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Second Thoughts

Second Thoughts

By: Roger Hall
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Second Thoughts with Dr. Roger Hall

Join Dr. Roger Hall, a seasoned business psychologist, as he delves into the intricacies of leadership, productivity, and personal development. Each episode offers actionable insights and real-world strategies to help you excel in both your professional and personal life.

What to Expect:

  • In-depth discussions on effective leadership techniques.
  • Proven methods to boost productivity and maintain focus.
  • Personal development tips to enhance your well-being.
  • Q&A sessions addressing your most pressing questions.


Whether you're a CEO, entrepreneur, or on a journey of self-improvement, "Second Thoughts" provides the tools and knowledge to help you succeed.

Subscribe now to stay updated with our weekly episodes and start transforming your mindset today.

© 2026 Dr Roger Hall Economics Hygiene & Healthy Living Philosophy Social Sciences
Episodes
  • Does Therapy Work? Nobody Tells The Therapist They Were Wrong

    Does Therapy Work? Nobody Tells The Therapist They Were Wrong
    Oct 27 2026
    "Most therapists don't ever find out how things turn out."Does therapy work? The honest answer is that most therapists never find out. The client graduates, quits or leaves, and nobody checks in eight years later to ask how things are going. Dr. Roger Hall gave up doing psychotherapy over 20 years ago, and he says it is a very rare occurrence to learn how a client's life really turned out.The research has the same problem. A lot of what passes for evidence on psychotherapy is client satisfaction surveys. Do you like your therapist? Do you feel better? Liking someone and changing are two different things, and a client who feels connected rates the outcome higher than their behavior would suggest. Add the expert differential, a suffering client and a confident expert, and nobody in the room is set up to say the therapist was wrong.Roger brings in Nassim Taleb's Skin in the Game: you are taking advice from someone with no long-term connection to the outcome. Then the trap inside the session. The client says you're brilliant, you've changed my life, and the therapist starts to believe their own press clippings. Some clients take a flight into health, feel great for two weeks and collapse, because nothing built the habits to sustain the change.Insurance pays for most of it and measures cost, not long-term change. Long-term outcome studies cost millions, which is why one of the few is the Harvard Grant Study. Roger's verdict: psychology is an infant science, and clinical psychology is at the state of alchemy relative to chemistry.So what do you do? Write down your goals before you start, in behavior you can count. Five days out of seven I sleep eight hours. Five days out of seven I make my bed. You can measure that. You can't measure happy. Roger recommends the workbook Mind Over Mood by Dennis Greenberger and Christine Padesky, and the PLISSIT model he learned from a sex therapy instructor: permission, limited information, specific suggestions, and only then intensive therapy.Chapters0:00 Most therapists never find out how it turned out1:09 Can a therapist ever be wrong?1:28 How do you measure if therapy worked?2:05 Satisfaction is not change3:14 The expert differential3:54 There is no feedback loop5:16 Painting a picture you can't see6:03 Nassim Taleb's Skin in the Game6:58 If this were your child, what would you do?9:09 The sugar high inside the session9:55 Believing their own press clippings10:10 The flight into health11:13 Palliative care: relief without a cure12:58 Who pays for therapy?14:15 Why therapists don't follow up15:00 What a long-term outcome study costs15:15 The Harvard Grant Study16:41 What should you do? Write down your goals17:25 Behavioral goals you can measure18:47 Do therapists give each other feedback?20:27 Therapists are like cats21:26 Psychology is at the state of alchemy22:35 Mind Over Mood23:30 The PLISSIT model25:24 Try the small steps before intensive therapy26:44 Share this with a friendSecond Thoughts, Episode 78.Dr. Roger Hall is a Peak Performance Psychologist who helps leaders master their thinking and achieve greater power, freedom, clarity, and calm.Send us Fan MailSupport the showThank you for tuning in to this episode of Second Thoughts with Dr. Roger Hall!If you enjoyed today's insights, don't forget to subscribe for more content on leadership, productivity, and personal growth. Share this episode with friends, colleagues, or anyone who could benefit from these powerful strategies.🎧 Listen & Subscribe: Available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and all major platforms.🌐 Connect with Dr. Hall: Visit drrogerhall.com for resources and more.🧭 Work with Roger: compassconsultation.com📧 Have a question? Submit it for a chance to be featured in a future episode!Follow me on socials:X - @DoctorRogerHallFacebook - Second ThoughtsInstagram - @DoctorRogerHallLinkedin - @Dr Roger HallYoutube - @DoctorRogerHallRumble - @SecondThoughtsOpinions expressed are not therapy or constitute any professional relationship with anyone who watches or listens. For education and entertainment only.
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    27 mins
  • Character Strengths, Not A Disorder. You Have A Hard Life

