http://www.therapywithdavid.com/

David J. Schlosz, Cape Town (2026)

15/06/2026

Capacity, Not Toughness

Most people don't avoid their feelings because they're weak.
They avoid them because no one ever sat with them in those feelings.
In this week's episode of Project I AM, I explore a word that sits underneath everything in psychological healing:

Capacity.
Our capacity to sit with our own pain.
Our clients' capacity to sit with theirs.
And the helper's capacity to stay present to suffering they cannot fix.

Three findings changed how I think about this:
Suppression doesn't shrink emotion, it tightens the container.
Distress tolerance is a skill, not a trait. Windows of tolerance can grow at any age.
And the neuroscience now distinguishes empathy from compassion: empathic resonance alone burns the helper out. Compassion lets the helper stay.
For my fellow clinicians, one finding deserves special attention:

Our clients unconsciously measure our nervous systems and show us only what they believe we can bear.
Their disclosures are limited by our capacity.
Which means our own inner work is not self-indulgence. It is infrastructure.

Episode link: https://rss.com/podcasts/project-i-am-with-dr-david-j-schlosz/2913982

What determines whether pain breaks us or transforms us? In this episode, David explores one of the most neglected concepts in psychological healing: capacity, the room we have for our own difficult emotions, and for each other's.Through three lenses, our own inner life, the therapy room, and the he...

14/06/2026

Capacity, Not Toughness

Most people don't avoid their feelings because they're weak.
They avoid them because no one ever sat with them in those feelings.

In this week's episode of Project I AM, I explore a word that sits underneath everything in psychological healing:

Capacity.
Our capacity to sit with our own pain.
Our clients' capacity to sit with theirs.
And the helper's capacity to stay present to suffering they cannot fix.

Three findings changed how I think about this:
Suppression doesn't shrink emotion, it tightens the container.
Distress tolerance is a skill, not a trait. Windows of tolerance can grow at any age.
And the neuroscience now distinguishes empathy from compassion: empathic resonance alone burns the helper out. Compassion lets the helper stay.

For my fellow clinicians, one finding deserves special attention:
Our clients unconsciously measure our nervous systems and show us only what they believe we can bear. Their disclosures are limited by our capacity.

Which means our own inner work is not self-indulgence. It is infrastructure.

What determines whether pain breaks us or transforms us? In this episode, David explores one of the most neglected concepts in psychological healing: capacity, the room we have for our own difficult emotions, and for each other's.Through three lenses, our own inner life, the therapy room, and the he...

08/06/2026

Not everyone benefits from your becoming healthier.

We often imagine healing as a journey toward peace, freedom, and deeper connection. But what happens when your growth starts changing the relationships around you?
In this episode of Project I AM, Dr. David Schlosz explores one of the most difficult and rarely discussed realities of healing: not everyone benefits from your becoming healthier.
As you learn to set boundaries, listen to your body, speak your truth, and stop abandoning yourself to keep the peace, relationships inevitably shift. Conversations change. Roles dissolve. Old patterns are challenged. And sometimes the people who seemed most comfortable with you are actually most comfortable with the version of you that ignored your own needs.
If you've ever felt guilty for growing, lonely for changing, or confused by how others respond to your healing journey, this conversation is for you.
Because sometimes healing isn't about learning how to keep everyone else comfortable.

We often imagine healing as a journey toward peace, freedom, and deeper connection. But what happens when your growth starts changing the relationships around you?In this episode of Project I AM, Dr. David Schlosz explores one of the most difficult and rarely discussed realities of healing: not ever...

30/05/2026

Anger as Protest

Anger is one of the most misunderstood emotions we experience. Many of us were taught to fear it, suppress it, spiritualize it away, or turn it inward against ourselves. But what if anger is not the enemy? What if healthy anger is actually a form of protest, agency, dignity, and self-protection?

In this episode of Project I Am, Dr. David Schlosz explores the difference between destructive rage and healthy, integrated anger. Drawing from trauma psychology, somatic work, relational healing, and personal reflection, David discusses how suppressed anger often becomes shame, depression, self-abandonment, perfectionism, and self-criticism.

Sometimes anger is not evidence that something is wrong with you. Sometimes it is evidence that something inside you still knows you deserve dignity.

If you’ve ever struggled with self-blame, resentment, people pleasing, emotional suppression, or feeling disconnected from your own needs, this episode is for you.

Anger is one of the most misunderstood emotions we experience. Many of us were taught to fear it, suppress it, spiritualize it away, or turn it inward against ourselves. But what if anger is not the enemy? What if healthy anger is actually a form of protest, agency, dignity, and self-protection?In t...

25/05/2026

Abandoning Ourselves to Protect Ourselves

There are moments in life when we abandon ourselves in order to protect ourselves. We stay silent instead of speaking honestly. We disconnect from our feelings to avoid conflict, rejection, shame, or discomfort. And afterward, something painful lingers: the feeling that we betrayed ourselves.

In this episode of Project I AM, Dr. David J. Schlosz explores the hidden cost of self-abandonment and why so many of us learned to disconnect from ourselves in order to survive. Drawing from relational therapy, trauma work, somatic psychology, and personal experience, David unpacks how self-protection can quietly become self-betrayal and why choosing ourselves in healthy, grounded ways is one of the most courageous acts we can make.

If you’ve ever felt exhausted from performing, people-pleasing, caretaking, or disappearing inside relationships, this conversation is for you.

You do not have to disappear to be loved.

There are moments in life when we abandon ourselves in order to protect ourselves. We stay silent instead of speaking honestly. We disconnect from our feelings to avoid conflict, rejection, shame, or discomfort. And afterward, something painful lingers: the feeling that we betrayed ourselves.In this...

