In this episode, I talked about my journey to get my Masters at Assumption University in why I do not see children or family at this time despite my specialty. Cognitive-behavioral therapy is briefly discuss and how it has impacted me since age 16. I also talked about my internship and the realization I made there. I also go in-depth in regards to my journey in the community justice system and how it has been a great and challenging situation. From the jail, to diversion, to parole, to courts, I have been in most law enforcement fields here in Massachusetts. I briefly discussed my journey to Vermont.
In this episode, I talked about my journey to get my Masters at Assumption University in why I do not see children or family at this time despite my specialty. Cognitive-behavioral therapy is briefly discuss and how it has impacted me since age 16. I also talked about my internship and the realization I made there. I also go in-depth in regards to my journey in the community justice system and how it has been a great and challenging situation. From the jail, to diversion, to parole, to courts, I have been in most law enforcement fields here in Massachusetts. I briefly discussed my journey to Vermont.
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 90 of finding your way through therapy. I am Steve B. So if you haven't listened to Episode 89, yet, please do so. returning guest Jay ball, Caitlin D. He joined by a new guests, Eric Knox, we talked about the fire service their unique challenges, and how they relate to other first responders. And I don't think we got to half of the stuff I want to get to. So we're probably gonna do that again next season. But episode 90 is a little more about me talking about where I've been in my journey. So one of the things that I think I left off in the last one was that I was working on a crisis team. And at that point, I decided to get my Master's got my Master's in Children and Family Services. And I see no children and family. Why is that? So I did an internship and have done a few clients after that. But I was working with the kids. And I truly, truly, truly enjoyed working with the children and the work that I did with them. Unfortunately, the parents were terrible. I know that's not nice to say. But frankly, it was the truth. Not every parent was like that, obviously, I've had a few supportive parents, which was awesome. But ultimately what happened was, is that you would do a lot of good work with the child, and then parents would probably undo it. And that got to me eventually. And I ended up kind of like not working with children and family. I think I haven't worked with someone under 18 for over a year now. And I don't plan on ever doing it again, maybe an exception to a rule here and there. But ultimately, that's the stuff that happened there. So I have a children and family specialty from assumption college. But I also have cognitive behavioral therapy specialty from assumption college. And that's the Aaron T. Beck Institute, the only one recognized I believe in the area. So really like CBT is certainly that's my go to in therapy. And frankly, my life, I use it in my own life, one of the things that I will give credit to is that I was always into CBT. Because my mom had given me a book when I was younger by David Burns called feeling good, the new mood therapy. And book really impacted my life. I think I've mentioned that before, too. But that's why CBT was a very important part of what I wanted to do. So ended up going to that school and went really well. My internship went as good as it can. I still think about it regularly shout out to Beth Ann, who was my supervisor, and became a great friend and mentor. And someone I still to this day, admire for everything that she's done, she's given me a couple of ideas that I still use to this day, including being myself. And that's all for her. Obviously, I develop my own style and other things. But ultimately, she's the one who said Just be yourself, Steve, which I'll never forget. So I get my degree, there's no opening at the full time for the crisis team. And I start outpatient because there's always a need for outpatient. This is 2004, I want to say 2003 around there. And then a job opening occurs at a jail. And they tell me Well, Steve, we can split you from the crisis team to jail, and you can do both, or you can go full time to the jail. So if I remember correctly, I went part time at the jail and part time on the crisis team. So ended up working at the jail for about six months to a year. And incident occurred there to that I don't know how much I can talk about. But let's just say that someone left me hanging, and that was not a good thing. And ultimately, they got fired. But because of the environment and how I felt I decided to walk away. While I'm working with the crisis team at that point full time and doing outpatient to I get a call from my boss, who says that they're going to take over a program as a substance abuse coordinator at a Massachusetts state parole office in Framingham and they say well, you have the experience with criminal justice. How about you do that? And I huffed and puffed and I said no and I wasn't enough money and I didn't want to work in that field. Again, I got screwed the first time I'm going to get screwed again. And after a lot of arm twisting, and I don't know what to call it other than to