Christina Kantzavelos is a neurodivergent, and first-generation (third culture) Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW), life coach, writer and chronic illness warrior. She received both her BA and MSW from the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) and her MLIS from San Jose State University (SJSU).
Destiny Winters believes that while chronic illnesses may be incurable, it is absolutely possible to live a life full of meaning and purpose despite persistent pain. Healing relationships is at the cornerstone of her work, as she recognizes that without people to rely on and experience joy with, life can become messy quickly.
In This Episode
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Destiny Winters believes that while chronic illnesses may be incurable, it is absolutely possible to live a life full of meaning and purpose despite persistent pain. Healing relationships is at the cornerstone of her work, as she recognizes that without people to rely on and experience joy with, life can become messy quickly.
In This Episode
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-trauma-therapist--5739761/support.
You can learn more about what I do here:
The Trauma Therapist Newsletter: celebrates the people and voices in the mental health profession. And it's free! Check it out here: https://bit.ly/4jGBeSa
———
If you’d like to support The Trauma Therapist Podcast and the work I do you can do that here with a monthly donation of $5, $7, or $10: Donate to The Trauma Therapist Podcast.
Click here to join my email list and receive podcast updates and other news.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the special guest host series of The Trauma
Therapist Podcast, where I'm going to be handing over the
mic to some incredible guest hosts. In each episode, you'll
hear fresh perspectives and unique insights to inform and inspire
you in all the while keeping the heart of this
podcast alive. So sit back and enjoy.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Hello. Hey, I am so happy to have you on.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
Yes, I'm excited to be here.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Thank you.
Speaker 4 (00:28):
And as we were discussing right before we hit record,
I am thrilled to have more representation of chronic illness
therapists on this.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Podcast because I think thus far I've.
Speaker 4 (00:40):
Been the only one, and there's more than one of
us right in this realm, there's quite a few. And
you actually kind of have a membership and you have
a database, and we're going to talk about that and
get into it. You kind of become the chronic illness
therapist resource hub in essence. So I say, tell us,
(01:01):
tell us yeah often kind of how how you got here?
Speaker 3 (01:04):
Yes? So in that's twenty nineteen, I was still in
grad school. I was trying to figure out like what
I wanted to do. I had some experience with like marketing,
and understanding that finding a niche was kind of important
as far as to help people kind of understand who
(01:25):
you are. And I got my own weird diagnosis of
lime disease. Really, you know, that's a kind of we
you and I kind of know much a lot about
lime and the controversial kind of diagnosis that it is.
But I basically found myself going into support groups online
for lime disease, and I like those support groups made
(01:47):
me feel like I was going to die in like
a week. I mean everything was like worst case scenario
and like all this really really like horrible stuff and
filled with a lot of like uh, very expensive treatments
that like basically didn't really even work anyway. And so
I in that moment, like I left all those groups
(02:09):
after like a week of being in them. I was like,
this is not good, this is not right, And why
aren't there any therapists online? Like at that time, they're
just therapists and medical professionals, even though this was just
five six years ago. We're not online our ethics, our boards,
our licenses, Like we have a lot of fear around
saying the wrong thing or doing the wrong thing and
(02:30):
then losing our license. It's a very real, real fear
or like saying something and then it's misconstrued as medical
advice and then getting So I found myself in this
world trying to figure out what I wanted to do,
what I didn't want to do. I was struggling with
my own health issues, figuring out how to be a therapist.
(02:51):
But then also like, but people are really struggling with
their health, their physical health, and there's not a whole
lot of answers anywhere, really, like in Western med or
in Eastern like philosophies and modalities, like there's there's a
lot of answers, and then there's no answers. So that
was what I found myself struggling with, and I knew
(03:12):
that other people were struggling with this as well too,
So I really took on that role of like, Okay,
we need to be online. I don't know yet what
all of the you know, all of my ethical codes
and mandates and what my abilities are yet to say
certain things online given my license, But I'm going to
(03:32):
figure that out. And that's just always been at the forefront,
Like even before I finished grad school, I always knew
that was where I wanted to spend a lot of
my time and effort and energy as far as what
my I guess to public service work kind of looked like.
So that was another part of it. Like I knew
(03:52):
I didn't want to I knew I didn't have the
energy to be working in agency work that had you
working forty fifty sixty hours week for very very very
low pay, and I knew that my body wasn't going
to be able to handle that. So I this was
my way of like, Okay, you know, start a podcast,
be online. This is stuff that I can do for
(04:15):
free that hopefully touches some people somewhere and is my small,
small way of giving back. So within that, yeah, I
have a membership for for people with chronic pain and
chronic illness. It's more of like a support group kind
of online membership thing. But then for therapists, I also
I have a clinical consult group, a business console group.
(04:37):
Every single month, I have a directory on my website
so that people can go and find therapists who are
licensed in their state, who most of us have our
own lived experience with chronic pain and chronic illness, and
we are also doing this work where we specialize in
working with clients with chronic pain and chronic illness because again,
(04:59):
like we we have that experience of both being the
professional and also being the patient.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
Yeah, both sides, I would say, both sides of the couch.
Speaker 3 (05:07):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 4 (05:09):
It's that an important factor of lived experience where.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
It's like, ah, this person gets it.
Speaker 4 (05:16):
I don't have to give subtitles to that, you know,
because it is so specific, it is so niche, and
it's something you don't quite understand unless you yourself have
the experience or someone very close to you. And I'm
going to bounce a little bit, but I do want
to touch on the groups real quick, because I think
that's an important topic. And I personally encourage anyone I
(05:40):
work with to get off the chronic illness groups because
I feel that they're more problem focused than solution focused,
and often people leave feeling like simultaneously simultaneously, they feel
validated because they're now not the only ones experiencing this
(06:02):
symptom or this new diagnoses, but also they feel quite
disregulated because they're like, I'm not getting you know what,
I didn't get a solution from this, and like you said,
like it feels like I'm going to die in a week.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
With what I just read and I experienced this myself.
Speaker 4 (06:17):
I mean, how do you can you say anything else
to that and what you may suggest doing instead?
Speaker 3 (06:23):
Yeah? Yeah, I mean, first I always validate. I agree,
Like I always tell clients, like, just just leave the groups.
They're not there's nothing in there at this point, especially
when they've already been in there for months or sometimes years.
It's like you already know and have seen and read
everything that you are going to get from that group.
So first I want to validate that. Sometimes we do
learn something from somebody posting this thing about that thing,
(06:46):
and you know, now we have our answer. Yes, sometimes
that happens, but the hope for that to keep happening,
like as if you were going to find every single
answer in these groups, is more of like this.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
This.
Speaker 3 (07:00):
It's like being on social media with each time that
you scroll through to the next thing, there's this kind
of like dopamine hit of ooh, what's next, Ooh, what's next? Ooh,
what's next? And the groups are very much like that.
It's like, oh, well, what new thing can I learn today?
But meanwhile, a lot of these new things are like
wild goose chases. So I'm a big, big fan of
(07:22):
being in a support group as local as possible or
as as specific as possible. A lot of the big foundations,
like the Arthritis Foundation, has a ton of groups all
over the country. They have local groups, they have groups
for like juvenile arthritis versus storiatic arthritis. Like some of
these bigger kind of national organizations, especially in the US,
(07:43):
have a lot of support groups, and I'm a big
fan of joining those the one that resonates or is
related to your specific condition. For some of the things
that are a little bit harder, like lime disease or
fibromyologia or some of these things that just I mean
fiber mile just get more and more science behind it.
But some of the things that don't have a lot
of like medical knowledge behind it. You just have to
(08:07):
be really careful with who you are allowing to be
your group facilitator. Yeah, because again there's just a lot
of and it's well meaning, well meaning people, but there's
a lot of wild goose chases that we go down
that are more harmful than helpful.
Speaker 4 (08:23):
I completely agree, and I want to touch on that
wild goose chase often is what's feeding into that fight
or flight, right where we're just chasing and searching for,
you know, what could be the next the next thing
to save us, to.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
Help us naturally.
