Back to Spring 2021 Newsletter

by Rowena Dodson, LMFT, SCV-CAMFT Director at Large

Since 1970, Janet Childs has been actively providing crisis intervention counseling and education focusing on the dynamics of loss, illness, crisis and grief. As a founding member of the Centre for Living with Dying, Janet has worked with thousands of individuals, groups and professionals on the front lines. She oversees the educational programs and coordinates the Bay Area Critical Incident Stress Management Team. She has personally facilitated response to many major critical incidents such as 9-11, the Garlic Festival Shootings and most recently, the COVID 19 Pandemic.  Combining her love of music with her personal and professional experience with loss, she creates a safe and healing environment to gently examine these difficult life issues.

Rowena: Thank you for taking time to speak with us (by written word) for this issue, Janet. We wanted to hear from you on grief, given the immensity of the losses we have suffered collectively and individually in this past year. Can you tell us a little bit about the Centre for Living With Dying and your role there?
Janet: I have had the honor to be a founding member of the Centre for Living With Dying, now a part of Bill Wilson Center. The Centre for Living With Dying (CLD) has, for 45 years, provided grief support, education and crisis intervention to professionals and our community. We work with people facing serious illness, traumatic loss, death and grief through our grief groups, serving all ages including children. We also provide support to first responders and caregivers in our Bay Area Critical Incident Stress Management Team.

Rowena: You mentioned in our phone conversation something called “360 grief.” Can you talk a little more about that?
Janet: We are living in what I call “360 Grief/Stress.” Every part of our lives is affected. We cannot take a step out of our dwelling, or if we are un-homed, we may not even have a house to leave; we can’t eat a meal, perform our job, interact with our loved ones without thinking about these “pandemix” times. Because it is not only COVID 19, which is invisible and at this time has no end point. The scabs have been torn off the wounds of racial inequity and social unrest. We are facing multiple natural disasters and climate change. Whether one is dealing with family members at home, or the enforced isolation of the pandemix, or personal losses, the stress is a spiral of feelings and reactions with no clear beginning or end.

Rowena: I know you work with caregivers and first responders. What would you want to tell therapists about their own grief and stress right now?
Janet: It is important to acknowledge that we, as caregivers, do absorb the trauma that we witness in our clients. Indeed, stress is taken in the body and processed through the senses. Trauma research shows us that our experiences are received through the five senses, so even when our mind is keeping a distance, we are still imprinting in the neural pathway of our brain all of the details of the illness, the trauma, the pain. Caregiving and response professionals necessarily utilize their sensory input in performing their job on a daily basis. As a result, stress/trauma has imprinted on several sensory paths as we’re doing our jobs. We have found at CLD that this occurs in both witnessed trauma and imagined trauma.

As helping professionals, we often do what we call “comparison stress shopping.” We might minimize our stress or compare it to our clients, coworkers or family/friends. When we minimize or downplay our stress, it weakens our immune system. When we acknowledge and own our stress, it boosts our immune system—our mind and body are in agreement and mobilize together to support us. Dr. Kelly McGonigal, of Stanford University, has done years of research on stress: her terminology is ”tending and befriending.”

How to build resiliency in these times with ourselves and one another? Right now, even as we need to physically distance for our health and well-being, we do not need to “socially distance.” Just changing the terminology in our language can open up possibilities for interacting in a meaningful way. At the Centre, we have discovered the powerful medicine of acknowledgement, expression, action and reconnection as a formula for meeting stress, trauma and change.

In our modern society, great emphasis is placed on what we do as a gauge of our worth as human beings. When we experience change, loss or transition in our work environment, it can have far reaching effects on our personal lives, our self-esteem as well as our beliefs and values. Dealing with change, in the workplace and in our personal lives, in a pro-active way, can be a key factor both in individual and team performance as well as job satisfaction in these incredibly difficult times. We can gather as a work group together and acknowledge that we are experiencing unprecedented times. As co-workers, we spend more time with each other and we are the best support for each other. I would recommend that workplaces create a “Critical Incident Stress Management” Team… where peers are supporting peers. For therapists who are working in a single practice, please get connected to a local CISM Team, and get the defusing you deserve. Our Team provides this to therapists in the aftermath of critical incidents.

Rowena: So acknowledgement of what we are going through is a very important step. Getting to know intimately what we are going through and “befriending,” so even some acceptance there. Can you talk about CLD’s framework for this process, your “formula” as you call it?
Janet: At CLD, we have a set of questions that we teach people to acknowledge and feel their grief, and to name what is supporting them right now. These can be used by friends and family with their loved ones, so using these questions does not require a therapy background. And yet I think they are very powerful in opening up honest sharing about one’s grief. Here are our grief triage questions:

    - First acknowledge your/my grief. What is the most powerful, difficult, hardest part for you/me right now?
    -What would work for you/me right now, to support you/me in getting through this?
    -How can you/I get what you/I need right now?
    -What action steps can you/I take?
    -What can you/I reconnect with right now that is still good, still meaningful and still important? What are you/am I most grateful for right now?

It may seem simple, but having this structure calms our chaos a bit and allows us to have more control. There is an ancient wisdom saying that states: “We cannot control the event that has happened, we can only control how we will respond to it.” Victor Frankl’s book, Man’s Search for Meaning, addresses this beautifully.

