Speaker B: Welcome to the Therapist burnout podcast, episode 53. Hi, Melvin. Welcome to the Therapist Burnout Podcast. It’s so great to have you, Jen.
Speaker A: I have been looking forward to this conversation. I’m so grateful, you know, we were able to connect on LinkedIn. You’re doing, like, beautiful work in the world, and I’m, Yeah, just looking forward to talking about things that, you know, we often don’t talk about as clinicians.
Speaker B: Very true.
Well, you are the host of the Selling the Couch podcast, and you were probably the first podcast that I found when I started listening to podcasts, honestly, in the therapist space.
So I’ve been listening to you for a long time.
So just having fangirl moments.
Speaker C: I. I feel, you know, I’m building out the beard. Like, in this season, we got little grays coming. I do feel like a little dinosaur in the podcast, like, therapist podcast space now.
Speaker A: I think next year will be 10 years.
And. Yeah, it’s crazy to think I started this, like, in my early 30s when I had just, you know, just gotten licensed.
Yeah. So. But I appreciate you for tuning in and hearing my rambling, so.
Speaker B: Yeah, no, well, I. I actually like the rambling because I feel like you’re authentic, you’re human, and I. I just really appreciate what you’re bringing to this space because I think sometimes there’s voices where they may not have.
I don’t know, but that’s true. They may not have the best interest for a therapist. And I feel like if I point someone to your podcast, I feel like, you know, what, if you have some questions about podcasting or about courses, like, this is someone I really trust.
And so I do recommend your podcast if someone’s thinking of branching out to those things. Which we’ll get to later.
Speaker A: Yeah. Well, thank you for saying that. I. I think.
I don’t know, like, somebody. I think it was like, my grand. Somebody told me. I think it was my grandparents, but, like, said, like, all. At the end of the day, all you have is your name.
And I think a lot about that. Right. Like, you can build these followers and have these numbers and build these businesses, but, like, at the core of it, if you know what.
Like, what is. How do people think about you? And we were just talking about that right before we started, right at the end of our life, like, how do we want to be remembered?
And I think about that a lot.
Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. How do I want to think about this time when I’m 80 is a question I always ask myself.
So I’m going to kick it off to you and ask you, what is your burnout story?
Speaker A: Man, I’ve had kind of multiple ones, but I think the one that I think just stood out to me is I got licensed as a psychologist in 2015. And so I.
I did my internship in postdoc. I was at Vanderbilt, and I had a wonderful job offer there. It was like every Indian parents, like, dream, right?
Speaker C: Like, And.
Speaker A: And my partner and I got married. My partner lives here in Philadelphia. And we were trying to figure out where to move, and ultimately made the most sense for me to move to Philly.
And so I had, like, no professional network or anything like that. And so moved to Philly, started working at a group practice, was doing some, like, biopsychosocial evals at this outpatient clinic in North Philadelphia, which that is like.
That was a lot of trauma, a lot of, like, really hard stories.
And in 2015, like, 20, like, fall, like, winter 2014, in 2015, a.
Well, let me. Before I say that I was doing all, you know, seeing 20 clients. I was doing bariatric surgery, like, psych evals for the practice, and then I was doing these biopsychosocial evals.
So I was, like, working, like, five and a half days a week. And that didn’t include, like, all the admin stuff and all of that stuff.
I think my mindset was I was, like, willing to do this for a season just to, like, figure out stuff.
But that 2015, the Northeast got hit with an Arista.
So I remember I was born in India. I grew up in Texas. And I remember, like, what is an Arista? Like, you know, we hit, like, snow.
Speaker C: In Texas during Thanksgiving, and everything shuts down. It’s like half an inch of, you know, barely of, like, powder.
Speaker A: And I had no idea. And we ended up with, I think, 31 inches of snow in, like, 48 hours.
I still have some pictures of it. Like, our cars were covered. There was, like. I don’t know, there was these, like, almost these walls that were creating the car.
Speaker C: So he saw was like.
Speaker A: And.
And so I ended up having. And this is back in 2015, right? So, like, telehealth. I mean, well, first of all, like, down power lines, electricity, all that stuff. I ended up having to cancel 21 fee for service clients.
And I remember. And we were saving up for the down payment, the 20% down on, like, our first home, which is this home that we’re now in. And I just remember.
So that event, I think it made me realize I was teetering on the edge of burnout prior. I mean, that sign of that amount of clinical work is not sustainable long term.
I mean, especially doing assessments and evals and, you know, those reports, like, take a good amount of time.
