Dr Jen Blanchette: Yeah. The layers of, like, you know, what we’re going through, the trauma as a society and the world, and then the whole screen layer of all the screens that were happening for everyone and how that’s fatiguing in and of itself. And, like, how do we do this as a profession, ethically? And, like, what is okay to use and not okay? It’s. Yes.
Emily Irwin: Yeah. Like, how do you do it ethically? Right. Like, there’s a lot of. I think there’s a lot of fear sort of instilled through grad school and in the profession. Like, yes, be an ethical human being and follow the laws. I think there’s some element of that creating pressure on people who are actually quite good and well behaved human beings, that we should be a certain. It feels restrictive to me, and it feels, like, potentially not helpful and healing. And so I do think there’s an aspect of that that is worth looking at. Like, why are we kind of, like, putting fear in our grad students as they go out into the profession? Like, why does it have to feel like that?
Dr Jen Blanchette: Welcome to the therapist Burnout podcast, episode 39. Hey, therapist. Welcome back. I am joined by a guest today, Emily Irwin. I’m so excited to have you. How are you doing today?
Emily Irwin: Doing great. How are you?
Dr Jen Blanchette: I’m awesome. Well, I’m excited for you to tell your story. So how I kick it off is just ask you, what is your burnout story?
Emily Irwin: Yeah. So I’ve got a two layer burnout story. In 2012, I graduated with school psych and school counseling degrees and then went to work in the public schools just north of Seattle and worked in a dual role as a school psych and school counselor. So that gives you some information. There’s a lot of job duties.
Dr Jen Blanchette: Yes, I know what that looks like. Okay. Okay. I’m gonna store it in my hat. Go ahead.
Emily Irwin: Yes. Yes. And that was the last dual to go through the Seattle U. Counseling program. So those two professions are really working on the credentialing is becoming more separate. And so it wasn’t such a feasible thing. But this school district, the Edmonds school district in Washington, was employing dual school psychs and school counselors. And both of those things I feel like I encompass. And so I didn’t want to pick one or the other. I wanted to do all of it, which is also a thing. And so in that role, I worked for two years as an unpaid intern in that district, one for each of the degrees. And then I also worked for five years in that full time, that full time role there and I did all the things there. I ran all the teams. I developed really good skills. I loved working with some of my coworkers. And then in one summer, the counseling or the psychology department had us read books about mindfulness and meditation. And I realized when I started practicing those things that my system was not okay with the level of stress and all of the tension and all of the things going on in my body. I love working with kids in schools and supporting young people. That was always what I wanted to do. I’ve said, I’m on this earth to support and help young people, but that job did not make me feel good in my brain and body. And so I started making moves to leave the school district, and it was really hard when you get a degree, a school psychology degree, or a school counseling degree as an assigned female at birth person, I do think that we tend to do the jobs that we get degrees for, and we don’t kind of risk it. Right. It’s just this more a to Zenith plan. And so I had a lot of grief and loss around. I got these degrees. How can I not use them? And, like, what does that mean about me if I leave? And so I eventually did leave the school district. I just left entirely. And I opened a private practice as a mental health therapist in 2017. And in Washington, you can do that when you’re an associate licensed counselor. And so I had my associate license open my practice and saw kids and teens and adults, and then we, like, it was going good, and there were a lot of things that worked better. I was trying to design my environment so that it worked for me. And then Covid hit.
Dr Jen Blanchette: I was like, then the **** pandemic.
Emily Irwin: I know everybody’s going to talk about.
Dr Jen Blanchette: The COVID enter pandemic.
Emily Irwin: Yes. So we moved. Right? So I got rid of my office, and we moved all to virtual. We all made that switch, and it was a lot of work, and I’m not sure we’ve talked about that very much as a. As a group, like, what that took from us, not only to be experiencing the pandemic, but many of us moving it entirely to a medium that we did not expect to be on or doing. I was, like, rushing, trying to take courses to figure out how to make this happen. And I’m experiencing this and experiencing it through my clients. It’s just an un.
Dr Jen Blanchette: Yeah, the layers of, like, the, you know, what we’re going through, the trauma as a society and the world, and then the whole screen layer of all the screens that were happening for everyone and how that’s fatiguing in and of itself. And, like, how do we do this as a profession, ethically? And, like, what is okay to use and not okay? It’s. Yes.
Emily Irwin: Yeah. Like, how do you do it ethically? Right. Like, there’s a lot of. I think there’s a lot of fear sort of instilled through grad school and in the profession. Like, yes, be an ethical human being and follow the laws. I think there’s some element of that creating pressure on people who are actually quite good. Good and well behaved human beings that we should be a certain. It feels restrictive to me, and it feels like, potentially not helpful and healing. And so I do think there’s an aspect of that that is worth looking at. Why are we kind of, like, putting fear in our undergrads or not undergrads, grad students, as they go out into the profession? Why does it have to feel like that? Versus.
Dr Jen Blanchette: I love how even some ethics trainings are labeled CYA.
