Between supervisor and Supervisee: The conversation we usually keep behind closed doors with Kate O'Connor

Caitlin: Hello, hello. Welcome to the place for offbeat health professionals who have bravely swapped their healthcare hats for nonclinical creative caps. I’m Caitlin, a psychologist, turn copywriter, and this is healers with hustles.Today we’ve got a little bit of a different, episode. My clinical supervisors actually agreed to come on the show, which I’m super happy about. , Kate’s been there through a lot as I’ve been navigating this whole transitioning into creative field and all of the, , doubt and angst and,, uncertainty of it all.

So I am really excited to be chatting with, her today. , But Kate O’Connor is a psychoanalytic psychotherapist and clinical psychologist with an interest in weaving clinical practice with mystical thought. Ah, that sounds wonderful. She has a private practice in Brisbane where she sees patients and offers supervision to other therapists.

She also writes a newsletter on Substack called the Psycho Alchemist.

Cool. Well, welcome to the podcast, Kate. I’m so honored that you are joining me today as my clinical supervisor, but today I get to ask you questions,

Kate: Yes. Thank you. Thanks so much for inviting me. It’s such a pleasure.

Caitlin: and I was wondering, I think before we hit record I was like wondering about where to start. ’cause you’re right, it is a little bit different, me interviewing you as my supervisor. ’cause usually my guests or maybe colleagues or something like that. but I thought maybe a nice place to start would be.

Rather than diving in and talking all about me, which, which I’m sure we’ll get to about my journey, about how it’s been really difficult, branching out into copywriting. But I thought I, I really wanna hear about you and your ’cause. It’s something that I don’t know exactly about, like your decision to be, become a supervisor and what that looked like for you.

Kate: I guess there’s a, there’s a much gentler track to that than copywriting from just doing clinical practice. I, I love being a supervisor and I, took a little while. I didn’t, I think you can become a supervisor a couple of years out from your general Regi, from your clinical registration, but I took a little bit longer just to feel, ready and knowledgeable.

But also I was also really helped by supervisors of mine who really treated supervision like therapy and gave me, which is kind of a, that’s a bit of like a contentious thing in our profession. Lots of people have the idea that supervision should be something, Very specific and careful in its boundaries of what gets discussed.

but I was, I’m fortunate enough to be in my own supervision with, a psychoanalyst in particular who really, really welcomed me as a whole person into supervision. and I think once I had that experience, I felt ready to, I felt like there was something I wanted to offer as a supervisor that,

Caitlin: Yes.

Kate: that really. I left space for my supervisees to be people and to talk about the things that they wanted to talk about and not have the experience that I’ve had in other supervisions of having to kind of come in and do this kind of tap dance of like presenting a case as if I was like getting marked on an assignment because

Caitlin: That’s,

Kate: that really didn’t appeal to me.

Caitlin: No, it’s interesting you say that because that’s, The moment, something like a parallel thing going on there, which I initially, I remember when I first engaged with supervision with you, I was feeling like a bit like, oh my gosh, yeah, I’ve gotta do this like performance thing. And particularly because I.

I know I got told multiple times by supervisors that I wasn’t communicating right. Because Yeah, I

Kate: Yeah, you got a bad

Caitlin: like this is, yeah, exactly. And so I think it took me a little while to relax and I don’t, I don’t know if it was noticeable or anything into supervision in this way that is a bit more like therapy, but I guess even practicing in like a psychoanalytic way was totally different as well.

And so I think just that helped the whole process of seeing. What it, what that therapy looks like by experiencing it with you, but I guess also my own practice as well. So that’s really nice that

Kate: Yeah. And I,

Caitlin: was like that.

Kate: when we’re working psychoanalytically in particular, ’cause obviously that’s the style of therapy that I do and the style of supervision that we have, there needs to be attention to the process in supervision, like in therapy, because there’s often something playing out.

Supervision that holds relevance to the case or just holds relevance to our relationship. And, there are also things in your life that are going to be relevant to your work with your clients. And what I had found in supervision in the past is that there was this really kind of like nervousness around getting into that.

because we are in, what’s instilled in us in our training is, don’t, Violate the privacy of the supervisee by getting into their personal stuff. But what I’ve found is that people wanna talk about their stuff in supervision because it’s relevant to their work.

Caitlin: Yes. Yeah, exactly. It is relevant. Like we bring ourselves to therapy and what’s going on for us is gonna impact it. And so it’s really important to make that clear, which, you know, bring that into the room even. So we’re, yeah, just aware of and yeah, that speaks. It’s nice. I’m, I’m glad that you say that because that was definitely a part of me that felt like quite, I guess maybe it’s like a little of shame about, particularly when I was bringing, you know, last year or was it the year before?