We recommend “Walk Talks,” a concept we created over 30 years ago. You can do walk talk three different ways. Physically distancing, and with masks, meet in nature, outdoors, and go for a walk; communicate with your cell phones and walk separately; or do it solo, and ask yourself the questions while walking. Being outdoors is a great way to connect with the greater forces of nature, creating a larger container for pain, struggle and joy.

Rowena: Anything else that you would like to share with us in this moment?
Janet: Dr. Maya Angelou very powerfully commented “I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” It is your presence and your willingness to show up that people remember. So in these times, we do not have to have the answers. Simply by asking/acknowledging, listening/allowing for expression and by validating/accepting their truth, we are creating that safe environment for them to explore making meaning out of their experience. In the Ugandan tradition, instead of the many clichés that may be shared after a tragedy, they simply say, “I stand beside you.” It creates a sense of being united with each other: we do not have to do it alone. This was shared with us by a paramedic on our Bay Area CISM Team who went to Uganda with Doctors without Borders, and heard the local people sharing this sentiment with each other.

Rowena: Thank you so much for your time and your wisdom. We wish you well as you retire from CLD and embark on your next chapter.
Janet: You’re so welcome, thank you for speaking with me.

Rowena Dodson is on the SCV-CAMFT News committee, and has been a licensed therapist since 2016. She has a private practice in Mountain View, and works as a per diem therapist at El Camino Hospital adult outpatient behavioral programs. Her emphasis has been on helping adult clients find their voice and their power to shape the lives they want. She can be reached at director-at-large@scv-camft.org.

For more about working with grief and loss, you can check out Janet’s book:
Experiential Action Methods and Tools for Healing Grief and Loss Related Trauma: Life, Death and Transformation by Lusijah Darrow and Janet Childs.

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Interviewed by Dominique Yarritu, LMFT, SCV-CAMFT News Editor

Dolat Bolandi, MA is a marriage and family therapist with 20 years of experience working with individuals and families specializing in maternal mental health, parenting, and cross-cultural issues in a variety of settings. She has a private practice in Los Gatos, runs groups, and teaches classes in the community. She can be reached at DolatBolandi.com.

Dominique:  Welcome, Dolat! It’s a real pleasure to meet with you today. How do you feel?
Dolat:  I’m good. To be honest, I’m not sure what to expect, I’ve never done this before! Since I’ve talked to you, I feel that every time we connect, things just flow naturally, and even things bubble up that I didn’t even connect to before, so… I trust that process. I decided I’m not going to prepare; I’ve looked at the questions, as a backdrop, so I’m just going to trust the process and the more genuine me will be prevalent.

Dominique:  Welcome, Dolat! It’s a real pleasure to meet with you today. How do you feel?
Dolat:  I’m good. To be honest, I’m not sure what to expect, I’ve never done this before! Since I’ve talked to you, I feel that every time we connect, things just flow naturally, and even things bubble up that I didn’t even connect to before, so… I trust that process. I decided I’m not going to prepare; I’ve looked at the questions, as a backdrop, so I’m just going to trust the process and the more genuine me will be prevalent.

Dominique:  Welcome, Dolat! It’s a real pleasure to meet with you today. How do you feel?
Dolat:  I’m good. To be honest, I’m not sure what to expect, I’ve never done this before! Since I’ve talked to you, I feel that every time we connect, things just flow naturally, and even things bubble up that I didn’t even connect to before, so… I trust that process. I decided I’m not going to prepare; I’ve looked at the questions, as a backdrop, so I’m just going to trust the process and the more genuine me will be prevalent.

DY:  Wonderful, that’s what we want!
DB:  Thank you for doing this, it’s a good service for the community.

DY:  You are welcome. I’m really loving it. It’s great to know about our colleagues, about what they do, their approach, so I’m really looking forward to our time together. Let’s start, shall we? Where did you graduate from, when did you start to practice, and where you’re located?
DB:  I graduated from Santa Clara University; my office is in downtown Los Gatos. When did I start  practicing? Over 20 years ago. I was, gosh… I still think I’m new… It took such a long time to learn to do this; that just blows my mind every time I say this. I was actually pregnant when I was an intern so that’s 20 years ago. That’s how I know how long I’ve been practicing [laughs]. And, by the way, I have a story about everything so you can stop me when you need to!

DY:  It’s ok, I love stories. What did you do before being a therapist?
DB:  I was a software developer, a computer engineer. I wrote code to the machine. Like hex numbers (decimal sequence used in programming language) and stuff. I can’t believe I actually did that! I worked in high tech companies for 10 years. What was more natural for me was to support people, so I moved to sales support. I had the technical knowledge, so I could assist in presenting technical material and also help train the sales reps to talk about the products.

DY:  And from there, what made you decide to become a therapist?
DB:  Well, I was always interested in human behavior and trying to understand what’s behind people’s motivations. I really enjoyed watching foreign films without subtitles and trying to actually read between what they’re saying. That was one of my favorite things to do even when I was younger. Understanding what’s behind things is innate in me. I became interested in the work of therapy while working in high tech, thought I could apply it to potentially becoming a manager. I took my first class and I will never forget: when it was over I was like “is it really over?” I was so mesmerized. I just fell in love with it. I took classes not thinking that I would ever change careers because it was too crazy: I was in Silicon Valley, top notch kind of place for my field and I had such good benefits and everything. So I just kept taking classes because I enjoyed it and I was in my own therapy. It became more serious, and once I had my baby, I worked part time for a year, and then, they wanted me to travel a lot and I thought “well, let’s just cut the cord.”  I quit, stayed at home, and went to school.

