Keith Kurlander, CEO of Higher Practice, is going to share his personal story of an extremely challenging crisis that began in college and led to discovering a mystical connection between trauma and spirituality, and what’s possible in the evolution of the human spirit.

While trauma has been the subject of countless studies and dialogue among the psychotherapeutic community for years, complex PTSD and spiritual dissociation is a topic that is often overlooked but extremely relevant. Many sufferers of complex PTSD identify as spiritual and highly sensitive to non-ordinary states. Which begs the question, “why do so many people with complex PTSD have so much access to mystical experiences?”

In this episode, Keith will discuss why so many people with complex PTSD have had profound spiritual experiences, when those encounters are positive resources, and when to exercise caution with spiritual practices.

This episode comes at a timely moment where so many women are speaking out about the ways that they have been mistreated by men both in the workplace but also elsewhere.

Men traditionally don’t have a strong emotional support system built into their lives. They can easily stuff their emotions and let those emotions take over in really unhealthy ways. This can lead to many stereotypical behaviors that cause men to relate to women inappropriately. In addition, men can live compromised lives and not reach their potential.

Our guest, Reuvain Bacal, is going to be talking about men’s work and what’s necessary to help men embody their purpose and their power in a healthy and constructive way in this world.

As therapists, we have so much important wisdom to share with the world. Think of how many lives you’ve impacted sitting with clients.

Many therapists decide as their career develops that they want to have more of a multidimensional service that’s not just about sitting one-on-one with clients. And they also realize that they want to be able to scale their business, both in the amount of people they are reaching but also in the amount of money they are earning.

Podcasting is one way you can get your voice heard by thousands or potentially even millions of people. Creating a podcast has never been easier. The barriers to entry are low. With a little marketing know-how and some basic tech knowledge you can be up and running and get thousands of downloads quite quickly. This means you can reach people who have never heard of you that need your help and you can begin to expand your business in ways you may have never thought were possible.

In this episode, Joe Sanok will cover some podcast basics such as how much time it takes to learn how to set up a podcast, monetizing what you love, how to deal with starting a podcast if you’re fearful of technology, and a success story of a therapist using a podcast to increase their impact on the world.

If you are thinking that at some point in the future you might want to start a private practice or you are currently in one and you want to get more clients, this episode is for you.

As business owners, we always want to be thinking about ways we can automate our marketing process so that you’re not spending more hours marketing than you are delivering direct services to clients.

But as a therapist it’s also essential that our marketing comes from integrity and the values that got you into the profession in the first place.

Many therapists will say I didn’t go into this profession for the money, and it may be true that money was not the highest value of why you chose this profession. Typically, that doesn’t turn out well for anyone.

However, money is essential in order to thrive in the profession and so you can feel vital when you are working with your clients. If you are in a place of scarcity in your own life, it’s difficult to help your clients out of the place of scarcity that they are often experiencing.

There are a number of avenues online to explore for paid advertising for therapists such as google adwords, directory listings, and online magazines and newspapers. Facebook Ads done correctly is one of the most powerful resources available.

Our guest, Mark Roberts, is going to cover the essentials of Facebook advertising for therapists. He will discuss how to advertise private practices with integrity, Facebook ads 101, using local campaigns designated by Facebook, the term traffic temperature and why it’s so important, and utilizing metrics in Facebook to see if your ads are working and getting you new clients.

Take a moment to think about all of your healthy habits that are in your life. Do you brush your teeth regularly, make your bed on a daily basis, keep the house clean, get to work on time, do your laundry, eat healthy food, and exercise on a regular basis?

What about the habits that cause problems in your life? Do you drink too much? Do you find yourself eating too much sugar? Do you procrastinate important tasks at work? Do you avoid challenging conversations? Are you overworking yourself and constantly feeling like you are about to burn out?

How far back in your own life do you think these patterns developed? Was it time in your adulthood, maybe adolescent years, early childhood or even as a toddler?

