NASW Social Work Talks - EP73: Every Month is Pride Month

Episode Date: July 14, 2021

We speak with Rick Miller, a clinical social worker in private practice in Boston and on Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Rick is founder of the nonprofit Gay Sons & Mothers. His publications include "Mindfulness Tools for Gay Men in Therapy" and "Unwrapped: Integrative Therapy with Gay Men and the Gift of Presence."

Welcome to Social Work Talks. I'm Kat McDonald. June is Pride Month. It's July, so we're a bit late this year, but guess what? Over here, Pride Month is every month. Today I'm speaking with NASW member Rick Miller. Let's jump right in. Welcome, Rick. Thank you so much. I'm thrilled to be part of this. I really appreciate it. Yeah. So Rick, tell us a bit about your work. Sure. So I am a psychotherapist in private practice in Boston and Cape Cod, and I'm an author of two books about hypnosis and mindfulness with gay men. I have a nonprofit, Gay Sons and Mothers, and I do a lot of lecturing and teaching about the LGBTQ community. So can you talk about Pride Month and why it's so important? Yeah. Well, I think this year's Pride Month is even more important because people have been locked up at home for over a year. So the fact that people feel safe enough to go outside and do things is pretty amazing. So I think there's that. And I did a little unofficial poll and I asked various people I know what Pride Month means to them. And if it's okay with you, I'd like to just read what people have said. That would be great.

One person said courage. Another person said sorrow and regret for people I loved who were unable to live authentically. Love. Gratitude for the lives that we lead and grief for our community lost to HIV, courage and authenticity, joy, strength, feeling united, being in community with family and friends, hope, a time to remember and help those in our community who cannot yet celebrate with us, acceptance, growth, and freedom. Now what's exciting about this is that these are people who are mothers of gay children, LGBTQ people themselves, allies. So it's a broad range of people who are actually thinking about what Pride Month means as opposed to one parade and only parties. So I think back to when I came out in 1983 and I went to my first

Pride Parade. And it was one of the most incredible experiences I've ever had. But I didn't know what it meant. I knew what it meant for me personally after the parade. But as I think about what it means to people, and I read those answers, people are really paying attention to the notion of LGBTQ rights and freedom and accessibility. And that's really exciting to me. Mm hmm. One thing that struck me was the sorrow, because there's all of that, you know, the colors and the pride and joy and all of the, you know, the joy in the community. But there is that history that is less than joyful. You talk a little bit about it. Well, I'm glad you referenced that. And I'm also glad that people answered that, that life has not always been easy for the LGBTQ community, obviously. And for people who are able to not just look at colors and party, but can acknowledge what the struggles of life have been. And the truth is we have been marginalized. We've been discriminated against. It's still happening these days. Being black, being Asian, being any minority is a double whammy because if you are rejected from the community that you grew up in, you need to hide yourself there. And if you're rejected from the LGBTQ community because you're not fitting in to those confines, it's a pretty tough way to live.

And unfortunately, this is a common experience for a lot of people. So I love the notion that we get to celebrate and we get to celebrate together, but that we also don't have to overlook pain because pain, as we know, is a part of our lives. Mm-hmm. What are some of the unique strengths that you see in the LGBTQI community and people who are in that community? Well, the first thing that comes to my mind, Kat, is the research that's been done on resiliency. And we have grown up with adversities and struggles, and the research shows us that we are more adept at dealing with struggles than many other people. And I find that to be so inspiring. So I'm really interested to hear about your work with mindfulness. Yeah. Can you talk about how you use mindfulness in your practice and how you tailor it specifically

for gay men? Absolutely. So I learned how to do hypnosis about 10, 15 years ago. And prior to that, I was doing a lot of mindfulness and guided meditation with people. And my mentor said, why don't you write a book about working with gay men and utilizing this? And I was like, I can't write a book. And lo and behold, I wrote a book and started developing trainings for mental health clinicians. And if you think about growing up gay, one of the central experiences is shame because we can't be who we are. And what do we do with shame inside of our bodies? We turn it off, we turn away from other people, and frequently we dissociate from parts of ourselves in order to cope with shame. So what I found in my work is that gay men, again, are kind of shut off

from themselves. And when I ask them to incorporate the use of their body, frequently people freak out. That's like, I can't do that. I'm not going to be good at this. Or there's an unconscious split off that's been happening that people haven't even been aware of. So sometimes it takes a lot of coaxing on my end to encourage my clients to utilize the resources of their body for coping and for feeling strong. And what happens frequently is this magical process where as people go inside with my guidance and my confidence, they begin to let go of the restrictions that they've imposed upon themselves in their body and they can access hope and joy and possibility within themselves. And yes, I'm guiding them there, but I'm not forcing them

there. They are bringing themselves there and it's like a new discovery and a new gift that is absolutely beautiful and totally inspiring. People come to life and they didn't realize that they had this space inside of themselves. I hope this is making sense to you. Well, I have a couple of questions. Um, so when you say, um, you talk about the body and ways that people can work with the body and, and ways that people have been disconnected from their body. Can you talk about how that shows up? It shows up in such subtle ways that, um, clients will come to our offices, restricting themselves and restricting how they interact with us. For example, sometimes people don't make eye contact. Sometimes people avoid an interpersonal connection.

Or again, if I suggest doing a relaxation exercise with someone, the wall comes up and people don't want to go there because they're afraid. They've learned not to rely on themselves. And that's what I see. And sometimes it's more subtle and we have to expect that this may happen indirectly and be able to tease it out. So when you say hypnosis, you know that I have to think of get out and the sunken place. Can you talk about the sunken place and hopefully that, that tell me that you're not taking people there. Well, right, exactly. So let me tell you about what hypnosis really is. Um, hypnosis is a state of being in the present, very much like mindfulness of having access to resources and strength within ourselves.

That is what clinical hypnosis is. And that's what the clinical hypnosis world teaches, that we can go inside of ourselves and have access to resources, strength, and hope. So when I do hypnosis with people, it's all about that. And interestingly enough, when I started doing more hypnosis in my practice, this weird thing happened. People stayed in therapy forever. You would have thought they would have gotten the hit that they needed and leave quickly. But there's something so joyful in this work that people ended up staying for a long time. The other thing that needs to happen in doing hypnosis is a lot of educating clients that I'm going to be doing it with you. It's not as scary as you think. You won't be clucking like a chicken.

You indeed will be cognizant of what's happening, and it will be a pleasurable experience. Hypnosis has been given, unfortunately, a pretty bad rap based on people that are using it for entertainment purposes or people who have misused it with trauma many years ago. The world during COVID has been so stressful and bizarre. Yeah. You wrote in an article, and I'll link to that in the show notes, that we've often found ourselves swinging between joy and fear and between the familiar and the bizarre. How can mindfulness help people cope with these strange times? It's just like bringing yourself down from seven to two in terms of calmness, joy, beauty. A great example of mindfulness of my own is that when we started working online this bizarre way and we were all freaked out and our clients were freaked out, I was facing a white wall in my office because my computer was placed on my desk.

And after about three months, it dawned on me that I have a laptop and I could change things around. So I ordered a table on Wayfair, and I changed the position of my computer so that through the duration of the day, I'm facing out a window and looking at trees and garden and nature. And it was so interesting that it took me so long to figure out that I could change my position. And mindfulness is about being in the moment. So in the moment, what I shifted was my orientation. And my orientation is now facing out and facing beauty, and I'm nourishing myself as a result, and I'm also nourishing my clients as a result because I'm taking care of myself. So mindfulness is about being in the present, allowing ourselves to access what we're feeling inside, to focus on joy, and to receive nourishment from slowing down and being present.

You wrote an article for Psychology Today that was a riff on the book, Women Are From Venus, Men Are From Mars. Oh, yeah. Yeah, you asked the question, what happens in a relationship when both partners are from Mars? What was your answer to that question? You have a male couple, two men that may land in your office for couples therapy, and two men who haven't learned how to nurture each other, how to be vulnerable with each other, and that don't necessarily know what their role is in day-to-day life. So much of the work that I do in couples therapy is helping men embrace their masculinity,

but also embrace a part of themselves that's softer and nurturing and about being available to each other. And sometimes that's a lot of work. That takes a lot of coaching and training and encouraging, especially for males that have taught and still buy into the mode of masculinity. I'm also thinking about another male couple that I've worked with for a long time, and their career gets bumped up over all aspects of their life. And because they don't have children and because they're both really successful in their career, it becomes the unspoken norm of okay. Well, you can imagine what happens with these couples, which is in this particular instance, they're traveling for weeks at a time with their career, they're coming home late, they're not having dinner together, they're scheduling work meetings, they're not checking in with each other. And all of that is reinforcing a distance in their relationship, which is okay, because they're so successful in their career. So speaking of mindfulness, with this particular couple, what I've focused on over a long time is being with each other and prioritizing each other and being able to shut down their computer and their phone and create a bliss at home.

and the pandemic forced them to be at home with each other. And they each had their dedicated working space, but they started cooking together and going for walks in the beginning and the end of the day together. And what they realized is that they had a strength in their relationship that was never nurtured as much as it needed to be. And things have gotten a lot better as a result. so the phrase toxic masculinity was used has been used a lot in the past few years and recently though i've been hearing about sacred masculinity can you talk about that oh i love that term sacred masculinity i'm not sure what the definition is but it certainly has a resonance which is owning the parts of you that are strong and being able to

bring that part of you in the world. But when I think about masculinity, it's also about owning the vulnerable parts of ourselves and sharing that with each other and not having to hide that. And there's something really sacred in our strength and in our being, but we get to share the truth of who we are with other people. I lead a lot of groups. I'm a big group person. And one of my biggest joys in groups is watching men allow themselves to be empathic with each other and nourishing of each other and nurturing each other in really beautiful, soft ways. You've written about the stereotype of gay men and how so many gay men don't fit that stereotype? The stereotype that I frequently speak about is the gay urban stereotype. And with

the internet, the gay community has become more global and less regional. And in the old days, someone would travel to a different part of the world and experience the gay community from that vantage point but uh it's it's the look of a certain kind of gay man again has become global and many people feel like they don't fit into that stereotype or that they're not good enough or good looking enough or thin enough to be part of that world and there's a lot of shame that people experience as a result and a lot of our work sometimes is to let people be themselves and many people as the world is changing and lgbtq acceptance is growing which is a wonderful thing are finding that they're able to live in different places and be in different places

and this that urban stereotype isn't the life that they necessarily want for themselves and that's okay. And sometimes it takes a bit of internal work and exploration to realize that the kind of life that I want to live can be living in the country and having children or having a different sensibility than what's expected of me based on what I see in the media and having my own interests and my own style. And it's still surprising to me that sometimes people have to be encouraged to be okay with being that kind of person instead of fitting into the gay stereotype, which is a very big, prevalent theme for many of the clients that I've worked with. And is there ageism in the gay community?

Huh. That's a big theme. I have worked with men of all ages, of all races and ethnic groups struggling with their own aging. And when people are 38 years old and they begin to think of themselves as old and undesirable and sexually undesirable, I think that's a little problematic. I have worked with people of all ages and all genders, and frequently gay men who are getting into their 50s and 60s find themselves feeling irrelevant and invisible. And I know that this is an experience that women have also experienced and don't know what to do. And it's quite sad not to be able to own the gifts that come with wisdom. And in our field, I am so glad that what comes with aging is more experience and more expertise. And I wish it could be like this for gay men as well. Mm-hmm. So what are some do's and don'ts that social workers need to keep in mind when working with clients who are LGBTQIA? Well, the biggest do is accept. And when I say

accept, I'm talking fully and deeply that there are many clinicians who conceal a bias, not only from others, but from themselves. And if you think about an LGBTQ client coming into your office, this is a person that has learned to be very careful in the world, and they're going to be attuned to your acceptance. And if you have a bias that you are thinking that you're hiding, guess what it's going to be felt it's going to be experienced so i frequently ask clinicians to do their own exploration about what their biases are on their own time not with their clients but to really explore within yourself how do i feel about lgbtq plus people what are the who are the people that I'm less comfortable with? Who are the people that I'm more comfortable with?

And also, a part of acceptance is to appreciate the way in which you treat other people, meaning clients, with warmth, with love and respect is so profound because you're providing acceptance that goes beyond just you it has a very healing component to their whole lives and anything that social workers should not do well uh there's a whole a whole bunch of things we can talk about what we should not do is assume that we know what's best for our clients What we should not do is make jokes about the LGBTQ community, assuming that our clients are going to understand our humor, because indeed it will be or can be perceived as a microaggression. What we should not do is assume that we have the answers about how they should live their lives from our vantage point. And I'm always encouraging people to utilize your own resources for supervision, for consults with your colleagues and your friends who are LGBTQ, check things out with these resources to get help.

And if we feel safe enough reaching out to our colleagues for help or getting a consult, we're going to be better off in the services that we provide for our clients. So before we end, is there anything else that you'd like to add? I just wanted to mention my project that I am so proud of and so excited about, and it's called Gay Sons and Mothers. And it's on various social media sites under Gay Sons and Mothers. And I also have a website, gaysonsandmothers.org. And what I'm doing with this project is I'm looking at the historical lens of gay sons and mothers, but I'm also doing a multicultural exploration about the significance of a mother in her gay son's life and how this is a really strong relationship that helps people flourish and prosper. Unfortunately, in the psychiatric field, it was a relationship that was pathologized, and mothers were blamed for making their sons gay, and as a result, hid themselves as mothers about being out and having gay kids. So what I'm doing is I'm chronicling these relationships and these experiences, and I'm sharing it with photos and interviews, research and education,

And it is so profound, because what we are doing is we're sharing stories of hope and resiliency and love. And what we're realizing is that a gay man's sense of self is flourishing frequently based on the mothering that he received. So check out the project. It's really amazing. Yes, I will link to that in the show notes for sure. Thank you. Thank you. Great. Well, thank you so much for being a guest. Really appreciate your sharing your knowledge and experience with us. Thank you.

It is a joy to be here and you and I could have spoken for a lot longer. Thank you. You have been listening to NASW Social Work Talks, a production of the National Association of Social Workers. We encourage you to visit NASW's website for more information about our efforts to enhance the professional growth and development of our members, to create and maintain professional standards, and to advance sound social policies. You can learn more at www.socialworkers.org. Don't forget to subscribe to NASW Social Work Talks wherever you get your podcasts.

Thanks again for joining us. We look forward to seeing you next episode.