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Episode 141: The Technology of Teletherapy
129 Plays3 years ago
Hello, Podwalkers, and welcome back to another episode of the Goblin Lore Podcast! This week we are returning to Kamigawa to talk about Technology on the Plane. Inspired from the first meeting between Kaito and the Futurist Katsumasa and their discussion on who has access to technology Hobbes started to think about his own job as a therapist and how this has shifted with the rise of Teletherapy. The hosts' discussion ranges from simply access to these services to the pros and cons of both providing and receiving telehealth services!
We also are proud to have partnered with Grinding Coffee Co a black, LGBT+ affiliated and owned, coffee business that is aimed at providing coffee to gamers. You can read more about their mission here. You can use our partner code for discounted coffee!
On another new note we continue our partnership with The Fireside Alliance. From their main page: "An independent media network and a progressive community of progressive communities". Please check them out!
Again we would like to state that Black Lives Matter (with a link to where you can offer support both monetary and not).
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As promised, we plan to keep these Mental Health Links available moving forward too. For general Mental Health the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) has great resources for people struggling with mental health concerns as well as their families. We also want to draw attention to this article on stigma from NAMI's site.
If you’re thinking about suicide or just need someone to talk to right now, you can get support from any of the resources below.
- National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-TALK (8255)
- Veteran's can Press 1 at anytime to be taken to the Veteran's Line
- Crisis Text Line: Text HOME to 741-741
- International suicide hotlines: A comprehensive resource list for people outside the US.
- IMAlive: Click Chat Now to access a live online network of volunteers through instant messaging.
- TrevorLifeline, TrevorChat, and TrevorText (LGBTQ+ crisis support): 1-866-488-7386, or text “Trevor” to 1-202-304-1200
- Trans Lifeline (US): (877) 565-8860
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You can find the hosts on Twitter: Hobbes Q. at @HobbesQ, and Alex Newman at @Mel_Chronicler. Send questions, comments, thoughts, hopes, and dreams to @GoblinLorePod on Twitter or GoblinLorePodcast@gmail.com.
Opening and closing music by Wintergatan (@wintergatan). Logo art by Steven Raffael (@SteveRaffle).
Goblin Lore is proud to be presented by Hipsters of the Coast, and a part of their growing Vorthos content – as well as Magic content of all kinds.
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Transcript
Sponsorship and Personal Endorsement
00:00:30
Speaker
Hello Podwalkers and welcome back to another episode of the Goblin Lore podcast. Before we get started, we want to make sure we give a shout out to the Grinding Coffee Company. They have been our sponsor for a while. They're a minority run, LGBTQ run.
00:00:45
Speaker
coffee company. They're very supportive of us. They like to support gamers and we really appreciate them. I know Hobbs is supported both on the podcast sense and also in the physically drinking the coffee and using their caffeine to get through the day sense.
00:01:03
Speaker
Yeah, they're they're definitely in this household, they are they are a staple of our coffee. And now that we're so with Jen back to work, my wife back to work, we are doing a lot more. We're doing French press every day still. So we're going through a lot more. And so we've been trying some other companies out like we just buy coffee when we go places locally, we still always have at least two bags a month of grinding coffee company.
00:01:26
Speaker
There's just, there's no way we're not going to. We love them. We love their coffee.
Charity Streams and Community Collaboration
00:01:30
Speaker
Uh, we, I'm going to be talking about this later, but in may we're, we're doing the first of our charity streams that we've done in the past for mental health. Um, so commander streams, we might do some panels this year. And I reached out to grinding coffee company. It was like, Hey, you know, we're going to be doing this. And, uh, the person that I normally interface with was like, let's talk Monday. We'll come up with something to give away. I mean, it's just been, they're just awesome, right? Like, they just, they're just fantastic.
00:01:55
Speaker
They're fantastic. And I love their coffee. Like, legit love their coffee. I've used it to make ice cream. It's great coffee. I also, Loki, I love that the plug, you know, the shout out that we give to them at the beginning is also like a update on coffee things that Hobbs has done recently. Like, I love that part of the show.
Introduction to Fireside Alliance
00:02:17
Speaker
In addition to the Gradin Coffee Company, we also want to shout out the Fireside Alliance. It's an organization that might be too formal of a term, but it's a group that we joined last year. They're just a bunch of content creators who wanted to
00:02:33
Speaker
all kind of have their own communities like we do in the Goblin Lore show and on our Discord, but they wanted to try to create a shared space to help make better places on the internet. And so it was a bunch of good content creators, progressive community of progressive communities, I believe is one of the taglines for the organization. So we're on part of their,
00:03:00
Speaker
They have a great Discord that anyone can join, and also on their website, they have a link to all the different content creators, podcasters, and all sorts of folk out there. We are actually the only magic content creators who are part of it right now. It's a lot of just... Kind of cool, yeah. Of all sorts of stripes. Yeah, movies, books, like other areas. It's kind of interesting to have a similar focus and seeing how other communities kind of talk about this stuff.
00:03:29
Speaker
In fact, we're, you know, we're even talking to them about how we're going to handle May.
Focus on Mental Health Awareness
00:03:33
Speaker
I keep bringing this up because May is Mental Health Awareness Month. And we're, we're closing in on that again. Yeah. And keep coming around every year. Yes. And it's something we do every year. If you're new to the cast, you may this may be new for you. But yeah, every May, May is National Mental Health Awareness Month, at least here in the United States. So every May, you know, mental health is is a topic for our show.
00:03:53
Speaker
Today, it's also going to be relevant, I'm just saying. It's a thing that comes up that we like to talk about, but in the month of May, because of that, it definitely becomes a focus. So every episode of our show will be mental health related in some way during May. We'll also start doing some extracurricular stuff. Hobb's done a lot of charity streams and other stuff, so every year we want to see who we can collaborate with and what we can do, but all to kind of raise awareness of and have conversations around.
00:04:23
Speaker
mental health, because it's such an important topic. All right, well, let's introduce ourselves. Yeah, four minutes in. So today, we're gonna go back pretty good for us, actually, that's, that's actually really good. From the script hubs, because this is what I said I would do.
Magic Lore and Technology Discussion
00:04:40
Speaker
So today, we are planning to return to Kamigawa to look at the use of technology. This is particularly interesting to me hubs,
00:04:47
Speaker
due to the changes that have occurred offering psychotherapy virtually. I do appreciate that you did that. I was going to take it over knowing that I had written it in first person, but you reading it that way makes it so much better. Let's introduce ourselves then and then I'll talk a little bit about what that actually means.
00:05:07
Speaker
I'm Alex Nubin, founder on Twitter, at Mel underscore chronicler, generally. I'm not super active on Twitter right now. I've taken a big step back, though I do poke in every so often to see if I have new messages. So if you do want to say something to me, you can send me a message and I'll see it eventually. I just am not in the feed much right now.
00:05:27
Speaker
My pronouns are he, him, and for our question, our burning inquiry, our question of the week, what is one piece of tech for magic lore you would like to have? And I, when this question was pitched by Hobbs, I was like, that is a really good question. And then I spent like two days having no idea how to answer that question. And instead of like, I tried to sit down with magic Wiki for like five minutes, and then instead I just decided to go with swift foot boots.