Developmental psychology usually looks into pattern development from ages 3 and up with some patterns developing during infancy. But what if it’s possible that many of these patterns both unhealthy and healthy started at birth or even prenatally?

Prenatal psychology examines human behavior in a very different light than how most people frame their history and how it impacts who they are. From a prenatal psychology perspective, the development in the womb and the birth process can have a huge impact on who we are as adults and the behaviors that we default to.

Our guest, Dr. Annie Brook will explore the cues to look out for when there is shock present in the nervous system of a young child that occurred during a very early developmental process, how to recognize compensations in adults for challenges that happened during prenatal development, birth trauma and how to work with it, a case example of a child who worked through a disruptive birth experience, and why pre and perinatal psychology is essential to understand as a clinician.

In many parts of western civilization, there’s so much emphasis placed on career, and, increasingly, mother’s are often troubled by balancing the roles of being a parent and a mother. And there’s also so many cultural myths and stigmas that mothers face today.

Last week we explored the attachment and bonding process between parents and infants and how critical that time period is for healthy childhood development. Today is all about what mom’s go through in those first few years of having a new child.

We have a guest today who’s going to break down the modern myths of motherhood, what needs to happen with mom’s in a therapy setting, the challenges and triumphs that mom’s are facing everyday, and how to recognize a mom that’s well resourced in all the ways that count.

Our guest, Ellen Boeder, discusses her personal story of motherhood, how she overcame the challenges of conflicting roles in society, how therapists can support moms, the signs and signals when a mom is healthy and well-resourced, and, most importantly, what to look out for when a mom needs extra support in her life.

Although this episode is really geared toward supporting women who are transitioning into motherhood or in the early years of parenting, this episode also applies to any parent or anyone who is thinking of having a child. And this episode isn’t only about moms. Ellen has a message for fathers who want to learn how to support moms, as well as some thoughts for anyone considering becoming a parent.

How much time in your life have you spent thinking about your early childhood? From a neuroscience perspective we actually can’t remember that many specific details before age seven, meaning the cognitive narrative is more amorphous from the very early years in our development.

This leaves many unanswered questions about the mystery of our first few years in life. But those first years of development are extremely relevant from an attachment perspective for future relationships, resiliency, mental health and the ability to reach your potential.

In this episode, Dr. Stephanie Dueger is going to talk about what it looks like to confront the beginning of the attachment process when it’s occurring in infants and toddlers, rather than looking at the regressive psychotherapies once the imprints have already been established for decades.

This episode will open up an new look into the intricacies of attachment and bonding during infancy, and why it’s so important to have a thorough understanding of that process. You’re going to get to learn about what psychotherapy looks like with a child in the first few years of their life and how to help repair any attachment issues that can occur at that stage. You’ll also gain an understanding on how an early-childhood therapist removes themselves enough to promote healthy bonding between the parent and child.

Whether you live in a rural or urban area, it’s likely you have a yoga studio or yoga teacher in your town. In the United States alone, nearly 20 million people are practicing yoga in some form or another, which begs the question, “what’s so compelling about yoga when it comes to living life in a well-balanced way?”

Many people are familiar with the physical benefits yoga has to offer the practitioner. We can get in better shape, get healthier and have more energy. And there’s also the spiritual practice of yoga. Throughout pockets of the world, people utilize yoga as a spiritual system with different goals in mind.

In this episode, Nataraja Kallio, the Director of the Yoga Studies program at Naropa University, is going to take you through a brief history of yoga, what it was in ancient times, and it’s overlap to what occurs in a psychotherapeutic setting.

Where the conversation gets VERY interesting is in his discussion about how our memories are stored in our bodies from a yogic perspective and how doing yoga postures works with those memories. He will also cover a general understanding of emotion and the ways in which many yoga practices work to keep a person in balance. And make sure to stay to the end where he talks about the mysterious kundalini energy that you may have heard about and its relationship to psychiatric conditions.