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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. 186 From Grief to Resilience: Navigating Loss, Empathy, and Recovery with David Roberts
What happens when life shatters your heart and soul, and you're left to pick up the pieces? Join us for a poignant conversation with David Roberts, a retired addictions professional and adjunct psychology professor, who has transformed his personal tragedy into a powerful message of resilience. After losing his daughter Janine to cancer, David's journey through grief offers profound insights into the human condition, touching on themes of imperfection and acceptance. His candid reflections provide a window into how grief has reshaped both his personal and professional life, offering a relatable narrative to those grappling with loss.
In a world where empathy often feels scarce, the episode underscores the crucial role of compassion in the medical and therapeutic realms. David and I navigate the emotional complexities faced by caregivers, emphasizing the necessity of self-care and the value of peer mentorship to combat burnout and compassion fatigue. Our discussion is enriched by personal anecdotes, highlighting how emotional resilience is vital for both therapists and those they support. We also break down common misconceptions about grief and addiction, advocating for a more nuanced understanding of these deeply personal experiences.
Listeners are invited to challenge the myths surrounding grief and addiction as we explore transformative spiritual connections and practical coping strategies. With David's experiences as a guide, we explore the importance of creating a compassionate space where individuals feel heard and understood, without judgment. Whether you're a therapist, someone grieving, or simply seeking to understand the intricacies of the human experience, this episode promises to offer meaningful insights and heartfelt support along the journey.
To buy his book directly, and the opportunity to get it signed, send $20 to Venmo: @David-Roberts-61.
You can reach Dave the following ways:
Website: davidrobertsmsw.com
Author Site: psychologyprofessorandminister.com
The Teaching Journeys Podcast: https://rss.com/podcasts/theteachingjourneys/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/david.j.roberts1/
Instagram : @daver3103
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-roberts-56690513/
Email bootsyandangel@gmail.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.
Speaker 2:Alors je devrais avoir quelqu'un qui fait cette introduction partout où je vais. I gotta go somewhere where people do this introduction everywhere I go. Welcome to episode 186. If you haven't heard 185 yet, it's about the rebranding, so please go and check that out and you'll hear more about the project that, probably in April, will be culminating on April 16th on the 200 episodes. So looking forward to that.
Speaker 2:But episode 186, which you know again, it's not too far from episode 200, is going to be with David Roberts. David Roberts is a parent who experienced the death of a child when his daughter, janine, died of cancer in March of 2003 at the age of 18. He's a retired addictions professional and adjunct professor of psychology, child life development at Utica University. Dave has also presented numerous workshops on grief, both locally and nationally. He is the host of the Teaching Journeys podcast, which can be found on most podcast platforms. Go check it out. I put a link in the show notes. He also has a book called when the Psychology Professor Met the Minister. I know he's going to talk about it in the interview, I'm pretty sure. So I think it's going to be interesting to go find that book. But here is the interview.
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Speaker 2:Well, hi everyone and welcome to episode 186. You know there are stories that touch you and I don't want to take any of the story away from him because I again, I'm the type of person that's his story to tell. But we know I got a message from Dave and wanting to be on a podcast and it really, you know, it really touched me for several reasons and not only about his strength, but knowing that he's an addiction specialist and I've worked with addictions for several years as I joke around, 25 in my career, 49 years as a human being with my family, and so I really liked a lot of the stuff that you're talking about. But I know we're going to talk about specific stuff around grief. So, dave Roberts, welcome to Finding your Way Through Therapy.
Speaker 3:Steve, thank you for having me on the podcast. I've been looking forward to our conversation.
Speaker 2:Yeah, as long as I get the time right and I don't send you wrong messages, we'll be good, right?
Speaker 3:Hey, if that's the worst thing that happened to me this week, steve, it's a good week. Hey, as I've learned to be embarrassed for 30 seconds and then realize the only embarrassment is on me, I let it go after that. No, I've come to understand that you know, we're all living a human experience and it does not have to be a perfect existence. So I make room for mistakes, because it happens.
Speaker 2:I mean, if we weren't human, we wouldn't make mistakes, you know so.
Speaker 3:Yeah, perfectionism is certainly something that people strive for, but it's an illusion, because the bar keeps getting raised higher and higher for what perfectionism is.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you're doomed to fail.
Speaker 3:Yep absolutely.
Speaker 2:Being a New England guy. Now I go back to Tom Brady. He says the hardest part of winning all those Super Bowls is that when you're on the top of the mountain there's only one place to go Yep, and that's down to go yep and that's down.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and the fall is usually very steep and the person who falls off of that pedestal doesn't nearly get back on or climb as high as they did when they, you know, before they fell off.
Speaker 2:So well, you know, like I said, I read a little bit of your bio, but I think that my audience didn't read your bio yet, so how about you introduce yourself to my audience?
Speaker 3:Thank you, steve. And for those who are encountering me for the first time, my name is Dave Roberts. Before the world of death and dying found me, I was living very comfortably. I still live very comfortably in upstate New York, a little suburb called Whitesboro, new York.
Speaker 3:My primary career, like yours, steve, was I worked for 27 years as an addictions counselor. I was a credentialed alcoholism and substance abuse counselor for the state of New York. I worked at an inpatient facility, state-run inpatient facility in upstate New York called the McPike Addiction Treatment Center. I had my most satisfying years of in my career working with individuals with with chemical dependency and substance use issues. Because they were, I soon discovered they were much more than their addiction. These were very brilliant, very creative individuals who had difficulty putting down the dance with their drugs of choice. But I also saw many who recovered, who were in recovery and whose presence I was blessed by. I count the recovering substance users that I worked with among my greatest teachers. I was also a clinical supervisor.
