When the weight of a badge or the stress of an emergency call becomes a silent burden, where do our first responders turn for help? It's a question that haunted me until Kathryn Branca, a licensed alcohol and drug counselor, sat across from me to share her invaluable insights. Peeling back the curtain on the often-misunderstood world of therapy, particularly for those facing the front lines of crisis day in and day out, our latest conversation isn't just enlightening; it's a lifeline.
Humor and heartache aren't strangers to us in emergency services, and this chat with Kathryn is no exception. We reveal our own 'before and after' moments, those personal catalysts that propelled us into the healing professions. It's a candid exploration of how grief shapes our paths and the profound need for specialized support systems tailored to the unique experiences of nurses, police officers, and other first responders. Kathryn's holistic approach, infusing nutrition and meditation into her practice, underscores the depth and breadth of true healing.
This episode also confronts the elephant in the room—the stubborn stigma against mental health support within the tight-knit first responder community. Trust isn't given; it's earned, and we dissect how to build that rapport without prying into the very stories that scar. Kathryn and I tackle the paradoxical fear of vulnerability in police departments and underscore why standing alone in clinical judgment, though daunting, is sometimes the only way forward. Together, we're advocating for change, striving for a future where the stigma is diminished and our first responders can access the care they so rightfully deserve.
To Contact her, visit her website: www.kathrynbranca.com
You can also email her: kathrynladc@gmail.com
Connect with her on LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/in/kathryn-branca
When the weight of a badge or the stress of an emergency call becomes a silent burden, where do our first responders turn for help? It's a question that haunted me until Kathryn Branca, a licensed alcohol and drug counselor, sat across from me to share her invaluable insights. Peeling back the curtain on the often-misunderstood world of therapy, particularly for those facing the front lines of crisis day in and day out, our latest conversation isn't just enlightening; it's a lifeline.
Humor and heartache aren't strangers to us in emergency services, and this chat with Kathryn is no exception. We reveal our own 'before and after' moments, those personal catalysts that propelled us into the healing professions. It's a candid exploration of how grief shapes our paths and the profound need for specialized support systems tailored to the unique experiences of nurses, police officers, and other first responders. Kathryn's holistic approach, infusing nutrition and meditation into her practice, underscores the depth and breadth of true healing.
This episode also confronts the elephant in the room—the stubborn stigma against mental health support within the tight-knit first responder community. Trust isn't given; it's earned, and we dissect how to build that rapport without prying into the very stories that scar. Kathryn and I tackle the paradoxical fear of vulnerability in police departments and underscore why standing alone in clinical judgment, though daunting, is sometimes the only way forward. Together, we're advocating for change, striving for a future where the stigma is diminished and our first responders can access the care they so rightfully deserve.
To Contact her, visit her website: www.kathrynbranca.com
You can also email her: kathrynladc@gmail.com
Connect with her on LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/in/kathryn-branca
Hi and welcome to Finding your Way Through Therapy. A proud member of the SiteCraft Network, the goal of this podcast is to demystify therapy, what can happen in therapy and the wide array of conversations you can have in and about therapy Through personal experiences. Guests will talk about therapy, their experiences with it and how psychology and therapy are present in many places in their lives, with lots of authenticity and a touch of humor. Here is your host, steve Bisson.
Speaker 2:C'est très gentil, that's very nice, and thank you and welcome to Episode 145. If you haven't listened to Episode 144, go back and listen to it. With my guest, ivana Colangelo, we talked about relationship. We talked about our new program, looking forward for you guys to hear about all that and go look at it and check it out. Episode 145 will be one part of two. We already break a little wall here. I recorded this and I'm like, oh, this two episodes, not one With a colleague of mine called Katrin Brank, a Katrin someone that I've known for a while now and I'm so happy that she's decided to do the interview with me.
