Psychiatry & Psychotherapy Podcast - How To Pick A Good Therapist

Episode Date: August 10, 2019

Working with a good therapist often requires fewer sessions than other therapists to see improvement; in contrast, working with a therapist you don't connect with, or with inadequate training, may require an extended number of sessions (Okiishi et al. 2003).  People that see effective therapists are more likely to recover or partially recover, whereas those that work with a "bad" therapist are more likely to see no change or an increase in symptoms (Okiishi et al. 2006).  By listening to this episode, you can earn 0.75 Psychiatry CME Credits. Link to blog. Link to YouTube video.    

Hello and welcome to the psychiatry and psychotherapy podcast with over 32,000 mental health professionals listening every episode. Why? Because we need to stick together to survive the mental health field. I'm here to talk about getting rid of burnout, increasing job satisfaction, and feeling like an expert in what you do. Welcome back to the podcast. I am here with Ginger Simonton. She is a therapist in the men program here that works with me who has been on some prior episodes on emotional conditions. Gruance and Childhood Sexual Abuse. I'm also here with two medical students, fourth years, going into psychiatry, who have been on rotation with me, and Ginger as well, Tori Bergkart, and Valerie Poooo-U-Dum-Sock. Am I saying that right?

That was great. Okay. All right. So today we are going to be talking about how to pick a excellent therapist. And I'm going to start out by saying this is a common problem that a lot of patients come to us. with. And Ginger, have you had a lot of people ask you, how do I pick a good therapist? Definitely, they'll ask as they're finishing up our intensive outpatient program. How do they find somebody that meets their needs effectively outside of the intensive

outpatient program? They will also speak to prior therapists that they have had before coming to our program and different issues that have arisen through those therapeutic services that they received. I would say this is a very common discussion to have with patients. Yeah, and I would say every new outpatient who's more in my med management, who I'm not going to do therapy with, you know, I'm always trying to get these patients in with a good therapist. And often, it's really hard for them to find someone that they have a good fit with, even if they're a good therapist. And I also got some messages from people like, hey, how do I find a good therapist? How do I find someone, you know, I'm living in England.

I'm living in Georgia. I'm living in Pakistan. So I get these messages all the time. And so we thought we would kind of dive deep into it on how to pick a good therapist. So, Ginger, what's the first thing that comes to your mind? Regarding finding a good therapist, fit, definitely fit. Making sure that you find somebody that you feel comfortable with, someone that you feel attuned to.

someone that you believe shares a common experience. I believe that's incredibly crucial to making sure that we have a good match between therapist and patient. Does that individual make you feel comfortable? Does your body feel balanced when you're with them? Do you feel validated and heard? Those are things that I believe come to my mind immediately. Yeah.

So attuned to empathy, right, is one of the big. factors that's going to make effective therapy and the therapeutic alliance there's a lot of research on the importance of the therapeutic alliance which is you know can't i find that i have common goals with this individual um is there a strong bond is there trust that this person is competent and um so empathy therapeutic alliance high social IQ you want a therapist who can see what's going on in the room understand you um and put words to it maybe even better than you you can yourself. So there's a paper we want to do a deep dive into that was by Jennings and this guy,

Schofold, 1999, called the Cognitive Emotional and Relational Characteristics of a Master Therapist. And so we're going to go through each of the things that they've pulled out from this qualitative study, which means they interviewed master therapists. They asked therapists in their location where they were doing this study. Who are some of the most respected therapists? And so it was a nomination process and, you know, multiple people nominating who they thought were the best therapists. And, you know, one of the things that we have, me and Ginger have, is what I would call therapist or mental health privilege.

We know who are the good therapists in the community. And so really good study design. And then they interviewed these 10 therapists pretty extensively, actually. and they came up with some commonalities. So we're going to go through each one of them and we're going to kind of talk about why this might be an important feature in a good therapist. And then therefore,

how do we look for someone who has this sort of characteristic? So the first one is the cognitive domain. So there's three different things in the cognitive domain. And the first is an insatiable thirst for knowledge and to learn. Ginger, tell me what did you take away from this? point. What I took away from it, especially now that I've just completed my PhD program, is the importance of continuing to learn and grow. The research is pretty clear about the fact that most marriage and family therapists, or probably all therapists in general, people working in mental health,

