Latest / The Trauma Therapist / Episode 722: Being A Human and A Therapist with Esther Goldstein
Transcript
- 0:10Or welcome back to the Trauma Hippist Podcast. My name is Gaming Person.
- 0:14My mission is to help trauma therapist be their incredible cells, to be human,
- 0:19to be real, not just a clinician. I'm a big believer in
- 0:23who we are is more important than what we know, and this requires cultivating
- 0:27authenticity, genuineness and vulnerability, and that requires intention. Can learn more about
- 0:33my courses and workshops by going to the Trauma Therapist project dot com. That's
- 0:37the Trauma Therapist Project dot com. Let's get started. So five four,
- 0:44three, two and one, our folks, welcome back to the Trauma Therapist
- 0:49Podcast and I am thrilled to have back Esther Goldstein, Esther welcome, So
- 0:54excited to be here. Guy has been someone who is part of my Trauma
- 0:59therapist training experience. I'm excited to be here and so much respect appreciate that.
- 1:04So as a first joined us on episode three forty eight, super excited
- 1:10to have her back. She's a licensed clinical social worker in the five Towns
- 1:14and surrounding areas. As a trauma specialist, trauma educator, and founder of
- 1:19Intricative Psychotherapy. Her goal is to make sure that her clients are set up
- 1:22with it, just the right customized therapeutic experience to help them along the healing
- 1:26journey. She comes to this field first as a fellow human who appreciates human
- 1:30struggles, unknowns, and challenges, and her approach to therapy is highly collaborative
- 1:37and integrative. She says, it's about you, your life, your goals,
- 1:41and how I can be a strong, skillful support to help you navigate
- 1:44whatever you're facing. Esther welcome back. Thank you. So before we can
- 1:51go and here, remind everyone where you're from originally and where you are currently.
- 1:56I am originally from. I mean I grew up and I I was
- 2:00born in Canada, and then I grew up in and then I was in
- 2:05Brooklyn for some time, then Rockland County, which is one of the suburbs
- 2:07of New York. Then I grew up here in Long Island, which is
- 2:13where I live now. I was in Israel for five years. I did
- 2:15a post credit Hebrew U and now I'm back in the Five Towns in Long
- 2:20Island in New York. Yeah, like an hour explain to people what the
- 2:23five towns is. Yeah, I love that. Okay, So there's five
- 2:28towns. It's kind of known to be these small community life, but it's
- 2:32kind of grown a lot. It's in Nassau County. So the five towns
- 2:37are Lawrence, Ceda Hurst, Woodmere, u Lit, and in wood Um.
- 2:42It's part of the South Shore. So we just called the five towns.
- 2:44But I'm in I live in Woodmere and my practices in Ceda Hurst.
- 2:47So awesome, awesome. So I'm Reginally from New York and lived in Long
- 2:52Island for a little bit and that just sounds like the LLI Long Island Express
- 2:55train to do it. We're how do you? Okay? Yeah? Yeah,
- 3:05so welcome back. So what are we gonna talk about today? You
- 3:09told me before, but share with our audience. Yeah, I want to
- 3:13talk about this topic. I mean, there's so many different topics and there's
- 3:15so much wisdom that you have that I kind of want to interview you.
- 3:19But I do want to talk today about the fact that when it comes to
- 3:23emotional healing or trauma healing, oftentimes we get sicker before we get better.
- 3:30Okay, what does that mean? What do you mean? What I mean
- 3:35is so I actually have this. I don't know if you saw, but
- 3:38I created this like a training for my staff called Trauma therapist training, and
- 3:43I just created a lot of content and information and I opened it up to
- 3:46the public. And yesterday in the meeting, we were talking about some of
- 3:51the staff where some of the attendees were talking about the fact that sometimes our
- 3:55clients when they reach out for help, are doing okay, and then as
- 4:00they start engaging in healing work and going a little deeper, they become more
- 4:03symptomatic. Or they were okay and they're reaching out for help and they're symptomatic.
