Latest / The Trauma Therapist / Entering Into The Client’s World with Dr. Stephanie Sacks

Transcript

Entering Into The Client’s World with Dr. Stephanie Sacks · The Trauma Therapist

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Trauma Therapists Podcast. My name is Gamiferson.
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: I interview incredible people who've dedicated their lives to helping
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: those who've been impacted by trauma. A big thank you
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: to our sponsors and our guests who are supporting this show.
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: So hi for me two and one, our folks, welcome
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: back to the podcast. Super excited to have as my
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: guest today, Doctor Stephanie Sachs. Stephanie, welcome, Thank.
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: You so much. I'm really excited to be here.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: Appreciate it. Stephanie is a licensed clinical psychologist, a CPT trainer,
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  Speaker 1: and co founder of Mind Science Collective, a continuing education
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  Speaker 1: platform delivering practical, evidence based training for therapists in private practice.
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  Speaker 1: She specializes in cognitive behavioral treatments for PTSD and trauma
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  Speaker 1: related disorders and serves as a national trainer and consultant
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  Speaker 1: for organizations including the National Center for PTSD, Strong Star,
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  Speaker 1: and coen Veterans Network. She's also an adjunct professor and
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: published author in the field of trauma Artephanie, Obviously, just
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: a little bit about you before we get going. Share
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  Speaker 1: with the listeners where you're from originally and where you
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: are currently sure.
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  Speaker 3: So where I am from? Originally, I am from Santo
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  Speaker 3: Domingo in the Dominican Republic. That's where I was born.
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  Speaker 3: And where I am currently. I am in South Florida.
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  Speaker 3: I'm about an hour north of Miami Foca Ratonde.
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  Speaker 1: So let's start out, how the heck did you get
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  Speaker 1: into this field?
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  Speaker 2: Great question, I think.
• 1:32
  Speaker 3: To properly answer that question, I would have to go back.
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  Speaker 2: To early ages. Really long.
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  Speaker 1: We want to go back, Okay, we'll go back.
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  Speaker 3: So my first memories that I have as a kid,
• 1:47
  Speaker 3: probably five six seven, that I link back to my
• 1:52
  Speaker 3: career is having these memories of just being kind of
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  Speaker 3: obsessed with watching people and looking at their facial express
• 2:02
  Speaker 3: I'm in a great way, yes, exactly. I was fascinated
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  Speaker 3: by feelings. I was fascinated by relationships. I was fascinated
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  Speaker 3: by kind of the interchange of energy between people when
• 2:17
  Speaker 3: they engaged with each other and it felt safe and calm,
• 2:20
  Speaker 3: or times it didn't. And so something that I think
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  Speaker 3: I was just born with is this essence of attentiveness
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  Speaker 3: towards human and also a deep sense of empathy and curiosity.
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  Speaker 3: And that's something that I've carried with me forever. I
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  Speaker 3: think that was really the genesis of all of this.
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  Speaker 3: And I also really loved school. I love learning. I'm
• 2:41
  Speaker 3: obsessed with learning, and so I would be reading everything
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  Speaker 3: that I.
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  Speaker 2: Could get my hands on.
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  Speaker 3: You know, when I was an undergraduate, I was initially
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  Speaker 3: a pre med major, and I was deep in the
• 2:55
  Speaker 3: throes of like the organic chemistries and all of that,
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  Speaker 3: and around the same I know.
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  Speaker 4: It's funny to think about now because my interests lies
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  Speaker 4: elsewhere so deeply, but back then I was, you know,
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  Speaker 4: really deep in the throes of the hard sciences.
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  Speaker 3: And simultaneously at the same time, I took an introduction
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  Speaker 3: to psychology class as an elective, and.
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  Speaker 2: I was like, well, that's interesting.
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  Speaker 3: I kind of had this vision for myself being a surgeon,
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  Speaker 3: and once I took that class, it sort of got
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  Speaker 3: the wheels churning about there being other ways to potentially
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  Speaker 3: heal people that did not involve a scapel. And from there,
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  Speaker 3: I took a personality course as another elective. Then I
• 3:44
  Speaker 3: took an abnormal psychology class as another elective, and at
• 3:47
  Speaker 3: that point, you know, I was really hooked and I
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  Speaker 3: switched over.
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  Speaker 1: You mentioned when you were younger, you had this fascination
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  Speaker 1: with watching people and observing people. What did that look
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: like when you were a kid? Did it? Do you
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  Speaker 1: just remember yourself just being aware of people, or what.
