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Healing is no joke · The Trauma Therapist

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Thank you for being here. You know, I've interviewed over
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  Speaker 1: eight hundred and fifty incredible guests by this point. And
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  Speaker 1: when I first started this, my goal was to raise
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  Speaker 1: awareness of trauma. I had been working in a clinic
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  Speaker 1: in northern California, a fresh out of graduate school degree
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  Speaker 1: in hand, excited, and we were assessing and treating young
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  Speaker 1: kids who were showing early signs of psychosis. I was
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  Speaker 1: excited to get this job. Was an incredible experience for me,
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  Speaker 1: incredible community of fellow therapists of all kinds. We were
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  Speaker 1: a multidisciplinary team, and I learned so much, and it's
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  Speaker 1: just very interesting to reflect back on that time. I
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  Speaker 1: remember going through at that time level one and Level
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  Speaker 1: two of centory motorcycleotherapy, just soaking in everything I could
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  Speaker 1: about trauma. I knew that that's when I went into
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  Speaker 1: graduate school. That's what I wanted to focus on. I
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  Speaker 1: wanted to focus on being the best quote unquote trauma
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  Speaker 1: therapist I could become. I wanted to help people in
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  Speaker 1: dire situations. I knew in my bones that I could
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  Speaker 1: do that. I didn't know how to do that, but
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  Speaker 1: I knew that I wanted to do that. And so
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  Speaker 1: when I got this job. I it was very important
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  Speaker 1: to me to have knowledge, and it was very important
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  Speaker 1: for me to be able to show that I had knowledge,
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  Speaker 1: not in a braggadocious way, but just in a way
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  Speaker 1: to show that I was competent. That was That's it.
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  Speaker 1: I wanted to I wanted I wanted to be competent,
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  Speaker 1: and because I grew up feeling I wasn't intellectually competent.
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  Speaker 1: And you know, looking back on this now, it's easy
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  Speaker 1: or clear to see. So as part of this job,
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  Speaker 1: you know, we had to do these phone referrals for
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  Speaker 1: these young kids me twelve thirteen, fourteen, fifteen sixteen, with
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  Speaker 1: the majority of the kids, and we'd have these parents
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  Speaker 1: call teachers other therapists to see if they're, you know,
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  Speaker 1: their kid was appropriate for program. And I really enjoyed
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  Speaker 1: doing these assessments because I got to ask questions, and
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  Speaker 1: I love asking questions and finding out what's going on.
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  Speaker 1: That it became essentially a puzzle, putting together, you know,
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  Speaker 1: a client's behavior and history and symptoms and were they
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  Speaker 1: taking any medication, were they're using any drugs? When did
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  Speaker 1: trauma start? And I say that because inevitably there was
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  Speaker 1: trauma involved but it also became very very interesting to
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  Speaker 1: learn how to ask about trauma, how to ask about
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  Speaker 1: uncomfortable situations or scary situations, or frightful situations, or violence
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  Speaker 1: or fighting, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. And that became very interesting
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  Speaker 1: because oftentimes events never registered with parents or teachers or
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  Speaker 1: the therapists for that matter. What always did register were
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  Speaker 1: the behaviors, the oftentimes explosive behaviors. Anyway, so I became adept,
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  Speaker 1: and I enjoyed doing these phone calls and finding out
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  Speaker 1: what was going on. And then at the end of
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  Speaker 1: this phone call, it'd have this sheet filled with all
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  Speaker 1: this information. And again, ninety nine percent of these kids
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  Speaker 1: had experienced various forms of trauma. And you know, a
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  Speaker 1: week later, whenever the kid would walk into our program,
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  Speaker 1: if they were appropriate, you'd see you'd look at the
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  Speaker 1: sheet of everything that had been told to you, and
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  Speaker 1: you just discovered about this kid. And oftentimes it was
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  Speaker 1: pretty daunting and shocking. But a kid would walk in
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  Speaker 1: the office, just a normal looking kid, you know, just
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  Speaker 1: be this young girl or boy. They'd have a book
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  Speaker 1: under their arm, or a tablet under their arm, or
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  Speaker 1: sometimes it's stuffed animal and its just be a kid,
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  Speaker 1: and you look at your sheet of all these symptoms
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  Speaker 1: and all this crazy behavior, and that kid in the
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  Speaker 1: waiting room had gone through all this. So that slowly
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  Speaker 1: really made me start to think about what the hell
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  Speaker 1: was going on, and I slowly learned how to communicate
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  Speaker 1: with these kids, because initially I was leading with what
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  Speaker 1: I thought I knew. I was leading with my degree
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  Speaker 1: in terms of technique and interventions and modalities, and we
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  Speaker 1: all know that it's not the way to do it.
