Your Therapist is Not God with Casey Beveridge
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Okay, hi guys, welcome back to X's and O's, a podcast where we talk about queer relationships and sex, and it's not June anymore. It's July. What the fuck? What happened? I thought Pride was gonna last all year. It is. It really is. But I am potentially the most tired I have ever been. Pride is really kicking my ass this year. I was traveling a lot.

A lot, a lot. And I love to travel. I really do. But whoa, I a little bit miss my house. I a little bit miss my bed. I a little bit miss the people I left in LA. So I'm like, could get back there. But also I wish I could bring Vanessa with me. Because if you didn't know, I'm in Toronto. I came to Toronto for pride. It was so funny. I was at like a beer garden thing a few days ago. I can't even remember time anymore. But I was like, I'm in Toronto.

And like a lot of people came to say hi. It was so nice. Anyone who said hi, thank you so much. I said in my intro last week, like if you see me, please say hi. And it was so cute because a lot of people were like, you said to say hi. And so I'm saying hi. And I appreciate you guys. One, listening to my podcast at all. And two, also listening to what I say. So it was awesome. But it was so funny to me because so many people were like, what are you doing in Toronto? And I was like, for pride.

right obviously it's kind of like on brand now but it was so cute and funny because it was like obviously I have to I want to be a Toronto pride with all my little Toronto lesbian gay friends because I have like such a cute little group of friends here thanks to Vanessa now it's crazy we were telling a story last night at dinner about how we became friends like how we met and the first time we met and like

It just sounds so crazy now to think that when we were like 18, 19 years old, we were making international friends, internet friends, like in a time where internet friends weren't really like, it was like when like there were PSAs everywhere being like, be careful who you talk to online. We should probably bring those back, honestly, by the way. But people aren't really getting catfished the same way anymore. I actually can't believe catfish is still a running show. Like if you don't know you're not dating Charli D'Amelio,

We have bigger problems here, right? I am so tired. I'm so tired. And this is going to be a short intro. I owe you guys a long intro. I also owe you a solo episode and that's coming soon. Look out, get excited. It's so funny because you guys are always, you guys, there are some people who are always asking me for solo episodes. And I went back to look at like my first solo episode. That wasn't the intro, like not my first, first episode, but the only other one I did solo. And I'm like,

This video didn't even do that well. This podcast didn't do that well. And you guys are like, please, we just want you to talk alone. I'm like, only a little bit of you want me to talk alone, it looks like. So, but I will do it for y'all. Mental health check, all is well. I am, I know I said last week, I think it was last week, that I was like, I'm preparing for a crash. And I know it's going to happen. I really can already feel it like so much right now. I think my body's just exhausted, like the traveling.

socializing. It's a lot. Pride is a lot. I hope you guys took care of yourself. I hope you had so much fun. I hope you drag pride out all summer long. We deserve it. Every day is pride day. Every month is pride month. If you try hard enough, honestly. But yeah, I'm preparing for a little crash. I think I'm also getting my period soon. So that's not good. I get so emotional like right before my period. Very, very sad vibe.

So that could be happening. But anyway, I'm still very happy though. Just really tired, I think. Anyway, yeah. Okay, well, happy July, y'all. I hope you have a great month. I hope you keep doing it for the gays, theys, girls. I love you so much. Thank you for watching. I'm sorry I look so tired. I'm sorry I sound so tired. I hope you enjoyed the intro anyway. And I also hope you love... Please, please, please...

Please, if you like this episode, if you have anything good to say about Casey, please tell her in the comments. Because if you're not someone who does social media, it is like a very, very shocking thing to your nervous system, I think, to be like, oh my God, like feel very vulnerable.

talking to that many people is not something most people are doing every day all the time. So if you could hype her up in the comments, if you love her like I love her, please, please, please be like, yay, Casey, because I know she will be reading every single comment.

and speaking of that will you also please if you have time rate the podcast if you're watching it on Spotify listening on Spotify listening on iTunes listening on I don't even know where else Amazon wherever you're listening if you could rate it that would be so nice thank you so much if you already have but if you haven't it definitely helps a lot if you're just watching on YouTube if you just give it a like also and

Anything helps. It really, you have no idea how much those things actually really matter. I have no idea how those things, how much they matter, but apparently they're very important. So if you could, I would really appreciate it. Okay. Also, by the way, this episode was supposed to be with Casey Tanner, not Casey Beverage, but it is with Casey Beverage, my sister. Casey Tanner is like a queer sex therapist, but we had to reschedule like just timing stuff beforehand.

Things happen, okay? But she is still going to come on the podcast. And a lot of you sent in like advice questions to my little phone number. And that's always in the link below if you ever want to text me or you can call and leave a voicemail.

I'm still going to get to all those questions, all those advice questions you guys asked with her at some point. I can't wait to film with her. But yeah, this episode is Casey Beveridge, my beautiful sister, my beautiful big sister. Okay, other thing is, if you ordered anything from my friend of Dorothy Line, we are starting to ship those out now. We're still keeping it open for a little longer. So if you didn't get something and you still want to, you can get something on my shop. Nowthisisliving.shop.com.

And it's in the description also. But yeah, hats, carabiners, shorts, sweaters, t-shirts, mesh shorts.

I think that's all. I don't know. But you can check it out if you want to. And final thing is I am like creating social channels, TikTok and Instagram for my podcast so I can be posting more vertical videos, more reels and stuff. So if you're interested in following those, I will have them in the description below. It's X's and L's pod. I haven't posted anything on there as of right this second. Maybe by the time you're listening to this, it might have a few things up. But yeah, if you want to check it out, if you want to follow it, I would really appreciate it.

And I think that's all. I love you all so, so, so much. I hope you took care of yourself with pride. I hope you keep taking care of yourself all summer long. Bye. Okay, hi guys. Welcome back to X's and O's, a podcast where we talk about queer relationships and sex. I'm your host, Shannon Beveridge, and I'm here today with the one, the only, Casey Lee Beveridge.

