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Other People's Problems with Hillary McBride, PhD · The Trauma Therapist

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Trauma Thepists podcast. My name is Got macpherson.
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: I interview incredible people who dedicated their lives to helping
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: those who have been impacted by trauma. Here we go,
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: So five four, three, two and one, our folks, welcome
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: back to the podcast. I'm very excited to have as
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: my guest today, back doctor Hillary McBride. Hillary, welcome back.
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  Speaker 2: It's so good to be back. I was looking forward
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  Speaker 2: to this all week.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: Awesome. So. Hillary is a registered psychologist, a researcher and
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: podcaster with expertise that includes working with trauma and trauma
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  Speaker 1: therapies and embodiment at the intersection of spirituality and mental health.
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  Speaker 1: Her recent book, Wholly Hurt, Understanding and Healing from Spiritual
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  Speaker 1: Trauma came out in April twenty twenty five. Her podcast
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  Speaker 1: Other People's Problems is incredible. Normally therapy sessions are totally confidential,
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: but this podcast opens the doors. Her recent season offers
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: an unprecedented look at psychedelic psychotherapy, breaking new ground and
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: podcast space and demystifying this often misunderstood practice as a
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: powerful tool in trauma recovery. All right, Hillary, Before we
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: get going here and dive in it feels like there's
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: so much to talk about. Remind our listeners where you're
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: from originally and where you are currently.
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  Speaker 2: I grew up in Vancouver, but I currently live in Victoria, BC,
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: which is an island off the west coast of Canada,
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: and so we have ocean. Almost almost everywhere we go
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: there's ocean around us. So I'm loving this, loving the
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: island living.
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: All right, let's if we can here. I want to
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: set some context. I mean, you've got so much going on,
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  Speaker 1: You're doing so much I should I should say that
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  Speaker 1: incredible work. But give our listeners a little bit of
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: understand How did you get drawn into this? Feel the space?
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: And you might if you want to start out more broadly,
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: but I'm really curious about your interest in trauma.
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, interest in trauma or generally. Well, I remember having
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  Speaker 2: a I had a class in my graduate degree. I
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: was doing my master's and I had this professor who
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  Speaker 2: I loved. He taught my psychopathology class. Actually it was
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: not it was advanced counseling skills, and I remember thinking like, oh,
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  Speaker 2: he understands something about like the substrate that's underneath that
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  Speaker 2: undergird's most mental health concerns like it felt like he
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  Speaker 2: just got he just got something about the human experience
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  Speaker 2: and who was walking through the door. And he was
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  Speaker 2: offering a trauma class that summer, and I remember taking
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  Speaker 2: it and thinking, Oh, I think that this might be
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  Speaker 2: why people go to therapy. I think this might be
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  Speaker 2: the thing right like this, you know, when he was
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: talking about the nervous system and he was talking about dissociation,
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  Speaker 2: I was thinking, don't I don't know if there's a
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  Speaker 2: single person on the planet who this doesn't apply to
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: on some level, especially when we expand our definitions of
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  Speaker 2: trauma to include neglect at like absence trauma early in development,
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: before we have autobiographical memory like whoa who doesn't this touch?
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  Speaker 2: And it was that lens that really started to shape
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: the way that I was working with people as they
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: were coming into my office. Now, it took me a
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: little while after that point to go, oh, if it's
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: about everybody out there, oh, maybe it's actually about in
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: here too, write this nervous system, this body. And it
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  Speaker 2: was a few years prior to that where I had
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: had a really acute car accident. I'd been hit in
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  Speaker 2: an intersection while driving and hadn't really processed what that
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  Speaker 2: was like for me. Except I'd done all of the
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  Speaker 2: medical interventions. I'd gone to the physio and the ot
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: and all the therapies, but I hadn't really spent time
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  Speaker 2: looking at what it was like for me to live
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  Speaker 2: in the aftermath of that and the terror that still
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: lived in my body. And it actually wasn't for a
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  Speaker 2: number of years and actually, unfortunately a few more very
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: serious car accidents for me to realize, oh, I have
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  Speaker 2: to look at this. And it was when I started
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  Speaker 2: to peel back the layers of the shock trauma right
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  Speaker 2: the index event of these car accidents, that I was
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  Speaker 2: able to go, Okay, this reminds me of something that
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  Speaker 2: was here even before the car accidents.
