What Can We Do Differently with Estefana Johnson, LCSW

Estefana Johnson is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and experienced trauma therapist with over two decades of experience in mental health.  
As the Director of Clinical Training for ARISE Alliance Institute, Estefana oversees the professional development and training of clinicians on Critical Memory Integration (CMI™). 
Her role involves designing and implementing comprehensive training curricula for mental health professionals to enhance clinical skills, particularly in trauma-focused care, PTSD treatment, and therapeutic interventions. 
Estefana also develops and delivers trauma-informed programming tailored to the needs of at-risk populations, bringing these services directly into community-based settings to ensure accessible, responsive care where it’s needed most.
She is currently a practicing clinician and Dosing Session Monitor at Lighthouse Psychiatry and TMS in Gilbert, Arizona, contributing both to clinical care and research trials exploring the therapeutic use of psychedelics.

 
In This Episode

• Estefana’s website
• https://www.instagram.com/ariseallianceinstitute/ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5MyzV9KBg0eJ0uY88N-zCw
• https://www.facebook.com/AriseAllianceInstitute/
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/estefanajohnsonlcsw/

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the Trauma Therapist podcast. My name is Gan Macpherson.
I interview incredible people who dedicated their lives to helping
those who've been impacted by trauma. Here we go five four, three,
two and one, our folks, welcome back to the podcast.
I am very excited to hap as my guest today
as Stefana Johnson A. Stepfana Welcome, Thank you, thank you

(00:22):
for having me awesome. So. Stephana is a licensed clinical
social worker and experienced trauma therapist with over two decades
of experience working in the mental health field. As a
direct Director of Clinical Training for ARISE Alliance Institute, as
Stephan oversees the professional development and training of clinicians on
Critical Memory Integration or CMI. Her role involves designing and

(00:48):
implementing comprehensive training curricula for mental health professionals to enhance
clinical skills, particularly particularly in trauma focused care, PTSD treatment
and therapeutic inter Vengeans Stefan, and welcome to the podcast.
Before we get going, share with the listeners where you're
from originally and where you are currently.

Speaker 2 (01:08):
So I am from I was raised born in Opaso,
raised in New Mexico, right now I practice out of Arizona,
So Gilbert, Arizona. Today I'm in Maryland because I'm visiting family.

Speaker 1 (01:23):
Okay, yeah, so let's let's get into it. How the
heck did you get into this field? You know, broadly,
and then more specifically, we'll talk about trauma.

Speaker 2 (01:34):
Sure. What's what's funny is I never I'm first generation
Mexican American. My parents were born raised in Mexico, you know,
like when I was born, my parents were still working
on their citizenship so very much that Hispanic culture. I
never thought therapy would be a field I would get into.
It was like, you have one diagnosis, it's where you're flying?

Speaker 1 (01:56):
What'd you say?

Speaker 2 (01:57):
Loco's I didn't you know. I never would have guessed
i'd be in this. And what's funny is when I
went to college, I was going to try to do
nursing and I was working at a store. I don't know,
if you remember Montgomery Wards you might, yeah, yeah, So
they were shutting down. I was selling furniture there and
the lady came up. I put an ad out to

(02:18):
look for a job, and some lady said, hey, if
you give me a discount on a couch, I'll get
you a job, and I said, sold, I got a
ten percent and got a job at a mental health
hospital and never looked back.

Speaker 1 (02:30):
Since it's wow, So hold on a second, so you're
still funny. So it's interesting to hear you say, I
guess interesting but not but not unexpected that you know,
coming coming being a first generation Mexican American, like mental health.
You know it's one one diagnosis, loco, that's it. So

(02:54):
when you got the job in that hospital, how were
you viewed? What did your parents and say?

