Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Speaker A: Hi and welcome to beyond the Chair. I'm your host, Sony Anderson Hale.
And I just wanted to jump in front of this episode that I have recorded and say that it is kind of piecemealed together because I had been really sick in January when I first started to record this and then all.
[00:00:18] Speaker B: The way up to February.
[00:00:20] Speaker A: I have since this recording that I've made gotten more listeners. But I'm going to keep the shout out to the first one because I want every everyone to hear the excitement and I also want to do the shout out to the first one and I'm also at the very end gonna play for you a voice memo of my voice when I was like at my peak sickness because it's funny. And then you can also hear what I saved all of our ears from while I was out.
And then finally I landed on posting the questions for the Deep Dive that I will discuss in a minute on Instagram at the Therapist Companion.
So look for the questions there. This episode is about therapist anxiety, especially around firsts. First clients, first groups, new modalities, new roles, and how anxiety shows up for us as counselors even when we don't talk about it.
I wanted to share some stories and normalize that, because it happens whether you're new or seasoned.
Naming where we've been helps normalize where we are because anxiety shows up for beginners and seasoned clinicians alike.
And talking about it is part of taking care of each other as therapists.
[00:01:30] Speaker B: I recently had one person listen to this podcast and I can't even tell you how ridiculously exciting that is. I don't even know how they found it. And if you're the person that was listening before, hello, I saw it and thank you so much because it really kind of jazzed me up, especially because I've done literally nothing to get this out there other than putting it out.
And I'm sorry that I haven't recorded in a bit, but I've been incredibly busy with the holidays and having just barely a new one year old and also the flu coming throughout my house. So it's just been kind of chaotic. But me saying that a person had actually listened, I was like, okay, so there's someone out there who's hearing this stuff. So it kind of made me think like, okay, I gotta get back to it. Even though I don't feel fantastic and I might sound sick, I would assume I sound sick because I am.
But yeah, I'm gonna push through record today and hopefully it gets to more people or just that one person Hi again. Hello, and thank you once again for listening.
So before we get into the nitty gritty of today's episode, I want to let you know that the deep dive for the end of the month is going to be from the documentary that just came out recently. I believe it's on Netflix called Evil Influencer, the Jody Hildebrandt Story, which I have not watched yet. I have two colleagues who have watched it and told me that I should hopefully both of them will guest.
But if not, you know, whatever, we'll, we'll deal. But I'm hoping that they both guessed. And so at the end of the month, we will have a discussion about that documentary.
We have not come up with the questions yet.
So those will be coming either I'll be presenting them in the next episode or maybe I'll do a Google Doc. I haven't decided on that either yet, but it is coming.
I decided to talk about anxiety today because I think it's ever present in our field and we work with clients who have anxiety all the time.
But often, or how often do we pause and think about the times that we've felt nervous or anxious ourselves or notice it popping up in us right now?
Whether you're a brand new therapist or someone who's been practicing for years, anxiety can show up. And I think it's worth paying attention to.
In recent years, you know, I've, I could feel the anxiety pop up for different reasons, which we'll talk about in a little bit. But what I had to do, like a little bit of soul searching was like, you know, I, I felt like I never felt nervous going into my first sessions. And so I had to really think about it when bringing up this topic and being like, why was that? That sounds literally impossible.
And so when I did some backtracking, I was like, oh, well, duh, okay. So when I first started working on the children's psych unit, one of the ways that you were able to keep your job, like, you would not be able to keep working there if you didn't do this, you had to run groups.
And I was fresh out of school, bachelor's in psychology, and had no idea how to run a group at all.
And I had seen other people run groups. So, like, I had shadowed people for a couple of days and none of the groups that they ran really seemed to resonate for me. And I think it's because there was this really strange shift that was happening where the entire program was being shifted into rather than being hands on with the kids and Kind of putting them in timeout. It was going toward, let's talk through what's going on. Let's try and not engage physically as as much as possible because they had, had they turned over. Whole new doctor. This doctor came in and felt like it was not appropriate to go hands on with kids unless you absolutely had to, which I fully, completely agree with. And it's probably because that's like what I knew. But a lot of the staff had the exact opposite. They were like, well, we should be able to go hands on if a kid is cussing out another kid, or we should be able to put them in the timeout room because of, you know, verbal outbursts or because they're trying to throw stuff. Like all these things that, because of the way that I was taught was like, you just leave them alone. Like, don't, don't do that. Maybe don't even try and talk them down. Like, if they're having a fit and no one's around them, what's the problem?
I will say that there, there is.
[00:06:49] Speaker A: A.
[00:06:51] Speaker B: Happy middle ground. You don't have to be that passive.
But that's my example for right now that's popped in my head.