00:05:57
Speaker
because I'm tired a lot and I figured the haste would be really useful. And also Hexproof in real life seems like, I don't know exactly what that would be, but in my head, you know when people will post things on social media and then they're like, and miss me with those takes. That's what Hexproof is in my head, where people just don't,
00:06:24
Speaker
send the negativity at you or the ridiculousness or whatever. I don't know. It's mostly for the haste, but I think that hexproof could be useful too. So I don't know exactly how you were thinking.
00:06:38
Speaker
So this question is supposed to work, but that's how I came up with the answer. So that's the thing. I was thinking of kind of, you know, what got me thinking of this question was something like the reality chip, which we know has kind of been
Magic the Gathering and Real-World Parallels
00:06:52
Speaker
this. It was a story device that really in Kamagawa, the return to Kamagawa, really introduced technology on a level that we
00:07:01
Speaker
have seen a little bit during like original ursa, you know, we had mechs, you know, ursa people, people, this is the funny part, we've talked about this on our episode, it was sci fi, like cards like void, literally show people in mechs, we have squee firing a gun and the card zap. I mean, if people were like, yeah, we can't have technology and magic, that's weird, we can't have sci fi, it's like, it's always been there. And we talked about that with Reinhardt a little bit. So I kind of cheated.
00:07:29
Speaker
Not shockingly because like I was thinking along the slides of what's going on now And then I decided to kind of go with the old-school piece of tech which is squeeze toy. We don't actually know what it does
00:07:40
Speaker
But if we just look simply at the flavor text as the horrors closed in on Gerard Squee trembled and clutched his toy for comfort He didn't know where it came from or why it was so warm But he was glad he kept it near my understanding based on everything I know is that it is part of the legacy weapon, right? Like I'm pretty sure it's a legacy weapon It was one of the items of Ursa's yard sale that didn't sell right so it became part of the legacy weapon that
00:08:08
Speaker
I kind of love it. It like it prevents damage that would be dealt to a creature. It's very much this like cute little hedgehog, but it's an artifact. It's not like a real hedgehog that squee has and he he literally is carrying it and it like all of his artwork and I am sure that it is a piece of tech that does something really, really bad or like very dangerous.
00:08:31
Speaker
And this is kind of Squeeze obliviousness because maybe it's happened. Maybe it has done something horrible, but he can't die. So if nobody's around and Squeak gets killed. Does he make a sound? Does he know what the legacy weapon or what Squeeze Toy does? We don't know. So it is the piece of tech that I most need from Magic Lore.
00:08:55
Speaker
I love your answer. Like this very, like, yeah, I thought of equipments. I was like, ah, protection from things. And then I was like, no, like, I need to know what squeeze toy does. You asked this question and the first place my, my head went was like gear hulks. It's like, I don't need a gear hulk.
00:09:11
Speaker
That's a bad idea. It's just like, I'm tired. I can't like, I don't know what else to do. I love it. That's vehicles that have been introduced. And, you know, there's, you know, there's things that we could probably find if we went to Kaladesh. That was the other place that I was thinking to look at if I was looking for a good piece of tech.
00:09:31
Speaker
But I just thought it was like kind of a fun question to kick us off because technology is at the forefront in Kamigawa. I mean, we're in a cyberpunk world that is thousands of years after the last time we were on Kamigawa, the great like Kami War, all of that. And from the get go in the story that we have, we have so we have Kaido basically training to be part of this like Imperial Guard with the Emperor.
00:09:57
Speaker
There is a known group of futurists and they are these people that believe that kind of like they're doing tech illegally and They have all of this kind of tech that is underground. It's very black market and in the very first story Kaido meets one of these futurists Katsumasa and I have a couple of quotes here that just says so I
00:10:23
Speaker
Katsumatsu and Kaido are talking on the rooftop, and Katsumatsu says, no parents, huh? When Kaido didn't reply, the man shrugged. Me neither. Mine died working in the factory. There was a toxic spill. All the sensors there were so old, nobody knew about the fumes until it was too late. He tensed his jaw. It could have been prevented if they'd had access to better equipment, but with all the Imperial regulations and the cost of updating anything in the undercity. Upgrading anything in the undercity.
00:10:47
Speaker
The man's voice trailed off, but he forced another grin. I'm lucky I had extended family on Atwara, otherwise I might still be down here fighting over outdated tech and struggling to keep a roof over my head. He goes on to say, it's not right that anyone should control who lives and who dies. Technology should be for the people, so they can look after themselves when no one else will. This is kind of Kaido's first
00:11:11
Speaker
part where he's getting exposed to this idea that there are people that don't have technology. He has been raised in this imperial world. It's not something that he quite fits into, but like he still has this belief that like, well, there needs to be regulations so that things are safe. But, you know, his inner action with Katsumasa is kind of his first acknowledgement of this idea that there are kind of haves and have-nots and seeing the difference in technology and what that means.
00:11:37
Speaker
So later, Kaidokana says, a single path only works when everyone is equal. The Imperials are safe in Aigajan and
00:11:46
Speaker
There is harmony with Kami and technology is available wherever they need it. But there are places on Kamagawa that don't have these luxuries. People who need to push the boundaries of tech because their world isn't designed for comfort. And you shut it down. You control them because you can't imagine a plane where a civilian might need to invent different equipment to keep themselves alive and safe. You limit access to anyone who doesn't have the right permits without regard to those who can't afford them.
00:12:13
Speaker
Where's the balance in that? You are killing people, and he trails off. And this is when he is speaking to kind of people from the imperial. This stood out to me, and it did when we did our overview of Kamigawa with…
00:12:28
Speaker
Ryan and with Michelle because we did touch on this idea that throughout this initial story There is this idea of technology on Kamagawa, but the difference is that it is not for everybody It is not just freely available and this is something that comes up a lot in our society, right?
00:12:49
Speaker
You have people fighting over when we have bills for infrastructure, this idea that internet and devices and stuff are not infrastructure. Which to me is a wild thing to claim. Oh, yeah, in this this day and age where we're at, like,
00:13:07
Speaker
internet is, I mean, especially as I mean, this was true of even a few years ago, but particularly now in the, you know, post pandemic environment with learning from home for, you know, kids taking going to school from home, people potentially working from home, like without internet access, you can't do any of that. Right. And I will say too,
00:13:37
Speaker
I've heard comments made about people who are poor people, but they have these expensive phones, and it's this idea that somehow a phone is a luxury.
00:13:47
Speaker
It literally is this powerful thing in your pocket that does everything. I mean, that's how you hold a job. Some jobs need the phone. You know, there's all sorts of things. I mean, it's not the only way but like I can play bus fare with my phone. And there's all sorts of things you can do with the phone that make it vital. Yeah. Well, you said a computer with computer access. So am I in my
00:14:14
Speaker
Previous position where I am now part of my job was helping people to find work There are literally places that do not take paper applications. That's the thing of the past So you have somebody who's homeless and looking for a job. They literally cannot even apply So you hear this whole you know, you know people need to be out there looking for jobs and then you people don't think through You know because maybe they haven't had to do it
00:14:40
Speaker
But like you applying to like Walmart Target, they have kiosks in a lot of them because you can apply on paper and pencil. You have to have computer access.
00:14:50
Speaker
You are getting texts or you're getting emails with interviews. One of the first things we had a computer lab set up for this reason, we had to teach people how to set up email. They've never done it before and it is a necessity. It is not equal across the board.