Speaker 2:Katrin is a licensed alcohol and drug counselor with 10 years of experience in mental health and substance abuse fields. She brings her clinical expertise in occupational stress and resiliency, trauma, suicide prevention and substance use and misuse in the work, especially with her work in the first responders field and other high stress industries. She's passionate about holistic treatment like nutrition, coaching, movement and meditation. We'll talk about that, I'm sure. She's been working with the police in mental health emergencies and doing CIT training since 2019, running a suicide prevention for first responders, and has worked as an emergency service clinician. We worked at the same company for a while. I can't wait for you guys to hear Katrin talks and I'm sure we'll get to the survey. So here is the interview.
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Speaker 2:Well, hi everyone and welcome to episode 145 of Finding your Way Through Therapy. I'm here with a friend of mine and a research fellow. We're working on a few other projects. It's interesting because we connected through a happy hour that I did with a bunch of therapists and it's funny like we were like old friends almost immediately and we have the same interests and everything else and we have a secondary project after we're done with our first responders project that we will keep to ourselves right now. But I think it's pretty funny because it's exactly what we both said. I won points, but, catherine Branca, welcome to Finding your Way Through Therapy.
Speaker 3:Hi Steve, thanks for having me.
Speaker 2:I hope I got your last name right. You got it. Yep, I introduced you as a friend and I consider you a friend, but obviously the audience might not know who you are, so maybe you should tell people a little bit about yourself.
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely. I consider you a friend too, so I appreciate the opportunity to be here. Thank you for having me. I'm Catherine. I'm a licensed alcohol and drug counselor in Massachusetts. I started my career about 10 years ago in mental health and substance use and that was at the state prison for women, so worked there for a while and then moved into a state funded detox program, worked as an emergency services clinician for a couple of years I know we both have that in our background, so I think we connect on that level too and then, moving into the first responder world, I started working as a co-response clinician with four different police departments in central Massachusetts and then also ran a suicide prevention program for first responders and frontline workers. So big part of my experience and background has been with that. And now I am working for a nonprofit doing substance use treatment and really helping people connect with treatment using their insurance benefits. So that's primarily what I do now, but I also do some things I know we'll talk about more on the side too.
Speaker 2:Well, you know, the other part I think that we connected really well on is the gallows humor, dark humor, whatever you want to call it because I think that that's part of working as a crisis clinician personally and working with a bunch of first responders who are a little goofy and a little dark themselves and yes, I said that you can come and get me guys, I'm right here. But I think that's the other part, too, that I absolutely love about our friendship, because we can have that there's no reaction in the good way. It's not like, oh my God, that's offensive or whatever. We won't be too offensive on this podcast, but that's the other part, too, that I really appreciate of our relationship, because there's no like judgment, which really helps.
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely I feel the same way. I think something I value a lot, too, is our honesty and transparency, so feel the same way.
Speaker 2:You know and I'm going to share one more thing before we go on we will talk about the research. I'm pretty sure about what we did with our first responders, but you know, like I run my business alone, and Catherine is definitely a good colleague of mine, a friend of mine and then she's like hey, can I take over? And she was almost apologetic to take over about the analysis. Nice, send her the analysis. I apologize, I didn't work on it, but we were so damn polite with each other instead of saying the real things. Yeah, we got over that, though, so that's really good.
Speaker 3:I know right.
Speaker 2:It's like you put two therapists in conflict together and it's like you know it's, you know it's valuable for anyone who's listening that it truly me and Catherine have a really good relationship. I don't have any doubt. But that got uncomfortable and we were both like and then like overly like. We were flowering, flowering. One point where, like, we got to stop this. It's just like you want to do it and I don't have the time it works out. Who gives a shit? Yeah, but yeah, I appreciate that. I wanted to share that with the audience because it was funny, because I always valued our honesty, and suddenly we were like flowery and I'm like the hell is going on here.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we're like let's cut to the shit and get to the point yeah, totally.
Speaker 2:So it's great to have those things work out really well. But you know, one of the standard questions of finding your way through therapy is have you ever been in therapy? And I'm going to ask you that same question have you ever been in therapy?