I think it was last year. about my whole thing about living in Tully and not liking it, and I was just like dominated, like the whole about,

Kate: Yeah.

Caitlin: and this.

Kate: Yeah, but, and that was the thing, it was the background to all the work you were doing and this kind of ambivalence that you were sitting in around, whether you wanna be a therapist at all, like we would be so remiss to just put that aside ’cause it’s sitting there underneath all the work that you’re doing.

Caitlin: exactly. It’s always

Kate: bring that to me and that we could look at that together,

Caitlin: Hmm. That’s

Kate: obviously

It was, yeah. Obviously there is, there is a difference between supervision and therapy and I think I would place it out. There’s not a working through of your difficulties in the, in supervision in the same way as in therapy, but I think they can be like named and included and honored, not, even if we don’t do the therapy on them, you know what I mean?

Caitlin: Yes. Yeah, it is just like a, brings awareness to it and then that’s why it’s like really important to have therapy as well. So then you can kind of be like, oh, this thing came up, or actually maybe that’s something that I need to

Kate: Mm-hmm.

Caitlin: a bit more aware of. And yeah, which is a. Yeah, it’s definitely, and even before we hit record, we’re talking, you listen to one of my episodes where she with, Isabella, who is my colleague,we studied masters together.

Sounds like waxing poetic about, about our supervision, which is, really lovely. like, because it’s definitely been something that’s, had a big impact on, well, I’m still a psychologist, so I think that speaks to.

Kate: I am glad.

Caitlin: The fact that it was, helpful but in a way that wasn’t, like that all authoritarian, like you have to be a psychologist because you’ve studied this amount of years.

Like you can’t possibly give that up now. It was more of a, a natural thing where all the issues that Yeah. I had around. Being a psychologist or diversifying into copywriting or something like that, were able to be, yeah, seen for what they were and so that I could have more choice in agency. Mm,

Kate: you can be a psychologist and you found a way to be a psychologist and still be yourself and still be a person. Because I think, I think that’s my, that’s why another reason I love being a supervisor is that I have a chip on my shoulder about that in my experience of the work that it’s so, there’s so much anxiety in, in clinical psychology around, You know, this thing of, of following the rules and getting it right and not being too, like that any type of self-disclosure can be framed as some kind of inappropriate danger to your patients in any way that your life kind of permeates their lives. Some kind of personal failure of yours, like I had a, I had an ethics teacher in.

My masters who said, if you’re a psychologist, you can’t participate in other roles in the community. So you can’t be like a netball coach was the example that she gave. And that’s just so fucked up. Like it’s such a, you know, infliction on people who are already so hard on themselves and so perfectionistic and so, conscientious.

Caitlin: and maybe because of that then, like when someone suggests, I don’t know what your experience was in Masters, but I remember like when we, yeah, we had like probably like a smaller ethics thing where it was Yeah. Like you, you’re not allowed to be in the team. You’re not allowed to do anything like that.

And that

Kate: If the, if you show up at a dinner party and your patients say you have to leave, it’s, which is actually crazy.

Caitlin: I think even question for, oh my God, you’re just having like a. Memory about in my interview for clinical psych, that was like, the question was what do you

Kate: God.

Caitlin: And I

Kate: Yeah, you go home and you don’t have a life like

Caitlin: yes, that’s what I think my answer pretty much was. I’m like, oh, I have to leave immediately.

And they’re like, no. They’re like, yeah. Very good. Good answer.

Kate: And you know, I have, I’m, I supervise people in regional Queensland like you were, who, like, if they don’t do things in the community where their patients are there, they don’t do things like, it’s either go to the grocery store, go to the, you know, dinner party and the patient’s there, or just stay home.

And I just, I just don’t believe, I, I think we haven’t even, we’ve stopped thinking about. Why we even have those ideas in the first place. The idea that every single patient will suffer some kind of irretrievable harm by, by sitting through a dinner with you is just insane. Like, and it, it’s not even in the tradition, you know, in analytic schools in the fifties, you would go to your analyst and then you would go to your supervisor and then you would all go to a Christmas party and dance together and like drink together.

That was, that was normal, and everybody just held it.

Caitlin: That was. There’s some, and like particularly because so many, like all of our, like be abroad here and say like, all of our patients come to us with some type of relational problem. So if we’re, we can’t be a person, we can’t relate to our patients because of Yeah. These things. Like what does that show? Or

Kate: alienating

Caitlin: Hmm.

Kate: people. It’s really important for others, but I think if you just have a blanket rule, you don’t get to find out who’s who.