So the staff that had been there prior, they're all kind of getting ready to leave. So I feel like they're. They weren't really. They didn't have their hearts in the groups. And, you know, none of them were therapists, so why would they know how to run therapy groups either?
The one that keeps popping in my head is this, like, fishing group where this guy had a fishing line that was like attached to a magnet. And then that magnet would pick up little fishes on the ground that also had magnets on them. And then the kid would pick it up and it'd be like a mood. And then they had to talk about that mood, which isn't terrible. Like, it's a fine intervention. But for some reason for myself, I was like that, that I need to be better. I put so much pressure on myself.
And on top of it, I found out that the person that was going to be watching me run my group, I can't remember what they're called, but there's some type of, like, play interventionalist. It's a master's degree and it's not therapy, but they, like, use therapeutic play. I really can't remember what it's called at all. But they are a type of person that is not a therapist that can run these types of interventions. She was going to be watching me and she Knew my mom really well. And the reason that she knew my mom really well was because my mom happened to work at the same hospital, but she was working in the medical library for patient education.
And basically what my mom's job was was to translate things from English to Spanish because there's a lot of documents that needed to be translated into Spanish and given to parents so that they understood, like, the medical diagnosis if they wanted to, and, like, all this background.
So my mom and this woman were pretty close.
And I felt like it's a direct reflection, me being a direct reflection of my mom. And so that added some pressure that, like, well, my mom's a real badass, and you really respect her, and you should.
And I, in my own way, am a badass. But, like, I now need to prove that without any evidence of it myself. I only just feel that I am.
Anyway. It's really stupid, but this was what was happening for me when I'm getting ready to run my first group. And so I decided to teach a group of kids to play this game called quiche. And quiche is a game that a friend of mine had taught me that she learned when she was in the boys and girls club. It's a really great game. It's a communication game. It's super, super fun, and it's a great pastime, but. But it also is great for bonding.
So I decided that that's what I would do, is I would teach these kids that game. And I remember I was so nervous. Even though I'd played that game 8 billion times, I played it all through college with so many people.
It was difficult for me to kind of get out of my own way and just look at the situation. Like, okay, so you have plan A, B, C, D, and you present that to the kids, and then they do the project or they do the game, and then you move on with life, right? I don't know. I was so in my head, and I.
I felt like I was doing okay. But then the woman who had been watching me, she kept asking questions because I think she couldn't really understand what the game was supposed to be. And so it, like, kind of messed up my flow.
And so then I would get thrown off, and I don't know, it was just really, really difficult. I remember it being so much more difficult than it should have been. Like, I've played this game 8 billion times, and I know how to teach kids how to play this game.
So why is this so hard? I don't know, but I think it was just so many conflicting factors that had gone into it that just made me so nervous for absolutely no reason. As I look back, I'm like, why were you so nervous? But I'll say in all honesty, I feel like it completely tanked, like, because there were so many questions from the adult that was in the room, and because the flow had gotten so thrown off and it took so much time to explain because of the questions I kept getting asked. All of my time to run that group just went away. I feel like they played maybe one round, probably not even one round, and I would say there was no therapeutic benefit for that whatsoever.
And at the end, that woman that was supposed to be watching me, she came up to me and she was like, you did a fantastic job. That was great.
Keep it up. And then that was it. And I was like, I can't. I don't understand, because it was really bad.
But then. So I then get to implement so many different games and so many different activities on the unit, and I got to do different things that I learned in different classes. Like, I learned stuff in sports psychology that I got to implement with the kids and give it a try. And there's just so many games and activities that I have in my head that I can make into a group now that I know are fruitful, and I know exactly why I'm running them, and I know exactly what they do to help out people, and I know how to chart them so that it makes sense as to why we did this.
So it was really invaluable, and I'm glad that I did it. And I will say that, you know, probably like two or three months later, I. I gave that quiche game again a chance again, and I taught it to the kids, and they absolutely loved it. And then they. This, like, whole round of kids ended up playing it for, like, two months or something like that. Like, it'd be like they would teach these other kids to play it. It wasn't like we were continuously playing that in groups. I think I only taught them one time. And then, you know, they're teaching other people. And so it kind of made me feel like it's a little bit of a full circle moment that this game that my friend in the boys and girls club is now being, you know, disseminated to the masses, and then they get to go and they get to play it with their friends, and then they get to communicate in different ways with their friends. It was just really neat, great opportunity. And so the reality is, is that I was incredibly anxious and really in my head about all of that, and it ended up being okay. And I think that that kind of set me on a path to be like, maybe we just try. Maybe we just give it a shot even though we feel anxious and muddle through and see how it goes. Because, like, the worst thing that can happen is it goes to. And it. I feel like it kind of did. So, you know, worst case scenario already happened.
I survived.
