Latest / The Christian Reeve Podcast / John Cuturilo | The Christian Reeve Podcast #362

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John Cuturilo | The Christian Reeve Podcast #362 · The Christian Reeve Podcast

• 0:46
  Hello and welcome to another episode of the Christian Reef
• 0:49
  Podcast. Today's guest is a counsellor
• 0:52
  all the way from Australia. I think this might actually be
• 0:56
  my first Australian guest, which is it's pretty crazy after six
• 1:00
  years of doing this over 350 plus episodes.
• 1:04
  I think the last time I tried to get an Australian on was about 2
• 1:09
  1/2 years ago and something far free for some reason and
• 1:13
  interesting enough before I introduce him.
• 1:16
  The time zone difference for those who don't know who who
• 1:20
  listen to the show. I always have to use time
• 1:24
  conversion to figure out when the best time for me would be a
• 1:27
  very would be for the show and also for the guest and try to
• 1:31
  work it around their schedule. And I was thinking Australia,
• 1:34
  it's all the way across the world.
• 1:37
  Surely it'd be really difficult. But in fact, no, it's midday my
• 1:41
  time and I believe there's I don't know how many hours there
• 1:44
  is on your side, John, but it's it seems like it suits us both.
• 1:48
  Our guest today is John Godorido, counsellor from
• 1:51
  Australia. Welcome to the show.
• 1:53
  How you doing? I'm excellent.
• 1:55
  Thank you, Christian. Thank you so much for having me.
• 1:56
  It's a pleasure to be here. Pleasure to have you man.
• 2:01
  Let's start the beginning man. At the very beginning.
• 2:04
  Birth. No, just kidding.
• 2:06
  Where did your counselling journey begin?
• 2:08
  Where does it all begin for you? Well, it begins in childhood in
• 2:14
  a rather indirect way. Ever since I was a child, I've
• 2:18
  been in and out of psychotherapy for various different problems,
• 2:22
  and I was always somebody who was at odds with society.
• 2:25
  Not in a particularly dangerous sense, but more in a sense that
• 2:30
  I never fit with what was normal.
• 2:34
  So I was always more introverted and a lot more quiet and less,
• 2:39
  shall we say, energetic than a lot of my peers when I was quite
• 2:43
  younger. And I also had something of an
• 2:45
  unorthodox worldview for a pretty young person.
• 2:48
  But what I, I, I found as, as I reflect on those those early
• 2:54
  periods in my life, I identified that I was always curious and
• 2:59
  somewhat eager to learn how the world worked.
• 3:03
  I always wanted to understand why different aspects of our
• 3:08
  society operated the way that they did.
• 3:11
  And I was always asking questions and challenging
• 3:15
  notions. And at the time, I didn't
• 3:17
  realize that I wanted to be a counsellor.
• 3:19
  But as I matured and realized that that's what I wanted to do
• 3:23
  with the rest of my life, I began to realize that that
• 3:27
  element of myself had always been present.
• 3:29
  And it very much fuelled my desire to be a counsellor.
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  Because I would argue that to be a competent counsellor, it's
• 3:36
  beyond technical or clinical skill.
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  It one has to be very much interested and invested in
• 3:41
  understanding how the world works and they have to be able
• 3:44
  to use that information in an appropriate way to help their
• 3:48
  clients when to, to access it, when it, when it needs to be,
• 3:51
  when it needs to be utilized. So in an indirect way, I've
• 3:54
  always had the underlying tendencies that have fuelled the
• 3:58
  work that I do. And as I, as I grew, I
• 4:02
  unfortunately developed a number of different mental health
• 4:04
  problems. But in fact, but I'm although I
• 4:06
  am thankful that at this stage in my life and for a while now,
• 4:10
  I've been effectively fully recovered and I've been able to
• 4:14
  lead a normal life and I've been able to help other people
• 4:17
  improve their lives. But having those issues and not
• 4:21
  having access to quality care and not being able to understand
• 4:24
  or find a source to help me understand why I was
• 4:26
  experiencing what I was experiencing, it was frightening
• 4:30
  at first, but then it fueled my determination to want to learn
• 4:32
  that and then be able to pass it to other people.
• 4:37
  And the the combination of those different factors created an
• 4:40
  environment by which I believe that being a counsellor was the
• 4:44
  the way for me to turn all that into something that other people
• 4:46
  could benefit from. It's an interesting one with
• 4:49
  mental health really and counselling because the way that
• 4:54
  society looks at mental health has changed and there has been a
• 4:58
  lot of progress. But on the other hand, you hit
• 5:01
  the nail on the head when it comes to counsellors and
• 5:05
  therapists and mental health professionals.
• 5:08
  It's all about how invested they actually are.
• 5:11
  I liken it to, for instance, this podcast.
• 5:14
  And the reason for that is that people have said over the years
• 5:17
  that I'm a good interviewer. They've said I'm a
• 5:20
  conversationalist and stuff like that.
• 5:22
  And that was a lovely compliment to get.
• 5:24
  But when I thought about why do people say that, I looked at the
• 5:28
  nature of my investment in the show versus say other people
• 5:33
  who've done similar shows or just like the top shows that are
• 5:37
  out there. Like your investment in a
• 5:40
  conversation is everything. And of course, when it comes to
• 5:44
  counselling and mental health, the person's come in, paid you
• 5:48
  money, given you their time and is like, Hey, help me fix this
• 5:53
  or at least help me see a different way.
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  But the, the key thing is obviously they're, they're
• 5:58
  wanting to be heard. And obviously over time, you get
• 6:01
  to know this person, you get to understand their insecurities,
• 6:05
  their past, what they're dealing with, etcetera.
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  But that might be like the only time they ever actually have
• 6:12
  someone sit, listen and care. And I've heard so many stories
• 6:18
  over the years. I've, yeah, I've had bad
• 6:20
  experiences myself. I've, I know a lot of people
• 6:22
  that have had bad experiences. And it always comes down to, you
• 6:26
  know, the person just not being invested.
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  For example, I was, I was watching some old, that's of all
• 6:35
  references, some old GTA5 videos of the, of the story and, and in
• 6:39
  the story like, and again, it's supposed to be for context, it's
• 6:43
  supposed to be a bit of a joke and an irony, but there are
• 6:46
  elements of truth within it. The main character is is
• 6:49
  obviously narcissistic and he's got a lot of mental health
• 6:52
  issues and he's destructive and all of these things.
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  But he genuinely needs therapy. And on some level we're taught
• 6:59
  with the story that his therapist is trying to help and
• 7:03
  has helped him on some level, but he's also not invested only
• 7:08
  as part of the money and makes that clear.
• 7:10
  And that's kind of the running joke throughout the story
• 7:13
  whenever you sort of go to the counsellor or go to go to the
• 7:16
  therapist. But it's interesting because it
• 7:20
  is a comment on how counselling can be good and counselling can
• 7:24
  be bad depending on your investment and what you actually
• 7:29
  give to it. And you know, it's interesting
• 7:32
  as well that you say that you've had therapy yourself.
• 7:38
  We've seen that in popular culture as well.
• 7:40
  If anyone who's ever watched The Sopranos, a lot of the storyline
• 7:45
  around that is that the main characters, a mob boss is
• 7:49
  receiving therapy from a counsellor and they could not be
• 7:53
  more different if they tried. And she's also getting therapy,
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  but from other counsellors. And I've always found that
• 8:00
  interesting because you know what the other person is doing
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  because you do it as well and you're trying to listen, but
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  you're also like, are they saying that and just doing the
• 8:11
  techniques or are they actually trying to help me?
• 8:15
  So let's let's talk about that for a second.
• 8:17
  Like receiving therapy when you're a therapist, like how do
• 8:21
  you let go? How do you enable that to be
• 8:24
  effective? That's a that's a good question.
• 8:25
  And to be honest, I'm not sure I even have an answer for it
• 8:28
  because for a while seeking therapy, I was seeking therapy
• 8:32
  for a time while I was after I'd already become a counsellor.
• 8:35
  And there were times that it was effective in, in my earlier in
• 8:39
  my earlier days and I was able to learn a significant amount
• 8:43
  from it. But after a while, what's
• 8:46
  unfortunately happened is I became so invested in learning
• 8:51
  about how the mind works and how society works in com like how
• 8:55
  minds work in combination with each other, that whenever I
• 8:58
  would present an idea for analysis with my therapist, I
• 9:02
  was effectively relaying to the therapist the analysis that I'd
• 9:05
  already conducted of myself. And the therapist wasn't able to
• 9:08
  add anything to it. So it's, and it's, it's it, it
• 9:12
  can, it can sound pretentious. And honestly, I really wish that
• 9:15
  wasn't the case. I wish that sometimes if I had a
• 9:17
  problem that there was a source greater than me, well, that,
• 9:21
  well, there is, I'm sure there is out there.
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  But I wish it was easier for me to find somebody who can provide
• 9:28
  reflection on me personally that could then help me grow.
• 9:32
  But it's just been hard. It's been hard to find because I
• 9:36
  find myself already by instinct, just doing the analysis myself.
• 9:41
  And that's one of the reasons why I engage in endeavours such
• 9:46
  as engaging in deep conversations with friends or
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  what I do on my podcast where I'm actively seeking guests that
• 9:53
  have various different perspectives on very specific
• 9:56
  subjects. Because then I have an
• 9:58
  opportunity to actually ask if this is my view.
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  What's your counter perspective to that?
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  And that to me, I find incredibly, incredibly
• 10:08
  enlightening because I hear other people's perspectives, but
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  I also find reflecting on the work that I do with my clients
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  and thinking about how they view the world and what they're
• 10:16
  learning. Often if I have a personal
• 10:20
  problem, I think about a particular client and ask, if
• 10:25
  this client had this problem as I do, what would I advise them
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  or what reflection would I make with them.
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  And often that becomes insightful.
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  But seeking therapy after a while of me being a therapist?
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  I don't. I don't want to discourage
• 10:42
  therapists from seeking therapy, because you absolutely should.
• 10:45
  Maybe it was just misfortune on my part that I didn't happen to
• 10:49
  see the therapist who were quite attuned to me in the right way.
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  And chemistry is a big part of it.
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  Chemistry, so to speak. For me personally, it was, it
• 10:59
  was, it became difficult. But then I'm also in a fortunate
• 11:03
  position where I have been able to largely not.
• 11:07
  I don't have a perfect life, but I've been able to overcome a lot
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  of the problems that were associated with my own mental
• 11:11
  illness. So it's, it's a complicated,
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  it's a complicated situation, but I, I wouldn't say that
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  that's the end of the line. I think my case is just
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  something of an anomaly so that anyone out there is thinking of
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  seeking therapy. It's certainly worth it, but it
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  can be a journey to find the person who is right for you
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  because chemistry is a big part of it.
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  Why should people get counselling?
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  Well, the simple reason is that often we don't learn how our
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  minds work, and the our education systems generally
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  don't teach it. We're all too often all, all
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  human beings, and I mean literally everyone from the best
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  therapist through to the best thing.
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  Because everyone, everyone's mind has a limitation called
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  egocentric bias, meaning that it is impossible for us to actually
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  perceive our own experiences in the same way that other people
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  would if we reported them to them.
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  So it's always when you have a problem that you can't solve
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  yourself, knowing what the mental mechanics are that
• 12:07
  contribute to it and knowing somebody else's perspective
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  offers a has a lot of potential to offer insight that you
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  wouldn't have realized on your own.
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  But through that, the caveat is that good therapy should help
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  you develop not just a specific solution, but thinking skills,
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  so that the next time you have that same problem or a different
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  problem, you can transfer those same skills and solve it
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  yourself. Sorry, such a great answer.
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  I've asked similar questions over the years in the past and
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  sometimes the person's response is, well, you should go to my
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  website and book a session. But like, actually, we actually
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  got a great answer there. Thank you.
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  And you know, it's interesting when you say that, you know, the
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  first thing that came to mind for me was that saying of being
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  in your head. You know what I mean?
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  Like it's something I've learned to do over the over the years.
• 12:59
  If you believe in astrology. But like I, I'm a Taurus.
• 13:02
  So the classic thing is, oh, you're stubborn.
• 13:06
  To some extent that is true. To some extent it's not.