DY:  So you go from being a software engineer to being a health care provider. What do you think translated from your former job to being a therapist?
DB:  That’s a really good question. I’m definitely comfortable with people, that’s my temperament, and I was already in a support position, especially in the last 5-6 years of my job. Then, interestingly enough, I’m just realizing now, I was a test developer at my first job. So, I literally had to go to hex numbers, and from the numbers, I had to guess where the problem was. Gosh, I never thought about it like this. So, it was really looking at or behind what was not functioning, what was causing problems, what may not seem as coherent, or obvious. Just like listening to the unconscious.

DY:  Yes, and like so many changes, transformation doesn’t happen overnight: throughout your account, I can see the progression between what appears to be two very different jobs.
DB:  Also, the way I wrote code was like art: I was creating something. I was criticized for not following certain orders, you know. I mean, my code worked, I was employed but I followed a very intuitive flow. I was going into reverie. It was fun.

DY:  Fast forward to today: what do you like most about your current job?
DB:  I love that I continue growing while doing it. I’ve always been committed to my own healing. I like being my own boss in private practice. I enjoy collaborating with like-minded colleagues who are passionate about the human experience and creating change for the better. I love the fact that in especially post-partum time and pregnancy, I can actually see people get well. What I especially enjoy about working with perinatal time is the depth of work that happens that is harder to access as directly in other times. It’s such a transforming experience: the mother literally has to open up for a very vibrant and needful young part of her to show up, which very much invites the mother’s vulnerable and needful part to be in the forefront. People can make some serious fundamental changes during this time that normally you don’t have access to. It’s a unique version of a transformative crisis.

DY:  It may also be more acute?
DB:  Yes! And for me, right now, the empty nest phase is the same process. When you’re launching your children, just to separate psychologically and let go, you feel many squeezes that the child feels as well, and then it’s like “who am I now?” I found these two experiences to be very parallel. And I could see it coming in waves: squeezes and releases getting to a point when it’s clear you need to let go. Very much parallel to giving birth. So, right before giving birth there’s the nesting experience, people are scrubbing the floor… for me, I was cleaning this closet here. I couldn’t stop cleaning that closet, not knowing why. Fast forward after I dropped my first baby in DC for college, I came back and the following morning, I was cleaning the same closet, not knowing why again. When I finished cleaning that closet, I realized it was the same nesting activity. So, it was helpful for me to compare it to the process of giving birth. It’s individuating.

DY:  Exactly, like giving birth to a transformed mother. So after all these years, how do you find the inspiration to continue doing this job?
DB:  There is a commitment that is much deeper than I know, I don’t know how to explain it. I don’t want to sound too hokey here, but I do believe that it was given to me: I was very blessed to have had therapists who would not change their schedule or cancel on me. Because when there were breaks, I could feel the impact of it. I also really connect and love my patients dearly: there’s such a deep privilege in connecting with somebody soul to soul. Does that make sense?
DY:  Yes, definitely.
DB:  And another thing, I believe, is important: I continue to study. I am part of a consultation group and we actually study. We read theory and we apply cases to it. I also do individual consultation three times per week. For me, that’s a big part of remaining inspired: when I see what’s happening behind the scenes and I can apply the theory, it’s really invigorating, it’s hopeful, and I don’t feel so beat up. Negative transference, for example, once I can digest it, make sense out of it and offer it to my patient, it gives me so much hope.

DY:  Hearing you say that you continue to consult so actively and that you are constantly learning is very comforting for me as a new licensed therapist.
DB:  One of my first teachers actually said, “the day you think you know what you’re doing is the day you need to give this up.” And this is the beauty of this craft. When I can see more clearly, through the help of a consultant, the relational role that I play with some of my clients… Then there is more room to separate and be able to think; that brings freedom for everybody!

DY:  What’s the focus in your practice?
DB:  I do mainly perinatal, pregnancy, and post-partum; I also enjoy doing cross-cultural and addiction/recovery work.
DY:  So, what led you into perinatal?
DB:  I had an Object Relations class the year before I became a mother, and I was really fascinated by the mother-baby theories, like the Mahler developmental model, and I also loved Winnicott’s theories. When I had the baby, I literally went back to my notes asking myself “what’s the good enough mothering?” I did love the Object Relations ideas and then, when I had the baby in my hands and was observing the concepts, that was so intriguing for me. I could integrate the knowledge into the actual experience. And then, of course, I had my own struggles with postpartum. People were saying “of course, you’ve got a new baby” but sadly I discovered that I was not being listened to. So, that became my dream: I didn’t want another woman go to through the same thing. We are wounded healers! I was so aware, I was open, I wanted help but it was not available to me. Things have improved now, but it’s difficult for women and we still have a long way to go.

