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From the archives: Unpacking Race, Class, Gender & Trauma with Silvia Dutchevici · The Trauma Therapist

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Speaker 1: Today we even another episode from the archives with one
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Speaker 1: of my incredible guests.
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Speaker 2: Enjoy or welcome back to the Trauma Theverpist podcast.
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Speaker 3: My name is Gamferson.
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Speaker 1: My mission is to help trauma therapist be their incredible selves,
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Speaker 1: to be human, to be real, not just a clinician.
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Speaker 3: I'm a big believer in who.
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Speaker 1: We are is more important than what we know, and
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Speaker 1: this requires cultivating authenticity, genuineness, and vulnerability, and that requires intention.
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Speaker 1: Can learn more about my courses and workshops by going
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Speaker 1: to the Trauma Therapist Project dot com. That's the Trauma
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Speaker 1: Therapist Project dot com. Let's get started, So five or
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Speaker 1: we two and one, our folks, Welcome back to the
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Speaker 1: Trauma Theverist podcast. I am very excited to have as
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Speaker 1: my guest today, Silver Kevich Sylvia, welcome to the podcast.
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Speaker 4: Thank you for having me. I'm really excited to be here.
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Speaker 3: Awesome. So Sylvia is excuse me? Got up oreo stuck
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Speaker 3: in my thoat. Sylvia is the Critical Therapy Institute founder
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Speaker 3: and president. With more than twenty years of experience in
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Speaker 3: social services and a passion for psychotherapy. Sylvia created CTI
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Speaker 3: when she perceived the need to expand psychoanalytic practice to
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Speaker 3: reflect how race, class, gender, and religion intersect with psychological conflict.
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Speaker 3: Sylvia has an intense background in psy psychoanalytic theory and trauma,
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Speaker 3: with a particular focus on torture. However, after seeing the
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Speaker 3: traditional psychoanalysis was not able to adequately transform and hear
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Speaker 3: her patients, she embarked on an extended period of research
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Speaker 3: and training, drawing on liberation psychology and critical pedagogy scholarship
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Speaker 3: and combining them with her real life experience as a
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Speaker 3: practicing psychotherapist. She founded twenty twelve Woo. It's a lot.
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Speaker 3: It's a lot, and it's an intense background. But before
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Speaker 3: we get there, share with the listeners where you're from
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Speaker 3: originally and where you are currently.
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Speaker 5: Oh that's interesting. I am from Romania. I was born
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Speaker 5: there and lived there until I was about thirteen years old.
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Speaker 5: I came here as a refugee. It was back then
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Speaker 5: it was communism under Chosha School.
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Speaker 4: And currently I'm in Jackson Heights, New York.
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Speaker 3: Okay, awesome, A long.
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Speaker 4: Journey from you know, Romania to New York.
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Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, yeah, So all right, let's how did you
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Speaker 3: get into this field?
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Speaker 5: I got an initially I never thought I was going
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Speaker 5: to be a therapist. I was involved in politics, Romanian politics.
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Speaker 5: I wanted to be a journalist at some point, which
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Speaker 5: I think has taught me how to ask questions. Then
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Speaker 5: I got into religious studies and psycho and now in
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Speaker 5: particularly in particular for me through religion and an analysis
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Speaker 5: of religion through that lens was very enlightening and I
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Speaker 5: loved it. And I never thought I could be a
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Speaker 5: therapist because I didn't think I had the patients. Interestingly enough,
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Speaker 5: I went to therapy and while I was in therapy,
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Speaker 5: I talked about how I don't have the patients to
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Speaker 5: do therapy, and my therapist was like, well, you have
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Speaker 5: patients enough to be here and you're doing the work,
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Speaker 5: so maybe something you should consider.
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Speaker 3: How old were you at this point, Oh, I.
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Speaker 5: Was in my twenties, okay, And then I went for
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Speaker 5: a master's in psychology. I started training at different institutes
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Speaker 5: and went back to school for social work because I
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Speaker 5: had a very I was very passionate about social justice.
