Transcript
Speaker: We are recording this podcast on the lands of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation.
Speaker: We wish to pay our respects to Elders past, present and emerging and extend our respects to any Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander people who may be listening.
Speaker: Hello and welcome to Noful Feelings, where two psychologists take a deep dive into your favourite books.
Speaker: I'm Priscilla.
Speaker: And I'm Elise.
Speaker: Hello everyone, we haven't heard from us for a couple of months, just to say.
Speaker: But we're really excited to jump back into your headsets with an interview with author Ariane
Speaker: Beeston.
Speaker: So Ariane is a former child protection caseworker and psychologist with New South Wales Department of Communities and Justice.
Speaker: She was a staff writer at Fairfax Media's Essential Baby and Essential Kids and has published articles in the Sydney Morning Herald, Daily Life, Babyology and Mamma Mia.
Speaker: She currently works for Australia's Peak Body in Perinatal Mental Health, the Centre of Perinatal Excellence, aka COPE,
Speaker: as their communications and content manager, and she's also a dancer and choreographer.
Speaker: Her first book, Because I'm Not Myself, you see, has been recently published, and that's the book we're going to be talking about today.
Speaker: Let us tell you a little bit about the book.
Speaker: Ariane Beeston is a child protection worker and newly registered psychologist when she gives birth to her first child and very quickly begins to experience scary breaks with reality.
Speaker: Out of fear and shame, she keeps her delusions and hallucinations secret.
Speaker: But as the months pass, Ariane gets worse.
Speaker: Much worse.
Speaker: Finally admitted to a mother and baby psychiatric unit, the psychologist is forced to learn how to be the patient.
Speaker: With medication, the support of her husband, psychotherapy, and ultimately time, she rebuilds herself.
Speaker: And she also begins a new chapter working in perinatal mental health, developing resources to support other new mothers.
Speaker: Thank you to Black Ink Books for linking us together.
Speaker: But before we get started on our interview, our usual disclaimers.
Speaker: So, of course, we are trained psychologists, something we talk about a little bit today with Ariane, but this podcast should not be taken as direct therapeutic advice.
Speaker: Please always consult a professional for more specific and tailored advice.
Speaker: And as Ariane's book is a memoir, we're not going to be doing what we normally do with our author interviews, like separating into spoilers versus non-spoilers.
Speaker: We do talk a little bit about some of the content of the memoir, but please go out and read it for the details of her story.
Speaker: We talk quite high level today.
Speaker: And of course, this interview has been edited a little bit for length.
Speaker: And for some content notes, today we are talking about topics such as perinatal and postnatal depression and anxiety, postpartum psychosis, inpatient treatment, and stigma.
Speaker: All right, let's get started on our interview with Ariya.
Speaker: Welcome to the podcast, Arianne.
Speaker: Thank you so much for joining us today.
Speaker: And congratulations on the publication of Because I Am Not Myself, you see.
Speaker: Thank you.
Speaker: It's a bit of a mouthful to get out of it.
Speaker: It's a great title, though.
Speaker: It is such a good title.
Speaker: Thank you.
Speaker: Thank you.
Speaker: It's from Alice in Wonderland.
Speaker: Of course.
Speaker: And yeah, it's...
Speaker: Yeah, it's perfect.
Speaker: I chose it quite early on and I was very glad.
Speaker: Oftentimes you hear about writing, when people write books, the working title gets changed a couple of times.
Speaker: So I was glad that it stuck.
Speaker: Brilliant.
Speaker: It's perfect.
Speaker: You have published articles about your experience with postnatal mental illness in publications like Mamma Mia and the Sydney Morning Herald before.
Speaker: How is this experience different from publishing those articles for you?
Speaker: It's such a good question and it's one I've actually been reflecting on a little bit this morning.
Speaker: So I had an article published in the Guardian and not an extract in the book, but it sort of speaks to some of the themes in the book.
Speaker: And it was actually a really funny kind of reminder of what it was like to first have those pieces published.
Speaker: So yeah, the first piece that I had published was in, in Mamma Mia and it was,
Speaker: I think it was about 11 years ago now, and it was written like really in the thick of my illness.
Speaker: And so I think that's a key difference.
Speaker: That first piece was sort of written from a place of this is what I'm going through at the moment, and I don't have a happy ending yet.
Speaker: I'm still trying to find my way through that.
Speaker: um and it was yeah really vulnerable really raw um I felt like you know I had always wanted to be a writer and always wanted to write but it was the first piece that I'd had published so there were all these feelings of um you know excitement but also there was this real um you know fear of um for the first first time sort of it was the first time that I'd sort of come out and I used those words in that way but that a
Speaker: about the fact that I had been so unwell.
Speaker: So yeah, those earlier pieces I think were definitely written from a different place.
Speaker: You know, obviously my son is now 12 and it's very much, you know, something that I can look at that period of time as being a part of my story rather than being right in the thick of it.