00:15:13
Speaker
And so it struck me when thinking about that with Kamagawa with kind of, you know, we have the bigger arching story, but this piece of this kind of like the conflict of the two of the different areas of Kamagawa and how it's played out here versus maybe it was in the original block. You know, we have the larger story with Tezzeret and the Phyrexians and all that, but this to me was a conflict that was very just, I don't know, it really resonated with me.
00:15:43
Speaker
Yeah. No. And that makes sense, especially as we get more into this topic, it makes sense that it kind of, it resonates with things that are, you're dealing with firsthand, but that's a lot of, I mean, in the U S we have a similar thing in the healthcare system. It's like, there's, there's access issues for, for things there too. And so this, yeah, that makes a lot of sense that this would, you would call this, like this would, this would,
00:16:11
Speaker
be noticed by you, like call itself out in the text. Yeah. And so, um, I recorded last night with, um, our friend Shivam. Um, and you know, he's came on a long time ago and he has his own show now. It's just kind of a casual MTG. It's really just kind of conversations about whatever. And we got talking about
00:16:30
Speaker
mental health. I mean, obviously, I'm on a show, you know, him and I start talking, you know, he does a lot with mindfulness a lot with kind of his own spiritual community. It has that elements of like therapy, and just connection. And we literally got to talking about the fact that, you know, where technology has been during the pandemic to even allow us to do something like a podcast, right? Like, you and I have not physically seen each other in two years.
00:16:56
Speaker
But I know what's going on in your world. We have these conversations. We sit down and we get a chance to connect. What we discovered at the VA, so where I work, and I talked a little bit with Shivam about this last night, is we had to move to an online world.
Telehealth and Technology Challenges
00:17:16
Speaker
We know our distribution at the VA is bimodal. We have Vietnam era and older veterans, and we have kind of the younger veterans from the current conflicts. The middle ground is really kind of much lower. So if you think about that, we have these different populations, and we now have to move everything to online to either phone or video. And we've got like 75-year-olds who have never touched an iPad.
00:17:43
Speaker
don't once again, that same thing that we're trying to help people find jobs, let's not even go 75. Let's go 5060 maybe that don't have an email don't know how to use that. And now there are services that are no longer available to them. And that's in a
00:17:59
Speaker
Man, I mean, that's the closest thing we have to universal health care within the VA, where they could get, you know, a lot of times they have the availability to get in to see a therapist is now like to take full advantage of it with video. And we're going to talk about teletherapy. That's kind of what the real world topic is. How do we get them connected? Let's just take even younger people who maybe are a little bit more tech savvy and live rurally.
00:18:27
Speaker
that drove into the VA from 45 minutes away, that don't have a clear internet connection where they're at. They don't have a good Wi-Fi signal. Data plans are expensive if you don't have them in a certain way and you may not have ever had a need for one. Now to get your healthcare or to get certain services, it's a necessity. And what we saw in Kamagawa was people literally dying because they didn't have access to tech.
00:18:56
Speaker
Here's a weird question that might tangent us. And so that means it's probably appropriate to ask it as opposed to leaving it unasked. I was like, that means it's a good question. Just flat out we know that it's a good question. I'll say this is a topic that I've passing interest in, but I haven't gone super deep on. Are you familiar with technological singularity or the concept of the singularity? Yes. I am tangentially and have an old roommate who was very
00:19:26
Speaker
very intensely interested in it so okay so so just to lay out at least my understanding of it here I I'm gonna just read this quick explanation I found too, and then I'll kind of give my feelings but says it's a hypothetical point in time at which technologists
00:19:42
Speaker
technological growth becomes uncontrollable and irreversible, resulting in unforeseeable changes to human civilization. I'm thinking about it not exactly in that context, but in this sense where you said you kind of have these two groups. But our society is coming to a point where we have technological change happening fast enough that older generations who've never even touched this technology are being required to learn it.
00:20:12
Speaker
simply to get access to basic things because the technological change has sort of happened fast enough to absorb into these basic things. This is a thing that has kind of been around for a little while.
00:20:31
Speaker
it's starting to become more and more prevalent and this is a thing that we might as a society have to deal with more and more as man if we want to have some discussions about the singularity i have a friend that i could bring on maybe that's probably off topic for this but it's still it's it's a it's a thing i've thought about where
00:20:49
Speaker
Just this idea. If we think about it, we're now asking people to not even make a jump, say, to a computer, but to an iPad. We're taking this many levels of technology above where maybe somebody is comfortable.
00:21:04
Speaker
Yes, because there are levels of technology that they weren't required. They never had a need for. Computers well beyond that. Exactly. Computers and internet in the 80s, 90s, early 2000s, even 2010s to some degree have
00:21:23
Speaker
We're more of a luxury to some degree. There are things that make it a lot easier if you have access to the internet. Any device on the internet doesn't necessarily have to be a computer. I know there's parts of the world where computers were never super prevalent, so smartphones are their primary access to the internet, and it's made web
00:21:42
Speaker
Again, another thing that I have passing familiarity with but not a lot of knowledge is like web design. There's a lot of places where in the last decade or more, they've really had to be cognizant of how their websites work on mobile devices because there's places where there are
00:22:02
Speaker
Every mobile devices are how people access the internet. They don't use computers. They don't have computers Not really not in a widespread way but in the West in the US in particular that is kind of the technology that we had first and then the internet sort of Connected all of the computers and then it sort of evolved from there, but you're right There's there's people being kind of forced to make you know leap through a few generations of technology again, just to have access to basic things that
00:22:30
Speaker
10, 15, 20 years ago, this wouldn't have been an issue. This wouldn't have been it's a it's a paradigm shift. That's hard to like, right, like this idea that going in and being personable, like popping into a shop and being personal can't get you just a job, maybe on this right there, or that you have to fill out an application that is cumbersome online.
00:22:53
Speaker
And that's a shift. Yeah, you have to go through a few layers of things. You have to get online. You have to get this thing filled out. Then you have to go through the whole process of having an email. And it's a different way of communicating, which a lot of younger people will know who don't use their phones like phones.
00:23:10
Speaker
because it's talking to someone on the phone, talking to someone in person and talking to someone through texts or emails or messages. And that way, there's a Venn diagram where there's certain overlaps, but it's still different ways to communicate. I mean, as someone with social anxiety, I know having issues talking on the phone is actually one of my social anxiety symptoms. I don't like speaking to people on the phone. It's in person.
00:23:38
Speaker
or completely remove it and we're doing in text, both of those I can do a lot easier than talking on the phone, which is kind of this middle thing. And so so I want to talk. So this topic led me into thinking about the fact that what what I am doing now my job is completely shifted to, you know, we want to talk about a paradigm shift. I went from delivering
00:24:04
Speaker
very, very little psychotherapy on phone or video. That just, that, that is not what we've done. That's, I have said zero training in it other than, you know, the VA had it as an option because we wanted to offer services out to some of more rural areas. So there are these mini clinics that they could go to. They don't have enough people for a full time staff. So they had some video set up. I did a handful of times. This has not been a part of my job.
