Rodney Waters: Men Under Construction

In this episode of the Psyche Podcast, I sit down with Dr. Peter Hudis for a rich and energizing conversation on the life, thought, and legacy of Frantz Fanon. As I mention at the start of our discussion, Peter’s book Frantz Fanon: Philosopher of the Barricades has been one of the most accessible and illuminating introductions to Fanon I’ve ever encountered. If you’ve wanted to understand Fanon beyond the buzzwords—this is the place to begin.Together, we explore the philosophical influences that shaped Fanon’s thinking, from the Negritude movement and Sartre to Merleau-Ponty, Hegel, and beyond. Peter shares fascinating stories about Fanon’s early exposure to philosophy in Martinique, his evolution as a revolutionary thinker, and the ways he transformed the ideas he inherited rather than simply repeating them. We also discuss Fanon’s commitment to a new humanism—one rooted in mutual recognition, dignity, liberation, and social transformation.Whether you’re new to Fanon or have been journeying with his ideas for years, this episode offers both depth and accessibility. I left the conversation energized, challenged, and more convinced than ever that Fanon’s work remains essential for thinking about race, liberation, and humanity today.Tune in, reflect with us, and see what new connections emerge for you as we revisit Fanon’s enduring legacy through the eyes of a leading scholar.

In this episode of Psyche Podcast, I sit down with Daniel José Gaztambide to talk about his brilliant new book Decolonizing Psychoanalytic Technique: Putting Freud on Fanon’s Couch. This was one of my favorite conversations to date — part intellectual exploration, part personal exchange, and entirely alive with the spirit of Fanon’s revolutionary thought.Daniel and I trace the roots of his work back to his childhood in Puerto Rico, his experiences growing up in a psychologically attuned church, and his journey through psychoanalytic and liberation psychology training. We talk about what it means to read Freud through Fanon — how psychoanalysis itself must be decolonized to reckon with the realities of race, class, and power.From Freud’s Civilization and Its Discontents to Fanon’s psychiatric innovations in Blida, Daniel unpacks the political and clinical stakes of psychotherapy today — including the idea of intersectional suffering and how our personal struggles are shaped by larger systems of racial capitalism and patriarchy.This episode is full of warmth, humor, and deep insight. Daniel’s passion for both clinical practice and social transformation really shines through, and I can’t wait for listeners to hear how Fanon’s legacy continues to challenge and inspire the next generation of therapists and thinkers.

In this solo episode, I dive into the electrifying intersection between Zeal & Ardor’s genre-bending music and Frantz Fanon’s revolutionary psychology of liberation.I trace the origins of Zeal & Ardor — from Manuel Gagneux’s provocative “what-if” experiment blending slave spirituals and black metal — to their evolution into a powerful exploration of history, rage, and rebirth. Through Fanon’s lens, this fusion becomes more than music: it’s a sonic revolt, a reimagining of how trauma, faith, and resistance can transform into new cultural life.Along the way, I unpack Fanon’s ideas about the “white mask,” violence as catharsis, and the creation of a new humanism, showing how Zeal & Ardor’s sound captures the psychic energy of decolonization.This episode is part cultural analysis, part therapy session, and part love letter to the power of art to rework our deepest wounds.

In this episode of Psyche Podcast, I sit down with Dr. Sinan Richards to explore his brilliant article “The Logician of Madness: Fanon’s Lacan.” Our conversation dives into the deep intellectual currents connecting Frantz Fanon and Jacques Lacan—two thinkers often treated as distant but who, as Sinan argues, share a surprisingly intimate lineage.We trace Fanon’s early psychiatric influences at Saint-Alban under François Tosquelles, the Catalan psychiatrist whose fusion of psychoanalysis, surrealism, and social activism helped form the basis for institutional psychotherapy. From there, we follow how Tosquelles’ reading of Lacan’s fertile moments of delirium and psychogenesis evolved into Fanon’s own radical idea of sociogenesis—the notion that the colonial order itself produces mental illness.Sinan also illuminates the feedback loop between these two towering figures: how Lacan’s early emphasis on the social helped shape Fanon’s thought, and how Fanon, in turn, may have anticipated the late Lacanian critique of the symbolic order as a kind of psychic prison. Together, we discuss language, desire, and disalienation—how the colonized subject’s struggle to speak and dream in a colonizer’s tongue exposes both the political and psychic dimensions of liberation.Along the way, Sinan shares vivid stories—like Tosquelles and his patients hand-binding copies of Lacan’s thesis and selling them in the village market—and we reflect on Fanon’s enduring insight that things cannot go on as they are.This conversation is for anyone drawn to psychoanalysis, decolonial thought, and the places where philosophy meets political action.

In this episode, I talk with Jungian analyst and musician Rodney Waters about his remarkable thesis, The Orphic Descent. Rodney explores how the myth of Orpheus reveals the deep psychological and spiritual power of music—its ability to connect opposites, suspend suffering, and awaken what’s lifeless within us.We trace his journey from classical pianist to Jungian analyst and discuss how music serves as a bridge between the conscious and unconscious, spirit and matter. Rodney reflects on Orpheus as the archetypal musician whose song could soften even the gods of the Underworld, while I share how a Gojira concert unexpectedly became a moment of transcendence for me.This conversation invites you to listen differently—to hear music not just as sound, but as a living symbol of the psyche’s movement toward wholeness.

