Why First Responders And Clinicians Still Need Human Supervision

Supervision used to be something you could reach for without fear or apology, and a lot of us built our careers on that kind of steady mentorship. Recording with Dennis Sweeney, Chris Gordon, Bob Cherney, Andy Kang, and Pat Rice, we get real about what’s changed in mental health and first responder support, and what it costs when clinicians and teams try to do complex work in isolation.

We dig into why the supervision relationship matters so much for crisis intervention, addiction recovery, and trauma work, especially when the cases are messy and the emotions run hot. We talk about therapeutic alliance, trust, and the small human moments that can shift everything: slowing down a frantic consult, finding strengths instead of only problems, and using kindness and humor as legitimate clinical skills. We also challenge toxic language that creeps into high-stress systems, including the “frequent flyer” label, and we explore how dehumanizing terms don’t just hurt patients, they damage team culture and decision-making.

We zoom out to the world first responders work in now: constant cameras, public anger, and broad generalizations that treat individuals like symbols. The through-line is simple and demanding: stay human, keep wondering why, and build a network that can hold you up when the work gets heavy. 

If this conversation helps, subscribe, share it with someone on your team, and leave a review so more first responders and clinicians can find it.

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Transcript

Welcome The Mental Men Reunion

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Welcome to Resilience Development and Action with Steve Beesman. This is the pumpcast dedicated to first responder mental health, helping police, miners, EMS, disc mentors, and paramedics create better growth environments for themselves and their teams. Let's get started.

SPEAKER_05 0:29

Well, hi everyone, and welcome to this will come out in April, but we're recording in February, and we tried to record in January. And every single time we've had a snow emergency in the state of Massachusetts. So we haven't been able to go studio. So I suggested let's do Zoom again one more time with this great group of guys that you guys have met before many, many times. And this is the mental men. I want to welcome Dennis, Chris, Bob, Andrew, and Pat. How are you doing, guys?

SPEAKER_03 1:00

Good, Steve. Thank you. The Blizzard of 26. That's what we're recording in right now.

SPEAKER_05 1:06

And that's what is going to be a great memory. And you know, the whole loss of Canada and hockey twice will fade away by the time this comes out. But I really, you know, what's interesting is that I hadn't had the mental man in a while, and we're looking at May and Singularity in May to record because we're going to get screwed either way if we do through hurricane season or blizzard season. But we will go back to the studio. I promise everyone's going to see that because that's something I've wanted to do. I know everyone's been introduced quickly before, but let's do it again just in case we have some new viewers. And if you are new, please like and subscribe to my channel, Resilience Development in Action. So, Dennis, you want to go a quick intro?

SPEAKER_02 1:47

All right, Dennis Sweeney, LMHC. I have a private practice and primarily focus on addiction and recovery, but it's a general mental health practice.

SPEAKER_05 1:56

Always happy to see Dennis. I still have your office, Dennis. It's almost the same as it used to be. So I'm keeping it clean.

SPEAKER_07 2:03

Chris, your turn. My name is Chris Gordon. I'm a psychiatrist. I am 99% retired, but for many years I was very active in community psychiatry, and uh it's still very close to my heart.

SPEAKER_05 2:20

And as I we did in pre-interview, I don't want to I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that in Massachusetts, the police and state police have been trained on mental health. Thank you to Chris Gordon and Sarah Abbott for pushing that a few years ago, and it's happening right now. So thanks, Chris. Bob, your turn.

SPEAKER_06 2:39

Hi, my name's Bob Cherney. I'm a clinical psychologist and also a licensed alcohol and drug counselor. I have a private practice at this point. But like Chris, I've spent, well, 24 years in community mental health, in addition to my private practice. And I enjoyed all of it. It's a matter of so at this point, I'm uh semi-retired and still enjoying a couple of days a week in the work.

SPEAKER_05 3:06

So Bob still does my therapy every couple of months at the Depot Street Tavern in Milford Mass. Shout out. I don't get any money for this, but if you want to send money, please do. Andy, your turn.

SPEAKER_01 3:19

Hey, Andy Kang, L-I-C-S-W, trained under all of these fine gentlemen here on the screen. Have also a private practice specializing in addiction and recovery, also working with professionals on those issues. And more recently, a mental health advocate with the courts. So doing more of that work lately.

SPEAKER_05 3:45

Oh, I'll be very interested in hearing more about that. That's a that's that's a very important job.

SPEAKER_03 3:51

Pat, your last but not least. I'm Pat Rice. I'm a licensed mental health counselor, and I've done just about everything in dual diagnosis, institutional work, medical institutions, academic institutions. I'm in a limited private practice now, and I do um forensic work for the uh for some of the courts and for the registry of motor vehicles often. And I do in my private work, it's mostly around spiritual development and end-of-life things and a lot of grief and loss. Family grief, family loss. But I also have help people to die actually. And it's a it's about as interesting and sacred a path as I found in this in this profession. So and the guy below me on my screen, Dennis, is the guy that trained me. So send all the complaints to him.

