The Practice of Therapy

Gordon Brewer: Well, hello everyone and welcome again to the podcast and I'm so happy to have back with me on this episode.
Steve, be on. Welcome, Steve.
Steve Bisson: Oh, thank you Gordon. Always good to be here.
Gordon Brewer: Yes. And Steve and I have developed a really good friendship over the last couple of years, mainly through the development of the Psych Craft network. And Steve is just a, he's just a solid guy, but I'll let you get to know him and judge for yourself, which I think you will.
But Steve, tell folks a little bit more about yourself and how you've landed where you've landed.
Steve Bisson: Well my name is Steve Biso and it's pronounced Biso because I'm from born and raised in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. I'm very proud of that. I've been in the United States for over 26 years. I had my US citizenship and I moved here to become a mental health counselor.
I was gonna become a mental health counselor. Go back to Montreal. Turns out you fall for a girl, you have kids, and then you land in America for much longer and really, truly love America. You know, love being here. Have my two kids here. But more importantly, I have my practice. This is something that I've always wanted, have my practice that's been going on my private practice of 11 years, 12 years, but I've been a therapist for going on 22 years with my wow masters.
I've worked with over 10,000 people, some of them longer than others. Some of them were just a quick screen in a jail, and some of them are 10 plus years of therapy and working together and anything in between. I work mostly with first responders. I didn't choose to be with first responders. My, my actual trainings in children and family.
Mm-hmm. And I work with zero children or families at this point, I just work with first responders and I work with a lot of trauma. And as I've I mentioned to someone else yesterday, and please don't take this outta context, don't chop it up. But I like working with women who have been through trauma because I can be that safe man that they have.
Then I'm like, I can't be the only safe man in the world and make them be much more faithful around that. So trauma first responders and grief I've done with grief. 'cause I worked on a crisis team. One of my first calls in as a clinician in the crisis team was going to what ha what happened was there was a sudden death for a child.
Mm-hmm. Sids. I was called in to help the family. Mm-hmm. And as much as that's a hard thought process and a hard thing to talk about, I really developed a knack to talk about it and work with individuals. I'm not saying it's fun, I'm not saying I like, I hate to say I enjoy it, but I do.
Mm-hmm. But not
Steve Bisson: because of want this to happen to anyone, to have grief, but rather help them process it so they feel.
You know, fuller, more of themselves. That's really the goal for me. So that's where my whole thought process is in regards to Steve, and that's how I landed here.
Gordon Brewer: Right. Right. I love that. I love your story, Steve, just because I feel like there's a lot of to some degree, some parallels just with the interest in trauma and working with grief and that sort of thing.
You know, I, I think I've shared with you Steve one, one of the little fun facts about me that some people that have been listening to the podcast might have heard before, but I worked in the funeral business for. Many years and
yeah.
Gordon Brewer: You know, just that's a whole new perspective when you're working on the, the helping side of helping people through some of the worst times of their life.
And it's just I find it very rewarding and just very, very, as I like to say, sacred ground in working with people in that, in that context. But what got you interested in working with first responders? I, I don't know that we've ever talked about that.
Steve Bisson: Well, it's funny because that's usually what people ask me, like, how did you start working with first responder and this the same answer every single time accidentally.
So the mm-hmm. I'm going try to make a short story out of it, but probably a little longer than I wish. So when I started in 1999 as a on the crisis team, we were interacting with police regularly for. You know, if someone was suicidal, homicidal, I know different states have different names for 'em. We call 'em section twelves in Massachusetts, but I know they have different names for different states.
And so I got to work with them there and as I grew and I got my masters, we were one of the first, I was part of the team that started the jail diversion program and Framingham, Massachusetts led by Dr. Sarah Abbott and mm-hmm I got to interact with police and be in the community directly so that we can avoid, people who have mental illness going to jail. Mm-hmm. Would rather get 'em treatment. They didn't get SCO free, they got treatment and if they didn't do the treatment there was consequences. But nonetheless. Mm-hmm. And doing that work, I sat in the vehicles with police and went to calls with fire and ambulances.