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Speaker 5: And then slowly but surely I became a therapist and
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Speaker 5: I worked in a lot of social service agencies. I
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Speaker 5: got burned out, like all of us, because they're not
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Speaker 5: sustainable for having a work life balance. And then I
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Speaker 5: was also I wanted to create something different, so I
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Speaker 5: created critical therapy. And I don't think it's a coincidence
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Speaker 5: that I came from a brutal dictatorship and that part
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Speaker 5: of the theory that I sort of created with the
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Speaker 5: help of my patients obviously incorporates the political and how
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Speaker 5: the political.
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Speaker 4: Affects us and impacts us in a very real way.
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Speaker 1: So you you were, you grew up in that type
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Speaker 1: of environment, and that that type that was the environment,
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Speaker 1: the brutal dictatorship.
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Speaker 3: As you said, I mean, that's hardcore. I mean, that's
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Speaker 3: something that we here in the West, in the United
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Speaker 3: States certainly can't even conceive of, I think.
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Speaker 5: And honestly, I remember I didn't conceive I mean I
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Speaker 5: knew about it, but you know, theoretically, I didn't know
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Speaker 5: what that meant experientially until I remember I did a
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Speaker 5: training at NYU Bellevue survivors of torture, and they talked about,
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Speaker 5: you know, part of the exercise was, imagine you live
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Speaker 5: in a country and at any moment the government could
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Speaker 5: come and arrest you. How would that feel for you,
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Speaker 5: and how do you think, what do you think would
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Speaker 5: be the impact to understand some of the survivors of
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Speaker 5: torture and some of the survivors of brutal dictatorships, And
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Speaker 5: to me it was well so visceral.
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Speaker 4: Like, well, of course, you know, you know what to do.
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Speaker 5: And that's when I realized what has what I've survived
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Speaker 5: and the impact it had on me and probably still
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Speaker 5: has on me to some extent.
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Speaker 3: You talked about, you know, initially never thinking that you'd
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Speaker 3: be a therapist because you didn't have the patience. But
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Speaker 3: what was it initially that even lit that flame for you?
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Speaker 5: I think it was my passion for this theory, in
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Speaker 5: particular psychoanalysis. It was also my own therapy that I
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Speaker 5: to this day say saved my life, and I think
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Speaker 5: I wouldn't be the person that I am today if
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Speaker 5: I didn't embark on that journey and then sort of
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Speaker 5: through the training, I found my calling. I say this often,
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Speaker 5: I don't feel like I'm going.
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Speaker 4: To work when I work with patients. I feel that.
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Speaker 5: It's such a privileged place to be in and to
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Speaker 5: see how people transform their lives and to take a
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Speaker 5: journey that's so intimate and so transformational it's awesome work.
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Speaker 5: So I love it, and I wish I knew how
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Speaker 5: to tell people to find their passions so they go
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Speaker 5: to work and don't feel like they're working.
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Speaker 4: I don't. I sort of just got into it.
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Speaker 3: And what about psych psychoanalysts in particular.
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Speaker 5: I like the fact that most of our decisions are
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Speaker 5: unconscious and the guidance of our subconscious. I like Freud's
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Speaker 5: I know Freud is, you know, I'm well aware has
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Speaker 5: it's his.
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Speaker 4: Problems.
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Speaker 5: But he his initial work was with trauma survivors, right,
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Speaker 5: His initial work was with women who were sexually abused,
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Speaker 5: and he discovered a way that by talking about it
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Speaker 5: and by sort of having witnesses to your life and
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Speaker 5: processing what happens to.
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Speaker 4: You, you can heal.
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Speaker 5: And of course, the schools of psychoanalysis have been, you know,
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Speaker 5: sort of changed, and we went from a purely psychoanalytics
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Speaker 5: school to a more interpersonal dynamic and so forth. But
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Speaker 5: there is something about talk therapy. There is something about
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Speaker 5: sitting in a room with someone and telling your story
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Speaker 5: that is powerful and transformational.
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Speaker 3: Okay, so let's kind of talk about how CTI Critical
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Speaker 3: Theory Institute, Critical Therapy Institute came to be.
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Speaker 5: It came to be through the work that I did
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Speaker 5: with my patients at social service agencies, particularly domestic violence agencies.
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Speaker 4: So a little bit of background.
