On The Move: How Run Walk Talk Therapy Reshapes Mental Health An interview with Sepideh Saremi, LCSW
Curt and Katie interview Sepideh Saremi, LCSW, on her therapy model, Run Walk Talk. We look at the practicalities and clinical benefit of including movement (specifically running and walking) in therapy. We talk about the principles of movement as method, movement as modulator, and movement as metaphor.
Click here to scroll to the podcast transcript.Transcript
An Interview with Sepideh Saremi, LCSW, Run Walk Talk
Sepideh Saremi, LCSW is a psychotherapist who specializes in working with founders, business partners, and their startups. She is also a founder herself, of Run Walk Talk®, a trademarked method of therapy and personal coaching that uses mindful movement to help people achieve their goals. Sepideh’s work with Run Walk Talk® and expertise on startups and mental health has been featured in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Fast Company, Runners World, Runners World Germany, Men’s Health, Voice of America, Well+Good, mindbodygreen, and numerous other media. She is currently scaling Run Walk Talk® with a certification program for therapists and wellness professionals.
In this podcast episode, we explore running in a therapy session
We invited Sepideh Saremi to talk about how she works as a therapist. She started running and walking with her clients in 2014 and is now teaching other therapists how to effectively bring these types of movement into therapy.
How does it work to add running or other forms of movement to therapy?
- Movement as method (nuts and bolts, practicalities)
- Movement as modulator (addressing the nervous system)
- Movement as metaphor
How can a therapist explain running or walk and talk therapy to a client?
“We’re using running and walking to help you connect to yourself, to help you connect to the therapist, and to help you be supported in getting therapy.” – Sepideh Saremi, LCSW
- The purpose of running or walking in therapy is not for the cardio benefits
- Running and walking in therapy can help clients to connect to self and therapist
- Run Walk Talk can also make therapy more accessible for some clients
What are the practicalities and benefits of running in a psychotherapy session?
“Run walk talk is really just sneaky mindfulness, because running [inherently] requires mindfulness.” – Sepideh Saremi, LCSW
- Running at a conversation pace
- Paying attention to the physical interaction
- Creating an embodied experience
- Assessing pace and self-care
- Mindfulness and awareness
- How to address confidentiality
- Using the environment clinically
- The benefits of being outside
- The relational elements are important in this type of therapy
- Handling liability when working with clients outside and movement
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!
Sepideh’s website: https://www.runwalktalk.com
Sepideh’s Instagram: @runwalktalk
Relevant Episodes of MTSG Podcast:
What to Know When Providing Therapy for Elite Athletes
Therapy for Executives and Emerging Leaders
Therapy as a Political Act: An Interview with Dr. Travis Heath
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:
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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 we do in our practices, the things that we do in the world, and sometimes when we combine the two. Now, we have previously done a couple of episodes on walk and talk therapy. But the question is, what happens when you want to do that faster? It’s not just have shorter sessions, it’s actually to run during sessions, apparently, really well. So we are joined today by Sepideh Saremi, LCSW, who is here to help us talk about running therapy. So thank you very much for joining us.
Sepideh Saremi 0:56
Thank you so much for having me. I’m so excited to be talking with you both.
Katie Vernoy 1:00
We’re so glad to have you here. And you and I have had a couple of conversations and excited to share that with everyone. But before we get started, why don’t you tell us; Who are you and what are you putting out into the world?
Sepideh Saremi 1:12
So I am Sepideh Saremi. And I am here in this world to get people excited about movement therapy. So getting therapists and also the general public excited about integrating movement into psychotherapy and healing. That’s what I’m about.
Katie Vernoy 1:31
I love that.
Curt Widhalm 1:33
One of the things that we start a lot of our episodes with is talking about misconceptions that people have or mistakes that people might make. And we don’t do this as a shaming thing. But what are some of the things that you’ve heard that people might accuse you of or just give a wrong idea about what it is when you take therapy outside of the office.
Sepideh Saremi 1:54
So I love our field, but we can sometimes be very, very risk averse to the point of absurdity. So, I’ll get a lot that’s not ethical, or you shouldn’t do that, or that’s not real therapy. So, when I first kind of came out and started talking and press about my practice, which is called Run Walk Talk, and now is a is a training program and certification program. I got a lot of pushback from people. But I actually also got a lot of excitement from therapists about it, too. So, I feel very hopeful. I think therapists want to do a good job. They want to be ethical and do the right thing by our clients. And so I know that a lot of the fear around it comes from that. But it is also important for us to innovate and think about ways that we can serve our clients. So that’s always the intention with what I’m doing.