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  Speaker 3: I remember being like at places of worship, for example,
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  Speaker 3: and seeing like an older couple, the way that they
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  Speaker 3: were interacting and having these moments of almost like decoding,
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  Speaker 3: you know, how they're dance their relational dance with each other,
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  Speaker 3: and being fascinated and being so curious about why it
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  Speaker 3: is that so many different people show up in this
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  Speaker 3: world in so many different ways. It's like I wanted
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  Speaker 3: to be able to kind of peel back the curtains
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  Speaker 3: and understand the why, and I could only see the what,
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  Speaker 3: you know, And perhaps that motivated some of my interests
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  Speaker 3: in being a surgeon, because I wanted to kind of
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  Speaker 3: go inside, if you will, but just being very observant
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  Speaker 3: and being very curious and being deeply, deeply empathic, which
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  Speaker 3: is a muscle that has some challenges and some real strengths.
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  Speaker 3: And I've learned a really hard that muscle more effectively
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  Speaker 3: at the stage in my life, but early on, just
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  Speaker 3: a deeply feeling kid.
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  Speaker 1: So you start to get the psychology bug, if you will.
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  Speaker 1: In what was that high school, you said, college, Okay,
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  Speaker 1: so how do things unfold for you?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, So, once I took those few electives in psychology
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  Speaker 3: and I started to fall in love with it, I
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  Speaker 3: actually made the decision to I'd been doing like some
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  Speaker 3: nannying on the side for extra spending money or working
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  Speaker 3: at a restaurant, and I decided to seek out a
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  Speaker 3: job as a personal care assistant in a group home
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  Speaker 3: for women that were duly diagnosed. But the dual diagnoses
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  Speaker 3: are really interesting. On one hand, they had either neurodevelopmental
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  Speaker 3: disabilities or intellectual disabilities co occurring with serious mental illnesses
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  Speaker 3: like schizophrenia, spectrum disorders, and bipolar disorder.
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  Speaker 2: So this was wow.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, oh girl.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah. I was nineteen.
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  Speaker 3: I had no idea what I was getting myself into,
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  Speaker 3: and it was a transformative experience for me. I was
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  Speaker 3: working alongside these women and providing care for them that
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  Speaker 3: looked a lot of different ways, from helping make the meals,
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  Speaker 3: from having therapeutic conversations.
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  Speaker 2: You know, we had this.
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  Speaker 3: One resident who ran away from the house multiple times,
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  Speaker 3: and she, you know, really struggled a lot in relationships,
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  Speaker 3: and she had schizophrenia and had really active hallucinations and
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  Speaker 3: you know, I really got kind of thrown to the
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  Speaker 3: wolves in some ways. And while in some ways I
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  Speaker 3: would say I really didn't know what I was doing
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  Speaker 3: and didn't really have a grasp on how to be
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  Speaker 3: most effective there, I think I found my way pretty
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  Speaker 3: young in how to connect deeply with people who were
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  Speaker 3: really ill and who just wanted to be seen and
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  Speaker 3: who just wanted to be understood and listened to. And actually,
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  Speaker 3: you know, the one woman that I was just speaking about,
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  Speaker 3: she inspired my career greatly to the extent that then
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  Speaker 3: I ended up building in this expertise early in my
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  Speaker 3: career working with people with schizophrenia spectrum disorders, and working
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  Speaker 3: with folks with schizophrenia spectrum disorders is actually what clued
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  Speaker 3: me into working with trauma exposed populations, because folks with
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  Speaker 3: schizophrenia spectrum disorders have some of the highest prevalence rates
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  Speaker 3: of trauma exposure than any other clinical population, and that
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  Speaker 3: than healthy population, So they experienced traumas at a disproportionately
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  Speaker 3: high rate. And so that's when I opened the doors
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  Speaker 3: to well, you know, I really need to get some
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  Speaker 3: training in this. And then I saw training in that
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  Speaker 3: later in my career.
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  Speaker 1: So you said, something interesting. You said that experience at
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  Speaker 1: that group home was transformative and you kind of realized
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  Speaker 1: a way or a very signal way of connecting with people.
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  Speaker 1: Say more about that. How did you learn that?
