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Episode 11: Internship Supervision Chat With My LPC Supervisor - Dr. Ryan Bowers
183 Plays1 year ago
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From Intern to Entrepreneur is the podcast for counseling graduate students (and other grad students in mental health fields) to start planning their journey to private practice while they're still in graduate school! Host, Cori White, started planning her journey while she was still in her graduate program and it paid off BIG to start planning EARLY.
In this episode of From Intern to Entrepreneur, Cori interviews HER old licensure supervisor - Dr. Ryan Bowers! They chat about:
- His journey to becoming a counselor, professor, and supervision expert
- How he has used his mentors to guide his career
- How he defines supervision and what good supervision looks like during your internship
- How to use your academic supervisors for support
More about Ryan:
Ryan Bowers is a Licensed Professional Counselor in Pennsylvania, a National Board-Certified Counselor, and a Certified Advanced Alcohol and Drug Counselor who has been practicing and conducting research on clinical and academic supervision since 2014. As a graduate of Duquesne University’s CACREP-Accredited Counselor Education Ph.D. program, Ryan was trained didactically and experientially on conducting supervision for both graduate students in counseling programs and with post-graduate professionals seeking licensure. Ryan has held teaching positions at various colleges and universities in Pennsylvania including, Immaculata University, Duquesne University, Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine, Kutztown University, Albright College, Elizabethtown College, and Lehigh Carbon Community College. He is also the owner of Epistemic Consulting Service, LLC where he provides clinical mental health and substance use counseling to individuals, couples, and families. Ryan uses the Discrimination Model of Supervision (Bernard, 1979) and the Integrative Reflective Model of Group Supervision (Stinchfield, Hill, & Bowers, 2019) when working with students and post-masters professionals to help the counselors develop into ethical and effective clinicians.
Want to connect with Ryan? Connect with him below:
Website: www.ReadingECS.com
Email: info@readingecs.com
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Transcript
Introduction and Podcast Format Shift
00:00:00
Speaker
This is from intern to entrepreneur, the podcast for counseling and therapy graduate students who want to start planning their journey to private practice while they're still in grad school. I'm your host Corey White. And within three years of graduating from my master's program, I had a six figure thriving private practice in large part because I started planning my path while I was still in grad school.
00:00:21
Speaker
This podcast is full of stories and information meant to give you ideas about how you can carve your own path to the therapy career that you want. Please note that when you're listening to this podcast, licensure laws and requirements vary from state to state. So check with your state board about what you can and can't do on your journey. And without further ado, enjoy this episode of From Intern to Entrepreneur.
00:00:46
Speaker
Oh, hey there, grad students. This is episode 11 of From Intern to Entrepreneur. And today's the episode that we switch things up a little bit. So the first 10 episodes of this podcast were Journey episodes. There were episodes where I was interviewing clinicians about their experience from before they were clinicians, before they even went to grad school.
00:01:05
Speaker
to becoming successful private practice owners and I thought it was really important when I started this podcast that that is where I started because it was stories like that and listening to podcasts like that that got me through my graduate program. I found my graduate program to be very rewarding but it was super difficult for me to get through because I had so much going on in my life. I had to work a full-time job
00:01:27
Speaker
I just had a lot going on and so listening to stories about people who were successful in the profession was the inspiration to get to class another day.
Importance of Supervision in Private Practice
00:01:38
Speaker
So I wanted to really put that out for people now to hear inspirational stories about clinicians who are doing the damn thing.
00:01:45
Speaker
but I want to switch gears and get more topical and I want to talk about things more directly related to clinical subjects and entrepreneurial topics. So I figured what better place to start than having our first topic be super vision because I believe, and I really do think this is true, that at the heart and the foundation of any successful private practice has to be a good clinician, has to be someone who has strong clinical skills because otherwise what is your business model?
00:02:11
Speaker
to scam people? No, we don't want that. We want you to be strong and we want you to be good clinicians. And in order to become a really good strong clinician, I think that you need really good supervision. And so today I am talking with Dr. Ryan Bowers about clinical supervision and specifically the kind of supervision that you'll get while you're going through your internship and practicum while you're still in grad school. Next week I actually have an episode with Dr. Amy Fortney-Parks where we talk a little bit about
00:02:37
Speaker
the post-grad experience in supervision. She owns the clinical supervision directory. And so we talk a little bit about that, but today we're focusing on where you are in grad school and what is probably most in alignment with what you're needing to hear right now. Now, if you haven't heard me mention this already,
00:02:54
Speaker
Ryan was actually my LPC supervisor so when I decided that supervision was going to be the first topic of the topical episodes I knew that I had to reach out to him because I learned everything I know about supervision from him and he's also the most enthusiastic person about supervision
00:03:10
Speaker
that I've ever met so it had to be him and thankfully he decided that he would come on. It was such a great episode. It was such a great interview for me to do first of all because I was nervous which is not something I've experienced in the past doing these episodes really. So I think it kept me on my toes a little bit more but also what a cool full circle moment I talk about this a little bit at the end of the episode for me to kind of interview someone who had such an impact on me and really who is just a brilliant clinician.
Ryan Bowers' Journey to Counseling
00:03:40
Speaker
So a little more about Ryan before we get started. He is a licensed professional counselor in Pennsylvania. He's a national board certified counselor and a certified advanced alcohol and drug counselor who's been practicing and conducting research on clinical and academic supervision since 2014. So that's a long time he knows his stuff. He's also been a professor at like seven different universities across the state of Pennsylvania
00:04:01
Speaker
And he is the owner of Epistemic Consulting Services, also located here in Pennsylvania. So he knows what he's doing. He does a lot of things. I'm so excited for you to meet my LPC supervisor. Grad students, meet Ryan. Hi, Ryan. Thanks for being here on the podcast with me. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you, Corey, for having me today. This is a true honor to be here with you.
00:04:28
Speaker
Yeah. Well, thanks for saying that. I guess I should tell people who are listening that you were my LPC supervisor, which feels really strange to say because it feels like it was yesterday, but also I think about it and I'm like, no, that was like two and a half years ago. I feel like was the, around the last time I saw you. Wow. Has it been that long? Yeah, which is pretty insane. I kind of think this, the question that I always start with everybody's interesting where it's like, tell me, you know, how you decided to become a counselor and then your career journey and,
00:04:57
Speaker
I was thinking about this. I was like, I thought I would know something about this and I don't. Like this is what I know about you. I know that you used to work at Target. And I think that's like all I know about
00:05:09
Speaker
before you were what you do now. So yeah, why don't you tell everybody about your counseling journey, how you became a counselor, and then how you decided the path that you took. Okay, yeah, yeah, thank you. So I'll give you a somewhat truncated version of that because it'll take a long time.
