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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.
Human beings have such a capacity to harm each other. And at the same time, we have this immense capacity for love. I am a person that believes that love is endless. Time and energy and finances are more finite. Love isn't.
Alissa Catiis:And so I I view my job as helping people to talk about hard things so that they can keep love in their lives.
Corina:Hi. My name is Corina Teofilo Mattson.
Mariana:I'm Mariana Reyes Daza.
Corina:And we are the new co hosts for a new podcast called Lessons from the Couch. Throughout this podcast, you're gonna find us having intimate, deep conversations. We'll be talking to therapists and probably some non therapists, and we're gonna bring you into the therapy room with us.
Mariana:So today is December 2024. We are entering the holiday season and only a few days away from the New Year twenty twenty five. Right now, I believe all of us are located in Chicago, and we have Alissa here with us today who is a fellow therapist with Corina and I at Live Oak. Alissa, I'd love for you to tell us a little bit about who you are and what brought you to your current place and time as a therapist at Live Oak.
Alissa Catiis:Yeah. So my name is Alissa Catiis. I use she, her pronouns. I have been a therapist seventeen years. At
Alissa Catiis:this point in time, my caseload is about half adults preparing or doing EMDR therapy, which is a treatment for trauma, and the other half are about folks that are in relationships or couples that wanna come in.
Alissa Catiis:Often people in those relationships have trauma history. I tend to center, BIPOC and queer folks in my practice, although I do see everyone. And before this, I really I worked a lot more with teens. I worked for seven and a half years at the Erie Family Health Center where my clients were folks that were ages 12 to 24 and their children. And I found that in the virtual context, it's a lot harder to for me to work with children and adolescents, so I I don't do that type of work as much anymore.
Alissa Catiis:As far as being at Live Oak, I had applied with Corina, and then I was offered the job, and then I think I didn't take the job for at least a year because I was like, I'm not sure if I'm quite ready. I had been making, you know, sort of two salaries or, like, one salary plus additional, and I was always nervous about going down to just having fee for service and the way we do it in private practice. And I think because of Corina's value in relationships, she said, do you wanna just meet quarterly and talk? And I was like, yeah, I'd love to. And I think we talked about all things from getting to know each other and being people that are sort of into business or having businesses.
Alissa Catiis:I don't think it was her marketing strategy, but I think after a
Mariana:year, I was like, Corina, do you guys have any openings? I'd love to come work for Live Oak now. And she was like, yes. It's fun to hear about your experience interacting with Corina and that leading you to be at Live Oak. That's so similar to how I ended up at Live Oak.
Mariana:Meeting Corina through my graduate program and having Corina be a figure of comfort at moments through my graduate program that I was just kind of, like, leaning on you as a new therapist and wanting to have a support system and then eventually coming to Live Oak. And it is interesting to see how crucial building that relationship seems to have been for you as well, Alissa, to feel prepared to take that step in your career. It wasn't just, okay. Corina's nice. I'll go there.
Mariana:But feeling that connection.
Alissa Catiis:Well, it was interesting. And this is also similar the way that maybe I should be viewing relationships that I encourage others to adopt this stance, is that you are also choosing, like I am also choosing. You know, at that time, I had fifteen years experience. I can choose where I work. If you last in the field that long, you can choose where you go.
Alissa Catiis:I had the privilege to choose where I went. And so similar to a romantic relationship, having that scarcity mindset, I'm also choosing. You're also choosing where you go. I think because of my own personal story and my own personal trauma history around relationships, it's always felt like I didn't have the choice. I should just go with, like, the first person that liked me back or something
Mariana:like that. In what ways do you think that some of those experiences that you were having in relationships led you to want to be a relationship therapist and trauma therapist?
Alissa Catiis:A lot of my experience dating before the last two years was with cishet white men, and then I was with a Filipina queer woman for a while. I personally have been to three different couples' therapists. And interestingly enough, they were all cishet white men. And when I did that, it was because I wanted the white male partner I had to feel comfortable. I didn't want him to feel like there were two therapists against one, which is not really how couples therapy works.
Alissa Catiis:That was my perception. I also find that in this field, in couples and relationship therapy in particular, there are a lot of cishet white men more than I think any other area of our field. I think as a couples and relationship therapist, you can be more directive and more of a coach. And so I think cishet white men are drawn to that. So I wanted to be the couple's therapist that I think I needed and that so many of our BIPOC and queer clients need.
Alissa Catiis:Initially, I put a lot of pressure on myself to be the therapist, both the individual and the couple's therapist that I needed, and it's too much pressure. It's also too much financially to go through all those trainings.