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  Speaker 1: So that willing that first of all, that realization that
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  Speaker 1: excuse me, you might have to look inside. That's a
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  Speaker 1: big one. It's a big one for all of us,
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  Speaker 1: but I think it's interestingly it's large for therapists who
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  Speaker 1: are like, wait a minute, I've got to look at
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  Speaker 1: myself here. So did that impact how you started working
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  Speaker 1: with people oh.
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  Speaker 2: My own trauma?
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  Speaker 1: Yeah?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, Well, I think it made me more courageous to
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  Speaker 2: actually do all of the things in a very like
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  Speaker 2: with a lot of fidelity, like to try all the therapies,
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  Speaker 2: try all of the things that I was off for
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  Speaker 2: other people that i'd heard about that I was reading
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  Speaker 2: in the research literature. And I think that's something that
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  Speaker 2: some of our listeners might be familiar with, is that
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  Speaker 2: we hit a desperation point at some point where where
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  Speaker 2: the just thinking about it or the keeping it over
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  Speaker 2: there isn't enough, and we have to take these risks.
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  Speaker 2: It's like we get our discomfort internally pushes us beyond
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  Speaker 2: what the avoidance is allowing us to have access to,
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  Speaker 2: and we move into the space of actually like free
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  Speaker 2: falling into trying all of the things that unfortunately take
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: us closer to the pain, but ultimately also get us
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  Speaker 2: through to the other side, or have the potential to
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: do so. But I think I just want to come
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  Speaker 2: back to the point that you made about therapists, because
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  Speaker 2: I've been really getting into the work of Karen Moroda lately.
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  Speaker 2: She's a psychoanalyst, and her theory is that the field
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  Speaker 2: of psychotherapy and helpers disproportionately draws and attracts people who
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  Speaker 2: have this kind of parentified schema, internal working model that
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  Speaker 2: as a profession. We are people who have been really,
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  Speaker 2: really skilled and have had to become skilled at seeing
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  Speaker 2: everybody else's stuff at the exclusion of our own. So
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  Speaker 2: it may be important for us, if we're in this profession,
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  Speaker 2: to ask the question, why is it so easy for
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  Speaker 2: us to help other people go to these places that
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  Speaker 2: we don't go, and what does that tell us about
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  Speaker 2: how we had to cope and survive and manage and
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: some of the interpersonal dynamics that made us forget about
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  Speaker 2: our bodies in the first place, Like when I teach therapists,
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  Speaker 2: when I train clinicians, whether it's like undergraduate to the
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: graduate level or postdoctoral, these are you. We're a group
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  Speaker 2: of people who have a hard time being connected to
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  Speaker 2: ourselves and being in our bodies, but are really really
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  Speaker 2: good have monetized our defense strategies by building entire careers
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: around regulating other people. And at some point it's really
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: important that we go, wait, why, why? What has led
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: to that? So that that just came to mind when
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: you were saying that.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, no, that is that is awesome. I love that,
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  Speaker 1: and that topic really drives the work I do because
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  Speaker 1: just quickly when I first started doing this, I was like, Okay,
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  Speaker 1: you know, I'm going to have on these people and
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: they're going to tell me about all their their all
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  Speaker 1: their books and their interventions they use, and what what
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  Speaker 1: is the knowledge that I can learn and then share
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  Speaker 1: and slowly I One of the questions I would ask was,
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  Speaker 1: could you share an early clinical error and what you
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: learned from that? And of course there were some people
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  Speaker 1: who were like, well, I don't make any errors and
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  Speaker 1: dah da da, But most people, ninety nine point nine
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  Speaker 1: percent of the people would and these are very seasoned clinicians,
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  Speaker 1: would say, talk about a kind of a rupture, an
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  Speaker 1: inability in themselves to look at themselves to do exactly
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  Speaker 1: what you were talking about, and how that really caused
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  Speaker 1: a rupture in the relationship, but then afforded all an
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  Speaker 1: opportunity for growth and repair and so forth. And that
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  Speaker 1: made me, gave me the courage to start looking at
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  Speaker 1: my own stuff, my own trauma, my own shame, And
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  Speaker 1: it really, like I said, inspired the work I do
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  Speaker 1: because so many You're right, so many of the therapists
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  Speaker 1: are like, wait a minute, you want me, I can.
