The Bender Continues
Everyday bros talking about how life goes!
The Bender Continues
Unlocking Mental Wellness FT. Francesca Cook
Unlock the secrets of mental wellness with Francesca Cook, the insightful founder of Replenish Counseling LLC. Join us as we unravel the threads of mental health therapies, focusing on unique approaches like play therapy and sand tray therapy, which allow individuals to communicate their deepest emotions without words. Francesca sheds light on accelerated resolution therapy, a cutting-edge eye movement technique aimed at reshaping traumatic memories. Our conversation with Francesca emphasizes the importance of tailoring therapy to suit each individual's needs, ensuring a personal and effective journey towards healing.
Trauma isn't just about the events we've endured; it's about our responses to those events. This episode explores the nuances of trauma and its profound impact on mental health. Francesca shares stirring narratives of resilience, including personal stories of overcoming fears after traumatic experiences. We offer practical advice on creating safe environments conducive to recovery, while highlighting the transformative power of altering one's reactions to trauma. Through these discussions, we aim to inspire hope and highlight the potential for personal growth and healing.
Depression and anxiety are more than just buzzwords; they're complex conditions that many grapple with daily. With a blend of humor and thought-provoking insights, we tackle these issues, examining symptoms and causes, from chemical imbalances to life circumstances. Explore practical strategies for managing these mental health challenges, such as setting small goals and celebrating daily milestones. As we navigate the evolution of anxiety in our post-COVID world, we stress the importance of seeking professional help. Therapy isn't just for crises—it's a powerful tool for anyone eager to understand themselves better and foster personal growth.
The purpose of this episode is to help promote mental health awareness. The information provided is not a substitute mental health counseling. This social media page is not confidential, nor a HIPAA compliant platform. If you have specific questions regarding your mental health, you are encouraged to find a personal therapist that can assist you in your journey. If you're experiencing suicidal thoughts, please contact a professional. The National Suicide Hotline is 1-800-273-8255.
James LaGamma:Welcome back to the Bender Continues podcast. Today we're diving deep into the world of mental health with a special guest, Francesca Cook, founder of Replenish Counseling LLC. Based in Daytona Beach, Florida, Francesca specializes in supporting children, teens, adults, with variety of services, including individual therapy, play therapy and sand tray therapy, focusing on a holistic and personalized mental health approach.
Ryan Selimos:We're back, ladies and gentlemen, in our new studio room. Kind of Looks a little bit different. And welcome Francesca. Thank you for joining us today.
Francesca Cook:Hey, thanks for having me.
Ryan Selimos:I know we canceled on you and we kind of pushed it back. Hey, are we still meeting, are we not meeting? But we finally, you know, we got it set up together. We really appreciate you, wow. We really appreciate you taking some time to meet with us and just talk about the bucket of mental health. We are not educated there. You are, and we are excited to learn just a little bit about what you do. So let's start there. Let's just talk about what do you do?
Francesca Cook:um. So I'm a licensed mental health counselor and I work with children through adults and mostly in trauma, grief, anxiety issues and what does that mean for us?
Ryan Selimos:Can you like break it down?
Francesca Cook:Like.
Francesca Cook:So I work with kids in the facet of like play therapy, which is how children talk is through play.
Francesca Cook:So the play therapy side of it is getting them to process through anything that's going on in their lives which could be just like emotional outbursts of like anger, or maybe they lost somebody in their lives which could be just like emotional outbursts of like anger, or maybe they lost somebody in their lives so they just need to get it out. And so I work with kids in that form and then with adults and teenagers in talk therapy, talking about what's going on in life, helping get coping skills, or, if you've ever heard of grounding techniques, of like just being back where you're at and not having such high anxiety. I do accelerated resolution therapy, which is like a eye movement therapy, which utilizes like REM sleep essentially, but you're awake and that process is through like trauma, because trauma gets stuck in the base of the brain and when it's back there, people get stuck in it and so that's kind of releasing it. And so what accelerated resolution therapy does is it re-images what the trauma was, so it could be anything from a car accident to abuse Wow, anything.
Ryan Selimos:That's a lot to unpack. Where do we want to start?
James LaGamma:I find it interesting and I think you kind of started to say some of the more the buzzwords in the industry. The buzzwords in the industry, but what would, what is it called, when you're doing more of the sand therapy and stuff, versus that talk therapy that you do with, I guess, more adults, teenagers?
Francesca Cook:Okay. So yeah, I guess I didn't touch on sand tray therapy. I actually am certified in sand tray therapy, which can be with kids and adults, and so that is using figures and you build your world in the sand and what's going on. And so it kind of looks silly when people do it because they'll be like, um, that's a toy. And then they build the world and it's really getting into the subconscious part of your brain and then people work through and they're like, wow, like what's in here.
Francesca Cook:And so even for me going through the trainings, I had to do it in every training and you're like, wow, that's actually what's going on in my life, or that's what went on in the past of my life. And then for talk therapy, it's more just like talking to people and asking open-ended questions or helping guide in a way where, like I'm not telling you what to do, but you're getting to the, getting to it yourself with you know, like a safe place, a safe person, and you're allowed to in an, an unbiased person. I think that's the key in that Question in regards to that.
Kenny Massa:So does the type of therapy resonate stronger with, or how you choose the therapy? Does it resonate stronger with I would say more of an importance to, how the person like learns. So if someone's an auditory based person and they, or maybe, a visual person, you would choose one form of therapy over another. Or probably also has to deal with their age too. In that respect, kids probably learn better with visual representation. But is that how you select those therapies?
Francesca Cook:yeah. So with kids I always do play therapy with like 11 and under. Um, now there might be some talk in the play and they'll talk to me, but because the way that kids brains work and process and they're developing throughout, like it literally is their world, is play and so that's how I choose with them and it's very. I use child centered play therapy which is very client driven. So a kid would come in and they choose what they want to do that day and then we work through that and then with adults generally it starts with talk therapy always.
Francesca Cook:So if you go to a therapist, unless you're going for a specific reason, you're going to start with talk therapy and then throughout, if somebody's stuck, I might use like sand tray or expressive arts, which is like utilizing drawing or something, and with the trauma it's like when somebody's stuck in, cannot move forward. That's when I utilize the accelerated resolution therapy, because it's a different type of, like I said, getting to the base of your brain where, like you can't move forward, so you have to do something else and so that's no talking basically, maybe a little bit of talking, but it's more re-imaging with the eye movements makes sense.
Kenny Massa:Um, I know there's probably a lot of other questions. I have a question, but it's probably going to shift us away from the systems here because it's based off of something that francesca just said, so I don't want to jump the gun here. If anybody wants to dive into that.
Jonny Strahl:Well, I'll just piggyback off one of the questions you asked. Kenny, you know a lot of what you're describing. It seems obviously to us very complex, right? When you're diagnosing, you know where someone is at, whether a child, an adult so I guess are there specific like keys or cues or things that you look out for, just to kind of translate where you need to start, or maybe you need to go back and do something else, like, I'm just curious what that looks like yeah.
