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Welcome to "Lessons from the Couch", where we invite you to pull up a seat and join Corina and Mariana—two marriage and family therapists based in Illinois—on a journey through therapy, life, and everything in between. In each episode, we have honest and engaging conversations with therapists and non-therapists alike, exploring their unique experiences in and around therapy. Whether it's the story of a therapist navigating early career challenges or a non-therapist sharing how therapy changed their life, our goal is to show just how accessible and transformative these conversations can be.
We also dive into the diverse career paths and personal journeys within the field of mental health, from seasoned professionals to those just starting out (like Corina and Mariana, who are at opposite timelines of their own therapy careers).
If you're curious about therapy, mental health, or simply enjoy meaningful conversations, "Lessons from the Couch" is for you. Get ready to think, reflect, and discover new perspectives one conversation at a time.
Follow Lessons from the Couch on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts to listen to new episodes.
Co-Hosted by Corina Teofilo Mattson and Mariana Reyes Daza. Show art by Jae Avilez. Music by Brandon Acosta.
If you're interested in therapy services, either in person or via telehealth, and reside in Illinois, visit www.liveoakchicago.com to learn more.
Part of the reason I am so grateful for the experiences I have had in queer communities and spaces is that gender roles are not something we can just take for granted if it's two men or two women in a relationship. We can't take monogamy for granted necessarily. And so with that, if we don't have these narratives to rely on, what do we do? How do we figure these things out? And I feel so heartened knowing that people have been figuring out long before I ever have tried.
Corina:Lessons from the Couch. Throughout this podcast, you're going to find us having intimate, deep conversations. We'll be talking to therapists and probably some non therapists, and we're going to bring you into the therapy room with us.
Mariana:We're so excited to introduce you Jake to our listeners. We would love to give you a moment to introduce yourself in whatever ways you would like but for our listeners Jake is a fellow live ochre. Jake is also my group supervisor as I'm finishing my fellowship year and the host of I Hate James Dobson an awesome podcast. So just in case you haven't listened to I Hate James Dobson, you should go ahead and do that, especially because the most recent episode is featuring our co host Corina.
Jake:Thank you. Yes. My name is Jake. I am a therapist at Live Oak. I'm very blessed to be that.
Jake:And then I also run this podcast. I hate James Dobson. And it's like two separate worlds. There's two very different parts of my heart and my brain. The tone is very different much less professional than I've experienced the conversations on here, which is great for what it is, but a lot more swearing and a lot more existential dread, I find.
Mariana:I love that. And all of that is welcome into this space as well.
Corina:It's funny that you say that because I remember in the first episode swearing for the first time in the episode. And I was like, yeah, this is the tone. This is the tone because I think one of the things I love about Live Oak is that we play with what it means to be a professional.
Jake:It does feel like swearing the first time with a new client like I'm gonna go there. I'm gonna say
Corina:it Totally. Is there anything you would like folks to know about who you are outside of the podcast?
Jake:I'm very involved in professionally, say my niche is anything queer and kinky. And so I'm very involved in those communities personally and professionally. My desire to be a therapist came from coming out and finding a home in the queer community and finding so many people who said something to the effect of therapy is great, but I can't talk to my therapist about this. Can't talk about non monogamy. I can't talk about this weird kink that I have.
Jake:And since I was talking with them as they're engaging in these things like, well, I understand it. I get it. And so what I tell my clients is, I know what this is, you get to explain what this is for you. I know what puppy play is, but what does puppy play mean to you? And I found that to be really rewarding professionally, but also more so personally, I feel like I just get better understanding of the people that I know and love and I'm in community with.
Mariana:Yeah, so it was a lot about getting in tune with your identities and the way that that could support clients that wanted to feel like there was somebody that understood and was attuned in some ways to what they were experiencing and what they wanted to talk about in therapy. And within that, I'm curious, how did you go from like, this is who I am and this is how I want to support clients, to the point where you developed a space where like that was consistently the type of clients that you were seeing in therapy and how did you sort of realize this part of you into your therapist self as well?
