The SelfWork Podcast

By: Margaret Robinson Rutherford PhD
  • Summary

  • I'm Dr. Margaret, a psychologist for over 30 years, TEDx speaker, and the author of Perfectly Hidden Depression. I created The SelfWork Podcast in 2016 to explain mental health treatment and to give you the chance to consider therapy without thinking it's weird or that it somehow suggests you can't fix your own problems. My team is very honored that nine years later, SelfWork has earned nearly 5 million downloads! Each episode features the popular listener question as well as interviews with outstanding guests, authors, and experts, adding to the wide diversity of topics listeners so appreciate. Regularly rated as one of the top mental health/depression podcasts out there (ranked as a top .5% internationally) I keep it short, casual, and focused on "what you can do about it." I'd love to hear from you. Please join me.

    DrMargaretRutherford.com
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Episodes
  • 444 SelfWork: How to Heal Your Mind Through Your Body: A Conversation with Karden Rabin
    May 2 2025

    If you want to find out how to heal your mind through your body, this interview with the very kind and compassionate Karden Rabin is a must-listen.

    Drawing on decades of research in neuroplasticity, psychology, trauma, behavior, clinical experience with clients, and their own personal journeys of recovering from chronic illness and pain, Jennifer and Karden teach readers how to learn and ‘speak’ the language of the nervous system. Following a simple yet powerful approach called A I R, readers are guided through three stages of regulation:

    • Awareness: Listening to the messages in your body through breath, action, sensations, emotions, and language.
    • Interruption: stopping the unhelpful patterns in your nervous system and modifying the responses to achieve regulation
    • Redesign: rewiring the habits that have been keeping you stuck in order to settle and heal your nervous system, mind and body.
    How to heal your mind through your body...

    Complete with helpful illustrations of somatic exercises, THE SECRET LANGUAGE OF THE BODY offers a revolutionary look at how we can treat chronic mental and physical illness and empowers us all to unlock the secret language of the nervous system.

    Advertisers Links:

    Midi Health is a women's clinic, designed specifically for women's needs, and it's likely to be covered by your insurance! Go to https://trymidi.com/selfwork and then add Save 15 for $15 off your first order!

    Manage your hormones with the help of Happy Mammoth, a leader in women's health! Go to https://happymammoth.com/selfwork to order!

    Click HERE for the NEW GEN offer from AG1 – with bonus product with your subscription!

    You can hear more about this and many other topics by listening to my podcast, SelfWork with Dr. Margaret Rutherford. Subscribe to my website and receive my weekly newsletter including a blog post and podcast! If you’d like to join my FaceBook closed group, then click here and answer the membership questions! Welcome!

    My book entitled Perfectly Hidden Depression is available here! Its message is specifically for those with a struggle with strong perfectionism which acts to camouflage underlying emotional pain. But the many self-help techniques described can be used by anyone who chooses to begin to address emotions long hidden away that are clouding and sabotaging your current life.

    And there’s another way to send me a message! You can record by clicking below and ask your question or make a comment. You’ll have 90 seconds to do so and that time goes quickly. By recording, you’re giving SelfWork (and me) permission to use your voice on the podcast. I’ll look forward to hearing from you!




    Our Sponsors:
    * Check out Happy Mammoth and use my code SELFWORK for a great deal: https://happymammoth.com


    Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands
    Show More Show Less
    42 mins
  • 443 SelfWork: What to Do About Emotional Manipulation
    Apr 25 2025

    Emotional manipulation can be hard to figure out. But when you do, it's also hard to know what to do about it.

    So today, I’m going to use two such questions from listeners to give you some ideas. First is from a mom who took care of her granddaughter a lot early on – and now feels that her daughter and her relationship has become toxic and the daughter is withholding her child from her.

    Second is from a woman who has “lots” kids with a man she’s been married to for many years. But she also writes that he's intensely enmeshed with his parents, choosing to spend much time with them over her, their kids, and/or her parents. And then blames her for not supporting him. What she seems to be describing is not having any true trust or shared goals with her husband.

    Here are three helpful questions to ask yourself is you're the victim of emotional manipulation:

    • How do you figure out you’re being manipulated?
    • What are you afraid will happen if you confront the manipulation? .
    • If you choose to act, what’s a healthy way to move forward?

