Why I'm Walking Away from My Therapist License with Anna Holtzman

Hello everyone. I'm Diane Grissell, also known as Silver Disobedience, and this is the Silver Disobedience Perception Dynamics podcast where we explore all kinds of operating systems within society. And today I have a very interesting guest.

She got her master's in counseling and then went on to get licensed as a counselor, but she's giving up that license. Her name is Anna Holtzman, and we're going to talk to her about shifts in psychology, therapy judgments, self worth issues, how these things shift, what's changing within psychology and how the landscape's changing. So please say hi to Anna Holtzman. Hi, Diane, thank you so much for having me here. I am very happy to have you.

As we talked a little bit before this show started, the entire landscape of psychology, which is basically a relatively new science, is changing on all different cylinders for a lot of different reasons. Tell me what some of your thoughts are on the current state of psychology. Yeah, well, part of me, the current state of psychology

could be a pretty broad topic. But I know that one of the things we were chatting about just earlier is that for a long time, therapists were trained to be kind of a blank slate, you know, not to really share anything about themselves personally, maybe even not to share their own emotions. And that is something that's changing quite a bit.

And I'm a big fan of that change. And it's it's one of the reasons I really like, I work as both a therapist and a coach, but I'm no longer taking on new therapy clients. I'm phasing that out. And I really enjoy working in under the umbrella of coaching where it's kind of anything goes. You know, you can trust your own instincts and use your own life experience as part of the work. And I think that that's a really powerful way that we relate as human beings.

You know, like, have you ever had a conversation with any human being other than a therapist where you felt heard and connected and, you know, like just engaged in human connection where they were just sitting there like a blank slate and not sharing any of their own humanity with you? Well, it's an interesting shift in psychology and I'm not 100% on board with it. Yeah, I love, I love that we have different tastes on. This yeah.

And when I first read a, you know, when I first read about it in Psychology Today and I had seen that all these, this new younger breed of therapists are all saying, no, we have sharing sessions. I share how I feel about this and the client shares how they feel. And my thought was why you're bringing your opinions into it. And the idea about a good therapy session is one that someone's not judging you. They're not giving their

opinions. They're letting you explore what you think by asking provocative, thought provoking questions. So I think there's a I'm curious as to where you think the benefits are of sharing your insights. I mean, that's interesting. I, I don't often share my own opinions on things in a session, but things I will share are, you know, if I've had a life experience that relates to what someone I'm working with is experiencing, I'll share.

You know, I'll say something like I'm just in AI, you know, I'm a coach, but I'm also just another human being. And, you know, the feelings that you're having totally make sense to me because I've had those feelings as well. And it it just helps to to normalize what the person is feeling, you know? But in a therapy session, suppose your feelings were repulsed by what someone shared. So if you enter an area. If you enter an area. Which is why I don't think it ever belongs.

I mean, when you are in a situation where a therapist is sharing their in some, in some ways it's easier you're getting their approval or your their reprimand or dislike if someone is if that's the environment you're in. I mean, that's an interesting I, I'm like, that's just so different from how I, how I work or really how I think about it when it's kind of like a, an all or nothing. Like I'm, I'm not going to share every feeling that I have with a

client. I'm going to share things that I think can be helpful and supportive to them, that can help them feel less alone with their experience. That can, you know, help them feel less isolated in their experience. That can help them feel like they're a part of humanity and not some alien who's broken and weird and disconnected from everyone. So I'm not going to share things just to throw spaghetti at the wall, right? I'm going to share things that I

feel would support them. And if where? Does, where do you draw that line? Well, how does, how does a therapist draw that line though? You know, which is what I wonder when I see this as a new trend, and I'm not saying I think it's totally right or wrong. I want to have a discussion on it because it is such a huge shift. And you know, I mean, some people will say, well, I, I didn't want to do therapy because I feel like the person's just listening to me.

But a good therapist is listening and asking thought provoking questions to make the person understand themselves. The focus is I'm paying you and the focus is 100% on me and helping me understand myself. When it starts to become that sharing dynamic, I don't see how judgment can't enter the equation one way or another. Well, judgement can enter the equation even if you're not sharing anything verbally about yourself. I mean, judgement can come out

in a vibe, in a look. And it usually does come out if, if the therapist is judging you, I mean, you're going to know even if they don't say something that tells you that. But you were asking about where do you draw the line? And I think, I think this goes to something that you talk about a lot, which is like rules and you know, codification. And I think it's really whether it's therapy or coaching, it's a

relationship. So I really draw on the relationship skills that I use in any other relationship. I'm, I'm noticing what I'm feeling and I'm using my intuition and I OfferUp something and I check in with the client like here's what's coming up, here's a reflection that's coming up for me. How does this land for you? And if it lands in a way that's not helpful, like that's information that helps us figure out where to go next.

