Back From The Hiatus

The mics crack back on with a messy, honest reset: a health scare, a mountain of sleep debt, and the kind of parenting moments that test your pulse and soften your edges. We traded hustle for recovery long enough to notice what was broken—and what actually makes us useful as counselors, teachers, and humans. Between 4 a.m. wake-ups and dense homemade bread, we started building a better way to teach and a bolder way to podcast.

We share the launch of our new book, Mind Your Business: Merging Meaningful Work With Financial Wisdom, and why financial clarity is ethical care. If counselors want longevity, clients need helpers who aren’t running on fumes. That urgency pulls us back into the classroom too. Taking over a core applied techniques course, we’re centering reflective content, feeling, and meaning. For weeks, students will move sessions with reflections only—no questions—training presence, patience, and precision. Techniques have a place, but craft is what holds when the room gets hard.

We also reveal the next evolution of the show: a question-led investigative series that follows one thorny issue at a time with interviews, data, and real stories. Are online counseling programs genuinely effective? Why are conferences so expensive yet so thin on depth? Where’s the line between play therapy and babysitting? How do politics live in session without hijacking care? What’s the difference between a clinician and a technician—and why do some people graduate who shouldn’t? We’ll chase answers that help students, supervisors, and practitioners make better choices.

Thanks for riding with us while the numbers kept climbing during the break. If you’re into counselor training, supervision, reflective practice, and the honest economics of caring work, you’re in the right place. Hit follow, share with a colleague who needs a reset, and leave a review with the one big question you want us to investigate next.

If you have any questions about any counseling related topics or would like the twins to share their thoughts about a particular counseling case  - reach out with the info below: 

https://thetwintherapists.com/

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Contact: thetwintherapists@gmail.com

Transcript

Chaotic Cold Open And Banter

SPEAKER_01 0:17

We're back. We're back. Hey, baby. Hey. We're back. Oh, many have doubted. Many have no, we're not back. Yeah, hold on. Oh, no. We're not back. Steve, Steve, this is why. See, this is the same thing. Okay, okay, now we're back. No, no, no, no, no. Now, okay, cut and then ready. Three, two, one. The Daisy O Sandero's back. Oh, I'm sorry. Nah, man, we're back to the back. There's only one person that's gonna get that watched top gear back in 2020. Uh nah, man. Yeah,

Hiatus, Semester Reset, And Supervision Jokes

SPEAKER_01 0:57

we're back, Brad. We we went on a little a little hiatus, you know. Can you blame us? We took a rest, man. We took a rest. Yeah, we ended last semester and we went off into the sunset and we came back and and now we're here. You know. Start of a new semester, uh new new new year, new me. New year, new you. New year, new me, man, you know? So so you know, uh it's not gonna be a long cast, man, because Jude is late and my phone keeps ringing. I I'm not late. I I told you I have to drop my children off at school. Okay. So yeah, Jude was late, and I keep getting phone calls. My supervisees are all uh, you know, it just in stitches, man. Just you know my supervisees know not to call me until at least he left. Yeah, my supervisees be texting me in the evening talking about, hey, can I give you a call? What do they expect? Yeah. Competence? Yeah. It's like I'm supposed to it's like they're paying me to be present for them. Availability. You know, to to to to assume your supervisor is gonna be there? You know? I should I should treat them like my first supervisor treated me, which is just to cancel all of our sessions. Tell me that I can still count my hours. And then when it came down to it, they tell me that they just don't feel ethically, you know, like they can count my hours. Yeah. So like a good supervisor. Yeah.

unknown 2:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:41

Anyway, we're back, baby. We're back. So all right, man. We got we got a we got a couple minutes before I gotta jump off to triadic supervision. Uh so I kinda wanna catch up, you know, I kinda want everybody to, you know, I don't know, get a get an idea of what our break looked like, what this new semester is looking like, and then some of our plans for the CAS going forward. Because we got some we got some pretty uh interesting ideals, you know, going forward. So what you been up to, Julia?

