This week, ahead of Thanksgiving, Emmalee and Jen are re-releasing their most downloaded episode: Why Are In-Laws So Triggering? They know that the start of the Holiday season can be activating, overwhelming, and bring up a lot of emotion, which is why they picked this particular episode to remind you that you're not alone. Emmalee and Jen answer your questions like: why are mothers-in-law, specifically, triggering, how to prepare for in-laws, what to do when your partner won't speak up to...

This week on ShrinkChicks, Emmalee and Jen are helping you to answer the question: should I stay or should I go? They talk about how to know when something is no longer serving you and the nuances that exist around that, how to decipher between needing to give something more time vs. knowing it's time, and working through the guilt of making the decision to leave. Emmalee and Jen answer your questions about understanding your own dealbreakers, the difference between an ultimatum and a...

On today's episode of ShrinkChicks, Emmalee and Jen have the pleasure of sitting down with Dr. Tracy Dalgleish! Dr. Tracy is a clinical psychologist, couples therapist, and author who specializes in the topics of resentment, the mental load, and other challenges that can show up in our partnerships. They start the episode off by diving into the complicated emotion of resentment and how resentment connects to the mental load. Dr. Tracy shares about the common relationship dynamic that includes...

This week on ShrinkChicks, Emmalee and Jen sit down with Jenny Wise Black, LMFT, who specializes in how our phones affect our mental health. Jenny shares her personal journey of being without a phone for FOUR years and how it changed her life and informed her work. Emmalee, Jen, and Jenny discuss social media breaks and FOMO, living in our daily reality vs. our social media reality, the addiction to our phones and some research behind it, the impact that scrolling and keeping our phones on us...

Today on ShrinkChicks, Emmalee and Jen are covering the highly requested topic of hyper-independence! They start the discussion off by defining hyper-independence, also known as ultra-independence, and where it can originate from. They talk about the relationship between hyper-independence and parentification and birth order, the societal praise hyper-independence receives, and how hyper-independence can affect our romantic and platonic relationships. Emmalee and Jen distinguish...

This week on ShrinkChicks, Emmalee and Jen are answering your questions about childhood wounds. They start the episode with a question about what a healed person looks like and what their own healing journeys have looked like. Then they discuss how our childhood wounds do not always originate from our families; that some of us have deep wounds from friendships or other formative relationships. Emmalee and Jen share questions to help identify what wounds from childhood may be showing up for...

On today's episode of ShrinkChicks, Emmalee and Jen are covering the highly requested topic of shame. They start the episode off by distinguishing between the emotions of guilt and shame as they can feel quite similar but are very different. Then they share some of Brene Brown's research including the 3 things shame needs to survive and how to get out of a shame spiral with tangible steps. Emmalee and Jen discuss healing from shame, shame and judgment and how they can go hand in hand, the...

This week on ShrinkChicks, Emmalee and Jen are talking all about decisions and why decision-making can be so challenging. They share what they each do when struggling to make a decision, a tangible exercise to help you with decision-making, and answer your questions about feeling stuck in a decision. They discuss their thoughts on "the one," making "the right" decisions, managing other people's/society's opinions and expectations, why you may have analysis paralysis, the fear of regret,...

On today's episode of ShrinkChicks, Emmalee and Jen are revisiting the topic: how to stop taking sh*t personally! You can listen to this one on its own, and for more check out the episode: How to Stop Taking Sh*t Personally. Emmalee and Jen pick the topic back up by answering a question about rejection sensitivity and explaining what it looks like. They then discuss how taking things personally can connect to our deepest insecurities, the shame and guilt behind taking things personally, and...

This week on ShrinkChicks, Emmalee and Jen are covering a highly requested topic: confrontation and how to get more comfortable with it! They start by normalizing how challenging confrontation can be. They share questions to ask yourself like what does confrontation mean to you and what does it look like for you, historically? Then they answer your questions about why confrontation can be so scary, what to do if you freeze or blackout during a confrontation, different ways to...

Today on ShrinkChicks, Emmalee and Jen are talking about chosen family. They discuss popular sayings like "blood is thicker than water" and "you only get one (insert family member here)" and why these don't apply to everyone. They explain that it's not all or nothing; a chosen family doesn't require the absence of a biological family. Emmalee and Jen answer your questions about finding and creating a chosen family, how to not feel like you're betraying your biological family by having a...

Today on ShrinkChicks, Em and Jen are practicing what they preach by resting and taking the week off from a new episode. They don't want to leave you all hanging of course, so they're re-releasing one of their most listened-to episodes: Carrying The Mental Load. Emmalee and Jen break down the term "mental load," which is also known as cognitive labor. They discuss gender roles and how the mental load has historically fallen on women, the over-functioning/under-functioning dynamic in...