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Speaker 5: As you mentioned, my interest was to work with torture survivors,
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Speaker 5: people escaping political turmoil and so forth. And I got
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Speaker 5: into that work and did some of it, and then
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Speaker 5: I realized that the most painful stories, the most traumatic stories,
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Speaker 5: the most people who are tortured are women in their homes,
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Speaker 5: and it's something we don't talk about right, and it's
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Speaker 5: something that is so much more difficult to get over
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Speaker 5: because the people who are supposed to love and protect
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Speaker 5: you are the people who are inflicting the pain. So
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Speaker 5: I switched and my specialties became working with trauma survivors,
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Speaker 5: particularly domestic violence survivors, childhood sexual abuse survivors, and in
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Speaker 5: working and because of that, I ended up working in
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Speaker 5: different social service agencies. At some point I ran domestic
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Speaker 5: violent shelters and it was there, through the counseling that
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Speaker 5: we were doing with these women that I realized that
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Speaker 5: we were lacking a deep analysis of power as it
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Speaker 5: happens in the personal relationship you have with your therapist,
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Speaker 5: but also your power as a patient in society and
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Speaker 5: also your power as a therapist in society, and how
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Speaker 5: those things interact in the clinical hour.
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Speaker 4: So I've noticed how you had women who.
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Speaker 5: Were abused, who were beaten by their partners, and then
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Speaker 5: they would do the same things to their children. And
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Speaker 5: empowerment meant I have power over you, rather than I
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Speaker 5: need to learn how.
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Speaker 4: To share power or I have a responsibility towards you.
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Speaker 5: So that was the biggest change that I think needed
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Speaker 5: to happen in psychotherapy is for people to learn how
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Speaker 5: to talk about power.
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Speaker 4: To analyze power dynamics.
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Speaker 5: And then slowly, because I was also working with mostly
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Speaker 5: poor women and talk, you know, I began began thinking
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Speaker 5: about how issues such as race, class, and gender impact
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Speaker 5: and affect mental health in a very real way. And
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Speaker 5: the last part is the critical thinking. I think part
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Speaker 5: of therapy should not last a lifetime. That was my
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Speaker 5: pet peeves about psychoanalysis, right, it never really ends. And
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Speaker 5: of course the work of the intro psychic work and
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Speaker 5: the work of critically looking at your life should never end.
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Speaker 5: But you don't need to go to therapy to do that.
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Speaker 5: I think, you know, one of my patients said this
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Speaker 5: a long time ago, and I loved it that she
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Speaker 5: thought of therapy as a place where you go and
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Speaker 5: you sort of analyze your life and then you get
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Speaker 5: the tools to be able to do that on your own.
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Speaker 1: You interrupt you for a second, so you know what
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Speaker 1: you're talking about, an interest in, uh, working with people
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Speaker 1: who've been traumatized, who've been tortured, and then domestic violence.
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Speaker 3: But Sylvia, what is it? I mean, yes, I know,
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Speaker 3: and I can hear the question being answered, But what
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Speaker 3: is it about you specifically that drove you to do
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Speaker 3: that work?
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Speaker 5: I was very just said the work of critical therapy
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Speaker 5: or the work of therapy, the work.
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Speaker 1: Of working with trauma and torture and domestic violence specifically.
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Speaker 5: I think it was part of obviously the personal is
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Speaker 5: political and borrowing from psychoanalysis on some conscious or maybe
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Speaker 5: subconscious way, dealing with my own issues of having had
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Speaker 5: having had left my country at the moment when I left,
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Speaker 5: you know, Romania was thirteen years old.
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Speaker 4: My mom came here, and then we came, my dad
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Speaker 4: and I came.
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Speaker 5: But I never thought I would see any of my friends,
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Speaker 5: any of my relatives.
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Speaker 4: It was you left, and that was it.
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Speaker 5: It was obviously a trauma Also, we lived in a country.
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Speaker 4: Where you know, when my mom came.
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Speaker 5: And she wanted to ask for a political asylum, she
12:20
Speaker 5: couldn't say goodbye to me because if she did, and
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Speaker 5: I would have gone to school, for example, and said, well,
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Speaker 5: my mom plans to go to the United States, my
12:27
Speaker 5: parents would have gotten arrested.