Speaker 3:I have, yeah, so when I was 15, my aunt died, was killed in a car accident. So I have this whole mindset of like before and after moments and for me my life before, when my aunt was alive, was completely different, you know, than when, after and she was killed, and obviously being a teenager and going through different things and being like beginning high school at that age, so there was all kinds of other things going on. So then you throw this like massive traumatic grief on top of it and it just like kind of messed up my world and I needed therapy for a while and it was something that was really really helpful, and I've been recently too. I'm not currently in therapy, but about a couple of years ago I went back for a while and just to work on some of the issues that had come up more in my adult life.
Speaker 2:And because of HIPAA, I can't share that. You're my client, so it works out I'm kidding. Of course I'm kidding, she is not my client, I'm just kidding. Well, I'm sorry to hear about your aunt's all. Joking aside, that's, that's rough. I mean 15, that's a tough time for a lot of transitions and losing someone's pretty hard. Yeah, thank you.
Speaker 3:I think too. Going back to what you said about like the gallows humor, I think having that as part of your personality it can almost help in some ways, like when you are facing things like that and different struggles in your life, because I think without that as part of who I am, it might have been different stories. So but thank you for saying that I mean.
Speaker 2:I feel like I'm plugging a bore mat. They a lot, but you know that. You know, I don't know if you ever read any of his writings. The one about the myth of normal, which was brought up to me by a police officer and talked about like our motivation to go into our field, is related to what has happened to us in the past. I know why. I'm a therapist. I certainly have shared the story about my friend dying when I was 12. And then turning to different things that I've been doing and then turning to different things in my life that probably shouldn't have turned to. And you know, thankfully I turned out okay nowadays. But I think that you know, thinking about how our past shapes our current choices in our careers and all that I mean that definitely plays a factor.
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's a big part of actually why I do the work that I do. She was a nurse and she worked on a trauma unit in the ER All the time going into work long hours, you know, midnight shifts, being away from family and missing important family things, and then also just seeing all the things that she saw. She worked in Charleston, south Carolina, so definitely a busy place in the middle of a city and yeah, so just seeing what she was going through day to day and like this was, I mean, this was 2003. So I think we've come a long way as far as resources go, but I think at the time too, like obviously, I was just in a different place.
Speaker 3:I wasn't really able to support her anyway, but I think I wish that there was different things that were available to her so that could support her as what I would consider a frontline worker, first responder being a nurse. So that's a huge part of why I do what I do, just to kind of honor her legacy and her spirit, because I really believe in the value of specialized support for those communities.
Speaker 2:I think that what we also have in common is considering our ER staff first responders. I think that people misunderstand that, that they are first responders. They might not be on scene but they get the leftovers from the on scene and that's not an easy task either. And I think that that your aunt going through all that. You talk about the carous, trauma and compassion fatigue. It happens in the ERs as much as it happens with first responders Like we consider traditionally first responders, police and fire in particular. Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 3:I think another thing we talk about a lot too is our emergency services, clinicians, and how that population may not be considered traditionally a first responder, but a lot of times you're walking into situations, especially if you're doing co-response work, or even if you're working in the ER, your station, your station there. I mean you're seeing and hearing and being exposed to all kinds of things.
Speaker 2:Everything. I remember being in a call and I'll share this because I think it's a relevant story to what we do as even crisis clinicians as a co-response model. We pulled over some guy because he went to the ATM, left his kid in the car and it wasn't a big dangerous area but nonetheless not a very smart thing. But we got a call for someone a jumper on the bridge on a main street in the town we were in. So the police officer looks at me and goes and if you can't see, I'm just rolling my fingers Like let's wrap this up, steve.
