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In Therapy Talk, clinical psychologist and co-founder of It's Complicated, Johanne Schwensen, takes you on a captivating journey through the world of therapy.
In conversation with a diverse array of mental health professionals, the various modalities are demystified, and therapy's intersection with society is explored. Whether you're a therapy-seeker or simply psychologically curious, Therapy Talk offers valuable insights and a fresh perspective on the impact of therapy.
Find your Therapist at: https://www.complicated.life
Music by Kadri Arula
Fadi
===
Johanne: [00:00:00] Seventeen years ago, when I decided I wanted to become a psychologist, what convinced me was that every time I had met a mental health professional, I had met someone incredibly open minded. These were people who seemed so alive and wedded to our common humanity, not just the profession. I didn't want to study something for six plus years if I was going to be surrounded by people subscribed to a narrow worldview or who were too rigidly infatuated by their theories.
Speaking to Fadi Hage, a medical doctor turned therapist, reminds me of why this aspect of mental health professionals as a quote unquote breed, is what keeps me so motivated in my community work, with its complicated. I get to speak with some of the most interesting and compassionate people out there.
All of them with such colorful, diverse backgrounds and takes on what works to alleviate suffering. In [00:01:00] this here interview, I had the pleasure of delving into the nuts and bolts of Fadi's compassion based work and learned how to deal better with my inner critic while incorporating doses of mindfulness practice into my daily life in concrete, playful ways I hadn't thought of before.
Enjoy.
Hey, Fadi, your background in and of itself could be an entire hour.
Fadi: Yeah,
Johanne: because you're, you're,
you're not just a therapist.
Fadie: I am a human
Johanne: you you are human.
Fadi: and I've had a quite an interesting journey so far, which I'm very grateful for. Okay. I'll try to. I keep it short and sweet. Originally,
Lebanese grew up in Lebanon and I moved
from Lebanon when I was about 19 to medical school in Europe.
After that I moved again to Norway where I started [00:02:00] working as a doctor.
So my primary background is in medicine. I came to a new country, which was a bit scary.
I didn't know the language actually
had never
been in Norway before I decided to go there for work.
Johanne: Wow.
Fadi: And I had no idea about how the health system worked. So.
but yeah,
but yeah, that's kind of me. I tend to jump into things and got to Norway, learned a new language, started working um, ended up doing
Immunology.
actually for
a long time.
So I'm a specialist in immunology and I was doing a lot of interesting research
And working with Leukemia and Immunodeficiencies. But then when I finished my specialty and I got offered a specialist position, I realized that I really miss . [00:03:00] People . I'm
actually a people
person, even though I did grow up with some social anxiety when I was a teenager.
But
deep down inside, I really love people. And then, so I decided to take a small sabbatical. At the time, I also loved to travel and I started traveling to Asia.
Johanne: How many years back is this?
Fadi: this is about 2015, if I remember
Johanne: Okay. Yeah.
Fadi: So I went for three months and when I came back I realized that I didn't want to work in research because I really like people and I also realized that I love to travel.
So when I came back to Norway, I
decided to take on like a short term assignments as a family practitioner.
And
I would work for like [00:04:00] six months. And then I was off to Asia for another six months, and I got hooked on Asia because of well for one yoga and meditation. That's when I started learning
about
mindfulness. practices
and when I would go back to Norway to work as a family practitioner, I quickly noticed that there was
a lot of people contacting me because there were not feeling mentally good.
ThAt was when I started getting into therapy. And in the beginning it was
a lot of mindfulness based, stress reduction, cognitive therapy, self-compassion, those types of therapies that I would study, go to workshops. And then when people came, I would start to try and help them out and I soon became.
The doctor that loved the people that were feeling sad,
Johanne: Bring them on
Fadi: [00:05:00] and a lot more and a lot more were coming. After that it was in the pandemic um, that was also working as a gp and there was a lot of people that were not feeling well. The isolation. You can imagine everything. And then one day I had this,
I had a crazy Friday.
I still remember that day. The secretary just calls me and she's like, oh, there's this patient. She's having a small infection. It will be quick. I know you're busy schedule, but can you fit her in? I'm like, sure, sure. And this human comes in and immediately when she sits down, I'm like. Something's not right over here.
So instead of just looking at the blood results and just giving the antibiotics, I started asking a few questions and it turned out into about [00:06:00] 14 or 15 minute of heart opening session where she just, we both were very emotional, crying, letting go, and a lot of.
Johanne: Wow.