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  I realized from a young age that like I had to work on it because
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  I knew people that were really stubborn.
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  And I was like, I can't let this be something that prevents me
• 13:20
  from growth or something that stops me from living my life.
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  But I have to also consider the source, what people are saying,
• 13:28
  because often people are always giving you advice and saying you
• 13:34
  need to do this, you need to do this, you need to do this.
• 13:37
  For instance, in the past people have said you should get
• 13:40
  therapy. And I, I had a bad experience at
• 13:43
  uni with a therapy session and I was just like, I'm absolutely
• 13:48
  not. I'll quickly relay that.
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  So I was, I was difficult point, point in my life, horrible toxic
• 13:54
  relationship. I was dealing with all this
• 13:57
  university. I found out there was free
• 13:59
  counselling and I was like, great, let's let's make use of
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  it. Waited for about 45 minutes to
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  get into this room. Poured my heart and my soul out
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  to this therapist for like 45 minutes to an hour crying.
• 14:12
  I shouldn't laugh. It's, it's bad.
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  But the response was, oh, I'm sorry, that's all we have time
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  for. And then I, I was like stunned
• 14:21
  and I was like wiping my tears. I was like, oh, OK, I just got
• 14:28
  walked out. And then look, I know not all
• 14:30
  therapists are like this, but when I've relayed this to other
• 14:34
  people, they've had similar experiences.
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  And this goes back to what we were saying before about like
• 14:39
  people not being invested right in their job.
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  But it begs the question if, if you do this for a long time, I
• 14:46
  mean, I don't know how it works when it comes to reviewing
• 14:48
  therapists, counsellors, but like, surely news travels fast
• 14:53
  and it's like, oh, don't go to this person.
• 14:55
  They just and they don't don't, they don't, they don't care how
• 15:01
  does it work for in your in your line of work when it comes to
• 15:05
  building a good reputation as a as a a trusted and and solid
• 15:11
  counsellor. Well, building a reputation in
• 15:13
  counselling I would say is no different to building a
• 15:16
  reputation in any other line of business.
• 15:19
  I'd say that in any case, a quality reputation, if it's to
• 15:23
  be a truly good reputation, has to be built on quality practice.
• 15:27
  So the way we become competent practitioners, obviously we have
• 15:31
  initial training, we have certification processes in
• 15:34
  Australia, we self regulate. So there are a number of bodies
• 15:37
  that provide accreditation for counsellors.
• 15:40
  We have requirements once we're accredited to have ongoing
• 15:43
  professional development, which means we have to regularly take
• 15:46
  courses and read literature too keep our knowledge up to date.
• 15:49
  And we have to seek what's called regular supervision.
• 15:51
  Meaning we have to consult with a senior therapist who's also a
• 15:54
  trained supervisor, talk about what we do with our clients and
• 15:58
  get an objective perspective on whether we need further guidance
• 16:02
  or whether we're whether we're handling the case as well.
• 16:06
  But the a major problem we find in therapy as opposed to a lot
• 16:13
  of other professions like trades, plumbing, technical
• 16:16
  professions, even something like general practice medicine, is
• 16:20
  that the minds workings we work with the mind and the mind is so
• 16:25
  abstract that it is difficult to have an absolute and objective
• 16:29
  standard by which you can measure the quality of practice.
• 16:32
  Because there are a large number of different therapeutic
• 16:35
  approaches that all have different arguments on which
• 16:38
  they're based and what may work for one client and may seem
• 16:42
  completely useful to them and insightful, another client may
• 16:46
  hear that same therapeutic practice and think that has
• 16:49
  nothing to do with what I need. So there's, there's a lot of
• 16:53
  difficulty and some therapists I've known have had apparently
• 16:57
  an excellent reputation among some people, but then I've gone
• 17:00
  to them and just walked out thinking, how was that supposed
• 17:04
  to help? I don't get it.
• 17:05
  I, I don't understand. So as I said, a chemistry is a
• 17:08
  big part of it, but knowing you, you have to really, you have to,
• 17:14
  it's basic, basic qualification and, and regulation is
• 17:18
  important. But what you have to realize on
• 17:20
  top of that is that you need a lot of patience and you need to
• 17:23
  be willing to take things at a, at the right pace with each
• 17:28
  client. And you, you really have to be
• 17:30
  willing to also be more clients are vulnerable with therapists.
• 17:33
  Therapists have to be slightly vulnerable as well and have to
• 17:35
  be willing to actually ask the client.
• 17:37
  Can you please give me honest feedback about how you feel this
• 17:41
  is going? And I'm going to promise you
• 17:43
  that what, regardless of what feedback you have, I'm not going
• 17:45
  to react to it, but I'm going to take it seriously.
• 17:48
  That's something I thought a lot of therapists don't do.
• 17:51
  And you have to be willing to accept feedback and ask actually
• 17:54
  ask for it break ask for it deliberately.
• 17:56
  How do you deal with people who, because it must be frustrating
• 18:00
  when you can clearly see over time, people are not taking the
• 18:03
  advice and not applying things, They're not listening to you.
• 18:07
  How do you? Approach that well on a regular
• 18:11
  basis I try to catch that if it is happening.
• 18:14
  So with every step that we take in therapy, I'll try to review
• 18:18
  with every clients how they feel about it.
• 18:19
  If they feel that it's solving the core problem, if they feel
• 18:22
  that there's something missing that we haven't yet addressed, I
• 18:25
  try to, I try to get that, I try to catch that as it's happening.
• 18:33
  If it seems from the feedback in each of those instances that
• 18:37
  what we've discussed hasn't been implemented and I'll, I'll
• 18:41
  normally ask explicitly if a client has implemented
• 18:43
  strategies that we've discussed. It's then to fit.
• 18:46
  We then explore why it's why it's happening.
• 18:49
  So are these strategies meaningful to you?
• 18:52
  Are they accessible? Do you find that there's a
• 18:54
  difficulty in engaging with them or do you find that they're not
• 18:57
  helpful? Try to establish what's stopping
• 18:59
  them and try to adjust them from that point onwards.
• 19:05
  To a certain extent, if if we've if we've established the core of
• 19:09
  the problem and we've been able to identify it in the client's
• 19:12
  able to articulate it and they're still not using anything
• 19:15
  that we're discussing and they can't articulate any real
• 19:18
  barriers to it. Usually, I won't say in every
• 19:21
  case, but usually what's manifesting is what we call
• 19:24
  avoidance, which basically means not engaging with something
• 19:27
  because it's uncomfortable. And what a lot of people don't
• 19:30
  realize is that psychotherapy, when you conduct, when you
• 19:35
  execute what we, what you learn in psychotherapy, it's not like
• 19:38
  medicine whereby you simply take a prescription jug and it acts
• 19:42
  on you. It's a passive process.
• 19:44
  Proper psychotherapy involves deliberately changing your
• 19:47
  habits. That's an active process.
• 19:50
  And a lot of people may not be, may not be ready for that.
• 19:55
  Even though we may discuss it and say this is going to involve
• 19:57
  making regular changes, a lot of people may not be ready for
• 20:00
  them. The changes are often quite
• 20:01
  uncomfortable, even though they're not harmful.
• 20:04
  So sometimes we do have to have an honest conversation and say,
• 20:06
  look, this is going to be an uncomfortable process.
• 20:09
  But the only way to really change is if you do engage with
• 20:12
  it. And even if you feel like it's
• 20:14
  going to be tough or it's going to be uncomfortable, do it
• 20:18
  anyway, because that's the only way you can actually start to
• 20:20
  make the process comfortable is by becoming accustomed to the
• 20:23
  challenge. I know you can't talk about like
• 20:26
  specific instances, but what would you say are some of the
• 20:29
  biggest challenges you faced with clients over the years as a
• 20:33
  counsellor? I'd say some of the, some of the
• 20:35
  biggest challenges are that once we've established the, once
• 20:38
  we've established what it is that the client is actually
• 20:42
  experiencing the essence of the problem, so to speak.
• 20:46
  Once we've established, once we've established strategies, to
• 20:51
  be fair, most of my clients do engage with the strategies that
• 20:53
  we, that we discussed. So that's, that's a, that's to
• 20:57
  their credit. They're, they're, they're taking
• 20:58
  an active part in the process. But if there is a challenge,
• 21:01
  it's when we talk about why the strategies haven't worked and
• 21:05
  people say, I'd look, I just don't feel like it.
• 21:08
  Or people might reflect and say, oh, look, I just don't know if
• 21:13
  it's going to work or I just don't know.
• 21:16
  It just doesn't, I just don't feel like it's going to be
• 21:18
  successful. And this is where we have to
• 21:21
  have an honest conversation about why problems continue.
• 21:24
  And the most common reason that problems continue is because if
• 21:27
  we tell them, if we tell ourselves that we're not going
• 21:29
  to be successful, we're not going to try.
• 21:32
  If we don't try, it's going to very much fulfill the idea that
• 21:35
  we're not going to be successful.
• 21:37
  It's going to be a self fulfilling prophecy, which is
• 21:39
  the the vernacular for it. And the the, the biggest
• 21:45
  challenge sometimes is actually sitting people down and saying,
• 21:47
  look, I know this is difficult for you, but your mind is trying
• 21:51
  to avoid engaging because it knows the process is going to be
• 21:54
  uncomfortable. It's already accustomed to
• 21:56
  failure. It doesn't want the
• 21:58
  disappointment of further failure.
• 22:00
  The only way to risks, the only way to have a chance at success
• 22:04
  is to risk failure is to get up one day, try doing something
• 22:08
  that you thought you hopelessly couldn't do, fail, do it again
• 22:13
  and again and again until you succeed.
• 22:15
  And then you show yourself that you are worth the effort because
• 22:18
  you can succeed. And that's the the type of
• 22:22
  problem that I'd say is most common.
• 22:24
  And people do overcome it with effort, with with enough effort
• 22:27
  generally. Speaking of failure, have there
• 22:30
  ever been any clients over the years that you just weren't able
• 22:33
  to help for whatever reason and you had to kind of begrudgingly
• 22:38
  even refer them on or just says, I'm sorry, I can't help you.
• 22:42
  And then after the fact, how did you?
• 22:47
  Because it must be, it must be crushing on 2 levels.
• 22:50
  Like professionally, it's like failed, like I need to re
• 22:55
  evaluate, but there must be like a personal investment as well
• 22:57
  where you're kind of like, damn, like I really wanted that to
• 23:00
  work out. So how do you sort of process
• 23:05
  failures in in counselling? There have been a number of
• 23:07
  clients over the years for whom my therapy hasn't been
• 23:10
  effective, and they've mostly been clients with severe trauma
• 23:14
  whereby they've become so accustomed to adversity in their
• 23:17
  environment that they are extremely threat sensitive and
• 23:20
  innocuous cues trigger their anxiety so badly that engaging
• 23:24
  with even highly, highly, demonstrably effective
• 23:28
  therapeutic strategies is difficult.
• 23:30
  And even even though I am invested in my job, what I've
• 23:33
  had to do over the years is teach myself not to not to hurt.
• 23:38
  I can feel the client's, I can understand the client's
• 23:40
  experience from a cognitive standpoint because I was a
• 23:43
  trauma survivor myself. So I I can understand it on that
• 23:46
  level. And ultimately, I do want the
• 23:48
  best for every client. So I do want people to suffer
• 23:51
  less and have better lives and be able to pursue whatever
• 23:53
  aspirations they have. But I've had to learn not to
• 23:57
  become emotionally reactive to it in any way, because then I'd
• 24:01
  be less effective at it. If I'm emotionally reactive to
• 24:05
  what happens even internally, even if on the outside I'm
• 24:08
  completely imposed. If it happens internally, it
• 24:11
  could then affect and narrow my judgment, which means I won't be
• 24:13
  as effective a therapist. So what when whenever that
• 24:17
  happens? I obviously I speak about these
• 24:19
  types of cases with my supervisor regularly, but
• 24:22
  whenever it happens, I ask myself if there was any other
• 24:27
  potential strategy that could have worked more effectively.
• 24:29
  I'll generally try to investigate that.
• 24:32
  And often at that stage, if it's not working, I have to be the
• 24:37
  one to say to the client, look, unfortunately, I don't think I
• 24:41
  can foresee progress with my type of therapy, but there are
• 24:45
  alternatives from other practitioners perhaps try this.