My big sister. My little big sister. She's back again. We did an episode a few months ago now, but we only had 30 minutes to record, and today we have a little bit more time, so we were like, let's do a whole episode, a whole proper episode. And, okay, recently someone said to me that they think my name should have been Casey Lee and Casey's name should have been Shannon Nicole, and I just want to know if you guys see that for us, because I do think she got the better name, I have to say. Yeah.

How the hell did you look at me as a baby and think, that's a Shannon? Anyway, it doesn't matter. This is the life we live now. Anyway, Casey's a therapist. She also lives in New York City, has lived in New York City for over 10 years.

Crazy. I live in LA, so we are bi-coastal sisters. I think I said that last time too. So if you don't know, Casey and I were going to start a podcast together at one point. Did we talk about that in the last episode? I don't think so. I tried to listen back on my way over here in the cab and I was like, did we talk about it? I know I talked about it, I think on my Instagram story, but originally when I was coming up with my podcast idea-

I've been wanting to make a podcast for like three years before then and I had had a really hard time trying to figure out what the premise of the podcast would be because I know myself and I know that for me like to do something consistently I have to be passionate about it has to be like easily replicable but that's like everyone feels that way I think for stuff like this and one of the concepts I had at one point was doing a podcast with Casey and

because I think it's awesome that she's a therapist and I was like, we can talk about mental health and we can talk about like all these things. It'll be awesome. But then as we started to like sit down to record, which we recorded three times, um,

one time did not save, which was really fucking annoying and not our fault. Okay, huge, huge, huge shout out to Tomboy X for sponsoring this episode of X's and O's. If you guys have been listening for a while, then you know I'm a huge fan of them and I love them so much for sponsoring my podcast. I love working with them so much. So if you don't know, they make sustainable size and gender inclusive loungewear, underwear, and swimwear.

Check out Tomboy X. They're awesome, awesome, awesome. They're so comfortable. They're so cute. They're so cool. They look hot. The boy shorts, highly recommend. If you use the code Shannon at checkout or go to tomboyx.com slash Shannon, you can get 20% off your entire order. Also, did I mention that they're queer owned and we should support queer owned businesses all year long, not just in June. So check it out. Thank you again, Tomboy X for sponsoring this episode of X's and O's. Love you.

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But we ran into this problem, this snag, if you will, that Casey did not want to talk about herself at all on the podcast, pretty much. And I was like, I then what are we talking about? I want to gab. And also we have a relationship as sisters where we talk about everything. So then go into a podcast studio and be like, I'm not even going to talk about the fact that I'm in a relationship. I was like, then how the hell are we going to do this anyway?

The answer is we aren't, we didn't, but. Well, we did, we did. And I, and I think that we could have, but I think it's a completely, I think what kept coming up is, is a completely different approach from the way you've made your. Brand. Yeah. Like your, your whole thing is being a public person and you disclose a lot about your life and you share a lot about your life. And I think for me, I was looking at this as,

something quite different. To be fair, I was really stressed about it. I spoke with a lot of my friends about or my colleagues about it, sort of like, is this ethical? How would one do this and be ethical? How do I maintain and preserve my practice? You know, that's really what's most important to me at the end of the day.

And then also, you know, just sort of weighing out all the different things. I think the fact that we are bi-coastal makes it hard to really, yeah, to like, to maintain communication. And I sort of was feeling like I'm getting to this place in my life where our relationship is one of the most important things.

So having a weekly podcast was like, oh, OK. That would be a really nice way, sort of selfishly and personally, to-- STACEY CHIN: Stay in touch. EMILY FORTUNA: To stay in touch and kind of trying to weigh out how important is that to me versus all the other complications.

But it's, yeah, it's a weird space. There's not like, you know, when I was taking my ethics class back in like 2011, 2012, these were not things we were talking about. It was like, we talked about social media. It was, well, if you have a Facebook account, you know, make it private and don't communicate with your clients on there, which obviously, or for me at least, and I think is still pretty much the standard, you know, that's,

something I maintain to this day. But this, like what's gone on in the world of therapy and social media has changed so much since then. And I, from what I know and understand the ethics around it are, are,

like the ethical guidelines and standards really haven't caught up to where things are anyway on a professional level. Um, but certainly I feel a little removed from the conversation. So I'm like always trying to sort of piecemeal, like what is, what is the thinking today? Um, and a girlfriend of mine sent me this podcast episode about like, um,

as influencers or like, I guess they call it therapy talk. Yeah. Therapy talk on TikTok. Ever heard of it? Yeah. I'm not on TikTok, but I did listen to the podcast and there was like a Bustle article, some woman who wrote this Bustle article called My Therapist is a TikTok Star. And so I went through and I did read that and I was like, oh God, this is like a whole nother realm of

And I guess I'm curious for you, like what would be your comfort level with seeing your therapist in any one of these things? I think personally I would not like that. But also because my life is so, so much of my life is already on social media and connected to social media. I think if I saw my therapist on social media, I would be like,

what the hell are you doing here like this is my this should you shouldn't be here kind of vibe yeah um also yeah i think but i think everyone it's person to person because even like i have friends who have like relationships with their therapists that like they follow each other on instagram and stuff like really yes okay not that's not happening for me but because even for me

I only recently found out that my therapist has, like, a partner. Well, I knew she had a partner because she had mentioned partner a few times. And then finally she, like, mentioned that he was a guy. And I couldn't even help myself but be like, oh, damn. Like, I kind of... I would prefer to not know, but also I'm like, do I prefer you to be gay? I don't even really care. I don't know that I care, but I just...