Jake:So I came out pretty dramatically, I'll say in high school, and I grew up evangelical, and I very quickly lost a lot of my friends and community and really destabilizing my sense of self, which is kind of what my podcast, I Hate James Dobson is about. We read the works of evangelical parenting, quote unquote, expert James Dobson. But trying to build something new after that, like, who am I? What do I want? How do I want to navigate this world?
Jake:And I found so much meaning in queer identity and expression because a lot of the questions that I was asking myself were questions that the queer community has been talking about for ages. And it's not just the queer community, of course. A lot of marginalized groups ask the same questions like, what does it mean to exist outside of these systems? Why are these systems even in place? By finding so much joy and fulfillment and connection through that, I originally was going to go right from my undergrad into PhD for research, because I am a research nerd.
Jake:But it felt both I don't want to do school for that long, and I want to work with these populations, and I want to elevate them professionally to say, these are people worth taking seriously. I felt if I was going to talk about people in this way, I felt like I should probably know more about them and not just be some outsider being like, I'm 23 years old. Let me tell you about how the world works. And so from that, wanting my desire to be a therapist and knowing how much therapy had positively impacted me is kind of where that came from. And because I decided that pretty early on in my journey, I came in to grad school pretty much dead set saying, this is what I'm going to do.
Jake:This is who I'm going to work with. This is how I'm going to approach it. And I've been so fortunate to have supervisors and professors and administrators, people like Corina just along the way saying, great, let's do it. How are you going to do this the best way possible, but we support you in doing that. And the work has just kind of evolved from there.
Corina:This season, we're focused on the idea of expertise or knowing and how people like came into that. And I've noticed this throughout the course of the time that I've known you, but I'm really struck today as you're talking about how fast your journey into your expertise was like relative to some people. And that at such a relatively young age, you had such clarity. So I wonder, can you share what it's been like to come into this clarity about what you wanted your knowledge set to be? And and if you're up for it, I would love to hear how people have experienced you given your age.
Corina:I also came into the field young, but I would love to hear what that's been like for you.
Jake:I've always been precocious. And by that, I mean, annoying. I have the type of brain that works very well in school. And so I think that combined with the fact that I am, in general, just a white guy gives me more credibility among people who have power. I've always been like, necessarily teachers pet, but someone that the teachers get along with.
Jake:And I moved around so much growing up, my dad was in the military and being part of evangelical spaces, just interacted with so many different types of people. I feel like I've had a strong sense of self and know what I want and how I feel about things for a while. And so I think all of that provided me a really solid foundation to go and then say, this is who I am, this is what I want. And then those things change. But I also, especially since being in therapy, have given myself the ability to grow and change.
Jake:In general, people tend to respond pretty positively. Think confidence is something that people respond well to confidence and not cockiness. And I try to ride that line. But my biggest fear in starting therapy, I talked a lot about this in grad school was saying like, I know I can help, but I don't know that my clients are going to have that buy in. So for the first couple of years, I actively avoided telling people how old I was.
Jake:I started doing therapy when I was 22, and I had a big impostor syndrome about that. As I've gotten to the ripe old age of 27, now it feels a lot easier to talk about and say, I have this background. I have this learned real expertise, as opposed to what at some points felt like more of a theoretical expertise. I know the words I've read the books, but I haven't like done the work quite yet.
Mariana:It's funny the moment that I turned 25 instead of like telling clients my exact age, I started saying
Mariana:I'm in my late 20s. And my friends make fun of me because they're like, You're not in your late 20s. You can't be saying that. I'm like, Well, they don't know that. They don't know if I'm 25, 20 six, 20 nine.
Mariana:They just know I'm in
Mariana:the second half of my 20s and maybe that's all they need
Mariana:to know in order to believe my
Corina:expertise. Totally. So I graduated grad school when I was 24 and I was young and I remember it being a source of some anxiety for me, like, I be taken seriously? And of course, what's been interesting over time is that there's like a pretty small subset of folks coming to therapy for whom that's like a primary area of concern. And for the people for whom that's the case, that's fine.
Corina:But for the vast majority of folks, age is like not an especially relevant concern. They're coming for like other things, whatever those are. And so it's just interesting how long that was like something that was on my radar. And now to both of your point, I feel like my clinical expertise, meaning the things that I learned either in school or along the way is maybe 50% of who I am as a therapist. And then the other 50% is bringing my life experience.
Corina:And in some ways, I feel like the journey has been just giving myself permission for that second half to be relevant to believe that my life experience is relevant, both now as a 42 year old lady, but even earlier along the way, being young was relevant life experience for all of my clients because they've been through some version of that as well.
Mariana:Yeah, I also feel like being young and coming into the field early on also means that in some ways we're like attuned to the new things that are going on in the therapy world, right? Because we're fresh out of grad school. And I'm curious for you, Jake, considering your area of knowledge and expertise, in what ways do you think that it has actually benefited your clients that you are on the younger end of the spectrum?
Jake:I forget where I wrote this. But at some point recently, said something to the fact of I grew up in the era of Locke. And I think that really benefited me because I grew up in a time where the ability to question why was so accessible in a way that it hadn't been before. Marriage equality was legalized in The United States when I was in high school. And so my coming out was tough for like the small specific circumstances.
Jake:But in general, I was able to go into college and say, I'm gay. And I was like, Okay, cool, whatever. And that gave me so much more space really to question some of these systems of power and oppression, to take what psychological theories have been passed down to us and say, What works about this and what doesn't? And I think about this in kink and leather, for instance. There's a mentality in leather called Old Guard that's very focused on tradition and hierarchy and really strict rules.
Jake:And people who grew up in that way can really struggle to interact with people who do kink more as a hobby, I'll say. And I think the ability to question why and to be intentional about some of these experiences has allowed me to engage with both sides of that usefully. And and to, again, say, does this mean for you? I know what it is. But let's deconstruct this together.
Jake:Let's pull it apart and then build something new together. I think it's something that youth and a more modern perspective lends itself more towards.
Corina:Really grateful for that example. I'm wondering if you can share the ways that you noticed yourself being informed by both sides of the binary you just presented. And not that it is a binary that I'm sure there's everybody in the middle, but maybe folks who lean on either extreme of that spectrum. What do you learn from the folks who will bring this like commitment to the history and maybe the rules, so to speak? And what do you learn from the folks who are like, it can just be a hobby for me as well?
Jake:I think all of life is both and it's living in the tension between two seemingly contrasting ideas and learning to accept that tension. The question of like, what does this mean for you? I think I'm so interested in the meanings that people make of things. Because tradition in and of itself doesn't mean anything. Why are we doing things this way just because it it's always been done that way?
Jake:I don't care. That doesn't mean anything to me. But because it connects us to a deeper sense of history or or some kind of fundamental truth about the human experience or provides structure and people both need freedom and structure kind of that both and I think the ability to listen through things that I might disagree with. I am not a person who identifies as old guard leather, by any means. That is so not my experience, tradition, and I so value queer history.
Jake:I have been involved in the Leather Archives and Museum, which documents leather history. I was involved in the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, which is a drag activism organization. It started in the 80s in the AIDS epidemic in San Francisco, to provide joy and care to people who cis het society literally wouldn't touch with a 10 foot pole. I value history. I'm able to find the things that are meaningful to me by talking to people about the things that are meaningful to them.
Jake:But also, that questioning, that youthfulness of why are we doing it this way? I think there's so much value in that. Sometimes there are actual answers to why we're doing it that way. And that's great. And when we find that and we can pull that out and be useful, I prefer ritual over tradition for that reason.
