Send us your questions for Fishbowl 6! Craig sits down with Colorado-based psychotherapist and Enneagram expert Joy Gribble (Elemental Psychedelics; Reflective Healing) to explore how the Enneagram can predict the strengths, fears, and blind spots of both the therapist and the client/patient in the complex dynamics of therapy. Joy Gribble https://w…

Send us your questions for Fishbowl 6! Here Dr. H sits down with Lisa, a pediatric nurse practitioner, to witness her story of developmental trauma, concomitant chronic depression, and eventually her path of healing and rebuilding trust and connection, largely through psychotherapy. During her years of intermittently crippling and suicidal depressi…

Send us your questions for Fishbowl 6! Craig sits down with Colorado-based equine and somatic therapist Koelle Simpson to witness her harrowing and moving story of healing from repeated sexual assaults through a deep psychospiritual connection with horses, then learning how to trust her male psychotherapist, and finally coming to face the darkness …

Send us your questions for Fishbowl 6! Dr. H breaks down the complex task of deprescribing into six clear steps, starting with the most important and challenging question of all: Who is the patient and why are they suffering? "Bringing Therapy into Med Management"-- a psychotherapy training intensive with Dr. H for psych NPs and PAs this October in…

Send us your questions for Fishbowl 6! This is an interview that Dr. H recently did on a podcast called "The Web: Weaving Psychology and Soul in Circle" where he goes deep into his own journey learning how to work with transference and countertransference. Carrie Haynes and "The Web" https://carriehayneslpc.com/ "I Love You, I Hate You, Are You My …

Send us your questions for Fishbowl 6! Dr. H sits down with Dr. Neill Epperson, chair of the University of Colorado Department of Psychiatry, to talk all things hormonal. "I Love You, I Hate You, Are You My Mom?" A intensive experiential workshop exploring transference with Dr. H and Dr. Hillary McBride, May 28-30 in Victoria BC https://www.eventbr…

Send us your questions for Fishbowl 6! This is a re-release of an episode called "Adventures in Exposure Therapy" which first published in 2020. That episode was the second of a two part exploration of OCD, the first episode was called "OCD in the Time of Corona." In brief, "OCD in the Time of Corona" was the story of Dr. H's patient Erin, who suff…

Send us your questions for Fishbowl 6! Today’s story is the story of so many marriages— starting off with hope and excitement, then settling into careers and kids and unforeseen challenges, then facing emerging disenchantment and mounting frustrations, then maybe even reaching a breaking point, where the marriage seems unable to withstand all the s…

Send us your questions for Fishbowl 6! One of the more interesting and difficult challenges of integrating psychedelics into psychiatry is how to deal with the fact that so many of the folks who will seek out care for their treatment-resistant depression or OCD or body dysmorphia or PTSD or attachment trauma are on psychiatric meds, many of which c…

Send us your questions for Fishbowl 6! Saj Razvi and Hillary McBride return to BFTA, this time together, for one of the most compelling and fascinating episodes we have featured on the podcast-- an in depth, in the room exploration of the moment to moment unfolding of a psychedelic-assisted trauma session. During her training to work with Saj’’s ps…

Send us your questions for Fishbowl 6! In this solo episode, Craig synthesizes the most salient aspects of identifying and treating OCD, with some cool musical interludes to boot-- in just over 20 minutes! "I Love You, I Hate You, Are You My Mom?" A intensive experiential workshop exploring transference with Dr. H and Dr. Hillary McBride, May 28-30…

Send us your questions for Fishbowl 6! You don't end up working in psychiatry/mental health by accident-- therapists and psychiatrists almost always come from their own place of emotional pain. Here Dr. H sits down with his colleague Kristen, a well-respected Colorado psychotherapist who always appeared to have it all together, while battling her o…

Send us your questions for Fishbowl 6! In this solo episode Dr. H shares his current thoughts on working in the here and now; polypharmacy; the root causes of suicidality; diagnostic parsimony ; ketamine microdosing; and online psych NP training programs. BFTA on IG @backfromtheabysspodcast https://www.instagram.com/backfromtheabysspodcast/ BFTA/ D…

