The Practice of Therapy

Gordon Brewer: Well, hello everyone and welcome again to the podcast and I'm really excited for you to get to know today. Tobin Richardson and Tobin has started a platform called Save the Therapist, and so you're gonna learn a whole lot about that.
So welcome Tobin. Glad you're here.
Tobin Richardson: Thank you so much. I'm, yeah. I'm really glad to be here.
Gordon Brewer: Yeah. And when I, when I started learning about his platform, I think it's gonna be something you're gonna really enjoy hearing about because it has to do with helping people get their ces in a way that's user-friendly and, very, very cost effective because it's doesn't cost anything but Tobin as a start with everyone, why don't you tell folks a little more about yourself and how you've landed where you've landed.
Tobin Richardson: Yeah, for sure. So also a therapist. My background has been always for the vast majority of my career in counselor education.
So I've worked at a couple different organizations kind of leading in-house educational initiatives, and through those roles I came to believe a couple things really strongly, and one was that. There's there, I mean, undoubtedly is, is some pockets of great CE stuff out there. A lot of, there's some really amazing in-person stuff.
There's, I think a lot of opportunity to grow in online CE platforms, so that was something I've learned and tested, and. Been able to try to address through those roles. And then the second thing I really wanted to do is to be able to provide stuff that people don't have to pay a subscription fee for.
Especially post COVID. A lot of licensure boards have gotten much more lenient about allowing more stuff to be done online. And so yeah, I've spent the last few years really kind of. I'm trying to ask myself, can I help solve this problem? About two years ago, I thought, I'm gonna try, like I have this idea for something that I think would be work towards a solution, and that's where Save the Therapist came from.
Gordon Brewer: Well, that's great. That's great. Yeah. It's yeah, I, I love hearing from people that just kind of develop a passion for what they're doing, and this sounds like that's something that has really been true for you yet. Tell us more about the platform and how it works and, and all of that sort of thing.
Tobin Richardson: For sure. So again, two kind of really unique things about the the platform. The first part of it is that I have always been a huge fan of produced podcasting stuff. I always tell the story of back in 2019, I love this really popular podcast called This American Life. It's like an NPR style podcast.
Gordon Brewer: Yeah.
Tobin Richardson: They did an episode on cognitive processing therapy, which was. Designed for anyone, you know, that's the audience is not mm-hmm. Therapists necessarily. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. But it was this story, this journalist did of going through cognitive processing therapy and recorded the sessions and, you know, cut to the therapist kind of talking about why she was doing some of the different techniques she was doing, and it was so educational.
Like I, mm-hmm. I just. I'll never forget listening to that and thinking that is one of the best educational experiences I've had in an hour. I'm, I feel like I could do CPT to fidelity like that, this mm-hmm. I would be really excited to use it. So I started tinkering with making stuff in that format.
And luckily I was like in roles in counselor Ed where I could. Test it, you know, with mm-hmm. Populations of therapists got really great feedback, even in some of my early stuff that I listen back to now and I'm like not particularly proud of, don't
Gordon Brewer: we all let her do podcasts? Yeah.
Tobin Richardson: Right. Yeah. And so, so I wanted to build stuff in that format.
The other part of. What I thought I could do is I knew that I could basically do this all myself. Like I, I had the right. Mixture of experiences and interests that didn't need a team like I knew. I knew that I could kind of just build this out. I knew how to go through the process. The biggest gatekeeper in the whole process is it's really hard to get the right accreditations, but I had done this for.
A couple organizations I worked at. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So just started slowly building out a platform. Always my goal was, 'cause the thing people always get really caught up on is like, what do you mean free? Like, what's the catch? How does this operate?
Gordon Brewer: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. You know, there's so
Tobin Richardson: many scams we're all exposed to now, so I think people's just radar goes up when you say something's free.
So the way I had always hoped to operate, and it looks like this is gonna work out. Just as a nonprofit organization where any money that came into the organization would be the purpose would be to fulfill the mission, like keeping these free. And I thought I could probably get enough therapists on there that I'd be able to fund it through things like sponsorships.