Speaker 4 (08:40):
Naturally I want to again validate that as well, but
also it keeps us in that in that state. And
it's so important for us to get to a more
flexible nervous system right where we can feel as safe
as we possibly can in our body at this at
this time. And I mean there's so many factors that
including and not limit to finding the right providers to
(09:02):
support you. And in this case, a facilitator and I
co facilitate a Lime circle called the Empowerment Circle that
occurs once a month through Bay Area Lime Foundation in
San Diego Lime Association. And what I love about it
is that it's really it feels very solution focused in
the sense of, like we talk about what is working
(09:25):
for folks at this moment in time.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
And what I suggest is that you, you know, if.
Speaker 4 (09:31):
You're looking at a group, maybe try it out once
or twice and just see how you're nervous.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
I mean, I go, I do this for everything.
Speaker 4 (09:37):
I'm like, check how your nervous system feels after you
do this, Like you will know do I feel do
I feel more regulated, more calm after attending this, this group,
the circle, seeing this therapist, seeing this provider, or less.
Speaker 3 (09:51):
Yeah, And I mean this is the part of the problem, right,
especially with these conditions that don't have a lot of
I was about to say with line, but it's not.
I don't think it's that it's line specifically. I think
that it's that these are conditions that don't have a
lot of medical answers, and that fuels that fight or flight,
like you said, And so you can get stuck and
sometimes you're in this group and it doesn't feel good,
(10:11):
but you're already used to being in fighter flight. Nothing
feels good anyway, and you don't have answers from anyone anywhere.
So when you are like that lost, when you at
the very beginning, when you're that that lost, it can
be really difficult to know if a if a environment
is right or wrong for you. But that's I think
just it's just a part of the journey and you
(10:33):
just have to you have to keep asking yourself. You
have to keep being open to change, open to kind
of new information, and asking yourself that question over and
over and over again. It's not a one and done
conversation like every day asking yourself what will feel good
for me today? What will feel good for me today,
and letting yourself have a different answer every day.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
Amen.
Speaker 4 (10:55):
Amen to that, because the only constant is change and
and we're healing from something very complex.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
Yeah, on all levels.
Speaker 4 (11:06):
So speaking of healing, I'd love to talk about what
modalities yeah, with your clients.
Speaker 3 (11:14):
Yeah, absolutely so. My main modality is always going to
be acceptance in commitment therapy. That's really where I started
back in undergrad and I love acceptance in commitment therapy
because it's despite what the name implies, that's kind of
accepting what is a lot of people hear that and
think that it means like just tolerating the bad things
(11:35):
and just accepting that it's never going to change. That's
not what that means at all. It's just allowing what
is happening in this moment to be happening in this moment,
and when that moment changes, then we allow the next
moment to happen. And you have agency and you have
control over like influencing each of these moments. But if
(11:57):
you don't understand what your values are, if you don't
understand what's important to you. If you don't understand what
activates or deactivates your nervous system, and that's where some
of the sematic experiencing that I practice comes in. Then
you don't know how to influence those moments, and it
does feel like life is just happening to you. So
(12:18):
acceptance and commitment therapy I think gives a really good
balance between life is going to happen to you and
you can't always change every outcome or everything that happens
to you. It's this fine balance between finding agency but
also recognizing that you just cannot control every aspect of it.
And then sematic experiencing, which I think for me, is
(12:40):
really just a way of being in tune with your
body on a very accurate level. You know, we often
talk about things like your intuition and listening to your body,
and you can listen to your body, but if you
don't really understand like the different sleep cues or your
hunger cues, or your fearful cue versus your excitement cues,
(13:01):
like the things that are happening in your body when
you have different states, it's very easy to confuse like
tired and hungry or excitement and fear and it's only
through an intentional practice of really paying attention to your
body and being curious. And that's where I think again,
somatic experiencing does a really good job at helping us
(13:23):
do Then we can actually learn, like what does it
mean to be scared versus like again excited And this
is something that I can go and fall, this is
something this is a path I can follow versus this
is the path I should stay away from.
Speaker 4 (13:39):
Mm hmm mm hmmm hmm exactly, Like there's there's something
right so liberating in radically accepting where we are at
this present moment and just really surrendering to it and
still having hope, right, having space for something to shift
or to change and all so, and you can speak
(14:01):
to this right specifically.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
To chronic illness, Like I know, I was.
Speaker 4 (14:06):
So afraid to be in my body for such a
long time pretty much my entire my entire life. I've
had symptoms since infancy. It didn't feel safe to be
in my body. So somatic experiencing or anything somatic and
like trauma slash somatic and formed allows you to kind
of tiptoe back into your body, especially as someone who's
so afraid of it and perhaps you can speak to
(14:28):
that and how that's helped your clients.
Speaker 3 (14:31):
Yeah, yeah, no, absolutely. I think you know, there's this
concept in somatic experiencing called discharge, and it's where you know,
you kind of have and I sometimes this stuff sounds
more mystical than it needs to, but you know it,
it doesn't. It's not a big mystery. I think it's
just this stuff can happen through acceptance work as well.
(14:53):
But I'm going to use some of the somatic experiencing language.
There's this concept of discharge where when you're feeling a
thing like let's say you're feling scared and there's like
a shakiness. You know, we all kind of if you're nervous,
sometimes we feel shaky and that shaking we can kind
of like let it just kind of kind of shake
out of our arms and then it's gone. And again
(15:15):
I think that that's just like a normal, natural human response.
But sometimes especially when you have history of trauma, you're
so used to bracing, like squeezing your muscles tight, holding
your breath tight, almost like you just don't want to
be seen, you don't want to be heard, and that's
a very protective trauma response. That kept you safe as
(15:35):
a kid, and then it becomes really maladaptive later you know,
your body only has so much, like so much it
can it can brace before it just starts not being
able to anymore. I remember one of like a very
defining Sometimes this stuff just doesn't make sense until you
kind of have practiced it for a little while. And
(15:55):
I remember a very defining moment. I was driving and
I used to really struggle with like being angry on
the road and there was somebody that like cut me off,
and I remember it feeling really really angry, and I
was shaking because I was anxious, and I remember thinking like, okay,
just let it, just let it go, like let it
shake out, let it roll out. And when the shaking stopped,
(16:17):
it felt much more like resolved rather than I had
just like made it stop and suppressed it into my body.
And now I just have this like now I'm just
holding onto this tension all day. It was literally like
just shake it out of your arms and just let
it go. And it's such a It's again, I don't
think somatic experiencing is this magical kind of uh thing.
(16:39):
I just think that it gives you skills that a
lot of us didn't learn when you live with a
chronic illness, a lot of us do have trauma.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
You know.
Speaker 3 (16:47):
I think we all know the ACES study by now,
and I think it just shows that there's a, you know,
such a strong correlation between trauma and having it and
getting or having chronic illnesses, and so there is just
a really big overlap. Like a lot of us did
not learn how to let things go or how to
(17:07):
feel things in our body because the people around us
didn't have those skills. Our parents, our caregivers, our teachers,
you know, we were taught to you can only go
to the bathroom when the bell rings, and you like
can only eat when the bell rings, and you better
not be hungry you or have to go in between,
like it's everything not forbid.
Speaker 4 (17:24):
Your body functions between yeah, like between those times exactly.
Speaker 3 (17:30):
So, you know, I think it's important to note that
trauma has these effects, but also so does just like
normal everyday living in this society could do the same
thing to.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
You one hundred one hundred percent.
Speaker 4 (17:43):
And the ACE to me is pretty limited, right, I
don't think it even includes all of the traumas a
person can fit. Big ta traumas I'm saying, why aren't
car accidents.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
Listed like that's like always one?
Speaker 4 (17:56):
Yeah, and then also the little TA traumas, right, the
little T traumas.
Speaker 2 (18:01):
Add up, I didn't make the sports team.
Speaker 4 (18:03):
I was invited to this birthday party to a child
that can feel like life literally life or death. Right, you,
you were invited into into the pack, so exact survival
gets triggered. So here we are like both reflecting our
parents' nervous systems.