DY:  I also enjoy Winnicott's theories! How do you integrate this knowing into your practice?
DB:  What I’ve learned is: when you have a baby, the body goes through physical trauma and it’s considered normal. Mentally, however, you, the mother, are supposed to remain intact, wake up one day and be the queen of breastfeeding, sex six weeks after, and sleep through the night; which at best is crazy making. This is what I love about Winnicott: the mother needs to attune to the baby’s states so, for example, the baby disintegrates and cries. Think of a new baby’s cry: it’s a cry of life and death “if you don’t come to me I’m going to die.” So, as a therapist [mother], I have to feel and pick up what’s going on with the patient and that’s how I can read the patient [baby] and know how to take care of the patient [baby]. You have to feel it inside of you. Now, if I, the mother, have difficulties with difficult emotions like anger and rage, which babies have a lot, this will be very challenging to manage. Some women, for example, may need to shut themselves off to it. Therefore, in my work with women, I don’t want to repress the symptoms. I want to help contain and work with them.  And, I think children continue to give the  opportunity for growth throughout the different stages of development. Teaching the mother to love what is… stay present…

DY:  Dolat, what’s your approach to therapy?
DB:  Depends on my setting. One year after I was licensed, I stumbled on a job at El Camino Hospital. I had the chance to be a part of helping develop the MOMS (Maternal Outreach Mood Services) program, had the freedom and the creativity to put many of the pieces together. For example, one of my favorite group work was putting Mahler’s developmental stages on the board: we looked at each person’s baby, how old the baby was, and we looked at the mother’s anxieties, the anxiety symptoms: they matched the babies’ development stages. When I explained what was going on, the mothers knew they were not crazy. At the hospital I know we are at the ER of mental health, we’re not going to do surgery: we’re going to do X-rays, stabilize people and steer them to specialists. I used more mindfulness and CBT-kind of concepts but I always had an eye on attachment, I always looked at the baby and the mother together. In my private practice, I also help stabilize clients in crisis, but I definitely have more chance to work in depth. For example, I work with highly successful women (attorneys, VPs, etc.) who have to sometimes go on disability because of their extreme anxiety: these women have to realize that they’ve been so independent and have had to be successful in a man’s world, which is more of a left-brain skill. Now with a baby, there’s nothing left-brain about it. The entanglement inside the mother needs to open up. So it [the symptom] is a vehicle, it’s not broken-ness.

DY:  That’s more of a psychodynamic and psychoanalytic approach that you have in your practice!
DB:  Yes, I go in and out of it. For the psychoanalytic piece of it, people have a more eclectic view of this, but I become the mother of the mother (I don’t tell this to the client): I become the container for the mother as she’s the container for the baby, and people do get better.
DY:  This reminds me of the Russian dolls! Did your focus change over the years?
DB:  I dabbled in different things, so I saw kids, I did work with parents, and perpetrators of domestic violence, but I was never attracted to it. Perinatal is what I love and I stuck to it.

DY:  What makes you vibrate to psychodynamic or psychoanalytic theories?
DB:  Can you actually see that I vibrate? There’s something very attractive to me in trying to understand the unconscious process: it feels like it answers questions that may not be easily answered. When I work with someone, I stay present to what’s going on in the relationship, present in the moment, in the transference and especially in the countertransference; I am an instrument. When I work in the relationship, I work with people trying to understand what inside of them closes them off to aliveness, and I can help have a pulse on that. Once those arenas become more known, I don’t claim that they get opened up or healed as I believe we continue to become whole throughout life, but once someone can start receiving and connecting to more aliveness, then the spirit of who they are has a way to shine through. They have a fountain inside of them that feeds them even more. I read this somewhere: the surgeon says “you know, I do the stitching but I don’t do the healing.”
DY:  That’s very  beautiful.
DB:  So, that’s kind of how it feels. There’s a kind of alignment and people can be connected to their higher self [laughs]. I don’t know how to say this so people don’t think it’s too hokey!

DY:  We’ve had a theme for each newsletter this year and this time, I wanted to speak about psychodynamics. There’s a place for all approaches, and there’s a renewed interest for approaches that are more depth-oriented; you’re talking to it. I saw on your website that you did workshops for quite a bit. Do you still do workshops?
DB:  I’ve always liked teaching. When I was at El Camino Hospital, I kept seeing women making it to the hospital, in crisis, and so much could have been prevented. So, I created Mind the Gap groups to teach mindfulness and attachment. We did a lot of exercises like Mahler’s “when do you know your perfectionism kicks in?” I do Mind the Gap workshops when I can get a cohort. I also teach meditation and do meditation groups: we listen to ancient scriptures or poetry without knowing their meaning and I use my therapist skills to facilitate and link up what comes up for the group.

DY:  That sounds quite fascinating. You have a pretty full practice: what do you do for self-care?
DB:  Definitely my own mental health care; I see it as an important part of what I have to offer. I do yoga regularly, and I love to play Daf, which is a Middle Eastern drum. I love gardening and I was getting regular massages before COVID... And I meditate regularly.
DY:  That’s quite a nice palette of various activities that you do to take care of yourself. Do you  read much?
DB:  Yeah, but one of my problems is I can’t stay on one book, I have to have many open books…

DY:  You’re more holistic, maybe…
DB:  Thank you! You set me free… Right now, I’m reading the book The Sacred Art of Recovery, written by Ramy Shapiro, I love this book. And then, I’m also reading one of my favorite books, The Healing, a story about slave midwives, written by Jonathan Odell.

DY:  We're at the end of the interview. So, here’s my last question: is there a quote or a saying that you like and would like to share with us?
DB:  “May we be among those who renew the world” from Zarathustra. I thought about our talk and I thought this just describes the whole point of therapy: when I’m not stuck in my old patterns, then I can really be among the renewal of life today.
DY:  Dolat, thank you for your time and for the drumming! This was a lot of fun.