Supervision Mentorship And AI Limits

SPEAKER_05 4:46

Welcome, gentlemen. And you know, I also would be remiss to not let people know that I contacted Pat last week, actually, because I was going to an AA meeting where one of the my clients got his tenure coin. And I'm like, how am I supposed to act? Because I know nothing about that stuff. So Pat helped me out tremendously, which I really appreciate. But you know, there's a lot of things that you guys brought up in just your intro that I'd love to talk about. But maybe we can start off with something fairly easy. We talked about supervision pre-interview, and one of the things that we mentioned here, and again, if again, please write to us if you have any questions. But we have definitely seen a shift from supervision being something that's really readily available in our mental health world and even into the policing world sometimes that has changed tremendously to turning to other people and mostly AI to get some of that support. So I don't know where you want to start about supervision, how it used to be and how it is, but I think that there's been such a significant shift because I knew and I still know that tomorrow morning I have a problem with a case. All the gentlemans on this screen, I can call them up and say, hey, listen, I need a quick consult. And there's no like ifs, ands, or buts about it. And now I get a lot of younger people who come in and contact me and say, Steve, I'm sorry to bother you. And I'm like, what do you mean bothering me? They're not used to the mentorship stuff. So I don't know who wants to start on that because we're all like kind of mentors and you are all my mentors. And then, Andy, I appreciate you saying you train me. I think we've been mutual support for many years. So I don't think that there's one over the other. Thank you, though. So, where do you see the shift? Where do you think that like I you were we were talking about how we you guys all worked together for a long period of time in a specific hospital, and you had kind of like that going all the time, and now it's changed. And Pat says that you Pat, you said earlier that you know, when we were privately talking, that someone, you know, who works at a particular place had to call you for support and supervision.

SPEAKER_03 6:49

I've actually I used to pay for my own supervision while I was actually getting supervision. I couldn't get enough of it. And because of the nature of dual diagnosis, it's complex at the very least. And I needed I needed a lot of help. The the substance abuse piece came more naturally to me. And it's the the some of the more esoteric psychiatric stuff, which if you're dealing with these disorders, you deal with a lot of trauma, a lot of forms of DID and personality constructs that are very difficult, and and it's hard to see what you're actually looking looking at. And I remember when we had our our uh in-person peer supervision group in Dennis's office, some of the formulations that people come up with, Andy. I mean, his his his ability to have psychiatric formulations and and to give me a new perspective on a difficult client was was remarkable. And so I I miss that. I I can't imagine doing good psychotherapy, long-term psychotherapy with complex cases, people that are really wounded, um, if you don't have that type of other perspective. So if newer clinicians now are finding it in this format or whatever, or in some utilization of AI, I've always been hoping that AI actually was would be helpful and not an artifact to this process. Um I and I said earlier that I I trained grad students, as everybody here has for some time, and I still have students that call me up periodically with questions. The ones that are in doing clinical stuff often. And I say the same thing, you're not bothering me any more than as everyone knows that I'm in in recovery, is that when people that I mentor in recovery uh call my mentor, a long-term mentor whom everybody here knows and used to work with, used to say, Stop apologizing for bothering me. He's you know, the uh the spirit of this is that we help somebody else by asking them to help us. We teach most of what we need to learn. And at the very least, if you're calling me up and you're all in the dither, I'm really grateful I'm not in a dither anymore. So you're helping me. You know, so but I'm hopeful that that I've taught every every student I have, be jealous of supervision, get your own network. I've talked about this group. You know, it's not just man, we had a co-ed group. Uh I still I still see people that you know the part of that. We we get together regularly just to just to connect, but often it is more of a mutual supervision society or network. I just can't imagine doing this work well without it. That would be my my uh point.

SPEAKER_01 9:42

I tell everybody, sorry to sorry to interrupt, but thank you, Pat, for that compliment. I I tell anybody who is a young clinician that you must have your own therapist and you must have your own supervisor. If you have to pay for it or you know get it somehow, you have to get it. The good news is that you can actually write that stuff off if you're a private practitioner and get some money back on both of those things because they are part of the job, and it is very difficult to do this job in isolation, if not impossible, and you need those additional eyes. The thing about using assisted supervision or other things that AI might be providing is that it's lacking maybe the fundamental piece of supervision itself, which is the connection with your supervisor. With and and an AI can only regurgitate what it takes out of all of the words that have ever been said on the internet, and it can't create anything original, which is what a person can do. A person can hear your interpretation of a story, of a narrative, and add to that and give you something that's deductive from what you're providing that's additional. I think an AI has trouble doing that, and you see that in the product. You know, when I'm talking to someone, as we go through the conversation, as we go through this podcast, we evolve our conversation. It goes to places that we didn't expect, and we learn new things from that. I just think that the supervision relationship has that potential every time. And I don't know if an AI is gonna be able to do that.

SPEAKER_05 11:45

No, there's a lot of points you're making that I agree with. The AI is can be beneficial to your practice in certain ways, but will not be helpful in other ways, which is absolutely true. Talking to a human being is so important, and the reason why I jumped in here is that I remember really like when I worked on the crisis team, I remember our work, but when I was on the crisis team, I would still apologize, even though Chris was on call at two o'clock in the morning to consult with a case. And Chris would be like, Don't apologize, tell me what's going on. And if I went too fast, Chris would always go to me, Steve, take your time, tell me slowly, because I we had we had another psychiatrist and love her too, but for her, the presentation had to be 30 seconds and let's make a decision. So with Chris, it was like more thoughtful, more like analytical, and he brought me the points of views that I never thought of. And Chris, I I don't know if you have anything to add to that, but I want to give you that little bit of thank you for teaching me in that way, too.

