Today on How We Can Heal Podcast, Lisa Danylchuk talks with Guy Macpherson about his most golden takeaways after talking with 600 trauma therapists. "Being with someone in their healing is healing in and of itself." In Guy's experience, that's something he has proven to be totally true. Here, Guy shares what made him go back to studying in his mid-30s, why vulnerability must first come from the therapist, and what Guy loves about being a therapist in podcasting.
Listen on Apple | Spotify | Google | Amazon
Don't Hide Behind the Assessment
Reading psychoses is a normal thing to do in Guy's field of work. In this episode, Guy cites one instance where he handled a little kid with a 40-page psychosis and severe symptoms. Because communicating results is one part of working with clients, especially clients with guardians and parents, like little kids, as a therapist, Guy ensures that he does so without having to be robotic when simplifying readings with anyone that is of concern.
During therapy with this kid, Guy experienced a challenge—the talk wasn't going anywhere. With explaining an assessment to anyone outside the field being a challenge itself already, Guy faced a stiffer challenge when trying to tackle trauma with a child. That was until he decided to put down the assessment. When Guy resorted to just talking to the child, he observed a major shift. Not hiding behind the assessment helped the child see that he was just talking with another person. After that experience, Guy realized that he only needed to be there as a person first.
About Guy Macpherson:
Guy Macpherson, Ph.D., is a husband, a father of two, and holds a doctorate in clinical psychology. He has spent the last several years studying the impact and treatment of trauma and early psychosis.
In 2014, while working at a clinic in Northern California, assessing and treating young individuals with early psychosis, Guy founded The Trauma Therapist Project with the goals of raising the awareness of trauma and creating an educational and supportive community for new trauma therapists.
The Trauma Therapist Project has now grown to include The Trauma Therapist | Podcast, now being listened to in more than 160 countries around the world, Trauma Therapist | 2.0, an online membership community specifically dedicated to educating and inspiring new trauma therapists, and The Trauma Therapist Newsletter, a monthly subscription resource filled with information and inspiration for trauma therapists everywhere.
Guy's focus is on honoring and cultivating the authenticity, vulnerability, and courage of trauma therapists.
Outline of the episode:
- [01:54] What drew Guy into trauma therapy?
- [05:00] Guy Macpherson – on starting 'The Trauma Therapist Podcast'
- [10:26] Anything can be traumatizing for someone
- [15:27] A therapist's vulnerability is critical to setting a tone of safety
- [20:08] The quality of interpersonal relationships that you have is important
- [25:36] Your healing is your journey
- [31:51] The client's assessment is not as critical as connecting with them on a human level
- [39:00] I like how I can share how I screwed it up
- [46:26] It's not about if you're going to get triggered as a therapist; it's when you're going to get triggered
- [50:03] Human Being vs. Human Doing
Resources:
Website: https://www.thetraumatherapistproject.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/guymacphersonphd/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thetraumatherapistpodcast/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/guy_phd
The Trauma Therapist Podcast:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-trauma-therapist/id899009517
Full Transcript Below:
1:23
Awesome. Thank you, Lisa. It's a it's an honor to be here. I'm excited to be part of the
1:28
launch your podcast and nice for you to be in the passenger seat a little bit less relief. So you've interviewed over we figured over 600 trauma therapists by now. Yeah, so we're gonna try to tap into some of that wisdom. Download it for everyone to share. But I'm really curious, you know, to put you in the in the seat and on the spot a little more. You know, what, what led to even before the podcast? How did you get into trauma therapy? Why trauma therapy?
2:00
Yeah. So the quick answer is, I mean, it's a story, but the short version is that I graduated high school, went to college, went to Philadelphia College of Art, what was Philadelphia, Philadelphia College of Art at the time, for a year, I dropped out, started playing music started writing fiction, and was writing, I spent a lot I spent about 10 years writing fiction, and it was writing about really authenticity. And I realized that I was writing about what I wanted to be. And I got to a point where I didn't feel like I was being authentic enough, genuine enough. I don't know where I get this phone call from a woman I used to work with, who was calling people to let them know that she had been living with AIDS for years. And basically, she was saying goodbye. And I was blown away by her strength by her courage. And at that point, I figured I loved writing, but I need to find my strength, find myself find my courage. And so I went on this journey, I started going on these like mountain climbing expeditions and these crazy Outward Bound dog setting things. And what our survival course and in that survival course are like 15 of us who we didn't know each other. But one person on the course started really getting sick, and myself and this other person, help this person we'd like drag this person along through the desert, we were encouraging them. And it was like that moment I walked away from that, going, this is what I want to do with my life. I want to help people in that situation. Now, I didn't realize consciously that any of this had anything to do with my own trauma when I was younger, being bullied, and how that just jacked me up in my life as a kid in terms of my self esteem and my confidence and so forth. And that didn't become realized for me and actually till I did the podcast, but anyway, so I got up out of this course and it's like, I want to go to medical school. I want to help people. So I went back to college and had to redo my undergrad and medical school. The whole process was like not for me, but it was really interestingly so because as I was going through the My prereqs for medical school, people would come to me and talk to me about like, Man, I can't do this and the, and I would just like naturally, like, talk to them, and I can listen to them. And more. People were like, Dude, you, you know, I don't want to hurt your feelings, but you shouldn't be doing this, you should be doing, like you should get into therapy. I was like, no, no, no. Anyway, things shifted. And I went to school, got my doctorate. And I knew from the get go, that I wanted to focus on trauma. And when I got out of graduate school, I got a job in Costa County County working for the county, where we were assessing and treating young kids who were showing early signs of psychosis. And, you know, not surprisingly, 99.9% of those kids had experienced trauma. And it just it blew me away. How many even therapists and teachers and parents didn't know? What could be traumatizing what constituted trauma? And of course, it's one thing when you ask a kid and a parent, you know, have you been? Have you experienced trauma? No, I've never been to war. I've never been blown up or whatnot. But have there been times where you didn't feel safe for, you know, you felt unsafe, or you felt in danger, right, that that those questions open up a whole other
6:33
network. And it says, I realized I needed to do something. And really, that's what it was. And, and during my commuting, I was listening to other podcasts, about entrepreneurs who were doing these incredible things with their lives. And like, I want to do this, I want to start a podcast I want to interview like, who I thought were master therapists, you know, and bring them on and help other people like myself learn about trauma. And that's how I started.
