A little bit about us.

This podcast episode gives you a brief description of its hosts and why they have chose to do a podcast about the challenges to getting in and staying in therapy.

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Transript of this Episode:

https://www.buzzsprout.com/2391677/16385437-a-little-bit-about-us/transcript

Transcript

Benjamin Santee  0:01  
Ben, hi, I'm Ben Santee,

Flavio Da Silva  0:03  
and I am Flavio da Silva.

Benjamin Santee  0:05  
We are the hosts of a brand new podcast called Getting to the Couch. This podcast focuses on identifying and overcoming the barriers to getting to and staying in therapy. This is episode zero of Getting to the Couch, a brief introduction as to why we're doing this podcast, as well as a little bit about ourselves. The

Flavio Da Silva  0:28  
content provided in this podcast is for informational purposes only, and it's not intended as a substitute for professional therapy or medical advice. While we discuss mental health and therapeutic topics, we don't intend to diagnose, treat, or prevent any condition.

Benjamin Santee  0:44  
Listening to us does not establish a therapist-client relationship between you, the host, or its guests. Always seek the advice of a licensed mental health professional. Contact your mental health provider, or in the case of an emergency, call 911 immediately.

Flavio Da Silva  1:02  
If you are having thoughts of self harm or suicide, please call or text the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988 or use other resources in your area. The

Benjamin Santee  1:14  
views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the individual hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or positions of any organization or professional group.

Speaker 2  1:30  
So, do we want to start off by just explaining where does the name getting to the couch come from,

Benjamin Santee  1:37  
or you're talking about just the name?

Flavio Da Silva  1:40  
Yeah,

Benjamin Santee  1:40  
why?

Flavio Da Silva  1:41  
Yeah, why? Why getting to the couch?

Benjamin Santee  1:43  
Okay. So, do you want to take that?

Flavio Da Silva  1:46  
Sure.

Benjamin Santee  1:47  
Okay.

Flavio Da Silva  1:47  
So, when I think about getting to the couch, I'm initially two thoughts of mine come, two thoughts come to my mind. One is that probably most therapists would think about Sigmund Freud, right, where getting to the couch was actually the couch was actually an instrument that he used, where he would have the client lay down, and he would kind of be out of sight of the client as a way of processing some of the issues and things that were coming up in therapy, fast forwarding to the way that the couch is used today, or at least the term the couch is commonly used today. It's actually about getting to a place where there's a safe place available for you to connect with your thoughts, with your emotions, and with your therapist, because one of the things that we know is that when we feel heard, healing starts to happen. Therefore, getting to the couch,

Benjamin Santee  2:52  
I like that, because when we talk about the heart of what this podcast is, it really is about trying to give people practical information on getting there, and I think that's that's really where the origins of the podcast started. Is I've been in private practice for a couple years, as well as worked with a major mental health hospital in the area and I was consistently amazed at how hard it was for people to either find their therapist or just simply make sure they have the coverage that they need in order to receive mental health therapy and when you think about the level of vulnerability that's required in admitting that you need help, and then all of the work required right in order to get it becomes overwhelming, and anybody who has sought therapy, I feel like has taken this huge step towards improving their life in some way, and I think that's where this podcast comes in for me, and the heart of it was me saying I feel like as a therapist there's some information one that I could learn in the process of getting to therapy, but also that I want to pass off to future clients, not necessarily of my own, but of anybody who's seeking mental health therapy, and so that's really where the heart of this comes, and that's why I asked you to come on with this, because we have a working history, so we've worked together for, in some capacity. I'm trying to think.

Flavio Da Silva  4:47  
I think you were in grad school,

Benjamin Santee  4:50  
yeah? Right? Yeah, you helped supervise my internship, yeah. And then later on, we worked together for, I want to say, three years, it. Least, I mean, was a great experience as well.

Flavio Da Silva  5:02  
Well, and that's where, like, when you're talking about overcoming those barriers, one of the many roles hats, which I wore during that stint of our time working together was essentially helping families to bring loved ones to the point of being able to start therapy, right, and so sometimes that was a financial barrier that needed to be overcome, sometimes that was an employment barrier, because taking time off work to do therapy is challenging, right, even at an outpatient level, collaborating with employers to attend therapy sessions, it's not an easy process for everybody. Certainly, insurance, but also there's this - I mean, let's face it, there's a stigma out there that we are getting better at eliminating. However, we're not there yet.

Benjamin Santee  6:00  
No,

Flavio Da Silva  6:01  
and so when we say that there are narratives that I often hear individuals speak to themselves, and then there's also narratives that are also communicated to individuals, which become enormous barriers towards therapy.

Benjamin Santee  6:20  
Yeah,

Flavio Da Silva  6:21  
and so overcoming those, that's important.