I don't like now having a new lens of you personally. But I think it's like person to person because I know my friends who follow their therapist on Instagram, I don't feel like they really care. Yeah. But I would never be able to do that. So I think it's just like...

so up to the person's discretion the therapist's discretion yeah my therapist told me when we started working together also that she discloses she's like I'm more I'm more open to disclosing information than maybe some of my like counter therapists whatever and at the time I was like oh yeah I don't care about that but then as time has gone on I'm like maybe I do actually not love that that much yeah yeah

I know. I mean, I wouldn't say that I'm... I would say I don't disclose much, but I don't think. But I don't have hard lines about it. If somebody really wants to know something about me, depending on what it is, I'll usually share. But it's more... I prefer for that to be something that we process. Okay, you want to know...

about whether or not I'm partnered or you want to know about, you know, cool. But like, why? Like, what would it mean to you if I am? What would it mean to you if I'm not? Um, and then by the time we process it all, sometimes people are like, actually, I don't need to know. I'm like, okay, cool. You know, um, or they do and that's fine. And I tell them, um,

But I try, I try to err on not disclosing, which is a really interesting space having you as a sister and something that, I mean, this is like also go beyond the sort of basic ethics around like, you know, do you be, do you have therapy talk? Do you, are you on social media? There's really not a,

a guideline for what do you do when somebody close to you is a public figure. Think about that even from any perspective, like not just therapists, like any professional person or even just person. Like if you're close to someone who is like sharing so much, it is scary.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. It's just there's no rules. This is the wild, wild west. Yeah. And we don't know what the fallout of any of these things will be like years down the road if you think about it. Like I'm still feeling like the aftermath of my very first relationship that I shared so much of. Yeah. Ten years later, like it still comes up and I'm like, oh. Yeah. So I don't know. It's like all new rules. Yeah.

All new rules and just a really unique position. So I think... I had some questions in my Ask Box about you of people being like, do you ever receive clients because of me? And how do you deal with that when you have had that problem? Or problem, when that has happened? I think, you know... Wild, wild west. Yeah, wild, wild west. I mean, until the last podcast episode that you and I did together...

I've had a lot of clients over the years that I've wondered if they knew that you were my sister. Yeah. I mean, we have a unique name also. We have a unique name. We look a little alike. We resemble each other. I post you. You sometimes post me. So it's not like it's that difficult to figure out that we're related. But it's also a thing that like...

how do i bring you know i'm not gonna bring that up i don't want to like point people in that direction i also you know it doesn't necessarily matter or mean anything but i also want there to be space for somebody to be able to say um i saw your sister posted this life event or like a baby picture of you or um i watched your parents on the podcast you know like i think

I sometimes worry that that's happening and then it's not being brought in. It's not being discussed. We're not, you know, and then it could be a big thing. And I think people feel really self-conscious about like even sharing that they follow you or that they know who you are. So for years, I mean, and I knew, I mean, I had clients who do not fit me.

who were not followers and do not fit your typical demographic, who actually said to me that you were recommended to them,

on Instagram. Oh yeah. Because the algorithm is so creepy. Yeah. They like Instagram can kind of figure out that we're connected and that through like an email account that, you know, whatever. I have no idea why they're even suggesting it. Right. And, um, you know, so I was like, well, if my sister's being recommended to you, right. Like for sure, there are other people who are seeing you.

And yeah, it just creates a weird space where I'm like, I really don't know how to navigate that still. I'm still trying to figure it out. And yes, some people have reached out and said, you know, that they saw me on the podcast or found me through that. I think so far what I've been recommending to clients is that if you want to work with me, it's really best if you

stop following you. Oh, you're out here losing followers for me? What the hell? I don't carry that many clients. I think you'll be okay. Jeez. And most of my clients are not your followers. She's like, if you want me, you've got to lose my sister. I'm kidding. It's funny. Yeah, I think there's sort of like a... And that's not even...

I can't censor what my clients do or don't do, but I do. It is kind of like a it'll make it cleaner if you're not following and you're not having that kind of in your mind. I'm out here promoting her and she's out here demoting me. Well, the hell is this? But, you know, I don't know. It's it is definitely a weird new space. And I'm I'm not sure. And I debate, you know, I have sort of in my own mind, do I?

do I do this podcast? Do I be on another episode? If I'm on an episode, how do I handle that? I mean, it's, well, I do feel like also we're, we really on the last episode and even on this episode, we're again, not disclosing that much information about you other than like, it's not, we're not getting like personal into, but just like we're, it's more like talking in general than it is deeply about something. It is.

but I think there's something really intimate even about like being able to see me sit with my sister. For sure. Like knowing who you are, getting to see us interact, you know, like that in and of itself, I think is a... It's intimate for sure. Yeah, it's an intimate All of these conversations are... Also,

But you think about it and it's like, okay, think about you. The scale that you experience this is so micro because it's, I'm already not like an A-list celebrity. I'm like this, like whatever level of whatever I'm doing. And then you're just my sister. Yeah. That connection. Right. Yeah. Then you think about these therapists that are like on full blown shows having their like, like on showtime on shows.

Yeah, orna. Major networks. Orna on couples therapy. Yeah. Or even like people going on Dax Shepard's podcast. It's a way wider net. You know what I mean? I'm like, think about that. I can't even wrap my head around what those people are like dealing with as far as disclosure goes. And like, how do you even... And TikTok, like the therapy talk. Like how are those people...

Yeah. Practicing. I like the terminology, like, self-help entertainment that has kind of come out around this idea of talk therapy, right? It's like... It really...

It's funny because it sounds like you're saying talk therapy, like T-A-L-K, which is such an old term. Yeah. You're saying talk. Yeah. T-O-K therapy. Yeah. Yeah. I think this like it's like it is it does feel very like self-help, self-help book, you know, like there's nothing wrong with it, but it's definitely not therapy. It's it's very different. And I think in the episode three,

In the podcast episode that I listened to about that, they were also talking about, like,

how there are people out there now pursuing, uh, master's degrees in counseling, clinical psych, uh, literally just to like graduate and make content. Like that's their plan. They're not planning to become therapists. Um, which I think is really interesting and how, you know, like sort of looking at, uh, I guess therapy, Jeff, do you know therapy? Jeff is he on Tik TOK? I guess. I'm sure I've seen him. I, I,

I don't know. I haven't seen him, but they reference him on the podcast and in this article and

On the podcast, I think they said something like he would one year made like almost a million dollars or something from... From influencing? Yeah. Which obviously is a lot more than your average therapist or any therapist that I know is making, you know, just sort of with a practice or anything like that. So, you know, it's its whole own thing. Yeah. And again, like totally new landscape. But...

when I've had these conversations with colleagues, it's like, well, what's the difference between

Going on TikTok. Yeah, or writing a book. Or writing a book, or being on a podcast, or being on a show. You know, each of these things is so different. But the way that you handle it, there's so many little nuances around, like, what you'll talk about, what you won't talk about, how you talk about it. You know, and, like, Lori Gottlieb's book, Maybe You Should Talk to Someone. Did you read that? No. It's...

