Latest / The Trauma Therapist / Looking For The Human with Will Dobud, PhD

Transcript

Looking For The Human with Will Dobud, PhD · The Trauma Therapist

0:00
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Trauma Therapists podcast. My name is Gamiferson.
0:04
Speaker 1: I interview incredible people who've dedicated their lives to helping
0:07
Speaker 1: those who've been impacted by trauma. A big thank you
0:11
Speaker 1: to our sponsors and our guests who are supporting this show.
0:15
Speaker 1: So five four, three, two and one our folks, welcome
0:21
Speaker 1: back to the podcast. Very excited to have us My
0:23
Speaker 1: guest today, Doctor Will Doughbud Will welcome.
0:26
Speaker 2: Thanks so much for having me. I'm excited for this
0:28
Speaker 2: conversation awesome.
0:30
Speaker 1: Will is a social work clinician, researcher and senior lecturer
0:34
Speaker 1: whose work focuses on outdoor and experiential therapies for youth
0:39
Speaker 1: and improving therapeutic outcomes for adolescents and families. He founded
0:43
Speaker 1: the nonprofit True North Expeditions in Adelaide, Australia, and has
0:48
Speaker 1: received recognition including the twenty fifteen Australian Postgraduate Award and
0:53
Speaker 1: twenty twenty one Distinguished Researcher of the Year from the
0:56
Speaker 1: Association for Experiential Education. He's a co author of Kids
1:01
Speaker 1: These Days, Understanding and Supporting Youth Mental Health and books
1:05
Speaker 1: on outdoor therapy practice, and the Advocates for healthier, more
1:08
Speaker 1: affected mental health support for young people. All right, Well,
1:14
Speaker 1: before we get going, share with the listeners where you're
1:16
Speaker 1: from originally and where you are currently, and then we
1:19
Speaker 1: will dive in sure.
1:21
Speaker 2: So I grew up in Washington, d C. I was
1:23
Speaker 2: a boarding school kid in Massachusetts for high school, and
1:27
Speaker 2: then once I finished high school, I went anywhere that
1:31
Speaker 2: would take me to work in the outdoors. So I've
1:34
Speaker 2: worked in Arizona, West Virginia, North Carolina, Upstate New York, Alaska.
1:40
Speaker 2: And then I met my wife, Renee, and she dragged
1:43
Speaker 2: me to Australia. So I come back and forth Australia
1:47
Speaker 2: and Washington, d C. But I'm in Australia at the
1:50
Speaker 2: moment in Adelaide, South Australia, which is kind of dead center,
1:54
Speaker 2: very bottom. So that's where I am at the moment.
1:59
Speaker 1: So how did this all start for you? You said
2:02
Speaker 1: a boarding school kid. After that you're like, get me
2:05
Speaker 1: the hell out, or how did this start?
2:08
Speaker 2: Well, the outdoor side of things, and I know you
2:10
Speaker 2: have a really fascinating outdoor story yourself, But the outdoor
2:15
Speaker 2: side for me was when I was about eight years old,
2:19
Speaker 2: my parents said, we found this summer camp and we'd
2:23
Speaker 2: like you to go test it out, and your best
2:25
Speaker 2: friend is going to go with you. And I was like,
2:28
Speaker 2: I don't know, but I was. My dad loved fishing.
2:31
Speaker 2: I was a pretty outdoorsy kid myself. I loved playing
2:34
Speaker 2: sports outside. And the day they were driving me to
2:37
Speaker 2: the airport, it turned out that my best friend had
2:40
Speaker 2: bailed on going to summer call. And I was going, Oh,
2:44
Speaker 2: my gosh, I'm flying to Vermont by myself, and what
2:48
Speaker 2: is this? And I was terrified. And two days at
2:51
Speaker 2: summer camp, I went to the head of the camp
2:53
Speaker 2: and I said, can I call my mother? And he
2:55
Speaker 2: said why? And I said, I never want to go
2:58
Speaker 2: back be here, and so I, oh, you never want
3:02
Speaker 2: to go back?
3:03
Speaker 1: Okay.
3:04
Speaker 2: I was like, this is the greatest place on earth,
3:07
Speaker 2: and so.
3:07
Speaker 1: What what what about it?
3:10
Speaker 2: I was not a good student, never annoying to adults,
3:16
Speaker 2: but I was. I struggled to focus. I struggled to
3:20
Speaker 2: see the purpose of school. But being in a canoe
3:24
Speaker 2: backpacking with other people, I just thought this, this is living.
3:29
Speaker 2: I thought this was exciting. I mean, there's an aspect
3:33
Speaker 2: of camp that is fun and you don't get graded
3:35
Speaker 2: and you don't get tested on things. I mean, there
3:37
Speaker 2: were levels. This is actually a funny story about kind
3:39
Speaker 2: of my psychology. There are there were levels you could
3:42
Speaker 2: gain at camp, and I think in the one hundred
3:46
Speaker 2: and thirty years this camp has existed, I was the
3:49
Speaker 2: longest camper that did not gain the first level. I didn't.