Fadi: Stuff coming up
and then
went back into my day and then at the end of the day when I was walking out, the secretary was like, oh, you have a gift from a patient.
And she had bought me a flower with a small card that said You should be a psychiatrist.
Johanne: Really. That's
so beautiful.
Fadi: So
I.
when I went home and I'm like, Hmm. I really enjoy working in psychiatry. So I got online and I started searching for just, it was Friday afternoon. I'm like, oh, let's look, and I found a position in a city that I have a lot of friends in.
I'm like, I. Okay, I'm feeling a bit lonely. I was in a different city at the time, not
knowing anyone.
And [00:07:00] with the lockdown, it wasn't very easy to socialize, and then I saw that there was this
still
and it's like
still in Norway. So I ended
up just writing a very short, uh, application, sending it in, and then.
Monday morning I get a call and they're like, would you be interested in an interview? I'm like, yeah, . And so within a few weeks I left my job as a family practitioner and moved again and started working in emergency psychiatry. Immediately, as soon as I got there, I knew I, or the first week I went to my boss and I'm like.
I need to do CBT
Johanne: Yeah.
Fadi: They're like, you just got here. I'm like, I know, but this is one thing I want . And they're like, okay. So I immediately got enrolled in a two year cognitive behavioral [00:08:00] therapy certification. And yeah. And that's how I became a therapist.
Johanne: Wow. In which ways would you say that your journey to becoming a therapist has informed your approach to therapy? Has it become like more
holistic or, you know how
Fadi: Yeah.
I remember when I was, when I started doing the teacher training as A-M-B-S-R and MBCT I. Certification. I remember
having a discussion with my supervisor at the time and uh, I needed to run a few of these eight week courses to get certified, and I remember telling my supervisor that I really want to get certified, but the program as it is, doesn't really fit into the people that I'm working with at the time.
Johanne: And what
[00:09:00] was that?
Fadi: To become a mindfulness based cognitive therapist. Hmm. So I guess life had its own path for me, and instead of following one certain path, I started learning and just whatever circumstance I was in, I would try to customize that. So
I was also working in addiction medicine and over there, for example, Gabor Mati, compassionate Inquiry.
I'm sure you heard about. Yeah. I did a one month's training with them and I found that to be a super powerful tool when I was working with addiction. So I started holding these group sessions and just. Getting to know a lot about the pain of why people get stuck in addiction and customizing according to everyone and what [00:10:00] they felt they needed.
Johanne: Say a bit
to to, to those who haven't heard of G and Compassionate Inquiry, just a few words about
Fadi: hmm.
Johanne: that approach.
Fadi: I guess what Gober says is that uh, behind every addiction there is pain, and if we don't deal with that pain, there's very little chance that we could manage the addiction. So
we need to understand
and. Not only focus on how long have you been using what kind of drugs, how often, and all that, but to see the whole person and what is the pain that is driving you to use drugs to
Track 1: escape.
Johanne: Yeah.
Fadi: Well, for me, that was the main thing that [00:11:00] stuck with me.
And I'm
very curious. So I keep learning and
I
keep
keep trying to see what does this person,
how can I help this person in the best way possible? I really like that approach because it's the patient
or the client, that
And the focus over here. I Don't try to fit the patient into program, but I try to make a program for everyone I work with and it makes my work very
exciting because there's a lot of new things all the time.
Johanne: So you have kind of a also a, like a blank slate approach. You try to kind of,
Fadi: hmm.
Johanne: Go into each new meeting with with, with a person
Track 1: Hmm. Yeah.
Johanne: without any
Fadi: Yeah.
Johanne: expectations as to what the client will bring or, well,
Fadi: Well, [00:12:00] I try to listen to where the client and, and which. Part of their journey. They are. And what do they need at that time? And then help them
to work towards what they want to achieve. And that being said, uh,
self-compassion is a very integral part of my approach, and it's one of the first things that I check.
How do we respond to ourselves when we're facing difficulties? Are we critical? Are we judging ourselves? Are we comparing ourselves? And if that's the case, then
I find it very important to start there because I don't want people to
hurt themselves. Along the journey, and if we're not responding in a compassionate way, I think we build, in many cases, [00:13:00] a lot of maybe shame or regret that is not needed when we're already diving on such a difficult path.
Johanne: So you're not in Norway anymore, so when did you decide to,
Fadi: Hmm.
Johanne: or do you sometimes go back to Norway?
Fadi: Well,
last year I decided to leave Norway and moved to Asia. Now I'm in Bali.
