← Compassion in a T-Shirt
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- [00:00]
A
Hi, I'm Dr. Stan Steindl, and welcome back to Compassion in a T Shirt, where we explore the science and practice of compassion and how compassion changes everything. One of the biggest challenges facing therapists today is burnout. Feeling emotionally exhausted, pressured to fix people, and slowly losing touch with the deeper meaning that brought us into this work in the first place. My guest today is trying to address exactly that problem. Tanya Kalkidis is a clinical psychologist and psychotherapist with more than 34 years of clinical experience. And through her DeepMind psychodynamic training program, she helps therapists reconnect with confidence, depth, curiosity, and genuine human connection in their work. Drawing on psychodynamic psychotherapy, relational therapy, attachment theory, and neuroscience, Tanya brings a thoughtful and reflective perspective to what's really happening beneath the surface in therapy, not just in our clients, but in us as therapists, too. In this conversation, we explore unconscious processes, attachment, burnout, the pressure therapists place on themselves, and the importance of understanding our own inner world. If we hope to help others, others understand theirs. And make sure you stay right through to the end because Tanya shares a really important reflection for any therapist who feels exhausted, uncertain, or wondering whether they're still cut out for this work. And so I bring you Tanya Kalkidis. Tanya Kalkitis, welcome to Compassion in a T shirt.
- [01:51]
B
Thank you so much, Stan. So wonderful to be here and chatting with you.
- [01:55]
A
You're doing some, some wonderful work supporting therapists in and around self care, I guess, broadly. And you're taking a psychodynamic approach in this work, I suppose. And you know, which is fascinating. I'm very curious about all that. But to get us started, I suppose you talk about helping therapists let go of the fixer mindset. And I think many of us, I was going to say especially early career clinicians, but I'm not sure that it's. I think it's across the board, really, you know, we know what that pressure feels like. So what do you think draws us into that role a bit in the first place? And maybe what are some of the costs there as well?
- [02:35]
B
Thanks, Dan. Kicking off with a wonderful question right at the core of the processes. So I guess there's probably three main levels that occur in order to create what ends up happening in the mind of psychologists in general, but like you say, obviously early career. So the first is to do with the lack of connection with your own experience in your family and how usually in the research that I've done and the trainings that I've done that we are usually the ones in the family that have more emotional intelligence, that are a little bit more sensitive, that have sort of carried that in a sort of like a systemic family systems way. And that's a really interesting piece that we could dive into another time. But that is usually the segue into the training, training. And then once we get into the training, we have a very broad, unfortunate set of systemic conditions that end up feeding into this idea that you as the therapist, psychologist are responsible to fix other people, which unfortunately very much links to the role that, you know, the majority of us played in our family system. So it segues beautifully in there and it just feels very sort of connected and normal. And that systemic pressure comes from the government because of the way that since, as you and I know, having done our training in the early 90s, there was no Medicare, there was no external paradigm placed upon us in terms of a number or a process that we had to go through. So since 2006, everyone that's been trained and graduated since then has been caught up in this more political and economic decision making process around the actual number. And you probably know that when it started, that number has fluctuated over time. It used to be 12, then it went to 18, then it went back to 12, during COVID it went to 20 and then they cut it back to 10. So there's been a, a shift in that. But the training has now become kind of centered around that political and economic decision. It's not a decision based on the ground in terms of what we know happens to, to us when we sit in, in a room with people and do the work and what that involves. So it's very disconnected that way, but it goes in. And unfortunately the university syllabus doesn't account for the individual internal issues. So there's no mandate around having to do your own work, which is a huge missing piece that can come back to become a lot more obvious when we start to dig into what's going on inside you in the room, which is what we might get to in terms of the psychotherapy model and also any model that works with internal schemas, as you know, that that's, that what, that's what goes on inside the mind. And then that training syllabus, the pressure, you know, the rigor that psychologists are now placed under in terms of academic grades, in terms of the amount of work, that it all just gets ground down underneath the surface and we're just in survival mode to get through the degree and to get through the pathway and then we're Spat out the other end six years later, very disconnected, quite, you know, tired and overwhelmed with what's already occurred. And then we suddenly find ourselves in a room having to manage people and change them in a very short amount of time.
