Welcome to Therapist Grad School!
Curt and Katie chat about what the career is like, what is important to know starting out in grad school. We look at what prospective therapists need to know as they enter school, including hard truths and tips for social support. We also talk about what changes are needed in the profession and how students and new therapists can navigate these challenges. We provide suggestions on how to best take advantage of the opportunities in graduate school. We also unveiled a new project for the podcast.
Click here to scroll to the podcast transcript.Transcript
In this podcast episode we talk through what the therapist career is like
We decided to talk through what it is like to be a therapist and how to best navigate your grad school education.
What do prospective therapists need to know as they enter grad school?
“What I found over the years is that that lived experience and understanding what it is to be a human – and all of that – was way more helpful than I think any of my grad school professors said.” – Katie Vernoy, LMFT
- Grad school doesn’t cover all that you’ll need to know to be an effective therapist
- Lived experience is valid and definitely informs your work
- It is important to assess what you already know, what you need to unlearn, what interventions you can add to what you already know
- Learning how to be a “safe therapist” is not the same as learning to be a “good therapist”
- Theories and orientations are foundational, but you can’t know them all
- Once you graduate, that’s when you actually start learning how to be a therapist
What can grad school students and new therapists expect regarding needed changes in the profession?
- Changes may happen, but slowly
- There can be times for advocacy to help increase the sustainability of the practice
- You don’t need to worry about getting a job immediately, but you can start working with clients or in the field, if you would like or need to do so financially
- There are a number of students who burnout before graduation, so pay attention to your capacity and self-care practices
What opportunities are important to take advantage of while you are in grad school for therapy?
“When you are looking to really build out your resume, my advice is, take the tough practicums. Take the ones with the tough clients. Learn how to work with people who are going through the hardest times, because when you learn how to work with really hard clients from the beginning, it sets you up for a lot better jobs and resumes down the road.” – Curt Widhalm, LMFT
- Consider taking the hardest or more complex practicum sites to learn how to work with the most challenging populations
- Volunteer to do roll plays and risk making mistakes in your classes
- Make mistakes while you are a student and prelicensed individual to get the supervision and oversight, to learn from these mistakes
What are some hard truths about becoming a therapist?
- The therapy profession is not for everyone
- Not all students will make it through to graduation or to licensure (whether by choice or not)
- Grad schools are not always transparent with how long it will take to get through the program, whether you will have support in getting a practicum site
- The entry level jobs in the field may not pay very well (i.e., some are at or only slightly above minimum wage)
- There is a risk of becoming disillusioned by the state of the world and the profession
What are the social elements of becoming a therapist?
- If you’re only friends and socializing with therapists, your view of the world may become more limited
- There can be echo chambers, especially around social justice topics within mental health
- Having friends who are therapists, so you can have the validation and understanding of other therapists
- Socialization can be too focused on alcohol-forward events. It is important to find other ways to socialize to avoid the risks of substance abuse and dependence, especially as therapists are held to a higher standard through licensure
- Take responsibility for self-care/self-maintenance
The Modern Therapist’s Survival Guide ® has a new project to follow a new therapist’s career
We would like to interview new students and follow them through grad school to see how their perspectives Please reach out to us, if you’d like to be part of our new project, please reach out at podcast@therapyreimagined.com
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!
All of the books Curt mentioned at the beginning:
- The Gift of Therapy: An Open Letter to a New Generation of Therapists and Their Patients by Irving D. Yalom, M.D.
- The Making of a Therapist by Louis Cozolino
- Saving Psychotherapy: How Therapists Can Bring the Talking Cure Back from the Brink by Benjamin E. Caldwell, PsyD
MFTCalifornia.com by Carrie Wiita
Relevant Episodes of MTSG Podcast:
I Just Graduated, Now What? – Career Advice for New Mental Health Clinicians
Career Trekking with MTSG: Interview with Marissa Esquibel, LMFT
Beyond Being a Therapist is Hard Work: Curt and Katie respond to listener feedback
Liability Hot Potato: Defensive Therapy practices that give clients inadequate care
A Living Wage for Prelicensees
The Fight to Save Psychotherapy, An Interview with Benjamin Caldwell, Psy.D.
