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Irene Ais: Psychedelic therapy, embodiment and therapist self-care
241 Plays2 months ago
In this episode I’ll be talking with Irene Ais, an Integrative Physiotherapist. Irene brings a truly unique perspective to healing, focusing on a holistic pathway to well-being that integrates both physical and mental health. Although we come from different fields, our work intersects in powerful ways, and today, we’ll dive deep into those connections. We’ll explore a range of topics, including mental health, embodiment, trauma-informed practices, and the challenges of traditional therapy approaches. We share valuable insights on therapist self-care, sustainable practices, and the importance of embodiment work—particularly for psychedelic therapists and other mental health professionals.
Irene is an Integrative Physiotherapist specialising in chronic and mental health focused care. She has spent 18 years working in Physiotherapy and her clinical work focuses on the support of invisible chronic illness, chronic pain, hypermobility and providing body-based support for those living with trauma.
Irene also draws from many years working as a yoga facilitator/therapist and mental health/clinical educator which has taken her across Australia and internationally.
Irene’s approach is inclusive, respectful and compassionate. She promotes a ‘we can’t do it alone’ message which acknowledges the environmental, systemic and intersectional factors that impact an individuals health experiences. This leads her to co- create unique, person centred programs which support the individual needs and desires of people she works with.
Her work is neuro affirming, weight and body inclusive, gender affirming, focuses on de-pathologising diversity and offers body based mental health and trauma support.
keep in touch with me at Insta: dresmedark
Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/dr-esme-dark-627156a0/
website: https://www.esmedarkpsychology.com.au/
Find Irene at https://www.ireneais.com
Find Monash Clinical Psychedelic Lab at www.monash.edu/psychedelics
Disclaimer: This podcast if for general information only and does not constitute an endorsement or recommendation for psychedelic- assisted psychotherapy.
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Transcript
Introduction and Acknowledgments
00:00:04
Speaker
Hello and welcome to Beyond the Trip, a psychedelic therapy podcast with me, Dr. Esme Ta. During this podcast, I'll be bringing you conversations with thought leaders and other inspiring humans, exploring a wide variety of themes relating to the use of psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy in the healing of human distress.
00:00:26
Speaker
Whether you're an aspiring therapist, already a therapist, or just simply interested in the emerging field of psychedelic therapy, then this podcast is for you. Join me for a journey into the psychedelic world. Before we get started, I want to take a moment to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the unceded land on which this podcast is recorded. The Wadda Wurrung people. I pay my respects to elders past, present and emerging.
00:00:54
Speaker
and I extend that respect to any Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander peoples listening today.
Meet Irene Ace: Integrative Physiotherapy
00:01:03
Speaker
Hi, everybody. Welcome to this episode of Beyond the Trip. Today I'm going to be talking with Irene Ace. And Irene Ace is an integrative physiotherapist who specializes in chronic and mental health focused care. She is passionate about supporting people by empowering not just how they move,
00:01:25
Speaker
but how we create a pathway towards embodying their whole selves. She spent 18 years working in physiotherapy. Her clinical work focuses on the support of invisible chronic illness, chronic pain, hypermobility, and providing body-based support for those living with trauma. Irene also draws on many years working as a yoga facilitator and a therapist, as well as a mental health clinical educator, which is taking her across Australia and internationally.
00:01:54
Speaker
Irene's approach is inclusive, respectful and compassionate. She promotes a We Can't Do It Alone message which acknowledges that the environmental, systemic and intersectional factors are really important essential things to consider when thinking about an individual's health experiences. This leads her to co-create unique person-centered programs which support the individual needs and desires of the people that she works with.
00:02:20
Speaker
Her work is neuroaffirming, weight and body inclusive, gender affirming, and focuses on depathologizing diversity and offering body-based mental health and trauma support.
Mental Health and Trauma-Informed Practices
00:02:32
Speaker
Irene and I have a lot of synergies and crossover in the way that we work, even though we are not trained in the same profession. And in this conversation, we talk a bit about that, as well as the importance of mental health and embodiment, considering Those two things together. We talk about trauma-informed practice from a multidisciplinary perspective, systemic challenges with traditional therapy approaches, and something that's a very dear to my heart, which is therapist self-care and thinking about ways of sustainable practice.
00:03:06
Speaker
And related to that, we talk about the importance of embodiment work for mental health professionals. Whilst Irene is not a psychedelic-assisted psychotherapist, so much of her work is really relevant to thinking about how we might do this work well and how we might support ourselves and one another and our clients.
00:03:24
Speaker
as they go through these processes with us. So I hope you enjoy this conversation. It's always a pleasure for me to spend time talking with Irene. So I'm really looking forward to sharing it with you. Hello, Irene.
Integrating Yoga and Physiotherapy
00:03:39
Speaker
Welcome to be Beyond the Trip. It's so lovely to have you here this morning talking with me. I've been really looking forward to this conversation for quite some time.
00:03:49
Speaker
Me too. I'm always so inspired every time you and I meet to talk about the work we do individually where our work converges and yeah, the the future of what's possible in in mind body therapy. So I'm curious to see what comes through us today.
00:04:09
Speaker
Yeah, me too. And, you know, I think, you know, you and I have known each other for quite some time. And we, we were our work is kind of merged and converged and met with each other. We co refer to each other sometimes. And so we sometimes support some of the same clients, we've run a workshop together. And, you know, I think it will become clearer why I've invited you to come on to be on the trip because so much of the work that we're going to talk about today, whilst you're not personally in the psychedelic realm at the moment, there's a lot of crossover with that work and the work that you do. So can't wait to get into it.
00:04:49
Speaker
Did you do want to start just by explaining a little bit about where you've come from and the work that you're doing in the world? Take that wherever you would like. I know there's many threads to the work you do and just so that people can get a sense of who you are.
00:05:03
Speaker
Yeah, the work that I do used to feel like it was a bit siloed or compartmentalized in the part and maybe even like the part of me that teaches yoga and meditation was kind of challenged by the part of me that is a physiotherapist. And now I'm so happy to say that after many years, they feel really in harmony and are really complimentary in the work I do as an integrative physiotherapist and a yoga therapist.
00:05:30
Speaker
I've been a physiotherapist for about 15 years and I began working in private practice focusing on musculoskeletal injuries and then my work naturally kind of branched into occupational health and injury prevention.
Bio-Psychosocial Approach
00:05:48
Speaker
and This is where I came in contact with more curiosity and passion around mental health challenges. I was seeing many workers who would come in with a musculoskeletal injury, but they were also feeling really anxious around the work cover system or how this was going to impact their livelihood. And I noticed that the people who were having many more challenges mentally, emotionally,
00:06:16
Speaker
societally were actually that that wasn't separate from their physical injury. And we've always known that in terms of ah having a biopsychosocial lens when we're working with people. But this was so overt and obvious that it sparked a lot of interest in me. I went and did a mental health first aid course and realized how much I didn't know as a health professional, even though we'd studied psychology, we'd studied pharmacology, you know, we study more than we will use as physiotherapists.