- [06:24]
A
It's a, it's, it's a beautifully summarized and captured sort of description really of, of just what, it's, what it's like. You know, we, we sort of start slightly fixerish or we're the one in the family that, that tends to maybe mediate things or help to, to sort of, you know, focus on emotion, the emotional intelligence and, and the, the kind of, the empathy is, is, is in us, perhaps even gets trained further depending on, you know, family circumstances and so on. And so we're, we're kind of primed to be helpers and we want to be, you know, we want to help. That's part of it too, isn't it? It's a very genuine desire to be helpful.
- [07:05]
B
Yes.
- [07:05]
A
And then the system kind of causes it to really double down on us a bit, you know, then all of a sudden things like the, the self sacrifice or the approval seeking and people pleasing and you know, there's various bits that, and, and you know, even lately, so messages that, you know, we're actually being greedy with how much we charge and you know, we should charge less really and the pressure to do all of that. And it all culminates in this very powerful sense that we need to, we need to do something, you know, to fix people and fix them quickly. You know, that this, it's got that genuine peace at the heart of it. And then it's kind of complicated by all of these life experiences and well, learning experiences and professional experiences along the way.
- [08:00]
B
Yes. And in, in that heart, as you correctly kind of describe, if we are positioned as the ones that feel more, that are more sensitive, that are already in that empathic helping kind of role. What that has meant is that we have disconnected from our own needs, from our own capacity to be able to be vulnerable and to get help. And that gets buried right at the bottom of the rubble internally once we're spat out the other end of the six years or whatever degree we've done. And so we are not allowed to not know, we are not allowed to struggle and we're not allowed to ask for help. And that is what ends up compounding that experience in the room of the pressure. And it feeds the inner critic no end.
- [08:56]
A
Yeah. And I often sort of listen through a bit of a compassion focused therapy lens and the Idea there would be, yes, we just develop these fears, blocks and resistances to receiving compassion and to self compassion I suppose, is the, is the idea there. I'm having a little thought and I'm not sure whether this is somewhere in amongst my, my self sacrificing thought, but. And that is that it ends up not necessarily being sort of helpful for clients anyway. I come also from a motivational interviewing background and the idea there is that when we try to fix people, they often kind of resist that anyway, they push back and so on. I mean, what are your thoughts not only in terms of the effects of this on the therapist or the psychologist, but maybe also the client themselves 100%.
- [09:49]
B
So now that we've understood what goes on internally and perhaps some of the mechanisms and causes, now we have the added problem of what then is being transmitted and transferred onto the client. So we know now that partly that will be coming from the energy transmission and the pressure that is experiencing in us that they will feel. And that what that's going to end up doing is we can actually work at the level of the ideas. So intellectually like the, the left brain components, the rational thoughts. So rationally I know that if I drink five cups of coffee every day, continue to smoke, don't exercise, you know, have lots of alcohol and various other substances, that lifespan is probably going to be reduced, that I'm impairing my brain, I'm impairing my nervous system. I know that. But am I going to change the way that I interface with life? Well, then we grind in and start doing the work. So if I am going to then position myself in the room to determine my worth as a psychologist, is going to be according to whether or not you're going to give, give up your addictions and start developing a healthy lifestyle, then that client is going to feel that pressure from you. And literally like you say, because those resistances and blocks are often more unconscious than conscious, it's going to create a, a dissonance or a lack of attunement in the room.
- [11:30]
A
Yes, dissonance and discord between, between the parties. And there's a sort of, a kind of tragic implication in a way which is the harder we try to fix, the less we're able to and you know, it develops into sort of more despondency or nothing I do is helping. And maybe the client feels a bit despondent too because that feels like nothing's helping. And, and so the system is at play in a sort of a big way. And then also there's this system at play in the room, I suppose too.
- [12:11]
B
Correct. And that parallel process is essentially what we could be addressing early on in undergraduate training if there was subjects dedicated to therapeutic process. So you could definitely stream out outlines in the psychology training because not all, as you know, psychologists go into therapy rooms. There's a lot of different pathways a psychologist can take. It becomes more salient and more pertinent for the psychologists who end up doing one on one work and work as therapists in the room as opposed to say, for example, I mean, all. Of course it's all going to help, but it's going to be less, you know, necessary I guess, if you're going to stay in academia and just exclusively do research and not ever face off in the room. But of course it's still connected. But you could, if you don't have subjects like that that help prepare the students for the internal impact of what it is to do this work, you will end up in that first five to 10 years, which is, you know, as you know, we call early career with a internal experience of extreme incompetence. Externally, very competent, very capable, obviously these are, you know, you have very intelligent to get through the course. They are intelligent, they're very capable, but internally there's a whole different invisible, secret process going on that nobody is really talking about and addressing except in conversations like this.
