How Therapists Can Support Community-Building in Immigrant and Marginalized Populations: An Interview with Adriana Rodriguez, LMFT

Curt and Katie chat with Adriana Rodriguez, LMFT, on Cultural Responsiveness, Generational Healing, and Safety in Community Work.

(Show notes provided in collaboration with Otter.ai and ChatGPT.)

About Our Guest: Adriana Rodriguez, LMFT

Adri Rodriguez, LMFT is a therapist, educator, and host of Entre Tías y Amiguis Podcast, where they explore generational healing, resilience, and identity. With a background in Bowen Family Systems and psychodynamic therapy, Adri integrates mindfulness and humanistic approaches to help individuals understand their stories, break cycles, and build meaningful relationships. Passionate about community care and anti-oppressive, justice-oriented practice, she balances an explorative and action-oriented approach in creating spaces for connection and growth, both in therapy and beyond.

In this podcast episode: Exploring Therapist Roles in Immigrant and Marginalized Communities

Curt reached out to our friend, Adriana Rodriguez, LMFT to talk through the trends he was seeing in his practice: clients who might be targeted by ICE beginning to isolate and not feel safe in community. We sought to learn more about how best to support these clients.

Key Takeaways for Therapists Supporting Immigrant and BIPOC Clients

“Proximity is not community. Community is about belonging. It’s about safety.” – Adriana Rodriguez, LMFT

• Community isn’t about being near others—it’s about emotional safety, shared values, and culturally affirming space.
• Therapists must understand how racial trauma, immigration status, and systemic oppression affect clients’ capacity to connect socially.
• “Making friends” or “joining a group” may not be viable advice; assess each client’s risk factors, identity, and lived experience.
• Risk appetite differs dramatically across communities—what feels empowering to one person may feel dangerous to another.
• Therapists should model and reinforce community-building as a clinical goal, but not through a one-size-fits-all lens.
• Clinicians must maintain their own energy by consuming vetted information sources and setting boundaries with media.
• Therapy spaces can be healing communities—but therapists must be aware of their own role and privilege in creating safety.
• Therapist transparency online (bios, values, pronouns, imagery) can signal safety and build trust before a first session.

“I need to trust me—that I can keep myself safe according to this risk appetite that I’ve decided I have the capacity for.” – Adriana Rodriguez, LMFT

Resources on Cultural Responsiveness and Community Building:

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!

Adriana’s Website: wellnesswithadri.com

Instagram: @adri_rodriguezwellness

Podcast: Entre Tías y Amiguis

Relevant Episodes of MTSG Podcast:

Family Therapy: Not Just for Kids – An Interview with Adriana Rodriguez, LMFT

How Can Therapists Help Politically Divided Families? : An interview with Angela Caldwell, LMFT

Navigating Religious Trauma, Spiritual Abuse, and Lies About God: An interview with Dr. Jamie Marich

Meet the Hosts: Curt Widhalm & Katie Vernoy

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:

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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.

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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 are going on in our world, the things that are happening with our clients, and the ways that we can show up to support them. And this episode stems from some client conversations that were going on in and around my practice, that some of the people in my team were coming and saying, Hey, with the way that ICE is coming around and affecting some of the immigrant communities, we have clients that are finding that they are citizens, they are here legally, but a lot of the communities that they have are not going outside. They’re not going to the usual places. They’re disappearing. And how do we help our clients retain that sense of community when that community is either being taken by ICE or are taking other protective measures for themselves? And I said, let me check with today’s guest, because this is a wonderful topic and I need to consult. So I reached out to Adriana Rodriguez and said, Hey, can you help us be able to work with some of our clients in a way that’s supportive and by extension, then come on the podcast and talk about some of these things. So she was very wonderful, integrating to both of those things. And so thank you very much for coming and sharing your wisdom with us.

Adriana Rodriguez 1:43
My pleasure. It’s always so nice to be here with you all, so I’m excited.

Katie Vernoy 1:47
It’s so good to see you again, and we’ll link to the other interviews we’ve done with you in our show notes over at mtsgpodcast.com, but for folks who have not heard your amazing wisdom, can you share who you are and what are you putting out into the world?