Speaker: So that's been the main difference, I think, just being able to look at what happened with a little bit more, with more distance, with kind of even that kind of almost clinical detachment a little bit because I was able to step out of the actual, you know, feelings and experience and sort of look at it with more sort of curiosity and look at the research.
Speaker: Like almost zooming out a bit or having to do this?
Speaker: Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I think, you know, there were times where I thought, oh, why did it take me so long to write this book?
Speaker: And I think it took, you know, it's the right time.
Speaker: It took the time that it was supposed to take because, yeah, there's something really powerful about being able to zoom out, as you say, and look at it from different kind of lenses.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: and not be sort of still triggered in the writing and the reliving of it.
Speaker: But even so, I imagine, you know, it's quite clear in the book how taxing the writing process could be at times as you're going over and reliving these memories again and again, including those where the memories maybe weren't so clear or you had those periods of memory loss.
Speaker: So how is it reliving your story in such a public way?
Speaker: It's really intense.
Speaker: It's really intense.
Speaker: And yeah, I think, you know, I'm obviously just at the beginning of this sort of journey and this experience.
Speaker: I feel like I quite enjoy this aspect of it, the talking about it and having these conversations.
Speaker: I don't find that as draining or taxing as the writing itself was.
Speaker: I think people kept asking me when I was writing, you know, it must be really cathartic.
Speaker: Is this like really cathartic?
Speaker: And people want you to say, they always expect you to say yes, you know, or they want you to say, yeah, it was really therapeutic and I got so much out of the writing process.
Speaker: I processed everything and now it's fine.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: But it wasn't, it wasn't cathartic at all.
Speaker: It was actually at times kind of.
Speaker: the opposite.
Speaker: It was, you know, it was literally looking at or going back over a wound and sort of, you know, pushing on it and bruise and then seeing and kind of going deeper.
Speaker: I imagine you'll be doing quite a few of these conversations.
Speaker: But it's such an honour, you know, and I think there's so much, there's so many things that I can talk about with this book and there are so many different themes and I think, you know, what is so wonderful about it is that
Speaker: you know, speaking to you guys, you're a psychologist.
Speaker: And so you have that kind of really interesting insight and curiosity around that element of it.
Speaker: But then, you know, obviously there's the kind of motherhood and transition to motherhood aspects of it.
Speaker: And then the child protection aspect.
Speaker: So I think, you know, the beautiful part is being able to have lots of kind of really rich,
Speaker: conversations I don't feel like I'm saying the same thing over and over again which is really lovely so wonderful one of the concepts or topics that you talk about in the book is this idea of let me pronounce this correctly yes we might have looked that up before the interview to make sure we were saying it right yes yes
Speaker: Yeah, but reading your book was the first time we heard about matricence.
Speaker: But it makes so much sense that, you know, motherhood just doesn't happen in the instance that you give birth or become pregnant.
Speaker: But for listeners who haven't read your book or heard about it, would you mind talking a bit about this concept and why it's important to acknowledge?
Speaker: Yeah, definitely.
Speaker: And I was really interested actually to hear that it wasn't a term that you'd come across.
Speaker: And I think it's definitely a word that sort of has started to gain a little bit more momentum.
Speaker: And thank you very much to the work of Alexandra Starks, who's a reproductive psychiatrist.
Speaker: So basically, matricence, and I mean, it's such a beautiful sounding word, isn't it?
Speaker: And I've always loved words, and I remember coming across it.
Speaker: It must have been, because Alexandra wrote, Dr. Sachs wrote an article in the New York Times, and it was basically, I think it was called, you know, On Becoming a Mother.
Speaker: And again, I remember hearing that word and just thinking, oh, you know, what does this mean?
Speaker: And basically, so, you know, it sounds similar to adolescence, right?
Speaker: Adolescence, matricence.
Speaker: And the idea is very much that, you know, when we go through adolescence, we have those hormonal changes, we have, you know, the social changes, our identity, our body, our kind of place in the world, everything, there's that huge transition.
Speaker: And we navigate that, you know, with awkwardness and the fact that
Speaker: we sort of allow, we recognize that that transition through adolescence is often sort of awkward and ungainly.
Speaker: And, and, um, we look at the idea of matricence.
Speaker: So it's sort of, um, that similar concept that the transition or that, that birth of, of a mother.
Speaker: And again, the fact that we go through those hormonal changes, the emotional changes, our bodies change our social, where we sort of fit, um,
Speaker: in terms of our friends and our families and relationship dynamics, our relationships change, our bodies change.
Speaker: And yeah, the fact that, you know, we, the, the, the, the birth, you don't, you're not, you don't just become a mom the minute that your baby is sort of placed on your chest.
Speaker: It's a process.
Speaker: It's a process of becoming and,
Speaker: that's similar to um to adolescence you know it's full of highs and lows and a lot of people don't expect that and there's that sense um you know that we should be navigating that period with with a smile and looking beautiful and looking as though we've got it all together and you know that's just not the case and actually um i was looking earlier when i was thinking about it the term was first it was first mentioned by an anthropologist
Speaker: back in 1975, which I find fascinating.
