Latest / The Trauma Therapist / Episode 797: Hip Hop Therapy with J.C. Hall

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Episode 797: Hip Hop Therapy with J.C. Hall · The Trauma Therapist

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Or welcome back to the Trauma Therapist Podcast. My name is Gamiferson. My
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mission is to help trauma therapist be their incredible selves, to be human,
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to be real, not just a clinician. I'm a big believer in who
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we are is more important than what we know, and this requires cultivating authenticity,
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genuineness, and vulnerability, and that requires intention. Can learn more about
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my courses and workshops by going to the Trauma Therapist project dot com. That's
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the Trauma Therapist Project dot com. Let's get started. So five four,
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three, two and one, our folks, welcome back to the podcast today.
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Very excited to have my guest, Jc Hall. Jac welcome. Thank
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you very much as the honor and absolute privilege to be here. Appreciate that
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so. JC is a hip hop artist and therapist who runs a hip hop
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therapy studio program at Mott Haven Community High School, a quote unquote second chance
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school in the South Bronx. In twenty thirteen, JC assembled a professional recording
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studio in one of the school's old storage rooms to provide youth the opportunity to
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engage in the therapeutic process through writing, recording, producing, and performing their
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own music. The origins of the program are chronicled in the award winning short
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documentary titled Mott Haven, which showcases the efficacy of this program in addressing trauma
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and greek in the wake of a school's tragedy. After the passing of his
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friend and mentor, doctor Edward Edgar Tyson, the originator of hip Hop Therapy,
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JC created hip hop Theapy dot com to serve as a centralized resource for
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those interested in learning about his theory and application. Due to the impact of
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his work of the years, JC ie a National Jefferson Award for Outstanding Public
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Service benefiting the New York community in twenty twenty. I just learned that among
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those recipients have been OPRAH President, Jimmy Carter, Shaquille O'Neil. Jesus is
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not too bad man, Congratulations, welcome to the podcast. Did you say,
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did you say Jesus or Jesus not too bad? Jesus not too bad
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Jesus? And that no, thank you man. That that was a beautiful
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introduction and that was an honor that never wore award. I'm still not really
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sure how that happened, but it's a Bason honor. So before we go
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in here, Shore with the listeners. Where you're from originally and where you
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are currently. All Right, so I grew up in Long Island in Nassau
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County, and currently I live in Manhattan. Nice nice, I wind through.
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I was born in Manhattan, and I used to live in Long Island.
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How nice, Well, very cool. Long Island was well Shoreham and
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then West Hampstead. Okay, yeah, yeah, it's kind of kind of
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around. But look this you This is going to sound crazy to you,
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but this is why I do this podcast. You just have this. I
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don't even know you, but I can tell from uh, you know,
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the research I've been doing. You just emanate this genuineist and authenticity about the
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work you do. How did how did this start for you? Thank you
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man, I appreciate that. I that's that's a great question. I I
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I'm not really sure. I think maybe it's because I come to this first,
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maybe as an artist, and you know, I didn't necessarily get into
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clinical work, uh from an academic interest. That was probably a big piece
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as well it more being a personal interest, and I think having I feel
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like I kind of had a leg up on some clinicians, having been failed
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time and time again by the mental health system continuously throughout the majority of my
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life, and then eventually it helping save my life by ending up with a
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therapist who you know, I've been with for decades now, and I don't
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know, maybe that's maybe that's maybe that's a piece of it where it's it's
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it's given me a leg up in the sense that, yeah, I kind
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of know a lot of what we're taught in schools, and it's a lot
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of it is just it's so much more of the work is intuitive than written
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in these textbooks, and so much of it personally has failed me that I
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like see it reproduced. And even though you know, I never would wish
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that on anyone, I think, you know, the whole wounded healer concept,
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I think it kind of gives you a bit of an edge when it
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comes to, uh, connecting with with people and trying to work with them
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in a very genuine, authentic way. You've been open about your own experiences
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with mental health struggles and challenges. What was that like for you growing up?