Caitlin: Yes, exactly. And I had a thought there that it disappeared, which often does. Oh, what was it about? I can’t remember. Yeah. But I think even now I reflect on it. With now, I feel like so comfortable just being myself and. Therapy. And I like, it’s okay. And I think even just living in regional Queensland and seeing that like, well, it’s not an option of Yeah, what I, I pretty much did stay at my house all the time and like it’s probably, I’m like, I was really depressed and it was terrible.

but then I’ve also talked to psychologists who work regionally. I’m thinking of, Anna at the moment, who has a podcast, does my, the, does my psych psychologist like me. And she was even talking about, well, people in the community didn’t start seeing her until she was a part of the community, until she was like, integrated.

’cause I didn’t trust her. And so that also says something I think, hmm.

Kate: think there’s also something about, individuality as a, as an important part of like promoting yourself as a therapist. Like, I went, I was telling you before I went to this marketing, conference yesterday, and one of the women who spoke was in PR and she talked about working for a client who was a.

Some kind of high, high up corporate exec type person who just kept getting passed over for these big roles. And she was like a full goth. And all of her previous PR people were like, you’ve gotta, you can’t be doing that. You’ve gotta buy all your dresses at Q and Country Road and you can’t be doing goth stuff or you’re never gonna get hired.

And she did the totally opposite thing. She was like, no, no. We’re gonna do goth,

Caitlin: personal brand? Yeah.

Kate: be exactly, you’re gonna cultivate a personal brand. And she was way more successful that way than she was in her country road, you know? And I think I’ve just found that in my work all the time. I find, I talk a lot about like spirituality and like esoteric things and the arts and all of my referrals are people saying, oh, I’m looking for someone who is able and willing to talk to me about these things.

It’s been such a great thing for me in terms of finding work, but also like finding clients who are a really good fit for me, who I

Caitlin: Fit for you. Exactly. That’s the whole thing with branding and marketing and that it’s a good fit for you, but also for the patient. And we know that patients often see so many psychologists that aren’t a good fit and like that’s really, that’s more harmful than a psychologist saying that, you know, telling them a bit about their own personal life or something like what interests them.

I think yeah,

Kate: Some of my patients come into my office and draw a tarot card, like, and that’s just a normal part of their therapy. You know, they might come for me for declaring that publicly, but, you know, it’s, it’s so, I, there’s so many ways that I can make sense of that and justify that clinically, and it’s so nice for them.

It’s this really grounding,

connective thing for people who find it really hard to land.

Caitlin: That’s it. And that’s the like I’m, well, I don’t know what your formulation, but like that would be part of it, right? That’s how you justify. It’s like that’s the relational thing that needs to happen for them to feel safe and comfy and with me. That’s so cool. Tell me more about that, like spirituality is, that’s something that’s always been a big part for you, or is it something that you noticed was missing and then you were kind of curious about that?

So then you learned about it like chicken or the egg kind of.

Kate: I think I’ve been naturally inclined to, to that world probably since my early twenties. And I really, there are so many similarities in, the, and, and I think Carl Jung is a great, intersection of these things. ’cause he really, openly bridged the gap between a lot of, spiritual and religious and esoteric ideas and.

psychotherapy and it really, I think they grow together so beautifully. They really do. In my life, like I’ve had, I’ve been in lots of therapy, but I’ve also seen lots of healers and kind of alternative medicine folk over time. And I think these are all just really, alive ways of making sense of our experiences.

So things like the tarot or, I study something called human design, which is like a birth

chart

Caitlin: Yeah. Yeah. That’s quite hmm.

Kate: that. I really went down a big rabbit hole of that. And, I’m teaching myself the etching at the moment, which is like a Chinese divination system where he throw coins. and Carl Yung loved the I Ching

He was like a big purveyor that he used to do it with his patients.

Um. Yeah, I just think it’s a fun, it’s a nice way to feel connected to the world and connected to those kind of forces of like, synchronicity and, alignment with the destiny.

Caitlin: Yes. Yeah. eastern medicine, like that’s a big part, and that’s been there for so, so, so long, well before our DSM and everything

Kate: and it, I think there’s something really, I wanna say evil, maybe that’s too strong a word, but, built into specifically clinical psychology that has a real colonial energy to it, which is to say all of these thousands of years of thought and medicine and like healing practice, they’re in the past and they were kind of, naive and now.

We have learned the real truth about what heals people from our randomized control trials,

Caitlin: From our RCTs, which,

Kate: Yeah. Now we’re not gonna think about that anymore. Now we’re

Caitlin: anymore. That’s the, yeah, that’s it. BookShot, that’s it.

Kate: Yeah.

Caitlin: Which even I think you introduced me to that, like, is it Jonathan Shedler and like how he, he talks about like what those studies are, you know, like the original ones for depression and stuff, saying that CBT is the, the thing, it’s like one point difference on like the be depend.