Speaker 2 (18:21):
So if they don't have a way to to.
Speaker 4 (18:23):
Self regulate or co regulate with you like that there,
that in itself is really challenging and then also properly
irrigating the emotions as I call it, like emoting like
really feeling to heal. So I think that somatic experiencing,
constructed awareness, you know, ef T tapping like these are
(18:45):
such beautiful tools and resources to allow us to be
with our body and our feelings and to feel it
to heal it.
Speaker 3 (18:53):
Yeah. Yeah, And of course you know the relationship which
we all we kind of say it, but I think
we don't sometimes give it as much credit as it
really deserves. But for the therapist to be able to
sit there and hold strong and still and solid because
they've done their own work that when you, as a
client are kind of shaking in front of them, it
(19:14):
does not also rattle the therapist. The therapist is like,
I've got this, like we can, we can. I can
sit here and be that that coregulator because I can
be calm through this, not because I'm not. I don't
care what you're going through. And therefore that you know
I'm not affected. No, I can absolutely feel it, and
I'm affected by it, but I'm not rattled by it.
(19:34):
And that, I think is the the that is what
makes the therapeutic relationship so healing.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
Kills chills, kills, chills chills.
Speaker 4 (19:43):
Yet doctor Gabori matte I saw a video recently where
he's like, you know, they've done studies on all these
different modalities, but and which one is better?
Speaker 2 (19:51):
Is it E M d R? Is it somatic experiencing
is ABT?
Speaker 4 (19:55):
And then he's like, ultimately, it's actually the therapeutic alliance.
It's it's that coregulation piece. It's that piece of like
someone who's present with me and able to contain the space, yeah,
allow for all.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
Things to come up and be processed.
Speaker 4 (20:13):
And and I think this was an important thing for
us to even talk about, like because you know therapists
are going to be watching this, listening to this. It's
like ensuring that our vessel is as expanded as possible,
which means we have to continuously work towards that. That's
our due diligence, that's our ethical responsibility.
Speaker 3 (20:31):
I don't know if you agree, but yeah, no, I
absolutely agree. And I think you know that the relationship
piece is not just a matter of like do you
like your therapist, but it's like do you trust that
when they're saying something? You trust their knowledge, you trust
their ability to hold like you can see that they're
again not rattled, and they think they have places to
(20:52):
guide you in. And that's why I think the specialty
of chronic illness as a therapist is so important because
when you specialize on the so you start to learn
a lot about medical resources and navigating insurance and navigating
relationships with a chronic illness, Like you learn very specific
things that are only specific to living with a chronic illness.
(21:14):
And the therapist who specializes in that when you come
to them and say, you know, I don't I feel
like I feel like my relationship is falling apart because
I need so much from my partner and for the
therapist to be able to sit there and say, like, one,
that is totally normal and valid to feel that way
and we actually can absolutely work through this. That that
(21:39):
is what most we just it's again, it's not just
like liking your therapist, it's also do they have the
knowledge and the expertise to be able to help you
through that specific problem.
Speaker 4 (21:49):
A thousand like to just hold that light up for
you and guide you because ultimately they're the ones doing.
Speaker 2 (21:55):
The work, that's the truth. Yeah, yeah, they are. We're
just providing the lay.
Speaker 4 (21:59):
Out, the resources and the tools and the space for
that for that to happen.
Speaker 2 (22:06):
I entirely. I entirely agree with that.
Speaker 4 (22:09):
And it is it's so funny as a as a
chronic illness therapist, whether you want to or not, you
become extremely integrated.
Speaker 2 (22:16):
Like you just said, like I'm not just a therapist.
Speaker 4 (22:18):
I'm also I'm so much a case manager and a
social worker. Like sometimes I'm on the phone helping, you know,
with or all kinds of scenarios that because it's it's
complex and yeah, it's more than just you know, top therapy.
Speaker 2 (22:35):
We can't say that it is just it is just that.
Speaker 3 (22:38):
Yeah, Yeah, I'm doing a CEO over on July ninth,
twenty twenty five, and it will be talking about ways
to collaborate with with other medical professionals. And you know,
I think it looks different in private practice versus like
working in a hospital system where you're kind of already
having these like collaborative care team meetings. But yeah, I'm
(23:00):
a big fan of therapists having like a scheduling calendar
and really really really taking the time, whether it's private
practice and you're getting paid or not getting paid, Like,
I just think it's imperative and it's such a good
part of care too. Not necessarily you don't always have
to be the case manager. There's a lot that goes
into case management, but you do have to really connect
(23:22):
with your with your clients other medical professionals, whether that's
their physical therapist or their medical doctor. You know, it
can be hard to get to get in contact with them,
but that's where that scheduling calendar really comes in handy
and just make it easy for them and get on
the phone and figure out what is it that the
medical doctor is seeing that they you know, a lot
(23:42):
of times too, they'll they'll they think that anxiety is
the problem of their their patient. So sometimes patients can
even clients can be really nervous to let you talk
to their doctor because they don't want that to be confirmed, like, well,
they do have anxiety and so that is contributing to
the pain. It's like, no, they have anxiety because they
(24:03):
don't have answers. They have anxiety because they don't know
what's coming next. They have anxiety because this is really
expensive and you've given no like you know, trajectory of
what this is supposed to look like. So a lot
of times it's really advocating for your clients. But also
then you gain information from the doctor. It's like, well,
you know, I need them to do this and they
(24:24):
haven't been able to do that, and so now I
can help the client with that, Like what is stopping
you from doing what your doctor wants you to do?
Is it that you don't trust the treatment or is
it that there is some other obstacle in the way
that's happening. So there's so much, so much you learn
from talking to your to your clients providers.
Speaker 4 (24:42):
I completely agree with that and for myself, like I
allow And I know I've probably mentioned this before, but
I don't go to like a fifty minute hour mark
like we go until the client feels complete, and that
gives us the space, if needed, to contact the provider
or to give me space after to talk to the provider,
depending if the providers wanting to talk to something. They're
(25:03):
not sometimes not, and that's really frustrating. Let's be real
about that, because yeah, they're like, they don't they don't
see how these things are related, when in fact the
mind and the body are not disconnected. They're well but alas,
I'm not here to to convince. But it's amazing when
they're collaborative because it really creates such magic and for
(25:28):
the client patient themselves, they feel so supported, you know,
like everyone's this is my treatment team and they're working
together because they really want me to feel better.
Speaker 2 (25:38):
They want to a more stable place. Yes, yeah, yeah,
there's and.
Speaker 4 (25:44):
I think even just seeing that you're making effort is incredible,
like this person is really going above and beyond and.
Speaker 2 (25:52):
Advocating for me.
Speaker 4 (25:54):
And because it's not always felt with every provider and
we know that because we probably both personally experience that,
and even for myself it's like, okay, if this provide,
if you're not feeling safe or comfortable with this provider,
and I this is my PSA always to clients and
patients like you're paying them, not the other way around,
Like you can you can look for the person who
(26:15):
you feel most supportive or supported by.
Speaker 3 (26:19):
Yep.
Speaker 4 (26:22):
And so if okay, so if someone is just navigating
complex symptoms, like what would you like they're kind of
at the beginning, or even they've been navigating them for
a while, like, what would you suggest sort of as
next steps?
Speaker 3 (26:40):
Yeah, I mean, I think one we had to be
really careful around staying within our lane and like our
scope of practice and not giving explicit medical advice. But
I am a big fan of leaning into really the
concept of acceptance as I described it earlier, that acceptance
doesn't mean we just accept things are as they are
right now, But how do we live in right now
(27:00):
now without all this extra tension and this kind of
like how do we also see a path for hope
or see a path for like you have multiple options
in front of you, which because a lot of times
that's what's happening is they see just one option and
that option doesn't look or feel good to them. So
that's where, again, where a lot of that that tension
is coming from. So if we can just help expand
(27:22):
their options, allowing them to choose from an array of
either different medical providers or different testing or different switching
up insurances or you know, something like that, like giving
them options. I mean, we know that choice has such
a huge impact on how our nervous system feels. And yeah,
(27:43):
so I think giving them choice is probably one of
the first and if they've had too if they have
too many options. We before you and I started, we
were talking a little bit about functional medicine, and I
think functional medicine sometimes throws too much, like there's just
there's too many options and not all of it is
valid or really even works anecdotally either. So I think
(28:05):
it's important to see where your client is at. Do
they have too much option in front of them and
they actually need to narrow it down a little bit,
or do they have like this one option, this one
thing in front of them and they need to see
that there's there's more.