Dominique Yarritu, LMFT is the editor of the SCV-CAMFT News newsletter and is a newly licensed marriage and family therapist who focuses her practice on adults and couples using a psychodynamic and Jungian approach. She is a doctoral candidate at Pacifica Graduate Institute in Depth Psychology with an emphasis in Somatic Studies and is currently training in somatic experiencing. She sees adults and couples in private practice at Family Matters Counseling Services and she can be reached at dyarritu@familymatters.expert.

References:

Odell, J. (2012). The healing. New York, NY: Anchor Books.
Shapiro, R. R. (2009). Recovery—the sacred art: The twelve steps as spiritual practice. Woodstock, VT: SkyLight Paths Publishing.

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Interviewed by Rowena Dodson, LMFT, Director-at-Large

Maritza Henry has been a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist since 2001. Maritza is the Director of School Based Services at Family & Children Services of Silicon Valley (FCS), a division of the nonprofit organization Caminar. She also provides clinical supervision for the agency's following programs: Outpatient Mental Health, Substance Abuse, Intimate Partner Violence and School Based Services. She has a part-time private practice in San Jose.

Rowena:  Hi, Maritza. Nice to meet you face to face, over zoom! How are you
Maritza: I'm good, thank you. It’s been a good day. 

R: Where are you right now?
M: I'm actually in my office. It’s quiet, I don’t have any little 11 year olds knocking on my door, or dogs barking, so it’s uninterrupted space.

R: Thank you so much for agreeing to be interviewed, to be in the newsletter
M: Well, thank you! It’s an honor.

R:  When did you start practicing, and can you tell us a little bit about your private practice and your agency work?
M: I got licensed in 2001 and moved to San Jose from L.A. County in 2006. I landed a temporary position working as a clinical supervisor at Family and Children Services of Silicon Valley (now Family and Children Services, a Division of Caminar). I stayed on and now am director of school-based services. It’s a behavioral and mental health nonprofit agency that serves populations from birth to elderly age. We have outpatient counseling services, school-based programs, substance abuse programs, an intimate partner violence program, services for the LGBTQ population. I also have a private practice that I started in 2008, part time.  

R: It sounds like a lot, especially with an 11 year old at home.
M: Yah, it's a lot! At our agency, we serve a majority of people who are otherwise underserved. It’s nice to be in the trenches with that and never lose sight that there are so many communities needing support. And then, it’s nice to have my private practice where I work with people who have more privileges. I like the balance.  

R: What was your path to becoming a therapist?
M: As young as 9 years old, I knew I wanted to be a therapist. I didn’t quite know yet what it was called! But I was always fascinated by human beings, their behaviors, and their emotionality. I became very adept at being comfortable in any situation, in any area where there was diversity or differences. I learned to understand the nuances or idioms that people were expressing. So that’s, I think, what led me to becoming a therapist. As I got older I realized, “oh this is what this is, Psychology.” In college I majored in Psychology and minored in Sociology and Italian Studies. I lived in other countries, traveled a lot, and that expanded my knowledge of different cultures. Once I came back from living in London and in Scotland for awhile, I decided to go to grad school, enrolled at Antioch University and got my Masters in Clinical Psychology. 

R: What aspects of being a therapist do you most enjoy?
M: At Family and Children Services, being a director of a program that allows us to be really innovative has been probably the most enjoyable experience. Getting at these embedded structures and cultures we see in schools and being able to go in there and gently introduce another way. We’ve done a lot of trauma-informed support for schools. And it’s nice to see schools shift from a kind of punitive to a more trauma-informed approach and understand the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) perspective when working with kids. These are multi-year programs. But I love seeing that kind of paradigm and cultural shift.
R: That’s huge.
M: And seeing the shift in teachers as well in terms of their feelings of efficacy, their feelings of compassion for themselves and for their students. It’s something that I'd like to take to all school districts.
R: So that’s really creating systemic change instead of just dealing with one child at a time.
M: Exactly.

R: And what do you love about private practice?
M: In private practice I take a similar approach. I’m really into Nonviolent Communication, from Marshall Rosenberg. So, infusing that into my private practice along with Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy (AEDP). That’s a modality that is more emotion-focused. I love watching couples and families get to a place of healing, ones you’d never have thought would get to a place of healing. 

R: Can you say more about how you’re working with couples, what approach you’re using?
M: I also use AEDP with couples, as well as Nonviolent Communication. I help couples be more aware of their common core emotions as well as their inhibitory emotions. And I get them to speak from a place of request as opposed to demand and be aware of what their own needs are, i.e. to feel important, to feel loved, to feel valued. We strive to deepen whatever emotions are coming up and to be able to track them; becoming more aware of their trauma triggers and sitting with it and working through it so they don’t bring it into the space of the relationship. It’s a very hands-on approach and I’m still learning.
R: Do you have couples read the book on Nonviolent Communication?
M: No, I don’t give couples homework, that’s more on the cognitive side and I try to stay more in the realm of emotions and experience. Everything is very in the moment, being able to take in that experience of their feeling a sense of comfort, the partner being able to experience and share in that as well, what does it feel like to see your partner smile?

R: I know you supervise interns and licensed therapists. What would you like them to take away from this time that they’re working with you.
M: That’s a great question. I want them to really feel comfortable in their skin and be able to sit with other people’s discomfort and emotionality while being very aware of their emotionality. Sometimes we, as therapists, think we're comfortable with our emotional expression, but I’m learning that sometimes we’re not. If you are not comfortable with your emotional expression, your core emotions, then it’s "how do you expect your clients to feel comfortable with their core emotions?" I work with my staff on their countertransference. But, I also want my therapists to know what they’re doing in the room and to name it, to be able to identify: what interventions am I doing and why am I doing them? 

