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Guest: Dr. Barach on Regression, Treatment, and ACEs · System Speak: Complex Trauma and Dissociation

• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Over:
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: Welcome to the System Speak Podcast, a podcast about Dissociative Identity Disorder. If you are new to the podcast, we recommend starting at the beginning episodes and listen in order to hear our story and what we have learned through this endeavor. Current episodes may be more applicable to long time listeners and are likely to contain more advanced topics, emotional or other triggering content, and or reference earlier episodes that provide more context to what we are currently learning and experiencing. As always, please care for yourself during and after listening to the podcast. Thank you.
• 0:59
  Doctor. Peter Barish attended Johns Hopkins University and the University of Michigan. He received a PhD in clinical psychology from Case Western Reserve University. He is clinical senior instructor in psychiatry at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine in Cleveland, Ohio. Since 1984, he has been in private practice in the Cleveland area with Horizons Counseling Services.
• 1:27
  His clinical approach is relational and supportive. He specializes in working with people with dissociative disorders and adult survivors of trauma. He also works with depression and anxiety. He is trained in EMDR and clinical hypnosis. Doctor.
• 1:44
  Barish is the author of scientific and clinical articles on dissociation and dissociative identity disorder. He is a past president of the International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation. Within the dissociative disorders field, he is known for having first highlighted the link between disordered attachment and the origins of DID. He also chaired the committee that produced the first set of treatment guidelines for adults with DID in 1993, and has participated in revisions of the guidelines. In addition to his writings on Doctor.
• 2:20
  Barish served as a script consultant for broadcast media and as a reviewer for several journals. He has also served as an expert witness in civil and criminal matters. In addition to maintaining a private practice, Doctor. Barish currently works for the Cleveland VA Medical Center, where he evaluates Veterans who have applied for disability compensation. He is not appearing on this podcast as a VA employee.
• 2:45
  The opinions he expresses are his own and do not necessarily represent the Department of Veterans Affairs or its policies. Welcome back, Doctor. Barish. Hello. Good morning.
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: Good. How are you?
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: I'm okay. We are between tornadoes right now.
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: So Oh, boy. We are we are getting thunderstorms this afternoon. So, some of your leftover tornadoes hit Southern Ohio, or Central Ohio yesterday and caused a lot of damage, and we're getting a lot of rain this afternoon. So sorry you went through all that. That that was just horrible.
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: It's it's really been rough, and we have a scary two days that are starting right about now.
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: So Oh, no. I I really loved listening to you with your kids on the podcast. That was just so beautiful how you supported them.
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: Oh, it's they've just been through so much. And if we're going to learn, we want to share with them what we're learning, you know, and go through this together and acknowledge the things that they need and are experiencing the same way as we're learning to do for ourselves.
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: That's great.
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: We're trying anyway.
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: Okay. Sounds like it's going well from what their reactions were.
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: They're pretty adorable.
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah. They were.
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: We have several things we wanna talk about today. What do you wanna talk about first?
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: Well, you mentioned about the the person's question about regression. Oh. Do you wanna go over what that was, and maybe I can give you my perspective on it?
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: Sure. So question had to do with when you're making progress in therapy and you can see evidence of that through experiences like being more co conscious than in the past markers like that. And then when stressors come up, feeling like there's some regression, like it's harder to communicate again or more isolated from the others again. And I thought it was an interesting question, and so I forwarded it to you with their permission and said that we would talk to you about it, and you agreed, which I appreciated. And then we kind of have had this similar experience this week with all the storms because it's been ten days now.
• 5:12
  And while we know that these are just like storms and it just is happening to everyone, it sort of has put us over the top of like our like coping skills. Like we can't keep up with the amount of input that's coming. I don't know how else to explain it.
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: Okay. I just found the question that you you forwarded to me. Do you want me to read it or summarize it?
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: Oh, that would be excellent.
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: Okay. We have been trying to find good information on progression of DID as you age in the nonintegrated population. So this was suggested to you as a topic. The reason we are asking is that our symptom was highly our system was highly co conscious. Well, that term is probably not 100%.