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Speaker 4: After my mom.
12:30
Speaker 5: Left, the secret police came to our house and interrogated
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Speaker 5: my dad for two days. They also interrogated me and
12:37
Speaker 5: asked a couple of questions. All those things I think
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Speaker 5: made me the person that I am today and made
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Speaker 5: me really passionate about how political institutions can hurt us
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Speaker 5: in very real ways and the impact that has on
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Speaker 5: our mental health, and especially right now in the US,
12:54
Speaker 5: if we look at what is happening there is a
12:57
Speaker 5: sort of far right movement talk about, you know, bodily
13:01
Speaker 5: control over women's bodies that are happening that people dismiss
13:05
Speaker 5: thinking it's not a big deal or it can't really
13:08
Speaker 5: happen here, but it could happen.
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Speaker 3: Anywhere, and it is happening here. Okay.
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Speaker 1: You talked about power, the exploration of power both with
13:21
Speaker 1: the therapist and the client or patient.
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Speaker 3: What does that look like in session when you're working
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Speaker 3: with someone.
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Speaker 5: So we actually have a three stage process through critical therapy,
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Speaker 5: and the stages are not necessarily chronological like year one.
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Speaker 4: It looks like this, but more or less so.
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Speaker 5: The first stage of critical therapy, borrowing from psychoanalysis, we,
13:48
Speaker 5: meaning the therapist, takes on a position of power. Right,
13:50
Speaker 5: we are the subjects supposed to know from la Conright,
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Speaker 5: we are the person who the patient invests the notion
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Speaker 5: that we have control in the session, and we do.
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Speaker 5: We feal very little about ourselves. We are present, but
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Speaker 5: we are not very interpersonal, and the reason.
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Speaker 4: For that is I believe strongly that in.
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Speaker 5: Order for transference to happen, there needs to be a
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Speaker 5: power over and there needs to be a very little
14:18
Speaker 5: revelation or very little self disclosure on the part of
14:22
Speaker 5: the part of the therapists. And then slowly, as we
14:27
Speaker 5: move towards analyzing and realizing a person's defenses and what
14:32
Speaker 5: brought them to who they are today, the therapist sort
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Speaker 5: of tries to give away some of that power.
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Speaker 4: And it's really important.
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Speaker 5: Especially for people who have been marginalized, to assert that power,
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Speaker 5: to assert themselves, to be able to, you know, get
14:48
Speaker 5: to a place where they make more demands where they
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Speaker 5: learn how to share power with another, and through that process, slowly,
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Speaker 5: as we move to a more inter per personal dynamic,
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Speaker 5: we end up to what Paulo Frere talked about, two
15:04
Speaker 5: people who meet to dialogue or talk about the world.
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Speaker 5: So it's two individuals who are now collaborative, who know
15:11
Speaker 5: that the therapist is an expert in asking questions, and
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Speaker 5: me as a patient, I'm the expert in my life,
15:18
Speaker 5: and it's a process what I've been You know, I
15:23
Speaker 5: was teaching our class last night and I was talking
15:25
Speaker 5: about this.
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Speaker 4: I wonder, if we didn't live in a.
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Speaker 5: Capitalist, power over society, if critical therapy would look the same,
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Speaker 5: if we needed that first stage where we assert themselves
15:37
Speaker 5: ourselves as therapists, where we have power over our patients
15:41
Speaker 5: in order to mimic you know, societal interactions or parental
15:46
Speaker 5: interactions that exist today.
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Speaker 4: I don't know. If we were more collaborative.
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Speaker 5: As a society, maybe we didn't need that, but unfortunately
15:53
Speaker 5: we're not there.
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Speaker 3: So obviously that's taking a lot from the psychoanalytic model. Yes,
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Speaker 3: but so a couple questions here. I mean, inherently within
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Speaker 3: the therapist client duality, there is a power structure of
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Speaker 3: power dynamic. So you're saying that over and above that,
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Speaker 3: there are certain ways things that the therapist does from
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Speaker 3: your perspective to what.
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Speaker 4: Well, I think it's also naming. It's one of the
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Speaker 4: things that happens. You're correct.
