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Two Therapists in A Room with Megan Earles, LCSW and Mark Sylvester, MD · The Trauma Therapist

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Trauma Therapists podcast. My name is gaming Person.
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: I interview incredible people who've dedicated their lives to helping
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: those who've been impacted by trauma. A big thank you
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: to our sponsors and our guests who are supporting this show.
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: Five four three two one Our folks, welcome back to
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: the podcast. Very excited that happens. My guest today, Megan
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  Speaker 1: Earls and doctor Mark Silvester, Welcome both of you.
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: Thank you for having us.
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  Speaker 3: Nice to be here so.
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  Speaker 1: Megan is a licensed clinical social worker who specializes in trauma, attachment,
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  Speaker 1: and relational healing. Through her practice, she helps individuals, couples,
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  Speaker 1: and families develop emotional regulation, deep in connection, and build
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  Speaker 1: resilience after experiences of loss, betrayal, and chronic stress. Megan
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  Speaker 1: blends evidence based therapy with warmth and collaboration, inviting clients
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  Speaker 1: to access agency insight and healing that feels grounded in
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  Speaker 1: real life and sustainable over time. Doctor Silvester is a
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  Speaker 1: psychiatrist and functional medicine physician whose expertise shapes the neurobiological
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: framework of SST. Drawing from both clinical experience and his
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  Speaker 1: own healing journey, he emphasizes the brain body connection nervous
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  Speaker 1: system regulation. His work highlights how trauma, chronic stress, and
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  Speaker 1: toxic exposures impact the olympic and autonomic systems.
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  Speaker 4: All right, both of you, thank you for being here again.
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  Speaker 4: Before we get going, share.
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  Speaker 1: With our listeners where you're from originally and then currently,
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  Speaker 1: and then we'll dive in. Megan, why don't you start sure.
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  Speaker 5: I'm from Ohio, originally trained at Ohio State University and
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  Speaker 5: grad school, and moved down to Florida. We're in Sarasota, Florida,
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  Speaker 5: about fifteen years ago, so I've been in practice for
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  Speaker 5: about twenty years as an LCSW. Currently have my own
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  Speaker 5: private practice in Sarasota, and Mark and I work collaboratively
• 1:52
  Speaker 5: under this heading of SST, which we're super excited to
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  Speaker 5: talk about today and share our journey with the development
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  Speaker 5: and exploration of SS two.
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  Speaker 4: Awesome.
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  Speaker 2: All right, Mark, well, thank you again.
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  Speaker 6: I am originally from this area. We're in Sarasota, Florida,
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  Speaker 6: born and bred. I went to college in Gainesville and
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  Speaker 6: studied biomedical engineering before medical school at the University of Miami.
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  Speaker 6: But I was never really comfortable with the amount of
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  Speaker 6: training or lack thereof that I was given in mental
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  Speaker 6: health on how to really move the needle on stuck patients,
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  Speaker 6: and these stuck patients tended to be folks with chronic
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  Speaker 6: PTSD or similar diagnoses. And moved back to the area
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  Speaker 6: after all that training and done some additional training.
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  Speaker 2: I won't bore you with here.
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  Speaker 6: But specifically as it relates to the trauma therapy, I
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  Speaker 6: was shocked at how well the combination of both a
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  Speaker 6: trauma and formed therapist and a body therapist could work
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  Speaker 6: together in a way that was essentially more healing than
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  Speaker 6: either individually. And that was sort of the beginning of
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  Speaker 6: the model that our late partner used throughout his career
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  Speaker 6: and had spectacular results with it, and Megan and I
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  Speaker 6: wanted to carry that torch forward.
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  Speaker 2: And here we.
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  Speaker 4: Are, all right, So let's start out here. How did
• 3:30
  Speaker 4: this start for you?
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  Speaker 1: Megan?
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  Speaker 4: Disinterest, this passion.
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  Speaker 5: I remember being a little kid and I think I
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  Speaker 5: was sitting in a church service and I saw somebody
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  Speaker 5: down the pew crying and I remember thinking about that
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  Speaker 5: and being fascinated by the fact that this physical response
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  Speaker 5: I think it was seven or eight, this physical thing
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  Speaker 5: could happen to the body while that person was feeling
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  Speaker 5: in emotion. It's like it started this interest for me
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  Speaker 5: that has followed me all the way through.