R: Are you seeing clients coming in with particular issues because of COVID and because of the racial justice protests that are happening right now?
M: Right, you know one could say we’re having two pandemics right now. On the one hand, there are individuals who are doing better, feeling less anxious, maybe thanks to shelter in place. If their anxiety was rooted in the fast-paced nature of this area, being able to slow it down, work from home and not having to commute actually has decreased their anxiety. Other clients are struggling with the uncertainty of COVID and asking—what does this mean for me, and for my future? My young adult clients who are in college and who had to go back home see their hopes and dreams halted for now. Add on top of all this, our second pandemic, which is the cry for racial and social justice and equity. That too, for some people, is creating some anxiety. And for others, it’s creating a sense of vigor, excitement and feeling ready for structural and institutional change. Again, it’s just meeting my clients where they’re at. I’m having some great conversations with some of my Caucasian clients who are asking how I’m doing. But also finding out—what’s it like for you and me being in this space together, given everything that’s going on. Really acknowledging our differences, what’s happening in the world, and seeing how that is for our relationship. I’m really comfortable talking about race so that frees my clients to be comfortable talking about race. I call it the “Corona bonus” because if we didn’t have this Coronavirus, we wouldn’t be at this place with the movement for social and racial justice. I love the fact that the whole world is watching, is concerned about the planet, and concerned about racial injustice. And I’m hopeful that we will see some structural changes. Maybe not in my lifetime. But already I’m seeing some really amazing changes. This is an honorable time to be alive, as difficult as it is. I want to acknowledge that this is a scary time as well for many who are greatly impacted financially.

R: I love how you’re opening up the space to have these kinds of conversations in your sessions about race, which a lot of us find difficult to have in our normal lives. We should be having those more often, right?
M: Yes, I agree, why not? We should be.
R: Are there any ways that you see, and I ask since I am on the board of SCV-CAMFT and would love your thoughts, that we could or should be more involved with social and racial justice issues in this moment?
M: Well, yes, given that there is no place that race and racism do not touch in our society, right? It’s our ethical duty as a profession to examine biases that impact our work. Regardless of whether our practice focuses on cultural sensitivity or cultural differences, we, as mental health practitioners, need to understand the history of this country, the effects of racism, and the daily micro-aggressions people of color experience, on mental health. It’s so important to not be color blind and to educate ourselves as much as possible. And it’s hard because we also don’t want to generalize, to use identity categories. Because there’s just as much diversity in one culture as there is amongst cultures. But the more we understand racism as probably an Adverse Childhood Experience and the more we can have a discussion of race and diversity in all of our trainings, the better. So much of what we learn in grad school comes from a very mainstream perspective. I remember trying certain interventions with people from different cultures and realizing, this is not working! (laughs). They’re looking at me like, what are you doing? It’s important to teach therapists how to have that discussion in the room without inflicting trauma itself, and being able to discuss when there has been trauma in somebody’s life. I am an Afro-Latina, raised in this country by parents from Costa Rica who came over here in the Jim Crow era with NO reference of racism because they came from a country where their identity was not determined by race. The Jim Crow era was very confusing to them. It was like, what? We cannot go into that movie theater? 
R: That must have been horrible.
M: They had no reference for any of this, it was very weird. And so, I was raised with that same kind of naïveté or ignorance in a way. People would make assumptions about who I am just because of the color of my skin, and it was like—you have no idea who I am, you have no idea what kind of food I eat, what kind of music we listen to and what kind of language is spoken in the house, you have NO idea. But having that assumption placed on me based on the color of my skin also drove me to look at each person and not make ANY assumptions about how ethnocentric they are. So I would hope that it's both: knowing our history, knowing our country was built on racism, understanding the structure of racism and how it impacts our clients of color, and keeping that in mind as we are treating them. And, and this is really important, in every single training we have, to talk about race, every single one. Does this modality really transfer over to different cultures? Does it really work? 
R: It’s a high bar, isn’t it? And we can keep working towards it. We can do better.
M: Totally. There’s so much material out there, articles, books, podcasts. It’s just people once in awhile taking the time to read or familiarize themselves with something, as a start.

R: I agree. Thank you for that. On a personal note, what are you reading right now?
M: I’m reading a few things. I’m one of those people who reads a lot of books and I jump around. I like audio books and I like to clean, fold clothes and listen. I’m reading Loving Like You Mean It, by Ronald J. Frederick. That’s coming from an AEDP framework. I’m also reading The Language of Love and Respect by Dr. Emerson Eggerichs. I’m more spiritual than Christian and it uses a lot of Christian values, which is good for me to hear. I’m also reading The ABCs of Diversity: Helping Kids and Ourselves Embrace Our Differences, by Carolyn Helsel. I’m reading it with my son. My son is biracial, actually he's tricultural, I should say: Latino, Black and White. He has a little mish-posh of differences in there. So that’s been fun to read with him. And I’m listening to a Nonviolent Communication training on YouTube.
R: All professional stuff! 
M: Yes (laughs). I don’t read for pleasure. I mean, these are all pleasurable, believe me. But I tend to read for knowledge. 

