Ep25 - "Helping Professionals in the Scene and in the Lifestyle" with Dr. Rachel Anne Kieran

Ep25- "Helping Professionals in the Scene and in the Lifestyle" with Dr. Rachel Anne Kieran

Guess what - helping professionals are kinky too. But we also hear horror stories of experiences with providers around kink. Let's talk about the appropriate (and inappropriate) roles of professionals in the kink world. Then let's talk about kinky therapists, polyamorous psychologists, dominant doctors, queer chiropractors, masochistic massage therapists, caregiver CNAs. How we live and work in spaces where we take on a helping role. How to manage relationships with differing roles and boundaries, all of which need time, attention, and intention. How do we do it all, and what do we keep for ourselves?

Dr. Rachel Anne Kieran- A licensed psychologist, I own StorieBrook Therapy & Consulting. We focus on sexual, gender & relational diversity, neurodiverse & disability-affirming practice, body liberation, social justice, & trauma-informed care. I train other mental health professionals on competence with marginalized populations and been featured in podcasts & conventions, sharing the importance of destigmatizing sexual, gender, & relational diversity with professional and public audiences.

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Welcome to the SINagogue. they call me the Rabbi. I put the SIN in SINagoguge.and am a cisgender, ambimorous, gynesexual, sadistic bratty daddy-dom. Sex therapist by day and a kink educator by night, I help people make their kink a religious experience. I am a mental health professional, this podcast is for educational and entertainment purposes only and is not a replacement for therapy. Seek out the assistance of a trained professional for help with your situation.  

Reminder, we try to make our content as inclusive as possible regardless of gender, orientation, role in the lifestyle, etc., but we do inherently speak from our own point of view. We want to learn from our mistakes. If you feel like we said something offensive, let us know. Reach out via our website or call us at 469-269-0403.

Today’s show was brought to you in part by the letters S and M, and the Number 69. 

*San Dimas High School Football Rules*

Chapters

• 1:33 Introductions
• 8:32 Break Free
• 21:30 Duel Relationship
• 28:50 Small Communities
• 35:12 Changing Perspective
• 44:47 Horror Stories
• 52:17 Fear of Needles
• 1:05:13 Never Know What To Expect

Transcript

1:14

Hosting with me today is my partner, my ADHD squirrel wrangler, my submissive, my brat, my little, my pony, or just my little pony. Aww. The Venus to my Serena. Little bit. Oh my goodness. This is episode number 25 and with us today is Dr. Rachel and Karen to talk to us about helping professionals in the scene and in the lifestyle. Guess what? Helping professionals are kinky too. And if you've been listening to this podcast for any length of time, you already know that. But we also hear horror stories of experiences with providers around kink or other parts of our identities. Let's talk first about the appropriate and inappropriate roles of professionals in the kink world. And then let's talk about kinky therapists, poly psychologists, dominant doctors, queer chiropractors, massacristic, massage therapist, caregiver, CNA, and how we live and work in the spaces where we take on a helping role. You did not make that easy for me to read. I love it though. That might be the best intro I've ever been given. That's fantastic. How to manage relationships with differing roles and boundaries requires time attention and intention. How do we do it all and what do we keep for ourselves? But first a word from our sponsor. Dr. Rachel and Karen is a licensed psychologist, owned story, broke therapy, and consulting. Where they focus on sexuality, gender, and relational diversity, neurodiverse and disability affirming practice, body liberation, social justice, and trauma informed care. She trains other mental health professionals on competence with marginalized populations. She's been featured in podcast in conventions. DragonCon was memorable. For all of con is a fave. Sharing the importance of destigmatizing sexual gender and relational diversity with professional and public audiences. Thank you for being here in the synagogue. Let's talk about helping professionals in the scene and in the lifestyle. Welcome. Thank you so much. It's my pleasure to be here. I love talking about this topic. It is one of my absolute favorites because as you so beautiful put, therapists are kinky too. And our people too, right? We don't only exist in our offices. And so our identities intersect with those of our clients. Often in a lot of ways and in surprising ways. And figuring out how to navigate that can be particularly challenging. Part of my personal mission is to educate other therapists. So when I've been asked to speak at groups, this is always the question they come to me asking like, I know what I'm doing with it. I'm like, I'm making it up as I go along too. I'm taking a little bit from here, a little bit from there. So what's your take? That's a great question. Well, my take on on so many things is that the most powerful thing I can know is that I don't know everything. And so I tell people all the time I worry about being labeled the experts. You know, people won't be so eager to say, oh, this person is an expert and I joke that I very early in my career. I was asked to do workshops on stress management. And I would say, well, I'm very happy to come into the room and be an expert on stress. I'm real good at stress. I don't know that I'm an expert on stress management. But I'll talk about what I've tried so far and how it's working out. And I think that's really important for for whatever we're talking about is say listen, I know some things I've been fortunate enough to be doing this work for coming up on 20 years now. And at the same time, the thing I know more than anything else is that there's no one size fits all for anything for therapy. I think this is true in the king world too, right? The thing that works for one person isn't going to work for another person. And so the most unifying concept that I can come to either as a therapist or as a king, stir myself or somebody who's involved in consensual mon monogamy or any number of places in my life is the importance of listening and finding out what people need engaging with people in consensual ways and making sure that I've got that and communicating with them. That's not that different than what I was taught to do as a therapist getting consent for therapy, communicating with people about who are you, what do you need, what's going to work for you. And so I love that crossover. But it's also a lot of work. We're going to do any of this well. I joke with people all the time, being a good partner, being a good kinky partner, being a really great, it doesn't really matter what side of the slasher on, but doing it well takes a lot of work. And I think listening, thinking, planning, sometimes letting go of of nerves or, or the need to control or whatever is going on for us. It takes a lot of work and that is part of what I mean when I say we approach everything with intention that we don't just run on autopilot. We don't just say, oh, that's the way we've always done it. So let's just keep doing that because I think that's a really great, that's my least favorite answer for anything. But instead we say, well, what might work for me, what might be the best, the best answer for me. So when I, when I talk to people about the idea of not only being a therapist who primarily works with folks who are, who are engaged in either consensual power exchange and relationships or, diverse arrangements, anything that's outside of the stereotypes that, that societies, promulgate or pressure us to conform to. I just talk about that idea of intention choosing what works for us, for us as individuals and for the, the relationships that were in. And then figuring out how to deal with the complicated edges and interactions between people wants needs desires. There's no easy answer. That may feel like a very vague answer, but I hope it makes some sense to me. Yeah, it's going to say made perfect sense to me too. A lot of times the people that are doing this work and not just therapy, I don't