Mental Health Check on Mood Medications

You cannot talk about well-being without talking about our connections. As my guest, the divine Esther Perel, makes gin clear, the quality of our relationships determines the quality of our lives. Esther, a Belgian psychotherapist and bestselling author of State of Affairs and Mating in Captivity, has spent as much time investigating and evaluating relationships as anyone on earth. Joining us for this essential discussion about how to interact better in this modern world we’ve made are two former guests and friends of the show, journalist Katie Couric and artist Timothy Goodman. You can receive our weekly takeaways here. You can watch my conversation with Esther, Katie and Tim at www.pbs.org/kelly or stream on the PBS app.

At this time of year, we are knee-deep in sports: college lacrosse, the NBA play-offs and all the golf majors. Where there are sports, there are adjectives describing the athletes and where there are sports championships, those adjectives are garish and piled-high. Kelly wonders if maybe it’s time to use those dazzling descriptors to honor not the elite athletes out there but the army of regular, everyday, hard-working moms. (Previously aired)

I am damn near hopeless with routers and a printer on the skids can take me around the bend. But, inspired by my mother and my husband and a friend, I remembered that hopeless is almost always an overstatement. (Previously aired)

Doctors Julie Schwartz Gottman and John Gottman are probably the world’s reigning experts on relationships. They are well into their 5th decade of research that reveals why we treat each other as we do and how a few small but essential adjustments to our everyday patterns could change our relationships for the better. Everything we talked about is applicable across the board - from couples to parents and children and all the people we work with. We predict this will be our most shared episode of 2024. Enjoy. (Previously aired) Check out the Gottman's’ new book: Fight Right: How Successful Couples Turn Conflict Into Connection Special thanks to the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations for their generous support of this series. To receive a short set of our weekly takeaways in your email, sign up here.

Cathy Coleman wrote this eulogy for her mother Shirley. For Mother’s Day the year Cathy was 57, she made a list of 57 things about her mom that she was grateful for and references those things in this beautiful tribute.

After much back and forth with you all on Facebook, I came up with my most important go-to items — the things that get me through the day — and, more importantly, the ideas that ground me on the epic journey of motherhood. (Previously aired)

Dr. Leanne Williams is determined to spare people the suffering she’s endured. Her partner of many years died by suicide after fighting a depression that resisted all treatment. She has devoted her life as a scientist at Stanford to applying the principles and tactics of precision medicine to depression, which she has categorized into sub-types (much as was done with cancer decades ago). Joining me in this conversation are Dr BJ Miller, a friend and previous guest who works as a palliative care doc and lost his sister to suicide, as well as Emmy-winning comedian W. Kamau Bell, also a friend and previous guest, who brings his usual good will and insight to the conversation. This episode contains a detailed discussion of suicide. If you are experiencing a mental health crisis, please dial 988 to reach the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. Thanks to PBS for supporting this series. You can watch any of these episodes any time at PBS.org/kelly. Feedback welcome at [email protected].

Nancy Brown, a military spouse of 19 years, wrote this loving tribute for her two best deployment buddies. It honors the way the three friends formed one great big family while living through several deployments in Eastern North Carolina. Three women, no husbands and nine children all dressed in each other's hand-me-downs. On paper, they were more different than alike but maybe that's a more accurate description of a family after all. (Previously aired)

I’ve done it again. I accidentally saw the world through my own lens and forgot all the other ways life unfolds for the people who listen to this show. Thanks to a listener named Micah Boyett who sent a lovely piece of unmistakable feedback — coated in genuine kindness — I learned the lesson again. We really respect our listeners and find your emails invaluable as we steer this ship we’ve built. Write any time. [email protected]. We read every one. Micah’s book is: Blessed Are the Rest of Us: How Limits and Longing Make Us Whole

How much can we blame DNA for our depression and anxiety? Is something about our mental health pre-written into our genetic code? How much trauma carries over from one generation to the next? How should we think about epi-genetics? These were 4 of the 20 questions I brought to Dr. Francis Collins, the guy who let the team that mapped the human genome. There’s two things I want to say about this episode: I learned so much just studying for the interview and every minute I spent with Francis Collins was a total joy. He is a very special person — direct, deeply informed (maybe moreso on this topic than anyone else on Earth) and delightful. I am so excited to put his guy in your ear — a happy, loving man filled with purpose and eager to share what he knows (and doesn’t) for the greater good. And he laughs easily and a lot. So, I was getting hits of my dad the whole time. A heavenly experience that comes through in every minute of the conversation. Enjoy. Thanks to PBS stations across the country for supporting Tell Me More. You can watch an edited video version of this conversation anytime at PBS.org/kelly.