We were able to have a great activity over Zoom! First you will find introductions of all the therapists on the panel, and then the 10 questions that were asked, with their accompanying answer.
Preston is in Uintah Basin. He pursued MFT because he worked with a lot of children that did a lot of work and changed a lot and then went home to a family and system that hadn’t changed. He wanted to help make a systemic change for families. Works with all different situations and people, and is also one of the emergency workers.
Dolores is a therapist in Logan. She began her journey working with couples in natural birth education and as a doula, which she loved. She began to notice how trauma affected child birth, and started training other doulas on how to help couples with trauma during childbirth. She then moved and felt the obvious path would be MFT. She works with trauma, and is trained in EDMR and other trauma therapeutic techniques.
Austin is a recent graduate from USU, and works down in Utah Valley. He doesn’t yet have a specialty, but does a lot of work with children, autism, ADHD, and OCD. He took a psychology course and loved it, graduated and taught a class on relationship education and decided he wanted to become a therapist.
Pamela King was one of the first graduates from USU’s MMFT program, practices in Logan. She worked as a mental health specialist doing case management in schools, and had background in juvenile detention and foster care. She felt that the MFT program was a natural continuation to what she wanted to be doing. Specialized at first in domestic violence, developed programs for children who witnessed domestic violence. Extensive training in play therapy, trauma, does a lot of training.
Question 1: How do you practice self care?
Answer: Have a consultation group. It is important to have people to talk with and bounce things off of. Breaks between sessions are important. Build in days off to the schedule, stay physically active and make time to do the things you love.
Question 2: How has being an LMFT assisted you as a parent, and how do you balance work and family life?
Answer: Separating the two very distinctly is important, keep all sorts of work at work, and keep home at home. Even having a forced commute time is helpful in being able to decompress and separate the two.
Question 3: How to prepare to apply to practicum?
Answer: There is such a shortage of mental health workers, they will probably just be glad that they are being contacted. Maybe prepare a letter of interest and send a resume with it.
Question 4: How should we be involved in our undergrad to prepare for practicum and grad programs?
Answer: Get experience in the field, look for job or volunteer opprotunities.
Question 5: What are other things that you enjoy doing or are involved in that help you balance work and life?
Answer: Make sure that other things you are involved in are not therapy or therapy related. Become involved in the community and have different responsibilities that allow your brain to work in different ways then when you are doing therapy. Balance the professional engagement you have as well. Find other ways to apply your skills, such as teaching, organizing conferences, etc to balance different professional responsibilities rather than always doing therapy all day every day. Have time to play.
Question 6: How do you figure out what to specialize in, and when should you decide?
Answer: You are going to want to try all sorts of different things while doing your masters, so you can have a taste of all of it. Then maybe with your practicum you can narrow it down a little bit, but it won’t be until after that that you will likely feel drawn to a specialty. It is continuous learning through the whole career. It is not a bad thing if you are not specialized in a certain population.
Question 7: What is the biggest need right now that clients have?
Answer: There has been a massive uptick in anxiety in the last 25 years. People are becoming more aware that it is ok to recognize and deal with trauma, it is another very common concern. There is definitely a big need to break community stigmas about mental health. Working with children and autism is also a very large population.
Question 8: What is the most surprising thing about being an MFT?
Answer: The longevity of the ability to do the career, and she still loves it. Learning to trust the clients and their knowledge of themselves. Watching clients make discoveries about themselves is endlessly satisfying. It has been surprising how enjoyable and good it actually is.
Question 9: What do you think are some of your favorite things about being a therapist?
Answer: Seeing clients begin to start trusting their emotions and instincts instead of running from them. Allowing them to transform their lives and seeing the shift in them. Therapists do not need to have the answers. Ask them questions and let them guide their healing. If you are open to it, you will always learn something from your clients. If you can lean into their difficulty, you will learn more about them, but also more about yourself.
Question 10: What are your least favorite parts of the job?
Answer: It can be very difficult to work with the parents of children that the therapists are working with. Getting over the anxiety of being assertive with people, and de-escalating intense or crazy situations. Legal and insurance paperwork.