- [13:52]
A
Yes, yeah, that's true. But, but it's a kind of a, a clinician shame in a way, isn't it?
- [13:58]
B
That's right. And, and it's very sad. And I think your word tragic is really accurate. I think it's really. And as you know, you and I, we've been around for decades now. We hear it. And it's not just in that early career. I work in, you know, supervisor training programs with people who've been supervisors for, you know, 10, 15, 20 years who can't actually get into a room and talk freely and comfortably about their own internal experience, particularly if it's negative. So the shame around that and the judgment, it's all erroneous, of course, is so intense that there's this split between the way you're showing up in the world and your internal experience. And that's where the self compassion, the, you know, that loud screaming inner critic is just having a field day.
- [14:52]
A
Yes. Yeah, you take a psychodynamic, psychodynamic approach to these things. And I can sort of hear as you're describing all of this, that sort of, some of that theory is really weaving through there. And I Wondered whether you could give us a little bit of a sort of a primer if you like, you know, like what should we know or understand about really modern psychodynamic work and perhaps how that really applies here.
- [15:21]
B
Okay, thank you. Another great question. So the first thing to know is that psychodynamic work is not, it's sort of origins start 140odd years ago, around the turn of the century in terms of what psychoanalysis was. But it's definitely not a rigid and conservative, conservative system that is connected to Freud. I'm not a Freudian, I am not an analyst. So if you think of it more in terms of a middle zone where the connecting dot there is that we understand the mechanisms and operating models of the unconscious mind. So if you don't have an understanding of the unconscious mind when it comes to understanding human behavior and human experience of relationships and socialization, you are missing an enormous piece of the pie and things will not make sense. And like we talked about a few minutes ago, you will hit up against the resistance, which is in psychodynamic terms, that's the whole topic of defenses. And because we understand defenses and how they work, we don't experience resistance as an issue. It's just what we would call a normal part of the process. But if your theory of mind doesn't help you understand that, which in mainstream psychology training, it in fact doesn't, then you're going to be struggling with what psychodynamic psychotherapy would say are very normal and processes of what it is to be human. So we've come from the analytic tradition. We're not, it's not as rigid, it's not as it's, it's definitely sitting in a space. And certainly the way I work psychodynamically is more relational. So it's more humanistic, it's more connected to Rogerian principles where we're not behind the person, not interacting in a human way. We're facing off face to face. We can lie down on the couch, the couch is there. We know that when somebody becomes horizontal, we have access to different alpha waves in the brain. We have access to different portals that open up because you're literally horizontal. But those options are there for the clients. And we're very engaged in a relational sense where we are interacting with ourselves and our internal experience, which is the counter transference directly in supervision and with the client. So there's a very human element there that a lot of mainstream analytic training does not include. So that's, that's where it Sits. So there's a lot of myths and misconceptions around what it is and unfortunately a lot of indoctrination around the lack of evidence base, which is unfortunately completely false.
- [18:22]
A
Okay, you, you mentioned the unconscious and that without a kind of an awareness of, of unconscious processes and, and you know, so that, that the therapist is missing. Tell us a bit more about the. The what, what they might be missing if they overlook the unconscious or don't. Just don't fully know about it or understand it.
- [18:47]
B
Yes, so. So what will happen is that the, the way the mind works and what we understand now in neuroscience is that everything that has occurred throughout the process of somebody's life is actually sitting in the implicit memory system, not the procedural memory system. So the procedural memory system is the narrative that you have of yourself, that you're conscious of. So some, some sort of sketchy memory from the beginning of your life that's a combination of what you've been told and photographs. And then memories start to kick in, usually somewhere between the ages of three and five, plus or minus. So, but the implicit memory system is actually storing all the felt experiences through the nervous system and the brain from the moment you're born. And that implicit memory system, which is the most fascinating thing, is what ends up creating the blueprint inside of us based on how we were engaged with essentially by our primary carers, which for most of us is our mothers. And that is what ends up creating an layering onto what we call personality development. So when you don't work with the unconscious, you are not going to get access to what the clients are actually projecting onto you in real time. That has got nothing to do with what's going on in the here and now. It's to do with what's occurred before that we can't access because it's not known to the individual. So, for example, that would show up as. I'm really worried that if I don't do what you tell me, you're going to get upset with me and potentially reject me. That is very standard.
