Full Transcript for Dr. Jamie Marich: Healing Through Creativity - The Re-Patterning Podcast

loving to have that conversation. 82 00:03:42,440 --> 00:03:44,120 So yeah, I'm curious. 83 00:03:44,120 --> 00:03:48,080 I think what you've seen and observed with some of the nieces 84 00:03:48,080 --> 00:03:50,640 I've written and announcements I've made, 85 00:03:50,640 --> 00:03:54,280 'cause just for context, especially in the mode of therapy, 86 00:03:54,280 --> 00:03:55,800 we call EMDR therapy. 87 00:03:55,800 --> 00:03:58,160 I movement desensitization or reprocessing, 88 00:03:58,160 --> 00:04:01,400 which is really phenomenal treatment for PTSD 89 00:04:01,400 --> 00:04:02,960 and trauma related issues. 90 00:04:02,960 --> 00:04:04,960 I have quite a platform. 91 00:04:04,960 --> 00:04:07,200 I'm a major trainer in the area. 92 00:04:07,200 --> 00:04:09,960 I've written three books specifically on EMDR 93 00:04:09,960 --> 00:04:13,760 and I've built a very successful training company in it 94 00:04:13,760 --> 00:04:15,960 and really in the wake of a lot of our success, 95 00:04:15,960 --> 00:04:17,040 I'm walking away from it. 96 00:04:17,040 --> 00:04:18,680 That's part of what's happening. 97 00:04:18,680 --> 00:04:20,200 I'm turning it over to someone else 98 00:04:20,200 --> 00:04:22,080 'cause it's just not where I wanna be, 99 00:04:22,080 --> 00:04:24,640 spending my energy even though I still very much 100 00:04:24,640 --> 00:04:28,840 believe in EMDR therapy and what it can do as a healing modality. 101 00:04:28,840 --> 00:04:32,080 I'm just in a period of making a lot of shifts 102 00:04:32,080 --> 00:04:34,040 for my own health and wellness and my life. 103 00:04:34,040 --> 00:04:36,200 And in the process, it's been a deconstruction, 104 00:04:36,200 --> 00:04:40,240 a calling out of this is what has not worked for me. 105 00:04:40,240 --> 00:04:41,560 And I wanna be clear, I'm not saying 106 00:04:41,560 --> 00:04:43,000 it's about professional therapy 107 00:04:43,000 --> 00:04:46,960 'cause I still very much believe in what therapy can do 108 00:04:46,960 --> 00:04:49,560 but it's how the field and the structures and the systems 109 00:04:49,560 --> 00:04:51,360 like what they've done to therapy 110 00:04:51,360 --> 00:04:56,360 that I am feeling increasingly more disgusted with. 111 00:04:56,360 --> 00:04:59,560 And yeah, so that's the context 112 00:04:59,560 --> 00:05:01,440 but I'm curious how you've observed 113 00:05:01,440 --> 00:05:03,600 and what you wanna talk about and all that. 114 00:05:03,600 --> 00:05:06,560 - Oh my gosh, well I'd love to start by asking you 115 00:05:06,560 --> 00:05:07,840 just what are some of the things 116 00:05:07,840 --> 00:05:09,560 that you've observed in the field 117 00:05:09,560 --> 00:05:11,560 that have not been working for you? 118 00:05:11,560 --> 00:05:14,200 I can definitely share some of what I've observed 119 00:05:14,200 --> 00:05:17,760 as an outsider but I want your insider perspective first. 120 00:05:17,760 --> 00:05:20,280 - Well, look always how you started introducing me. 121 00:05:20,280 --> 00:05:22,520 I think there's more than a dozen of us now 122 00:05:22,520 --> 00:05:27,280 but I am definitely one of a small minority 123 00:05:27,280 --> 00:05:30,800 who are so out and public about having been treated 124 00:05:30,800 --> 00:05:34,240 for the specific diagnosis we've been treated with dissociative. 125 00:05:34,240 --> 00:05:37,880 For us, it was another why specified dissociative disorder 126 00:05:37,880 --> 00:05:40,040 yet the path of treatment that I chose 127 00:05:40,040 --> 00:05:43,560 was to embrace this notion of honoring all my parts 128 00:05:43,560 --> 00:05:45,920 and having more of a functional plurality 129 00:05:45,920 --> 00:05:47,600 or multiplicity as we call it 130 00:05:47,600 --> 00:05:49,360 that to me dissociative identities 131 00:05:49,360 --> 00:05:51,680 is not something we have to be curative. 132 00:05:51,680 --> 00:05:54,360 It's something we need to learn how to live with 133 00:05:54,360 --> 00:05:57,440 and work with in a healthy, adaptive way. 134 00:05:57,440 --> 00:06:02,440 So what's interesting is at the time I formally came out in 2018, 135 00:06:02,440 --> 00:06:07,480 I didn't think it was that big of a deal in the larger field 136 00:06:07,480 --> 00:06:10,880 where I knew it would be a big deal is in the EMDR community 137 00:06:10,880 --> 00:06:13,040 because even amongst EMDR therapists, 138 00:06:13,040 --> 00:06:15,280 I had heard dissociation talked about 139 00:06:15,280 --> 00:06:18,560 with like such dirty word type of language. 140 00:06:18,560 --> 00:06:20,080 It's the worst thing a person can do. 141 00:06:20,080 --> 00:06:22,720 We have to make sure we keep people from doing it 142 00:06:22,720 --> 00:06:27,040 and I sat back passively even having been diagnosed 14 years 143 00:06:27,040 --> 00:06:29,120 listening to what a lot of professionals said 144 00:06:29,120 --> 00:06:32,480 about those sick people with dissociative disorders 145 00:06:32,480 --> 00:06:33,960 or other conditions. 146 00:06:33,960 --> 00:06:36,760 And a lot of my major coming out was after I had done 147 00:06:36,760 --> 00:06:40,120 a lot of the work to be okay with the consequences of what might happen. 148 00:06:40,120 --> 00:06:44,320 But I came out and it did its thing in EMDR world 149 00:06:44,320 --> 00:06:47,520 and I didn't realize it was seen as such a trailblazing thing 150 00:06:47,520 --> 00:06:49,880 in the larger therapeutic professions too. 151 00:06:49,880 --> 00:06:52,920 I mean, I'm definitely not the first person who has come out 152 00:06:52,920 --> 00:06:55,960 as being a professional with a major mental health diagnosis. 153 00:06:55,960 --> 00:06:59,240 We had Katie Keach on the show too, by the way. 154 00:06:59,240 --> 00:07:00,760 So good. 155 00:07:00,760 --> 00:07:01,600 Good. 156 00:07:01,600 --> 00:07:04,880 Katie's is someone who we've had a lot of mutual shared dialogue 157 00:07:04,880 --> 00:07:05,880 around this. 158

00:07:05,880 --> 00:07:08,520 But I think what kind of quote unquote impressed people 159 00:07:08,520 --> 00:07:12,240 was someone of my stature, someone of the bibliography I have 160 00:07:12,240 --> 00:07:14,880 and the work I've done to come out and not just be like, 161 00:07:14,880 --> 00:07:18,000 "Hey, I have this and it's a thing of my past." 162 00:07:18,000 --> 00:07:20,080 Because I do think some people come out 163 00:07:20,080 --> 00:07:22,760 about their mental health and addiction struggles in that way. 164 00:07:22,760 --> 00:07:25,600 Like it happened, I'm over it, I'm good now. 165 00:07:25,600 --> 00:07:28,240 And so much of my coming out has been, yes, 166 00:07:28,240 --> 00:07:31,080 it's no longer paralyzing my life. 167 00:07:31,080 --> 00:07:33,440 And especially when life gets rough, 168 00:07:33,440 --> 00:07:35,400 it can still be a factor in my life. 169 00:07:35,400 --> 00:07:39,120 I'm not one who ever pretends that we're ever fully healed 170 00:07:39,120 --> 00:07:41,720 from something, even though we can largely have 171 00:07:41,720 --> 00:07:43,480 resolution on something. 172 00:07:43,480 --> 00:07:47,600 And that it's okay to live in this place of my parts 173 00:07:47,600 --> 00:07:50,080 are still a part of me. 174 00:07:50,080 --> 00:07:51,960 And I've learned to tend to them in a way 175 00:07:51,960 --> 00:07:54,920 where they actually helped me live a more adaptive 176 00:07:54,920 --> 00:07:56,400 and responsive life right now. 177 00:07:56,400 --> 00:07:59,720 So I think that is what a lot of people see in me 178 00:07:59,720 --> 00:08:02,120 as they're either scared of me for being that open 179 00:08:02,120 --> 00:08:04,600 or critical or they've respected it. 180 00:08:04,600 --> 00:08:06,160 And I think going to your question 181 00:08:06,160 --> 00:08:11,520 about the larger problem in the field is it still pisses me off 182 00:08:11,520 --> 00:08:14,280 that the field is not paying adequate attention 183 00:08:14,280 --> 00:08:16,520 to lived experience voices. 184 00:08:16,520 --> 00:08:19,080 And I think those of us who are professionals 185 00:08:19,080 --> 00:08:21,480 who are out about lived experience, 186 00:08:21,480 --> 00:08:24,120 I'm gonna go as far as to say we have the most to share 187 00:08:24,120 --> 00:08:26,360 'cause we are coming at this from both worlds, 188 00:08:26,360 --> 00:08:28,640 having the professional training and education 189 00:08:28,640 --> 00:08:32,040 but also being able to say, "Hey, I've lived this too." 190 00:08:32,040 --> 00:08:35,160 There are times in the fields helping professions 191 00:08:35,160 --> 00:08:37,600 where I think I see some change happening 192 00:08:37,600 --> 00:08:40,840 and I'm still just seeing a lot of pushback, 193 00:08:40,840 --> 00:08:43,280 like one of the continuing education organizations 194 00:08:43,280 --> 00:08:46,600 that I have recently abandoned giving money to 195 00:08:46,600 --> 00:08:49,760 because continuing