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  Speaker 1: I can fix that other person and help them, but
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  Speaker 1: I gotta look at me. That's a whole different ballgame. Anyway,
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  Speaker 1: that's that's a whole different podcast. So let's talk about
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  Speaker 1: your podcast, Other People's Problems. I love the title how
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  Speaker 1: did this come about? And and I just got to say,
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  Speaker 1: at the at the onset here, you're like a natural,
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  Speaker 1: I mean not surprisingly, but it's incredible. How did how
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  Speaker 1: did this come about?
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  Speaker 2: Oh? Thank you? Well, as I think with many good ideas,
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: they they come from encounters with gaps in experience or knowledge,
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  Speaker 2: and this actually was not It was not my idea.
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  Speaker 2: The podcast comes from my producer, Jodi Martinsen, who is
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  Speaker 2: not just a wizard, but extremely you know, gifted in
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  Speaker 2: this area and working with people, and I think has,
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: through listening to probably thousands of hours of my therapy,
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  Speaker 2: may also have like an honorary doctorate at this point.
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  Speaker 2: She is, yeah, has been such a gift to work with.
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  Speaker 2: But it was her idea to say, wait a second,
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  Speaker 2: there is you know what actually happens behind the scenes,
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  Speaker 2: and when going to therapy, realizing this is not at
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  Speaker 2: all like the things that I see portrayed on TV
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  Speaker 2: or the things that people talk about, like there's actually
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  Speaker 2: something really different happening here than the trope of psychotherapy
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  Speaker 2: that we reference in our in our media, that we
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  Speaker 2: see in the movies, And so the idea came from
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  Speaker 2: wanting to demystify what was behind the scenes. And what
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  Speaker 2: we found over the past four seasons of having this
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  Speaker 2: show come out is that in listening to in listening
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  Speaker 2: to people's therapy with me, right because the show is
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  Speaker 2: me sharing audio, of course, with this very thorough legal
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  Speaker 2: and consent process of recorded sessions with my patients, and
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  Speaker 2: then a little bit of voiceover to explain like, here's
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  Speaker 2: what I'm doing, Here's what I think is happening, here's
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  Speaker 2: what's going on. That over four seasons of that being
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  Speaker 2: out in the world, that people who have been able
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  Speaker 2: to share their work have felt prouder and braver for it,
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  Speaker 2: that it's actually compounded their sense of mastery and agency
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  Speaker 2: of realizing like, wow, I can be a part of
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  Speaker 2: cultural change and I can I can actually alter the
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  Speaker 2: fabric of our society that creates the stigma that harmed me.
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  Speaker 2: Like by sharing this, like people are feeling empowered. We're
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  Speaker 2: seeing that people who hear the show are feeling more
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  Speaker 2: courageous to go to therapy. We're hearing that people who
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: hear the show, are actually feeling less alone in the
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: internal struggles that they've carried so privately inside of themselves
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  Speaker 2: and felt like I can't tell anybody about. So it's
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  Speaker 2: done this like it's done, this really interesting important thing.
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  Speaker 1: Oh.