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A
Did you use the word portals before? It's sort of like. Yeah, it's like that a bit that being able to listen with our ears, but with our eyes, I suppose as well, and really notice and be sensitive to moment of interaction. They provide a portal to an understanding of this unconscious and perhaps the inner conflicts or dilemmas that the person's facing and insights start to really arise out of all of that.
- [21:15]
B
But it arises based on what's occurring in the here and now. Relationship, yes, the client. It's not going to be about this constant narrative about what's occurring outside the room. So the link there is that what's occurring between us in real time has got connection to the unknown implicit memory system of the past. And through that process of listening with the eyes. Listening, listening with the whole body, body and the nuance of the. You becoming a very astute observer. So you, you start talking about said subject A and the cheeks slightly go red or to the left or any other technique that you're using in the room. There's some kind of reactivity going on that you start to work with because their experience of you is not going to be something that they are conditioned or primed to talk about. You have to train them to do that.
- [22:17]
A
You've alluded to neuroscience and I think you've spoken before about attachment sort of theory and relational kind of processes. What are your thoughts about? Just, just human connection really. And, and you know, how perhaps human connection and your understanding there has changed how you think about therapy.
- [22:39]
B
So for me, you know, in the last sort of five years, my understanding of the social engagement system and how we are wired as humans has really come to the fore in terms of the way in which I supervise and train and think about what's on, going, going on in the room, like so much more so than, I guess, the first two or three decades of my career. So the nuance of being able to understand what's occurring in real time and how that might be connected to the narratives and the experience of the client outside the room is actually the skill. And so through neuroscience, the data we have about the brain, about the limbic system, about the nervous system, system, about how all of that is wired early on has really enhanced our understanding of how to actually track and map that in real time. And that's what is so profoundly different from just working with the left brain conscious storyline, the content that people come in with. If you just follow the content, you're going to miss what's happening right in front of you, which are the same themes of what are occurring in the storyline and the content outside the room, if that makes sense.
- [24:08]
A
Yeah, it's so interesting. Again, from a CFT point of view, Paul Gilbert really talks a lot about social mentalities and from an evolutionary point of view, even as much as, as, you know, just sort of ingrained in us and, and you know, kind of caring social mentalities, caregiving, care receiving, cooperative, competitive and, and I guess you sort of alluding in a similar way to you Know, watching for these social mentalities or, or other interpersonal processes just playing out in real time, you know, and, and being able to sort of tap into what that might mean and how we can, how we can work with it.
- [24:50]
B
Yes. And where it comes from.
- [24:52]
A
And where it comes from. Because we have them. Yeah. I guess from a CFT point of view, we have them built in our brains, just in terms of our evolved brains, but then they're shaped by experiences and, and you know, that what happens once we're born is kind of key to the version that we might become, you know, later down the road. Yeah.
- [25:11]
B
So what you're describing is epigenetic.
- [25:14]
A
Yes, a little bit. Yes, that's right.
- [25:16]
B
That's what you're describing. So. And epigenetics is now really the way in which we understand how personality develops and is formed and shaped. And so those internal blueprints of what the CFT model talks about, it sounds like they're completely aligned with what psychodynamics. It's just that we're using slightly different words and we're talking about the origin as well as the. How we deal with that in real time and shift it.
- [25:52]
A
Yes. You know, I think, I think they, they each add things and, and, you know, bringing the psychodynamic ideas into CFT I think is probably very helpful. Paul himself has done a lot of, of that sort of training, I think, over the years, so he incorporates some of that. But, but no, that's, that's, that's really interesting that there's some fascinating research which I won't be able to sort of quote in this moment, but I might look up later. But Marcella Matos from Portugal has been able to observe epigenetic changes from a compassionate mind training group program over. You know, so an intervention can actually lead to some of those changes in the other direction.
- [26:35]
B
And that's at the core of what we do in the room when we're working with the, what we call the transference and the counter transference, which is essentially the energy exchange between you and your client.
- [26:47]
A
Love it.
- [26:48]
B
Yeah, that's it happening in real time.