• 5:57
  We have described it as like the Borg from Star Trek, so more of a collective consciousness. We were all still there and are aware of our individuality, but we're working and acting like a single functioning unit with no memory disruption. We managed that for years until there were unexpected stressors, family stuff. We were surrounded by becoming less of a mix and separating. So the question, is whether this is normal or is this a regression of sorts.
• 6:25
  Is all the gains we made lost, or is this just a natural part of DID, and it will return to the collective on collective consciousness? I think that's a pretty accurate summary of what, of what this person wrote. So
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: Does it say do you have who wrote the email?
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah. JC and Carly
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: From the Shadow Star System.
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: Okay. So we're answering the question from the Shadow Star System. Got it.
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: If you're listening, hi, Jay Z and Carly.
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: Thank you, Jay Z and I thought it was a good question.
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: I thought so too. So there isn't much data on this, and I'd get to the data that I found later. But my experience is that as someone's stress level goes up and they have a history of dissociation as a survival mechanism, they get more dissociative as a way of coping with the stressor. It's usually temporary. It's sort of like you use the tools you have and that one comes to hand quickly because it's been used for so long.
• 7:36
  It's served the person well enough that they were able to survive whatever they dealt with. And it's also biologically or neurobiologically based to go into that place under extreme stress. So the stress hormones begin to operate and they affect memory and connection within and the ability to listen within. If the stressors are external, it makes more sense to focus on where the source of perceived danger is, right? Then it makes sense that there would be less focusing on internal issues and connections and talking, and more focus in the short run for what do we have to do to survive this or get through it?
• 8:22
  Kind of like, you know, what you did in the tornado for yourself and your family.
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: That makes so much sense.
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: So I don't think it's a regression. It's just using the tools on hand in an emergency. So as the stress level goes back down and things are calmer and people inside can breathe and look around and begin to look for each other and pull together a bit, then things could settle back to where they were.
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: This is actually really helpful because I feel like we just have gone through this in a positive way and a negative way. And that may not even be the right way to say it. But, like, the positive experience was we went on this trip with the two girls that met us and we had this weekend away. And it was a positive experience. There was no drama on the trip other than the adventures that we had, like, together.
• 9:14
  But there was no conflict. They were not intrusive. They have good boundaries. They are healthy people. They're good friends in those ways.
• 9:21
  But it was so overstimulating and so much to be that connected with new people that we have completely shut down all other social contacts. It was hard for me to reply to your email just to set this up, and it was hard to go to church with the family on Sunday. It was I cannot get on the Facebook groups for the support things. Like I we just everything else has shut down. Like the children and the family.
• 9:54
  Like if there was going to be a two week period for tornadoes where no one even tried to contact us, this is the perfect time because we are so hunkered down. It was like it used up all of those skills. Even though nothing bad happened, it would everything is shut down.
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: It took everything you had just to get through it and deal with the immediate stress in front of you.
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: Right. Even though it was positive stress. Like, makes me think about the holidays and good holidays. Like, people always say, and and I don't mean in a ritual abuse kind of way, but in a just normal, like, gatherings of for normal people, so to speak. Like people are
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: like Like a birthday or something.
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: Right. Right. Like that this is a it's a good gathering. You're excited to see everyone, but good stress is still stress. That's what that felt And then we came home and these tornadoes and the storms and now the flooding.
• 10:51
  And so, like, there is no workbook happening. There is no therapy happening. There's no journaling happening. It is literally about are the kids safe? Do we have food?
• 11:05
  Where are the keys in the wallet? And does everyone have a helmet on? Like Oh So what you say really makes sense. Like, because we're focused on what the other danger is and recovering from what the stressor is, whether that's a good stress just that's new or whether it's an actual danger like the storms. So it's not that we've quit therapy or have failed therapy or lost that ground entirely.
• 11:34
  We're just dealing with something else right now.
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And, you know, when you go through a storm, the clouds clear, and then you have to sort of recharge your batteries, take stock of where you are, and get yourself grounded, I think, so you can allow yourself to peek out and see beyond the immediate danger that you had to focus on for all that time. So don't think it's a regression. It's just like this is an emergency. What do you do?
