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The Edit Alaverdyan Podcast
Welcome to "The Edit Alaverdyan Podcast," the podcast where insightful conversations unfold, and the depth of the human mind is explored. In each episode, I sit down with a diverse range of individuals—thinkers, innovators, and captivating personalities—who share their unique insights and experiences. Together, we embark on a journey of discovery, unraveling the complexities of the human psyche and uncovering the untold truths that influence our thoughts, emotions, and behaviors.
The Edit Alaverdyan Podcast
Bill Leavitt: Understanding Depression and Finding Your Power | The Edit Alaverdyan Podcast #49
"Depression is anger turned inward." These powerful words from therapist Bill set the tone for a transformative conversation about understanding and healing from depression. Far from the clinical definitions most of us are familiar with, Bill offers a deeply human perspective—depression as an "ongoing war with yourself" that manifests in both psychological patterns and physical symptoms.
Through the lens of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, we explore how negative thought patterns trap us in cycles of depression. The "shoulds" we impose on ourselves, catastrophic thinking, and the belief that nothing will ever change form the foundation of depression's grip. Bill shares how these patterns can be disrupted through several powerful interventions, including letter-writing (with the therapeutic ritual of burning the letters afterward), the Gestalt empty chair technique, and a fascinating exercise involving your non-dominant hand that literally rewires neural pathways.
The conversation takes unexpected turns as we discuss how COVID-19 created a perfect storm for depression by forcing people to confront years of unprocessed emotions. We examine the surprising power of changing how we refer to people who trigger us—replacing emotionally-charged names like "Mom" or "Dad" with their actual first names creates psychological distance and helps reclaim personal power. This leads to a profound redefinition of power itself: "The more options you have, the more powerful you are."
Perhaps most compelling is the discussion about gratitude as an intervention for depression. Not as a superficial platitude but as a deliberate practice that shifts our focus from what's missing to what's present. From Viktor Frankl's insights about finding freedom even in the most harrowing circumstances to the ongoing challenge of taking responsibility for our mental health, this conversation offers both compassionate understanding and practical wisdom for anyone touched by depression—whether personally or through someone they love.
So I need to hear the caveats on that too. All right, how long? I think what that podcast person was getting at was. You'll eventually talk yourself out.
Speaker 2:Hello Bill, it's so nice to have you on my show today. Thank you Absolutely. Thank you for accepting my invitation. It's honestly an honor to be here with you. I love your work. I love what you've done for people in general. I think being a therapist is such a honorable career, very noble, and I'm very happy to sit with you today and talk about depression. Are you excited? Yes, so depression is something. I think that's that word, that term is misused so much. I mean, as soon as someone's feeling a little down, less of appetite or energy, immediately they'll fall into. Like I had depression, I had depression. So, other than from what the DSM says, what depression is, I'd love to know what's your humanly perspective as a therapist. Well, depression is yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, depression is yeah.
Speaker 2:So, I.
Speaker 1:I like the definition that depression is anger turned inwards. Yes, that one's very good. I mentioned that to somebody Powerful, yeah, and it groups and they're like oh, I never heard that before. Yeah, you're hating yourself about something that happens. Another good one that I like is that we're living in the past.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So when we're depressed, we're worried about whatever it was three days ago. Why didn't I choose this way? Why didn't I choose that way? And then another one. Now that I do cognitive behavioral therapy and CBT is going to want to look at the thoughts always.
Speaker 2:Correct.
Speaker 1:So frequently people think that they cannot change anything or everything's going to remain exactly the same for the rest of my life. I will always be stuck in this situation. No, that's not necessarily true, and we have to learn to let go of the past and move forward. There's physiological things that happen in the brain too. When we get very depressed or anxious, anxiety especially will flood the brain with cortisol and then the brain shuts down and we, you know, fear of tests is a great one, you know you get so afraid of taking the test. The day of you can't remember anything that you studied because your brain, your hippocampus, is saturated with cortisol. So there's some physiological things going on in the brain, but from a CBT, which we have to be aware of. But from a CBT perspective, it's the thoughts that we're thinking that are leading us to these conclusions and these feelings, and frequently it's going to be shoulds we're shooting all over ourselves, as I said yes, so the rabbi said you're shooting all over yourselves.
Speaker 1:It's changed. We want to change a should to prefer. So instead of saying you shouldn't do that or I should have chosen this, I want to say I would prefer you know, if, if my girlfriend flattens the credit card every time she goes to the store and I say you shouldn't do that, I want to change it to I'd prefer if you didn't flatten the credit card.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And it softens it somewhat. Living in the past, anger at yourself and assuming that nothing's going to change, and having some really negative thoughts that are just putting you into a funk, and then they can take on physiological manifestations you don't feel like exercising, you don't feel like talking to anybody else and it just creates a whole associated associations of complexities. You know make it very difficult.
Speaker 2:Do you think that, or do you have you kind of noticed this that after COVID, depression just was on such a rise?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think we even talked a little bit that you know, my business exploded during COVID. Yeah, you know absolutely. And we look at what happened. I mean, just walking down the street people were staying 15 feet away and that was the polite thing to do stay the hell away from everybody else 15 to 6 to 15 feet and consequently everybody's in their bubble, they're not associating, and then they're home and, yeah, exponentially went up. So absolutely, covid did not help us. We learned a lot, but yeah, the depression went up.
Speaker 2:I'll add to that that, yes, the social aspect of being so isolated, and all of that definitely contributed. But I also have this, these thoughts of how here in America we're just, we're so used to working so much and not really having time to really reflect on our day, reflect on our week. There's, I feel like as Americans, we are so used to working, that thinking and feeling is not really permitted. It's not permitted.
Speaker 2:Absolutely that thinking and feeling is not really permitted. It's not permitted Absolutely, and so when COVID hit, I feel like people had so much time to really process years of work and years of family life that they were just overwhelmed with emotions. I mean, do you kind of agree with that Totally.
Speaker 1:What are your thoughts about that? And we weren't set up to deal with them. You know, we don't. We weren't taught, we weren't taught, we weren't taught. So we're, we're sort of operating out of our. Yeah, we were not ready for COVID at all, it was just yeah, yeah, it was a mess, and we don't have the training. I think we've gotten a lot better. Therapy has certainly been promoted in the media I'm not a fan of the media, but it has been promoted and in general, and the stigma a lot of the stigma though not in every community, as you know, but you know a lot of, a lot of the stigma is going away and that's really good. It just helps sometimes to talk about it and not feel alone. You know that's another one. Depression is you feel like you're the only person in the in the world with that problem problems.
