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Taking Accountability with Karen Goslin · The Trauma Therapist

0:00
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Trauma THEAPIS podcast. My name is Ga Macpherson.
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Speaker 1: I interview incredible people who dedicated their lives to helping
0:07
Speaker 1: those who have been impacted by trauma.
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Speaker 2: Here we go.
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Speaker 1: Five four, three, two and one, our folks, welcome back
0:16
Speaker 1: to the podcast. Very excited to have as Mica C today.
0:19
Speaker 1: Karen Goslin, Karen, welcome.
0:21
Speaker 3: Thank you so much for having me guy, good to
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Speaker 3: see you.
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Speaker 2: Awesome So.
0:25
Speaker 1: Karen is a Master of Social Work from the University
0:28
Speaker 1: of Toronto. In nineteen ninety eight, she founded Karen Goslin
0:32
Speaker 1: and Associates. She's passionate about guiding people towards transformation, helping
0:37
Speaker 1: them process depression, anxiety, addiction, and trauma as invitations to
0:42
Speaker 1: change and ultimately discover clear purpose and limitless potential. Her
0:47
Speaker 1: work draws on evidence based therapeutic approaches and create safe,
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Speaker 1: deep spaces, then enable the straight talk necessary for powerful
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Speaker 1: accountability and meaningful healing. Is called yellow paint Learning to Livegan,
1:02
Speaker 1: We're gonna be talking about that. Karen, Welcome to the podcast.
1:05
Speaker 3: Thanks so much. What a great introduction. It's always nice
1:08
Speaker 3: when you hear your whole professional life summarized.
1:13
Speaker 1: And Yellow Paint I can't help but notice the yellow
1:16
Speaker 1: bloom on it. I know.
1:19
Speaker 2: There's a theme.
1:20
Speaker 1: I don't know if that's accidental or purposeful or not.
1:23
Speaker 1: But yeah, before we get into everything, share with the
1:26
Speaker 1: listeners where you're from originally and where you are currently.
1:30
Speaker 3: Sure, So, I'm based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and I've
1:35
Speaker 3: been in the city here since nineteen eighty seven, grew
1:37
Speaker 3: up just about forty five minutes west of here in
1:41
Speaker 3: the city ever since, and where our in person office
1:44
Speaker 3: is located. But we serve clients all over the world.
1:49
Speaker 2: So let's start out with.
1:52
Speaker 1: Getting some background onto how you got into the field
1:56
Speaker 1: in the first place.
1:57
Speaker 3: Sure, that's a question I often get asked and has
2:01
Speaker 3: answered a little bit in the book that I just wrote.
2:03
Speaker 3: But I knew, honestly, from the age of fourteen, what
2:08
Speaker 3: I wanted to do, and I know that's unusual. I
2:12
Speaker 3: had felt loved in my family. We had a very
2:15
Speaker 3: stable family life, but I always yearned to have deeper conversations.
2:22
Speaker 3: I always hated the chit chat. I was always looking
2:25
Speaker 3: for something more meaningful, and I kind of stood out
2:28
Speaker 3: in my family, to be honest about that. So when
2:33
Speaker 3: my oldest cousin's wife. When I learned that she was
2:36
Speaker 3: a social worker, I think I was in like grade nine.
2:39
Speaker 3: I was like fourteen, and I spent my March break
2:42
Speaker 3: job shadowing with her, and she was a child welfare
2:46
Speaker 3: worker in the inner city streets here in Toronto. And
2:49
Speaker 3: I think most of the people in my life at
2:51
Speaker 3: that time thought, Okay, she's going to go she's not
2:54
Speaker 3: going to like what she say, she's not going to
2:55
Speaker 3: enjoy yourself, she's going to change her mind. I think
2:57
Speaker 3: my dad wanted me to be like a fashion designer
3:00
Speaker 3: or something. But honestly, I spent the week with her,
3:03
Speaker 3: and I'm like, this is exactly what I want to do,
3:06
Speaker 3: and I just built my resume honestly, from the age
3:09
Speaker 3: of fourteen onward.
3:11
Speaker 1: Well, what about it just ignited you?