Speaker 3:I retired after 27 years of state service, not so much because the clients were wearing on me, it was the bureaucracy that wore on me that typically was out of step with the needs of the people who were providing services. When I had the opportunity to retire, I did. When I had the opportunity to retire, I did Prior to retiring. I also started a second career as an adjunct instructor at Utica University. I was teaching psychology courses and then later on in my career I began teaching death, dying and bereavement. And I'll give you the background in terms of how that happened, because typically individuals who start embracing research or discussions about death and dying typically don't do so at a professional choice. It's usually personal tragedy and that's what the personal tragedy of um that I'll allude to in a second um, you know, got me involved in that field. So once I retired, more teaching opportunities became in place for me.
Speaker 3:But again during my career, my life took a drastic turn, and this is with age 47. This was in 2002. My only daughter I have two sons, daniel and Matt, but my only daughter, janine, was diagnosed with a stage four tumor. It was called a velior rhabdomyosarcoma. It was a connective muscle tissue cancer. She was diagnosed 24 days after giving birth to her first child and my first grandchildchild, and what turned out to be her only child, brianna, was born on May 2nd. Janine was diagnosed on May 26th and on May 19th of 2002, I met the requirements for my master in social work degree.
Speaker 3:When I tell my story as far as the back bio, I put those three dates in for perspective. May 2nd, I was exhilarated at being a grandfather for the first time, knowing that my daughter had a significant other who was supportive, who was going to take care of her. May 19th, I completed a 25-year journey to get my graduate degree. Then, may 26th, I found out that I had a terminally ill adult child. We went to Dana-Farber Research Institute and Hospital in Boston, one of the best hospitals in the world for research on pediatric sarcomas and treatment of pediatric sarcomas. We were told, stephen a fiveminute consult, that your daughter has a stage 4 tumor with bone marrow and lymph node involvement. There is no chance for a cure unless we put her cancer in remission until we can find a cure. So what my daughter heard and what I heard was that unless there's a miracle, your daughter's going to die.
Speaker 3:And, as I saw, the tears streaming down her face and, as I was just told, in total shock, um, this is what we were looking at when we got home. You know, we drove for five hours, you know, from boston and I had this old jeep cherokee and she was in a lot of pain and any I any bump I went over just exacerbated that pain. When I got home she was sitting on the couch and I looked at her and I started bawling my eyes out, buried my head in her lap and I told her. I said I'm sorry, my driving made you so, put you in so much pain. And she looked at me she goes, dad. I was yelling because I was so much in pain. She goes, but she goes. And she looked at me she goes, dad. I was yelling because I was so much in pain. She goes, but she goes. And she looked at me and she said I'm not going down without a fight and what she told me I stays with me to this day. She said if you need to talk to me and you can't sleep, come wake me up. Now I'm thinking to myself. I have a child who is dying and she's more worried about me than she is her her own prognosis. She was. She taught me about the resilience of the human spirit in that moment just by her response to me.
Speaker 3:She fought steve like hell for 10 months to to uh, but her chemo only got an 80% remission In January of 2003,. Her cancer re-metastasized. We were given a prognosis of one to three months and on March 1st 2003, she transitioned and I call a transition from the physical world to the spiritual world. Other people may look at it as passing away or death. However individuals conceptualize that. I will work with that vocabulary.
Speaker 3:And 10 months after she was diagnosed, her significant other and my granddaughter, brianna and Janine, had moved in with us with their cat and our two cats and my two sons. They had moved in prior, you know, after she was diagnosed, and he stayed with us with brianna for four years after she transitioned, because my grand, my daughter, asked him look when, if something does happen to me, I want you to stay with my family until brand is ready for kindergarten. Then do what you need to do. And he did that. He was a man of his word, 19 years old. He had the responsibility of somebody twice his age and the maturity of somebody twice his age. And you know, brianna was always a part of my life, our life even after he remarried, and she's a part of our life now. She's 22 years old and has two daughters of her own.
Speaker 3:So, um, I am no stranger to grief, I need to just throw this in there. I've danced with death steve since I've been five years old. Since my father left, I lost numerous my you know my mother, my mother's transition, my maternal grandparents, my maternal grandmother and my maternal aunt, who raised me along with my mother after my father left when I was five years old numerous friends, pets, but the transition of my daughter put me into a world that I that was totally foreign and terrifying to me, and I'll just leave it at that for now.
Speaker 2:Well, you said a mouthful First of all. First and foremost, sorry for your loss number one.
Speaker 3:Thank you.
Speaker 2:Number two if you look at the, I can't remember what the index is for stress levels. It's the highest stress you could ever have. Hearing your story gave me goosebumps. I had read it and I had goosebumps. And I heard it again and I still had goosebumps, being a Montrealer at heart. When you talked about upper state New York, hey, shout out, I'm very big fan of that, and now I live in the Boston area. So when you talk about Dana Farber, you know I never wished that to anyone but I always tell people probably the best place to go ever If you need to go and shout out the Dana Farber who has saved and many, many, many people that have extended people's lives many, many times of people I personally know. So shout out to Dana Farber too.
Speaker 3:All right, and you know, one of the things I want to mention about Dana Farber. Even though that oncologist did not give me the news in a way that I would have preferred it it was like getting hit on the head with a brick, you know, without warning I appreciated the fact that she was honest with us and let us know her prognosis, which was not good to begin with. She had an 8-centimeter tumor. She had every mortality index, steve, for her type of cancer tumor size, bone marrow involvement, age, lymph node involvement, you name it, she had it. Involvement, age, lymph node involvement, you name it, she had it.
Speaker 3:But one of the things that you know, time has a. You know, when you back away from something, you look at it. You know, over a period of time you have a different perspective on things. I think, and one of the things I looked at, was that I think she was as uncomfortable giving me us the news as she was receiving it, as if we were receiving it. She might have had a bad day, she might have already lost a patient. This might not have been the news she wanted to give with, with somebody so somebody so young. So I tried to put myself in her shoes and in knowing what I know now, the doctors take death very personally. I think she took it as personally and as we did, and as and it was as hurt by giving us the news as we were receiving it. So looking at that, I was able to kind of I didn't have any anger, I just took a look at it from her perspective and said, yeah, I could see why she may have given me the news the way she gave it to us.
