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