13. Is it Anxiety or Trauma? An EMDR Deep Dive with Kimberly Richards

Welcome to the Say Hello to your therapist podcast hosted by Dr. Bethany Valenti. In this episode, Dr. Valenti interviews Dr. Kimberly Richards, a therapist specializing in anxiety, trauma, and EMDR therapy. They discuss their experiences with community mental health and how trauma often manifests in various ways such as anxiety, depression, or ADHD. Dr. Richards shares her journey to becoming a therapist, the challenges faced, and her transition to private practice. The conversation delves into the intricacies of trauma therapy, including the use of EMDR, understanding dissociative symptoms, and the importance of addressing trauma for effective mental health treatment. The episode offers insights into how EMDR therapy works, its effectiveness, and the protocols involved. Listeners are encouraged to take care of themselves as the discussion involves heavy topics such as sexual abuse and trauma.

To learn more about Kim:

https://www.birchrunpsych.com/

To learn more about Bethany Valenti, PsyD:

Bethany's Website

Say Hello to Your Therapist Podcast Instagram

Bethany's Instagram

Bethany's Facebook Page

Things we talked about:
Dr. Amber Lyda and her episode on the podcast (Episode 1!)
The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel Van Der Kolk
Married with Children show
DSM 5
The Living Legacy of Trauma Flipchart by Janina Fisher
Got Your Six service dogs
Coulda Had a V8
PsyPact Map
Fiona Baker Marigold Island Series

00:00 Introduction and Content Warning
01:18 Kim's Journey to Becoming a Therapist
02:00 Challenges and Experiences in Education
05:31 Working in the Prison System
09:50 Transition to Private Practice
13:35 Understanding Trauma and Anxiety
20:19 Exploring Covert Trauma
31:33 Dissociation and Trauma Responses
44:41 Exploring Trauma and EMDR Therapy
45:13 Virtual EMDR: Tools and Techniques
47:12 The Science Behind EMDR
49:33 Explaining EMDR to Clients
52:38 EMDR Protocols and Phases
55:22 Using Olfactory Cues in EMDR
58:11 Client Experiences and Feedback
01:18:32 Concluding Thoughts and Resources

Transcript

0:00

Welcome to the Say Hello to your therapist podcast. I'm Dr. Bethany Valenti. Join me as we say hello to Dr. Kimberly Richards, a therapist who specializes in working with anxiety, trauma, sexual abuse, and using EMDR. In this episode, we discuss our experiences with community mental health how trauma shows up in ways that make people think they have something else like anxiety or depression or ADHD. Working with different types of trauma and how Kim explains and uses EMDR with her clients. I want to include a content warning because while Kim and I are energetic people, which will come across during our conversation, partly because we are connecting over our shared passions, but also our similar personalities. We are discussing heavy topics, So take care of yourself as you need to before, during, and after listening. A quick note that the views that we express in this episode are our own and are not a substitute for medical or mental health advice that you would receive from a professional with whom you have a relationship. Don't forget to check out the show notes to learn more about Kim and the things we talked about. I hope you enjoy.

Bethany Valenti 1:18

Hi, Kim. Welcome.

Kim Richards 1:20

Hi. Thank you for having me.

Bethany Valenti 1:22

I am so excited to have you here today. I would love to hear about how you became a therapist.

Kim Richards 1:31

So interestingly, um, it was an accident.

Bethany Valenti 1:34

Ooh,

Kim Richards 1:36

my intention coming out of high school was to actually go into arson investigation, and I had been a volunteer firefighter and I had gone to the fire academy and taken courses and I really enjoyed it.

Bethany Valenti 1:49

what I mean, like my face is like, wow, I wanna talk about that. Okay. Well go back. Back, back to what? Back to you.

Kim Richards 2:00

so I, I went in as a chemistry major and the poor woman who was the head of the chemistry department, I went to a very small liberal arts school. She saw me working extremely hard and apparently I came up at one of the department head meetings because she wanted to know how to tell me that maybe this wasn't the career path for me.

Bethany Valenti 2:22

Oh,

Kim Richards 2:23

And so, yes. So, the feedback that she got was that I'm, I'm excellent at social sciences and maybe just not the more kind of hard sciences. And so when

Bethany Valenti 2:34

that's me.

Kim Richards 2:35

yeah, so when I met with her, she as gently and kindly and compassionately as she could for a true chemist, shared this information with me. And

Bethany Valenti 2:46

Okay.

Kim Richards 2:47

I was, I literally was like, well, I might be good at that, but I guess I'll be a business major 'cause you can't make money with psychology. Right.

Bethany Valenti 2:57

That that was,

Kim Richards 2:58

as,

Bethany Valenti 2:58

was your thinking,

Kim Richards 3:00

And

Bethany Valenti 3:01

baby Kim.

Kim Richards 3:01

up majoring in business and psychology, like a double major. and because I'm an overachiever, I also studied religious studies and art history as like

Bethany Valenti 3:13

Ooh.

Kim Richards 3:14

a minor and a concentration. Not sure in what order. 'cause that

Bethany Valenti 3:17

But like, just because, 'cause it was

Kim Richards 3:18

Just,

Bethany Valenti 3:19

interesting. Yeah. Yeah. So cool.

Kim Richards 3:22

like a challenge because the school was like, oh, you pay this much and you can take like 15 or more credits. And I

Bethany Valenti 3:29

Mm-hmm.

Kim Richards 3:30

well, my schedule says I can fit this in, so let's do it. So,

Bethany Valenti 3:34

Let me get my money's worth

Kim Richards 3:35

yeah.

Bethany Valenti 3:36

it's, especially if it's interesting. Yeah.

Kim Richards 3:38

And so that's kind of how that went. I graduated right before I graduated. the department chair for the business department changed. So I actually. What had been put in writing that I didn't have to do senior research. She was like, oh no, you have to do senior research. So I went and dropped my major. So I graduated with a liberal arts degree with major in psychology, a minor three credit, short of a major in business. And then the other two. And I had an amazing, professor who really encouraged me to go get my master's degree because forensic psychology was really coming up and it was a

Bethany Valenti 4:16

Hmm mm-hmm.

Kim Richards 4:17

applied to, at that time there were only three schools in the us. One was in California, one was in Texas, and one was in New York City. And I have to be honest, California and Earthquakes, Texas and everything that could kill you in that state, um, bugs, ants,

Bethany Valenti 4:35

they got snakes, right. You know? Yeah. Yeah.

Kim Richards 4:39

like, I was like, I don't know about that. So I was like, all right, I'll apply to this school in New York City. And I got in.

Bethany Valenti 4:44

You totally, like, you didn't even go with the earthquakes either. You were like, no. 'cause I was just about to say like, Hey, California, the chances of encountering an earthquake is gonna be lower than encountering maybe like a snake. I don't know. but you were like, you know what? I not even gonna go there. So New York? It was New York,

Kim Richards 5:00

New York, so I apply, I get the acceptance letter a week before school starts. So I send a letter that basically says, Hey, can I defer for a year, 'cause? I'm like, I need more money to move to New York City.

Bethany Valenti 5:12

yeah.

Kim Richards 5:14

in that year. I actually meet my now husband.

Bethany Valenti 5:16

Hmm.

Kim Richards 5:17

now I don't want to move

Bethany Valenti 5:19

Going to New York

Kim Richards 5:21

So I commuted to New York City for my master's program from Pennsylvania.

Bethany Valenti 5:27

from Pennsylvania.

Kim Richards 5:29

Yeah. So, did that. But my first semester was 9/11.

Bethany Valenti 5:35

Oh wow.

Kim Richards 5:36

So. it was very challenging. And the school I was at was John Jay College of Criminal Justice, which

Bethany Valenti 5:42

Mm-hmm.

Kim Richards 5:43

the Fire and Police Academy for New York. And

Bethany Valenti 5:46

my God.

Kim Richards 5:48

it went from a very kind of packed school. You could barely walk like shoulder to shoulder kind of thing to wide open space between the people who transferred out because of 9/11

Bethany Valenti 6:01

Wow.

Kim Richards 6:02

over 300 staff and students.

Bethany Valenti 6:05

Okay.

Kim Richards 6:07

that was a huge thing. That was a huge challenge

Bethany Valenti 6:10

Mm-hmm.

Kim Richards 6:11

to kind of get through. And I was like, one day at a time, one day at a time, it's gonna be fine. I made friends with the guys guarding the subway, so they would stop checking me every time I got off the subway,

Bethany Valenti 6:22

Smart. Smart.

Kim Richards 6:23

I had to get on and I knew who the, 'cause at that point it was the military,

Bethany Valenti 6:29

Mm-hmm.

Kim Richards 6:30

who that was so. They kind of got to know me. that made it that a little easier. Um, so I got through all of that, but that's how I ended up working in the prison system,

Bethany Valenti 6:41

Mm-hmm.

Kim Richards 6:43

which I had mentioned earlier.

Bethany Valenti 6:44

Yeah. Off mic. Yeah. Yeah.

Kim Richards 6:47

yeah. And so I ended up there for my externship and

Bethany Valenti 6:52

Okay.

Kim Richards 6:52

alright, well you can't do anything with a master's degree. And I was

Bethany Valenti 6:56

Mm.

Kim Richards 6:57

I really wanna do, like, which direction do I wanna go? I really

Bethany Valenti 6:59

Okay.

Kim Richards 7:00

gonna end up working with sex offenders

Bethany Valenti 7:03

Mm-hmm.

Kim Richards 7:03

of the sex offender assessment board. And the more work that I did in the prison system, the more I was like, I'm not sure this is like where I want to be.

Bethany Valenti 7:14

Okay.

Kim Richards 7:15

And then it was like, well, if you wanna do that, if you're gonna do therapy, you have to get a doctoral degree. So, I started working in the prison. I was working in drug and alcohol counseling. I was encouraged, like all these people kind of fell into place to encourage me and, and set my path. this wonderful woman, Ms. Faison, encouraged me to take the state civil service test. And so in doing that, I ended up getting kicked over to actually the Department of Corrections. And ironically, I got hired for the Department of Corrections at the same time that I got admitted into grad school for my doctoral degree.

Bethany Valenti 7:52

Whoa.

Kim Richards 7:54

I deferred for a semester because I had to go through the training academy, which is like bootcamp.

Bethany Valenti 7:59

Okay.

Kim Richards 7:59

And so I couldn't do both. So apparently you're not supposed to do a January start for this program,

Bethany Valenti 8:07

I, yeah.

Kim Richards 8:08

anyhow.

Bethany Valenti 8:09

these days they do that. Yeah. It's the same. You gotta start, you know, with all that stuff too. Yeah.

Kim Richards 8:14

Well, so I started in January and just signed up for classes that I thought sounded good.

Bethany Valenti 8:18

Yeah. Why not?

Kim Richards 8:19

how this program works.

Bethany Valenti 8:20

No. They're like, you need pre-reqs. You know? It is just not okay.

Kim Richards 8:23

even pre-reqs. They're like, here is like the agenda. This is how you have to take the courses. This is like

Bethany Valenti 8:29

Yeah.

Kim Richards 8:30

and

Bethany Valenti 8:31

My program was kinda like that too. Yeah. Yeah.

Kim Richards 8:35

the department chair was like, oh. And I was like, it's fine

Bethany Valenti 8:38

Whatcha doing?

Kim Richards 8:40

Pretty much. Which he should have known at that point that I was probably the wild card

Bethany Valenti 8:46

Yeah.

Kim Richards 8:47

because I also needed to stretch out my program. And so I wanted to make sure I had enough credits for my pension with the state. Sorry, I had to stretch out my program. So my cohort kind of moved from dissertation into, um, dissertation and practicum, and I was in dissertation, but I wasn't. Doing my practicum. And he looked at me and he asked me, and I go, oh no, that's next year. Like, just like

Bethany Valenti 9:13

Just, yeah,

Kim Richards 9:13

this.

Bethany Valenti 9:14

yeah, yeah.