SPEAKER_07 12:48

Thank you, Steve. Um, you know, as I'm listening, I'm reflecting on all the years of this work, and it seems to me that there are two uh skill sets that uh we want to foster and nurture in young clinicians. And the first has to do with crisis management. That that was also my always my first love. I loved working in emergency rooms. I I felt like a a person in crisis is uh in some ways not at their A game because they're really stressed. But at the same time, there's a there's there's the potential for openness. And it's also a situation in which a little love goes a long way. So just not being an asshole is a tremendous step in the right direction, and it uh it opens up tremendous possibilities. So I think especially for our first responder colleagues, they're there's they're doing an impossible job, but at the same time, we want them to remember they're doing a sacred job. And there's a there's the potential for real growth and planting seeds and and and creating positive change. So that's that's one set of uh skills. The the the second set of skills, which is uh in some ways a lot more difficult, is when the crisis is over and the person is looking back on their life and can see that there's a lot of trouble, a lot of misery. And how do we how do we foster change? How do we create a relationship in which uh the the recurrent patterns in the person's life can actually be replaced by something new and different? And that is a a beautiful part of the art of our work. And uh that's where in in both situations supervision is absolutely essential because the the in my experience at least the changing deep-seated patterns becomes possible when the person feels deeply, deeply understood, heard, held, understood. And that's that is a great art. And you know, I look back on my career and I think, oh my god, but you know, in the beginning I was just kind of stumbling along so much of the time. But uh over the years of doing this work and treating people with love, treating with people with empathy, I supervisors can really be a tremendous help. And it's a shame that uh and I and I think AI is no substitute for it. So that that that's my two cents. I agree. Thank you, Chris. Oh, let me just say one other thing. The other thing about AI is it loves to blow smoke up your ass. Yes. You know, it'll tell you the greatest thing since slice of bread, and oh how you're you're so brilliant and that's so insightful. You know, and maybe some of it is, but really it's so syncophic.

SPEAKER_06 16:04

You really gotta take it with a grain of salt. Yeah. It's an interesting kind of pro process, and I appreciate your your comments, Chris, because heard, held, and understood, you know, to respect the vulnerability of the person you're with and to attempt to help them down a path toward some sort of change or health. I mean, it's it's it is an art. And sometimes when I have people come in from certain programs, uh graduate students, and they have a lot of books and things that they can sh, you know, show. Well, I'll just look it up in my book and then I'll I'll give the questionnaire to this person. There's nothing wrong with that per se. But I usually end I usually end up saying, well, what happens if they decide they don't want to do that? You know, the relationship is key. And the relationship is in my book the number one thing that you know, the therapeutic alliance, however you want to conceptualize that, is primary in the healing factors. And I really think that empathy, as Dennis, you brought it up earlier, and trying to figure out how we can respect people during that crisis time and when when they actually are, as much as they're in pain, they're they're also open, I think, to some sort of solution. Because if they're coming in and sitting with us, there's still some hope. And I think that's really an important thing. And sometimes we have to hold the hope for people. But you know, this group here has seen so much. But I also think that for me, the relationship is really important. You can have technique, you can have strategies, but I think that ultimately the person has to trust you first. And that's one of the things I've seen over the years, over the decades, that some people will take a while to open up to you. And three four three quite a long time. Let me just say that. And all of a sudden you start hearing about the the trauma that they had when they were living in another country and their mother, you know, was gone and their ants were beating them. I mean, the trauma issues start to emerge because of the shame and because of the the fear that people hold decades after it happens. But I just think that trust is really an essential piece of this.

SPEAKER_05 18:34

Yeah. And I and I think that, you know, I'll I want to turn to Dennis too about this, but for those who are listening to Resilience Development in Action, what we're talking about supervision goes as much for supervisors in the field of policing, of fire, of EMT, paramedic dispatch. And the other part too is all of them are individuals. And when you I'll always remember the the EMTs and the paramedics who used to come to a group home in which I worked at. And the firefighters and the paramedics and the EMTs that would come in in our group home would be so sympathetic. And in a way that was difficult because they saw them so often. But at the same time, when they developed that empathy, that sympathy to talk to the clients, the client, even in crisis, had full trust and like, let's get on the garney, let's get going, or hey, let's calm down, let's see what we can do, because they used empathy and sympathy in the field in order to avoid a longer-term crisis. So this is like when I just want to mention before I turn to you, Dennis, that what we're talking about here also applies to any type of policing, fire, dispatch, even corrections to a certain extent, too. Dennis, anything to add to all this?