3:52
Speaker 2: It didn't interest me to to do these things. What
3:57
Speaker 2: interested me was I should become a better canoe like
4:00
Speaker 2: Rifley archery. I was like, I don't care. And so
4:04
Speaker 2: being outside was something that just really landed on me.
4:11
Speaker 2: So when I turned eighteen and learned that you could
4:13
Speaker 2: help other troubled youth, you know, kids that were like
4:18
Speaker 2: myself and an irony of being in Massachusetts, the only
4:24
Speaker 2: a I ever got in a class was the class
4:26
Speaker 2: about Thorrow's Walden Pond. Like I was resonating with this
4:33
Speaker 2: sort of divorcing yourself from the institution. And as a kid,
4:38
Speaker 2: I was like, oh my gosh, this guy's kind of
4:40
Speaker 2: punk rock, Like this is kind of like not pay
4:42
Speaker 2: your taxes. This is kind of amazing. And so when
4:46
Speaker 2: I learned about outdoor therapy world, I was like, I'll
4:50
Speaker 2: do anything to learn anything from anyone about this, and
4:55
Speaker 2: that sort of kickstarted and amazing. What I think is
4:59
Speaker 2: you know, of really fulfilling. I mean, I'm still early
5:02
Speaker 2: career in all scheme of things, but an amazing journey.
5:06
Speaker 1: So I want to make a distinction and correct me
5:08
Speaker 1: if I'm wrong here, But the distinction between outdoor therapy
5:14
Speaker 1: and outdoor experiences. Right, you said you you wanted to
5:21
Speaker 1: work with like you was the word troubled youth. So
5:25
Speaker 1: that was that your interest, like working with troubled youth
5:31
Speaker 1: or just being outside and helping kids have that experience.
5:39
Speaker 2: I'm cautious of the word troubled youth. I know it's
5:41
Speaker 2: a very buzzy kind of word. And with the book
5:44
Speaker 2: kids these days, we can we can dive into that
5:47
Speaker 2: as well. What I was, I was sort of couchsurfed therapist.
5:53
Speaker 2: The therapist during my teenage years. My father had, you know,
5:57
Speaker 2: kind of abandoned the family. And when I didn't like
6:00
Speaker 2: school and I had a real uh I really loved
6:04
Speaker 2: doing anything but go to school, and that included a
6:08
Speaker 2: lot of marijuana and playing the drums all the time.
6:12
Speaker 2: I became a very good musician by myself, and skateboarding
6:16
Speaker 2: and doing all the things that look really naughty to people.
6:21
Speaker 2: But I did. I never hated therapy. Therapy never. It
6:25
Speaker 2: was never something I thought, this is a maybe I
6:28
Speaker 2: thought it was a waste of time because I don't
6:29
Speaker 2: think it helped me. But I did like that it
6:33
Speaker 2: was adults actually having serious conversations. That that really was
6:38
Speaker 2: interesting to me because I thought school and not getting
6:42
Speaker 2: an education, because like I said, I learned how to
6:44
Speaker 2: play music. Basically you never learned anything by yourself, but
6:48
Speaker 2: I learned I could spend time focusing on playing music,
6:53
Speaker 2: but focusing on learning Shakespeare had zero interest to me.
6:57
Speaker 2: But sitting and talking about the world and sort of
6:59
Speaker 2: the philosophical view, I actually really liked therapy. So the
7:04
Speaker 2: idea of bringing outdoor experiences and therapy together just naturally
7:10
Speaker 2: made sense to me. It was like going on adventures
7:12
Speaker 2: with older people. Was the only time I kind of
7:16
Speaker 2: had good mentorship in my life, like so, and I
7:21
Speaker 2: got that sometimes from music teachers where I go, you know,
7:25
Speaker 2: we're learning about you know, learning about triplets, and at
7:29
Speaker 2: the same time I'm sitting here listening to someone tell
7:32
Speaker 2: me how to practice and how to think about getting
7:34
Speaker 2: becoming a better musician. So therapy was sort of like that.
7:39
Speaker 2: It was it was sort of really diving into what
7:42
Speaker 2: living means and what hurts us or what helps us
7:46
Speaker 2: get better. But I don't think I had a lot
7:49
Speaker 2: of good therapy. So when I started this idea of
7:54
Speaker 2: what am I going to study at college, and I
7:55
Speaker 2: started with music therapy, I became a firefighter, a volunteer
7:59
Speaker 2: firefighter and mayor Roland. So I did some fire science
8:02
Speaker 2: classes and then I just had the best teacher in
8:05
Speaker 2: an adolescent psychology class and I wild and I went, well,
8:09
Speaker 2: I won't look back at this, this is what wow?
8:12
Speaker 1: And can I just hit up for one second? What what?
8:16
Speaker 1: What really excites me about you and and the work
8:20
Speaker 1: you do and this topic is you know you you
8:26
Speaker 1: recognized that okay, being stuck in the classroom and studying
8:32
Speaker 1: these topics weren't lighting you up, but you did find
8:37
Speaker 1: something that did light you up. And you know it's
8:42
Speaker 1: not that you weren't smart and blah blah blah blah blah.