Benjamin Santee  6:24  
Absolutely, because

Flavio Da Silva  6:25  
the alternative is we suffer in silence, and that's not good.

Benjamin Santee  6:30  
No. Well, and to your point, that step right is huge. Yeah,

Benjamin Santee  6:38  
it's huge.

Flavio Da Silva  6:39  
Yeah, absolutely. And I think I've, I've said this to people in the past, coming to someone who you don't yet have a lot of familiarity with, and sort of unzipping and pouring out your soul, it's, it's very much out of comfort zone.

Benjamin Santee  6:56  
Yeah,

Flavio Da Silva  6:57  
and so if in any way this podcast can help this process can help you to kind of understand what to expect, so that you're not going in feeling like I haven't got a clue what I'm even doing here. What do I share? What, what's going to be expected of me? All of those things. Then absolutely, this is this is what we want to do. We want to help individuals get to this point of feeling comfortable sharing what's going on, and therefore on the couch,

Benjamin Santee  7:31  
right. Well, and, and I think about that, right, the work that happens on the couch in the therapy room is a process of setting the compass, and I think a lot of people struggle to overcome the idea that there's also work that's happening outside of therapy as well, which is incredibly important, but how do you do that without knowing the direction, and I think if it takes somebody so much effort to get to the couch. Yeah, you know, if this podcast, right again, can reduce that work, or at least people feel again heard, or like they're not doing it alone, then then I think we're doing our job in that way.

Flavio Da Silva  8:20  
Yep, I like that. There's there's the work that happens with the therapist, but oftentimes there's the work that happens before the person even comes to the therapist.

Benjamin Santee  8:32  
So, Flavio, I would like to take a moment. I want us to talk about our experience, so that listeners know that we're qualified to have these discussions that we're not lay people guessing or just having done really good research, but actually have experience in the field.

Flavio Da Silva  8:58  
Yeah, so I got my bachelor's and master's degree at one of the state universities in Michigan, while doing that I was also working at an adolescent residential program. Towards the end of my time there, that was actually when you and I met, right? You had started as an intern, that's right, so while we were, while we were working together, you and I were both facilitating some groups for intensive outpatient, where the focus is substance abuse treatment, we were doing three hour groups, one of the things that I recall about that was that, like, about 90 plus percent of the clients that we were working with were court-ordered, so nobody really wanted to be there, right?

Benjamin Santee  9:52  
Right. Yeah.

Flavio Da Silva  9:55  
So when I reached a point, and I felt like I had. I learned a lot about working with adolescents. I then wanted to switch over and gain some experience with adults, and that was one of the first times that I had the opportunity to work in a multidisciplinary setting. The program was a medication assisted treatment program, and multidisciplinary because it combines medical providers, nursing, and counselors from various different backgrounds, therapists from various different backgrounds, and so they work together to address not only the physiological aspects of addiction with symptom management, medication management, but they also combine the counseling piece to address the psychological piece, the emotional, and also some of that is also case management, right. When I transitioned into a partial hospitalization setting, again, you and I had the chance to work together.

Benjamin Santee  11:00  
Yeah,

Flavio Da Silva  11:00  
so that was very different sets of roles for you and I, but at times both of us were still doing everything from group therapy sessions, family therapy sessions, as well as individual therapy sessions, and then one of the things that that program also offered was temporary housing for persons who were engaged in the treatment at that time, because, of course, they came from sometimes all over the state and sometimes even all over the country.

Benjamin Santee  11:36  
Yeah, we did

Flavio Da Silva  11:37  
that for a number of years, that was a really good,

Benjamin Santee  11:40  
yeah,

Flavio Da Silva  11:40  
really good experience. One of the things that I also had the chance to do is professionally worked in detox programs, also worked in providing supervision for other therapists, but also like interns from various different universities, and the one thing I would say is I would say I cut my teeth into therapy, gaining experience, primarily focusing on addiction treatment, but I would also say it's nearly impossible to do addiction treatment for long before you start also recognizing that in many ways you're also treating the emotional, psychological, sometimes family dynamics, grief, and loss aspects of what is it that has brought somebody into addiction.

Benjamin Santee  12:31  
Yeah, that co-occurring element,

Flavio Da Silva  12:35  
that yes, is

Benjamin Santee  12:36  
a part of treatment. We're particularly with addiction now. There can other be obviously pieces of co-occurring, but as by definition, but

Flavio Da Silva  12:46  
yeah, it was really good to learn more about supporting individuals in addressing everything from bipolar disorders, depression, anxiety, trauma, grief, and loss, people who are experiencing divorces, loss of a loved one, and so on. Within the last few years, I did transition into private practice, and so now I've got essentially the hybrid of both settings, where it's about under a third of my clients are primarily focusing on addiction treatment, and then the rest are addressing other co-occurring issues, everything from couples therapy, co-parenting, anxiety, depression, trauma, and so on, and so and so. Then, absolutely, I became a licensed clinician through certified advanced alcohol and drug abuse counselor, and then also had the the opportunity to do some work with other organizations that do counseling for doctors and nurses and attorneys and people in other capacities who clinicians need to have a more specific training to be able to work with?