say that stroking my ego and hey, we all have one right? I decided to take it on. And I ended up in this parole office in Framingham and worked there for about three and a half years. It was a great experience. I still remember all the team there it is probably He's up there in my most favorite Community Justice programs that I've ever done. They were just supportive. They're just nice. And I learned so much. And I also helped develop a lot of the stuff that was missing in the evaluations in regards to treating individuals coming out of jails. So I'm happy that I was able to do that I still have that pride. I don't know if it's a legacy or not, I don't think people remember me. I think I'm pretty sure my, the people in my office remember me. But I don't know if they remember me otherwise. But I know I changed a lot of stuff that happened there. This leads me to moving to Vermont, because one of our former psychiatrists that worked in my social service agency, so they you want to come and work in Vermont, there's an opportunity and all that. So we're thinking it's a great idea. And this is 2008. And we decide to move a few days before the market collapses, and the housing market collapses. And so, in Vermont, I learned so much I was so supported by everyone there, they just loved us. I moved there, obviously with my dead wife, now my ex wife, and we had our youngest daughter there, too. So I my oldest daughter, I should say didn't have they only had one child at that point. And it was a great experience. But I learned one thing very quickly, and I'll do well in a rural area. And the isolation that goes with that. Was it bad? No, for me, it was is it bad for everyone? No, at 40 7am I thinking that that wouldn't be so bad now. Yeah, probably. But when I was younger, trying to take care of a kid trying to stay busy, it was very, very difficult. So while I enjoyed the work, I even did a little work with the courts there. I'll always remember Kevin, my president who would send me to these things and omit to tell me the important people that were there. Shout out Kevin. And so I would do a lot of this stuff where I would talk, you know, openly just like I am, but then I turned out to be someone who's fairly important. And he would laugh after the after the meeting and say, Steve, I didn't want to tell you, I didn't want you to get you nervous. So one of my best memories also had a great psychiatrist that was from my original social service agency who was up there, and she had my back. And this was probably one of the best experiences, unfortunately, we had to decide between going bankrupt because the house would sell or going back to Massachusetts, and bankruptcy was not an option for me. So we went back to Massachusetts, ended up getting again, working at the jail for about six months now is terrible. I had to take whatever was available, give a shout out again to another person, Ken Bates, who was very instrumental as to how I got back into jail and go back to that agency. They had no openings, he brought me in, I asked him if there was any openings, he said, Yes, at the jail. He's like, that's the only opening, we have full time. And I can't really make another space for you. But he canceled interviews for me. So I can come back to the agency that I started with. So I really have a lot of gratefulness for Ken, even though me and Ken ended up fighting over a couple of things there. But ultimately, after about six months, I ended up helping open another program for reentry. in Worcester. It was already there, we took over the contract. And I made a little more dynamic, hopefully. But that was a parole again. And that was very helpful. I feel like I'm going on and on about my community justice stuff. I also ended up working with the drug courts at that time, worked with a drug court and air for a while we're open to one in Newton, and try to get all the principles that go with that. And then I tried to open one in Worcester, but someone decided that, you know, their ego wasn't strict enough. So we ended up having to wait over a couple of years before we eventually open the drug court there. And I had one of the best judges I can imagine to support me, because I was very stringent about the 10 principles of drug courts. And I think the call recovery court, so pardon my my words, but I was able to do that with him. And Mike was an amazing judge, and was always supportive of me kind of pushing back on how it should be going. So I really like that, like the lawyers like everyone there and ended up also kind of working with probation there for a year or so with their reentry program and starting them with something that was started by another agency, we took over the agency, and I ended up working there as I don't even know titles don't mean anything to me. It had some sort of title there. But that's a little bit of my community justice work. So I think that's a lot. And then maybe you know, in the next time I'm going to talk about myself, I don't know when that's going to be maybe I can talk to you guys about my private practice how I started, how it's going stuff like that. So maybe that's where we're gonna go. Episode 91 will be with Mark Scholes. He is a psychotherapist in New York City and we'll talk about attachment styles and how that affects people. So please join us then 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.