• 24:49
  And I then simply reflect on what the, what the core issue is
• 24:55
  that may have been in conflict with my therapeutic style.
• 24:57
  And if I can change that about what I do, then I review it.
• 25:02
  Otherwise I Simply put it down to sometimes a person just needs
• 25:06
  a different therapeutic environment that's created by
• 25:08
  different chemistry. So I try to reflect, I reflect
• 25:12
  on it and try to learn something about that, the way that that
• 25:15
  person's mind works that I can then use to help other clients
• 25:18
  who have that same problem. But what I also try to accept,
• 25:22
  and I tell myself is that we didn't create the mind.
• 25:25
  Even though we have lots of theories that try to explain how
• 25:28
  it works, we didn't create the mind, nature did.
• 25:29
  So sometimes there are going to be problems that we can't solve
• 25:32
  immediately. That's when we have to look for
• 25:35
  new solutions. But we can't, unfortunately, we
• 25:39
  can't expect everything to be perfect.
• 25:42
  I do put a lot of pressure on myself because I want the best
• 25:45
  for everyone involved. But in the end, if it does
• 25:47
  happen that way, then it's at that stage that I say, well, if
• 25:51
  there was nothing more that I could do, then I'll learn what I
• 25:54
  can from it. But I don't, I don't take it
• 25:56
  personally in the sense that I don't become emotionally
• 25:59
  preoccupied with it. How do you put your emotions
• 26:02
  aside in a role like that? Because it's got to be like I've
• 26:08
  always in the past people have said to me like, why don't you
• 26:11
  consider being a counsellor? Why don't you consider being a
• 26:13
  therapist? And I get why they say that.
• 26:16
  I'm a good listener. I can give people advice, but
• 26:19
  the thing that I've noticed is if you're deeply into your
• 26:23
  empathy and it affects you in a big way, like it affects me in a
• 26:27
  big way. It's very energy consuming.
• 26:31
  And sometimes you're left feeling very dark or, or you
• 26:36
  feel like the weight of the other person and you know, all
• 26:39
  they've really done is shared their issues with you.
• 26:41
  But sometimes it can feel almost like their problems are your
• 26:46
  problems. How do you sort of
• 26:50
  compartmentalise and keep your emotions out of it?
• 26:54
  Because obviously you can't, you can't hide them.
• 26:56
  Obviously you have to mask them in, in, in when you're working.
• 26:59
  I understand that, but how do you put them to one side?
• 27:04
  I wish I could define that it's such an abstract process, but
• 27:07
  I'd say what I've done over the years is realised that much like
• 27:14
  the work with my clients, and this is a principle that I use
• 27:16
  in in my with my clients all the time.
• 27:18
  In fact, in most cases, how we, how am, what we do with emotions
• 27:23
  in terms of our actions in response to them largely have an
• 27:27
  influence on whether they continue or where they change.
• 27:30
  So for example, if I started feeling dark after having seen
• 27:34
  clients and talked about problems, which can happen and
• 27:37
  it it does still happen from time to time.
• 27:40
  If I allow those emotions to influence me in the sense that I
• 27:42
  then, for example, become passive or I stop trying my best
• 27:47
  to do whatever it was, what whatever it was that I was going
• 27:50
  to do that day. If I allow it to drain me so
• 27:53
  that it I don't so that I stop my daily activity or so that I
• 28:00
  perhaps don't approach as many activities as I would otherwise
• 28:04
  have done. So for example, maybe feeling
• 28:08
  like disconnecting socially, for example, if I allow this
• 28:11
  feelings to affect me, I'm reinforcing the effects on them.
• 28:14
  My mind is learning that I can seek relief in being passive.
• 28:20
  What I learned early on to do with my own challenges is to
• 28:23
  actually do the opposite of what my mind wants to.
• 28:25
  So if I start to feel dark and my mind is subtly trying to get
• 28:31
  me to avoid confronting that darkness and avoid persisting
• 28:36
  with life, I actually do the opposite.
• 28:38
  I go into doing whatever it was that I would normally do.
• 28:40
  I go do some writing or some content creation, or I go to do
• 28:46
  some administration. I go to do the housework or do
• 28:48
  anything that keeps me active and keeps me productive and
• 28:52
  effectively. I've therefore learned that when
• 28:55
  the emotions arise, I don't immediately have an avoidance
• 28:58
  tendency. I just observe the emotions as
• 29:00
  being a part of my mental activity, but I don't feel as
• 29:04
  much of an instinct to react to them by becoming passive or
• 29:07
  surrendering to them. And largely it is a matter of
• 29:10
  practice. After many, many years of of
• 29:14
  many, many years of having to practice those skills,
• 29:17
  eventually, eventually I've just, it's become an instinct
• 29:20
  for me. It's effectively just become a
• 29:23
  habit. A habit in the same way that
• 29:26
  many of us think it. It just becomes second nature.
• 29:29
  When you're with friends and family and such, like, how do
• 29:31
  you prevent yourself from psychoanalysing them?
• 29:37
  Because I mean, you know, it must be quite nice to have a, a
• 29:41
  friend or, or someone in a, in a family that is, is a therapist.
• 29:46
  But at the same time, you know, you're off the clock and also,
• 29:52
  you know, it's, there's a lot of issues I can see in that.
• 29:56
  I remember I briefly dated someone years ago and I knew
• 29:59
  when they were putting the therapist hat on, I was like, I
• 30:02
  had to be like, don't do that. How do you stop yourself doing
• 30:08
  that? I'd be, I'd be rather wicked.
• 30:10
  I'd be rather wicked if I said I didn't.
• 30:14
  What what I what I've learned to do is actually consciously
• 30:16
  identify my thinking patterns. So I I never stop thinking like
• 30:20
  a therapist, but I always can stop myself from acting like 1.
• 30:24
  So if somebody is explaining something to me or describing
• 30:28
  something to me, my mind will analyse it in the same way that
• 30:31
  I would if I was seeing a client.
• 30:33
  But then I recognize it and I choose my actions.
• 30:36
  So I can still display empathy with friends and family,
• 30:39
  evidently. But I don't launch into the
• 30:42
  specific analysis. I don't verbalize the specific
• 30:45
  analysis that I would do with a client.
• 30:47
  I would, I would keep it to just empathy.
• 30:49
  And empathy is what ultimately what's, what keeps bonds tight
• 30:54
  and quite for. And unfortunately for many of
• 30:56
  the people I've known, a lot of people I've known personally
• 30:59
  haven't really received much empathy from from other people.
• 31:01
  So sometimes that itself is actually quite a helpful
• 31:05
  presence in the relationship. But just by preventing myself
• 31:08
  from verbalizing the analysis that I would normally do with a
• 31:11
  client, it becomes I keep my I keep my boundaries.
• 31:16
  I keep my boundaries people in my personal life.
• 31:18
  Is there have been instances where someone's like asking you
• 31:21
  for advice and you're like, OK, and then they're kind of looking
• 31:25
  at you like can you do your therapist thing?
• 31:28
  And you're like, I can, but you know, should be warned like do
• 31:37
  you get those instances like that sometimes?
• 31:40
  I'd say I probably have, I, I'd say, for example, friends,
• 31:43
  friends. Sometimes I've had friends who
• 31:46
  have had problems in their relationships, for example,
• 31:48
  their partnerships where they'd wanted they've, they've, they've
• 31:51
  experienced a problem. And sometimes I've been able to
• 31:53
  explain to them in simple terms, this is most likely what your
• 31:55
  partner's experiencing or this is most likely what's happening.
• 31:59
  But I keep in, in those moments, I just keep them brief and I
• 32:03
  don't launch into full scale service.
• 32:06
  I don't think anyone's ever placed the demand on me.
• 32:08
  I've just seen it as an opportunity to use the therapist
• 32:13
  part of me just to be a good friend.
• 32:14
  But I know there's a limit to it.
• 32:16
  And usually I, I tend to, I tend to, I tend to keep the
• 32:21
  boundaries solid by just keeping comments brief, keeping it to
• 32:25
  empathy and keeping in brief commentary on what might be
• 32:28
  happening. And simply saying this could be
• 32:30
  an explanation for what's happening and this is what you
• 32:32
  might want to look at further. But I try to.
• 32:34
  I try to keep it brief that way just so that I am keeping those
• 32:37
  boundaries. How do you manage that in a
• 32:38
  relationship? Like when when you're dating
• 32:40
  someone, when you're with someone?
• 32:43
  Because obviously that's as intimate as you can really be.
• 32:48
  And I can see how it could lead to certain arguments.
• 32:50
  I gave my example before, but like, yeah, how do you manage
• 32:54
  that I'd. Say the same, the same way I
• 32:57
  just never, I'd never launch into full scale
• 33:00
  psychotherapeutic intervention. I find that in when I'm, when
• 33:06
  I'm, when I'm, when I'm, when I'm dating somebody, I'm in a
• 33:09
  relationship. I use many of the techniques
• 33:12
  that I teach my clients for their relationships so that
• 33:15
  those techniques are meant to be used by everyone.
• 33:18
  They're not exclusively therapeutic and that's a good
• 33:21
  way to help defuse any conflicts and to help keep our
• 33:25
  interactions amicable. But otherwise, if, if my partner
• 33:30
  herself might be having a specific problem, I don't, I
• 33:34
  don't create full scale analysis.
• 33:36
  Ioffer her empathy. Ioffer her my assistance in any
• 33:40
  way that I can that would be socially acceptable.
• 33:42
  And I've never, I don't think I've ever dated anyone who wants
• 33:46
  me to breach that boundary. And once once we've once we've
• 33:51
  done what we can in the confines of the relationship.
• 33:53
  My dates have always known they the the therapy is worthwhile if
• 34:00
  they need it. Who wouldn't counselling work
• 34:03
  for? Amongst the people who would
• 34:05
  seek psychotherapy because there are certain types of
• 34:07
  presentations for which counselling in in the way that I
• 34:10
  do, it wouldn't be effective. For example, people with
• 34:13
  profound intellectual disabilities, probably they
• 34:16
  wouldn't benefit from psychotherapy.
• 34:18
  And in the sense that most of us would receive, they might
• 34:21
  receive specific types of psychotherapy like behaviour
• 34:24
  therapy, which when practiced properly is quite effective for
• 34:27
  helping people reduce behaviours that are potentially dangerous
• 34:30
  to themselves or others. But I'd say outside of that,
• 34:34
  first of all, any someone who doesn't want to change, therapy
• 34:37
  will never work for them because the common type of psychotherapy
• 34:42
  involves you actually using tools to make changes in your
• 34:45
  own life. If you don't want to change,
• 34:47
  there is absolutely no one who can convince you to change you.
• 34:51
  You have to want it. Outside of that specific types
• 34:56
  of mental illness like person, well, I want to say all
• 34:59
  personality disorders, but narcissistic and antisocial
• 35:02
  personality disorders are quite treatment resistant.
• 35:06
  Unfortunately. That's unfortunately not a the
• 35:09
  the term treatment resistant or even personality disorder has
• 35:12
  been criticized. But to, to, to be, to be
• 35:16
  perfectly honest, unfortunately, that if you have one of those
• 35:19
  illnesses, then changing it through therapy is quite
• 35:23
  difficult. Profound presentations of
• 35:27
  illnesses where psychosis is involved, which is what happens
• 35:30
  when a person can't discern between what they're imagining
• 35:32
  and what's actually real. A lot of psychotherapy can't
• 35:37
  eliminates well, psychotherapy can't really eliminate
• 35:40
  psychosis. It can help people deal with it,
• 35:42
  but it can't eliminate it. The only real treatment for
• 35:46
  psychosis, as far as I know that can actually reduce it or
• 35:50
  eliminate it will be medication or medical intervention.
• 35:53
  If it's a particularly profound psychosis, then sometimes even
• 35:57
  that doesn't work. So there are certain
• 36:00
  presentation severe mental illnesses for which therapy is
• 36:03
  not generally appropriate. And in those instances, it's
• 36:07
  helping the person live the best quality of life that they can
• 36:10
  with through through other interventions.
• 36:12
  But for from those are those are relatively a small number of
• 36:17
  cases. Those are not common diagnosis.