Francesca Cook:So, um, there's assessments we utilize and then, whenever you get the intake, like someone might say I'm coming to specifically for trauma, or I believe I have trauma in my life, and so then you always I always look at accelerated resolution therapy or sand tray therapy, because both of them process trauma, and then I will talk with clients about that. Or, you know, I always, like I said, I always start with talk therapy, so we go from there. If it's like I can't move forward, I'm stuck, like I can't even utilize coping skills because I'm so keyed up essentially I don't know if that's the right word, but I just can't move forward, and so that's where I shift. But generally, yeah, I start with like intake and assessments and they're like there's like depression assessments, anxiety assessments, mood disorder assessments that I utilize to just check where somebody is at.
Jonny Strahl:Would you say there is a more common ground of one versus the other from like a mood? What does that look like? I think it's really all, depending on the situation.
Francesca Cook:Yeah, it's all dependent and the thing is too everybody's different, so people could come in and have like tons of trauma and just be like I just need somebody to talk to. And then someone else might have tons of trauma too and be like I need to process through it in a different way than talking Cause I've done talk. Sometimes it'll be like people come and be like I've done talk therapy before and it didn't work for me.
Francesca Cook:So, that's why they might come to do like more expressive type stuff like sand tray or the accelerated resolution therapy, because they've already done the talking portion interesting can I?
Ryan Selimos:get you back, yeah all right, I'm just.
James LaGamma:I'm really interested in the physical aspect or, I guess, the activity-based therapy that you're talking about, because I've always thought it was just always I'm talking to somebody you're kind of you have that image of someone laying on a couch and someone across from you, right?
Francesca Cook:with a notepad. You're, you're like what are you writing? What are you?
James LaGamma:writing.
Ryan Selimos:Perfect, yeah, exactly. Tell us about your day, what happened.
James LaGamma:So I guess I'm interested Because obviously we're going to have some people listening that maybe have never heard of this too, could be in the same boat as me and they're really intrigued and you're like, well, maybe this is something I should try, because I've always done, you know, the normal therapy throughout my life, or they haven't done therapy at all, and this is a little bit more intriguing. So when you go through this process and you're starting to show people how to do all these sand therapies and different activities and whatnot, do you also give them I'm going to call it homework and do some of this stuff at home as well?
James LaGamma:Is there is like there.
Francesca Cook:I guess. What does that package kind of look like? Yeah, so I will give people homework. I'm the type of person that if I go to therapy I will not do the homework, so I don't try to expect anything that I wouldn't do. But if somebody is homework driven, yeah, I will. I'll have them like anything at home, like people can't do sand tray at home, but they can go play with their kid.
Francesca Cook:Or you know, like set aside undivided time with your kid, because essentially play therapy one of the biggest things is undivided time. Kids don't have that anymore like we're on our phones, we're on our computers, you know. So with that you can give that type or of like teaching people to work with their kids in such a way of like validating their emotions, like, oh yeah, that was really scary, even if it didn't seem scary to a parent. But then on the flip side, with adults, an expressive type thing is like I could send somebody home with, write a letter to your future self, your past self, which would be more expressive, or to this person who hurt you, or draw a self portrait and identify who you are. So those are things that you could send home, but those are also things you can do in session too. So it just depends on the person again if they want homework outside of there other than just like practice utilizing coping skills.
James LaGamma:Yeah, yeah. So basically you're not necessarily forcing them to do it just because, again, setting that expectation, like you don't do it yourself, right?
Francesca Cook:Yeah.
James LaGamma:That's an interesting take. I always just assume like, oh well, if you don't try to do these things at home, you're not going to improve, kind of deal, right like coping skills are always homework, right, so they learn to cope or learn to notice your emotions.
Francesca Cook:That's always going to be homework. So you do stop going to like we call it the autonomic response pattern, where it's like your nervous system just automatically goes to this type of response, like, say, somebody has a panic attack, like you automatically go to that. Well, let's start practicing calming down, breathing like, um, a mindfulness activity of like it's called five, four, three, two, one of looking through your senses of like five things. You can see, four things you can touch, three things. You can taste. Uh, oh, my gosh, my brain just froze. Three things. You can hear two things. You can taste the one thing you can smell kind of thing, so it kind of like gets back into your body, and so those are things that I will get people to work on outside of there, because they're more like realistic type things of like this is how we get you out of your panic phase or out of your anxiety, or get you back into reality and into your body and your brain and calm your brain down.
Kenny Massa:I like that, that's. That's a. I've never heard of that. Five, four, three, two, one thing, but I think that that's something that everyone can do. That could change your current state basically immediately.
Francesca Cook:Yeah, and sometimes, especially with kids, I'll say look for seven things that are your favorite color, because that's way easier than thinking, oh, I just stumbled over it and I do it all the time. But like with people or tell people about it, but it is hard. You're like okay, five things I can what. So sometimes like look for your favorite color, your favorite number, and, you know, start looking around the room or for your favorite items. That's also something that can just like get you back into out of that panic type state.
Ryan Selimos:Okay, before we go down, kenny's more particular question, just to kind of play it out for us what's your clientele breakdown in a day or week? Is it more kid-based? Is it pretty even across the board, kid, teens, adult, kind of? What does that look like?
Francesca Cook:So I? That's a hard answer. I started out in private practice where I saw everybody, and then I went into community mental health in a crisis-type center which is like where people were teens are Baker active teens and kids. So I worked there, but also within the out, as an outpatient therapist in the schools, and then for about a year and a half it was solely five to 18. Um, and now I'm back in and it's just kind of like dependent on the season or who's calling, but I would say half and half kids and adults dependent.
Kenny Massa:Awesome, cool, my question, or I guess I want to set the stage for more of things that we're going to be talking about today, but I think going back to the basics and understanding the infrastructure of mental health and therapy is really important, and it allows us to understand a creative starting point. And a word that you have said multiple times already has been trauma, and I think a lot of people initiate in doing something to move their mental health into a better place typically starts with them recognizing trauma. But so like let's, let's discover what. What is trauma? And I think you might have already talked a little bit about that. Maybe your inability to move forward is something, probably something around there. But can you just go to the basics and what is trauma? And then, how does someone indicate whether they have a traumatic, a traumatic event that is causing them to have that inability to move forward, and is that the point where they would then seek mental health assistance?
Francesca Cook:Okay, yeah. So one thing is anybody can seek mental health assistance, even if you just need somebody. That's, like I said, unbiased and safe, but specifically related to trauma. Trauma is not what happened to you, it's the response to what happened to you. So it's how your brain responds to the action. So it might not come up for years. It might come up right away and you're like what? Nothing happened. Why am I acting this way?
Francesca Cook:So like your brain kind of processes like fight, flight or freeze, or now they have fun as well, and so like say I'll just start, I'll just do a car accident, cause that's kind of you know, somebody might have a response to a car accident or somebody else might not.
Francesca Cook:So it could be they can't drive anymore or they are driving in a car with somebody else and they're constantly like jerking and jerking and freaking out because they've been in a car accident, or just kind of like they I'm trying to think of the right words but so their response pattern isn't that of which they feel safe.
Francesca Cook:So trauma makes your body not feel safe anymore and if you're in an unsafe environment where you're like being re-traumatized because it's the same thing over and over, now, car accident wouldn't probably be that, unless you're getting car accidents every day, but where you're being re-traumatized over and over, it's hard for your body to get in a sense of safety, and so if you cannot ever get in a sense of safety, you're not going to heal or be able to move forward. But so basically, yeah, trauma is your response to what happened to you, and that's why people can go through certain things that some people can't. It's just how your brain responds to it, in which you're like freezing or fighting or fleeing everything around you because you can't feel safe in that area you.