Speaker 2:Well, you know, I think that number one. You're right that Dana Farber takes a lot of these things personally and all the good doctors I've ever known and good therapists and clinicians take these things personally. And people would say we're too attached to our clients, blah, blah, blah. I say BS to that. I think we need to, don't mind, it's the Boston way anyway. They just tell you what it is just like, straight out, they don't sugarcoat it. So maybe she's also from Boston or from the Massachusetts area, but I was thinking about everything you were saying. You know, one of the standard questions on finding your way is to talk about have you ever been in therapy?
Speaker 3:I'm assuming, with a lot of this stuff you said some from age five on, there's got to be some time. You probably went to therapy. Oh, absolutely. One of the things is as a therapist myself I think some of the best therapists I know have been in therapy themselves because a lot of times, just with the nature of the business that we're in in terms of working with clients with a plethora of challenges, the the chance for burnout and particularly compassion fatigue if the organization is not in step with the needs of the middle management staff, the line staff and the clients, is very real. Um, so, yeah, I've been in therapy. Uh, primarily for losses that I incurred.
Speaker 3:I remember I went into therapy after my mentor and supervisor at McPike died of cancer. He taught me everything I knew about building teams, treating people, treating clients. His background Steve get this he was an ex-Nvy SEAL commander and a clinical social worker. How's that for a combination. He was the, the best therapist and administrator wrapped in one package that I ever saw before, that I ever saw and I will ever see since. Um, so you know it was.
Speaker 3:I went in therapy for that because that was a major loss I was. Ironically, I was in therapy before my daughter got sick and I was doing an internship at a local nursing home as part of the requirement for my social work degree and old grief issues began to surface regarding my mentor and my mother. So I was referred to a psychiatrist who did not believe in medications as the first form of treatment. He believed in actually doing therapy, and so I was working with him on specific unresolved grief issues when my daughter got sick. And then when I told him what happened, he looked at me in his very calm manner and said Well, david, our focus has changed.
Speaker 3:Now we need to consider more practical matters, and I stayed with him for about two and a half years during Janine's illness and after her death, and he was a big, big help to me, helping me put things in perspective. He also was a liaison for work and work. He's recommended that I go on modified work duties, suspend supervision, just do case management for now, just until I could get you know, re-engaged in life again. For now, just until I could get you know, re-engaged in life again. And so he was great and I'm a firm believer that if you're a therapist, there's no, there's no shame in having your own therapist, and many therapists either have their own therapist or or have peer mentors or peer. They engage in peer supervision to bounce off particularly challenging cases or look at you know, specific issues where they may be burned out or have a compassion fatigue or vicarious traumatization.
Speaker 2:I agree, and me being a therapist who has been in therapy for several years and yeah, I don't see my therapist regularly now, but I do see him fairly regularly. Sometimes it's a check-in, Sometimes it's hey, I need your help for something, and we schedule. Uh, I'm a firm believer that therapy should be. Everyone should have therapy at least once a year. I'm not once for life. Once a year, hey, everything's good, Everything's not good. If you need a little more, you do it. If you don't, that's fine, and I think that you're right.
Speaker 2:The therapists that I know that have been in therapy or continue to be in therapy are probably the best therapists I've ever had, because the experience of being on that other chair is so important, because it gives you a different sense of compassion and peer mentors and peer supervision. Um, we do it. Well, not now. I mean, uh, when this comes out in January, we're going to probably knock out playing golf. But I have a bunch of therapists Um, I'm the kid in the team at 49.
Speaker 2:Someone else is in fifties and the other two are in their seventies and I like to be the kid. But we do peer supervision if we need to while we're playing golf, and it's the best time in the world. We get fresh air, we get to get frustrated, a little ball and we get pure supervision with you know. I think it's like 150 years of experience among us. It's just an amazing thing to have and I'm a big fan of it. When I think about everything you said, you know being. You know especially, you started in the addiction field. You know, I think about addiction and grief as two different things, but I'm wondering if your experience in addiction helped you with the grief of your daughter.
Speaker 3:As a therapist. It didn't really help me, steve. All the training in the world that I had, all the education in the world that I had, didn't even begin to prepare me for it Before you go on.
Speaker 2:My favorite quote on that is this you cannot solve a problem that the same mind created, and that's why you need to talk to outsiders.
Speaker 3:Yep, I think if it did, I probably would not have been as rattled or as shaken or my universe would not have been turned upside down. But there isn't a book, a parenting book. There isn't a social work text. There isn't a book, a parenting book. There isn't a social work text. There isn't a psychology text that says here's the blueprint when a child dies or when you have another loss that defies the natural order of the universe. Whether it's a young spouse, you know whether it's a sibling, there's nothing to prepare you for that, you just simply you pretty much find yourself.
Speaker 3:And I'm paraphrasing a quote from, I think, a book and I by the name I think the guy's gentleman's name is tom crider. It's kind of like he wrote a book about his own grief journey after the death of his daughter and he talked about it's like. You know, for him it was like trying to rummage through a box of old clothes to find a sweater that fit, and for me it was like who am I? What kind of world do I want to live in, now that my daughter is not a part of that? And that quote I am paraphrasing from the late great drummer of Rush, neal Peart, who had his own specific tragedies, with his wife and daughter transitioning or dying in 1997 and 1998, within 10 months of each other. And he said he went on a 55,000-mile road trip to the United States, mexico and Canada. And on page 10 of his book Ghostwriter I remember this, I've read this book several times and I quote Neil Peart several times he needed to take that trip to decide what type of a person he wanted to be and what type of world he wanted to live in.
