The Meaningful Life with Andrew G. Marshall

When women and men argue, women can often be more comfortable in expressing their feelings of hurt and anger. 

Men can feel distressed by this strength of feeling, and may pull away emotionally. They may feel a very strong urge to occupy the ground of rationality and objectivity, which in turn leads their partner to push harder, desperately seeking emotional connection.

Dr Avrum Weiss is a US-based author and psychotherapist s...

What is the right kind of therapy for you? Should you go for individual therapy (which is where most people start) or would couple or group work be best?

This edition of the podcast is a little different because I have been invited on a podcast called Gruppenechos (Group Echoes in English) by a colleague here in Berlin called Ief Nicassi. He is a Cognitive Behavioural Therapist who works with groups and offers individual therapy.

O...

Lots of us are afraid of the very word: fear. We’d rather say anxiety, or worry, or panic. 

Yet according to Thom Rutledge, fear underlies most difficult emotions, and is a close companion to shame. Fear plays into just about every decision we ever make in our lives.

To defeat fear, according to Thom, is neither possible nor desirable. Instead we need to live beyond its control, and to understand it. Rather than squashin...

What happens when we ignore pain? 

Particularly if you’re a man, you have been taught that pain is the enemy – perhaps it is unmanly even to feel it – so you soldier on ‘it’s not that bad.’ or ‘it will go away if I can get a good holiday’ and you find ways to manage the pain. Women are often just as guilty – thinking ‘people are relying on me, I must keep it together&...

Why do women stop wanting sex? Why is it so hard to recapture the intoxicating desire of those wonderful early weeks and months of your relationship?

Irene Fehr has spent a decade working with couples as a sex and intimacy coach. Her specialty is women’s libido and sexual desire in long-term relationships.

In this episode Andrew and Irene discuss the nature of desire. Unless we understand what compels and creates desire at di...

David Kessler is one of the world’s best-known experts on grief, yet nothing could prepare him for the loss of his beloved son at the age of 21. Just as he’d advised his clients for decades, David attended grief groups, saw a therapist and sat with his pain. 

In this episode, Andrew and David discuss how society wants us to grieve versus the reality of loss. We will likely never “get over” the loss of s...

Finding meaning and fulfillment in the second half of life requires us to make a conscious transition. We must explore “the unconscious denial and resistance that erupts around key thresholds of later life” if we are to be happy as elders. 

In this episode, psychotherapist and author Connie Zweig, PhD talks with Andrew about how to become an elder who is filled with purpose and vitality. She explains the concept of...

If you dread parties, can’t face job interviews, or won’t start scary conversations with your partner, this is the episode for you. 

Dr Wendy Suzuki is a neuroscientist and an international expert on anxiety and the brain. Her new book, Good Anxiety, unpacks the science of everyday anxiety in a way that helps us manage it.

In this episode, Andrew and Wendy discuss: 

⚡️What “good anxiety” is, and ho...

Is society setting you up to fail in your marriage? World-renowned relationship therapist Terry Real sees a toxic culture of individualism troubling society at every level.

We are told to strive for personal productivity and perfection, ignoring the fact that we exist in a web of crucial relationships.

In this episode, Terry describes research showing that the mind exists in a social context, and that couples in fact co-regulate e...

My guests this week - Lisa Arends and Helen Tower - know just about everything there is to know about the painful subject of infidelity, because they have lived it through it themselves. Both have written extensively about their experiences.

Lisa’s is a story of the most extreme and dramatic betrayal: ten years ago her husband ended their 16-year marriage with a text message, after which she never saw him again. Lisa rebuilt ...

How often have you heard masculinity described as “toxic”, “fragile”, or “in a crisis”? JJ Bola - writer, former youth worker, and UNHCR Ambassador - tries to go deeper in understanding how society is failing boys and men.

In this episode, JJ Bola describes masculinity as a performance that we require boys to learn; along the way stifling their individuality and emotional health. Different societ...

Many of us, particularly women, experience endless frustration because we don’t feel heard. At work and at home, it seems like we are constantly interrupted and rarely feel in control of a conversation.

This week Viv Groskop, journalist, podcaster, stand-up comedian and author of How to Own The Room and Lift As You Climb, talks with Andrew about how to speak so that people will listen. Diving into the world of stand-up taught...

Do you feel trapped, hopeless or broken in your relationship? Perhaps you hope by trying harder, being more empathetic or just plain knowledgeable, that everything will turn a corner. On one hand, that’s a great strategy and shows admirable tenacity but on the other, it can reach a point that’s bad for your well-being, your mental health and for your children too.

If you’re wondering whether your relationship has ...

If you’re in relationship with a partner who is on the autism spectrum, the following may feel familiar:

• My partner seems to lack empathy and doesn’t care how I feel
• My partner misjudges me all the time - I can’t do anything right
• I can’t seem to find a way to communicate with my partner
• M...

Have you found the freedom to explore the rich landscape of your erotic self? Or did your childhood leave you feeling restricted and repressed by a sex negative mindset? 

In this week’s episode Andrew talks to Silva Neves, a psychosexual psychotherapist, about:

• Why people DON’T fully explore their sexual selves
• Why labelling people “sex addicts” is unhelpful, and
• The liberating mindset of sex posi...

We spend a lot of time feeling very serious about seeking meaning in our lives; but is it possible that the secret lies in making the search more fun? Can we say a creative, mutually affirming “yes” more often? And when do we need a self-protective “no”?

This week Andrew and improv comedy star Pippa Evans have lots of fun together as they compare the strategies of improvisational comedy with those of therapy...

There is a coherent and meaningful map for our lives and we are given it one step at a time with the occasional glimpse into the whole picture. That’s the key idea of my witness today...

Sometimes the messages come from bodily instincts – you visit somewhere and you know it is going to be important for you – or your intuition telling something is true or resonates deeply within. At other times, the glimppses come ...

Who is your favourite literary character? According to Dr Josh Cohen, an academic working in literary theory and also a psychoanalyst, this can be a very important question.

Josh Cohen’s new book is How to Live. What To Do: In search of ourselves in life and literature. He believes that there are major similarities between psychoanalysis and great literature. For one thing, neither offers simple answers to complex questions.&...

How do we live knowing that we will die? How can we face death, and how should we prepare for it? Dr Kathryn Mannix has spent her professional life working in palliative care, and the teams she has worked on have been involved in 10-15 thousand deaths.

In this classic episode, Kathryn shares her insights into what it’s like to die and how we can love and support someone approaching the end of their life. If you struggle with ...