Kenny Massa:I don't like that. I mean no, that made a lot of sense. I like that you said that because I feel that a lot of people would have the thought that trauma is the event of something happening to you, not the event of the response of what has happened to you.
Kenny Massa:So I like that, we uncovered what trauma really is, because I think that there's misconstrued information there and I think that that is is helpful to understand. Um now, typically when people come to you, is it because they are seeking assistance with trauma. And then, when I'm talking about the average, if you look at a hundred people that you've worked with, is it typically because of a trauma, a traumatic event that they feel from their perspective that leads them to you?
Francesca Cook:Um, I would say, yeah, some people obviously other people are dealing with, like depression, anxiety, family issues. Like I said, I do. I deal with a lot of grief as well, um, cause I used to work for new hope for kids and it's a grief organization Um, but I think, yes, the event will happen. And then they're like I'm not the same, or and that's true, the event was traumatic. And so now your brain is constantly trying to protect you. And so to say that the event was trauma could be yes, sorry about my dogs. Could be yes, it was. But now it's your body responding to it, if that makes sense. So it's the response pattern that you get into.
Kenny Massa:Yeah, I like that. I like that you see it in that perspective, because I think you can change. If you look at what can you change? Right, you may have not been able to change that particular event. What happened is what happened. It may have been because of you, it may not have been because of you. You can't change what happened all the time, but you can change how you react to it.
Kenny Massa:You can't change your perspective. You can't change you, so it's just if you think about it from the basics of mental health, you always have the ability to change, because you always have the ability to change the reaction.
Jonny Strahl:Francesca, I want to use the car accident example you brought up because I'm like reflecting back on a friend. His mom was in a very bad car accident. She was driving and unfortunately the passenger passed away and it was on the highway, um, and I remember it was pop warner football those days and she would never drive on the highway so we would carpool or one of the my parents or other parents would be the driver, just because she couldn't get over what happened a few years ago. Flash forward, I I think like five, six years later she's like now able to drive on a highway and she's moved on since that. But the whole breakdown of like the trauma and the event and breaking that and almost it's way different than I guess I envisioned Appreciate you sharing that because that just all came to fruition.
Kenny Massa:It just makes me think of your particular event, makes me think of the movie like Talladega Nights, or like Ricky Bobby when he went through a traumatic event. Comic relief. Then they, like, had I don't know, some type of breakthrough, even though his real dad wasn't the best. Maybe his real dad was a therapist.
James LaGamma:Didn't he say he kept running around thinking he was on fire and he wasn't on fire. He took all his clothes off.
Kenny Massa:Yeah, but then he put the bag of cereal underneath the car instead of his drugs, and it made him drive fast. And then he went through that event and that changes his reaction or whatever. Just a big therapeutic movie.
Ryan Selimos:The Ain't First reaction or whatever, maybe just a big therapeutic movie.
Francesca Cook:The first or last laughter is therapeutic, I guess. So kenny the movie critic.
James LaGamma:And now, yeah, just that's that's great um. I like though, where kenny was headed before before the town, yeah, before the thing where definitions. I think is is providing clarity and obviously people can research this stuff. But um, hopefully they come find this. You've mentioned depression and anxiety. Can we also go down a similar path where you can kind of talk through like what those things are? Because I think all of us were wow and amazed by what we just learned and I think there can also be added clarity in those two spaces as well.
Francesca Cook:Yes, so depression is very much like hopelessness, worthlessness, purposelessness, like no hope. You can't see any hope. And so, depending on, there's multiple different diagnoses for depression, and so I'll just go stay with major depressive disorder, because that's more of like an extreme, but, um, not extreme, but kind of just like the overview. But it's like you can't get out of bed and it's lack of motivation. Um, just sad, like deep sadness. And it's lack of motivation, just sad, like deep sadness. So people get to that point and then they want therapy, like how do I stop feeling so sad? Or sometimes it's like I don't even know why I'm unmotivated and can't get out of bed or I am so hopeless. But I have all this going for me, because sometimes it's just a chemical imbalance in your brain and that's out of your control. It could be genetic, it could be. You know, life has happened and now you're in this place.
Francesca Cook:There's a lot of different reasons, um, and then for anxiety. Anxiety is constant worry, um looping in your mind. Um, now, obsessive compulsive disorder can also be like that Cause there's ruminating thoughts that way. But anxiety is kind of just like fear based and, like I said, just thoughts running through your mind. You're up at night You're constantly thinking. Now, generalized anxiety is kind of a general anxiety of like anything. Could you just anxious about everything where, like, there's other specific anxieties that are also able to be diagnosed. But I'm just kind of going off generalities with the major depressive and the generalized anxiety because they're kind of like an overview.
Kenny Massa:I have a followup to the depression one. We can probably break this into two. So depression Now, if someone is is depressed, let's's. Let's say it's not a genetic issue like this. This isn't a long tail thing yeah do you have go to?
Kenny Massa:because a lot of times I think they need to change their behavior, something that they're doing on a day-to-day right. They're in this slump or they're causing themselves to probably get further and further down a process of deeper depression. So are there things that you tell them to do, or are there activities that one can do that could change their state and start to flip the script for them and move them, at least physically, towards a place where they're not in depression, or at least try to get them out of that, that issue that's obviously probably getting deeper and worse and worse, worse yeah, a couple of things.
Francesca Cook:Um, one thing is there's a psychiatrist called dr daniel almond and he's very much like brain, like looks at your brain and it's called brain spec scans. You guys can look it up later. It's actually pretty cool and I can show you what's going on. But he always says the worst thing a depressed person can do is stay in bed. But that's what they want to do.
Francesca Cook:So I'm encouraging, just get out of bed and then say I got out of bed today, because sometimes it's that hard that you just need to give yourself like like encouragement, like, like, like encouragement, like, oh, I got out of bed today, I showered, I brushed my teeth because sometimes you're that down and then my other things that I'll tell people to do is write checklists of even things that people might think is minimal but you're struggling with because you're so depressed, like like showering or brushing your teeth. Write a checklist and check it off every day and that's an encouragement to you that you've done something that day that's been hard for you and just got out of bed and stayed out of bed. So those are a couple of things. Also utilizing positive affirmations of, like you know, saying something positive yourself or writing something on the mirror that's positive to yourself, just to see because you're.
Francesca Cook:If you're that down, you're probably in a negative loop. Because if you're that down, you're probably in a negative loop. And there may be a reason why Some people say and I haven't researched this a lot, but some people say that guilt and shame is a high cause. Guilt or shame is a high cause of depression and staying there. So it's also in therapy getting to the roots of that too, if it's not like a genetic or chemical imbalance. Fair.
Kenny Massa:I have a belief that and this is a belief, so fair warning there's my policy, whatever it's kenny's belief that if you're unclear about your future or if you, if you don't have goals you don't have, you don't have some type of. I think from getting from point a to point B is very important, and point B continues to move right. You reach point B, that moves to point C, whatever, and you continue to scale. But I have a firm belief that if you do not know or do not have the ambitions or the understanding, simply the clarity, to get to point B, if you don't know where point B is, I think that's half of the issue. If you don't know where point B is, I think that's half of the issue.