Speaker: And that wasn't actually, it's sort of just, I guess, cause we don't have social media and the internet sort of languished in an academic textbook.
Speaker: It's hard to go viral in the seventies.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's absolutely right.
Speaker: No one made a pippy, you know, can the tile.
Speaker: No TikToks.
Speaker: And so it was a miscarriage unity.
Speaker: And so the, the, yeah, the sort of, I guess the term languished somewhere in this textbook.
Speaker: And it wasn't until, um,
Speaker: more recently that it was picked up again.
Speaker: But she says in her book back in 1975, she says of new motherhood, the time of giving birth does not automatically make a mother out of a woman.
Speaker: During this process, these changes occur in a woman's physical state, in her status within the group, in her emotional life, in her focus of daily activity, in her own identity, and in her relationships with all those around her.
Speaker: And she says the amount of time it takes to become a mother needs study.
Speaker: So that was in 1975.
Speaker: And then Alexandra Sachs more recently said, when a baby is born, so is a mother, each unsteady in their own way.
Speaker: Matrescence is profound, but it's also hard.
Speaker: And that's what makes it human.
Speaker: And I love that because what it does is, you know, we talk about, obviously my book looks at perinatal mental illness and the sort of range of
Speaker: you know, antenatal depression and anxiety, so during pregnancy and then the postpartum mental illnesses as well.
Speaker: But what matricence does is it sort of normalises the more common challenges.
Speaker: So it normalises those feelings of ambivalence and, you know, feelings of grief around missing your old life that aren't
Speaker: pathology, right?
Speaker: Like that's not a clinical condition, but it's still something that women struggle with and that we should be able to talk about.
Speaker: In Alexandra Sachs' TED talk, she talks about how new mothers were calling her up or seeing her as clients, wondering if they had postnatal depression.
Speaker: Am I depressed?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Am I depressed because I'm struggling, because I'm not bonding as quickly as I thought or because, you know, this is not an easy transition.
Speaker: Like I think it's going to be.
Speaker: And no, they weren't clinically depressed, but this is what's normalizing it is this idea of matricence.
Speaker: And that's what I love.
Speaker: That's what I love about it because it sort of provides just this, yeah, this way to normalize some of the difficulties, to normalize those feelings of ambivalence and to kind of help people.
Speaker: I think what I love about the concept is, you know, and so much about preparation for parenthood and motherhood, I think, is getting that psychoeducation, whatever that might look like through pregnancy.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And that can just be education about matrescence and recognizing that these are some of the things that might happen when you have a baby.
Speaker: And if it does, then, you know, that's okay, you know, to be prepared for those things to happen so that when it does, you know, your expectations aren't completely misaligned because we know that's such a key thing for children.
Speaker: people who do experience postnatal depression or anxiety, that it's because their expectations for what motherhood is going to be like just completely mismatched.
Speaker: And how we romanticise this idea of motherhood as well.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker: Yeah, so no, go and for anyone who is listening and interested in it, definitely go and look at the Alexandra Sachs TED Talk and there's a beautiful article, I think in the New York Times, that also builds on that.
Speaker: We'll link those in the show notes.
Speaker: And also, we, of course, really enjoyed how you discussed what it's like being a psychologist with lived experience of mental illness, and in particular, how your training and knowledge around mental health and well-being might not have actually helped you.
Speaker: It's not necessarily a protective factor.
Speaker: So we loved this quote from your article, not the book, but your article, The Year My Brain Broke.
Speaker: So, so much of the treatment of mental health issues is trial and error, something I experienced firsthand.
Speaker: It was utterly terrifying to realize on the other side of the desk, just how much about the brain and psychiatric illnesses remains a mystery and the enormity of what we simply do not know.
Speaker: So if you were practicing at the moment in the sense of seeing clients, that sort of direct client contact, how do you think your experiences would impact your practice?
Speaker: Yeah, it's such a good question.
Speaker: And it's one I often reflect on.
Speaker: I think...
Speaker: Certainly what I found most difficult was that just that repeated questioning and I found, yeah, being asked the same things over and over again and just how exhausting that sort of whole assessment process is, you know, when you come in.
Speaker: And I think people are often surprised sometimes
Speaker: by that, that, you know, you have this expectation that if you're going to go and see, um, a psychologist or a counselor that used to go in and, and just sort of start sharing his story, but there's a lot of, you know, information gathering isn't there first that happens as part of that assessment before you can even get started, um, on that.
Speaker: And, and I think, you know, it, that's such a necessary part of, of the process, but, um,
Speaker: But it can be very, it can be quite, quite confronting.
Speaker: I think when you're, you know, you're already feeling vulnerable and exposed to sort of face that sort of barrage of questions.
Speaker: I think as well, you know, just being honest, I think as a young psychologist, and I think so much of, you know, we often have that imposter, you know,
Speaker: phenomenon, don't you, where you think that you need to know all the answers and that you have to know everything.
Speaker: And we just don't.
Speaker: And I think sometimes it is about kind of explaining that, that we're going to have to kind of travel this path together.
