The Allender Center Podcast

Latest Episodes:

What Our Desires Reveal with Jay Stringer May 01, 2026

Show notes

What if desire isn't something to suppress or fear, but something to honor and steward?

In this two-part conversation, therapist and author Jay Stringer joins Dan Allender and Rachael Clinton Chen to explore that very question through the lens of his new book, "Desire: The Longings Inside Us and the New Science of How We Love, Heal, and Grow."

From the very beginning, it was clear this topic couldn't be contained in a single episode. Dan arrived with 16 pages of notes—so settle in for a deep, expansive conversation that unfolds across the next two weeks.

In Part 1, Jay traces the long personal and clinical journey behind Desire, opening up a deeper question beneath the surface of struggle and behavior: how do we learn to want well?

You'll hear:

Why desire often feels like a "civil war" within us
How your family of origin can shape what you long for (and what you may have denied)
The concept of the "provisional self"—and how it can both help and hinder you
Why some of the patterns you want to escape may actually be clues to deeper healing

Through personal stories, clinical insight, and thoughtful reflection, this conversation invites you to get curious about your desires—not to judge them, but to understand where they come from and where they're leading you.

Be sure to come back next week as Jay re-joins us to explore the disruptive role of desire, the courage it takes to engage it, and how to grow it within the context of community.

In the meantime, you can order your copy of Jay Stringer's newest book, "Desire: The Longings Inside Us and the New Science of How We Love, Heal, and Grow" today: https://jay-stringer.com/books/

About the Allender Center Podcast: For over a decade, the Allender Center Podcast has offered honest, thoughtful conversations about the deep work of healing and transformation. Hosted by Dr. Dan Allender and Rachael Clinton Chen, MDiv, this weekly podcast explores the complexities of trauma, abuse recovery, story, relationships, and spiritual formation. Through questions submitted by listeners, stories, interviews, and conversations, we engage the deep places of heartache and hope that are rarely addressed so candidly in our culture today. Join the Allender Center Podcast to uncover meaningful perspectives and support for your path to healing and growth. At the Allender Center, we value thoughtful dialogue across a wide range of voices, stories, and lived experiences. In that spirit, our podcast features guests and hosts who may hold differing perspectives. The perspectives shared on this podcast by guests and hosts reflect their own experiences and viewpoints and do not necessarily represent the views, positions, or endorsements of the Allender Center and/or The Seattle School of Theology & Psychology. Stream each episode, plus find transcripts, additional resources, and more at: theallendercenter.org/podcast To become a supporter of the Allender Center Podcast, visit: https://theallendercenter.org/2025/11/podcast-support/

If you and your organization would like to partner with the Allender Center Podcast, please reach out to Clay Clayton at cclayton@theallendercenter.org

How to Build a Healthier Relationship with Technology with Dawn Wible Apr 24, 2026

Show notes

We've all been there. When quickly a "just checking something" moment turns into 20 minutes lost scrolling. How hard it is to stay present with the people right in front of us. And how confusing it can be to guide our kids through a world we didn't grow up in.

In this episode, Dr. Dan Allender and Rachael Clinton Chen sit down with Dawn Wible, founder of Talk More. Tech Less., to name what many of us are wrestling with. Technology isn't just a tool; it's shaping our attention, our relationships, and even our capacity for connection.

You'll also hear about how to approach some of the harder truths many families are facing today, including online exploitation risks, and why open, shame-free conversations at home matter more than ever.

If you've ever felt the pull of your phone, the frustration of setting boundaries, or the ache of disconnection with your loved ones, you're not alone.

We invite you to listen to the full episode to hear practical insights for you and your family. And be sure to check the show notes for resources from Talk More. Tech Less., including their free guides to help you take small, meaningful steps toward healthier tech use.

Listener Resources from Talk More. Tech Less.:

Pre-Order the TMTL 30-Day Program: https://www.talkmoretechless.com/shop/talk-more-tech-less-30-day-program
Download free educational Prevention One-Pagers: https://fairplayforkids.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/ActionKitCombined.pdf

About the Allender Center Podcast:

For over a decade, the Allender Center Podcast has offered honest, thoughtful conversations about the deep work of healing and transformation. Hosted by Dr. Dan Allender and Rachael Clinton Chen, MDiv, this weekly podcast explores the complexities of trauma, abuse recovery, story, relationships, and spiritual formation. Through questions submitted by listeners, stories, interviews, and conversations, we engage the deep places of heartache and hope that are rarely addressed so candidly in our culture today. Join the Allender Center Podcast to uncover meaningful perspectives and support for your path to healing and growth.

