6. All About How to Therapy - Understanding Modalities and More - with Sara Taylor Oliver (part 2)

Sara Taylor Oliver is a licensed clinical social worker and a yoga instructor. This episode is part two of two where we discuss how to get started in therapy and how to get the most out of the time you spend going. 

In this episode we discuss what a modality is, who offers which kinds of therapy, what works best for different personalities, and other thoughts and ideas around how to therapy. 

If you're not new to therapy share this episode with your friends or loved ones who are ready to start figuring it all out. 

If you are finding value in this podcast leave a 5 star review and comment below! 

You can follow me (Kristen Russell, LMT) via instagram at https://www.instagram.com/sakalyamassage/

You can email me at kristen@sakalyamassage.com

If you would like to reach out or work with Sara you can find her on Instagram or psychology today.She is licensed in the state of Utah and South Carolina, so she can work with you if you are in either of those states. 

 Sara’s Psychology Today profile:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/therapists/sara-taylor-oliver-myrtle-beach-sc/915379

Sara’s Instagram account:

https://www.instagram.com/sarathepsychotherapist/

Links to recommendations from Sara:

The Wisdom of Anxiety by Sheryl Paul:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=wisdom+of+anxiety&crid=TNKZUTQSW0DC&sprefix=%2Caps%2C186&ref=nb_sb_ss_recent_3_0_recent

No Bad Parts by Richard Schwartz:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=no+bad+parts+richard+schwartz&crid=3P5QIFFMSHCHD&sprefix=wisdom+of+anxiety%2Caps%2C854&ref=nb_sb_noss_1

The Highly Sensitive Person by Elaine Aron:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=the+highly+sensitive+person+elaine+aron&ref=nb_sb_noss

Transcript

Kristen: 0:00

I'm Kristen Russell, and this is The Wholly Empowered Podcast, where we dive into all things holistic healing and open our minds, hearts, and paradigms to new ideas so we can live our most empowered, healthy, joyful lives. So this is part two of our part one and part two episodes with Sarah Taylor Oliver on therapy and in this episode we're going to start discussing different modalities. We're going to talk about what different types of therapists offer and a little bit about what personalities might appreciate which modalities, and we're just having a really great discussion, and I learned a lot, so I hope you enjoy it. So we've been talking about how to find a therapist, all the things about therapists. I want to jump over into modalities like when we're going to therapy. What, what types of therapies to look for? What are all these, what, what is therapy? Like, what? What the heck is this stuff? Yes, like, what is, what is a modality? What does that mean?

Sara: 1:14

Yeah, yeah. Oh, I feel like that's such a good question because people have no idea about this. They just know that they should therapy. It's like, I should do this. But what does that even mean? So I will tell you this. When you are trained, you go through your, I did a master's in, in social work, right? Someone else might do like a marriage family therapy or a licensed professional counselor, right? Whatever. When you do your training, you. are trained in some sort of worldview. So for example, in social work, it's called the environmental perspective. So what, how I was trained is to take a look at all of the different aspects of people's lives to look at, you know, again, that bio cycle, social, spiritual, to get a really good environmental view of what's going on for the person. So that's kind of the eyes that I'm using to look at someone. And so. I'm, I'm going to pick modalities or basically activities, exercises, I'm going to pick, you know, maybe education things, activities to do in therapy that are going to, support that worldview of how I'm seeing this person. And so someone else, right. Well, like with a different licensure, maybe they're a marriage family therapist, they're going to look a little bit different. They're going to really zone in on the family system. They're going to look through dysfunction and health a lot more through the family system. So I might be looking more, right, at the person as an individual and all these different pieces, but they're like, oh, no, no, no, we got to look at the unit. What's going on in the unit, right? So they might have some different modalities, frameworks, different sort of things that they do. Around that worldview and so every person that you you go to is probably going to have maybe a little bit different vision of how they see people, and there's also a ton of overlap, depending on, you know, on who you go to your, you're going to hear and see a lot of therapies that are very universal, like everyone does them,

Kristen: 3:32

does

Sara: 3:32

that make sense.

Kristen: 3:34

I think so. And I think we can dive into it a little bit more with, Naming some of those, but I want to really quick, what, maybe this won't be quick, but really, really quickly, what is the difference between like, because I know there's, there's the clinical social worker, there's the family therapist, there's the psychiatrist, psychologist. What are the differences. And how do you know if you should go to one versus the other counselor, you know, there's just a lot of different levels. There's a lot of different words.

