Latest / The Trauma Therapist / From the Archives: Josh Aronson & Julie Sayres. PTSD, Veterans and Their Service Dogs

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From the Archives: Josh Aronson & Julie Sayres. PTSD, Veterans and Their Service Dogs · The Trauma Therapist

0:00
Speaker 1: Today we even another episode from the archives with one
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Speaker 1: of my incredible guests.
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Speaker 2: Enjoy.
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Speaker 1: Welcome to the Trauma Epists Podcast, a show about the
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Speaker 1: incredible people dedicated to helping those have experienced trauma. My
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Speaker 1: name is Got macpherson and my mission is to raise
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Speaker 1: the awareness of trauma and to inspire each of us
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Speaker 1: to help those around us. All right, guys, welcome back
0:26
Speaker 1: to the Trauma Epist podcast Today. Some very special guests here,
0:31
Speaker 1: Josh Aaronson and Julie Sayers. Welcome both of you.
0:35
Speaker 3: Than you all right?
0:37
Speaker 2: Thanks So.
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Speaker 1: Josh Aronson has been producing and directing documentary films since
0:41
Speaker 1: two thousand.
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Speaker 2: He was nominated for an Oscar for his.
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Speaker 1: Film Sound and Fury, and he's made award winning films
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Speaker 1: on disability, the search for identity, classical music, and history.
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Speaker 1: His latest film, which we're here to talk about today,
0:54
Speaker 1: is recently released to Be of Service, about veterans with
0:57
Speaker 1: PTSD and their service dogs. My second guest, Julie Sayers,
1:01
Speaker 1: is an award winning screenwriter working in Los Angeles, whose
1:04
Speaker 1: credits include the film Reaching for the Moon, for which
1:07
Speaker 1: she won the Best Adapted Screenplay Award by the Brazilian
1:10
Speaker 1: Academy of Letters. It's also nominated for the Best Adapted
1:12
Speaker 1: Screenplay by the Brazilian Academy of Cinema. Julie has also
1:17
Speaker 1: created a co creator and supervising producer of the CBS
1:20
Speaker 1: one hour drama Four Corners. She's also written many movies
1:23
Speaker 1: for television, including A Walton Easter, Dallas Reunion, and the
1:27
Speaker 1: miniseries Not Landing. She currently has two feature films in development,
1:31
Speaker 1: one in the US and the other is in Brazil.
1:34
Speaker 1: All Right, folks, again, welcome, thanks again for taking the time.
1:36
Speaker 3: To do this super pleasure.
1:40
Speaker 2: This film.
1:41
Speaker 1: I just want to share a little bit about my
1:44
Speaker 1: initial hit on this film.
1:45
Speaker 2: This was so moving.
1:50
Speaker 1: It was really I was telling I want to share
1:53
Speaker 1: with the audience. I was telling both Julian Josh that
1:58
Speaker 1: I watched this movie last night and it really was moving.
2:02
Speaker 1: I mean I was at times like tearing up. I
2:06
Speaker 1: was frustrated and pissed off.
2:10
Speaker 2: You managed to not just.
2:13
Speaker 1: Talk about the service dogs, but really, I think provide
2:19
Speaker 1: a detailed, sensitive glimpse into what people with PTSD are experiencing.
2:29
Speaker 1: And I don't think yeah, and I don't think that's
2:32
Speaker 1: an easy task to do.
2:35
Speaker 2: It was no joke. I mean there were times when
2:39
Speaker 2: you know, a lot of.
2:39
Speaker 1: The people who you featured in the movie shared some
2:42
Speaker 1: stuff that was really hard to hear.
2:45
Speaker 2: And the way it.
2:46
Speaker 1: Works, the way the film works, I think people need
2:51
Speaker 1: to watch this film in short, so we'll get into
2:54
Speaker 1: more of it. But anyway, congrats, congrats on this very
2:58
Speaker 1: powerful So let's start with you, Josh. Let's talk a
3:04
Speaker 1: little bit about how you guys, what brought you to
3:06
Speaker 1: this film, why you wanted to do it in the
3:08
Speaker 1: first place, and let's talk more about the film.
3:10
Speaker 2: So once you start, Okay.
3:14
Speaker 3: Well, Julie brought me the idea for the film some
3:17
Speaker 3: five six years ago, and the idea simply being to
3:21
Speaker 3: make a film about how service dogs as a as
3:24
Speaker 3: a modality of healing treatment worked so well for veterans
3:28
Speaker 3: with PTSD. And at the time, I was in a
3:32
Speaker 3: place that I wasn't prepared to dive into the world
3:34
Speaker 3: of trauma and vets and it just it didn't. It
3:40
Speaker 3: didn't grab me. And I've gotten to a place in
3:42
Speaker 3: my career and in my life where I only do
3:45
Speaker 3: deep dive films like this when they completely and utterly
3:48
Speaker 3: grabbed me because of what it takes to do them
3:52
Speaker 3: but Julie being Julie, and to my honor, I must say,
3:55
Speaker 3: she came back two years later and she said, you know,
3:58
Speaker 3: you really should look at this again. This is a
4:00
Speaker 3: really important document. And Julie who had been I don't
4:03
Speaker 3: mean to speak for Julie, but she'd been living in
4:05
Speaker 3: this world for a long time because she teaches UH
4:10
Speaker 3: in California. She has a writing class for veterans and
4:15
Speaker 3: came across a lot of veterans with PTSD and and
4:18
Speaker 3: heard about dogs, and she is a dog lover of
4:21
Speaker 3: the highest orders. Only play UH. So it was of
4:25
Speaker 3: the cloth for her and she and she came back
4:28
Speaker 3: and I had changed where I was in my life
4:31
Speaker 3: a bit, which is to say that I really had
4:32
Speaker 3: come to terms with some trauma that happened to me,
4:36
Speaker 3: and so I was ready to tell a story about trauma.
