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Helping Teens Develop Resilience with Emily Waitt · The Trauma Therapist

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Speaker 1: Welcome to the Trauma Therapists podcast. My name is Gaming Person.
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Speaker 1: I interview incredible people who've dedicated their lives to helping
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Speaker 1: those who've been impacted by trauma. A big thank you
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Speaker 1: to our sponsors and our guests who are supporting this show.
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Speaker 1: Five four, three, two and one. Our folks, welcome back
0:20
Speaker 1: to the podcast. Very excited to have us my guest today.
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Speaker 1: Emily Wait, Emily welcome, Thank.
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Speaker 2: You guys, thanks for having me awesome.
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Speaker 1: Emily is a founder and clinical director of can Cove
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Speaker 1: Adolescent Therapy and Wellness, a Los Angeles based center dedicated
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Speaker 1: to helping teens and young adults develop resilience, confidence, and
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Speaker 1: emotional wellbeing. Emily's journey into therapy began with their own
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Speaker 1: early experiences in therapy, which inspired her to make support
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Speaker 1: more accessible and effective for young people and their families.
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Speaker 1: Her intricative approach blends evidence based practices with deep developmental
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Speaker 1: insight to help youth navigate anxiety, identity, relationships, and life transitions.
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Speaker 1: Her work prioritizes compassionate, neurobiologically informed care teller to each
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Speaker 1: individual's needs. All right, Emily, before we going share with
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Speaker 1: the listeners where you're from. Originally and where you are currently,
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Speaker 1: and then we'll dive in.
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Speaker 3: Okay, I spent the first few years of my life
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Speaker 3: in South Dakota, so it's a random one, but most
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Speaker 3: of my childhood I grew up in San Diego and
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Speaker 3: now I'm in Los Angeles, Okay.
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Speaker 1: So I love the topic of teens and adolescents, and
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Speaker 1: I love therapy the topic of therapy with teens and adolescents.
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Speaker 1: But where we get there? How did this start for you?
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Speaker 1: This is journey.
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Speaker 3: So I mean, I think unofficially it probably started as
1:49
Speaker 3: a very young kid. But I think officially, you know,
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Speaker 3: I went to college. I studied business and then got
1:56
Speaker 3: into that field and really just felt like very unfulfilled,
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Speaker 3: like something was saying. I found myself feeling pretty like
2:01
Speaker 3: depressed and kind of unmotivated. So kind of took a
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Speaker 3: look at things and decided like I'm missing this kind
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Speaker 3: of human peace.
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Speaker 2: So I went back to school.
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Speaker 3: And got my master's and then you know, proceeded to
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Speaker 3: become a therapist.
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Speaker 2: But I think, you know, I.
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Speaker 3: Think realistically, I started using the skills of a therapist
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Speaker 3: at a pretty young age, and then, like my own
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Speaker 3: experiences as a teenager, I think really informed kind of
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Speaker 3: what we want to do at kin Cove and what
2:28
Speaker 3: we kind of how we want to make teens feel
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Speaker 3: when they're kind of in our space.
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Speaker 1: Okay, so what were those experiences?
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Speaker 2: Yeah, So I first went to therapy when I was twelve.
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Speaker 3: My parents had recently gotten divorced, kind of high conflict divorce,
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Speaker 3: and I developed kind of like a insomnia are almost
2:47
Speaker 3: more like somnophobia, where I was kind of afraid of
2:50
Speaker 3: going to sleep. So you know, they sit me down
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Speaker 3: and they're like, you're going to go to therapy, and
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Speaker 3: I start bawling, and I'm like, okay, this is it
2:57
Speaker 3: felt like a punishment, right. I think that's what it
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Speaker 3: felt to me. At twelve, that issue kind of resolved
3:03
Speaker 3: with you know, therapy. They did kind of like an
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Speaker 3: exposure thing where someone would be in the room with
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Speaker 3: me and then get farther and farther away. But I
3:11
Speaker 3: got older, and as I was like an older teen,
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Speaker 3: started instead of like anxiety and kind of trying to
3:17
Speaker 3: hold everything together, it started to be a lot more
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Speaker 3: like outward anger. And I know, you know, my family
3:25
Speaker 3: definitely I felt like, I guess, you know, the whole
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Speaker 3: trope of the identified patient.
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Speaker 2: I guess that that would have been me. So I
3:33
Speaker 2: went to.
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Speaker 3: Therapy again when I was like seventeen, and then I
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Speaker 3: ended up being diagnosed with borderline personality disorder in my
3:40
Speaker 3: when I was nineteen. I think, and that was an
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Speaker 3: interesting experience for me because I mean, in this field,
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Speaker 3: you know, very highly pathologized disorder.
