By Sue Marriott, LCSW, CGP
My wife, Dr. Ann Kelley, and I have been producing the podcast “Therapist Uncensored” for almost 10 years. Imagine working publicly as a couple, in our roles as professional therapists that treat couples and engaging with an audience that includes therapists with discerning ears. That kind of ongoing exposure has been challenging, exciting, humbling – and it's kept us honest about what really works and inspired us to do our own deep work to keep growing. We've had a surprising and somewhat inexplicable good run – out of hundreds of thousands of shows, ours somehow continues to rank in Apple's Top 10 Social Science podcasts in the US and a handful of other countries. And for sure, its our community of listeners is what holds the whole thing together.
As we look honestly at a decade of work and consider what comes next, I want to share some of the harder lessons and sobering insights that have emerged – realizations we didn't see coming when we started. I hope this inspires you to do your honest reflections along with me.
When Therapist Uncensored launched in August 2016, I was jacked up on the newly emerging science from relational neurobiology and experiencing those unpredictable yet delicious “a-ha” moments of insight in training and my own therapy. (I'll be speaking for myself, but Ann's path is very similar.) As a proud social worker, I wanted to share these goods with others. Ann and I have both always aspired to have a greater impact than possible with private practice alone, which is why we landed on creating a bridge to quality psychological education and therapeutic insights specifically for those who might never enter a therapist's office. We had good hearts, abundant energy, decades of collective training and experience, and podcasting as the perfect delivery vehicle. What could go wrong? You'll see.
Our goal was straightforward: accessibility.
Therapy and the training required to stay current as a therapist are both shockingly expensive. The fast-moving educational landscape of incorporating relational neuroscience and other emerging sciences into one's theoretical lens is its own challenge. Plus, going from left-brain intellectual understanding to right-brain embodied learning that sticks and actually makes a difference is a whole other frontier. We knew podcasting wouldn't replace therapy, but we were aiming high and wide, eager to see how far sound clinical content in plain speak might land.
We wanted to keep it grounded in real science, so we brought in experts – original attachment researchers, oxytocin pioneer biologists, neuroscientists running rats to learn about the amygdala. Over time, we were fortunate to include most of the who's who in the field, and our free podcast archive became a treasure trove of these in-depth conversations.
As the show grew, publishers like Norton and Routledge began sending pre-released books, which helped us stay current on who and what was emerging. Sponsors sent boxes of products they hoped we'd peddle. Solicitations to be on the show took off. We met listeners and professionals we never would have otherwise encountered. Life was good.
That phase lasted several years and remains a highlight of our journey – the bliss of learning, sharing, and growing alongside our audience. Honestly, we could stop there and be satisfied with what we built. But that isn't where this story ends.
The Reckoning
Over time, as the excitement faded and I could listen more deeply, I became more discerning. Yes, explaining polyvagal theory or attachment science to the masses was good, but was it enough? If accessibility was our main point, we had to dig deeper – access to what, exactly? Why? Something was missing, but we couldn't clearly identify it yet.
Therapists are eager to help others explore their unconscious narratives. Yet we sometimes forget that we have one too – an unconscious whose contents, by definition, are hidden from our awareness. So although we knew we were missing something, we weren't sure how to interrogate what we might be unconsciously leaving out.
The podcast provided a unique vantage point, though. Over time, the conversations began to feel eerily familiar.
The questions emerging in my mind began to change:
How much does healing attachment wounds cost for the average client?
Is it possible that getting good at being in therapy makes it harder to engage in everyday life with the non-initiated?
Is deep group therapy its own sport? (shout-out to my group comrades)
When do popular training tracks become peer-led sales funnels?
Who benefits, and who is harmed, by standard modes of therapy delivery?
Is there a single training institution that sprang from a talented clinician's work other than revered, usually deceased, white men?
The main question, though:
Who is being left out of all of the above – the theories, the therapy, the money?