Mariana:Yeah. Absolutely. The financial aspect is huge and probably also a reflection of why so many white men end up being in this field and getting clients continually because they likely have access financially and just society to a lot more of those trainings that then make them seem more qualified even if that might not necessarily be a reflection compared to other therapists. I did notice that you have had the opportunity to do trainings related to mindfulness and yoga, trauma informed trainings. And I'm curious what drew you to making the choice to integrate some of those specific practices into your work as a relationship therapist and what role you think those specific tools have in how you practice.
Alissa Catiis:Well, it was always very clear to me that the body needed to be involved in treatment because the body has always been involved in my treatment. When I was in college, I had a major depressive episode that landed me in the hospital. And the major thing that helped me was I took free belly dance classes at the Jewish Center at the University of Illinois, and I still think about that teacher, Melissa Glassman, often. And Melissa Glassman, above my therapist, my psychiatrist, all the people that were trying to help me helped me the most. Moving helped me the most.
Alissa Catiis:I always knew that that would be part of what I would do with people. And I actually I went through it was hard because I I was at University of Chicago and it was very theoretical, very heady. And I was like, oh my god. This is maybe the wrong program for me. Maybe I should have done dance movement therapy.
Alissa Catiis:So I was at that time, I was looking at Columbia College, and I was like, maybe I'll drop out of this program and go into this program. And I realized paying for four years worth of graduate school, because Columbia's program is three years and I had already basically finished one year at UFC, paying for four years seemed wild to me than paying for two. And so I got some good advice from some colleagues at the time who said just do your best to incorporate movement. Yoga will be one way. And so I did that.
Alissa Catiis:And I chose trauma sensitive yoga because it, for me, that practice that's invitational and the focus isn't returning your attention back to your own body. The phrasing is, like, when you are ready, if you are able to lift your left arm towards the ceiling. It's not command based like other exercise or other yoga classes. What's taken away from trauma survivors is their choice. And so to introduce choice back into their movement practice is very powerful, and the research has shown that that's one of the key elements that helps.
Alissa Catiis:Everything is by invitation. I think if I could give, like, a how to do couples therapy in two minutes or less, maybe five minutes or less, that when you're with a couple and you can sense that something's happening or you're about to go into something hard, you ask for consent to talk about it as a therapist. You invite people to notice what's happening in their body, and then you move forward. That is literally most of what I do. Is I'm stopping people, helping them notice what's happening in their body, asking for consent to do so beforehand, and then proceeding forward.
Alissa Catiis:With the caveat that I have learned from my trans, non binary, and gender expansive colleagues about dysphoria and how that that's not as easy sometimes for people who are transgender expansive, non binary. And so I still invite folks to do
Mariana:that if they're able. And if
Alissa Catiis:not, I turn to some external source. Like, what are you noticing in the room that you're in right now with your five senses? What are the objects and colors that you see? What does it feel like to begin to think about talking about this conflict that you had, this argument that you had? Do you notice any colors in your body?
Alissa Catiis:Do you notice any sensation? So that's a way that I've learned to adapt that for folks whose bodies don't feel like their own.
Mariana:So in general, what I'm hearing is that, like, the parts of trauma sensitive yoga that you have brought into your practice are not necessarily, like, we're sitting down in session and we're doing yoga as maybe would be at least my misconception when I first read trauma sensitive yoga being part of your practice, but rather some of the learnings of, like, connecting mind and body in the space through your own almost consensual experience between those two. Like, inviting your body to feel and connect because you're giving it permission to and not because it is responding in the given moment to something in your surroundings.
Alissa Catiis:Yes. That's definitely a huge part of it. And I would say I use my body as the primary tool in therapy. I don't know if it's a combination of the way I've been born. I think it's I think it it is the way I've been born and the way that I was raised and grew up as well as the training that I sought was how do I interpret what's happening in my body.
Alissa Catiis:Just to give you an example, this even works in teletherapy. When I start to feel sensation that maybe feels more than what I normally feel, I begin to ask myself, like, okay. Is this mine, or is this the clients? Or is this mine or is this the couple's? And I will get an answer.
Alissa Catiis:I know that sounds like a little woo woo, but I'll get an answer, and then that feeling will usually dissipate. I picked this up very early with some of the first clients I had that when I personally would get this tight feeling in my neck, I had a sense that perhaps that person was about to tell me their trauma story. And so those were the cues, the things I learned about my own body, what was it telling me. And then sometimes it it's also maybe something the person's experiencing. This happens often where I'll get sleepy or tired.