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Speaker 2: But it did give the people around me this sense
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Speaker 2: that I was.
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Speaker 3: Like being manipulative or being you know, a certain kind
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Speaker 3: of thing I was intentionally doing.
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Speaker 2: And I think for me.
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Speaker 3: I just felt confused because I felt like I lived
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Speaker 3: in my reality and my reality was you know, I
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Speaker 3: didn't understand why everything felt like my fault when I
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Speaker 3: felt like the people around me were kind of showing
4:10
Speaker 3: some similar things or maybe just manifesting a little differently.
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Speaker 3: But yeah, so I, I you know, went to a
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Speaker 3: kind of like an IOP program.
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Speaker 2: I hated it at the time, but I do think
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Speaker 2: it helped me.
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Speaker 3: But as I've you know, grown in my therapeutic career,
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Speaker 3: I think it just became clear, you know, like I
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Speaker 3: don't think my parents had the tools, and I think,
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Speaker 3: you know, I was the sensitive person that absorbed a
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Speaker 3: lot of that family kind of trauma and then I
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Speaker 3: started acting that out and that was scary for people,
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Speaker 3: and I think that that makes sense.
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Speaker 2: And so.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, with Kinkov, just wanting to, like, you know, make
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Speaker 3: sure no one feels judged, no one feels blamed, both
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Speaker 3: on the parent and the side of you know, the
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Speaker 3: teen or young adult, because I think there's so much
4:55
Speaker 3: of that where we're trying to find someone who's fault
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Speaker 3: it is, and it's usually we all have our own
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Speaker 3: perspect and there's truth in all of that.
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Speaker 1: You mentioned the diagnosis. When when you were diagnosed, did
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Speaker 1: that was that something that felt congruent for you.
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Speaker 3: I think maybe at first or like maybe it felt
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Speaker 3: like a reason like, oh, this is going to explain
5:18
Speaker 3: it as a therapist. Now, I don't I don't know that.
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Speaker 3: I think the only thing was like there was some suicidality,
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Speaker 3: and I think that's kind of what made people jump
5:27
Speaker 3: to that diagnosis. But I was also very you know,
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Speaker 3: I was very perfectionistic, and you know, I went to
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Speaker 3: Brown University. I was very like, there was a lot
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Speaker 3: of things that were going well for me and then
5:40
Speaker 3: just some things that I think where my where I
5:44
Speaker 3: was acting out. I think it looked scary enough to
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Speaker 3: people that I ended up, you know, in a psychiatris's office,
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Speaker 3: and that's kind of what she came up with. But
5:51
Speaker 3: then you have you know, my parents do research, and
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Speaker 3: they're like, Okay, this is what she's doing. And it
5:55
Speaker 3: didn't It just ultimately didn't really feel super helpful. I
5:59
Speaker 3: do think because I got some support and went to
6:02
Speaker 3: therapy and some treatment, I do think it was helpful
6:05
Speaker 3: in that way. But the label itself, I think while
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Speaker 3: maybe at first I felt some sort of like okay,
6:10
Speaker 3: this is this all makes sense, over time, I think
6:13
Speaker 3: it was more used to or at least felt like
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Speaker 3: it was kind of used to put me in a
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Speaker 3: box that didn't feel necessarily congrument.
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Speaker 1: Right, So let's talk about we're going to get to
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Speaker 1: kin Cove, but I want to talk about how you
6:26
Speaker 1: got there.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, what was it?
6:29
Speaker 1: How did you decide to become a therapist?
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Speaker 3: Yeah, So I went to So I first went to
6:38
Speaker 3: school and I studied business. I felt like I needed
6:40
Speaker 3: to be to be a success. I needed to like,
6:43
Speaker 3: you know, have a product that bunch of people owned,
6:46
Speaker 3: or you know, start a business that everyone knew about.
6:48
Speaker 3: So I think that was me trying to kind of
6:50
Speaker 3: do what I felt like I should do. My dad's
6:52
Speaker 3: a businessman. I thought kind of, you know, this will
6:54
Speaker 3: make me feel fulfilled. But I didn't feel fulfilled when
6:59
Speaker 3: I was kind of going down that path. So and
7:03
Speaker 3: I never I always loved psychology, but I never even
7:05
Speaker 3: considered being a therapist. It just didn't It didn't even
7:08
Speaker 3: cross my mind. And then when I was in my
7:11
Speaker 3: early twenties, maybe twenty two twenty three, I just kind
7:15
Speaker 3: of all of a sudden just came to me and
7:16
Speaker 3: I was like, what, I would love this, So I yeah,
7:20
Speaker 3: so I went back.