- 4:09And they were just confused because it's like, doesn't therapy or healing or
- 4:13any kind of emotional awareness process, isn't the promise, especially for marketing to
- 4:17heal. Come to E M d R and in three to five sessions,
- 4:20all of your flashbacks and anxiety will be poof gun right, Yeah, all
- 4:27right, so so give us some details here. Okay, why is that?
- 4:32Yeah? Why is that true? Yeah? So I kind of I
- 4:35really wanted to talk about it because like then we ended up having a conversation
- 4:39about ourselves and commitments that we've made in our own lives or areas in our
- 4:44own lives where we feel strong or sensitive. And I was sharing how in
- 4:48some areas of my life, I can feel really solid and other areas that
- 4:51can be fragile or be tending to in an area of my life. The
- 4:56reason is when it comes to let's say specifically to trauma, healing right,
- 4:59or kind of looking at something right. I always say, like, let's
- 5:01say you have like a booboo, you have a band aid, you got
- 5:02a little you know, you got a scratch, and then there's bacteria and
- 5:08then there might be an infection growing, right, you just cover it up
- 5:11with a bandai because it's painful. Let's say you're outside and you're hiking for
- 5:15a few hours or for some people a few days, and say you just
- 5:17put a band aid on it for temporary right relief. It's not like a
- 5:20life threatening situation. And you get back home and you could either leave the
- 5:24band aid on it or it's like this is either turning into an infection and
- 5:27there's pain and it's making me itchy, or you can leave the band aid
- 5:30on there. So if you want to take it off, you're going to
- 5:31clean it out right, and the cleansing process it's really painful. Usually put
- 5:35on a peroxide or right like you're putting something on that's cleansing it out.
- 5:40It doesn't feel good, but so and when it comes to trauma healing,
- 5:44it's like you're looking at an issue, you're looking at a pain, You're
- 5:46looking at something that you know isn't working so well, and so it hurts.
- 5:50And people sometimes say, wait, why am I doing this? Why
- 5:53don't I just leave the band aid on? And we'll talk about different band
- 5:55aids that all of us are, our clients are just humans use and it's
- 6:00actually it's like we clear it out. There is pain, but essentially you're
- 6:01cleaning it out so you can put a new gause on top of it,
- 6:04allow skin to come on top of that and to heal and to grow thicker
- 6:09or just healthier skin without the infection. Yeah, I mean I actually entirely
- 6:15agree with what you're saying. I know in my own life you okay,
- 6:19yeah, I mean it's true. It's no, it's it's um you know,
- 6:25well, healing, What does healing mean? What does that mean?
- 6:30You know? I think it really helps to even define what this means.
- 6:32But even just for me, you know, I've been going through some stuff
- 6:36in my life recently and you're like, Okay, I need to get healed.
- 6:42I need to get better, and just to put one foot in front
- 6:46of the other. You know, we can extrapolate this to trauma therapy in
- 6:51a sense. As a client, as a person who is healing, you
- 6:55need just to exist, just to move forward, and to do that you
- 7:00kind of bring you manage, but to move further on in the healing process,
- 7:05it requires a certain self awareness, which requires getting in there and looking
- 7:11at things and being willing to do that. And that's hard. It's really
- 7:15hard. It's so interesting. Somebody said something like, what if you don't
- 7:18want to do the work. I'm like, do you think therapy is always
- 7:21fun? And let's not even talk about therapy, right, You're saying like
- 7:25you're navigating some stuff like and I do think it's a great idea to define
- 7:28healing, which I would love to do with you in a minute. But
- 7:31just showing up to life with a level of emotional awakness can be like got
- 7:38wrenchingly painful, right, And it's like, oh, how do I even
- 7:42put that one foot in front of the other. It's not this sexy like
- 7:45healing dad, Right, It's usually nothing feel that way. Yeah, yeah,
- 7:50there's nothing, there's nothing easier. I mean, just to exist in
- 7:56life, it's hard. Things are hard. Life is hard, and it
- 8:01takes a lot of courage to to be someone who's experienced trauma and to pick
