Doorknob Comments was named for a phenomenon that sometimes happens at the end of a therapy session, when the patient may mention something important and riddled with conflict, right as you’re walking out the door. Equal parts frustrating and enlightening, it surfaces key issues which may--or may not!-- get addressed anytime soon.
The Clinical Effectiveness of Psychoanalysis Today: Freud's Living Legacy, Neuroscience, and the Brain with Dr. Mark Solms #91
Host Grant Brenner, MD, DFAPA, and Fara White, MD, interview Professor Mark Solms, a psychoanalyst and neuropsychologist, about Freud's legacy and the neuroscience of mental healing.
26 Mar 2026
Why You Can't "Just Do It": The Intention-Action Gap with Dr. Tom Froese #90
Have you ever wondered about the relationship between your brain and your mind? How does that wrinkled, gel-like matter in our head dictate our understanding of ourselves and the world?
On today's episode of Doorknob Comments, Grant and Fara are joined by Dr. Tom Froese, a cognitive scientist at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University (OIST) who researches the origin and nature of the human mind by integrating philosophy of mind, computational modeling, and human subjects research.
The conversation centers on what Froese calls the intention-action gap: the stubborn fact that knowing what we want to do and actually doing it are never the same thing. Why can't we simply force our bodies to comply with our intentions? And what does this mean for how long real change actually takes?
Together, they explore frustration tolerance, boredom, and the role of friction in psychological development, landing on a key therapeutic insight: sitting with uncertainty rather than demanding immediate resolution.
We hope you enjoy!
Resources and Links
Doorknob Comments
https://www.doorknobcomments.com/
Dr. Tom Froese
Consciousness may be more than the brain's output — it may be an input, too [https://bigthink.com/mind-behavior/consciousness-may-be-more-than-the-brains-output-it-may-be-an-input-too/]
https://loc.closertotruth.com/theory/froese-s-irruption-theory
https://www.oist.jp/research/research-units/ecsu/tom-froese
Dr. Fara White
https://www.farawhitemd.com/
Dr. Grant Brenner
https://www.granthbrennermd.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/grant-h-brenner-md-dfapa/
5 Feb 2026
When Psychiatry Meets the Immune System with Dr. Tom Pollak
In this episode of Doorknob Comments, Grant and Fara chat with Dr. Tom Pollak about the complex relationship between the immune system, the brain, and mental illness. Dr. Pollak is a NIHR Clinical Lecturer at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience at King's College London and a specialty trainee general adult psychiatrist at South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust with a specialist interest in neuropsychiatry. Listeners will learn how doctors distinguish true autoimmune brain disorders from primary psychiatric conditions, why tests like spinal fluid analysis are complicated but sometimes crucial, and how both "it's all psychological" and "it's all biological" explanations can miss the bigger picture. Their conversation offers a nuanced look at how mind, brain, body, and environment interact, and why good psychiatric care requires holding all of those pieces together.
We hope you enjoy.
Resources and Links
Doorknob Comments
https://www.doorknobcomments.com/
Dr. Tom Pollak
https://www.kcl.ac.uk/people/thomas-pollak [https://open.spotify.com/album/5DElmkiok7kRIIdSHO00LL?si=63ATxTrtQz6hhfNyGAp9qQ]
https://drtompollak.substack.com/ [https://bio.to/greenleaf-integrative]
Dr. Fara White
https://www.farawhitemd.com/
Dr. Grant Brenner
https://www.granthbrennermd.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/grant-h-brenner-md-dfapa/
Inside a recent episode
The Clinical Effectiveness of Psychoanalysis Today: Freud's Living Legacy, Neuroscience, and the Brain with Dr. Mark Solms #91
Published 3 Jun 2026 · Transcript excerpt
[…] So I will not be able to do it justice. I'll just mention a few headlines. To begin with, something of the history in the sense of how Freud transitioned from neuroscience to psychoanalysis. It wasn't a radical shift. He was still studying the same things. He was interested in how the instrument of the mind works. What makes us tick? How are we put together? Starting out as a very basic neuroscientist, he moved up the nervous system from the single cell to the cortex and uniquely human functions, particularly language. And in trying to understand how language is organized in the brain, he started to bring psychological topics, psychological concepts to bear, because that's simply necessary. […]
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