Are Therapist Conferences Elitist? An interview with Linda Thai, LMSW
Curt and Katie interview Linda Thai on her experiences as a conference attendee, keynote speaker, and educator. We discussed the need for more accessible, community-centric, and culturally humble education as well as how to more effectively share knowledge. The limitations of traditional educational models (which Linda calls the Continuing Education Industrial Complex) are discussed as well as how conferences can be exclusive or elitist. We explore how to best access continuing education and take advantage of all types of educational opportunities.
Click here to scroll to the podcast transcript.Transcript
An Interview with Linda Thai, LMSW
Linda Thai LMSW (she, her) is a trauma therapist who specializes in cutting edge brain- and body-based modalities for the healing of complex developmental trauma. As an educator and consultant, she is gifted with the capacity to contextualize, synthesize and communicate complex and nuanced issues pertaining to the impact of oppressive systems upon identity, mental health and wellbeing, and the invisibilized wounds of racial trauma and attachment trauma. Linda is passionate about breaking the cycle of historical and intergenerational trauma at the individual and community levels, and deeply believes in the healing power of coming together in community to grieve. Born in Vietnam, raised in Australia, and now living in Alaska, Linda is a former child refugee who is not only redefining what it means to be Vietnamese, to be Australian, and to be a United States-ian….she is redefining what it means to be wounded and whole and a healer.
In this podcast episode, we look at how privilege and elitism show up in therapist conferences.
Katie recently took one of Linda Thai’s courses and was fascinated by the way that she was able to make an engaging virtual course. We reached out and requested she share her wisdom with us and we found ourselves talking about the nature of continuing education.
Why should therapists attend (or not attend) mental health conferences?
“[Therapists] actually forget that for the most part, we’re all relational learners, and to be able to find someone who matches you relationally in terms of your style of learning, who’s able to offer you feedback, who creates an environment within which feedback is welcomed, not just towards the trainer, but also, like towards me as a learner. Yeah, that I can then feel empowered to learn how I learn, and therefore learn how to incorporate and interweave this modality into the vast array of other things that I also offer.” – Linda Thai, LMSW
- If you understand what type of conference you are attending and take advantage of that opportunity (to learn, build community, or something else) attending mental health conferences can be beneficial to therapists
- There can be an inherent elitism in conferences, both in who is able to comfortably attend as well as who can participate as speakers or in supporting conferences
- Continuing education can also have bias and privilege white (typically female) therapists, especially those who have been in private practice for many years.
- Conferences are often events designed to inspire and create community, the learning experiences may not be as deep as therapists need to truly get what they need as clinicians
What are the primary concerns in continuing education for mental health professionals?
“Communities that are already marginalized, communities within which there is already a strong hierarchy, a strong narrative, do not get given the opportunity to speak from their own lived experiences in such a way that clinicians will benefit from that education.” – Linda Thai, LMSW
- What qualifies as continuing education seems limited (i.e., lived experience is discounted as valid education)
- There is a bureaucracy within continuing education approval that makes it difficult for speakers and conference hosts to be able to allow for interactivity and emergence within the workshops
- Too often the same speakers are elevated and there is a need to center lived experience and marginalized voices to co-create collective learning and liberation
Resources for Modern Therapists mentioned in this Podcast Episode:
We’ve pulled together resources mentioned in this episode and put together some handy-dandy links. Please note that some of the links below may be affiliate links, so if you purchase after clicking below, we may get a little bit of cash in our pockets. We thank you in advance!