8:47
Speaker 1: But the when we when we find something that lights
8:50
Speaker 1: us up, everything changes, you know. And yeah, and it's incredible.
8:56
Speaker 1: But our our our educational system feels so backwards, right.
9:03
Speaker 1: It just feels like we're not we're shoving these kids
9:07
Speaker 1: into this template for most of whom it's not working.
9:13
Speaker 1: They don't fit. But it's it feels like you're creating
9:18
Speaker 1: a space for kids to breathe. You know, I love it,
9:24
Speaker 1: So go ahead.
9:26
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, go ahead, now, you go ahead, you go ahead.
9:28
Speaker 1: No, So you get into college, you have this incredible teacher,
9:33
Speaker 1: which is so lucky. How many how many of us
9:36
Speaker 1: have an incredible teacher who just lights us up and
9:40
Speaker 1: you're like, you're not looking back? What happens?
9:44
Speaker 2: So his name was Donald Palmer, and I'd encourage anyone
9:47
Speaker 2: who's actually really interested in this goofy part of the
9:50
Speaker 2: story just google Donald Palmer. Palmer, right, my professor, and
9:55
Speaker 2: it's he's hilarious the feedback. But he would do things,
10:01
Speaker 2: I think in his psychology classes he has it was
10:05
Speaker 2: like six multiple choice exams, and he would walk in,
10:09
Speaker 2: hand out the exam and you'd fill out one of
10:11
Speaker 2: those sheets that you know, measures the how you fill
10:13
Speaker 2: in the bubbles, and then he would leave the classroom
10:16
Speaker 2: and he'd say, if you all think you have ethics,
10:19
Speaker 2: here's your chance to have ethics. Like you know, if
10:22
Speaker 2: you're gonna cheat, just know that you cheated. If you're
10:25
Speaker 2: not going to cheat, So it was like really building us.
10:28
Speaker 2: And this was at a community college too, which was amazing.
10:32
Speaker 2: So I transferred from that school into university around Baltimore County,
10:38
Speaker 2: finished my social work degree, met my You know, I
10:42
Speaker 2: was working in the outdoors with young people any like,
10:45
Speaker 2: I mean seriously, anywhere I could get work. This led,
10:49
Speaker 2: previous to meeting my now wife Rennet, led to a
10:52
Speaker 2: relationship breakdown because I kind of fell in love with
10:56
Speaker 2: work and doing it more than the other. I was
10:59
Speaker 2: just soaking everything up, and then when I came to Australia,
11:05
Speaker 2: my world was rattled. I left it thinking I can't
11:11
Speaker 2: believe the way I was trained. I can't believe what
11:14
Speaker 2: I was asked to do because a lot.
11:17
Speaker 1: Of it in terms of what outdoor work.
11:20
Speaker 2: At well, I realized I didn't have very good outdoor training,
11:26
Speaker 2: and things like when I would take young people climbing,
11:28
Speaker 2: I realized I did not really have as good of training.
11:31
Speaker 2: And I could tie all the knots and set up
11:33
Speaker 2: an anchor system in a top rope, but I was
11:37
Speaker 2: realizing a lot of what I was doing was very risky.
11:41
Speaker 2: And I don't mean risky in the bad way that
11:43
Speaker 2: we use the r word in the sense of stopping
11:46
Speaker 2: things from happening. But the way that young people were
11:51
Speaker 2: treated in residential treatment programs and the way that we
11:56
Speaker 2: were told never to trust a client was working in
12:01
Speaker 2: a system that I'm you know. This is why with
12:05
Speaker 2: the new book Kids These Days, the reason Paris Hilton
12:08
Speaker 2: endorsed Kids These Days was I started doing research about
12:12
Speaker 2: America's troubled teen industry and I started looking back at
12:17
Speaker 2: where I had worked. Now, I don't view them as
12:21
Speaker 2: like a crisis in faith about doing therapy outside. I
12:26
Speaker 2: think there is an issue about the way that we
12:28
Speaker 2: perceive our clients and perceive ourselves as therapists.
12:32
Speaker 1: That hang on a second, because I think I don't
12:35
Speaker 1: want to I don't want to get confused here, because
12:39
Speaker 1: now are we talking about like outdoor boot camps for
12:41
Speaker 1: trouble teens or we're talking about outward bound. You know
12:46
Speaker 1: there's a difference here, right. I want to hear about
12:48
Speaker 1: what we're talking about.
12:50
Speaker 2: So a lot of this is all informed by outward band,
12:53
Speaker 2: which I have no gripe about outward band in the slightest.
12:59
Speaker 2: The one thing that happened in the particularly in the
13:02
Speaker 2: eighties was the hour bound model kind of got turned
13:07
Speaker 2: into behavioral health care. And when that happened, we have
13:12
Speaker 2: young people sent to the woods under the name of therapy. So, yes,
13:16
Speaker 2: there's boot camps around, but there's also a lot of
13:19
Speaker 2: licensed professionals working at places that are taking children against
13:23
Speaker 2: their will and this institutionalized sort of residential treatment that
13:29
Speaker 2: just so happens to be in the outdoors. And like
13:33
Speaker 2: I said, I had wonderful I worked with amazing people
13:38
Speaker 2: at these places. There was a systematic issue of the
13:42
Speaker 2: way that we were treating people.
