Podcast Episodes on Mental Health & Social Science

This week’s guest is Exorcist Father Vincent Lampert. Father Vincent is an intellectual giant, one of the 125 officially designated exorcists in the United States, and an active educator about exorcism and mental illness.  An exorcist is trained to be a skeptic. I believe the Church would cause greater harm if the Church labels someone as being possessed. That label prevents them from getting the true help that they need. Father Vincent Lambert. Welcome to the show. Can you define what demons are? I feel like people use demon and devil very interchangeably. When we speak of the devil and these other evil spirits, we're speaking of fallen angelic creatures. Their overall goal would be to get humans to join them in their rebellion against God. There is an angelic hierarchy, if you will. Different demons are of a greater intellect than others. They're not sent to Hell during an exorcism. God can use these evil spirits as a part of his divine plan. It's hard for humans to concept…

This week’s guest is Sarah Abou Hadir. Sarah is a professional editor, writer, book virtuoso, and TikTok influencer. She is a ferocious reader, as she has read about 20 books a month during the pandemic, not to mention her impressive memory recall and retention. Currently, Sarah is in the process of self-publishing the book that she wants to read the most. Sometimes you need art to understand math. Sometimes you need music to understand quantum physics. Many scientists were also artists or musicians, you know, polymath. Science is becoming more spiritual. Does the idea of death or mortality scare you? Or how do you feel about your own limited mortality? Do you think there's an intrinsic definition that applies universally to every philosophical debate? How do you view mental health within the containers of like, 2023? It is a trauma, though, say, being ghosted by someone, that's traumatic. Sometimes it's not the trauma, it's how you're perceiving it. When you're happy, you…

If a farmer or a rancher is like a repeat offender. If they have a cattle that flags for antibiotics, if that happens twice, the packer will no longer pick up any cattle from that rancher. That was really a testament to how aggressive the steps are to make sure that no antibiotics ends up in our food supply system. All milk on the shelf is safe and held to the same standards, whether that's conventional or organic or grass fed. Every single tanker of milk that leaves our farm is tested at the parts per billion for antibiotics. The added hormone conversation also gets a little crazy. But you can really, truly feel good about all the milk as being safe and antibiotic free. In dairy, we are what's called a co op. We absolutely treat our animals with antibiotics. But just because we do that doesn't mean they're going to end up in the food system. Is there any way for certain powerful or maybe family of farmers or ranchers to bypass certain procedures? Natalie Boltar started that…

This week’s guest is Sheena Yap Chan. Sheena is a Canadian keynote speaker, published author, and top 0.5% globally ranked podcaster. Loving yourself doesn't always mean loving the good parts. It's loving theGood, bad and the ugly and being okay with that. Sheena always loved the best parts of me, but was the worst critic when it came to the worst parts. Welcome to discover more podcast. Washina: Study shows that top woman leaders in Fortune 500 companies had higher retention rate, higher productivity, higher happiness, healthier, and more robust culture. She says leadership isn't confined to male or female or gender per se, but we do need more representations. Sheena: In 2022, Asian women are still seen as objects that they can order off catalog. She says an article promoting Asian male order brides used derogatory language. We need to call out the injustices that's happening, Sheena says. Mail order Bride is basically a website that you can pick a bride off of there and …

How do you turn trauma into internalized growth? How do you retain the lessons from pain teachers? What did growing up in four countries and three near-death experiences teach Benoit that he carries to this date? In this week’s episode, Benoit shares his featured interview with Kevin Lowe, the host of his podcast: Grit, Grace, and Inspiration. As the show grows, Benoit feels called to share his upbringing, the genesis of his stories, and how he became the latest evolved version that he is ...

This week’s guest is Dr. Christine Ziemer. Christine is a cognitive psychologist, a tenured professor of psychology at Missouri Western State University, and a psychedelic science educator. I think it was in Michael Pollan's book where somebody had said the idea if I were to go inside your body and look out through your perception, it would feel like a psychedelic experience. It's so different from my reality. Christine, I am very, very excited for today's conversation and welcome to the show. The innate healing potential that comes with transpersonal states or alternative level of consciousness. Our bodies trend towards wholeness and towards healthiness. If we can create the right conditions to allow our minds to heal, they want to heal. Our perceptions don't only shape the reality we reside within, but everyone else who reside in that reality. It also shapes our relationships. How we interpret that text is a reflections of how we feel at that very moment. And that's why the…

Have you ever felt anxious or depressed due to your student loan debt? What is the hidden cost of America’s normalization of student debt and loans? How do you start over after a co-dependent relationship? This week’s guest is Melanie Lockert. Melanie is a published author, freelance financial writer, and the host of her podcast: The Mental Health and Wealth Show. Through her award-winning blog and the book, Dear Debt, Melanie chronicled her journey out of $81,000 in student loan debt. She...