Linda Thai’s website: www.linda-thai.com
Linda Thai – Facebook
Relevant Episodes of MTSG Podcast:
At Least 3 Reasons Continuing Education Sucks
So You Want to Plan a Conference
Reflections on The Evolution of Psychotherapy Conference
Decolonizing Therapy: A Movement – An Interview with Dr. Jennifer Mullan
Who we are:
Curt Widhalm, LMFT
Curt Widhalm is in private practice in the Los Angeles area. He is the cofounder of the Therapy Reimagined conference, an Adjunct Professor at Pepperdine University and CSUN, a former Subject Matter Expert for the California Board of Behavioral Sciences, former CFO of the California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists, and a loving husband and father. He is 1/2 great person, 1/2 provocateur, and 1/2 geek, in that order. He dabbles in the dark art of making “dad jokes” and usually has a half-empty cup of coffee somewhere nearby. Learn more at: http://www.curtwidhalm.com
Katie Vernoy, LMFT
Katie Vernoy is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, coach, and consultant supporting leaders, visionaries, executives, and helping professionals to create sustainable careers. Katie, with Curt, has developed workshops and a conference, Therapy Reimagined, to support therapists navigating through the modern challenges of this profession. Katie is also a former President of the California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists. In her spare time, Katie is secretly siphoning off Curt’s youthful energy, so that she can take over the world. Learn more at: http://www.katievernoy.com
A Quick Note:
Our opinions are our own. We are only speaking for ourselves – except when we speak for each other, or over each other. We’re working on it.
Our guests are also only speaking for themselves and have their own opinions. We aren’t trying to take their voice, and no one speaks for us either. Mostly because they don’t want to, but hey.
Stay in Touch with Curt, Katie, and the whole Therapy Reimagined #TherapyMovement:
Consultation services with Curt Widhalm or Katie Vernoy:
Connect with the Modern Therapist Community:
Our Facebook Group – The Modern Therapists Group
Modern Therapist’s Survival Guide Creative Credits:
Voice Over by DW McCann https://www.facebook.com/McCannDW/
Music by Crystal Grooms Mangano https://groomsymusic.com/
Transcript for this episode of the Modern Therapist’s Survival Guide podcast (Autogenerated):
Transcripts do not include advertisements just a reference to the advertising break (as such timing does not account for advertisements).
… 0:00
(Opening Advertisement)
Announcer 0:00
You’re listening to the Modern Therapist’s Survival Guide, where therapists live, breathe and practice as human beings. To support you as a whole person and a therapist, here are your hosts, Curt Widhalm and Katie Vernoy.
Curt Widhalm 0:15
Welcome back, modern therapists. This is the Modern Therapist’s Survival Guide. I’m Curt Widhalm with Katie Vernoy, and this is the podcast for therapists about the things that go on in our fields, the things that go on in our professions, the ways that we get better at what we do. And Katie and I used to have this little conference called the Therapy Reimagined Conference, and we got to see what running clinical trainings from a large scale. On the other end of things, we have attended many different live events and conferences over the courses of our careers. We hear a lot from people at various points in their careers about, are they worth it? Are the trainings worth it? Is this something that actually is going to make me better? And we typically respond with: our needs are a lot different than many other people’s needs are, and what’s available to us might not be available to everybody. It’s expensive in a lot of cases, and for many people, that’s a barrier to being able to go at all. So we are diving into just kind of like, what is good clinical trainings, what is are conferences worth it? What are can we make our field better? And we’re joined in this conversation today by Linda Tai LMSW, who works with complex developmental trauma and adults, particularly with historical and intergenerational conflicts. And Katie, you just attended a really wonderful training with Linda. So a great conversation to be had today. Thank you so much for joining us.
Katie Vernoy 1:51
We’re so excited to have you here, Linda. I I have so enjoyed the the trainings and the videos that I’ve watched from you. And I just want to say before we, I’m going to try not to gush too much, but before we get into this, I think the thing that so surprised me about the trainings that I’ve attended with you is how much you make it feel like we’re in the room together, even though it’s virtual and it it was definitely very accessible. And so I’m really excited to have this conversation with you, because I know what it takes to try to put together training that can reach people all over the world. That’s what we had to do once the pandemic hit. We went from to a kind of a virtual training, and it was so challenging. And so to me, the the way that you bring yourself and your spirit into into your trainings, is amazing. And the when you said, hey, I want to talk about this, I was so excited. So anyway, I’m going to stop gushing and get to the question that we ask everyone who comes onto the podcast, which is, who are you and what are you putting out into the world?
