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Welcome back to another episode of Faithfully Engaged today and I'm going to do my best

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here, Jake. I have Jake Wiskersen. Did I get it?

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Nailed it.

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Yes, all right. I got it. So, got him on here for our guest today. I'm going to let Jake

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kind of introduce himself and we'll jump into things. So, Jake, tell the audience a little

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bit about yourself.

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Thanks, Johnny. So, I'm a clinician and I'm a marriage and family therapist by trade

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licensed in Nevada and here in northern Nevada. So, in Nevada, we're not just Las Vegas. So,

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for those of you who are not geographically familiar with our state, we do have other

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parts that are not Las Vegas. I'm in the Reno Sparks area, which is up north a little bit

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right next to Tahoe. So, I own an operated, an outpatient counseling agency called Zephyr

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Wellness. We do talk therapy and we're pretty well engaged in the community. And I wear

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a bunch of other hats and sit on a bunch of different boards and stuff. But usually people

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aren't really interested in a verbal resume. So, I'm just going to stop there and not bore

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everyone.

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Well, speaking of not boring everyone, that those of you that watched kind of my previous

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content under Truth and Grace Counseling podcast know that I like to take things. We like to

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talk about serious things, but like to take somewhat of a humorous bent. I think sometimes

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we can just be a little, a little too serious at times. So, I've kind of conversed with

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Jake on Twitter before and I know that he's the expert of dad jokes. So, I was wondering

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if you had a good dad joke that you could, you could share with the audience here.

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Oh, man, expert of dad jokes. I don't think I've ever carried that mantle before. So,

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I'm going to tell one that's not, it's not cut for Twitter because it's long. So, but

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it is, it is my favorite and it is my children's favorite. All right. So, these three strings

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are sitting in a bar and over the bars, the sign says no strings allowed. And these three

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strings are, you know, wanting some drinks. And so, the one string says to the other two,

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he says, I'm going to go, go get us some drinks. He go acts up to the bartender and says, Hey,

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we're keeping like a pitcher and three glasses, please take that pale ale over there and he

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flips him a $10 bill. He says, that's for you. I'll pay as I go. The bartender looks

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at me and goes, man, love to, but you see our sign. No strings allowed. Sorry, slides

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him the 10 bucks back. Says, wish I could help, but you probably shouldn't even be in

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here. So, the string goes back. He's all dejected. He sits down with his two friends

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and says, Hey, you wouldn't go for it. Second string says, well, you just didn't do it the

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right way. So he goes up there and flips him a 20 and says, Hey, Barkeep, keep that for

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yourself. I'd like a pitcher and three glasses, please. And man, what a great place you have

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here. It's a, I'd love to come back here with more of my string friends. And I'll bet if

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you treat as well, I can, I can recruit some more business. Bartender looks at me, strokes

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his chin and he says, man, you know, I'd love to, but, but this is our policy and you see

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it. It's big. It's hanging right above your head. And I can't push them the 20 bucks back

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and string goes and sits back down. He's all, he's all bummed. He says, man, I totally

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thought that would work. I offered him more business, gave him a big tip. Third string

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says, I got this. He goes in the bathroom. He ties himself up. He tussles his hair, walks

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back up, doesn't hand the bartender any money. He says, Barkeep, you pitch him through glasses,

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please bartender looks at me and he goes, aren't you one of those strings? He goes,

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no, I'm afraid not. Oh man, you're, you're correct. I don't think that could fly on,

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on Twitter. That's just too long. But man, that, that is like a, that's almost like a,

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like a Norm MacDonald type of thing where he would have those real long things and it

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would just be something so stupid, but he just has that ability to string you string

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you in. There we go. That string you along.

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That's my sound effects were working. I'd play the rim shot. But yeah, I'll take that

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compliment norms, norms, norms, a legend. Yes. I'll accept that. I've been telling that

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joke since 1999. And it is now 2023.

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Hey, hey, it's stood the test of time then I guess at least for, for kiddos. And they're

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the ones that matter.

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Clean jokes. Yes. Yes. Hey, well, I know that I've ran across you. I don't think I've told

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you this in a couple of different ways. One was initially just through, I had watched

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some of Stephanie wins podcast, some kind of therapist saw you on there. And through

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that, ended up through looking at walk the talk America of mentioned off camera. I'm

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in, I'm in Oklahoma. So, you know, guns are pretty big deal around this part of the country.

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And that was just such a, it was very refreshing and something I hadn't really seen in the mental

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health world, looking at some of those training. So just kind of talk a little bit about what

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the talk America is and why, why that's an important organization.

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Yeah, it is. And it's a, it's a really cool story. I will tell it. But first, I want to

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give a hat tip to Stephanie when if you're listening, I said no about her, you should.

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She is absolutely dynamo. She's an incredible human being and just amazing, amazing work

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that she's doing up in Oregon. Her podcast called you must be some kind of therapist.

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And at first I thought it was like, it was like, you must be some kind of therapist.

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But it's actually like listening to her intro, you realize it's like, you must be some kind

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of therapist. She's like, yes, I am a therapist, right? And I think, I think both of those

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work. It's kind of cool. And she's, she's incredibly intelligent, very well read, super

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well spoken, fierce advocate for not only our profession and doing things right and

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ethically, but also for challenging some of this woke postmodern erosion of values that

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we're seeing now. And so I can't speak highly enough of Stephanie's work. So glad you mentioned

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her. I'm really glad that you found me through her because that just makes me feel better.

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But also about walk the talk. So walk talk America, I'll say WTTA for short, because

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it, you know, walk the talk America's a mouthful. It was founded in 2018 by President and founder

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Mike Soudini, who is a third generation firearms industry professional. He came into the field

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because his family ran an importing agency or business called Eagle Imports, so they

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would take guns from all over the world and bring them into America and sell them, brand

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them, market them, put them on store shelves, whatnot. So he had a hand in that. And for

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years I'd worked with, well, I don't even work with just talked with one of my best

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friends from college, his name is Jordan Slotnik, and he manages Reno guns and range, which

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is a premier range and retail store here in Reno, about how we connect these two cultures

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of firearms ownership and mental health care. Because it's necessary because gun owners

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are skittish and suspicious of what we do as clinicians because they think their rights

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are going to get taken by acknowledging that they need some help. So one day Jordan texts

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me says, have you heard of Walk the Talk America? No. So I look up the organization and realize

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that they're trying to bridge the gap between firms ownership and mental health care. So

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at that time, and I still do have a podcast called Noggin notes. And I that's a cool story

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too I can get into later, but I basically invite guests on from all different walks

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of life and we talked about mental health stuff. And so I reached out and said, Hey,

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would somebody from the organization like to come on the show and Mike wrote back immediately.

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Unbeknownst to me, he'd been searching for clinicians to help the organization and they

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weren't in great supply. So my email was a was a godsend. And so we chatted for a little

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bit got on the show, ran for about an hour and a half, ended the show, stayed on the

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phone, talked for another hour and a half or so became instant best friends and realized

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we had a lot of work to do and I had a role to play. What I'd forgotten until several

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months ago was that at that time when I had him on the show, I said, we can talk about

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your organization, but I want to talk about how I'm a concealed carrier. And he was like,

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all right, cool, whatever. And I realized my self censorship was was the problem. And

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since then, I've come out of the closet, as I like to say, as a gun running practitioner,

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because I couldn't straddle that I couldn't I couldn't tip toe into it. If I was going

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to be of a help, I had to be honest and authentic with my role in both of these fields. So what

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we ended up doing was, we created a curriculum, which you have now taken for a course on firearms

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cultural competence for practitioners. And it's not just mental health people, it's,

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anybody wants to take it. But what we've done is we've gotten it validated for continuing

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ed credit in the state of Nevada, and also with the National Board of Certified Counselors.

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And you can take these the series of three courses, there are two that are available

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online on our website, and get a certificate at the end for learning about firearms, and

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it's really, really great. So in conjunction with a couple of the other board members,

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we've put together this series of courses, the flip side of that coin now is we're also

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reaching out to the gun community to demystify what counseling is, so that we remove any

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sort of suspicion or apprehension about getting into care. And at our root, we're a suicide

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prevention organization. And the story is that Mike lost the president of his company

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back in 2008, 2009 to firearm suicide with one of their own guns. And it's bothered him

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ever since he tells a story better than I do, but I've heard so many times I'm comfortable

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telling it. But it was like, they went to the funeral, and everybody just kind of moved

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along, nobody addressed this thing. And if you look at the statistics, the gun deaths

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overall pie chart, you look at that, and it's about 60%. So it depends on the year, but

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somewhere between 58 and 64% of firearm deaths are suicides. And another third are homicides.

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And then the remaining balance are negligent, unintentional law enforcement or, you know,

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whatever. So it's the vast overwhelming majority of firearm deaths. So if you talk about, you

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know, gun violence, which is not a phrase I like, because it attributes the act of violence

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to an inanimate object, I don't like that kind of word comparison or compilation, I

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just say violence. But if you're if you're going to say gun violence, you must stop gun

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deaths, especially the preventable ones, then we need to focus on suicides and not mass

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shootings mass shootings get the clicks and the attention for media because they trigger

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the limbic system and make us pay attention and get scarce and all that. But the truth

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is that they're, they're about a 3 tenths of a percent of all firearm deaths are mass

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shootings. I mean, I include school shooting. Now, Pew Research just came with some new studies

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because my information only went up to 2020. Well, since 2020, they've now captured 2020,

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2021. And it looks like it's a little higher than a third of a percent. It's more like

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one and a third percent, but still statistically insignificant. If we're going to focus on mass

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shootings as opposed to suicides and suicides have increased since then also. So that's

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what we do. We're trying to bridge this gap. And ways that we do this are by inviting people

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to take free and anonymous mental health screenings through the website. I'm wearing a wristband

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right now. It says WTTA.org slash love. So it's WTTA.org is the website slash love.

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Takes us straight to the free and anonymous mental health screening link. There's 14 of

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them or something, a couple of them are in Spanish. And those are powered by mental health

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America, which is one of our partners. Mental health America does the ranking the state's

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report every year that shows that Nevada, where I live is dead last every year in mental

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health care and provision and access. So both of us live in Nevada, Mike lives in Vegas.