It's great. It's a great book. And she's a great writer. And she got her start in her career as a writer, which really makes sense and shines through. But it's really self-disclosing. And it's really disclosing of clients. And I remember reading it and being like, how did she get away with this? Well, handle it. She doesn't really talk about it in there, about are these...

Are these, like, based on actual clients? Is this sort of fictionalized? If it's based on clients, was that, like... Did you have to get, like, a... Did you have to get them to sign off on that? I'm sure. I'm sure if it's based on real clients, she got them to sign off. But then it's, like, also how much... Like, what kind of sign-off is it? You know, like, there's a lot of, like...

do you get a one-time sign-off? Because you can at the beginning. Or are you sort of checking in? Are you giving them a copy of the manuscript before it ever gets published? Like, there's a lot of little nuanced things about how you do or don't handle it. And I have no idea what the answer is, but she's certainly not the first or only person to write that kind of book. I think it just-- she also wrote about her own experience. Within it, too. And she's an incredible writer, so it really took off.

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That was a great question. I feel like books have...

have to be the closest thing that like therapists could reference looking towards the future of like podcasts and TikTok and everything like that. We have the longest history. Yeah, it's been the thing that's been happening forever. And I think it's obviously a market for the content. Right. Because people have been buying those books for years and now you see these TikTokers blow up. People want to hear about it. And if you think about it, there is some, there is,

I mean, I'm sure it's a double-edged sword in so many ways, but a lot of people cannot afford therapy. And to think that you're creating content that like, like now anyone can access is both positive and negative. But that's, it's the same thing that like we talked about last time on the podcast is

somewhere in the world the worst person you know is being validated by a therapist it's like people are gonna consume the content they're gonna consume on tiktok on podcasts on youtube on the internet in books yeah however they want and they're gonna apply it however they want like at the end of the day we can't control that and at the end of the day people are gonna make these like tiktok accounts and they're gonna talk about it but

I do think it's interesting seeing this rise of therapy talk, and now I'm saying T-A-L-K, and the way that you hear it so flippantly in conversation everywhere you're going. I don't know if everyone talks like this or it's because I'm in LA or New York so often. It does seem like it's becoming pretty general everywhere. But just like one of the biggest questions is,

I got one of the questions I got most on my ask box was, what do I do if I'm like a secure person or how, what do I do if I'm an anxious attached person and I want to be a securely attached person? And it does feel like I'm like, okay, in the last three years, we are all, everyone is like, well, I'm avoidant. And as someone else, I'm anxious. I'm like, did someone diagnose you as such? Or is that your own?

you've gotten there somehow on your own. And it's like, I'm most likely you're secure to be fair. Like most people are, um, like when you go through and do those measures, it,

the threshold to be securely attached is a lot lower than people think it is. I'm sure, yeah. And also, even within that, right? So you're probably securely attached, but even if you are securely attached, you're going to lean one direction or the other. It's going to change based on circumstance.

you know, you might be more securely attached in some types of relationships than in others and some safer environments than, you know, when you feel threatened, there it's a lot more nuanced. It is probably helpful to be able to identify like, Oh, my style. I'm feeling avoidant right now. Yeah. We're just like, well, and the style that I lean towards when I feel, I'm so sorry to impart it more.

threatened or unsafe is to pull away or to like, you know, reach for it. That's probably helpful. And I think not a bad thing that people are, um, getting in touch with that. But I do think people tend to like when left to their own devices, over pathologize themselves, um, and be more anxious about like, Oh yeah, I'm doing this. Well, also I always think about this, but like,

As our basic needs become easierly... Okay, let me start this over. As our basic needs have become more readily available, like we are not cavemen. We don't have to go find water. Most people... Obviously, this is an overgeneralization. But as most people are having just like access to water, access to food, like...

our basic needs are met. Our brains are also like evolutionarily speaking, um,

they're not ready for all of this all of this like only if so long ago we were having to actually like go out and find water and now it's like oh it's running from my tap in my kitchen and now what do i do for that two hours i should have been going to get water i'm gonna ruminate on something that happened to me last week for two full hours or i'm gonna i'm gonna watch tiktok for two hours and be like oh my god am i a narcissist oh my god am i anxiously attached oh my god

Why don't I look like that girl? Oh, my God. Why don't I have clothes like that person? Like, we have so much more time to think than we probably should have access to. Probably. And I think even to, like, the caveman thing, even to take it less far back, you know, how long have we been able to order delivery, like, on an app, you know, and have all of our groceries brought to us? And there's, like, also just these little day-to-day things that...

20, 30, 40 years ago, we were having to do more of that ourselves. So true. So that, and someone was just talking about this recently too, about community and how it's crazy. The rise of like Postmates, the rise of Uber, like people don't pick each other up from the airport anymore. Yeah. Or you feel guilty for asking, like because we have access to,

Like you don't want to ask. And it's just driving us more and more insular and away from each other. And when's the last time you knocked on your neighbor's door and asked for an egg? Like people aren't doing it anymore. People don't even know who their neighbors are anymore. Or the drop by. I mean, what's that? I love that. What's that? Um,

What are you talking about? Free cell phone, right? Like if you didn't have a cell phone, it was really normal to just like drop by somebody's house. And I feel like... That would never happen now. No. And I think that was like on its way out even when I was a teenager. It was like, oh, well, you have a cell phone. So like it would be rude to just drop by. You can text somebody and say, oh, are you home? But those little things...