Kim Richards 9:15

I was like, no, this is, that's how this is gonna work

Bethany Valenti 9:18

Right.

Kim Richards 9:19

classes and do that. So, um, it all worked out. I ended up graduating. I had an amazing internship. I stayed in community mental health for several years

Bethany Valenti 9:31

Mm-hmm.

Kim Richards 9:31

switched to a gigantic over a hundred clinician group practice.

Bethany Valenti 9:36

Oh my God, that's gigantic. Yeah.

Kim Richards 9:40

and so they were kind of moving and doing certain things, but the requirements were so intense and I was like, I don't have a life.

Bethany Valenti 9:49

Yeah.

Kim Richards 9:50

an opportunity to join a different practice in New Hampshire, remotely. And that was during COVID. So I actually ended up resigning from the ginormous group

Bethany Valenti 9:59

Mm. Mm-hmm.

Kim Richards 10:02

Joining this practice in New Hampshire remote because every time they had a flare, we were good where I was. And then every time I was supposed to go up and see them, 'cause things were calm, my area would have a flare. And they were like, no, no, stay

Bethany Valenti 10:15

Mm-hmm.

Kim Richards 10:16

I never actually ended up going up there and they ended up closing 14 months later,

Bethany Valenti 10:22

Wow.

Kim Richards 10:23

that was kind of like the branch breaking and like, you better fly.

Bethany Valenti 10:27

Yeah.

Kim Richards 10:28

I pivoted and went right into private practice.

Bethany Valenti 10:31

Wow.

Kim Richards 10:33

So that is the long version of how I actually became a psychologist. By accident.

Bethany Valenti 10:38

Yeah. By accident. And then you went into private practice on the fly

Kim Richards 10:44

Yes.

Bethany Valenti 10:45

as well.

Kim Richards 10:46

Mm-hmm.

Bethany Valenti 10:46

Wow. Wow. Would you say that it's a better fit for you now?

Kim Richards 10:53

Oh, most definitely.

Bethany Valenti 10:54

How long have you been doing it since you started? You said it was around COVID, right?

Kim Richards 11:00

So my, my practice was officially like founded with the state February 14th, 2022.

Bethany Valenti 11:09

Okay. There you go. Wow. Okay. Yeah. Congrats.

Kim Richards 11:14

Thank you.

Bethany Valenti 11:15

Geez. Yeah, COVID COVID did some stuff in the therapy world, didn't it?

Kim Richards 11:20

did.

Bethany Valenti 11:22

it kind of shook us up.

Kim Richards 11:23

Mm-hmm.

Bethany Valenti 11:24

mm-hmm.

Kim Richards 11:24

and I think for me that was the pivot, where I realized I could do private practice because I had to do everything from home anyhow.

Bethany Valenti 11:33

Yeah.

Kim Richards 11:34

everything through teletherapy and then I was doing all the billing and all the other stuff too that initially we had support staff for. And so I was like, well, if I'm already doing it, why am I giving like half of what I'm earning to someone else?

Bethany Valenti 11:52

Mm-hmm.

Kim Richards 11:53

So it made sense. And I really have a supportive husband who was like, you can do this. Go for it.

Bethany Valenti 12:00

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Kim Richards 12:02

that was helpful.

Bethany Valenti 12:03

Yeah, those supportive husbands, man, they really, they really push you.

Kim Richards 12:07

Yeah.

Bethany Valenti 12:10

I'm thinking just, yeah, because I just contextually for anyone listening or watching that what, what you're kind of talking about there is you're giving chunks of the money that you're receiving to a practice. And so, um, and I talked with Amber about this in our episode, Amber Lyda, about like, for some people that's worth it. 'cause then you don't have to deal with insurance. You don't necessarily have to deal with like, finding clients, all that kind of stuff. But if you're, as you were saying, doing all the work yourself, then you were learning how to do it on your own and still paying them maybe for getting clients

Kim Richards 12:52

Right?

Bethany Valenti 12:52

point.

Kim Richards 12:53

Yes. Well, and the irony behind that was I was getting clients through them,

Bethany Valenti 12:58

mm-hmm.

Kim Richards 12:59

clients were referring clients, so I was already getting referrals directly to

Bethany Valenti 13:04

Yeah. You had a, yeah,

Kim Richards 13:05

well, so I still have to pay you for my own referrals that I'm bringing in

Bethany Valenti 13:10

yeah, yeah,

Kim Richards 13:14

exactly.

Bethany Valenti 13:15

I can see, I can see what happened there. So, yeah. So, uh, three and a half years later, a little over, am I doing the math right?

Kim Richards 13:26

Yeah.

Bethany Valenti 13:27

Five minus two is three. Okay. Yeah, I was right. Yeah.

Kim Richards 13:30

Well, I was

Bethany Valenti 13:31

Yeah. Three and a half years later.

Kim Richards 13:32

like 10 minus two eight? So a little over

Bethany Valenti 13:35

Yeah. So have you always then worked with trauma and anxiety and everything on some level then?

Kim Richards 13:45

I think so, because I

Bethany Valenti 13:46

Yeah.

Kim Richards 13:47

kind of. Just keyed into the experiences that I had,

Bethany Valenti 13:51

Mm-hmm.

Kim Richards 13:51

being in emergency services, volunteering with the fire department, and going from

Bethany Valenti 13:56

Yeah.

Kim Richards 13:56

I saw a lot of that need. and ironically when I went on my internship, I kind of got pigeonholed into two things. One was clients with schizophrenia, and the

Bethany Valenti 14:07

Mm.

Kim Richards 14:07

was, court ordered anger management

Bethany Valenti 14:10

Oh yeah.

Kim Richards 14:11

and at one point I had so many clients on my caseload who were struggling with schizophrenia that I remember going to intake and being like, need somebody who just has worries.

Bethany Valenti 14:25

Yeah.

Kim Richards 14:25

do we have somebody who's not so intense?

Bethany Valenti 14:28

Mm

Kim Richards 14:30

And they were like, okay, we'll try. And

Bethany Valenti 14:33

mm.

Kim Richards 14:34

said something to, my clinical advisor for my internship because I don't think it's typical for an intern to have like an 80 percent schizophrenia population of their caseload,

Bethany Valenti 14:50

At internship level.

Kim Richards 14:51

and then the other folks were trauma.

Bethany Valenti 14:53

Yeah.

Kim Richards 14:54

well, if I can't have somebody who's, who's kind of just worried,

Bethany Valenti 14:59

Right.

Kim Richards 14:59

somebody who's higher functioning that's worried?

Bethany Valenti 15:02

Yeah.

Kim Richards 15:04

so it kind of became this, well, you do really well with people with schizophrenia and you do really well working with trauma

Bethany Valenti 15:12

Mm-hmm.

Kim Richards 15:13

you know, the anger management piece never went away for

Bethany Valenti 15:17

I mean,

Kim Richards 15:18

kinda

Bethany Valenti 15:19

amount of anger that comes up for. Both of those things is really like notable. Yeah. So, yeah. Yeah. So it applies. Yeah. So it's just, just incorporate some of that anger management in there. Yeah.

Kim Richards 15:32

So eventually I was like, I kind of need a break from, and I, I really do have so many like, curious questions around schizophrenia and what's actually happening and why and, and

Bethany Valenti 15:44

Yeah.

Kim Richards 15:44

how the presentations are similar and yet so different.

Bethany Valenti 15:48

Yes.

Kim Richards 15:48

I was like, for my own sanity, because after eight hours, I was like,

Bethany Valenti 15:53

Yeah.

Kim Richards 15:53

the balls melting? I don't think they are,

Bethany Valenti 15:55

I don't know.

Kim Richards 15:57

to be

Bethany Valenti 15:57

Yeah. Your own connection to reality. 'cause you're seeing a majority of people that question reality.

Kim Richards 16:04

right.

Bethany Valenti 16:05

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Kim Richards 16:05

And so I kind of started to, to space those clients out across my schedule based on symptoms a little bit

Bethany Valenti 16:12

Mm-hmm.

Kim Richards 16:12

so that I didn't have, because that's, that's a symptom set, is people who, you know, feel like. There's either bugs crawling on the wall, the wall's melting, there's faces in the carpet. Like, I was like, okay, like do we have some olfactory issues? Do we

Bethany Valenti 16:27

Yeah.

Kim Richards 16:28

auditory? Like

Bethany Valenti 16:29

Yeah.

Kim Richards 16:30

what? And can we space that out so that I'm not getting inundated all day with the

Bethany Valenti 16:34

Right.

Kim Richards 16:34

It's, it's similar with trauma where you

Bethany Valenti 16:37

Mm.

Kim Richards 16:37

wanna have back to back clients who have similar traumas

Bethany Valenti 16:41

Mm-hmm.

Kim Richards 16:41

getting flooded with those stories all day.

Bethany Valenti 16:44

Yeah.

Kim Richards 16:45

I learned that way too early in my career, I think.

Bethany Valenti 16:49

Mm.

Kim Richards 16:49

probably was a good thing,

Bethany Valenti 16:51

Yeah. Probably helps you manage your schedule really well. Yeah,

Kim Richards 16:54

Yeah.

Bethany Valenti 16:54

yeah.

Kim Richards 16:55

and that management piece is very important.

Bethany Valenti 16:58

Yeah. Because it doesn't mean you don't like working with them. It just means that

Kim Richards 17:01

yeah.

Bethany Valenti 17:02

you are not having any processing time or like change up time. I. Recall from my work in community mental health, which I loved, but the part that did not fit for me was just the like billing by minute and that you like, it was really, you were scheduled, like you said, eight hours, like back to back to back and you might have lunch to do your notes. You might have this and because you were billing by the minute, you were supposed to do full 60 minute sessions. Ever since I was in that environment, I have not really gotten fully out of like a 60 minute kind of timeframe.

Kim Richards 17:47

Yes.

Bethany Valenti 17:48

My ADHD is like, nah, we still have 10 minutes, and that's before you get into the insurance billing thing. You know, when they like, tell you how long you need to spend time with your clients to get a certain amount of money. So,

Kim Richards 18:00

And the one practice I was at actually was on a 45 minute billing. That 38 minute code where, um, so it was 45 minutes, so you had 38 minutes, and then you had a couple minutes to like get them scheduled, walk them out, get your next patient, bring them in. So you were seeing four patients in three hours.

Bethany Valenti 18:22

Wow,

Kim Richards 18:24

That was,

Bethany Valenti 18:25

yeah, that's tough.

Kim Richards 18:26

was hard.

Bethany Valenti 18:27

and also like my recollection of that is a hallway of people with doors shut and you just never saw people, like maybe you saw them walk in in the morning and I was like, I'm doing the work that I love, that I've been wanting to do for all these years, and I love the work. Why am I kind of like sad? You know, and so I, it had to switch it up for my work life balance in terms of fit. And some of that's like a system issue, I think. But when you understand the system too, of like, we're trying to get as many people in as possible because the need is so high. Huh? So what are you gonna do? I think that, yeah, a lot of people do sort of just check out after a while

Kim Richards 19:11

Well, I think that really contributes to the super high rate of burnout in our field.

Bethany Valenti 19:17

Absolutely.

Kim Richards 19:18

I wanna say, I think it's something like most therapists, and I don't know if it's specific to psychologist or if it's just therapist

Bethany Valenti 19:27

burnout within

Kim Richards 19:28

the first 10 years

Bethany Valenti 19:30

Yeah.

Kim Richards 19:30

of being in practice. And I think about like for psychologists, early career psychologists, that's the first 10 years of your career

Bethany Valenti 19:38

Yeah.

Kim Richards 19:39

how how many of those folks are actually burning out in those first 10 years and not getting to year 11

Bethany Valenti 19:45

Yeah.