On this week's episode of ShrinkChicks, Emmalee and Jen are honored to be joined by Juliane Taylor Shore, LMFT, LPC, SEP. Jules is a therapist specializing in trauma recovery, interpersonal neurobiology, and couples work and she shares her incredible knowledge with us all today! The episode begins with Jules explaining how to use neurobiology as a basis to understand ourselves and our triggers. She shares how trauma - and our own histories - can alter the brain, how our brain systems are...

Today on ShrinkChicks Emmalee and Jen are communicating about communicating! They discuss how to improve communication in your relationship(s), identifying your specific pain points when communicating, being the external processor or the internal processor, the difference between honesty and being harsh, asserting your needs vs. being controlling, what to do when you're having the same fight or disagreement over and over again, and effective communication strategies! The episode ends with a...

This week on ShrinkChicks, Emmalee and Jen are answering all of your questions about therapy! They discuss why they each chose this career, where to start when looking for a therapist, how to break up with your therapist & find a new one, how to know if you've found the right therapist, how to make the most of your sessions, and why it can be hard to be fully honest with your therapist. Emmalee and Jen also read some of your therapist horror stories that leave them shook. The episode...

Today on ShrinkChicks, Emmalee and Jen are covering one of the most requested topics: taking things personally. The episode kicks off with the new intro segment question: how did Em and Jen meet their partners? They then get into the topic and explain where taking things personally may stem from, times when we are more prone to taking things personally, sensitivity to rejection, and how to work toward taking things less personally. They answer your questions about constructive criticism,...

This week on ShrinkChicks, Emmalee and Jen are diving into the topic of resentment and how it can be connected to unmet expectations, feelings of unfairness or imbalance, and asking for what we need. They first explain the emotion of resentment, where it can come from, and how they each know when resentment is building for them, personally. Emmalee and Jen then answer your questions about why it can be easier to stew in the resentment than ask for what you need, the discomfort of confronting,...

On today's episode of ShrinkChicks, Emmalee and Jen are covering one of their favorite topics: self-compassion. They are thrilled to sit down with Dr. Kristin Neff, the self-compassion pioneer and expert. Dr. Neff was one of the first to research self-compassion about 20 years ago and shares many of her incredible findings with us all today. Dr. Neff defines self-compassion at the start of the episode and explains how culturally and evolutionarily, self-compassion can be challenging to give...

Today on ShrinkChicks, Emmalee and Jen dig into the topic of complicated relationships with our parents/caregivers. They start the episode off with a hilarious story about Emmalee's version of a "lovie" when she was young. Hint: it was not a blanket or a stuffed animal. They then define the term enmeshment as it relates to our family of origin, talk about the difference between a close knit family and an enmeshed family, and touch on the (sometimes maladaptive) patterns that get passed down...

On this week's episode of ShrinkChicks, Emmalee and Jen cover the topic of being the partner, friend, family member, etc. with anxiety and the shame, guilt, and other emotions that can bring up. They noticed a theme with the listener questions that came in for this topic around the word "burden." Emmalee and Jen answer your questions about being a burden or too much when it comes to anxiety in your relationship and where that feeling may have originated. They discuss validating our own...

Today on ShrinkChicks, Emmalee and Jen are practicing what they preach and taking the week off from a new episode for the July 4th Holiday. They of course never want to leave you all hanging, so they are re-releasing one of their most popular episodes from last year: Jealousy is a Complex Emotion. They start off by discussing jealousy as a very human emotion. They then go into the difference between jealousy and envy, why jealousy is normal, and the reaction to jealousy vs. the feeling of...

On today's episode of ShrinkChicks, Emmalee and Jen have the honor of sitting down with the boundary and relationship expert herself, Nedra Glover Tawwab, MSW, LCSW! You may recognize Nedra's name from her incredible Instagram account or as the author of two amazing books Set Boundaries, Find Peace & Drama Free. Nedra starts the episode by sharing how she got into boundary work, why she doesn't always like using the term "boundary," and her approach as a therapist. She then answers...

This week's episode of ShrinkChicks is all about life stage transitions and the anxiety that can come along with them. Emmalee and Jen start the episode off with another new listener intro idea and share the highs and lows of their weeks. They then dive into listener questions about various life transitions like the difference between a period of transition vs. making the "wrong” choice, decision paralysis with change, coping when friends' lives are changing but yours isn't, being "ahead" or...

On today's episode of ShrinkChicks, Emmalee and Jen talk all about things not going according to plan. Any planners out there? This one's for you (and also to share with anyone in your life who you want to explain your perspective to)! The episode starts off with a new intro idea from an amazing listener that has Emmalee and Jen share something they learned about themselves over the past week. They then dive into the episode topic and share how they both feel about plans and planning. Em and...

This week on ShrinkChicks, Emmalee and Jen dive into the topic of parentification aka parenting our parents and/or siblings as a child or adolescent. They start the episode by defining parentification, sharing the different types, giving examples of what it could have looked like in your childhood/adolescence and explaining the short & long term effects. Emmalee and Jen answer your questions like: what to do if it's showing up in adulthood, can we parentify ourselves, how to set...