Adriana Rodriguez 2:01
Yeah, I’m excited, because I feel finally, very prepared for this question, and so I’m very excited to be here. I’m Adriana Rodriguez, a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist with a private practice up here in Sacramento. I am like a jack of all trades and a master of every single one of them. That’s like my little tagline, because I recently just gonna own that I am like a dabbler into a lot of things, but I am like a true DIY queen who loves to do things really well. And so with that said, I’m I’m also a professor at the University of San Francisco, where I teach family systems and sex and gender issues in therapy. I’m a community builder. I host a monthly cafecito with therapists at my office, where we come every third Friday of the month in Sacramento to just like chit chat, but also consult and build community. And most recently, as of last year, I became a host of my own podcast Entre Tías y Amiguis, which is a space dedicated to first gen, a lot of first gen experiences of bipoc adult children of immigrants, but in general, just people kind of trailblazing and figuring out on their own. And all of these things really connect, because my work is deeply rooted in this idea of generational healing, that everything that we’re experiencing right now is attached to the systems that influence our family of origin, the country where we’re living, the sociopolitical environment, and so that our healing is not only as an individual level, but also understanding how we’re nested within larger systems. This leads to, like, identity exploration and holding the systems accountable. And ultimately, I think, like my goal, is to get people to be in healthy relationships with themselves as they understand their stance among all of these things, right? And so myself, I immigrated to the US as a teenager, and so I’m like an in betweener, because I’m not a full born first gen, like a lot of the people, usually we use the term first gen for the people that are children of immigrants that have been born in the US. I’m like a generation 1.5. I’m an immigrant. I can talk to like the older, older parents, older folks that are have immigrated, but I also have all the first gen experiences, and so that in between just role that I have taken sort of puts me in this place of understanding life and the world from my own experiences, from multiple lenses, and so in therapy, practice, teaching, my podcast, all of this is like grounded in this idea that the more that we unpack the stories, the more that we understand where we come from, then we can heal and understand those patterns and all of it through culturally grounded efforts, right? That that meet people where they’re at and meet people at their stories. And so that’s what I put out into the world.

Katie Vernoy 4:48
Oh, I love that great answer.

Adriana Rodriguez 4:50
Yay! I was finally ready.

Curt Widhalm 4:54
As you’re familiar, one of the things that we also framed the problem with at the beginning of a lot of our episodes. It’s not from a shaming place, but being able to talk about what a therapist get wrong about the topic of the day. And I think in particular, this is one where in therapeutic relationships, where the counselors have a different culture than the clients, what do we see that those therapists usually get wrong about helping their clients either connect to their communities or remain connected to their communities.

Adriana Rodriguez 5:27
I mean, if I hear another therapist say, just find a hobby or find a friend, like, I would go banana, so just get out of your house. Like, because proximity is not community, right? There is like this part of the assumption that just because people are outside and around people, that then there is somehow inherently in community, right? And so proximity is not community. Community is about belonging. It’s about safety. I think especially under the current social political climate, you can’t be in communities where you do not feel safe and seen and where there is a shared understanding, whether it’s because we shared the same identities, or because there is the sense of humility and curiosity that brings all of these folks together, right? So that doesn’t mean that you can only find community with people that are exactly like you, that have shared the same experiences as you, but in in community, I think inherently, there has to be a common understanding of in the interconnectedness of our experiences, and that even when something doesn’t impact you directly, when you are in community with that person, you are deeply impacted by it, right? So in therapy conversations, often times, I think we I have heard this dialog of just like, Well, have you tried going to a yoga class? Have you tried going to a sound bath, right, which, in many ways can be helpful and healthy in terms that you can begin finding folks that are in same alignment, that have the same interest. But true community takes time. True community is not about showing up as an individual and just being with other individuals, but it’s about coming into this togetherness of a of a group identity that holds us together, rather that be like because we have a meme shared group, you know, where we are sharing the same memes and we have the same type of humor, or because our political activism is in the same vein, right? So when we’re thinking about community, we have to acknowledge that there are cultural, systemic and historical barriers also that get in the way of this belonging into community. Because if I go to a yoga class that is being taught by a person who is not culturally identified with the practice of yoga, and then the attendees don’t look like me. Now we have three different cultural components and systemic barriers that are showing up in the room, and we can’t just say, well, go find your people in the yoga class, right? Like it is way more complex than that. When people are immigrants like myself, first gen, we also have a lot received a lot of messages about keeping our heads down, being humble. You know, in Spanish, we have like, the saying “No te crees mucho,” like, don’t think too high of yourself. Like that humility something that we embody. And so that can be also a barrier to not take space or to feel other when you’re trying to take that space in building community, right? And so when we are as therapists directing our clients to just go, go find a friend, go do something, as if this is something easy, we’re not acknowledging that there is grief, that there is exclusion, that there is that they already have community. I think that’s also something that we can forget, that maybe you already actually have a whole wealth of community that is within you, but because it doesn’t look curated, doesn’t have an Instagram account or an Instagram following that we may be dismissing it as actually a source of strength, right? So I think kind of going back to the question is that we infuse a lot of the individualistic belief system of our culture, particularly if we live in the US, into this idea of building community. And it’s almost like we have to turn it upside down. Community is about gathering and coming together when we feel safe, when we connect on a deeper level, and that takes time, and that takes commitment, and that takes mutuality and reciprocity, and it doesn’t happen just on attending one place, one time, right built over time.