Jake:Like we're doing these things intentionally and not just because that's the way it's always been done. To me, that's how I like synthesize both the structure and the freedom.
Mariana:That idea of learning it all and taking what feels valuable to you, leaving what doesn't, and using all of the information to connect with people who do find things that you may not agree with important to their experience with kink and with leather?
Jake:I think humility is a big part of it. Right? To say, like, here's where I am coming from. I think it's an informed belief, but I'm just some fucking guy. Tell me what this means for you, and let's talk across those differences.
Jake:Think it can be so powerful.
Corina:It's funny thinking about this reminds me when I came into the role that I'm in at Live Oak. Now, I was only 35, which I would say is pretty young, 34 turning 35. And the lawyers who were helping us with that transition, I'd gotten connected to through this organization called the Women's Business Development Center. And they had recommended an accountant to me. And I was like, cool, cool.
Corina:Let's go with this new accountant. Great, great. So I start with this new accountant. And long story short, he does not share my values. And by that, I mean, I'd be cool if we never had to pay taxes, but I don't want to put us in a position of risk.
Corina:Yeah, he just made some suggestions that I didn't feel were solid. So I go back to the old accountant that Bruce and Jeff had been using for years. His name is Ned. He's amazing. If you need an accountant, go to Ned.
Corina:But I was like, Ned, I'm so sorry. I don't know what I was thinking. Because I really didn't know Ned at the time. I was like, I would love it if you would continue to do the work. And Ned was like, I didn't even know you weren't working with me.
Corina:I'd be happy to continue. But that's just been one of 1,000 examples as a therapist as a person running an organization of remembering to ask the question of why do we do the things we do and not letting my maybe youthful impulses for novelty, or even ADHD impulses for novelty, get in the way of first and foremost asking like, why do we do what we do? Because there's now having been at Live Oak going on thirteen years, I have this opportunity many, many times to say to folks, maybe we can make that change. But let me tell you how we got here and why we do things the way we do. And then with that context, can we consider where we want to move from here?
Jake:I believe most people, but I really feel this in myself, I am both an idealist and a pragmatist. Like, want things to be different. And I see all of these problems that we have as a society, all these systems of oppression, and I can pretty clearly imagine a world that is where we've moved past them or worked through them or made reparations in some way. And also, I very much feel the limitations of the world and the system. And I think some people, as they get older, feel jaded by the idealism, and some people feel so committed to the idealism that they reject pragmatism.
Jake:And again, trying to honor both of those impulses in myself and in others has just been useful more so than anything else. It also just feels very honest.
Mariana:Live Oak Chicago is a primarily queer, trauma informed therapy practice located on the North Side Of Chicago, offering both in person and virtual therapy, consultation and workshops. We are committed to the practice of becoming a model of a community of diversely identified humans working together to transform the emotional, psychological, and spiritual well-being of individuals, families, and communities, beginning with ourselves. To access therapy, training, or consultation, please visit ww.liveoakchicago.com.
Jake:Sometimes clients will say things that are very opposite of my values, and there's a part of me that wants to engage with that and say like, that clearly comes from a place of hurt or unexamined privilege. Let's try to build a better world by talking about these things. And also, these people are paying me to talk about anxiety and sometimes just got to do my job and leave that be. But sometimes we're able to of weave this pattern to say, your anxiety that you're experiencing at work is actually really connected to these systems of internalized capitalism and how you're only, I'm a humanistic therapist, your condition of worth, you feel like your worth is conditioned on your ability to quote unquote, produce in this very narrow definition. So sometimes it's about just doing the job what the client wants, let them direct it.
Jake:And sometimes it's about finding a way to bring both impulses in.
Corina:Jake, I'm wondering, and I don't even know if it may be too soon to observe, but what have you noticed has changed about the ways that you do clinical practice in the past, let's say, eighteen months ish, since you've been doing this other creative project? Have you noticed that it's been leading to changes or not so much?