7:02
Yeah, that's amazing. I love the there's like a depth and a yearning for truth that I hear in those early, you know, helping someone in this sounds like a life or death experience, right? You're right in there with them. And then here you are in medical school going, everyone's coming to me and I feel a smile. And you say that, because I feel like so many therapists are just like, why do people in the grocery store line just tell me they're like, there's just some sort of magnetic thing where people I think, feel safe, right? And sometimes they're kind of caught off guard, like, why am I telling you all of this?
7:38
And it was honestly, that's just I am more interested in the story. The process. You know, it's funny, because when I was going through the medical prereqs, I put together a workshop for kind of non traditional students, I was considered a non traditional student, going back to school at 36. Put together a workshop for people who were interested in becoming physicians, who put a whole workshop together. And so here was spending time doing that, right. As opposed to successfully getting into medical school. But early signs, early signs that I didn't see.
8:28
Yeah, but and then you look back, and they all make perfect sense, right? Yeah. So when you look back at starting the podcast, it sounds like you were listening to podcasts, you were absorbing all this information, and it was going somewhere, and then you just got this hit like, Okay, I want it. I want to do a podcast. Do you see now in retrospect, is there anything else that you were wanting or needing or creating out of that that now 600 episodes and you can kind of go oh, okay, this was going on to?
8:56
Well, I think it was coming to terms with, with my own trauma experience, understanding it, being able to talk about it and confront it and understand how that's impacted me. You know, and I only got there really through talking to my guests and hearing them share their own experiences. And in turn, I think not I think I know, it gave me the courage to talk about my own experience. Despite the fact that I had been in therapy and talked about it, but not really understanding, I think, even wanting to admit how much it impacted me.
9:40
Yeah. I think it's important that you bring up bullying too, because this is something whenever I'm offering training and we talk about that diagnostic criteria for PTSD, I was offered this aside of like, often social experiences that feel threatening, follow this same pattern right where it might not be seem to be life or death. But if you're in third grade in the lunch line that kind of does feel like life or death, or if you're in middle school, and a certain group cuts you out, or somebody says something negative spreads a rumor like that can feel like social isolation, which for our species is a threat of death. Right? Definitely. And so I often will bring that in. And I think it's important, you mentioned that because we'll people, I don't know if in your, you know, 600 interviews, how this conversation has evolved. But I know around me that people are sort of steering away from the big T small t, because it's like, well, it's a T. What is it exactly.
10:39
And that was one of the points. I think I realized, and tried to help others. As part of our job, that first job I had at that clinic, we had to do these referral for X, take these calls, from parents and teachers and other therapists to see if there, they wanted to call the clinic and see if their kid was right for the program. So we would go through this list of questions. And it one of the questions was, you know, basically, have you experienced has a child experienced trauma, but of course, kind of educating them to understand everything that could be traumatizing, and what's, you know, traumatizing for one person, of course, isn't necessarily going to be traumatizing for another person. And that was a big eye opening thing for a lot of people. So and that's where we get into the big T little T Well, great. It's a little T for you, but it screwed up my life. Yeah, you know?
11:40
Yeah. And just looking at the impact of that, and how it, how it carries, right, how it carries forward. So you've interviewed over 600, master trauma therapists at this point? And I'd imagine there's a lot of aha moments in there. What, what stands out to you as maybe some themes or commonalities, like what do you hear over and over and over again, that maybe now has become like a norm for you, but still might not be in the field or in the way people think about trauma? or mental health?