You know, a lot of people are trying to reach, reach therapists and so that's, that's the hope. I still haven't actually landed a sponsorship to fund the platform. But I'm getting really close, so I'm getting closer to thinking, okay, this can be sustainable through this format. Sure. I always tell people I'm never gonna, I, I honestly, I'll shut the platform down before I ever add a payment.
You know, like, that's just
Gordon Brewer: incredibly
Tobin Richardson: important to me. Is that the mm-hmm. That remains totally a hundred percent free and, mm-hmm. I think I can. Still. Yeah,
Gordon Brewer: sure.
Tobin Richardson: No strings attached. That's kind of just the way it works. Right,
Gordon Brewer: right. Well, I love, I love that concept and is is, and I'm sure you've thought about this, the, one of the platforms that I think came to mind for me was like Wikipedia.
I mean, they're, you know, they're at least, I, I think I, I might be wrong now, but at least for a long, long time, they operated on just the, the fact that people were willing to contribute to that and, and make donations to keep it going. So I think, I think you're right. I think this platform is gonna be of value to a lot of people.
And I know most of us are used to paying for ces and. Be willing to contribute.
Tobin Richardson: Yeah, I hope so. That, yeah, I, I think, I think you're right. My, the, the, the courses are all very introductory level, so one of the, I love that you brought it up Wikipedia, because I do think there's some parallels in the sense that, I think one of the reasons Wikipedia works so well is it's just so easy.
To get the information that you want
Gordon Brewer: quickly. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Tobin Richardson: I think that's a huge deal. Most of my career has been in community mental health and I just am incredibly aware of all of the cognitive load. It's always placed on therapists from so many directions. You know, even if you're desperately want to learn about a topic.
How do you fit that into your normal day? Right. I mean, it's extremely difficult for a lot of therapists, so it's another reason The podcast format was important to me. I've, I really wanted it to be a platform where if you're commuting to work that day and you're thinking, I have this client on my caseload, I feel stuck with them.
I need a resource like quickly to kind of learn about. This topic or an evidence-based practice, you can do it in that format, you know, so. Right,
Gordon Brewer: right.
Tobin Richardson: I hope that's the way people are utilizing the resources.
Gordon Brewer: Yeah.
Tobin Richardson: I think the CE part is huge, but I know some of my listeners don't even want or need the CEEs.
They just need a resource to be able to go in. Right. And quickly get. They need.
Gordon Brewer: Right, right. Well, you know, one thing that occurred to me, and you're talking about your story about this American Life, which I, I love that podcast as well. It's been one I've listened to for, for years. But, you know, I think for a lot of us, particularly those of us that have maybe been in practice for a while, you know, we have a knowledge base already and the different theories around therapy.
There are a lot of similarities and a lot of overlap as we always know. And I think what I heard from you was, is that you were given a concept there and you thought, okay, I get this. I can do this. Kind of thing. And, and I think that's, I think that's true for most all of us. I mean, I think you know, if you've been doing it a while or, you know, I think people maybe have a little bit of imposter syndrome because of the way that we've kind of instituted, you know, like certifications and that kind of thing.
And people get very territorial around those different methods and that kind of thing. But I think if you get understand a concept. Like you said in these short snippets when I say short, you know, you're offering one hour CEEs, so I mean that's, that's great. That's great. I love that.
Tobin Richardson: Yes, for sure. I always think, my hope is it's a good resource too, to see if you want, you know, because there might be a thing or two per year that you can really dig into, you know, in advanced training on.
Gordon Brewer: Mm-hmm.
Tobin Richardson: Can't do that. You like. You can't do that with every topic, so. Right.
Gordon Brewer: Right.
Tobin Richardson: Yeah. Sometimes you just need to know the basics and need to know if it's something you're interested in investing more time in learning
Gordon Brewer: about. Right, right. So tell us, tell us a little more about the different maybe the different topics that you're covering and some of the episodes there.
Tobin Richardson: Yeah, for sure. So, I, so. I really try to drive course topics by user feedback, suggestions. Mm-hmm. I found I want to prioritize topics that are really practical, maybe emerging topics that it's hard to find. Training on so exa an example, one of the courses I've released more recently, which I mean, I learned a lot from these just on the development side too.