Speaker 2:Yeah, bill. Do you think that depression is could be like hereditary?
Speaker 1:it's genetics or it could be. So tell us a little bit about that. So there's I don't know that we've identified this per se, but there's one of the things that we'll ask on a, on a, on a. And one of the things that we'll ask on an intake assessment is has anybody in your family been diagnosed?
Speaker 1:Family history, yeah, we will have a predisposition to it. So if there's schizophrenia in the family, if there's depression in the family I'm Irish-Norwegian on my mother's side and there was, you know, the Norwegian some of it has to do with seasonal affective disorder, but the you know, the Norse have a history of some serious depression and it absolutely is genetic and hereditary and that the way you were raised, you know. Um, so yeah, there's. I don't think the science has caught up to. Oh, he's got the gene for depression yeah, because there's no research on that.
Speaker 2:I know that there's never been any research and gabar machas actually talked about this when I was at one of his seminars. That schizophrenia. Yes, we have actual evidence, but there's no actual evidence that depression is you know, there's a predisposition of someone being depressed. There's just no studies like that. So I would love to see see studies.
Speaker 1:On the genetic side. Now there's a study what are call it? I forget the name of the study. I think it was put out by Kaiser a long time ago, but it showed that traumas in the home. It's a 10-question assessment and it's a relatively common name which I'm spacing on, but I did a little presentation on it for my master's program. But if you've got drugs abuse, violence in the home, so socially speaking, those are pre indicators with a high degree of certain like an 85 to 90% certainty that yeah, there was violence in your home, there was drug abuse, there was sexual abuse, there is a very good likelihood that you're going to develop mental health complications later in life.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you said something earlier and I love that because I agree with that that depression is anger turned inward, so not expressed emotions. I'd like to talk about that a little bit because I think that there's definitely. Express. Expressing yourself is such an essential part of being a human being, but people there's certain people that really haven't learned how to express themselves, so they lock it in. So what are some ways you think that people can express their anger? What are some healthy anger expressions?
Speaker 1:I love letters. You do. Oh, I love, I think, a letter to whoever you're angry with and writing it longhand. Old school script. They don't teach that in the school so much anymore, but script is very good for it, but I prefer it over typing.
Speaker 2:Writing physically writing.
Speaker 1:Physically writing because I think it's an organic thing from the brain to the hand and um writing it out, and then what I have my clients do is burn the letter and dowsing shamanistic right yeah very.
Speaker 1:My daughter said that's a spell like that's a therapeutic intervention, what are you talking about? But use it very shamanistic and you could speak into it and say I release you and toss it into the earth and you've got earth, water, fire and air. You know my Wiccan clients love that and Christmas will go along with it too if it gets them. Well, but the act of burning the letter expressing we need to be heard In person. I love the gestalt technique of the empty chair.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's my favorite. Yeah, it's so good.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's so good. It's so weird and people look at you and they're like I'm supposed to talk to the. Yeah, talk to the chair.
Speaker 2:And they always wind up wanting to talk to me.
Speaker 1:They don't tell me. Tell Uncle Joe, he's in the chair, but he died 15. Yeah, I know, tell him. And that act of expression is phenomenal, right, and that's the release that you're talking about. So not being heard is awful. I don't have any data or statistics to go into it, but I know it's a common theme and that's one of the reasons why therapy works, because you therapos, you get it out and you speak to somebody who is understanding and listening and validating, and that's so crucial in today's world. But you're absolutely correct, it's the expression of it and not necessarily really to the person who caused the pain. So if your mother caused something, and telling mom how you feel might really actually be counterproductive.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:But I'll have them do an empty chair in session with mom. Mom never heard it, but my client feels so much better having gotten it off their chest. Having said that, so that expression, and sometimes it gets a little rough around the edges and they're yelling and crying, but that's, that's actually better for the therapy, you know, just let it all out. So being heard is a very big thing.
Speaker 2:Oh, 100%. And you know also all the physical dilemmas that come with keeping anger inside. I mean, the autoimmune disease rates are insane among women. Women have such I mean we as women, I think you know, and I think it varies from culture to culture. But you're Indo-Europeans, middle Easterns. I mean we've been taught to not really be okay expressing ourselves, because girls are not supposed to yell, girls are not supposed to scream, girls are not supposed to get angry. So you're taught this and then all your life, anyone who has really triggered you, insulted you, disrespected you. You're just supposed to swallow all of that. And here you are, at age 33, and you're experiencing like thyroid issues and you're like what is, what is this? What's going on? So the body talks totally so.
Speaker 1:The, the classic book on that is. I'm looking at it in my bookcase. The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel Bumer Colt. It's gold, it's heavy.
Speaker 2:It is heavy, but it is gold Heavy gold.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's gold and you can share and a lot of lay people have shared. You know, I read a book one time. It's good stuff. So the physiological components of what happens from the depression, or holding it in, or not expressing yourself, are extreme, yeah, I agree. So I see that and I'll do a general overview when I'm taking, you know, doing an intake. How's your sleep? Are you exercising? What's your you know? Bring all those things up and cause those are tells. Those are indicators of depression or real stress.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know one thing I, as I was, I was talking to you. One thing that I remembered we talked about is this power over you, as a certain person that has made you angry, that has power over you and you had mentioned, you know, what I like is changing that person's name in the phone. So if you have, and I love this intervention, can we call it an intervention?
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, it absolutely is.
Speaker 2:It's so, oh my God, it's just so liberating and it's it feels so nice. So, and I want to I want to kind of bring this up to the audience that if there's somebody who has ever triggered you, bill's number one intervention is if that person has a certain power over you, like, let's just say, a mom or a dad, and you have a really dysfunctional relationship with your parent, you change their name from mom to dad, to their actual name.
Speaker 1:Their actual first name yeah.
Speaker 2:So their first name, so talk to us about that.
Speaker 1:So I'm 64 years old and if I say, mommy, I'm seven, I feel it. I'm feeling it right now. I'm like, oh, you know, and I've got-.
Speaker 2:I say mommy Bill, I still say mommy.