3:14
Speaker 2: What was it?
3:16
Speaker 3: I loved the depth of the conversation, that it was
3:23
Speaker 3: beyond the superficial, beyond the surface, and we talked about
3:28
Speaker 3: what was really happening, what we really feel and think,
3:32
Speaker 3: what's inspiring us, what is causing us pain or challenging us,
3:37
Speaker 3: and what do we want to do about it. I
3:40
Speaker 3: just felt like I was operating in a little bit
3:42
Speaker 3: of a different frequency than my family, and I just
3:47
Speaker 3: it was the depth and the intensity. And I'm still
3:50
Speaker 3: like that. I still still like that, Like at the
3:53
Speaker 3: end of my day, my friends will be like, oh
3:55
Speaker 3: my gosh, you saw like eight clients today, you must
3:58
Speaker 3: be exhausted. I'm like, no, I'm energized. Like this depth
4:02
Speaker 3: energizes me.
4:05
Speaker 1: And you felt, or obviously you felt that you could
4:14
Speaker 1: deal with people, or talk to people, or engage people
4:17
Speaker 1: in this on that.
4:19
Speaker 3: Level, Yeah, I felt like it was innate from myself,
4:23
Speaker 3: like it just was a natural instinct for me. And
4:27
Speaker 3: so then I think it started from that place, Okay,
4:32
Speaker 3: And then it was like when I thought about what
4:35
Speaker 3: I wanted to do in my life as a career,
4:37
Speaker 3: it was almost like a no brainer that if I
4:40
Speaker 3: could spend every day having meaningful conversations with people, that
4:45
Speaker 3: that would make me happy. And then as I got
4:48
Speaker 3: closer into the work, through my experience, through my education,
4:53
Speaker 3: then I knew, beyond child welfare, I wanted to be
4:56
Speaker 3: an actual therapist, that what if these intents conversations weren't
5:02
Speaker 3: just like feeling good in the moment, but actually made
5:04
Speaker 3: a difference in people's lives.
5:07
Speaker 1: So you go and pursue becoming a therapist. How to
5:13
Speaker 1: talk to us a little bit about that. It's one
5:16
Speaker 1: thing to think about it in theoretic in theory, right,
5:21
Speaker 1: it's another thing to do it. What was it like
5:23
Speaker 1: when you started doing it?
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Speaker 3: Honestly, it was challenging. It was challenging because even though
5:31
Speaker 3: I wanted it, everybody around me, especially in the family
5:34
Speaker 3: because I was the youngest of three, all of the
5:37
Speaker 3: members of my family were not talking on that level.
5:41
Speaker 3: So it's almost like I had to go back and
5:45
Speaker 3: like relearn a new way to think and feel and talk.
5:50
Speaker 3: So it was challenging. I won't lie, but I just
5:53
Speaker 3: pursued and persisted, got surrounded myself with very good super
6:00
Speaker 3: vision and consultation so that I could, you know, like
6:06
Speaker 3: learn that skill. It was like I knew in my
6:09
Speaker 3: heart that's what I wanted, but I really did have
6:11
Speaker 3: to do a deeper dive to acquire the skills that
6:16
Speaker 3: were going to be necessary for me to be useful.
6:19
Speaker 2: So it's one thing to.
6:23
Speaker 1: You know, go to school, become a therapist, become a
6:27
Speaker 1: social worker, and just as you describe it, it's another
6:30
Speaker 1: thing to actually start doing the work. Now as a
6:33
Speaker 1: social worker, you know, and I've worked with social workers
6:37
Speaker 1: and had them as colleagues. They get in there, You're
6:40
Speaker 1: working a lot of times with people who are in
6:42
Speaker 1: the system, who've experienced trauma. What was that like for you?
6:47
Speaker 3: Well, I spent ten years after getting my graduate degree
6:52
Speaker 3: working specifically in the area of interpersonal sexual abuse, and
6:57
Speaker 3: I came onto the team as a victim's specialists because
7:01
Speaker 3: of the work I had previously done in child welfare
7:04
Speaker 3: and I had special skills to work with children. But
7:09
Speaker 3: I think it's also my personality that I'm, you know,
7:12
Speaker 3: kind of bold and I have a kind of stronger
7:16
Speaker 3: presence that the team immediately thought I would be a
7:19
Speaker 3: good fit to work with the sexual offenders. So honestly,
7:23
Speaker 3: for ten years I worked mostly in that field sexual offenders.