- [26:50]
A
Yeah. Well, and one of the things that's really fascinating is that it's. Yes. As you're sort of saying, therapy isn't just about the client's mind. It's also about what's happening within us as therapists and clinicians. Clinicians sort of tell us more about that little piece too, I suppose, the importance of self awareness and clinician unconscious and the sort of that energy exchange as you say, and the transference, countertransference, and all of that sort of stuff.
- [27:22]
B
Yes. Well, unfortunately, Stan, that's not a little piece. That's the biggest and most important piece.
- [27:30]
A
Good.
- [27:31]
B
That is positioned as a little piece and essentially ignored. And that's what's going to come back and actually create all the problems that you have in your career. Because it's not being normalized. It's not. It's not being validated. Because unless you understand what is going on for you in the context of this relationship you have with your client, there's two things that you'll miss. The first thing is to do with. The first thing I do is ask the supervisee to connect with how, how the client is making them feel. And we talk about that in terms of what is being projected into you from the client. So they often sit there and say, help me, fix me, tell me what to do. I'm going to listen to you and you're going to. You're my savior. So that's going to feed right into that process that occurred, as we mentioned earlier on, at the beginning of, of the clinician's life. And so they will just feel that enormous pressure and that enormous responsibility, so they feel responsible for the outcome. So when I start to identify that feeling and what the, what the psychologist ends up feeling is anxious, overwhelmed, feels the, the. The idea is that they're going to be the fixer, but that actually creates enormous anxiety in them. So then I will say to them, well, that because that person has never been, never had a secure experience of another person, and they don't have access to their own inner knowing, and so they're projecting all of that onto you and you are responding to that. So we work with trying to shift that to help the psychologist to actually understand how that connects to the formulation. So what resides inside you is clues and data to help you understand what's gone wrong in the creation of that early. Those early templates that whatever the languages you use in CFT to describe those. What did you call social.
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A
The social mentalities.
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B
Yeah, the social mentalities. Yeah. So how did those, where are those social mentalities coming from? And how are they actually being imposed onto you? So once we can help you disconnect from what is coming in from the outside, I can position you to become a little less anxious and a little more understanding of the formulation. And then that's going to completely shift not only what you experience emotionally, but what you end up, how your interventions start to play out and what you end up Doing in the room takes
- [30:22]
A
a lot of presence of mind, doesn't it, really, in that sense. And self awareness. And not only awareness, but kind of understanding too, the, the way that things are, that these processes happening within us and how they're being activated. What was the word?
- [30:42]
B
Metabolized.
- [30:43]
A
Metabolized. Lovely. And, and also where they come from. I mean there's quite a lot there for the therapists to explore I suppose. And you know, that sort of thing.
- [30:54]
B
That's right. So if we could start doing that earlier on in your career and normalize around that, that, that's not a you or me issue. That's just because you're a human, then there wouldn't be such a stigma around having an uncomfortable feeling. There wouldn't be such a stigma about feeling overwhelmed and anxious. We would just proceed to help you understand what that's connected to in terms of your own internal process. And then we would assist you with managing that in the room. But unfortunately, tragically and sadly, that is not how the trajectory works. Because the shame that is created around the psychologist having issues, which is the worst irony you can actually think of, that the psychologist has issues that they're not actually dealing with and yet that's their job. It's like a dentist that's got a mouthful of holes or a mechanic that drives a car that hardly works. We need to attend to us, Us. We are the. Our mind is what actually is doing this work. We're not selling a product. We're being what. We're what our services are intimately connected to who we are and how we're wired in our own brain. So it's so fundamental and it's not a difficult thing to fix, for want of a better word. It's to do with the education and the syllabus us in the university training
- [32:25]
A
programs and, and sort of a shift just in, in attention or focus or something. You know, it, it's, it sort of feels like, or, or widening perhaps because yeah, we have the, we have the client and they're unconscious and it's playing out in the room and it has a certain origin story and then we have the clinician who's got their unconscious and origin story and it's playing out, playing out in the room. You've developed, I think this parallel realities model. Now I, I know that it's sort of, perhaps you develop developing this in real time, but, but it, it does sound fascinating. So what, what, what is this idea and how might it help therapists really to make sense of what's happening? In the room.