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  Speaker 2: I should also say that therapists often use the audio
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  Speaker 2: for training and and we'll talk in I keep hearing
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  Speaker 2: you know, if I go do a speaking event or something,
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: people will, you know, come come talk to me and
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: to say, I listen to your show in my class, right,
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  Speaker 2: and we were like talking about the choices you made,
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: and you know, what we would have done differently and
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: what like we think was really appropriate. And I love
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: the idea of people learning, learning from my mistakes, learning
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  Speaker 2: from my skill like sharing so that we can yeah,
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  Speaker 2: undo the aloneness of what it's like to be in
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  Speaker 2: this room, which is often such a solitary, isolating thing
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  Speaker 2: for as as therapists too.
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  Speaker 1: I could imagine that a lot of the people, a
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  Speaker 1: lot of your guests, what I mean, that takes some
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  Speaker 1: balls to say, okay, record me and put me on
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  Speaker 1: a podcast. I mean, what is the process that's going
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  Speaker 1: on there?
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  Speaker 2: Well, I will say that for a lot of the
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  Speaker 2: work that I do we're recording in any way, that's
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: like a big part of the model of ADP, and
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: ADP is one of the main therapies that I use
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  Speaker 2: that we're recording, because then we get to come back
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  Speaker 2: to seeing what happened in a session. And often people
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  Speaker 2: when they record their session get to listen back and go, oh,
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: that's what I sound like, or that was that moment,
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: or we can use it for integrating insights. So if
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: we're not like if recording is kind of normalized, then
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: the thought of having the recording and eventually down the
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: line saying, hey, do you feel open to sharing this
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  Speaker 2: for this project and here's some of the risks, and
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: here's some of the benefits, And let's listen to the
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: audio and then let's listen to it when it's cut,
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: and let's listen to it when it's got my voice
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  Speaker 2: over in it, and then let's listen to it a
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: bunch more times. And do you want to have a
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: friend listening to make sure I'm want to take it
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: write like, there's this season that we just released. Took
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: two and a half years to produce WHOA So it's
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: like an extremely lengthy process, and the purpose of that
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: is that consent is a process. It's not a singular
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: moment of time, and for people to feel like they're
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: yes holds up over a year or year half and
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: many rounds of edits and many rounds of edits, tells
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: us that that yes is a more robust yes.
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  Speaker 1: I mean, just remind everyone, I'm speaking with doctor Hillary McBride.
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  Speaker 1: We're talking about her incredible podcast Other People's Problems. So
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: what did you have to sit with and agree to yes?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, Well, I think it reminds me of your question
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  Speaker 2: earlier to past podcast yests, like tell me about early
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: clinical errors. Like for me, the thing that has been
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: there's been an existential moral inner conflict about can I
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: ask these people to do this? And how do we
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: ask them in a way where I'm not using like
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: misusing a power dynamic. So like struggling through the ethical
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: pieces there took a lot of time, and that for
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: me felt important, like protecting my client's privacy, power and agency,
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: like their right to choose, like protecting that, like weighing
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: the balance of all of that was tricky. But I
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: think in addition to that, and maybe also feeling protective
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: of them when the audio comes out into the world
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: and figuring it like, Okay, how are we going to
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: navigate this and support them through this? But I think
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: that the trickiest thing for me was what is it
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: like to grow as a clinician and recognize that I
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: work very differently than I did five years ago, seven
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: years ago, two years ago, because I'm learning all the
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: time and I'm refining and I'm growing in my skill.
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  Speaker 2: But there are these these like frozen in time moments
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: of my clinical work that are extremely imperfect that are
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: out in the world. Like I think that can be
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: really vulnerable and risky, not just for the patient but
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: for us as clinicians to go, Okay, here it is.
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: Here's what it sounds like, recognizing like how could we
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: ever judge a relationship and how could we ever judge
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: like that? That's what it is, like, this diadic attachment
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: dynamic that is unfolding between two people in this very
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: emergent way, and then to extract that and give it
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  Speaker 2: a time stamp and share it with the world like
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: miss is so much nuance and complexity to me and
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: to our working relationship, And so it has felt like
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  Speaker 2: often more at the beginning than now, like this internal
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: wrestle like, okay, am I okay with it being imperfect
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: and it being out there? Am I okay? With recognizing
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: that I'm going to grow and change and I would
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: never work some of the way, you know the way,
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: or I would never make that choice again or even
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: at that time, you know, as we often do as therapists,
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: we make a clinical choice and the session ends and
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: we go, oh great, okay, I miss that thing. And
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: to have the errors and the beauty and the power
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: captured and have people right right, there's like something around
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: the ego that I had to negotiate, something around like
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: high impression management of myself.
