Time & Other Thieves

"The Middle Passage," by James Hollis

Send us Fan Mail In this episode I explore some of the ideas that Jungian analyst James Hollis (1993) presents in his book, The Middle Passage: From Misery to Meaning in Midlife. In discussing what we call the midlife crisis, Hollis talks a lot about the power of the unconscious mind, which can make itself known through symptoms (physical and otherwise), projections, and various phenomena related to our "shadow." He also expounds upon the difference between a vocation (from the Latin vocatus, or calling) and a job. I talk about how grateful I am to have those two things be the same for me—to have found my passion and also get paid for it! (But that can lead to a lot of heartache when others aren't as jazzed about it as I am.) I also discuss certain tasks of the Middle Passage that I've yet to fulfill: namely, the ability to do less and simply be with myself.

My Life In Music

Send us Fan Mail In this episode I share an essay I recently wrote about my relationship with music, starting with myself as a five-year-old listening to Gram Parsons on vinyl and ending with present day and my decision to bring Time & Other Thieves back to the radio—live in the studio!—where I can play music again. My intention with this new iteration of the show is to only play the music I own and love, as opposed to getting seduced by the convenience and affordability of Spotify, with its overwhelming number of options. I miss the days of listening to the same albums over and over again until they become a part of my DNA. "It's so nice, I wanna hear the same song twice." This is my ode to repetitive listening.

Creating the Self: On the Important Roles that Pain and Discomfort Play in Learning, and Why Should'ing All Over Yourself Isn't Always a Bad Thing

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, I reproduce a three-part Zoom lecture that was inspired by a Lucy Holmes (2006) article titled, "Becoming an Analyst: Learning to Live with Madness, Aggression, and the Unknown," in which she gives therapists permission to be angry, stupid, and crazy. I apply her ideas to my own experience as a process-group leader, but one could apply them to any endeavor at becoming competent in a given field.

"Bone: Dying Into Life," by Marion Woodman

Send us Fan Mail In this episode (the first of its kind that I've made in almost a year!), I explore some of the ideas presented in Marion Woodman's "Bone: Dying Into Life," which is a collection of journal entries that chronicle her experience with uterine cancer from 1993–1995. I mostly muse on a smattering of quotes that Woodman wrote in the margins of her journal, from the likes of Carl Jung, Emily Dickinson, and Rainer Maria Rilke. Topics include the fast pace of our society and the importance of slowing down (group can help with that!); how we see versions of ourselves in others (group, anyone?); how symptoms are an attempt at healing, and how physical travails can bring us to higher consciousness; the relentless demands of dinner; the value and necessity of mundane activities; the joy of dwelling in Possibility (group again!); and the impossibility of ever knowing someone completely, which means we should try all the more to do it, like good bodhisattvas (and group members!).

A Conversation with Brittany Pressley

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, I share a conversation I recently had with award-winning audiobook narrator and voice actor Brittany Pressley, who has also been a friend of mine since high school. Alongside my BFF Courtney Wait as co-interviewer, I ask Brittany all (or at least some) of the questions I've been wanting to ask her since I started listening to her books (e.g. Katharine Smyth's "All the Lives We Ever Lived," Piper Weiss's "You All Grow Up and Leave Me," Lori Gottlieb's "Maybe You Should Talk to Someone") several years ago. (In the episode I say "at least ten years ago," but that might not be accurate.) Brittany has recorded over 700 audiobooks! Voice acting is such a fascinating job, and she is so good at it. Courtney and I had tons of fun asking her stuff and laughing with her. What a delight. At the end of the episode I share the recording that Brittany made (so kindly at my brazen request) of herself reading some of my own writing.

"Astral Weeks," by Van Morrison

Send us Fan Mail In this episode I share an edited version of a radio show I did back in October of 2022, about Van Morrison's 1968 sophomore album, "Astral Weeks," released when he was just 23 years old. I provide some history on the record's creation and then focus on three songs: the title track, "Cyprus Avenue," and "Madame George." Music critic Lester Bangs called "Astral Weeks" a "mystical document" and said it was "a record about people stunned by life, completely overwhelmed, stalled in their skins, their ages and selves, paralyzed by the enormity of what in one moment of vision they can comprehend.”

