In this episode, you learn about your host Steve Bisson. I talk about my first traumatic event at age 12, how it drove me to become a guy who sits and listens to people for a living at this point. I talk my education process, as well as the struggles to find a job in my field of work, which leads me to move to the United States and eventually just stay here.
In this episode, you learn about your host Steve Bisson. I talk about my first traumatic event at age 12, how it drove me to become a guy who sits and listens to people for a living at this point. I talk my education process, as well as the struggles to find a job in my field of work, which leads me to move to the United States and eventually just stay here.
Hi, and welcome to finding your way through therapy. I'm your host, Steve Bisson. The goal of this podcast is to demystify therapy, what can happen in therapy, and the wide array of conversations you can have in therapy. I also talked to guests about therapy, their experience with therapy, and how psychology is present in many places in their lives, but also share personal stories. So please join me on this journey about there. Hi, and welcome to Episode 84, of finding your way through therapy. I'm your hosts Stevie. So if you haven't listened to Episode 83, yet, please go back and listen to it. Amy timer, who was amazing, and obviously had a lot of wisdom and has a lot of experience. So please go back and listen to that. Today, I want to talk a little bit about B. And why do I want to talk about me? Well, first of all, it's my show. And I do whatever I want with this podcast number one. But more importantly, I think that a lot of people have asked me why I do my job. And this is something that you know, while I love doing this podcast, people are like, Well, why do you do a podcast? Why are you a therapist now. So I never know where to start the story. But I think that I I'll start off where my book starts off. When I was 12 years old, my best friend died in a fire. He was found with his brother in his arms in a closet trying to survive, unfortunately, the smoke inhalation kind of got to him. And at that point, I was really feeling sad and lonely. And isolated at that point. He was a good friend, we played soccer, we played football together. And I couldn't go to the funeral because his family was a practicing Orthodox Jewish family. So I wasn't able to go to a funeral. So I ended up just sitting in my bathtub at that point, and just worrying and thinking about everything. And what does that mean. And I really had time to process. I ended up not doing that process till I was 16. And I was on the phone with someone and we were talking about loss, I believe and just started crying and couldn't stop crying. And at that point in time, I realized how much the grief process was important for anyone to go through. And not kind of like wait and wait and wait. So it was just something that happened for me. At that point, I realized that I don't want anyone to be as alone as I was at that age. I set myself to become a mental health therapist, it actually came up with my skill level. So what I mean by that is this, we did a little bit of a career thing in high school. And I got a list of jobs, including a therapist and I said, What's that? And they said, Well, you sit there and you listen to people's problems. And I'm like, I get paid for that to listen to people. And they're like, Yeah, and I'm like, Wow, that sounds like an easy job, send on my button, do that little that I know, all the training that I have to go through and all the stuff that I've learned since then, and how it's not as easy as I think it was. But I still ended up doing it and going through my CJ app in Quebec. And so long story what a CG app is, but it's between high school and the university. We get one year less of high school in one year less of university, and we have C jump in the middle. It's really good. It's a good stepping stone for most people, and they really enjoy that. And I was doing psychology there, couldn't get into the schools I wanted and the only school I got in for my psychology was McGill University at the time, and sometimes I still think about how I didn't enjoy it. And the reason why I didn't enjoy it was that it was a university that did a lot of research psychology, not the practicing therapeutic psychology that I want to do. I like to think that I worked through all that stuff. I was having my own issues at the time also. And I really worked through those so that I can get my bachelor's in when I was done with my bachelor's, I was looking for a job in psychology. I was actually working in a supermarket had worked in a supermarket for several years enjoyed it. I was actually the assistant manager at that time and was trying to get some jobs in Quebec. And we had a high unemployment rate at the time in Quebec. So we'd go to all these interviews, and a lot of people liked me. And then they would say, okay, all you have to prove is you're unemployed and I'm like, Well, I'm not unemployed. I work through my university. And there's a reason for that. Well, we can't hire you because we won't get a heart of your salary, which turns out to be roughly 50% from the Quebec government. So at that point, I decided I was going to look for anything else. My oh man was someone who read the paper religiously, Montreal Gazette. And when they he saw something that says you want a experience and it was talking about people with a bachelor's degree in Psych ology, join us and knows a picture of a boat. And I'll always remember the boat because in my head, I'm like, Oh, I'm gonna go work on a boat and do psychology. That's awesome. Little did I know that I ended up at an interview in downtown Framingham, Massachusetts in 1998. On Thanksgiving week. I think it was the Tuesday or Wednesday before that, and ended up getting the job there and a nonprofit organization I ended up working for for 15 years. Not exactly what I thought it would be. But it was a start. And I wanted to get into psychology so bad that I ended up staying there for 15 years, but also getting a lot of experiences. And I think that's going to be a great place to jump from, for my episode 87. So we can talk more about my experience when I got here in this field. So let's talk about episode 85 instead. So my next episode will be with Brad Cohen. Brad Cohen is someone who worked at the Department of Correction in the state of Massachusetts for over 30 years. And I worked in the correction field for a while and they have unique challenges. And me and Brad wanted to talk about those. So please join us then for that great interview. Please like, subscribe or follow this podcast on your favorite platform. A glowing review is always helpful. And as a reminder, this podcast is for information, educational, and entertainment purposes. If you're struggling with a mental health or substance abuse issue, please reach out to a professional counselor or therapist for consultation.