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  Speaker 3: Ater on.
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  Speaker 5: Continued on into as I said, social work training, working
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  Speaker 5: with kids right out of school who were severely traumatized
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  Speaker 5: significant emotional behavioral dysregulation, and found that traditional talk therapy
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  Speaker 5: as we can imagine, was not moving the needle with
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  Speaker 5: these kiddos, and I knew I needed to get trained
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  Speaker 5: in more.
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  Speaker 1: How did you find that out? Was that looking like
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  Speaker 1: to you such that you were like, talk therapy isn't working.
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  Speaker 2: Well.
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  Speaker 5: The kiddos couldn't regulate to sit in process was a
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  Speaker 5: good first indicator, right. They were bouncing all over my room,
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  Speaker 5: having emotional challenges in the room, having behavioral issues in
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  Speaker 5: the school because it was a school setting that we
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  Speaker 5: were in, and the therapist colleagues and I, we were
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  Speaker 5: all experiencing the same thing where we can't get to
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  Speaker 5: a place where these kids have enough development to be
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  Speaker 5: able to process and enough regulation to be able to
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  Speaker 5: process and learn skills and let alone be able to
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  Speaker 5: implement skills.
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  Speaker 3: So that was where I began my journey with training
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  Speaker 3: in the EMD.
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  Speaker 5: Got trained in EMDR at the time and began to
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  Speaker 5: use that to help these kids with centering and reprocessing
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  Speaker 5: trauma at the time.
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  Speaker 3: Through a number of.
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  Speaker 5: Years thereafter as we moved into private practice, used EMDR effectively.
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  Speaker 5: It's a powerful tool, and it's a tool that I
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  Speaker 5: use all the time, every day in my practice. And
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  Speaker 5: found that there, as Mark was saying, there were still
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  Speaker 5: some clients that were not getting all the way to
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  Speaker 5: a place of healing that I believed was possible for
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  Speaker 5: them a lot of times, stuck with somatic kinds of challenges,
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  Speaker 5: stuck with body based symptoms or emotion dysregulation that wasn't
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  Speaker 5: necessarily related to the trauma narrative. So it began our
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  Speaker 5: exploration of how do we dive into the body at
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  Speaker 5: a deeper level, how do we help reset the nervous
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  Speaker 5: system at a deeper level, running parallel with my own
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  Speaker 5: healing journey as well.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, we'll come back to that, Mark, how about you,
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  Speaker 1: how did this start for you?
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  Speaker 4: Give us the the synopsis here?
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  Speaker 6: I think in terms of the practice or the discovery
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  Speaker 6: of the application of this newer model or ethos I
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  Speaker 6: was trained in my medical training, my psychiatric training, that
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  Speaker 6: you cannot fix these people all you can do is
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  Speaker 6: reduce their symptoms and hope for the best. Those typically
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  Speaker 6: involve drugs. You know, I probably can't name brand drugs
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  Speaker 6: on here, but there's two that the BA classically uses
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  Speaker 6: individual and group psychotherapy and then addiction counseling as much
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  Speaker 6: as we could do, because frequently a lot of these
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  Speaker 6: usually men, have alcohol or other substance abuse problems and
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  Speaker 6: that can interfere with their healings. So a lot of
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  Speaker 6: times they're drinking to numb their pain, but they can't
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  Speaker 6: stop drinking because they still have trauma underneath it. And
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  Speaker 6: so I just was trained that these are, you know,
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  Speaker 6: an unfortunate slice of our society that we really just
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  Speaker 6: can't cure. And I didn't accept that because these are
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  Speaker 6: our veterans and they deserve the best, and anyone with trauma,
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  Speaker 6: I think we ought to do everything that we can,
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  Speaker 6: use every tool. And so my late partner was practicing
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  Speaker 6: in town at the time, and I would prefer him
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  Speaker 6: some of my toughest cases, and he'd send.
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  Speaker 2: Them back to me fixed.