13:44
Speaker 1: And get specific, what's wrong, what happened? What are you
13:47
Speaker 1: talking about?
13:48
Speaker 2: Well, so things like and this is what I did
13:52
Speaker 2: my doctoral research about, was adolescent experiences in outdoor therapy.
13:57
Speaker 2: So things like young person gets to the program, their
14:00
Speaker 2: their strip, searched, put in uniform clothing, and then enjoy
14:06
Speaker 2: and instructed not to talk to any other participant in
14:10
Speaker 2: the group until they're ready.
14:12
Speaker 1: Right, So this is rehabilitation type.
14:15
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, totally.
14:16
Speaker 1: Okay, So this is this? Correct me if I'm wrong.
14:19
Speaker 1: This is not outward bounds okay, no, no, no, no, okay.
14:25
Speaker 2: So this is this is that's sort of the American
14:27
Speaker 2: wilderness therapy model, and we're generalizing a specific type of practice.
14:32
Speaker 1: So got it? Okay, all right?
14:35
Speaker 2: So so but this was the reason when I got
14:38
Speaker 2: to Australia and I remember getting working at a large
14:41
Speaker 2: nonprofit and they you know, I'm out in the middle
14:44
Speaker 2: of the South Australian you know, the bush as they
14:47
Speaker 2: call it. This is the driest state on the driest
14:50
Speaker 2: continent with the largest collection of deadly animals. And ten
14:53
Speaker 2: kids from a rural town get off this bus and
14:57
Speaker 2: then we just start walking and I just went, oh
14:59
Speaker 2: my gosh, I am in the thick of it. This
15:01
Speaker 2: is this is very different. There's less rigidity, less rules.
15:06
Speaker 2: It's about engagement. I have to engage the client instead
15:10
Speaker 2: of the clients having to engage with the program, which
15:12
Speaker 2: is when we talk about schooling. That's a compliance kind
15:16
Speaker 2: of focus. And when I got these kids, I was going,
15:20
Speaker 2: I better be good, not like they can leave if
15:24
Speaker 2: they don't like this. Like you know, there is choice
15:27
Speaker 2: and speaking to trauma, like actual choice, where if you're
15:32
Speaker 2: an involuntary client, there's really only perceived choice. There's no
15:35
Speaker 2: real choice.
15:37
Speaker 1: Yeah. Now, why and how did that quote unquote work?
15:43
Speaker 1: What was the benefit of that? What did you learn
15:45
Speaker 1: from that? How did that help the kids.
15:48
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I think in the therapy world, no matter
15:51
Speaker 2: if it's indoors or out, out patient or impatient, we
15:56
Speaker 2: have a huge engagement problem. I mean, I mean I
15:59
Speaker 2: know that. You know the research as well. The most
16:01
Speaker 2: common number of sessions anybody goes to is one. That's
16:05
Speaker 2: the modal number. So someone shows up, they sit through
16:09
Speaker 2: an intake, which is the therapist doing a taking you in,
16:13
Speaker 2: you know, a taking of information, and then you leave
16:16
Speaker 2: and go. You know, doctor McPherson was a really nice guy,
16:21
Speaker 2: but I'd never want to go back to him. But hell,
16:23
Speaker 2: at least he's evidence based. Like no person says this,
16:27
Speaker 2: you know, they leave and think that was not for me.
16:32
Speaker 2: And so the outdoors, I think, and we see this research.
16:36
Speaker 2: This is actually something on my mind these days that
16:38
Speaker 2: I've been writing about. We see research that with paraprofessionals,
16:42
Speaker 2: people without any clinical training, they can be just as
16:46
Speaker 2: effective as all of us. One of the things is,
16:49
Speaker 2: by by about session six, they start saying I don't
16:52
Speaker 2: know what to talk about anymore. And one of the
16:55
Speaker 2: things with the outdoors is you both have to do it.
16:58
Speaker 2: If you and I went hiking, and it starts raining
17:00
Speaker 2: it rains on both of us. Now we're both invested
17:03
Speaker 2: in getting dry and warm. We're doing something together. So
17:07
Speaker 2: I think for a lot of young people, and I'm
17:09
Speaker 2: under no illusion that the outdoors is better or worse
17:13
Speaker 2: than anything any other place to do therapy. The thing
17:18
Speaker 2: for me is I'm at my best in the outdoors
17:21
Speaker 2: so i can be a better therapist. And you know,
17:23
Speaker 2: when you interview therapists, a therapist and really anybody, and
17:29
Speaker 2: you say, what's the best depiction of a therapist you've
17:32
Speaker 2: ever seen in a movie? Most people say Robin Williams
17:35
Speaker 2: and Goodwill Hunting, And the cover of that movie is
17:38
Speaker 2: a therapist and client sitting on a park bench outside
17:41
Speaker 2: in Boston. That it kind of it makes therapy sort
17:45
Speaker 2: of invisible, which I think is a really nice, a
17:49
Speaker 2: nice thing where it feels like you're in it together,
17:51
Speaker 2: you're doing something together.