And how did I know? Looking back, I was, like, gaining quite a bit of weight, and I. And I was, like, staying active, but, like, I don’t know. I think it was just like the.
I was talking to the friend about this. I don’t know if it’s just, like, the sedentary nature of the job, but I was gaining quite a bit of weight. I was, like, losing clumps of hair from stress.
And when that narista hit, I was just like, oh, my gosh, like, what? I can’t. What is this gonna be, like, my career?
And I just. I remember the headaches. I remember the insomnia. I remember the panic, you know, and just like.
And my. You know, and I love my parents, but, like, Indian parents, you know, and there’s, like, this thing. It’s kind of true, but it’s, like, kind of not true, but it’s kind of true.
It’s like, you know, in Indian communities, like, you’re either become like, a doctor, lawyer, engineer, or you’re a failure. And my parents were already, like, really, like, what you want to go and get be a psychologist?
Like, they were already, like, didn’t, like, you know, we’re not too keen on it. And I think it brought up all that stuff too, you know, know, of, like, did I make the right.
Wrong choice?
Speaker B: Yeah. So I’m. I’m wondering about just going back to, like, what you started with about the snowstorm. And I just remember myself, I’m from Virginia, so I live in the Northeast.
And so now living in Maine, it is really, like, when snow comes, I just didn’t realize it’s just a whole different experience. So I was just resonating a lot when you were saying that.
But really it was thinking through, like, the stress of when you have to meet those clinical hours, whether it’s agency or your private practice, you sometimes in agency, you do have time off, but there’s still that expectation.
Like, I just remember my supervisor and agency being like, so if you want to take vacation, you need to do 30 hours, but it’s 26 clinical hours a week. So it’s like, Really, I need 30 hours a week because I want to take vacation at some point in the year.
Right.
But I think it’s this theme of, like, there’s no time off necessarily, or that we’re tied or are we have to be there in order to make money. And I think that is inherently stressful as a clinician.
So I wondered, just speaking a little bit to that piece of it and maybe what that brought up for you in that moment.
Speaker A: Definitely a lot.
I think so. And I was part of a group practice, so.
And I think I felt.
I don’t know if this is the right word, but, like, torn. Because, like, there were these multiple sort of parts, right? So on one side, like, really liking the work.
I loved my clients. I loved doing that work. I had, you know, so there was like that side, there was this other side of, whoa, you went and got.
Speaker C: A PhD, you spent all this, like.
Speaker A: Time and money and energy into, like, getting this. And. And you. This is where you’ve arrived at. I think, like, one thing I’ve, like, side note on is, Jen, like, I’ve really struggled with this, like, critical inner voice.
Parts of me that has come up in various parts, but I think particularly in stressful events, I think that has always, like the default, like, I’m just gonna motivate myself by beating myself up about something that, like, in this situation, I can’t really control, you know.
So I think that all, all of that came up. And then I think there was this other idea of. And the only reason I thought about or thought about this is because I had a former supervisor who was a sports psychologist and was working at the university counseling center and also then seeing like, golfers on the weekends, like, for like half a day on Saturday.
And she was like, she was making as much, if not more money in that three hours than the whole week at a counseling center job.
And she would sell me, like, Mel, you have to see what we’re doing as a skill set that can be deployed into other realms besides what we think, like a therapist or a psychologist is this supposed to do.
I didn’t listen to her, to be.
Speaker C: Honest, the first time, because I didn’t understand it.
Speaker A: But in that moment, like, you know, four years, five years later, I. It clicked because I. I was like, oh, I see what you’re saying.
Speaker B: Yeah.
I mean, so much, so much in there. Just about, I think the. Our voice in our mind, you know, that we have to work in this way that we think that it’s supposed to be right, that I have to be able to work this 30 hour a week clinical job.
And that’s the expectation of us as psychologists. We’re both psychologists or therapists who are listening to this.
And if I can’t do that or if that doesn’t meet my needs. What does that mean?
That’s heavy.
Speaker A: It is. It is super heavy. And I think it’s. It’s part of. It’s like the nature of the work we do, right. We hear really hard stories.
We’ve done a ton of supervision, a ton of self reflection where we, like, you know, have really explored hard parts of ourselves.
And yet those parts of ourselves come up in moments like this.
And I mean, like, another little thing is I, you know, I had a experimental psych professor and undergrad, like, actively discouraged me, like, encouraged me to stay on the med school track and go into pediatrics and away from the psychology track.
And they said, you’re never going to make money in psychology as a psychologist. It’s like all of that stuff comes up and you’re like, oh, my gosh, this. Maybe they’re right.