R: Do you have a favorite TV show right now?
M: I have a few of them. I like really bad reality TV! 
R: Are you willing to disclose? (laughing)
M: I like 90 Day Fiancee!
R: Do you not want me to put this in the newsletter?
M: (laughing) I don’t care, it’s a huge part of who I am. It drives my husband crazy! I watch these—really, I don’t know—just bad reality TV shows, and I don’t know why it helps me. It's 90 Day Fiancee right now.

R: OK, I’ll put that one down. I was going to ask you about self-care. It sounds like bad reality TV is part of your self-care.
M: Yes, that’s definitely part of my self-care. I work out. And, I’m not a yogi, but I do yoga. I try and goto bed by 10:00pm. I notice when I go to bed by 10:00, I am in a better space the next day. I have dogs, they’re my therapy, too. Spending time with my children and husband is pretty awesome. It’s just kind of a blend of all of it. I have really great girlfriends whom I have known for 20 years, amazing siblings and parents. Our connection and support for each other is strong. 

R: Sounds like you have some good balance even with the demands.
M: It’s a work in progress, believe me.

R: Any particular quote or saying or scripture you’d like to share?
M: Yes, I do. Just a saying, one that I’ve been using lately especially in this COVID time. It’s one that I always tell my son or my friends or my family members,“You’re always in my heart.” Before we say goodbye, I say “You’re always in my heart.” Even when I’m graduating clients who have really touched me and I’ve had the pleasure of having a beautiful therapeutic relationship with, I tell them “You’re always here for me,” (gesturing to her heart). I just think it’s a nice way of letting them know that a part of you will always feel connected to them. 

R: Maritza, thank you so much. I really enjoyed our conversation.
M: My pleasure.

Rowena Dodson is on the SCV-CAMFT News committee, and has been a licensed therapist since 2016. She has a private practice in Mountain View, and works as a per diem therapist at El Camino Hospital adult outpatient behavioral programs. Her emphasis has been on helping adult clients find their voice and their power to shape the lives they want. She can be reached at director-at-large@scv-camft.org.

References:

Eggerichs, E. (2009). The Language of Love and Respect: Cracking the Communication Code With Your Mate. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson.

Frederick, R.J. (2019). Loving Like You Mean It: Use the Power of Emotional Mindfulness to Transform Your Relationships. Las Vegas, NV: Central Recovery Press.

Helsel, C.B. & Harris-Smith, Y.J. (2020). The ABCs of Diversity: Helping Kids (and Ourselves!) Embrace Our Differences. St. Louis, MO: Chalice Press.

Rosenberg, M. B. (1999). Nonviolent communication: A language of compassion. Del Mar, CA: PuddleDancer Press.

back to Fall 2020 Newsletter

Interviewed by Dominique Yarritu, LMFT, SCV-CAMFT News Editor

This month, we are shining the spotlight on Kate Bartenhagen, LMFT who has been an active member of our chapter since she was an associate.  Kate has a diversified and rich practice  where her focus is on working with adults.  I wanted not only to introduce her work and her approach to therapy but also to explore briefly how she has transitioned her practice from in-person to remote access given shelter-in-place restrictions. In mid-April 2020 I interviewed Kate who was my individual supervisor at Almaden Valley Counseling Service, a community mental health agency located in South San Jose.

Dominique: Thank you for agreeing to be featured in the newsletter. When did you start practicing and where are you located?
Kate: Well, I was licensed in 2012 and since then, I have been part of the same group practice of like-minded therapists.  My office is in a retreat-like setting in downtown Campbell: we want clients to feel safe and welcomed when they come into our lobby, which is warm and inviting.  We have a large coffee table where we display a variety of inspirational books and cards and we have some relaxing music playing in the background.

D:     What did you do before becoming a therapist or what made you decide to become a therapist?
K:     Well, both are kind of tied in.  Hmmm.  So, one of the things that made me want to become a therapist is that, I think I was always a good listener, and I often got that feedback.  People would say “you’re a good listener,” you know. And, I would take my friends’ confidences and hold them close [pauses]. And the other thing is I was a teacher, originally.  So, I got my undergraduate degree in teaching, English education secondary, and I found I couldn’t have the kind of influence on my students I wanted to have because, you’re in a classroom, you’re caught between the administration and the students. And, there’s just too many [of them] to give them individual undivided attention. So, I decided to move into counseling as, you know, a way to work with people on an individual level.

D:     Awesome! And, what do you like most about this job?
K:     [Sighs].  Ah! I love my clients.  I mean I love people, you know.  I think they have so much potential, and that most, if not all people, are simply trying to be loved.  [They are] trying to have an experience of feeling loved; and sometimes we go about it in ways that aren’t very productive or helpful to ourselves or others.  But, if we can see that as people’s underlying intention, then, we can help them [pauses], hopefully, learn to love themselves.

D:     That’s beautifully said. Kate, what is the focus of your practice and what is your approach?
K:     I specialize in the treatment of substance use disorders and co-occurring mental health issues such as bipolar disorder, depression, and anxiety.  I see couples struggling with a variety of issues and often work with infidelity.  For my work with clients dealing with addiction, I use a harm-reduction approach which is often misconstrued as excluding abstinence.  Harm reduction includes abstinence as a possible goal.  Clients come as they are and I use motivational interviewing to identify goals and move towards a healthier lifestyle and relationship to substances.

