47 min

Dr. Samantha Boardman on Turning Stress into Strength Beyond the Prescription

    • Medicine

You can also check out this episode on Spotify!
In honor of Mental Health Awareness month, we welcome Dr. Samatha Boardman. Dr. Boardman is a New York based positive psychiatrist who is committed to fixing what’s wrong and building what’s strong. She writes the popular newsletter called and is the author of Everyday Vitality, a book about leaning into our strengths to bring about positive change.
Historically, psychiatry has focused on the diagnosis of disease and the treatment of individuals with mental illness. Positive Psychiatry takes a more expansive approach, focusing on the promotion of wellbeing and the creation of health.
Dr. Boardman is passionate about cultivating vitality, boosting resilience, and transforming full days into more fulfilling days. Today Dr. Boardman sits down with Dr. McBride to discuss finding wellness within illness, strength within stress, and how to live with anxiety rather than being defined by it. Dr. Boardman is here to help!
Join Dr. McBride every Monday for a new episode of Beyond the Prescription.
You can subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on her Substack at https://lucymcbride.substack.com/podcast. You can sign up for her free weekly newsletter at lucymcbride.substack.com/welcome.
Please be sure to like, rate, review — and enjoy — the show!
The full transcript of the show is here!
[00:00:00] Dr. McBride: Hello, and welcome to my office. I'm Dr. Lucy McBride, and this is Beyond the Prescription, the show where I talk with my guests like I do my patients, pulling the curtain back on what it means to be healthy, redefining health as more than the absence of disease. As a primary care doctor for over 20 years, I've realized that patients are much more than their cholesterol and their weight, that we are the integrated sum of complex parts.
[00:00:33] Our stories live in our bodies. I'm here to help people tell their story to find out whether they are okay, and for you to imagine and potentially get healthier from the inside out. You can subscribe to my weekly newsletter through my website at lucymcbride.com and to the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. So let's get into it and go beyond the prescription.
[00:01:01] Today's podcast guest is Dr. Samantha Boardman. Samantha is a positive psychiatrist, a clinical assistant professor at the Weill Cornell Medical College in New York, and the author of a book called Everyday Vitality. It's a book that combines her research as a clinical psychiatrist in New York to help readers find strength within their stress.
[00:01:24] I met Dr. Boardman through a mutual friend. I started reading her book and listening to her talk on Instagram, and it was clear that we had a common interest in helping people marry mental and physical health. Today on the podcast, we will talk about when is therapy not appropriate? We'll talk about medication, we'll talk about Zoom versus in-person therapy, and we'll talk about leaning into our strengths as opposed to focusing on the negatives. Welcome to the podcast, Samantha. I'm so happy to have you.
[00:01:53] Dr. Boardman: Thank you so much. Thank you for having me. I'm a huge fan.
[00:01:57] Dr. McBride: So today, Samantha, I'd love to talk to you about many things. One is your definition of health. What does it mean to be healthy? So let's just start there.
[00:02:07] Dr. Boardman: Great place to start. And so I think my definition of health has really changed over the past 20 years. Like you, I went to medical school and then I did a psychiatry residency. The definition of health for me then was the absence of illness. And what I thought of myself as doing my role was to make people less miserable as a psychiatrist.
[00:02:30] And I've gotta tell you, I got pretty good at misery along the way. But one day I was actually fired by a patient who said, when I come to see you, we just focus on what's wrong with me. We don’t really focus on what's going on, what's wrong with

You can also check out this episode on Spotify!
In honor of Mental Health Awareness month, we welcome Dr. Samatha Boardman. Dr. Boardman is a New York based positive psychiatrist who is committed to fixing what’s wrong and building what’s strong. She writes the popular newsletter called and is the author of Everyday Vitality, a book about leaning into our strengths to bring about positive change.
Historically, psychiatry has focused on the diagnosis of disease and the treatment of individuals with mental illness. Positive Psychiatry takes a more expansive approach, focusing on the promotion of wellbeing and the creation of health.
Dr. Boardman is passionate about cultivating vitality, boosting resilience, and transforming full days into more fulfilling days. Today Dr. Boardman sits down with Dr. McBride to discuss finding wellness within illness, strength within stress, and how to live with anxiety rather than being defined by it. Dr. Boardman is here to help!
Join Dr. McBride every Monday for a new episode of Beyond the Prescription.
You can subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on her Substack at https://lucymcbride.substack.com/podcast. You can sign up for her free weekly newsletter at lucymcbride.substack.com/welcome.
Please be sure to like, rate, review — and enjoy — the show!
The full transcript of the show is here!
[00:00:00] Dr. McBride: Hello, and welcome to my office. I'm Dr. Lucy McBride, and this is Beyond the Prescription, the show where I talk with my guests like I do my patients, pulling the curtain back on what it means to be healthy, redefining health as more than the absence of disease. As a primary care doctor for over 20 years, I've realized that patients are much more than their cholesterol and their weight, that we are the integrated sum of complex parts.
[00:00:33] Our stories live in our bodies. I'm here to help people tell their story to find out whether they are okay, and for you to imagine and potentially get healthier from the inside out. You can subscribe to my weekly newsletter through my website at lucymcbride.com and to the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. So let's get into it and go beyond the prescription.
[00:01:01] Today's podcast guest is Dr. Samantha Boardman. Samantha is a positive psychiatrist, a clinical assistant professor at the Weill Cornell Medical College in New York, and the author of a book called Everyday Vitality. It's a book that combines her research as a clinical psychiatrist in New York to help readers find strength within their stress.
[00:01:24] I met Dr. Boardman through a mutual friend. I started reading her book and listening to her talk on Instagram, and it was clear that we had a common interest in helping people marry mental and physical health. Today on the podcast, we will talk about when is therapy not appropriate? We'll talk about medication, we'll talk about Zoom versus in-person therapy, and we'll talk about leaning into our strengths as opposed to focusing on the negatives. Welcome to the podcast, Samantha. I'm so happy to have you.
[00:01:53] Dr. Boardman: Thank you so much. Thank you for having me. I'm a huge fan.
[00:01:57] Dr. McBride: So today, Samantha, I'd love to talk to you about many things. One is your definition of health. What does it mean to be healthy? So let's just start there.
[00:02:07] Dr. Boardman: Great place to start. And so I think my definition of health has really changed over the past 20 years. Like you, I went to medical school and then I did a psychiatry residency. The definition of health for me then was the absence of illness. And what I thought of myself as doing my role was to make people less miserable as a psychiatrist.
[00:02:30] And I've gotta tell you, I got pretty good at misery along the way. But one day I was actually fired by a patient who said, when I come to see you, we just focus on what's wrong with me. We don’t really focus on what's going on, what's wrong with

47 min