SPEAKER_02 19:49

You know, one of the primary aspects of when I was doing supervision with people was to try and help them and continue to reinforce in myself. Where do you find the balance between sharing of yourself and sort of leaving yourself out of the picture in a healthy way? And I guess uh I've done this a number of times over the years where I'm not quite sure why I want to share this, but something has been powerful enough in my mind that I want to share it. And it's sort of Chris, following up on something that you said that uh thankfully it's 20 years now. But 20 years ago I had a heart attack. And shortly after I got home from the hospital, I started to feel similar symptoms. And thankfully, it it was not another heart attack. It was just a shoulder issue. But I got to the emergency room and I went in by ambulance, and I got to the emergency room, and I was I was embarrassed, not sure if I should be there, didn't and I was just sort of in that crisis mode. And the two two things that I remember significantly, one was one of the nurses, she I was describing to her what happened, and she said, Well, good for you. You listened to what they told you when you were in the hospital. And then later on, I was I was laying on the the gurney, and I had a rat's nest of tubing all over my face. And because they were disconnecting me from stuff. And the EMT just sort of looked down and smiled at me and said, I really should take a picture of this. It was just it it just helped me to get through that circumstance. And that's part of what supervision does too, is it helps you to stay, helps you to learn how to figure out how to stay human in the process. So again, I'm that was just sort of coming blasting into my head as you were talking, Chris.

SPEAKER_03 21:55

I I would add one piece to that, because most of my hospital career for Years was in psych triage and training students in the emergency room. And I remember the day I had a what turned out to be a fairly benign vertigo attack at the gym, and I got an ambulance ride to my own emergency room. You know, and I was a bit of a star that day, but I was treated exactly like I would hope a patient would be treated. And I wasn't getting any special treatment because I'd watch these people work on the other side, not on the psych side, but on the medical side. And I remember complimenting everybody and and and it reinforced something that I used to say to when the when training nursing students and and NP students, when the really bright ones at the end, I'd say any more questions than they're generally asked when I don't know what to do next. What's the go-to thing? When I really want to be helpful but I don't know what to do. And all I could think to say was just be kind. Kindness. You know, you you're gonna meet people on the worst day of their lives and family members on the worst day of their lives. Now I was trained by, as you all know, by a chaplain, you know, so I had a had a the pastoral care chip in me and did a lot of that work actually as well. But I remember how kindly I was treated. And in an in an emergency room situation, some kind soul that brings you a warm blanket, oh my goodness, there is nothing better. But they do it, you know, they just know they know how to their comfort measures at that point, that they're treating a human being that has some symptoms, not a constellation of symptoms. And back in the day, I've seen attendings that would sing in the hallway to their gaggle of interns and and residents, you know, we're gonna go into 308 and see the gallbladder. To which I I was leaving, having talked to the woman that had the gallbladder. I said, No, that's Mrs. Smith. She's the one with the gallbladder. You know, and I remember one student behind the attending, you know, the student just went like this one. You know, whoa. But it's I I I always try to to I'll say this last thing is that in my in my recovery fellowship, there is one line that is spoken relating to online meetings. And it says that whether it's online or in person, what we do is we speak the language of the heart in all its power and simplicity. And I when I heard that the first time, I said, that's what I've been trying to teach, is that we're treating people that are that are wounded and vulnerable. And if I'm gonna have any chance to make an alliance with them, uh Chris's words were beautiful, they have to be respected and held, and and and it is sacred work that we do. I've always felt that. I think I've been able to communicate that, but on the other hand, I used to get treated all the time in my own emergency room, I you know, because that was the nearest one to where I lived. And I I always accept the same kind of care I always thought that I would give. And so I think that's a good paradigm if you if it treat people like you'd like to be treated is is the oldest one. And I try to teach my students that uh the second rule of of my mentor was the silver rule after the golden rule, and that was to treat yourself as nice as the people you really love.

SPEAKER_07 25:21

And sometimes I think your your your advice is extremely wise. Be kind above all else. All else. And I I also would just share that as I look back over my career, I feel like one of the skills that I developed over time was the ability to find strengths in the other person. You know, as as as clinical professionals, we're trained to find problems, we're trying to formulate problems and problems and problems. But it's the strengths that that we uh can find in the other person that that are the building blocks of alliance. And if it takes a little humor or a blanket, that it's those are wonderful. But also recognizing that somebody who's really difficult in their own from their own point of view, they they're practicing a kind of integrity, and being able to join with the healthy part, the the strength part of the other person is absolutely key.

The Harm Of Frequent Flyer Thinking

SPEAKER_05 26:31

And I think that that's what you used to bring to me in my when I consulted with you. What are the strengths of this human being? What are the strengths that you can do? Because I again, I you know, when you start on a crisis team, you know certain things, but you don't know what you don't know. And for me, I thought that the goal of the crisis team is to put everyone in the hospital, which apparently it's not. And and obviously nowadays, I try to avoid the hospital as much as I can for my clients, for anyone I know, because we want to keep them in the community. And that's a lot of the Chris and what I learned from that agency that really comes through. Now I'm gonna throw a I'm gonna throw a nice little grenade here because I want to do it on purpose because this happens to first responders, certainly happened on the crisis team, and we saw this in in community mental health. And I know this is a dirty term for some people, but I'm gonna do it anyway. What do we do with these frequent flyers who don't want the help? And if you go on YouTube, I put quotations here. They don't want the help. Why are we gonna treat them like humans? They've been here 20 times, they've been here 15 times, they've been through 17 clinicians. I'm throwing a grenade purposely because this is something that happens both in our field and in the first responder world. So I don't know who wants to take this grenade and try to like diffuse it, but go ahead.