Jake:I mean, I am very influenced by recency bias in general. And so by reading really terrible child rearing advice books, I am much more aware of things that my clients talked about in their childhood of like, oh, yeah, maybe your parents weren't raised in the James Dobson world. But clearly, there's this societal expectation for kids to be seen and not heard or to act a certain way or to subscribe to various standards of quote unquote normalcy. I don't always know if that's a time to deconstruct it in therapy, but I'm very aware of those things. I also, again, when I was in grad school, we had a question of who could you not work with in therapy?
Jake:And I had two answers. One was just like people who don't like queer people. I don't feel like they'd be funneled my way in general based on who I am in the place that I work. But the other I think more meaningful answer is I don't think I could work with people who have, like are fresh in their religious trauma because it was so close in time and space for me. I think both with time and with doing this project, getting a level of intellectual distance and emotional distance, but being able to engage with it, I've been able to see myself being less reactive with my clients who talk about their religious trauma, or maybe some like lingering bits of religiosity that feel complicated for them, it feels a lot less triggering and activating for me.
Mariana:Are there like specific conversations or pieces of advice, whatever it may be, that you often find yourself engaging with clients around when it comes to the topics that you're exploring in the podcast?
Jake:I mean, I think it goes back to meaning making for me. With religious trauma, I know for myself, I described it as it felt like I had to amputate that part of myself. Just it was so painful and toxic, just needed to get it out. And I think for me at that time, it was appropriate. But a big part of my 20s has been like, how do I engage with spirituality then?
Jake:And for whatever meanings I can make about that, for whatever meaning I still find in that. I have an episode of the podcast called I leave my religious trauma out the door when it comes to VeggieTales. Like, that's something that still feels meaningful and good to me. And that felt really complicated for me for a while. And then learning to accept that I find a lot of people still hold bits and pieces of even beyond religious trauma, just like traumatic experiences or things they no longer believe or systems of oppression that they're trying to move away from, but there's still something that feels useful or meaningful in some way in that and really just help clients accept that.
Jake:We don't even have to like that. We just say that is part of you. I will never not have grown up in a culture of white supremacy. That will always be part of me. I can work to deconstruct it, and I think I should, and I hope that I am, and I can accept that that's always going be part of me.
Corina:Jake, how do you relate to the lingo of expertise? How do you wear it? How do you relate to it? How does it land for you?
Jake:I have so many complicated feelings on expertise. In general, I love it. I do think that there are people who are experts in their field, and I have worked really hard to try to be one in my relevant fields of study, of work. I also think that there is a lot of assumptions and implications in our culture about who gets to be an expert that I really don't subscribe to. Like I said, my brain works really well in school, and I love academia.
Jake:Also, academia is so messed up. And I don't think you need to have a PhD or even go to college to be considered an expert in something that you are good at. I really value people's expertise, and I can humility recognize the limits of my own. I think I have a really good understanding of queer history, but that's of North American queer history primarily. And as much as I've tried to complicate this, it is primarily through a white cis gay man's point of view, even though it's not necessarily my own point of view.
Jake:Right? And so I love expertise, and I think our relationship to it is messed up.
Mariana:Even just the idea that we can never become true experts, I think goes back to what you were saying about humility, right? That like ultimately probably the people that are doing the best work in their field is because they are constantly acknowledging the fact that they still have a lot to learn and that there's never a limit to the knowledge in whatever area they are specializing or knowledgeable on and that expertise in some ways implies that there is some sort of roof that we're trying to hit.
Corina:A landing of sorts. I think, Jake, something I've experienced with you is like holding that tension really beautifully. My experience with you is that I experience you as someone who holds a lot of expertise in actually a range of areas of clinical practice, certainly like queer affirmative work, broadly speaking, but then kink affirmative work specifically, and then even many more layers within there. And that I experienced you as someone who's just always always holding for the things you're still learning and the things that you'll continue to learn or the things that you may never know in the rest of your life. And that's a relationship with expertise that makes my body feel like stretchy and breathable and flexible.
