Psychology Series 6: Alyssa Levy

0:01 Welcome to another episode of a come together. We're back. Just kidding. We're not going to actually go to garage. I'm panicked. OK. OK. So sorry. Yeah. So Vermont summer camp. Your parents said you at summer camp. You like growing up in Vermont? We're going to ish. You did not like growing up for a month? I was it boring? Is it too boring for you? Yeah, I see. At the time, there was a lot of goodness there, you know, raising your kids in a place that is exceptionally safe. It's cool.

0:46 You know, but I was lucky, I think, to have had parents that were career oriented and driven people, which was not the norm, let's say of everyone around me. So I went to high school with a lot of people that did not feel the same way as I did about further education and finding a career. What do people that typically do? Was it like blue collar kind of stuff or is it? Some, some, but I just don't think that there was as much importance of going to four year university Graduate School after that. People are just comfortable either getting jobs or going to getting associates from community. College, it was very, it was very not driven, I would say. And that's just not how I was raised. So I felt like I stood out a little bit. I felt like I, I wasn't fitting in. And so yeah, it was fine.

1:47 It was fine. And when I go visit, I love to, you know, be in my house and see my parents and spend time with them. But. How often do you go back? Maybe twice a year, couple times a year. Guy, you like to go? Sorry. I do, man. I actually, you know, I've, I've never been to, to Vermont up until I met Alyssa. In fact, I couldn't point it in the map. I've been there with Alyssa and I loved it. I mean, look, every place has things to offer, things that you are going to like more, going to like less, right? So it's way different from Florida just because you have all the open space. It's definitely more small town vibes. Everybody knows everybody, the nature.

2:28 There is totally different for sure. They're rolling, they're rolling mountains. And yeah. There's so much open greenery and just fields of green and and and mountains and you get the seasons and I mean it, it snows and it's beautiful. So you got all the winter type of sports which are awesome. So it has a lot to offer on that asset. You do winter sports. I did, I did and my life took a different direction and I was horseback riding. Actually, get out of here. Really. Yeah, that's a cool sport. So when I so I did a lot of different sports and then I just was. How'd you find horseback riding? I I actually started riding when I was 3 and I've just riding horses my whole life.

3:10 There's a lot of that here in Florida too, right? Yeah. Do you ride a lot here? I don't ride anymore, but I do have my horse here. I have the horse. OK, I want you to elaborate on that because I don't know what that means, but it sounds so cool. So I I grew up riding, I had horses my whole life. A horse is expensive. Very, very, very, very, very expensive. So I started riding when I was little, always rode when I was, I think I was maybe 8, I started competing. Cool what goes into a competition. Everything. Like form jumping stunts, stuff like that. Yeah, yeah, there's different, there's different styles of riding.

3:57 What I was doing was jumping, but there's different that you even within jumping there's there's different things that you could be judged on. There's timed events. There's a lot of variety, OK, Also the different height of the jumps. So there's just a lot of different things. And so I competed always and then I sustained a pretty serious injury. I could what was it back? Yeah. I could imagine right? That happened a lot. I mean, I think some people get lucky, but I was a little bit reckless and a little bit of a daredevil, and so I sustained a pretty bad injury and never let it heal.

4:45 And then in college, I was right professionally and that kind of continued to evolve and. Where'd you go to? You went to where? You went to Baltimore. Where'd you go to college? Towson University. Cool. Yeah. And they have a horse. They have they have a riding team. No, I didn't ride for the school. OK. I kept my horse at a local barn and I rode for them. Wow, cool. Which was cool, and then I moved down here after school. And why'd you move here? Grad school. Grad school? Yeah. You want to go to grad school? Yeah, yeah. How different was it here than than Baltimore and. Very different. Very different. Huge culture shock I feel. Like, yes. And it was culture shock getting to Baltimore, another culture shock coming down here, Totally different culture shocks. So, yeah, but I really loved it down here. I have family down here also.

5:34 OK. And then when I got here, my back pain got a little bit more out of control and so I stopped driving and I had to have multiple procedures on my back. Those are the worst. Yeah, and I have pretty significant nerve damage in my back and a lot soft tissue damage. So I was out of Commission for a long time. I was on bed rest for six months. Wow. And how? Old are you? I started when I was 2223. And that's when you're on bed rest. Yeah, it's a long time. Six months is a long time. Yeah.

6:14 What do you do for six months? You know, in bed rest? I at the time. Invisible. Yes, yes, I was miserable. Watched a lot of New Girl. I watched a lot of random shows. What did you watch? What did you watch? It's here. A New Girl. What else? I watched New Girl. Says a lot of who you are, by the way. Yeah, that's yeah. At one point I watched a show that I don't even remember because at the time I had to be on some meds and my father was staying with me. It was Pretty Little Liars. Oh, nice. That's that Kevin de Graw. He. Does. I couldn't tell you. I don't remember any of it really. So my father essentially had to watch Pretty Little Liars. I knew him.

6:55 You would know that. He's not the type. To watch what did, what did your parents as chiropractors tell you while you're going through this? And were they not, were they telling you not to do this, but like it was up to you anyway and so they just let you do what you're going to do or. I think that, I mean, I, I'm a competitive person. I come from competitive people and. So they want to be competing. I mean, I think that that they listened to me and I said I'm fine and I downplayed it. I also didn't know at the time what the damage looked like and I think if I had known what it looked like I probably would have stopped. But also there wasn't regenerative type medicine.

7:37 Right. When I had this injury, right? Are you doing that now? So when I started having the procedures, that's that's what I ended up doing was regenerative procedures. Gotcha. So like electroshock? No, I did PRP. Nice. Yeah, I just, I just heard about that. It's a podcast actually with the doctor that does that in Coral Gables. Yeah, yeah, he was telling me how that works. Yeah, it's really cool. So I had a very complex injury right next to my spine. And the pain, the cause of the pain was inflammation. That's what PRP would have helped with. Yes, and also instability. I mean I had a six inch muscle tear along my spine.

8:19 Yeah. How does? And I I sure. Does that does that happen at one go or does that happen like a little tear and then like it gets worse and worse as time goes? To be told, I don't know because I didn't do imaging on it for 10 years. So I don't know, right. But I I know when it happened definitely. We did an image. You did. You did. AI had an MRIMRI done it. I had multiple Mris I had I did that's crazy ultrasound also you could see the the tear, but I also had three of my ribs pop out of my back and that's what tore the muscle was. And you were walking around with popped out ribs and you didn't. Know Yeah. So that's where my parents came in as they would reset the ribs and push them back in and I could take a deep breath and push them back out.

9:02 Wow. Because I shredded the joint capsules so. This is legit, yeah. Yeah. Wow, that's how? So that's from 23? How? How long were you? I mean, I'm pretty sure you can't be active at all for. Yeah, so I was, I was really out of Commission for a while once I started having the procedures because PRP increases the inflammation to aid in the healing. Right. So it gets worse before better. Right. But it also, it was, it was a journey. It was a journey. I want to hear about the journey. Yeah. OK. I ended up having, I had one doctor that did not do a great job, OK, and from one of the procedures that he did, I did not see this going in this direction. I think about this from this procedure I ended up getting a really bad staph infection.

9:59 How does that happen? I don't know. You don't know. It's just another debilitating thing. Does this guy ever adjust to? Does he? Does he help? Yeah, who you just. That's who you're here for, huh? Yeah. That's what. We're here for so the irony of my life. Not just good looks. Yeah, that just. Surprised as I am. The irony of my life is that both of my parents are chiropractors. My brother is also a chiropractor away not my husband is a chiropractor. That's crazy. And I have back issues. And you have back issues. You have back issues. So you haven't you? You haven't ridden really since. Not really. So you go visit your horse. Yeah, I go pretty often. Is guy ride? No. Not allowed on him, no one's allowed on.