Speaker 1:So I go right back and what my clients will tell me is I said so, you got a cell phone. You're still communicating with mom or dad. Yeah, okay, what are they on your phone? It says mom. So when the text shows up it says mom or dad. I said change it to Joe or Marie or whatever their name is. And Joe's calling again. Right, oh yeah, denise is calling again. Okay, yeah, you know, we'll deal, because it gives us distance and it causes it, forces it, because the the pet name of mom, it's a nickname that you know. It's the kid sort of mouths it, that's like. His first word is mom, you. You know, it's just kind of stumbles out and when we say that it's triggering impulses in the brain, it's running a program. So if you don't want them living in your brain, if in your mind, change the name on the tenant mailbox down below and put their first name and start to, you don't have to do it to them in person, you don't have to call mom, you know.
Speaker 1:Diane or something, but it does help for the phone and I'm glad, glad you remembered that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a it's a good one.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it really really works and people love it. And and if there's resistances, so therapeutically, if there's resistance, I'm like, okay, why don't you want to do it? What's going on?
Speaker 2:Yeah, can you, and I love it so much because it really does allow the person to really get their power back, and part of depression is feeling powerless, you know right, that's where that. I love that yeah just that, that hopelessness and that helplessness it's, it's a sense of powerless, like I'm powerless, I don't know what to do, but in reality you're not, you're not powerless, you just have to kind of connect with your true power, your essence again absolutely so I've changed um, I love changing definitions.
Speaker 1:So definition of mom changes to marie or whatever, but powerless. So if we say you are powerful, we have a impression of somebody with, you know, big muscles, or somebody with a lot of money or political power. But in therapy, what I want us to do is change the definitions. The more options you have, the more powerful you are.
Speaker 2:That's right, right so it's very so.
Speaker 1:Another kind of one of the cognitive behavioral therapy thinking errors is all or nothing, thinking black or white, yes or no, good or bad. But really the world is shades of gray and and you have options in each, in each eventuality, you can choose, you can choose and when you, when you have ways to to to treat a problem, you're not painted in the corner or, you know, cornered. Yeah, and now you have gotten your power back because I have option a, I have option b and I have option c and uh, that is uh very wonderful. So I I love the ability we don't have to respond the same way to everything. You know you can choose, you can pick and choose. You don't have to go. We don't go nuclear in war, you know. We have, we have graduated responses in the military. So yeah, and those are effective in everyday life day life.
Speaker 2:So I love that definition. Yeah Well, what do you think about gratefulness and being grateful? I mean so this is a lot of people, a lot of influencers, a lot of doctors, psychologists talk about this, but there's people that are just in such a deep, dark situation of depression that they really it's difficult for them to reach for that gratefulness Like, oh, just be grateful, you're at least able to get up, you're able to see, you're able to breathe. What are your thoughts about that? Because, that's, that's a.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So gratitude is a big one and I know it's a hot button for influencers and people like that big one, and I know it's a hot button for influencers and people like that. Um, when I would lead groups at a psychiatric hospital, I would talk about gratitude and um, I remember I have high blood pressure so I would have to go see my doctor every three months and get checked and I'm like, oh man, I don't want to have to do this. And I got to show up for a blade, I got to pay time off and I bitch and moan and complain. And then I remembered telling the people in the group, the patients, let's have gratitude about things. I thought, well, why aren't you doing it, butthead, wow you were called out.
Speaker 1:Huh, I called myself out and what I did was I started to say at least I get to go see a doctor for high blood pressure. Oh, so you're not going along, and in any subsequent one you can start to look at the advantages. Yeah, oh, it's a hassle, oh, it's a hassle, you have to go to the doctor. At least get to go to the doctor. You know, and I and I don't like that. You know that's a first world problem.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but it's having gratitude and it changes If you start it right from the get-go, from when you wake up. It can change your day from the minute your foot hits the floor. Yeah, I know, I see it on your face. So, exactly, so I use it. I need to listen to it more often. I'm gonna go query myself later in the day. You know you didn't. I were talking about, um, you know, gratitude where, because we can always show more and I found it to be extraordinarily effective instead of, you know, bitching about something, complaining, whining Okay, butthead, you know. So this guy shows up, okay, and show a little more gratitude. You know, when he shows up, I have to change and I usually that's where.
Speaker 2:That's, that's what you just said. I have to be more and recognize and see. For me, that's the beginning of depression is not seeing.
Speaker 1:What are you not seeing?
Speaker 2:What you have and you're constantly in what you don't have, why what I don't have, what I didn't have I could have had. Why I don't have what I didn't have I could have had, why I did it. So it's this constant complaining of bickering and just not really seeing what's in front of you. You're always seeing what happened and what could happen. You're always going to why. It's just this constant complaint. Yeah, that for me, that's, that's the beginning of even if, even if there's traumas in the picture. I mean, I don't know a single person that doesn't have trauma in their life, and if you don't, you probably will, because it's part of life. You know, something happens, something comes up for everyone, but it's always this going back to why, why? Why this constant complaint? And that is the beginning of war. Yeah, War with yourself.
Speaker 1:Yeah, why don't I have? I should have this. Why does this?
Speaker 2:happen.
Speaker 1:Yeah and yeah. And you know, if you look at Not to get all evangelical on us, but if you look at the way that Jesus fed the 5,000, yes, we love that.
Speaker 1:By the way, we're all about Jesus here, my followers, all of Us, yeah, yeah so he he looked at what it was I think there's two different ones, but there's Basically five loaves and two fish and then he gave thanks for that. And when he gave thanks for what we do have, then it all multiplied. So there's your best gratitude miracle in the Bible and that's the best. And even if we just got a metaphor, it you know. All right, fine, use a metaphor for your life. What do you got? I got a car. Well, it's not the greatest car. We're not keeping up with the kardashians. You know?
Speaker 2:yeah, I see what you did there you know we're.
Speaker 1:We're going to give joy for the what I do have and when I do and I express that I get out of the depression. I changed my point of view, I gave myself different opportunities to respond in different ways, and the war is not on anymore that's right yeah, I like how you said war yeah, it is a war.
Speaker 2:It's a war with yourself. It's a war with your essentially ever. Even if it's about the past, it's a war. It's a war with yourself. It's a war with your essentially ever. Even if it's about the past, it's a war you have with yourself, which translates into exactly what the definition of the depression was is anger, turn inward. And it's this war, ongoing war with yourself I'm writing it down on you are yeah.