Health Scare, Sleep Debt, And Parenting Chaos

SPEAKER_01 3:11

What what you been what you been what you been doing over there? You know good and well what I've been up to, bro. Eating Hershey nuggets in your office, hiding from your wife and children? Nah, man. Bro, I was injured, man. You know I was injured, bro. I ha I had I had uh Daddy was down. Yeah. Daddy was down bad, down real bad. Real bad. We're talking hospital type, down bad. Bad, down bad, bro. Yeah, man. Yeah. I've I'll I'll spare the listeners the gory details, but uh yeah, man. Had had a little infection in the leg, had to get it, you know, dealt with. Um but I thought it was a put muscle. I thought it was a put muscle. I found out it was it was scurvy. I'm treating it like it's an athletic thing, because that's a that's that's only what my brain would allow me to process it as. Like I said the doctor the doctor's like, oh no, surely it's not anything deeper. Let me ask you a question. When you're around venison lately, have you been on a chip for a long time? Have your preference and steak changed? Uh look at this full moon for me, real quick. Does this silver watch scare you at all? Do me a favor and hold this crucifix for me. Just just give me a drink this little cup of water. Oh, random, random ancient evil test. Nah, he did not he did regular test, bruh. So anyway, I'm all held up, bruh, so Zaddy can get back on the trail. Running back again. You know, I gotta keep up with the kids. Um Yeah, man, break was good. We're doing uh uh 5K then one at Brenham where at the end you can get as much ice cream as you want. And so, oh yeah. I'm running with the kids. It's gonna be uh fun, man. Hopefully. Hopefully, it's gonna be fun if I can keep up with them. Yeah, you but uh probably on the merchant stuff, but you know, break was good, break was good, break was good. We um we published the book. Yeah. You know, we got that book. Um what's the name of the book again? Minding your business. That's it. Yes. Minding your business is out in on Amazon. It's a lot of people. What's the actual title? The actual title is Mind Your Business. Um, I have it here. Let me let me hold on, listen, let me put some music. And we're back. It's it's mind your business merging meaningful work with financial wisdom. Mm-hmm. Now we will we will be at the Black and Coliseum selling copies at the back of our car. Wow. If you want to pick it up March 13th and 14th, we'll be out. See, people gonna show up. You're gonna show up to the Blacken Coliseum. Yeah, bruh. No, but but for a man, bitch. We'll be at Gerard Park. Ah man, big shout out to ACA for um letting us

Book Launch And Gratitude Shoutouts

SPEAKER_01 6:43

write the way we want to write, letting us publish the way we want to publish, man. Uh, you know, tell jokes, be funny in the book, you know. And shout out to the Manhattan Book Club, yeah, who's gonna be featuring our book pretty soon. Um uh the the readers liked it um a lot, not not the uh financial book, but doing counseling. Um and so just shout out to them, man. But yeah, bruh, other than that, um I rested, dog. I I rested doing the break. Yeah, I uh yeah, I I yeah, it it's weird how you you you know you look at your watch or get a little health app on your on your phone. Depending on if you trust the voodoo of the health app, you know, but when it says you get like, you know, like my average sleep uh time last year in 2025 was uh four hours. A night? A night, yeah. That's four hours. That's the only way to get things done. That's the only way to get things done, baby. Yeah. When somebody asks, like, hey, how do y'all I mean you guys aren't even 40 yet? How did you so much? How did you oh I'm a daywalker. My body's failing. I'm a daywalker. I have scarvy. Yeah. No. Yes. Jude's booty is itching. Yeah, his buttocks. His buttoral area. You know that came from the antibiotics. You know how you're antibiotics. Don't be able to do that. No, it smells like asparagus in that bathroom. Yeah, that's that's how we get stuff done. We we neglect our wives and children. That's how they get done. They're gonna be all right. And my wife, my health app was like, get some sleep.

SPEAKER_02 8:36

Peace. We are dying. Peace.

SPEAKER_01 8:41

Drink some battery water. The battery kept beeping like it was low. No, your battery is low. Are you okay? It just gets randomly calling 911. I'll do it for you. Someone's gonna save you.