In this solo episode, I take a deep dive into the life of Frantz Fanon, tracing his journey from his early years in Martinique to his groundbreaking work as a psychiatrist and revolutionary thinker.I explore how Fanon’s experiences growing up under French colonial rule shaped his understanding of identity and freedom, his formative time studying medicine and psychiatry in France, and his clinical work at Saint-Alban and Blida-Joinville, where his ideas about decolonization and mental health began to take root.This episode serves as an introduction to the series of upcoming conversations I’ll be having with scholars and clinicians about Fanon’s work and legacy. My goal is to offer listeners—especially those who may not be familiar with Fanon—a sense of the man behind the ideas, the experiences that shaped him, and why his thought still matters so deeply today.

In this episode of The Psyche Podcast, I sit down with psychoanalyst, scholar, and author Derek Hook to explore the intersections between Frantz Fanon, Jacques Lacan, and the work of decolonial psychoanalysis. Drawing from Derek’s new book, Fanon, Psychoanalysis, and Critical Decolonial Psychology: The Mind of Apartheid, we discuss how Fanon both used and transformed psychoanalysis to address the psychic realities of racism, colonization, and liberation.Derek shares how growing up under apartheid shaped his lifelong interest in the psychological mechanisms of racism and domination. We talk about Fanon’s early encounter with Lacanian ideas through François Tosquelles, his critical response to Octave Mannoni, and how Black Skin, White Masks continues to challenge the limits of both psychoanalysis and politics.Together, we unpack Fanon’s reworking of Jung’s “collective unconscious” into what Derek calls a European collective unconscious—a psychic structure shaped by racial fantasy, colonial desire, and historical trauma. We also reflect on the place of the “third” or the big Other in the analytic encounter, and how Fanon’s vision of a decolonial psychology continues to unsettle, inspire, and demand reflection.This was a deeply engaging conversation that bridges theory and experience—an exploration of how Fanon’s work helps us think about freedom not only as a social project but as a psychic and existential one.

In this episode of Psyche Podcast, I sit down with Erik Butler—the translator of Byung-Chul Han’s Psychopolitics: Neoliberalism and the New Technologies of Power—to explore Han’s piercing critique of our digital age. Together, we trace the book’s philosophical roots in Foucault, Heidegger, Nietzsche, and Deleuze & Guattari, while unpacking Han’s distinction between biopolitics and psychopolitics, his analysis of the “achievement society,” and the paradox of self-optimization in a world of constant surveillance.We dive into Han’s provocative call to embrace “idiotism,” a radical form of individuality that resists neoliberal demands for self-display, and consider the religious and mystical threads that run through his thought. Erik also shares insights from his work as a translator, offering a behind-the-scenes look at Han’s solitary life and difficult reputation, while we reflect on the book’s surprising relevance nearly a decade after its release.Whether you’re new to Han or already captivated by his writings, this conversation offers a lively and accessible entry point into one of the most urgent philosophical diagnoses of our time.

In this episode of Psyche Podcast, I sit down once again with Elisabeth Schilling to dive into Byung-Chul Han’s The Crisis of Narration. Our conversation winds through the healing power of stories, the hero’s journey, and how narrative shapes our sense of meaning and belonging. We reflect on Han’s critique of our data-driven age and explore what’s lost when narrative gives way to information overload.Elisabeth shares insights from her work teaching world mythology and connects Han’s ideas to Joseph Campbell, Greek myths like Eros and Psyche, and even her own spiritual journey. Together, we wrestle with tensions between metanarratives and personal myths, the promise and pitfalls of therapy as a storytelling space, and whether Han’s nostalgia for communal narratives has a place in today’s fragmented world.From Hallmark movies to Amanda Knox, from Jung’s notion of individuation to the dangers of thin stories, this episode asks what it really means to live in—and through—narrative.

In this episode, I dive into Carrie Jenkins’ book Sad Love: Romance and the Search for Meaning. At first glance, the title might make you think it’s all about heartbreak—but what Jenkins actually offers is a fresh way of thinking about love: eudaimonic love. I talk about Jenkins’ background as a philosopher at the University of British Columbia, her creative approach to love, and why she moves beyond Aristotle’s vision of the “good life”—a vision that, surprisingly, excluded people he considered “ugly.”Instead, Jenkins reimagines eudaimonia as “good spirits” and highlights how love is really about the environments and relationships that nurture meaning. I also unpack her critique of hedonism and the romantic ideal of being “madly in love,” showing how she reframes love as a collaborative project—about co-creating a meaningful life with another person. Along the way, I share Jenkins’ engagement with Viktor Frankl, who reminds us that “love, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue.”If you’ve ever felt boxed in by traditional scripts around love, or you’re looking for a deeper, more authentic way to think about relationships, this conversation is for you.