Katie Vernoy 2:45
What is running and walking therapy, how does that work? Like, like Curt said, we talked about walk and talk therapy. So we have we have we have a baseline there. But, but how does all of this work?
Sepideh Saremi 2:57
So, whenever I hear that question, I love that question. I always want to answer two questions, which is what does the session look like? And then what makes the work actually effective? And the way that I conceptualize, run walk talk is kind of in three different layers. The first one is movement as method. The second one is movement as modulator. And then the third one is movement as metaphor. And so I can answer those questions kind of by talking you through that. And that’s kind of how I train people as well. So, movement as method is all of the brass tacks out of a running therapy session. So, where are we doing the session? How long is essentially going to be? are we running or are we walking? Everything that’s observable, and that can look really different depending on the client or the patient that you’re working with. So there’s a lot of flexibility in that model. And you’re always thinking about, what is the client actually need? What is the goal of the session? What is the goal of the treatment at large? And how does running and walking fit into that? So, it can like actually really different. And then movement as modulator is having an understanding of the nervous system and the body. And then thinking about using running and walking as kind of the modulator of the nervous system. So is this a person who is kind of in sympathetic overdrive, where they’re kind of in flight or fight all the time? Are they super anxious? Well, maybe running, they’re going faster is not super appropriate for them, even though that’s what they want to do. Maybe it would be helpful for them to walk and slow down. Kind of a converse as well, like as a person who tends to be a little too far into parasympathetic, where they’re kind of numbed out or depressed, maybe movement, faster movement would be helpful for them. And then there’s movement as metaphor, which is all the stuff that’s happening in the relationship between you as the therapist and your client. And then how, how is it showing up for the client in a metaphorical way in their life, and folding that into the treatment as well? This gets actually quite complex pretty quickly. But that’s is how it works in a nutshell.
Curt Widhalm 5:02
How do you convey that to clients? I mean, I have to imagine that there’s a lot of people who seek you out, because this is what you do and might be more inclined to this anyway, but beyond just kind of like, oh, I can go get in my cardio while I’m talking with my therapist, like, how do you explain that to your clients in kind of a really good informed consent sort of way?
Sepideh Saremi 5:25
Yeah, such a good question. So, uh, one of the things that I actually emphasize with clients when they come to me is, this isn’t like a killing two birds with one stone, where you’re getting your workout at the same time as you’re getting your therapy. This is us using running and walking in a way that’s going to be therapeutic for you. Which is going to look different from working with a personal trainer, or doing like a cardio session, or doing a run on your own. We’re using running and walking to help you connect to yourself, to help you connect to the therapist, and to help you be supported in getting therapy. That is different from the benefits that you would get just doing like cardio by yourself, because then you can just go on a run on your own right, you don’t need you don’t need me there, you don’t need a practitioner there with you. So, there is a little bit of psycho-ed that goes into that. And for clients who are, most clients aren’t as curious about kind of like what is happening under the hood of their therapy. But for those that are I will explain to them kind of the some of the chemistry of what’s happening. You know, you’re getting a lot of endorphin release and dopamine. And when you move your body forward through space, and the scenery changes, right, like your eyes are seeing different things, the parts of your brain that are more anxiety driving calm down. So they understand that mentally full.
Katie Vernoy 6:43
S,o I’m trying to imagine because I, I’ve not been a runner anytime recently, it was a very, very long time ago. So I’m working on old information, personally. But when you’re running with a client, like, how do you, are you talking like you talked about metaphor? What do you mean by movement as metaphor? Can you share an example of what might happen in a session?