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  Speaker 3: You know, I think I learned by trial and error, honestly,
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  Speaker 3: because it wasn't a setting where you have any kind
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  Speaker 3: of like real supervision and anything that was remotely clinical
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  Speaker 3: or about the millu. You had some training in supervision
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  Speaker 3: about how to functionally help run the home and help
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  Speaker 3: with the residents with specific care behaviors, but nothing that
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  Speaker 3: had to do really with their symptomatology or their challenges,
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  Speaker 3: or their larger values in life or their goals. And
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  Speaker 3: something that I just sort of tried different things at
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  Speaker 3: different times. Something that I came to learn is if
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  Speaker 3: I just went into the client's world, that that would
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  Speaker 3: be a powerful entry point in growing trust. And again
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  Speaker 3: I was nineteen at the time, but I remember, you know,
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  Speaker 3: with a couple of residents just setting up shop in
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  Speaker 3: the front yard and putting some chairs out and just
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  Speaker 3: having conversations with them where they were able to really
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  Speaker 3: share with me what their active hallucinations were like, what
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  Speaker 3: their childhoods were like, what they wanted in life, and
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  Speaker 3: it was.
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  Speaker 2: It was a beautiful experience. I loved it.
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  Speaker 1: That's amazing entering into the client's world. It's so interesting
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  Speaker 1: to hear you say that because I think a lot
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  Speaker 1: of clinicians, well you weren't a clinician at the time.
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  Speaker 2: I was a little baby, I was nineteen.
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  Speaker 1: A lot of clinicians, you know, going in there with
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  Speaker 1: their bag of techniques and interventions and juggling and trying
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  Speaker 1: to figure out And here you were doing what probably
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  Speaker 1: is the best thing in the world, which is and
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  Speaker 1: learning that from a very kind of early part in
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  Speaker 1: your career. It was crucial. That's amazing.
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  Speaker 3: I appreciate you pointing that out because I hadn't really
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  Speaker 3: thought about it in this way, and I think if
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  Speaker 3: I had been more advanced in my career, I may
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  Speaker 3: have gone in with that approach. It almost served as
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  Speaker 3: a protective function for me to develop this other muscle
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  Speaker 3: and this other way to actually not know those things.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's kind of not I think it's natural too.
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  Speaker 1: You know, you're in school, you're studying, you're learning all
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  Speaker 1: these great things. You've got a bag of interventions. Of
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  Speaker 1: course they're going to work.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's right, that's right, and I do think that
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  Speaker 3: was the beginning of me fostering a quality that has
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  Speaker 3: persisted in everything that I've done in my career since,
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  Speaker 3: whether it's been more clinical, more training, more entrepreneurial. Is humility,
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  Speaker 3: A lot of humility. There's a lot that I don't know.
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  Speaker 3: I don't want to come in with all of these
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  Speaker 3: assumptions based on what someone's chart looks like or what.
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  Speaker 2: Any other you know.
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  Speaker 3: I want to come in as a clean slate, getting
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  Speaker 3: to know the soul that they are primarily, and then
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  Speaker 3: we go from there.
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  Speaker 1: There you go, there you go. All right, So let's
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: kind of jump before we do that. Just remind everyone.
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  Speaker 1: I'm speaking with doctor Stephanie Sachs. You said you had
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  Speaker 1: that experience working with individuals who were experiencing schizophrenia or
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  Speaker 1: at schizophrenia're diagnosed, and there was a through line a
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  Speaker 1: connection to trauma. Talk to us about when that got
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  Speaker 1: on your radar. What was that like for you learning
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  Speaker 1: about that?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, it was really unexpected. Honestly, I was early
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  Speaker 3: at this point, I was in graduate school. I'd chosen
• 11:34
  Speaker 3: to attend a graduate school where my research mentor in
• 11:38
  Speaker 3: clinical psychology had expertise with folks with schizophrenia spectrum disorders,
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  Speaker 3: and so I was really doing a deep dive. I
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  Speaker 3: did a lot of clinical placements with folks with serious
• 11:47
  Speaker 3: mental illness, a lot of in patient psychiatric hospitals, acute,
• 11:51
  Speaker 3: long term va all kinds of different settings. And it
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  Speaker 3: became very clear to me roughly in my my second
• 12:01
  Speaker 3: year of graduate school that a common denominator for these
• 12:06
  Speaker 3: folks was a preponderance of traumatic experiences in childhood and
• 12:11
  Speaker 3: in adulthood. And certainly there are certain kind of psychosocial
• 12:16
  Speaker 3: factors in folks with schizophrenia spectrum disorders that lend themselves
• 12:20
  Speaker 3: to an increased risk for future traumatization. For example, having
• 12:25
  Speaker 3: housing instability is a great example of that. You may
• 12:27
  Speaker 3: be more prone to a additional traumatization. But a lot
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  Speaker 3: of these folks had childhood physical abuse, child had sexual abuse,
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  Speaker 3: really chronic abuse, and then you know, it was sort
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  Speaker 3: of the diathesis stress model. They may have had that
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  Speaker 3: biological predisposition for future development of psychosis, but those traumatic events.