at organizations are what we as trainers 196 00:08:49,760 --> 00:08:53,760 have to pay to be able to offer their certain approvals 197 00:08:53,760 --> 00:08:56,040 and designations on our courses. 198 00:08:56,040 --> 00:08:59,360 And they are just getting more and more staunch 199 00:08:59,360 --> 00:09:03,480 that anything you train has to have so many peer reviewed 200 00:09:03,480 --> 00:09:06,080 citations from empirical literature. 201 00:09:06,080 --> 00:09:08,920 And I wanna be clear, I'm not against research 202 00:09:08,920 --> 00:09:09,960 or empirical literature. 203 00:09:09,960 --> 00:09:12,880 What I am against is us privileging that 204 00:09:12,880 --> 00:09:14,680 as a knowledge source. 205 00:09:14,680 --> 00:09:16,240 Religious scholar, I follow, 206 00:09:16,240 --> 00:09:17,960 whose name will come to me here in a second 207 00:09:17,960 --> 00:09:21,080 called it "scientism" that were not, 208 00:09:21,080 --> 00:09:24,000 Houston Smith, were not anti-science 209 00:09:24,000 --> 00:09:27,280 but it's putting science up on this pedestal 210 00:09:27,280 --> 00:09:31,120 against let's say the ways of spirit or lived experience. 211 00:09:31,120 --> 00:09:34,160 And what I want, and what a lot of people want, 212 00:09:34,160 --> 00:09:37,640 I feel too, is this place where we can honor 213 00:09:37,640 --> 00:09:39,840 all forms of inquiry as valid. 214 00:09:39,840 --> 00:09:42,160 And the way I see the fields of psychology 215 00:09:42,160 --> 00:09:44,640 especially in the other helping professions now, 216 00:09:44,640 --> 00:09:46,120 we're not doing that. 217 00:09:46,120 --> 00:09:47,480 And that's a problem. 218 00:09:47,480 --> 00:09:50,360 May I have some ideas on I think why it's gotten that way? 219 00:09:50,360 --> 00:09:53,040 But that's one of the things I'm speaking on. 220 00:09:53,040 --> 00:09:56,040 - Yeah, I especially loved your response 221 00:09:56,040 --> 00:10:01,040 to when someone says, oh, but something is or is not evidence-based. 222 00:10:01,040 --> 00:10:02,160 - Who's evidence? 223 00:10:02,160 --> 00:10:03,480 - That's my first question. 224 00:10:03,480 --> 00:10:04,640 (laughing) 225 00:10:04,640 --> 00:10:08,080 - This came up in the discussion for me recently too, 226 00:10:08,080 --> 00:10:10,720 where I had a person who I did not know, 227 00:10:10,720 --> 00:10:13,560 in my comments in a public post online, 228 00:10:13,560 --> 00:10:18,000 talking about how what I was doing was unethical, 229 00:10:18,000 --> 00:10:22,720 it was dangerous, because of the course that I teach, et cetera. 230 00:10:22,720 --> 00:10:25,600 And this was someone who had never come across my work before. 231 00:10:25,600 --> 00:10:28,320 He had decided this in the last 20 minutes 232 00:10:28,320 --> 00:10:30,440 between when I commented on the thread 233 00:10:30,440 --> 00:10:31,880 and when they responded back to me. 234 00:10:31,880 --> 00:10:34,800 And I said, what is your basis for it? 235 00:10:34,800 --> 00:10:36,520 I was like, I know the scope of what I'm doing. 236 00:10:36,520 --> 00:10:38,560 I know what my certifications are and are not. 237 00:10:38,560 --> 00:10:41,120 And I'm transparent about what I do and what I teach. 238 00:10:41,120 --> 00:10:44,320 And he goes, I don't care, you're not a licensed professional. 239 00:10:44,320 --> 00:10:47,040 And so I started being like, well, what institutions 240 00:10:47,040 --> 00:10:47,960 are we looking at here? 241 00:10:47,960 --> 00:10:51,720 And the first thing I brought up was how complex PTSD 242 00:10:51,720 --> 00:10:54,400 is still not even in the DSM. 243 00:10:54,400 --> 00:10:59,040 And the fact that back in in 1994, it was voted on, 244 00:10:59,040 --> 00:11:02,040 it was called desnose disorder of extremes 245 00:11:02,040 --> 00:11:05,560 to us not otherwise specified, and a committee voted on it. 246 00:11:05,560 --> 00:11:09,160 19 people out of 21 voted to put it into the DSM 247 00:11:09,160 --> 00:11:11,680 and just amazingly enough, somehow, 248 00:11:11,680 --> 00:11:13,920 somewhere along the way it just didn't end up there. 249 00:11:13,920 --> 00:11:16,160 So I look at that and I say, well, how good 250 00:11:16,160 --> 00:11:20,680 are your standards for evidence if this is what we're dealing with? 251 00:11:20,680 --> 00:11:22,920 This conversation is happening, especially 252 00:11:22,920 --> 00:11:25,040 in a lot of decolonizing therapy spaces. 253 00:11:25,040 --> 00:11:27,320 And I'm happy for this that we're looking at 254 00:11:27,320 --> 00:11:30,000 what does being a licensed professional even mean? 255 00:11:30,000 --> 00:11:34,800 Like let's go there because I come at this of two worlds. 256 00:11:34,800 --> 00:11:38,200 Again, I'm not against science, I'm against scientism. 257 00:11:38,200 --> 00:11:42,360 And I feel that's especially important to say in a country 258 00:11:42,360 --> 00:11:47,560 where so much science, especially at the medical level, 259 00:11:47,560 --> 00:11:49,240 is being ignored. 260 00:11:49,240 --> 00:11:50,240 Good point. 261 00:11:50,240 --> 00:11:54,040 The position that I take is therapy and healing 262 00:11:54,040 --> 00:11:55,760 is not a hard science. 263 00:11:55,760 --> 00:12:00,040 That science, at least in a naturalistic and peric-away, 264 00:12:00,040 --> 00:12:02,080 can be a part of it. 265 00:12:02,080 --> 00:12:05,480 But if we really believe that people are holistic beings, 266 00:12:05,480 --> 00:12:08,120 body, mind, spirit, we can't just look 267 00:12:08,120 --> 00:12:10,360 at the science of the body. 268 00:12:10,360 --> 00:12:13,640 And is mind a science or is it an art? 269 00:12:13,640 --> 00:12:16,880 You know my work, I tend to approach it more as an art form. 270 00:12:16,880 --> 00:12:21,200 So on one hand, licensing, professional licensing 271 00:12:21,200 --> 00:12:22,400 is in place. 272 00:12:22,400 --> 00:12:24,040 And any licensing board will tell you 273 00:12:24,040 -->

00:12:25,600 this to protect the public. 274 00:12:25,600 --> 00:12:28,520 That that's the existence of a licensing board. 275 00:12:28,520 --> 00:12:32,400 And some have commented, well, it gives the public a sense 276 00:12:32,400 --> 00:12:33,480 of protection. 277 00:12:33,480 --> 00:12:35,480 It's kind of like, why do we go to the security gates 278 00:12:35,480 --> 00:12:36,400 at the airport? 279 00:12:36,400 --> 00:12:39,280 It helps people maybe feel safer, whether or not 280 00:12:39,280 --> 00:12:41,280 it's doing anything or not. 281 00:12:41,280 --> 00:12:43,560 And it's tricky because I do believe 282 00:12:43,560 --> 00:12:45,520 there are some healing practices that 283 00:12:45,520 --> 00:12:49,240 are the scope of license professionals who've been trained. 284 00:12:49,240 --> 00:12:51,680 I went through that hard work of getting my masters 285 00:12:51,680 --> 00:12:53,120 and getting licensed. 286 00:12:53,120 --> 00:12:56,000 And it was a lot I had to go through. 287 00:12:56,000 --> 00:12:59,200 And here's the other truth, Bob, I'm going to drop. 288 00:12:59,200 --> 00:13:00,720 Oh, I don't know if I should say this publicly, 289 00:13:00,720 --> 00:13:02,280 but spirit's bringing it through. 290 00:13:02,280 --> 00:13:04,760 So we're going to-- 291 00:13:04,760 --> 00:13:07,280 so many license professionals out there 292 00:13:07,280 --> 00:13:09,240 have not done their own work. 293 00:13:09,240 --> 00:13:10,760 Oh, 100%. 294 00:13:10,760 --> 00:13:14,640 And there are a lot of people who technically have a license. 295 00:13:14,640 --> 00:13:16,400 I would not refer people to. 296 00:13:16,400 --> 00:13:17,920 I would not go to. 297 00:13:17,920 --> 00:13:22,400 And there are people who work in other healing modalities 298 00:13:22,400 --> 00:13:25,880 that as long as they know their scope, which it sounds like you 299 00:13:25,880 --> 00:13:30,080 do, I think can be better fits for doing healing work 300 00:13:30,080 --> 00:13:31,240 with people. 301 00:13:31,240 --> 00:13:33,520 Professional Western psychotherapy does not 302 00:13:33,520 --> 00:13:35,880 have the market cornered on healing. 303 00:13:35,880 --> 00:13:40,640 And I want more therapists to recognize that, 304 00:13:40,640 --> 00:13:44,360 and to realize that shamans and other healing practitioners 305 00:13:44,360 --> 00:13:47,240 and spiritual directors, spiritual care providers 306 00:13:47,240 --> 00:13:50,520 and practitioners are people we can work within concert. 307 00:13:50,520 --> 00:13:53,600 And I will say in my role as a license professional 308 00:13:53,600 --> 00:13:56,800 in EMDR expert, I've run into times and cases 309 00:13:56,800 --> 00:14:01,120 where I know I have done all I could with my skills. 310 00:14:01,120 --> 00:14:04,880 And I do refer my person for collaborative care 311 00:14:04,880 --> 00:14:07,640 with a well studied, well trained shaman, 312 00:14:07,640 --> 00:14:10,200 or some other kind of healing arts practitioner 313 00:14:10,200 --> 00:14:11,600 and we work together. 314 00:14:11,600 --> 00:14:17,880 Or it might be therapy is not where you are most needing. 315 00:14:17,880 --> 00:14:20,720 Healing, that's not the best fit in your journey right now, 316 00:14:20,720 --> 00:14:23,760 but maybe there is another healing practice that is. 317 00:14:23,760 --> 00:14:27,000 So you could probably tell, I hope this is coming through. 318 00:14:27,000 --> 00:14:29,400 I am in all of the above type of person. 319 00:14:29,400 --> 00:14:33,080 I think we get into any dangerous territory. 320 00:14:33,080 --> 00:14:36,760 When we say this is the thing that's going to heal your PTSD 321 00:14:36,760 --> 00:14:38,800 or cure your PTSD. 322 00:14:38,800 --> 00:14:43,480 Or this is the death of a way, a certain form of therapy works. 323 00:14:43,480 --> 00:14:46,640 So that's that's that's so box. 324 00:14:46,640 --> 00:14:47,720 Yeah. 325 00:14:47,720 --> 00:14:51,560 I love what you brought up also about, for example, shamanism 326 00:14:51,560 --> 00:14:54,560 and other indigenous healing modalities. 327 00:14:54,560 --> 00:14:58,360 Because I think it's such a sort of like myopic Western 328 00:14:58,360 --> 00:15:01,640 colonialist kind of arrogance to assume like, 329 00:15:01,640 --> 00:15:04,800 oh, we have the way we have this field that's really maybe 330 00:15:04,800 --> 00:15:07,680 only been developed in its current form in the last 100 years 331 00:15:07,680 --> 00:15:10,600 or so where it's like, you know, you're looking at, 332 00:15:10,600 --> 00:15:13,400 well, how did folks get by in other cultures? 333 00:15:13,400 --> 00:15:18,160 How mental illness or spiritual sickness dealt with in other, 334 00:15:18,160 --> 00:15:21,040 like you think you're the first one? 335 00:15:21,040 --> 00:15:24,280 You know, you're going to go and like stick a flag in it and be like, 336 00:15:24,280 --> 00:15:28,120 ah, we have, you know, and it's just like when you get to that, 337 00:15:28,120 --> 00:15:32,800 that myopia of, oh, you must be a licensed professional. 338 00:15:32,800 --> 00:15:35,000 You know, again, who is licensed, right? 339 00:15:35,000 --> 00:15:37,880 And what is, you know, what's being studied? 340 00:15:37,880 --> 00:15:40,880 And again, I think you're correct in that, like sometimes, 341 00:15:40,880 --> 00:15:43,840 yes, absolutely, you know, you want someone, it's like, 342 00:15:43,840 --> 00:15:46,440 especially if you're going to do like a brain surgeon, right? 343 00:15:46,440 --> 00:15:48,960 And you bring up like the fact that like science 344 00:15:48,960 --> 00:15:52,760 in this country right now is maybe not being paid attention 345 00:15:52,760 --> 00:15:56,040 to enough in many medical spheres that, you know, 346 00:15:56,040 --> 00:15:58,320 especially with what we have going on in our government 347 00:15:58,320 --> 00:16:01,320 and the department of, you know, health and all that, 348 00:16:01,320 --> 00:16:02,560 all that