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  Speaker 2: But a lot of us don't know that. But that
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  Speaker 2: is in fact, that does not work for most people.
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  Speaker 2: People need people, people need human beings. I want a
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  Speaker 2: human being when I'm going to a therapist. When I'm
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  Speaker 2: seeing a therapist. But anyway, I learned this.
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  Speaker 1: As a result of an assessment I was leading at
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  Speaker 1: one point, and I'm not going to go into that
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  Speaker 1: right now. But my point in sharing this is that
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  Speaker 1: around this time, a little after this time, I decided
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  Speaker 1: to start my podcast because I had been seeing all
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  Speaker 1: these kids come in showing early signs of psychosis and
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  Speaker 1: not so early signs of psychosis but more devand signs
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  Speaker 1: of psychosis, but the prevalence of trauma really made me
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  Speaker 1: say to myself, something's got to be done, and what
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  Speaker 1: can I do to help get the word out? And
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  Speaker 1: that's what I This is what I started to do.
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  Speaker 1: I had been commuting hours, literally an hour and a
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  Speaker 1: half each way to my internship, to the work I
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  Speaker 1: was doing, and listening to a lot of podcasts, and
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  Speaker 1: you know, put two and two together and thought, wait
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  Speaker 1: a minute, what if I started my own podcast. Wouldn't
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  Speaker 1: it be awesome if I had Genia Fisher in the
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  Speaker 1: passenger seat mentoring me every day about how to become
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  Speaker 1: a better therapist or the best therapist I could become,
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  Speaker 1: mentoring me about trauma? And what if I started a
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  Speaker 1: podcast about trauma interviewed all these people? And so that
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  Speaker 1: was my goal, And the goal was to interview quote
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  Speaker 1: unquote like master trauma therapist. You know, all the people
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  Speaker 1: whose names come to mind when you think about that,
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  Speaker 1: you know, Genie Fisher of course, and Bethel Vandercock and
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  Speaker 1: pad Ogg and and no, no, no no. But things shifted
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  Speaker 1: from me because you know, I think about why this
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  Speaker 1: all started for me. Really, you know, the genesis I
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  Speaker 1: think ground zero for me really was my being bullied
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  Speaker 1: when I was a young kid and how severely that
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  Speaker 1: impacted me and the trajectory of my life. And you
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  Speaker 1: don't really think about that, or I didn't, I should
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  Speaker 1: say I didn't think about that so much. I didn't
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  Speaker 1: realize it when I decided to go to graduate school.
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  Speaker 1: I didn't realize that when I decided to focus on trauma.
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  Speaker 1: But when I started doing the interviews, initially it was
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  Speaker 1: I really wanted to provide an educational and an inspirational experience,
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  Speaker 1: but I wanted to find out from therapists how they
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  Speaker 1: did what they did. And I did that for a time,
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  Speaker 1: but it shifted for me because I became so inspired
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  Speaker 1: by the stories that my guests were sharing. I became
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  Speaker 1: so inspired by when they started telling me that oftentimes, inevitably,
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  Speaker 1: these very therapists had an experience where there was a
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  Speaker 1: rupture in the relationship with their clients that was often
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  Speaker 1: caused by their the therapist inability to be themselves to
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  Speaker 1: be a human beings, as manuela Mister says, human being this,
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  Speaker 1: you know, to express that. And I related to that
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  Speaker 1: so much, and I didn't really realize why, but that
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  Speaker 1: was speaking to me. Now anyone else right in my
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  Speaker 1: position doing this podcast would have a probably have a
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  Speaker 1: very different experience. But this is my experience and I'm
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  Speaker 1: not making a judgment and saying, you know, this is
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  Speaker 1: the best way to do it. I'm just sharing my
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  Speaker 1: own experience and it's about uncovering, it's about being willing.
