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SCV-CAMFT Director-at-Large Vidur Malik speaks with Saru Sivanesan, LMFT, about his transition from the tech world to psychotherapy, and about how to connect with and support tech workers.

VM: Could you introduce yourself and the work you do, including any clinical specialties?

SS: My name is Sarangan Sivanesan. Everybody calls me Saru. I was a software engineer for 20-plus years, working in Silicon Valley and elsewhere. My bachelor's is in mathematics and computer science, and then had an epiphany at one point in my life and decided to change my career. I went to the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology, now called Sofia University and did my counseling psychology degree there. My focus is working with software engineers and people in the tech field, because I really understand them. I get their problems. Whatever they say, the lingo they use, there’s no explanation needed. I work with a lot of anxiety, depression, complex PTSD, and addiction. I’m trauma trained in EMDR. I work with somatic modalities, some IFS, of course, CBT, DBT, and psychodynamic.

VM: Could you share what your personal epiphany was that led you to the career change?

SS: I was working in software engineering and looking for change. I could just feel something was coming. I went on a soul searching journey to South America. It was during that time when somebody pointed out to me and said ‘Hey, have you thought about being in counseling, you might be really good at this.’ I really liked to mentor people and had two close friends, who were already in the counseling field. In December 2007, I walked into ITP for an open house. And the moment I walked in, I was like, ‘Oh yeah, this is the place.’ It was just very clear.

VM: As you made your way into the field, what drew you to specializing in working with tech workers?

SS: It was as part of that epiphany. It became very clear that I'm meant to work with this population. If I asked my clients ‘how do you feel,’ their first response is ‘I think I feel…’ If you’re thinking about your feeling, then we have some education to do here. I was that person 20 years ago. I just thought, ‘okay, this is something, there is a gap there.’

VM: There is this kind of stereotype that like people in tech are logic-based, and not as much feeling based. What are your thoughts on that idea?

SS: That's a great question. I think it's a stereotype and a myth that we need to debunk in many ways. I mean, it's true from the outside perspective because that's how all techies relate - ’What is that program? What's that protocol?’ This is how we talk about things. Many people in the tech industry are from Asian origin, where from the time you’re a kid, you are trained to think logically. And that doesn’t mean they don’t have the capacity to feel. They do have feelings. It's just that it’s not given an importance. So once you start creating that balance and allowing people the space to say, hey, it's okay to feel. It's okay to feel sad. It's okay to feel hurt. That a nominal part of the human experience. And let’s talk about some boundaries and different things. Then it becomes a safer to really explore that problem.

VM: What are some ways that you’ve found are helpful to get a client to lean more into their feelings?

SS: I use myself because it’s a lot safer coming from a third party rather than them having to do it themselves. If somebody had a breakup, I might say ‘If I were you, I’d be feeling sad right now’ They don’t have to access that themselves. They access it through me. Another thing I do is I will pull out a feeling sheet and go ‘let me be sad, some feelings. Just nod if this resonates for you.’ Those are two things that I do use initially because it really opens the door to create some safety and to really titrate into feelings. There’s a lot of homework, learning to access feelings, learning to track the sensation in the body and then map the feeling to the sensation and know this is how it feels in the body. The next is the reactivity to the feeling. People are reactive to the feeling because they don’t know what to do with it. So then it’s creating a gap between the feeling and themselves so that there’s no reaction, there’s no backlash. I’m feeling upset and I’m okay. It’s uncomfortable, but I’m okay. Yeah, there’s like a gradual aspect of it, and an intentionality of only going where the client feels like they can go and then sitting with it.

VM: Do you self-disclose your own background in tech with clients to help them?

SS: Absolutely. I self-disclose because then it’s a familiar thing. It is a familiarity and that connection is very important and I also tell them right away. “I want you to feel connected to me and if at the end of this call you don’t connect then let me know, no harm done.’ I also self- disclose my own personal journey and trauma, anything that is relevant to the client. This area where we live is very individual-driven. Everybody’s here to make the money and strike big. They have community, but the community is with an intention to make connections to do good in their work. Nobody really sits down in the community and opens up and talks about how depressed they feel or how anxious they feel, so quite often people feel very alone in their misery. So I just bring myself into the room and I tell them, you’re your therapist and I feel sad/anxious too at times.’ I try to create an even field and where therapists and client are both human.

VM: What would you say to them to a clinician who may be anxious about working with tech workers to help their clients feel comfortable?

SS: it is so natural for me because I'm part of that tribe. For an arts or psychology major, somebody who’s not a science-oriented person, they also are a great value for this population in the therapeutic community. Someone who is more reflective, they bring in another aspect of the psyche that is very needed too. One of the most important things is to understand that sometimes people in tech can present very linear and driven and type A, but there’s an amazing softer gentler human side to them that can be brought out. It’s being able to look past this initial presentation to what is behind that is what invites that into the room, Being able to do that would be the one of the best ways to connect – connecting with some aspects of tech is useful being informed, but going beyond what is in the forefront of their expression and their expressiveness to what is behind – which is the beauty of the human being.

VM: Is there anything else to share about the work you do or about how clinicians do similar work that maybe we didn’t get to that you’d like to speak to?

SS: One of the things to understand when working with tech folks is that even though it does look like the life is very rich and wealthy, there’s a lot that goes on underneath it that is very stressful, even though it does look like the life is very rich and wealthy, there’s a lot that goes on underneath it that is very stressful. I’ve worked with clients who make a bunch of money and from the outside it looks good, but their life is extremely stressful. I think it's really important to have a lot of compassion for what it takes to be at that level. I know people who work at companies like Apple, Microsoft and Google, and the demands are very high. From a therapeutic perspective, we might say, ‘oh, you have a choice, you can go do something else.’ But it takes a long time to make that shift. I’m very fortunate. I had that epiphany and listened to it. I made the shift, but often people don’t make that shift. So I think it’s important to have that compassion.