The Role of a Trustworthy Therapist in Recovery

<cite>Speaker 1:</cite> <time>0:03</time> <p>Welcome to 90834, the weekly podcast that lets you see what it&#39;s like to actually go to therapy. I&#39;m Shannon Miller, a licensed clinical social worker currently in private practice, who has the privilege of sitting across from clients each and every day watching their therapeutic process unfold. We start each episode with the same question what took you to therapy? Emily joins us today. She&#39;s a 40-year-old woman who spent most of her adult life living in France. She started therapy two years ago and is actively still attending sessions. Emily, let&#39;s kick things off with you telling us why you started going to therapy. </p> <cite>Speaker 2:</cite> <time>0:45</time> <p>So I originally came to therapy this time, I should say, because I&#39;d been receiving kind of mixed results from other types of therapy that I was doing and I was looking as an expat. I was living in France, I was looking for, searching for someone who would speak English and also be able to understand kind of the expat lifestyle and who I was. I was lost in trying to find myself. </p> <cite>Speaker 1:</cite> <time>1:18</time> <p>Okay. So what does it feel like to be lost in trying to find yourself? What were the feelings and things that you were dealing with, that you said, okay, I have to do something. </p> <cite>Speaker 2:</cite> <time>1:29</time> <p>I just kept searching and trying things and feeling like I was failing. Alcohol consumption had become a huge issue. I&#39;d gotten sick and was in the hospital because of it. I was just self-medicating and didn&#39;t know how to deal with life. It was coming out of COVID. I was coming out of an abusive relationship. I was in between jobs, so it was like I knew rationally that I could be starting afresh and starting a new life. But every time I tried it wasn&#39;t working and I just felt like a failure. </p> <cite>Speaker 1:</cite> <time>2:10</time> <p>Okay. So it&#39;s also sounding like there&#39;s a lot of change happening at the same time, with no sort of clear path of how things would go forward. So a lot of uncertainty. </p> <cite>Speaker 2:</cite> <time>2:20</time> <p>A lot of uncertainty and a lot of trying to figure that out. </p> <cite>Speaker 1:</cite> <time>2:25</time> <p>Okay, so you came to therapy, and what was one of the first things that you learned? </p> <cite>Speaker 2:</cite> <time>2:33</time> <p>Well, actually, one of the first things I realized was probably the difference between, like, an American-style therapy approach versus the French ones that I&#39;d been seeing. Oh, fill me in. Well, the French are still very Freudian in their approach, and so it was a lot about my past and a lot about my family and a lot about how I grew up and things like that, and it was relevant. At a certain extent it helped me understand myself, but it wasn&#39;t helping me move forward, whereas with Heidi&#39;s approach and, as I learned later, the whole positive psychology movement that was started here, it was looking to the future. It was all right, okay, so these things did happen. Your life was this, but now what can we do? What can you use from that? What can you learn? Who are you and can help you really find yourself as you are moving forward? </p> <cite>Speaker 1:</cite> <time>3:41</time> <p>In your work with Heidi. Was there any acknowledgement of the past, or was it purely just forward-looking? </p> <cite>Speaker 2:</cite> <time>3:47</time> <p>There is acknowledgement of the past. From time to time she pokes at things in such a way we have a very trusting relationship, I think from the very start. She knows me well enough now that she knows when I&#39;m going to get tense or what are the hard topics. And they are things from the past, Social poke at them to get the emotions and the feelings and that out in order to move forward from that. </p> <cite>Speaker 1:</cite> <time>4:17</time> <p>What&#39;s it like for you when she starts poking at those things? </p> <cite>Speaker 2:</cite> <time>4:21</time> <p>It&#39;s not fun at all, it hurts, it&#39;s painful. I always tell her I know that she&#39;s hit a nerve because my stomach just starts hurting. It just immediately clenches up and hurts, and then my dog will jump over to me. So my dog and one of the things we have in common is our love for dogs, and she noticed it as well is whenever I have these tough things that are coming out or I&#39;m feeling stressed, she&#39;ll know it because my dog will come up. So even before I&#39;m able to say anything, there&#39;s the body language and everything. But my dog will be right there. </p> <cite>Speaker 1:</cite> <time>5:00</time> <p>That&#39;s sweet. My dog&#39;s the best. Yeah, there&#39;s some poking at the past, but a lot of the emphasis is on the future. So can you give some examples of things that are future looking like? You said that you were in between jobs? You were in France, now you&#39;re not. I mean, there&#39;s a lot of things, so how did you guys work through the uncertainties and start managing those? </p> <cite>Speaker 2:</cite> <time>5:24</time> <p>There&#39;s been many occasions, but the one that is really telling is I was coming out of a very terrible period with alcohol. I was in a bender and was rolling out of that with all of the shame and guilt and all of those emotions that come and also wanting to get better but kind of struggling with that and feeling like a failure. And during that period of drunkenness my dog escaped, like she. I&#39;d left the door open or something and I was living in a city and she just left and in my state I couldn&#39;t find her. I think that&#39;s kind of what got me out of the bender. But by that point she&#39;d been picked up and was in the pound and I just left her there because I didn&#39;t feel like I deserved her. And it was Heidi who helped me first of all identify why I hadn&#39;t