The Practice of Therapy

Gordon Brewer 0:11
Hello, I'm Gordon Brewer, and welcome to the practice of therapy podcast, where we explore the business and clinical sides of running a private practice.

Hello, everyone, and welcome to the podcast. This is episode number 213 of the practice of therapy podcast. And I'm Gordon Brewer, and glad to join me hope you're having a good week or weekend, wherever you might be listening to this. And if this is your first time coming to the podcast or finding us glad you're with us and hope you'll take time to subscribe to the podcast or actually follow the podcast to keep tapping to remind myself that nomenclature for that is changed. But anyway, follow us wherever you might be listening to the podcast. You know, one of the things I love about being able to do this podcast every week, is just all of the great people that I get to meet and interact with, through my interviews, and one of those people that was this week. Not that some of the others aren't great people. But my troll, Michael Dietrich test stain was a person that I recently met, and through a group of consultants that we're getting together back in October of 2021. I mentioned it on other episodes, but we all got together for dinner and got to get to find out about Michael and one of the things that is just really cool about our professions is a lot of times we don't recognize how the skill sets that we learn as therapists translate in so many different ways. But Michael and I had this wonderful conversation just about leadership and what motivates people and, and how we can be better practice owners in the context of leadership. And so anyway, I'm looking forward to hearing my conversation with Michael in this particular episode. And before we get to that, though, I'd love for you to go over and check out our our automated automated webinar that we've got that I've got out there that I did in conjunction or did in collaboration rather, with my good friend, Dr. David Hall. And the webinar is titled, scaling without failing in group practice five tips that everyone should follow in starting and grow or growing a group therapy practice. And so in this webinar, we go over some of the things you need to know about that. And so I'd love for you to go check that out. And you can find out more about that by going to practice of therapy.com/group. And it's a it's an automated webinar, so you'll be able to pick the time that you watch it and at your own convenience. And so we'd love for you to find out more about that. And also, before we get to my conversation with with Michael, love for you to hear from our sponsor, therapy notes. You know, in running a private practice, you need to have excellent systems and processes in place, and one of the leading electronic health record systems that you need to check out his therapy notes. There who I use in my practice, therapy notes provides a patient portal. Also the ability to schedule online, send appointment reminders, also handle your collections insurance claims. It's all in one platform for the clinical side of your practice. And they also have telehealth available through their platform. As I said they are who are using my practice and couldn't do without them. So be sure and check them out. Go to practice of therapy.com/therapy notes and you'll be able to see what they have available. And also be sure and use the promo code Gordon just GLR doe n and you can try them out for two months for free. That's therapy notes at practice of therapy.com/therapy notes.

Well, hello, everyone and welcome again to the podcast and I'm so happy for you to get to know right, Michael Dietrich chest stain and Michael and I met this past October just kind of in a impromptu gap Gathering of other consultants and private practice owners. So Michael, welcome.

Michael Deittrich-Chastain 5:06
Yeah, it's good to be here with you, Gordon. It's great to see you again. And thanks for having me.

Gordon Brewer 5:09
Yeah. So we had we had a great time, by the way in October and Asheville, North Carolina. And it was so great to connect with, with you and several others that were there at that restaurant. I believe it was Ukiah was the name of the restaurant?

Michael Deittrich-Chastain 5:25
Yeah, yeah, that's right. That's right. I had a great time to Yeah, wonderful group of people. Great to meet you, of course. And yeah, fun to learn that you and I are only a few miles away from each other.

Gordon Brewer 5:34
That's That's true. I just as the crow flies, we're pretty close. So. So Michael, as I start with everyone, why don't you tell folks a little bit about your private practice journey and how you've kind of landed where you've landed? Yeah, you

Michael Deittrich-Chastain 5:49
bet. You bet. My, my journey, I like to say that my whole career has been spent in in human development. And it's, I use that kind of umbrella term, because I've gone from the corporate world, to the mental health world. And then and then back to corporate. And so when I was in undergrad, my idea for my life was to go get a masters or PhD in industrial organizational psychology, just for folks that might not know much about that. It's the field of psychology that works within organizations to help them develop understanding of employee engagement and efficient processes and culture and team performance and things like that. And so did all the coursework and did all the, you know, all the all the work that that was entailed to head in that direction, got a corporate job out of college, and which was great, which is funny looking back, Gordon, at the time, I didn't call it this, but at the time, I was doing a lot of leadership coaching, and a lot of a lot of navigation of relationship between, you know, the leaders of the companies that were our clients and the employees that we were staffing these companies with, who are also our clients as this intermediary between them, and learn a good bit about business and about coaching and relationship management. And, but still, you know, wanted to take a deeper dive. So I went back into into school, and instead of IO went into counseling, actually, and eventually got a license as therapist and lived in the mental health world for a number of years. Wow, did do private practice, but also worked in the hospital system, the jail system, community mental health, led some teams of therapists, and in addition to private practice, and, you know, like, many of the listeners learned a ton about all things mental health from severe and persistent mental health disorder to you know, just regular, you know, transition challenges, you know, depression, anxiety, death, death, grief loss, and things like that. And, yes, and then so from from those years, I still had an interest in IO, Psych, and in team and leadership development. So I made a pivot back. And that transition was actually through the Employee Assistance Program world. So I worked in which I can take a deeper dive into if you like, I worked in that industry for a couple years. And then after that started our own our own leadership development consultancy, which is the work that I do now.