Speaker 2 (03:01):
You know what's interesting is so not only do I
have the Hispanic side right like you just you beat
the trauma out of kids. That's how you get through it.
And then I also came from a colt. I was
raised in a colt. So you either pray it out
or you beat it out. And so yeah, that combination
I think at the time with my age and I
was trying to pull away from all of that break

(03:22):
through and kind of find my own way. So this
opportunity not only was it something that like guided my career,
but on a personal level, I became really curious about what,
you know, what this looks like when other individuals struggle
with things and at the time, it really was like
a lot of CBT that was used, like cognitive approaches,

(03:45):
but we worked with high risk populations, so it was
a it was a level one facility, so it's you know,
they're hospitalized. Obviously there a lot of them were either
core ordered to be there, and there was a lot
of kids that I I just really couldn't act did too,
because I think being a kid with untreated ADHD, you know,
my own trauma, my own systems of oppression. I guess

(04:09):
you would say I had a heart for them. I
really wanted to understand how to help them. And I
I know now that had really driven a lot of
my curiosity, a lot of my desire to better understand
and also confront the things that aren't working, you know
that don't take these things into consideration. And so I
realize now how much my own experience really drove a

(04:32):
lot of like what I have sought, you know, and
continued moving through.

Speaker 1 (04:37):
It seems like you were like drawn to that person,
to that hospital in a sense. So the cult, what
where is this Mexico.

Speaker 2 (04:50):
New Mexico. I mean there's stillund yeah, but it's like
the you know, first of all, as Hispanic woman. It
was education was not something that was promoted. Did you
know My mom had a third grade education, my dad
eighth grade, So college was never a thing I thought
was on the table. And then being Mexican American, not
knowing the language, I thought I was dumb, like I
did not do well in school from kindergarten through you know,

(05:13):
my first attempt in college and then you had you know,
I didn't know I was adhd so I was always
getting in trouble and then I in the In terms
of the religion, the cult are very fanatical beliefs where
you cannot read or listen to anything that doesn't come
from the church. Women are not allowed to wear pants,
cut their hair, wear makeup, have an opinion. You're supposed to.

Speaker 1 (05:37):
Tell you your whole family was in the culture.

Speaker 2 (05:40):
Yes, yes, my entire family. And so that's the entire community,
you know, and so if you if you leave that
all of a sudden, you are damned to hell. You're
everything is fear based and h it, you know, very strict,
and so to break away from that. But then also
have a mom who was untreated, she was adopted, did

(06:00):
and had severe trauma, still has severe trauma, but her interactions.
So there was the physical verbal abuse, and then there
was the you know, oppression, and there was the you know,
first generation not knowing the language, not knowing the culture,
and living in two worlds because home was different from school.
So I have a lot of compassion for my little self,

(06:20):
for my younger self, because you had to be a
warrior to get through all that and kind of find
your own way, which is why I have so much
passion for the misunderstood. You know that it's it's not
as easy as thinking differently. It's you're wired a certain
way and you go to what you know, kind of
like your mother tongue, right, you know, someone speaks to

(06:41):
me in Spanish, I'm like, oh, that's familiar. It's not.
You need to step outside of it to be you know,
very to be successful in this country. But I understand
why we get stuck in the familiarity or were drawn
to it, whether it's helpful or not.

Speaker 1 (06:57):
What is okay? So I want to talk about critical
memory integration before we get there. So you're in this hospital,
what how do things evolve for you such that you're like,
oh my god, this I really like this Where I'm
drawn to this or I feel like I can help

(07:20):
or I can relate.

Speaker 2 (07:22):
Yeah, I think at first it wasn't so much that
I thought I could be in a position to help.
I just wanted to better understand. And that probably comes
from you know, is not knowing English and wanting to
understand English. I thought that was necessary to be able
to succeed in that world, in this world, And at
that time it was I had just left like the

(07:42):
church at nineteen almost twenty years old, and so I'm
still discovering what the world is about. So when I
start this job, I'm seeing individuals. You know, I care
about people I love deeply, So like a kid would
get arrested because they violated their probation and I'm bawling,
you know, I'm like, oh, we needed to help them.
And so you come in thinking that help looks a
certain way, and so I wanted to understand what is

(08:05):
it that we could do differently? And I could tell
you it was one specific case that I still can
never forget. A thirteen year old kid who had attempted
to take her own life for that I don't know,
twelve thirteen, fourteen times, and she came in I only
worked at that specific job for like six months, but
I saw her come in three rounds and each time

