MENTAL HEALTH • THERAPY • RELATIONSHIPS
The Why Between Us is a place for thoughtful conversations about mental health, relationships, therapy, play, grief, and the experiences that shape the way people connect, cope, and become who they are.
THE CONVERSATION
Each episode begins with a real question. Why do we repeat the same patterns? Why can closeness feel unsafe? Why does grief change a family? Why do children play the same themes again and again? What is therapy actually doing when it works?
ABOUT THE HOST
Colby Odom, LMSW, is a therapist, social worker, educator, and presenter whose professional experience has taken him across community mental health, child welfare, hospice, crisis intervention, and child and family services. He provides psychotherapy to children, adolescents, adults, and families while working within an interdisciplinary behavioral health setting.
His clinical training includes a two-year postgraduate program in trauma-informed play therapy, more than 150 hours of advanced play therapy training, CAMS for suicide-focused care, Seeking Safety, Motivational Interviewing, Psychological First Aid, grief-focused Rapid Resolution Therapy, and advanced study in psychodynamic and person-centered approaches. His graduate education focused on clinical mental health counseling.
Colby's professional roots are in eastern Oklahoma. His child-welfare work with Oklahoma Human Services served Muskogee and McIntosh Counties, where he worked in investigations, permanency planning, and family-centered multidisciplinary decision-making. He later provided hospice social work from Stigler across southeastern Oklahoma, supporting patients and families through terminal illness, anticipatory grief, traumatic loss, and end-of-life transitions.
Colby also serves on the Board of Directors of the Oklahoma Association for Play Therapy as Continuing Education Director and has been invited to teach and present on rural mental health ethics, play therapy, suicide prevention, healthcare, and the therapeutic relationship. In 2023, the Oklahoma Association of Home Care & Hospice recognized him as Social Worker of the Year and #1 Hospice Social Worker in Oklahoma.
The thread through all of that work is simple: people make more sense when we become curious about what is happening beneath the behavior. The Why Between Us is where Colby brings that curiosity into conversations meant for everyone.
PROFESSIONAL MILESTONES
Completed a two-year postgraduate program in trauma-informed play therapy, representing more than 150 hours of advanced clinical education.
Recognized for hospice social-work practice, grief support, interdisciplinary care, and service to patients and families facing serious illness and loss.
Board of Directors member and Continuing Education Director, supporting professional learning and the advancement of play therapy in Oklahoma.
Invited presentations on mental health, rural ethics, crisis response, play therapy, suicide prevention, trauma, and the human side of care.
THE PERSON & THE PRACTICE
The Why Between Us is not built around having all the answers. It is built around asking better questions, making mental-health knowledge easier to understand, and remembering that there is always a person underneath the behavior.
Colby's work began in eastern Oklahoma, serving Muskogee and McIntosh Counties in child welfare before moving into hospice practice based in Stigler and serving communities across southeastern Oklahoma. Working in rural communities has shaped how he thinks about access, relationships, privacy, grief, family systems, and what it means to provide care where everybody seems to know somebody.
Colby's clinical thinking brings together the warmth of Carl Rogers, the depth of psychoanalytic and psychodynamic thought, and the expressive language of play. In everyday terms, that means listening without rushing to fix, looking beneath symptoms and behavior for meaning, paying attention to relationships and patterns, and recognizing that children often communicate what they cannot yet put into words through play.
This project was created as a way to give back: to share mental-health knowledge, lectures, research, and thoughtful conversations beyond the therapy room or classroom. The goal is not to turn the internet into therapy. It is to make good questions and useful ideas more accessible to the communities they are meant to serve.
Colby is also a husband, a dad, an avid coffee drinker, and a lifelong lover of film. Those ordinary parts of life matter here. The Why Between Us is meant to feel less like a lecture from across a desk and more like the kind of meaningful conversation that can happen over coffee when people have enough time to be curious with one another.
WHY THIS SHOW EXISTS
People are often described by the most visible thing they do: angry, avoidant, difficult, needy, distant, dramatic, unmotivated.
This show asks a different question: what might be happening underneath?
Sometimes the most helpful thing we can do is become a little more curious about one another.
READINGS & RESEARCH
A growing library of books, research, and episode notes for people who want more depth and less noise.
Books on psychotherapy, play, attachment, grief, trauma, relationships, child development, and the human condition.
Explore the reading list →Peer-reviewed research connected to episode topics, paired with accessible summaries that explain why the findings matter.
Explore readings →Reflection questions, key ideas, and cited sources for viewers who want to keep thinking after the conversation ends.
Watch the channel →THE WHY BETWEEN US SHOP
Future notebooks, conversation cards, educational tools, original writing, apparel, and other items built around reflection and meaningful conversation will live here.
This space is ready for future products when the show grows into them.
Ask about future releasesCONTACT
For speaking invitations, guest ideas, collaborations, media inquiries, or general correspondence, reach out directly.
Email Colby