• 12:07
  You know, I used to work in a building that I worked in the court building down town. I think it's like 21 stories. And one day we had a bomb threat and there was no bomb. Another day we had a fire drill. And everybody you just put down your pencils and you leave and you go down the stairs and you get out of there.
• 12:24
  And then you that's the only thing to focus on is where's the fire exit and where do we go where it's safe? And that's kind of what you had to do for yourself and your family. So now the all clear signal is coming, I hope, without any more damage to to the area that you're in. And then you you can look around, take stock, and see what helps you feel safe and how you can connect to that.
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: That really gives some perspective because I didn't know how to answer that when we have relied on now time is safe, and now time is not safe right now. There's a tornado in the sky.
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: So how do I
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: It seems different. You know? Now time is safe, but the danger to you isn't personal the way it is when you grow up in horrifying family.
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: So it sure affects you, but it isn't about you. It's just it's feel so different. I mean, how can you blame yourself for a tornado or feel any sense of shame about what the weather has done?
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: And if I know in the workbook we're about to do this section, it's about all the basic skills like sleeping and eating and things like that. And we're not getting to eat or not getting to sleep because there's sirens going off every twenty minutes or every couple of hours or whatever. And so even those basic things to restore energy or recover, we have not had opportunity to do that. Or when they talk about self care or whatever my self care right now is cleaning up trash out of the yard. There's we're not too self We're still in survival mode because it has been you know, self care is how far are we from the levee that's about to break?
• 14:15
  Like, It's a whole different thing when you're still in the zone, which reminds me sort of about some of the veterans that you've worked with or that we've had on the podcast or are friends with who have trauma issues. And it's a very different thing when you're still out in the field or when it's PTSD when you come home.
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: Absolutely. Okay. So another part of the answer that I want to look at with you is what happens with people who don't go to therapy and integrate all the parts into one, which is what has been considered by many people in the field to be one desirable outcome. I think there's more acceptance now that there are other possible outcomes of therapy. But there are some studies looking at how frequent dissociation is that were done in general population groups in Canada, but they didn't really these were done by Colin Ross and his associates maybe twenty, thirty years ago.
• 15:24
  But and they found a one to three percent incidence of dissociative disorders in the general population. I think this was done in Winnipeg, but I'm not sure. But they didn't really go into what those people were like and how they were living their lives who had DID but had never been diagnosed or treated for it before. So the only thing I could find was an article from 1985, actually a book chapter. This book is called Childhood Antecedents of Multiple Personality and it's edited by Richard P.
• 16:00
  Cluft, MD, who is one of the preeminent scholars in the dissociation field. One of the chapters in the book that he wrote himself is called The Natural History of Multiple Personality Disorder. He sort of tracks through in his clinical experience and from some other research of other people what people with DID were like when they were diagnosed at various ages from childhood through adolescence through middle age and on up. Interesting. So he and I wish there had been more research on this, but what he found was that people diagnosed in their 30s presented to therapy as depressed, anxious, controlled, and mildly obsessional.
• 16:55
  And then he looked through the ages up into the elderly. And here's a quote from the book. The later a patient was diagnosed, the more likely it was that one alter of considerable range and resilience was quote unquote out. The vast majority of the time exploration of such patients after disclosed that many personalities had atrophied, gone dormant, or had not taken over for years. So as I understand it, what he's saying is that in elderly people who had not been treated for DID, one personality or one alter apart was fronting or out most of the time, and there was not much going on between the others inside, if anything.
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: Fascinating.
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah. To me that says the treatment is a good idea. Yeah, those are all resources that a person could have working together in whatever format, whether it's forming as one whole or cooperating as a system. Those are all resources that a person could use throughout their lifespan. But it seems like, at least in the sample that Doctor.
• 18:12
  Clough found, that those resources had gone dormant or dried up or had not been out and were not involved in the life for years.
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: Oh, so that means it's more limiting what the one who's fronting for so long all on their own has access to for help internally.