SPEAKER_02 27:47

So, what comes to mind, Steve, is that I remember what the an experience when I was doing inpatient addiction and recovery. Person had come in for it, it was approximately his hundredth detox, and the person stayed sober from that point on.

SPEAKER_03 28:05

When I was at uh the clinical coordinator at the old Framingham detox, there was a woman in recovery that I knew in Framingham, and she was 20 years sober and was helping women all of the time. An amazing soul. And I doing an MIS thing in 1990 for the state. I had to I pulled charts at randomly. I pulled her chart, and she'd only been treated at the at the Framingham detox. And the last time she was there was her 333rd admission. Wow. They were getting they didn't know enough in those days that they were basically creating a benzodiazepine dependency because they'd re-admit people um so frequently. But 333 detoxes, and that's what it took. I knew I knew her as a sober person 20 years.

SPEAKER_06 28:53

But we're talking about hope here. I mean trying to keep hope alive, so to speak, to you know, to paraphrase Jesse Jackson. And not giving up. Yeah, and not not giving up on the person and allowing yourself the patience and the empathy to try in the middle of a very busy ER, you know, a lot of times, to have some space, allow some space, hold some space for a person like this. And I used to work at a place called Mount Pleasant Hospital in Lynn, and and uh Kristen would know this place. It was in the 80s, and when I think you may have been over at Lynn Hospital, Chris. Yeah, but yeah. And I heard about you. And the other psychiatrist would come to up and do rounds with us, and uh it was fun. But the you know, I the some of the folks, one of this in particular one guy who worked for, I'll just say, in in the the trades, you know, he had he he had an appointment every June and he'd come in for two weeks. And I I sat down with him and it's like, what's going on? And he goes, Well, this is my 50th. And I said, Really? What's what what what what do you think it is that keeps you cold and keeps you coming? And he goes, Well, I you know, I I come I kind of want to dry out once in a while just so I can kind of get a perspective on things again. But then I go back to it. And in any event, he stayed a little longer this time, did some actual work, and he never came back after that. He never he never needed it after that because I contacted him. And but you never know when it's gonna happen, when it's gonna take, you know. And so I just think that we and I it having patience for people that are are stressful for us, that's a whole nother thing. And I think the the first responders must run into this an awful lot. And the hostility and the anger and so a lot of that's a defense for people. But we have the luxury as therapists of being able to sit with it and examine it, explore it, and maybe get underneath it with the person. But they don't, from what I can tell. They've got to like manage and try to contain. And I think that must be awfully difficult. And I give I give them all the credit in the world.

SPEAKER_07 31:15

I'd also like to make a comment, though, about the frequent flyer thing, because language like that is really fucking toxic. You know, and it it is one of the things I loved about working in advocates is that we had the advocates' way, which was not followed universally, but we set out the philosophy that we're gonna treat everybody with deep respect. And the terms like frequent flyer, they just drive me crazy. And when and you when somebody says it, you don't want to call them out in public and embarrass them and et cetera. But when when when terms like that are not uh responded to, they just it just creates more toxicity. It's like a germ that uh it needs to be eradicated. And it takes a it takes uh cultural leadership and supervision to recognize that terms like frequent flyer are are slurs. You know, they're they're they're slurs and they're they are very, very damaging to uh the the person who's being described, but also it's damaging to the to the body politic of the team.

SPEAKER_01 32:41

It's dehumanizing. To your point earlier, Chris, about staying human and and being able to relate to a person, once you've labeled them such a term, you've already created a distance and a separation that now you have to gulf and and you've created potentially distrust in that person. Yeah. You know, somebody who's repeatedly showing up is showing up. You know, I'm glad you're here because maybe this is the time.