- [33:11]
B
Yes. Thank you so much, Dan, for, for mentioning that, because I'm just working on the actual visual graphic as it's very hard to, to do something that's in three dimensions and put that on a piece of paper in two dimensions. However, if you can imagine right at the core, right. So if you imagine we're going to draw a circle and we're going to hit a center point in the circle, and that is what that small little circle and the center point is what we would describe as the self. Okay. So that's the, that's your. Your you as a whole entire being. And to do with whatever degree of your story, how your brain is wired, your levels of awareness, etc. The self. And then, and then there's going to be concentric circles that start to layer around that circle. So that that self has visible and known parts and it has invisible and unknown parts. And we develop parts of our external personality that interface with the world. And then we have a private internal parts that nobody really sees, some of which we're aware of and some of which we're not, that remain inside but still altogether encompass what we would call the self. And the circles that then start to layer around that are to do with how we interface with the world and the roles that we play. So the first, the next circle around that are your closest interpersonal and intimate relationships. And then there are layers that move around that and identities. So the next layer around that is you're forming and merging identity as a psychologist. And then you might have a form and merged identity as a supervisor, a trainer, a teacher, in your own supervision with a supervisor or a mentor. You know, when you and I go to training, so we train and teach, but then we have, have people that we get inspired by and learn from. So you can see how the circle just starts to move out a bit like an onion. And so the model suggests that if we go to the, to the end, the outer circumference of the, of the circle on the edge, and we draw a perpendicular line and that hits the self right in the center point. So along that perpendicular line, everything's connected.
- [35:37]
A
Right.
- [35:38]
B
Does that make sense?
- [35:39]
A
Yes. And, and, and so how does, what's that? Because there's also that happening for the client, I think. Is that, is that part of this idea of parallel realities?
- [35:49]
B
Yes. No. The parallel realities are the different realities that you, the individual, are in.
- [35:55]
A
Okay.
- [35:56]
B
Yeah. So in one moment you are the teacher who is regulated and calm, but then in another moment you might be the receiver of in a relationship dynamic, either personal or private, where you're not regulated and you're triggered or activated and something's going on for you. So at any moment you could be the, the, the person who is giving the process in a regulated and calm way. And then we flip that and we, we do a little shot of you in your kitchen, or we do a little shot of you in a training program where something's being activated and you're now having the experience of anxiety or overwhelm or, or distress or activation or anger that you don't normally have when you're in the other role, the other part of, you know, you're in the other part of your mind. But the parallel reality is that at any, at any point along those circles, you're going to be, be experiencing something very similar to what your clients are experiencing. Obviously you would have a slightly more capacity, more awareness in order to be able to still feel like you're the person that can guide them in a useful and helpful way. But you're not devoid of ever having those experiences. And the model allows for all of, of all of those experiences of the different parts of the self to be accepted. And that's where the compassion comes in, because it's just what it is to be human.
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A
Yes, I see. So that might be across different contexts, but it might also be within a context that different parallel experiences might even happen across moments really, or even potentially at the same time. We're feeling multiple things at the same time.
- [37:50]
B
Yeah. Time is not, it's, it's not on a linear scale. It's like, it's, it, it's hard to describe what it is, but it's like a, it's like a, an ever present kind of constant. So at any moment you could flip into a different aspect of the self. The parallel process in the therapy room of that would be. So in supervision, this psychologist, as the supervisee, is really anxious about what the supervisor is thinking about them and worried that if they're struggling in the room that the supervisor is going to have some kind of negative appraisal of them. Okay, so that's occurring in supervision. Then the psychologist goes into the room with the client and the client is feeling exactly the same thing towards the psychologist.
- [38:39]
A
I see.
- [38:39]
B
See.
- [38:40]
A
I see. And so what, what is the, like, how does that then help the therapist make sense of things that are happening in therapy?
- [38:49]
B
So what it does is it gives them a framework with which to reduce the shame and to reduce the impact of that inner critic and to start to Normalize and level out that even though I have capacity and skills and competence and a degree, et cetera, et cetera, I'm still a human being that is never going to be impervious to other people and other people's energy and other people's projections. So if I can, if I can start the conversation from that platform, it's going to be a lot easier to help make sense of things as opposed to, if there is a resistance to the struggle, then it's going to be harder to assist. So if that platform is created, then I can then understand what's going on and become a more effective and competent therapist because I will be not carrying as much distress and overwhelm inside my body.