7:28
Speaker 2: And let me just stop you for there for a second.
7:31
Speaker 2: They thought, because you.
7:33
Speaker 1: Had a kind of a bold personality, that you what,
7:37
Speaker 1: you would be intimidated by sexual offenders.
7:41
Speaker 3: And I wouldn't be that I wouldn't be right, Yeah, sorry,
7:44
Speaker 3: I misheard you. Yeah right. I think they thought, yeah,
7:49
Speaker 3: that I wouldn't be intimidated, that I could sit in
7:53
Speaker 3: the work without fear, without intimidation and be able to
8:01
Speaker 3: be straight about what was going on and what had
8:05
Speaker 3: happened and where they needed to take responsibility, but do
8:09
Speaker 3: it in a way that also was like from that
8:13
Speaker 3: deep intensity of understanding that they were broken humans and
8:21
Speaker 3: understanding where they had come from in their life. So
8:23
Speaker 3: it was that balance of like deep compassion for the
8:27
Speaker 3: human experience, while at the same time not being afraid
8:31
Speaker 3: to offer the challenges that they actually needed.
8:35
Speaker 2: So were they right? And were they correct? In a sense?
8:38
Speaker 3: They were?
8:40
Speaker 1: So what what gave you or how did you develop
8:44
Speaker 1: that ability to do that to sit in that work
8:49
Speaker 1: with that population.
8:52
Speaker 3: Well, And this is this is a big paradigm I
8:55
Speaker 3: work with, and I'm sure a lot of the therapists
8:57
Speaker 3: that you interview have. I just believe that you know,
9:04
Speaker 3: humans want to do the right thing, but are broken,
9:09
Speaker 3: that none of our lives are perfect, and it's in
9:12
Speaker 3: those disruptions in our developmental stages of life that we
9:18
Speaker 3: have distorted views either of ourself or others, or life
9:22
Speaker 3: or love. And when I sat and developed strong relationships,
9:27
Speaker 3: even with those who had done horrific things, I could
9:32
Speaker 3: begin to create that narrative and draw the timeline out
9:36
Speaker 3: about what had happened to them that led them to
9:39
Speaker 3: this place that they could convince themselves, you know, that
9:43
Speaker 3: they could do what they did, and it didn't give
9:46
Speaker 3: them a pass. But that compassion of knowing their story
9:49
Speaker 3: and what led up to what they did allowed me
9:53
Speaker 3: to develop a very good rapport with those clients.
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Speaker 1: But that's okay, that's what you did. My question was,
10:03
Speaker 1: how the hell did you get there in the first place?
10:07
Speaker 2: How does how do you?
10:08
Speaker 1: Where did that come from? Your ability to sit there
10:12
Speaker 1: in the first place. Did you just think and believe
10:18
Speaker 1: that you could do it. Maybe you didn't know at
10:19
Speaker 1: first how to do it, but did you just had
10:22
Speaker 1: this innate sense, intuitive sense that you could do it
10:26
Speaker 1: or wanted.
10:26
Speaker 2: To do it well.
10:28
Speaker 3: Although although my family, my immediate family, lacked that kind
10:32
Speaker 3: of that emotional frequency, I had a very strong relationship
10:37
Speaker 3: with my paternal grandmother and this is written about in
10:42
Speaker 3: the book, and as well, I have a very strong
10:44
Speaker 3: work ethic from my Ukrainian heritage on my mother's side.
10:49
Speaker 3: I know that's where my healthy self comes from. I
10:52
Speaker 3: may have had like bold personality traits you know, at birth,
10:56
Speaker 3: but when I interviewed my parents for the book, I
11:00
Speaker 3: had this you know, formulation at first, so I was
11:02
Speaker 3: going to write a book about like the strong, you know,
11:05
Speaker 3: female figures in our family, and like, I'm desperate to
11:09
Speaker 3: make the details fit. But then I'm like, Okay, after
11:12
Speaker 3: a couple of interviews with my dad and especially about
11:16
Speaker 3: my Ukrainian background, I kept hearing things that were different.
