Dr. Gary Bell's Absurd Psychology
Marriage
Not for the faint of heart or sensitive spirit, Dr. Gary Bell's Absurd Psychology is about helping our lives in the insane world we exist today. It is a sarcastic, smart and witty view of the lives we cope with, including straight answers, real...
Location:
Tempe, AZ
Description:
Not for the faint of heart or sensitive spirit, Dr. Gary Bell's Absurd Psychology is about helping our lives in the insane world we exist today. It is a sarcastic, smart and witty view of the lives we cope with, including straight answers, real information and new perspectives to bring LIFE back to our existence. Dr. Bell brings deep insight, common sense and weaves general knowledge of how the brain is operating under various circumstances. Dr. Bell challenges us all to OWN our lives. How do we become change in an ever changing world? If anything, you might sound smarter to your friends. Everyone is an armchair therapist, but now you will know enough to be dangerous. No whining or caterwauling allowed! This is a search for essence, passion and meaning as we exist surrounded by mediocrity, insecurity and insignificance. Take your medication and listen. You might learn something.
Twitter:
@drgbmft
Language:
English
Website:
http://www.drgbmft.com/
Episodes
Existential Angst
4/14/2026
•Existential angst not only derives from the human inability to think, feel, and act in the world or experience a love for life, but also from the fear of the possibility of nonexistence and/or death. It can be lonely, isolating, and outright terrifying if one's very existence is in question. Tune in and learn all about Existential Angst and how it effects you!
Duration:01:00:37
Procrastination Station
4/7/2026
Everyone puts things off sometimes, but procrastinators chronically avoid difficult tasks and may deliberately look for distractions. Procrastination tends to reflect a person's struggles with self-control. For habitual procrastinators, who represent approximately 20 percent of the population, "I don't feel like it" comes to take precedence over their goals or responsibilities, setting them on a downward spiral of negative emotions that further deters future effort. Tune in and learn how procrastination can destry your life!
Duration:01:01:44
Assassination Culture
3/31/2026
Assassination often involves a complex interplay of psychological factors. Perpetrators may become fixated on a particular target due to a sense of grievance or perceived injustice. These feelings may be exacerbated by social or political influences. The planning and execution of an assassination can also provide a sense of power and control to the perpetrator, appealing to their desire for significance or influence. These factors, along with others, contribute to the intricate psychology of assassination.We are now in a culture where a population actually supports assassination as an answer. Tune in and find out all about it!
Duration:01:01:50
Denial: The Unacceptable Truth
3/24/2026
Denial is a defense mechanism in which an individual refuses to recognize or acknowledge objective facts or experiences. It's an unconscious process that serves to protect the person from discomfort or anxiety. For example, a loved one may insist that she doesn't have a problem with alcohol, despite the fact that it interferes with work and family life. Or a loyal employee may refuse to see signs that his boss is stealing from the company. Tune in and learn all about denial and how to heal it!
Duration:00:57:41
Repressed Emotions: Where They Come Out
3/17/2026
Repression is a defense mechanism in which people push difficult or unacceptable thoughts out of conscious awareness. Repressed memories were a cornerstone of Freud's psychoanalytic framework. He believed that people repressed memories that were too difficult to confront, particularly traumatic memories, and expelled them from conscious thought. Tune in and learn how repressed emotions can run your life and how to prevent them!
Duration:01:01:27
Somatic Pain: It's All in Your Head
3/10/2026
Somatic symptom disorder involves focusing too much on physical symptoms such as pain or tiredness. This focus causes major emotional distress and makes it hard to function. You may or may not have another medical condition that causes these symptoms. But how you think, feel and behave because of the symptoms can be extreme. Tune in all learn how to identify and work through somatic pain!
Duration:00:58:18
How to Recognize Mania
3/3/2026
Mania is a state of elevated energy, mood, and behavior, most often seen in those with bipolar disorder, schizoaffective disorder, or who have taken certain drugs or medications. While the feelings present in mania can be positive, energetic, or even euphoric, they may also manifest more negatively—as emotions like irritation, anxiety, or grandiosity. Tune in and lern how to recognize and work through manic episodes!
Duration:00:59:34
The Intoxicating Feeling of Being Chosen
2/24/2026
Curiously, many of my clients report that they don't feel "chosen" by their significant other, while remaining uncertain about what it would mean to feel chosen. Life partners are engaged in choosing or not choosing one another. It typically remains unspoken and may lie just below the surface of consciousness. To be clear about what counts toward feeling chosen brings a new level of depth and meaning to a relationship. Tune in and learn the power of being chosen!
Duration:01:01:06
Inner Freedom
2/17/2026
Freedom, as described by the German social psychologist and humanist philosopher Erich Fromm (1941), is the final goal in the process of individuation. Fromm's concept of freedom is close to David Shapiro's (1981) concept of autonomy—becoming an independent agent in the world. It encompasses a capacity to manifest what makes you uniquely yourself without recourse to either self-absorption or self-abnegation. Murray Bowen's concept of "differentiation of self" also entails this idea and ideal of individuation. Tune in and learn how freedom impacts all of your life!
