REWIND Into Where East Meets West: Dr. Pete and Dr. Rubin

Psychologists Dr. Pete Economou and Dr. Nikki Rubin re-introduce their podcast bridging Eastern mindfulness practices with Western behavioral science. They share their professional backgrounds, personal journeys with mindfulness, and mission to make psychological science accessible to help people suffer less.

• Pete is a PhD counseling psychologist, Zen practitioner, and associate professor at Rutgers University
• Nikki is a licensed clinical psychologist specializing in cognitive behavioral therapies and mindfulness
• Both met 10 years ago during their clinical psychology internship in Newark, New Jersey
• Pete's journey with mindfulness began before graduate school, leading to becoming a Zen practitioner
• Nikki discovered mindfulness through her graduate training and maintains a regular yoga practice
• Mindfulness functions as a behavior that aligns with behavioral science principles
• Both Eastern traditions and Western science offer valuable insights for navigating life's challenges
• The podcast aims to provide scientifically sound information about mindfulness without the "woo-woo"
• Future episodes will explore topics including mindfulness, meditation, cognitive behavioral therapy, and racism

Be present, be brave.

Transcript

Meet Pete and Nikki, Coast to Coast

Speaker 1 0:17

I'm Dr Pete Economo, the East Coast Psychologist.

Speaker 2 0:21

And I'm Dr Nikki Rubin, the West Coast Psychologist, and this is when East Meets.

Speaker 1 0:27

West. So this is when East Meets West. Hey Nikki, what is going on? I'm so happy to introduce ourselves to everybody, so this is our introductory episode, so people get a little sense about who we are.

Speaker 2 0:43

Yeah, for literally from east to west. In case you guys are unaware probably haven't looked at our website yet but Pete's actually at home in New Jersey on the East Coast, and I'm in LA on the West Coast.

Speaker 1 0:56

So check it out, but it's the summer so I got my tank on, so I look like I just came from the beach. I did come from the pool close to the beach, but not the LA beach, that's for sure. But, I think I'm really excited for this project that you and I are working on, and this episode is about introducing to who we are as people, and so I'm going to start with myself which.

Speaker 1 1:20

I always joke because I think I don't like introductions and I think introductions for me are always really uncomfortable because they're also long and when people read this stupid bio I'm just like who is that person? I'm right here, I don't need to read this stuff.

Speaker 2 1:36

That's why it's my job and Pete and I have joked about this before that I'll definitely slide in and say my bragging statements about Pete, because, yeah, I will.

Speaker 1 1:47

And me on you.

Speaker 2 1:48

Yeah, I know, I know I'm happy to do the intro. I want everyone to know about all the awesome stuff that you're doing.

Speaker 1 1:56

Yeah, well, then people will start to see how annoyingly we get along. I know, I know. So, pete Economo, and often my students, my clients, they call me Dr Pete and for the purposes of this series we're going to call ourselves Pete and Nikki. We're going to go Pete and Nikki first names. I do have a lot of athletes and high performers I work with who call me Pete, and I think that's great because I think it's the humanness of what, of what we do. So I do have a private practice. I work with high performers, as I just said. So I've worked with, you know, professional, high level, collegiate athletes. That's kind of transferred over to also working with some high performers in New York, whether it's like law or finance, things of that nature, and really helping people just to kind of find some balance in this world and this thing that we call life. So I have a PhD in counseling psychology. I am board certified in cognitive and behavioral therapy and you know I always what else do I got?

Speaker 2 2:56

there, I was going to say Rutgers. Oh right yeah, Rutgers, yeah yeah.

Speaker 1 3:01

So I am an associate professor at Rutgers University, which is over here in Jersey. Hey, that's our whole thing here, the East and the West right.

Speaker 2 3:09

Yes.

Speaker 1 3:10

I've been there for about two years, but I was a professor before that for about seven or eight years. So right now I'm running a master's program within the Graduate School of Professional and Applied Psychology and I'm just so thrilled to be here. I've got two dogs and I think life is great, I think life is tough, yes, and life is great and lovely and lovely.

Our 10-Year Friendship Journey

Speaker 1 3:31

Yes, so that's who I am and I'll talk a little bit. Well, I'll say that for a minute, but, like, think about our mindfulness practice, but let's introduce yourself. Am, and I'll talk a little bit. Well, I'll say that for a minute, but think about our mindfulness practice, but let's introduce yourself. Nikki and I met Nikki when Nikki was living on the East Coast. So that's our East meets West.

Speaker 2 3:47

Well, and maybe I'll use that as a bridge before I talk about my own personal background, because it's actually about to be our 10-year friendship anniversary.