Corina:Versus when I relate to people I had a meeting earlier this week that was not clinical at all. It was very much a business negotiation vibe experience. And not that anybody was even speaking about expertise, but the ways that the people who I was meeting with were relating to the idea of knowledge made me feel exactly the opposite, like tightened up and tense, like I was in a fight or something about knowledge. So I just want to tell you that that your ways of relating to expertise give me a model for something different.
Jake:Thank you. I intellectually understand, but emotionally, my body have never understood people who feel threatened by other people who know more or think differently than them. Again, I work really hard to try to inform myself as best I can. And I will always experience life through my own biases and experiences. And I find so much joy in hearing how other people think, even if I fundamentally disagree.
Jake:James Dobson writes manuals for how to abuse your children, and it could be, like, pretty dark at times. I disagree with him on pretty much anything that you could imagine. But I find joy in trying to think about where he's coming from and trying to understand why he gets to this point of view, even if at the end of the day, I reject all of it. He has something to say that is interesting. And I think everyone has something to say that's interesting.
Jake:Some of the people that I've learned the most from are people who would not be considered experts by any like professional authority. And I think they're experts in so much more useful things than the limits of emotional focus therapy as much as I love that as a topic.
Mariana:I wonder within that idea of people that are in a different lane learning something from somebody else. I wonder what are some things about working with the kink community, with the leather community, non monogamy. What are some things that you think are really valuable for all therapists to be considering in the work that they're doing that are lessons from these communities?
Jake:Mariana, we don't have the time because I could literally go on four hours. That is such an excellent question.
Corina:You can use the rest of our time on this.
Jake:I am very grateful to have a number of trainings that I give both therapists and to non therapists about what therapy can mean, especially as a person who has non normative sexual interests, we'll say. But in my training for therapists, I have a whole section about like, what have I learned that I think even if you're not working with these populations, what can be useful for you? The thing that I do the most is about aftercare. So aftercare in kink and BDSM sense is you have some kind of scene, someone hits you and flogs you and like uses your body in pretty intense ways. Once that's done, you have to care for yourself.
Jake:Get some aloe vera on your body or get some food in your system. Get a hug and say, you do a good job. That come down is critical. That is one of the main things that differentiates BDSM from abuse, that and consent. At the end of every session that I have, especially the individuals, we'll spend some time talking about how are you going to take care of yourself today?
Jake:Because if someone does really good work in therapy, that's amazing. Also, if you're doing good work in therapy, typically things are getting raw, things are coming up for you. And so what does that come down? How can I support you in that come down? And how can you take care of yourself?
Jake:I also do this with couples, right? Finances can be such a difficult moment for people. If I'm having conversations about finances and therapy, and it's getting tough, I'll end us like fifteen minutes early, and we'll spend the last fifteen minutes trying to regulate the nervous system saying, that was good. What do we need after this? What does your body need?
Jake:What does your brain? What does your relationship need? I also think leather kink media ism has really interesting, thoughtful conversations around what consent actually means, and the limits therein of consent in ways that I think therapists could really benefit from. And I think society generally could benefit from, right, like, can a person actually consent to harming themselves? Are they in the right mind?
Jake:That is a really difficult question. I have my own answer to it. But I think just saying yes or no is too limiting. And so how can we talk about consent? How can we talk about the ways that people are limited in their consent?
Jake:And where are those gray areas? Where can you like kind of consent? And then where's my job to step in? Also just like questioning everything. I think a question that I ask in pretty much every training I like to start here is like, what counts as sex?
Jake:And in grad school, especially students will like list different acts or different positions or whatever. And so I was like, okay, but like, well, what about this thing? What about masturbation? Does that count as sex? And especially with like kink and fetish, there are people who I would say absolutely have sex and don't at all engage in any kind of like genital stimulation.