00:24:33
Speaker
Well, guess what, Alex? Now it is your job. Literally two years ago. So ship them I talked about this like yesterday is really close to the two year like lockdown, right? And within a week or so the VA moved to complete video or phone therapy. And those are very different. So
00:25:01
Speaker
I wanted to talk a little bit about the rise of teletherapy. It was, it was starting to get movement, um, you know, outside of the VA, I know that it had been kind of, you know, there were people that were offering this, that this is video therapy, even telephone therapy is something that has been done, but never to this level, never in any way that I'm aware of or any metric that I could measure. It was not the primary modality. It was kind of a more unique thing to have. So.
00:25:31
Speaker
I kind of wanted to address some of the pros and cons of doing this because it's, you know, you actually just segued very well by mentioning that social anxiety piece of the phone. Right. And you and I talked even about beforehand about, you know, we don't have video on right now. I mean, we are talking like it is a phone. We know each other well, but we don't do video. Right. It's just not saying that we do.
00:25:57
Speaker
But that means that there's things that were missing. So I wanted to kind of look at the pros and cons of teletherapy. And I did want to hit a little bit on some of the differences maybe between phone and video in particular. So I actually put out to people who are consumers of these therapy this way. I kind of had, I just put it out as a question on Twitter. Shockingly,
00:26:23
Speaker
I was like vague about it like, Oh, I'm asking this for some reason where everybody knows the reason I was asking is because you and I were going to talk about it because like, if I say something like that, it's because we're doing an episode. Yeah. When, when, when all of your random, you know, quote unquote, air quote, you know,
00:26:41
Speaker
questions, all feedback into the podcast, it kind of becomes a pattern that people recognize. My use of words like something and quotation marks are just generally a pretty good giveaway. So I want to talk about it from a couple of different perspectives, if that's okay. It'd be kind of looking at the consumer and then me talking a little bit, I want to talk about being a practitioner. So
00:27:05
Speaker
Have you done this, by the way? Because I know you've talked about therapy in the past, and I didn't think you were still in currently, but. I have not done any current therapy. I've done a little bit of telemedicine, which is, I think, a little bit different, maybe. I did. I mean, yes and no.
00:27:28
Speaker
deal, my whole thing with sleep apnea. I had an in-person appointment in December, but then kind of for the follow up after doing the sleep study, I had a phone call with a doctor just because that was, I could get that done a month sooner because this whole thing is, no, it's been a thing. So I had a little bit of experience, but it's like one. Don't want a permit with you.
00:27:53
Speaker
Yeah, okay. And I know there is stuff that is to do with like the scheduling and being able to kind of how you can go to appointments that it is very similar in medicine versus not. So like that is one area that is. Yeah. Oh, and look at that. That's the first bullet point on the pros here. So that fit for me. Like it was a good thing for time because this particular doctor
00:28:18
Speaker
split between his time between a few offices and so the one that's the few locations the one that's near my work where I met him with him before my next appointment was two months out but then he I was able to get an appointment on a day when he was in
00:28:34
Speaker
I can't remember what suburb, some city, someplace I wasn't going to get to because I don't have a car. So it's like, but because I can do it on the phone, I was able to get that appointment a month earlier and still have that taken care of. I will say that's been one of the biggest things. So people have talked about the accessibility both in terms of time and location.
00:28:54
Speaker
And early research into therapy for video in particular has shown that it can be just as effective as in person. So it's not a ton of evidence yet. There's still a lot to be done. It is very different kind of therapy in some ways, and we'll talk about that.
The Benefits of Teletherapy
00:29:10
Speaker
But there is the early research suggesting that it can be just as effective.
00:29:16
Speaker
The biggest pros that I've had people tell me in my professional life is they don't have to take the time off work if they're working. They don't have to leave work. Transportation flexibility, less exposure during the pandemic. I mean, that was the main thing that led to this. I mean, at this point, at the VA, we are open if people want to come in person.
00:29:41
Speaker
It is a very wide range between me and my colleagues. I actually have most of my people that I see want to be seen by video or phone. And there's a lot of reasons for that. And I wanted to ask other people who are consumers more so because in my experience, what I have found is
00:30:00
Speaker
Being able to have therapy for kind of wherever so they can, if they aren't going to be at their house or they're going to be out, they can pull over and we can have the therapy session, uh, with them parked beside somewhere or in the comfort of their living room, or they could do it during a lunch break at work. Um, there is, they don't have to add in drive time or in your case, bus time.
00:30:30
Speaker
or light rail time or walking time that makes a one hour therapy appointment really be a two to three hour day. Yeah.
00:30:39
Speaker
Yeah, because that's when I when I did go to therapy years ago when I was still actively going to therapy. I had to get I had to find someone who had Saturday morning appointments. Because otherwise, I really wasn't going to be able to get there during the week without taking time off. And so I did a Saturday appointments and he was in downtown Minneapolis, which is helpful because just the way our
00:31:02
Speaker
mass transit is set up most of it runs into and out of downtown so I didn't have to take two buses to get somewhere I could just take one bus into downtown have my appointment take the bus back home but even then again that one-hour session is gonna be a four-hour day of getting out taking the bus down waiting because I get there a little early have the session maybe
00:31:25
Speaker
we get chatting and then he was great. He and I would get into weird tangents. So it was a perfect fit for me. And then like get on the bus and head home. And so it's like that's a lot of my Saturdays were taken up doing that for a stretch of time. It became a very stark thing for me to notice because you know, you know, for me, I'm there all day, right? That's my place of work. So somebody coming for an appointment is just like, yeah, there's one hour therapy.
00:31:54
Speaker
And I have been aware of this or try to be cognizant of, you know, I will see people, you know, we serve it, we serve because I'm a hospital setting, we serve people all the way out to Wisconsin. I mean, it's not that far away in the sense of like, I don't want to make it seem like it's like six hours, but it's 30 minutes to an hour one way.
00:32:12
Speaker
You gotta come in you have to park you have to wait for your appointment or people that got transportation from say a group home or From a veteran's home. They have to take a van a shared van Which means they may have to sit around all day waiting for the other appointments to be over so a lot of people die software therapy are weekly or every other week and You know, how are they doing this or if you have a job, how are you doing this? So
00:32:42
Speaker
We've opened that up quite a lot. I'm able to see people. We mentioned that location thing. I can see somebody, but he really now that maybe like wasn't getting served at the VA before because of these barriers. Like, like the biggest pro to me is we are taking down a lot of barriers to just get people in now.
00:33:08
Speaker
Like I said, that early research is positive, but we don't know. But to me, if I'm potentially seeing – I just can't imagine a world where if I'm seeing somebody who wasn't coming in previously, then it's not a net benefit.
00:33:24
Speaker
that there's like some other pros that people on Twitter mentioned were appreciating some of the space that the camera provides. So in a weird way, it removes some of the fear or judgment to not be in the same room as the person. So there is that kind of that that ability to kind of there's a little distancing that might make it easier for you to be a little bit more open and honest for some people.
00:33:48
Speaker
Because being in the same room might feel a little too personal, a little too real, and enough that you may kind of move to your defense mechanisms. Yeah. Well, and you're also, in a sense, I could see maybe for some people, and this isn't exactly what this person said, but I could also see for some people it feeling like if you go into the office and you are in this person's office, you are in their space.
00:34:14
Speaker
And now if you're doing it, you know, tell, talking to somebody from now you're in your own space or whatever that may be, maybe you're at work, you're like for myself, like there's little, I got little meeting rooms near where my desk is so I could go in there and close the door. But even there, it's like, I'm, I'm kind of in a space that is more mine than if I went into an office and sat down in somebody's office and talked to them there.