Speaker: And particularly with, this is obviously not so much for as a psychologist, but if you are working in conjunction with a psychiatrist or a GP, you
Speaker: around medication um but that really took me by surprise you know we might not get it right first go but it is in terms of the medication and and managing the side effects and and um the combination of um yeah of medication that you might take and just so i think just for me it was just just being really honest about that you know this is this is something we're going to figure out together and i don't necessarily have all the answers and
Speaker: some things that work for other people might not work for you.
Speaker: And, and just, um, that, yeah, that, that sort of openness, um, I think was, I really appreciated that when I found, um, a psychiatrist who was happy to say, I don't, I don't know all the answers, so we're going to figure this out together.
Speaker: And, um, I don't know how long it's going to take you to feel better.
Speaker: And, um, I'm sure that honesty was very much appreciated.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It actually really, really was.
Speaker: And it goes to that sort of collaborative process of working through something like that together.
Speaker: And I really, really, I didn't realize how much I would appreciate that honesty and transparency.
Speaker: I definitely would have, definitely have more empathy for how hard it is to also to actually get to the point where you're
Speaker: coming into a psychologist or psychiatrist or GPs on task for help.
Speaker: And I think I perhaps hadn't realized that until I was in those shoes, the effort involved in, and whether it is just looking for researching and finding a clinician online and then making that phone call, making the appointment, getting on the train or the bus or driving, following through and actually presenting to that.
Speaker: All of the work and stuff that's gone into actually getting to that point,
Speaker: is huge.
Speaker: That's just, I don't think I'd ever really considered that until I was sitting there in the psychiatrist waiting room having gone through all of that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I was really struck by how you were talking about
Speaker: the challenges that come with telling the story again and again, and the sort of assessment side of things.
Speaker: One thing I've heard a lot from clients and advocates is the frustration in sharing your story again and again and again, especially in those kinds of settings where you are working with lots of different
Speaker: professionals and you're not sort of developing that same relationship with someone over time.
Speaker: But also the whole sort of questionnaire assessment side of things, which is so common in so many treatment settings.
Speaker: And you speak in the book about, you know, completing the DAS again and again, that kind of thing and getting to a point where, you know, you were, your answers were not honestly reflecting how you were feeling.
Speaker: No, no, that's right.
Speaker: Can you reflect on that a little bit?
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: It was actually really funny to get my, so I requested my notes from the mother-baby unit.
Speaker: And when I called, they said, oh, look, we've actually destroyed all of your notes.
Speaker: And it's because it had been longer than seven years.
Speaker: So they don't have to keep them.
Speaker: And, um, but she did have the discharge summary.
Speaker: So she said she would send that out to me.
Speaker: And, and yeah, so I look at this discharge summary.
Speaker: And so when I was admitted, I did the DAS, which is the depression, anxiety and stress scale.
Speaker: Um, also I would have done the Edinburgh postnatal depression scale, the EPDS.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: I did the ANRQ or no, it would have been the postnatal PNRQ, which is the postnatal risk questionnaire.
Speaker: And that is a measure that looks at psychosocial risk factors or perinatal mental illness.
Speaker: And then I would have done some kind of attachment or bonding.
Speaker: I can't remember which one it was exactly, but some kind of, um,
Speaker: you know, adult attachment and also probably the parental bonding scale as well.
Speaker: There were a whole lot of questions.
Speaker: There's a lot of questions.
Speaker: I mean, the researcher in me is like, yes, data, love it.
Speaker: We can demonstrate impact and all that.
Speaker: You can understand that in the past, yeah, like how exciting all of this great data and it's all, you know, it's all quantitative.
Speaker: So it's all easy to kind of, you know, push through.
Speaker: Imagine you're, you know, you've gotten to the point of, wow, I have to be admitted to hospital and, you know, you turn up and it's like, okay, just fill out all of these forms.
Speaker: And when I was admitted, I did answer them.
Speaker: Honestly, I think by that point it was like, well, I'm here now.
Speaker: Like what am I going to do?
Speaker: It's not like, you know, and so, you know, my scores were very much reflective of that and as soon as to be a depression issue.
Speaker: So the mother baby unit, I mean, I was a terrible patient and I think this is just part of being a mental health professional with a mental illness.
Speaker: I just was a rubbish patient.
Speaker: And once I got in there, I found it really, really difficult.
Speaker: I found it really difficult.
Speaker: I was really ashamed of being there.
Speaker: So we did group therapy and a lot of it was really basic, really basic sort of CBT, mindfulness, circle of security work.
Speaker: Everything that's old hat to you through your training and your work.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: And so it just felt, I just felt so ashamed.
Speaker: I just kept thinking this is what I, this is the sort of work that I was doing in my old life and here I am.
Speaker: And I was there for, I think for about three weeks.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But yeah, towards the end, I just, I thought I just, this is not the right place for me.
Speaker: Like I needed to, I felt like I needed to be back out, back at home and, you know, I really wanted to get back to work.
Speaker: And so I was, I was, it was a voluntary admission.
