Clay: Hello and welcome to the Online Counselling Podcast. I’m Clay Cockrell, just like our overexcited announcer guy says and I’m glad you’ve chosen to join us. In a world where everybody’s time is valuable, I always think it’s an honor when you choose to spend a few minutes here with me learning about the ins and outs of online therapy, so thank you.
Someone wrote in and said they thought the story I told about being a voice over performer was funny and want to know if I had any other funny weird things. In fact, I do. I have only one other funny, actually more embarrassing story from that weird part of my life. If you listened to episode 20, I told how I tried to make some quick money when I first came to New York by cashing in on this ridiculous base voice and try to go into voice overs doing commercials. Brilliant idea on paper – on paper.
I go to this one audition, very fancy, high-end recording studio, very snooty people in the booth, big client, and it comes my turn and I go up all confident, trying to be very professional, just really new to this, no idea what I was doing, brand new to New York from Kentucky. They give me this script. I go into the booth, get all set up with headphones and mike. I forget what the whole commercial was but the last line was, “Change your look. Change your life with Tommy Hilfinger.” There was this glass wall separating me from the recording engineer so I could see him, and he just slowly looks up with this look of disdain and pushes his button so I can hear him, leans into the mike and says, “Sir, if you want to have a career in voice overs, I would suggest that you learn to say the name of the product correctly. It’s Tommy Hilfiger, not finger.”
Today, I would have had some woody comeback like, “Well, where I come from, it’s Tommy Hilfinker,” but of course I was a kid. I was completely humiliated. I just kind of slinked down and said, “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.” Yeah, short lived career in voice over, kids. There you go. The only funny weird thing that happened to me in my ongoing crazy New York life while I was doing voice overs. Be kind with your comments. Okay. That’s over with. Let’s jump into today’s interview.
Today’s podcast is a return to our roots of talking to therapists who are actually working online. Sometimes, we mix it up, talk to experts, ethicists, lawyers, tech people, all really important, but the heart of the podcast is talking to other therapists who have taken their practice online so we can learn from them. That’s what we do today. You know how you just click with someone? You get to know someone and it slowly dawns on you, you are my people. You are my people. I connect with you. I got this. Well, that has happened with my new friend, Tamara Powell. She’s the founder of Arya Therapy in Pensacola, Florida.
She is a licensed mental health counselor working online and face to face. Now, I’m not sure how to really introduce this podcast because okay, you’re just going to hear it. I lost count how many times my mind was blown. This is not a seamless interview because I kept, I don’t know, it’s good that it’s only audio because you would have seen me with my mouth hanging open just stupefied for most of the interview. Okay, let me just set the background, paint the scene for you here for a minute. Tamara is in Pensacola, Florida. Now, that’s not too far from the border of Alabama, Georgia. Okay, put that in your mind for a minute and hey, I can talk. I’m from Kentucky. I can talk.
She has few specialties, faith based/Christian counseling but really working with all faiths. Okay make sense. Bible belt, got you, then she adds a specialty of working with the LGBT community, the polyamory community, and kink community. She does sex therapy. She works with gender identity issues. Yup, you’re with me? All wrapped up with Christian counseling, faith-based approach. Remember her location? They say each private practice is unique. Well, it certainly applies here, and get this, she’s got a thriving practice and all humor aside, I can see why. She’s kind, open, funny, educated. I’m sure she is treasured by her clients. I know she is making a huge impact. You can just tell.
This is one of the good guys, good girls, good persons. This is somebody that is on her game and making a huge impact in her world. Now, one note, I know some of you listen to the podcast while taking your kids to school or the kids might be around while you get this playing. Just be aware that due to the nature of her work and the conversations that we’re having, there’s some mild adult content. Let’s just say we talk about adult issues. That’s maybe a better way to say it. You make that judgment call. Okay, on to one of my favorite interviews ever, Tamara Powell.
Hello and welcome to the Online Counselling Podcast. I am thrilled to have as my guest today, Tamara Powell of Arya Therapy Services. Tamara, welcome to the show.
Tamara: Thank you so much.
Clay: Tell me a little bit about, first of all, where are you located?
Tamara: We are in Downtown Pensacola, right on the panhandle, kind of near Alabama.
Clay: Mix of the Alabama, Florida, Southern vibe and you are working online. I have to say, your practice, I was going over your website earlier. I’m kind of mind blown in that all of you work with in your particular location. You do faith-based work and also LBGTQ, transgender, polyamorous, kink, and there is like – help! This is like blowing every kind of preconceived notion that I ever had.