Depression index or something like that. It’s like, what you gonna base, like the whole thing around one point?

Kate: Yeah. Their gold standard. research is actually really weak and she’s work is great. ’cause what he found is that, when people engage in psychoanalytic therapy. They not only get better, like the people having the CBT, but after the therapy finishes, they keep getting better over time. Whereas the CBT patients in those studies went back to baseline.

They don’t do these follow up and they go, look, it worked. But the, there’s so much going on in the types of questions that are asked, and the way that they’re asked that we just take for granted. And we’re taught in school, in the training that, Giving someone a Beck depression scale is an appropriate outcome measure for whether the therapy is working.

And we really have to ask ourselves like, is that really the case? I think,

Caitlin: Okay. Particularly when patients come and like if it’s like psychoanalytically, like insight’s a big thing and then all of a sudden patients probably will like have an awareness of that, like how shit they feel.

Kate: yeah, they

Caitlin: that doesn’t mean the therapy isn’t working it.

Kate: It means it is working. And you know, if you’re talking about the development of a, the

development, frustrated.

Stage in early therapy for lots of people and they’re gonna feel miserable. And it, it’s, it’s an unearthed misery that was long, held and denied. that’s, that’s being given a voice. Again, it’s not a failure, but if we are using those outcome measures, like so many of those studies that were taught are measures of what works, we’re not gonna catch that at all.

Caitlin: No, absolutely not. It’s frowned upon. Also, has this. It makes, well, maybe like in some level, like makes people practice in a way where you’re like, yeah, constricting things or putting, pushing things down even further, like.

Kate: Yeah, and I think it has a terrible, cost. The wellbeing of therapists that, you know. I don’t know about you. I think you’ve had similar experiences to me, but I tried those things, they told me worked and I hated doing it, and the patient hated it and I, I couldn’t, I just couldn’t believe in it. And I think when you’re doing something like that, that’s forced and you’re imposing that on someone else, it’s really bad for you.

It’s really bad for your energy. It’s a, it’s a fast track to being really burnt out. something about doing work that aligns. Makes sense, makes sense. And is like, honest

Caitlin: Oh, that’s a good, yeah, I like that. Honest. Exactly. It’s,

Kate: yeah, I remember going

Caitlin: true for you.

Kate: I had a CBT teacher in my master’s and I remember saying to him, you know, that a, b, C model where it’s like the thought creates the feeling,

Caitlin: Yes. Like the, yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Kate: I remember going to him and being like, do. Am I supposed to believe this? And he, he literally said to me, well, you know, it’s not technically true, it’s just what we tell people. I was like, how could that possibly be healing? And even this thing where, you know, someone came to me this week and said, oh yeah, you know, in my, in my previous therapy with the CBT therapist, I was always going on about how this.

Certain person was being a bitch and they were telling me to not be so negative. And I was like, but were they a bitch? Like the truth matters. And I, you know, I don’t think those models necessarily support that at all.

Caitlin: No, it’s just like, gaslighting on some level, like shutting down conversations. When we wanna open it up, we wanna bring these things to the surface and talk about like, quote unquote taboo things. And that’s something that was so like. Eyeopening for me with like the psychoanalytic thing, even my, my own therapy.

So I’d say something like a worry or something like that, and I was like half expecting, you know, my therapist to like, I don’t know, contract it or say something to sooth it. And instead like we’d kind of like go into it, like it, like lean into it. I’m like, oh wow. And that was so much better

Kate: Yeah. It’s a passage to getting your life force back is like being able to air things that are aggressive or erotic or taboo in some way that haven’t been allowed to be alive.

Caitlin: No. And then where does that leave us with, like the, the new code of ethics that’s coming out at the end of the year, which. December,

Kate: Yeah, what they called psychology board in Australia is introducing a new code of conduct to replace the code of ethics. even the words are different, right? So instead of having a set of values that we live by ethical principles, we now will have a code of conduct, that I think really represents God.

I don’t know how broad I wanna say. Cast my rant here, but, like it really is expressive of a cultural shift,

Caitlin:

Kate: where, you know, there’s this idea that, there are these correct behaviors rather than being able to think and find out what’s right for each person. and yeah, I think it’s really, oh.

The most gentle thing I can say about it is that I think it really prohibits psychoanalytic treatment because it, frames things like therapist self-disclosure as, risky, dangerous kind of things that should hardly ever be done except in very rare circumstances. And when you’re thinking about things like counter counter transference interpretation, where we’re saying, when you did this, it made me feel like this.