Mental Health Education in Practice
00:06:47
Speaker
And yet there was so much I didn't know that felt so elementary around what it feels like to feel anxious and depressed and notice things that really were relevant for my own experiences that I think I had ignored. And and so I started, I became trained as as a facilitator for Mental Health First Aid Australia and I started
00:07:07
Speaker
focusing on bringing mental health education into workplaces, sharing this with physiotherapists, other physiotherapists and and people who are yoga meditation facilitators. And some 10 years later, I really have been weaving it into the work I do as a physiotherapist. So I would say I'm not only working in a very body-based way with invisible illness and pain,
00:07:34
Speaker
and with people who live with mental health challenges or have lived through trauma, but I'm really working through the lens of the nervous system where someone understanding the different states that their nervous system moves through and the how that impacts their sense of self and their symptoms, how that impacts their capacity and their pathway forward. That's a vital part of the work that I do, but also being mental health focused, which doesn't mean that I'm actively supporting somebody's anxiety and depression in a clinical way, but that I'm aware of how anxiety and depression presents. I'm seeking to understand what that means for that individual
00:08:14
Speaker
and how that impacts them and how that might impact the work that we might do together in physiotherapy. And so I'm actually in a place where I feel like I'm doing the work I was born to do, but it was kind of a bit of a squiggly, windy road, exploring mental health, exploring yoga or meditation for many years in my own body and teaching for others and with others and to others before I got to this place now, where I feel like I work across that mind-body connection.
00:08:44
Speaker
a lot and knowing where my scope of practice is as an integrative physiotherapist, but also knowing that many of the people I work with need that plus, need an acknowledgment of their trauma history, need a trauma-informed approach, need a neuroaffirming approach. and That's so beyond the scope of what I learned as a physiotherapist.
00:09:05
Speaker
Absolutely. You know, I think I do resonate as well with that kind of
Dr. Ta's Somatic Psychotherapy Training
00:09:10
Speaker
windy path. You know, I found myself here working as a psychedelic assisted psychotherapist from a similarly windy path, but it also feels like so much of The work that I'm doing now is just something that has kind of, it's been, all of the different threads of my experience are kind of coming together in this, in this moment to kind of really step into the psychedelic psychotherapy work. You know, I trained in the UK as a clinical psychologist originally and that was a really great training.
00:09:42
Speaker
spent years working in the NHS in mental health and then moved over to Australia about a decade ago and was working with refugee populations and refugee mental health. And it became so, so clear to me that, you know, something from my training as a clinical psychologist but that was missing was how do we really hold the mental health lens and really pay attention to how that shows up in a person's body and that is kind of where you and I meet. You're sort of working with the body and holding the mental health and I'm holding the mental health and also working with the body and that's why I think you and I've always
00:10:21
Speaker
had such interesting conversations and worked so well together when we are talking about the clients that we work with and the other people that we support. you know I trained in sensory motor psychotherapy, which is a type of somatic psychotherapy that uses the body as the entry point for healing. i it's by someone It was developed by someone called Pat Alden in the States.
00:10:46
Speaker
And she she kind of realized that so much of our experiences are held in the body and that over time everything that happens to us affects how our body's holding, how our body's moving in the world, our posture, how we how we breathe even. And so when you're working using a somatic approach,
00:11:08
Speaker
You're still using the verbal and we still get we still get into words. And of course, I'm still talking with my clients, as I'm sure you do with all of us. But I might use the body. I might use movement a lot more. I might start from the bottom up and get into the thoughts later. And, you know, I think that becomes really, really important and aligned with psychedelic assisted psychotherapy as well.
00:11:34
Speaker
which I'll say more about in a moment, but I feel like becoming doing the training in sensory motor psychotherapy, it really allowed me to have that missing puzzle piece.
Beyond Mind-Body Separation
00:11:45
Speaker
Yeah, and I think as I'm hearing you speak, I'm reflecting on this idea of us moving beyond the mind-body connection towards just acknowledging the mind-body that it is it is a continuum. And in a way, how nonsensical it is to compartmentalize those parts and that because we have professions that we create of people who focus on one thing versus the other, I would challenge someone to find any physiotherapist that doesn't bump into people's thoughts and emotions. I would challenge any talk therapist who never acknowledges that someone has a feeling in their body, like ah wisdom and knowing or a pain or a grief that they experience physically.
00:12:28
Speaker
and that's not even talking about thoughts and emotions that are repressed manifesting into physical injuries or illnesses or you know that body keeps score kind of scenario but just that when I feel pain I have thoughts emotions and sensations when I feel grief the same and so I'm hoping that we're moving into a place where I We can more openly acknowledge that because something I want to name and maybe people listening who are therapists themselves feel that too is that sometimes we feel like we're treading on eggshells. I can't possibly pause for a moment to acknowledge that someone is feeling really anxious before me because I'm a physiotherapist.
00:13:09
Speaker
So I need to ignore that and just kind of move on. How invalidating is that and how much does that limit our capacity to be client-centered, like person-centered in terms of what is this person in front of me experiencing and what needs holding and tending and validating and and acknowledging. How can I invite the whole person into the room is I think, you know, what is coming through as as you were talking.
00:13:33
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. And you know, at I was thinking as you were speaking about kind of the way that I might work with a person who maybe is coming to me with some anxiety or depression or your complex trauma in history, and then they suddenly tell me all about they've got this pain in their shoulder.
00:13:56
Speaker
you know, and that that's been there for years. And, and that every time they talk about that, their shoulders starts to move. You know, every time they're talking about that pain, or every time they're talking about the traumatic experience, the shoulder also starts to move. And so, as a somatic therapist, I'm often getting people much more connected and noticing with them like how are that what's happening in their body as they speak, and you're you're tracking all the time.
Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy Introduction
00:14:23
Speaker
And then we might kind of and might support someone to start to be really curious about what actually are the thoughts, feelings, images that come up when they're working with that part of their body, when they're when we're talking and they're starting to move to a shoulder like this. But what I also really need sometimes, often actually, is to be able to send them to someone like you who I absolutely trust,
00:14:46
Speaker
who could also help them holding the mental health lens and to work with that shoulder pain from a physio perspective or from a yoga perspective or both. And so I guess that for me that's where I feel really safe in sending people to you because I know that you hold that mental health lens so that you can hold all of that and as you're working with someone's shoulder of course things are going to come up.
00:15:10
Speaker
You know, i am that's what Pat Ogden and the other, there's ah there's quite a few different types of somatic psychotherapies, not just just the sensory motor one that I'm trained in, but they all talk about, you know, the way that the body over time stores experiences and tensions and and how, you know, and I always like to remind people that the body keeps the score of difficult events, but also of all of the positive and resourcing events we've had in our life too.
00:15:39
Speaker
And maybe now is a good time for me to speak a little bit about the psychedelic-assisted therapy process. is that Does that feel helpful? and to explain Yes, please. Yeah, because I know that for some people listening, they might know lots and lots about psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy, but it's still very new.
00:15:58
Speaker
And so I think, you know, as I explained this, it it might become even clearer why it's so important to hold the somatic perspective, the embodied perspective in this work. So, you know, I mean, I'm working at a clinic in Melbourne, which is one of the first in Australia that's able to offer psychedelic assisted therapy to clinical populations.
00:16:21
Speaker
And we're very fortunate that we're able to start to begin this work. And prior to that, I was working at Monash University, taking people through psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy, treating generalized anxiety disorder. And so they have a similar flow in terms of the process of what we do and how someone, how we work with a person. So we bring someone on board. And the first part of psychedelic-assisted therapy is called PrEP.
00:16:50
Speaker
really preparation. And we we might work with someone for at least three sessions, psychotherapy sessions, of preparation to get them ready for their dosing day. And so in general, on the trial that I worked on and at the clinics that I work at, usually, and there's flexibility around this, we usually see people for about three sessions before they are dosing with a psychedelic and I'll talk more about that in a moment and then after that we do three sessions of something called integration which is integration psychotherapy sessions and then in our model we do another dosing with a bit of medicine and then there's three more sessions
00:17:34
Speaker
of psychotherapy after that.
Post-Dosing Integration
00:17:37
Speaker
And sometimes there can be a bit more sessions of psychotherapy in between and the beauty of working in the clinical space is that we can be a lot more flexible so we can and add in some more sessions.
