Season 1 | Episode 24 | Re-Release of Ep. 23 with Dr. Terrry Hargrave

Lance, how we doing today?

Rhett? I am, you know, this, this, this is like a fanboy episode, you know? I mean, I am super stoked today.

We'll go ahead and introduce our guests then. Let's do that.

So, guys, today, I mean, probably, I was thinking, like, things I quote in my life, number one would probably be the scriptures. I mean, that's, that's pretty, pretty big. But probably number two would be Terry Hargrave. And this guy that we have on here today has, like, probably changed my whole being and the way that I interact with my life and the things I do. I think I'm so stoked to have Terry on here today. I think just so thankful for his influence on my life and what he's done for my family and all my clients. So stoked to have the famous. He's been known many names in my life. Terry Hargrave was the initial or Dr. Terry. And he, he corrected that really quickly and said, call me Terry. And then I found out at one point his son Peter was calling him T Dog, and I really took to that for a while. I was calling him, I was like, yeah, T Dog. Like, you love that, T Dog. And, you know, and, and now he's affectionately known as Doc in our household because that's what his grandkids call him, Doc. And lady is Sharon's lady, so. But we're so blessed to have you here today, today, Terry.

Well, thanks for having me. I, I, I really enjoy listening to the, the dialogue. And you do. You guys have done a great job of kind of tying the community together in that way and making a difference. I mean, good, good information and good tie in. Good mix of some of us oldsters and newcomers to the field. And yeah, it's, it's been an interesting ride this first season. So good for you.

Oh, man, I'm gonna hold that compliment for a second here.

Well, Terry, before you hopped on, Lance and I were talking on the phone, and he said he, he had moved C.S. lewis from position number two of quotables into you into number two of quotables. C.S. lewis now is number three. So that's, that's quite the standard there.

Yeah, because I, I, I, There's, There are these thin moments that I can talk like a surfer and come up with things that Lance can understand without a doubt, you know, so that's, that's what separates me and C. C.S. lewis is. C.S. lewis was a great man, a scholar, a unbelievable writer, and I can, I can talk Lance's language every now and again. So that's that's the difference, you know?

Yes. Yeah. Terry also talks baseball, so. Yeah, that. I mean, baseball, surfing, Jesus, like, come on. This is like heaven and therapy, the healing of people.

So, yeah, I think we have needed sometimes an interpreter for Lance on the podcasts, which. Which is all good. Mike Bishop really liked it. He came on with his, like, Hawaiian shirt, I think, and he was all about the. Lance's surf culture vibe.

He does. He. He has that. He has that ability. Mike and I have gone. Gone a long way back, as he told you. I did listen to that podcast. So, you know, and I. I guarantee you guys, you know, that podcast with Mike, you know, there was. There was a good 20% of it that was actually true.

Hey, it's all right.

Yeah, that's all right. You know.

It'S re.

Disremembering, right? I guess he's my. He's quite the character. I was thinking about today and where we should jump in, because there are so many topics. Lance, and.

Where.

Where do you think would be most helpful? Because you and I were batting around lots of different questions. We sent some stuff to Terry, so let's kind of start where. Do you think it is a good entry point for us this morning?

Yeah, I mean, I think one of the things that. For me, with my team, where we talk about doing the work, I think one of the things that comes up a lot is like, what's my role in the room? Like, what am I. Like, who. Who am I supposed to be here in the room? I think we get caught into weird roles as a therapist, and one of the things I really like about restoration therapy is the idea of it being a discipleship model and that this is a. The disciples way. So I. I was kind of thinking that would be a. An interesting conversation. You know, I think one of the things that's come up a lot in our conversations is how this model is. It's so authentic and real that the way that we interact with one another and the way that we use it in our own lives. So I was like, why not? You know, And Terry mentioned this in our. In an email ahead of time. I think that'd be a great way to start it off, and then. And then we can play into some of the practical stuff. What do you guys think?

Yeah, I was just, you know, Terry, let's just start with this kind of. This concept of Disciples way and how you see that fitting into the restoration therapy model and what you mean by discipleships way.

By disciples way, yeah, it's really.

Really.

It'S based on the idea of, oh, remind me of the theologian's name, the great theologian Pauline.