REPLAY – Structuring Self-Care
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 0:12
Welcome back, modern therapists. This is the Modern Therapist’s Survival Guide. I’m Curt Widhalm with Katie Vernoy, and this is podcast for therapists about the things that we do in our practices, the things that we do in our lives, the profession in general. And this is a thing that we’ve never done before. A little back to school episode, and welcoming all of the people who are beginning the wonderful journey, entering into the field, starting off on a great career path, and maybe a little bit of the advice from Katie and I from over the years. So we just wanted to be able to say, Hey, thanks for joining the profession. And there’s a lot of things that you’re going to learn and discover, and we’re going to take some of the spirit out of some of the good books. We know that just about every grad student has to read The Gift of Therapy by Irving Yalem at some point, oftentimes at multiple points. I like to visit that book every few years. There’s also The Making of the Therapist, by Louis Cozolino. Another great early career book I recommend every grad student if you haven’t already, go out and read Saving Psychotherapy by our friend, Dr. Ben Caldwell. These are kind of the foundational books about how to develop, what to do as a therapist that’s beyond all of the things that you’re going to learn in the classroom. And Katie and I don’t want to just tell you what’s in all of those books. We’ve done some of that through all of the podcasts that we’ve done for years. We’re gonna maybe add some of our own stuff. It probably overlaps with some of those things anyway. But Katie, this is kind of a checklist of things that we’ve made to go through things. But what do you want to start with, as far as welcoming students into the profession?
Katie Vernoy 1:55
That’s a really good question. I didn’t think about like, what do I want to say to new grads, and how do I want to welcome them into the field? I think becoming a therapist or a counselor or social worker or a psychologist, becoming what we’re calling modern therapists, is a big deal. And I think that we’ve had some conversations about how we’re feeling like maybe social media influencers or those are those folks are making it look like it’s easy or a popular career, but we know that the majority of folks, I think, who are coming into grad school, trying to get ready to become a therapist, are actually doing it from their heart, doing it from a place of, maybe this is too cheesy, calling. But it’s something where there’s generally a sense that this isn’t a career where you’re going to make a crap ton of money, and so you’re doing it because it sounds interesting, or it sounds like a great way to help people. I guess I’m saying thanks for wanting to join this profession. We have a lot of need, and definitely we’ve lost some workforce that needs to support, you know, everything that’s going on in the world, and buckle up, because it’s not an easy road. So I don’t know if that was what you were wanting me to to start with, but that’s kind of where my head went. Was just like, this is, this is tough. We know that you’ve thought about getting into this, and thank you. We need you.
Curt Widhalm 3:29
So, the first thing on my list to share comes from a place of reflecting back, not only on when I was a grad student, but also the various roles that I’ve had as a educator and a supervisor in various places throughout my career. And one of the things that we tend to often forget in this field, and I wish we had been reminded about more frequently when we were in school, is you are often compared, or comparing yourself to people who have been doing this their entire adult lives, people who’ve been doing this for decades and decades, about learning about the human experience, and it’s very easy to focus on the things that you don’t know or that you’re not as good as the people who have been putting in 40, 50, 60 hour work weeks, forever when it comes to giving yourself a break. Rome wasn’t built in a day. You’ve got to be able to build up to some of those skill sets yourself, and especially when you’re in grad school. And this typically comes when you start seeing your clients, depending on the program you’re in, around the second semester or so, and you realize, oh, all of what I have learned in the first semester was used up in the first 15 minutes of therapy with my first client, I am a terrible therapist, and being able to give yourself a break for you’re just at the very beginning of a learning process.