Speaker 2:So we got in the cruiser, I did write my note. It was right off the way. We went to a call of someone who was a jumper and that's for those people who have worked that field, they understand that that's normal. And I, until today until maybe not today, but some people are like, oh, that's really strange. It just went to that other call without writing a note and make like, yeah, that's just how we work and that's how first responders work, and I'm not a first responder by any stretch, other than being a crisis clinician. I think we can't forget that a lot of people don't understand necessarily that type of stuff that we do.
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely, and I mean when you talk about that whole moving from one thing to the next, especially thinking about if there's a really terrible call, for example, and it's something that the person the police officer, the firefighter, the paramedic really identifies with on a personal level and it's, like, you know, the middle of their shift. They still have four or five, six hours left after that and I think we'll talk more about this. But that's why really having like tools in your tool belt in situations like that can be so helpful to avoid that like vicarious trauma and the effects of just ongoing difficult scenes and experiences.
Speaker 2:And you know, let's let's also be very fair and if anybody feels exposed to your, I don't care. We had colleagues we know we could turn to and have those conversations of eh, this fucked me up. And we had other colleagues we definitely knew we could not say those words because it would be held against us and to me that's a disservice to anyone who works in our field, and I don't know if you've had that experience before, but I certainly had that experience. I knew I can go to XYZ but I knew I can go to ABC. When I'm having those thoughts, that's which is normal, by the way. It's just yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 3:I mean, I think there's always going to be certain people that you connect with more and that you feel More comfortable being vulnerable with. I mean, I'll be completely honest, that's not something that I'm very good at. Being vulnerable and, you know, sharing my feelings and you would think, being in the mental health field, that would be something I'm good at, and it's just not so. Yeah, I think having people that you feel okay opening up to, like about things like that when you work as a crisis clinician or, you know, a first responder, is so, so important and you also need to know who your audience is.
Speaker 2:I think having that person you can open up to and I'm gonna spare a little bit for our audience here to not hear the gallows humor I would have about you know situations we've been in but you know like you got to have you need to know like I can turn to Catherine and say something about you know some dark humor that you'll laugh and get where it's coming from for me to process where other people would go. Huh, what.
Speaker 3:Totally. Yeah, it's so true. I mean, we've all had an experience where maybe something slipped down, it wasn't the right moment, and we're kind of like, oh shit, like not the right person, not the right place, so absolutely.
Speaker 2:Bating ER a nurse or she's no longer. She's more in charge now, but sometimes she's like you go dark really fast and I'm like yeah, it's zero to dark like real quick. It's a way to survive shit.
Speaker 3:Excellent, absolutely agreed.
Speaker 2:But you know, like you know, I I joked around about got born Matthews book, about why we do what we do. But maybe that's a good question for you as to why did? Why are you doing what you're doing now? I mean, this is I think it's important to kind of think about overall.
Speaker 3:So I just wanted to know you while you're doing what you're doing, yeah, I mean, I think a big part of it goes back to the loss of my aunt and just wanting to Kind of carry her spirit into my work and just honor her in that way. But then also working as a corresponds clinician for a few years and being with police and seeing as close as I could be to what they were seeing on a day-to-day basis, realizing that certain supports and other things like stigma were kind of getting in the way of their health and well-being and you know that comes with some time. Obviously on the first day they're not like talking to me about that but just wanting to Like develop some, some resources and supports that were more specifically tailored to like what they were actually dealing with on a day-to-day basis Kind of grew out of my experience working as a co-responsive clinician and was just Something that had been kind of instilled in me way before after seeing what my aunt went through.
Speaker 2:And you know, one of the questions that I've been asked- before you know, I, I think me and you have had these private conversations. Well, maybe some something for people to hear. Do you find that there's a difference between Opening up to a female clinician and it is to open up to a male clinician?
Speaker 3:I think everybody's different. So I think for some people, yes, they're going to feel more comfortable With either a male or a female clinician, and some people, that won't be something that's important to them to Open up or be vulnerable to that Open up or be vulnerable. I think it's really a case-by-case basis. What would you say?