00:05:28
Speaker
But basically what happened was, so I was an adult, non-traditional student, as we now call them now. When I grew up in New Jersey, down near Long Beach Islands, I'm kind of a beach guy. And I came out here to Pennsylvania, where I attended Westchester University, where
00:05:47
Speaker
I went to school thinking I was going to be a music teacher and then I ended up being a history teacher and then this and then. I never knew really what I wanted to do and I ended up leaving Westchester without a degree and kind of just bounced around from job to job. I found myself doing what we call loss prevention. I used to tackle shoplifters and do some really exciting stuff which nowadays we can't really do.
00:06:11
Speaker
But while I was there, I got this knack for finding employees who were stealing. And I got so good at catching people, the employees stealing,
00:06:23
Speaker
that they decided to give me special training. And so what would happen, I worked for a company called Marshalls, part of the TJ Maxx family. It was cool place. They have great clothing there. And what would happen is when I would catch somebody stealing, they would have to have what they call an investigator come in and do an interview with them. And the interview was a behavioral based conversation that we would get basically we'd get people to admit to stealing stuff.
00:06:49
Speaker
And I was super fascinated by this because it was psychologically driven. And I was catching so many people more than anybody else that they just said, you know, we're just going to send you to training because we don't have enough investigators to come to your store. And so they sent me to the training and I started doing this and this became the bulk of my loss prevention career, where I was just interviewing people constantly and getting them to admit to me about what they've done and what they stole. And I was really interested in the psychology behind like, just by saying certain things, people would
00:07:18
Speaker
give me all this stuff. They would tell me these things that would usually get them arrested. And I was like, why does this work? Ended up flying around the country, working for a company where it was just run and gun. You'd fly here to talk to somebody. You'd fly there. And so I was never really home and wanted to be home with my wife. And so I ended up deciding that I wanted to go back to college.
Personal Tragedy and Career Shift
00:07:42
Speaker
And I was like, all right, I'm going to go finish my degree finally. And then that's where I started working at Target.
00:07:48
Speaker
And I decided that I wanted to be a human resource manager because that seemed like a really cool job at Target as an executive. And so I went back, so I finished my bachelor's degree at Albright College in Reading. And I was like, all right, let me enroll in a master's program. And I enrolled in their MBA program.
00:08:08
Speaker
And right before, it was during the summertime, right before I was supposed to start the MBA program, I was, this sounds weird, I was working out in my garage. When I say working out, I was like riding a bike in my garage, I don't really work out.
00:08:22
Speaker
And there was a commotion going on outside and I popped my head out and I was like, what's going on? And my next door neighbor Katie ran over. She's like, do you know CPR? And I was like, oh no. Like that's never a good thing to ask somebody. And so we lived in a town home community right outside of the Reading area.
00:08:40
Speaker
And I figured that maybe there was an older person or somebody was having a heart attack or something. So I was like, yeah, let's go. So I followed her over across the street to my neighbor's house, who she had just had a child a few weeks prior. And the child had stopped breathing. And I was not prepared for that. And I was trained in infant CPR, so I started to do CPR on the child.
00:09:03
Speaker
for what seemed like an eternity was only about five or 10 minutes before the ambulance got there and it was it was extremely draining and I in so many different emotions were going through through myself in my mind and my body was feeling all these sorts of things it was it was very it was very surreal and
00:09:24
Speaker
Once the ambulance came, they lifelined the child and they said they were able to get a heartbeat, but unfortunately the child didn't make it through the night. And all these emotions and things that I was feeling were going on. And I remember working one day and I heard a child start crying and I immediately froze.
00:09:42
Speaker
And I was like, what is this? I don't and so I was like, I need to go into counseling. And so I ended up started doing counseling with a group right out of Reading. And I'm gonna say her name, her name's Jen Selby, you know, she was she is like the best counselor ever. And she helped me through so many different things, and really changed my life to the point where I was like,
00:10:04
Speaker
maybe I want to do this counseling thing. So I called Alberta University where I was scheduled to start. And I said, I want to change to your counseling program. And it was called community counseling at the time. This is how long ago this was. And then so so fast forward, I was there for two semesters, I transferred to Immaculata University in their counseling psychology program, because I thought I wanted to be a psychologist.
00:10:29
Speaker
And so I started to really get into this counseling stuff and I was like, oh my gosh, I'm like, this is so cool. And I was like, all right, I'm going to leave retail like forever and I'm going to become a counselor. And I ended up completing my internship at Child Guidance Resource Center in Havertown.
00:10:47
Speaker
which getting that internship is just a whole other story in of itself. But I was working with kids, a group that I never wanted to work with, I had this kind of tragedy happen in my life. And I'm like, Oh, right now I'm working with kids. So I did so I balanced that out with working with sex offenders at the same time, they get another story I could talk about fill those stories. And so so I was able to, to really kind of balance out that work working with
Diverse Experience in Counseling
00:11:13
Speaker
the two. And while I was doing that,
00:11:16
Speaker
One of my professors at Immaculata, Tracy Stinchfield, Dr. Stinchfield, she got sick. And she's like, can you help me teach this class? And I was like, yeah, sure, I'll help. And so I helped at that time. And then when we were done, because she had lost her voice. And so that's why I had to do some speaking for her. And she came up to me and she said, you really need to go get your PhD in counselor ed so that you can teach. And I was like, huh, I've never really thought about that before.
00:11:42
Speaker
And I trusted everything Dr. Stinchfield said to me, so I just implicitly was like, okay, where are we going? What are we doing? She's like, you're going to apply to Duquesne University. I'm like, all right, I'm applying to Duquesne University. And I go out there and I was like, oh, I got a spot. She's like, good, you're going to Pittsburgh and you're going to do that program. Like, okay, I'm going to do that program.
00:11:57
Speaker
While I was there in my PhD program, I continued to do counseling and worked with substance abuse populations, worked with general mental health, severe mental health diagnoses, working with sex offenders, perpetrators, and victims of domestic violence, working with the LGBTQI community. And I just got this awesome experience. And it kind of has led me to where I am today, which is as a professor and a clinician at the same time. So I kind of try to split my time 50-50.