Like this Marista hit.
Speaker C: And now it’s like a hostel is income.
Speaker A: Like, you know, so, yeah, I mean.
Speaker B: I think all the. The messages about money that we get throughout our careers, right. I. I distinctly remember, you know, I think we started our program similarly, Maybe I started in 06 in my program.
And I remember looking, because I think programs have to do this. They have to tell you, like, what kind of income you can make as a psychologist when you get out of the program.
And I looked at like, 60k and that sounded like a great. So I was like, oh, I’m 26. This sounds like a lot of money. I worked as a caseworker for, like, $30,000 a year.
This is fantastic. I’m gonna double my income.
We don’t realize what that looks like when, you know, we’re older or there’s inflation or like, you want to save for retirement. So I think our younger selves, you know, we propel ourselves into this career, I think, from a passion and also from skill.
I mean, I think I was a really good therapist, and I still believe that about myself. Even though I don’t work as a therapist, I feel like I held space in a way that was special and unique.
And I think, similarly, I can kind of see that with you, Mel, that you likely were the same. And so part of it, there is this sadness in not being able to do the work that we felt passionate about.
But it’s okay to not to continue to have our career be our passion if it’s draining us and we can no longer do the work and we can have passions that aren’t our career.
And I think that’s a big thing that I’ve Realized like, over the time and working with therapists and stuff. I’m just wondering what maybe that journey had been for you, like, when you’ve kind of have bumped up against us in your career where you’re like, actually can’t do this anymore or.
This is too draining for me.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: And this was my passion.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: What do I do with that?
Speaker A: I mean, before I even answer that, I think there was like a little nuance that I’ve like, recently come to realize.
So, you know, there.
Part of that passion for me was I wanted to go into psychology because I struggled with depression and anxiety as this child of immigrants, like high achiever, all of this stuff.
Right.
And there was a part of me I was like, you know what? There aren’t a ton of, in my case, Indian male psychologists in the U.S. right. And yet there’s a tremendous need.
And like, I felt like I was like, letting down people.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: It’s almost like I had to.
And this is the part, like, Jen, I have to really check, like, I will self sacrifice, like my own, like, mental health, my own, like, physical health.
Because I. I don’t know, like, I like to think it’s because, like, I see something like a need, but the other side of it is I compromise and it’s like, not sustainable, you know?
Speaker B: Yes. You are not alone in that.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: I think that’s. That’s often the personalities of many of us that go into this work. We. We think about other people and other people’s needs before our own.
Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker B: And so it’s a skill that I think we have to develop if we stay in this career, whether or not we’re therapists or we’ve left work as therapists. Right. That we have to.
To think through our own well being first.
And a lot of people talk about that, but I think we don’t really get the crux of it until we get to the end of ourselves. Like I have, like many of us have, and realize, like.
No, actually this, this caring that I need to do for myself and really deep care, like the, the level of care that I give to other people in therapy or in my, my family life, I need that too.
I need that exact level of care. And I think not realizing that until we’re a little bit older and, and seeing the impacts of the work is. Is where we, a lot of us come to.
Speaker A: Yeah. And that we deserve it. You know, I think that’s been like another nuance for me of, I think, to answer your question of like, burnout, like my Body responded. I mean, like, I was, like, literally losing.
Like, I would, like, comb my hair and just, like, there would be, like, just hair falling out. And I was like, what in the world is happening?
And then I think the other part is I had really, like.
And, like, I guess, like, bouts of, like, insomnia, but it was like I would just wake up at, you know, want. So I remember distinctly Saturday afternoons went from, oh, cool, I get to go, like, into the city and go see clients and all that to, like, dreading it.
And not because of the clients, but just the whole thing, like, you know, traveling into the city, doing all of that, like, knowing I’m gonna hear some really hard stories and then I have to contain it, you know, in my mind.
And I remember that on Mondays, particularly, like, I was the only clinician for most of the day at that location.
And so, like, I didn’t have somebody that could just like, walk over next door to and. And say, like, oh, I just had a rough session, you know?
Speaker B: Yeah, Yeah. I think a lot of us get to that point where we’re, you know, I can distinctly. The image I have is pulling up to my office in my car and just my body just not wanting to get out of the car, honestly, because I didn’t know, okay, what’s going to come up today in session?
How am I going to react? Am I going to be able to hold it?
Speaker A: Yeah, right. And it’s like, we know we can probably hold it, but at what cost?
Right? And I think that’s the thing that I don’t think I often ask that question or even thought about, you know, how is this gonna play out a week from now, a day from now, 24 hours from now, months from now, you know?