mean therapy, I mean engaging in relationships that aren't informed by like say, you know, the relationship escalator, the idea of that you have to do relationships in a particular order or that they have to have a particular meaning. And so you break free of that once you break free of I have to be married with two kids or I have to be anything heterosexual, I have to be a cisgender, I have to be. In a particular gender role or power role in my relationship, you're left with a lot of questions. People who have broken free of that and said, wait, what works for me often understand that idea of being really intentional and living in the in the questions really well. And some days they want days where they're like, Oh, I'm tired. I don't know if I want to do the difficult questioning today. That's fair. As you're coming up with your personal policy, what kind of things does somebody need to take into account? Oh, in relationships, you mean their professionals keep boundary. Okay, so we're talking about dealing with being around other professionals. That's a really hard one. I will say that. And so when I talk about this or when I think about like helping professionals in the lifestyle. First of all, I always want to make it really broadly based, right? Obviously, so I'm a therapist and my training has always been in specifically psychotherapy. So like mental health, working with people who may be dealing with depression, anxiety, lately it's more and more stressed because we live in an incredibly stressful world. We're impacted by systems that are designed to be hurtful to people and we're all dealing with that and with the impact of that. But I also want to recognize the idea that helpers, there's a model for helping that I really love that describes this, that there's three elements you need for a helping relationship. Somebody who's in need of help to somebody who's struggling. That person who is willing to offer that help, so a designated person, a sufferer, a designated helper, and some kind of ritual through which process through which that help is going to be offered. And if we use that really basic archetype, there's helpers everywhere, right? Some people get paid to help, some people do it as a vocation and a vocation for some people it's connected with. And then we can do a community role, a family role, all kinds of things. But no matter where our helping is coming from or whether it is in physical health care, mental health care, teaching and education, a community role, right? I see so many helpers in our, in our king communities, in our queer communities. And I think about what can I do? What's meaningful for me personally? Because so often people want to help. They want to serve their community. They want to help advocate. I think that's a big one really lately for people. How can I advocate for people who are struggling in my world and my community? How can I advocate for people who may be harmed? But often in our rush to help, we don't think about, where do I need to set the boundaries for that? Where are the edges of my ability to help? When do I need to say no? Because I have run out of resources. Because pushing past that boundary might potentially hurt myself. Or some part of my world, my relationships, my, my other roles or passions. Or where do I need to set a boundary? Because if I use up all my resources today, I won't be able to get up and do this work again tomorrow. So I talk with people a lot about the idea of figuring out what sustainable helping looks like. Because I could get up tomorrow and, and, and spend all day, for example, I'll talk about my version of helping doing therapy with people for free. I could go from sunrise to sunset or even longer than that because it's winter and, and it gets dark early. I could go, I could, I could be doing therapy all day for, for 16 hours until I absolutely collapse. And if I do that on a Monday, I'm not going to wake up on Tuesday morning ready to go and do it again. So I have to think about, okay, my boundaries are, I don't do more than five or six sessions in a day. I take a lunch break so that I will be a little more refreshed for my afternoon sessions. And I think we have to think that even when we are doing something that is not as obviously a job, it might be, I'm on a committee in my community. I'm helping organize munches. I am helping mentor new members of my community. When do we have to say, I actually can't do all of that. I can't do everything. If I do, I'm going to have to, I'm going to damage myself or impact my ability to continue doing things. So that's one of the things that I think is really important. The other one is, then if I have a profession, like for example, I'm a therapist. Where are the boundaries there? So I have been for a very long time, many years ago. I was starting a private practice. I worked in a corporate profession for a long time. I started my private practice and a member of one of our local community groups, in this case it was a polyamory group, got my cards. And they knew me as a person and said, wait, so you're like a polyamory friendly therapist. And I said, yes, you know me, you know that I am. And this person looks at me and said, can I give your cards to people? And yes, please, that would be great. I'm starting a new practice. So having clients would be wonderful. Please, that please feel free to give my cards to people. That community and related communities absolutely built my practice. I am now in this fortunate position where I work with almost exclusively with members without of our polyamory and kink communities in the area I live in, also in some further field, thanks to virtual work. So it's great. I get to work in my community all day every day. But it meant that I had to start and think about what do those boundaries look like? What happens when I offer to be present at, for example, the convention that's pretty centered around kink that I first met this person at. What happens when I go and I offer to teach a class on things like handling conflict and relationships, which is something that I often do to try to help people have more tools and skills. I'll often teach stress management classes, all those kinds of things. So okay, I am at a kink event. So it's a public facing event. It's not therapists only. So there are lots of people. Many of whom might be my clients. Well, what do I do then? And I often joke with clients, I say, okay, so do you think that if we're in both in that space, am I going to walk up to you and say, hi, remember me, I'm Rachel, I'm your therapist. Fortunately, my clients understand that I'm not going to do that. There are lots of subtle ways that I might violate their confidentiality, which of course I'm not going to do because I could lose my job and they could see me for malpractice for that. But thinking about what's best for them and for me as another member of the community in that situation became really important. It became something that another therapist who doesn't work in a small marginalized community may not have had to think about. So I had to develop a whole policy around what do I do in the dungeon so much so that I even wrote it up and put it on our website. So I tell my clients now I say, hey, there's this event coming up. Are you going to be there? Are you looking forward to it? What's that going to be like for you? And then I say, hey, you know, I'm teaching a class there this year. I'm going to tell you what to expect for me if I'm going to be at that event so that you don't have to worry that you are going to be in the middle of a really intense scene that you might be really excited about and really anticipating. And then out of the corner of your eye, you see that your therapist is walked into the room. And the last thing I want is for that to impact somebody's head space when they're in they might be in this really beautiful transcendent moment and then be pulled out of that worrying what their therapist is going to think about them. So now I tell people beforehand I say listen if that happens if I walk into a dungeon or a space space and one of my clients is engaged in the scene and I notice that I just turn around and I walk back out so that people can have that space and that experience in whatever way that they need. I like that policy that that sounds that sounds very