Jake:But to them, it fully is. And so just that questioning that deconstruction, again, going back to that why, why are we defining it this way? And there are answers to it. There's a usefulness to it. Let's actually have that conversation.
Corina:Over the last, I don't know, eighteen months to two years, somewhere in that range, by invitation of one of our colleagues. I've been to way more burlesque shows than I had been to before that. And it's been so fun. But also one of the things that I've been so touched by is the relationship that this particular show, one that I've been to several times in different ways, has with consenting. And I've thought, oh, I want to bring my kids with me once I ask my colleague if that's fine with them, bring my kids with me to this show because the ways they talk about consent is different than things I've seen in other places.
Corina:So I'm just I'm really resonating with what you're talking about about the ways that this work has changed my conceptions of things like consenting, and the ways it can be done, and the limits to it as well that just like make it a more interesting conversation. And the what is sex? This is like a crossover between the podcast I was on with you last week and this one, I was really socialized. And I don't even think this came overtly from my parents, I think it came from being raised in Catholic Christian community. I was really socialized into sex as simply a vaginal penile experience specifically.
Corina:And I think so much time before becoming a therapist and since becoming a therapist has included the joy of having this like much more and really ever evolving increasingly expansive idea of what sex is, which has been great for me in addition to great for making me a much better therapist.
Mariana:I think about the ways in which the more under informed discord around things like kink, BDSM, sex, etc. Can often think about it as like, oh, this is harmful and like non monogamy. So often people think about it as cheating, but actually I think what we're talking about that is so key and so important is that actually it's so embedded to be talking about consent and be talking about what does this mean for each of us and how can we build a sex life that honors what each person involved desires is totally missing in so much of our population. And I think that it is such a valuable lesson and something that I would love people to understand more that every step of the process is about like building something that everybody involved is opting into and consenting into. And that ideally should be what we're all thinking about when we're thinking about things like sex.
Jake:Yeah, and I think like this is just how I think about relationships generally for cheating. Again, a question that I'll ask in a training about non monogamous like for monogamous relationships, what counts as cheating? Because it just is such the default in our society. We assume, okay, well, cheating, don't cheat on your partner. For some people watching porn counts as cheating, and for other people not.
Jake:Or hanging out with people of the opposite sex could be like borderline cheating for some people, emotional cheating, right? There are all these different meanings. Part of the reason I am so grateful for the experiences I have had in queer communities and spaces is that we can take those things for granted. Gender roles are not something we can just take for granted if it's two men or two women in a relationship. We can't take monogamy for granted necessarily.
Jake:And so with that, if we don't have these narratives to rely on, what do we do? How do we figure these things out? And I feel so heartened knowing that people have been figuring out long before I ever have tried.
Corina:I'm really touched by this conversation and the ways that it sort of growing on the last one I got to have with you, Jake. I wonder if you were gonna speak to your newest therapist self. So you like right out of grad school. What's the advice that you have that you would offer to that younger therapist self? Cause I think what I've been noticing is that this podcast has been maybe most influential for people who are coming right out of school and in the midst of like learning these lessons.
Jake:This is again, something I think about not just for therapists, but especially for them chill out, Like, take your job seriously. Do the work that is hard. Always try to challenge yourself and learn more and grow. And also, that's fine. Everything is bad.
Jake:The world is on fire. Everyone is struggling. That is a given. You're going to make a difference when you can. Some days you're not going to feel that both of those are okay.
Jake:You will find a rhythm, you'll find a pace, you'll find people that challenge you. It's part of the process. And with that, try to relax into it. That's something that I really appreciate about my role as a group supervisor is getting to see people throughout the year kind of relax into their roles, into their identities. And when I say relax into it, I also think like step into themselves more fully.
Jake:You're not trying to perform expertise. You just have expertise and you get to speak from that place.
Corina:Mariana, what would you say to yourself from a year ago?