kerfleffle. 349 00:16:02,560 --> 00:16:08,080 But at the same time, yeah, healing is so much more, 350 00:16:08,080 --> 00:16:10,200 and has been for me so much more of an art. 351 00:16:10,200 --> 00:16:12,320 And I would actually love to hear more about your work 352 00:16:12,320 --> 00:16:14,000 in the expressive arts as well. 353 00:16:14,000 --> 00:16:19,520 And, you know, what you teach or help folks to do to use their creativity 354 00:16:19,520 --> 00:16:24,360 and, you know, their expressive side in order to further that journey of healing. 355 00:16:24,360 --> 00:16:29,320 Well, I would argue that expressive arts is the original treatment. 356 00:16:29,320 --> 00:16:32,280 It's the original healing modality. 357 00:16:32,280 --> 00:16:36,160 And even the International Expressive Arts Therapy Association, 358 00:16:36,160 --> 00:16:39,880 who in my opinion, my opinion have kind of gone the way 359 00:16:39,880 --> 00:16:43,320 of trying to overstandardize things now too. 360 00:16:43,320 --> 00:16:47,120 But they have had a long term history of recognizing 361 00:16:47,120 --> 00:16:49,680 that there are the expressive arts therapy 362 00:16:49,680 --> 00:16:52,360 it was not invented by any one person, 363 00:16:52,360 --> 00:16:55,560 that it is fundamentally indigenous in nature 364 00:16:55,560 --> 00:16:58,520 and that what we call modern expressive arts therapy 365 00:16:58,520 --> 00:17:01,920 came together from a variety of influences and spheres. 366 00:17:01,920 --> 00:17:08,080 And so how professional expressive arts therapy honors 367 00:17:08,080 --> 00:17:11,560 what is called both multimodality and intermodality. 368 00:17:11,560 --> 00:17:15,120 So that means we're not like just writing or just drawing 369 00:17:15,120 --> 00:17:17,560 or just playing music or just dancing, 370 00:17:17,560 --> 00:17:19,840 but we're open to working with all of them. 371 00:17:19,840 --> 00:17:23,000 So it goes back to my very, all of the above personality. 372 00:17:23,000 --> 00:17:26,480 So a lot of people have heard of separate art therapy, dance therapy, 373 00:17:26,480 --> 00:17:29,080 et cetera, yet the expressive arts focus is, 374 00:17:29,080 --> 00:17:31,400 let's look at how they all weave together. 375 00:17:31,400 --> 00:17:35,280 Because that's certainly what the first peoples of the planet did. 376 00:17:35,280 --> 00:17:38,680 And we all have, I've said this in one of my other books, 377 00:17:38,680 --> 00:17:40,200 A Birthright to Express. 378 00:17:40,200 --> 00:17:42,600 We're all wired for expression. 379 00:17:42,600 --> 00:17:48,280 And so much of what trauma or oppression or stress 380 00:17:48,280 --> 00:17:52,080 over time can do to us is tell us that we don't have a right 381 00:17:52,080 --> 00:17:54,400 to express our truth or that it's not safe 382 00:17:54,400 --> 00:17:56,640 to express our truth or our voice. 383 00:17:56,640 --> 00:17:59,360 And the various practices and processes 384 00:17:59,360 --> 00:18:01,720 of expressive arts work, which can be done. 385 00:18:01,720 --> 00:18:04,640 And so I will also give Iyata credit for this 386 00:18:04,640 --> 00:18:07,640 because I really liked this when I first studying expressive arts. 387 00:18:07,640 --> 00:18:11,440 They will credential both mental health therapists 388 00:18:11,440 --> 00:18:12,720 and expressive arts. 389 00:18:12,720 --> 00:18:16,000 And they also have a credential for consultants and educators. 390 00:18:16,000 --> 00:18:17,800 So people who may do the work you do 391 00:18:17,800 --> 00:18:20,480 or people who are classroom educators, 392 00:18:20,480 --> 00:18:23,600 my teacher was a spiritual director 393 00:18:23,600 --> 00:18:25,480 and had expressive arts training. 394 00:18:25,480 --> 00:18:28,440 So I've long resonated with this idea 395 00:18:28,440 --> 00:18:31,040 that the expressive arts belong to everyone. 396 00:18:31,040 --> 00:18:35,600 And what we're really doing in this healing modality 397 00:18:35,600 --> 00:18:39,120 we call expressive arts is just helping people tap into that. 398 00:18:39,120 --> 00:18:42,120 And it can work alongside other modalities, 399 00:18:42,120 --> 00:18:44,560 like repotting or EMDR therapy 400 00:18:44,560 --> 00:18:49,280 or any other modality you may use or practice. 401 00:18:49,280 --> 00:18:51,800 What I love about the expressive arts as well 402 00:18:51,800 --> 00:18:55,200 or really using any creative outlet 403 00:18:55,200 --> 00:18:58,800 for healing or for personal change, for personal transformation 404 00:18:58,800 --> 00:19:03,960 is if we're looking at metrics, which are like, 405 00:19:03,960 --> 00:19:08,160 oh, if you don't have a license, this is unethical, et cetera. 406 00:19:08,160 --> 00:19:11,600 Well, no one is ever going to get hurt by writing a song. 407 00:19:11,600 --> 00:19:14,840 No one ever got hurt by painting a picture. 408 00:19:14,840 --> 00:19:19,840 So I love that it's also something that anyone can do 409 00:19:19,840 --> 00:19:22,600 that is our natural, as you said, birthright, 410 00:19:22,600 --> 00:19:24,800 our creative right to express ourselves. 411 00:19:24,800 --> 00:19:26,920 And this can contribute to our healing. 412 00:19:26,920 --> 00:19:31,480 And there's probably almost no way for it to actually go wrong 413 00:19:31,480 --> 00:19:33,440 unless, now I'm thinking of like, 414 00:19:33,440 --> 00:19:36,000 I'm being very autistic exceptionalist here. 415 00:19:36,000 --> 00:19:39,200 The only way that I can think of is if you're stuck in a pattern 416 00:19:39,200 --> 00:19:42,960 and you learn a pattern of like, oh, when I'm in pain 417 00:19:42,960 --> 00:19:45,920 and I express my pain through a song, then I get approval. 418 00:19:45,920 --> 00:19:48,480 So I need to create more pain in order to create more. 419 00:19:48,480 --> 00:19:51,760 That would be the one pitfall, but aside from that, 420 00:19:51,760 --> 00:19:54,240 it's something that anyone can do on

their own time. 421 00:19:54,240 --> 00:19:56,560 And I think the only other, I mean, another pitfall 422 00:19:56,560 --> 00:19:59,040 I'd want to make people aware of as we can all, 423 00:19:59,040 --> 00:20:01,920 and this might likely, a pattern, be in that tendency 424 00:20:01,920 --> 00:20:04,720 to push ourselves, which a lot of artists will do. 425 00:20:04,720 --> 00:20:07,360 Like, I have to keep outputting, outputting, outputting, 426 00:20:07,360 --> 00:20:10,280 more, more, more, more, where you may be a lot of writers 427 00:20:10,280 --> 00:20:13,880 do this, then neglecting other parts of your health. 428 00:20:13,880 --> 00:20:18,240 Or that internal meter may be saying, you're a little too far 429 00:20:18,240 --> 00:20:20,120 into this right now, you got to take a break. 430 00:20:20,120 --> 00:20:22,000 You can come back to it later. 431 00:20:22,000 --> 00:20:25,640 So that would be just another caution I'd give. 432 00:20:25,640 --> 00:20:28,840 Yeah, that's a great one to pushing ourselves into burnout 433 00:20:28,840 --> 00:20:32,120 or developing a pattern where we base our worth 434 00:20:32,120 --> 00:20:34,320 on our output for sure. 435 00:20:34,320 --> 00:20:38,120 Yeah, what sort of, let's look at the positive things 436 00:20:38,120 --> 00:20:41,240 that could come from, say, someone engaging 437 00:20:41,240 --> 00:20:42,760 in an arts practice like that. 438 00:20:42,760 --> 00:20:44,160 For those who are listening out there, 439 00:20:44,160 --> 00:20:46,280 and I'm going to go ahead and also assume 440 00:20:46,280 --> 00:20:48,400 that there are probably many of our listeners 441 00:20:48,400 --> 00:20:50,640 who maybe don't have access to therapy, 442 00:20:50,640 --> 00:20:53,000 or can't afford to do one-on-one work 443 00:20:53,000 --> 00:20:54,640 with a practitioner right now. 444 00:20:54,640 --> 00:20:58,360 What kind of thing would you maybe suggest to them 445 00:20:58,360 --> 00:21:02,640 that they could explore in terms of creating artistic work 446 00:21:02,640 --> 00:21:05,120 in a sense that would help with their healing path? 447 00:21:05,120 --> 00:21:06,880 Well, what a wonderful question, because it's 448 00:21:06,880 --> 00:21:08,800 tying into my current project. 449 00:21:08,800 --> 00:21:12,320 I'm working on my next presently called Memoir, 450 00:21:12,320 --> 00:21:14,120 Writing a Spiritual Practice. 451 00:21:14,120 --> 00:21:16,440 And a lot of it came out of the fact 452 00:21:16,440 --> 00:21:18,120 that, of course, I wrote a memoir. 453 00:21:18,120 --> 00:21:23,120 Yet I found that to be, I don't even have words 454 00:21:23,120 --> 00:21:24,440 for how helpful it was. 455 00:21:24,440 --> 00:21:26,840 Now, to be clear, I had 20 years of therapy 456 00:21:26,840 --> 00:21:29,360 and other healing practices before writing it. 457 00:21:29,360 --> 00:21:31,560 Yet it almost had this quality of like, 458 00:21:31,560 --> 00:21:33,400 I was writing my final exam. 459 00:21:33,400 --> 00:21:36,280 Even though I don't think like I'm ever done evolving 460 00:21:36,280 --> 00:21:40,040 as a human, when it was out and shared with the world, 461 00:21:40,040 --> 00:21:42,960 I had such this sense of its over now. 462 00:21:42,960 --> 00:21:44,880 And I'm not going to let this define me, 463 00:21:44,880 --> 00:21:47,360 even as I still talk about it. 464 00:21:47,360 --> 00:21:49,800 And there was something about getting into the memories. 465 00:21:49,800 --> 00:21:53,040 And I wrote a lot of songs, who I was writing the memoir, 466 00:21:53,040 --> 00:21:57,200 that helped me tap into a new level of spiritual practice. 467 00:21:57,200 --> 00:21:59,600 And so I started teaching a course called Memoir, 468 00:21:59,600 --> 00:22:01,520 Writing a Spiritual Practice, and actually 469 00:22:01,520 --> 00:22:04,880 for my seminary internship, I'm writing the book 470 00:22:04,880 --> 00:22:08,120 and interviewing Memoirists who are not media stars, 471 00:22:08,120 --> 00:22:10,480 because that's not who I'm interested in talking to for this. 472 00:22:10,480 --> 00:22:13,320 I want to talk to Memoirists who have self-published 473 00:22:13,320 --> 00:22:15,240 or who have worked with small presses, 474 00:22:15,240 --> 00:22:19,080 or who really did this with the intention of healing 475 00:22:19,080 --> 00:22:20,360 and spiritual practice. 476 00:22:20,360 --> 00:22:24,120 So I think of what a Maori woman, Hany Moray, 477 00:22:24,120 --> 00:22:26,400 who is a friend and who I met in New Zealand 478 00:22:26,400 --> 00:22:28,880 said when I met her and she was giving a talk 479 00:22:28,880 --> 00:22:31,920 on her memoir process about her grief experience. 480 00:22:31,920 --> 00:22:35,880 She said, my paper didn't judge me, my pen didn't judge me. 481 00:22:35,880 --> 00:22:37,760 And I just love that. 482 00:22:37,760 --> 00:22:40,840 And yes, that's what a lot of people get with journaling. 483 00:22:40,840 --> 00:22:43,800 And there can be some precautions around journaling, too, 484 00:22:43,800 --> 00:22:46,720 because I think sometimes we do push and take it too far 485 00:22:46,720 --> 00:22:50,120 and can stay in these same patterns or scripts. 486 00:22:50,120 --> 00:22:53,440 Yet I think if you journal or write with an intention, 487 00:22:53,440 --> 00:22:55,680 like I'm asking a lot of Memoirists, now, 488 00:22:55,680 --> 00:22:58,720 what was your intention in approaching your memoir? 489 00:22:58,720 --> 00:23:01,880 And I'm hearing things like to try to make meaning out of my life, 490 00:23:01,880 --> 00:23:06,440 to try to organize something that has been very scattered. 491 00:23:06,440 --> 00:23:11,480 And when you can write with that intention, as opposed to-- 492 00:23:11,480 --> 00:23:14,440 Yeah, you may have these rage chapters and rage things 493 00:23:14,440 --> 00:23:17,880 you have to express, because I'm not about stifling expression, 494 00:23:17,880 --> 00:23:21,320 but can you turn

