Beyond Well with Sheila Hamilton

For the next two episodes, we are going to be talking about dreams, nightmares, night terrors, and night paralysis, as well as what all this night activity tells us about our mental, emotional, and spiritual health.Dr. Kelly Bulkeley is a prominent American psychologist of religion who specializes in the interdisciplinary study of dreams. His work bridges the gap between the scientific analysis of sleep, psychological theory, and the spiritual or cultural significance of dreaming.

My guest today works at that threshold between memory and body. Sonnet Daymont is a licensed marriage and family therapist who specializes in EMDR for people with relational trauma.Today we'll talk about how EMDR works, why it can reach what words alone sometimes can't, and why somatic work matters so much for people healing from trauma. Sonnet, welcome.

Millions of partners, parents, adult children, siblings, and caregivers find themselves overwhelmed by the emotional needs of someone they love. In his new book, Too Close for Comfort, Dr. Tamir Aldad reframes this often-misunderstood relationship dynamic and offers practical strategies for navigating severe emotional dependency while maintaining compassion and healthy boundaries.Dr. Tamir Aldad is a board-certified clinical psychiatrist. As the Founder and CEO of Mindful Care, Dr. Aldad pioneered the nation’s first same-day mental health and addiction treatment urgent care model, expanding access to care across multiple states including NY, IL, FL, CT, NJ, and MI. Under his leadership, Mindful Care has grown into a multi-state network, serving thousands of patients with integrated psychiatric, addiction, and therapy services. Dr. Aldad earned his Doctor of Medicine, graduating summa cum laude from the American University of Antigua School of Medicine, with additional visiting student training at Yale University

Scott Sadler is an executive coach who works with teams under pressure. Scott’s primary focus is helping people elevate under pressure using these tools. He is an experienced speaker and facilitator and is currently working with a coach to develop marketing materials, videos, and other assets for the "Elevate Under Pressure" program and the "Pressure Performance System" for groups.

Dr Jennifer Reid is a clinical assistant professor of Psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania. Hew new book, Guilt Free: Reclaiming Your Life From Unreasonable Expectations, encourages women to look at the myriad of ways we allow guilt to control our lives. In the interview, Dr. Reid discusses how guilt and empathy are linked The interpersonal cost of guilt on relationships and why turning guilt inward to control our own behavior backfires, creating the sense of never doing enough.  Dr. Reid has developed a SPEAK framework tool to use the moment guilt hits and she provides practical examples of when to put the tool to use. 

My guest today has spent his career building systems that catch people before they fall. Eran Magen holds a PhD in psychology from Stanford, and he's the founder of Early Alert, an organization that works inside universities, public schools, and the VA to identify suicide risk before it becomes a crisis.In this conversation, we talk about why divorced men have a much higher risk of suicide, what men should do to avoid a mental health crisis, and why “asking for help” is still so difficult for men in our society.

Liz Scott has spent nearly fifty years sitting across from other people's problems, fears and vulnerabilities. But, by her own accounting, Liz’s biggest fear is dying. In fact, she’s not even sure dying applies to her. That’s the diagnosis behind the humorous and insightful You’re Going to Die but not me! A book about Liz’s near acceptance of death. Liz Scott is a clinical psychologist in private practice in Portland, a New Yorker by origin, an Oregonian since the early nineties, and the author of the memoir This Never Happened and the essay collection Love Life. She turned seventy-nine in March. In this book she goes looking for a truce with mortality through Buddhist detachment, in near-death research, in Tarot decks and psychedelics and death doulas. The book is part humor, part confession, and mostly delight about the ways we all deceive ourselves regarding the inevitability of death.

The Lindsay Clancy case is attracting international attention and illuminating the complex problem of postpartum anxiety, depression, and, more rarely, postpartum psychosis, a psychiatric emergency that affects roughly 1 in every 1000 new mothers.Pregnant women and new moms are understandably anxious right now. John Puls, a case manager and therapist, joins Beyond Well to talk about the problem of fragmentation in the mental health system and how a case manager can help. 

Haley Ashcom Miller is a working mom of four, maternal mental health advocate, and postpartum psychosis survivor with a professional background spanning government and marketing.After experiencing postpartum psychosis following the birth of her first child, Haley began sharing her story publicly to bring greater awareness to a condition that remains deeply misunderstood and heavily stigmatized.Through candid conversations about psychosis, motherhood, recovery, and life after postpartum mental illness, Haley is working to challenge the way we talk about mothers experiencing severe mental health crises. Her advocacy is rooted in a simple belief: better awareness, better conversations, and better resources can save lives—and every mother deserves compassion and access to care.

Haley Ashcom Miller is a working mom of four, maternal mental health advocate, and postpartum psychosis survivor with a professional background spanning government and marketing.After experiencing postpartum psychosis following the birth of her first child, Haley began sharing her story publicly to bring greater awareness to a condition that remains deeply misunderstood and heavily stigmatized.Through candid conversations about psychosis, motherhood, recovery, and life after postpartum mental illness, Haley is working to challenge the way we talk about mothers experiencing severe mental health crises. Her advocacy is rooted in a simple belief: better awareness, better conversations, and better resources can save lives—and every mother deserves compassion and access to care.