Speaker: So I was able to leave.
Speaker: I remember saying, I think, I think I'd like to, like to go home.
Speaker: And so you basically do the same, pretty much the same measures on, which again, as the research, you're like, yes,
Speaker: I'm like completing all this stuff.
Speaker: And so, you know, it's like you got your pre and your post measures and that's great.
Speaker: Um, but yeah, there I was, and I was more looking at this, this depression, anxiety, stress, like, yep, good, good, good.
Speaker: All good.
Speaker: Happy.
Speaker: Not anxious.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Well done.
Speaker: Like your program is excellent.
Speaker: And, um, yeah.
Speaker: And I sort of, so, so when I looked at the, the scores, um, when I got the discharge summary and they were so different, you know, so I had come in and it was, you know, X and then I, on my way out and it was literally like kind of the opposite, like nothing to see here.
Speaker: it was quite confronting to see that and i i actually had a a session which i talk about in the book um with my psychiatrist dr q and i said look i got my discharge summary she's like oh yeah do you want to do it can do um i kind of talk it through with you and
Speaker: And I said, I just don't understand.
Speaker: I mean, it's so clear here that I was fudging, that I was, you know, selecting the kind of answers that I knew would look good.
Speaker: And she sort of said, yeah, but, you know, what were they going to do?
Speaker: I mean, you didn't want to be there.
Speaker: You were ready to go.
Speaker: And there was nothing, I guess, about your presentation at that point that, you know,
Speaker: meant that they could kind of force you to stay.
Speaker: And yeah, you sort of, you know, you did what you felt you needed to do.
Speaker: And I sort of said to her at the time, oh yeah, you know, it's quite funny.
Speaker: And she said, yeah, but is it?
Speaker: Because I'm not sensing that you think it's funny.
Speaker: I'm like, what do you mean?
Speaker: Well, defensiveness.
Speaker: She said, no, I think you saying that it's funny is actually a defense.
Speaker: And I said, no, I think you're right.
Speaker: And when I think about it, I think there was that sense of, you know, not being seen, of kind of being let sort of...
Speaker: slip through the kind of cracks in a way, just because I was so skillful at being able to avoid being detected in the scene.
Speaker: Well, I get the impression if you had had more of a positive experience as an inpatient, you know, maybe you would not have been so desperate to get out of there.
Speaker: Maybe you would have answered honestly.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: Yes and no.
Speaker: I mean, I think I was just, I was a bit of an asshole on the ward.
Speaker: Like I was genuinely, like I was a bit of like, I, and I can, I can, like I have enough sort of, you know, self-awareness, I think to, to be able to say that and to be able to separate.
Speaker: you know, my behavior, I guess, inverted commas to the program itself.
Speaker: And I think, you know, I was really, I was scared.
Speaker: And so being scared sort of came out in me feeling like, like,
Speaker: quite, I think a bit hostile to, and not that you would know.
Speaker: I mean, it's not like I, when I say that, um, no one would have picked up on that, but it was just my sort of way of, I guess, having some sort of sense of control.
Speaker: Um, and so things like, you know, doing group or art therapy and other
Speaker: I'm not doing art therapy.
Speaker: Like what's the evidence-based art therapy?
Speaker: Like what an asshole.
Speaker: So I think it was just what I needed was the right medication, a really skilled psychiatrist who could sort of
Speaker: grip onto me and see exactly what was going on and not let me go under the radar.
Speaker: And, um, I think I'm such a huge advocate for mother baby units.
Speaker: I think they are so important and we don't have enough of them.
Speaker: And, um, I think I was just a really difficult patient and, um, and yeah, I think just going in there, um,
Speaker: Um, and having to, I just felt so ashamed about having gotten to that point that I don't think I got out of it.
Speaker: Um, what most people do and most people will describe going on a mother baby unit and describe it as having, you know, saved their life and changed their lives.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: And I think for me, I can see it in that way in that it's helped me to see that I wasn't the only person going through this.
Speaker: So it gave me a sense of, yeah.
Speaker: And sort of finding people who were going through the same thing at the same time.
Speaker: And so that, you know, community of other moms is really important.
Speaker: And also the referral, they referred me to the incredible psychiatrist who I still see today.
Speaker: So in many ways, you know, it was a sort of a necessary part of that journey.
Speaker: I just was a terrible patient.
Speaker: Well, I think there's that saying, doctors make terrible patients.
Speaker: I think there's a thought.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I think so.
Speaker: And I, you know, I've heard even like speaking about, and I think not doing clinical work and moving away from that and working in the area in other ways has given me the freedom to be able to talk about some of those things that I think clinical psychologists or people working clinically.
Speaker: don't feel that they have the, um, the space to, to be able to talk about.
Speaker: And, um, so I, you know, I think it, yeah, it's, it's much easier for me to, um, to, to talk about this.
Speaker: And a lot of psychologists who have mental illness feel like they can't talk about it openly and, um, because they're worried about what it will mean for their registration or what it might mean, um, to practice.
Speaker: And that's, that's a really, really real fear.
