Episoder

  • Join Signe in a conversation with the authority people turn to for empowering tech advice, Dr. Devorah Heitner. They discuss the importance of "mentoring vs. monitoring" kids on tech, Devorah's stance on the call for warning labels on social media, "sexting" and a whole lot more!

    Devorah is the author of Growing Up in Public and Screenwise. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and CNN Opinion. She has a Ph.D. in Media/Technology & Society from Northwestern University and has taught at DePaul and Northwestern. Devorah works with schools, and communities worldwide helping parents and educators mentor kids coming of age in a digital world.

    To learn more about Devorah follow her on Substack, Instagram @devorahheitnerphd and visit her website https://devorahheitner.com/

  • We’re back in the studio with renowned psychologist, and best selling author, Dr. Brenda Shaeffer. This time Dr. Brenda walks us through the most common themes she sees in long term relationships, the importance of “finishing the grief” when faced with losing a relationship, and considerations for being single in midlife and beyond.

    Dr. Schaeffer is the best-selling author of Is It Love or Is It Addiction? with over 600,000 publications sold, in twelve languages. She is a Licensed Psychologist, Certified Addictions Specialist, and holds a doctorate in spiritual psychology. Dr. Schaeffer is a national and international lecturer and workshop presenter.

    To learn more about Dr. Schaeffer visit her website https://www.brendaschaeffer.com/my-story


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  • Do you want to better understand what it means to be transgender, and how you might provide gender-affirming care? Today we’re talking with someone who knows a lot about it, annnd just happens to be transgender! Nik is a Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist (LMFT), co-owner of group therapy practice and crisis intervention service in California.

    In this episode, Nik talks about the differences between gender identity, gender expression, and sexual orientation, as well as their own transgender identity and transition.

    We debunked the fear of “social contagion,” using the framework of historic stigma and discrimination of “left-handedness" to explain that “when we allow human beings to be their authentic selves, greater numbers of diverse expression naturally emerge.”

    We also talked about body image “after” transitioning, and the answer might surprise you!

  • Signe is joined by her co-author, Wendy Sterling, to talk about her latest book, give some insights into how she makes her writing routine work while raising a family, and working full time, the benefits of writing with co-authors, and more!

    Wendy is a registered dietitian with a Masters of Science in Nutrition Education from Teachers College, Columbia University. She is a Certified Eating Disorder Specialist, and Approved Supervisor through the International Association of Eating Disorder Professionals. Wendy is also a Board-Certified Specialist in Sports Dietetics, she has consulted for the Oakland Athletics, Golden State Warriors, NY Jets, and NY Islanders, and she is the co-author of two eating disorder books: How to Nourish Your Child Through an Eating Disorder, and How to Nourish Yourself Through an Eating Disorder, as well as two preventative books: No Weigh! and Raising Body Positive Teens. Wendy maintains a private practice in the San Francisco Bay Area and is also seeing patients virtually throughout the country.

    To learn more about Wendy, visit www.sterlingnutrition.com.




  • Welcome to Part Three of the Therapy Rocks! “Three Part” menopause series (Episodes 38, 39 & 40).

    In this episode Signe interviews Val Schonberg about nutrition in midlife and beyond, weight, bone health, and more. Val is dietitian and certified menopause practitioner with The Menopause Society. She is a registered dietitian with a Master of Science degree in nutrition from the University of Minnesota. She is Board Certified as a Specialist in Sports Dietetics, she specializes in eating disorders, sports nutrition, and midlife health. She owns a private practice in Atlanta, Georgia, where she also serves as a consulting dietitian for Emory Sports Medicine and Orthopaedics, the Atlanta Ballet, and the Atlanta Dream Women’s NBA team. She is a Fellow of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, and received the Excellence in Women’s Health Award from the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics Women’s Health Dietetic Practice Group.

    To learn more about Val visit https://valschonberg.com/

  • In this episode Signe interviews Dr. Amy Voedisch for Part Two of the Three Part menopause series navigating the physical aspects of menopause, such as hormone therapy considerations, body changes, sex in midlife, and more.

