Psychology In Seattle Podcast

Psychology In Seattle Podcast is the work of Dr. Kirk Honda, who introduces himself as a therapist and a professor and greets his audience as 'Deserving Listeners'. The approach is easy to describe. He picks a subject, whether it comes from history, reality television or his own life, and talks it through with clinical judgment and a ready joke. The two-part series 'The Psychology of Emotional Charisma - Cesar Chavez, Cults, and Classrooms' shows how far that approach can travel. Its second chapter turns to Synanon, which Honda calls a cult that Chavez became involved with and says was founded in California in 1958 by Charles Dederich. He is careful to add that it started with good intentions. Humberto Castaneda, known as Berto, joins him for both chapters. Their banter ranges from Berto introducing himself as a distributor of plutonium mud masks to Honda's fear that a remark will age badly between recording and release, a gap he puts at anywhere from the next day to two months. His clinical past supplies some of the most vivid material. He recalls a client whose drug screen came back positive, a treatment team that turned suspicious almost immediately, and his own case that the reading might be false. Reality TV gets the same scrutiny. 'Narcissistic Abuse (Chap 3)' is introduced as the third and final chapter on Chris from Love is Blind Season 10, with the opening on the free feed and the rest for patrons. Honda is also plain about where his expertise stops. In 'Autism Explained (2020 Rerun)', he says his experience with autism is limited and mostly from early in his career. He then brings in Megan Wildhood, who is working on an MSW, has a background in crisis work and says she has been diagnosed as on the spectrum. The first thing she sets out to clear up is the stereotype that people on the spectrum lack empathy. 'How To Diagnose' takes a different route. A counselor named Isaiah reads AI-generated fictional vignettes, written to be ambiguous, and the two weigh possibilities such as PTSD while noting that people don't always fit neatly into diagnostic categories. 'My Pivotal Moments (2018 Rerun)' is a solo reply to a patron who asked for the 20 most important episodes of his life. Honda admits he does not think about his life in turning points the way biographers do. The humor stays close, including a mock cult-leader pitch urging listeners to become patrons. More than one episode signs off the same way, with the line 'take care of yourself because you deserve it'.