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  Speaker 6: And I don't mean like, you know, like no memory
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  Speaker 6: of it ever happening, integrated with what that experience meant
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  Speaker 6: to them. Took the fangs out of years, sometimes decades
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  Speaker 6: of almost this automatic behavior in terms of you know,
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  Speaker 6: stimulus response, hypervigilants collapse and it's an exhausting roller coaster
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  Speaker 6: to be on. So they were so incredibly grateful, and
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  Speaker 6: so I scratched my head and I said, what in
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  Speaker 6: the world is he doing in there? I wish I
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  Speaker 6: could be a fly on the wall, and because of privacy,
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  Speaker 6: that wasn't really logistically or ethically sound. So he said, hey,
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  Speaker 6: why don't I do it on you sometime? And I'm like,
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  Speaker 6: I got no trauma, what are you talking about?
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  Speaker 2: And so we went yeah, he.
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  Speaker 6: Laughed, He laughed just like that. But he illustrated for
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  Speaker 6: me on me how we access store what it manifests
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  Speaker 6: like in our in our thinking and our behavior and
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  Speaker 6: in our physical body. And then what do you do
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  Speaker 6: when you're in safely so you don't make this person
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  Speaker 6: worse by ripping off a psychic band aid and having
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  Speaker 6: them bleed out? And then how do you integrate this
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  Speaker 6: to allow Mother Nature's design for healing and injury of
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  Speaker 6: this nature to pass through? And I kept preferring him
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  Speaker 6: tougher and tougher and tougher, and he kept sending them
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  Speaker 6: back fixed fixed fixed.
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  Speaker 1: Though, Well, okay, so you're burying the lead here, So
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  Speaker 1: what was he doing?
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  Speaker 4: So was it?
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  Speaker 6: So he was doing an earlier, more simplified iteration of SSTs.
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  Speaker 6: SST tends to be like a container of a model
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  Speaker 6: that can be modular, with different components brought in in
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  Speaker 6: different ways or different times based on what tools needed
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  Speaker 6: for the for that patient or client.
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  Speaker 4: Job for that day.
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  Speaker 2: But yeah, they were.
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  Speaker 6: Following a simpler version using a trauma formed psychotherapist, somebody
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  Speaker 6: who's really passionate, well trained and specifically trauma, has a
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  Speaker 6: lot of experience, knows a lot of the signs and
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  Speaker 6: symptoms that go along with it, and still wants to
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  Speaker 6: learn more. Well, they started asking questions about the body
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  Speaker 6: because they would notice certain body postures, certain reflexes, certain
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  Speaker 6: holding points. And similarly, body workers were telling their therapist
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  Speaker 6: friends like, hey, I was doing chiropractory or even massage
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  Speaker 6: and my patient had this huge emotional letdown on my table.
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  Speaker 2: I was just rubbing their back. It doesn't make sense.
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  Speaker 2: And so the.
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  Speaker 6: Amalgamation of those two observations I think led to the discovery.
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  Speaker 6: But the mind and the body are absolutely connected, and
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  Speaker 6: there are cases especially treatment refractory cases where that's being ignored,
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  Speaker 6: for instance, pre verbal trauma, pre memory trauma. I can't
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  Speaker 6: go in with a trauma and formed psychotherapist and talk
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  Speaker 6: about something I don't remember because I was under the
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  Speaker 6: influence of a date rape drug, or because it was
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  Speaker 6: before the age of five, or because I was asleep,
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  Speaker 6: or because.
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  Speaker 2: I was in utero and there was a trauma.
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  Speaker 6: We have been able to track trauma back far enough
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  Speaker 6: to the point where we intervene and integrate that trauma
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  Speaker 6: into a healing arc that that adult, who may be
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  Speaker 6: seventy years old now changes their baseline behavior, temperament. It's
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  Speaker 6: amazing to watch, and it's kind of in hindsight obvious
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  Speaker 6: because to our research, we've never found anyone that has
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  Speaker 6: done a concurrent style therapy crossing streams like this. We've
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  Speaker 6: had co therapy models, but those are different. This is
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  Speaker 6: this is literally taking a trauma informed therapist and a
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  Speaker 6: trauma informed body worker working on the same client in
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  Speaker 6: the same room at the same time, and something happens
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  Speaker 6: where one plus one equals three.