4:39
Speaker 3: The timing was right for me, and we really connected,
4:42
Speaker 3: you know, creatively, on what the film was going to
4:44
Speaker 3: be and UH and I decided to dive in and UH.
4:49
Speaker 3: And it took us two and a half years of
4:50
Speaker 3: UH of real engaged work, and we made the film.
4:54
Speaker 3: And she was that She and I produced the film
4:56
Speaker 3: together and I directed.
4:58
Speaker 2: It, share how you came to this.
5:03
Speaker 4: Well, you know, as Josh said, I've always been a
5:06
Speaker 4: dog fanatic. I have I'm on my third German Shepherd
5:09
Speaker 4: and that's one of my great loves. And I've the
5:15
Speaker 4: idea of trauma has always interested me for various personal reasons.
5:20
Speaker 4: And then I wrote a pilot about a veteran, a
5:25
Speaker 4: TV pilot about a veteran with PTSD and a service dog.
5:29
Speaker 4: While I was doing research for that pilot, I met
5:33
Speaker 4: some of the trainers and providers of service dogs and
5:37
Speaker 4: was deeply moved by their work and by some of
5:40
Speaker 4: the veterans that I met through those people. At the
5:44
Speaker 4: same time, I was working in a program with volunteering
5:48
Speaker 4: in a program at the Writer's Guild Foundation teaching veterans
5:52
Speaker 4: how to write write for the screen, and I met
5:56
Speaker 4: so many veterans sorry, and got to know them well
6:00
Speaker 4: and got to know their stories through their screenplays and teleplays.
6:04
Speaker 4: And to me, it was a topic that combined so
6:09
Speaker 4: many of the things that were meaningful to me. Dogs, trauma,
6:15
Speaker 4: one of the things that's really important to Josh as
6:17
Speaker 4: well as to me, moral cost of war and what
6:19
Speaker 4: we're doing to young people by sending them away so
6:23
Speaker 4: what do you do with them when they come back?
6:26
Speaker 4: It was they would they give their all when they
6:31
Speaker 4: go overseas, when they deployed, they come back broken and
6:35
Speaker 4: what medication? There's got to be another way. So all
6:40
Speaker 4: of those factors brought me to this idea, and I
6:44
Speaker 4: can't imagine anybody better than Josh to carry it all.
6:48
Speaker 2: Now, you both mentioned reasons why.
6:53
Speaker 1: Josh in your case, you know, there was some hesitancy
6:56
Speaker 1: in the beginning about getting into this, and there personal
7:00
Speaker 1: reasons and kind of connections to trauma. I don't obviously
7:06
Speaker 1: you don't have to share anything you don't want to,
7:08
Speaker 1: but I'm interested in what if you would be sharing
7:10
Speaker 1: what that was for you.
7:11
Speaker 3: Josh, Yeah, I will in telling you what it is,
7:14
Speaker 3: let me say why it was important to me, because
7:17
Speaker 3: I think films of this nature are best when they
7:21
Speaker 3: can be universal stories, when people can continue the stories
7:25
Speaker 3: on many, many levels. And it's my belief that everyone
7:29
Speaker 3: has experienced trauma at some level in their lives, and
7:33
Speaker 3: the story of our lives each of us, in our
7:35
Speaker 3: own way, is coming to terms with that trauma and
7:38
Speaker 3: finding a healing modality that works for you so that
7:41
Speaker 3: you can function at the best level that you can
7:44
Speaker 3: and be your best self. That for some people that
7:49
Speaker 3: means just staying alive. It means, you know, being able
7:51
Speaker 3: to function and not committing suicide. To some people it
7:55
Speaker 3: means you can run a corporation. But nevertheless, you know,
7:58
Speaker 3: dealing with your trauma so as you can function is
8:01
Speaker 3: a necessary part of life. And the trauma can be bullying,
8:06
Speaker 3: you know, in a high school playground. The trauma can
8:09
Speaker 3: be rape. The trauma can be combat trauma TBI, traumatic
8:15
Speaker 3: brain injury. The trauma can be in my case, it
8:19
Speaker 3: sounds innocuous enough compared to the major traumas we covered
8:23
Speaker 3: in the film, but the trauma just of growing up
8:26
Speaker 3: in my household with a woman who was not a
8:29
Speaker 3: happy woman, and so it was a traumatic situation for
8:33
Speaker 3: three boys. I have two brothers, and we've come to
8:36
Speaker 3: realize through therapy that we were traumatized for some years
8:40
Speaker 3: in our childhood and overcoming the trauma in our case
8:44
Speaker 3: was a lot of therapy, a lot of work, a
8:46
Speaker 3: lot of personality work, a lot of relationship work, and
8:50
Speaker 3: it took work to be able to function at the
8:52
Speaker 3: level that I am now. And I couldn't have done
8:55
Speaker 3: a film about trauma until I came to understand that.
8:58
Speaker 3: So it was just part of the background for me,
9:00
Speaker 3: and it's what I hope makes the film in some
9:03
Speaker 3: ways universal, that people will connect on that level.