Gordon Brewer 8:18
Wow. Wow. That's, that's great. And I know, one of the things that that impresses me about all of that is just the the being able to use the kind of the cross training of all those different skills of just learning that is, it's interesting, because you reminded me that that was a field that I was one at one time interested in, never pursued. Just that whole industrial organization stuff and sector. I've got a cousin that is does something like that with one big corporation. So but Oh, awesome. Yeah. Yeah. Sadly, yeah. I'd

Michael Deittrich-Chastain 8:59
love to hear more about that. It's something Yeah, yeah.

Gordon Brewer 9:01
Sorry. Well, that's. So with your consulting. What do you focus on Naomi like with that?

Michael Deittrich-Chastain 9:08
Yeah. So it's all around leadership development, which I, you know, understand is kind of a larger umbrella. But underneath that the topics that we're most focused on, I'd say are three, emotional intelligence, change management and communication. And, you know, we do that, as far as service delivery goes through facilitation and training. So where we're training or facilitating events for leaders around that content, or doing individual or group executive coaching, those are the two kind of main areas in which which the business operates. There's, there's some other things that we do, but those are our two primary.

Gordon Brewer 9:43
Yes, yes. So how in your mind, how do you distinguish between coaching and therapy? Because I think that's something that is sometimes kind of a gray area for people and, you know, unfortunately, I think at graduate school At least a school I went to they kind of discouraged you, or kind of talk down about coaching, as opposed to doing therapy with people. So be I'd be curious to know how you distinguish between those two things.

Michael Deittrich-Chastain 10:13
Yeah, yeah, it is interesting. I, you know, if people are interested in take a deeper dive, I wrote a book a couple years ago, and I and I talk about this in great length in that book. And so if people are interested, they can check it out. But, you know, I would say at the highest level therapy is about well, the major differentiators are therapy is often often about resolving a pain or a trauma. And coaching is often about optimizing a strength or heading, you know, toward a goal of sorts, and may have less to do with, you know, a mental health issue. I think there are a lot of commonalities between the two. But I would say at the highest level, that's a major differentiator.

Gordon Brewer 10:54
Right, right. I went one way I've heard it put before, as is that coaching is really geared more towards helping somebody solve a specific problem. Whereas therapy is more about taking, like you said, they're taking a deeper dive into people's internal world.

Michael Deittrich-Chastain 11:13
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. It is, you know, it's, it's count that whole question, I think, is additionally complicated by the fact that, you know, coaching as a profession is kind of budding right now, you know, when you look at just history of, like, how professions develop, coaching is more of in its infancy, and therapy has been around for a number of a number of decades, and has, you know, instituted accreditation bodies and instituted training and methodology to get licensure, and there's a whole, there's a whole sequence around how one becomes a therapist, and coaching, you know, it's like anybody can just hang a shingle and, and they're a coach. What's interesting about that, though, is that even even though that's true that coaching anybody can do it. The process that the largest coaching body, the International Coach Federation, the process of coaching accreditation, is not dissimilar from any of the four main helping professions and their accrediting processes. And when I say for me, forming helping professions, I'm referring to psychology, marriage and family therapy, counseling, and social work. Yeah,

Gordon Brewer 12:26
yeah. Yeah. So what what sort of things do you find? In your coaching? What? I know you do a lot of work on leadership, but what sort of what common themes? Are you finding and working with people that tend to be where people get stuck the most?

