April 25, 2025 • 49 mins
Therapy can be a useful tool for many of us for a variety of reasons, but often times finding the right person for the right price can be the first barrier in seeking help.
So who should you see? How can you access what you need? What does it cost? And how do we get the best out of it? To help you sort through it, this week Francesca and Louise are joined by clinical psychologist, writer and speaker Jacqui Maguire about the different types of therapy, how to be in the right mindset to seek help, and if new technology can help with the process.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
Hi. I'm Francesca Rudkin and I'm Louise Arie. And this
is season four of our New Zealand hel podcast, The
Little Things.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
A podcast where we have common sense conversations about women's
well being at all ages and stages. And lou you
and I we've spent many hours either alone or and
a wider group of trail running friends, workshopping a personal
problem or just sort of getting stuff off our minds
just while we run or hike for hours. We can
(00:36):
guyspend three hours in the bush together and come home
and still ring it to other dugs. The other thing
I forgot to Mantua was you. You'd think we'd cover
everything off anyway, while I would argue that running in
nature is therapy on its own. Sometimes the answers we
see cannot be found without the help of a professional
therapy and all its many iterations. Is what we want
to talk about today.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
Yeah, well, you have helped me workshop all sorts of
issues whilst running in the white tackities. But you were
the one, probably on a run that said to me
last year, have you thought about therapy when I was
having one of those you know, cloudy periods where it
was nothing serious, nothing affecting me personally. I just couldn't
see the wood for the trees, and it was good advice.
(01:21):
I've probably sought therapy three or four times in my life.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
For all quite different reasons.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
God, I just stopped. I need to stop banging on
about the bast cancer. But obviously I saw a psychologists
through that process.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
It has been quite a major part of your life,
and I feel like.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
It comes up all the time. But yes, obviously that
was great and she was amazing. Last year was a psychotherapist,
which was more talking, just talking through stuff. Else is
there being There's definitely been another one, maybe a work
related isshoe. Yeah, so, and certainly, and my kids have two,
not for anything too sort of major, but do you
(02:00):
just kind of know when they're not quite right and
seeing them off to someone to have a talk about it.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
But I do wonder whether we often think that whatever
might be going on in our lives isn't major enough
to warrant talking to somebody about it. And I think
that might be a mistake that we make. I mean,
I was look, until a couple of years ago, I'd
thankfully never had to think about or contemplate therapy. And
(02:24):
now I'm just eternally grateful to the therapists that help
my daughter. They helped diagnose and treat her neurodiversity, and
that was just that that was such an eye opening
experience because I was sort of introduced to so many
(02:45):
different kind of therapists. You know, we saw psychiatrist, clinical psychologists,
we work with occupational therapists, and I had sort of
no idea that all these different people kind of were
out there doing such amazing work and you know, could
say saved my daughter's life. And then I got to
a point where I was very exhausted by the whole thing.
(03:07):
And actually it was someone at work who said to
me one day, how you doing. You're a lot a
bit looking a bit tired, and I said, oh, yeah,
you know, it's just it's quite a lot, you know,
supporting somebody else through things. And they said to me, hey,
don't forget endsied me. You know, there is a well
being program here whereby you can get free counseling. And
(03:27):
that was a game changer for me, because we were
spending a lot of money on my daughter's care. I
did not have a spare scent to think about spending
it on myself and getting any help for myself, and
so I was able to access a psychotherapist through work.
I don't even turned up. I don't even know what
a psychotherapist was. I didn't even know what they do.
It didn't even know really what I was going into.
(03:47):
I just knew that it would probably be really beneficial
for me to talk to somebody about what we were
all going through so that I could better support my
family and all my goodness, I had the money, I
think i'd be there all the time. I think I
could do it weekly.
Speaker 1 (04:03):
I could do it weekly forty minutes of somebody listening
to you and.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
Just asking the right question at the right moment. And
it was really hard. I'm not gonna lie like so
at first, I just walked in and I sort of
was like, okay, just sort this out, tell me what
to do, how to deal with this. And so it
took me a little while to work out that's not
exactly what they do, and then we're going to talk
about some very deep, dark, difficult issues. But you know,
five sessions later, I walked out going it's going to
(04:32):
be okay. I'm going to be okay, We're going to
be everything's going to be okay.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
I remember exactly where I was when you rang me
after that session. Really I was running. I was somewhere
in back panel and demain or something.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
Just like to tell people. We don't spend our lives running. No, no, no,
quite busy.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
I was grateful for the company, though, I remember, we're
burning home. We knew and you said, well there was
what wasn't what I was expecting at what it would be.
And I probably psychotherapist wouldn't appreciate me saying this, but
I think of them as like the I like a
fairy godmother of the therapy world that just sitting quietly, absorbing,
(05:12):
like you say, asking the right questions at the right time,
reflecting on what they have learned through their study and
their accumulation of a huge amount of information. And there
seems to be nothing they haven't seen before. So something
that's new to us, it's not new to them. No.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
And I would leave and it would sit with me
for a while, and then a couple of days later,
I'd had this little epiphany and I go, I've worked
it out. And each year I hadn't worked it out,
and she had led me to work it out, you know,
what I mean Like at first, I was like, oh,
hang on, I get this, so you go away, and
it did. It took a little bit of time and
things like that, and I was just like, I've worked
it out.
Speaker 3 (05:48):
Not so much.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
I think you had a bit of help their franchisca
getting to where you needed to go, but it was
an amazing, amazing experience.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
And I think that's that we we think that there's
baggage we have to or this treak or we have
to swim through, and actually, well we may still have
to swim through it, but we can have some company
to make it, you know, a little bit easier. And
that's what I've certainly found. And yeah, obviously I've had
therapy for vastly different reasons, but all in all, they
(06:20):
are very trusted people who we are going to with
in amost sometimes our darkest feeling.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
I think you need to find the right person, yep.
I think you need to go on with an open
mind maybe as to how things are going to unfold.
I think you need to maybe ask some questions about
how it's going to work before you start, so you're
not just sitting there blindly like me, thinking what's going
to happen.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
I'm not sure that was, and I think you have
to be prepared to listen. The last time I finished
my successions last year on the note that she thought
that I could benefit from a different type of therapy,
which must have come from things that I'd said throughout
the sessions that we were having. I was a bit
like when bam, sort of my other shoe out, I'm off,
(07:07):
I'll go back.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
Into the world. You're awesome, I'm out of here, and
she's like.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
Well, you do have had quite a lot of trauma
in your life one way or another, you know, I
think you could benefit from and I just sen, oh, okay,
I'm not ready for that. So I'm hoping today might
be an opportunity to ask us some questions about that
specific type of therapy. And I just felt a little
bit tired at that point. But I you know, when
I've got the STANMDMA, I'm definitely ready to dive back
(07:32):
into it. So yeah, it's definitely not a one size
fit's all, is it.
Speaker 3 (07:35):
No?
Speaker 1 (07:36):
And I just think having someone listen without judgment, I mean,
you and I I think we listened to each other
without judgment most of the time, but we're not equipped
with the skills to answer every question therapy.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
What is it, who should you see? How can you
access what you need? What does it cost? And how
do you get the best out of it? To help
us sort through this, Jackie Maguire is joining us today.
Jackie is a clinical psychologist, right speaker, and media contributor
with a passion for science communication. She is very in demand.
We are so lucky she's found time to speak to us.
(08:08):
Welcome Jackie, Thanks so much for being with us. Look
to start, we're just wondering who should consider therapy. Is
it actually something we should all consider?
Speaker 3 (08:17):
Well, I think it's what lends you look at therapy
through low and so I think all of us actually
can gain benefit from therapy if we're wanting to engage
with a therapist and if we have something in particular
we're wanting to engage on. I think probably for the
majority of the population, we think about therapy from a
deficit point of view, aka you go and see someone
(08:39):
when something is wrong. I was raised by a psychologist
and a social worker, so in my house growing up,
therapy was very much viewed through a toll lens of
if you're stuck or you're wanting to learn skills, or
you're in a transition in life, you know, you can
use therapy co actively, and so I think it's really
(09:02):
important that we can hold both of those elements together
in this conversation, that you can go when stuff's heart
we need some advice or some guidance, and you can go. Actually,
if you're wanting to improve on some things in life?
Speaker 2 (09:14):
Are we a lot more open to therapy these days?
And I only ask that because we talk so much,
we talk so much about our children being resilient and
using and using tools to deal with things like anxiety
and things. Do you think that means that we're sort
of more open to it.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
I think some groups of people are more open to it.
I still think there are cohorts in our communities that
are very skeptical and worried about what therapy means or
what it means to go and see a shrink. So
I can't hand on answer that collectively for everybody in
the community. But yes, I think if you're somebody that
(09:56):
consumes a lot of television, or you read a losh
or you know, you have conversations with people where coaching
or therapy is part of the vernacular, then yes, I
think there is is for summon openness to it. But
also for other people Francisca, if you're worried about what
therapy might uncover, if you're somebody with an avoidant attachment,
(10:20):
or you're somebody that kind of hids in the sand
to keep going, then coming to speak to someone can
be hugely frightening, right because you don't quite have full control,
perhaps about what comes up or how that's going to feel.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
The last time I sought therapy, I thought I'd finish
the successions and dealt with the issue that I'd sort
of gone to deal with, and she was like, wait
a minute. So I haven't gone back yet, but definitely
planning to. So that avoidant attachment thing is probably therapy
speak a little bit. But for people who don't know
(10:55):
what that means, does that just mean I know something's wrong,
I just don't want to face it yet.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
Attachment style comes from when we're young, low and it's
about how we formed a bond with our primary caregiver.
And so you can be securely attached if you had
a parent that met all your needs most of the time.
You can be anxiously attached if you had a parent
that sometimes met your needs and sometimes didn't, which leaves
you with this angst around will you be there for
(11:21):
me or not? Where you can be avoidantly attached. If
you perhaps had a parent or caregiver that couldn't meet
your needs, so you became independent and reliant on yourself,
and so that shapes how we relate all through our life.
I think as adults we can absolutely work with a
therapist and often within partnerships to shift that. But it's
(11:42):
almost like your blueprint for how you connect and relate
in the world. And if you adaptively as a child
became very self reliant. And then someone's talking about therapy,
where a lot of the golden therapy comes from the
relationship with the therapist and leaning into support and you know,
learning a new way of being in that therapeutic dynamic.
(12:06):
For someone that has been so self reliant, I mean,
that's going to feel very uncomfortable and strange.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
That's really interesting, isn't it, Francisca. I'm just thinking generationally,
the way children have been raised has been different too
over the last say, fifty sixty years, So we might
have generations ahead of us who are a little bit
more avoid and detached. You know, well, you don't talk
about your problems, you just get on with it or
so forth.