Linda Thai 2:51
My training is as a clinical social worker. However, my initial training for all of this was my lived experiences. So I’m a former child refugee. I was born in Vietnam, raised in Australia. I live these days in Fairbanks, Alaska, the land of the Den’a Athabascan peoples, of the middletown in our valley. And often say that I’m redefining what it means to be Vietnamese and redefining what it means to be Australian, and redefining what it means to be a United States-ian. And I hope, in many ways, to disrupt the narratives that happen in our community as well as outside of our inside, within our therapist community as well as outside our therapist community, about what it means to be a therapist and what it means to be a change maker, and what it means to hold out hope in action, for our communities, for ourselves, our families and our society. And so in the world, I offer trainings. I’m also a keynote speaker. I have you know, individual clients, and also offer workshops into the world that really very much looking at addressing the historical and intergenerational context within which our own lived experiences of struggles and hope and pain arise.
Curt Widhalm 4:06
One of the questions that we start a lot of our podcasts with is not from a shaming place, but from what we’ve learned, being able to pass on wisdom so that way other people don’t necessarily make the same mistakes. But the question that we ask is, what do therapists usually get wrong when they’re planning for their clinical trainings, getting their CEs done, that kind of stuff.
Linda Thai 4:29
As therapists, we all know that this, the answer to this is very much pertinent to each individual, so I’m just going to offer a list. So let’s see, what do we get wrong; thinking that something outside of ourselves is going to help us be more effective with our clients and using those trainings as a way of bypassing doing the inner work for ourselves. What we also get wrong is that we engage in the training without actually engaging in the therapeutic technique itself. So go see a therapist who’s trained in that modaity, see if it jives with you from the inside out before you then go and take that training. And I think the other piece that therapists miss when looking at clinical trainings is that it is this piece, find a trainer that jives with you. Yeah, find a trainer that jives with you. So when you have those big name trainings like brain spotting, EMDR, somatic experience, and we think that it’s about the training itself, right, and the nuts and bolts of what we learn within the training. However, it’s so important to find the trainers that jive with you. When you learn how you learn you can learn how to do anything. And the thing that we often overlook when we look at learning styles right, auditory, kinesthetic, visual learners, we actually forget that for the most part, we’re all relational learners. And to be able to find someone who matches you relationally in terms of your style of learning, who’s able to offer you feedback, who creates an environment within which feedback is welcomed, not just towards the trainer, but also, like towards me as a learner. Yeah, that I can then feel empowered to learn how I learn, and therefore learn how to incorporate and interweave this modality into the into the vast array of other things that I also offer.
Katie Vernoy 6:24
That really made me think, because I I find myself, in the course of my career, going to a lot of conferences, and like you mentioned before, we hit record, I oftentimes get to go for free because of service or speaking or those types of things. And so much of the the training that I walk into, or I spend time in, I feel so disconnected from and I feel very distracted and distractible. I feel very let down by the trainer in the room, who’s, you know, doing their job. They’re, they’re speaking at an audience. And I said that very specifically, speaking at an audience. And it feels in some ways like I go to in person trainings or even sometimes virtual trainings for the purpose of connecting with community versus actually learning anything. And, and I’ve felt that need to be able to learn more deeply and, and to do, frankly, some of that internal work that you’re talking about. And I haven’t really found it, I guess, until I actually took your training so well. I’ll keep I’ll stop guessing about you, but I’m very curious, because I know that you’ve been, you’re involved in so many different groups that do different types of trainings you have so many, so many, so many ways that you’re sharing knowledge. What have you seen, as far as how knowledge is being spread within the therapist community? What have you seen, what have you seen changed? What has your experience been, of effective and ineffective? You know, kind of passing of wisdom. I guess this time I’d ask that question.