Speaker: Um, so yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, I remember a few years ago talking to a friend about not even having a mental health issue, just saying, I would like to see what therapy is like before becoming a psychologist.
Speaker: Which you should do.
Speaker: Everybody who does and becomes a psychologist or psychiatrist should do their own therapy.
Speaker: In the US, don't they have to do it as well?
Speaker: I think so, yeah.
Speaker: It's a huge part of their program is they have to undergo therapy.
Speaker: And, you know, in the U S it's usually like psychoanalysis, like, you know, whereas here is actually, it's not a requirement, is it?
Speaker: It's encouraged, but definitely not a requirement.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: What I found interesting in that conversation, this friend was actually saying, Oh, be careful with that.
Speaker: Cause someone might report you to opera for being in therapy.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But that's the deception, right?
Speaker: But that's the fear.
Speaker: Yeah, that's the fear.
Speaker: And even, so I have my registration on non-practicing and each year I go through it and take all the boxes and so on.
Speaker: And, you know, it does have something that someone says, do you have, you know, a mental illness or something that would affect your capacity to work?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And it says something like, you know, this does not include, you know, if you have an anxiety and anxiety condition and you are seeing someone regularly for anxiety.
Speaker: And so they do spell that out, but, but what, yeah, like there is still, I think you're right.
Speaker: That, that fear of, well, if I am, yeah, seeking therapy or support for a mental illness or to manage a mental illness, what does that mean for my ability to practice?
Speaker: But,
Speaker: Everyone, anyone who's working as a psychologist or counselor, go and do your own therapy.
Speaker: It's so important.
Speaker: And it's the most rich experience to know what it's like to be on the other side and to be vulnerable.
Speaker: And it just makes you a better clinician.
Speaker: It's so important.
Speaker: And that's the problem.
Speaker: And I know that this has come up recently.
Speaker: it's fine for us, isn't it, to be able to say, oh, go and do psychotherapy.
Speaker: But it can be these days.
Speaker: It's expensive.
Speaker: It's not something that's necessarily... As accessible as we'd like.
Speaker: not as accessible as we would like, but it definitely, if it is something that you can do, it's definitely something I think you should prioritize for anyone working in this space because it just gives you the richest perspective and the skills that you learn on the other side and things that when you're working with patients and you'll hear things that you have experienced yourself or that a trusted clinician has said to you and they come back to you in that moment and it just makes you so much better.
Speaker: I also fully believe, you know, regardless of the therapy side of things, that lived experience is a strength that we bring to practice.
Speaker: Yeah, I think so too.
Speaker: I think I'm a better psychologist, even though I'm also not working in a direct client role, but I think I'm a better psychologist because of my lived experience and what I've been through with my own mental health and, you know, my experience seeking therapy and working with other people with lived experience like advocates and so on.
Speaker: It gives me a different perspective and helps me a lot with empathy and, you know,
Speaker: I think there's also some power if somebody says to you, you don't know what it's like to go, oh, actually, you're making an assumption.
Speaker: I do know what it's like.
Speaker: That's right.
Speaker: That's right.
Speaker: And it's, yeah, it's, it's, it's really, yeah, the lived experience side.
Speaker: And it's, it was definitely a double-edged thought.
Speaker: And I think there are times where, you know, working in perinatal mental health, you know,
Speaker: And most of the time it's such a privilege and it motivates me.
Speaker: But there are times where I might read, there's been a few, for example, inquests after maternal suicide and infanticide recently.
Speaker: And I'm not sure whether it's just that I'm more attuned to it or whether there has been more recently.
Speaker: But
Speaker: Yeah, you read these stories about the failures in the system and they really, like they're the things that I find, you know, quite distressing and upsetting.
Speaker: I think that it is most of the time that lived experience is a very powerful perspective to be able to bring to the work.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Well, slightly segwaying away from the psychologist's perspective,
Speaker: A lot of things, maybe.
Speaker: So, Elisa and I are both recently married and kind of at that stage in life where we are thinking about starting a family or families, separate families.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: We have to be careful we rephrase this because we realize how easy it might sound that we're married to each other.
Speaker: It's like, you know, we're just very good friends.
Speaker: We're just happy to get engaged from partners.
Speaker: Like we're engaged to separate people.
Speaker: Separate families.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, so it's very interesting because obviously, you know, we are also psychologists like you.
Speaker: So reading this book, we really enjoy the book and are really glad for this knowledge about perinatal psychosis, but also we're a little bit.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: What if this happens to me?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's brought up just a few anxieties.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Sorry guys.
Speaker: No, I think it's tricky, isn't it?
Speaker: And I think there's that sense of not wanting to scare new mothers and new parents, expected parents, but also wanting people to be aware of, of what can happen.
Speaker: And there's a really delicate balance, I think in terms of,
Speaker: um yeah spreading that awareness but also um making sure that yeah people aren't scared and look i think it's really important to kind of reiterate that um you know postpartum psychosis is rare it's you know one to two in um every 1000 women but postnatal depression is much more common so that's you know one in seven
Speaker: One in seven women.