Sara: 4:06

Yeah. Yeah.

Kristen: 4:07

Yeah.

Sara: 4:09

Without going into like the really deep specifics of all of them, each profession or licensure, I would say is, again, is going to have a little bit different worldview, a way that they were trained to look at people. So, that is going to determine how they provide their care. So I will say this. One thing that you should know is that a psychiatrist. Is a medical doctor. So they are a provider of psychotropic drugs, right? So they're the one that's going to give you meds for anxiety, depression, schizophrenia, OCD, whatever, right? Like that is what they're trained in. They're not typically psychotherapists and talk therapists. So they're not really going to sit down with you and talk to you about your father wound or like the childhood trauma you had, And consistently work with you on that piece of it. They're going to be like, let's get you medication and get you stabilized. Right. And they'll take a good history and then, and it's not that can't be supportive. It's a very supportive thing for many people. However, most of them are not going to do the deep psychotherapy that you're thinking of. Right. So that's a psychiatrist. When you need medication and you need to get stable, that's your, that's your lady, that's your man, that's, that's a person that can be really helpful. These other professions though that you mentioned, oh sorry, did you? Oh sorry,

Kristen: 5:36

I was just wondering, so, so they're more like, you go, they assess, they prescribe, and they don't necessarily do any form of talk therapy, or do they, would they do a little bit?

Sara: 5:45

They will assess, but they're really medication management is their main purpose. Okay, sorry, continue. So that's psychiatrists. But all of these other professions, right, you mentioned a psychologist, social worker, licensed professional counselor, marriage family therapist, those are just a few. those are all people that, They are trained to do, to go deep, to do that therapy work. And again, it's going to be a little bit different depending on the licensure, but it also It's as different as the, as people are on this planet, right? You might have been trained as a psychologist, but you're, maybe you have a very family centric way of looking at people. So it doesn't necessarily, not just the licensure in and of itself, that's not necessarily your only factor when looking at someone. Does that help? Some.

Kristen: 6:37

Yeah, yeah, I, helps me.

Sara: 6:40

Good.

Kristen: 6:41

Um, but I know, and then some people go on and get like a P, because you have a Master's. Yeah. And then some people get a PhD, right? Like you could do that?

Sara: 6:51

You could do that. You don't need a PhD, in any of these professions to, um, provide therapy services. What you do need is to get licensed in the state that you live. That's what the requirement is, which, you know, it's a bunch of, um, training hours, supervision that you have to do. But if to do a PhD, that's usually academia, right? People that are teaching you universities, people that are doing research. Because they have a PhD doesn't necessarily mean, that you're going to get, really, like, oh, I'm going to get much better care. You might, but you might not. You might, you might get a really great therapist that's an intern, right? They're not even finished with their hours yet for their licensure.

Kristen: 7:32

So, Knowing that, so then all of these, the modalities and the, types of therapies that you can kind of choose from, or maybe you want to, maybe you'd want to try to find someone that offers specific things. What are some of the therapies or the modalities, I guess, that are offered? I know this is probably like a big question that you could spend a lot of time talking about because there's probably a lot, but, what are some of the So maybe the ones that stick out to you or that you find are most helpful or, you know, whatever you want to, any information you want to give on that.