Linda Thai 8:05
I think something that I’ve seen beginning to shift in recent years with training specifically, is incorporation of harm and accountability practices within a DEI framework, and that’s something still new. Like when I first started doing trainings. I remember walking into those spaces and looking around and going, there’s no one here that looks like me. And then I’d ask questions about, How does this modality apply or fit for, for for people of color? Have you worked with refugee or immigrant populations? And because these trainings were mostly attended by white, middle class women who’ve been in private practice for for a while, they just looked at me with that look of, we don’t really work with people like you, and we don’t really hang out with people like you, and you’re kind of on your own. And then I look at the program assistants and the teaching assistants and the trainers. And it took me a little while to figure it out, because no one actually tells you, right with trainings how to figure it out. You got to figure it out on your own. And then I realized that the program assistants and the training assistants are all volunteering their time. So that then embeds a culture of privilege within the training institutes that is unspoken, and that then creates a vibe in the space, right? The vibe in a space of people like me don’t belong here, yeah. And then we also see who isn’t in the space, in terms of people with young children are also excluded from many of these training intensives, as well as conferences, and then to go to a conference where you’re speaking with or you’re in the presence of a trainer for a modality, you’re not going to learn the entirety of that modality within a conference training, within a half day pre conference workshop, or within a one day, one hour or two hour conference workshop. You’re going to get enough of a taste of it so that you have an idea of whether this is something that you want to learn more about, or whether it’s something that’s not for you. And so to meet those expectations, or sorry to to manage those expectations, and these are things that people don’t, never told me explicitly about. And then we add into it, the pieces around sensory overwhelm, the pieces around logistics, the pieces around needing to filter in or filter out an overwhelm of information, and we don’t know how to sort and select what’s relevant or not relevant, because there’s no one there to guide us, and it is so overwhelming.
Curt Widhalm 10:51
Does this just make the conferences elitists?
Linda Thai 10:55
It can. It very much can, until you have these conversations, until you create spaces where it’s actually okay to talk about the different conferences and the different needs that we each have. I mean, there’s different types of conferences, so there’s conferences that are aimed at certain populations. So you might have the, you know, I recently spoke at a child welfare conference. So it’s a conference just for people who work in child welfare. And then there are conferences where it’s about a specific modality, so the IFS conference, for example. And then there are conferences where, you know, we’re bringing in the best of the best around the world, people who will stimulate you and engage you and invite you to rethink the ways in which we’re engaging with with ourselves as a profession. And I’m finding more and more these days that conferences are very much events and that is the purpose of attending them in person is because it’s an event. You get to network. You get to actually have the experience of an event, which is very much different to going to a conference to learn. And in those conferences where we go to learn, there tends to be a submission process where you send in an abstract, you send in your bio, with your professional credentials, and all the other papers that you’ve written, and it’s very much focused on the research that you’ve done. Yeah, and that, in and of itself, can be elitist in the sense that only those who’ve engaged in their profession, from an academic or research perspective, get to have, get to have space in front of an audience. And what I’m seeing and and there is definitely a place and a purpose for that, and I’m also seeing with conferences these days how there’s a lot more emphasis on speakers who have public speaking skills, speakers who have the resources and the privilege to hire speaking coaches, who have the privilege and the resources to have a website, to have books and programs to funnel people towards because oftentimes those speaking gigs actually don’t pay very well, and so therefore the speaker needs to have a way of using that platform in order to generate more income. And that’s something that’s also not talked about amongst our field, yeah.
Katie Vernoy 13:47
Well it also means to be a speaker in any real way there, there’s a level of privilege that’s required there as well.
Linda Thai 13:54
Yes, yes, very much so, very much so.
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Linda Thai 13:59
And then when it comes back to answering the question that you actually asked, What was that question, again?