Michael Deittrich-Chastain 12:45
Hmm. Yeah, it's funny, I started, I started doing a number of months ago, this video series, and I just got done recording it. So it's top of mind. And it's this it's a, it's alive, it's I call it leadership, live five, where I give five tips that are that are top of mind that I'm seeing leaders be challenged with that week. And there's certainly a lot of commonality. But just to give you some example, like this week's topic was, how do leaders create a resilient culture within their company? You know, other topics have been around how do you create engagement in, you know, in, in a team or in a company, or how do you create, you know, high retention, so that people stick around and they, and they, they love working there? Or how do you hold really good boundaries as a leader? You know, how do we improve our communication practices as a culture, these are common threads that we, that we, that we work within, but I would say in addition to that, Gordon, the, the, you know, the avatar of the client that, that I see most is the person that is the leader that is a high performer themselves, and has really high expectations for themselves, and all those that are working for them. And that can result in a lot of hard work, but a little bit of intimidation from the group, you know, so the group sees the leader and is a little intimidated about him, or her and, and so it creates sometimes a culture of maybe some distrust. And so the work within that particular leader avatar is often around. It's often around trust and delegation. It's around boundary setting, and it's around creating, you know, creating conditions within a culture that's the people are like really engaged and excited to show up, and that they're not, they're not walking on eggshells, so to speak.

Gordon Brewer 14:39
Right, right. Yeah. So what have you found that people you know, I kinda the superficial answer to this, I know is money. But what do you find that people really want to work for what gives them by into a workplace? Would you say,

Michael Deittrich-Chastain 15:01
Hmm? Well, so there's a lot of theories on this. One is if you look at Daniel Pink's research around what creates high engagement, and this is this is pretty solid research, he points to three elements, autonomy, mastery and purpose. I certainly embraced that idea, I see how it's relevant. So if we can create conditions where people have purpose with what they're doing, like they feel like it's important, and they have the autonomy and freedom to do it. And they have the opportunity for Tintin continued learning, which is where the mastery comes in, that's going to create conditions of high high engagement. So I would, I would also point to research by a doctor named Amy Edmondson from Harvard who was studying the, the conditions for this, like the conditions for the most engaged and productive and high performing teams in the world. And long story short, Gordon, what she determined is that all the hyper for highest performing groups, it wasn't the hardest working, it wasn't the most intelligent, it wasn't the one that was the most, you know, social on the weekend, it was the one that had the most psychological safety. So we actually know the answer from a lot of data to this question of how to create conditions for high engagement. And part of that research is we need to have psychologically safe environments. That research was challenged and proven to be true, again, in 2012, to 14, I think, by Google through a project called Project Aristotle, where they found the exact same result that the best teams, the best cultures are those in which that have psychologically safe conditions. And then of course, the question is, well, how do we how do we create psychologically safe conditions? And the answer is, or an answer is, you know, we allow people to be vulnerable, we allow their ideas to come forward and be seen, heard and felt, we allow conflict to occur and not have it be at the cost of one's job or livelihood. We allow people to show up as their whole selves, and not that they have to wear a mask every time they come to work. And so these are just some examples of ways in which to create both psychologically safe environments as well as high performing

Gordon Brewer 17:07
environments. Wow. Yeah. And that's, you know, it's, it's funny, because I've, you know, and just trying to trying to navigate being a group, practice owner and all that sort of thing. You what I have found is all of those things is just being able to, as you said, give them people purpose, and that they feel like they have, they are a part of the team. In other words, it's just not getting a paycheck every week.

Michael Deittrich-Chastain 17:37
Yeah, yeah. 100%. And, you know, and I, interestingly, I think that that is being further emphasized right now, in this current, you know, Zeitgeist that we're in, you know, we've got this term that's emerged the great resignation, sometimes referred to as the great repurposing, right, meaning that people are leaving cultures and jobs that are unfulfilling or that are being you know, they're, they're toxic, or they're being treated poorly, or whatever it is, and I think people will continue to, to want to be in cultures, where those needs are met, right there, there are purpose or they are meaningful, there's, they're giving back in some way, and they're able to really live in the strengths that they have,

Gordon Brewer 18:18
that I'm sure I'll find balance to be able to navigate, depending on the size, size of the organization, and, and that sort of thing. So

Michael Deittrich-Chastain 18:27
it is, yeah, there's there's complexities real quick, there's complexities in both directions. And certainly small businesses can do this. And large entities can do it. And it's just a difference in there's different there's different problems in both of those scenarios, but both are certainly capable. Yeah, right.

Gordon Brewer 18:43
Right. Yeah. So as your as your you do your work with consulting with in coaching, what's kind of your ideal client with all of that?

