This is the Radical Therapist Podcast. A space where we explore the intersections of collaborative therapy, psychology, philosophy, art, and science & technology.
In this episode of The Radical Therapist, Chris Hoff draws on Mark Fisher’s idea of hauntology to ask a deceptively simple question: If we could show today’s psychotherapy to a therapist twenty years ago, would anything about it genuinely shock them? From psychoanalysis and family systems to postmodern therapies, trauma, somatics, neuroscience, psychedelics, and AI, psychotherapy has changed…
What if therapy has become too good at helping people adapt to conditions that should never have been accepted in the first place? In this episode of The Radical Therapist Podcast, Chris sits down with narrative therapist, author, and educator Julie Tilsen, PhD to discuss her provocative new book, Personal Responsibility, Inc.: How Psychotherapy Turns Society's Problems into Yours. Together we…
In this episode of The Radical Therapist, Chris sits down with narrative therapist and poet Tobin Kriwel for a conversation at the intersection of poetry, therapy, metaphor, and human attention. Together we explore what poetry can teach therapists, not as a technique, but as a way of being with people. We talk about why poetry refuses efficiency, how metaphor opens new possibilities for living,…
What does it actually mean to practice from a decentred position? Has narrative therapy's commitment to being non-expert unintentionally softened its political edge? And what might we have misunderstood about Michael White's work over the past three decades? In this episode, Chris sits down with narrative therapist and researcher Dr. Kelsi Semeschuk to discuss her important new work examining…
In this episode of The Radical Therapist, Chris sits down with artist and former narrative therapist Cath Duncan to explore what happens when a professional identity no longer feels large enough to hold who we are becoming. After years of therapeutic practice, Cath made the transition into full-time art-making, a move that was less a departure from narrative ideas than a re-authoring of them in a…
In this episode of The Radical Therapist, Chris sits down with philosophical therapist and scholar Joanna Polley to explore what philosophy can offer in an age increasingly dominated by diagnosis, optimization, and self-help solutions. What happens when we stop asking, “What’s wrong with me?” and begin asking deeper questions about meaning, freedom, ethics, identity, and how we ought to live?…
In this episode of The Radical Therapist, Chris sits down with designer, writer, and researcher Amber Winick to explore how environments, objects, and systems quietly shape our emotional, relational, and developmental lives. Drawing from her work on Designing Motherhood, as well as her recent contributions to An Encyclopedia of Radical Helping, Amber invites us into a conversation about caregiving…
In this episode of The Radical Therapist, Chris sits down with youth organizers Chloe Yates and Rosie Williams of Mad Youth Organise to explore a radically different approach to the so-called “mental health crisis.” What happens when we stop treating distress as an individual pathology and start understanding it as a rational response to social, political, and economic conditions? Drawing on their…
In this episode of The Radical Therapist, Chris sits down with developmental psychologist, social therapist, and longtime cultural provocateur Lois Holzman to explore what a developmentalist approach to mental health offers in a time when therapy often collapses growth into diagnosis, insight, or symptom management. Drawing from her latest book A Developmentalist’s Guide to Better Mental Health,…
What if “emotion regulation” isn’t just a clinical skill, but a cultural demand? In this episode of The Radical Therapist, Chris sits down with therapist and professor David Nylund for a rigorous and timely conversation about the near-hegemonic status of emotion regulation in contemporary therapy. Together, they explore how practices often framed as neutral, helpful, or evidence-based can quietly…