This week on The Mental Health Toolbox, we talk with mental health therapist and host of the Discover More Podcast, Benoit Kim. He shares his wisdom on how to face uncertainty and pivots in life and career. A lot of people have very unrealistic expectations of what life is. Can you navigate life in a sustainable and healthy way per your internal worldview? A lot of my work with my clients at USC is simply help them a, what are your expectations of life and in life? We all have the same prime emotions, pretty much the same needs, right? Same basic needs. Key to unlocking that sense of belonging is finding ways to connect with other people. That's what altruism is. A lot of my clients don't understand that life is nonlinear. I think first by seeking understanding of what their lived experience is and kind of their narrative. Then helping them zoom out a little bit just to look for other ways to view their situation. There's always ways to improve the moment. According to Goo…

This week’s guest is Zach Pincince. Zach Pincince is the #1 most viral celebrity hypnotist, YouTube influencer, and impact entertainer. Zach is a master of life optimization, mentalism and the art of subtle suggestion. Expect to learn how to build systems that optimize your life in the way you see fit. A surprise performance at the end of the interview, and much, much more. There is a way to mitigate that the genetic variance factor, which is a creating systems like James Clear for atomic habits. If we only solely rely on our eternal willpower, willpower is going to run out. Showing up on our easy days is hard. But consistent is key. The singer-songwriter has been singing for an hour a day for a thousand days. He says the biggest thing that kept him going was not wanting to break the streak. It's not about motivation, it's about commitment to the goal, he says. Impact Entertainer came from when he was first starting out. He wanted to think of something from his website oth…

Join us for an insightful conversation with YouTube influencer, published author, and intuitive musician, Yoshua Greenfield.  Yoshua returns for round two of Discover More with Benoit Kim. How would you describe who you are without saying what you do? The magic is in the mundane, he says. Yoshua: Life is simple in many ways, but it's not easy. The only real death is ego death. Once you've gone through ego death well, then you're just a piece of this entire puzzle. He says he looks for what is pulling his inspiration, what wants to happen here. There's nothing wrong with setting a goal. But recognize that the reason people say it's the journey, not the destination. Competency and skill sets compound over time. What allows you to morph and transform and evolve into a better version of you is through the compounding process of the journey. Science can easily slip into a new age religion and the way that people take it to be truth. With fact and truth everything is until as it…

This is a Christmas special episode featuring the most recent interview Benoit did on the Millennial Mental Health Channel, a top mental health podcast affiliated with the iHeart Radio: Spreaker Network. This is episode 80. We have an excellent guest who goes by the name Benoit Kim. He is a former policymaker turned therapist, a US army veteran, and the host of the podcast Discover More. Primarily the topic is going to be psychedelics. One of the mechanism behind PTSD or Post Traumatic Stress disorder is actually ontological shock. That's what allows a breakthrough in accelerated pace. Benoit: I really love the Avenue of psychedelics. It really works for those who are eligible based on the health criteria. Justin: So much of what you're sharing today is, like, it has the numbers, but it also has this subjective anecdotal piece that I think is super impactful. Why wouldn't we want to support this? Why would we not think that this is helpful? I do psychedelic Psilocybin at l…

This week’s guest is James Adams III. James is a popular cinema reaction YouTuber, film director, and artist. Life imitates art, and art imitates life, and it goes hand in hand. For those struggling to find their own style, try and find art pieces and dive into them. Expect to learn the reality of being captured by an audience as an influencer. The best way to fight against the modern culture of never ending destructions. "I learned more that life imitates art. We're wielders of time, if we can think of it like that.” Since time is a construct, time is limitless. Humans can hold two seemingly contradicting things at the same time. "James, you chose the avenue of anime, manga and films for your avenue of personal development. There is a difference between great art and good art. You have to have intention.” Naruto is the embodiment of this archetype of a hero's journey. At the same time, he also empowers and provides confidence for all his peers. The fact that you're able t…