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When did you realize this something's going on? I would say, man,
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I I would say probably so when I was when I was thirteen,
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I broke my femur in half. I fell out of a tree. I
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was a wild little kid, so I was kind of always a bit of
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an adrenaline junkie from day one, and then so I was in a body
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cast for two months over the summer. Super itchy. I don't know if
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anyone's seen one of those things, but yeah, you know, you got
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the hangers and all that, trying to itch everything just brutal. You know,
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in the summertime, you're a kid, you like to play. I
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was big into soccer, and even after I healed it, it was never
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the same again. But I you know, I remember getting put on ivy
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morphine at the time and the painkillers that I was prescribed afterwards, and taking
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it as you know, recommended. I was. I wasn't necessarily abusing it,
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but that I think was really that had a huge impact on me,
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even though I don't think I would have admitted it or even realized it at
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the time, because you know, being in recovery now, I was,
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you know, looking back, the first time I tried drugs and alcohol,
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I think I had a very different experience than maybe your average person. You
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know a lot of people they talk about how the first time they get drunk.
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Is it was a wild night. They kind of took a break,
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They're like, whoa, that was too much for me. It was like
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more and more and more and more more. Immediately, it was just like
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I fell in love with it. It was like, this is what I've
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been looking for every waking moment of my life. This this like hole within
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me, this hole in my soul felt complete for that split instance, you
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know what I mean. And I felt that with the drugs, and then
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I started to explore myself and got heavy into addiction. By age fifteen,
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I was doing cocaine every day. I mean I was drinking every day.
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I was. I had no intent of seeing sixteen. I was going to
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just crash and burn, getting involved in a lot of stuff and a lot
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of legal stuff. And let me just interrupt. You say, yeah,
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this hole in your soul? Yes, yes, describe this hole in your
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soul. Feeling less than feeling absolutely terminally unique is a common phrase, right,
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like feeling I am so broken that no one else, no matter what
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you've been through or your your experience, you could never possibly fathom or understand
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completely helpless, hopeless. So we went hand in hand with the major depression,
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right, and so a lot of self medicating, but that sense of
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complete helplessness, hopelessness, even though my family would never admit it, I
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know, I'm just a burden to them. There's I know if I was
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gone, that their lives would be easier. They wouldn't have to deal with
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me. They wouldn't have to pick me up, drag me around, bring
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put me in institutions. They wouldn't have to deal with all this if I
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just were gone, that kind of that whole of feeling like nothing's ever enough,
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I'm never gonna be enough. Uh. And the drugs really helping fill
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that hole, you know, really filling that void, at least temporarily,
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you know, up until as you start getting deeper and deeper into active addiction,
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they start working less and less, they feel it a little less and
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less. And yeah, that's that's how. I don't know if that makes
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sense, But maybe everybody to some extent feels some sort of disconnect from society.
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I don't know. Yeah, I don't know. Shoot me here.
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Uh, that's what I mean, what you're describing is uh, I mean,
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come on, it's it's it's that's very intense, and you let down
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this path. So what happens you go to school? Do you not go
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to school or what? So I was in school, and I was I
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was actually doing really well at I was. I was one of the lucky
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ones in that I didn't have to work too hard to get good grades,
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so I could kind of like still be drunk every day and kind of and
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pass and maybe I'd get c's instead of straight a's, but I was still
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managing. But the one thing that really kept me from the edge was when
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I really started getting into hip hop. I always really loved hip hop music
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and resonated with it, but fifteen, when I was at my lowest point,
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is when I first decided to take a crack at m seeing and actually
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writing, you know, and the one thing that now in retrospect I can
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I can piece together. But at the time it was it was like cool
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and dope to like rap about what you were going through and your struggles and
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talk about like I really resonated heavily with Eminem and Tupac, especially talking about
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you know, addiction. PAP's talking about that with his mom and dear Mama
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and you know, so really rapping about struggling with addiction and mental health,
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and it was a way for me to kind of structure and organize all that
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madness that was swirling around in my head, those like those thoughts of no
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one else could get me and put it in a way where it was it
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It was more strengths based, right, It wasn't like pathologically oriented. It
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was I'm just telling my story, wrapping it to my peers, and then
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to get feedback from my peers like damn, that's that's an ill bar man
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Like I that was really cool how you phrased that like that? And that
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was I like that and I can relate with that. I feel that way
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towards my circumstance or I have that kind of relationship with my parents or whatever
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it may be. So now and that's you know, in that moment,
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I'm no longer feeling so damn alone and like there's no point in me being
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here. It's like others around me, especially as a teen, my peers,
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especially right them. That resonating with them gave me a sense of like
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purpose and hope in a time when I didn't I didn't have any at all.
