The Brooklyn Paper interviewed Frontiers for its May 22 2004 edition. Below is the article in its entirety:

FRONTIERS: THE BROOKLYN CABLE PSYCHOTHERAPY JOURNAL (NOW TITLED FRONTIERS IN PSYCHOTHERAPY.TV)

Hugh Simmons was surfing the Internet one night in 2001 when he came across Brooklyn Community Access Television's website. And right then an idea was born. "I'd always sort of known about public access, but I didn't know we had it in Brooklyn," he said. "The possibilities just seemed fascinating to me."

Simmons, a certified social worker and psychotherapist since 1997, contacted fellow Brooklyn CSW Therese Bimka, and together they crafted the concept of Frontiers: The Brooklyn Cable Psychotherapy Journal, the first BCAT show exclusively devoted to issues in psychotherapy. Their half-hour interview show premiered in December 2001. The theme was psychotherapeutic approaches to trauma, a painfully relevant topic for post-9/11 New York, and an approach to the event that no one had yet discussed in the mainstream media.

New York City may be the one place in America where therapy is not only not taboo, "it's practically a status symbol," says Simmons. But the stigma associated with psychotherapy is changing, in part to images on television: if Tony Soprano can admit to having a therapist, then anyone can. While there are media outlets covering issues in mental health, and popular television psychologists like Dr. Phil normalizing the subject, no network television program to date has focused specifically on issues in psychotherapy, loosely defined as the treatment of psychological disorders using therapeutic methods.

Designed as a resource for professionals in the field and the interested layperson, Frontiers topics have ranged from "Making Psychotherapy Safe for People of Color" to "Fathers of Gay Men." They've done several 9/11-themed shows, including one with the Brooklyn Society for Ethical Culture on the relationship between psychotherapy and spirituality in difficult times. They explore issues across race, gender and sexual orientation, and traditional and non-traditional therapies, like creative arts therapy or Junigian "Sandplay."

In their two and a half years of production, Frontiers has gathered a loyal audience. "Our colleagues have been universally excited about it," says Simmons. The show has been so successful, in fact, that Simmons and Bimka recently recruited several Brooklyn-based mental health professionals to take BCAT training and become co-producers, expanding the show from monthly to weekly as of January. The new Frontiers team includes social worker Aquilla Frederick and dance therapists Joan Wittig and Isabella Scapini-Burrell. Now that they're all trained media professionals, they work as a crew on one another's shoots and trade off hosting.

Switching gears from therapist to TV talk show host has proved much less difficult than one might think. "There's really an overlap between being an interviewer and a therapist," says Simmons. The therapist's job is largely to ask questions, to sit back and listen, and then respond, just like an interviewer. "It felt like not that big of a stretch," says Simmons. "It was really quite comfortable."

All five producers live and work in Brooklyn, but the show reaches across the river. "We identify strongly as Brooklynites, but we want to make use of everything New York City has to offer," says Simmons. "New York City is such a focal point for the theory and practice of psychotherapy."

This next season will find Frontiers partnered with two professional training programs: the Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy Study Center and the Women's Therapy Centre, both in Manhattan. "This is a great way to expand our capacity to talk to interesting people," says Simmons. Frontiers will co-produce six shows with each group, and continue to encourage a collaboration between BCAT and the psychotherapeutic community.

The whole process - from the moment Simmons conceived the concept sitting at his computer to his graduation from BCAT training - was a breeze, he says. He felt instantly at ease learning the technical aspects of television production, and drew on the whole "community" feel of community access. "It all just came together."

Simmons says he hopes the Frontiers tapes will continue to have a life outside their BCAT airing. Already some shows have been used in classrooms and as teacher training aides. He hopes the show will serve not only to expand viewers' visions of psychotherapy, but to encourage them to follow their own epiphanies and create more innovative community access programs.

"We should all get the word out about BCAT," he says. "It's a wonderful resource. It's practically free, and you can do anything you want."