(08:29):
was more horrific than the last. And I remember she
had come in and they put her in this room
where she had a stack of paperwork this big to complete,
you know, about what thinking airs she used, why she
was thinking wrong? And my heart just broke because I
could see the pain in her eyes. I could see
to do the stuff she was doing. It just something
didn't connect to me. I'm like, how could how was

(08:52):
doing a worksheet going to resolve this thing that is
clearly such a wound in her soul, like at a
deep level that it goes against what humans usually do,
you know, which is with the self mutilation and that
really those are the cases that just stuck in my head.
It was the humans that stuck in my head that

(09:14):
drove these questions of better understanding what is it that
we're doing? What are we doing with people?

Speaker 1 (09:20):
So where does that lead you? What do you start
to do?

Speaker 2 (09:24):
So when I left there, I actually kind of became homeless.
So I was moving to Phoenix with my brother, and
I had a colleague who saw me, who saw what
I was, you know, passionate, about He said, when you
get to Phoenix, look for a nonprofit that's going to
be different than what we're doing here because this is
a corporation. And so that's what I did. I looked
for a nonprofit. I found one that worked with at

(09:45):
risk youth, very human oriented. When I started there back
in two thousand and one, I was working on the
floor as a behavioral health technician, and I loved that
they put kids first. You know, everything was about kids
come first. And the growth process for me kind of
aligned with the growth process for the organization because at

(10:06):
the beginning, you know, I worked with juveniles who had
committed sex offenses, so they were adjudicated and at the beginning,
back in two thousand and one, because it's a level
one RTC, mean, these kids are too unsafe to be
out in the community. So they all came from jail.
They were all court ordered to be there, so kind
of against their will, they're doing therapy and so we

(10:27):
had a lot of violent kids right So at the time,
we used to use you know, hands on interventions where
you do restraints TCI training and we have maybe like
eighty six restraints a month or something like that. Over time,
longer I worked there, we started moving towards a more
trauma informed approach, and by the time in two thousand

(10:50):
and eight, two thousand and seven, maybe we had gone
to zero restraints a month. I think there was one
year where we had one, and so I knew there
was a different way of doing things. Right. You can't
force people to change, and so I learned a lot
through that process about how to be more effective. And

(11:10):
I do realize now that those that wisdom. I would
say that experience has driven a lot of how I
practice as a clinician as well.

Speaker 1 (11:20):
So break it down, what how were they interacting with
the kids when you were getting those eighty six episodes
a month to when you guys were getting one episode?
What were you doing differently specifically?

Speaker 2 (11:35):
So at the time, we used a program that was
about limiting and leading, limit and lead, So essentially, you
confront the behavior, you stop, you know, you try to
control the environment, you try to control their behavior, and
eventually I think the theory is like they get used
to this other way of being and they change. Right.
The problem was even the kids who did well and

(11:57):
let's say they were no longer violent, I would see
the leave successfully and within a month they're in prison
because they killed somebody or because they went back on
drugs or sold drugs or whatever happened. And that was
a huge driving question, is like, how is it that
this kid has a potential to do so well and
yet the moment they're out of the environment, it's like
they revert back to what they know and that there

(12:19):
really is what a trauma response is is like, your
nervous system is going to override your logic and it's
going to do what it needs to do to survive. Right,
So out thinking your nervous system is not effective. And
so as I started understanding trauma as we as an
organization as well where I was working, started understanding how

(12:39):
trauma impacts behavior. We started shifting our approach to structuring
the environment, to looking for signals signs that the individual
was escalating instead of stepping in when they're already crossing
that line. And I think that made us more effective
in the sense that a we kuld do like earlier intervention,

(13:01):
but be the kids that were able to catch themselves
learned enough about themselves that they also started realizing they
could do better right, so the outcomes would improve it
and I think that's one of the angles that I
have learned that I was seeking, how do we do
that more help the individuals see themselves differently, not be

(13:22):
controlled externally, rather be connected internally so that they understand
what's happening and it's not just I'm a bad kid,
or I'm never going to learn, or I'm just a criminal.

Speaker 1 (13:32):
You know.

Speaker 2 (13:32):
So I really grew like a very strong distaste for labels.