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How old were you at that point, fifteen fifteen, so still super
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young, had you at that point, like seen a therapist or had you
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been involved in uh yeah programs or what. Yeah. So at fifteen,
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I went to My parents used to corner me and corner and always like go
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to you know, therapy, therapy because my younger brother was really struggling with
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depression as well. It's pretty heavy in my family and he had seen a
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psychiatrist and it had been helpful for him at that point in time. And
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my parents were always cornering me and trying to get me to go, and
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I was always no, no, no. One day, they kind of
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caught me at that age fifteen. They caught me at a point of just
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utter, you know, just solo, you know, suicidal plans, ready
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to go, and something in me just said, fine, I'll go.
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You know, I'm not really sure what, but something in me said I'll
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go. So I went and he put me on any depressants. And I
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have to say that initial interaction helped save my life there, even though I
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didn't have any relationship with him. Just him giving me a diagnosis and just
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saying like, you're depressed. There's a name for this major depression right like
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that for me also helped change the game again, because going back to that
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feeling terminally unique, I'm screwed. Nobody could ever understand it. I can't
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understand it. How can you fix something you can't understand that there's no term
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for, you know, in my mind, there was no term for this
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illness that I had, this sickness going on within me. So that but
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that was about as far as therapy got me. It helped right in the
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sense of the medication made actually a world of difference within those first couple of
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weeks in terms of just bringing me back from the brink of suicide. I
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remember noticing the first time I noticed them as we're working. I used to
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walk through the hallways of high school and I could barely get from like door
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to door without thinking, everybody's staring at me, everybody's judging me. I'm
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such a piece of garbage, Like why am I here? Like just constant,
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cyclical, unable to you know. And I first noticed maybe three weeks
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into being on an antidepressant. Wow, I just made it down the whole
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hallway and didn't have one of those thoughts, who you know what I mean,
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like huge difference, which might sound normal, you know, but to
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me that was huge after that though, and I was also still getting,
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you know, using and supplementing with illicit substances, so it messed all that
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up. You can't really do both, it's gonna interfere. And then the
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therapist, the psychiatrist, he didn't really we didn't really connect, and I
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think he saw things that I saw as a life vest like hip hop and
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rapping and my friends and the people I was hanging out with. He saw
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that as a part of the pathology. He saw that as here's this kid
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who's trying to be street. Here's this kid who is trying to put on
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a certain persona and trying to be something he's not, and that's what I
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need to like get out of them, as opposed to seeing, oh,
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you're finding community through this music and this culture, and you're connecting with it
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in a very deep human way, even though you might not look I might
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not look like someone traditionally who would write something within it is resonating deeply and
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giving me purpose and a reason to keep going. So that hip hop side
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was very much pathologized. And at that point there's no I have nothing to
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talk about with someone who you know what I mean. So it was I
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was very shut down. I would literally go sleep on his couch. That
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was the essence of my relationship with the psychiatrist for the first two years fifteen
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to seventeen. Right right, So let's jump to when you decide I want
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to pursue I want to become a therapist. What did that look like?
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When did that happen? How did that happen for you? It was a
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last resort, It was a plan, b man. I always wanted to
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wrap. I was wanted to make music, but I was also always fascinated
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with the human mind and psychology. So I got my major, my bachelor's
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in science and psychology at Foredom and I afterwards the best job I could get
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was delivering pizza, which I loved because I could just it's right around all
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day and listen to music. But long term, it was like what am
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I doing with this degree? Like this BS degree? I got to make
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something of it, and I like helping people or trying to. Like in
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my music, the stuff I was writing, a lot of it is about
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confronting my own inner demons in order to put it out there and be vulnerable
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and try to kick some of the shame and let others know it's okay,
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the same way artists I grew up on did for me. You know,
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I was they didn't know me from a hole in the wall, but I
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could sit and throw on this person's record, and man, they know what
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I'm going through. But look at them now, like they're you know,
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they've been through all of this and but they're they're on top of their game
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and everybody respects them. And you know, so I've always wanted to do
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that with my own music in a way where you know, I think music
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can grip people in a way that just talk can't. You know. So
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that's always been an avenue that I wanted to pursue. But you know,
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I was like, let me try to make it as tangible as possible as
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well, you know, which would be therapy. But my my, my
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more traditional view of therapy was kind of more laying on a couch one on
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one. It wasn't very it didn't you know. I wanted something a bit
16:06
more radical. And then I learned about social work, and so I was
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I was like, you know, let me apply this to grad school for
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social work. Apply I'll apply back it Fordham, the one one school,
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and you know that I just graduated from the year prior and h were you
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this time? No? Okay, so yeah, big jump, right.