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, we have to bear in mind this is a very small sample of people that he's talking about. It was also a long time ago.
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: Doctor. Right.
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: So I don't know what that would be like today. Maybe there's a little more acceptance of DID in the culture, although there's still plenty of crazy skeptics who will not be persuaded by data who are out there. And because there's a little more acceptance in the culture, maybe that helps those parts to not be so dormant if they're not deciding to go into treatment.
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: About that aspect of it when of how that would limit not just the others from getting help or any kind of relief or interaction, but also how that would limit the host or the person fronting from having more of the internal resources they would otherwise otherwise otherwise have access to. I hadn't thought about that at all.
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: I'm I'm thinking of so many people who I've met or worked with who have DID who have one or more parts who are really artistic in their expression. If those parts go dormant, where does that all go? All that ability to express yourself, where does it all go? Nobody knows. But they're not on the outside, so they're not involved in the person's life, and that to me is sad.
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: That's really sad. I really had not thought about that in any of the conversation about multiplicity. That doesn't sound functional at all.
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: It sounds like a loss. Mean, the person can function, you know, take care of basic needs and get through the day and maybe have relationships of some kinds. But the depth of those relationships is not what it could be when parts of a person can't participate in whatever way they would participate, whether as part of a whole or as part of a system.
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: This is fascinating to me because you've entirely shifted my paradigm on that. Uh-oh. No. A good I had not thought about the others, any of them. And I know this sounds so I feel really bad because this sounds so, oppressive, and I didn't mean that at all.
• 20:59
  But it it I hadn't not I had not thought at all about them as resource internally in the same way as when Pat Ogden said that about thinking of your body as an ally.
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. That was I really liked that podcast you did with her. I understood more about what she does and why she does it than I had before in a lot, not only because of how clearly she expresses herself, but also because she asked really solid specific questions like, What does this look like? Or What do you do?
• 21:37
  And that illuminated some of the actions that go along with the theory that she has and helped me understand some of the videotaped excerpts of her work that I've seen on a couple of times at conferences.
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: Right. It's really it's really I feel like this is probably on the other side of things. Like, have these tornadoes coming literally this afternoon, and we have and that's gonna last, they say, through tomorrow. And so I have that in my head, and then we go to Africa, and so that's in. But I feel like this is where we're gonna come back to and pick up what you've just said about the others being a resource and about our body being an ally because that has so just completely blown me away in ways I that are not even tangible yet.
• 22:25
  Like, I don't know how to grasp onto it and feel that.
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: Some of the clients with DID that I've worked with early in treatment and even at other times has said, Can't you just make them go away? I couldn't have anything to do with that. At one point I said, Well, where should they go? Paris? I mean, where are they gonna go?
• 22:45
  They belong there.
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: That's funny. That you I'm really just speechless because even that question about where are they gonna go to Paris, like, is so validating that they're a part of the system and that they are real and that that needs to be honored or or, like, I don't know. Like, I would never say that to one of my children. Like, could you just go away and you no longer exist because I really wanna function on what I'm doing? Like, I you know, I would never say that one
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: of children. When you say, could you just leave me alone for half an hour so I can think or just breathe? You know, every parent feels like that. And maybe, I don't know, I don't have this experience, but maybe it can be like that with the parts inside.
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: Oh, that's just fascinating.
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: From time to time.
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: Because it changes the whole premise of, like, there's no room for denial in any of that with your body being an ally, the others being a resource, and, no, they can't just go away. Like, the it confronts every ounce of denial that this could be a thing because they're there. And part of everything I don't even have an intelligent response right now.
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: Well, some parts have their own reality, as I'm sure you've seen, may be quite different than what shows up on the outside. I remember one woman I worked with who had DID, and one of her parts, she experienced herself as four years old and thought she was, you know, how tall is a four year old? What, three feet tall? So I said, How about if you go over and stand by the lights of which on the wall? And she did.
• 24:31
  And I said to the four year old parent, How about if you reach up and see if you can reach that light switch because it's shoulder height with you? And she said, I can't reach it. I'm too short. So her visual perspective went along with being four'two. She didn't really realize that she was living in a grown up body that she shared with the others.
