Have you ever wondered the difference between a coach and a therapist? Do you think there even is a difference? There are multiple terms for coaches. If you browse through the list of the incredible guests we’ve had on The Grit Show; you’ll find at least 15 variations. That doesn’t even touch on the multiple terms for clinicians; from Marriage and Family Therapists to Licensed Clinical Social Workers to Licensed Professional Counselors. I recently had a helpful conversation that made me realize my knowledge of the differences came from my work experience and training. That conversation also helped me realize that the important differences may not be the ones I initially realized, and they may be harder to explain. So we are dedicating three episodes—our first series—to Coaching vs. Therapy. We’ll break it down and give you the answers you may seek for yourself or those you love. Tune in next week for our 1st anniversary episode with Laurie Leal, a guest I’m excited for y’all to meet. It’ll be a great conversation around cultivating and keeping friendships as adults.

The following week (the first week of August) we will continue this conversation in episode 55 with the 2nd part of the Coaching vs. Therapy series. Get ready for an insightful and thought-provoking conversation on coaching, therapy, and, most of all, your wellness. Join Linh Phan, a body acceptance and intuitive eating coach (you can revisit her on episode 29); Eric Bauberger, a Holistic Life Coach and Motivational Singer-Songwriter (he was our guest on episode 07); Jacquelyn Emery, a Certified Life Coach and podcast host (guest on episode 47 and host of a podcast guest episode 48); and Will Halpin, a psychotherapist and public health social worker (he shared with us about IFS in episode 32) as they share their expertise. Don’t miss these episodes for valuable insights into finding the right helper!

Shawna Rodrigues left her award-winning career in the public sector in 2019 and after launching The Grit Show, soon learned the abysmal fact that women hosted only 27% of podcasts. This led to the founding of the Authentic Connections Podcast Network intent on raising that number by 10% in five years- 37 by 27. Because really, shouldn’t it be closer to 50%? She is the Director of Impact for the network, which offers full-service support for podcasting from mentoring to production. In September 2023 they are also launching the EPAC (Entrepreneurs and Podcasters Authentically Connected) community for those in early stages and wanting a place for weekly connection. She still finds a little time for her pursuits as a best-selling author and shares the hosting of Author Express, a podcast that features the voice behind the pages of your favorite book. Find her on Instagram- @ShawnaPodcasts and learn more about the network and other happenings at https://linktr.ee/37by27.

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Have you ever wondered what the difference is between a coach and a therapist? Is it even something you've given very much thought? I'll tell you about a full conversation I had with a few folks a little bit later, but I was surprised when I was with this group of folks and they didn't realize that there was a difference or what it might be. It made sense when I put some thought into it, though. There are a lot of titles that have the potential to get very confusing. We could break it down even just a little bit more. On the therapist side, what's the difference between a psychologist, a clinical social worker, a marriage and family therapist? On the coaching side, what's the difference between a holistic life coach, a certified life coach, and a body acceptance and intuitive eating coach? Does it matter? Does it matter that they call themselves different things? Are they actually the same thing with different names? Or is it all actually different? I think it does matter, but probably not in the ways you think it might. When I first entered the conversation we'll talk about a little later. The more I thought about it, the reasons that mattered weren't even the reasons I initially thought. Stick around, we've got a lot to chew on today.

Welcome to The Grit Show, where our focus is growth on purpose. I'm your host, Shawna Rodrigues, and I'm here with you, a fellow seeker who knows a thing or two about grit and is ready for a life with a little more ease. A life where we can all thrive. That is what we do here. Each and every week we have conversations with amazing thought leaders and get actionable about how to incrementally improve our lives. Be sure to subscribe or follow whatever you are listening so you can stay up to date and jump on over to coloringpages.thegritshow.com. The link is in the show notes where you can get your free copy of some of our self maintenance, aka self care supporting coloring pages. And you'll also be able to join our mailing list.

You'll get updates each and every week in your mailbox when an episode comes out that tells you a little bit more about it and makes it easy to link to it. Now back to what I was saying there are a lot of helpers in this world, and there are a lot of times in your life when you might need a helper. Fortunately, there are a lot of different types of helpers for those different needs in different times. Unfortunately, it can be a little bit confusing who does what, when you need them, and how you find them on this podcast alone. In the last year, you've heard from at least 15 wonderful humans who use the term coach in their bio, and not two of them were the exact same kind of coach. That's largely because we are here to learn about a variety of topics. And the thing about coaches is they're able to specialize in specific areas and they are great at coming up with names and ways to reflect that. I aim to find people that can speak specifically to those certain things.

There are also another five or so other guests that have referenced themselves as experts or consultants whom also offer coaching as part of their services, even though their bio doesn't refer to them as a coach. So there's even more coaches who don't necessarily directly call themselves a coach, but do coaching. We've heard from a health and wellness counselor, a certified life coach, leadership and development coach, a spiritual life coach, a purpose, success and confidence coach, a body acceptance and intuitive eating coach, a functional medicine health coach, financial coach, grief coach, love and relationship coach, divorce and Coparenting life coach, certified energy coach and human design guide, a Holistic life coach and a psychotherapist and public health social worker. So we've also had experts and consultants on things such as sleep organizing, writing, health, productivity, trauma, feng shui, decision making and for each of those individuals in our conversations, they spoke about some of the coaching that they provide. There are a lot of terms thrown out there for the individuals who give us help and guidance. You saw from our list that there is quite a variety of ways people can coach you and support you and a variety of topics you might need coaching, help or support around. You also might notice from this list this podcast is largely showcased coaches, experts, doctors, and fewer licensed clinicians, whether that be clinical, social workers, marriage and family therapists, professional counselors, psychologists we'll touch more on that a little bit later in the show. The common theme is that these are the folks we go to for support.