Speaker 1:yeah, because it's really good ongoing war with yourself. I'm writing it down on you are yeah, because it's really good Ongoing war with yourself. Yeah, that's very useful. And you know, sometimes stuff does happen externally, but what are we doing to control that ongoing war with ourselves? And and that's where the battle- it is.
Speaker 2:It's. It's a battle and it's okay. It's okay for that battle to happen, but what's not okay is the ongoing part.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're going to let this war go. We need to cease fire. We need.
Speaker 2:Cease fire. When are you going to cease fire?
Speaker 1:Yes, bill, I love that yeah, yeah, so good, yeah, and and we can change it with the gratitude, we can change it with recognizing that we have options, that we don't have to live a life a certain way. That's another one that'll show up in in kind of behavior therapy.
Speaker 1:They'll talk about schemas, and a schema is where do I fit in the world? And you know how does the world respond to me? And it's sort of that Carl Jung behind me, but my guy, yeah, yeah, so Jung would call them complexes, but it's. You know, bad things always happen to Bill. Oh, okay, why is that? Well, I was born, you know, and, and that's narrative. Uh, tell, tell a different story. Uh, I like narrative therapy.
Speaker 1:I'm not in it but I like that storytelling aspect because it gets at the schemas and um writing another note.
Speaker 2:I'm getting all kinds of information narrative um see we should do more podcasts isn't it amazing it's like a world of knowledge, like two brains just trying to process together, and it's just such a I'm grateful I am too.
Speaker 1:I'm grateful we did this today. Yeah, now, well, I'm thinking of clients as it's going along. I'm thinking of clients as it's going along. I'm thinking of myself as this is going along, you know. So I try not to be one of those therapists that's pointing. But when I tell people I say I've got three fingers pointing back at go like that and just be like no, absolutely Absolutely.
Speaker 2:And I don't know why I'm so. I think that I think that to be I'm going to use the word obsessed because I don't have, for the lack of better word. Let's just say I, I have this obsession with gratefulness, and until a person genuinely you know how you said, you put your feet down and you were grateful, it's really hard to teach a client what gratefulness is until they genuinely experience it themselves. It's a completely different world, it's a different feeling, and I'm getting goosebumps just talking about it, because it really does change all the chemicals within you. You know what I'm saying. It's this, this unexplainable feeling of, and I think that the more often you're grateful for the little things, even it just naturally, like God, flows in you. It's just in you. You'll be sitting down or driving I don't know if you've experienced this and you just get a hit of this gratitude and you're like God, I'm just so grateful. I bought myself let's just say I don't know a pair of, you know shoes, or a coffee, or I'm breathing. It's more natural.
Speaker 1:It's wonderful. That's also childlike in a good way, in the most positive sense of the word. You know, oh, I'm happy. You know, and when we can do that, you're going to get those chemicals going and a wonderful place to be. You know, and when we can do that, you're going to get those chemicals going and a wonderful place to be. You know that we're not experts at misery.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly so, would you say as a licensed therapist, someone who's been doing this for a long time, right? Would you say who's been doing this for a long time, right? Would you say I'm saying this, but I want to know what your perspective, because you're just so well-seasoned. Would you say that gratitude can possibly be the best intervention for someone who has depression?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it depends on the person.
Speaker 2:You think it depends on person by person.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, there are different reasons why I've come across some really bad examples of Depression. Yeah, so I had a client who a truck had jumped the divider and killed his whole family, his two kids and his wife, while he was driving the car, and there ain't no gratitude that's going to fix that. You know, there really wasn't much I could say to him either. I just said, oh my goodness yeah.
Speaker 1:So, but that's an extreme example. I do like to change the thinking. I add gratitude liberally as seasoning in the stew. So we're making a stew to get you out of the practice, get a person out of depression. I'm going to want to add gratitude.
Speaker 2:Do you think that that person I mean obviously he's your client, but do you feel like there was more anger versus depression? Oh, for that gentleman.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, no that he was horrible.
Speaker 2:I have a similar story like that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was at a psychiatric hospital. He was on a 5150. So he had thought of killing himself and that got him a three day trip. And you know there was really nothing I could tell him, but he had the whole range of emotions, survivor's guilt. Why me, if I had just seen? You know he was going through all of that, so there really wasn't my. But that way I I cherry picked a really harsh example. Generally speaking, though, I think gratitude is a major thing that I want people to avail themselves of, because then you're taking stock of your assets. You're taking stock of what you have, not what you don't have, and you know our culture in the West is so predicated on what you don't have. That's what Madison Avenue does with advertising, that's what television does with status.
Speaker 2:Schools too, bill schools too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, what you don't have. So I'd rather take stock of what I do have and be grateful for it, and I cherish it and I treat it well, treat it with respect. So I paraphrase the Apostle Paul gratitude covers a multitude of sins. So if you've got gratitude, that's a great first step to turning everything around. I don't know it's the only one, but sometimes people are stuck with stinking thinking. But gratitude goes a long way to help that. So it's much more of a recipe per person For me, from my experience as a therapist.
Speaker 1:It's okay, we, what do we want to bring to this? I mean, I want to listen. What, what's, what's right? Why am I talking to you today? This is what I I don't usually say that, but I go. So what's going on? Did you want therapy? And then I have an idea what would you like to talk about today? Uh, sometimes they lead me in a offshoot direction, but most of the time it's the stuff that's coming up and and uh, that they're being hit with. And then we want to address okay, is, is it always going to be like that? Can you express gratitude? Uh, you know, um, are you shooting all over yourself? Are you catastrophizing? Is it black and white thinking? Are you labeling? And, and if I can use those, then they open the door to the subconscious and then we get into their narrative. Well, it's always been bad, ever since I was little.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't get the story so I was um my gosh, which I forgot the name. There was this podcast I was watching and there was a lady speaking about anger and she was talking about, well, the correlation with anger and depression but how it just makes you into this bitter and really personal personality wise, just unattractive person. It's not a person that you don't want to be around, it's just constantly just sad, complaining and you know, and so, and it was really, it was really interesting how she was talking about if you are depressed and about if you are depressed and just angry, never stop talking about your anger, never stop sharing.
Speaker 1:Never stop expressing your anger.