Speaker 3 (12:33):
But you also may have cohorts of younger people whose
parents were so involved they never developed the ability to
do things on their own, which is just as stabilitating.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
If only we could nail that middle ground there, if only,
if only, so, can you please talk us through the
different options for therapy and who we can see as
a psychologist, counselor There's so many many different people out
there who can help us.
Speaker 3 (13:02):
It's pretty confusing for the general population, right and something Actually,
as a psychologist, I have to take great care in
describing different roles in how people work because it's contentious
and different professions I think sometimes can feel like other
professions are putting them down when they talk about how
they work. So I'm going to be really careful and
(13:23):
how I describe this. But yes, psychologist, So I'm a
clinical psychologist. I suppose in a nutshell psychologists are science trained.
And the word I would use to describe how a
clinical psychologist works as we formulate. So we meet someone
and we want to understand what's going on for you, now,
the background, what's led to you developing the particular challenge
(13:45):
that you're having, what keeps that going or what perpetuates
or maintains that. What are the strengths that you have
that are protective for you, Like we build a narrative,
I suppose around all those elements, and then using science
and evidence based techniques, we would work with you to
move you in the direction you're wanting to go. Or
(14:06):
if you're coming to therapy proactively and you're like, I
don't feel like I'm thriving or I feel like I
could be doing better, what do we know from an
evidence base that could support you with your goals? So
that's really I suppose thinking about therapy as, yes, you've
got someone that can listen and empathize and understand, but
that's only one part of therapy from a psychological point
(14:28):
of view. The other is you've got somebody in that
therapeutic dynamic that can guide and help you learn. So
I think a psychologist brings both of those elements, the
listening and the learning. The difference between a clinical psychologist
and a registered psychologist is that clinical psychologists have been
trained to diagnose mental illness. So if you're wanting a
(14:49):
diagnosis of depression or ADHD or you know that is
in our training to be able to do that. But
you talk to a room full of clinical sites, some
will think diagnosing and putting labels on things as helpful
and others won't, so you know, there is of course
variance in the profession. A psychotherapist is trained in psychoanalytic theory,
and you can think of Freud when you think of psychoanalysis,
(15:13):
and I know some wonderful psychotherapists. They're very focused on
your start to life, your childhood, the patterns and relationships
that you've had, your attachment to emotion or your experience
of emotion. So they kind of take you to look
back to help you move forward. So probably less like
(15:34):
scientific on skills, but more understanding relationships in your world
and how that's mapped out your thinking and your beliefs
about the world. Psychiatrists adopts, So just like you have
a pediatrician or an orthopedic surgeon, you have psychiatrists. They're specialists,
but they're specialists with a medical background that then train
in mental health. So if you are needing prescription drugs
(15:56):
for some form of mental illness, that would be a
psychiatrist set describe those So, for example, I know there's
a lot of focus on neurodiversity and take ADHD for example,
A clinical psychologist could diagnose you, but we couldn't then
prescribe medication for that. A psychiatrist would do that. And
then you have counselors. So counselors, if you go back
(16:19):
to my therapy can include the talking and the listening
and the skills space. I would say counselors are trained
to do their listening and the soundboarding, but they might
not do the learning or the skills component to their therapy.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
Can I just ask a question to clarify if you
saw what were seeing a psychotherapist and they are they
trying to pick up if they suspect something else is
going on to refer you to a psychologist or a psychiatrist.
Speaker 3 (16:46):
I think it depends on who you see. Lou So,
like I've known, I've actually known quite a lot of
psychotherapists that have got nursing backgrounds. That seems to be
a pathway where nurses go into psychotherapy. I think good
psychotherapy absolutely, if they thought that there was more going on,
would refer you to your GP autopsychiatrist or a psychologist
(17:09):
if they thought that skill learning would be useful. I
think any good clinician can see beyond their scope in
terms of what sits with them in where else you
might need input, But that would come down to the individual.
Speaker 2 (17:22):
Therapist and an occupational therapist.
Speaker 3 (17:26):
Ah see, that's kind of outside my scroup. An occupational therapist.
So like when I've worked with OTS has been in
hospital teams, for example, a a distant in the older
person's service, and so I as the clin siles the
internet year, I'd go with the clin CYC and we'd
go into doing neuroassessments around dementia or Alzheimer's or mood
(17:47):
in an older adult, and the OT might then come
in and assess how they're functionally living and what support
they need to be able to engage in the world
around them. So from quite a different perspective.
Speaker 2 (18:01):
No, that that makes a lot of sense. I remember
when my daughter was getting help and they said, and
she's going to work with this occupational therapist and they
introduced us to this lovely woman and a shout out
to Lucy. She was amazing. But literally, as we're walking
to meet her, I'm trying to quickly Google what is
an occupational therapist? Because okay, great, this is sounds fantastic. Guys,
why I wished? What do they do? You know, it's
(18:22):
pretty incredible.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
I work at the University of Auckland and we don't
have a lot. The department that i'mon doesn't have a
lot to do with them, but I do. I am
friends with some of the neuropsych team, and there rehab
stuff like from brain injury.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
So there's done.
Speaker 1 (18:35):
You know, you can acquire something which will require you
to need a clinical psychologist to re have you and
again with it occupational therapist and so forth. Or so
that's the thing. Even with that, there's acquired things. There's
predisposition things or genetic things, and there's things that happened
to us. There's so many different reasons to need to
(18:56):
see a therapist or to want to see a therapy.
You know, because I didn't have a trauma per se.
Last year when I went to have some sessions with
a psychotherapist, I just had something that was buzzing, like
it was like a fly. I just couldn't get rid
of it, you know, and I was worried about, you know,
down the line, if I didn't address that would turn
into an anxiety and then you know, but what if
(19:18):
you say, Francisca, your daughter, you knew that you needed
to get to that next step of a diagnosis of
what is going on for my girl? So I guess
the thing is, how do we know which therapist, which
type of therapist is best for us? I know that's
going to be a hard question to answer.
Speaker 3 (19:31):
It is a trick. That is a tricky question.
Speaker 1 (19:33):
And so.
Speaker 3 (19:35):
There's kind of two pathways to go down low. So
at an outset when you look at success rates and therapy,
the therapeutic rapport or the relationship or how comfortable you
feel or how supported you feel by the therapist is
the most important factor in shift and change, I suppose
from a therapeutic perspective. But that I think is when
(19:58):
you have a general life stuff that you want to
work on, or if your mood is low or you're
feeling anxious, Like for me, that's quite generic and a
psychotherapist or a registered psyche or a clin cych could
help you with that. That's quite different to you coming
to me and saying I'm experiencing post traumatic stress disorder
(20:22):
or I've got historic trauma in my life that's now
plaguing my day to day life. And I would look
at that and go, okay, well that's a type of
therapy that I think would be useful. And who is
a clinician? I would say Eye Movement, Desensitization and Reprocessing
EMDR is gold standard for trauma. You need to find
(20:43):
a therapist that is EMDR registered, and that could be
a clin sych or it could be a registered site,
or it could be a psychotherapist, you know, but you're
looking for a specific modality. So you've got different types
of therapists and then different types of therapy modality. So
you've got EMDR which is for trauma. You've got neurosychs
(21:04):
which might be much better equipped at diagnosing neurodiversity for example,
or working with people who have had brain injuries. You've
got acceptance and commitment therapy, which is a type of
therapy to help people regulate emotions, manage life stresses. Basically,
the cracks of act accepts and commitment is that sometimes
(21:27):
life is shit, So let's stop fighting the fact that
live shit and get strategies to walk alongside the shit.
Or CBT cognitive behavior therapy, which is about trying to
change your thinking, shift your thinking. There's a whole raft
of modalities in therapy, and so I think if you've
got general life stuff you probably can look across the board.
If you've got something very specific, you'd want someone with
(21:49):
expertise in their area.
Speaker 2 (21:51):
And is our first step then our GP is that
are they the best person too, you know, to discuss
what might be going on and to help you find
that right direction to headen If you've got a good GP, yes,
I thought you're going to knew you're going to say
that JKI. Yes, yes, the port of court would be
(22:11):
the GP. But everyone will be able to look in
the mirror and go, do I have a good GP
or not? Does my GP listen to me? Does my
GP understand? Do they take the time with me? Have
they got good networks around who to.
Speaker 3 (22:24):
Refer me to? And some gps will be better than
others at doing that.
Speaker 2 (22:28):
So if you think your GP isn't the person to
talk to, where do you go?
Speaker 1 (22:32):
What do you do?
Speaker 3 (22:33):
Find a new GP? It's again about kind of that relationship, right.
You need to feel listened to and you need to
feel like someone is taking you seriously. There's a significant
part in engaging with someone and enabling them to have
the setup to make shift and change is you have
to feel psychologically safe, to be vulnerable, to be open.
(22:55):
And if you don't feel comfortable with someone, pretty unlikely
that you are going to engage you'll open up or share.
So that relationship is really important. And I know that
that's someone is going to say, I are all well
and good Jeckie and the ideal will but you have
to wait six weeks to even get into the GP.
Little one me being able to find a GP that
I like, And then I'd say, if you don't have
(23:17):
the option of changing GPS and be the squeaky will
keep asking.
Speaker 1 (23:21):
I think it's really interesting. I think the first time
I went to a psychologist, I was referred by the GP.
I had somehow anxiety this as well before my actual
incidence of poor health. And then the psychologist that I saw,
I was really lucky and had house insurance and I
went through Canopy here for my cancer care and they
the whole idea of the canopy is that everything's kind
(23:44):
of under that under that one veranda like, And they
had a psychologist that they referred me to for you know,
just help what I was going through chemo. Not every
single person is going to need it, but it's there.
And then I think, because my experience, you know, you
start acum of that experience, you go, oh, I know,
I know I need to talk more than I need
(24:04):
to just talk to Francisco about this. You start to go, oh,
I need, I need some external person in my life.
And I think, so the more you do it, the
more you realize you can go and find that. But
that's that first initial contact with someone. You might need
some professional guidance.
Speaker 3 (24:21):
And that's what breaks my heart is when I hear
people that have gone to someone and it's not been
the right fash and they've had a bad experience, and
therefore they think, I'm never going to go back. And
so I think it's about assuring those individuals that, you know, unfortunately,
not everyone in the profession is amazing. You'd never find
(24:41):
a fully amazing, you know, not all journalists are amazing,
not all doctors are amazing, not all therapists will be amazing.