12:11
Right? Yeah, that's a good one. You know, when I first started, Lisa, I wanted to, I knew I wanted to get into the story. I know, I didn't necessarily want to have people come on and say, Okay, I work this way and this way, in this way. And I, one of the questions I started asking right off the bat was if they could share early experiences, or early errors or mistakes, and even though some people are like, well, I don't make mistake. So I thought it was going to be I thought it was going to hear, you know, this intervention didn't work or that intervention didn't work. But what became what came out was a lot of therapists talking about their own inability at that moment to be themselves or to be vulnerable, or to allow themselves to connect. And they talked about their experiences that had impacted that. And that really was eye opening, to be because I got into the when I got into school, so much of it for me was I need to learn this intervention, I need to what book do I need to read? What workshop do I need to attend what course and I thought I had the relational stuff, the personal stuff, the personal growth stuff figured out now, and I was so naive, and I didn't understand how crucial and vital that was, to especially therapy across the board, of course, but working with people who'd been impacted by trauma, definitely. And that, in turn, has really become the driving force between of what I do a allowing or encouraging inspiring listeners to be okay with who they are, and somehow get that into the work they do. And of course, it's not always easy, because when you're talking to a lot of therapists, and you say, or you offer to them, okay, you know, really important integral component of this is a, you know, do your own work, and you're like, what, I'm here to fix, I want to help that person over there, you know, it somehow takes the onus off of them takes a spotlight off of them. But understanding that you can't escape that light, you have to, you know, be willing to do that.
14:52
Yeah. And it just makes me think of kind of what people might call the shadow side of therapy which is being in the more the martyr position or The codependent or the helping to the point of losing yourself and not valuing your own needs. And a lot of conversations along these lines in vicarious trauma and burnout and compassion fatigue, and people start to sort of come back and go, wait, where do I end and the other person begins, and, and all of that. And so the doing your own work piece serves sustainability. But I am with you on this. And I believe that it really serves the work in the moment, like if you can be yourself and be 100%, you know, however much you're aware of 90, whatever percent authentic, you can, you can just be with whatever's happening, and have all the training and all the books and all the tools there. But they're not necessarily they're not in center stage, there's something you reach in and pull something out and go, Oh, well, does this apply here? Does this apply here? Or oh, let's go down this path for a little while, it seems like that's going to help. But really, you know, we so many studies come back to the relationship. And I love how I listened to one of your recent podcasts where he talks about vulnerability too. And it's just like really coming back to that. This is being with that other person, they're showing up in their full vulnerability, they're, you know, coming in and maybe talking about something really shameful or upsetting or hurtful that happened. And then if we're feeling very professional, and guarded and cold, then it's not really going to flow. But if we can really be like, Okay, well, this is, who I am and how much I've worked on myself and how I'm feeling today. And, and I'm just going to be that. It's I think that sets a tone of safety.
16:37
Totally agree. And that's exactly what I didn't get when I first started. And certainly when I first started seeing clients early on, I lead with that, you know, my briefcase full of interventions, as I as naive and limited as that that supply was, I needed to go in there. And, you know, as I think a lot of young therapists do, you need to prove or want to prove yourself, and I certainly did, not that I was this rope robot. But I was a therapist, I you know, I was that ideal of what I thought a therapist should be. And I didn't open the door to myself, I didn't think that was as important as knowing, you know, Pat Ogdensburg, and page 222 of her book and memorizing Bessel, Vander Kolk, spese, 99, and having all those interventions. And, yeah, just interviewing people and hearing them and hearing them talk about how important being in the moment, being able to be in the moment, as yourself authentically with another with someone who's experienced interpersonal trauma, and understanding the value of that is how powerful that was, and how it's not always easy to do. No, it's not always easy to do, because and then this is where the art of therapy comes in. Like you talked about having all that knowledge, yes. But knowing when to use it. Yeah, being able to be in the moment and be cognizant of that relationship, while also saying, Wait, this intervention can be utilized right now, you know,
18:25
and then the application of that, right, like actually bringing that into someone who, to the degree have gotten to know my really like this aspect of it and be averse to the other aspect or be sensitive to how you frame it and all these things, right? So there's definitely that, that art there. And it's funny, as you're talking, I'm thinking about how much this applies into the yoga world, which I'm very steeped into, in terms of a lot of yoga teachers will ask me, What do I do if someone you know, gets triggered in class? And I'm like, Well, let me tell you, if you've been teaching yoga for any amount of time, people have been triggered in your class already. It doesn't always look one way. But but there's a fear that that something big will happen. And then the teachers anxiety sort of takes over the show, right? So it's great to be able to just give a few hey, here's some tools, put them in your bag, and then self regulate what like so that you don't go into a panic because someone in your room is, you know, having a flashback or doing something that's more demonstrative I think people tend to think a trigger is going to look like a panic attack, and it can but it looks like a lot of different things, right? So that, that ability to have tools, and then to just be with yourself, and to be regulated with another person who may be having all kinds of different experiences, like all of that is just so, so much better than like, Hold on page 222 says that we should we should not triangulate but we should pendulum like what is always gonna be like What are you?
19:51
Exactly there? Yeah, and it's funny because you know, doing these interviews I got to a point where certain people, many people stood out in how seriously they took that level of self awareness. And what they did to cultivate that and to practice that. And it just blew me away. And because I got to a point where I would hear people talk about the importance of allowing oneself, or getting to a point where you could allow yourself to be open and vulnerable in that moment. But understanding that it does, it took work to get in constant practice, it's like a practice to get there. It gave me a big new realization of the quality of interpersonal relationships.