00:12:26
Speaker
Um, yeah, I hope that answered your question. I'm sorry. Do you become? No, that's a great, it's, I can't believe like in the last like five or so minutes that I learned so much more about you. Um, and I've known you now for like five years. So there's a couple of things that stood out to me about your story. And one of them was it seems like you really trusted your mentors.
00:12:52
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, implicitly. So one of the things that I've learned in my time, and this actually informs my pedagogy, it informs my counseling, and it also informs my research that I conduct. And that is that I cannot have control of my life.
00:13:10
Speaker
And now when I tell people, we actually have no control. Control is an illusion. And my students just get absolutely freaked out. I think I caused one poor girl to quit the program because she was just so disturbed by this concept. But I learned that when I'm in charge of my life and when I'm making decisions for myself, my life goes the way it's not supposed to go. Or I sometimes call it swimming upstream. When I'm in control, I often feel like I'm swimming upstream. When I just let myself go,
00:13:39
Speaker
when I'm no longer in control of my life. Some people will call it your higher power. I call it my universe, spirituality, nature, whatever you want to call it. When I let
00:13:49
Speaker
everything outside of my life take care of me, my life goes in the direction that it is supposed to go. And so moving, moving, going to Maculata University, I originally went there because I wanted to be a psychologist. And I had one of my friends who works here, Francine, she was my professor for multicultural. And she said to me, she's like, you need to be in our CID program. And I was like, yes, I'm gonna do that.
Mentorship and Career Guidance
00:14:14
Speaker
And then I have Stinchfield in my life. She's like, you definitely need to go to Councilor Ed. And I was like,
00:14:18
Speaker
I'm going to go that route. The universe put her in my life at that moment. And I can't tell you why or how. And I didn't question it. And so when she said, yeah, you need to go to Duquesne and you need to get your degree in counselor ed, I just said, OK, that's what I'm going to do, because this is what the universe is telling me to do. And it has worked out just so incredibly well that I can't live my life any other way now
00:14:43
Speaker
Because again, when I start to intervene with my life, that's when stuff goes south. But when I let the universe do what the universe is telling me to do, I had these really awesome experiences in life. And one of those awesome experiences was having you as a supervisee for a brief moment in time and having everybody else in my life because
00:15:02
Speaker
And as I talk about when we talk about supervision, I learned so much from my clients and I learned so much from my super my supervisees about life, about their lives, but but sometimes more importantly, depending on what stage of my life I'm talking about, it taught me a lot about who I am and how to live my life. This is a theme that's come up in almost all of the interviews that I've done with with the people I'm interviewing are like, I don't know if I use the term like go getters, but
00:15:29
Speaker
high achievers are doing a lot of things or like to be involved in things and are generally successful. And the theme I keep hearing is paying attention to the people that are around them and when they're hearing things and when there's opportunities that are being presented to them, not that they're like trying to choke and chase down. So that was really cool to hear you say that.
00:15:55
Speaker
I have 145 other questions for you so you're definitely going to have to come on again in the future after I like process some of all of that. I had you come on here because you were my supervisor and you, I mean this with love, are the biggest supervision nerd that I've ever met. And I'm like, well, if I'm going to be talking about supervision, I have to have Ryan come on here and talk about supervision.
00:16:16
Speaker
I also learned pretty much everything I know about supervision from you. So I guess this basic ask question, what is supervision to you? How do you define it? Yeah. I mean, I can give a great question. I can give you the technical definition, which is something along the lines of somebody who oversees another person's work. That is just not even close to being able to describe what we actually do.
00:16:46
Speaker
I divide supervision up into two different realms. The first realm of supervision that I sometimes dabble in, which is supervision of interns. So the way that I supervise practicum and intern students who are in grad programs is completely different than the way that I work with people who are postmasters and looking for licensure.
00:17:07
Speaker
the supervision that you receive for me is drastically different from the supervision that I do, that I conduct with students. So, and kind of the reason why is when you're working with grad students, especially like practicum, practicum is one of my favorite classes to teach because I get these students that for two-ish kind of years have been learning everything didactically about
00:17:31
Speaker
theory about skills about multiculturalism, they're learning about group theory, they're learning about all these different things about family and couples counseling. And then they get to me and they're like, I don't know what I'm doing. And they're just balls of anxiety. And it's almost like everything that we taught them kind of goes by the wayside. And I say that not in a pejorative way, or a denigrating way, but
00:17:53
Speaker
like I explain to students all the time like I can teach you about riding a bicycle and I can tell you all about the gears and chains and the seat and how to adjust it and so much that you know every single spec but you're not going to be able to ride until you get on it.
00:18:08
Speaker
And so that's what that experience is like for students is that they're now on the bike and they're riding it. And so for me, I have to realize developmentally because much like we have human development, we have we have we also have the development of the counselor identity as well and counseling skills. And so I can't sit there and talk to them in a way that I would somebody who has graduated from a program and has a year or two of experience of working.
00:18:35
Speaker
So a lot of it is just very basic kind of supporting them, letting them know that it's going to be okay, normalizing that experience for them. Because we all felt that when we were in our practicums or our first internships, we were scared to death that we're either A, gonna break somebody, B, do something that's gonna get us sued, or C, somebody's gonna find out that we're frauds, because that's usually the imposter syndrome is like the biggest thing.
00:19:02
Speaker
For me, it's working through a lot of those issues with students and then getting them comfortable with the process of just working with somebody. And then as we get into our internships, it's more of the same where we're still kind of focusing on skills, we're still talking about kind of their transference, their experiences, but it's very surface level kind of stuff.
00:19:25
Speaker
And also, the other difference between that and the postmaster stuff is that usually you have two different supervisors when you're in practicum and internship, you have your academic supervisor, then you have your site supervisor. And so those roles are a lot different as well. The site supervisor is going to be more involved with the population, what you're doing, looking at your paperwork and things like that, where
00:19:47
Speaker
the academic supervisor is gonna be looking more at like, what's the knowledge you need to kind of fill the gaps to make sure that you're able to meet your clients where they are and also kind of just make sure that they're getting the experience that they should. Like for example, right now I have a student in my practicum who she has a degree in music therapy and she's at her site and they're asking her to do music therapy stuff. And I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, you're supposed to be doing clinical mental health counseling stuff.