Katie Vernoy 4:50
I want to add on to that, because I think there’s this element of I must learn how to do something a particular way with a particular theory with particular interventions, and if I don’t do that properly, then I’m a bad therapist. So going on to back to that thing and my thought process, and this was something where the year ahead of me, the cohort ahead of me in grad school was a lot of folks who were in their second careers, and so they had a lot of life experience, but they were, you know, same place I was learning new techniques to become a therapist. And what I found over the years is that that lived experience and understanding what it is to be a human and all of that was way more helpful than I think any of my grad school professors said. And so it was something where I felt like I needed to almost unlearn and relearn, which I think there is some of that, don’t get me wrong, but there was a period of time when I found that I was trusting myself less and less, and trusting my instincts less and less because of what I was learning, and some of that was helpful because I learned new techniques, but some of it, I think, was harmful and set me back. And so being able to figure out that balance between what do I kind of intrinsically know as a human, that is, you know, kind of set up to do this work, and what are the things I need to unlearn, or were, you know, kind of scaffold on therapy techniques to be able to interact with the client that’s in front of me? And so I think, to me, there’s, there’s a lot that, I think, especially, and we’ve talked about this in other episodes, but a lot that grad school professors or practicum or traineeship instructors or supervisors do to try to make you a safe therapist, that doesn’t necessarily make you a good therapist.
Curt Widhalm 6:51
And I think that there’s a chapter in Gift of Therapy that is about the action of therapy, rather than the concept of therapy that ends up talking about being able to really in, I mean, the whole book is about operating in the here and now, that has some of the basis in safety, but there’s really a lot that goes on behind the scenes that is all of the accreditations, all of the legalese that the schools have to follow, that the supervisors have to follow, the agencies have to follow to ensure that nobody gets sued. And there’s a lot of seemingly wrestling with coming to the humanity of being a therapist that gets kind of lost in the shuffle, out of having to follow every single rule and be told that no matter which way you breathe in session, it’s going to be wrong for something. And there is a really big learning curve that comes when what you are talking about in your classrooms isn’t necessarily what you end up doing with clients, because there’s a lot of time in classes that’s spent talking about theories that predate the managed care takeover of how our profession gets paid. I don’t remember how long we spent in our grad programs, talking about the stages of Freud’s development when it comes to children and that kind of stuff. And while it’s informed some aspects of my practice, I think about that approximately 0% in working with my clients as an active practitioner who works a lot with children and teens. So…
Katie Vernoy 8:34
And I think the other part of all of those theories are that they they just seem to grow and grow. We did a whole interview with Diane Gehart about this, and so we’ll link to that in the show notes, about just how many different theories there are, and potentially you need to learn them for a test sometime down the road, whether it’s a grad school test or a licensing exam. But in truth, I think if you’re able to listen to these theories, learn them to the best of your ability, and see what resonates with you, I think it’s a much stronger way to become a therapist than trying to get really in the weeds with all of the theories and trying to know them backwards and forwards. Because I think they’re just way too many of them. And like you said, some of them are very outdated and don’t align with managed care, but some of them also don’t align with, like, the realities of the clients that you’re going to be sitting in a room with.
… 9:35
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Curt Widhalm 9:35
I know that I’ve given the advice to a lot of people, and I may have said this on the podcast before, but I’ve definitely told this to some of my former students and some of my supervisees as they join my practice, is that once you graduate, that’s when you really actually start learning how to be a therapist, because you’re not so focused on just consuming content and trying to be able to apply it, but you’re actually made to do it, and you’re made to wrestle with how does this actually take place? The goal of practicum placements, to be able to go and do that with clients is hopefully part of this, but there does become a point in your future where it becomes more of your reality, day in and day out, to work on a lot of the things that you’ve been taught in the classroom, but also leaving behind a lot of the things that you’re not going to face in where the modern world is with therapy. I know that a lot of the curriculums are kind of taught out of what the educational standards have been for decades. It takes a long time to change what educational standards are in accrediting bodies, and so sometimes we wrestle as a field with where the state of the profession is now. You can burn yourself out trying to convince everybody of where it should be. And it’s not that none of us dis it’s not that we don’t agree with you. It’s that there’s some level of accepting what the reality of the world that we’re in today is. And being able to really take your energy and be able to recognize that there are certain things that you can fix, there are certain things that are going to apply to the clients that you work with on a one to one level, but are going to take a very long time to change on systemic levels. And the more that you can recognize your own feelings around that, the better that you’re going to sit with them, and the better that you’re going to be able to channel that into the myriad of options that advocacy places are are working on, some of the professional organizations. Some of it can be really spent talking into the void of social media that hopefully somebody might pick up and do something. But if what you’re really trying to do is make changes in the world. It’s be able to talk with your your faculty members, be able to talk with other professionals about how do we actually get these changes made, not just complain about the system and burning yourself out about it.