T. Wright.

N.T. wright. Yeah, it, it really, it really starts with him. I, you know, the, the idea of this pain cycle to peace cycle and taking responsibility for your pain. We're in the very, very new throes of this, and in articulating it and, and getting to it, N.T. wright came to Lake Avenue Church in Pasadena right around the time that we showed up, and he started talking about, he said, you know, I've been thinking about these ideas about talking to you about these things, and I think this is my next book. And sure enough, it ended up in his next book called after you Believe. It was the, the idea that after we come to this realization that we are in deep need, that we are lost by ourselves, that we meet this living God, and that God has provided a provision for us to actually not just be salvaged, but also connected in that high place after we get there, right? He was saying, then the next step is what. And the obvious thing is this idea of Pauline theology of taking out the old self and putting on the new self, doing something different, because it's obvious to all of us we don't lose our old self. You know, in RT language, we don't lose our pain cycle. We always have our pain cycle. We always have our stuff. In other words, things that go wrong with our identity or sense of safety. But NT Wright was saying the real intent of the scripture, that if you read that Ephesians 4 passage, the. The element there that is unmistakable is the idea is that you have to daily take off this old self and learn how to put on this new walk, this new, this new clothing, this new way of relating that finds its way in discipleship. Being a good follower of Jesus, what does that mean to do? It opens your eyes to the idea of my pain. Though I cannot lose it, I have actually a responsibility to work on it. And that making it, making myself work on it looks very much like, you know, different areas of what Paul talks about. You know, it just. Two of my favorites would be, you know, when you go to Galatians and you have this idea of the fruits of the Spirit, the same. So, so once you, once you are in, in the right relationship with God, what do you do with that? Well, you can spend your time staying in the pain cycle or you can move to this way of the Spirit, which is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and this remarkable word that we usually don't know what it means. So self control, what against? There is a lie. Everybody agrees these things are good. So that's one thing. Then. Then you move over to another Pauline passage in Romans 5, where he's talking about, you know, how wonderful it is that we. That we rejoice in the idea that we can be connected to God, he said, but not only that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that our sufferings teach us invaluable lessons on how to progress. 1. It teaches us how to endure bad things happening to us, things going sideways and not getting in too much of a twist about it. That is a remarkable virtue that we tend to leave off the list. Just the ability to endure pain and in. Endure tragic injustice. Like I think of the Gazans right now on the Strip that are starving to death, you know, oh, my gosh. Truly, truly in tremendous injustice. Yet they. They're learning the pathway of endurance. And after endurance comes this wonderful thing of character, which are these things that we call the fruits of the spirit. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness. This whole list of things that can start coming out of it. And out of that, out of the pain of life comes hope, which that hope does not disappoint us. In other words, that's. That's the reward, is that we. We get. We get this here on Earth. We get this glimpse of seeing life. Jesus, I really change. You know, I. You know, I used to be like this, and I'm different. I'm. I'm seeing it now. And that. Seeing it just brings you a little bit closer, a little bit closer every day in every way. And that is an exciting model, particularly when you're talking about from a therapist perspective. We all got into therapy to help people. Yeah, to administer to people, to help them down the road, to help solve problems. And finally, and. And the way that we were taught that, was this a totally reasonable idea of empathy and understanding and kind of cuddling up to people in a way, is saying, yeah, I get to. I see you. I know you here. Let's try to make sense of this for you. You know, which. Which are wonderful attributes, but they produce zero change. I mean, none.

Wait, Terry.

Personhood.

I think you have to say that again because there might be a few people out there that I. They might be really high on the value list. So I think we might have to almost double down first.

It's a wonderful thing. Don't get me wrong. I don't. I'm not saying it doesn't have a place in therapy, because it. It basically connects us to our clients and convinces our clients, you are not alone. I care for you. That's an important thing. You know, think of this as the Disciples way, right? This is Jesus saying to us, I'm with you. I got this. I'm not leaving you. You know that. And then what does Jesus do?

Go and say, no more.

You got to get to work. This is the difference between where I think we've been in therapy for the last. The therapy business for the last 70 years. Not all of us, but, you know, therapy in general for the last 70 years, has had this idea that if we, you know, this Carl Rogers mix of, you know, if we accept people, if we empathize with them, if we're genuine, then they will just blossom. Not so. There's no research that says that people are better. There's a lot of research that says that people like their therapists a lot when the therapist does that, but they don't change. And what I think that's evolved into is this idea that people feel like, well, if I feel unseen, it's your job to see. See me.

Yeah.

If I feel unheard, it's your job to hear me. If I feel bad, it's your job to make me feel better. If I feel unsafe, it's your job to make me feel safe. If I feel unloved, it's your job to make me feel. You see the cascade of how people come to therapy and how that mindset now has taken over a generational framework. It started with my generation as baby boomers, and God's gone right through the zoomers. I mean, it's. And it's. It's really reached catastrophic levels where, you know, the Disciples way is after I believe I've got to do work. I have to actually do the reconstruction. So I've talked for a long time, so I'm thinking, whoa, it's too much. So ask me some questions or interact.

What do you think, Rhett? Like, when Terry says that and you think about kind of your experience as a therapist?