Katie Vernoy 14:09
Well, just kind of the changes that you’ve seen in this space, because, and I think you’ve answered it, so I don’t think we need to belabor it. But I think to me, what you’re describing is that there are conferences that may be very interest focused, maybe very education focused, but the idea of an event and and having a purpose to go there, to be in community, maybe be inspired, but not necessarily to just learn, I think, is really resonant for me. I, you know, just to kind of pull back the curtain a little bit on the conference that we did, I think we were trying, and I feel kind of sad because we weren’t able to keep the to sustain this, because, I think, of the infrastructure, but, but we were trying to make sure that we were getting folks on stages who weren’t typically on stages. We were trying to make sure that we paid as many of the speakers as we could, and certainly free admission and as whatever we could do, right? And of course, that meant that we made no money. And, you know, it was not financially stable, so there’s a whole bunch of issues there. But I think in the way that we were trying to put it together, it was about inspiration, and it was about connection, which, yeah, we still had continuing education, but it was, it was something where we were honoring that it was an event. And I think that that was the what you’re describing, is it’s very different than going and getting EMDR certified, or IFS certified. Like these are two different things, and I think people don’t necessarily recognize that like conferences that professional associations put on, or that people like Curt and me put on, that are really about inspiration and connection, but education may look different. I mean, certainly the quote, unquote application process for speakers, we still had a very rigorous process, but we didn’t require publications. We didn’t require people to be fabulous speakers. They had to have fabulous potential. And so, I don’t know, it just, it’s something where it’s sad, because I think that regardless of how much we may want to make shifts in the world, there’s still, I think this, this, I don’t know, trend towards the mean, or trend towards the norm of, you know, somebody needs to be like a TEDx speaker or a TED speaker, you know, and, and have this, you know, really fabulous research to be in these kind of ongoing conferences that actually make money. Or, or there are conferences that just don’t pay speakers and that’s a whole other problem that we have that, you know, I would that’s maybe beyond the scope of this conversation, but it, it really does put us in a place where only the most privileged, only the most ivory tower folks, are training the next generation of therapists if we don’t, if we don’t watch out.
Linda Thai 16:58
Yes, and to also speak into the differential in speakers fees. So for someone who’s up and coming, their speaker fee will be a lot less, or sometimes not at all, compared to the the bigger names that drive the ticket sales. Yeah, and that’s what it comes down to, within a commercial setting, within a mental health education industrial complex that we actually need to name, because if we don’t, then we we’re entering it into it from a place of naivety.
Curt Widhalm 17:36
Let’s talk about the continuing education industrial complex here, because…
Katie Vernoy 17:40
Tell us more. What do you mean by that?
Curt Widhalm 17:43
And yes, because I’ve got my opinions, but I don’t want to turn what you’ve got to say before I added my piece on it.
Linda Thai 17:53
Oh, look, it’s here in the United States. The continuing education industrial complex is such that my, my state board here in Alaska accepts CEs from any other state, yeah, and it also accepts continuing education credits from other professional organizations and boards, and so to me, I’m covered there. Other state boards are not so generous. And then we also have other state boards that say, Hey, if you think this is valuable for you in the work that you do with the population that you serve, then we will recognize that as continuing education credits. And so there’s this huge, huge array. And what I’ve noticed in my time in terms of offering trainings and trying to provide continuing education credits is that I’ve had to go through a broker, and that broker then applies across all 50 states, across all the various mental health boards for a fee so that we can offer continue education credits for the folks who who turn up, and that’s expensive, like, that’s really expensive. And then we take into account the APA in recent years, I can’t remember the exact date, probably about two years ago, they decided that anything polyvagal was not going to be offered CEs, anything somatic was not going to be offered continuing education credits, any training that is bipoc only will not get Yes. I see a look on your face, Katie.
Katie Vernoy 19:37
Oh my gosh.
Linda Thai 19:38
Yes, yes. So if I were to do a training that was that I wanted it to be bipoc only, I I wouldn’t get APA CEs, right? And the thing is, there’s a hierarchy in our professions that if the APA offers CEs, then everyone else just falls in line. Yeah.
Katie Vernoy 19:58
That makes me so upset.