Speaker 4 (28:17):
So yeah, yeah, and again finding that middle, finding that
middle path with them is huge, And I do want
to ask you, how do you feel finding a mental
health professional who's you know, who has chronic illness experience,
Like how do you find that to be beneficial?
Speaker 3 (28:37):
Like yeah, as like as me the client or yes, yeah,
I think I've been at such different places in my life,
like my actually in grad school, it was my own
I didn't even think of like me and my I
didn't think of myself as having a chronic illness. I
just thought like my mom had pain her whole life,
(28:59):
she never had answers from any doctor ever, And I
just thought that was going to be my trajectory. And
it was my therapist who had a chronic illness and
saw the signs of me, and it was like, you
need to go get like assessed and go go go
to the doctor. Because I wasn't going to the doctor.
So she just encouraged that. And I don't know that
(29:19):
she would have if she hadn't seen the signs because
she had lived it herself. Maybe maybe she would have,
you know, I don't. I can't say for sure, but
that was really invaluable. And then my most recent kind
of therapist, I didn't really need her to have experience
I had already kind of I had been. I needed
something different at that point, and so it didn't matter
(29:39):
to me if she did or didn't. So I think
that's the message here, is it just be so flexible
with your journey and just constantly knowing and like being
curious about what your needs are and reaching for what
your needs are. You know, it doesn't even have to
be within a certain identity. It's just it's just what
do you need in this moment? Can you reach for that?
Speaker 4 (30:01):
I'm so so so good And for a therapists who
aren't chronic illness informed, you know, if you have someone
in front of you or you know there's there's question marks,
I am going to encourage you to encourage your client
to see a medical professional to rule certain.
Speaker 2 (30:19):
Things out line disease just as.
Speaker 4 (30:21):
One example of so many has over three hundred symptoms,
many of which are mental health related and are over
are overlooked, and it's underdiagnosed and it's misdiagnosed so so often.
That's why it's called the great imitator. But I'm just
giving one example. Like a thyroid, for example, can have
a myriad of the symptoms. Right, So if something feels
(30:44):
like hmm, I don't, I don't know, just it might
be worthwhile to encourage the person you're working with to
see to see somebody.
Speaker 3 (30:52):
And also, more than anything, if a client is coming
in with a lot of anxiety about their health and
they say, you know, they've been to this doctor and
that doctor, and the labs are always showing up like
there's nothing wrong with their labs and blah blah blah,
the last thing as a therapist that you should be
doing is trying to convince them then that they are
okay and they just need to stop pursuing medical treatment.
There's a there's there's a tricky balance here with with health,
(31:14):
anxiety and OCD, and it can definitely veer into that absolutely,
but regardless, there's still something happening inside. So the very
least we should be paying attention to those physicals. This
is where sematic experiencing comes in. We're paying attention to
those physical symptoms. We are not dismissing them. We are
learning how to not fear them while also not fearing
(31:35):
them doesn't mean pretending they're okay. It means I'm feeling
this thing and it doesn't have to shake me to
my core, and I can be curious about it without
trying to pretend it's not there, or pretend that you know,
this means I have cancer because I have a pain
in my foot. Like there's a balance between all of this.
Speaker 4 (31:53):
So I once again that middle, that middle path, and
I think as a provider too, bringing that curiosity rather
than judgment up to that forefront of like, no, this
is in their head.
Speaker 2 (32:04):
Well, I guess the head is in the body. So yeah,
we look at everything.
Speaker 4 (32:10):
We look at everything, and the fact of the matter is,
you know, I chronic illness my whole life, but I
normalized it for so long until it became so debilitating
and I couldn't and I was told for so long
that things were enough in the range, you know, and
I intuitively knew something was off. But I'm constantly having
people tell me this. Then I'm invalidated and I'm just
(32:33):
going to stop seeking at exactly some point, which is harsh.
Speaker 2 (32:37):
It is really harsh.
Speaker 3 (32:38):
Yeah, you just think something's wrong with you, but nobody
can help you through it, so like it's just a
you problem. And yeah, it's really isolating.
Speaker 4 (32:45):
And that's yeah, we won't get too into like medical
trauma is real, and there's there's a lot of gas
lighting that that happens. So, yeah, an invitation to anyone
working with a client with mysterious symptoms or full blown
chronic illness to just to bring that compassion and the
attempt for understanding, right.
Speaker 3 (33:05):
Yeah, And if you are really struggling with this, my
consultation group is free. It's once a month, every third
Friday of the month from one to two thirty pm
Eastern and you can just pop in, just send me
an email, and I absolutely will not judge you for
coming into and asking, like I don't know if I
even believe my client with all of their different ailments,
Like we can work through that, because that is also
(33:26):
a very normal response given the culture that we live in.
So I don't blame anyone for going there at first,
but then we have to seek out answers and be
helpful and supportive.
Speaker 2 (33:38):
Amen.
Speaker 4 (33:38):
And I've been to Destiny's Group and it's great, and
I wish I can't.
Speaker 2 (33:41):
Attend it more often.
Speaker 4 (33:42):
It's just always I'm always seeing clients at that at
that time. It's so it's such a valuable resource. Thanks
for creating it. And where I mean, can you just
tell us a little bit more about the memberships and.
Speaker 3 (33:52):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, the memberships. I have one that's client based.
So also if you just feel like you have client
who's struggling with acceptance with you know, uh, not knowing
anybody else who's going through what they're going through. The
membership is a coaching capacity, so we're not doing therapy,
and anyone from any state can join. I do intensives
(34:16):
as well for clients of Georgia, Florida, Colorado, and then
for therapists. Again, I have the Business Council Group and
the Clinical Console Group and we have a really strong,
little like group of providers that yeah, support each other.
Speaker 4 (34:34):
So and you have the directory, right, So for someone
who's seeking first, I mean, we didn't even mention this.
Speaker 2 (34:39):
How do people find your website?
Speaker 3 (34:41):
And you're, oh, yeah, yeah, right, sorry. The Chronic Illness
Therapist dot com is the website. You won't be able
to find anything about the membership on it because well,
I'm just still trying to figure out some stuff with
the membership, but you can email me about that. For
client client based memberships, everything else can be found on
the Chronic Illness Therapist dot com.
Speaker 4 (35:00):
And for someone looking for a chronic illness literate therapist,
they can find one on the directory, right yeah.
Speaker 3 (35:06):
Yeah, and that's just on my homepage of the Chronic
Illness Therapist if you scroll to the bottom, the directory
is down there.
Speaker 4 (35:11):
And for anyone who wants to work with you one
on one, they can find out on your website as well,
right yep.
Speaker 2 (35:17):
And they also have a conference.
Speaker 3 (35:19):
Yeah yeah, we'll be putting together a conference next year.
There will be cees. It'll be in Atlanta. Really excited
about that, so definitely feel free. On my website there's
a services for Professionals tabs, so you can go there
and sign up for the for the conference waitlist.
Speaker 4 (35:36):
Okay, and last, but not least, Dusty, Like, if there's
one thing a client and or therapist listening or watching
us right now walks away with from this episode, what
would you like it to be more than anything else?
Speaker 3 (35:49):
I just think the underlying factor in all of this
is curiosity. Like, if you weren't raised with curiosity for
a myriad of reasons, that is the number one skill
that you're going to have to work on is learning
how to be curious. It's going to help you more
than any other skill.