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I live in Reno and it's imperative to us to get the clinical community hip to this so

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that when ailing firearms owners come in for care, we don't off put them with clunky judgmental

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language or just plain ignorance about how to navigate unsecured firearms in the home

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and how to keep oneself safe when they're in crisis or when their kids are dealing with

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something or what have you. So that's what we're trying to do. We also have a podcast

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called guns and mental health and it's available wherever podcasts are found. I've got a little

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sticker here. It's nice and shiny holographic. I love holographic stickers. Take one of these

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I can mail you some of you on. And then we also have flyers that go into packaging that

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invite people to take the free and anonymous mental health screening. So we partner with

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gun companies and accessories manufacturers to put our literature in their boxes as well

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as ranges and retail stores to have it sit passively on the counter. I'm looking around

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here and I don't have a flyer I usually do. But on one side says, you know, as gun owners,

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we often find it difficult to, you know, ask for help when we need it. Oh, there they are.

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There's the second. And just as you know, mental health, it's okay to talk about it.

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And then on the flip side, there's some white space for a local practice or agency to stamp

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their logo. So it sits passively on the counter while you're making a purchase or whatever

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you pick up and you're like, Oh, that's interesting mental health. We're talking to me on the

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counter next to the register and his gun store. And then they flip it over. It's like, Oh,

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there's a practitioner that's advertising this person or this place must be gun friendly.

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And it's a nice, non threatening way to say these two things can coexist at the same time.

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They're not mutually exclusive. So those are some of the ways that we're inviting people

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to take care of themselves while also promoting education and training to, you know, demystify

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a lot of what goes on around it. So there's my commercial was a little longer than that.

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I don't know what their speech but

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So for Walk the Talk America, I think that is again, such a an important organization.

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And not only important is like I said, it's very unique. I'm a gun owner. I live in rural

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Oklahoma. I'm a mental health counselor. And I hadn't put two and two together. Like I knew

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that it was an issue, but it was again, it was just so refreshing because it's when you're

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given those statistics like that, when we use gun violence and that annoys me too, are

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we really getting at the issue? And I think unfortunately, the answer is not. So this

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organization is fantastic to play. I don't know if we want to call it devil's advocate

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or whatever. But let's say I'm a more left leaning clinician or just left leaning person

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that says, Well, look, we see all these shootings in the news, all these bad things, wouldn't

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it be better if we just got rid of guns and in general just had gun control because we're

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looking out for the kids looking out for the better community. What's your response to

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that? How do you response to that type of argumentation?

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So I'll throw another statistic and then I'll answer the question. Approximately half of

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Americans either live with a gun or own one themselves. So that's roughly half of our

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clientele that could walk through the door. And we can't afford to be willfully ignorant

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of the mechanisms and the dynamics that go into that. So depending on geography, that

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will go up or down if you're living in San Francisco, it's probably a little lower, maybe

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it's one in five, something like that. But if you're in rural Oklahoma or rural Nevada,

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it's more like eight and 10, right? So so we can't afford to not know how to have a competent

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conversation. Now to the anti gun people will just call them or the ones who are ignorant

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and don't know the dynamics, I would say you got give or take 300 million guns in America,

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you can't you can't get rid of them. And I say this in the training like this is a problem

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where we have to we have to meet the problem where it is not where we think it could be

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someday or where it is in some other country. It's just not feasible. It's not even realistic.

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Now if you could wave a magic wand and make all firearms go away and everybody would be

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whatever your definition of safe is, okay, maybe, you know, that's fine. Go repeal the

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Second Amendment. There's a there's a process for doing that. Good luck getting 75% of state

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legislatures to agree to it, I guess. But but let's say that that actually happens. We still

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have a problem with people being mentally ill and wanting to take their own lives. We still

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have a problem with people being unstable and wanting to take other people's lives. So

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we swap out one tool for another tool. I don't I don't know that that hits the root cause

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and we're we're big fans of root cause mitigation, which is why we push education over restriction.

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Rights restriction is not something that appeals to me, especially when you're talking about

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fundamental civil rights like the right to self defense. Projectile weapons is just one

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of those ways that we defend ourselves. So I'm not interested in restricting that and

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neither are places like the liberal gun club or liberal gun owners who are very active in

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this space. And you can't see the back of my computer, but I've got a sticker, two stickers

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from the liberal gun club one says unicorns do exist. It says the liberal gun club. It's

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a picture of a unicorn with a rainbow coming out of it. And the others that traditional

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rainbow that says every civil right for every single person. And what they're talking about

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is the civil right of self defense. So you know, politics aside, I don't think firearms

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ownership should be political. It's just not. And if we're going to split hairs on the political

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spectra, I think that when you're talking about left leaning people, they're more you

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and I know this vocabulary and so do the rest of the clinical community. They're more about

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external locus of control. It's like reach out and control the thing rather than the

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internal locus of control, which is self mastery, right? And then if you're on the right end

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of things, you tend to be more toward liberty and an autonomy. And you say, well, you know,

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it's up to you to control yourself. It's not up to me to control your environment for you.

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And we, we have general application for that across all presentations. So to that, I would

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say it's not feasible. The numbers don't work. The efforts don't work. And then you got to

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deal with enforcement and collection and all sorts of things. Just it's just too heavy

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of a lift where we can go the other direction. Much lower cost is to educate people on this.

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And if, and if we haven't lost trust in our public health authorities over the last three

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years, I think public health broadly could be very instrumental in that space in saying

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things like store responsibly. That's one of the language things that we're trying to

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alter within the gun community. And so saying safe, which is mercurial and subjective and

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also been watered down since the pandemic hit. And it's like, what does safe mean? You ask

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a random gun owner say, Hey, store safely. Like, of course I'm safe. Like I got guns

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staged everywhere, loaded chambered in case ISIS kicks in my window at 3am. Like, well,

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yeah, but is that responsible? So we're defining responsible storage to mean preventing unauthorized

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access. And then the unauthorized access could be somebody who obviously, you know, smashes

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your window and comes in and wants to steal your stuff. Or it could be the angsty teenager,

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or it could be the neighbor's kids, or it could be you in that time of crisis, we need to

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be able to figure out how to prevent access in the time of crisis to people who aren't

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authorized in that moment to handle firearms. So again, we're shifting away from the external

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locust control to the internal teaching firearms owners to be more responsible about how they

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store their firearms. And let's face it, if everybody took that approach, then no irresponsible

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people would be doing irresponsible things. That would be the shop owner. That would be

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the owners themselves. That would be everybody who conducts a purchase. They would be making

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sure that whoever handles the gun is responsible for handling it and is authorized, right? Now,

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that's a little pie in the sky, I'm sure. But along the way, we have to be able to be honest

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with ourselves about when we're in a time of crisis when the the darkness, you know,

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overshadows the light. And we have to address that mindfully, and with with good competence,

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without taking people's property. That's not that's not something that's up for debate

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in our realm. So that's why when we get into red flag laws and talking about, well, you

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know, it's a nice intermediary between sending somebody to jail and institutionalizing them,

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just take the instrument, right? Well, okay, but do we need dot gov involved? Or can we

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just rely on our friends and neighbors? And the answer would be yes, in an ideal world,

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that would be great. But most of these states with red flag laws, mine included, also have

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something called a background check law. So in order for me to hand you my guns, if I'm

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in the time of crisis, you have to undergo a background check. And that's an obstacle

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to care, it's an obstacle to doing the right thing. You know, sometimes you can read these

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laws and they'll say, well, you know, in an exigent circumstances, you can receive somebody's

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guns without going through the background check. But then they add language that says

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something the effect of only so long as it's necessary. So well, how long is that? You

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know, it's up to the judge or it's up to the person who assesses it later on down the road.

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Is it 72 hours? Is it three months? Is it is it a year? I don't know how long is it taking

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you to get right? So we want to we want to attack that and say, let's not let's not make

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this about policies and legislation that don't do anything to move the needle. And let's

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tackle root cause mitigation. How do we mitigate the root cause of what got somebody to the

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point where they believe that it was a reasonable option to take one's own life or to take the

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lives of other people. And now we're talking about things like family structure, time with

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your children, getting off your devices, stop in taking negativity through the endless doom

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scrolling of Twitter, anything that alters your psyche to the point that you fall into

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depression or anxiety, right? So it's not it's not it's not feasible. It's not reasonable.

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It's just not even on the table for for discussion as far as I'm concerned, not as long as we're

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living in the United States of America with our Constitution written the way that it is

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to protect those those rights. Yeah. And sadly, we get into these nuanced type of debates on

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things that quite frankly, this is a situation that's really not that nuanced. It's it's

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fairly it's fairly clear are there real world ramification? Sure. But yeah, it is what it

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is. And I love the internal locus of control. That is, I think that not only is that a freedom

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loving thing, but that it's it's liberating for the individual, even that's going through

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a crisis. Let's throw gun stuff out of the way. I've got a a family member that just

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died or or I'm going through a divorce or there's a tornado that hit, you know, something

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catastrophic. If everything is external, my whole well being in life is by these outside

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forces. That's a pretty helpless type of life. And if things don't go my way, the the election

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doesn't go my way, I am in emergency mode. And that's not a way to live life. So on that

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side of things, and this could be gun related or really just for general mental health.

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What are some just basic internal locus of control things that everyday Americans can

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use to just improve their their mental well being?

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Know well your emotions, you can master them. And unfortunately, emotional functioning is

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not in anybody's curricula. And so I've I've got a video series that's available for free

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on this effort website, you can go to our YouTube channel to and watch me standing in

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front of a whiteboard talking about your 10 core emotions is all based on the work and

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research of Carol is heard. And what I want to do is I want to train people to know properly

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how their brain works in response to environments so that you can navigate these emotional upheavals

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that you experience without handing your power over to the external. So it's not he made

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me mad. It's I allowed myself to feel anger, when I should have just felt the disappointment

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in the failure to deliver on expectations, right? So disappointment or sadness is one

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of our 10 core motions. As dudes, we are particularly disadvantaged in feeling feelings, but also

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the most vulnerable ones like disappointment, sadness, you know, shame, guilt, anguish, despair.

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So knowing that we can tolerate these things and life goes on is critical to navigating

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when life presents these things to us. If all we do is reach for something that doesn't

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accurately attend to that like anger or contempt, not only have we improperly address the emotion,

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but we are left with a residue that doesn't get addressed either. So the limbic system

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keeps running, whether or not we want it to, and we keep feeling feelings, knowing how

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to accurately identify those as paramount if we're going to engage well with with each

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other. So emotional functioning is one of those things. You have 10 emotions, we all

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have 10. They've been around for the last 40,000 years that we've been walking the earth.