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: Do the guess have the choice of either using their
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: real names and identities or not? And then there's a
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: big difference there.
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Yeah, there is, Yeah, And we could say we
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: could bring it back to it would say like feminist
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: principles of research. Often in the ethics process of this,
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: I kept going back over and over and over to
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: ethical principles that we get from qualitative research and how
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: we're sharing stories and what we do when we're publishing
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: stories in media in journals and books and things like that.
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: And for me, the thing that I kept coming back
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: to was some of the principles that guide feminist research
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: around giving people power and how do we give people
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: power instead of using them, and how do people figure
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: out what the risks and benefits are of attaching their
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: name and identity to something. But yeah, we gave people
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: the choice, and we talked about what that could cost
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: them and how it could go well for them and
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: what they get out of it and versus like, you know,
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: some of the challenges that might come up. But what's
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: interesting about that particular phenomena that I just want to
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: bring again bring into this conversation as you're talking about
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: people have to have some balls to do this, and
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: like it could be really risky. This is the first
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: season where I'm including a session of my own, so
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: season five, I actually flip sides of the room. I'm
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: on the couch, so to speak. And this whole season
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: of season five is exploring psychedelic psychotherapy. And this particular
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: piece of work is profoundly important and vulnerable for me.
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: And so when I was thinking about what am I
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: asking people to do by inviting them to share their
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: stories or even just supporting them to do that, I
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: really felt what that was like. This season by putting
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: myself in their shoes and feeling through all the details
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: of what do I want people to know? What do
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: I not want people to know? And it is me right,
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: it's my name, it's my voice, it's my story. It's
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: totally recognizable and people are probably going to hear it
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: driving to work someday because it's a CPC podcast, which
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: means CBC is our national radio in Canada, just like
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: on just on the radio. So something's going to be
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: like making muffins some Saturday morning and they're gonna They're
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: gonna turn on the radio and I'm going to be
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: talking about my trauma and processing through it and like, wow,
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: what a thing to know? Is like being broadcast into
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: the radio waves of Canadians and people across the world. So, like,
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: the courage is terrifying. I mean, that's part of the
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: nature of courage is you have to be in contact
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: with some fear for it to be courageous or to
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: be brave. But it's been also incredibly empowering to feel
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: like I get to know that process of sharing in
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: a way that I think is part of our collective liberation.
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: That's really interesting, that's really that's really inspiring too. I
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: would imagine that some therapists out there were, like you know,
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: who come from more with psychodynamic background. Why am I
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: Why would you want to shoo? Why would you want it?
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: What's the benefit of sharing that information? Why would you
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: want other potential clients to know about that? How do
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: you respond to that?
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: Well, first, I would say I am also psychodynamically trained,
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: and so I would see that that, like the school
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: of thought, to imply that it's a monolith or uniform
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: in our decision making really misses how much our own
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: individual and attachment history plays into the theoretical frameworks that
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: we choose. Like I think that there's a lot of
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: people who gravitate towards more dynamic cognitive approaches because they
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: allow us to be invisible in the room and disembodied
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: in the room. So our biases about how we work
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: are also telling about our stories. And it may not
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: be that the biases that we have in our work
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: are the most accurate or most healthy perceptions of what
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: is needed in a therapeutic dynamic or what's needed in
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: our social climate. But I think for me, what I
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: would say is that it was actually in a dynamically
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: psychodynamically oriented training where I heard I think it was
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: Diana Fosha say, we just need to be a little
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: bit braver than our patients, right, if we just need
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: to be a little bit more courageous. So when I
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: think about what is actually the posture and stance of
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: the clinician, it's me being willing to say I will
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: one hundred times out of one hundred go there with
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: you too, or I know that place inside of me.