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So fifteen to twenty I was in and out of rehabs and uh, psychiatric
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institutions, So a lot of back and forth. I get sober for a
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bit, relapse, sober relapse. And the last time I went away was
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for a year, and that really did the trick. Yeah, I took
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a whole year off halfway through college and and it was lucky enough to have
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the opportunity to do that. You know, a lot of people don't have
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that opportunity forever indebted for that, so to be able to go away and
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and uh, for some reason that time number seven, it clicked. I
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don't know why, but something, you know, I had enough. And
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so yeah, this month it's been sixteen years man without a drink or drug.
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So twenty was the twenty was the age. So went back to school,
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finished out college. So it was probably a couple of years clean and
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sober at this point and on a pretty stable dose of meds and consistently seeing
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my psychiatrist and in a good space. But yeah, so I found out
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I got into the school, I got into Fordham and the grad school and
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I was I was like, damn, I was really hoping they would reject
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me. I only applied to the one school, Like I really, I
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really didn't want to go back. I wanted to pursue my artistry. But
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that wasn't like popping off and it's it's hard to work in nine to five
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and pursue your dreams as an artist. So that seemed like the last resort.
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Turns out, you know, I get in. I'm like, damn,
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all right. I started having this existential crisis and I hear someone talk
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about a friend who's a music therapist, and I was like, wait,
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hold up, Like what's music therapy? What you know? So I start
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researching it. I get a new wind in my sales. I find out,
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you know, some programs in the city. Oh, this is so
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cool. I go and I start looking up eligibility requirements and you have to
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know how to sing and play three instruments, none of which I know how
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to do. Yeah. I can't read sheet music. I can't, you
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know, I have no formal training, which is also one of the beautiful
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things about rapping and rap music. It's very democratized, like if you can
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speak, you can wrap. You don't need class and beat making, right,
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So that wasn't seen as a form of music in the traditional structures of
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music therapy. So again another instance in my life where I felt like I
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was being told by the systems and structures at large, like you're not good
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enough, You're not what we're looking for, you know what I mean.
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So I'm super bummed and I in music therapy in the Google search, I
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cut out music and put in hip hop on a whim, and I think
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it's very unlikely anything's going to pop up. I was like, this is
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stupid, but whatever, Desperate times call for desperate measures. So enter and
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all these like articles keep popping up, like and I'm like, oh,
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man, peer review journal articles, hip hop therapy is a not only is
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it a coined phrase, this is like an evidence based practice. And this
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dude, doctor Edgar Tyson, who is this guy? It's just I've got
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the all these articles and I'm scouring him and like reading them, and it
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turns out he's a professor at that one school that I'd just been accepted to,
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the guy who like founded this Yeah, man, crazy crazy serendipity.
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And it was a moment in my life where it felt like all the puzzle
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pieces just kind of finally fell together, like it started to make sense why
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I was where I was and had gone through what I'd gone through, and
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whether it happened that way on purpose or not some divine order or simply the
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opportunity presented itself, and I better make sure I seize that, you know.
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So I hit the ground run and I entered you know. I sent
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him up a novel basically saying what hip hop did for me, how I
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saved my li life, how I've always seen it as therapeutic. Could I
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shadow him? Could I get whatever? Anything? And he was just like
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the most humble man I ever met. He was just so caring and giving
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and was like, yeah, of course, man, like you know,
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and like met up with me. And first time I met him, he
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pulled up and a Yankee fitted and a gold a silver crosschain, and I
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was like, oh off rip, I knew like I'm gonna click with this
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guy, you know, And and he just embodied hip hop, you know,
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and and we clicked right away, man. And so you know,
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he was my professor throughout my mentor close friend, collaborator. We were working
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on a book together before he passed, and he did. He just a
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sudden heart attack in fifty four. It was yeah, it was it was
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wild, man, it was. It was really tragic, and it was
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like on the heels of my of my brother's death, and it was like,
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I don't know if I've been the same since. To be fully honest
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with you, it was a bit of a one two punch. But I
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haven't like revisited any of those writing since, maybe because of some of that
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stuff that's attached to it, that emotional weight. A lot of his article,
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his stuff got lost. It was supposed to be like a twelve chapter
21:11
textbook on hip hop therapy. I was going to contribute four. He had
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about eight. So he asked me to be like a co author with him,
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and then a lot of his stuff just never resurfaced. That's where he
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passed. Wow. So just to go back a little, so he was
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already at the school you were in apply, Yeah, the one school in
21:33
the world. Man, unreal, All right, So this is I mean,
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this is amazing. So let's kind of dial in here to this program
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you created. How does this happen? So it was my second year of
21:48
my clinical internship. I ended up at this the school and that I'm currently
21:53
at to this day, running year eleven of the program. But so my
21:59
second year, I I end up at this second Chance High school for kids
22:02
who are overaged and undercredited, either because you know, there are at least
22:07
two or more years behind in high school, either because of they've been locked
22:11
up foster care, dropped out, decided that just don't want to go.