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And if you know how to do that, you can improve your communication, you can improve your distress

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tolerance, you can teach your children how to do it. Schools are getting a little better

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at teaching this stuff, but in the form of like social emotional learning, but really

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80 90% of social emotional learning curricula is poor at best, nefarious at worst, and the

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remaining 10 to 15% or whatever is is pretty good. But the bottom line is, the adults don't

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know how to do it to the kids anyway, we need to know ourselves what we're doing so we can

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teach the next generation and also to regulate our own responses. So that's one practical

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thing. And I know it's a kind of a non answer to a question because I'm referring you to

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a video series, but that's what's required. If we're going to, if we're going to own this

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internal locus of control, we have to make some efforts and we're going to get good at

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whatever we practice. If we've practiced avoidance for a really long time, we're probably pretty

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good at it. If we practice vulnerability, we're going to get good at that too. And then from

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vulnerability comes intimacy and through intimacy is how we build human relationships. I don't

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I don't want people wandering the earth with proxy relationships or feeling proxy emotions,

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because that is a form of avoidance. And avoidance in my view is what's splintering a lot of society.

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It's the it's the blame shifting onto the other. It's the externalizing. It's the, you

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know, Congress is doing the wrong thing as opposed to I'm responsible for capturing my

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own sanity and and happiness in life, right? So the more we push it off onto others, the

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more power we're handing over to those people, things, entities, agencies, businesses that

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they a, don't deserve, b probably don't know that they have and c, deprive us of the ability

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to navigate our own life. And there's always going to be something that's going to pop

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up that I can blame for my own circumstances at the end of the day, who's in the center

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of it, me, right? So we have to get out of this mindset that it's somebody else's fault

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that I'm feeling the way that I am. Well, that may be true. Maybe, maybe true that it's your

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parents fault for raising you poorly and neglecting you or abusing you or introducing you to violence,

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whatever it is. But at the end of the day, it's your responsibility. It doesn't matter

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who's fault it is. You're responsible for, for dealing with it now. And I tell that to

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a lot of my patients in an office, and it's amazing how well they respond to that kind

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of thing. I go, Yeah, you know what, I like how you frame that. It isn't my fault, but

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fault doesn't matter. What matters is that we fix it. So yeah, practically, look at

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yourself, look in your own mirror. However, if over many, many years, you've been conditioned

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to believe that it's a it's very hard to look at yourself because it's scary because you

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might have to question everything that you thought you knew about the way the world works.

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Then that's a challenge. And that comes down to how do you tolerate the fear of looking

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at yourself and seeing all your potential? Yeah, well, and again, I think we have to

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do as clinicians do a good job of balancing the fact of, yeah, there are some challenges

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there. I tell people often, if they're going towards towards alcohol or food or whatever

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that replacement behavior is, if we take that away, then yeah, you're going to be uncomfortable.

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Like you're going to face some anxiety if you're going to dig into this. But one, we

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need to build up some of those healthy coping skills to help you handle these emotions.

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And two, you can do it. I think we spend so much time even in the mental health profession

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of this is bad, that's bad, this is bad, that we're almost priming our clients to say, yeah,

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this is awful. I can't do it without you. And almost a dependence on the counselor to

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make them take them through whatever the problem is, instead of empowering that individual

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that no, you can do that. What are your thoughts on kind of what I said there and how do you

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navigate communicating that to your clients? We don't want to become yet another external

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control locus for these people. I don't want to create a dependence. I tell my students,

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my interns, my employees all the time that our job is to help make them better, not to

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help them feel better. I want to get you well, not feel better. Feelings are temporary, right?

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So we don't want to create that dependence. And we don't want to become another thing

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to which they can point upon which they rely that's something other than self. So we want

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to have an eyeball toward determination of treatment, not just Tuesday at 4pm in perpetuity,

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even though it fathoms my wall and keeps you on the calendar, it also is highly unethical

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to do that. I want to tap into your inner potential so that you stop coming through my door. This

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is why we do podcasts and YouTube videos and that kind of thing. So people can arm themselves

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with the information to solve their own problems in their own kitchens, instead of having to

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come in all the time, there's always going to be professional psychotherapy available.

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But I mean, to your point about, you know, not taking it too seriously, like, we want

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to take the work quite seriously, but not ourselves. Yes, if I'm taking myself seriously,

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it puts me at the center of their healing and not them. All I am is a guide and I should

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be temporary. After the symptoms abate and they've they've replaced some behaviors with

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some healthier ones, I'm done. And really, if we retreat to the medical model, you got

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symptom presentation amounting to criteria that results in a diagnosis. Once the symptoms

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go away, you no longer have a diagnosis. Now you're not treating anybody. That's that's

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that becomes coaching, which there's nothing wrong with coaching. I have no problem with

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coaching. But friends can coach, parents can coach, mentors can coach, your bartender

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and your barber can coach. You don't need me. And I don't want to be that person, even

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though I'm, you know, it's nice to take your money and give you some insight and advice.

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That's not my role. If I'm if I'm adhering to the medical model, I want to make sure

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that I'm targeting the problem area and achieving problem resolution. And once we're done, we're

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done. So right behind you is somebody else coming in, I should not be insecure about

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that. I need to I need to have faith that if I work myself out of a job in the entire

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community in which I live is now healthy and healed, then I'll be happy to pay my bills

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doing literally any other work because everybody around me will be happy.

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Yeah. Great. Great. When we're talking about internal, external, locustive control, two

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major things that, you know, certainly get all sorts of people in trouble for talking

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about, but that's why we do these podcasts to talk about these things came to my mind.

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One is what you referenced before public health, pandemic, all of that. Mental health is at

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the center of all of that, which unfortunately is going to take us decades, I believe to

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really unravel. And then the other one that's massive in our field right now is gender affirming

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and care. So let's let's go for the just on the pandemic, the public health side of things.

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Me real personally, I've shared some of this on my podcast before I was working in the

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hospital setting back pre pandemic and then through 2021. And I'd like to be careful in

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my language here because I was not technically fired. But it was one of those where, hey,

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if you don't get the vaccine, you don't get the shot, then you will be. And I had the

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opportunity and honestly, I could have gotten the religious exemption. But that wasn't my

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primary reason for not getting it. And mind you, too, I've not had issues. I have co workers,

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friends, families that got the shot and they feel great about and that's great. But I had

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my other reasons. All that being said, public health kind of took took a job away from me,

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which I don't think is the role of public health. And that's not mentioning all the

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other missteps that were taken well before even shots were introduced. So as a mental

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health professional, what was your first kind of reaction here of the public health people

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may not have the public health best interest in mind. And now that we're mostly out of

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the severe restrictions, mostly anyways, where do we go from here, particularly as a profession,

390
00:34:27,000 --> 00:34:31,560
we can't take these things back like how do we gain some of that trust back. So I know

391
00:34:31,560 --> 00:34:34,000
through a lot at you, but kind of do with that what you will.

392
00:34:34,000 --> 00:34:40,720
I have a different experience. I was leaned on pretty heavily by some, some public health

393
00:34:40,720 --> 00:34:47,720
people and some, some state people to lead the charge. And if I, if I demonstrate everybody

394
00:34:47,720 --> 00:34:53,320
that my shot was safe, then we could reopen to in person counseling, right? That was the,

395
00:34:53,320 --> 00:34:57,640
the apocryphal story that we were all fed, which is that, you know, it stops transmission

396
00:34:57,640 --> 00:35:02,360
and all this stuff. And I was like, I was deeply skeptical about that. And eventually,

397
00:35:02,360 --> 00:35:08,640
I, I got to a place where I said, I've got my own internal reasons. I was in my early

398
00:35:08,640 --> 00:35:13,000
40s, I've got a history of asthma. This is an upper respiratory virus. If it helps me

399
00:35:13,000 --> 00:35:19,560
to, you know, stay out of the hospital, then okay. So I ended up getting my first series

400
00:35:19,560 --> 00:35:28,280
of shots in late 2020 as one of the leaders. And I posted on Twitter and I wasn't, I wasn't

401
00:35:28,280 --> 00:35:34,280
a hundred percent in, but I thought on the whole, if this helps people, then great. Later,

402
00:35:34,280 --> 00:35:38,400
we get new information and then find out that that, that we relied to and we were coerced

403
00:35:38,400 --> 00:35:43,680
with donuts and free beer and all sorts of stuff that you shouldn't, you shouldn't have

404
00:35:43,680 --> 00:35:49,440
to rely on if the product is good. You know, if you're a brand new restaurant opening and

405
00:35:49,440 --> 00:35:53,720
you want to give a 20% discount for people to get, get in the door, eventually you stop

406
00:35:53,720 --> 00:35:57,240
off from the 20% discount because the food stands on its own and people just recruit

407
00:35:57,240 --> 00:36:01,400
themselves into your restaurant. And that didn't happen with these, these shots and

408
00:36:01,400 --> 00:36:05,520
certainly not with the masking. The masking was absurd on its face from the beginning.

409
00:36:05,520 --> 00:36:09,040
And I fought that pretty, pretty openly and pretty publicly and I still do. And I did

410
00:36:09,040 --> 00:36:13,800
it on the premise of emotional development through facial recognition, which you can

411
00:36:13,800 --> 00:36:19,280
see in the videos. And I did, I wasn't interested in stunting children's development, which

412
00:36:19,280 --> 00:36:24,560
we did. And now we have evidence of that. And I hate saying that I was right, but I

413
00:36:24,560 --> 00:36:32,240
was right. And it bothers me deeply that we went all in on this absurd face covering thing

414
00:36:32,240 --> 00:36:36,680
that absolutely impacted children's ability to develop, not to mention the school colleges,

415
00:36:36,680 --> 00:36:42,040
which now Randy Winegarten is denying she ever even had a hand in. So it's, it's, it's

416
00:36:42,040 --> 00:36:48,840
very, it's very disturbing and distressing that so few public health professionals have

417
00:36:48,840 --> 00:36:52,840
stepped forward and said, you know what, we probably miscalculated this. There's a guy

418
00:36:52,840 --> 00:36:59,680
on Twitter, I follow his name is Kevin Bass. He has done an about face and he got skewered

419
00:36:59,680 --> 00:37:03,320
by the, by the people who were doubling down because they, they got so locked into their

420
00:37:03,320 --> 00:37:09,640
own egos that they couldn't let go of the narrative that they built because they didn't

421
00:37:09,640 --> 00:37:15,120
have an authentic sense of self to, to withstand the ego change. And I'm saying ego and self,

422
00:37:15,120 --> 00:37:21,280
I'm talking Carl Jung, analytic psychology left lens and frame of reference. So for

423
00:37:21,280 --> 00:37:25,360
the uninitiated, the ego, as I'm saying, it is not a bad thing or a good thing. It's just

424
00:37:25,360 --> 00:37:28,280
a thing. It's, it's your comfort zone. It's your, it's your place of being. And sometimes

425
00:37:28,280 --> 00:37:33,800
it grows into how you see yourself and your own identity. And that's very dangerous because

426
00:37:33,800 --> 00:37:38,880
if your ego, which is fleeting and temporary and often crafted by the world is conflated

427
00:37:38,880 --> 00:37:43,400
with your, your identity, meaning your sense of self, capital S, you'll, you'll have a

428
00:37:43,400 --> 00:37:47,520
really tough time letting go of that. So a brief analogy might be somebody who's got

429
00:37:47,520 --> 00:37:53,160
a pattern of addictive behavior, say to a substance, and through that substance use,

430
00:37:53,160 --> 00:37:57,560
they see themselves in the world. Letting go of that is going to be very challenging

431
00:37:57,560 --> 00:38:02,000
because they don't know quote unquote who they are if they let go of the substance use.