11:20
Speaker 3: So I said, are you telling me? And I'm actually
11:23
Speaker 3: not like my maternal grandmother, I'm more like my maternal grandfather.
11:28
Speaker 3: And he goes hands down. And I think that chapter
11:32
Speaker 3: in the book is called Grits and Guts, and I think, like,
11:35
Speaker 3: as I took a step back in my own personal
11:38
Speaker 3: life about what where my resilience had come from and
11:43
Speaker 3: how that fit with what I learned more about my
11:45
Speaker 3: grandfather through interviews for the book, it just makes sense
11:50
Speaker 3: because he was very persistent. He was you know, had
11:54
Speaker 3: a very strong work ethic, like I said, and does
11:57
Speaker 3: didn't give up. And I think that also helped me
12:01
Speaker 3: in the work because although I was yearning for this deep, emotional,
12:05
Speaker 3: you know, frequency and conversation, I think at that time,
12:10
Speaker 3: especially with the offenders, I'm not going to give up, right,
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Speaker 3: I'm going to keep going at something in a way
12:16
Speaker 3: that gives them full permission to be open, right, But
12:20
Speaker 3: I've got this, like you know, this, this deep yearning
12:23
Speaker 3: behind me.
12:25
Speaker 1: So let's talk about the book again. The book is
12:27
Speaker 1: called Yellow Paint Learning to Live Again. When was this
12:32
Speaker 1: book born?
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Speaker 3: Hmmm, Oh my gosh, nobody's asked me that used that
12:36
Speaker 3: word to ask me that, I think. I honestly had
12:39
Speaker 3: the first chapter in my head for about ten years,
12:43
Speaker 3: and then about five years later, I shared my story
12:48
Speaker 3: with my daughter, who was twenty one at the time,
12:50
Speaker 3: and thought I could be inspired by my story because
12:53
Speaker 3: she'd seen me kind of on the outside right, strong,
12:57
Speaker 3: you know, ambitious, successful. But when I told actually told
13:00
Speaker 3: the real story honestly, guy, she looked at me and said, mom,
13:04
Speaker 3: you need to write this book.
13:06
Speaker 2: So I.
13:09
Speaker 3: Had the chapter. I already kind of had the idea,
13:11
Speaker 3: but when I got that feedback from her, I thought, Okay,
13:14
Speaker 3: I really am onto something. So I connected with somebody
13:18
Speaker 3: who I thought could help me with the book. But honestly,
13:21
Speaker 3: even though I was brave and bold, I wasn't sure
13:24
Speaker 3: I had what it took to actually write a book.
13:27
Speaker 3: And what The year I turned sixty, I flipped over
13:31
Speaker 3: the calendar page to January and went, okay, I keep
13:35
Speaker 3: telling this woman I want to meet with her about
13:37
Speaker 3: writing the book, Like, if you don't do it this year,
13:40
Speaker 3: you're just not going to do it at all. So
13:42
Speaker 3: I made a promise to myself to meet with her
13:44
Speaker 3: by the end of January to hash out the framework
13:47
Speaker 3: for the book or to.
13:49
Speaker 2: Let it go.
13:49
Speaker 3: Like maybe maybe in the end it wasn't meant to
13:51
Speaker 3: be so born ten years ago, you know, kind of
13:56
Speaker 3: nailed a little bit quicker in five years later, and
13:59
Speaker 3: then picked up the pen in twenty twenty three.
14:02
Speaker 1: But what did you What did you want to say
14:07
Speaker 1: in the book?
14:07
Speaker 2: Why did you want to write it?
14:09
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I knew you were going to ask me
14:13
Speaker 3: this question. So I did some deeper thinking earlier today,
14:16
Speaker 3: So three important pieces in the private practice I developed.
