In Conversation with Janina Fisher
Series exploring trauma, healing, and the evolving art of psychotherapy
The Impact: Why This Initiative Matters
Some of the most meaningful conversations in this field do not happen in formal lectures, but when experienced clinicians reflect together on what they’ve learned through years of practice, research, and lived experience. This series offers that kind of exchange — making complex clinical ideas more accessible, relational, and alive, while inviting dialogue on trauma, attachment, dissociation, embodiment, identity, grief, memory, resilience, and the future of therapeutic practice.
We are drawn to projects like this because they preserve and extend the conversations that shape the field. Not every important teaching lives inside a formal training — often it’s the nuanced reflections and lived wisdom between colleagues that stay with people most.
This initiative reflects something we care deeply about: creating platforms where important voices can be heard in ways that are both clinically rich and deeply human. It expands access to knowledge, fosters connection, and invites the kind of dialogue that can influence practice and support more thoughtful care.
— The Collectively Rooted Team
About the Podcast
Janina Fisher is widely recognized as one of the most important clinical voices in the treatment of trauma and dissociation. Her work has profoundly influenced how therapists around the world understand survival, adaptation, and the lasting impact of trauma, offering a compassionate, non-pathologizing lens that has helped shift the field itself. Through decades of clinical practice, teaching, and writing, she has brought depth, clarity, and humanity to some of the most complex areas of psychotherapy, helping practitioners approach trauma with greater nuance, respect, and relational understanding.
Through In Conversation with Janina Fisher: Wisdom Between Colleagues—Insights for Us All, Janina sits down with leading voices in trauma therapy and adjacent fields for conversations that are both clinically rich and deeply human. Each episode offers a window into the thinking, values, and lived experience that shape different approaches to healing.
Listeners are invited to consider how healing is understood through different lenses, including attachment, neuroscience, somatic work, dissociation, memory reconsolidation, psychopharmacology, cultural context, compassion, and relational practice. The result is a series that supports both professional learning and broader reflection on what it means to help people heal.
What You’ll Find in the Series
This podcast unfolds across multiple seasons, with each episode featuring Janina in conversation with a respected guest from the worlds of trauma therapy, psychotherapy, neuroscience, attachment, embodiment, and integrative healing. Across the series, listeners are invited into wide-ranging dialogue on the many ways trauma shapes experience — and the many ways healing becomes possible.
Season 1
The first season introduces the spirit of the series through conversations on neglect, psychopharmacology, clinical flexibility, oppression, relational healing, attachment, research, and cultural responsiveness.
Guests include: Ruth Cohn, Frank Anderson, Lisa Ferentz, Jon Lee, Benjamin Fry, Lana Epstein, Wendy D’Andrea, and Rui Cang.
Together, these episodes establish the podcast’s central commitment: making room for many voices, many truths, and many pathways toward healing.
Season 2
The second season brings Janina into dialogue with influential figures whose work has shaped the trauma field in distinct ways.
With guests including Bessel van der Kolk, Tiff Kopp, Clayre Sessoms, Ruth Lanius, Robert Schwarz, Deb Dana, Arielle Schwartz, Licia Sky, Linda Thai, and Nancy Napier, the season explores polyvagal theory, dissociation, neuroscience, embodiment, implicit states, compassion, and relational presence.
Together, these conversations deepen the series’ emphasis on curiosity, humility, and integrative thinking.
Season 3
The third season continues the conversation with guests whose work brings depth, range, and new perspectives to the series.
With guests including David Kessler, Deborah Korn, Dafna Lender, Matthias J Barker, David Grand, Deran Young, Bruce Ecker, and Paul Gilbert, the season explores grief, estrangement, EMDR, attachment, Brainspotting, racial trauma, implicit memory, shame, and compassion.
Together, these conversations reflect the evolving nature of the trauma field while staying grounded in the same relational and non-pathologizing spirit that runs throughout the series.
How to Listen
- This podcast series is available online and can be accessed from anywhere in the world.
- Episodes are released by season and can be listened to individually or followed as part of the larger series. Each conversation stands on its own while also contributing to a wider exploration of trauma, healing, and clinical practice across disciplines.
- Listeners can explore episodes featuring leading voices from across the field and return to conversations over time as new seasons continue to unfold.
Interested in developing a podcast or conversation-based learning series?
Collectively Rooted partners with clinicians, educators, and organizations to shape podcast projects from early concept through guest curation, production, publishing, promotion, and long-term audience development.