It's starting to add up. It's like, you know, the fact that somebody could just like your neighbor might just come over and be like, hey,

What you doing? You want to hang? You know, like... Yeah, that would not happen. No, it would not happen. I've gotten to the point where I'm kind of offended if someone just calls me. Like, text me and tell me you need to call me. Like, that's crazy. That is. When someone is calling me, I'm like, what the hell are you calling me for? If I didn't get the text beforehand, I'm like, what the hell is this? I'm not prepared. That is crazy to think about. There is a lot of, like, I need to prepare mentally for every social engagement. And I think...

Which is so stressful. I don't know enough about any research, but I would imagine it only makes us more socially anxious. Yeah, because then when you do run into someone in real life, in the wild, you're literally like, what the fuck are we going to talk about? I'm not ready to see you. You shouldn't be seeing me like this. And you're doing the type of thing where I'll see someone out and be like,

duck away. If it's not someone that I know well, I'm like, do we need to do this right now? Like, that's bad. It's dark. But I also am socially anxious, just I think in general. But it is crazy. Should we talk about how that affects romantic relationships? Because this is a podcast where we talk about queer relationships and sex. I think the thing I hear the most, or like, sort of seems the most jarring to me is how

and this is more since the pandemic, but like how seldomly people just meet in real life anymore. There's so much of this. It's sort of like the apps were so great because they, in a way, because they bring people into your life that maybe wouldn't be otherwise. I think that's a really cool thing about them. It's like anything with technology. There's these great ways in which now we have access to each other socially that we didn't use to. And also, yeah,

It's become sort of like that's the way that people meet and you don't like...

It's different when you're, say, at a park or at a bar or whatever. You don't know if somebody's single. Yeah. On the app, somebody's advertising themselves as single and in the market, you know? And I'll take it one step further. For queer people, you don't necessarily know if someone's gay. That's true. So the apps have also done really great things for queer people in that you are gay.

you can see who is available to you in that way too. Yeah. Creates more of a sense of abundance, but also, and also more safety and yeah, there's lots of positives, but I think all of these things are also sort of like making us further removed in a way too. Yeah. Just technology in general is, is,

Also, I think like the tech, I keep seeing so much about texting and like, I'm seeing a lot of like on therapy talk to there's a podcast woman who has like a whole podcast about relationships. I should look up what her name is. But anyway, she talks a lot about like how much people text before they meet and not even just before they meet, but in the very beginning of relationships and how people should maybe text less. Yeah. And there should be more of like,

also like how much you talk on an app before you meet up with each other it's like she encourages she's like have a little banter back and forth and then be like what are you doing tomorrow yeah like don't let it hang on the app too long yeah because then you're creating a vision of who you think this person is and you do have like enough of breadcrumbs on an account to be like okay maybe you're like this and maybe you're like that it's like

I don't know. No, I think so too. I mean, I think there's also-- I think what happens is people will spend a lot of time chatting with these strangers. And it's not time that they really have readily available. The chat isn't necessarily that much fun.

And then they'll sort of end up in these like back and forth like, oh, are you going to be, well, like maybe we'll, oh. And then half the time they never meet up with the person. And then it feels like wasted time. Yeah. And so people really like they'll get on there and they'll put in a lot of effort.

Sort of. They never meet up with anybody and then they're exhausted and they stop using the app. And then they're not meeting people in real life either. I've seen a lot of clients go long periods of time where they want to be dating somebody and then it just kind of never comes together. I think the apps can really stall things out. And I should say, I have clients, I have friends. I've seen this happen with a lot of people and I'm sure you have too. It's discouraging. Yeah, for sure.

For sure. It's a whole new beast out here, Dayton. Yeah. I can't really... Okay. I want to know, what is your opinion? Someone sent me a DM and they said that I am a walking red flag.

What do you think about that? What does that even mean? Wait, actually, even before that, a lot of people were also asking, as a therapist, do you have a hard time not wanting to pathologize people around you in daily life, like family and friends? Is it hard for you to disconnect your therapy brain from relationship? I think whenever people ask me questions like this,

I just say, I try to turn it back on them. Well, you don't have that opportunity right now. I know, I know. It's just you and I. But usually if somebody asks me that, I say, well, how, like... Are you worried that I'm doing that to you? No, no, no, no, not that. You have people you're close to. Yeah. Right? Do you find yourself analyzing them or feeling, you know, like making judgments or feeling, you know, I think...

Being a therapist doesn't make you any different, more so that than anybody else. I mean, I think we all worry about the people that we love. We all struggle with sort of trying to find that balance between live and let live. And how do I guide or help or change? And, you know, I don't really think that has anything to do with pathologizing. I think...

if they want to be jerks, have more access to more language that sounds sophisticated and can, you know, they're just more sophisticated insults, I guess. True. It's a... By the way, I've never felt you do that to me in my life. Good. I'm so glad. Yeah. No, I mean, I think that's something I felt pretty early on when I got into this field was you sort of see people... The language...

You learn how to be observational, for sure. You really learn how to sort of...

analyze and ask the you know the right questions or try to ask the right questions and you also learn this like this language that you can you can use in a variety of ways and when I was first starting out I definitely observed some people use it in a way that I felt like was a weapon I've seen other people use it in a way that feels like a tool and and I think you know

Yeah, it's a way of distancing. It's a way of feeling powerful. But I think most therapists that I speak with and know and have close to me in my life would not be any more inclined to pathologize anybody else more than they would themselves or any of us. I think it becomes more like it's a shorthand speak within therapists, but it's not necessarily... We're not walking around pathologizing the world. I think...

most of us acknowledge and realize that you know this is just the experience of being human yeah well also i wonder too if people feel that way i feel as though people i know who have been to therapy or have been to a lot of therapy yeah or even just been to therapy at all

tend to also they it does seem like there are people who use that as a weapon or a tool like you can see people who are going through life after therapy and are like diagnosing people or using what their therapist has said to them as bible i think that's kind of one of the scarier things is when you have a friend or someone who like has been started going to therapy or been in therapy for a little while whatever and you hear the language that they like

they change, something is changing, you know? And you're like, is this better in your life to be going around and being like, this person is doing this to me and this person is doing this to me. And like, I don't know if that's, I don't even know if there's any way to avoid doing that. But yeah. Do you know what I'm saying? Gosh. I mean, I would hope,