00:17:52
Speaker
But in the preparation phase, what we're really doing is we're kind of getting someone ready for the dosing. And so that involves some really important things like creating a safe space for the person. And that means us kind of getting to know them and also them really getting to know us as well.
00:18:10
Speaker
so that they feel supported and safe enough for to go into a space of quite a lot of vulnerability on dose day. That can take longer for some people than others for lots of reasons that I'm sure you can imagine but but in the from a somatic perspective in the prep sessions I'm starting to work out how someone connects to their body.
00:18:33
Speaker
Do they feel their emotions in their body easily? Is it something that they know is there or is that something that we're going to need to do a little bit more scaffolding and work on because so many of us spend a lot of time up in our head in the modern world and it's actually very encouraged isn't it?
00:18:50
Speaker
And so I feel like a lot of what I do, both in therapy, outside in my private practice, but also in the preparation for dosing is to bring people into their body in a safe way, gently, slowly, and in a way that feels right for them.
00:19:05
Speaker
and And so and then and you know we're also explaining to people about the psychedelic experience and and what it might be like and so there's a real psycho ed piece in that prep to allow people to feel like they have all the tools they need to go into the dosing and then they have the dosing sessions. Any questions on that Irene do I can do from your perspective?
00:19:26
Speaker
No, but it feels like such an important flow. No doubt this will come up later. at you know I hope we can asterisk this for later, but this idea of having a peak experience, which it could be a peak therapeutic experience on dosing days, what I assume people are in an expanded, altered other state compared to their regular waking state experience of life. And so to really assess How they already process? Do they already have practices that are supportive of them? What are their fears and anticipate? like That feels so important before going into something which is a peak experience and to build a relationship.
00:20:08
Speaker
with the person that's going to be the therapist holding the space for that dosing day, but then to also begin to already talk about integration, that kind of the rubber hits the road with integration and how this has been woven back into their life. That's what I'm hearing in everything that you said. That feels so important.
00:20:28
Speaker
Absolutely and there's you know one thing to say is that we always work in in a pair both at the trials and there's always two therapists and the person so there's this kind of thing that happens where all of you are in the room together and you're really creating that safe space for the person with the two therapists and the client or the participant depending on what where we are. And absolutely, you're kind of du you're teaching people, you know, Bill Richards, who is one of my mentors in this field, talks about how, you know, if you were going skiing, you would want to know how to ski a little bit first. So the psycho education around the psychedelic experience is is about giving people a bit of a sense of the now how they can navigate that territory as well.
00:21:17
Speaker
And so we'd be drawing on somatic practices for that. It wouldn't just be that. Sometimes we use little words and phrases as well, but we kind of try to keep it quite outside of the verbal as because when you come into dose day, you know, I've largely worked a lot with psilocybin and it's a high dose of psilocybin. I think sometimes people think that we're microdosing, but it's a big dose. And so we're really giving people that big dose and they are going kind of down into or into their psyche and meeting with themselves in that way. And it's different for everyone, what happens on dose day, they've got the headphones, the eye shades. So they are in quite a nonverbal space and and we talk a lot about trusting the process. So trusting the medicine, trusting us,
00:22:04
Speaker
and trusting themselves and their bodies to move towards healing. And that's where I feel like sensory motor or somatic psychotherapies are a really good tool for supporting that, because so much of what I'm doing in somatic therapy is supporting people to trust the wisdom of their body to move towards healing.
Trusting Body Wisdom and Healing
00:22:24
Speaker
And that's what we're really trying to encourage people to do on the dose day. ah You know, I keep wanting to jump in just because when you speak to this idea of supporting people to feel the wisdom of their body, I meet that every single day. and Of course, it's completely sensible to want to avoid feeling into the body when you've had pain and symptoms and grief and things that haven't been validated, honored, had capacities to be able to be processed. then
00:22:54
Speaker
So many of the people I work with disconnect from the body and therefore from also all the wisdom and positive experiences that you've mentioned and named that also exist within a body, even if it has pain and challenge and grief and sadness. And I think it's so.
00:23:12
Speaker
It's like such language that can be so triggering for the people that I work with for all the reasons I just named, but at the same time is part of the cultivation of hope towards a pathway forward is there's so much wisdom in there. How can we curate as slow and meandering a path as you need to even just say those words and to feel like this there's a possibility of that.
00:23:39
Speaker
and the work that you are doing with psychedelics i think that's it i hold so much hope that this is a way that we can shorten the distance between oh i'm acknowledging accessing the wisdom of the body could be potent and being able to actually dip a toe slash two toes slash two feet planted in the space of this is frightening and yet I can do this because as you would know and and as I meet every day so many people want to take that step but
00:24:16
Speaker
have so much conditioning around why that is terrifying and so much of that is again sensible vigilance because of pain and challenge and and grief that they felt before trying to be in their bodies, trying to be in themselves. so i feel I feel myself, my shoulders broaden as I'm hearing you talk because it just feels so important and it feels like a core part of why I think I'm alive is to be in the room while that experience is being de-thawed in people.
00:24:50
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And and I think you know i think that that what you just said is really important, you're being in the room while that experience is being de-thought. And so much of what I think is really powerful about therapy and psychotherapy and the work that you do is that idea of being a human alongside someone.
00:25:14
Speaker
being with because so much of our distress is caused by being left alone and isolated with our pain. So often that's that's people's story, isn't it? For lots of reasons. And so in in the psychedelic work, and as in general therapy, we are very much alongside. We are with you is something I say a lot. Me and my co-therapists, we're with you. We're here. Please ask us if you encounter something scary and difficult.
00:25:44
Speaker
we are with you, we're alongside you in this. You don't have to do this alone because of it's it's that's such a powerful message for so many people. And we can't do it alone. you know I want to really name that many of these experiences that I support people through, they haven't created that on their own for them. It's the environmental and systemic reasons why so many people experience trauma. Through no fault of their own and often childhood trauma, you know the stats are Huge the number of people that have experienced a childhood trauma, even if they haven't been in violent or overtly dangerous environments, just the wrongs and hurts that we bump into along the way when
00:26:25
Speaker
people don't actually meet our needs in that moment. And yeah, there's is acknowledging you didn't do this on your own probably. And when we have felt unwell for a really long time and maybe our world has become more and more isolated due to vigilance, then we almost can't do it on our own. But the flip side of that is when we're working with health professionals in a very hierarchical way,
00:26:52
Speaker
Like, here is the health professional, the all-knowing, the all-seeing eye who tells you what you need to do in order to heal, and how invalidating that can be, and actually how much medical trauma that can create, which further creates a barrier to accessing that help and and seeking support and trusting health professionals. So, to hear you speak about this side-by-side approach of, we're here with you. Of course, nobody can do this for you, but we're here with you.
00:27:19
Speaker
and that That's important. That that is you know the the greatest hope that I hold for the way that we are evolving in therapeutic relationships and environments, that we are welcoming the whole person into the room, validating and acknowledging the things that have felt hard and painful and unsustainable and creating a path together, that really co-creation of, okay, what's here? What do you need? And where can we go from here? that It feels so hopeful as I hear myself speak and so utopic almost, but it is also just that simple.
00:28:02
Speaker
Yeah, there's so much in what you just said. and And I think that idea of the kind of structural and hierarchical reasons why some people experience trauma is is important, right? And that, you know, talk therapy is it you know it's not going to be useful and work for everyone on its own. And so much of so much of certain types of, so I think, psychological therapy do you kind of center this therapist as the one who knows, the one who can kind of guide the process or even who has.