21/05/2026

I didn’t deserve this.

In one of the most personal and vulnerable episodes of Project I AM to date, Dr. David Schlosz explores the painful intersection of shame, trauma, grief, and healing. Drawing from his recent experiences in an intensive training, David reflects on a profound realization that moved from intellectual understanding into something much deeper.
This episode explores how children internalize blame in order to survive unsafe environments, how shame becomes embedded in identity, and how survival strategies formed in trauma can later affect relationships, emotional regulation, and self-worth. David discusses the difference between cognitively knowing something and emotionally believing it, the role of the nervous system in trauma, and why anger often protects deeper grief.
Blending personal storytelling, somatic awareness, relational healing, and reflections from thinkers like Gabor Maté and Carl Rogers, this episode offers a deeply human reminder that survival was never your identity, it was an adaptation. And beneath the adaptations, there is still a self worthy of love, grief, compassion, and belonging.
This episode contains discussions of childhood trauma, sexual abuse, conversion therapy, shame, and grief. Listener discretion and self-care are encouraged.

In one of the most personal and vulnerable episodes of Project I AM to date, Dr. David Schlosz explores the painful intersection of shame, trauma, grief, and healing. Drawing from his recent experiences in an intensive training, David reflects on a profound realization that moved from intellectual u...

17/05/2026

You Are Invited:

The Counselor Collective Mentoring & Consultation Group

A monthly online space for counselors and helping professionals seeking growth, authenticity, support, and deeper clinical reflection.

You are invited to join our monthly Mentoring & Consultation Group: a live online gathering for former students and helping professionals who want continued mentorship, clinical consultation, encouragement, and community. Each month we will explore clinical themes, discuss cases, reflect on the therapeutic relationship, process challenges in the work, and deepen our understanding of ourselves as counselors and human beings. This is a supportive and growth-oriented space rooted in authenticity, relational connection, curiosity, and ongoing development.

Next meeting: June 6th, 9-11am CST

Register here:

A monthly online space for counselors and helping professionals seeking growth, authenticity, support, and deeper clinical reflection. You are invited to join…

15/05/2026

“Confessions of a Covert Narcissist"

This episode is not about diagnosing others. It is about recognizing the subtle ways fear, shame, insecurity, and emotional self-protection can shape all of our behaviors.

Why do we become defensive when receiving feedback? Why do we sometimes over-give and quietly keep score? Why does being misunderstood feel so painful? Why do we perform instead of authentically connect?
Blending psychology, nervous system insight, personal anecdotes, therapeutic wisdom, and compassionate reflection, David explores how covert narcissistic tendencies often emerge not from arrogance… but from unhealed shame and the desperate need to protect ourselves from emotional pain.

This episode offers a compassionate reminder:
Having protective patterns does not make you broken. It makes you human.
The work is becoming aware enough to choose connection over protection.
Because awareness is not condemnation. Awareness is the beginning of freedom.

In this follow-up episode, David moves beyond labels and into honest self-reflection with a powerful conversation titled “Confessions of a Covert Narcissist.”This episode is not about diagnosing others. It is about recognizing the subtle ways fear, shame, insecurity, and emotional self-protectio...

12/05/2026

We live in a culture that uses the word “narcissist” so casually that we sometimes forget there is usually pain underneath the protection.

In my newest episode of Project I Am, I explore the topic of covert narcissism through a compassionate and deeply human lens.

Not to excuse harmful behavior.

Not to remove accountability.

But to better understand what often lives underneath defensiveness, validation-seeking, withdrawal, perfectionism, martyrdom, and emotional fragility.

One of the central ideas in the episode is this:
When human beings try to protect themselves from shame and emotional pain, that protection can sometimes look like selfishness. And even when the wound is understandable, other people are still impacted by the behavior.

One of the greatest acts of maturity is developing the ability to look at ourselves honestly without collapsing into shame.

Awareness is not condemnation.

Awareness is the beginning of freedom.

What if narcissism isn’t always loud?In this compassionate episode of Project I Am, David explores the hidden world of covert narcissism: the quiet, vulnerable, and often misunderstood ways people protect themselves from shame, rejection, and emotional pain.Rather than reducing people to labels or...

08/05/2026

There are some wounds that insight alone cannot heal.

In this episode of Project I Am, Dr. David J. Schlosz explores why effective trauma therapy must go beyond cognition and include the body and nervous system. While many people understand their trauma intellectually, they often continue to struggle because the trauma remains unprocessed physiologically.
This episode dives into the growing field of somatic experiencing and explains the difference between top-down healing (thoughts, insight, narrative) and bottom-up healing (nervous system regulation, embodiment, and safety in the body). Drawing from attachment theory, neuroscience, Polyvagal Theory, and trauma research, Dr. Schlosz explores how trauma lives in muscle tension, hypervigilance, shutdown, shame, and relational patterns and why healing often requires reconnecting with the body compassionately and slowly.
Through stories, reflections, quotes, and therapeutic insights, this conversation offers a deeper understanding of why people can “know better” cognitively and still feel stuck emotionally and physically.
This episode is for therapists, counseling students, trauma survivors, and anyone seeking a deeper understanding of healing.

“Trauma is not what happens to us, but what we hold inside in the absence of an empathetic witness.” — Peter Levine

There are some wounds that insight alone cannot heal.In this episode of Project I Am, Dr. David J. Schlosz explores why effective trauma therapy must go beyond cognition and include the body and nervous system. While many people understand their trauma intellectually, they often continue to struggle...

David J. Schlosz

15/06/2026

14/06/2026

08/06/2026

30/05/2026

25/05/2026

21/05/2026

17/05/2026

15/05/2026

12/05/2026

08/05/2026

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