Hopefully the majority are. And if it wasn't the right fit,
try again, and you know, go and see somebody else,
or look for someone with different training or try and
find a recommendation for someone you know and trust about
who they are, would you know, engage with or do
(25:02):
they know any names to see if you try and
can get that right fit and you know, interesting talking about,
you know, if you've had cancer and you want support
through that. I'm in a world surrounded by therapists. My
godmother is a clinical psych She lives on the Gold Coast,
who husband died of cancer, and she now most of
her work is supporting people with cancer or who are
(25:23):
supporting loved ones of cancer with cancer. But she's kind
of got real insight and knowledge into that as well.
Whereas if I say it in a room with someone
I haven't had that personal experience, I might be a
good therapist, but I might also not fully get it.
And so again I think it's you as a as
a client going Is that really important to me that
the person I'm talking to actually gets what I'm talking about?
Speaker 2 (25:46):
It took you a long time to find someone who
could help you. I did. I did go to a queen,
Sure I did well.
Speaker 1 (25:54):
I had a lot that we're trying to tell me
that probably that the one that you see before the
act of trying to accept it was shit where I'm
a little bit of a no no, not going to
not fly with me, But actually I found one that
could work with a person like me going through a
thing that she's worked with loads and loads of time.
So yeah, that's I mean the same. Don't go to
(26:15):
a dentist that's not dealt with this problem that you're
having with your teeth. You need to go to somebody
who's well, I think I've benefited most from somebody who's
who I know and can trust, has seen this before, Jackie.
Speaker 2 (26:27):
If you do head to someone and you think to yourself,
I'm not feeling comfortable here. I'm not sure this is
quite what I expected or that it's working. What's appropriate?
Do you do one session and go I don't like that.
Do you do two and say I'm sorry, this isn't working.
How long do you stick it at all?
Speaker 3 (26:44):
I think you have to reflect about whether you didn't
like the session because you didn't gel with them. Did
you not like the session because it made you uncomfortable
and the topics are hard to talk about. Did you
not like the session because you thought they didn't have
the skill set to help you, like you know, you
need to kind of reflect for yourself about what you
didn't like about it. I've been to see someone before
(27:07):
and we were just totally the wrong personality fit. I
never went back. I've been to see people and I thought, yeah,
this is useful, but actually I need a different skill set,
so I'm going to go and see someone else with
a different skill set. So I think it's just about
being clear about what wasn't right. If it's uncomfortable but
they're good, maybe go back and try it again. No,
and talk to them about the fact that it was
(27:28):
hard and uncomfortable, like name it and have that a
part of the therapy session. Because is that a pattern
in other things in your life that you want to
run away when things are uncomfortable? And how does that
then impact your life in the things that are happening
for you? Is that can you bring that into a
working part of the session.
Speaker 1 (27:47):
Yeah. I've definitely had conversations with people when they've said, oh, yeah,
I tried therapy, it wasn't for me, and it probably wasn't.
It's not that therapy is not for them, it's that whatever,
for whatever reasons the reasons you've described, it wasn't right
for them at that time or too hard or whatever.
Speaker 3 (28:03):
I often hear that load from people that use their
EAP program at work Employer's Assistance program, which lots of
organizations will have signed up to an EAP provider. We
generally get three free sessions, and that's like a melting
pot of therapists. I hear all kinds of stories. There
will be some great people in there and potentially some
that have got very different lines of thinking around therapy.
(28:25):
And so I'm really persistent with people about if that
wasn't the right foot, try someone else.
Speaker 2 (28:31):
That's what I took advantage of here at MZPA when
my daughter was very unwell and I just needed some
help in trying to support her, and I was sent
to a psychotherapist. And once again as I'm walking in
googling what is a psychotherapist, and I didn't really know
(28:51):
what to expect. I was really hoping I was going
to walk in and she was going to tell me
what to do and how to deal with everything. And
yet I got someone who, as you was talking about before, listened,
was very empathetic and understanding and asked the right questions
and we dealt with some very dark and difficult things
(29:12):
and I hadn't realized, you know. And even though I
sort of walked down after that first one, going oh, okay,
she hasn't fixed everything for me. She hasn't told me
what to do and how to do it, which is
what I was really hoping over a series of those
three sessions. My goodness, it was fantastic what I got
out of it and how I came out the other
end of it, and I kind of got you know,
(29:33):
I wonder what should we expect from a session when
we head into it? Is it actually when you book
with someone, is it actually worthwhile going hey, look, can
you just explain to me what the first session will
be about and what should I expect from it?
Speaker 3 (29:50):
I think you could try and do that. The reality
is that the workforce is under such pressure. I don't
know if you'll find a clinician with it time to
be able to do that with you, and so whether
you have to take part of your first session to
talk about that. Okay, I think reading people's profiles off
they've got good websites, you absolutely can ask and hopefully
(30:12):
someone will have the capacity to answer that. But if
you've got someone who is you know, full or their
weightless shut or they've just opened up a spot. You know,
I think we've got to face people with the reality
that maybe the clinician doesn't have the time to do that.
So but I think they're good questions, and when I
tuned up, I would ask them, you know, what can
I expect from me? If someone said, Jackie, if I
(30:33):
was going to an initial session, what would be the
aim of that? And I would hope the aim for
that individual walking into that therapy per room is that
the therapist gets a really clear understanding of why they're there,
that there's a shared sense around what the goals are
for therapy, a conversation around perhaps how long you'd been
(30:55):
needing to engage with them for to see that shift
and change. Because if you come in to me because
you want to work through a life transition or changing
of a job, you know, that's very different to someone
walking and saying, you know, I feel like I'm really
overwhelmed and I can't take a grasp on life because
I had these awful things happened to me twenty five
(31:17):
years ago and they have like played throughout my life.
Like you're talking long term work with someone, right, So
you know, can the therapist give you some understanding around
how long they think they need to work with you,
and can you get a sense about what that would
look like with the therapist. So I would say that
as my job as a therapist to as I've got
(31:38):
while you're here, we've got to understanding of what we're
trying to work for, and this is how I would
envision that looking that.
Speaker 2 (31:43):
Is probably how most people do turn up at the sessions.
That they are brilliant questions, and I wish I'd known them.
I think maybe at that point I was in such
a place that I really couldn't sort of think clearly.
Speaker 1 (31:53):
Just plunking yourself in front of them.
Speaker 2 (31:55):
And couldn't really think clearly. I just knew I needed
to be there. But that's that's excellent advice.
Speaker 3 (32:01):
And so I work in a coaching capacity, actually more
than a therapy. I provide executive coaching to leaders. And
so one of my questions is how much do you
want me to challenge you? Do you want me to
listen or do you want me to challenge you?
Speaker 2 (32:15):
What do people mostly say?
Speaker 3 (32:16):
Are varied, right, because I guess even.
Speaker 1 (32:19):
You know these executive leaders or people at the top
of the game, what if they're still bringing their own
personal stuff, aren't they to totally?
Speaker 3 (32:25):
You know, I don't think you can separate work in life.
Speaker 2 (32:29):
You're listening to the little things, and I guess on
the podcast today as clinical psychologist Jackie maguire, we'll be
back after this break.
Speaker 1 (32:43):
Jackie, you were talking about modalities. I've heard a lot
about a thing called positive psychology. Can you quickly tell us?
I don't know if anyone else if our listeners have
been hearing this in the zeitgeist, but I sently have.
What is positive psychology?
Speaker 3 (32:56):
So positive psychology was born out of a American psychologists
called Martin Seligman, and he's very well known, and to
paraphrase him, he said, look, for decades, psychologists have focused
on getting people from terrible to average. Like we're deficit based.
We're always looking at how we can support people with
problems and just get them to baseline. But actually, how
(33:18):
do we help people flourish? And that's the term that's
used in positive psychology. How do we help people live
their best lives, to be engaged, to have meaning in
their life, to get the goodness out of life. And
so positive psychology is based on a model called perma,
which talks about things like how frequent do you experience
(33:39):
positive emotion in your every day? We know that to
optimally function we need more positive than negative emotions, from
a thinking space, from being engaged in the world around you.
Negative emotions will keep you alive. Positive emotions will help
you flourish. It's things like your relationships. How well connected
are you to people? Having good reciprocal relationships are absolutely
(34:04):
key to life. We are designed to be part of
a tribe. If you were on your own, historically, you
would have been a dinner to an animal. So we've
got hard wiring to connect. So how good are your relationships?
How much meaning do you have in your life? Or
do you have purpose or a sense of why you
get up in the morning. That's really important. Do we
focus on what we achieve in life? Because actually been
(34:26):
able to take note of the things you are successful in,
what you feel like, you've got a sense of mastery
and your accomplishments. You know, that is really important in
terms of being able to help you flourish. So positive
psychology very much is about proactive strategies that help you
be at the top of your mental health sphere.
Speaker 1 (34:45):
Thank you Jackie, you have encapsulated that beautifully.
Speaker 2 (34:48):
Some of us, as you mentioned before, some of us
are very proactive and voluntarily go to therapy. Other people
may have it's been suggested to them that they get
some therapy and they're not quite so willing either way.
How do we make sure that we get the most
out of a session.
Speaker 3 (35:10):
I think you need to want to be there. I
think if you're in a partnership and you're encouraging your
partner or your child to go to therapy and they
do not want to be in the room, A good
therapist may be able to bring them around, you know,
if they're exceptional what they do, and they can engage
the individual and they can help them find their own
(35:30):
goals and purpose for being there. But I think if
you want real shift and change, there has to be
intrinsic motivation to turn up and engage in that process
if you're going to get full value out of it.
And we can probably all have experiences of where we've
been somewhere and not wanted to have been there, and
(35:51):
you'll only get a small percentage of value, if any.
Speaker 1 (35:54):
That must be hard when you're talking about couple therapy
or family therapy, and there's no way you're going to
get everybody in a mean necessarily wanting to be there.
Speaker 3 (36:01):
And that requires systems therapy, right, which again we didn't
really talk about. But there are specialist family therapists. If
you are engaged, for example, in a child in adolescent
mental health service through the DHB, you know they have
multi systemic therapists that deal in family systems and that's
their specialty to bring the family on board.
Speaker 1 (36:23):
Gosh, it's an amazing career you can specialize, you know,
in terms of if you were thinking about it, there's
just so many pathways you could potentially take.
Speaker 2 (36:32):
You are very helpful before in giving us questions and
things to think about for our first session to talk
to our therapist about when you go in though, should
you actually be prepared a little bit prepared? Should you
actually have a bit of a maybe jotted down a
list of things that you want to talk about or
(36:54):
you want to touch on all the reason why you're there, Like,
should we actually be a little should we have thought
about it as opposed to just kind of getting their own.
Speaker 1 (37:02):
Letting it all come out, like I do.
Speaker 3 (37:05):
I think if you can, I think if you go
into any meaningful conversation, be it with a therapist, if
you're having to give somebody feedback, if you're talking with
a friend about while you're not sure your friendship feels different.