Sepideh Saremi 7:05
Yeah, absolutely. So, typically I am. The movement is happening at the same time as the talking. So for therapists that are hearing this and go: I can never run during a session. I’m always only running at conversation pace. So, I’m never running faster than I can comfortably talk at the same time. Which means that it’s usually a pretty slow run, it’s not super speedy. And in terms of movement as metaphor, you will learn a lot about a client and kind of how they are in the world by how they negotiate the session with you on a run. You kind of, you kind of jump right in. So, things that might not understand about a client for, you know, a few weeks or even a few months, I’m seeing in their interaction with me and how they’re running. So, some clients get really competitive, right? They, they, they want to outrun me. Some clients will start really fast and, you know, run out of steam, and is that happening in other places in their lives? Like they get too excited and then they, you know, they get gassed and can’t come back in at the same pace. They can’t pace themselves. I had one client a few years ago who the first time that we went for a walk, this is a walking client, she would end up kind of on the sand, like we walk on a paved pedestrian path, because I do beach based sessions mostly. And she would end up in the sand. I was like this is really interesting. Like she’s very easy to push around, because I was unconsciously kind of herding her. I’m a bit of a sheepdog, so and I let my clients, I let them know that right? Like I had the awareness to let them know that. And she, she just would end up in the sand constantly. And it was a person who really struggled with boundaries. That was happening in other places in her life. And I got to see that in session two, right. Whereas it might have taken longer for that to come out. And she didn’t have a good awareness of that either. So it’s something that kind of came up and we could talk about it and work through it. And in the sessions, I would encourage her to hold her ground, right? Like what does it feel like for her not to let me herd her around and for her to kind of stay stay on the path. That’s her path too, it belongs to her as well. Right? We’re sharing the space. So she got kind of an embodied experience of that sort of work.
Curt Widhalm 9:32
In the relational stuff that you do, we’re talking about this relational. I do have a question about potential countertransference that comes up, specifically if you and clients are at a stoplight. What are your feelings about clients who are jogging in place at the stoplight?
Sepideh Saremi 9:51
Well, I judged them hard, now…
Curt Widhalm 9:55
That right there for people who do from from the reading community is ultimately kind of Sepideh’s stamp of like coming from a running background right there. But…
Sepideh Saremi 10:07
Yeah, yeah, if you’re a runner and you see another runner who’s doing that at the stoplight, you’re like, Okay, guy, we get it. Like, okay, you’re a runner, we get it. But yeah, I mean, what does that what does that mean? Right is, it’s a really good joke, but it has some meaning to like, can this person take a rest? Can they stop? You know, the light says stop? Can you stop when the lights says stop? Or does the body have to keep going? And why? What’s happening? What does it mean to you to take rest? So, all of it potentially can become really meaningful, and you just have to pay attention. One of the hard things about doing run walk talk is there’s so much more to track, right? It’s It’s hard enough doing our jobs when we’re in an office setting. And but there’s so much happening. And then you add the layer of the movement, and you add the layer of the environment, and potentially other people. So, there’s so much to track. And that’s that’s probably the biggest learning curve for therapists who are doing this work.
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Curt Widhalm 11:02
I’ve run a bunch of marathons in the past, I’ve done marathon coaching, so not combining the two. But I know that there’s a lot that I got out of talking with my running groups about just kind of some of the life lessons that end up coming up. The conversations that would just kind of naturally unfold as we spent time together. I’m wondering what kinds of things that you see consistently come up as far as kind of like, Oh, these are skills that you’re getting out here in this movement that you can apply to your day to day life. In particular, there’s a lot of mindfulness, things that end up coming up in just kind of going for long runs. It’s just like, oh, you know, Hey, you can’t win a marathon in the first mile, but you can sure lose it. And just kind of learning how to pace ourselves kinds of things. What other kinds of themes have you noticed, with your work? Or your clients?
Sepideh Saremi 11:57
That’s such a good question. And I always, you know, I, I’ve done this work for for a long time, I did my first ever walk with somebody in 2012 and I started running with people in 2014. I’m continually surprised at all the different things that will unfold through this way of working that maybe will take longer to do in a traditional seated setting. Certainly, metaphors around pace are really useful, metaphors around rest. Sometimes the progress comes for a client when they can tell me I need to stop, right, or I need to walk or I need to pause. The kinds of clients who tend to be attracted to my practice, I work primarily with entrepreneurs, so are really hard driving, achievement oriented people, very ambitious. And so they do that to their bodies, too. And part of my work is to help them create a different relationship to work and rest. So that they learn like, oh, I can actually do a lot of things and not be so hard on myself. That’s probably the biggest, biggest thing. And the mindfulness thing is funny, I used to joke that, and I guess I’m gonna say it again now: that Run Walk Talk is really just sneaky mindfulness, because running is inherently, it requires mindfulness. It can also be very dissociated, and kind of hypnotic running. So you do have to be careful. But you have to look where you’re going. You have to breathe. There are things that that are required of you when you’re running that you can very easily forget in your day to day life. And running just becomes this beautiful reminder for you to kind of look around, look where you’re going, breathe. Notice where your feet are not is very helpful for the rest of your life.