Sara: 8:12

No, absolutely. And I will say this is that this is a very broad topic and there's been a lot of good. There's a lot of good conversation and so many other, if you want like the nitty gritty of this, like there's some good information you can find, but let me do just like a little quick overview because, um, let me tell you about some of the most common therapies you're going to see. And let's start with like literally the number one evidence based therapy. Like if you go to a doctor, if you go to a family doctor, to get your, your checkup. Right. And your yearly checkup. And you're telling them and you're describing some anxiety and depression symptoms. Right? They're gonna, in their brain, they're gonna be like, Oh, this person needs CBT. What is CBT? This is like the number one classic thing that people are trained in that is pretty universal among any sort of those professions that we, that I mentioned. CBT is called, it's, it stands for cognitive behavioral therapy. And basically it's the idea that you can access. And, learn how to look at your thoughts, as either helpful or unhelpful, right? You can look at your thoughts as being distorted, having, you know, cognitive distortions is what they call them. And, and, and because you have these thoughts that are not right, right? Maybe I'm thinking super black and white, right? Gosh, man, I'm just so here and there, right? That's a cognitive distortion. Well, recognizing that and realizing, Oh, I need to, I need to change that thought. That's not a rational thought can then kind of have some spill down into the rest of your psyche. So, right. Changing your thoughts can change your emotions, which can help change your behaviors. That's kind of the main idea of CBT. And that's your main one. And it's, it's not super sophisticated. I will say that. It's not a super sophisticated therapy, but it's a great place to start. And it's a great way to help you start becoming more aware and more cognizant of the thoughts that you are having and just kind of what your brain is even doing. What are your thoughts saying to you? Kind of a good place to start. Yeah, so that's CBT. And again, CBT is considered in the, in the, in the therapy world, in a medical model, we would say, to be like the gold standard for me. Again, this is my personal opinion. I feel like it's a great starting point. However, let me, let me move into something different now. So that's one, you know, one type of therapy is that CBT. However, we might realize that Oh wow, I'm treating someone and I, this person has experienced a significant amount of trauma. Right? We all know that word. We hear that word all the time, right? Meaning that, this person's disposition has been compromised. Maybe their sense of self has been compromised. And they're having all these symptoms. Because their nervous system is constantly reacting to these traumatic experiences. So there is just a bunch of different modalities that have been created around this idea of trauma. So instead of cognitive distortion being like, oh, we're getting at the thought patterns, we're trying to get at the trauma. We're trying to help this person kind of desensitize some of that experience of the trauma and be able to come out on the other side. So there's a whole slew of different. therapies in there that you could talk about. So one that you'll hear is like, there's, trauma informed CBT, right? We're taking CBT, but we're making it trauma informed. We could talk about, somatic therapies. So you may have heard of EMDR. That got really big and really popular in the past 10 15 years, probably more than that. That's Specifically designed to help restore, regenerate the nervous system to desensitize the trauma that gets stuck in that nervous system so that people can return to better functioning. So that's another, that's another group of therapies is like those trauma therapies like EMDR. Um, let me tell you about another type of therapy that, uh, I love. So it's called person centered or Rogerian therapy. And the idea behind this is that, have you ever heard the term like active listening? So if I'm a person centered therapist, which I happen to be very person centered in my approach, as I sit down with someone, I'm going to be zoned in on every word that they're saying. And so like, if you are talking with me and you're telling me, Man, like my teacher totally humiliated me in that class. I'm going to repeat that back to you, but I'm going to be like, your teacher just like, wow, you were devastated. You were absolutely devastated by the experience. And the person's like, I was, and I'm like, and then they might say, yeah. And like, man, the whole next week, like I couldn't stop thinking about it. And I'm like, yeah. Ooh. And this was like, yeah. This, this moved into other, other areas of your life, right? I'm almost building upon what you're saying every single time to get an idea of like, How deep this is. So that person centered therapy is right there, right up in that person's grill. You are really mirroring back to them and almost, almost expanding what their experience is. And this can be really, really therapeutic for people because it just helps them get out all the things that haven't been seen. So it's almost as like we can get it out, we can see it mirrored back to us, and we can actually realize that's what went on. That's what was happening to me. That's person centered therapy.

Kristen: 14:06

I feel like it sounds like that just helps them clarify, like you kind of giving suggestions of how that might be affecting them helps them clarify how it's actually even affecting them?

Sara: 14:17

Absolutely. 100%. Most of the time, right, people just need and they want to see clearly what their experience was and they haven't been able to get a clear vision of that. And so, yeah, I love person centered, uh, Rogerian stuff for that reason. It's because people just sometimes will sit down and sob and cry in front of you because they hadn't, they're like, I had no idea I was so compromised by this. I had no idea I was so affected by this. And it can be so effective in just helping people let their guard down. Does that make sense?

Kristen: 14:52

Yeah, it seems like it'd be good for people. I know, I know I have to talk things out. Just. In my day to day, like just processing my life. I have to talk it out. And it, it sounds like that's a good for people who need that to actually process their stuff.

Sara: 15:08

Yeah.

Kristen: 15:09

Yeah,

Sara: 15:09

that would be excellent. And I think like when you think of a therapist, that's oftentimes what you're thinking of. Like you're thinking of that exchange between the two of you. Right.

Audio Only - All Participants: 15:18

Yeah.