00:20:14
Speaker
And so kind of being there as an advocate and helping and guiding in what I sometimes call on supervision, just walking beside, right? And so one thing that we don't want to do as supervisors is over function for our supervisees, much like we don't want to over function for our clients as well. And so we want them to experience what it's like, what does it look like to self advocate? What does it look like to to find new resources and kind of teach them the skills that they're going to need to be successful once they've graduated. So
00:20:44
Speaker
you're, if I rewind a second, you're saying that it is normal for a person that is entering into their practicum, because those are people that are probably listening to this, to get into their practicum and sit with their first client and go, I don't know what the hell I'm doing. Yes, absolutely. And you're saying sort of that, like, that maybe a good supervisor at that stage is someone that says, yeah, that's okay right now.
00:21:10
Speaker
To an extent, again, I don't want to, I want to normalize that situation, but I also want them to have a little bit of anxiety. A little bit of anxiety is not a bad thing as long as you can manage it. It keeps you on your toes, it keeps you aware of what's going on. What I don't want are students going like, ah, I got this, this is super easy. That's the student that I'm always concerned about. The ones that are like,
00:21:32
Speaker
like I think I'm doing okay, like that, give me those students all day long and we'll work with that. So that is a very, very normal thing. Now, the one thing that I'll say, whether the students who are in my program at my university or students at other ones, we as supervisors are charged through the ACA code of ethics as being gatekeepers.
Learning Through Supervision and Failure
00:21:52
Speaker
we will not allow you and we cannot allow you to work with another human being if we do not think that you're prepared. So if you make it to practicum, that means that your professors believe that you are able to work with clients. Now that doesn't mean that we think that you're going to be able to be some kind of miracle worker and people are going to get well within a few like no, no, no, no, no, no, no, like
00:22:15
Speaker
You can work with people, you have the competence to do that, but you are gonna struggle through it, and that's part of the learning process as well. And so, since this is for grad students, and most of them probably aren't my students, which is a good thing, this is when you're supposed to fail. This is when you're supposed to mess up. This is when you're supposed to do things you're not supposed to do because you're under supervision, you're learning. And the one thing I always tell my students, and it's a mantra that I live by as well, is you never learn when you do something right.
00:22:44
Speaker
you only ever learn when you do something incorrectly. And we had an exercise like it was a team building exercise a few weeks ago at a workshop that I was at. And they're like, all right, everybody with your dominant hand, sign your name three times. I'm like, you know, sign it. And they're like, all right, now with your left hand, sign that. And that for me, I'm right hand dominant.
00:23:03
Speaker
So I signed and they're like, let's talk about all the positive things with how you signed it well. I'm like, let's talk about what I learned about my left hand and how bad it is and what I can do to improve that, right? So we want to be able to look at the times where our students or the grad students aren't doing what they're supposed to be doing. And they're not gonna get in trouble for that because guess what? We all did that too. Did I ever break confidentiality? Yeah, I'm sure I did at some point. Like now that I'm admitting this over podcasts, I'm like, should I be saying this?
00:23:33
Speaker
Like, have I done, you know, you know, I always tell my students like, here's, I'll give you a representation of what my first session ever was like. And I remember it was a young guy, he was probably like eight years old, and dad came in. And I was like, Oh, hello, my name is Ryan Bowers, and I'm going to be your counselor. I'm like, literally like that. And Cor, you know me, like, I'm not like that. And it was just like this caricature. And after the kid left, he never came back after that. And I was like,
00:24:00
Speaker
I am the worst counselor ever and i remember going back to my supervisor who at the time was dr tracy stinchfield it's just kind of why after she's like yeah she's like how about you just be bowers just be yourself and i was like. I don't try that and then i started getting comfortable in what i was doing and so.
00:24:18
Speaker
I try to tell grad students where you are with your clients and what you're doing. We've all been there. Like I was the worst. I was such a bad counselor when I started. And we grow and we learn through the feedback process. And so yeah, so when you start as a practicum student, like mess up, you're supposed to. You're not going to get in trouble. I also want to build on that because so when you're saying like you're supposed to fail, like it's OK to fail.
00:24:47
Speaker
So because this podcast is for grad students who are interested one day in having a private practice, you really should get used to failing while you're early on because, I mean, I can't tell you how many times in business that I have done things that have been a failure.
00:25:02
Speaker
And I don't view that a failure is like, Oh my God, I'm a failure. But like things I have done have failed and I've learned about them. And if I hadn't been okay with that early on, like, okay, I can fail and I can learn from it and I can take what I've learned and I can build on that and I can become better or I can change my direction.
00:25:18
Speaker
And I'm doing that all the time in owning a business. I'm constantly like, well, that didn't work. And so do I want to try that again, just with more perspective? Or do I say, no, that didn't work because it doesn't work, and I need to learn something new? So I think that if students are getting used to that during their practicum, they're going to be better suited for their future. And I guess that's whether they're in private practice or not, just in general in their future. So I don't know if you agree with that or not.
00:25:44
Speaker
Oh, a thousand percent. And I tell my students all the time, I tell everybody I know, I'm like, Cory is the most successful business person when it comes to counseling I've ever met in, like literally ever met in my life. Like I'm always in such awe. And to hear you say that you failed at this and you failed at that, I'm so excited for that because yeah, you learn that way, right? And that's, you know, that's been my life mantra is that like, I have failed in so many different areas of my life. I failed as a music major. You know, I failed as, I failed as everything.
00:26:14
Speaker
And it's only helped me to better understand my identity, who I am, where my strengths are, and where my areas of opportunity are so that I can lean on other people for that. I'm not doing this all by myself, right? And I'm sure you probably experienced that yourself and in your business ventures as well. And our graduate students shouldn't need to feel like they're doing this all on their own.
00:26:33
Speaker
We live in the society now and i see a lot with undergrad students where there's this like level of perfection is that everybody thinks that they need to meet and that again is a method of itself we cannot be perfect anything and there's no such thing as a perfect counselor and so what the biggest thing that i see it with our students.
00:26:52
Speaker
is that they come in and a lot of that anxiety is because they feel like they need to be absolutely perfect in everything they do. And I tell them all the time, if you're trying to be perfect, you're missing the human experience. Like what we do are two humans interacting within proximity with each other is truly
00:27:08
Speaker
magical thing if it's if it's happening the right way. But if you're in that stance of I have to be perfect all the time, that you are absolutely cutting off your ability to experience your clients and experience the therapeutic process in a way that's going to be meaningful for them, but also meaningful for yourself as well. So and I don't know if I can curse or not. Okay, please. Okay, I won't. So you can yes. No. Okay. Yeah.