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Speaker 5: The therapist will always have some sort of power over
16:37
Speaker 5: our patients because of the nature of the relationship. But
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Speaker 5: the truth is there is power in every relationship, and
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Speaker 5: we sometimes have power over the people we love, and
16:45
Speaker 5: sometimes they have power over us.
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Speaker 4: We just don't name it.
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Speaker 5: I also think as a society we have been taught
16:52
Speaker 5: to think of power as something negative, and we use
16:55
Speaker 5: it in a negative way. It's always power over its
16:58
Speaker 5: We don't have good examples of power, of sharing power
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Speaker 5: and of being collaborative. So one of the goals of
17:04
Speaker 5: critical therapy ultimately is for people to learn how to
17:09
Speaker 5: share power with another, how to acknowledge their own power,
17:12
Speaker 5: how to acknowledge their own powerlessness. If you think about
17:16
Speaker 5: intersectionality and the way our identities show up in the
17:19
Speaker 5: clinical hour, we name that in a very real way.
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Speaker 4: We discuss it.
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Speaker 5: We talk about how that impacts how we see the
17:27
Speaker 5: world and how that impacts the clinical hour. Together and
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Speaker 5: how we negotiate our what we have we learned about
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Speaker 5: power in our lives through our histories.
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Speaker 3: So additionally, within the context of someone who's experienced trauma, torture,
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Speaker 3: domestic violence, the power becomes even magnified or lack thereof
17:50
Speaker 3: become magnified. So how is that being brought out or
17:57
Speaker 3: explored with the client?
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Speaker 5: Say, I think especially if you've survived domestic violence and
18:03
Speaker 5: all types of interpersonal traumas power is so charged, and
18:08
Speaker 5: you know a model of relationships of either I'm a
18:11
Speaker 5: victim or I'm an abuser, and those are impossible choices
18:15
Speaker 5: because they're both very harmful. So this is one of
18:19
Speaker 5: the reasons why I wanted to investigate how power can
18:23
Speaker 5: look differently in relationships. How we you know we for example,
18:27
Speaker 5: you mentioned we as therapists have power over our patients.
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Speaker 4: Yes, and they have power over us.
18:32
Speaker 5: They pay for therapy, which is our income and livelihood.
18:35
Speaker 5: They how they show up is important, and we talk
18:38
Speaker 5: about all these things very openly, and we try to
18:42
Speaker 5: practice a different type of relationship. Almost what we say
18:46
Speaker 5: is we offer a blueprint for a relationship that's more.
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Speaker 5: I don't think egalitarian, but as I say, power shifts.
18:55
Speaker 5: It's never like we're never equal and learning to accept
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Speaker 5: that and learning to accept that there's nothing inherently wrong
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Speaker 5: in having power is what you do with it that matters,
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Speaker 5: I believe is essential, especially to trauma survivors.
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Speaker 1: So give we give us an example of how you
19:13
Speaker 1: might work with a client to explore their power or
19:18
Speaker 1: lack thereof, and the role of power within domestic violence.
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Speaker 5: So I you know, we the role of power and
19:29
Speaker 5: domestic violence is about patriarchy. Unfortunately, it's about the world
19:35
Speaker 5: we live in where people exert power over other people
19:39
Speaker 5: because they can, and usually they exert power over those
19:42
Speaker 5: who are less equal than them, and that's a problem.
19:45
Speaker 5: I think we need to do a better job of
19:49
Speaker 5: educating people around how you show up in relationships and
19:53
Speaker 5: that thoughts can never be wrong, but what you do
19:55
Speaker 5: with those thoughts.
19:56
Speaker 4: Can be very wrong.
19:59
Speaker 5: So when you know, when I remember when one of
20:02
Speaker 5: my patients when I used to work at a domestic
20:04
Speaker 5: violence agency came in and she was in a lot
20:06
Speaker 5: She's done a lot of therapy and she was in
20:09
Speaker 5: an abusive relationship and we started talking about her agency. Right,
20:14
Speaker 5: one of the things we tend to do to victims
20:16
Speaker 5: in an attempt to protect them is one.
20:19
Speaker 4: We don't give them agency.