Speaker 4 (36:04):
I think I cannot agree with that. I had to
learn that myself within my I was so curious outside
of myself but not within myself, and it's such an
understated tool basically in practice.
Speaker 2 (36:22):
Yeah yeah, So, thank you so much for taking the
time to talk about this. You are amazing. Thank you
for everything you do for our community. Really, thank you.
Speaker 3 (36:33):
Thank you for sharing. I'm I'm very much appreciated.
Speaker 2 (36:36):
Okay, all right, take care. Thank you for anyone listening
to Love but Love. Okay, I'm gonna
Speaker 3 (36:44):
Ord
Welcome to the special guest host series of The Trauma
Therapist Podcast, where I'm going to be handing over the
mic to some incredible guest hosts. In each episode, you'll
hear fresh perspectives and unique insights to inform and inspire
you in all the while keeping the heart of this
podcast alive. So sit back and enjoy.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Hello. Hey, I am so happy to have you on.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
Yes, I'm excited to be here.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Thank you.
Speaker 4 (00:28):
And as we were discussing right before we hit record,
I am thrilled to have more representation of chronic illness
therapists on this.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Podcast because I think thus far I've.
Speaker 4 (00:40):
Been the only one, and there's more than one of
us right in this realm, there's quite a few. And
you actually kind of have a membership and you have
a database, and we're going to talk about that and
get into it. You kind of become the chronic illness
therapist resource hub in essence. So I say, tell us,
(01:01):
tell us yeah often kind of how how you got here?
Speaker 3 (01:04):
Yes? So in that's twenty nineteen, I was still in
grad school. I was trying to figure out like what
I wanted to do. I had some experience with like marketing,
and understanding that finding a niche was kind of important
as far as to help people kind of understand who
(01:25):
you are. And I got my own weird diagnosis of
lime disease. Really, you know, that's a kind of we
you and I kind of know much a lot about
lime and the controversial kind of diagnosis that it is.
But I basically found myself going into support groups online
for lime disease, and I like those support groups made
(01:47):
me feel like I was going to die in like
a week. I mean everything was like worst case scenario
and like all this really really like horrible stuff and
filled with a lot of like uh, very expensive treatments
that like basically didn't really even work anyway. And so
I in that moment, like I left all those groups
(02:09):
after like a week of being in them. I was like,
this is not good, this is not right, And why
aren't there any therapists online? Like at that time, they're
just therapists and medical professionals, even though this was just
five six years ago. We're not online our ethics, our boards,
our licenses, Like we have a lot of fear around
saying the wrong thing or doing the wrong thing and
(02:30):
then losing our license. It's a very real, real fear
or like saying something and then it's misconstrued as medical
advice and then getting So I found myself in this
world trying to figure out what I wanted to do,
what I didn't want to do. I was struggling with
my own health issues, figuring out how to be a therapist.
(02:51):
But then also like, but people are really struggling with
their health, their physical health, and there's not a whole
lot of answers anywhere, really, like in Western med or
in Eastern like philosophies and modalities, like there's there's a
lot of answers, and then there's no answers. So that
was what I found myself struggling with, and I knew
(03:12):
that other people were struggling with this as well too,
So I really took on that role of like, Okay,
we need to be online. I don't know yet what
all of the you know, all of my ethical codes
and mandates and what my abilities are yet to say
certain things online given my license, But I'm going to
(03:32):
figure that out. And that's just always been at the forefront,
Like even before I finished grad school, I always knew
that was where I wanted to spend a lot of
my time and effort and energy as far as what
my I guess to public service work kind of looked like.
So that was another part of it. Like I knew
(03:52):
I didn't want to I knew I didn't have the
energy to be working in agency work that had you
working forty fifty sixty hours week for very very very
low pay, and I knew that my body wasn't going
to be able to handle that. So I this was
my way of like, Okay, you know, start a podcast,
be online. This is stuff that I can do for
(04:15):
free that hopefully touches some people somewhere and is my small,
small way of giving back. So within that, yeah, I
have a membership for for people with chronic pain and
chronic illness. It's more of like a support group kind
of online membership thing. But then for therapists, I also
I have a clinical consult group, a business console group.
(04:37):
Every single month, I have a directory on my website
so that people can go and find therapists who are
licensed in their state, who most of us have our
own lived experience with chronic pain and chronic illness, and
we are also doing this work where we specialize in
working with clients with chronic pain and chronic illness because again,
(04:59):
like we we have that experience of both being the
professional and also being the patient.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
Yeah, both sides, I would say, both sides of the couch.
Speaker 3 (05:07):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 4 (05:09):
It's that an important factor of lived experience where.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
It's like, ah, this person gets it.
Speaker 4 (05:16):
I don't have to give subtitles to that, you know,
because it is so specific, it is so niche, and
it's something you don't quite understand unless you yourself have
the experience or someone very close to you. And I'm
going to bounce a little bit, but I do want
to touch on the groups real quick, because I think
that's an important topic. And I personally encourage anyone I
(05:40):
work with to get off the chronic illness groups because
I feel that they're more problem focused than solution focused,
and often people leave feeling like simultaneously simultaneously, they feel
validated because they're now not the only ones experiencing this
(06:02):
symptom or this new diagnoses, but also they feel quite
disregulated because they're like, I'm not getting you know what,
I didn't get a solution from this, and like you said,
like it feels like I'm going to die in a week.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
With what I just read and I experienced this myself.
Speaker 4 (06:17):
I mean, how do you can you say anything else
to that and what you may suggest doing instead?
Speaker 3 (06:23):
Yeah? Yeah, I mean, first I always validate. I agree,
Like I always tell clients, like, just just leave the groups.
They're not there's nothing in there at this point, especially
when they've already been in there for months or sometimes years.
It's like you already know and have seen and read
everything that you are going to get from that group.
So first I want to validate that. Sometimes we do
learn something from somebody posting this thing about that thing,
(06:46):
and you know, now we have our answer. Yes, sometimes
that happens, but the hope for that to keep happening,
like as if you were going to find every single
answer in these groups, is more of like this.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
This.
Speaker 3 (07:00):
It's like being on social media with each time that
you scroll through to the next thing, there's this kind
of like dopamine hit of ooh, what's next, Ooh, what's next? Ooh,
what's next? And the groups are very much like that.
It's like, oh, well, what new thing can I learn today?
But meanwhile, a lot of these new things are like
wild goose chases. So I'm a big, big fan of
(07:22):
being in a support group as local as possible or
as as specific as possible. A lot of the big foundations,
like the Arthritis Foundation, has a ton of groups all
over the country. They have local groups, they have groups
for like juvenile arthritis versus storiatic arthritis. Like some of
these bigger kind of national organizations, especially in the US,
(07:43):
have a lot of support groups, and I'm a big
fan of joining those the one that resonates or is
related to your specific condition. For some of the things
that are a little bit harder, like lime disease or
fibromyologia or some of these things that just I mean
fiber mile just get more and more science behind it.
But some of the things that don't have a lot
of like medical knowledge behind it. You just have to
(08:07):
be really careful with who you are allowing to be
your group facilitator. Yeah, because again there's just a lot
of and it's well meaning, well meaning people, but there's
a lot of wild goose chases that we go down
that are more harmful than helpful.
Speaker 4 (08:23):
I completely agree, and I want to touch on that
wild goose chase often is what's feeding into that fight
or flight, right where we're just chasing and searching for,
you know, what could be the next the next thing
to save us, to.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
Help us naturally.
Speaker 4 (08:40):
Naturally I want to again validate that as well, but
also it keeps us in that in that state. And
it's so important for us to get to a more
flexible nervous system right where we can feel as safe
as we possibly can in our body at this at
this time. And I mean there's so many factors that
including and not limit to finding the right providers to
(09:02):
support you. And in this case, a facilitator and I
co facilitate a Lime circle called the Empowerment Circle that
occurs once a month through Bay Area Lime Foundation in
San Diego Lime Association. And what I love about it
is that it's really it feels very solution focused in
the sense of, like we talk about what is working
(09:25):
for folks at this moment in time.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
And what I suggest is that you, you know, if.