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: So there's that piece of it. And I think, like
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: the feminist, the feminist psychodynamic attachment relational, like when I
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: think about the justice angle of psychotherapy when it's done well,
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: is also us saying like how do we change culture
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: at large? That there is an incredible story that is
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: pervasive in our social context which we perpetuate as clinicians.
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: Often that suggests if we are in the seat of
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: the helper, if we take on this archetype of the guru,
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: of the helper, of the healer, that we are, that
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: we have ascended in some way right, that we are
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: like we are impermeable, that there is nothing that can
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: touch us because of look at how much knowledge we have,
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: look at how much we help people, and I actually
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: think that that does harm to all of us that
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: particular trope. And for me, like there's a there's a
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: thing that I think I'm really trying to do with
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: showing my piece of tape or my work is to say,
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: there is no role you have. There is no amount
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: of power that you've been given, There is no story
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: that's been handed to you about who you have to
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: be that that cuts you off from the human stuff
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: inside that demands to be accompanied, that demands to be seen,
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: that is there, whether you're in contact with it or not,
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: that is like likely shaping so much of how you
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: are in the world. And so I really wanted to
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: model that and say, like, listen, I'm the person who
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: people come to, right even just in this archetype that's
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: created of me with the show and the books and
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: these like, here's this person who has this information and
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: helps other people. And it's incredibly dehumanizing to us, and
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: I think we dehumanize ourselves, and it's way healthier as
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: far as I'm concerned for us as healers to say, yeah,
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: and I'm doing the same thing that I'm asking you
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: to do.
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, I love that. I love that this idea
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: of honoring the imperfection is so exciting to me, and
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: it opens its doors for creativity, you know, I think
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: oftentimes and I myself definitely ascribed to this feeling that
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: the relationship, the therapeutic relationship is often seen like the
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: therapist is holding this like not everyone, but a lot
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: of a lot of ones. A lot of therapists are
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: holding this like very delicate, beautiful crystal orb and each interaction,
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: you know, and you can't push it too hard and
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: you can't God forbid you drop it. But rather, you know,
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: I started to see it as rather this hunk of clay,
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: you know, and you're gonna walk and it's gonna dent
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: and dent here, Oh it's slipped, but it becomes beautifully
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: just dented and shaped, and it's more forgiving, it's more imperfect,
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: and that's what relationships are. So what have you learned
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: about yourself and personally and as a therapist from this experience?
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: I have learned that my patients, we are not as
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: fragile as perhaps we might think. We are right to
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: your point about the clay.
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: And the orb.
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: Right, this idea of like, wow, okay, there's actually always
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: available inside of us this drive towards change and healing
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: and creativity and connection. There is a lot even inside
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: the places of the most terror, the most pain, even
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: in the moments of the most fragility, there is something
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: that sustains and supports life, that's available to all of us,
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: that is there. And so I think I'm more in
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: contact with my courage and the courage inside of other people.
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: Through doing this, I feel more passionate about changing language
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: and culture as it relates to our fundamental understandings of
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: mental health and mental health treatment and mental health outcomes.
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: Like for me, it's so easy for me to get
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: into this world where all I do is talk about
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: therapy and emotion and trauma. It's like everything I do
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: all day long, I write and think it to Most
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: of my friends are therapists. It's just like this very
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: insulated world. And then I do a project like this
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: and it gets into the world and I realize, holy moly,
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: we have a long way to go, Like we have
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: a long way to go culturally. Tell even our assumptions
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: about what therapy is more accurately reflect the kinds of
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: work people are doing behind closed doors. And then I think,
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: you know, what have I learned that I feel most
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: alive when I take calculated safe risks, like when I
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: do kind of I've heard the parenting, the framework or
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: the idea like doing dangerous things safely, Like there is
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: something about like pushing us forward that makes me feel
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: like wow, that like I feel connected to meaning and
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: purpose and aliveness. And I've felt that in my patients too,
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: as they're talking about taking these risks, like Okay, we
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: thought through it, we thought through it, we thought through it,
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: we flipped it on its head, we thought through it,
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: we flipped it back, we thought through it, and it's like, Okay, no,
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: this is a risk I want to take. And Wow,
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: what a thing to feel like we're alive in this lifetime.