it around for some greater intention 495 00:23:21,320 --> 00:23:28,760 to either repattern, to make meaning, to realize 496 00:23:28,760 --> 00:23:30,680 this is part of my story. 497 00:23:30,680 --> 00:23:32,280 I even have this story yet. 498 00:23:32,280 --> 00:23:33,800 I am not my whole story. 499 00:23:33,800 --> 00:23:35,160 My story doesn't end here. 500 00:23:35,160 --> 00:23:39,040 And writing can take a lot of folks to that place, 501 00:23:39,040 --> 00:23:40,480 specifically memoir writing. 502 00:23:40,480 --> 00:23:42,600 And I always want to say memoir doesn't have to be a book. 503 00:23:42,600 --> 00:23:43,840 It can be a series of essays. 504 00:23:43,840 --> 00:23:45,000 It can be a series of poems. 505 00:23:45,000 --> 00:23:46,840 It can be a collection of songs. 506 00:23:46,840 --> 00:23:50,960 I think of how many albums out there really have memoir quality. 507 00:23:50,960 --> 00:23:53,680 So yeah, that's what I'm working on right now. 508 00:23:53,680 --> 00:23:56,160 Man, I resonate so much with what you said 509 00:23:56,160 --> 00:23:58,960 about when you finally put it out there, 510 00:23:58,960 --> 00:24:00,680 you felt like it's done. 511 00:24:00,680 --> 00:24:03,760 Despite years and years of therapy and healing work, 512 00:24:03,760 --> 00:24:07,560 that I felt that way around the EP that I wrote called, 513 00:24:07,560 --> 00:24:08,320 Who Can You Trust? 514 00:24:08,320 --> 00:24:10,160 And I didn't really have-- 515 00:24:10,160 --> 00:24:12,920 I think I had an unconscious intention, not really a conscious one. 516 00:24:12,920 --> 00:24:16,840 I didn't really quite understand how narrative magic worked back then. 517 00:24:16,840 --> 00:24:18,680 But I knew on some level that I was going 518 00:24:18,680 --> 00:24:21,240 to put all of the betrayals, all the trauma, 519 00:24:21,240 --> 00:24:25,080 all the relational abuse, et cetera, that had happened to me into this sort of-- 520 00:24:25,080 --> 00:24:27,440 I knew that the title was going to be called, Who Can You Trust? 521 00:24:27,440 --> 00:24:30,480 Because it was about learning discernment, ultimately. 522 00:24:30,480 --> 00:24:33,360 And I remember it came out in early 2018. 523 00:24:33,360 --> 00:24:36,760 So it was right as the Me Too movement was like 524 00:24:36,760 --> 00:24:39,760 cresting into the mainstream was when it was in mixing. 525 00:24:39,760 --> 00:24:44,120 And I remember when it came out, and we put a music video out, 526 00:24:44,120 --> 00:24:48,200 maybe two months after the album itself was released. 527 00:24:48,200 --> 00:24:51,200 And I remember seeing the reviews come back 528 00:24:51,200 --> 00:24:54,080 because I had hired a publicist and everything. 529 00:24:54,080 --> 00:24:56,520 And it was like, oh, you know, Arden Lee tackles 530 00:24:56,520 --> 00:24:57,840 the Me Too movement with this. 531 00:24:57,840 --> 00:25:00,920 And I was like, man, why is everyone making my music all about sexual assault? 532 00:25:00,920 --> 00:25:02,880 And then I was like, oh, wait a minute, no, that was me. 533 00:25:02,880 --> 00:25:03,480 I did that. 534 00:25:03,480 --> 00:25:05,440 I literally wrote the press release. 535 00:25:05,440 --> 00:25:08,440 And in that moment, I was like, oh, I'm done 536 00:25:08,440 --> 00:25:12,720 because I'm tired of talking about it. 537 00:25:12,720 --> 00:25:15,000 What is now the blank slate in front of me 538 00:25:15,000 --> 00:25:17,040 that I get to create from? 539 00:25:17,040 --> 00:25:19,360 And I think also what you said about the fact 540 00:25:19,360 --> 00:25:22,960 that when we're doing that, I feel anyway as an artist 541 00:25:22,960 --> 00:25:26,440 that I have an obligation to-- 542 00:25:26,440 --> 00:25:27,840 if I'm going to complain about something, 543 00:25:27,840 --> 00:25:29,520 I better be doing it to solve it. 544 00:25:29,520 --> 00:25:31,160 So if I'm putting all of that-- 545 00:25:31,160 --> 00:25:32,160 Yeah, you know. 546 00:25:32,160 --> 00:25:34,720 I feel like it's almost like my obligation, 547 00:25:34,720 --> 00:25:36,440 if I'm putting something out in the world, 548 00:25:36,440 --> 00:25:39,920 I better show people that there is a way out of that. 549 00:25:39,920 --> 00:25:42,920 And so oftentimes, it's like the last track of the album 550 00:25:42,920 --> 00:25:45,600 will be the one that takes everything and kind of like, 551 00:25:45,600 --> 00:25:47,520 twist it around and puts it out there. 552 00:25:47,520 --> 00:25:49,280 And it's like, all right, well, here's what I've learned. 553 00:25:49,280 --> 00:25:51,280 And here's what I'm doing from it. 554 00:25:51,280 --> 00:25:53,560 So yeah, I just wanted to share that everything 555 00:25:53,560 --> 00:25:56,800 that you said just resonated so, so deeply with me. 556 00:25:56,800 --> 00:25:57,360 I'm so grateful. 557 00:25:57,360 --> 00:25:58,160 I'm writing that quote. 558 00:25:58,160 --> 00:26:00,040 Yeah, and I love it so much. 559 00:26:00,040 --> 00:26:03,160 Oh my gosh, I'm honored. 560 00:26:03,160 --> 00:26:04,440 I'm so honored by that. 561 00:26:04,440 --> 00:26:07,360 I will likely shout you out in the new book with that idea. 562 00:26:07,360 --> 00:26:08,160 It's fantastic. 563 00:26:08,160 --> 00:26:09,320 Oh, amazing. 564 00:26:09,320 --> 00:26:13,040 Oh, you just made my day. 565 00:26:13,040 --> 00:26:15,760 I'm such a fan girl, you know? 566 00:26:15,760 --> 00:26:19,960 Because I have-- yeah, your books were just like, man, 567 00:26:19,960 --> 00:26:22,480 at a time when I needed to know about those subjects, 568 00:26:22,480 --> 00:26:25,560 so very badly, like your books were there in a way 569 00:26:25,560 --> 00:26:28,880 that I was like, oh, thank God this exists as a resource. 570 00:26:28,880 --> 00:26:30,440 Well, thank you for saying that. 571 00:26:30,440 --> 00:26:33,120 But I want to turn that into a message for your listeners, 572 00:26:33,120 --> 00:26:35,480 which is, yeah, this goes

back to kind 573 00:26:35,480 --> 00:26:39,440 of the theme of our conversation about being more of a rebel 574 00:26:39,440 --> 00:26:45,200 in my professional field, that I write publishers 575 00:26:45,200 --> 00:26:47,240 the mainstream literary industry would 576 00:26:47,240 --> 00:26:49,960 could say that I write for a niche audience, 577 00:26:49,960 --> 00:26:53,560 that I don't write with a lot of mass or commercial appeal. 578 00:26:53,560 --> 00:26:55,720 And I'm OK with that, because I don't 579 00:26:55,720 --> 00:26:58,560 want to put out anything that doesn't feel like me, 580 00:26:58,560 --> 00:27:01,400 that I don't believe in, that I don't think there is a market 581 00:27:01,400 --> 00:27:03,520 for that people want to hear from. 582 00:27:03,520 --> 00:27:05,360 And so when I get feedback like that, 583 00:27:05,360 --> 00:27:06,920 it's more than just a compliment. 584 00:27:06,920 --> 00:27:08,360 It's like, you know, I was right. 585 00:27:08,360 --> 00:27:10,920 There was something in this for somebody. 586 00:27:10,920 --> 00:27:16,080 And I would just say to any of you who maybe have art scarring 587 00:27:16,080 --> 00:27:17,640 around nobody's going to like this, 588 00:27:17,640 --> 00:27:19,880 or nobody's going to feel helped from this, 589 00:27:19,880 --> 00:27:22,200 or nobody's going to be impacted by this. 590 00:27:22,200 --> 00:27:25,280 If your intuition is telling you, this may help 591 00:27:25,280 --> 00:27:28,280 even just one other person, follow that thread 592 00:27:28,280 --> 00:27:31,360 and create that thing, express that thing, that you're 593 00:27:31,360 --> 00:27:33,480 being led to, create or express. 594 00:27:33,480 --> 00:27:36,440 Also, I would, you know, to riff off of your own quote, 595 00:27:36,440 --> 00:27:39,040 I would also say, who's commercial appeal? 596 00:27:39,040 --> 00:27:41,040 Right. 597 00:27:41,040 --> 00:27:42,200 You know? 598 00:27:42,200 --> 00:27:43,360 Like, yeah. 599 00:27:43,360 --> 00:27:46,720 I was visiting a bookstore recently, 600 00:27:46,720 --> 00:27:50,800 a very lovely, spumb business bookstore 601 00:27:50,800 --> 00:27:54,040 that I'm just so glad places like that still exist. 602 00:27:54,040 --> 00:27:55,760 And I had a connection in the owner, 603 00:27:55,760 --> 00:27:57,000 and she knew about my work. 604 00:27:57,000 --> 00:28:00,120 And I was looking at the book she had on her shelf 605 00:28:00,120 --> 00:28:02,360 about trauma and spirituality. 606 00:28:02,360 --> 00:28:06,440 And my short assessment to her is the people who read my stuff 607 00:28:06,440 --> 00:28:10,360 are usually the people who roll their eyes at these people. 608 00:28:10,360 --> 00:28:11,840 And I'm OK with that. 609 00:28:11,840 --> 00:28:14,120 I'm really OK with that. 610 00:28:14,120 --> 00:28:14,680 Yeah. 611 00:28:14,680 --> 00:28:16,680 [LAUGHS] 612 00:28:16,680 --> 00:28:18,800 Yeah, absolutely. 613 00:28:18,800 --> 00:28:22,800 And so-- well, and what really gets me is like just so many 614 00:28:22,800 --> 00:28:25,560 of the people who are in charge of the institutions 615 00:28:25,560 --> 00:28:26,360 these days. 616 00:28:26,360 --> 00:28:31,320 And it seems like if they are not aggressively antagonizing 617 00:28:31,320 --> 00:28:34,280 the communities that they claim to be treating, which, you know, 618 00:28:34,280 --> 00:28:37,440 you and I know that that's been going on with a lot of the, 619 00:28:37,440 --> 00:28:40,520 you know, the so-called experts on dissociative disorders 620 00:28:40,520 --> 00:28:43,840 and, you know, and also disorders in their quotes as well. 621 00:28:43,840 --> 00:28:46,280 And so, you know, so I look at some of the things 622 00:28:46,280 --> 00:28:49,040 that are chosen or held up as the standard. 623 00:28:49,040 --> 00:28:52,200 And I'm like, I don't trust the source where this is coming from. 624 00:28:52,200 --> 00:28:52,520 You know? 625 00:28:52,520 --> 00:28:55,880 I don't trust even the intentions of the source 626 00:28:55,880 --> 00:28:57,720 where this is coming from. 627 00:28:57,720 --> 00:28:59,760 And I think so much of what you're hitting on there 628 00:28:59,760 --> 00:29:00,840 is the word intention. 629 00:29:00,840 --> 00:29:04,200 I mean, I can't automatically know the intention 630 00:29:04,200 --> 00:29:06,520 of why every writer puts something out. 631 00:29:06,520 --> 00:29:10,000 I also don't think intention is all good or all bad, 632 00:29:10,000 --> 00:29:14,920 because I want to be clear that even though I have said a lot 633 00:29:14,920 --> 00:29:19,160 about a lot of the institutional thinkers in my field, 634 00:29:19,160 --> 00:29:20,960 I don't disparage that work. 635 00:29:20,960 --> 00:29:23,920 I do think it has open doors in places, 636 00:29:23,920 --> 00:29:26,960 especially institutionally where doors of need to be opened. 637 00:29:26,960 --> 00:29:30,080 I'm not saying everybody writes or thinks 638 00:29:30,080 --> 00:29:32,360 or leads with bad intention. 639 00:29:32,360 --> 00:29:36,160 But all I know is I know when intention resonates with me. 640 00:29:36,160 --> 00:29:37,920 Like I had a raky master once who, 641 00:29:37,920 --> 00:29:39,600 and I don't know your thoughts on this, 642 00:29:39,600 --> 00:29:41,360 but it really stuck with me. 643 00:29:41,360 --> 00:29:44,560 She said, I personally don't agree with good energy 644 00:29:44,560 --> 00:29:45,600 and bad energy. 645 00:29:45,600 --> 00:29:48,440 I agree with does this energy resonate with me? 646 00:29:48,440 --> 00:29:49,440 Mm. 647 00:29:49,440 --> 00:29:52,040 And I feel that way very much about intention 648 00:29:52,040 --> 00:29:54,920 that if somebody's intention for doing something 649 00:29:54,920 --> 00:29:57,040 or saying something or teaching something 650 00:29:57,040 --> 00:30:00,280 feels like it aligns with either my intention 651 00:30:00,280 --> 00:30:03,560 or what I need to receive, that's where I tend 652