Sara: 15:19

So I, I, yeah, that's fun. It's fun stuff. another really I would say this is a very effective and interesting sort of therapy is there's a whole kind of side of therapy where, we think about the person as not just like Kristen, like if you're sitting in front of me, I'm not thinking about you as just Kristen, like, like mono, like a mono mind. You just being you, I'm actually thinking about you as an intricate set of different parts of you And, you're an internal system of different pieces working together and, you know, it's called parts work or the other name for that is called internal family systems, right? This idea that this system is going on inside of you, inside of each person. And gosh, I might have a part that is like really stuck with anger. There might be a part that was really. really traumatized and the anger got really, really big. So I'm really suffering with anger right now. I just like at a drop of a hat, I just like get pissed off at people and I get so angry. And so what I'm going to do is I'm actually going to go in and we're going to talk about all these parts of you, right? Maybe there's this, um, maybe there's all these parts underneath the anger that you just haven't had any access to because this one is so big. So what I'll actually help you do as a therapist is we're going to go in and we're going to talk to anger. We're going to say, wow. What happened? What was going on for you? You were like showing up to almost as a protector. You're just showing up with your claws ready to protect. Because you've been hurt. Let's talk to you and figure out what you need, anger, so that you can step down for a second and realize, oh, there's these other parts of Kristen that are here. Oh, we haven't heard from compassion in a long time. We haven't heard from peace or hope or, gosh, we haven't heard from grief. Grief really needs a moment. We need to really talk to grief. Grief has been suffering and she's been stuck and anger's been just taken over, right? That's an example of internal family systems of parts work. That can be extremely helpful for people that are experiencing trauma because again, like, It's almost like the nervous system gets frozen and all this stuff gets frozen in, in, in the meantime. And so I, I love doing this with people because it really can help unlock and help people access more of a fuller sense of self. They can kind of move into the space where they're like, Oh, I'm not actually that angry part. I'm actually this part. This is, we're going to care for these parts. Does that make sense? What I just explained? It's a lot.

Kristen: 18:07

Yeah, yeah. Um, when you're doing this with someone, like actively using this therapy with them, are you talking using kind of the same language that you're using now? Or is it more subtle? Like, are you, I guess I've done therapy where it's very like, We're going to talk to anger. We're going to talk to peace. And I don't know if that's how you, would it be more, uh, roundabout?

Sara: 18:35

No. You know, you can be super direct. Like, I might have someone close their eyes and I'm, I'm going to tell them, Okay, we're going to go into a room and I want you to just notice some different people walking around in that room. And I want you to see anger. We're going to go sit next to anger and see how it responds. Oh, did it scoot away? Oh yeah. Look, you tell me what happened as you approached it. And the person might say, Oh, he like hit me in the face and ran away, right? And we'll start working in that, you know, very specifically in that way.

Kristen: 19:08

Oh, that's really cool.

Sara: 19:10

So kind of interesting.

Kristen: 19:11

Yeah, I love that. Um, like that's, that's like my jam. That's kind of like, oh, cool. It's my jam too.

Sara: 19:20

It's powerful for people. It's very,

Kristen: 19:22

yeah. No, and I feel like that's, um, kind of the basis for that. Um, what's it called that movie?

Sara: 19:32

Oh, yeah, it feels a little inside out. Yeah, I can totally see that. Yeah, it's interesting.

Kristen: 19:40

Yeah, so, was there any other, were there any other therapies you wanted to

Sara: 19:45

address? There's, okay, how about this? Let's talk about narrative therapy for a second. Just because I love this one, this is another one that, this is maybe not as common as like CBT, but the idea behind narrative therapy is that you are helping someone author their life story. And so, You know, if, if we, if we show up and we do an assessment, what I'm trying to get out of your assessment is I'm trying to find out what is the, what is your life narrative? Like, where did you start out low? How did you grow? Where did you get a space of resilience in your life? And. You know, where are you in that story arc right now? Are you like in that stuck place where you're like, what's going to happen to the character? Is she going to survive? Is she going to die? It's like that, that, that part in the movie where you're like, Oh my gosh, what's happening? Like, or are you in that part of like, no, things are resolving. I'm gaining my strength here. Like I'm figuring it out. So you're really helping someone almost mythologize their life experience and helping them realize, Oh, I'm like this heroic. Person on this journey and I'm doing this and where am I in my journey? Um, Jordan Peterson kind of alludes to this stuff. I feel like like with self authoring self authorship

Kristen: 21:15

Yeah,

Sara: 21:16

but this it's narrative therapy. So That's another really cool one that I feel like people just need. People need it, right? Like, they need to be told, Hey, like, you're a good, you're a good character. Like, you're a good one here. And like, let's just help you see where you're at so you can have some compassion for yourself, you know?