respectful, not just for your clients, but also for you as a professional. I mean, you know, even more so for your clients or, you know, seeing them in that space and letting them have that space. Well, so thank you for that. I really appreciate that. I like it too. And as I said, I've been doing this for a lot of years. So I had time to think about that and figure it out. The piece about that there's two things that are complicated about that one is the very first time it happened. I didn't have a policy yet. I hadn't thought about it. I hadn't thought about what happens when because it just hadn't occurred to me yet. And so I was a policy that I did have to create eventually after it had happened once and I handled it on the fly and I was like, oh, how do I feel about how I handled that? How did that? I had to talk about it with my clients. I, hey, how was that for you? And I always talk through and debrief with people after this has happened about, you know, did you notice that? How was that? How did you feel? The other thing that's tricky about this though is that's my policy for me. That's that's Rachel's policy that works for Rachel. And one of the things that I will tell my clients, which is a little bit of self disclosure and it might be more self disclosure than other people would give is I'll say, hey, listen, I'm not a person who needs public play. Because of that's just me personally, even if I wasn't a therapist, that would be true for me. And so I don't have to figure out what if I'm in the middle of a scene in a dungeon or a place base. And one of my clients walks in. For me, that's not a question I have to parse. And some days that feels a little bit like cheating because I know plenty of other therapists for whom that's not true. So they have to face the difficult question of, okay, what does my boundary for that look like based on my personal needs, which are different? So it's very easy for me to say, oh, here's my policy. Here's what I, you know, everybody should do as I as I do. But I don't think that's true because not everybody's going to have the same need that I have. And this can become really complicated for other folks when they're like, well, but I want to have time for public play or I want to have a complicated scene that can only happen in a well equipped dungeon. And how do I do that when the community that I serve and where I work professionally is also the community where I exist personally. That's really hard. I know people who flight other states to get those needs met. But it's a privilege to be able to do that. That's part of the reason I enjoy teaching is so I can get away from home and, you know, do the dungeon play that I'm not comfortable doing. You know, within 20 miles of my residence. Yeah. So, yeah, road trip is one way to handle. Yeah. Yeah. And it's not something that everybody has the luxury of being able to do. But I think it means that there's no easy answers to this. But we keep going back to that idea of, okay. How do we deal with potential dual relationships? How do we deal with, you know, the potential for having dual relationships or dual roles in in our community? And recognizing that that's going to happen for everybody at some point. It's not just that we don't ever have dual roles, but that when they come up that we deal with them in the best way possible. And there's, I mean, I could get I won't because this would be so boring. But, you know, for many of us, we are, we do regular ethics trainings and we talk about ethical decision making models. We are trained and taught to consider many ways to make those decisions. How do you, how might this impact my clients? How might this impact the public around me? How might this impact me as a clinician? It's not as simple as saying, well, this is what I'm going to do. So I'm going to do it. It is hard because we all hold so many different identities and often those identities conflict. They want different things. Right. My professional identity might want me to, you know, be very buttoned up and put together and teaching all the time. And my personal identity might want to, you know, just sleep for a week. You mentioned, you know, trying to make sure things don't conflict between your personal and professional identity and, you know, trying to maintain those boundaries. I was just thinking of something that was, as I was going through certain things with my master's program. They had discussed about ethical things such as, like, if you're out at a bar and you see a client who is, you know, seeing you or seeing somebody something, but you're part of their care team because then they're in recovery or something like that. You're having a drink and they're having a drink. Is that an ethical conflict? And I'm like, wow, like, you know, in applying that to Kink, that's also, you know, one of those things where I'm going, all right, so we're both here. You know, is that an ethical conflict? That's such a great example of the, the, the convolution, those, the kinds of ethics questions were asked. I'm having grad school flashbacks just thinking about that. Sorry. No, no, I love it. I love it because I, well, I mean, it really does, it connects us to the kinds of things that we worry about. Like, the worst, I don't think the worst case scenario is, I'm present and my clients are present. Like, on the one hand, that's pretty predictable because my clients kind of know that I'm a member of this community and that I may be in the space, in an education role and a volunteer role, things like that. That one, that example, I think, really pulls to the idea of like, what if I see my client in, in public? And I see them engaging in something that worries me for them that is directly related to something that we have talked about in our work together. And I think that the idea of recovery is a real clear example of like, what if I'm working on someone who says that they are trying to be in recovery from a substance and I see them out engaging with that substance. The goal might not, is certainly not to be like, aha, I've caught you out. That's not going to do anything for our therapeutic relationship with people. But we might be really worried, like, hey, what's going on? How's this impacting you? And I get that absolutely, I could see that happening in, you know, in a dungeon, in a scene, in an event, seeing somebody and saying, like, hey, I was worried about you because I care about you. And this happened and I had this reaction. And I think that's a really great example of the kind of situation where I find myself turning to my professional colleagues and needing their support and needing to talk through those kinds of questions. In our professions, we talk so much about the importance of consulting because, well, let me jump back. We talk about the idea of bias and I think we have this idea that we can be totally objective or maybe historically we used to have this idea that somehow we can be totally objective and non biased. We can't. We are all products of the story that got us to where we are today. And those stories come with us. We don't, we try not to center them as a therapist, the, when I'm in the room with a client, it's not about me. But that doesn't mean that me isn't in the room. Sure. And so I might have reactions to things. I might have strong reactions to things that are based not on what's going on with my client, but something I've experienced. And so if I notice that, I'm going to go talk to my colleagues and I'm very, I'm so fortunate. When I first started doing this work, I was one of the only kink aware therapists in my local area or one of very, very few. So I didn't have a lot of other people to connect with, to consult with, to talk to about these challenges. Now I have this incredibly robust network of, of colleagues who I consider my friends to call and talk to and say, hey, I had this really strong reaction. I need to talk through it. I need to figure out if this is my reaction, if this is about my client, I want your opinion, I want to talk through the potential ethical dilemma. I want to know what you think. Maybe before I go talk to my client about it. And I think that's really a strength of, I think the information aid has unlocked, unlocked a lot of things, the fact that we are, we are able to talk on the internet about, we have so much more