And what I happens is some once in a while they're especially the police. 'cause that's where we technically were. Sometimes it'd be John Doe. Hey Steve, you're jumping in with me today for the ride along. Okay. Well it's because John Doe needed to talk about some of the stuff he's going through. Right?
Right. And I asked myself at that point, who services the helpers? Who's there to help the helpers?
Mm-hmm.
Steve Bisson: And it was a thought, but didn't last too long. I worked at parole, probation, worked in. The Department of Corrections. I worked in a county jail and I ended up working with several levels of law enforcement and I just realized that they're don't trust very easily.
But for some reason they trusted me and the reason why I think they trusted me was that I worked in the field. They didn't need to explain some of this stuff.
Mm-hmm.
Steve Bisson: And because of that passion, once in a while I get a friend of mine, good friend of mine, Jay. Who is a police officer, he'd be like, Hey, I've got a guy who needs some help.
So I went from working with those who were on parole, probation, diverting their jail time or in the jail to working with the actual first responders from there. Mm-hmm. And that's how that transition occurred. And I started getting a lot of more referrals. So the best way I can say is that it was my behind ba I fell as backwards, if I can say that on your podcast.
Mm-hmm.
Steve Bisson: I develop a passion of working with first responders and you know, I, today, I'll, I'll share a little bit that we had, I have a group that I run two groups. They run one at night, one in the morning on four, two days separate by three days, so that whoever's on shift, they can always make one of the two.
And we talked about a lot of difficult stuff today. We had four people and I realized that if. We talked about all those things and all four of them came by like, wow, we really trust you. Mm-hmm. And there's no price for that. There's no, and maybe that's my adrenaline, so to speak, that know that people can trust me and they know that.
Mm-hmm. I'm, they don't need to explain certain things. They, that's what keeps me going. So I think that's how I fell into it. I don't know if I went too long, but No, I love, I loved it. I love this first responders.
Gordon Brewer: Yeah. And I think, I think one of the things that I think. That this translates to, but, and people hear it all the time from me and from people like you, the importance of finding your niche and a big clue to that is the things that you're passionate about and the things that speak to you and that you, you, like you said, just the, the reward or the, the knowing you're on the right path because people trust you.
And that's that's, I think that's huge. As, as much as anything. So, yeah. Well Steve one, one of the things, I know we had talked about that before we started recording, that we wanted to kinda share with people because I think there's a lot of good translation here, again, between the business side that with the podcasting world of you changing your branding.
With the podcast and how you did that and that transition. And I think for people in private practice that could be a possibility of shifting your branding or even finding a new niche, if you will, and how you make that transition. So tell us how you did, what you did with the podcast and what that was like.
Steve Bisson: Well, Gordon did it all for me. No, seriously. No. I, what happened was I started my podcast Finding Your Way Through Therapy because that was the book I created and the first idea was I would take chapters of the book and talk about it on a, as a podcast, and then it evolved slowly but surely. But then I realized as I went along, and this is, I'm not gonna name names because I don't want anyone to ever feel offended.
There's some stuff that we talk about. I go through the motions. I wasn't that interested, and there's nothing against learning how to yodel. No one taught me how to yodel through this. Mm-hmm. I guess it's a dumb example, but the the point is, is that I'm, like, I, I'm not interested in that. But when I had first responders, or we talked about trauma, we talked about grief, which is, you know, my passion as a therapist.
It also showed in my podcast. And my numbers showed that, so mm-hmm. With all the fear in the world, I decided that maybe I need to rebrand. The other motivation behind that is I talked a little bit about the story about first responders wanting to talk to culturally competent people. Mm-hmm. Part of it too is that having a lot of first responder.
I dunno, subjects, for lack of a better word, they look at me and they go, oh, I don't need to vet Steve. He knows what he's talking about. I heard him on the podcast. Mm-hmm. So it was a way to also reach out to a population that probably wouldn't reach out in general. Not because they're bad people, but they're not always encouraged to reach out or it's embarrassing.