Kim Richards 19:46

of the systems that are in place and

Bethany Valenti 19:49

Right. And sort of the expectations that are put on therapists and helping people of like, isn't that what you're supposed to do? Like, this is what the job is and, and so what would it mean to maybe focus more on like the mental health of our mental health providers so that they might last longer and give better help instead of being exhausted? Yeah. Yeah. Well, I'm curious, to chat with you a little bit about your trauma work. I know you said off mic that a lot of your people kinda tend to come in. With like more anxiety, like, oh, I've just been really anxious and all that. And then as you're working with them, or even maybe in the intake, we didn't touch on that, like it turns into actually I have this trauma, this that really informs, is that right? Am I summarizing that correctly?

Kim Richards 20:48

So it really does, because I think what happens is a lot of people mistake hyper vigilance

Bethany Valenti 20:54

Mm-hmm.

Kim Richards 20:55

for anxiety. And so it's that constant kind of like scanning your environment, making sure that you feel safe, kind of knowing who's doing what, which takes a lot of brain power

Bethany Valenti 21:04

It does.

Kim Richards 21:05

can be so exhausting.

Bethany Valenti 21:07

Mm-hmm.

Kim Richards 21:08

because a lot of my clients in particular have, I work with all trauma, but I have a lot of clients who had childhood abuse or childhood, SA and I don't know if we can say that, that's why I said SA, so.

Bethany Valenti 21:21

Oh yeah. You can say it.

Kim Richards 21:22

So childhood sexual abuse. so those folks tend to feel like their experience is, Just anxiety.

Bethany Valenti 21:31

Yeah.

Kim Richards 21:32

coming in because they're so used to kind of like scanning and trying to, am I safe? What do I need to do? How do I need to behave? And

Bethany Valenti 21:39

Hmm

Kim Richards 21:40

for a lot of people that they come in and they're like, well, I have social anxiety. And we start to talk about it and I'm like, Hmm, has anybody ever asked you about trauma? And what's amazing to me is for a lot of my clients, they've been in therapy in the past and nobody has asked them, do you have a history of trauma? Have you

Bethany Valenti 21:59

It's shocking that people aren't checking on that. Yeah.

Kim Richards 22:02

and they've been treated for anxiety and they can't figure out why they're still "broken"

Bethany Valenti 22:08

Hmm.

Kim Richards 22:08

in air quotes. and the reality is, it's not that they're broken, it's that it's not anxiety. It's this hyper vigilance. it's the stress and the strain of trying

Bethany Valenti 22:17

Yeah.

Kim Richards 22:17

their own safety.

Bethany Valenti 22:19

Yeah,

Kim Richards 22:20

And so that's kind of the beginning point of okay, like what are we really looking at?

Bethany Valenti 22:25

yeah.

Kim Richards 22:25

shifts things for them. And then, you know, some of them are like, gosh, that makes so much more sense now. And some of them are like, are you sure?

Bethany Valenti 22:35

Right, right. I don't know about this. it makes me wanna go down a whole path of like, it's bringing up all this stuff from like the trauma work that I do and the. The training that I got, that it's just such a rich, unique, kind of powerful form of work to be able to do with people because you have some people, like you said, who have had childhood sexual abuse or something that happened when they were younger and they think they've moved on from it, but their body is carrying it. So you get into that whole, the body keeps the score, which is a book, you know, and a lot of us talk about so that it gets stored, it can be stored in the body. So there's a lot of people who do somatic trauma work.

Kim Richards 23:14

Mm-hmm.

Bethany Valenti 23:15

and then there's one of the things that I thought was just fascinating about trauma, because so many people are like, oh, trauma equals PTSD. I think the kind of maybe general public would sort of assume that that could, you know, when we're talking about trauma, it's PTSD. And one of the things that I take away is, you know, there's also trauma unspecified, but trauma doesn't necessarily always equal. PTSD. It's how we cope and how we've made meaning and what has worked to like, sort of get us to a certain point. Um, and so it might have translated or coded into somebody's body as PTSD or that could have turned into generalized anxiety disorder, GAD or a phobia or something. It, what do you, I mean, does that sound right to you? Like in the work that you do?

Kim Richards 24:10

It does. I think the hard part, and I think what you're, you're keying into is, um, the folks like Bessel VanDerKolk and Janina Fisher and, and those folks,

Bethany Valenti 24:20

Mm-hmm.

Kim Richards 24:21

the two that I remember off the top of my head, They, they were fundamental in writing the criterion for what PTSD is, but they were focused more on kind of culturally at the time, what were coming back

Bethany Valenti 24:36

Yes. Yeah.

Kim Richards 24:38

from that shell shock into kind of what post-traumatic stress disorder is. that we're now facing is that it doesn't quite encapsulate all of the types of trauma that

Bethany Valenti 24:50

Trauma.

Kim Richards 24:50

do have.

Bethany Valenti 24:51

Yeah.

Kim Richards 24:52

somebody who has been, let's say covertly sexually abused,

Bethany Valenti 24:56

Hmm

Kim Richards 24:58

It's more kind of lewd looks or comments

Bethany Valenti 25:02

hmm.

Kim Richards 25:03

nonsexual but kind of sexually oriented touching. So maybe not the genitals, but a mom running her hand on the son's thigh to see if she can get him to get an erection. That kind of covert sexual abuse. A lot of people are like, what do we do with that?

Bethany Valenti 25:20

Do people even, I feel like that's not even known about, you know, that would blow someone's mind to be like, wait, that's a thing. Covert sexual abuse.

Kim Richards 25:29

Yes. And so the example, if I go really old school, so I haven't watched television in probably 10 years

Bethany Valenti 25:33

Mm-hmm.

Kim Richards 25:36

but if I go really, really old school, you know, I think about the way I describe it to some of my clients is if you ever saw married with children, which I really didn't like that show, but it's a good example because. Father would look at the kind of, hate to say like sex kitten, teenage daughter

Bethany Valenti 25:54

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Kim Richards 25:55

you know, and the, that's kind of that covert underlying message. But I think what people miss is that mothers unfortunately can also do that to their son

Bethany Valenti 26:06

Do it. Yeah. Yeah.

Kim Richards 26:08

And so there's that piece. So there's overt where there is, you know, inappropriate touching, all

Bethany Valenti 26:14

of those kinds

Kim Richards 26:15

of things. So there's the overt, and I think more people are like, oh, that's what happened to me. The covert gets a little tricky because people aren't really talking about that piece. And then you have things like, you know, abandonment trauma, where we're looking more at attachment and that isn't captured with a PTSD diagnosis either.

Bethany Valenti 26:34

Mm.

Kim Richards 26:34

But we don't actually have something that really truly captures that,

Bethany Valenti 26:39

Yeah.

Kim Richards 26:40

Unless you start looking at kind of some of the personality disorders as more of attachment based issues. But again

Bethany Valenti 26:47

Mm.

Kim Richards 26:48

that still becomes kind of problematic. So it's like,

Bethany Valenti 26:51

Because of it's a personality disorder like that. We're coding it that way.

Kim Richards 26:55

right?

Bethany Valenti 26:56

Yeah.

Kim Richards 26:57

then, like then you get into that whole thing with the insurance where insurances don't wanna cover those things. So it's like we're missing a

Bethany Valenti 27:03

Mm-hmm.

Kim Richards 27:03

chunk, I think, diagnostically of what the broader picture looks like. And I know they've widened kind of the trauma categories, with the DSM 5, but it still leaves so much that's lacking in that. So diagnostically, I kind of look at it and go, all right, what does my client need? What's actually the clinical picture? so a lot of the majority of my clients are, private pay for this reason, because they're like, I

Bethany Valenti 27:30

I don't want to deal.

Kim Richards 27:31

need the treatment to go to work

Bethany Valenti 27:31

Yeah.

Kim Richards 27:33

The insurance. Like I don't necessarily need a diagnosis that the insurance company needs to have to pay for

Bethany Valenti 27:38

Mm-hmm.

Kim Richards 27:38

to choose whether or not they're going to pay for it. And so we kind of start to look at, well, what's actually going on? And how does that impact overall functioning in the everyday, like, are you fighting with your boss all the time because you have a male boss and you have a bad relationship with your dad, and your boss is actually kind of triggering memories of dad subconsciously, and it's creating all of this stuff. or, are you fighting with your girlfriends because of something? Are you, like, what's happening? So those types of things come out frequently too

Bethany Valenti 28:13

How about also when you're still having to interact, like with some of those people? Like you gave the example of dad, like you're still having to see dad day in and day out, and that is what it is. It could be better, could be worse, could be, like it really could be dependent on where that's at or the person has died yeah, it's very nuanced and very unique, which is partly why. Trauma work, I feel like is a very, like I said, powerful and rich

Kim Richards 28:39

Mm-hmm.

Bethany Valenti 28:41

focus to have, or, to have as part of your clinical work. yeah. Do people even have words to put to that covert sort of thing? Like if they come in again, I'm just anxious, and then you're sort of asking about stuff and how do you kind of end up finding out that there was some of that covert stuff?

Kim Richards 29:01

So some of it comes out, I do ask a lot about relationships.

Bethany Valenti 29:06

Mm-hmm.

Kim Richards 29:07

so I have a postgraduate certificate in psychodynamic psychotherapy,

Bethany Valenti 29:11

Okay.

Kim Richards 29:12

relational aspect. And

Bethany Valenti 29:14

Yeah.

Kim Richards 29:14

so I changed up my intake and I really do ask a lot about what was your relationship like with your mom? What was your relationship like with your dad?

Bethany Valenti 29:20

Okay.

Kim Richards 29:21

What, what was their relationship like with each other? And so for a lot of folks they'll start to say things that they think are normal.

Bethany Valenti 29:28

Okay.

Kim Richards 29:29

And so it's kind of, Hey, you said this. Could you tell me more?

Bethany Valenti 29:32

Yeah.

Kim Richards 29:33

And so in that telling me more, I start to go, Hmm, what was that like for you?

Bethany Valenti 29:39

Yeah. Okay.

Kim Richards 29:40

and so oftentimes they're like, well, I didn't really like it, but it was, that's how parents are.

Bethany Valenti 29:45

Right.

Kim Richards 29:46

well, what if that's not how parents are,

Bethany Valenti 29:48

Yeah,

Kim Richards 29:49

so it becomes that part of the conversation and that starts to open things

Bethany Valenti 29:52

yeah.

Kim Richards 29:53

But it's not like, oh, you were covertly sexually abused, and we need to work on that. It's

Bethany Valenti 29:57

Right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right.

Kim Richards 29:59

how were you with this? What do you think about

Bethany Valenti 30:00

Yeah. Yeah,

Kim Richards 30:01

that unpacking that takes place. And sometimes it takes multiple sessions to get to that

Bethany Valenti 30:07

Mm-hmm. Is it ever even like a, I have discomfort or problems with this particular family member or whatever, and I don't know why, kind of thing. And then you ask maybe follow up questions and some stuff comes up.

Kim Richards 30:21

Generally, yeah. So some of my clients also have dissociative, kinda spectrum issues. So

Bethany Valenti 30:28

yeah,

Kim Richards 30:28

depending on where they are, I have some clients who are fully DID and I have some clients who just have some dissociative tendencies. And so for some of them they might like say something like, I really don't know why I don't like this person.

Bethany Valenti 30:43

yeah.

Kim Richards 30:43

and it's because it's been cut, off

Bethany Valenti 30:46

yeah,

Kim Richards 30:46

and it's

Bethany Valenti 30:47

yeah,

Kim Richards 30:47

to reconnect that. but in other places, there are people who come in and they don't have that dissociative aspect and they're like, I really don't like uncle so and so, and we start to process like, well,

Bethany Valenti 30:59

yeah,

Kim Richards 30:59

do you remember? Not? Did you ever like him?

Bethany Valenti 31:02

yeah.

Kim Richards 31:03

Right.

Bethany Valenti 31:03

Yeah.

Kim Richards 31:04

I used to like him when I was little, but then all of a sudden, like, I just never wanted to be around him. And I'm like, usually.

Bethany Valenti 31:12

yeah. There's something going on. Yeah.

Kim Richards 31:14

going on. and it might be like as innocent as like, he pinched you

Bethany Valenti 31:19

Yeah.

Kim Richards 31:19

Versus, that there was actual sexual abuse going on.

