Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
Hello there. This is Philip Clark, back with you, the CEO of Just say Something.
And I think most people know by now, but if not, I'm also the interim director for Compass of Carolina. And so today we want to focus on our partner ship with Compass of Carolina. And so today we have our.
One of our therapists with, with Compass of Carolina and Misha. Welcome.
[00:00:44] Speaker B: Hello.
[00:00:47] Speaker A: And so, Misha, share a little bit about your background.
What got you into this field and how did you end up at Compass of Carolina?
[00:01:01] Speaker B: So it's a fun kind of full circle story, I guess.
I knew about Compass because When I was 11 years old, my parents were going through a divorce. My mom knew that I needed to probably talk to somebody. So she found what was then Compass, but it was called like Family Resource Center, I think.
So I started seeing a therapist from age 11. And then I think of therapists a little like shoes. You got to try a lot of us on to find the right fit. And sometimes just like shoes were only there for a season in the lot in your life.
So I've, you know, went to other counselors and therapists in the past, but Compass was the first place that I started to get help.
And then as an adult, I was wanting to do some therapy again and needed a sliding scale therapist because I didn't have insurance at the time I was in grad school.
Funds were limited, and I remembered, oh, Compass.
Looked up the phone number, called them up, did all this stuff, started seeing my therapist was Hadley Mullen. Love her. She's since retired from Compass, but I started seeing her for about six years. And I knew at that point in time when I was seeing her that I was in school to become a therapist.
And then years later, I've joined the staff and I'm here doing therapy. So it's pretty cool to think about where I sat when I first came in on the couch and looking at Hadley's degrees on the wall and having that dream of doing that and then literally sitting in the opposite chair as a therapist with my degree on the wall.
[00:02:52] Speaker A: So I was going to say it. It really came full circle for you very much.
[00:02:56] Speaker B: It's been kind of, especially when I first came on board, I was like, this is wild. It's so trippy.
How did I get here? But a lot of hard work. Um, but I knew that I wanted to help people.
My sister's a nurse and I'm a social worker. And we, we're just natural helpers.
[00:03:18] Speaker A: Right?
[00:03:18] Speaker B: And probably because our mom, you know, taught us to be Helpers. But so I knew that I wanted to do something to help other people and to help community.
And I was at Greenville Tech, and one of my professors said, what about social work? And I was like, I don't want. I don't want to take people's kids away. And she's like, no, that is not what.
[00:03:42] Speaker A: That's not what we want to do.
[00:03:44] Speaker B: Not what social work is. Social work is all these things. And she started lifting, listing out some of those things that social workers can do. And I was like, yeah, that's me.
I want to do a little bit of a lot of things. And social work was my avenue to get there, to do that.
[00:04:02] Speaker A: Awesome. Awesome. And I don't know the terminology, because I'm learning from. From you and Holly and from the rest of the team at Compass of Carolina. So I know there are different modalities of types of therapy. Can you review some of those for our listeners so they may realize, oh, because is it always just that I sit down and talk to you?
[00:04:28] Speaker B: No, there are many different treatment modalities that can be done. I mean, it is talk therapy. So there is, you know, conversation that happens. But there's narrative therapy, where it is just kind of telling stories and talking.
There's cognitive behavioral therapy, or cbt, which I do a lot of that work too. Like change your thoughts, change your behaviors, change your feelings kind of thing.
There's also dbt, dialectical behavioral therapy that kind of merges your emotional brain and your rational brain and trying to find the center of that being. The wise mind, interpersonal relationship with yourself is focused a lot about that. There's new. Well, not new. There's treatments that have become very popular recently. Emdr, eye movement desensitization regulation that uses creating different neural pathways in the body with either following my finger or moving your eye from one side to the other or tapping.
And in doing that, you don't have to repeat or tell the story of trauma.
You do it in a different way, and you connect with your body. There's a lot of somatic work that's happening now, and the two of those things together where you've got the, you know, piece of processing trauma and also getting into your body. It's like chef's kiss.
Perfect mix of everything. I think of myself as an eclectic provider, meaning I use a whole lot of some of these treatments and modalities.
It's really just about finding what works best for you.
[00:06:14] Speaker A: Right.
[00:06:14] Speaker B: And like I mentioned before, therapists being like shoes, you have to try a lot on to find the right fit. And that's one of the first things that I talk about and most people I know talk about is what is it that you want to get out of this treatment? If you could wave a magic wand and at the end of these, however long we go, what would you want to have happen?