What specifically is being supported, the type of support offered, the limits to that support, and the training licensure and focus. The person providing the support is often what varies as well as availability of their services too. So how do you know what you need? How do you know who the right person is to help you? That is a million dollar question. And that is probably what we're going to spend a little more time exploring in this series, with a help from some of the fabulous guests you've already had a chance to get to know here on the Grit Show. You've heard that right. We're going to have our first series. It took us a full year as we launched into our second year of the podcast. We're doing this for the first time.

I thought this conversation needed multiple perspectives and as I look for the right folks to offer that perspective, I also realized the value of offering all of you familiar voices from wonderful folks you've already heard from and who you can go back to and listen to their episode and get to know them better. If you do have questions and want to get to know more about what specifically they offer and do so, we're going to have this conversation in three parts. First, this week, I'm going to chat with you a little more, just one on one. I'm going to share with you the conversation with others that prompted this episode and this topic, and then I'm going to share some personal insight and experience and then set the stage for the bigger conversation. Then we are going to be joined by four incredible folks lynn FAM, Eric Bobberger, Jacqueline Emery, and Will help in three of whom are coaches and one of whom is a psychotherapist. Three of our guests live in different parts of the US. And one of our guests is international. Their background and services all vary slightly, and we will have two episodes with this full panel to be able to garner insight from these wonderful folks.

I figured we needed two because I've never had as big of a panel as you know, and I could talk with each of these individuals for extended periods of time. So we definitely needed to have two episodes to make sure we fit it all in. We're going to hear from each of them a little more about their background a little bit. Again, we do have an episode with each of them that you could dive into that more deeply. But more importantly, we'll hear about what they specialize and focus on and a little bit more about the folks they work. With and the considerations you would be having when making a decision about how to work with and kind of answer those questions about that bigger picture. How does it all fit together? How do they fit in with other coaches, with other psychotherapists? How do they all work together or how do they understand each other? And the work that's provided the conversation is also going to focus on you and the people that you love, the people that you think might benefit from seeing one of them or any coach or any psychotherapist and what? They should know or be thinking about before they start working with any helping professional, whoever that is, however that is, and how you actually find and figure out who to see and how that works. I'm curious what the biggest takeaways will be from all of this and wondering if we'll think that titles, trainings, licenses, et cetera are helpful to steer us in the right direction or not.

I'm curious what you'll think is the most definitive in helping you know where to start, because you're part of this conversation too. In the end, the hope is that we will get you set in the right direction as an informed consumer. This series is the first chapter and being more informed, more aware, and understanding what type of things are out there for you in your quest to better yourself and get what you need to be successful, but you're going to need to be an advocate and make sure things are the right fit for you. That'll also be a part of the conversation. So we're going to start where this conversation had its genesis, where it even comes from, and it's slightly unlikely, I think. I'm actually part of a book club where I live in Portland, Oregon, and we read a memoir in the spring. And I'm not going to tell you the name of the memoir. If you've read it, I'm sure you will immediately know what memoir it is.

If you haven't read it, you won't. But I hate spoilers. I really hate spoilers. And as you may know, I am a writer. I have lots of lovely writer friends, and I hate having books spoiled. And so I don't want to say anything that spoils the book. And I want to be able to talk freely about how it fits into this conversation. So that's why I'm not telling you anything about the book other than it is a memoir.

So if you've read it, you may recognize it. If you eventually read it, you might be like, oh, I wonder if that's someone she was talking about. Send me an email. I'll give you my email later in the thing. And I'll admit to you if you guessed right or not. But try not to do on social media because we don't want to ruin it for other people. Anyway, this group of folks in the book club is primarily women because it came out of a group that is formed around women here in Portland. This is primarily women that are in the group.

And there was about seven of us that came to this specific meeting. It was at Pals in their coffee shop there. And during the conversation, I might have been I'm pretty sure I was the oldest member of the group that day, but I just remember how much I valued the spectrum of perspectives were there as we talked about the book, because it was such a good memoir and it was such a great conversation about what we all got from it. And I really valued the different varying perspectives. And I think the different ages had something to do with the different ways we saw things, and I value that a lot. So in the memoir, the protagonist seeks out help at one point in time, and while folks were talking about it, one of the members of the book club called one of the helpers her therapist. And this specific helper went to a public event with the protagonist of the memoir, the main character of the memoir. So I will call her the protagonist for simplicity, but that's the main character of the memoir.

The person who wrote the memoir is the protagonist of the main character. So the helper, which the person speaking about the book was calling the therapist, had gone to a public event with her and was doing that to be of support to her. And she was calling that the therapist. And I'm trained as a licensed clinical social worker, called it LCSW here in Oregon. So I have a background in clinical social work. And I sincerely hope I wasn't rude when I interrupted her, but I probably interrupted her because I just needed to change that. That was not a therapist. The person in the book who had gone with her to these events, that had enmeshed herself in the relationship the way they had, the person is trying to be a helper, that she was paying a lot of money to help her.

That helper was a coach. They were not a therapist. And it was very important to me that I made that distinction. And I'm sure that need was my personal need as somebody who has a clinical license that understands the responsibility that comes with clinical license, with the ethics around that, with everything else, that you would not attend an event in that manner and immesh yourself with a client in that manner and that would not be appropriate. And a conversation ensued, and there was help at the end of the book that was very helpful. And that person was a therapist, or it was a more therapeutic, more clinical environment that she was being seen in. That was part of that. And like I said, it was really important for me to clarify that was on me.