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: Mm hmm, Like that's yeah, I feel connected to that.
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: I love that. Let's we have a few minutes left here.
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: I want to give you the opportunity to talk a
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: little bit about your book, Holly Hurt, Understanding and Healing
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: from Spiritual Trauma. Why did you write that?
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, because it needed to be written, Like, I don't know.
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: Sometimes is reading this.
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: Book the other day.
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: It's called The Body's a Doorway by Sophie Strand, and
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: she was talking about the creative impulse being this I
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: can't remember the word in its original language, but it
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: translates to like a gremlin, like this thingus creature inside
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: of you. That's like I have to come out, Like
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: like it sounds like the you know, the the vomit reflex,
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: the expulsion reflex. There's just something. It's like it has
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: to happen. And that like the birth of that was
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: probably seven years ago when I was on the podcast,
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: the Liturgist podcast talking about spiritual trauma, and the feedback
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: that I got from people was there needs to be
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: so much more about this. And I felt on the
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: heels of that podcast and doing that recording and starting
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: to see it in my patients and researching more, like, oh,
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: there's so much more that needs to be said, and
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: there there's just not enough out there for us to understand.
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: Which is what is now I would almost say like
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: a kind of ubiquitous trauma that experiences as the foundation
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: of our Like why is whiteness? Why does whiteness exist?
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: Why do people of European descent exist on indigenous land?
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: Spiritual trauma undergirds pretty much every system that we have
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: in North America right down to the things that are
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: actively happening at this point in time in North America politically,
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: like the way that we're looking at harmful religious and
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: spiritual the theological ideas and practices as they fragment us
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: from ourselves and from each other. Like this spiritual trauma
• 27:59
  Speaker 2: and religious trauma is not just for the person who
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: experienced a single event of clergy abuse, right, Like there
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: is something that is baked into the fabric of our
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: culture that I'm trying to get to here. And often
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: when I have an idea for a book, by the
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: time it comes out, it feels like, oh, it's too late,
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: Is it too late? Is it too late? Ah? Right?
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: And I think, of course that often happens for us
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: with a creative process, if you're making something, by the
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: time it gets into the world after years and years,
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: it's like, Okay, I've turned this over so many times,
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: it feels like it's complete for me. But this book,
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: I'm realizing as it comes into the world is like
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: right on time for this cultural moment. And there is
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: some ache in me and relief in me that we
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: get to have more conversations because of tools like my book,
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: other people's books like there's a lot more that's coming
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: out about religious and spiritual trauma, high control cults, sexual
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: purity movements, like things that have been so that have
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: shaped people's lives and shaped their development and very and
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: sometimes insidious and over ways, but like wow, we get
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: to talk about it. And whenever we make the implicit explicit,
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: when we put names to things like this as part
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: of how we can heal.
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: It's interesting to see the work you do, and now
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: with the podcast kind of coming at what knowledge and
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: culture and information and humanity from all these different points.
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: It feels Hillary like there's so much to talk about
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: that I would love to talk with you about and
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: love to have you back to talk about other things.
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: But once again, the podcast is other people's problems and
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: the book is wholly hurt understanding and healing from spiritual trauma.
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: What's the best way for people to learn more about
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: what you're doing and get.
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: In touch, Well, have a look at my books, check
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: those out on my website, Hillary L McBride. I also
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: have a newsletter if you head to my website then
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: I send that out with dates wherein speaking and doing
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: trainings and doing events and yeah, I've got a couple
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: offerings coming up this summer in this fall related to
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: psychedelic psychotherapy trainings and teaching and workshops and groups and
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: things like that, so have a look at my website
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: for that. Instagram is probably where I hang up the
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: most