Speaker 4 (09:31):
You're looking at a group, maybe try it out once
or twice and just see how you're nervous.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
I mean, I go, I do this for everything.
Speaker 4 (09:37):
I'm like, check how your nervous system feels after you
do this, Like you will know do I feel do
I feel more regulated, more calm after attending this, this group,
the circle, seeing this therapist, seeing this provider, or less.
Speaker 3 (09:51):
Yeah, And I mean this is the part of the problem, right,
especially with these conditions that don't have a lot of
I was about to say with line, but it's not.
I don't think it's that it's line specifically. I think
that it's that these are conditions that don't have a
lot of medical answers, and that fuels that fight or flight,
like you said, And so you can get stuck and
sometimes you're in this group and it doesn't feel good,
(10:11):
but you're already used to being in fighter flight. Nothing
feels good anyway, and you don't have answers from anyone anywhere.
So when you are like that lost, when you at
the very beginning, when you're that that lost, it can
be really difficult to know if a if a environment
is right or wrong for you. But that's I think
just it's just a part of the journey and you
(10:33):
just have to you have to keep asking yourself. You
have to keep being open to change, open to kind
of new information, and asking yourself that question over and
over and over again. It's not a one and done
conversation like every day asking yourself what will feel good
for me today? What will feel good for me today,
and letting yourself have a different answer every day.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
Amen.
Speaker 4 (10:55):
Amen to that, because the only constant is change and
and we're healing from something very complex.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
Yeah, on all levels.
Speaker 4 (11:06):
So speaking of healing, I'd love to talk about what
modalities yeah, with your clients.
Speaker 3 (11:14):
Yeah, absolutely so. My main modality is always going to
be acceptance in commitment therapy. That's really where I started
back in undergrad and I love acceptance in commitment therapy
because it's despite what the name implies, that's kind of
accepting what is a lot of people hear that and
think that it means like just tolerating the bad things
(11:35):
and just accepting that it's never going to change. That's
not what that means at all. It's just allowing what
is happening in this moment to be happening in this moment,
and when that moment changes, then we allow the next
moment to happen. And you have agency and you have
control over like influencing each of these moments. But if
(11:57):
you don't understand what your values are, if you don't
understand what's important to you. If you don't understand what
activates or deactivates your nervous system, and that's where some
of the sematic experiencing that I practice comes in. Then
you don't know how to influence those moments, and it
does feel like life is just happening to you. So
(12:18):
acceptance and commitment therapy I think gives a really good
balance between life is going to happen to you and
you can't always change every outcome or everything that happens
to you. It's this fine balance between finding agency but
also recognizing that you just cannot control every aspect of it.
And then sematic experiencing, which I think for me, is
(12:40):
really just a way of being in tune with your
body on a very accurate level. You know, we often
talk about things like your intuition and listening to your body,
and you can listen to your body, but if you
don't really understand like the different sleep cues or your
hunger cues, or your fearful cue versus your excitement cues,
(13:01):
like the things that are happening in your body when
you have different states, it's very easy to confuse like
tired and hungry or excitement and fear and it's only
through an intentional practice of really paying attention to your
body and being curious. And that's where I think again,
somatic experiencing does a really good job at helping us
(13:23):
do Then we can actually learn, like what does it
mean to be scared versus like again excited And this
is something that I can go and fall, this is
something this is a path I can follow versus this
is the path I should stay away from.
Speaker 4 (13:39):
Mm hmm mm hmmm hmm exactly, Like there's there's something
right so liberating in radically accepting where we are at
this present moment and just really surrendering to it and
still having hope, right, having space for something to shift
or to change and all so, and you can speak
(14:01):
to this right specifically.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
To chronic illness, Like I know, I was.
Speaker 4 (14:06):
So afraid to be in my body for such a
long time pretty much my entire my entire life. I've
had symptoms since infancy. It didn't feel safe to be
in my body. So somatic experiencing or anything somatic and
like trauma slash somatic and formed allows you to kind
of tiptoe back into your body, especially as someone who's
so afraid of it and perhaps you can speak to
(14:28):
that and how that's helped your clients.
Speaker 3 (14:31):
Yeah, yeah, no, absolutely. I think you know, there's this
concept in somatic experiencing called discharge, and it's where you know,
you kind of have and I sometimes this stuff sounds
more mystical than it needs to, but you know it,
it doesn't. It's not a big mystery. I think it's
just this stuff can happen through acceptance work as well.
(14:53):
But I'm going to use some of the somatic experiencing language.
There's this concept of discharge where when you're feeling a
thing like let's say you're feling scared and there's like
a shakiness. You know, we all kind of if you're nervous,
sometimes we feel shaky and that shaking we can kind
of like let it just kind of kind of shake
out of our arms and then it's gone. And again
(15:15):
I think that that's just like a normal, natural human response.
But sometimes especially when you have history of trauma, you're
so used to bracing, like squeezing your muscles tight, holding
your breath tight, almost like you just don't want to
be seen, you don't want to be heard, and that's
a very protective trauma response. That kept you safe as
(15:35):
a kid, and then it becomes really maladaptive later you know,
your body only has so much, like so much it
can it can brace before it just starts not being
able to anymore. I remember one of like a very
defining Sometimes this stuff just doesn't make sense until you
kind of have practiced it for a little while. And
(15:55):
I remember a very defining moment. I was driving and
I used to really struggle with like being angry on
the road and there was somebody that like cut me off,
and I remember it feeling really really angry, and I
was shaking because I was anxious, and I remember thinking like, okay,
just let it, just let it go, like let it
shake out, let it roll out. And when the shaking stopped,
(16:17):
it felt much more like resolved rather than I had
just like made it stop and suppressed it into my body.
And now I just have this like now I'm just
holding onto this tension all day. It was literally like
just shake it out of your arms and just let
it go. And it's such a It's again, I don't
think somatic experiencing is this magical kind of uh thing.
(16:39):
I just think that it gives you skills that a
lot of us didn't learn when you live with a
chronic illness, a lot of us do have trauma.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
You know.
Speaker 3 (16:47):
I think we all know the ACES study by now,
and I think it just shows that there's a, you know,
such a strong correlation between trauma and having it and
getting or having chronic illnesses, and so there is just
a really big overlap. Like a lot of us did
not learn how to let things go or how to
(17:07):
feel things in our body because the people around us
didn't have those skills. Our parents, our caregivers, our teachers,
you know, we were taught to you can only go
to the bathroom when the bell rings, and you like
can only eat when the bell rings, and you better
not be hungry you or have to go in between,
like it's everything not forbid.
Speaker 4 (17:24):
Your body functions between yeah, like between those times exactly.
Speaker 3 (17:30):
So, you know, I think it's important to note that
trauma has these effects, but also so does just like
normal everyday living in this society could do the same
thing to.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
You one hundred one hundred percent.
Speaker 4 (17:43):
And the ACE to me is pretty limited, right, I
don't think it even includes all of the traumas a
person can fit. Big ta traumas I'm saying, why aren't
car accidents.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
Listed like that's like always one?
Speaker 4 (17:56):
Yeah, and then also the little TA traumas, right, the
little T traumas.
Speaker 2 (18:01):
Add up, I didn't make the sports team.
Speaker 4 (18:03):
I was invited to this birthday party to a child
that can feel like life literally life or death. Right, you,
you were invited into into the pack, so exact survival
gets triggered. So here we are like both reflecting our
parents' nervous systems.
Speaker 2 (18:21):
So if they don't have a way to to.
Speaker 4 (18:23):
Self regulate or co regulate with you like that there,
that in itself is really challenging and then also properly
irrigating the emotions as I call it, like emoting like
really feeling to heal. So I think that somatic experiencing,
constructed awareness, you know, ef T tapping like these are
(18:45):
such beautiful tools and resources to allow us to be
with our body and our feelings and to feel it
to heal it.