20:58
Yeah. So what do you maybe this is from guests on your show? Maybe this is just your your practice. But how do you practice that? Like, what? If someone's listening and like, oh, I want to become a therapist, or, you know, I just want to help this person in my life more, and you're talking about this authenticity and doing my own work? Like, what does that mean? What does that look like? Right? And I think that evolves over time. So maybe what does that look like for you at this point?
21:23
You know, I asked that question to one of my guests. And they, they came up with a, what I thought was a brilliant response. And they said, and I ascribe to this, too. They practice in their relationship, current relationships, with their partner with their kids. And what does that mean? That means being aware of what's coming up for you moment to moment, being aware of your body states, your mental state, your emotional states, how you're being dysregulated? When I'm talking to my kids, and it's really, really challenging?
22:03
Yeah, it's really hard, just, like feeling it as you're talking, I'm like, oh, yeah, oh, it's so much ongoing work.
22:10
It's right. It's, it's a practice and being willing to do that, and being willing to look at what it takes to not fix that, but to work with that, you know, to to shift areas that need to be shifted, it means being willing to look at your story, and your, the, the hills and valleys of your story. And to explore that, to work through that, to recognize that to recognize your triggers, to look at your traumas, to look at how bullying has impacted me. And the way it impacted me when I was seeing clients, right? When that topic would come up, I would be like, triggered and immediately go to like problem solving mode and, and being able to do that with who you are as a person. And getting to a point where you're okay with that you're comfortable with those different aspects of yourself. Yeah, you know, I think if I can, I think a lot of times, I know myself, certainly when I was just starting out as a therapist, there's a tendency to carry the relationship of yourself in your client. Like, it's this very fragile. glass ball. Mm hmm. And oh my gosh, something's gonna happen. If I make a mistake, it's going to crash or if I move, it's going to crash, as opposed to this incredible chunk of clay. Yes, that's gonna get squished and marred and dented. But that's awesome. Because that just represents the the movement and wonderfulness of relationships and life and being okay with that, yeah, you know, be okay with those bumps, and those nicks and bringing that out into the open.
24:16
Well, that's a part of shaping something, right? If you have a big ball of clay in front of you, it's not like you never get a fingernail in it like you are massaging it and moving it and, and maybe you know where it's going. Usually I think people don't there's just something evolves from that. But I love that. That analogy because we we do have this sort of walking on eggshells feeling and the anxiety of early you know, internship hours or early private practice when all of a sudden you're on your own and you're going I have to do this perfectly, which is a not possible and he puts you in a place of like a lot of tension. Right and what happens when you're feeling tense I know for me, I'll you know go more professional. Let me just let me just be more professional which then is more distance which then isn't that connection and so There's so much awareness and self awareness that's that's asked in this circumstance, right? That's required of us, I think. And that can get really exhausting. But it also is such a gift because you're constantly learning, right? There's no, oh, I'm done with this. It's like, Oh, what was that something interesting is happening with me there, whether I'm feeling tired, or I'm feeling activated, or I'm, you know, telling a certain story in my head like, so there's this ongoing process of learning that's available as a therapist, which is a lot of work, and has a lot of benefits.
25:37
Yeah, there was something about the process of being open. And being willing to be in the moment that just really attracted me invited me. Yeah, there's a, there's a kind of a daringness there that I learned, I grew into. And a lot of self, it requires a lot of self trust, which in turn ethic requires us to like and love ourselves. Yeah. Despite the fact that, you know, we've all have hills and valleys in our lives, right? No, one's perfect. But for me, being able to relate and to communicate and to be open and vulnerable with someone who's experienced trauma, in and of itself, is a healing. You know, and it made me really look at, you know, why I got into this field. And that's become one of the big questions for me the importance of unders for people to understand, why are you doing this? Why did you get into this field? Well, one of my guests said to me, you know, they were, we're not talking to me directly, but they were talking rhetorically, you know. They said, you know, how dare you think that you can, you know, solve someone else's trauma? How dare you think that you can take away their pain? And I first heard that, and I was like, Well, you know, but she said, oftentimes, when someone comes to see you, they've been on a healing journey, years before they got to you, you know, this is their journey. And to be able to understand that and respect that and to allow for things to unfold for that is really important.
27:33
It makes me think, too, about how when you do think it's irresponsibility, how that becomes this heavy, impossible weight that you carry, oh, I'm not, I'm not fixing it, or I'm not doing a can't, because it's not the balls, not in your court, that ball is in the other court. And I think when we recognize that again, and I know so many therapists right now with, you know, two years of pandemic, and zoom fatigue, and all these things are struggling with, with maintenance, right with sustainability, I think the more we can go, that's not my job to fix it. That's not my job to carry it or to take it and resolve it and give it back to you. That's not how this works. This is about being together, while you find your way through that journey. And I'm right here with you. And yeah, oh, let me pull out some tools here and there. But it's ultimately I think it's such an empowering shift to for someone to know that this is mine, right? It's really not about what the therapist is doing to me. But that kind of goes back to the medical model, right of like, I'm gonna go to the doctor, they're gonna operate on my knee, and I'm going to be better.