stop learning and growing after they graduate, that they continue to practice in the way that they've always practiced, and they're not always going to the extent body of literature to increase their knowledge and understanding to stay abreast of current trends in the field. So as a result, many therapists are removed from new research. They're removed from what could be very innovative research-based tendencies within the field because of the fact that we kind of stop learning at that master's level for many clinicians or at the Ph.D. level for other clinicians. and we rely on the knowledge base that was imparted to us through an academic setting,

as opposed to going to the journals, going to the literature, and seeing what's out there, especially in a multidisciplinary way that could enhance our knowledge base and then be integrated into our overall practice. Yeah. Tori, anything jump out to you about this one in particular? Yeah. So the thing that struck me about this is that these people are really excited about their job and they love going out to find to talk to people about it to find new things um it actually

brought to mind uh i was really lucky in stumbling on a good therapist um there's a marriage and family therapist that i talked to for quite a while and i remember that he had this light box and he was so interested in trauma therapy and processing old memories with this light box where you settled on the color, but he had this whole setup, and he was so excited because he was going to this new training seminar in like a month, and he knew I was interested in psychiatry, so he would tell me these things. But you could see the joy on his face. He was so excited because he got to go and he had a mentor, and he was learning from this person, and he was so incredibly stoked to go and learn how to use this light box. So probably more important than the light box, because I haven't seen

the research on that particular thing. Just like, hey, this is a new thing. Yeah. I'm going to go learn it. I have people I want to go talk to about it. Yeah. And he would do that. He would find the next thing to learn about the new research.

And he was all about that. Yeah. Anything come to your mind, Valerie, on this one? Well, this one I was kind of struck with like the whole idea of the more you know, the more you don't know. And I think a lot of the people that fall into like this. lifelong learner category are like the more I know, the more I don't know. And each patient you see or each client you see is so individualized and so different. And so you want a therapist

who's curious and who's like has a fascination with the unknown. I think it's really important. Yeah. There's a drive to mastery, but there's also a never sense of having fully arrived. So there's, you know, there's that sort of paradox there of wanting to learn more, of craving to learn more. And I would say it's also beyond just pure, you know, scientific literature. You know, I think the lifelong learners, I can tell when someone sends me a direct message, you know, who has been listening to the podcast, like, and they're really, really looking for, like, new stuff and to expand their mind. And I can tell that. And also, you know, like literature, like reading novels, going to museums, reading history.

So there's not just like a singular area in therapy where you can only study that. It's like because therapy is like the life experience, you can expand your life experience by watching documentaries, by watching, you know, by reading books and just being excited about continued learning. Can I say one more thing to that? I also think that a beautiful way to continue in you said as moving outside of just the literature is supervising students, watching them learn, watching them grow, watching them process and move through their own work and thinking reflectively about myself, how can that encourage me to move

and grow? Also, watching other therapists is another beautiful way to increase my knowledge and the toolbox that I use, watching another therapist who I really respect, challenge a patient or attuned to a patient, how do they use their body, how are they using their craft to move a patient closer to health? I believe that those are two incredibly valuable ways that we can continue to be a masterful therapist and to tap into that desire to learn and grow is by watching other people that we admire and respect. Yeah. So the second part of the cognitive domain is accumulation of experience and use it as a resource. So this is like developing of character and expertise, learning about themselves and how they are impacting the people they treat. And so Ginger,

this was the first thing that actually you said when we kind of were talking about doing this episode, you were talking about, I want a therapist who has some life experience who when you look at their face, you can tell like this person is not, um, not an observer. You know, It's like if you were a gladiator, you wouldn't want just a coach who has never been a gladiator. You know, you'd want someone who's been in the ring. Tell me a little bit about that. Well, most definitely, I think particularly as I move across the life course myself, I'm 48, I have five children. I've been in a long-term marriage.