Speaker 2:What are your thoughts about that? To whom? Never stop In general, just don't stop talking If you're angry. Just don't don't hold it in, just talk about your anger. And I was. There wasn't a clarification as to who, but it was really interesting. I'm like okay, so does this person have the green card to? Just? I mean, it's kind of like it's it's the same thing, right, she's going to go back, or he's going to go back and do the same thing over and over and over again. A complainer again.
Speaker 1:And they're on one note, johnny, and, and you're always complaining and people will stop. So I need to hear the caveats on that too. All right, how long? I think, what that podcast person was getting at was. You'll eventually talk yourself out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's what I was processing.
Speaker 1:They never met my mother-in-law from Brooklyn. I'm just kidding, I don't have a mother-in-law, but you know, what I mean.
Speaker 1:They, you know, we all know somebody that never stops with the Kabbalah, as they say in the Jewish community, and that's no fun to be around. But I do agree Well, which is why I like those interventions of the empty chair. Or I'd like to get an exclamation point on the sentence and then if it shows up the next day, then we can do another sentence with a new exclamation point. The exclamation point would be burning the letter talking to the empty chair. You know, get it out, I agree, but I don't know about never stop talking about it.
Speaker 1:Well that's going to be rough to be around and you're going to lose a lot of friends. We all know people like that, so I do agree to talk about it. Journaling One of my favorite things is the journal becomes. I'm looking for mine. I think I left it over there. The journal is your. It's the book of what happened to you, and the journal wants to hear I've only been a therapist 13 years, but I've been journaling about 25 or 30. And I just love it, but it's the book of what's going on with you, and so I would definitely write about it in the journal and and get it out.
Speaker 2:I'd use that as another modality. Tell us about this intervention that you have about writing with your left and then translating it with your right. I love this, you guys. I want you guys to also listen to this. If anyone here is struggling with depression or any type of unresolved issues, is it so? This is a really beautiful intervention that I learned from bill, so tell us about that yeah.
Speaker 1:so I stole this from a guy named john bradshaw, and bradshaw's written two very famous books um, the shame that binds us and Homecoming, and I read about this in Homecoming and I've used it repeatedly. So Bradshaw quotes Eric Erickson and Eric Erickson did a thing called stage theory and he said whatever age we are that we have a conflict that doesn't get resolved, a part of us tends to stay that age until it does get resolved. So if you had a conflict with dad at five, um, and it didn't get resolved and you feel that you were treated unfairly, that becomes a trauma of sorts. Okay, so the bradshaw I believe it's Bradshaw's technique. I learned it from him. He's passed away now, but it was brilliant. But with your dominant hand, write a letter of love and support to the child. Now he actually would.
Speaker 2:To the inner child. Yeah to the inner child, right.
Speaker 1:So what he actually has you do before that. If you read the book he has, you write down the whole circumstances of the situation. But the second step in it is write a letter of love and support as though you are the parent you didn't have. Yeah, and you can sign it as mom or dad. You can. Right now, it does get confusing when you're teaching somebody this there, you know, because am I mom or no?
Speaker 1:Imagine you want to become the parent that you did not have, so you want to write a letter of love and support with your dominant hand to the inner child the five-year-old or the seven the inner child the five-year-old or the seven-year-old or the 12-year-old that had a conflict that didn't get resolved and he needed, or she needed, a really understanding parent, and not necessarily what they got in life. The child then all right. So we do that. And and the other thing about the letter is no fortune telling you know, no, you gotta tough it out and be strong, and this is going to happen when you're 17, nothing like by microsoft at 36 or anything and then, with the opposite hand, the, the child writes back to you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, your less dominant hand.
Speaker 1:The less dominant hand, and the reason that we do that is that it accesses different parts of the brain and what will happen is memories come up, maybe totally unrelated, or something that's fascinating, yeah, yeah, something you totally forgot about. So it's going to be physically challenging to write with your. I'm right-handed, so for me to write with my left it's physically challenging. It's also going to be um, it's going to be almost unintelligible. So, just as a matter of logistics, you want to translate it in the column immediately um, um, as soon as you write it, because when you go to read it in a week you're going to be I have no idea what I wrote.
Speaker 1:Okay, so you write a letter of love and support with the dominant hand and then the child writes back with the opposite hand. The best thing is if the two of you start conversing the child. When I first read, I was a business guy. I liked psychology, so I'd read about it on the weekends and I thought it was all psychobabble bullshit about reading a child, until I became a therapist and I recognized it is the trauma from our lives that followed us in life.
Speaker 2:Okay, Bleeding into our lives.
Speaker 1:Yes, Bleeding into our lives. And so when you have a memory, so the brain is very much like a computer. I'm pointing at my monitor, my computer. So the computer has X and Y coordinates and data bits. Monitor, my computer. So the the computer has x and y coordinates and data bits. Well, in the mind, in the brain, we have neurons which form memories. You know so these neurons, and when they fire, they fire in a certain way. So when you're starting to write with the opposite hand, you're still accessing those neurons, but you're sort of coming at it from another angle and you're actually creating, you're rewiring yourself, so you're creating a new neuron path.
Speaker 1:You're rewiring the trauma. It's kind of like changing a narrative Totally, and you're doing it with love. So, say, you know, dad got on my case and he hit me with a belt when I was five and my mother said good for you. And then I was you know, dad, it was terrible and so sad. But what we've done is we've rewired the memory and the way that we access it and then we start to take, we take some of the charge away of the trauma and we come up with new narratives, new ways of looking at it, and we're actually, I believe, accessing that memory the way that I liken it is. Previously we were going in the front door but there were a bunch of burglars in there waiting to hit us with a baseball bat. So, hey, kid, we're going to go in the side, we're going to go into the second story window, we're going to go into the garage, we're going in the back door, we're not going in the front door, and when we do that, we're still getting inside the house, but we're not going in where we're getting attacked. And we can come up with different interpretations.
Speaker 1:Even just seeing neuro-linguistic programming does this. So even just seeing an event as though you're an outside person will change the feelings. So if you have a trauma, you probably remember it in the first person, right, everything. So, even if I just get behind the wheel of my car and I had a bad accident, every time I get behind the wheel of the car I'm remembering the accident, which is PTSD, and I cannot drive because it might happen again. But if I take you and imagine that we're standing on the street corner watching you get in an accident, I've now taken you out of the accident and I'm still accessing the memory. But I'm seeing it from across the street and I've developed a new neural pathway.
