It's BIPOC Mental Health Awareness Month, so we are re-sharing one of our favorite episodes!

How much did graduate school *actually* teach you about culture and how to talk about culture in our sessions?  We are joined again by Xoel Gonzalez, LPCC to discuss this important topic, why this is hard to talk about, self-disclosure, and how to approach culture and religion in therapy sessions with clients.

- Watch the video episode ⁠here⁠.

The Therapist Thrival Guide is a podcast from Ellie Mental Health. We want to take therapists from just surviving to thriving. This is everything you didn't learn in graduate school! This podcast is hosted by Miranda Barker, MSW LICSW and Dr. Lucas Volini, LMFT. We'll have a different therapist guest for each episode to talk about what they've learned and what they want to teach other therapists. This series will be covering topics like burn-out, client retention, session structure, and balancing professional relationships.       

Dr. Lucas Volini, LMFT, has been practicing as a marriage and family therapist for over ten years. He has worked as a couple's therapist, a graduate and undergraduate professor, researcher, author, and now as the VP of Clinical Quality at Ellie Mental Health...But he mostly sees himself as a professional recreational golfer.       

Miranda Barker, MSW, LICSW, has been practicing as a therapist for two years. She previously worked as a child protection investigator, adoption social worker, and case manager. She's new to the therapy game and loves soaking up all of the knowledge from the expert therapists in her life. She's the Executive Producer at Ellie Mental Health and believes that creativity is an important aspect of mental health care.     

Therapist THRIVAL Guide is one of many creative productions from Ellie Mental Health. Ellie is an outpatient mental health clinic that began in St. Paul, Minnesota and has continued to expand to over 20 clinics in Minnesota and a growing number of franchises across the country (we'll be opening over 500 locations in communities nationwide in the near future!!).  #normalizeit #therapists #mentalhealthawareness #therapists #therapy

Earlier this season we discussed how technology can be used in therapy and as an intervention for kids struggling with ADHD, ASD, or anger. As a continuation of that episode, Miranda had a conversation with Jessica Ragnio, MSW, LICSW, Associate Clinical Director at Mightier to discuss how this technology was developed and exactly how this works!

We have had numerous listeners ask that we begin covering more therapy modalities in depth, so we are starting off with a trauma therapy called Somatic Experiencing (SE)! Tracy Blad, LMFT is a certified SE practitioner and she joins this episode to share all about this modality, what it's helpful for, what the research shows, and how to get trained in this practice.

Therapist Thrival Guide is a video-podcast by Ellie MENTAL HEALTH. The intention is to move therapists beyond surviving and into the realm of THRIVING by covering all the things that graduate school didn't teach you! This mental health podcast is hosted by Miranda Barker, MSW, LICSW and Dr. Lucas Volini, DMFT, LMFT. Each episode features a therapist at Ellie speaking to their areas of expertise, clinical interests, and personal experiences of being a therapist. This series will be covering topics like burn-out, self of therapist, cultural considerations, client retention, session structure, advancing clinical skills, innovations in therapy, and balancing professional relationships with our personal lives. Every now and then, we'll even cover the happenings of how therapists are portrayed in pop culture.

We want to be clear -- as therapists we don't seek to treat the ASD as much as we treat the SYMPTOMS of neurodivergence that create DISTRESS for the kids. In this episode kid therapist Kelly Pieper, LICSW and child psychiatrist Dr. Claire Garber are discussing symptoms of ASD in kids, therapeutic treatments for distressing symptoms, and common medications prescribed for this population. We also talk about how therapists and prescribers can work together to serve clients, professionals can best support family members of clients, and tips for how families can be supporting their autistic loved ones.

What are all of the different levels of care in mental health treatment, and how do I know if my client is in the right level for them? There are PHPs, IOPs, day treatment, outpatient services, inpatient services, and residential treatments and sometimes it's hard to know when a client needs to step up and step down. Dr. Suzanne Jasberg joins this episode to discuss what these different levels of care mean and how to be assessing client progress.

In this week's episode we are covering perinatal mood and anxiety disorders, including postpartum depression, postpartum psychosis, postpartum anxiety, and OCD. Our guests are passionate about this topic and making sure that new parents feel supported and cared for.

Most of us have loved ones or clients that have experienced miscarriage or infant loss. In honor of Maternal Mental Health Month, we invited Laura Lammar-Binder, MA to join and share her own experiences with loss and postpartum depression. This episode is for therapists supporting loved ones or clients that have experienced miscarriages or infant loss OR that are looking for support through this themselves.

LINKS:

Find the video podcast here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCE1KQgI5Dc4Kkjvlzm1GtuA

Postpartum Support International: https://www.postpartum.net/

This episode is for therapists that are experiencing infertility themselves or supporting loved ones or clients that are walking through infertility. In honor of maternal mental health month and infertility awareness week, Sara Livingston-Burke, LPCC and Jennie Karnish, LPCC join to discuss the impact of infertility on one's mental health, how to support loved ones or clients walking through infertility.

RESOURCE LINKS:

- "Fighting Infertility: Finding My Inner Warrior Through Trying to Conceive, IVF, and Miscarriage" book by Samantha Bucsh: https://amzn.to/3ppfQK2

- "Infreakinfertility: How to Survive When Getting Pregnant Gets Hard" book by Melanie Dale: https://amzn.to/3Mc2Ekv

- "Queer Conception: The Complete Fertility Guide for Queer and Trans Parents-to-Be" by Kristin Liam Kali: https://amzn.to/3pfj8zh

- "Baby Making for Everybody: Family Building and Fertility for LGBTQ+ and Solo Parents" by Marea Goodman and Ray Rachlin: https://amzn.to/42KfxI9

- "The Joy of Later Motherhood" book by Bettina Gordon-Wayne: https://amzn.to/42Y8jR1

- "It Starts with the Egg" book by Rebecca Fett: https://amzn.to/42n4Dbn

Find it on YouTube here: https://youtu.be/W2uCMbekqFU

Therapist Thrival Guide is a video-podcast by ellie MENTAL HEALTH. The intention is to move therapists beyond surviving and into the realm of THRIVING by covering all the things that graduate school didn't teach you! This mental health podcast is hosted by Miranda Barker, MSW, LICSW and Dr. Lucas Volini, DMFT, LMFT. Each episode features a therapist at ellie speaking to their areas of expertise, clinical interests, and personal experiences of being a therapist. This series will be covering topics like burn-out, self of therapist, cultural considerations, client retention, session structure, advancing clinical skills, innovations in therapy, and balancing professional relationships with our personal lives. Every now and then, we'll even cover the happenings of how therapists are portrayed in pop culture.

Founder and CEO of Ellie Mental Health, Erin Pash, LMFT joins the episode this week to discuss Ellie's rapid growth and how they are filling gaps in mental health care in new ways. Erin talks about the history of Ellie, why they chose the franchise model rather than corporate growth, and how she sees Ellie's continued growth in the future.