Therapist's Role in Healing Conditions
00:28:39
Speaker
kind of a greater understanding of the person. And that's not how I was trained. I have to say my training was quite different to that was I've i've kind of always come from that model, which I think is becoming much more centered over the last few years of actually the person has the wisdom, him the knowledge to heal somewhere within themselves they might not have access to those parts of themselves and that maybe the therapist is actually taking a stance of okay so I'm going to create the conditions to support you to move towards healing which is actually a very different thing on saying I know how to make this better and you should do this this and this so It's like, okay, so let's work together to kind of come up with the pathway for you. And I feel like that's what psychedelics do. you know As psychedelic therapists, of of course, there's always some kind of power imbalance in a room when you've got a therapist and a client. I think it's important to name that, but we really try and
00:29:43
Speaker
and and make it a lot more equal. you know And we self-disclose a little bit more. So we I was fortunate enough and the team were fortunate enough, some of us to have been part of the self-experienced study at Monash University where we got to have a shortened version of the psychedelic assisted therapy process. So we did one preparation session and one dosing and then one integration. So we can actually say to people,
00:30:11
Speaker
I've been where you are. I've taken that medicine. I've laid on the couch with the support of two health professionals. And if you want to, you can ask me things about that, you know, and I'll tell you what it was a little bit like for me, just to kind of level the playing field. And and the the the psychedelic is the way a psychedelic works, is it it kind of shows people the path towards healing that comes from within themselves.
00:30:36
Speaker
I think there's probably, you know, people having and lots of different experiences that could be seen in a spiritual way as well. So I want to hold that. But a lot of, you know, it's it's so it's such a individually tailored process. It's like a delay journey. Like I have no idea what it's going to be like for someone even they can tell me their history, I can meet them. And they're dosing one and they're dosing two could be completely different from each other.
00:31:06
Speaker
And the medicine is way, we always say the medicine is way wiser than us because it's meeting with that person in really the deepest parts of them and helping them move towards healing in the way that is so individualized for them. And I imagine that whilst when we're two human beings in a room,
00:31:26
Speaker
And we've brought all our previous fears and challenges and hopes and dreams into that space. You know, it can be precarious. Like I think about how nervous many of my clients are the first time they come and meet me. And so much about that session is really listening and hearing someone's story and acknowledging the bigness of that story because it often is long and big and meandering with many bumps along the road. And to hold that space, to build that Yeah, that trust of you are a human being telling me your story and I will hear that story and and acknowledge the incredible privilege it that I experience to be the holder or the keeper of these stories.
00:32:10
Speaker
but at the same time to start to plant seeds of only you know what you need. And that's a bit of pill to swallow when many of the people I work with, 10, 20, 30 years of mental illness or invisible chronic illness and disability and perhaps some isolation and lack of capacity because of that, to hand back to someone this knowing that their body A deeper part of themselves knows exactly what they need is not necessarily something that might feel true in that moment, but also feels scary. And that this space exists where people can come and go. I guess you correct me if this language isn't isn't right, but to go beyond the limited mind.
00:32:56
Speaker
to go beyond the limitations that the mind has created as a protector to keep this person safe, that is no longer sustainable to the life that they want to live. and so They've shown up into this room, into this therapy. Everything's led them to that point. and Then to go beyond our waking conscious state mental processes and therefore perhaps beyond all the walls and stoppers that a part of us has created is so profound and to have someone say there is a truth that life keeps flowing and that a part of you knows exactly what you need but let's acknowledge that maybe that doesn't feel accessible in this moment. Can we hold the the hypothesis that that may be true or maybe you felt that at some point in your life but not for some time and
00:33:45
Speaker
I'm honored to be by your side as as we explore that together. And I'm going to give you so much agency you know to have it out on the table. You get to steer this and you get to choose how faster or slower we get to go. But I'm here like what you're naming. I'm here if you have questions. You can ask me anything.
00:34:05
Speaker
That's profound because that's co-regulating. That's not just an important thing to say in the process of psychedelic assisted therapy. That is acknowledging that I am a human being sitting in front of you you with my own challenges and my own experience with the medicine you're about to take. and you know There's what we're saying to each other in the room and then there's what our nervous systems are experiencing.
00:34:27
Speaker
based on the temperature in the room and the facial expressions. We're constantly reading this bioelectric information that's happening, again, beyond the level below the level of the mind. and It feels like the way psychedelic assisted therapy, again, correct me if this if it feels different for you, is almost modeling my ideal way of working with clients. This system that has a lot of incredible scaffolding and checks and balances that is fundamentally person-informed and trauma-informed and that is really creating a side-by-side
00:35:10
Speaker
space and a space that is acknowledging mind and body. like That's how I hope clients would agree that I work every day and how I hope more and more health professionals will be able to work. so I feel inspired, but this exists in Australia in a country often that has so many regulations that somehow we've said yes to something that feels so novel on a global scale.
00:35:37
Speaker
Absolutely. and And I think, you know, I agree. I'm really, you know, I was listening to you talk and I was thinking about that idea that you spoke about, which it can be really challenging for clients, that idea that there is a part of them that knows, that can move towards healing, that that and has the wisdom them because so many of them don't feel that. That's kind of partly why they end up sitting in front of us sometimes.
00:36:05
Speaker
But more and more, you know, like internal family systems, which is another psychotherapy approach that I use a lot, her talks about the self, self energy, which is our kind of mindful, compassionate energy that all of us have somewhere inside of us. And the way that we protect ourselves in the world from pain kind of, it can mask that it can, it can kind of, but it's still there.
Utilizing Self-Energy in Therapy
00:36:33
Speaker
And so we all learn ways that we protect ourselves, to protect ourselves from pain and we move through the world with those, often maybe a little bit longer than they need to be there. And the reason I'm explaining all of this is that that idea of that energy, that part that that wants to move towards healing, it there's so many different words for it. In IFS they call it self.
00:36:57
Speaker
you know, in, I would say that in the mindfulness tradition, there's that kind of observing compassionate place that you get to in meditation, which really comes from, as you well know, ah eat ancient Eastern practices and yoga and, you know, things that have been around for such a long time. And in psychedelic therapy,
00:37:17
Speaker
in they can talk about things like the inner healing intelligence or meeting with but the soul or I just tend to use whatever word a person uses to describe that place and I think a psychedelic can can help show people that place sometimes you know caveat is always different for everyone but perhaps it can show people that place that they've not met with before, or they feel they haven't connected with before, even though it's always been there. And so, you know, and then the integration piece becomes, you know, very tailored to the person of like, how do we then take that with us into the world? How do we take the knowledge from the dosing and walk through life with it? Because it's not about in in a dosing session, <unk> it's not necessary, the work doesn't finish there, just as it doesn't in a therapy session with either of us, right? Then we take people out into the world.
00:38:08
Speaker
And they have to kind of walk, walk on that path and start to start taking the steps, which is, which can be challenging. And that's why this psychotherapy is really important in integration as well, over the long period. And, you know, that we're also thinking about inviting people to group integration, so they can meet other people who've been through these experiences. But I want to pick up on a thread that you start to talk about that I really like us.
Therapist Embodiment and Presence
00:38:35
Speaker
to kind of get into a bit more now, which is that idea of the importance of being an embodied nervous system in the room with our clients. And I think we've started talking about this a little bit, but maybe I want to kind of zoom in on it a little bit now and ask you what that means to you and why that feels so important in the work that you do. Yeah.
00:38:58
Speaker
I want to take us back in time a tiny bit, not too not for too long. It won't be too much of a side quest, but I think about myself as a 22-year-old when I graduated as a physiotherapist.
00:39:08
Speaker
and I had already you know had the privilege to have a gap year once I finished school and went to Europe and traveled the world and had some experiences, came back and studied physiotherapy for four years, and then you know was about to turn 23 only when i the following year when I graduated. We can acknowledge that's not a lot of life experience relative to who I am right now as a 40-year-old woman.