Katie Vernoy 13:46
You’ve talked about doing beach based therapy or or those types of things. And so I have two questions. The first one is really about confidentiality, how you talk about that with clients, how you maintain it with clients, and then the role of the environment.
Sepideh Saremi 14:04
So, the confidentiality question is such a good question ad the number one question I get from therapists. And it, I handle it in my paperwork. So, I cannot guarantee confidentiality if I am outside with somebody, because I can’t control who’s going to be around and what’s going to happen. And it’s something that I will talk about in depth with clients before we ever go out. Most of the clients that are coming to see me and want to do outdoor sessions are more comfortable with the idea of not having confidentiality. But it’s something that I’ll I’ll go into quite a bit of detail. Like I’ll ask them like, are there things that you know, you don’t want to talk about outside that maybe it’d be more appropriate for us to do a seated session or, or a zoom session for and I’ll give him scenarios. What if we run into someone, what if it’s your friend, what if it’s your boss? Um, how do you want to handle that I’m there? Who am I in that scenario? So we talked about all of that in advance that if and when it does happen, and sometimes it happens that they see people they know, we’ve already discussed it, and they got a way to handle it.
Katie Vernoy 15:15
How do you handle it when you see someone, you know?
Sepideh Saremi 15:18
Oh, great question. I, usually because I’m moving, it’s, there’s, there’s nothing to do. I just kind of a wave at them. And if they do anything, I usually won’t acknowledge them first. If they acknowledge me or wave at me, I’ll just wave back and keep moving. And that’s been fine. You know, it’s not it’s not been as disruptive to the process, really. My clients know that I, I live where I work. And so that’s something that I will let them know, too. And I’ll say like, if I see someone that I know, I’ll just wave, and we’ll keep going. And you know, it’s socially acceptable not not to stop and talk to people when it looks like you’re exercising. So, it’s not really a problem. And then you asked a question about the environment, too.
Katie Vernoy 16:03
Yeah, yes. How the environment plays a role in the sessions.
Sepideh Saremi 16:08
Oh, so I think this goes back to mindfulness, to every single time we’re at the beach, it looks different. It’s the same beach, but the water looks different. There’s different animals around with different people around. So, that becomes a nice metaphor. Sometimes the the environment can be a little distracting. I definitely did a session a few weeks ago with a client where there was a, like a dolphin feeding frenzy in the water. So, we spent some time just watching that. Which is fine, you know, sometimes get a little break from the talking, I guess. And there’s so much research to just support being outside. Just as human beings were not designed to be indoors, you know, looking at screens or glued to chairs. So, we try to take advantage of that. So we have an eco-therapy component in the work that’s just kind of baked into the work. I do have therapists who are who are Run Walk Talk certified now. One of them has treadmills in her office so she has that option. And I’ve talked to other therapists who they don’t go outside and they only use treadmills. But if you have the option of going outside, it’s really nice to be able to go outside and even a therapist that is Run Walk Talk certified. See doesn’t really use those treadmills unless there’s terrible weather She’s based in New Hampshire, I think. So, she even in the snow will go out and do run sessions. If she can. Yeah. Important to be outside.
Curt Widhalm 17:40
Is ecotherapy, the clinical base that you kind of pulled from to start this? Like, I’m wondering what gave the clinical research behind you putting this all together.
Sepideh Saremi 17:52
So for me, it really just came from a personal place. I coincidentally, so synchronistically started running and starting my I started my own personal therapy at the same time before I became a therapist. And so the seed for that was planted then. So, for me I’m, I started in a very movement, forward movement focused way. And the eco therapy was kind of a side benefit, over time that eco piece has gotten a little more integrated. And then, you know, when I got my own training as a therapist, the relational piece really became much more of the focus of the work. So it’s kind of a blending of all of all of them.
