Standards and corrections
How The Observatory is made
A counseling practice makes this show, and the two voices on it are not people. That puts a fair number of obligations on us. Here is what gets checked before an episode airs, what the show will never do, who pays for it, and what happens when we get something wrong.
Fixed stars
Six things that do not move
Sources listed
Every research claim traces to a published source, and the sources sit on the episode page.
Numbers carry method
A prevalence figure comes with how it was measured. A bare number is rhetoric.
Described, never quoted
The hosts characterize what an author argued. No passage is read out.
Medication reported
What the trials found, attributed to the trials. Nobody here prescribes.
Nobody gets diagnosed
No episode ends by inviting you to see yourself in it.
Lone Star pays
No sponsors, no paid placements, no say for any author or publisher.
At the eyepiece
Who is looking
The Observatory is produced by Lone Star Telehealth, a private-pay counseling practice for adults in Texas and Louisiana. Logan Williamson, a Licensed Professional Counselor in Texas and Louisiana, chose the fifty books, sets the editorial rules on this page, and approves every episode before it is published.
Juno, the reader
Beck, the evidence
The two hosts are synthetic voices. They are not people, they are not clinicians, and they have no experience of their own. Juno reads as a reader would. Beck reports what the research found. The scripts are drafted with AI assistance under the rules below and are edited and approved by a licensed clinician. When a real person speaks on the show, it is Logan, and the episode says so.
Calibration
What gets checked
before an episode airs
Every research claim traces to a published source.
The sources for each episode are listed on that episode's page with a link to the paper, and a claim that cannot be traced does not go to air.
Every number carries its method.
A prevalence figure comes with how it was measured, because the same question answered by a registry, a survey and a clinical interview gives three different numbers, and a bare number with no method attached is a rhetorical device rather than a fact.
The show describes books and never quotes them.
A passage read on air without the page in hand is a statement about someone else's published work that has not been verified, so the hosts characterize what an author argued in their own words instead.
Known controversies about an author are named on air.
The show reports what the published record supports and where it stops. It does not state why an author wrote something, what they believe, or what they stood to gain.
Medication is reported, never advised.
The show states what trials found and attributes it to the trials. Nobody on the show recommends, ranks or compares a drug. The prescriber is the expert, and that relationship is the one to rely on.
Where the telescope does not point
What the show will not do
It will not diagnose you.
Nothing on the show is a clinical opinion about any listener, and no episode ends by inviting you to recognize yourself in it. A diagnosis requires a conversation with an actual person, and that is not what a podcast is.
It will not tell you what to take.
Reference episodes describe medications so that the conversation with your medical doctor or psychiatrist goes better, and every one of them opens and closes by sending you to that conversation.
It will not substitute for care.
If you are in crisis, call or text 988 in the United States.
Who keeps the lights on
Who pays for it
Lone Star Telehealth pays for the show. There are no sponsors and no paid placements, and no author, publisher or company has any say in what is said about a book.
Book links on episode pages go to Bookshop.org, which splits its proceeds with independent bookshops. Lone Star Telehealth earns nothing from them. If that changes, this paragraph changes with it and the disclosure appears beside every link.
When a star is in the wrong place
Corrections
If we got something wrong, we would rather hear it from you than leave it up.
- 1
Tell us
Write to [email protected]. Say which episode and, if you can, where in it.
- 2
We check
We take the claim back to the source it came from.
- 3
We fix or explain
If the source does not support what was said, we fix the transcript and the episode page, note the correction with its date at the top of that page, and re-cut the segment or add a spoken note if the error is in the audio. If the source does support it, we reply and say why it stands.
Corrections log
None yet. Every correction is listed here with its date, so it is easy to find.
Privacy
Listening to the show and reading these pages collects nothing about you beyond what any web page records. The corrections and mailbag addresses are not clinical channels, so please do not send health information to them. To talk with a clinician, use the contact page.
The line the show ends on
The Observatory is produced by Lone Star Telehealth. Logan Williamson is a Licensed Professional Counselor in Texas and Louisiana. This show is education about books, not counseling, not a clinical opinion about you, and not a substitute for care.
Logan Williamson is a Licensed Professional Counselor in Texas and Louisiana. The Observatory is education about books. It is not counseling, not a clinical opinion about any listener, and not a substitute for care.
How the show is made, and what it will never do, is on the standards page.
Something wrong? Write to [email protected]. In a mental health crisis, call or text 988.