Speaker 2:I think it's a case-by-case basis and you know, one of the things is that you know you talked about the gallows humor. If you, you know you worked with departments, if they made jokes about you or made some comments about you that are not sexist by the way, most of them are not that way that's a big preconceived notion. That's not true. If you're able to have that gallows humor with them, they kind of like trust you more. If that makes any sense, yeah, and I think it's gender-wise.
Speaker 2:It doesn't make as much importance as to how you accept them for who they are.
Speaker 3:Yeah, definitely. I think obviously there's something to be said for like feminine and masculine energy and how they can be very different. So some people may find it a bit easier to feel comfortable opening up in somebody who has more feminine energy. You know, maybe they come across as more kind of caring or more willing to hear or listen, whereas somebody else, with a different energy, that that may not come across as well. So, yeah, I think there's differences, but it's not to say that one's better than the other, right? It's just really what comes down to like how people connect and how they feel comfortable.
Speaker 2:And I think that that's part of the stigma that occurs too, right? I think that if you're you know you open up to a male, there might be a different stigma than opening up to a female, and then there's implication that if you're opening up to a female, what those motivations are, I mean, those are, those are stigmas that I see anyway, within departments too. I don't know about you, but that's one of the stigmas though. Have you had that experience too, or yeah, no, absolutely.
Speaker 3:I think that a stigma is unfortunately like such a complicated thing and I think that's definitely part of it, right, like the dynamic between two men opening up to each other about what they're struggling about may be completely different or may seem more threatening than maybe a man and a woman Talking through something that they're going through. So, yeah, I can see where you're coming from.
Speaker 2:I've never seen that stigma, with some of the guys opening up to me and like, well, you're a dude man, you get it. And I'm like, okay, I don't know how, I'm a dude, I'm just, but okay. And then some guys like, oh, I shouldn't be saying that to you, I probably shouldn't be talking to a woman. I know why are that comes from, but I just go All right Sure why not?
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely. I think to a lot of it comes with time. So maybe Right immediately it might be a little easier, depending on the gender of the person you're trying to talk to. But like I think over time to, especially with the first responder community, like you said, having trust is like number one. So they really have to trust that You're not gonna tell anybody else what they're saying to you, that you're not gonna like gasp when they tell you something that they've been through like. There's so many things that go into that trust piece that are important, but I think over time that develops like anything else and Is really important to that therapeutic and just connection in general.
Speaker 2:Right. I agree when my experience is to is that I got a lot more respect now. Prior being a therapist to first responders on one-on-one or in group. I found that I got a lot more respect when I didn't ever ask for a war story or what's the worst you've seen, or all that Bullshit that I just absolutely can't like. Now I get it even more Obviously, but I think that that plays a huge factor because some of the guys trust me because I never asked questions. They're just going.
Speaker 3:Yes, that's so funny. You just said that about not asking questions. Like that's what just came in my mind. I was, like I'm not gonna ask a damn thing, right. Like I'm just gonna go in there and do my job and try and be helpful and If, over time, people come to me, or if over time something comes up or we can talk about it, like I'm not gonna go in there with a thousand questions trying to like Understand what someone's going through, like it's just it's not. It's not the right technique.
Speaker 2:No, and I think it's important because that's the stigma you can lift. I mean. I mean I remember guys and some of the like, the places where we did ride-alongs, when once in a while We'll call them John Doe Steve, you're coming with me, okay, it's cuz they had something on their mind, they want to open up and I had gained your trust over time. It wasn't just like come on ride along because we're gonna go on calls. I was like no, I got shit to talk about. Yeah, and that's because I never asked for a story. I never came in. As I'm the clinician, I know better than everyone else. I didn't have that ego or whatever, and I think that plays a factor too.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, ego is so big, like I think it's also about like knowing your strengths as a clinician and how they may translate or not translate into certain communities and populations. Like we all have things that were better at than others and Like me and you talking about the humor and the other parts of our personality that really lend well to Working with first responders, and so I think it just works a little bit better, because that's part of who we are and I think that being that Open in what you just said about who we are I think plays a huge factor in reducing that stigma for them.