Bethany Valenti 31:23

Mm-hmm.

Kim Richards 31:24

it's kind of exploring that kind of thing and what does

Bethany Valenti 31:26

Right.

Kim Richards 31:27

and

Bethany Valenti 31:27

Yeah.

Kim Richards 31:28

helping the client make meaning of that experience and what that means.

Bethany Valenti 31:32

yeah, yeah. I do wanna touch briefly just in case our listeners are unfamiliar with this trauma. Some of the stuff that's coming up is, kinda the, again, the uniqueness to the person and how it can present in terms of how they may or may not remember details of their trauma. So when you say dissociation, and then some people who aren't struggling with that, what. I am gonna say some things and then you tell me what, what your take is or add on or whatever is kind of this. There's different, responses that we have that our brains will go through. Fight, flight, freeze, or Fawn is kind of the newest one in the research. Right. which some people as associated with that can respond to in specific ways to different types of trauma. So it may not always be the same, as well as. Dissociation is a coping where you just kind of like, check out. It's the, that's just a simple way that I would describe it. your, your body is like, no, thank you. your whole self is like, I don't really wanna be here right now. So you go somewhere else. other people remember, have certain memories down to, it's like a, like it's been recorded or just like stamped onto their brain, right? Like it's the amount of detail that they could have. and then sometimes I've had clients where it's, they don't remember every single thing, but they have certain like triggers that like, are really, really visceral. because it's associated with the complexity of all of the trauma that they had. Maybe in this particular relationship or maybe this particular incident. am I missing, what do you think? Is that what, what did, what, how was that?

Kim Richards 33:16

So, I mean, I understand and I'm following what you're saying. I think the way that I describe it to, folks that I work with is, it's one of those spectrums. So if

Bethany Valenti 33:27

Yes.

Kim Richards 33:27

on one side you have a full, diagnosis of dissociative identity disorder, which used to be multiple personality disorder.

Bethany Valenti 33:35

Mm-hmm.

Kim Richards 33:35

Um, and so you have different alters coming out and taking, kind of taking control of the body and doing certain things. So you might find things that are written in different handwriting. You might find clothes that are not the style you would normally wear

Bethany Valenti 33:49

Mm-hmm.

Kim Richards 33:49

things like that. Versus on the far other end would be like a highway hypnosis where you're driving and you get to work and you go, did I stop at all the traffic

Bethany Valenti 33:58

Yes.

Kim Richards 33:59

lights? Because you were kind of preoccupied with your own thoughts

Bethany Valenti 34:01

Yeah. Yeah. Like we all dissociate on some level, right? Like, like we tune out, like you said.

Kim Richards 34:06

And in the middle there's other factors

Bethany Valenti 34:08

Mm-hmm.

Kim Richards 34:09

it's this spectrum. And, Janina Fisher did an amazing job. I'm crediting her because that's where I was introduced to it. So I

Bethany Valenti 34:16

Yeah.

Kim Richards 34:17

borrowed it from anybody else,

Bethany Valenti 34:18

Okay.

Kim Richards 34:18

but she actually does have a spectrum where she talks about all these things and kind of has them mapped out and how it overlays with trauma and

Bethany Valenti 34:26

Hmm.

Kim Richards 34:27

looks like. And so I normally pull that out and share that with my clients. So that they can kind of see and we can have a discussion about what does that look like and

Bethany Valenti 34:36

Yeah.

Kim Richards 34:37

this something, you know, that they've experienced. I do screen for dissociation because they do a lot of EMDR so protocols, if you have somebody who's more dissociative, are a little bit different. and there are certain precautions that you do wanna take with that versus somebody who's less dissociative. so I do definitely screen to see what's going on with that.

Bethany Valenti 35:00

yeah, yeah. So do you ever, I have so many questions, I'm just like thinking of what direction I wanna go in, um,

Kim Richards 35:11

It's all the directions.

Bethany Valenti 35:12

all the directions, uh, because I mean, we talked a little bit about people coming in with anxiety and some of the work that I've done with, clients too is just to be like, yeah, that's trauma. Yeah, that's trauma. you know, like some people are like, maybe I'm just depressed. Maybe I'm just having sleep problems. Maybe I'm just, and it's just like trauma, trauma, trauma, trauma. Like, like I have this, when I was on internship, I had a supervisor who gave me, this great. What do you call it? Illustration. It came from, I think, a workbook that she had. And so I will not be able to credit it whatsoever until I find it somewhere in my office. but it's this, like, it shows this image of trauma and all the different things that can branch out from it. So that could be like attention problems, that could be sleep problems, that could be anger issues. it's like pretty remarkable. The, you're about to pull it out. I'm about to just like lose it. That would make me, that would just sort of make my day. Maybe you have your own type of version of it. I'm gonna, I'm just gonna,

Kim Richards 36:12

I'm wondering, let me see if I can find it.

Bethany Valenti 36:15

the motions that you're doing actually mimic what she, she had it on like a spiraled notebook type of workbook. Stop it. All right. It's a great visual

Kim Richards 36:28

I can't, I can't tell if you can see it. So

Bethany Valenti 36:31

I can see it. This is an updated version I think. can you bring it closer and then we'll try and get, look at that. Yep. Yeah. Okay. I'm gonna read this. So just the visual, the title is Traumatic events Leave Behind a Quote, living Legacy of Symptoms. And then at the center, like there's kind of like an ex like, so center sort of bottom of the page is sort of like an explosive word. It's like an what do you call that? icon image or whatever, um, that says trauma. And then there's all these little branches that come out. So. I'll just go around. Decreased concentration, numbing, loss of interest, irritability. We'll come back. we said the anger management, you know, um, insomnia, emotional overwhelm, loss of a sense of the future. Hopelessness, shame, worthlessness. Few or no memories, nightmares, flashbacks, hyper vigilance, mistrust, anxiety, panic attacks, chronic pain, headaches. We're almost done. I'm sure your arms are getting tired. Substance abuse, eating disorders, feeling unreal or out of body, self-destructive behavior. Loss of sense of who I am. So identity stuff too, right? Is that, did I get 'em all? I think I got 'em all.

Kim Richards 37:54

so.

Bethany Valenti 37:54

I think so, so, so much of that on that list can be as a result, like people, you know, I'm anxious, Like there's just things like, I have sleep issues. you know, my memory. Like, you know, maybe I ha it's just, I so appreciate that you just made my day and.

Kim Richards 38:12

I will share. It's the Living Legacy of Trauma. Flip chart

Bethany Valenti 38:15

From, from again. Was that Janina Fish or I All right. Janina, I gotta find you. Okay. My make, make friends.

Kim Richards 38:22

I actually have the old one too, but this is the

Bethany Valenti 38:25

Okay. Okay. The one that my supervisor at the time had, it was straight paper, if I recall correctly, and it was bigger. so you, you have an updated one from the stop. That's it. Psychoeducational aids for people who are working with trauma. Yeah.

Kim Richards 38:42

So that was the, that was the old school original and then she made it color

Bethany Valenti 38:46

that's it. That's what I have. That's, that's Kim.

Kim Richards 38:50

and she has a quote on it. Trauma

Bethany Valenti 38:52

Kim.

Kim Richards 38:53

have symptoms instead of memories.

Bethany Valenti 38:55

I've always loved that quote. Yeah. They have symptoms instead of memories. Yeah.

Kim Richards 38:59

and I think for a lot of my clients in particular, that quote resonate because it makes it make more sense. And then,

Bethany Valenti 39:07

Yes.

Kim Richards 39:08

go in old school for a second, here's that dissociative

Bethany Valenti 39:11

Continuum. Okay. Yeah. Do you wanna bring that closer?

Kim Richards 39:14

hypnosis all the way over to like a full DID.

Bethany Valenti 39:17

DID. Okay.

Kim Richards 39:18

in between. Um,

Bethany Valenti 39:20

Okay, cool.

Kim Richards 39:22

so

Bethany Valenti 39:23

Thank you, Kim. Yeah, I think again, yeah, so that means that whoever's coming in may not be coming in with like awareness of trauma, or even if they're coming in, being like, yeah, I know this thing happened to me, but I don't know why it's bothering me so much. Or like, I don't, you know, I don't, or they don't even know how profoundly it impacts them, kind of thing. Did you find that as well? Yeah.

Kim Richards 39:47

Most definitely. so I, I have some clients who come in and oh, they think they're just struggling with like, you know, inpatience at work.

Bethany Valenti 39:58

Huh?

Kim Richards 39:59

we start to kind of unpack what's happening, all these other things start to kind of show up. or, I do have a lot of clients who come in with, I think I might have ADHD

Bethany Valenti 40:13

Yeah. Yeah.

Kim Richards 40:14

right?

Bethany Valenti 40:15

you know what's so hard about that is that people who have ADHD can also be traumatized, you know?

Kim Richards 40:20

Correct.

Bethany Valenti 40:21

they can also go through some stuff, so that's hard to tease out. That's hard to kind of yeah.

Kim Richards 40:26

And so it's, and so I do use screeners and I will

Bethany Valenti 40:30

Mm-hmm.

Kim Richards 40:30

ADHD screener and I do the PCL, which is, for trauma. And so I kind of compare like what are you endorsing over here that you're also endorsing over here, and how much of what your A DHD symptoms look like are overlapping with that trauma and how, what's the impact and how does it kind of show up in life

Bethany Valenti 40:52

Yeah.

Kim Richards 40:53

help differentiate what is it? And for some of my clients, it's genuinely both.

Bethany Valenti 40:57

Yeah, yeah,

Kim Richards 40:58

then it becomes a little more complex in terms of treatment planning

Bethany Valenti 41:03

yeah.

Kim Richards 41:03

working on these skills to help manage the actual ADHD, and we're working on processing these. Things that, past experiences that are impacting your current behavior. And so it becomes a little more complex, but still doable.

Bethany Valenti 41:20

Mm-hmm. I also am thinking that for some people. I know it's been, it'll be recommended. Like we, we can't really say until you've gotten some, maybe some treatment for the trauma and then we'll come back to it. Do you do that as well? It sounds like you try and tailor it as much as you can even, before that, but that, that's like, we just can't really say because of

Kim Richards 41:43

and I think for me, my approach is meeting the client where they are

Bethany Valenti 41:49

Yeah.

Kim Richards 41:49

and figuring out kind of like, okay, what's the thing that's bothering you the most?

Bethany Valenti 41:53

can we help you with that?

Kim Richards 41:54

some relief?

Bethany Valenti 41:55

Mm-hmm.

Kim Richards 41:56

by the way, do you wanna work on these things? And some of my clients are like, absolutely not. And some of my clients are like, yeah, but I'm afraid.

Bethany Valenti 42:05

Yeah.

Kim Richards 42:06

Right? That comes up frequently of like, you know, I don't wanna go back to that pain. And so some of it's like, you've already been through the actual pain. What if we healed it so you don't have to keep carrying it?

Bethany Valenti 42:22

Yeah.

Kim Richards 42:23

And so they're like, oh, that's a different way to look at it, you know? Um, can we move through some of those things and,

Bethany Valenti 42:33

Yeah.

Kim Richards 42:33

and heal them versus, stuffing them down

Bethany Valenti 42:37

Mm-hmm.

Kim Richards 42:38

them away or ignoring them completely, or drinking to avoid them, or, you know, eating to avoid them or any of these other things. Excessive exercise to avoid, you know, running away from things. and so that comes up frequently too. So it's, it is a challenge 'cause people are like, well, what exactly do you work with? And I'm like, well. All of this stuff that

Bethany Valenti 43:03

Right.

Kim Richards 43:03

over in

Bethany Valenti 43:03

Yeah.

Kim Richards 43:04

because that's how people present. And they may or

Bethany Valenti 43:07

Right.

Kim Richards 43:07

those memories of what happened, but it's kind of through some of that questioning of like, well, where do you think that came from? Have

Bethany Valenti 43:16

Yeah.

Kim Richards 43:16

experienced that before?

Bethany Valenti 43:18

Mm-hmm.

