Under Pressure (Part 2): Interview with Lisa Damour, Ph.D.

[Episode 123] Today's episode of the Social Work Podcast is the second of a two part-series about Dr. Lisa Damour’s 2019 text Under Pressure: Confronting the Epidemic of Stress and Anxiety in Girls. In today’s episode we talk about rape culture; the problem with the word "consent"; and how society's criticisms of the way girls speak is really just another way of criticizing girls. In Part 1, Lisa and I talk about the difference between stress, anxiety and trauma; what “good” and “bad” pressure look like; and how schools, parents, and providers can think about pressure.

Download MP3 [27:46]

Under Pressure (Part 1): Interview with Lisa Damour, Ph.D.

[Episode 122] Today's episode of the Social Work Podcast is the first of a two part-series about Dr. Lisa Damour’s 2019 text Under Pressure: Confronting the Epidemic of Stress and Anxiety in Girls. In today’s episode we talk about the difference between stress, anxiety and trauma; what “good” and “bad” pressure look like; and how schools, parents, and providers can think about pressure. In part two we move the conversation into issues of rape culture and how society criticizes the way girls speak as a cover for criticizing girls.

Dr. Damour and I first spoke in February 2016 about her book, Untangled: Guiding Teenage Girls Through the Seven Transitions into Adulthood. I thought Untangled was a fantastic combination of empirical insights and practice wisdom and I loved our interview.

Download MP3 [34:06]

Identifying and Responding to Sex-Trafficking Victims in Social Service Settings: Interview with Rebecca J. Macy, Ph.D.

[Episode 81] In today's social work podcast I spoke with Rebecca J. Macy, Ph.D., ACSW, LCSW. Rebecca is the L. Richardson Preyer Distinguished Chair for Strengthening Families and the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at the UNC at Chapel Hill School of Social Work.

I started our conversation asking Rebecca how she became interested in identification of sex trafficking victims in human service delivery. Most of our conversation focused on how to identify and respond to victims of sex trafficking. We talked about the interdisciplinary nature of sex trafficking; how it involves representatives from law, medicine, social services, and how social workers can and should take the lead in coordinating efforts to help victims. And, as is the custom, we ended our conversation with resources for social workers, the Polaris project in particular. Rebecca was kind enough to send me a list of references and resources that I have posted to the socialworkpodcast.com website.

Since 2004 there has been a 150% increase in the number of searches for the term "sex trafficking." During the same period, there has been no appreciable change in the number of searches for the terms "modern day slavery" or "labor trafficking."

Lonely at the Top: Interview with Thomas Joiner, Ph.D.

[Episode 70] In today's episode of the Social Work Podcast is about loneliness. Since social workers don't talk much about loneliness (we'd rather talk about social isolation or social withdrawl), I spoke with Thomas Joiner, Ph.D., Robert O. Lawton Distinguished Professor of Psychology at Florida State University, and author of Lonely at the Top: The High Cost of Men's Success, published in 2011 by Palgrave Macmillan.

Sex Addiction: Interview with Chris Wolf

[Episode 24] Sex addiction has been defined as "engaging in persistent and escalating patterns of sexual behavior despite increasingly negative consequences to self and others" (Ewald, 2003). In today's podcast I talked with Chris Wolf, a licensed marriage and family therapist and a certified sex addiction counselor. She received her masters in counseling psychology from the University of Pennsylvania, and trained with pioneering sex addictions researcher, Patrick Carnes. She currently works at Gateway Rehabilitation Center in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and has a private practice where she works with primarily with couples dealing with sex addiction. Our interview covered a broad range of topics, including how sex addiction is similar to and different from substance use addiction, common characteristics of sexually addicted clients, basic skills and competencies clinicians need when working with sexually addicted clients, and some resources for further study or learning.

Download MP3 [52:22]


As with the podcast with Jody Bechtold on pathological gambling, this interview is intended to be an overview and introduction to the topic of sexual addiction. It is not intended to be used as a substitute for supervision or clinical training.