Alissa Catiis:And one of my mentors, Lori Khan, who is very influential in my career and she actually wrote a book called Baffled by Love, which is very relevant to this conversation we're having. What I learned from her is that sometimes when you're bored in session, that it could be a sign of emotional neglect that the client had, that they failed. The misbelief is that this client failed to capture their caregiver's attention enough to receive the care they need. Of course, that that sounds like I'm blaming the child and that's, like, not what I mean. Usually, there was something like addiction or mental illness or abuse going on in that parent's life that didn't allow for them to give their attention to their child.
Alissa Catiis:So that's that's one reason why you could be bored, could be a sign of emotional neglect. Literally, other times, I'll ask the client, have you had trouble sleeping? And because of, again, my constitution and the way I was built, I can feel those things. And then if they say yes, immediately, I'm not sleepy anymore, and I can, like, be present for the session.
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 www.liveoakchicago.com.
Mariana:What are some parts that you're willing to share about what you described as the way that you were born, the way that you were raised that you think have given you this connection or this almost intuitiveness to what the other person in the room might be feeling?
Alissa Catiis:Yeah. It's probably a lot of things. There's a Filipino word, which means, like, sense of community or community. Christina Castro, one of my colleagues, started a group called Kasamahan, which means like togetherness. And it's now a a nonprofit, and there's two options for consultation.
Alissa Catiis:There's also an an administrative meeting. We also have gatherings, like, quarterly in person. And I realized that a lot of these things that I thought were sort of quirky about me or my family or were qualities for me and my family are actual cultural values that Filipino people look around and sense others and see if they're okay. It's that caretaking aspect that it's part of our culture that everyone is in our community, that everyone gets fed, that you give what you have even if it's, you know, not much. You you give even if it's white rice, you give what you have.
Alissa Catiis:You offer it to others. And in in turn, you hope that people will offer that back to you when you need. So I think that that cultural value is fodder for sort of my body being aware of these things and paying attention. And then that I just I thought that was so cool that I learned, like, okay. This is not just like a quirky thing that I have that I think is a gift of mine.
Alissa Catiis:It it's also like a cultural value that we do this as people and that we sense this as people. And an interesting sort of transition, I was talking to some friends in the Filipino community, and we have this debate, like, are the Filipinos the most romantic people on Earth? And part of it is because, like, people think we're always falling in love with them because we do things like we show love, like, we bring you food. We ask you if you need a ride. We, like, write you a thank you note or we send you a car we we give you a little gift.
Alissa Catiis:And when you're early dating people cross culturally, they're like, oh my god. This woman, like, is she, like, totally in love with me because she brought me brownies? And it's like, no. I literally was running out the door, and I was like, oh, I have to bring something. Here are these brownies I have.
Alissa Catiis:And it's so it's just part of the culture. You don't show up empty handed.
Mariana:Alissa, I relate to this part so much as a Latina myself, and I can see how even that might show up in different ways within our different cultural experiences of, like, how we show love and care. But I remember even in a meeting recently where we were talking about something of this sort, it kind of clicked for me that in the ways I was raised to care and show love for others, both as a Latina and, specifically, a Latina socialized as a girl my whole life and somebody that identifies as a woman, sometimes feeling so eager to connect with people by giving them gifts and telling them how much I care for them. And, like, I love physical affection and, like, holding hands with my best friend kind of thing. And when I came to The United States, feeling like I had to tone down that part of me due to fear of making people uncomfortable or making them think that I was showing a sign of flirtation or a desire other than a friendship simply because I was showing up as myself. And I know that that started to impact at least how I did romantic relationships because I felt like I had almost found this pseudo self in the context of being surrounded by people that didn't feel connected to my cultural identity.
Mariana:And I'm curious how being in relationship with people that aren't Filipino American makes you show these parts of you in a different way?
Alissa Catiis:Yeah. That's a great question, and one that I've been thinking about a lot recently. So one thing that's just been so interesting is the aspect of community in my life and the aspect of community that I encourage all of my clients, especially who are queer, to facilitate and cultivate in their life. And what's super tricky about that is a lot of people are in therapy because relationships have hurt them. They don't know how, and they don't have access to people with similar identities.
Alissa Catiis:Of course, the pandemic, people who are immunocompromised, who have been navigating that their whole life have different and unique challenges. And so me saying something like go make community, that could be your whole work with your client is learning why it was hard, uncovering why it was hard, and we're doing that repair. So I know that that's easier said than done. One of the things I've noticed is that it's harder for me to say I love you to people who are white. And I I was reflecting on that.
Alissa Catiis:And, like, why is this hard? I just I don't feel like white folks have said that to me as much, at least broadly. It took, like, many years for that to be said to me. And I feel like my understanding just of white American culture is that it's less affectionate, is that it's more sort of proper. I'm saying that in quotes.