Send us your questions for Fishbowl 6! Kate lived for many years in a hazy and numbing dialectic, thinking that her life was “perfect”, but also having a vague and gnawing sense that just under the surface something was terribly wrong. This is a story of forgetting and remembering, a story of finding a therapist who was willing and able to sit thro…

Send us your questions for Fishbowl 6! Very few people are willing and/or able to share and describe their descent into psychosis— in part because memory formation and consolidation are so impaired during episodes of psychosis…..and also because there is often so much fear and shame tied up in the experience of losing one’s mind. Here Dr. H's patie…

Send us your questions for Fishbowl 6! The prevailing model of psychiatric care in the US is called "med management"-- this typically means a 10-15min appointment to review symptoms and choose medications. Here Dr. Will Van Derveer of the Integrative Psychiatric Institute sits down with Dr. H to deconstruct this deeply flawed model and posit a more…

Send us your questions for Fishbowl 6! In this season 6 opener Dr. H sits down with Dr. Erin Jacklin of the Catalyst Center in Denver to explore how we learn to the deeply complex and consistently challenging work of doing good therapy. BFTA on IG @backfromtheabysspodcast https://www.instagram.com/backfromtheabysspodcast/ BFTA/ Dr. H https://www.cr…

Send us your questions for Fishbowl 6! Craig sits down with Dori Lewis of Elemental Psychedelics to explore the myths and realities of working with psilocybin mushrooms, including: •What do people not understand about psilocybin mushrooms? •Can mushrooms treat depression? If so, which types? •How should we think about the specific roles of mushroom…

Send us your questions for Fishbowl 6! Chris and Craig go meta to deconstruct season 5, explore the art of storytelling and music selection, and answer listener questions. BFTA on IG @backfromtheabysspodcast https://www.instagram.com/backfromtheabysspodcast/ BFTA/ Dr. H https://www.craigheacockmd.com/podcast-page/…

Send us your questions for Fishbowl 6! Christina grew up with a tumultuous and mentally ill mother, an older brother who decompensated into psychosis and frightening aggression, and just one healthy family member, her father. Dr. H and Christina explore both the wounding of having a desperately ill parent, as well as the profound gift of having ano…

Send us your questions for Fishbowl 6! Dr. Russell Carr was a career Navy psychiatrist for 20 years and served in Iraq, where today’s story begins. This is a story of a healer, then a terrible wounding, then the healer trying to find his way amidst the chaos of war. This story is about a rite of passage, one that not every psychiatrist faces, but m…

Send us your questions for Fishbowl 6! A huge problem with current psychiatric diagnosis is that it often lumps completely unrelated things under the same vast and vague tent, such as with the diagnosis of "Major Depressive Disorder". Here Craig sits down with his patient Rebecca to try to make sense of her complex early onset depression and how it…

Send us your questions for Fishbowl 6! Here Dr. H sites down with Jenny, a psychoanalyst who shares her moving, then horrifying, then eventually cathartic tale of plumbing the depths of her traumatized psyche, first with years of psychoanalysis, then with five MDMA-assisted therapy sessions. This is a story of numbing and forgetting, then re-openin…

Send us your questions for Fishbowl 6! In this solo episode Craig shares his current thoughts on MDMA medicalization, sleep meds, ADD, motivation vs self-discipline, benzos, how long to stay on psych meds, a change and a proposed addition to his top 10 med list, borderline vs bipolar, and marriage. Bringing Therapy into Med Management-- An intensiv…

Send us your questions for Fishbowl 6! Dr. H sits down with Dr. Jennifer Gaudiani, a nationally recognized expert on eating disorders to explore a wide range of topics including: • etiology and the relative influence of temperament, culture, and concomitant psychiatric illness •anorexia as a qualitatively different kind of treatment challenge •trea…