10:41 Really. Yeah. Well, he's he's not your typical horse. He's a he's a ex competition jumping horse. Yeah, he's a sport horse, so he's very powerful and very big. But is he? Is he a very opinionated? He's like trying to drive like a like a retired Formula One car. You don't just get in there unless you know what the hell you're doing. Yeah, you know. What I mean Formula One card that also sometimes might want to kill you? That's the personality, right? Right. Right. So horses have a lot of personality, right? Yeah. Do you train horses? I used to, yeah. And how do you train a horse the same way you train a dog? Or like anything else, like sort of. Sort of. Incentivize or. I mean, it's it's consistency repetition. How do you decide on a horse's personality that you like or not?

11:27 Takes time. You can. Pick up on some of their mannerisms pretty pretty early on, but in training them it's especially when they're young, it kind of can change every day. So gotcha. It was very fun and I that's the part that I liked about it, but I was definitely not fearful of them and I think a little, a small amount of fear is a good thing. Yeah, I think it is. Terrible, and it keeps you safe. Yeah, I mean, it's like the reason why anxiety anxiety isn't inherently a bad thing. It's when it's out of control that it's a bad thing. And like, it does exist for a reason. Like the reason why we experience it. It's yeah, it's cool that you say that because I talked to a lot of my clients about the differences between stress and anxiety.

12:11 What's the difference? Well, stress. Stress is a natural response to a stimulus. OK, anxiety is. Irrational response to a stimulus. It doesn't make sense. Well, it could make sense. It's I mean. Anxiety is produced when it's not exactly congruent to the stimulus causing. It yes, correct, because it hasn't, because whatever you're interest about hasn't manifested yet. Exactly. So it's irrational. So it's a well, it's an attempt to prepare. Which is irrational. Is it? Rational, Rational looks like congruent, right? This thing is this thing is scary, right? In real time.

12:53 Thus I'm fearful stress response is an evolutionary response. It's something we require for survival, right? Anxiety is the presence of stress response that is not related to or based on or congruent to the stimulus causing it. So it's like. What can't it be, For example, if I have social anxiety and it stems from a particularly bad event that happened, let's say, you know, five years ago, you know, and I, we got rejected by a girl in front of 100 people at a bar, you know, and, and now I'm afraid it's not irrational. I'm coming up with this hypothetical in my head before I put myself in that situation every time and. But it's no longer exactly present to the way that it was correct the actual time you.

13:45 Experienced, but it's potential outcome that I want to avoid, yes. So it's associative, but it's not necessarily. History not based on present stimulus, yes. Thus it's irrational. The difference between rational and irrational isn't probably what you're thinking. Of OK, so explain so what's so explain that so. Rational is congruence, right? So it's like saying. Cars are coming. It's raining. It's gonna rain. It's like saying let's go with a bear, OK? Grizzly bear. Scary. OK, Why is it scary? Because it has a lot of capacity to kill you, OK? Very scary if you associate grizzly bear with being just like all bears, right? This is where you go wrong. So grizzly bear equals scary.

14:27 OK, So if we put that as rational fear, right, That makes sense. You should be scared of scary things. OK, Now, if you over generalize that all bears are scary, you've now stepped away from rational thinking, right? You have over generalized and now all of a sudden you're associating fear of bears. Beautiful, which doesn't make any type of sense. It's thus irrational. Now the history might tell you, yeah, the bears are scary, right? But that's not based on the exact stimulus in that moment, right? It's thus maladaptive. It's no longer present to you. So rational does not necessarily equal understandable, exactly. Something could be understandable and I could get where you got how you got, but that doesn't necessarily make it a rational decision exactly.

15:16 And I guess people probably equate the two very often. Yeah. And irrational, nobody likes that concept. Nobody wants to think of themselves as irrational. Yeah, but we are. We're very rational. And coping strategies, defense mechanisms, we all have them, right. And I think that eventually they are maladaptive. Yeah. You know, they're, they came from a good place. That makes sense why that happens. Right, they're understandable. Right, very understandable at times. It's just that when that same stimulus is no longer present, it's now irrational. I gotcha, I gotcha. How did you get how did you know that you wanted to become a therapist, psychologist. When did this happen?

16:03 Because it seems like you had a pretty diverse background before this that wouldn't necessarily point totally to this. I mean, unless I'm missing something, which I probably am, you know, but based on the fact that it's been 20 minutes to our first time meeting, but but no everything I've. No. Not yet. Weird. Not yet, not yet. Guys guys guys. Pretty fair about your privacy. I. Imagine. What? Yeah. How'd you get started? What, What, what? What? Encouraged it you did You always know that this was something you were interested in? You always knew it. Yeah, I think that people get involved in their career path for a variety of different reasons, often times good reasons.

16:45 Maybe it's something that they experienced in their life that drives them towards it. I think mine was a combination of that, you know, dealing with my own life and stressors, seeking therapy also when I was a kid. You started typing when you were a kid. Yeah. How old are you? When I started, I think I was 7 or 8, and then I saw a therapist off and on throughout my life. What's therapy like for a 7 or 8 year old? I didn't like the therapist when I was a kid. I really didn't like her. Do you think most kids don't like their therapist? No, I think some kids really love their therapist. OK. And then I think it can be really helpful. I did not like that therapist. I don't know that she was so helpful to me.

17:27 What were they trying to what? What was the goal? What were you trying to accomplish by at that point? Working through anxieties, you know, working at understanding my own thoughts. I think it was helpful to a point that I could speak out loud to someone, somebody outside of my life also, which I think is one of the best things about therapy. But I didn't like her. I didn't like that her office had painted clouds on the ceiling, which was supposed to be therapeutic. And that's like one of the things that. I remember. About it, yeah. I just didn't like her. And so I don't think I got that much out of therapy with her. So I don't think she was as impactful. But I came from a family of helpers, right? So I wanted to help.

18:13 I didn't want to physically touch people the way that my parents do, right, with adjusting people, but I wanted to help. And then at one point I had a therapist that was very impactful my life and I felt like this is really cool. I want to help people the way she helped me and then. That's the best, isn't that? It was very, very impactful. But I think even bigger than that, I think therapy is who I am at my core. I think it's what I was meant to do. To heal. To heal, understand, to work through things with people to help them better understand their own thoughts and where they stand, identify additional ways of thinking. I think, I think I was always meant to be a therapist and I feel very strongly about that.

19:04 So it's cool that I had great experiences with it. But bigger than that, I think it was always what I was going to end up doing. That's amazing. Thank you. You're really fortunate to have figured that you know to do, you know, so you think you knew that since you had that great therapist where you're like, this is like. I think that she was very cool and insightful to me and I had a great experience with her, but I think she just kind of unlocked that for me, right? And, and LED me to that understanding of myself that that's what I was meant to do. You know, I and I think that I probably would have come across it one way or another.

19:45 Yeah. Do you think that therapy is for everyone? Absolutely, yes. I think that every single person can improve themselves and their life by talking to somebody about it. Absolutely. Do you think that therapy has to be with a therapist? No, no, I do not. I think that it's, you know, the training that a therapist has is not like that of your friend or your significant other. The perspective that somebody has on your life when they're not in your life is important. You know, any good therapist will tell you that we don't give advice.

20:27 We offer guidance of like identifying your own advice for yourself. But I absolutely think that every single person can improve by choosing to take responsibility for their own actions and make a change in their life. So you think therapy is really a call to responsibility? Yeah, I think it's about taking accountability of of your own. I don't think that all people are willing to do that. I think it's a very, very challenging thing. That's the reason why when you force someone to go to therapy, it almost never works, right? Exactly same reason, same thing as rehab, for someone to go to rehab. See how that goes? You know, I mean a percent, 8085%, you know, failure rate, you know that people. It's significant.

21:12 It's it's. Super significant. Because you have to take accountability for your own life, and you have to choose to want to make things change. Yeah. And if somebody forces you into that, it's not going to make a difference. You have to want it for yourself. Gotcha, gotcha. So what's your so when do you become a therapist? How old are you? When you what is it called LLCSW? No, I'm, I'm not a social worker, I'm a therapist. So I'm I'm a mental health counselor specifically, so slight variations. I don't know what the difference between any of them are. So there's a lot of overlap, which is why it gets very confusing. My to some extent, to some extent, my schooling is more specific to the helping relationship.