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  Speaker 2: Served as the spark.
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  Speaker 3: And as I saw that more and more, I as
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  Speaker 3: I was beginning to learn skills to work with that population,
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  Speaker 3: I realized, you know what I really need to I
• 12:55
  Speaker 3: really need to learn more.
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  Speaker 2: I need to learn more.
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  Speaker 3: And I ended up kind of straddling to labs and
• 13:00
  Speaker 3: joining this additional lab as well that was focused on
• 13:05
  Speaker 3: treating post traumatic stress disorder. And so I am so
• 13:10
  Speaker 3: grateful that I had this opportunity to learn one of
• 13:13
  Speaker 3: the gold standard treatments for PTSD, prolonged exposure therapy in
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  Speaker 3: graduate school and to actually start applying it and using it.
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  Speaker 2: And then this.
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  Speaker 3: Dual interest continued to grow passed graduate school into my
• 13:26
  Speaker 3: predoctoral internship, which I chose to do at the Washington
• 13:29
  Speaker 3: DC Veterans Affairs Hospital, where I worked with some folks
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  Speaker 3: with PTSD in the PTSD clinic, folks with SMI in
• 13:36
  Speaker 3: a different clinic. And then I stayed there, and I
• 13:39
  Speaker 3: did my postdoctoral fellowship focusing on trauma at the DCVA,
• 13:44
  Speaker 3: and then actually stayed on as I became more and
• 13:47
  Speaker 3: more skilled working with trauma exposure specifically PTSD. I worked
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  Speaker 3: in the Washington DCVA for a handful of years in
• 13:53
  Speaker 3: the PTSD clinic after.
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  Speaker 1: That, So you had all this incredible experience, very intense experience.
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  Speaker 1: I mean, it's no joke working with trauma, working with
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: people who've experienced varying types of trauma. What was that
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: like for you? And just to take a side step here,
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: had you ever experienced any trauma yourself?
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  Speaker 3: Well, you know, I think yes, I would say certainly
• 14:24
  Speaker 3: to the extent that even depends how we define trauma,
• 14:27
  Speaker 3: which we'll talk about in just a little bit, but
• 14:30
  Speaker 3: a culturative stress from immigrating from the Dominican Republic to
• 14:33
  Speaker 3: a really small town in North Carolina in the late
• 14:36
  Speaker 3: eighties where there were no Hispanic people there.
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  Speaker 2: That's pretty stressful.
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  Speaker 1: And let me just interrupt you. I didn't want that
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: to come across. As I was trying to qualify you more,
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: I was wondering, given your background, how did that impact,
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: you know, having any kind of a background, what was
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: it like for you to experience working with these individuals.
• 15:02
  Speaker 3: There were a few different reactions as my career expanded,
• 15:07
  Speaker 3: so initially, honestly, I felt a bit intimidated. You know,
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  Speaker 3: the populations I've worked with, I remember having this experience
• 15:14
  Speaker 3: even in graduate school. I was working with people with
• 15:17
  Speaker 3: schizophrenia spectrum disorders doing therapy my first year.
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: Of graduate school.
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  Speaker 3: That's a pretty severe population to be working with when
• 15:26
  Speaker 3: you're just getting your clinical chops, you're just figuring out
• 15:28
  Speaker 3: what's up and down. And then similarly, you know, not
• 15:31
  Speaker 3: only did I work with trauma exposed populations, but then
• 15:34
  Speaker 3: I worked in a Veterans Affairs Hospital PTSD clinic, which
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  Speaker 3: what you're really getting there. These aren't single incident traumas
• 15:40
  Speaker 3: or just adulthood traumas that you're dealing with. This is
• 15:43
  Speaker 3: folks that typically have a whole lot of childhood abuse,
• 15:48
  Speaker 3: and then they go to the military and have another
• 15:50
  Speaker 3: whole lot of traumatic events, whether in combat or military
• 15:54
  Speaker 3: sexual trauma. They have tons of comorbidity psychologically and medically.