Michael Deittrich-Chastain 18:55
Yeah, typically, like I said, it's this it's this high performing leader, high expectations of themselves and others typically, we're dealing with C suite leaders of companies that have 50 employees or so to you know, maybe 10,000 employees and so, that would still be categorized as small business Small Business oddly enough, or smaller companies. And you know, the the most ideal client Gordon is one that follows a concept or is interested in a concept called the four P's, which is purpose, like we talked about profit, of course, which keeps the business running people in investment in the development of their, of their people that work there and planet having a sustainability model. So, you know, and ideal client is an organization that's really embracing those four, the column, the quadruple bottom line, those four bottom lines, and, you know, sees their organization as a way to uplevel humanity. And that, you know, that concept is not is not new, necessarily. There's There's a whole movement around that called Conscious Capitalism, which some listeners may have heard of. And if not, I would encourage encourage folks to look it up. But it's the idea that organizations can actually be change agents for bettering the world through bettering the people that are within the system. And so that's that's always the ideal client is a business that is is interested in bracing, that philosophy. And it can you know, what's funny about that is that we see that happen in all sorts of industries, from medicine, to technology, to manufacturing, and that diversity is fun, and makes it interesting.

Gordon Brewer 20:42
Right, right. Well, I think, you know, one of the things as those of us that are therapists and working kind of in the mental health field, we see the importance of advocacy and see the importance of, of being able to help people thrive and whatever environment they're in. And I think sometimes we kind of take for granted our, our stake in that. Not only not only, not only from the standpoint of, you know, the individual work we do with clients, but but just being able to be good stewards within our environment in general. And I think that's, that's meaningful stuff to people.

Michael Deittrich-Chastain 21:30
I love that. Yeah. Be stewards to our environment. Yeah. Love that. Yeah.

Gordon Brewer 21:35
Yeah. Great. So So tell folks some about some of the things that you've got, I know, you've got a great book, and also the changes cards, which is one of the, for those that are watching the video, here. They are, haven't had had them on my desk and have absolutely loved these. So tell folks how you came up with that. That concept?

Michael Deittrich-Chastain 21:59
Yeah. And thank you, thank you for your support there. That's awesome. Yeah, so the concept came from. So change changes is actually a method or a system. And it's an acronym for these seven pillars of our lived experience, that are that are in my research, the seven seven pillars that influence our ability to not only create change, but also manage it. So it's a it's a two directional model. And I came about it, Gordon, through asking the question of, you know, over the course of years, and working with mental health, working in organizations, small and large, with teams and leaders, you know, essentially, we're always all asking the same question when we're working with a therapist or a coach or a consultant. And that question is, how do I create change? How do I create change, and that change could be I want to resolve my depression, or I want to create a team of high performers, or I want to, you know, create better boundaries as a leader, but the question is the same, how do I create change? So I thought, well, what if, what if there's a there's a meta perspective to that, that could be applied to any change? You know, what are the conditions that could be applied to any change? Because if we can strengthen the muscle of getting better at change, then we can apply it to anything? Mm hmm. So I was looking at, you know, all the things that I, you know, had thought might be the predictors of this, and came up with these seven categories of our life. And then I thought, well, wouldn't it be fun if there was a there was an acronym for this? And so I came up with the with the seven, and then the changes acronym came after that. So it's kind of kind of a funny coincidence.

Gordon Brewer 23:35
Yeah. Oh, that's great.

Michael Deittrich-Chastain 23:37
Yeah. So so the book covers the seven pillars and activities you can do to, you know, optimize each of them. And real quick, the pillars are cognition, heart action, nourishment, guts, environment, and spirit. And the idea is that when we embrace these, and we work with them, we get we get better at change, and when they're ignored, or they're put on the backburner that leaves us vulnerable. And so so the book covers covers all these pillars, the card deck that you showed, is, is has been a it's been a really a wonderful tool for I think, a lot of folks and it's essentially seven questions around each of the pillars. So 49 Questions total. And it's a tool that you can use on your own and self reflection, you can use it in one to one conversations. And so we hear from a lot of therapists and coaches that use the deck in their sessions with clients. And And lastly, it can be used in in group experiences. And so I've taken it to conferences that I've spoken at, and with hundreds of people in the room with multiple decks done really, you know, fun and exciting group activities. And so it's a it's a flexible tool, but for the purposes, you know, of our of our listeners, I can say that I've heard many, many times from therapists how, you know, using a tool like this can help to, you know, just approach a challenge in a different direction and sometimes Sometimes I think that that displacement, where it's not coming from the therapist, it's coming from a third party, in this case, the tool allows clients to, you know, maybe deeper, reflect on a certain on a certain issue or maybe hear an idea or a piece of wisdom in a different way. And so, yeah, I encourage folks to check it out.

