This week I’m joined by Frank Anderson, Harvard-trained psychiatrist, psychotherapist and one of the leading voices in trauma treatment, for a conversation that goes far beyond traditional therapy. What we explore together: • Why trauma treatment was never meant to be a single method, and what 11 years of psychoanalysis taught him about its limits • The viral “does trauma live in the brain or the body” debate, and what his close friend Bessel van der Kolk actually meant by The Body Keeps the Score • Why attraction is often about unhealed wounding, not love, and how it shaped his own first marriage • What it actually looks like to heal trauma through the body, not just by talking about it • Why he believes we’re entering “the era of the body,” and what that means for AI and disconnection Love, Sarah Ann 💛 My book, Healthy Shouldn’t Be This Hard: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Healthy-Shouldnt-Be-This-Hard-ebook/dp/B0G1DHNRV5 This episode is sponsored by: POLSEN HEALTH: The compassionate health tracker. Connecting body and mind with unique stress recovery insights so you can live fully today. 👉 15% off with code LWBW15 at https://polsen.health/ 📖 If this resonates, you can join the thousands who read The Compassionate Cure each week. https://sarahmacklin.substack.com/ Let’s be friends! 📷 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sarahannmacklin/ 📹 Subscribe: https://www.youtube.com/@livewellbewellsarah 🐦 Twitter: https://x.com/SarahAnnMacklin 📱 TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@livewellbewellpodcast Frank Anderson: 🔗 Website: https://www.frankandersonmd.com 📷 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/frank_andersonmd/ Chapters 00:00 Introduction 01:40 Why “trauma” is such a loaded word to open with 02:08 Generational reactions to trauma: boomer denial vs. Gen Z over-identification 03:59 Changing the whole paradigm on trauma 05:07 Why therapy alone doesn’t work for trauma 05:25 11 years of psychoanalysis and The Integrated Path to Healing Trauma 08:34 “Trauma is a violation of agency” 09:34 Regaining self-trust and reconnecting to your intuition 10:30 His first marriage and recreating his parents’ dynamic 12:37 Sponsor break: Polsen Health 14:47 People pleasing as a survival strategy, not a trauma response 18:03 The origin of his own people-pleasing: his father, Harvard and “To Be Loved” 22:02 The Bessel van der Kolk “Body Keeps the Score” debate 23:14 Working with celebrity clients in LA, and being attacked for something he didn’t do 27:18 Setting the record straight: it’s not brain OR body, it’s both 29:57 “Nobody’s trauma is the same, it’s like your fingerprint” 32:02 The pushback on his next book’s proposed title 33:52 What resilience actually is, and his own “baby in a crib” trauma 39:54 Blending science and spirituality 42:55 How trauma shows up as physical illness (asthma, migraines, back pain) 45:11 The choking sensation and learning to speak his truth 47:58 Preverbal trauma and healing through the body 50:45 Journaling, the Sarno method, and a client physically releasing repressed rage 56:17 Why trauma memories are stored differently (Ruth Lanius) 57:34 Why Frank won’t do a session without movement 58:14 Healing chronic pain through surfing and ecstatic dance 59:54 Why therapy’s 50-minutes-a-week format fights neuroplasticity 1:00:38 Healing a jellyfish-sting trauma through surfing after the Palisades fire 1:03:11 Trauma blocks love, and love blocks trauma 1:04:28 Why we’re attracted to people with the same wound 1:08:16 “Love is my husband”: 27 years together 1:16:27 Healthy love, nervous systems, and the difference between an emotion and a reaction 1:23:18 Internal Family Systems and the difference between self and soul 1:29:15 Why trauma resists a single definition 1:33:16 Holding uncertainty in the healing process 1:38:28 AI, disconnection, and “the era of the body” 1:45:27 Why Frank moved to Hollywood 1:46:19 Frank’s closing thesis: healing is possible 1:47:44 What does Live Well Be Well mean to you?