But the person that brought it up was like, I don't think I know the difference between a coach and a therapist. And it brought this really great conversation up at the book club meeting about what the difference is between the two and somebody. And it came up, too, about my podcast. And that would be a really great episode for the podcast to actually define what the difference is between that. And it made me reflect, like, how do I know the difference? I have a clinical degree. I went to school. I learned what I had to go through to be called a clinician and a therapist and to have this license and to do this work. But why should somebody else know the difference between them, right? And so it was very interesting for me to try to unpack how I knew the difference.

And I definitely can tell you that for me, if you're friends with me and I see movies all the time, and they have a therapist character who is not following codes of ethics and not following the boundaries of being a therapist, it's not like, oh, what's that? There's a recent show that we watch this comical it's part of the comedy that he's not following ethics and not following the rules and has to tell his mentor that he's screwing up and not doing things the way he can. He's very aware that he's not doing it, so it makes it clear that he's doing these things. But a therapist wouldn't do these things type of situation. And I don't mind that at all. Like, when it's clear that you're not supposed to do this, but he's doing these things, it's one thing. But when somebody's doing these things and it's not clarifying that. That's actually not what therapists do. It has always been something that bothers me.

That's definitely like a trigger for me because of how seriously I take that license. But the more that I thought about it, the more that I realized that it's something that I studied for. I had to take exams, and I had to do all this stuff. I had to learn all these different things. And if you watch movies or TV shows, regardless of what profession or career or whatever you have, that there'll be shows that you'll watch. This is a funny example, right? Like, if you're a parent and you're a mom and you watched Friends and you saw the child was never present at the end of Friends, you're like, that's not how it works when you're a parent. So when you have something that's like your profession or something that you're close to you is a role that you play in your life, from being a parent to being a clinician, to if you're a bookkeeper, if you're a lawyer, if you're a medical professional. Like, if you see something in a show, wherever else do you see it? You're like, oh, wait a minute.

That's not how that really is. If you're a lawyer and you see a court scene, that's not how that really works, because you've actually experienced it. So I think that was my first initial response and being protective of that, because, again, it's so hard for people to go to therapy, and if they ever thought that was okay, I was like, oh, that's not okay. But it didn't really matter so much that they were a coach or a therapist. The bottom line was that that person, even if they'd been a therapist instead of a coach, what they were doing was poor boundaries. What they were doing was immeshing themselves and the life of the protagonist in a way that was harmful and not helpful for that protagonist. And the protagonist realized that and stopped seeing them. I think that in the book, possibly by the person that wrote it, they didn't see the reasons I would see as a reason to stop going, because I would see, like, this is why you shouldn't go.

Like, they did this and this. That was wrong. It wasn't helpful. I worried the person that stopped seeing them and someone reading the book would think that it was the fault of the protagonist, the person who wrote the memoir, that she think it was her fault that she wasn't ready. To go that deep and to do that much and to be that whatever else when no, the problem was she has somebody that didn't have boundaries, that was trying to enter her life to a degree that was enmeshing. And suffocating and demanding and replicating the horrible relationship she had elsewhere and replacing themselves and making it the horrible relationship she had with them. So many issues of that and it didn't matter if they were a coach or a psychologist or a therapist or anything else, the fact that they were doing things out in public to help them not drink in public was the biggest sign that it was somebody who wasn't in a clinical profession. But regardless of that, that is something that she should have walked away from and it shouldn't have been that she was the problem, they were the problem.

And so as much as I was clarifying in my book club that no, if that person was a therapist, they should have been looking up the state board for that clinical license and reporting them, because that's outside of ethics, right? And that was more my perspective at the time. But really, that just wasn't working, what they were doing. And there could be an ill guided anybody in any profession doing that and it just wasn't working. And she should be able to walk away and not think it was her and know it was them and know that what they were doing wasn't working. And so for me, I think that was the more important piece out of that. I'm happy to explain the difference as I know it, between clinicians and therapists and coaches and the reason why I was excited to have a panel of folks to come on and talk about what they do. Because I feel like people that can help you. It's really important for you, for ones you love, for people you know to be comfortable with how you can connect and what you can get out of that and what the differences are and what the benefits are.

And so knowing the differences just makes you more informed and I want to be supportive of that. But it doesn't matter as much what the title was in that situation. The fact that that person wasn't helping the woman who wrote the book meant that she needed to say no and get out of that situation, regardless if they were a coach or a therapist, it just happened that ethically, what they were doing is not something that a clinician should be doing. So the differences for the sake of the book club conversation, the coffee shop inside of Pal's books, really boil down to, quite simply, the difference between a clinical license and a coach and the qualifications. And we'll talk a little bit more about coaches, their background and experiences, because they also vary more when we have our coaches on the next two podcast episodes that cover this. And I will speak a little bit more to the clinical license now. And that's why I wanted to do this as a separate episode, because I didn't want to waste time when we have these fabulous guests coming on to talk about clinical license and what that looks like. So the clinical license actually varies state by state.

And so, for instance, Will will be joining us, and he is a licensed clinical social worker. I am also a licensed clinical social worker. We went to graduate school together, but we have licenses in two different states. His is in Massachusetts, and mine is in Oregon. And his license in Massachusetts is called an LICSW, which stands for a Licensed independent clinical social worker, which approximately nine different states call it that. And then for the majority of others, I don't know for sure all the others, because although I have my LCSW, oregon is one of the few states I actually don't know if there are any others, but one of the few states that lets you maintain a non active clinical license. So I'm non practicing clinically I don't have a clinical practice. I'm not doing therapy with anyone right now, but I'm able to maintain my clinical license because once you lose it, you can't get it back type of thing.