SPEAKER_02 9:03

So, so I've been getting so I've been getting a lot of sleep, right? There's one night. There's one night where I'm knocked out sleeping, bruh.

SPEAKER_01 9:14

Knocked out sleeping, right? And it's like maybe four o'clock in the morning or something. And Kofi wakes up. Kofi is my three-year-old. He wakes up and bruh, he like, I mean, uh, like jumps on my chest, right? Talking. He thought that was it. Jumps on my chest, bruh. He's like, hold me. So I I scooped him up. And then we go, you know, but you know that's not how he sounds, bruh. You know Kofi sounds like Bane. Bruh, right. If you ever hear Jews, your kid. I don't know why my sons, yeah, my they have just deep voices that I'm be like, oh Father, father, father. Wake up, father. Correct. I'm in the darkness where I belong. Correct me, hold me. Hold me. Sleep. Love me, father. While you're resting, I need love. Darkness, what you're in. Kofi? Yes. Yes. Yes, father. Yes, father. What do you need? You back to me.

SPEAKER_02 10:24

So I look at, so you know, I'm like, dude, dude, let me look at my health app, dude. Let me check out my sleep pattern, you know. I'm like, huh, that's weird.

SPEAKER_01 10:31

And I forget that he jumps on me, right? I'm like, huh, that's weird. My heart rate jumped up from like because we our heart rates are I like resting heart rate are like super low, right? So I my my resting heart rate was like 36, right? And then juice. Hey, hey juice, hey, hey, hey, juice.

Family Time, Cooking, And Rest As Recovery

SPEAKER_01 10:50

Let me stop you right there. Hold on. Pause. Hold on, doc. Um That's not that's not us that's not a resting heart rate, Doc. That's arrhythmia. No, no, no. No, Doc. That's like I typically stay at 49, you know? Yeah. But for some reason that night it was low, you know? So it went there to like 93. Yeah, that's high for us. To like 93 for like a blip, like a little small blip, and then it went right back down to like, you know, in the 50s or something, you know. Like that's that's that's been the epitome of my break, bruh. My break has been trying to like take care of myself while the kids are like in the house. You know, they this has been like it felt like the longest time I've ever spent in the house with the kids because it's been raining and it's been freezing cold. So we really can't do anything, you know. So we just stay in the house, but and it's like I I know, man, there's some parents out there that are like, you know, oh man, it's yeah, this it sucks, that this is hard, and I wanna, you know, I just want to get for me. I was like, this is the best. This is the best. Honestly, it's because during the semester, you just because we teach so late, like there's times where I mean there's times where I'm drop keying off to school and then and then I I go to my office at like eight. You know, and then I don't leave the office till ten o'clock. Bruh, there's some times where where I'll stay up late writing and Megan will get the kids up and do the breakfast thing and drop them all to school, and then I won't see them. You know, and then I teach late that night, so when I make it home, they're in the bed. They're in the bed, they wake up, maybe she takes them to school, and then you don't see them again until the next day at like 4 p.m. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, you know. So so during the doing the break, it's like, bruh, I'm I'm trying to soak up the time, bro. Yeah, bro. I we mean we bake bread, we cook we make cookies, we you know, we cook uh I I think uh uh for when y'all came, when you wait hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on. You you call what you what you call what you made bread. I don't I don't know if you're intentionally trying to hurt my feelings. Nah, don't you think? I thought this was like some bit or some joke, but I'm just gonna let you know that I'm really sensitive about my bread. No, no, I just want to put that out there. So it's not a mistake. You're you're it's a decision that you're about to make to hurt me, okay? So I just I was confused because I thought that they were No. No, don't want to be No. Don't because what? I just thought you were building a house. I thought you were to build a house. And so you know? I'm not I'm not talking for the rest of the house. I thought it was I thought it was siding. That's what I thought we were. I thought that's what I thought we were eating. Uh when you when you offered it to us, I was like, how did he get into masonry? That's cool. Oh he oh he oh he must be um what what's what what's the what's the uh the the Pontius Pilots, the um the uh nah uh you know the masonries. Yeah, he he must be a um Grand Poo Ba or something because he got to be doing something else with these biscuits, quote unquote, and asking me to eat them because I thought you were in the protection game. I thought we were using those as weapons. So um no, but they were No, you got it out? You did you get it out? No, they're they're good, bro. They were good. Oh, because me, me and my daughter, me and they were good for real. I was surprised, I was surprised. I didn't know. Right. Y'all came. When did y'all come? Y'all came for Christmas? Christmas, yes. Christmas. Yeah, man. I woke up at two o'clock in the morning. Yeah, bro, I know, bro. Yeah, you fed us. You fed us for real. Slow cook a roast. Yeah. So that the roast can be ready for lunchtime because your kids need to eat at twelve. You know what they combust. You know what they combust. And I made the bread. And the bread came out right when the roast was coming out. Everything was hot. I mean, look, I look, I'm gonna be honest, Jeez. I'm gonna be honest, man. Um you did your thing. Okay? Mm-hmm. Okay. Like Thank you. You know? Yeah. It was good. That's what we did over the break, man. We we that's what we did, bro. We got we had a chance to opportunity to hang out, all the kids came over. You know? Yeah, bro. It was fun, man. Yeah, it was it was fun, man. It was fun, man. It was fun.