9:06
Speaker 1: Yeah, I really appreciate you sharing that. And you know,
9:09
Speaker 1: on this podcast, we talk a lot about what trauma
9:14
Speaker 1: is and it's not just PTSD. A lot of people
9:16
Speaker 1: who think, you know, combat trauma when they think about
9:19
Speaker 1: trauma and PTSD, but we certainly talk a lot about that.
9:22
Speaker 1: And in my case, it was bullying and how it
9:26
Speaker 1: just affected the trajectory of my life.
9:31
Speaker 2: But again, yeah, thank you for sharing that. Julie, how
9:33
Speaker 2: about you? What was your If you want.
9:36
Speaker 4: To share, I don't want to share specifics. It's family
9:41
Speaker 4: family issue. I'm the daughter of a psychoanalyst, so you know, yes,
9:48
Speaker 4: I know sorry for me. I know everybody the same thing.
9:52
Speaker 4: But I was sort of raised to look at problems
9:57
Speaker 4: and trauma and whatever issue it is in a more
10:04
Speaker 4: i guess, profound way, a more psychological way, a deeper way.
10:08
Speaker 4: And I was always a very sensitive kid to to
10:15
Speaker 4: to everything. You know, that's a blessing and a curse.
10:17
Speaker 4: It's great when you're when you're a screenwriter. But it's
10:19
Speaker 4: also hard if you're a person. And so some things
10:24
Speaker 4: happened in my family later on in life that were
10:28
Speaker 4: very traumatic. And I've always been connected to people who
10:34
Speaker 4: are in trouble. It's something that draws me in because
10:37
Speaker 4: I want to help. It's just how I guess how
10:41
Speaker 4: I was raised or how I am, and so this
10:45
Speaker 4: issue of PTSD and returning soldiers who really need help
10:52
Speaker 4: are it was very compelling to me. And then when
10:54
Speaker 4: you throw dogs into the mix, you know, ankle wrong.
10:58
Speaker 4: So that was my I you know, I don't really
11:01
Speaker 4: want to go into specifics, and you don't.
11:03
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's no need to. But again, thank you for
11:05
Speaker 2: sharing that.
11:07
Speaker 1: The the people you feature in this film, the dogs
11:13
Speaker 1: you feature in this film, I mean, my god, these
11:15
Speaker 1: dogs or you just want to reach into the screen
11:18
Speaker 1: and I grab these dogs.
11:19
Speaker 2: They're amazing.
11:21
Speaker 1: And there was at one point when I think it
11:24
Speaker 1: might have been one of the trainers talking about, you know,
11:28
Speaker 1: the different commands or the many commands, but it's the
11:31
Speaker 1: relationship that is so powerful. And when I heard that,
11:35
Speaker 1: I thought to myself, my god, that's so much of
11:37
Speaker 1: what we talk about on this podcast. You know, there
11:40
Speaker 1: are so many different modalities, but yet it is a
11:43
Speaker 1: relationship when with a between a therapist and a client.
11:46
Speaker 1: But and again, the people, the veterans that you focused
11:52
Speaker 1: on featured the way this film reveals what's going on
11:58
Speaker 1: for them. Again, it's heart wrenching, but it's so human.
12:03
Speaker 1: I mean, you can talk about trauma and you can
12:06
Speaker 1: talk about PTSD, but watching these people in this film,
12:14
Speaker 1: it's so crazy to see what these people are going
12:17
Speaker 1: through on a daily basis.
12:19
Speaker 4: Interviewed a lot of veterans and obviously we had to
12:23
Speaker 4: narrow it down to a small number of people for
12:26
Speaker 4: the film, and we found them to be the most compelling.
12:30
Speaker 4: But every one of them had a story that could
12:33
Speaker 4: break your heart. So if you multiplied the number of
12:36
Speaker 4: veterans in our film by thousands, you can only imagine
12:40
Speaker 4: how many people are suffering after being deployed.
12:44
Speaker 3: Julie, hundreds of thousands.
12:46
Speaker 4: Hundreds of thousands. Yes, I'm bad at math.
12:50
Speaker 3: No, but there's five hundred thousand veterans from Iraq and
12:53
Speaker 3: Afghanistan that have come back with PTSD. Fifteen to twenty
12:58
Speaker 3: percent of the returning vets have PTSD, So it's an
13:02
Speaker 3: enormous problem. And you know, the other thing that's interesting
13:04
Speaker 3: is a lot of people Guy have said what you said,
13:07
Speaker 3: which is the film shows PTSD for what it is,
13:10
Speaker 3: the experience of PTSD. Really, the goal was to really
13:15
Speaker 3: show it in a visceral way, in all of its pain,
13:17
Speaker 3: in all of its loneliness, and all of its agony,
13:20
Speaker 3: sheer agony, and we tried to do that because it
13:24
Speaker 3: seemed that people didn't really understand it. People didn't really
13:27
Speaker 3: get what PTSD was. We all know post traumatic stress disorder.
13:32
Speaker 3: You come back as a result of some trauma that
13:34
Speaker 3: you experienced in war and you have PTSD. And we've
13:37
Speaker 3: seen images of you know, homeless veterans, you know, mostly
13:41
Speaker 3: images of Vietnam vets, you know, who are homeless, and
13:44
Speaker 3: there's sort of generic, iconic kind of images that people
13:47
Speaker 3: would have of what vets are, what PTSD vets are,
13:51
Speaker 3: but there was no personal connection. And I feel as
13:54
Speaker 3: if people didn't really understand it. And the goal here
13:57
Speaker 3: was to understand it, to personalize it, to humanize it.