• 36:20
  Most people seek therapy for issues that don't constitute a
• 36:23
  mental illness or not a profound one at least.
• 36:26
  So in those common cases, it's a matter of if you don't want to
• 36:29
  change or you're not willing to face the challenge, therapy
• 36:33
  won't convince you to. I'm sure you've come across your
• 36:37
  fair share of narcissists over the years.
• 36:40
  How do you, how do you even gauge something like that?
• 36:45
  Sorry, approach something like that?
• 36:46
  Because essentially what you've got to turn around and say to
• 36:50
  the person is, well, you know, this is your personality.
• 36:53
  This is who you are. Like by definition you'd have to
• 36:56
  completely change your personality, which is
• 37:00
  impossible. I mean, you can tweak things,
• 37:03
  but can you? Can't stop being a narcissist,
• 37:06
  can you? As as far as we know, I don't
• 37:09
  know, I don't know what historical cases have existed in
• 37:12
  which I have been that of the narcissist that I've known.
• 37:17
  It's effectively as you, as you imagine it.
• 37:21
  You may try to have a reasonable discussion with them.
• 37:23
  Try to explain that what they're doing is harmful to other people
• 37:28
  and it's also harmful to them because they're reducing the
• 37:32
  quality of their relations with other people, but they will not
• 37:36
  see it from somebody else's perspective.
• 37:39
  Part of part of what causes narcissism is not being able to
• 37:42
  empathize, not being able to understand why other people find
• 37:45
  your behaviour objectionable or harmful.
• 37:48
  So you sometimes you try your best.
• 37:52
  You try to be as honest as possible without being impolite.
• 37:55
  But ultimately, some often you just can't change someone and
• 37:59
  you can't convince them that change is worthwhile.
• 38:03
  You can't convince them you can change and still enjoy who you.
• 38:08
  There are still parts of yourself, the good part of
• 38:10
  yourself that you can keep and enjoy.
• 38:13
  Have you ever had narcissists come to you who saw therapy of
• 38:18
  their own accord? Because I can understand if if
• 38:21
  you've got like, I don't know, let's say it's there's a father
• 38:24
  in, in a family and he's the narcissist and the family's
• 38:27
  like, you need to give therapy. I don't understand that.
• 38:29
  But has there ever been just a narcissist who's come out to you
• 38:33
  and been like, oh, I want therapy Because that's kind of
• 38:38
  interesting. Like they refuse to change.
• 38:41
  They won't listen. They only see it from their
• 38:43
  perspective. Why are they in therapy?
• 38:45
  I've never, I've never actually personally had a had a
• 38:47
  narcissist approach me and say, look, I'm either a narcissist or
• 38:50
  have a narcissistic personality disorder.
• 38:52
  I want to change. I have either known narcissists
• 38:56
  personally or I've been involved in situations where I'm
• 39:00
  counselling somebody who is dating or dealing with a
• 39:02
  narcissist. Or perhaps they're in a
• 39:04
  relationship in which they want to.
• 39:07
  They want to help improve their relationship with their
• 39:09
  narcissistic partner and the partner might attend therapy in
• 39:12
  order to in order to in order to try and pace their partner.
• 39:18
  But those are those a lot of cases are quite rare.
• 39:22
  Usually they'll just refuse. Have you ever been in situations
• 39:25
  like maybe at a party or with friends or something, or whether
• 39:29
  maybe maybe someone introduces you to their partner and you're
• 39:33
  just, you know, doing your superpower thing and kind of
• 39:37
  going actually let's let's go down that route.
• 39:39
  See, someone has introduced you to their partner and you've seen
• 39:43
  through them, you've psych analyzed them, you've got
• 39:45
  picture in your head. What do you do?
• 39:48
  Do you tell your friend you shouldn't date this person,
• 39:53
  they're like this? Or do you kind of let things
• 39:56
  unfold? Now that's a good question.
• 40:00
  I can't say too much on it other than.
• 40:03
  I've been in that situation where I have seen something
• 40:06
  about to unfold and the ethical, the ethicist in me has said,
• 40:10
  look, don't cross the line. Don't be the therapist of this
• 40:13
  person. You could end up you.
• 40:15
  There may be something you don't know about the situation that
• 40:17
  could end up hurting them if you do try to give them advice on
• 40:21
  it. And then unfortunately later,
• 40:24
  what I was afraid happened did happen and.
• 40:28
  Because she didn't do anything or because.
• 40:31
  Well, the problem is if I had have said something, it probably
• 40:35
  wouldn't have done anything anyway because that situ in in
• 40:38
  that situation. But people were so the people
• 40:40
  involved were so heavily invested that you could have
• 40:43
  told them the given them the most logical argument as to why
• 40:46
  they shouldn't. I probably would have ended up
• 40:49
  being excommunicated from that situation and they probably
• 40:52
  wouldn't have wanted to hear anything.
• 40:54
  So I, I in that situation, what I tried to do was just try to be
• 41:00
  as supportive as I could to everybody involved so that
• 41:04
  whatever was like seemed likely to me to happen, was less likely
• 41:08
  to. But in the end, unfortunately,
• 41:09
  it still happened. Have you ever had a friend or a
• 41:13
  family member become a client, or is that too much of a
• 41:16
  conflict of interest? What's a conflict of interest?
• 41:19
  That there are certain people with whom we wouldn't work and I
• 41:21
  mean literally any person who has another relationship with
• 41:24
  us. So in many cases, relatives of
• 41:28
  clients, we we have boundaries about that.
• 41:32
  Anyone with whom we've worked professionally in another role
• 41:35
  or for whom we've worked. Oh, OK.
• 41:38
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. So like.
• 41:38
  If someone's come to you and they go, oh, can I refer my dad
• 41:41
  on to you? You'd be like because if you're
• 41:42
  exist, can't it? Can't it kind.
• 41:44
  Of depends if, if this person has if this person has an
• 41:48
  ongoing relationship with their father or they're having
• 41:50
  conflict, I would say, look, unfortunately I, I can't.
• 41:55
  But even if if somebody came to me and I realized that they were
• 41:59
  the subject of another client's compliance, there are specific
• 42:02
  ways that we deal with it so as not to breach the other clients
• 42:04
  confidentiality. I would normally say something
• 42:06
  to the effect of and this hasn't.
• 42:09
  Actually happened to me before. Thankfully, but it probably will
• 42:11
  in the future. Statistically speaking, that's
• 42:13
  just an experience we have. I would probably say something
• 42:16
  along the lines of I've become aware of information recently.
• 42:19
  That means that I don't believe it's safe for me to conduct
• 42:23
  therapy with you. I can't explain the reasons why
• 42:26
  given that it would end up breaching your confidentiality
• 42:31
  or someone else's. But at a minimum I can say no
• 42:34
  one's done anything wrong, you're not in trouble, nothing,
• 42:36
  no one's in any danger. I'm happy to refer you on to
• 42:40
  somebody else. And we normally keep it at that.
• 42:42
  And that way no one that person doesn't know that I'm consulting
• 42:45
  with somebody they know, but I'm not inadvertently going to be
• 42:49
  biased by something that another client told me when sort of
• 42:52
  letting people. Down or, you know, saying that
• 42:55
  you can't give them therapy anymore any longer.
• 42:59
  Have you ever had any like really kind of crazy situations
• 43:02
  you found yourself in maybe like people on the other end of
• 43:06
  rejection who just didn't take it in a very in a good way or
• 43:13
  just because I can, I can imagine for many people, therapy
• 43:17
  might seem as as like the last port of call like, you know,
• 43:20
  everything's kind of falling apart and now your therapist is
• 43:23
  rejecting you. It's like have you ever found
• 43:25
  yourself in situations like that and, and how did you remedy the
• 43:29
  situation? On a number of occasions, yes, I
• 43:31
  have. And in those instances, my
• 43:35
  dialogue has absolutely no problem solving talk whatsoever.
• 43:39
  I don't sugar coat it, I don't try to give them false hope.
• 43:41
  I simply say the truth. Is I wish that I.
• 43:45
  Could offer you the. Assistance that you need.
• 43:50
  But I don't believe that my therapeutic style is going to
• 43:54
  produce the type of progress you're after.
• 43:55
  And quite frankly, I say, quite frankly, it's not right of me to
• 43:59
  take your money knowing that change isn't likely.
• 44:02
  It's just I, I can't, I can't do that to you.
• 44:06
  I think that it's nothing. It's nothing that you're doing
• 44:08
  wrong. It's the therapy involves
• 44:11
  chemistry between people. It's a rapport.
• 44:13
  And some people just build a different rapport with some
• 44:15
  types of therapists over others. So if I was to hopefully I would
• 44:19
  be happy to refer you on to somebody else.
• 44:21
  Hopefully the rapport that they build with you or the chemistry
• 44:24
  that you feel is going to be more, it's going to feel more
• 44:29
  conducive to change for you. And I keep it honest and I do
• 44:33
  empathize and say, I know it hurts because you've, you've
• 44:35
  suffered a lot and I've been in the same situation.
• 44:38
  So I, I really wish that, that it didn't have to come to this.
• 44:41
  But in the end, I, I don't feel right taking money from you,
• 44:48
  given that you're trusting me to provide the grants for change
• 44:52
  for you. Have you ever witnessed another?
• 44:54
  Therapist being unethical or maybe heard them say something
• 44:59
  unethical? And if so, have you ever had to
• 45:02
  kind of have that decision? Do I report this?
• 45:06
  Do I talk to them? You ever found yourself in
• 45:08
  situations like that? Oh, on a number of occasions.
• 45:10
  I've most of most of the situations that I've seen in
• 45:15
  which I've had reason to question a therapist practice,
• 45:19
  they wouldn't feel they, they wouldn't fall within the scope
• 45:23
  of what's reportable, but I'd say it's more problematic from
• 45:27
  the standpoint of what ethical standards we have.
• 45:31
  I'll give you some, I'll give you some very, very broad
• 45:33
  examples, but in in therapeutic practice, something that we
• 45:37
  often say is we can't facilitate client self sabotaging.
• 45:42
  So if a client is approaching the therapeutic relationship in
• 45:46
  a way that is going to perpetuate the problems that
• 45:50
  they're experiencing, we have to then tell that person, we're
• 45:54
  ethically obliged to tell that person, either this stops or I
• 45:57
  can't service you because then I'll be allowing you to,
• 46:01
  enabling you to keep perpetuating those problems that
• 46:03
  you've that you already have. An example is in frequency of
• 46:07
  service. Some therapist will say, if a
• 46:10
  client is wanting service from you, but they can only see you
• 46:14
  every four weeks or every six weeks, and they're saying, I, I
• 46:17
  can't afford to see you any more often than that or I don't have
• 46:20
  the time to leave work to see you any more often than that.
• 46:23
  We, a lot of therapists will automatically conclude that that
• 46:26
  is a self sabotage cycle. It's the client saying, well,
• 46:31
  like, it's not that, like it's not that I'm, it's not that I
• 46:34
  didn't put in the effort. It's that money stopped me or
• 46:36
  time stopped me. Change is impossible.
• 46:39
  And it's a, it's a way of avoiding the discomfort of
• 46:42
  change by rationalizing that it wasn't that you didn't try hard
• 46:47
  enough to change. It's that something else stopped
• 46:49
  you from change. That's a little bit of an
• 46:52
  obscure concept, but one of the things that we avoid most often
• 46:57
  is is mental effort. Mental effort's actually quite
• 46:59
  uncomfortable for a lot of people and all too often we
• 47:01
  avoid change because of that discomfort.
• 47:04
  And so a lot of therapists will say, unless you're happy to see
• 47:06
  me at a minimum every two weeks, I can't enable that self
• 47:10
  sabotage cycle that is within the bounds of what's considered
• 47:14
  ethical under our accreditation system.
• 47:17
  And I know in places like the United States where there's
• 47:19
  government licensure involved, I think that's considered ethical
• 47:22
  in those within those circumstances.
• 47:26
  I've told this story before. I've reflected it in my own
• 47:29
  program and in blogs that I've written that I was seeing a
• 47:32
  therapist once and we were actually making quite good
• 47:35
  progress. And then at the time I decided I
• 47:39
  got another job or changed jobs, and it was a full time job and
• 47:42
  it was quite distant from where my therapist office was.