I feel like so much of what I try to do in therapy is kind of break all of that down and normalize a lot. And you also, I think, are a good therapist. And I think the scary thing is not all of them are.

oh, I want to believe in our profession. I hope there's more of us that are good than not. But I, you know, I think there's a couple of things that happen. It makes me think of two quotes. There's a book called On Being a Therapist that I discovered. I never read it in school, but I discovered it during the pandemic and I would listen to it and I just found it so soothing. I was just like in between sessions and, you know, in a time in my life where I was

not seeing a lot of people, didn't have a lot else going on and probably was seeing the most clients I've ever seen. I would just like walk through the neighborhood with my dog and listen to this, this book on tape called On Being a Therapist. Um, who wrote it? It's, uh, I wrote it down. Jeff, Jeff, Jeffrey Kotler. Anyway, but this, um, psychologist had written various, um, iterations or, um,

what's it called? It's not versions. It was a, uh, no, not volumes. When you do additions. Got it. Thank you. Oh, sorry. Thank you. Did you just thank yourself? He's written various editions of it and it's really awesome. He, um, really synthesizes a lot of research on the experiences of being a therapist, but he also speaks firsthand. Um,

about all kinds of different things that we grapple with. And it's fascinating. And the new editions just basically include new research. But also in the most recent one that I listened to, he sort of talked about how with each edition that he's written, he's realized that he's rethought

and re-evaluated what he even thinks it means to be a therapist. That over the years and throughout the decades, you know, his approach to this work changes and the things that he thought were important initially, some of them he doesn't, he completely disagrees with now. So I think that's a cool thing about this profession is it really is like something that can evolve and change over time. But one of the things that he talks about, sorry, coming full circle to this idea of like

people sort of taking what their therapist says. Yeah. Um, one of the things he talks about is that being a successful therapist to some degree has to do with being charismatic, right? That there's, that this is like a thing we're not supposed to say and it feels uncomfortable. It feels uncomfortable for me to say that, but like there is a little bit of like,

for people to want to come in, to want to sit with you, to want to share things. There's a little bit of just being charismatic. And so what do you do with that? And how do you hold that? And I think it made me think of this quote from a book that Carl Rogers wrote. He's a really famous psychologist.

where he talks about having had a lot of students work under him and how uncomfortable he was with people putting him on a pedestal, but also how often it happened because he is sort of like one of the leaders, not sort of, he was one of the leaders of our field, especially in sort of the counseling, clinical, more counseling, psych world. He's, you know, everybody studies him.

And, yeah, like, what do you do with that? How do you sort of distance and create like a, yes, I want you to want to sit here. I want you to feel like I'm somebody that you want to be around and feel safe with. And also I'm, you know, and some of that is making you feel held means being able to be an authority in the room. Yeah.

While also not being the authority. Yeah. Like your therapist is not God. Right. And it also, it seems like what continuum? I don't want to cut you off. No, like it won't. Hopefully we know a lot about what we're talking about. We, we learn a lot. And also, um,

you will always know the most about yourself. You know, you're sitting there, you are the expert on you. And so we can be a sounding board. We can reflect back. We can share, you know, little tidbits or sometimes, you know, not advice, but like recommendations on how to, how to maybe cope with something. But, um, yeah, it's sort of trying to also elevate clients at the same time to, to,

you know, trust their own voice. Wait, what was the Rogers quote? I don't remember. I don't remember the exact quote. It was just sort of saying in general, him being uncomfortable with it. It was like a whole chapter really about like talking about his work as an academic and how much he loved being a mentor, but also felt really uncomfortable with the role. Got it. Yeah. Yeah. I mean that, I do think that that happens. I know, I know my friends who think of their therapist as like God, you know, and you're like,

you know that that's just like some girl at the end of the day. Like we're all just someone. That person does not know everything. And it's always like, you have to remember what you bring into the, you're only bringing your own experience into the office that you go to or the Zoom call that you have. So even for me, I've had some therapists, we were talking about this the other day, but I've had some therapists that I've kind of felt validated me too much where it was like,

Listen, I know I'm not perfect. So like you gassing me up this hard, honestly is not helpful to me. Or like, yeah, I think, I think I need a new therapist, but...

That's good to know. But it's like going back to the whole somewhere in the world, the worst person you know is being validated by your therapist, whatever. It's also like you bring yourself into therapy and how emotionally mature are you too? Like when you sit down and you're talking to your therapist, what are you getting out of it? And like there are people I know that are emotionally immature that I, that's tough because I don't even know how I would be

How is a therapist like deal with someone where you're like, oh God, you're going to take everything I say. Can you tell your clients that listen to you and think of you as a Bible? Like, can I tell if somebody is doing that? Yeah. Can you tell? Yeah. There's also a thing that happens too, where clients can hear what they want to hear. Yes. You know, I mean, I think this is a frequent thing where, you know,

people will come back to me and say, well, it's like that thing you said. And they'll say something. And I'm like, I don't think I would have ever said that. I don't remember saying that. Doesn't sound like my words. And look, most of the time it's some, sometimes it's something great. I'm like, oh, that's wonderful. I think you came up with that. I don't like that one wasn't me, but I love it. I love it. Let's roll with it. Um, you know, but it, it is funny how sort of

It's the same thing that happens in any human conversation. It's like we are trying to connect and we're trying to hear each other, but we also are filtering everything through our own lens. Yeah, and so I think there's that. I think when I feel like what I'm being said is being put too much on a pedestal, I try to correct for that. I really try to sort of minimize my voice and elevate the client's voice.