432
00:38:02,000 --> 00:38:05,280
And we do this with jobs and relationships and all sorts of things, clothes that we wear,

433
00:38:05,280 --> 00:38:10,680
hobbies that we do. So how do we combat that? Well, I'm glad you asked. So what we want

434
00:38:10,680 --> 00:38:16,280
to do is develop a very strong sense of self capital S. And the way we do that is we have

435
00:38:16,280 --> 00:38:23,320
to find some anchoring principles, some matrix or rubric through which we evaluate the world

436
00:38:23,320 --> 00:38:31,920
and make decisions based on a series of evaluated stances that we take that we know that we

437
00:38:31,920 --> 00:38:37,160
know that we know are ours that are bigger than us and that are likely not to change.

438
00:38:37,160 --> 00:38:41,520
So a lot of people reach straight for spirituality and religion because it's bigger than them.

439
00:38:41,520 --> 00:38:46,760
It's usually anchored in scripture or doctrine of some kind. And it's usually not going to

440
00:38:46,760 --> 00:38:49,720
change if you believe something very well and you've examined your beliefs, you can

441
00:38:49,720 --> 00:38:55,200
stand on them when challenged, which it sounds like you did. You didn't give in to the, the

442
00:38:55,200 --> 00:39:01,240
coercion and the messaging and the advertising use. You said no. Behind that, you knew it

443
00:39:01,240 --> 00:39:04,600
wasn't really about the religion, which I applaud you for. And that's very commendable

444
00:39:04,600 --> 00:39:09,880
because you could have punched out with the, with the escape clause there, but you didn't.

445
00:39:09,880 --> 00:39:13,560
Instead you said, no, it's bigger than that. I'm not going to use this cheap excuse. I'm

446
00:39:13,560 --> 00:39:18,560
going to stand on principle. So congratulations to you. Parents can do this with their children

447
00:39:18,560 --> 00:39:25,080
when they teach values and say, these are our values. We do not deviate from them. Now,

448
00:39:25,080 --> 00:39:29,560
that's not to say that you just rigidly adhere to them. Values can change. You can change

449
00:39:29,560 --> 00:39:34,720
your mind. You can change beliefs, but you want to know why. So my favorite word in really

450
00:39:34,720 --> 00:39:38,920
in counseling, but also in my life is intentionality. And it's something I picked up from my good

451
00:39:38,920 --> 00:39:45,680
friend and mentor Christian Conti, who has a really wonderful way of dealing with people.

452
00:39:45,680 --> 00:39:48,400
He calls it yield theory. And he's written a book about it. It's called walking through

453
00:39:48,400 --> 00:39:53,160
anger. You can get for about 18 bucks on Amazon. Anybody can read this book. It's great. But

454
00:39:53,160 --> 00:39:56,800
intentionality is the spirit of knowing why you do what you do. And if you don't have

455
00:39:56,800 --> 00:40:00,120
anchored principles, you don't know why you do what you do. You've handed yourself over

456
00:40:00,120 --> 00:40:05,800
to limbic reaction, belief response, whatever lens you view the world through. And you are

457
00:40:05,800 --> 00:40:11,240
not in control now. Your beliefs are most people's beliefs are given to them by some

458
00:40:11,240 --> 00:40:18,640
external source, parents, clergy, teachers, neighbors, media, movies. So we don't just

459
00:40:18,640 --> 00:40:22,640
abandon our beliefs. What we do is we examine them very, very well so that when they're

460
00:40:22,640 --> 00:40:26,800
challenged, we can know why we can explain with intentionality, why we do what we do,

461
00:40:26,800 --> 00:40:31,480
why we believe what we believe, and then move forward. And if you're not anchored in that,

462
00:40:31,480 --> 00:40:36,360
you don't have a sense of self. And you do become subject to the louder voices, the more

463
00:40:36,360 --> 00:40:42,800
intimidating people, the policies that maybe you don't agree with, but you comply anyway.

464
00:40:42,800 --> 00:40:48,360
So the challenge is evaluate yourself, stand on something that's bigger than you are that

465
00:40:48,360 --> 00:40:52,000
you could point to know for us, we can take it out of the realm of spirituality and make

466
00:40:52,000 --> 00:40:57,800
it very agnostic and say, what's the counseling profession ethical code based on basically

467
00:40:57,800 --> 00:41:05,080
five ethical principles, justice, autonomy, fidelity, non maleficence, beneficence. Through

468
00:41:05,080 --> 00:41:10,780
those we we give rise to our entire ethical codes. And now we know why we do what we do.

469
00:41:10,780 --> 00:41:15,360
And those can can be negotiated, they can be flexed, they can have friction, but at least

470
00:41:15,360 --> 00:41:21,120
we're mindfully examining them so that when we have to make a call to CPS and we're balancing

471
00:41:21,120 --> 00:41:26,120
the difference between breaching confidentiality and protecting confidentiality, we can at

472
00:41:26,120 --> 00:41:33,120
least articulate our position with some reasonable, rational understanding of the why. And that

473
00:41:33,120 --> 00:41:36,840
way when the when the patient comes out, they're all angry, why'd you why'd you call CPS, why'd

474
00:41:36,840 --> 00:41:42,120
you call for a welfare check when I was suicidal, like say, well, because of this and such,

475
00:41:42,120 --> 00:41:48,120
and here's my rationale. And I'm more comfortable dealing with an angry person who breached,

476
00:41:48,120 --> 00:41:51,560
who's confidentiality, I breached call the authorities to make sure you're safe, then

477
00:41:51,560 --> 00:41:57,400
a dead patient whose family is suing me for protecting confidentiality. I'm more comfortable

478
00:41:57,400 --> 00:42:02,680
standing on one ledge than the other. But you're standing on a ledge. And as long as

479
00:42:02,680 --> 00:42:07,600
you know why, you're in a pretty good spot. But the only way you get there is constant

480
00:42:07,600 --> 00:42:14,080
self evaluation. And if we go back to the union version of this, the the self, the the

481
00:42:14,080 --> 00:42:20,880
psyche, if you will, the human spirit is infinite in its capacity, because it's a divine creation,

482
00:42:20,880 --> 00:42:26,280
it's bigger than we are. And you can't ever achieve an arrival point of saying, I know

483
00:42:26,280 --> 00:42:31,160
who I am, I am fully individuated, I am fully differentiated. Because if you do, you have

484
00:42:31,160 --> 00:42:35,080
become tantamount to God, and you don't want to become God of your own world, because then

485
00:42:35,080 --> 00:42:40,680
you're the one making the decisions and driving everything instead of mindfully reflecting

486
00:42:40,680 --> 00:42:46,040
out of deference to what you're supposed to be doing and what you could possibly do someday.

487
00:42:46,040 --> 00:42:51,200
So these are all the really deep fun things that I enjoy exploring, like the infinite

488
00:42:51,200 --> 00:42:55,920
capacity of self also comes along with the negative side, right, the dark. It's like,

489
00:42:55,920 --> 00:43:00,240
yeah, you got the capacity to be pretty dark. Whether or not you give yourself over to it

490
00:43:00,240 --> 00:43:04,640
is up to you. And that's a matter of decision and choice. So that's how we do it. We find

491
00:43:04,640 --> 00:43:09,080
out who we are. So that when the storms of life blow, we know that we're anchored in

492
00:43:09,080 --> 00:43:13,000
something and we're not just going to blow away with them, which probably leads into your

493
00:43:13,000 --> 00:43:17,560
thing about the trans ideology, right? Yeah, I was going to say that exact same thing. I

494
00:43:17,560 --> 00:43:26,560
think that is exactly it. And why this has been, you know, I think that's part of what

495
00:43:26,560 --> 00:43:35,160
makes this so interesting as a mental health provider, because we've known about transsexual

496
00:43:35,160 --> 00:43:40,600
development and everything for a long time. This is not a new issue. What's new is how

497
00:43:40,600 --> 00:43:51,080
we are coming about it and just the massive spread of this ideology. And it's so incongruent

498
00:43:51,080 --> 00:44:01,560
with my value system that I couldn't sit there as a counselor or just as a citizen and say,

499
00:44:01,560 --> 00:44:10,720
you know, this, this is okay. What we're doing. Tell me kind of your, your process with gender

500
00:44:10,720 --> 00:44:17,560
affirmation care, where did you see this start kind of going off the rails, so to speak a

501
00:44:17,560 --> 00:44:23,080
little bit? When did this start becoming an issue? And how do you make sense of this as

502
00:44:23,080 --> 00:44:24,080
as a clinician?

503
00:44:24,080 --> 00:44:29,720
First of all, your audio is doing that thing again, I'm going to let go because if you're

504
00:44:29,720 --> 00:44:33,240
not noticing it in your headphones, it's quite possible that it's recording accurately and

505
00:44:33,240 --> 00:44:38,120
I'm receiving it. Okay, okay. We'll just go with it. Okay. But it's not unintelligible.

506
00:44:38,120 --> 00:44:39,800
So we'll just go. Okay.

507
00:44:39,800 --> 00:44:46,520
All right, this is a tough one. Because like you said, we've had it in our realm for ever.

508
00:44:46,520 --> 00:44:52,840
Only recently has it become pretty obvious that there's an agenda being pushed. And what

509
00:44:52,840 --> 00:45:01,360
alarms me is the requirements, right? You're required to affirm, you're required to use

510
00:45:01,360 --> 00:45:06,240
pronouns, you're required to do all these things. And it never seems to come from the

511
00:45:06,240 --> 00:45:11,400
individuals. It's coming from they and they can be the professional associations, it can

512
00:45:11,400 --> 00:45:16,960
be the activists online with their anonymous accounts that all seem to have like cartoon

513
00:45:16,960 --> 00:45:24,760
avatars, by the way. It's never from an individual sitting in front of me saying, Hi, I'm Jake,

514
00:45:24,760 --> 00:45:29,600
I go by, you know, they then pronouns, and I would prefer that you ask me, you know,

515
00:45:29,600 --> 00:45:32,920
you refer to me as a cement. That's very weird anyway, because they would only know that

516
00:45:32,920 --> 00:45:36,280
if I were referring to them in third person, which case, they probably wouldn't be in the

517
00:45:36,280 --> 00:45:39,640
room. So that's bizarre on its face. Yes.