21:57 So it's more focused on that and it's also focused on the the spectrum of mental health, whereas social work is a little bit more focused on like case management and helping people assimilate into society. Social work, right? So slight variations different, but a lot of overlap in what we can do. So my license enables me to do a variety of things, just like social work, but it's just, you know, nuanced differences, let's say. What kind of techniques do you use? CBT. Anything else? I would describe it as very eclectic.

22:38 I don't think that all of the people benefit from all of the same things CBT is. CBT is a funny way of saying I do talk therapy. It's kind of like what we all say we do. Well, they're synonymous, aren't they? I believe so. People will tell you otherwise. People would definitely tell you otherwise. OK. But I kind of use them as like tools in my tool belt and when I think something is applicable, I pull it out. But what I think is most helpful above any of the like named types of therapy is I talk to people about their lives. I work with high functioning individuals that want to optimize themselves. Optimize. Optimize. Yeah, that's a good word.

23:21 Yeah. Especially thrown with a random Y in the middle somewhere. There. Yeah, that's what we think. I think, I think, I think it's a great marketing pitch. I think so, so, so, so you, you have your own, your own practice. You. You do your own thing. Yeah, yeah. So I've had my practice now for five or six years. Wow, awesome. What was it? What? What did you do before that? So I finished my masters and I dove head first into private practice. You went straight from. Really. That's not common, right? No, no. Almost unheard of. Why did do you have a? Do you have a hard time working for people?

24:02 I no, it's not even that I, I can take direction and, and you know, I think that that would have been very good learning for me also to work in like community mental health or something like that. But I knew what my end goal was. To you like, why not just get started, right? Exactly. And I really believe that like when you first get out of school, you have kind of the most amount of momentum and motivation. So I figured it's going to be a hustle. Yeah, now it's a great time to hustle. So what do you do? How do you so you graduate and now you're like, I have no money. I don't know where to start. I don't know what to do and I just know that I want to do this. But first of all, when these kind of, because I think that, and this is really important, I think just in general, I think people tend to get super overwhelmed and you have a whole bunch of steps in front of you and a whole like you're like, you know that you want to get to here and you know, you're starting here and everything in between is kind of just a big question mark. And that, I think, overwhelms an enormous amount of people. For sure.

25:04 So how did you deal with that? So I think one of the things that was scariest to me was that there were so many routes forward, too many routes forward. How on earth are you supposed to know, like, which one you take, you know? And I didn't really know where to start. I had a great supervisor, and she certainly helped me when she could. But I was trying to learn how to be a therapist and also trying to understand how on earth to run a business. Yeah. And running a business is not something that they teach you in grad school. They don't teach you that anywhere. Which is the dumbest? The dumbest? Yeah, it's so stupid. And and I think they do therapists a disservice in like a program like mine that they don't talk to you about. Could you if you?

25:55 Want a disservice? I I listen by my own choice, which is, you know, say what you will about the decision. I was a creative writing and literature major, right? Even if I were to say with full confidence, I'm going to be a writer, I'm going to go to Hollywood and write scripts, I'm going to go to New York. I'm going to, you know, write in a magazine or do journalism, whatever it is. I still need to know accounting. I still need to know how to balance a checkbook. I still need to know what it means to pay a mortgage or what it means to do that. I didn't have to take. I think one math class. That had nothing to do with anything. And you know, and I'm sure, yeah, everyone will complain. Like I said, I'm here to be a writer. I don't want to take accounting. I'm here to be a therapist. I'm not here to take accounting classes.

26:36 But like, you know what percentage of therapists go into their own? You know what at least want to try go and making their own private practices. And so many of them flop because they have no fucking clue how to do it. Yeah. Which is, which is a shame. So what, what, what, what So you've been doing this. I'm curious also, you know, it's similar story, I know for businesses and podcasts that like an enormous percentage of them fail within the first year, right? And then I think once you survive for like a year or two, then the odds of your success go up exponentially each year after that, right? Because there's you've already made it way past where most of the other people are and now you're competing with a top X percentage. Does that happen with private practices also, that a lot of people would like start for a couple of months and be like, oh, I can't, I can't do it.

27:28 Yeah, I would. I would imagine yes. Have I looked into the specifics? Also no. Done it yourself? So what have you done yourself to stay successful? OK, so first rewind. Let's go back to the beginning. So I was very fortunate because I had a very random gig. My cousin worked in marketing for a very big company and she hooked me up while I was in grad school with a social media job. OK, so while I was on bed rest while I was in school, I was making money and that was it was something, it was something that I could do. I was liking images on social media, you know, I was reaching out to people, I was connecting with people. I didn't know anything about marketing, but it was, you know, it was cool.

28:18 So whatever, I worked a lot of hours and and it was a great gig for the time being. So while I had that job, I also was ramping up on, on my practice, right? So I was fortunate to have something that was so flexible that when I needed to give hours to the practice, I could, I didn't have a set schedule, I didn't have set hours. I could work as much as I wanted to, as little as I needed to, whatever. And I also had very supportive parents. So it's. The best thing in the title? Right. And and I was very fortunate to have that.

29:00 So I couldn't have done this without some variation of it. And so it's very expensive to start practice. And while I think I did it in the least expensive way also. Yeah. Yeah, and a lot of people don't make it because of that, right? Totally, totally. So I recognize how lucky I was to have those things, but it was definitely an uphill battle for a while. It's very hard to make a name for yourself when you are starting from nothing. Yeah, and I hated going to networking events. Hated it. What about what about then did you hate? You felt like you were cheesy. You felt like they were fake.

29:40 I am not a fake person. I don't, I can't do it. I just I get awkward. I hate everything about it. I like real conversations with people which is why therapy makes a lot of sense to me. But very surface bullshit conversations do not. And so going to networking events, I felt like I was so inauthentic. I, I felt like I just didn't belong at them. You know, I would tell somebody I was a therapist, they would tell me their whole life story and every trauma they had ever experienced. And what you do about that. Please don't. You could be a client, but don't tell me this right now, do. You get that a lot.

30:24 I feel you get that. I feel I feel like people like hear therapist and they just a license to just dump yes, go crazy with that. Strangers. Just anybody. So much so that at this point I have learned that I need to like make up or have like a cover story. Gotcha. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, I'll tell them like something totally out of left field so that they don't ask any further and. That's smart. You ride horses. Yeah, I'm a horse rider. You know, I could be. Come up with something something so outlandish that they have no response. To so you start so so how do you get your how do you get your first clients? Do you do you do advertising? Do people reach out to you or you on a social media? You know, how does it build up there?

31:05 Because I imagine that like I know from my own business that most of my clientele are doctors. I sell medical equipment and most of them are not just looking on Facebook or looking on Instagram, this kind of thing. So I know that the channel of marketing that I have to go through in order to kind of get the best kind of customers, the best kind of, you know, clients is not best invested in social media necessarily. You know, what do you, what do you, what did you do at the time? At the time I was just trying to meet people and talk to them about it. What else was I doing? I was trying a little bit of social media but I hated it. It's so hard to maintain, right?

31:47 It's. So hard to maintain and it's also very fake. It gives me a real appreciation. People that could do it, by the way. Yeah, Because the people that post like daily or, you know, yeah, three or four times a week, I'm like, it's, it's exhausting. And like, it takes a lot out of you, at least at least out of me, you know, like even just sharing my stupid podcast and my story, I'm like, yeah, look at it like I, I need a break after that, you know, like it's exhausting. It's, it's, yeah, I can't do it. I'm not great at it. I'm not great at it. I'm working on it, but I'm not great at it. So I I was trying to just get my name out to anyone that I could, passing out business cards. It was rough.

32:34 But in an industry like this, once you get the ball rolling, the momentum that you have keeps it rolling. Then clients tell other clients. That's it. Referrals are big. So I really would say that a lot of the growth was referrals through other clients, especially in the beginning. And then I got really lucky because I found some different online platforms that would enable me to get credentialed with insurance companies without me having to do any of the work. And that's why a lot of clinicians shy away from that because to try and be the therapist, run the business and handle the billing and the insurance stuff is way too much. There's not enough.