- 8:07up the phone and make to walk into someone's office because oftentimes, as a
- 8:13client, when you're first reaching out, you don't know what the hell is
- 8:15going to happen. You don't know what's going to go on. Yeah,
- 8:18and hopefully you're in good hands with an experienced clinician. So how did this
- 8:26come about? This idea for you? The talking about how pain, how
- 8:33healing takes plain just so we can find healing for a minute, because I
- 8:35love that you said that. I want to just define it as the process
- 8:39of someone choosing to consciously to look at a part of themselves or something in
- 8:46their life so they can make a change. And it might feel like you
- 8:50have a choice, Like maybe you have a partner that says, well,
- 8:52you're really not present, or maybe you notice that you're drinking too much alcohol,
- 8:56or maybe you're feeling kind of stuck in life, or maybe it doesn't
- 8:58feel like it's a choice. Maybe you hit like a really high high where
- 9:03you're just very anxious, irritated, can't sleep, or maybe you're hitting a
- 9:05low and you're just not feeling good, and so really, I would say
- 9:09the word healing or maybe just being right from any of us is a matter
- 9:15of that there is a choice where either you can be where you're at or
- 9:18you're taking making a choice to take that step, whatever that step might be.
- 9:22The step might be to even acknowledge that there is a pain. The
- 9:26step might be to pick up the phone. The step might be to leave
- 9:30a therapist who's not right for you right. The step might be to read
- 9:31a blog when people have been telling you to get curious, or for yourself
- 9:35to look at yourself in the mirror. But I think just simplify healing,
- 9:39it's really about tending to symptoms. Right. Life is really just a matter
- 9:43of being able to exist with the painful and the joyous. And some of
- 9:50our chapters are of our lives are more painful, and some of the chapters
- 9:54of our lives are more joyous. And I don't like when people say,
- 9:58go to therapy soul, the pain go away and all the joy comes back.
- 10:01Well, that's just not life, right. I think it's about right,
- 10:05look who you said, continuing to show up and to have those moments
- 10:07of joy when they do come in or to invite them. And but you
- 10:11said, why did I bring this topic up? Honestly because it's something that
- 10:15I've been looking at in my own life as a human being. And also
- 10:20like you probably, I'm sure you have this as well, Like we're all
- 10:26so we're doing we're all doing this thing called humanity. None of us can
- 10:28outrun each other in the human race, right, Like I remember asking some
- 10:31consultants in a training like, but how do I so once it's rumbly and
- 10:35humbly life, like when do I get to the plateau? And one of
- 10:39my consultants she was like never? And I was like no, no,
- 10:41no, come again when and She's like never. So I'm like no.
- 10:46But I think that in my own experience, right of being a human and
- 10:50a therapist and someone who's connecting with other therapists, there's real human conversations of
- 10:58our clients journeys but also our own what is this thing called life? Right?
- 11:03How do you do life well? And as I've evolved, like I
- 11:09think it took a number of years of being a therapist and then being in
- 11:13my own therapy, but really like getting access to knowledge which I know you
- 11:18do so much on here, which I want to thank you for sharing with
- 11:20the world. Yeah, really about trauma is like I had a deeper layer
- 11:26of healing and awareness that I was doing for myself and it felt so uncomfortable,
- 11:31and even now like there's pieces where I'm like, it's not shiny and
- 11:35glossy, but there's a level of awakeness and realness that is the gift of
- 11:41just doing the work or being an emotionally awake person. So I wanted to
- 11:46and I wanted to bring up the conversation because I know so many times clients
- 11:50reach out and they say, like, isn't therapy supposed to be making me
- 11:54feel better? And they feel lost or confused, And I think just giving
- 11:58people knowledge about the process of change or healing or looking at your life secrecy
- 12:07or shame or struggles or just like reality can be a mixed bag and to
- 12:13still keep plowing through. So really my message is about hope, um and
- 12:18the process. Yeah, no, I appreciate that. What is your take?
