How two partners and podcasters are unpacking complex brain science.
By Kasee Baldwin
Photos by Heather Wagner Reed and Ima Leupp
Even if you haven’t engaged in your daily dose of doom-scrolling, you – like many – could be feeling a disconcerting sense of impending catastrophe. But the hosts of the Therapist Uncensored podcast want to assure you: it’s not you, it’s your amygdala.
That threatening, calamitous feeling involves brain science, and Ann Kelley Ph.D and Sue Marriott LCSW, CGP have been spending their illustrious and multifaceted careers unpacking it for you. Kelley and Marriott are not only experienced licensed therapists, co-authors and podcast co-hosts – they’re also partners.
With extensive therapeutic histories working in criminal justice, child protective services, social work and women’s recovery, Kelley and Marriott – and their impressive roster of professionals they consult on their podcast – are translating emerging relational sciences into understandable and practical tools that give people the power they need to uncover their best selves. The duo believes that applying the science of modern attachment and relational neurobiology can have life-changing impacts on the mind, the choice of partners, parenting, social relationships, work life and how you interact in the world.
Photo Courtesy of Ima Leupp
“We love our clinical work,” Kelley says. “It’s a passion, and it inspires us. We wanted to be able to affect a lot more people than we could in our offices, in many different cultures.”
Kelley and Marriott are intentional about including those that face stigmas and barriers to discussing and treating mental health.
This is no casual coffee chat. With episodic content ranging all the way back to 2016, their “homegrown DIY” podcast has over 11 million downloads, is a top ten ranked social science podcast in the US and is in the top 50 science podcasts in 75 countries.
“Podcasting is a very male-dominated space, and there are big production companies” Marriott says. ”So, to be in the top 10 social science, to be ranked in the top 10 with no advertising and with no network, to me, that really speaks to the content that we’re producing.”
It’s not simply about imparting principles or explaining scientific concepts. The Therapist Uncensored duo is united in a powerful purpose: to support mental health access for those traditionally left behind.
“It’s multi-level as far as the barriers to access,” Marriott says. “Of course, there’s a financial [barrier]. Therapy is expensive as hell. It is extremely expensive – even with insurance – and it’s very difficult to find the therapist that will take insurance. And then, a lot of times, those sessions are limited. So, the barriers are layered and layered and layered. And that’s actually one of the reasons we started the podcast. We wanted to bring the life-changing science to people who would not otherwise have access to therapy.”
Their ideals aren’t merely lip service. With the support of their affectionately dubbed “neuronerd” patrons and listeners, they commit half of their corporate profits and merch sales annually to organizations that support mental health access to marginalized communities.
In theirs and other mental health podcasts, Marriott says, “you learn language that normalizes what you’re feeling – that isn’t in your communities –– and that in and of itself can relieve a lot and make a difference. So, that’s what motivates us.”
Their work involves cyclical efforts. In their private therapy practices, Kelley and Marriott are able to identify universal problems they can address in podcast episodes.
“Doing clinical work is so inspiring,” Kelley says. “Because you sit with just some of the most amazing people in your office, and you can feel the common struggles. You get so inspired to help. As we do that, then we bring it on air.”
Kelley and Marriott have also teamed up, off-air, to co-author their book Secure Relating: Holding Your Own in an Insecure World, earlier this year. Their publication applies psychology and relational neuroscience to insecurity while exploring the complex and hard work it takes to examine the self and system.
“The progression in our work with a podcast has helped us grow so much because we have been able to move much more from an individual to a systemic approach, and then back again,” Kelley says. “Our message in Secure Relating is both and.”
Creating a wellspring of comprehensive content helps bring the focus from the individual to the collective – which promotes connection and addresses the deeper and more problematic systemic issues present in our care structures.
“This definitely has been broadening from a focus on treating individual traumas and how you work with your individual clients, to growing more into how you see the system,” Kelley says.
For Kelley and Marriott, part of their journey has been the unpacking of previously unhealthy and unhelpful thought patterns – including ways of unintentionally perpetuating problems.