Now is a good time to state the obvious: Ann and I are deeply part of the system we're trying to excavate. We are highly educated cis white women who can pass for straight and have benefited tremendously from exclusive training, unearned privilege, and lucrative private practices. Being part of the system that perpetuates the problems I care about and want to fight against puts me in a “dual relationship,” as we say. It also ignited something urgent in me – but would anyone listen, or care?
We wanted to keep being the Good Guys, the Helpful Helpers, promoting accessibility, sharing freely, and offering support. Something wasn’t feeling right, however. We were too comfortable, too easily likable, I dare say… too status quo. Ugh.
From Knowing to Not-Knowing
A bright searchlight finds what we're expecting. A beam of darkness—accepting our ignorance, becoming accustomed to not-knowing—lets new truths emerge from the shadows cast by our brilliant illuminations. —William Bion
I've spent untold years in therapy – individual, group, and couples – using just about all the therapeutic frameworks you can imagine. I know therapy can save lives. I believe so deeply in the healing power of the profession that I trust we are secure enough, as an industry, to look in the mirror and see ourselves accurately – not defensively propping our craft up or devaluing it when problems emerge. And, let’s acknowledge it, we've got problems.
For sure, getting those already listening and those who hold power to expand their capacity for inner security – which makes the world safer – is still net good. But I began to imagine seeing our body of work through the eyes (or, since it's a podcast, the ears) of anyone who doesn't pass as white. I heard the show through the perspective of my extended trans family, disabled individuals, anyone deemed an outsider – the very people we meant when we said we wanted to provide greater access to psychology and the relational sciences. Seeing myself through those eyes isn't pleasant, and it became clear we weren't doing as many favors for as many people as we'd hoped.
What's difficult is that top-down values are internalized so insidiously that it takes immense time and effort to decipher the line between soul truth and the embedded party line – what comes from your lineage, lived experience, and world wisdoms versus what's been hammered into you by dominant culture as facts about human nature. Interrogating our training models is not the same as devaluing our education; far from it. For example, post-traumatic stress disorder as it applies beyond war veterans has been a valid and useful construct, deshaming physiological symptoms and moving the problem from the individual to what happened to them. But how does “post” anything apply to harm that is ongoing, like institutional racism? Calling it “post-traumatic” when the trauma continues is itself a form of cultural gaslighting.
This is the kind of questioning that doesn't feel like progress – it feels like losing your footing.
I usually love lightbulb moments – those surprise, oh-shit dawning insights, the delicious but super-cringy revelations to self. But finding my culpability and naivety in benefitting from and actively maintaining the status quo wasn't like that at all. It was more like sitting under the glare of a dangling bare bulb, illuminating personal responsibility I had yet to take.
Owning ignorance publicly is frightening.
Therapists are supposed to know, not advertise that they don't. The throughline that continues to guide me is this: be real, which means imperfect. That's the truth for us all. Otherwise, I'm performing expertise I haven't earned, and that is a much greater source of shame than accepting my culture-based but harmful limitations.
With this kind of interrogation going on in the background, we shifted from energetically teaching what we knew to a deliberate process of non-knowing and actively unlearning. And at this point, I believe it's in that unlearning and not-knowing where most of our value lies, paradoxically.
Podcasting Was Supposed to Be the Equalizer
Here's another thing only illuminated later, with some effort.
Podcasting was supposed to be the great equalizer. We embraced this non-hierarchical space where anyone could grab a mic and share their ideas. Production costs were low, discovery seemed open and equal, and there were no traditional gatekeepers. The absence of these barriers inspired our name, Therapist Uncensored.
Today, three-quarters of all podcasts are hosted by cisgender white men who overwhelmingly invite other similar men as expert guests. Female hosts invite more women, but even we highlight far more men than women as experts. Algorithms, ratings, and recommendations favor podcasts that fit established patterns – which typically means white Western voices supporting the status quo. Money follows clicks, and this familiar loop compounds itself.
As hosts, we've seen this firsthand. The further we stray from mainstream therapy ideas, the more our downloads drop and hostile reviews emerge. These days, we see this as a compliment – challenging norms is the only way to make real difference, and we know from a nervous system standpoint that people resist having their norms agitated.