    Character Strengths, Not A Disorder. You Have A Hard Life
    Oct 20 2026
    "Everybody's life is hard."Character strengths, not a diagnosis. In 1999 Martin Seligman, then president of the American Psychological Association, wrote a farewell address that said the future of psychology is not in psychopathology. The field had strayed from what got it into business in the first place, which is how to define human flourishing.Seligman, Chris Peterson, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and Barbara Fredrickson built a competing classification. Not disorders. Virtues and strengths, six buckets, drawn from ancient religious and philosophical texts. The classical virtues, the medieval virtues, and the modern six line up. The Values in Action inventory measures where you stand. It is an imperfect instrument, it costs money, and it is worth taking. The survey lives at viacharacter.org.His claim: legitimately, some people are suffering and need help. That is a small portion of the population. The larger portion would be better served by looking at their strengths than at their symptoms. If you focus on the one small symptom cluster of your life and not the rest, you are focused on the thing that trips you rather than the thing that helps you run.Then the hard part. Nation's original question was you don't have a disorder, you have a hard life. Roger starts with the first line of Scott Peck's The Road Less Traveled: life is hard. It just is. First world problems are still problems, and discounting them because worse problems exist somewhere else gets you nowhere. So assume life is difficult. Then what?Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning and logotherapy: growth comes through suffering, and if we believe we should have easy lives we will never grow. People who have had trauma have to work on it. But getting to zero is a pretty sucky goal. Once you are at zero, how do you give your gifts to the world? Unless there is a payoff for being a victim, and victimhood is the smaller prize.The close is the Harvard Grant Study, the longest running longitudinal study of human beings. The men with the greatest life satisfaction were not the richest or the most famous. They had strong primary love relationships and meaningful work. To work and to love. If all you are focused on is your precious diagnosis, you will never be fruitful for the rest of the world.This continues Episode 76: Is ADHD Overdiagnosed? You Are Not Your Diagnosis.What we cover:Seligman's 1999 farewell address: the future of psychology is not psychopathologyThe competing classification: virtues and strengths instead of disordersThe classical virtues, the medieval virtues, and the modern sixThe Values in Action inventory, and where to find itThe small portion who need help, and the larger portion who need their strengthsOverdiagnosis is a disservice to the people who really have the disorderThe Road Less Traveled: life is hard, it just isFirst world problems are still problemsMan's Search for Meaning, Viktor Frankl and logotherapyGetting to zero is a pretty sucky goalUnless there is a payoff for being a victimTo work and to love: the Harvard Grant StudyChapters0:00 Everybody's life is hard1:11 Seligman's 1999 farewell address1:54 A competing classification: virtues and strengths2:46 The classical virtues and the medieval virtues3:39 Most people are better served by strengths than by diagnostics4:02 The Values in Action inventory5:29 Seligman, Fredrickson and Csikszentmihalyi: who to read6:14 The thing that trips you versus the thing that helps you run6:39 Overdiagnosis is a disservice to people who really have the disorder7:08 Nobody looks at traffic that runs well7:55 You don't have a disorder. You have a hard life8:31 The Road Less Traveled: life is hard, it just is9:02 First world problems are still problems10:01 Just assume life is difficult. Then what?10:19 Man's Search for Meaning11:09 Logotherapy: growth comes through suffering12:17 Getting to zero is a pretty sucky goal13:44 Unless there is a payoff for being a victim14:04 To work and to love14:36 The Harvard Grant Study15:34 What makes a good life15:53 Share this with a friendSecond Thoughts, Episode 77.Dr. Roger Hall is a Peak Performance Psychologist who helps leaders master their thinking and achieve greater power, freedom, clarity, and calm.Send us Fan MailSupport the showThank you for tuning in to this episode of Second Thoughts with Dr. Roger Hall!If you enjoyed today's insights, don't forget to subscribe for more content on leadership, productivity, and personal growth. Share this episode with friends, colleagues, or anyone who could benefit from these powerful strategies.🎧 Listen & Subscribe: Available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and all major platforms.🌐 Connect with Dr. Hall: Visit drrogerhall.com for resources and more.🧭 Work with Roger: compassconsultation.com📧 Have a question? Submit it for a chance to be featured in a future episode!Follow me on socials:X - @DoctorRogerHallFacebook - Second ThoughtsInstagram - @DoctorRogerHallLinkedin - @Dr Roger HallYoutube ...
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    16 mins
  • Is ADHD Overdiagnosed? You Are Not Your Diagnosis