17:54
Speaker 1: Yeah. I love that, And I would add to that.
17:57
Speaker 1: Another great depiction is jud hirsh In Kramer versus Creamer.
18:03
Speaker 1: I think it was Did you have you ever seen that? Yeah? Yeah?
18:06
Speaker 1: He uhlas, do you remember that? He's like, is it
18:11
Speaker 1: Timothy Hutton? Right? And he goes to meet him and
18:14
Speaker 1: jud hirsh is this kind of the shovel guy and
18:17
Speaker 1: he's trying, he's fixing his stereo and he's just very
18:22
Speaker 1: is I thought it was amazing.
18:24
Speaker 2: Well, one of the things that people when I interviewed
18:27
Speaker 2: young people, and the thing I grappled with with my
18:31
Speaker 2: PhD was I went and visited programs all over the world.
18:34
Speaker 2: This was my how I got a connection with going
18:36
Speaker 2: to Norway and I looked at all these organizations and
18:40
Speaker 2: then I interviewed young people have been to all different
18:43
Speaker 2: kind of programs, and that's the biggest thing to me
18:47
Speaker 2: was young people. And these are young adults now who
18:50
Speaker 2: had been to intensive therapy as kids, and they said,
18:55
Speaker 2: treat me like a human and I just like, like
18:58
Speaker 2: or they stripped me of my humanity. There was this
19:02
Speaker 2: human aspect of this work, and the outdoors is a
19:08
Speaker 2: great place to figure out how you treat people and
19:10
Speaker 2: how you think about people. So the way I was
19:13
Speaker 2: trained was to when I was quite young, was to
19:17
Speaker 2: think of young people as untrustworthy, as as fragile, as
19:22
Speaker 2: not ready, as pre contemplative, in denial, troubled. I know
19:27
Speaker 2: I used that word earlier, that all these things were
19:30
Speaker 2: wrong with them and then when I started my sort
19:34
Speaker 2: of academic journey and really reading more and really thinking
19:39
Speaker 2: seriously about the work, I learned that the truth of
19:43
Speaker 2: the matter is I have to start looking for the human,
19:48
Speaker 2: the not the empty vessel. And if I find the human,
19:53
Speaker 2: it's it's actually not only do I think it's easier work,
19:56
Speaker 2: it's much more exciting and thrilling. And then at the
19:59
Speaker 2: end of it, I don't have to take any credit
20:02
Speaker 2: because that person was there all along. And that's the
20:05
Speaker 2: best part of this work.
20:07
Speaker 1: You mentioned Paris Hilton. There was a documentary that she
20:12
Speaker 1: was in and she talks about her experience, horrible experience,
20:18
Speaker 1: and they're in this what is it was an outdoor
20:21
Speaker 1: one of these outdoor boot camps that we have in America,
20:24
Speaker 1: wilderness therapy quote unquote wilderness therapy, Right, is that unique
20:31
Speaker 1: to America? That types it is?
20:34
Speaker 2: Well, the level of industry is unique to America because
20:39
Speaker 2: many of these programs, and this is getting in the weeds,
20:41
Speaker 2: many of these programs are owned by private equity firms.
20:44
Speaker 2: There is a lot of money rolling around. Now what
20:48
Speaker 2: Paris did and this is like, did I ever think
20:52
Speaker 2: my my life trajectory would bring me one degree of
20:55
Speaker 2: separation from Paris Hilton. No, but the thing that she
20:59
Speaker 2: did by really speaking to her experience and what happened
21:04
Speaker 2: to her, well, she gave voice to tens of thousands
21:08
Speaker 2: of kids. We are seeing one of the most incredible
21:12
Speaker 2: revenge of the clients. As my friend Ben Caldwell calls it, like,
21:16
Speaker 2: it's it's remarkable and these programs are closing. It's it's
21:22
Speaker 2: actually what she has done is incredible. Now, do I
21:26
Speaker 2: want people not to have access to the outdoors or
21:30
Speaker 2: access to out there. They're absolutely not. But the risk,
21:34
Speaker 2: the opportunity for harm at these places is too high
21:38
Speaker 2: to to do it. So it's it's a it's a
21:43
Speaker 2: huge reckoning what she's done. It's it's actually it's it's
21:45
Speaker 2: inspiring to me. I think it's it's incredible. Uh.
21:51
Speaker 1: Conversely, did you learn something differently or what did you
21:57
Speaker 1: learn when you went with it to Australia when things
21:59
Speaker 1: started to shift for you.
22:02
Speaker 2: Well, Australia the social services system was much less medicalized,
22:07
Speaker 2: so we didn't have to worry as much about how
22:10
Speaker 2: to get third party pay third party payers based on diagnosis.