Which is a really important type of intervention in psychoanalysis. This, this code, really frames that as something problematic. Like it really represents a misalign, a growing misalignment between psychoanalysis, psychoanalytic therapy, and clinical psychology. I

Caitlin: Psychology. We just like, where does it come from? Because if, like we’ve, we’ve talked about this before in supervision, like you go to a, like doctors, right? You go to your gp, your family doctor, they treat the whole family. They know everything about you. They even start the consultation with like 10 minutes of talking about personal stuff. I interviewed, Lucy Mays a few weeks ago who’s, who wrote a book about this, about like, that that is like the, pretty much the healing intervention. Is that, like that part of like the list deep listening and feeling it tuned and deeply held, like that’s a big part of the healing. And if we’re psychologists and we can’t even do that, like

Kate: Yeah,

I, I can, I. There is value in having a particular kind of relationship with our patients that has a particular set of boundaries, that provide a unique container when really big things can be brought forward. And really, I’m really not, I really see the value in that, but you’re right, I think there are the idea that it has to be so, quarantined to the point where the therapist is, you know, there are these other things in the code that say, are the kinds of public statements you are and aren’t allowed to make. for example, on your personal social media, you’re not allowed to, make any, like this is literally what it says. It says you’re only allowed to make informed comments that use peer reviewed research findings. Like it’s so insane, the sanitization of the, so you can’t do a Facebook status update that’s not backed by peer reviewed research.

Like it’s crazy.

Caitlin: Oh my God.

Kate: And that, you know, it feeds that mentality. That’s like, you can’t be in the community with your patients. You can’t let them see that you’re a real person. you can’t have, you know, there are these rules in the current code of ethics that say, yout treat members of a family or, people who know each other, which, you know, I, again, I see the merits of that.

but I think it’s right that we think about where that comes from culturally. ’cause it’s a very westernized, philosophy of care.

Caitlin: Seeing things and, and also like, I remember like the whole thing about ma like masters and clinical psych training was like developing this thing called clinical judgment. And it’s like if, if that’s like the whole process developing clinical judgment now we can’t use our clinical

Kate: Yeah, we go through more, professional training than so many other,

Caitlin:

Kate: practitioners in this country. We do years and years of extra, study.

Caitlin: Yeah.

Kate: and then what these kinds of, this document, for example, imposes, is that you have to kind of, uphold the. The values and ideologies of the kind of boss.

Like I, I realized yesterday at this conference when they were talking about, you know, this idea that like businesses don’t have values, and a company doesn’t have values, people have values, but I think, there’s some analogous thing happening in the profession that you get. Taught how to, if you, if you’ve had good training, if you’ve had good enough training, you’re taught how to think, but then we’re kind of spa out into the world with this deep sense of obligation to just, kind of parrot what the profession says and thinks and, and wants us to.

Uphold and, and it feels really, I don’t know about you, but I feel really scared when I make decisions to not do that. I feel like I put myself at risk in some way by, if I ever am defying those things, even if I have a really good reason to.

Caitlin: Hmm. Has that impacted your practice, do you think? Like do you feel or maybe not yet?

Kate: I think so, and I’m realizing more and

Caitlin: Hmm.

Kate: how that.

Caitlin: sad.

Kate: Stops me from making particular offering people, I think would, things that would really help them because I’m worried about the, and because I’m, I’ve literally agreed to uphold a certain, set of, rules of how I work.

Caitlin: Yes.

Kate: of that now?

’cause we’ve talked about that a lot in your supervision.

Caitlin: Yeah, we have, I, It was, it’s really hard to like think about ’cause it was so distressing, like, so distressing. we talked so much about that, about like, how could I possibly Do this other thing over here that’s, you know, you don’t even need to Good uni copywriting. Yeah,

Kate: Yeah.

Caitlin: Something where you can be. A person just, you don’t say whatever, I won’t do anything. And that felt so foreign to me and scary. But then I realized a lot of my fear was definitely like around like my, and I think you, you brought this up one, one session about my like thing with authority and that was like a huge thing. I was like, oh fuck yeah.

Okay. So like a lot of my. resistant. Resistant to like me wanting to like. Tear up my psychology degree is like, basically like this resistance to like authority and like my, experiences around that. And I think once I realized that that was relaxed a bit and then just being out of like psychology land, like I, ’cause I practiced, I.

Like part-time. I do my psychology days, but like I’m so much more in the marketing world, like,

Kate: Yeah.

Caitlin: and you can, the whole idea about marketing and personal branding is being yourself and all of that. And yes, I’ve, I agreed with like to be a psychologist and what that looks like, but I’ve also come to a.

Realization, understanding that I’m like, I wanna be a human first. I wanna be a person. And a big part of, well, sorry. Yeah,

Kate: Do you think that, your exposure to that other world, marketing, copywriting like entrepreneurship, do you think that, affects how you practice as a therapist or do you think that makes you a better therapist in some way?