But it's hard. I can't even imagine. Yeah, and I think there's... I wish I could remember the name of it, but this is something I actually wrote about in my dissertation, too. It was like a piece of it. There's a term for when people... Some people actually feel a lot more comfortable with a stricter idea of hierarchy. And so you might be getting some of that, too, where it's like...

it gives some people more comfort than others to just feel like, okay, there's, you know, like I want to, yeah. Like you're the authority and I'm here. I mean, I think that was also something like, for example, I, I referenced my clients as clients and it's interesting. That's also a little bit of just like where I come from and where I trained. Um, some people still use the term patients, um,

That's fine. I have clients who call themselves my patients and clients who call themselves my clients. I sort of, I think when I worked at, for example, when I worked at the 9-11 clinic and I was working with a lot of men who were, you know, firefighters and police officers and whatnot.

And there seemed to be, in general, a higher level of comfort with the term patience. I think it stuck more to that hierarchy and that clear, which is something you're used to in that world. Sorry, didn't mean to cut you off. But I'm just thinking, I also wonder, because a lot of

men have an issue with wanting to even go to therapy. So maybe if they think of themselves and they think of the process as something more medical rather than something that's like... Feels safer. Yeah. They're like, I'm here because I'm sick. Because I had an experience. Not because I would ever need help talking. Right. You know what I mean? Yeah. I think there's just maybe more of a sense of familiarity, right? With this like Western medical model of like... And like...

And safety and this idea that... I think client insinuates more, you're here to do some work and we're going to do it together. Yeah. I think...

patient, there's more of an association with like, okay, I'm going to figure out what your diagnosis is. And then there's some like manual or like clear, and I'm going to, I'm going to follow the manual, just like, you know, giving you your vaccine or your medicine. And then that's going to solve the problem. And that feels really containing to people. And I don't even, I don't necessarily think that people are thinking that explicitly. I just think that's the

It's just like connotation and it feels safer. Yeah. Comforting. Yeah. That makes sense. Okay. I'm going to ask you some questions that I got from other people. Is that okay? I already kind of have, but I've got a couple more. This person asked, is it tough being a therapist among friends and family? Do you feel like you're always on call? I don't think of you as like a therapist first ever. Honestly, it's actually kind of funny because sometimes I'll be like, Oh,

I want to call my sister. Like I need her advice. And people are like, it must be so nice having like a therapist as a sister. And I'm like, we, our conversations do not feel like I'm talking to a therapist. They are like, I'm talking to my sister. Yeah. I don't think there's a lot of blurred lines like that going on in our family. Yeah. I don't think so either. And I, I also think this goes a little bit to like, um,

So I listen to Dax Shepard's podcast a lot because he interviews a lot of therapists and people that I admire. I've read their stuff and I'm like, oh, this is so cool. You get sort of the inside scoop as to why they research what they research or why they do what they do. And I really loved his interview with Orna from Couples Therapy. I really loved the way she talked about so many different things and

But one of the things that she said is that as therapists, so often we are in like inherently really private people. And I do find that to be true in my therapist circles. I think a lot of my therapist friends are really good at asking a lot of questions and not necessarily sharing a lot. Yeah. I wouldn't say you're like that at all. I'm not really like that. And I, it's funny. I love my therapist friends, but sometimes I,

will go out with them and I feel like I'm a, I'm like an easy target in a way 'cause I'll answer the questions. - Yeah. - And then I'll sort of, I have to be really mindful because it can go in a direction where I sort of walk away feeling like actually really

uncomfortable. Yeah. And like, I taught, like, I'm like, I didn't actually come here wanting to talk about that today, you know, or like the like over disclosing. Yeah. I feel like I've had to learn to like rein it in. I cannot stop. Anyway, I do think that I, I'm an overshare. I think you're an overshare. And I think that for me, well, do you think that feels harsh? Are we overshare? Sorry.

We share. We'll share. We're open. I'm very open to sharing things about myself. And I usually don't, I get a like oversharing hangover typically when I feel like the person didn't share back. Yeah. Because then I'm like, you know too much about me and I actually don't know anything about you. And usually I feel that I share because I want someone to share back and I like to feel connected to someone like that.

yeah quickly i'm not talking about strangers you know but i'm talking about if i go to dinner with someone and meeting them and i'm like oh my god like tell me everything you know and i and to prove to you that you can tell me everything yeah let me tell you a lot about myself yeah it's like a it's a social sort of like i'll create safety by by being willing to share as well yeah and i think it works sometimes and i think other times you regret it you yeah like you sort of go wait was this recipe

Did I not pick up on the fact that this wasn't going to be reciprocal? But I do think it's also, right, like, I think there's a sneaky way in which, and it's not just therapists, right, but, like,

People who don't want to disclose much can be really good at asking tons of questions. Yep. The interviewer. Yeah, the interviewer. I have friends like that. Yeah. I have friends like that who aren't therapists, but I would say it's a common one amongst therapists. Yeah. I have friends like that who aren't therapists and...

Also, I have a lot of queer friends that you can tell maybe are in a place in their life where they're figuring some stuff out and you almost feel them becoming more like

insular like they become more of the interviewer as you can feel them trying to figure those things out does that make sense yeah i think what i'm referring to mostly is like gender things too like yeah because as i've gotten older most of my friends that are gay are just gay and like not really necessarily trying to figure out how gay or how not gay but like a lot of people around me in general i think a lot of i wonder if other queer people would relate to this but

gender becomes the next thing that they're kind of like, wait, why am I in this like binary box that I don't relate to? And as people are trying to figure that out, I just feel like a lot of those people stop disclosing as much and do become the interviewer. And then you're like, oh, you're thinking about something. Yeah. Which is just, I don't know if everyone picks up on that or if it's because

We talk like this all the time. Yeah. But I feel that a lot. That's a good point. Being the interviewer, it's not necessarily a trait. It can be a state as well. It's a coping mechanism and it's an effective one, right? Yeah. If it's not too overkill,

it can feel so nice to sit with somebody totally because you do want to strike a balance too it's terrible when you go to a dinner and you feel also like someone let you interview them which it's easy to be that person too if you could if you feel someone even as someone who shares and discloses a lot when i'm out with someone that i can tell is like wanting to talk about something i've definitely left dinners and been like well they didn't ask me one thing about myself