So I haven't lost it. I still maintain it, but I'm not active, and I don't have clients that I see therapeutically. And that's unique. You can't do that in a lot of states. A lot of states, you have to surrender or you have to continue doing all the different pieces to keep it active. And so mine's not active, but in Oregon, where I live, it's called LCSW. So a licensed clinical social worker. And so we went through the same process.

We both had to get a master's degree. He actually has two, but he only needed one. So we had to have a master's degree in social work with certain courses related to clinical social work, clinical work with our given populations. And then we had to have a set number of supervised hours of doing therapy with folks in our population for a certain amount of time, typically two years or more like it. Depends on how long it takes to get your supervision and get your clinical hours. And then after you've had enough clinical hours of actually seeing clients being supervised for so many hours, then you're allowed to sit for an exam. You had to pass that exam. And then you have to continue to do continuing education requirements, and you still have to uphold the same code of ethics and do the same thing.

So we have to go through the same process in these states, but they're called an LCSW in the majority of states and an ICSW in a handful of states, and that's just for social work. My umbrella that I'm calling it is clinicians or therapists is kind of the umbrella that I'm calling it. And so each state has a list of clinical license that they do. And so I'm most familiar with Oregon, where I live, and so the other ones that I worked with when I was more active was Licensed Professional Counselors, which is called an LPC, and Licensed Marriage and Family Therapists, which is LMFT. And so I don't know the exact requirements on those, but it's very similar that they've also completed a master's degree. They have to be supervised. They have to be doing practice while they're being supervised. And then after that, they have to take an exam and do continued education and set the same and uphold that.

I'm pretty sure that they have other expectations around ethical things as well for all of them. So that is for the therapist. And they call it that. Typically, it's somebody with at least a master's level education as well as supervised practicum work or clinical work that they've done. They've been supervised by somebody while they've been doing it, and they take an exam to make sure that they know what they're doing. And then they're overseen by a board in their state that oversees their license. And so there is a board that if something happens, so if you did have your therapist offer to go to an event with you to help you with your anxiety or whatever else, and in the book, they were the same gender, and there was nothing that felt inappropriate in that regard about it. But it doesn't matter about gender.

It doesn't matter about a lot of things. That power dynamic is just uncomfortable anyways, and for other reasons could be uncomfortable. So that is not something they should be doing. And if that did happen and you did ever feel uncomfortable or somebody made an advance at you that was supposed to be in that sacred relationship like that's, you'd report it to is the board for their clinical license, and you can check if they have a clinical license in your state and track that and have that information. If you look at Psychology Today, you'll look up therapists like it'll tell you what license they have and usually tells you if they're verified or whatever else, too. And there's also, like a stage once you get your Masters before you take the exam and before you've had enough experience that you're usually called at least an organ is usually an associate, is what it's called. So I was a CSWA, a Clinical Social work associate, so I had an MSW, a Master's of Social Work, and then the Comma CSWA clinical Social Work Associate, which meant that I was practicing and seeing clients at being supervised while I was seeing them until I got my clinical license. In Massachusetts and possibly the other states.

I'm not as familiar with the other states that have the same LICSW. You're actually called an LCSW at that stage. So that's where it gets confusing, because in some states, their level of an LCSW is called a Licensed certified Social Worker who hasn't actually gotten their ability to do things independently, still being supervised. So I don't know why they don't call it like an LSW, like a licensed social worker or just a CSW or something. It's kind of interesting that they do that, but I have no control over what they do in other states. But that's generally kind of the hierarchy of how that works. And if someone has, like, a PSID or calls themselves psychologist, usually they've actually gotten a doctorate degree in psychology. Otherwise they would be getting themselves as a licensed professional counselor or something like that and getting that level of degree to be doing therapy.

But a psychologist usually has a doctorate in psychology, and they also typically a Psy. D is what they call it. But they usually get a doctorate in psychology, and they usually have a license oversee them. I'm less familiar with that, so I won't speak to that as clearly or as much. But that's definitely something, if you're going to see somebody and you care about that, that you can have that conversations with them. So those are the folks who usually admitted to insurance panels, and they're able to take your insurance. And again, sometimes insurance panels will only take so many people and not everyone's on it. And so they could be a therapist, licensed clinician, and they still won't be on your insurance.

So it just depends on how those things work. Insurance is tricky. So it's also possible that they've been trained in various therapy modalities. And we'll talk a little bit more when Will comes on about this because he and I both have the clinical social work background clinical license, right. And so we took the same test, we had the same supervision hours, the same those type of pieces in our respective states, but we have very different training and specialties. So just like the coaches and maybe it's easier with coaches because they just tell you what their specialty is in their title, right. With therapists, it can sometimes be alphabet soup, right, to support these specialties. At one time, I was a registered play therapist supervisor, so an RPTs, because I did play therapy, but I also supervised other people that did play therapy to do that, because that was something you could be registered in, so you got so many hours and so much training in.

And there's other therapies such as like, the neuro sequential model of therapeutics or NMT. And when I was trained in that, it wasn't something that you got licensed or certified or registered in that might have changed because it's been a long time since I was registered in that. But it didn't come with letters. So that would be something that you would only know I did that if I told you I did that, and I probably wouldn't tell you I did that. I would just be really amazing working with your kids because I was trained in that and didn't know how to do that. And so sometimes people be trained in ways that you don't even. Know they're trained in. They just specialize, like, I specialize working with young kids.