Speaker 1:Right, so, marine Corps, I was a Marines. I was a Marines for 12 years. So you know my drill instructor yelling at me and I could see his tonsils down, you know, and I remember him in the first person, you know. But if I imagine that I'm standing on the side of the squad bay in the shadows watching Private Levitt get yelled at by Staff Sergeant Eddie Miller, right, you know. And. But I see it differently and I relate to the event differently and it loses some of its mojo. So, yeah, yes, yeah. So I use this. So it's a Bradshaw technique I found I don't remember. I'll send you the page numbers. I asked ChatGPT about it and I printed up something which I give clients. I'll send it to you and yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:And it's just so useful. Give me something that I can give to my clients, and when we do it, we can, we can create our own healing, which is, I think that that's really something that you want to. You know, get at.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think I essentially that's this. This is the obviously social media TikTok Instagram podcast. They should not be replaced for actual therapy. You know, it's just kind of like an example of what maybe healing would look like, but it's not. I want to make that clear. But also, there's people who really genuinely can't afford it. They can't, they don't have insurance and they can't afford it. So that's why there's people have insurance and they can't afford it. So that's why there's people like me who have these platforms for them to kind of learn. So this is why I, I I really like it when you say your own healing is that this is something possibly, I mean, it's a safe thing to do at home. Would you think so? I do.
Speaker 1:I do, depending on the level of the trauma.
Speaker 2:The level of the trauma. Yeah, I agree, I was going to that. That was my next question that do you feel like this intervention would be appropriate for someone who's angry at someone, resentful towards someone, someone who's caused them pain, harm and they're angry, and to kind of write?
Speaker 1:this out at home would be. I agree, yeah, yeah, you, I. I think it's okay to do that. It's probably it's cause we're on the air. You know, if you've got an egregious problem, it's probably best to be with a hundred percent.
Speaker 1:Yeah, depending on the level depending on the level, but for just healing yourself and getting rid of judgments of yourself. You know, we judge ourselves because of the way that our parents respond Joe or Carol, on the text right, and what we want to do is put ourselves into that spot of being our own parent.
Speaker 1:Be the parent you didn't have right. Yeah, uh, the prototypes failed us, my parents fail me, I fail my kids. That's great, you know, and and uh, I told my kids. I said whose voice do you hear in your head Criticizing?
Speaker 2:We hear yours, okay sure I love how you are so um comfortable admitting that. I think that that's just well. Not a lot of parents can, especially a man admitting that.
Speaker 1:Well, I'm not perfect. We had one perfect guy 2000 years ago. We nailed him to a tree. We didn't like him. Okay, sorry. So it's just. And that's why we fail is that we project our own BS onto our kids and of course they're going to go through their own stuff and only hear what they want. So you know when I say fail, I have great relationships with the three of them to this day and they're 38, 39, 40. So they come back because I'm saying look, if you hear me in your head, you have my permission to tell me to go screw off, shut the hell up, huh.
Speaker 1:Go for it, you. They laughed and then the guy's voice I hear told me I could tell him. So once we do that, then it does create an openness, then we can change. Well, here's what I was trying to get at, the parent thinks they're why didn't you get an A? And the kid hears no matter how good I do, I'm a failure and that's all or nothing thinking. Then they feel whatever I do isn't good enough. So that's the kind of things that I get.
Speaker 2:That's the birth of an overachiever.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but at what cost? You know very, very driven people. I mean. Steve Jobs did incredible things and the world is different for us having known him. He was a miserable human being.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:You know, and do we want that legacy? I mean, he had $6 billion, but you know so I don't know, Do you think depression is curable?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I do too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you have to want to be cured. Some people don't want it, some people.
Speaker 2:I have a theory about that, by the way, please share. I have a theory about that, by the way, please share, and it's going to sound harsh, but you know, it is just my opinion of it that the people who are fully conscious that they need to heal and are not that I don't want to are the people who really love the victim chair because it serves them so good. It's just so good. You know, strong people are very lonely. People, bill, yes, because we don't have people running out and I'm going to consider myself as one because I worked. I have enough, you know, work to kind of label myself as that.
Speaker 2:But I feel like the strong people are lonely because we don't have a lot of people chasing us, asking us how we are. Are you okay? I mean, do you go and ask a confident, strong person how they are? Usually person, how they are usually very rare, you know you, people tend to ask the weaker people of how they. Are you okay, are you? How are you doing so? So the, the people who don't want change know that they need change, but they don't want change. Are the people who love to be in that chair because it's full of attention? I think yes, yes.
Speaker 1:No, without a doubt, and that's so good yeah. Well, that's. One of my other favorite authors is Viktor Frankl.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Stock market is closing it's okay, I love that book.
Speaker 2:by the way, I had my son read that book.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but Frankl came up with the idea that we have the responsibility, the ability, and I got this from Stephen Covey, who was quoting Viktor Frankl, and he said we have response. And he put a dash and an ability the ability to respond. And that is what allowed Frankl to survive Auschwitz. Right, it's this premise that, hey, mr Nazibag, you may have more liberty, you get to go home to mama at night, but I have more freedom even though I'm a prisoner in auschwitz, because I can choose how I'm going to respond to you oh oh, ouch, ouch, and that's what.
Speaker 1:So you know what's? Zero once you start dealing with these kind of people you you're reading Viktor Frankl and John Bradshaw you just park ego at the door. That's where I get with this. I'm just like ooh, so yeah, we have the ability to respond.
Speaker 2:You're not a hostage to a reaction, you know.
Speaker 1:Hostage to the past.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Or a prisoner by the future, right? So you're sitting there with two guns at your head and you can choose how you're going to respond. But boy, that'll infuriate some people, and I agree with you totally. There are some people that just love the victim because they get. I think Covey was even talking about.
Speaker 1:A lot was even talking about I think it was in the seven habits of highly effective people. He talked about a lady who was. They had a shot to cure the grandmother and we got the hypodermic care it was. I don't think they really had it, but they offered it to the grandma. We can give you this shot and we will get rid of the illness that is plaguing you. And she wouldn't take the shot because the whole family was catering to her. Yeah, oh, grandma, are you OK?
Speaker 2:I'm telling you that's a that's a dangerous place to be and it's a dangerous person to be around.