And as long as it's realistic and attainable, I'm going to help you try to work on that. But you know, most times people come into therapy and they're ready for change and they want it.
And a lot of the population that we work with here, we are kind of trauma focused.
There's definitely a push towards this trauma informed care for most places where you need a provider that is trauma informed because trauma affects every single person on this planet.
[00:07:14] Speaker A: So a lot of people, you know, we hear about trauma informed care all the time because we're in that service.
[00:07:23] Speaker B: Right.
[00:07:24] Speaker A: For our listeners that are out there that don't have a clue what that means, give them.
I know it's not a cut and dry definition, but explain when we talk about trauma informed care, explain a little bit about what we mean about that.
[00:07:41] Speaker B: Yeah, the trauma that people go through affects you still today. Even if it happened to you as a child, if it happened to you two weeks ago, if it happened to you 10 years ago. Trauma stays with us because of the way that it forms in the brain or it's in the brain when it happens. Where your brain is in that fight, flight, freeze response pattern.
So trauma is not something that is.
Oh well, I went to three years of therapy and I'm, I've worked on that. So it's all, it's all good because it still affects you today. The idea of trauma informed care is that your provider is informed of this event and helps you try to navigate creating these new pathways in your brain so that you don't react, your physical body doesn't react or your mental capacity doesn't break down because being triggered from a traumatic event. So that trauma informed care a lot of times in communities is for people to understand that the way that you are maybe acting or reacting is maybe due to a traumatic event.
So it's instead of like, what's wrong with you?
What's happened to you?
[00:09:07] Speaker A: Right. Okay. All right. So I know within Compass there's multiple avenues that we have that we provide services for the community. One is the representative payee, the other one is our programming that we have that I know you're the group lead on our 26 week programming that we have for domestic Violence victims as well as perpetrators.
And so can you talk a little bit about to our listeners what that entails, why it's so important for those individuals or maybe others that maybe have not acted out, but one of are some of the reasonings or thoughts that this particular 26 week program can help these people come out better on the other side.
[00:10:12] Speaker B: Sure.
Not just the 26 week program, but our 12 week anger management program as well.
It's all, to me, the way that I approach it is this is all about trying to figure out how to process your emotions, how to communicate better, more effectively, and growing your tool belt of coping skills. So I think that, that people that come into the program, you know, a lot of the people that come into program are court ordered.
Some people come because maybe an employer recommended that they do that, or they're just wanting to work on their reactions and the way they communicate with their partner or their family member.
My personal goal in helping people in those programs are for you to be a better version of yourself today than you were yesterday and for you to be able to not only recognize and identify how the heck you're showing up, you know, how you're feeling, what does this mean, but then how to communicate these feelings to other people. When we get hit with emotion, even if it is triggered by trauma, like our body and our brain are going to react in that fight, flight, freeze, fawn kind of way.
So when we're in that reaction stage, we're not thinking and we're not capable of accessing that critical thought process of our brain where we can say, oh yeah, I should handle that that way, or I should do, I should talk about this this way. And we know this because a lot of when people come into these programs, or even me personally, like the next day, gosh, I wish I would have handled that better.
Oh, I wish that I'd have said that instead of this.
[00:12:04] Speaker A: Right.
[00:12:05] Speaker B: That hindsight conversation you're having with yourself. That's because today your brain is not flooded with that adrenaline and you're able to access that part of your brain that you can react from or talk from.
[00:12:19] Speaker A: Right, Right.
[00:12:20] Speaker B: So the, the program itself teaches you about how trauma affects you because it affects everybody.
There's some psychology that goes along, well, maybe you're feeling this way because of this, maybe that's why you reacted this way. So it's psychoeducational. You're learning about your reaction, people's reactions, people's feelings, your feelings.
And at the end of those 26 or 12 weeks, I've had clients tell me just how they feel, like they're finally able to talk about things. They're finally able to communicate better. They've drawn boundaries and, you know, said no. And it's really empowering or uplifting for me to see people become so empowered in their own life.
[00:13:11] Speaker A: That's great. That's great. So.
So the program either the. Either one of four anger management or divest the domestic violence victims and perpetrators. Those classes, it's not therapy or is it. Or what.
What. What are those classes like?