Speaker B: Yeah, well, I know we’re here, but I also wanted to talk a little bit about your work now. And so maybe if we can kind of get a bridge into. You were in this place, in that group practice, and then you decided to launch into what you’ve launched into your podcast.
And so what was that kind of bridge point and how did that kind of play out?
Speaker A: Yeah, so I had two friends at that group practice, and none of us had a background in business or marketing, and all of us wanted to start small businesses at some point.
And I think at that point, all. All of it was just like, private practice, right? And.
And we would meet at my friend Mike’s, like, apartment in Manioc, which is, like, an area of Philadelphia, on, like, a random Saturday night, and we would read, like, I don’t know, like a.
Speaker C: Chapter out of like, Lingrotsky’s like, private practice success book. And then we’d go get barbecue.
Speaker B: I remember that too. That wasn’t the only thing out there.
Speaker C: Yeah, it was.
Speaker B: There was all these like, programs and stuff.
Speaker C: Right, right.
Speaker A: And.
Speaker C: And then I. I just had a thought.
Speaker A: I was like, I wonder if there’s like, other clinicians that need this information again, because many of us maybe want to start private practice, but we just don’t know. So, like, what to do or how to start.
So I just started honestly, like, reaching out to some local therapists. I still remember my friend Corey, who’s a sports psychologist here in town, and he was like a little bit of a celebrity.
He had gone on like NBC and a bunch of stuff, and I was like, oh gosh, I’m like, like mortified.
Speaker C: To like, reach out to him.
Speaker A: And he was so gracious and kind. And then on like two, like a day or before recording, he’s like, hey, I have a walking pneumonia.
Speaker C: And I was like, okay. And so. And then I think like a week before, he was like, what if I just like, come to your house and record this? I was like, okay.
So we literally had an ironing board, like from our house. I stuck the $60 mic right in the middle and I was like, prompted. I was like, corey, when I talk.
Speaker A: I’ll let you know, but when you.
Speaker C: Talk, I’ll point to you and you come and talk into the mic. We’ll move backwards, try to do this little dance here. And that’s how I recorded.
Speaker A: And it.
I was honestly like, Jen, like, I feel like you were so much more thoughtful about this podcasting stuff. Like, I was like, a little naive, but to be honest, like, I think that’s the snorrister happening.
It planted in me, like, I can’t do this and I gotta figure out some other way. And so this is not sustainable. But like, to be honest, like, I woke up at like 3:50 in the morning to record like early episodes of solo episodes of the podcast.
I take the 7:30 train into the city, do a whole day of private practice, come back, then I would edit the episodes. And then I did that for, I think about seven, eight months.
And then I slowly started pulling back on the hours concurrently. Like, so that happened March 2015, November between March.
Around then, like, therapists started. Like, colleagues just started reaching out and be like, how did you do this podcast thing? Can I like, consult with you? And I was like, okay, let me see if I can like, make as Much money as, like, an eval was paying, which was like, 200 bucks.
Right. And to think about, like, oh, my gosh, the amount of work that was for 200 bucks. And so I started filling up with consults, and I was like, oh, my gosh, this is crazy.
So then I had the idea for a course, and I was like, what if I just, like, create this in a different way where. Where I don’t have to keep trading time for income?
And that’s where the course idea came from. And so I started this podcasting course for therapists. It was. I had a lot of money stuff, so I was like, charged, like, two 97 for it.
And like, eight colleagues. I had been kind of building like, a. Like, a little email list. And so eight colleagues from the email list bought it, and I was like, oh, my gosh, this is like, almost like a week worth of income, you know?
And, yeah, it’s been an. It has been a.
I wouldn’t say it’s been like an all, like, up like this. It’s been a very, like, steady, sometimes up, sometimes down, but kind of generally trending upward or broadly trending upward.
But yeah. And then in 2020, I was down to one day of clinical work, and our daughter was born a few years prior to that, and she was two months premature and needed early childhood intervention to.
Because her back muscles were. She wasn’t basically sitting up and her back muscles were weak. And so she needed pt.
And when Covid happened, she also had needed a nasal cannula at one point to, like, breathe. And my partner has, like, pretty severe asthma, so I was like, what do I.
And the clinic I was working at within, like, two and a half, three weeks, wanted me to come back into the office. It was like, doing assessments and like, this 10 by 10, like, no window, like, thing.
I wasn’t worried about me getting Covid, but I was just like, what if I. You know. Yeah.