14:22
Speaker 3: I've created a methodology I started to call accountable therapy,
14:28
Speaker 3: right that goes beyond kind of evidence based treatment approaches
14:33
Speaker 3: for the various mental health issues that I look at
14:36
Speaker 3: with clients. But it requires bold honesty, not just from
14:42
Speaker 3: the client but from the therapist. It's a very structured
14:46
Speaker 3: approach right from the first appointment onward. And thirdly, you know,
14:51
Speaker 3: there are specific tools and strategies. So when I floated
14:56
Speaker 3: my ideas for the book. The first editor said to me,
14:59
Speaker 3: please and that in the book, because that's important. As
15:04
Speaker 3: I continue to work my way through the book. The
15:06
Speaker 3: second piece that came to me was that I wanted
15:09
Speaker 3: to share with the readers this concept I called invitations
15:14
Speaker 3: to grow, that when the past intersects with the present, right,
15:19
Speaker 3: there's these disruptions from our earlier life that cause reenactments
15:24
Speaker 3: in the present. It's an opportunity for us to heal
15:28
Speaker 3: a wound, right to do something for ourselves. But that
15:33
Speaker 3: if we stumble over that or we don't take the invitation,
15:37
Speaker 3: then you know, we will get another invitation. There will
15:40
Speaker 3: be another event that comes that knocks at our door,
15:43
Speaker 3: and usually it gets increasingly worse or more painful. And
15:50
Speaker 3: the third part was that I really wanted to be
15:53
Speaker 3: vulnerable in the book, to share my own story, and
15:57
Speaker 3: somebody recently, a reader told me that that's actually what
16:00
Speaker 3: made the book. And so maybe that's the most important part.
16:04
Speaker 3: That what I told the story of my own life
16:08
Speaker 3: when I hit rock bottom and how that demonstrated the
16:12
Speaker 3: accountable therapy method, and I shared my invitations to grow
16:17
Speaker 3: that yes, God increasingly worse over time, and more painful.
16:21
Speaker 3: But how I ultimately accepted that last invitation, Well.
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Speaker 1: That as far as I'm concerned for us right now,
16:28
Speaker 1: that's where the story is.
16:30
Speaker 2: What was this rock bottom you hit?
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Speaker 3: Sure? So I called it my seventh invitation because when
16:36
Speaker 3: I mapped out my history, I could map out six,
16:38
Speaker 3: you know, preceding events that were turning points in my
16:41
Speaker 3: life that were trying to tell me something about how
16:44
Speaker 3: to live differently, My seventh invitation was the accumulation of
16:50
Speaker 3: wrestling that I was doing with control and self worth.
16:53
Speaker 3: And I had lost people, I had been betrayed. I
16:58
Speaker 3: got a sexually transmitted illness, I got an autoimmune illness,
17:03
Speaker 3: I lost a pregnancy because of my health issues. My
17:08
Speaker 3: career was interrupted for a number of years, and then
17:11
Speaker 3: my husband walked out. And that's where actually the yellow
17:17
Speaker 3: paint came from because and this is described in the
17:23
Speaker 3: first chapter of the book, but I think for so
17:26
Speaker 3: many years I had kind of rode the aggressive side
17:29
Speaker 3: of the wound. So when I felt powerless or not
17:31
Speaker 3: good enough, I would fight too hard, or I would
17:34
Speaker 3: work too hard or do too much. And of course,
17:37
Speaker 3: as with any of our reenactments, all that did was
17:40
Speaker 3: sabotage me further and just opened up the possibility that
17:44
Speaker 3: I would get another invitation to grow until I finally
17:47
Speaker 3: stood still. So on that day, my husband, my ex husband,
17:51
Speaker 3: had come to take our three year old daughter on
17:54
Speaker 3: her annual camping trip. It was like a hot June afternoon.
17:59
Speaker 3: I was standing on our driveway and they just left.
18:04
Speaker 3: And I never felt more alone than I did in
18:07
Speaker 3: that moment, And that was my bottom. I'm like, you
18:11
Speaker 3: know what, you know, I've lost my health, I've lost relationships,
18:15
Speaker 3: I've lost my career. Like everything just compounded for me,
18:20
Speaker 3: and my yellow paint moment was, honestly, I hit rock bottom.