Alissa Catiis:It's like, we don't touch each other. We be polite. We shake hands. And that's been so different from the communities of color that I'm I surround myself with now, who are just, like, very loving and affectionate, who will easily say that they love me, and it's easy for me to say that back to them. It feels almost unnatural not to say it.
Alissa Catiis:And maybe it's because it's an interracial thing that happens and so but I've just noticed the love is not as easily accessible or given and so that has made me sort of hesitant for all the reasons that you said, Mariana, like I don't want this person to interpret this in a in a way that's bad. I don't want this to be seen as flirting, or I don't want this to be seen as harassment. How can I do this consensually? And I think about that more around white folks than I do around folks of color. I think about those implications more, whereas with folks of color, I just freely say and do.
Alissa Catiis:I still ask for consent, but I'm not as worried that my actions are gonna be misinterpreted.
Mariana:There's more of an understanding of this is just how we're coexisting, and maybe if one person is offering, like, brownies, as you mentioned, as a form of love, that the other person might return it with, like, I'm gonna give you a ride home. And there's that reciprocal love and care that doesn't necessarily always have to be. We are hugging, and we're telling each other how much we care for each other, but also in those actions that when you're going to somebody's place and you're bringing brownies, that was almost embedded in me as well. Showing your appreciation for the person if you don't necessarily find yourself being somebody that will just walk in and be like, thank you so much and I'm so grateful. I have a hard time with that
Alissa Catiis:at least.
Mariana:I do that by bringing brownies and saying, here's my sign of appreciation, care for you.
Alissa Catiis:And I I think at times, I've gotten to a place where, like, I resent that. I'm like, why do I have to do this every time? So I have to be really careful about that. If I start to have thoughts like that, I'm wondering, okay, who's feeding me and how? And do I feel under cared for in a certain way?
Alissa Catiis:I think that's also really important that it's not gonna become this, like, transactional thing that's really done out of love and that's really done from a place of, like, I want to do this not because I have to or because it's some sort of expectation set upon me. And so I've also challenged myself in learning myself more about mutuality. Like, maybe I'm not gonna do this this time. It's like an interesting thought experiment. Like, why did I choose now not to?
Alissa Catiis:The reason is I'm trying to see if this person will give me back. And and this is what I'm talking about in this particular instance is people that are new to me in, like, a dating context versus people I've known for years who are already in my community who are friends of mine.
Mariana:I'm curious whether you see this showing up at all in your practice as a therapist where our relationship with our clients is somewhat focused on them and, like, them getting what they need out of the space. And I'm curious how this caretaking aspect of the ways that we care for each other shows up for you as a therapist or has changed over time in your practice.
Alissa Catiis:So I think when I used to work more in person, I would have transitional objects or little journals for people, and they were often extras that I had or just, like, things that I had around the house. It's that aspect of, like, resource sharing that was one way. I would do that sometimes for my EMDR clients. The therapist that work with me gave me a journal, so sometimes I would give my clients in person a journal. I have tended to stay away from gifts with clients.
Alissa Catiis:I think that's it's been a way that I've trained that I haven't actually challenged mentally, so maybe that's a good thing for me to think about more. It's also because it gets tricky. It gets tricky, especially the clients I've worked with who have history of being groomed or have history of sexual abuse. There is higher likelihood of that being misinterpreted or seen as a mechanism of control, and so I've just eliminated that. And instead, I think one way that I am giving to my clients in a way that maybe is not the way I learned is to ask permission and be more giving of myself and my story.
Alissa Catiis:And I also have to be careful with that, not over identifying with my clients and not taking up too much of their time. But I know how meaningful it is. I know with my own therapist when she has disclosed with me things, it was just so meaningful to me. So that's the way I think I I do that. Yeah.
Mariana:Learning the parts of you that you want to offer into the space that might help them connect more with you and understand their own experience more. And I also wonder maybe a part of our role as therapists that I've come to know that our clients maybe don't get an insight into is how much the process of our work also gives us growth and learning. And I'm curious what are some of the things that you have learned from your clients, whether it be about love or about yourself, that you don't think you would have gotten to know if you hadn't gone through this journey of being a therapist?
Alissa Catiis:Similar to what I said before that a lot of clients come to us on intake saying that they're having problems in relationships, they're having problems with their partner, they're having problems connecting with people. Love is what they're coming in for, struggling with it. And I think human beings have such a capacity to harm each other. We can see that in the news. If you spend any day with any trauma therapist, you know about the immense harm that we can cause each other.
Alissa Catiis:And at the same time, we have this immense capacity for love. I am a person that believes that love is endless. It is a resource that is endless. Time and energy and finances are more finite. Love isn't.