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  Speaker 2: That was what he does.
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  Speaker 1: Let me interject here, let me interject thank you for
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  Speaker 1: that mark. So Megan is this the way you work.
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  Speaker 5: Now, I would say fifty to seventy five percent of
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  Speaker 5: my case is client's session in a week are SST sessions.
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  Speaker 5: SST stands for synchronized synergistic therapy. It's the synchronization of
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  Speaker 5: two or more practitioners simultaneously in the room with a client,
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  Speaker 5: one of which has to be a psychotherapist at all times.
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  Speaker 5: So it's a psychotherapist plus maybe a massage therapist or
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  Speaker 5: an acupuncture and sometimes we add in additionally a neurofeedback
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  Speaker 5: practitioner as well. The model is developing beyond those disciplines,
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  Speaker 5: but that's where that's where we're honed in and training
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  Speaker 5: right now, are those specific disciplines.
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  Speaker 4: I don't think I've ever heard of this.
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  Speaker 3: And the fascinating thing is as we've talked to people.
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  Speaker 5: About it, right and as they've observed, sometimes we'll get
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  Speaker 5: the comment there's nothing new here, and we'll say, absolutely absolutely,
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  Speaker 5: there's nothing new here. It's the combination that has this
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  Speaker 5: extra power. The phrase mind body connection sometimes irks me.
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  Speaker 5: I use it all the time, but it irks me
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  Speaker 5: because it implies mind is here, body here, and there's
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  Speaker 5: a separation that needed to be connected and SST. We're
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  Speaker 5: operating under the understanding that these cannot be separated. This
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  Speaker 5: is one that is happening. An emotional experience is happening
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  Speaker 5: both physiologically and emotionally and cognitive cognitively, perhaps at the
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  Speaker 5: exact same time. So if we have a client who's
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  Speaker 5: having is emotionally processing or reprocessing past trauma. I am
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  Speaker 5: as a psychotherapist. I have some sematic training, right, but
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  Speaker 5: I'm not a trained body therapist. I'm not an expert
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  Speaker 5: at working with the muscular system, with the fasha, with
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  Speaker 5: the lymphatic system at a very deep level, so I'm
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  Speaker 5: not able to tune into what's happening in that client's
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  Speaker 5: body live time in the moment. I can do some
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  Speaker 5: sematic coaching from across the room, right, but ultimately I'm
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  Speaker 5: also not going to touch the client's body because I'm
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  Speaker 5: not a client.
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  Speaker 3: I'm not a trained body therapist in that way either.
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  Speaker 5: If I were, let's just say I were, it would
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  Speaker 5: still be too much for me to split into dual awareness,
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  Speaker 5: to be fully present and attending to the emotional and
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  Speaker 5: cognitive reprocessing and the cues that the body is giving
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  Speaker 5: at the same time and support that body and staying
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  Speaker 5: in a more parasympathetic, relaxed state so that the encoding
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  Speaker 5: and the release can happen safely.
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  Speaker 1: So I'm thinking about the potential challenges of working this
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  Speaker 1: way in terms of the client feeling as though, Okay,
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  Speaker 1: I've got a not even realizing that they have to
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  Speaker 1: develop a relationship with this person and also this person.
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  Speaker 1: Can you give us a kind of a case example
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  Speaker 1: of someone who came to you. How do you introduce
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  Speaker 1: this to them, realize that this might this way of
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  Speaker 1: working might be appropriate for them. How does it unfold?
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  Speaker 4: What does it look like?