Kristen: 21:37

Do you feel like it's more working with self awareness or, like, archetypes? Or, does that make sense?

Sara: 21:46

Yes, yes. I think archetypes can definitely come into narrative therapy. right, like seeing yourself as, again, like that heroic person or like maybe you're seeing yourself as like, wow, I'm a, I'm a self sacrificing person or, oh man, I've taken on like a savior complex or, I've, you can, you can definitely like zoom out and see yourself as this like character, if that makes sense.

Kristen: 22:15

But the goal is kind of self awareness and seeing yourself more clearly, I guess.

Sara: 22:21

Exactly. another, another way that you can approach therapy is in a very, uh, it's like a very topical manner. So for example, I might have someone come to me for grief and it's really, we're really focused on just grieving the process of grieving the experience that you're having in grieving. Um, you know, like maybe we are using a little bit of these other therapies I mentioned, right? Maybe we're like writing your story to understand and help you process some of this grief, right? So therapy can also be very topical, right? We're doing grief work. we're doing dream work. We're focusing on your dreams. That's another interesting one, right? Where like, This, it's not very common. I would say like the traditional like average therapist is not going to be trained in dream work, but maybe you're just really feeling like, wow, my subconscious is telling me things. And it's, it keeps talking to me through my dreams and I don't know what to do about it. Right. And so you, you sit down with your therapist and we're going to like, have you write them down. We're going to look for the themes that are coming up. We are going to see if we can try to like interpret some of the stuff that you're habitually getting and that maybe is habitually like distressing to you. Right. So that's another topical way that you could work in therapy. Dreams. I

Kristen: 23:50

love that. Cause I think we think of dreams as being so like out there, like it's kind of like anybody who works with dreams seems kind of. Maybe not credible or something, but, but it's totally a thing in therapy. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it makes sense. Cause it's your subconscious. sorting things out and we know that, right? Yes, we do. So, yeah, that would make sense, I guess, but we could, we could do a whole, I would love to do a deep dive into dream therapy, any, like, I love dreams.

Sara: 24:19

And like, along with dream work, you'll also probably hear the term depth psychology or Jungian psychology, which is very much dream work archetypes. If you're familiar with, like, Carl Jung, the Swiss psychologist. There's really a whole like method around his work and it's very much non traditional, not what you're going to get with like a normal CBT therapist, right? But that's a whole nother realm that you could bop into, which is really fun. A lot of people, Maybe even highly sensitive people are really drawn to some of those, right? Even as I'm talking, you might have noticed yourself being like, Oh, I like that one, right? Like, I want this one. I feel like the personality of the individual plays so much into this, because some people, you know, like they do some CBT and they're like, I feel so much better, like, I'm okay, I'm gonna be fine. And other people are like, mm mm, that was not it. You know, like, like, I'm sitting over here traumatized, like that does not do anything, right? Like, please do something else. And, and, and some people need that. And that's great. And that's why there's all these different sort of approaches that we have that we can use.

Kristen: 25:36

So is that because We've been talking about kind of these like EMDR, CBT, all these acronyms, and then I know some of it, it's based off of Carl Jung, and then like Freud, and, but those are all offshoots of just kind of their philosophies. Is that right? Or are they're like, if you're looking for a therapist, and you're wanting to find what therapies they do, are we mostly looking at these little acronyms? Or will they have like, young in? I don't know, like, how

Sara: 26:10

does that? Um, so like, for example, if you're in psychology today, and you're looking at someone's profile, it'll have like a whole list. And you may see from the most common, right? CBT to like the most unique, and so you can really just ask someone you, when you're like interviewing and you're calling someone, just be like, yo, do you do parts work? Like I heard this thing called internal family systems and it sounded really interesting. Like, do you do that? it's yeah, you're not going to find a lot of people that are like, oh yeah, I'm a, I'm a specifically trained Yungian dreams work therapist, right? That's like a very niche thing, which you can find. But that's not, that's not like the main thing that you're going to find it that most people are going to be interested in.