Mm-hmm. Or you don't know who to trust or what have you. Mm-hmm. So at the end of the last year, I started thinking about rebranding. I did the slow rebranding from finding Your Way Through Therapy to finding your way to finding your way, resilience development in action to resilience, development in action right now.
Mm-hmm. And most of the subjects I've talked about since the rebranding which occurred probably beginning of April, around there we really talked about first responder stressors, the trauma and the recovery, and. That's gonna be the theme for the most part. I have a group of guys, if you've listened to the podcast and I encourage you to go listen to Mental Men 'cause those are the great, these are guys, we sit in a room with five guys with over 200 years of experiences in the field.
Mm-hmm. And what I
Steve Bisson: told them, I said, okay, let's not talk about what we usually do. Let's keep it to grief, trauma, and first responder stuff. It took a half second for them to adapt and if go listen to that episode. It was a episode 1 94 around there. It just showed me that that's what I want to do.
Mm-hmm.
And
Steve Bisson: so will there be sometimes exceptions? Of course there will be. You know, I, when Father's Day comes around, there's gonna be a Father's Day special. But in general it's gonna be first responders. 'cause that's the hardest thing to do, is to reach out and find someone who you feel is competent. And obviously there's not just me, there's several hundreds.
They need to know that they have this opportunity and there's nothing like a podcast to give you that opportunity. And there's not a whole lot. What I've learned, like you, I remember sitting in a meeting with you with the Cy Craft network folks like, well, can you reach out? Like, can you look how many podcasts for first responders exist?
There's several, but there's only a handful that are ran by therapists that are not first responders. And I think that that becomes important to bring in that humanity of the therapist that maybe, you know, I didn't carry a bag with me, or I didn't carry an ax or a gun, but I'm able to understand what you've been through.
And I think that's the other part which makes it unique. And I think my podcast obviously is awesome, but mm-hmm. I might have the vested interest in it. Yeah.
Gordon Brewer: Yeah. Well, I think people can pick up on authenticity pretty quickly, and when you're authentic and you're genuine with what you do, our, our friend James Marlin, was on the podcast a few a few. Well, this, actually this as we're recording this, this week's episode. I listened to it, by the way. It was a good episode. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we were just talking about that authenticity, and I think if you try to do, try to be something that you're not, that people see through that immediately.
And I think that's one of the things, you know, my, my brother-in-law was a first responder or was a first responder. He was a in the police and, you know, worked in law enforcement for years and we've had conversations about some of his experiences and just a whole different mindset around that or, you know, really that walking that line between wanting to be very helpful to people, but at the same time.
Dealing with the bad guys and having to. You know, do your job in, in terms of, you know, taking control of situations and that kind of thing. And so, yeah, it's and, and when you get to know people like my brother-in-law, big shout out to him, Greg. He's got a heart of gold. I mean, he would do anything in the world for you, but at the same time.
You wouldn't want to cross him or, or create a situa or be him, be in a situation where he perceives that somebody's gonna get hurt or somebody's gonna be in danger. He's, he's, he's there to protect. So, I mean, yeah.
Steve Bisson: And you know, the, the invisible stuff that people don't know about first responders is those weird hours.
Mm-hmm.
And
Steve Bisson: mm-hmm.
You know,
Steve Bisson: they don't have HIPAA that we do in therapy. But they do have like a confidentiality stuff and sometimes you don't wanna talk about it. And most people in the community, you know, they see a police officer, whoever first responder, Hey, what's your worst story? They don't wanna talk about that around the barbecue.
Don't ask them those questions. But they may wanna come to me and say, you know what? I really saw some X, Y, Z, just making a story up. And they now have that space. But people don't understand that. Telling your worst story at a barbecue, at a family reunion or whatever. There's no interest in that. In fact, that's just probably tra traumatizing and those guys are hard of goal.
And like I said to my group this morning, I said, I. I wouldn't be, I wouldn't wanna be on the opposite side of all of you. I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, we're on the same side. Mm-hmm. Yeah. But they're after, they're fine. They help people and all that. Right. But I don't wanna be on the opposite side. And the reason why is that they've seen enough that they know when these things gonna occur.