Is it like a precursor to therapy?
[00:13:39] Speaker B: I think in many ways, yes.
Because we're in this group setting, so people that are in the groups are in.
Not small, small, but like about 10 to 12 people in a group. It's all virtual. So I can help people wherever they're at. Not, you know, they don't have to be in person necessarily. So they join this group, and a lot of the clients end up finding support within the group for themselves.
But at the.
I forgot your question now because I.
[00:14:14] Speaker A: Thought of something with the courses being like a precursor to therapy.
[00:14:19] Speaker B: Yeah. So once you're in that course and you're starting to process and look at yourself and identifying things for yourself, it really opens the door to, okay, you've done this whole group setting. Right. But maybe you want to work on stuff that's really individualistic.
So why don't you come in and we'll have a couple individual sessions, or I can help you try to find someone that's a better fit for you.
I think. Yes, it's a precursor, but, yes. And sometimes people are not ready for individual therapy.
[00:14:53] Speaker A: Right.
[00:14:53] Speaker B: I mean, I think everyone needs therapy. Everyone deserves therapy. And I'm not saying that as a therapist. I'm saying that from someone who's gained things about myself and skills and tools by being a product of therapy.
[00:15:11] Speaker A: Right, Right. And unfortunately, there's still that stigma out there that they go to therapy. Something's wrong.
[00:15:19] Speaker B: Yeah. Or the stigma that we have about domestic violence perpetrators.
[00:15:22] Speaker A: Right.
[00:15:22] Speaker B: People think about perpetrators as like, oh, this quote unquote wife beater or this crazy woman. I'm using air quotes again for people listening.
But in reality, everyone that we're seeing in these groups, yes. They may have received a charge requiring them to come to group.
However, I would put cold, cold, hard money on that. Every one of those people also have been victims in that same relationship. And our Victim to Survivorship class identifies that stuff and helps you start to process the idea that you're not a bad person.
There's nothing wrong with you. You just need better coping skills and tools.
I think that in doing those groups empowers people.
It helps you realize that it's not all me. And to quote Brene Brown, shame cannot exist where it's spoke about.
If we talk about this stuff and you see a group of other people that are in these classes with you and you know that you're not the only one.
[00:16:37] Speaker A: Right.
[00:16:38] Speaker B: And you have someone who's telling you that you're not a bad person, it really opens that door for self exploration which could lead to the individual therapy.
[00:16:48] Speaker A: Right, Right. Yeah. So many people are going through so many different things. And I know we see this with parenting that just say something. But it's like, you know, I'm the only one. Nobody's going through what I'm going through. Well, it may not be identical, but it's still the same feelings, still the same emotions that we all deal with.
Some of us deal with them better than others.
And so if you even if you think that I got this. Yeah. Chances are you might to a level. But there's some type of, I guess, a tipping point for all of us.
[00:17:32] Speaker B: Yeah. I think that no one's ever done bettering themselves.
[00:17:36] Speaker A: Right.
[00:17:37] Speaker B: I mean, if you get to that pinnacle, I can think of, you know, like, people in the media, like, Oprah's probably okay. You know, she's probably put the work in. But I bet that something may come up in her life that reminds her of something that happened. And now she needs to go back in and do work I don't think anyone's ever done until we're gone. I think that we should always be pouring into our own cup to love ourselves enough.
Learn to love yourself.
[00:18:06] Speaker A: Right?
[00:18:06] Speaker B: In order to help yourself be your best version of self and then to.
[00:18:11] Speaker A: Be able to help others.
You know, we can't pour out of our cup if our cup isn't full or if our cup isn't running over.
So what does.
So looking at clients, one on one, are working with a group of clients within one of the programs.
Is there a.
A consistent.
So what's the day look like for Misha Gibbons when she comes into the office for work?
[00:18:49] Speaker B: So typically I see individual clients and I do that in person on Tuesdays and Thursdays right now. And then I do virtual groups and virtual sessions on the other days of the week.
So on Mondays and Wednesdays right now are my groups. I teach two a day. They're an hour and a half each.
And then I'm available for other Staff members to check in the other facilitators that lead these other groups.
We're trying to build up and transform our program right now to have the most updated information and statistics and everything. So we're just making sure that not only are we in compliance with the agencies and the courts that we, but also what is best practices today for people.