33:20 Can I ask? You about that? How does that work? Yeah, how does? How does? How does billing insurance work? So you got, so you got, you got a, you know, client. A patient walks in, a client walks in, and it's either typically out of pocket or covered by XY and Z insurance. So I'm now in network with most major insurances and and so I have I'm now a member of these platforms that since I'm in network with them, they handle all of the so. You so you have a, let's say a set charge that you charge per session. You've passed that to the insurance company. Not even, it's less than that. So I have my out of pocket rate, right. So if somebody doesn't have insurance, they don't want to use their insurance. We can go that route.

34:03 It's very easy. Cool. Somebody wants to use their insurance. I verify their insurance benefits through one of these platforms that I use. All right. They have negotiated reimbursement rates. What is it so negotiated reimbursement rates means that there that you give you pass along XY and say that's a $200.00 bill the. Platform negotiates, so let's say. So the two main ones that I work with now are Alma and Headway, OK and two different platforms, but they operate similarly. So let's go with Alma. Alma has contract with all of these different insurance companies, right? And the way that it works is that they'll say we'll offer you providers and in turn you send us the clients, right? For these providers, they already have a an agreed upon amount that each clinician will make and there's nothing taken off the top of what I make.

35:03 I make more money utilizing these platforms than I would if I was in. Technically. Credentialed with them, right And the reimbursement is, is what's the word guaranteed. By the platform, by the platform that you're using that are associated with all those businesses. Exactly. So it's all streamlined for me. I don't have to personally negotiate rates as I would if I. People would ordinarily have to. So usually what happened is you'd call Blue Cross and you'd say, hi, I just billed this patient $200 for a session and they'd say we're going to send you back 150.

35:44 Is that how it works? Yeah. So when you first get credentialed, you have to let them know your credent, you have to let them know all about you, whatever. And they say, OK, we'll offer you this much per session. It's usually a garbage amount, but that's all they're offering. You say garbage amount like under 100 bucks, Yeah. OK. Yeah, which is sounds absurd. OK sounds absurd by the way, to go to school for X amount of years and then be a therapist or a psychologist and. But they will offer you that amount because maybe you know what your license is, you know what your, what your degree is, whatever. And then you can say, you know, well, I, I want to have more whatever they'll say, no, here's your amount.

36:28 And that's kind of it. But then each time that I do a session with any of the clients with that insurance. And the reason why you want to work with the insurance company to begin with is because presumably the, the, the client would not be able to pay you out of pocket because they're already, because they're already paying their insurance bill. And so you're getting new patients that ordinarily wouldn't walk through the door and you're finding that middle and they're getting paid, you know, so they're paying the insurance X amount. The insurance is going to pay you some kind of middle ground between what they would have paid you to walk in and what you would have had if nothing you know. And it's 2025, nobody wants to pay out of pocket, especially not right now. People are struggling right now. People are struggling now. So when I tell them my cash rate, they're like weekly.

37:11 No way. Yeah, but I'm already paying for my health insurance, so yeah, I might as well utilize that benefit. Do you have to get? Insurance as as a therapist, do you have to get like insured? Yeah. Then what is that like? I have a a liability insurance. That and that's in case someone comes after you and says that you did that you. Yeah, just like any malpractice. Yeah, what is what would cause a malpractice to in therapy? In therapy it's things like. Because if someone like got divorced because something like that because of the session that I mean therapist. There's there's ethical guidelines that we have, right. So if you were to like overtly cross an ethical guideline that's, you know, something that you'd be liable for if you handled somebody harmed someone else and you didn't alert services, you could be liable for that.

38:01 There was abuse. You know, the things that we have to report on, you could be live. Have you had to report anyone before? No. That's good. What would you have to do? Would you feel bad about it if it came? If it came to it. Yeah, yeah. It's a tough situation. It's so tough. You know the the details of it. You're not always Privy to it, so it's very difficult. Right, right. Do you watch The Sopranos? No. You should. You should. You should because. Drama. Well, it's a lot of drama. It's interesting because I've heard from other therapists or psychologists that have spoken to that watch the show, that the premise of the show is that there's a mop boss and he's and, and the fundamental relationship in that show is him with his therapist. And he's like the first mob boss. Everybody got a therapist and he's trying to juggle his life of raising a family, his wife, his Gumar, his, you know, being the boss.

38:59 What? I didn't know that was the premise of. Yeah, yeah. And the whole show is, and the whole show is actually a psychological evaluation of who Tony Soprano is. And at the end of the end of the show, the show actually comes to a conclusion because they actually diagnosed him and and the therapist says, I'm sorry, I can't, you know, I don't know, I can help you anymore. I think you're, you know, beyond the scope of what I'm able to do to work with and and then the show ends very, very short after. And so the whole but what the government of spoken to a psychologist and therapist about the show like she's the worst therapist. Like like if she was anyone therapist in real life, like it would be a shit show.

39:40 It was. It was terrible. That's what's tough when you, when you, I mean, in any profession, right? When you see it on TV, it's always like slightly different than how you'd need to do it in real life. Yeah. But I I didn't realize that that's what the premise of. The show was yeah, yeah, yeah. It's cool. And there, you know, I mean, I don't know if she shows up in every single episode, but, you know, and she also goes through a lot of these moral quandaries, having to be a therapy. Therapist for a mafia boss and on one hand she wants to help the patient on the other hand, he's very overtly telling her, I had a friend of mine and he had to disappear. You're like, well, so I wonder how? I wonder how Gray the lines are that if someone says something like that, like someone insinuates a crime or something insinuates something. So our, our legal parameters are that everything stays confidential, unless of course, you express interest in harming yourself, that's number one, or harming someone else, right? So if they express that they have the means to do it, a plan for action, you know, maybe history of violence, things like that, then OK, we deem this to be a legitimate threat. Contact authorities, right?

40:52 The difficulty in the mental health field is that these systems are designed to be helpful and they are often times not. Can you elaborate? So in Florida, we have the Baker app system. OK, OK, so legally somebody expressed interest in harming themselves, right? Suicidality you would contact authorities to have them do let's say a Wellness check, right to see you know what, what the parameters of the situation are. Do we take them in? Do we not right. The difficulty of that is that if the client does not outright say to the cops face I am going to kill myself, they will not take them in.

41:39 Right. So you have, you know, a teenager that is upset, but they don't want somebody telling them what to do. They don't want to go to the hospital. They don't want to do anything, but you know that they're going to harm themselves, the cop said. I can't. Do anything about it? Because it's illegal to harm yourself. Well, does it, do you think it protects a lot of like, do you think that the language comes like loose language comes up often enough that if they were to be able to kind of take people away or, you know, hospitalized people based on rhetoric, that a lot more people would be needlessly hospitalized or taken away than like, let's say, you know, hypothetically, like unless I know right now the case is very specific unless you say these words.

42:27 But what if you say like, you know, like, I just wish it would all be over, you know, and like, that's a very clear, you know, insinuation as to what you're saying. But, you know, so on one hand, I feel like that would like be good grounds to at least look into it. Yeah. On the other hand, I mean, yesterday, you know, 2 days ago, we, you know, I had a super stressful weekend and, and, you know, I was sitting, you know, we sat down and my wife would take a shower and I had both kids with me and it was like 10:00 at night. And yeah. And the four year and the four month and four week old was crying and you know the whole night. Took a shower. And I said to him, I was like, and she came out and I was like, I love you. I'm so close to snapping right now. I don't want to.

43:12 Yeah, I know. But like someone could take that. I feel like if you just heard a transcript of that, like that sounds like almost like borderline like abuse, You know, that sounds like a little crazy. Like, yeah, it doesn't sound great. So like I could see how you need like, very specific language to protect the person talking. On the other hand, like you said, like it doesn't give you the space to really be able to kind of help in what you or trained to know or trained to identify. Yeah, it's a it's a very tricky space to be in, definitely. At the end of the day, I think what stays most important is somebody's safety. So I'd rather overcorrect than undercorrect, definitely. But the difficulty really is that we all say stupid shit sometimes. Like been there, but a therapist is trained to understand the nuance difference between like when this person is actually a threat to themselves versus when they're not. And there's things that we look for kind of reading between the lines on what somebody is saying. And so by the time a therapist is contacting the authorities, it's because they've likely.