Mariana:You are a therapist. Nothing more than that. I feel like for the two years in grad school where I was seeing clients, I almost kept telling myself like, I'm not a therapist yet. I'm a student and I'm still learning. And I think that the I'm not a therapist yet was so embedded in my own imposter syndrome and my fear that I wasn't doing well enough by my clients.
Mariana:When in reality, I think a lot of what I've learned and have practiced even in the last year in building my confidence has been that ultimately it's about being present with clients. It's about asking the questions. It's about just showing them honestly that you care when maybe nobody else has shown them care for the things that they are coming in with. And so I think I tell myself, yes, you're a therapist and it's okay that there's certain days where you feel like your sessions don't go as well because there's other days where you're gonna leave a session and be like, I'm a fucking awesome therapist! And it's just a part of the roller coaster of the kind of work we do.
Mariana:If anything, I love the fact that every hour of our work is different. I don't think I could sit and do an Excel sheet that is the same thing every day and feel okay with my life for the ways that I exist as a person. I know that I like novelty and change and that does mean that some days I probably won't feel as good about the work I do, but at least it is fulfilling and new and challenging in ways that will keep me on my feet.
Corina:Yeah, I think that my younger self could have benefited from hearing that mistakes are the good bits. That's when it's going to get interesting. Same thing about tension. Tension is such an opportunity. And I think I was really afraid of tension and getting it wrong and even conflict to a certain degree.
Corina:And that I would say you're gonna love trauma work. I'm a person who really, really loves working with trauma. And I couldn't have known that when I was younger, but I really enjoy working with people at both learning to be loving to the effects of trauma, but also learning to heal it sort of directly. And EMDR has sort of changed my life in that way. Also, I would say to my younger self learn to live in your body.
Corina:But that was going to be a long slow journey. Anything else you want to add before we finish up Jake?
Jake:This is sort of I guess more meta about what we're doing here, but the world is changing so quickly and I feel sometimes the institutions around us are not set up to deal with that. And again, part of the reason that I value queerness in the queer community is that like many other oppressed communities, they've had to be resilient on the spot a lot more quickly and build something beautiful out of that. And I think something that I still value about Live Oak and about my podcast, about this podcast, about the conversations that not just the people in our community, people in our extended professional community are having is like, how do we deal with this? And we can make some pretty radical changes. Sometimes we're doing things for a reason.
Jake:Sometimes those reasons are dumb. And there's, I think, a real willingness and hunger that I see in people to have those conversations and try to see if we can answer those questions. I think this podcast is a invaluable part of that project.
Corina:Oh, thank you. Thanks, Jake.
Mariana:It's been great to chat with you, Jake, as always. I feel so fortunate to have gotten a whole year to have you as my group supervisor and this is a moment for me to plug that everybody should go and check out Jake's trainings and workshops because even in the past, what has it been like ten months, eleven months of getting to learn from you? I think I have grown so much as a therapist. And so I hope everybody gets some chance, even if it's just this podcast to learn from Jake.
Jake:Thank you so much. That's so generous.
Corina:Yeah. I would say listen to I Hate James Dobson. I would say your podcast, Jake, has been really an opportunity to understand myself better. So I'm so grateful, and I hope other people take a listen. And I've said to you in some ways and other places that listening to your podcast has been this chance to get to know you better in this way that you are not always aware of.
Corina:So when I got to go on your podcast, and you coming on here is this chance to sync up our mutual reciprocal learning that I'm delighted about. And I just I feel very lucky to get to be in community with you and to be developing a friendship with you as well. I'm just very grateful for you.
Jake:Thank you. The feeling is absolutely mutual.
Mariana:And I hope we will bump into each other at some moment in world pride.
Jake:The mean streets of DC.
Corina:Yes. I hope you two can get a selfie. Send it along.
Mariana:Mhmm. A Live Oak picture that we can print in huge and input in our future waiting room.