Under the Hood Talk Presents: Pod Talk

Under the Hood Talk
  • 0.0 (0)
  • Mental Health
  • Updated Biweekly

Pod Talk, a podcast from the nonprofit Under the Hood Talk, creates a space for thoughtful dialogue on modern masculinity. Featuring a diverse array of experts, practitioners, and thought leaders in men’s work and mental health, the show delves into the challenges and complexities of manhood today.

  1. Jul 9

    Raising Boys When Masculinity Feels Broken

    In this episode, Henry sits down with Ruth Whippman, author of BoyMom, for a conversation about boys, masculinity, motherhood, and the emotional lives of young men. Ruth is a British author, journalist, and cultural critic living in the United States. A former BBC documentary director and producer, her writing has appeared in The New York Times, Time, New York Magazine, The Guardian, HuffPost, and elsewhere. She is also the author of America the Anxious, which was named a New York Post Best Book of the Year, a New York Times Editors’ Choice, and a Paperback Row pick. Fortune described her as one of the “25 sharpest minds” of the decade.Henry and Ruth discuss the pressures boys face from an early age, the influence of online spaces, the appeal of figures like Andrew Tate, and the difficulty of holding boys accountable while also taking their suffering seriously.This conversation looks at boyhood with both compassion and clarity. What are boys being taught about manhood? What are they learning to hide? And how might parents, educators, and communities help boys grow into men with emotional honesty, accountability, and a deeper sense of connection?

  2. Jun 20

    Learning to Love Yourself with Ofasu Jones-Quartey

    In this episode, Henry sits down with Ofosu Jones-Quartey for an honest and wide-ranging conversation about his inner journey, including the moment he hit rock bottom and discovered that self-compassion, not self-criticism, was the only way through. They discuss his creative process, Buddhist concepts, what it means to hold yourself accountable without tearing yourself apart, and why self-compassion is integral to life's journey. Ofosu also opens up about his relationship with his father, showing affection in front of his own children, and what it means to be the person in your family who decides the cycle stops here. Ofosu Jones-Quartey, known artistically as Born I, is a rapper, meditation teacher, and author of Lyrical Dharma: Hip-Hop as Mindfulness. His latest album Komorebi weaves Buddhist philosophy with deeply personal lyricism, and his Hip Hop Sound Baths are immersive events blending guided meditation, sound healing, and live performance. A conversation about presence, creativity, healing, and the quiet radical act of being kind to yourself. Lyrical Dharma and Komorebi are both out now. Follow Ofosu @bornimusicofficial.

  3. Jun 10

    Inside One of the Largest Men's Work Organizations in the World

    In this conversation, Henry and Boysen Hodgson discuss the ManKind Project and the process of understanding and reshaping what it means to be a man in the 21st-century. It's a conversation about vulnerability, emotional intelligence, community, and what it looks like for men of all ages to uncover who they are and who they want to be. Boysen Hodgson is the Director of Operations for the ManKind Project USA, the co-creator of the ManKind Podcast and the author of "The New Macho," a credo for emotionally mature masculinity that's been resonating with men across the country. Through the ManKind Project, he's part of a nonprofit that supports nearly 10,000 men every week through transformational programs and ongoing men's groups. Boysen is one of the most thoughtful voices in the conversation around modern masculinity. He brings over two decades of experience facilitating men's groups, and he's here to talk about what it looks like when men do the inner work. Whether you're on your own journey of self-discovery or just curious about where the conversation around men's identity and men's work is headed, this episode is worth a listen.

  4. May 27

    Save Your Relationship!

    When is a relationship worth fighting for and when is it time to cut and run? In our latest episode of Pod Talk, Henry sits down with two New York couples therapists to explore what it really means when two people stop connecting and begin to drift apart. Patrick McCormick is a former ad man turned licensed psychotherapist based in Brooklyn, NY. He specializes in helping men, couples, groups, and co-founders build healthier, more honest relationships — whether that's in boardrooms or bedrooms. In a culture that lionizes winner-takes-all individualism, Patrick believes that learning to truly relate and collaborate is nothing short of a radical act. Jordan Dann is a psychoanalyst, traumatologist, and educator whose work weaves together depth psychology, attachment theory, and nervous system science into a powerful framework for relational healing. Drawing on Somatic Experiencing, Gestalt, and psychoanalytic perspectives, Jordan helps individuals and couples transform unconscious patterns into conscious, embodied choice. She is the author of Somatic Therapy for Healing Trauma and co-editor of Experiential Therapies for Treating Trauma, and teaches clinicians internationally. She also serves on faculty at Gestalt Associates for Psychotherapy, where she trains therapists in relational, embodied approaches to healing. Together, Patrick and Jordan join us to dig into some of the questions we don't ask often enough: What is conflict actually for in a relationship? Why does difference — in values, in temperament, in need — so often feel threatening rather than enriching? And what does it really look like when a friendship, romantic partnership, or family bond becomes dysfunctional, and what, if anything, can be done about it?