Kristen: 26:57

well, you were talking about personalities. I kind of, I think it's interesting how we, you know, we're all drawn to different therapies. But I was wondering also, I heard something recently about men process. It's kind of the difference between men and women, I guess, more than personalities. But. We're all just the fact that we're drawn to different therapies and what might work better for some people. Um, so, I heard, and I don't know, I didn't verify this, I'm not sure if it's true, but I heard that men's cortisol levels go up when they talk about their day, and women's go down.

Audio Only - All Participants: 27:36

Interesting.

Kristen: 27:36

I don't know if it's true.

Audio Only - All Participants: 27:38

Interesting.

Kristen: 27:39

But I've talked to some men where they're like, yeah. And I'm like, I wonder if the, if the approach, I feel like some men avoid therapy because they're like, I don't want to go talk about my crap. Like that sounds re traumatizing or, you know, just wondering if you have any thoughts on like, if you're someone who doesn't want to rehash things. What's a good therapy? Or do you feel like that's an issue?

Sara: 28:11

Yeah. No, I think that's really insightful and interesting. there are plenty of people that, are extremely traumatized by going to therapy because they have to consistently rehash things. And we don't want to do that to people. Like, frankly, that's opposite of what we do. We don't, we don't want to do any harm to people. We want to do the minimal amount of, you know, distress making that we possibly can. And so I really do think that's actually like a very insightful question. And there are people that, they are very verbal. And some, again, that, that tends to be like, yeah, women. But also like, there's a lot of variety in this, right? Like we're not going to like put anyone in a box, but if you're a verbal person, that's good to know. If you were a physical person, for example, like I'm a dancer, I grew up as a dancer and I do yoga. That really, really helps me. The movement makes such a big difference. Um, do you know that about yourself? You might go into like a talk therapy session and be like, do you do EMDR? EMDR. Sounds like, EMDR is not like movement, but it's actually considered a somatic or body based therapy. So what you're gonna get in your session, and you're gonna be doing eye movements, or you're gonna be doing tapping, and you're not gonna have to sit there and rehash every single detail verbally. You're actually gonna like, hit on something small, desensitize it, do something with your hands, do something with your eyes, and feel different and feel better. So that's super helpful to know that about yourself, right? Or like, are you a writer? You might, you might need to do, you might really be able to do some really good writing, journaling, and then working with your therapist on what you've been writing about or writing poetry, right? Like maybe you're an artist. There's really good expressive arts therapists, right? That you can actually, there's a, there's such a therapy called sandtray. You go and you actually work with this tray of sand and like these different little objects and toys and placing things inside the sand tray, right? There's all these different ways that can be so specific to the needs that you have. And if you have questions or if you're just like, I don't know what I'm looking for, but I need something that hits this, ask people about that. Ask the therapist about that. People can direct you to some really, really good practitioners that can help you.

Kristen: 30:40

Yeah, I like that you dove into just a little bit about EMDR. Cause I feel like like you're saying it's so popular and I, I like it's taken the world by storm. No, that's dramatic. But I just hear about it all the time and people are like, that really actually helped me. Like it was so. impactful. And I didn't really think of it as a, like a less verbal therapy or like a somatic therapy even.

Audio Only - All Participants: 31:07

But

Kristen: 31:10

yeah, I guess we've talked about this before about the, the bilateral stimulation and the lady who came up with that. But would you want to just talk about that for just a sec? Cause I just think it's really interesting to know how that works.

Sara: 31:25

So EMDR, right? I expressed it as like a somatic soma, meaning body, right? accessing our psyche through the means of the body. and just as, just as a clarifying thing, I have received a fundamental level training of EMDR. I'm not like a master practitioner, but I'm authorized to use it with people. so this idea of like bilateral stimulation, like what in the world is that? It's this, basically this idea that we have two lobes in our brain, right? We have these different sides. And when we are in a traumatized state, our nervous system, Is, is going to go into just like this, almost this freeze where our lobes are not talking to each other. And so it's as if whatever has just been experienced is just going to get frozen in time. Stuck and whenever we run into anything that reminds us of that, it's just like it's just going to crunch. It's going to hurt. And so this idea that we can use this bilateral right two sided stimulation. So, for example, this doing this is a bilateral stimulation walking down the street left, right, left, right. is bilateral. It's moving those different sides of the body, which is accessing the different lobes in the brain. Doing that has a really calming effect. So we can actually, move through something traumatic while doing these movements, while doing maybe even eye movements from side to side, so that it's going to lower our response of our nervous system. And we can kind of almost like move through it and come out on the other side. so like for me, I can't think of how many walks I've gone on with friends and just talked about stuff. And then I end the walk and I'm like, wow, you just feel better if you go on a walk and talk. That's an example of bilateral stimulation. Right? You just, like, moved through something and you got that movement in, you got yourself to talk about it and talk through it and come out on the other side and just, like, feel a lot better.

