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Finding Your Way Through Therapy
Join Steve Bisson, LMHC as he unravels the complexities of therapy and counseling. Engage in straightforward dialogues, enriched with insights from special guests sharing a like-minded perspective. Each episode presents valuable, easy-to-digest information designed to help you perceive therapy, and those who partake in it, in a grounding, relatable manner.
Finding Your Way Through Therapy
E.181 From Traumatic Brain Injury to Expert Therapist - A Healing Journey with Daniel Gospodarek
After enduring a traumatic brain injury, Daniel Gospodarek transformed his life and career, becoming a licensed therapist driven by personal experience and professional expertise. Join us for a compelling conversation with Daniel, owner of Revitalized Mental Health, as he shares his profound journey from recovery to becoming a specialist in various therapeutic techniques like Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, EMDR, and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. Daniel reveals how his personal battles have shaped his approach to therapy, offering a unique perspective on the intersection of personal growth and professional practice.
We delve into the unique challenges faced by military personnel and first responders, tackling the urgent need for early intervention in acute stress disorders to prevent the escalation to PTSD. Our discussion illuminates the complexities of seeking mental health support amidst cultural stigmas and the delicate balance between using insurance versus private pay for therapy. Through Daniel's experiences, we explore the vital importance of mental health stability in professions fraught with frequent traumatic events and their broader implications on community safety.
Discover the transformative power of therapeutic relationships as we explore Acceptance and Commitment Therapy and its role in building psychological resilience. We highlight the significance of authentic connections in therapy, emphasizing the importance of self-care for therapists to manage vicarious trauma. Enjoy practical advice on navigating holiday stress and family dynamics, with insights into setting boundaries and choosing peaceful interactions during gatherings. This episode promises to enrich your understanding of mental well-being through the lens of professional knowledge and personal insight.
Please visit Daniel’s website at http://revitalizementalhealth.com/
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Hi and welcome to Finding your Way Through Therapy. A proud member of the PsychCraft 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.
Steve Bisson:Alors, que faites-vous pour vos fêtes? What are you doing for the holidays? Hi and welcome to episode 181 of Finding your Way Through Therapy. If you haven't listened to episode 180, I talk about sobriety and recovery and how that plays a factor during the holidays. Hi and welcome to episode 181 of Finding your Way Through Therapy. If you haven't listened to episode 180, I talk about sobriety and recovery and how that plays a factor during the holidays or at any time, and we talk a little bit about the modalities of how to get treatment and what the difference is. So I hope you go back and listen to that.
Steve Bisson:But episode 181 will be with Daniel Gospodarek. I hope I got it right. He'll correct me if I'm wrong, but he is the owner of Revitalized Mental Health. He works out of Wisconsin and is also licensed in Colorado. He is someone who had a TBI when he was younger and has decided to become a therapist and help people with different types of treatment, including CBT, among other things, as well as EMDR. What I also like is, I think, that he's going to talk about hopefully he's going to talk about cognitive processing therapy as well as somatic experiencing with Peter Levine. So anyway, here's the interview.
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Steve Bisson:Well, hi everyone and welcome to episode 181. You know one of the catches sometimes you get guests and you get them through different channels. I have met Daniel Gaspadarik Okay, I can't pronounce your last name, daniel Gaspadarik, thank you very much Through Facebook. It was an interesting story, not because of anything else, but you guys know I work with the military. But you guys know I work with the military. You guys know I work with the first responder world and I work with trauma in general. I'm an EMDR clinician and I'm not registered, I'm just very trained. That's about it. But his story really hit me when he was giving me some tidbits about it, so I welcomed him to the show. So, daniel, welcome to Finding your Way Through Therapy.
Daniel Gospodarek:Hey, thank you so much for having me, Steve. I'm happy to be here and just share my experience and knowledge with your listeners.
Steve Bisson:Well, there's so many things that struck me, so I'm going to have a lot of questions, particularly about ACT, because that's something I like, but people have not explained it properly. But we're not going to jump there first. I just want to put that as a teaser. I didn't even explain what ACT is yet, so we'll put it as a teaser for people. But the first thing I'll know is tell me about yourself, tell my audience about yourself, what you do, how your life is, so to speak, sure.
Daniel Gospodarek:So I'm currently I'm a licensed clinical social worker and licensed in Wisconsin as well as in Colorado, and originally from Wisconsin but lived in Colorado for a period of period of my life. And but really, what kind of kind of the part that led me to this whole?
Daniel Gospodarek:you know, master's in social work LCSW route was a car accident in July of 2009. And that resulted in a traumatic brain injury for me and then going through the subsequent recovery process and you know all those different dynamics, working with a counselor specifically around like anger and it's a pretty hallmark symptom of a traumatic brain injury. So so working around that and then, you know, led led me to my social work degree and for my bachelor's level and then a master's eventually. But yeah, that's kind of like a number of years in the process. So kind of kind of let you share if you have questions around around some of those components.
Steve Bisson:The first question I have is did you serve in the military yourself?