At the Allender Center, we value thoughtful dialogue across a wide range of voices, stories, and lived experiences. In that spirit, our podcast features guests and hosts who may hold differing perspectives. The perspectives shared on this podcast by guests and hosts reflect their own experiences and viewpoints and do not necessarily represent the views, positions, or endorsements of the Allender Center and/or The Seattle School of Theology & Psychology.

Stream each episode, plus find transcripts, additional resources, and more at:

theallendercenter.org/podcast

To become a supporter of the Allender Center Podcast, visit:

https://theallendercenter.org/2025/11/podcast-support/

If you and your organization would like to partner with the Allender Center Podcast, please reach out to Clay Clayton at cclayton@theallendercenter.org

"Reclaiming Your Life From Medical Trauma" with Dr. James Jackson Apr 17, 2026

Show notes

Nearly everyone has a story of medical trauma, whether it's a surgery, a frightening diagnosis, chronic pain, a difficult birth, a long wait for answers, or even the seemingly-subtle experience of being dismissed in a clinical setting.

These moments may not always be labeled as "trauma," but they often leave a mark on our bodies, our relationships, and our sense of safety.

In this episode of the Allender Center podcast, Dan Allender and Rachael Clinton Chen sit down with Dr. James "Jim" Jackson, a leading expert in neuropsychology, long COVID, and survivorship care, to explore what it means to recognize and heal from medical trauma in all its forms.

The conversation opens up the often-overlooked reality that medical experiences don't just end when treatment ends. They can shape anxiety, trust, avoidance of care, and the emotional lives of entire families.

If you found this conversation helpful, we recommend checking out Dr. James Jackson's new book, "Reclaiming Your Life from Medical Trauma." It extends the discussion much further, offering practical guidance for patients, caregivers, and clinicians who want to better understand the emotional and physiological aftermath of medical care and how to move forward with greater care.

About the Allender Center Podcast:

Stream each episode, plus find transcripts, additional resources, and more at:

theallendercenter.org/podcast

To become a supporter of the Allender Center Podcast, visit:

https://theallendercenter.org/2025/11/podcast-support/

If you and your organization would like to partner with the Allender Center Podcast, please reach out to Clay Clayton at cclayton@theallendercenter.org

"Healthy Sexuality After Abuse" with Tabitha Westbrook, LMFT, LCMHC, LPC Apr 10, 2026

Show notes

This week, Dan and Rachael sit down with therapist, trauma care specialist, and NFTC® Alumni Tabitha Westbrook for a tender and important conversation on healthy sexuality after abuse.

In a space where many questions remain unspoken, this episode brings language to the shame, confusion, and longing so many carry in silence.

With honesty and depth, their conversation offers a grounded invitation toward healing, one that honors the complexity of your story and the goodness of your body.

This episode engages the topic of sexual abuse and sexuality, and includes mature language. Listener discretion is advised.

About the Allender Center Podcast:

Stream each episode, plus find transcripts, additional resources, and more at:

theallendercenter.org/podcast

To become a supporter of the Allender Center Podcast, visit:

https://theallendercenter.org/2025/11/podcast-support/

If you and your organization would like to partner with the Allender Center Podcast, please reach out to Clay Clayton at cclayton@theallendercenter.org

Reframing Good Friday: From Scapegoating to Restoration with Mako Nagasawa Apr 03, 2026

Show notes

We all know what it feels like to scapegoat—or to be scapegoated. To shift blame, protect ourselves, and make someone else carry what feels too heavy to hold.

So what does that have to do with Good Friday?

In this episode of the Allender Center Podcast, Mako Nagasawa helps us see that what we call "scapegoating" today is actually a distortion of its original biblical meaning.

Looking at Leviticus 16, he explains that the scapegoat was never about blaming or punishing a substitute, but about removing what didn't belong. A way of naming that the problem isn't who we are, but what has taken hold within us.