Katie Vernoy 9:38
It feels like the issue of safety is huge there, especially when you’re seeing folks who are coming to therapy for mental health concerns, potentially trauma, those types of things where safety can the feeling of safety can already be impacted. And then when you layer on top of that, the actual safety concerns and the risks that can happen. And when folks are going outside or in certain places and those types of things, it seems like even a felt sense of safety may not be possible. I’m curious how you’re addressing that sense of safety with the clients that you’re seeing who are wanting or needing a stronger community. Because to me, that’s that’s the first place, even for folks in more individualistic, you know, cultures, there needs to be a sense of safety to even leave their house. And so it just it feels like we’re up against a lot right now as as humans and as therapists trying to help these humans.

Adriana Rodriguez 10:40
Yes, safety is at the basis, I think, of community building. One of the things, for example, for me that has become, like really evident, is that a lot of people that I thought were safe people I’m not sure about whether or not I’m safe with you anymore. And we share the same degree, we have the same business, we navigate the same environments, but there are some things that maybe I’m looking for, some outside signaling, right, and that can help me determine my risk appetite, and that’s how I address it with my clients. Each of us has a different level of risk appetite, right? And that is not only based on emotional, psychological version of safety, but as an immigrant person, as a person who knows that right now, it doesn’t matter whether you’re a citizen, whether you have a green card, whether you have a visa, ICE could stop you and take you, and it doesn’t matter whether you’re documented, right? This sense of safety and the safety appetite is going to be varied, contingent on your intersectionality right. Not your diversity, not how you’re different, but the power that you hold to feel safe going outside. And so I think it’s really important, and it has been important for me, but also for the clients that I work with around this idea of your risk appetite cannot and does not have to look like everybody else’s. You get to determine that, and you need to know what your safety protocols are. You need to know what your what are those things that you need to put in place in order to then venture outside. Because if you’re not clear on that, it’s kind of like when people are like you. Are, like, asking people for a request, but they think that’s a boundary. A boundary ultimately comes back as your responsibility to uphold and maintain and follow through with the boundary, right? But many times we’re confusing saying a boundary, saying, like, don’t talk to me like that, right? And so it’s a request. So when we’re building community, we can assume that a community is safe, and then the individual may just kind of lower their own safety protocols to say, but I’m supposed to be safe here, right? And I don’t just don’t think that in this moment that is advisable. We don’t know if we are safe. We don’t know if you go outside of your house, you’re going to be able to come back. Those are some very important truths to hold, and not to be always like scared, but to understand, what are the action steps, where you could be detained, where you define yourself in a place that you walked in, and immediately you see a signal that that is not a place for you. How do you walk yourself out of those things? Right? Like, there has to be a self assurance and a self awareness that says if I am going to venture out into making community, if I’m going to venture out to go outside, I cannot trust that this place is a guaranteed safe place for me. I need to trust me that I can keep myself safe according to this risk appetite that I have, I have decided I have capacity for and that capacity, along with that risk appetite, does fluctuate. There may be times that you’re going to feel more assure, they’re going to be other times that you’re not going to feel as safe or or held right within those safety parameters that you’ve determined, and can that be also okay, right? So a big part before sending anybody out into the world to engage with others in the effort of building community, I think, goes, goes internal, and it starts with the self of asking, what are the risks that I’m willing to take? What are the things that are hard nosed and boundaries for me to remove myself from the situation. And then also, how do I navigate the unknown? Because there is going to be a lot of unknown, and if you’ve experienced trauma, maybe your own trauma is going to get triggered really high in a moment that is not necessarily appropriate to be that triggered, right? But the internal, your internal system, is saying, This is not safe. This is not safe. So it requires that you know yourself in terms of how that risk appetite is formulated for you, so that then you can make informed decisions every time that you’re venturing into new spaces or coming into spaces that you’re not sure whether or not they’re for you.

… 14:58
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Curt Widhalm 14:59
Other things that you had mentioned towards the beginning of that was about some of the signals of safety, and wondering for our audience and the therapists that are listening to this and hoping to implement some things, what are some of the things that clients look for as safety signals from therapists that aren’t necessarily, hey, I’m a safe person,that might be something that they’re not able to follow through on. So can you maybe help us to identify, what are some of the things that we can actually do effectively in this space?

Adriana Rodriguez 15:37
I pause with intention, because that question also applies to how do I know that the therapists are around me are safe people to be, people that I consult with, people that I refer to, the people that I want to be in community with, right?

Curt Widhalm 15:52
And I do fully recognize that this is probably an answer that varies wildly from person to person, very much within respect to what you were talking about, that risk appetite. And so I know that there’s not going to be a one size fits all answer to this.

Adriana Rodriguez 16:09
I’ll start with a story. So I recently went back to therapy, so I needed to find my own therapist. One of the things that was I didn’t realize was like a must for me, is that my therapist has to have an online presence, and it’s just like, wait, wait. Is it because I want my therapist to be cool? No, I just kind of want to know what type of social media content, news content I need to know there has to be some basics around what are the things that I can expect of you based on the way that I see you interacting online, right? I actually went with a therapist that doesn’t have an online presence, and feel very lucky that I challenged my bias, because I did talk to her, and I was like, girl, you need a website, because coming here was, like, very anxiety provoking, because you came highly recommended, but I could not find anything online about you, right? So one of the things that can be a stepping stone into figuring out who somebody is is to see if they have a online persona or a platform that they have chosen to show up as. I don’t think that it’s a requirement that you have to have a, you know, website and stuff like that. So please don’t don’t hold that against any therapist, that you don’t have a social media presence. That’s just a very millennial thing of me, if you’re not online, it’s like, where are you at? Like, why not? Right? It’s just me very generationally. But I do know that is also something that I have heard for a lot of the clients that come into my practice, right? Like, people ask me, What is your number one referral source? My number one referral source is Instagram, right? And what I hear from people is, in Instagram, I make friends, I make I meet colleagues, and I also have boundaries about how I interact with people that are interested in coming to see me in therapy, right? But one of the things that I hear often from them is like, I really resonated with something that you share. I really resonated with something that you posted, or a friend of a friend of a friend reposted something that you reposted, and that made me curious about who you were, and I wanted to look more into, you know, what the type of work that you do is. And so, because the safety cannot be guaranteed, even with therapists, even with therapists cannot be guaranteed, I think clients right now, especially the clients that may be a little bit more savvy about receiving information or navigating the internet, some clients are looking for people that are letting you know about their intersectionality, about their identities, about their beliefs, about their stances in some way or another. I don’t need you to be aligned 100% with me, but will I walk in into a therapy room, I’m feeling wary of saying this, and I’m gonna find a cross in your office? For me as a queer immigrant person who has a bunch of religious trauma, that would be very dysregulating, and that would be very dysregulating to not have found that out before walking in into that room. Because the disclosure that we make, and we know this in our therapist’s training, doesn’t start it’s not only the things that we say, but it’s also how we navigate the world, right? Things like, are you wearing ringing in your hand and what finger are you wearing a ring? It’s telling people whether you’re married or not, what kind of pictures you have, right? So we have been trained in therapy school that we are having a level of self disclosure even when we’re not saying anything verbally, right? And so some of the things that I know I’m looking for and that I’m looking that clients that come to me have shared that they are looking, or my friends that come and are looking for a therapist, is that they’re asking me, How can I tell that I’m going to walk in into a safe-ish place so that then I can allow to build a relationship and then really understand how safe I am, because you’re not going to be able to make safety determinations in a one encounter, but you could get triggered about whether or not you’re safe, actually very quickly. And so as therapists, we are a little bit in a interesting time socially where some people are choosing not to be very vocal about world events, about news, about intersectionality, about power that is very privileged. It is a very privileged position to not have to speak about these things, or to think that I’m just a therapist and not involved somehow in the sociopolitical environment of the world. Because as a person of color, as a queer person, I always have to be thinking about my intersectionality. My life is always attached to the sociopolitical environment that I’m in. So if you are a therapist doesn’t feel that these things are necessary, this may be an invitation to check your privilege that allows you to not have to be thinking about those things, right? So safety takes time. Safety is about trust. Safety is a journey into building something with somebody sort of like with the community building, right? But at the front, how can I show people that there is a alignment in what they’re looking for in terms of values, and that is going to be different, person to person and therapist to therapist. But I know that that is the feedback that I hear, and then, personally, that’s also how I navigate therapy spaces nowadays.