Was on incel culture which I, I've seen kind of bubble up in a lot of therapist message boards and things like that. Mm-hmm. Issues surrounding that, you know, you can get a lot of information on that topic. Can you get it through a, the therapeutic lens that's helpful in figuring out how does this actually apply?
If I have a person sitting in front of me who identifies with this community mm-hmm. Like, I, I could never find that.
Gordon Brewer: Yeah.
Tobin Richardson: So I, I first try to kind of identify those topics and then I try to, I mean, something you have to do to offer CE credit is be able to find the right content experts who are really willing to dig into that topic in a conversation way.
And sometimes you can, and sometimes that's more difficult, right? But for that topic, like I found. Perfect person. He was a national, an international expert actually on that topic and had sort of focused his practice on that community who can really, could really talk about very, in, very practical way.
Mm-hmm. This is what could be going on here. These are the things you need to think about. These are the times you need to refer these cases out because that topic especially, it's not one, it's. Everybody is gonna feel comfortable working with. And so yeah, that, that's an example of a type of topic I've done and hope to kind of mm-hmm.
Always kind of hope to guide the topics we,
Gordon Brewer: right. Yeah. Yeah. That's that. I, I love that because yeah. I think there are so many times for those of us doing therapy, we get stuff handed to us and we think, oh wow, what's this? You know, and just and so you, again, having the platform to be able to to gain that knowledge and the short snippets, the, you know, the other thing that I love about the way you're doing this is the fact that as we have all experienced, and I think especially since, since COVID, it's real easy to get really weary of spending a lot of time on a screen or watching a course or listening to a course that is, you know, eight hours long or whatever. And you know, I signed up for a course the other day that it's gonna be like 42 hours of content. And so, you know, I'm just thinking, okay, how am I gonna work that in, you know to be able to do that, you know, it's, I could, you know, I could probably travel somewhere and do those in-person things, which I think are fun, like you said earlier.
But yeah. But I love the way that it's kind of in short snippets and, and that sort of thing.
Tobin Richardson: Yeah. Thank you very much. It's, so, actually the way the course format operates is that every, every course, every topic has a 30 minute podcast and then a takeaway packet, the equal together for a one one credit hour of CE stuff.
So every, once, you know, with a lot of topics, there are. Visuals that are really helpful. Mm-hmm. And I think it also helps if you, like, you can print off the packet or whatever right. If you, or save it on your desktop. But I totally agree. I, I mean, I've just heard over and over again from so many therapists, like I can't.
I can't stare at a computer screen for another hour. I'm doing that uhhuh I during the day. So I always say, I, I would suggest listen to a podcast on a walk or a commute or while you're doing laundry, you know? Mm-hmm. It just, you can, you can multitask until anyway.
Gordon Brewer: Yes, yes. Absolutely. Absolutely. And that's the way I, that's the way that's really, quite honestly, is about.
I would say probably 95% of the content I consume now is done in that way. Yes. I, they're either at the gym listening to something or driving somewhere. And that's how I, I consume stuff. Even if I wanna read a quote, unquote, I'm using air quotes, read a book for fun. I listen to it on an audio book. Yeah.
Yeah.
Tobin Richardson: Same. Yep. It's so much. It's so much more efficient.
Gordon Brewer: Right, right. Yeah. Well, Toba, kind of walk us through, I know with a lot of with CEEs there are like quizzes you need to take and all of that sort of thing. So kinda walk us through your process and how people can sign up or start looking and that kind of thing.
Tobin Richardson: For sure. Yeah, so you can check out all. The website and the courses and all the details on it, just at the, at the website save the therapist.com. If you to take a CE course, you have to actually log into the platform.
Gordon Brewer: Mm-hmm.
Tobin Richardson: So even though all this, the podcasts are on Spotify and Apple Music and, you know, you can listen to 'em in two seconds with just searching on those platforms, you, there's no way around if you issue a CE credit.