• 15:59
  Speaker 3: So I would say there were definitely times when I
• 16:02
  Speaker 3: felt out of my depth, and also I'm okay with
• 16:08
  Speaker 3: that for the most part, because I think I had
• 16:12
  Speaker 3: my finger accurately on the pulse of what lane I
• 16:17
  Speaker 3: was in a different stages in my career. For example,
• 16:19
  Speaker 3: when I was a postdoctoral fellow, I wasn't thinking of
• 16:22
  Speaker 3: myself as a seasoned clinician thirty years later. You know,
• 16:25
  Speaker 3: when I was an undergrad, I wasn't thinking of myself
• 16:27
  Speaker 3: as a graduate student. I tried to stay really anchored
• 16:30
  Speaker 3: and present and to seek a lot of support and
• 16:33
  Speaker 3: supervision and training so that I could become more comfortable
• 16:36
  Speaker 3: and more competent. But I would also say that a
• 16:39
  Speaker 3: quality that I have that has been quite helpful professionally
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  Speaker 3: and personally is I have a pretty solid ability to
• 16:47
  Speaker 3: tolerate discomfort and uncertainty, and that allowed me to work
• 16:52
  Speaker 3: with those populations where I did initially feel intimidated. At
• 16:57
  Speaker 3: the same time, I also felt pretty honored. Quite frankly,
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  Speaker 3: I love working with folks, particularly with PTSD that's pretty severe.
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  Speaker 3: That's my favorite, because they are the epitome of the
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  Speaker 3: strength of the human spirit. They are the epitome of resilience,
• 17:21
  Speaker 3: they are the epitome of willful in demanding that they
• 17:25
  Speaker 3: get their lives back, and that's contagious.
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  Speaker 2: You know.
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  Speaker 3: It allows me to challenge myself in my personal life,
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  Speaker 3: to walk a life that's really honest, a walk of
• 17:36
  Speaker 3: life that is facing fears of my own.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, you struck me, as I mean, you're such a
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: good speaker, and you're so articulate, and you're able to
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: articulate your own experience so well, it's very inspiring.
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: Thank you. I appreciate that.
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: So let's talk about what you're doing now mindset collective?
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: What is it?
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
• 18:03
  Speaker 3: So I have also fallen in love with being an entrepreneur,
• 18:07
  Speaker 3: first with my private practice that I started about eight
• 18:10
  Speaker 3: years ago, with a lot of teaching and training that
• 18:12
  Speaker 3: I do, and I'll guess I'll tell you kind of
• 18:16
  Speaker 3: the story of how we started and where we are.
• 18:18
  Speaker 3: So what we're doing is we are a really engaging,
• 18:26
  Speaker 3: modern continuing education platform for mental health providers. And what
• 18:31
  Speaker 3: we know about continuing education is it's really hit or miss.
• 18:35
  Speaker 3: Sometimes continuing education courses are kind of lackluster, they're pretty rudimentary,
• 18:42
  Speaker 3: or they might not really speak to the kinds of
• 18:44
  Speaker 3: clinical issues that we're facing as clinicians. It might be
• 18:48
  Speaker 3: a bit out of touch. Sometimes we approach continuing at
• 18:51
  Speaker 3: is just a thing we need to check off the
• 18:53
  Speaker 3: list to be able to renew our licenses. And so
• 18:56
  Speaker 3: there's really been this gap that we are filling that
• 18:59
  Speaker 3: involves providing the kinds of training and opportunities for learning
• 19:05
  Speaker 3: that clinicians can get really excited about. Our courses are
• 19:08
  Speaker 3: media or courses are at all evidence based. They are
• 19:12
  Speaker 3: taught by trainers and clinicians who are in the trenches
• 19:16
  Speaker 3: doing the clinical work. Who are experts, who are engaging,
• 19:20
  Speaker 3: who are lively, and it kind of feels like you're
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: meeting with your favorite supervisor and having coffee over what's
• 19:28
  Speaker 3: going on clinically. And we have the kinds of courses
• 19:31
  Speaker 3: that allow clinicians to just take what they learn pretty
• 19:34
  Speaker 3: much right away and in part that practice or that
• 19:39
  Speaker 3: skill or modality in therapy with our clients that very
• 19:42
  Speaker 3: same week. And so it's highly applicable as well, and
• 19:46
  Speaker 3: it's all on a really beautiful platform. So we're really
• 19:48
  Speaker 3: really proud of what we've created. And the genesis of
• 19:53
  Speaker 3: Mind Science Collective was, you know, I've been doing training
• 19:56
  Speaker 3: for a number of years, dating back probably to twenty
• 19:59
  Speaker 3: thirty team or so, and have done continuing education courses
• 20:03
  Speaker 3: for other organizations. There used to be so a lot
• 20:07
  Speaker 3: of listeners might know simple Practice. So simple practice is
• 20:10
  Speaker 3: an electronic medical record system. They used to have a
• 20:13
  Speaker 3: continuing Education arm where they started to do some continuing
• 20:18
  Speaker 3: ED courses and they were awesome.