Daniel Gospodarek:I did not, no um. So my, my traumatic brain injury was when I was 17 and it was severe enough where I wasn't yeah, well, yeah, it's always interesting yeah, I would. I would be. I would be more of a liability in some sort of in some of those situations than an asset.
Steve Bisson:So Well, I just didn't know your age, so that's why, like for me, 2009 is not that long ago for a lot of people, but for me, I was already in my thirties by then, so yeah, yeah, no, I was 17.
Daniel Gospodarek:So, yeah, I just been released from the hospital and then turned 18.
Steve Bisson:So Okay, well, no, but that's great to hear that. You know you. You you've surpassed all these issues that come from that, so I really want to hear more about that. I guess one of the standard questions that are probably very related to this, the standard question on finding your way through therapy, is have you ever been in therapy? So my question is have you ever been in?
Daniel Gospodarek:therapy. Yeah, I wouldn't say it was like structured. You know, I think sometimes when people think of therapy they think like psychodynamic therapy, where you're laying on a couch or you know EMDR therapy or something like that. It was more just talk therapy and it was a few years after my car accident. But some of the especially for people not familiar with tbis the symptoms can linger and sometimes they never go away right in terms of memory challenges, attention challenges, mood challenges or anger, sleep, insomnia, not sleeping enough or or sleeping too much, and then also just the the physical limitations that can come with tbis sometimes. Sometimes there's, you know, sometimes people are paralyzed, sometimes people don't have use of certain limbs or sometimes people lose limbs, depending on the TBI accident or situation that happened. So for me the counseling came I want to say like maybe three, two, three years afterwards of the TBI, because I tried all those other things you know yoga, meditation, working out, just fitness and trying to manage it. But it wasn't enough and I needed. I needed an outlet, a different sort of outlet.
Steve Bisson:But I guess one of the questions I had, you mentioned anger, which is a very common theme in the TBI world. Did you do the counseling around that too, or was it something? Yeah?
Daniel Gospodarek:that that was specifically why I I needed that. That. That counseling was to support just working through some of that anger, because it's a very powerful emotion. It's a very it can be a very adaptive emotion, right, especially for people who are in life-threatening situations like you need that energy, you need that just almost like brute force that comes with it. But with tbis it's different because it's almost just like a hair trigger of like somebody clangs a glass and then you're zero to a hundred. You don't need, like you know, you don't need that level of anger, and that was like I need, I need, I need some support around this you know my I've had limited experience with tbi, so I'll start off with that comment.
Steve Bisson:However, I've dealt with a few people who've had TBIs and one of the things they explain with their anger is that I used to be able to do blank whatever we're talking about Now. I can't and I feel powerless. And I'm 25, I'm 20, whatever age they're at. That seems stupid and they get really down on themselves and that's why the burst of anger occurs. So that's also what I've seen.
Daniel Gospodarek:Yeah, yeah, definitely. And that burst of anger, right, because of what you could do beforehand, but what you can't do now, right. And then also this piece of like who you were before and who you are now, so meaning like maybe there's, maybe there's physical limitations afterwards, right, but that also means that maybe friends you can't hang out with certain friends anymore because you lose, and you lose that social identity aspect. And then there's grief and loss that shows up, right, and anger is one of those stages of grief and loss as well. So, absolutely, I mean, these are very, very intricate dynamics that are happening.
Daniel Gospodarek:Or even if your sleep cycle's off and you're more irritable right Now, that irritability can quickly morph into anger, right. One of the things with TBIs is like if you get hit in the head, sometimes you're more susceptible to concussions or future TBIs and then you bump your head and then you get pissed right, right, so it's a very complex piece to live with or future TBIs, and then you bump your head and then you get pissed right, right, so it's a very complex piece to live with. And obviously the caveat there is depends on the severity of the initial TBI, right, sometimes you know a concussion playing football or something. It may not reach that level of sensitivity thereafter. Right.
Steve Bisson:But depending on if it is very severe, right.
Steve Bisson:Well, I think that I like the fact that they're starting to now see the ctes, particularly in professional sports, as part of tbi, and they used to call it alzheimer's or early onset dementia or whatever right um, and they're really now tying it to tbi, which I think is a more accurate statement personally, but you know one of the things that you also mentioned that I like to talk about, because one of my other specialties is grief, and you talked about the grief and I always people always think, oh, it's a loss of a person. I'm like no, grief's a lot bigger than that.
Steve Bisson:And for you. You talked about the grief and how difficult it is to kind of like you know whether it's losing vocabulary, losing some abilities. Some people lose, you know, parts of using their limbs. Right, we're going to extremes here, but that does occur. Do you talk about that when you do therapy with other people? In particular grief?