Duration:00:58:57
Divorce Prevention
2/10/2026
No one enters marriage expecting it to fail. You enter with hope, commitment, and the faith that love will see you through the hard times. But when things fall apart, it's generally not because partners didn't care. Often it's because they felt disconnected, hurt, or unsure how to find their way back to each other. Tune in and learan how to keep your marriage strong!
Duration:00:59:09
How to Have a Covenant Marriage
2/3/2026
It's not easy to break a covenant. Grounds for divorce in a
covenant marriage are limited to abuse or adultery; otherwise couples must seek counseling and wait two years, as opposed to the
six-to-12-month separation that is imposed in no-fault divorces. Tune in and learn all about staying in a covenant marriage!
Duration:00:59:22
Living in Uncertainty
1/27/2026
In the realm of psychological inquiry, much focus has been placed on the "knowledge-action gap," which separates what we know from what we do. However, another critical yet underexplored area is the "question-answer gap." This gap is where uncertainty, the unknown, and the unknowable live, marking the distance between the questions we pose and the answers we seek. Tune in and learn all about how to live in uncertainty!
Duration:00:57:12
How To Know You Are Old
1/20/2026
Erikson's old age, the age of wisdom, started at 50. In his 1950 book, Childhood and Society, Erikson called the eighth stage of development, old age, a crisis of integrity versus despair, a stage of generalization of sensual modes with the basic strength of wisdom. Tune in and learn al about how aging effects us and how to realize we are getting old!
Duration:00:59:01
The Effects of Childhood Trauma
1/13/2026
Childhood trauma significantly impacts brain development and function, leading to long-term psychological effects like anxiety, depression, PTSD, emotional dysregulation, trust issues, and self-esteem problems, alongside physical issues such as chronic health conditions, sleep disturbances, and altered stress responses, often manifesting as behavioral challenges, learning difficulties, and relationship problems in adulthood. Trauma can rewire stress pathways (fight-or-flight), affecting how children learn, regulate emotions, form attachments, and perceive themselves. Tune is and learn how childhood trauma effectrs adult and children's lives!
Duration:00:55:37
Understanding Child Development
1/6/2026
Human development is influenced by, but not entirely determined by, our parents and our genes. Children may have very different personalities, and different strengths and weaknesses, than the generation that preceded them. Caregivers should pay attention to their children's distinct traits and the pace of their development, and not assume that the approach to parenting that worked for their mothers and fathers will be equally successful in their own families. Parents, and the home environments they create, can also have an important influence on a child's development; in fact, a child's home environment can affect the ways that certain genetic traits express themselves, or if they will at all. Tune in and learn all about Child Development!
Duration:00:59:18
Bondage, Dominance, Sadism, Masochism and YOU
12/30/2025
BDSM is an umbrella term for a wide range of sexual practices that involve physical bondage, the giving or receiving of pain, dominant or submissive roleplay, and/or other related activities. The acronym is a combination of Bondage/Discipline, Dominance/Submission, and Sadism/Masochism. Though BDSM has long been socially stigmatized or thought to be a sign of mental illness, recent research suggests that it has no clear connection to psychiatric disorders and can in fact be a part of healthy, loving relationships.Depictions of BDSM-type sexual acts—involving dominance, bondage, or the use of pain—have been found in art and literature from around the world dating back hundreds of years. Tune in and learn all about BDSM!
Duration:00:58:37
Overcoming Anxiety
12/23/2025
Anxiety is both a mental and physical state of negative expectation. Mentally it is characterized by increased arousal and apprehension tortured into distressing worry, and physically by unpleasant activation of multiple body systems—all to facilitate response to an unknown danger, whether real or imagined. Tune in and learn all about anxiety and how to overcome it!
Duration:00:57:01
Tribalism
12/16/2025
Our lives begin within our most intimate tribe, our family, whose job it is to protect and nurture us until adulthood. But then gradually, over time, we get introduced to members of other related tribes — our racial and ethnic groups — with whom we share many of our most basic traits, including our phenotypes, genetics, and cultural histories. And then there are the tribes we choose, based on religion, politics, the places we live, the schools we attend, the teams we root for, and even the cars we drive. (In my experience, owners of Jeeps and Priuses have some of the strongest car-based tribal identifications.) Tune in nd learn all about tribalism and how it effects our lives!
Duration:00:58:56
How to Think Like a Wealthy Person
12/9/2025
Thoroughly woven into the tapestry of American culture has been the mythology or cult of the millionaire, a term which originated in France (by Disraeli in 1826) but was rarely used in the United States until the late 19th century. The word was reportedly first used in America in a newspaper obituary for Pierre Lorillard I, founder of the tobacco empire. "Mr. Lorillard was a 'millionaire,'" the obit read, this was made possible by his giving people something they could "chew that which they could not swallow." Tune in and learn what makes wealthy people different!
Duration:00:55:33
Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
12/2/2025
Complex post-traumatic stress disorder (c-PTSD or cPTSD) describes a set of disruptive symptoms that emerge after experiencing inescapable traumatic life events, especially those of a horrific or threatening nature or which recur or accumulate over a period of time. Such events are typically interpersonal, often involving abusive relationships with parents, caregivers, or other responsible adults at a young age. It may also be sparked by torture, the experience of being a refugee or asylum seeker, being held in a concentration camp or as a slave, or living through a genocidal campaign or other organized campaigns of violence. Tune in and learn all about complex PTSD!
Duration:00:55:39