Speaker: And perinatal anxiety and depression is one in five women.
Speaker: So statistically, if you look around, you're in a mother's group, there is probably someone in your group who will be struggling and potentially struggling in violence.
Speaker: So I think it's just about being aware, being aware of the signs.
Speaker: And I think so much of it too is about, so if you have a history of mental illness, mental health challenges, if you've had a history of perhaps depression,
Speaker: if you're exquisitely sensitive like I am to hormones, so, you know, your cycle and that sort of stuff as well.
Speaker: These are all things to be mindful of so that when you are planning your pregnancy or going through pregnancy and you're sort of aware of your own, what you're bringing to your experience with pregnancy and motherhood and you can prepare for that.
Speaker: So if you do have a history of mental illness, then that is about –
Speaker: your preconception planning and if you're on medication talking to your doctor about whether it's safe to continue that medication and in some cases it's actually you do a risk benefit and it is actually um more important to stay on the medication than to come off um so yeah it's about that preconception planning talking to doctor about um yeah medication if it's important
Speaker: and getting that planning and support through pregnancy so that everything is set up there as a safety net and doing everything you can so that, yeah, you can postnatally.
Speaker: If something does happen, if you need help, you know where to get it, you've got your sort of team there and it's not completely, you're not navigating a system completely unexpected.
Speaker: And so I think it's just, yeah, preparation, knowledge is power, having that information.
Speaker: and preparing as as best you can but yeah nothing i mean i can say that nothing to be to be scared of but i think part of writing the book is that um mine and so many women it goes undetected yeah for so long and that's what um that's these the tragedies that that we hear about the um that you often hear about in the news and it doesn't have to be because people around you
Speaker: if people around you are aware and looking out for, in the UK, there's a group called action on postpartum psychosis action on PP.
Speaker: And their whole kind of campaign is basically new mom seems strange is the, their kind of social media or their campaign and their posters and so on.
Speaker: It's literally new mom seems strange.
Speaker: And it has a list of kind of,
Speaker: behaviors that seem strange.
Speaker: And to me, that's like, it's such a simple concept that if someone just acting, not themselves, you know, are they, are they a bit odd and it's not maybe blues, which, you know, we associate and with 80% of women will experience that it's, is there something, you know, qualitatively odd?
Speaker: are different about the way that mum's behaving.
Speaker: And yeah, being alert to that and so family, friends, health professionals so that you can get help.
Speaker: So knowledge is power and I think, yeah, I think for people like us too who have
Speaker: so much awareness and sometimes can seem like it's more scary because we sort of know all the things that can potentially go wrong.
Speaker: But, um, I think we also need to look at that as we also know all the things that we can do for it to be, you know, a different experience as well.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Slight tangent, I was chatting to my husband about this book and I said, you know what, maybe you should read this just in case.
Speaker: If this happens to me in a postnatal depression or anxiety, I'm actually...
Speaker: too good at hiding it myself or yeah yeah yeah and i really that's uh thank you for mentioning that because i think that's it we've so much so much is um yeah detection is um about our partners keeping an eye on us and then it's our partners you know when our behavior is slightly awful not quite right um that you know gp or a psychologist or
Speaker: you know, a maternal child health nurse who we're seeing for the first time, they don't have that comparison point.
Speaker: They're not seeing you and going, Oh, you're not who you usually are.
Speaker: That's what you need your loved ones and your support network to be looking out for.
Speaker: And speaking of looking after ourselves, as two people who've both taken up dancing in the last few years, we really love the sections of the memoir where you talk about the role of movement and specifically in LA in supporting your mental health.
Speaker: So what does self-care mean to you these days and how, what does ballet look like for you?
Speaker: It's funny, isn't it?
Speaker: Because when I think about, I think about that kind of petulant 20 something year old sitting in that art therapy room on the MBU and thinking, Oh, what's the evidence-based for art?
Speaker: And, you know, why are you asking me to do collages?
Speaker: And,
Speaker: And the irony is that it was art, you know, it was writing and it was dance that sort of helped to bring me back and might not have been colouring or painting on the psych ward, but my kind of own, you know, assumptions about what would help me to get better.
Speaker: was, yeah, I had really challenged, really challenged me.
Speaker: And I think, so I had, you know, trained to be a dancer and then stopped that when I went to study psychology and then became a mom and so on.
Speaker: And it was when I was,
Speaker: sort of floating, I had tried to go back to work and had relapsed and so was back off.
Speaker: And by that stage, kind of on sick leave because it wasn't really maternity leave and sort of just bouncing around.
Speaker: And yeah, I was dropping my son at school and I noticed that there was a dance school opposite.
Speaker: And yeah, it just sort of felt like, okay, this is a fight.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And yeah, dug out the old shoes and Lily is hard and yeah, went back to the studio.
Speaker: And it was honestly one of the best things that I could have done.
Speaker: I think when I think about it, it was, it gave me the something about dance that is so, you know, it takes you out of your head and it puts you completely in your body and you're focusing on the music and you're focusing on the position of your character.
