Research Matters Podcast

Latest Episodes:

Alan Kooi Davis on Getting Started in Psychedelic Science, Collaboration, and the Source Research Foundation Sep 27, 2019

Show notes

Dr. Alan Kooi Davis is an Assistant Professor of Social Work at The Ohio State University and an Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Psychedelic Research Unit at Johns Hopkins University. He's a researcher in the area of psychedelics, especially psilocybin, and how psychedelics can be used in treatment. He has also done research on harm reduction and drug use more generally, but in this episode we decided to focus on how he got into research on psychedelics for people who are interested in doing work in that area.

Dr. Davis was ahead of the curve in his interest in exploring the use of psychedelics as a component of treatment. As a graduate student, he felt alone in his research interests, and so he sought opportunities to connect with others who were passionate about this potentially viable treatment option. He harnessed opportunities at conferences and online connections to build collaborations in the field of psychedelics. Seeing the need for an organized space in which to bring together researchers and resources, and wanting to build the structure that he wished had been available to him, he also formed the Source Research Foundation, which provides grants to and facilitates collaboration among students and researchers interested in psychedelics.

Dr. Davis writes...a lot. Check out his published works and you'll see what I mean. Tune in to hear his tips and tricks for staying motivated and disciplined in your writing.

In this episode, you'll learn…

How to get involved in psychedelic science
About the scenarios in which you're most likely to get support for research in the psychedelics realm
How to foster collaboration
About Source Research Foundation
Why he decided to pursue a second postdoctoral position
His advice to graduate students who are studying or have an interest in psychedelics
His tips for structuring the writing process and staying motivated

Tips from the episode

On how to find support for research in psychedelics (or other areas of interest)…

Try to find a supportive graduate advisor/mentor
Publish and present as much as possible.
If you are a clinical psychologist, get trained in the latest evidence-based methods for the disorders that you might want to work with using psychedelics
Develop the skills you need to be a good scientist in general. You'll never know what will make you competitive for a job in the future.
Publish studies on psychedelics to build your vitae
Connect with people at psychedelic science conferences (e.g., psychedelic science, Breaking Convention)
Look for opportunities online to help out researchers, particularly the MAPS graduate student listerv/Facebook

On building collaborations and connections...

Proactively look for others with similar interests
Look for remote opportunities within your area of interest
Connect with other students in master and PhD programs with similar interests
Attend conferences and make connections, and don't overlook connecting with other grad students

Research Matters Podcast is hosted by Jason Luoma, who can be found on Twitter @jasonluoma or Facebook at: facebook.com/jasonluomaphd. You download the podcast through iTunes, Stitcher, or Spotify.

George Bonanno on Unconventional Research, Being Led by Curiosity, and How to Deal with Setbacks Sep 04, 2019

Show notes

Dr. Bonanno is chair of the department of counseling and clinical psychology at Columbia University's Teachers College. He is a world leader on research around trauma, bereavement, and resilience. His interest in how people cope with difficult events and circumstances has led to studies around grief, trauma, acute medical situations, and other unpleasant events.

In this episode, you'll learn…

The rewards and consequences of pursuing controversial questions
What to do when your work is published...and then ignored
About the weak basis for many assumptions within psychology
How to protect your curiosity from being squelched by the day-to-day
Why it's especially easy for those young in their careers to stay within the safe realm of the conventional
Why Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi encouraged him to look for employment with a small school and why you might too
How to deal with disappointments and setbacks
How to keep the pragmatic details of work from encroaching on your mental space

Tips from the episode

On how to maintain motivation when doing something unconventional…

You have to be internally motivated by the questions
Begin with "What do we know and how do we know it? How solid is the evidence?"
When you find something counterintuitive and trust your methods, it's usually easy to stay motivated
If you believe you're on the right track, that's rewarding in itself
Follow your own interests

On dealing with setbacks and the parts of your job that you don't enjoy

Remember that the unusable finding of today might be usable in the future
Hang in there. Keep pursuing the ideas that motivate you.
Be creative with the tasks you have. Put your own spin on things. Modify things so they're more amenable to your goals.
Be open to failure and admit when something has failed.