00:34:41
Speaker
When somebody talked about like somebody else that they had seen a friend of theirs said one of the big pluses is that they could have the session with their cat in their lap. I mean, it's the same thing for work from home. I'm in my basement now Watson generally is laying behind me somewhere. You know, there is that piece being able to have a comfort element when you're processing difficult emotions and things.
00:35:03
Speaker
And something I'm seeing, and I think this fits for more things down the list, and it's definitely for the things we've talked about. But it's like a lot of these pros are just removals of friction, which is a topic you and I've talked about a little bit just together off air, you know, when we're having our conversations, because talking about planners and things like that, just sometimes it's hard.
00:35:23
Speaker
to there's just little little things can get in the way where it's like some time tired and I'm whatever so just like you know it's a lot of work to try to fill out this whole week I'm just gonna set this aside and not worry about it right now and then two three weeks go by and I haven't done it but so it's like finding little ways to reduce that friction to make it easier to just do the thing helps you maintain that habit
00:35:48
Speaker
even if they're really small things, and some of these are not really small, some of these are big, but even smaller things can really help you maintain a good habit. I think one thing that's been fascinating for me to see is where no show rates have gone. And so this is, in some ways, I think a product of the VA. So I know that for a lot of community providers, if you no show or cancel appointments too late,
00:36:16
Speaker
There's like a copay or there can be fees for that. I don't have that. There's literally kind of no, there's really no, it's easier to not come to an appointment within the VA because there isn't going to be repercussions as much, you know, it might damage relationship, but I mean, from like a financial standpoint, from being able to reschedule, it's not going to affect that as much.
00:36:42
Speaker
Now, when I moved to technology and I think that a lot of this is based on these things that we've talked about, about not having to do a four hour day or these barriers that we removed, people are not no-showing my appointments anywhere near as much. It is rare now to have a no-show or a cancel, comparative to where I was. Yeah, that's incredible.
00:37:07
Speaker
Because I remember you telling me some days where you'd have like, you'd have a full book day and then you're like, yeah, I had one appointment today. I just got office work done. It's like, okay. It's also a lot easier to, you know, it's as you kind of said, if therapy is difficult, right? Like I've said this before, we literally are asking you to come in and do things that are uncomfortable and things that are going to feel not good or feel like kind of crappy. Um,
00:37:37
Speaker
Now there's an intentionality. That's our big buzzword for this year. I would say already is intentionality because there's a reason that you're doing these things, but.
00:37:47
Speaker
Now, if you add in a drive or you add in sitting in a waiting room, so people have mentioned here like not being in a waiting room, there's always the fear of judgment from other people, kind of the fear of judgment from the therapist. There's kind of all of these elements. The more of those that are removed, it's kind of easier to maybe
00:38:07
Speaker
click on a link and just show up. Yeah, and just do it. And a thing too, I wonder, and I don't know that this is a thing that happens. But at least for me, again, kind of thinking about this idea of I'm sitting in my own space, I'm not in their space. It's like it would be easier to engage with some of the stuff because you know at any point in time, if you really have to, you can just
00:38:27
Speaker
You just close that window early and be done with it. And you don't have to then be like, nope, nope, you don't have to be confrontational about I'm leaving halfway through my session. You have an out that's easy and you're already at home or you're already out of that space.
00:38:44
Speaker
Yeah. And we'll, so you're getting into some of the stuff that I have down further. I do want to come back to this. Um, there's a little bit of both there. Um, so, and we're gonna, there's some that I think are really good and you just hit on it. So, uh, we'll come back. Um, but I do want to say that like, also, you know, a lot of times it, you know, how, if you've done any telemedicine at all, the place calls you. So if you forgot your appointment, you didn't write it down as some of us are want to do is you and I talk about our planning.
00:39:14
Speaker
Like you're going to get called. So there's a lot higher likelihood that it, yeah, you might be out doing something, but you may be able to still have that session. And I have had that happen. People are like, Oh crap. Like I forgot that we were meeting today, but I can just pull over. I can stop what I'm doing. I can still take that break versus if I call you because it's 10 minutes after your appointment.
00:39:38
Speaker
And you're at your house. And I'm an hour and a half away. I don't have an appointment today. We'll just have to reschedule. Right. So people say kind of easy, cheaper. I think a lot of it comes into the timely in and out. You don't have to have a waiting room. You don't have to maybe interact with as many people.
00:39:59
Speaker
One that somebody mentioned for the phone. And so we talked about the differences between phone and video. A pro to the phone is not being as distracted by the therapist body language in writing. Now, this one is interesting to me as a pro because for me, I can think about this because I do take a lot of notes. I'm very upfront about it. I obviously I'm a human. I'm going to give off body language, but that to me is also part of the relationship. And so that to me has been probably the hardest part for trying to do good therapy on the phone.
00:40:30
Speaker
Like I struggle with delivering good therapy because I am somebody that really utilizes non-verbals. And when I can't see those and I don't know what the other person at the other end is doing.
00:40:45
Speaker
It's very, very difficult for me. So I thought it was interesting because this I think comes back to the judgment piece. And I'm thinking of it as a practitioner, like my notes, and I've been very clear, I'll even show them to people are like, I'll be like, you know how we talk about how you forget things? Like, you know, like, I tell you, you tell me how you have these problems in, in like your life. Well, guess what? I'm a human too. If I don't write down week to week, what we talk about, like,
00:41:13
Speaker
I see enough people that I may get things wrong, and I don't want to do that. But I understand the fear. I understand the concern about it. Or even just the distraction. And there may be two, and there's nothing wrong with that as well. It may not be fear. It may just be you're talking, and then all of a sudden,
00:41:35
Speaker
you know, if you get a little, and that can be the scribbling, you know, why did you write right then? Yeah, some, I could see that happened. You could see that for some folks. Yeah. So like, I could see that, you know, taking even in video, maybe video this up, but phone, that's a good point. And it's like, I had not considered, um, I want to hit on some cons before going into some things that are both.
00:42:02
Speaker
The cons, I think people are talking a little bit more about phone here is challenging. If someone gets long-winded, if you need to interject and it's very true, you know, we talk about tangents on this show and a lot of times people, some of us going into therapy, it is a mutual relationship, but, and this always depends on the kind of therapies you see. I will say with the type of therapy that I do, I don't expect you to sit and talk for 50 minutes straight.
00:42:26
Speaker
But some people do get kind of long-winded and we need to get, maybe if we have that limited time and we're working on something specific, it's harder to interject on the phone. It completely is. Video is even still more difficult. Yeah. Because if they're not paying attention to signals in my room, it's a little easier than it might be on video. But yeah. This next one really struck me both as somebody to do with- On both ends of it.
00:42:54
Speaker
Lots of ends. Yeah, it's hard for me to fight distractions and be focused. The temptation to just check emails for a second is something that I battle endlessly with. I also miss the boundaries that come from physical spaces. It's hard to open up as much when I'm on the same webcam that I use for work sitting at my desk that I use for work. And it's hard to process what we've talked about when I'm back in my office the second the camera turns off. So this was one person and like, I like really stood out to me because that first part is
00:43:23
Speaker
It's hard for me. On my end, I'm a distractable person. If I'm in the same room with somebody, there is an element to it that I have to be a lot more focused. Yeah.
