Live Well Be Well with Sarah Ann Macklin | Health, Lifestyle, Nutrition

This week I’m joined by Frank Anderson, Harvard-trained psychiatrist, psychotherapist and one of the leading voices in trauma treatment, for a conversation that goes far beyond traditional therapy.

What we explore together:

• Why trauma treatment was never meant to be a single method, and what 11 years of psychoanalysis taught him about its limits

• The viral “does trauma live in the brain or the body” debate, and what his close friend Bessel van der Kolk actually meant by The Body Keeps the Score

• Why attraction is often about unhealed wounding, not love, and how it shaped his own first marriage

• What it actually looks like to heal trauma through the body, not just by talking about it

• Why he believes we’re entering “the era of the body,” and what that means for AI and disconnection

Love, Sarah Ann 💛
My book, Healthy Shouldn’t Be This Hard:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Healthy-Shouldnt-Be-This-Hard-ebook/dp/B0G1DHNRV5

This episode is sponsored by:

POLSEN HEALTH: The compassionate health tracker. Connecting body and mind with unique stress recovery insights so you can live fully today.

👉 15% off with code LWBW15 at https://polsen.health/

📖 If this resonates, you can join the thousands who read The Compassionate Cure each week.

https://sarahmacklin.substack.com/

Let’s be friends!

📷 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sarahannmacklin/

📹 Subscribe: https://www.youtube.com/@livewellbewellsarah

🐦 Twitter: https://x.com/SarahAnnMacklin

📱 TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@livewellbewellpodcast

Frank Anderson:

🔗 Website: https://www.frankandersonmd.com

📷 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/frank_andersonmd/

Chapters
00:00 Introduction
01:40 Why “trauma” is such a loaded word to open with
02:08 Generational reactions to trauma: boomer denial vs. Gen Z over-identification
03:59 Changing the whole paradigm on trauma
05:07 Why therapy alone doesn’t work for trauma
05:25 11 years of psychoanalysis and The Integrated Path to Healing Trauma
08:34 “Trauma is a violation of agency”
09:34 Regaining self-trust and reconnecting to your intuition
10:30 His first marriage and recreating his parents’ dynamic
12:37 Sponsor break: Polsen Health
14:47 People pleasing as a survival strategy, not a trauma response
18:03 The origin of his own people-pleasing: his father, Harvard and “To Be Loved”
22:02 The Bessel van der Kolk “Body Keeps the Score” debate
23:14 Working with celebrity clients in LA, and being attacked for something he didn’t do
27:18 Setting the record straight: it’s not brain OR body, it’s both
29:57 “Nobody’s trauma is the same, it’s like your fingerprint”
32:02 The pushback on his next book’s proposed title
33:52 What resilience actually is, and his own “baby in a crib” trauma
39:54 Blending science and spirituality
42:55 How trauma shows up as physical illness (asthma, migraines, back pain)
45:11 The choking sensation and learning to speak his truth
47:58 Preverbal trauma and healing through the body
50:45 Journaling, the Sarno method, and a client physically releasing repressed rage
56:17 Why trauma memories are stored differently (Ruth Lanius)
57:34 Why Frank won’t do a session without movement
58:14 Healing chronic pain through surfing and ecstatic dance
59:54 Why therapy’s 50-minutes-a-week format fights neuroplasticity
1:00:38 Healing a jellyfish-sting trauma through surfing after the Palisades fire
1:03:11 Trauma blocks love, and love blocks trauma
1:04:28 Why we’re attracted to people with the same wound
1:08:16 “Love is my husband”: 27 years together
1:16:27 Healthy love, nervous systems, and the difference between an emotion and a reaction
1:23:18 Internal Family Systems and the difference between self and soul
1:29:15 Why trauma resists a single definition
1:33:16 Holding uncertainty in the healing process
1:38:28 AI, disconnection, and “the era of the body”
1:45:27 Why Frank moved to Hollywood
1:46:19 Frank’s closing thesis: healing is possible
1:47:44 What does Live Well Be Well mean to you?

This week’s Live Well Be Well Moment is with Matt Haig, bestselling author and mental health advocate.

Matt talks about being diagnosed with ADHD in his mid-40s, why he hates the word “diagnosis,” and the years of feeling like “a weirdo” before he understood why.

My book ‘Healthy Shouldn’t Be This Hard’:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Healthy-Shouldnt-Be-This-Hard-ebook/dp/B0G1DHNRV5

📖 If this resonates, you can join the thousands who read The Compassionate Cure each week.
https://sarahmacklin.substack.com/

Let’s be friends!

📷 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sarahannmacklin/
📹 Subscribe: https://www.youtube.com/@livewellbewellsarah
🐦 Twitter: https://x.com/SarahAnnMacklin
📱 TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@livewellbewellpodcast
💌 Newsletter: https://sarahmacklin.substack.com/

This week’s Live Well Be Well Moment is with Silva Neves, an accredited psychosexual and relationship therapist.

Silva explains why most fantasies, kinks and fetishes are far more normal than we assume, and how it’s actually shame, not the kink itself, that quietly shuts down honest sexual communication in long-term relationships.