14:01
Speaker 3: Uh So that's you know, that's what we tried to
14:03
Speaker 3: do in this And as Julie said that, there were
14:05
Speaker 3: so many stories that were so powerful. It was just
14:09
Speaker 3: it was heartbreaking to see it.
14:12
Speaker 1: Yeah, I want to touch on some of those, but
14:15
Speaker 1: before we do, can you share with our listeners what's
14:19
Speaker 1: involved with service dogs and veterans.
14:23
Speaker 2: I know in the film you talk about a lot
14:26
Speaker 2: of the VA in general.
14:29
Speaker 1: Well let's say this and correct me if I'm wrong
14:32
Speaker 1: recommends service dogs, but they don't pay for it and
14:34
Speaker 1: it's super expensive, and correct me if I'm wrong. Here again,
14:39
Speaker 1: service dogs as a modality is not recognized as an
14:43
Speaker 1: evidence based treatment, right okay, which is which is really interesting,
14:48
Speaker 1: and so talk a little bit about service dogs and
14:51
Speaker 1: its place in the treatment process, how they get them,
14:54
Speaker 1: et cetera. Well you mean visa the VA or just
14:58
Speaker 1: in general, Well, visa v the VA, let's start there. Well,
15:03
Speaker 1: the most important part of it is to understand is that,
15:05
Speaker 1: as you said, many people in the VAS across the
15:08
Speaker 1: country will recommend the service dog, and they see the
15:11
Speaker 1: value of the service dog for dogs, and they will.
15:15
Speaker 3: In fact pay for it. With veterans who have a
15:18
Speaker 3: physical disability like deafness or blindness or you know, if
15:21
Speaker 3: they're paralyzed, the VA will pay for it. What they
15:26
Speaker 3: won't pay for is, and they don't acknowledge is the efficacity, efficacy,
15:30
Speaker 3: and usefulness of a service dog for veterans with invisible
15:35
Speaker 3: injuries i e. PTSD, traumatic brain injury, or moral injury.
15:42
Speaker 3: They'll pay for veterinary care, they'll pay for certain parts
15:45
Speaker 3: of it, but they won't pay the twenty five or
15:47
Speaker 3: thirty thousand dollars for the dog itself. And there's been
15:52
Speaker 3: attempts since twenty eleven to enact a law that's generically
15:58
Speaker 3: called the Pause Act, but it keeps hitting roadblocks through Congress,
16:04
Speaker 3: and the roadblocks are through veterans committees that are influenced
16:07
Speaker 3: by the VA. We've found I'm getting in the touchy
16:10
Speaker 3: political arena here, but it seems as if the VA
16:14
Speaker 3: has resisted it. And they have been mandated to do
16:17
Speaker 3: a longitudinal study to figure out the efficacity ecstasy of
16:22
Speaker 3: service dogs for vets with PTSD, but they keep batching
16:25
Speaker 3: the studies. Many people have described it as botching the studies,
16:29
Speaker 3: and they've had to start over again a number of times.
16:32
Speaker 3: They supposedly they've finished the study and they will finish
16:36
Speaker 3: and announce the results by spring of this year, and
16:39
Speaker 3: we have figures crossed that they will begin to mandate
16:43
Speaker 3: that they pay for the dogs It's a huge problem
16:46
Speaker 3: and challenge though, because of so many vets that could
16:48
Speaker 3: benefit from it, probably a limited number of dogs and
16:51
Speaker 3: dog trainers out there, and how to manage the money
16:55
Speaker 3: because they're twenty five to thirty thousand dollars a dog,
16:58
Speaker 3: So it's a big management problem. And the VA is
17:01
Speaker 3: famously not well run and underfunded.
17:04
Speaker 4: So we recently went to Washington, DC and showed the
17:09
Speaker 4: film to Congress and lobbied congressmen and women for the
17:13
Speaker 4: Pause Act, which was an extraordinary event for.
17:16
Speaker 2: Both of you.
17:18
Speaker 4: Veterans with so many veterans from the film, and it
17:21
Speaker 4: was an amazing couple of days to walk through those
17:24
Speaker 4: balls and to try and make a difference to get
17:26
Speaker 4: the VA to be able to pay for these dogs
17:29
Speaker 4: for veterans. I mean, that would be incredible. It's just
17:32
Speaker 4: taking so long, and it was we're hoping that it's
17:40
Speaker 4: going to get passed. I mean, we got more people
17:42
Speaker 4: to to co spont to sponsor the bill or to
17:46
Speaker 4: be co sponsors, right, Josh, how many people now? Do you?
17:51
Speaker 3: The last I heard from one of our contacts that
17:53
Speaker 3: we worked with when we when we went in there
17:55
Speaker 3: were one hundred and seventy co sponsors in the House,
17:58
Speaker 3: and they needed like two hundred ninety or three hundred
18:01
Speaker 3: in order to have a vote immediately in the House
18:04
Speaker 3: rather than discussion. And now it's up to two hundred
18:07
Speaker 3: and fifty or sixty, so you know, it's really we're
18:10
Speaker 3: getting there, and it's terrific.
18:12
Speaker 2: You know.
