Remembering Jenn GolickRemembering Jenn Golick
Mental Illness Happy Hour
A tribute to therapist Dr Jennifer Golick, featuring her conversation about PTSD, veterans, early intervention and deeply enmeshed family dynamics. Blending listener stories and clinical experience, the episode reflects on asking for help, connection and the long tail of trauma in recovery.
2:07:21•8 Mar 2019
Remembering Dr Jen Golick: PTSD, Covert Incest and the Courage to Ask for Help
Episode Overview
- Early support for PTSD can reduce crises, but military culture often shames asking for help, making early intervention hard to access.
- PTSD frequently shows up as isolation, anxiety, hypervigilance and intimacy problems rather than dramatic public breakdowns.
- Cognitive behavioural techniques like checking the facts and challenging anxious thoughts can shorten and soften emotional flare‑ups.
- Children who are emotionally used as a parent’s confidant or partner often grow into adults who feel responsible for others and disconnected from their own needs.
- Meaning, spiritual connection and community—whether through service, therapy or support groups—can provide a powerful alternative to numbing with alcohol, drugs or compulsive behaviours.
“We are a social species. We don’t do well in isolation in general.”
How do people find strength in their journey to sobriety and mental health when grief, trauma and addiction are all in the mix? This episode offers a raw tribute to therapist Dr Jennifer (Jen) Golick, recorded just weeks before she was killed by a combat veteran she was supporting.
Host Paul Gilmartin calls in friend Sarah Goodson to paint a vivid picture of Jen: a tattooed, Chuck Taylor–wearing clinician who was “wicked smart and funny”, deeply devoted to her daughter, and fiercely serious about her work. Sarah also carefully walks through the events leading up to Jen’s death, highlighting the brutal paradox of being killed in the very work she felt called to do. From there, the conversation with Jen unfolds like a masterclass in trauma and recovery.
She talks about her work with post‑9/11 veterans at an early‑intervention residential programme, breaking down clichés about PTSD and explaining how it often shows up less as Hollywood‑style flashbacks and more as subtle anxiety, isolation, and difficulties with intimacy. Her message is blunt: “We are a social species. We don’t do well in isolation in general,” and the culture of “don’t ask for help” is literally costing lives.
Jen and Paul swap stories about learning healthy self‑care, the difference between “good selfish” and “bad selfish”, and the power of community and spirituality in finding meaning beyond alcohol, drugs, or compulsive behaviours. Jen also dives into parentification and covert emotional incest, showing how children pressed into being a parent’s emotional partner can grow into adults who struggle with intimacy, codependence and trusting their own feelings.
Alongside listener surveys about asking for help, abusive relationships, overeating and first steps into support groups, the episode becomes a moving snapshot of how connection, therapy and honesty can turn unbearable pain into something survivable. If you’ve ever felt too ashamed, too broken or too afraid to ask for help, this conversation might make you rethink that story.
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