18:24
Speaker 3: I was going to give up. I'm like, I can't
18:26
Speaker 3: do this anymore. Like it really felt unbearable. And I
18:29
Speaker 3: don't think I'm different. I think a lot of us
18:31
Speaker 3: have those rock bottom moments where it's like, can I
18:35
Speaker 3: even bear this? I went through my checklist to say, okay,
18:39
Speaker 3: let's just say I give up, right, call it quits.
18:43
Speaker 3: And I went through a list of what I had
18:45
Speaker 3: coming up that week, and I had a room in
18:50
Speaker 3: my house that needed painting, and when I looked at
18:54
Speaker 3: my calendar, I know, this is kind of bizarre. I
18:56
Speaker 3: realized my parents right, God loved them. We're coming the
19:00
Speaker 3: next morning to paint that room yellow. And that was
19:06
Speaker 3: my turning point. But the message to the reader is
19:11
Speaker 3: about thinking about the fact that we all have yellow
19:14
Speaker 3: paint moments. We hit rock bottom. It comes after a
19:18
Speaker 3: series of invitations to grow that we ignore, or reject
19:22
Speaker 3: or argue with. But what if we could turn things around?
19:28
Speaker 3: What's about the power that happens when you stop and
19:32
Speaker 3: you open the invitation. And for me, honestly, guy, that
19:36
Speaker 3: changed the direction of my entire life.
19:39
Speaker 2: Where did you let me hold on a second?
19:40
Speaker 1: Where did you get that inspiration to be able to
19:45
Speaker 1: do that? Because these invitations you're talking about many of
19:50
Speaker 1: us consider to be tragedies, trauma, annoyances, frustrations. It's a
19:58
Speaker 1: step of insight in and of itself to look at
20:01
Speaker 1: them or reframe that as an invitation. So where did
20:05
Speaker 1: you get that ability or insight to do that?
20:09
Speaker 3: Honestly, it came from the power of not giving up
20:13
Speaker 3: when that's all I wanted to do, and when I
20:17
Speaker 3: don't know what happened over the night, but when I
20:19
Speaker 3: woke up in the morning and my parents arrived, it
20:21
Speaker 3: was like Okay, here's the deal. If I didn't give
20:24
Speaker 3: up when I was at my very worst, nothing else
20:28
Speaker 3: could hurt me, And instead of just kind of like
20:31
Speaker 3: superficially all right, let's just paint these walls, it was like, Okay,
20:36
Speaker 3: I have got to stop. I am pushing everybody that
20:41
Speaker 3: means anything to me away. I'm getting physically ill, Like
20:46
Speaker 3: what how much more do I need to get in
20:48
Speaker 3: my way? So I dug deep and that's where I
20:52
Speaker 3: and what I do with clients when I'm sure your
20:54
Speaker 3: listeners as well, is this idea of how the hell
20:59
Speaker 3: did I get here? And when I mapped it out,
21:02
Speaker 3: I could see how I was wrestling with control and
21:05
Speaker 3: self worth and a riding the aggressive side of that
21:09
Speaker 3: wound that was working against me. But in the moment,
21:14
Speaker 3: it came from if at the very worst I didn't
21:17
Speaker 3: give up, nothing more can hurt me.
21:20
Speaker 1: Let me just remind every When I'm speaking with Karen Goslin,
21:23
Speaker 1: her book is called Yellow Paint Learning to Live Again.
21:29
Speaker 2: Part of the book you were.
21:31
Speaker 1: Talking about deals with this accountability and honesty and you said,
21:36
Speaker 1: not just from the client, but from the therapist as well,
21:42
Speaker 1: where did that come about? And what is that what
21:44
Speaker 1: do you mean when you say that?
21:46
Speaker 3: What I mean is that it's a directive therapeutic approach
21:52
Speaker 3: right from the very beginning. What I say in the book,
21:55
Speaker 3: I don't tell people what they want to hear. I
21:58
Speaker 3: tell people what they need to hear. And yeah, exactly
22:07
Speaker 3: what does that mean?
22:09
Speaker 2: What does that look like?