And no one I ever worked with probably knew. They might have known that I had some specialty with play therapy, but even like my Santra stuff I didn't use because the kids were so young. So I didn't always even tell people what all I was trained in because I had lots of CEUs. Sorry. That's Continuing Education units. I didn't explain that. So you had to do ongoing learning and training. So I was constantly learning and expanding what I knew about, but it wasn't necessarily something I always had a specialty in.

And sometimes you had letters within, sometimes you didn't. So the commonality with most therapists, they have a degree, they have been supervised while doing clinical cases. They've taken a test, they have board oversight, they have ethical expectations, and they also can usually bill insurance. And also in order to bill insurance, they must be treating you for something they have found you or your loved ones to meet criteria for treatment. And so because that's part of how your insurance decides that they can be paid to see you and your insurance may be slept about, what diagnoses they will pay a therapist to treat you for. So when I worked in Boston a long time ago and saw young children, there were certain diagnoses we could see for different lengths of time based on what the diagnosis was. And I was one of the clinicians that would go to the insurance panel and fight to see kids for longer based on their age and based on their needs. And I was often able to get more sessions and be able to see them longer because I was never intimidated by that.

But other folks were definitely intimidated by having to go in front of the insurance panel so they wouldn't see the kids for as long. And for all I know now that you can't even do that right. I haven't worked with insurances for forever, but that is like a different level. So the manual is called the Diagnostic Statistics Manual. The DSM I won't tell you the rest of that title, but the DSM Five Tr is the version they're on now. And I was on the DSM Four tr when I was trained on things. So it evolves. But in Bessel Vanderkuk's, the body keeps a Score, which you may have heard of.

It's a very good book, and it talks a little bit about the blessings and the curse of the system and diagnoses and how it kind of helps to identify and streamline and help make sense. Like PTSD became post traumatic stress disorder. PTSD was able to be something people could identify and treat and see once they put it in the same place, right? And so you have things like that and mood disorders, and you've heard of anxiety, depression, those type of things. But adjustment disorder is something that I was actually seen for an adjustment disorder is something that I was able to see kids for at times, depending on the insurance and different things and that could be related. You've had like a big change, like you've moved and you've done big things and you're adjusting to it. And so it's a disorder, but it's also a more mild one. And I don't know if insurances will see you for that, but that was something back when I was active as a clinician, that you could actually see people for that wasn't as stigmatized and as whatever else it could be helping you through transitions. But as we talk with our coaches, that's one of the big things about coaching, is you're not required to have a diagnosis, and it is to help you kind of get through life, if that makes sense.

And so that's one of the big differences with therapists, is that some bolts of how I would define it, and I'm sure somebody else would define it a little bit differently. And again, that's my perspective and that's organ, and it's not definitive, but to help give you some understanding around all of that. And so having that code of ethics and training and having somebody that oversees you with it can help some of the boundaries and those type of pieces. But I know a lot of coaches who have really good boundaries and would never be enmeshed the way that the things that were happening in the memoir that I was reading. And so as much as I had this response to defend the title of therapist, I also want to make sure I defend the title of coach, because there's a lot of coaches that would not have done the same thing. So the poor boundaries that the book protagonist had with her mother and the codependence she was experiencing there, which codependence is not a specialty of mine, but it was so obvious you could see it. But the codependence that was being emulated in that relationship with a coach, it was just so disturbing as you're reading it, to see like, that happening, that you just want to protect that protagonist from that experience. And again, it was written from her perspective, but it was pretty clear by some of the decisions that were being made that that was part of it.

And so if she'd been trained as a therapist, regardless of the type of therapist that probably would have been, something in her training would have covered not doing that, I would think. But I don't know. I haven't been through all the different therapy programs across the country, right? So I think it's important to know there's a lot of great coaches out there, and there's a lot of great therapists out there. But if a coach or therapist ever offers to come to party with you to make sure you don't drink, you should possibly be reporting that to your licensing board in your state. If therapists, especially if they're the same gender, or it comes across as predatory at all, which wasn't the case in the book, but if that ever felt at all like that, you should never be in that situation. So boundaries can be a good thing, period, whether you're a coach or you are a therapist. So as much as that was what initiated this entire podcast episode, it was funny because in retrospect, yes, it's good to explain the difference between the two. But the specific example that spurred the whole conversation is really just a good example of if something's not working, if someone's coddling you and crossing lines and isn't helping you when they're supposed to be a helping professional, like a friend can go with you to a party, that's okay.

But that's not somebody that your helping professional should be supporting you with. So regardless of who they are, it's valuable for you to be able to use your instincts on those things and figure out where you should be going to someone different, possibly to get the support you need, because they probably aren't meeting your needs. And she didn't, and she went to somebody else. So that was a good choice. So she found somebody with good boundaries, and they really were able to help her in the end, as far as you know, the book ended. So hopefully she got the help that she needed because it seemed like she was the time. So if it's filling off, you need to listen to that, and you need to find somebody you connect with, but also somebody who's going to help you in a way that's actually helping you. And so in the spirit of all of that, as we come into the conversation with our coaches, I wanted to be able to give some examples and conversations as a therapist, as a licensed clinician who has primarily seen who would fit into the category of therapists of my lifetime.