gone to pick her up, that it was that guilt and that I didn&#39;t feel good enough. And that was my past. Speaking to my, I was using my own, my old mindset, because I&#39;d failed at that stint of sobriety and she was just being very encouraging and made me realize that that was what was going on and she just said go, get your dog, go and get her and just in that few seconds I smiled, I got up, I got my act together and I went and picked her up and it was on her part, just a few words that she said, but the way that she said it and the way that I heard it in that state was just like don&#39;t give up, just get your dog. That&#39;s the first step and one step&#39;s good enough. </p> <cite>Speaker 1:</cite> <time>7:23</time> <p>But it was a big step too. Yes, it was it really was, heidi frequently pointed out to you. Just one step, that&#39;s. All we got to get through is one step, and that sort of began the catapult of moving forward inch by inch. </p> <cite>Speaker 2:</cite> <time>7:41</time> <p>Yes, and also I&#39;m thinking about this. But also she always she gives me homework. She knows I&#39;m never going to do it like for the next week, because it&#39;ll be sometimes, maybe once or twice what she asks me to do will be done in the week. Most of the time it&#39;s like six months later when it finally clicks, but it&#39;s also in those activities. So sometimes it&#39;s check out this book or this website. I love learning about things and that&#39;s what I get into and so she&#39;ll say do this or do that. And sometimes I don&#39;t quite understand or I&#39;m like this is ridiculous. Like I said, sometimes it takes me six months to do it, no-transcript. Once I do read that episode or watch that episode of a show or read that book, everything becomes clear. It&#39;s like she somehow knows that, like I think it&#39;s magic, heidi, magic just knowing that this will be the one thing that will get to me and will get me moving forward and get my mindset to switch so that I can do better things and be the Emily that I want to be. </p> <cite>Speaker 1:</cite> <time>8:52</time> <p>So I have to ask what&#39;s the episode that she asked you to watch? Episode of what? </p> <cite>Speaker 2:</cite> <time>8:57</time> <p>There&#39;s been a couple of them. Actually, the most recent was to watch and this is even a really very recent but Harry and Meghan&#39;s show on Netflix. I think I&#39;d mentioned that I wanted to see it but just hadn&#39;t. I was on the list of things to watch and she kind of pushed at it and insisted in a way that she I didn&#39;t feel like she usually would for that type of thing, and it ended up being our discussions after. That ended up being very insightful. It helped me realize something that I never realized before, but as it pertained to them, it was interesting. </p> <cite>Speaker 1:</cite> <time>9:38</time> <p>Can you share what the realization was like in hindsight? What was the therapeutic benefit of watching the Harry and Meghan thing? </p> <cite>Speaker 2:</cite> <time>9:46</time> <p>It was the sense of betrayal that Harry felt and Meghan felt as well later, but just the betrayal from family and not feeling protected by family. And I realized that, concerning my life in recent past with alcohol use disorder and that relationship, that I felt very betrayed by my family and that was at a turning point of so. I&#39;d already moved back to the US, but it was a very critical stage of my integration, kind of back into this family life that I&#39;d been away from for such a long time, and identifying that feeling and what I felt, how I felt it and why and what that meant, really helped me to establish a new foundation, especially with my parents. I think that had been I don&#39;t want to say, rocky, but it was confusing for a little bit there. </p> <cite>Speaker 1:</cite> <time>10:48</time> <p>That kind of brings me to the next question of so you&#39;re going through the therapeutic process and you&#39;re sort of making these realizations and these connections. What impact does that have on your relationships outside of the therapeutic office? </p> <cite>Speaker 2:</cite> <time>11:03</time> <p>I am more mindful and intent and I&#39;m more intentful as well concerning those relationships. Yeah, just to continue kind of on that same story, with the betrayal that I felt from my parents and my brothers, there&#39;s few sessions later with Heidi, I was just thinking about how to approach them or what. What should I do to kind of get over this myself. And we talked through it and the kind of conversation I was wanting to lead made me she made me realize that it was just a conversation I wanted to have but it wouldn&#39;t necessarily benefit them or our relationship really. And she helped me understand more clearly that I could have feelings and sit with my feelings, but those didn&#39;t always need to be expressed to others, in the sense that this is a very Emily thing, Maybe. I know I think a lot of people are good. I can be very expressive, very intense one minute and then change the next, and so some of those very intense feelings are intense in the moment. But calm down and by realizing that, just waiting until I&#39;m calm down a little bit, I&#39;m able to express myself more fully or express myself better, it changes. It&#39;s changed the way that one I view and to interact with the relationships with my family members. </p> <cite>Speaker 1:</cite> <time>12:34</time> <p>What&#39;s your relationship like now with your family? We&#39;ve been able to. </p> <cite>Speaker 2:</cite> <time>12:39</time> <p>I don&#39;t wanna say start afresh, because with family it&#39;s also very, very complicated, but mutually. Concerning my parents, we seem to be talking more on the same plane. I think we&#39;re in the same playing field now. A lot of that, I think, is driven by compassion. We were all struggling with alcohol at the same time and we were all doing a