Daniel Gospodarek:Yeah, oh yeah, I mean grief comes up in a lot of different dynamics, not just TBI, I mean it comes up in, just, you know, somebody just lost somebody that's near and dear to them or something that's very important. But then also trauma and how that impacts identity, especially identity formation on who could I have been if this didn't impact my development? Or you know, even like infidelity, right, there's grief and loss in that right, when you put that trust in somebody and it's betrayed. So that betrayal, trauma, but yeah, I mean the grief, the grief and loss you know, for for people can be very, very difficult even to notice at certain points, or it may not come for a year or two after you're able to self reflect, right, right.
Daniel Gospodarek:So, for for me, one of the one of the big shifts for me was I went from being very active physically to having to pause that right Because I couldn't put pressure on my head, even blood pressure, right, right. So you know, not being able to work out for a few months was very, was very difficult and very restless for me. Or you know, being 17 it's all about, like young adulthood, being able to have freedom and driving, right, but they took your, they took my license, so now I'm kind of stuck right, no grief there whatsoever a 17 year old kid, right yeah.
Daniel Gospodarek:So you know your friends are talking about bonfires and stuff on the weekends but you're not able to go. So you know your friends are talking about bonfires and stuff on the weekends but you're not able to go Right. One because maybe you can't drive, but two because you're also. One of the other hallmarks of TBIs is fatigue, and I was in bed by seven o'clock and usually bonfires in the summer don't start at seven o'clock. So Correct.
Steve Bisson:I mean unless you're in the Antarctic. But that's a different story for a different day.
Daniel Gospodarek:Yes, so those are some of those dynamics that show up right of grief and loss later on.
Steve Bisson:I think that grief is everywhere. You know, when you transition out of college, you transfer to college, you go to a different job. I'm working with several people now who are in the retirement transition and there's a lot of grief and loss that goes from that. So, yeah, I just wanted to put it out there because I like having my guests talk about grief, because I'm done hearing oh, it's only when you lose someone. I'm like I wish it was just that.
Daniel Gospodarek:It's so much easier. Oh yeah, there's so much more to that.
Steve Bisson:So you know I mentioned the military earlier and the reason why I mentioned that is because I know you work with a lot of military personnel, current and former. Can you tell us more about that work?
Daniel Gospodarek:Yeah, I mean so, obviously, protecting, you know, dynamic, certain certain pieces of information, but usually, usually, that work revolves around some sort of stress or stressor or trauma, either, you know, reintegrating into the society, or something that happened, you know, years ago that hasn't been dealt with. And you know, I think there's still this very big adage of like or belief that if we say we need help, we're we're, we're less than or weak in some way, and we often forget that it takes a lot of courage just to just to come to that conclusion in and of itself but then to reach out and ask for somebody. But I think, yeah, a lot of it kind of on that same note, is like we don't have to live, just like with these chains dragging behind us and we're missing out on a lot of different things, when, when, when we are being held back. But yeah, first, first responders, military, could be very you know how do I want to say it you know something, something very, very recently that happened, or something that happened years ago.
Daniel Gospodarek:Right, like you're, you're trained in emdr, so there are different, different emdr protocols to utilize. Right, there's the, the full protocol for things that are less than you know, more than six months and then you can go like em I, movement and desensitization, or emd, and become very laser pointed on certain things that recently happened. So, yeah, you don't have to like, you don't have to just like bear it for a year or two. It could be, like you know, this happened last month, like you got to take the charge off of it.
Steve Bisson:Well, you know I was doing a CIT training, which is a crisis intervention team with police and police. Do that now. And one of the things I explained not only for the people in the community, I said even for you guys in the in the first responder world. Something happens and it kind of bothers you. You don't want to say it in front of the guys and the gals you work with, that's fine, that's okay, I don't have a problem with that, but address it immediately because that becomes, you know, instead of having that's an acute stress disorder and you can address that fairly quickly. You caught about EMD and you you know there's also some that's called EMDR 2.0 and a Dutch person came up with that.
Steve Bisson:It's like six weeks, and it's super quick. But I explained to them that for you don't want things to become post-traumatic stress disorder because those can accumulate. So if you're able to address it in the front as an acute stress disorder, it makes things so much easier.
Daniel Gospodarek:Yeah, on yourself and those around you. Right, because then it doesn't fester and impact interpersonal relationships, finances, work relationships and or work productivity, right. Right, because oftentimes, like, if you're on, if you're, if you're involved in those types of situations that created it in the first place, the likelihood of it happening again in the future is also there. And then you have like this compounded effect.
Daniel Gospodarek:If you're not, if you're also not addressing them as they roll in, right, right, and then looking at disconnection from emotions, dissociation, disconnection with children If you have children in the house, like all these different things, challenges with sleep. So yeah, it's better just to take care of it if you can. But yeah, I mean, if you don't feel comfortable talking about it with people, because there is kind of that, that stigma, and I also think there's all there's one of. The one of the pieces that I also talk about too is how, like I don't know, I don't know about your practice but I'm only private pay, so like I don't, I don't have to manage the diagnosis piece, because that then enters your medical chart, right, and that can come back to influence certain things later down the line life, maybe, life insurance, you know, approval or purchasing life insurance if there's ever like unemployment and you have to buy insurance in the marketplace, right. So all those different pieces kind of come up right come into play.