22:15
Usually pretty extreme extenuating circumstances. And I clicked with the kids immediately. It
22:26
was very just over hip hop, like you know, it was at that
22:30
point, you know, I was already aware of hip hop therapy and that
22:34
was my goal, Like I want to be a hip hop therapist, That's
22:37
what I want to do. And just connecting with kids over our love with
22:41
the music and relationships starting like that. And then oh you're also an artist,
22:45
Oh okay, oh wait, you know how to like engineer and make
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beats? Like you could help me create some music. Yeah, I can
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help you with that. Let's come after school. I'll be in this office.
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And then the principal and administration seeing like these kids normally that they couldn't
22:59
get in the door, now they can't kick, they can't get them out.
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They're like in there till six pm with me and we're just making music,
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and kindly, what is what is was he doing? You know?
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And then you know asking me, Hey, if I give you a bit
23:11
of a budget, you think you could put together a music studio to let
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the kids record. And I was like, of course, I've been doing
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this for you know, since I was fifteen making my own music. I
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could, I would love to do that. That would be ideal. So
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I, you know, I put together a budget. It kept increasing,
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the kids kept getting more and more excited, so the principal was like,
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oh, all right, make it. You know this amount, all right?
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Double that all right? You know, it kept going up and ended
23:37
up building like a professional recording studio in an old storage closet back in twenty
23:42
fourteen, twenty thirteen, and uh, yeah, man, and just immediately
23:48
having results and connecting with youth who normally were not having h they were not
23:55
connecting with any other adults. And we're usually getting in fights or call in
24:00
some you know, some sort of issue is coming about. And uh and
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that's really what has also helped sustain it, the continued kind of results.
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So since it's kind of doubled in size and investment. Now now we have
24:11
this big, like L shaped room, top of the line, production equipment,
24:15
recording equipment, software, everything you would find in a in a standard
24:19
studio and like one downtown Manhattan or something like. We have that and it's
24:26
crazy. So what in terms of like results or the therapy part, I
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mean people listening. I'm sure music to so many of us is amazing and
24:38
quote unquote therapeutic. But when you when you think about hip hop therapy,
24:45
what does that mean? Hip hop therapy? Yeah? Yeah, so it's
24:48
essentially incorporating the inherently cathartic components of the culture within itself with more well established
24:56
therapeutic modality. So like, for example, let's take C or DBT.
25:03
You know, if we're sitting the way it was kind of initially first started
25:04
by doctor Tyson. If we're sitting in analyzing lyrics, say I have them
25:08
bring their favorite song and certain things come up in the lyrics. We can
25:14
then have a discussion about it. How does this relate with you? We
25:17
start building rapport. Then we can start getting into some quote unquote cognitive distortions
25:22
or how thoughts, feelings and emotions and behavior are all, you know,
25:26
interlinked, and then so it's kind of started as like a jumping point,
25:30
but then when you view the music itself as therapeutic, especially in terms of
25:34
you know, talking about trauma work and working with individuals who have either been
25:38
victimized, have been exposed to tremendous amounts of gang violence, street violence.
25:44
Now you're bringing in the body right now, you're bringing in the rhythm and
25:48
the power of that to kind of from a neurophysiological standpoint, to regulate the
25:52
nervous systems to then be able to have these higher order, insight oriented conversations
25:59
that are traditionally seen as the goal of therapy. I guess DBT would be
26:03
another that you could find overlaps in. So when I'm working with a kid,
26:07
right and so they're writing out a song, right, So they're a
26:12
piece of almost like narrative therapy in hip hop. It's it's an artist storytelling.
26:17
You're telling your story, talking about where you've been, what you've seen,
26:19
what you've been through, where you're going, right, trying to reshape
26:22
that narrative, and the therapist from behind, like my job is to help
26:26
assist you know what I mean, to help kind of guide and and help
26:30
really further operationalize what's already inherently cathartic within it. Right writing down your story.