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Speaker 2: I wanted to make sure.
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Speaker 3: So I went to UCLA and took like a couple
7:23
Speaker 3: extension courses in psych just to be like, do you
7:27
Speaker 3: like this?
7:27
Speaker 2: Is this the right thing? Let's not waste more time.
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Speaker 1: You graduated college?
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Speaker 3: Yeah, I graduated from Brown with an entrepreneurship degree. Okay,
7:38
Speaker 3: which does help me. But probably, you know, if I
7:41
Speaker 3: knew earlier, maybe I would have studied psych. But I
7:43
Speaker 3: still think, you know, it was part of my journey.
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Speaker 1: Sure, all right, keep going, oh.
7:50
Speaker 2: Yeah about you.
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Speaker 3: I know, I'm like, well, so, you know, in therapy,
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Speaker 3: I'm used to someone else telling their story. But so yeah,
8:01
Speaker 3: so I started I went back to school. I was
8:03
Speaker 3: at UCLA Extension to a couple courses, and then applied
8:07
Speaker 3: for my masters and started doing that. Wanted to work
8:10
Speaker 3: in a treatment center, just be like surrounded by kind
8:12
Speaker 3: of what I with the field I was going into.
8:15
Speaker 3: I originally thought I wanted to work with couples, and
8:18
Speaker 3: then I think, honestly, through working with people like in
8:21
Speaker 3: my trainee years and whatnot, I realized how much my
8:25
Speaker 3: teenage years and even before that impacted me. And I
8:28
Speaker 3: think that's where I all of a sudden realized what
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Speaker 3: how my experiences could help me and what I wanted
8:36
Speaker 3: to do, and how kind of yeah, I could take
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Speaker 3: what I didn't have, what I did have and kind
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Speaker 3: of try to make something that helped people feel better.
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Speaker 3: I think also, I just, yeah, so I love the
8:47
Speaker 3: energy of teenagers. It when I started, when I just
8:51
Speaker 3: got you know, I started working with teens in my
8:53
Speaker 3: trainee kind of years, and.
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Speaker 2: I was like, Okay, this is this is it. I
8:55
Speaker 2: love it. I love the energy.
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Speaker 3: I love the fact that they're more open to change,
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Speaker 3: They're a little bit you know sometimes I'm can you know,
9:01
Speaker 3: keep you on your toes?
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Speaker 2: But so so yeah, I went back to school and
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Speaker 2: that was kind of it.
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Speaker 3: I decided to go down this path, and that's what
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Speaker 3: I've been doing ever since.
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Speaker 1: Now, let's talk about that initial experience working with teens.
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Speaker 1: What was that like for you? How? Yeah, was it easy?
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Speaker 1: Did you run up against a wall because it Yeah,
9:27
Speaker 1: there's a learning curve there, I think for a lot
9:29
Speaker 1: of us.
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Speaker 2: Yeah.
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Speaker 3: I think at first I started, I think it felt
9:35
Speaker 3: pretty natural to me. I did grow up so mentioning
9:38
Speaker 3: some of the stuff that was going on, Like my
9:42
Speaker 3: my mother was very dysregulated, so I was used to
9:44
Speaker 3: kind of up and down, you know, presentation.
9:47
Speaker 2: So at first it did feel comfortable to me.
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Speaker 3: But I think my biggest, the biggest challenge was I
9:52
Speaker 3: really couldn't see the parents' point of view. I think
9:55
Speaker 3: a lot of times, I really that was a block
9:56
Speaker 3: for me that I had to work through in my
9:58
Speaker 3: own work to understand.
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Speaker 1: Gimme give us an example. What do you mean specifically, So.
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Speaker 2: Let's say, you know, like a kid is.
10:07
Speaker 3: So I worked at Beverly Hills High School and there's
10:10
Speaker 3: a lot of Persian families in Beverly.
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Speaker 2: Hills, so there's a cultural component too.
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Speaker 3: But I think you know, things like rules that we're
10:17
Speaker 3: had or punishments that, you know, for something that happened.
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Speaker 3: I think it would just to me, I would very
10:23
Speaker 3: validate the team that like, yeah, that's messed up to
10:25
Speaker 3: your parents are doing this, but.
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Speaker 2: Like that also creates more You can definitely do that.
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Speaker 3: You should validate their feelings, right, But I think sometimes
10:34
Speaker 3: without doing that thoughtfully, it can make that behavior and
10:38
Speaker 3: it can make that team more defiant towards their parents.