Teaching Nerves And Program Culture Riffs

SPEAKER_01 15:46

Bruh, so I I so I know you you're charging up, you gotta I know you gotta leave, but I know over the break you was charging up because um because you you're teaching a very important class in your program's uh culture right now. Yeah, man. Yeah. And uh and for for my students, you know, he's he's teaching the applied techniques class for his students. Yeah. You know. Now, because their program doesn't necessarily value um training, uh, they uh have what it's y'all's applied techniques class, it's like our students. It's like in between our students applied and pre-prac. Yeah, I'm just trying to see if I'm gonna let you get away with the value of the training. No, because I'm just being honest, bruh. Because isn't our program older than y'all's aren't y'all like, I mean No, it's like a senior citizen age, like retirement. Yeah, y'all's program is y'all have a y'all got a cute little program, bruh.

unknown 16:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:53

Hey man, y'all just keep evolving, you know? No, y'all get there. No, y'all get there. How many applicants did you did y'all have? How many applicants? What 20, 20 something little applicants? Yeah, yeah. No, I just yeah, you you you uh you've been nervous, bro. Yeah, he was nervous. Let me tell let me be honest with the students. Oh, yeah, man. Let me be honest with your students. Yeah, he he was he was calling me and he was like, Big brother. Oh, wow. Please. Well, I don't know. He was like, no, he was like Big Brother, please. Do you have a syllabi? A syllabi. What do you what do you think? Do you think they'll like me? Can you help me?

SPEAKER_02 17:42

Can you help me, please?

SPEAKER_01 17:44

I'm just so scared.

SPEAKER_02 17:46

This is my first time.

SPEAKER_01 17:47

The students may be mean to me. No, but yeah, it's look, look, look, look, I look, I don't want to teach that class. Well, it's it's one of those classes where it's like if you get it right, then the community will feel the ripple effect of really good training. Yeah, like somebody like somebody's having a kid today that's gonna benefit from the way you teach this class. And and the thing is that like the reason why I was nervous is because the class has been taught one way and it's been taught really well. And so, you know, the the the head of our program who built the program taught the class. And now he's kind of like giving it to me in a way. And it's like, and and you know, the it's not like here's the class, teach it the way I taught it. It's like here's the class, teach it the way you you think the students should be trained. You know, change. Yeah, and so trying to put your your spin on it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, you know, I I'm trying to give the students the way that I was trained without the trauma of the way that we were trained. Right. Right. Trauma? Trauma, trauma. I no, no, I would say like what's the feelings line of disgusted? No, no, no, start, no, start. No, that's not starting. That wasn't. No, what's that wasn't? No. So you got you got fearful? You're fearful. Fearful, then insecure. What comes after insecure? Do you use it? It's only two. It's the only two in the feelings, Bill. It's it's inadequate. Well, what's the next one? No, no, no.