20:22
Speaker 5: We want to save them rather than work with them
20:25
Speaker 5: to save themselves. Right, And this is about empowerment. We
20:29
Speaker 5: don't empower people. People empower themselves and we say that,
20:33
Speaker 5: but as therapists we don't actually practice that, which is
20:37
Speaker 5: to really question what is this is a dynamic? You
20:40
Speaker 5: are in this abusive relationship? What has brought you to
20:43
Speaker 5: this place? Now, that's not blaming the victim, and you
20:47
Speaker 5: could do it, and if you're a good therapist, you
20:48
Speaker 5: could ask questions in a way that is very clarifying
20:51
Speaker 5: that I'm not blaming you why you're here, but what
20:53
Speaker 5: has happened that brought you to this place?
20:56
Speaker 4: What are your choices? Also, what are your lack of choices.
20:59
Speaker 5: If you don't have let's say you're undocumented and you're
21:02
Speaker 5: married to someone who's giving you papers, let's say you're not,
21:05
Speaker 5: you don't have money, and how those systems interact with
21:09
Speaker 5: your power and agency and ultimately what are the different
21:13
Speaker 5: choices you can make? And one of the things she
21:16
Speaker 5: said about the sessions is it was the first time
21:20
Speaker 5: that she went to therapy that someone asked her what
21:24
Speaker 5: was your role in this, Like, rather than oh, you're
21:28
Speaker 5: a victim, let me save you, this is what you
21:30
Speaker 5: need to do. You're considering coming into the shelter. I
21:33
Speaker 5: got you, you know, And that's that's really being the
21:37
Speaker 5: same model.
21:38
Speaker 4: I have power over you.
21:39
Speaker 5: Now, I'm not abusing you, but I'm still doing it
21:42
Speaker 5: for you. I'm not giving you the agency and the belief.
21:46
Speaker 4: That you can do it right.
21:48
Speaker 5: And the second thing about specifically with victims is that
21:54
Speaker 5: we tend to create perfect victims because you know, so.
21:58
Speaker 4: Like we need to save them. They're perfect.
22:01
Speaker 5: And what I say, what I used to say to
22:02
Speaker 5: people who were working as counselors in our shelters especially,
22:07
Speaker 5: is our clients are not perfect. They're human, and it's
22:12
Speaker 5: important to see that humanity, not to idealize victimhood, like, well,
22:17
Speaker 5: you're a victim.
22:18
Speaker 4: You've been through so much you must be perfect.
22:20
Speaker 5: But you're messy and that's part of the greatness of
22:25
Speaker 5: being alive.
22:28
Speaker 3: I know. I always think it's dangerous to generalize when
22:32
Speaker 3: we're talking about trauma and people in general, But are
22:35
Speaker 3: there commonalities given this presence of power and lack thereof
22:42
Speaker 3: within the context with the subject of domestic violence. Are
22:46
Speaker 3: the commonalities in people who become victimized?
22:51
Speaker 5: Yes, and I agree with you. I hate when people
22:54
Speaker 5: generalize things. One of my pet peeves these days is
22:57
Speaker 5: how I do have an Instagram account, but I see
22:59
Speaker 5: how will these people are on Instagram giving advice what
23:02
Speaker 5: people should be doing, without a context of what that
23:05
Speaker 5: person's history, which is so particular and so important.
23:10
Speaker 4: I think the.
23:11
Speaker 5: Commonalities are people who are traumatized come from families that
23:17
Speaker 5: exert power over them. It's usually if you have had
23:20
Speaker 5: domestic violence in your own family, you're more likely to
23:23
Speaker 5: end up in a situation that's similar, and it's in
23:28
Speaker 5: an attempt to save or your parents. Maybe that you
23:32
Speaker 5: repeat the same situations believing that there's nothing better, or
23:36
Speaker 5: maybe you're trying to work something through. I also want
23:39
Speaker 5: to say that the person is always political, meaning that
23:42
Speaker 5: sometimes it's just.
23:43
Speaker 4: A lack of resources.
23:46
Speaker 5: If you're you know, living in poverty, it's much more
23:49
Speaker 5: difficult to have different choices and to be able to
23:53
Speaker 5: leave a relationship that is dysfunctional and that could become
23:56
Speaker 5: you know, abusive. So I think it's important not to generalize.