Emily Irwin: Right. That’s a big. It appeals to people. And why does it appeal? Because there’s fear instilled. And I’ve talked to some folks who are BIPOC supervisors, supervised new clinicians, and they’re talking about how BIPOC folks are coming through grad school with a lot of trauma. And I experienced trauma in grad school, too, as a gender diverse and queer person and definitely didn’t come out feeling very resourced to start. I think that’s a big part of burnout for everybody is grad school and becoming a therapist itself. I mean, so I was licensed as the associate therapist and, like, was doing supervision, was doing. Paying for supervision, doing supervision and starting a practice, which is. It worked for me because I’d already been a professional. Some people are coming out of grad school. Right. Just fresh, like, have never had work experience. Right. And opening a practice. So that’s much harder. But with when Covid hit, I started experiencing in my sort of personal life much more impact. And as an HSP highly sensitive person, I did sort of think I was on the front end of what the impact would be of COVID I started having insomnia and stopped being able to fall asleep. And it was that experience that really catapulted me into burnout in private practice, in iteration number one of my private practice. And I. Something that I have not been able to talk about yet, but I want to be able to talk about is that I end up closing my practice quite suddenly because I couldn’t figure out anything about the sleep. And I mean, I was trying to figure it out. And so I actually went to a residential treatment program in Tucson for about a month, like, a year into the pandemic. And it was really weird to be a therapist at a residential treatment program. And the shame and all the stories I was telling myself, but we didn’t know what to do. Like, nobody knew how to help. And resources were really limited because a lot of people were struggling and it didn’t work. It didn’t help. So I have lots of feelings about that. But I did try, and it is a part of my story I do want to share more about.
Dr Jen Blanchette: Maybe not for today, I’m hearing.
Emily Irwin: Yeah.
Dr Jen Blanchette: Okay, sir. Yeah, we won’t push that.
Emily Irwin: Oh, no. Oh, Alfred day. No, it’s totally. I am open to talking about it.
Dr Jen Blanchette: Okay.
Emily Irwin: Yeah, yeah.
Dr Jen Blanchette: I mean, I can’t imagine the layers of. You know, I certainly have been open about talking about my own mental health difficulties during that time. I developed panic attacks and driving, so I can drive on the highway for some time, which I don’t know why this happens, but do you always get a client that has your exact same issue that you’re having? This is what the world sends you. I just feel like, oh, yeah, I.
Emily Irwin: Get all the HSP’s. Yeah. Yeah.
Dr Jen Blanchette: But, like, I had really not seen that many. So I specialize in brain injury and trauma at the time, and I get this person who’s coming in with, like, all this trauma around car accidents and concussion, you know, just at the same time, like, several of them at the same time, I’m going through this. So I just always find that interesting how, you know, the work that we’re going through finds us. But, yeah, I mean, I think the layers of the pandemic, dealing with your own mental health and how that does feel shameful. Like, how am I doing this work if I’m struggling so much? Someone I just talked to was like, I was crying for about an hour in the morning, and I dried my tears and went on online and on session. I think a lot of us were doing that. I think a lot of us were holding all of our clients and holding our own mental health, and many of us struggle with that.
Emily Irwin: Yeah. It almost makes me teary, just the way you put it. Yeah. Like, it is, we’re so human, and we’re not so different from our clients in that way. And I want more of that. I think that would create less burnout. Yeah.
Dr Jen Blanchette: If we’re more open.
Emily Irwin: More open and more human. And also without the expectation that I’m going to fix somebody, which I still think is out there, that therapists fix clients, that doesn’t help anybody. And so the pressure to fix people in the middle of a pandemic that none of us chose, and of course, we’re human. And so, yeah, our own mental health, not sleeping for me, I mean, not sleeping for anybody, creates extreme problems. And I didn’t think that I could show up in a human way, even. Actually, I didn’t think I could show up in a professional way. I think if I had allowed myself to show up in a human way, I’m not sure I would have had to end my practice and go to residential treatment. But because of the way that I had restricted myself and expected myself to show up as a counselor, it made me not feel like I was right enough or good enough to do what I did. And I think that some people in other professions who get to go to work and not be direct with a client, I think I probably could have done that work. Right. With the tiredness and the fatigue and continued. But as therapists, all of our work, we only get paid if we see clients. Right. Like, it’s that kind of time. There’s no other way. You can’t just do paperwork to get paid. You have to see the client first.
Dr Jen Blanchette: Right.
Emily Irwin: Right. And so there’s, there’s some privilege in not having your income be based just on that direct time. If I don’t show up with a client, I don’t get paid.
Dr Jen Blanchette: Right.
Emily Irwin: And then they don’t get help too. But I think that’s a, that, that sort of hit me recently of, that’s a big part of the pressure.
Dr Jen Blanchette: Yeah.
Emily Irwin: Private practice especially.
Dr Jen Blanchette: In private practice especially, I think. Yeah, I, well, I think more and more other places, it’s also becoming more like, there’s pressure on the clinician. I’m thinking of my agency self, and, like, I was required to see 30 clients an hour. It was 26. This is what they got me. Right. They said only 26 clients a week. Okay, that’s high. But that was like, I can do that, but if you want to take vacation, it’s 30 a week.
Emily Irwin: Right. I know I haven’t worked in an agency. I feel like working in schools is sort of like the version of working.
Dr Jen Blanchette: Maybe I want to go back there because, you know, I told you I work contract in working in school psychology. And I think part of the reason for me not wanting to do a full time position is fears of burnout in a school. They are very much ripe for burnout school systems. It depends on where you at, where you are, like the particular school you’re in, the administration you’re in. Shake your head. What is your head shake saying?
Emily Irwin: I think it’s yes, for sure. Like your leadership, your principal makes a big difference. Right. Your colleagues, your co workers, the, the cultural, the energy in the culture of the school. Right. It can be like resilience factors to burnout. And at the same time, it’s still a system. It’s still a school system. And I think that, like, that’s what we see in the corporate world with burnout too. Right. It’s not, it’s not the individual. Right. Who has a problem. It’s the system that is not super well.
Dr Jen Blanchette: Right.