• 24:53
  And it took a while, but she figured it out.
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: That's amazing. Fascinating.
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: I was kind of amazed too.
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: I think well, for me personally, I feel so much pressure to maintain functioning and to maintain literally our budget and our finances so that I can support all eight bodies that live in this house
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: Uh-huh.
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: That I so don't want anything to put that at risk because that is more scary than than the tornadoes outside. Is too much to think that I could go back to a place of not functioning and not able to provide for us and how it would put all of them at danger too, that there are times when I think normally we would otherwise collapse, whatever that means or looks like, where I can't, like, it's not an option. And so I know that I push them away and I put up walls and try to shut things down because I have to do this, that I had never thought about the impact of that on their perspective or what that means or what that would be like if they did that to me.
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I wonder if they understand when you do that, why you do it. But if they did, maybe they would be willing to kind of say, okay, we'll step back for a while. This may sound like a silly example, but if I go to the grocery store, the part of me that wants to eat healthy is like looking at the vegetables and the lettuce and the carrots and the fruit. And the part of me, and I don't have alters, just to be clear, the part of me that likes to indulge myself is looking at the ice cream freezer.
• 26:52
  And somehow there has to be some kind of reconciliation so I can get out of the store and take care of what I need. Maybe it's similar to that. I'm not sure.
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: That that's actually so profound. I'm crying. There are tears on my face right now because that I mean, it's such a funny example, but it's so true. And I feel like just, ugh, I've learned more about DID in this one conversation than in all of my studies.
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah. But you know what? You're the expert, not me.
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: Oh my goodness. I don't even know what to say right now. That's profound. I thank you. I guess I will say thank you.
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: Oh, you're welcome. Hope it was helpful. But, you know, I learned from my experts, and and those are my clients.
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: But to think of myself as an expert and the body as an ally and the others as resources completely changes my entire perspective of DID and the entire experience of what that looks like.
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 27:59
  Speaker 2: Okay. So that's just gonna have to cook for a while.
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: Okay. Yeah. I'll be interested to see where that goes with you. So I'll I'll keep tuned in.
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: Well, thank you. Sure. The other thing I wanted to ask you about today was just if there was anything else or any other insights that you had or wanted to share about attachment and trauma? We've talked about it some, but I have been working with Jane Hart, is a friend of ours, a close friend actually, and she and I are getting ready to do a podcast about Aces.
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: Oh, great.
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: And so, yeah, we're super excited. We've been working on it for a long time actually, and both have had so much going on separately that we've not been able to do the actual recording, but we've been actively collaborating and working on that. And so was there anything that you wanted from your clinical perspective to share?
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: I went to a a conference a couple of weeks ago. This is it's hard to remember the full name of it, but it's the Annual Education Conference of the Ohio Forensic Psychiatric Center Directors. Basically, this is the conference for people who work in state psychiatric clinics or who work on the forensic units of state psychiatric hospitals, meaning units where people are getting treatment related to court cases. So there was a poster session and one of them was looking relationship between the number of adverse childhood experiences or ACEs and later victimization through robbery or assault. They found there was this statistical relationship like the more adverse childhood experiences someone had, the more likely they were to be the victimization of later crimes.
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: I thought that was profound. It's hard to go beyond the correlation. They didn't really try to explain in a poster session, which is just basically like a big poster about the size of two whiteboards explaining their research. They didn't really go into what the connection might be about. And it could be related to socioeconomic factors as well, which certainly people who are poor or live in bad economic environments are more likely to have higher numbers of ACEs.
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: It's fascinating to me because there's something validating about it where you say this happened to me in my childhood, and now I've been through this and been through this and been through this. Why does this stuff always happen to me? Why does this keep happening to me? And so it's validating in a way that says, Yeah, you're right. This is happening to you.
• 30:50
  But at the same time, how do you recover from that and heal from that and sort of take back your power from that? And that's what Jane and I are looking at.
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: Oh, I'd be really interested to hear what what that's all about and hear both of your perspectives on it.