I don't know if you're going into any hard conversation
or meaningful conversation, I think it's really useful to take
time to prep so your own thinking is clear. I
(37:27):
also think if someone's going into therapy, for example, and
life is really chaotic, things are really hard if they're depressed,
A symptom of depression is that your thinking is unclear.
So so if you are able to that's great. And
if you're not, I think, you know, go with it
and give it. Maybe walking through the door is actually
(37:48):
the biggest step you need to take.
Speaker 1 (37:49):
Do you think people are self diagnosing themselves with things
before they even get there? Okay, what are we most?
Speaker 2 (38:01):
What are we most inclined to?
Speaker 3 (38:03):
Selfdiversity and personality disorders are high on the social media
exposure tracking at the moment, I you know, it's interesting.
We know there is more information out there, as you know,
than ever before. Some of it is helpful, some of
it is unhelpful. You know, it may spur someone to
(38:25):
go Oh, that sounds a bit like me. I might
go and see someone about that. But I think it's
different walking in saying I've noticed these traits in myself
or i've noticed this pattern, I'm keen to seek your advice,
then walking in and saying I've diagnosed myself, you know,
or I've diagnosed my mother, or I've diagnosed my you know, I.
Speaker 2 (38:49):
Know the roots of all my problems and it's not me,
it's them.
Speaker 1 (38:52):
Yeah, that must happen a lot too.
Speaker 3 (38:54):
Yeah, the hard thing about like the old TikTok. I'm
not on top too, but I know it's huge for
young people or you know, looking at I've got ADHD
or blah blah blah. Often the people that are spreading
that information are not experts, and they're talking about their
personal experience. And the thing is, you could have ten
people lined up with ADHD and their worlds are very different,
(39:16):
the way they think is very different, their symptoms are
very different. And so I think it's really important you
see someone who knows what they're doing if you're concerned
or you're querying whether that's you.
Speaker 2 (39:28):
Yeah, no, doctor go.
Speaker 1 (39:29):
We talked about this with a GP recently and doctor
Google has a lot to answer for. One of my
kids came and said, I need to see some of
my mom. I've definitely go i ADHD. And we did
see and we said, look, you know what, I can
kind of see where you might be coming from. But
I'd had been talking with Francisic about her experience with it,
and again not even related, completely different. Right, the psychiatrist,
(39:51):
we've seen them to spend I don't know ten minutes
at the beginning, they mean, you know what, we're going
to stop. You don't have ADHD. He was a bit disappointed,
but he did help him sort his life out, so
still got the right outcome up.
Speaker 3 (40:04):
And then it's like I could listen to someone on TikTok,
or I could go on the ADHD dot org website
and they have got a clinical self assessment there, and
maybe I go and do that that's come from a
reputable source.
Speaker 2 (40:17):
Actually, yes, maybe we should talk about that because there
are some online therapy options and they take some personal information,
they met you with a therapist. Is this a helpful innovation?
Do you think in the delivery of therapy?
Speaker 3 (40:30):
You know, it's really interesting. I actually made my dad,
the social worker put me on to an AI therapy tool,
and I thought, I'm going to go and try it
out right because it's like chtchbt bit for therapy and shit,
it was good. So I was like, if you had
a life issue, like I think you should be using
AI if you've got really complex stuff going on in
(40:53):
your life. But if you were like, how do I
navigate this tricky conversation with my colleague? It was amazing
bloke away and I thought, nine ninety nine for the month, like,
that's pretty good from an AI tool. And so I
think it's about again how you use technology to your advantage,
(41:13):
but having you know, a mindfulness around how you're engaging
with those tools. So there's AI therapy, which I think
you've got life stuff going on, I don't know, give
it a go, might be like, might be really helpful.
Speaker 1 (41:25):
Hopefully it would direct you to someone if it really
thought it was out of its do.
Speaker 3 (41:29):
You'd think so, wouldn't you? But it was like it
was amazing, asked me all these questions and reflect on this,
and I thought, oh, yeah, it's doing a pretty good
job as a psych. I thought I'd vouch for that.
Then I think, if you're using a online kind of
tallyhealth system where you are matched up with a therapist.
(41:52):
I would just say it's the same process as seeing
someone in person. I think I've heard some amazing stories
about people even engaging an e MDR that trauma therapy
with someone online, And again that probably took me by
surprise because I would have thought you needed to be
in the room or at least like when I work
with people. I will work with people online, but only
(42:12):
if I've met them in person first, So I want
it in person relationship to transfer that relationship online. But
I've also heard some really positive stories, so I think
it again comes down to when you're comfortableness sitting in
front of a screen, but that rapport that you build
with a therapist, and do you feel like you can
connect and get to know each other and develop that
(42:33):
relationship virtually.
Speaker 1 (42:35):
I'm just thinking, how because I do use AI a
little bit for bits and pieces of work, sort of
marketing stuff, and I do sometimes think they're getting to
know me quite well.
Speaker 2 (42:46):
It's a bit of a worry.
Speaker 3 (42:48):
As I say, I was quite impressed by its advice.
I thought it was reasonably sound, but.
Speaker 1 (42:53):
You're typing right, and what I liked about saying a
therapist is just talking, just checking yes.
Speaker 3 (42:59):
And as I say, I think it's useful if you've
got a particular something you want to nuts out, if
you want long term therapy work, I wouldn't be doing
that with that.
Speaker 1 (43:06):
But if it is enabling some accessibility, because that was
a sort of thing we wanted to talk about, was
you know, it's as valuable as therapy is, there are
some barriers, and one of the barriers is cost. For
a lot of people, and you and I, we all
might just sit here and say, well, it's an investment
in your well being, much like any other specialty.
Speaker 3 (43:24):
It's a privileged position to be able to say that
it is right.
Speaker 1 (43:27):
We've talked about AAP that's basically you know, if you
are having issue and you are an employed person, check
if your organization uses an EAP service. I've recently learned
that the one that I use actually can even see
members of my family, which is pretty amazing. And it's
six sessions, which is also pretty great. What does acc
(43:47):
do is I understand it's about canceling and therapy, but
it has to be a trauma.
Speaker 2 (43:51):
Is that right?
Speaker 3 (43:53):
Yeah? If it supports people that have experienced sexual trauma
or accident related psychological distress. So you would have a
case manager at acc and it would be talking about
talking with them about accessing support. If you're on a
disability allowance with work and income, they provide x amount
of money per session, maybe seventy dollars a week to
(44:15):
contribute towards They have to fact check me on that.
To contribute towards therapy. There are non for profits that
provide therapy, so gum Boot Friday run a non for profit.
You free access to counseling. If you're a student in
a university, you will have a health service that will
have a full counseling team. So I suppose it depends
(44:38):
on your position in life and what services you are
connected to. But there are some options out there that
provide cheaper or better access.
Speaker 1 (44:48):
To care if you are paying out of pocket.
Speaker 2 (44:52):
Is there a ish kind of price for seeing varies hugely.
Speaker 3 (44:59):
I think the psychology you are looking probably anywhere between
one eight two fifty a session. If you go to
a psychiatrist for an initial assessment, that might cost you
eight hundred to one thousand, and then each session might
be four hundred follow up after that. If you see
a psychotherapist. They may be cheaper than a psych but
(45:21):
maybe not, I would assume, But then I could be
wrong that counselors maybe are the cheaper end of the scale,
But I imagine you're still paying on average one hundred
a session.
Speaker 2 (45:30):
So if it is genuinely out of reach for someone,
what can they do?
Speaker 3 (45:36):
Then? I think it's about who do you have access
to or what's in your community that may be able
to support you. So, if you are a part of
a certain faith, have you got pastoral care in your community?
Have you got someone in your family that or wider
social world that you believe as a trusted advisor that
(45:57):
you may be able to have some conversations with. Of course,
these might not be trained professionals, and that might be
the ideal, but we also know that talking with somebody
that can actively listen, help you regulate, reflect on things
going forward is really valuable. So if I can't access
a professional, is there someone in my world that you
(46:20):
respect that's good at listening, that's good at not jumping
in and just sharing their own advice and opinions? You know,
could you go and have a coffee with them?
Speaker 1 (46:29):
That's something we should probably think about as parents is
not jumping in right. We don't have to actually be
our children's therapist. Sometimes we just have to listen.
Speaker 3 (46:37):
Hard I said, than done. Sit on your hands. It's
a good technique.
Speaker 2 (46:39):
Yeah, Jackie maguire, it has been an absolute delight to
talk to you today. I wish I'd had this conversation
with you about three years ago. Might have been very
helpful on the journey I'm in. But sometimes when you're
thrown into it, you don't have a huge amount of
time to get hit around it. So I'm sure that
this has been very helpful for a lot of our listeners.
Thank you so much, Thank you, jack pleasure So as
(47:05):
I said, Louise, I really wish I'd had that conversation
with Jechie a few years ago. Look, I think when
you're in the middle of a crisis, you kind of
and you're desperate to get help, and you're being sent left,
right and center you don't have and you're just desperate
to get you know, a child and to see someone
who can help you on your way. You don't tend
to sit back and ask lots of questions about this
(47:28):
and that. You kind of go where you're suggested it
goes and you and you kind of go from there,
And that was really interesting. I thought Jackie was so
helpful and so useful on the types of therapists and
the types of therapy. I really liked how she answered
the question when I said, you know, what should you
(47:49):
expect from a session? What should you go in the
questions you should ask? I think that's fantastic. Even if
you've been to therapy before and you end up going
I mean, I'll do that next time I go in.
I'll be a little bit more grown up about things
and not googling things as I'm wondering on.
Speaker 1 (48:04):
Yeah, but that's you're a perfect example. If someone hasn't
had to need it to wanted to seek it before,
then so why would you have had experience of it?
And lots and lots of us will be in that position.
It's knowing that they're there when you need them, but
sometimes it's about knowing that they're there before you need them.
And I just think she made a really good point
(48:27):
about GPS too, like if you don't have that, it's
probably a bit of a flag you could use if
they're not looking able to help me with my mental health,
which can also lead to other physical have physical ramifications.
Then you know, look elsewhere.
Speaker 2 (48:44):
You need to go back and listen to Dr Prey
or Alexander you do to get you motivated to find
the right GP and the right person for you. No,
I just thought that was fantastic. I really appreciated Jackie's
time today. Hey, look resources. If you're concerned for yourself
for a loved one, head to mentalhealth dot org dot
com z. Jackie's website is Jackie MacGuire dot co dot
z and you can find Jackie on her podcast What
(49:06):
Matters Most. Thank you for joining us on our New
Zealand hera podcast series, The Little Things. We hope you
share this podcast with the women in your lives so
that we can all have good, productive conversations with our therapists.