Yeah, I was. I was reflecting on another passage of Paul that I think, you know, in working with Terry and RT community, that I looked at it one way for many years, and then I started to look at it in a different way. And that is. I was thinking about that famous passage in. In Philippians 4, you know, Philippians 4, 4, he talks about rejoice. And in 4, 6, he says, don't be anxious. Right. But then in 4, 7, talks about this piece of God. And 4, 8, he starts listing these truths that he says that we're to meditate on. And then in 4, 9, he says, go out and put them into practice. And, you know, I was. I was thinking about Paul himself. You know, he's writing that from prison. He's probably chained to a guard, potentially. He's visited the Church of Philippi at least probably two or three times. So I was thinking about his. His own sense of endurance and his own pain and. And being able to communicate this idea that we are to meditate on these truths and to put them into practice, and that's what changes people. And so, yeah, it just made me think about that, that it's all over Paul's writings and other passages of scripture, this idea that we are to put things into practice. And that insight alone is not what changes us. And I've, you know, I've thought about it, Terry, more critically even in the last year, talking to you about. And Lance, just around the work of anxiety, that we can actually. We don't have to live that way, that we can actually do something different. And so, yeah, I'm guilty, though, as a therapist of, you know, trying to make this, I think, change from just being somebody who listens as good as empathy and being more active in the room. And Lance, I would say everyone that we've talked to in the podcast and people in our community, that's. That's been the biggest challenge, don't you think?

I would certainly agree. I mean, like, it's one thing to hold someone in their suffering, but another thing to call them to greatness in the midst of suffering that, you know, to. I mean, it's not like we're saying, I want you to rejoice right now. But I think of that, like, classic line in Nicole's book where she's just. I think she just lost. She had another miscarriage. And, And Terry asked her, like, how are you going to steward this pain? Like, Like, I think you said it, it was way more eloquent, Quint. But, like, there was this moment of. And I think the liberation for Nicole and reading that book was just, like, profound. So I, I think it's something very, very difficult, yet it is liberating.

I think, you know, that that idea of stewardship of pain is that nothing is wasted on us. In other words, you know, are all points. Points us towards this. You know, the point of suffering is to do something for you. So pain automatically has a meaning. It's not senseless. It's. It's the stuff from which we learn the virtue. I, you know, that that idea of stewardship of pain comes from the theologian Frederick Bickner. And in the Sacred Journey he talks about this. And it's surprising to me, but it. The idea came to him from a confrontation on this Howard Butts comment that he made at Laity Lodge in Texas. You know, Howard Butz was the child or the originator of the heb. Grocery stores and all this. They a lot of money into a foundation to help people, you know, negotiate life. And Buechner was there speaking one time. And Buechner told his story about his father leaving the pain connected with that. And Howard Butt came to him and said, I. I see that you have been a good steward of your pain. And the idea of coupling that idea of stewardship of your pain. Making it count, in other words. Yeah, making it, converting. It is the exact thing that we pick out of Romans 5, saying, this is. This is why we glory in our sufferings. Not because it's. It's a. It's a great thing or a fun thing. It's that we know that those sufferings produce on us things that cannot come any other way. You know David's famous book, the Road to Virtue? This is. This is how you learn. Not, it is by difficulty that you learn virtue, that there's no other way. And in our language, the disciples way, there's no other way that we come to virtue except through our pain cycle. That's why it makes it so exciting. And make no mistake, guys, we're not the only therapeutic modality that's saying this, but we're the current one that is saying the last 70 years has had the wrong focus. Is that therapists were supposed to be empathetic and give a atmosphere where people can grow out of it. The last 20 years we've said you need somebody else present to be able to make you feel and meet your needs so that you can grow out of it. Both of those show no evidence of actually the person being able to learn this thing of virtue of self control. It is, It's. It's. Those are wonderful qualities. It's not like that's totally wrong. It. It does make us feel important. It does make us feel like we're not alone. It does make us feel seen. So empathy is not useless. Insight is not useless, does comfort us that somebody knows where we are and hears us. But it does not promote change into the virtuous place where we actually, instead of going, oh, love me, love me, make me happy, be kind to me. You know, instead of us teaching our clients to Say that what we're teaching them is to say, I can love others. I can learn how to be kind, inspired by. I can be joyful. And part of the happiness that I bring to you. You get the idea that it's the. It's that I become the promoter of the proven. The spirit, which is the recycled sweat.

Yeah, I love it. I think about that. That classic client, you know, where you put the pain cycle up and they had the peace cycle. And we're kind of having that conversation about using the four steps. And we're. We're using the four steps. We practice the four steps, and then you have this one moment where the client looks at you and they say, so when does the pain cycle go away?

Yeah. Yeah.

I think what you're saying, Terry, if I'm catching you, is that, you know, we're not giving it. We're not. It's not going away. We're actually taking it and learning how to steward our pain so much better by using our four steps. Yeah.