Speaker 1:I know another story story, another quick story. So there's a. There's a stock market book called market wizards, written by a guy named jack schwager and schwager, oh, what was the guy's name? He was um ed ciccota. He was interviewing a brilliant trader named Ed Seikota and Seikota was talking about a guy who he traded with that would take $5,000 in the 70s and run it up to $250,000 in six months. This guy was brilliant. And then he'd lose it all back down to the $5,000. And then he'd slowly build it up again to 250 and go down and say Koda said I went through about two of these cycles with this guy.
Speaker 1:And then I recognized what he was doing. He loves. He's brilliant I mean, even in today's dollars, 250 grand pretty good but he loved the sympathy that he got from his family for his market losses more than he loved the money. Ouch, oh, oh, sorry. So one of the things, this is deep psychology what programs are we running that are causing these outcomes in our lives? Now, not everybody is ready to receive that question, right, but I usually say I'll put my glasses on the end of my nose like okay, so what?
Speaker 2:are you doing? Are you that straight out you have? Are you you're straight out in your sessions like that, though right, like, are you for real?
Speaker 1:well, my, my therapist. It's obviously because your whole demeanor changes when this guy shows up. Hey, you got a problem. You actually do. So when I look in the mirror, I call him the witness, so that's the witness.
Speaker 2:That's insane. That's insane.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's insane. Yeah, we're Running Programs and patterns In our lives that are causing us To stay. If you're not, I mean, sometimes Meteors hit the earth. Okay, sometimes your car gets hit, sometimes stuff happens, I get it, but for majority of the time we're responsible for what's going on with us. So if you don't like your life. What's going on?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:That's a hard question, right. And I don't do that with just everybody. But if somebody's been doing a lot of work, right, if they've been doing a lot of work, and I go okay, you ready, you ready. What are you doing to cause this?
Speaker 2:Why are you?
Speaker 1:attracting these people.
Speaker 2:Right. But also this question comes to my mind Do you think it's fair to say that we are responsible for our mental health? Because, look, look, look, victor was in Auschwitz, right, and the situation that he was in. He said you're a prisoner, I'm free because I choose how I'm going to respond. That's ultimate freedom, right there. So I'm going to switch this up a little bit and say that do you think, from a professional perspective, that we are responsible for our mental health? Yes, meaning, oh, absolutely Okay.
Speaker 1:You know, when you say responsible, meaning what is responsible.
Speaker 2:Responsible, as in okay, you know someone has done horrible things to you and has caused you tremendous trauma, or you know there's the Armenian genocide or whatever traumas that people endure in their life. At the end, we are responsible of how we're going to take that and play that out in our life, whether that's going to put us in a depression state, whether that's going to put us in anxiety, whether that's going to whatever, whatever position, whatever mental health dilemmas that we experience from outside sources. Because if we're on our I mean like look, gabor talks about this right, like we're perfectly perfect, but we're impacted by other people Our mental health dilemmas I mean people don't just sit down and say, hey, I have a great life and I have so much anxiety, you know. No, it's, it's stemming from something it's, it's coming up from, it's an outside, it's coming from an outside source. So if we had the knowledge and the wisdom to switch that mindset, would there be mental health dilemmas with people? Does that make sense? Do I make?
Speaker 1:sense, there will always be, because yes, yes, you did. There will always be, because we are humans and we're all at different. You know we're, we're fallible and we fail, we, ultimately do have responsibility. Right, yeah, and I would. So I worked with clients that had schizophrenia and they in some sense didn't have a choice in it because they're, you know, delusions. Yeah Right, the people their, you know, delusions yeah, yeah, right, the people, but yeah, but they can choose to stay on the meds yeah right, and I would look at them like this and say so, are you going to stay on your meds?
Speaker 1:or what are you doing right and I and I don't need those meds? No, you do, you really do. And the one, the my clients that had long-term schizophrenia, which they were disabled, et cetera, but the ones that stayed on their meds that chose to stay with the meds were able to function and and lead reasonably productive lives.
Speaker 1:You know productive lives and um, so I agree with you. Not everybody is going to be able to accept that, though all right. So I would really need to vet my client and my patient, or whoever I'm talking to, and their level of maturity and their level of readiness to accept it. You know, I really need to know who I'm talking to.
Speaker 2:That's the messed up part for me. I understand that I'm able to empathize and sympathize. I have the educational background as well to do so. However, as a human being I'm talking it's difficult to grasp this idea that not a lot of people are willing to take responsibility and heal themselves.
Speaker 1:I agree, I agree, I agree and that that they're aware of it, they're aware, and so I I proceed very cautiously when I share that, because it will infuriate people, I know. Hold on to their traumas, because that's this and it becomes sacred, you know, and it's the only thing they hear you talk about, yeah, yeah, and their sense of identity is tied up in it. So the grandmother wouldn't get the shot, the victims but, yeah, they. I agree. Now stuff does happen. My clients did have schizophrenia, but they, if they choose to stay with their meds, they can get different outcomes in their lives. They don't have to be wandering the streets, you know, uh, with lightsabers, you know, killing mind control, you know, and, uh, that that's what I've seen. But but that's a thing of responsibility.
Speaker 2:I agree, not everybody's ready and there was this spiritual guide I was watching. I'll I'll I'll try to link his information when I have it. But there was a woman who came up and she's like I have this tendency, and she's he's like what? And she's like, well, I have this tendency to, and he's like what, what do you have? And she's like a tendency. And he's like you're consciously making that decision because you're aware of the tendency. As soon as you are aware that it's a tendency, it's a habit, then you are conscious and you know what you're doing. And that was very powerful to me, because most people do know and most people are aware of the things that they're doing, but they're just not taking responsibility to heal or change something. So the people that don't is completely understandable, because there are people with severe mental illnesses and that's super.
Speaker 2:I mean it's it's right understandable, but the people that consciously know, and they're not changing those people um, man, I don't know.
Speaker 1:It's a tough one. So there's a couple of different levels. There's levels of consciousness too, though I would say most people don't know. I may be wrong, but I don't think they're going. You know what I'm creating, all of the effects in my life that that, to me, that's a high level of personal growth, development, discipline, maturity. You know, of course yes, stuff does happen.