Katie Vernoy 12:18
I agree with you that you don’t really start learning how to be a therapist until you graduate, that there’s so much you learn when you’re actually in the real life of it, and that stressing out about it before then is probably not as helpful as your professors might think it is. However, I think that you can start thinking about getting a job before you graduate, because I know that there are a lot of folks who, while they’re going through graduate school, their their therapists training, that they have to work. And what can be helpful if you’re able to find opportunities that fit both what I’m going to say, as well as your financial needs and your timing needs and all of those things is if you can find a place like where you would like to work, where you can work at a bachelor’s level, or you can work at some sort of, I don’t know it could even be like admin and marketing. It can be a lot of different things depending on what your skill sets are. But if you start either networking your way into like local group practices and helping them with front office that kind of stuff, or working as a case manager or a coping skills strategist or whatever it is at a bachelor’s level within public mental health, you set yourself apart when you start applying for jobs once you’ve got the opportunity to do so as a pre licensed professional. So if it fits within there, I think that can be a way that you start making your way towards that job. And a side benefit that I found was I was already working with clients, because I was doing kind of the case management, child care worker, skills developer, you know, the skills person, I was doing a lot of that stuff, so I was already getting used to working with clients. And so it was something where not only did it help my resume, but I felt a lot more comfortable when I started my practicum and I started doing seeing clients, because I’d already been working with clients. And so that is an option, if it’s available to you, that I would recommend, again, if the finance and the time and all of that stuff works together for what you’re trying to do.
Curt Widhalm 14:27
And I think that this might be something that you and I agree on in in principle, but you know, giving it the caveat of who can, who can do these things. When you are looking to really build out your resume, my advice is, take the tough practicums. Take the ones with the tough clients. Learn how to work with people who are going through the hardest times, because when you learn how to work with really hard clients from the beginning, it sets you up for a lot better jobs and resumes down the road. Sometimes it’s the ones that none of your peers want to take, that’s it’s a site that has a reputation of being difficult or being chaotic, but learning how to work with clients in crisis ends up really being a skill set that, rather than it being the safe place to end up, a place where you feel like, okay, I need to go in and be successful. Sometimes learning how to operate in the moment, being forced to operate in the moment, is one of the best skill sets. One of the things that I love that when people have that in their background, when they apply to work in my practice, is, oh, you know how to work in the chaos that can come moment by moment. I know that just inherently, I can trust you with just about any client that comes into our practice to help fill your caseload. Here, it’s something that makes your resume come to the top of the pile, or, I guess, more importantly, get the star check in on LinkedIn or whatever.
Katie Vernoy 16:00
I do agree with that, and I have a caveat on it. For me, that was kind of the path I took. I was in public mental health for a long time, past when I was licensed, and I found that the ability to work with very challenging cases, folks with high needs was extremely helpful for me. There were times when it was overwhelming, and there were times when I felt underprepared or under supported, and I still felt, when I moved out into private practice, that I had so much less support than I had in public mental health. And so I took the opportunity in public mental health to work with some pretty challenging issues, whether it’s, I didn’t do all of these, but these are the types of ones I think you’re talking about. Whether it’s serious mental illness, it could be substance abuse, it can be intimate partner violence or domestic violence. It could be eating disorders. It can be suicidality. Lots and lots of, you know, kind of dysregulated systems, or dysregulated families. I worked in a lot of child abuse and kids that were getting hospitalized and kids that were threats that they were going to be incarcerated. And so to me, when you’re working at that high level as like a pre licensed folks, or even even before you graduate, you are supervised. Now, if you’re not, and you’re feeling completely thrown to the wolves, like that’s not a good place for you, and that’s where my caveat comes in. But if it is something where you’re going to get training, you’re going to get support. And I’m not talking perfect support, I’m talking the imperfect support that you can get in good public mental health organizations. It is an amazing place to learn how to handle something that’s really overwhelming, and it gives you that opportunity to grow and sit with the discomfort and learn more than you thought, and to get to a place where these things don’t seem that overwhelming. And so then when you go into private practice, or you go into another place that you are getting hired or starting out in your own business, there’s a lot less that freaks you out, and so you’re able to do better in the work when you’re on your own. So to my caveat, if you’re in a place that’s super under resourced, or you’re constantly overwhelmed, or you burn yourself out before you even graduate, or before you get to licensure, that’s not the path to take. And so you have to determine, can you build up resilience and resources in this really challenging field, or are you just beating yourself down and going to burn out and wash out before you even get to the place you want to get? So you have to, you have to play around with that, because there were jobs that I could have taken that maybe some of my peers couldn’t have taken. There’s ones that they took that I didn’t want to take. And so I think it’s it’s a certain amount of self assessment and understanding where to push yourself and where to evacuate the scene.