Speaker 1 (49:19):
And you can find this podcast on iHeartRadio or wherever
you get your podcasts. And for more on this and
other topics, head to zid Herald dot co dot z
and we'll catch you next time on the Little Things
Hi. I'm Francesca Rudkin and I'm Louise Arie. And this
is season four of our New Zealand hel podcast, The
Little Things.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
A podcast where we have common sense conversations about women's
well being at all ages and stages. And lou you
and I we've spent many hours either alone or and
a wider group of trail running friends, workshopping a personal
problem or just sort of getting stuff off our minds
just while we run or hike for hours. We can
(00:36):
guyspend three hours in the bush together and come home
and still ring it to other dugs. The other thing
I forgot to Mantua was you. You'd think we'd cover
everything off anyway, while I would argue that running in
nature is therapy on its own. Sometimes the answers we
see cannot be found without the help of a professional
therapy and all its many iterations. Is what we want
to talk about today.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
Yeah, well, you have helped me workshop all sorts of
issues whilst running in the white tackities. But you were
the one, probably on a run that said to me
last year, have you thought about therapy when I was
having one of those you know, cloudy periods where it
was nothing serious, nothing affecting me personally. I just couldn't
see the wood for the trees, and it was good advice.
(01:21):
I've probably sought therapy three or four times in my life.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
For all quite different reasons.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
God, I just stopped. I need to stop banging on
about the bast cancer. But obviously I saw a psychologists
through that process.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
It has been quite a major part of your life,
and I feel like.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
It comes up all the time. But yes, obviously that
was great and she was amazing. Last year was a psychotherapist,
which was more talking, just talking through stuff. Else is
there being There's definitely been another one, maybe a work
related isshoe. Yeah, so, and certainly, and my kids have two,
not for anything too sort of major, but do you
(02:00):
just kind of know when they're not quite right and
seeing them off to someone to have a talk about it.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
But I do wonder whether we often think that whatever
might be going on in our lives isn't major enough
to warrant talking to somebody about it. And I think
that might be a mistake that we make. I mean,
I was look, until a couple of years ago, I'd
thankfully never had to think about or contemplate therapy. And
(02:24):
now I'm just eternally grateful to the therapists that help
my daughter. They helped diagnose and treat her neurodiversity, and
that was just that that was such an eye opening
experience because I was sort of introduced to so many
(02:45):
different kind of therapists. You know, we saw psychiatrist, clinical psychologists,
we work with occupational therapists, and I had sort of
no idea that all these different people kind of were
out there doing such amazing work and you know, could
say saved my daughter's life. And then I got to
a point where I was very exhausted by the whole thing.
(03:07):
And actually it was someone at work who said to
me one day, how you doing. You're a lot a
bit looking a bit tired, and I said, oh, yeah,
you know, it's just it's quite a lot, you know,
supporting somebody else through things. And they said to me, hey,
don't forget endsied me. You know, there is a well
being program here whereby you can get free counseling. And
(03:27):
that was a game changer for me, because we were
spending a lot of money on my daughter's care. I
did not have a spare scent to think about spending
it on myself and getting any help for myself, and
so I was able to access a psychotherapist through work.
I don't even turned up. I don't even know what
a psychotherapist was. I didn't even know what they do.
It didn't even know really what I was going into.
(03:47):
I just knew that it would probably be really beneficial
for me to talk to somebody about what we were
all going through so that I could better support my
family and all my goodness, I had the money, I
think i'd be there all the time. I think I
could do it weekly.
Speaker 1 (04:03):
I could do it weekly forty minutes of somebody listening
to you and.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
Just asking the right question at the right moment. And
it was really hard. I'm not gonna lie like so
at first, I just walked in and I sort of
was like, okay, just sort this out, tell me what
to do, how to deal with this. And so it
took me a little while to work out that's not
exactly what they do, and then we're going to talk
about some very deep, dark, difficult issues. But you know,
five sessions later, I walked out going it's going to
(04:32):
be okay. I'm going to be okay, We're going to
be everything's going to be okay.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
I remember exactly where I was when you rang me
after that session. Really I was running. I was somewhere
in back panel and demain or something.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
Just like to tell people. We don't spend our lives running. No, no, no,
quite busy.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
I was grateful for the company, though, I remember, we're
burning home. We knew and you said, well there was
what wasn't what I was expecting at what it would be.
And I probably psychotherapist wouldn't appreciate me saying this, but
I think of them as like the I like a
fairy godmother of the therapy world that just sitting quietly, absorbing,
(05:12):
like you say, asking the right questions at the right time,
reflecting on what they have learned through their study and
their accumulation of a huge amount of information. And there
seems to be nothing they haven't seen before. So something
that's new to us, it's not new to them. No.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
And I would leave and it would sit with me
for a while, and then a couple of days later,
I'd had this little epiphany and I go, I've worked
it out. And each year I hadn't worked it out,
and she had led me to work it out, you know,
what I mean Like at first, I was like, oh,
hang on, I get this, so you go away, and
it did. It took a little bit of time and
things like that, and I was just like, I've worked
it out.
Speaker 3 (05:48):
Not so much.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
I think you had a bit of help their franchisca
getting to where you needed to go, but it was
an amazing, amazing experience.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
And I think that's that we we think that there's
baggage we have to or this treak or we have
to swim through, and actually, well we may still have
to swim through it, but we can have some company
to make it, you know, a little bit easier. And
that's what I've certainly found. And yeah, obviously I've had
therapy for vastly different reasons, but all in all, they
(06:20):
are very trusted people who we are going to with
in amost sometimes our darkest feeling.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
I think you need to find the right person, yep.
I think you need to go on with an open
mind maybe as to how things are going to unfold.
I think you need to maybe ask some questions about
how it's going to work before you start, so you're
not just sitting there blindly like me, thinking what's going
to happen.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
I'm not sure that was, and I think you have
to be prepared to listen. The last time I finished
my successions last year on the note that she thought
that I could benefit from a different type of therapy,
which must have come from things that I'd said throughout
the sessions that we were having. I was a bit
like when bam, sort of my other shoe out, I'm off,
(07:07):
I'll go back.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
Into the world. You're awesome, I'm out of here, and
she's like.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
Well, you do have had quite a lot of trauma
in your life one way or another, you know, I
think you could benefit from and I just sen, oh, okay,
I'm not ready for that. So I'm hoping today might
be an opportunity to ask us some questions about that
specific type of therapy. And I just felt a little
bit tired at that point. But I you know, when
I've got the STANMDMA, I'm definitely ready to dive back
(07:32):
into it. So yeah, it's definitely not a one size
fit's all, is it.
Speaker 3 (07:35):
No?
Speaker 1 (07:36):
And I just think having someone listen without judgment, I mean,
you and I I think we listened to each other
without judgment most of the time, but we're not equipped
with the skills to answer every question therapy.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
What is it, who should you see? How can you
access what you need? What does it cost? And how
do you get the best out of it? To help
us sort through this, Jackie Maguire is joining us today.
Jackie is a clinical psychologist, right speaker, and media contributor
with a passion for science communication. She is very in demand.
We are so lucky she's found time to speak to us.
(08:08):
Welcome Jackie, Thanks so much for being with us. Look
to start, we're just wondering who should consider therapy. Is
it actually something we should all consider?
Speaker 3 (08:17):
Well, I think it's what lends you look at therapy
through low and so I think all of us actually
can gain benefit from therapy if we're wanting to engage
with a therapist and if we have something in particular
we're wanting to engage on. I think probably for the
majority of the population, we think about therapy from a
deficit point of view, aka you go and see someone
(08:39):
when something is wrong. I was raised by a psychologist
and a social worker, so in my house growing up,
therapy was very much viewed through a toll lens of
if you're stuck or you're wanting to learn skills, or
you're in a transition in life, you know, you can
use therapy co actively, and so I think it's really
(09:02):
important that we can hold both of those elements together
in this conversation, that you can go when stuff's heart
we need some advice or some guidance, and you can go. Actually,
if you're wanting to improve on some things in life?
Speaker 2 (09:14):
Are we a lot more open to therapy these days?
And I only ask that because we talk so much,
we talk so much about our children being resilient and
using and using tools to deal with things like anxiety
and things. Do you think that means that we're sort
of more open to it.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
I think some groups of people are more open to it.
I still think there are cohorts in our communities that
are very skeptical and worried about what therapy means or
what it means to go and see a shrink. So
I can't hand on answer that collectively for everybody in
the community. But yes, I think if you're somebody that
(09:56):
consumes a lot of television, or you read a losh
or you know, you have conversations with people where coaching
or therapy is part of the vernacular, then yes, I
think there is is for summon openness to it. But
also for other people Francisca, if you're worried about what
therapy might uncover, if you're somebody with an avoidant attachment,
(10:20):
or you're somebody that kind of hids in the sand
to keep going, then coming to speak to someone can
be hugely frightening, right because you don't quite have full control,
perhaps about what comes up or how that's going to feel.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
The last time I sought therapy, I thought I'd finish
the successions and dealt with the issue that I'd sort
of gone to deal with, and she was like, wait
a minute. So I haven't gone back yet, but definitely
planning to. So that avoidant attachment thing is probably therapy
speak a little bit. But for people who don't know
(10:55):
what that means, does that just mean I know something's wrong,
I just don't want to face it yet.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
Attachment style comes from when we're young, low and it's
about how we formed a bond with our primary caregiver.
And so you can be securely attached if you had
a parent that met all your needs most of the time.
You can be anxiously attached if you had a parent
that sometimes met your needs and sometimes didn't, which leaves
you with this angst around will you be there for
(11:21):
me or not? Where you can be avoidantly attached. If
you perhaps had a parent or caregiver that couldn't meet
your needs, so you became independent and reliant on yourself,
and so that shapes how we relate all through our life.
I think as adults we can absolutely work with a
therapist and often within partnerships to shift that. But it's
(11:42):
almost like your blueprint for how you connect and relate
in the world. And if you adaptively as a child
became very self reliant. And then someone's talking about therapy,
where a lot of the golden therapy comes from the
relationship with the therapist and leaning into support and you know,
learning a new way of being in that therapeutic dynamic.
(12:06):
For someone that has been so self reliant, I mean,
that's going to feel very uncomfortable and strange.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
That's really interesting, isn't it, Francisca. I'm just thinking generationally,
the way children have been raised has been different too
over the last say, fifty sixty years, So we might
have generations ahead of us who are a little bit
more avoid and detached. You know, well, you don't talk
about your problems, you just get on with it or
so forth.
Speaker 3 (12:33):
But you also may have cohorts of younger people whose
parents were so involved they never developed the ability to
do things on their own, which is just as stabilitating.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
If only we could nail that middle ground there, if only,
if only, so, can you please talk us through the
different options for therapy and who we can see as
a psychologist, counselor There's so many many different people out
there who can help us.