Tamara: Good.
Clay: Good, right?
Tamara: Good.
Clay: What’s going on? Tell me about your therapy practice?
Tamara: Arya was my baby, my vision to really be a bridge between multiple worlds, in my opinion. That, to me, never seemed so separate, but it appeared to, lots of people around me that they were and I just kept thinking all the way growing up, why? Why? I don’t understand this. By the time I made it through grad school, I was like, ”This is definitely something that we need in this area and even better, right, thanks to the world of the interwebs globally, so being able to provide services both for spiritual seekers and for those that could use a little help in the bedroom. That’s my fave.
Clay: Wow, and right there in the Bible belt.
Tamara: Right in the Bible belt, oh yeah.
Clay: What’s the reaction been to your practice?
Tamara: Definitely a mixed bag. When we first started, it was just me. I now have one other clinician working with me, but right from the get go, people were saying, rule #1, you’ve heard this from some of your other podcasts that I listen to, you can’t do it straight out of grad school. You’re not going to be able to open a private practice. Nobody is going to want to talk to you and then certainly if they are looking for spiritual counseling, they are going to end up in a church or talking to someone that is affiliated with the church, probably Baptist only or very, very conservative faith based. I just thought, you know, I just want to see what’s out there and so I was full within the first month.
There is definitely a lot of other people out there wanting to talk to someone that would hold their beliefs as sacred for them, but explore some of the struggles. We have certainly gotten a lot of pushback from the conservative side, but then on the flipside, the ones that likes to color outside the lines like I do, we tend to sometimes just got a couple of questions at first – what do you know about my lifestyle? Are you cool with my lifestyle? Are you going to try and change me? – things that most people, I think, therapy clients are asking anyway regardless of the topic.
Clay: Wow. Let’s back up for a little bit. What brought you to therapy and what is your training and profession? Let’s start there.
Tamara: That’s a big monster ball you just threw at me.
Clay: Uh-oh.
Tamara: I’m excited. I’m a licensed mental health counselor in the state of Florida. I hold a master’s degree in Counseling Psychology and then to answer the other part why – why therapy, why counseling – that was a little bit longer of a journey for me. I certainly wasn’t the girl that came out of high school knowing exactly what she wanted to do with her life. That was not me, like, I knew I wanted to probably get married and have kids, but other than that, I don’t know. I grew up as a military brat so was exposed to lots of different cultures and that certainly sparked my interest into existential theory and philosophy, like what brings someone a sense of meaning and when did things go well, when did things not go so well, how do different cultures take a look at health and wellness.
I originally thought I was going to become a translator because that was what I was good at was languages and then I took a psychology course and was like, “Oh my God. This is amazing,” and then thought, “Well, maybe health and wellness is the thing.” Then I got a personal trainer certificate then I thought, “Well, maybe I’ll open a holistic wellness center,” but the more that I followed psychology, the more that that became the thing and back then, I was doing small groups out of churches, certainly not professionally at that point yet, but enjoying that group dynamic and just the themes of mating behaviors, neuroscience, and religiosity just kept swirling around and around, and I thought there’s got to be once again a way to bring all of this together. Eventually, that’s what I decided to pursue full time.
Clay: Wow. We also have some something else in common. You walk with your clients, right?
Tamara: I do. I love that aspect of it. I’ll do pretty much anything as long as it’s legal and ethical that my clients want to do. Yes.
Clay: Is that a big draw in Pensacola?
Tamara: I haven’t specifically marketed for that yet. I think I probably should, but we’re in a beautiful area and like I said, we’re in a historic district so we’ve got parks, cafes, and pretty coastlines, miles and miles of sugar sand beaches. We are well primed with great weather throughout most of the year. I mean, sometimes, it can feel like Satan left his door open. It gets a little hot, but depending on what time the client wants their session, that could be workable too, and so I’ve seen amazing benefits with just going where they want to go with it and getting the body moving while they are processing emotionally.
Clay: Yeah, I love it. I mean, I don’t want it so much in February in New York, but we still go on.
Tamara: Yeah, In New York.
Clay: But in Florida, wow, that would be great. The online world, how long have you been working online and what’s that been like for you?
