What if anxiety and depression aren’t problems to eliminate — but signals pointing toward healing?

In this episode of Behind the Practice, Katie Brinkley sits down with psychotherapist Chris Wells to explore a radically different perspective on mental health. Chris shares why he rejects pathologizing emotional distress, how psychotherapy can become “soul healing,” and why many symptoms we fear may actually be attempts by the psyche to restore balance.

The conversation dives into developmental psychology, trauma, psychedelic-assisted therapy, spiritual integration, and the idea that human beings are born whole — not broken. Chris also explains why curiosity, not suppression, may be the key to deeper healing.

This episode is for anyone questioning traditional mental health models, exploring personal growth, or searching for a more compassionate way to understand emotional pain.

Katie Brinkley sits down with Halema Yates, founder of Love Mark, to explore how emotional health, self-worth, and personal conditioning directly affect workplace culture, communication, and leadership.

Halema shares her journey from personal healing to helping organizations create healthier, more psychologically safe environments. Together, they discuss bias, communication breakdowns, emotional awareness, and why so many professionals struggle to feel seen and valued at work.

This episode is a powerful conversation for leaders, entrepreneurs, and anyone looking to improve both personal growth and team dynamics.

• Self-worth and workplace performance
• Why employees stay silent in meetings
• Emotional conditioning from childhood
• Bias in leadership and organizations
• Building psychologically safe workplaces
• Leadership communication skills
• Team trust and emotional intelligence
• Healing internal narratives

Website: https://luvmrk.com

Kayla Crane is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and the owner of South Denver Therapy in Denver, Colorado.

She specializes in relationships, relational trauma, and infidelity recovery, drawing on her background in trauma therapy to fill a gap she saw in traditional couples work: the reality that trauma inside a relationship can't just be talked through, it has to be processed.

Her approach blends couples therapy with trauma-informed methods to help partners move through some of the most difficult moments a relationship can face.

What we cover:

• What relational trauma is, and why it's different from ordinary relationship conflict
• The physical and nervous system responses that signal trauma is running the show
• How anxious and avoidant attachment styles interact and what tools actually help
• The step-by-step systematic affair recovery therapy process Kayla walks couples through
• Why asking too many questions after betrayal can compound the harm
• What genuine accountability and empathy look like in the recovery process
• Why relationships can come out of infidelity stronger than they were before

Resources mentioned:

• Systematic Affair Recovery Therapy (SART) model
• EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) training and application in couples work
• Attachment theory concepts: anxious attachment, avoidant attachment, pursuer-distancer dynamic

Connect with Kayla:

Website: southdenvertherapy.com

Instagram: @southdenvertherapy

Facebook: South Denver Therapy

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About Behind the Practice: Behind the Practice explores the philosophy, decisions, and experiences behind modern health and wellness practice. New episodes every week on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, and all major podcast platforms.

Emily Schleich is a licensed marriage and family therapist and the owner of All Minds Counseling, a practice built on a single foundational belief: therapy should adapt to the person in the room, not the other way around.

She began specializing in neurodiversity in 2014, at a time when very few graduate programs or therapy models had a framework for it. Over the past decade, she has developed a person-centered, neuro-affirming approach that works for neurodivergent clients, people who have felt failed by previous therapy experiences, couples, and anyone who has ever been made to feel like they were the problem in their own healing process.

In this episode of Behind the Practice, Emily sits down with host Katie Brinkley to talk about what adaptive therapy actually looks like, why the concept of masking matters beyond the therapy room, and what she has learned about people after a decade of sitting across from them.

What We Cover:

● Why step-by-step therapy models fail most clients -- neurodivergent or not -- and what a flexible, adaptive approach looks like instead

● The damage done when clients internalize the message that they are bad at therapy, and how to counter it

● Masking: what it is, why neurodivergent individuals use it as a protective mechanism, and how therapy works to safely reduce it

● Why relational therapy is slow by design -- and why that slowness is not a failure, it's the point

● What people are really looking for when they come to therapy

Resources Mentioned:

● All Minds Counseling (individual, couples, and neurodiversity-affirming therapy)

● Relational therapy and person-centered models

● Masking in neurodivergent individuals

● Neurodiversity and self-diagnosis trends (recent study: 19% of adults self-identifying as neurodivergent)

Connect with Emily Schleich:

Website: www.allmindscounseling.com | Instagram: @allmindscounseling

Ty is a practitioner and herbalist with years of study in Chinese medicine, Ayurveda, and herbal traditions. He spent years formulating daily blends for himself and his clients before one formula -- raw honey infused with 24 organic adaptogens and mushrooms -- rose above the rest.

That formula became Myconector, and then Alvara.

Jamison is a professional athlete and 11-year Marine veteran who encountered Myconector and immediately saw its potential for military families carrying chronic stress loads most people can't imagine. Together with a third partner and brand strategist, they launched Alvara just five months before this episode was recorded, with two missions woven into every product sold: Reboot the Troops, which ensures a military member receives product for every civilian purchase, and Stewards of the Hive, an education and advocacy initiative for bee conservation.