“We’re really working to get out of thinking that, ‘oh, we’re saving people,’ and really recognizing that ‘no, the whole system is set up unfairly,’” Marriott adds. “Some of our message is beginning to question some of these things…That was a whole process, and still is a process: Unlearning our stuff.”
The promotion of individualism and the separateness that results affects our brains and our bodies. And not just with epidemic loneliness. It’s a “collective hijack,” in our society, Kelley says.
“[We are] being activated so much into living in our defensive systems, which is pulling us apart,” Kelley says. “And the more that we keep being activated by our politicians and by our news to live in our fearful place, that becomes the norm if we’re not careful. How do we ourselves learn to deactivate so that we can find our own connection system and then reach across from a different place in your nervous system?”
Kelley and Marriott’s book can be used as a practical guide that is aimed at helping shift collective conversation towards secure relating rather than hopelessness and dysregulation.
“There’s this misconception that things should be easy,” Kelley says. “Somehow, in our culture, we believe if things are hard, then something’s wrong. Our hope of the book and the passion of the book is to say, ‘Hey, slow down and really get to know yourself. Slow down and really get to know other people. And slow down and get to know the system that you’re a part of. And, in that process, get engaged with yourself.’ We have so much we’ve been learning over the years by incredible masters out there. Getting in interviews, being able to sit down with some of the most progressive thought leaders is amazing. But how do you apply that?”
Leaning into the real-world application of science-based principles and knowledge shared by the “masters” in the field, the pair takes the complexity and nebulousness out of the putting-into-practice efforts. Secure Relating, as Marriott points out, shines a light on the humanness of the process of secure relating – a truth they see evidenced in their own relationship.
“We’re all human beings, and imperfect on these journeys, with all of these obstacles,” Marriott says. “We’re wanting to get clear about what we’re aiming towards, and then clear about the ways that we get off track, and then how to get back on track.”
Marriott and Kelley are keeping it real(istic), and issue a warning: Be wary of quick-fix solutions for this secure-level of connection.There’s no one singular fix-it pill or easy answer.
“I invite people that are consuming self-help to pay attention to that,” Marriott says. “If it looks like, ‘Here’s the answer, all you gotta do is this one practice,’ it’s never true. Structures of life get in the way. The way that we have handled the humanness of relating is to just use it. There’s an impulse to hide it. And that the minute I even think that, it’s like, ’No, bring it in. Bring it in. This is just that hard.’ And I think that keeps us honest. I think it helps us be trustworthy.”
And they’re letting you in on the realness of their own partnership: they’re, also, working on it all, in a process of learning and unlearning.
“Work-life balance is, I think, probably one of the hardest [things],” Kelley says. “It’s hard to know what’s work because we both share a lot of passions. We’re doing it all the time, and it’s really hard to find the balance. [With] the kind of work we do, we have to keep ourselves honest a lot. As a couple, we don’t want to be presented out there as, ‘We have it all down and we always securely relate. Let me tell you how to do it.’ We have to really come back to it a lot, like, ‘How are we doing?’”
Even with a lifetime of shared passions and intimate life-sharing, the two can quickly identify their yin-and-yang synergy. Kelley’s softness is the characteristic catalyst that helps her slow down, and to add a level of warmness to her own approach.
“That’s an ongoing lesson for me because I tend to go faster, just wanting to deliver content because I like that, but that’s not what everybody likes.”
Kelley is quick to praise Marriott’s virtues, recognizing that she offers the needed counterbalance and complement to her own.
”I do tune into what other individuals are feeling and thinking, and I’m grateful for that, but I overuse it, and I lose my voice sometimes,” Kelley says. “Sue will cut through the chase and says the hard thing. And sometimes it doesn’t go well, but a lot of times it goes really well because she says what needs to be said, and it makes people feel relaxed – and it builds trust. I feel so grateful that I have a partner in life that shares a lot of my passion. And that we can live it together.”
Live recording of Therapist Uncensored at Kuya Wellness with Pamela Benson Owens.
Photos courtesy of Heather Wagner Reed.