Kenny Massa:I think that having on clarity in where you're going or what you're doing in life not that you need to know exactly your purpose in life, but I think that at least being on the voyage to figure that out is really important. But I think that that causes a lot of issues, because I just feel that if imagine getting in your car and driving around and literally not knowing where to go every time you get in your car, you'd be literally driving around aimlessly and I think that's what people typically end up doing, which then causes them to become depressed through a negative loop and whatnot, of negative emotions that continue to follow, but I think clarity is really important. Of negative emotions that continue to follow, but I think clarity is really important. So is there some sort of element to having goals and having milestones in one's life and purpose and finding purpose?
Francesca Cook:Yeah, I think it depends on the person too, because, like I said, there's different reasons why somebody could be depressed, and also not having purpose could be why somebody's anxious as well, because they're like I don't know what's going on with my life, what's happening, where am I going, what's going on, you know, kind of thing in that kind of negative loop as well. But yeah, and setting goals is a big thing I do in therapy because it's like, what are your short-term, what are your long-term? Where? Where do you want to be at? And it doesn't mean that's what you have to do, it's just setting a goal and what do you need to do to get there? Like, how can you get there? And that does help people, um, in the long run, because then they have something to work towards fair anyone else have stuff on depression, because we also have anxiety to tackle for um.
Jonny Strahl:I'll follow up off your question of anxiety no, no, yeah, can we just jump into?
James LaGamma:I guess with anxiety and I don't want to go into the realm of people watching this are trying to figure out and self-diagnose right, that's obviously you know, seek professional help. But if they're thinking, hey, do I have trauma, do I have depression, do I have anxiety, have trauma, do I have depression, do I have anxiety, what are the signs? And like kind of go through those differences but then shift focus to talking on like how anxiety comes about, what causes it, and those kind of things okay, um.
Francesca Cook:So yes, definitely seek mental health. Don't self-diagnose. People do that enough off tiktok and normally, yeah. So with anxiety, it could come from anywhere. Really, it's just dependent, like some people have social anxiety where they don't and that's OK. Well, that could come from. So that has come up a lot more since COVID I believe. I obviously wasn't in the field before that, but it seems like it has, because people were locked in a long time and then they had the fear of going outside. But it seems like it has, because people were locked in a long time and then they had the fear of going outside.
Francesca Cook:But with anxiety, generalized anxiety, could start really anywhere and it is. It's just it could be your brain, it could be how your brain works. It could be that you had something happen to you and now you're worried about everything else that's going to happen to you, or just like a general fear, I guess, and so it's like thinking or even like so anxiety is not always bad, right? So there can be good anxiety. The good anxiety gets you to get your project done for work or for school. You have the motivation where, like, bad anxiety can be crippling and stop you from doing those things because you're so anxious about them. Or you're so anxious about going into a social group where it's like they're negative loop and you can't even get started.
Francesca Cook:Or anxiety doesn't always have to have panic attacks, but sometimes people will have panic attacks, which is like the heart rate beating fast and your chest is tight, you can't breathe and you're trying to calm down, and that can also be like any factor can cause that to happen. Now, generally it's like something's way on your life or you just had something big happen where you're going to paint, where you're panicking because if you stuff stuff down, it has to come out some way. So that's a lot of the reasons why people have panic attacks, because it could be like something stuffed or something happened. They don't know where to go. But with anxiety, that's like a lot of questioning yourself or what am I going to do? How am I going to do it?
James LaGamma:Why am I going to do it? How's this going to get done?
Francesca Cook:Kind of loops or yeah, that would be.
James LaGamma:I don't know if that was a good enough example, but no, I think it was a great example, and even just shedding light on the fact that there is good anxiety is something that again perspective everyone. I hear anxiety, I immediately think a negative thought never, never that there's a positive attribute to it, but no, I think that was eloquently put yeah, and that was really hard with my new Invisalign to say.
James LaGamma:So, definitely not that. Just it just came to my head randomly. Sometimes my brain decides to work, usually after coffee. But anyways, johnny, you said you might've had a follow up question.
Jonny Strahl:You had a few of them, francesca, I think I don't know if it's more because it's more talked about, it's taken more serious. I feel like the diagnosis for those who have anxiety is quote unquote more common, and I want to use that word very lightly. I'm not trying to stir the pot here, but is it because it's taken more seriously or are there just many more factors in the world that we're seeing contribute to anxiety and comparison, not having a clear and concise clarity around your goals and that causing depression? Um, I'm curious. Your take your thoughts or is it just simply, hey, because it's taken more seriously and it's okay to talk about it out?
Francesca Cook:loud. Yeah, that could be part of it. I have no research on that, I will tell you. I do think that and I know it's been talked about in the mental health world that a lot of like kid anxiety is or now, adult is related to social media. That was coming. Um, we can have a whole discussion.
Francesca Cook:Once you said comparison, do that just hits social media right there, because that's all yeah right, it's constant, or the need for likes, like I'm not liked if I don't get enough likes. Or I mean, even in adults they're like that, so and or now the world may be crazy, but it's always been kind of crazy. We just didn't have access to know it. And so I do tell a lot of people if you watch the news, turn it off. Like if you're anxious, turn it off. Don't turn it on, like, let's just do that for a week and see how you feel, because the news, if you're watching it, or you're watching it on TikTok or Instagram or Facebook, it's going to drive you crazy, no matter if you are diagnosably anxious or not. And I do think too, like medications are more and I am not a doctor, I don't medicate anybody, I have no say on medications but the medications are more talked about or more likely to get. And so then people get diagnosed with anxiety, because to be on an anxiety medication, you have to be diagnosed with anxiety.
Jonny Strahl:Yeah, that was kind of a stem from. The question is, I've noticed, and definitely in the workforce for the younger generation, a lot of them are diagnosed with anxiety and they have a medical prescription and whatnot, but it is very cure. I was very curious to just get your thoughts. But yeah, social media, the news we go on an hour topic about that.
Francesca Cook:So and there's a lot of pressure. There's a whole book out there. It's either called untangled or there's another one. There's one on kids and one on teens and how the research does show that kids and teens are actually more stressed out now than before, and it does go to the social media. But I think it also goes to, like the testing standards that we didn't. We had testing, but not like they have testing, like every other month, yeah, and so there's a lot of pressure and just uh, yeah, sometimes too it's. It's what's modeled for you like, like, if your parents anxious, you might not be anxious, but like you're modeled to be anxious, so you're going to worry.
Kenny Massa:Let's step into that a little bit.
James LaGamma:Let's have a what. No, go ahead, Step into it.
Kenny Massa:I have a. I have a question that was frameworked off of what Johnny was saying, but what you just said kind of with the model theory also, I would say, eases us into this conversation.
Kenny Massa:Every individual is different so one individual might have and let's just look at it from like a I would say like a figurative threshold. We can say One person's level of anxiety may be, or their bandwidth of dealing with anxiety might be, larger than another person's. It might be one person. A dog can bite at one person. That might cause severe anxiety. The other person might be like, oh, he's a friendly dog and start petting him, which causes zero anxiety. How does one expand their bandwidth of the ability to deal with more anxiety driven events and this could be depression too. This could be. It doesn't have to be just anxiety, it could be. How does one expand and create more bandwidth? Or I think in simplest form how do you get more mentally strong, Right? How do you do that in a strategic matter manner to grow?