28:43
Right? And they're gonna have all the answers. And, look, when I started, I thought I needed to have all the answers. I wanted to have all the answers. I needed that for myself. And it was an eye opening experience for me.
28:59
And I love that you have this, you know, 600 plus master therapists in the bag conversations, you've asked all of them, like, their mistakes they've learned from and their favorite quotes and their tools and the books they recommend and all these things. And then it's like, the take home message is get to know yourself. Be yourself, do your own work, show up and have those tools in the bag. And we can talk about those too, right? Like, Oh, I like this one. I like that. I mean, you know, I love yoga and meditation. And I think yoga and meditation offer a ton of tools, particularly along the lines of self awareness. But then it's like, okay, that it's not about, oh, I talked to 600 people and here's 600 tips, right?
29:40
That's right. That's exactly the point that got me because when I was younger, aside from being bullied, I thought I wasn't smart enough. And I thought I spent a lot of time Trying to, I don't know, prove to myself that I was smart. And part of that process was, you know, when I got to graduate school, okay, I need to do this. And indeed you do that need to, like, take in all this information, instead of really understanding exactly what you just said, is understanding and appreciating who I was. And the importance of that within this was within this field. So Right. It was really eye opening for me, what do we it's not this intervention and that intervention and putting together? No, it's exactly that. But that's very challenging for a lot of us to do. And the thing is, when we encounter someone who is just themselves, who's in the moment, who's creative, who is vulnerable, we are blown away. Because it's magic, we are attracted to them, not in a sexual way, but just in a human way. They glow. 31:07 Because they're allowed to be themselves, right. Like those blocks have been worked on removed. Exactly, or for whatever fortune weren't placed there. Right. Yeah. It's funny to me, makes me think of my parents are both therapists, I think you've interviewed my mom on your podcast, too, right? She's amazing. My dad is he's less public with his work, but he's amazing, too. And so one of the things that I think actually really helped me as a therapist is having therapy speak be the triggering thing for me, like somebody, like, say more about that? Or how would you feel about washing the car? Lisa? I wouldn't feel very good about it. Parenting moment, what do I do here. But I think that really helps me because when I started working with, you know, youth coming out of juvenile hall, or you know, that it's like this, we talk about the bullshit detector being on right, it's like, Don't feed me any lines, don't read me thumbs, something from a textbook, don't don't stuff, some intervention, you know, into a group and think it's gonna fix me, like, be a real person and talk to me. And so I think, not like being willing to parrot those things, was very helpful for me and continues to be and so I almost see in a lot of people all support or mentor, there's this stage of really internalizing all the language and getting all the interventions down. There's, there's like getting it together. And then this is true in yoga, too. And then you kind of go past it, like, Okay, now I've got all that, that soothe my anxiety of what to do. Now, I feel comfortable enough to just have a conversation with a person and be real with it and ask the question, maybe in the way that I would ask the question instead of the way that was scripted in the video I watched with, you know, whoever, Master therapist,
32:55
right? Yeah, yeah. I love that. I remember it brings to mind when I was working at that position I was working out we were, we had to deliver this assessment for early psychosis and was literally 40 pages long, we often work with another therapist. And these kids would come in, you know, you take these calls from these therapists or their family members, and they talk about their child and these crazy off the wall, not even a crazy off the wall, but just severe symptoms. And then they'd come in two weeks later, a week later, and they'd be sitting in the waiting room. Little kid. Yeah, like, Oh, my God, a little kid, then they walk in the room, and we do talk to them. And then we read these, this assessment. And you try to make it as as less robotic as you can. I remember us working with this one kid. And it just wasn't going anywhere. And I finally took the assessment, and it just put it down on the table. As it say, Let's just forget this. Yeah. And that moment, was such a shift, because it showed this kid that that was not as important as connecting with that person. And for me, it was a relinquishing of needing to almost innocence hide behind that assessment. And it just was a major shift in terms of me, understanding that it was me as a real person. Yeah, that needed to be there, not this need to read these questions. Of course, the content was important. But that process was a real eye opener for me,
34:43
the delivery to write and the delivery of an assessment is very formal. And you think of a kid and a lot of the power structures around a kid and assessments probably scary, right? I mean, might be a million other things too. But try to take that perspective. If I think of myself as like, you know, in a little body and all these big adults around, you're like, What are you asking me these questions for? And what does it mean? Whereas when an adult comes and says, like, Hey, how are you doing? What's going on? Do you know or just, like, play with therapy, so valuable in this way too, because it just meets a kid where they are, right? I really appreciate this like, step away from the formality of therapy and counseling and the step into the self reflection piece of it. And I know you also really value all these techniques and theories. I mean, your podcast is dedicated to, to so much of that, but But it's this like, both, and like they have to exist together. And it sounds to me almost like this, the self piece is the foundation, right? And then anything else that comes you know, whether it's EMDR, or neurofeedback, or yoga, or meditation, you know, all the alphabet soup of different therapies that we could be trained in, like that kind of has to sit on top of it does have to sit on top of some interpersonal Foundation. And if it doesn't, it just falls flat. Right? It's like reading the paper to the kid and saying, like, let's assess your symptoms, rather than putting it down looking them in the eye and just being like, Hi, are you?
