How Real Change Happens with Elizabeth Ferreira

Being Well with Forrest Hanson and Dr. Rick Hanson

Being Well

Health & Fitness, Education, Self-improvement, Mental Health

4.8 • 2.4K Ratings

🗓️ 7 July 2025

⏱️ 68 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Forrest is joined by associate therapist Elizabeth Ferreira to discuss parts work, psychological defenses, and how real change happens. They talk about the inner child work Forrest recently did during an episode with renowned therapist Terry Real, and how that led to meaningful changes in their relationship. Elizabeth and Forrest unpack the therapeutic process Terry led Forrest through, and discuss clinical technique, why small shifts can lead to big changes, the challenges of working with developmentally young material, and why insight alone is rarely enough. The episode with Terry we refer to throughout this conversation is titled “Terry Real: Relationships, Trauma, and Inner Child Work.” Here’s the Spotify link. Key Topics: 0:00: Introduction 2:40: Elizabeth’s reaction to Forrest’s work with Terry 5:05: Avoidance vs. anxiety 7:21: Unpacking Terry Real’s therapeutic approach 14:37: Avoiding through “fixing” 20:54: What’s changed since then? 31:00: Elizabeth’s experience with inner child work 42:32: How does real change happen? 51:54: “You can’t make your partner change.” 55:15: Recap Support the Podcast: We're now on Patreon! If you'd like to support the podcast, follow this link. Sponsors For a limited time, get Headspace FREE for 60 days. Go to Headspace.com/BEINGWELL60. Function is offering 160+ Lab Tests for $365 to anyone who signs up between July 7th and July 11th. To learn more and get started, visit www.functionhealth.com/BEINGWELL Go to Quince.com/BEINGWELL for free shipping on your order and three hundred and sixty-five -day returns. Get Notion Mail for free right now at notion.com/beingwell, and try the inbox that thinks like you Go to Zocdoc.com/BEING to find and instantly book a top-rated doctor today. Sign up for a one-dollar-per-month trial period at shopify.com/beingwell. Go to ZOE.com and find out what ZOE Membership could do for you. Use code WELL10 to get 10% off membership. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome to being well. I'm Forrest Hanson. If you're new to the podcast, this is going to be an interesting episode for you to listen to as your first one. And if you've listened before, welcome back. We talk about a lot on the podcast. But the topic that we keep on coming back to is how does change happen for people?
0:25.6	Real change, meaningful change, not just superficial change, but the kind that actually impacts how we show up in the world and in our relationships.
0:34.6	That kind of change is rare, and this episode is about one of those rare moments
0:40.8	where something really did change for me. And even more uniquely, we caught it on camera
0:46.3	when I was having a conversation with couples therapist and well-known author Terry Real.
0:52.3	I recorded two conversations with Terry recently, and the first one
0:55.7	of those that focused on relationships about halfway through the conversation, Terry and I entered
1:01.7	a process where he started doing some therapeutic work with me. It was focused on inner child work
1:07.7	and my particular issues of love avoidance and a kind of chronic fixing tendency.
1:15.0	Since that conversation, I've noticed a real difference in how I've shown up, both inside of
1:21.1	myself and in my relationship. So we thought that it would be really interesting to have an
1:26.3	episode where I talked with the
1:27.5	person who's probably been the most affected by this change, my fiancé and also an associate
1:33.4	therapist, Elizabeth Ferreira.
1:36.2	So during this conversation, Elizabeth and I are going to unpack this experience,
1:41.0	the therapeutic process that I went through with Terry, and talk about the way things
1:45.9	were before and the way that they've changed since then. This is to some extent an episode
1:51.4	about inner child work and love avoidance and parts work more generally, but it's really an
1:56.2	episode about how we change, about the protective strategies that get in our way, how they form, how they
2:02.4	show up in our relationships, and what we can do to really let that meaningful change land.
2:07.9	I hope you enjoy it.
2:09.9	Hey, Elizabeth.
	...

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