    Is ADHD Overdiagnosed? You Are Not Your Diagnosis
    Oct 13 2026
    "We've made it advantageous to have a diagnosis."Is ADHD overdiagnosed? Nation asks a plain question first: somebody walks in convinced they have ADHD. How do you find out whether they do? Roger's answer is the diagnostic triage.There are two roads to a diagnosis. Psychometric testing, with the MMPI and the MCMI as the gold standards. Or the diagnostic interview, where each category has a list of criteria and you have to meet three of five, or six of nine. Then three more tests that some clinicians have stopped applying: it has to cause significant distress, it has to last, and it has to be unrelated to life events. If your mom dies, you have every symptom of depression. That is not depression. That is grief, and we know its course.Then the buckets in the DSM: mood, thought, developmental (where ADHD sits), personality, eating, anxiety. The diagnostic language used to be contained within a profession. The internet democratized it. Read the manual and you are convinced you have everything in it.Roger says overdiagnosis is a piece of the story without a doubt, and he names the incentive. Schools give extra time on a test to a kid with a diagnosis. Social media rewards a self diagnosis worn as a badge of honor. A friend's daughter reports that nobody at her high school is a jock or a theater kid any more. They are in the "I have this disorder" group. Victimhood pays, so you get more of it.The negativity bias explains why it sells, and Tierney and Baumeister's The Power of Bad explains the bias. Then the therapist's side. If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail, and a therapist's best tool is the diagnostic category. Behind it is a training problem: eight students a class in his program, thousands in two-year programs now. What do you call the person who graduated last in medical school? Doctor.A mental health diagnosis is a cluster of about eight symptoms, and calling yourself mentally ill when you are not does a disservice to the people who really have the illness. You are not your trauma. You are not your diagnosis. There is far more to you than those narrow categories.The conversation continues in Episode 77: Seligman's farewell address, character strengths, and why everybody's life is hard.What we cover:Distress, duration, and unrelated to life events: the three tests that get skippedGrief looks exactly like depression and is not depressionThe DSM buckets, and where ADHD actually sitsWhy overdiagnosis is a piece of it without a doubtDiagnosis as a badge of honor: self diagnosis on TikTokExtra time on the test: how schools made a diagnosis advantageousThe Power of Bad and the negativity biasIf all you have is a hammer: the therapist whose best tool is the diagnosisDiploma mills, and what you call the last in the classYou are not your trauma. You are not your diagnosisBooks shown: the DSM-5 (American Psychiatric Association) and The Power of Bad by John Tierney and Roy Baumeister.Chapters0:00 We've made it advantageous to have a diagnosis1:26 How do you find out if you have ADHD? The diagnostic triage2:12 The MMPI and the MCMI3:49 It has to last, it has to distress you, and it has to be unrelated to life events4:08 Grief looks exactly like depression. It is not depression5:23 Normal problems in living7:01 The DSM buckets: mood, thought, developmental, personality, eating, anxiety8:24 The rise in ADHD diagnoses since the 90s9:10 The DSM used to belong to a profession. Then came the internet10:44 TikTok and the diagnosis as a badge of honor11:56 We've made it advantageous to have a diagnosis12:50 Rewarding victim status: the friend's daughter at school14:16 If it bleeds, it leads: The Power of Bad and the negativity bias16:04 If all you have is a hammer: the therapist's best tool is the diagnosis17:15 Priests, incantations and the box of tissues19:42 Eight students a class then, thousands in two-year programs now20:26 Diploma mills, and what you call the last in the class21:41 I am my diagnosis. No, you're not22:24 You are not your trauma. You are not your diagnosis22:54 Next week: Episode 7723:13 Share this with a friendImages: DSM-5 cover via Wikimedia Commons (public domain); The Power of Bad cover via Open Library.Second Thoughts, Episode 76.Dr. Roger Hall is a Peak Performance Psychologist who helps leaders master their thinking and achieve greater power, freedom, clarity, and calm.Send us Fan MailSupport the showThank you for tuning in to this episode of Second Thoughts with Dr. Roger Hall!If you enjoyed today's insights, don't forget to subscribe for more content on leadership, productivity, and personal growth. Share this episode with friends, colleagues, or anyone who could benefit from these powerful strategies.🎧 Listen & Subscribe: Available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and all major platforms.🌐 Connect with Dr. Hall: Visit drrogerhall.com for resources and more.🧭 Work with Roger: compassconsultation.com📧 Have a question? Submit it for a chance to be featured in a ...
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    24 mins
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