518
00:45:39,640 --> 00:45:46,760
But for me, I, again, going back to Yield, if I'm meeting people where they are, and

519
00:45:46,760 --> 00:45:50,720
I have this experience education and training behind me and my tens of thousands of hours

520
00:45:50,720 --> 00:45:56,840
of clinical contact, then what I'm going to do is I'm going to ask holistically, what's

521
00:45:56,840 --> 00:46:00,800
going on with you. And we're going to find out what your distress is. So let's go back

522
00:46:00,800 --> 00:46:05,800
to the medical model. If you're not a clinician, or even if you are, and you're just new to

523
00:46:05,800 --> 00:46:10,040
this field, maybe you don't know this, something like this happens, you come into my office

524
00:46:10,040 --> 00:46:14,120
and say, Hi, Johnny, I'm Jake, how are you? What brings you in today? It's like my favorite

525
00:46:14,120 --> 00:46:18,280
question, because it gets everything's kick started. Yeah. And Johnny says, well, blah,

526
00:46:18,280 --> 00:46:23,360
blah, blah, and whatever blah, blah, blah is ostensibly your problem. And then from

527
00:46:23,360 --> 00:46:27,400
there, from that problem area, we might discuss some things and I go, well, okay, that may

528
00:46:27,400 --> 00:46:31,400
be a problem. Maybe there's something deeper, but we'll put it on the board at the top.

529
00:46:31,400 --> 00:46:35,000
And right below that, we'll have a goal. What's your goal for counseling, Johnny? You'll

530
00:46:35,000 --> 00:46:39,800
say, well, fix the problem, right? Something resembling that. And I said, all right, cool.

531
00:46:39,800 --> 00:46:43,920
And then we'll develop some steps called objectives to that goal, so that we know that we're on

532
00:46:43,920 --> 00:46:50,520
track. And then we develop intervention strategies. And I think what we've done is we've leapfrogged

533
00:46:50,520 --> 00:46:55,880
the goal and gone straight to interventions. We did this with COVID. So COVID was the problem.

534
00:46:55,880 --> 00:47:01,360
New virus, attacking people, making them sick. And we weren't straight to intervention strategies.

535
00:47:01,360 --> 00:47:07,280
Nobody asked what the goal was. Was the goal to stop COVID? Was the goal to keep grandma

536
00:47:07,280 --> 00:47:13,240
and grandpa alive? Because they're in the most vulnerable demographic. What's the goal?

537
00:47:13,240 --> 00:47:20,280
We don't know. But put a mask on. Get your shots, separate distance, lock down, don't

538
00:47:20,280 --> 00:47:24,320
go to school, don't go to work, except for the special people who are essential, right?

539
00:47:24,320 --> 00:47:29,040
We didn't know what the goal was. Two weeks to flatten the curve turns into two and a

540
00:47:29,040 --> 00:47:34,920
half years. So when somebody comes in the office, I go, what's the goal? If you're in

541
00:47:34,920 --> 00:47:40,800
distress, it's to alleviate the distress. Now, at some point, you signed some paperwork

542
00:47:40,800 --> 00:47:45,960
that handed some of your autonomy over to me to give you guidance. Now, I'm going to

543
00:47:45,960 --> 00:47:48,920
respect that and I'm not going to tell you how to live your life. I'm going to ask you

544
00:47:48,920 --> 00:47:56,200
what you think the pathway is to peace and tranquility through your distress. Affirming

545
00:47:56,200 --> 00:48:02,240
care doesn't allow for that. Affirming care, and it starts with transaffirming care, that

546
00:48:02,240 --> 00:48:08,440
it ripples into other types of presentations. Affirming care says you're not allowed to

547
00:48:08,440 --> 00:48:11,280
give feedback, you're not allowed to give direction, you're not allowed to give perspective,

548
00:48:11,280 --> 00:48:16,240
you're only allowed to agree. And that presumes that the person coming in knows what the goal

549
00:48:16,240 --> 00:48:20,360
is and the interventions. Well, okay, then what are you doing in my office then if you

550
00:48:20,360 --> 00:48:27,080
already know the answers? I don't need to exist. So where I see this becoming very dangerous

551
00:48:27,080 --> 00:48:31,760
is not just with children are completely, we're talking about adults, children, that's

552
00:48:31,760 --> 00:48:35,640
a different argument, and I'll get into that if you want. But adult comes in says I'm really

553
00:48:35,640 --> 00:48:39,840
struggling, I don't know who I am inside. I'll go you have an identity issue. And I'll

554
00:48:39,840 --> 00:48:45,440
go back to the concept of the true self, divinely inspired living within you. Well, who do you

555
00:48:45,440 --> 00:48:49,840
think you are? Who do you want to be? And we start exploring much more holistically than

556
00:48:49,840 --> 00:48:56,840
just whatever gender presentation it is. Gender may be the most available thing that we can

557
00:48:56,840 --> 00:49:02,960
pluck and point to. So I just feel like I'm a woman, I go well, you said the word feeling,

558
00:49:02,960 --> 00:49:09,360
you only got 10 feelings, unless it's a physiological feeling like hot or cold or fatigue or hunger.

559
00:49:09,360 --> 00:49:15,280
So don't feel like I'm the right gender is not a feeling it's not one of our 10. So what

560
00:49:15,280 --> 00:49:19,280
is it? It's a belief. Now beliefs can be changed, we already went through that that comes from

561
00:49:19,280 --> 00:49:25,000
the frontal lobe. What is it that leads you to believe that you're not aligned with your

562
00:49:25,000 --> 00:49:29,760
true self? Gee, I don't know. Now we have a whole different conversation about where

563
00:49:29,760 --> 00:49:33,480
this came into being and we can explore that mindfully. Somebody's just coming in looking

564
00:49:33,480 --> 00:49:37,680
for a green so I go yeah, alright, you feel like a woman but you're you present as a man.

565
00:49:37,680 --> 00:49:42,240
Well, what do you want me to do about that? Just agree with you. Yeah, you're a woman.

566
00:49:42,240 --> 00:49:47,920
Now what? You're fixed. You're healed. And never is that the case. Right. It's always

567
00:49:47,920 --> 00:49:53,760
a trauma history. It's always a failure to integrate socially. Everybody points to autism

568
00:49:53,760 --> 00:49:58,400
these days as you know, there's a lot of autistic kids who don't know who they are on the inside.

569
00:49:58,400 --> 00:50:01,440
It's like, well, yeah, that's because they lack social skills to be able to navigate

570
00:50:01,440 --> 00:50:05,840
their environments. And they don't know where the guardrails are on how to interact with

571
00:50:05,840 --> 00:50:12,040
other other kids, right? Bullying can do that. It's not just, you know, the traditional presentation

572
00:50:12,040 --> 00:50:15,040
of abuse and violence and neglect in the home, it could be bullying on the playground. I

573
00:50:15,040 --> 00:50:18,520
don't know who I am because I second guess myself every time I step on the playground

574
00:50:18,520 --> 00:50:22,720
because one kid says that I suck at basketball, the other kid says I suck at baseball, I go

575
00:50:22,720 --> 00:50:26,680
try chess and they don't like me either. I tried, you know, playing the trumpet, not

576
00:50:26,680 --> 00:50:33,120
very good at that. Now I quote unquote don't know who I am because of the external environment,

577
00:50:33,120 --> 00:50:37,360
the trumpet, the baseball, the basketball, the chess, those are all external. Those aren't

578
00:50:37,360 --> 00:50:41,880
who I am. Those are things I do. And now we're talking to another sense of self. We get midlife

579
00:50:41,880 --> 00:50:46,640
crises all the time from I was reached for Bob the accountant. I don't know why the accountant's

580
00:50:46,640 --> 00:50:51,200
name is Bob, but he's Bob the accountant. I say, you know, Bob the accountant is approaching

581
00:50:51,200 --> 00:50:56,440
his retirement. And for his whole life, he said, I'm Bob, I'm the neighborhood accountant,

582
00:50:56,440 --> 00:50:58,840
Bob the accountant, Bob the accountant. Well, now he's approaching retirement and he doesn't

583
00:50:58,840 --> 00:51:04,240
know quote unquote who he is without his accountancy practice. I will deed, Bob, your, your husband,

584
00:51:04,240 --> 00:51:09,320
your, you know, part-time homebrew, you have children, you have grandchildren, you're lots

585
00:51:09,320 --> 00:51:15,040
of things that aren't just your job. So when we identify self with activity or self with

586
00:51:15,040 --> 00:51:21,720
presentation or self with external environment, now we've conflated what we think what we

587
00:51:21,720 --> 00:51:26,680
believe with who we are at a much, much deeper level. And we've carved out opportunities

588
00:51:26,680 --> 00:51:32,120
for us to be anything, but what we've repeatedly told ourselves or people have told us that

589
00:51:32,120 --> 00:51:36,680
we are. And I don't want to limit people's potential. That's, that's not, that's not

590
00:51:36,680 --> 00:51:41,840
for me to say, but I also fundamentally think that if people are infinite in their capacity

591
00:51:41,840 --> 00:51:46,680
to do and be all things, then why would I allow that in my practice? I'm not, I'm not

592
00:51:46,680 --> 00:51:51,200
just going to agree to agree. But here's the real danger. You have parents, this is already

593
00:51:51,200 --> 00:51:55,400
happening before affirming care guidelines came into place. Parents come in and say,

594
00:51:55,400 --> 00:52:01,320
here's my kid, he has ADHD, fix him. And at Zephyr, we have a policy on our intake form

595
00:52:01,320 --> 00:52:04,680
that says we don't do fix my kid. It doesn't read like that. But basically it says, you

596
00:52:04,680 --> 00:52:08,720
know, he was the executive of your home as go you, so go your children. So you're going

597
00:52:08,720 --> 00:52:11,120
to be involved. This isn't due to you. So you don't drop them off for an hour and come

598
00:52:11,120 --> 00:52:17,520
back, right? So I'm not going to fix your kid. You're going to help fix your kid. And

599
00:52:17,520 --> 00:52:22,040
I might see that ADHD presentation as lack of parental involvement. Say, look, you just

600
00:52:22,040 --> 00:52:27,200
got to show up your parenting parenting structure, add some add some dynamics in the home that

601
00:52:27,200 --> 00:52:33,120
integrate more family time, be fully present, don't be on your device. And oh, by the way,

602
00:52:33,120 --> 00:52:36,160
what's your parenting philosophy? And usually people give me the trout faced look when I

603
00:52:36,160 --> 00:52:41,240
ask them that like what parenting philosophy. And so yeah, you know, the lens through which

604
00:52:41,240 --> 00:52:46,520
you conduct your parenting. So we start with that. But here's what affirming care does.