Maybe it was the last episode or a few episodes ago that y' all were talking about, and you asked, rhett, how are you doing with your pain cycle? How often are you doing your four steps? And, you know, it's. It's evident in you guys and the answers that you gave that this is a continual process with me. This is. This is always on my mind on how I. How I overcome that pain and keep myself in a place where I'm doing the way the. The good stuff that comes out of the cycle. That's. That's a remarkable way, and that's my experience, too, is that, you know, the wonderful insight that came from the Pain and peace cycle is remarkable. Realizing the.

The.

The cusp of what we were onto in terms of self regulation versus cold regulation was truly amazing. And you. You think, well, those things ought to carry the day. I. I don't have to do the work myself. In actuality. Yeah, everybody has to do the work. So, you know, so that's. That's a good thing. That's what I really like about this, is that, you know, we. In therapy, we stress that it's just one human being, a therapist, that is connected, connecting to another human being, the client. And I think we ought to add something to that. Yeah, it's. It is that connection. And it's also the journey of saying, you gotta get in work. We gotta. We got. We got work to do to be able to integrate these very, very difficult things, how to live life in a. In a really rough place. Where you do good not only for yourself, but also for the people that are connected to you. That's what I think it, that's the get a little twitchy about this is that I feel like I'm right on the edge of seeing something through the veil. That's, that's really the secret.

The secret.

What has bigger implications than just therapy?

Oh yeah.

Yeah. This is. This, you know, I don't know. This could be the way.

Gets me excited. Ah. Oh man.

I was wondering was there any other moment? I mean I'm sure there were quite a few. But you mentioned nt ride and sitting there and listening to him talk that shifted your perspective on, on this. I was wondering if there was some other conversation or somebody you were reading or some experience that just had you look at this in a new way where this importance, the important idea of like the practice and, and converting our pain into peace and taking off the old and putting on the new. If there was something else that was really significant in shaping this for you.

Yeah, there have been, there have been several. You know, the, the primary one that I think about this morning, which is Roy Baumeister. Roy is a profound scholar. He just has churned out an unbelievable amount of research mainly by commissioning doctoral students how to do that research and track it. He's the guy that basically said, you know, the lack of self control is the very well could be the psychological. Injury or the psychological tragedy of our generation is that the misunderstanding around that is the research. And Baumeister has been responsible for a large amount of this research. The amount of research that, that shows that if you teach people how to have self control, they not only can learn it, but they have all these good things that start pouring out. They're better at relationships, they're better at keeping themselves together. They have less addictions that they're better at raising their children. They're better at connecting with people. I mean they have more friends. I mean the list goes do better grade wise, you know, self control. Which translates into this idea of keeping yourself in your peace cycle. This is the key of really changing everything. And Baumeister has voluminous research. I always talk about this when I, when I speak about that the idea of co regulation has significant research, but when you're talking about the research on self control or self regulation, I mean it is much, much more significant. And yet, you know, that's not a popular concept. Imagine you, you, you have to search around for bomb meisters work, but it's not hard to understand. I mean it is it is straightforward. This, this lack of self control which by the way, you know, shows up in the list of the Bridges spirit. You know, it is the methodology of how you can get to all that. It comes last in the list. But actually that's the first thing that you have to learn to be loving. It's the first thing you have to learn to be. It's the first thing you have to learn to be actually joyful. People that don't have self control don't know what happens is, you know, so people that are always going around saying give me another fix, you know, make me feel good. I want to feel seen, I want to feel heard. And we know this in therapy. How many people come in to see us? I, I feel like they're not seeing what I'm, what I'm going through. In other words, and translated most of the time that means I want you to make me feel better about where I am. I want, I want you to feel sorry for me as I growl. That's a tougher job for us therapeutically.

You know, if you Google. I was doing some research last week on emotional self regulation. If you type that in and the search engine or even in chat GPT, everything comes up about self control almost. That's, that's the language that they're using. And so that was, that's really interesting that you mentioned his research and this idea of emotional self regulation is ability to control oneself essentially. I'm trying to think of the passage that in Psalms that Ron Deal you all mentioned in the book Mindful Marriage about coming before the Lord with a calm heart. Do you know what I'm referencing there in that section on emotional self regulation?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I can't remember that because that comes primarily from Ron. I mean his. Yeah, it's his application of it. But yeah, I think that that's a powerful concept. Is, is that it? You know, but this is, this is part of the mythology. You know, there's plenty of things that the Holy Spirit will do to you upon coming to Jesus, whether you like it or not. But what, what we refuse to get is the process of sanctification, which is a theological word saying is the disciples way comes by the process of our work is cooperating with the Holy Spirit in that process of changing us, redeeming us. That, you know, that's that First Corinthians idea. Looking dimly through this mirror and kind of seeing the potential of what we can become and being transformed by concentrating on that end of being lovely, joyful, peaceful, kind, kind Gentle, faithful and self. Those are the things that start molding us and transforming us from one image to a closer image, to a closer image to what we desire to be is through the image. So that is all sorts of implications, too. Like Imago DE we are the image bearers of God.