22:15
Speaker 2: At the same time, if I had kidnapped a child
22:18
Speaker 2: to the woods, I would be in jail, and that
22:21
Speaker 2: was like my job, you know, in America. It was
22:25
Speaker 2: I think it was Norway though, that that rattled me
22:30
Speaker 2: the most. And the reason I say that is I
22:32
Speaker 2: went to a place where being in the outdoors as
22:35
Speaker 2: part of the culture, and so it wasn't as much
22:39
Speaker 2: about reconnection with the outdoors, but making therapy a cultural
22:44
Speaker 2: endeavor for you. And I'm not Norwegian, and I can't
22:46
Speaker 2: speak the language.
22:47
Speaker 1: And.
22:49
Speaker 2: I haven't been there a very long time, so I'm
22:51
Speaker 2: speaking in generalizations. But the thing that happened in Norway
22:55
Speaker 2: was I saw a it was called wildered therapy, same title,
23:01
Speaker 2: and it was just so humane and slow. And the
23:09
Speaker 2: thing that I really observed was it was tied to
23:12
Speaker 2: the culture of being Norwegian. And you know, they have
23:16
Speaker 2: a term frillislive, which means it basically translates to open
23:21
Speaker 2: air lifestyle and that's a Norwegian kind of philosophical term.
23:25
Speaker 2: And these uh, you know, academics and psychologists and people
23:29
Speaker 2: running this program, they they came up with phllos therapy,
23:35
Speaker 2: you know, open air therapy, and so young people who
23:39
Speaker 2: would get sent to the hospital, it was all centralized
23:42
Speaker 2: through the hospital and that sort of socialized system. They
23:45
Speaker 2: would get to the hospital and they say you can
23:47
Speaker 2: have CBT and all this impatient therapy. But there's also
23:51
Speaker 2: these kind of whack jobs down the hall that will
23:53
Speaker 2: take you on a ten day expedition if you want
23:56
Speaker 2: to go and we're going to work you We're going
23:58
Speaker 2: to work in a group and prepare our else to
24:00
Speaker 2: do it. So it's not like this abrupt you know.
24:05
Speaker 2: But things about Norway and the outdoors that are amazing
24:08
Speaker 2: is like, you know, there's no insurance, there's no public
24:13
Speaker 2: liability insurance. It's you just go and you don't tell.
24:17
Speaker 2: You know, you don't have to. You know, if we
24:20
Speaker 2: were out there and it was a blizzard and we
24:23
Speaker 2: all got stuck and we called whatever their equivalent of
24:26
Speaker 2: nine to one one is, people would come and get
24:29
Speaker 2: us for free. And because they want people to use
24:32
Speaker 2: the outdoors to be outside, they want you to feel
24:36
Speaker 2: safe to go out outdoors. And it's not like a
24:39
Speaker 2: utopia of a place. I'm just it was. It just
24:42
Speaker 2: changed the way I thought about this work, that it's
24:44
Speaker 2: not about detaching yourself from the world and going outside.
24:48
Speaker 2: It's about making that as a hopefully making that a
24:52
Speaker 2: wonderful experience that connects you with your country, connects you
24:56
Speaker 2: with your culture, connect you with where you're from.
25:00
Speaker 1: So what how do you work now?
25:05
Speaker 2: So I well, I work mostly for a university now
25:08
Speaker 2: doing very well. I love teaching. I find it very
25:13
Speaker 2: exciting and thrilling. I work at the largest school of
25:16
Speaker 2: social work in Australia and I work with I am
25:22
Speaker 2: lucky that I have connections with enough organizations that I
25:27
Speaker 2: keep my outdoor foot still in, you know, still out
25:31
Speaker 2: there and with youth and doing that sort of stuff.
25:38
Speaker 2: The and then I and then I get I am
25:41
Speaker 2: so fortunate to have a job where I get to
25:43
Speaker 2: write as well, which is one of the reasons we
25:45
Speaker 2: were talking like I was really interested in writing about
25:49
Speaker 2: outdoor therapy. And then my co author Nevin Harper, who
25:52
Speaker 2: we met through the outdoor therapy world, we were actually
25:57
Speaker 2: in Norway a few years ago and we were sitting
25:59
Speaker 2: in camping and he said, it seems like everyone gets
26:04
Speaker 2: more treatment. There's more therapists than ever, more educators than ever,
26:08
Speaker 2: more diagnoses than ever, more medications than ever, and somehow
26:13
Speaker 2: everything seems to be getting worse. Let's look into it.
26:16
Speaker 2: And I was kind of hesitant about what the Kids
26:19
Speaker 2: These Days book would turn into, but he just started
26:23
Speaker 2: interviewing people. I think he started. I think we interviewed
26:27
Speaker 2: Sue Johnson, who has been on been on your podcast,
26:31
Speaker 2: doctor Gordon Neufeld, and a bunch of random doctor Scott Miller,
26:35
Speaker 2: that's my therapy mentor, and we just started asking what's
26:39
Speaker 2: going on with kids, and uh, why does it seem
26:42
Speaker 2: like everything's getting worse and what's happening? And so I'm
26:46
Speaker 2: really fortunate to be in a position where I get
26:49
Speaker 2: to teach social work that I that I love. I
26:52
Speaker 2: feel very proud to be a part of this profession,
26:55
Speaker 2: not with all of its annoying parts too and bureaucratic crap,
27:00
Speaker 2: but I get to be a part of this tradition
27:04
Speaker 2: and I get to write whatever I want, whenever I want,
27:08
Speaker 2: and that is thrilling.