00:39:34
Speaker
and so I think about my first clients in private practice who came in bringing with them everything that we've acknowledged already, the bio-socio-economic or historical experiences that they had had, you know what their body had traversed, their beliefs and thoughts about who they are and their place in the world. And they were coming in with pain. And yet what I was bringing into the room is, I must heal every person that enters into this space.
00:40:03
Speaker
And so not only did I, you know, I was young on my yoga meditation journey, not where I am now where I have this as an anchor, not only many of these resources that allow me to down-regulate when I need, to up-regulate when I need, to really be able to shift my nervous system when I'm having a particular experience, not in a way that bypasses that experience but helps me process it. I have such a deep reservoir of that place you were speaking to where I meet the part of me which is the subtlest part of who I am to use
00:40:36
Speaker
non-religious, non-spiritual language. Just that subtle part in me that has been through everything with me, but kind of feels like it's not an active participant in the interaction with the world. duck That core me, the most me-me. I have many hours of experience meeting that place.
00:40:55
Speaker
And then seeing how I'll speak subjectively that has positively poured into all the roles and characters that I play in the world when i'm when I have that deeper sense of anchoring within myself. And so I think about how many resources and tools I have. I think about how long I've been working one on one with people.
00:41:16
Speaker
and in groups with people that I've seen people empower themselves and move beyond tremendous challenges and and and I know that I can't heal everyone and I know that I'm not for everyone. I think that creates, that's not just words, that is embodied in who I am when I'm in the room with people.
00:41:39
Speaker
And so on the surface level, there's something about but the state the current state of my nervous system that I'm in a relatively more grounded parasympathetic state when I'm with someone acknowledging that there's some activation of I'm at work and there's another person in the room, but that place where I'm not stressed in this moment and part of what keeps me less stressed in that space is that if the person, if there's conflict between us, if we've taken a step that is taking us into a scary place that
00:42:12
Speaker
I know i'm not I haven't intentionally wronged this person and that I have the tools and resources in that moment, but also in myself as a person and as a therapist to be able to repair with that individual. Even if I've said something like I'll send an email and I didn't and I'll be able to take responsibility and acknowledge that I have experienced to know a rough pathway that I could help this person craft.
00:42:40
Speaker
And if they lack the capacity to think of the next thing they need, I could make suggestions. All of that impacts how I am embodied and present in the room. And all of that therefore may impact how this individual might co-regulate with me.
00:42:59
Speaker
whilst always holding the caveat that it's not my responsibility to regulate this person and that often people bring a lot of social insecurity and fear and angst and sensible vigilance due to medical trauma in the past that they bring into the room. And I can't hold that and transmute all of that within me, but everything I've just said begins to allow us to speak about what does an embodied health professional mean in in my view?
00:43:26
Speaker
And some of it on the ground level is, am I resourced? Am I burnt out or not? Am I present with this person in the room? Am I typing on the computer frantically? Or am I facing the individual and we're here present. They know that they have my attention and I'm listening to them. And then there's all the bigger things of You know, we're not here to heal people.
Therapy Limitations and Successes
00:43:50
Speaker
We're here to be side by side with people as they go through their recovery or or healing journey or or process. That I might not be the best person for someone for a multitude of reasons and us acknowledging that is a win and a great success actually in that person's story and many things that no doubt you'll speak to in a moment.
00:44:09
Speaker
i I think all of that is embodiment. Most of that wasn't covered when I was studying to be a physiotherapist between 19 and 22. Most of that was touched on briefly in this idea of you know, biopsychosocial, but like, that was all about the individual and, and I could barely hold all of that when all I was hearing is this person has shoulder pain and they don't feel better after my last session with them. It was so much about me. It was really about how did I do in that session? Did I heal them? Did I help them? Did I say the right thing to convince them to do their exercises?
00:44:48
Speaker
And so I think these days, not only am I more resourced from many, many years of having resourcing practices that I do most days, if not every day of my life, but I work in a way that is sustainable. I'm only clinical two days a week and I know what's mine and what isn't mine. And so.
00:45:07
Speaker
I can create deeper trust, deeper authenticity, and and therefore maybe hold bigger things with people without internalizing them and and feeling like it's mine to hold, acknowledging that that's theirs.
00:45:24
Speaker
I said a lot of things, because yeah something I want to talk about forever and is where my work is heading as I support more health professionals in clinical education and mentoring. Probably if you're listening, it's like, well, she just said a lot of things, but hopefully they feel like things that make sense, especially as as a therapist that, yeah, that but they're not simple ideas to hold. It's just a lot that determines how we show up into that therapeutic relationship.
00:45:52
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. And i just you know I was listening to you and just feeling so heartened that I'm sitting here with someone who isn't actually a psychologist or a therapist, but who's holding so many of these ideas.
00:46:10
Speaker
which are things that, you know, as psychotherapists or psychologists, hopefully we have a little bit more, I still think there's a lot of work that could be done in the training around this, but there is a bit more of an emphasis and i'm on those things that you're speaking about.
00:46:26
Speaker
i'm But I feel like this is so important for everybody who's working in the space of quiet work, where there's a mental health element, where there's a trauma element, or just in general, when you're another human nervous system with another human nervous system, because your nervous systems are having your conversation, aren't they? Always, you know, even on on a telehealth, I do a lot of my my work online these days when I'm not working in the psychedelic clinic. and i was really I've been really surprised at how much the nervous system is still talking to the nervous system in front of me. like I'll still feel my client's anxiety in my body through a screen. I'll still feel a moment of tightness in my chest. and I'll ask them about that. I'm just feeling this. What are you what are you feeling? and They're also feeling that.
00:47:15
Speaker
and You know, I kind of constantly, when when I'm thinking about what you're saying, I come back to, as therapists, we are always encouraged to know ourselves, you know, and to do our own work. And I feel like in the last few years for me in the psychedelic realm, I've been, it's become even more important because everything is magnified when someone's in an altered state.
00:47:39
Speaker
all of their stuff and all of your stuff and your co-therapist stuff can get magnified as well. And so it becomes this really, I feel, a very clear and strong responsibility to really know yourself, to know what your triggers are, to have a relationship with your own body, to to learn how your body responds to someone else's nervous system when you're in a space with them, and to regulate yourself as much as you can.
00:48:06
Speaker
But I really liked what you said about, you know, it's not, it's not your role, or even at any of our roles to completely heal another person. We can say, you know, I can say relates, I think we were very similar age, I was probably 23 or 24 when I qualified even as a psycho or when I started my clinical psych training. And so, you know, I can really relate to that, like I wanted to fix everyone, I think what you know, whatever that means, it's just such a such a 23 year old thing thing, right? And then you learn over time and the training that you get. And in clinical psychology, you have to have supervision. So I have to talk to another psychologist about my cases. It's set up that way. And I talk about what comes up for me with a particular client. But I see so many professionals, other health professionals that would benefit from something like that for so many reasons.
00:49:00
Speaker
that just it's not built within the it's not built into the framework in the same way. And I would really love to see it extended, you know, i into other professions as well. Yeah. Yeah. I prayed. I think it's it is starting to happen more and more. You know, I do some supervision groups with some domestic violence support workers and people in those kind of roles. But I feel that extended so much more widely.
00:49:30
Speaker
as well. yeah i mean I do that work with allied health professionals and people who are yoga meditation facilitators. That's a whole other podcast to talk about how unregulated that space is, and yet how often people in that space are training themselves up to be more trauma-informed.
00:49:49
Speaker
the importance of that, but also the risk of these people then having to hold but people's traumatic experiences, maybe with no training that comes close to what we've had as health professionals. So that's not to blame the individual who wants to help another person, but to say that this is so vast and big and we're so regulated within a clinical environment and so unregulated in every other environment.