Katie Vernoy 18:34
What is the research on running therapy, like what’s missing in the research for for what you’re doing in particular?
Sepideh Saremi 18:42
So, the research on running therapy is really interesting, a lot of the research is on just running. So and there’s not tons and tons of it unfortunately. The research that we do have around cardiovascular exercise in mental health in general is super good. So exercise, especially for depression, like moderate depression is as effective as antidepressants with obviously none of the gnarly side effects that antidepressants come with for people. So we do need a lot more research. One of the issues around running therapy is that it’s not defined the same way everywhere. So if you look at running therapy research that’s coming out of Europe, they’re not doing research with psychotherapy and running combined. They when they say running therapy, the therapy is just running. So they’re they’re putting participants in groups or providing like a trainer, and a few times a week the participants will go and run and that is actually like really effective. But there’s not really research that I’m aware of where clinicians and their clients are running together. And that’s what we really need. So I always say this approach is evidence informed. I don’t say that it’s evidence based because we don’t have the clinical research to say that it’s evidence based but it is evidence informed.
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Curt Widhalm 20:03
What makes Run Walk Talk distinct from other kinds of running, walking therapy?
Sepideh Saremi 20:11
The history of running and walking therapy is really interesting. So the first person that I’m aware of that ever did a walking session was actually Freud. He did famously like a four hour walk with Gustaf Mahler, the composer in Amsterdam, when Freud was on vacation, like Mahler came out and met with him, and he did like this big monster gigantic session. And I think he did it with other clients as well, Freud. Running therapy was actually created in the 70s by this guy, Thaddeus Kostrubala. He wrote this book called The Joy of Running, which kicked off the jogging craze thing in the United States. And he started training therapists kind of on a one on one basis, and was very insistent that they be marathon runners. So there were not really as many people, it wasn’t as accessible to like every clinician, right? Not every clinician is going to become a marathoner. I’m not a marathon runner, I’m a runner, but I’m not a marathon runner. And so that kind of the early days of running therapy were very running forward or running focused. And then, in the 2010s I guess, right around the time I started Run WalkTalk, there was also a therapist in London, and he’s still doing this work, who does dynamic running therapy, that’s his approach. And his approach is very mindfulness oriented, and Run Walk Talk, I would argue, is I’m not as running focused. So, when clients are coming to me, the emphasis is not on teaching them to run, the emphasis is on using running therapeutically and using it to support the therapy relationship and the relate. It’s very relationally oriented compared to somebody the other approaches.
Katie Vernoy 21:55
So you said that you’re not a marathon runner, but you are a runner. For the other folks who are training with you, are they runners? Like would you do you think you have to be a runner to be able to do this?
Sepideh Saremi 22:06
You do not have to be a runner to be able to do this, you can just be a walker. I always joke Run Walk Talk, walk is our middle name. So you don’t have to run with people. The whole point is to be able to think about this other layer of movement and use it to benefit your clients, and the trainees, the other sort of certified practitioners, we have 20 now, which is really cool, we have, including one who’s in Switzerland, and one who is in Australia. So we’re officially global, which is really exciting. But they are all over the map. So we have a couple that are just walkers. And then we have people who are like ultra marathoners, triathletes, super serious athletes, who have competed at really high levels. And all of us are kind of united in thinking about movement, and in this way, pushing it forward so that people are supported and helped in the ways that they need to be. So, in that way, I’m not you know, I’m never gonna turn somebody away, because they’re not a long distance runner, or super serious athlete. That’s not the point. They can do that in other places, right that in therapy, we’re, we’re doing other stuff. So the movement is in serving the support of the client and the client’s goals.
Curt Widhalm 23:26
How would you incorporate anybody with physical limitations into this kind of therapy? That somebody who might want all of the benefits out of the movement that you’re talking about, but might not be able to access some of the spaces that you’re working in?