Speaker 3 (13:02):
It's pretty confusing for the general population, right and something Actually,
as a psychologist, I have to take great care in
describing different roles in how people work because it's contentious
and different professions I think sometimes can feel like other
professions are putting them down when they talk about how
they work. So I'm going to be really careful and
(13:23):
how I describe this. But yes, psychologist, So I'm a
clinical psychologist. I suppose in a nutshell psychologists are science trained.
And the word I would use to describe how a
clinical psychologist works as we formulate. So we meet someone
and we want to understand what's going on for you, now,
the background, what's led to you developing the particular challenge
(13:45):
that you're having, what keeps that going or what perpetuates
or maintains that. What are the strengths that you have
that are protective for you, Like we build a narrative,
I suppose around all those elements, and then using science
and evidence based techniques, we would work with you to
move you in the direction you're wanting to go. Or
(14:06):
if you're coming to therapy proactively and you're like, I
don't feel like I'm thriving or I feel like I
could be doing better, what do we know from an
evidence base that could support you with your goals? So
that's really I suppose thinking about therapy as, yes, you've
got someone that can listen and empathize and understand, but
that's only one part of therapy from a psychological point
(14:28):
of view. The other is you've got somebody in that
therapeutic dynamic that can guide and help you learn. So
I think a psychologist brings both of those elements, the
listening and the learning. The difference between a clinical psychologist
and a registered psychologist is that clinical psychologists have been
trained to diagnose mental illness. So if you're wanting a
(14:49):
diagnosis of depression or ADHD or you know that is
in our training to be able to do that. But
you talk to a room full of clinical sites, some
will think diagnosing and putting labels on things as helpful
and others won't, so you know, there is of course
variance in the profession. A psychotherapist is trained in psychoanalytic theory,
and you can think of Freud when you think of psychoanalysis,
(15:13):
and I know some wonderful psychotherapists. They're very focused on
your start to life, your childhood, the patterns and relationships
that you've had, your attachment to emotion or your experience
of emotion. So they kind of take you to look
back to help you move forward. So probably less like
(15:34):
scientific on skills, but more understanding relationships in your world
and how that's mapped out your thinking and your beliefs
about the world. Psychiatrists adopts, So just like you have
a pediatrician or an orthopedic surgeon, you have psychiatrists. They're specialists,
but they're specialists with a medical background that then train
in mental health. So if you are needing prescription drugs
(15:56):
for some form of mental illness, that would be a
psychiatrist set describe those So, for example, I know there's
a lot of focus on neurodiversity and take ADHD for example,
A clinical psychologist could diagnose you, but we couldn't then
prescribe medication for that. A psychiatrist would do that. And
then you have counselors. So counselors, if you go back
(16:19):
to my therapy can include the talking and the listening
and the skills space. I would say counselors are trained
to do their listening and the soundboarding, but they might
not do the learning or the skills component to their therapy.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
Can I just ask a question to clarify if you
saw what were seeing a psychotherapist and they are they
trying to pick up if they suspect something else is
going on to refer you to a psychologist or a psychiatrist.
Speaker 3 (16:46):
I think it depends on who you see. Lou So,
like I've known, I've actually known quite a lot of
psychotherapists that have got nursing backgrounds. That seems to be
a pathway where nurses go into psychotherapy. I think good
psychotherapy absolutely, if they thought that there was more going on,
would refer you to your GP autopsychiatrist or a psychologist
(17:09):
if they thought that skill learning would be useful. I
think any good clinician can see beyond their scope in
terms of what sits with them in where else you
might need input, But that would come down to the individual.
Speaker 2 (17:22):
Therapist and an occupational therapist.
Speaker 3 (17:26):
Ah see, that's kind of outside my scroup. An occupational therapist.
So like when I've worked with OTS has been in
hospital teams, for example, a a distant in the older
person's service, and so I as the clin siles the
internet year, I'd go with the clin CYC and we'd
go into doing neuroassessments around dementia or Alzheimer's or mood
(17:47):
in an older adult, and the OT might then come
in and assess how they're functionally living and what support
they need to be able to engage in the world
around them. So from quite a different perspective.
Speaker 2 (18:01):
No, that that makes a lot of sense. I remember
when my daughter was getting help and they said, and
she's going to work with this occupational therapist and they
introduced us to this lovely woman and a shout out
to Lucy. She was amazing. But literally, as we're walking
to meet her, I'm trying to quickly Google what is
an occupational therapist? Because okay, great, this is sounds fantastic. Guys,
why I wished? What do they do? You know, it's
(18:22):
pretty incredible.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
I work at the University of Auckland and we don't
have a lot. The department that i'mon doesn't have a
lot to do with them, but I do. I am
friends with some of the neuropsych team, and there rehab
stuff like from brain injury.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
So there's done.
Speaker 1 (18:35):
You know, you can acquire something which will require you
to need a clinical psychologist to re have you and
again with it occupational therapist and so forth. Or so
that's the thing. Even with that, there's acquired things. There's
predisposition things or genetic things, and there's things that happened
to us. There's so many different reasons to need to
(18:56):
see a therapist or to want to see a therapy.
You know, because I didn't have a trauma per se.
Last year when I went to have some sessions with
a psychotherapist, I just had something that was buzzing, like
it was like a fly. I just couldn't get rid
of it, you know, and I was worried about, you know,
down the line, if I didn't address that would turn
into an anxiety and then you know, but what if
(19:18):
you say, Francisca, your daughter, you knew that you needed
to get to that next step of a diagnosis of
what is going on for my girl? So I guess
the thing is, how do we know which therapist, which
type of therapist is best for us? I know that's
going to be a hard question to answer.
Speaker 3 (19:31):
It is a trick. That is a tricky question.
Speaker 1 (19:33):
And so.
Speaker 3 (19:35):
There's kind of two pathways to go down low. So
at an outset when you look at success rates and therapy,
the therapeutic rapport or the relationship or how comfortable you
feel or how supported you feel by the therapist is
the most important factor in shift and change, I suppose
from a therapeutic perspective. But that I think is when
(19:58):
you have a general life stuff that you want to
work on, or if your mood is low or you're
feeling anxious, Like for me, that's quite generic and a
psychotherapist or a registered psyche or a clin cych could
help you with that. That's quite different to you coming
to me and saying I'm experiencing post traumatic stress disorder
(20:22):
or I've got historic trauma in my life that's now
plaguing my day to day life. And I would look
at that and go, okay, well that's a type of
therapy that I think would be useful. And who is
a clinician? I would say Eye Movement, Desensitization and Reprocessing
EMDR is gold standard for trauma. You need to find
(20:43):
a therapist that is EMDR registered, and that could be
a clin sych or it could be a registered site,
or it could be a psychotherapist, you know, but you're
looking for a specific modality. So you've got different types
of therapists and then different types of therapy modality. So
you've got EMDR which is for trauma. You've got neurosychs
(21:04):
which might be much better equipped at diagnosing neurodiversity for example,
or working with people who have had brain injuries. You've
got acceptance and commitment therapy, which is a type of
therapy to help people regulate emotions, manage life stresses. Basically,
the cracks of act accepts and commitment is that sometimes
(21:27):
life is shit, So let's stop fighting the fact that
live shit and get strategies to walk alongside the shit.
Or CBT cognitive behavior therapy, which is about trying to
change your thinking, shift your thinking. There's a whole raft
of modalities in therapy, and so I think if you've
got general life stuff you probably can look across the board.
If you've got something very specific, you'd want someone with
(21:49):
expertise in their area.
Speaker 2 (21:51):
And is our first step then our GP is that
are they the best person too, you know, to discuss
what might be going on and to help you find
that right direction to headen If you've got a good GP, yes,
I thought you're going to knew you're going to say
that JKI. Yes, yes, the port of court would be
(22:11):
the GP. But everyone will be able to look in
the mirror and go, do I have a good GP
or not? Does my GP listen to me? Does my
GP understand? Do they take the time with me? Have
they got good networks around who to.
Speaker 3 (22:24):
Refer me to? And some gps will be better than
others at doing that.
Speaker 2 (22:28):
So if you think your GP isn't the person to
talk to, where do you go?
Speaker 1 (22:32):
What do you do?
Speaker 3 (22:33):
Find a new GP? It's again about kind of that relationship, right.
You need to feel listened to and you need to
feel like someone is taking you seriously. There's a significant
part in engaging with someone and enabling them to have
the setup to make shift and change is you have
to feel psychologically safe, to be vulnerable, to be open.
(22:55):
And if you don't feel comfortable with someone, pretty unlikely
that you are going to engage you'll open up or share.
So that relationship is really important. And I know that
that's someone is going to say, I are all well
and good Jeckie and the ideal will but you have
to wait six weeks to even get into the GP.
Little one me being able to find a GP that
I like, And then I'd say, if you don't have
(23:17):
the option of changing GPS and be the squeaky will
keep asking.
Speaker 1 (23:21):
I think it's really interesting. I think the first time
I went to a psychologist, I was referred by the GP.
I had somehow anxiety this as well before my actual
incidence of poor health. And then the psychologist that I saw,
I was really lucky and had house insurance and I
went through Canopy here for my cancer care and they
the whole idea of the canopy is that everything's kind
(23:44):
of under that under that one veranda like, And they
had a psychologist that they referred me to for you know,
just help what I was going through chemo. Not every
single person is going to need it, but it's there.
And then I think, because my experience, you know, you
start acum of that experience, you go, oh, I know,
I know I need to talk more than I need
(24:04):
to just talk to Francisco about this. You start to go, oh,
I need, I need some external person in my life.
And I think, so the more you do it, the
more you realize you can go and find that. But
that's that first initial contact with someone. You might need
some professional guidance.
Speaker 3 (24:21):
And that's what breaks my heart is when I hear
people that have gone to someone and it's not been
the right fash and they've had a bad experience, and
therefore they think, I'm never going to go back. And
so I think it's about assuring those individuals that, you know, unfortunately,
not everyone in the profession is amazing. You'd never find
(24:41):
a fully amazing, you know, not all journalists are amazing,
not all doctors are amazing, not all therapists will be amazing.
Hopefully the majority are. And if it wasn't the right fit,
try again, and you know, go and see somebody else,
or look for someone with different training or try and
find a recommendation for someone you know and trust about
who they are, would you know, engage with or do
(25:02):
they know any names to see if you try and
can get that right fit and you know, interesting talking about,
you know, if you've had cancer and you want support
through that. I'm in a world surrounded by therapists. My
godmother is a clinical psych She lives on the Gold Coast,
who husband died of cancer, and she now most of
her work is supporting people with cancer or who are
(25:23):
supporting loved ones of cancer with cancer. But she's kind
of got real insight and knowledge into that as well.