A Stoic's Guide to Group (Zoom Lecture)

Send us Fan Mail In this episode I share an edited version of a Zoom lecture I gave in December of 2025 about applying the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius to the practice of group psychotherapy, and to interpersonal process groups in particular. I focus on the Stoic disciplines of perception, action, and will (or "divine acquiescence") and provide examples of how we can thrive—as group members and leaders—by bringing more awareness to these disciplines as we sit in the group circle.

Group as Spiritual Practice (Zoom Lecture)

Send us Fan Mail In this episode I share an edited version of a Zoom lecture I gave in the spring of 2025 called "Group as Spiritual Practice." A collection and synthesis of some of my favorite spiritual teachings, this lecture explores how interpersonal process groups are a way of "getting beyond conditioning," of learning how to be alive, of cultivating courage, of becoming more of oneself and accepting life on life's terms—all definitions of spirituality that I love (among others). The ideas of Anthony de Mello, Paul Tillich, Martin Buber, Howard Thurman, Shunryu Suzuki, and Edward Espe Brown will support my thesis that group's many invitations are guiding us into closer and closer contact with the truth of the present moment and how we are both a reflection and a integral part of that moment, of this eternal here and now.

End-of-Year 2025 (New Office!)

Send us Fan Mail In this short episode I recap the past month, which has been busier and more stressful than your average December because I signed a lease on a new therapy office and have been scrambling to set up the place in every spare moment!

More Than Blue: The Genius of Joni Mitchell's "For the Roses"

Send us Fan Mail In this episode I revamp an Asheville FM radio broadcast from November of 2022, in honor of Joni Mitchell's 82nd birthday (November 7th). One track at a time, I explore her 1972 album, "For the Roses," providing biographical and thematic context to illuminate each song's depth and richness. I draw from music reviews written at the time of the album's release, from filmed interviews with Joni, from David Yaffe's biography of her ("Reckless Daughter"), from the fabulous documentary "Woman of Heart and Mind," and from J.W.N. Sullivan's 1927 book, "Beethoven: His Spiritual Development." As "For the Roses" tends to get overshadowed by what came before and after—"Blue" and "Court and Spark"—I hope this episode will endear you to an album that is too often overlooked and undersung.

My Therapist Died: A Conversation with Dr. Jeffrey Axelbank

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, I share parts of a conversation I recently had with psychotherapist and organizational consultant Dr. Jeffrey Axelbank. In July of 2025, Jeff was featured in a New York Times article by Ellen Berry titled "The Ghost in the Therapy Room," about therapists who die unexpectedly—or at least their patients don't expect it. These patients are deprived of saying goodbye and otherwise preparing themselves for a profound loss that tends to go unrecognized by society. Jeff talks with me about his experience of such a loss, after having worked with the same psychoanalyst for 36 years, three sessions a week. He did not know she was dying of pancreatic cancer. He also discusses his earliest experience of psychotherapy, which he sought because he wanted help with a stutter, and about his work as a process group leader and an organizational consultant. To any therapists listening: I hope this episode will inspire you to be communicative with your patients about your impending death, should you fall ill, and to create a professional will regardless of your age or health status, so that your patients will be better cared for in the event of your unexpected passing. (If you'd like to listen to the Mount Eerie song I reference in the beginning, here is a Spotify link.)

Honoring the Discomfort: A Conversation with Jacob Winkler

Send us Fan Mail In this episode I share parts of a conversation I recently had with Jacob Winkler, founder and facilitator of the Masters of Group Therapy Club, of which I've been a member since August of 2024. I hope you enjoy this tiny sliver of the giant pie that is Jacob's knowledge and wisdom around the human psyche and how to work with it in the context of process groups. He talks about honoring what people are coming in with instead of pushing it to the side in order to stay on task, about the power of the unconscious mind, about writing as a form of self therapy, and about the value in studying one's own irritation with others as a way to help those people become more of themselves.

"Modern Man in Search of a Soul," by Carl Jung

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, I explore some of the ideas that Carl Jung expounds upon in his 1933 book, "Modern Man in Search of a Soul." There's the notion that we cannot fully accept others unless we've fully accepted (i.e., loved) ourselves; that the parts of ourselves we deem unacceptable will be banished to the unconscious and wreak havoc in ways we can't control, while we WOULD have more control if we accepted them; that "certainties can arise only through doubt"; and that problems are necessary; problems are what necessitate our growth and expansion. I also talk about what it means to "be oneself" if that self is always changing, like a river. And I discuss the concept of everything containing its opposite, and why I no longer ascribe to the popular Buddhist belief that man's "true nature" is loving-kindness and compassion.