- 12:22What have you experienced with your fellow clinicians or the people you work with,
- 12:26how do they sit with this idea that therapy isn't always you know,
- 12:33rainbows and butterflies, and it's it's not easy. I mean, you are
- 12:35you are you seeing other therapists or people you're working with the end or training
- 12:41saying really or or what yeah, it's um, it's very painful. I
- 12:50think that when we are therapists, or when we're people who have people reaching
- 12:54out to us, we um we need to be dancing in two different platforms.
- 12:58On the one hand, it's like I'm here with your pain, and
- 13:03either like I'm here with you and I see that we're about to notice something
- 13:07that has emotional pain, and I'm almost tiptoeing myself to walking towards that even
- 13:11though that's really what's going to allow you relief. Or you're in pain and
- 13:16I actually want to help you reduce some of the way that your body is
- 13:18experiencing it because it's so intense, or we're you're deep in it and like
- 13:22I'm going to hold your hand as we move through it. So who is
- 13:24it that said? I mean a few of the expert therapists talk about how
- 13:28like really being a trauma therapist is that you're being impacted by a stranger's story,
- 13:33right, like your story is changing me. It's really it's engraving a
- 13:37story, a really meaningful story and experience in my life. So there's being
- 13:41with the pain and then there's being with possibility. And I think holding that
- 13:45dense and holding both of those is a real challenge. And I'll tell you
- 13:50why the challenge is there not just because we all come into the therapy field,
- 13:54because we have our own healing that we need to do. Like anyone
- 13:56who I know who's in the field, like wounded healer, some were acknowledge
- 14:01and somewhere engage in their healing than others. But I think it also makes
- 14:05us confront right, So there's this piece of I want to take your pain
- 14:07away, but I want to take it away temporarily but also really help you
- 14:11engage if you're ready for the longer term healing, and to give you some
- 14:13hope as well to get through. But I think there's a second layer where,
- 14:18like in this conversation I had yesterday with some clinicians, they said,
- 14:20you know, we're in this because we want to talk about our clients,
- 14:24but we're realizing that there's so much that it's making us look at it add
- 14:26ourselves. I'm like, oh, there should be like a warning, right,
- 14:28But it's also because then it makes us look at like working in this
- 14:33field or working with people who have, you know, trauma, it's very
- 14:37evocative. It's very emotionally evocative where it's almost like it brings up some of
- 14:41our own dormant stuff, right, and so it's like how do I sit
- 14:43with pain? And how do I sit with hope? So I noticed sometimes
- 14:48the struggle of like how can I should I walk with this person towards that
- 14:54And obviously some of these are clinical questions of you know, making sure your
- 14:58client nervous system is regulated and you are you know, giving them the right
- 15:03skills. At the same time, really what all clients need is that steady,
- 15:07grounding voice that says, I'm not afraid, We're going to figure this
- 15:11out together and I'm going to hold your hand. But it's a very uncomfortable
- 15:16experience for many. Um. So yeah, I do find that it's you
- 15:20know, walking those two lines that can be tricking sometimes. So you you've
- 15:24obviously been doing this for a while, you have experience. How how did
- 15:31you get to this point? Was it was it when you first got into
- 15:33this field? Was this your attitude? No? What was it like?
- 15:39What was what was your perspective. What was I give it to the field
- 15:43to help people's pain go away. I thought, I have a huge heart,
- 15:46and I'm just gonna smile and tell them how amazing they are and how
- 15:50no matter what, like you know, difficult times, you know the quote
- 15:54like, um, hard times don't last, right, Tough times don't last,
- 15:58but tough people too, But tough people do. Um, we do
- 16:03both. Then we have stars. And then we have to you know,
- 16:06live through life and love and being and you know, work on our nervous
- 16:10systems. And it's not so like, oh you survived, now move on.