Linda Thai 20:01
It’s upsetting. It’s upsetting. My friends over at Black Therapists Rock, who you know, who are there to offer support for their clinicians have had to re-word their trainings and call it like you know, we will center the bipoc experience in our trainings, right? But we you can’t make it exclusively bipoc only. Or you can. You just can’t get CEs for it. And then any training that centers first person experience for the APA also doesn’t get CEs. So communities that are already marginal, yeah, I know. I also see that look on your face. So communities that are already marginalized, communities within which there is already a strong hierarchy, a strong narrative, do not get given the opportunity to speak from their own lived experiences in such a way that clinicians will benefit from that education. And so I’m thinking specifically about bipoc communities, but also my friends who who experienced themselves as multiple so the DID community, right, communities who, for example, okay, I spent the first 10 years of my professional life in addiction recovery, and so much of that was centering the lived experiences of people in a in recovery. And every single training that I have been to about substance use disorder has never, ever had a speaker who speaks from their own lived experiences, and yet that is where I have learned the most as a clinician. And so what are we doing to ourselves as a field when we don’t actually center the experiences of those who’ve been through it? What we do is we actually unintentionally or intentionally create a field within which there is stigma towards a diagnosis. I mean, it’s such diagnostic clinical terms.
Katie Vernoy 22:09
Sure, well. And I think the other part that can happen with that is if I can’t speak from a lived experience, either I mask my own experience and talk anyway, right? Or I co opt the experiences of those who I’ve worked with, or those folks who I I know and and kind of use their lived experience to pepper my, you know, my the stories I must tell as a good speaker, right? And so it, it, it, it’s, it’s, there’s just so much wrong with us. I can’t, I’m I’m not be able to speak well, I’m so upset about this, because it’s something where to me being able to have an educational experience, where we can look at all people and have all people in the room talking about their own experiences, talking about what’s interesting to them, talking about whatever they want, and being able to create safer spaces and places where people can feel like they actually can learn, and APA saying that that much of that is not CE worthy, creates this barrier that is like you said, I think it becomes systemic. Oh.
Linda Thai 23:24
Very much so.
Katie Vernoy 23:25
I am so angry.
Linda Thai 23:28
I saw your hands making tight little balls.
Katie Vernoy 23:31
I know I’m reaching out, Linda, I’m reaching out. I think it’s something.
Linda Thai 23:36
I got you. I got you, Katie.
Curt Widhalm 23:41
Oh, and further on, this is it seems like every couple of years, as you’re pointing out with APA is the and this is not just APA. This is my experience with a lot of the continuing education boards. Is that the standards become more and more prescriptive. That when I first got into providing CEs there it was like, write a paragraph or so about the workshop, but now it’s like, what are you going to be speaking about in minute 37 and it becomes to where the ability to even adapt to what the audience is bringing in makes it to where it’s it’s a lot more rigid and formal and not to the experience of people who attend. Which further puts kind of this barrier between the speaker, the educator, and the community that’s supposed to be developing around that.
Linda Thai 24:37
I’m having a Mwahahaha moment that you actually know the nuts and the bolts and the nitty gritty of all of this? Yes, it’s the workshop description, it’s the learning objectives, it’s the three evidence based publications that support what what you’re teaching per hour of teaching. So, plus the number of minutes that you will be spending on each topic. It’s outrageous, absolutely outrageous. And yes, there there is no interactivity then. There’s no capacity to work with emergence. And when we look at, when we look at the education industrial complex. I mean, how much of this is actually a derivation or an extension of graduate school and your undergraduate degree and high schools, right where here is the syllabus, and we need to stick to the syllabus. And so by the time we actually get to some of these conferences, we’ve been trained to expect our education in that way. And then a bipoc speaker turns up and says, I ain’t going to play that game. I’m going to work with emergence, I’m going to have pauses, I’m going to interact with you. And the, and my own experience is that the typically white bodied folks in the space start to become agitated because they’re not getting the information that they’re here to get, and the relationality that I’m wanting to create in in the community around a particular topic is annoying for them because they’ve come here for their info dump. Yeah, I read the feedback forms I get, right.