Tamara: Honestly, a couple of years but not like it has been recently. It was more of baby stepping into and I have clients that would leave the area for whatever reason, especially for dealing with really sensitive subjects, maybe spiritual abuse or sexual trauma, the idea of starting with new therapist can almost be like secondary trauma, so like you, I did it all wrong the first few times around, but with Skype, yeah, I totally will. It might as well be transparent and everything else. There’s no reason to stop now. Yeah, we would Skype, Facetime, or even over the phone, depending upon the connection whatever they needed.
To me at the end of the day, yes, well, ethics are always a concern. It’s also about what the clients need and I’ve seen some case studies regarding case law on, sometimes even ethics boards will understands that it would have been more traumatizing or if a client is in danger to not go outside the box than to do it. I think there’s a case to be made there, but recently, it’s really picked up.
Clay: It comes to what is more unethical sometimes.
Tamara: Right, sure.
Clay: I find that argument fascinating. So, it started out for you like a lot of therapists that I talk to, somebody moves out of the area so you continue to work online with them, but you’re saying that it’s picked up more for you, that area of your practice?
Tamara: Oh yeah, a lot more. I heard Perry talking to you about how the millennials, the younger generation, so given some of the areas that I work with, I mean, the millennials are way more likely than my parent’s generation to embrace being somewhere on what I call the ‘rainbow spectrum,” right? They have no problems wanting to be on their dorm room on a stormy day like it has been here and still doing therapy, and what surprises me is that our field is just allowing everyone else to run us over by dragging our feet into this arena. That has got to change.
Clay: Yes, thank you. Reach it, girl.
Tamara: Yeah, I will.
Clay: Okay. Talk to me a little bit about the faith based work that you do. Is it kind of spiritual seekers, is it Christian counseling? What’s your background and approach on some of that?
Tamara: It’s both. Again, I just got to own it. I’m a bit of a trapezoid here, so I’m certainly not everyone’s cup of tea. I was brought up in a very conservative Christian household. My parents were Assemblies of God, which for anyone else who doesn’t know, the Pentecostals, the ones that people think are the pew hoppers, they speak in tongues, that type of thing, and that was very much a very part of my life. Now, my views have become more progressive over the years certainly; however, a lot of that I still find very sacred. I’ve spoken with Perry Rosenbloom and other people about how now looking at it multiculturally, man is a spiritual creature from my point of view, and so the way that we tend to connect with something outside of ourselves may change but not so much the why.
Over the years, I have done a lot of in depth research and gotten extra course work and certifications on comparative religions and theologies, and I currently have clients that I work with everything from Santeria to Jehovah’s Witness to Orthodox Judaism. I mean, you name it, Voodoo, the gamut, yeah, and so sometimes, our work is very outside the box than a little more on the like uni and archetypes, dream work, a little bit of like Shamanism type journaling, but then I still definitely have conservative Christians that come in and all I do is tweak the counseling framework to their terminology, what they hold sacred, and that’s really important and I think it’s part of the multicultural competency that the ACA is so big on.
Clay: Absolutely.
Tamara: Yeah.
Clay: It just comes to meet the client where they are.
Tamara: Absolutely.
Clay: And so important to know their vocabulary and coming, myself, from a conservative Christian background growing up in Kentucky, how that informs me and I know little vocabulary words that they are not from that culture, they go right by you.
Tamara: Totally. I had once a client in an intake asked me if I was a Calvinist, and most counselors even faith based ones would have no idea and that’s where I was like, thank God my parents put me in crazy little Christian schools that I was like, “Well, you know, I might be a 3 point out of 5 but the other two…” It actually allowed me to keep that client and we did some pretty great work together around sexual addiction to pornography, but I had to earn his trust and prove that I knew what I was talking about, but he threw me for a loop, that one.
Clay: Wow, incredible. Alright, let’s talk a little bit about the LGBT community that you work with.
Tamara: Sure.
Clay: Does that conflict at all with the religiosity? Jump in. I can’t wait to hear this.
Tamara: It kind of depends upon the situation, everything in psychology, right? That’s the answer for everything. It’s what I tell my undergrads at UDOV. It depends. That’s the answer. Just write that. When it comes to the rainbow spectrum and religion, it’s either an incredible source of support or it can be some of the deepest wounds. From my view, my conceptualization, or on my biases, I do not think you can hurt an individual more than to take away their world view, to literally shatter it, their spiritual foundation wide open.