Benjamin Santee  14:07  
Yeah,

Flavio Da Silva  14:08  
what about you?

Benjamin Santee  14:09  
Yeah, so as you indicated, kind of woven together quite a bit. I completed a bachelor's in psychology and sociology from a private university here in the state of Michigan, and soon after that I started working as what was called a family service counselor, which was essentially, is really a social work role, which I enjoyed quite a bit for an adolescent residential program focused on substance abuse, there again, then fast forwarding from that, I ended up working with you in the intensive outpatient program again, adolescent substance abuse, and branched out from there, and then, and then again, we worked together, and so from that, you know, working a lot. Substance abuse, all the way from prior to completion of my master's degree. That whole process of working in substance abuse, I actually decided not to continue.

Flavio Da Silva  15:14  
Yeah, in fact, I remember you and I talking about it, and primarily you wanted to focus on other emotional, psychological needs, right, and mental health needs.

Benjamin Santee  15:24  
Yeah, for me, I think a big piece of it really was about seeing the other side, right, of the co-occurring element of what was, what is substance abuse and mental health challenges, and spending some time in that, and that actually spun me off from working on behavioral addictions, which is an area where I enjoy work,

Flavio Da Silva  15:49  
right,

Benjamin Santee  15:49  
as well. So

Flavio Da Silva  15:50  
it's interesting that addiction treatment led you to realize that's not what I want to focus on. I'd like to focus on some of the concerns that people have, which often lead to that, yeah, and for me addiction treatment resulted in a desire to also work with the families of individuals impacted by by that,

Benjamin Santee  16:17  
yeah,

Flavio Da Silva  16:18  
and so that's what's led me to pursue things like couples therapy and family therapy, while also still keeping my feet in the water with regards to addiction treatment itself.

Benjamin Santee  16:35  
Yeah, I wanted to thank you personally for agreeing to do this, and it, it seemed like you didn't even give it much thought, right? I text you, I think, what do you think about doing a podcast, and it seemed like it was almost instantaneous. You were like, yeah, let's do it,

Flavio Da Silva  16:53  
let's do it.

Benjamin Santee  16:54  
So, I appreciate that.

Flavio Da Silva  16:56  
I'm glad that the topic is something that is safe,

Benjamin Santee  17:00  
yeah. but

Flavio Da Silva  17:03  
absolutely. Thank you for asking me, and, and this is very much something that I'm passionate about. So, for sure,

Benjamin Santee  17:11  
yeah, me too. Well, I also want to stop and acknowledge another piece of this too, is that there are going to be people helping us put some of this together, and so I want to make sure, too, that when, as we get further into this, absolutely, that we start to acknowledge some of those people for that help, right? Because this isn't a just you and I thing. I think you have an intern that's going to help

Flavio Da Silva  17:36  
us. Yep,

Benjamin Santee  17:37  
that's huge. I think to be able to have that support, and so and those names, of course, be placed at the end of the podcast going forward to make sure that we, you know, acknowledge that effort and that work and present some really valuable information and practical information more than anything,

Flavio Da Silva  17:56  
for sure. Yeah, so both of us have a pretty extensive list of individuals whom we work with, and the reality is that when we talk about overcoming some of these barriers and talking from personal experience, there's things that are going to be out of our wheelhouse, and so absolutely we would tap the individuals who tapped them on the shoulder and say, like, come on board, talk to us from your experience, from your perspective, because people have important information to share,

Benjamin Santee  18:27  
so more guests to come. Absolutely right, that's the idea. And hopefully, again, providing that practical information. So let me say this, I guess, in wrapping up our conversation, is that my heart is always to help, and I think I've worked with you enough to know that that's also yours, and so I also want any listeners that listen to these conversations, this information that they hold that into the center of this, and if there is information that they want to hear that we'll hear from them. Yeah, well, again, thanks for doing this with me. Thanks

Flavio Da Silva  19:07  
for asking.

Benjamin Santee  19:08  
Episode zero, the beginning. So we're working through it unscripted. 

Flavio Da Silva  19:16  
Who knows where it's gonna go? Yeah, well, thanks, Flavio. Thanks, Ben.

Benjamin Santee  19:21  
 If you or someone you know is considering therapy or stop therapy for any reason, share and subscribe for future episodes. Thank you for allowing us to be part of your journey towards healing and getting to the couch.

Flavio Da Silva  19:34  
Thank.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai