← Abundant Practice Podcast
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Foreign.
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Hi, welcome to the Abundant Practice Podcast. I'm Alison from Abundance Practice Building. I have a nearly diagnosable obsession with helping therapists build sustainable, joy filled private practices, just like I've done for tens of thousands of therapists across the world. I'm excited to help you too. If you want to fill your practice with ideal clients, we have loads of free resources and paid support. Go to abundance practice building.com Links all right, onto the show
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so I've talked
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about therapy notes on here for years. I could talk about the features and the benefits in my sleep, but there are a couple things I want you to know about therapy notes that doesn't typically make it into an ad script. First is that they actually care if you like their platform. They don't only make themselves available on the phone to troubleshoot so you don't pull your hair out when you get stuck. They also take member suggestions and implement those that there's client demand for, like Therapy Search, an included listing service that helps clients find you internal and external secure messaging Clinical outcome measures to keep an eye on how your clients are progressing A super smooth super bill process Real time eligibility to check on your client's insurance. In my conversations with the employees there at all levels, they all really believe in their product and they want you to love it too. Second, they are proudly independently owned. Why should you care about that? Because as soon as venture capital becomes involved, the focus shifts from making customers happy to making investors happy. Prices go way up. Innovation plateaus. Making more money with as little output as possible becomes the number one focus. With over 100,000 therapists using their platform, they've been able to stay incredibly successful and they don't have to sacrifice your experience to stay there. You can try two months free@therapynotes.com with the coupon code abundant the VC backed platforms made promises and then they changed the pay, they changed the rules and they made it clear that those promises were never really about us. I built platform to private pay for therapists who were done being dependent on companies that have already shown them who they are, but who aren't ready to blow up their income to get out. You don't have to leap. I'll show you how to bring in private pay clients while you stay on the platforms for stability and then replace graduating clients with private pay clients until the math works in your favor. If you've been circling this decision, hit the link in the show notes. Doors to this cohort close July 3rd welcome back to the Abundant Practice Podcast. I'm your host Alison Parear, founder of Abundance Practice Building. And today I'm here with Maya Benatar. Maya was actually on the podcast maybe in 2017. You were one of my first guests.
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Long time ago.
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Yeah. We're going to be talking about activism as a therapist, how boundaries, passion, all of it. Let's just go into everything. Fear. I think there's a lot of fear out there. So maybe. Maybe let's kind of origin story it a bit like.
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Sure.
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Why are you, like, let's talk about this on your podcast. Why is it important to you right now?
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Yeah, for sure. So I am a licensed creative arts therapist in the state of New York, and I have been that for a long time. And sort of the origin story of my advocacy self, let's call it, is that there's a lot of history here, but essentially, New York licenses various different kinds of mental health professionals in. And all the states do things differently because, you know, complications for no reason. So the short origin story is that in 2022 and before that, myself and other licensed creative arts therapists were like, hey, we're being taken off of or left out of these really important mental health expansion bills, essentially, that would improve access, that would mandate commercial health insurance coverage, that would mandate Medicaid coverage, that would expand diagnostic privilege. And that stinks. A. It stinks, you know, to have gone to grad school, to have done all that you need to do for licensure and for the state to say, actually, you're not, you know, doing therapy, even though clearly that's what I do all the time. And so I got really angry, to be honest. And I think anger is a really important part of not only my origin story, but about the conversation of advocacy and why it matters for therapists is that I got really angry at that point. This was like, summer 2022. So I had been licensed for over a decade. I knew I was doing important work. I knew I had clients who, you know, valued this work and all of that. And I got really angry. And honestly, part of the origin story when I tell it is that I blame my husband. I'm kidding, not kidding. I was sort of in this place where I was like, well, screw this. I'm going to go become a psychologist. And no shade to psychologists. I know a lot of really lovely psychologists. I don't want to be one. And I also didn't want to go back to school for, like, another five, six years. And so he said, well, before you do that, and he's known me a long time, so he's like, okay, Maya, before you do that, why don't you see if you can do something? And I am the daughter of a social worker, so I think advocacy is a little bit in my blood. Like, grew up learning how to advocate one on one. I'm the person who, like, if I call my health insurance, I will get an answer. It might take me two