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The Radical Therapist

Chris Hoff PhD(c), LMFT

This is the Radical Therapist Podcast. A space where we explore the intersections of collaborative therapy, psychology, philosophy, art, and science & technology.

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24 episodes
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#144
Sunday · 12 min
Ruins on Ruins: What Comes After Deconstruction?
What happens when therapists learn to take stories apart and feel unsure how to help people build a life afterward? In this episode of The Radical Therapist, Chris Hoff reads his essay “Ruins on Ruins,” prompted by a conversation with graduate students about the limits of critique. Drawing on Bruno Latour’s compositionist philosophy, narrative therapy, and futuring practices, Chris explores what it takes to give a preferred story somewhere to live: relationships, witnesses, material support, and opportunities to test what might become possible. The episode considers the pleasures of being the critic, the responsibilities of helping something take shape, and Michael White’s invitation to practice from a position that is decentered and influential. What would therapist education look like if students spent more time helping fragile possibilities become durable enough to sustain a life? Order Contemporary Narrative Therapy Join me in Winnipeg for The Future of Therapy and a Narrative Therapy Workshop Interested in the Virtual Futuring Sprint? Message me.
#143
October 25 · 16 min
The Radical Therapist #153 - The Wrong Conversation: Couples Therapy, Power, and the Pressure to Stay Together
What if saving the relationship is the wrong goal? In this episode of The Radical Therapist, I read my essay “The Wrong Conversation,” reflecting on relationship expertise, my own experiences in couples counseling, and a question I sometimes ask the couples I work with: Are we having the wrong conversation? Should we be talking about how to come apart? I explore the cultural expectations that shape our ideas of a successful relationship, the power relations that can disappear behind the language of communication, and what therapists risk overlooking when staying together becomes the assumed measure of success. What becomes possible when couples have room to reconsider what they want their relationship—and their lives—to become? Read the essay: https://chrishoff.substack.com/p/the-wrong-conversation
#142
October 19 · 50 min
The Radical Therapist #152 - Meditation Without the Meditator: Mind Space with Ron Purser
Who is the “you” trying to become a better meditator? In this episode of The Radical Therapist, Dr. Chris Hoff welcomes back Ron Purser to discuss his new book, Mind Space: Discovering Meditation Without the Meditator. Drawing on Tarthang Tulku’s Time, Space, and Knowledge vision, Ron invites us to question the inner manager that monitors our progress and turns meditation into another assignment in self-improvement. We get deep into questions of self, awareness, and the observer—and what these questions open up for therapy. When does self-reflection become self-surveillance? How do our stories shape the boundaries of experience? What happens when the demand to optimize ourselves follows us onto the meditation cushion? We also explore how this inquiry connects with suffering, social conditions, and our responsibility to change the world we share. Ron Purser is the author of McMindfulness, a professor at San Francisco State University, and a faculty member at Dharma College in Berkeley. Learn more: https://ronpurser.com Winnipeg Narrative Therapy Workshop: Register/Info Winnipeg Future of Therapy: Hang out with me. Pre-Order Contemporary Narrative Therapy
#141
October 12 · 17 min
The Radical Therapist #151 — The Body Doesn’t Escape the Story: Somatic Therapy’s Narrative Problem
“Where do you feel that in your body?” What happens after we ask that question? In episode #151, Dr. Chris Hoff reads his manuscript, The Body Doesn’t Escape the Story, examining the assumptions behind contemporary somatic therapy and the growing authority of nervous system language. Descriptions such as “dysregulation,” “safety,” and “the body’s own intelligence” shape how people understand their experiences. What do these descriptions make possible, and what might they obscure? The essay explores how bodily experience takes shape through language, relationships, culture, and history, and how therapeutic practices teach us what to notice. It invites somatic practitioners to examine the stories their approaches carry, while asking narrative therapists to attend more closely to breath, movement, silence, and sensation. A reflection on embodiment, interpretation, and the responsibility therapists hold when helping people make meaning. “The body can hold the pen too. But the body never learned to write alone.”