I do have plans to go back to Norway towards the sea. Spring, summer next year. I have a few retreats meditation retreats that I'd like to attend first. It's a very good place for me here to grow on a personal level.
So um, since I left the hospital last year, uh, I'm taking some time to
really work on my approach and how it is
that I want to
help people.
Johanne: [00:14:00] Okay. So was it, was
it a conscious decision to, to leave the hospital, to become a full-time private practitioner and
find your niche,
so to speak
Fadi: yeah
I was struggling a lot with how the health system works. As a doctor, I was often prioritized to medications and there wasn't enough time personally that I felt would people to talk, to get to know. I decided that
I'd like to take a year off and. Start my own practice and develop the skills that I want and
see how that goes before
I go back, if I decide to go back.
Hmm
Johanne: Nice. And how is the therapy community in, in Bali? [00:15:00] Actually,
Fadi: I've met a few therapists that work online like
Johanne: Yeah.
Fadi: Otherwise over here it's it's a lot of yoga. It's a lot of meditations. There's a lot of breath work. There are a lot of very useful modalities over here, that are Very
different from
modern medicine
I find that very interesting.
It's it's a very rich environment that nurtures creativity. I was talking and the other day would.
Someone that
Track 1: that works with sound healing they use crystal balls. They use Tibetan balls
to work on a vibrational level, on an energetic level. And I found that very interesting and we got into a conversation about
how singing could be very therapuetic.
[00:16:00] So we're trying to see if there's some, something more to discover in that. But it's a very,
not a lot of
therapists as in cognitive therapists or psychotherapists over here. That's, not what people here often come for. And it's a bit unfortunate because
a lot of the people I meet here have tried modern medicine or psychotherapy and didn't feel it helped them.
Hmm.
Johanne: So are you somewhat of an, are, are you a unicorn over there? Like, are you a, are you a rarity?
Track 1: Yeah.
There's not so many people that work in the same line that I do. That's true. Hmm. tHat being said, a lot of my work though, is online. a Lot of my clients are in Europe or the Middle East where [00:17:00] I
come from. Hmm.
Johanne: And do you incorporate different inspirations that you've gotten from your environment in Bali,
do, do you work with, you know, like energy fields or or
do, do you do a lot of mindfulness meditation, like in your sessions or,
yeah.
Fadi: Yeah.
Mindfulness and yoga are quite uh, integral with a lot of my clients, not all of them. I think it was Andrew Burnett that said the longest journey you ever take is that 18 inch from your head to your heart and for me, yoga was the way that really helped me connect with
my body.
And
I was,
I grew up in a society that
Focused a lot [00:18:00] on reason and logic
and thinking was the only or the best way to solve any problem.
And along the past I've realized that
thinking is only one way
Our mind is one tool that we have and it's very important to balance that with
a good connection to our bodies.
Johanne: Yeah.
Fadi: That connection for me came first through yoga and later on meditation. And now recently I've been diving into breath work as well and finding it to be a very useful modality to release a lot of . Stress or tension that we have caught up
Johanne: Yeah.
Fadi: in our bodies.
Johanne: Wow. It's completely fine. Obviously if, if you don't want to speak about this, but. You,
you mentioned that you worked with a lot of people, from the Middle [00:19:00] East and with the complete crisis and the war going on does that focus your work in, in, in specific ways? Like does it make the need for compassion based interventions
Fadi: Hmm.
Johanne: bigger or. Yeah. Does it change things in any way for you as a practitioner?
Fadi: Hmm. It's a tough one.
Yeah. I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed by that
Johanne: course. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Fadi: I guess it's, on a personal level when the first, when the crisis. Started I was feeling very overwhelmed to the point where I was immobilized and I had to cut down a lot focus on my own self.
Johanne: Yeah.
Fadi: And I found that [00:20:00] meditation.
Was sometimes helpful, but sometimes I needed to let out
anger, and especially aggression. I find that anger is
a very helpful emotion, but aggression is, is not on a personal level. And when that. When the crisis started, there was a lot of regression that was coming up inside me. So when I tried to do yoga that was not
helping and I ended up going to tie
boxing
Johanne: How was that?
Fadi: and that was very helpful.
That was that was what I needed at the time. I needed to let go because I was in a stage where. , there was a lot of aggression that wasn't allowing me to sit
Johanne: Yeah.
