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.183 Reflecting on a Year of Transformative Conversations and New Connections in Therapy
Reflecting on a year filled with transformative conversations and invaluable insights, I've had the pleasure of sharing 47 new episodes with 24 incredible new voices on the "Finding Your Way Through Therapy" podcast. Among other voices are recurring guests like Stephanie Simpson and Keith Hanks, whose impactful contributions continue to resonate within our community. Inspired by the guidance of mentors like Dennis Sweeney, I've been expanding my practice to include corporate coaching, influenced by the rich discussions we've explored together. This year has also been a journey of growing friendships and professional connections that have enriched both the show and my personal life.
A special spotlight shines on Courtney Romanowski for her vibrant episodes on expressive arts, which have significantly enhanced our series. As I express my gratitude for Courtney's inspiring contributions, I eagerly anticipate what's to come. The upcoming episode will feature heartfelt messages from past guests, offering listeners a touching retrospective on our collective journey. Don't miss the chance to like, subscribe, and follow us on your preferred platform.
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.
Speaker 2:It's starting to be really cold. I said it in a very Quebec accent, so shout a shout out to my Quebecer friends. But welcome to episode 183. If you haven't watched it yet, go to episode 182. With Craig Merriweather. We had a great conversation on hypnotherapy and how it works, how it doesn't work, what it does, what it doesn't do. So please go back and listen.
Speaker 2:But episode 183 is going to be a review of the year and I do this every year. Just to give an idea, sometimes I choose certain things I talk about. Today I'm just going to kind of wrote down a few things but ultimately want to talk right off the top of my head. So let's start off with the number of guests I've had this year. So we've had 47 brand new episodes. So when you think about it, that's only like seven replays. That was the summer. So I do a lot of new stuff because I want you guys to keep on being entertained and really enjoying this and I want to make sure I mention a lot of the stuff that goes with that. So 24 new guests so every other week, essentially throughout the year, you had a new guest. I know it's going to not exact science, but please be nice to me and you know there's been names that you may remember. There's been Kyle Goodnight, leon Doubleday, catherine Darley. We also had Hayden Duggan. That was on the first two episodes of this year. We've had a lot of new guests and new insight and new information and I hope you enjoy that.
Speaker 2:It's not fair to ask me which one were my favorites, because I do have some vested interests on some of them and I've told you before, right. So the Mindful Guardians were really good. You know I had them on March, april and since then I'm actually joining that organization. They did their first presentation a couple weeks ago, very excited to be part of that organization and and I'll keep you posted in helping right now the Coast Guard, but hopefully long-term, we help most of the armed forces, we help the first responders, really something I really enjoy. But those are the new guests that I would say that stood out for me, not that the other ones weren't, because you know again, I think about Lee and Doubleday, lee and Double Day. We really had a good time and we participate on something. I know that Keith Hanks had been on before, but it was his first solo episode with me. Obviously I love his work and want to make sure that I say that, and he was really cool. But to name all my favorite guests unfair, so I don't really do that.
Speaker 2:13 returning guests. This includes Hayden doing two episodes. We had Stephanie Simpson, who I will always have her on. Stephanie is probably someone that I feel like I connected so well on this podcast. Yes, we have a common friend but at the same time we really connected and we really enjoy talking about different things and you know, I'm leaning towards doing a little more corporate coaching myself around that stuff. So you know, stephanie, if you're listening, hey, I'm going to do that thanks to you, not just thanks to you, but something you've inspired me to do. But you know, it's not something I want to really take over my practice, but I definitely want to do a little more corporate coaching, especially with people who need kind of like that. You know they're already maybe stuck, maybe they already have some ambitions, but they're feeling X, y, z, so I'm really looking forward to that.
Speaker 2:So, um, but anyway, stephanie Simpson, the mental men I can't ignore, who I consider great friends, mentors, people who have really, really helped me overall in my life. You know Dennis Sweeney part of the mental men. I think he left a little message. You're going to hear that next week, giving you a spoiler right now. But with uh, dennis, he's my mentor. I consider him my mentor to this day, although he wants me to call him his colleague, which I guess I am his colleague too. I'm so honored by him, I so respect him.
Speaker 2:I actually took over his office. He was downstairs from me took over his office. So that is yeah, not only because I wanted the space, because I really liked the space, but ultimately I really. You know, just to me it was an honor to always work with Dennis. He's not retired. So for those of you who think, oh, he's retired, no, he's not retired, he's going to work from home. But I wanted that office for several reasons. I like it, obviously, but I also think I like Dennis and with Dennis, if he ever needs that office, he has access fully to it, no questions asked, and it's my little tribute to him in some ways.
Speaker 2:Also, other returning guests other than them. Like I said, we had Hayden who came back, stephanie Simpson all people I truly enjoy talking to, and I think, with Keith that he falls under repeating returning guests. Liz Kelly we had a great conversation around her book. This book is cheaper than therapy. Go pick it up. It's the holidays, a good book. Truly enjoy Liz, and shout out to Liz, a good friend of mine, the time it took.