#140
August 10 · 26 min
The Radical Therapist #150 – Would Therapy Shock Us Anymore? Mark Fisher, Hauntology, and the Lost Futures of Psychotherapy
In this episode of The Radical Therapist, Chris Hoff draws on Mark Fisher’s idea of hauntology to ask a deceptively simple question: If we could show today’s psychotherapy to a therapist twenty years ago, would anything about it genuinely shock them? From psychoanalysis and family systems to postmodern therapies, trauma, somatics, neuroscience, psychedelics, and AI, psychotherapy has changed enormously. But Chris wonders whether all this innovation has occurred within a surprisingly stable idea of what therapy is. Drawing on Fisher’s concern with “lost futures,” he explores how once-radical therapeutic movements become models, models become certifications, and critique becomes continuing education. The episode turns toward a different question: What might emerge if the next significant development in helping doesn’t look like another psychotherapy at all? Bringing therapy into conversation with futures studies, scenario planning, community, art, politics, ritual, and world-making, Chris considers what it might mean to recover our capacity to imagine helping otherwise. Perhaps therapy doesn’t need another model. Perhaps it needs to become strange again. The Future is Not Lost - Matt Bluemink Dangerous Stories: A Therapy Salon
#139
July 19 · 59 min
The Radical Therapist Podcast #149 - Personal Responsibility, Inc. with Julie Tilsen, PhD
What if therapy has become too good at helping people adapt to conditions that should never have been accepted in the first place? In this episode of The Radical Therapist Podcast, Chris sits down with narrative therapist, author, and educator Julie Tilsen, PhD to discuss her provocative new book, Personal Responsibility, Inc.: How Psychotherapy Turns Society's Problems into Yours. Together we examine one of the most pressing questions facing the mental health professions today: When does therapy relieve suffering, and when does it unintentionally reinforce the very systems that produce it? Their conversation explores psychotherapy's relationship with neoliberalism, why so many social and economic problems become framed as individual pathology, and how the language of self-care, resilience, and personal responsibility can sometimes obscure questions of power, inequality, and collective life. Julie also shares how narrative therapy has informed her thinking, where she believes the field still has blind spots, and what a practice grounded in collective responsibility might actually look like. Julie's Book: https://orbooks.com/catalog/personal-responsibility-inc/ Books Discussed: https://orbooks.com/catalog/desperately-seeking-self-improvement/ https://cup.columbia.edu/book/in-the-ruins-of-neoliberalism/9780231193856/ https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/600158/mcmindfulness-by-ronald-purser/
#138
July 7 · 39 min
The Radical Therapist Podcast #148 Poetry, Therapy, and the Art of Paying Attention with Tobin Kriwel
In this episode of The Radical Therapist, Chris sits down with narrative therapist and poet Tobin Kriwel for a conversation at the intersection of poetry, therapy, metaphor, and human attention. Together we explore what poetry can teach therapists, not as a technique, but as a way of being with people. We talk about why poetry refuses efficiency, how metaphor opens new possibilities for living, and what gets lost when therapy becomes preoccupied with outcomes, explanations, and quick solutions. Along the way we consider Michael White's notion of the absent but implicit, the value of uncertainty, and why some experiences can only be approached through poetic language. This conversation is an invitation to slow down, listen differently, and reconsider the kinds of conversations that make transformation possible. Whether you're a therapist, writer, poet, or simply someone interested in living more attentively, I think you'll find something here worth carrying with you. Tobin's Book The Field
#137
July 3 · 1 hr 31 min
The Radical Therapist #147 – Michael White Revisited: Decentred, Influential, and Uncertain w/ Dr. Kelsi Semeschuk
What does it actually mean to practice from a decentred position? Has narrative therapy's commitment to being non-expert unintentionally softened its political edge? And what might we have misunderstood about Michael White's work over the past three decades? In this episode, Chris sits down with narrative therapist and researcher Dr. Kelsi Semeschuk to discuss her important new work examining Michael White's therapeutic practice through hundreds of hours of archived video recordings and her recent article, Towards a decentred, politically influential, accountable and yet uncertain narrative practice. Together they revisit some of the central assumptions of narrative therapy and ask whether "decentred" has too often been separated from "influential." The conversation explores the inevitability of therapist influence, the ethics of political practice, accountability in the therapy room, and why uncertainty may be one of the most overlooked aspects of Michael White's legacy. Towards a decentred, politically influential, accountable and yet uncertain narrative practice.