Curt Widhalm 18:57
I think in the same vein, this starts even before you get into doing your practicum sites. It’s taking every opportunity you can to even do this stuff in the classrooms.
Katie Vernoy 19:11
Oh, for sure.
Curt Widhalm 19:12
Do do all of the role plays. Be the one that your professors are like, No, not you again. You know we need to give somebody else a chance. But some of the ways of learning how to do this is making mistakes, and what better way to make mistakes and learn from them than doing it as it’s being taught. As everybody else is sitting in the classroom, kind of putting their heads down, avoiding eye contact when it comes to selecting All right, You’re going to be the client. You’re going to be the therapist. Get up here practice this. That allows for you to really get over some of the mistakes that you’re going to make doing that anyway. So get them out of the way. Get comfortable with knowing that you don’t have to know everything and be perfect from the very beginning.
… 19:59
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Katie Vernoy 19:59
I have two points I want to make in that. The first one is, yes, it is sometimes terrifying to get up in front of your peers and do these role plays, and probably in a practicum or some sort of supervision, you’re going to have to have videos or other things where they’re going to see you doing this work anyway. So, try to desensitize yourself to that anxiety of showing your work in front of your peers. So that’s one. The second one is, the more you’re able to make mistakes early, you know, in a role play, in a practicum site and your first job, whatever it is, the more you’re able to make those mistakes early, the more you’re able to learn from them and to improve. Once you’re on your own, nobody’s watching, or very rarely are people watching, and you don’t have that same ability to get the feedback in the moment. I’m not saying go out and be blatant and belligerent around clients and say like, well, I’m new. I don’t know what I’m doing, so let’s just, you know, throw all caution to the wind. I’m not saying that, but showing that you’re making mistakes or that you’re challenged, or that you have things that you don’t know, showing it as early as possible is developmentally appropriate. This is where you want to do it, because you’re going to get more compassion and guidance from supervisors and professors than you are from managers or the board or the Ethics Committee once you’re a fully licensed person.
Curt Widhalm 21:33
I think it’s also important to recognize that this isn’t a field for everybody. Not everyone is going to make it. Not all of your classmates are going to make it. I’ve had first semester students in my classes recognize, hey, this is a field that isn’t for me. I’ve had people who grit their teeth all the way through to a degree fully recognizing. I’ve made an investment into a degree, I might as well walk out with a master’s level degree out of what I’ve already put in. And it’s not necessarily a sign of weakness. This is a field that does take a very personal piece into it, that does really make you confront a lot of your own issues, and sometimes people in making some of those choices that you’re talking about, as far as balancing out or recognizing their own limitations and coming into something ends up being something that not everybody can or wants to face at this particular time in their life. There’s also a bunch of time restrictions. Grad schools aren’t always really transparent about how long it takes to get through their their programs, at least for MFT programs in California, there’s a really good website called MFT california.com that is run by our good friend Carrie Wiita, that goes into for some of the coamped schools, that how long it takes students to actually get through them. And some programs, it takes longer than what the suggested amount of time that it should take to graduate. Less than half of the students end up making it through for various reasons, like not being able to get a practicum site on time, not being able to get enough hours in those sites. That it might be set up as if all of the things line up absolutely right, you might be able to finish in this amount of time, but really it’s going to take you a semester or a year longer.
Katie Vernoy 23:35
Yeah.