Some examples for you all to help give you some perspective on that. So in the last three to five years, I have not seen a therapist, and that is largely because of the mental health crisis in this country, or at least where I live. And I do believe it's much more pervasive than that is that when I get to the point, I decide it's a priority, I need to have a therapist. I need to try and see someone. I'm sure many of you can relate to this for yourself or someone in your family or someone you love. There are no openings. There are no wait lists even. I'll dive into it for a time, I'll get my list out, I'll make some calls, and things will sound hopeful and possible, and then they send me referrals to people that don't take my insurance, referrals to people that aren't accepting anybody anyways, and it just turns into a whole list of no's.

And so I go through that and then I give up and then come back and try again and then let it go again. So the last three to five years I have not successfully had a therapist. None of that is examples from the last three to five years, but in the past I also mostly utilized EAPs. Are you familiar with EAPs? That's employee assistance programs and I have had that at the majority of my jobs. I've been this last season with the work I've been doing, I haven't, but previous to that I had EAPs and they usually have a part of that program where they will see you and it doesn't require insurance, it doesn't require diagnosis. It's a really great resource. It usually only handles a specific situation or problem. It used to be six or eight sessions, now it's like three sessions, but it depends on your company that you work for.

But it's definitely something worth looking into because as much as it's focused on specific situation, a lot of times that's what I felt like I've needed over the years. Like right now we're in the middle of a big move and there's a lot of things happening and I'm having a hard time focusing and getting all the things done and it might just be good to have a little tune up with someone to help me strategize and focus and figure those things out. If you have an EAP, you can contact somebody and say, hey, I just put my dad just went into hospice and I'm having a really hard time dealing with that. Like, do you have resources for that? Or I'm having a really hard time with one of my kids and I don't know how to handle a situation. Do you have somebody I can see for that? And so you can do specific situations and see somebody for a certain number of sessions and it can be very valuable. So it's something for you to look into if you have that. But that's a decent amount of the experiences I've had with therapists and mental health professionals have been through EAPs and I'm pretty sure most of them when I went, it might have changed now. So they're not all therapists, but at that point in time they were all kind of what we're putting under that category of therapists when they had them.

So that is something for you to look into. But I do want to tell you a real story about a therapist that wasn't the right fit for me because I think that's a good story for folks to hear and it's definitely one that I've told some members of my family when they've gotten to a point where they've been interested in pursuing seeing somebody. And I had a friend who really felt that she had a bad fit with a therapist and she really thought it was cultural and it might well have been cultural, but I still shared this story to help her understand that I've had bad experiences too. So for her to feel like it's okay to go try again and maybe she won't have the same experience as somebody else. And it is important to have someone who gets you and gets who you are. And it's not just about their degrees and their backgrounds. You don't always know that stuff until you get in there and see them. So I'm going to tell you a story about therapists for a long time ago that I saw and I initially connected with them through an EAP.

I think sometimes I do it through the EAP and then hope I can continue to see them because that's just an easy way to find therapists because it's a challenge sometimes. And the first time that I went, I found somebody that had a Psy. D. A doctor in psychology, because when I'd had fits that weren't as perfect in the past, I was like, well, maybe it's because I have a clinical license and I have to feel like the person knows more than I do if they're going to help me, right? That's perhaps a mindset thing the coach could help me with. But I feel like I need to have somebody who knows more than me. So maybe I should try seeing a PsyD. Maybe that will help me to have somebody that's more of an authority figure. So I had somebody that was much older.

He had a PSID. And I went to see him the first 1st time I saw him. He gave me this beautiful analogy about how I just have a lot of snowpack on the roof. There's just a lot of things that have happened over time. There's a lot of snowpack on the roof and I need to melt that all off before the roof just collapses. And I've stuck that it's been a long time since I saw that person. And so that analogy just connected with me. Like there's nothing wrong with me.

It's not pathological, it's just natural. There's a lot of snowpack on my roof and I need this opportunity to melt it off and make things better. So that was awesome. This is going to be great. I'm psyched I'm going here. I'm glad I found this person. This is great. The second session, no clue what I said or what I talked about.

I am pretty sure I was single at the time. And at the end of the session, there was this thing about me being obsessed with guys, putting way too much focus on them, about how I was letting men make decisions for me and that they were really running my life and I was giving them too much control and all this stuff that just did not compute. But I had found somebody with a degree better than mine who was older than me that was an authority figure. So maybe I was just completely wrong and maybe I was doing this stuff that made no sense and didn't sound at all like me. And I was doing it in ways that I just didn't even know. Because again, we go to therapy when we're vulnerable. That's how we're going to therapy, right? Because we're vulnerable and we don't know what's going on. That's literally what I watched out of that session with.

And fortunately, I have a list of close friends with clinical degrees and licenses. Unfortunately, most of the people I know don't have that, right? They didn't go to a graduate program back east and get to know these amazing humans who are getting the same degree. And although we practice slightly different stuff with different populations, we all had this great understanding, right? And we knew each other, we were good friends, we went to graduate school together, we went through a lot together. So one of these friends I called up and I'm like, so this is what this guy is saying? And they're like, no, that is not you. I don't know who he was talking about or what he heard that you didn't say, or how he misinterpreted what you did say, but that is not you. That is the complete opposite of you. He doesn't get you. Like, he doesn't know that's not you.

And luckily I chatted with somebody else who I respected and again, had a degree, thankfully, right? So it wasn't just like I talked to my mom or a friend who's like, oh yeah, I don't think you're like that. It was people that are like, oh no, that's not your problem. Shawna, let me give you all the examples of when so, y'all, love of my life, the guy that I'm getting married to next year, he wanted me to move to Rhode Island to be with him when I was like in my twenty s, and I didn't. So this guy telling me that I'm making decisions based on men and Foreman is actually the exact opposite of who I am and what I've done. Which is why it's so crazy that that's what he was telling me in our session. I'm still confounded where that came from. And so, fortunately, I had two sounding boards that were like, stop seeing him, he's not helping you. He's making you worry about things that don't exist, and having you question everything you do, which is the last thing you need from this.