connection. I mean, we're talking over the internet on a podcast about this. It's amazing. Yeah. I mean, I definitely understand what you're talking about. There is one part time sex therapist within what 40 miles of where I am. Yeah, I mean, being able to reach out through the internet to people I have met like you at events or had classes with or whatever is a great resource for me. Because I am definitely an island. Absolutely. Well, and I think that I joke all the time that I mean, I for anybody who does not know this, I am very close to Metro Atlanta. So even though I kind of live out in the suburbs now, essentially, I'm in Atlanta, Georgia. So that's a big metropolitan area. Sure. But I joke that I am a rural psychologist and I have a friend who's a specialist in rural psychology who works in a very small town and who teaches about the ethical issues in those places. And the first time I told him that this, he looks at me, he's like, Rachel, what are you talking about? You live in work in Atlanta. You are not a rural psychologist. And then I describe the experience of being part of a marginalized community and being a provider for marginalized communities within marginalized communities, right? The queer community, the kink community, the polyamory community, and how the overlapping circles mean that the communities are smaller and smaller. And as I described this, eventually, he looks at me and said, hey, guess what? You are a rural psychologist because everybody knows everybody else just the way you described with this therapist who is also the partner of a client's partner that the resources available, you know, for referral sometimes get smaller and smaller. And so we need to be able to reach out more broadly or we need to understand that sometimes we can't. There's, there's, there are folks working in very rural places. I happen to be able to get to connect with some of them through the grad school. I went to folks who work in terrifically small towns in some of the plain states. And they talk about, listen, I can't change the fact that I am the therapist for the person who does my physical every year. That's just not something I can change in this town that I work in. So I'm going to have to do something different than a person who works in a large town where they can just go to a different doctor. And so we have to, we can use those models and I've found that really helpful in figuring out how we reconcile that sometimes I'm going to be in spaces that my clients are in. And that's okay. We, we talk about it, we think about it. And sometimes my clients about how do you feel about that? How do you want me to handle that? And sometimes they'll make requests that I may or may not be able to accommodate. Some days clients will want to introduce their whole family to me, which is great. Some days they will want to not, you know, I joke that I don't catch people's eyes because I'm not going to break anybody's confidentiality. Some days they will not catch mine either and other days they'll be excited to see me and that's okay. So when you're out in public or the dungeon, I should say that's not necessarily public. Who do you find you're more responsible to yourself or the client? Oh, that is a great way to ask that question. I think for me personally, when I walk into a dungeon, particularly at a bigger event because I know there's going to be a larger number of people there. The first thing that I personally do is my eyes tend to kind of glance over who's in the room. And I do think in that moment I am scanning for familiar faces because I do have this kind of I have my auto response, I have my policy of, okay, if one of my clients is here and they're engaged in a scene, I'm going to give them that space and and walk back. I imagine that that would be different though if I was walking into the dungeon about to set up for a scene of my own because I am not a public play person, I don't have to do that. So if I put myself in the in the head space of, you know, some of my colleagues who are wanting that they might feel differently, their first scan of the dungeon might might go differently. I don't want to answer on behalf of all, you know, all therapists working in this population. But so for me, there's definitely a piece of I am holding some responsibility to my clients in those moments. I'm just looking around what's going on around me, who's here, is there somebody who might need a little, a little small piece of my caring. But I am also paying attention to and thinking about what do I need because certainly there are moments where I talked about the idea of sustainable caring. There are moments when my resources are low. There might be moments and this has happened at events because I am, I'm also, I'm neurodiverse and I have moments where I can't socially engage where my batteries, my spoons are too low. And there might be moments where I realize that even if a client of mine does come up to me, does want to say hello. If I know that I don't have the resources to respond to that, then maybe I need to take myself away. So I have to be monitoring my needs as well, which is not something that we always think about when we're engaged with what does my client need. So this is, it's hard work to be paying attention to everybody's needs at all of these moments. The other thing that I, I don't know if you noticed this too, but I think the families of therapists learn not to ask questions because, you know, partners can't lean in and say, hey, how do you know that person? So my family knows not to ask, but, you know, they're not, who is that? How do you know that? Like, no, no, you don't get to ask that question. I'm not going to tell you, I'm also not going to not tell you because that then is complicated. So they've just learned not to ask. So that's helpful too is not having people around you that won't make the situation even more complicated. Yeah, my family is great with that. My dad's a psychologist, my mom's a psychoeducational specialist. So yeah, you know, some of this. Yeah. Do you think you can lose credibility with a client if you run into them at an event? And here's why I asked that question. Before I went back to school for the whole therapy thing, I worked in a factory. I was fairly new in the kink community. And after I found that out, I had trouble respecting him as an authority because I'm a D type. He's a submissive if I have to follow his orders. That makes me twice as submissive and that's not me at all. I mean, I work through it like an adult, but you know, we. I think that's a great challenge. Like, there's a part of it because I like to play. Okay, I'm going to say something that isn't going to mean what it sounds like because I like to play with power. And I mean that as my therapist, self, not as my kinky self, although it, you know, there's some crossover there, definitely. But I think, I think being able to understand that that one can be submissive and also an authority in another area. It can feel counterintuitive. And yet that's such a great example of a place that we have to work through. This person has knowledge and authority in my professional journey, even though they would be in a different role where we engaged in our kink community. Although, obviously, that person would never be engaged in that role with you because that would really blend the boundaries way too much. So yes, I think that that certainly that could happen, right? I think there's, listen, I think there's people who could see their clients that could see me do anything. And that thing could have meaning for them that meant that they lost respect for me. A client could see me. And I think that's the reason why I think that I think that I think that I think that I think that I would be able to get a package from Amazon, which it does happen. I'm not always proud of it, but it does happen. Rather than buying from an independent retailer. And they could say, I just can't, like my values are not in alignment. I can't, I can't work with you. I can't make if that is what is most meaningful and important to them. That's their choice. Do I love that? No, I don't know if that would feel great to me as a therapist. I think there's, there, there, it doesn't necessarily represent the whole of who I am and could potentially be for them. But people get to make their own