And I would have definitely told you if you asked. Yeah, trying to find that balance socially is tough. But I think, yeah, a way of like sort of... It's an interesting way to both connect and also protect yourself. And I think when it's used really skillfully, a person...

is genuinely interested and they're asking you questions they really want answers to and they're engaged in the conversation and they add just enough about themselves that it doesn't feel but it's just it's a funny thing how it can kind of yep you know and the same person can do it good one like do it well one night and do it poorly the next yeah it's a yeah it's a not a yeah it depends yeah it's just something that we all do I think to some degree did you know I had ADHD when I was growing up

No, because I think I, that was just not, I think we have ADHD in a, in a very similar way. And I think, isn't this the thing you tell you, correct me if I'm wrong, but for girls, a lot of times if you're doing well in school, then it's not even like diagnosed or like paid attention to. It used to be really underdiagnosed in little girls. Um,

when we were young, for sure. I think they're doing a better job now of seeing how it presents differently across gender. So I don't know if it's happening in quite the same way anymore, but yeah, I definitely, that was not on my mind. - No, we were just kids. We were just kids.

i mean i knew you were always losing things like you've famously lost things everything i mean the the cell phone or no the the phone the walking phone the house the walking phone no but did people call it that we called it the walking phone the like house phone that cordless was cordless you lost it like i we never found it that's still gone how the hell do you my mom was like how do you lose

and you're like beeping it i'm like where the fuck is it i literally have no idea where that also you know it'd be hysterical as if it wasn't you yeah it could have definitely been mom by the way yeah or you i love i love how i i mean even but if if something was lost even more recently like when my friend my friend jenny blamed you for losing a speaker

Oh yeah. And you were like, I guess I did. I mean, I'm down to take the blame. You're like, I guess it was me. And then she found it in her things. And I was like, Shannon, I told you to take that back from the beach. I'm like, I guess I didn't. I feel like I have a whole memory of you taking it. But if you're saying that, you're probably right. So it's possible it wasn't you, but also you did lose things a lot. Oh yeah. I also lost my first cell phone and

To be fair, it was in the back of the couch because, mom, there was a hole in that back of that couch that we didn't know for years. So a lot of things got lost. But I also lost that same cell phone in a bag of chips once, which was crazy. I was eating chips, lost my phone for a full 24 hours. I'm like, oh, God, how am I going to tell them I lost it on their phone? They're going to kill me. Sitting on the couch, I'm like, I could eat some chips. Open the bag of chips, my phone in it. How do you end up even putting the phone in the bag?

I cannot tell you. Why did I do that? Oh, that's amazing. Why do some therapists just let you vent for an hour while some ask questions and challenge you? I mean, I think that probably goes a lot to just personality of the therapist. I would assume. I mean, I also think, you know, like how comfortable are you confronting? So in my master's program,

in Oklahoma, we had this really cool, the clinic had this really cool recording setup, and it was, if you came to the clinic, you were being seen

I can't remember, either for free or for very small amounts. We were a community clinic. We served all of the Norman area. But one of the big things about coming there was we were a training clinic. So you were very aware that you were being recorded in all of your sessions. And sometimes there were people who were observing live. But it was this really cool system because the cameras were quite obscure. They really didn't

feel, you'd forget that they were there. And in my first year, one of the assignments for us was that you had to

observe like a certain number of other sessions that were run by the like PhD students. So people who were further along in their training. And I remember my own supervisor, I think I gave her this feedback too, was like had a pretty strong personality and was really gregarious. She had strong opinions and like very like loving and warm at the same time, but definitely not like

Not at the time what I thought of as a therapist, right? Sort of a like, like validator, you know? And she was so effective in the room, but definitely not like the sort of sit and listen to you vent and validate and whatever. And I remember telling her how encouraging it was actually to watch her sessions and be like, wait, you can do this job well and not be,

and have any number of traits and sort of be any different kind of person. And I think maybe that's part of what it gets to. I would say if I was teaching or when I'm teaching and somebody really isn't confronting, there is a little bit of like, you gotta learn to get in there. But also we learn.

it could be a day by day thing. Also, I'm like, sometimes I'm sure some therapists, some sessions are just like, I think you need to get that off your chest. Yeah. But yeah, when I was looking for my therapist, I said like explicitly, I was like,

I have a lot of friends. Like I have a lot of people I get to talk to and vent to and I'm open. So I do talk to them about things. So like, I definitely do not need a therapist where I just am coming in and like venting. Like I don't need that. I don't need to talk more. Also, I have a fucking podcast. I need to shut the fuck up. Yeah. Well, and I think there's, um, there's also, it's also a little bit the client, right? Like, are you leaving space? Yeah.

It can be a defense mechanism to go in and talk the whole time. You don't even pause or give space for the therapist to speak. You sort of are analyzing yourself. There are a lot of clients who do that. They're tough. It's tough to try to figure out how to get in. You can have clients who are really defensive.

and don't really take that well. And so you could have a therapist sort of, you know, they're earning their space to confront. So I would say...

There's all kinds of different reasons. It could be strategic. It could just be your therapist style, their personality. You just don't connect right, correctly. Well, yeah, it could be just like you're not. Yeah, you're not a good match. That's always a thing. Like it can always be you're not a good match. But but I think it doesn't mean one universal thing. Just or like you said, sometimes you just get the sense that your client just needs to let it out. Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. Well, I feel like we could do a million episodes together because we're just scratching the surface. I feel like we didn't talk that much about queerness, but every once in a while we can talk about other things. Do you feel like we talked about it? We did. It came, it comes up. I'm gay, so.

Yeah, we didn't talk about it much. I think we talked more generally about therapy. That's okay. Well, I hope you guys enjoyed this episode. If you want to hear from Casey again, we can do this again anytime. What's wrong? Yeah. No, we can do this again anytime. Anytime that she feels willing to disclose. But yeah. And if you guys want to leave comments or questions below for future episodes with Casey, I would greatly appreciate it. Thank you so much for watching.

say thank you bye thank you love you say love you i love you okay that's fair okay i love you love you goodbye bye