00:50:14
Speaker
I hope that we're moving to a place where not only are we focusing on embodiment and resourcing as ah as vital alongside health professionals, like this is my dream. right and Part of that is deeply personal because I feel like that's a huge part of why I feel regulated and grounded.
00:50:32
Speaker
I have a way to feel my feet on the earth and take a few deep breaths between clients to somatically experience washing away the last session and entering into a a new space with somebody else. These are simple tools, something that anybody can use, but it's something that's anchored in me and and embodied in me. So that doesn't feel like something I have to remember to do. That feels natural now after many, many years.
00:50:58
Speaker
And I don't know that every person that goes through any, whether it's allied health, medical, mental health, I don't know that that's a main focus. Maybe it is more and more. and you know Admittedly, I don't know all these programs that are out there now for people that are qualifying, but I wonder how many people are ah using this daily and maybe not seeing that as a burden because something that I know with younger health professionals who I'm supporting, we burn out quickly. And I know this as that 22-year-old who was about to turn 23 who went into private practice, she lasted a year before she burnt out. And I almost didn't even have the language for that. I've only acknowledged that some 10 years later, realizing, oh, wow, that was me burning out, rather than, oh, I decided to have a break and and do something else, which sounds like a very privileged experience. It was actually a
00:51:54
Speaker
Whilst I had the privilege to do that, it actually was because I completely burnt out in that first year. I was completely unprepared. How much my inner helper healer, who hadn't had therapy around this yet, came into that space and tried to save everybody. and and That was deeply connected to my need for self-worth by the actions that I take in relationship with others. and So I think something we haven't even named is like, one, how is your nervous system and are you resourced? Two, has somebody mentored you into what is sustainable for you? Is three days a week sustainable? Is two days a week? Is full-time clinical work sustainable?
00:52:33
Speaker
That's a giant question that we might not answer in this podcast. But beyond that, have you either had the life experience or the therapy or both to understand what you bring into that space, the things that will trigger you, the things that will challenge you that you will then project onto your client?
00:52:51
Speaker
that that person is prickly to work with rather than I'm challenged and triggered that they don't think that I'm perfect and wonderful and they're not always endlessly grateful for everything I bring to them. I think the younger therapists, I hope we're getting better and I hope in the work that I do supporting health professionals that that has ah a role and that it's rippling out, but I do still meet every to every other day, young health professionals who feel like those pieces are missing. They're working five days a week in as and clinically. They don't have daily tools and resources that they use outside of their clinical work and throughout to pace their clinical day. And they haven't done therapy to acknowledge that what they keep bumping into that becomes an obstacle in therapeutic spaces is often their stuff, not just the client's stuff.
00:53:45
Speaker
Yeah, it's so important. Right. And, and I think, you know, I don't even know that that ah was necessarily something that all clinical psychologists training involved, even when I was training, my training was very much focused on know yourself first really well. And we did a lot of that. And it was, it was a really intense three years. And I'm so grateful for it. You know,
00:54:10
Speaker
But I think, you know, I've been thinking a lot about this about sustainability in the psychedelic assisted psychotherapy work, because, you know, it's, it's, as I said, everything is amplified. And so that thought that you were talking about, about, oh, you know, maybe there's a self worth piece here that's playing out, that's mine, can get quite big in the psychedelic therapy session or space. And so it's also incredibly powerful. And when you share some of like the the way in which you're feeling towards a client or the clients being towards you
Handling Feedback and Personal Triggers
00:54:46
Speaker
in a therapeutic way can be really really healing if you know what's yours and you know what's theirs and you know how to tease it apart you know I've become because we work in a pair with them a dyad so
00:55:00
Speaker
I've become, somebody has had feelings towards me that's in the same way that they felt towards their father who they had a difficult relationship with. And so that's come up. And I was able to know that that wasn't mine, that that was the client's stuff. And so then I reflect that back to them that, okay, so tell me a little bit about this. and And it opened up this whole conversation.
00:55:25
Speaker
and and And how do i know that how do i choose that apart from when someone is giving me feedback that is actually just about me as a person that's tricky right because i always want my clients to be able to say actually what you said didn't land just then and i'm not gonna always make it about something complicated with the parents for example i just be that something didn't land.
00:55:46
Speaker
And so learning to tease those things apart is the reason I have clinical supervision with a psychologist who I really trust, who's much more experienced than me. It's the reason I debrief with my diad partner, but it's also you know the reason I've done a lot of my own therapy. And I'm not going to get it right all the time and nobody's perfect either. You don't need to be perfect to know every single thing. You're never going to know every part of yourself, but it's really important.
00:56:13
Speaker
to to know yourself really well. And I think, you know, the the psychedelic work is, it it can be intensive. And you're working with people for long days. And we're rolling this out all over Australia now, which is amazing. I feel very grateful to be able to do that. And I've also burnt out. And so because I've had an experience of burnout,
00:56:36
Speaker
and I've spent a lot of time and a lot of my career actually supporting other psychologists around how to feel more resourced in the work that they're doing, both individually and in group spaces. And I've been thinking about how to what do we need in terms of the psychedelic assisted therapy. I feel like we need something a little bit different and a little bit more than we would even as a psychotherapist or psychologist in a private practice working one on one.
00:57:05
Speaker
The reason I think that is because the days, ah you know, the the therapy process is intensive and the days can be really long as well. In a dosing day, you might be alongside someone for six to eight hours whilst they're having a really big experience. And it's beautiful and it's profound and it's some of the most fascinating or inspiring work that I've ever done. And whilst it gives me a lot It's it it my nervous system has a big journey all those days. If I didn't have yoga, meditation, somatic practices to help me metabolize that.
00:57:42
Speaker
I think it would be really challenging. And so that's kind of part of why I wanted to have you on here and to be talking about embodiment and yoga and all of the work that you do because I think it's going to be so important going forward for us to think about how to weave those in. We just had a really big paper come out and you know I just made an Instagram post about it and I've been talking about it in a lot of the immersions that I run.
00:58:10
Speaker
But this year, a paper has come out around deep rest and the interplay of, I guess, what to summarize it, what is common to all the different contemplative practices? Because it's very hard to do research on yoga because it's not one thing. Mindfulness you know, we can minimise or reduce to present moment awareness in a non-judgmental way. that Therefore, we can sort of study it more easily. But yoga is has physical elements and mental-emotional elements, and, and, and. And so this paper looked at, you know, what are these contemplative practices have in common? And it found this pathway of
00:58:49
Speaker
We need to feel safe environmentally and psychologically to be able to downregulate in our nervous system to the point where we get into that parasympathetic place, at which point our breath changes, at which point we start to experience that sphere of deep rest, where the energy that we normally would power would power our vigilance and tracking and sensing whether we're, you know, what threats are incoming,
00:59:16
Speaker
that energy gets turned back into our cellular processes, so that cellular healing occurs. And why I'm naming this is because we're starting to understand actually how Tai Chi meditation yoga can be so profound as an ally for people in in our lives to not only allow us to regulate ourselves, but to help us meet the deepest parts of who we are. And out I'm going to say something that sounds dramatic. Our birthright to not just pay bills and die, like that we are Human beings plus, you know there's a lot that we understand about the mind body and very little still that we understand about this experience of human consciousness, the fact that we exist and then we don't exist. A realm that hopefully psychedelic assisted therapy is going to help us with a lot as people come back and have their own unique experience of meeting that unbounded part of themselves, whatever name we give it, and we're able to track that and and gather research about it.