So what's the worst that's going to happen if it happens again, you know, and make it sound so easy and like I never felt anxiety again. But that's not true at all. It mainly shared that as a mirror to myself and saying like, yeah, you were anxious and you kind of just chose to forget it.
After recounting that situation, I actually started having these memories kind of flood back of different times when I had been anxious in different scenarios. But I think we'll just stick with that one because it was my first glaring.
You're anxious and you don't think you're going to do well at this.
I think that a big thing in the beginning of us being therapists, one kind of overarching thought is that, am I going to do this right or am I doing this right?
And in some ways I would say that we're not because we don't really know what we're doing and we haven't really learned how to do it well.
Do it seamlessly, catch things that we're not sure you know how to catch.
Just basically like we're, we're brand new. Like, of course we're not going to do this exactly right.
But I also would say I don't think we're doing it exactly wrong. And, and I do think that sometimes what can happen is that people can internalize this thought that am I doing it right? I have to do it right? This needs to be correct.
And then kind of miss some of these golden opportunities to learn.
We're a lot of times so in our own heads and do this correctly, don't make a mistake. It needs to look a certain way.
But I think if you kind of pull back and think about it, like, who does it need to look that way for?
Especially if you're getting a client who's new to therapy or a client who's had therapy before, but they like, obviously didn't stick with their other therapist.
I would say for any newbies that it might be smart to just, just preemptively, like, admit, like, hey, I'm new to this and you know, I'm gonna clunk my way around this. You're gonna clunk your way around this because you're new to therapy too. And let's do it. I feel like I might have done that at some point in time in my life. Like, definitely when I've learned a new modality, I'm like, I am new to this, and so I'm gonna clunk my way through it, and you're gonna clunk.
[00:16:34] Speaker A: Your way through it, and we're gonna.
[00:16:35] Speaker B: Be fantastic at the other, other side of it. Like, let's see how it goes. I think that that's sometimes how I sell it, because I don't want my clients to also think like that they're doing something wrong, which can happen. That does happen at times. I know that I've had people in the past who've had therapists who they wouldn't tell them that they felt like they were doing it wrong. And I do think that there's quite a few people that could come out of therapy thinking that they, the clients themselves, that they've done it incorrectly. Like, I didn't make the treatment gains that I expected to, or maybe I interpreted what my therapist was saying and doing and how they looked as information that I'm not doing enough, or I didn't try hard enough, or I didn't understand what it was that we were doing.
And I would say those are the bigger risks that we run is kind of like how we present toward the client.
And frustrations that we're feeling with ourselves can be interpreted by the client as their own failures.
[00:17:49] Speaker A: So that's something to be aware of. As therapists new and seasoned, sometimes our own anxieties can be picked up by the clients and misinterpreted.
I think some of the best ways to combat that are to staff or discuss our feelings with trusted colleagues or supervisors.
It's also helpful to know and understand that we have all, at some point, felt lost and anxious.
We're all humans with human emotions, and that's okay.
It's part of what separates us from computers.
If you at all need a mantra to push through the anxiety of being a new therapist or starting a new modality or even just a new venture, being realistic that it's going to be clunky, but that's exactly how you're going to improve.
Another mantra can be that there will never again be a first time for this specific endeavor, and that can help quell anxiety as well.
And finally, there's a beauty in not knowing you're becoming the therapist you're meant to be through trial and error. It's part of the journey.
And that truly is why supervision exists and why it's important to cultivate a trusted group of therapists to lean on when issues arise and therapy sessions get complicated, overwhelming, confusing, et cetera, et cetera.
All right, that's all for today. Thank you so much for tuning in. If you're a new therapist or you're struggling with your own anxiety, remember that you're not alone in this. We're all learning and growing, and it's okay to be imperfect. Lean into that journey, and if you're feeling lost or overwhelmed, make sure that you reach out for support, whether it's a supervisor or a trusted colleague.
If you found this episode helpful, I'd love for you to share it with others who you might think, who you think might benefit.
And if you haven't already, hit that subscribe button so that you don't miss out on the deep dive. Coming at the end of the month on the documentary Evil Influencer, I'm really looking forward to that discussion.
And I know that I talked about having a paid subscription. It's gonna happen at some point in time, but right now I'm just kind of figuring out my flow and I'm figuring out how to post consistently.
And so that one's kind of on the back burner right now, just getting healthy and whatnot. So that one's on the back burner. Don't worry about that right now. It's all just everything's included in.
In what we're discussing. So, yeah, it'll be coming eventually. I'll figure it out.
And then here's my little blooper kind of thing of my voice when I was very sick. So hope you enjoy. Have a great day. Bye.
Also, like, it is funny, but it's also a little intense. So just want to prepare you because it's. It's kind of grating again. This is what I saved us all from having to listen to by not recording at all.
I like that cat.
[00:20:55] Speaker B: Is that my voice? Is that my voice?