    Advertisers' Links and Special Offers:
    • Have you been putting off getting help? BetterHelp, the #1 online therapy provider, has a special offer for you now!

    • Midi Health is a women's clinic, designed specifically for women's needs, and it's likely to be covered by your insurance! Go to https://trymidi.com/selfwork and then add Save 15 for $15 off your first order!

    • Manage your hormones with the help of Happy Mammoth, a leader in women's health! Go to https://happymammoth.com/selfwork to order!

    • You can hear more about this and many other topics by listening to my podcast, SelfWork with Dr. Margaret Rutherford. Subscribe to my website and receive my weekly newsletter including a blog post and podcast! If you’d like to join my FaceBook closed group, then click here and answer the membership questions! Welcome!
    • My book entitled Perfectly Hidden Depression is available here! Its message is specifically for those with a struggle with strong perfectionism which acts to mask underlying emotional pain. But the many self-help techniques described can be used by everyone who chooses to begin to address emotions long hidden away that are clouding and sabotaging your current life.
    • There’s another way to send me a message! You can record by clicking below and ask your question or make a comment. You’ll have 90 seconds to do so and that time goes quickly. By recording, you’re giving SelfWork (and me) permission to use your voice on the podcast. I’ll look forward to hearing from you!



    Our Sponsors:
    * Check out Happy Mammoth and use my code SELFWORK for a great deal: https://happymammoth.com


    Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands
    Show More Show Less
    24 mins
  • 442 SelfWork: How to Get Over the Feeling That You're Not Important
    Apr 18 2025

    Today we’re going to focus on the feeling that you're not important - a feeling likely created by how you were parented.

    How does this happen? Your parents' careers came first. The parents themselves came first for one another, only caring for the child as a secondhand and almost bothersome activity. Your being wasn’t celebrated – instead what you could achieve got some notice, as long as you continued to be successful. Your parent was overly self-involved because of their own trauma or mental illness – and never was it explained to you what was truly going on – so you believed you weren’t enough.

    At its worst, the dynamic of not feeling that you're important is rejection. At the best, it can feel like conditional love. And in between, the now adult child could feel a deep sense of emptiness and insecurity that they may seek to fill up in a myriad of ways.

    Our listener voicemail is a shocking reminder of what can happen when a parent doesn’t guide a child (no matter how old) to separate from them – to encourage them to live their own lives. But rather, instills in them at a young age that their job is to stay close to the parent. And an emotional codependence is encouraged.

    Vital Links:

    Bob Waldinger's interview on the Harvard study of happiness

    Seven steps out of enmeshment: SelfWork episode

    Advertisers Links:

    Midi Health is a women's clinic, designed specifically for women's needs, and it's likely to be covered by your insurance! Go to https://trymidi.com/selfwork and then add Save 15 for $15 off your first order!

    Find out what your "true age" is! Go to https://trudiagnostic.com/selfwork to sign up and get a discount for being a SelfWork listener!

    Manage your hormones with the help of Happy Mammoth, a leader in women's health! Go to https://happymammoth.com/selfwork to order!

    Click HERE for the NEW fabulous offer from AG1 – with bonus product with your subscription!

    You can hear more about this and many other topics by listening to my podcast, SelfWork with Dr. Margaret Rutherford. Subscribe to my website and receive my weekly newsletter including a blog post and podcast! If you’d like to join my FaceBook closed group, then click here and answer the membership questions! Welcome!

    My book entitled Perfectly Hidden Depression is available here! Its message is specifically for those with a struggle with strong perfectionism which acts to camouflage underlying emotional pain. But the many self-help techniques described can be used by anyone who chooses to begin to address emotions long hidden away that are clouding and sabotaging your current life.

    And there’s another way to send me a message! You can record by clicking below and ask your question or make a comment. You’ll have 90 seconds to do so and that time goes quickly. By recording, you’re giving SelfWork (and me) permission to use your voice on the podcast. I’ll look forward to hearing from you!




    Our Sponsors:
    * Check out Happy Mammoth and use my code SELFWORK for a great deal: https://happymammoth.com


    Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands
    Show More Show Less
    22 mins

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