01:00:21
Speaker
Well, contemplative practices have been creating the conditions for us to touch that place for a really long time and in a way that is sustainable and in a way that encourages you to have an experience and then integrate it into your life. Use these tools and practices to help you access that deep place within. And then as you touch that deep place within, you want to make these practices part of your everyday life because it's no longer ah something that I'm doing to help or improve myself. but to just time with myself every day. And so, actually, this realm of yoga meditation, Tantra, that I've been studying for 20 years and and practicing for 20 years, speaks a lot to
01:01:04
Speaker
where I hope psychedelic assisted therapy can can take us. And therefore, I hope that some of these practices that are already available to us can help in that integration process. And and that's without me having had anything to do with trials or or or clinical spaces. But from where I sit in the work I do, I can see that as only being helpful because yeah, peak experience and then going back to life which doesn't feel like that peak experience. Even if someone meets something expansive and blissful in that place and and has a very intimate experience with themselves, we then go back to potentially a life of isolation and and disconnection and
01:01:48
Speaker
And so having these practices that can help resource and ground and reconnect us, help us say, okay, this isn't sustainable anymore, so what next? To ask those really big questions when we're making shifts and changes on an environmental and and you know, structural level in our lives beyond just me as a person with myself. I hope that for everyone that goes through your trials and and your therapeutic process, but I hope that, but I know that whether or not we ever get a chance to do ah a psychedelic
01:02:20
Speaker
trial or be part of psychedelic therapy as health professionals and kind of blending these two come parts of our conversation to say there are ways that health professionals can make that part within themselves that doesn't have to have any religious or spiritual basis, even if that feels important for me.
01:02:38
Speaker
in my work clinically, we're very much talking about semantics and mindfulness and presence.
Embracing Humanity in Therapy
01:02:44
Speaker
And do I feel grounded? And and do I feel challenged or triggered? Do I feel like, oh wow, client has said that and now I feel my heart is racing and I'm upregulated and I feel a bit challenged and maybe I need a moment. Or hearing someone's tragic story feels, I'm so grateful and I feel touched in this moment as a human being to have your trust.
01:03:08
Speaker
That is part of my, that is part of every, every session that I have with people. This moment of humanity, it doesn't mean that I stop being a health professional, but to say, thank you so much for trusting me with that. That feels so big, what you've shared. Can we take a moment to sit and just acknowledge that? Is there anything you need? Do we need to have a pause? Like they're human factors or they're human capacities rather that, you know, anyone that's tends to be a good listener and being in close connected relationship with others probably embodies, but it's also something that we can develop more of as we cultivate more yeah groundedness and presence in ourselves through either potentially psychedelic assisted therapy over when it's more readily available. But today in this moment, health professionals can access mindfulness and and somatics and
01:04:07
Speaker
have clinical supervision and hope my deepest hope is that when I'm working with younger health professionals that they can do that early on in their career so that we don't lose them. because maybe the most but i'm I'm generalizing, of course, as I say this, I don't know, this is actually true, but we probably lose the really sensitive, dear-hearted ones sooner because they burn out faster.
01:04:31
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. And I think, you know, I really, ah thanks for using the the more wide the wider time as well, contemplative practice, because I feel like, you know, yoga is what I do in a particular type of yoga or types of yoga, but there are so many ways to get in the body aren't there and so many ways to achieve presence. Some people will really connect to that more, to a more spiritual lens.
01:04:56
Speaker
And other people will find that they much prefer kind of a more secular approach. And there is so much in between and around all of that. And I think, you know, I really want to, there's there's a lot of enthusiasm, which, ah you know, because psychedelic assisted psychotherapy is such an exciting and innovative and interesting space. And, you know, there is a lot of new, the qualified therapists who really wanted to get into this space. And I think that's, that's wonderful.
01:05:22
Speaker
And I think, you know, I really hope that we can start to draw on some of these practices to support people, to support anybody doing work with other people's nervous systems, and that maybe we can start to build them into more of our frameworks for when we make a team, when we build a clinic. You know, and I know that some places do do that kind of somatic practice and yoga practice, or they have meditations. But I wonder if we can extend that even more, you know, and I ah guess one of the things I was thinking about when I was thinking about talking to you and talking in this podcast is this idea of creating solidarity teams. The reason I was thinking that is I feel like you're on my solidarity team, that you and I share the same values, we share the same beliefs, we probably do different jobs, but they're aligned.
01:06:12
Speaker
And I know I can call you if I've had a rough day, can send you a voice note. I can connect with you or I can speak to you about a client if I'm really stuck that I want to refer someone to someone like you, I can do that. And it's so, so important. you know Before I came into this psychedelic work, I was working a lot online by myself and that kind that was great. you know I really enjoy the ability to do telehealth. It's opened up the door for so many people to be able to see me that wouldn't otherwise be able to see me.
01:06:42
Speaker
but I was quite isolated and so you know creating those solidarity teams and using embodiment practices or contemplative practices are something that I think is really important in the work that that I do and I hope that becomes something that people are drawing on and building more and more.
01:07:02
Speaker
Hmm. Yeah. I really hope that too. Like from where I'm sitting in this moment, I don't know how I did it without it. And I did it poorly. I burnt out, you know? And it's a big job to be one along with people and to hold often their experiences of pain and lack of capacity and disconnection. And it's a lot. And today I get to sit here and say,
01:07:31
Speaker
I'm so grateful that my job feels like it but it's so big because every single day it brings me face to face with people's capacity. Our incredible adaptability, despite going through horrific experiences, there is a part of us that keeps yearning to grow and and to change. And I have a lot of, i think I feel like I'm in service to that part, you know, in a way even more than then me as a Yes, of course, there's a whole person. And then there's this like subtle dynamic of there's a part of this individual that wants to change and grow. And I'm so curious to meet that part and to reveal it. But it requires us to be deeply human and perfect to do that. like One of the parts that feels vital is that I'm not trying to be some perfect
01:08:24
Speaker
you know robot in front of the person that's in
Balancing Therapist Work and Personal Life
01:08:28
Speaker
the room. In fact, I am more me than ever. I will acknowledge if I need a day off. i will you know At times it might feel relevant to say, oh, when you talk of shame, I i know that in my own way from my life. It doesn't mean I have to then spend that client session talking about my experience with shame, but I might acknowledge I'm also a human being that has felt that and in this moment I really empathize with you as you're as you're talking about that. I feel that deeply in my own body. Thank you for your trust in that moment is something that I say all the time because people come in and they share deeply personal parts of themselves and that can either
01:09:10
Speaker
expand us a bit like what you were saying before, like help us feel awestruck at the beauty and tragedy of being human, or it can overwhelm us and make us feel exhausted and burdened. you know I feel so grateful that that feels like a gift in my life every day. It helps me feel more human. I grow. I heal in those spaces because it reminds me that that part exists within me that always wants to grow and evolve.
01:09:39
Speaker
and expand. But yeah, it's taken almost 20 years, you know, of doing it in a way that felt unsustainable to find what feels sustainable for me. And some of that is, as I've named two days a week, having lots of tools and resources that I use throughout the day and outside of work, knowing who I am, having had therapy myself, having me met hard edges with my own therapist so that I can start to be like, yeah, this this sounds hard. is that Should we pause? Should we keep going? you know And to to really name that. But also now, I live on three acres, half an hour out of the city. I have support with family and friends. And there's so much that supports me doing this big work with people that's taken a long time to work out. And maybe as I'm speaking, it sounds a bit like, oh, that's all too hard. like
01:10:36
Speaker
you know Most people don't have the privilege and the capacity to create that for themselves as they're working as a health professional. So I guess they're the things that have been important for me created over many years. But I wish I'd had a mentor who early on asked those questions of me, know where do you feel grounded?