choices. And if that's something that someone can't get past. I can't, but I can't, I can't run my whole life or, or presentation out when the outside of my house, worrying that that might happen. I talked to people a lot, you know, because I'm a therapist, I talk to people all the time about values and doing things in ways that are aligned with their values. Right? Are you living in a way that that lines up with what you believe is right? Right? Are you being, you know, if your value is compassion, are you being compassionate to the people in your life, to yourself, you know, whatever your highest value is, it's different for every, every person. But are you living in a way that's, that's in alignment with that? And if you are, even if bad things happen, which they will, being able to feel peace because we're living in, in ways that are values aligned for me. And if you have immense privilege in the world in that I have been able to create my own practice, which centers the experiences of people that I'm in community with and create values that are for my practice that are really aligned with my own. Knowing that I'm more times than not, I'm not saying I'm perfect, not by any means, but knowing that more times than not, I'm doing things professionally and hopefully personally that are in alignment with those values. It certainly makes it easier. If something happens and a client comes to me and says, I can't with you, this is out of alignment with me. This is not okay. You, you know, you checked your phone during so and so's presentation at this can't give any we were both at and I can't work with you anymore. If we can talk about it, I'd like to talk about it. That's great. But if that's the decision that person needs to make, that's okay. And I can't necessarily make my decisions about how I'm going to act in those spaces or any space, you know, the dungeon or the grocery store based on how it might impact. How my clients might feel about it. So we've talked very much about therapists. What about other helping professionals that maybe aren't so restricted with HIPAA and whatnot? Sure. Sure. I think so therapy. Therapy is probably the somebody could check me on this if you think differently, but therapy, I think is the most. The furthest along the spectrum with this because the thing that heals in therapy is the relationship. And so we're always a little extra protective of that relationship in how we go about guarding our interaction with people, right? And I think that's very protective of not only their confidentiality because obviously I'm not going to share anything anyone tells me outside of the therapy room, but also, you know, work. Yes, it's not say that I never worry about how people will think about me. It's important that the feeling of care and importance and being seen and heard and valued that people have with me, that they have that consistently, whether they run into me at a dungeon, a grocery store or whether they're in my office. Even though obviously the time I'm giving them is going to be different when I'm it's their hour in my office. I think that changes a little when you think about other helping professionals because if I think about, for example, a physician, so say somebody's primary care physician, very similar requirements legally in terms of confidentiality. And at the same time, the relationship, while it is of paramount importance and I, some days wish I could go and yell at physical healthcare providers about the importance of developing a relationship with their clients. It is not something that is developed in the same way. And so sometimes that that might not be worried about quite so much. Right? So, you know, somebody might not feel quite as weird about seeing their doctor, their physical doctor, their primary care physician in some of these spaces as they might their therapist. Often people find that they don't feel quite as vulnerable with a physician as they do with a mental healthcare provider. Different people feel different ways. Sure. Then we get into things like, you know, what if it's your physical therapist? What if it's your massage therapist? What if it's your personal trainer? And helpers, all people that often develop a pretty significant relationship with and may feel very vulnerable with different people are going to have different reactions. And there's different requirements for privacy with everything. Part of the X factor for me there is, well, what does this client need? How are they going to feel about it? The other one is, what does that provider need? Who is that person? Is that provider someone who their professional self is completely separate from their personal life? Maybe kinky self? And for some people that's really important because, you know, there are people who work jobs. Again, I joke that I have a ton of privilege to be myself because I'm my own boss. And so I can be as queer and as kinky as I want to at work and make that part of my brand. A lot of people don't have that privilege and really may fear being out in those ways in professional spaces. So what does that mean for somebody who wants to go to a play event who wants to go to a munch and runs into a client? That be as anxiety provoking for that provider as it is for the clients. Fair. And the introduction we talked about some of the horror stories. Give us an example or two. When I think about the horror stories in my profession, the things I think about are the clients who end up crying in my office telling me that they have been to other professionals and talked about these pieces of their life. They've talked about their relationship, their dynamics and relationships. They've talked about the pieces of their sex lives that are important to them and they have been ashamed by other providers. That to me is the real horror story. It is the thing that frustrates me, saddens me, angers me and also makes me really grateful that these people were brave enough to try again with another therapist and end up in my office. The real horror story for me is shaming people for pieces of their identity. It probably feels like a topic change because it's not quite the same as how do we deal with when we're out in public experiences. But I think the fear of being judged by a provider, a professional, judged by anyone really is a very present for all of us in the world. I think that's part of the reason that I walk out of a dungeon if I know my clients are engaged in a scene is because even though my clients know me well and they know that I'm not going to judge them, there's that little creeping fear of what if I'm being judged, which can really detract from being in the moment in a scene. And I don't want to contribute to that. That's probably going to happen, especially with people who society puts in places of authority, which is true for physicians, care professionals, lawyers, doctors, all of these folks. And so wanting to break that down and make it clear, like no, no, we're here as people too. We are enjoying ourselves. We're worried about our own world than we are about other people around us. But also wanting to educate my, you know, you talked about at the very beginning about wanting to educate other providers. I spent as much of my time as I possibly can educating other providers, a route eliminating bias that is, I think, taught. And also providing competent, not only unbiased, but competent care for sexual gender and relational minorities. It could not be more important because there are more things in heaven and earth than our dreamt of in the philosophy of so many people around how we enjoy our physical bodies, how we enjoy interactions around power, sex, sensation, pleasure, and we need to expand that rather than restrict that. So the horror story for me is where when we experience shame and blame, whether that's out in public or in a provider's office, and the more we can do to reduce that, the better. The more we can talk about pleasure or desire, whether that is what we desire sexually or just what we want. I feel like the hardest question I ever ask people is, what do you want? If you want to stump somebody very seriously and very quietly ask them, what do you want? It's some people not because they don't know the answer, but because they've been taught it is not okay to say, "I want Blake." And I feel like especially