This podcast is a field guide for professionals seeking perspectives and techniques for helping others find their balanced path. It's also for people who want to learn the self-counseling pathways, navigation tools, and practices to live a centered life. Organized into several series, this podcast focuses on: (1) understanding the territory of personal psychology, (2) tools and techniques for counseling others in how to develop a centered and balanced life, and (3) tools and techniques for navigating your own emotional, cognitive, behavioral, and self-regulation challenges.
80. SIB4 - The Neuro-Psychiatry of Superficial Cutting
Episode 80 of the Becoming Centered Podcast reviews the psychology that drives superficial cutting and layers on top of that a presentation of the neuro-psychiatric perspective. That understanding, of what's actually going on in the brain when a client engages in superficial cutting, explains why minimizing staff attention given to this this self-injurious behavior does not reduce the frequency or the severity of repeat episodes. Superficial cutting becomes a habitual, even addictive, behavior because it powerfully changes the chemistry and functioning of the brain. With this understanding, Residential Treatment Staff can use physiological interrupts and other concrete interventions to give clients the skills they need to end their use of this maladaptive coping mechanism.
11 Sept 2026
79. SIB3 - The Psychology of Superficial Cutting
Episode 79 of the Becoming Centered Podcast is the third part of an arc focusing on self-injurious behaviors among children and youth at a residential treatment program. This episode moves on from the SIB of head-banging and looks at superficial cutting. Among some residential treatment populations, this is a distressingly common behavior; however, most staff probably have never attended any training specifically on this behavior.
In addition to addressing the residential counselor's initial response, this episode presents the psychology behind superficial cutting. Fifteen overlapping reasons for this method of non-suicidal self-harm are reviewed. It's really helpful for counselors to know the most common reasons for cutting, so that they can help their child and youth clients find the words to identify their specific motivations. Being able to use words to discuss what is prompting them to engage in this SIB can prevent future incidents, lessen the medical seriousness of future incidents, and put the client on a path to ending this maladaptive way of changing their state-of-mind when emotionally overwhelmed, when experiencing positive feelings from the behavior, and when engaging in the behavior is a form of self-definition and identity.
3 Sept 2026
78. SIB2 - Responding to Intense Head-Banging
Episode 78 of the Becoming Centered Podcast is the second part of an arc focusing on self-injurious behaviors among children and youth living at a residential treatment center. The first part of this episode continues to look at relatively light head-banging, but specifically among kids with severe and profound autism. As part of that, there's a brief description of how to conduct a Functional Behavioral Analysis as a technique for responding to kids who are largely non-verbal. This episode then moves on to look at intense head-banging among emotionally disturbed kids and kids with psychosis.
Intense head-banging is inherently upsetting to witness and intervening is often times an adrenalated event. That almost guarantees that this self-injurious behavior exposes staff to traumatic stress. Time is devoted to talking about what staff can do both before and after such exposure to minimize the lasting negative effects on their own nervous system.
Reach and audience
Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.
Apple Podcasts (US)
5.0 / 5
3 ratings
Spotify
5.0 / 5
4 ratings
Podcast Authority Score: 52 / 100
A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.
Quality
80
Social presence
0
YouTube
0
Engagement
60
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Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.
Questions about Becoming Centered
Who hosts Becoming Centered?
Becoming Centered Podcast host the show. Published by Russ Bloch, MSW, MBA.
How often do new episodes come out?
The show publishes bi-weekly, based on its RSS feed.
Does Becoming Centered take guests?
Yes. Guests have been identified in episode analyses.
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