Whereas if I say it in a room with someone
I haven't had that personal experience, I might be a
good therapist, but I might also not fully get it.
And so again I think it's you as a as
a client going Is that really important to me that
the person I'm talking to actually gets what I'm talking about?
Speaker 2 (25:46):
It took you a long time to find someone who
could help you. I did. I did go to a queen,
Sure I did well.
Speaker 1 (25:54):
I had a lot that we're trying to tell me
that probably that the one that you see before the
act of trying to accept it was shit where I'm
a little bit of a no no, not going to
not fly with me, But actually I found one that
could work with a person like me going through a
thing that she's worked with loads and loads of time.
So yeah, that's I mean the same. Don't go to
(26:15):
a dentist that's not dealt with this problem that you're
having with your teeth. You need to go to somebody
who's well, I think I've benefited most from somebody who's
who I know and can trust, has seen this before, Jackie.
Speaker 2 (26:27):
If you do head to someone and you think to yourself,
I'm not feeling comfortable here. I'm not sure this is
quite what I expected or that it's working. What's appropriate?
Do you do one session and go I don't like that.
Do you do two and say I'm sorry, this isn't working.
How long do you stick it at all?
Speaker 3 (26:44):
I think you have to reflect about whether you didn't
like the session because you didn't gel with them. Did
you not like the session because it made you uncomfortable
and the topics are hard to talk about. Did you
not like the session because you thought they didn't have
the skill set to help you, like you know, you
need to kind of reflect for yourself about what you
didn't like about it. I've been to see someone before
(27:07):
and we were just totally the wrong personality fit. I
never went back. I've been to see people and I thought, yeah,
this is useful, but actually I need a different skill set,
so I'm going to go and see someone else with
a different skill set. So I think it's just about
being clear about what wasn't right. If it's uncomfortable but
they're good, maybe go back and try it again. No,
and talk to them about the fact that it was
(27:28):
hard and uncomfortable, like name it and have that a
part of the therapy session. Because is that a pattern
in other things in your life that you want to
run away when things are uncomfortable? And how does that
then impact your life in the things that are happening
for you? Is that can you bring that into a
working part of the session.
Speaker 1 (27:47):
Yeah. I've definitely had conversations with people when they've said, oh, yeah,
I tried therapy, it wasn't for me, and it probably wasn't.
It's not that therapy is not for them, it's that whatever,
for whatever reasons the reasons you've described, it wasn't right
for them at that time or too hard or whatever.
Speaker 3 (28:03):
I often hear that load from people that use their
EAP program at work Employer's Assistance program, which lots of
organizations will have signed up to an EAP provider. We
generally get three free sessions, and that's like a melting
pot of therapists. I hear all kinds of stories. There
will be some great people in there and potentially some
that have got very different lines of thinking around therapy.
(28:25):
And so I'm really persistent with people about if that
wasn't the right foot, try someone else.
Speaker 2 (28:31):
That's what I took advantage of here at MZPA when
my daughter was very unwell and I just needed some
help in trying to support her, and I was sent
to a psychotherapist. And once again as I'm walking in
googling what is a psychotherapist, and I didn't really know
(28:51):
what to expect. I was really hoping I was going
to walk in and she was going to tell me
what to do and how to deal with everything. And
yet I got someone who, as you was talking about before, listened,
was very empathetic and understanding and asked the right questions
and we dealt with some very dark and difficult things
(29:12):
and I hadn't realized, you know. And even though I
sort of walked down after that first one, going oh, okay,
she hasn't fixed everything for me. She hasn't told me
what to do and how to do it, which is
what I was really hoping over a series of those
three sessions. My goodness, it was fantastic what I got
out of it and how I came out the other
end of it, and I kind of got you know,
(29:33):
I wonder what should we expect from a session when
we head into it? Is it actually when you book
with someone, is it actually worthwhile going hey, look, can
you just explain to me what the first session will
be about and what should I expect from it?
Speaker 3 (29:50):
I think you could try and do that. The reality
is that the workforce is under such pressure. I don't
know if you'll find a clinician with it time to
be able to do that with you, and so whether
you have to take part of your first session to
talk about that. Okay, I think reading people's profiles off
they've got good websites, you absolutely can ask and hopefully
(30:12):
someone will have the capacity to answer that. But if
you've got someone who is you know, full or their
weightless shut or they've just opened up a spot. You know,
I think we've got to face people with the reality
that maybe the clinician doesn't have the time to do that.
So but I think they're good questions, and when I
tuned up, I would ask them, you know, what can
I expect from me? If someone said, Jackie, if I
(30:33):
was going to an initial session, what would be the
aim of that? And I would hope the aim for
that individual walking into that therapy per room is that
the therapist gets a really clear understanding of why they're there,
that there's a shared sense around what the goals are
for therapy, a conversation around perhaps how long you'd been
(30:55):
needing to engage with them for to see that shift
and change. Because if you come in to me because
you want to work through a life transition or changing
of a job, you know, that's very different to someone
walking and saying, you know, I feel like I'm really
overwhelmed and I can't take a grasp on life because
I had these awful things happened to me twenty five
(31:17):
years ago and they have like played throughout my life.
Like you're talking long term work with someone, right, So
you know, can the therapist give you some understanding around
how long they think they need to work with you,
and can you get a sense about what that would
look like with the therapist. So I would say that
as my job as a therapist to as I've got
(31:38):
while you're here, we've got to understanding of what we're
trying to work for, and this is how I would
envision that looking that.
Speaker 2 (31:43):
Is probably how most people do turn up at the sessions.
That they are brilliant questions, and I wish I'd known them.
I think maybe at that point I was in such
a place that I really couldn't sort of think clearly.
Speaker 1 (31:53):
Just plunking yourself in front of them.
Speaker 2 (31:55):
And couldn't really think clearly. I just knew I needed
to be there. But that's that's excellent advice.
Speaker 3 (32:01):
And so I work in a coaching capacity, actually more
than a therapy. I provide executive coaching to leaders. And
so one of my questions is how much do you
want me to challenge you? Do you want me to
listen or do you want me to challenge you?
Speaker 2 (32:15):
What do people mostly say?
Speaker 3 (32:16):
Are varied, right, because I guess even.
Speaker 1 (32:19):
You know these executive leaders or people at the top
of the game, what if they're still bringing their own
personal stuff, aren't they to totally?
Speaker 3 (32:25):
You know, I don't think you can separate work in life.
Speaker 2 (32:29):
You're listening to the little things, and I guess on
the podcast today as clinical psychologist Jackie maguire, we'll be
back after this break.
Speaker 1 (32:43):
Jackie, you were talking about modalities. I've heard a lot
about a thing called positive psychology. Can you quickly tell us?
I don't know if anyone else if our listeners have
been hearing this in the zeitgeist, but I sently have.
What is positive psychology?
Speaker 3 (32:56):
So positive psychology was born out of a American psychologists
called Martin Seligman, and he's very well known, and to
paraphrase him, he said, look, for decades, psychologists have focused
on getting people from terrible to average. Like we're deficit based.
We're always looking at how we can support people with
problems and just get them to baseline. But actually, how
(33:18):
do we help people flourish? And that's the term that's
used in positive psychology. How do we help people live
their best lives, to be engaged, to have meaning in
their life, to get the goodness out of life. And
so positive psychology is based on a model called perma,
which talks about things like how frequent do you experience
(33:39):
positive emotion in your every day? We know that to
optimally function we need more positive than negative emotions, from
a thinking space, from being engaged in the world around you.
Negative emotions will keep you alive. Positive emotions will help
you flourish. It's things like your relationships. How well connected
are you to people? Having good reciprocal relationships are absolutely
(34:04):
key to life. We are designed to be part of
a tribe. If you were on your own, historically, you
would have been a dinner to an animal. So we've
got hard wiring to connect. So how good are your relationships?
How much meaning do you have in your life? Or
do you have purpose or a sense of why you
get up in the morning. That's really important. Do we
focus on what we achieve in life? Because actually been
(34:26):
able to take note of the things you are successful in,
what you feel like, you've got a sense of mastery
and your accomplishments. You know, that is really important in
terms of being able to help you flourish. So positive
psychology very much is about proactive strategies that help you
be at the top of your mental health sphere.
Speaker 1 (34:45):
Thank you Jackie, you have encapsulated that beautifully.
Speaker 2 (34:48):
Some of us, as you mentioned before, some of us
are very proactive and voluntarily go to therapy. Other people
may have it's been suggested to them that they get
some therapy and they're not quite so willing either way.
How do we make sure that we get the most
out of a session.
Speaker 3 (35:10):
I think you need to want to be there. I
think if you're in a partnership and you're encouraging your
partner or your child to go to therapy and they
do not want to be in the room, A good
therapist may be able to bring them around, you know,
if they're exceptional what they do, and they can engage
the individual and they can help them find their own
(35:30):
goals and purpose for being there. But I think if
you want real shift and change, there has to be
intrinsic motivation to turn up and engage in that process
if you're going to get full value out of it.
And we can probably all have experiences of where we've
been somewhere and not wanted to have been there, and
(35:51):
you'll only get a small percentage of value, if any.
Speaker 1 (35:54):
That must be hard when you're talking about couple therapy
or family therapy, and there's no way you're going to
get everybody in a mean necessarily wanting to be there.
Speaker 3 (36:01):
And that requires systems therapy, right, which again we didn't
really talk about. But there are specialist family therapists. If
you are engaged, for example, in a child in adolescent
mental health service through the DHB, you know they have
multi systemic therapists that deal in family systems and that's
their specialty to bring the family on board.
Speaker 1 (36:23):
Gosh, it's an amazing career you can specialize, you know,
in terms of if you were thinking about it, there's
just so many pathways you could potentially take.
Speaker 2 (36:32):
You are very helpful before in giving us questions and
things to think about for our first session to talk
to our therapist about when you go in though, should
you actually be prepared a little bit prepared? Should you
actually have a bit of a maybe jotted down a
list of things that you want to talk about or
(36:54):
you want to touch on all the reason why you're there, Like,
should we actually be a little should we have thought
about it as opposed to just kind of getting their own.
Speaker 1 (37:02):
Letting it all come out, like I do.
Speaker 3 (37:05):
I think if you can, I think if you go
into any meaningful conversation, be it with a therapist, if
you're having to give somebody feedback, if you're talking with
a friend about while you're not sure your friendship feels different.
I don't know if you're going into any hard conversation
or meaningful conversation, I think it's really useful to take
time to prep so your own thinking is clear. I
(37:27):
also think if someone's going into therapy, for example, and
life is really chaotic, things are really hard if they're depressed,
A symptom of depression is that your thinking is unclear.