Katie Vernoy 21:26
It’s so interesting as a profession, we’ve moved from blank slate, therapists should not have any, you know, beliefs and things that they put forward. To this space where I agree with you that we need to be clear where we stand on things, so our clients feel comfortable to talk about their full experience, and so I think probably we want to get back to the community building part, because I think that was part of what we wanted to talk about today, but I just wanted to reflect on how critical it is for a lot of clients, for them to understand where their therapist stands, what they believe, what they’ve what they support, how they move around in the world. And that feels very strange, and it feels very different. And so I imagine it’s uncomfortable for people who have been in the field for a very long time with, you know, kind of buttoned up, no online presence, and thinking about, how do I make that clear? And I think you can make it clear even in the conversations that you have, in the initial consultation calls, or in how you all the things that you said, so I won’t repeat them. But if we’re looking at safety as step one, what are the things that you’re seeing as far as folks either creating or maintaining community right now that is important for therapists to know, who potentially aren’t, are just saying, Go get a hobby, right? The ones who are saying, Just go make a friend. It’ll be great.

Adriana Rodriguez 22:59
Yes, I think I would, I start with assessing, like a strength assessment and a resource assessment, right? What do you already have? Because I think maybe some folks are thinking that community is supposed to look like a certain way, right? Like, again, as a millennial, that community happens in this a curated studio where there are like plants and there is sound healing, and where these things are generationally, like how we we all have a picture in our head of what community is supposed to look like, and so we may dismiss some of the community that we already have, because it doesn’t look curated in the way that, like social media is selling us that community is supposed to look like, or the people who I am interacting with in this community do not seem to reflect some of the things that I already have predetermined in my head of what community really looks like. And so a part one is doing an assessment of the strengths and the resources that a person already has, and then understanding, right? So if we we understand that, then the second part is to investigate, why does that feel like community, or why doesn’t that feel like community? Because then we can help people name the longing. What is it that you’re longing that you can receive here? And is there something else that you’re longing that cannot be received there and it needs to be received somewhere else. Or is this longing something that you can receive in the community that you already belong to, but you didn’t know that you could ask for that, or that you could seek it out in that space, right? So first, before sending people out into the world like what you’re what do you already have, how do you find value in what you already have? How do you fulfill your needs with what you already have, because you might be able to and then pour into it, but also being able to understand and name the longing and grieve the losses of perhaps the communities that you have belonged to are no longer spaces that are meeting your needs right now, right. So being able to understand self reflect and figured out, what are those things that you’re needing?