Curt Widhalm 23:35
And not everybody is going to go to a school that’s as transparent as some of the research that Carrie has put in. Carrie, I know, has also put in a ton of work to get the information that she has had or that she puts up on that website. And it’s not something that schools necessarily want to advertise, like, hey, you know the school down the road, they say that you can get done in two and a half years. We know that you’re gonna get done in three years, but that’s a really terrible selling point, so we’ll just sell it as you can get done in two and a half years…
Katie Vernoy 24:08
Sure.
Curt Widhalm 24:09
…if you burn yourself out. But not everybody is ready, going into grad schools, knowing all of the fees, knowing all of the extra expenses that come along, knowing that you’re going to be working in practicum sites for free or paying to work in them, and…
Katie Vernoy 24:28
We’ve We’ve got a whole episode on that.
Curt Widhalm 24:29
We’ve got a whole…
Katie Vernoy 24:30
But we have lots of feelings.
Curt Widhalm 24:32
Not everybody is going to be geared up for: I wasn’t budgeted for another year of grad school. I wasn’t budgeted for all of these extra fees that the schools weren’t really transparent about. So there’s a lot of reasons why people might not make it, and that’s okay.
Katie Vernoy 24:51
Sure. I think that’s part of what grad school needs to be, as far as helping people determine if it’s the right field for them. I think the parts that upset me, like I said, we have another episode on this, is that there are things that don’t rise to the surface, I think well enough, which is sometimes it’s going to be an extra semester or an extra year, which is all those fees, but it’s also potentially an extra semester or a year without employment. The employment possibilities sometimes are much different than, I think, what people expect, or potentially what those you know, grad school orientation, you know, information nights suggest. Yes, there are jobs that pay very well, and there are also jobs that pay at or slightly above minimum wage. And so I think it’s something where being able to make sure that you have some flexibility to to to get a nest egg or some kind of resources, or figuring out how you’re going to navigate the financial piece to the best of your ability, and understanding what actually your situation is, I think, is something that you’ll have to grapple with. And honestly, like you said, not everybody can do that, and I think it’s a problem in the field that Curt and I, and Ben especially, are advocating to try to change, to make it not such a profession of, you know, therapies by the rich, for the rich, all of those things. So lots of other topics, or lots of other episodes that we talk about those things. But I wanted to to talk a little bit about getting through grad school and what that looks like. I think for some people, it is something they’re doing on the side that they’ve got kind of their maybe a part time, full time job. They’re doing some classes and different things. And for some folks, that is their life. And so this is something where take some of it with a grain of salt, but it it is something where oftentimes therapy grad students will hang out with other therapy grad students or other therapists, and the socialization element is pretty intense, because you’re all going through the same process, learning how to become therapists, all of those things, and it becomes kind of this interesting bubble. And Curt and I are friends, and have therapist friends and all of those things, but we also have other friends that are not therapists, and I think that helps us to balance out how we look at the world and how we got through grad school and how we, you know, kind of continue to get through the profession. But I think it can be, it can be hard, because oftentimes when you’re starting to go through this process, it can feel like nobody else really understands therapists but other therapists.
Curt Widhalm 27:33
It really is a balance, and sometimes especially in some of the social justice aspects of the field that we do when we only talk with other people who already agree with us, sometimes the conversations can really spin off the wheels. My wife, who I got married to right before I started my grad program, she talks about sometimes we go to therapists’ parties or something, and she’s like as as an outsider, as a normal human being, this is like being stuck in some sort of weird therapist New Yorker magazine, where it’s just kind of all of these very high level discussions about the ways that things should be, that when we talk about access to mental health care kinds of things, the people that we serve are not just other therapists, and so sometimes we end up getting into these discussions that become so convoluted that it helps to have normal people to help keep us grounded, and also have have weirdo therapist friends that you can also just talk to about: this is what I’m going through, because it does help to be validated, have the mix.
Katie Vernoy 28:43
Yeah, I think the other thing, and you actually said this before we hit record, is that it can end up being for folks who do drink. It can be end up it end up being that socialization happens at parties or at places where drinking occurs. And I think that that is in moderation just fine, but I think it can lead to probably too many, too many drinks.