hours, but I will get an answer. So definitely inherited that from my mom and just being able to advocate in medical spaces, which I think a lot of therapists know how to do. And so it sort of snowballed from there. He said, well, why don't you do something? And then another colleague was like, yeah, let's do something. If you want to do something, I'll support you. She was actually involved, and she's a bit older than me. She was involved in the fight for licensure 20 plus years ago. So she was like, this is not my fight, but, like, I will lend you my energy and my support, like, you're the next generation, all of that stuff, which was super lovely and generous of her. And then we started a. An advocacy coalition, and we've been pushing bills through in Albany, and we've hired a lobbyist, and we've had lobby days. And we recently turned this sort of loose coalition group into like, a legit 501c4 nonprofit, which, as you can imagine, was like, a huge amount of work. So much work. I know all the things. Well, not even all the things. I know a lot of things now about creating nonprofits, but that's sort of the bullet point origin story. And I think really what it comes down to and why I felt so called to bond to your call for. For looking for people to talk about stuff like this is that I could have collapsed at that moment. And again, nothing wrong with going back to grad school. Absolutely no shade to anyone who chooses to do that. But I was really angry, and I was angry, like, There are over 2,000 LCATs in New York State. We're not, you know, five people sitting in a corner somewhere and already integrated into all the mental health care systems and all the hospital systems, the VA private practice across the state. So we're not new. We were licensed at the same time as mental health counselors, marriage and family therapists, and psychoanalysts by the same law. That makes me angry, clearly. Yeah. Still gets me a lot worked up. And so I chose. And it feels, looking back now, it feels like such a pivotal moment of, like, I could have, you know, just taken a pivot and Gone to do something else and I could have collapsed. Right. Like so often and I think so often for women, so often for therapists, so often for people who are brought up or socialized to be nice and not make waves and all the things, the collapse happens a lot of like, oh, well, what are you going to do? And I've done a lot of work over the years on accessing my own anger just on a personal level and being able to feel that that's okay to feel angry. Does that make me bad? Does it make me wr? And I've also done a lot of work with clients around. What if you're angry? What if you're actually. What is it like to feel angry? And as a creative arts therapist, to be able to really feel that and express it, to hear it in music, to see it on the page, to find a gesture like all of that and that anger, healthy anger, is embodied, it is powerful. And so it was really such a important sort of inflection point for me. And to be able to sustain since then, like advocacy does not happen overnight takes years and years. And we've had veto and we've had disappointments, but there is still this, this anger of like, this is not right. And I have some skills, I've never done advocacy on this level, like 100% never done advocacy on this level. But I do have some skills that have helped me. I'm a good writer, I'm a good speaker and I'm really, really persistent, which double edged sword sometimes. But it has helped me really feel more into my own power.
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Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting because as I'm going to just generalize, as women, we're often very afraid of our own anger. And what your anger has done for you is really like empower you and make you feel more capable and impactful and just powerful, which is often what it does. Right. And it's like, are we actually afraid of the anger or are we afraid of the good things that come from it? Who knows?
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Yeah, there's so much around that. Right. And I think, you know, I think an important piece though is that therapists, I think across, you know, modalities and licenses are by and large female. Right. And so, yeah, I think that that's an accurate thing to say. Right. And so by and large, you know, we've, a lot of us have been socialized like, don't make waves, be nice, be good, be quiet, be compliant. Like, and this does get, you know, I just want to name like, this is wrapped into like sort of the larger political landscape right now around, just, like, there's this onslaught of overwhelm. And so the collapse sometimes happens. And I'd be lying if I said I didn't have moments of that where I want to, like, you know, give it all up. And I was about to say, go live on a goat farm. That is the most random thing I've ever said.
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I mean, I join you on a go farm.
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Going to have to unpack that in my own therapy. So, like, the collapse happens, right? And, like, no judgment when it does. But I think I just know for me, like, I've created and not alone. Like, there have been a lot of other people, and now I have a board working with me. Like, we are all doing this together. I am the president, because somehow that just keeps happening. But, like, there's a lot of skilled people who have said, like, okay, you're. I'm inspired by what you're doing, and I want to help, too. But this sense of, like, I have power, and growing up as, like, a shy kid, a shy teenager, you know, a woman, I didn't always feel that.
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I think, too, about how, like, as a social worker, it feels safer for me to advocate for other people. Right? Like that. That's a breeze. Bring it on. But when it comes to advocating for a group I'm a part of, it can be very difficult.