When I seek a therapist, it has to be somebody that I believe can hold me in that space and effectively address the nuances of my life from more than just per se a textbook. It has to be somebody that I believe can really share in my lived experience in a very congruent way. Charles Dickinson has this amazing quote that says, like, we're all just fellow travelers to the grave. And I want somebody who captures that idea, right, that we're all moving on this journey of life and there is pain. And so for me, having someone who has life experiences that have not all been pleasant is very important to me and finding that they have integrated that into their therapeutic skills because that puts me at ease

and makes the space very safe for me to openly discuss the challenges and issues that I may be facing from childhood. And now, as I watch my own children begin to move on and leave home, that I know that they have participated in that life process with me as more than just as you said, a casual observer. Yeah, it makes me think of a quote from Goodwill Hunting, where Robin Williams turns to Matt Damon, and he says, you could have read, or I could have read Oliver Twist, but that's not going to allow me to know what it's like to be an orphan. the only person who can tell me what it's like to be an orphan is you. And what he was speaking to in this scene is Matt Damon has so many defenses about telling

his story. And Robin Williams has never been an orphan, but he's gone through other stuff and he knows how to listen. And the only way that he's going to be able to listen is if Matt Damon actually tells him his story. And so it's not that they need the exact experience that you've had, but they have to be able to listen in such a way to be able to share in your experience. And sometimes, and, you know, having had other experiences and doing your own work can really facilitate that.

And I, you know, in psychiatry and in psychotherapy, there's been such a tradition of doing your own work, of going to see your own therapist. And it breaks my heart when like it's year four and I'm talking to a resident and they've never been to a therapist. It breaks my heart. I mean, do you have students like that where it's like you talk to them and they have never been to their own therapist? I think particularly at the master's level, we find this where there are individuals who haven't done their own work. And I do believe that they are, I'll go out on the limb, but to be completely honest, I do believe they are at a disadvantage. My beloved friend, Dr. Philip Focused, who works here in our town, has this wonderful adage that I won't be able to recant as well as he does. but he tells this little story about how this man's lying in a ditch and people try to help him

and the only person that could provide effective help for him is the person who comes to him and says, I've been in this ditch before and I know how we can get out of it together. And I believe that that's what we learn about ourselves as we go through our own therapy is then we can come back to patients and say, I've been where you are. And like you said, Dr. Peter, it may not be a perfect match. You know, my lived experience may not completely parallel that of my patient, but I have struggled with issues from my family of origin. I have struggled with postpartum depression and eating disorder issues of my own. And I believe that all of these experiences that my Heavenly Father brought into my life have richened my therapeutic experience and enabled me to bond with people in a way that would have never happened before.

And I think that the God of our understanding has given all of us a quill to tapestry, a framework by which we can meet people where they are. But if we don't do our own work, then we don't know how to make that energy available to our patients. We're afraid of it. So we pull away from it. And that old adage is, I'm only willing to take my patient as far as I'm willing to go myself, becomes very, very apparent when you're with students who are afraid to do their own work because they're afraid of pain. And if I'm afraid of pain, I'm not going to climb into that ditch and rescue that person, right? I'm going to stand on the road and say, come on, come on, come on. But I'm really going to be petrified to climb into the ugly places and weed those out.

Yeah. Yeah. So that's one of the things I love about the mental health profession, because I see the people who have been in it for so long, and they're afraid of nothing. because they've seen all of these things and experienced it for themselves. Yeah, and when you, when you're sitting with someone in trauma, you don't want to be traumatized yourself by their trauma.

Like, that's, that's not going to help them at all. Like, that'll be another trauma for them. So you have to be able to, like, sit in that and, like, ground yourself and pull yourself out of that fear. You're going to feel some of the fear.

You're going to feel some of the dissociation because it's impossible not to because of how our brains are connected. with other people, but you have to be able to ground yourself. And if you can, if you get pulled into the trauma, then you will use psychological defenses and some of them might not be helpful for the patient. Let's go on to the third one. So the third cognitive domain that they found was important was to value and thrive

in the cognitive complexity and ambiguity of the human condition. So this is to not be reductionistic or very simplistic about what's going on, but to approach each person as an individual and to allow for a level of complexity. And, you know, there could be multiple emotions going on at once. There could be multiple motivations that a patient has. And so I think it's like hinting at they're often curious and they're often not going to settle for just like a singular thing. going on. A good example of this is if you go to a lot of people who are like health coaches, every problem, even if it's completely an emotional problem, will be a diet issue. Like,

you don't need anything but to optimize your diet, right? And it's very just reductionistic, right? To just say that your emotional problem from trauma as a child comes down to you not eating the right amount of vegetables. I don't know. Ginger, what do you think? You're like, well, I think that speaks to first and second order change. I mean, if we're seeking those kinds of, you know, to change someone's diet that is a first order change, we could easily say to one of our clients who came to mend, you know, if you would put yourself on a diet or if you would become met compliant, then you would have the capacity to change your life. And that is a first order change. It's when we get into that second order change realm and we really look at what is driving the behavior, that they're, the maladaptive