18:13
Speaker 3: The horror of this also is because the way it's
18:15
Speaker 3: set up now, a lot of the dogs are paid
18:17
Speaker 3: for through donations and scholarships from foundations and wealthy individuals
18:23
Speaker 3: who care about this issue and will fund the dogs,
18:26
Speaker 3: but it's not nearly enough. So the result is that
18:29
Speaker 3: many vets who want a dog and they get to
18:31
Speaker 3: the place in their healing process which might be years.
18:35
Speaker 3: But this is a whole conversation we could get into
18:37
Speaker 3: if you wanted to, about the trajectory of vets who
18:40
Speaker 3: come back with PTSD. But often it's years after their
18:43
Speaker 3: return that they actually qualified to get a dog. And
18:47
Speaker 3: at that point, when they stopped drinking, they're off drugs,
18:50
Speaker 3: they can actually get a dog. They have to wait
18:52
Speaker 3: two or three years on a waiting list, and at
18:56
Speaker 3: that moment they're so vulnerable because they're not they don't
19:00
Speaker 3: have the crutch of drinking they don't have the crutch
19:02
Speaker 3: of drugs. So, you know, keep in mind, twenty two
19:06
Speaker 3: veterans a day are committing suicide. We're losing vets because
19:10
Speaker 3: they're waiting so long for dogs. I'm sure.
19:16
Speaker 4: Did you you asked about how I think you asked
19:20
Speaker 4: about how they're trained, or or what the what the
19:25
Speaker 4: trajectory is of a veteran getting a prescription for a
19:29
Speaker 4: service dog from a healthcare provider and then then what happens?
19:34
Speaker 4: Was that part of your question?
19:36
Speaker 2: No, but that's a good one. Let's let's talk talk
19:39
Speaker 2: about that.
19:40
Speaker 4: They you know, if they go to the VA, a
19:42
Speaker 4: therapist can say a service dog might be a good
19:45
Speaker 4: thing for you, and then the veteran has to go
19:48
Speaker 4: out and find the service dog. Not always pay for it,
19:52
Speaker 4: but somebody has to pay for it. Some of these
19:55
Speaker 4: organizations are funded, they live off vot off donations. So
20:00
Speaker 4: if somebody qualifies, as Josh said, they may have to
20:03
Speaker 4: wait a long time because it takes a very long
20:05
Speaker 4: time to train a dog. If you start when they're
20:08
Speaker 4: eight weeks old, it'll take a year year and a
20:11
Speaker 4: half before the dog is really ready to be a
20:14
Speaker 4: fully functioning service animal.
20:16
Speaker 3: But let me just jet there if I can. But
20:18
Speaker 3: in addition to just that issue, the issue is that
20:21
Speaker 3: there's so many vets who are signing up for service
20:23
Speaker 3: dogs that they don't have enough dogs to fulfill them
20:26
Speaker 3: in a timely fashion. So they're waiting in line to
20:29
Speaker 3: get a dog. It's not even zif a dog, it's
20:32
Speaker 3: just that there aren't just enough trainers there are enough dogs.
20:36
Speaker 1: One of the things that really moved me was the
20:41
Speaker 1: purpose these dogs served a lot of times in the film,
20:48
Speaker 1: the word non judgmental came up. You know, the woman
20:54
Speaker 1: I forget what her name was, who I think she
20:56
Speaker 1: was like a writer and a journalist.
20:57
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, what was her.
20:59
Speaker 2: Name, Sylvia?
21:01
Speaker 1: Yeah? She said, you know, I can just be all
21:04
Speaker 1: day in my pajamas and crying and you know, my
21:07
Speaker 1: dog is not going to care, not going to judge me.
21:10
Speaker 2: And the the power.
21:13
Speaker 1: In having this living, non judgmental being there providing unconditional
21:21
Speaker 1: love is just so powerful. And when you put that
21:25
Speaker 1: up against the lives, the broken lies, the painful lives
21:30
Speaker 1: that these people are experiencing, it's it's really moving story
21:35
Speaker 1: and very powerful reality. That's that's that's happening. I mean,
21:40
Speaker 1: uh again, I didn't know, you know, what what I
21:46
Speaker 1: was going to see. Quite frankly, you know, I didn't
21:49
Speaker 1: know how good the film was going to be, quite frankly,
21:52
Speaker 1: but it really blew me away.
21:54
Speaker 2: It really did it.
21:56
Speaker 1: I swear to god, I was like, I'm on my couch,
21:59
Speaker 1: like my wife was watching something else and I was
22:02
Speaker 1: watching this, and I was like tapping or was like, well,
22:05
Speaker 1: look at this, look at this. I was like tearing up.
22:07
Speaker 1: And these dogs are just amazing. So anyway, in short,
22:10
Speaker 1: I want to recommend that everyone watched this, saying man
22:13
Speaker 1: to be of service. Just let me break in here
22:16
Speaker 1: and once again reintroduce you guys. I'm speaking with Josh
22:20
Speaker 1: Aronson and Julie Seers, and the film is to be
22:23
Speaker 1: of service. It's on Netflix. This is where I saw it.
22:27
Speaker 1: Where else can people see it?
22:30
Speaker 3: People can also get it on Amazon or on Amazon Prime.
22:34
Speaker 3: You can cream it, or you can get you can
22:35
Speaker 3: buy a DVD from Amazon, but Amazon, Amazon Prime and
22:40
Speaker 3: Netflix are the prime areas.
22:42
Speaker 2: Okay, one of the things I wanted wanted to read.