Yes.

To reclaim that not only in relationship, but also reclaim it in terms of the way. That's a remarkable process in counseling. So counseling in RT is whether we're overtly Christian or not. The pathway is that me. It's teaching people to become a little bit more the image of what God intended. But there's the magic of our team, is that it demands work on the. This is not something that will just happen. It can't happen one time. It must be repeated practice over and over and quantified until you get this kind of sense, oh, I'm really changing. I'm really. I'm really getting it.

Practice. That's the scripture in Philippians you're talking about. Rhett. I feel like that, that. That classic Allen Iverson quote which.

Which we're talking about.

Practice, man.

This why we talk about practice. Of course, you know, contextually, he had just had a loss in his life and he was getting frustrated. But it's such a great quote. And Ted Lasso picked up on it too. Right?

I. Yeah. Lanson, we were talking before, and Tara, you just kind of mentioned it. I was wondering just the way that you work, if you have always looked for integration, like theologically in your work, even though you work with a wide population of people who maybe are practicing a faith, are not practicing a faith, has your mind always looked for those theological connections or has there been a shift, you think, in that?

I don't think there's been a shift. I've always looked for theological connections, but I've intentionally. This is what I. This is what I firmly believe, particularly in the area of psychological therapeutic technique, which has been my area of research from the get go, is that if. If I can't explain things in a psychological language, then it cannot be true spiritually. In other words, where. Where I could just go off to describe things spiritually and then try to make it fit psychologically, that. That doesn't work. I've got to be able to. If it. If it's the. The truth. I mean, that's kind of always been the litmus test for me in terms of if it's the truth, it can stand alone. It's true for everyone. And that's why. That's what I'd say In terms of the pathway, whether you're a disciple of Christ or not, the pathway of our team is for you to become virtuous. The. The virtues are at hand. If you want to stay where you are, RT is not for you. It won't. I mean, you will just be frustrated by it. You know, it's like trying to make a big lot. It just can't be done. But if. If you. If you want to pick it, if you want to. If you want to do the work, then sure enough, you'll find yourself going, you know, at certain moments where you think, I can't believe that came out of me, where that would have wrecked my life or wrecked the relationship that I'm in, or I would have never been able to keep myself from that pathway without getting angry or feeling sorry for myself or getting depressed or withdrawing or getting drunk, you know, whatever it is that happens in the things like it. So, you know, for me, it's. It's kind of the backward thinking. So I've always been connected spiritually, but I've always been like a believer that you have to first think these things. Very much so. So that makes sense to all of humanity.

Right.

Whether. Whether they're believers or not. Sometimes we lean on that as a crutch. Particularly in Christian counseling, we've leaned on that. I think we don't need to lean on that. We can. We can state this honestly and truthfully. Is saying this is the pathway to change. If you're. If you're talking about change, then this. That's why. That's why I can say, you know, we can. We can wade into the neuroscience without fear. We can wade into the sense of behavioral practice and the mental memory trauma. We can wade into those things without fear. RT is. Is thorough enough and comprehensive enough of a theory to handle whatever comes up, which I think. I think is quite remarkable. I spent a lot of my time doing family of origin work and learning family of origin work, trying to explain everything from a perspective of what happened to you as a child or what happened to you growing up or something that nature. And that's exhausting.

Yeah.

Make those connections. It is some wonderful insight, and it does help you connect. It does help you be empathetic, but it doesn't produce change. That was a hard fight. And by the way, that's a hard place to come to after you pour about 10 years of your work into understanding that. There were some helpful things that. That I really uncovered during that time in terms of articulating trustworthiness and why this is a foundational principle that is just as important while understanding the process of, of reactivity. For instance, all that was rooted in the family of origin story stuff that I did. And the forgiveness stuff was also. The light bulb of finally seeing it in. As the pathway to actually help people change. That, that took a little time and it, it. And it took little. It took breaking away from the idea that if you just understand people, they'll get it and be able to change. They feel loved, they feel nurtured, they feel connected to, but they don't change.

Nope. Yeah. Think about your old line of like, we buried the past alive. Has that evolved for you now? Like when you think about like that, like we contextualizing all this together or is that still whole?

Absolutely not. It's still active. The idea that I don't deal with my past is. Is equal to saying I don't deal with my pain cycle. I did. That's just part of who I am. You just have to get used to it. You'll just have to accept me the way I am. I've had a hard life. Leave me alone. You know, it's almost more. Don't expect anything more of me. I told you how I was beforehand. You know, the idea though is, is that. Yeah, when you, when you say, well, I'm insightful to my past, there are a lot of reasons that I can be a shaming, angry person in terms of shaming myself and then turning that into anger and betrayal toward another human being. I can draw a direct line from my family of origin to that. But understanding that connection didn't make any changes. Actually saying I have to actually walk the practice of actually calling myself out, refusing to go down that pathway that is now become second nature to me. I have to choose a path that is unfamiliar to me and I have to learn how to walk that like the back of my hand. Like I learned this earlier. So it's still active. It's still alive and active. There's still a lot of things that are true about family origin work and insight, that kind of understanding. It's just that the, the inside alone will not make it different for you. If it would have, we would have stopped investigating 45 years ago. Family work would have been correct and sufficient to make the change.