- 16:15UM. I think this is really more story of my own stuff and
- 16:17my own learning. But really, I do have to tell you guy that
- 16:19your podcast really gave me so many gifts. Like there were so many times
- 16:23I was driving back and forth I was getting consultation from Bradfoot doctor Bradfoot's a
- 16:29psychiatrist at montefire UM, and then I was getting like consultation from one at
- 16:33Daniel Truck. Just I remember just driving in the car always listening to your
- 16:37podcasts and the wisdom of so many of the trauma educators ringing in my ear.
- 16:41We're so helpful and they still are. So I really want to thank
- 16:45you because you're one of like the first voices that I am just saying like
- 16:48that you bought so many, like so much wisdom together. Um No,
- 16:52I didn't think that. I thought that, I m I think I mentioned
- 16:56this. I thought I was going to be a lawyer to speak up like
- 17:00for children of adoption or divorce, and then that I wanted to be a
- 17:03mom as well, and I wanted I think it was probably like a fantasy,
- 17:07like I wanted to be like some kick I'll watch some impressive strong woman
- 17:12in the courtroom, or like a CIAgent, like that power woman. And
- 17:17then I realized power is not really a matter of like how you show up,
- 17:21but it's an energy and who you are and what you're conveying. So
- 17:25then I went into the field of social work, and yeah, even as
- 17:29a social worker, I thought I would just be like a big loving soul.
- 17:33I think really gave me this wisdom is humanity and humility and experiencing my
- 17:41own healing journey. I know I shared last time about how there were people
- 17:45in my extended family and community who struggled with addiction and how I looked at
- 17:51that, you know, I first specialized in working with addiction, and then
- 17:53I realized that's the core of addiction. You know, the difference between people
- 17:57who you know hold sobriety to some of them who keep relapsing. Sometimes.
- 18:03Um, you know, there's underlying trauma, a childhood trauma, opaining.
- 18:07So there's that piece. But really, as I just engaged in like being
- 18:10more adult and listening to my client stories and and and seeing what helped them
- 18:15and what didn't help them, and I think just like eating a lot of
- 18:18humble cake, and also like being very human in my own experience. Yeah,
- 18:26I mean, I appreciate you sharing that, And I'm curious if you
- 18:29can even get more specific. Can you recall a specific instance that made you
- 18:37think, wait a minute, I've got to I've got to shift here.
- 18:40You know, having a big heart and a great smile, isn't it enough?
- 18:45Really? Was there? Can you think back to a specific incident or
- 18:48time when you're like, okay, I need to maybe do my own inner
- 18:53work here. Something needs to shift. Yes, yes, let me let
- 18:57me just love this question. I started working with clients and I realized,
- 19:10okay, I realized that I wanted more and it wasn't just I remember one
- 19:12of my friends said to me, like, you were on this like trip
- 19:15of just getting all the latest trainings, and she's like, it's you're just
- 19:18drinking the kool aid, and I said, no, no, no,
- 19:21it's not the kool aid. I'm looking for the true way to heal people.
- 19:23And I have to find what resonates for me and my story and just
- 19:27what lends on me from a trainer who I honor and for something that helps
- 19:32me feel more comfortable in my own mind and body, because I don't just
- 19:34want to learn skills. So I think it was when I was working with
- 19:38some clients that there were some clients that were doing well with like talk therapy.
- 19:42But I found that when I started working with clients who who I was
- 19:48seeing for a while, and they started sharing more about their story, and
- 19:52I started developing that sixth sense of like nuance of like there's more to the
- 19:56story and it's more to the pain where there's a different might be some kind
- 20:00of like neglect or abuse, or sexual trauma or family secrecy, that I'm
- 20:06feeling something deeper than what then a question can ask them, or that an
- 20:10intervention could boom on right, And it was more about like I need to
- 20:12be able to move in deeper into the relational aspect in a way that's very
- 20:18healthy and therapeutic to the client. I was reading Kathy Steele's book, and
- 20:25I was reading a lot of the books on dissociation when I realized that,
- 20:27Okay, so I was working with a few clients here it is who had
- 20:30dissociative symptoms. And I remember trying to use my psychotherapy skills, even skills
- 20:37I had an EMDR. And then I realized that my savior complex, the
- 20:41part of me that thought like I'm going to help heal them, was getting
- 20:45in the way of really good work happening because I was scared. I was
- 20:48really scared, like can I really help you? Your symptoms are really strong.