44:19 And again, I can't speak for all of the therapists, but if you're well trained and you're doing your job, yeah. You've seen the signs. Yeah, Then, you know, it's because this person has been deemed to be a threat. And when the police get there, that's, that's unnerving, you know. And no, I don't want to go with you. I'm not going to kill myself. That's often times the response that people get. I think that we have a crisis of mental health in this country that's quite bad. And I just think that the systems that are in place are designed to be helpful and are not always helpful, which is tough. And I'm not saying I know the right way. All right, for the record, I don't know all of the things, but. Do you have any, do you have any ideas as to what do you think could make it better?

45:05 Like just even steps or or small ideas that you think actually, let's first, before you even do that, let's identify. Do you want to try to identify what do you think the root of a lot of the because you can't identify V root. Obviously mental health is a mass spectrum, but what are some of the roots that are causes that that that are causing this mental health epidemic that we're experiencing? Because if you unless or and how much of it do you think is really just people diagnosing it for the first time as opposed to like shutting it down like you know, our parents generation used to do. Yeah, Yeah. I think that there's a lot of reasons. Like you said, there's a lot of reasons.

45:47 I think it comes from a lot of different sources. There are some things that are, let's say biological, genetic to some extent, right, passed down generation to degeneration. There are other things that are you talking. About like generational trauma kind of thing. Generational trauma, but also I believe that there are biological markers of some of these mental health disorders as well. For example, like you just like just any any random. Example. Often times with schizophrenia, there it is. Yeah, that's genetic, OK. You know, sometimes bipolar disorder, but the truth is that it's, I can't even say with certainty that one of these is definitely genetic, but sometimes. Also it's yeah, yeah.

46:29 Yeah, and that's why mental health is so abstract and so complex that there isn't anyone specific 'cause right. So with that being said, that it kind of can also come from maybe anything. What other reasons are there? We know, for example, like huge factors, hypothetically at least I would think is physical Wellness, right? That must do physical Wellness that that you know, that that exercise, you know, generally is really, really good for your mental health. And we also know that people do not like to do not exercise very often in this country.

47:10 And there's probably far more gym memberships than there are people working out in the gym, correct, You know? That plays a role. There's a lot of that. Yep, social media, absolutely. But I think mindset behind any of these things, I think that the conversation around mental health is often times about like this stigma that there is right about getting help for something like that, or you have to be crazy to get help for something. You know that this idea is it's not bad enough to seek help. But the truth is when you when you don't opt for for some kind of help, that's often times when it gets worse, correct? So what? Was it preventative maintenance? Exactly.

47:51 Exactly. And preventative Healthcare is just not liked. Doesn't exist, right? Because it requires responsibility and discipline. And accountability, yeah, yeah. Which a lot of people don't have, especially nowadays. Also, willingness to work hard. You know, a lot of people want to pop a pill to forget about all of the things or to mask it or to Band-Aid it, and they don't want to work on themselves to make things different, so. But right, so if you're trying to convince someone that is like, listen, like, you know, I may not be getting better, but I feel fine on a day-to-day basis because of XY and Z, you know, and like I may not be thriving, but like, you know, I'm going through life, you know, like I'm just one of those people.

48:34 Like why would like, what do you think would incentivize them to? What do you think would incentivize the average person to be proactive and healthy about themselves? Drive to want to be. Better if you don't want, you can't. Yeah, I was about to say, I feel like a lot of people don't have that. I feel like a lot of people are just content with I feel like. Complacency. Yeah, and complacency is kind of almost built into human nature, I think. I think that some people, you know, we for me, like my biggest challenge with everything I do is I have a tendency to think good enough, you know, while I'm doing anything I do, I'm going for a jog. I've reached, you know, 3/4 way through what I wanted to do good enough, you know, I'm fine.

49:16 You know, I wanted you to jujitsu 2, three times a week. You know, I'm like, I did twice this week. Good enough. I'm not going to do a third time like that. That that's my biggest struggle. And I have to. But I mean, I expose myself constantly to content and to people and to friends and to different, you know, books and things that are telling me not to be complacent. And I constantly remind myself because if I don't remind myself all the time, then I I fall back to that tendency. Yeah. You know, well, functionality really is such a spectrum, how well we're functioning. You always have the ability to optimize yourself. Doesn't mean you choose to, right? Doesn't mean you buy into it. Doesn't mean that you have enough motivation to to not only see the change that you're capable of, but to put it into action. A lot of us reach that point, right? But I think that mental health is also such a spectrum. And how well are you functioning, right? If you are stuck in neutral and that's OK to you, you'll probably stay there.

50:15 If you're a neutral and you're uncomfortable, good should be now. You're yeah, yeah. Now you shift gears. So I think that that's where some people find themselves. But people that are comfortable and neutral won't experience that. And is that part of the mental health epidemic? Probably not, because neutrality is worse than being net negative, right? And there are a lot of people in a net negative. Here you think people with that we definitely have a self-destructive tendency. I feel like you know. And part of that, I believe, is an enabling culture that we have. Do you want to elaborate on that? Yeah, because I would love to. I would love to hear what you think about that. Yeah, Yeah.

50:57 So I think that back to this idea of kind of the negative connotation that mental health has, I think that there's while we're more, we're, we're more likely nowadays to talk about mental health than we were, let's say 20 years ago, right? That's very cool. Let's keep doing that. You know, the downside of that is that there's kind of what's going hand in hand with that is this glamorization of being unwell, right? That it's not about being relatable to other people that experience difficulties. But you have some of these celebrities coming out saying I'm bipolar and these are the meds I take and it's so great.

51:39 And you're you're glamorizing something that's not so great. You know, we can normalize. It it's a fascinating observation. Yeah, it's really interesting. We can. We can and should talk about it. We should talk about the difficulties. But tell me how hard you're working at helping yourself. That's what we should glamorize, right? That's what we should focus on. And I think that with this culture of, you know, talking about the struggles that people experience and how, like, cool or trendy it is to have anxiety, you have people just slapping around labels as though they don't mean anything. She's bipolar.

52:20 What? You don't even know what that term means. You know, So we're glamorizing it without actually talking about you have to put your ass in gear and I. Think people do say that a lot about autism these days, right? I feel like everyone's talking about autism and being on the spectrum a little bit and like they're just like it's become a massively yeah, popular like movement. It almost feels like it's just to like spite RFK, you know, like it feels like it's just trying to spite the fact that when he says they're trying to get to the root of like why? Why it's exploded. Yeah, that. Yeah.

53:12 I think that to assimilate means to accept, you know, accept and choose to move forward. And I think that this enabling that we're seeing so much of so readily so frequently of of like it's cool to to have these struggles. I think that it minimizes these difficulties and I think it doesn't disservice to the difficulties, right, You know, to the realities of what life is like. But it's really interesting because I feel like there has to be a middle ground, right? Because on one hand, we just grew up with a generation that just completely shunned aside any kind of aspect, you know, notion that like you cannot complain about how you feel or you know, what your places in the world are like. You can't have those kind of questions and like shut up and go back to work kind of thing, you know? And now it's almost like the total opposite where it's like, we want to know exactly why you don't why, why you're not coming to work today.

54:15 And then we'll encourage you not to come into work today because that's great. As opposed to saying, I feel like the, the, the sweet spot would be like, Hey, I you need a mental health day or X amount a year. I understand that, you know, but what can we do? Like that shouldn't be your baseline. Like we want you to be better, you want to be healthier. We want you to be feel better. And like if you need it, we understand. What could we do to make sure that we that you don't need those that you feel happier on a day-to-day basis, more fulfilled, more content? Yeah, how about you're struggling today? I see you. Here's resources that can help you with that. You're expected to be back at work by this date. Interesting.

54:58 So do the Yeah, you, we're giving you the opportunity to get back, almost like if you hurt yourself, right? If you broke your leg and you're like, OK, well, I have two months out now because I broke my leg. And then you take six months off because you just don't feel like going back to work. Then you probably won't have a job when you get back. Exactly. So get your shit together, but also we'll help you get your shit together. Interesting, right? I love that and I want to go back to it. Something that you said, because I think it's really impactful. You talk about, you know, this Gray space and I think that that's so important for kind of any and all of the topics. Anything that you could talk about. I think that moderation is key to everything in life. Anything done in the extremes is not done with health and or Wellness even being relevant. So any topic that you could come up with should seek moderation. Yeah.