• 47:45
  And so I couldn't actually leave work to see this particular
• 47:49
  therapist. But I said, I want to keep
• 47:51
  seeing you because we're making good progress.
• 47:52
  Can we conduct therapy via video conference?
• 47:54
  And I'll put in the same efforts.
• 47:56
  And she basically concluded like she did not even listen to me.
• 47:59
  She told me straight right? I don't feel safe.
• 48:02
  Servicing you that way. Because I don't think you're
• 48:04
  going to put in the same effort and this is basically a self
• 48:07
  sabotage cycle. I'm not going to service you any
• 48:09
  longer. And that is within the bounds of
• 48:13
  what we consider acceptable. I think the.
• 48:16
  Standards that the industry. Has established are wrong and I
• 48:19
  think that that's really a case of therapist replicating abusive
• 48:24
  cycles that people might see elsewhere so I have.
• 48:29
  Seen I've I've seen practice. That I consider unethical in
• 48:32
  terms of what things that would actually be reportable.
• 48:35
  Yeah, I've seen a few therapists do things and I have lodged
• 48:37
  reports. I don't I'm not Privy to the
• 48:40
  outcomes, but unfortunately it does happen.
• 48:43
  It's it's feel bad for people like.
• 48:45
  Like yourself there where it's like it's, it's out of my hands.
• 48:48
  Like what can, what can I do? You know what I mean?
• 48:50
  Or like, if you genuinely can't afford, I mean, to the best of
• 48:53
  my knowledge that therapy is, is not cheap.
• 48:55
  I mean, it's a big reason I never got it because I'm like,
• 48:58
  well, there's time and then there's money.
• 49:00
  And it's like, if you're going to do something, especially for
• 49:02
  something like therapy, you, you got to put the investment in the
• 49:05
  money and the time. And if you just can't do it, I
• 49:09
  mean, yeah, you. Have to prioritise work.
• 49:12
  And and livelihood above it. Dare I?
• 49:17
  Say I I think therapy is a. Luxury.
• 49:20
  In some ways it's. It's a.
• 49:21
  Necessity, don't get me wrong, but it is a luxury having the
• 49:27
  ability to be able to pay for this service that can help you,
• 49:34
  service that can help you in your life, you know, simply but
• 49:39
  but obviously, you know, you look at the state of the world,
• 49:42
  you look at where we're at, like things are getting more
• 49:44
  expensive, things are getting trickier.
• 49:47
  I know sometimes you can get things like here in the UK, it's
• 49:50
  possible to get therapy on the NHS, but the problem with that
• 49:54
  often is the, the quality of the service you're receiving.
• 50:00
  Quite frankly, it's, it's just not there in many cases.
• 50:03
  And secondly, as you said, like the frequency of service, like I
• 50:07
  would, I would agree, like I'm not a healthcare professional,
• 50:10
  but I'd agree every every two weeks is, is pretty any less
• 50:14
  than that. You could.
• 50:15
  What can you really do? Do you know what I mean?
• 50:17
  You need time to review. Obviously there's going to be
• 50:19
  like mini conversations in between sessions, but you need
• 50:23
  that frequency to kind of get a good grounding of things.
• 50:27
  And to me, it's a lot like learning.
• 50:29
  Like I remember when I was at school and we were learning
• 50:31
  languages in Europe, they learned languages from like the
• 50:34
  age of 4, whereas we started at age 11.
• 50:40
  And the frequency. Of the sessions was like.
• 50:42
  Two lessons a week, an hour. Or two hours.
• 50:47
  And we were expected to practice at home, but we weren't
• 50:50
  practicing with each other because, and you could argue
• 50:53
  maybe the teachers didn't push it enough.
• 50:54
  Maybe, maybe, maybe we could have, maybe we could have
• 50:57
  practiced in the playground. But we were kids, you know,
• 51:00
  really, there should have been more contact hours, like,
• 51:03
  because that's the best way to learn the language, by the way,
• 51:05
  is, is speaking it. But yeah, I.
• 51:09
  Don't know that's that's. A That's a That's a tough one,
• 51:11
  man. That's a tough one.
• 51:13
  It is. And I think.
• 51:16
  A major way that this could be solved is through systemic
• 51:19
  intervention. And by systemic intervention, I
• 51:21
  mean start with teaching basic psychology in schools, and I
• 51:24
  mean make it a part of the curriculum.
• 51:27
  Teach problem solving concepts so that people who people are
• 51:35
  not necessarily able to do everything a therapist can do,
• 51:37
  but at least when they engage with therapy, it becomes a it
• 51:40
  becomes easier because they're already primed to have some of
• 51:42
  those cognitive workings. I completely agree.
• 51:45
  I think the. Only reason above the ones.
• 51:48
  I just listed there the. Key reason I never went to
• 51:51
  therapy is because of critical thinking because I was able to
• 51:55
  look at things and go all right, what do I need what what are my
• 51:59
  problems? What do I accept her issues?
• 52:00
  What you know, like I'm this, This is why I, I would get
• 52:05
  annoyed with the whole your stubborn thing because I'm like,
• 52:07
  no, I've considered what you've said.
• 52:09
  I've analyzed it, I've looked at it, I've weighed it up and I've
• 52:12
  decided that's not for me. That doesn't make me stubborn.
• 52:14
  That means I've sat and thought about it and I know what's best
• 52:19
  for me. There are, obviously.
• 52:22
  Instances where? People don't listen.
• 52:24
  People are, you know, beyond help.
• 52:26
  Like if if you're an addict and you're and you're dealing with
• 52:28
  stuff that sometimes you can lose sight of things, you, you
• 52:32
  might not realize how far gone you are.
• 52:36
  Yeah, I've made it known in the past.
• 52:38
  Like I had troubles with with alcohol back in the day.
• 52:41
  I don't now, but it was because of looking at things.
• 52:44
  Things got to a point and then I was like, well, I've got two
• 52:48
  options here. I can either get on top of this.
• 52:52
  You know, at the time I decided to go cold Turkey with it, which
• 52:55
  was a really good move or I can let this continue and obviously
• 53:00
  I wasn't going to let it continue, but I knew that there
• 53:04
  had to be big changes. So for me, quitting for I think
• 53:07
  it was like 6 months in the end was really powerful.
• 53:10
  And I was talking to a friend about this last night that the
• 53:14
  reason I decided to start drinking again was that I looked
• 53:17
  at it and I went. The issue is never the thing
• 53:20
  itself. It was the habit of this, of the
• 53:22
  thing. It was the IT was a crutch.
• 53:26
  It had like a hold on me. And that's the problem.
• 53:29
  And often that's the case. We forget like things like
• 53:31
  alcohol depressants. So you know you're depressed,
• 53:36
  you drink a depressant, guess what, it makes you more
• 53:38
  depressed, right? That's not always the case.
• 53:43
  I think of great. Nights I've had where where you.
• 53:45
  Know, but like, the reason I had a good night was not the thing
• 53:49
  itself. It was the company, the
• 53:50
  conversation, you know, forgetting about things or
• 53:55
  working through things. Yeah, I've had people criticize
• 53:58
  me in the past about you can't use friends as therapists,
• 54:01
  Christian. And I'm like, I don't, I talk to
• 54:04
  people. If if, if I have perfect
• 54:09
  example, last night I had some issues I needed to talk to a
• 54:12
  friend about. And I was like, is this OK with
• 54:14
  you? And he was like, ask permission.
• 54:16
  And he was like, yeah. And we spoke about.
• 54:19
  It it wasn't the only thing we spoke.
• 54:20
  About but he was really helpful and that's the.
• 54:24
  Thing I always look at is. I do youth agree that there is
• 54:27
  like some level of responsibility on the person who
• 54:32
  brings their problems forth to let the other person know.
• 54:35
  Like, hey, there's no expectations here, but this is a
• 54:38
  big conversation. Are you ready for that?
• 54:41
  Like it's going to be, I'm going to need empathy.
• 54:44
  I might need your time, you know, I might not be, you know,
• 54:48
  I'm asking for advice. I'm asking for a lot here.
• 54:50
  Is this OK? And if the answer is, oh, I'm
• 54:52
  sorry, I don't think I can do that, that's also OK.
• 54:55
  I, I, again, I completely agree with your assessment.
• 54:58
  I'm, I'm stunned that they don't teach these things in school.
• 55:01
  I think a lot of people go into adult life never really truly
• 55:04
  understanding themselves, which is crazy.
• 55:08
  But. When it comes to mental health,
• 55:10
  you know, one thing I learned over the years is that it is
• 55:13
  like this barometer. So like, while you might not
• 55:16
  necessarily have like a, a mental health condition, you can
• 55:20
  find yourself dipping into, you know, the negative.
• 55:23
  Like, like I'm naturally quite a calm positive guy, but I also
• 55:28
  when, if you push me far enough and if life pushes me far
• 55:32
  enough, I can find myself with negative habits.
• 55:35
  I'm I'm aware it's happening. I can see it.
• 55:38
  I know it's destructive. I know it's problematic, but I
• 55:41
  also know that I have the capacity within myself to be
• 55:44
  like, OK, today's a new day. Like case in point, today boom
• 55:49
  podcast. After that, boom voice acting,
• 55:52
  then house stuff, then work, work, work.
• 55:55
  You know, yesterday wasn't that yesterday was OK, there's a
• 55:58
  problem and I need to talk about this and I need to deal with it.
• 56:04
  I guess my. Point with all of this.
• 56:06
  Is that I understand myself mentally.
• 56:11
  And what I. Need and I've spent years
• 56:15
  working on that and and you're never done.
• 56:19
  You're never complete in that regard.
• 56:20
  It's always a work in progress. But I understand enough to know
• 56:25
  how I work, and I understand that if it got to a point where
• 56:28
  I didn't feel I was in control, then I'd ask for help.
• 56:33
  And the stigma? In society, I think a lot of
• 56:36
  the. Time is, oh, if you're going to
• 56:38
  therapy, it's like failure. And it's like, no, it's like it,
• 56:42
  it takes a lot to stay in control.
• 56:44
  Sometimes life can push us so much that it's like impossible
• 56:51
  to stay on the horse. It's impossible to stay in the
• 56:53
  car. We're just being thrown around
• 56:54
  left, right and centre and we, we need a bit of support, you
• 56:58
  know, and that's fine. But I I think.
• 57:02
  The the the bigger. Issue here is the society
• 57:06
  stigma. And yeah, people say, oh, you
• 57:08
  can talk about it now. I disagree.
• 57:10
  I I think you can, but it's held against you.
• 57:14
  It's held against you professionally.
• 57:16
  It's held against you in society.
• 57:19
  There are obviously more and more people talking about these
• 57:22
  things. And like, I talk about it all
• 57:23
  the time. I don't see it as a weakness,
• 57:25
  but I understand people saying. It's a weakness.
• 57:29
  I just think we have to keep re educating society that hey, your
• 57:33
  brain, your mind is the most important thing.
• 57:36
  You lose that you lose everything you know so well and
• 57:39
  good going to the gym, taking care of yourself physically.
• 57:42
  And that's great, that's positive.
• 57:44
  But what happens when you go to the gym?
• 57:47
  Your body releases endorphins. You get a high, you get a
• 57:51
  positive feeling, right, But that's temporary.
• 57:55
  The long term is how do I feel about myself?
• 57:59
  How do I feel about myself when I'm alone with myself?
• 58:01
  How do I feel about myself when I'm with friends?
• 58:04
  How do I feel about myself versus last year, five years
• 58:08
  ago, 10 years ago? Did I really resolve that stuff
• 58:11
  from my childhood or is it coming into my adult life and
• 58:15
  affecting me? Maybe I don't know what the
• 58:18
  problem is, so I need to talk to.
• 58:20
  Someone about it and it's. Like you said, if.
• 58:23
  If, if, if. We understood basic psychology
• 58:28
  from a young age. We would then know if we need
• 58:32
  therapy or not. And that I suppose is is the
• 58:35
  real key in all of this. Absolutely.
• 58:37
  And. It would.
• 58:39
  It would. Prime us to then be.
• 58:41
  More receptive to problem solving skills but also
• 58:43
  understanding why we need the care that we do Everybody
• 58:46
  understands what what the risks of climbing a trail.
