Being Well with Forrest Hanson and Dr. Rick Hanson

We all understand the emotional impact of grief, but its effects on the body are often overlooked. Forrest is joined by clinical psychologist and researcher Dr. Mary-Frances O’Connor to explore the physiology of grief. Dr. O’Connor explains how our brains and bodies organize themselves around the people we love, creating “maps” of their presence and relying on them for physical and emotional regulation. They discuss the health risks associated with bereavement, how to care for the healing body, ambiguous loss, the difference between grief and prolonged grief, and how we can gradually build a meaningful life around loss.

About our Guest: Dr. Mary-Frances O'Connor is a Professor of Clinical Psychology and Psychiatry at the University of Arizona and Director of the Grief, Loss, and Social Stress Laboratory. She is the author of two books on grief: The Grieving Brain and The Grieving Body.

Key Topics:

00:00: Intro

4:42: The map that no longer exists

12:00: Co-regulation: the attachment figure as an external pacemaker

16:35: Physiological effects of grief

24:53: Taking care of yourself after a loss

36:46: Protest, despair, and meditative practices

45:45: Prolonged grief and getting stuck in restoration

57:31: Progressive Muscle Relaxation vs mindfulness

1:03:00: Re-engaging with the world

1:15:42: Recap

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Some kids learn early on that the way to be loved is to be useful. They take on the emotional or practical care of their parents in a process known as parentification, and today Dr. Rick and Forrest explore the costs of being a “gifted child.”

They discuss the “bargain” these kids make: suppressing their authentic self in order to fulfill a role and earn love. Over time, this bargain can harden into a false self that makes it difficult for the person to connect with their true wants and needs. They then walk through four tracks that allow us to reclaim authenticity: becoming visible to yourself, building a coherent narrative, reconnecting with what you gave up, and renegotiating relationships. Topics include the paired extremes of grandiosity and depression, why so many capable adults go blank when asked what they actually want, and why understanding a pattern isn't the same as changing it.

This episode is heavily influenced by psychologist Alice Miller’s classic book The Drama of the Gifted Child.

Key Topics:

0:00: Intro: what is parentification?

9:18: Examining your own childhood

13:18: Grandiosity and Depression

18:37: Peer-entification, self-narratives, and adult relationships

23:29: Emotional insight and grief

27:09: Tracks to healing

35:10: Track 1: Becoming more visible to yourself

39:26: Track 2: Building a coherent narrative

45:21: Track 3: Reparenting

50:49: Track 4: Building a new bargain

1:05:26: Recap

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Take our audience survey: https://rickhanson.com/survey/

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Most of what people know about Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) comes from movies and short videos, and those media portrayals often have little to do with what DID is actually like. To get the real picture, today Forrest is joined by Dr. Milissa Kaufman and Dr. Lauren Lebois, experts in dissociative disorders and trauma research. Dr. Kaufman had DID herself, went through treatment, and made a full recovery.

They explore the spectrum of dissociation, from everyday experiences to clinical presentations like DID, before talking about how DID develops as a childhood adaptation to trauma, the problem with the term “multiple personality disorder,” and what the brain science tells us. Milissa describes her own “inside people,” the shame and secrecy associated with DID, and the slow shift from "that wasn't me" to "that was me all along." They then cover what treatment looks like, what to actually look for in a therapist, and what recovery means.

About our Guests: Dr. Milissa Kaufman is a trauma psychiatrist at McLean Hospital and Associate Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Lauren Labois is a cognitive neuroscientist and Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. They are co-directors of the Dissociative Disorders and Trauma Research program at McLean Hospital.

Check out the Trauma Continuum at Hill Center: https://traumacontinuum.org/

Key Topics:

0:00: Intro and Dr. Kaufman's personal experience with DID

6:51: The spectrum of dissociation: Depersonalization, Derealization, and Dissociative Identity Disorder

17:12: Dr. Kaufman's experience of DID

22:58: The paradoxes and shame involved with DID

36:46: History of skepticism around DID, and the role of modern neuroscience

43:09: Treatment for DID and trauma-informed treatment

1:00:43: What healing and recovery looks like

1:10:48: Recap

Support the Podcast: We're on Patreon! If you'd like to support the podcast, follow this link.

Take our audience survey: https://rickhanson.com/survey/

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Dr. Rick and Forrest continue last week’s conversation on avoidance coping, this time focusing on how to move from insight into meaningful action. They explore why self-awareness often isn’t enough to create change, focusing on common impediments like ambivalence, shame, and the difficulty of seeing our patterns in real time. They then unpack the practical science of change: surfacing predictions behind avoidance, testing them through right-sized experiments, and fully internalizing the outcomes. Other topics include scaffolding, state-dependent learning, the HEAL process, and what to do when the dreaded experience actually happens.

Key Topics:

0:00: Intro: why awareness isn't enough

4:54: Ambivalence to change

13:50: Other impediments to change22:00: How to want to change

28:42: Creating predictions

32:26: Setting up an effective experiment

43:26: Linking new outcomes to old memories

1:01:51: Recap

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We all have patterns we can see clearly…and still can't seem to stop. Dr. Rick and Forrest explore how avoidance fuels these patterns, and how we can break the avoidance loop by updating our expectations and predictions about the future. They discuss what avoidance coping is, how the brain works as a prediction machine, why that means insight alone usually isn't enough to break a pattern, and what the current science of exposure and expectancy violation says about how change actually happens.

This is the first of two episodes dedicated to this topic, the second will focus on how to brave our feared experiences and go from insight to action.

Key Topics:

00:00: Intro: avoidance coping and mental predictions

8:07: Five types of avoidance behaviors

17:35: The invisible cage

23:50: Predictive processing

29:49: Identity and high confidence predictions

34:30: How avoidance can perpetuate painful experiences

40:01: Exposure and the Inhibitory Learning Model

52:00: Answering common questions

56:07: Recap

Support the Podcast: We're on Patreon! If you'd like to support the podcast, follow this link.

Sponsors

Go to Zocdoc.com/BEINGWELL to find and instantly book a top-rated doctor today.

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