#136
June 8 · 58 min
The Radical Therapist #146 – Art, Belonging, and Re-Authoring a Life w/ Cath Duncan
In this episode of The Radical Therapist, Chris sits down with artist and former narrative therapist Cath Duncan to explore what happens when a professional identity no longer feels large enough to hold who we are becoming. After years of therapeutic practice, Cath made the transition into full-time art-making, a move that was less a departure from narrative ideas than a re-authoring of them in a different medium. Together, Chris and Cath explore the often-unspoken terrain of transition: the liminal space between established identities, the uncertainty of stepping away from familiar forms of recognition, and the challenge of authorizing ourselves into new ways of being. What stories must be released when we cross these thresholds? Which commitments endure, even when the context changes? Drawing from Cath’s current exhibition, Topophilia: Landscapes of Belonging, the conversation examines belonging not as something we discover, but as something we actively create through relationships, places, practices, and imagination. They discuss the ways narrative therapy continues to inform Cath’s artistic work, including her innovative Self-Guided Reflection Tour, which invites gallery visitors into processes of reflection, meaning-making, and connection outside the traditional therapy room. A conversation about creativity, identity, courage, and the stories that carry us across life's thresholds. For therapists, artists, and anyone standing at the edge of a significant transition, this episode offers a thoughtful exploration of what becomes possible when we trust the call toward an emerging future. www.CathDuncan.com Untangle Your Grief book: https://www.cathduncan.com/untangle-your-grief
#135
May 31 · 52 min
The Radical Therapist #145 – Philosophical Therapy w/ Joanna Polley
In this episode of The Radical Therapist, Chris sits down with philosophical therapist and scholar Joanna Polley to explore what philosophy can offer in an age increasingly dominated by diagnosis, optimization, and self-help solutions. What happens when we stop asking, “What’s wrong with me?” and begin asking deeper questions about meaning, freedom, ethics, identity, and how we ought to live? Drawing from continental philosophy, literature, and thinkers such as Nietzsche, Derrida, Deleuze, and Kafka, Joanna invites us into a vision of philosophy not as an academic discipline confined to universities, but as a living practice of inquiry. Together, Chris and Joanna explore the distinctions between philosophical therapy and psychotherapy, the role of dialogue in confronting life’s uncertainties, and why some of our most persistent struggles may be philosophical rather than psychological in nature. Joanna's Website Philosophical Therapy
#134
May 25 · 37 min
The Radical Therapist #144 – Designing Motherhood, Emmi Pikler, and the Architecture of Care w/ Amber Winick
In this episode of The Radical Therapist, Chris sits down with designer, writer, and researcher Amber Winick to explore how environments, objects, and systems quietly shape our emotional, relational, and developmental lives. Drawing from her work on Designing Motherhood, as well as her recent contributions to An Encyclopedia of Radical Helping, Amber invites us into a conversation about caregiving not as sentimentality, but as design practice, cultural philosophy, and relational ethics. Together, Chris and Amber explore the radical legacy of Emmi Pikler and her revolutionary approach to children, development, and attentiveness. What happens when we stop treating infants as incomplete beings in need of constant correction, and begin relating to them as competent subjects with agency, rhythms, and capacities of their own? The conversation moves through themes of slowness, trust, embodiment, hospital design, narrative practice, and the emotional architecture of care itself. amberwinick.com snailhaus.com (newsletter) snailhaus.substack.com (instagram) @amberwinick @designingmotherhood
#133
May 4 · 54 min
The Radical Therapist #143 – Mad Youth Organise w/ Chloe Yates & Rosie Williams
In this episode of The Radical Therapist, Chris sits down with youth organizers Chloe Yates and Rosie Williams of Mad Youth Organise to explore a radically different approach to the so-called “mental health crisis.” What happens when we stop treating distress as an individual pathology and start understanding it as a rational response to social, political, and economic conditions? Drawing on their work with Just Treatment, Chloe and Rosie challenge the dominant narratives of awareness culture, diagnostic labeling, and therapeutic individualism. Together, they make the case that rising rates of youth distress cannot be separated from the influence of Big Tech, precarious futures, and systems that privatize suffering while avoiding accountability. We explore how Mad Youth Organise reframes lived experience as leadership, critiques the role of algorithms in shaping identity and mental health, and calls for collective action over individualized solutions. This conversation pushes beyond therapy as a site of healing alone and asks what becomes possible when care is reimagined as something political, relational, and shared. A conversation for anyone questioning the limits of contemporary mental health discourse, and for those interested in what it might mean to move from coping within broken systems to organizing for their transformation.