Speaker 3 (18:53):
Yeah. Yeah, And of course you know the relationship which
we all we kind of say it, but I think
we don't sometimes give it as much credit as it
really deserves. But for the therapist to be able to
sit there and hold strong and still and solid because
they've done their own work that when you, as a
client are kind of shaking in front of them, it
(19:14):
does not also rattle the therapist. The therapist is like,
I've got this, like we can, we can. I can
sit here and be that that coregulator because I can
be calm through this, not because I'm not. I don't
care what you're going through. And therefore that you know
I'm not affected. No, I can absolutely feel it, and
I'm affected by it, but I'm not rattled by it.
(19:34):
And that, I think is the the that is what
makes the therapeutic relationship so healing.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
Kills chills, kills, chills chills.
Speaker 4 (19:43):
Yet doctor Gabori matte I saw a video recently where
he's like, you know, they've done studies on all these
different modalities, but and which one is better?
Speaker 2 (19:51):
Is it E M d R? Is it somatic experiencing
is ABT?
Speaker 4 (19:55):
And then he's like, ultimately, it's actually the therapeutic alliance.
It's it's that coregulation piece. It's that piece of like
someone who's present with me and able to contain the space, yeah,
allow for all.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
Things to come up and be processed.
Speaker 4 (20:13):
And and I think this was an important thing for
us to even talk about, like because you know therapists
are going to be watching this, listening to this. It's
like ensuring that our vessel is as expanded as possible,
which means we have to continuously work towards that. That's
our due diligence, that's our ethical responsibility.
Speaker 3 (20:31):
I don't know if you agree, but yeah, no, I
absolutely agree. And I think you know that the relationship
piece is not just a matter of like do you
like your therapist, but it's like do you trust that
when they're saying something? You trust their knowledge, you trust
their ability to hold like you can see that they're
again not rattled, and they think they have places to
(20:52):
guide you in. And that's why I think the specialty
of chronic illness as a therapist is so important because
when you specialize on the so you start to learn
a lot about medical resources and navigating insurance and navigating
relationships with a chronic illness, Like you learn very specific
things that are only specific to living with a chronic illness.
(21:14):
And the therapist who specializes in that when you come
to them and say, you know, I don't I feel
like I feel like my relationship is falling apart because
I need so much from my partner and for the
therapist to be able to sit there and say, like, one,
that is totally normal and valid to feel that way
and we actually can absolutely work through this. That that
(21:39):
is what most we just it's again, it's not just
like liking your therapist, it's also do they have the
knowledge and the expertise to be able to help you
through that specific problem.
Speaker 4 (21:49):
A thousand like to just hold that light up for
you and guide you because ultimately they're the ones doing.
Speaker 2 (21:55):
The work, that's the truth. Yeah, yeah, they are. We're
just providing the lay.
Speaker 4 (21:59):
Out, the resources and the tools and the space for
that for that to happen.
Speaker 2 (22:06):
I entirely. I entirely agree with that.
Speaker 4 (22:09):
And it is it's so funny as a as a
chronic illness therapist, whether you want to or not, you
become extremely integrated.
Speaker 2 (22:16):
Like you just said, like I'm not just a therapist.
Speaker 4 (22:18):
I'm also I'm so much a case manager and a
social worker. Like sometimes I'm on the phone helping, you know,
with or all kinds of scenarios that because it's it's
complex and yeah, it's more than just you know, top therapy.
Speaker 2 (22:35):
We can't say that it is just it is just that.
Speaker 3 (22:38):
Yeah, Yeah, I'm doing a CEO over on July ninth,
twenty twenty five, and it will be talking about ways
to collaborate with with other medical professionals. And you know,
I think it looks different in private practice versus like
working in a hospital system where you're kind of already
having these like collaborative care team meetings. But yeah, I'm
(23:00):
a big fan of therapists having like a scheduling calendar
and really really really taking the time, whether it's private
practice and you're getting paid or not getting paid, Like,
I just think it's imperative and it's such a good
part of care too. Not necessarily you don't always have
to be the case manager. There's a lot that goes
into case management, but you do have to really connect
(23:22):
with your with your clients other medical professionals, whether that's
their physical therapist or their medical doctor. You know, it
can be hard to get to get in contact with them,
but that's where that scheduling calendar really comes in handy
and just make it easy for them and get on
the phone and figure out what is it that the
medical doctor is seeing that they you know, a lot
(23:42):
of times too, they'll they'll they think that anxiety is
the problem of their their patient. So sometimes patients can
even clients can be really nervous to let you talk
to their doctor because they don't want that to be confirmed, like, well,
they do have anxiety and so that is contributing to
the pain. It's like, no, they have anxiety because they
(24:03):
don't have answers. They have anxiety because they don't know
what's coming next. They have anxiety because this is really
expensive and you've given no like you know, trajectory of
what this is supposed to look like. So a lot
of times it's really advocating for your clients. But also
then you gain information from the doctor. It's like, well,
you know, I need them to do this and they
(24:24):
haven't been able to do that, and so now I
can help the client with that, Like what is stopping
you from doing what your doctor wants you to do?
Is it that you don't trust the treatment or is
it that there is some other obstacle in the way
that's happening. So there's so much, so much you learn
from talking to your to your clients providers.
Speaker 4 (24:42):
I completely agree with that and for myself, like I
allow And I know I've probably mentioned this before, but
I don't go to like a fifty minute hour mark
like we go until the client feels complete, and that
gives us the space, if needed, to contact the provider
or to give me space after to talk to the provider,
depending if the providers wanting to talk to something. They're
(25:03):
not sometimes not, and that's really frustrating. Let's be real
about that, because yeah, they're like, they don't they don't
see how these things are related, when in fact the
mind and the body are not disconnected. They're well but alas,
I'm not here to to convince. But it's amazing when
they're collaborative because it really creates such magic and for
(25:28):
the client patient themselves, they feel so supported, you know,
like everyone's this is my treatment team and they're working
together because they really want me to feel better.
Speaker 2 (25:38):
They want to a more stable place. Yes, yeah, yeah,
there's and.
Speaker 4 (25:44):
I think even just seeing that you're making effort is incredible,
like this person is really going above and beyond and.
Speaker 2 (25:52):
Advocating for me.
Speaker 4 (25:54):
And because it's not always felt with every provider and
we know that because we probably both personally experience that,
and even for myself it's like, okay, if this provide,
if you're not feeling safe or comfortable with this provider,
and I this is my PSA always to clients and
patients like you're paying them, not the other way around,
Like you can you can look for the person who
(26:15):
you feel most supportive or supported by.
Speaker 3 (26:19):
Yep.
Speaker 4 (26:22):
And so if okay, so if someone is just navigating
complex symptoms, like what would you like they're kind of
at the beginning, or even they've been navigating them for
a while, like, what would you suggest sort of as
next steps?
Speaker 3 (26:40):
Yeah, I mean, I think one we had to be
really careful around staying within our lane and like our
scope of practice and not giving explicit medical advice. But
I am a big fan of leaning into really the
concept of acceptance as I described it earlier, that acceptance
doesn't mean we just accept things are as they are
right now, But how do we live in right now
(27:00):
now without all this extra tension and this kind of
like how do we also see a path for hope
or see a path for like you have multiple options
in front of you, which because a lot of times
that's what's happening is they see just one option and
that option doesn't look or feel good to them. So
that's where, again, where a lot of that that tension
is coming from. So if we can just help expand
(27:22):
their options, allowing them to choose from an array of
either different medical providers or different testing or different switching
up insurances or you know, something like that, like giving
them options. I mean, we know that choice has such
a huge impact on how our nervous system feels. And yeah,
(27:43):
so I think giving them choice is probably one of
the first and if they've had too if they have
too many options. We before you and I started, we
were talking a little bit about functional medicine, and I
think functional medicine sometimes throws too much, like there's just
there's too many options and not all of it is
valid or really even works anecdotally either. So I think
(28:05):
it's important to see where your client is at. Do
they have too much option in front of them and
they actually need to narrow it down a little bit,
or do they have like this one option, this one
thing in front of them and they need to see
that there's there's more.