27:10
Speaker 1: The book is called Kids These Days, Understanding and Supporting
27:13
Speaker 1: Youth Mental Health. It is out. Obviously we'll have that
27:17
Speaker 1: linked up and we'll talk about that later. But yeah,
27:19
Speaker 1: what did you find asking these questions?
27:23
Speaker 2: Well, I think the first interview was with Gordon Neufeld
27:29
Speaker 2: that Nevin did, which was what hooked me, and it
27:32
Speaker 2: was about an hour the first time we talked with
27:35
Speaker 2: the first time Nevin spoke with Gordon, and then it
27:38
Speaker 2: was in like the last fifteen minutes that Gordon sort
27:44
Speaker 2: of took off his you know, kids gloves and really
27:47
Speaker 2: went hard on what's happening in schooling as we talked about,
27:51
Speaker 2: like I have no gripe about education, but the system
27:54
Speaker 2: of schooling and sitting still and these sort of things
28:00
Speaker 2: what we really found. And this goes back to Outward
28:02
Speaker 2: Bound oddly enough, I think one of the things I
28:05
Speaker 2: really took away is, you know, Kurt Hahn when he
28:09
Speaker 2: was co founding Outward Bound, and Kurt Hahn lived an
28:12
Speaker 2: amazing life. I mean he was exiled from Germany as
28:15
Speaker 2: a German Jew, Like, it's pretty amazing in the in
28:19
Speaker 2: the thirties during Hitler's rise, and Kurt Hahn said, the
28:25
Speaker 2: biggest issue is we treat youth as passengers and not
28:29
Speaker 2: as crewe that they don't feel like they have something
28:32
Speaker 2: to participate in, and so then they're sitting still. They're
28:36
Speaker 2: spectators of life, they're not kind of grabbing life and
28:40
Speaker 2: running with it. So that was one really key takeaway
28:44
Speaker 2: that really stuck with us, was this notion of passengers
28:47
Speaker 2: or crewe that you know, if and we can see
28:51
Speaker 2: this in the schooling system. And again I talked about
28:55
Speaker 2: having I've had amazing teachers throughout my you know, professional
28:59
Speaker 2: and academic life. It's amazing and his youth. I gave
29:04
Speaker 2: a lecture the other day for my eighth grade history
29:07
Speaker 2: teacher who's now a principal of a school in Connecticut.
29:10
Speaker 1: The other day.
29:13
Speaker 2: One of the things that can happen is is when
29:16
Speaker 2: the young person doesn't fit in with the system, they're
29:20
Speaker 2: either depressed or attention deficit. Well there's pills for that,
29:23
Speaker 2: and I'm not anti medication, but it's a very passive intervention,
29:28
Speaker 2: you know, it's a very take this and then fit
29:31
Speaker 2: in with the system where they might be in the
29:34
Speaker 2: wrong place, you know. And so and I don't mean
29:39
Speaker 2: everyone should drop out of school, but school has become
29:43
Speaker 2: so overhyped that a lot of people are feeling demoralized
29:48
Speaker 2: in that. But I mean, I'm also speaking from my
29:50
Speaker 2: own personal experience, and I'm an academic who works at
29:54
Speaker 2: a school.
29:55
Speaker 1: You know that.
29:57
Speaker 2: So we started looking at the environment around kids and
30:01
Speaker 2: so young people. If we believe that there's this narrative
30:05
Speaker 2: of a youth mental health crisis, which I'm a little
30:07
Speaker 2: bit weary about just because we count it more and
30:11
Speaker 2: we are what we count, you know. So I'm cautious
30:15
Speaker 2: of this term, and I'm very cautious of the moral
30:17
Speaker 2: panic around phones, social media. I'm going you know, we
30:21
Speaker 2: did this with comic books. Pinball machines were banned in
30:25
Speaker 2: New York City for thirty years because of they're going
30:27
Speaker 2: to make everyone a gambling addict. People were scared of
30:30
Speaker 2: the Kaleidoscope in eighteen eighteen. So I'm cautious of the
30:33
Speaker 2: moral panic angle, which is the fun part of the
30:35
Speaker 2: book that we've done all this before. But the thing
30:41
Speaker 2: I see with this idea is there a youth mental
30:43
Speaker 2: health crisis, And the part I see is that if
30:49
Speaker 2: we want there to be, we'll find it. But kids
30:51
Speaker 2: are also the canary in the coal mine. We have
30:54
Speaker 2: a chapter about environmental toxins, which, speaking of moral panic
30:57
Speaker 2: is scary as shit. But at the same time, I
31:00
Speaker 2: don't lose sleep about this stuff. It's not tenfoil hat
31:03
Speaker 2: chapter or anything like that. But if everybody is more anxious,
31:09
Speaker 2: and let's look at rates of autism, if it really
31:12
Speaker 2: went from one in ten thousand to one and thirty
31:14
Speaker 2: eight and just a couple of generations. If we really
31:17
Speaker 2: believe that more people are attention deficit than ever. The
31:21
Speaker 2: canary was brought in the call mine because when the
31:24
Speaker 2: canary stopped singing, it was get the hell out of
31:27
Speaker 2: the coal mine. So if our kids aren't thriving, let's
31:32
Speaker 2: stop looking at what's going on in between their ears
31:34
Speaker 2: and start thinking where else can we go? What else
31:39
Speaker 2: can we do? And I think the issue with schooling
31:42
Speaker 2: is that teachers and being a teacher, I think is
31:45
Speaker 2: the second most important job in the world other than parenting.