605
00:52:46,520 --> 00:52:49,320
Affirming care says I'm not allowed to do that. I'm allowed to just agree with the parent

606
00:52:49,320 --> 00:52:53,600
and affirm that the kid has ADHD. They are cool. I don't prescribe medicine, but maybe

607
00:52:53,600 --> 00:52:57,920
by advanced. And then again, why am I in your life if all I'm doing is agreeing with your

608
00:52:57,920 --> 00:53:01,720
problem presentation, we're trying to reach solutions here, we're trying to achieve a goal.

609
00:53:01,720 --> 00:53:06,360
If the goal is distraction avoidance and diminish the hyperactivity, which again comes back to

610
00:53:06,360 --> 00:53:11,040
personal responsibility and sense of self, then I can coach you in that I can help you

611
00:53:11,040 --> 00:53:15,460
with that. But if my job now because of affirming care is just to agree that your kid has whatever

612
00:53:15,460 --> 00:53:21,000
you said they did because you watched a TikTok video, I'm rendered irrelevant. And we probably

613
00:53:21,000 --> 00:53:28,640
won't help your kid, except maybe get him addicted to pharmaceuticals. And then what do we cease

614
00:53:28,640 --> 00:53:33,240
to exist as a profession, because all we can do is agree with whatever they came in after

615
00:53:33,240 --> 00:53:39,280
they searched WebMD that doesn't doesn't really jive with our ethics, which flies in the face

616
00:53:39,280 --> 00:53:44,040
or seemingly flies in the face of do no harm. The non maleficent component of our ethical

617
00:53:44,040 --> 00:53:50,120
precepts says person comes in complaining of whatever distress. And my job is to simply

618
00:53:50,120 --> 00:53:55,680
agree with that distress and do nothing to fix it. That is causing harm. I'm being unethical

619
00:53:55,680 --> 00:54:01,040
by agreeing to go along with the continued distress presentation. So I'm just not on

620
00:54:01,040 --> 00:54:06,680
board with that. It's wholly unethical at its root. And it's already happening. I've

621
00:54:06,680 --> 00:54:12,320
had people leave and, you know, go seek care elsewhere because I say no, I think it's actually

622
00:54:12,320 --> 00:54:17,160
a parenting thing. How dare you say, you know, can't you see that my kid is doing whatever

623
00:54:17,160 --> 00:54:22,040
he's doing? I'm like, he's sick. He's supposed to be distractible. And so that's where that's

624
00:54:22,040 --> 00:54:27,800
where I fear that this is going. And it's not it's not a good outcome, especially when

625
00:54:27,800 --> 00:54:32,920
litigation might be involved or licensing threats, because right now the AMFT, for example,

626
00:54:32,920 --> 00:54:39,160
has 26 pages of LGBTQIA plus affirming care guidelines. And for those of you don't know

627
00:54:39,160 --> 00:54:44,160
the entire ethical code from the AMFT is only 11 pages. So we got 26 pages of affirming

628
00:54:44,160 --> 00:54:51,680
care guidelines. We're one step away from being work from having those integrated into

629
00:54:51,680 --> 00:54:56,760
our ethics as it is. And once that happens, ethics are often embedded into law or adopted

630
00:54:56,760 --> 00:55:02,720
by reference into law. And then it becomes illegal not to affirm. And at that point,

631
00:55:02,720 --> 00:55:07,880
I probably just loudly renounce my licensure and become a coach, because I'm not I'm not

632
00:55:07,880 --> 00:55:11,160
interested in being unethical with my patients.

633
00:55:11,160 --> 00:55:19,400
That year last piece there, that is pretty much 100% of why there's this rebrand of my

634
00:55:19,400 --> 00:55:29,760
my podcast. And it's it's essentially a an insurance that here's this other entity that

635
00:55:29,760 --> 00:55:36,400
I can form into coaching or something different, just in case. Now, Oklahoma has passed some

636
00:55:36,400 --> 00:55:42,720
laws here recently that. Thankfully, I think we may be one of the last ones to kind of

637
00:55:42,720 --> 00:55:49,600
go that route of getting those ethics into law. But if you are a clinician that whether

638
00:55:49,600 --> 00:55:55,840
you're right left wing, whatever that you have any apprehension to gender affirming

639
00:55:55,840 --> 00:56:03,600
care, I don't say this to be alarmist, but just for best practice, you need to be prepared

640
00:56:03,600 --> 00:56:10,720
of what if the law is going to dictate, I have to affirm, what are you going to do about

641
00:56:10,720 --> 00:56:17,320
it? And again, just prepare, don't don't be scared, don't don't freak out about it. Hopefully

642
00:56:17,320 --> 00:56:22,640
things get better. We have more and more voices and organizations talking against it. But Jake

643
00:56:22,640 --> 00:56:30,520
lined out very well, some of these legitimate concerns that are heavily influenced the top

644
00:56:30,520 --> 00:56:37,240
of the top of organizations, American Council and Association is similar of some of the

645
00:56:37,240 --> 00:56:44,320
things that they're saying, you will be affected. So be prepared now, be prepared to fight out.

646
00:56:44,320 --> 00:56:50,640
And if your value system kind of going back into that importance of looking at yourself

647
00:56:50,640 --> 00:56:58,160
and your values, if it goes against this, it's better for you to keep your values than

648
00:56:58,160 --> 00:57:03,280
to keep your job and keep your license. It's not it's not worth it at that degree. I hope

649
00:57:03,280 --> 00:57:08,440
it doesn't come to that point. But again, you would be foolish at this point to to not

650
00:57:08,440 --> 00:57:14,040
prepare. Is there anything on that end of spectrum as far as licensing and the ethics

651
00:57:14,040 --> 00:57:16,760
that you wanted to hit a little bit more?

652
00:57:16,760 --> 00:57:22,200
Yeah, the concept of having a license only is relevant if you want to bill insurance.

653
00:57:22,200 --> 00:57:27,160
That's that's how it works. So insurance companies want to have the guarantee of minimum confident

654
00:57:27,160 --> 00:57:31,880
competence as stamped by the state. So the state guarantees minimum competence, they

655
00:57:31,880 --> 00:57:35,800
don't guarantee maximum competence with your license. And we all know clinicians who are

656
00:57:35,800 --> 00:57:41,280
not good at their jobs, but yet retain their license because they renew every year, they

657
00:57:41,280 --> 00:57:45,400
go through their continued courses, and that's all that's required to be maximally competent

658
00:57:45,400 --> 00:57:50,960
requires much more effort and a lot more digestion of information and consumption of research

659
00:57:50,960 --> 00:57:57,160
and analysis and whatnot. So if you don't care about billing insurance, and you think

660
00:57:57,160 --> 00:58:02,840
that you're going to stand on your own as a practitioner without that crutch, then that's

661
00:58:02,840 --> 00:58:08,920
an option, right? The insurance companies aren't really is a little cynical, but they're not

662
00:58:08,920 --> 00:58:13,680
really interested in a healthy populace, they're interested in membership retention in their

663
00:58:13,680 --> 00:58:18,120
organizations, right? So you continue paying your policy premiums, which is why they're

664
00:58:18,120 --> 00:58:25,680
incentivized to keep the networks artificially small by denying enrollment onto their panels

665
00:58:25,680 --> 00:58:31,880
and so forth. So in Nevada, we've we've run into that in a few cases, where they say sorry,

666
00:58:31,880 --> 00:58:36,360
we have enough of your kind in our network, we're not adding any more marriage or family

667
00:58:36,360 --> 00:58:40,920
therapists or clinical professional counselors or psychologists or whatever. You go really,

668
00:58:40,920 --> 00:58:45,400
last I checked Nevada was dead last in behavioral healthcare and provision. So we've we've cured

669
00:58:45,400 --> 00:58:49,600
mental illness in Nevada is what you're saying, we have an adequate network to address the

670
00:58:49,600 --> 00:58:54,160
continued year over year statistical analysis that says that we suck at things we don't

671
00:58:54,160 --> 00:58:58,960
want to suck at really interesting. So what do we do we go to our legislators and we say

672
00:58:58,960 --> 00:59:05,000
let's let's adopt any willing provider law, you don't have to, you don't have to pay,

673
00:59:05,000 --> 00:59:08,560
we're not asking you to authorize all claims, we're not asking you to authorize payment

674
00:59:08,560 --> 00:59:12,920
and perpetuity, we're just saying add people to the network who want to join if they're

675
00:59:12,920 --> 00:59:17,400
minimally competent and they're licensed, add them to the network. Nope, insurance comes

676
00:59:17,400 --> 00:59:22,480
right over the top with their lobbyists and says don't do this because why more people

677
00:59:22,480 --> 00:59:27,360
would access care, more money goes out the door, and their shareholders profits diminish.

678
00:59:27,360 --> 00:59:32,120
So it's a money thing. And and that we see that with claim denials, I mean, I got one

679
00:59:32,120 --> 00:59:38,520
the other day speaking of ADHD, an adult we've been treating for some time, finally got a

680
00:59:38,520 --> 00:59:43,080
claim denials says ADHD cannot be possible in adults. Like, okay, so now you're just

681
00:59:43,080 --> 00:59:47,280
overriding the DSM altogether. And that's that's what they do. And they throw up as

682
00:59:47,280 --> 00:59:53,400
many roadblocks as they can to retain profits. And when it becomes so taxing to the provider

683
00:59:53,400 --> 00:59:56,480
that they don't want to do that anymore, they just screw it, I don't want to bill anthem

684
00:59:56,480 --> 01:00:01,200
or whatever. And then anthem wins, because anthem's not interested in healing people,

685
01:00:01,200 --> 01:00:06,720
they're interested in enrolling people and throwing up reasons to deny care. And I'm

686
01:00:06,720 --> 01:00:10,920
in and I'm in touch with enough medical providers up and down the ladder from primary care to

687
01:00:10,920 --> 01:00:16,440
pediatrics to cardiology to emergency care, they're all dealing with it. You can't get

688
01:00:16,440 --> 01:00:21,120
an MRI ordered unless you go through six months of physical therapy first. And then you know,

689
01:00:21,120 --> 01:00:25,120
if you still have pain, then we'll get the MRI. It's like MRIs are peanuts. Once you

690
01:00:25,120 --> 01:00:28,160
pay for the machine, all you do is pay for the electricity to run it in the tech to

691
01:00:28,160 --> 01:00:33,680
to read it, right? It's absurd. But it's yet another nickel and dime strategy to keep

692
01:00:33,680 --> 01:00:38,680
people away from care. So back to the what's what's the solution? I don't want to complain

693
01:00:38,680 --> 01:00:42,880
without a solution. The solution is we get better at our jobs and we teach people that

694
01:00:42,880 --> 01:00:48,440
that the answers are within. Maybe physical therapy is the more appropriate low level

695
01:00:48,440 --> 01:00:54,160
of intrusiveness. I'm a big fan of that. State and about a Medicaid requires least level

696
01:00:54,160 --> 01:01:00,080
of intrusiveness to address a problem before leveling up to the next level of intrusiveness.