Caitlin: I think so. Like even just. Me relaxing a little bit. Like I just don’t before. So like in my training and even like the first few years of practice, I would have sit there and I’d be like, okay, what does a psychologist do? Like I wouldn’t, I always

Kate: What, what does psychologist say in this moment? Yeah,

Caitlin: yeah, exactly, what does the psychologist say? Not like, what would I say?

And now I just come to my sessions. I’m like, I had this knowledge, I have this training and all of that, and I think like, and just our training makes us so boundaried, like crazy boundaried. And I came to the realization that I don’t, I wouldn’t ever do anything that was like

Kate: Yeah, this is the thing. Everybody’s worried about breaking the rule from this place of like such carefulness and such diligence around, you know, we’re not, most of the people, there are obviously exceptions to this, but most of the people who are practicing psychologists, so diligent about those things we’re not reckless.

Caitlin: Exactly, hugely. And just coming from that place that

I wanna, I live my life and be fully present and be a full, like a, an individual, right? Like that whole, like individuation, I wanna be. What that looks like for me. And if I get in trouble from psychology and like, let’s be real, it’s gonna be other psychologists

probably because they’re the only ones that are gonna really know about the new code.

it’s not gonna be the member of the public.

Kate: Yeah, that’s a really good point. Who are these people are afraid of? Yeah.

Caitlin: It’ll be like as if, like even just personally when I tell my talk about it with my friends and a lot of them are healthcare professionals themselves, and they just look at me like, they like I’m crazy. Like, what do you mean? Like, what are you even talking about? Whatcha talking about?

Kate: I think that’s a, I think that’s a thing in, in helping or like health professionals more broadly. Gabor Maté was here a few weeks ago, I think I talked to you about seeing him speak and he, he talked about. You know, there are these models of trauma that we know about now in terms of like how much our experiences affect our health outcomes.

But there’s still the kind of dominant paradigm in medicine is that you go into the doctor, they prescribe you something. They don’t ask you about your family or your relationships or, The stress in your life, even though these things are like incredibly predictive of certain kinds of really severe illness and cancer and autoimmune issues.

But he said that the doctors he talks to who are onto that stuff, who are really practicing from like a much more holistic and evidence-based model, They are doing it secretly because they’re, if they come out about that stuff to their colleagues, they’ll be mocked and framed as like, incompetent or, irresponsible.

And, you know, I think this is, a reason why podcast is so awesome because you’re actually trying to have this conversation like out loud in the world about, you know, the challenges of doing this work and then also trying to be a person and have something else. You know,

Caitlin: Yes.

Kate: it has, we have to shift this paradigm, so

Caitlin: We have to, we have to but like you were saying, it’s that whole, it’s happening more broadly, like culturally, politically, this, like in your words, like the hardening of everything, like the like let’s buckle down and make everything so, rigid.

Kate: Yeah, and, and position ourselves as beyond reproach because we followed the rules at the expense of the people that we’re trying to help and at and at our own expense. I think

Caitlin: Yeah, that’s, what do you make of like, what is your interpretation of that? Like analytically

Kate: like the stuff happening in the world at the moment.

Caitlin: Hmm.

Kate: Oh To put you on the spot.

I don’t, I, this. The outcome of, the failure of our culture to properly initiate people into a spiritual adulthood. So, I wrote this beautiful book by, bill Plotkin, who’s a deaf psychologist. He’s written a few books about this actually, like a union and He talks about how, and, you know, Freud spoke about this to an extent, about this kind of failure of, the childhood and the adolescence to really properly free the child from, the powers like that kind of parental.

Like that overbearing parental force. And so instead of growing up, what we do is we leave home, but we then allocate the, parental role to the teacher or the supervisor, or the priest or the policeman, and never kind of really connect to our agency and what is unique and, divine about ourselves as an individual and the unique thing that we have to offer the world.

I think if you, if you miss out on that process, if you don’t have elders or you don’t have structures around you that are really inviting you into that, this is the outcome. You end up with the masses who, aspire to rule following in every area of life. So it’s not just in work. You know, you see this in, I go to a Pilates class and I walk in the class and like every girl in the class is wearing the same outfit except me, and it’s so unsettling. You know, we’re like, oh, this is the correct way to dress for Pilates, so that’s what I’m gonna do. and you know, it’s so homogenizing of the way that we live and it, and it doesn’t cultivate wellbeing.

Caitlin: no, it’s not wellbeing, it’s not, doesn’t let us live as fully as we could possibly be, like outsourcing our decision making to other others.

Kate: And that’s the, you know, that’s the thing you’ve been healing in your work that now you’re saying, what would Caitlin do instead of what would the psychologist do? You’ve like integrated something of your own essence into what you’re doing, and I think that’s why you like it more now.