I think one of the things I like about the RT model and Terry, I appreciate about you and Sharon and in the really, I think everybody in the community I come across is, you know, there are thinkers and practitioners and scholars who. They get stuck and they, they're not willing to change their ideas or their writing over time. And I think the theologians I've appreciated and the psychologists are. You read their early works and you see this evolution of rethinking ideas. And I don't know, I just want to say that I appreciate that as watching you wrestle through things that, like you said, you spent decades working on and then coming to a point where you start to think differently. Like, I just think that's so healthy because we can get so embedded in our ideas and the energy we put. We put behind those things. And I think that's what I love. You know, I just wanted to say that also. It's funny, my first year at Fuller, when I was at the Phoenix Extension, I had to write a church history paper and it was on Justin Martyr and Tertillian. And Justin Martyr was famous in the first century for saying all truth is God's truth. If you find truth somewhere that it's, it's connected to God. And, and, and Tertullian came along later in the second century and would say, well, what. What does Jerusalem have to do with Athens? These things don't, you know, and I just have really thought about that in relation to RT and my work with clients. No matter where they find truth, if they find truth, God's at the root of that. Doesn't matter how, doesn't matter how they come to that. And I can. And that just, you know, it frees me up as a therapist from having to be boxed in and dogmatic about things.

Right, right. I, that's, that's the remarkable piece, I think, that we just, we just haven't quite. We haven't convinced society of the, I mean, therapeutically, how we've been the problem, particularly for the last half century, of talking people into the idea that, yeah, you know, you're worth it, you're worth being heard. It's other people's job to make you say they just need to respect you and give you the. Basically dismantling their, their actual need for growth in terms. And basically saying the way growth happens with you is that we gentle to you, we be nice to you, we don't put any expectations to you. You just do what you. You just do. You. And I read this article on what. What's called gentle parenting in the popular media is basically extremely stolen. The failures of gentle parenting and how people are getting frustrated with it. You just, you just have to, you know, and I knew this at the beginning of my academic career. I mean, you know, my children were young and I remember a wise guy telling me saying, if you have not engaged your child's cooperation by age 10, guess what? You are not going to get it. Then he went on to say, there's only one way children engage cooperatively. It's that they have been given consequences to their behavior. If you don't teach them consequences of what they do, then they do not learn how to cooperate. And I thought, I thought that's. And by the way, Lance, this was the same guy that taught me, love them, limit them parenting of love, limit and leave. Yeah, do all those three things at the same time, but you do them in different proportions depending on the age of the child. This revolutionized my saliva. And, you know, so gentle parenting. There are no consequences to your behavior. You know, it's this idea, let's talk about everything. And what was your feeling when you did that? And you might consider a different feeling, you know, And I mean, just talking people to death. I mean, I don't know if y'. All. You'll watch Apple TV at all. And there's this new series of Owen Wilson Stick. It's, it's, it's, it's entertaining enough. But anyway, there's this one line where this older guy, kind of my age is talking to a zoomer, and he's just looking. Your whole generation has. So exhausting. Because she's, she's saying, you know, I, you know, they did this to me.

They did this.

They. And even though the guy's saying, you did some pretty bad stuff too, you need to take some responsibility. But it, the person was just like, I better stay in my wounding, and I'm going to leave and I'm not going to work on me or the situation. It's got to say, your generation is just so exhausting. You know, I, I thought, you know, I've had a lot of those therapeutic moments in the therapy room where I want to look at my clients like, it's just so exhausting. Well, the truth is, is that what we're trying to do is to teach people consequences, reckon with themselves, get on the pathway of actually taking responsibility for themselves, taking responsibility, very pain cycle and saying, yeah, I. I blew it again. This is how I get back on course to change that direction and actually do something and practice that, that kind of behavior. So, you know, therapeutically, we're really making. We're really breaking the ground. And by the way, that's where our clients get stuck. They want to stay in that place where people will feel sorry for me. You're my therapist. You're supposed to be on my side. You're not supposed to tell me how I need to grow or change. And that's for many of us, that's the therapeutic battle with RT right now.

Well, I think that's a good segue, actually, because as we were talking earlier about, I think. And Lance let me know if this is good, but like, we're talking about the organization. Yeah. Of the prep that leads to the four steps, Terry and Cat, like, categorizing, sequencing, structuring, just the whole protocol around that and wondering if you could help us understand that, you know, because I think all of us in the RT community, you know, at times we find ourselves, you know, tripping over some of those components.