697
01:01:00,080 --> 01:01:04,160
So low level of intrusiveness to me is talk therapy. Next level might be medicine, and

698
01:01:04,160 --> 01:01:08,040
we can debate that. It doesn't matter. But the next level after that is multiple contacts

699
01:01:08,040 --> 01:01:13,040
per week of therapy. So in the form of an intense about patient program, IOP, or the

700
01:01:13,040 --> 01:01:17,440
next level, it might be partial hospitalization. And then all the way up to hospitalization.

701
01:01:17,440 --> 01:01:21,720
We don't want to jump right to hospitalization. If talk therapy will work once a week. And

702
01:01:21,720 --> 01:01:26,640
I'm a big believer in that. I absolutely think that that's the most right thing to do for

703
01:01:26,640 --> 01:01:33,160
the patient who wants just their symptoms alleviated. Well, what is gender affirming care do, especially

704
01:01:33,160 --> 01:01:38,120
with the medicalization? It says validate that this person is accurate in their assessment

705
01:01:38,120 --> 01:01:43,560
that they need to change their external parts to fit their internal sense of self and medicalize

706
01:01:43,560 --> 01:01:47,640
it. Well, that's not that's not the least intrusive method to achieving the distress

707
01:01:47,640 --> 01:01:55,000
relief. That's that's hideously expensive. But people profit off of it. So now it's it

708
01:01:55,000 --> 01:02:00,480
seemingly that there's, you know, forces at play who are interested in generating revenue

709
01:02:00,480 --> 01:02:06,160
off of chopping off healthy body parts of children and sterilizing them with Lupron.

710
01:02:06,160 --> 01:02:09,680
When all that all that might be required is me sitting down with the kids and hey, look,

711
01:02:09,680 --> 01:02:12,560
man, you've been bullied for a little while. Of course, you don't know who you are. But

712
01:02:12,560 --> 01:02:16,200
let's let's shore up yourself efficacy and give you something to reach for that doesn't

713
01:02:16,200 --> 01:02:22,640
involve irreversible damage to your body that you may regret later in life. Affirming care

714
01:02:22,640 --> 01:02:26,880
says I'm not allowed to do that. So we want to make sure that we're doing the least intrusive

715
01:02:26,880 --> 01:02:32,120
methods possible first, and then failing those look to the next step, not just leap to the

716
01:02:32,120 --> 01:02:38,520
most extreme, that's absurd. So yeah, I do see it all over the place. And if as long

717
01:02:38,520 --> 01:02:45,720
as we ourselves have a strong sense of self, we have a good, good sense of our author authority

718
01:02:45,720 --> 01:02:50,400
as you know, given to us by law, then we can push back and say no, no, no, no, no, I'm

719
01:02:50,400 --> 01:02:54,800
not going to sign that letter that sends you to the surgeon. I'm going to work with you

720
01:02:54,800 --> 01:03:00,120
on dealing with the internal stuff first, being able to push back on the bullies on

721
01:03:00,120 --> 01:03:04,040
the playground, maybe work with your parents to be more present in your life, ditch the

722
01:03:04,040 --> 01:03:09,880
substance abuse, whatever it is. And if they don't like that, then you know, that's the

723
01:03:09,880 --> 01:03:14,400
beauty of a free and open market, you can choose somebody else to go to. I'm just not

724
01:03:14,400 --> 01:03:17,680
going to be a part of it. I don't I don't have to be compelled into that. But when they

725
01:03:17,680 --> 01:03:24,760
take away my right to assess things as I see fit as deemed minimally competent by the state,

726
01:03:24,760 --> 01:03:30,520
that's when I have a problem with it. Because now you're you legislator, who is non clinical,

727
01:03:30,520 --> 01:03:34,640
are inserting yourself into this clinical realm, as though you have this incompetence.

728
01:03:34,640 --> 01:03:37,240
And to me, that sounds like practicing out of scope.

729
01:03:37,240 --> 01:03:43,120
Yeah. Well, something that I know we talked on Twitter just real briefly about how I'm

730
01:03:43,120 --> 01:03:50,960
making my own practice, not centered around insurance, just due to the nature of my value

731
01:03:50,960 --> 01:03:57,000
system and kind of how I'm portraying to clients. It just doesn't seem to be in my best interest,

732
01:03:57,000 --> 01:04:00,640
nor my client's best interest. And I'm going to take this outside of my own practice for

733
01:04:00,640 --> 01:04:07,080
a second. I'm actually a part of a direct primary care. And I've been beating this drum

734
01:04:07,080 --> 01:04:14,120
very, very hard. Direct primary cares, they work outside of insurance, insurance is not

735
01:04:14,120 --> 01:04:21,160
exchanged in any part. So I'm I can see this as a consumer and see the benefit that when

736
01:04:21,160 --> 01:04:26,960
my medicine is out, we have a tech system or I can give a call and bam, we can get that

737
01:04:26,960 --> 01:04:31,720
taken care of. If I have a quick little cough, and normally I wouldn't go and see the doctor

738
01:04:31,720 --> 01:04:37,720
because I have to pay a $50 copay and wait in the office for two hours. I can call up

739
01:04:37,720 --> 01:04:43,000
my my doctor and hey, I can fit you in tomorrow at this time or do you have time for me to

740
01:04:43,000 --> 01:04:48,600
swing by real quick? He's even done some home visits and bam, we get that the level of care

741
01:04:48,600 --> 01:04:53,720
like you've talked about, it's through the roof. I have not experienced anything like

742
01:04:53,720 --> 01:04:59,240
this in a medical type of way. I've always just felt like cattle being herded in and

743
01:04:59,240 --> 01:05:06,920
out. And when insurance is out of the question, it just the creativity is opened up. And I

744
01:05:06,920 --> 01:05:11,440
actually kind of get excited to talk to the doctor because I feel like I get my whole

745
01:05:11,440 --> 01:05:17,720
concerns lined out. I know I feel assured that if my daughter gashes her head open that

746
01:05:17,720 --> 01:05:23,600
we won't have to pay $2,000 my doctor can just stitch it up. It it really is worthwhile.

747
01:05:23,600 --> 01:05:29,800
So as a as a clinician, if you're worried about the price tag and things like that, I know

748
01:05:29,800 --> 01:05:37,480
it's a different world than insurance, but as a consumer, there is a massive benefit.

749
01:05:37,480 --> 01:05:43,920
And if you're doing your job well, having that maximum competence like Jake is mentioning,

750
01:05:43,920 --> 01:05:46,280
your clients are going to be able to tell that difference.

751
01:05:46,280 --> 01:05:51,960
We have a plug for the most recent Naga Notes podcast that came out most recently as of

752
01:05:51,960 --> 01:05:57,120
this recording anyway, with Molly Rutherford. She's a doctor in Kentucky. She's big in the

753
01:05:57,120 --> 01:06:03,360
primary care, direct primary care stuff. And she lit a fire in my soul once I talked to

754
01:06:03,360 --> 01:06:09,520
her about that. And she introduced me to this thing called DPC Frontier, direct primary

755
01:06:09,520 --> 01:06:14,640
care frontier DPC Frontier.com. And they just recently had a conference actually it's happening

756
01:06:14,640 --> 01:06:21,240
right now over this weekend. And it's in Kansas City. And there's anesthesia is started by

757
01:06:21,240 --> 01:06:27,280
an anesthesiologist actually. So there's more and more people who are getting on board with

758
01:06:27,280 --> 01:06:30,960
that. And I'll tell you as an employer that that sounds great to me, because I don't like

759
01:06:30,960 --> 01:06:35,080
the idea of spending $90,000 a year on my employee's health insurance, which by the way,

760
01:06:35,080 --> 01:06:39,440
is only half of that because they pick up the other half. When we could save all that,

761
01:06:39,440 --> 01:06:45,000
I had two emergency room visits last year, $1,300 a piece, the entire bill for the visit

762
01:06:45,000 --> 01:06:48,840
was like 2,600. So it was like, I was paying half of that out of pocket. And how much of

763
01:06:48,840 --> 01:06:53,680
that really is the cost versus the inflated cost, because they have to recover what they

764
01:06:53,680 --> 01:06:59,680
need from insurance. So if we can get around the insurance by doing this, it's great, everybody

765
01:06:59,680 --> 01:07:04,080
wins. But you're flying in the face of the cultural intro jack, which is another Carl

766
01:07:04,080 --> 01:07:07,760
Jung term, which is the unquestioned belief or assumption that this is just how it is.