… 25:05
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Adriana Rodriguez 25:05
I know that for a lot of the the spaces that I’m seeing, people that I work with, or people that have similar identities as mine, is that we are looking for places that are going to be of depth. Can I come here and be honest? Can I come here and talk about fears? Can I come here and talk about, yes, the positive and like, you know, the culture of positivism right in the in this moments also could be a barrier to building community, because it can be invalidating to be in this assuring place, like, everything’s going to be fine. And we have lived in these times of the world before, and historically, this has happened before, right? Like, very like, head center, sort of perspective of, like, what is it? How do we survive this moment, right? And so I’m looking to, I’m seeing a lot of folks looking for things like, book clubs are a center on identity, written by authors that share an identity with them and other people reading them right? I’m looking at people reconnecting with their ancestral practices. We are going through like a big shift, at least on my side of therapy, where we are truly talking about decolonizing therapy, because all the ways that we’ve been trained to be a therapist, the books that are written about it are in the contemporary right. These ancestral practices of coming together, of sharing in community, of chanting, of taking medicine with others, right? Like all of this, ancestral practices of healing have already happened, but because they’re not fitting the westernized ideals of like healing and therapy, sometimes they can be dismissed as a source of strength. But I’m seeing that a lot of people are desiring to come back into those ancestral practices, to reconnect with their culture of origin, and they’re looking for therapists who have an understanding, and also maybe, If like, you don’t have the understanding because you practice it, but you’re not going to dismiss it or invalidate it as something that is not true healing or true community, right? And so for queer people, I think we’re heavily leaning into our chosen family right now. Who are the people that are going to be beyond my friends, but who are going to be family? Because there are so many of us as queer folks, trans folks, that we don’t have our families of origin to create that safety space. And so we’re leaning into not only do I want to build community and friendship, build community and advocacy, build community and activism, but I also may be needing to build familial relationships around how, how does me and my spouse, if something were to happen to us, who are the people that we’re going to be calling right, who are the people that we’re going to connecting with? And so that I go back to this idea of the resource assessment and the strength assessment, because people already have a lot of these things, but they because, again, that is not curated in the way that they imagine may be dismissing it. But I think a lot of the identity affinity spaces are feeling like entry points for those that community building for many of the people that I I work with and I am interact with.

Curt Widhalm 28:15
We’ve had a couple of episodes this year already on some of the work that therapists can do, regardless of license. And in particular, one of them that I’m thinking about is more, hey, we’re all social workers now, and some of the things beyond just the one to one work in the office, how can therapists support immigrant families clients? How can they support queer clients at this time that might be beyond kind of the traditional Have you thought about thinking about this differently?

Adriana Rodriguez 28:50
Yes, I think, you know, one of the biggest privileges that I think I’ve had in my career is that I’ve worked with a bunch of social workers throughout the years, and I’ve come to realize what a strength that built in me as a therapist, in terms of, like, thinking outside of the therapy room, very differently. I’m also a sociology undergrad, right? So for me, I’ve had this combination of, like, macro, meso level thinking into the individual, micro thinking, right? And so I realized that that is not still how therapy training feels like, or the therapy training that is emphasized in grad school or in training centers, right? And so how do we as therapists, particularly those of us in private practice that may feel like you just come in for the 50 minutes, and then bye, see you next week, right? Or see you in two weeks, or see you in a month, right? What are we doing and encouraging people to consider in between the sessions? Because I I’ve been saying this to my clients often nowadays, this one hour a week that you have with me is not enough. It’s just not enough, right? And so the resources, after doing the assessment of the resources that already exist, is also about partnering with our clients into, how do they go, then about finding places that feel safe and welcoming and align with them, right? Like, what are the values, the values examination of like, what are the things that I’m looking for? Because if we just send them out, you may find community at the yoga studio, like I’m not I’ve I found really awesome people at yoga studios. Honestly, that’s why I think it keeps coming back to me, but I know what I’m looking for when I go into those spaces, right? And so I think it has to come back to that level of self awareness that either individuals have or they gotta build within themselves with the help of a therapist. It’s a wonderful help to have to, like figure it out what are those safety measures that you need and be in thinking about the people that you are also being encouraged by that they have a level of cultural responsiveness, cultural humility, that they’re encouraging you at the level that you’re ready to receive it, right? And so as a therapist, you have to have more knowledge about what’s happening in your local community and also what is available in virtual communities, because I think that has been one of the best things post pandemic, and to find, like, the silver lining on like this terrible five years, and the how the world has shifted is that there has been the opportunity to build much more online communities as well, because so many of us are also seeing telehealth clients. So how do we have a repertoire of ideas and resources that we can share with clients so they can begin exploring something that they may not even know where to begin.