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A
Yeah, it does get tricky. Right? And that's come up and. And part of it is that, like, yes, we are advocating for ourselves and our license, but we are also advocating for our clients 100%. And it hurts my heart how many. I'm often sort of the recipient of stories from therapists, often of, like, I was working with this person. They were, you know, they were doing such deep work that we were doing trauma processing. And then their insurance changed. And this, you know, insurance A accepted Elkatson Network and insurance B doesn't. Because there isn't a statewide mandate that all insurance companies have to. So they get to pick and choose. And we know how that goes. When insurance companies get to pick and choose, you know, it's based on Lord knows what. Probably the moon cycle or something random. The moon cycle would be more predictable, actually. And so I, you know, get to hold all of these stories that break my heart. They really. They really do. So I also feel very strongly that I am fighting for. For all of the people in all these stories and all of the people, I don't know, like, the kids who get to work with creative arts therapists in the hospitals, and then they get discharged and if their parents can't pay privately, most of the time they lose access to this therapy. That's the only thing that's been helping them in inpatient psych and you know, general medical settings, like all over the state. And it's so, so yes, there is a piece of like fighting for all of these people who, I don't know, fighting for improved mental health care access for all New Yorkers because we need it. Right. Like regardless their wait list, regardless of license or modality, wait lists are still too long. But you also, it is personal. Right. And sometimes when there is, you know, when we have, we've had bills get vetoed and stuff like that, it is hard not to take it personally. And so I let myself have those moments, those days of like, I cannot. Right. Like to close the computer, to walk away, to say like, I'm not answering, you know, all of these emails of questions about the veto and then to come back another day and there's power in that and being able to give myself the space.
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Yeah.
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And to separate out a little of like, I am not going to let Albany define the quality of work that I do or how I feel about the work that I do because that is just a really slippery slope.
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B
Yeah. I mean, you've taken on a lot with this. How are you balancing it with your practice?
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A
Excellent question. I am in a place of privilege that I do not have to have a huge practice right now. I actually somewhat ironically, because a big part of what we're fighting for is comprehensive in network coverage. I am actually not in network with any insurance companies and I actually don't intend to be for a variety of reasons, all of which I'm sure you can imagine. So that does give me some breathing space in my week because I'm not seeing 25, 30 clients.
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B
Right.
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I also have a part time academic job, which is a whole other ball game. But even before I took that a few years ago, 12 to 15 clients. Absolutely. Max. So, you know, some weeks it's easier to, to balance than others. The legislative calendar goes through sort of busy times and quiet times. So there will be weeks, you know, usually around the end of the legislative session, like May, June, where it's like a little banana pants, like, not gonna lie. Like, I finish a session, I send an email, I talk to the lobbyist, I send an email, I go back to a session. It's a lot really. One of the only ways that we can do this as efficiently as we have is that we did hire a lobbyist. And unfortunately, because of how the political landscape is, I think in every state capital, everywhere, pretty much you need an insider who has the relationships in the state capitol that you don't have.
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Yeah.
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So for like the first six months before we hired her, a group of us, the. The sort of founding core group, were trying to do that ourselves. Surprise, surprise. It didn't work that well, it didn't work that badly. But it meant that someone was like constantly on the phone trying to do the things. So that is a big part of it. Right. She's our eyes and ears on the ground in Albany and she has been doing this for a long time. So she has relationships that I can't even dream of and understands how all of these processes work because I understand how a bill becomes law, but it has to go through various committees and there's, you know, all of that stuff. So that's a big part of it. And then some weeks I just sort of accept that there really isn't a lot of balance. And I just, now that I've done this for a few years, I know that it'll come back out the other side. Like it might be a little crazy for two, three weeks. And then, you know, I give myself a week or two without doing anything aside from like the most vital, like, important stuff. So recognizing that there are seasons to this and things do wax and wane sometimes depending on the day, depending on the week.
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How have you all raised funds to be able to hire a lobbyist?
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Really grassroots fundraising. Like, we have people both in and outside of the community of licensed creative arts therapists who, who have given like lump sums, which are grateful for who. And then also those who give small amounts of money every month. And that really helps. We definitely are not a. I don't think there are any wealthy nonprofits. That sounds inaccurate on multiple levels. You know, we, we run close to the wire financially and that's something that we're working on now that we, you know, have formalized and legitimized ourselves more. The non profit formation really happened in the past couple months, so that's been incredibly busy. So we're hoping to now be able to apply for some grants or to set up a more robust fundraising structure, things like that. All of that takes, you know, more people than me and lots of concerted time and effort, but I think we'll get there.
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B
How do you reinvigorate yourself when you go through those periods of like, it's all so much.