00:30:03,560 --> 00:30:05,400 to really connect with someone's work. 653 00:30:05,400 --> 00:30:07,760 It's not saying I completely shut off everyone else, 654 00:30:07,760 --> 00:30:11,160 because I do think, again, I'm an all of the above thinker, 655 00:30:11,160 --> 00:30:13,080 but that's my thoughts on it. 656 00:30:13,080 --> 00:30:13,920 Yeah. 657 00:30:13,920 --> 00:30:15,800 I loved also your thoughts recently. 658 00:30:15,800 --> 00:30:20,360 There was a piece in the cut recently 659 00:30:20,360 --> 00:30:22,120 with us talking about. 660 00:30:22,120 --> 00:30:26,400 I was like, oh, I got to get into this one with Dr. Jamie today. 661 00:30:26,400 --> 00:30:28,560 So I'll just say for our listeners, 662 00:30:28,560 --> 00:30:30,680 because I know Dr. Jamie knows what I'm talking about. 663 00:30:30,680 --> 00:30:34,400 There was a few months ago, there was kind of a hit piece 664 00:30:34,400 --> 00:30:38,720 in the cut about a modality called internal family systems. 665 00:30:38,720 --> 00:30:41,600 And I think Dr. Jamie and I are pretty aligned 666 00:30:41,600 --> 00:30:43,680 in our feelings about internal family systems, 667 00:30:43,680 --> 00:30:46,480 where I personally, I like it as a model. 668 00:30:46,480 --> 00:30:49,520 I also do not think it's necessarily like the, 669 00:30:49,520 --> 00:30:53,240 it's not beyond critique, and it's not like the be all and all. 670 00:30:53,240 --> 00:30:54,360 But I like it as a model. 671 00:30:54,360 --> 00:30:58,560 And I know there's been people in my own life 672 00:30:58,560 --> 00:31:02,640 with dissociative disorders who had real difficulty accepting 673 00:31:02,640 --> 00:31:05,320 what was going on because of shame and stigma, 674 00:31:05,320 --> 00:31:08,960 and because of the way that mental illness has been literally 675 00:31:08,960 --> 00:31:12,240 weaponized sometimes in our society against people. 676 00:31:12,240 --> 00:31:16,160 And really had a hard time embracing that this was a possibility, 677 00:31:16,160 --> 00:31:17,680 actually not even a possibility, 678 00:31:17,680 --> 00:31:19,160 but like a necessity to deal with, 679 00:31:19,160 --> 00:31:21,000 they were going to be on a path to healing. 680 00:31:21,000 --> 00:31:24,080 And Dick Schwartz, his book, "No Bad Parts," 681 00:31:24,080 --> 00:31:26,520 which is about the IFS model, 682 00:31:26,520 --> 00:31:30,200 absolutely created a gateway for this person to like begin 683 00:31:30,200 --> 00:31:33,520 to accept their own plurality, that these were not like, 684 00:31:33,520 --> 00:31:35,400 that these were, these parts are assets, 685 00:31:35,400 --> 00:31:37,760 like these parts are part of us, they're valid, 686 00:31:37,760 --> 00:31:39,240 they have their needs are valid, 687 00:31:39,240 --> 00:31:40,880 their feelings are valid, et cetera. 688 00:31:40,880 --> 00:31:44,640 So I'm so grateful to his work for that. 689 00:31:44,640 --> 00:31:46,400 At the same time, it's also a model 690 00:31:46,400 --> 00:31:49,680 that I think has developed like a bit of like a cult of personality 691 00:31:49,680 --> 00:31:52,720 around it or like a cult of modality perhaps to be better said. 692 00:31:52,720 --> 00:31:56,240 And there are a lot of people who with anything, 693 00:31:56,240 --> 00:31:58,040 it's like anything is a tool. 694 00:31:58,040 --> 00:32:00,200 And so if you have a hammer, which is like a neutral tool, 695 00:32:00,200 --> 00:32:01,520 you could use a hammer to build a house, 696 00:32:01,520 --> 00:32:04,200 but you could also use it to knock someone's kneecaps out. 697 00:32:04,200 --> 00:32:07,480 And there have been, so it seems, you know, 698 00:32:07,480 --> 00:32:10,560 some facilitators that have been using IFS in a way 699 00:32:10,560 --> 00:32:13,400 that has not actually been helpful to their patients, 700 00:32:13,400 --> 00:32:15,640 you know, that maybe is more about, you know, their own egos. 701 00:32:15,640 --> 00:32:17,920 But I would love to, for you, Dr. Damien, 702 00:32:17,920 --> 00:32:22,920 to talk about your thoughts on the way that that model has been viewed 703 00:32:22,920 --> 00:32:27,480 in that sort of, again, the scientism of Western thought 704 00:32:27,480 --> 00:32:30,840 and whether something is, you know, quote unquote evidence-based. 705 00:32:30,840 --> 00:32:35,200 - Yeah, so that piece I wrote, it's called therapy is not a science 706 00:32:35,200 --> 00:32:37,960 and it's a response specifically to that take down piece 707 00:32:37,960 --> 00:32:40,920 in the cut about IFS, which I thought was unfair, 708 00:32:40,920 --> 00:32:43,600 even though I'm a critic of IFS in a lot of ways, 709 00:32:43,600 --> 00:32:46,400 because how shall I say this fairly? 710 00:32:46,400 --> 00:32:50,200 'Cause I, Dick Schwartz, I will give him credit. 711 00:32:50,200 --> 00:32:52,200 He has been open to have dialogue with me 712 00:32:52,200 --> 00:32:54,720 about some of my criticisms of IFS in a way 713 00:32:54,720 --> 00:32:59,720 that's not been pandering and so I respect him in a lot of ways. 714 00:32:59,720 --> 00:33:02,880 I think, oh, we're going here. 715 00:33:02,880 --> 00:33:07,440 So many of my problems with the modern day, 716 00:33:07,440 --> 00:33:12,560 therapy movements, many of which are cultish or cultic, 717 00:33:12,560 --> 00:33:15,840 and even by saying that, I encourage you to look up 718 00:33:15,840 --> 00:33:18,200 the International Cultic Studies Association, 719 00:33:18,200 --> 00:33:19,960 the International Cultic Studies Association 720 00:33:19,960 --> 00:33:23,320 and see the characteristics of a cult and decide for yourself. 721 00:33:23,320 --> 00:33:25,720 And I even wrote a blog once called in my therapy cult 722 00:33:25,720 --> 00:33:28,920 and yeah, I have been in the EMDR world for almost 20 years 723 00:33:28,920 --> 00:33:32,200 and it's culty, it's cultish in a lot of ways. 724 00:33:32,200 --> 00:33:33,560 So I've benefited from it. 725

00:33:33,560 --> 00:33:35,840 I'm the first to recognize that, 726 00:33:35,840 --> 00:33:37,760 but I also know a cult when I see one. 727 00:33:37,760 --> 00:33:40,520 I know cult thinking when I see one. 728 00:33:40,520 --> 00:33:43,600 And I do think in some circumstances, 729 00:33:43,600 --> 00:33:46,160 a lot of the founders of these modern modalities 730 00:33:46,160 --> 00:33:49,160 who are really just repurposing a lot of ancient wisdom 731 00:33:49,160 --> 00:33:52,320 that's probably my biggest beef with IFS. 732 00:33:52,320 --> 00:33:54,480 And you know, something Schwarz has said repeatedly 733 00:33:54,480 --> 00:33:56,120 is I just listened to my clients. 734 00:33:56,120 --> 00:33:57,360 I just listened to my clients. 735 00:33:57,360 --> 00:33:58,320 I just listened to my clients. 736 00:33:58,320 --> 00:34:00,680 I love that attitude. 737 00:34:00,680 --> 00:34:04,520 And who's to say we can't listen to our clients too 738 00:34:04,520 --> 00:34:08,240 on helping build a model that's going to work for them? 739 00:34:08,240 --> 00:34:13,360 And why is he as a male academic getting credit 740 00:34:13,360 --> 00:34:15,680 for this thing that so many dissociative women 741 00:34:15,680 --> 00:34:17,480 have done themselves for years? 742 00:34:17,480 --> 00:34:18,480 And indigenous. 743 00:34:18,480 --> 00:34:19,480 - Oh, fierce. 744 00:34:19,480 --> 00:34:21,880 - So that's a big part of my criticism. 745 00:34:21,880 --> 00:34:24,920 And, 'cause it is both and, I don't believe in like, 746 00:34:24,920 --> 00:34:29,520 totalities in most cases, I give him an IFS credit 747 00:34:29,520 --> 00:34:32,600 'cause it has popularized in the mental health field 748 00:34:32,600 --> 00:34:34,640 this idea that we all have parts. 749 00:34:34,640 --> 00:34:38,560 It has taken a lot of parts thinking out of the closet. 750 00:34:38,560 --> 00:34:40,960 And so I'm grateful for that. 751 00:34:40,960 --> 00:34:42,240 I'm definitely grateful for that. 752 00:34:42,240 --> 00:34:44,800 But the piece in the cut, I think, 753 00:34:44,800 --> 00:34:49,800 started with this idea of this is the damage IFS can cause. 754 00:34:49,800 --> 00:34:54,200 And I don't see the portrayal so much as the modality 755 00:34:54,200 --> 00:34:56,360 rather the treatment center and the clinician 756 00:34:56,360 --> 00:34:57,720 that we're doing it. 757 00:34:57,720 --> 00:34:58,560 - Yes. 758 00:34:58,560 --> 00:35:00,320 - And that goes to an earlier part I was making 759 00:35:00,320 --> 00:35:02,600 about licensing therapists. 760 00:35:02,600 --> 00:35:06,440 That's not necessarily a sign that you're working 761 00:35:06,440 --> 00:35:08,360 with a good practitioner just 'cause somebody 762 00:35:08,360 --> 00:35:12,360 can afford all this training and pass the tests and whatnot. 763 00:35:12,360 --> 00:35:15,960 And then the piece really took this turn of, 764 00:35:15,960 --> 00:35:18,840 like, it's not sufficiently empirically reviewed science. 765 00:35:18,840 --> 00:35:20,720 And this is what the APA says. 766 00:35:20,720 --> 00:35:25,720 And with a lot of modalities, I think there is an evidence base. 767 00:35:25,720 --> 00:35:30,240 It may not be the level of measureability 768 00:35:30,240 --> 00:35:32,680 that's something like cognitive behavioral therapy has 769 00:35:32,680 --> 00:35:36,880 'cause that is more of a cookie cutter scientific approach 770 00:35:36,880 --> 00:35:38,080 to the mind. 771 00:35:38,080 --> 00:35:41,400 And I said this to a friend of mine who does IFS 772 00:35:41,400 --> 00:35:43,880 in discussing the unfairness of the piece 773 00:35:43,880 --> 00:35:48,280 that at a certain point when we talk about healing modalities, 774 00:35:48,280 --> 00:35:51,160 yeah, you can look at the quality of the science. 775 00:35:51,160 --> 00:35:53,480 But you also have to look at the quality 776 00:35:53,480 --> 00:35:56,040 of quite frankly customer satisfaction, 777 00:35:56,040 --> 00:35:58,960 are people who are not subject to being researched 778 00:35:58,960 --> 00:36:00,920 by academic institutions? 779 00:36:00,920 --> 00:36:03,480 Are they reporting that this is working 780 00:36:03,480 --> 00:36:04,560 and helpful for them? 781 00:36:04,560 --> 00:36:07,440 And this is this element of voice to the people. 782 00:36:07,440 --> 00:36:10,880 What are the people saying through their lived experience 783 00:36:10,880 --> 00:36:11,920 about what is helpful? 784 00:36:11,920 --> 00:36:14,920 And I will go as far to say if you look at my healing journey 785 00:36:14,920 --> 00:36:16,960 and my healing trajectory, 786 00:36:16,960 --> 00:36:19,320 it would have been impossible to measure 787 00:36:19,320 --> 00:36:22,920 because there was no one thing that did it for me. 788 00:36:22,920 --> 00:36:26,480 And so much of modern attempts at research 789 00:36:26,480 --> 00:36:29,520 and psychotherapy are all about what's the intervention? 790 00:36:29,520 --> 00:36:31,600 What's the dose of the intervention? 791 00:36:31,600 --> 00:36:36,160 And all these other variables are just out of the way. 792 00:36:36,160 --> 00:36:38,800 Dr. San Chang, who is an IFS therapist, 793 00:36:38,800 --> 00:36:40,840 I've not followed their work for a while, 794 00:36:40,840 --> 00:36:43,000 but something they said years ago 795 00:36:43,000 --> 00:36:44,160 that really struck with me. 796 00:36:44,160 --> 00:36:46,400 I cited it in dissociation made simple 797 00:36:46,400 --> 00:36:50,680 is that evidence-based therapy is a colonial project 798 00:36:50,680 --> 00:36:53,520 because so much of who's getting researched 799 00:36:53,520 --> 00:36:58,080 in especially university-driven studies 800 00:36:58,080 --> 00:37:00,840 are not black, brown, and indigenous people, 801 00:37:00,840 --> 00:37:03,400 are not queer people unless the research 802 00:37:03,400 --> 00:37:06,000 is more specifically tailored that way. 803 00:37:06,000 --> 00:37:08,680 And people with complex trauma and