Steve Bisson:right, it does definitely come up and you know the other part too that you know you talked about um, ptsd and private pay. I actually take insurance just because of where I'm at in this area in Massachusetts. I highly likely could go self-pay when I know that would deter at least half of my first responders, if not more. And for me you know as I joke around and people have heard me on the podcast so I always say, like working with first responders are currently in the community. I don't know about you, but I want my first responders to be very stable in the community. Because I live in the community, I want to be stable for me and for them, and so that's why, like I talk about the treatment being so important, especially. You know EMDR, ptsd and I can't remember the exact stat. You can look it up if you wish and if you say, steve, you're wrong, just drop me a DM and that's fine with me. But I think the stat is something like regular people will see five to 10 traumatic events in their lifetime.
Daniel Gospodarek:First responders particularly law enforcement, is more close to 800. Yeah, I don't know. I'm not familiar with that stat. I think one of the recent blog posts I wrote, like last month it was around like 80% of first responders so EMTs, firefighters, not just police 80% will have experienced a traumatic event at one time in their work career, with that number then escalating depending on certain professions and stuff like that. So it's very prevalent, right, and they can, even if they're like the little T traumas or even if I haven't heard that in a while, they're Bessel.
Daniel Gospodarek:Yeah, right, right, like the little, the little T traumas that you know. Maybe there is no loss of life in a car accident that you've come up on, but it still looks pretty horrific, right Like those things build and they leave their marks in the nervous system and and I love how emdr and I'm also in the are you familiar with somatic experiencing train?
Daniel Gospodarek:I am, but maybe my audience isn't so, yeah, so that that was developed by peter levine. Um, it's a emdr is a bottom-up form of therapy. Somatic experiencing is a form of bottom-up therapy or instead of top-down meaning, like Steve mentioned, act, acceptance and commitment therapy, and that's more of a top-down therapy. But really what I'm trying to explain is that when we experience those levels of stress, overwhelm or fear for our safety or other people's safety, they can leave those marks on our nervous system and those marks can then just kind of fester and then create symptoms of, you know, more reactivity versus responsiveness, right. More impulsivity or maybe more worry, more hyper vigilance, right. So you're not meeting that PTSD threshold, but there's some sort of nervous system dysregulation going on. That EMDR and somatic experiencing can help realign and re-regulate those systems.
Steve Bisson:And I mentioned. I know his name's Daniel. He's not really Bessel van der Kolk, but anyone who's interested. The body keeps the score. I find that for people in our field it's pretty cool. I've had a hit or miss with the community reading it. They say this is boring as hell because it can be intensive. But other people have said no, this changed my life and Peter Levine is someone I met at a couple of conferences, truly, truly love that man and I think that what you talk you know like I want to make sure that people knew about that because it's such an important part of how we treat now because he really gets for lack of a better word, you talk about top down versus bottom up. I call it intervention so it doesn't affect you in the long term and Peter is brilliant, brilliant, brilliant human being. For that I highly recommend his stuff.
Daniel Gospodarek:Yeah, yeah, you know, and, and I think like that, that Peter does a really amazing job of of also describing and teaching that, like you know, for for first responders and our military I know we've been kind of talking about those populations so I'll keep it kind of honed in there but it's also like, not so much just like were you in a life threatening situation?
Daniel Gospodarek:Right, it could be like you were on a ladder trying to help somebody get out of a burning building and you fell or slipped and almost fell, right, right. Or you know what somebody I know from high school was in the military and you know, it was like maybe 2011, 2012, 2013,. And an explosion went off right above their outpost and he fell down and had a concussion, right, so like, like those components, it's not like were you, were you shot at? Yes or no? Right, it was like did something happen that where you feared, consciously or unconsciously, for your well-being? And peter has this one, this one uh video too, that he that's shown in the train trainings of like a surfer, feeling that something was wrong and noticing a dorsal fin was following him as he was paddling right and like that is, you know, threat to self or from a predator right An apex predator.
Steve Bisson:And those can even leave those, leave those nervous system dysregulation pieces in yeah, and you know, the example I also give for community members is I had a client who works with electricity and felt his hair get really, really like well, I don't have any, so just pretend here when he got too close to a high voltage situation and it freaked him out for several months because he's like I almost died and I'm like you didn't die, you know, and regrounding and getting in front of it versus let's wait until it's trauma and address it. But you know that affects you and affects your day-to-day. Thankfully he was able to get back to his job, do everything that he's supposed to. But yeah, I think that that's why, like techniques like peter's are better to get there versus emdr.
Daniel Gospodarek:Not that emdr is not good and sufficient, it's just different levels yeah, and I think they both play their place and I think when you, when you, when you get to also a level, a clinician, you just kind of interweave them in and there's a lot of beauty.