Emily Irwin: And I think so. No. Yes, for sure. Those are resilience factors. And I think the system is just the system and it’s going to burn people out who are going to get burned out. Even with those other factors. It might just take a little bit longer.
Dr Jen Blanchette: Right. I agree. I just, you know, I think some of the unique pressures I see in a school system is, you know, the administration pressure, the, for teachers. Every time I go into a classroom because, you know, the work that we do, we went, we go and we observe the student in the classroom. And so every time I’m in a classroom, I make it a point to tell a teacher, that was such a great lesson. I really enjoyed seeing you teaching like, you’re doing such a great job with our students. There hasn’t been a teacher that I’ve observed that weren’t trying their best. I mean, I could see it. And so I make it a point to tell them that. That being said, there are just so many pressures, I think, on the system. And I, and this voice coming from parents, I just did not anticipate, like, sitting in IEP meetings and literally being attacked and like, my work being drug on the floor, picked apart by lawyers. I have just not experienced it at all in any, any other part of my career. And I had to really build up my resiliency around, like, why are, why are we treating each other this way?
Emily Irwin: Yeah. Yeah. Something that’s been coming up in sort of professional, the professional communities, this idea of why aren’t we lifting each other up as humans? And that’s not specific to any profession, but your example is perfect for it. It’s like, why are we choosing to tear down instead of lift up? I think that’s sort of a systemic cultural thing that’s going on or this.
Dr Jen Blanchette: Adversarial role towards the school, too. I mean, I know schools have issues, but also, like, sometimes getting it from parents. It’s not always parents. I would say 95% of parents are so gracious and, like, see the work you’re doing and are very wonderful. But I think there’s a subset that feel like schools are out to get their children.
Emily Irwin: Yeah. And maybe they had school trauma.
Dr Jen Blanchette: Yeah, that’s a good point.
Emily Irwin: I’ve seen that a lot with parents. Right. Or they just don’t trust schools and the folks who work there, but they don’t have the privilege to send their kids somewhere. Somewhere else. Right. And so they feel stuck, so they’re kind of repeating their own trauma.
Dr Jen Blanchette: Yeah.
Emily Irwin: I mean, yeah, I think the teachers are under immense stress. And, I mean, the thing with all of education is that nobody’s getting paid the amount that they’re worth, and that can’t feel good over time. So obviously pay, right? Yeah, pay direct correlation to burnout for whoever. And if you have a whole system of people who are mostly underpaid, significantly, that is not going to lead to a healthy system. Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Definitely been running a lot of those meetings, and you really want the work that you do to be meaningful. And I think one of the things that was hardest for me that led to burnout was that I would do all this work in testing and assessment and observing the kid in classrooms. I loved observing the kid in pedest. We had a great PE teacher, you know, and that information went nowhere. And it was not. It was stated in the IEP, but it wasn’t necessarily being used to really inform the instruction of the kiddo. That doesn’t lead to me feeling very good about myself or the work that I do. It makes me feel small, and it makes me not feel like I matter and my expertise doesn’t matter. I mean, in the way that you’re talking about, too, like, if you’re getting picked apart, your expertise is like, it doesn’t matter. Like, what was that for? Right. And so being treated as a whole person is important in regard to burnout.
Dr Jen Blanchette: Yeah, I think that’s a through line. You know, us, and we talked a little bit about this on the pre interview of kind of being able to show up in our humanity, in the. In wherever we are. So if it’s in the system, the school system, or if it’s as our role as the therapist in private practice, in a lot of ways, I think we don’t feel like we can show up as our full human selves either in a system or in armor as a therapist, where we feel like we have to show up in a certain way. I think for you, when you were going through your own mental health crisis, not being able to show up to clients and say, actually, I’m not sleeping. I’m needing to take a break because I’m having a lot of mental health symptoms, because there’s that shame that we feel when we experience mental health problems and people seeing us as, are you competent to treat me? Or, you know, are you the right person for me? Because you’re, quote unquote, falling apart.
Emily Irwin: Right. Is that even, is there space for that? Or could I have said to them, I’m experiencing sleep trouble and I may show up a little bit differently in session and I’m still here and. Right. Could that be a possibility? And would that have been made my system less reactive? But yes. I really didn’t expect to feel that restriction on being who I really am in the schools and then also in private practice. My hope was that private practice would really relieve that. And in many ways it did. It changed it. I could show up as a queer and gender diverse person and people could choose to work with me or not. That helped me feel safer because in the schools, you’re it. And if the families don’t like or the kids don’t like your queerness or your gender diversity, that gets tricky. And that doesn’t, that doesn’t feel very good. And so I like private practice in that I put myself out there, like, on my website or on social media, and I say, this is who I am. You can choose to work with me or not. And still there’s, even when people choose to work with me, there’s still that, like, I’m. I’m still struggling to be my full self in session, even with that change and feeling restricted by being a licensed therapist, by the role of a therapist. And what I’ve been taught a therapist is.
Dr Jen Blanchette: Yeah, I was going to just ask because, like, why. Why do you think we do that as a profession, even though we might have different identities, but we may not feel like we can show up as the person, the human we are in the room.
