Dr. Rick and Forrest are joined by Dr. Nick Jacobson, to explore the risks and opportunities of AI therapy: Can a chatbot be good at therapy?
Rick Hanson
Author / Psychologist
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Biography
Rick Hanson, Ph.D. is a psychologist, Senior Fellow at UC Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center, and New York Times best-selling author. His seven books have been published in 33 languages, and include Making Great Relationships, Neurodharma, Resilient, Hardwiring Happiness, Just One Thing, Buddha’s Brain, and Mother Nurture – with over a million copies in English alone. He's the founder of the Global Compassion Coalition and the Wellspring Institute for Neuroscience and Contemplative Wisdom, as well as the co-host of the Being Well Podcast – which has been downloaded over 25 million times. His free newsletters have over 260,000 subscribers and his online programs have scholarships available for those in need. He’s lectured at NASA, Google, Oxford, and Harvard. An expert on positive neuroplasticity, his work has been featured on CBS, NPR, the BBC, and other major media. He began meditating in 1974 and has taught in meditation centers worldwide. He and his wife live in Northern California and have two adult children. He loves the wilderness and taking a break from emails.
Articles
Talk + Meditation: Wise Effort in Relationships: 3 Blocks to Being a Positive Energizer
Join Diana Hill to learn how to bring your strengths into relationships with wise effort—avoiding old stories, avoidance, and clinging—while nurturing true connection.
Being Well Podcast: How to Have a (Good) Life Crisis: Authenticity, Healthy Discontent, and the Anxiety of Choice
Dr. Rick and Forrest explore how to use a life crisis productively, drawing on developmental stage theories, existential philosophy, literature, personal experience, and Rick’s clinical work.
Talk + Meditation: How to Stay Present Longer
Learn how concentration deepens mindfulness, steadies the mind, and brings peace, clarity, and joy—even amid distractions and emotional turbulence.
Relax, You’ve Arrived
Part of this comes from our biological nature. To survive, animals – including us – have to be goal-directed, leaning into the future. This focus – can get confused and stressful.
Being Well Podcast: People Pleasing and the Fawn Response with Meg Josephson
Forrest and therapist Meg Josephson explore the fawn response, a survival strategy where safety is sought through people pleasing.
Talk + Meditation: Just Do the Right Thing
Caught between worry, effort, and letting go? Learn how to release what you can’t control, do the next right thing, and find peace in the middle.
Remember the Big Things
In every life, reminders arrive about what’s really important. While it’s good advice not to sweat the small stuff, we also need to nurture the large stuff.
Being Well Podcast: Anxious-Avoidant Relationships, Narcissism, and Insight to Action: Mailbag
Dr. Rick and Forrest open up the mailbag to answer questions about complex situations where good process really matters, including anxious-avoidant relationships.
Talk + Meditation: Getting Better At Pleasure! A Taxonomy of the Many Buddhist Joys
Discover the Buddha’s 5 kinds of happiness—from fleeting pleasures to lasting peace—and learn why some joys burn out while others bring freedom.
Make The Offering
Try considering your contributions as offerings, particularly the little things. Listen to your heart for offerings calling to be expressed. Maybe it’s the offering of never speaking out of anger, or really starting that novel, or determining to give love each day.
Being Well Podcast: Limerence: The Psychology of Romantic Obsession with Brandy Wyant
Forrest and therapist Brandy Wyant discuss limerence, an intense and often one-sided state of romantic obsession.