36:15
Exactly, yeah, and that that's exactly what I did I put that down. And I just was like, I went off script. And I said, Look, you know, Tom, whatever the kid's name was, what are those? What what is it that your parents out there are not getting that the other therapists that you saw before you come in here? What are they not getting? You're just this whole shift, allowed me to, to communicate, the thing that's exciting to me about all this, Lisa, is that we're all different. And we're all going to communicate with someone differently. But hopefully, authentically, you know, in our different ways, in our unique ways. And it's like, as I often say, you know, authenticity isn't one point that everyone is going to, we each have different points, we each have different, you know, our journey to authenticity is going to look different. You know, and that's such a cool thing. But I think it's so important for us, for each of us to find out what that is and to honor that. Yeah. You sound like such a yogi right now. To say, you know, I did this so, like, the wrong way, you know, and someone might say, well, wasn't the wrong way guys the way that you had to get there. But it was it was wrong. It was I was so naive, you know, I was I thought I needed to be, you know, my idea of a therapist. And, you know, like I said before I needed to shove all this information, this knowledge in my head, and instead I did, I just didn't honor who I was.
38:02
Yeah, that's all frosting. No cake. Exactly.
38:06
There's your title right there. Guy McPherson all frosting, no cake.
38:15
You made the frosting first. And you won't want to I put this on the cake first. I know I was joking with calling you a yogi. But have you ever done any like yoga meditation with with clients? Or personally? Is that something? No, no.
38:29
I've attended yoga classes, but I haven't pursued it for me at all.
38:33
Just so much of the self awareness sounds like mindfulness practices. i There's millions of mindfulness practices out there. But it's interesting to then how, like The mindfulness approach can can just find its way in, right, like, oh, I need to be self aware and notice what's coming from me and self reflect and that that really improves. It doesn't have to be, you know, from a certain lineage or teacher. It's just, it's just a natural process that that helps. Right? And this Yeah, profession.
39:02
The another thing that, to me is really exciting is that when I, when I talk, or when I'm on my podcast, and of interviewing guests, I can share how I screwed it up, or how I feel I screwed it up, you know, how I feel. how I felt when I was just getting into graduate school. And, you know, again, going back to school at 36 having been in therapy and thinking that will I already did that. I've gone to therapy already already got that figured out. Check. But no, I didn't.
39:41
And so that really launched it process. Well, everyone coming to you and getting advice and then you going oh, okay, well let me in you had to sort of figure out oh, I am my instrument. Like, I have to do some of this work in an ongoing way in order to and I think, you know, awareness sort of gets revealed to us over time we can Live 10 years of something, you know, just interviewing Gabby Bernstein and she talks about her know, she went on your podcast to she talks about how she's teaching spiritual practices for years. And they were life saving for her and an R for many people and then started to recognize how even that was coping, it was coping with a trauma that she wasn't aware of behind the scenes, so wonderful that that those practices were such a service, but there was an awareness that just wasn't there until it was there. Alright, so I think sometimes that's where, you know, versus therapy check, done. Like, maybe for one piece of life or one experience or, you know, maybe you don't feel like you need to go for that certain trauma or that grief or whatever it is, but, but life is ongoing, and self reflection and growth are ongoing. And so I have heard that too. And I'm, you know, in the process of teaching and some classes in my old degree program, and, you know, I hear people say, I want to be a counselor, should I do you think I should go to counseling? And I'm like, Yes, emphatically? Yes. Absolutely. And stay in it. You know, it doesn't mean you have to see the same therapist for you know, 40 years, but keep digging, right? Keep digging for what's coming up for you. How are you responding? And that's kind of scary. I think we want to have this like, checkbox approach. Now I'm a therapist, and I'm done. Right. But the beauty of it is you get to keep growing.
41:25
I remember the first supervisor ahead. I walked into her office, and I was working with people in like an Alzheimer's situation. So mostly elderly people. And here, I was fresh off of my level one, all of Level Two of sensorimotor, psychotherapy training and had all this, you know, exciting knowledge. And I was so frustrated, I went into offers, and it was so frustrated. And I said to her, she said, what's wrong? I said, My clients are not listening to me. They're not listening to what I'm telling them to do. And she said, Why the hell do you think your clients need to listen to you? What makes you think that? I was like, well, they suppose, you know, this whole thing I had, it's it just flipped on its head. Right. Lisa, the thing for me is, and I think why this is so exciting to me, is it because I think what I'm talking about is an invitation for each of us to just be the who we are, you know, and it's, it sounds so easy, and it sounds what sounds simple, but it's not there, because so much of our stuff gets in the way. And when, you know, people are working with people who've been impacted by trauma, interpersonal trauma, all of that authenticity, and vulnerability has oftentimes been ripped from them. And when they encounter someone who is embodying that, that can be a very healing process and experience.
