Peplau's Ghost
Psychiatric-Mental Health Nurse Practitioners (PMHNP) discussing using psychotherapy within their practice. Four PMHNP program directors and a biostatistician from across the Unites States sharing their passion on how psychotherapy can help people with nearly all their emotional problems.
Episodes
59 episodes
You Cannot Prescribe Your Way Out Of Suffering with Dr Josh Waddell
You can feel it in your gut when a plan looks perfect on paper but fails in real life and rural mental health care is full of those moments. We sit down with Dr. Josh Waddell, PMHNP and host of the Mental Maps Podcast, to talk about what actual...
Psychiatric NPs Need Both Meds And Meaningful Talk with Dr Paula Alloca
The fastest way to miss what matters in psychiatric care is to treat the visit like a transaction. We talk with Dr. Paula Allocca, director of a Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner program and founder of an integrative functional medic...
What If Medication Management Started With Trust with Dr. Kris Vandenberg-Harrison
If you’ve ever left a psych visit thinking, “I wish I had more information,” you’re not alone and you’re not failing. We sit down with Dr. Kris Vandenberg- Harrison to talk about what real psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner practice l...
The Prescription Has Meaning with Dr Kathleen McDermott
A prescription can land like a lifeline or like a verdict and we rarely ask what it means to the person holding it. We sit down with Dr Kathleen McDermott to unpack “psychodynamic psychopharmacology,” an approach to medication management that t...
How A Dual-Certified NP Connects Mind And Body with Dr Jen Wittman
Anxiety, anger, brain fog, panic, “can’t focus” days, and a body that feels like it’s betraying you often get treated like separate problems in separate clinics. That split can be costly. We’re joined by Dr. Jennifer Wittman, a dually certified...
Therapy Beyond The Med Check by Dr Karan Kverno
Fifteen minutes isn’t a clinical encounter, it’s a timer. We sit down with Dr. Karan Kverno to talk about what gets lost when psychiatric care becomes a rapid-fire “med check” and what PMHNPs can do to protect the relationship, the assessment, ...
One Table And Two Chairs with Ms Mya Yee Nander
A free clinic with two tables and one chair sounds almost too simple to work and that’s exactly why Mya’s story hits so hard. We talk with Maya, a dual-certified Family Nurse Practitioner and Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner, about ...
Trauma Healing Beyond The Prescription Pad with Traci Powell
If you’ve ever watched mental health care drift into quick labels and quicker medication swaps, this conversation will feel like a reset. We sit down with Traci Powell, a dual-certified neonatal nurse practitioner and psychiatric mental health ...
The Relationship You Build Becomes The Treatment with Dr Elizabeth Francis
The best psychiatry doesn’t start with a prescription, it starts with how safe a person feels across from you. We sit down with Dr. Elizabeth Francis, Duke faculty, clinician, author, and APNA board member, to talk about what happens when you t...
A Craigslist Couch Purchase Changed Her Career Path with Dr Lindsay Hill
A Craigslist couch purchase leads to a first nursing job, and that job leads to a career in psychiatric mental health that eventually includes mentorship, education, and entrepreneurship. We talk with Dr. Lindsay Hill, PMHNP, about the nontradi...
Peplau’s Psychotherapy Playbook with Dr Fatima Ramos-Marcuse
Someone reads your clinical notes and decides a child is “beyond repair.” Years later, that same kid is thriving, making art, keeping friends, and living a life that proves prognosis is not destiny. That tension between labels and lived outcome...
How Australia Is Expanding Advanced Practice Psychiatric Nursing with Nathan Dart
A psychiatric nursing system can add staff, add clinics, even add prescribing rights and still feel broken if the care stays fragmented. We sit down with Australian nurse leader Nathan Dart to get a grounded look at what is changing in mental h...
How Psychiatric NPs Turn Basics Into Healing by Dr Janine Panker
Lots of PMHNPs quietly carry the same worry: “I’m not a real therapist.” That belief doesn’t just shrink our scope, it also hides some of the most effective parts of psychiatric nursing. We sit down with Dr. Janine Panker, a Duke University alu...