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Speaker 3: They're like, yes, this person's right. And I think for me,
10:44
Speaker 3: there was a block of the parent. I wasn't thinking
10:48
Speaker 3: this parent's set of experiences haven't allowed them to understand
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Speaker 3: their child. I was thinking, this parent is purposefully being
10:58
Speaker 3: you know, problematic, Yeah, making their child's life hard, and
11:04
Speaker 3: that is rarely, if ever the case.
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Speaker 1: And did you learn that? How how long did that
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Speaker 1: take to learn?
11:15
Speaker 2: That's a good question.
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Speaker 3: I think it's still learning, but I think I think
11:20
Speaker 3: it took a few years for sure. I also, I
11:24
Speaker 3: am in the final year of my doctoral programs. I'm
11:26
Speaker 3: doing dissertation, but I learned a lot about like child development.
11:30
Speaker 3: It was an adolescent child focused program, so I think
11:33
Speaker 3: some of it came like top down by having to
11:35
Speaker 3: learn you know the information externally and then kind of fit.
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Speaker 2: It to situations.
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Speaker 3: But some of it was also just like as I've
11:43
Speaker 3: gotten older and as I've reflected on my own experiences,
11:46
Speaker 3: reflected on my parents and understanding that, you know, just
11:51
Speaker 3: because I felt like I felt a certain way did
11:55
Speaker 3: not mean that they didn't feel a way. That made
11:57
Speaker 3: their behavior make sense. And I think I was looking
11:59
Speaker 3: at at a very self focused lens versus like what
12:03
Speaker 3: was going on for everybody? You know, what was like
12:05
Speaker 3: my mom's mom died in childbirth. She didn't have a
12:07
Speaker 3: model for that, and even just understanding that and growing
12:10
Speaker 3: empathy for her in that regard, like, yeah, it makes sense,
12:14
Speaker 3: how would you know what to do?
12:17
Speaker 1: Let's talk about can cove? How did that come about?
12:21
Speaker 2: So my sister and I actually started together.
12:23
Speaker 3: So we so I've been in my own practice for
12:26
Speaker 3: the last couple of years and my sister started training
12:29
Speaker 3: as a therapist, and so we were like, you know,
12:32
Speaker 3: thinking we should do something together, and we both happened
12:35
Speaker 3: to gravitate towards teens, which you know, was kind of
12:39
Speaker 3: funny but just happened. And then so yeah, we kind
12:42
Speaker 3: of informally talked about it for a few years and
12:45
Speaker 3: then I think we finally COVID happened, and I think
12:48
Speaker 3: even like teen and young adult mental health was even
12:52
Speaker 3: more apparently problematic or you know, you can tell people
12:59
Speaker 3: are struggling. And I think after COVID, you know, it
13:02
Speaker 3: was kind of hard where it's like we wanted to
13:04
Speaker 3: do something that made an impact, start a business together,
13:07
Speaker 3: do some sort of group practice, but we had all this.
13:10
Speaker 2: Virtual stuff and whatnot.
13:11
Speaker 3: But finally we just decided to you know, go for it,
13:14
Speaker 3: get a physical space and try to kind of bring
13:16
Speaker 3: back some of that community that I think we lost,
13:18
Speaker 3: and yeah, just kind of create a place of healing
13:23
Speaker 3: that doesn't feel like, doesn't feel clinical. Like if you
13:26
Speaker 3: go into our space, there's like a mural all over
13:27
Speaker 3: the walls. It's like a it's very comfortable, and we
13:31
Speaker 3: want people to feel at home, not like they're at
13:33
Speaker 3: a hospital.
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Speaker 1: Now, how does that translate into the treatment you provide?
13:42
Speaker 1: What does it mean to create a space for teens
13:46
Speaker 1: and young adults or youth where it doesn't feel too
13:49
Speaker 1: quote unquote clinical. What does that look like?
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Speaker 2: Yeah, I think.
13:54
Speaker 3: It looks like a lot of things like in my
13:55
Speaker 3: personal like my personal therapeutic style, I definitely bring in
13:58
Speaker 3: a lot of my personality, like a lot of humor.
14:03
Speaker 3: But I think too just being like non pathologizing, not
14:07
Speaker 3: making anyone feel like what they're doing is you know, problematic.
14:11
Speaker 2: I think just making people feel seen.