in the kink community, we've started to normalize literally saying, "Hello, my name is, I like the following things. I want the following things. I am interested in engaging in the following things. We have formats for it, and that's powerful. We can teach people to do that." When I teach on this topic, I like to play with my audience a little bit, I like to shock them, and so I have a slide where I put up a question and it says, "I dare you to ask me what the kinkiest thing I ever do is." And when I put this up in rooms full of other psychologists or therapists or any providers, you can feel the room tense. And they're like, "Oh God, what's she going to say? What scenes of depravity is she going to describe?" And invariably there's at least one brave soul who's like, "Okay, what's the kinkiest thing you ever do?" And I tell them that I genuinely believe the kinkiest thing that I ever do is talk about sex without shame. I could certainly describe any number of other pieces of my life, but in terms of confounding expectations and breaking social norms, the divorcing of sex from shame may be the most rebellious activity in which I engage. And I think it's powerfully important that we do that. And as providers, we have a little bit of authority, or sometimes a lot of authority in the world, and we have the opportunity to do that. We have the opportunity to be revolutionary in that way. Definitely. It's also tiring, and we have to do our own self-care. Sure. What do you want? Yes, is a very powerful question, and sometimes that's the entire point of therapy. What's the figure out? What the hell do you want? Yeah, we're all trying to figure it out. I'm still trying to figure it out for myself. Of course, me and my ADHD, I heard that question, and the first four things that popped into my head were all types of food. I mean, that is usually my example, because that's the fight that people have most often is like, "No, what do you want for dinner?"[laughs] You also mention the shame and blame, and such like that. I can sit there and think is, is a doctor or another professional who walks in and sees a client who's engaged in needle play, and you from a small town of being like, "Dude, but I know you from the doctor's office, and you can't stand needles, and like you're fearful of them." But here you are, in the middle of a dungeon, getting yourself all poked with needles with no fear. I mean, you know, it's about those... It's about those... Is everything. Well, and as a person who, like, I took up, I started donating blood to try to get over my fear of needles. I can imagine, in fact, I'm fairly certain, if I think back, I definitely have known people who have tried needle play to try to get over that, because of the context that we create. Be sure that it happens with... It's like, "Okay, I picked a person that I trust. We talked about what was going to happen. There were no surprises. I consented to everything, consented power." Yeah, I can absolutely understand that judgment, and also I can see the reason that somebody would engage with that. Absolutely. And find healing there. Yeah. Without going into too much detail, I have had conversations with a former client who had some rough stuff going on. And for context, I am a community-based mental health case worker. We'll leave it at that. And so, of course, I'm going back to my supervisor who is a long-time licensed social worker and being like, "Hey, so not totally and completely to out myself, but to out myself." So, a client is talking to me about this, this, this, this, and this, and I'm not being very committed in my responses, only because I'm going, "Aha, aha." I know that you're not playing safe. So, then it's a conversation with my supervisor of, "How do I go about this?" Because of being in the, you know, of being in the community, of being active in the community and thank goodness, you know, this client is engaging in the same social circles or well-former client, I should say. Former client is not engaging in the same social circle, so therefore, you know, not in the risk of outing myself there, but it's the, "How do I engage in this conversation of, "Hey, you know, you're not playing super safe?" And, you know, I know this how. Well, and then did you have to like, did you have to educate your supervisor about like, this isn't, this is different from self-harm. Thankfully, not so much. I was lucky enough to have a very open-minded supervisor, very liberal, very open-minded, very much of, I've heard of some things, so my education piece was less than compared with, compared with other supervisors that I've had, I'll put it that way. But that's the thing, I mean, that's the other thing that I worry about in terms of horror stories is we are so attuned to be alarmed whenever we think we hear anything that might be close to self-harm, that as soon as our alarm bells go off, we get activated and we start thinking about safety planning, but we forget that there are huge spectrums here and that there's plenty of things that are, that maybe harming somebody, but they're not intentionally self-harming, and, you know, failing to keep ourselves safe is a really good example of that, and understanding how to talk about that and, it's about managing our own reaction, like, how do I manage my own reaction? When I'm worried about someone I care about, oh sure, yeah, yeah, and then having the background knowledge on top of that from your community is really hard. In this instance, it was having the background knowledge of, hey, if things screw up and go sideways, because of state laws and how they are, you're gonna go to jail for a very long time, no questions asked. Yeah, it was one of those type things, because of it, and so I'm sitting here, engaging in conversation with my supervisor of, you know, how do I, how do I tell this client, you need to educate yourself, and besides just, hey, you need to educate yourself, because I can say you need to educate yourself and the client could just be like, yeah, okay, whatever I know what I'm doing, versus, hey, I recognize because of, you know, some training and education that I have had through various workshops, that this is not safe play, and you could totally and completely screw up your life if not done properly. Well, being more risk aware, I should say, than what they were. You know, not necessarily saying, hey, this is unsafe behavior, but at the same time, like, hey, this is, this is completely unsafe behavior because of just the situation as it was. And this is where I get into talking to people about the idea of what does it mean to be competent to provide care with different communities, right? Like, on the one hand, I joke with people all the time, I say, listen, yeah, I work with primarily kinky clients, polyamorous and, and essentially non monogamous clients, queer clients, and they'll say, so, so what do you, like, what, what kind of things you talk to clients about, and I'm like, well, anxiety and depression, same as everybody else. The facts that my clients are kinky are queer are anything, that's not necessarily what we're talking about, we're talking about the world is on fire, I'm anxious, I'm overwhelmed, I'm tired, I'm parenting, I'm all of these things. And also I want somebody who's going to be an affirming provider for some of the things I'm doing that said, that's a great example of a place where having some knowledge is really helpful. And I love the model, it's, it's based on some of, this is not necessarily new work, but the Sue and Sue model of cultural competency talks about the idea that we can't know everything, right? There will always, there will always be a new kink that I don't know about, there will always be new idea or word or, or something, but I need to have some knowledge and be willing to ask difficult questions and know when I don't know things that I need to learn some more. So we can't have no knowledge whatsoever, and so I do think to be competent providers, we do have to be willing to learn, especially for those of us who may not be involved in these communities, we have to learn about what, what does play look like, what does, you know, what does risk, where consensual kink look like, how does negotiating boundaries look and are there better and less good ways to do that. I'm not saying that in order to be competent, one