01:10:59
Speaker
what feels sustainable for you? How much work have you done on your own edges? Because, hey, you don't have to be perfectly healed in this moment, but know that those things are going to come up in the therapeutic relationship. And then as they come up, you can then tend to them with your own therapist, with your own mentor, as they come up, rather than the, oh, I'm feeling challenged and triggered, but I don't have the awareness that I'm challenged and triggered. And so everything feels difficult. and taxing yeah I think ah think we've spoken a bit about where our work meets and what we hope for the future and that's why I always feel so inspired when we're having a conversation whether it's recorded or not.
01:11:41
Speaker
It reminds me that even though there are lots of health professionals that burn out and the medical system isn't perfect, and sometimes not as person-centered as I think it could be in many ways, that there are also many health professionals working in this way and are stepping into those spaces as embodied people, whole people, imperfect people. And they you know again, a dramatic sentence, I think that's the future of healthcare. I hope that's the future of healthcare.
01:12:10
Speaker
I think so. I hope so too. and I guess that's why you and I connect so strongly. and you know I really hope so too. and and I think that idea of having a mentor is so important. I wish that I'd had those. and In clinical psychology, we kind of do have the supervisory role more and more, but it's it's there's something different about a mentor, someone who is really guiding your career and your path that's really important.
01:12:40
Speaker
But I think, you know, what ah what was feeling really important and what you were just saying to me was that idea of mentor. I think, you know, that as we move into using psychedelic-assisted therapy so much more widely, hopefully, in Australia, I think, you know, my mentor is someone from from overseas who's got who's been working in this space for, you know, since the 1960s.
Mentorship and Team Support
01:13:06
Speaker
And so I would really encourage anyone listening who's interested in this space to find someone who's done more of this than you, who's had some more experience, who can who can guide you. And not that a mentor or a supervisor would tell you exactly what to do or how to do it, but that they can hold you so that you can hold other people.
01:13:26
Speaker
And they can help you find like those questions you were asking. They can help you find your own way. What's the right way for you? Because I haven't worked full time since 2010. I work, I stopped doing five days a week very quickly. I qualified in 2010, by the way. So I think I did about six months of five days a week being a psychologist before I realised that was absolutely not sustainable. These days, I like three days of clinical practice.
01:13:54
Speaker
and a day of like admin and other doing things like this and whatever else I've got to do. And that can change for me, you know, during COVID, it was less after I had an illness that it was less even than that. And it's an ongoing conversation with myself that I have.
01:14:12
Speaker
but with other people that know and care about me, like my supervisor, or people on my solidarity team, as I call it, like you, yeah? it We don't have to make these decisions alone. And something that can happen on the edge to burn out, and I see quite a lot, is it becomes really hard to make decisions. I've been there myself. I've seen other people go there. And so having someone else hold that space for you to go, okay, what are you feeling right now? Let's drop into the body if that feels like the right place to go.
01:14:43
Speaker
And let's see what what feels the most supportive to your body, to your nervous system at the moment. Let's find it together. And I think that's what working in teams and having support people around you can really help you do. Yeah. You know, I went back to working in more of a clinic environment three years ago.
01:15:02
Speaker
after working on my own for a while for that reason. I felt the energy of being in a team of saying, hey, can I share with you? I'm wondering what the next step could be for this individual that I'm supporting and can I talk through those pathways with you and and say your thoughts? like That is endlessly useful. And yeah, when we're working five days a week, eat let's say it's eight hours a week, eight hours a day rather, five days a week, there isn't a lot of space like that when your client facing that whole time, maybe you have a half hour lunch break. So yeah, one day can roll into the other and then suddenly there are some challenges or obstacles that could help speaking through. And yet.
01:15:52
Speaker
Where do we find the time for that? Because we also need some hours in the day to just be a human being who isn't a therapist um and to live our lives outside of our work. And so, yeah, having something in the diary once a month or how Once a quarter, once a week, however often you need it as a health professional, that's time for you to feel nourished. you know When I'm working with people, we will partly focus on what's happening professionally. And then there's, you know do we should we touch on what's happening personally and how work
01:16:24
Speaker
Find a balance with personal life. We always do something somatic in that session, whether it's beginning with something that will be grounding so that we can both feel in our bodies and and present in the space wherever we've come from. But often it involves practices that might Help that individual with something that there is you i love how you said before metabolizing and processing maybe a somatic practice for letting go and maybe they take that away with them and they're using that for the next few weeks before we see each other again.
01:16:56
Speaker
I think what I love is when I'm holding those spaces as a supervisor or a mentor, that we're always going body, mind, and beyond. that Often we're speaking to what's happening in your body, what's happening in your mind, what are your hopes, obstacles, challenges. and Then there are also practices that when we drop into those contemplative places,
01:17:19
Speaker
with meditative places, we now know scientifically we're accessing deep rest. And in that deep rest, insights come. It's almost like some the cloud parts and the thinking mind dissolves and suddenly we're a bit more of a channel and anyone that's ever had a meditative experience would know what I'm talking about without me needing to use a single spiritual or religious word. It is innate to us as human beings. And so I think there's an an opportunity to, if we're interested as health professionals, to start to explore and experience these practices, especially with other health professionals who aren't leading us towards a religious pathway, but again, to reclaim these innate somatic experiences that we have in the spaces between.
01:18:05
Speaker
you're on the bus and you're looking out the window and suddenly thoughts it become more spacious and you fall through the cracks of your thinking and you're deeply present and embodied, you're mindful. That's human and innate.
01:18:18
Speaker
And we're getting to a place where there's so much available on the internet, even you can access yoga and meditation and breathwork. And now we're moving into the realm of psychedelic assisted therapy that it feels natural to me because of my own lived experience, but also hopeful that more and more health professionals will, will lean on more and more resources that as they know them well in their own systems, they may even be able to facilitate in a way that is very complimentary and relevant to the work they do, whether they focus on the mind or the body. Absolutely. That I hope so too. And that that feels like ah a really beautiful place to begin to draw us to a close because I am mindful of the time and it's been such an absolute honor to have you on the show. and i And I really hope that, you know, the people listening will start to reflect on
01:19:16
Speaker
you know, where, which embodiment practices would feel useful for them in the work that they do, both with themselves and with their clients, you know, because we there's so many different contemplative and embodiment practices out there. And I think more and more, you know, we're being called to, to use them as therapists and to use them as people being in the world to support our nervous systems to keep things to keep to keep our lives sustainable. you know There's so much noise, there's so much available on the internet, but there's also so much happening all the time in the world. And so how do we come back to ourselves and to that how do we find that place in ourselves becomes more and more important, I think. So thank you so much, Irene.
01:20:03
Speaker
Thanks for having me. i well we know We said it a couple of times, but we knew that every time we merge minds and and hearts in these conversations, I walk away feeling positive, more buoyant, more hopeful, because I know from other conversations I have, there are so many health professionals that are like-minded, and yeah that gives me tremendous fuel.
01:20:27
Speaker
so Thank you for having me. and yeah What an incredible podcast you've created. What an incredible space to gather conversations that can traverse that that space of across the mind body and yeah even beyond.
01:20:42
Speaker
and Thank you. And for those of you who are listening to this and wanting to find out more about Irene, you can find some links to her website in the show notes. Is there anywhere else that people can find you with Irene that would be useful for people to look at?
01:20:58
Speaker
Yeah, I guess on my website, there's links to social media and my email list if people are wanting to stay connected to different immersive spaces that I run for practitioners and health professionals and teachers. And they can find the link to my own podcast that ah talks about the mind body with my friend Ziggy who's a psychotherapist and yeah, similar but different conversations in another space. Beautiful.
01:21:26
Speaker
thank you so much irene and i'll see you again
01:21:33
Speaker
if you're interested in following along on the journey with me check out my instagram or website details listed in the show not and if you enjoyed this episode please leave a review and share this podcast to help get this important conversation out to more listen