• 58:49
  You may fall and break a bone, and everybody understands what
• 58:51
  the risk of a broken bone is, but because the mind is so
• 58:54
  abstract, we too often avoid engaging with the challenge of
• 58:59
  understanding it because our minds like concrete.
• 59:01
  But abstraction is quite difficult for us to handle.
• 59:06
  Not impossible, just it takes a fair bit of mental effort and
• 59:10
  mental effort throughout history, Quite frankly, most of
• 59:14
  his history's problems have been caused because people were too
• 59:17
  afraid of mental effort. They didn't want to engage with
• 59:19
  things. They wanted to say quick answers
• 59:23
  and quick answers all too often, and not particularly useful
• 59:26
  ones. And on a small scale, quick
• 59:29
  answers can create nuisance, but on a large scale they can create
• 59:32
  destruction. Completely agree.
• 59:35
  With you I. Size the agreeing podcast, but
• 59:39
  it's true, man. You look at like a friend.
• 59:42
  You know, that's that been has been dealing with problems for a
• 59:46
  long time and somewhere down the line you might have given them
• 59:50
  advice and they just refuse to take it.
• 59:56
  Or if they do, as you said, they try it for a bit but they don't
• 1:00:01
  really apply it. For instance, when I look at
• 1:00:06
  things like my voice. Acting for.
• 1:00:07
  Example And I look at how far I've come over the years, it's
• 1:00:11
  because I put the F in. It's because and I still face
• 1:00:15
  rejection like 99% of the time. That's just part of the part of
• 1:00:19
  the deal. But it dawned on me that I'd
• 1:00:24
  gotten good at this because, you know, I was earning money for
• 1:00:27
  this and people were picking up on it and go, wow, you're really
• 1:00:29
  good at that. And I was like, I guess I am.
• 1:00:34
  I never really thought about that because I was just focusing
• 1:00:37
  on trying to be better and, and doing it.
• 1:00:39
  But the way that you think and feel about things is everything,
• 1:00:43
  especially when it comes to yourself.
• 1:00:45
  Your tree analogy is fascinating because in many ways it's it's
• 1:00:50
  the leap of faith question really, isn't it?
• 1:00:52
  It's like, do I take the? Leap of faith do I take.
• 1:00:56
  Risks in life or do I play it safe I've always pushed people
• 1:00:59
  not to play it safe but to make educated risks and what I.
• 1:01:04
  Mean by that is to look at things.
• 1:01:05
  And go, all right, I'm going to measure the risks versus
• 1:01:09
  inaction because inaction is a risk in of itself action and
• 1:01:15
  just sitting and. Doing nothing is is.
• 1:01:18
  Probably arguably the worst thing you could do.
• 1:01:21
  I mean, it depends. Like sometimes it's better not
• 1:01:24
  to do anything like, you know, like the old expression, hold
• 1:01:27
  your tongue. It's better to observe than you
• 1:01:31
  know. Just say everything you think
• 1:01:33
  all the time. But at the same time, inaction
• 1:01:36
  sometimes can lead to some of the worst decisions in our
• 1:01:39
  lives. And I think a lot of the time we
• 1:01:41
  just kind of have to look at each and every situation in our
• 1:01:43
  life or what's happening around us and make a judgement call.
• 1:01:46
  And you can't punish yourself for these judgement calls unless
• 1:01:52
  they come from fear. I think because it's it's.
• 1:01:56
  Fine to get things. Wrong.
• 1:01:58
  But if your decisions come from like I was too scared to do
• 1:02:02
  that. I just, I don't know, like I'm I
• 1:02:05
  don't know what to do. You know, that's on you.
• 1:02:08
  I know that sounds harsh, but like that that's true.
• 1:02:11
  You know when. I look at everything that I've
• 1:02:15
  done over the. Years, it's all about.
• 1:02:18
  Risk taking. And.
• 1:02:22
  I've had a lot of criticism for that and.
• 1:02:24
  For the people that have tried to understand it, I tried to
• 1:02:27
  explain to them that I played it safe in life and it got me
• 1:02:30
  nowhere. And it's like the worst thing
• 1:02:35
  you can do. But again, it depends what
• 1:02:38
  you're looking for. If you're looking for
• 1:02:39
  contentment in life, I don't know.
• 1:02:42
  Maybe. Maybe that is the answer.
• 1:02:44
  For some, maybe. As you outlined earlier, every
• 1:02:48
  instance is completely different.
• 1:02:49
  What works for one person doesn't work for another.
• 1:02:51
  And and so on and so forth. But.
• 1:02:55
  It's kind of harrowing. Like how ill prepared a lot of
• 1:03:00
  people are in life because when I went to uni, you know, my
• 1:03:05
  worry was I don't know how to cook.
• 1:03:07
  I need to learn how to like, take care of myself, right?
• 1:03:10
  But then like there's never that conversation about taking care
• 1:03:15
  of your mental health. Like how am I going to be when
• 1:03:17
  I'm alone for many? People.
• 1:03:21
  Their first time away from home is when they go to university.
• 1:03:25
  First time away. From parents first time away.
• 1:03:27
  From everything like who am I when I'm on my own?
• 1:03:30
  Can I exist in that space? COVID was a good example of
• 1:03:34
  this, too. Like, there was a lot of people.
• 1:03:36
  Extroverts, I felt suffered more than introverts because
• 1:03:40
  extroverts now were forced to stay at home and not go out.
• 1:03:44
  And they didn't know how to do that, you know?
• 1:03:47
  And I was like, what? You've never had a rainy day?
• 1:03:49
  You never had like, a just a chill weekend?
• 1:03:51
  No. Oh, OK.
• 1:03:54
  Why? And it's like, well, because I.
• 1:03:57
  Live for the weekend, I go out, I do things.
• 1:03:59
  That's that's fine. But like, I think it's important
• 1:04:01
  to be multifaceted in life. You're not always going to get
• 1:04:04
  what you want in every given situation.
• 1:04:06
  You got to like make the best of things.
• 1:04:09
  You know, like some weeks are the best weeks of your life,
• 1:04:13
  followed by the worst times of your life.
• 1:04:16
  Who are you throughout all of that?
• 1:04:18
  That's, that's your constant, that's who you are, how you deal
• 1:04:21
  with all those things. My $0.10 Anyway, moving it
• 1:04:24
  forward, I want to, I want to. Focus on something really
• 1:04:27
  positive. What have been your biggest
• 1:04:29
  success stories? And they can't go into specifics
• 1:04:32
  again, but when you think about all your years of being a
• 1:04:35
  counsellor, what have been kind of your your biggest triumphs?
• 1:04:38
  Well, there are a number that come to.
• 1:04:40
  Mind, I remember the. First client that I.
• 1:04:44
  Counselled years and years and years ago, they were actually
• 1:04:51
  from a completely different cultural background with some
• 1:04:55
  linguistic barriers present. And I remember I actually helped
• 1:04:59
  them to, I didn't advise them to do this directly.
• 1:05:02
  Obviously I had to, they, these were decisions that they had to
• 1:05:06
  make for themselves. But I provided with them the
• 1:05:09
  self reflection, the, the capacity, I helped them develop
• 1:05:12
  the capacity for self reflection and the confidence to then make
• 1:05:15
  these decisions. They actually decided to move
• 1:05:19
  countries to shift themselves out of poverty into something
• 1:05:22
  more fruitful. And I was really proud when I
• 1:05:25
  heard that because they would were reflecting to me how they
• 1:05:29
  felt they were stuck in a cycle of being in a in.
• 1:05:32
  Poverty in a country. Where they didn't feel that this
• 1:05:38
  was, this was an international, an international patron at the
• 1:05:41
  time, they didn't feel that there was a future for them and
• 1:05:46
  they felt rather dejected and and quite helpless.
• 1:05:51
  And through our discussions, they developed the confidence to
• 1:05:54
  move countries and start a new life.
• 1:05:57
  I've known, I remember I once helped a I've helped people I've
• 1:06:03
  convinced people not to commit suicide or self harm.
• 1:06:07
  I've helped people who to move out of decades with trauma, not
• 1:06:11
  complete healing, but because trauma can be quite hard to
• 1:06:14
  heal, but get to the point where they no longer felt suicidal and
• 1:06:18
  actually felt like they were worthwhile in life and they
• 1:06:22
  were. They felt it was, it was they
• 1:06:24
  deserved to be happy and do things that were meaningful to
• 1:06:27
  them. I've helped people who thought
• 1:06:29
  they wouldn't work again to move from severe mood disorders into
• 1:06:33
  back into the workforce. So I've had some, I've had some
• 1:06:37
  moments, we'll say, of course. Psychotherapy can.
• 1:06:40
  Be I jokingly say to black magic sometimes because it's so
• 1:06:44
  abstract that it can be hard to define exactly what's going to
• 1:06:48
  work and what doesn't work. But obviously we have as
• 1:06:50
  practice standards, we have our our boundaries, we have
• 1:06:53
  determination and insight. We use them as best we can.
• 1:06:56
  And I'm quite grateful the fact that I feel quite privileged
• 1:07:01
  that people have sought my help over the years and that I've
• 1:07:03
  been able to help them. And I'm quite proud of the fact
• 1:07:05
  that these types of outcomes of have, have have been able to
• 1:07:09
  occur. And I am very thankful that I'm
• 1:07:11
  still here to be able to to be able to help people with them.
• 1:07:15
  How do you convince a person? Not to commit suicide.
• 1:07:18
  Like what's the process that you go through to try and convince
• 1:07:23
  them to keep going and to to keep living?
• 1:07:26
  This is like riding a bicycle. I for someone who can ride a
• 1:07:30
  bicycle 1 can do it, but not necessarily be able to explain
• 1:07:35
  how, but I'll try. I'll certainly try my best.
• 1:07:38
  You never tell someone directly not to do what you're hoping
• 1:07:44
  they don't do because that's going to make them feel like
• 1:07:47
  they need to do it. Paradoxically, if you tell
• 1:07:50
  someone, don't kill yourself, think of everything for which
• 1:07:53
  you have to live, they're going to think you're just parroting.
• 1:07:56
  They're just parroting platitudes at them.
• 1:07:59
  They're going to think everyone told me that I'm still in pain,
• 1:08:02
  I need to, I want to release myself from all this.
• 1:08:05
  It's it's not going to work how I normally if somebody is
• 1:08:09
  contemplating suicide, I normally try to help steer their
• 1:08:14
  state of mind in a direction that it becomes self reflective.
• 1:08:18
  When it becomes self reflective and one can only focus on so
• 1:08:21
  much at once. If you just effectively get
• 1:08:23
  someone to think about something else, eventually they will stop
• 1:08:26
  focusing on the suicidal ideation.
• 1:08:29
  But it has to be done in a way that leads to it.
• 1:08:33
  It has to activate certain mental resources.
• 1:08:35
  So I'll give, I'll give an example.
• 1:08:38
  I'm going to try to recreate a scenario in my mind through
• 1:08:41
  which a person might be a might might be contemplating suicide.
• 1:08:46
  Someone says, John, I don't think I have anything more to
• 1:08:50
  live for. I just cannot release this pain.
• 1:08:52
  I, I can't, I can't free myself from it.
• 1:08:55
  I want to be free of this. And I, I would like to, I would
• 1:08:59
  like to end my life. So.
• 1:09:00
  Well, I'm certainly glad you told me that you're still here
• 1:09:04
  because at least I have an opportunity to have a have a,
• 1:09:07
  have a conversation with you about it.
• 1:09:08
  There'd have to be a lot of pain happening for you to feel that
• 1:09:11
  the only way out of it is to, is to end your life.
• 1:09:14
  Well, yeah, it's, it's painful. No matter what I try, nothing
• 1:09:18
  seems to work. I I I'm constantly the victim of
• 1:09:21
  other people and the victim of this, this psychic pain.
• 1:09:25
  I I can't, I can't release it. So.
• 1:09:26
  Well, yeah, it doesn't. It doesn't sound like you can
• 1:09:29
  release it. But you decided not to.
• 1:09:32
  There were other opportunities to, and you decided not to.
• 1:09:34
  So I'm wondering what brought you here to this moment rather
• 1:09:40
  than to the next life. Maybe they'd take it from there.