This week’s guests are Justin Romano, MD & Eddie Carrillo, LPC. Justin is a child psychiatry fellow, Eddie is a licensed psychotherapist, and they are the co-hosts of the Millennial Mental Health Channel podcast. Discover More is a show for introspective thinkers with growth mindsets seeking authentic life stories. I think therapy has to be the seed that starts the big changes in your life. Hopefully, therapy is educational, shows you what you need to change. What does mental health mean to the mastermind behind the Millennial Mental Health Channel? Justin: The goal is just for mental health to just equal health. One of the most magical things to Eddie and I is hearing someone positively impacted by our podcast. A holistic approach is understanding that you need both. You need both physical and mental well being. The whole mind, spirituality, body connection is so important. As a physician, treatments have to be evidence based. Big Pharma can influence and dictate the dire…

This week’s guest is Iris Gonzalez-Thrash, LCSW. Iris Gonzalez-T is a clinical professor at USC, a psychotherapist, and a licensed clinical social worker. We shift the language in that in our story. Today anxiety is in my life, and it's telling me that bad things are going to happen. It's making me worry. Some of the most difficult people I connect with clinically or just interpersonally are folks with avoidant personalities. Can you talk about between the avoidant personality type and the anxious attachment style and what sort of impact that could have in a relationship? A lot of people like to minimize their own suffering in comparison of other people's pain and suffering. Not every traumatic experience is a big “T” and the pain is pain and it's really important for us to validate our own pain. We're getting better about talking a little bit more about trauma. A lot of times a lot of folks have skewed expectations of what reality should be. When we try to control others…

This week’s guest is Dr. David Rudd, Ph.D. David is the former president of the University of Memphis, a distinguished university professor of psychology, and the co-founder of the National Center for Veterans Studies at the University of Utah and the University of Memphis. For decades, the medicalization of psychology has been a problem. All of the foundation of stigma is based in the pathologizing of emotional functioning. When we moved away from pathology, we got more effective. There is less and less distinction between PhDs and PsYds. Now you see psychologists routinely integrated in medical units. We as a society must reconcile and come to a place where we view value and helping before the prestige. We need to work to build emotional tolerance. One of the things we don't do well is define emotional functioning. We've got to find a way to integrate that in earlier in the education and development of young people. David Perry: I equate emotional functioning, everything…

This week's guest is Kevin Lowe, a transformational life coach. Kevin is fully blind, and his world was full of dark formless objects until he learned to echolocate using the clicking technique. Hear how Kevin came to fully embrace and accept his blindness. When you're operating at this high level luxury traveling agency, booking travels for all the other people who have the eyesights, who can. Soak in the full experience of traveling. There are a lot more to traveling than just seeing sights at the same time. Everyone has some sort of a mask and facade they put on in different settings. Do you think your blindness allows you to see past the mask and truly see what people are about? When you're curious about anything, doors open up and magic await on the other side. Kevin: When I was in the hospital, there was another boy in the same hospital with the same tumor. John did not get to come home from the hospital that day. Kevin: You will never unlock that magic until you step i…

This week’s guest is Vinny Crispino. Vinny Crispino is the founder of Pain Academy, a corrective exercise expert, and a holistic health practitioner. It made no sense to give it up and go become a surfer on a beach. I think it's about emotions. And we can make the calculated risk. But if you're not fulfilled, that, to me, is the biggest risk of all. Short, fast, immediate changes are attractive to me. The long game is about integration. Fast changes will always yield towards nervous system results. The fastest way to get better is to be consistent long term. When I say 4000 lives changed, we are talking about 4000 integrations of lives changed. Getting out of pain is the first step of what I teach. Staying pain free, changing your relationship to pain, and mastering and developing a movement system is a life truly changed. Benoit: Healing is not just for you. Healing affects everyone that you love and vice versa. When you allow one person's path to be corrected, you're aff…

This week’s guest is Vinny Crispino. Vinny Crispino is the founder of Pain Academy, a corrective exercise expert, and a holistic health practitioner. A pain free life is possible when you're free from the entrapment that pain puts on you. When pain no longer triggers memories and core responses of depression and frustration and anger. When you can get to a place of having pain exist but not altering yourself because of it, that's what pain free means. You have this deep desire to help people, inspire people, and provide healing. Yet, ironically, you are yourself, not someone that's susceptible to receiving help. Until problems are internalized and there's integration, a life has not changed. Too many people view that 1 hour session a week that spent cost $100 as end all, be all. The integration comes after the therapist, then you journal, do your homework, reflect. What is happening outside of our time together? That's the real change. You cannot just view your healing as …

