdom helps her explore hypnotherapy with her clients. This can often happen in "conversational hypnosis" where one could enter a basic trance-like state in conversation and our underlying subconscious could be surfa...

It's a very special episode for Therapy with my Mom, being released on Ryan's birthday! Today we talk to the creator of the Nurtured Heart Approach, Howard Glasser, on the foundation of his style and the journey he took to get here. This approach is all about removing energy from the negative and giving it all to our successes. Julee and Ryan get to share the profound impact that his method had on a younger Ryan, and we c...

Can you externalize your problems from yourself? Maybe it would help if you gave it a name. 

Rob Castillo is our special guest this week, talking us through narrative therapy and how we can apply the tools to almost every problem. We discuss how music and other forms of art can help us connect and communicate our stories when the words are hard to find, and share many stories of triumph in which removing ourselves from the...

Therapy doesn't have to be all talk. That's what Valerie Maty is here to teach us with her many degrees and experience conducting Art Therapy. Valerie is an accomplished practitioner from Labyrinth Counseling, who helps us understand the use of art and play in therapy. We discuss the many types of mediums you can explore in therapy, how this blends with traditional talk therapy, and what types of tools or pieces to avoid ...