Speaker 4 (28:17):
So yeah, yeah, and again finding that middle, finding that
middle path with them is huge, And I do want
to ask you, how do you feel finding a mental
health professional who's you know, who has chronic illness experience,
Like how do you find that to be beneficial?
Speaker 3 (28:37):
Like yeah, as like as me the client or yes, yeah,
I think I've been at such different places in my life,
like my actually in grad school, it was my own
I didn't even think of like me and my I
didn't think of myself as having a chronic illness. I
just thought like my mom had pain her whole life,
(28:59):
she never had answers from any doctor ever, And I
just thought that was going to be my trajectory. And
it was my therapist who had a chronic illness and
saw the signs of me, and it was like, you
need to go get like assessed and go go go
to the doctor. Because I wasn't going to the doctor.
So she just encouraged that. And I don't know that
(29:19):
she would have if she hadn't seen the signs because
she had lived it herself. Maybe maybe she would have,
you know, I don't. I can't say for sure, but
that was really invaluable. And then my most recent kind
of therapist, I didn't really need her to have experience
I had already kind of I had been. I needed
something different at that point, and so it didn't matter
(29:39):
to me if she did or didn't. So I think
that's the message here, is it just be so flexible
with your journey and just constantly knowing and like being
curious about what your needs are and reaching for what
your needs are. You know, it doesn't even have to
be within a certain identity. It's just it's just what
do you need in this moment? Can you reach for that?
Speaker 4 (30:01):
I'm so so so good And for a therapists who
aren't chronic illness informed, you know, if you have someone
in front of you or you know there's there's question marks,
I am going to encourage you to encourage your client
to see a medical professional to rule certain.
Speaker 2 (30:19):
Things out line disease just as.
Speaker 4 (30:21):
One example of so many has over three hundred symptoms,
many of which are mental health related and are over
are overlooked, and it's underdiagnosed and it's misdiagnosed so so often.
That's why it's called the great imitator. But I'm just
giving one example. Like a thyroid, for example, can have
a myriad of the symptoms. Right, So if something feels
(30:44):
like hmm, I don't, I don't know, just it might
be worthwhile to encourage the person you're working with to
see to see somebody.
Speaker 3 (30:52):
And also, more than anything, if a client is coming
in with a lot of anxiety about their health and
they say, you know, they've been to this doctor and
that doctor, and the labs are always showing up like
there's nothing wrong with their labs and blah blah blah,
the last thing as a therapist that you should be
doing is trying to convince them then that they are
okay and they just need to stop pursuing medical treatment.
There's a there's there's a tricky balance here with with health,
(31:14):
anxiety and OCD, and it can definitely veer into that absolutely,
but regardless, there's still something happening inside. So the very
least we should be paying attention to those physicals. This
is where sematic experiencing comes in. We're paying attention to
those physical symptoms. We are not dismissing them. We are
learning how to not fear them while also not fearing
(31:35):
them doesn't mean pretending they're okay. It means I'm feeling
this thing and it doesn't have to shake me to
my core, and I can be curious about it without
trying to pretend it's not there, or pretend that you know,
this means I have cancer because I have a pain
in my foot. Like there's a balance between all of this.
Speaker 4 (31:53):
So I once again that middle, that middle path, and
I think as a provider too, bringing that curiosity rather
than judgment up to that forefront of like, no, this
is in their head.
Speaker 2 (32:04):
Well, I guess the head is in the body. So yeah,
we look at everything.
Speaker 4 (32:10):
We look at everything, and the fact of the matter is,
you know, I chronic illness my whole life, but I
normalized it for so long until it became so debilitating
and I couldn't and I was told for so long
that things were enough in the range, you know, and
I intuitively knew something was off. But I'm constantly having
people tell me this. Then I'm invalidated and I'm just
(32:33):
going to stop seeking at exactly some point, which is harsh.
Speaker 2 (32:37):
It is really harsh.
Speaker 3 (32:38):
Yeah, you just think something's wrong with you, but nobody
can help you through it, so like it's just a
you problem. And yeah, it's really isolating.
Speaker 4 (32:45):
And that's yeah, we won't get too into like medical
trauma is real, and there's there's a lot of gas
lighting that that happens. So, yeah, an invitation to anyone
working with a client with mysterious symptoms or full blown
chronic illness to just to bring that compassion and the
attempt for understanding, right.
Speaker 3 (33:05):
Yeah, And if you are really struggling with this, my
consultation group is free. It's once a month, every third
Friday of the month from one to two thirty pm
Eastern and you can just pop in, just send me
an email, and I absolutely will not judge you for
coming into and asking, like I don't know if I
even believe my client with all of their different ailments,
Like we can work through that, because that is also
(33:26):
a very normal response given the culture that we live in.
So I don't blame anyone for going there at first,
but then we have to seek out answers and be
helpful and supportive.
Speaker 2 (33:38):
Amen.
Speaker 4 (33:38):
And I've been to Destiny's Group and it's great, and
I wish I can't.
Speaker 2 (33:41):
Attend it more often.
Speaker 4 (33:42):
It's just always I'm always seeing clients at that at
that time. It's so it's such a valuable resource. Thanks
for creating it. And where I mean, can you just
tell us a little bit more about the memberships and.
Speaker 3 (33:52):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, the memberships. I have one that's client based.
So also if you just feel like you have client
who's struggling with acceptance with you know, uh, not knowing
anybody else who's going through what they're going through. The
membership is a coaching capacity, so we're not doing therapy,
and anyone from any state can join. I do intensives
(34:16):
as well for clients of Georgia, Florida, Colorado, and then
for therapists. Again, I have the Business Council Group and
the Clinical Console Group and we have a really strong,
little like group of providers that yeah, support each other.
Speaker 4 (34:34):
So and you have the directory, right, So for someone
who's seeking first, I mean, we didn't even mention this.
Speaker 2 (34:39):
How do people find your website?
Speaker 3 (34:41):
And you're, oh, yeah, yeah, right, sorry. The Chronic Illness
Therapist dot com is the website. You won't be able
to find anything about the membership on it because well,
I'm just still trying to figure out some stuff with
the membership, but you can email me about that. For
client client based memberships, everything else can be found on
the Chronic Illness Therapist dot com.
Speaker 4 (35:00):
And for someone looking for a chronic illness literate therapist,
they can find one on the directory, right yeah.
Speaker 3 (35:06):
Yeah, and that's just on my homepage of the Chronic
Illness Therapist if you scroll to the bottom, the directory
is down there.
Speaker 4 (35:11):
And for anyone who wants to work with you one
on one, they can find out on your website as well,
right yep.
Speaker 2 (35:17):
And they also have a conference.
Speaker 3 (35:19):
Yeah yeah, we'll be putting together a conference next year.
There will be cees. It'll be in Atlanta. Really excited
about that, so definitely feel free. On my website there's
a services for Professionals tabs, so you can go there
and sign up for the for the conference waitlist.
Speaker 4 (35:36):
Okay, and last, but not least, Dusty, Like, if there's
one thing a client and or therapist listening or watching
us right now walks away with from this episode, what
would you like it to be more than anything else?
Speaker 3 (35:49):
I just think the underlying factor in all of this
is curiosity. Like, if you weren't raised with curiosity for
a myriad of reasons, that is the number one skill
that you're going to have to work on is learning
how to be curious. It's going to help you more
than any other skill.
Speaker 4 (36:04):
I think I cannot agree with that. I had to
learn that myself within my I was so curious outside
of myself but not within myself, and it's such an
understated tool basically in practice.
Speaker 2 (36:22):
Yeah yeah, So, thank you so much for taking the
time to talk about this. You are amazing. Thank you
for everything you do for our community. Really, thank you.
Speaker 3 (36:33):
Thank you for sharing. I'm I'm very much appreciated.
Speaker 2 (36:36):
Okay, all right, take care. Thank you for anyone listening
to Love but Love. Okay, I'm gonna
Speaker 3 (36:44):
Ord
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