00:43:36
Speaker
It's right. This is a both way straight thing because I think people don't. Yeah, go ahead. I think because it's not just this, I have that same the temptation to check emails for a second is something I deal with to when we're podcasting when I'm playing, you know, when I'm playing my D&D games online, which is a thing we've mostly transitioned to over the last few years, though one of my
00:44:00
Speaker
One of my groups were meeting in person a little bit now, but like that is an issue and some of those things too. And that helps to what causes those to bog down a little bit. So those are other things where it's nice to have that flexibility of being online, but you also kind of have that issue where distractions are a lot easier to be distracting. And there you have to deal with crosstalk, which can be an issue in particular.
00:44:27
Speaker
Well, and I will tell you, like I said, I struggle with it personally, as you said, like inside that I struggle with as the therapist. It's also something that I, because of the amount of technology I use and my familiarity, can tell when some of the people I'm working with are starting to be doing other things.
00:44:44
Speaker
And I will say to just not even just emails, but just distractions from the backgrounds. And what else is going on, you know, like, some of the times I have done this even before now, there's TVs in the background, there's other things that I can make a request, like, hey, it's gonna be kind of distracting. But those times, it's very, it's, it's, that is one of the things about being in your own environment, you are more comfortable, you might also be a little bit easier to kind of check out.
00:45:09
Speaker
Yeah and one thing that I don't know that it's on here but it kind of fits this too and this is just kind of the technology of talking through a microphone and a headset as opposed to talking through using our voice to shake the air that we can hear with our eardrums like we do in physical space. You talk and you hear differently
00:45:33
Speaker
in the two environments with, you know, online versus in person. And so sounds that are small and inconsequential, like you say, maybe a TV in the background, or an issue that I have in one of my particular groups is food.
00:45:49
Speaker
Some people don't have a lot of my etiquette of muting while they're doing things. And then I have to just say, whoever's crunching, can you please mute your mic because I can't focus on what's going on because all I hear is you crunching in my ears. And so I could have, not just that, but I think there's a lot of other little things that can be distracting that wouldn't be
00:46:13
Speaker
in, you know, I kind of learned that myself just from our early recordings. Some of our first episodes, I don't sound great because just the I'm using a headset mic instead of a standing mic. And so there's just picking up lots of extra little sounds that aren't great and are very distracting for me to go back and listen to.
00:46:34
Speaker
Right? And let's look at, you know, like I think this varies from person to person, but a con to me is the accessibility. I have a very nice setup. There's one reason I like being at home. You know, I like being at home if I'm going to be doing video visits. And that is because I have my own technology, not the VA's what they give us where I've had technology go down or I've not been able to sign on and I'm using offices and I have a nice headset with a nice microphone that we use for podcasting and a camera that I use for streaming.
00:47:04
Speaker
Like, I am somebody that's probably very well suited for this. And a con is not everybody has that. And let's even go simpler. Once again, people might not have access to even just teletherapy. Now,
00:47:22
Speaker
This is something that may be more accessible than it used to be in terms of, like you said, maybe getting in physically is kind of difficult too. So that's not the biggest, but it is something we need to think about. And it can be two different groups too. Like there's some folk who might have issues getting in physically, but have technology availability versus folk who don't have the technology availability, but getting in physically isn't as difficult. And so.
00:47:48
Speaker
or someone may have difficulties with both or neither, but it's not an access where it's one or the other.
00:47:58
Speaker
So I want to talk about just real quick, the other half of this person's statement about the after the distractions was that boundaries piece that come from being in the same physical space. And also, this is something to think about for all of us when, you know, we're using all of our technology for the same thing. So like they said, a benefit is I can switch from
00:48:19
Speaker
You know, being, doing my work to my appointment, like you said, you don't have to wait, you could switch over, but you're likely sitting at the same place that you were. And you're now ever, that environment is now everything. Um, they kind of talk about like you're literally back in your office as soon as the camera turns off.
00:48:36
Speaker
Yeah, and that kind of fits. I'm going to bring in the next one on this list too, if you don't mind, because I think this can tie together for some folk. And this is a thing. Oh, yeah. Definitely. Not therapy I've had, but I had this issue with work myself, with work from home. So the next one was, once my session ends, there isn't much time to cool back and recenter. I'm just back in my life.
00:48:55
Speaker
And so I think these are both kind of getting at the same thing of when you are using this same space for your teletherapy, for work, for your personal life. I was having that issue when I was working from home and using my personal computer at home to log in to do work. It made it really hard for me to create a separation, a habit that I tried to start
00:49:23
Speaker
I did a little bit and I never really got it set too much. And then all of a sudden we weren't working from home at all. But a friend of mine suggested, I used to walk to work. I lived a few miles from work, so I'd walk to work every day. And so what I tried to do was on the days when I worked from home, rather than literally getting up and rolling into my computer desk, which was in my bedroom next to my bed,
00:49:46
Speaker
I would try to go for a short walk before I logged in to try to make that same separation that I had every day when I was in the office.
00:49:57
Speaker
And it's really hard when you can't make that separation. So the next person kind of said, you know, a lot of times when therapies ended, people might need some time to process, to cool back and recenter, right?
Remote Work and Technology's Role in Therapy
00:50:11
Speaker
To think about what you just discussed or what was talked about for the last 50 minutes, let's say.
00:50:18
Speaker
that might not be an option. Or you we might not feel that it's an option. And we roll back right back in your life where we were. Yeah. Yep. I mean, if you're just sitting at home, and then you're done, and you're still sitting at home, you kind of, it's hard to have that decompression time, or to take that decompression time that you might
00:50:36
Speaker
I really like what you talked about there with like just trying to add some sort of a semblance of routine. This was something that I think I did better, you know, when we weren't two years in of like, I still got up and still did my whole morning routine before I logged in. Instead of just going straight from bed to work. Yeah, that was that was something I did a little bit and it helped but I didn't I didn't get too consistently into it but that was
00:51:05
Speaker
It was hard. This is like, especially in the moment you just, I wake up and it's like, I could take.
00:51:12
Speaker
30 or 40 minutes to sort of ramp into my day, you know, take a shower, get dressed, go for a walk, come back, eat some breakfast. Like, or I could just log in early and then I can log out early. And then I go with the second option and then I still have this sort of weird like smear of my day where it just like one thing goes to the next with no break in between it. It's just a continuous run. And
00:51:38
Speaker
Yeah, that's, that's kind of where I was at. I never, I never really saw that for myself until we stopped going back. And so I stopped working for mom. So, and I will say to the next one of the cons that I wanted to talk about before there's a couple more here from from some people I want to talk about, from being a therapist, things that I have seen. It's not often, but these are the stories is people's boundaries are not necessarily as good. If they're too comfortable.