SPEAKER_05 33:23

Just a quick break, guys. I'm gonna talk about a new product that I really like. I actually bought one of their hoodies, it was amazing, and I really enjoyed wearing it. Um, it this episode is gonna be supported by Deemed Fit. Deemed Fit is a first responder-owned activewear and a leisure brand. And one thing that I genuinely like about them is that they support different causes. I actually gave a few people I know who work with first responders or nonprofits their name to uh Deemed Fit, and I know they're talking to them. They do a lot of initiatives and collections that are based on mental health for first responders. And if you go there right now and you buy anything, including the mental health support stuff, use the code RDA15. That's right, R D A 15, to get 15% off on any products that you get. Again, it's called RDA 15. Go to deanfit.com, D-E-E, M-E-D-F-I-T.com, and enjoy 15% off at checkout to save. Now, right back to the episode. Yeah, and I and you know, Chris, I purposely tossed that grenade because I knew you felt about it. I I would I do not use that term anymore because we've had this private conversation outside of here, but wanted to make sure. And you know, we haven't heard from Dennis, but you know, again, like I hear so many stories in regards to, you know, I would tell you that there's a the story that I would tell you is out of parole where I had a guy who was on, we'll say at over five DUIs. I cannot recall his number. And he was on parole for 30 days. He was already drinking within the first few days, and they said, You're the substance abuse coordinator, Steve. Fix him. All right, I'll be fun. So I'm sitting with the guy who's under the influence. They don't want to send him back to jail, which is, you know, the good thing about parole is there's gonna be it's been a shift in the it at that time to not send back people and get them treatment or whatever. And while I'm talking to the guy, the guy says to me, like, what's that? And it was a little wooden Buddha. And I was like, Well, that's Buddha. And he was like, What is Buddha doing? Let's talk a little bit about Buddhism. He's like, Can I have it? I said, Are you gonna stay sober? And he's like, Yeah, I would. I'm like, All right, see you in a week, take the Buddha, and we'll be good. Well, I know he was only on parole for what four weeks after that, or whatever it was, but he stayed sober over that little wooden Buddha, and that's why that's the example I give to some of my officers and firefighters or EMTs or paramedics. Like, what about this guy? I'm like, this guy stays sober over a wooden Buddha. You'll never know the impact you can have with someone over something as simple as being human with them. And so he, I don't know where he is today. I gotta admit, I don't know what the guy's doing today. And if you've been on listening to my podcast, this has happened many times. But I I I that's the story I shared. This happened to me like over 20 years ago, and I still remember to this day, even when I get frustrated with the repeat presentation of the same thing.

SPEAKER_03 36:20

That was not a uh inanimate Buddha, that was a transferential self-objective view, Steve. That was you he brought you home. I like that. That's a that was it. Good friend. Yeah. I have uh when I worked in inpatient and then in a day hospital, the thing that pained me the most, and I can't remember which supervisor it was, or whether it was my old mentor, Dick Dick Fleck, or not, but I remember it pained me because a patient would be coming in and I'd be on the unit or on, you know, uh the day hospital, and they were they were coming back, you know, for after a period of time or not very much time, and they would they would see me in wince and look like they wanted to run out the door and hide. And I would try to engage them, and and and someone told me, you know, I've I've stolen so much from all of the good clinicians, I can't remember or hear them. But the way to respond, it works like a charm, is that I would just say to them, thank you so much for coming back. And they said, Well, I should I said, what you learned the last time was enough to get you back here and not have to stay out there. Everybody gets everybody stops drinking and has a drinking problem. Some of us are lucky enough to be alive when it happens. You're alive, that's all that matters here. If you got a heartbeat, there's hope. So let's just get to work. Figure out what you need to add, what you haven't been doing. I can't remember who told me that. Could have been Dennis. I I I can't remember. Because but I remember that pained me so much that they were trying to run away from me because I was a mirror in which they saw shame. A bigger is that was not what I wanted to be.

SPEAKER_06 37:58

That's exactly, yeah. That's why they winced. They felt the shame.

Supervision That Shapes Your Mindset

SPEAKER_02 38:02

Oh, yeah. You know, I I think that that people that are listening this to this today party to uh I think a significantly important part of supervision, and that there's two aspects to supervision. We we didn't do a case presentation today, which is one aspect of supervision, which talks about what you think about a situation, what you think about a circumstance. What we've been party to this morning is that part of supervision that helps you to look at and pay attention to how you think. And I think how you think for me over the years, in uh sort of assessing whether I I would like to refer a somebody to a particular clinician, it's as much in understanding how they think as opposed to what they think. And that's the I think the richness that that I appreciate being part of this supervision dynamic this morning because it feels good.

SPEAKER_05 39:02

Agreed, agreed. And I think that that's what it is too, is that one of the things, the aspects that you didn't mention about supervision that I absolutely love about this group is that I don't have any filter in regards to what's going on. I don't worry about what I'm gonna say is right or wrong. I'm looking for feedback. And if I'm wrong, it's not done in a judgmental way or in a mean way, it's done in a like Steve, maybe think about this or whatever. I think that that's the other aspect that, you know, I would honestly say all five of you have contributed to me because once I didn't feel like I like I had to be saying the right thing every single moment. And then after that, it was easy to say because if I was wrong, someone would say it in a respectful way. And you know, Steve, maybe think about it differently. But ultimately, that's what this group has always done for me, is done it with respect, even if I was wrong. And I think that's the other part too, is that we have a right to not know everything. And I think that that sometimes is lost. I don't know if I I I you know the other part too is you the the part of supervision that's always been very helpful. And I I want to shout out my group that I do of twice a week with my first responders. There's two rules in the group. We can't repeat anything that's said in the room, which is you know standard. And then the second one is no apologies. And that's because some people will bring up their story and, like, I'm sorry I'm taking so much time, or I'm sorry this is blankety blank. And I would be like, and it's funny because all the group members who have been there for any like amount of time, as soon as someone apologizes, it becomes like almost aggressively, stop apologizing. And I like that because this is exactly right. It's like we have a problem, we struggle with something, we got to be able to say it without apologies because there's nothing wrong with having an issue.