My book ‘Healthy Shouldn’t Be This Hard’:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Healthy-Shouldnt-Be-This-Hard-ebook/dp/B0G1DHNRV5

📖 If this resonates, you can join the thousands who read The Compassionate Cure each week.
https://sarahmacklin.substack.com/

Let’s be friends!

📷 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sarahannmacklin/
📹 Subscribe: https://www.youtube.com/@livewellbewellsarah
🐦 Twitter: https://x.com/SarahAnnMacklin
📱 TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@livewellbewellpodcast
💌 Newsletter: https://sarahmacklin.substack.com/

This week I'm joined by Dr Karan Rajan, NHS surgeon turned bestselling author and Chief of Science at Throne Science, for a conversation about optimisation culture: wearables, peptides, Bryan Johnson, and why more data isn't always better data.

What we explore together:
•His own health scare at 28, when a routine blood test uncovered fatty liver disease from a low-fibre diet

•Why "the illusion of health" might be the real cost of the wearable and wellness boom

•Bryan Johnson, colonoscopies, and why the most measured man in history still missed the basics

•The peptides debate: survivorship bias, zero human trial data, and what to actually ask before you try one

•A hospice nurse's deathbed regrets, and what they reveal about how we're really spending our time

•Creatine's kidney false alarm, and the simple blood test that solved it

•The "fever dream" that became Throne Science, and the mission to catch colon cancer early

Love, Sarah Ann 💛

My book 'Healthy Shouldn't Be This Hard': https://www.amazon.co.uk/Healthy-Shouldnt-Be-This-Hard-ebook/dp/B0G1DHNRV5

This episode is sponsored by:

POLSEN HEALTH: The compassionate health tracker. Connecting body and mind with unique stress recovery insights so you can live fully today.
👉 15% off with code LWBW15 at https://polsen.health/

PULSETTO: Vagus nerve stimulation for stress, sleep and calm.

👉 Use code SARAHANN at https://pulsetto.sjv.io/SARAHANN

📖 If this resonates, you can join the thousands who read The Compassionate Cure each week.
https://sarahmacklin.substack.com/

Let's be friends!
📷 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sarahannmacklin/
📹 Subscribe: https://www.youtube.com/@livewellbewellsarah
🐦 Twitter: https://x.com/SarahAnnMacklin
📱 TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@livewellbewellpodcast

Dr Karan Rajan:
🔗 Throne Science: https://www.thronescience.com
📷 Instagram/TikTok/YouTube: @DrKaranRajan

Chapters

00:00 Introduction

01:05 Welcome + what's interesting Karan right now

02:19 His own health scare at 28: fatty liver, high cholesterol, low fibre

04:10 Wearables, optimisation culture and "orthosomnia"

05:56 Bryan Johnson: most measured human in history, still skipped his colonoscopy

14:51 Rick Rubin, Wilderness festival

16:12 "Illusion of health": wearables, data and fragility wrapped in a wellness aesthetic

19:09 The hospice nurse's deathbed regrets

20:23 The red cup trick, and why coffee helps you poop

24:22 Sugar substitutes and the cognitive-decline headline, unpacked

38:21 Wireless headphones and the cysts claim, debunked

42:54 Creatine and cognitive health

43:35 The kidney false alarm, and the test that solved it

49:47 Peptides: what they actually are

53:09 Survivorship bias and the total lack of human trial data

59:54 The Enhanced Games and performance enhancers

1:03:51 His own burnout and productivity

1:09:35 Why success and balance aren't compatible in this season of life

1:15:31 The Throne Science origin story

1:19:22 Sarah's own polyposis syndrome reveal

1:23:19 Closing: links and sign-off

This week’s Live Well Be Well Moment is with Dr Mark Horowitz, lead author of the Maudsley Deprescribing Guidelines, the UK NHS’s official guidance on safely stopping psychiatric medication.

This is a moment from the episode that stuck with me: Dr Horowitz explains the liquid tapering method for coming off antidepressants, the non-linear dose-response curve behind that “jumping off a cliff” feeling, and what a genuinely safe, gradual reduction can actually look like.

My book ‘Healthy Shouldn’t Be This Hard’:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Healthy-Shouldnt-Be-This-Hard-ebook/dp/B0G1DHNRV5

This episode is sponsored by:

POLSEN HEALTH: The compassionate health tracker. Connecting body and mind with unique stress recovery insights so you can live fully today.
👉 15% off with code LWBW15 at https://polsen.health/

PULSETTO: Vagus nerve stimulation for stress, sleep and calm.
👉 Use code SARAHANN at https://pulsetto.sjv.io/SARAHANN

📖 If this resonates, you can join the thousands who read The Compassionate Cure each week.
https://sarahmacklin.substack.com/

Let’s be friends!

📷 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sarahannmacklin/
📹 Subscribe: https://www.youtube.com/@livewellbewellsarah
🐦 Twitter: https://x.com/SarahAnnMacklin
📱 TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@livewellbewellpodcast
💌 Newsletter: https://sarahmacklin.substack.com/