00:52:08
Speaker
Um, so what's that mean? Uh, I have literally had people that I have to have conversations with about not like smoking pot during the middle of session because I, that was even telephone and I could just hear it. And I had somebody kind of say to me like, yeah, or, you know,
00:52:26
Speaker
they're they're doing things that they wouldn't be able to do in your office. The eating is a really good one. And I don't think that it's not that I wouldn't want somebody eating in my office necessarily. But there is an element that can impact that when it comes to you know, they're scarfing down their lunch while we're doing a session, which is not something that I think they would feel comfortable doing in the office that does put up a barrier or
00:52:51
Speaker
there, you know, like I even if it's not illegal substances like I like just even smoking a cigarette while having session that might feel comfortable but it also is something that feels weird because it's not saying that would happen in a therapy space. I've had people talk about like, you know, people like answering in bed obviously having just woken up and like not have a shirt on or
00:53:15
Speaker
You know, just like the horror calls from work of like, somebody goes into the bathroom and like, leaves it on, like, it's happened. Right? So like, I think that those things that kind of can be make things very uncomfortable. Yeah. I don't have anything else to add there. Yeah. Yeah. Some people talk about the idea. It's just as simply it's harder for the therapist to make that the initial connection with the therapist.
00:53:37
Speaker
For a lot of people, they can't see beyond a face in video. So they can't necessarily see it's harder to pick up on the body language thing. So this is the flip side of when we talked about with the phone of not being distracted. For some people, it's harder to contact if they if they don't feel the therapist can see their same being jittery, or they can't pick up on as much of those even with video, those things to be difficult.
00:54:00
Speaker
And that's the thing is even with some video like that to go back to the social anxiety thing like that, I think – I guess I never really looked into it or thought about it too deeply, but I think for me at least that's why I don't like the phone as much because you don't –
00:54:16
Speaker
It's the whole social anxiety thing. I'm constantly thinking, oh, this person hates me because I said something stupid. And if you're face-to-face with a person, it's a lot easier to pick up nonverbal cues of how the conversation is flowing. It's a lot harder to do that on the phone. I say text is even more removed from that, but maybe it's an uncanny valley thing where if it's a little bit, then it's more uncomfortable than if it's nothing or all.
00:54:45
Speaker
Yeah, and I will say that I really do think that this is one of those pieces that's it's gonna vary from person to person, but I know that for me, I am one bouncy person and that is gonna be something that I might be able to mask as a therapist in video better than I can in person, but I don't know if it's necessary, but I do know that it's something I think about. The last biggest con that did come up is this idea of privacy.
00:55:16
Speaker
People talked about like if they're trying to have a session like you said you might be able to at work go find a conference room or a room that's not being used but it might not be possible or You might have young kids in the house and this is a big one That's the biggest example I can think of because it's happened Or your significant other is working from home and there isn't really options The privacy is a really hard one because if you think about it
00:55:44
Speaker
You know, it's definitely impacting, I think. Yes. So Alex, you brought up, I told you I was coming back to it, things that are both. Do you know why I brought that up? I just scrolled down the page and I can see right now. Dang it, I was wondering if you'd figured it out beforehand. So you were talking about that idea of being able to sign off, and I did have somebody to kind of talk about that, right? Or maybe they could turn off their video.
00:56:12
Speaker
We've talked on the show a lot. Uh, somebody said as someone with social anxiety, it was amazing for me. It's much easier to talk to a screen that it is to an in-person stranger. Um, you just, you just mentioned. Kind of some difficulties with maybe phone. Um, I don't, we don't know video, but video has not been like something that you're comfortable, as comfortable with. That's, that's me. Other, other people have the French. Yeah.
00:56:39
Speaker
But I'm bringing these ones up. The other person said, as a non-driver living over a mile from a bus system, much less any other public transportation, remote counseling was cost effective and an effective way to access resources I needed to confront a site where I'd had a traumatic event and reestablish a routine that had been precious to me. So this is actually, I think, a pro. And I think that I brought it up because it brings up the idea of a traumatic event and kind of access the resources I needed to confront the site.
00:57:07
Speaker
The last person's example is step one, explain in detail why it's hard for me to leave the apartment. And I will say that this is a really good example. Somebody said earlier, too, like with my depression, maybe as far as I can make is the keyboard. Step two, they kind of feel like what they hear from a therapist is let's talk about getting you into our office 20 miles away. Step three, I still don't know what the office looks like because you don't go. I'm bringing these up as both pros and cons, because unfortunately, as we've discussed on the show in the past,
00:57:38
Speaker
a lot of kind of those routines and those things that become ingrained that are unhealthy are products of avoidance. Yes. So you've talked about your own social anxiety in the past, and avoidance not in a technology sense, but in the sense of avoidance.
00:57:59
Speaker
Yes, and that's the it's become what's a problematic habit for me in my life now where I tend to just avoid uncomfortable things without intending to. At this point, it's my anxiety was a big part of that along with some other things. But
00:58:17
Speaker
where I would just habitually, if something was kind of uncomfortable, sort of avoid it. And then things get neglected and things don't happen. And that's why I talk a little bit about friction. And that's a thing that I've found the last few years is something that I'm kind of really trying to focus in on for myself and finding ways to reduce friction. It's kind of a way to, this is a term we haven't used, but it's one I learned from you and I love it, cope ahead.
00:58:43
Speaker
where if you know that you situations can be hard for you in the future, find ways to do work in things now to help yourself in the future. And so that's where I look for ways to reduce friction to make it easier for me to not avoid things. So when I get to it, there's there's fewer, if you know, if there's if there's one little reason to avoid it, as opposed to two or three small things,
00:59:07
Speaker
I'm less likely to avoid it if I am than if I have a small list of stuff. And so if I can kind of eliminate some of those earlier, before I hit a point where I'm feel low energy or my anxieties up a little bit or things like that. And I hope that was relevant. The reason I brought this up is both. Because I think that we're talking now
00:59:31
Speaker
about the difficulties in people that maybe would not have engaged in therapy at all, right? Like that's what I was saying kind of before, that you have people maybe that would just never have done the therapy because of these barriers or because of enough avoidance, you remove enough barriers than they're able to. Now the problem might be though, that that comfort level can also even in kind of a pandemic world, but even just in a technology world,
00:59:58
Speaker
could be another way to limit. So I think it's just something that people need to be having a clear discussion with in what their goals are for therapy and having those discussions with them. Because a lot of depression therapy or depression, early depression work is like behavioral activation, it's to get out and having to physically go in somewhere
01:00:19
Speaker
is difficult, but it's oftentimes a goal because it is a forcing to be out in some ways. And that first step can unlock further steps. It can.
01:00:31
Speaker
But you have to balance that with the fact that if you never get into a door or a video, then it doesn't matter. Yeah, if you can never take that first step, then nothing follows. And this is where I think it's interesting to look at maybe what the early research has shown of the similar efficacies is because
01:00:49
Speaker
Maybe it's not actually it may be even better on teletherapy than we think because we might be capturing more people That that maybe we're not engaging previously and so like them showing kind of a similar benefit to somebody who was coming in that could actually just be we're capturing people that were never getting seen which is a huge
01:01:12
Speaker
Yeah, that's true. It could be as if it was like exactly as effective as non-teletherapy, but you were getting more people than overall. It's a higher positive impact.
01:01:24
Speaker
You know, I mainly wanted to talk today just about teletherapy, because I think it is an interesting new thing. And I think that there are a lot of benefits. And I do think that there's cons that we have to at least acknowledge that it's not like a great, it's not a perfect analog, at least, and I will say this maybe, maybe not for people that are going to it, maybe they don't.