14:12
Speaker 3: And then also, like I said, the physical space, just
14:15
Speaker 3: being surrounded by things that feel energizing and comforting and
14:20
Speaker 3: not necessarily I don't know, I remember back when I
14:23
Speaker 3: went to therapy as a kid, and you know, it's
14:25
Speaker 3: an older kind of room, white walls, kind of stuffy
14:30
Speaker 3: and brown, and so we have a lot of like brown,
14:35
Speaker 3: like the old brown couches and the a little dusty,
14:40
Speaker 3: so we got you know, like a lot of color,
14:42
Speaker 3: a lot of yeah, just good energy. We have a
14:45
Speaker 3: big bookshelf with a bunch of books, both like therapy
14:48
Speaker 3: or psychology focused and just kind of books that have
14:51
Speaker 3: some sort of mental health element and also just yeah,
14:55
Speaker 3: meeting people where they are. Sometimes therapy is great as
14:57
Speaker 3: a therapist. I want everyone to go to therapy, but
15:00
Speaker 3: sometimes people learn more by you know, doing a group
15:03
Speaker 3: and reading a book or something. You know, sometimes that's
15:06
Speaker 3: just more approachable for them or that feels like where
15:08
Speaker 3: they could kind of find that healing.
15:11
Speaker 1: I mean it's such I think it's such a crazy
15:14
Speaker 1: time now to be a teen. There's so much going on,
15:22
Speaker 1: so much stimuli obviously, screens and everything. At the expense
15:29
Speaker 1: of just over generalizing, are you noticing any trends of
15:34
Speaker 1: kids teens coming in to.
15:36
Speaker 3: See you, Yeah, yeah, there's definitely some trends.
15:40
Speaker 2: I think some of the big ones there.
15:42
Speaker 3: I think we see a lot of people, with all
15:44
Speaker 3: this pressure everything going on in the world, either kind
15:46
Speaker 3: of go towards like perfectionism or towards kind of that
15:51
Speaker 3: fear of trying, which looks like lack of motivation and
15:54
Speaker 3: kind of being a little more shut down.
15:58
Speaker 2: Obviously, there's a lot of tech use.
15:59
Speaker 3: There's honestly, there's a lot of things that I think
16:03
Speaker 3: are coming up, but definitely tech use. And I think
16:07
Speaker 3: another thing that's interesting, because we do work with the
16:08
Speaker 3: whole family, is just kind of I've noticed this like
16:11
Speaker 3: inversion of the hierarchy in which, you know, we have
16:14
Speaker 3: a parent come in, They're like, I want my kid
16:16
Speaker 3: to come in, but let me ask him if it's
16:18
Speaker 3: okay first, And I'm like, okay, which is you know, great,
16:22
Speaker 3: ask your kid if it's okay. But I think when
16:24
Speaker 3: I was, you know, thirteen, it was kind of like, no,
16:26
Speaker 3: you need to do this for your mental health. So
16:29
Speaker 3: I do think a lot of kids are they're they're
16:34
Speaker 3: like nervous, they're scared of the world, and I think
16:37
Speaker 3: a lot of times parents want to do for their kids,
16:39
Speaker 3: and then kind of the kids learn I need to
16:42
Speaker 3: go to someone for help and I can't kind of
16:44
Speaker 3: do this on my own. But then you have kids
16:46
Speaker 3: on the other side of the spectrum that are trying
16:48
Speaker 3: to handle everything else, and you know, they're doing school,
16:51
Speaker 3: they have got sports, they've got their full schedule, and
16:53
Speaker 3: they're kind of like buckling under this pressure but just
16:57
Speaker 3: trying to keep it all together. And so those are
17:00
Speaker 3: some of the common things we see. But then obviously
17:02
Speaker 3: also you've got a lot of vaping, a lot of
17:05
Speaker 3: a lot of yeah, substance use and things like that
17:08
Speaker 3: as well. But I do think right now a big
17:10
Speaker 3: thing that I'm shocked by is just the you know,
17:13
Speaker 3: how many kids don't have their license, haven't been in
17:15
Speaker 3: a relationship, haven't kind of gotten a job, and they're
17:18
Speaker 3: you know, even in their late teens, early twenties. And
17:21
Speaker 3: I think I was so excited to get my license.
17:24
Speaker 3: I was so excited to get out and go do things.
17:26
Speaker 3: And I think that is something that is hard for
17:29
Speaker 3: parents to understand, and that's where we kind of try to,
17:32
Speaker 3: you know, do some translating or figure out how to
17:34
Speaker 3: get them to a place where they can actually you know,
17:37
Speaker 3: do a little more independently.
17:39
Speaker 1: How do you work with the parents, I mean, how
17:43
Speaker 1: do you work with the parents?
17:45
Speaker 2: Yeah?
17:46
Speaker 3: So each I mean each family is different obviously, but
17:48
Speaker 3: typically we always do, like talk to the parents when
17:51
Speaker 3: they come in. It's the first kind of touch point
17:55
Speaker 3: and then you know, in a perfect world, we do
17:57
Speaker 3: either parent coaching with the parents or we do family therapy.