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Katie Vernoy 26:30
I think it’s so interesting. I’ve had a colleague who, there was a speaker, who was very much it was a woman of color who was very much an expert in what she was talking about, and had slides, but would jump from slide to slide, would move all over the place, would would respond to the space, even virtually, would respond to the space. And the feedback was, well, I don’t know if she met the learning objectives. I was like, read the learning objectives again. She completely met the learning objectives. And I think it’s it’s hard to take that in when we’re so indoctrinated into this. I must have knowledge point A and and now an intervention B versus I need to have this experience that transforms how I look at the world.
Linda Thai 27:19
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, and that that that element of dynamism is something that has become lost within the, you know, the colonial settler education system, where it’s based on mass production and mass output. Yeah, and we’re losing experiential education. We’re losing project based learning, we’re losing reciprocity and mutuality that is co-created within the moment. Yeah, and we’re losing it because we’re also not getting it role modeled for us, yeah? So we don’t get what it is that we didn’t get, and it’s, it’s sad, yeah, yeah.
Katie Vernoy 28:13
One of the things that Curt would rail against when we were putting on our conference was all the people that would go and, like, burn through an online CE platform where they could just get, you know, CE after CE, right before their their license renewal, that they would just basically like check box their continued education without an understanding of what real continuing education looked like.
Linda Thai 28:37
Yeah. Ah, yes, yes. Yes. And so I want to name also the pressures within our field, with the CEs that we need to get every two years, and also that there is a reason behind it. And like yes to all that, and the burning through it isn’t actually a depth of education or understanding or knowledge or integration or application, and those things require one’s own commitment, one’s own commitment, and yet it’s hard to create a space for that, and yet it’s a space I deeply yearn for. And so part of my quest for education means that I’ve personally had to let go of the whole CE I don’t know what I’d call it, the CE mill, and expand the ways in which I learn and then burn through the recording so that I could fulfill the requirements and yet place my efforts and energy around how I choose to holistically educate myself into a bigger bucket of life.
Curt Widhalm 30:03
I’m trying to reflect back onto some of the early conferences that I went to in my career, and just kind of what has changed over the numbers, whether it’s been ones that Katie and I have put on, whether it’s ones that we’ve attended through our professional associations. And I remember some of the early conferences being just kind of, like, excited to be amongst a bunch of other people, and then finding out, like, uniquely in in therapy conferences, that everyone just seems to go to bed, like immediately after the last workshop is done, like, there wasn’t a whole lot of people that were just kind of hanging out, like other trade industry kinds of things. But part of what you spoke about earlier is that there’s no depth of learning when you go to 15 different workshops over the course of three days, and you get kind of, it’s like a buffet of education where it’s like, Oh, I’ll take a little bit of somatic experiencing, and then I’ll take a little bit of law and ethics, and then I’ll take a little bit of whatever the next kind of thing is, and walking out with a stack of books that occupy your bookshelf that you’ll maybe read someday, but it doesn’t really there have potentially only been a couple of conferences that I’ve gone to where the thing that I got out of it was the education, but most of the rest of them seem to be about networking and community, and that’s really kind of what I find myself later in my career going to some of these events for. If I happen to get some continuing education out of it, it just feels like there is such a problem that comes with like, not there to learn, it’s there to be around other people like me.
Linda Thai 31:54
Yes, yes, yes. So let’s see here. So what I would recommend for folks going to conferences, right is go with your friends or find out who else is going, and then go with those people, or have, like, regular check ins with those folks. Because how we often integrate learning is by saying, hey, what which session did you go to this morning? Tell me all about it, and then we can share back and forth what it is that we learnt through each of those and that way I get to integrate that information for myself as well as pass on information for others. I have nervous systems that I can check in with that gives me a sense of familiarity within the overwhelming, just the overwhelm of the number of people, and the number of workshops that are going on, and the FOMO that can emerge, because we have to choose between workshops, I think going there to find your people is a great reason to go to a big conference. And with that in mind, attend, when you attend a workshop, have a look around for who your people are, right? And in that way, you can start to build those connections and then find out the people that you’d like to connect with, and see if you can set up meetings with those people ahead of time, so that you can make best use of that time when you’re in another city or another state, or perhaps in your own hometown, and that way, it then becomes a networking opportunity for yourself that you’re actually going to experience some joy with. And then with some of the conference organizers, they actually use apps, or they use technology that allows people to find each other. And so in this way, you can actually generate an ask, a need and connect with like minded folks, so that you can actually come together with others.