Alissa Catiis:So when I am working with clients, especially who have survived incest or abuse at home, when that early childhood trauma has just shattered their views about love, when the people that they were supposed to learn from hurt them instead. I still see that so many of them love that person. So it's both because in betrayal trauma, term coined by Jennifer Fried, the same person that hurt you is also the one who drove you to school or took you to school, gave you a home, gave you some meals. And so that makes love inherently complicated. And even the people that harm my clients, they want to hold on and have that image of that person being lovable.
Alissa Catiis:And so I think that's the biggest lesson. Right? Through smaller harms in romantic relationship, for example, or even friendship or other form of platonic relationship, we can harm each other without even meaning. And as humans, I believe we just have this innate desire and this necessity to connect. And so it's just, like, so important to be able to learn how to do those things and to be able to confront conflict and to be able to really be accountable and repair.
Alissa Catiis:And it was something that I was so uncomfortable with almost my whole life until, like, the last five to seven years. I was like, no. I want to be good at this. I don't wanna, like, lose every single person in my life because I just cut them off or because they cut me off or because I don't know how to talk about a hard thing. I view my job as helping people to talk about hard things so that they can keep love in their lives.
Mariana:Yeah. Learning to put aside the harm and give way to that connection and that love by naming it and confronting it.
Alissa Catiis:Yeah. And only if it's consensual. I'm not encouraging people to forgive their abusers. That is not what I'm trying to say. But how can we hold on to love and and center that and center caring for each other, managing conflict and accountability and repair?
Mariana:If younger Alissa were sitting in the room with us hearing some of these lessons that you are putting out for everyone to hear, what would you want to stick with younger Alissa from what you're saying today?
Alissa Catiis:This is the one question I answered ahead of time, and it was don't let particularly any romantic relationship prevent you from doing things that you wanna do, especially when you're young. At least when you're in college, maybe in your twenties. So I regret that in college, I never chose to study abroad because I had a boyfriend, and it was a long distance relationship at that time. And I was like, it will take me away from being able to talk to him. I'm like, that is so stupid.
Alissa Catiis:I could have been fluent in Spanish if I had chosen to go. You still can be. I know. I I still can be, but I would have been so good to have that just done at a semester. And, of course, that person is, like, long gone.
Alissa Catiis:I wish him well, and he's long gone, and the Spanish would not have been. So, yeah, just don't let any of those opportunities, especially when you're young, pass you by.
Mariana:Well, Alissa, thank you so much for chatting with us today. And I know that there was so much more that we want to and can still chat about. So as we have been saying to many of our amazing guests already, we would love to have you come back and especially dive deeper into the topic of queer relationships and how that is integrated to your relationships and your practice because I know that that is a huge area of interest for you. But I'm so glad that our guests get to know you already, and hopefully that you can be a recurring guest on our podcast.
Corina:It's so beautiful for me to hear this conversationalist. I feel like I've gotten chances to get to know you here and there bit by bit. And today, I got to know a bunch of things that I didn't know already. So I I just loved it. And now I'm like, next time we go for coffee, I have more to ask.
Mariana:Make sure you take a recorder.
Corina:But I have had the opportunity in a number of scenes to see you implement or carry out this, like, way of being that you're describing that came in part from your trauma informed yoga training. I've just seen you do that across so many different settings. And in the time we've known each other, it's already changed me. So that was the thing I wanted to tell you is that, like, I've noticed two pieces. One, the practice around consenting.
Corina:I have become more integrated to that practice thanks to just being in friendship with you. And then two, the practice of giving people credit. There's nobody who gives people credit better than you, and it's been a ethic of yours that I've tried to learn. I heard you do it today. I'm just I'm grateful for you being willing to be here with us today and grateful for those things that you've shared with me over time.
Alissa Catiis:I will say that I think that we made this happen because of relationships that I've formed with each of you. So I would not have been as excited to do this if if I didn't know the two of you a little bit.
Mariana:Thank you. And thank you for being brave to chat with me, a newer person in your life today. So I appreciate it, and I hope you both have a great weekend.
Alissa Catiis:Thank you.
Mariana:Bye, Alissa. Thank you so much.
Alissa Catiis:You're welcome.
Humza:I think we have this innate sense of what it feels like to be me in this space. For me, as a drag performer, my drag is very spiritual and ethereal and not of this plane. My journey in drag has allowed me to feel more comfortable stepping into that side of myself. And I think that I totally do bring that side of myself to my sessions. I'm often saying to my clients that you're on the path that you're meant to be.
Humza:And if you haven't figured out what path you wanna be on, then let's figure it out together and get on the path, girl.