behavior that they're struggling with, and what are the rooted causes of why they don't want to take care of their body, why they don't want to be med compliant. All of these things are probably at a very subconscious level for the client, but it's when we're really to do that rooted work that says, what is driving the fact that you don't want to take care of your body. You know, we had a patient a while back who losing weight would have dramatically improved the chronic illness problems that they presented to our program with. And yet encouraging them and moving them closer to achieving that weight loss was so directly tied to family of origin issues, childhood traumas and issues, that we had to do a lot of

very rooted trauma work in order to encourage them and help. them to meet those movement. Yes. It's like once you got that trauma work done, all of a sudden the pounds just started falling off of this guy. Well, it's safe then. It's safe to have a fit body. You know, it's safe. It's okay. All of the protectors that I had that were driving, say, being overweight, now I don't need those anymore. And like you said, immediately, it's okay for the weight to fall off because it's safe for me to live inside my body without that protector, that protector at times can be being overweight. But if I just put someone on a diet and coach them through how to follow the diet, that's really never cleaning the wound that led to the dietary issues in the

first place. Yeah. I think that it's important to approach it also is realizing the things that you're presented with are ill-defined. And I was reading something about how experts, they spend a lot of time at the beginning of a problem, like laying all the groundwork and trying to figure out, what are all the possible components and solutions to something versus seeing it as, you know, theory-based and, okay, I see this and I immediately know what it is. And so I think that's really important, like approaching something that's ambiguous with openness and not immediately going to, you know, diet is a solution for this. There's so many components that go within it and a lot of time has to be spent at the beginning

of understanding something. Yeah. And, you know, in our program, sometimes it'll be two, three weeks, you know, we're talking about like 20 hours, no, not 20 hours, like maybe 50 hours into the work that it's like, oh, this is the issue. So sometimes we don't see it right away. And so if we were to, too early come to a conclusion, like, oh, this is the only issue, then that wouldn't be helpful. Okay, let's go to the emotional domain. So the first part of the emotional domain is possess emotional receptivity, for example, being self-aware, reflective, not defensive, and open to

feedback. So, you know, they often seek feedback, actually, from peers and look for opportunities to learn more about themselves and their work. And they have an openness to and a willingness to incorporate feedback from clients, even if it's hard to hear. So this ties back to what you were talking about earlier, Ginger, about going to other people and, say, watching students or having someone watch you as a knowledge-seeking component. And then this would be the emotional processing side of that same thing where you go and you spend that time getting the experience, but then you also take that experience and you process it emotionally and then incorporate it into what you're doing.

it's really being receptive to feedback and not being defensive and seeing feedback as information it's helpful it's having a growth mindset that we haven't arrived and that we don't need to protect a perfect image of ourselves and um you know how does your therapist receive feedback so one of the things that commonly happens is a patient will come to me and or ginger and they'll be like have an issue with one of us, either they come to Ginger and they have an issue with me or they come to me and they have an issue with Ginger. And I try to coach the person in order to say to Ginger like, hey, this is what's going on. And they're petrified that Ginger is going to like kick them out of the program or yell at them. And they're very surprised when Ginger is open and empathic to their

distress and it becomes a huge therapeutic moment. It does, and I agree with you, receiving feedback is not easy for me. I know that it's vitally important and that there's still so much to learn and so many ways to grow from it. And I think it is, I can't say enough how important it is, but it is never easy. It is very difficult to hear negative feedback from a patient. Usually what I have to do in those moments is kind of say a quick prayer to the God of my understanding that I can table my ego for a moment because we run group therapy. And so it's not uncommon for patients to feel defensive or resistant.

Sometimes their feedback can come from those places. And it will be presented in a group setting. And that can be very, very challenging. But I love what you said about, Tori, I love what you said. about not being afraid. And I think that one of the most wonderful things that's come in, my personal growth as a therapist is not being afraid anymore in the room, not being afraid if a patient is going to give me negative feedback, even if that is in front of their peers. It's just remembering to breathe and thinking about what am I supposed to learn from this