Caitlin: mm That’s such a good point. Exactly. It’s like, well, Caitlin, does psychologists not do like, because Yeah. Which is so freeing.

Kate: Hmm.

Caitlin: It’s so freeing, to not only like the work and doing the work, but also for. Like hope, like patience to be able to sit with a person and bring stuff to therapy that maybe they haven’t been able to before.

Or like maybe like, I don’t wanna be bashing psychologists, but maybe that they’ve tried to bring to psychologists before and they’ve been shut down on, and that’s nothing to do with the psychologist. It’s more about like them probably as a person freaking out about like, oh, I

Kate: Also being fearful.

Caitlin: Yeah, exactly.

Kate: the worst one is about like, erotic or romantic stuff that comes up in therapy. Like if someone, if you sit in a room with someone like we do with our therapist, you, you, it’s so not unusual that you would develop some kind of, Really intense emotional connection to that person.

And I think we’re just so under-resourced and, and, under supported to be able to hold that for people when really it’s like such an incredible, piece of data about what’s going on with them and such a, an expression of something in them that I think is like trying to come back to life usually.

Caitlin: Yeah, that’s it. It’s a life force, right? Like that. Exactly. And then if we just ignore that or I don’t know, brush it away or reject

Kate: Communicate that it makes us afraid, like why does that leave that person?

Caitlin: Which just, I’m, I dunno. I just, I was thinking about this the other day. It’s like, blows my mind. Like, isn’t like the whole idea of CBT about like, not being rigid and not being like having these, like, inflexible stuff. I don’t

know. actually don’t know what the whole idea of it is. I really hate it.

I don’t know. Like it’s, it’s like, doesn’t make, I, I just don’t understand.

Anyway, maybe

Kate: think it’s, I think it’s a kind of, I think it’s about function. It’s getting people back to being functional, functional in their work and in their relationships, and being able to get out in the world and be active and engaged, and I. There’s pieces of it that can be useful to people in certain moments, you know, in service of that.

But I think when it’s done without a broader pursuit of meaning and understanding of why the symptoms or the suffering were there in the first place, it’s it’s gonna be really short lived in terms of the impact.

Caitlin: Yeah, like what you were saying before about like, it’s good once you’re doing the strategies and following the rules of CBT, but then as soon as you get discharged from therapy, it’s you go back to where you were before.

Kate: I wonder too about how much that stuff works because the patient’s trying to be nice to the anxious therapist.

Caitlin: mm.

Kate: I’ve seen like videos of Aaron Beck, like the, the guy who invented CBT treating people and he is trying to like convince them of something and they’re like, well, yeah, I guess that might be true.

And I’m just like, you be.

Caitlin: Or just creating people pleasers, parent or parent pleasers,

Kate: And perpetuating this, splitting off of the aggressive, kind of erotic, whatever the impulses are that need to

be worked through.

Caitlin: Yeah. oh, I’ve really liked this conversation. It’s really nice to be able to have it with you. is there anything else that’s come up that you wanna touch on?

Kate: I think it’s, it’s, yeah, it’s nice to talk to you in a way that recognizes that, it’s really hard to be a therapist. And, it’s already hard. It’s a hard job. and when we kind of suffer under these additional impositions on our personhood, yeah, it really makes it, it really makes it untenable, really.

Hmm.

I think that sponsors a lot of the burnout that we see in our colleagues and in ourselves.

Caitlin: Yes.

Kate: I don’t think it’s necessary. I think we can start to move beyond that now. Not in a way that, compromises the frame of what we’re offering people in a unique way, but that, yeah. That doesn’t come at such a, with such collateral.

Caitlin: cost. Yeah, that’s it.

Kate: yeah,

Caitlin: yeah, it would be nice to be treated like an adult.

Kate: Yeah,

Caitlin: It

Kate: and a human, an adult

Caitlin: And a human, and an adult human. Exactly. Yeah. But it is like, it is, it’s so hard. And that’s the thing, it’s hard being a healthcare professional, being a therapist, stepping outside, doing something different that’s out of the, out of the lines of what we were taught to do or what we’ve been taught to self-police as well. And there’s, yeah. But I’m so grateful that I had you to be able to work through all of those issue. Well work through, but

Kate: such a

Caitlin: bring that up and then, Hmm.

Kate: it’s so great to have done this with you. Yeah. And then seen, this is another reason I love being a supervisor, that you see the fruits then of everything that the people you are connected to go on and make themselves. Everything they do for their patients and their supervisees and the people in their community.

It’s really

nice. Helps me with my, with my existential despair. So.

