Naked Insights
Naked Insights
Podcast Description
The Naked Insights podcast delves deeper into how intertwined our brain and body are when navigating trauma, health and relationships. Each episode studies our perceptions and behaviours, focused on how our mental health interconnects with our relationships with others as well as the delicate balance with our health. From managing trauma, health, workplace stress, life transitions and lifestyle habits through to building healthy and nourishing relationships, we are all about providing tools, tips and personal stories to support you and your loved ones to be become more resilient and adaptable to change and transformation. Through a holistic and medical lens of education and interventions you are sure to learn how to maintain balance and well-being in today’s increasingly chaotic environment. Adele Theron (Certified clinical trauma practitioner, CCTP, CFTP, CFFTP, PGDipTraumaticStudies and MPsych) is a trauma therapist and specialist in trauma and transition recovery. She is the founder of Naked Recovery, which offers structured programmes for transforming trauma and together with her team, they support clients through bereavement, redundancy, birth trauma, separation, divorce, marriage crises, infidelity, midlife crisis, family estrangement, and health-related crises. Her recovery programmes have been completed by thousands of clients across 90 countries. Adele is currently completing her doctorate in Health Psychology at the University of Auckland, where her research focuses on developing trauma recovery interventions for chronic illness. Her integrative, science-based methods draw from somatic psychology, coaching psychology, psychodynamic psychotherapy, and trauma-informed practice. Her clinical work is responsible for supporting thousands of professionals and couples transition out of trauma through her global programs. Sam McSorley (MHealSc, PGHlthSci, DipClinHerbMed, BHSc (Complementary Medicine) is a naturopath and functional medicine practitioner with a passion for choice in healthcare. She is the founder of Sam McSorley Connecting Wellness, a holistic clinic that concentrates on the recovery from complex health conditions best supported through holistic programmes which address both a healthy mind and body. Sam provides a raft of tools to provision her clinical work, including lifestyle hacks, nutritional and herbal medicine, DNA, genetic and functional testing, nutritional psychiatry and somatic psychotherapy. With a special interest in psychoneuroimmunology which studies the intricate interactions between psychological processes, the nervous system, and the immune system, she is focused on uncovering the root cause of mental and emotional conflict that impacts health. Underpinned by scientific research, Sam’s combined approach using lifestyle, diet, herbal & nutritional medicine, stress management and somatic p...
Podcast Insights
Content Themes
The podcast centers on trauma, mental health, and the body-mind connection, with specific episodes exploring topics like the impact of chronic stress on health, understanding good versus bad stress, and the interplay of perfectionism and shame. Episodes such as 'Triaging Stress & Reclaiming Your Health' offer practical tools for stress management while highlighting the importance of emotional health and resilience.
The Naked Insights Podcast explores the powerful connection between mind and body in navigating trauma, health, and relationships and focuses on making sense of human behaviour through trauma, attachment and neuroscience.
Each episode examines how our perceptions and behaviours shape mental health, our relationships with others, and the delicate balance with physical well-being.
From managing trauma, workplace stress, and major life transitions to cultivating healthy, nourishing relationships, Naked Insights offers tools, tips, and real stories to help you and your loved ones become more resilient and adaptable to change. Through an integrative and evidence-based lens, you’ll learn how to maintain balance and well-being in today’s increasingly chaotic world.
Hosted by Adele Theron, each season features a different expert as she deep-dives into the intersections between trauma, health, and relationships.
Season 1 features Sam McSorley, a functional medicine specialist and together Adele and Sam bridge the gap between holistic health and psychological resilience, guiding you towards a more balanced, empowered, and successful life.
Season 2 features Dr Lindsay Aikman, a consultant clinical psychologist and together they bring a clinically grounded lens to mental health, trauma, and relationships, cutting through myths, challenging oversimplified narratives, and exploring what truly supports lasting change.