Gordon Brewer 25:20
Yeah, yeah, it's a, I loved it. And how I got introduced to these is through our mutual friend, Uri, Guilford. And he had the cards. And we had just kind of that impromptu, kind of retreat over at my family's place in North Carolina. And so we we really got into it, Michael, I mean, as far as we would, we would, and we still using them in our mastermind group will ask the questions of each other in our mastermind group. So it's cool. But I've also used it with my staff in the last staff meeting that I had, and so they're very effective, and they're great. They're great questions, I'm just going to pull off. Yeah, like going this is from the action action section. What habit brings you confidence? I'm just pulling these at random here. What emotion Do you want more of in your life? So that's just a sampling there for folks that are listeners. And so yeah, so check those out, because they're a great tool. Oh, thank

Michael Deittrich-Chastain 26:25
you so much, Gordon. I appreciate that.

Gordon Brewer 26:27
Yeah, yeah. So yeah. So Well, Michael, I want to be respectful of your time. And I know we could spend all day talking about these things. And I'm sure we'll be hopefully be getting together for lunch before too long. Yeah. So tell folks more about where they can contact you and find out more about your business and what you're doing.

Michael Deittrich-Chastain 26:50
Sure, sure. Yeah. If they want to learn about us, they can go to arc integrated calm that's aarC, integrated, calm. And if they like if they're interested in this, this changes model, we've got something called the changes playbook that which has a free audio book and samplings from a workbook that we created and some interesting activities you can do with the card deck. So if they want to get that they can go to arc integrated.com/free. And you'll get a whole bunch of goodies there. And I encourage people to reach out there's brings up any questions. I'm always happy to connect. So don't hesitate.

Gordon Brewer 27:25
Well, Michael, I'm so glad to reconnect. And I'm sure we'll be having more conversations here in the future.

Well, I really love having conversations with such smart people. And a big thanks to Michael for being on the podcast. And be sure and check out his his company arc integrated and you can find the links to to his website, here in the show summary in the show notes. And also be sure and check out those changes cards. They have been a lot of fun for me in my practice, particularly working with my staff, and just really building doing some team building and that sort of thing. And also, you those, those particular cards are really useful in the therapy room to have just being able to use them as an icebreaker with clients and really being able to kind of build that engagement. But again, big thanks to Michael for being on the podcast. And I'm sure you'll get to hear some more from him later on. But I love having those deep conversations just about these really important things around research and what we what we're learning about how people interact with each other, particularly in the business setting. And as you can tell, with Michael's training, and the fact that he started out in psychology, and has used those skills to move over into more of the coaching realm. And something to think about. I think sometimes in our you know, in our professions, we feel like that the rules say whatever the rules are, that we have to stick to what we were trained to do, but it translates in so many different ways. And so that's one reason I wanted you to hear from Michael and see how he was able to do that in his career and that a lot of our skills translate in other ways. So anyway, thanks again to Michael that said I can't say it enough. So also be sure to check out the automated webinar on being in group practice and the the webinar can be found at practice of therapy.com/group and you can sign up for that to take it at your leisure or whenever you want to watch that. Love for you to Find out more about that. So again, practice of therapy.com/group. And as always, big thank you to our sponsor therapy notes. You can find out more about them by going to practice of therapy.com/therapy notes. And be sure and use the promo code Gordon just GLR d o n to try them out for two months for free. They are really the leading electronic health record system for mental health providers. And I absolutely love using them in my practice. And so I'm so glad that they're part of this journey with me. So Take care, folks, I'm looking forward to you joining me in future episodes. We've got a lot of great people lined up here in the future. And also, as I mentioned in last week's episode, here at the Talian, I've got a new podcast coming out called kindness and compassion, the kindness and compassion podcast and you can find out a little more about that and listen to the trailer. If you'll go to kindness and compassion.com. There'll be links here in the show summary in the show notes. Go over there and check that out. We're launching next month, which is just a week or two away, I've been doing some recording with my co host, Kayla Tapia, who is a colleague of mine and another therapist. And we're really excited to be tackling this topic about how people can integrate kindness and compassion in their life and really looking at the intersection between science and psychology and spirituality and how all of that is making a difference in people's lives. So be sure and check that out as well. So take care folks, and we'll be with you next week. And oh, by the way, take time to subscribe are actually follow the podcast, wherever you might be listening to it and tell your friends about it to take care folks.

You have been listening to the practice of therapy podcast with Gordon Brewer, part of the psych craft network of podcasts. Please visit us at practice of therapy.com For more information, resources and tools to help you in starting building and growing your private practice. And if you haven't done so already, please sign up to receive the free private practice startup guide and practice of therapy.com. The information in this podcast is intended to be accurate and authoritative concerning the subject matter covered. It has given what the understanding that neither the host guests or producers are rendering legal accounting or clinical advice. If you need a professional, you should find the right person for them.