Speaker 1 3:56

Nikki's so good at anniversaries. Yeah, it's actually about to be our 10 year friendship anniversary.

Speaker 2 3:58

Nikki's so good at anniversaries yeah.

Speaker 1 4:00

You'll learn that about her.

Speaker 2 4:01

Yeah, you will, you will. So literally in a few days we'll be 10 years since Pete and I met and we met on our clinical internship, which in psychology is basically like residency for psychologists, and yeah, we, we just really hit it off right away.

Speaker 1 4:18

Well, when Nikki said to me when we first met, I remember we were walking, we were in Newark, new Jersey which is beautiful and we were walking from one building to the next and I remember us really kind of hitting off, talking and you're like I'm from MLA and my best friend at that time was from San Diego and I was like oh yeah, I do remember, and I was like, I was like oh, I really love it. Like you've never heard that before from someone from the East coast.

Speaker 2 4:46

That's like yes, I got very used to that when I was living in New York. I got very used to that, but that's okay, I also. I understand it. There are two very different places and you know, we also found that we we share some similarities, though.

Speaker 1 5:00

We shared a lot of similarities.

Speaker 2 5:01

Yeah, a lot of similarities, yeah.

Speaker 1 5:02

You're my female version.

Speaker 2 5:04

I know Well, you're my male version we always joke that we're the same. We're kind of the same person sometimes on the inside.

Speaker 1 5:09

So true yeah.

Speaker 2 5:10

Not on the outside, though If you, you're very blonde and cute and I'm not.

Speaker 2 5:13

Well, I'll use that Now I guess I'll talk a little bit about my professional background. So I'm Dr Nikki Rubin. I'm a licensed clinical psychologist. I'm licensed in New York from the time I practiced there and then now in California when I moved back to my hometown of Los Angeles, and then now in California when I moved back to my hometown of Los Angeles. And my background is also in cognitive behavioral therapies and mindfulness, which I came to I guess we'll talk more about this in a moment, but I came to in graduate school. I love cognitive behavioral therapies, I love behavioral science. I'm a huge, huge dork for them. I'm also an assistant clinical professor at UCLA where I train doctoral students in acceptance and commitment therapy act, which is a type of CBT. I also have a dog, a giant giant retriever yeah, we love dogs.

Speaker 2 6:12

We're crazy for dogs. Yeah, I don't know, I think that's it. Yeah, we love dogs. We're crazy for dogs yeah, I don't know, I think that's it right.

Speaker 1 6:18

Private practice? I don't know. Yeah, you're just one of the best and most amazing clinicians I know, and you'll have an app out at some point.

Speaker 2 6:27

Yes, at some point Working on it. Yeah, working, we're about to do some beta testing on that Amazing. Yeah, working on an app for for the, for the general public out there.

Introducing Mindfulness and Our Practice

Speaker 1 6:39

Yeah, well, because one of the things that you and I are both committed to is really like helping people manage their suffering, and I think it's important. You know, one of the things we'll say you've guys are you know, you've already heard this, you've read this but this is not therapy, you know. And so, while with our clients, we like to help them work on gaining tools to manage their stress and to live a life more fully. This is not therapy, and so what we're trying to do is both educate, you know, and, I like to say, entertain. Nikki's not so thrilled on that, but we'll get there.

Speaker 2 7:11

I understand it. I will. I hope people are entertained, and I'm very into. This goes back to the very darky part of myself about behavioral science. I'm really into the getting the information out there. So, to Pete's point yes, this is not therapy. That's the big legal disclaimer here. Right that our lawyer wants us to make sure we're clear about. What we are doing, though, is providing accurate information about mindfulness and behavioral science, because unfortunately, this bums me out in my practice. I didn't always have the language to formulate it.

Speaker 1 8:01

but really you helped me do that and I don't know if I've ever. I mean, I know we've talked about it, but I must want to say thank you, like I think that was really yeah, I'm glad my passion for case formulation.

Speaker 2 8:14

I wouldn't shut up about it.

Speaker 1 8:16

No good Don't, I would not shut up about it.

Speaker 2 8:17

No good, I would not shut up about it. Similarly, though, you know, pete really helped inform my flourishing, blossoming mindfulness practice, which I had come to in graduate school. As I said, though, you know, pete himself I don't think you mentioned this yet is a Zen practitioner. Oh perfect segue. Yeah, I think. I don't think you said that. Right, I didn't. Well, we'll talk about mindfulness. Yeah, let's talk about it.

