It’s Not Therapy!
I’m Liana Kerzner and I am not a therapist! I navigate the madness of mental health with interesting guests, inspiring stories and real questions from regular people!
Episodes
Many of us have been in a relationship with someone who is wrong for us. This is especially true of people who are 'givers' that find themselves attracted to 'takers'...sometimes repeatedly. Ross Rosenberg is an author and expert on codependency and trauma - such an expert that he believes the term 'codependency' is a misnomer and has instead coined the term Self-Love Deficit Disorder. What is that? Listen as he and Liana discuss S...
Stigma involves applying negative stereotypes to people who are ill, have certain physical characteristics or other perceived 'deficiencies,' which leads to discrimination and exclusion, sometimes with harrowing results. Typically, these stigma are inflicted by the judgment of others - but some are also self-inflicted. Liana shares steps people can take to free themselves from the pain of their internalized stigma.
For most people, being diagnosed with stage four colon cancer represents the end of their life's journey, but for Tim McDonald it was the beginning of a new path. Tim, a stage four colorectal cancer survivor and liver transplant recipient, talks to Liana about how he turned his struggle with his health crises into a renewed purpose as a patient advocate, speaker, host of the Advocacy at Work podcast and author of the book From Pati...
Where's the line between "bad people" and "good people who do bad things"? Using characters from the Amazon Prime series The Boys as examples, Liana examines how intent, mental health, and behaviour intersect to define true "bad person" territory.
No, this episode isn't about politics, but the recent social media tirade from US President Trump threatening to militarily destroy Iran and its people, expressed in vulgar language, is a prime example of how behaviour once considered unfit for public display has now become normalized. Not only normalized, but held up as examples of strength, honesty and courage. Liana takes apart this troubling trend, influences which motivate it,...
"Disabled" works just fine for Todd Vaarwerk: Chief Policy Officer for West New York Independent Living, he's more interested in results. Todd uses a wheelchair due to the effects of cerebral palsy, so nobody is better at separating efforts which are useful support for disabled people from the 'well-meaning but useless' or counter-productive steps taken. And he does it with a rich sense of humour in conversation with Liana, who sha...
Duty of Care means ensuring that you take reasonable steps to provide a safe environment for others. It's a simple definition for a complex practice that takes on many different forms in different situations. Liana shares personal stories to reveal how that care can be applied - and misapplied -in ways that can make a situation less safe and supportive than you intend. Ultimately, a reasonable duty of care means finding a balance b...
The unfortunate occurrence at the BAFTA Awards, where an attendee who has Tourette's Syndrome shouted racial epithets at two Black award presenters (and the way BAFTA chose to handle that), has given prominence to the question of 'reasonable accommodation' of people with disabilities. Liana speaks with LJ, a brilliant scientist whose disability has deterred potential employers, about what he sees as reasonable accommodation and, im...
Most of us try to be friendly, kind, supportive people. Yet all those things could be true and you still, inadvertently, say something that makes you look like a a*hole, and you don't even know why! Liana takes us through a journey of ways you may unintentionally be acting like an a*hole.
As a member of the Girls Gone Wild tour of the late 1990s Courtney Kocak had a front-row seat to the "good, clean fun" which that media was marketed as. Courtney also felt the impact of sexualized media, how it affected her self-image and sense of healthy femininity. Courtney, author of the forthcoming autobiography Girl Gone Wild, shares with Liana her experiences in the belly of the beast and how she turned her rocky journey into...
Many people fear that A.I. represent the end of our world as we know it. Liana sees A.I. for what it is - a tool that can be used for good or ill - and she relates her experiments with A.I. as a means of bettering our lives. Helping with "adulting"? Good. Helping to visualize emotions? Good. Replacing human connection with chatbots? Bad. While AI doesn't "think" or "feel," it can help take the terror out of engaging with the world...
A.I. Artificial Intelligence. It's definitely the former and not the latter. What's being called "intelligence" does not actually think and the information and advice it offers can be not just wrong, but dangerous. Liana deconstructs how "AI" operates, shares the red flags to be aware of and how to reclaim your thoughts that AI has polluted.
Confidence is about self-assuredness, self-acceptance and the strength to be flexible when facing challenges. What's being packaged as 'confidence' in some quarters is the opposite - fear presented as bluster, extreme need for external validation and fragility projected as 'strength'. Liana lays out her personal journey for learning the difference between the two versions of confidence and how to spot and deal with those confusing ...
While the overwhelming majority of mental health professionals listen closely to their patients and work diligently to provide the best in care, there are some whose attempts at healing lead to misdiagnosis with serious adverse effects. Liana talks to Benton Savage, author of the book "Wrong Side Out - Madness Misdiagnosed" about his experience with his mental illness being misdiagnosed, how such things happen, how he uncovered his...
If there's one thing you can find an endless free supply of, it's advice. Sometimes, that's a good thing. Other times, not as much. But how can you tell the good advice from the bad? And how do you know if the advice you're giving will help or hurt? Liana takes you through her 9 types of bad advice, in her first list of 2026!
Gossip can be Educational! What can a gossipy celebrity moms' feud teach us all about the danger of throwing shade, the real pain of ostracism, toxic group dynamics and why husbands shouldn't immediately jump to publicly defend their wife? Liana ties the Ashley Tisdale/Hillary Duff/Mr. Hillary Duff/Mandy Moore blow-up to some darkly funny personal family experiences to illustrate all the above, and more!
Resentment is a feeling of having been wronged by a person/people or a situation. It spins off feelings of anger, bitterness and indignation which weigh us down, yet do nothing to resolve those feelings. Liana shares her personal history and struggles with resentment, using her trademark mix of humour and reflection to provide a path for you to connect with and banish your resentment burden.
Soleiman Faqiri was murdered by jail guards in an Ontario jail in December of 2016 after an altercation with a neighbour. Soli, as his family called him, had schizoaffective disorder, and a judge had ordered him to be transferred from jail to an appropriate hospital. Before that could happen, Soli had his hands and feet bound, his face covered by a spit hood, and endured over 50 bruises and other injuries from jail guards, causing ...
Meep Meep. Run.
What can Wile E. Coyote's nemesis the Road Runner tell us about gaining greater control over our lives? A lot! And so can Steven Puri of thesukha.co, an expert in helping people create order from the chaos of daily living. What's your chronotype? Why are you tying yourself in knots to meet the expectations of others? Liana talks to Steven about all of this and more, with simple steps to simplify your life.
Are you tired of being afraid but don’t know how to live any other way? Do you believe that good things never happen to you and the bad things keep finding you? You don’t have to live that way. Liana talks to Riana Malia, creator of the Clear To Create method for high achieving women, about how to change your thinking so you stop attracting the same type of rotten people again and again, by getting in touch with your own values.
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