lot of projecting what our experiences onto the rest of well, to the others. There was a lot of I&#39;m doing this, why isn&#39;t this working for you? And a lot of the guilt and shame that I was feeling, and perhaps my mother was feeling as well, was that projection, Whereas when I started thinking and also speaking, when I spoke with my mother more compassionately, it became less the projection and less like the misunderstandings and more of the. We&#39;re both humans, we&#39;re both going through a thing in our own ways, and it&#39;s greatly improved with both of my parents, my relationship with both of my parents, and it&#39;s one that&#39;s growing. It had become slightly stagnant just because of all of that. </p> <cite>Speaker 1:</cite> <time>13:52</time> <p>Was there ever a time in therapy where Heidi might have said something that was particularly powerful or really made you stop in your tracks All the time? Any you can recall in this moment? </p> <cite>Speaker 2:</cite> <time>14:06</time> <p>All the time? Yeah, a really good one, because actually we&#39;ve talked about it recently again is I just moved back to the US, so this was. It was almost exactly a year ago now, and I don&#39;t remember. Oh, I was talking about gun ownership, which is a drastically different discussion in the US versus France or Europe, and in whatever I was saying, she just stopped me and was like wait what? And so she continued to ask me questions to get to the bottom of why I basically changed my mind in three months on how I felt about guns, and she then introduced me to parallel processing of intentionally well, and also that you can intentionally parallel process or move into that or not, but that it was a thing to align yourself to those around you, just to fit in, be part of society and all of that. And it was one of those moments of one oh, that&#39;s exactly what I&#39;m doing right now is I&#39;m trying so hard to find out who this Emily French, american Emily is going to be that I was, without thinking about it, speaking in ways that would you know world, the same things everyone around me was saying, but not who Emily like, not things that Emily would say. So it&#39;s like the identification of the fact that it was a thing, but also that it could be useful, it also could be harmful, and that it just needs to be intentional. </p> <cite>Speaker 1:</cite> <time>15:50</time> <p>So what is your big lesson that you&#39;ve learned so far in therapy? Because I know your therapy process is still ongoing, so so far, what would you have to say is the biggest thing that you&#39;ve got out of therapy? </p> <cite>Speaker 2:</cite> <time>16:03</time> <p>That nothing is fixed and that we have options. I was a very black and white thinker, a very extreme thinker, one way or the other, and Heidi has really changed my approach to pretty much everything in that respect. So when I&#39;m only saying one or two possibilities, just saying, okay, emily, are these really the only two possibilities or are there more? And just having that different perspective on things, it makes me feel like I have more freedom, like I&#39;m not stuck and that I have these options and if one option doesn&#39;t work, then the other one probably will. </p> <cite>Speaker 1:</cite> <time>16:41</time> <p>So by having more than just two options you know black or white you get more freedom. </p> <cite>Speaker 2:</cite> <time>16:47</time> <p>Absolutely. </p> <cite>Speaker 1:</cite> <time>16:48</time> <p>And so what would you tell anybody if they were where you were several years ago and saying you know therapy. </p> <cite>Speaker 2:</cite> <time>16:58</time> <p>Keep trying to find your person. I&#39;d been through many therapists and psychiatrists over, of course, pretty much my entire adult life and, like I said at the beginning, did get some benefit, but never felt understood or never felt this connection until I found Heidi and it was such an immediate and obvious connection that we had that I could trust her. I have trust issues, like, you know, a lot of people do. I think I wasn&#39;t just going to jump in and tell a stranger my life, but that trust was established so quickly and because of that the progress that I&#39;ve made is just enormous. And so if I would have stopped looking and just been like, oh there, there&#39;d be like done with that, I wouldn&#39;t be where I am today. </p> <cite>Speaker 1:</cite> <time>17:50</time> <p>And I like that. Even though you trusted her, there were times that she gave you homework and you&#39;re like this is so stupid and I&#39;m not going to do it, but yet you always sort of circled back around to it in one form or another. </p> <cite>Speaker 2:</cite> <time>18:02</time> <p>I always get back to it. It&#39;s almost magical in the way and I&#39;ll always get back to it, kind of when it&#39;s needed the most, like when that topic will come back again and start digging at me. Thank you for sharing. You&#39;re welcome. It&#39;s a pleasure to share this. </p> <cite>Speaker 1:</cite> <time>18:21</time> <p>If any of our listeners out there have enjoyed a trusting relationship with their therapist and you&#39;d like to share with us, we&#39;d love to have you as a guest on our show. Email me at Shannon at 90834podcastcom. Hey, listener, I have a secret for you. Heidi, the therapist referenced in today&#39;s podcast is on staff here at Epricity Expat Therapy. If you&#39;re not content with the relationship that you currently have with your therapist or you&#39;re new to therapy, check out Epricity Expat Therapy specifically, heidi, she has immediate availability and is licensed in Colorado, virginia and Wisconsin, meaning that if you&#39;re an expatriate, she can definitely see you. If you are currently located in any of those states, she can also see you. We also have other therapists on staff that have immediate availability as well. Check us out at wwwepricityexpattherapycom. </p>