Send us your questions for Fishbowl 6! The driving force of so many of our self-destructive tendencies is not conscious, it’s an unconscious drive called the repetition compulsion, where we try to reenact early child traumas or deficits, often consciously hoping for a different result but unconsciously walking directly and knowingly into the flames…

Send us your questions for Fishbowl 6! The rising tide of psychiatric emergencies in the US most commonly ends up in the emergency room, where psychiatrists are almost never found and the brunt of the heavy lifting falls on emergency medicine physicians. Here Dr. H sits down with Dr. Treve Henwood, an emergency med physician and host of the Rural E…

Send us your questions for Fishbowl 6! This is an interview Dr. H did a few months ago on the Radically Genuine podcast. Although we posted about this interview on our Instagram feed back in August, we thought this was worth re-releasing on the main BFTA feed. Of all the podcast interviews Dr. H has done, this one might be the most interesting and …

Send us your questions for Fishbowl 6! What does it feel like to be manic? It can be very difficult for people to accurately recall manic episodes— they aren’t stored like typical narrative memories, but rather they often feel like confusing and out of control reveries that seem to have happened to a different version of themselves. Then comes the …

Send us your questions for Fishbowl 6! Craig sits down with Carrie Haynes, a colleague and Colorado-based group therapist and host of the podcast The Art of Groups. They explore their shared love of group process, the unique benefits and risks of working with groups, specific challenges for the group therapist or leader, and finally how and why Car…

Send us your questions for Fishbowl 6! In the streets and sidewalks of every American city, a slow motion disaster is unfolding, with ever increasing numbers of people suffering from serious mental illness and/or addiction. Why is this happening? What can we do to help our most vulnerable citizens? Here Dr. H sits down with Dr. Dave Iverson, a Colo…

Send us your questions for Fishbowl 6! Saj Razvi returns to BFTA to discuss a listener letter, which leads to an exploration of treatment resistance, developmental trauma, the absence of experience ("the void") vs dissociation as experience. Saj and Craig also explore attachment vs love, whether trauma healing has to be difficult, and the common el…

Send us your questions for Fishbowl 6! Some of the most basic questions about ketamine are still under investigation— Which patients are ideal responders? What is the therapeutic dose range? Is there a meaningful dose/response curve? Are fully dissociative treatments necessary for optimal efficacy? How important is psychotherapy after a higher dose…

Send us your questions for Fishbowl 6! Is there a role for love in therapy, whether in the traditional psychotherapeutic context and/or in the psychedelic space? And if we were to more consciously invite love into therapy, how could we do this in a safe and boundaried way? Dr. Adele LaFrance, a Colorado-based psychologist, the co-creator of Emotion…

Send us your questions for Fishbowl 6! Dave and Laurie sit down with Dr. H to share their journey through the denial, fear, grief, and eventual acceptance of their son’s life-altering psychiatric illness. NAMI Family to Family support https://www.nami.org/Support-Education/Mental-Health-Education/NAMI-Family-to-Family BFTA on Instagram. @backfromth…

Send us your questions for Fishbowl 6! One of the tragic truths of psychiatry is that the sickest patients more often than not either don’t realize they are ill, or are convinced that treatment will do nothing. No group of patients better exemplifies this than those with schizophrenia and other psychotic illnesses. A common presentation in Dr. H's …

Send us your questions for Fishbowl 6! Dr. H sits down with Dr. Julia King Olivier, a Swiss psychiatrist and co-founder of the Compassionate Care Center in Geneva, Switzerland, to explore the fascinating landscape of psychedelic-assisted therapy there. Julia is one of a small group of physicians in Switzerland who has permission to work with LSD, p…

Send us your questions for Fishbowl 6! Dr. H's patient Lindsey shares her story of self-medicating her anxiety and depression with cannabis, then steadily building tolerance and moving on to THC concentrates. This led to full-blown dependence and a spiral downward into daily bouts of terrible nausea, near constant panic, and emerging hopelessness. …