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Yeah. So sometimes I just let it be so much. I have had moments and where I just, I crash out for the night or for the day. Like, you know, not ideal, but I know usually when I let myself just sort of like totally crash out that I never stay there for long. That's just something that I know about myself.
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B
Wait, wait, you mean if we feel our feelings, they don't stick around forever.
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It's wild, right? Yeah, I mean, so, yeah, I let myself feel it. I listen to angry music or sad music or I hug my dog or I go take a nap or, you know, I combine all three and. And it passes, right? Like I. And I've had moments where I'm like, I'm not sure I can do this anymore. And they pass. And I know that, you know, if a day comes where like, it doesn't pass, okay, that's something for me to, to look at.
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Mm.
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But yeah, just letting myself move through it, trying not to put on a face of like, everything's fine, it's like now this is really disappointing. But the thing about advocacy and I think, you know, hold this back to be like any kind of advocacy is that the powers that be want you to give up. You know, systems that are in power and we could think of systems in so many ways, but systems that have power want to retain power. Like that's sort of one of those like, tale as old as time things, right? And so when I think about that and when I feel into that, there is a sense of they. And sometimes it's an, it's a. Pretty often a nebulous they, right. I don't like focusing on just like one person. Usually they want us and me to give up, right? And we again, like that's advocacy in general, right? Any kind of advocacy. The systems in power want the little voices, the, the community based voices, the little voices to just give up and go away. Right? And sometimes, sure, it would be easier to do that, but. And I think this is where my sort of innate stubbornness and persistence comes in, right? Of like, I don't want to do that. This is going to take time. It took time for us to get here and it's going to take time for us to get away from here. And again, that's true of like any kind of advocacy, right? I'm finding myself so inspired, you know, with what happened the past weekend down in like Selma, Alabama and stuff, and, and so many activists coming together to say, like, this is not okay. Like rolling back voting rights that people fought and bled and died for is not okay. And we're not going like Quietly into that night. And so I think that's, I feel like that's a big piece of it of like, yes, this is hard. Any kind of advocacy is going to be hard. And again, like, definitely at in a privileged place in my life where I'm not struggling to feed myself, to feed my family, earlier in my career, I would not have had the same time and bandwidth. Absolutely not. And so there is privilege here, and I'm aware of that. And it allows me to have the time and space most days to do something and again, not doing this alone and also to say, to be honest with myself and with the community of, like, this is hard and change doesn't happen overnight and we need to. And especially because I'm mostly speaking to groups of therapists by and large, and, you know, the people who love them and enter in their worlds, this sense of, like, this is what we do for our clients across, I think, different, you know, populations, ages, needs. We try to help them access their own agency, whatever that looks like with the goals, whatever that looks like clinically. I think a big piece of therapy is, is agency and power and belief in yourself. Like, this is what we're trying to do for clients and we have to try to remember that we know how to do this not only for ourselves, but also in this advocacy work for them. Right. It's just this, this bidirectional relationship that just keeps going and going.
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B
Yeah. It's interesting what you said about bandwidth. I think about how as we're farther along in our careers and we feel less green and we feel like we're not doing a good enough job and we have to keep learning and things like that, once we're kind of like, like not settled. Not that it's easy. I mean, maybe it's easy. Like maybe sometimes it's just easy and that's okay. But that does give us more space to be able to take on these big things.
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Yeah.
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That can make a huge difference for the field. What is it that the legislators are not? Why are they holding back? Why aren't they just like, oh, yeah, that makes sense.
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A
That is the million dollar question. Politics are complicated. And so that's the understatement of a century. What happened was in the space of time between when we got licensed alongside mental health counselors, marriage and family therapists and psychoanalysts, and when all of this happened, lcats did not have a lobbyist in Albany looking out for, you know, our interest as a field. And a lot of bullet points, a lot of, like, misinformation got into the water that we're not, you know, legit psychotherapists, and we're not doing psychosis, all of that, even though it's written into the law. Mm. Don't get me started on that. And so there are a lot of. We just didn't have a presence in Albany at all. And so our lobbyist likes to remind us that every time we go to Albany and we have a lobby day, you know, people come from all over the state, and we have conversations with legislators, with their staff about, like, hey, this is what I'm doing. This is who I'm working with. This is the difference it makes. All of those positive interactions have this cumulative effect, you know, and this happens in advocacy. There are bills in Albany and in every state house, I am sure, that get passed by the legislature year after year and then get vetoed for one reason or another, some of which are stated and some of which aren't. In our case, the governor keeps saying that this has to be done via the budget process and not via a standalone bill. So that's what we're actually currently in process of trying to do. And as you can imagine, the state budget is billions of dollars, and we're just like, the time, Right? And even still, people fight for things in the budget. For 10 years, there was a law that got passed and signed finally, I think it was last year, to reduce speed limits in New York City. And it took about a decade. And it took parents of kids who were killed by speeding drivers on tv, constantly crying over their dead children.