moment, what is the patient supposed to learn? Where is this coming from? And being open, you said the word open, being open to receiving that and thinking about, okay, how is this going to move both their process and my process forward? We had a patient a couple of weeks ago who made a comment, you don't understand my culture, and I try very hard to be a culturally sensitive therapist, but she didn't feel that her culture was being properly addressed within the group therapy room. And so hearing that opened up a conversation as to how could we better meet her needs? Where was this coming from? How can we incorporate this and move her closer to her treatment goals? Yeah. Yeah, it is hard. It is hard to receive feedback. And I think Dr. Tar, my mentor,

who's like a 90-year-old psychoanalyst, he talks a lot about how over time he, he has learned because it is so transformative to the patient to rejoice in their feedback, even if it's negative, and to understand transference and sometimes patients have negative transference, meaning that you put thoughts like, you know, if every man was abusive to you in your childhood and in your adult life, and then you come into contact with a male therapist, it's like not uncommon to think that that male therapist is abusive,

even if he's not abusive. And so empathizing with their distress or with their thoughts that are distressing can actually just completely rock that sort of narrative. And so getting excited when they do give you that feedback is something that it's bizarre, but his brain actually is to that place at this point in his life. So I think it's something we can grow in as therapists. and, you know, this is a commonality of the master therapist. So, you know, how does your therapist, if you do have a therapist, respond to your feedback? Can I add one thing to that too? Yep, go ahead.

Well, I just, I love that you brought that into the room because, or into the podcast, because a patient, you know, it's kind of a little petri dish for them as they start to grow and learn if they've never had a voice and they haven't used their voice, then they're going to start experimenting, hopefully, on us. And so if we provide a space that's safe enough for them to say, Ginger, yesterday you said this and that really bothered me, if I have the opportunity to show up and I can table the human part of me, that ego part of me, and really be open and receptive to the patient, what a beautiful moment it is to say to them, how does it feel for you to have used your voice right now? How does your body feel that you spoke up for yourself? I hope you've, you know, wanting to make sure they feel heard, validated, that we support that because what it really is is the introduction of new neurological information.

And that's what we're trying to do, is grow new neural pathways around health. So if they speak up for themselves with me and I champion that and underscore that, then I'm allowing their brain to light up in these wonderful, magical places that encourages this new growth. And then if it's well received by you or I, or other therapists, they will feel like it worked okay in group. It worked okay with my peer. It worked okay with Ginger or Dr. Puter.

I could try this at home. And then when they come back and say, I tried it at home, then we want to say, you did it again. Your brain loves this. The brain is always on the side of novelty. So we want in growth. So we want to keep them moving in that direction. So when the ego can be tabled and we can really celebrate those healthy times

when it's not splitting or resistance or something like that, when we can celebrate those healthy times of the use of voice, we really have the capacity to show up for them in a way that they may have never had the opportunity to do before. And I might add to that a recent example, this is me and ginger at a patient, and the body posture of this male patient switched from being caved in to being standing up stronger.

Like his whole body posture changed as he was able to have a voice. And so watch for the physical changes in the body posture as well as you're empowering patients. Okay. The next part is the mental health individual that put time into maintaining their own emotional well-being is an indicator of a good therapist. So the good therapists sought out treatment for themselves. they sought out breaks for themselves when they needed breaks and they took care of themselves. One of my favorite jokes to use with my friends

is that one of the reasons I'm so passionate about psychiatry and mental health is because I need a therapist, which is kind of true. It seems like all of the people I talk to that are passionate about their mental health, they have their own mental health experience. They're like, I needed to work

on this problem and then I became passionate about mental health or I was interested in the academic behind it and then I realized that I had some things I needed to work on and I went and I got mental health help and then they found a whole new passion. Yeah. Yeah. I would say the first time I went to a therapist, I did it because a supervisor therapist, Dr. Fayard, told me that, you know, everyone should get a therapist as a part of their growth to become an excellent therapist. And it was that sort of ego break that allowed me to see a therapist because I wasn't going in for a problem. I was going in for growth.

Three therapists later. How fast did they set you straight? No. I mean, you know, but it ended up being very good. And I ended up working through a lot of stuff that otherwise would interfere with my work. And so I'm very passionate about.

you know, seeing it and paying a premium, by the way, as well. Like my last therapist was not cheap. It was very expensive. And, you know, seeing a good therapist who can be cash pay because they have enough clients to not have to go through the painful insurance process, you know, is sometimes, you know, it's like, it's like totally worth it. You know, people go out and spend $20,000 on a car. but they won't spend $20,000 over the course of a couple years seeing an excellent therapist.

It blows my mind. I felt like in the spirit of transparency for me, therapy became not an option. After I had my twins, I had really bad postpartum depression that manifest in a severe level of symptomology. And so for me, going to therapy and being, I guess, transformed by the experience, had to happen because at that point there were five little people plus my husband looking to me to be a co-leader of our family and I just didn't have the capacity to show up for them in that way. And so that led me into therapy. And then as I watched the therapist and I had a masterful psychiatrist that transformed my life,

who's also been on your podcast. But then I would say that that encouraged me to move out into the field. And a defining moment with her was probably when she and I were sharing one day. And I told her, I think I could do this. I think I could be a marriage and family therapist. And she said, I would work with you at any time. I would work with you in any arena. You would be a masterful therapist.

And so I immediately went to grad school and then did my master's in my PhD and I guess the rest is history. But I try to incorporate that lived experience into my work so that I never forget who I am and I remain self-aware as to like what brought me into the field. That's really beautiful. That's really beautiful. And one moment of that just speaking that truth into you made it changed your life course. And so, you know, a good therapist.

has impacted you, you know, and change your life. It's amazing how quickly that can happen. Yeah, one person that really believed in me. And then when I came to MEND, I worked with another woman, her name was Dr. Voswani, or is Dr. Vaswani, and she's a practicing psychologist and Dr. Tapanas, who works here at the MEND program or developed the MEND program, they believed in me. They believed in this empathy that. I had because I'm so emotionally based and just such a right-brained person.

And they saw that and grew that and knew how to cultivate that. And so I just felt so richly blessed that things that I had always judged myself in a world where I think being left-brained is highly valued. When I had this heavy right-brain, this very artistic, creative spirit, they saw how to channel those abilities, you know, teach me to use my powers for good. and kind of grew me into a place where I felt very comfortable and happy to be the person that my God created me to be and to be self-aware and in my body and in the moment. But that wouldn't have happened had I not been grown and developed by the amazing team that we have that has supervised me and moved me through this process. Yeah.

And, you know, sometimes putting yourself under excellent supervisors is a sacrifice. It's hard. It's hard to work that hard to be good because the demands are. Yep. The demands to do your own work. I mean, I didn't have a choice with Dr. Vaswani and Dr. Tabanis not to do my own work because I would be triggered in the room from Family of Origin stuff. And it was like, nope, you're going to have to go work on that.

You're going to have to look at that. And boy, it was difficult, but rewarding and worth it. Yeah. Okay. Moving on to the next domain, the relational domain. The first one is strong relational skills. So, you know, many come from families where they develop skills of listening, observing, caring for the well-being of others. I'll note there that McWilliams in her book psychoanalytic psychotherapy, she mentions articulately that a lot of

lot of really good therapists, played therapist growing up, I mean, played as in like, that's the role they had in their family. They were the emotional stabilizing force in their family. And I think that resonates for myself when I look back in my childhood. Strong relational skills in that they have increased sensitivity and compassion for others due to personal emotional wounds. And they have highly developed social skills, the ability to relate to others, to project a sense of warmth, caring a genuine interest in people, you cannot fake genuine interest. You know, if you don't have genuine interest in people, then your mirror neurons will not

light up in a way that communicates to someone that you're really interested in their story. And so, you know, I also think when I think about this category, you know, microexpression and body language and they're, you know, they have the ability to read people and that's part of it. the really deep understanding and emotional intelligence. So I can always usually tell who the people are that are interested in people in general because you can see them because they're the ones that talk to people in line at Costco and people who are a little bit lonely or just need to talk to someone will find them. And it doesn't matter where they are, it could be shopping wherever,

in whatever situation, the people who need someone to talk to will always find the people who generally care about other people. And I've seen it happen. It's happened to me. And I have other friends who are very interested in psychiatry who have this genuine interest in people. People gravitate towards them because they can see that interest in other people. Yeah.