55:48 And when it doesn't, right, when it's done to to whatever capacity that's too much. There's some amount of failure to that. You're speaking my language, you're speaking my language and it's actually crazy when I've, I've discovered this a lot in the last couple of years of my life. Even things that I've kind of taken for granted as like I assume to be good or true or like just the way things are is not, but it is not black and white like I thought. And it, it's hard. It's hard. It's so hard because you know, you have a tendency towards that, you know, towards that bias towards that extreme. And you also know that turning your back on it is turning your back on the way that you've thought about everything until now your entire life.

56:39 That's how I feel. And I, I, I, I talked to my siblings about, because we used to be like we are, but we used to be much close. We very close to my grandparents who when they were, you know, maybe 5-10 years ago were much more sharp. And you can have a lot more intensive and philosophical conversation and debates Judaism in Israel and Americas, American Judaism and stuff like that. That's stuff that really matters to 1st generation Holocaust survivors and people coming from, you know, Eastern Europe. And, and it was, it was always like this or that. And I understand where it came from. But then now looking back ten years later, and now looking back with my own family or with my own life and my own experience, I'm like, things aren't as this or that.

57:27 And, and I'll tell my siblings, we can't even fight with them because if you tell them that this way is not that, that that means that everything that they built since World War Two, since the Holocaust, this is not the case. And they can't face that. And I don't even know that we should make them face that. I, I think that they've lived a great life. They've provided, they've done their, their, their responsibility to humanity, they've built a better world. They've had kids, they've had a family, they've passed everything down. They, they've done their job And like, let them have this almost on one hand, but that doesn't mean that for us that we should fall to this. We should fall for that same kind of doctrine. Yeah, absolutely. I think that you're you're exactly right that that's just kind of the way that they existed within their world.

58:13 You know, that's what got them through. These are coping strategies. So, you know, I think they lived at a time where having definitive answers for things was something that was defense and also coping. Yeah, sure. So it makes a lot of sense as to why that was so heavily utilized at that time. Again, it's now maladaptive, right, Because it just no longer suits you. There are things in life that we have to definitively know, you know how we feel about something where we're at, right? Like there is still black and white. We're not saying that that no longer exists anymore, right? But what we are also saying is that the importance of all of the things being done with moderation is also very real. And to allow for this Gray space sometimes means that you give yourself the the patience or the willingness to accept that things will not always be exactly your way. And also, that's OK.

59:13 Yeah, yeah. That's a lot easier to have been done, by the way. A lot easier to have been done. You know, absolutely, but. How? How are you with? That feeling. How are you with that in your life? Personally I think I different topic areas I struggle with it more than others. For example, I'm also human. OK. What areas do I? Struggle. Do you catch yourself or? Absolutely. Absolutely. And my response largely irrational. OK. Like, again, also a person you can test because I think it's always a work in progress. You know, you come across a new topic area and all of a sudden you're just fighting, you know, going against the current and you don't really want to place an amount of acceptance on this is just what reality looks like. Yeah, right.

1:00:01 But. You could kind of fight against it all you want. It doesn't mean that things are always going to go. Your way and you end up hurting yourself more. That's the other thing you notice you end up you end up like what do I even need to do to this right? Do this to myself. For right for what? So, you know, I think that accepting sometimes this is, this is OK, right? It doesn't look the way I want it to. This person doesn't agree with me as I wanted them to. It's OK, you know, I don't need to force that upon them. They don't need to see things how I see them. You know, I can. I can do something and have the outcome be maybe different than I thought I wanted it to be. And also, that's OK. I think it's a big deal to actually say these words out loud.

1:00:45 There's a book I just gave, actually. The guy did a podcast yesterday called Chatter by Ethan Cross. He was on a humans podcast. That's why I came to it by the book. But one of the things that the premise of the book is that we have that voice in our head and we can actually mold and shape that voice. That's why, like when if you ever see a kids talk out what they're doing, it's because they're speaking out of process. That, as you get older becomes that kind of chatter in our head and that, that, and we can also continue to reframe those voices in our head. But the, and, and it doesn't necessarily need to read through talking, although talking is a very effective way of doing it. And so I found that even since I started saying these kind of things on conversations and podcasts and stuff, one thing, for example, that I noticed that's very, you know, I mean, I, I go to, you know, I, I, I, I pray three times a day. And I sometimes when I'm going, when I'm going to synagogue, I noticed that someone is praying for longer or shorter than me. And then my initial reaction is to judge them based on like the extent of their prayer.

1:01:48 And I'm like, and, and, and, and I, and I, and I, and I have a legit conversation in my head every time this happens. I'm like, Oh God, who's this guy thinking? And I'm like, who do you think you are, you douche? You know, like, I have to keep on going back and forth. Then like, like, what do you know, what am I doing? But but until, but for years, I, I didn't even have like that kind of like even though I knew the concept to be true, it wasn't, it wasn't in my, the forefront of my consciousness. It wasn't something that was actively there. And I think that, and I also think this is what the huge benefit of podcasts in general has been and why they've become so ubiquitous in society is because it's people saying the things and reinforcing healthy ideas that that that can really make a lot of people's lives better on a regular basis that you can kind of like bask in like and over.

1:02:40 By the way, unfortunately, you know, it's a double, it's a double edged sword. It's a tool just like anything else. You can, you can, you know, surround yourself with the wrong ideas too, and unhealthy ideas. But if you find the right ones and you're like, and you're building good habits out of that, you know, and you can usually how I feel like the difference between like, I try to, I, I, I feel like everything is either junk food or health or healthy food and like it should and everything in life, you can have a relationship that's a junk food relationship. You can have a relationship that's a healthy relationship. You can have a, a business, right? I was talking to, I had a big, I posted on Twitter months ago about how, how I felt bad for the Haktua girl because I was like, this poor girl does an interview, you know, her life explodes. All these deals over.

1:03:27 Yeah, overnight marketing and podcast deals and, and you get a manager and agent, everyone's referencing you and and money pouring in and you're totally not prepared to handle it. And then all of a sudden a million people are telling you different things from different perspectives and you make a mistake that publicly makes you look like the worst person ever. And then the whole world hates you within a month. So within the whole month, you're not prepared for that. That's junk food to me. That's the same thing as, you know, binging of that, you know, a bag of chips or business or anything else. And then you feel nauseous after and you're like, but if you go through a business where you take five years to build up six years, 10 years to build up a business and then success comes and you're much more even headed about it because you're like, I know what it took to get here.

1:04:08 And I've, and I've been, I've been eating carrots and vegetables and, and tilapia exclusively tilapia for 100 years. And I don't care about the micronutrients and and I don't care about bottom dwellers or anything like that then. Things done in moderation are always best. Yeah, absolutely. Toxic relationships. There's no moderation in that. Yeah. Yeah. Like love bombing. It's a term that like a lot of people. Use. I just heard you yesterday for the first time, so. Trendy. I was trendy, really. Shoot. It's a very real term, OK? I'm not saying that it doesn't come from the right place. OK, We do use that term. But I think somebody caught on that we use that term and thought it was cool and now everybody uses it. OK, It's very real, but why is it so toxic? Because it's done in an extreme.

1:04:59 Yeah, right. It's. Oh my God. This person made me feel like I'm the only one on the planet and they want to move in with me. And they told me they love me. But when we talk about things like this, this is everywhere in society, so it doesn't it's not a surprise that this happens. Because we enable it. Well, because it's convenient. You want what's? Convenient and it's glamorized, right? I was talking to, I was talking to someone the other day and we're talking about how the like until now in history, intelligence and knowledge has been of value, like one of the most valuable tools that you can have. And I think starting probably five years ago, but especially today, autonomy and discipline are going to be what makes what's going to separate someone from being successful or and that's going to be the top class, the top class are going to be.