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B
Wow.
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For that to, like, it's just. That should have happened the next day, in my opinion. Like, it should have never been an issue to begin with, but it should have happened the next day once kids started literally getting killed by. By, you know, speeding drivers. And it still took a decade, which is sad on so many levels and sobering, and also a reminder that, like, nothing that is worth fighting for happens quickly. Not an advocacy anyway. Maybe in other areas of someone's life, but not an advocacy. And. And that's hard. And it's easy sometimes to lose hope. And I get a lot of inspiration from. I forget the Jane Fonda quote, but there was a great Jane Fonda quote that I read online about hope. Like, she's in her 80s and she's still out there fighting the good fight for. For climate, you know, climate change and all of that. And the other option is to give up and to collapse and fold and walk away. And ultimately, that doesn't serve anyone yeah, so it's interesting.
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B
It's. Maybe when you started this, you didn't realize this was going to be a long term job and you know so much more about state legislature than you ever wanted or needed to know.
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A
Yeah, I really didn't know anything. People assume that I have some sort of background in this. I did not know anything. I think what's really helped me is that I have a really good memory.
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B
Mm.
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Again, double edged sword, but a really good memory. And that I write well. Other than that I have no special skills. I've had people ask me if I've gone to law school. Definitely not. You know, having a mom who's a social worker sure did that give me some sort of, you know, persistence innately probably, but no more so than anyone else, I don't think. And yeah, I think initially there was this huge burst of energy like early 2023. And you know, when there's that big burst of energy, you assume like, okay, we're going to get this done in six. That's just not how this works. It's just really not. And stuff that makes a lot of sense, you know, on the ground level. Like when you're, when legislators are in their home districts and they're like, hey, I keep getting calls from parents and they can't get their kid into therapy and there's a six month wait list. This makes sense to them. They want to serve their constituents.
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B
Right.
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A
And stuff gets sort of mucked up and levels above the community level. And isn't that true for like all kinds of advocacy, that it should be simple? It is simple and it gets really messy. And I think often that's by design. And so again, like the systems in power and there are multiple ones in multiple ways, they want the small voices to go away and I'm just not in the mood to do that.
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B
Yeah, too bad for them.
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A
Too bad for them.
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B
Amazing. Well, I'm really glad we had this conversation. I'm hoping that it inspires other people who might be thinking about what this could mean for them and any advocacy that they've been considering. I love the heads up that, that burst of energy and that like we got this like you gotta, got this for a while, right? Yes. And you know, and you don't have to go as hard as maybe you started out.
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A
Right. I mean, to be honest, I, I haven't been, I can't like, I can't sustain what happened in early 2023. This is, you know, three years later. So I, some of the accessing My own power has been the giving myself permission of like, okay, this is going to be a low energy week for any number of reasons and that's okay. Like learning when I need to kick it up a notch and when I, when I don't or when I can't. Right. And that's, that's sort of the staying power of advocacy. Because if you burn yourself out, right? If you just sort of like a flame that sort of explodes into the night and then fizzles out, it's pretty, right? It's like fireworks. They're pretty and they're loud for a minute and then they're gone.
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B
Right.
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A
So figuring out how to build something sustainable. And again, I think as therapists, I think we know how to do that in our clinical work and we may not have as strong of access to that on personal levels or in sort of larger systemic places, but I think it is possible.
- [27:37]
B
Yeah. Amazing. I think it's possible too. I'm going to make sure that in the show notes, folks know how to get in touch and donate and, you know, fight the good fight with you.
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A
Appreciate it.
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B
I genuinely appreciate your time, Maya. Thank you.
- [27:54]
A
Thank you so much.
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B
It inspires other people to advocate for what they care about.
- [27:58]
A
Yeah, me too.
- [28:00]
B
Awesome. Have a great day. If you're ready for a much easier practice, TherapyNotes is the way to go. Go to therapynotes.com and use the promo code abundant for two months. Free. If you're listening, you probably need some support building your practice. If you're a super newbie, grab our free checklist using the link in the show notes. I'd love for you to follow rate and review, but I really want you to share this episode with a therapist friend. Let's help all our colleagues build what they want.