Kim Richards 43:19

And you know, sometimes they're like, oh no. And then they might come back two or three weeks later and say, you know, I know we've, we haven't talked about this for the last couple of sessions, but

Bethany Valenti 43:31

Yeah.

Kim Richards 43:32

you said, like, oh, how many sessions ago? And what, what did I say?

Bethany Valenti 43:37

And what did I say? Oh my gosh. The times where they're like, you know, when you said this, and then what I said is not what they said, but it's how they like. Took it, like how they heard it, how they've like reflected on it since then. Like I think sometimes it'll just be like, you know how you told me this? And I was like, I think I just asked a question And you know, like it's fascinating what we take away from the relationship for those who think that therapists just listen or just talk to people all day, there's like some, some responsibility there. Uh, a lot of responsibility. so again, there's so many different ways I could go and I just wanna talk to you forever. You've just like made my day. I think the only thing,

Kim Richards 44:18

thank you.

Bethany Valenti 44:19

is that I would kind of touch on is that you made me think of is when I'm trying to like, list out my specialties, like trauma is on my list, but. I like so much else that I work with, I think overlaps with it that I think some people like forget to e like, like I like when I'm telling people what I do. I'll almost for forget about it, but I'm like, no, no, no. I really love like working with people who've experienced trauma. But it often comes up. 'cause I've, I work with grief, I work with eating disorders and I work with anxiety and perfectionism. Like, hmm. You know, like, again, that little trauma that was like several of those branches, you know,

Kim Richards 44:55

Right.

Bethany Valenti 44:57

it's just like, actually what are we working with when it comes down to it, you know? So you touched on EMDR. I'm excited to talk about it. Are you excited to talk about it?

Kim Richards 45:09

I love EMDR

Bethany Valenti 45:11

Oh, so that's a yes. Okay. so you do it and you do it exclusively virtually, Well, unless you're doing intensives. You told me. Okay. Okay.

Kim Richards 45:20

one client who I do an intensive with. Um, there's a medical reason for that.

Bethany Valenti 45:26

Hmm.

Kim Richards 45:26

So, the, the kind of online virtual EMDR requires visual or, or auditory queuing or both. And so I actually have a specific platform that is amazing.

Bethany Valenti 45:42

Mm,

Kim Richards 45:42

Um.

Bethany Valenti 45:43

I've seen it in like a training. I didn't, it was bef, it was like after COVID, but you know, and it's like the little thing, you could pick the background, right? And you could pick the little person. Like in the training I saw like this person picked like this, like fjord, kinda like water thing. And then they picked like a little dragon that moved back and forth. Like we,

Kim Richards 46:02

So mine's not quite that high

Bethany Valenti 46:04

okay. Sorry.

Kim Richards 46:06

That's okay. so part of it is I don't, because a lot of my clients have attentional issues, I don't actually want the stimuli.

Bethany Valenti 46:15

Okay.

Kim Richards 46:16

So mine is more of, you can pick your color for the background screen, and then you can pick, I think there's like, I feel like it's the Lucky Charms version. I think it's like

Bethany Valenti 46:26

So cute

Kim Richards 46:27

ball, a flower or a clover, like a star, a heart.

Bethany Valenti 46:31

like Lucky Charms.

Kim Richards 46:32

is

Bethany Valenti 46:32

Yeah, yeah,

Kim Richards 46:34

But you can pick the color of that,

Bethany Valenti 46:36

yeah,

Kim Richards 46:36

the, you can adjust the speed and those kinds of things.

Bethany Valenti 46:39

yeah.

Kim Richards 46:40

The direction that the, it's the ball is called the bilateral stimulation. So whether it's left to right or whether it's, um, north to south and you're

Bethany Valenti 46:50

Mm-hmm.

Kim Richards 46:51

kind of up and down. Or there's one that's like a figure eight, um,

Bethany Valenti 46:56

Oh,

Kim Richards 46:56

which, right. And I'm like, I don't know about that one for

Bethany Valenti 47:00

I know. I've never seen that. Yeah, I same.

Kim Richards 47:04

diagonally.

Bethany Valenti 47:05

Oh, okay.

Kim Richards 47:05

can pick which diagonal you wanna use. and so it depends. So there's a lot of options with it. but it comes on, you have your whole video processing and then when you turn on the EMDR part portion, which is the part I really love, is we can be having conversation and kind of figure out, oh, this is what we need to process and kind of pop into it, turn it on 'cause it's fully integrated. for the client side, the screen goes to whatever that background color is. So for today, we'll say like burgundy, and then let's say the ball is, like white or beige, like they'll see that burgundy and then white. I kind of disappear off the screen on my end if there's like. control panel. So I have I'm up here, the client's here, the, the bilateral stimulation, there's things here, the control panels over here for all the things to change out. If I need to add in auditory. when I do auditory with folks, they do ask 'em to have headphones if they can

Bethany Valenti 48:05

Hmm mm-hmm.

Kim Richards 48:07

to get that,

Bethany Valenti 48:08

yeah.

Kim Richards 48:09

you know,

Bethany Valenti 48:10

Stimulation.

Kim Richards 48:11

alternating beat kind of sound. I think it does work without it, but I think it's helpful with the headphones.

Bethany Valenti 48:17

Yeah.

Kim Richards 48:18

and so that's a huge part of it. And now the interesting thing is, 'cause I had clients who were in person and I was using, the tappers, which are like little buzzers you would hold in your hands and it would vibrate alternatingly. the folks who were doing that were getting great results. But when we switched and how to, and I went to kind of the visual. The results were so much more powerful.

Bethany Valenti 48:46

Oh

Kim Richards 48:46

feedback that I was getting from those clients was, you know, it was good in your office and I didn't like the change, but this is so much better.

Bethany Valenti 48:55

wow. Okay.

Kim Richards 48:56

interesting. And that lines up with the research that the eye movements really, um, kind of our, like the gold standard in a way

Bethany Valenti 49:04

Wow. Okay. That's good to know. So I was fun fact about me, I was gonna do the week long training, like at the beginning of this month, like almost a month ago. and then my husband got surgery and my kids got sick, so I rescheduled for December. So I'm. More fresh to this than I would like to be, but I've, know of E-M-D-R a little bit. How do you like to explain it to people or suggest it to people when you're working?

Kim Richards 49:33

So. My routine way of explaining EMDR, and I should probably add this to my website now that I'm thinking about it 'cause they say it all the time. But if you think about a, a big stock pot on the front burner of the stove and it's just boiling and it's almost like to the point where it's boiling over all of this stuff that's just churning, right?

Bethany Valenti 49:53

Hmm.

Kim Richards 49:54

EMDR takes that, walks up, turns the burner off with pot holders, picks up that pot and moves it to the back burner so it creates distance. It takes the heat down and over time, right? It takes, it drops the heat pretty significantly, pretty quickly. But over time, that whole, the water being the emotion, it kind of settles it, it cools it down. But the pot is the memory. The memory's still there. There's distance. It's, it's on the back burner. So there's that space. It's not coming up and impacting your life all the time, but it's also not bubbling over. So the frequency, the duration, and the intensity of the emotion has settled. And

Bethany Valenti 50:38

Mm.

Kim Richards 50:39

of how I explain EMDR.

Bethany Valenti 50:41

No, I love it. Is is your brain the stove top?

Kim Richards 50:47

Um,

Bethany Valenti 50:48

Am I taking it too far?

Kim Richards 50:50

I hadn't thought about that, but I kind of feel like, yeah, because if you

Bethany Valenti 50:53

Because like the pot's still there and you're setting it?

Kim Richards 50:56

there,

Bethany Valenti 50:57

Yeah.

Kim Richards 50:57

and it's interesting that you say that because maybe I, I knew this and just never put words to it, but what we're really doing in EMDR is taking some of that, that, heightened emotional memory piece. 'cause it, it is the emotional memory and we're reprocessing and, and we're being able to connect it with your prefrontal cortex. Like your, what I call like your forehead V eight moment where you,

Bethany Valenti 51:23

Oh my God.

Kim Richards 51:24

and make decisions.

Bethany Valenti 51:27

It had a V eight. Oh, you don't even know what that just did to me. Okay. Aw no. I like, I remember those commercials. My mom used to do that. She would be like, oh, could have had a V eight when she like forgot stuff.

Kim Richards 51:42

Well, like I always think of like, they were always smacking their head

Bethany Valenti 51:46

Yes.

Kim Richards 51:47

Right? And so it's kind of like when you think about it in moving it from that front burner, the limbic system into that back burner, or you know, that prefrontal cortex, it's a similar thing where now you have words. You have language, you can actually talk about what happened if you need to, versus just being flooded with the emotion of it. So in, in this instance, I think yes, we could say that the stove is the brain.

Bethany Valenti 52:12

That's the brain. Yeah. I always love a good metaphor. I'm always like, so then I'm like, so are you the oven? Okay, so that's how you like to explain it. how do you like to explain if someone were to be like, but like, how do you, I mean, are you most of the clients like that you get kind of familiar with it already or do you have to sort of sell them on like, Hey, you're gonna be moving your eyes back and forth on this thing.

Kim Richards 52:38

most of my clients are pretty familiar with it. A lot of my clients actually come to me for EMDR in particular. so the majority of them have some level of awareness, I think, of what EMDR is. And initially when I started, a lot of people really didn't know what it was. and now a lot more people do

Bethany Valenti 52:59

Mm-hmm.

Kim Richards 53:00

but if it's like, well, how does it actually work? The, the honest answer is we're not a hundred percent sure.

Bethany Valenti 53:08

Thank you for saying that. Yeah. The honest answer is we don't really know why it works. We just know it works really damn well.

Kim Richards 53:15

Right. And what we do know is that when we do EMDR, it lights up the same areas of the brain that light up during REM sleep. And so when you're reprocessing things at night in your dream state, seems like it's doing the same work that EMDR is doing.

Bethany Valenti 53:34

Mm-hmm.

Kim Richards 53:34

I think the difference, or at least the way that I understand it, and the way it's been explained to me is that when you, like, let's say you have a challenging conversation with somebody and you go to bed and you're kind of dreaming about it, and the next day you wake up and you go, oh, if I, if I go back to them and I say, blah, blah, blah, and you have that kind of solution like you've processed through it and you've gotten to the other side. But with trauma, it kind of gets stuck in that emotional state.

Bethany Valenti 54:02

Mm,

Kim Richards 54:02

not be words for that prefrontal cortex, that logical V eight place

Bethany Valenti 54:07

yeah.

Kim Richards 54:08

to kick in and help you make sense. And with EMDR, it helps unlock what stuck and allow it to process through to get to that place of, okay, this,

Bethany Valenti 54:19

Yeah,

Kim Richards 54:20

this might be.

Bethany Valenti 54:21

yeah,

Kim Richards 54:22

that's, that's my understanding, but we don't 100% know exactly what's doing it.

Bethany Valenti 54:28

yeah.

Kim Richards 54:29

mm-hmm.

Bethany Valenti 54:29

When I was in one of my trainings on it in grad school, this one supervisor who was doing the training on it, um, and he like played a video, like it was, I forget if, I think it was like an old news recording, and this lady was sort of like explaining what it was, and he was like, ig, ignore all this. This is not like, it was, uh, it was a, it was supposed to be a therapist who like specialized in it at the time, and that probably given, would've been like. 20 years ago, probably now. So we probably said a lot of stuff that we now are like, Hmm. You know, back then he was like, just, this is, he actually said it's bullshit. She was like, it does things on each side of the bri.

Kim Richards 55:04

so part of it is what I, I'm guessing is each side of the brain, that's the bilateral, so your brain's divided into two hemispheres.

Bethany Valenti 55:12

Yeah.

Kim Richards 55:12

You're actually stimulating them, kind of opposite of each other through the stimulation. So the

Bethany Valenti 55:19

Mm-hmm.

Kim Richards 55:20

or the tappers. Um, and even you and I had talked off, off mic, um, I've done it with olfactory queuing where I'm using

Bethany Valenti 55:30

Yeah.

Kim Richards 55:31

specifically to cue certain things. and I use essential oils in a certain sequence to do that

Bethany Valenti 55:37

That's so cool.

Kim Richards 55:39

There's that

Bethany Valenti 55:40

Yeah.

Kim Richards 55:41

our, our, um, olfactory bulb, so when you inhale, our olfactory bulb actually loops around and is right there with the limbic

Bethany Valenti 55:49

Yeah.

Kim Richards 55:49

So if you

Bethany Valenti 55:50

Do you remember, speaking of commercials, the scent is the sense closest tied to memory

Kim Richards 55:55

but that's gonna say is that's

Bethany Valenti 55:56

Yeah,

Kim Richards 55:56

it. Like scent is so

Bethany Valenti 55:58

yeah,

Kim Richards 55:58

tied to memory, which is why, scent can be such a trigger for trauma survivors.

Bethany Valenti 56:04

Absolutely.

Kim Richards 56:05

in particular, that I've worked with, I work with an organization called Got Your Six, and they provide service dogs free of charge to veterans and first responders with PTSD. And they are amazing.

Bethany Valenti 56:15

I love that

Kim Richards 56:16

in, the Midwest.

Bethany Valenti 56:20

they'll get an extra brownie point from me if they get those service dogs trained by inmates. Those are like my favorite.

Kim Richards 56:29

well

Bethany Valenti 56:29

Love those.

Kim Richards 56:30

the service dogs trained by volunteers.

Bethany Valenti 56:33

Well, we love, we love a good volunteer. Thank you. Volunteers.

Kim Richards 56:36

So, so my, part of what I do with them is teach them how to add that aroma into their toolkit as another coping strategy, but also how to do a reset. that whole process, I had to figure out like, why is this working in the brain?

Bethany Valenti 56:53

Yeah.

Kim Richards 56:54

that they would talk about is, had to be careful because certain essential oils don't smell like certain things to me. But for a veteran is very interesting. There was one, and, I had to figure out how to swap it out and what to use instead because

Bethany Valenti 57:10

Yeah.

Kim Richards 57:10

they all said to me, it smells like burning rubber. So I took it to my husband and he goes, oh, it totally smells like burning rubber.

Bethany Valenti 57:16

Wow.

Kim Richards 57:17

like. And he goes, yeah. And so

Bethany Valenti 57:20

What did it smell like to you?

Kim Richards 57:23

to me, it, it didn't smell like burning rubber.

Bethany Valenti 57:25

Okay. We just know that it didn't, it's not what it was.

Kim Richards 57:28

kind of

Bethany Valenti 57:29

Yeah,

Kim Richards 57:31

I don't even know at this point. And so I figured out kind of how to do that. But it is, for them that would've, that was a trigger because of the burning rubber and having to set tires on fire when they were

Bethany Valenti 57:44

yeah,

Kim Richards 57:45

in an active combat zone, those kinds of things. So

Bethany Valenti 57:49

yeah,

Kim Richards 57:50

huge. And I'm like, this makes sense, but it, that's a trigger. So it's having to know that

Bethany Valenti 57:55

yeah. Because so I, I appreciate you saying that. 'cause when you said it smells like burning rubber, my brain was like, oh, combat, like, immediately, like in, in different environments. So when you're doing the, olfactory stuff, the, essential oils for bilateral stimulation, you don't want a triggering one. You want one that'll just kinda highlight both sides of the brain.

Kim Richards 58:16

So what it does is it actually goes into the limbic system, through the olfactory bulb, which is kind of

Bethany Valenti 58:25

That.

Kim Richards 58:25

it. I see the image in my head, which is

Bethany Valenti 58:27

Yep.

Kim Richards 58:28

I'm

Bethany Valenti 58:28

I know, I know. Yeah. We'll find an image and maybe we'll just put it up like I'll edit it or something. Oh, do you have one?

Kim Richards 58:35

I,

Bethany Valenti 58:36

got everything?

Kim Richards 58:37

so

Bethany Valenti 58:37

Ooh,

Kim Richards 58:38

the

Bethany Valenti 58:38

okay.

Kim Richards 58:39

bulb. So like you breathe in, I don't have a nose, but like you breathe in through your nose to the olfactory bulb

Bethany Valenti 58:44

Mm-hmm.

Kim Richards 58:45

kind of like comes right into this

Bethany Valenti 58:47

Yes.

Kim Richards 58:48

orange part, the limbic system. I wanna say maybe here is

Bethany Valenti 58:52

Yeah.

Kim Richards 58:52

I think the amygdala, if I'm

Bethany Valenti 58:54

Yep, yep. You are pointing. That is exactly where you're pointing, which is where we get our like strong emotions, like fear and stuff, right? Yep.

Kim Richards 59:01

And over here, somewhere

Bethany Valenti 59:04

Hippocampus. No, you are remarkably on target. I can't, you, you would be so proud of yourself.

Kim Richards 59:10

should be,

Bethany Valenti 59:11

Yes. Um, right on the hippocampus, which is tied to memory, right.

Kim Richards 59:14

There you go. And then hold on. So here-ish somewhere.

Bethany Valenti 59:21

You are literally pointing at the spot of the thalamus. I feel like you're pranking me right now. I feel like you can see this. You're doing great.

Kim Richards 59:29

Um, but I know this is so funny. I know where my wrist should be in relation to the edge of this chart.

Bethany Valenti 59:35

This is so impressive.

Kim Richards 59:36

somewhere I think is,

Bethany Valenti 59:38

it. You just cheated. Sorry.

Kim Richards 59:40

am I

Bethany Valenti 59:40

just did the every,

Kim Richards 59:44

Okay.

Bethany Valenti 59:45

oh, great. Yep.

Kim Richards 59:46

of it. Okay. So I will be honest. Like, so I know like hand wise

Bethany Valenti 59:52

Yeah.

Kim Richards 59:52

this should be.

Bethany Valenti 59:55

It's the amygdala.

Kim Richards 59:56

it's the amygdala because it's actually, the white paper part is resting on the first knuckle of my middle finger. So when I extend my, my pointer finger, I know it should be there. And I know that if I slide over to my middle finger, that that's where the hippocampus should be. So it's really just spatial reasoning.

Bethany Valenti 1:00:17

Witchcraft.

Kim Richards 1:00:20

Totally spatial reasoning. That's all that it is. And then I'm like, all right, well, if I go north

Bethany Valenti 1:00:25

You're gonna go north. You're right on the, yep. Oh my god.

Kim Richards 1:00:28

I

Bethany Valenti 1:00:28

Stop.

Kim Richards 1:00:28

Down to kind of like where my ring fingers vent and come over, um, then I, it should be close to now. I can't remember where I am.

Bethany Valenti 1:00:39

So you are on where You guess now I'm gonna make you're, if you, are you trying to be on the hypothalamus? 'cause that's exactly where,

Kim Richards 1:00:47

So yes, the hypothalamus, but over here somewhere is your, your V eight prefrontal

Bethany Valenti 1:00:52

yep. Frontal lobe.

Kim Richards 1:00:53

where that is.

Bethany Valenti 1:00:55

It's that general area. Yeah.

Kim Richards 1:00:56

here somewhere.

Bethany Valenti 1:00:58

All that right there.

Kim Richards 1:00:59

that's, that's the little brain diagram that I

Bethany Valenti 1:01:02

Yes.

Kim Richards 1:01:04

but that's part of it is how it all loops around and how it's so strongly connected. So with that, I have some clients who get too anxious of like, am I holding my head straight enough? Am I doing the eyes right? Am I, and they

Bethany Valenti 1:01:17

Mm-hmm.

Kim Richards 1:01:17

getting too into the overthinking.

Bethany Valenti 1:01:21

Yeah. Especially if you get those perfectionistic clients of trying to do it right. Yeah.

Kim Richards 1:01:24

And so I have some who they can move past that, but I have some who are like, just gimme the oils. Like, let me smell this stuff, let me, let me use that. and then I have some clients

Bethany Valenti 1:01:37

Is that all they're doing? Are they doing like the, are they looking at it while using the oils or,

Kim Richards 1:01:43

As of right now, I just have them smelling the oil

Bethany Valenti 1:01:46

okay. Okay.

Kim Richards 1:01:47

so I use the different scents

Bethany Valenti 1:01:50

Mm-hmm.

Kim Richards 1:01:50

more the stimulation versus, um, so if you think about it, like with the bilateral stimulation, you can turn the, the ball up, right? Or

Bethany Valenti 1:02:02

Yes.

Kim Richards 1:02:02

up. So it could be

Bethany Valenti 1:02:03

Yes.

Kim Richards 1:02:04

slower if you

Bethany Valenti 1:02:05

Lower.

Kim Richards 1:02:06

want it to be stimulating and you want it to be calming, right? So if I want it to be calming, it's a calming smell versus something that would be more activating, that would be going a little faster where you're processing material. So it's, working on it. I'm still figuring some of it out,

Bethany Valenti 1:02:23

Still. Super cool. So, okay, you and your clients are doing this while going through memories. and one of the big things in terms of like structure of what EMDR would look like is that you meet with them and you're not immediately doing this. You're developing a relationship first, because that's kind of what matters most. Right.

Kim Richards 1:02:44

Right.

Bethany Valenti 1:02:45

and then you do a lot of prep work, correct?

Kim Richards 1:02:48

Oh yeah. There's a lot of prep work. So it's making sure that, that they're not gonna get flooded, that they have, um, you know, any MDR, it's considered resourcing, so tools that they can use to help them. So. kind of like with veterans, we will use different things. So you know how to do a reset, certain scents like our uplifting. So if you think about orange, When you peel that orange and you get that little burst, a lot of people think that burst is juice and it's really the actual essential oil from the orange peel. And so that, that's why it's kind of on your fingers longer,

Bethany Valenti 1:03:25

Hmm.

Kim Richards 1:03:26

And you get that kind of, for most people, that's a really kind of refreshing, uplifting scent.

Bethany Valenti 1:03:32

I know young living calls it like energy or whatever. Like they'll have like an energy one that has a bunch of citrus stuff or what.

Kim Richards 1:03:38

Um, so there's energy, you know, I, I do talk to people about like, where does it come from? 'cause some people are like, ah, and I'm like, no. Like I'm not, it's not some magical witchcraft kind of thing. but a lot of my folks like that because it's easier and it's just a matter of being like, oh. Kind of processing through it,

Bethany Valenti 1:03:58

Okay.

Kim Richards 1:03:59

then going

Bethany Valenti 1:04:00

Yeah. So that's part of the soothing. Yeah.

Kim Richards 1:04:02

Yeah. And so some of it's soothing, some of it's a little bit more activating. there's a blend that I specifically use that I make myself, that has certain components in it that are soothing, but also like grounding, calming, soothing, but together they also access or seem to be accessing. I don't know how to get people, like, I don't know if we could pet scan people and see what's happening in their brain at the same time to compare like this with traditional EMDR, with like sleep studies.

Bethany Valenti 1:04:33

Yeah.

Kim Richards 1:04:33

be awesome.

Bethany Valenti 1:04:34

Yeah.

Kim Richards 1:04:35

So some of my clients are totally down with it. Love it. Some of my clients are hardcore, like, just gimme the ball.

Bethany Valenti 1:04:42

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Kim Richards 1:04:44

it's that kind of thing of shifting and making sure before we get to phase four, which is that reprocessing that they have things in order,

Bethany Valenti 1:04:52

Yeah. Can we talk about the phases real quick for someone who may not understand, which includes me? I mean, I know of them, but yeah.

Kim Richards 1:04:59

yeah, no, totally fine. The EMDR protocol is an eight phase approach, and so you have history taking and preparation and resourcing before you even get to reprocessing. So it's a little, it's a little tricky, I think to wrap your head around initially, because phase one and two may take longer. Phase three is really like where, what's the memory that we're working on and kind of piecing out the parts that go to that, and then phase four. Right. You go from that treatment planning into, okay, we're reprocessing. But in that reprocessing, you might do phase four and be in phase four for, you know, a couple weeks, a couple months, depending on the level of, and severity of trauma. It could even be a couple of years. Um, for some folks it could be you're in phase four and then you're in phase, and in the same session it might be 4, 5, 6, and then you're, you're kind of closing out that session seven

Bethany Valenti 1:06:02

Yeah. Super client led, right? Like you're really going off of where they're at. Yeah.

Kim Richards 1:06:07

And I think it depends. So if you're doing like a traditional therapy clinical hour, you know, 50 to 60 minutes, you might not get through the whole thing. But if you're doing an intensive and you're working together for three hours, you might do four or 5, 6, 7 close out. And then phase eight would be the next meeting where you're doing that reevaluation and touching base of, Hey, what have you noticed kind of in life in general? And also what have you noticed based on whatever the material is that we've been working on. and kind of touching base. And then that kind of, that's the, I hate to say the jump off point, but it's what's happening, how disturbing is that and what do we need to go in with to continue that reprocessing in the next session? And so that's kind of, so for a lot of folks it's like one, two, and even in a three might take a little while to do once you start to get into. Like the reprocessing, you might keep going on that for a while and then like things will settle and it's like, oh, well my distress score feels neutral, or kind of like it's at a zero, or I love my one client. It's like a, it's at a 0.12, it's at a 0.2, 2 6 7. Right.

Bethany Valenti 1:07:25

Very precise.

Kim Richards 1:07:27

right. so it's kind of like figuring out what that is. But it definitely is like, okay. And then you might go to the next thing and kind of go from there.

Bethany Valenti 1:07:38

Mm-hmm.

Kim Richards 1:07:39

there

Bethany Valenti 1:07:40

and when you say the next thing is that the target, because I, I remember that being a target. So like I, so you're going memory specific, right? Like,

Kim Richards 1:07:50

protocol is memory specific.

Bethany Valenti 1:07:51

okay,

Kim Richards 1:07:52

there's a multitude of protocols.

Bethany Valenti 1:07:55

Okay.

Kim Richards 1:07:56

So like protocols for, um, anger. There's protocols for, depression. There's protocols for anxiety, there's protocols for OCD. I'm trying to think of like

Bethany Valenti 1:08:07

Wow,

Kim Richards 1:08:07

things off the top of my head. drug and alcohol, like substance abuse type stuff. There's, so many and I think that's a huge part of, of it is that it's flexible enough to be able to do things. Um, we,

Bethany Valenti 1:08:23

we know much about the research of those protocols? Like are they pretty decent, like in terms of effectiveness?

Kim Richards 1:08:29

are decent

Bethany Valenti 1:08:30

are? Okay.

Kim Richards 1:08:31

Um, other protocols out there short? know all of them off the top of my

Bethany Valenti 1:08:36

No, I wouldn't ask that of you. Which ones do you do?

Kim Richards 1:08:42

I do rtab Gtab. I have done the OCD, the drug and alcohol, the anger, depression, anxiety.

Bethany Valenti 1:08:53

you just tell me what R tab and G ttab are?

Kim Richards 1:08:56

Art. That's totally fine. R TAP is recent Traumatic episodes protocol.

Bethany Valenti 1:09:01

That just makes sense.

Kim Richards 1:09:03

right. and GTAP is the group protocol. So if you have, let's say like a natural disaster

Bethany Valenti 1:09:11

Okay.

Kim Richards 1:09:11

you have a bunch of folks, you could do recent, you can do recent one-on-one, you could do recent. with a group setting. With the group. The group actually is easier because you are giving them kind of. A space. So it's like almost like a special worksheet, but it has, so they're moving their hand and watching their hand go back and forth between to actually create that bilateral stimulation. And it's really amazing to me how well that

Bethany Valenti 1:09:44

Yeah.

Kim Richards 1:09:45

so, like if we think like hurricane, earthquake,

Bethany Valenti 1:09:49

Yeah.

Kim Richards 1:09:50

fires, things like that, like those are things we could do immediately to help decrease. And especially the like recent traumatic episode. That's great because EMDR really isn't meant to be used, of like at, at the trauma, right? So the RT a P is really helpful, like within, I wanna say it's like two weeks of the trauma

Bethany Valenti 1:10:13

Wow.

Kim Richards 1:10:13

thing. it's really kind of getting into that. So you don't, the memory doesn't get solidified.

Bethany Valenti 1:10:19

Okay.

Kim Richards 1:10:20

Get stuck. So

Bethany Valenti 1:10:21

Yeah.

Kim Richards 1:10:22

able to help process and move it,

Bethany Valenti 1:10:24

Mm-hmm.

Kim Richards 1:10:25

much more quickly.

Bethany Valenti 1:10:27

Okay. Yeah. I just wanna make sure I didn't get us off track with that. 'cause we were talking about the phases, right. and I mentioned the target. So with the traditional trauma focused EMDR, we're going off of target memory potentially at a time. And it might be that one memory, once that is addressed can kind of have like a big enough of an impact where somebody might be like, I'm good. We can run through the phases. if they find that it comes up, like it's still ongoing. We're picking a different target memory then

Kim Richards 1:11:01

so the target memory, you really wanna try as a therapist to pick the one that's going to either the earliest. Or the,

Bethany Valenti 1:11:12

most.

Kim Richards 1:11:13

impactful.

Bethany Valenti 1:11:14

Yeah.

Kim Richards 1:11:15

And so they're kind of what you're looking for.

Bethany Valenti 1:11:19

Mm-hmm.

Kim Richards 1:11:20

the, so it's that, so when you're doing that reprocessing, I kind of think of it as like old school Pacman. I feel like everybody's gonna know, like, my age based on these references.

Bethany Valenti 1:11:34

Oh, I love it. My son loves Pacman. What are you talking about?

Kim Richards 1:11:36

okay. But it's, it's that whole idea of like pacman's kind of going along and it's okay, well we ate that memory and that memory and that memory, and it's clearing these memories. And sometimes they seem to not be related in any way, shape, or form. And so in that reprocessing, there's a check-in, so it's like you're reprocessing and then I'll pause. And I normally ask my clients to take a breath. I do it with them so they don't feel weird about it. I paused the stimuli. I'm like, you know, take a, a big inhale, like, and exhale. Let it out. Like let it go. What are you noticing? And I don't say a whole lot. And that I think is one of the things, with most of my clients, I caution them like, I'm not gonna talk a lot when we're reprocessing. I need to not get in the way. And so they'll tell me, oh, this and this, and this and this. And sometimes I'm going, how did we get over there? And I'm like, all right

Bethany Valenti 1:12:27

Mm,

Kim Richards 1:12:28

Like, and I just let their brain go where it needs to go. And usually by the time we get done, I'm like, oh,

Bethany Valenti 1:12:34

mm-hmm.

Kim Richards 1:12:35

this is what they were doing

Bethany Valenti 1:12:35

Yes. Yeah. And they're talking about those things while. The ball or whatever is gonna Oh,

Kim Richards 1:12:43

the ball

Bethany Valenti 1:12:44

oh, okay.

Kim Richards 1:12:44

not talking while they're processing,

Bethany Valenti 1:12:46

Okay.

Kim Richards 1:12:47

of giving me. Usually a brief summary. I have had a couple of clients who are like, hold on. And they give me every detail of everything, so it makes it a little slower,

Bethany Valenti 1:12:57

Hmm

Kim Richards 1:12:57

reprocessing. And then I have other clients who They've worked with me long enough

Bethany Valenti 1:13:03

mm-hmm.

Kim Richards 1:13:03

they'll say things like, it's moving. Let's go. I'm like,

Bethany Valenti 1:13:07

Okay.

Kim Richards 1:13:07

And I have no idea. It's kind of flying blind

Bethany Valenti 1:13:10

Yeah,

Kim Richards 1:13:11

what they're reprocessing. And we'll do rounds and they're like, it's moving. I gotta go. And I'm like, okay. And I'll turn it back

Bethany Valenti 1:13:16

because

Kim Richards 1:13:17

we get to

Bethany Valenti 1:13:17

'cause they're like feel 'cause they're like feeling something.

Kim Richards 1:13:20

because the materials reprocessing and they've worked. I mean, these are people who've worked with me for a couple years so they know what it's supposed to look like. And then we'll get to the end of the session and they go, okay, here's everything I need to tell you. But they have the awareness that if they switch too long, telling me what's happening, they're going back into that prefrontal cortex.

Bethany Valenti 1:13:43

Uhhuh.

Kim Richards 1:13:44

they know they wanna stay in that limbic reprocessing to move the material. So they're actually really have that awareness. And I'm like, okay. And we have enough trust in each other to be

Bethany Valenti 1:13:57

Okay.

Kim Richards 1:13:57

that. for a lot of my clients, they can feel it and they can see it.

Bethany Valenti 1:14:01

Wow.

Kim Richards 1:14:03

I think I have two clients who actually can't visualize things so that it's a little bit more challenging. not undoable. So like those are folks who, if you say, you know, vis tell, like picture an apple, right? There's no picture in their brain. Right.

Bethany Valenti 1:14:22

Yes. Yes. I've heard of those people. Yeah. Yeah.

Kim Richards 1:14:25

folks who are like, you know, well, I have a green apple and I have

Bethany Valenti 1:14:29

Mm-hmm.

Kim Richards 1:14:30

like, right. And they can tell you like, this apple has a

Bethany Valenti 1:14:32

Conceptually. Yeah. Yeah. Like some people are like Apple, like I, there's no visual

Kim Richards 1:14:38

Yeah. And so it's a little, trickier with those folks. But for folks who have that visual there, the directions actually are like, imagine it either like on a, on a movie screen, kind of up a front in front of you where you're watching it, so you're not reliving it, you're watching it. Or if you're sitting on a train kind of watching the window and seeing all the scenery go by watching that, that way. So those are the. The two that I tend to go to for how to explain that piece. So it's not a reliving it, but it's again, creating that distance of

Bethany Valenti 1:15:12

The distance.

Kim Richards 1:15:13

watching and noticing

Bethany Valenti 1:15:14

Yeah.

Kim Richards 1:15:14

as your adult self seeing what happened to you when you

Bethany Valenti 1:15:17

Yeah.

Kim Richards 1:15:18

a little boy or a little girl.

Bethany Valenti 1:15:20

you didn't have that fully developed prefrontal cortex.

Kim Richards 1:15:23

Correct. And so

Bethany Valenti 1:15:24

Yeah.

Kim Richards 1:15:24

processing part. Most of my clients are going to say, I'm noticing blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, okay. And so, you know, if they are too kind of disconnected or whatever. Sometimes I'm like, when you think about where we started, what are you noticing?

Bethany Valenti 1:15:40

Mm-hmm.

Kim Richards 1:15:41

this, okay, go with that when you go back and start there.

Bethany Valenti 1:15:45

Mm-hmm.

Kim Richards 1:15:45

so that's kind of the direction they go. And so once they get to a place where they're like, it's neutral, then it's like, okay, is there anything else coming up? You know, how does this new mindset or this new positive statement about you in that situation connect, clearing out anything in the body and being able to kind of get to that place of like, okay, like I'm,

Bethany Valenti 1:16:12

Yeah.

Kim Richards 1:16:12

feeling pretty good. And so when I talk about the next thing, most of my clients have kind of C-P T-S-D type stuff, so they're not coming in with an, what I consider an encapsulated trauma.

Bethany Valenti 1:16:25

Mm-hmm.

Kim Richards 1:16:25

for some of my folks, an encapsulated trauma might be, like traumatic grief,

Bethany Valenti 1:16:31

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Kim Richards 1:16:32

of a loved one unexpectedly or in an unexpected way.

Bethany Valenti 1:16:37

Or like just a really like visceral way, yeah.

Kim Richards 1:16:41

So that might be, so the two that I'm thinking of that popped into my head, were both, traumatic grief and they came in and we pro we, that was all we focused on. That was all the work they

Bethany Valenti 1:16:53

Yeah.