1:05:55 Even far between. Correct. The people that choose the hard path, that choose to take their time for something that have the healthy relationships and most people are not going to be able to, are not going to know how to. They're going to just choose the convenient way the whole time and they're going to keep on choosing junk food. We have that choice of junk food or healthy food in every capacity of life. Yeah, I think that in American culture we have a an unhealthy relationship with this need for instant gratification in kind of all of the things. If there's hard work involved, we lean away from it. And we try to figure out how to make it less hard work. Efficiency, effectiveness, those should both be important, which is something that we've strayed from. Now we really only focus on efficiency. Yeah, I think, yeah.

1:06:44 And now you have, you know, this this drive for kids to want to become influencers rather than, you know, different kinds of careers. Sure, sure. It's because it's glamorized, glorified, definitely. And also it's it's just not something that. You know, I feel like also it's one of the few, call me crazy, it feels like it's one of the few stable jobs that people are talking about. Like AI is taking everything away from everyone, you know, and I feel you know, and I know that the the answer that that American children want to be influencer has been going on for a lot longer than a is existed for sure, you know, and that's a whole another conversation.

1:07:30 But I think that in the last couple of years, a lot of people are like, well, I don't even know what I want to be when I I don't know what I'm going to. I'm thinking about this now. I don't know what I'm sending, what I'm going to send my kid to school for. I don't know what he's going to learn at school that's going to be effective in helping him, like in helping him in a way that he can't learn to be a disciplined self starter that learns everything he learned at school by yourself, by himself anyway, Yeah. You know, well, the concept of stability is kind of ever changing. And if we don't acknowledge that and if we don't accept that, we get left behind. Yeah, this, this idea of what we think stability is supposed to look like, it's kind of archaic. And if you don't stay with the times in some way, doesn't mean you have to completely assimilate. But if you don't accept it for what it is, you get left behind. Yeah.

1:08:21 Definitely. Oh, what's that? So what do you what tools do you use to manage your own mental health for your own life? I use my husband. That's it every. That's it. Every husband should be there for. He is a wonderful support. What do I use? Or what did you use before you got married? Before you met? Before you met guy? When did you meet guy? How old are you? When? Did I meet Guy almost five years ago? 4 1/2 years ago. What did I utilize? I talk to my people. I talk things out. Do you do you have a group of friends that you feel like you could talk to and then you talk to your therapist as well or Yeah. If. Different topics you go to different. People for for sure, for sure, as any smart person should. You can't go to any one person for all of the things other than your therapist.

1:09:09 You can always go to them with all of the things. And, and while I try to go to my husband with all of the things, the truth is that he's not supposed to be there for all of the things. That's too much pressure to put on any person. But I think that I seek benefit from different people depending on topic area and also family and also myself. In terms, what do you do with? How do you by yourself? I try very hard. It's not always successful, but I try to talk things through with myself. That's a great, it's a great tool. It's a life skill. Doesn't mean I'm always good at it, for the record, but I certainly try. Yeah.

1:09:52 You know the way that we. You talk it out loud to yourself, or you write it out or what do you do? Sometimes I talk about it out loud, sometimes I'm just in my head, you know? Which also isn't always great because that's how spiraling thoughts really manifest into. Isn't it interesting how thoughts work in your head versus once they come out of your mouth? Yeah, I think it's one of the reasons why I think therapy is so impactful, correct. When you have to find the words to verbalize something, it's a different level of understanding and conceptualization of how you actually feel in order to produce it, right? Sure. So to write something down, also helpful, right?

1:10:32 You have to figure out what it is you want to, what words you want to use to say what you have to say. Same thing with saying something out loud, right? So it's a better understanding. One of the one of the most valuable skills that I learned, I learned one of my college, my college writing professor was the was to be raw with your words in writing. And like we like we live in a world that it's not encouraged to be even to ourselves. You know, like no one else has to see it. But like when you just say like, I feel like a piece of shit today, you know, like I did something today that like, you know, either I behaved this way or I felt this way. And like just that honesty to yourself that like even if you RIP it up and no one ever sees and you throw it in the guard, you burn in and no one ever sees it again.

1:11:19 Like I feel like just that after transmitting something from in here, either out your hands or out your mouth enormously has helped at least me. It's been an enormous tool and a lot of times, either writing or speaking these kind of things out, I'll often emerge with an understanding that I'd even had before I started, before I started talking or writing. Exactly. Well, that's exactly the point, right? Because you have to identify for yourself how you would even come to explain what it is you're trying to say. So that's absolutely impactful. Also, I think sometimes it's, it's hard to understand your own thoughts. You know, you can think things that are not real. You do it all the time, all do, right. But to take the thoughts and make them realities, to take the thoughts and try to understand them. You know, there's a, there's a lot of abstractness to all of that.

1:12:19 So I think that any of us, for any and all of us, let's say, being real with ourselves, being real with the people around us, humanizing ourselves, you know? Dehumanize yourself like to keep yourself like either the same. Hold yourself the same standard as you hold everyone else. Yeah. And also moving away from the perfectionism that we think we all need. Yeah. I think that one of the things that sets my practice apart from other practices that I've seen is that I try very hard to focus on being relatable and talking about reality and the difficulties that just exist for kind of all of us in a way that's moved away from the clinical, but it's still very helpful. It's, it's rooted in the clinical, but it's kind of moved away from it.

1:13:13 And I think that that's where we all find benefit, right? Because when you can be real outwards, either towards your therapist or to yourself even, right, that's when growth happens. Yeah, Yeah. Do you think that people should stay with the therapist forever? You think that you know, like, what do you like, do you encourage your clients to just keep on coming back or do you say like, oh, it looks like you have the tools you need. It looks like you've been in a good place, like come back to me when you need. How do you approach that? How do different therapists approach that? I. Think there's a lot of different perceptions of that. I don't believe that there's one that's right or wrong. For any individual.

1:13:57 For any individual. So you have to base it on the person, Yeah. I think that a therapist should tread lightly on trying to decide for any other person what is or is not therapeutic for them. If I tell my client we've been seeing each other for a year and I don't think it's therapeutic for you to come here anymore, my client might say, but I just feel like you hold me accountable and I just like talking to you each. Weekend. Do you get clients that fall for you? I've spoken to, I've spoken to the therapist about this before. Actually, I actually, I dated one. I dated a therapist when I was, oh God, maybe 20 before, and she would tell me all the time that, that, that, that patients or clients would like confess their love to that. Yeah.

1:14:47 Like, because you probably they're opening up and being honest and like, yeah. You get that. I've never had that experience. I did work in a homeless shelter for a short period of time and that was different. That was a different experience. I, I definitely had some uncomfortable encounters, let's say at the shelter, yes, but no, not anymore. And I, I would say that doesn't happen anymore because I, I'm relatable, but I'm very professional and I draw a very distinct line and the sessions not about me. So I'm not I'm I'm showing up authentically to my clients definitely, but I'm not bringing all of me to the session. Of course, of course.

1:15:33 But I don't, I don't, you know, but I don't think even takes you doing that. I think that like most people, like there's a loneliness epidemic and most people don't even have anyone they can talk to, you know, So, you know, I mean, for, you know, anyone to just sit across from someone that like for a year, for two years, for five years and like be the more, more realtor than they are to their own parents, girlfriend, husband, whatever. That's why that extended relationship with a client can still be of benefit to them. Yeah. Well, yeah, if they handle it, if they, if they handle those, you know the if they handle the way that it manifests appropriately. Yeah, right, right, right. As long as it's done professionally, yeah. You know, I have clients that I've had for years and, you know, I've met with them almost every week for years. And I've done that because they find benefit absolutely from these sessions.

1:16:28 And while, you know, they might tell you that they feel like they're friends with me, our relationship is not one of a friendship. Yeah, you know, and I know that the relationships look different than. That used to be off putting to me. So I've, I've never, I've gone to therapy once as a kid when my in high school, my mom was trying to, I had a very hard time in high school with test taking. And no matter how much I would study, no matter how hard I would, you know, work, no matter, he knows how to take the test would come and I have a whole brand to go blank. And, but other than that, I, I, and the reason I haven't gone was because I have a very close, I have a very healthy group of people that I have very healthy relationships with that I feel that I've always been able to kind of get what I, you know, what would be healthiest for me out of these relationships.