D:     I believe you also practice a mindfulness and somatic-based approach to therapy, is that right?
K:     Yes, I use a Mindfulness Based Relapse Prevention (MBRP) approach to work with clients who seek therapy for substance use and process addictions.  When I work somatically, I invite the client to drop into the present moment, notice sensations in the body, thoughts in the mind, and emotions that arise.  Mindfulness/awareness allows clients to notice and accept themselves and their world as it is.  From there, they can decide what actions to take rather than immediately reacting to an event or situation.

D:     In addition to using MBRP as a somatic practice, you are also certified in EMDR, correct? Have you been practicing EMDR remotely?
K:     Yes, I am an EMDR therapist.  I attended my training in Southern California through The Institute for Creative Mindfulness.  I chose this training because it was developed specifically for the treatment of substance use disorders and mindfulness.  However [pauses] although I know it is possible to practice EMDR remotely, I have not done so yet.  I am consulting with Kambria Evans, LMFT this summer to become certified and learn more about EMDR with telehealth.  

D:     Your practice is varied. You are also a clinical supervisor; tell us about this side of your practice and the challenges of conducting supervision remotely.
K:      Yes, I currently have 18 supervisees.  I see them in triadic supervision and I also conduct group supervision.  This is something I really enjoy; I am passionate about it, actually.  I like teaching and find that it is a mutual learning.  And in fact, after a lot of questions on both sides initially, meeting with my supervisees remotely is not too bad.  It has become easier, probably because we already had a good personal connection, which continues via this new platform.

D:     How challenging overall is the shelter in place for you and as a therapist?
K:     [Chuckles] It is a challenge for me as an extrovert.  And I see the same for my extroverted clients: during this lockdown they are going stir-crazy while the introverts seem to be doing better.  Because my approach is somatic and reading all of the clients’ non-verbal cues, telehealth presents a challenge.  In the room, I feel a client’s energy and mood more easily.  This is a very different time: we, as therapists, are going through the same hurdles and challenges as our clients.  We do not have a blueprint for this, we have not acquired the wisdom by having gone through this before them.  So, it is about naming what is happening and acknowledging that we are sharing the experience.

D:     That’s right, it’s a pretty new situation for this profession and many of us overall. Now, let’s move on to some more personal questions.  What are you reading right now?
K:    I just finished a couple of books.  One is White Fragility. It’s an excellent book that speaks really to primarily white people who perceive that they’re not racist and therefore are guarded about that.  So it starts that dialogue of how can we acknowledge where we start from?  And that we all have some level of bias.

D:    What made you choose this book?
K:    I think as social justice and racial issues are extremely important with the client population that we serve in the Bay Area, it’s important to continue to educate ourselves.

D:    Any other one you’ve read recently?
K:    The other one was Look me in the eye. It’s about a guy who has Asperger’s. He wrote it himself; his brother is also a writer who wrote Running with scissors, that I also read.

D:    These are very interesting choices, and so different. What do you usually do for self-care?
K:    Some sitting meditation but more mindfulness just in daily life; and nature is hugely comforting to me, so I like to hike [pauses], be outside, walk my dog [laughs].

D:    Do you do short or long hikes? Where?
K:    Well, you know in my life, we raised our kids hiking all the time, so we’ve hiked in various states… Rocky Mountains, Hawaii, Utah, all over California. Fairly long hikes. Shorter ones more recently [laughs].

D:    What is the most important thing you want to pass on to your supervisees?
K:    I think to learn to trust themselves is a really big piece, because often, when trainees or associates start out, there’s a perception that there’s a right way to do this, or there’s one way to do this… so, it’s finding their own voice within the context of a theory and [pauses] hmmm… Engaging themselves in the moment in the room with the client.

D:    Would you share with us a quote or a saying that is dear to you?
K:    Yes, well that’s a quote that I use for myself and interns and maybe everybody. That is: In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, in the expert’s mind there are few.

D:    That’s a quote that you display in your office, right?
K:    [Laughs] Yes!

D:    And is there a person, a book, or a movie that was influential for you professionally and/or personally?
K:    Yes, immediately, the book that comes to mind is When things fall apart by Pema Chödrön.

D:    She’s an amazing individual.
K:    Yes, she is. I’ve seen her and I’ve studied with her. Yes, I was on a sitting retreat in Berkeley many years back with her.

D:    What is it like to be in the same space as Pema Chödrön?
K:    She’s a lot like Jack Kornfield, someone who is just really centered and present and calm  and real… real, yeah.  She’s beautiful.

D:    I have so many more questions to ask you but we are running out of space!
K:    [laughs] These are fun questions.

D:     Thank you Kate, for your time, and for telling us not only about your practice but also about you and what brought you to the world of psychotherapy.
K:    Thank you!

Dominique Yarritu is the editor of the SCV-CAMFT News newsletter and is a newly licensed marriage and family therapist who focuses her practice on adults and couples using a psychodynamic and Jungian approach. She is a doctoral candidate at Pacifica Graduate Institute in Depth Psychology with an emphasis in Somatic Studies and is currently training in somatic experiencing. She sees adults and couples in private practice at Family Matters Counseling Services and she can be reached at dyarritu@familymatters.expert.

References

Burroughs, A. (2002). Running with scissors: A memoir. New York, NY: Picador.

Chödrön, P. (1997). When things fall apart: Heart advice for difficult times. Boulder, CO: Shambhala Publications.

DiAngelo, R. (2018). White fragility: Why it’s so hard for white people to talk about racism. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.

Robison, J. E. (2008). Look me in the eye: My life with Asperger’s. New York, NY: Random House.