Fadi: anger.
and so
I [00:21:00] find it important to know
one, mindfulness is the right answer and when it's
not um, to,
there's a technique called mindfulness oriented recovery enhancement and. So it's by Eric Garland, and he talks a lot about uh, the healthy way to use mindfulness and trauma management. He talks a lot about that.
Sometimes that's mindfulness instructors. If our
client is going through a trauma, it's not right to tell them. , just sit with it. THat's
not the right uh, advice to give and that could reactivate and cause some retraumatization. And I think that was a bit of what was happening in me. So I'm very grateful for those learnings and I [00:22:00] managed to customize what I needed until I was ready to sit with the anger and.
Say that
it was anger because I have a need for peace in the world. I have a need for safety for
everyone. And that was were the anger was coming from.
Johanne: Yeah.
Fadi: And so eventually I got to that understanding. But in the beginning, yeah. I would say that as a mindfulness teacher, it's also very important that we are aware of when mindfulness is appropriate or how can we adjust it accordingly to not cause any harm.
Johanne: Are people reaching out specifically to you because of your background as a, as a Lebanese [00:23:00] practitioner? Like someone,
as someone who has a common frame of
reference um,
Fadi: Yeah. A lot of my clients
are, uh. Either Arabic, uh, origins or living in
Arab world. And I guess, well, of course, with the understanding of the culture, the language, the
history,
it makes it very easy for us to connect. So,
Johanne: Yeah.
Fadi: Yeah, yeah. Currently there's only one person in Palestine that I'm supporting.
I think that's has a lot to do with, maybe it's not time for them with everything that's going on but from Lebanon I'm noticing that there are a few more
Johanne: Yeah.
Yeah.
Fadi: Hmm.
Johanne: [00:24:00] When you're, when you're in the crossfire, that's not when you, you know, reach out for psychological
Fadi: support
Nah.
Yeah. Hopefully later on I'll be able to
Johanne: yeah, yeah, yeah.
Fadi: Hmm
Johanne: I'm also,
you know, because it is something I've only dabbled with everything to do with compassion based therapies
and interventions. And since
this seems to have been quite a big part of your,
Journey to becoming the therapist you are today. Would you care to maybe tell me about like your most important learnings or if,
there are certain philosophies that especially influences
your approach to therapy?
Fadi: I Guess a lot of
learnings come from mindful self-compassion which was developed by [00:25:00] Kristin Neff and Chris Germer, and over there there are . Three main pillars in mindful self-compassion mindfulness, common humanity, and self-kindness.
For example, when we talk about mindfulness, we try to compare that to identification.
Let's say that. sOmething happened and I feel bad. A usual line of thinking in people that suffer from depression or anxiety is that it goes from, I feel bad.
I
don't want to have this feeling. And then to I am bad, or for example. I failed to, I'm a failure. So it goes into that
over-identification.
With that one single event becomes a [00:26:00] generalization. And this is where mindfulness is very integral because it's It's not about resisting, avoiding or exaggerating our moment to moment. It's about taking it for the way it is. So instead of over identification and judging ourselves from a single event, uh, we just say that I failed this time.
And that's how it is. The second one, the common humanity. We can compare that to the other extreme, which is the isolation. And one thing that often comes up when we have a very harsh inner critic is that we tend to isolate ourselves. So we tend to think that everyone else is fine.
I'm the only one . That is a failure. And what [00:27:00] what's important here is to remember that two error is human, as we say, that failure is part of being human, and that everyone I know makes mistakes. So that moves me or us from isolating ourselves to connecting to our common humanity. The third main thing about mindful self-compassion is self-kindness.
And here it's compared to our self-judgment.
So the self-kindness is not just trying to end that inner criticism that we have, it's also about actively opening. Our hearts to the suffering that we're facing, and for example, responding in the same way that I would to a friend.
Hmm.
It's about
investigating together how we are responding to things and are we drawing on conclusions. sO
I ask [00:28:00] people, for example, to, journal a lot
after they have difficult experiences. From the journaling,
I usually get an indication about is this person more connected to his thoughts, to his feelings, or to the body?
And then from there we start on our journey. Okay. If it's the thoughts, how are the quality of the thoughts? Are they very critical? And then we start looking into that. And then, because usually the inner critic develops at an early stage as a way to cope with the difficulty that we faced, and with time, it just becomes our default answer to a lot of stuff.
sO
I ask people about
the small things that happen in their day. And we start looking, okay, yes, I am evaluating, or I am just uh, being very critical. And then we start introducing, okay, are there other ways that we can respond [00:29:00] to this situation? How can we introduce kindness and curiosity into our approach?