43:31
I so love and appreciate what you're sharing. And it's interesting, because I was thinking, oh, you know, there's gonna be these these moments, you know, what do you call them, like, lightbulb moments of an intervention or something that you know, and it's all self reflective, and it's all being it's almost like permission, right? To just be who you are. And, and it's interesting because I think as a as a licensed therapist, and I know some people who work in different healing fields who are like, I don't want to be a licensed therapist, because I feel like it's gonna limit me feeling comfortable expressing who I am, right? Like, it puts them into a professional box in their minds, at least that feels too restrictive. So I mean, there's a lot of ways to support healing and practice healing, but whatever the modality or the license or the you know, angle, I would agree with you that when someone is has done work that allows them to be comfortable in their own skin. It's attractive, right? We go oh, I this feels comfortable. To me, this feels safe to me. I don't have to wonder when the other shoe is gonna drop or be curious about who this person really is. And it makes me think of my graduate school advisor who I read some of his writing I met him in person and I was like, done, let's go. Like I want to learn from you because you are comfortable with yourself. And you're comfortable saying the word love in you know, at Harvard, you're comfortable. Talking about what this feels like for you to be a support person. And that's what I want to learn from what does it feel like for you? How do you do it? Like not because I'm going to emulate that, because also, like in a yoga setting, people try to teach like their teachers, and it just doesn't work. I don't think I'm going to try to be you, but because there's a comfort there, that makes me go. Okay, so I can do that too. Right. And I think whether it's a teacher, student, or or mentor, or advisor, or therapist and client, there is this sort of, you know, neuroception, we might call it or awareness of, I get to be myself and, and I get to tell the truth, if I want to verbally even and that's so freeing, and so much trauma has this like shame piece and things you can't say and things that are too much or would make you a bad person. And when we can just go Oh, yeah, I made a mistake. Oh, yeah. That was embarrassing. Oh, yeah, that was a sticky situation. But but it doesn't sort of touched that. This is still me. And that's okay.
45:58
Yeah, that's That's it. I love it. Yes. That to me, it gets me going. Yeah, it really does. Yeah. Because it constantly gives me the invitation to be myself to be okay, with all my, you know, unique little foibles and whatever they are, you know, embarrassments and shames and stuff like that. But it's, it's awesome to me, and for me getting to bring people on the podcast, who, you know, who know that. And someone I interviewed, you know, who said, you know, it's not a matter, it's not a matter of when you're going to get triggered as a therapist? Or if rather, it's when it's going to happen. You know, and hopefully, you've done the work before you step into that office
46:53
to know, oh, I'm triggered. And this was where I can go with that. Right? Yeah. And then there's so much reward on working through that, right. Yeah. Yeah. So much wisdom. And I so appreciate it guy. I just have one more kind of line of questioning, you know, people are people are having a rough time for a variety of reasons. And we're coming out of two years of social distancing, and a lot of loss. And what would you say to someone who's just really in it right now, you know, kind of like that person you helped on the wilderness expedition? What what tools might you direct them to? And I'm kind of thinking already in my head, you're probably not going to direct them to tools, you can direct them to people, direct them to a person. But But what do you have any thoughts on like, if, like, I'm overwhelmed, I don't know where to go, I'm struggling, what do I do?
47:44
You know, reach out to someone else. Reach out to people who will have your back, who will listen to you. I think it's hard for a lot of us to reach out and say, You know what, this whole pandemic thing is getting me down. But we need to do it. Because it sucks. It's really, really hard. And the more we think about it, the harder it is. Because I think now for myself, I've even gotten to this quasi stability. But you start reading the news, and you know, this whole Russian thing is going on, doesn't stop
48:32
not just the pandemic. It's not Yeah.
48:35
And I think it's very easy for us to hold that in. Because we think that, who wants to hear us complain? Who wants to hear us talk about our problems? But I think we need to support each other and be willing to reach out
48:59
now. Would you say anything different to therapists
49:03
who are going through the same thing,
49:05
they're going through the same thing and are feeling maybe burnt out or compassion fatigue?
49:08
I think I would, I would say, really reach out. Because I think for therapists and people, for therapists, it's, it's can even be harder. Yeah. Because therapist is supposed to have it together. Mm hmm. You know, and I think there might even be more shame in feeling like you've just collapsed as a puddle on the floor. You know, you don't have it together. And I think, you know, in a lot of the interviews I've done, I so appreciate when I talk to someone who has a lot of experience, and their nonchalantly say, you know, a lot of times I don't know what the hell's going on. Yeah, no, don't have it all figured out.