Speaker 1 8:42

The idea of East and West is we're bridging this gap between the Eastern spiritual practice, which is this term, mindfulness, and you and I are going to be breaking this down over the course of this podcast so that people, when they hear it, it's not just this word, mindfulness, it's got on the cover of Times, anderson Cooper's had it on CNN, it's everywhere now, like Dan Harris with 10% Happier, and so what we're going to do is say, yeah, these are great resources, we're glad people are talking about it and we're going to be able to articulate the science behind that practice.

Speaker 2 9:13

And the history, I would say.

Speaker 1 9:15

The history.

Speaker 2 9:16

Yeah, that. What's amazing about it being such a now very popular word and practice in the United States is that more people are open to it and doing it when, like you know, 15 years ago definitely 20 years ago it was kind of looked at as like this woo-woo thing that no one wanted to touch. Yeah, you know, the problem with the Western approach too is that sometimes it can lose some of its context in the historical piece.

Speaker 1 9:45

Wouldn't, wouldn't you agree with that A hundred percent, and I think, and so one of the things I find myself saying often is like I think it's one of the differences of training in the West, because I think my training in counseling psychology kind of looked more at like historical context, multicultural context, you know, whereas historically this has changed, but historically clinical psychology was more sort of pathologizing, a medical model, you know, of things but what these are going to be. So for me I am a Zen practitioner I was in the world of Zen-ish like sampling at the buffet as I was getting into grad school, which, nikki, you'll talk about. How, for you, grad school really kind of entered you into that world.

Speaker 1 10:26

I think I was sort of sampling right as I was getting in, because I didn't understand it. So for you, you had this-.

Speaker 2 10:34

I didn't either. I mean, I was frankly I've said this to many a patient, actually let them know people that are turned off to it. I was turned off to it because growing up in LA there was again this sort of like woo-woo presentation and I just never understood what it was. To me, it seemed I don't know, it just didn't resonate with me and I didn't, frankly, even know what it was, what we know now is when you're ready.

Speaker 1 11:01

It resonates.

Speaker 2 11:02

Yes.

Speaker 1 11:03

And when you're not ready, it doesn't resonate. You don't get it.

Speaker 2 11:05

Well, yes, I agree with that, and I think who's communicating it matters. And so what I found was when I really learned what it was, the actual practice of what it was, when I had the real data about it resonated right away I connected very deeply with it. The way it was, I would say, misinterpreted and presented a lot of times didn't resonate with me.

Speaker 1 11:28

Yeah, I can't even think of some of my early introduction to it. Certainly my faculty didn't give it to me. I could tell you that. So that's where I feel really jealous of your training, because you got some of that during your training. I didn't get that.

Understanding Behavioral Science

Speaker 1 11:37

So I happened to meet this guy who's still my teacher, named Robert Kennedy, who is a Jesuit priest in Zen Roshi, and so with him I started studying Zen and it was really kind of eye-opening just to sort of see, and of course, as a good grad student, as a blossoming professor, I was like I need to do this the right way. Can you relate to that?

Speaker 2 12:02

Yeah, well, yeah, as a rule follower myself. Yes, I can yeah.

Speaker 1 12:08

And we work with a lot of perfectionists. So there was a perfectionist in me that sat down and said like hey, roshi, how do I become the best Zen practitioner? Because I want to know, I want to like drink what they're drinking, because they like these people that you see look so chill and so calm. And I wanted to find that. So I started to. That's how I embarked on my journey, and then that led me to like really dive into some trainings, but also now some research in what the science is, which we haven't even talked about yet the mindfulness.

Speaker 2 12:34

But you know people like that.

Speaker 1 12:38

Yeah, and then how to apply it to this Western world of suffering. And I think the thing that's key there for me, that you and I will talk about before you talk about your relationship with mindfulness, is that, jon Kabat-Zinn, that we you and I have talked to you know we, that is our, that is the man who kind of brought this to the West mostly. I mean Ginlan was there before with focusing, one could argue, but at the same time- Popularized, I would say as popularized?

Speaker 1 13:04

Yes, and he said that the East, like modern psychology in the West, is the East's is like the attempt of relieving suffering that the East just accepts as natural.

Speaker 2 13:15

That's right, that's right. And in the West, culturally, and in the United States, obviously we're in the United States so we can speak best to that. We're not very good at talking about painful things. No, Really not. We're really not. We're really much more into. Let's chin up.

Speaker 1 13:37

see the best out of things. Hey, how are you Good?

Speaker 2 13:39

Good yeah. You know I hear that a lot, uh in my practice, people saying they don't like, like the phrase, like how are you it's?

Speaker 1 13:47

like how am I?