Links from the episode:

Joanna Arch on Disciplined Time Tracking, Grant Writing, and the Blending of Passion and Profession Aug 08, 2019

Show notes

Joanna Arch is an associate professor at the University of Colorado, Boulder. She is also a member of the Cancer Center in the Division of Cancer Prevention and Control. Her research initially focused on anxiety disorders, but she's recently added a focus on cancer patients. Being married to an oncologist and having a personal interest in existential issues helped her embrace her initial reservations about entering work on cancer, which can be very emotional and challenging. Once she braved the waters, though, she found increased meaning, drive, and satisfaction in her work.

An avid runner and trained as a classical musician, Joanna understands the power of discipline, and she brings structured discipline to her work day. In today's episode, you'll hear how Joanna stays focused and maximizes her time at work, whether it's with students, in the lab, or writing grants.

Speaking of grants, Joanna's favorite part of writing grants and papers is -- wait for it -- editing. The hardest part for her is getting started. When it comes to grants, she's tasted both success and failure, and she understands that rejection is just part of the grant-application game. That said, she's determined to learn from each failure, each bit of criticism, every line of feedback. She's also keen on recognizing her own weaknesses and getting help when needed.

In this episode, you'll learn…

How things changed for Joanna about a year ago after she received tenure
How Joanna stays healthy and productive as a faculty member
About the "zone of genius" and how Joanna monitors her time and plans her week
How to stay connected to your purpose and avoid burnout
How to deal with rejection in academia
Joanna's grant writing tips
How Joanna transitioned her career from a focus on treatment of anxiety to including psychological issues unique to cancer patients

Tips from the episode

On structuring and tracking time to increase productivity…

Use an Excel spreadsheet to track every minute of the workday
Review tallies at the end of each week
Brain dump at the end of each week and create a list of what you want to accomplish in the coming week
Schedule small tasks for when you're a passenger in transit
Create writing goals and block/schedule writing time
Track your mood throughout the day to understand what tasks most light your fire and then plan accordingly

On writing and applying for grants

Understand that applying for grants is a hyper-competitive space and have realistic expectations about the odds
Be responsive to feedback
Don't give up. Keep hitting.
When a paper is rejected, write responses (for yourself) to each point made by the reviewer, even if you aren't going to resubmit to that journal
Be honest about your weaknesses and get help in those areas
Break down the writing process into small parts

Links from the episode:

Research Matters Podcast is hosted by Jason Luoma, who can be found on Twitter @jasonluoma or Facebook at: facebook.com/jasonluomaphd. You download the podcast through iTunes, Stitcher, or Spotify.

Evan Forman on Nurturing Collaborations, Finding Stellar Project Coordinators, and Healthy Skepticism Jun 05, 2019

Show notes

Dr. Evan Forman is a professor of psychology at Drexel University and a director of the University's "WELL Center" (Center for Weight, Eating and Lifestyle Science), an interdisciplinary clinic, research, and training center dedicated to developing and sharing innovative solutions to treat obesity, poor diet, sedentariness and disordered eating.

In this Episode you'll learn:

How to create fertile environments for collaboration
How to hire stellar project coordinators
How to incorporate behavioral tasks into interviews
How to have your values guide your research decisions
What Evan does to start and end a productive day
How to think about research at a meta-level

Matthew McKay on How to Write More than 30 Professional Books May 30, 2019

Show notes

Today's interview is with Dr. Matthew McKay. Dr. McKay is a co-founder of New Harbinger publications and a professor at The Wright Institute in Berkeley, California. For those who don't know, New Harbinger is one of the largest publishers of mental health related books. Through New Harbinger, he pioneered the very idea of client workbooks and has written many himself. In addition to being an active researcher, the main thing I wanted to interview Matt about was how he has been able to write more than 30 professional and self help books, which have sold more than 3 million copies. My goal in this interview was to learn how he can write so many books and also to get an insider's view on how to get a book published in the mental health space.