Speaker 3:And that's what I was faced with, steve, and I think that's what anybody I think, without verbalizing it. That's what anybody who goes through life-altering loss is faced with. What kind of a person do I want to be? What kind of a world do I want to live in? At 47 years old, my midlife crisis wasn't buying a Maserati, trying to date women 25 years or younger than me. It was what are my values now? What are my priorities? What are my beliefs? What stays, what goes, what gets expanded on? It was a whole identity crisis for me.
Speaker 2:And again mentioning sorry, I'm Canadian. So Neil Peart, god rest his soul, also died a few years ago.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 2:But I feel that and you know like I'll share my backstory I know you've listened to the podcast but my best friend died when I was 12. And my grief process was well, you better play well on Saturday, because he won't be there and we played football together. That's why I was told that that was my grief process at the time. I don't blame anyone, by the way. This is. I always say that because people are like oh, you're angry at people. No, anyone, by the way, this is.
Speaker 2:I always say that because people like, oh, you're angry at people. No, no, I'm not. That's, that's what the 80s were all about. Just move on. So you know, I think that grief really forms not only how we see the world in the future, but how we live our life on a daily basis. And for me, you know, that's kind of like why I became a therapist and to this day, I never want a human being to be alone. So I think you're absolutely right. Every day, I think of how lucky I am to be here and reminding myself of what do I want to do today so that I enjoy life.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, in spite of what's happened to me and all the losses I've had in my life, and particularly the worst loss of my life with you know, with my daughter, with my daughter Janine, I consider myself a blessed man and I can you know, with my daughter, with my daughter Janine, I consider myself a blessed man and I can you know, I consider myself, you know, every day I'm grateful for the students in my life. I'm grateful for my boys. I'm grateful for my grandchildren, my great-grandchildren. I'm grateful to be able to breathe, to be able to exercise, to be able to do the things that a lot of times people take for granted. But what I've learned is that I look at life now as a precious commodity, because there's no days guaranteed anymore, and just because I've experienced the worst loss of my life doesn't mean I'm not going to experience more, and I already have.
Speaker 2:It doesn't exclude you when something happens.
Speaker 3:No, I mean loss is as much a part of life as life itself.
Speaker 2:You know, the one thing you mentioned is you know you talked about someone passing away versus going to the other side or dying or whatever words people use. You know I, I, I encourage a whole lot of people and I know maybe I'm jumping around here a little bit, but when I talk about grief, I tell people, whatever your belief system is, no matter what it is, I think that it is key to survive any type of loss and I don't know what you think about that.
Speaker 3:Oh, absolutely. I agree with you. It's like it's what do you believe? And what we need to do, steve, is not judge how people grieve, not say that my way of grieving is better than your way of grieving. But how do you grieve? What is it? What strengths do you have that are going to allow you to move from the raw pain of grief to acceptance that my world is permanently different? But I'm willing to re-engage in life anyway.
Speaker 3:It's bearing witness to that, it's understanding it and it's maybe in terms of bearing witness and creating a space for that person's belief to come out, we might I might see something that says you know, I can incorporate that, that part of your belief system that aligns with mine. So what we're talking about is setting a stage not only for a person's story to unfold, but for critical thinking to occur, for nonjudgmental presence to occur and for creating a sacred space where everybody's story is revered. And we don't have to agree with all parts of it. We don't have to agree with any of it, but we still have to listen to it with respect and we take those parts that resonate. The rest we just we can, because we have free will, we can leave behind.
Speaker 3:But, yeah, there's no right or wrong way to grace, dave. It's. As long as it, I mean as long as what you're doing is not hurting yourself or somebody else, it's all good, that was exactly what I was going to say.
Speaker 2:Actually, if it doesn't harm yourself or others, what do I care if it's working for you? And I think that that's the other part too is, you know, I never underestimate how sacred my job is to have people open up about these hard things. And I think that's the other part too is that when you know you talk about grief being a certain way, I mean, I've read grief books. Obviously we're going to talk about yours, but I've read grief book after grief book, after grief book and guess what? They're all valid.
Speaker 2:You know, like when I hear people say Kubler-Ross's model has been disproven, like but it's still kind of works for some people and I'm not going to say that it doesn't work for some people- so I think that when I think about grief, I also tell people like, if you think there's an actual book that you're going to read and that's going to take care of all my grief first of all, that won't happen, that it's going to happen in two weeks, two days, two months, two years again not predictable, because grief never quite goes away. Grief is always there and I think people forget about that.
Speaker 3:It's and it's true. And you know, for me Kubler-Ross's stages wouldn't have worked. I mean for the death of a child, I mean, and for any type of loss I mean. I think we grieve to a certain certain extent for the rest of our lives and it isn't pathological Grief is just love expressed. You know, the amount of love we have for that person I think correlates to the amount of initial raw pain we feel because of their lack of their physical presence. For me, the stages of grief kind of went like this, and I'm just, you know, it's just like they were all scrambled, they were all yeah, it's just so. Yeah, it's just so.
Speaker 3:And research has proven for the that the stages of grief don't really say how, don't really reflect how people accurately grieve. Like you said, for some people it may work. For me it didn't work. And there, even after 21 years of the physical absence of my, my daughter, I still yearn for her presence. There are days where I can still feel sadness, but I look at it as part of the deal. Now it's another way for me to remember her, to honor her, and I can also learn from my sadness and every episode of sadness now I have, I I believe, turns me into a more compassionate person for somebody else. I didn't see that in early grief. I saw that more as a curse than a blessing at this point. But now I take a look at sadness, says, okay, this is another opportunity for me to get in touch with my authentic feelings and to be able to to transmute that into compassion for for my fellow human being. And so I've learned that everything is in service to us, good and bad.