Speaker 2 13:47

supposed to answer that? And I'll say, well, it is. You know, it's a greeting, it's just how a greeting in in, uh, american English it's a common greeting. And I understand why that's bothersome, because, yeah, we're not always good, yeah, so that's the expectations, to say yeah, I'm good.

Speaker 1 14:01

Yeah, so how'd you so you? You got this in in in grad school, and so where would you say you are today with mindfulness and your relationship with it?

Speaker 2 14:09

In grad school I got it very early on with my first actually therapy supervisor, Dr Aaron Aviera. He brought it into our training right from the get-go. Connected with that, then I was involved in these third wave cognitive behavioral therapies which integrate mindfulness as essential and foundational components to the work components to the work and that actually also I want to mention, brought me to yoga.

Speaker 2 14:36

A friend of mine from grad school was a big yoga practitioner and I also had a judgment about it and it was before yoga had exploded as it has in recent years, and I started having a pretty serious yoga practice, which I've been doing for about eight years, I guess. So where I'm at with mindfulness now is in terms of my personal life. Yoga is extremely consistent in my life. I'm always maintaining a committed practice to that We've done it together. We've done it together many a time. Pete has a great sweatshirt from a yoga studio we went to.

Speaker 1 15:06

Oh my God, I love that. The one on top of my favorite.

Speaker 2 15:12

Yeah, so a lot of yoga, and then, in terms of meditation, I go in and out of a sitting practice, kind of based on what's going on in my life In the current climate of the pandemic. I actually made a commitment to sit every day, which I've been doing and really enjoying, and I'm going to try to continue that in the months to follow, though I don't have any judge with myself I should or shouldn't. It's kind of like what works for me.

Speaker 1 15:36

It's a relationship. I mean no, relationship in life is great. No, I mean, look, that's the bottom line.

Speaker 2 15:42

But also there's an up and down. Yeah, it's an up and down. It's the ebb and flow of what's workable, so, yeah, so that's where I'm at with mindfulness, and I guess, as a practitioner, mindfulness is what I consider to be the foundation of all of the work that I do, because it, in my personal opinion, beautifully aligns with behavioral science, because mindfulness is a behavior. It's a behavior of being present, of paying attention.

Speaker 1 16:10

So define us behavioral science, because I think that's one of the things we wanted to also touch upon. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 16:15

So behavioral science is kind of a broad term that encompasses the study of behaviorism. So the mini behavioral science lesson I'm going to give to our listeners is behaviorism goes back when was Skinner?

Speaker 1 16:29

1920s, oh, gosh, don't ask me that. But either way it was people rats chasing to?

Speaker 2 16:36

the end Rats in the mazes right Learning that. An easy way to actually explain it is when people are. If you're training your dog, and you're training them with reinforcement and what's called extinction, or with your kids you're trying to get them to stop tantruming and you're ignoring them, that actually all comes from behavioral science called operant conditioning. That's right Pavlov's dogs. The dog salivating.

Speaker 1 16:54

Everyone knows that.

Speaker 2 16:55

Everyone knows that. Everyone knows that that's called classical conditioning. These are all theories of learning. How do we learn certain behaviors? And we know a lot about that. It's really old stuff. Modern behaviorism has continued to evolve, where they've now studied language as a behavior. So there's a type of behavioral science called relational frame theory, which is extremely complex, unfortunately not taught a lot in a lot of grad programs, though. Pretty cool stuff, honestly.

Bridging East and West

Speaker 1 17:22

Yeah, because what I'll say to my listeners or to clients I'll say, think of a ball tree or a pencil, and the minute I just said those words, you had an image and you maybe even had a memory about about it. And essentially those are the neurological pathways of relational frame theory. That says like words create images, they create feelings, they create memories. There's all this stuff that happens. I don't know, that's how I do it.

Speaker 2 17:43

That's a great way. That's actually probably one of the best simple ways.

Speaker 1 17:48

I'm sorry, I'm simple.

Speaker 2 17:50

Yes, I, hey, I that that was fantastic. I was thinking of when I taught RFT in a grad class once, and how long it took me to make the slides because it hurt my brain so bad as I was working through it.

Speaker 1 18:01

I think it's because some of us just get caught up in it and I think neuroscience one thing we could say is that neuroscience is so new. You know, we've been doing surgeries on the heart for like hundreds of years, and you know. So I think that the brain is just so new Like we just don't get it. And what I say to people in general is think about the mind.

Speaker 2 18:22

Where is it? I also like to say that the mind, it lives in our skulls, not the same thing as the brain, brain's an organ, yeah.

Speaker 1 18:29

Brains. Sometimes they don't work so well. Well, and I say, what's to say your mind's not in your knee, or what's to say your mind's not in the universe? I really go really philosophical on you.

