--Media Links--• Website: delvepsych.com• Instagram: @delvepsychchicago• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DelvePsych20• Substack: https://delvepsych.substack.com/
--Participants--Hosts: Ali McGarel, Adam Fominaya
--Overview of Big Ideas--Ali and Adam respond to a listener’s Reddit post about self-forgiveness, guilt, and shame. They unpack how over-identifying with depression, anxiety, or ADHD can limit growth, and how self-forgiveness often means acceptance, not erasure of the past. They explore the distinction between rumination and emotional processing, discuss how diagnostic labels can both clarify and constrain, and reflect on what it means to live virtuously in the present rather than chasing redemption through others’ perceptions.
--Breakdown of Segments--
• The Reddit question: how do you really forgive yourself?
• The trap of over-identifying with diagnoses like depression or ADHD
• Shifting from blame and identity to choice and responsibility
• Adam’s critique of diagnostic thinking and the illusion of “clarity”
• The book Selfie and how individualism distorts identity and self-worth
• Ali and Adam on present-focused living: “What do you want to do now?”
• Flaws as subjective traits — the same traits can be strengths
• Processing vs. ruminating: emotional change as the marker of progress
• Narrative exposure therapy and how trauma processing actually feels
• Forgiveness as acceptance, not permission or forgetting
• The quote: “Rescuing them from their struggle invalidates their struggle and their strength.”
• Why therapists shouldn’t “save” clients but trust their resilience
--References--
• Selfie: How We Became So Self-Obsessed and What It’s Doing to Us by Will Storr (2017)
• Schreiber, M., & Maercker, A. (2011). “Rebuilding Meaning after Trauma: Theory and Applications of Narrative Exposure Therapy.” Frontiers in Psychology.
• Epictetus, Enchiridion — Stoic principles of focusing on what is within one’s control.
• Linehan, M. M. (1993). Cognitive-Behavioral Treatment of Borderline Personality Disorder. (discussion of acceptance and change balance).