You have to, you know, get somebody to sign in. You have to, as the provider, I have to, you know, collect the data and you do have to pass a post-test and do an evaluation and all that stuff. Mm-hmm. Everything on the platform has been designed to, with the idea of this needs to be as easy and as user friendly as possible.
So I think we have done a good job of that to getting through kind of the course. Is, I think, very user friendly. But yeah, you do have to kind of jump through some of those mm-hmm. That are required for an accreditor. And then once you pass a, the post-test for a course, you get the certificate of completion emailed to you.
And it's also like within the portal. Mm-hmm. So, so you have them, you know, regardless of how you, you need them kind of for your specific renewal. Mm-hmm. And, and we have NBCC and Association of Social Work Boards Provider Approval. Mm-hmm. Which most, you know, CE process is so complicated because it's literally hundreds of different licensure boards.
Right. They are trying, you know, decide if they wanna take your credit or not. So it's really hard for me as a provider. I, I never guarantee, you know. Account, but it's something between like 80, really, probably closer to 90% of therapist licensure boards will accept credit that's approved, you know, approved provider by one of those organizations, so.
Right,
Gordon Brewer: right. Yeah.
Tobin Richardson: We're always working on trying to make it more, you know, like there are pockets of people who. Wouldn't be able to use as CE credit right now, and hopefully that's mm-hmm. That's a 2026 goal. Like we gotta figure out how to get the right approvals for those people. Mm-hmm. Hopefully most people could use them.
Gordon Brewer: Right, right. One, one question I have is, is that if someone signs up and they want to listen to one of the podcasts, is it is there an app or is there, can they listen to their, to the podcast on any podcast platform or how does that work?
Tobin Richardson: Yep, so, so any podcast platform, so Spotify and Apple Music, which I think are two major ones. So if you just search save the therapist, you'll see the whole course library of podcasts there. Go in and and choose one, you know that that sounds most interesting. And then if you need to after that, go log into the platform and get the CE credit you can, but mm-hmm.
You know, you could just listen to it, you know, within five seconds that way too.
Gordon Brewer: Mm-hmm. Right. Well, that's, that's great. That's great. And, and I'm, I'm hoping that people will take advantage of this. I know I am probably as soon as I get off of this this interview, but and it's certainly gonna share it with my staff at my, at my practice because I think they'll be excited about that as well.
But Tobin, I, I guess we need to be mindful of our time and, and that sort of thing. What are some closing thoughts you have about all of this?
Tobin Richardson: Oh man. I would say another interesting thing when you're a CE provider is you get so much therapist feedback, you know, because everybody who gets a CE has to submit an evaluation.
Mm-hmm. I just, just als it's something I already believed, but this has made me believe more, like therapists are doing incredible work. You know, they're so motivated to learn about things that are gonna impact their caseload, you know, in a positive way. So it's just given me a lot of energy, you know, to feel like mm-hmm there's a way I can give back to a community of people who.
Are just so like motivated to be with their clients and work through some very difficult things, so,
Gordon Brewer: alright.
Tobin Richardson: Right. It's a great community to be a part of.
Gordon Brewer: Yeah, it is. And, and and ditto to all of that. I know, I, I say to folks all the time, you know, the, I'm, I'm big. As we were chatting about before we started recording, I'm really big on self-care and, people do hand us a lot of heavy things. And so I think part of self care is being able to give yourself the knowledge to, to feel confident about what you're doing with people and feeling co not so much competent, but confident because I think everybody is competent in their own way, but, so, totally, totally agree. So folks, go to, again, it's save therapist.com and take a look at it and of course we'll have links here in the show notes and the show summary and that sort of thing. And also I'm gonna have to look up that episode from this American Life that you were talking about now.
Tobin Richardson: Yeah, you should. It's still very good. It's called 10 sessions.
Gordon Brewer: Okay. Alright, well and we will probably put a link to that in the show notes and show summary as well 'cause that's a cool, cool thing. So, well Tobin, thanks for being on the podcast and hopefully we'll be back in touch. You'll be back in touch with us and we can have you on again to talk some more about what you're learning through this process.
Brilliant idea. And thanks for putting it out there.
Tobin Richardson: That would be amazing. Thank you so much.