Speaker 1 (13:39):
Wow, so inspiring, man, And you could just feel that,
I mean so much of the people in prisons could
probably benefit from this, Pa.

Speaker 2 (13:49):
Oh my god. You know, like seventy of people in
jail were in foster care at some point in their lives.

Speaker 1 (13:56):
It's a huge though, that's a huge.

Speaker 2 (14:00):
That's a huge to me. I'm like, if you want
to change the world, you got to start off not
trying to stop the crime, but understand why it happens.
Understand what kind of human would go out there and
make these choices. And if you understood their story, you
would see what is driving that, and if we could
treat that and help them with that, then you know
the changes are gonna happen from the inside out instead

(14:21):
of trying to contain it and control it.

Speaker 1 (14:24):
Let me just remind everyone I'm speaking with Stefana Johnson. Okay, so, CMI,
what is it? How are you utilizing it? Go?

Speaker 2 (14:36):
So, if I was to break it down, I would
start with the things that we were missing. Right, So,
if you go to a therapist, like the way I
was trained a person, the therapist might help you understand
how you think, change the way you think. You know,
don't be so black and white. Regulate your nervous system.
You know. So I'm starting to get angry. That was
my go to response as a survival. So do your
breathing techniques, regulate your emotions. And all of this is

(14:58):
what I call a surface level of approach, because the
thing is what differentiates me from someone who doesn't struggle
with the things that I struggle with. Our life experiences. Right,
if you did not have the level of disrupted attachment
that someone like me might have had, then you had
the experience of a safe, connected relationship. You had the

(15:19):
experience of feeling valuable, of feeling and control of understanding
yourself internally. And those who have particularly complex trauma didn't
have that supportive environment to develop these things. So trying
to address issues with a cognitive approach, meaning like change
the way you think. It's like taking the apples off
an apple tree and putting oranges on there, Like it

(15:42):
looks okay at first, but it's going to grow apples
back because it's the roots, right, is what defines it.
And so I wanted to better understand how it is
that we even get there in the first place. And
so we had a whole team because it's not just
one person, you know, we need multiple individuals to bring
in both their expertise, their experiences, their individual you know,

(16:05):
mindsets that we theorize. It's there's something that happens earlier
in our experiences that drives the way we think, the
way we interact, the way we see the world. That
is what we call critical memories. Now, there are a
lot of memory reconsolidation, which is, you know, approaches that
work with memories, but the limitation was a lot of

(16:29):
them target like either the cognition or the body response
or images, right, and so this could be part of it,
but it doesn't always encapsulate all of it. Right, So
if I have an experience that happened early on, let's
say when I was three months old, I'm not going

(16:50):
to remember the story. I'm not going to have the images,
I'm not going to be aware of the negative cognition,
but the memory is still there. So how is it
stored through a physiclogical response right in my body? It's
an experience, and so what CMI does it's helping individuals
connect to themselves and learn to tune in to what

(17:12):
we call the signal to get to that experience, whether
it be something that you can recall consciously or something
that you just know at a deeper level. We work
with it no matter how it shows up. You don't
have to connect it to anything of how you think.
It reveals itself and it happens internally. So the difference

(17:32):
with this approach is truly the individual is the expert.
I'm not the expert. I might be the expert in
terms of the practitioner, but I don't know where your
mind's going to take you. So an example might be
like a person says why do I do this thing
in relationships? And people might be like, oh, your attachment
style okay, but what about my attachment style? So, like

(17:56):
I had an individual who felt worthless, this feelings of worthlessness,
they could try to out talk their way, regulate whatever
feelings come up, try to change how they view it.
But when we did see Ami, it actually connected to
a very early and all she could say was I
was itty bitty, itty bitty. After we processed, she disclosed
she had been a child that had been the result

(18:20):
of a of an assault on her mom. Right now,
I would argue, you can't remember that, but somewhere her
nervous system experience what she later identified as rejection, as
feeling worthless.

Speaker 1 (18:34):
So, okay, a word for it. So you're you're did
you develop critical.