- 20:53And then I reached that for consultation, and I remember a consultant was
- 20:57talking about like, we're not just looking at you as a therapist and your
- 21:00client as the patient, but we look at you as a person and then
- 21:04you as a professional, and both of those parts of you and then your
- 21:10client. And I think starting to realize like the part of me that so
- 21:15desperately wanted to help them heal was really a part of me that was feeling
- 21:18powerless, and it was about really noticing and owning my humanity. And then
- 21:23it wasn't about power or saving right, and it was about being in my
- 21:29own story right, my own maybe fantasy of someone coming to save me.
- 21:32And I think that pushed me. Then I ended up switching therapists at that
- 21:34point because I was like I was being challenged to engage in the process of
- 21:38psychotherapy from a much more I don't know, humane, not just humane,
- 21:45but deeper standpoint. And so I started engaging in my own therapy with someone
- 21:48who I felt like could really hold me in a real way. You know.
- 21:55It wasn't like I can save the day, I have all these trainings,
- 21:56but helped me see parts of myself. And then automatically, as I
- 22:02started like looking at the different aspects of myself that maybe I was ignoring without
- 22:06realizing or didn't know where they are, my clients energetically started sharing more and
- 22:10I felt so much more confident and trusting in their healing process. And I
- 22:17think that really conveyed and met a difference. That doesn't mean there symptoms went
- 22:18and way, but I was, you know, there's like somebody holds your
- 22:22grip and then there's like a strong grip of not like I need to be
- 22:25your savior, but I got you and I know what we're doing. And
- 22:27then there's very clear boundaries. So that's when I feel like I start you
- 22:30know, people tell me, oh, you have a name or you have
- 22:33a gift, and I'm like, no, it's really just that I started
- 22:36doing my own work and I got better, like when I think when I
- 22:38started being able to grip and like I got you, like I'm not frightened
- 22:41by your symptoms. I'm getting good consultation. I'm learning about myself, which
- 22:45is not what I'm said to them. I think that's really what shifted.
- 22:48I think specific it was I just love the way you articulated that. And
- 22:56that's hard to do. Why is that hard to do? Why is that
- 23:00challenging for many therapists to do? Very scary, guy, it's really scary
- 23:04to look at ourselves in the mirror, especially, you know what I always
- 23:07say, At eighteen years old, I had everything figured out, like at
- 23:14least two. It's been a while since then, and like, and it's
- 23:18interesting I think that like becoming a therapist. Of course, I had a
- 23:21certain level of self awareness and wisdom, and I did learn some skills,
- 23:26but I think really looking at ourselves in the mirror, like being a parent,
- 23:32has been a very humbling experience. Like my child relationships in my life,
- 23:38parenting and many other ones have really been spaces and places that make me
- 23:42pause and make me stop. And I'm gifted to have some relationships that make
- 23:48me ask questions right and then owning like choices and processes. I think it's
- 23:55hard because it's it's scary. It's scary to look at m I don't know
- 24:00if it's I think it's uncomfortable. I think the unknown could be scary.
- 24:04But I think the little secret that I found for myself is that it's scarier
- 24:08or not too right. I think it's scarier not to know ourselves. I
- 24:12think it's scarier not to do the work. But I will also say that
- 24:17it's also I think a really lonely road, Like I find that I have
- 24:21my few people in the professional and personal world that like they have that emotional
- 24:26vocabulary or they've gone in their own journey of awareness, but a lot of
- 24:30people don't want to or you know, they haven't been called to it.