Kenny Massa:your mental health and just have this like, almost like, working out. How do you do that?
Ryan Selimos:Um, okay, so she's like no tough questions, kenny um, yeah, well, I would think.
Francesca Cook:I think it's learning to notice. First, like I said before, noticing your emotions, noticing when you're feeling anxiety, because if you I'm gonna use anger as an example because it's a really good one, so anger, people shove down, but it's a cool emotion to explode with. But if you don't notice you're getting angry, you're probably going to explode. So if you start to notice the triggers to your anger, or you start to notice like ooh, I'm feeling like I'm going to get really mad, it's like learning to walk away. So, with anxiety, I would say it's learning to notice when you're getting that shaky feeling or that overwhelm in your head, and learn to. So we call it reframing your thoughts too, of like okay, I'm anxious, what's true here, what's not true here? And you've got to like get yourself out of that negative like loop of like oh my gosh, how am I going to do this? No, you can do this. What are you going to do to this, which is kind of like your goal setting, and how are you going to put it into place instead of that like negative loop of like I can't do this, I can't do this. That's not true. If it's like a project for a job, you the coping skills that you practice outside of therapy and utilize on a day to day basis, and notice and learn to notice the emotional pattern that comes along with it, to be able to actually do it.
Francesca Cook:Now, if you're not noticing the emotion, if you're not noticing what's going on in your body, you can't start to do the coping skills because you're never going to know you need it. It's like an alcoholic that goes to AA doesn't know they need they're an alcoholic until they go, like admit it and go. It's the same thing with anxiety, like admitting, like your feelings are in your body. Okay, I need to learn to cope with this. And what is going on in my mind that's triggering these thought patterns? What do I need to do? What is true, what's false, and how can I like get my mind to reframe? Like I can do this? And now, what's the next step? So I think I answered your question.
Kenny Massa:Yeah, you did. I think that someone who focuses on this and becomes strategic around it could honestly like mentally biohack their way to being a superhuman. Mentally I do. I feel like if you could really understand that I know you can play with this I feel like, right, like from a kid clean slate, from a baby clean slate there's. They don't know if they should be have anxiety towards something or not, because they have no. They have no ability to understand what the reaction or the social norm of the reaction is. So if they have no understanding of what the social norm reaction is, how do they react? They only react based off of the model that the parent places on them most likely.
Kenny Massa:Or maybe what's genetically provided to them. So there might be a genetic response. It might be a model response from the parent. As the parent, I would say, have the ability to play with that and provide them in like strategic, a strategic setting that continue to expand the level of anxiety. You could have someone that really doesn't have anxiety because you can just like their threshold is just crazy in theory. Maybe I might argue with that in theory.
Francesca Cook:Maybe I might argue with that a little, so you're going to argue with it why no, okay, so oh, you're getting into a whole level of stuff. That's way longer of a topic. But in mental health there's what's called attachment. I don't know if you guys have ever heard of attachment style Educators.
James LaGamma:I've only heard about them in emails. Come on, come on, we're gonna have one at least okay.
Francesca Cook:So, um, attachment styles are essentially created between zero and 18 months and it is how they attach to the parent. And so, basically, there's four attachment styles. There's secure attachment, which you're secure in your attachment, less likely to probably have anxiety because you had a secure attachment base. Um, insecure attachment, which is, um, like I'm gonna leave you before you leave me. Um, avoidant attachment is like I'm gonna avoid attaching to anybody completely, um. And then there's insecure, avoidant attachment is like I'm going to avoid attaching to anybody completely. And then there's insecure, avoidant attachment which, as I can be, I'm going to leave you, or I'm never going to be with you, kind of thing, and that's more than like relational.
Francesca Cook:But it all it stems and it starts in childhood, between zero to 18 months, and that's like the parents are consistent or inconsistent, or they know that if I cry I'm going to get picked up, or and that's not to say, like you know, your kid can't cry, because they can absolutely cry. I mean, kids are going to cry, um, but I know my parent is there for me. And then there's the ones that are unsure or have something happen in that 18 months of like some sort of broken home or some someone dies or something like that, and then your attachment can. You can get an attachment so you'll see, like the blind side for example, the movie um he gets a new attachment in his life because he now has this new family. That's consistent and good. So you can also fix ruptured attachments and your attachment style can be changed.
Francesca Cook:Before they used to think your attachment style could never change, and so I think kind of what you were saying would be more of like creating a secure attachment in your child where they maybe will be less likely to have anxiety, but also allow them and I think sometimes is what happens is that kids aren't ever allowed to like fall or fail. Like parents will come in. Nope, I'm going to fix this for you, I'm going to fix this for you. Then you're more anxious to do anything too, because you never learned that it's okay to to fall down and stand back up and that somebody is there to support you though, and so that's the key is being supported too, where, like sometimes, parents will stand over kids and never let them mess up and never let them fail and never let them fall. But they're not going to grow mentally if you're not learning it's OK to fail, it's OK to fall.
Francesca Cook:But, you also have that support behind you that you can fail and fall.
Ryan Selimos:I don't know if I there's layers.
Francesca Cook:Yeah, I think there's definitely layers of it.
Kenny Massa:That's a lot of layers you know I'm talking about, so you touched on both. So I agree with what you're saying in regards to like, the four different aspects of like attachments. I guess those would be four pieces of attachments, so I agree with what you're saying in that regard. Um, I was not looking at it from, I would say, as a severe case in that regard. I was thinking of it kind of similar to your last statement, which is like, initially the dog barks right, the baby doesn't know whether or not he should cry or laugh or what.
Kenny Massa:So he cries and then you change your reaction to that. Next time the dog barks you're like, oh, he barked, like yay, happy, like this is all happy. And then he's like, oh, I should be happy. So then you change the reaction in that regard. Now what I'm thinking of is that's a simple event dog barks like there's more, more stressful and more anxiety driven things. So as you continue to increase the scale of the event not just from a dog barking but let's say from I don't know, I don't know the next, like more severe thing but you just incrementally increase that level of severity, in that situation the response is the same you're keeping the threshold. The response is like you should be acting happy for this or you should not be thinking you should be. I would say the.
Francesca Cook:The reaction remains constant, but the event scales, if that makes sense, and then you're increasing the threshold yeah, that does make sense, I guess because you were using anxiety before and like giving your kid anxiety. I don't know. But it's kind of the same thing as like dropping your kid off at daycare and they're like freaking out or stay crying, but you come back or you're like it's okay, it's good, and then as they go to daycare they stop crying yeah and then like on a more yeah and then, like on a more severe level, you drop them off at college.
Kenny Massa:They're not like freaking out like oh my god, my family left me because now it's like you left them for x amount of months. Now they're like happy to go away, not saying that you want to kick your kid out like right away. I don't know yet, but yeah you'll find out yeah, but you know that's what I'm saying. Is like, can you increase the scale of those events if the reaction remained constant?
Francesca Cook:which then? Would in theory, I guess, and this might be a thing in, like mental health, or just human physiology, I don't.