About the Host:
Adele Theron (CCTP, CFTP, CFFTP, PGDipTraumaticStudies, MPsych) is a trauma therapist and specialist in trauma and transition recovery. She is the founder of Naked Recovery, which offers structured programmes to help clients transform trauma related to bereavement, redundancy, birth trauma, separation, divorce, infidelity, midlife crises, family estrangement, and health-related challenges. Her evidence-based recovery programmes have supported thousands of clients across more than 90 countries. Adele is currently completing her doctorate in Health Psychology at the University of Auckland, where her research focuses on developing clinically applicable treatments for clinician-delivered trauma-informed care for patients with chronic illness. Her integrative, science-based methods draw from somatic psychology, coaching psychology, psychodynamic psychotherapy, and trauma-informed practice.
About the Season 1 Expert:
Sam McSorley (MHealSc, PGHlthSci, DipClinHerbMed, BHSc (Complementary Medicine)) is a naturopath and functional medicine practitioner passionate about empowering people with choice in healthcare. As the founder of Sam McSorley Connecting Wellness, she helps clients recover from complex health conditions through holistic programmes that unite body and mind. Sam’s approach integrates nutrition, herbal medicine, genetic testing, nutritional psychiatry, and somatic psychotherapy.
About the Season 2 Expert:
Dr Lindsay Aikman is a Consultant Clinical Psychologist and Associate Professor in Clinical Psychology in the UK (BA BSc PGCert DClinPsy AFHEA) registered with The Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC). Lindsay brings a rich blend of clinical, academic, and leadership experience to conversations about how trauma, relationships, and physical health are intricately connected. Her work is rooted in the understanding that psychological distress is embodied, relational, and shaped by lived experience across the lifespan. Lindsay supports people with complex presentations where physical health, identity, attachment, and trauma are deeply intertwined. Alongside clinical practice, Lindsay is an Associate Professor at the University of Plymouth, UK.
🎙️ Episode 20 – Becoming: The Psychology of Personal Growth
What does it actually mean to grow?
We talk endlessly about healing, self-awareness, personal development and becoming the “best version” of ourselves. But real psychological growth is rarely comfortable, linear or particularly Instagrammable.
Sometimes growth means changing.
Sometimes it means accepting something you cannot change.
And sometimes it means finally recognising that the coping strategy that once protected you has become the very thing keeping you stuck.
In the final episode of Season 2, Adele and Dr Lindsay Aikman explore the psychology of personal growth: what allows human beings to change, what gets in the way, and why insight alone is rarely enough.
Together, they unpack:
🌱 What personal growth actually means – and why becoming psychologically healthier isn't about becoming endlessly happier, calmer or more productive
🧠 The difference between insight and change – why understanding exactly why you behave the way you do doesn't necessarily stop you doing it
💔 How trauma can interrupt growth – particularly when survival strategies such as avoidance, hypervigilance, people-pleasing, perfectionism, control or emotional shutdown become deeply embedded
⚡ Why triggers can become extraordinary sources of information – revealing the places where our past is still shaping our present
🛡️ Why we resist change even when we desperately want it – because familiar patterns can feel safer to the nervous system than unfamiliar possibilities
🪞 The courage to look at yourself properly – recognising your patterns, taking responsibility for your impact on other people and doing so without collapsing into shame
❤️ Why relationships are such powerful environments for growth – because other people expose the parts of ourselves that are almost impossible to see alone
🧘 Learning to tolerate discomfort – why growth often requires staying with uncertainty, vulnerability, frustration and difficult emotion rather than immediately escaping them
🔄 Psychological flexibility – developing the capacity to adapt, reconsider, learn, repair and allow new information to change us
🌿 Outgrowing old versions of ourselves – recognising when identities, beliefs, relationships or coping mechanisms that once served us no longer fit the person we're becoming
Ultimately, personal growth isn't about reaching some final, perfectly healed version of yourself.
There isn't one.
It's about becoming increasingly able to notice yourself, understand yourself, regulate yourself, challenge yourself and choose what you do next rather than simply repeating what you've always done.
And perhaps that's what growth really is:
Not becoming somebody else, but having more freedom in who you choose to become.
🎧 Join Adele and Lindsay for the final conversation of Season 2 as they reflect on change, trauma, relationships and what they've learned about the extraordinary human capacity to keep evolving.
Topics Covered: Personal Growth, Growth Mindset, Trauma, Triggers, Coping Mechanisms, Psychological Flexibility, Self-Awareness, Behaviour Change, Relationships, Emotional Regulation, Resilience, Personal Development, Psychotherapy.
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