Emily Irwin: Yeah. So I wonder if. I would love to hear from therapists who feel like they do, and they can, because what are the common threads for them? So I would love to know if there are therapists who feel like that. And I think one, they might be people who aren’t scared by the fear tactics of grad school, putting fear into you about ethics and the law. And then, like you said, the professional development courses that are like cover. Yeah, like CyA courses. Right. It’s very much fear inducing. And so you don’t do things because you’re afraid you’re going to get in trouble or you are afraid another clinician is going to call you out or judge you. I’ve heard of a lot of folks being judged on social media, like Facebook groups for therapists, because the way they do or don’t do their practices. And again, that’s back to that lifting up. Why are. We aren’t lifting each other up and tearing each other down, but why is there so much fear? I feel like that’s a through line. Just fear everywhere. And maybe that’s just amplified by the pandemic that we’re just operating at these more activated levels. But for me, I think what I was saying to you before, too, is I’m coming into realizing that I’m on the autism spectrum. And I didn’t know this whole time, through all those burnout stories that I’m not only dealing with the job and career burnout, I’m also dealing with autistic burnout. And that is something that is brand new to me, literally in the last two days. And it makes so much sense.
Dr Jen Blanchette: Super fresh. But I’d love your openness.
Emily Irwin: Yeah, I think it could help a lot of people, especially if other clinicians are wondering if they’re neurodiverse. I have worked with so many people who are on the autism spectrum, and I love working with them. And, like, those kids were always some of my favorite, and my brain works so similarly. I can follow the conversation, and I never felt it in myself. I never had, like, the felt sense of, like, oh, I feel that. And I have a. I meditate daily. I meditated every day last calendar year for 30 minutes. Like, I am really clued into my internal knowing and my internal compass. Inner knowing, inner compass. I do not feel autism. It’s only been in relationship to other people who also have autism, generally assigned female at birth folks who are reflecting it back to me and saying, you feel familiar, you make sense to me, and your brain works the way that my brain works. Have you considered, and when I consider autistic burnout, I listened to a few podcasts yesterday because I wanted to speak about it in a good way with you. I wanted to make sure I was complete and accurate, which is also a very spectrum y thing. And that just amplifies everything that I told you about those burnout stories. And it means that I am masking, doing a lot of masking and not being myself.
Dr Jen Blanchette: So I don’t know. Can you share what masking for people that may not be aware of may not work with neurodiverse folks or may not be aware of that term. Can you just share a little bit about masking from your perspective?
Emily Irwin: Yeah, I mean, I’m sure each person means. It generally means the same thing, but I would obviously recommend people ask that person what that means to them.
Dr Jen Blanchette: Yes.
Emily Irwin: For me, it means like, I’m hiding myself to make myself socially palatable, or I’m hiding who I really am and my instincts and my intuition, because I know that socially that might have a repercussion, and I’m not sure how to operate socially as myself. And if I do, there’s going to be. There’s going to be a negative outcome, or I’ve received negative outcomes and negative consequences for how I’ve behaved or shown up in the past, and I don’t want that to happen again because that did not feel good or I was confused. And so it’s like this hiding. And I also realized that trauma is so much about hiding. I mean, it is traumatic to hide yourself, and I don’t want to hide anymore. It’s too stressful.
Dr Jen Blanchette: Yeah.
Emily Irwin: So masking is quite elaborate, and it’s not just something. It’s very an in depth thing to be able to do. You have to be really kind of smart to mask, to know what to hide. It is like a difficulty with social situations and relationships, and it also shows a high knowing of them, like a high observation. You’re very hyper vigilant to what’s happening around you and you want.
Dr Jen Blanchette: Yeah, and I think it’s likely we sit more, you know, with. With female identifying folks on the spectrum. And we already know that there’s potentially under diagnosis of female identifying folks, which most of this pod people that listen to this podcast are female identifying due to being in the helping profession. So I just think it’s important for us to know if it’s yourself who might be on the spectrum and could be someone who does mask, because you may not realize that you’re not showing up as your true self and feel like you need to show up in a different way to feel like, you know, whatever you’re saying is landing socially appropriately with that person, or you’re saying it in a way that they’re going to accept or receive better.
Emily Irwin: Right.
Dr Jen Blanchette: And may not realize that the toll on you, like, what does that cost to you to do that? And at the end of the day. Right. So we’ll say more about that for.
Emily Irwin: From your perspective, your personal perspective, energy, it’s all energy. So if I’m not sleeping and have insomnia and that’s going to, that pathway to burnout is going to get bigger. And I know that a lot of people, especially neurodiverse folks, have trouble with sleep and insomnia, and it makes sense. And the podcast I listen to yesterday, we’re talking about how autistic burnout is higher when we’re masking. The masking is higher. Like they’re correlated. The more masking we do, the more burnout we have. And so then, as a queer and gender diverse person, I’m masking, too, for.
Dr Jen Blanchette: Those, all the layers, how you interact socially and then you as a person and who you show up in the world as a human and your body.
Emily Irwin: Right, right. So there’s so many layers that I’m, I think, really still unpacking there. But right now I’m looking back and going, it makes so much more sense. I’m not a weak human. This is part of how my brain works. And I wanted so badly to work in schools with kids. I loved being in school as a kid, and I wanted to support and serve kids there. And it’s a loss to not be able to be in that environment, to realize, oh, I can’t do that and be healthy. And I wish I could. I wish I was stronger. But that narrative itself is, yeah.
Dr Jen Blanchette: I was like, ooh, we’ll say it. Let’s dig into that one.
Emily Irwin: Right, right. If I could push through it. Right. That’s such cultural messaging.
Dr Jen Blanchette: Yeah.
Emily Irwin: If I just push through it, I could do this. I want it. I’m motivated. Right. And then, so what’s the cost?
Dr Jen Blanchette: What’s the cost? I think that’s always the question we have to ask ourselves. Right. There’s a part of me that still wants to be a therapist, that still wants to do EMDR with folks, that feels weak, that feels loss from not being able to do that work, because I know the beautiful side of it.