1:17:21 I have people I could turn to for different things, you know, and one of the things that used to be off putting, although I kind of understand it a little bit more now, One of the things that used to be off putting to me that I could imagine being off putting to people is that like we just described, this therapist isn't your friend, you know? And like when you're opening up to someone that much, I feel like people almost want someone else to reciprocate, you know? And I feel like, you know, that part of my hesitancy was that I'm going to sit across from someone, they're going to know everything there is to know about me. I'm going to feel invested in this person because I am invested in this person and I'm not going to know anything about that, you know, I'm not going to, you know, and it's going to be 11 sided relationship. And like, you know who likes that? Well, ironically enough, that's what it's meant to be, right? Because that's what I was told.

1:18:01 You're not. You're not paying me to don't hear about me, right? You're paying for a session to work on you, right? So the purpose of that session isn't to build a friendship. The purpose of that session is for you to build a better relationship with yourself, right? Which is why that therapist and what they do personally and who they are is kind of not relevant. Right, so you can sit in front of a mirror and do the same thing if it works. Yeah, I mean you won't experience an. Individual feedback. Perspective or feedback? Yeah, yeah, which is why it's of limited benefit, but. It's where do you draw the line between the feedback that you gave. I don't disclose a whole lot about myself unless I think that it's therapeutic for them.

1:18:49 If it helps us to connect further then. So you say like, oh I also have that problem or like you say I relate to that or like what? Do you? Yeah, I mean, I, I share problems or issues less frequently because I don't, I think that I can express empathy without disclosing reasoning why I sit in the depths with them. And truthfully, it's it's not about the fact that I've experienced the exact same thing. So I don't need to relate in those. Ways you don't need to help the person feel like no. No, I think that what's more helpful is to some, in some cases, let's say I don't want to generalize too much, but I think in more cases it's more helpful to say it is, it's reasonable to feel this way, right? And what can we do about it?

1:19:38 Right. Because if I just sit in the shit with you, we're not getting out, so. You're more prompt. You almost like keeping up a conversation. You always keep almost like keeping the conversation going so that it doesn't stop at, yeah, I mean spare station. Yeah, I think, I think we have to stop long enough to process the feelings, you know, but we're not staying there, right? I think moderation, right. Do some processing of the feelings and also talk about what you're going to do to get yourself out. But it can't be only one or the other. It has to be a combination of both and to what extent. You know, 60407030, I don't decide that.

1:20:21 You do? Yeah, sure. But I'll help you get to that, yeah. Page that page that what's what's an ideal setup professionally for therapist that like, how do you know, how do you feel when you feel like I've made it and like I'm where I want to be with my with my career and my life? Yeah, I don't know an exact goal that I have is your. Goal to be busy. Is your goal to have X amount of zip client? What's what's your? It's it's ever expanding, I could say. So I don't have one specific goal because it's shape shifts and it it just keeps evolving. My caseload is full which is very cool to me. That's crazy how what's considered a full caseload? It varies person to person.

1:21:09 I see a lot so I often hovering around 30 sessions a week. Wow. Gotcha, which is a lot and most therapists I know prefer less. Please you still have to do notes and what other works associated with the other than the session is billing like. Being in touch, yeah, the billing stuff, you know, all of the scheduling and organizing and then for me at least, is working on ways to continue expanding. So more recently, within this year, I've hired some additional clinicians, yes. Congratulations, that's so exciting. Thank you. Yeah. Wow. And I've really loved it.

1:21:50 Really. Really. Love it. Do you love that because you have people to work with? You love it because you could help more people you feel like? Do you set the tone for what the clinicians, what type of like clinic you're going to have? Yes, yes to all of the above. Yes, that's such a phenomenal YEAH opportunity. I love the idea of normalizing this type of therapy, therapy like this, you know, more relatable, more real human person to person. And so, yeah, when I'm hiring, that's something that I keep in mind is a therapist's ability to offer this because I think that's so impactful. So when I'm looking for somebody, that's certainly something I'm looking for, but I also love having a sort of mentorship with new clinicians or additional clinicians. And there's other things that I'm toying with the idea of trying out different, you know, supervisory type roles. Cool.

1:22:48 Would you think about expanding the type of therapy that you offer? Like what do you think of, like music therapy or pet therapy or especially in South Florida, I just told an ultrasound machine to people that do dolphin therapy. Amazing. Amazing. Yeah. We went down there to meet them. It's really, really cool. Yeah. There's a lot of different forms of therapy. I think that they're all useful and or beneficial. Under your umbrella like have like. It would be cool. Applications. It would be cool, but I kind of feel like there's something to be said about like when you go to a restaurant. And they just make pizza and. They make pizza or or you go to that restaurant and they're offering way too many things. And you think, how could you be good at all of the things? Correct, Right.

1:23:34 You know, So I don't want to be that. I also don't want to offer only one thing. Yeah. Well, it would be you, but that's so that's the benefit, right? Like the benefit is that you got your philosophy that's kind of introduced, that's interconnected through everything. And then you have different ways of manifesting your philosophy and bringing them to and bringing them to fruition, helping people in different ways that would speak to them get to almost like the same kind of place. Right. Yeah. There's also different specialty areas, right? So I work with some specific things. I work with high functioning people that want to optimize under my umbrella. The clinicians that work with me, you know, we'll see some type of variation of that. People wanting to work on themselves, obviously, but different trauma areas.

1:24:21 I might have, you know, 1 clinician that focuses on trauma. I might have another clinician that focuses on grief, right? So I like to have the very cool. Day, right? But in my own practice, my own caseload, I keep some variation and I like to lean into what works. I think it's a life skill so. Do people come to you and then you'll pass them along to your colleagues? Yeah. I think that XY and Z is better. Is better for grief or better for? I don't. I don't usually work with them before passing them on, but when somebody approaches my practice, I'll say based on what you described, this person is a good fit.

1:25:01 Cool. Yeah. And my role is to grow their caseloads as well. Do people do therapists take it personally when people switch therapists? I don't and in fact, when I start someone new within the 1st 5 minutes, I let them know we're going to do a consultation to make sure it's the right fit. If for any reason it's not either you don't like talking to me or the things you want to discuss are not in my area of expertise, find someone who is. So I personally don't take it. I, I do not take it personally, but I think everybody's different on that. I think the goal is for you to like your therapist and to get benefit out of it. You can't get benefit if you don't like your therapist.

1:25:42 I know I have so many friends that lie to their therapist. Like it's so stupid dude. If you're not, if you're lying to your therapist, who you're not lying to, you know, like, right. Seriously. And then you just stay in that neutral zone. Yeah, yeah. And and that's like, and those are the same kind of examples of people that if you send them to rehab would, you know, would be out in a week and back at it, you know, exactly because you're not, not there for it. Yeah, cool. I think this is so much fun. I hope that I hope this encourages you to to jump start your own. And now that you got some some footage, this will be the beginning of the next most successful podcast that'll very quickly overtake mine because you'll have video and we'll see we'll.

1:26:24 See. Don't take it. Up that much. That's right. That's right. It's hard. No hype, no hype. I'm going to keep on doing what I'm doing, but you should definitely, you should definitely do this. I'm so excited for you to whatever is whatever is coming up for you. It really seems like you really have since you have a vision. And I mean, oh, do people feel like they look up to you more because you went straight Like you have all this private experience now that other people have, you know, like most people don't have. Maybe, maybe. I think there's just different routes, you know, and I don't want to say that like going to work at a clinic is the is the worst route. I think they gain amazing experience people. Like look at you and be like, wow, you've been in your own practice for this amount of years and you're you know, you've only been doing this for X amount of years and like. Yeah, it's definitely different.

1:27:10 It's definitely. Not. That's cool, yeah. But it was a struggle because of that. But I'm at least proud to say that. I think it's amazing. I think it's amazing. I think you did great work. And then keep it up and we'll do this again. I hope you awesome, beautiful day. Of course. Thanks for coming. Bye everyone.