On a drive home after dinner with my kids, listening to Tim Henson’s Original Sin, a constellation of ideas came together around the work and life of psychoanalytic philosopher Mari Ruti. This episode is a personal, creative reflection on Ruti as a kind of “meek rebel” — someone deeply relational, politically engaged, and radically committed to inner freedom without ever surrendering herself to social belonging.

At the heart of the episode is a story I heard from Gail Newman about Ruti’s time in Vienna: how she accepted the invitation to collaborate on The Creative Self, but only if she could rent her own apartment — needing solitude not as withdrawal, but as the condition of her thinking, writing, and creativity.

Thinking with Rami Kaminski’s idea of otroversion, and drawing on Ruti’s own words about singularity, intimate revolt, and the limits of external revolution, this episode is an affectionate, speculative portrait of a life oriented toward depth over performance, inner freedom over recognition, and creativity over coherence.

Not a scholarly argument — just a meditation on what it might mean to live a deeply relational life without ever losing one’s singularity.

In this solo episode, I reflect on two recent conversations that have been quietly reshaping how I think about faith, love, and identity—my dialogue with theologian David Congdon on polyamorous Christianity, and my conversation with Rami Kaminski on otroversion and The Gift of Not Belonging.

On the surface, these episodes come from very different worlds. But as I sit with them, I begin to hear a shared invitation: to step out of inherited scripts, resist mono-normative ways of living, and take responsibility for crafting an ethical, relational, and spiritual life that is truly our own.

This episode explores the courage it takes to choose your own adventure—to discover your authentic voice, to seek deep connection without losing yourself to groupthink, and to live without the false safety of guarantees. Drawing from my work as a therapist and from the heart of Green Flags, I reflect on what it means to belong without disappearing, to love without rigid rules, and to build a life rooted in curiosity, integrity, and real intimacy.

If you’ve ever felt like you don’t quite fit the scripts you were handed—this one is for you.

What if not belonging isn’t a flaw—but a form of freedom?

In this episode of Psyche, I sit down with psychiatrist and author Dr. Rami Kaminski to explore his powerful book, The Gift of Not Belonging: How Outsiders Thrive in a World of Joiners. Together, we unpack his concept of otrovertness—a way of being in the world where a person may appear gentle, kind, and socially capable on the outside, yet internally refuses to surrender their identity to groupthink, ideology, or social pressure.

Dr. Kaminski describes the otrovert as a kind of meek rebel: someone who doesn’t need to be loud, defiant, or disruptive in order to be free. Instead, their rebellion is inward—rooted in the radical act of thinking for themselves, feeling for themselves, and refusing to let the crowd define who they are.

We talk about how modern culture confuses belonging with safety, how early socialization trains us to trade authenticity for acceptance, and why so many sensitive, neurodivergent, and deeply thoughtful people grow up feeling like outsiders—even when they seem to “fit in” just fine.

This conversation also explores:

• Why connection is not the same as belonging

• How otrovertness relates to autonomy, attachment, and inner freedom

• Why obedience often gets mistaken for goodness

• And how living outside the emotional herd can actually lead to a calmer, more meaningful life

  
  

If you’ve ever felt like you were never meant to live according to someone else’s script—this episode will speak directly to you.