Sepideh Saremi 23:44
One of the things that we emphasize in Run Walk Talk is putting the client first and making sure that we’re serving the client. And so for a client who has a disability or physical limitation, you want to get curious with them about what is available to them, and then work with them to make that happen. So, I have worked with clients who have physical limitations. A few years ago, I had a client who had a neurological disorder that made movement really challenging. And so in those sessions, she would hold my arm, and we would walk on the sidewalk. And eventually we made our way to the beach, and we would, we would walk in the sand. But she had a very pronounced difference in her gait. And so that made her nervous to be out in public. So, there’s a lot of stuff going on, but you just bring it into the work and then you support your client in the way that you need to. I want it to be as inclusive as possible. So, I always encourage clinicians to think creatively about how can you support a client who is not going to be a runner necessarily, and this client actually did run with me a little bit, very slowly and and with a limp, but we did run together and that was very meaningful to her and very powerful because she actually identified as an athlete, and it was important to her to be able to express herself in that way.
Katie Vernoy 25:09
I think about myself and I am super clumsy, I actually in our conversation, in our walk, walking therapy, disclose that I think I fell at one point. And so that makes me think about liability and the ways in which you try to protect yourself, protect your clients. What are your thoughts on liability, mitigating liability, all that kind of stuff.
Sepideh Saremi 25:33
You can buy insurance for that. And you can have conversations with your clients about: that we’re going outside and you, you know, you might trap you might fall, we have to look where we’re going. I also tell them like I’m a bit of a mama bear. So, I will sometimes tell you where you need to like I need to be closer to the street than you are right, you’re going to be on the inside part of the sidewalk as we’re walking to the beach path. Or if we’re at the beach path, I’m going to be in the side that are close to the bicycles so that if a bicycle goes rogue, I get hit not you. Right. So I do I do kind of think about those things. In reality, like very few dangerous things have happened on sessions. And I have fallen actually, that’s happened to me, or I have gotten dizzy. And then you just deal with it in the moment, right? But yeah, you can buy insurance for that. I always joke like the Fast and Furious movies get made. There’s insurance for everything. So people are really worried about getting sued, you want your client to be safe, like safety’s number one, and you want to be safe. So you want to think through where are you meeting with people? What are potential kind of like issues? I’m always I’m at the beach so much that I can kind of see when the steps are starting to get a little crumbly, right. And so I’m, I can point them out, like, Hey, be careful over there. Or watch your ankles on the paved path that’s right up against the sand because it crumbles, right? The the ocean erodes it over time. And and quite quickly, actually, with all the readings that we’ve been having in LA, but you can work around all of those things. But those are not things that you should stop you from this work, if you want to do this work. They should not stop you. And I’ve thought through all of them. And it’s something that’s included when I train clinicians as well.
Curt Widhalm 27:24
How did you handle the pandemic and the stay at home orders with your clients on this?
Sepideh Saremi 27:29
Oh, man, it was so rough. And the beaches were closed. So I mean, I got I got on Zoom like everybody else. So, I wasn’t able to work do that’s, you know, that I love to work. And it just kind of got used to it. And I really struggled with the masking, too. So it took me a while to get back to beach sessions. But I didn’t do them until it was okay not to be masked. Because I would get kind of panicky I couldn’t breathe under the mask. So it changed the practice a lot. And then, you know, when when things were more open, then I was able to resume. But yeah, it was not good. I know for a lot of people, it was kind of like a pandemic alternative, right to the Zooms. For me it wasn’t because the masking was I couldn’t really move and masked and I couldn’t do it. But other clinicians can. And they should. It’s great.
Katie Vernoy 28:23
Yeah, I that’s one thing that I had done. And the masking was hard, especially like my clients and I would talk about how out of breath we were because of masking while walking. And it definitely was a challenge. But I had so many clients that are like I can’t stare at a screen anymore, I need to come out and see you. And so it ended up sometimes that we were just sitting in the park with masks on. But but it is interesting that each person has to kind of make their practice their own way and sort those things through. My assumption is that you probably had some clients that you were doing the Run Walk Talk therapy, then you did Zoom, maybe you went back, what were the difference differences you saw in the work between kind of the virtual session and this movement based session.
