The Fight for the Soul of Psychotherapy: An Interview with Linda Michaels
Mad in America: Rethinking Mental Health
Mad in America
4.7 • 212 Ratings
🗓️ 8 April 2026
⏱️ 71 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Linda Michaels is a psychologist in private practice in Chicago and a co-founder of the Psychotherapy Action Network (PsiAN). She trained at the Illinois School of Professional Psychology and completed the Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy program at the Chicago Psychoanalytic Institute. Before becoming a clinician, she worked in marketing, innovation, and management consulting, including work with organizations in the U.S. and Latin America.
Michaels is the chair and co-founder of PsiAN, a public-facing effort focused on helping people understand different forms of psychotherapy and advocate for the kind of care they are seeking. She is also a Consulting Editor at Psychoanalytic Inquiry and Clinical Associate Faculty at the Chicago Center for Psychoanalysis. She is currently a Fellow at the Lauder Institute Global MBA program.
In this conversation, we trace her path from market research to psychotherapy and then to organizing. We talk about what clients say they want from therapy and how training, insurance, and digital platforms have reshaped the conditions under which psychotherapy is practiced and accessed.
We also discuss her writing and research, including PsiAN's national survey work on public attitudes toward therapy ("Going Beneath the Surface: What People Want from Therapy") and a follow-up paper published in 2025 ("The Therapy World Has Changed: Where are We Now?"). We talk about her 2025 article in The American Psychoanalyst, "Corporations in the Consulting Room: What do we stand for, and what stands in our way?" and her edited volume, Advancing Psychotherapy for the Next Generation: Humanizing Mental Health Policy and Practice.
Linda also recounts some of the advocacy work she's done and the adversity PsiAN has faced, including being sued by a major therapy platform, as well as how institutional alliances across our professional organizations are reshaping the contemporary mental health marketplace.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the Madden America podcast, your source for science, psychiatry, and social justice. |
| 0:14.3 | Welcome to the Madden America podcast. Today we welcome Linda Michaels. |
| 0:18.8 | Linda Michaels is a psychologist in private practice in Chicago and the co-founder of the Psychotherapy Action Network, or Sci-Anne. |
| 0:26.6 | She trained at the Illinois School of Professional Psychology and completed the psychoanalytic psychotherapy program at the Chicago Psychoanalytic Institute. |
| 0:33.6 | But before becoming a clinician, she worked in marketing, innovation, and management consulting, |
| 0:38.3 | including work with organizations in the U.S. and Latin America. |
| 0:41.3 | So Michaels is the chair and co-founder of Sian, and Sian is a public-facing effort focused on helping people |
| 0:47.3 | understand the different forms of psychotherapy that are available, and then to advocate for the kind of care they actually are seeking. |
| 0:53.3 | She is a consulting editor at psychoanalytic inquiry and a clinical associate that are available, and then to advocate for the kind of care they actually are seeking. |
| 0:54.4 | She has a consulting editor at Psychoanalytic Inquiry and a clinical associate faculty |
| 0:58.9 | at the Chicago Center for Psychoanalysis. |
| 1:01.5 | She's also currently a fellow at the Lauder Institute, her global MBA program there. |
| 1:06.1 | So on this conversation, we'll trace her path from market research to psychotherapy and then |
| 1:10.8 | into organizing therapists in this space. |
| 1:13.6 | We'll talk about what clients in her research, what they say they actually want from therapy, |
| 1:19.8 | and then how training insurance and digital platforms are actually reshaping the conditions of therapy |
| 1:26.9 | in a way that may get less likely that |
| 1:28.7 | people can access the kind of care they're looking for. Therapies of depth, insight, relationship. |
| 1:34.8 | We'll also discuss her writing and research, including the national survey work she did on public |
| 1:39.7 | attitudes towards therapy. And we'll also talk about her recent article in the American |
| 1:43.8 | psychoanalysts about corporations in the consulting room. We'll also get into some of the |
| 1:49.5 | advocacy work that she's done and the adversity that Sian has faced, including being sued |
... |
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