Time & Other Thieves

• More Than Blue: The Genius of Joni Mitchell's "For the Roses"

  Send us a textIn this episode I revamp an Asheville FM radio broadcast from November of 2022, in honor of Joni Mitchell's 82nd birthday (November 7th). One track at a time, I explore her 1972 album, "For the Roses," providing biographical and thematic context to illuminate each song's depth and richness. I draw from music reviews written at the time of the album's release, from filmed interviews with Joni, from David Yaffe's biography of her ("Reckless Daughter"), from the fabulous documentary "Woman of Heart and Mind," and from J.W.N. Sullivan's 1927 book, "Beethoven: His Spiritual Development." As "For the Roses" tends to get overshadowed by what came before and after—"Blue" and "Court and Spark"—I hope this episode will endear you to an album that is too often overlooked and undersung.

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• My Therapist Died: A Conversation with Dr. Jeffrey Axelbank

  Send us a textIn this episode, I share parts of a conversation I recently had with psychotherapist and organizational consultant Dr. Jeffrey Axelbank. In July of 2025, Jeff was featured in a New York Times article by Ellen Berry titled "The Ghost in the Therapy Room," about therapists who die unexpectedly—or at least their patients don't expect it. These patients are deprived of saying goodbye and otherwise preparing themselves for a profound loss that tends to go unrecognized by society. Jeff talks with me about his experience of such a loss, after having worked with the same psychoanalyst for 36 years, three sessions a week. He did not know she was dying of pancreatic cancer. He also discusses his earliest experience of psychotherapy, which he sought because he wanted help with a stutter, and about his work as a process group leader and an organizational consultant. To any therapists listening: I hope this episode will inspire you to be communicative with your patients about your impending death, should you fall ill, and to create a professional will regardless of your age or health status, so that your patients will be better cared for in the event of your unexpected passing.(If you'd like to listen to the Mount Eerie song I reference in the beginning, here is a Spotify link.) 

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• Honoring the Discomfort: A Conversation with Jacob Winkler

  Send us a textIn this episode I share parts of a conversation I recently had with Jacob Winkler,  founder and facilitator of the Masters of Group Therapy Club, of which I've been a member since August of 2024. I hope you enjoy this tiny sliver of the giant pie that is Jacob's knowledge and wisdom around the human psyche and how to work with it in the context of process groups. He talks about honoring what people are coming in with instead of pushing it to the side in order to stay on task, about the power of the unconscious mind, about writing as a form of self therapy, and about the value in studying one's own irritation with others as a way to help those people become more of themselves.

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• "Modern Man in Search of a Soul," by Carl Jung

  Send us a textIn this episode, I explore some of the ideas that Carl Jung expounds upon in his 1933 book, "Modern Man in Search of a Soul." There's the notion that we cannot fully accept others unless we've fully accepted (i.e., loved) ourselves; that the parts of ourselves we deem unacceptable will be banished to the unconscious and wreak havoc in ways we can't control, while we WOULD have more control if we accepted them; that "certainties can arise only through doubt"; and that problems are necessary; problems are what necessitate our growth and expansion. I also talk about what it means to "be oneself" if that self is always changing, like a river. And I discuss the concept of everything containing its opposite, and why I no longer ascribe to the popular Buddhist belief that man's "true nature" is loving-kindness and compassion. 

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• A Conversation with Sara Schreiber

  Send us a textIn this episode I share parts of a conversation I recently had with psychotherapist, process group leader, and group therapy consultant Sara Schreiber. I first met her in August of 2024 in the Masters of Group Therapy Club. Together we explore her approach to facilitating groups, what challenges her most about being a group leader and member, and how her spiritual practice informs her therapy work and everything else in her life. An observer of Orthodox Judaism, Sara answers some questions I have about various religious traditions—including no sex (or even touching of any kind!) before marriage—and shares some of the prayers she says multiple times a day (including one for after using the bathroom) as a way of staying in conversation with God. I felt very happy and peaceful listening to her, and I hope you will, too. 

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