But over time, we've changed that meaning, looking for others to carry the blame instead of facing what's broken in us.

This episode invites us to see the cross differently.

Rather than reinforcing blame and punishment, Jesus steps into our cycle of scapegoating to break it, revealing a God who is not looking for someone to punish, but is committed to restoring what's broken.

This is the hope of Good Friday: not a story of blame, but the beginning of restoration.

Special Offer for our Listeners:

"Scapegoating as a Spiritual Formation Problem:" A free, four-week discussion group led by Mako Nagasawa with The Anástasis Center.

Explore how Penal Substitutionary Atonement theology encourages people to accept arbitrary authority and deploy harsh retributive justice. Explore how Medical Substitutionary Atonement theology from Early and Eastern Christianity can heal our souls, relationships, and public witness.

Enroll for free (with donations) at: https://anastasiscourses.thinkific.com/courses/scapegoating

About the Allender Center Podcast:

Stream each episode, plus find transcripts, additional resources, and more at:

theallendercenter.org/podcast

To become a supporter of the Allender Center Podcast, visit:

https://theallendercenter.org/2025/11/podcast-support/

If you and your organization would like to partner with the Allender Center Podcast, please reach out to Clay Clayton at cclayton@theallendercenter.org

Rediscovering the Gospel with Rev. Rob Schenck Mar 27, 2026

Show notes

For decades, Rev. Rob Schenck was a leading voice in the religious right, shaping policy and influencing power from the halls of Washington, D.C. But over time, he began to see that the gospel he was serving had become entangled with politics, ambition, and illusion.

In this episode, Rob reflects on the experiences that cracked his assumptions: moments of human suffering he couldn't ignore, the limits of religious influence, and the moral compromises he witnessed in powerful circles. He shares how these experiences—and encounters with people whose realities he had once dismissed—led him to reimagine faith as a call to truth, compassion, and reality rather than fantasy or control.

This conversation isn't really about politics. It's about confronting hard truths, facing the realities of the world and ourselves, and rediscovering the gospel in a society where our imaginations, privileges, and systems often distort it.

About the Allender Center Podcast:

Stream each episode, plus find transcripts, additional resources, and more at: theallendercenter.org/podcast

To become a supporter of the Allender Center Podcast, visit: https://theallendercenter.org/2025/11/podcast-support/

If you and your organization would like to partner with the Allender Center Podcast, please reach out to Clay Clayton at cclayton@theallendercenter.org

Neurodivergence, Trauma, and Story with Stephanie Isbell, MA, LCPC Mar 20, 2026

Show notes

Many listeners of the Allender Center Podcast have asked us to explore neurodivergence—especially what it means to parent neurodivergent children or to make sense of a diagnosis in adulthood.

We're pleased to welcome therapist Stephanie Isbell, a Narrative Focused Trauma Care®–trained clinician who works with neurodivergent adults and families. In conversation with Dan and Rachael, she leads us through the complex intersection of neurodivergence, trauma, identity, and story.

Neurodivergence—which can include autism, ADHD, dyslexia, dyspraxia, and more—points to the many ways human brains process the world differently. For many people, these differences have been misunderstood or pathologized, often leading to experiences of shame, isolation, and relational misunderstanding from early childhood.

Stephanie brings both clinical insight and compassionate curiosity to the conversation, helping unpack how neurodivergent people often grow up navigating social miscues, sensory overwhelm, and the pressure to "mask" their natural ways of being in order to fit in. She highlights how considering these experiences as part of a larger story—perhaps our own and perhaps those of the people we love—offers helpful layers of understanding, allowing us to respond with greater compassion.

Throughout the conversation, we are invited to cultivate deeper curiosity—about ourselves and about the people we love. For parents, partners, and communities, this means moving beyond forcing conformity and instead learning to ask better questions, listen more carefully, and honor the unique ways each person experiences the world.

About the Allender Center Podcast:

Stream each episode, plus find transcripts, additional resources, and more at:

theallendercenter.org/podcast

To become a supporter of the Allender Center Podcast, visit:

https://theallendercenter.org/2025/11/podcast-support/

If you and your organization would like to partner with the Allender Center Podcast, please reach out to Clay Clayton at cclayton@theallendercenter.org

Narrative Focused Trauma Care® with Becky Allender Mar 13, 2026

Show notes

Have you been living within a role for years—only to wonder if there is more of you still waiting to be known?