00:27:34
Speaker
All right, sorry, thank you. Because I do drug and alcohol work, so I curse all the time. I tell students, I'm like, this is your time to fuck up. Like, fuck up as much as you can. I'm like, here's two things that you don't do. You don't have sex with your clients. You don't punch them in the face. Outside of that, we can pretty much fix anything else that you do, right? So fuck up now so that we can work on that.
00:27:54
Speaker
And the other thing too, and maybe we'll talk about models of supervision, because the one that I use for group supervision, the interpersonal reflective model, is that we give feedback to each other and we learn from each other as well. And so when I have students presenting a tape, the first few tapes, they are just so incredibly self-conscious about what they're doing. And I'm like, A, everybody's doing whatever it is that you're doing. B,
00:28:16
Speaker
Whatever you do like the first tape of class is always quote-unquote and do an air quotes or the worst tape which i was the best day because what happens is whatever you're doing in that tape we're gonna point out like hey here are some good things here are some things to work on whatever the things that you have to work on you never hear that again another take this everybody learn from your tape so i always applaud when everybody gives a tape.
00:28:39
Speaker
But that first person is always a very, very, very special person to me because they had the guts to go first and they do more training in that one tape than I do throughout their whole entire three years that they're with me. It's a really amazing thing.
00:28:53
Speaker
That's a really good point. And I don't know, this conversation is so great because we had talked before we started recording about it was probably going to go all over the place. And this is not where I saw it going. But like, this is actually what people need to hear. This is actually what practicum students and internship students need to hear. Because I'm also listening to you thinking, yeah, if you're so worried about being perfect, you're also making the counseling session about you. Yes. It's not about your client anymore. It's about you. And if you are good, and if you are the hero, if you are the
00:29:23
Speaker
savior of the person there. It's not actually about what's happening in the room, you know, all the things that you just said, I don't need to resay them. Yep, 1000%. And that's why postmasters, our focus is getting you out of your own way of getting of your clients getting well. But that's a that's a, you know, that type of supervision we could talk about another time if you want, because it's so incredibly different from what we do academically.
00:29:48
Speaker
Hey, grad students. Real quick, before we get back to this interview, if you are loving the idea of being a part of a community of like-minded graduate students who want to own their own private practice one day, then you need to head to Facebook and join my Facebook group from intern to entrepreneur.
Quality Supervision for Grad Students
00:30:05
Speaker
There's already a community set up of graduate students who one day want to own their own private practices and be entrepreneurs just like you.
00:30:15
Speaker
So head over to Facebook, join that group and stay in the loop and get connected with people who are doing things that you want to do. Back to the interview. So the next question I had for you is I feel like we've kind of already, or I feel like you've kind of already answered it, but I do want to ask it directly. Why should practicum grad students, internship students, why should they care about getting good supervision?
00:30:42
Speaker
Yeah, that's a great question as well. All your questions are great. You know, I think that there's two types of grad students that I typically come into contact with. I get the grad student who is, I want to get through this program as quickly as possible. I don't care about supervision. I just want that degree because they feel that the degree is going to make them competent, right?
00:31:04
Speaker
Then there's the other type of student who and by the way, that was me when I was in my grad program. So I'm not again, I'm not throwing shade in anybody. I think that's what the children say nowadays. I knew that was coming. Yeah, that is what the children say. Like five years ago, the children said it. You know me, I'm like so not in touch with like what the kids say. I found out about spilling tea not too long ago. Okay, that also outdated but guests keep going. So
00:31:31
Speaker
Yeah, so I was one of those students who I was like, I just got to get through this as quickly as possible. And thank goodness for Sister Janine, this little non Sister Janine O'Kane and Immaculata. And she pulled me aside one day and she's like, Ryan, what are you doing? I'm like, I'm taking as many classes as I can so I can get out of here. She goes, you can't go through this program. You have to let the program go through you.
00:31:51
Speaker
And I had to sit on a rock and meditate for a little while on that one. And it really came to me that it's not just about learning. It's not just about being able to recite information. It's about, A, again, learning about how to be a counselor, but also learning about yourself. And so we should be looking for supervisors who are going to challenge us
00:32:12
Speaker
and who are going to be able to help us become the counselors who we truly want to be, not just somebody who is going to sign off on our paperwork, and then that's it. One of the biggest of services, and I have students right now who have supervisors like this, who literally they're like, yeah, I meet with my supervisor for like 45 minutes, and we talk about the Eagles, and then we talk about this and the weather, and then we kind of finish up 10 minutes early in that supervision. And I get it, that's what a lot of supervision
00:32:42
Speaker
looks like. And it breaks my heart because I'm like, is that the supervision you want? Is that the supervision that's going to help? But unfortunately, a lot of people get that type of supervision rather than the supervision that's going to challenge the student to really start thinking about things in different ways and to conceptualize clients and to feel empowered to do counseling on their own and to be genuine with their clients.
00:33:06
Speaker
And I can just echo that from my personal experience with you. My supervisor before you was good, but was not a supervision nerd like you. And so when I started supervision with you, it was such a different experience.
00:33:23
Speaker
And there were definitely times where I was like, am I paying him? What am I doing here? This is hard. What is happening here? But overall, what I learned and the ways in which you challenged me both clinically and professionally and in all the ways, I come out and I go, yeah, I'm just better. I'm a better business person because I'm a better clinician because of that. I'm a better supervisor because of that.
00:33:52
Speaker
And I've been around people that have had supervisors who phone it in like you're talking, right? Or who are, what I would say, like validation only. Like, yes, that's an amazing thing that you decided to do. That was great too. Yeah, that was great too. And I just think the difference in that kind of supervision is so impactful on the kind of clinician that you are, and then how the rest of your career goes.
00:34:18
Speaker
So what you just said, yeah, I can vouch for that. This is a testimonial.
00:34:24
Speaker
And yeah, and that was part of my supervision experience as well. When I was in my master's program, I had two supervisors and my first supervisor, she challenged the hell out of me. And it was so difficult meeting with her and she was great and I love her for it. My second supervisor was a new supervisor and so it was very much kind of the like, okay, what are you doing? What interventions are you using? What theory are you using? Okay, great.