Dr. McKay began his career publishing a range of books (e.g. business manuals, children's books) for a small publishing company he created with a friend. He accidentally stumbled into the world of self-help books when helping his then-girlfriend turn her pamphlet on stress reduction into a book. This book went on to sell over a million copies, underscoring the big demand for accessible, evidence-based, skills building workbooks. Since then, Dr. McKay has written prolifically (usually in hotel rooms, trains, or his country house), authoring more than 30 professional psychology and self-help books which have sold, combined, more than 3 million copies. His motivation stems from a simple principle: he only writes books for people he understands and cares about. For 25 years, he was the clinical director of Haight Ashbury Psychological Services. Now, he is a professor of psychology at the Wright Institute in Berkeley, co-founder of New Harbinger Publications, and the current director of the Berkeley CBT Clinic.

Dr. McKay clearly has a knack for writing (fun fact: he is an accomplished novelist and poet to boot), and in this episode, he shares numerous writing tips, ranging from how to sustain motivation, to how to cater your book to the audience you're striving to help. If you are a scientist who wants to translate their work into either a professional book or a book for the public, you will want to hear what he has to say.

What you'll learn:

How to write self-help books well (that are accessible and helpful to a specific audience)
How he determines co-authorship
When to put a body of research into a book
How to get things done (Hint: outlining and commitment)

Writing Tips:

Be clear about your audience—how do they think, and what do they care about?
Begin by writing a table of contents, and save writing the introduction for last
When presenting a skill, present it in three ways: explain the precept, include an experiential task, and provide an example
To sustain motivation, have commitment (not just to the project, but to the reason behind the project)
Commit to a particular time or place when a specific task (e.g. chapter) will be completed

Links from this episode:

Jonathan Bricker on Creating Research Teams and Life at an Independent Research Center Apr 10, 2019

Show notes

I'm pretty sure that Jonathan Bricker has more research funding to study Acceptance and Commitment Therapy than any other researcher (it's hard to confirm this as there is no central database). For this alone he's a person worth interviewing. He's also interesting as a researcher who deeply considers how research can help us scale psychosocial interventions to reach millions of people, and thus apps and websites feature prominently in his research. If you are interested in learning how to do clinical research that scales, then this is a guy you want to pay attention to. If you don't trust me that he has ideas worth spreading, then maybe you'll trust the over three million views of his TEDx talk on the science of self-control.

Meet Dr. Jonathan Bricker

Dr. Jonathan Bricker received extensive training in helping people who struggle with anxiety and substance use addictions, through his PhD program at University of Washington, and through serving as a research therapist in a large National Institute of Health (NIH) trial. Now, he has his own private practice, is the President of the Washington Association of Contextual Behavioral Science, and is a full-time researcher at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, where he leads a research team conducting cutting-edge clinical trials on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy and smoking cessation.

Kelly Koerner on Finding the Edge of What is Known in Research Mar 22, 2019

Show notes

Dr. Kelly Koerner is currently the Creative Director of the Evidence-Based Practice Institute, a company she founded. Her work combines technology, design thinking, and science to improve mental health care and help clinicians implement evidence-based practices. After graduating from University of Washington, she was one of the earliest pioneers of Dialectical behavior therapy as the first CEO of Behavioral Tech, the main organization responsible for research on DBT and it's training. After this, rather than going into academia, she instead decided to found a company that could use science to develop products that would allow for scale and public health impact. Part of what I am aiming to do with this podcast is to interview the outliers, the people who take a different approach to their research and career. It's the outliers that often are the ones from whom we can learn the most groundbreaking strategies and approaches. Kelly is certainly an outlier in terms of how she approaches her research and in terms of her productivity. She is one of my mentors and I love the way that she thinks about research and how to approach it in a way that can make an impact. There's so much richness in what she says in this episode and I am glad to be able to share it with you.

E1 - Mike Twohig on Producing Tons of Research While Biking Hundreds of Miles a Week and Having a Family Feb 15, 2019

Show notes

For this show I interview Dr. Mike Twohig, a professor at Utah State University. I've known Mike since the end of graduate school where I first observed the remarkable ways in which he goes about his research. One thing I have always admired is that he somehow manages to be extraordinarily productive, while at the same time living a balanced life. For example, in addition to being an incredibly productive researcher, he's a devoted family man and has some hobbies that take up many hours of his time each week. I also know that he rarely works on weekends.

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