22:46
Speaker 1: Is a is a just a little blurb from The
22:48
Speaker 1: New York Times by Ken Jwarski, who said the big
22:53
Speaker 1: picture is clear and it's it's overriding point well made.
22:57
Speaker 1: These dogs are saving the lives of the those who
23:00
Speaker 1: sacrificed so much. Every person profiled here deserves an immense
23:04
Speaker 1: amount of respect, every animal two. You know, I talked
23:09
Speaker 1: about how kind of heartbreaking was to listen to these
23:12
Speaker 1: veteran stories, and that that one gentleman who again I
23:16
Speaker 1: forget his name, who had the daughter. He talked about
23:19
Speaker 1: some of his experiences, his own kind of abuse history,
23:24
Speaker 1: and that story when he was talking about his daughter,
23:26
Speaker 1: that was that was hardcore. That was tough man.
23:30
Speaker 3: His name is Tom Flood from Billings, Montana. Yeah, he's uh,
23:35
Speaker 3: he's He was a tough character who was in a
23:37
Speaker 3: very very dark place when I met him before he
23:40
Speaker 3: got his dog. Which is an interesting challenge in the
23:43
Speaker 3: film because you know, we start with characters like that
23:45
Speaker 3: and we hope for a longitudinal story, which means over time.
23:49
Speaker 3: And the whole idea is we meet them before they
23:51
Speaker 3: get their dog, go when they get their dog, and
23:54
Speaker 3: then follow them after they get their dog, in one case,
23:57
Speaker 3: up to a year to see how they do. Of course,
24:00
Speaker 3: we had no idea how they were going to do,
24:02
Speaker 3: so it was a roll of the Dice and Tom.
24:04
Speaker 3: Particularly when I met with him, he was in such
24:07
Speaker 3: a hard place and his life was so difficult. You know,
24:10
Speaker 3: I had no idea what was going to happen. It
24:13
Speaker 3: was so fast. It was three weeks after he got
24:15
Speaker 3: his dog. He was smiling like he had never smiled
24:18
Speaker 3: in my presence. And he could go to the store
24:21
Speaker 3: by himself. He could pick up his daughter from school
24:24
Speaker 3: amongst all the other parents, instead of hiding out across
24:27
Speaker 3: the field from them because he didn't be near anyone.
24:30
Speaker 3: I mean, it was a total life shift within a month. Remarkable.
24:35
Speaker 3: It's just remarkable, and that was not abnormal. From a
24:38
Speaker 3: study done at Purdue University by Maggie O'Hare, who was
24:42
Speaker 3: in the film, it was clear that typically within a
24:45
Speaker 3: month the dog made such a vast difference. It changed lives.
24:49
Speaker 3: And it's such an easy fix, you know. If that's
24:52
Speaker 3: why we really are pressuring as much as we can
24:54
Speaker 3: to get the VA to pay for this exactly.
24:56
Speaker 4: It's so remarkable that the VA won't pay for it,
24:59
Speaker 4: or that this law is not already in existence. It's
25:04
Speaker 4: how it's not that hard, I mean, and it so
25:08
Speaker 4: clearly works. I don't think you need years and years
25:11
Speaker 4: of study to see what happens. When we first met Walter,
25:15
Speaker 4: who was the Vietnam Vet, we met him in North
25:18
Speaker 4: Carolina and he said that he had not smiled for
25:23
Speaker 4: forty years until his dog walked into the room. That
25:26
Speaker 4: was the first time he smiled. And this was a
25:28
Speaker 4: man who had children, who had two marriages, never smiled.
25:34
Speaker 4: The transformation is just remarkable. And as Josh said, it's
25:38
Speaker 4: so quick. There are mornings when I wake up and
25:42
Speaker 4: maybe it's been a bad night or a bad day
25:45
Speaker 4: the day before, and my German shepherd is sitting up
25:50
Speaker 4: looking at me with those big eyes, and I can't
25:53
Speaker 4: help but laugh. I mean, you cannot help but feel
25:56
Speaker 4: good when you look at eyes like that.
26:01
Speaker 1: That That kind of gets me to this question here,
26:03
Speaker 1: which might seem obvious, But why do you think the
26:06
Speaker 1: dogs help so much? What?
26:08
Speaker 2: What did was shared?
26:10
Speaker 4: I think dogs intrinsically deeply connect with the people who
26:16
Speaker 4: care for them. They're they're they're bred over the years.
26:21
Speaker 4: They're not wolves anymore. They've they've evolved. They're different than wolves,
26:26
Speaker 4: and they deeply connect with with us or the people
26:30
Speaker 4: who love them and care for them. And they are
26:35
Speaker 4: extremely smart. They have great instincts and they can feel
26:40
Speaker 4: like many species of animals can when you're in trouble.
26:45
Speaker 4: And you know my German shepherds if I'm upset. Each
26:51
Speaker 4: one is different, but they respond, uh, they respond. They
26:57
Speaker 4: they know, they're present. They're alert to your feelings, to
27:03
Speaker 4: what's going on with you. They know if you're happy,
27:05
Speaker 4: they know if you're settled, they know if you're unsettled.
27:09
Speaker 4: And if you take a dog with that level of
27:11
Speaker 4: intelligence and instinct and compassion because they have compassion, and
27:20
Speaker 4: train them to really tune in to when you're in
27:24
Speaker 4: big trouble, if the results are extraordinary, and that's what
27:28
Speaker 4: I want.
27:29
Speaker 3: To There's a chemical part of it too, that's really interesting.