00:34:52
Speaker
looked over my case work and I didn't, not that I didn't learn much from her, it just wasn't challenging at all. And I remember thinking to myself, like, I don't, I think I want to be like the, like my first supervisor until I got to my doc program and I had Dr. Debra Hyatt Burkhart, who is, just was transformational in my life in terms of supervision. And she just never, she did not believe in bullshit. And she was just like, I remember I played a tape once and she was like, who is this?
00:35:21
Speaker
And I'm like, that's me. She's like, that's not you. She's like, it's she's like cursing at me. I'm like in front of my peers. And I'm just like, Oh, my God. I'm like, did I choose the wrong profession? And she beat the shit out of me. And it just made me such a better clinician. And it made me a better human being as well. Like I'm a better husband now. I'm a better father now. I don't know if I told you we adopted our kid over the summer. No, congratulations.
00:35:47
Speaker
But yeah, so like, it just made me just such a better human being all around, because she really I mean, she took that mirror, and she held it in front of my face the whole time. And I was like, Oh, and yeah, that is the supervision style that I use now. And as you were kind of this is post masters, I don't do this with students because
00:36:09
Speaker
there's a different developmental way that I work with them. But my postmasters is very much holding that mirror. And I met with another one of my supervisees that you know very well. She came to my class the other night to teach, and she was talking about supervision. And she was like, oh, I remember one time I got up, and I said, fuck you, Ryan. I'm never coming back. And she stormed out the door. And she came back the next week, and she was like, I get what you were saying now. And it's like, yeah, that's part of the process.
00:36:36
Speaker
I don't do that. I do think it's important for grad students to hear conversations like this to understand the difference in the different parts of their journey and how it should look different. And another thing that has helped me be successful is sort of thinking 10 steps ahead.
00:36:55
Speaker
Not that I go on that path every time, but if I'm thinking ahead and going, okay, well, so for example, I knew in my grad program, I wanted a private practice. And so I had been thinking about that the whole time. It didn't go exactly how I thought it would, but it was still there. So I think that for people listening to this right now, grad students to go, oh, well, one day I am going to be out of grad school and I might have to
00:37:19
Speaker
Pay for supervision and so who do I want to in certain for some people they'll get it along with her with their jobs But that it might even inform how you choose a job, right? Like if you're gonna have to spend an hour or two hours with someone a week You better make it worth your time. Don't waste your time So I think that that people listening to this conversation even if they're not there yet
00:37:43
Speaker
it should be part of what's at least in their head, not their focus. Does that make sense? It totally makes sense. Yeah. And again, I'll tell you, there's two types of counselors that I work with or I have worked with in the past. I have the ones who graduated and they're just like, I want my 3,000 hours and I want to be done and I want to be licensed. Again, as if like having a license makes you competent. And I tell my students this, I tell clients, I'm like, just because somebody has a license doesn't mean they're good at what they do. It just means that they work long enough to get a license.
00:38:12
Speaker
And so we do have those people and I'm not knocking them. I mean, I hope they're doing good work with their clients. I don't know what they are because they usually don't come to me because that's not how I roll. Or you can have a supervisor who is going to literally challenge you at every corner. Even when you come in and you're like, I had this awesome session and I did this. And I'm like, yeah, so let's talk a little bit more about what you did there. That was exactly my experience.
00:38:41
Speaker
And again, cause you're not paying me to sit here and be your cheerleader. You're not paying me to sit here and just counter sign on everything that you're doing. You're paying me because you want to be a better counselor. And I always give the speech when people work with me privately for supervision, I tell them like,
00:38:56
Speaker
So this is not going to be easy. We're going to go places where you don't want to go. You're going to be challenged. You're going to cry. My one supervisee all the time. He's like, I think you get a tattoo of teardrops every time you make one of your supervisees cry. I'm like, dude, I wouldn't have room on my skin if that was the and I don't have any tattoos. I'm scared deathless of needles. But
00:39:18
Speaker
So it's not that I look to make people upset, but, you know, I'm not, I'm not, I don't beat around the Bush supervisor when I, I literally just came out of supervision right before I started doing this podcast with you. And this guy, he's sitting with me and I just honed in on some stuff that he's not bringing up. And I just went right to, and I was like, you need to focus on this right now. And he literally left here. He's like, I do not think I'd be thinking about this shit today. And I was like, all right, have a great weekend. See you in two weeks.
00:39:46
Speaker
And I think that it's super important as supervisors to not be scared to go there with your clients, excuse me, with your supervisees because they need to grow. They need to know what it means and it is. It's about them, but it's not about them. And that's what a lot of the supervision comes down to. It's just you and your shit getting in the way of the unconscious shit, that counter transference that you're probably not aware of that I could see plainly
00:40:14
Speaker
when you come in to see me. And that's what you should be using your supervisor for so that they can see that thing in you and they can call you out and then you gotta go and you gotta do that work, whatever that is. So this is a question that came up for me because I know somebody who recently kind of had this experience and I heard about it afterward, but what should somebody that's in a grad program, if they're in their practicum or internship and they're having
00:40:42
Speaker
a difficult time with their supervisor in terms of they might be thinking that there might be some things unethical happening or, like I'm not talking about a supervisor being hard on them. I'm talking about them going, I don't know if this is right. Like what would you advise a student to do in that situation?
Navigating Unethical Situations
00:41:02
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. So that's where you use your academic supervisor. And that's where, and those are really good conversations to have in class.
00:41:11
Speaker
kind of just clarify what supervision at academia looks like is it's usually a class where like in my practicum right now I have six students when I have internship I usually have 12 students and we come in in a group setting it's almost like group therapy and we talk about things and that's such a good thing to bring up in in those at those times so that we as a group can work on that together but also so other students who may be experiencing the same thing but they don't know that it's unethical or are experiencing the same thing and don't want to say
00:41:40
Speaker
anything. So we can kind of talk through that together. At the end of the day, you know, my job as an academic supervisor is to support my students where the site supervisors to make sure that they're taking care of the clients and that clients aren't being harmed, even though it's really difficult to harm a client.