So so if you are able to that's great. And
if you're not, I think, you know, go with it
and give it. Maybe walking through the door is actually
(37:48):
the biggest step you need to take.
Speaker 1 (37:49):
Do you think people are self diagnosing themselves with things
before they even get there? Okay, what are we most?
Speaker 2 (38:01):
What are we most inclined to?
Speaker 3 (38:03):
Selfdiversity and personality disorders are high on the social media
exposure tracking at the moment, I you know, it's interesting.
We know there is more information out there, as you know,
than ever before. Some of it is helpful, some of
it is unhelpful. You know, it may spur someone to
(38:25):
go Oh, that sounds a bit like me. I might
go and see someone about that. But I think it's
different walking in saying I've noticed these traits in myself
or i've noticed this pattern, I'm keen to seek your advice,
then walking in and saying I've diagnosed myself, you know,
or I've diagnosed my mother, or I've diagnosed my you know, I.
Speaker 2 (38:49):
Know the roots of all my problems and it's not me,
it's them.
Speaker 1 (38:52):
Yeah, that must happen a lot too.
Speaker 3 (38:54):
Yeah, the hard thing about like the old TikTok. I'm
not on top too, but I know it's huge for
young people or you know, looking at I've got ADHD
or blah blah blah. Often the people that are spreading
that information are not experts, and they're talking about their
personal experience. And the thing is, you could have ten
people lined up with ADHD and their worlds are very different,
(39:16):
the way they think is very different, their symptoms are
very different. And so I think it's really important you
see someone who knows what they're doing if you're concerned
or you're querying whether that's you.
Speaker 2 (39:28):
Yeah, no, doctor go.
Speaker 1 (39:29):
We talked about this with a GP recently and doctor
Google has a lot to answer for. One of my
kids came and said, I need to see some of
my mom. I've definitely go i ADHD. And we did
see and we said, look, you know what, I can
kind of see where you might be coming from. But
I'd had been talking with Francisic about her experience with it,
and again not even related, completely different. Right, the psychiatrist,
(39:51):
we've seen them to spend I don't know ten minutes
at the beginning, they mean, you know what, we're going
to stop. You don't have ADHD. He was a bit disappointed,
but he did help him sort his life out, so
still got the right outcome up.
Speaker 3 (40:04):
And then it's like I could listen to someone on TikTok,
or I could go on the ADHD dot org website
and they have got a clinical self assessment there, and
maybe I go and do that that's come from a
reputable source.
Speaker 2 (40:17):
Actually, yes, maybe we should talk about that because there
are some online therapy options and they take some personal information,
they met you with a therapist. Is this a helpful innovation?
Do you think in the delivery of therapy?
Speaker 3 (40:30):
You know, it's really interesting. I actually made my dad,
the social worker put me on to an AI therapy tool,
and I thought, I'm going to go and try it
out right because it's like chtchbt bit for therapy and shit,
it was good. So I was like, if you had
a life issue, like I think you should be using
AI if you've got really complex stuff going on in
(40:53):
your life. But if you were like, how do I
navigate this tricky conversation with my colleague? It was amazing
bloke away and I thought, nine ninety nine for the month, like,
that's pretty good from an AI tool. And so I
think it's about again how you use technology to your advantage,
(41:13):
but having you know, a mindfulness around how you're engaging
with those tools. So there's AI therapy, which I think
you've got life stuff going on, I don't know, give
it a go, might be like, might be really helpful.
Speaker 1 (41:25):
Hopefully it would direct you to someone if it really
thought it was out of its do.
Speaker 3 (41:29):
You'd think so, wouldn't you? But it was like it
was amazing, asked me all these questions and reflect on this,
and I thought, oh, yeah, it's doing a pretty good
job as a psych. I thought I'd vouch for that.
Then I think, if you're using a online kind of
tallyhealth system where you are matched up with a therapist.
(41:52):
I would just say it's the same process as seeing
someone in person. I think I've heard some amazing stories
about people even engaging an e MDR that trauma therapy
with someone online, And again that probably took me by
surprise because I would have thought you needed to be
in the room or at least like when I work
with people. I will work with people online, but only
(42:12):
if I've met them in person first, So I want
it in person relationship to transfer that relationship online. But
I've also heard some really positive stories, so I think
it again comes down to when you're comfortableness sitting in
front of a screen, but that rapport that you build
with a therapist, and do you feel like you can
connect and get to know each other and develop that
(42:33):
relationship virtually.
Speaker 1 (42:35):
I'm just thinking, how because I do use AI a
little bit for bits and pieces of work, sort of
marketing stuff, and I do sometimes think they're getting to
know me quite well.
Speaker 2 (42:46):
It's a bit of a worry.
Speaker 3 (42:48):
As I say, I was quite impressed by its advice.
I thought it was reasonably sound, but.
Speaker 1 (42:53):
You're typing right, and what I liked about saying a
therapist is just talking, just checking yes.
Speaker 3 (42:59):
And as I say, I think it's useful if you've
got a particular something you want to nuts out, if
you want long term therapy work, I wouldn't be doing
that with that.
Speaker 1 (43:06):
But if it is enabling some accessibility, because that was
a sort of thing we wanted to talk about, was
you know, it's as valuable as therapy is, there are
some barriers, and one of the barriers is cost. For
a lot of people, and you and I, we all
might just sit here and say, well, it's an investment
in your well being, much like any other specialty.
Speaker 3 (43:24):
It's a privileged position to be able to say that
it is right.
Speaker 1 (43:27):
We've talked about AAP that's basically you know, if you
are having issue and you are an employed person, check
if your organization uses an EAP service. I've recently learned
that the one that I use actually can even see
members of my family, which is pretty amazing. And it's
six sessions, which is also pretty great. What does acc
(43:47):
do is I understand it's about canceling and therapy, but
it has to be a trauma.
Speaker 2 (43:51):
Is that right?
Speaker 3 (43:53):
Yeah? If it supports people that have experienced sexual trauma
or accident related psychological distress. So you would have a
case manager at acc and it would be talking about
talking with them about accessing support. If you're on a
disability allowance with work and income, they provide x amount
of money per session, maybe seventy dollars a week to
(44:15):
contribute towards They have to fact check me on that.
To contribute towards therapy. There are non for profits that
provide therapy, so gum Boot Friday run a non for profit.
You free access to counseling. If you're a student in
a university, you will have a health service that will
have a full counseling team. So I suppose it depends
(44:38):
on your position in life and what services you are
connected to. But there are some options out there that
provide cheaper or better access.
Speaker 1 (44:48):
To care if you are paying out of pocket.
Speaker 2 (44:52):
Is there a ish kind of price for seeing varies hugely.
Speaker 3 (44:59):
I think the psychology you are looking probably anywhere between
one eight two fifty a session. If you go to
a psychiatrist for an initial assessment, that might cost you
eight hundred to one thousand, and then each session might
be four hundred follow up after that. If you see
a psychotherapist. They may be cheaper than a psych but
(45:21):
maybe not, I would assume, But then I could be
wrong that counselors maybe are the cheaper end of the scale,
But I imagine you're still paying on average one hundred
a session.
Speaker 2 (45:30):
So if it is genuinely out of reach for someone,
what can they do?
Speaker 3 (45:36):
Then? I think it's about who do you have access
to or what's in your community that may be able
to support you. So, if you are a part of
a certain faith, have you got pastoral care in your community?
Have you got someone in your family that or wider
social world that you believe as a trusted advisor that
(45:57):
you may be able to have some conversations with. Of course,
these might not be trained professionals, and that might be
the ideal, but we also know that talking with somebody
that can actively listen, help you regulate, reflect on things
going forward is really valuable. So if I can't access
a professional, is there someone in my world that you
(46:20):
respect that's good at listening, that's good at not jumping
in and just sharing their own advice and opinions? You know,
could you go and have a coffee with them?
Speaker 1 (46:29):
That's something we should probably think about as parents is
not jumping in right. We don't have to actually be
our children's therapist. Sometimes we just have to listen.
Speaker 3 (46:37):
Hard I said, than done. Sit on your hands. It's
a good technique.
Speaker 2 (46:39):
Yeah, Jackie maguire, it has been an absolute delight to
talk to you today. I wish I'd had this conversation
with you about three years ago. Might have been very
helpful on the journey I'm in. But sometimes when you're
thrown into it, you don't have a huge amount of
time to get hit around it. So I'm sure that
this has been very helpful for a lot of our listeners.
Thank you so much, Thank you, jack pleasure So as
(47:05):
I said, Louise, I really wish I'd had that conversation
with Jechie a few years ago. Look, I think when
you're in the middle of a crisis, you kind of
and you're desperate to get help, and you're being sent left,
right and center you don't have and you're just desperate
to get you know, a child and to see someone
who can help you on your way. You don't tend
to sit back and ask lots of questions about this
(47:28):
and that. You kind of go where you're suggested it
goes and you and you kind of go from there,
And that was really interesting. I thought Jackie was so
helpful and so useful on the types of therapists and
the types of therapy. I really liked how she answered
the question when I said, you know, what should you
(47:49):
expect from a session? What should you go in the
questions you should ask? I think that's fantastic. Even if
you've been to therapy before and you end up going
I mean, I'll do that next time I go in.
I'll be a little bit more grown up about things
and not googling things as I'm wondering on.
Speaker 1 (48:04):
Yeah, but that's you're a perfect example. If someone hasn't
had to need it to wanted to seek it before,
then so why would you have had experience of it?
And lots and lots of us will be in that position.
It's knowing that they're there when you need them, but
sometimes it's about knowing that they're there before you need them.
And I just think she made a really good point
(48:27):
about GPS too, like if you don't have that, it's
probably a bit of a flag you could use if
they're not looking able to help me with my mental health,
which can also lead to other physical have physical ramifications.
Then you know, look elsewhere.
Speaker 2 (48:44):
You need to go back and listen to Dr Prey
or Alexander you do to get you motivated to find
the right GP and the right person for you. No,
I just thought that was fantastic. I really appreciated Jackie's
time today. Hey, look resources. If you're concerned for yourself
for a loved one, head to mentalhealth dot org dot
com z. Jackie's website is Jackie MacGuire dot co dot
z and you can find Jackie on her podcast What
(49:06):
Matters Most. Thank you for joining us on our New
Zealand hera podcast series, The Little Things. We hope you
share this podcast with the women in your lives so
that we can all have good, productive conversations with our therapists.
Speaker 1 (49:19):
And you can find this podcast on iHeartRadio or wherever
you get your podcasts. And for more on this and
other topics, head to zid Herald dot co dot z
and we'll catch you next time on the Little Things
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com