  5. May 13

    Boys & Neurodivergence — A Therapist Breaks It Down

    In this episode of Pod Talk, Henry sits down with Shelby Bronfman, a licensed speech pathologist and social cognitive therapist based in Boston, to talk about neurodivergence — what it looks like, how it develops, and what it takes to manage it in environments that often don't make room for it. Shelby draws on years of clinical work, much of it with young boys, to explain why neurodivergence tends to go unaddressed for so long, and why masculinity makes that worse. She walks through the cycles that form early: the standards boys hold themselves to, the shame when they can't meet them, and how those patterns repeat. She also gets into masking — the ongoing effort to suppress neurodivergent traits just to fit in — and why that work, invisible as it is, adds up. But the conversation isn't only about what goes wrong. Shelby talks about the role families play in either easing or compounding stress, why grace is the foundation of any real recovery, and why the goal has never been to push conformity but to give people more tools and fewer reasons to be ashamed of how their brain works.

  6. Apr 28

    How Do We Reach Boys the Manosphere Has Already Claimed?

    In this episode of Pod Talk, Henry sits down with DeManuel Edmondson, Coordinator of Youth Initiatives at A Call to Men, for a conversation about what it takes to reach the next generation of young men before the world makes that harder to do. DeManuel brings over a decade of experience as a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, working across school and clinical settings, and a deep commitment to the kind of youth development work that goes beyond the surface. Before joining A Call to Men in 2024, he served as Director of Adolescent Services at a community non-profit, where he helped design and implement trauma-informed, equity-centered programs that met young people where they were and gave them room to grow. In this conversation he and Henry get into the man box and what it costs young men to live inside it, not just personally but in their friendships, their families, and their communities. They talk about the role masculinity plays in shaping how young people see themselves and the women in their lives, why social media is accelerating that pressure at younger and younger ages, and what it looks like to build spaces where young people are not just taught about respect but trusted to lead with it. DeManuel also walks through the work A Call to Men is doing on the ground, from youth summits and art contests to the Live Respect curriculum reaching communities from New York City to the Gambia. His goal has never been to lecture young people about who to be. It has always been to give them the platform, the tools, and the support to figure that out for themselves.

  7. Apr 15

    What Men Carry and Using Spoken Word to Ease the Burden with Jordan Holmes

    In this episode of Pod Talk, Henry sits down with Jordan Holmes AKA "Dxtr Spits", musician, spoken word artist, scientist, and the man behind How Men Cry, a movement rewriting the relationship between men and vulnerability one story at a time. Jordan brings a perspective that is hard to find. Trained as a material science engineer at Virginia Tech and shaped by a mentorship with the legendary Dr. Nikki Giovanni, he has spent years working at the intersection of art, emotion, and healing. What he has learned is that telling men what they should feel rarely works. But giving them a story to follow, one they can see themselves inside of, opens doors that therapy alone often cannot. In this conversation he and Henry get into what it actually means to cry, and why it has almost nothing to do with tears. They talk about the body's habit of holding onto what once kept it safe, why stumbling back and forth is not a failure in the healing process but a necessary part of it, and why the rewiring of trauma is the piece that mental health conversations most often skip over. Jordan also talks about what it feels like to perform spoken word to a room full of people who needed to hear exactly what he wrote, and why even he needs to sit in the audience sometimes.

  8. Mar 31

    Sex Ed, Trauma, and the Words Young People Are Never Given

    What does it take to actually protect young people? Not in theory, but in practice, in schools, in homes, and in the conversations most adults still avoid having. Henry sits down with Jamie Forbes, founder and CEO of Learning Courage, and Cindy Pierce, comic storyteller, author, and social sexuality educator, for an honest and overdue conversation about sex education, consent, trauma, and the silence that gets in the way of all of it. Jamie, a survivor himself, shares what happens when schools stop tiptoeing around hard topics and start engaging students directly. He talks about the power of vocabulary, the importance of young people having someone to talk to, and the real-world impact that consent conversations are having with high schoolers across the country. Cindy brings her signature candor to the table, pushing back on the idea that boys are naturally uncomplicated and making the case for proactive, early, and ongoing sex education. Her work as a speaker and educator has reached audiences of all kinds, and her perspective is as refreshing as it is necessary. Together, they make one thing clear: the conversations we avoid are exactly the ones young people need most. This episode is for educators, parents, school leaders, and anyone who believes that safer communities start with courageous conversations.

See All (24)

About

Pod Talk, a podcast from the nonprofit Under the Hood Talk, creates a space for thoughtful dialogue on modern masculinity. Featuring a diverse array of experts, practitioners, and thought leaders in men’s work and mental health, the show delves into the challenges and complexities of manhood today.

Information