Get Off The Stage And Stop Speed-Running Med Checks with Dr Julie Roebuck
If you’ve ever felt the squeeze to move faster, prescribe quicker, and save the “real conversation” for someone else, this one is for you. We talk with Dr. Julie Roebuck from the University of Virginia about what it actually takes to keep psych...
Psychotherapy Belongs In Every PMHNP Follow Up Visit with Dr Lauerer and Dr Robidoux
You can feel it in clinics everywhere: patients are more complex, therapy access is tighter, and a prescription alone rarely solves what’s actually driving the suffering. We talk with Dr. Joy Lauerer and Dr. Hannah Robidoux from the Medical Uni...
How AI, Leadership, And Kindness Can Transform Mental Health Care with Dr Rhonda Wilson and Dr Oliver Higgins
Policy shifts don’t happen in silence, and mental health nurses can’t afford to be invisible anymore. We sit down with Dr. Rhonda Wilson and Dr. Oliver Higgins to unpack how a global council of mental health nurses is claiming space at decision...
You Can’t Hide Success with Dr Kathleen McCoy
What if the most powerful tool in psychiatric care isn’t a prescription, but a relationship built with skill, ethics, and presence? We sit down with Dr. Kathleen McCoy to trace a career shaped by Hildegard Peplau’s interpersonal theory—from a 2...
How Two New Clinicians Prove Psychotherapy Works In Real-World Practice with Dr. Jirak and Dr. Hunt
What if the most powerful change in a “med check” isn’t the prescription, but the pause? We sit down with two newly minted PMHNPs who started in primary care and rural health, then shifted into psychiatry after seeing how often medication alone...
Peplau’s Core Of Steel with Dr Nancy Valentine
A cigarette rolled on a classroom desk. A challenge to choose steak over hamburger. That’s how Hildegard Peplau first hooked a young Nancy Valentine—and set a course for a lifetime of nursing influence, autonomy, and unapologetic change. We sit...
Why Treating People Like People Makes Recovery Possible with Dr Ann Roselle and Leslie Carpenter
What if stability starts with a warm relationship, a full fridge, and a Medicaid card—then the meds can do their job? We sit down with clinician Dr. Ann Roselle, DNP, and advocate Leslie Carpenter to unpack how serious mental illness care goes ...
From Navy Wards To CBT: A Psychiatric NP’s Rule Book For Care with Dr Pam Wall
What if the most powerful clinical upgrade is the simplest one: clean your station, fix sleep, and show up prepared to do therapy that fits the brain in front of you? We sit down with Dr. Pam Wall—Navy veteran, psychiatric nurse practitioner, p...
Guardians Of The Therapeutic Relationship with Dr Hugh McKenna
What happens to psychiatric mental health nursing when the job is squeezed into a prescriber’s chair and the classroom forgets its own theory? We sit down with Dr. Hugh McKenna to unpack a global reality: staffing shortages, overextended facult...
From Navy Psych Tech To Nurse Leader: What Truly Heals In Mental Health with Dr Sean Convoy
The number that surprised us wasn’t just the downloads. It was how clearly the most-played conversations pointed to one idea: listening changes more than medication ever could. We close the year with a wide-angle reflection and a deep dive into...
Therapy Is Not Hogwarts, But It’s Still Magic You Can Measure with Dr Melissa Chapman-Haynes
What if the most powerful part of therapy is the space between the boxes on our diagrams—the arrows where trust lives and change begins? We invited researcher and evaluator Dr. Melissa Chapman-Hayes to sit in the guest chair and talk candidly a...
Rethinking ECT Through Lived Experience With Sarah Hancock
What happens when a treatment designed to help may also carry injuries we rarely measure? We sit down with Sarah Price Hancock, co-founder and trustee of the Ionic Injury Foundation, to unpack ionic injury as a physiologic framework for underst...