A Conversation with Sara Schreiber

Send us Fan Mail In this episode I share parts of a conversation I recently had with psychotherapist, process group leader, and group therapy consultant Sara Schreiber. I first met her in August of 2024 in the Masters of Group Therapy Club. Together we explore her approach to facilitating groups, what challenges her most about being a group leader and member, and how her spiritual practice informs her therapy work and everything else in her life. An observer of Orthodox Judaism, Sara answers some questions I have about various religious traditions—including no sex (or even touching of any kind!) before marriage—and shares some of the prayers she says multiple times a day (including one for after using the bathroom) as a way of staying in conversation with God. I felt very happy and peaceful listening to her, and I hope you will, too.

Time & Other Thieves: The Group

Send us Fan Mail In this promotional-type bonus episode, I describe the new group I'm starting in late July, which I hope you'll consider joining! There will be two separate cohorts of Time & Other Thieves: A Discussion, Meditation, and Interpersonal Process Group. One group will meet on the last Tuesday of the month from 2:00 to 3:30 PM Eastern Standard Time, and the other on the last Wednesday of the month from 6:00 to 7:30 PM. In each Zoom meeting we'll explore a different book and its corresponding podcast episode. But the primary focus will be the here-and-now emotional, interpersonal experience of participants, with an open invitation to put thoughts and feelings into words as they arise, toward other members. Email me at sarahbsimpson@protonmail.com for more info!

• Transcript

"Not Always So," by Shunryu Suzuki

Send us Fan Mail In this episode I explore some of my favorite ideas from the book "Not Always So: Practicing the True Spirit of Zen," by Shunryu Suzuki (edited by Edward Espe Brown). What does it mean to be oneself? How does being oneself relate to the Buddhist notion of emptiness? What is the ultimate goal or purpose of spiritual practice? I'll address these questions and more while also reflecting (yet again) on how these ideas apply to interpersonal process groups.

"Jesus and the Disinherited," by Howard Thurman

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, I explore some of the ideas presented in Howard Thurman's 1949 book, "Jesus and the Disinherited." Bo Aganaba (host of the GoodBeing Podcast) first told me about Thurman and this book (a huge inspiration for MLK Jr.) when I interviewed him back in December. The Baptist minister's thoughts on fear, deception, hate, and love are just as relevant today as they were when he wrote them. I apply some of Thurman's ideas to what's happening in the political realm right now, and of course I can't help but apply others to the work I do as a leader and member of interpersonal process groups. "A complete and devastating sincerity," anyone? Don't mind if I do!

"I and Thou," by Martin Buber

Send us Fan Mail In this episode I explore some of the ideas in Martin Buber's "I and Thou," which presents the dialogical philosophy for which he's most well known. Given my continued passion for leading and participating in interpersonal process groups, I discuss these ideas through that lens, focusing on how group provides an opportunity to inhabit the You-world instead of the It-world, to encounter and actualize others instead of merely experience or use them. And through that encounter, we contact the eternal in others—and in ourselves. To quote Buber, "I require a You to become; becoming I, I say You.”

Saying the Unsaid: A Conversation with Sarah Taylor and Vanessa Caruso

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, I get to explore one of my most favorite topics—group psychotherapy—with two women who are as passionate about the subject as I am: psychologist Sarah Taylor and spiritual director Vanessa Caruso. I met Sarah and Vanessa last summer in the Masters of Group Therapy Club, which continues to meet three times a week via Zoom. In this lively discussion, they talk about their 30-plus years of friendship and how they decided to start facilitating interpersonal process groups together. Among other aspects of group, they explore the sense of abundance that it cultivates, the courage and creativity inherent in the process, and the differences between being a group member and a group leader. If listening to this episode doesn't make you want to join a process group yesterday, I don't know what will. You can learn more about Sarah and Vanessa's groups here: https://www.sayingtheunsaidgroup.com/ If you'd like to learn more about process groups happening in the Asheville area, you can email me at sarahsimpsoncounseling@gmail.com.

A Conversation with Bo Aganaba

Send us Fan Mail In this first episode of the new year, I share parts of a conversation I recently had with Bo Aganaba, host of the GoodBeing Podcast and founder and principal at GoodBeing Co. He had me on his podcast a few months back, so now the tables have turned! Bo and I talk about climate change, Christianity, Alan Watts, yoga, time (is it really a thief?), and the importance of play. With musical interludes by Violet Ultraviolet.