dissociative disorders, 804 00:37:08,680 --> 00:37:11,920 although there is a body of research to be sure, 805 00:37:11,920 --> 00:37:15,200 it often does not strike me when I read it 806 00:37:15,200 --> 00:37:19,760 as the kind of therapy participants or clients 807 00:37:19,760 --> 00:37:21,960 I would need in my settings. 808 00:37:21,960 --> 00:37:24,400 Yeah, rather the types of clients 809 00:37:24,400 --> 00:37:28,520 who would go to more university-sponsored hospitals 810 00:37:28,520 --> 00:37:29,640 or institutions. 811 00:37:29,640 --> 00:37:30,280 So-- 812 00:37:30,280 --> 00:37:33,360 Yeah. 813 00:37:33,360 --> 00:37:34,320 When Gordon here-- 814 00:37:34,320 --> 00:37:36,440 [LAUGHTER] 815 00:37:36,440 --> 00:37:39,240 Well, I say that about the ACE test all the time, right? 816 00:37:39,240 --> 00:37:41,120 The adverse childhood experience test, 817 00:37:41,120 --> 00:37:42,920 which if anyone's not familiar with that, 818 00:37:42,920 --> 00:37:45,160 it's a set of 10 questions and it asks you, 819 00:37:45,160 --> 00:37:47,600 did any of these things happen to you during your childhood? 820 00:37:47,600 --> 00:37:50,600 And if you marked yes, then you tally those up or whatever. 821 00:37:50,600 --> 00:37:53,440 And that was based on a survey of Kaiser Permanente patients. 822 00:37:53,440 --> 00:37:57,480 So we're looking at mostly white middle class suburban families 823 00:37:57,480 --> 00:37:59,360 who had access to that kind of health care. 824 00:37:59,360 --> 00:38:01,760 So there's nothing in there about, like, did your mom have 825 00:38:01,760 --> 00:38:03,040 to sit you down and-- 826 00:38:03,040 --> 00:38:03,640 Right. 827 00:38:03,640 --> 00:38:05,960 And all of that was done in the late '90s. 828 00:38:05,960 --> 00:38:08,560 And think of how much has happened since then, 829 00:38:08,560 --> 00:38:10,640 especially with political climate issues. 830 00:38:10,640 --> 00:38:13,680 And yeah, that's well known as a deficit of the ACE study, 831 00:38:13,680 --> 00:38:16,960 yet it still gets cited as a great big thing. 832 00:38:16,960 --> 00:38:18,400 We should all be paying attention to. 833 00:38:18,400 --> 00:38:18,920 Yeah. 834 00:38:18,920 --> 00:38:21,560 Like, you can honor it for what it did historically 835 00:38:21,560 --> 00:38:23,880 in that it advanced the conversation. 836 00:38:23,880 --> 00:38:26,120 Yes, there's so much more to it than that. 837 00:38:26,120 --> 00:38:26,320 Yeah. 838 00:38:26,320 --> 00:38:28,680 And I still teach it as a means of just saying, 839 00:38:28,680 --> 00:38:30,120 hey, look at these correlations. 840 00:38:30,120 --> 00:38:33,280 This shows that trauma that happens during these years 841 00:38:33,280 --> 00:38:35,920 has effects that go into adulthood, which 842 00:38:35,920 --> 00:38:37,560 is what I got out of the ACE test. 843 00:38:37,560 --> 00:38:39,560 But it's like, yeah, there's no question there 844 00:38:39,560 --> 00:38:41,680 for like, did you have an active shooter drill 845 00:38:41,680 --> 00:38:43,680 when you were a kindergartener, which is like everyone 846 00:38:43,680 --> 00:38:46,800 in America at this point who's growing up as a kid now? 847 00:38:46,800 --> 00:38:48,480 Or like, did your mom sit you down and have 848 00:38:48,480 --> 00:38:51,720 that, you know, if you, honey, if you talk to a police officer, 849 00:38:51,720 --> 00:38:54,240 you know, remember your black, so you can't talk the way 850 00:38:54,240 --> 00:38:56,400 that the white kids can, you know, and those. 851 00:38:56,400 --> 00:38:59,280 And those are very often a religious environment 852 00:38:59,280 --> 00:39:03,040 where you were ripped to shreds for loving how you love 853 00:39:03,040 --> 00:39:07,160 or identifying with genders that aren't so black and white. 854 00:39:07,160 --> 00:39:07,680 Yep. 855 00:39:07,680 --> 00:39:08,920 Yeah, absolutely. 856 00:39:08,920 --> 00:39:10,000 All of that. 857 00:39:10,000 --> 00:39:12,520 So yeah, so again, like who's evidence, right? 858 00:39:12,520 --> 00:39:15,880 Who's who's who's sample size is it based on? 859 00:39:15,880 --> 00:39:18,400 The variance, who's sample size, who's life? 860 00:39:18,400 --> 00:39:19,440 Yeah, yeah. 861 00:39:19,440 --> 00:39:22,560 So speaking of spirituality, I'm so curious also 862 00:39:22,560 --> 00:39:24,320 to hear about what you've been learning 863 00:39:24,320 --> 00:39:28,480 at the Interfaith Chaplaincy Institute, because I read, 864 00:39:28,480 --> 00:39:30,800 you know, I brushed up on your substack this week 865 00:39:30,800 --> 00:39:33,280 before signing on to this interview. 866 00:39:33,280 --> 00:39:36,160 And you said something in one of your essays 867 00:39:36,160 --> 00:39:39,280 that you said what you were learning there, 868 00:39:39,280 --> 00:39:42,240 you were currently finding even more exciting 869 00:39:42,240 --> 00:39:43,600 than anything that you could imagine 870 00:39:43,600 --> 00:39:46,000 studying in psychology or trauma therapy. 871 00:39:46,000 --> 00:39:49,160 So so spill the tea, I want to know what, 872 00:39:49,160 --> 00:39:51,480 what's exciting you about that study? 873 00:39:51,480 --> 00:39:54,560 Well, I read a, I took a really good class 874 00:39:54,560 --> 00:39:57,360 at Chaplaincy Institute called integral psychology 875 00:39:57,360 --> 00:40:01,520 with this marvelous professor, Yergen Schwing. 876 00:40:01,520 --> 00:40:06,520 And he is both weirdly enough a Kaiser Permanente chaplain 877 00:40:06,520 --> 00:40:09,480 and a student of yoga. 878 00:40:09,480 --> 00:40:12,720 And specifically a student of the Indian, 879 00:40:12,720 --> 00:40:14,520 the deeper Indian traditions of yoga. 880 00:40:14,520 --> 00:40:16,320 And in this class in a girl psychology, 881 00:40:16,320 --> 00:40:20,320 we did good study around where Western psychology 882 00:40:20,320 --> 00:40:24,000 misses a big chunk of it by not looking at Eastern psychology. 883 00:40:24,000 -->