Caitlin: Oh, you are welcome. I, yeah, but it’s, yeah, it’s been definitely, oh yeah, life changing, which is. So it’s so nice to have that. but before we finish up, I to like just kind of change gears completely. A bit of whiplash. I have my, rapid fire questions that I

Kate: Yes.

Caitlin: every guest. Is that, so to end on something like a bit lighthearted,

Kate: I’ll try.

Caitlin: so what is your favorite film? Kate.

Kate: My favorite film is Vicki Christina Barcelona.

Caitlin: Ah, okay. Do I know? I dunno if I know.

It’s a Woody Allen movie. I

Kate: very beautiful and very strange and has an or narration and it does not, no one’s happy at the end. You’d love it.

Caitlin: Oh, that sounds great. I want, it sounds familiar. Like I wonder if it’s one of those films that I’ve, I saw like ages ago and like probably didn’t get it, or I didn’t

Kate: probably 15 years old now, but it really, I went and lived in Barcelona. It’s my favorite city in the world, and that was my news.

Caitlin: Oh, nice. Oh, Barcelona such a Oh, fun. Oh wow. Trouble. and what is a concert you’ll never forget?

Kate: Oh, this is a tricky one. I was thinking about it. You know what’s really funny and comes to mind is, a year, just over a year ago, I saw the Queensland Symphony Orchestra, Beethoven’s Ninth, the ODE to Joy and I, I’m not a classical music person, but I went and saw this concert, it. Something really magical and strange happened like to the people in the room and we walked out afterwards and everyone in the street was like, it’s like some kind of miracle.

It was really, really insane.

Caitlin: I

Kate: something about that piece of music that’s just like transcendental.

Caitlin: Huh, and that’s, I’m just thinking about like with therapy and like being able to bring that kind of stuff into it. You wanna call it creativity or like some type of energy or something and be able to Wow. Huh.

Kate: I talk to my patients about music and food and art all the time. I think it’s really important and helpful for some

Caitlin: Mm.

Zoe is, you’re so right. Like I, when you were talking, it reminded me of, something that Brene Brown talks about, like maybe joy or something like having that shared like experience of that that’s really healing or really important for

Kate: Yeah, that was a big moment that for me it was really, medicinal.

Caitlin: Is this an Mm, I like that. That’s a good word. and I, I always have trouble wording this question. What is like an absurd fact about you or something that’s like quirky about you? Oh.

Kate: I’m really weird. I’m really, really obsessed with lighting, I need, I need the lighting to be correct all the time. Especially when I eat, I can’t, like all my favorite restaurants are really dark restaurants. I spent thousands of dollars with to put like multiple dimmer lights in my office with multiple bulbs, like different, so ridiculous.

I’m really obsessed with lighting. That’s my quirky thing. That’s in my human design chart too. I need to have the lights be right.

Caitlin: is it really?

Kate: Yeah.

Caitlin: It matches up with that, but yeah, there is something worse than being in a room and it’s like that.

Kate: Oh, and these like clinical spaces, like people go to therapy in these like really, really insane clinics that are like doctors’ offices with those like overlaps, it’s so how you meant to get better

Caitlin: How are you meant to get

Kate: been a really nice thing to be able to be very controlling about In my

rooms.

Caitlin: Speaking of light, what I wanna do, I can’t wait. So when we move into our house, in June, and I’m gonna set up the off my office and I wanna buy, those, you know, this Philip, I think they’re call it Phillips lights and they have they’re like colored lights.

Kate: Yeah, and you can do them all on your phone.

Caitlin: Yeah. I really wanna get some of those. I like, maybe I can set that up in my therapy practice.

Kate: You totally can. I just put a, like an LED strip of light behind my bed board that goes like, lights up the wall. It’s like being in a hotel. It’s so, and it costs like 20 bucks.

Caitlin: Incredible. I definitely, definitely will. I’m so excited for that. and how can people get, in contact with you or like connect with your work? Because you’re right as well,

Kate: I do. Yes. So.

Caitlin: how.

Kate: I am on Substack. My substack is kate fazi.substack.com. It’s called The Psycho Alchemist. I’m on Instagram sporadically, and my website if you wanna see me for therapy or supervision,

Caitlin: Beautiful. Well, thank you. Thank you. Thank you so

Kate: you. So nice.

Caitlin: and being, Yeah, it’s something a little bit different, but I, I feel like it was a really important conversation to have because like a lot of people in the community are grappling with these things, and I, like you say, I think it’s really important to put word to, yeah, make these conversations.

these conversations that have happen behind closed doors or happen in supervision where it’s confidential and private, they do need to be happened, in the public

Kate: I

Caitlin: need to be made loud.

Kate: Thank

Caitlin: So thank you very

Kate: that. It’s a real gift.

Caitlin: Oh, you’re very welcome.

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