has to be kinky or in the lifestyle or the community to do this, but there's definitely a knowledge base that's needed sure that doesn't just spring up out of the belief that we can, you know, that because we care we can help everybody. One of the most affirming moments in my professional career when I really felt like, okay, I'm doing the right thing with my life and a client, they had been coming in for six, eight months, and they finally revealed to me that they were in to pop play. And instead of doing the generic therapist thing of, okay, tell me more about that. I went, okay, what kind of pop are you? And just their eyes lit up, oh my god, I'm not being judged. Did this person knows what the hell I'm talking about. Yes, yes, it's such a small thing because you're like, wait, I didn't actually do anything, right? Do you know some magical bake intervention tool or trick of my professional, no, I just, I just sat there and was like, cool. Tell me more, like cool, tell me about what kind of pop you are. Tell me about your experience in this world, but it's that acceptance, especially at a moment when people fear or, or maybe in the past of experience. I call it the therapist, you face, where they're trying for neutral and people might be trying for neutral, but some micro expression just goes, I don't like that. Or, or even if the micro expressions are totally neutral, the absence of engagement, people will often interpret that as, I don't like that. Because of course, many of us who are very hyper critical of ourselves are very good at interpreting criticism and blame even when it's when in the absence of anything else. So we have to be deliberately affirming in order to make clear to people are like, awesome. Tell me about your experience of that because I want to know, you know, tell me about your pop. Yeah. Tell me about your leather family. Tell me about your, your polycule. Tell me about, you know, tell me about the pieces of your life that are important to you and that light you up. And I think some of that also pushes some of the boundaries for some therapist that when they don't know that they're having to learn and be comfortable in the uncomfortableness that as a therapist or as a provider, they don't know, especially if they're not aware. And somebody comes out with it and it's like, how do I sit with that? Yeah, okay. Just engage in the conversation. Even if it's not you, even if it's not your thing as an outside person as a professional, it's still all about, you know, creating that safe space. And so even if you're unsure, be, you know, be comfortable in your uncomfortableness of, I don't know. But I think that's the, that's the lesson that we all need to learn and that we're not necessarily doing a great job teaching. Maybe we're getting better at it now, but I know for me, you know, I was the kid who went straight to grad school. I was the good student. I was the, the nerdy one who, you know, who overperformed and that perfectionism drove me and people often say, oh, you accomplish so much. You know, you went and you got your doctor and I'm like, yeah, I stayed in school till they gave me a doctorate and kicked me out because I was really good at being compliant. I was really good at making professors happy, but what I, what I was fortunate enough to learn in grad school because I had some professors who saw this, not surprisingly, they were all clinicians. A long way there. I was fortunately given the message that the most powerful thing that I could do would be to say, you know what, I don't know and that's okay. And that's not a message that we are necessarily great at giving. And so I see so often people coming to me, whether it's in lifestyle spaces or in therapy or just in the interactions or in professional trainings, I do train a lot of other clinicians. And they're trying to make some themselves the perfect, whatever it is, the perfect DOM, the perfect sub, the perfect pop, the perfect therapist, the perfect client, the perfect child, the perfect anything. And that leaves no space for, I don't know. That leaves no space for the incredible vicissitudes of human life. And most of the time we're not going to know what to expect or how to handle things. And most of the time we are going to have to get creative and figure things out based on whatever tools we have so far and whatever our values are. But this myth that somehow there's a perfect response. And if we don't know what it is, we are wrong or bad or not good enough. It's hurting all of us so much. Sure. And being able to give people permission to break away from that and to say, no, no, no, no. Be authentically you. That's way more powerful than being perfect. But I think that that happens so often in all of these spaces. There's no one way for me to be perfectly, you know, a therapist who's also a member of this community. There's just the best that I can do. At some point it will, it probably has hurt somebody. I have unintentionally hurt someone. I have unintentionally missed something that I need to. The best I can do is acknowledge that and work on it and keep evolving this. You know, interview me again in five years. Maybe I'll have changed what my policy is. Very fair. Definitely. So how has your policy changed over time? That's a good question. It wasn't as well thought out at the very beginning. You know, it didn't occur to me. I mean, I suppose that at the very, very beginning. I didn't think about the law of large numbers and Murphy's law and combination and the reality that at some day, someday, of course I would walk into a dungeon. And one of my clients would be, you know, sprawled over a spanking bench or hanging upside down in suspension. And that maybe what do I do would have to cross my mind. So I hadn't thought is clearly about it and I hadn't thought about how to talk to clients about that. It hadn't occurred to me to say, like, oh, this is going to happen ahead of time. So I'm going to talk to my clients and say, this is a place I'm going to be. This is a place maybe you will be. Here's how I handle that. Now I ended up writing an article about it and putting it on my website because I wanted people to know what to expect or to be able to find it if they went looking for it. And to use it as a way to start that conversation with their own therapist if they're not one of my clients, if they need it. How often have you run into clients at events? I can't, certainly, I have not been to a local event recently that I haven't run into a client in some way. And it's funny that since COVID, it's kind of changed how it feels because I've had clients who've gotten really excited that so many of my clients I see virtually now. I clients will be like, oh, we're both going to be there. I'll get to hug you. So it certainly has, I will say one of the most difficult ones was recently it happened and I had a client who ended up having was having a really difficult time at that event. And so we both had to work to maintain boundaries and recognize like, I care that you're having a challenging weekend. And also, I am not working this weekend. So that person let me know that they were having a hard time and also did not make it my responsibility to like stop what I was doing and like do a session with them. So my client really did a really good job navigating boundaries with me. But that's an important thing too, right? Understanding, right? If I'm in the same space, especially because often I'm teaching or doing volunteering in some way for these events that I can't just step out of that and put on my therapist hat and go find a space and do a session. And so having to understand that and my clients have done a really great job with that recently. So I have everything in those interactions from clients who come up and say hi to me and have been looking forward to saying hello to folks who, you know, we just we just we don't lock eyes because that's what not what they need and that's OK. And we talk about that. We talk about that too. I always want to check in with people and say, hey, was that, you know, how did you feel about that? Did you want me to handle that any way differently? Because it gives people the opportunity to withdraw or change their consent? I can't help but feel like kinky, poly clients are better at respecting the boundaries when you run into them out in