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  Speaker 5: So, typically they're already working with us in one on
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  Speaker 5: one psychotherapy. Sometimes they're referred in from their private therapist
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  Speaker 5: to us for this intervention. But we follow a three
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  Speaker 5: prong model. So the first phase of treatment is the
• 15:07
  Speaker 5: preparation phase, where we're doing the psychosocial assessment, where we're
• 15:11
  Speaker 5: making sure that that client is resourced and able to
• 15:14
  Speaker 5: tolerate doing deeper work. And then we're orienting them to
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  Speaker 5: the SST process. In that phase of treatment, which maybe
• 15:22
  Speaker 5: one to three sessions depending on the person, depending on
• 15:25
  Speaker 5: the situation, we're asking them to go have a session
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  Speaker 5: with our colleague who we're going to be bringing into
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  Speaker 5: the SST appointment so that they can begin to build
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  Speaker 5: that rapport, make sure that they're okay with that particular
• 15:37
  Speaker 5: modality that somebody who hasn't had acupuncture. I want them
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  Speaker 5: to go have a traditional acupuncture session first, get to
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  Speaker 5: know the acupunctures, build the rapport so that once that
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  Speaker 5: preparation phase and that rapport is built is done, we
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  Speaker 5: move into what we're calling the navigation phase, where we
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  Speaker 5: all move into the SST room together. The room looks
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  Speaker 5: like a traditional massage therapy room right where the client
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  Speaker 5: lays down fully clothed, low light, meditative music, and we
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  Speaker 5: walk the person excuse me, into dropping into a deeper
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  Speaker 5: state of awareness in a meditative kind of way, while
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  Speaker 5: the body therapist tunes into the body and the psychotherapist
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  Speaker 5: supports the client with dropping into awareness of what's happening sematically, energetically,
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  Speaker 5: emotionally right then and there, then we begin the work
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  Speaker 5: right along the way, the body therapist is giving us
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  Speaker 5: information live time off the body of how this person
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  Speaker 5: is responding. So if somebody set is saying no, that
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  Speaker 5: didn't bother me, but their heart rates going up, and
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  Speaker 5: they get into this holding pattern which may be very subtle.
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  Speaker 5: The body therapist can say, hey, hang on a second,
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  Speaker 5: your body is saying something else.
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  Speaker 3: What does that mean for you?
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  Speaker 2: Right?
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  Speaker 5: And we're looking for pattern that's a simple version of it,
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  Speaker 5: but we're looking for patterns on a whole bunch of
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  Speaker 5: different layers to how emotion is stored in the body
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  Speaker 5: and how it's being held and then releasing.
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  Speaker 3: Also. Then after the navigation session, we.
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  Speaker 5: Move into the integration, which means that we were asking
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  Speaker 5: people to come in for a follow up one on
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  Speaker 5: one session with us within about a week to process, integrate, debrief,
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  Speaker 5: explore what has happened in that session and what has
• 17:15
  Speaker 5: happened following the session as well.
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  Speaker 4: Mark, what's your where do you come in with this?
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  Speaker 2: I'm a I'm a top down guy.
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  Speaker 6: That's engineers think big picture and try to understand all
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  Speaker 6: the moving parts. I think the simplest way that I explain,
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  Speaker 6: and I think that this is something greater than anything.
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  Speaker 2: Else that we got. It's it's evolutionary.
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  Speaker 6: In other words, if you have a small child who
• 17:43
  Speaker 6: falls and scrapes their knee, a parent will come up
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  Speaker 6: and do two things.
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  Speaker 2: One they will talk to them. They'll say oh, you
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  Speaker 2: poor baby, or.
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  Speaker 6: They'll make some you know, verbal interaction with the child,
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  Speaker 6: but they will also touch the child. It would be
• 18:03
  Speaker 6: awkward and weird to do one without the other. To
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  Speaker 6: hold your child, to comfort them, but to talk them
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  Speaker 6: through it, the experience.
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  Speaker 2: The pain, the fear of the blood. Whatever. We do
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  Speaker 2: it automatically without thinking.
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  Speaker 6: Yet the way we've set up our current culture, our
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  Speaker 6: current psychotherapy culture, is it's very talk based, and we
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  Speaker 6: tend to believe the philosophy of the body keeping score.
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  Speaker 6: That's a nice sort of cliche. What that means is
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  Speaker 6: the nervous system, which controls our immune system and pretty
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  Speaker 6: much everything movement, keeps primitive reflexes locked down, or how
• 18:46
  Speaker 6: hyper vigilant we are if we hear.
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  Speaker 2: A loud noise.
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  Speaker 6: All of that is really ultimately controlled by the nervous system.