- [39:57]
A
And, and that sort of experience that you just described, where does that sit in the model? And is that something that we discover is part of this kind of almost like multiverse within the person? Is it something that we really need to cultivate from there? Does it become the solid ground at the center of the self or is it. Yeah, when people are able to embody what you just described, where does that, that fit in the model?
- [40:28]
B
So it fits right in the center point of the model. And like you said before, the piece there is self awareness. It all comes down to insight and self awareness and knowledge of the self, which is the starting point. So it all, it all kind of converges right to the epicenter of that multi layered circle, that multi layered image.
- [40:54]
A
Yeah, yeah, there's a lot of wisdom there. You know, really try being able to, you know, just sort of create a calmness where one can stop and really reflect on that. And safeness too. It really needs a sort of a safe relationship maybe with a supervisor to be able to say out loud the things that were, that occurs to us, even the things that do feel we feel self conscious about. And so there's sort of like wisdom and that sense of safeness to go there and, you know, some sort of determination in a way or intention perhaps is a better word, just to then start to really embody that and practice it. It must take a lot of practice really to kind of get there and to have those, those little wins, or if that's the right word, where you're sort of sitting in the chair with the client across from you and, and you're listening deeply to them and really trying to understand their experience of all of that same stuff while at the same time kind of aware of yourself in that moment. And you know, so there's, there's, there's a Lot. There's a lot to it and go. A lot going on there, isn't there? But, you know, worth the effort, no doubt.
- [42:16]
B
Well, I love the way you've now introduced that word safe because that's really the whole point of what a secure attachment is, that it's. That it's safe to express struggle and negativity. And that is the. The ultimate place in which we get that model to us and learn how to become therapists is in fact in supervision. It's not in the lecture, it's in supervision. And that safety needs to be created in the supervisory relationship as a model and an internal experience that becomes embodied and then can get transferred into the. The identity of the self as the self moves into the room and shifts from being supervisee to therapist. So that safety piece is at the core of relational psychodynamic psychotherapy where everything is about creating safety based on the unfortunate fact that emotional safety was not experienced enough of the time in our early life. Emotional safety, which means that I can express, I am struggling and I get my needs met most of the time by a attachment figure that is at the core of what goes wrong. And if that safety is not experienced in supervision. And unfortunately a horrible statistic. About a third of the people that I've surveyed in these supervisory training programs, I do a little poll at the beginning of the training and about a third of psychologists, and this is a really concerning and frightening statistic, have had negative experiences of supervision when they were TR training. Negative as in really unsafe, really cognitively misaligned. So they weren't even getting something useful. But they were emotionally overwhelmed and anxious. And that was not only ignored, but there's something more negative has occurred around that. So they have actually trauma responses to supervision.
- [44:38]
A
Yes. In a way what we're having, there is a sort of a parallel process whereby the supervisor hasn't quite understood their own kind of unconscious and their own processes.
- [44:51]
B
100 couldn't explain it in a better way.
- [44:54]
A
Yeah, yeah. I mean burnout is a real issue, isn't it, for therapists, all sorts of therapists. And there are those. There are some very practical sort of workload administration, other pressures as well. But yeah, I suppose you're trying to work with this piece, the piece around these unconscious processes and the transfer and the counter transference. And what are your thoughts there in terms of burnout and how we might sort of manage or prevent some of that, you know, in. In. By understanding some of the things you're talking about.
- [45:38]
B
So at the core is. Is the Fact that people have lost touch with the self and have not been able to understand that if that piece is missing and that compassion towards the, the not knowing or the struggle is not available to them in their minds, that everything. It's, it's not about not knowing things. It's not about, you know, the idea of being a lifelong learner is, is, is a really, it's, It's a lovely idea, which means that at any moment in time, you just say, I don't know, or you say, I need help or I can't do this. If, if that was a life, you know, tolerate it in the psyche of the psychologist through their training, you would have much less burnout. It's really that simple. But how we're going to infuse that into the training or infuse that into, you know, a master's program, It's a curriculum issue. I don't think it's difficult. It's not about taking anything away. The structure of the programs are useful. It's about adding something in that is going to ameliorate against all of the pressure and all of the anxiety that the students already feel, you know, while they're training, let alone what happens to them once they get out into the world and have to, you know, begin their practices. So I don't, I don't think theoretically it's difficult. Obviously, practically it's difficult. But I like, like the way you use the word before motivation. So it is the motivation to want to understand yourself in a deeper way and the willingness to do that work. That's what it's going to come down to.