SPEAKER_02 19:25

It's inadequate then. What no? What's the what is the next one?

SPEAKER_01 19:28

Let me let me let you let me let you in on something. Dr.

SPEAKER_02 19:34

Joe, I don't know. I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 19:36

No, I'm programmed. It's a gore tennis.

SPEAKER_02 19:41

My mama once said I was stupid. I'm not sure. You don't see anything in me, dude.

SPEAKER_01 19:52

Yeah, Dr. Joe. Yeah, uh huh. Yeah, you stupid. Yeah, yeah. No, no, no. Whose voice is bad? No, no, no. Whose voice is stupid, yeah. You're stupid. No, you're stupid. You're a dumb little stupid. No, no. Whose voice is yeah, yeah. Nah, bro. Listen, man. Some of our cohort wouldn't even stick around to the end of the class.

SPEAKER_02 20:15

They would just pack up their wax. They were like, oh, I am out of here. I didn't sign up for this.

SPEAKER_01 20:23

Nah, bro. We we put what do we put in that info? What's the language? Not every lingering emotionally reactive memory is trauma. You know, the sign here. Well, I could I can tell you one thing, you know. Going doing this class brings up a lot of residue. There's a lot of resonances. Yeah. Yeah. Students are like Dr. Austin, you you you haven't talked in five minutes. Well, I play my clients in that class, you know, and sometimes the students will take me to a place where I'm just like how fun is that? Huh? Huh. And they could get me. Yeah. I bet, I bet, I don't even know if this is appropriate, bro, but I bet a student free books of our books if she can if she can get Dr. Lennart to cry. That's what I'm saying. I almost got him there one time. And I'm not talking, I'm not gonna be around. Don't try to make him cry. What you want him to say is I'm not ready to talk about that. I haven't processed. Hey, when he said that, I wanted to dap everybody up in our hoard. I wanted to be like We in the class. Let's go. We in the class. Yeah, man. So yeah, bro. So you so you so you you you've had a couple weeks in the class, though. A couple weeks in the class, yeah, man. It's fine weeks. The students are really feeling it,

Training Philosophy: Reflections Over Techniques

SPEAKER_01 21:52

you know. Uh and you know, they're just yeah, I'm just, you know, we're we're doing the whole scaff um uh scaffolding thing of for Reflective content, reflective feeling, reflective meaning, you know, um personalizing stuff. And then we're gonna do some um uh you know, mock intake sessions, you know, where they get to the and I you know, and they're gonna sit in the clinic and get comfortable in the clinic and you know, doing some mock counseling stuff, and then and that's gonna be the first half of the semester. And then the second half of the semester is basically gonna be just like practicing agnosium. Just you know, three hours, yeah, I stuck. Three hours moving sessions along with no questions, just reflections, just fractions of content, reflection of feeling, reflection of meaning, reflection the content, reflection of feeling, reflection of meaning, just like taking the client through the center of the feelings wheel to the middle of the freelance wheel to the external part of the feelings wheel. You know, just yeah. And then uh to like and then and then once they're like you know you know what that is, dog. That's just old school. Old old school unfiltered, unadulterated. Psychotherapy, brother. It's not skills, no skills. There's no like Skills. Like if you want to talk about like There's no techniques, you know. I know, but if if you want to talk about this, I gotta dip out. I know, I know, I know. If you want to talk about this profession as an absolute craft, this is your tools. Yeah you know. Ain't no techniques. I mean, we talked about this on the cast, but it's but but it's different when you're training students to do that. You know. Yeah, bro. Yeah, man. So yeah, I'm yeah, I'm a style. But hey, so so real quick, man, we got I don't know, man, we had that we had this ideal, you know. Yeah, I talked to my students about this too, and they seem like they seem like it would they would like it. Well, okay, so what'd you tell your students? Take the listening to what we're thinking about transitioning the cast into. Yeah, okay. So so we're always thinking about what we would want in a podcast if we were students, you know. And we we come in here and we talk, you know, and we and we make jokes and stuff and it's fun and we love doing it. We let you guys into the regular conversations we have. But we thought something that would be cool to do over the, you know, the next year or two, or however long, is do like a almost like a like a series, you know, where we have a question that we want to answer. Like a, like a just, you know, just like a a deep question or like a question about the field or whatever. And then we spend time talking to people and bringing them in and and leading you guys through this almost investigative journalist type of experience, but related