    Dr. Voedisch attended Mayo Medical School and completed her residency in Obstetrics and Gynecology at Kaiser Permanente Santa Clara and a Fellowship in Family Planning at Stanford School of Medicine. She has a Masters in Epidemiology and Clinical Science Research from Stanford as well. Dr. Voedisch is passionate about providing comprehensive reproductive healthcare to all women at any stage in their lives. She specializes in contraception, family planning, and menopause and is a certified practitioner of The Menopause Society. She has a particular interest in international healthcare and serves as a consultant through the Stanford Program for International Reproductive Education and Services (SPIRES). She’s also a member of the Bay Area Leadership Council for the International Women's Health Coalition.

    To learn more about Dr. Amy Voedisch, see her biography here.


  • Join Signe for Part One of a Three Part Series on menopause. To start off in Part One, Signe Talks to a doctor who specializes in the brain, and who is always on the cutting edge of scientific research into the female experience, Dr. Louann Brizendine. Dr. Brizedine navigates the stages of menopause, cuts through the controversy around Hormone Therapy, and give us steps for preserving brain health for the second half of our lives.

    Dr. Brizendine completed her degree in Neurobiology at UC Berkeley, graduated from Yale School of Medicine, and did her internship and residency at Harvard Medical School. She also served on both the faculties of Harvard University and University of California at San Francisco. She founded the Women’s Mood and Hormone Clinic at UCSF, and her New York Times bestseller, The Female Brain, and its follow-up, The Male Brain, continue to be read around the world. She recently released her new book, The Upgrade: How the Female Brain Gets Stronger and Better in Midlife and Beyond.

    To learn more about Dr. Brizendine visit https://www.louannbrizendine.com

  • Join Signe for her Therapy Rocks! interview with Shannon Kopp who shared her personal recovery story including the shelter dogs, and how they loved her back to life, the healing benefits of animals, and gave her best tips for grieving the loss of an animal in a society that underestimates the power of the human/animal connection.

    Shannon Kopp is the author of Pound for Pound: A Story of One Woman’s Recovery and the Shelter Dogs Who Loved Her Back to Life. Shannon holds an MFA in Nonfiction Writing and has written for CNN, Maria Shriver, The Huffington Post, Good Housekeeping, BarkPost and more. Her story has been featured in PEOPLE, NPR, CNN, Women’s Health, and Psychology Today. Shannon is the founder and CEO of the SoulPaws Recovery Project, a nonprofit organization providing free, clinician-led eating disorder support groups, enhanced by the loving presence of therapy animals. Shannon is a National Mental Health Advocate for ERC Pathlight.

    For more information about Shannon, visit soulpawsrecovery.org, and follow her @soulpawsrecoveryproject.



  • Join Signe for an interview with “fathering” expert, Joe Kelly. They talk about overcoming common relationship barriers between fathers and stepfathers and daughters—when they're kids and adults! We also tackled male acculturation, "social" dads, and a whole lot more!

    Joe Kelly has researched and written about the power and potential of father-daughter relationships since 1992. He’s an advocate, educator, and Family Coach for Within Health. He wrote the best-selling books Dads & Daughters®: How to Inspire, Understand, and Support Your Daughter and The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Being a New Dad. His 11 other books include four on eating disorders. Joe and his spouse Nancy Gruver founded the girl-edited feminist magazine New Moon Girls. A past president of the Minnesota Fathers and Families Network, Joe has twin adult daughters and three grandsons.

    To learn more about Joe Kelley visit www.upagainsted.com

  • Have you heard of Ketamine-assisted therapy? Interested in hearing more about what it is, and how it’s being received? Join Signe for an interview with Suzannah Neufeld, Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, Ketamine-assisted Therapy provider, and author of “Awake at 3 a.m.: Yoga Therapy for Anxiety and Depression in Pregnancy and Early Motherhood. Also joining this episode is Dr. Miriam Schultz, a reproductive psychiatrist with extensive experience in the field of Reproductive Psychiatry, as well as Ketamine treatment, she is also an associate clinical professor at Stanford University.

    To learn more about Dr. Miriam Schultz visit her website http://miriamschultzmd.com/about.html.

    To learn more about Suzannah (Timperas) Neufeld visit: https://www.rockridgewellnesscenter.com/team, and follow her on instagram @suzannahneufeld.


