Artist Recovery Podcast

Artist Recovery Podcast is Bringing Light to the Darkside of Art. I’m Rich Wright, your host — and here we're redefining recovery as Renewal, Resilience and Creative Transformation. Because for artists, it’s more than survival… it’s Remembering.
This show is about the real journey of being a working creative — the highs, the lows, the pivots, and the reinventions that shape who we are. Together we’ll explore how setbacks can spark transformation, how loss can open new paths, and how resilience fuels the heart of every artist’s story.
If you’ve ever faced doubt, setback, or the call to reinvent yourself, you’re in the right place. Let’s recover — and create — together.”

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Artist Recovery Podcast

Artist Recovery Podcast S2 Ep. 27 | Dr. Rod Berger: The Narrative Edge of Authentic Storytelling

July 03, 2026 • Rich Wright • Season 2 • Episode 27

0:00 | 1:51:46

What does it take to interview Magic Johnson, Pope Francis, and refugees in camps across Africa with the same depth of curiosity? On the Artist Recovery Podcast, host Rich Wright sits down with Dr. Rod Berger, clinical psychologist, journalist, and author of The Narrative Edge: Authentic Storytelling That Meets the Moment. This conversation revolves around the real roots of a storyteller's life and what it means to finally own your own story.

Dr. Berger has conducted over 4,000 interviews for outlets including Forbes, Entrepreneur Magazine, and Los Angeles Magazine. He holds a BA in psychology from Michigan State University and a doctorate in clinical psychology from Phillips Graduate University. He is a longtime guest lecturer at Vanderbilt University, a keynote speaker with over 350,000 social followers, and holds a television development deal with the Jim Henson Company. His subjects have included Magic Johnson, Charles Barkley, Sammy Hagar, United Nations officials, Pope Francis, and the Crown Princess of Sweden, plus refugee camps across Africa.
Before the bylines, Rod was a serious, observant kid in Metro Detroit, raised by a German father who survived World War II and rarely spoke of it.
That silence became the spark. Rod traces his curiosity to Sunday nights watching 60 Minutes, a childhood trip to Germany to meet a grandmother he could not speak to, and years spent studying adults instead of playing with peers his own age. What followed was a path through Columbia College Chicago, a psychology degree from Michigan State, clinical work on the streets of Watts and Compton, and a career built on asking questions most people are afraid to ask.

THIS CONVERSATION REVOLVES AROUND:
~Growing up in a strict German immigrant household in Metro Detroit and how silence shaped a lifelong curiosity.
~A childhood trip to Germany at age nine and the grandmother he could not understand.
~Watching 60 Minutes as a boy and the early roots of a storytelling obsession.
~Competitive soccer and basketball, and how sports parented him when guidance was scarce.
~Public speaking to hundreds of students as a teenager and the mentor who pushed him onto the stage.
~Studying media at Columbia College Chicago before returning to Michigan State for psychology.
~Clinical training at King Drew Medical Center in Watts and Compton, sitting with people in crisis.
~The move from Los Angeles to Nashville and building a career around Vanderbilt University.
~Writing The Narrative Edge and its central question: if you are not in control of your own story, then who is.
~Why creatives need permission to be seen, not just their work.~Whether artificial intelligence is a disruptor or a tool for storytellers.~Why every story matters, including the ones that never traveled anywhere at all.

WHY THIS EPISODE MATTERS FOR CREATIVES:Rod's story is proof that the questions left unanswered in childhood often become the questions we spend a lifetime learning to ask. For every creative who has wondered if their story is worth telling, this conversation offers a clear answer. Your story matters, and if you do not own it, someone else will write it for you.

Connect with Dr. Berger:
Website: https://www.drrodberger.com
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rodbergerpsyd
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drrodberger
Youtube: ⁨@drrodberger⁩

Artist Rich Wright’s WOW Essential Spirit Paintings: ⁠https://www.theartistrecovery.com/white-owl-wisdom-1

Join Podmatch:
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