300 Episodes In: Why Feedback Is So Hard (300)
Therapist Uncensored Podcast
Sue Marriott LCSW, CGP & Ann Kelley PhD
4.7 • 1.5K Ratings
🗓️ 26 May 2026
⏱️ 62 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Celebrating 300 episodes with one of the hardest relationship skills: feedback.
Sue and Ann reflect on a decade of podcasting and dive into one of the the most challenging parts of any relationship: giving and receiving feedback. Through candid personal stories, humor, and clinical insight, they explore how attachment history, defensiveness, trauma, and vulnerability shape the way we handle conflict and communication. This conversation explains why feedback can feel so threatening, how
couples get stuck arguing facts instead of feelings, and why repair—not perfection—is the foundation of healthy relationships.
“Feedback is a bid for connection.” – Sue Marriott, LCSW CGP
Time Stamps for 300 Episodes In: Why Feedback Is So Hard (300)
01:56 The challenge of feedback: Giving and receiving
07:29 Understanding the difficulty of giving feedback
11:06 The fear of feedback: Avoidance and anticipation
16:15 The overestimation of awareness: Why we hold back
26:32 Navigating the receiving end of feedback
32:34 Impact over intent: The key to effective communication
34:54 Navigating feedback and racial sensitivity
41:08 Defensiveness in relationships
52:09 The role of trauma in relationships
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | oftentimes when we're upset, our brain goes to injustice. This isn't fair. This isn't right. |
| 0:05.7 | Or I don't deserve to complain because this person does so much. So it's all about justice. |
| 0:12.6 | What's fair and what's not fair. Relationships are not based on fairness ever. Fairness doesn't work. |
| 0:25.5 | It's what feeling matters. And so if I come to you with my feeling, it doesn't matter if it's fair or not. Maybe you've been on time 10 times and I'm saying |
| 0:30.7 | this one time and you're like, it's not fair. I'm always on time. Well, I'm having anxiety about |
| 0:36.1 | whatever this event is that I want to be on time for, and you pointing out the fairness or unfairness is probably not going to help our situation for me approaching you with fairness. This is unfair. I've said 10 times. If I'm approaching you with fairness, I'm already activated. And I really, really want to emphasize that point because if we're |
| 0:55.1 | in fair, right, wrong, we are probably not in our most regulated place, no matter which side |
| 1:00.7 | of the equation, giving or receiving. |
| 1:04.2 | Welcome to Therapist Uncensored. Building on decades of professional experience, this podcast |
| 1:09.4 | tackles neurobiology, modern attachment, |
| 1:12.1 | and more in an honest way that's helpful in healing humans. |
| 1:15.5 | Your session begins now with Dr. Anne Kelly and Sue Marriott. |
| 1:22.7 | Hey, you guys, while we know relationships are wonderful, they are also really hard. |
| 1:31.3 | Many of us believe that they shouldn't be, that if we have good connection and good communication, |
| 1:36.1 | things will just go smoothly. But it's really that belief that can make us feel stubborn and even |
| 1:41.0 | more hopeless. So relationships take work. It does for Sue and I. We can make it |
| 1:46.0 | look easy. It's not. And one of the ways is because many of us, we differ. We differ in what activates us, |
| 1:51.8 | what makes us feel threat, the expectation. And it's these differences that are held in our body, |
| 1:57.1 | not our thoughts. And they influence how we talk, how we love, how we fight. So holding that |
| 2:02.6 | belief, if he or she or they could just understand me, if they love me, they do something |
| 2:07.4 | different is not really true. And we're talking about relationships with your partner, |
| 2:12.7 | your teenager, your mother-in-law. So soon I've created an online course that can help you understand yourself |
... |
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