SPEAKER_06 40:48

You know, that issue of trust. I keep on thinking about it in the context of the first responders and what they are encountering not only in their day-to-day work, but with within the, you know, and through the media of like how are first responders being treated? How are what it what is the threat to them above and beyond the people that they're trying to help or trying to contain is the word that comes to my mind. But it's really just, you know, I'm we're trying to figure out a way to get to a point where this is not a danger anymore. And I Steve, you may probably know this as well as anybody, but it must be an awfully hard thing when you're going to work and you're trying to, you know, what's this day going to be like? You hear you have no idea. And I'd be interested in comments.

First Responders Labels And Discrimination

SPEAKER_05 41:38

I'll make the I'll make the point right now and you guys can react to it. One of the things I did, I went I did a uh presentation for another hospital in the area, and they asked me, what's the one thing you want the public to know about our first responder world? And I said, here's the easy one. If we see someone who happens to be black steal a car and we say all black people steal cars, we would be sacrificed, we would be judged for saying that. A cop does something wrong, whether it's ice or anything else in Minneapolis. Why is the cop in Millis mask being treated like crap? He didn't do anything, but that's the same discrimination, in my opinion, that we give to the police that we say, no, no, we can't do that to anybody else. But then that's fine. And I think that that's one of the things you talk about that you talked about, Bob. And I really think that maybe if I can turn it to you guys, but that's to me, that's like this the same amount of discrimination, and they face it all the time. And you know, imagine having a job. We talked about AI quickly earlier. Imagine having a job where you go to any call and there's a camera on your face every single time. Never mind some of those who have the body cameras. It's it's an amount and we don't have that pressure in mental health. We don't have that pressure in pretty much any other job than having them, you know, maybe a casino dealer. I don't know. But ultimately, what I'm saying to you is that what do you guys what's your reaction when I say something like it's the same same type of discrimination, it's just a different point of view.

SPEAKER_06 43:12

Well, you're lumping everyone into one basket, so to speak, who is in that group, whether or not it's race, religion, any kind of ethnicity or culture, and you're just making an assumption that they're all alike. And that's impossible. It's it's it's demeaning and it's oversimplifying, and it's and it's basically creating a pr uh a rift between your feelings about them and it's over-generalizing. And that's something that we do a lot in this country, I think, too much but and and in and not just our country. But so how do we get past that? How do we start to help people understand that? And that's that's gonna take some time, I think.

SPEAKER_01 43:58

Well, I think it's the same. Problem as the labeling, the frequent flyer label, in that you're you're creating this division and this separation. And you know, it just the way that a first responder has to accept that their patient is a human being and treat them accordingly, the first responder is also a human being, must be treated accordingly. And if you reduce that to an individual basis, it's not hard to see or or do. But when you scope out into a police force or a you know a movement or something, now broad generalizations get applied, but individuals feel that. But bringing humanity bringing to each individual person is actually not that hard. And it's, I think, built into all of us to do that. It's it's all this noise that needs to be filtered out, and maybe this is sort of full circle from where we started about AI and social media and other things that influence us to carry these opinions that are not useful face to face. They're not useful one-to-one. And that's how I think that's a good way to know whether you're on the right track or not. Would I do this face to face? Would I say that to this person if they were right in front of me? If the answer is no, then that's telling you something.

Kindness In A Noisy Culture

SPEAKER_03 45:36

I think the full circle moment that I've experienced with that, and I could relate to all of that, and it's all truth, is I had a recent obsession. Is that somewhere in the first of the year I I came across the monks marching for peace, and I became obsessed with it. That's a fair statement because I was watching it every day, just watching these gentle people going and attending to everyone along the way. Twenty miles a day. People that came from Southeast Asia, like most of these monks were Vietnamese, they had never seen snow, you know, and stuff, I don't think. And and they're walking in their, you know, in their feet, the their feet sometimes, and it was extraordinary. Because all along the way they were they weren't looking for to be applauded. Actually, they this was a surprise that they were even even so so famous, but they just were attending. They did what they always do. And I'll just add one personal thing is that the mentor that I've been talking about, my my my mentor, the chaplain, was a Dominican. He was a wonderful minister, he was a wonderful priest. It broke his heart when the church scandal about pedophilia came out. He couldn't wear his Roman collar because people would throw things at him. Kind of like the Vietnam vets coming home from horrors of war and getting spit at at the airport in California. You know, so it's there's a pejorative uh influence in this country that I think social media has has created a lot where people can sit there and troll and and and just be vile, if you will, faceless. And I love your comment, Andy. Would someone say it to someone in person? These monks were the face of what they stood for, which was kindness. As the Dalai Lama said, my religion is not a religion, it's kindness. It's a philosophy. We we try to treat people kindly. And I think if we all I think there's so much learning that can be taken from that. I became just enamored with these gentle beings. And it just reminded me of why we're all here. To take care of each other and to and to look look locally. It's how can we be of of service in some in some meaningful way? And that would that the creativity is supposed to in my mind is supposed to be there. What can I do next to be to be of use? There's always something that can be done. And I believe, and if I start by taking care of me first, and then then I'm in a good position to do so. So it was a little bit of a rant there, I'm sorry, but I was obsessed with them, and I still am to a degree. It was such a spiritual thing in many ways. It was very cathartic to me watching those men march and the effect they had on everybody along the way. Especially the police. You know, especially the first responders who were the guys in the middle of winter with the bicycles out there, the the police officers protecting them. Because in what was it, in the first week, someone one of them got lost a foot because of an accident. Someone I think was watching them and drove into them or something. Wow. Yeah. I mean, it was amazing. It was just an amazing piece of Americana there, I thought.

