The Psychology of Depression and Anxiety - Dr. Scott Eilers

Childhood trauma and emotional neglect don’t just disappear when you become an adult. The coping strategies that helped you survive a painful childhood can quietly sabotage your relationships, mental health, and happiness later in life.
In this episode, I explain three common survival strategies people develop in difficult childhoods: losing touch with your needs, feeling disconnected from others, and becoming afraid of vulnerability. These strategies once protected you—but in adulthood they can keep you stuck.
Healing starts when you recognize these patterns and slowly begin to replace them with healthier ways of relating to yourself and other people. The survival skills that once protected you don’t have to control the rest of your life.
If my podcast has helped, my new book, The Light Between the Leaves, goes even deeper
Next Steps:📩 Get Practical tools for navigating life with depression and anxiety, delivered weekly.
About me:
I know what it is to feel hopelessly stuck and worthless to the world in general. I also know what it is to live without those feelings. I’m both a Clinical Psychology specializing in treatment-resistant depression and anxiety, and a human who has spent more than a decade managing sever depression and anxiety.
Mental Health Coaching with me
Therapy with me (for people in Iowa)
Find me on YouTube
Resources
🪣 Get my free 5-day guide to reclaiming your time and energy despite mental health struggles.
😴 Dramatically improve your sleep in 2 steps with my new Sleep Workbook.
📖 My 1st book: For When Everything is Burning
Disclaimer: This content is not intended to be a replacement for receiving treatment. It is purely educational in nature. My relationship with you is that of presenter and audience, not therapist and client.
But I do care.

If my podcast has helped, ⁠⁠my new book, The Light Between the Leaves⁠⁠, goes even deeper.
Many people struggling with depression, anxiety, and existential burnout feel like something about modern society just doesn’t work for them.
Sometimes the problem isn’t just your mental health. Sometimes the problem is living in a world that rewards productivity more than compassion and success more than kindness.
Refusing to accept the broken rules of a broken world does not make you a broken person. And sometimes the smallest act of kindness can be the moment that keeps someone going.

Next Steps:📩 Get ⁠Practical tools for navigating life with depression and anxiety⁠, delivered weekly.
About me:
I know what it is to feel hopelessly stuck and worthless to the world in general. I also know what it is to live without those feelings.
I’m both a Clinical Psychology specializing in treatment-resistant depression and anxiety, and a human who has spent more than a decade managing sever depression and anxiety.
⁠Mental Health Coaching with me⁠
⁠Therapy with me⁠ (for people in Iowa)
⁠Find me on YouTube⁠
Resources
🪣 Get my free ⁠5-day guide to reclaiming your time and energy despite mental health struggles⁠.
😴 ⁠Dramatically improve your sleep in 2 steps⁠ with my new Sleep Workbook.
📖 My 1st book: ⁠For When Everything is Burning⁠
Disclaimer: This content is not intended to be a replacement for receiving treatment. It is purely educational in nature. My relationship with you is that of presenter and audience, not therapist and client.
But I do care.

Thanks to Skillshare for sponsoring this video! The first 500 people to use my link will receive a one-month free trial of Skillshare. Get started today!
Rumination is when your brain gets stuck on a thought and refuses to let it go.
You replay the same worry… the same mistake… the same fear… over and over again. Sometimes for hours. Sometimes for entire days.
And the frustrating part?
Trying to force yourself to stop thinking about it usually makes it worse.
In this episode, I explain a counterintuitive way to break rumination using a principle called limited cognitive capacity — and three variables that determine whether distraction actually works.
If my podcast has helped, my new book, The Light Between the Leaves, goes even deeper
Next Steps:📩 Get Practical tools for navigating life with depression and anxiety, delivered weekly.
About me:
I know what it is to feel hopelessly stuck and worthless to the world in general. I also know what it is to live without those feelings. I’m both a Clinical Psychology specializing in treatment-resistant depression and anxiety, and a human who has spent more than a decade managing sever depression and anxiety.
Mental Health Coaching with me
Therapy with me (for people in Iowa)
Find me on YouTube
Resources
🪣 Get my free 5-day guide to reclaiming your time and energy despite mental health struggles.
😴 Dramatically improve your sleep in 2 steps with my new Sleep Workbook.
📖 My 1st book: For When Everything is Burning
Disclaimer: This content is not intended to be a replacement for receiving treatment. It is purely educational in nature. My relationship with you is that of presenter and audience, not therapist and client.
But I do care.

If you live with depression, anxiety, PTSD, or another chronic mental health condition, one of the biggest mistakes you can make is trying to be normal.
Normal does not equal healthy.
When your brain is prone to going rogue, you cannot afford the same habits most people can. What works for them may quietly destroy you.
Society is not built to protect your mental health. And you cannot fix a mood disorder by acting like you don’t have one.
If you have substantial mental health needs, you need sustainable systems — not quick fixes.
This comes from experience. I tried to live “normally.” It did not go well.
If my podcast has helped, my new book, The Light Between the Leaves, goes even deeper
Next Steps:📩 Get Practical tools for navigating life with depression and anxiety, delivered weekly.
About me:
I know what it is to feel hopelessly stuck and worthless to the world in general. I also know what it is to live without those feelings. I’m both a Clinical Psychology specializing in treatment-resistant depression and anxiety, and a human who has spent more than a decade managing sever depression and anxiety.
Mental Health Coaching with me
Therapy with me (for people in Iowa)
Find me on YouTube
Resources
🪣 Get my free 5-day guide to reclaiming your time and energy despite mental health struggles.
😴 Dramatically improve your sleep in 2 steps with my new Sleep Workbook.
📖 My 1st book: For When Everything is Burning
Disclaimer: This content is not intended to be a replacement for receiving treatment. It is purely educational in nature. My relationship with you is that of presenter and audience, not therapist and client.
But I do care.

What if the person you need protection from… is you?
If your brain constantly attacks your insecurities and drags your mood down, this video will teach you how to set boundaries with your own thoughts.
You can’t stop thoughts from appearing.
But you can refuse to engage with beliefs that don’t belong to you.
I’ll show you how to starve destructive self-talk and reprogram your inner narrative over time.
If my podcast has helped, my new book, The Light Between the Leaves, goes even deeper
Next Steps:📩 Get Practical tools for navigating life with depression and anxiety, delivered weekly.
About me:
I know what it is to feel hopelessly stuck and worthless to the world in general. I also know what it is to live without those feelings. I’m both a Clinical Psychology specializing in treatment-resistant depression and anxiety, and a human who has spent more than a decade managing sever depression and anxiety.
Mental Health Coaching with me
Therapy with me (for people in Iowa)
Find me on YouTube
Resources
🪣 Get my free 5-day guide to reclaiming your time and energy despite mental health struggles.
😴 Dramatically improve your sleep in 2 steps with my new Sleep Workbook.
📖 My 1st book: For When Everything is Burning
Disclaimer: This content is not intended to be a replacement for receiving treatment. It is purely educational in nature. My relationship with you is that of presenter and audience, not therapist and client.
But I do care.