26:34
You don't need a therapist to do that, you know what I mean,
26:38
But working with them maybe to challenge them a little bit or to try
26:41
to, you know, give a bit of a directive that can help facilitate,
26:45
you know, further growth or healing. But so then say, then
26:48
they get in the booth when you're writing and you're and you're rapping, and
26:52
you're bopping and you're performing. Now you now movements involved. Now, rhythm
26:56
is involved. Even though we're talking about language still just words, the words
27:03
themselves like are units of rhythm in terms of stressed and unstressed syllables, like
27:08
even when you think about you know, Shakespeare and iambic pentameter. Right,
27:14
there's movement and rhythm embedded within the words and the way it's phrased. It's
27:18
the same with rap. Right, So you're writing, but each unit of
27:22
rhythm has verbal significance, So you're you're connecting that top down and bottom up,
27:27
right, like the words in it of themselves, they're telling a story.
27:32
There's cognition, but it's delivered in a way where it's body based and
27:36
very grounding and centralizing. And then you're doing that in a booth, and
27:41
now we can start talking about mindfulness, right, and maybe not knowing you
27:45
are, So are you excuse me for interrupting, but are you making certain
27:52
components of what you're talking about? Are you making this conscious to them during
27:56
these classes? Or it depends, like I think, you know, yeah,
28:03
sometimes it'll kind of be made a bit more explicit after the fact,
28:08
but there's plenty of times where I don't think it even needs to be made,
28:12
Like I don't have to necessarily spell out the power of diaformatic breathing or
28:18
lists certain results of certain studies to experience it. I think as long as
28:22
they're experiencing it. So when you're rapping, right, you really are using
28:26
a lot of breath, and diaformatic breathing is really it's essential to be able
28:30
to get off as many bars as you can. It's big and singing as
28:33
well, right, and that being something that can help calm you know,
28:37
the vegus nerve help calm your stress response system. And then them experiencing that
28:42
firsthand, so their first time in a booth and I'm kind of giving them
28:45
some tips on how to breathe and how to center themselves. They do that,
28:51
and they see the results in their vocal performance. It's in real time.
28:53
They're like, oh, man, I'm sounding a lot better. My
28:56
throat isn't as tight, I'm not as closed off. And then yeah,
28:59
like so, and then you continue to encourage that, like you see how
29:02
it kind of calms you that that way of breathing. And then when we
29:06
go on stage we do showcases at the end of every year, that's when
29:10
you really are putting a lot of that into practice in a much larger way,
29:14
not just this microcosm. Now you're on stage in front of a bunch
29:15
of other people and utilizing those techniques to kind of your breath, to calm
29:19
and center yourself. So I think the I think the connections being made,
29:27
even if they can't necessarily say it back in therapy speak, you know what
29:30
I mean, Like they might not be able to, but they know if
29:33
I breathe this way, I can help kind of center myself a bit,
29:37
kind of calm down a little bit, and that will help me perform better,
29:41
and that will help me feel better, and I'll maybe try that next
29:42
time you get aggravated in class, or next time you're you're arguing with your
29:48
mom, or you know, like trying to find parallels similar with mindfulness.
29:52
Like I won't necessarily give them a diet trab about that, but when I'm
29:56
trying to teach effective creative writing, I'm telling them you really need to be
30:00
aware of the Like, what are you saying that's unique? Everything's kind of
30:04
been said and done under the sun, right, how are you describing your
30:07
circumstances and the environment around you in a way that it's different and you're not
30:12
just doing something everyone else does. The way you do that is you need
30:15
to be super aware and attuned to your surrounding. So what's going on,
30:21
how like the light is shimmering, how the sound of the pavement when you're
30:23
walking on it, certain little details and tapping in and so really trying to
30:30
help encourage and harness that skill as well and build that up, and all
30:34
of those I think are happening when you're during creative artistic development. So it
30:41
can be very much presented in a way where it's not seen so as so
30:45
intrusive, where it's like you have a problem, you need to learn DBT
30:49
skills. It's more like you have a strength and you want to keep harnessing
30:53
and building that you can use DBT skills, you know what I mean.
30:56
It's kind of a slight perspective shift. So are you are you viewed as
31:06
do they? Do they your students think of you as a therapist or or
31:10
what? That's a good question, man, I would I wish I could.
31:12
I wish I could ask some of them right now. I think some
31:15
of them you're social worker, yeah, social worker, yeah, clinic clinical
31:19
social workers, So they they see me as a social worker. Some will
31:26
refer to me as their therapists, some will call me their counselor some will
31:30
just call me the studio guy, you know. And it's and uh,
31:34
the one the one plus I think of also like saying like yeah, this
31:37
is how therapy is or this is how it should be or could be.