Yeah. I like what you said about it being, you can't really fake. being genuine and you know it's all about creating like a safe environment where someone feels like they can be validated and can be heard and what we were kind of talking about earlier and you can't really have that safe environment unless you have this ability to be empath and empathetic and sensitive to others and kind of touching on what you were talking about earlier Ginger you were saying that you wanted someone who knows emotional pain and who can relate to you in that

capacity and that's all about creating that safe environment where someone feels like they can be held and comforted. Yeah, and there was a study where they showed, they were looking at therapists and their outcomes. So they were following therapists and doing the, this like sort of patient measure. So they were looking at how the patients were changing over time. And then they took this group of therapists

and they had them watch videos and respond to the videos with how they would respond to the situation. And then they videotape their responses. Then they had experts grade them on how, good their social skills were basically. And they found that those are the highest social skills had the best outcomes with patients. And so it's one of those factors of like,

you know, your social IQ is going to help quite a bit in terms of if you are a good therapist. You know, can you read the room? Can you? Like it's Ginger, I think Ginger has very high social IQ. Because she reads people well. She understands it. And it probably was very adaptive early on

throughout Ginger's life to be able to do that. Right. So often what was a survival mechanism for therapists in this way, like it was adaptive for them to be a peacemaker, to bring peace to their environment, to read situations. You know, later in life, it becomes their superpower. I agree with that. That's kind of what I was saying about the tapestry, right, that becomes our life, our lived experience. And that probably was God's greatest gift to me. I guess I feel very spiritual. this morning hear myself using a lot of God language, but I feel blessed and grateful to be here today having this conversation. But my childhood was integral in forming me into the person that I am today. And as much pain as it caused, I don't think there's anything that I feel more grateful for

because when I'm with somebody, I feel like I have the capacity to at least sit with them in that space. I feel like I have the capacity to be there for them and to attune to them and to share that moment with them. And probably, like you said, it's those underpinnings from childhood right that grow us into the people that we're willing to be. And then to tie back to are we willing to do our own work and learn how we're going to use those very painful oftentimes experiences for good.

How are we going? That's the most beautiful thing I think that I have a very, very gifted therapist. That's a part of my life. And what he has shown me and the result of a lot of psychotherapy with him has been that no longer do I feel ashamed of my childhood, ashamed of where I came from. now I feel like I can be right into that place. Like it's fully synthesized into who I am. And I don't have to move away from it.

I can move closer to it because I have peace with it and how it's enriched my life. And now enriches the lives of my clients. I hope that's the goal, right? Is that they can learn that they have come from perhaps very tumultuous and traumatic childhoods. but that can be synthesized into their being and then used to help them have a purposeful life. Yeah. Thank you for sharing. I mean, it's really powerful to move into a place of gratitude

for what maybe are some of the darker areas of our life. You know, I think the same thing for myself. It's like maybe I'm not completely in a place of gratitude at all times, but to be in a place of, I am in a place of gratitude, that I'm able to help people through the use of myself and my journey and what I've experienced. And I think we're going to wrap it up here in about two minutes. Any big things that kind of jump out to you is like take homes from this discussion. I think the biggest thing that comes to me and is also consistent with the literature,

that having that therapeutic alliance when you're looking for a therapist is critical. You had said to her before we went on the record, so to speak, about how finding a good therapist is like dating, right? And it is hard to go through and bear your soul a couple times and see, like who you like, but like how you said, Dr. Peter, am I willing to cash pay? Am I willing to go on a couple of bad dates? You know, how far am I willing to go to really push myself into health. And the reality is on the flip side, as someone who is in this work and therapy is my craft and someone who has been a recipient of both good and bad therapy, I would say that, as you did, it is worth the effort. It is worth the time that there is

wholeness and restoration on the other side. But it really boils down often, even if we look at like common factors literature, therapeutic alliance will take us very, very far in making sure that we feel heard, validated, and also that the therapist that we're with has the capacity to challenge us in ways that we don't want to. My therapist is very direct at times and calls me out and has no patience for things that are not congruent or not authentic. And because of that, I know that there's I'm not going to get away with stuff. And so if I really want to heal and I really want to grow, then I have to be with someone because I am savvy.

You know, I've had a lot of life experience. Like I said, children, a husband. I'm in the business. I am savvy. And I need somebody that's going to be willing to say, you know, that's BS. And write it out fearlessly, knowing that I'm going to have some kind of a reaction to that. but he is willing to ride that out fearlessly. And I love that.

And I think that is so admirable. So those are the things I gravitate to. Yeah. And if you found this helpful or if you have questions, you know, I'll post this on a blog and on my social media platforms. You can ask questions. And if you have, you know, more questions, then maybe we'll do a second part for this.

I think we definitely could do a second part because we're just scratching the surface. and yeah, thank you all for coming on. Enjoyed it. We'll leave it there.