[00:19:43] Speaker A: Okay. And so as, as we look at that, what do you see, especially when we're thinking about mental health from the community standpoint, what do you feel like maybe some of the biggest needs.
Oh, access in our community.
[00:20:06] Speaker B: Access, access to care. And one of the biggest barriers to treatment is financial capability to pay.
You know, I've been in private practice, I've been in for profit health system.
And to be able to offer quality therapy on a sliding scale where someone most likely could afford, it's great for me as a social worker. I'm there to, you know, extinguish barriers to treatment. But access to good mental health care is so needed. There needs to be more providers in the area that's, that are able to do sliding skill fee. Private practice can run you between 100 to $150 for an hour session.
And a lot of people, I don't, I could not either. But a lot of people cannot afford $150 once a week or maybe even once a month.
[00:21:05] Speaker A: Right.
[00:21:05] Speaker B: So if we could base that on your income, what could we afford? And then offering quality therapeutic services, I think I, I, that's not, I mean, invaluable.
[00:21:20] Speaker A: Right.
[00:21:20] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:21:21] Speaker A: Right. So what does that sliding scale look like for Compass?
[00:21:25] Speaker B: The sliding scale, I believe, is the lowest amount, $25 a session, and at the highest amount is $85 a session. And I really hope that I got that number correct.
[00:21:41] Speaker A: And you know, at the end of the day, especially with our clients and our community, if they need it really, really bad, and there is a financial strain for that individual, we'll do our best to find scholarship to support that individual, knowing that sometimes that's the best that we can do for that particular.
[00:22:06] Speaker B: Absolutely. In today's climate of, you know, what today's cost of living is, a lot of people cannot afford the $25 even. So this is why it's imperative and so important for that have access to financial benevolence to donate to our nonprofit so we can continue to afford to do this work. You know, if you're someone who could afford that $150 session rate, then do you think you could pay that forward to someone else who could not Right, right.
[00:22:44] Speaker A: Even in a monthly donation or a one time donation to help us cover some of those.
[00:22:50] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:22:51] Speaker A: Yeah. That would be tremendous.
So for our listeners out there who maybe have thought about counseling in the past, but then, you know, you get busy, you don't think about it, but then every now and then it's like, oh, I wonder if.
So as we think about counsel, that how can, as we look at the benefits of coming to an organization like Compass of Carolina, some of the successes that we've had from people who have come to Compass of Carolina? Can you share with our listeners some of those of successes or what, what might be for them as far as if they come?
There's an endless opportunity to learn and to grow.
[00:23:50] Speaker B: Yeah. I think first and foremost, if you're on, you know, the fence, if you're on the fence of trying to figure out like, is therapy for me, like, should I try it? Yes. Do yourself the favor. Do yourself the, the. At a girl or at a guy or at a person.
Do yourself that favor to pour into yourself.
Start that first step of self love. Love yourself enough to say, maybe this might be good, maybe this might be better for me. Maybe I might be able to get through life in a different way that's better for everyone around me.
So making that first step, giving us a call or going into the website, sending a referral through the website or the phone to talk with us, and I tell all my clients, look, if I'm not the right fit, that's okay. Let me try to get you matched up with somebody who I might know in the community. I have lots of therapist friends and colleagues that I've worked with in the past. So it's, you know, really about just making that first step to better yourself. If you're needing anger management, if you're needing any of our DV groups, I can tell you to make a call, come in, talk, go through an orientation and see what that looks like for you.
Some of the successes that I hear from, from the people that have completed the group programming, I mean, it warms my heart. I sent you one recently because we hear a lot of negative stuff. Not about us, but just in general in the world. We're surrounded by negativity. A lot of times that when something positive happens, we want to, you know, shine a light on that. Like we shine a light on negativity, I guess, anyway.
But to talk about like hearing from someone that says, like, I know much, I know so much more about myself now, I'm able to not only identify my Emotions. But I can, you know, take care of them on my own. I can cope with them. But now I've also been able to see where I get this from. Maybe because we're do what we're taught, we do what we see.
And if you think about like what you've seen as far as like guardians or parenthood, no wonder, right? Like, no wonder I started yelling in my first adult relationship because that's what was in my house was yelling and that was what was in my parents house when they were growing up. So it's intergenerational. And breaking those intergenerational curses or cycles is something that you can do by making that first step into treatment.
[00:26:48] Speaker A: And something I just thought about as you were talking through that there's so many different examples of trauma.