Kenny Massa:I don't know. I might be not talking about the right, correct terms, but expanding your ability to deal with these certain circumstances, which I, I do think, inevitably, I think is what we all fall through right as you age and you gain wisdom per se. I think wisdom is the compounding event of going through situations, understanding your reaction and doubling down on understanding the reaction how you should have responded, understanding and becoming aware of their response, and then wisdom really is just you understanding your reaction within that certain situation or whatnot and then you having an awareness.
Kenny Massa:So I mean, I think inevitably we all do this at different levels, like the things that we're dealing with at 30 are not what we dealt with at 15, because it's just different so I think you're doing it. Can you just speed it up and be very advanced at 15 compared to 30? You know what I'm saying.
Francesca Cook:Well, I think the problem with that is you bring in developmental, your brain development and that, and your brain isn't fully developed as females till 25 and males are arguably maybe 26, but maybe 25. They go back and forth. The last part of your brain to develop is your frontal lobe and that's kind of more like the regulator. So that's why when you get adult hormones but you still have a child brain, it's kind of psychotic, interesting, yeah, yeah.
James LaGamma:Not going to name any names.
Francesca Cook:But yeah, like, you're like like parents. You'll hear parents say my teen is a mess and you're like, yeah, well, can you regulate your emotions because you have a full brain and if you're not, they're not going to a, but b. Their brain is not fully developed till they're 25 and so like the regulating, like the reasoning part of your brain is kind of the last part to be developed.
Jonny Strahl:Interesting yes, jonathan I don't know if this is far off. I got a question around, so you're having one-on-one diagnosing a child. While we're on the topic of, like parenting and getting older, at what point or in your world, in your expertise, like, what do you do when you start realizing there's like a parenting problem or there is a challenge with the at home might be impacting how that child is acting or is causing he or she to think or what to do?
Francesca Cook:Yeah, so when I work with children I always work with the parents too. So I will do like. So. Child center play therapy essentially is like I said, the kid works through build rapport with the therapist because I'm this new stranger. The kid works through build rapport with the therapist because I'm this new stranger and then after about five or six sessions maybe a little bit longer or a little less, depending on what's going on I will meet one on one with parents and then we work on tools to do at home as well. And that's not to say that the parent is or is not the issue, it's just to help the kid. And now you might see that the parent can't regulate. And so you kind of say those things gently, like if your outbursts are angry and loud, your kids outbursts are going to be angry and loud, so kids watch everything.
Francesca Cook:That's why when they hear a cuss word at two, they say the cuss word right after probably.
Kenny Massa:It's okay if you're Italian, though right, I'm just kidding.
Jonny Strahl:I am Italian. What do you mean? No, it's more for us.
Francesca Cook:And from New Jersey, you know the F word's an adjective, it's just the sentence enhancers Right, but I'm just using that as a small example, because parents oh my gosh, why did my kid say that? And it's like because you probably said it at home. Like what do you mean? Obviously, so, yes, and all in all, yeah, I work with the parents too and help with that and kind of like. And one of the things, like I said, I work with a lot is kids need your undivided attention. They've needed it since the beginning of time. They still need it now, even if there's more things to do or more devices to utilize, for sure, yeah, I saw this fun fact.
Kenny Massa:Well, I don't know if it's a fun fact or not, but I saw this fact that millennials spend three times more time with babies than previous generations. Is that a known fact? I don't know if that was true or not.
James LaGamma:Social media shaping Kenny's outlook.
Kenny Massa:No, it wasn't social media.
Francesca Cook:I'm kidding, it was a article working remotely probably from social media but yeah, I mean when you think of it like from covid aspect, yeah, yeah, if you're working from home technically, yeah, you're with your fucking kid, more yeah there it is, but I think too, like I don't know how that would be true.
Ryan Selimos:I, I didn't see it. I'm not arguing it.
Francesca Cook:I didn't see it. I'm not arguing it because I haven't researched it. But also, what about the people where, like before I don't know the 60s, 70s, whatever year moms were always at home?
Kenny Massa:That's true. True, I was thinking about that, while you said that I don't know I'm going to get canned on social for this, but that's probably true. I'll come back to you. We'll do a different segment on that one. Let me look at the research on that one.
James LaGamma:I want to piggyback off of Johnny's comment. So you're doing kid therapy and you work with the parents. My question is when you're doing adult therapy, someone's come to you and you're going through the process. Obviously their world isn't just them. Their world is family, there's friends, there's other co-workers, other things at play. How in your field do you guys start to break that?
James LaGamma:down start to break that down and then at what point in time? Or is there ever a point in time where maybe you get others involved to help this person? Or is it all on that person to try to like communicate this now out to other people that don't know what's going on with them, and it's just. It's an interesting concept because I I know people that go through therapy. I have not. I'm interested. I may do it someday, I don't know, but I'm also genuinely like invested in their well-being. So like, maybe there's stuff that I want to help out or just talk to them about stuff, see how things are going, whatever, but I also don't want to intrude, I'm just interested more on what's. How does that play out, other people being involved in the therapeutic process?
Francesca Cook:um so, uh, my dog is distracting me. I'm so sorry. No problem is too. Um, okay. So, yes, you can include other people in therapy. Depends on your modality for therapy. So every therapist looks at through a lens in therapy of whatever their what's called a theoretic orientation is.
Francesca Cook:So, um, I'm very, I'm a person-centered therapist. I would say person, client-centered whatever. So it's more like whatever they need to talk about that day and work through. That's what we work on. I'm not just like down in, like following one theoretical approach. I utilize multiple, but it depends on the theoretical approach you use. So you can.
Francesca Cook:If somebody's like I want to bring my spouse into therapy to give you another view, okay, well then, we need a release of information and they can come in. Or my parent or my child just to get like a different lens. But it would focus solely on the individual you're working with. If you bring in other people now, you can have couples therapy, where it's focused on the couple as a client, and you can have family therapy, where it's focused on the family system. I am not a marriage or family therapist, so I don't work with either one of those. But in individual therapy I will bring in other people, if somebody wants them to or if it would benefit the client in any way. Friends and coworkers. I have not done that. I don't know. Maybe other people do, and there's also group type therapy settings that could involve other people as well. So there's grief groups, there's grief groups, there's um anxiety groups, there's working through the holiday groups. So different people have different groups as well.
James LaGamma:Okay and then. So now you you kind of mentioned a little bit there If you think it's going to benefit the client, you'll suggest to bring someone in, but you can't, essentially, unless they sign off on it. Obviously. I'm assuming that's the yeah, yeah it would be more.
Francesca Cook:Yeah, yeah, correct yeah, it would be more of a um, them bringing up somebody, a bunch or something, and them saying like I wonder what it would be like and then I might bring them in, and so I guess it's less me suggesting but more them. Um, but yeah, they have to sign a release of information, even if the person knows they're going to therapy, because HIPAA.
Kenny Massa:Yeah, I would think there's a big HIPAA aspect to that.
James LaGamma:I'm more curious on the side of like, say, you had someone where a bunch of their family suggested you should go see therapy, you should go see a therapist Talk to somebody, and then they go and then they come back. Go see a therapist talk to somebody, and then they go and then they come back. And again, this is more self-diagnosis. But the people that ask that person to go to therapy still think that there's something wrong. But that person is now turning around and saying actually my therapist is saying you guys are all the problem and it seems like there's conflicting information going on there. There seems to be no way to kind of fix that. But I'm just curious has that ever occurred in any of your clients or anything? Or that they even share that, or they're manipulating that information that comes from therapy, like because they have a manipulative personality? I don't know. It's just an interesting concept. I've thought about it before.
