Guest Apperance on Therpay Daddy Podcast

Summary Questions 

Why do I understand my problems but still don’t feel any better?

You can understand, like, oh, I do this because of this experience I had in my life, but then you don’t feel any better about it. And that’s because you’re not emotionally processing the experience. You’re intellectualizing the experience.

Isn’t being self-aware the same as emotional processing?

One thing that people sometimes mistake for emotional processing is cognitive awareness, which is not the same thing. Just understanding, like, hey, I do this thing because of this thing, that’s not quite enough. You have to actually process the emotions of it and understand it, pull it into the conscious mind, and then provide a different experience.

What kind of therapy do you use?

I definitely do use talk therapy, but I feel like you need to build a connection in the therapy space. And that’s, you have to talk to someone, get to know them, and build that rapport. And that’s fundamental, because healing is based in relationship. So if you don’t have a good relationship with your therapist, you’re not going to be able to do that deeper work.

What is IFS or “parts work”?

You have, trauma kind of has two parts to it. It has the pain of the experience, and then the behavior that developed as a result to cope with that experience. So in parts work, or IFS, whatever you want to call it, you would have an exile part, which is a part of you that holds the pain of that experience that is stored kind of subconsciously. And then a protector part, which holds a behavior that functions as a coping mechanism to avoid that pain from being activated again.

Do I have to relive my trauma in therapy?

One thing that I will do with people that have PTSD, or just they experience a trigger to something, is like slow exposure to that thing while using nervous system regulation tools at the same time. So you’re sending neurobiological input to your body that you are safe while you’re slowly exposing the person to that trigger.

What is the “window of tolerance”?

When you’re in a regulated state, you’re within your window of being able to tolerate what’s happening in your environment. Now, trauma shrinks that window. So if you go through something traumatic, you’re going to be more sensitive. It takes less to get you outside that window. And so one thing I do as a therapist is help people expand that window, which means we sit on the line of stress. Not so stressed that you’re panicking or you’re shut down. But just expose someone to the trigger voluntarily, in a way that is controlled, so that they can learn to sit with that.

How do I calm down when I’m stressed or anxious?

If you’re in fight or flight, one way to complete the stress cycle is to do things that actually allow you to exercise that defense mechanism. So if you want to go for a run, that would be flight. That would be you moving the stress response through your body. Our body doesn’t know the difference between being chased by a tiger or getting a stressful work email. Like, stress is stress.

Is a diagnosis a life sentence?

It’s not a curse, or it’s not like a life sentence of, okay, well, I have PTSD, I’m always going to have PTSD, and because I have that, I can’t do XYZ. That’s not true. So I think the diagnostic label is good for destigmatization, but it can, I think sometimes it’s demoralizing if someone believes that it’s like a life sentence for them. But that’s why I don’t focus on it too much.

What does a trauma-informed approach actually mean?

Medical model would ask what’s wrong with you, but a trauma-informed or systems approach would ask what happened to you. Because sometimes we are pathologizing a response to an abnormal event, and when you take the context of that person’s experiences, their response makes sense and it’s adaptive.

Is it gaslighting when someone disagrees with me?

Gaslighting is not disagreeing with someone on what happened. It is intentionally making somebody doubt their perception of reality so you can control them and manipulate them. But I think that it’s somewhat normal for people to have a different perception of events, especially, memory is kind of not reliable a lot of the time, especially when you’re angry.

Does having narcissistic traits make someone a narcissist?

You could be someone who has avoidant attachment and you could have narcissistic traits in a relationship, but you are not a narcissist. A lot of people, they just throw these words around, and they don’t have any understanding of what the weight of those words actually mean.

What actually works in therapy, and what just sounds good?

What doesn’t work is like stopping at the intellectualizing level, which is, okay, I understand my thoughts, and maybe that thought doesn’t hold up to reality, but then just stopping there. Some things you can’t outthink. If your body is having a very severe protective response, I would argue you can’t fully think your way out of that. So I think what’s the most helpful is combining those top-down and bottom-up approaches, being able to challenge the thoughts that are coming up, but then also working with the body and the nervous system as well.

Is advice like “just set boundaries” actually helpful?

Some people need to be told to set boundaries, and some people are way too quick to cut people off and they are not going to communicate, and they don’t need to hear that advice. So if you go on social media, you’re going to get very generalized advice, and maybe that advice isn’t good for you. Maybe it’s needed for someone else, but it may not apply to you.

What are things most people can do to feel better?

I think generally things that most people can benefit from would be journaling, because you’re pulling material into your conscious mind and you’re making sense of it. Community, so time with people that you can be vulnerable with. Because you can’t be vulnerable with everybody. And time outside.

Should I look for a therapist of the same background as me?

I would not blame a person of color if they wanted a therapist that was the same race or ethnic background as them, because I think that there is something to be said for the person in front of you that you’re doing therapy with having an innate understanding of your lived experience. Now, is there value in sometimes working with someone who is different in their lived experience? Of course. It’s important to be able to work with somebody who looks like you.  ◇

Do I need to be in crisis to start therapy?

It’s like, well, if you go to therapy you are sick and you have a disease and there’s something wrong with you, versus, are you just going through something, or do you just want support? It’s a perspective shift.

Will I be in therapy forever?

I don’t want someone to be in therapy working on the same things forever. There’s always opportunities to learn more about yourself and to do self-discovery, but I don’t want someone to be struggling with the same symptoms or problems that they came to me with in a few months or years. I’d rather help somebody and let them move on, graduate, and move on.  ◇

What is the purpose of therapy?

The purpose of therapy is not to be able to tolerate toxic environments better. That’s not the goal. It’s to, for one, gain more self-acceptance and understanding, and then be able to apply new behaviors, which might be like leaving that toxic relationship, or it might be setting boundaries in that relationship, or leaving that toxic job.

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