24:00
Speaker 5: But at the same time, I think as survivors, for example,
24:04
Speaker 5: we know that if you have been sexually abused, you
24:08
Speaker 5: are more likely to abuse someone.
24:09
Speaker 4: That doesn't make you a monster.
24:11
Speaker 5: It makes you someone who is trying to work through
24:14
Speaker 5: something that you haven't mastered or understood. Owning up to
24:18
Speaker 5: that possibility, I think is where the change happens. It's
24:22
Speaker 5: not denying the fact that I live through something and
24:25
Speaker 5: maybe now I have these urges and I don't understand them,
24:28
Speaker 5: and I think it's important to go to therapy and
24:31
Speaker 5: talk about them. I also think it's important that therapists
24:35
Speaker 5: are able to hold that space I've seen and not panic.
24:39
Speaker 5: Just because someone has thoughts like well, I really want
24:41
Speaker 5: to beat my child doesn't mean they're going to do it.
24:44
Speaker 4: The fact that they're talking to you about what they
24:46
Speaker 4: would like to do, they're probably not doing it.
24:48
Speaker 5: So I think we need to teach clinicians, in particular
24:52
Speaker 5: how to have these difficult conversations and how to be
24:56
Speaker 5: able to talk about these things, and also hold your
24:59
Speaker 5: patient accountable, because what we do, whether you've been traumatized
25:03
Speaker 5: or not, you're still responsible for your actions.
25:07
Speaker 3: I want to remind everyone that I'm speaking with Sylvia Dukevich.
25:13
Speaker 3: Our website is Criticaltherapy dot Org Sylvia. As we kind
25:17
Speaker 3: of wind down here, I really love you. I want
25:21
Speaker 3: to invite you to share with us at early clinical error.
25:26
Speaker 5: Oh I early, I made them sometimes Now I mean,
25:30
Speaker 5: I think and I want to say that to clinicians.
25:33
Speaker 5: If you think you're not making mistakes, you're missing the point.
25:38
Speaker 5: And I think mistakes are important. I think sometimes mistakes
25:42
Speaker 5: could show if you own up to them, especially with
25:45
Speaker 5: your patients, could show your own humanity and the fact
25:49
Speaker 5: that talk about power, right, the fact that we're in
25:52
Speaker 5: this together, and especially for people who have been traumatized,
25:56
Speaker 5: who don't know and haven't seen models of people in power.
26:00
Speaker 5: I mean back and saying you know, I think I
26:02
Speaker 5: missed this or I'm sorry if this came, you know,
26:05
Speaker 5: in the wrong way.
26:07
Speaker 4: But I think one of my.
26:08
Speaker 5: Biggest mistakes that has changed the way that I practiced
26:12
Speaker 5: was I've learned this lesson from one of my patients
26:15
Speaker 5: who was a domestic violent survivor, and I am actually
26:18
Speaker 5: writing a paper on this now. She would come into
26:22
Speaker 5: therapy and we've worked together for a couple of years
26:26
Speaker 5: and she would say I love you. I would say
26:29
Speaker 5: I deeply care about you. You know, the standard therapist
26:33
Speaker 5: sort of response, and then slowly she kept asking that.
26:37
Speaker 4: One day she said, how come you don't ever say it?
26:41
Speaker 5: So I went home I thought about it, was like,
26:43
Speaker 5: oh my god, this is such a great question. And
26:46
Speaker 5: of course you're not supposed to say it. I mean,
26:48
Speaker 5: there are some rules around that in some sense, whether
26:51
Speaker 5: if they misunderstand this, Oh my god, what do I
26:53
Speaker 5: do with this?
26:55
Speaker 4: And I said, And I.
26:56
Speaker 5: Investigated this, and with time I thought about there has
27:00
Speaker 5: to be a better way, and there has to be
27:03
Speaker 5: a way that we could tell our patients that we
27:04
Speaker 5: love them without the fear that they'll misrepresent that. So
27:09
Speaker 5: I did, you know, I read a lot of articles
27:11
Speaker 5: and sat will all so you know, after a couple
27:13
Speaker 5: of weeks, I went back and I said, I'm going
27:16
Speaker 5: to do it. And I told her I loved her,
27:20
Speaker 5: and I thought I did a brilliant job.