Send us your questions for Fishbowl 6! In this season 5 opener, Craig sits down with Shelly Winemiller, a Colorado-based trauma therapist, to witness her powerful story of reclaiming her body and spirit from the nightmare of clergy sexual abuse. Shelly Winemiller http://www.oasisforhealing.com/meet-shelly BFTA/ Dr. H https://www.craigheacockmd.com/…

Send us your questions for Fishbowl 6! Craig sits down with Dr. Hillary McBride, a psychologist, researcher, author, and podcast host (Other People's Problems) to explore all things psychedelic. Dr. Hillary McBride https://hillarylmcbride.com/ Roots to Thrive-- a model of ketamine group therapy used by Hillary at Katalyst https://rootstothrive.com/…

Send us your questions for Fishbowl 6! BFTA's co-conspirators explore what they learned this season, their favorite episodes, ideas/plans for season 5, whether BFTA has become too psychedelic-heavy, and what they most value in each other. BFTA on Instagram. @backfromtheabysspodcast https://www.instagram.com/backfromtheabysspodcast/ BFTA/ Dr. H http…

Send us your questions for Fishbowl 6! In this final story of season 4, Craig speaks with Wayne, a longtime patient of his who has battled treatment resistant depression and crippling anxiety for many years. Wayne's story highlights a few crucial things— the fact that sometimes you can do everything right, do all the self-care things, yet still be …

Send us your questions for Fishbowl 6! Can you treat >95% of all patients with mood, anxiety, and psychotic disorders with just ten meds? Dr. H says YES. Here he posits his top ten, based on efficacy, safety, tolerability, and cost. BFTA on Instagram. @backfromtheabysspodcast https://www.instagram.com/backfromtheabysspodcast/ BFTA/ Dr. H https://ww…

Send us your questions for Fishbowl 6! Craig sits down with Ana, a Mexican medicine woman, or curandera. Ana shares a unique perspective and an earned wisdom that is particularly relevant today as we enter a veritable renaissance of plant medicines and psychedelics, while also trying to avoid the rampant mistakes and misuses of the past. Ana works …

Send us your questions for Fishbowl 6! Dr. H explores how to think about psychedelic assisted therapy with ketamine, MDMA, and psilocybin in terms of patient selection, ideal indications, psychiatric diagnosis, trauma history, medical comorbidities, medication interactions, cautions, and contraindications. This episode comes from a recent interview…

Send us your questions for Fishbowl 6! Dr. H sits down with Dr. Will Van Derveer of the Integrative Psychiatry Institute and Higher Practice podcast in a wide-ranging exploration of what's good (and not so good) in current psychiatric practice. They explore topics including: •Problems with diagnostic nosology •Depression as a spiritual problem or a…

Send us your questions for Fishbowl 6! The magic of psychotherapy is that it brings forth transference— the patient’s most important and formative relationships, typically with early caregivers, are unconsciously re-enacted in the therapy room. And this transference necessarily creates countertransference, the therapist’s unconscious reactions to t…

Send us your questions for Fishbowl 6! Thirty years ago, a 10 year old boy was found stabbed to death in a park…the same park where 18 year old Stephanie and three young men were seen riding bikes the night before. Stephanie and the others were repeatedly questioned, they became the prime suspects…..yet they, nor anyone, was ever charged for the mu…

Send us your questions for Fishbowl 6! After years of crippling anxiety, substance abuse, mood instability, and loss, Daniel had finally found the path to impending fame and success beyond his dreams. Then everything fell apart, and he was forced to face the fact that he lacked the skills to face life on life's terms. Enter DBT, and Daniel began to…

Send us your questions for Fishbowl 6! Here Dr. H sits down with Dr. Kelly Sonnenfeld, a psychologist and DBT expert, in this first of a two part look at dialectical behavior therapy, or DBT. This episode is a primer on DBT-- what DBT is, how it works, and how it fits into the landscape of therapy options. Part Two explores Daniel’s story of how DB…