Mental Health Equity – Is That a Thing?
The mental health field itself operates through gatekeeping mechanisms we rarely name, and these barriers reflect and amplify larger social inequities. Licensure is something we typically value and take for granted, but people and frameworks outside accredited institutions aren't recognized as legitimate. Credentialing creates another layer of division. Many of us pursue ongoing training so enthusiastically that it evolves from a skill we're learning into a personal identity. I “am” a Modern Analyst, a cognitive-behaviorist, a PACT/IFS/EFT therapist. Having this claim to community and deep belonging can be life-giving, but loyalty to a group is another matter. Loyalty differs from simply loving or belonging – it can narrow our awareness of other valid perspectives, close our eyes to our model's downsides, and make us vulnerable to groupthink.
But wait, you loved that training and your friends are there! Let's level up! Unfortunately, the accumulating costs of training and travel compound the problem. Therapists who can afford advanced training serve higher-paying clients, which funds more training, and so on. Those working in community mental health, nonprofits, schools, or government agencies get locked out.
Over the past decade, we've noticed other troubling shifts that mirror broader systemic injustices. AI companies and large online therapy corporations became our biggest solicitors (which we rejected). While both may offer benefits, they also threaten the deeply relational, experiential, somatic heart of healing. Individual therapists form group practices; good group practices get purchased by corporations. It's inherent in the system – programs that can be packaged and sold get institutional homes, expensive trainers, speaking circuits, books, and international retreats. Approaches that can't be commodified – indigenous healing, peer support models, community-based work – continue to get marginalized.
Whose Knowledge Counts?
Akilah Riley-Richardson, a therapist from Trinidad and Tobago, told me during a podcast interview that she feared losing her indigenous healing knowledge through the Western training required for licensure. After our interview, she sent me a conference brochure – a US-based play therapy trainer invited to teach in her country.
We both asked: Where are the US students flying to the Caribbean to learn at the feet of these talented healers?
Consider your latest continuing education brochure and the small grouping of respected headliners. Many of these talented clinicians are our personal friends and mentors whom we love deeply and who are actively working to dismantle these systems – they are not the problem. The problem is the unconscious systematic exclusion. Who and what is missing from those leading our thoughts?
For Therapist Uncensored, the frameworks we were bridging to the world exist within this Western-based, increasingly commercialized mental health delivery system. We were at risk of becoming a marketing arm for mental health products, for publishers and trainings. We were teaching integrated, rigorous work for sure. The issue isn’t that what we teach through the podcast is wrong – it isn’t. It’s that we are serving up mental health narratives that didn’t consider cultural histories, community-based wisdom, systematic injustices, and the overt racism and genderqueer phobia that is part of what I am calling the status quo. We weren’t changing anything yet even though we were talking the entire time about growing security.
It requires humility and some decent emotional range to see yourself honestly and keep looking. And what’s worse is there's no specific villain here. It's the water we swim in – the unconscious centering of certain voices, certain bodies, specific ways of knowing. Systems are doing precisely what they were designed to do: maintain the existing order.
Resources, Not Just Rhetoric
We know and fear the trope – liberal white women performing advocacy. I like the challenge of keeping this real threat close to heart. What can little ole Ann and Sue do to turn this around? It's daunting, but here are a few things we can say for sure.
We've produced over 280 episodes, available free to anyone worldwide interested in learning about modern attachment and relational neuroscience. We're reaching listeners in over 200 countries, including the Congo, Yemen, Turkey, Iraq, Qatar, Pakistan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Ukraine, Zimbabwe, and far-flung outposts like Iceland. Shout-out to our community in Austin, Texas, who launched us, and to Australia, our most active country outside the US. We've met so many listeners from all over, some of whom have become dear friends.