And. Yeah, that’s when I made the transition to full time.
Speaker B: Yeah. So it sounds like it was like a good, like, five years. Ish. Yeah, five years. And I think that was one of the questions I had, you know, regarding, like, if a therapist wanted to do this, if they wanted to make some meaningful income from a podcast or from a course, like, what can they expect?
Because I think a lot of people ask those questions of, you know, they want to do something like this, but they’re really either scared or just wondering if it could be a viable source of income for them.
Speaker A: Yeah, I think it can definitely be a Viable source of income. But my recommendation is don’t jump in and put the pressure on yourself to like replace the income.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: From day one. So I’ve done that.
Yeah. I mean, I think, I don’t know broadly, like, I feel like it’s not the best place for creative energy, at least for most of us. Right. Like, and when we’re operating from a place of stress and so I don’t know like if there’s like any other, like I do think in a c.
For a season you do have to maybe work outside of the clinical, like your clinical time on a podcast or a course or something.
But just realizing it’s for a season, it’s not like a forever thing.
But I think the benefit of doing that even though the, like you’re trading time at that point, which stinks. But the benefit is you’re not, you’re giving either the podcast or the course time to evolve and you’re giving it time to set up the systems versus like, you know, oh gosh, I have like X amount of drop in revenue and I gotta like recoup that even at a practical level.
Right. Like let’s say a sponsor comes to you and you’re panicking. Right. It may be a, and they’re, you know, throwing money at you. It may be like not a good fit for you.
But because of that money is there, it’s like, I don’t know, it’s, it’s easy to lose objectivity, you know, when you’re put into stressful situations like that.
Speaker B: Yeah, I think that’s, that’s a good, that’s good advice I think for therapists. Just to hear that it, I, I say the words like it can’t be an escape hatch. Like building, building a business is going to take any business, any new business is going to take time.
And if you’re burnout, then building something from zero, I feel like is very hard to do that when you’re in depletion. And you know, we know, I know the research kind of on nervous system and play and curiosity and it’s, it does not work when our nervous systems are in shutdown.
So we want to make sure that there’s space that’s. I kind of see it as like a playbook, a playground or a sandbox in some ways. Like when you start that, yes, it can produce some income, but probably not a full time income.
Speaker A: Right.
Speaker B: Unless you’re like super lucky. It just takes off for some reason.
Speaker A: Yeah, super lucky. Or like have some sort of like unfair advantage. Like Maybe, you know, somebody that has like a huge following or something like that, you know. Yeah, yeah.
I think broadly at least, my journey with both the podcast and my course has been very slow and journey and I can just share like open, honest numbers. So I feel like recently.
So we hit, I think 1.81 million now downloads on the podcast, but that’s 379 episodes.
Wow. Which is a lot of episodes, right?
Speaker B: A lot of episodes.
Speaker A: A lot of. Yeah. So.
And then I recently learned it’s now like, I think in the top.05% of podcasts in the world, which is really weird.
And I’m just like, incredibly. I don’t think I could have anticipated that. I’m just so grateful for it.
The course has done really well, but again, it’s been a slow and steady journey. We just had our 244th student in there. 323,000 in revenue. 300. Maybe a little. A little over that.
But again, I needed. That has been nine years of doing this.
Yeah. And so I think that’s the point I want to emphasize. I think you and I were talking about this. I think every therapist has a course within them because also because, like, the demand for mental health services is just so skyrocketing.
But I don’t think every therapist should launch a course or a podcast in certain season. Right. You really have to think about, like, what season of business and life am I in?
And does that sort of make sense? I mean, you’re never going to get into a situation where it’s like everything is like perfectly calm, but it’s more like, do I have the internal resources and the systems in place on those other realms where I do have enough bandwidth, you know?
Speaker B: Yeah, that’s so good. Yeah. I think, you know, other therapists will just want to hear more from you. And I know we’re ending our time for today, which is sad because I could talk to you for all day.
Well, if therapists are interested in learning more about your work or your podcast, where can they find you?
Speaker A: Yeah, you can learn more over@sellingthecouch.com I’m also really active on LinkedIn, so you can just look up my name. Melvin Peris and Dan would love to connect with you there.
Speaker B: Great. I’m sure people are going to reach out. If they haven’t, they don’t know you already.
Well, Mel, it’s been so great having you on the podcast and I know I’m going to keep seeing you on LinkedIn and listening to your podcast. So I will talk to you soon.
Speaker A: Sounds good. Jen, thank you so much for having me. Appreciate you.
Speaker B: Take care.
Speaker A: Bye.