00:40:26,280 And where Eastern psychology can, 884 00:40:26,280 --> 00:40:28,560 like the two don't have to be mutually exclusive. 885 00:40:28,560 --> 00:40:30,800 We can sit down at the table together. 886 00:40:30,800 --> 00:40:33,680 And in a book we read for that course by a person 887 00:40:33,680 --> 00:40:36,800 in Grant Courtwright, he dropped this amazing truth bomb, 888 00:40:36,800 --> 00:40:40,840 which is Freud was a, who is considered the father 889 00:40:40,840 --> 00:40:43,480 of the talking cure in modern psychotherapy. 890 00:40:43,480 --> 00:40:45,480 He was a stone cold atheist. 891 00:40:45,480 --> 00:40:48,080 And how much of the legacy of our field 892 00:40:48,080 --> 00:40:51,360 has come from that sense of scientism 893 00:40:51,360 --> 00:40:54,400 and that spirit is not relevant here. 894 00:40:54,400 --> 00:40:57,120 And you did have other thinkers and leaders 895 00:40:57,120 --> 00:40:58,840 who were flawed as well, like Carl Jung, 896 00:40:58,840 --> 00:41:01,840 but at least he went further with collective unconsciousness 897 00:41:01,840 --> 00:41:05,200 and he did have a real spiritual depth, Victor Franklhat. 898 00:41:05,200 --> 00:41:07,280 So I'm not saying the field in our leaders 899 00:41:07,280 --> 00:41:09,560 have been completely void of that. 900 00:41:09,560 --> 00:41:12,000 Yet I do think the more we've tried to legitimize 901 00:41:12,000 --> 00:41:16,160 ourselves as a science, we can lose this spiritual piece. 902 00:41:16,160 --> 00:41:19,240 And not just, well, ask a client what their religious beliefs are 903 00:41:19,240 --> 00:41:21,480 and what they mean to them and kind of checking off 904 00:41:21,480 --> 00:41:24,840 your boxes on your assessment, yet really considering 905 00:41:24,840 --> 00:41:29,680 that spiritual health for many can be equated with mental health 906 00:41:29,680 --> 00:41:34,240 and repaturning horrible messaging, learn through church 907 00:41:34,240 --> 00:41:37,160 can be what we need to do that can involve 908 00:41:37,160 --> 00:41:39,760 both spiritual and mental health interventions. 909 00:41:39,760 --> 00:41:44,720 So that's an example where things just really very much 910 00:41:44,720 --> 00:41:46,760 came together for me. 911 00:41:46,760 --> 00:41:49,760 And yeah, I can be both. 912 00:41:49,760 --> 00:41:53,920 I am both in so many ways of my sexual woman. 913 00:41:53,920 --> 00:41:57,360 I'm in all of the above thinker as I hope I've established. 914 00:41:57,360 --> 00:41:59,600 And it's interesting, because growing up in the church 915 00:41:59,600 --> 00:42:02,400 as I did, which were very high demand and not affirming 916 00:42:02,400 --> 00:42:06,960 and taught me lies about God as the title of my book suggests, 917 00:42:06,960 --> 00:42:10,680 I'm really jazzed about spirituality and God, 918 00:42:10,680 --> 00:42:13,720 not necessarily institutional religion at this point. 919 00:42:13,720 --> 00:42:18,200 And wanting to help people who want to reconnect with that 920 00:42:18,200 --> 00:42:20,400 in a way that is shame free. 921 00:42:20,400 --> 00:42:25,560 Because not only do we have a right to that spiritual healing, 922 00:42:25,560 --> 00:42:27,960 it can help our mental healing as well. 923 00:42:27,960 --> 00:42:29,480 So I love being in seminary. 924 00:42:29,480 --> 00:42:31,480 I'm glad I have followed the thread. 925 00:42:31,480 --> 00:42:34,000 I think it's making me a better therapist. 926 00:42:34,000 --> 00:42:37,360 Yet I know that the knowledge I bring in as a therapist 927 00:42:37,360 --> 00:42:40,360 in this particular seminary is not shot down either. 928 00:42:40,360 --> 00:42:42,720 So we can all play together, folks. 929 00:42:42,720 --> 00:42:43,560 - I love that. 930 00:42:43,560 --> 00:42:45,760 I'm so glad that you're also just, you know, 931 00:42:45,760 --> 00:42:48,120 just as someone who really likes you and likes your work, 932 00:42:48,120 --> 00:42:50,320 I'm so glad to hear that you're somewhere where, 933 00:42:50,320 --> 00:42:51,840 like you can be your full self 934 00:42:51,840 --> 00:42:53,840 and it feels like just hearing you speak about it, 935 00:42:53,840 --> 00:42:55,560 there's that like breathability, 936 00:42:55,560 --> 00:42:58,280 the room for all kinds of multiple perspectives. 937 00:42:58,280 --> 00:43:00,480 And I imagine that spirituality must be something 938 00:43:00,480 --> 00:43:03,040 that for you is also incredibly personal 939 00:43:03,040 --> 00:43:05,080 as someone with dissociative identities. 940 00:43:05,080 --> 00:43:07,520 Because I'm a little curious about, you know, 941 00:43:07,520 --> 00:43:11,040 what you think about dick shwarts is kind of more recent 942 00:43:11,040 --> 00:43:13,120 within the last couple months coming out 943 00:43:13,120 --> 00:43:16,640 and talking about how parts are spirits, you know, 944 00:43:16,640 --> 00:43:19,360 because if we don't have a relationship, 945 00:43:19,360 --> 00:43:22,880 and my belief is that we all are spirits 946 00:43:22,880 --> 00:43:25,520 and we are spirits that are in bodies, right? 947 00:43:25,520 --> 00:43:27,560 And some of us have multiple consciousnesses 948 00:43:27,560 --> 00:43:29,200 that are attached to one body. 949 00:43:29,200 --> 00:43:31,120 So I guess my question is like, 950 00:43:31,120 --> 00:43:35,880 how would one, like how can you ignore the spiritual aspects 951 00:43:35,880 --> 00:43:40,080 when we are all spirits of different sort of permutations? 952 00:43:40,080 --> 00:43:42,360 - And I think in engaging in that conversation, 953 00:43:42,360 --> 00:43:45,160 kind of like whose evidence I would ask a client 954 00:43:45,160 --> 00:43:48,120 at their people participant, what does spirit mean to you? 955 00:43:48,120 --> 00:43:50,160 What does spirituality mean to you? 956 00:43:50,160 --> 00:43:52,600 Because it can mean different things to different folks. 957 00:43:52,600 --> 00:43:56,000 Now I will say and dick, if

you're by chance hearing this, 958 00:43:56,000 --> 00:43:58,520 I'd be happy to further have this conversation. 959 00:43:58,520 --> 00:44:00,040 - All right, well, 960 00:44:00,040 --> 00:44:01,280 I have a special episode. 961 00:44:01,280 --> 00:44:05,160 - I have a test is a deeply spiritual modality 962 00:44:05,160 --> 00:44:08,000 that is just palatable enough as spirituality 963 00:44:08,000 --> 00:44:09,200 for Western psychology. 964 00:44:09,200 --> 00:44:12,800 Sometimes I think dick wants to go further 965 00:44:12,800 --> 00:44:15,720 and maybe in this new line of thinking he is 966 00:44:15,720 --> 00:44:17,400 with some of those spirituality. 967 00:44:17,400 --> 00:44:20,200 And I don't know though if I necessarily agree 968 00:44:20,200 --> 00:44:23,320 in every system, a person would see 969 00:44:23,320 --> 00:44:26,440 or conceptualize their part as a spirit. 970 00:44:26,440 --> 00:44:28,600 I think it could. 971 00:44:28,600 --> 00:44:31,520 I know like in my system, I have, 972 00:44:31,520 --> 00:44:32,800 I've talked about this in my work 973 00:44:32,800 --> 00:44:34,760 like my four major parts that are on board with me 974 00:44:34,760 --> 00:44:37,680 and I have this other part that very much feels like 975 00:44:37,680 --> 00:44:40,640 the Linda's bubble around her in Wizard of Oz 976 00:44:40,640 --> 00:44:43,160 or Wicked that it's the protective sheet. 977 00:44:43,160 --> 00:44:46,840 Not how it's shown in the movie is like a cover 978 00:44:46,840 --> 00:44:50,360 or like a facade, but my bubble has always felt like 979 00:44:50,360 --> 00:44:53,120 this is this like ether of protection 980 00:44:53,120 --> 00:44:56,000 that some people may see as a combination 981 00:44:56,000 --> 00:44:57,440 of ancestors and guides. 982 00:44:57,440 --> 00:45:01,280 And so I do think there's a definite part in my system 983 00:45:01,280 --> 00:45:03,960 that I would certainly see as a spirit. 984 00:45:03,960 --> 00:45:06,960 I'm not sure how I think about the others 985 00:45:06,960 --> 00:45:09,040 other than they definitely have their own spirit 986 00:45:09,040 --> 00:45:10,400 in a small sense. 987 00:45:10,400 --> 00:45:15,000 Like my four year old part's little spirit is bright and bubbly 988 00:45:15,000 --> 00:45:19,720 and she's the one who still keeps the sense of joy in me 989 00:45:19,720 --> 00:45:21,600 when the world is falling down around. 990 00:45:21,600 --> 00:45:24,400 So I think it's interesting to think about 991 00:45:24,400 --> 00:45:26,680 but it goes back to an idea and dissociation made simple 992 00:45:26,680 --> 00:45:29,280 when we talk about parts, people have every right 993 00:45:29,280 --> 00:45:32,720 to language their parts and conceptualize their system 994 00:45:32,720 --> 00:45:35,520 and how they see them, however they choose. 995 00:45:35,520 --> 00:45:38,320 - Yes, yes, absolutely. 996 00:45:38,320 --> 00:45:40,280 I wanna bring on our producer Tomi 997 00:45:40,280 --> 00:45:43,200 as we're starting to wrap up at the end of every episode. 998 00:45:43,200 --> 00:45:46,000 Tomi comes on to ask a bit of a deep-cut question. 999 00:45:46,000 --> 00:45:48,480 So Tomi, what question do you have prepared 1000 00:45:48,480 --> 00:45:49,960 for Dr. Jamie today? 1001 00:45:49,960 --> 00:45:53,040 - Yeah, so I actually had a little bit of outside help 1002 00:45:53,040 --> 00:45:56,480 on this because my therapist is a fan of your work. 1003 00:45:56,480 --> 00:45:59,480 And given that you're well known enough 1004 00:45:59,480 --> 00:46:01,640 that my therapist was like, wait, really? 1005 00:46:01,640 --> 00:46:03,520 Like this was the first time she was excited 1006 00:46:03,520 --> 00:46:06,120 about a podcast that I mentioned. 1007 00:46:06,120 --> 00:46:07,040 - It's flattering. 1008 00:46:07,040 --> 00:46:11,760 - So she was curious like how you maintain self-disclosure 1009 00:46:11,760 --> 00:46:14,640 as such a well-known therapist? 1010 00:46:14,640 --> 00:46:16,120 - It's a beautiful question. 1011 00:46:16,120 --> 00:46:18,360 'Cause I'm passionate about guiding people 1012 00:46:18,360 --> 00:46:20,920 through making their decisions around self-disclosure. 1013 00:46:20,920 --> 00:46:22,960 I can sultanate ID courses on it. 1014 00:46:22,960 --> 00:46:27,960 I personally will only share something that I feel 1015 00:46:27,960 --> 00:46:32,040 I've worked on enough with my, it means, 1016 00:46:32,040 --> 00:46:33,720 like there's, I always say there's a lot I share, 1017 00:46:33,720 --> 00:46:35,120 there's a lot I don't share. 1018 00:46:35,120 --> 00:46:36,800 And the things I tend to share 1019 00:46:36,800 --> 00:46:38,960 and disclose publicly, like everything I've showed 1020 00:46:38,960 --> 00:46:41,960 on this podcast today are things that like my 1021 00:46:41,960 --> 00:46:44,920 kind of internal sense was like, yeah, you can say it. 1022 00:46:44,920 --> 00:46:47,560 You can deal with whatever blowback may come 1023 00:46:47,560 --> 00:46:52,200 or you can, you've talked about this enough publicly 1024 00:46:52,200 --> 00:46:53,760 that it's okay. 1025 00:46:53,760 --> 00:46:56,000 My early recovery mentor, this was in the days 1026 00:46:56,000 --> 00:46:58,920 before social media, she would always say something like, 1027 00:46:58,920 --> 00:47:02,040 don't share with the client something that you'd be embarrassed 1028 00:47:02,040 --> 00:47:03,840 to have out in a newspaper. 1029 00:47:03,840 --> 00:47:06,440 And the same thing, I wouldn't share in a newspaper 1030 00:47:06,440 --> 00:47:07,960 something that I wouldn't feel comfortable 1031 00:47:07,960 --> 00:47:10,360 having a conversation with my client about. 1032 00:47:10,360 --> 00:47:12,560 'Cause that's what a lot of people come to me with 1033 00:47:12,560 --> 00:47:14,520 if I come out about my political beliefs 1034 00:47:14,520 --> 00:47:17,960 or my mental health diagnosis, what if a client sees it? 1035 00:47:17,960 -->