18:01
Speaker 3: Sometimes they just have their kid do the individual therapy,
18:04
Speaker 3: but we still do you know, parent calls once a
18:07
Speaker 3: month to make sure we're kind of seeing what they're seeing,
18:10
Speaker 3: we're on the same page, and typically we'd like to
18:13
Speaker 3: have at least one family kind of session. But in
18:18
Speaker 3: a like my happiest scenario, the kids in their own therapy,
18:22
Speaker 3: parents are in their therapy you know, somewhere somewhere else,
18:25
Speaker 3: and then we get to do family with another clinician together,
18:29
Speaker 3: because I do just think, you know, we see the
18:32
Speaker 3: kid once one or two hours a week. Parents see
18:35
Speaker 3: the kid all the time, like we can only do
18:37
Speaker 3: so much, and I think we really need that kind
18:40
Speaker 3: of buy in from the parents that this is a
18:42
Speaker 3: whole family shift.
18:45
Speaker 1: What do you think, Emily from your experience that I mean,
18:51
Speaker 1: you've talked about your own experience in therapy and so forth,
18:55
Speaker 1: but how what does that look like now when you're
18:58
Speaker 1: in session with kids and or their parents. What do
19:03
Speaker 1: you feel enables you to do this type of work?
19:09
Speaker 3: I think I think there is a deep empathy and curiosity.
19:13
Speaker 3: I think also just I want to help. I want
19:16
Speaker 3: to Sometimes it's so easy to see from an outside perspective,
19:20
Speaker 3: especially with this age group, when there's just strong emotions,
19:23
Speaker 3: you know, on their side, and I think it's a
19:24
Speaker 3: little easier for me or we have, you know, a
19:28
Speaker 3: few other clinicians like for us to see, Okay, here's
19:30
Speaker 3: the dynamic that's happening. I get why parent feels like this,
19:33
Speaker 3: I get why kid feels like this, but they don't
19:35
Speaker 3: get why each other feel that certain way. So I
19:39
Speaker 3: think really does take understanding the whole dynamic. And obviously
19:43
Speaker 3: there's always things we can't know or we don't understand,
19:45
Speaker 3: but kind of having an overall picture of what's going
19:48
Speaker 3: on in this family as a whole, including you know
19:52
Speaker 3: that that's everything from like, you know, is there past
19:55
Speaker 3: trauma in the parent's life, what's the culture, what's the
19:58
Speaker 3: kind of Yeah, who's in the family, is it a
20:00
Speaker 3: blended family? All those things, trying to figure out kind
20:03
Speaker 3: of where where did this go off track? And how
20:07
Speaker 3: can we get you back to where you are?
20:10
Speaker 1: I'm wondering. You know, I have some relatives in LA
20:14
Speaker 1: and obviously there are a lot of different factions in
20:19
Speaker 1: Los Angeles. But you know you talked about the perfectionism
20:24
Speaker 1: and the pressure. That's crazy. Yeah, I mean that stuff
20:31
Speaker 1: is crazy. How how do you deal with that as
20:35
Speaker 1: a kid?
20:37
Speaker 3: Yeah, And that's a tricky thing because you can't really
20:42
Speaker 3: deal with that as a kid. And that's why I
20:44
Speaker 3: think it's so important that parents are aware, understand development,
20:49
Speaker 3: understand Yeah. I mean they might not even be trying
20:52
Speaker 3: to put pressure on the kid, but the pressure's there.
20:54
Speaker 3: Everyone's aware of, you know, what the economic landscape looks like.
20:57
Speaker 2: Everyone's aware of.
20:59
Speaker 3: I think in Los Angeles you have a lot of
21:01
Speaker 3: children of highly successful parents, right, and I think that's
21:04
Speaker 3: an interesting dynamic where sometimes the pressure is coming from
21:10
Speaker 3: just themselves are knowing that there's this pressure out there,
21:13
Speaker 3: which is something I can relate to. My dad was
21:15
Speaker 3: very successful. I think that's where my oh, I want
21:17
Speaker 3: to go into business and do this. And I think
21:19
Speaker 3: a lot of people try to fit themselves into a
21:21
Speaker 3: mold and then they end up unhappy or trying to
21:24
Speaker 3: cope in other ways. But I think for kids to
21:28
Speaker 3: feel for teens to feel like at peace with how
21:31
Speaker 3: they feel about things, with what they want, what their
21:33
Speaker 3: values are, not what their parents, friends, society's values are,
21:38
Speaker 3: and being okay that other people might think differently. I
21:42
Speaker 3: think those are just some very small things that make
21:44
Speaker 3: a huge difference, because there are teams you see that
21:47
Speaker 3: are like, yeah, I don't care, and I'm like, damn,
21:48
Speaker 3: I could learn from you. I wish I had some
21:50
Speaker 3: more of that. But I do think, yeah, we internalize
21:55
Speaker 3: a lot of things and just kind of I think
21:58
Speaker 3: through support, communication and a little bit of guidance, I think,
22:02
Speaker 3: you know, so these kids are so capable, There's so
22:05
Speaker 3: much they have going for them.