Emily Irwin: Right. Those moments, I’m so curious what those beautiful moments are, too, because as you said it, I knew exactly where it is in my body and how lit up we can get. Yeah.
Dr Jen Blanchette: There’s so many beautiful, like, oh, my mind. My mind goes to a client I lost in the pandemic very suddenly, and they had cancer, and I didn’t get to say goodbye. And I had such a connection with that person. And so the beauty and a therapeutic connection that wasn’t specifically EMDR work, but with that individual. I just. I just remember, like, small moments, like, there was lavender outside my office, and they would just pick a piece. Okay. I thought I just. You might want to smell this throughout your day so you can, you know, just feel more grounded and, you know, want to give you something. And they knew I couldn’t accept, like, money, gift gifts, so they would do things like that. Like, I’m just going to bring you this piece of lavender that I picked, or I wrote. Write me a nice card. It was just that was that type of client that just thought of me and saw me so much in my humanity and who I was, and I knew just one of the best for me. And so I think I thought of that person and that connection, and that was part of why I left, I think, because that the deepness of the connection as a therapist that I can have with my client is so beautiful, and it’s also something I could no longer hold due to, like, the other parts of my life that I need to hold. Like being a mother.
Emily Irwin: Yeah.
Dr Jen Blanchette: And, like, the energy that goes into that and also being a trauma therapist and the other sides of it that, like, when sessions would not go right, or there wasn’t that connection that I had with the client, and then I felt like I was doing things inappropriately. But I think going back to that beautiful connection piece and then seeing someone get through horrific trauma, and they’re living a functional life, and I see them at the end, like, from beginning to end, get through something they never thought they could get through. And just what a gift that was to me, for me to see that in that person. I mean, those are some of my. The two moments that come to mind, but there’s so many.
Emily Irwin: It makes me want to put that question out there to, like, to the LinkedIn world or somewhere and just get this, like, this mass of those beautiful moments and celebrate those I have when.
Dr Jen Blanchette: This comes out, we’re gonna do a thread. We’re gonna do it together. We’ll do a thread. Like, what are your most beautiful moments?
Emily Irwin: Beautiful moments.
Dr Jen Blanchette: I’m writing it down.
Emily Irwin: Yeah. I’ve worked with teens most recently, and they are the most precious human beings, and it’s really those real moments. I think real is the word. Like, that you had real connections, and it’s real, kind of a human love for each other and seeing of each other, and it goes both ways, but it doesn’t make us a worse therapist for being also seen by our clients. And there’s something that I feel bad about in saying that it’s not their job to see me. I know. And it happens. We all of, like the interpersonal neurobiology research would support that. That happens. Like the answer, of course it does. Like all of his work. Right.
Dr Jen Blanchette: And I think what you’re speaking about also is that we’re not supposed to get attached. We’re not, you know, we’re there for them, they’re not there for us. But the nature of human relationship is.
Emily Irwin: That are we defying what is natural in the work of being a therapist? Truly? I mean, I’m reading decolonizing therapy right now and I. It’s so rich that I cannot get through it. I’m stalled out. Yeah. And it makes me wonder about why do we heal in one on one settings versus why don’t we heal in community settings? Because so much of healing through time has been community based. Indigenous cultures. That’s the way that you heal and support each other is in community. And we have really changed it. I mean, really in this. If you look at the timeline of one on one therapy, it isn’t for very much in the history of humans.
Dr Jen Blanchette: Like the incidence of like medical model, I would think in Freud and all of that.
Emily Irwin: Right? And Doctor Millan who wrote that book, she calls it the mental health industrial complex, I think, which is important to.
Dr Jen Blanchette: Notice that we are part of industrialism like that. That comes about in a lot of different sectors and especially the healing sector. And then what we continue to see today is mental health is treated like a commodity, especially what we’re seeing in tech, that people are investing billions of dollars and it’s off of our labor that they are making this money and we’re not, because we’re not seeing it.
Emily Irwin: No. And again, right, like if everybody was getting, if everybody in the system was getting paid the things that they need, clients and therapists, would that. Would private practice also feel better? Right. The sort of, there’s people doing research and studies around, like the basic income. I’m not exactly sure what the term is, but where you give everybody in a town or an area this certain amount per month or per year. Right. Like, so everybody’s making a certain amount of money. And that, of course, research is showing it helps everybody has what they need. So why can’t. I could only see, like doing therapy in a place like that would make more people have access to therapy.
Dr Jen Blanchette: Yeah.
Emily Irwin: Right. And then we’d all potentially be paid better. Like, if our clients were getting paid better, we all be doing better too. Yeah.
Dr Jen Blanchette: Yeah. I mean, I think, I love what I’m hearing that’s kind of disrupting a lot of the way. And I think that’s the gift of the pandemic, is that we really disrupted how we thought about work and the work that we’re doing, and it was messy and ugly in many regards. But there’s also, I think, this opening of really, why are we doing what we’re doing?
Emily Irwin: I mean, that’s what I think, why you and I have connected before. It is to ask. I want to be an out of the box person. I want to be a disruptor. I want to ask the questions about why are we doing therapy the way that we’re doing it, and why are we continuing to do that. I had my own therapist at one point talked about family systems as being sort of a shape or a container, right. And each family has their shape, and it might be an unhealthy shape. Right. And so if someone passes away or someone leaves the family, sometimes the shape will change. Right. And it can be healthier, but sometimes the people in the system just go ahead and form that same shape as before. So I think about what you just said about the pandemic. We were operating in this sort of shape or container in society or as therapists, and then this thing happened that blew it up, and it was like, whoa, our container could look different. Right. Our shape could look different, but how much have we all contributed to just making it the same again? Right. Yes. We’re asking the questions, but are we actually doing it differently?