Speaker 2 (18:41):
On the development team? Yes, I would say, we more
uncovered this, this pattern, this process and turned it into
a modality that could be used that could guide the
clinician in guiding an individual through it.

Speaker 1 (18:54):
So let's keep with this this. We'll say, client, this woman,
this one, how do you work with her? How do
you begin to work with her? What does it look like?

Speaker 2 (19:07):
So the biggest part, and we do this we talk
with clinicians a lot about this, is we have to
work with ourselves first, make those connections within ourselves, because
anything about how I interpret your experience can get in
the way of you connecting to your experience. Right, because
if I come in with what we call an agenda.

(19:28):
So let's say a previous modality that I was a
trainer in looked for images. Right, So if I already
have that agenda in my mind, I'm going to ask
questions that are going to lead to an image because
that's what we're looking for, because I believe that's where
the answer is. CMI teaches you to get out of
the way. So as a clinician, we are trained to
just stay present with the experience and understand recognize the

(19:51):
pattern so you know where you're tuning in, and to
put parameters around it. What I mean by that is
think of it like an experience. I call it digesting
an experience. What is like integrating, Right, If you have
a plate and you shove the whole thing in your mouth,
you're gonna choke, right, So you need to put parameters
on it, meaning one bite at a time to swallow digest.

(20:14):
And so that's part of the process is when when people,
instead of getting flooded, we teach them how to tune
into one thing at a time, a specific thing. As
you go through that, we call that sensation emotion expansion.
So there's a feeling or sensation that comes up that
we call the signal and tuning into it without activating.

(20:35):
We use curiosity, non judgment, all of those things that
are catchphrases, and you see them, you hear them all
the time. But what does it look like in actually?

Speaker 1 (20:44):
Okay, but let's get more specific. So this woman sitting down,
how do you start? I mean, yet you've done all
the intake stuff.

Speaker 2 (20:55):
Yeah, you do.

Speaker 1 (20:56):
You say, why are you here? Tell me about what's
going on?

Speaker 2 (21:00):
Well, you could, right, you could, because whether you're here
because you're stuck in a pattern, or there's a memory
that keeps popping up, or you're getting panic attacks out
of nowhere, or you know, you have a fear of cups,
whatever it is, there is always something that's happening in
your body. Right, So your body response is what we
call the signal. So if you were telling me, hey, Steph,

(21:22):
I don't know why I'm afraid of blue cups. Every
time I see them, I start having a panic attack,
you know, And so I might say, okay, when I
hold this up, what do you notice in your body?
What's happening in your body? And I teach you to
tune into that signal? Now, here's the challenge. A lot
of people when they have that discomfort, they want to
alleviate it. Right, the tightness comes up in my chest
and I want to do breathing techniques so that I

(21:43):
can make it away. We're doing the opposite, and that's
what makes you THEMI different is we're helping you hold
that space and the parameters to move through it to
see what it reveals to you. Because there's information is
trying to relate to you.

Speaker 1 (21:57):
Now, so let me just introdect you for a second.
So when you were saying, okay, hold on to that
to feeling whatever that's coming up, are you asking them to?
Are there images coming up? Sound? What are you doing?

Speaker 2 (22:11):
It happens organically. This is the beautiful part. My role
is really to help you stay tuned into that signal
and not derail because here's the way the brain works.
We have what are called memory networks. Right, So if
I'm telling you right now, I'll give you an example.
I'm talking about a fruit bowl and I'm telling you
there was bananas I may eskmchas last night. I don't

(22:32):
know if you know what.

Speaker 1 (22:32):
That is, but it's a I don't, I don't it's.