Sepideh Saremi 29:06
Well, I mean, I was really lucky in that most of the people that I saw, I’d already established a good relationship with and so that that piece was good. But there’s a vitality and a dynamism that comes from a movement based session where you’re outside that you’re just not going to be able to recreate in a Zoom. There’s data that you get from being with a whole body as opposed to just kind of a head and shoulders that is really helpful and important. It’s it’s more for it’s it’s just more information for you to track and like try to understand what’s going on with this person. So, is it there’s definitely something lost in that for me. And actually, I’ve gotten rid of my office so I have I only am doing beach based sessions or Zooms at this point. There’s no in office option right now. So that’s been interesting to watch that too, because I have clients who I’ll do some in person and then some like we’ll do kind of a blend of that and all of them like the in person more, and they prefer, they love being at the beach. I mean, it’s the beach, you can’t beat it. So. So you know a device or screen is never gonna reproduce or replace that. You’re always as a therapist doing the best you can with what’s available in terms of your schedule, and the tools and your capacity and your clients capacity. That if you have the option to meet in person and to be at the beach, or to be outside in nature, I think it’s great to do it.
Curt Widhalm 30:33
Tell us about documentation. How and when do you do notes? Like do you like run back to an office someplace? Are you furiously typing into an iPad someplace? Like, where do you do your notes?
Sepideh Saremi 30:47
That’s a good question. I use, I use a payment processor that has notes kind of in it, a HIPAA, one of the HIPAA compliant ones. And I do I speak my notes into my phone in my car between sessions. That’s the way that I handle it. And it’s going great. Yeah, and I tend to like a lot of therapists take pretty brief notes with just what’s required. And that it’s, it just looks like that. I know a lot of therapists will take notes while they do sessions, I wasn’t trained that way, I was trained to do it differently. So when my client is with me, I’m just focused on the client, it would be impossible to try to take notes on a Run Walk, it would not be safe. I don’t know how anyone would do that. Yeah, so if your therapist who like really needs a notepad and a pen with you, while you’re while you’re doing therapy with people, this approach definitely wouldn’t work. But you probably don’t need it as much as you think you do, you know. So it’s amazing the things that you remember how much you remember, when you train your mind to to think that way.
Katie Vernoy 31:56
So we’re getting short on time. So I want to make sure we talk about your certification program, what is Run Walk Talk certification? What’s the future look like for Run Walk Talk.
Sepideh Saremi 32:08
So, we pivoted in 2023 from my private practice to this certification program. And I’ve intentionally like cut down on seeing clients so that I can focus on building this community of amazing practitioners. And like I said, we have 20 now. So when they get trained, it’s a we have had two cohorts so far, and it’s been a six week program, I’m I’m in the process of shifting it a little bit. So it’ll probably be a little longer. We’re going to do our third cohort in September. So folks who are interested should go to the website and sign up for the mailing list. It’s runwalktalk.com. And I’m on Instagram @RunWalkTalk. And what they get in that training is they get all of this stuff on how to think through, I’m teaching you how to think through all of this so that you can adapt it for your own practice. It’s not a one size fits all protocol or method. It’s very flexible, and highly adaptable to your context and your skills and background. And it’s also open not just to clinicians. So, primarily it’s clinicians who have gone through the training, but I also have, I’ve had one person who is a human rights lawyer that does mediation, and we have one person who’s a school counselor who is creating an kind of an adventure, coaching wellness program for women, right? So I am looking at like, what is this person’s background? And do they have experience working with other humans? There’s an application process. So we’re filtering for that. Because I in that training, I can’t teach you like how to do counseling, right? That’s not, that’s not what I’m doing. But it’s it is a really thought through so we’re going through movement as method, movement as modulator, movement as metaphor. And then as part of that, you also get a full year of monthly group consult calls. And we just did one right before this podcast actually, where one person is a researcher and she did, she and a clinician and she presented on running for trauma. And we talked about cases and we talked about today actually talking about imposter syndrome which is really interesting, like what comes up for you if you’re a clinician who is doing really different work from everybody else. So, you do need community. So after the program you have the right to use that name in you’re in your marketing and and you can call yourself a certified Run Walk Talk practitioner. So you get a lot of benefits through going through the program and I’m very community minded and know know that it’s hard to do different kinds of work. So I’m really all about supporting clinicians and doing that and getting as many people excited about movement in therapy as possible.
Curt Widhalm 34:52
We will include links to Sepideh’s Instagram or websites in our show notes you can find us over at mtsgpodcast.com. Follow us on our social media join our Facebook group, the Modern Therapist Group to continue on with this conversation. And until next time, I’m Curt Widhalm with Katie Vernoy and Sepideh Saremi.
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