New Investigative Series Concept

SPEAKER_01 24:46

to the counseling field, you know, like questions like are online programs actually effective? You know, or why are why is conferences so whack nowadays and so expensive? Or like are even hard harder hitting questions of like, you know, when you're like how do you know when you're doing play therapy versus babysitting? Babysitting, exactly. Um, or how do you how do you how do you navigate politics, you know, in in session? What like what's the like I mean what is the difference between a clinician and a technician? You know just just questions that we have, questions that come up, you know, but but focusing on that. But we want to for a while. We want to do our own research and also invite other people in to like answer the question. You know, so what we're gonna try to do is prepare kind of like a series. Like we're gonna have a question and then we're gonna have a series of podcasts trying to answer that question until we get to like maybe not the bottom of it, but until we could give you guys an idea of like, okay, this is this is legitimately what goes on with these conferences and why they charge so much for a registration fee, and you know, and they kind of get like an insider with like maybe the CEO of of a uh you know the American Counseling Association or you know, something like that, you know. Or I think one question that we had was like, why do we graduate counselors? We know got no business doing this work. That that was going to be the first question that they answered. That was gonna be the first question. Because everybody has like everybody who graduated or who's in a cohort right now, you have a student in your cohort that you're like, bro, why are why are you here? Yeah, like and why are they letting you stay here? Yeah. And if you're wondering, if you're thinking, I don't have anybody. You're that's yeah, it's you. It's you. Yeah. If you do them a favor. And just leave. You know? I'm joking, bro. Don't leave. Don't don't leave. Uh talk to your program director because they need the numbers.

unknown 26:57

You know.

SPEAKER_01 26:59

Can't lose students, man. Can't lose students. Anyway, man. Anyway, so yeah, that's that's the direction we're thinking about going. You know. So Yeah. I got a faculty meeting where we gotta talk about some uh stuff. Yeah. I know. So listen, man, hey, thanks for sticking by as well. The numbers just keep going up. We hadn't put out, but we have 100,000 something downloads in a thing. You know, it's uh Yeah, it's it's I don't know why you keep listening, but I appreciate especially when we hear, you know, students say, Oh, I listened to past episodes, you know, or like because I had a student came into my office saying, Hey man, you're slipping. Hey, obviously, obviously I'm not sure. No, no, no. You know, obviously. You know. Um, it's funny, it's it's funny being vulnerable with students, you know. It's funny showing them who you are, you know, and like opening your heart to them. Because some of them take that heart and just twist it to get what they need from you. You know? They need they need their ha-ha's. Yeah. You know, they need the laughs. Yeah. And so who who who cares if I walk home in shame? No, yeah. Who who who who cares? Who

Audience Growth, Vulnerability, And Sign Off

SPEAKER_01 28:19

cares? Who cares if there's a little thug tear that that falls down? Yes. Who who cares? Yeah. I don't I don't have deeds. I haven't drank water in three days, you know. But you know that's that's probably why my heart rate jumped to 93. Oh, is that why my watch is glowing? Is that why my my pea is orange? Is that why? Oh my god. My w that one watched. You gave us two weeks' notification. My watch gave me a two week notice. All right, man. Let me get out of here, bro. I got Triadic Supervision, man. Yeah, bro. We gotta go corrupt this dude. All right, man. Well, listen. Hey, thank y'all for listening, man. We'll uh we'll catch y'all in a couple months or so. We'll see y'all in March. Yeah, we'll see. We see uh we'll see y'all in spring. When you see the first blue bonnet, that's when you'll get your next cast.