Steve Bisson:Yeah, and I think that that's what it is People who work with trauma or acute stress, and particularly with military personnel. You talked about first responders. Let's not forget our dispatchers, and particularly in the military personnel, the Coast Guard people who are the first responders of the military personnel, the Coast Guard people who are the first responders of the military personnel. Not that there isn't in other branches, I'm just saying that they're primarily their job.
Steve Bisson:You know, they also go through some of that stuff and it's very important to kind of like put them out there, because the dispatch gets forget too often.
Daniel Gospodarek:Yeah, but also frontline nursing staff.
Steve Bisson:Correct. I think that that's why I keep it Like I run a group for first responders and it is for all those individuals, because you can't limit it. You know, I think that most people think about firefighters and at least when we say first responders, they're so much bigger and it can affect you, like dispatch, being in a call. Suddenly you hear like a shot or you hear something and then it hangs up and you don't know what's going on for five minutes. Yet you got to take the next call that's coming through, that kind of can be traumatic for most people.
Daniel Gospodarek:Oh yeah, or you, you have to be in those calls where people can't talk too loud or they're talking almost in, almost in code, because of certain dynamics and their residents or where they're at, and you just kind of have to be there in this it's. It's a very strange position to be like wanting to do something and wanting to act quickly, but like also keeping that governor on and and you're just kind of stuck. Um, it is peter levine's trainings they talk a lot about like inescapable attack, like when you, when you can't fight, but you, you know you want to, but you can't because a it won't, won't work out well and you're you know, it's kind of yeah, I'm going to charge peter for all this advertisement we're giving him perfect he's a wonderful training too for therapists that are that are listening for the somatic experiencing and nervous system regulation.
Steve Bisson:It's incredible he's just an amazing guy. You know you talked about acceptance and commitment therapy a little earlier on. You know you ran it really quickly and we talked about other stuff. But I want to get back to it because one of the things is I know a lot of people. When I read the book on ACT I'm like I already did this, like oh, I guess there is a name for it, but I guess I want you to explain a little more what ACT, or acceptance and commitment therapy, looks like, how you use it also in your practice.
Daniel Gospodarek:For sure. So ACT, acceptance and commitment therapy's main goal is to increase somebody's psychological flexibility, and that means kind of just riding with the stress of life, not getting caught up by too many different things, but also being able to let go of certain things. And you know that, can you know? Taking that a step further, that could be like, oh, like, maybe somebody had a really poor or like was shocked by like a work performance review, but then that goes on for the next you know two, three months and it disrupts their functioning or their life and how they work. Versus, like, act would kind of target some of those pieces and try to get that psychological flexibility that maybe. Maybe there's just some dysregulation or something for like a week or two, right, um, but then then it kind of rolls off the back. But act is underpinned by it's called the hexaflex, but in people can google it right but it essentially is diffusion oh, I haven't thought about this in a minute. Diffusion, uh, values, present, moment, focus and then, um, I'm blanking on a couple right now.
Steve Bisson:I know I'm blanking too. It's. I haven't heard that word in a long time so I apologize, I can pull it up quick well, I'll put it in the show notes when I do find it perfect, because I'm blanking you. You already got me in the third one. I'm like a crap, yeah, self is context, acceptance and committed action.
Daniel Gospodarek:So present moment, focus, values, committed action, self is context, diffusion and then acceptance. And essentially they call it a hexaflex because your interventions can bounce back and forth In diffusion. So fusion meaning something is very close together. Think of like welding right Very tight. Diffusion is creating space. So space meaning like you have a negative thought and then it leads to like a poor mood response right, or like maybe you're feeling sad. So diffusion would try to create some space so that thought doesn't influence the mood dynamic, like that directly. And then selfless context is like how do we see ourself in relation to who we are or how do other people see us? And then values, committed action, acceptance. And then all the whole game of working around through those types of interventions is to increase psychological flexibility so and I think that that's you know.
Steve Bisson:You don't need to go through a traumatic response, whether in the military or first responder world, in order to bring that home. Sometimes most people one of my, my, hopefully, people listening to this podcast and people who know my work I want to break the thing about oh, all first responders is trauma? Nope, sometimes it's not trauma, it's other stuff that happens. You bring it home because of X, y, z reason, and the vicarious trauma that can come from hearing like really bad stories from other people come from hearing like really bad stories from other people. And, for the record, while therapists are not first responders, I encourage them strongly to think about their vicarious trauma regularly in order to unload it.
Daniel Gospodarek:Yeah, I mean and just to piggyback on that, I mean therapists are one level of you know, the helping profession, but also the people who are therapists in hospital settings, departments of corrections, like you really see a lot, or inpatient psychiatric hospitals, right, or community-based mental health services, um, doing in-home visits like those, those are, yeah, I mean, seeking your own therapy, for being in the helping profession is also very therapy for being in the helping profession is also very, very much okay.
Steve Bisson:Right, and you know, on the government level, the child and family services and youth services, or whatever they call it in your state or province or you know, whatever county, they also see a whole lot of different things and it's important to think about that. But I appreciate you explaining a little more and thank you for also catching me on hexaplex yeah, I was like oh crap I know I was like so, um, and just just for the record, a good thing for you if you're listening.