22:06
Speaker 2: It's just it's a lot. It's overwhelming.
22:10
Speaker 1: One of the things I liked about working with teens
22:16
Speaker 1: is and I had to learn this, you know, self disclosure. Yeah,
22:23
Speaker 1: and how important that is and being authentic, being quote
22:30
Speaker 1: unquote real, how vital that is. How does that come
22:34
Speaker 1: up for you? What's your experience with that?
22:37
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's huge.
22:38
Speaker 3: And I think that's an area where a lot of
22:40
Speaker 3: therapists struggle with teens and they try to put on
22:43
Speaker 3: that you know, blank slate facade or they try to
22:46
Speaker 3: you know, teens will they're going to ask you questions.
22:48
Speaker 3: They're going to say, oh, do you have a boyfriend,
22:50
Speaker 3: Oh did you ever do anything like this when you
22:52
Speaker 3: were a They're going to ask you and I think,
22:54
Speaker 3: you know, when I was first training, I heard a
22:56
Speaker 3: lot of you know, reflect Oh, I'm curious why you're
22:59
Speaker 3: wondering that, right, and you.
23:01
Speaker 2: Would still say that I don't know, I just I'm
23:05
Speaker 2: not a fan of it. And I heard multiple I
23:08
Speaker 2: had multiple teens come in.
23:09
Speaker 3: When I worked at the high school because they would
23:11
Speaker 3: have gone to another therapist and they'd be like, I
23:13
Speaker 3: asked her, you know, a simple question.
23:14
Speaker 2: I asked her what, you know, what she liked to
23:16
Speaker 2: do us out of work?
23:17
Speaker 3: And she asked me a weird question and response, and
23:19
Speaker 3: I'm like, all right, so that helped me be like, Okay, no,
23:22
Speaker 3: that's one hundred percent true.
23:24
Speaker 2: We need to kind of.
23:25
Speaker 3: Give them our authentic selves. I mean, yeah, you're gonna
23:28
Speaker 3: hold you're not gonna tell them your whole life story,
23:29
Speaker 3: but you're going to be a real person with thoughts
23:32
Speaker 3: and feelings, with a personality. And I think that's why
23:35
Speaker 3: I said, like, I bring humor into my work. I
23:37
Speaker 3: think with teens who use humor, me doing that in
23:40
Speaker 3: return and not being an adult that's all the you know,
23:42
Speaker 3: serious all the time helps. I think, you know, there
23:44
Speaker 3: are teens that are rebelling and they're looking for some
23:47
Speaker 3: twin chip, they're looking for some hey did you ever
23:50
Speaker 3: do this.
23:50
Speaker 2: When you were a teen?
23:51
Speaker 3: And like you can also use those those moments to
23:55
Speaker 3: like to teach or to you know, say yeah I did,
23:58
Speaker 3: and here's why, like yeah, maybe there's something cool about that,
24:02
Speaker 3: but also didn't go out for me in the end
24:04
Speaker 3: or whatever it is. And I think I think they
24:07
Speaker 3: really do kind of demand not verbally, but like through
24:11
Speaker 3: where they're at in their life and what they're doing.
24:13
Speaker 3: They really want to see your personality. They want to
24:15
Speaker 3: connect with a person, not like a you know, a
24:18
Speaker 3: bot or an NPC.
24:19
Speaker 2: As they would say, what is an MPC.
24:23
Speaker 3: It's like a non player control, like it's in a
24:26
Speaker 3: video game, like a yeah, like a little yeah, so.
24:29
Speaker 1: Right right right? I yeah. I mean. I had an
24:34
Speaker 1: experienced about a year ago where I was wanting to
24:37
Speaker 1: get back into therapy and called my therapist that I
24:43
Speaker 1: hadn't seen for a couple of years or a year.
24:46
Speaker 1: She was no longer seeing clients, but she referred me
24:49
Speaker 1: to three other people, and I had video chats with
24:53
Speaker 1: these people to seek for fit. And I remember the
24:57
Speaker 1: first one I contacted spent fifteen minutes telling me like
25:02
Speaker 1: what modality she was going to use, and I was like,
25:06
Speaker 1: I want a freaking person. I don't need a modality.