SPEAKER_02 48:53

If if I remember correctly, part of the advocate's mission statement was first we listen. And it it it occurs to me, Steve, as you ask your your question, is that uh maybe another aspect of that is first we wonder why, versus saying, no, you shouldn't, or this is what you should do. And I think that that's becoming more and more the case, is that people are not wondering why. They're just telling people what they should or shouldn't be doing. And I think that's another key aspect to therapeutic process is being able to look at it and say, geez, I wonder why, as opposed to no, you shouldn't.

SPEAKER_06 49:36

That goes into the trauma, a trauma kind of saying, which is, you know, it used to be we'd ask, and what's wrong with you, and now we can ask what happened to you. And I just think it's a piece of that. Yes, brilliant.

SPEAKER_03 49:52

Yeah, I really agree with that. I heard something the other night that I've never heard, maybe all it's common knowledge to all of you, but a fellow was speaking about his therapist who's who he because he was worried, like a dozen people had lost their jobs this week or something. That became the theme of the trauma of the loss and the shock and horror of that. And this fellow said, I'm my poor therapist, he listens to me uh project fear and all of that, and I'm a bit of a catastrophizer, and I label myself like that. And and the therapist said, No, actually, you you've got PTSD. And he said, Well, I know I got PTSD. And he said, No, not that kind of PTSD. You have pre-trauma stress disorder. You're projecting, he said, How much have you ever in your life done tomorrow? Today, you know, it's so it's it's not taking my fear of what could happen and then get allowing that to traumatize me as well. I just wanted to share that because I I can't believe it, but after this 40 years, that's the first time I've heard of pre-traumatic stress disorder. Has anyone else heard of that?

SPEAKER_05 50:58

Well, I never call it that. What I do call it is a fortune telling and from the CDT process. So when people tell me what's gonna happen and what trauma, I go, all right, guys, uh mega millions, or and if you're on YouTube, you'll see it. Just write down the numbers for me since you can see the future, mega millions or Powerball, I don't mind. And then and when they they start laughing, I go, okay, now you you understand you cannot predict the future, correct? So stop trying to do so. They all laugh because it's a nice way to present it, but some of them are so used to it, and like, and now you're gonna hand me the pad to tell me. Yeah, so it's good that they remember it that way. And I think that the other part too is you talk about trauma, I talk about humor. And what I mean by that is in our group, you know, I talk talk about how sometimes we talk about trauma, we talk about heart stories. We spent 40 minutes laughing about a certain event that occurred, and I'm not gonna share what it is because it's gonna be out of place anyway, but we laughed about it in a group for 40 minutes, and the guys stayed afterwards and talked to each other for over an hour in the parking lot, just chatting. And so sometimes humor opens up the ability to talk about harder stuff.

SPEAKER_03 52:13

Yeah.

Parting Words And Listener Reminders

SPEAKER_05 52:14

So, well, on that happy note, maybe we got an hour already in. So I'm gonna separate this in two episodes again. But any parting words from anyone?

SPEAKER_03 52:24

Yes. I just when we sit down like this, you know, especially in the midst of this thing today. I'm so grateful that I I had power so I could be here. I really love being a part of this, and and it just strikes me today how much I love you guys. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 52:39

It's I catch it, Pat. Yeah, I agree a thousand percent. There's a warmth here, there's an intelligence, there's uh wisdom, there's all these wonderful things that it's not easy to find sometimes.

SPEAKER_03 52:51

And despite what we're seeing, there's a lot of humor in this group.

SPEAKER_05 52:55

Yeah. I think that that's what that's what I love about that. Pat, I love you. I love you, Amy and Bob and Dennis and Chris. I want to make sure I said that too. But I think that that's what it is, is we balance each other out so well with all the experience we have. The one thing that you I'll say it differently than you said, Bob, there are absolutely no egos in this room. And we have all a little bit of ego, that's life. But when we get all together, I feel like the everyone's ego just disappears. Feels good.

SPEAKER_06 53:25

Yeah, yeah. Well, I it feels safe here. I it's it's it's interesting. That you mentioned that, you know, I I grew up in a family of catastrophizers. So I've I had to do a lot of therapy to try to get past some of that. And even now it's uh I was trained by a pro as a as a child, yeah.

unknown 53:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 53:43

So yeah.

SPEAKER_05 53:45

Well, I want to thank everyone for coming again. And we're gonna we're gonna get a small window in May, and we're gonna absolutely do this again. Very, very small window, but we're gonna do this face to face because we can't really record while we're doing golf. So that's a little harder. That's true, yes. Yeah. You know, I think that my swearing would be out of control. But all joking aside, I want to thank you all, Dennis, Bob, Andy, Chris, and Pat. Thank you so much for coming on again on Resilience Development in Action. And can't wait to do our next interview. Steve, thank you very much.

SPEAKER_03 54:18

Yeah, thanks, Steve. Me as well. Thanks.

SPEAKER_00 54:23

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