Steve Bisson:Daniel and I just proved one thing while we are versed in what we do, we are by far not perfect and we still forget shit yeah, and that's the part about being human right.
Daniel Gospodarek:Like nobody's perfect, I mean we can't.
Steve Bisson:We can't always be 100 on and have all the information at our fingertips, so that's why there's google right, and ultimately, that's why I tell people too when they come in and they talk to me. Don't ever ask me how I feel unless you want to know the answer. So I'm always truthful. And people like, well, why are you sharing your story with people? I said so they can share theirs and feel comfortable that they can do the same thing? Um, and I think that that's the other part about being human as a therapist is I share those stories, I share a lot of this stuff because sometimes I'll be like, oh yeah, emdr, and you know, if you do the sixth, oh, what is it? Oh crap, I got to look it up. Give me a second. And I look it up and people are like, oh, so you don't know everything. I'm like, no, I don't even know the diagnostic criteria exactly for PTSD, and I've worked with PTSD for 20 years. I still once in a while go, oh, what's the other one?
Daniel Gospodarek:And that yeah, it also doesn't help that it changes every like four or five years too.
Steve Bisson:Well, wait till the debate starts about complex PTSD.
Daniel Gospodarek:I know Very interesting one. Yeah.
Daniel Gospodarek:CPTSD for those who want to know the initials Definitely and kind of taking what you're saying a step further like the therapeutic dynamic is part of the healing process.
Daniel Gospodarek:The relational process, the attachment process even outside of if you're doing act, emdr, somatic, experiencing cognitive processing therapy, like the just the relational aspect is a significant portion of the healing process.
Daniel Gospodarek:To be able to be vulnerable and to be accepted and to be, to receive not I don't want to say feedback, but to receive just insight and support for what you're experiencing versus invalidation, is a significant portion of of the healing process.
Daniel Gospodarek:And that is, you know, one thing that comes to my mind and it came when you were explaining that was my work with a previous supervisor and it was kind of like we were doing a supervision session and this is kind of off topic and tangential, but I think it applies to like the helping profession, profession and like first responders and military is like a lot of people are familiar with helen keller and like know that story or at least the framework of the story, right, but not many people remember her instructor's name and her, but her instructor was the one who ignited this whole thing, right, and like that is that's how, like I think about, like people in the helping profession and like our roles, and then also like you never know who you're gonna save or protect right and what they're gonna go on to do absolutely and, by the way, it's not a tangent.
Steve Bisson:It's absolutely related because I you know I'll go to the theory behind this and Gabor Mate if you are familiar with him, if you're not, that's fine. Gabor Mate talks about how, in a therapeutic relationship, your words are not as important as the electrical connection between your two brains and your two hearts, because that's what makes the therapeutic relationship, the empathy, the actual connection with another human being who shows compassion for what you've been through, is significantly more important than, oh, did you use ACT, cbt, emd or whatever technique? The alphabet soup of treatment, as I call it? It really is that connection and that's why, like, it's not tangential. I think it's very accurate for people who want to find themselves through therapy. You gotta learn how to be like sometimes, just be connected.
Steve Bisson:Some, as I, as I said, some days I'm going to talk about a specific trauma with someone and then some days we're going to talk about a hockey game, a football game or something like that for 30 minutes and people are like, oh, that's not therapeutic. I'm like, are you connected with me? Yeah, I actually enjoyed having that conversation with you. So that's therapy and reminding a lot of the therapists that the importance is really the connection, not just going okay, what's the goal. I know the insurances won't like what I say, but the truth is is that I don't work on goals all the time. I really work on what's in the here and now, and sometimes people are like tired, they don't want to talk about stuff, and that's fine too.
Steve Bisson:Or people are like I'm in a good mood. I'm like I always joke around and people are like I'm a good mood. You can ask me anything. I say be careful what you ask for.
Daniel Gospodarek:Yeah, and I, you know you talk about like the, the and the heart's being connected in the therapy session, in like peter levine emdr or somatic experiencing in an emdr, like we get into like that co-regulation with the nervous system, right, like I can be an anchor for you, you can be an anchor for me if it's needed, right, and that goes back and forth in the therapeutic dynamic, absolutely, and having that alignment right and I think that that's you know.
Steve Bisson:Especially, especially, you've said you know you talked about the therapeutic relationship with first responders and military. Both of us are not military or first responders and we never want to share like I don't know. I'm sure you're the same way and if you you can correct me if I'm wrong.
Daniel Gospodarek:We don't want to take those roles, we don't want that, but we have experience with that and sometimes we gotta kind of like share those experiences in order for credibility, and it sucks, but that's how sometimes works. Yeah, definitely, and yeah, I mean I think the credibility, but also also the part that you know, as therapists, we experience our own stuff too, right, and hence I shared my little bit about my tbi recovery, right, like. I mean, like we're not immune to the challenges of life in any way, shape or form, and oftentimes it's some of those pieces that are driving forces behind why we entered the profession, right.