For decades, Becky Allender stood faithfully behind the scenes, supporting Dan's work, praying as an intercessor, helping build what would become the Allender Center. Yet she also carried the ache of being "in the room" without fully feeling she had a seat at the table. In today's conversation, she names the cost of that tension, and the courage it took to step forward.

When Becky chose to participate in Narrative Focused Trauma Care—the very framework her husband helped create—something began to shift. Through the steady presence of skilled facilitators and courageous companions, she encountered grief she hadn't fully named and discovered a growing kindness toward parts of herself long defended or hidden.

What followed was not only personal healing, but relational transformation. Through the language she gained and interactions she experienced, her relationship with Dan deepened. Repair with her daughters became possible. Her love for her parents softened and expanded. And from that engagement with her story emerged a clearer sense of calling—expressed in her teaching, leadership, and her memoir, Hidden in Plain Sight.

Perhaps most compelling is this: Becky began this work after decades of marriage, motherhood, and ministry. It was not too late. And it is not too late for you.

What might you be missing by staying in the role you've always carried? And what new life could unfold if you trusted that your story is still being written?

*This episode mentions an incident of rape; listener discretion is advised.

About the Allender Center Podcast:

Stream each episode, plus find transcripts, additional resources, and more at:

theallendercenter.org/podcast

To become a supporter of the Allender Center Podcast, visit:

https://theallendercenter.org/2025/11/podcast-support/

"Growing Up Pure" with Lauren D. Sawyer, PhD Mar 06, 2026

Show notes

What if healing from purity culture requires more than naming how you were hurt? What if it also means asking how you participated?

In this episode, Dr. Dan Allender and Rachael Clinton Chen sit down with their colleague Dr. Lauren Sawyer, to explore her new book, Growing Up Pure.

Lauren names something many haven't had language for: as teens, we weren't only victims of purity culture; we were also moral agents within it. We made choices. We found belonging. We sometimes resisted in small ways. And at times, we participated in systems that harmed others and ourselves.

That tension between vulnerability and agency, harm and complicity can feel destabilizing. Yet Lauren invites us to see accountability not as punishment, but as a sacred, even hopeful, practice.

What if repentance wasn't shame-driven, but a pathway toward integration? What if healing meant not only tending to the wounds purity culture caused, but also examining how we were formed by—and sometimes upheld—it?

This episode is honest, nuanced, and tender. It creates space to grieve the damage of purity culture while also imagining a different story. One rooted in the belief that we are made in the image of God as embodied, relational, sexual beings… and that restoration is possible.

About the Allender Center Podcast:

Stream each episode, plus find transcripts, additional resources, and more at:

theallendercenter.org/podcast

To become a supporter of the Allender Center Podcast, visit:

https://theallendercenter.org/2025/11/podcast-support/

"Eucontamination: Disgust Theology and the Christian Life" with Paul Hoard, PhD, and Billie Hoard Feb 27, 2026

Show notes

How often do we think about disgust? Yet it shapes our choices, relationships, and even our faith every day in ways we rarely notice.

In this episode of the Allender Center Podcast, Dr. Paul Hoard and Billie Hoard discuss their new book, "Eucontamination: Disgust Theology and the Christian Life," exploring how this powerful, often overlooked force influences us.

Drawing from theology and psychology, they examine how disgust—originally designed to protect us—can become a tool for exclusion when applied to people rather than pathogens. From purity culture to nationalism to everyday relational divides, they consider how "contamination logic" forms the world around us.

But the heart of their work is hopeful: Jesus doesn't abolish disgust—he inverts it. In Christ, holiness is not fragile. Love is stronger than sin. What looks contaminating does not defile him; instead, his presence transforms from within.

This conversation invites us to reflect on where disgust may be shaping our reactions, relationships, and theology—and to imagine a discipleship formed by more courageous, more transformative love.

About the Allender Center Podcast:

Stream each episode, plus find transcripts, additional resources, and more at:

theallendercenter.org/podcast

To become a supporter of the Allender Center Podcast, visit:

https://theallendercenter.org/2025/11/podcast-support/