49:51
Oh, I love it when my therapist said that to me, like, I don't know what's gonna happen and yeah, thank you. Thank you
49:57
very easy from the outside. Look at that. Women say oh my god, they know that they've done this. And they've done that. And, but it's just again, it comes back to being human. And as one of my guests, men, Wella miscarried said, human beingness you know, being it willing to have that and to express that human beingness with all of its ups and downs, and, you know,
50:32
hills and valleys, yeah. Suzanne, another guest on this podcast, he talked about human being versus human doing and that I feel like that captures to what you're talking about in terms of, you know, the cake and the frosting, like, being is the cake and doing his thing. But right, it's like, it's more important to be, and to be in this human being than to, to fix something to do something to problem solve, right? There's a time and a place, put that on at the end, and sprinkles and all that. But but there's a there's a center to it that almost I mean, you talk about your journey being sort of inverse, but I think the field sort of sets you up that way too, right? It's not like there's all this personal development, and then graduate school. Right? Right. So I don't think you're alone in feeling like, oh, wait, I've got to rebuild this foundation. No one really talked about it. Right, you can figure it out on your own. And so I'm curious to know, if there's anything you would say to people who are interested in going into mental health right now, maybe they're going into their Bachelor studies or their masters or thinking about going back to grad school and being a psychologist, what would you say to them?
51:43
I would see, I mean, go for it. But I would also say, Get clear on on your why, you know, why are you doing that? And not this, not that there's any judgment in that. But just to become aware of what's behind that desire to do it. You know, most of the people that have had my podcast have experienced trauma of one kind or another, not everyone, but certainly 99% of them, really. But just get clear on what that is. And understand that. Learning, the importance of you being you is is crucial. I mean, okay with that. And that's a huge thing. We spend our lives doing that.
52:35
And it's something you also do on your podcast, and encourage other people to do on their podcast. So yeah, I really appreciate that. Thank you so much guy for all of the wisdom downloaded. And you know, actually, I want to ask you one more thing before we wrap up what what is giving you hope right now, given all there's all these kinds of things happening in the world? What what gives you hope?
52:57
Oh, that's a really good question. You know, it sounds so cheesy.
53:06
I love it. Bring it
53:09
when I look at my six year old daughter, and just see her moving in creativity, living and creativity moving in moment to moment. That gives me hope. Yeah, that sounds so crazy. I mean, I've heard other people say that it's like, shut up. But it's true. There is that is hopeful to me. That is that is genuineness, that is love. You know, embodied love embodied. That's very helpful. To me. It's reminds me to get out of my own way. You know, look, I don't have all this stuff figured out by any sense of the imagination. I'm not some friggin Zen master. But But I can appreciate it and other people out there, you know, I see it. And I'm like, yes. That's it. That yes, that
54:17
and that freedom and that flow. And that I mean, it fits exactly with everything we've been talking about just being yourself, right, and allowing the creativity to move through which we end up with these blocks and questions and doubts. And you know, it's like, it makes me think of summertime to as a kid like six year old summer where you're just like, I mean, if you'd been in school, you're on break or whatever. And it's just like you get to just go make something out of nothing, go play in the mud, go like, find something new you're into and get really into it, right? Like do all the braiding or all the Legos are all whatever thing and it's just this flow of creativity that doesn't it's not for some endpoint, right? It's playing to
54:56
right there's there's a power in that there's beauty in that. There's, I think that's the gift we can give to other people in our lives, our ability to our willingness to be ourselves. You know that that's so healing? Yeah.
55:19
So beautiful. And, again, I just so appreciate you guy for everything you've done for inviting me on your podcast for hosting 600 Plus trauma therapists on your podcast and for, you know, sharing everything you've learned along the way so authentically, so vulnerably. So, so clearly to write It's articulated really well. And I think people listening, whether they're going through it, or they're wanting to be a therapist, or they've been a therapist for a long time, and they're just, you know, trying to keep up with the pace and the demand. I think all of this is just really helpful and gives us permission, not that we need it from some outside place, but sometimes we need to hear it from some outside place. Like, oh, yeah, just come back to who are you and who do you want to be in the world and for yourself and follow that? Listen to that. Alright, it's, I appreciate centering.
56:13
Thank you. I really appreciate you saying that. Your podcast is awesome. You are awesome. Come on. You're such a natural. Can you break?
56:23
I love it. It's so much fun. So where can people find you your podcast, your program, your website?
56:29
Trauma therapist? podcast.com. Everything's there. Email me. I love talking to people. Yep,
56:35
download all 600 episodes and just binge on them. I think I'm like number 22. And then number like 462. I can't remember. But maybe I'll come back on. Maybe it'll come back on here. We'll keep the conversation going. Definitely. Thank you so much, guys.
56:52
It's a pleasure.
56:53
Thanks so much for listening. My hope is that you walk away from these episodes feeling supported, and like you have a place to come to find the hope and inspiration you need to take your next small step forward. I do want to make sure it's clear that this podcast isn't offering any prescriptions. It's not advice or any kind of diagnosis. Your decisions are in your hands, and we encourage you to consult with any relevant health care professionals you may need to support you through your unique path of healing. For more information and resources, please visit my website how we can heal.com There you'll find tons of helpful resources in the full transcript of each show. You can also click the podcast menu to submit requests for upcoming topics and guests. Before we wrap I want to send thanks to our guests today to Christine O'Donnell and Celine Baumgartner of bright sided podcasting, and to everyone who helps support this podcast directly and indirectly. Alex, thanks for taking the dogs out while I record. I'd also like to give a shout out to my brother Matt. He passed away in 2002. He wrote this music and recorded it and it makes my heart so happy to share it with you now
Comments are closed