00:41:57
Speaker
but it's my job to make sure that the student is getting the experience that they want. So if they're dealing with an unethical situation, we'll have a conversation about what it is and how they're going to handle it. I'm not gonna handle it for you, right? You have to be the adult here because you're gonna be dealing with this kind of stuff when you graduate and I'm not gonna be around to do that for you. So I'm not gonna over function for you, but
00:42:21
Speaker
There are times where it becomes something that is even greater. One of my supervisors that was with us together, he had a supervisor when he was in his internship, who the supervisor would call him up in the middle of the night and be like, hey, I'm at a bar, come pick me up. Or he'd be the supervisor would be like, hey, can you run home real fast and clean my cat's litter box for me? And I'm like, that right? And a lot of times students will feel
00:42:49
Speaker
they won't feel empowered enough to say something because they may think like, oh my gosh, I need this internship.
00:42:56
Speaker
And that's where you lean on your academic supervisor so that we can then take care of that. I call what I use, I call it the velvet hammer. That's another Dr. Deb thing that I learned at Duquesne, where I just call them up and I'm like, hey, I need to schedule a visit with you. And then I'll sit down and be like, so it's my understanding that X, Y, and Z, again, I don't beat around the bush. And if they aren't cutting it out, then I'll have to ask a student to find a new placement.
00:43:23
Speaker
A lot of times when we talk about finding placements in grad school, it's up to the student to find their own placement. But if we have a situation, and I actually had this just about a year and a half ago, I had a student in my class who the site supervisor was being somewhat inappropriate with her and was crossing some boundaries where she wasn't comfortable. And I had a conversation with him and he kept going with it. And I finally said to her, I'm like, if you're uncomfortable, you got to get out of there and we'll work on whatever we need to do.
00:43:53
Speaker
we were actually able to get her placed in our university counseling center, which we don't typically do. But it was such an egregious situation. And she was already halfway through the semester. And it wasn't her fault. And so a good academic supervisor will work with them to be able to help them find those placements in those types of situations, so that they don't have to be a year behind in their placements. Now, I can't guarantee that, but we do work our hardest to help our clients get through their programs. Yeah.
00:44:19
Speaker
Well, you're there to support them and I do want to highlight something that you're saying because I think it actually Expands beyond what the scope of what we're talking about right here where yeah bring this up in your practicum or internship class because Other people might be experiencing something similar and like I know that there were a couple of things I look back on my experience and I'm like
00:44:46
Speaker
There are a couple of things that I wish I would have talked about or I wish I would have brought up because they weren't necessarily normal. I don't know that I'd go so far to say strictly unethical, but there were some things that I thought I couldn't bring up or I shouldn't or it was bad to bring up and I look back and I wish that I did because some of the things now as I have
00:45:08
Speaker
some years under my belt here with this. I'm like, wait a minute. That was probably also happening for other people. And so I just think talk about if you're a grad student and you're going, I'm not sure about what's going on here, bring it up. And then you get some clarity about whether or not what you're experiencing is normal or okay or whatever.
00:45:29
Speaker
100%, 100%. And, you know, a good supervisor and a good academic supervisor, not only will have a degree in counselor education and supervision, but they're also going to have a lot of experience. And so, you know, a lot of my experience started out working in community based
00:45:43
Speaker
places. And then I did some private practice, like I have over 10 years of experience now. And so I've seen kind of everything that you hopefully can see, I hope nothing would surprise me. And so if a student is is experienced something that they're not okay with, then that's the perfect time to bring that up. Because if it's something that is normal, I'll be like, Yeah, no, that's that's actually quite normal. Like,
00:46:07
Speaker
or if it's something that's abnormal, I'll tell you right away, like it's abnormal, but then we're going to process that. We're going to talk about it. We're going to apply it to the ACA code of ethics. We're going to understand what it is that's happening and we're going to talk about, so how do we rectify this situation? And I think the scariest part for students is they think that they have to do it themselves. And the answer is that
00:46:28
Speaker
Yeah, you do like you have to bring it up to your you have to follow our ethical models of resolving issues and so the first thing that you need to do is go have a conversation with your supervisor about it and if that doesn't resolve it, I'll have the conversation and usually then it resolves itself.
00:46:45
Speaker
And a lot of times students are afraid to that they think like oh my gosh I'm gonna have to do this and so then they won't say it and then they suffer in silence as I say and it's like you know let's at least talk about it and so that we can figure that out and then build up those skills and build up the the I'm gonna say
00:47:00
Speaker
the courage to have those conversations with supervisors, you have somebody who has 20 something years experience, and you have two weeks experience, you may not feel empowered to go and have that conversation. So use your academic supervisor to role play that to understand what it is. And then also just to be assured, like, yeah, no, your supervisors not supposed to be doing that. Like, here's the ACA code of ethics. And you could be like, we're supposed to be doing that.
00:47:21
Speaker
You know, and so you you so what I do is I try to arm my students my my in the interns with as much ammunition as they need to feel empowered to go and have that conversation. And again, at the end of the day, I got your back like I don't care what the supervisors are yelling and screaming like they start acting like a fool. I'm coming in there because you're my student and I know your ability. I know your levels and things like that where I can then go and advocate and make change if I have to do that.
00:47:49
Speaker
Yeah. So the students should be really intentional about having strong relationships with the people that are there to support them. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I tell you, some, some do some like, like ducks to water. They just like latch onto their academic supervisor and they're just like, whatever, like they are just there to soak up knowledge and experience. And then some students feel like they kind of know it all and they got this under control or
00:48:12
Speaker
that they don't need to actually have that experience. And I think the sad part is that we all learn about these situations some way or another, whether it's in our practicum, in our internship, or whether we get through our programs and all of a sudden we're faced with a situation where we're like, oh shit.
00:48:29
Speaker
Tell students all time like when you have that shit moment and you're not here you're not gonna be able to pick up the phone call bowers you gotta figure it out on your own so let's figure it out here in class so that you are prepared for that and again that's that's one of the biggest reasons why when you graduate to that you're under at least two years of supervision afterwards because you're still gonna have a lot of situations that you're unsure of and
00:48:52
Speaker
and you're going to have to navigate through things. So the supervision, I like for my students to think about supervision as the safety net, that we are here when shit goes south, we'll help you through that. Am I going to let you teeter and fall a little bit now and then? Like, absolutely. Is it going to feel good? Nope, but you're going to learn from it. But you need to know at the end of the day that I have the students best interest in mind at all times, and I will do whatever I have to do for students so that they have a successful experience.
00:49:20
Speaker
Yeah. I could talk to you all day about this, but in the effort of not having a four-hour episode today for this and just going, well, you just have to come back. The question that I ask everybody on this podcast at the end is, what piece of practical or mindset advice do you have for a grad student who might be interested in private practice one day?