01:01:43
Speaker
it feels completely fine and great to them. But I will tell you that most therapists probably are struggling a little bit to be as effective. And that's that's going to be a shift. You know, we talked about paradigm shifts. And I will say that there are therapists and I consider myself one of these that have already been moving in this direction. But this is kind of a now
01:02:05
Speaker
It's going to be a change overall across the board, and I'm interested to see. And what I say by already having gone this way is there are a lot of apps out there, and there are a lot of apps that are actually very good and are actually using evidence-based practices.
01:02:22
Speaker
I have some of them listed. I'm going to put them in the show notes ones that were kind of coming up with a resource list. Like there's a there's a maybe a lot of them are trackers. And that's what a lot of early things have kind of like, to me, we've talked about rote runner. So that's the planning method that both Alex and I have been using since Alex introduced me to it. And like, that's an example, it's a mindful approach to planning. Well, that's something that people can use, they can be keeping track of things like,
01:02:49
Speaker
their mood daily. I actually currently am tracking my anxiety and depression on a 10 to 10 scale every day. People having that to do in their pocket with them to be able to pull that out, that's a great thing to have.
01:03:06
Speaker
I mentioned to Shivam yesterday when him and I recorded, so time wise, who knows that episode might be out by now, might not. Who knows? Time travel. Time travel. But I have aphantasia, which is something I've only realized recently. I think I've talked a little on the show, but it's like the you can't get things in your mind eye. Well, if I can find a guided meditation that is somebody talking, which I have more ability to do with YouTube.
01:03:30
Speaker
That's an amazing thing. Websites like meetup.org, where you can find activities when we're in a non-pandemic world. These are things that I've been using for a lot of years to try to get people socially engaged. There's these great resources that are available because of technology that already were being underutilized. A couple here that we list, anger and irritability management skills. It's basically one that is how to manage anger and frustration tolerance. It's a self-guided way to do it.
01:04:00
Speaker
Evidence-based practices. It's based in cognitive behavioral. It's things that we've talked about on the show many times. A plan to deal with the agitating situations. How do you prepare? What are my warning signs? You have access to videos. You have access to self-help techniques. Virtual hope box, one that is focused a lot more on hope and coping.
01:04:22
Speaker
You can make your own coping cards that you can bring up on your phone. There are a lot of ways that we could be using technology that I think would be great to do.
01:04:31
Speaker
Yeah, and that the coping cards like that kind of fits to that coping ahead thing that helps you to build some stuff to help yourself when you're having, you know, whatever your particular, you know, issues are, if there's things going on, you can do stuff to help yourself. And you're like, these are these are basically digital and digital versions of things that we have been asking people to do as part of therapy for a long time. It's just it may be more effective for some people.
01:05:01
Speaker
Yeah, and it's this, again, talking about removing friction. If there's an app that you can put on your phone that's really helpful, it makes it a lot easier to do these things than if you were to have to buy index cards and keep them in your pocket or something and keep them with you. Or a notebook that you're journaling every night.
01:05:22
Speaker
Yeah, it's just so much easier to just have this app that kind of has the framework for you to fill in the stuff. I mean, that's why I love Roadrunner. Like I've for years have been trying to find different ways to kind of keep myself organized and make plans and stuff and have done some different things to varying success over the years. And we've talked about some of the stuff with planning, but it's like one of the reasons I love Roadrunner is it gives a really good framework for mindfulness and tracking
01:05:51
Speaker
like my water like this is the spot where I track how much water I've been drinking every day and it's it's so helpful to have that framework that someone else has put together and just said here
01:06:02
Speaker
You can just track all your stuff. All you got to do is fill in a bubble with the pencil and you have it. And there's a digital version of it. And that is something that we've talked about. And I've had this conversation. So this is one that I just kind of wanted to end on. With as much as some of us are now all fully digital and having to be, I actually found it interesting and helpful to be having a physical copy of The Rote Runner. It's kind of hilarious. That's why I like having a physical one.
01:06:32
Speaker
But I think that this I do think that this might have been different a year or two ago. When I was not using computer all day long for everything that I did, and I was having to take tons of notes went on in paper anyways, I might have wanted it digital, because maybe maybe I would have been like, cool, I can do that at night on my phone, it's easier for me to do. But there's been something about wanting to disconnect. And I've had this conversation with some of my clients who are very much online people that like,
01:07:02
Speaker
I brought up the idea of planning to them by using similar method and doing it analog after you and I did this and I had buy in along those lines. You and I are giving a giveaway. That's right. Yeah. Did you know that? I mean, it's in the notes. I did. I remember you mentioning it to me in passing.
01:07:25
Speaker
And then I got to the bottom of the notes and went, oh yeah. That's right. So Roadrunner is a six month planner and they do have the digital and they have an analog. And so we are going to give away basically a six month subscription or a paper copy depending on what the person wants. Yeah. The whole point of this episode. Yep. The digital is actual and annual, but yeah, it's... Oh cool. Well, either way. Yeah, either way. We want it to be what people want. And I think that the point of this episode to me is
01:07:56
Speaker
technology is a resource that needs to be widely available. And it doesn't mean it's going to be one size fits all. And I think that that's a key.
01:08:04
Speaker
take away from today. There is going to be pros and cons to it. Yes. And it's the not everybody is going to need a not everyone's going to have the the access to everything. And even if everyone had access to the exact same thing, it may not work as well for each person. So having something where people can kind of choose how to engage with it and how to use it.
01:08:26
Speaker
is so good. That's why we want to do either a paper or on digital, whatever people feel comfortable with. I mean, it's kind of this preaching of what we do believe in when it comes to, you know, the story element to this, the Kamagawa and why it kicked off such a like, like this, this, this really struck me, I think, for the first time in a while, like I felt more inspiration is because of this idea of accessibility.
01:08:51
Speaker
And anything we could do to reduce that, you know, there are going to be pros and cons to no matter what, you know, that's kind of you, we can get into discussions about regulations on tech in, in Kamagawa and benefits that may have existed from it. But the larger point of like being available for all is something I think you and I strongly believe in. Like, absolutely. That more people do getting good stuff is better. Yes. So.
01:09:19
Speaker
Retweet the episode. I will put instructions when I release it, but we will be doing a giveaway of rote runner because Alex and I believe in it that much. Trust us. We're not sponsored. If you're out there, whoever you are, you want to throw Alex and I a extra one. So we don't have to keep spending our money every six months. Um, yeah, we'll take it, but we're not sponsored. We just really, really are excited by it over and over again. Yeah, absolutely. Keeps. Yeah. That's all I got. Nice. That's good.
01:09:50
Speaker
And that's our show for today. You can find the host on Twitter. HobbsQ can be found at HobbsQ, and Alex Newman can be found at Mel underscore comical. Send any questions, comments, thoughts, hopes, and dreams to at goblinmoorpod on Twitter, or email us at goblinmoorpodcast at email.com. If you want to support your friendly neighborhood goblin, the cast can be found at patreon.com slash goblinmoorpod.
01:10:15
Speaker
Opening and closing music by Vindergotten, who can be found on Twitter at Vindergotten, or online at vindergotten.bandcamp.com. Logo art by Steven Raffaele, who can be found on Twitter at Steve Raffaele. Babylon Lore is proud to be presented by Hipsters of the Coast as part of their growing Vorthos content, as well as magic content of all kinds. Check them out on Twitter at hipstersmtg, or online at hipstersofthecoast.com.
01:10:45
Speaker
Thank you all for listening, and remember, goblins, like snowflakes, are only dangerous in numbers.