Steve Bisson:So Well, you talk about your TBI being in the profession. If you ever listen to my podcast and for my audience, they probably heard me say it too many times but I lost my best friend when I was 12 and I didn't have time for grief process or anything else. I was just alone with all those thoughts for several years and for me, my motivation in therapy is like never being someone, being alone with that, just having that outlet. Um, but speaking of family, friends and all that, holidays right now, uh, middle of December, people are going to go the home, the home, and maybe also have some differences, whether it is a family, long-term issue, something as current as the political system or even some hurt based on, you know, maybe traumas or things that have happened in the past.
Steve Bisson:Do you have any suggestions on how to handle that stress for the holidays?
Daniel Gospodarek:Yeah, I'll send over a blog post I recently wrote for how to manage some of those things and going into it. But I think a prepping right we are usually creatures of habit on some way shape or form. So I'm guessing that these issues have maybe probably been around in one one way or another throughout somebody's life. So knowing that, hey, these may show up at some point. So mentally preparing also, having you know, kind of like if you're going with family members, like from your immediate, you know family unit, and having maybe like an escape word or something to leave the room right, setting boundaries that you know if they ask about you know, oh, who'd you vote for. You know why'd you vote for them, and be like you know, I don't really think that this is the place to discuss that. Let's just enjoy our time together and if they continue to press, you have the right to walk away too. You don't have to sit and take that.
Daniel Gospodarek:And then also building up, so like for for Steve and I, like building up some of those internal resources, but essentially building up some of those ways that help you tolerate discomfort. So that could mean like sometimes people have like fidget things in their pockets or like stress balls. You know finding ways to maybe take a break. So go to the bathroom, reset, go for a walk, all those different pieces, or maybe maybe the kids are playing in a different room and you go supervise them, right, just to remove yourself. We can't always control other people, but we can control our own responsiveness and A to not react right, because once we start getting into more of the reaction mindset, then we're more in like sympathetic nervous system dysregulation, like fight or flight. So just being responsive and just saying you know what, I'm going to go do something else, um, not letting ego get in the way. Sometimes we want to be the correct one and we may believe we are and we may be right.
Daniel Gospodarek:What do you mean?
Steve Bisson:may, I'm always right, man.
Daniel Gospodarek:Yeah, that's what I say too, but we also can't impose that on other people.
Steve Bisson:Well, I'm going to address something you said too, because I like to tell people TV is your best friend, because, unless it's on blank news, choose your news outlet, if it's a Christmas movie or a holiday movie, as I should say, if it's a politically correct human being, and I am or watching sports, whatever it's, like basketball, football, hockey there's a lot of sports on right now. Like basketball, football, hockey there's a lot of sports on right now. It's a great equalizer because people like, when they're watching the game, watching a movie, they want to talk about the movie or the game, or when's the first time you saw a Christmas story, for example, or whatever, and that's a great equalizer. And it also changes the subject and keeps you safe. So I want to add that as another trick.
Daniel Gospodarek:Definitely, definitely.
Steve Bisson:So you know, I the other other part too that I thought was funny is you, like you know, take your time and walk away or have something like a fidget. Here's my fidget for those who go on youtube. I'm not going to tell you what it is, because there's someone who mentioned in my uh, the in my direct messages stop playing with your beard, um, on youtube. But for me it's kind of a management of like copy yourself pace, paste yourself.
Steve Bisson:So again, I just did it. I didn't do it to piss off anyone, I promise. I'm just saying that. You know, sometimes we also have other things that we can use, and for me, my beard is a great way Women use their hair. Sometimes it's a way to self-soothe.
Announcer:Yep.
Daniel Gospodarek:Yep, definitely finding and that kind of goes back to those, uh, you know, internal resources that we can create is like we are trying to self-soothe our nervous system, right. So finding those things sometimes it's a certain meal at a holiday party, right, or certain scents can be very powerful, um. Or like scenery. So like thinking like if there's like a fireplace or something like that, like all those pieces are ways and you have to find what works best for you. But like we have the ability to self-soothe, right, and that's what's really really beautiful is a to start uncovering those. If you haven't, or family dynamics that are very stressful, we may not A be shown and or given the time to explore those. So then those are on you to figure out now as you grow, right, right, nobody's going to figure them out for you.
Steve Bisson:No one said it'd be easy. You're right. So I think that that's all good advice for the holidays, and I do appreciate you coming to the podcast. I know you wanted to share your blog and I'm certainly going to put it in the show notes, so that's not a big deal. What else are you working on? What are you doing? How can people reach you? Stuff like that?
Daniel Gospodarek:Sure, so I am the founder therapist of Revitalize Mental Health PLC. So we're located in Kenosha, wisconsin, and then I'm licensed in throughout Wisconsin as well as in Colorado, but really focusing on helping men heal. It could be from trauma, grief, loss, just the stress of life that is often not discussed, especially among men first responders, military, so so those pieces. But I'm certified in emdr and then almost done with somatic experiencing with peter levine and then also um trained in cpt as well.