[00:26:57] Speaker B: Mm.
[00:26:58] Speaker A: It's not a one for everybody.
Can you just give us, I know we have a just a few minutes left. Can you give us some examples of some of those traumas? Because you just mentioned yelling when you were a child at the house.
[00:27:15] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:27:15] Speaker A: Most people don't understand that as being trauma.
[00:27:20] Speaker B: Yeah. There's a great TED talk about the aces or adverse childhood experiences. And when you look at people who may have grown up with food scarcity, that's.
It creates a trauma with where's my next meal going to come from? What if you lost your housing as a, as a kid or even as an adult, there becomes this fear from trauma because these events are traumatic. Trauma is not just, you know, physical abuse or sexual abuse. It's not just going to combat trauma. Is anything that you have perceived as a threat to your safety and safety. I mean that in a various kind of ways, very broad. If someone, if your trust and safety is broken in a relationship, next time you feel that that's threatened, you could react from a place of trauma.
So you know, thinking about these adverse childhood reactions and then things that have happened to us as adults that have been traumatic, traumatic, like don't minimize your trauma. That's one thing right there. Don't minimize it because then you start suppressing those emotions. Well, I didn't have it as bad as so and so. So, you know, I just need to get over it. Or that happened 10 years ago. Why am I not over it yet? Because trauma lives in the body.
And so figuring out like, and going through treatment, like therapy to identify, to hear from a professional or another human being to acknowledge and validate that what your experience was real, valid and potentially traumatic.
[00:28:59] Speaker A: Right.
[00:28:59] Speaker B: I mean, how liberating that is.
[00:29:01] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:29:01] Speaker B: Freeing to Know, like, oh, yeah, I see that now. Okay.
[00:29:09] Speaker A: And I'm sure you probably see it with your clients.
Maybe not all of them, but at some point in time, there's a light that goes.
[00:29:18] Speaker B: I call it the aha moment that they're like, you know, I've never thought about it that way before, Misha.
[00:29:26] Speaker A: Right?
[00:29:26] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:29:27] Speaker A: Right.
[00:29:27] Speaker B: I love that moment because I've had them myself. I mean, that's one of my favorite memories in therapy as the client is one of the times when I just. It hit me like a ton of bricks, like, oh, I. I hear myself right now. Like, I can. I can hear what I'm saying to myself. I get that. Or, like, I've never thought about it that way before. That makes so much sense.
[00:29:49] Speaker A: And that's got to be so empowering for the individual.
[00:29:52] Speaker B: Yes, yes. And it's also really a hella cool time for me to see my client step into that and just acknowledge that for themselves, become empowered in front of me. I love it. Love it, love it. I love this work. I love this work.
[00:30:09] Speaker A: It shows. It shows.
All right, so as we close this out, I want you. If there's one thing that you want our listeners to know about COMPASS as well as therapy, this is your opportunity to say that.
So if there's something that we haven't talked about about COMPASS, or what COMPASS stands for, what COMPASS provides, and then also on the therapy side, what message would you want to get across?
[00:30:45] Speaker B: I think that my. My personal message is give yourself the same grace that you would give a complete stranger.
You know, would you ridicule someone for needing to get help with something, or would you say, good for you, so why not you?
The other thing I would really just reiterate is the community and financial donations to organizations like just say something encompass that are nonprofits who are boots on the ground doing the work. Grassroots organizations, like, come together because we have lost a good bit of mental health. We're all talking about it now, but we've lost a lot of mental health funding that used to be available in the communities, and now we're having to look for individuals or organizations. I mean, maybe you work for a company who donates to something every year. Why not donate to something else? Like some stuff that we're doing Right? But, yeah, give yourself the same grace that you would give a complete stranger, because you would. Okay, start to love yourself just that much.
[00:31:53] Speaker A: I love that. I love that. Thank you, Misha. I appreciate you being with us today.
And so, one thing. So if we have listeners out there.
How? What's the best way for them to get in touch with our office?
[00:32:11] Speaker B: It's www.compass c o m p a s s of carolina.org or call 864-467-3434.
[00:32:25] Speaker A: There you go. And with that, we will close our this episode of Just say Something podcast. I am Phil Clark, your host and director at Just say Something in Compass of Carolina. And be sure to like, share and subscribe and we will see you next week. Thank you.