Speaker 2:Well, while you were talking, I did the roadmap to grief and I want to show it to you. For those of you who are listening to the podcast in their car and they can't go to the video, please go to my YouTube, because it's worth it. But here's the map to grief.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And I don't even want to say it, so I want you guys to go to YouTube. But that's exactly how I see grief. If you think it's going to, I'll give a small spoiler. If you think it's a straight line, then I mean don't even, don't, even like. That's not grief. There's no such thing as a straight line, and sometimes when I talk about grief with some of my clients, I also talk about it as a big mountain and most people want to circle it. They don't want to get through it, and when they get through it they're like oh, it's gone, no, turn around, it's still there and it will always be there.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and you know, you can try it out, run it, you can try to suppress it, but it's still going to catch up with you. So you, you, you. The only way, the only way to deal with grief is to go through grief and to literally work through it and move through it.
Speaker 2:And I think that that's why you know, like I think, that sometimes therapists don't know how to deal with grief. I think that you know because you know. Call it transference, if you will, or counter transference. But I think it's hard sometimes to know what to say to people who are going through grief because we put ourselves in other people's shoes. That's empathetic. I don't think, that's to me. That's why I don't say it's transference or countertransference. But it's also sitting in someone's shoes and going geez, I really don't know how I deal with that. Do you have any tips or ideas for therapists on best support individuals who had a loss?
Speaker 2:Oh, I think one of the things is to downplay clinical expertise when you're dealing with individuals with loss, I need to get a clap machine. You're awesome, I agree.
Speaker 3:Thank you, steve. And there is a model of sitting with bereaved individuals that was developed by Richard Tedeschi and Lawrence Calhoun called Expert Companionship. They wrote a book back in the 90s called Helping Bereaved Parents a Clinician's Guide. They are also the individuals who put a vocabulary. They talked about post-traumatic growth and they talked about the dimensions of post-traumatic growth after trauma which, as you know, has been thoroughly researched and proven to be a valid phenomenon with all kinds of loss, all kinds of trauma. But they talk about expert companionship where essentially you show a compassionate presence, a willingness to listen to an individual's story as they talk about their loved ones. They talk about specific questions to ask to understand the relationship that that person had with their loved one and essentially it's creating a presence where that individual's story becomes significant and where they can understand who the bereaved person lost through their specific eyes. And it's not offering advice, it's not offering solutions, it's simply creating a compassionate presence, giving feedback on what they hear and finding out what resources do you need for me today that can be of help to you to move through your journey at this particular time, and it shows a willingness to be there for them in the long haul and therapists can do that create a space where they're listening first and the best therapists I know are the best listeners I've ever found where they let the story unfold. They're going to go a long way and not try to say, well, this is where you should be in your grief because, like you said, it's not a straight line.
Speaker 3:Everybody is going to be different depending on the nature of the loss, depending on the nature of the relationship, the trauma that was attached to it.
Speaker 3:It's going to be different for everybody, so create a space for that story to occur.
Speaker 3:Work, I believe, on helping helping individuals embrace different perspectives, whether it's spiritual perspectives or perspectives that will help them transform the relationship with their loved ones so that they can continue to maintain connection with the essence of who they are and their spirit, so that they are literally moving through grief with them, as opposed to, after a certain period of time, burying their grief and moving on as if life was normal again. Loss changes the landscape of a person's life forever, and if we as therapists can recognize that this is a permanent change and we can allow an individual to empower them to talk about that and talk about how that feels for them and share stories about their loved one and then offer them specific coping skills, whether it's suggesting journaling, whether it's suggesting support groups, whether it's suggesting other types of experiential exercises or groups that can help them shift their perspective on loss. And again, let the client drive the bus. The client will tell you what they need and if therapists can do that, they would not need to have experienced a specific loss themselves to create space for it.
Speaker 2:I mean I remember my undergrad in psych 101 and I can't remember who the professor is, but my professor. The first time he says how many people tell things that therapy is saying I know what you're going through and a bunch of hands went up.
Speaker 2:He's like you're all going to be lousy therapists because you don't know, what they're going through, and I always thought that was something like I tell people. That's psychology 101. If you think you know what a person's going through, you're probably a lousy therapist. You might have an idea, you might have a ballpark figure, but you don't know what the person's going through because every unique challenge not only grief, but any challenge is unique to that person from their perspective. So just want to mention that too.
Speaker 3:I think it makes sense, steve, because I mean, we can say things like I know how you feel Well, no, you don't, because you're not in my skin, but I can understand, I can ask you, I can reflect in terms of you know, boy, it sounds like you know you're really sad about this particular situation, you're angry about this particular situation. Tell me more. So, basically, you're reflecting what you see as an emotion, with the understanding or thought, with the understanding that that client has a power to agree or disagree with that and can correct you without the therapist taking it personally.
Speaker 2:The other line that I really like to say specifically around grief and even trauma, really like to say specifically around grief and even trauma.
Speaker 3:I tell people.
Speaker 2:I can only imagine how you feel, and that that's validating. Without telling a person I know how you feel, I can only imagine makes it sound like, okay, it's valid for me to not even know how to react, and I use that line a lot. So spoiler alert to all my clients who are listening to the podcast right now. But the truth is is that's not a line that I rehearse, but I certainly know that that's the right thing to say, because the day I say to someone I know exactly how I feel, I probably will land like take my license, give it back to the state of Massachusetts and say, all right, I can't do this job.
Speaker 3:Well, you know that also gets into the other dilemma that therapists go through in terms of therapist self-disclosure when, when is appropriate self-disclosure? When it isn't, I mean for me. Now, if somebody who's experienced loss, I can pretty much say to somebody I can, I can kind of feel where they have, particularly if it's a loss of a child. So but what I won't do is I say I, I can say I can I under, I can understand where you're coming from. In that sense, I can do that and say this is my, this is what I did to help me. This may help you. When counselor self-disclosure becomes unethical, it's when the therapist is using the client for their own form of therapy.
Speaker 2:Bingo I think that's what's changed right?
Speaker 3:I mean I tell people.