This week’s guest is Christine Lee. Christine is an IMDb-verified actress and model, and is the co-founder of The Dahilas Entertainment, a professional circus entertainment troupe. When there's darkness and there's a loss of hope, there has to be an opportunity for something. "It was hitting rock bottom to make me get off my butt and do something different.” Christine: Can you compare your happiness level until when you finally jumped ship because the timing was right according to your context and your circumstances? Now doing circus full time and just loving what I do right now, it is a ten out of ten. Changing a career or choosing something isn't going to change everything. The golden handcuffs, it's a very American concept. You make $200,000, $300,000, and $400,000 based on how many years you put in at Google. That also comes with the vesting options of a million over six years. Have you noticed any differences of fulfillment or happiness level between America and othe…

This week’s guest is Maia GV. Maia is a fashion YouTuber, the founder of Maiazine, a fashion magazine for the people, and a freelance artist. Why do you feel like you have to work so hard all the time? I just have this tendency in myself to always want to be doing something productive. College is going to be different than for most people because I'm literally just doing it to learn. I'm still finding the balance. As a Portuguese YouTuber, Maia is making an amazing, financially independent living as a freelance artist. Not that long ago you were making a dollar to $2 an hour editing for your favorite YouTubers. How does that feel now? This Portuguese entrepreneur has seen her YouTube channel grow over time. She says her journey is a testimony to Noval's quote, of all the best things in life. Just keep doing it consistently. Have patience. Being consistent isn't just actually producing work. Being consistent means being able to tune out the chatter, the self-doubt, the nois…

This week's guest is Dr. Anthony Kaveh. Anthony is a Stanford and Harvard trained board certified anesthesiologist, integrative medicine specialist and physician influencer. Every Asian and brown parent will love to adopt him as their own. Patients have to be responsible, but so do the influencers around them as well. When we have industries that are fueling psychological exploits in the human brain, it is not fair to my patients. It's not just a single thing. The lopsided competition between psychologists in the processed food industry. Food is medicine, but food is also addiction, right? Why is direct-to-consumer drug advertising illegal in so many countries? Because you're preying on the vulnerable population. In the second half of this interview, I enter the territory of systematic issues in terms of the healthcare gap and also mistrust between physicians and patients. What do you think about this rising, alarming rate of mistrust that's continuing brewing between the pat…

This week’s guest is Melissa Tan. Melissa is a top Malaysian model turned climate action and sustainability advocate, EarthDay.Org ambassador, and keynote speaker. Everything is going to sound a lot more convincing when it's humanized in the form of storytelling. Storytelling is the new marketing. Choose curiosity and nuances. Change has to happen internally within every organization, within every family and within every community. It actually just requires initiatives. I would love for you to share your seasons of optimism, cynicism, hope, despair. I think the thing that really helps me is you brought up the whole concept of acting local. You have to start small so you can see success, so that success drives your next success. What also helps me with other than that perspective is also to temper between optimism and cynicism. Melissa: Power of association is ubiquitous in every sector of life. How do you leverage the positive power of associations to keep scaling up the i…

This week’s guest is Jonathan Yoo. Jonathan is the principal and COO at Convoy Home Loans, a nationally recognized 8-figure montage loan and real estate company. We have the benefits of having what it used to be and what it is now and to leverage both sides to appeal to two types of audiences. I think that's the biggest benefit of being young and jumping into any industry right now. I think it goes back to the sacrifices my parents made. I feel like I'm doing them an injustice if I don't maximize on the opportunity I was given. Nothing that kills success more than being comfortable. There's still areas of growth. Jonathan is deeply passionate about real estate and his current profession. His parents weren't proud of him when he first took the job at 1250 an hour. Being young is an advantage. Jonathan: I almost lost my mom, my uncle and my grandmother to near death experiences. I also went through my greatest career pivots at age 28. I want to highlight that being young is …

This week’s guest is Marco Rosario. Marco is a first-class DJ from Philadelphia with 22 years of experience, an aspiring actor and model with over 50 commercials under his belt, a licensed mental health professional and barber, and what he calls a “smile enabler.” Marco: At this age, when I was late in the game, I was humble enough to know I'm willing to do this for free. So meeting this person and that person, this person led me to ultimately finding an agent. Benoit: Do you remember the first few gigs or performance where you just bombed it? I view musical performance similar to stand up comedy, because you have to time the timing. I would love to visit some of the highlighted bombing experience that you have, if any. Marco: You should dedicate five to ten years refining and honing one profession before you do something else. The reason I'm a mental health professional today is because I was a barber. He says it was a natural transition for him to say, I want to help people…