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: They were really.
• 20:21
  Speaker 3: Really engaging, they were compelling, they were solid empirically. Unfortunately
• 20:28
  Speaker 3: they ceased to be and so myself and other folks
• 20:32
  Speaker 3: that were doing continuing ED courses for them, we felt
• 20:35
  Speaker 3: really bummed out and found that there was this gap,
• 20:39
  Speaker 3: and so myself and four other co founders that had
• 20:42
  Speaker 3: been teaching for them came together first had some phone
• 20:45
  Speaker 3: calls and did some zoom calls, did some brainstorming, and
• 20:48
  Speaker 3: then launched this project of Love that is really for
• 20:53
  Speaker 3: clinicians who are eager to learn for the rest of
• 20:56
  Speaker 3: their careers.
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: So when you say it's for mental health clinicians or
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: therapists or providers, what is who?
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: Yep.
• 21:05
  Speaker 3: So you know, we're working on actually expanding our accreditation
• 21:09
  Speaker 3: because we just launched in January, but right now we're
• 21:11
  Speaker 3: accredited by the American Psychological Association, and so in different
• 21:16
  Speaker 3: states that might mean that not just doctoral level psychologists
• 21:19
  Speaker 3: are able to obtain continuing education, but also a lot
• 21:22
  Speaker 3: of master's level clinicians, so marriage and family therapists, social workers,
• 21:28
  Speaker 3: et cetera. And again, we're expanding our accreditation because ultimately
• 21:32
  Speaker 3: we want to be able to provide any therapist, anyone
• 21:37
  Speaker 3: who you know has that term therapist depending on different degrees,
• 21:39
  Speaker 3: because there are so many different degrees, we can have
• 21:42
  Speaker 3: the ability to get continuing education for the courses that
• 21:46
  Speaker 3: we have. We really want to have a wide reach.
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: So if you can pick out a particular course, go
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: into it a little more detail. Why I mean you
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: said they're meteor they're more engaging. Tell us why.
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: Sure take a course? It's so hard. There's so many
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: good ones.
• 22:11
  Speaker 3: So one, there's two that come to mind, I might
• 22:14
  Speaker 3: have to share too, But one that comes to mind
• 22:16
  Speaker 3: that I'll go with initially. It is it's called essential
• 22:20
  Speaker 3: Relational micro Skills when working with trauma exposed individuals.
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 22:26
  Speaker 3: Title, I love it so much, and it's something that
• 22:29
  Speaker 3: I've been really attending to, obviously clinically for a long time.
• 22:33
  Speaker 3: I've become very knowledgeable about the research about all of this.
• 22:36
  Speaker 3: Essentially what that course is about and who it's for.
• 22:40
  Speaker 3: It's for clinicians that want to provide really effective treatments
• 22:45
  Speaker 3: for clients that have trauma exposure and any kind of
• 22:49
  Speaker 3: clinical sequala. So it can be PTSD, but it can
• 22:52
  Speaker 3: be other kinds of difficulties that can follow traumatic events,
• 22:55
  Speaker 3: and who are so committed to providing the most effective
• 22:58
  Speaker 3: therapies that they really want to stay within a particular
• 23:01
  Speaker 3: framework or protocol, but they also don't want to lose
• 23:06
  Speaker 3: out on the strength and the necessity for having an
• 23:10
  Speaker 3: extremely strong clinical relationship with your clients. And so in essence,
• 23:14
  Speaker 3: what this course provides is a vehicle to be able
• 23:18
  Speaker 3: to stay really faithful to whatever is the specific protocol
• 23:21
  Speaker 3: you're using, but have this discerning eye every moment of
• 23:26
  Speaker 3: every session for all of the different opportunities and entry
• 23:29
  Speaker 3: points to how we can strengthen the clinical relationship, To
• 23:32
  Speaker 3: how we can catch therapeutic ruptures before they start or
• 23:37
  Speaker 3: after they start and actually repair them effectively. For how
• 23:40
  Speaker 3: to work in dieads where yourself and your client have
• 23:44
  Speaker 3: some differences in ethnicity and culture, especially when folks have
• 23:48
  Speaker 3: experienced race based traumas, that can be a predictor of
• 23:50
  Speaker 3: clients dropping out of treatment. So how do we not
• 23:53
  Speaker 3: do that? How do we really engage and really connect
• 23:57
  Speaker 3: all while staying faithful to the most effective therapies, meaning
• 24:00
  Speaker 3: that we don't have to do just one or the other,
• 24:02
  Speaker 3: that we can actually do both.