27:32
Speaker 3: Someone in the film says this when a veteran, when
27:35
Speaker 3: a veteran is having a flashback or is in a rage,
27:39
Speaker 3: or is it upset or having one of his is
27:42
Speaker 3: showing one of his symptoms, the dogs can smell it.
27:45
Speaker 3: They can smell the chemical change. The dogs have a
27:47
Speaker 3: thousand times more smell ability than we do. It's remarkable
27:51
Speaker 3: the level of it. That's why you know search dogs
27:54
Speaker 3: and so on can search through rubble and find people
27:56
Speaker 3: under ten feet of concrete. That's a different story. But
28:00
Speaker 3: what the dogs are trained to do is to come
28:01
Speaker 3: right over to the vet in the midst of the
28:03
Speaker 3: rage or the flashback, put his head on your lap
28:06
Speaker 3: if you're sitting down. And the thing you do immediately is,
28:10
Speaker 3: as Julie said, you look in the eyes of the
28:11
Speaker 3: dog and you put your hand on his head and
28:13
Speaker 3: pet him. Well, when a human being looks into the
28:15
Speaker 3: eyes of a dog, it's like a mother holding a baby,
28:18
Speaker 3: and when you pet a dog, it's the same thing.
28:20
Speaker 3: And the result neurologically is a release of oxycotin, and
28:24
Speaker 3: so oxytos thank you, And that's like dopamine. And what
28:29
Speaker 3: oxytocin suppresses adrenaline, So in the midst of a rage
28:33
Speaker 3: or a flashback, you're just dumping adrenaline, so it offsets
28:37
Speaker 3: the adrenaline. So there's a chemical part of it as well.
28:40
Speaker 3: That's very, very understandable and powerful. It's real.
28:46
Speaker 1: There was a scene, I think later in the film
28:48
Speaker 1: with that same gentleman, Timothy, when he's with his dog,
28:51
Speaker 1: and I think he's in a store and Tom and
28:56
Speaker 1: a mom and a young kid come up to him,
28:59
Speaker 1: and the young kids is kind of like shy and
29:02
Speaker 1: she's like, all right, you know, Billy, what do you
29:04
Speaker 1: want to say? And he wants to pet the dog
29:07
Speaker 1: and brings over the dog and he says, okay, make friends,
29:11
Speaker 1: and the dog like this licks this little kid and
29:14
Speaker 1: such a sweet moment in this film. The thing that
29:18
Speaker 1: struck me is what I saw was these veterans wanting,
29:24
Speaker 1: you know, coming back shattered, emotionally shattered. And that one guy,
29:30
Speaker 1: one veteran, had this list on his refrigerator of all
29:34
Speaker 1: these things he had done right before, you know, going
29:38
Speaker 1: to the beach, going to the store, whatever, and he
29:41
Speaker 1: rated them on a scale of what was it zero
29:43
Speaker 1: to one hundred. Zero was stress level? Stress level zero
29:49
Speaker 1: was like no stress. One hundred was like beyond stressful.
29:53
Speaker 1: And you could see these these kind of simple task,
29:56
Speaker 1: you know again going to the beach, this door ninety
29:59
Speaker 1: rated so crazy stressful, and it just struck me they
30:04
Speaker 1: just want to be able to kind of lead this
30:07
Speaker 1: normal life to feel, you know. And it was that
30:12
Speaker 1: to me, was the way it was portrayed was so
30:18
Speaker 1: kind of seering and profound in a way that a
30:25
Speaker 1: lot of other a lot of other whether it be
30:28
Speaker 1: books or films I've seen, haven't done, and it was
30:31
Speaker 1: so well done.
30:32
Speaker 4: Here well, I want to give some kudos to Josh
30:35
Speaker 4: about that, especially because when we picked these veterans, we
30:40
Speaker 4: did not know how much they would reveal of their
30:43
Speaker 4: stories because they're not stories that they talk about very often,
30:47
Speaker 4: maybe only in therapy. And Josh's compassion and gentleness and
30:54
Speaker 4: kindness when he was interviewing these veterans created a space
30:59
Speaker 4: for them to reveal the trauma that happened to them,
31:03
Speaker 4: and it was they were extraordinary interviews because of the
31:07
Speaker 4: way he handled them. So it was quite impressive.
31:10
Speaker 2: How did you do that, Josh? What did you do?
31:13
Speaker 3: Well? It's it's non doing, really, it's like a meditation.
31:17
Speaker 3: It's not doing at all. It's holding space. It's having
31:21
Speaker 3: them feel that I'm present. It's having them feel that
31:24
Speaker 3: I'm interested and that their story is important and that
31:28
Speaker 3: they're important, and so you know, it's a gradual. Most
31:32
Speaker 3: of the interviews were three hours. The main first interviews
31:35
Speaker 3: were three hours long with you all with your camera,
31:39
Speaker 3: all with the camera, okay, I mean there were preliminary interviews.
31:42
Speaker 3: So I would go meet them and I'd have lunch
31:43
Speaker 3: with them, or in Tom's case, I flew out to
31:45
Speaker 3: Billings and spent a day with Tom just to see
31:48
Speaker 3: if he was a potential character before showing up with
31:51
Speaker 3: a crew, and then I would fly back with the crew.