22:10
Speaker 3: That means that I don't sugarcoat it. It's always from
22:13
Speaker 3: a place of loves. No bs, that's right, I should
22:17
Speaker 3: put that on my on my door, right, no bs.
22:20
Speaker 3: And but it's always from a place of love and compassion.
22:23
Speaker 3: And from that paradigm I was speaking about a few
22:25
Speaker 3: minutes ago that it's like, where did we break? You know,
22:29
Speaker 3: what's going on for us? So it rests heavily on
22:33
Speaker 3: that non judgmental paradigm. But listen, I take my job seriously.
22:38
Speaker 3: If somebody is going to hire me because they want
22:41
Speaker 3: to make a difference in their life, I owe it
22:44
Speaker 3: to them to tell them how they're getting in their
22:46
Speaker 3: own way. And most of the time people will say,
22:51
Speaker 3: you nailed it. That's exactly what I needed to hear.
22:54
Speaker 3: We live in an aware society. Most of my clients
22:58
Speaker 3: have some ideas of what they're doing, and even why
23:00
Speaker 3: they're doing it. They just don't know how to put
23:02
Speaker 3: it all together. At the end of the first appointment,
23:05
Speaker 3: as part of the accountable Therapy method, I create a formulation.
23:10
Speaker 3: It's an explanation about what's happened in their life, how
23:14
Speaker 3: they got to where they did, why they're sabotaging themselves,
23:17
Speaker 3: how they're sabotaging themselves, and what they need to do differently.
23:22
Speaker 3: And most of the time people will feel refreshed by that.
23:27
Speaker 3: More than anything. I don't want therapeutic conversations to just
23:30
Speaker 3: float away, right and for clients to feel good for
23:34
Speaker 3: the first couple of minutes. I get that description a
23:37
Speaker 3: lot from people that people invest a lot in therapy
23:40
Speaker 3: with very nice, very skilled therapists, but maybe are afraid
23:45
Speaker 3: to tell clients the truth. It's refreshing. We launched our
23:49
Speaker 3: book in Hollywood at the Oscars in February, and one
23:52
Speaker 3: actor said to me, based on what you're telling me,
23:56
Speaker 3: why don't you call this interrupt with love? Because I
24:00
Speaker 3: I think I said something in that conversation where I
24:02
Speaker 3: may even and I'll say to clients if I interrupt,
24:05
Speaker 3: it's because I want to be useful to you. Sure,
24:08
Speaker 3: And clients have to come in and vent and tell
24:10
Speaker 3: their story. But he said, why don't you call it
24:13
Speaker 3: interrupt with love?
24:16
Speaker 2: I like that.
24:18
Speaker 1: So who's the book form?
24:23
Speaker 3: You're asking great questions? I love it. The book is
24:27
Speaker 3: for anybody. So the dedications at the beginning for to
24:30
Speaker 3: a number of people, but for people who find themselves
24:34
Speaker 3: in deafening dark places where they may be hitting rock bottom,
24:40
Speaker 3: not knowing what to do about it, confused about their life,
24:44
Speaker 3: confused about why they keep coming up against the same
24:48
Speaker 3: things in their life, whether it's their health, their relationships,
24:51
Speaker 3: their career, their education right, or maybe they have some
24:55
Speaker 3: ideas but they don't know what to do about it.
24:57
Speaker 3: So they're looking for a vulnerable story that is meaningful,
25:03
Speaker 3: that demonstrates the method. Every chapter is a song, Every
25:09
Speaker 3: chapter is its own story. Readers can pick and choose
25:13
Speaker 3: the chapters that are most important for them, whether it's
25:16
Speaker 3: about health or divorce, or friendships or family. Some readers
25:21
Speaker 3: will read the whole book, But if you're looking for
25:25
Speaker 3: specific tools to use in your life, specific invitations. Every
25:31
Speaker 3: chapter ends with very important invitations to the reader to think,
25:36
Speaker 3: we do have a workbook coming and an etherapy program coming.
25:40
Speaker 3: But the initial book invites the reader to hear my story,
25:46
Speaker 3: learn about accountable therapy, and apply some of the techniques
25:50
Speaker 3: and tools that are suggested and described in the book.