Speaker 2:But is there other ways we can reduce stigma for first responders to go get mental health treatment?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think the I think I have two biggest things that I would say. The first is that everything that I do, I try and do With a first responders voice guiding it right, because I'm not one. So even though I may have experiences where I was as close as you can get or I work as a crisis clinician, like still doesn't matter, I'm not one and that's Just the truth at the end of the day. So I just want Everything that I do with the services that I deliver, like the research that we're doing all of it to be guided by First responders voices. So that's really important as part of kind of reducing that stigma, because you're getting buy-in too.
Speaker 3:Like and that's really important we can come in and say, like we are the experts in mental health, but like, who gives a shit? Right? You know they're the experts in being a first responder, they're the experts in being in their own experience. So I always have that as, like, my guiding principle. But then also, we and I mean like we as a first responder Kind of community and leadership cannot punish people for getting mental health treatment or penalize them in their careers, because I'm sure you've seen this too- yes, I've worked with people who they can't advance in their careers because they've been to therapy or they're seen as some type of boy because they've gotten mental health treatment.
Speaker 3:Like, if we're gonna make any headway in reducing stigma, we cannot penalize people for getting help.
Speaker 2:So it's, it's too common, you know, yeah, I had written we'll keep it as general as I possibly can because it's a real case.
Speaker 2:Mm-hmm but I had a call from a chief telling me that so and so sees you for therapy, like, yeah, well, there's not a danger thing. And I'm like, no, they're probably more sane because they're fucking seeing me, dude, dumbass. And I didn't say dumbass, I thought about it but I was not very, I was pretty blunt with them. Well, you know, I'm the chief. I'm like I don't care who you are, you're an idiot if you think that someone getting help is wrong. And I think that's part of the stigma that still bothers me. Not every chief. This is a specific event with a specific department, with a spous. This is not every chief. Obviously, I'm not shitting on every chief, but I think that that's the part that really pisses me off is like, yeah, they're not far off, they're going for treatment, that's good sign. If they know they're fucking losing it a little bit, that's good, because that's what I do when I go see my therapist. I'm losing my fucking marbles, so I gotta go see my therapist.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's so frustrating, right, and, like you said, that's not every situation or every department or whatever, but it happens often enough or we're talking about it. So I think that, like, yeah, number one in reducing stigma is like Not considering someone a liability for getting mental health treatment period.
Speaker 2:You know as recent and I talked about this a few months ago on my podcast but I had a guy reach out to me and Say I don't want you to take my gun. Like, is there a reason why I should take your gun? Well, no, but I'm gonna be in mental health treatment. I'm like, yeah, that means you should fucking keep your gun. If I ever have concerns about your gun, don't worry about it, I'll tell you. And that guy opened up to me in two seconds after that because I've made him feel safe of opening up and saying things. And I think that that's where we the stigma still occurs that if you go for mental health treatment, your guns gonna be taken away, your livelihoods gonna be taken away, your money's gonna be taken away, your family's gonna be taken with it. There's a lot of implications and I think that's a stigma that needs to be really addressed, in my opinion too. I mean, I don't know what you think, but yeah, oh, I, 100% agree.
Speaker 3:I. I think every single police officer I've ever worked with or talked to has said that, like my biggest fear is I'm not gonna be able to do my job because I'm gonna get my gun taken away, my badge taken away Because I got help.