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: Give us that sounds amazing. Give us an example of
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: what it might look like when a therapist loses sight
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: of that. Oh, because it's classic.
• 24:18
  Speaker 3: It is, it is, And you know, I'll give the
• 24:21
  Speaker 3: example of working. Let's say that we're working with a
• 24:24
  Speaker 3: client who has significant interpersonal traumatization. So the traumatic experiences
• 24:30
  Speaker 3: let's say involved sexual assault that was perpetrated by another person.
• 24:35
  Speaker 3: By nature of the traumatic event that this person experienced,
• 24:39
  Speaker 3: their relational bonds with others, including us, are going to
• 24:43
  Speaker 3: be disrupted in some ways. They are going to likely
• 24:47
  Speaker 3: struggle with specific themes that also impact the clinical relationships.
• 24:52
  Speaker 3: So their beliefs about trust might be disrupted, their beliefs
• 24:56
  Speaker 3: about power sharing and relationships might be disrupted, their beliefs
• 25:00
  Speaker 3: around esteem of themselves and other people might be disrupted.
• 25:05
  Speaker 3: And so a way that this could show up where
• 25:08
  Speaker 3: a therapist, let's say, lose a sight of the importance
• 25:11
  Speaker 3: of weaving strengthening the clinical relationship into every interaction is
• 25:17
  Speaker 3: it's something that I actually see a lot as a
• 25:18
  Speaker 3: cpt for PTSD, trainer and consultant, because I do consultation
• 25:22
  Speaker 3: with hundreds and hundreds of clinicians. And that would be okay.
• 25:26
  Speaker 3: Let's say I'm implementing this very specific protocol called cognitive
• 25:30
  Speaker 3: processing therapy, which is one of the gold standard treatments
• 25:33
  Speaker 3: for PTSD.
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: It works very very well.
• 25:36
  Speaker 3: I'm implementing that therapy, but I'm following the protocol in
• 25:40
  Speaker 3: such a way that I almost have blinders on, meaning right,
• 25:44
  Speaker 3: it's almost like I can only do the thing that's
• 25:48
  Speaker 3: on the sheet, and I'm not actually picking my head
• 25:51
  Speaker 3: up and feeling what's happening between us, or assessing how
• 25:55
  Speaker 3: the client is experiencing me in session, or assessing how
• 25:59
  Speaker 3: the client feels about the fact that I might be
• 26:01
  Speaker 3: challenging them in some ways in session. I'm not inquiring
• 26:05
  Speaker 3: about any of this, and I'm literally going, Okay, step one,
• 26:08
  Speaker 3: I do this. It's sort of a robotic implementation that's
• 26:11
  Speaker 3: well intentioned.
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, it makes too much sense. I just quickly
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: when I Yeah, I had been working in a clinic.
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: We were working with young kids who were showing early
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: signs of psychosis, so we had to administer this protocol.
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: This called the Structured Interview for Psychosis Risk Syndromes otherwise
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: not as YIPS. It's like forty five pages yep. And
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: you're sitting there. I had a colleague, and you're doing
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: exactly that thing, and you're going through this thing and
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: you're asking these questions and it was very rote, and
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: meanwhile you've got this fifteen sixteen year old kid in
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: front of you, totally checked out.
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I was like.
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: What am I doing? This is crazy? And I just
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: remember it one instance, just taking that SIPs, taking that
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: packet and just putting it down on the table. Yeah,
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: I just said, look, forget this. What is it that
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: your parents in the waiting room, the other therapists that
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: you've seen, what do they need to know? So just
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: completely switched the whole thing. And Yeah, that was really
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: important for me and significant. And that's an incredible course.
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: How did you come up with that course?
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: How did I come up with that course?
• 27:36
  Speaker 3: It was inspired by, quite frankly, a lot of the
• 27:41
  Speaker 3: clinicians that I've trained and provided consultation too over the years.
• 27:46
  Speaker 3: So I was, as I said, a CPT trainer and consultant,
• 27:48
  Speaker 3: first regionally within the VA, then nationally within the VA,
• 27:52
  Speaker 3: and then after I left VA, I ended up taking
• 27:54
  Speaker 3: that role with me and trained folks in community mental health,
• 27:58
  Speaker 3: in private hospitals, public hospital at all kinds of different settings.
• 28:01
  Speaker 3: And so I've worked with clinicians across the all over
• 28:04
  Speaker 3: the world, working in tons of different settings.
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: And what I have come.