Katie Vernoy 31:46
It’s a lot to keep up with, and I think there’s also with how much is going on in the world, there’s there’s also all the policy updates and enforcement actions and all of these things that I think can be pretty challenging. And I imagine that there’s some sort of balance between information overload and burnout and all the things that therapists can have if they’re trying to stay up to date with everything that’s going on in the world right now and remaining completely ignorant to it, right. And so I think I’m curious what your practices are as far as how you’re staying up to date with what’s going on and being able to navigate that so that you do have appropriate resources and information, and you’re also taking care of yourself. Because I think that’s the hardest balance I find.

Adriana Rodriguez 32:36
Absolutely. I think at this current times, it is an ethical responsibility to be informed. And I know that as therapists, we’re human, and as therapists, we share our own load of trauma. I myself work at the intersection of my own trauma every day, right? And so it can be really hard to find that balance at times between my own nervous system being activated, my own triggers, my own work that I need to do as an individual with balancing out that I have an ethical responsibility to be responsive to the needs of my clients, right? So how do you as a therapist also assess for yourself where are you at when it comes to your own capacity to be responsive to the needs of your clients? Because I have heard, and, you know, in the recently, I’ll say recently, from people that are like, I’m unplugging from this because I can’t take it. And as an outsider, I’m like, yo, you have so much privilege. Like you don’t disconnecting. It’s such a privilege. Like you don’t even understand that there is some of us that we do not have the possibility of disconnecting, because disconnecting actually could put us in an unsafe position, right? And so as therapists, we have to be really honest about how we’re balancing out, yes, that you’re human and then you deserve to be taken care of, and that you deserve to unplug and that you deserve to have a regulated nervous system and attend to your triggers and anything that activates you while balancing out that the work that you’ve been chosen to do, or you chose yourself to do, is about others, right? And that inherently requires that you find a balance between what you need as an individual, but also what your clients and the community that you’re serving needs. And so I think it starts there. For me, I have very strong digital boundaries nowadays because I could, depending on the content that I’m consuming, one day I could be like, super activated. It’s like, Heck, yeah, let’s go to the fight. And the next day, I’m like, oh my god, I just want to shut down and go under a blanket, and I don’t want to think about any of this, right? So I’ve had to curate the type of accounts, the type of grassroots organizers that I’m following, the advocates that I’m following, the the media that I’m consuming, both online and offline, and also finding a balance between information, but also sources that are not trivializing, minimizing, invalidating what’s happening or covering with a positive spin. And so being able to have those boundaries and that understanding of what is your own capacity, and that is going to vary day by day, depending on your own ability and capacity. But being that that being balanced with that your clients need you right now, and you have a responsibility to them, because they are activated. They are triggered at times, and they are counting on you because you may be the only person or the only space where they’re coming to talk about how hard is this, and if you’re not having an outlet as a therapist to find that self regulation, you’re going to be shutting down for them. You’re going to be shutting down for people that are really needing you to show up for them beyond the couch, right? And not because you’re going to go and taking them to the food bank, right? But you got to know where that food bank is, and what are the hours of operations, and what are the things that the resources are available for food insecurity, right? Like there is, like a level of balancing out how do I protect myself, but also, how do I stay in the know? So those boundaries about how to and when do I take information, and am I going to be consuming information at the end of the night so that then the next I’m going to go and sleep and dream about all of this awful things, right? Or what is your social media detox? What are the sources of information that you trust? I personally like to be in the know of the other side of things, because I want to know also, like, where some of these things come from, because it helps me understand. I call it like the recycled water effect. When I’m only hanging out with activists, with people that believe the same things as me, there is this illusion of movement, right, like a fountain in the park, but it’s the same water over and over. And so it’s like, how are you bringing new water into, like your little park fountain, so that there is a movement into the information and not only, and staying in, like your Echo Chamber of messaging. So I personally like also exposing myself with very good boundaries to the other side of information to understand, like where folks are coming from and like why. And this is also where my my monthly cafecito therapy coffee meetup came from, because I want to also be informed with the folks on the ground, right? Like, who, what are the people that are around me doing? Where are the people that think like me, believe the things that I believe in, do the work, but is even, can share resources with me, right? And so I’ve curated my social media, my individual relationships, the social spaces that I’m in to meet my personal needs, but also thinking about the needs to my clients, and knowing that I can’t know it all, where do I go though to find the information? I think that’s one of my biggest things. If I don’t know something, I know someone who does, let me connect you to them. I don’t carry the responsibility to know it all, but I do hold myself responsible for knowing where to send people when I kind of hit that block, whether it’s because it’s a personal trigger or because I just simply don’t know right, like, Where can we go, and having a space for peer consultation, for community care, for joy, for rest, and to validate that the labor that we’re doing right now is asking a lot of us from therapists, healers, wellness practitioners, we are being asked to show up in ways that I don’t think our training has prepared us for. And so how are you resting? How are you finding joy? Right? So all of those things are part of staying informed, because the more regulated that you are when you’re not getting overwhelmed, the more you’re going to be able to hold.