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  Speaker 1: For me. Two, it's like we we each have our
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  Speaker 1: own experience, each are colored and impacted by whatever it is.
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  Speaker 1: If it's anxiety, if it's depression, if it's obsessive, compulsive,
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  Speaker 1: whatever it is. We each have our things going on
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  Speaker 1: to greater or lesser degrees. And for me, uh, there's anxiety. There,
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  Speaker 1: there's frustration, there's an existential what I don't know what
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  Speaker 1: the word is, frustration for lack of a better word,
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  Speaker 1: but you know. And it's like if you're in a
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  Speaker 1: dark room, you pitch black, you can't see anything, and
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  Speaker 1: yet you have both hands on the on the cord,
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  Speaker 1: the cable of your life, and your following it down.
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  Speaker 1: You're following this cable down, feeling down, and you're feeling
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  Speaker 1: the texture of anxiety or depression or not smart enoughness
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  Speaker 1: or whatever it is. And you have to be willing.
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  Speaker 1: And I'm saying this to myself, have to be willing
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  Speaker 1: to feel inch by inch of that cable and when
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  Speaker 1: the lights go on, have to be willing to look
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  Speaker 1: at that. And I think doing these interviews for me
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  Speaker 1: has really brought me face to face with my own stuckness,
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  Speaker 1: my own frustration, my own anxiety in a sense, because
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  Speaker 1: I see oftentimes and I look for the inspiration in
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  Speaker 1: my guess I kind of pride myself and getting in
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  Speaker 1: there and exploring and honoring and celebrating how the hell
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  Speaker 1: did you get to this amazing place where you're doing
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  Speaker 1: this incredible work, Not so much what are you doing?
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  Speaker 1: Show us how you're, for example, working with these clients,
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  Speaker 1: and what interventions are you doing. I used to do that,
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  Speaker 1: but now for me, it's exploring their story, exploring that journey,
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  Speaker 1: and in so doing that, it's uncovering the courage, the
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  Speaker 1: incredible courage of these people, of my guests, which in
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  Speaker 1: turn right inspires me. Hopefully it's inspiring my listeners too,
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  Speaker 1: but it's inspiring me, and it's giving me the courage
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  Speaker 1: and the inspiration to take this steps and oftentimes the
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  Speaker 1: slow slogging steps of being who the hell I am
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  Speaker 1: in all of my fullness. And that's a work in progress,
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  Speaker 1: and oftentimes it's a frustrating work in progress, but it's
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  Speaker 1: becoming clear and clearer to me. And I think that
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  Speaker 1: a lot of my own anxiety and again stuckness and
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  Speaker 1: feeling as though maybe I could be doing more or
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  Speaker 1: maybe being more successful in certain ways. And I don't
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  Speaker 1: say success in loosely, you know, driving around on a
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  Speaker 1: ferrari and making a zillion dollars, but mean being more
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  Speaker 1: successful in my own definition. These interviews that I'm doing,
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  Speaker 1: I really feel that I'm learning about myself. And I
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  Speaker 1: share this today because hopefully it's inspiring for you to
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  Speaker 1: take that step and find that inspiration for you to
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  Speaker 1: become more of who you are in whatever measure that
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  Speaker 1: might be. But I truly feel that when we're in
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  Speaker 1: relationship with people who are living their fullness, their wholeness,
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  Speaker 1: their genuineness, their authenticity, you feel it. You feel that,
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  Speaker 1: and I love feeling that, and I want to be that,
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  Speaker 1: not just for other people or people you know I'm
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  Speaker 1: in a relationship with it, but for myself. And it's
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  Speaker 1: hard sometimes, but it's a journey that I'm freaking ready
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  Speaker 1: to take. Daily. Have an awesome day. Thank you for
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  Speaker 1: listening to this. Podcast, and I appreciate your support