An interview with clinical social worker and birth mother, Marilyn Bronzi about giving up her child for adoption. Marilyn describes the sense of secrecy and shame that surrounded out of wedlock pregnancy in 1966. “It was like having a relative in jail.” She describes her process of making the decision and making peace with it [...]
An interview with psychologist, researcher and author, Diane Ehrensaft about the psychological experience of parenting children conceived through the assistance of a donor. Diane describes the challenges parents face in coping with “genetic assymetry” between the parents, and fears that disclosing to the child will undermine the bonding with the non-biological parent. Diane also speaks [...]
An interview with family therapist and author Evan Imber-Black about how to tell a family secret thoughtfully and well. In contrast to televised and sensationalist secret telling in front of mass audiences, Dr. Imber-Black works with families to prepare carefully before revealing important secrets. She tells stories from her work about the impact of secrets [...]
An interview with author and social psychologist, Jamie Pennebaker about his research into the benefits of confiding painful experiences. Jamie discovered that childhood traumas resulted in far greater long term health and psychological difficulties if they were not confided in others. He suggests that one of the reasons that childhood sexual abuse may be so [...]
An interview with law professor, author and Macarthur fellow, Elyn Saks, about her experience of living with Schizophrenia. Elyn describes the experience of psychosis as like living in a nightmare from which you cannot wake up. She describes her 20 year long struggle to deny that she had schizophrenia, and especially that she did not [...]
An interview with author, Christiane Wells about her experience living with bipolar disorder and addiction. Chris describes ten years spent in and out of psychiatric hospitals addicted to crack, not taking her medication and struggling with suicide. She began to get better when she decided that maybe she was not damaged after all and could [...]
An interview with doctor of clinical social work, Frank Brooks about gender role non-conformity. Frank described his own experiences of feeling different and facing prejudice as he grew up. He then went on to study the powerful link between gender role non-conformity in boys and the risk of suicide. He works now with families with [...]
An interview with sexuality educator and mother, Sandy Lovell about parenting a trans son. Sandy shared the story of learning that her daughter was becoming a man. She described her son’s childhood and the very early ways he was drawn to play with more stereotypically masculine toys, and said he felt “in the middle” between [...]
An interview with social worker Liam Bechen about being a genderfluid trans man. Liam describes his story of realizing that he was not a woman, not a man, but occupying the gray area in between. He describes the daily challenge of coping with people’s responses to his visible inbetween-ness. He describes moments of fear of [...]
An interview with terrorism expert Jessica Stern about her experience following a rape at age 15. Jessica speaks about the way her story was not believed by the police resulting in further rapes of over 40 children. She also addresses the way in which her father did not initially take the rape seriously and the [...]