the wild than a vanilla client. So I have long said that I think there's a lot that the vanilla monogamous world can potentially learn from kink and polyamory. And a lot of that is around having intentional communication about consent boundaries, expectations, all of these things that we joke about like we don't have more sex. We just have more communication about it. And I also want to recognize when I say that that's recognizing that on average those things are true. I know plenty of people who are very intentionally and ethically monogamous and deliberate and have great communication and that's a real relationship strength. But I think broadly we definitely we talk as a community and we have some community values that boy, I want to spread to the world in a big big way. Oh yeah. Yeah. I mean there's definitely some relationship stuff that I've picked up from the community that I use with my vanilla clients. Absolutely. And in my own relationship, like I'm better for being a part of this community, that is for sure. I mean I change the words a little bit so I'm not saying you know dominant and submissive. I'm saying who's in control and who likes to go along for the ride. Yeah. Well and what are you know people often have so many expectations, so many unspoken expectations about isn't that just what a relationship is? You ask seven different people about what they assume a relationship is and you will get seven different answers. Sometimes eight if you have somebody who's slightly indecisive. Right. You know they'll have well this is what my mom thought it was is what my dad thought it was. This is what my the rest of my family thought it was. There's so many you know we're all just a product of what we know but there is so much else out there. And so I think when we stop just doing automatic kind of when we stop functioning on autopilot and start thinking about wait why do I do the things I do. I expect the things I expect then we can make very deliberate choices. Okay well it's getting to be about that time is there anything else you feel like you need to share or want to share on this topic before we wrap up. My favorite thing to talk about I joke joke all the time with people I say well listen I'm a happy victim of the cults of communication and consent. And I always will be because I think that if there's anything that we need more of in the world it is communication and consent and I find myself talking about that anywhere that I'm doing work I talk about it with individuals I talk about it with relationships I talk about it with organizations when I'm working there and and looking at. You know why people are feeling frustrated in the organizations they're working in things like that. I think there's so much that we can learn from good relationship models anywhere where people are honored for who they are and seen for their unique selves and then asked well what do you need in order to feel. You know we think about it in terms of can we think what do you need in order to feel pleasure and get what you want out of this interaction but also what do you need to thrive and to function in the situation what do you need there to be in this experience but also what do you need to not have here. I think that's such a powerful model I work with you know obviously not only kinky queer and polyamorous folks but I work with a very neurodiverse population I myself was kind of late late to realize that I am autistic and I work with a lot of folks for whom that's true to and realizing that we experience the world differently recognizing that maybe we need a different kind of care than we anticipated. Everybody expected for us early in our lives. I think sometimes that's part of the attraction of the choose your own adventure of of of kink of polyamory of intentional communities and all of that is empowering and I love that we get to talk about an empower people in the work that we do. So let's just keep empowering each other. Absolutely. So this has come up on other shows previous episodes I should say what is your take on the Venn diagram between kinky and or poly and neurodiverse. I am in the middle. I stand. I how much overlap do you think there is between those communities yes now I understand the question but also the overlap is me. I be it. I do think there's overlap I don't think it's not it's not a circle obviously it's not 100% a circle but I definitely think there is a lot of overlap and I will tell you the best thing about my life is that sorry for the sound effects I'm literally clapping my hands with glee here. The best thing about my life is that that overlap is where I get to work that those are the clients that I get to work with because that's just how my my world has developed and and how people have found their way to me. I can't express the joy in being able to give somebody the experience of saying to me you know clients hopefully coming to me saying to me revealing to me over time. I'm neurodiverse. I'm kinky. I'm polyamorous. I'm you know list other things that maybe they've been judged for in the past. I'm thinking about like I work with a lot of very geeky hyper fixated clients love my nerds. We've got a big nerd vibe going in our practice. You know people who are you know different sensory experiences all kinds of different things and I love that I get to sit and say that's amazing and wonderful that's your superpower even though I know it can feel like it's your kryptonite in the world that we live in. And how can I support you and how can we embrace self love and self acceptance and turn that into power in the world. So I do think there's a huge overlap and I love that place. Those are my favorite people. I mean my casual observation 90% of kinky and poly people are some sort of neurodiverse. If not more. I think because it's a place where we talk about what we need and we talk deliberately and are open to hearing things. It's a place where it can be safer to be neurodiverse as opposed to a world where the expectation is that everybody will need or want the same thing which can feel extremely uncomfortable or unwelcoming to neurodiverse. Because the diverse is the most important word there is that we're all different and we don't all you know we don't all need or want the same thing. Okay if somebody wants to contact you or follow you on social media what's the best way to do that. So I own a practice called Storybrook STORIE because I am weirdo and I like books and old English spelling storybrook therapy and consulting. Like I said I'm in Atlanta Georgia but I can work virtually in a lot of the country and it's a small I have a couple other people who work with me but I generally I'm not it's not a big corporate practice. So we try to do as much as we can in terms of outreach we obviously we see clients and there's a limit to how much we can do there but I manage our social media so that we can just put out little bits of information that might be useful to people self care reminders sexual sex positive reminders all kinds of things like that. And most of our social media is our at Storybrook TX STORIE BROOK TX so that's like Facebook Instagram or not on the evil X because you know we're trying to we're trying to divorce from the billionaires it's hard but we'll work on it. But we try to put out some content that may help people sometimes it's stuff about how to find a therapist which we know is really difficult. So we're always happy to help people with finding the resources they need because that can be a really big question for people how do I find an affirming therapist. So there's resources on our website which is just www.storybrook.com and yeah people are always welcome to to find me and ask questions I love talking to our people. Okay well thank you for coming on the show. Thank you. You've been a great guest. Joy talking about this with you for our listeners upcoming synagogue in person in virtual classes electric mayhem one in two. Electroplay with the violet wand electroplay without the violet wand. Bratty daddies and more both in person and virtual check out our website for the details. Remember gang your king's are nothing to be ashamed of unless of course you have a humiliation fetish in which case you should be very ashamed you dirty little pervert but that's it that's our show say goodnight little bit goodnight little bit.