Curt Widhalm 29:09
This is a field that is incredibly difficult. There’s a lot of emotional stuff that you’re going to face. It’s underappreciated. It’s something where every direction that you turn has the potential to be something that’s broken, that can’t be fixed, something that is above your pay grade that you’re asked to do anyway. It’s something that is part of being hired into a position where you’re learning that it’s more than just going and providing therapy, but there’s a whole lot of other employee responsibilities that go along with that. It might be case management, it might be getting people connected with a bunch of other services. There’s a lot of things that you can be disillusioned about. And without healthy coping mechanisms this is something where we are held to a higher standard. We are people who are licensing boards, by the very nature of what we do, are held to a higher standard because the state governments that issue those licenses say these are the people that can be trusted when things are in crisis. And if we are engaging in things at unhealthy paces or unhealthy frequencies, it leads us to being at risk, to not being able to do that, and that’s why we are held to other standards, to higher standards. Having fun with your with your weirdo therapist friends, having fun with your normie friends, that’s great if it’s if it’s part of a lifestyle decision, but don’t have that be the basis of all of your off time decisions as far as how you cope with being in this job. Go and hang with those friends. Go hiking, if that’s something that’s accessible, go and do something where there are other healthy opportunities to engage with people. So that way, you’re already building in the skills of your life around things that don’t have the potential to leading to really dangerous things for you know, if you get behind the wheel and drink and drive, there’s number of California cases every quarter that comes through our BBS about especially not only pre licensed therapists who are driving with under the influence, above the legal limit. And it’s not worth it to lose your career. It’s not worth it to put people in danger, and it’s not worth it in the long run, to really have that be the only way that you end up coping with this field.
Katie Vernoy 31:55
I know we talk a lot about therapists, especially, are individuals being asked to self care their way out of systemic issues. And I want to second and third and fourth, what you just said, which is pay attention and find ways to take care of yourself so that you can survive through all of this and learn and have a career. And yes, there are systemic things that need to fix. There are jobs that are unreasonable. We’ve got lots of episodes on this. I’ll link to all of these in the show notes. And you are responsible for yourself and making sure that you’re doing the best that you can to set appropriate boundaries, to get rest, to take care of yourself physically, to do all the things, to nurture your relationships even though you’re in grad school. This is a marathon. It’s not a sprint. Yes, there are going to be things that you do during grad school that you won’t have to do at other times, but if you are barely making it through grad school, it’s not like you’re suddenly going to have some respite. The work is challenging, and oftentimes, especially early on, you’re doing a lot of it because you’re trying to get through hours, or you’re trying to make enough money, or whatever it is. And so running super fast, and once I’m graduated, then I’ll be able to relax. That’s not true, or not necessarily true. And so I think it’s important to take responsibility for your own self care. And that’s not in a like go get a bubble bath. This is self maintenance. Make sure that you’re doing everything you can, that you have control over to take care of yourself and and don’t push too hard.
Curt Widhalm 33:37
To wrap this up, Katie and I are also hoping to engage on a new project.
Katie Vernoy 33:43
Yes, I’m so excited about this.
Curt Widhalm 33:46
We want one, maybe two, maybe three, of people who are going through grad school now who want to be guests on the podcast. And what we’re looking for is to hopefully be able to tell a narrative story where we invite you back about every year or so on your path to licensure. So all the way through grad school, about the ways that you’re approaching school, the ways that you’re approaching life, what are the things that are being thrown at you that are surprising, what is happening? So that way we can hear kind of a narrative story about what it is that seems to be happening, what it is that we want to create an archive around your story. So if you’re interested in doing a screening with us to see if this can be something where you participate with us, you know for become part of the show for the next several years. Send us an email at podcast@therapyreimagined.com. Either Katie or I, or both of us, will talk with you and see if it makes sense for you to join the show and have your life exposed to the therapists, modern therapists audience.
Katie Vernoy 35:05
I’m excited about it. I think that’s going to be really fun. And if you’re someone who is open to it, please reach out. Don’t hesitate.
Curt Widhalm 35:12
And in the meantime, you can find our show notes over at mtsgpodcast.com. Follow us on our social media. Join our Facebook group to continue on this conversation. That’s the Modern Therapist Group, and until next time, I’m Curt Widhalm with Katie Vernoy.
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