#132
February 2 · 34 min
The Radical Therapist #142 – A Developmentalist’s Guide to Better Mental Health w/ Lois Holzman
In this episode of The Radical Therapist, Chris sits down with developmental psychologist, social therapist, and longtime cultural provocateur Lois Holzman to explore what a developmentalist approach to mental health offers in a time when therapy often collapses growth into diagnosis, insight, or symptom management. Drawing from her latest book A Developmentalist’s Guide to Better Mental Health, Lois introduces listeners to a playful, philosophical, and deeply relational way of thinking about human problems, one that shifts the focus from fixing individuals to creating conditions for ongoing social and emotional development. Through the book’s unique letters-and-responses format, she invites readers (and therapists) to step out of psychology-speak and into a more performative, improvisational relationship with their lives and dilemmas. Together, Chris and Lois explore how Vygotsky’s legacy and social therapeutics challenge dominant therapeutic models, why play and performance are not luxuries but necessities for adult development, and what distinguishes a developmentalist response from advice-giving or problem-solving. They also reflect on how people can begin to move when they feel most stuck, not by changing their stories, but by changing how they relate, act, and create with others. A Developmentalist's Guide to Better Mental Health Navigating Everyday Life Dilemmas
#131
January 12 · 34 min
The Radical Therapist #141 – Regulating Emotion, Regulating Selves with David Nylund
What if “emotion regulation” isn’t just a clinical skill, but a cultural demand? In this episode of The Radical Therapist, Chris sits down with therapist and professor David Nylund for a rigorous and timely conversation about the near-hegemonic status of emotion regulation in contemporary therapy. Together, they explore how practices often framed as neutral, helpful, or evidence-based can quietly function as technologies of governance, shaping not just how people feel, but who they are allowed to be. Drawing on narrative therapy, post-structural theory, Black feminist thought, and critiques of neoliberal subjectivity, David invites us to look beyond whether regulation techniques “work” and ask deeper questions: What kinds of selves do these practices produce? What futures do they orient us toward? And whose emotions are deemed acceptable, intelligible, or safe? A conversation for therapists, educators, and practitioners who want to think more critically about what we’re teaching, what we’re regulating, and what might change if we treated emotions not as problems to solve, but as embodied critiques of the worlds we inhabit. Chris' Casperson Therapy Center Training
#130
January 4 · 12 min
The Radical Therapist – What I'm Building in 2026
In this episode Chris launches Dangerous Stories Studio, a new constellation of offerings for people navigating transitions and building futures that don't fit existing maps. The work continues in new forms: • A new podcast exploring how stories shape what becomes possible (launching February 2026) • Quarterly Futuring Sprints, intensive workshops for people in liminal space (first sprint March 2026) • The Studio Membership—ongoing community and practice (opening March 2025) • The Futurecraft Mastermind—a three-month intensive for identity and practice redesign (applications open September 2026) Learn more and stay connected @dangerousstoriesstudio Let's build something dangerous.
#129
Dec 1, 2025 · 1 hr 3 min
The Radical Therapist #140 – New Materialisms, Systemic Therapy, and the More-Than-Human Turn w/ Christopher Loh & Federico Albertini
In this episode of The Radical Therapist, Chris sits down with systemic therapists and thinkers Christopher Loh and Federico Albertini to explore how New Materialisms are reshaping the foundations of therapeutic practice. What happens when therapy loosens its grip on language as the primary site of meaning-making, and begins listening to the material, the more-than-human, the in-between? Drawing on philosophy, anthropology, physics, and the emerging edges of systemic psychotherapy, Christopher and Federico guide us through a relational world where matter is active, contexts are dynamic, and change emerges from constellations of forces, not just conversations. Together we explore how New Materialisms challenge the limits of the linguistic turn, illuminate the agency of bodies, environments, and objects, and invite therapists to rethink what “systemic” really means. A conversation for anyone curious about what emerges when we let therapy become a practice of attention to the material conditions of suffering, care, and transformation, and when we recognize that the future of the field may lie in the spaces, relations, and rhythms we’ve long overlooked.