• 28:10
  Speaker 3: To experience having the privilege of working with this many
• 28:13
  Speaker 3: clinicians and providing them this training and consultation is that
• 28:17
  Speaker 3: they their hearts are in the right place. They just
• 28:21
  Speaker 3: haven't been taught how right.
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: They know what.
• 28:25
  Speaker 3: They know that when they do the treatment in this way,
• 28:29
  Speaker 3: it's missing something. But they also know that when they
• 28:31
  Speaker 3: discard it and just focus on the relationship, it's it's necessary,
• 28:35
  Speaker 3: but it's not sufficient. So it's really about it's almost
• 28:39
  Speaker 3: like a gift to those clinicians and everyone else out
• 28:42
  Speaker 3: there saying, here's how I know you want to do it.
• 28:46
  Speaker 3: Here's actually moment by moment, whether it's initially at the intake,
• 28:51
  Speaker 3: initially at the assessment, at the case conceptualization, beginnings and
• 28:55
  Speaker 3: evolving when you are discussing informed consent, how to do that,
• 28:59
  Speaker 3: when you are treatment planning with the client, when you're
• 29:02
  Speaker 3: underway with the treatment, but maybe the urge to avoid
• 29:04
  Speaker 3: is coming up when you're terminating or graduating therapy. It's
• 29:07
  Speaker 3: really at every step along the way the how to
• 29:11
  Speaker 3: do that. And again I think it really was primarily
• 29:15
  Speaker 3: over the years motivated by clinicians that just are hungry.
• 29:19
  Speaker 3: They want to learn more, they want to learn how,
• 29:23
  Speaker 3: and these kinds of opportunities for learning just haven't existed.
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: Yet, right right, So you're working with mind science and
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: also in private practice. In private practice, you're doing consultation
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: what else?
• 29:39
  Speaker 3: Yeah, So I see a lot of patients. I love
• 29:42
  Speaker 3: clinical work. So I see a lot of folks that
• 29:44
  Speaker 3: have I would say probably a really solid mix of
• 29:49
  Speaker 3: maybe half and halfish, I would say, where half of
• 29:53
  Speaker 3: my clients meet criteria for post traumatic stress disorder from
• 29:57
  Speaker 3: a wide range of different experiences, and then the other
• 30:01
  Speaker 3: half is a conglomeration of either folks with OCD spectrum disorders,
• 30:06
  Speaker 3: so I work a lot with that and some folks
• 30:08
  Speaker 3: with anxiety disorders. And then I also work a lot
• 30:10
  Speaker 3: with people that have a lot of different comorbidities and complexities.
• 30:14
  Speaker 3: And so clinical work is my bread and butter. And
• 30:18
  Speaker 3: then I do a lot of training and consultation for
• 30:20
  Speaker 3: cognitive processing therapy and also for different organizations that have
• 30:24
  Speaker 3: sought me out. So I've done trainings for all kinds
• 30:27
  Speaker 3: of mental health startups, hospitals, etc. The National Center for
• 30:32
  Speaker 3: PTSD has been really fun to work with, and from there,
• 30:38
  Speaker 3: really the last couple of years, my entrepreneurial kind of
• 30:42
  Speaker 3: juices have been flowing even more, right, especially since we
• 30:46
  Speaker 3: found that there was this gap in training, and so
• 30:49
  Speaker 3: a lot of my time Now is also devoted to
• 30:52
  Speaker 3: growing Mind Science Collective with other great trainers that provide
• 30:57
  Speaker 3: courses on a whole range of different topics and experts,
• 31:00
  Speaker 3: tease areas, so clinical work. I also am an adjut professor,
• 31:04
  Speaker 3: so I do some teaching and some training.
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: I know what is time at night?
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah right?
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but I.
• 31:18
  Speaker 3: Thank you, No, I just I actually I really love
• 31:22
  Speaker 3: my work. I feel really energized by it.
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's it's clear, all right, Stephanie. How do people
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: learn more about you what you're doing? What's the best way?
• 31:31
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so people can check out our website Mindscience Collective
• 31:35
  Speaker 3: dot com. Check out our courses there, browse them, check
• 31:39
  Speaker 3: one out, and then if you're more interested in me,
• 31:43
  Speaker 3: you can look at CBT Palmbeach dot com. That's my
• 31:47
  Speaker 3: private practice website for specific training, consultation, above and beyond
• 31:51
  Speaker 3: mind science.
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: Okay, we'll have each of those linked up here at
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: the showness page at the Trauma Therapist Podcast dot com.
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: Stfney here. Appreciate you, Thank you.
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: So much, Thank you.
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: This is great, all right, take care