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: It's very interesting. It's a big thing. She's going over to Europe to present, actually. So I'm really proud of her because that's a big thing for her.
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: That's wonderful.
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: If there was anything you want to add?
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I was listening to another podcast. This is called The Trauma Therapist, where they interviewed Doctor. Laura Brown, who is a friend of mine and is a very well known advocate for feminist therapy, very important person in that field, who's also done a lot of work with trauma survivors and dissociation. She recently retired from doing private practice, but continues to do consultation and supervision. And what I was really struck by in the podcast was that she talked about needing relational healing for a relational problem.
• 31:57
  I don't remember her exact words, but the idea that there is any magic intervention that can solve the effects of, resolve the effects of attachment trauma seems unlikely to me. It has to happen in the context of a good relationship.
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: That's amazing. That goes back to what Susan Peace Bannon said about shame theory and healing coming through connection.
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: Absolutely. One of the things Laura talked about in her podcast episode was she gave her clients about a year's notice that she was going to be ending her private practice. And the feedback she got from them was about how she had been authentic and present and genuine with them and how much that mattered. A section of the podcast was focusing on evidence based therapy and how it really doesn't do much to contribute to a good outcome compared to the relationship part of therapy. So this got me thinking about a client with DID, one of the first people I had seen with DID a long, long time ago.
• 33:05
  And this person had an extremely traumatic history, which I won't go into. So we worked together for a while, and she stopped coming for, I think, economic and other kinds of financial issues going on with her life. And I also stopped private practice for a couple of years while I was doing full time work for the courts. So out of the blue, she contacted me and I had not heard from her in twenty some years saying that she wanted to come back as a way of putting some closure on it. And what she told me really floored me because pretty much the first thing she said was that I had been authentic and present.
• 33:46
  And what floored me about it was that I was thinking, darn, that's what I've been working on for the last twenty years. I already had that and I didn't know it. So when people like me come out of graduate school, I don't know if this was your experience with your own training in doing therapy, you have a bunch of techniques and approaches that you're supposed to follow, and they usually don't do very much. They usually aren't that helpful. But if you make a good connection with somebody, that's the basis for progress.
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: So over the years, I've kind of learned to get my head out of the way and just be present more. I guess I was doing some of it back then, but now it's more of a conscious choice to just sit back and breathe and take in what's going on and listen inside as well. And then as a client, when I work with therapists who were all in their head and suggesting interventions that came from some theory, I didn't find it useful either. But when I've had experiences in therapy or personal growth workshops where people are there in the moment, then it feels safe and I can explore myself in a better way and listen to others as well.
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: What was your experience coming out of your own professional training and going to work?
• 35:08
  Speaker 2: It was the same. A lot of here are the things that you do and make sure you don't do these things, but very little about connection other than some Carl Rogers or something in class, but not actual, any kind of training about shame or connection or relational aspects, but absolutely the same experience of when that rapport is there and when the connection is there, then it's so easy to have huge insights on both parts and to reflect that and to share that and to bring that out.
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: Part of my training was in client centered therapy or the Rogerian approach. The person who taught it had worked with Rogers for years and years. I really never took it in. I just understood it as a way to try and listen to what someone was saying and repeat it back to them in a way that would help them connect with their emotions, but it didn't really reach me as a a relationship issue.
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: What do you think happened between Rogers himself and one degree separation from someone who worked under him to the next degree that you worked with him to schools now where they don't always even include it? What happened like in culture, society? Why did we disconnect so much?
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: I wish I knew the answer to that, because the few videos that you can find of Rogers at work, he's making a very personal connection with the person that he's interviewing. And it's clear that the relationship is what helps this person feel safe, to really listen to herself more. There's a set of tapes with this woman called Gloria, and Rogers was one of the three therapists of completely different persuasions who interview her, and his tape was the most striking in that way. I can tell you a good story. We were, at the class, was assigned to go and practice Rogerian active listening, which is sort of like repeating back the essence of what a person said without distorting, without throwing in your own theories or interpretations.