00:49:45
Speaker
Yeah, so I love that question because I have so many students that kind of go all these different ways and I have my own experience as well. What I would say, so two pieces of advice that I would say that will help you set up awesomely for a private practice.
Gaining Diverse Experiences and Feedback
00:50:01
Speaker
Number one,
00:50:03
Speaker
don't do a private practice for your internship. And I know that may sound a little crazy. And I'll explain that in further detail. The reason why I say that is because go do community work. Go work at a big place that has tons of diverse clients where they accept medical, state insurance, medical assistance, something along those lines.
00:50:25
Speaker
Um, so my experience, I was in a community center, um, in the city of Reading and it was dead set in the city of Reading. And I was there, uh, throughout right after I graduated and through my doctor program. And I was so grateful because I got clients who had addiction issues. I had clients with severe cases of.
00:50:44
Speaker
schizophrenia of personality disorders. I had anybody and everybody that you can think of walking through that door. And I learned how to work with them. I learned how to empathize. I learned how to be congruent, to be genuine. I learned all these great skills, which then when I transferred into private practice, most of my clients in private practice are not, don't have that level of severity and their psychopathological symptoms, right? And so now I have people come in and I just feel so confident like,
00:51:13
Speaker
Oh, yeah, no, come on and sit on my couch. We could totally work with this. Like, it's not as severe where I think sometimes when people do their internships at private practices, they have less psychopathologically severe clients. And so when they have that client come in that first time they go, Oh, shit, what am I supposed to do? I'm way over my head.
00:51:33
Speaker
So go work with those really tough clients. Work with the clients that it's going to be a challenge and it will set you up to be a more effective counselor later on. There was a second piece, but as I get older, I find that these things just fly out of my mind and I can't think of what that is right now. Oh, I remember now, sorry.
00:51:53
Speaker
The other thing too is do not be concerned about populations for which you want to work with because what happens is like I have so many students that are like, I want to work with LGBT or I want to work with domestic violence or I want to, it's like, be a generalist, work with that, learn to work with everybody.
00:52:10
Speaker
Once you're good working with everybody go get a specialty and as you know that's one of the things that i really when you're a private supervision with me i'm like alright what's your specialty focus gonna be because in the private world you have to set yourself apart but before that you have to learn to work with human beings and so again because i can't be in control of my life i have to let my universe take care of itself i have to put myself in a position where i can accept
00:52:32
Speaker
anybody who's going to walk through my door and the universe is going to put that person in my path for a reason. And so even my most severely challenged people are going to teach me so much about what I need to know right now, which is going to help me in the future with my clients. So don't force your way through it. Allow things to just happen. Don't worry about your population. It does not define you just because you're not working with your population right now and your grad program does not mean that you're going to not work with them later on.
00:53:03
Speaker
So just allow the process to happen. Keep an open mind. Accept feedback. Accept feedback. Don't be defensive about it. We're always coming from a good place. And when that happens, all of that experience is going to set you up to be a great counselor in private practice. I'm listening to you talking. You're the first professor, person who is a professor. Well, actually, that might not be true. But you're the first person who that is the primary
00:53:32
Speaker
career path. And so I'm kind of listening and I'm like, this is a professor perspective. And I feel like, which I love because it is a different perspective than people have given up to this point. Yeah, the perspective of the professor is often not taken into account because so many students just look at us as experts.
00:53:53
Speaker
And it's like, no, like we have our own stuff. Like, especially like we have our own counter transfers, we have our own experiences. And so yeah, like your don't treat your internship or your practice from supervisors like a professor, right? That's why I ask everybody to call me Ryan. I don't like Dr. Bowers or professor about like, I hate that. Like call me Ryan, your counselor, I'm a counselor, we're doing the same thing. This is a different relationship. Let's
00:54:17
Speaker
let's actually be counselors here. And so, so yeah, we I we all we have our own perspectives on things and rarely does anybody ever ask us about them. Yeah. Well, thank you for sharing it. Yeah. I appreciate so much that you came on here and chatted with me today. I hope that you will come back in the future because like
00:54:39
Speaker
You talk about, you talk about things like this so directly and clearly, but also from just different than I've heard other people talk about it, especially from professors. Uh, so, you know, and I remember, what was it? A treatment planning workshop thing that you did. I remember I came to, that was like last year or something and I went to it and I thought like, wow, like I haven't heard it like this before.
00:55:02
Speaker
So I hope that you come back and talk about some other things because I think that your voice is a really great one for grad students to hear. But I appreciate you talking about supervision today and telling me about your story too. Oh yeah, thank you. And thank you for having me on. I really appreciate this. I love spending time with you. You're one of my favorite peoples in the world. You're one of my favorite counselors in the world. And again, like I completely look up to you as a counselor and as a business person, like you wouldn't believe. And
00:55:27
Speaker
any time that I can come back and help grad students better understand anything or whatever. However I could be of service to you in our profession, I'd be more than happy to come back and speak about anything. And what a full circle moment just for grad students listening to this right now where you were my supervisor and now you're saying such wonderful things about me that I deeply appreciate. Like this is part of to our earlier, earlier, earlier point of sort of like trusting your mentors.
00:55:56
Speaker
I owe pieces of my career to being mentored by you. And so all the nice things that you said to me you had a part in. So yeah. Thank you. It's almost like watching your kid grow up. And I don't mean like from an age perspective, but it is really cool. Like when, like I said to you before we start taping, like seeing your sign on the highway, I just was like, I lost it. I was like,
00:56:16
Speaker
I almost started crying because I just get so excited because, again, as a supervisor, whether it's interns or whether it's, you know, the postmasters, you know, I just want you guys to go out and do the best you can for our population because they need all the help in the world. And so when you guys are doing it, it's just the most it's the best thing in the world. And it really does make me feel great. So so again, I thank you for everything that you do for our profession and what you're doing for our population because everybody needs it right.
00:56:46
Speaker
But also, Ryan, we'll have you back soon and have a great day.
00:56:52
Speaker
I hope that you loved this episode of From Intern to Entrepreneur, and if you want to learn more about what we talked about, check out the show notes. If you love this podcast and you want to support me in continuing to create content for entrepreneurs, then please share this with a friend, a grad student who you think might want their own private practice one day, and also like, subscribe, and review this podcast wherever you're listening to it.