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  Speaker 6: And the trauma injured the nervous system. It created a
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  Speaker 6: stuck program, a snap shot of the electrophysiologic state of
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  Speaker 6: the brain at the moment of threat. We like to
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  Speaker 6: call it the hologram because there's a holographic theory of
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  Speaker 6: the mind. And if we can recreate that state safely controlled,
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  Speaker 6: we compare reparative experiences. We can use tools to attenuate
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  Speaker 6: or magnify whatever positive or negative resourcing that we're we're using,
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  Speaker 6: and we can actually, like I said, get at the
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  Speaker 6: interer at the level of injury to provide the psychic
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  Speaker 6: salve if you will, between not just the body work
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  Speaker 6: in the psychotherapy, but the combination is a special salve
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  Speaker 6: that allows people have been hanging onto stock patterns in
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  Speaker 6: their physiology and their in their mind, you know, flashbacks, avoidance,
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  Speaker 6: re experiencing, these symptoms go down and often go away,
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  Speaker 6: and that that's how you know you've successfully treated and
• 20:03
  Speaker 6: dare I say cured a post traumatic stress disorder that
• 20:06
  Speaker 6: someone may.
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: Have carried around their whole life. That caught my attention.
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's pretty fascinating. So Megan, as a clinician, my
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: guess is and my assumption is the other clinician you're
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: working with, you've got to have some kind of relationship with,
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: if not an excellent relationship.
• 20:29
  Speaker 4: How to talk to us about that?
• 20:32
  Speaker 3: Yeah? Absolutely.
• 20:33
  Speaker 5: This is a big part of what we train about
• 20:35
  Speaker 5: when we train practitioners to become SST practitioners is finding
• 20:40
  Speaker 5: your colleague that you're going to partner with, or colleagues
• 20:43
  Speaker 5: if you're going to do more than one and cultivating
• 20:46
  Speaker 5: that relationship and the importance of that. Part of the
• 20:49
  Speaker 5: reason that is so important is because we are stepping
• 20:53
  Speaker 5: into the room attuned to one another, right and there's
• 20:57
  Speaker 5: this synchrony that's happening. There's this bio behavior synchrony happening.
• 21:01
  Speaker 5: There is a deep connectedness that's happening that is supporting
• 21:05
  Speaker 5: the client and co write and regulating in that moment.
• 21:08
  Speaker 5: We're supporting co regulation for that client in the moment.
• 21:11
  Speaker 5: So that relationship with your partner, your practitioner partner is key.
• 21:15
  Speaker 5: If there's if there are issues between you and them,
• 21:17
  Speaker 5: personal issues or whatever, and that friendship and that is
• 21:20
  Speaker 5: brought into the room that can be quite disruptive of
• 21:24
  Speaker 5: the session in the moment.
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: Right, all right, let me just remind everyone I'm speaking
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: with Megan Earls and doctor Mark Sylvester. What are some
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: of the challenges here that might come up with such
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: a modality? Megan, why don't you.
• 21:43
  Speaker 5: Go well some one of the basic challenges is that
• 21:49
  Speaker 5: it makes psychotherapy look different than what people are used to, right,
• 21:54
  Speaker 5: and so there's there's some explanation that happens upfront that
• 21:58
  Speaker 5: in terms of can and helping people to understand why
• 22:01
  Speaker 5: we're why we're practicing in this.
• 22:03
  Speaker 3: Way that looks different.
• 22:04
  Speaker 5: It's not in my office traditionally, that looks like you're
• 22:07
  Speaker 5: laying down. That's allowing somebody to engage with your physical
• 22:10
  Speaker 5: body in the process, So that that can be one
• 22:13
  Speaker 5: one of the challenges. Another challenge can be well, I
• 22:20
  Speaker 5: say challenge, but it's actually something that is beneficial is
• 22:23
  Speaker 5: how quickly people drop into the deeper core of what's
• 22:28
  Speaker 5: going on. Because as there as their nervous system is supported,
• 22:33
  Speaker 5: we're moving around those defenses at a much more rapid rate,
• 22:38
  Speaker 5: and so people can be surprised by what comes up
• 22:42
  Speaker 5: and how it moves through. It's like if you've had
• 22:45
  Speaker 5: a tough day and you go home to your partner
• 22:47
  Speaker 5: and you've been holding it in all day and you
• 22:49
  Speaker 5: get a hug, and as soon as you get that hug,
• 22:51
  Speaker 5: you may not have said anything, you start to emotionally release.