Dr Jen Blanchette: Yeah.
Emily Irwin: So it makes me think of that metaphor, definitely.
Dr Jen Blanchette: I know. I think this theme of community is what I’ve been thinking of the past kind of week or so with regard the systems we’re in and why, going back to this point of, like, everything has become individual therapy when we need to be in community, when the reason why we’re becoming more sick is because we’re as isolated as we’d ever been.
Emily Irwin: Yes.
Dr Jen Blanchette: And we’re on our devices, so we’re more connected, yet we’re more isolated and we’re more depressed. So the answer is community. Yet what is given is individual therapy. And what I talk to people in my individual therapy is how can you, like, find someone in your community?
Emily Irwin: Right. They found us in their community. Yeah. Yes. I mean, that’s exactly what I’m thinking about. Exactly that question. Right. Because. Right. The author, the author, Jonathan Haight. Right. Like, wrote the anxiety generation.
Dr Jen Blanchette: And then.
Emily Irwin: But we’ve had, like, I wrote a thesis in 2003 in college and used the book bowling alone. So by 2003, we were already writing books about community based things like bowling, which was this amazing cultural hub. Right. For so many people. And then the title is bowling alone. Right. That’s 2003.
Dr Jen Blanchette: Yeah.
Emily Irwin: Right. I feel like that was a long. That makes me feel old. And that was a long time ago. Right?
Dr Jen Blanchette: Yeah. I think we started to see those, you know, I think Jonathan’s height. Height. Height. I don’t know if I’m saying. Okay, I don’t know.
Emily Irwin: We should ask him. We should ask him. Jonathan.
Dr Jen Blanchette: Jonathan. H a I t. We’re not sure we’re going to. I’m going to look it up before this comes out. So. I know, because I’m talking about this book all the time. Anxious generation.
Emily Irwin: Me too.
Dr Jen Blanchette: So episode 29, if you didn’t listen to episode 29 that I did a whole episode on that book. Blowing my mind, y’all. So what we’re seeing is that that increase in depression, anxiety, really, across the age table, not so much for your middle aged folks, like 50 plus, but for really everyone, I would say 49 and under, which would be in that group. Me too. I’m pushing it.
Emily Irwin: I’m almost there. Yeah.
Dr Jen Blanchette: Yeah. I’m mid forties, so. But anyone in kind of the ex, millennial and down had, I think because we grew up with the technology in some way or form. Like, it didn’t really happen for me until college, until I had a computer. We didn’t have a computer growing up in my house, but when I got to college, that was different. But I think it’s the advent of everyone being on a computer, probably even before that, because I think they say, really, it was since the seventies that our culture started to become more individualistic, and it was already individualistic as just being in America anyway.
Emily Irwin: So different White House society.
Dr Jen Blanchette: Yeah. So I think that was even happening. And culturally, we have these differences anyway in american culture. So people listen to this throughout the world. So I’m interested in people’s perspectives about what they’re seeing in their countries, but it’s also international, so we’re also seeing. Seeing this isolation at the f end of the smartphone technology happening cross culturally as well.
Emily Irwin: Yeah.
Dr Jen Blanchette: So it’s not just the US, even though, you know, there’s lots of issues with our culture, like 100%.
Emily Irwin: Right, right. It’s not. It’s not the culture. The causation is not cultural. Like, those could be correlates. Right. But he’s showing causation with the devices.
Dr Jen Blanchette: Yeah, well, I still think it’s correlational research. Um, so I know causation. What are they now? My stats, background.
Emily Irwin: I’m like, I know, school site. Come on. Come on.
Dr Jen Blanchette: Yeah, yeah. Correlation. It does not imply causation, but we’re seeing the relationship cross culturally, right? So we’re cross culturally, we’re seeing the relationship smartphone and, like, mental health. So we’re kind of like, we are making those inferences because we can’t do an experimental group that says this group of kids will not have smartphones and this group of kids will have smartphones. Because that just doesn’t, you know, it.
Emily Irwin: Would be great, actually, it would be.
Dr Jen Blanchette: Nice to randomly assign a group of kids to not this not smart food condition, but I take rest anyway. Like getting back. Let’s kind of get back to what we were talking about. I’m going to make sure I got to all the stuff in the pre interview we talked about. We didn’t talk so much about that. We did talk about therapist masking. So that we did get to that and just talk to me about private practice, like maybe what are the things that are coming up for you with regard to burnout in private practice that other folks might identify with?
Emily Irwin: Yeah. So I’ve had that first iteration of my practice where I saw kids, teens and adults, and just sort of a general capacity, a lot of anxiety, and then also had a client experiencing OCD. And then we went down that together in terms of, I got more training and served him really well, and we did some cool stuff there. And then when I left my practice after the. Into the pandemic, I did come back and most recently have had another iteration is the word that I’ve sort of chosen to use where I was working with teens and I was working hybrid. So some virtual and some in person. And one of the things in that I love doing things outside the box, and I, because I think it’s more healing than the things inside the box. So meeting clients to shoot hoops, meeting clients at a park to sit in nature, meeting clients to go for a walk, meeting them in a place in town where they love and they want to show me this really cool thing to them or someplace of importance to them. And obviously meeting people where they’re at is so important in life. They feel so much more seen. And I felt really good, and it felt really real. But energetically, that was too hard. I want to meet people where they’re at, and I can’t. I cannot be the only one going and doing that. That limits my energy and how much I’m able to do, which is not sustainable for me. And I mean, I think a lot of therapists bend over backwards for their clients because they really do care about them and they want to set up their practices so that they make sense to their clients. And I started working on Saturdays in person at an office that I was subletting, and it worked really well for my clients and their families. And that was great because they were coming, feeling more resourced. But then I was burning out in this iteration because I was meeting them more than deciding what was going to work for me ahead of time. Sometimes you don’t know.