Katie Vernoy 33:53
I think that was the biggest thing that I so loved about the last two years of our conference, was we, we did get a conference out because it was going to be mostly virtual. The second year we had some people in person, and it really opened up another form of communication that I think allows folks who don’t feel available to, you know, kind of in person, eye contact, all that, all that kind of stuff, where they can actually do some messaging and some some chatting, and those types of things where it can really start creating relationships in a way that’s more accessible, I think, to all neurotypes, which I was really excited about, and it just provides so many more opportunities. But as you were talking about kind of what recommendations you had, I was thinking about, even broadly, a recommendation around what trainings or conferences do you go to, and for me, having, you know, worked with Curt to kind of curate what we wanted in those types of things, I think that some folks will go to a conference because of one keynote speaker, and I think that’s great if that’s if that person is really important to you definitely do it. But I think looking at all of the speakers and the philosophy around the conference, and, and what the representation is in the conference and and how it’s being marketed, and who it’s being marketed to, that can be very helpful. I think, for some folks, you know, this is, this is more for our social justice folks. But look who the who the sponsors are. Look at how the funding is happening. Really investigate, you know, kind of are some of the talks paid versus, you know, like paid sponsorships versus, really in depth, kind of meaty conversations. And I think choosing where your conference dollars go can be very important, because, you know, if you’re if you’re not paying attention to where you’re choosing to spend your money, you might be feeding the mental health continuing education industrial complex versus trying to disrupt it. But you, you’re, you’re, you’re part of continuing education, or at least education. Talk to us about where you fit in and how you’re you’re shifting this and shifting the education of therapists into more what what you’ve you see as ideal, and I tend to agree with you about what would be better and and more positive for our profession.
Linda Thai 36:11
I actually believe in centering experiences, centering those who’ve had lived experiences, as well as centering your community based experiences and your clinical experiences in such a way that that then drives the delivery of the material. I believe that education needs to be low cost and accessible, offering live transcription technology, teaching through visuals that help to layer in knowledge, rather than like a, you know, PowerPoint slides where there’s just words on them. Like use visuals like engage a graphic designer, or learn how to engage with the PowerPoint or Keynote software in such a way that you can then begin to layer in visuals that then teach concepts. Because when we learn principles, then we can let go of needing to follow a protocol, yes, yes. And when we learn conceptual principles, then we can let go of the the linearity that education can be. Yeah, I believe that there needs to be space for people to get to know each other and to form their own subgroups, where it’s that grassroots education of people actually speaking up and saying, Yes, I want this or I want that, and facilitating a space where you can find each other so that you can continue your own learning in the ways that feel right and feel good by you. I also believe in centering the voices of those who normally don’t get the opportunity to ask questions. So in my classes, I ask that the group be okay that bipoc voices and trans and queer voices get given the microphone in terms of asking questions. Because because, historically, there hasn’t ever been spaces where people can actually say, from my lived experience, I experienced this, and can you show me how you would incorporate what you’re teaching for my lived experiences? Yeah, and in this way, we actually create a a co liberation space and a co learning space. Right? Collective liberation through collective learning.
Katie Vernoy 38:54
I love that.
Curt Widhalm 38:56
Where can people find out more about you and all of the wonderful things that you do?
Linda Thai 39:02
I have a website. It’s www, dot Linda dash Thai.com, L, I, N, D, A, dash, T, H, A, I.
Curt Widhalm 39:13
And we’ll include a link to her website in our show notes over at mtsgpodcast.com and join us on our social media. Join our Facebook group, the Modern Therapist group, to continue on with these conversations, and until next time, I’m Curt Widhalm with Katie Vernoy And Linda Thai.
… 39:30
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