767
01:07:07,760 --> 01:07:14,680
And people can't can't wrap their heads around the idea of like, not submitting claims or

768
01:07:14,680 --> 01:07:17,520
having that I think it's a sense of security, it's a safety blank. It's like, Well, what

769
01:07:17,520 --> 01:07:22,680
if I get in a horrible auto collision, and I have to end up in the ED, like, well, there's

770
01:07:22,680 --> 01:07:27,720
a way around that too. And if you really must have insurance for catastrophic stuff, it's

771
01:07:27,720 --> 01:07:33,480
way cheaper than what we're paying for HMOs and RPOs. So that is something to be explored

772
01:07:33,480 --> 01:07:37,760
in behavioral health has, I think, a moral obligation to get involved in that as much

773
01:07:37,760 --> 01:07:42,200
as they can. I don't know how it works with, you know, drop in visits and stuff like that,

774
01:07:42,200 --> 01:07:46,880
because our current, I won't say that this is the way it is, but it's the way it's been

775
01:07:46,880 --> 01:07:52,800
is the orthodoxy is continual care until the problem is resolved very much like physical

776
01:07:52,800 --> 01:07:58,920
therapy. And I don't know that that's necessarily the method. I think if you get in deeper,

777
01:07:58,920 --> 01:08:04,360
faster, you don't have to drag people out in perpetuity weeks on end, I think you can

778
01:08:04,360 --> 01:08:10,000
have some very, very powerful conversations at a much less frequent occurrence, so that

779
01:08:10,000 --> 01:08:14,840
they can take the stuff home and integrate it and practice it and also load them up with

780
01:08:14,840 --> 01:08:19,280
homework. You know, I think we can do that. I think I don't think weekly sessions or twice

781
01:08:19,280 --> 01:08:24,800
weekly sessions is necessary. I think maybe for functioning people, you know, who are

782
01:08:24,800 --> 01:08:30,760
otherwise living normal lives and just have some distress, we can make great strides in

783
01:08:30,760 --> 01:08:36,720
their healing, seeing them once a month on that model. Now, I will say though, not everybody

784
01:08:36,720 --> 01:08:41,600
has access, right? So if you're compelled into insurance by the state, because you're

785
01:08:41,600 --> 01:08:47,240
in the indigent population, or you know, you live in a rural area and Medicaid is your

786
01:08:47,240 --> 01:08:54,280
thing, I think we have a moral obligation to deal with that too. So if you can't afford

787
01:08:54,280 --> 01:08:59,200
insurance and the state has covered your insurance and is essentially free to you, that's not

788
01:08:59,200 --> 01:09:04,560
free, then we as direct primary care providers, I'll just want myself in that category, if

789
01:09:04,560 --> 01:09:11,880
I'm there one day, which I hope to be, then we have to manage to navigate those who traditionally

790
01:09:11,880 --> 01:09:16,800
wouldn't have the financial means to pay the subscription fee, which is nominal by the

791
01:09:16,800 --> 01:09:21,840
way, and it's way less, way less. So, you know, if it's 20 bucks a month and all you

792
01:09:21,840 --> 01:09:26,440
want is behavioral health care, I think most people can probably afford that. If you're

793
01:09:26,440 --> 01:09:31,320
extremely indigent, then maybe the state figures out a way to fund the direct primary care

794
01:09:31,320 --> 01:09:35,800
people instead of the insurance companies that will always stick middlemen in the way

795
01:09:35,800 --> 01:09:41,320
with their managed care organizations who are pilfering at every step. So it is possible,

796
01:09:41,320 --> 01:09:45,960
it can be done, it requires a rethinking. And again, we go back to self examination, we

797
01:09:45,960 --> 01:09:49,600
have to question some of those introjects question some of those beliefs, so that we

798
01:09:49,600 --> 01:09:56,000
can have mindful control over why we do what we do. I don't think we need to have a Medicaid

799
01:09:56,000 --> 01:10:01,360
system if we can rethink it. I mean, I have solutions to the stuff is that it takes a

800
01:10:01,360 --> 01:10:06,240
lot more political will than most people are willing to commit. It also takes looking down

801
01:10:06,240 --> 01:10:12,240
the field 20 years instead of two. And root cause mitigation, you know, to the point about

802
01:10:12,240 --> 01:10:16,600
guns, mental health, root cause mitigation is not politically expedient. No politician

803
01:10:16,600 --> 01:10:21,000
is going to solicit donations by saying stick with me for the next generation, we can solve

804
01:10:21,000 --> 01:10:27,300
this. They're more interested in, you know, flashy pizzazz, limbically triggering campaign

805
01:10:27,300 --> 01:10:31,940
statements and promises to, you know, ban guns or, you know, in improve mental health

806
01:10:31,940 --> 01:10:36,160
care with billions of dollars like, well, where are the billions going? Most of it goes

807
01:10:36,160 --> 01:10:41,320
to the managed care organization, they don't go into my pocket. So, you know, it can be

808
01:10:41,320 --> 01:10:47,920
done. And we just have to be more, I guess, more connected in this form more podcasts

809
01:10:47,920 --> 01:10:52,640
would be good. Everybody needs more podcasts. But also, we have to have the courage to stand

810
01:10:52,640 --> 01:10:56,240
up against the system say, I'm not doing it anymore. I'm going to take the, I'm going

811
01:10:56,240 --> 01:11:03,840
to take the chance based on evaluated data and think that the market will sustain my

812
01:11:03,840 --> 01:11:11,640
practice and my living, not playing the game and being part of the problem. And then, you

813
01:11:11,640 --> 01:11:16,240
know, the more we grow in that capacity, the more courage that we have to step away from

814
01:11:16,240 --> 01:11:21,000
the orthodoxical system. I think the more people get healed too, because ultimately,

815
01:11:21,000 --> 01:11:25,800
if you're doing outcome based treatment, you're going to be successful because people get

816
01:11:25,800 --> 01:11:28,800
well and then they tell their friends and that's, that's really how the market works

817
01:11:28,800 --> 01:11:34,440
anyway. Right now in our profession, because the pendulum has swung so far from, you know,

818
01:11:34,440 --> 01:11:39,600
nobody talks about mental illness to everybody needs a therapist, it's really easy for grifting

819
01:11:39,600 --> 01:11:44,560
opportunists who are very bad at their jobs to stay in business, because the market can't

820
01:11:44,560 --> 01:11:50,840
differentiate among good, fair, poor elite. And we all just kind of look the same. And

821
01:11:50,840 --> 01:11:57,040
it's not until you receive care from a really highly trained elite professional, they go,

822
01:11:57,040 --> 01:12:00,600
man, what was I doing spending all my time with those other people who are just making

823
01:12:00,600 --> 01:12:03,640
me feel better instead of actually getting me better.

824
01:12:03,640 --> 01:12:11,120
Absolutely. And it is encouraging. And again, that's kind of the basis of this podcast of

825
01:12:11,120 --> 01:12:15,320
we're not going to always figure everything out and have it all lined out perfectly, but

826
01:12:15,320 --> 01:12:20,760
can we get you in the right direction? And I think this for our field as best as we can.

827
01:12:20,760 --> 01:12:25,680
And I'll be honest too, like in my own practice, while I am getting it going, it's not my only

828
01:12:25,680 --> 01:12:30,040
source of income right now. I'm having to do some of the more traditional things contract

829
01:12:30,040 --> 01:12:36,560
wise in the background. So it's not an overnight thing, but be looking that way, especially

830
01:12:36,560 --> 01:12:43,040
if you have issues with kind of the bigger entities in the mental health profession.

831
01:12:43,040 --> 01:12:49,640
It's definitely worth it to get in that independence. Well, Jake, I think there we have talked about

832
01:12:49,640 --> 01:12:56,640
some fantastic things. Are there any any other things that you would like to plug and where

833
01:12:56,640 --> 01:13:01,360
are some places that the audience can find you?

834
01:13:01,360 --> 01:13:05,800
Certainly on Twitter, I'm at Jake Wisk, it's J-A-K-E-W-S-K. You can follow me there for

835
01:13:05,800 --> 01:13:10,720
whatever that's worth. I invite everybody to watch the emotional functioning videos,

836
01:13:10,720 --> 01:13:14,600
because I think if you're in charge of your emotions in response to an environment, you

837
01:13:14,600 --> 01:13:19,960
can stay out of my clinic. I want to work myself out of a job. This is not my identity. This

838
01:13:19,960 --> 01:13:23,760
is something I do. I'm very happy to do it. I'm comfortable doing it. I'm very good at

839
01:13:23,760 --> 01:13:28,800
it, but I don't need to do it forever if I don't have to. And I would love nothing more

840
01:13:28,800 --> 01:13:34,040
than to stop bullying on the playground and watching my kids get made fun of and watching

841
01:13:34,040 --> 01:13:38,400
couples arguing in the line at the grocery store. If that stopped, I would happily go

842
01:13:38,400 --> 01:13:43,960
back to food service or drive in forklift or put paint on walls to pay my bills. I'm

843
01:13:43,960 --> 01:13:47,200
not threatened at all by the disappearance of my profession if it's disappearing for

844
01:13:47,200 --> 01:13:51,760
the right reasons. So watch the emotional functioning videos. Those are available at

845
01:13:51,760 --> 01:13:56,920
the Zephyr Wellness website. It's ZephyrWellness.org. Just type in on our search thing, the emotional

846
01:13:56,920 --> 01:14:01,720
functioning that the video series pops right up. And then walk to Talk America, W-T-T-A

847
01:14:01,720 --> 01:14:07,520
dot O-R-G. If you want to support us, we're 501-C-3. Certainly we can welcome your financial

848
01:14:07,520 --> 01:14:12,760
contributions, but also just share it around. Know that if you're a practitioner, stop hiding

849
01:14:12,760 --> 01:14:17,400
in the shadows. Come forward, register yourself as part of our 50-State Directory. We get

850
01:14:17,400 --> 01:14:21,520
solicitations all the time from people who are in the gun community who are suffering

851
01:14:21,520 --> 01:14:25,280
and don't know where they can turn because they don't want to be judged or have their

852
01:14:25,280 --> 01:14:30,880
rights taken away. So having a 50-State Provider Directorate, people who are out of the closet

853
01:14:30,880 --> 01:14:37,560
putting their names on our website and saying, you can come to me and trust me that my first

854
01:14:37,560 --> 01:14:42,600
lever to pull isn't going to be the authorities to take your property. They know that they

855
01:14:42,600 --> 01:14:45,480
can enter with confidence. And it'd be nice to have somebody in every state who can do

856
01:14:45,480 --> 01:14:50,520
that. And then if we can grow from there, that'd be great too. So those are the three

857
01:14:50,520 --> 01:14:55,880
things I would offer people. And in the meantime, I just really appreciate you having me on

858
01:14:55,880 --> 01:15:02,120
and probably closer than other dad jokes. So this mushroom is in a bar and he wants a drink

859
01:15:02,120 --> 01:15:05,320
and he walks up and bartender's like, I'm sorry, we don't serve your kind here. And

860
01:15:05,320 --> 01:15:08,040
the mushroom looks at me and he goes, why not? I'm a fun guy.

861
01:15:08,040 --> 01:15:15,800
Perfect. Perfect. He doesn't take it, but I'm telling you the King of Dad jokes, especially

862
01:15:15,800 --> 01:15:20,360
if you follow him on Twitter. It's relentless over there. So I'll include all the Jake's

863
01:15:20,360 --> 01:15:25,880
information down there below is absolutely great. Haven't having you on the show today.

864
01:15:25,880 --> 01:15:31,160
And yeah, those of you listening, I hope that you, you learned and that you will continue

865
01:15:31,160 --> 01:15:35,960
to engage in your life and not just sit there and be angry. So until the next episode, I'll

866
01:15:35,960 --> 01:15:52,040
catch you next time.