Johanne: And to really get into the nitty gritty, would you even give your clients self-compassionate homework
Fadi: the short answer? Yes. I often talk about the negativity bias and how we just focus on that one thing that went wrong in our whole day and really see that under the microscope. And so I often ask people about, okay, but what about the rest of your day? What are the things about yourself that you're proud of. How would your friends describe you? , often the key is how would you react if it was a friend? That's usually the one that helps people to become a bit kinder. To themselves.
Johanne: Yeah.
Can it then [00:30:00] become like a muscle of self-compassion?
Yeah.
Track 1: hmm.
Fadi: Yeah. Yeah. The aha moments I get
in our sessions is when
I hear a client reflecting over a mistake they did.
And instead of responding with uh, self-criticism, they're like, I was curious about this. I made a mistake. And then I told myself it's okay to make mistakes , so it really does grow. And they start applying it into different areas of their field.
And that's when I know that wow, that person has grown a lot. So it is definitely a, a muscle that we can grow. Hmm.
Johanne: I
Was told that you had started this. Instagram project, am I right?
Called Daily Doses. And that it was initiated as an attempt to share different helpful daily [00:31:00] practices. Can you describe
some of these practices and what, this project
about? Yeah.
Fadi: yeah. This project is part of a bigger offering that I'm calling Mindful
Living,
and
one thing I've learned in my life is start small
yes, so.
So, . After spending a bit of time on the bigger projects, , I realized that uh, mindful living is something that
I find helps people to
come out of
spiraling quicker. So if somebody has a recurrent depression or . Anxiety in specific situations. It's about what are the practices that you need to
recharge your batteries.
Daily doses was the first step in that project, which is about [00:32:00] what are small acts that we can do in our every day to recharge our psychological wellbeing. These are, these are practices that we can incorporate into our daily life without needing, for example, half an hour to sit for meditation or without really disturbing because a lot of us
We're living very stressful lives and so I try to find those moments in our day when
we can
practice. This, for example, can be, uh, when I'm standing in line waiting to get a coffee. I remember for example, to, uh, feel the sensations of my feet on the ground. And this is a very good way to stop the
In our chatter and to just ground and balance myself. Another practice is the first conversation I have with someone
in [00:33:00] the day. I try to only listen
Johanne: Oh, this.
Fadi: 'cause usually there's a lot of, there's a lot of autopilot whenever we have conversations with just random people that we meet, like. The person we buy our coffee from or the person we buy stuff from, or just random people that we don't really say anything, but we just say, hello, how are you?
How are you doing today? Or Good morning, and just that automatic talk. So it's become a routine. This doesn't work with our partner or someone that we live with. It's more about people that we just meet. Randomly on the street. And instead of directly going into that automatic conversation, I listen. I notice That
Often they share something
Johanne: Mm-Hmm. .Yeah.
Fadi: instead of just the usual.
Another[00:34:00]
practice is
I trY to,
notice when I'm brushing
when I'm brushing my teeth,
How
how much pressure I'm applying. Because in the morning, uh, we want to get
ready for the day and usually by the time our eyes open we're starting to plan what we need to do. What do we have on our to-do list for the day?
And that's very useful. But it's also important to ground ourselves. So for me,
I can
plan as much as I want. When I get in front of the mirror and I'm brushing my teeth, I,
whenever my mind is very active, I notice that I apply a lot of pressure on my
teeth with the toothbrush. So that's become a practice where, oh, yeah, okay.
I'm thinking a lot now. Maybe it's time to
balance.
It's these kind of things that [00:35:00] I introduce into my daily life to, really take me off that autopilot, to ground me and to
strengthen the connection that I have with random people around.
Johanne: That's beautiful. I'm gonna go visit that page immediately. What, do I need to search for on Instagram?
Fadi: It's therapy by Fadi.
Johanne: Well, I'd like for our talk to end on this lovely.
concrete, I'd even go so far as to say playful note
Fadi: Hmm
Johanne: and and just say thank you
much Fadi, for wanting to speak with me. I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Fadi: Thank you. And I enjoyed it as well
Johanne: I'll be back in two weeks where I'm speaking with Garima Nirvana, a south Asian counseling psychologist based in Amsterdam, who has the third culture kids experience in common with the clients. [00:36:00] She primarily works with. We'll be exploring the ex-pat experience and much more. As always the music is brought to you by music therapist, Kadri Arula. And I'm your host.
Johanne Schwensen