• 37:22
  So one of the people in the class interviewed his wife while she was in the shower, and she's saying, Will you leave me alone? And he's saying, You're very upset that I'm here with my tape recorder. Yeah, will you leave me alone? You're really angry that I won't let you finish your shower in peace. And he played the tape back for the class.
• 37:44
  That is not what Rogerian therapy is at all. But another part of my training was sort of psychodynamicFreudian, and the instructor said that you should never ask questions. You should never say to somebody, What was your mother like? You could say, You haven't talked about your mother today. That was crazy.
• 38:05
  So when I got onto my first practical placement, which was at a college counseling center, a supervisor listened to a tape of mine and said, You ask good questions. So then I thought asking good questions was what therapy was all about, and it took me a long time to get away from that. Fascinating. There's no magic in asking good questions. It's how you're listening to the answers.
• 38:27
  Speaker 2: Yes. Wow. That's fascinating. I had, for my actual licensure, my supervisor was Yunian, actually, who studied under Masterson directly. And so his training was training with him was a completely different thing than anything I had learned in school.
• 38:54
  And it's actually one of the reasons I chose him as a supervisor, not because that's necessarily the direction I had wanted to go, but because I knew it was a piece I hadn't gotten and I wanted to understand it better. But it was a wild ride, that experience with And in fact, one of the first things he made me do was start reading People magazine because I was so in my own academic space that he said I would not recognize symbols from my clients as they express them because I didn't know Yeah. Because I didn't know I don't know who movie stars are or what music. So when someone says, I this song has been in my head all week. Like, I don't know what that means because I don't know what song that is or they're comparing themselves to so and so or what like and so he's like, you know all these classic fairy tales, but people don't know those.
• 39:52
  People know Hollywood. You need to watch movies and you need and, like, literally gave me an assignment. My first, like, four months with him was reading People Magazine every week and watching certain movies and things that I just had never done at all.
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: And That's really interesting.
• 40:11
  Speaker 2: How is I hadn't thought about that I was there trying to help people that I had no way to connect to because I was so disconnected from culture myself.
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: Mhmm. They well, they can teach you. I mean, I'm a classical music nut. That's pretty much all I listen to by way of music. So when people come in and talk about the latest rock stars or r and b or any of those things, I generally know who the performers are because I keep up on the news and I read the gossip columns and so on, but I don't know the music.
• 40:43
  So I'll have them play it for me on their phone.
• 40:46
  Speaker 2: Oh, that's a good idea.
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: And it becomes a shared experience. But I think you're right. If you don't know the culture, then you can't connect.
• 40:53
  Speaker 2: I had never realized in fact, that was one of my first recognitions of the boundaries and limitations of my own trauma, even though I didn't know about any capital T Trauma, so to speak. Mhmm. Because there were I would I didn't realize until that experience that I'm just in my own experience without the others was not well rounded. Sort of like what you said in the beginning about limiting resources. I didn't have any of those pieces of pop culture or society.
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: Well, therapists who well, no therapist has grown up in your house, right? So no therapist knows your family culture. And it's my job to learn about that without us making assumptions that may not be true.
• 41:54
  Speaker 2: Wow. Well, this was interesting. Thank you so much.
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: Oh, it's really good talking to you. My thoughts are with you and your family, I hope that everybody is safe.
• 42:05
  Speaker 2: Oh, thank you. We're trying. Our basement is flooded, we're running out of safe space, but we're trying. We're trying. Was there anything else that you had on your list to share today?
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: No. That's my list. Thank you for asking good questions. I appreciate it.
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: Oh, thank you for talking to me. It's really kind of you. I didn't mean to get you stuck on the podcast over and over, but people are really responsive and they're appreciative.
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: Anytime. I'll stay tuned as well.
• 42:32
  Speaker 2: Thank you.
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: You take care, Emily.
• 42:34
  Speaker 2: Bye.
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: Bye bye.
• 42:44
  Speaker 2: Thank you for listening. Your support of the podcast, the workbooks, and the community means so much to us as we try to create something together that's never been done before, not like this. Connection brings healing, and you can join us on the community at www.systemspeakcommunity.com. We'll see you there.