31:48
Speaker 2: You know, rocket scientists need teachers, you know. But at
31:53
Speaker 2: the same time, the hardest part is they're overworked. There's
31:56
Speaker 2: too many kids in the classroom, and there's too much curricae,
32:00
Speaker 2: there's way too much things to teach that they're becoming
32:04
Speaker 2: so burdened that I you know, having worked with kids
32:08
Speaker 2: for the last twenty years and having getting to go
32:11
Speaker 2: to high school, as you walk into a you know,
32:14
Speaker 2: the teachers room, and it's boring as hell because they're
32:16
Speaker 2: all tired and exhausted, Like you're surrounded by kids. This
32:20
Speaker 2: should be amazing, you know, And so I think that
32:24
Speaker 2: there's a lot of environment. If we looked at the environment,
32:28
Speaker 2: that would be really helpful. I think the other sort
32:31
Speaker 2: of sort of last sort of talking point about the
32:36
Speaker 2: book that I found we wanted to write a book
32:40
Speaker 2: that left people fired up, and not with to do lists.
32:44
Speaker 2: Not with checklists. I do like a checklist, but not
32:47
Speaker 2: with you know, seven habits for highly effective teams, not
32:51
Speaker 2: with four norms of the Anxious Generation or twelve rules
32:55
Speaker 2: of life like that when when the twelve rules don't
32:58
Speaker 2: work for you, you end up feeling quite demoralized as well.
33:02
Speaker 2: What we wanted was people to have an eye for
33:07
Speaker 2: what works and what you can control and what you
33:11
Speaker 2: can do more of, and quite often that means kind
33:15
Speaker 2: of deviating from the status quo and this theory that
33:19
Speaker 2: I love of positive deviance, which is if you find
33:23
Speaker 2: the outlier of what's working, then people we can kind
33:28
Speaker 2: of figure out what that's about and do more of
33:32
Speaker 2: it instead of this constant focus on what's wrong the
33:36
Speaker 2: anxious generation. You know, there's headlines this week these kids
33:40
Speaker 2: are the worst that's ever been And I'm just sitting
33:42
Speaker 2: there going this is not going to help us, this
33:46
Speaker 2: sort of narrative. So the positive deviance and that takes
33:49
Speaker 2: guts and it takes kind of you know, humans, we
33:53
Speaker 2: need safety. We love safety, but safety is our ability
33:57
Speaker 2: to kind of loosen the reins because we know that
34:01
Speaker 2: we're in a safe place to take a risk. So
34:04
Speaker 2: that sort of is what the hope, I hope the
34:06
Speaker 2: message of the book is.
34:09
Speaker 1: I love it again. The book is called Kids These Days.
34:12
Speaker 1: I love the title Understanding and Supporting youth mental health.
34:17
Speaker 1: All right, Will, what is the best way for people
34:21
Speaker 1: to learn more about you and your work and the book? Yeah?
34:24
Speaker 2: Well, Will Dobut is quite a unique name, so anywhere
34:28
Speaker 2: you google it, he'll probably find me. I'm available on
34:32
Speaker 2: social media things like that. The book available in stores
34:36
Speaker 2: in many independent bookstores. Sometimes you're lucky if you well,
34:40
Speaker 2: first off, if you find a Barnes and Noble, you
34:42
Speaker 2: can you can find the book hopefully if you can
34:45
Speaker 2: find the bookstore itself. It's available on Amazon. Also, a
34:50
Speaker 2: great narrator, Tim Morgan did the audiobook that is fantastic
34:54
Speaker 2: as well, So it's really out there. You can find
34:58
Speaker 2: me anywhere. And I'm quite an open book, like the
35:01
Speaker 2: coolest part of whenever you write anything and people are interested,
35:04
Speaker 2: like yourself, guys, just being able to meet new people
35:07
Speaker 2: and talk to new people, and and and and tell
35:10
Speaker 2: the story in a in a new and unique way.
35:12
Speaker 2: So I love people to connect and and and chat
35:16
Speaker 2: with me. And I'm always happy to UH for that
35:20
Speaker 2: adventure of life as well.
35:22
Speaker 1: Appreciate it, Love it, Love the work you're doing so inspiring.
35:25
Speaker 1: Love to have you back at later day if you want,
35:27
Speaker 1: no pressure. All right, well we'll be in touch.
35:31
Speaker 2: Thanks T. Yeah,