And so I was like, oh, okay. And years later, when I finally did this space that made it possible for the love of my life to come into my life, the work I did was around letting someone care for me, about letting a partner be more a part of my life and realizing I wanted to be in the top three in somebody else's life. And that was okay. And it was okay to not have to do everything and to have it be a partnership and to not have to be so independent. So it's so funny that I had this clinical person trying to say that I was too dependent and too reliant on men and making decisions based on them and everything else when that was so far from who I was. And I was like, am I doing this on that subconscious level I don't even understand? Because I don't understand what you're telling me. Instead of no, don't know where he got that, but he was off his rocker. So thankfully I had friends to help stir me correctly.

And I also have more stories I could tell you about situations with therapists that didn't go right. So it's not the degree. It's not that piece. You still need to be villagent and find the right person and the right connection, even if they have the degree. So if you've gone to a therapist, still hold on to who you are. Hopefully I found an amazing therapist. My mom was terminally ill. I think it might have been after that.

And she was a godsend. And she did so much to help me get through that challenging time. And she happened to be a woman. She happened to have an LCSW, but I don't think that that was what the magic was, right? I think that she clicked. She used a psycho educational approach with me, which the model where she would teach me about things was good because I did approach my mental health from a very brain driven place, which I think that's been part of my problem most of my life. So right now I would not benefit from that. But at that time, that's what I needed. And she was good with grounding techniques, which I definitely needed.

She was great with boundaries and questioning and giving me new perspective on things. She was so valuable and so she was great. Right now I'd love somebody who would like specialize in internal family systems. I mean, you heard that episode, right? 32, when Will was on? That was so great. That whole perspective is so valuable. I'd love to knock that around a little bit with a therapist be amazing, but she was incredible. So I did found a great therapist that I connected with at a time I needed to find a great therapist I connected with, but I could have stayed with that other guy who just did not get me whatsoever, and that would have been a big mistake. And so regardless, I think that's my message for this episode as we go into this bigger conversation about what the differences are that you need to be true to yourself and trust your instincts.

And if you go to someone and they aren't connecting with you, just like in the Namar, she went with somebody, they were completely overloading her system with so much more than just that party, right? Just the way that they were coming at her, that did not work for her. That is fine. There's nothing wrong with you. They are the individual who isn't working, and that's okay, and you need to find somebody who does. And so you need to be empowered to know that. And I have the amazing advantage to have friends who are therapists to help reinforce. And it took two of them who had clinical degrees to be like, hey, yeah, he doesn't know what he's talking about. Go find somebody else.

But I'm like, he has a doctorate degree, and he's been doing this for a long time. Are you sure that I don't have some latent thing I'm not seeing? No, Shawna, run. Go find somebody else. So if you have this stuff that's not sitting right, it's supposed to be making you better. Your therapy makes you better. Your therapy gives you tools that makes things better. If it's not doing that, it's not you, it's them. It's okay to walk away.

I said it okay. You need to find something that's helping you, that's working for you. And I really wish our mental health system was more supportive of that and understanding of that. And that's your perspective. And as a clinician, when I saw children and families, if they need to be somewhere else to get what they needed, that would be fine, because they need to be getting help and getting better. And so that's what was most important, and that's what they should want for you, is for you to be getting better. And if that's not happening, then you need to be able to find a place and get a referral and get somebody to work with that is making that happen, because that is the most important part. So that is my little take on the little bits of what makes somebody a therapist, a clinician, clinical license, what the difference is, and just really the bottom line of you meeting your need and that you need to be able to speak up for yourself and find what you need that is very important.

So that actually brings us what I mentioned earlier, that you might have noticed that we largely showcase coaches, experts, doctors, and fewer licensed clinicians. That's not because they don't love licensed clinicians. I worked with them and have worked with them and think highly of them. I love my episode with Will. That's more of a fact that they are often underpaid and burnt out and hard to get for availability and scheduling, to be honest. And one of the other reasons is that I want for the guests to be a resource for each and every one of you. And as I've mentioned, getting appointments with therapist is not easy these days, and it's also limiting because if you remember when Will had his episode, we mentioned that if you want to speak with him about ifs he may be available to talk to a group or be able to do something around that. But unless you lived in his state where he practices, he can't be a resource, because, again, those clinical license and our availability with insurance panels wherever else we have to work within our state, even if it is virtual, and those rules are pretty tight around that.

And even if you are in a state, he usually has a waiting list because it is hard to get good therapists. And so because of that, I haven't had a lot of therapists on the show. Also, they tend to be more specialized in disorders versus challenging life circumstance or more generalized in stuff that you have disorders versus challenging life circumstances. And if you look at the topics of our shows, they are more targeted. So when you met Linh in episode 29, she is one of the folks that we're going to chat with as we continue the series, and she works with people around body acceptance and intuitive eating. There might be a therapist that knows a thing or two about some of that, and they may incorporate it into it, into their work with you, but you need to have a diagnosable disorder. And so the body acceptance and work with Ed may be one of the things they would work with you on, but it wouldn't be the focus of the treatment because that's not actually something that would be diagnosed or if it would be a little bit more a different level than what you'd be able to work with Linh on. So that's some of what we'll be talking about is about the way you can specialize.