Speaker: hands and your arms and your head.
Speaker: And, um, and so it completely took me out of my head and, and kind of, yeah, it was completely grounding and gave me that other, um, way to, I guess, to express myself and to find myself or to help me find that old me and bring back those elements.
Speaker: of the old me before I got sick.
Speaker: And then over the last few years, I had an opportunity, came up to do some teaching.
Speaker: And so I started teaching preschool and toddler ballet and adult ballet beginners.
Speaker: And that has just been the biggest joy.
Speaker: It's just been so good to me.
Speaker: And yeah, just, I think, yeah,
Speaker: just such a powerful way to, to share my love of something, share my love of dance and to give back and community in that way as well.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I feel, I always feel like I'm always smiling when I talk about it.
Speaker: I love that it brings so much joy.
Speaker: That's just so good.
Speaker: It does.
Speaker: It brings me so much joy.
Speaker: And it's, you know, I continued to teach while I was writing the book and that was, I think, such an important outlet as well, just to,
Speaker: just to know that, okay, I'm having a rough day with this, but I'm going to be in the studio for an hour and I'm going to be with these women who, these beginner adults who are just so much fun to teach and they have so much fun.
Speaker: And that hour just, I would always come away thinking, okay, I've got this or kind of help me work through those naughty issues as well, problems.
Speaker: So yeah, they've given me so much.
Speaker: I think I get more out of teaching than they do to be honest with you.
Speaker: It always seems to me like dancing as an adult is more fun than dancing as a child.
Speaker: I think so.
Speaker: Yeah, it's that lack of, like, as an adult, you can just enjoy the movements and you don't have to worry about the technical skills of it.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: It's letting go of the perfection, I think.
Speaker: And it's the difference too between obviously training for something vocationally and then as an adult.
Speaker: And I have this amazing class of women who are, there's three of them, probably over 60 and sort of retired or they're semi-retired.
Speaker: And there's just this beautiful sense of,
Speaker: um oh we'll just give it a go like you know we'll just we'll just see we'll just see what happens you know and you know that that that sense of just yeah we'll just we'll just give it a go we'll just see what happens it doesn't have to be perfect and finally a question that we ask all of our interviewees do you have any book or author recommendations that you would like to share with our listeners
Speaker: You know what?
Speaker: I was looking this morning when I was thinking about this and, um, all of us, I have this beautiful and I, it's funny at the moment I'm finding having, um, written this book and edited and now going through this process.
Speaker: I can't read like, it's just something that I cannot read and I'm buying lots of books and they're just kind of stacking up.
Speaker: So I buy books.
Speaker: Um, but I feel like it's, it's going to take me a little while for my brain to kind of get to the point where I'm able to
Speaker: to read.
Speaker: I'm sure it'll come back.
Speaker: But one thing I did pick up was this beautiful, it's called gratitude by Oliver Sacks.
Speaker: He's a beautiful neuroscientist, wasn't he?
Speaker: Neurologist.
Speaker: And he writes so beautifully about, you know, he wrote the man who mistook his wife for a hat.
Speaker: And some, you know, other beautiful memoirs and so on.
Speaker: And
Speaker: this one said gratitude.
Speaker: It's this tiny little book of, um, of essays that were published.
Speaker: I think they were published in New York times, um, just before he died.
Speaker: And then just such a beautiful reflection on, you know, what it's like to be human and what it's like to kind of be at the end of your life and, and reflecting, um, on, yeah, on, on,
Speaker: writing and music and love and being loved and it's one of those ones where even when i am not able to read it's something i can just pick up and go i've got i can read one essay i can read one so yeah i think so it's called it's gratitude by um oliver sacks it's just a beautiful little um collection of essays and they're also available um on the new york times but it's just a
Speaker: It's one that I go back to a lot.
Speaker: We'll put a link in the show notes for it.
Speaker: Yeah, it's really, really lovely.
Speaker: He's such a beautiful, elegant writer as well, especially for people who are interested in psychology and the brain and the mind and its quirks, someone to always go back to and...
Speaker: Amazing.
Speaker: Well, that wraps up our questions for today.
Speaker: So Arianne, thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker: It's my pleasure.
Speaker: My pleasure.
Speaker: Thank you for such insightful questions.
Speaker: It was really, really lovely to talk about some different things as well.
Speaker: Oh, wonderful.
Speaker: So good to have you on the pod.
Speaker: And that wraps up our interview.
Speaker: And of course, just to flag that we will include those links and recommendations on our show notes, which are on our website.
Speaker: So the links to the TED talk and Ariane's book recommendation.
Speaker: If you like us, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker: You can find us on novelfeelings.com and the best place to find us on social media is Instagram or on Storygraph.
Speaker: You can also find my book Scram paved with books with an extra S at the end.
Speaker: It has suffered due to some exciting live events, but it's still there.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: Well, thank you so much for listening and a huge thank you to Arianne for joining us today.
Speaker: Catch you next time.
Speaker: See you later.