And that's sad to say, but it's true. And they need a place where they can talk about those things, because most people don't understand, oh, I didn't go to that meeting, or I didn't go to that reunion. And they're like, why? Just didn't feel comfortable with a couple of people and they're like, oh, don't be that way.
Well, no, there's a reason why they're that way.
Right. And we
Steve Bisson: gotta
Gordon Brewer: respect
Steve Bisson: it.
Gordon Brewer: Right. Right. Absolutely. And, and I think too, my, my guess would be is that a lot of times they're, they're te the stories and the things that they've gone through and the things that they've seen are pretty horrific kinds of situations.
And in a way, not telling that to someone is their way of protecting them from that. Because a hundred percent. Yeah. For, because internally it's just yeah, it's, well, it's trauma. Yeah.
Steve Bisson: And I think that what I've said to people in the community who've said that, like, oh, what's his worst story? Or what's your worst story?
I'm like, all right, let's put it in perspective for a second. And whenever you go to, to any type of social event, I want you to imagine someone comes over and says, oh, what's the worst thing you've ever been through in your life? You'd be like, why the hell would you wanna know that? Mm-hmm. And that's what you're doing to those individuals.
Right. You know, and Yeah. The, the biggest problem that I find with particular first responders is that we know me and you therapists that were on the goal or did something wrong, but it wasn't plastered on the front page of any paper. Mm-hmm. At best. And made the back page. Of CNN or whatever, not even, but like the local WXYZ.
Mm-hmm. A police officer does something wrong in Phoenix. It is across the country, and a lot of people will overgeneralize that police officer in Phoenix through every single police officer. Imagine if you had a job like that or a firefighter does something wrong in Arizona and then suddenly all firefighters are like that.
We can't comprehend. I certainly do my best, but we can't comprehend how difficult that is because if someone said, oh, this bad therapist in Utah did this. Mm-hmm.
Well, everyone
Steve Bisson: would be like, oh, that's in Utah. That's not us. They would dismiss that right away. But if it's one of those main first responder jobs, we overgeneralize the whole population and that's rough.
Gordon Brewer: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I think it's something to be cognizant of in just if, for those of us, those listening to this particular episode, which are mainly therapists and people in, you know, healthcare of some sort to keep that in mind I think is really important in bringing, bringing that out. So, yeah. So, yeah, so maybe to switch gears a little bit to talk about podcasting, because Steve's been one of the main people in the site craft network that I'm really grateful for his participation in that. What what do you see Steve as the benefit of having a podcast and doing the, doing things in this form and fashion?
Steve Bisson: Well, there's so many things. First of all is meeting people like Gordon. The over, I'm getting close to a hundred guests over the course of the last few years in my podcast. You get to meet fantastic people who do fantastic work, and that's one of the biggest benefits. Having a group like the Psych Craft Network is absolutely important to my work because while you're talking to a microphone right now, I know Gordon's here, but essentially it's the conversation is me, Gordon, and a microphone or two microphones.
Mm-hmm.
Steve Bisson: Yeah, there's no one else. We don't know if there's gonna be a hundred thousand hits on this or one. And at the end of the day, sometimes having that group, like the site craft network where we can bounce ideas off, and we talked about James Marlin, who encouraged me to work on that transition. And I also turned to Whitney, not Whitney my, my Lisa.
Lisa and McDonald.
Gordon Brewer: Yeah. Chris McDonald. Yes. Chris Uhhuh. Why am I blanking on
Steve Bisson: Chris's name? They all encourage me to do this. Mm-hmm. And they all have great shows. I don't do what Lisa does. I don't do what James does. I don't do what Gordon does, and I don't do what Chris does. And I know there's other people.
There's Julie and there's other people that are on our group.
Mm-hmm. And
Steve Bisson: Whitney for not forgive. Sorry, Whitney didn't forget about you thinking. But the point is, is that having a group like this, there's a, there's this com camaraderie that we can have. And sometimes like if some I've had, I work with therapists, gee, it's so hard to get s Oh, I know someone who does that.