25:11
Speaker 1: And I think that's so vital. I think it's it's
25:16
Speaker 1: very easy for not all, but a lot of therapists
25:20
Speaker 1: and I myself included at the time, to where that
25:23
Speaker 1: therapy hat and you're proud of it. You've learned and
25:27
Speaker 1: you've studied, and it's nice. It's like a crown and
25:30
Speaker 1: you have all this information you want to share. But
25:33
Speaker 1: that becomes very heavy and it gets in the way
25:35
Speaker 1: of being a freaking human being, which it sounds very simple,
25:41
Speaker 1: but it's it's so vital, you know, it's so vital.
25:46
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I think sometimes you know, the newer you
25:48
Speaker 3: are and as a therapist, and I don't know if
25:51
Speaker 3: maybe this therapist was a little nervous because she's like, Okay,
25:54
Speaker 3: this this man has a podcast and I'm I'm intimidated
25:57
Speaker 3: or whatnot. But I do think sometimes when we feel
25:59
Speaker 3: into curious therapists, we try to pull from Okay.
26:02
Speaker 2: This degree, I can do this for you.
26:04
Speaker 3: I can do that and I've learned exactly what you
26:07
Speaker 3: said was like, you got to lead with yourself first,
26:10
Speaker 3: Like you hear them, you hear their story, you you connect,
26:13
Speaker 3: and that's kind of where that healing comes from.
26:16
Speaker 1: What are some of the challenges I mean that that
26:20
Speaker 1: come with the territory of working with teens.
26:24
Speaker 2: There's a lot of them.
26:27
Speaker 3: I mean, yeah, I'm like exactly, but parents can definitely
26:31
Speaker 3: be tricky and not because I mean they're worried about
26:34
Speaker 3: their kid, right, so they're coming in at a high
26:36
Speaker 3: level of stress, but also a lot of times they're
26:38
Speaker 3: completely at a different level of understanding of their kid.
26:42
Speaker 3: We also, these teens have grown up with social media
26:45
Speaker 3: and awareness of what mental health is and awareness of
26:48
Speaker 3: what should be maybe happening if you're a mentally healthy person,
26:51
Speaker 3: and I think a lot of their parents don't have that,
26:53
Speaker 3: So there's that disconnect.
26:55
Speaker 2: Obviously, there's a little bit of.
26:58
Speaker 3: Risk involved, there's a little more impulse civity, and teens
27:01
Speaker 3: a little more you know, like there's definitely some self
27:04
Speaker 3: harm and things like that that come up. But I
27:07
Speaker 3: think overall, to me, it doesn't feel as challenging. I
27:12
Speaker 3: do think because like I used to dread the parent
27:16
Speaker 3: work piece of it, and now I think it's so
27:19
Speaker 3: important that it really doesn't bother me. I will say,
27:22
Speaker 3: because we have a few clinicians there, and I will
27:25
Speaker 3: say I think it is the hardest part of the
27:27
Speaker 3: job probably overall, is working with the parents, whether the
27:31
Speaker 3: parent's anxious or whatever. But sometimes you got people who
27:35
Speaker 3: you know, calling, calling, calling, and so I think parents
27:39
Speaker 3: can definitely be challenging because too you've heard the teens
27:44
Speaker 3: perspective and now you're trying to kind of shift gears
27:46
Speaker 3: and go, let me think about what this parent needs
27:48
Speaker 3: and not just say you're not doing the right thing.
27:51
Speaker 2: Be a better parent, right. But I think a lot of.
27:55
Speaker 3: Clinicians shy away from this group because of the kind
27:58
Speaker 3: of parent calls and also I mean little things like
28:00
Speaker 3: scheduling all the you know, has to be after school,
28:03
Speaker 3: has to be sometimes later into the evening, and so
28:06
Speaker 3: I think there's a lot of little things, but I
28:08
Speaker 3: think parents are probably the biggest one.
28:11
Speaker 1: Okay, all right, how do people learn more about can
28:14
Speaker 1: Cove and what you're doing there? It's the best way.
28:16
Speaker 3: Yeah, you can go to kincove life dot com, can
28:19
Speaker 3: email me at Emily at kincove life dot com. But yeah,
28:23
Speaker 3: any anything anyone wants to know hopefully can find online
28:26
Speaker 3: or you can email me.
28:28
Speaker 1: Awesome, all right, Emily, We'll have a linked up here
28:30
Speaker 1: at the show notes page at the Trauma Therapist podcast
28:33
Speaker 1: dot com. Appreciate you and we'll be in touch.
28:37
Speaker 3: Awesome, thank you, all right, all right bye,