Kim Richards 1:16:54

do. And we processed through that and they were, it was maybe 12 to 15 sessions

Bethany Valenti 1:17:01

Okay.

Kim Richards 1:17:02

and they were done. And that included like the intake and the kind of closing graduation session,

Bethany Valenti 1:17:08

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Kim Richards 1:17:10

it went pretty quickly. and they had a good amount of relief and they were people who were, who were experiencing kind of nightmares and intrusive thoughts and things

Bethany Valenti 1:17:19

Mm.

Kim Richards 1:17:19

that

Bethany Valenti 1:17:19

Mm-hmm.

Kim Richards 1:17:20

these deaths and stuff. And so it really cleared those things out for them. It doesn't necessarily mean they're not gonna miss the person who

Bethany Valenti 1:17:28

Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Just like processing, maybe like an abuse of somebody. you're not like just fine with it, right? Like, yeah, it doesn't sound like it's removing every single like feeling or, you know, connection that you have to the rest of the world. But it, like you said, turns it down, gives you space, and you can navigate the world differently.

Kim Richards 1:17:54

Correct. It's not men in black, we can't just like, like erase your memory.

Bethany Valenti 1:17:58

man, these references are bringing me so much joy right now. So Great. What does he say? Hey, take a look at this. Like, say that. Yeah. Oh, I was fascinated by that, when that came out.

Kim Richards 1:18:12

I do have clients who think that that's

Bethany Valenti 1:18:15

that's what it is.

Kim Richards 1:18:15

and I'm

Bethany Valenti 1:18:15

Yeah. I think.

Kim Richards 1:18:17

it's not a

Bethany Valenti 1:18:17

Helpful. That's a super helpful, like clear up thing to clear up. Yeah. Good point to make.

Kim Richards 1:18:23

yeah.

Bethany Valenti 1:18:24

Yeah. That's so smart.

Kim Richards 1:18:25

it doesn't erase it, but it does settle it.

Bethany Valenti 1:18:29

Yeah. Yeah. Kim, I'm very aware of the time.

Kim Richards 1:18:34

that too.

Bethany Valenti 1:18:34

I can talk to you forever. This is so much fun.

Kim Richards 1:18:39

I could talk to you forever too.

Bethany Valenti 1:18:40

you are a treasure, a joy. do you feel like this is a good switch to wrap up? Questions? Do. Are we at a decent stopping point? Okay.

Kim Richards 1:18:49

I think so.

Bethany Valenti 1:18:50

we can always have you back. Um, happy to, happy to have you. Yes. where are you licensed?

Kim Richards 1:18:57

I am, I'm licensed in Pennsylvania, Vermont, New Hampshire. looking into Iowa currently, and I'm PSYPACT I'm not even sure how many states

Bethany Valenti 1:19:09

Yeah, that would, I think it's supposed to be like 42.

Kim Richards 1:19:12

so it's, it's, I mean, if you, if you Google, if anybody wanted to Google like the PSYPACT map

Bethany Valenti 1:19:19

Yep.

Kim Richards 1:19:20

say

Bethany Valenti 1:19:20

That's just, yeah, you, it's such, it's a great visual. It just pops as soon as you literally just, uh, Google PsyPact Map and it pops up like in all those. Yeah, it's helpful.

Kim Richards 1:19:31

top of my head, I'm like, there's only a handful I

Bethany Valenti 1:19:34

That don't now. Yeah. Which is really nice. Yeah. do you have openings?

Kim Richards 1:19:40

I probably have a few openings, but I have a couple people who are likely to be graduating soon.

Bethany Valenti 1:19:47

Alright.

Kim Richards 1:19:48

so I think there, there may be a few more openings.

Bethany Valenti 1:19:52

Okay. And you mentioned your theoretical orientation. Is it primarily psychodynamic or is there more

Kim Richards 1:20:02

I would say I'm probably more eclectic,

Bethany Valenti 1:20:05

Okay.

Kim Richards 1:20:06

so I pull from a lot of different things, depending on what the client needs. the psychodynamic piece was, I really wanted to understand how my, I actually got into it because my mentor was talking to me about certain things and I was like, how do you know how to ask these questions?

Bethany Valenti 1:20:22

Cool.

Kim Richards 1:20:22

dearly. She's in her seventies now, and in my head, the beauty of my brain is that everybody is my age. so even though she's in her seventies, I'm like, yeah. In my brain you're not, you're like

Bethany Valenti 1:20:34

Yeah,

Kim Richards 1:20:35

Like,

Bethany Valenti 1:20:36

yeah, yeah.

Kim Richards 1:20:36

like

Bethany Valenti 1:20:37

fine.

Kim Richards 1:20:37

all the same age. I still think I'm 28.

Bethany Valenti 1:20:40

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Kim Richards 1:20:41

but I also think that I should have the same knowledge base that she has. So that's actually how I ended up doing the advanced, psychodynamic psychotherapy certificate program because I was like, I wanna understand the impact of our relationships and it's so we can talk about this another time, but how it impacts with trauma especially and what that push pull is in the attachment piece

Bethany Valenti 1:21:04

Yeah. do you take insurance? You said

Kim Richards 1:21:08

I do not.

Bethany Valenti 1:21:08

You do not primarily, right? Yeah, partly, like you said, because it's such a pain. or some of this more complex work that you do, and what's your current fee?

Kim Richards 1:21:21

So it depends. So I do have a couple sliding scale spots. They're currently full. but my hourly rate is 2 65.

Bethany Valenti 1:21:31

Okay. And you said you're a hundred percent online except for the medical reason with that one person. Correct. what do you nerd out about?

Kim Richards 1:21:44

What do I nerd out about? Um, integrative health, I really nerd out about integrative health. Like

Bethany Valenti 1:21:53

Yeah,

Kim Richards 1:21:55

to the point where I actually am pondering, um, going back to school for an ND which would be a naturopathic doctor, because. I can't pick the thing that I wanna nerd out the most on.

Bethany Valenti 1:22:10

yeah,

Kim Richards 1:22:10

so that covers all of them.

Bethany Valenti 1:22:12

yeah. You are like, it'll just give me everything. One stop shop.

Kim Richards 1:22:16

well, if I'm gonna invest, do I do all of these things or do I just do this one thing that covers all of those things? So, um, and my husband just shakes his head because at this point he knows, and he is like, you, you just have to be in school.

Bethany Valenti 1:22:30

You just have to be in school. I understand. Yeah. Yeah.

Kim Richards 1:22:34

So he, he did ask me to take this year off before I opt into any other programs.

Bethany Valenti 1:22:42

Take a break please. Do you have any pets?

Kim Richards 1:22:45

I do. I have two rescue dogs.

Bethany Valenti 1:22:48

Aw. And so anything that you're super into right now that you're watching, reading, doing?

Kim Richards 1:22:59

I love to read, so I,

Bethany Valenti 1:23:01

I know.

Kim Richards 1:23:01

I'm always reading something. Oh, I wish I could remember the book series. It's, I wanna say the author is Fiona Baker, possibly.

Bethany Valenti 1:23:13

You know that name?

Kim Richards 1:23:15

it's, I think that's, yeah, it is Fiona Baker and

Bethany Valenti 1:23:18

Nice,

Kim Richards 1:23:18

like a beach side series and it's this

Bethany Valenti 1:23:21

fun,

Kim Richards 1:23:21

island, Marigold island. I'm on the third book and it's super cute because it's kind of like, I, it's kind of nice because it's these two friends who, the whole series starts with two friends who reconnect coming back home to the island. the one's husband has passed. The other one is in the process of like determining whether or not she wants a divorce and they buy this kind of dilapidated in and fix it up.

Bethany Valenti 1:23:48

Oh.

Kim Richards 1:23:49

impact of on all of like the family members around them

Bethany Valenti 1:23:52

Mm-hmm.

Kim Richards 1:23:53

these different dreams. So it's this very entrepreneurial spirit, which I think I connect strongly

Bethany Valenti 1:23:58

Mm-hmm.

Kim Richards 1:23:59

in addition to. You know, just these really kind of, I wanna say like, it's a nice, clean kind of romance. It's not, it's just like the actual connection and then the dynamics of these relationships and how they're supportive and how they handle disagreements and things like that. So that's probably my, thing right now.

Bethany Valenti 1:24:23

I love it. I love that so much. That's so cool. And are you a coffee or tea person?

Kim Richards 1:24:29

Um, probably more tea. I've

Bethany Valenti 1:24:32

Mm-hmm.

Kim Richards 1:24:32

I've never had coffee in my life.

Bethany Valenti 1:24:35

Well, I would probably say tea too. Probably more tea with tea because I go with tea. 'cause I really actually never had coffee. Ever.

Kim Richards 1:24:51

No.

Bethany Valenti 1:24:53

Yes.

Kim Richards 1:24:54

Although interestingly I just found a really great recipe for a, high protein, hot chocolate that's

Bethany Valenti 1:25:02

Ooh.

Kim Richards 1:25:02

You make it using bone broth.

Bethany Valenti 1:25:05

Yeah, I could see that. Yeah.

Kim Richards 1:25:08

husband is like, this is the most amazing hot chocolate ever. So

Bethany Valenti 1:25:12

Ooh.

Kim Richards 1:25:13

he's kind of excited that it's gotten chillier.

Bethany Valenti 1:25:16

Mm.

Kim Richards 1:25:17

'cause he's like, alright,

Bethany Valenti 1:25:19

Yeah. Well, do you,

Kim Richards 1:25:20

that,

Bethany Valenti 1:25:21

do you even like hot or do you even like tea, or are you more of a hot chocolate, like other warm beverages then?

Kim Richards 1:25:27

I do like tea. I

Bethany Valenti 1:25:28

Okay, okay,

Kim Richards 1:25:29

like green tea, spearmint tea, I guess tocino

Bethany Valenti 1:25:34

Oh,

Kim Richards 1:25:35

the dandelion stuff.

Bethany Valenti 1:25:36

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Kim Richards 1:25:38

So

Bethany Valenti 1:25:38

Nice.

Kim Richards 1:25:39

yeah.

Bethany Valenti 1:25:42

what would you say is your least favorite misconception about the work that we do? You do.

Kim Richards 1:25:51

That we all sit around like bobblehead dolls and nod our head, because some people do.

Bethany Valenti 1:25:55

The blank slate thing. Mm-hmm.

Kim Richards 1:25:58

of us in the field are not just nodding along to whatever

Bethany Valenti 1:26:02

Yeah.

Kim Richards 1:26:02

or client is saying. I think we're really doing pretty intense work with folks I feel like that doesn't always, because we can't really talk about it, that doesn't always come through in how society, represents us. Like through social media representation as well as like Hollywood representation.

Bethany Valenti 1:26:26

Right, right. Well, Kim, where can people find you?

Kim Richards 1:26:31

my website is birchrun psych.com. So. All together. so that would be the best place. And then, say if they're Googling anything, it would be Birch Run's Psychological Services.

Bethany Valenti 1:26:46

Okay.

Kim Richards 1:26:46

most of my stuff redirects to, if you're searching my name, it goes to some actress.

Bethany Valenti 1:26:53

Oh, really? I, when I searched, I think I searched, um, before we started recording, like Kim Richards therapist and I got like three, like at least, so it's a, yeah. Yeah. Okay.

Kim Richards 1:27:11

So, so Kim Richards, Kimberly Richards,

Bethany Valenti 1:27:15

Richards. Yeah.

Kim Richards 1:27:17

psychologist probably would be another search term

Bethany Valenti 1:27:20

Okay. That might be helpful if you need to.

Kim Richards 1:27:22

My website's www.birchrunpsych.com.

Bethany Valenti 1:27:26

Okay. And so just, just go straight there.

Kim Richards 1:27:28

Yeah.

Bethany Valenti 1:27:29

Oh, Dr. Kim Richards, it's been such a pleasure. Thank you so much for your time today.

Kim Richards 1:27:33

Thank you so much for having me. I had such a great time talking with you.

Bethany Valenti 1:27:37

Yay,