27:21
Speaker 4: It was like.
27:25
Speaker 5: And then years later, when she finished therapy, I asked
27:28
Speaker 5: her if she would like to be interviewed about the process.
27:31
Speaker 5: I said, I want to write a paper about this
27:33
Speaker 5: love thing, and I would like for if you want
27:35
Speaker 5: to contribute, and she wanted to. So I did a
27:40
Speaker 5: couple of interviews about the process of how that was
27:42
Speaker 5: what was right what was wrong, And we came back
27:44
Speaker 5: to the moment I told her I loved her, and
27:47
Speaker 5: she said, your timing was perfect, your delivery was horrible.
27:53
Speaker 5: And she said, you were so anxious, and this is
27:55
Speaker 5: why our patients always know what's happening.
27:58
Speaker 4: That you said I love you, and she goes.
28:00
Speaker 5: Normally, when you say something, you'd be like and how
28:02
Speaker 5: does that feel for you? Or what does that mean
28:04
Speaker 5: to you? But this time you were like, and this
28:07
Speaker 5: is what it means one, two, three, four, Because I
28:09
Speaker 5: was so anxious about I don't want you to misrepresent.
28:13
Speaker 4: So that was very enlightening and it was so.
28:16
Speaker 5: Helpful to realize I need to get more comfortable to
28:20
Speaker 5: sit in that feeling. She also said it was so
28:23
Speaker 5: important because she came from an ultra Hasidic background, so
28:28
Speaker 5: her parents were not very affectionate and didn't tell her
28:31
Speaker 5: I love you, and she unfortunately equated love with sexuality,
28:36
Speaker 5: so we had to work through it. This is why
28:38
Speaker 5: the timing was great because at the time that I
28:40
Speaker 5: was able to say it, she knew what I meant.
28:42
Speaker 5: It was, I love you, I like you, let's get together.
28:47
Speaker 5: But it was and she said it was so important.
28:49
Speaker 5: You meant so much to me. It was so important
28:52
Speaker 5: to be able to hear those words, and as a result,
28:56
Speaker 5: now I practiced that and I think it's really important
28:59
Speaker 5: that we're able to set boundaries and also tell our
29:03
Speaker 5: patients that we share a very intimate and special relationship
29:07
Speaker 5: with them.
29:08
Speaker 1: That's awesome. Well, Sylvia, I love to have you back.
29:12
Speaker 1: You are so passionate about what you do. Thank You're welcome.
29:17
Speaker 1: How can people best reach you?
29:20
Speaker 5: So if you go to our website, Critical therapy dot org,
29:24
Speaker 5: there is a link to a Instagram account, which is
29:28
Speaker 5: my account. The reason that is so is because my
29:31
Speaker 5: last name is you painfully or where it's very difficult,
29:34
Speaker 5: So I figured this is the easiest way to get
29:37
Speaker 5: in touch personally with me. Also, you could visit our
29:40
Speaker 5: websites see our services and our other wonderful clinicians.
29:44
Speaker 4: And my book just came out.
29:46
Speaker 5: Please buy it and I look forward to comments. I
29:50
Speaker 5: always want to be challenged and I always want to grow.
29:53
Speaker 5: You know, I think when you stop listening to people's comments,
29:57
Speaker 5: you stop growing.
29:58
Speaker 3: So let's I want to get the name of the
30:01
Speaker 3: book here, Critical Therapy, Power and Liberation and Psychotherapy.
30:06
Speaker 5: We'll have that a very short book. It's very easy
30:09
Speaker 5: to read that. We did that on purpose. We wanted
30:11
Speaker 5: to sort of do a brief introduction and to make
30:14
Speaker 5: it very accessible to folks.
30:16
Speaker 3: Okay, we'll have that linked up at the show notes
30:18
Speaker 3: page at the Trauma the Papers podcast dot com. Uh So,
30:22
Speaker 3: you're awesome again. Love to have you back. Appreciate you
30:26
Speaker 3: joining me today.
30:27
Speaker 4: Thank you so much. I really enjoyed this. Thanks so
30:29
Speaker 4: much for questions.