It might not seem like Elizabeth Smart, whose 2002 kidnapping became one of the most high-profile in history, would want to immerse herself in stories of similar horrors. She doesn’t see it that way at all.

On a new podcast, “The Survivor Files With Elizabeth Smart,” Smart speaks with survivors of violent crimes to explore not just what happened but what came after, including the ongoing process of healing. For the first episode, she sat down with Kara Robinson Chamberlain, who escaped a serial killer at age 15.

“The determination to continue moving forward, finding that inner strength — that’s the part that just really speaks to me,” Smart recently told The New York Times in a conversation about the 48-episode weekly series, which debuted on Monday through iHeartPodcasts.

Smart was 14 when she was kidnapped in the middle of the night from her bedroom in her family’s Salt Lake City home by Brian David Mitchell. She was then held captive and brutally abused by him and his wife, Wanda Barzee, for nine months before being rescued.

Now 38, Smart lives outside Salt Lake City with her husband and three children. She has long worked to raise awareness around issues of child safety, sexual assault and trauma recovery, in part through the Elizabeth Smart Foundation, and says this podcast feels like the next meaningful step.

“There’s nothing more powerful than when the survivor of the story is the person sharing their story,” she said.

Here are edited excerpts from our conversation.

This podcast is a bit of a hybrid: part documentary style, part intimate conversation. Why was this the best format for you to examine such stories?

It is very important for our listeners to understand the magnitude of not just the stories, but of the people themselves — what they’ve been through. So we have our guests walk us through, beat by beat, what happened. What was going through their mind? How did they feel in that moment? What did they think was going to happen next? Did they think anyone else was aware? So our listeners can feel connected and understand just how important the resiliency and the moving forward part is.

Because if you don’t understand the depth of how dark it was, how can you understand how incredibly bright they shine now?

It’s really easy when we hear other people share stories to sit there and be like, “Well, why didn’t they do that? Well, why didn’t they do this?” As a survivor myself, I understand where the curiosity comes from, but I also understand how hurtful it can be hearing someone be, like, “Well, why didn’t you run? Why didn’t you scream?”

So when we have a survivor sharing what happened, it’s much easier to be, like, “OK, I understand what was going through your mind. I understand why that wasn’t an option.”

As someone who has been interviewed extensively for decades, what changes for you when you step into the role of interviewer?

My No. 1 concern is just making sure that people feel comfortable because they are sharing the worst moments of their life with me. If they’re feeling too emotional, if they feel like this is too hard, I will always tell them, “Do we need to step away from this?”

I’ll say: “If I ask you a question and you don’t want to answer it, you don’t want to talk about it, just tell me. That is fine. This is your story. We want it in your words.” I’ll tell my guests, “If you have a better question for me to ask, or a better way to ask that question, please tell me.”

Has there been a moment where a guest said something that changed or expanded your perspective on healing?

I’ve been saying it for years, but it just brought new meaning, reaffirmed it to me: Having interviewed survivors of all sorts of horrific nightmares and just unimaginable things, there is no timeline on healing. Maybe that’s one of the most important messages that this podcast will put out there because we have guests on who experienced something 50 years ago, and it’s still a work in progress. There is no magic formula. We’re all just doing the best that we can. We all have to find our own way forward. And we’re not alone. There are others around us.

What is one recurring theme about human resilience that has stood out to you most across these episodes?

Certainly just the strength of humanity is incredible. It’s so common — I have people come up to me and say, “I could never go through what you did.” And honestly, if I heard someone share my story, and it wasn’t me, I’d probably think the same thing. But you don’t know how strong you are until you’re going through something.

That’s true of every person that I’ve interviewed. Nobody thinks they’re that strong until they don’t have another direction to go in, until they are forced to be that strong.

It’s about taking that next step, that next breath, making it through that next minute.

Your case received extraordinary media coverage, but thousands of missing persons — particularly Indigenous, Black and marginalized individuals — never get a fraction of that attention. How do you feel about what’s been coined “missing white woman syndrome” in the true-crime space?

They’re not wrong. If I hadn’t been white and blond and grown up in an affluent neighborhood, would my story have gotten the attention that it did? No, it wouldn’t. It’s not fair. It’s not right. So absolutely I want to share stories of people from every walk of life because it shouldn’t just be reserved for the white blond women of the world.

Also, at the end of the day, I’m not going to be sorry that my case received the attention that it did, because I’m here. I’m alive. Do we need to do more? Thousand percent, yes. Do we need to change? So much change needs to happen. But I will forever be grateful for the attention that my case got.

The true crime genre and its fandoms have a reputation for crossing boundaries. What do you think about this voyeuristic appetite?

There is a line to walk. I also find it very interesting that for many people, that’s the last thing they watch or listen to before they go to bed at night. How do I make sense of that? I mean, I can’t. But then I am immersed in the world of fighting sexual assault and violence and abuse and kidnapping. So that’s kind of my day-to-day. But I certainly don’t want it to be the last thing I think of before I go to sleep.