31:54
Speaker 3: But it's really getting to know them, it's earning trust,
31:57
Speaker 3: it's being at their at their rhythm, and it's just,
32:02
Speaker 3: you know, it's just what the documentary path is, you know,
32:06
Speaker 3: just empowering people to give you their self and to
32:10
Speaker 3: not overpower them, to let them be exactly who they are,
32:14
Speaker 3: and in the case of these vents, is to make
32:16
Speaker 3: them feel that we wanted to hear their stories and
32:18
Speaker 3: to hold space for the stories. I think it's as
32:20
Speaker 3: simple as that. It's not simple to do, I must say,
32:23
Speaker 3: but that's what it is. And as I said before,
32:26
Speaker 3: had I not gotten to this place in my life
32:28
Speaker 3: where I had done the work on trauma and I'd
32:30
Speaker 3: actually learned these skills, life skills as well as interview skills,
32:36
Speaker 3: I couldn't have made the film at this level. It was.
32:39
Speaker 3: It was just the right time for me.
32:41
Speaker 2: Awesome. Well, there's certainly the skills of a great therapist.
32:46
Speaker 1: You know. It's kind of simple to do, but simple
32:50
Speaker 1: in a sense, but not easy to do. Like you said,
32:54
Speaker 1: I think one interesting. Oh, I'm sorry, we're going to
32:57
Speaker 1: wrap up, because there was an interesting thing that comes.
33:00
Speaker 3: Sure, the interesting thing that comes with doing these kinds
33:03
Speaker 3: of interviews is you were taking in other people's rage
33:06
Speaker 3: and trauma and you take it in as you know,
33:09
Speaker 3: as a therapist, when you're sitting one on one with
33:11
Speaker 3: someone for an hour or more, what comes out of
33:14
Speaker 3: them comes into you and you hold it. So the
33:16
Speaker 3: question is what do you do with that when you've
33:18
Speaker 3: taken three hours of rage or three hours of trauma
33:23
Speaker 3: and stress into you, how do you let it out?
33:25
Speaker 3: Because what I found happening is I'd get home and
33:28
Speaker 3: I would really deal with with you know, secondary PTSD
33:32
Speaker 3: with a kind of depression that would set in after
33:34
Speaker 3: doing days of interviews, and I had to get some
33:37
Speaker 3: help from them, from you know, actually a meditation teacher
33:41
Speaker 3: who was an abbot at a monastery, who had been
33:45
Speaker 3: a psychiatrist before he became a meditation teacher. He gave
33:48
Speaker 3: me a lot of advice, and the one that finally
33:50
Speaker 3: worked was to really take in the stories into a
33:54
Speaker 3: part of yourself, not into your whole self, and to
33:57
Speaker 3: hold it in a compartment so it wouldn't subsume you
34:00
Speaker 3: it wouldn't overpower you. And then at the end of
34:02
Speaker 3: the day, you have to visualize, you know, a trap
34:05
Speaker 3: door opening, if you will, or something opening. To be
34:07
Speaker 3: able to release the stories that you've held in your
34:10
Speaker 3: in your vault.
34:11
Speaker 2: You have to.
34:11
Speaker 3: I used visualizations like that to do it, because otherwise
34:15
Speaker 3: you couldn't let go, couldn't let go of it. It
34:17
Speaker 3: just would take over. I don't know if as a
34:18
Speaker 3: therapist in the trauma world you've found techniques to handle
34:22
Speaker 3: that kind of trauma. It's you know, like being a
34:25
Speaker 3: pediatric oncologist. I don't know how you go home with
34:27
Speaker 3: that all day, but they have to.
34:30
Speaker 2: I mean, I think that's sage advice.
34:32
Speaker 1: And uh, you know, we talk a lot about it,
34:34
Speaker 1: a lot about that on that on this podcast here.
34:38
Speaker 1: But you know, what you did was exactly what we
34:42
Speaker 1: talk a lot about on this podcast. And uh again,
34:46
Speaker 1: I want to thank you guys so much for for
34:48
Speaker 1: coming on here. Your film was beyond inspiring. I'm going
34:52
Speaker 1: to do what I can to promote this. Thank you
34:57
Speaker 1: for coming on here and and congratulations on the film.
35:00
Speaker 3: Thanks. Can I say also to just the audio, your
35:03
Speaker 3: your audience that one of the things we're looking for
35:05
Speaker 3: is it's wonderful to show the film in community, in groups.
35:09
Speaker 3: So we're talking to veterans groups and love to talk
35:12
Speaker 3: to therapist groups or trauma centers to be able to
35:15
Speaker 3: bring the film in and then bring in an audience
35:18
Speaker 3: of people, have a panel discussion with vets and people,
35:22
Speaker 3: and have the screenings, because the screenings are much more
35:25
Speaker 3: powerful than just watching it at home by yourself. To
35:28
Speaker 3: be in community experiencing what this is happening with veteran
35:31
Speaker 3: families is just an extraordinary experience. So if this strikes
35:35
Speaker 3: a chord with anyone, our website is to be of
35:38
Speaker 3: servicefilm dot com and there's information there about how you
35:42
Speaker 3: can do that, how you can contact us to sort
35:45
Speaker 3: of explore that kind of idea. To be of servicefilm
35:48
Speaker 3: dot com.
35:49
Speaker 1: Awesome, and I'll have that linked up at the show
35:51
Speaker 1: notes page here at the Trauma Therapists Podcast dot com.
35:55
Speaker 1: All right, guys, once again, thank you so much. We'll
35:57
Speaker 1: be in touch.
35:58
Speaker 3: Thank you. King after them
36:15
Speaker 1: To Mammon