• 22:54
  Speaker 3: You're crying, you're shaking, you're talking whatever.
• 22:57
  Speaker 5: What is that There's something about that safety in that
• 22:59
  Speaker 5: connect and that that physical connection too, that has allowed
• 23:03
  Speaker 5: that release of emotion. We find that very quickly people
• 23:07
  Speaker 5: are dropping into stored stuff to put it, to put
• 23:11
  Speaker 5: it simply, and that can be something that can be
• 23:15
  Speaker 5: surprising to our clients. Now we've done the preparation work,
• 23:18
  Speaker 5: and so they're only in the room because we feel
• 23:21
  Speaker 5: confident in their ability to regulate and to use tools
• 23:25
  Speaker 5: and to cope and to.
• 23:26
  Speaker 3: Resource through that.
• 23:27
  Speaker 5: But it does, it does give us some quick access
• 23:31
  Speaker 5: in a way that can be surprising.
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: In that preparation or as part of that prepper preparation work.
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: Is it a requirement that the client also has at
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: least a session with.
• 23:42
  Speaker 4: The body workers? Yes, yes, okay, yes, And what are.
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: The quote unquote roles of each clinician during this type
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: of work. For example, the psychotherapist just does the psychotherapy,
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: just does it the talking as it were.
• 24:02
  Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, yes, I'm going to say traditionally, they're practicing
• 24:08
  Speaker 6: their training. In other words, when we do our training,
• 24:11
  Speaker 6: we don't teach acupunctures how to do acupuncture.
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: We teach them.
• 24:15
  Speaker 6: How to behave in the room while we're doing psychotherapy.
• 24:20
  Speaker 6: So there's not necessarily a hard skill set that's learned.
• 24:26
  Speaker 6: It's just knowing what to do, how to do it,
• 24:30
  Speaker 6: when to do it through various things. Either the model
• 24:33
  Speaker 6: itself the tools that are needed for the job. So
• 24:36
  Speaker 6: if this is someone who could play soundbols or do
• 24:38
  Speaker 6: aroma therapy or tuning forks or a heavy blanket or EMDR,
• 24:43
  Speaker 6: whatever the tool the.
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: Intervention is at that moment, they might be able.
• 24:48
  Speaker 6: You know, you're going to have the provider assigned to
• 24:50
  Speaker 6: do that because the therapist needs to stay in the
• 24:53
  Speaker 6: therapist lane, right, We've got to stay out of each
• 24:56
  Speaker 6: other's lanes so that we can focus solely on psychotherapy
• 25:00
  Speaker 6: the other the body therapist then gives us information information
• 25:04
  Speaker 6: as the conductor of the session to determine do I
• 25:07
  Speaker 6: need to pause here, back up, dig in further, bookmark
• 25:12
  Speaker 6: this for a future session, because we're getting close to
• 25:14
  Speaker 6: the end of the time and there's gold in them,
• 25:17
  Speaker 6: their hills of what we're working on. So we're gonna,
• 25:20
  Speaker 6: you know, part of our debriefing is right, what happened,
• 25:23
  Speaker 6: what went well, what did and what we wish you know,
• 25:26
  Speaker 6: whether that was the music was too loud or we
• 25:28
  Speaker 6: chose the wrong and we write it all down because
• 25:32
  Speaker 6: every session to us is undiscovered country.
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: You know, it's such a blessing, it's.
• 25:38
  Speaker 6: Such a gift to be able to sit with people
• 25:42
  Speaker 6: in their pain and their isolation, in their fear, and
• 25:48
  Speaker 6: watch them leave, leave that at the door, walk out
• 25:52
  Speaker 6: of here, lighter. I mean, they all say the similar thing,
• 25:56
  Speaker 6: which to me is the proof that the nervous system
• 26:01
  Speaker 6: was doing the true holding. This wasn't like they weren't
• 26:05
  Speaker 6: tough enough to forget about it. It wasn't stored up here.