- 24:33But yeah, I think that sometimes look we come into the therapy world because
- 24:37we want to be helpers. Why would anyone want to go back to the
- 24:40place of vulnerability? Exactly right? Right? And there's and I think,
- 24:45you know what I have found and in my own experiences an inherent I think
- 24:49within the therapeutic relationship there's a an imbalance generally speaking, right, the therapist
- 24:55is up here, clients down here. The therapist is all this training,
- 24:59they have all this The client has come to the therapist with the idea that
- 25:03things are going to get better and it takes. And also important when within
- 25:10that is the therapist's ability to define their role, their goal. Why are
- 25:18they doing this? Like you said, you know you wanted to help and
- 25:21that has to be defined, clearly defined, because if the therapist is coming
- 25:26to a client saying, I'm going to take away your pain, right,
- 25:30I interviewed someone and they were and they said how they weren't talking to me
- 25:33specifically, but there, how dare you try to take someone else's pain away?
- 25:40That's not your job? And I was like, what your job,
- 25:45just as you were saying, esther, is to walk alongside them, to
- 25:48grasp, you know, to hold their hand and walk with them. It's
- 25:52a very different perspective and orientation, and like you're saying, it requires the
- 25:56ability to look at ourselves and that's that's hard. What I've got to look
- 26:04at my Wait, I'm here to fix you, so here to fix you.
- 26:11Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think I think the being I think
- 26:15the being real with ourselves. Like luck, when we're in the field,
- 26:17we are to a certain degree, you know, awake to who we are.
- 26:22Obviously with varying degrees. Some of us have histories of the past or
- 26:26even more recently of things that are are difficult, right, Like people have
- 26:30health struggles or family dynamics or financial stories like and I think that there's this
- 26:36piece of like how am I holding my story right? And can I be
- 26:40very human in this process? And can I own my vulnerability while I own
- 26:44my clients? And of course they'll being like, you know, a skilled
- 26:47guide in the process because of course, like there's the boundaries and that clarity.
- 26:51But um, but I love that you interview those kinds of people of
- 26:55health. There you take away the pain. I think. Yeah, I
- 26:59think it was really early on when I was I didn't know anything, and
- 27:03you know, I thought that was a laudable goal desire to help take away
- 27:11someone's pain. You know, when this person said, when you have to
- 27:15realize when your clients steps into your room, they've begun their healing journey,
- 27:19yea long before they've entured your office, and you have to And I was
- 27:23just like, you know, I had no idea what the hell was going
- 27:27on. But this process of you know, you're talking a lot about being
- 27:33and being human and this is such a different approach, a different perspective.
- 27:40Um, how do you quote unquote teach or guide the people you work with
- 27:47to do that? To to to look at that, Yeah, I can't
- 27:52make it mandatory, like to only hire people out the practice whom who are
- 27:56in therapy, who have been in therapy at a very same time, the
- 28:03people who let's say are at the practice are people who I work with or
- 28:07who I feel confident you know, overseeing them their work and referring to are
- 28:12people who I know have consciously made the choice to get to know themselves and
- 28:18to get to know their inner worlds. And it's kind of this piece that
- 28:22I took from I guess that point in my life when I was looking at
- 28:26how can I really be useful or impactful and it was less about doing and
- 28:32it was more about being. But the being is actually harder than the doing,
- 28:34which I think many of us know in this thing called life. But
- 28:37I think what I what I often look at is this parallel process between like
- 28:44so I'm let's say, teaching, or I'm getting to know them and getting
- 28:48you know that there's this process of the human part of them, right like
- 28:51their own life, their own story. Then there's the professional them and honoring
- 28:55both of theirs. I always get curious about what's your why, Like why
- 28:57are you in the field, Well, what's your promise to yourself? Because
- 29:02I think we come into the field really first with a promise to ourselves and
- 29:04then second with a promise to the people that we work with. I think
- 29:11my promise to myself was really understanding and learning about the underpinnings of certain mental
- 29:18health struggles and giving myself knowledge and truth that I that wasn't out there met
- 29:23you know, many years ago, and and that's a gift that I've given
- 29:26myself. And also to connect myself with like very wise people, mentors,
- 29:33therapist, a therapist that has been incredible. Um So I think there's like
- 29:37promising, like are you along with your own integrity, with your own self,
- 29:41then with the clients you work with, because they feed off of each
- 29:44other. Right. Um, So it doesn't mean that you have to be
- 29:48in a perfect place in life and you know, have everything resolved, but
- 29:52there's a level of Yeah, I think like awakeness that you know when when
- 29:56when clients sometimes say, this person is so skilled, what is it?