Dr Jen Blanchette: Sometimes you don’t know.
Emily Irwin: Yeah. So that just some of those things, like, they’re all well intentioned and people were having good benefits from that, but it’s just not something that I can sustain right now. And I think for me, it’s just learning more about my energy and how my brain works. And I think I am wondering if I want to continue as a therapist, if that is something that I can do. And that is scary. I often feel like kind of in my experience in the world, that it’s like I’m not sort of made for this world is what my experience feels like. And every time I try to make adjustments or make things better, I still don’t feel like it’s the right fit. Even though I love helping people and even though I have those beautiful moments and even though I’m a really good therapist and even though I’m creative in all of the things, it’s just this continual learning of this world is really hard. And I’m not a failure, but there’s a narrative in there of I have really failed in this world. And how can I add to the meaning and purpose of this world if I’m not in a helping profession? Helping is a big value to me.
Dr Jen Blanchette: Yeah.
Emily Irwin: Right.
Dr Jen Blanchette: So I’m hearing, like, that theme of failure that I think comes up so much for therapists when they get stuck in this place of it’s not therapy. So then what am I? Who am I? What am I doing?
Emily Irwin: Do I work in any working world? In this universe? Right now? I’m not sure. I don’t know what I would need to do. I know that I have lots of skills. I can make a resume full of the things I’ve learned over both of the professions, the school psych and school counseling and private practice. I am very well equipped. But it’s like, how does my brain and body and my heart actually match in this whole world, not just these professions, but how do I be a human being who has ease and joy?
Dr Jen Blanchette: Yeah.
Emily Irwin: And not just pushing and struggling and feeling restrained over and over, or feeling the need to hide where and how can I show up in the most real way in this world, which includes work? I think it’s a big existential question. Yeah. So it’s kind of. I feel like my burnout is life burnout. I’m at this point of job burnout, autistic burnout. Also experience chronic pain. So chronic pain, burnout of the body. How do I exist in this world in a way that feels life giving?
Dr Jen Blanchette: Yeah.
Emily Irwin: Right. And not just continue to sacrifice myself. Yeah. Those are the questions I’m asking for sure.
Dr Jen Blanchette: Yeah. And it makes me think of those. Those themes of human giver syndrome that when we give, we often give at the expense of ourselves. And so I think it’s asking ourselves these questions, like, how do I. It’s getting curious about that ease and joy. Like, where are places where it is easy, where it is joyful.
Emily Irwin: Right. The other thing I wanted to come back to is you were talking about the anxious generation, and then we were talking about that in relation to, like, healing and community and of isolation that we’re experiencing.
Dr Jen Blanchette: Yes.
Emily Irwin: I wonder if operating in a more therapeutic way in community would be more useful because that’s how we’re meant to heal. Right. That’s a question I kind of have of, like, what would that look like? So, one example is I’m obsessed with house plants, and I have found such meaning and joy in getting my hands in the dirt and treating houseplants like a science experiment, which I wasn’t really allowed to feel as a kid. Like, oh, I could mess up, or I could try this thing and see how it goes and collect my own data. And in counseling, I always say to my clients, life’s a science experiment. Collect your own data. Like, I can tell you to use this coping tool, but if it doesn’t work for you, don’t do it like, you collect your own data. You are like, n of one. Right. So we’ll try the thing and let’s see. Let’s get curious, like you said.
Dr Jen Blanchette: And so, like, my metaphor was like, you know, all of these tools are a buffet, and the things you like on the buffet are the things you’re going to choose. So I love those little metaphor, those therapy metaphors that we give clients because.
Emily Irwin: I found that it works. It goes through to the house plants. If I treat it like a science experiment and just collect my own data, I’m not worried about what Google says about this plant. I’m not worried about this thing over here, right. I’m seeing what’s true in front of me, which is so mindful. Right. Mindfulness, like being in the present moment with curiosity. And that’s what that brings to me. And we’re in a world that wants us to be really not present. It’s very much promoting anti presence, anti slowing down, anti stillness, anti all the things. So for me, I think a big part of how I’d want to proceed therapeutically is bringing people together to be present. And for me, the house plans do that. So I also think there’s some studies about getting your hands in dirt is very good for the. Producing the good chemicals in your brain. So what if, like, what if community healing involves coming together to get our hands in dirt? And I’ve asked around, like, people are kind of interested. They’re like, yeah, I would come. I would show up to that. Right? Yeah, yeah. Johann Hari wrote the book lost connections, and he talks. It’s like the antidepressants in other countries, sort of. And an antidepressant is a community garden that a doctor had his clients all go, like, work on together and they all got happier. Right. Like. Cause they worked together and they were outside and they were making things grow. Right. We’d like to see growth. Like you talked about the growth in your clients.
Dr Jen Blanchette: Yeah.
Emily Irwin: Right.
Dr Jen Blanchette: Yeah.
Emily Irwin: It’s so healing to see growth.
Dr Jen Blanchette: It is. And I think it helps us stay in the work to see. To see growth.
Emily Irwin: Yes.
Dr Jen Blanchette: So I’m gonna pivot a little bit, but it’s related.
Emily Irwin: Yes.
Dr Jen Blanchette: Because I’m gonna get to our joy question.
Emily Irwin: Let’s do it.