  • Interested in hearing about body image and eating in a subsistence agriculture, before and after exposure to television? Join Signe for a conversation with Dr. Anne Becker about her groundbreaking study in 1995 in Fiji, when she said, “television arrived like it was being parachuted from nowhere,” her follow up study in 2007 (pre-social media), and her plans to return.

    Anne Becker, MD, PhD, Dean for Clinical and Academic Affairs, Professor of Psychiatry, and Presley Professor of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School. A medical anthropologist and psychiatrist, Dr. Becker’s research includes the social and cultural mediation of presentation and risk for eating disorders and social barriers to care for mental disorders. Dr. Becker is founding and past Director of the Eating Disorders Clinical and Research Program at Mass General Hospital, past president of the Academy for Eating Disorders, former associate editor of the International Journal of Eating Disorders, and was a member of the DSM-5 Eating Disorders Work Group. She has been a recipient of NEDA’s Price Family Award for Research Excellence as well as the Academy for Eating Disorders’s Leadership Award in Research.

    To learn more about Dr. Becker visit: https://hms.harvard.edu/faculty-staff/anne-e-becker

  • If you are looking for tools to increase self-discovery, and deepen your compassion for yourself and others, tune into this Therapy Rocks! interview with guest Dayo Ajanaku, founder of The Black Enneagram—making the Enneagram accessible for communities of color.

    Dayo is a lifelong student focused on bringing joy and justice to the world. She offers basic enneagram education through black culture and black images, and regularly engages issues of faith, justice, self-awareness, love and unapologetic joy. Dayo is a 25 year old Nigerian American woman, currently attending Berkeley Law (Class of 2024) in the SF Bay Area, working on her certification with the Narrative Enneagram.

    To learn more about Dayo, follow her @theblackenneagram and visit https://www.theblackenneagram.com.

    Free Enneagram test to find your type: https://www.eclecticenergies.com/enneagram/dotest






  • If you’ve ever wondered about things like “mind control” and how to lower the vulnerability to it, you’ll want to tune into this Therapy Rocks! episode with cult expert and exit counselor, Diane Benscoter.

    Diane draws from her own experience inside a religious cult, known as the “Moonies.” As a result, she recognized the need for an organization that recognizes psychological manipulation as a public health problem, and founded “Antidote,” the only nonprofit taking this approach and providing services that aid both prevention and recovery. Diane is the author of Shoes of a Servant – My Unconditional Devotion to a Lie. She is a speaker, with a Ted Talk on How Cults Rewire the Brain, workshop facilitator, and has been featured on NPR, Huffington Post and more.

    To learn more about Diane’s work, visit her website https://antidote.ngo

  • Join Signe for a second interview with Dr. Dan Tomasulo about a new science of hope and hopefulness that has the capacity to change the trend of anxiety and depression we are seeing around the globe. Dr. Dan talks about the habits of high hope individuals, ways to start adding a little bit of hope into our lives, “not-so random acts of kindness,” and more!

    To learn more about Dr. Dan, follow him on Instagram & Twitter @drdantomasulo and visit his website: https://www.dantomasulo.com/


  • Dr. Derek Vigon, joins Signe to talk about what goes into our musical taste, how music and audio tracks can enhance performance with athletes, performers, and organizations, music as catharsis and more.

    Dr. Vigon is a licensed clinical and sport psychologist in private practice in Maryland and Virginia, and a staff psychologist and the Coordinator of Sport Psychology at George Mason University. He has worked in numerous clinical settings which allowed him to support individuals with diverse presenting problems and from various multicultural backgrounds. He has supported numerous collegiate and professional athletes, and has consulted with the NCAA’s Atlantic 10 Conference, the NFL, and several professional organizations. His dissertation performance tool, “Psych Beats™,” was performed with Olympic marathon runners in San Francisco.

    To learn more about Dr. Vigon visit https://drderekvigon.com, and follow him on Twitter @MasonSportPsych.


  • Therapeutic Sex and Relationship Coach, LMFT, and Certified Body Trust® Provider, Dawn Serra, joins Signe to discuss what our relationship to food has to do with sex, why “safety” is a prerequisite to pleasure, sex and changing bodies, as well as the best advice for a couple with different libidos.