Clay: Wait. Say that one more time, that world view.
Tamara: I don’t know if I can. I’ll try.
Clay: You can’t hurt an individual….. go ahead.
Tamara: Yes. You cannot hurt an individual any deeper than when you – I’m going to say it in a different way – their spiritual world view when you crack that open, you take their religion or their sense of connection to the Divine away from them and I have not seen that anywhere else currently in the way that White Christian America has done to our own LGBT population, and so a lot of my faith based counseling is more wrapped around the more progressive end of the spectrum, that’s why I said I know I’m not everyone’s cup of tea because I’ve had parents pull their teens away from my client care when they find out that I am affirming of their sexuality.
It really breaks my heart because the thing is, if a child or a teen or however old you are is going to come around and embrace your religion or world view again, they are going to be more likely to do so when you’re also embracing the rest of them, and so what I tell the parents is that, listen, I feel like your God is big enough to know what to do with this child that He supposedly created.” Sometimes, it’s a matter of – I worked with worship pastors and worship leaders or even executive pastors that have been kicked out of their own pulpits and you want to talk about a crisis of faith.
Clay: That’s incredible. I was listening to, I think it was this American Life. They were interviewing this kid in maybe South Carolina or Georgia that was a trump order, conservative Christian and gay.
Tamara: We call those log cabin Republicans.
Clay: Yes.
Tamara: I just learned that term.
Clay: Oh really. The log cabin Republicans and he was just a kid struggling, trying to maintain his connection to his family, to his church. It just reminded me of that interview. It was a fascinating interview.
Tamara: Yeah. Cognitive dissonance, I don’t know if you had this in college biology class, but where you had to hold on to a pipe that’s filled with hot water and one that’s cold water at the same time. It sends one of the most electric shocks down your body. It’s the most uncomfortable feeling that I have ever experienced, and to me, that’s exactly what cognitive dissonance is like or what that teenage boy you’re talking about is experiencing. It’s painful.
Clay: Yeah, yeah. Incredible need and I would assume incredible need in the population where you are.
Tamara: Absolutely.
Clay: But also, you work within the State of Florida, right? You’re only licensed in Florida.
Tamara: True.
Clay: Do you find that limiting, just that issue about online counseling?
Tamara: Yes.
Clay: Okay. How do you feel about that, Tamara?
Tamara: I’m so glad you asked, Clay. I cannot wait for there to be hopefully some sort of nationwide reciprocity like so many other voices are saying. It is absolutely ridiculous that the rest of the world has got this down and some of them are afraid to even allow their counselors here, for a good reason. We are ridiculous with some of that, I call it white coat syndrome.
Clay: Yes.
Tamara: Yes.
Clay: Yeah but are you sometimes contacted from non-Florida people that they find you?
Tamara: Yes and it’s heartbreaking to turn them away because sometimes, I feel like we would be an incredibly good fit, and to me, that’s what it’s all about. As I’ve said, I’m not everyone’s cup of tea but I will be sure as hell to find you someone who is, but I don’t know everyone in every single state. To have to turn some of them away is hard if we can’t move over to like the coaching arena or something else.
Clay: Well, that’s one of the things that we want to help with the Directory is that there are some in each state that are doing this kind of work, but then you’ve got to find different kinds, men, women, Christian, Muslim, and to fill up all those categories.
Tamara: or CBT.
Clay: Exactly. It’s a chore but we’ll get there.
Tamara: I’m so glad you exist and so will the clients for sure.
Clay: Thank you, but I find it equally frustrating that somebody was talking about that Wall Street Journal did a big piece a couple of weeks ago on telehealth in general. When you drive from, when I drive from New York to New Jersey, I have my driver’s license. It works. I don’t have to stop and get a new license when I get to New Jersey.
Tamara: But not in mental health. It’s like all that education and experience just goes out the window. I don’t know about those boys from Kentucky. They may not know how we here in Florida like to do it.
Clay: That’s true. That’s true.
Tamara: What the hell?
Clay: We’re going to get there. Talk to me about polyamory because this is a subject that I’m dealing with a lot of my clients are working with that and it’s scary. I, from an observer, I’m going, “Oh, you’re going to mess this up.” First, define for our listeners who may not know. What is polyamory and what’s your approach and history with that?