Dr Jen Blanchette: But I think it’s going to bring it all together. So how are you finding joy today?
Emily Irwin: Right, as you know. Yeah. So pickleball is the main way that I have found joy. And it’s so cheesy to say, and it’s very tropey because it’s happening all over the US and everybody’s doing it. It’s a huge thing I absolutely hate. So I have some autism with, like, the PDA profile, so I don’t want to do things that other people are doing. And I collected my own data and it’s fabulous. So I’ve been playing twice a week, and as someone with chronic pain, two experienced who played sports growing up and hasn’t been able to play, I’m really challenging my body and my brain and saying, I’ve got to do this. I need this for community. And it’s really brought me to know my community better and playing. Our intention is to play for fun. It’s very protected. We are not there to be intense or, you know, we don’t worry about. We keep score, but we don’t worry about it. So we came together with a common intention, and that has helped protect that as a joyful thing. Right.
Dr Jen Blanchette: That’s great.
Emily Irwin: And it’s movement. It’s outside. You can see Puget sound, like, through a little peek a boot view from the court. Right. You’re with people. It’s social. You’re moving your body. There’s so many healing elements, and it’s fun and goofy.
Dr Jen Blanchette: You know, I’m gonna. I’m gonna do an article on another article I was reading an article on meta analysis on nervous system regulation, like meditation strategies. And interestingly enough, they found that doing something like, you know, running isn’t great for your nervous system when you’re already keyed up. So, like, how to bring your nervous system down, because it’s like you’re. You’re in the same nervous system state. So encouraging things like yoga or meditation are helpful to bring your nervous system down when you’re super agitated. Play. And they mention racquetball sports because we’re engaging our brain in that play center, which is relaxing to our bodies and our brains. And so we can’t forget the impact on play and on our neurobiology and about how we’re meant to play as human beings, all ages, all ages, continuously trying to find these experiences and pockets of play and how this. I’m going to read more about this meta analysis to get the quote, but how it was similarly regulating than deep breathing. It’s so regulating, I mean, which makes me feel better about, like, racket sports.
Emily Irwin: Right? So it’s also the reciprocal ness. Right. Of a racket sport. It’s back and forth. Right. You’re hitting. It’s sort of like emdr. Right?
Dr Jen Blanchette: Like in the bilateral stem.
Emily Irwin: Yes. Right. As you walk with somebody. Right. Like the back and forth or playing catch. I often played catch with kids in the past or tossed a ball for gratitude practices. Right. I toss the ball. I say gratitude. The ball gets tossed back to me with babies on the ground. Right. You roll things back and forth. That kind of play is built into how we do relationships, and we’ve lost a lot of that. There’s so many people out there trying to promote play because we need more of it. We need more nature. Like, those are. Which are, those are the things we’ve lost from being on screens. Truly, is that in person play. And so I’ve talked to a client recently about don’t focus so much on the restriction of the phone or don’t focus so much on the restriction of anything. Go towards what feels good. Like, again, your own data. Go towards the.
Dr Jen Blanchette: I love this, like, the concept of adding versus taking away. What can we add that can actually be like, you know, people often talk about their diet. Okay. What can you add that’s nutritious? What can you add that’s regulating? And then maybe if you see something that’s depleting, maybe you make that choice down the road. But we can start by adding and.
Emily Irwin: Filling in that space.
Dr Jen Blanchette: Yeah.
Emily Irwin: Which then sends the cycle back towards making choices more towards those things and filling up with that fun stuff first. Yes. It takes a lot of energy to restrict and push away. I think. Like, it takes a lot of energy to mask anything where you’re suppressing or pushing or compartmentalizing. That takes a lot of energy. It does like going towards something that feels expansive or joyful, I don’t think takes as much energy in my brain and body experience.
Dr Jen Blanchette: No. Yeah, we’re going to wrap up, but I just had a funny. This is the only thing that will. I remember, literally. So I’m in Maine, and there is probably like eight inches of snow on my driveway, which is. It’s a hill. And I’m revving my car up, trying to get up this hill to go to tennis. That is the only thing that I will actually go towards in a snowstorm because I hate to drive in the snow.
Emily Irwin: Yeah.
Dr Jen Blanchette: But I just. And I didn’t make it. And I was, oh, no. I could not get out of my driveway to go play tennis in the snowstorm. But I think our brain are very motivated to want to go to these things that are joyful and playful. And once we start adding them, we notice that nervous system regulation that happens in our brain and body. So I’m loving that we’re ending in this place with our conversation, but I’m wondering where people might want to reach out and talk more with you.
Emily Irwin: Yeah. So right now, website is still Emily irwin.com, and it has my iteration of working with teens, but my contact info is on there. And then you can also find me on LinkedIn.
Dr Jen Blanchette: That is great. Thank you so much. I know we’re going to stay connected. I feel like we think in similar ways, which I love.
Emily Irwin: Yes. So appreciate getting to meet you, and.
Dr Jen Blanchette: Virtually, yes, I look forward to keeping the connection.
Emily Irwin: Thanks so much.
Dr Jen Blanchette: All right, bye, everyone. Hey, therapists. Thanks for listening to the episode today. If you love this podcast, send it to a therapist friend who may need it. Also consider leaving a rating and review on Apple Podcast. It lets the podcast player know that this is a great podcast. We should send it to more people. Also, I’d love to hear from you, so I have included my pin pal list for other therapists. Yes, I do write back and I’d love to hear from you request for podcast topics to know how you’re doing in this in these therapy streets. So I’m here for all of it. So I would love to hear from you and we’ll talk soon.