Curt Widhalm 38:47
I want to thank you for spending your time with us today and being such a wonderful voice in this space and a wonderful resource for us and all of our listeners. Where can people find out more about you, your practice, your wonderful online presence, all of that kind of stuff?

Adriana Rodriguez 39:07
Yes, you can find me on Instagram. That is, like my main place. It’s even better than texting, because I have no notifications on my phone, but I will be on Instagram, so if you need slide of my DMs, go there. That’s like the very first place that you can find me. And my Instagram is Adri: a, d r, i underscore Rodriguez r, o, d r, i, g, u, e, z, wellness, and that’s where I share my reflections, resources, updates about any offerings that I have, any events that I’m attending. And my website is kind of like my my hub. I do have Adriana Rodriguez therapy. That is like, if you’re solely looking for me as a therapist, but I also kind of have a hub of pick your adventure of how you want to be in community or work with me, which is wellness with Adri, wellness with a, d, r, i .com and that is like, going to give you all my links to go to all the different places that you can connect with me, and I do want to do a plug for like my podcast in the sense of like. I think a lot of the people that I’m in community with have assumed that they can’t listen to my podcast because I’m my the name of my podcast is in Spanish, Entre Tías y Amiguis between aunties and friends, and so I’ve had other clinicians ask me, Can I listen to it as if, like, you can’t listen to stuff that isn’t named in Spanish, right, or something like that. So I want to, like, just kind of clarify, or like, maybe just kind of put the plug of interacting with media that doesn’t seem obvious that is for you, because this is also a way of getting familiar with voices and experiences that are not maybe what you’re gonna be coming across. But we’re out there. We are sharing stories. We exist, and we want you to listen to also what it’s like to live in our shoes, right? So if you’re interested in generational healing, identity formation and mental health wellness overall, come on over. We have a really dope community. And if you’re in Sacramento, come to my cafecito, my monthly cafecito every third Friday of the month is at my office. I, my wife always buys donuts for the therapists that come, so you can find a donut, but you got to bring your own coffee. And so website, online, Instagram, but also here in person in Sacramento,

Curt Widhalm 41:18
And we will include links to all of Adriana’s stuff in our show notes over at mtsgpodcast.com. Follow us on our social media. Join our Facebook group, the Modern Therapist Group, to continue on with this conversation, as well as many others. And until next time, I’m Curt Widhalm with Katie Vernoy and Adriana Rodriguez.

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