Speaker 2 (22:35):
Delicious, but it has like bananas, apple strawberries, and then
it has like a cream stuff that you put on
it with granola. But if I'm telling you about this, right,
and you go through and the word banana was there,
but you went through to the apple strawberries and the rest. Right,
That is how sometimes people process or they're moving through things.
If I was doing it the CEE on my Way,

(22:57):
I would have you pause on the banana and really
in the banana and remember what it smells like, what
it tastes like, you know, the like as you open it,
the texture. Now you're really tuning into the banana, right,
that one thing. So here's the anger. Pause with the anger.
What is that experience like in your body? What are

(23:18):
you noticing as you sit with it? And what happens
is your brain is digesting that signal, right, it's treeing
on that before it goes to the next one. Once
it's done, it'll reveal the next thing. And what's happening
is that memory network is revealing itself because there's different
aspects that are part of that memory network. We're activating it.
The moment I say apple, your brain jumps to the

(23:40):
Apple network. It's no longer in the banana network? Does
that makes sense? So if you have a complex situation, like,
for example, had an individual that had been assaulted, you know,
as a child, and we targeted like the flashbacks and
the nightmares. This I had worked with her when she
was a kid, and she came to me as an

(24:00):
adult because she said, Steph like, yeah, those things are
taken care of, but I keep putting myself in situations
that I know are dangerous and I'm getting assaulted again.
What's going on here? Well, the thing is that what
we missed doing other approaches, and what CMI caught for
her was how she survived that assault. At five years old.

(24:21):
You cannot just bounce out. You can't say no. So
your nervous system learned that by appeasing and complying, we're
going to live through this. Right at five years old,
that's the only choice you have. But now, as a
young woman, you have other choices. But if you haven't
updated that network to include the fact that now you
can walk out that some dude gives you the creeps,

(24:43):
You can say no, you don't have to go to
his house, you don't have to accept a date, and
they it's like this unconscious like they could think of
it logically, but to actually facilitate it in the moment
when they feel creeped out, when they feel discomfort, nervous
system kicks in. I got this, Yes, this is what
we do. Let's appease, let's go with it, roll with it,

(25:04):
and then we're gonna live. That's where we get stuck.

Speaker 1 (25:09):
I mean, that's very intense. It's so crazy because you know,
to hear you talk just reminds me of how quickly,
and whether whether you're a therapist or not, many of
us are just blindsided by these big emotions that people
have or these behaviors that they have, and we just

(25:30):
so quickly go to that without doing what you're you're
doing here, which is which is breaking it down on
this kind of microscopic level. You are allowing things to
unfold very naturally.

Speaker 2 (25:43):
Yeah, but you have to have the safety there for
it to happen. Your brain wants to heal, your heart
wants to heal, Right, that's why you're seeking for something.
But if you don't have the right because I can't
guess what your brain recorded, you don't even know what
your brain has in there. So it's about learning how
to tune in and teaching how to tune into that,

(26:05):
and we both discover where it's at. You know, simultaneous
is such a beautiful, sacred process, but it requires us
to as the clinicians, to be able to go within
ourselves right because otherwise my signal will get tangled up
with yours and I won't be able to guide you.

Speaker 1 (26:23):
Now, let me just step aside here for a second
and talk about that for a second. How was that
for you, that whole process when you started were that
experience when you started saying, I got to start looking
at my own stuff, well.

Speaker 2 (26:38):
I didn't even know I needed to look at my stuff.
This is what's crazy. And I tell people I'm like
my own guinea pig because as we started practicing these
concepts and we knew as therapists, you know, we got
to try it on ourselves and see what what gives.
I would never three years ago when we started this
whole process, I've never I haven't met the criteria for
PTSD when you talk about flashbacks, nightmares, you know, the

(27:00):
kind of typical stuff. I'm pretty resilient. I mean, I'm
like I was born in that environment, so I just
dust off and keep moving on. What I didn't learn
to do was half compassion for myself, right to acknowledge
the pain and the anguish that that little girl or
that younger version of me didn't have the time to

(27:21):
feel or experience. So it was interesting because we call
them signals, and we learned to start tuning in. And
there was times where I couldn't not sit with it right,
Like there was something and it was like, I can't
think if I don't figure out what's happening here and
I could tell you. I mean the very first experience
where I had a colleague that got curious with me,

(27:43):
like where did you go? I was really upset about
something and I'm like, what do you mean? Where did
I I'm sitting here in front of you. We were
on zoom, but all of a sudden, I got this
image of being inside an egg and I'm like, I'm
in an egg And he didn't judge it. He's like,
like it was normal, right, And it was from when
I was three years old. I saw like the little
girl almost peeking out. And there was fascinating this experience