Tamara: Polyamory is actually more of an umbrella terms these days, but it tends to conjure up images of like the hippies and the 60s and 70s living in communes with like free love and it basically just means multiple love, but depending upon the couple, triad, or quadrad or whoever I’m working with, it’s very different. I have some triads who live together and share finances and take care of children, and then I have others way more common who there is a, perhaps a primary relationship, sometimes married and then he or she or whichever partner I should say because the sex and genders vary, one or both of them may have a sexual partner and/or just a romantic partner on the outside or partners. It’s really varied.
Clay: Yeah.
Tamara: But that’s some of my favorite work, I got to tell you.
Clay: Really?
Tamara: Yeah. It kind of combines couples and group all at once.
Clay: Yeah, I guess it does.
Tamara: The hour goes by really quickly.
Clay: Yeah, I guess it would. These people who that are swingers, open marriage, it all goes into polyamory.
Tamara: Oh yeah, all of that.
Clay: Do you assist them with, like the importance of rules?
Tamara: Yes. We always start with that. I call it the scaffolding and there are some pretty great resources even if you’re a counselor and you’ve not gotten into that field in, you have no idea what you’re doing, if you go on Amazon, there’s ones like The Counselor’s Guide to Open Relationship. There are even workbooks on jealousy, but just to get you familiar with the terms and help clients figure out if they are heading in a better direction perhaps, at least to start the conversation going. That scaffolding, as I like to call it, is usually some of our first sessions, #1 I need to get a feel for how they look at it, what type of arrangement do you think you’re in, and #2 is that consistent with the type of arrangement you want to be in and then how can I help this flow better, just like you want any other couple if you’re into couple’s counseling.
Clay: Okay, I’m going to have to talk with you offline about that.
Tamara: It’s so good. It’s so fun.
Clay: It is fascinating to me and incredibly interesting and the people that I’m working with it, love it. They absolutely love it.
Tamara: Oh my God. I tell you, it is like no other for a lot of the couples I work with. Even the ones that are approaching it and start out as monogamous when they start with me, but they come in and they want to talk about moving into that. I have seen their, I just blogged about that recently, their intimacy just skyrocket between the couple. It just reinvigorates them sometimes, but not always. I’ve also seen it crash and burn. If you have therapists who helps with that process and have clients know that we exist is kind of cool.
Clay: Yeah, absolutely. You mentioned earlier the term of spiritual abuse.
Tamara: Yes, devastating.
Clay: Yeah. I went to a small Christian college years ago.
Tamara: Bless you.
Clay: The no dancing, all that kind of stuff. Tell me, what are the stories that you’re hearing coming out of that experience because it can be very painful leaving that world, trying to get your own concept of spirituality. What’s that like for you?
Tamara: You’re so right about the pain. Honestly, some of my, because I don’t work with the chronically mentally ill in an outpatient setting, so some of my clients that had been in the deepest depressions and the closest to suicide usually have some sort of spiritual abuse in their history. My experience, I practice almost a stone’s throw from Pensacola Christian College and it is one of the most conservative Christian colleges in the nation and has been hit with some pretty big nationwide media scandals around sexual abuse and the college stifling it, so similar to some of the Catholic church scandals we’ve heard about and being as large of a campus as they are have a lot of students who are either on the rainbow spectrum or don’t conform to traditional gender roles or whose beliefs may not fall straight in line with their theology, and so spiritual abuse kind of like psychological abuse and emotional abuse can be very insidious.
It’s usually not something that the teenager, in this case, picks up on right away, but what it is is kind of like gas lighting, making people believe that things are their fault. What if they are sick or their grandmother is sick? “Well, maybe you didn’t pray good enough. Maybe had a bad thought before you came in here and you haven’t confessed it yet. You have not fully repented.” Other times, it may be more of peer pressure type mentality. I’m trying to think of some of the recent cases that I’ve worked with. These young women have been talked to believe that, you know, a lot of them are victim blaming. If some guy comes on to them, it’s her fault. She has led him astray. She has caused him to lust and to sin.
What happens is that whatever issues that she’s blaming herself for, she internalizes, similar to internalized homophobia or internalized racism, and the psyche can end up turning on itself where they end up feeling to be slightly cross about it, a little batshit. They don’t know which end is up anymore. It’s like having internal vertigo and so by the time that they come to see me, their entire world view can literally be, like I said before, it cracks and that doesn’t go away overnight.
Clay: No.
Tamara: I meet these people 10 years later and they are like, “Oh my God, I didn’t make grocery money this week. It must be because I didn’t tithe.”