Speaker 2 18:37

So you get into the consciousness. Are we going to get into quantum physics? No, we're not doing that today.

Speaker 1 18:43

Eventually we'll do that, but not today, because I really challenge people to think about what this all means. Because the thing about mindfulness is that people are threatened by their thoughts and what we're doing is diffusing from it, and that's relational frame theory and that's the bridging of behavioral science with Eastern spiritual practices.

Speaker 2 19:03

Beautifully said, pete.

Speaker 1 19:04

I could not have said it better myself, that was excellent Because actually you're a much better teacher than I could ever be.

Speaker 2 19:08

I don't think that's true. It's so true. I really it's so true, I was just going to say this is where everyone's going to get annoyed. We're going no, you, no, you Like, no, no, you, hang up, you hang up. It's like that.

Speaker 1 19:20

I remember that oh that was the worst. Yeah, yeah, oh God, and then, when those adolescents come to us for clinical work, I'm like I broke up with someone. I'm like, eh.

Speaker 2 19:30

I know. That's why in'm like I know.

Speaker 1 19:31

Sorry, in full disclosure, nick and I tend to work with adults. We do, we do work with some. I do love my adolescence too, my college age, yes, yeah, and they all go through a breakup.

Speaker 2 19:44

Life. See, that brings us back to sort of why we're doing. This is because both Eastern spiritual traditions and Western behavioral science have really important things to say about how to navigate all these difficulties while also creating a life that's filled with connection and joy and love and depth, that they're not mutually exclusive, which I think is the framework in the United States. A lot of times, in order to have joy, you have to get rid of the awful, painful stuff.

Speaker 1 20:15

Yeah, think about all the celebrities that have not made it, that have either taken their lives, or how many people that make a lot of money. It doesn't solve anything. I love how eloquently you said that and it's values what's important, and its values like what's important. And I think you know one of the things we can talk about really quick, as we're wrapping this up already, is that for us, this is not necessarily our value, to put ourselves out here in a very vulnerable way, but what's important to us is that we educate so that people might suffer a little bit less. Because I think for us it is important that we bring this science to folks, because there's not a lot of great science out there about the actual work that we do in a clinical room, in a classroom or things of that nature.

Our Mission and Values

Speaker 2 20:59

Yeah, agreed, and maybe to just reframe that slightly is like, actually there is a lot of great science, just not a lot of access to it, that's right, not a lot of general knowledge about what exists. And yeah, it's a value of Pete and I's if I hopefully can speak for you a little bit here to get to contribute and share that. Yeah, it's not my preference to actually do a podcast or be public, you know. Pete's been trying to get me to do something like this for honestly like years for years and years.

Speaker 2 21:36

And and as a very private person. I'm a pretty private person, even though I don't sound that way I am, and so, yeah, thank you for for helping me be more willing to live aligned with my values and be uncomfortable to to to do this.

Speaker 1 21:52

Well, and also thank you for being willing to be vulnerable and that's what we're going to talk about in an upcoming episode. So the episodes y'all are going to hear things and I'm not from the South, I just say y'all sometimes but you're going to hear things about the Eastern Western practices, coping skills, basic cognitive and behavioral therapy, behaviorism. You're going to hear things about, obviously, mindfulness, meditation, racism, all topics, because, frankly, what we do see is psychological science can be framed basically anything.

Speaker 1 22:22

You can't talk to me about going to the grocery store or going to the disco or going to the beach without having some psychological science in the decision-making to get there. The behavior to get there and the judgment that occurs while you're there.

Speaker 2 22:35

Well, because all those examples you just gave are human experiences, the human experiences, and we can't ignore psychology. If we're humans, no, it's the human condition, the human experience. We have ways to talk about it and we want you guys to have that information and hopefully you'll understand not just how your brains work, maybe a little bit better, you'll also understand how to interact with those brains in ways that maybe can can be helpful to, to connecting with the, the life that that you, you want for yourself.

Speaker 1 23:09

that's right well, nikki, this was awesome. I cannot wait for these upcoming episodes. Same here, and uh, y'all like, tune in. Like us, follow us, and I can't wait for the upcoming episode. Tune in next. This has been when East Meets West. I'm Dr Petey Conomo.

Speaker 2 23:27

And I'm Dr Nikki Rubin. Be present, be brave. Be present, be brave.

Speaker 1 23:37

This has been when East Meets West. All material is based on opinion and educational training of Drs P DeConimo and Nikki Rubin.

Speaker 2 23:49

Content is for informational and educational purposes only.