• 26:08
  Speaker 6: It was stored deep in the nervous system, and in
• 26:12
  Speaker 6: parts of the nervous system we cover up after about
• 26:15
  Speaker 6: a year of age, too.
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: So how do you access that? That's what our model is.
• 26:22
  Speaker 4: I love, I love it. Go ahead, Megan, Yeah, I.
• 26:25
  Speaker 5: Was gonna say an example of what it might look like. So,
• 26:28
  Speaker 5: if I'm working with a client who is working through
• 26:32
  Speaker 5: traumatic grief or acute grief, and let's say I'm working
• 26:35
  Speaker 5: with an acupuncturist in that particular particular SST session, that
• 26:40
  Speaker 5: acupuncturist is tracking the dialogue and tracking the body as well, right,
• 26:44
  Speaker 5: and they may use an acupunctured design that targets the
• 26:49
  Speaker 5: grief meridians in the body, right. Or if we're working
• 26:52
  Speaker 5: on anger, they may work with the liver, which is
• 26:54
  Speaker 5: associated in traditional Chinese medicine with anger. So they're using
• 26:59
  Speaker 5: their particular modality to support accessing what we are trying
• 27:04
  Speaker 5: to access, and then support attenuating and supporting soothing as well.
• 27:09
  Speaker 5: So it's pretty fascinating. How when I'll bring somebody in
• 27:12
  Speaker 5: who I may have been working with for years, for
• 27:15
  Speaker 5: years in traditional psychotherapy, doing good work, but not getting
• 27:19
  Speaker 5: that needle moved. Right, we move into an SST session,
• 27:23
  Speaker 5: I'm not necessarily doing anything different than I've done short
• 27:27
  Speaker 5: of it's a different room and the client's laying down,
• 27:29
  Speaker 5: but the client is receiving support at a different energetic
• 27:33
  Speaker 5: layer level and access and then boom, all the stuff
• 27:37
  Speaker 5: that we've been wanting to get access to is suddenly
• 27:39
  Speaker 5: more easily accessed.
• 27:41
  Speaker 4: Wow, all right, we've got to wind down here. Fascinating.
• 27:44
  Speaker 4: I love this, and I love just the idea of
• 27:51
  Speaker 4: needing that hug. We all need that hug, right, I
• 27:55
  Speaker 4: love it?
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: All right?
• 27:56
  Speaker 4: So how do people learn more about you?
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: What services are you offering to what clinicians, other therapists
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: or what.
• 28:06
  Speaker 5: Yeah, so we we're offering SST to clients. However, our
• 28:10
  Speaker 5: biggest mission right now is to train other providers and
• 28:13
  Speaker 5: bringing this into their practice because we recognize the need
• 28:16
  Speaker 5: and healing at this deeper level. So we've written a
• 28:20
  Speaker 5: curriculum and developed a training program for clinicians to become
• 28:23
  Speaker 5: certified SST Practitioners, which it means they do online modules
• 28:29
  Speaker 5: ahead of time and then they come for a three
• 28:31
  Speaker 5: day in person experiential training with us. Right now, it's
• 28:35
  Speaker 5: in Sarasota, but we're bridging into other parts of the
• 28:38
  Speaker 5: country as well.
• 28:39
  Speaker 3: All the information about the training is on.
• 28:41
  Speaker 5: Our website, Ssthealing dot com. We also host monthly free
• 28:47
  Speaker 5: discovery our zoom calls where people can sign in and
• 28:51
  Speaker 5: we'll talk with them just very similar to this kind
• 28:53
  Speaker 5: of format, talk about the process, talk about referrals if needed,
• 28:58
  Speaker 5: talk about the upcoming training, those kinds of things, answer questions,
• 29:01
  Speaker 5: and those are every month and you can sign up
• 29:04
  Speaker 5: for those as well on the website.
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: Okay, and I'll have that linked up here at the
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: show notes page at the Trauma Papers podcast dot com.
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: Once again, that's s s T Healing dot com.
• 29:16
  Speaker 4: Mark and Megan, thank you so much.
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: For being there.
• 29:19
  Speaker 4: I appreciate it.
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: Thank you, thank you so much.
• 29:21
  Speaker 4: All Right, we'll be in touch.
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: Take care pretty well.