Mm-hmm. You know, I really wanna start my, I wanna start creating courses. Oh, I gotta know. I know someone who wants to do that. I don't know how to use ai. Oh, I can help you do AI with so many things. I got someone who does that. Mm-hmm. These are all podcasts that are available on the site craft network.
Mm-hmm. And I know you're going to, whoever's listening to this, are gonna think, oh, Steve's doing a commercial. No one put a gun to my head. I do whatever I want. If you know me at all, I don't do things I don't want to. But it's really what I love. And we had that one YouTube day. That we did together, and I thought that went really well.
Yeah. And we're gonna do those more often and have mm-hmm. Different points of view, sitting around and talking about site craft network and what each podcast can contribute. Mm-hmm. And for me, if you are for, if you wanna do none of that, you don't wanna talk about Psych Craft network, you don't wanna talk about anything, I get vetted.
From my experience with first responders, by someone listening to a podcast. Mm-hmm. How many guys who just started with me say, yeah, I was listening to your podcast, seem to know a little bit about us. Like, yeah, I know a couple of things. Read book once. Right? And it brings you that credibility without meeting the person.
Right. And so I think that that's what it is. If you know, if you think that it's something that you're, it's gonna make you super rich right away. There's Joe Rogan and then there's us. Yeah, but the people you touch, the people who write to you, people who tell you how great it is, or they got a good idea out of it, it's priceless.
And that's the only reason why podcasting is so important for anyone in the private practice world. Even if you did six of them, just introduce who you are. I work with. IFS or in, in internal family systems. I do cognitive behavioral therapy and eye movement desensitization reprocessing, and you do 15 minutes of each.
Well, now people can go see that podcast and I know you can listen to Gordon who does a great how to start a podcast and how to do those things, but getting that out there. Instant credibility. You don't need a website. All you need is this distribution center. And there's plenty of good ones that are out there right now.
Yeah. So there's so many advantages to podcasts. I, I love doing this. I've been doing it as of May 21st will be four years. Wow. And I have no intention to stop. Are there days that are harder than others? Of course. Mm-hmm. But in general. I love having that podcast and once in a while people are like, Hey, do you remember the one you did on sleep?
No, I don't. Mm-hmm. Yeah, it would really help me. That's great. Help you.
Gordon Brewer: Yeah. Yeah.
Steve Bisson: So that, there's so many.
Gordon Brewer: Yeah. I think I think the big thing is, is that for those of us that have really kind of a heart for helping people is a podcast is a way for you to go from the one-to-one way of helping people to the one to many and what, you know, there are different ways to monetize that if you want to, but I think for a lot of us that are, are doing this, we do it out of a sense of passion for what we do and wanting to get voiced to, to the different issues that we, that we cover or that we talk about.
And I think that's, what makes it also fun and, and with the, with the site craft network, the whole reason for me to start that is again, just thinking about Steve, what you do with the groups that you run. Really kind of creating that for people that have podcasts, particularly in this self-help private practice mental health space.
So, yeah.
Steve Bisson: And. I wouldn't, the other part too about podcasting, if you're in the helping field, knowing that I have a great resources down in Tennessee or North Carolina mm-hmm. Or Texas, or traveling. Mm-hmm. Shout out again. See, then forget about you, Whitney. Yeah. But the point is, is that you have these resources that you develop running a podcast, and these are intuitive, like, you know, if it hasn't happened yet in your area.
But if someone said, oh geez, I'm looking for a therapist in Tennessee for my cousin, my brother, and my sister, whatever. Mm-hmm. Well, I know I don't know anyone there, but I do know some people who know people there. Hey, go, can you help me out? Yeah. To me, that's the other part too, is that when you work in private practice, you're isolated and whoever tells you you're not is BSing you.
You gotta get outta your shell and not isolate yourself. Right. Right. And this, yeah, doing a podcasting removes that isolation. 'cause I have not done this. Gordon has not done this with me, but I'm a hundred percent sure. Hey Gordon, have a tough case. Can I just run something by you? Gordon would return my phone call in two seconds.
