Naming the Real

Critical race theory, until recently a fairly obscure academic enterprise, has become a mainstream topic of debate, conversation, and attack. In this episode, we explore what CRT is, why it has becom…

We all have a longing to feel good and pure, but the reality of our humanity is inner conflict and continual contradiction. We have dark and light impulses; we have tendencies to both generosity and …

Even if it gets suppressed or ignored, we all have a longing to be good and to do good. This collective longing can express itself in the shape of purity culture—sociological movements in which peopl…

Do we see desire as good or as something warranting our suspicion and judgment? In this episode, we explore the role of desire in Western history and, specifically, the different conceptions of desir…

In this second episode on Internal Family Systems, we explore how to integrate our exiled parts. Ultimately, integration happens through conversation—through naming, labelling, and talking about the …

A consistent practice of gratitude will change the structure of your brain and transform the way you see the world. In this episode, we explore the gratitude ladder—a simple rubric for giving thanks …

No bad parts. That’s the mantra of Internal Family Systems thinking, which explores the notion that each of us is made up of various parts (including exiles, managers, and firefighters), each with a …

Differentiation is the antidote to anxiety. Differentiated people refuse emotional reactivity, they stay rationally grounded, they refuse to take on the anxiety of a system, and they are able to form…

All communities involving human beings can be held captive by anxiety. In this episode, we explore the core ideas of Family Systems Theory: that in unhealthy systems, the entire system may orient aro…

Human beings tend to see differences as a threat, but to feel safe and secure we look for people who look like us or who we deem similar to us. These dynamics may be natural, but they can lock us int…

This episode launches a new series within the Naming the Real Podcast, which is an exploration of the nature of human desire. In this episode, we explore the core human desire, which we call love—the…

We change the world through care and curiosity, which humanizes those around us. But there are forces of fear and anxiety at work in our culture of entertainment and endless stimulation which must be…

Fear comes to play an important role in an over-stimulated culture of entertainment such as ours. In this episode, we explore the nature of fear and its development in our society—how it breeds a lus…

In this episode, we explore Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death, which is even more relevant today than when first published in 1985. Its premise—that technology changes the way we experience t…

We all have a winning strategy to get what we want in life: an unconscious formula for success. It’s part of being human. And yet we can get stuck or lost in our winning strategy. And winning strateg…

All humans develop strategies for survival, not just physically but psychologically and emotionally. These strategies become our automatic, and even if they make us miserable, we love the certainty a…

Are you happy right now? And what do we even mean when we use the word "happy"? Our society has implicit notions of what happiness is and how we attain it, but often these notions are incomplete at b…

Virtue signaling is another feature of a rule-keeping morality and the flip-side to our obsession with calling out the hypocrisy of others. Talk of it is everywhere. What, then, is virtue signaling e…

A central feature of a moral culture—like ours—which has caved to mere “rule-keeping” is an obsession with calling out the hypocrisy of others. This is part of our culture’s tribalism. And yet this f…