• 1:09:43
  Maybe they'd say, well, I guess I do have some hope left.
• 1:09:47
  And it can be hard to have hope when you've had so much bad,
• 1:09:51
  when you've had so many bad things happen to you.
• 1:09:52
  Likely what you want is a release from it.
• 1:09:55
  You don't want to be spending that effort on something that's
• 1:09:57
  not going to work, but you're still.
• 1:09:59
  Here and. There is some hope left.
• 1:10:02
  What do you hope for? Well, I hope I can find.
• 1:10:06
  A way out. OK.
• 1:10:07
  If there was a chance that it would take a while, but there
• 1:10:10
  was still a way out of it potentially, do you think it's
• 1:10:12
  worth it? Maybe.
• 1:10:15
  OK, well. Maybe it's good enough for the
• 1:10:17
  time being. How could we discover whether.
• 1:10:22
  There's a way out of it. What could we do?
• 1:10:25
  That's just one. Scenario that I've that I've
• 1:10:28
  effectively created on the spot, amalgamated from some different
• 1:10:31
  examples, but a number of things happen there.
• 1:10:33
  Number one, empathic listening activates mental resources that
• 1:10:37
  help calm us, so it distracts you from the ideation by not
• 1:10:41
  directly telling someone not to do something.
• 1:10:44
  It doesn't feel coercive by showing them that you're glad
• 1:10:49
  that you're they're still here and at the same time engaging
• 1:10:52
  the insightful path or self reflective resources of their
• 1:10:57
  mind. What you're effectively doing is
• 1:11:02
  you're you're effectively making them feel empowered in that
• 1:11:06
  moment rather than helpless, because suicidality comes from
• 1:11:09
  feeling helpless. If you make them feel empowered
• 1:11:12
  and you make them feel like, hey, I actually can take control
• 1:11:15
  of my mind, you're planting the seed that there's an alternative
• 1:11:18
  to ending your life, not ending your life and doing something
• 1:11:21
  else that could be worthwhile and the way you.
• 1:11:24
  Do it it very much. Happens in the moment.
• 1:11:26
  Thank you for sharing, We appreciate that.
• 1:11:28
  What has mental health taught you about life?
• 1:11:30
  It's taught me that. All too often we try to we try
• 1:11:36
  to instill false hope in ourselves and also often mental
• 1:11:40
  health problems happen when the sense of false hope that we have
• 1:11:44
  is broken. And we realize that life can be
• 1:11:46
  downright nasty and can. And no matter how good we are,
• 1:11:50
  no matter how much effort we make, no matter how good a
• 1:11:53
  person we are, bad things can still happen to us.
• 1:11:56
  And it's important in life. The, the, I'd say the healthiest
• 1:12:02
  mindset is to be able to wake up someday and go.
• 1:12:06
  I know full well that anything's possible.
• 1:12:08
  And the tomorrow, everything that I think is true could be a
• 1:12:10
  lie and everything that I've lived for could be meaningful.
• 1:12:13
  And I'm still not going to let that stop me.
• 1:12:15
  Try my best to make this the best day that I possibly can.
• 1:12:18
  If you reach that point, then you've made a big step forward.
• 1:12:23
  It doesn't mean being ignorant of risk.
• 1:12:25
  It doesn't mean not being afraid of anything.
• 1:12:27
  It means that regardless of what happens, realizing that if
• 1:12:31
  you're allowed to stop you, then the fear is going to come true.
• 1:12:34
  But if you persist despite the fear, even if that fear
• 1:12:37
  actualizes it #1 you've already prompted your mind to be strong
• 1:12:40
  enough to handle it. But #2 if it doesn't actualize,
• 1:12:44
  then you haven't lost all that time worrying and you've
• 1:12:46
  actually accomplished something. What has counselling told you
• 1:12:48
  about life? Counselling's taught me that we
• 1:12:50
  need to slow. Down We need to be more
• 1:12:53
  considerate of things that we normally take for granted.
• 1:12:57
  Why do I believe this? What led me to believe it?
• 1:13:00
  What does believing this idea what?
• 1:13:03
  What benefit does it have? Is it trying to fulfill a need
• 1:13:06
  for me that I have that I'm not aware of?
• 1:13:09
  Are there alternative beliefs? Am I my beliefs?
• 1:13:13
  Am I my relations with other people?
• 1:13:15
  It leads. It's led me to realize that all
• 1:13:19
  of us are capable of slowing our thinking and asking meaningful
• 1:13:23
  questions, including about things that we take for granted,
• 1:13:26
  like why we think what we think. And we can all benefit from it.
• 1:13:30
  And quite frankly, it doesn't require any special education to
• 1:13:32
  do. We can all learn it.
• 1:13:34
  I hope we do. What's the worst advice you've
• 1:13:37
  ever received? Gosh.
• 1:13:42
  I've probably tried to. I've probably tried to eliminate
• 1:13:44
  that from my memory. I'd say I'd say I.
• 1:13:50
  Think I can. I think I can.
• 1:13:53
  Of of just from, from memory, from what I can recall in this
• 1:13:56
  moment, some of the worst advice I've ever received is to treat
• 1:14:01
  dating like a. Sales pitch.
• 1:14:03
  That when you are grotesque, isn't it?
• 1:14:07
  When you, when you're dating somebody wants and, and this is
• 1:14:10
  I'm I'm not, I'm not. I don't want to judge the people
• 1:14:13
  who said this because there's some there's some contextual
• 1:14:16
  factors that make this a bit more nuanced, but effectively
• 1:14:19
  people tried to convince me at times at different stages when
• 1:14:26
  in Rome do as. The Romans do as.
• 1:14:27
  In when you're dating, try to make yourself as attractive as
• 1:14:30
  possible to someone. Try to make yourself as
• 1:14:34
  relatable and likable. And that and that actually had
• 1:14:38
  some merit, but I it LED me down a path of thinking, OK, I don't
• 1:14:42
  want to take this. Literally, but at the.
• 1:14:43
  Same time it at least it prompted me to ask a question.
• 1:14:47
  Should you accept all? Parts of yourself or?
• 1:14:49
  Should you change the parts of yourself that aren't working?
• 1:14:52
  And it led me to realize that there are parts of yourself you
• 1:14:56
  should change. There are parts of yourself you
• 1:14:57
  shouldn't change. You change it.
• 1:14:58
  It's different for every person. But what I wanted to change
• 1:15:02
  about myself in the end was being more proactive in more
• 1:15:07
  relations with others. As in, if I was interacting with
• 1:15:10
  someone and I like them, be the first person, if it's
• 1:15:12
  appropriate to do so, to ask them on a day.
• 1:15:14
  Don't wait for them and get them to read your mind.
• 1:15:17
  Be honest. But there were other things
• 1:15:20
  about myself that I realized. I don't want anyone else telling
• 1:15:24
  me not to change those things and I'm not going to change
• 1:15:26
  them. Like whenever I date, I've
• 1:15:28
  always been very honest about what my needs are and what my
• 1:15:31
  relationship goals are from the start.
• 1:15:33
  So no one can say I didn't know because we didn't know.
• 1:15:37
  We had that conversation early. I have certain lifestyle
• 1:15:42
  philosophies that I've never breached and never will.
• 1:15:44
  So I'm completely avoiding of all drugs and alcohol and
• 1:15:47
  gambling, and there are certain things I just won't do.
• 1:15:52
  I believe they're. Out of, out of they're.
• 1:15:54
  Inconsistent with with moral code for me and I just people
• 1:15:59
  may not find it relatable, but my.
• 1:16:03
  Mind needs it to be healthy. But at the same time, it creates
• 1:16:06
  more trusting relationships, and the people that are attracted to
• 1:16:09
  that are probably also more likely to be trustworthy as
• 1:16:12
  well. So although some people might
• 1:16:14
  see it as rigid or might see it as old fashioned, or might see
• 1:16:18
  some of my values as perhaps a little bit boring, so to speak.
• 1:16:23
  I don't want to attract people who only like, who only like me
• 1:16:26
  just because they see something alluring.
• 1:16:30
  I, I want to attract people who are actually willing to talk to
• 1:16:32
  me for more than 5 minutes. And that's something I would
• 1:16:34
  encourage anyone to do. Like know what your own values
• 1:16:37
  are and know what you want out of a relationship and be honest
• 1:16:39
  about it. Enter it into it in good faith.
• 1:16:41
  Because the way I live my life. Might not, might not.
• 1:16:45
  Be the most suitable for everyone.
• 1:16:46
  But there are certain elements that we should all have and we
• 1:16:48
  all would benefit from them. And being acting in good faith
• 1:16:51
  and being honest is certainly one of them.
• 1:16:52
  What's the best advice you've ever received?
• 1:16:54
  The best advice I would say. Can't remember if I received
• 1:16:58
  this is advice explicitly, but work in mental health, work in
• 1:17:01
  the mental health field, in the heck in the in Human Services.
• 1:17:04
  I can't remember if I actually received it explicitly or
• 1:17:07
  whether I decided entirely on my own.
• 1:17:09
  It was a long time ago that I decided that I wanted to be a
• 1:17:11
  therapist, but whatever inspired me to make that decision,
• 1:17:17
  whether it be direct advice or some other source, was.
• 1:17:19
  The bit was some of the best I've had because it led me on a
• 1:17:21
  journey to learning about things that allowed all aspects of my
• 1:17:26
  life to be better. So I'd say definitely the best
• 1:17:29
  advice that I received from something or someone.
• 1:17:32
  What's the biggest life lesson you've learned so far?
• 1:17:34
  The biggest life lesson I've learned?
• 1:17:36
  Is that you can't base I'd I'd one shouldn't base their
• 1:17:40
  decisions solely on emotion. You need a whole healthy you
• 1:17:43
  need a healthy balance of emotion and healthy balance of
• 1:17:48
  emotion and thought. And you ultimately have to take
• 1:17:50
  responsibility for making the judgement every time you're
• 1:17:53
  faced with a situation of what to do, whether you base the
• 1:17:57
  decision more on emotional, more on thought.
• 1:17:59
  But you need to weigh both. So a perfect illustration of.
• 1:18:02
  This was oh, it's like a wolf or a dog jumping off a Cliff to
• 1:18:09
  grab a bird or something. And the slogan or the the blurb
• 1:18:15
  said something like remember that all actions committed.
• 1:18:21
  By your. Emotions are like I'm
• 1:18:25
  paraphrasing, but you can't undo them.
• 1:18:28
  Once they're done, they're done. And like I know.
• 1:18:33
  This all too well I'm I'm a very.
• 1:18:34
  Emotional person. I've worked.
• 1:18:37
  Over it, over the. Years.
• 1:18:38
  I have a long way to go still, but when it comes to big
• 1:18:42
  decisions, you know I. I listen to that whole sleep.
• 1:18:48
  On it thing and you know, think, you know, give it some time.
• 1:18:52
  I'm like, yeah, I know I need to, I need to calm down because
• 1:18:56
  in the past I would just get angry, upset, make phone calls,
• 1:19:00
  whatever, and mess it up even more.
• 1:19:02
  But like now I'm like, I'll get back to calm again.
• 1:19:05
  And then and then we'll see how how I feel.
• 1:19:07
  Then It's an amazing like how powerful that is.
• 1:19:10
  You take 5 minutes just to kind of consider the situation.
• 1:19:15
  And also when, when you then tell other people about your
• 1:19:20
  decision, maybe even the person who's waiting for your decision
• 1:19:23
  and they're like, Are you sure you thought about it?
• 1:19:25
  And you're like, this is how I. Felt when I was emotional.
• 1:19:30
  I sat down, I went to bed, woke up the next day with a clear
• 1:19:35
  head, and I still feel the same way.
• 1:19:37
  So what does that tell you? You know, But it's
• 1:19:42
  understandable. I mean I I.
• 1:19:44
  Guess it's it's we've come full circle.
• 1:19:46
  It goes back to what you said earlier about understanding
• 1:19:48
  oneself. My hope is over time.
• 1:19:53
  I hope schooling. Improves not just with mental
• 1:19:55
  health and counselling and psychology, but also just
• 1:19:59
  teaching people how to survive in the world.