And this is from the podcasting, not on the podcast, obviously. Mm-hmm. But now, because I had a podcast, I got to consult with someone who knows a lot about family, who knows a lot about, you know, spirituality and how to integrate that in the treatment of individuals, which is not my strength. And that's the other part of when you talk about what can we do as private practitioners?
That's why podcasts are amazing.
Gordon Brewer: Yeah. Yeah. And it's about, it's, it creates community as much as anything. And I think that's, that's an important, really important piece for why. I started the network and why we're doing what we're doing and why we do the podcast is it's just being able to connect with people and having, having a platform for people to connect with us and to hear, hear things.
Because the funny thing about podcasts, even though as you're listening to this now, it's a recording, but I bet it feels like you're sitting in the room with us. At least that's how it feels for me when I'm listening to podcasts. You're, it's kinda like you're right there.
Steve Bisson: Yeah, I, I, I go back to how I run my podcast and I think you do the same thing.
You probably don't do it the same motivation as I do. But what I tell people is when I start the, in the pre-interview, I always say the same thing. I'm like, I'm a Howard Stern guy. And what Howard Stern did fantastically and still does to this day, is that he makes you forget there's a microphone in front of you.
And you start talking and you feel like you're intimately listening to a conversation between two folks.
Mm-hmm.
Steve Bisson: And to me, that's the magic of podcasts. And if you do it well and think about all the podcasts that you enjoy and listen to, that's exactly what you're looking for. I'm not looking for someone going, hi Gordon, how are you?
I'm not looking for mechanical stuff. I can get that anywhere. You know, you can get that on, you know, late night shows or interview shows. Mm-hmm. But having the genuine, oh shoot, I'm sitting into a conversation with two people. There's nothing like it. And I think that's what podcasting, that's what the Psych Craft Network has brought me anyway.
And really encouraged me to do so.
Gordon Brewer: Right, right. Well. Well, Steve, I know we've gotta be mindful of our time and all, but tell folks how they can get in touch with you and also, you can find resilience in act, resilience development. Help me see development and action, resilience development
Steve Bisson: in action.
Gordon Brewer: Yes. I, Daniel,
Steve Bisson: let, let's give Gordon a little space. It's brand new. Yeah,
Gordon Brewer: right, right. Yeah, I was the development part was the, was the word I was struggling over. But yeah, so you can find it anywhere you listen to your podcast, but tell folks a little bit more how they can get in touch with you, Steve.
Steve Bisson: You can get in touch with me with Instagram, Facebook most social platforms under real Steve Biso. And if you wanna make it sound French Al Steve Biso my website is steve-biso.com, B-I-S-S-O-N. And you can always email me and you can you go to my podcast? There's a nice little button you press.
Send a text and you'll get a text there. If not, you can go to my name lhc@gmail.com and that's an email. Five oh five oh eight nine oh two seven eight four five is my phone number. And I don't read smoke signals yet, but I'm working on it.
So I, I don't know how you cannot not reach me, right.
But feel free to reach me anytime Gordon knows how I am. I've never met a conversation I, I don't enjoy. And if I'm busy, I will tell you I'm busy, but we'll get back to it. And I'm always truthful with people.
Gordon Brewer: Yeah. And Steve has a great YouTube channel as well, so, thank you. Yeah. Yeah, he does. And it's quite, quite impressive the number of followers he has now with that.
And he's the one, I don't think I ever told you this, Steve. You're the one that kind of prompted me to start putting this podcast on YouTube and get getting it out there that, on that. On that platform. And then you know, the visual, which I think is always fun as well. But thank you. We'll have, yeah, so we'll, we'll have all the links here in the show notes and the show summary for people.
And you'll be hearing from Steve be sold more here on this, this podcast and also the, the site craft network. So thanks Steve.
Steve Bisson: And Gordon's coming on my podcast too in a couple weeks, so
Gordon Brewer: yes, that's correct. That's correct? Yes it is. Thanks, Steve.
Steve Bisson: Thank you.