31:41
It helps, it's it's helpful in attempting to destigmatize it. When they move
31:47
on, right, like when they graduate and uh after termination, right,
31:51
there's many of them will continue to need services or could benefit from that.
31:57
And a big part at a big struggle in my work is trying to say
32:01
like you know, this is also therapy, Like I know there you see
32:06
this as different. There's others out there who might not do it the exact
32:10
same way but can get the same results hopefully or some you know something work
32:15
towards those goals that you have, and I want you to be able to
32:19
do that and that, but that can be a struggle. I think some
32:22
of the the hardest things for me are when they graduate and move on and
32:27
knowing that there aren't like you can't just dial up your local hip hop therapist,
32:34
you know what I mean, like some you know, so it's it's
32:37
you know, the goal is really to get them set up in a place
32:39
where they've developed that therapeutic relationship with the culture itself that they can kind of
32:45
sustain it without without someone else, without a therapist. That's a bit idealistic,
32:51
you know, like a lot of them, you know, people need
32:52
help, and I'm speaking as one of them, you know, like sometimes
32:55
lifelong, so that that can be So I think, you know, there's
33:00
the that's the pro to kind of iterating like I'm a I'm a therapist.
33:06
But then there's also the potential con of that scaring kids off. Uh,
33:08
So I don't. I don't like dwell on it, but I don't hide
33:12
from it, you know what I mean. Like it's like I'll introduce you,
33:15
I'm JC social worker. Here, I'm a therapist. Let's make some
33:20
music. You know what I mean? It's what do you? I mean?
33:23
You have this incredible uh sense about you that just cuts right to the
33:31
core again, this this authenticity. How did you learn how to engage with
33:40
people in this way? Well? First, thank you. I I don't
33:50
know, man, I I don't know if it's I think a lot of
33:53
it is intuitive and primarily maybe like growing up with my friends and making music
34:01
with them and recording them and encouraging them and them doing the same for me.
34:07
You know, I think I people held space for me, and I
34:12
think that was mirrored in a way where I kind of understand how I want
34:16
to be able to hold space for others. You know, whether it was
34:21
a sponsor for a twelve step program, a therapist, a house manager,
34:24
if I'm in a halfway house, you know, they're just always being one
34:29
person who did it better than all the others, you know what I mean,
34:34
who really helped hold space in a way where I felt seen and it
34:37
wasn't about them, you know, like some people in the helping professions I
34:43
had found, it was more about them hearing themselves talk, you know what
34:47
I'm saying, Like, you know, it wasn't necessarily like what do you
34:52
as the individual need, you know what I mean? And I think really
34:54
just trying to see each person as an individual. And I might have a
34:59
specific approach that I want to do, but maybe maybe you don't like that
35:02
approach, maybe you don't like hip hop, and we're not going to use
35:05
that, you know what I mean. Like, it's really just trying to
35:07
get to know that person. I think in the same way I always wish
35:10
someone would try to understand me and try to really hear me out and ask
35:15
probing questions, you know what I mean. I think I think when it's
35:19
when it's modeled for you, maybe that's where maybe it's it's easier to do
35:23
when you've seen how it should be done. And I don't think a lot
35:25
of people have been lucky enough as me as I have to have people in
35:31
my life who have really modeled that to the extent where I'm still here,
35:37
you know, the the you know in the bio part of the description,
35:43
of the school in the South Bronx, you know, is a second chance
35:46
school, And I mean that just brings up a lot of I think ideas
35:55
for a lot of people, like these kids who've probably for the most part,
36:00
are coming from poor backgrounds. Probably most of them, if not all
36:04
of them, have had some kind of trauma in their lives, and I
36:07
think for them, and correct me if I'm wrong, but to encounter someone
36:12
like yourself who listens to them and makes it about them, it's probably like
36:19
wow, mmmmm. They probably initially they probably don't even trust that. Who
36:24
what do you care about me? Yeah? You know, yeah, they
36:29
think I'm like a fed trying to just like get the details of the street
36:31
activity so I could call it cops. No, one hundred percent, man,
36:36
They're not used to it. I don't think any of us are really
36:37
used to it. It's it's a very foreign thing for someone to be one
36:42
hundred percent there for you. And even the stuff I've disclosed, like in
36:45
the film that Modhaven or even just here today, like it doesn't come up.