Kristen: 33:32

I think that's why running or hiking is so therapeutic for a lot of people. Like, it's like, I just gotta go on a run and I just gotta, like, let my brain process things.

Audio Only - All Participants: 33:41

Yes.

Kristen: 33:43

Yeah. Yeah, no, that's helpful to understand how it actually works because I think we see all these. It's different therapies and it's kinda like, okay, Yeah. Right. I don't, I don't understand it, you know?

Sara: 33:55

Yeah. So, and like, maybe for a second if that's okay, I'll talk about yoga

Kristen: 33:59

love for you to talk about yoga

Sara: 34:01

so like in my personal journey, for me, yoga became really, really important, as a way to use my body, to have a somatic experience and, again, do like what we just talked about with EMDR, right? Like kind of like moving through some of this difficulty and coming out on the other side. yoga is definitely. Can give you access to that as well. So I think in the United States, yoga is thought of as an exercise and as fitness. And that is not traditionally how it is thought of, when I did my yoga certification in my training, I was lucky enough to train with someone who really, really had an extremely firm grasp on this idea that it's a mind, body, spirit experience. And that if you treat it as such, it can just be really powerful. and so like my approach to yoga is. a lot less about the importance of the movements that I'm doing, and it's more about moving in a way that feels good and creating. A good experience in the body. And I think like we, we go through so many bad experiences in our bodies because we're embodied all the time. We're always with ourselves and we don't really get a break from our body when we sleep. it's like, Oh, I'm away, but we're still, we're still here. But we have so many like difficult emotional experiences in our bodies that sometimes it just it's not safe to be in them. And so we just experience a lot of like dissociation and numbing out and just problems, right? Like the anxiety, the depression, everything. And so learning to create a positive experience in your body and knowing that you have the power to find peacefulness in your body is just like It's, it's gold. It's gold. And I love that for myself, and I love that for people. And so like, if you want to do something therapeutic that's not this talk therapy experience, you might go and try, like, taking a meditation class. Or like a gentle yoga class. And go and try, and again, don't look for the fitness stuff. Look for someone where you're like, I'm looking for some mind body spirit. Right? And, and that sort of stuff oftentimes can just be really helpful. Or sometimes, I'll say this too, they can bring up things for you that can freak you out a little bit. And you're like, I don't know what just happened, but I'm feeling weird. And then you have your talk therapist and you're like, something's happening. What do I do with this? Right. And they might be like,

Audio Only - All Participants: 36:45

Oh,

Sara: 36:47

let's work with that. Good job. Like way to be aware of this. This is a thing for you. Right. So this can be like really good in tandem with some talk therapy, even for people.

Kristen: 36:57

I was about to ask you right before you said that, do you feel like it's a good Yes. Because things come up and then you have to process them and you don't always know how. Right. Yeah.

Sara: 37:05

I dunno what to do with that.

Kristen: 37:06

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I feel like all these practices we learn in there, like journaling or you know, can really help you just in your day to day. Like, I'm going to yoga and I'm gonna see what comes up and I'm gonna journal about it, and then I'm gonna go to therapy and talk about it if I can't, you know?

Sara: 37:25

Yeah. Ideally, some people just live their lives this way. This is how they've learned to function. And because they can do that, they're healthier. They might be more sensitive. They might be a very sensitive soul. They might feel a lot. They might experience a lot. They might've had a lot of trauma, but they are able to work with their bodies, their spirits. To help them move through some of this stuff. Maybe they have good communities, right, that also help them with that. And so, like, people that can do that for themselves, it's so powerful. And I just want people to know that, like, you can learn that. That's something you can learn. You can move into that area. You can learn those skills. And you can actually find a safe person that can help you calm down a little bit. Enough to be able to do that in your life. Like, there's really so much, space for you to heal. That's

Kristen: 38:20

beautiful. That's what we're here to, that's what I'm hoping to do with this podcast is help people like just see that there are options for them and that they can heal and they can be okay. So I love that. I feel like that's a good, did we cover everything you wanted to cover? Because you have so many things that are great, but like, yeah, I think that's a great stopping point. Honestly. Thank you. It is too. Yeah. Um, do you, you mentioned, uh, what did you say? You mentioned if you want to do a deep dive on some of these other, like, um, modalities, you can do that. Do you have any right off the top of your head? If you don't, it's fine. But do you have any, like anywhere people can go or would you just say to Google it? Or what would you say if people want to learn more? I would just

Sara: 39:10

say there's a bajillion and one psychology podcasts. If you want to, search any of those things specifically, There's some really good stuff that you can listen to. Um, there's some really great books you can read. I could go into tons of resources, but I don't know if I want.