We've intentionally surfaced countless brilliant women, non-binary folks, therapists of various colors and cultures, immigrant clinicians, autistic specialists, non-Western trained healers, queer practitioners, and disabled therapists. We still teach the standard attachment narrative, but learning from ‘outside' voices delivered lightbulb moments of hope and insight for our listeners and us. The friendship rewards are immeasurable.
We actively examine who tells the stories on our platform, how we structure conversations, and what we center in our work. We've stopped letting the training industry determine who should be authoritative and continue to seek wisdom from community-based voices that are harder to find. We're increasingly using our platform to share the mic rather than trying to be the expert source.
We resist doing interviews that are actually marketing for mental health products. This is never perfect, but we've grown wary of the practice and hold the trust of our community in the highest regard.
What about ads? We run limited corporate ads to pay our bills, and we've worked that out too. Half the proceeds cover our costs; the other half is donated to increase access for marginalized individuals.
Over the years, we've expanded beyond the podcast. We gathered accumulated knowledge from our lived lives, professional careers, and all the voices on the podcast to create other ways to reach further. Our book launch for Secure Relating: Holding Your Own in an Insecure World (HarperCollins, 2024) was an absolute highlight – the number of respected colleagues and former guests who joined us blew us away. We also hosted a professional conference and delivered a comprehensive course – Beyond Attachment Styles – over the past two years.
All of this continues to support our revised mission: expand the reach of the healing sciences as widely as possible while working to dismantle unfair power structures that deliver basic health and safety advantages to some and not others.
Which is why we committed to doing more.
To date, we've delivered over $84,000 to BIPOC-inclusive funds, trans mental health services, services for those without housing, BIPOC and queer therapist training and recruitment, scholarships to expand DEI for group therapists, indigenous land payments, and vital health services for artists and musicians. You can see this in detail at www.therapistuncensored.com/donations.
These offerings are entirely backed by those of you who stepped up your support – our Neuronerd Patrons – which is why we've been able to commit half our ad revenue to mental health access for those traditionally left behind. Thank you.
You – Our Community
Ten years ago, we showed up as two married therapists willing to disagree on air, to sit in the tension of practicing what we teach. Your engagement made the show, not our vision. You didn't show up as a passive audience. You challenged us. You held us accountable. You expanded what secure relating could look like.
The real work of the last ten years has been learning to listen – to our guests, to each other, and to you.
We thought accessibility meant making psychological education free and available. Now we understand it means something more complicated: dismantling the systems that determine whose knowledge counts as therapy in the first place. We can't build secure attachment in a system built on monetization and exclusion. Individual healing is incomplete – even illusory – if the path to security remains accessible only to those with privilege, proximity, and purchasing power.
So where does that leave us?
Honestly, since that's a theme here, we're in a period of introspection. We are working deeply in our therapy, including couples therapy, and actively engaging in various new learning modalities. We are refueling and reflecting – taking things in more than putting things out.
People tell us the podcast has changed their lives and inspired them to take life-changing actions – and I believe them. This work matters and is empowering.
I've also woken up to limitations and blind spots – some in the field, some in myself. I can now perceive more clearly how mental health delivery mirrors the wider systems that create racism, classism, gatekeeping, and commodification. I see how even well-intentioned work can reinforce the very systems we thought we were working against.
The creative well is different now. Neither Ann nor I have been interested in becoming internet influencers or running a platform just because we happen to have one. I don't want to produce content just to produce content – it has to be additive, further discourse, fill gaps, add perspective that matters. So we're intentionally resting and consciously considering what work is each of ours to do next.
The podcast archive remains – over 280 episodes of conversations with brilliant minds, accessible to anyone, anywhere. That's not nothing. Where Therapist Uncensored goes from here, we genuinely don't know yet.
What we do know: Secure relating isn't something we achieve alone. It's something we build together, or not at all. And building together sometimes means knowing when to step back, listen carefully, make space, or change course entirely.
We're grateful for what we've learned and who we've learned it with. Thank you for making us better. Whatever comes next, we know we're not doing it alone, thank you.
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Sue Marriott is an author, podcaster and psychotherapist based in Austin Texas.