36:50
I don't talk to them about it. It's it's unless it's like necessary
36:53
to somehow move the work forward. It's about them. Like I'm there for
36:58
them, you know what I mean, And so as far as they're concerned,
37:00
I'm just a dude who likes who wants to get to know them,
37:04
Like they don't know if I've had similar experiences, And it doesn't really even
37:07
matter, you know what I mean. It's really not about can I relate?
37:10
Can I not relate. It's like I want to understand whether I relate
37:15
or not. I still I just want to understand. Like, so just
37:19
you know, to help walk me through this as we kind of wind down
37:22
here, I'm curious about your perspective of the current state of therapy. You
37:32
know, on this podcast we've talked a lot about different modalities and trauma modalities
37:37
more specifically, But when you think of quote unquote therapy and providing therapy for
37:44
yourself and how it's provided at large in our communities here, what do you
37:51
think of What is your perception of it? A tremendous cultural disconnect. I
37:57
would say that's that's pretty much, uh. And I know there's been talks
38:00
and pushes within the field for a long time to encourage cultural competence and viewing
38:07
things outside of a Western framework. And I don't know, I don't.
38:13
I don't. I don't see much of it, you know what I mean?
38:16
And I think, you know, one of the beautiful things of hip
38:22
about hip hop is the way it's cross cultural implications and the way it's it's
38:27
taken root globally because it's tapping into something innately human within all of us,
38:30
no matter your geography, race, ethnicity, religion, socioeconomic status. There's
38:36
something inherently within it that's tapping into the human spirit. And the fact that
38:40
that's not like a standard that everybody's learning about that if you're not of it
38:45
or from it, or have no exposure to it, to me, is
38:49
is baffling, you know what I mean. Like it's like I think hip
38:52
hop therapy is very much seen as very niche, right, it's a very
38:58
and it is as of now, very niche approach. And but to me,
39:02
it's like baffling how it it's it hasn't been embraced more so, I
39:12
mean that also sounds ungrateful in the sense of even in the past decade as
39:16
a field, hip hop therapy has made tremendous strides and being put on stages
39:21
where it just never would have before. But it's also the resonance of hip
39:27
hop culture that every therapist doesn't have some sort of exposure to that in order
39:32
to meet people in a culturally informed way, even if they're very different,
39:37
is frustrating, you know what I mean. And it's and I and I
39:40
don't know of anything else that cuts across culture as effectively as hip hop.
39:45
There might be, you know, other very specific manifestations that I'm just unaware
39:49
of because culturally I'm not attached to it. But yeah, it's it's a
39:54
it can be frustrating because it's like I feel like there's this answer and so
40:00
many people can use this, you know what I mean, like so many
40:02
people, and it's just not spreading quick enough and I don't. It's frustrating
40:07
because I don't know what to do about it. And I try to speak
40:09
out about it as much as I can and push it forward as much as
40:13
I can, and there still feels like a lot of resistance, and it's
40:16
seeing I don't know if it seemed more as a fad or it's just it
40:21
doesn't seem to be taking as seriously as I feel it should be. Again,
40:24
without trying to sound ungrateful, for you know, the tremendous opportunities.
40:30
I have gotten to push the word forward and try to really you know,
40:34
and gotten great responses and feedback. It's just I just know how much,
40:38
you know, people can benefit from it, and how many people are reaching
40:42
out to me all the time through my website, like can you hook me
40:44
up with a hip hop therapist in this area? This area? My son's
40:47
going through this, my daughter's going through this, and I don't have people,
40:50
you know, to refer them to. The infrastructure just isn't there.
40:54
And as one person, like, it's like, I don't know how to
40:58
build out that infrastructure. You know, Jessey Hollman, you are one freakin
41:04
inspiring dude. Gotta have you, love to have you. I would love
41:07
that. What's the best way for people to reach out to you get in
41:13
contact with you? I would say check out hip Hop Theapy dot com.
41:15
There's a form submission on there. Just yeah, reach out. I'll try
41:19
to get back to you as quick as I can. And and yeah,
41:22
I would just encourage you to check out the site. You know, I
41:24
made it for my mentor just to really help solidify further his legacy and try
41:29
to just spread free information. Have it be a centralized resource so people can
41:34
just start diving in, uh into the literature and start applying it immediately,
41:40
you know, to some extent. Awesome, and we'll have that link up
41:44
here at the show notes page at the Trauma theaporispodcast dot com. Jesse Holman,
41:47
awesome, great meeting you. Thank you so much for being here.
41:51
You too, Thank you so much, guy. I really appreciate this opportunity
41:53
for real. All right, we'll be in touching an inkeday at Hasten to rounding