And Linh also lives in Berlin, and she can work with anyone in the world. She's not limited by her state or certain insurances or anything else as well. So that is something that we can ask Linh, Jacquelyn and Eric more about when they might refer someone to somebody else, because there's limits for the work that they do. And that's something else I should let you guys know is that there is a small window where you can send me specific questions if you have them for our panel. Because if you can get them to me by midnight on July 20, I'll be able to get them down before I actually do the recording of the panel. So if you want to email any questions to me, it's shawna@grit2g So grit the number 2, G, just the letter. So shawna@grit2g.com

You get to meet my forever friend Laurie. She is an amazing human. And we'll talk about adult friendships, the real talk of it, the fact it isn't always easy, but it is worth it, and share some real examples of making friends in midlife. You guys are going to love her. I hope you guys join us for that next week. So that'll be next week and then after that, the first week of August, we'll have the next two episodes. It'll be the continued conversation with our panel around coaching and therapy and understanding what you need to be ready for it and what those differences are between them. A little bit more in depth and we'll talk more about with coaching, the different types of coaching and how that looks different, and maybe arm you guys with some questions as you guys go into finding a coach and working with a coach, how you can find them and what type of questions you can ask to see if things are the right fit.

All right, time to wrap things up here, y'all. So today we're going to delve into self maintenance as we always do, and talk about what I am doing for self maintenance. Interestingly. The thing I'm doing right now is I am reaching out. That's how we're going to phrase it and say it. So I'm making those phone calls and sending texts and telling people that I need them and telling them what I need. So that is my big effort this past week around self maintenance. And it is not something easy for me, which you might find surprising, but it's definitely something I've been working on and have improved on over the last probably decade, I think, or maybe just five years.

But somewhere in there, I don't know where I heard this or where it comes from, but basically somewhere was saying that if you aren't asking for help, you're secretly judging people who ask you for help. And that really hit home for me. That was a helpful one to help me get better about this. So I'm asking for help because things have been a little overwhelming and intense lately. So I need to have my connections and my sweetheart is far away from me. And that's hard because I'm used to having him all the time. I'm used to him making me dinner. I miss that.

So the day I recorded this, I actually asked him if we could specifically have a video call interrupted his day so that we could have time to just sit and talk to each other via video, because I haven't seen him for a week now and. Our calls have been sporadic all week because we're both so busy and they've been multitasking driving or going different directions. And I just need to connect with him and I need his full attention. So that's what I needed and I asked him for that and he was wonderful and gave that to me. So I was very grateful that he gave that to me. But it was also a big deal that my self maintenance was actually asking for that and reaching out for that and then he was wonderful and actually gave that to me. So it was very helpful. That's what I needed.

And I also sent a text earlier in the week to a friend I respect professionally saying that I needed to connect with another woman running her own business because I needed that support, because things have just been challenging with all the transitions with running a business and selling a house and getting ready to move and all those different pieces. So that has been my self maintenance. This week it's really about doing those pieces. So next week I'm hoping to step up my game and schedule a massage. But I'm not to that level yet. This week it's just asking for help with my sales, self maintenance and making time for connecting with people. So I'm giving back to myself and keeping myself in the game. But I'm hoping that next week I can kind of step up a little bit.

So what about you? What are you doing for yourself? Actually, that's our grit wit for today. I think that we'll save our things related to discerning about coaching and therapy and what we need and asking ourselves about that we can save for when the rest of our crew is with us. We have two episodes of that. I think today we're actually going to focus on our self maintenance and to actually take time to reflect about what you are doing for yourself and make sure you're giving yourself credit for what you are doing. Because maybe you did ask for help twice this week and reach out to somebody and make time to connect with somebody, but you didn't stop and think about the fact, oh, I guess that is self maintenance for me. That is the way that I'm making it easier to get up and face today and get done all the things I need to get done. So for today, I want you to actually say it out loud, write it down, or otherwise cement it in your brain by repeating it a few times. What are you doing for self maintenance? What part of your daily routine, what part of your week, what have you squeezed in that has been things that keep you grounded, that keep you going? What other things are life affirming, that are giving back to you, that are recharging you and making all these other things possible? Is it connection with somebody in your family? Is it moments of quiet? Is it making something, doing something? Name them, celebrate them, be grateful for them.

That's the first step for your grit wit. And then decide how you're going to up your game next week. So you can either savor it more, make sure that as you're doing it, you're recognizing, oh, this is me maintaining myself. This is me taking care of myself. Or you can just do them more if you want to up the game that way or add in something bigger, like me deciding I'm going to get a massage next week instead of just reaching out for help because I might still need to reach out for help as well as get a massage. Just know that it feels special just for you, and then it's recharging and doing that for you. So reflect on it and then up the game. Okay? Self maintenance.

That's what we're doing today for our grit wit. Thank you so much for sharing this time with me today. I really do value you. I'd love to hear if any of this resonated with you or you found value from this episode or any of those questions you have too. Because I definitely want you to send those in about the differences between coaching and therapy or what you should think about as a consumer before you're starting, either if you have specific questions for you or a loved one, look forward to getting those messages. I love hearing from you. And then don't forget to jump in the show notes and follow @the.grit.show on Instagram or @thegritshow on Facebook. You can even use the link in the show notes to go to coloringpages.thegritshow.com to get added to our mailing list so you get the email each time an episode comes out.

And bonus, right, you get free coloring pages. So win win. All right, we want to keep connected to you, so thanks for joining us today. And in case you haven't heard it quite enough, you are the only one of you, the only person on this planet with your unique perspective and your gifts, and that really does mean something, so don't forget it. I look forward to connecting with you again next week. Thank you for being part of this series.