(28:05):
for me because I realized, you know, with the attachment
issues my mom was adopted had severe trauma. And another
person that I had worked with, an energy worker from Hawaii,
had told me, you were three years old when you understood,
when you realized that your mom could not give you
what you needed, and it was then that you decided
you would care for her. And that always stuck in
my head. But this was like a visceral experience of

(28:28):
a moment when it was I don't know, but I
could tell you that was pivotal in terms of everything
else that unraveled. And I became aware of that was
not only impacting me in my personal limitations. And I
wouldn't say I would never cross the threshold. You know,
I've been happily married for twenty years, we have two
kids that are amazing. I'm doing okay with my career,

(28:51):
haven't been locked up yet, you know, Like I'm a
pretty healthy person. But I didn't realize how much, how
many limitations and we were there because of unintegrated experiences.
So as I went through that, a lot of the
CMI sessions that I either did on my own or

(29:11):
were facilitated by my colleagues my partners connected a lot
of these experiences that I had to better understand why
I started working with kids, Why I had such a
passion for that, Why certain populations called to me more
than others, you know, why I felt this desperation to
do something about something that did not impact me, but

(29:33):
it was like this drive from within. But also why
I was so afraid to step in in other areas,
why I was limited and you know, limiting myself in
certain areas. All of those things started making sense. It's
like the puzzle pieces coming together and get a clearer
picture of who you are, which which frees you up

(29:54):
to me choices.

Speaker 1 (29:57):
Man, You're incredible, you know you You exude this passion
for your work and for kids, and I can feel it.
It's really people for people. Yeah, it's amazing, so inspiring.
So what do you do? What are you doing now?

(30:19):
Are you working with you seeing clients, You're working with therapists,
what all of it? All of it?

Speaker 2 (30:25):
I don't know. Okay, some people ask me that. I mean,
I you know, my primary role is at a Rise Alliance.
We continue developing approaches. My goal is to reach the world.
I mean, I've worked with I'm also clinical director at
a nonprofit for for foster and adoptive kids. So we
open up a community center, we're opening up a school,
So I wrote the program on that one to help

(30:46):
the individuals who work with these kids approach from a
capacity building instead of the behavior modification. I've also started
off launched off some seminars that I was doing with
the city for their staff, like on how to better
understand their stress response and reclaim their agency working with

(31:09):
you know, hopefully re changing the way we teach clinicians.
So there's another university, I'm working with their director on
the social work program because we learn a lot of theory,
but to really understand how our experiences influence how we
interact with clients and how we interpret what they need.

(31:29):
So I feel that that's important too. And then recently
I was just asked to develop something for the police
department for the behavioral health unit, which you know, goes
in through how they interact with people in the community,
so kind of all over the place, and yet it's
the same mission of helping individuals really a understand themselves
and what that human experiences instead of pathologizing it, and

(31:52):
b learn to tap into their power, learn to connect
these things and really access that resiliency that we were
born with. You know, kind of wake up to who
you really are and what you're capable of. That's kind
of my passion. I don't care what the background is.
I don't care what your experiences are, because you could

(32:13):
have someone who had the I call it the white
picket fence life, and they're terrified to do things because
they have to follow the rules, right, And then you
have one that was born like I was, in adversity
and they're terrified to go to this side because this
is all they know. And so that that's kind of
my passion there all over the place.

Speaker 1 (32:32):
I love it. I love it all right. So how
do people learn more about what you're doing and where
they can Where can they find you?

Speaker 2 (32:39):
Yeah, come to our our website Arizaliance dot org and
you'll you'll have you know, we do webinars every month,
a lot of opportunities there, and then I believe we
give you like our social media handles. We're on Facebook
or on Instagram.

Speaker 1 (32:56):
Okay, and we'll have that all that linked up here
at the show notes page at the I'm a Therapist
podcast dot com at Stefana. You are friggin amazing and inspiring.
Love to have you back at a later time talk again.
It's just love it. Thank you so much for being here.

Speaker 2 (33:14):
Yeah, thank you for having me.

Speaker 1 (33:15):
All right, we'll be in touch. Take care, okay,