Ryan Selimos:It's a very specific situation you've taken there, James.
James LaGamma:No, I've.
Ryan Selimos:I don't know what's their name. Who's their name, who is it?
Francesca Cook:I will say that therapy is all from the individual's perspective.
James LaGamma:Yeah.
Francesca Cook:So you work through whatever you're told by the individual and so it's all perspective-based. Which kind of yeah. They even say, oh yeah, my therapist does all this stuff. Which kind of yeah, cause. They even say, oh yeah, my therapist has less stuff, but their perspective is totally different.
James LaGamma:Yeah, I think the reason why I bring it up is because I've I've heard people say I didn't like my therapist. I'm going to someone else and so it's making me think, well, was it really the therapist?
Francesca Cook:That's where I'm coming from so sometimes it could be, and it might be nothing that the therapist did. It could be like you didn't mesh with the therapist personality wise, and it's not that the therapist isn't a good therapist, it's just personality wise. They're not for you and that's okay, okay. And then sometimes, um, it is like you got confronted in a way you didn't want and you don't come, or sometimes the therapist isn't listening, like there's so many different reasoning because, just like sometimes you just got to test your therapist because not everybody's going to be for you, and that's okay if a client doesn't mesh with you, because you know you're one way, or your theory. Again it could be like your theory based part of you isn't what they wanted or what they thought, and and that's OK too. So there's no real right answer on that because there's many reasons somebody might switch therapist.
James LaGamma:Yeah, I just it comes down to like some of the negative connotations around therapy that I've just experienced through mostly media, like interventions come up and like now you feel like you're getting personally attacked, all these people are telling me that there's something wrong with me, blah, blah, blah.
Francesca Cook:That's kind of where I was coming from, from that frame of mind, so I just thought it was interesting. Are you watching that on tiktok? No, um, what was this?
James LaGamma:actually I think, um how I met. Your mother did make a play at this. It was funny. Obviously it was for comedic relief, but but they kept having interventions. I think literally the episode was called Interventions, so I don't know, it was just stuff like that.
Francesca Cook:Are you literally asking me if I do interventions on people?
James LaGamma:No, I was taking those negative connotations of things that I've heard through mostly media again because I have not gone through therapy and I don't know much about the topic area, just to kind of understand what goes on in that when a negative experience occurs with therapy.
Kenny Massa:I think it's really important that an individual and their therapist mesh.
Kenny Massa:I think, it's super important, but what I do think is a gap in the market and someone can go create a business out of this. I don don't have enough time, but I would create a business on this is if you could find and there might be some platforms out there that do this in some fashion but if you can find a way to evaluate the person, understand the strategies and temperament and just the theme of that therapist and put them together. Good, because I think what people do is like I need a therapist. They go on Google therapist near me. They find a therapist, they call them.
Kenny Massa:You have no idea if that therapist is right for you. You go through time with that person and you invest in yourself and you invest in the whole process and it could be not for you or it could be for you and it's no one's fault other than the fact that you're both in that area. But I think that if you could put together a program, betterhelp might do this at some scale. No, no, uh-oh, no, cut that Just kidding, you're talking about Tinder for this.
Ryan Selimos:This is not sponsored by.
Kenny Massa:BetterHelp all right for this is not sponsored by better help. All right, I don't think you understand how important this is. I think that this is probably one of the most important pieces to getting help in a, in a matter that is going to change you, I. We can look at it like this we do a case step. We can have one therapist sit in this room, get with three different people and you could. She's in, she's, yeah, but like I'm talking about now with us because we're not. We're all kind of similar and it wouldn't work.
Francesca Cook:Yeah, I couldn't do it anyways. It would be like a you know, conflict of interest.
Kenny Massa:Yeah, I think if you got three different people though that are not like we're too similar and our lives have been together, too much for us to have like different issues that far apart. But if you had three different people from three different places, three different issues, the similar issue, I guess you can say, but then you treated them the same. You're going to have one person that has a better result than another. But is it because they mesh better with the, with the therapist? And I think if you mesh really good with your therapist, I think that your perspective from therapy sessions are resonate with you stronger. I think you're, you're receiving the information is more profound, and then you go and do something with it. But if you leave that therapy session, you're like what the fuck is that person talking about? Like I don't know, and and you're like on the fence about stuff guaranteed you're not on the fence about stuff guaranteed you're not going to change anything, and then that shit's not going to work.
Francesca Cook:So I think that meshing with your therapist is like one of the most important pieces that people don't think about yeah, the therapeutic rapport is, I would say, the most important piece because you got to trust somebody and again it goes back to like feeling safe to share, to give deep information, trusting somebody and like, yeah, that you kind of described like a blind speed dating for therapy just now, but I'm going to see you guys later.
Kenny Massa:Um, but like flip side of this, you have the wrong therapist and it's not because of anything other than the fact that you don't measure the person. What's the time gap on you leaving that therapist and finding a new one? Or do you never go to a new therapist because now you have? This poor perspective of therapy is not for me. Yeah, I don't. I don't, I don't know that answer. I just billion dollar business right there. Good luck to whoever makes it, we'll back you up. Therapymeshcom.
Jonny Strahl:Oh my God, I'm going to go, Daddy and I'm buying that URL right now.
Kenny Massa:Why did you do this with?
James LaGamma:BetterHelp? I'm just curious, because it's like it's BetterHelp or it's BetterHelp, I don't know, betterhelp, betterhelp, it's like like it's better help, or it's better health, I don't know better help help, okay, I'm not answering next. That's fine, that's completely fine what do you think about inside out?
Francesca Cook:inside out too, because you mentioned, I love inside out and inside out too, and inside out too, was very, very good.
Kenny Massa:Like anxiety is like yeah, that is really anxiety-solving.
James LaGamma:Personified yeah.
Francesca Cook:He did really good. I will say they did a great job. I don't know what in Noir or in you. I guess she's just bored all the time, I don't know.
James LaGamma:That's funny. I actually forgot about that character in Inside Out 2.
Francesca Cook:Well, I have all the Inside Out characters in my office. I've got like the stuffed animals and then for Santra we got them. I just love him. He's so cute yeah.
James LaGamma:Ryan, you've been a little quiet.
Ryan Selimos:I'm just learning, bro. I don't have a lot to contribute to this conversation Maybe.
Kenny Massa:I do because I studied science. Is your coping mechanism to just make jokes.
James LaGamma:Is that what you're?
Ryan Selimos:saying it. Very well could be. When I get uncomfortable, I start making jokes.
Kenny Massa:That's a real thing that is a real thing Like a real thing, not real. Like real, real.
James LaGamma:Because I do it. I'm sure I've done it too.
Jonny Strahl:What was this awkward make?
James LaGamma:a dad joke something awkward um so I guess so. So we've kind of I feel like it's been a little bit more on the extremes, like people like that truly have trauma or truly have anxiety and all this stuff. What if someone's just genuinely curious about therapy and whether or not they even think that they should talk to someone? I'm going to use myself as an example. I've kind of flirted with it, but I don't foresee anything in my life where I truly think I can do it and I think there's maybe a little pride factor there too, where I feel like I can not diagnose I don't use that word.