    Dawn Serra specializes in pleasure, body trust, and boundaries. She is currently completing her Master of Counseling degree and will soon be opening a therapeutic private practice in British Columbia specializing in trauma, body, and relationships specifically for people in bigger bodies. Dawn believes that we heal “in relationship, ” and her work is about creating a space where people can explore the kind of healing they are dreaming of without having to do it alone, that’s rooted in practices of playfulness, curiosity, empathy, and imperfection.

    To learn more about Dawn’s work, follow her on instagram @dawn_serra and visit https://www.dawnserra.com/about/.

  • Signe talks to Emma Goswell about one of the most important moments in many LGBTQ+ people's lives, “coming out." They cover off on the importance of pronouns, how to be a better ally, and Emma gives her best advice for individuals thinking about coming out.

    Emma has interviewed over 90 LGBTQ+ people from around the world in the last couple of years, and recently released Coming Out Stories, a book that tells the stories of 27 people from across the spectrum, based on her hugely popular Coming Out Stories podcast.

    To learn more about Emma’s work, follow her on Twitter @emmagoswell, Instagram @comingoutstoriespod and visit her website: https://comingoutstoriespodcast.com/





  • Signe is joined by her two co-authors, Dr. Shelley Aggarwal and Wendy Sterling to talk about their newly released book Raising Body Positive Teens: A Parent's Guide to Diet-Free Living, Exercise and Body Image. They talk about the importance of taking the morality out of movement, morality attached to weight, and how it seeps into medical care, what sleep has to do with sport performance and Shelley gets up close and personal as she reflects on the writing process for this book as a first generation immigrant who grew up in a taller/larger body.

    Wendy Sterling, is a Certified Eating Disorder Registered Dietitian and Approved Supervisor through the International Association of Eating Disorders Professionals, and a Board-Certified Specialist in Sports Dietetics in the San Francisco Bay Area. She has consulted for the Oakland Athletics, Golden State Warriors, NY Jets, and NY Islanders. She is also the co-author of How to Nourish Your Child Through an Eating Disorder.

    Shelley Aggarwal is a physician and is a board-certified Pediatrician and Adolescent Medicine Sub-Specialist. She treats medically complex teens and young adults, and consults on a variety of youth-specific health issues including adolescent development. Dr. Aggarwal has worked with premiere academic institutions and continues to be teaching faculty with Stanford Children's Health and UCSF-Fresno. She is the Medical Director of clinics serving justice involved youth.
    To learn more about Wendy, visit: http://sterlingnutrition.com, and follow her on instagram @wendy_sterling.

    To learn more about Shelley visit: https://www.signedarpinian.com/books.




  • Signe talks to Virgie Tovar about why anger is an integral part of self-acceptance, boundaries are the most powerful B-word, tips for bad body image days (BBIDs), body positivity as a relationship value, and more!
    Virgie Tovar is an author, activist and one of the nation's leading experts and lecturers on weight-based discrimination and body image. She holds a Master's degree in Sexuality Studies with a focus on the intersections of body size, race and gender. She is a contributor for Forbes where she covers the plus-size market and how to end weight discrimination at work. Tovar is the author of You Have the Right to Remain Fat,The Self-Love Revolution: Radical Body Positivity for Girls of Color, her new book The Body Positive Journal, and she’s the host of the Rebel Eaters Club podcast, just starting season 3. Virgie has been featured by the New York Times, Tech Insider, BBC, MTV, Al Jazeera, NPR, Yahoo Health and the San Francisco Chronicle. She lives in San Francisco.
    To learn more about Virgie Tovar, visit https://www.virgietovar.com

  • Signe talks to Dr. Elizabeth Laugeson, who demystifies the “art form” that is social skills and gives insight on how to be better friends, partners, and colleagues.
    Dr. Laugeson is an Associate Clinical Professor in the Department of Psychiatryand Biobehavioral Sciences at the UCLA Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior, and is a licensed clinical psychologist. She is the Founder and Director of the UCLA PEERS Clinic, which is an outpatient program providing evidence-based social skills training for individuals with neurodevelopmental disabilities and other social challenges across the lifespan. Dr. Laugeson is the author of The Science of Making Friends: Helping Socially Challenged Teens and Young Adults.
    To learn more about Dr. Laugeson and the UCLA PEERS Clinic, visit: https://www.semel.ucla.edu/peers