Yeah. Basically, you know, most of our graduate programs taught us almost exclusively, by the way, how to empathize and how to make the clients. Client feel accepted and that we are nurturing with them. Again, I want to say that's totally appropriate, but where therapeutically, the field has said that's 95% of therapy. What we're saying in RT is that's about 10 to 20% of what we should be spending Time empty and connection are wonderful things. Carl Rogers was right about that, but it's insufficient for change. He was absolutely wrong about that. What we do that's starting to different is we start to mobilize the organization to be able to get people in a position where they can actually do something about changing their behavior, changing their sense of responsibility toward their own pain. So this is the idea of saying, you know, let me. Let me listen to you. Let me. Let me understand your story enough so I can categorize where the violations of identity, you know, where you weren't loved enough or lived properly and where you weren't in a trustworthy situation where you have the violations of safety that have affected you, that sets the stage. Then after I categorize that, to organize that into a pattern of saying, you know, you seem particularly volatile around your identity, you feel unwanted, you feel unwanted, you feel that you're not seen a lot. Okay. Or the. The idea of lack of safety, you feel cheated a lot. You feel like you've been treated wrongly, you feel like you've been abused, you feel like you've never been safe. Okay, what do you do when you feel that way? You know, you see how now I start actually doing the sequencing of saying, you feel this way. You do this. How do people react to you when you start acting out, when you feel unloved or unsafe, how do you act that angry, I blame people or I check out or I get drunk. You know, those are the actions that are connected. How do people react to you? Then do something that tells me the same message that I always have been unlocked and unsafe. That kind of organization is our language around pain, a peace cycle stuff. We start putting that together, then we structure that where we pop that up in front of the client through repetition itself, but also actually drawing a cognitive map in most cases. Cases. Sometimes we act it out, sometimes put it together in, in more embodied ways. Sometimes we use play mobile figures or something like that, but we actually start structuring it so the client can get it, learn it, recognize it into a pattern that then puts them in the position to say, I know what's happening, I recognize what I'm doing. And then, then you have the point of choice to be able to do something different or practice something different. That's where the magic of RT is. And by the way, in all of our programs as therapists, I guarantee you, if you, if you learn anything about practicing embodied expressions with clients, it was no more than 5% of your time. 95% of your program was that empathetic addiction stuff and interpretation, insight based stuff. Only 5% of your time at most was spent learning how to get people in the position, organizing them enough where they can actually do the change, and then actually practice students and change therapy. That needs to be at least 80% of the therapeutic in which that we spend our time.

My program was different, Terry. I had this guy that did this like live team training with us and he constantly comment on how we can be better therapists.

And we're doing remarkable, wasn't it?

Yeah.

I was thinking 5% seems generous, actually.

Yeah, I think it is.

You know, I didn't get it in my program and we all went to this. I went to the same program. I was there before you, Terry. But I, I think there were hopes that sometimes in a practicum, depending on your supervisor, you might get some of that. But 5% is generous, I think, at least in my experience.

Yeah.

And our supervisors were trained the same way we were.

Yeah.

Which made them. Oh, you need to be more insightful, you need to be more general, you need to be more empathetic. You know, That doesn't produce change. And by the way, this is, this is a high calling, you know, it is not. It is a lot easier to be that kind of empathetic, insightful therapist. It's much more difficult. It's much more work. I mean, you do eight hours of RT with your clients every day. First of all, you're going to be moving a lot more clients in and out. So you have to work. So you're gonna, you're always shifting the framework. You, you are gone tired. I mean mentally you are worn out at the end of the day because you've got to be embodied yourself in that moment. And by the way, that's why we find so many therapists that get stuck in our tv. A lot of times they. Do another kind of modality because it's just too hard.

Yeah. I don't know if you remember. Well, you might have heard him, Michael Pachuco, when he was on here, he said he'd remember you. He's like, I remember Terry making this like throwaway comment, it seemed like about how you can't do therapy scared. And Mike, Michael's like, wait, I can't do therapy scared. He's like thinking about that. And I, I think for those of us who maybe had 5% training and embodying and being experiential to move to 80%. That is, it feels at times for myself and I think others that can feel really scary sometimes. And I'm wondering how you, what you might say to that or what kind of words you might encourage to help a person shift that perspective.