James LaGamma:I have decent self-awareness reflection capabilities, but at the same time it'd be interesting to see what another person says. And then one thing that also holds me back is probably more the monetary side of things. I know there's health insurance I can help out, to which I don't know if we want to get into that topic.
Kenny Massa:But general public person seems to be, I'm probably not a good topic right now. We can avoid that one.
James LaGamma:Um good, good health insurance not a good topic right now the luigi thing is what he's talking about yeah, yeah, um but anyways, someone who feels like they're on the up and up and they're and they're kind of in a good space in their, in their life is is do you recommend? Hey, still, maybe go check someone out, talk to someone, that kind of stuff, because I again I'm on the fence, I don't feel like I need to have a need, I'm fine today. My mental clarity seems pretty good, but I'm interested what you think. I understand the conflict of interest as well too.
Ryan Selimos:It's like a run-on sentence too.
Jonny Strahl:She's trying to figure out.
Kenny Massa:Okay, where do I end up? Wouldn't that just be like a life coach? Is a life coach a therapist?
James LaGamma:That's a good question.
Francesca Cook:They can be, but no, life coaches don't have to be therapists, but wouldn't that?
James LaGamma:kind of like is that more of what synergy?
Kenny Massa:Like if you didn't have a problem but you wanted to just, I guess grow would be. Your, wouldn't a life coach? Technically be that person. And then, if they're not a therapist, who do you go to for positive loop therapy?
Francesca Cook:A life coach. A life coach, a life coach, a therapist. You can go to therapists, work with. You know like sometimes people just need to talk to somebody that's not in their life. 100 and so, yes, you can go to therapy for those reasons um and life transitions, or just. I just need to blow off some steam, like you don't have to have a major diagnosis.
Jonny Strahl:I think Ryan has some anxiety right now. Me, yeah, just a little bit. You need a life coach.
Francesca Cook:No, I don't think so right now I'm talking about life coaches, guys? No, life coaches, we're out, there's nothing yeah.
Ryan Selimos:I'm just kidding.
Francesca Cook:But yes, you can go to a therapist for any reason. Guys, no life coaches, we're out, there's nothing. Yeah, I'm just kidding. But yes, you can go to a therapist for any reason.
James LaGamma:What if you go for no reason, like I don't know, I'm here.
Kenny Massa:Sounds like a waste of time. You're just going to go for no reason.
James LaGamma:I don't genuinely think I have a reason.
Francesca Cook:Why am I? Do I want to go or not? James, let's be real, you would go, talk I love talking.
James LaGamma:I'm on a podcast. That's the whole point.
Ryan Selimos:Even though my run-on said you could talk to a wall for an hour, go talk to a therapist.
Jonny Strahl:Well, I think there's something that you could better from going to talk to somebody.
Ryan Selimos:Different perspective.
James LaGamma:Sometimes you just don't know either and, genuinely speaking, I usually go to my friends or family when I want to talk about stuff. So I guess I never went to a or just not licensed, correct.
Francesca Cook:Correct, but your friends and family are biased correct which is why which is why a counselor can never be a counselor to their friend or their family member because you're biased, you can't be yeah, but what about for like a like?
Jonny Strahl:fr hey, I'm working through this. I'm just curious, can I get your thoughts on what you would do?
Francesca Cook:That's talking to somebody as a friend.
Jonny Strahl:Correct, it's the way you word it, you know.
Francesca Cook:I'm not Like friends, like you just said. You guys counsel one another, but it's not in like a professional capacity.
Ryan Selimos:We're not going to Francesca's office. She said she's sending us somewhere else, basically.
Francesca Cook:Yeah, absolutely 100%. Yes, no, you cannot counsel your friend or your family.
Ryan Selimos:There you go.
Kenny Massa:Why? Because you know too much about their personal life.
Francesca Cook:Well, it's unethical. First off In our ethics codes you can't be unbiased and it's a power dynamic, right? So the therapist has so much information on you? Yeah, it's not even that.
Jonny Strahl:yeah, it's power dynamic okay, hey, francesca where can we, where can we find your, your information? You know, just around your llc um.
Francesca Cook:My business is called replenish counseling LLC.
Jonny Strahl:If you don't want that on, we can always cut it off. By the way, I'll just throw you a little.
Francesca Cook:No, that's fine. Um, replenish counseling LLC. I'm out of Daytona, I do virtual as well, but I have a website and it's just replenish counseling LLCcom. Awesome, and if you search me, I'm on Psychology Today, which is where you can find counselors, if you need any too.
Kenny Massa:Psychology Today has them in your area, psychology Today, so that's a good resource. Are you going to use that one?
Francesca Cook:Psychology Today is a good one that you know. People are on there. That's how they market, or some other. There's some other sites.
Kenny Massa:Mental Health.
Francesca Cook:Match Damn it.
Kenny Massa:They stole my thing. Mental Health match.
Francesca Cook:What you were describing was totally different. That's just like looking at somebody online and reading their bio.
Ryan Selimos:You were speed dating for calendar. That's literally what you were.
Kenny Massa:Sounds like a legit business, it's not bad. It sounds a little interesting. If we gave you the perfect customers every time, I bet your results would be pretty profound. All right. Next, you would change lives every time because she's already changing lives, bro, no every time they're perfect.
Francesca Cook:If you can mesh them. That's the problem. Nobody's perfect. And if they're perfect, why are they going to counseling?
Kenny Massa:No, they're not perfect. I didn't. Nobody's perfect. And if they're perfect, why are they going to counseling? No, they're not perfect. I didn't say they're perfect.
Ryan Selimos:I said your abilities and their needs are a seamless match If speed dating and actual relationships is not a perfect match, even though people think it. The same thing is going to happen with therapists. It's people. People are not perfect, so it's always going to be a disaster.
Kenny Massa:You'll be our case study.
Francesca Cook:That's why people specialize in different things. That's why I bring up kids and trauma and grief a lot, because that's more of my specialties. Or sand tray therapy I'm certified in it, it's my specialty, so I think that's part of psychology. Today We'll say what do you specialize in? Who do you work with? Like I said, I don't work with couples or families. I'm not trained in that.
James LaGamma:Kind of like doctors. Doctors have things that they specify.
Kenny Massa:I think you can get more granular. Visit us at therapymishcom.
Ryan Selimos:No, psychologycom.
Kenny Massa:No, psychologycom.
Jonny Strahl:That's backed.
Francesca Cook:I'm pretty sure somebody already has psychology, a thousand percent that domain's worth $4 million really, if it doesn't.
Ryan Selimos:I was telling people to actually go to the resource that's available today not Kenny's made-up one. Psychology.
Francesca Cook:Today.
Ryan Selimos:Oh, psychology Today, sorry, psychology Today, yeah, go there. Don't go to Kenny's website, that's not made up yet. Go there in a couple weeks. Can you go there in a couple?
Francesca Cook:weeks, please Well, francesca thank you.
Ryan Selimos:Thank you so much for the time today, just really, really educational, like I think we all learned a lot and didn't know what to expect coming into this and we're definitely leaving with some insights and hopefully anyone who tuned in had a similar experience. So just, we appreciate you.
Kenny Massa:Yeah, thank you. Thanks, francesca, Thanks for having me. All right, I'll see you guys later, see ya.