25:54
Speaker 1: I love this idea about accountable therapy. I love the
26:01
Speaker 1: the willingness to to to to be honest in that way.
26:10
Speaker 2: Was that? How did you develop that? How did you
26:14
Speaker 2: start to do that?
26:15
Speaker 1: Was that easy for you to start to do that?
26:18
Speaker 3: It was? It was it just it was like naturally,
26:22
Speaker 3: I think, yeah, my jig, my gig from the Ukraine
26:25
Speaker 3: is smiling down on me. He was a no punch
26:30
Speaker 3: person and that's when my dad said, yeah, don't don't
26:33
Speaker 3: worry about this like female lineage. What's more important is
26:36
Speaker 3: you were like him. He was a nobs kind of guy.
26:41
Speaker 3: I I appreciate it when people are honest with me,
26:45
Speaker 3: you know, I hate when people are like I don't
26:47
Speaker 3: like I understand fake and pretending. It's part of a
26:50
Speaker 3: coping mechanism. But but like when you when you pull
26:54
Speaker 3: off that layer, like as a human being, don't we
26:58
Speaker 3: appreciate it more when somebody comes with true love and
27:02
Speaker 3: trust and says, this is how you're affecting me or
27:07
Speaker 3: this is how I feel when this happened. Then we
27:10
Speaker 3: get down to a real level, right, And I just
27:14
Speaker 3: had that in my own life. In my own my
27:16
Speaker 3: friends will would tell you, you know, we just I just
27:20
Speaker 3: like to have those real conversations. But if somebody is
27:24
Speaker 3: coming to me, like ninety nine percent of the people
27:26
Speaker 3: that show up at my door are at their own
27:29
Speaker 3: version of their own seventh invitation, they're losing somewhere in
27:34
Speaker 3: their life. So don't I owe it to them to
27:39
Speaker 3: tell them the truth?
27:42
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean there's something very refreshing of that reminds
27:45
Speaker 1: me of the actor jud hirsh who played a therapist
27:51
Speaker 1: in the movie Ordinary People, which as an old older movie,
27:56
Speaker 1: but I don't know if you're familiar with it. He is.
28:00
Speaker 1: He plays his therapist who is just so amazing. I
28:04
Speaker 1: mean he's kind of describing he does what you're describing.
28:10
Speaker 1: He's like so refreshing and so honest, yeah and real,
28:15
Speaker 1: and you can't help but be blown away by it
28:20
Speaker 1: because it's it's kind of feels like what you're saying.
28:23
Speaker 1: We all need that, we need that wake up call.
28:27
Speaker 2: And again it's.
28:29
Speaker 1: Done with respect and compassion.
28:32
Speaker 2: Of course, it is all right.
28:35
Speaker 1: So as we kind of wind down here, how do
28:38
Speaker 1: people learn more about you? How can people learn more
28:40
Speaker 1: about the book and the accountability method?
28:44
Speaker 3: That's right great. So our private practice is at Karen
28:49
Speaker 3: karenrsw dot com. The book website is Karen Goslinspeaks dot
28:55
Speaker 3: com and there's a lot of information on that website
28:58
Speaker 3: about where I've come from and my own evolution and
29:02
Speaker 3: what the book is about. We are on Amazon in
29:06
Speaker 3: Canada where Amazon International. We have soft cover, hardcover and
29:10
Speaker 3: kindle versions. A audiobook will be launched in September at
29:15
Speaker 3: the Emmys, so I'll be working on that all summer
29:18
Speaker 3: because i want to dictate the book. We have a
29:21
Speaker 3: Spotify playlist, there's a Yellow Paint playlist. The lyrics are
29:24
Speaker 3: chosen specifically to invite the reader into each chapter, and
29:30
Speaker 3: we're on all the channels.
29:32
Speaker 1: Awesome, awesome, Karen, so inspiring. Love to have you back
29:35
Speaker 1: at a later date. Thank you so much for being here.
29:39
Speaker 3: Oh thanks so much for having me. I loved your
29:42
Speaker 3: questions today.
29:43
Speaker 1: All right, take care, bye bye