Well, one is that practice is the only pathway to change. It is the only pathway to implement it into real life and have those sort of wins happening with people taking self responsibility. It is the most powerful way to have effect on relationships. So you know, if I'm waiting around on my spouse to change, you know, I'm disempowering myself, you know, I have a really good spouse. But that's not where it hits me. And that process of actually doing it now that has implications for marital therapy, parenting, intergenerational work. I mean it just has kind of endless stuff. But it, it does demand that we get in to people's lives, that we actually practice the scenarios that they talk about, practice the elements and the conversations that they'll have. We've got to do role play. We've got to, we've got to practice the element of how they calm themselves, themselves, you know, 999 times to help them be able to learn the language enough to be able to say I have a choice right now. I'm empowered to do something different right now. You know, the, the idea, and I'll, I'll stand by it, you know, is that you can't do therapy if you're frightened, if you're frightened, you will retreat back as a therapist, you will retreat back to empathizing and understanding. You will immobilize yourself. I understand that. And sometimes we're going to fall into that. That's part of each of our individual pain cycles. But let's not kid ourselves. That's not good therapy. We're doing good therapy when we're on the cusp of saying, yeah, now, there are times, there are times where, you know, we're being too active or we're pushing too apart that we need to say, this is hard, isn't it? You know, let's just take simmer down now. No, it's good to take 15 minutes and say, yeah, let's catch our breath a little bit. I get it. I have to take those breaths myself to have a minute. But that's. Then use that minute to then come back and show back out. You know, I'm really hard on ideas like that, therapies that are only empty insight. I, I am hard on that for a particular reason. I'm hard on the idea about therapists that just listen. I'm hard on the idea of the idea of co regulation. I, I don't want that to be interpreted, though. I'm saying that those things are never appropriate. They are appropriate, but the real movement in therapy. That's what I think we're. I don't know if I am. I can't tell you the truth. Yeah. And I don't even remember the question that you asked.

Well, I think that goes to the importance of. And your encouragement that, you know, if we're doing therapy, we need to do our own work. We need to do our own pain and peace cycle and be practicing that. Because if we don't practice that ourselves and work through that, it's going to show up in the room in ways that don't help our client grow.

Yeah, yeah. I say this all the time to, to people, you know, you can't do therapy scared if you, if you're frightened of your client, you will not do what they need. So you've got to get yourself emotionally regulated. The other thing that I say is real courage and the therapeutic context. Real courage is having your clients stand up when you don't know exactly what you're going to ask them to do. You know, that kind of moment by moment, let's put ourselves on the edge to learn how to do differently. That cutting edge is the best place to be in therapy. But, man, it takes a lot of courage to either.

It does. Yeah. Yeah. I kind of hear. It's kind of, you know, empathy turns into our crutch, which, you know, when you're on crutches for too long, you're not allowing stuff to grow and get back to, to rights. So I think, you know, the more that we can shift around and like, and not, not lean back on that crutch anymore and really see, stand up and do the good work.

Yeah. Therapy is, doing Therapy is remarkable. It is, it's, it's the closest thing as a profession that we come to in terms of mentoring, in terms of companioning, in terms of trail guiding, I mean, and spiritually and emotionally connecting at the same time. It's a remarkable job. It's important. So.

Man, I wish you could hang out all day. And I know we're kind of in this place where we got clients coming up, up, but, I mean, obviously, Terry, you always have a, like, big invitation to come to the RT dialogue. We, we got this, this. I, I, I hope you, I, I've always been curious. Maybe ask us some other time off air. But, like, I mean, we, like, it is like, we quote you all the time. We, we're so thankful for, for what you've given to us with this model.

Yeah.

Just, you know, but it's been a blast to have you on today.

Yeah, I really, I appreciate it. I appreciate y' all taking the time and, you know, I really appreciate the fact that y' all are trying to do this impossible that we, we call the therapeutic framework of our team. Yeah.

We have to have you on more, too, because, Lance, it's, it's. You ever have those experience in therapy room where your client comes back in and they're quoting you and you're thinking, I did not say that at all. But they're like, telling their family and their spouse and all this stuff, and they're like, so you think Terry's out there listening? Like, I got to come in and set these guys straight a little bit. Yeah.

Like I said, when you were chatting with Michael Bishop, I was thinking, I think about, my memory tells me about 20 of that, but he may be actually 60. Correct. While I'm 80% wrong. So.

I've used, I've used Mike Bishop's line so much about, hey, you suck as a therapist that, like, kind of like embracing the idea that whenever we start doing something, we're gonna suck at it. It's been so great. So, yeah, that guy's awesome.

Yeah. Yes. Yes.

Yeah. And it's great to have.

It'S great to meet people who all come to RT in different ways, and some through you, Terry, like, actual face to face, and others who came through another person that you had mentored. And it's just. It's beautiful to see all the ways that this model in community has taken shape over the years. So I'm. I know Lance and I are super thankful to be a part of it and thankful for you and the work that Shar, you and Sharon have put into this. So thank you.

Yeah, you that. I enjoy it, guys, and bless you for. For doing the hard work of putting down these tracks. It's important to all of us.

We'll keep working on it. Getting better at it, hopefully, here. All right. It's good talking to you, too.

Take care.

Cheers, sir.

See you.