Speaker 2:So, oh, yeah, definitely a huge piece of this and it's realizing that you know part of our job as a. You know the mental health people in the first responder in the substance abuse world too, is that no, they're reaching out for help. People who are you know you, you should know from what you've done in your job. The people who are too far off are the ones who don't seek help and that's the hard part for us to to break that stigma and that barrier for them. And that's, to me, the biggest hurdle. I know you talked about other stigmas, but to me it's the hurdle of like, no, you're getting help, that's good. When I go see my therapist because I know I need it. If I said, fuck my therapist and I start like you know, I don't know, womanizing, drinking more, whatever the case may be, then yeah, maybe that's where I'm too far off and that's when my gun. I don't have a gun, but if I was a police officer, it's what I should be taking, not not because I went for help.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no, I completely agree, and I think mental health professionals definitely have an opportunity to be advocates for this, and we talk a lot about kind of cultural competence, and I think Cultural competence when it comes to first responders, frontline workers, is something that is super important to kind of reducing the stigma too, because, like we're talking about before, if it's not an environment that you totally understand as a Professional in the mental health space, then I think it's our responsibility to understand it better if we Want to work with that population or if even if we want to just be advocates for better care, like across the board.
Speaker 2:So I mean, there's so many things I can say about that. I think that number one is staying in our lane.
Speaker 2:You know, not the whole person. You're the substance abuse person staying that lane. Just respect that lane. That's your lane when you're working with first responders in the community in particular. But I also know that my standard thing for any, for co-response people who want, who ask me questions about I said Are you willing to live on an island? And when they say, what do you mean by that? I mean sometimes you have piss off public service, public safety, and sometimes you're gonna piss off public health and you got to be willing to live alone on that island because you're gonna piss Off people left and right, not purposefully, but because you know you're clinically that's the sound thing to do. And if you're not willing to live on the island, that's fine. Don't live on that island, don't ever work in that field, and there's nothing wrong with that. That's not made for everyone. But until you're ready to like sit on that island and have a few people pissed off at you, I think that's. This is a very hard type of environment.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I agree, and I think it's similar in like the Crisis Clinician space too. Right, because, yeah, you're dealing with families and DP, the Department of Public Health and other organizations that have all kinds of opinions about what should happen with the person that you're meeting with. You know, just as an example, and you have to be willing to piss people off, and you have to be. It's almost kind of like having some thick skin around, like people's opinions about your work. It's your clinical judgment and obviously you have supervision and consultation and other people available for help. But it's very similar in that like you have to be willing to piss people off in this Kind of niche area of mental health that we're talking about.
Speaker 2:It's always a very tough line to carry in, you know it's. I've pissed off people on both sides at some point in time and most of them afterwards kind of like get it after the heat of the moment. But I mean, that's the hard part. I think that even as a therapist, you know you got to be willing to sit there sometimes and hear someone say sometimes it's so want to be here. And I'm being very mild here because I don't want to piss off anyone on these past podcasts I, you didn't do anything. There's suicidal. Well, I fucking explored things and they're not suicidal.
Speaker 2:That was passive suicidality, but I don't need to put him in a hospital for that. And I think that what happens in the moment, like in the you know, public safety world oh, they made that, that, that statement put him in the hospital, section 12. It's not gonna fucking hold it. I could fight you, but it's not gonna hold. And Sometimes that pisses them off and sometimes, like I tell their clinicians I had to, you know, report people and I, you know, I knew where they were, but they were danger to the community on a public safety level and some therapists like you fucking took my client Out and this and that and I'm like look, I stand behind my situation. I don't give a shit if you don't like me.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, oh yeah. I mean, I've definitely been in that situation, I want to say like a hundred times, where somebody is upset with the decision that you made and of course that's not like what we want we're not. We're not like going around trying to just piss people off. But I guess kind of our whole point is like you have to be able to sit with the discomfort of other people when you truly believe what you're doing is in the best interest of whoever you're working with.
Speaker 2:And I think that's part of being culturally competent. Working with first responders is that it's hard to gauge, and it's hard like I'd like to tell you. The timing is Two sessions in 14 minutes in. Then you can make them go down a rabbit hole. It doesn't work that way, but you got to be willing for them to get slightly uncomfortable talking about stuff that they don't want to talk about. But that's a little trickier than the general population, in my opinion. I don't know if you agree.