• 1:20:03
  They argue your parents are supposed to do that, but your
• 1:20:05
  parents are working. They've only got so much time
• 1:20:09
  with you and they do what they can, but you spend most of your
• 1:20:12
  time at school and as important. As maths and science and.
• 1:20:18
  English is when you look back. At school.
• 1:20:23
  And you think about how, how it prepared you for school, for,
• 1:20:26
  for life. Sorry, everyone has a different,
• 1:20:30
  different experience, but I know a lot of people in the UK, we,
• 1:20:32
  we have similar experiences and we were just left questioned.
• 1:20:35
  Even at school, I would question things.
• 1:20:37
  I'm like, why can't you teach us about this?
• 1:20:40
  Why can't we spend more time on this?
• 1:20:42
  You know, like, I don't know anything about taxes.
• 1:20:44
  I don't know anything about managing my mental health.
• 1:20:47
  I don't know anything about just just how to survive because
• 1:20:52
  you're not prepared at all. You go out into the world and
• 1:20:55
  suddenly it's like you're 18. You're an adult.
• 1:20:59
  Supposedly. And it's like, that's not true.
• 1:21:01
  You don't figure it out until much later.
• 1:21:04
  But society says. You are, society says.
• 1:21:08
  You're ready and. Really.
• 1:21:12
  When you look at. Your life and everything you're
• 1:21:14
  dealing. With your mental stability and
• 1:21:16
  and the way your mind is the. State of your mind.
• 1:21:20
  Is what will get you through those tough times, get you
• 1:21:22
  through situations and and like not lose it like I've, I've,
• 1:21:27
  I've seen people blow a gasket. And and go.
• 1:21:30
  Crazy over the smallest things. And then I've seen people not
• 1:21:34
  react at all to something really, really disturbing.
• 1:21:38
  You know, I've seen the whole range of emotions and our
• 1:21:41
  emotional makeup is different, of course.
• 1:21:44
  But I think, I think school is, is the starting point of all of
• 1:21:46
  this. And.
• 1:21:50
  Yeah, I've said it before on the show, but like.
• 1:21:52
  I look at certain things I was told at school and I realized
• 1:21:58
  that they came from people that weren't happy and we're just
• 1:22:02
  trying to get obedience rather than actually teaching us about
• 1:22:06
  life. For instance, And I apologize
• 1:22:09
  for this guys, I know I've said it a million times, but stop
• 1:22:12
  asking questions, Christian. You ask too many questions.
• 1:22:15
  Just accept it, but I don't. Understand what I'm accepting.
• 1:22:19
  I have these questions because I'm trying to understand not
• 1:22:24
  being deliberately combatant. I just need to understand what I
• 1:22:26
  understand. Or maybe I disagree with this.
• 1:22:31
  For instance, I. Remember arguing with my?
• 1:22:33
  RE teacher like crazy. And the basis of the argument
• 1:22:36
  was I don't think that you can turn around and say this is
• 1:22:40
  fact. I'm happy to.
• 1:22:43
  Explore things with. You see your perspective seem
• 1:22:46
  and see this is a problem. They employed a religious person
• 1:22:49
  to be an RA teacher. Bad move.
• 1:22:51
  You need you need neutral neutrality.
• 1:22:54
  She's deeply passionate and I respected her passion, but I
• 1:22:57
  also was like, you can't just label this as fact.
• 1:23:00
  You just can't, especially in a classroom for the people with
• 1:23:05
  young people with thoughts and feelings.
• 1:23:07
  Like you might be able to win some people over here, but you
• 1:23:10
  have to do it with keeping people's minds open and allowing
• 1:23:14
  space for questioning and and understanding and stuff like
• 1:23:17
  that. The other thing I, I got quite a
• 1:23:20
  lot at school, which I thought was silly, was you talk too
• 1:23:25
  much, too talkative. I understand the whole class
• 1:23:30
  disruptor thing, but these two things questioning and talking.
• 1:23:38
  Are such important life? Skills and have helped have been
• 1:23:44
  the crux of everything I've ever done from doing a podcast, doing
• 1:23:48
  acting, working in customer service here and there like
• 1:23:52
  these two things, most important things.
• 1:23:54
  So I had to do what you did and reject what I was taught and go
• 1:23:59
  actually, this is not right. I had a bad feeling about it
• 1:24:03
  because I looked at some, not all.
• 1:24:05
  There were some good teachers too, but there was a lot of
• 1:24:08
  people that just got into that field because then you know,
• 1:24:11
  they weren't happy and they just didn't have anything and they
• 1:24:14
  sort of gradually accept this teaching position.
• 1:24:16
  They don't want to be around kids.
• 1:24:18
  I get it, it's not easy, but they would.
• 1:24:21
  Approach it in the in a way. That was not professional and
• 1:24:26
  not appropriate and they would take it out on students, which I
• 1:24:30
  think was the worst part. I like a lot of these people
• 1:24:32
  that said these horrid things to me.
• 1:24:34
  We're not thinking about how it comes across like I'll never
• 1:24:38
  forget one of the teachers. Ten or two, two things stand out
• 1:24:42
  to share these stories. Go move on.
• 1:24:44
  There was 1 teacher who I think they were.
• 1:24:48
  Like a maths teacher, I. Didn't do very well in maths.
• 1:24:51
  I struggled. I would ask questions.
• 1:24:53
  I was told stop asking questions.
• 1:24:56
  I how can you not understand this?
• 1:24:57
  I've wrote it on the board, I've explained it.
• 1:24:59
  I'm like, well, I don't understand the way you explain
• 1:25:01
  it and you say to. Ask questions I.
• 1:25:04
  Do and then you shut me down. So I would not ask questions.
• 1:25:08
  If you compare that to how I was in English class, different
• 1:25:11
  student, I excelled. I had a great time.
• 1:25:14
  They they let me ask a million questions.
• 1:25:16
  I came up with ideas. I was creative.
• 1:25:19
  My maths teacher turned around to me one lesson and said, Oh,
• 1:25:22
  Christian, I understand. And she sort of said it with
• 1:25:25
  like a, a bit of a sarcastic flair, like, oh, you work hard
• 1:25:29
  in in the English class. Wish you worked hard in mine.
• 1:25:31
  And I literally turned around and I said, because I'm treated
• 1:25:35
  with respect in that class. And then I said everything I
• 1:25:38
  just said to you, like, you know, this is how you treat me.
• 1:25:41
  And and they didn't receive it well.
• 1:25:42
  They were just like, oh, you're disruptive, whatever.
• 1:25:46
  Am I OK? The other example was
• 1:25:50
  fascinating. We were in German class.
• 1:25:55
  The teacher decided to divide the room up physically by order
• 1:26:01
  of who is going to excel and get a stars.
• 1:26:04
  They were at this left hand side of the room.
• 1:26:06
  People in the middle were yeah BC range, everyone to the far
• 1:26:13
  right fail now we had this thing where if you were under a
• 1:26:17
  certain level the highest grade you could get was AC, which is
• 1:26:21
  still a pass and we. All wanted that we fought.
• 1:26:25
  For it we struggled, but we all wanted it.
• 1:26:27
  None of us wanted to fail. But we did bite heads with this
• 1:26:29
  teacher a lot. He was quite a difficult teacher
• 1:26:32
  and he decided on that seating plan.
• 1:26:34
  Just consider that we all sat down one day.
• 1:26:38
  We look at each other, we go, oh, we see what's going on here
• 1:26:41
  because all of us knew we were failing.
• 1:26:43
  And we just looked at where he spent most of his time and most
• 1:26:45
  of his time was spent hovering around the A star students.
• 1:26:49
  He might ask the odd question in the middle row, never would talk
• 1:26:52
  to us. So I put my hand up one day and
• 1:26:54
  I said, so why are you discriminating us and actively
• 1:27:01
  dividing us? Segregating us and.
• 1:27:02
  Treating us this way. And his response was, oh, well,
• 1:27:06
  you've chosen to fail and be disruptive.
• 1:27:08
  So that's, you know. That's your decision and we.
• 1:27:13
  Were all like well we want to succeed we're like can you
• 1:27:16
  please help and he. Just wouldn't do it.
• 1:27:20
  I was. Stunned.
• 1:27:20
  I was like, your job is to teach, your job is to to help.
• 1:27:25
  And you know, some teachers, some students are going to be
• 1:27:29
  difficult. You know, I, I wouldn't sit here
• 1:27:31
  and say I was the easiest student ever, but there are a
• 1:27:33
  lot of teachers who understood that I was just a teenager
• 1:27:36
  struggling with some issues and I just needed a bit of a push,
• 1:27:39
  confidence boost. And guess what?
• 1:27:42
  I excelled in all the lessons that treated me that way.
• 1:27:45
  Top of my class in business, a star student in in English says
• 1:27:50
  a lot. You know what I mean?
• 1:27:52
  It's like the influence you have over people is everything and
• 1:27:59
  we've spoken about. Counselling today.
• 1:28:00
  And, and mental health and a lot of things.
• 1:28:02
  And if you look at like when you go into therapy and you, you're
• 1:28:07
  looking at your insecurities and the different things that you
• 1:28:10
  struggle with, it all comes from your childhood.
• 1:28:13
  You know, it's a cliche to say it, but it's true.
• 1:28:15
  It's, it's schooling and it's what you grew up with.
• 1:28:18
  It's those two things. And if they're not dealt with
• 1:28:22
  and you're not consciously aware, that's what you spend
• 1:28:25
  your adult life dealing with. As we draw things to a close
• 1:28:29
  today, do you have any final thoughts or upcoming projects
• 1:28:34
  that you'd like to share of our listeners?
• 1:28:37
  I'd like to say thank you first and foremost because it's always
• 1:28:39
  a pleasure to speak to people for different perspectives.
• 1:28:43
  I love hearing stories from people.
• 1:28:45
  I love talking about things that are important.
• 1:28:47
  And quite frankly, my, my philosophy on this is that my
• 1:28:51
  narrative never changes, but some, some of the stories that
• 1:28:54
  I've told you, stories that I've told other posts, I've told them
• 1:28:57
  on my own podcast, but they never stop being relevant.
• 1:28:59
  So I never tire of bringing the message to the people.
• 1:29:02
  And on my own programme, I normally release episodes on a
• 1:29:07
  weekly basis. And I have a number of
• 1:29:10
  collaborations happening in the future over the coming months.
• 1:29:12
  So, and hopefully they'll continue throughout the,
• 1:29:15
  throughout the rest of the year. So for those who are, for those
• 1:29:18
  who are listening to me, hopefully there'll be plenty of
• 1:29:21
  plenty of plenty of guests coming up with their own
• 1:29:24
  perspectives on the program, talking about psychology, how
• 1:29:28
  the world works, how specific aspects of life work.
• 1:29:31
  And that's the, that's the purpose of my program is to
• 1:29:36
  demonstrate through thinking process of through interviews,
• 1:29:40
  how different ideas work, how the world works, and ultimately
• 1:29:44
  to encourage people to go out there, do their own critical
• 1:29:47
  thinking and learn for themselves about how the world
• 1:29:49
  works and use those ideas for themselves.
• 1:29:51
  And I, I've never, never tired of it.
• 1:29:55
  So for me, it's always, every day is an exciting one.
• 1:29:58
  Absolutely. It's been an absolute.
• 1:29:59
  Pleasure speaking with you, John.
• 1:30:01
  Thank you so much for your time and your wisdom and your
• 1:30:05
  experience. Massive thank you.
• 1:30:08
  Thank you, Christian. It's been a.
• 1:30:09
  Pleasure to be here to the listeners of the.
• 1:30:12
  Christian Reed podcast, make sure you go out of your way to
• 1:30:14
  check out the Your Listener podcast.
• 1:30:17
  That's John's show. I'll make sure there's a link in
• 1:30:19
  the bio. And yeah, just check him out,
• 1:30:21
  follow him. As we've demonstrated here.
• 1:30:24
  He's got a lot of insight and wisdom that I find is very I, I,
• 1:30:28
  I enjoyed it. I, I, I learned a lot today and
• 1:30:32
  I think you guys can too. So, so thank you so much for
• 1:30:35
  watching and listening to the podcast.
• 1:30:37
  And as always, be safe, be well, and I'll see you in the next
• 1:30:40
  one.