Clay: Yeah.
Tamara: Yeah.
Clay: I would assume that people from that background would be drawn to online counseling, the anonymity. Nobody is going to see their car outside, especially a college student, the convenience of being in their dorm, being able to talk about some of this while they are living in that environment.
Tamara: Right.
Clay: I am having a memory, I don’t know if this is correct. I think that Pensacola Christian College, I read about them years ago. One guy escaped there and bought the domain name, and created a domain outside of that and talking about his experience of abuse within that system. I don’t know if it’s the same one or not, but I thought that was fascinating.
Tamara: It sounds very familiar. I laugh only because my inner rebel is cheering going, “Good for him. Way to beat the system at its own game.”
Clay: He got out and, yeah.
Tamara: I bet that was part of his healing process too. It’s being able to tell our stories. We know that with trauma work whether it’s PTSD, with troupes coming back from Iraq or someone that’s internalizing one of the –isms. We need a place to talk about it.
Clay: Yeah, absolutely. Okay, so you’re working with everyone in Florida. What’s your platform that you use and what kinds of glitches have you come across like, particularly today, you might want to change the internet service down there.
Tamara: Yeah. It apparently cocks communications is out almost worldwide so we had to get very clever in trying to email you back and we’re on Skype but so far, so good, but obviously with it not being HIPAA compliant, being good little doobies, we wouldn’t use Skype anymore.
Clay: Of course.
Tamara: I use Zoom currently and I so far have loved them, but I’m researching some of the other options. I know, what is it, VSee? People in my social circles are really raving about it so I may look into that. Right now, there are no complaints with Zoom.
Clay: Okay. I’ve read that in China, they have a particular server in Beijing, I think, that allows them to go a lot faster than any other platform.
Tamara: Oh cool.
Clay: If you’re working with expats or if you speak Chinese and you know Chinese, Zoom.
Tamara: No, Japanese maybe, not Chinese.
Clay: Okay. By the way, how many languages do you speak?
Tamara: Just English and enough Spanish to get me a date and enough Japanese to probably have a decent conversation. I still read and write it pretty well, but when you’re not using it, it tends to go away.
Clay: Alright. That’s true. Use it or lose it.
Tamara: True.
Clay: A little note that I have here, is the word “shame” in that so much of the population that you work with, that has to be a big theme whether it’s a person’s sexuality, their spirituality, being out of place in their community, not being accepted there. Do you find that?
Tamara: No. I think you hit the nail on the head. Absolutely all of it, I mean, people who, for example, the polyamorous clients, they assume that everyone is going to hate them and yet what I know statistically as a mating behaviors researcher is that it’s almost a third of people who are in some form of non-monogamous relationship, just nobody is talking about it.
Clay: A third?
Tamara: A third. I kid you not, but it depends upon the data mining, for a lack of a better word, because it’s kind of like, what do you consider stepping outside your marriage? What is that? Is it flirting with someone at the bar? Is it, well, you’re allowed to make out with someone before you come home and we’re just not going to talk about it? Do we have an agreed upon understanding? Is it that you’ve got a romantic friend or is it somebody that you sleep with on Tuesdays and Thursdays? It can really vary or is it something that we share together? Perhaps they are in a swinging room together, but technically, that’s stepping outside the marriage covenant, so non-monogamous. Almost a third, but the fact that nobody is talking about that, so shame pops up a lot. Yeah.
Clay: Wow.
Tamara: That’s usually part of my first job is to help normalize and then help provide a corrective emotional experience for that vulnerability that you can tell me anything, and I have heard some stories.
Clay: I bet you have.
Tamara: And I’m going to be like, “Yes and that makes sense,” not placating you but to show you the research and to help figure out how this can work for you, but I think that’s why clients have driven as far as like Mississippi, like it says in your website, because who else, what other counselors are going to be willing to talk to them about perhaps psychic rape or Santeria or whatever else that they believe in.
Clay: Wow. I just want to cover so many of the things and quite frankly, I find you fascinating and so many times, my listeners are going to go, “What’s wrong with Clay today?” It’s because I normally have these questions all lined up, but you give an answer and I’m like, “Oh, okay. I’m kind of blow away here.”
Tamara: Sorry not sorry.
Clay: No. It’s just incredible. You mentioned internet addiction. Somebody once sent to me, what are the conflicts of working with somebody online through the internet that has an internet addiction?