Speaker 2:I share my story with my clients. The day we're recording this today is the anniversary of a miscarriage that me and my now ex-wife had. We lost our first child. I could disclose that to someone. When they have a miscarriage, I don't go and I'm still working on. No, I said that's how I lived with it, but I want to know how you want to live through it. How can I help you? And that's why I tell people sharing your story is powerful. Making it your story is not. It's taking away from the client.
Speaker 3:Absolutely, and if somebody trusts you enough to share a story of their most intimate detail of their lives and death is certainly one of the most intimate experiences we'll have. I tell my students, I tell anybody listens, consider it to be the ultimate gift because they trust you with the most traumatic and the most life-altering part of your life and consider yourself blessed. And every story I hear Steve inspires me and I consider that to be a great gift.
Speaker 2:Well, I think that you know. You talk about it being inspired by your clients. I believe that you know. I believe everyone has their own story and they're all valid, whether someone is struggling with their story, whether people may make up part of their story to make themselves a Y, x, y, z I don't want to even characterize it. The opportunity to learn from every one of our clients is essential. As therapists, and specifically around grief, one of the things that I do with all my clients when I terminate with them is I take them out to eat I mean not the Chateau, whatever, or like a steak dinner, but you know, maybe a small restaurant, maybe even just a muffin and a coffee. And what I do at the end of the set, at that last session, I tell them what they thought me about life, and that's so powerful for the client because they're like shit, you were listening.
Speaker 3:And I'm like absolutely. Well and particularly, and when you're talking about dealing with individuals who are addicted and we you know, steve, we know the stigma around addiction that you know, you've heard all the myths about addiction. You've heard we've heard all of that that these are people that are are are lower than low. These are people that are lower than low. These are people that are homeless. We can go through the laundry list.
Speaker 2:They don't have any. Will is my favorite.
Speaker 3:Yeah, they don't have any will is my favorite. Yeah, and these are individuals that are bright, that are. You know, it's an equal opportunity disease and it's everybody. And these are individuals that are bright, they're creative, they have, when they've been sober and there have been many clients I've worked with that have had several years periods of sobriety they've done some meaningful service work. So you take a look at the whole totality. So you know it's. Yeah, I mean, you know you.
Speaker 3:Just, sometimes life is illusion, posing as truth, and one of the things that I things that a person is not their addiction. We're treating the behavior and sparing the self-esteem of the individual, and I think that's a great tool. This is what you've taught me, Because one of the mantras that I go by is we're all students and teachers, so let's learn from each other. We can learn from everybody that comes into our purview. And, um, they've taught me a lot about life and for that I'm, I'm forever grateful and I will sing the praises of anybody, anybody who has addiction. I will defend anybody that thinks that that buys into the stigma, that buys into the myth to say no, it isn't true. Take it from somebody who's worked with them for 27 years. It's not true.
Speaker 2:Well, I also remind anyone who tells me about it's a will issue or whatever. I remind them one thing If you know four people, you know someone who went through addiction. Did you judge them that way? And you highly likely did so. Stop judging other people, because everyone has their story for where they're at today.
Speaker 3:that's right, yeah, yeah, we don't know what people are going through. So love is trail with love, you know, love is the. I think I think I've heard this quote love is the the only rational act, and I and I forgot who did. Who did the quote, but it was. It was in tuesdays with maury in the the book, tuesdays with Maury. Love is the only rational act and that's what's going to get us through some tough times and that's what's going to be key to us building a community. That's going to, that's what we're going to be mutually supportive to each other during times of trauma and trouble.
Speaker 2:And what's interesting is we're talking about the misconceptions of substance use, which I could go down that rabbit hole really, really long. But maybe we can talk a little bit more about the misconceptions about grief, because I think there's a significant amount of those and I don't know what you think, but I wanted to know what you thought yeah.
Speaker 3:the first is grief is time limited. And this one? I think this was an outgrowth of the stages of grief which Kubler-Ross first developed in 1969 and was designed to be a vocabulary for individuals who are going through their end-of-life trauma. Many in Western society extrapolated that and said well, this is how we grieve. So the myth is that grief is time limited and then, six months to a year, we should be done grieving, put our grief in a box and move on forward as if nothing has happened. And that is furthest from the truth. For one, the second year, for me and for many others that I've companioned in grief, is worse than the first year. Because the first year is kind of like surreal. Like in my own instance, steve, with my daughter Janine. I was thinking, you know, she was just going to walk into the kitchen and say, hey, dad, just kidding, I'm back, or that God or whoever was running the universe was going to come down and say you know, we made a mistake, we're going to give you your life back the way it was. And once, one day and one year and one day hit Steve, I realized that this is going to be my life going forward. My daughter isn't going to be a part of it. And do I want to live or do I want to die? And this is what the decision basically that I had to make Am I going to live or am I going to continue to wallow in the muck of my grief until I just wither away? And you know, eventually I made the decision where I wanted to be of service and to help others as a result of what's happened in honor of and with my daughter. So that's one of the first myths is that grief is time-limited.
Speaker 3:The other thing and I just want to get into myths about specific kind of loss and specifically miscarriage loss and newborn death a lot of times individuals will say well, you know, you can have another child or they'll look at miscarriage or newborn death as a lost pregnancy, but it's a lost child. And then my wife has told me right, my wife and I've had this conversation. She said when I found out I was pregnant, that child became mine, we bonded and in nine months you know they they're. They're feeling their child kick, they're feeling they're, they're talking to each other, playing music in the womb, soothing music to create a soothing environment. That's her child, and to say that somebody has lost a pregnancy is insensitive, it's a lost and we treat it as that and saying that, oh you know, you can have another child.
Speaker 3:One, maybe they don't want to. Two, maybe they can't. Maybe that one child that they lost through miscarriage or newborn death was the last chance they had to have a child and they went through a lot of very drastic means, such as maybe the woman having hip-widening surgery to expand her birth canal to have a child. So that's the other part of it. The other part, I think the other myth is that some of the things that we're told to say that we think are helpful, like I know how you feel that's one of the worst things you can say because you don't okay. The other thing is or I know how you feel, I lost a dog. Now I'm not saying pet loss isn't significant, but when you compare the loss of a pet to the loss of a child or a human being, there's no comparison or saying things like uh, god needed another angel or or which that always.