Speaker 3:Yeah, definitely, and I mean it goes back to the trust piece. Like you said, you can't like identify when, what session that's going to happen and if it's therapy, for example. But yeah, I mean, definitely you have to be willing to challenge certain things and know when not to challenge certain things. Right and I think that's part of cultural competency too is just recognizing every single first responder, like they're not homogenous. It's not just like every single person is the same right, like within this community too. So it's like what works with one person may not work with another, and you know people in the mental health field. I think totally get that. It's just that when you're applying it to a situation where we're talking about, you know, like trauma and other things, it's just a little bit of a different kind of beast.
Speaker 2:I mean, I've had this conversation with you know, this happened to me in my early career as a therapist and it doesn't happen as much now, but it does happen People opening up too quick and I even say look, you want to keep on opening up? That's fine with me. But I've also had the experience that people open up too quick, they feel embarrassed, they feel ashamed, whatever I'm not going to do that to you, but you might feel that way and therefore they run away and I don't want that to happen. In our therapeutic relationship and with first responders that's particularly important because they're the proverbial. They have a leather couch for three people and they want to put in their Honda Civic, and that's how they treat like get rid of my trauma, you got 60 minutes, let's go.
Speaker 2:You're like yeah, that doesn't fucking work that way, dude, if I did, I'd do it in two seconds. It's not that easy and so I've learned to, as a again, cultural competency thing is like okay, dude, keep on opening up, that's fine, but I don't want you to run because I didn't solve your problems and I put that in quotation marks because I've never solved a human being in my life and realizing that that's not going to help you if you run away afterwards. And you know what I'm talking about. I like that. It's nice to talk to somebody who understands exactly what I mean.
Speaker 3:Totally. Yeah, it's a fine line, right, because it's you, of course, you want to help and you want to be helpful, but at the same time, there's only so much that a person can do within a certain timeframe, right. Of course, there's big growth and significant experiences that change us and make us be better or worse, but I think, yeah, it's like a dance between having the competency to kind of understand what's needed in the situation with the person sitting in front of you, and I think that's a skill that we're always working on.
Speaker 2:There's two things I like to say to people. I'm like, especially with first responders, when you've been on a scene when you said to someone hey, please calm down, did they go? Oh, that's a great idea. Oh, great, thank you, I appreciate it. That doesn't work that way, because that doesn't work. Number one and the other one that I kind of like remind people is that if I suddenly like I don't want to break my finger before those of you on YouTube, if I just snap my finger backwards and it broke, it took a half second to break, but it'll take six to eight weeks to heal. Well, if you've had trauma for five, 10, 15 years in your career, I'm not fixing that in three sessions, I'm not that fucking good and it's realizing that it takes time. And that's why, like, opening up too quick is one of my cultural competency that's so important to me, because it is like hey, cool, look, keep on going if you want to, but I don't want you to write.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I think too you had mentioned this earlier or going to a call where you had somebody who was suicidal. I think every first responder, every crisis clinician has handled somebody who's suicidal. And I think it's a cultural competency thing too, where you may say are you thinking about hurting yourself? And it's something that makes me cringe, because what does that mean? Are you thinking about hurting yourself or are you thinking about killing yourself are completely different things, right, and that's just language that you use or learn as you grow as a person in this field, and I think you know lots more we can talk about there. But just as kind of an example, as far as more about cultural competency piece, it's just kind of like the language that you use, too, is really important.
Speaker 2:Well, this completes episode 145. Catherine, I know you're coming back next week, so it will be bye for now for everyone and bye for now for Catherine, and I'll talk to you on the next episode.
Speaker 1:Please like, subscribe and follow this podcast on your favorite platform. A glowing review is always helpful and, as a reminder, this podcast is for informational, educational and entertainment purposes only. If you're struggling with a mental health or substance abuse issue, please reach out to a professional counselor for consultation. If you are in a mental health crisis, call 988 for assistance. This number is available in the United States and Canada.