Steve Bisson:Cognitive processing therapy so trained in cpt. Oh my god, that's like amazing. Want to talk quickly, talk about I know we're plugging here, so to speak, just say it quickly.
Daniel Gospodarek:So cognitive behavioral therapy, cognitive processing therapy, is kind of is a derivative of CBT, but it's more tailored towards trauma, looking at just kind of the different types of thoughts, beliefs and then, or thoughts, intermediate thoughts and then beliefs, and then really getting into core beliefs and stuff like that, but really working to rewire some of the the the brain or the neural networks that were shifted during trauma. I've seen it be, you know, just from my own clinical experience. I've seen it be really helpful for, like, single incident traumas, um, but when you get more into like the complex pieces like EMDR and somatic experiencing seem to fit a little bit, a little bit better. At least that's my clinical opinion. I don't know what the research says on, you know, is CBT, but that's my experience and I'll own that. But CBT is a, you know, anywhere from 12 to 16 sessions long, very, very manualized form of therapy heavily used by the VA, the federal, uh. But it's well worthwhile. I am not trained yet.
Steve Bisson:It is one of the trainings I'm looking into. Uh and I have a few uh colleagues who are military, who've learned CPT who says that it's been a game changer in their treatment.
Daniel Gospodarek:Yeah, yeah, it's really it is. It is a nice piece there's. There is homework in it, though.
Steve Bisson:Well, yeah, that's why I think one of them said if it wasn't for homework, I would love this treatment. Yeah, and I'm like, well, if it wasn't for homework, you wouldn't be really moving forward, but anyway.
Daniel Gospodarek:Right, right, so you have to. As a therapist, it's important to match not only what's going to be beneficial clinically, but also like what does the person have capacity to do in their life, right? Sometimes people are working you know two dead end jobs just to put food on the table and to spend 40, you know 40 minutes a week doing doing like clinically oriented writing or typing may not always be beneficial.
Steve Bisson:No, and I think that sometimes being raw and writing your like, journaling or writing the homework, is a lot more significant than saying do you know what ACT stands for? Or exoplex and all that Like we don't even know it.
Steve Bisson:We're therapists and it's good to work on stuff that is more down to earth, and that's how I explained it. Yep, Definitely Well, as we approach the well about almost an hour already. Yeah, I want to thank you. This was absolutely beneficial. Looking forward to, uh, possibly talking again, Cause I think that you know, especially talking about Peter. Like I said, Peter probably owes us a few dollars here. I'm joking, Peter, if you're listening, I'm just joking. Um, I don't think he listens to my podcast, but anyway. But I think that there's a lot to be said and because you know, as I've mentioned very soon in my podcast, in the next few weeks I'm really concentrating, working on the first responder world and working with trauma and grief in the future and my podcast is going to probably shift to more of that subject matter. Love to have you back on at some point if you want to, For sure.
Daniel Gospodarek:Would love to be back on and share a little bit more in clinical stuff around somatic experiencing and just have a genuine conversation too about what have we noticed works well, what doesn't work well. It's just a fascinating realm to support people in healing, and what will work for 16 people might not work for the next 35 like so we're not robots and I think that's the that's the hard part with. You know some of the dynamics, the bureaucracy within the therapeutic, therapeutic realm, with billing and stuff like.
Steve Bisson:That is time treatment and stuff like that I'll leave you on my political statement of the day. When you go for cancer treatment, there's over 25 different treatments you can have, not even counting the experimental stuff, and we accept that readily, with no exceptions, and that's fine. For diabetes, there's at least seven to eight medication before you even start doing insulin directly, and we accept that. In mental health, you got to have one technique that works for everyone. I mean, come on, wake up people, right, right.
Announcer:So yeah that's my political statement for today.
Daniel Gospodarek:Yeah, and and, and I think I'm hoping in the next few years we will also move forward in terms of a lot of research related to EMDR, somatic experiencing and any new forms of therapy that may be just kind of on that cutting edge cusp that we don't always hear about because it's not empirically supported right away, right.
Steve Bisson:And evidence-based treatment is such a catch word nowadays and I see some value in that, but sometimes I think that what works may not be evidence-based stuff. Again, a little political statement. I can't wait for the APA to pick up on this, but I want to wish you happy holidays to you. Yeah, you too. Thank you, enjoy it. I hope people go to your blog and go read it and really great advice there, so thank you for that.
Daniel Gospodarek:Awesome and I'll send you my links and everything for to put in the notes. I appreciate that. Thank you Awesome. Take care, okay, thank you.
Steve Bisson:Well, thank you so much, Daniel and I'm not pronouncing your last name because I'm going to screw it up again for being here and, uh, I hope people got a lot of stuff from that.
Announcer:I'll put it in the show notes, all his links. But on episode 182, I'm going to have Dave Roberts on and Dave will be an interesting guest. Also met him through Facebook, so I hope you join me, 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.