Speaker 1:But oh yeah, but I what I see is people have the conscious mind, and then there's the undercurrent, underneath the server, very much like a river with frozen ice on the top, and then the underneath, the um, you know the uh, the current is running at 60. There you go. I lost you for a second so yeah, I know, I didn't have.
Speaker 2:Uh, I don't know what happened.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you froze on one side. It's okay, we'll talk. So I'm not sure if you heard it, but there's a couple of levels of consciousness at least.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:And so it's very much like a frozen river and that's where everybody's kind of operating under, but underneath is a 60-mile-an-hour current kind of operating under, but underneath is a 60 mile an hour current, and I don't think most people are aware of that. And that's where, which is why I, like young, young, young was so into the subconscious he called it the unconscious, but cbt will open that up right. And what are you thinking? What's the narrative? I love them because they indicate the story and then it gets at okay, this is what's you know, this is what's coming out of me, but it's a high level of maturity to get to that thing you were talking about. I don't think most people are ready for it.
Speaker 1:Certainly, our culture is one of all you know, depending on what part of the country you're in. Yeah, I don't want to get all critical or anything, but you know there's a victimization thing that's going on. And then there's a personal responsibility thing, and you know where? Where do we choose to boy that? This is a hot button issue. It's like religion and politics, are you gonna?
Speaker 2:it is really hit it.
Speaker 1:I agree with you. I agree with you, but I tread very carefully if I'm sharing that with a client, so I I know it's a podcast. There might be people going. Oh my God, what did he say? But if you're in therapy with me, I won't normally just share that in the first session. I'll, I'll wait and see, you know, I'll throw it.
Speaker 2:Well how much do you owe? Yeah Well, some people won't take it. Well, it's understandable, you know, and it might. It might hurt someone also. It's understandable, you know, and it might hurt someone also, so we'll work with them where they're at.
Speaker 1:But I agree with you in principle. It's extremely, as the Christians would say, it's extremely convicting. So as you brought that up, I was like boy. I was looking in the mirror at myself yeah, you got to own all that stuff.
Speaker 2:You know when I was it's.
Speaker 2:It's when I was doing my practicum hours in during therapy school. I did my practicum hours at BHC Alhambra hospital. I'm sure you know that hospital, so uh, you did. You know that hospital, so uh, you did, you did. How funny, me too. I was a therapist at the eating disorder unit for um two years, yeah, inpatient, yeah. So I always say I became a therapist there because school didn't teach so much. You know, uh, the the field teaches you how to be a therapist. But my supervisor was such a tough cookie. She was a clinical psychologist and she was a supervisor of the eating disorder unit and I was getting my hours with her as well.
Speaker 2:Fascinating therapist, fascinating clinician. And the way I watched her conduct her group, cause I would lead group sessions and there would be 25 to 30. I mean, you've done groups so you know how it works. Pretty intense. And here you are, a new therapist leading a group and she would just rip me apart. Bill, you didn't do this, you didn't do this, you didn't. And the way I saw her, um, and I understand. Not every therapist is like this.
Speaker 2:You know, therapists are taught to be, more soft and validating and understanding, which is beautiful, you know. But she wasn't like that. She was just laying on you. You know this is what you're doing wrong, this is what you did wrong, and so I kind of saw the spark in people when she did that. It really woke them up. Now again, yeah, it's not going to work with everyone, but I kind of like learned that from her and I'm just like, wow, like this is, this is pretty powerful when you do tell your client the truth of what's really happening. It's it's really life altering. But I also agree with you on that aspect too, that not a lot of people are ready to hear that.
Speaker 1:No. So I like to tell them where I'm going, treatment wise, and say this is where I'm going, cause I don't want it to be, you know?
Speaker 2:yeah, surprise you know, yeah, Surprise, this is what just grown up you know but I agree with you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, but I agree with you. Yeah, I didn't know you were at bhc too. Yeah, I was there. I I finished my school and, um, my professor, who she was my professor as well. She's like you know, edita, I, I think you're great, I think you'll make a great therapist. I want you to come to bhc and everybody was trying to get it because it was a competitive, you know it's, it's a tiny hospital and you have um schools like thing two. What are they called? Uh, the international university. I know you know this one. There's one in Orange County, I knew yeah.
Speaker 1:I know which US international alliance alliance yes yeah and oh.
Speaker 2:you know their psychology program is great. So a lot of students from Alliant International were trying to do their practicum hours there and I was like, yes, I scored something so close to home. This is amazing. But I learned how to be a therapist at BHC. I mean that was an intense hospital, intense, intense.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, so my instructor was also the clinical director on the patient side Intense, intense, anything, and we saw it. You know, we saw, yeah, so I, I, uh, yeah, so four years inpatient four years outpatient at BHC.
Speaker 2:So that is amazing. We were, we worked at the same hospital. But yeah, I. Anytime I have somebody come up and say, you know where did you go to school, do you recommend this field? I always say yes, absolutely, cause it's one of the most noble careers anyone can have. But it is right. But also practicum needs to be in a hospital. That's my opinion. I think I love practice, but practicum you got to swim in the dirty water first, it's not all about a beautiful chair and you know no, you got to get yeah.
Speaker 1:I totally agree. It's a PhD all in itself, so it's real world. And eating disorders are the toughest. That's the hardest. I've worked with all of them and I had eating disorders. Dr McNeil liked me, so he was the psychiatrist. Dr McNeil, I'm going to leverage you so he would give me some couple. That would yeah, but boy, they were tough because I do a lot with humor and they did not know, this was a process group, you know.
Speaker 1:You know I'm trying to tell a joke and make everybody laugh and a 20, you know, with people that have slipped their wrists or their throat, and and and the eating disorder was tough because it was all about control and they were trying to control from. You know, they're controlling the food they're controlling and while you're eating it was very, very so. I learned a lot. Very interesting.
Speaker 2:I'm very grateful for that experience, honestly the toughest years of my life. But I will never, ever regret the years in school and the years in practicum Blessing. Yeah, yeah, it was. Yeah. Well, Bill, thank you.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much for today this was so good.
Speaker 2:I appreciate you. Thank you so much for today.
Speaker 1:You're welcome.
Speaker 2:This was so good. I appreciate you and I again. I love your work and you've read so many books. My God, you're just like a wealth of knowledge you are. Take a compliment.
Speaker 1:Yes, ma'am, I will.
Speaker 2:I am responsible. Thank you, bill, I appreciate you.