Tamara: Touché.
Clay: Is that going like the bartender doing the counseling with the alcoholic in the bar?
Tamara: Yeah. Actually, my analogy for that is more like, I went to a sex addict’s anonymous meeting and listening to their stories, in my therapist head, I was like, “This is kind of a way for some of them, not the ones that were there to really do the program, a way to continue the problem.” In fact, one of my first thoughts and to like further research that I wanted to do as a therapist was when I learned that in SAA, you’re allowed to choose what sobriety means for you because unlike AA, you take your sexuality with you everywhere you go, like, I wish we could leave our genitals at the house and the dopamine rewire pathway, but we can’t at times.
So, for one of them, their version of sobriety was no more, the therapist told him, “Well, I recommend no more than one masturbatory outlet online a week,” and I thought, that’s tricky, just like with the controversy over whether or not we should use methadone or try to wean people off drugs. It’s almost the same thing with internet or porn. It’s, huh. Well, can we get them to go cold turkey? Maybe not. Maybe we step them down. So with internet and using the internet, yeah, touché, that’s a little tricky, but at the same time, if that gets them to talk to somebody, then why not.
Clay: Right, absolutely. As an online therapist, we’ve talked about so many interesting things here today. What have we now missed? If there’s a counselor sitting out there somewhere thinking, “Wow, this is so fascinating. I want to begin an online counseling practice or have this be a part of my practice,” what would you say to them? What have we not talked about?
Tamara: I think it’s vital to find your tribe. That’s why I got so excited when I heard you probably three or four spots now in two weeks. You’re all over the place, dude, which is so great. I’m like, “Oh yeah, it’s Clay again. Hello, yes.” No, they won’t. You have a great radio place too by the way. It matters when you’re a podcast fanatic. Well done on that point and it brings me back to it’s important to find your tribe because I understand that not everyone is as willing to color outside the lines as I am, but when you get a curiosity, some of my biggest heartbreaks in the field of psychology just personally to be really transparent has been in feeling lonely, like there’s nobody else willing to take this risk for me.
Like here, I can just picture somebody else with a different passion burning inside them and knowing that there are clients out there waiting for them to explode on the scene and yet it becomes really freaking scary, to be quite honest, to have to belly up next to some of the others who might have white coat syndrome and to hear all the reasons why they shouldn’t do it, and so it’s just as equally important, I think, to find podcast like yours to go ahead and do the research. Oh, I’m going to get this person’s name wrong, your Person-Tech Centered guy that I love so much that everybody loves. Yes, so what he said about it’s not having the information that keeps its scary.
If you’re at home and you want to do this, don’t surround yourself with the people who are going to fan the flames of the fear, find the ones that are going to be like, “Get it!” and there are people out there and will figure out a way to make it happen.
Clay: Absolutely. I was talking to Roy just the other day and I can’t champion him enough. He is the most knowledgeable man out there. It’s personcenteredtech.com. If you have questions about online counseling, informed consent, platforms, technology with email, this man has all the answers.
Tamara: Yeah. All of that was so helpful.
Clay: It’s all about being informed, getting the structure around your practice just like you would get a legal structure – you get an office, you get chairs, you get an email address and a website. You put those things in place and then you don’t have to worry about it anymore because you’re protected. You’ve got the liability insurance. You’re informed. You’re good to go so you can run.
Tamara: Bam!
Clay: It is possible and that’s why I like talking with therapists like you because you, like me, are saying, “Come on in. The water is warm.”
Tamara: Yes and that brings me to the next point on technology. If it’s not your thing and it’s certainly not my thing, surround yourself with people who like to do that, like Brighter Vision or Legendary Lion, those people who will be like, “And here’s encrypted email and here’s something else you don’t have to worry about.” So now when I belly up next to white coat syndrome, I’m like, “Hey, I have not entered into this ring unarmed. We are covered.”
Clay: Excellent. Tamara, I can’t thank you enough. We’ll put all of this information in the show notes as I always do.
Tamara: Thank you.
Clay: It’s aryatherapy.com and Arya is spelled A-R-Y-A if you don’t go to the show notes, now you know how to get there and it’s Tamara Powell. I just feel like I’ve made a new friend.
Tamara: Yes.
Clay: Thank you so much for joining us.
Tamara: Definitely. If you’re ever in Pensacola, we’ll have to get drinks.
Clay: You got it.