#128
Nov 17, 2025 · 1 hr 21 min
The Radical Therapist #139 – Poetics, Politics, and the Art of Therapy w/ Todd Disney, Psy.D.
In this episode of The Radical Therapist, Chris sits down with narrative therapist and educator Todd Disney, Psy.D., to explore his work on Narrative Poetic Inquiry (NPI), the art of drawing out the poetic sensibility of clients rather than performing it as therapists. Building on the ideas of Foucault, Bachelard, Michael White, Lefebvre, and others, Disney invites us to rethink therapy as an aesthetic and political act: a practice of “making the ordinary strange,” of discovering the sacred in the everyday, and of restoring beauty to lives flattened by productivity and pathology. Together, Chris and Todd explore poetic memory, the ethics of the therapist-as-artist, and how questions can become openings into resonance, imagination, and renewal. A conversation for anyone wondering how language itself might help us re-enchant the world.
#127
Aug 13, 2025 · 56 min
The Art of Listening & The Past, Present and Future of Narrative Therapy w/ Gene Combs
In episode #138 of The Radical Therapist Podcast, Chris sits down with long-time narrative therapist Gene Combs for a conversation on the past, present, and future of narrative therapy. Gene shares his journey into narrative therapy, his thoughts on neoliberalism’s impact on mental health, and why honoring people as the first authors of their lives remains a central commitment in his work. We also dive into Gene’s recent writing/thinking on listening, what he calls “experiencing the storyteller’s experience” and explore how therapists can cultivate resonant presence in their conversations. Chris Hoff PhD, LMFT We want to hear from you! YouTube: http://bit.ly/2i0DmaT Instagram: https://instagram.com/theradicaltherapist/ Email: theradicaltherapist@gmail.com
#126
Jul 29, 2025 · 38 min
The Radical Therapist #137 – Bibliotherapy as Narrative Practice w/ Mariana Casale, PhD
What if the act of reading could help rewrite the stories we live by? In this episode of The Radical Therapist, Dr. Chris Hoff sits down with bibliotherapist and narrative practitioner Mariana Casale to explore her new article, “Bibliotherapy as Narrative Practice: Reader Empowerment Through Re-Authoring Conversations.” Drawing on the work of Michael White, Alejandra Pizarnik, Foucault, and others, Casale makes a compelling case for reading literature not as passive consumption but as a co-authored, transformative act that can decenter dominant discourses, uncover “sparkling moments,” and help people reclaim agency over their life narratives. MarianaCasale.com Chris Hoff PhD, LMFT We want to hear from you! YouTube: http://bit.ly/2i0DmaT Instagram: https://instagram.com/theradicaltherapist/ Email: theradicaltherapist@gmail.com
#125
Jul 17, 2025 · 54 min
The Radical Therapist #136 - Therapy as Resistance: Culture, Politics, and Spirit w/ Dr. Makungu Akinyela
In this episode of The Radical Therapist, Chris sits down with Dr. Makungu Akinyela, scholar, therapist, and community organizer to discuss his new book Culture, Politics, Spirituality and Practice: A Book of Resistance and Critical Theory for Disturbing Times. We explore how therapy can be an act of resistance, how spirituality is political, and how Dr. Akinyela’s groundbreaking practice of Testimony Therapy reclaims healing as a collective, culturally-rooted, and justice-oriented process. From the failures of Western psychology to the power of African-centered healing, this conversation is a call to action for therapists, healers, and anyone committed to liberation work in disturbing times. https://makunguakinyelaauthor.com/ https://www.sankofatestimonies.com/ Chris Hoff PhD, LMFT We want to hear from you! YouTube: http://bit.ly/2i0DmaT Instagram: https://instagram.com/theradicaltherapist/ Email: theradicaltherapist@gmail.com

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