In this episode, recorded live at the Boston BioLive Functional Longevity Summit, Ty and Jamison sit down with host Shawn Quintero to share the story behind the product, the results they've seen, and the bigger vision for what Alvara is building.

What We Cover:

● How two 89 and 90-year-old parents went from anxious and sleep-deprived to calm and energized

● Why stress is the root cause of most disease -- and how addressing it at a foundational level changes everything downstream

● Stewards of the Hive: what's threatening bees, why it matters, and what communities can do about it

● Sound and frequency infusion: why honey holds sacred frequencies better than water, and what it does to the product

Promo code NECTAR25 for 25% off at alvara.life

Resources Mentioned:

● Chinese medicine, Ayurveda, and adaptogen research

● Boston BioLive Functional Longevity Summit

● Promo code: NECTAR25 (25% off at alvara.life)

Connect with Alvara:

Website: www.alvara.life | Promo Code: NECTAR25 | Instagram: @alvaravitality

Jake is a co-founder and team member at Artic Cryotherapy Systems, a whole body cryotherapy manufacturer based in Portland, Oregon. The company was built by practitioners who were frustrated by the lack of transparency in the wellness equipment space -- machines that overpromised, undersupported, and left clinic owners without the business knowledge to make them profitable.

Artic's answer was to build chambers that run autonomously, put the user in control of their own therapy, and back every sale with education, community, and real business support.

In this episode, recorded live at the Boston BioLive Functional Longevity Summit, Jake sits down with host Shawn Quintero to talk about where the industry is going, why cold therapy is a mental health tool as much as a physical one, and the counterintuitive membership strategy that turns first-timers into long-term clients.

What We Cover:

● How a thermo-mechanical engineer's 'hold my beer moment' at Intel led to the founding of Artic Cryotherapy Systems

● The transparency gap in holistic health equipment sales -- and what honest, practitioner-first business looks like instead

● Why hybrid business models merging fitness, recovery, and functional medicine are the next wave in wellness

● How COVID shifted consumer trust away from traditional medicine and accelerated the growth of holistic health

● The mental health and ADHD case for cold therapy -- from Jake's own daily practice

Resources Mentioned:

● Artic Cryotherapy Systems whole body chambers

● Artic client portal and learning management system (in development)

● Cold plunge therapy

● Norepinephrine and cold therapy research

● Boston BioLive Functional Longevity Summit

Connect with Jake and Artic Cryotherapy:

Website: www.articasystems.com

Estelle Farrell is a Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine specializing in physical medicine, rehabilitation, and chronic

pain at AZ PMR in Arizona.

Trained in a philosophy that treats the whole person -- body, mind, and soul -- she has spent her career finding and fixing the root causes of pain rather than managing symptoms indefinitely.

Her clinical work includes a focus on scar tissue therapy, a widely overlooked contributor to chronic pain, restricted movement, and emotional distress.

In this episode, recorded live at the Boston BioLive Functional Longevity Summit, she sits down with host Katie Brinkley to talk honestly about what pain care gets wrong, and what it looks like when it gets it right.

What We Cover:

● Why most chronic pain care is incentivized to treat symptoms rather than resolve them

● How scar tissue from surgeries and injuries contributes to pain, anxiety, and limited mobility -- and what treating it actually looks like

● The most damaging misconception about chronic pain patients: the addiction vs. dependency distinction

● How insurance approvals, institutional policies, and political cycles shape what practitioners are actually allowed to do

● The osteopathic difference: whole-person medicine, root cause thinking, and what that means in daily practice

● What she would say to anyone who has accepted chronic pain as just the way their life is now

Resources Mentioned:

● AZ PMR (Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation practice, Arizona)

● Scar tissue therapy and functional rehabilitation

● Osteopathic medicine philosophy

● Boston BioLive Functional Longevity Summit

Connect with Estelle Farrell:

Website: www.az-pmr.com | Email: info@az-pmr.com | Phone: 480-955-1515

David Letourneau is the founder of ENYRGY and the creator of the world's first precision-engineered vitamin D device. His path to building it started with patented LED technology and took a sharp turn when he encountered a clinical trial showing a 60% reduction in ICU mortality among critically ill COVID patients treated with UVB light.

What began as a potential FDA-regulated medical device became a precision wellness tool -- now available for homes and practices around the world. In this episode, recorded live at the Boston BioLive Functional Longevity Summit, David sits down with host Katie Brinkley to walk through the science, the origin story, and exactly how the

device works.

What We Cover:

● The morning sunlight myth: why UVB rays don't reach us until midday, even in sun-heavy states like Arizona

● The clinical evidence linking vitamin D deficiency to 70% of human disease, including cancer, Parkinson's, MS,

and Alzheimer's

● How a 60% ICU mortality reduction in a COVID clinical trial became the spark for ENYRGY

● Why the FDA pathway pushed the team toward wellness and preventive positioning

● Why oral vitamin D supplements don't produce the same immune response as natural UVB exposure

Resources Mentioned:

● ENYRGY device (home and facility versions)

● ENYRGY app (Fitzpatrick skin type quiz, personalized dosing)

● UVB light therapy research

● Boston BioLive Functional Longevity Summit

Discount code: SUN500 ($500 off at enyrgy.com)