Kristen: 39:27

Okay. well, if you have any that you want to mention, if there's anything that's really standing out, because I was going to ask you next what, what books or resources you would recommend. So there's one you want to recommend because you like it, but also related to that would be great, Absolutely.

Sara: 39:40

Well, let me tell you this, out of like all the modalities that I've described, I personally do a lot of person centered therapy, narrative therapy, I do internal family systems, I do some EMDR, I do some yoga, maybe a little bit of depth psychology, Jungian and existential psychology here and there, right? and so anyway, just books that I, that I like around those, I would definitely read the book, The Wisdom of Anxiety by Cheryl Paul. She is excellent. also if, if any of those are resonating with you, you might like the book, The Highly Sensitive Person by Elaine Aaron. We didn't get into HSP. We could do another time. the practitioner that created, um, IFS, Internal Family Systems, parts work that I talked about, his name is Richard Schwartz. And he has some really good stuff, some really good books. I would search Richard Schwartz. anything from him is almost going to give you like, You could learn how to kind of journal, journal some of that parts work and learn how to actually do it with yourself. So, I would look up him, I think, honestly, that's like four resources, so maybe I'll just stop it. But those, those are great, yeah. Start with.

Kristen: 41:05

I was just saying, if you want to send me any links for, if you have anything specific, I'll post the links below. But I just want to ask you really quick about, wisdom of anxiety. Just explain it a little bit. Cause you've recommended it to me and I really have loved everything I've read in it. why do you recommend it? How does that help people?

Sara: 41:22

Yeah, I love this book. This is one of the books that has totally changed things for me as a person and as a therapist, the way that I practice. But the idea is a little bit, around it's rooted in depth psychology actually, and in kind of that like Jungian tradition, and it's this idea You know, we oftentimes think of anxiety as this thing to be medicated away or really just like anything we can do to like ignore it or distract from it. And, and really what anxiety is, is just the fire alarm. It's the messenger. And it contains deep wisdom and underneath that anxiety, if we can get underneath it and we can get to some of the messages that are kind of hidden under there, there's like, it's like mining for so much goodness. There's so much goodness underneath there that if you can get to that and get away from this, idea that anxiety is something to just like, Oh, like we hate it. We hate it. No, no, no, no. This is a doorway into a very deep space that can be very healing for you.. So that's what that book is about. It's so helpful for people that want to look at their anxiety is something that actually means something, not as just the senseless experience that they keep having. So a lot of people resonate with that. You might not resonate with that in which case, that's totally fine. But. I would, I would say that's one to look into for sure.

Kristen: 42:48

Yeah, I feel like it really takes out the, like, takes the anxiety out of anxiety, where it's just like, oh, oh, it's just a message. Okay. We don't have to freak out about this. Yeah.

Sara: 43:00

Yeah. Oh gosh. I feel like to end, it's like, we're all, we're all a little bit, we're all a little messed up. We're all a little weird. We're all human. We can all use some tune ups. Like, none of us will ever be completely healthy. None of us will ever be completely self sufficient in our mental health. And so I just feel like it's such a blessing to ask for help when you need it, to get it when you need it, and to just believe that you can also, you can also actually make good progress. You can actually help other people. That are, that are suffering too. And, you know, we're all just here trying to figure it out. Right. Like none of us are omniscient or omnipotent or we're just therapists. Like I'm just here doing what I can. And, you know, it's good stuff.

Kristen: 43:47

So, right. Yeah. No, I think that's great. Great message. Yes. Okay. Well, gosh, thank you so much, Sarah. I'm so grateful and we'll have to just, we'll just have to have you back and talk about some other fun things now that we've like covered the basics. Some different things. Well it's been a delight,

Sara: 44:10

so thank you for having me of course.

44:13

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