Speaker 2:That is a pet peeve of mine. I can tell you.
Speaker 3:Well, here's another pet peeve of mine. God won't tell you. Well, here's another pet peeve of mine. God won't give you any more than you can bear. Oh, my God. Well, and these are things that we're told are comforting, but they're really not. What I would have told somebody who said that to me is that God already gave me more than I could bear. He took my child, so this is more than I could bear. He took my child, so this is more than I can bear. So don't tell him he's not going to give me any more than I could bear. He already has.
Speaker 3:Okay, and so essentially and I don't usually say I'm sorry for your loss, I'll say that, but what I'll also say things like you know, please accept my condolences for your loss, or you and your family are going to be in thoughts. Uh, some individuals will, will take umbrage at verbiage, um, and you know, the only way you'll know that is when it happens. But one of the things that I've also tried to be conscious of is the what am I going to say to an individual after they've experienced a loss? I'll look at cause of death, I'll look at the circumstances. How do I want to come across what I to say, and it doesn't automatically come to me. I have to think about it and be mindful of how do I want to present myself.
Speaker 3:Another myth is that saying nothing is better is not as good as saying something. Well, when you don't have something to say or don't know what to say, simply offering your presence can be powerful. It's okay to say I don't know what to say, I have no words for your tragedy, but I'm here and I will. I'll be willing to listen anytime you need me to listen. Run errands, do anything you need me to do. And here's the other thing.
Speaker 3:Another myth is that people know what they need after they, after after death. They don't. You know. It's like whatever you need, let me know. And it's like I didn't know what the hell I needed after my daughter died. I couldn't even think straight in terms of what I needed, much less what anybody else needed. So be directive.
Speaker 3:If you're my neighbor and you experience a loss, I'd knock on your door and say, steve, I'm going to the grocery store to pick up a few things. What do you need Now? What this might trigger is you might look in the refrigerator and say, shit, I haven't bought anything for five days. You know, dave, would you mind? Here's the money. Would you mind going to get this? That's how you can be of help. And then the other thing is please don't ask somebody who is grieving how they're doing unless you're prepared for a conversation. Because how you're doing to somebody is grieving just isn't a social nicety. It means it create, creates a whole new, different meaning. So unless you have the time for the answer, don't ask the question I also want to add tone.
Speaker 2:How are you doing?
Speaker 2:is to me like you're kind of like prompting people to say something in that direction I don't say it that way, because I think that sometimes that can be very hard for people, number one and number two. I think that that's why, like you know, I've had people tell them how do you think I'm feeling? Yeah, you know, like I lost my, my son, my daughter, my whatever and in and I'm not obviously in an insensitive way, I'm just giving an example. And ultimately, I want to mention that because I've heard that too many times.
Speaker 2:And the other advice I give to people is this, and this has come from a lot of like I work with first responders when there's a police officer, firefighter or someone dies, vmt, paramedic, a lot of people offer help for the first two weeks. Then everything disappears and that family is still grieving and doesn't know what to do. So I tell people if you really want to be helpful, yeah, sure, show up at the funeral, sure, I'll go to all that stuff, but more importantly, in two to three weeks, stop by and spend time with them.
Speaker 3:You know, know that's. Another myth of grief too is that after the funeral, it, you know that, that's that's, you know, that's all I need. You know all I need to do is I. But afterwards, after all, the people have left, that's when the grief really starts settling and that's when they have an opportunity to realize, hey, this is going to be tough.
Speaker 3:The time to check in with them is after the funeral. The time to even if you say you shoot a text, you do a phone call say, hey, I'm thinking of you, I just wanted to, I was thinking of you today. I'm just checking in to see how you are doing today at this moment, not just how you're doing in general, how you're doing today, and that might spike a phone call, that might spike a conversation. And then that leads to hey, I'm going to the store, I'm running a few errands, what do you need? And that's, that's being present, and you won't have to worry about what you have to say or what you're not saying. You're just giving your authentic, genuine presence in being a companion in front of somebody by, by trying to help out in what might seem to be minor ways, but they're big ways, particularly when somebody who was not able to think straight in the early stages of grief.
Speaker 2:I remember a particular time where I think it was when my grandmother died. It was around Christmas at the time and it was my father and my mother and myself and my then-wife sitting in front of a Christmas tree on the 24th after we buried her on the 23rd, and the silence was absolutely deafening. Yep, and I tell people I share that story for to people because I say it's not like coming to see me on the 16th after she dies. That's great, thank you. I appreciate that. Coming in seeing me on the 25th or 26th, that means a whole lot more and I know that that sounds to people counterintuitive, but I think that means more when there's a hundred people saying I'm sorry for your loss, I'm sorry for okay, yeah, you're going through the motions, you almost you don't see the time go and then suddenly you're like 10 days later and you're like the hell's going on.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, I mean support at any time during the grief process is support, isn't time limited. I appreciate hearing from people who remember my daughter 21 years later and once they've been remembered. That's a great gift to us anytime, because it means we can share some stories, share some memories, and it's always a great gift. So don't think the remembrance stops. The other thing is, oh, the other myth is that if I mention that person's name, it's going to make the bereaved person upset. Well, I tell people hey, we're already upset. If you mention our child's name or you mention our spouse's name, it's going to put a smile on our face. It's going to tell us that you've remembered and that is something that is very meaningful to us. So now say their names, show them that you remember, show them that their life matters.
Speaker 2:And yeah, just to put a little bow on this, it's like when we people say if I mention suicide to someone who's suicidal, they'll make him more suicidal. No, you'll break the whole barrier of not being able to talk about it. Absolutely as we approach the hour, I want to make sure we talk about your book. Okay, tell me about your book.