- [47:31]
A
And I feel like it's more prominent in the. More the recent code of conduct, would you say? What's your take on, I guess, the self care piece in the code of conduct? Have you had a look at that or. I'm sort of springing that one on you a little bit. But yeah, it might be more emphasized.
- [47:52]
B
It is. It is. And it's definitely more emphasized in the competencies as well. In terms of the competencies? Yeah. Yeah. Is that what you meant?
- [48:01]
A
Yeah, I think so. Yes.
- [48:02]
B
Yeah. Right. Yes. So the self reflection piece is rather large now, which I'm very happy about, because everything, according to what we've been talking about today, literally pivots around that. So to be able to engage in reflective supervisory practice or reflexive supervisory practice is the process of dealing with the self, the internal experience, the internal reactions, the feelings, the inner critic, moving from harsh negativity, things that are not allowed into a Space of compassion. And I'm doing my best. I know this and this and this. I don't know this and this and this. I'm out of my depth here. I'm comfortable here. A very normal kind of rational analysis of the reality of what it is to be human is, is now more than before, written into our competencies. So to be able to sign off on those competencies, you don't just send in reflections about what's occurred in the session from the client's point of view. You send to your supervisor reflections about what's occurring to you in the room with your client. And that's a wonderful, a wonderful backup there.
- [49:22]
A
It is. Yeah. Yeah. If, if someone listening, perhaps a therapist or a psychologist, you know, does, you know, this resonates and they feel it, they feel some of the be uncertainty or even exhaustion, you know, and they're wondering, you know, like a, you know, what do I do about it? Or B, am I even cut out for this work? You know, I, I, that. That thought has definitely popped to my mind over, over the 30 years or so that I've been doing it. Every now and then it pops in. But what, what would you most want them to hear?
- [49:59]
B
What I would most want them to hear is that it's actually not a, it's kind of a bit of a dichotomy. But I would tell them it's a training issue and a systemic issue as to why you feel like this. You have the capacity to be the kind of therapist you want to be, but unfortunately, the system around you has not supported you in the way that you need. So now, with a lot of courage and a lot of motivation and determination, we can correct that for you. But you have to now value yourself to a process of internal examination. And I'm gonna, I'm going to validate that for you. I'm going to support you in that. I'm going to pour in as much compassion and love and kindness and care to help contain you and feel that it isn't actually a you problem, it's a systemic problem. And it can be managed with a lot of persistence and hard work and dedication. It's totally possible for you to come out of the space that you're in and start to feel better about yourself and more joyful about the work, which is a really important thing to feel that we still, in our old age, Stan, still feel very motivated and impassioned by being able to show up in front of people, train people, teaching, teach, teach students, and to feel the joy of what it is to, to be human and to do this work.
- [51:29]
A
Yes. It's not a, it's not just about finding ways to endure it, is it? It's, it's, it's, it's finding ways to really flourish in the role and that's right. To enjoy it and enjoy it and. Oh, I've, I've thoroughly enjoyed this conversation. Tanya, you really are quite inspiring. I can sense obviously the passion and the enthusiasm you feel. What sorts of things have you got coming up? Are there opportunities for people to hear more from you and so on?
- [51:59]
B
Absolutely. Thank you for asking, Stan. I have a free webinar coming up on the 23rd of June which is all about learning how to use Socratic questioning in the room. The early Greek philosophers knew about all of the things that we been talking about today. This is not new knowledge, unfortunately, it's old knowledge and we should put books about the Stoics into the curriculum. But having said that, this free webinar is, is available to everyone to come and have a bit of a taster as to what some of the programs that I've developed through DeepMind Psychodynamic training can offer you. So if you've got a spare hour on Tuesday at 5:30 on the 23rd of June, I'll send the link, or I'll send Stan the link and I'd love to see you there. And there I'll be talking you through how you can start to integrate some of these ideas into your therapy sessions straight away and start to shift yourself out of this place of feeling, of feeling like the fixer and feeling and feeling that exhaustion. So be happy, more than happy to see you in that program and then that can segue into any other trainings and offerings. There's plenty more coming up this year, so would love to have you.
- [53:12]
A
Brilliant. Excellent. Well, Tanya Kalkidis, thank you very much for speaking with me on Compassion in a T shirt.
- [53:21]
B
Thank you, Stanley.