- 30:00What's the training? What's the training? And often when I hear about the
- 30:03therapists who have the IT factor, the factor is that they hold themselves or
- 30:07they're honest with themselves and they've been through, um, just more realness and
- 30:15I think client and then we pick that up right. You know, when
- 30:15you talk to someone, you could tell how much they can hold, how
- 30:18much space they have capacity? One? Yeah? Yeah, so that's that's
- 30:23felt, that's awesome. I want to remind everyone that I'm speaking with Esther
- 30:27Goldstein. Esther, what's the best way for people to get in contact with
- 30:32you? My website it's Integrative psych that CEO. Okay, and what do
- 30:37you do? I mean I was U see clients? What else are you?
- 30:41Are you offering workshops or what else? Yeah? I do? I
- 30:47love workshops. Actually I was just invited to one UM there's a treatment center.
- 30:51They do workshops for therapists, so kind of like teaching therapists skills to
- 30:57use a real time in session with clients who are activated working with anxiety or
- 31:02trauma symptoms. I have a training that I have for therapists and online training,
- 31:08and I have a practice. Our practice is what I love about our
- 31:12clinical practice is that the therapists have a really range of services. We have
- 31:18a dance movement therapist to our therapists ones. Actually we're partnered with NYU with
- 31:22art therapy program because I really think that trauma healing and they're they're all trained
- 31:26in EMDRU and somatic and parts work, but I really find that healing happens
- 31:30in creative ways. I'm actually writing a book with new Harbinger and EMDR and
- 31:34anxiety, and my spec is like they're like esther quality EMDR for rebels,
- 31:41because I always say, like, you need to learn MDR, but then
- 31:42you have to know how to use it with parts work and it's not just
- 31:45like the generic EMDR. So I don't know if they're going to approve of
- 31:48that title, but so I'm working on that and yeah, that's how people
- 31:53can find me awesome. Now you mentioned an online course for therapists. Will
- 31:57give us some more specifics about that. Who's it for specifics? Yeah,
- 32:00so it's a trauma training So essentially I created like it's ten modules. It's
- 32:07an online training program for therapists or psychiatric nurse practitioners. Honestly, I had
- 32:15a few people. I had somebody from Iceland who's working at a drug treatment
- 32:19center and she was talking about raising awareness for her team, and then somebody
- 32:22who's working with veterans and with PTSD and opening her own center. It's for
- 32:29therapists who want to either refresh their knowledge and being trauma informed, or therapists
- 32:35who have learned about trauma or seeing clients and their practice, but they want
- 32:38to take them to the next level. So I'm not giving I mean,
- 32:42we're working on the CEU process for approval. It's a six month program where
- 32:46there's videos we go through like the making of a Trauma Therapist, no Younger,
- 32:51Why the history evolution, and then there's like assessments, interventions. There's
- 32:55a lot of exercises that include like somatic and parts work. Honestly, it's
- 33:00like a training that I needed ten years ago, and I just felt like,
- 33:05so there's a training aspect and then there's consultation. The community is,
- 33:07honestly, I think the most powerful piece how people get to know other therapists
- 33:12around the world, and they kind of even beyond the group. It's like
- 33:15just supporting each other and knowing that each other exists. So awesome. We'll
- 33:19help that linked up here at the show notes page at the traumat dis podcast
- 33:22dot com. Ester awesome, got to have you back again. I love
- 33:27talking to you. Thank you so much for being here. I'll look forward
- 33:30to it all right,