Speaker 2:So new episodes only, not the repeats that I put in the summer, but I've created 1,784 minutes of new content for you, which equates to 29.7 hours. So if you sat there right now, whatever time you're listening to, in 29 hours you would have gone through the new stuff that I've done this year, which I think is a whole lot of a whole lot of time and a lot of good stuff. With a lot of good stuff there's also great people. You meet people you see again, and also my solo episodes, which you know would equate to the other ones that were left. So if we have 37 new guests or returning guests, we have 10 solo episodes.
Speaker 2:I'd like you to listen to this message. I'm going to change it up for the new year, but listen to freeai. Listen to this commercial, getfreeai. Yes, you've heard me talk about it previously in other episodes, but I'm going to talk about it again because GetFreeai is just a great service. Imagine being able to pay attention to your clients all the time.
Speaker 2:Instead of writing notes and making sure that the note's going to sound good and how you're going to write that note, and things like that, getfreeai liberates you from making sure that you're writing what the client is saying, because it is keeping track of what you're saying and will create, after the end of every session, a progress note. But it goes above and beyond that. Not only does it create a progress note, it also gives you suggestions for goals, gives you even a mental status if you've asked questions around that, as well as being able to write a letter for your client to know what you talked about. So that's the great, great thing. It saves me time, it saves me a lot of aggravation and it just speeds up the progress note process so well. And for $99 a month. I know that that's nothing. That's worth my time, that's worth my money, you know. The best part of it too is that if you want to go and put in the code Steve50, when you get the service at the checkout code is Steve50, you get $50 off your first month and if you get a whole year, you save a whole 10% for the whole year. So again, steve50 at checkout for getfreeai, we'll give you $50 off for the first month and, like I said, get a full year, get 10% off, get free from writing notes, get free from always scribbling while you're talking to a client and just paying attention to your client. So they win out, you win out, everybody wins, and I think that this is the greatest thing. And if you're up to a point where you got to change a treatment plan, well, the goals are generated for you. So getfreeai code Steve50 to save $50 on your first month and we're back.
Speaker 2:So let me tell you about the themes. I didn't go one by one, obviously, but there's themes that came over and this will probably lead to certain things in the new year. Again, spoiler, but listen, listen if you want to hear more. Probably in the first week of the new year I'm going to share a little more, but the themes I talked about trauma, first responders and types of therapy, as well as sobriety and recovery. So we had a lot of good things that went like I love those things. I'm hoping to do a little more about grief and I think that one of my first guests in the new year will be someone who does grief, and obviously we've had other people talk about grief, including my good friend Gina Moffa Not on this year, was on last year. Still a good book, still something I recommend. Maybe I'll have Gina back in the new year just to chit chat catch up. So I want to make sure you knew about those things and kind of where I'm heading in the new year.
Speaker 2:As far as the most downloaded episode for the first seven days, which to me is more of an indication of total downloads, sometimes people catch up afterwards and that's why the downloads go up in the first seven days. It's like really peak interest. And, uh, reforming a teen industry. When meg applegate was the one, it was episode 177. That was the one that had the most downloads in the first seven days. Overall, though, when it's not surprising because it's a problem, it's surprising thinking what I've, what I've seen in my audience. So I'll say it's a surprise, but I'm happy that it was. Uh, stephanie Cohen, uh, overcoming your fear of dogs was the most downloaded throughout the year and when you really think about it, it was late in the year that she came on and she's still the most downloaded episode by far, by the way, overall. So people are really interested on getting over their fear of dogs.
Speaker 2:The other thing that I would say to you in the last year or so we've switched. You know, we we used to be at there should be Amazon podcasts or something like that, and now we have YouTube. So some of the numbers I've had on the other uh, it seems my overall numbers, cause what I use as a distributor tells me all these numbers but they don't count without now is considered YouTube podcasts. I don't even know what the name is, but Dave definitely touched my numbers, but overall my numbers have been pretty stable. Wish we would grow, but hearing from the industry in general, it's been going down for some. So I'll take stable over down, I guess. Want to make sure I mentioned that.
Speaker 2:And the other thing I want to do before I end this episode, I want to shout out two important people that are here every or not every week, but they're certainly. One of them is definitely here every week and that's Chelsea Weaver. Chelsea Weaver is my editor, my whatever you want to call her executive producer, whatever you want to call her, but Chelsea's instrumental. She, you know, tells me hey, by the way, when are you going to be ready for this? I did this, I adjusted that time, I did this, I did that. Chelsea is a great communicator, someone who works in the armed forces which again dear to my heart, as you've known over the course of three and a half years but also just a great human being. I really enjoy working with her. She's on the ball, which is probably what I need, and, for those of you who may not or may not know, I like to control a whole lot of what I do, and letting go of any type of control is really hard, and she's so on the ball that it's so easy to let it go.
Speaker 2:The other person I want to shout out, who had a few episodes this year, is Courtney Romanowski. I know we talked about expressive arts with her particularly, but she stepped in, she did a great job and I really, really appreciate everything she's done. So that's it. That's the episode Wanted to tell you a little bit about the year. Next week, on episode 184, we're going to talk about people who left a message, or I will read some of the messages I got from the guests that we've had. So we'll be doing that for next week. I hope you join me then.
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.