Speaker 3:Well, I got a copy right here, so I'll just show it for the viewers. It's called when the Psychology Professor Met the Minister To talk about how, co-authored by me and also Reverend Patty Farino, an interfaith minister who was originally from Long Island and now living in South Carolina. To talk about how we met would probably be another podcast episode, steve, but I'll give you the condensed version, since I know we're running low on time. I met Reverend Farino in 2010, seven years after my daughter transitioned. She was trying to register for a grief conference that I had been organizing and registration was online. And just as she was ready to register, she hit the button to register, her computer screen went blank, and we look at this now as divine intervention that this was meant to bring us together. So she wanted to make sure her registration got through. She called me. We had a conversation. We met at the grief conference.
Speaker 3:I was also thinking about going to a presentation in Long Island that a mutual colleague of the time was was, was uh putting on called embracing the power of change and which, for which patty was a volunteer through her work with with uh, the angel of hope in long island. Um, the angel of hope is a statue that was erected in law in that I think it was rockefeller park, if I if I'm recalling correctly in honor of children who had died, transitioned or passed away, and parents would congregate there At the park. Patty would also do some volunteer bereavement support and interfaith ministry work with the parents. So she said you know, if you ever get to Long Island and you want to come down and see the workshop, you can stay with me and my husband and I'll show you my Long Island. So one thing led to another. A couple of weeks after the conference I told her I want to come down. So I asked her probably about 300 times is your husband going to be okay with me staying there? He doesn't know me and the last thing I want to do is be accused of breaking up a marriage or causing a rift. He said, trust me, he's going to be fine. And he was. And her husband Marco and me, patty and my wife Sherry, are just like soul family members and friends today. That's how much the relationship has grown during the conversation. I'm going to backtrack.
Speaker 3:Initially she had asked me during the conversation do you believe in the signs from your loved ones? And I said no, patty, I'm a science-based guy. I really don't believe in any type of spiritual phenomenon. I'm paraphrasing that. But there were some things that were happening that science couldn't explain. I would think of my daughter in a song that we both like and would come on the radio that we. At the same time that I was thinking about my daughter, and as I was walking, my granddaughter's butterfly seemed to be following me around the block. So the things that were happening, that didn't fit my science-based background, but I still couldn't make sense out of it.
Speaker 3:I said you know, I think my, my granddaughter sent me, or my daughter sent me, a rainbow on father's day, double rainbow. So then at the conference I gave her a hug and we talked and she goes. You know, I think your daughter sent me a rainbow, and this was like a week before the conference. What I found out later, steve, was that when she was, the rainbow that she had seen went over transverse Route 17 in New Jersey, took a video of it and she was sitting on the car and she heard in her head a voice saying I need you to talk to my father and she's saying okay, but who's your father? I mean, I shouldn't say it like that. But she just wanted an. Okay, I'm glad to, but tell me who your father is. It's the guy you talked to about the conference. So I didn't know this until after the fact. But once we were in Long Island I got to her house. She told me to get comfortable, she took me to her meditation room and from there I began to learn very quickly that my daughter's spirit was alive and well and that Patty was a conduit for me to for her alive and well, and that Patty was a conduit for me to, for her to tell me what she needed to tell me, and I believed everything that happened. I know that was probably quite well. Did you believe it? I did Because prior to the workshop, prior to going to Long Island, I was driving three of the presenters after the day after the conference, two old forge in the Adirondacks to see the leaves.
Speaker 3:They were having this intense discussion about spirituality and I looked up to the sky and it was my soul speaking, steve, I think, as opposed to my mind saying I want to be where they are. All I wanted was to have a, be able to have a conversation on spirituality or understand more spiritual practices. That would help me get through to the next moment. So I got more than I bargained for. I got a whole different perspective that led to marathon conversations we had about how spiritual practices and psychology and this was over a 10-year period can help individuals together transcend challenge and also the importance of critical thinking. The details of my spiritually transformative experience, sampling of our conversations, the importance of critical thinking for present and future generations are all in this book. It's less than 200 pages. It's designed to be a fast read, but yet a thought-provoking read.
Speaker 2:Where can we get it?
Speaker 3:You can get it on Amazon in paperback and Kindle. I would encourage your listeners to take a look at the reviews on amazon. We've gotten very positive reviews from a lot of individuals about the book. If they want a signed copy, they can certainly email me at bootsy and angel at gmailcom and they could pay me through venmo um, and if they did that it would be a little bit more obviously it would be 15 plus five dollars shipping and handling for a signed copy if I sent it to them directly, so it would be $20 total. The book on Amazon is $15 in paperback and less than $9 in Kindle, and we want the book to get into as many hands as possible. We think it can help whoever reads it and be of comfort to whoever reads it and realize that the universe has some amazing things that we can take a wonderment at and you know that life does truly go on. And then we can be open to that, to those type of messages and multidimensional living in a multidimensional universe, if we're open to it.
Speaker 2:Well, what I'm going to do is I'm going to add your book from Amazon. I will add your email address you just mentioned, as well as your Venmo, because I'm going to be getting a book that way, and I really want to thank you for your time today, because this was a fantastic conversation. Like I said, time flew by and I hope maybe we'll have to get together and talk more about other stuff, because I really enjoyed this conversation.
Speaker 3:Steve, I did too, and I'd, um, I'd love to get together again and talk some more. Um, this was a seamless conversation and it was just great, and it seemed like, uh, we, we aligned on a lot of different things, which was was, which was great, but it's what you believe is great and that's that. I've learned to make space for that and, um, it's what makes the world go around. It enriches my critical thing again, it enriches my perspective.
Speaker 2:So and, as I've said to many people before, you will be in my meditations because that's what I do, and I hope you have a great rest of the night and I'll talk to you soon you got it, steve, thanks well, that's it. This completes episode 186. Dave Roberts, thank you so much, and I hope you join us for episode 187.
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.