00:47:20,600 And my immediate thing is that's a good question. 1036 00:47:20,600 --> 00:47:23,600 Are you prepared to have that conversation with your client 1037 00:47:23,600 --> 00:47:24,840 or your therapy participant? 1038 00:47:24,840 --> 00:47:29,840 And if the answer is yes, and you think it is going to help you 1039 00:47:29,840 --> 00:47:33,840 feel a greater degree of authentic, then go ahead and do it. 1040 00:47:33,840 --> 00:47:36,120 I've also written quite a bit into association, 1041 00:47:36,120 --> 00:47:37,040 it's simple too. 1042 00:47:37,040 --> 00:47:38,680 Doesn't have to be an all or nothing thing. 1043 00:47:38,680 --> 00:47:39,840 You could do it over time. 1044 00:47:39,840 --> 00:47:41,640 I dipped my toe in. 1045 00:47:41,640 --> 00:47:44,800 I would kind of feel out in professional spaces. 1046 00:47:44,800 --> 00:47:46,440 Do these folks feel cool enough for me 1047 00:47:46,440 --> 00:47:49,400 to use the word dissociation as it applies to me? 1048 00:47:49,400 --> 00:47:54,400 And as I did it enough, I built that strength muscle. 1049 00:47:54,400 --> 00:47:56,960 But when you're doing it with clients, 1050 00:47:56,960 --> 00:47:59,640 it's also knowing, don't make this about you. 1051 00:47:59,640 --> 00:48:03,360 It's if you and something you might share 1052 00:48:03,360 --> 00:48:05,640 can really advance your relationship 1053 00:48:05,640 --> 00:48:10,040 or has a definite therapeutic or healing benefit 1054 00:48:10,040 --> 00:48:12,480 disclosed in moderation. 1055 00:48:12,480 --> 00:48:14,680 But the key guide point is when you're doing it 1056 00:48:14,680 --> 00:48:18,200 with people you work with, it's never about you. 1057 00:48:18,200 --> 00:48:20,400 May any self-disclosure be something 1058 00:48:20,400 --> 00:48:23,000 that's in the service of your participant? 1059 00:48:23,000 --> 00:48:25,800 With that level of self-disclosure both publicly 1060 00:48:25,800 --> 00:48:28,240 and interpersonally, how would you say 1061 00:48:28,240 --> 00:48:31,760 that's affected your relationship with your clients? 1062 00:48:31,760 --> 00:48:35,320 So I'm in a privileged position at this point 1063 00:48:35,320 --> 00:48:39,880 in that any client I work with, any consultee I work with now 1064 00:48:39,880 --> 00:48:43,560 wants someone who has that level of transparency publicly. 1065 00:48:43,560 --> 00:48:46,600 At an earlier point in my career, 1066 00:48:46,600 --> 00:48:50,200 when I saw a greater frequency of clients 1067 00:48:50,200 --> 00:48:53,440 with people who may or may not be cool 1068 00:48:53,440 --> 00:48:55,600 with having such a public therapist, 1069 00:48:55,600 --> 00:48:58,200 'cause even when people may approach me for therapy right now, 1070 00:48:58,200 --> 00:49:00,840 at this point, it's not just a blind referral. 1071 00:49:00,840 --> 00:49:02,480 Most people have heard of me. 1072 00:49:02,480 --> 00:49:05,160 And so I do a little back and forth about, 1073 00:49:05,160 -->

00:49:08,120 what would it mean to you to have a therapist or a consultant 1074 00:49:08,120 --> 00:49:09,320 who's more of a public figure? 1075 00:49:09,320 --> 00:49:13,400 Does it feel like that would be a help or a deal breaker? 1076 00:49:13,400 --> 00:49:16,160 So that's a conversation I'm willing to have to. 1077 00:49:16,640 --> 00:49:17,640 Thank you. 1078 00:49:17,640 --> 00:49:20,520 Shout out to Kelsey for helping supply me with questions 1079 00:49:20,520 --> 00:49:23,080 and a little bit of a rundown on your previous work. 1080 00:49:23,080 --> 00:49:24,040 My words. 1081 00:49:24,040 --> 00:49:27,040 I love that too because at the end of the day, 1082 00:49:27,040 --> 00:49:28,800 I know for me as a facilitator, 1083 00:49:28,800 --> 00:49:31,760 I think honestly, my greatest strength is that I'm like, 1084 00:49:31,760 --> 00:49:34,720 I'm just on this journey too, which means I'm still learning 1085 00:49:34,720 --> 00:49:36,440 and I'm still questioning myself. 1086 00:49:36,440 --> 00:49:40,040 And to pretend that I'm on some sort of pedestal, 1087 00:49:40,040 --> 00:49:42,160 I have all the answers and you're gonna learn, 1088 00:49:42,160 --> 00:49:44,280 it just feels disingenuous. 1089 00:49:44,280 --> 00:49:47,560 The best groups that I think I run personally 1090 00:49:47,560 --> 00:49:49,320 feel like a peer study. 1091 00:49:49,320 --> 00:49:51,360 They feel like we're all in this together. 1092 00:49:51,360 --> 00:49:53,800 I'm sharing the knowledge that I have with you, 1093 00:49:53,800 --> 00:49:56,800 but I'm interested in learning just as much as I can from you. 1094 00:49:56,800 --> 00:49:59,160 And I think that's such a great attitude to have. 1095 00:49:59,160 --> 00:50:01,320 I wanna thank you so much, Dr. Jamie, 1096 00:50:01,320 --> 00:50:03,760 for appearing with us today. 1097 00:50:03,760 --> 00:50:06,520 What is some of the next work that folks can look forward to 1098 00:50:06,520 --> 00:50:07,360 from you? 1099 00:50:07,360 --> 00:50:10,120 What should we keep an eye out for as this podcast episode comes out? 1100 00:50:10,120 --> 00:50:10,960 Sure. 1101 00:50:10,960 --> 00:50:14,440 So, I'm gonna mention I am currently working on my book memoir 1102 00:50:14,440 --> 00:50:17,560 writing as spiritual practice, so probably will not be out 1103 00:50:17,560 --> 00:50:20,800 until 2027, but that's the next book to look out for. 1104 00:50:20,800 --> 00:50:22,560 Thank you for shouting out my sub-stack, 1105 00:50:22,560 --> 00:50:25,240 because that is a platform I am trying to build a little more 1106 00:50:25,240 --> 00:50:26,920 for my independent writing. 1107 00:50:26,920 --> 00:50:30,040 We go by the Unicorn system on sub-stack. 1108 00:50:30,040 --> 00:50:33,880 And I do have it set up where all of my major pieces 1109 00:50:33,880 --> 00:50:36,800 are no paywall, 'cause I want everybody be able 1110 00:50:36,800 --> 00:50:38,160 to read them and share them. 1111 00:50:38,160 --> 00:50:40,640 But

if you do wanna subscribe and support my work 1112 00:50:40,640 --> 00:50:43,880 financially there you can, and I do give you some early previews 1113 00:50:43,880 --> 00:50:46,280 into drafts of things I'm working on. 1114 00:50:46,280 --> 00:50:48,720 So that's what I'm working on writing rise right now. 1115 00:50:48,720 --> 00:50:50,680 I'm in this process this year of, 1116 00:50:50,680 --> 00:50:53,360 I do have a lot on my plate with stepping away 1117 00:50:53,360 --> 00:50:57,840 from more of the training part, especially the EMDR, 1118 00:50:57,840 --> 00:50:59,360 I'm still gonna train, I'm still gonna teach, 1119 00:50:59,360 --> 00:51:00,600 I'd love to teach. 1120 00:51:00,600 --> 00:51:04,440 Yet getting away more from institutional training 1121 00:51:04,440 --> 00:51:07,760 is something I am unraveling right now. 1122 00:51:07,760 --> 00:51:09,960 Yet I hope to have even more time and space 1123 00:51:09,960 --> 00:51:11,840 to write the things I wanna write. 1124 00:51:11,840 --> 00:51:15,120 - Awesome, well thank you so much for being with us today. 1125 00:51:15,120 --> 00:51:17,720 And I'm gonna encourage everyone who's listening to this. 1126 00:51:17,720 --> 00:51:20,440 Dr. Jamie has so many amazing books you guys. 1127 00:51:20,440 --> 00:51:23,920 So definitely among her work there is going to be, 1128 00:51:23,920 --> 00:51:26,440 I would wager a title that speaks to you 1129 00:51:26,440 --> 00:51:29,080 that's going to help you with your own journey. 1130 00:51:29,080 --> 00:51:31,760 And as we are thinking about taking our own healing 1131 00:51:31,760 --> 00:51:35,600 and repotterning processes even more into our own hands 1132 00:51:35,600 --> 00:51:38,520 so that we can empower ourselves for our own transformation. 1133 00:51:38,520 --> 00:51:42,080 I encourage you to explore especially the expressive arts 1134 00:51:42,080 --> 00:51:44,200 as Dr. Jamie and I have talked about today 1135 00:51:44,200 --> 00:51:47,040 because it can be so very healing and integrating. 1136 00:51:47,040 --> 00:51:49,920 Dr. Jamie thank you for sharing your experience with us today. 1137 00:51:49,920 --> 00:51:51,360 It's been a pleasure having you 1138 00:51:51,360 --> 00:51:54,440 and we'll see you all on the next episode. 1139 00:51:54,440 --> 00:51:55,720 Go forth and repotterne. 1140 00:51:55,720 --> 00:52:02,360 Thank you for listening to the Repotterning podcast. 1141 00:52:02,360 --> 00:52:04,480 If you're curious about the Repotterning project, 1142 00:52:04,480 --> 00:52:06,440 the eight week course in mental mastery 1143 00:52:06,440 --> 00:52:09,320 and creative freedom that inspires these conversations 1144 00:52:09,320 --> 00:52:12,800 you can check out more details at the repotterningproject.com. 1145 00:52:12,800 --> 00:52:14,560 We run a cohort twice a year 1146 00:52:14,560 --> 00:52:16,880 or you can download the self-study version of the course 1147 00:52:16,880 --> 00:52:18,640 and get started today. 1148 00:52:18,640 --> 00:52:20,400 We also offer a four week course 1149 00:52:20,400 --> 00:52:22,360 on narrative magic and archetype titled 1150 00:52:22,360 --> 00:52:24,720 "Mitzen Magic Changing Your Life Through Story" 1151 00:52:24,720 --> 00:52:26,360 also twice a year. 1152 00:52:26,360 --> 00:52:27,920 If you'd like to join our community, 1153 00:52:27,920 --> 00:52:30,160 the Repotterning Parlor on Discord 1154 00:52:30,160 --> 00:52:35,160 you can sign up for $5 a month at patreon.com/therepotterningpodcast. 1155 00:52:35,440 --> 00:52:39,000 Thanks to everyone who makes the Re-Patterning podcast possible. 1156 00:52:39,000 --> 00:52:40,920 Firstly, our award winning producer, 1157 00:52:40,920 --> 00:52:44,560 Tomi Trembath of the Keymaster Collective Network of Podcasts. 1158 00:52:44,560 --> 00:52:47,040 She also produces transcending comics, 1159 00:52:47,040 --> 00:52:50,040 vision in the void and giant-sized violence. 1160 00:52:50,040 --> 00:52:53,120 Thanks also to Animation Studio Mortis and Madriacs 1161 00:52:53,120 --> 00:52:55,400 who created the video for our introduction, 1162 00:52:55,400 --> 00:52:56,760 as well as to Andrew Means 1163 00:52:56,760 --> 00:52:59,400 who composed and produced our theme music. 1164 00:52:59,400 --> 00:53:01,240 And also thanks to Al Alvarez, 1165 00:53:01,240 --> 00:53:03,080 who took the photos of yours truly that you see 1166 00:53:03,080 --> 00:53:06,280 on the cover of each episode if you're watching the video version. 1167 00:53:06,280 --> 00:53:09,000 And finally, thanks to you, our listeners, 1168 00:53:09,000 --> 00:53:10,600 who give meaning to this work. 1169 00:53:10,600 --> 00:53:12,840 Our greatest wish is that whatever you've heard today 1170 00:53:12,840 --> 00:53:14,640 inspires you to live freely 1171 00:53:14,640 --> 00:53:17,960 and begin creating your reality from the inside out. 1172 00:53:17,960 --> 00:53:20,200 Thanks for tuning in and we'll see you again soon. 1173 00:53:20,200 --> 00:53:30,200 [MUSIC]