How do you differentiate between when you think I'm wearing my therapist hat versus my coaching hat? Yeah, it's, that's a really interesting question, people. I've have asked me that a lot and I've sort of 2 answers to that. One answer is that I'm when I'm working with someone, I'm working with someone and it's about presence and it's about relationship. And it's not about whether the title I'm being given in that moment is therapist or coach. So I really attuned to the

person that I'm working with. And so in that sense, I'm kind of working in the same way, whether it's called therapy or coaching. And there's just like this legal delineation between the two. You know, if it's therapy, they can get reimbursed by their their insurance provider. And if it's therapy, I can only work with folks who reside in the state of New York because that's where my license is.

But in another sense, there's something in the back of my mind that just knows, you know, that what's happening right now is being called therapy or that knows what's happening right now is being called coaching. And that very subtly impacts me and how I show up in those sessions because when, when I know like this is therapy, all this stuff that I heard in grad school kind of comes in and it's not in the foreground, but it's somewhere there in the background.

And there's all this stuff about, you know, there's kind of like a right way and a wrong way to do things. And well, if you do this, you could use your lose your license. And it, it's not that there isn't a purpose to all of these guidelines and education, but there's also, and I've spoken to many therapists who have had a similar experience. I experienced the, the atmosphere in Graduate School as having quite a bit of like fear

mongering. Like, you know, if you step outside the side, the line, you could, you're doing things wrong. You could really harm the client. If you share anything about yourself, it could harm the client relationship or and so there's just this kind of like subtle. Squeers. So we're back to that idea of sharing about yourself crossing the line. Yes, so, and that's just one of the ways in which you know.

But but that is a big area in therapy because it is, you know, the sharing about yourself crossing the line.

And I really wonder how much, you know, social media, which has disintermediated so many industries and changed how people think in so many, many areas. And all of a sudden, you know what, when I used to, you know, when I'd work with public relations clients and they'd say, wait a second, we need to that newspaper to retract that

statement. And I'd say, OK, well, we can ask them to retract it. But they're, I think it was maybe Thomas Jefferson who said, you know, never go to battle with people who buy ink by the barrel, you know, because a newspaper has unlimited pages to attack you if that's what they want to do because they're extra aggravated. You just annoyed them. And the Internet, we've seen that crowd mentality where everyone has a voice. Anyone can say anything they want with no restriction

whatsoever. And I really wonder how that impacted psychology. You know, are we raising a group of new psychologists that have grown up with, well, I can say whatever I want and therefore in my sessions, because I do think it creates a false, a very false sense of importance, which is a whole other discussion. That's that's so interesting because I also I have like a completely different take on this. Let's hear it. And I'm very active on social media and I love it.

I think it's a great thing. I think that, you know, I mean social media, just like the printed word, it can be used for for good, bad and everything in between. It's how you use it and how you interact with it. But I feel that social media has really democratized therapy. It has taken away the sense of, you know, there are the authorities who are going to tell you if you were well or unwell or who are going to tell you what's right and wrong.

And it's really opened things up for everyone to interact and have their, you know, just survey a wide range of different ideas and express their own ideas. And to me it's a tool for developing self trust, which how I believe is how. How does it help teach self trust? I'm curious. To me, it teaches self trust because it it takes us out of this context that we formerly were in where there were like, you know, several famous books by famous psychologists or, or

therapists. And those were the people that we perceived as having all the authority. And they know better than I do because they're the only ones who have a voice and they're the only ones whose voices I can find. And I don't have a platform to have a voice. So that means my voice doesn't matter and I should just listen to them.

Whereas in this world of social media, sure, it can be used in all kinds of different ways, but one of the ways in which it's used is it it shows you that everyone has a voice and can use it if they want to. And you have a voice too and can use it if you want to. There are 1,000,000 zillion different ideas out there about different things. Like there is no one word of authority on what therapy

modality is the best. Or, you know, there's just lots of different ideas out there and they're there for you to synthesize and come up with your with your own feelings and views about things. That's, that's a very intriguing perspective because I do believe in the disintermediation that's occurred from the Internet and particularly social media. We also have a point where there's so much self diagnosis going on and the running joke of a Google doctor.

But and then where are those boundaries that you draw on social media or are there none? Do you feel it's a free for all? You know, because you're you're sometimes wearing the therapist

hat and sometimes you're not. Well, when I, when I use social media, I use it as a coach and I don't even, I mean, I, I may mention, you know, as part of a story that I, I am licensed as a therapist and that's part of my background, but I'm not, I don't use the letters after my name on my Instagram profile, for example. How do you define the difference between a therapist and a coach from your perspective?

Yeah. You know, the way that I would define the difference is probably very different from how most other therapists or coaches would define it, because I define it as, to me, this is controversial to most people. To me, it's largely a difference in legal specifications and

marketing. It's a difference in marketing because marketing yourself as a therapist with the letters after the name projects a certain kind of image and there's a certain kind of client who's looking for a particular style of support that is attracted to that type of marketing.

Whereas if I market myself as a coach, I'll just say very broadly, and there are tons of exceptions to this, but a client who's looking for a therapist is generally looking to bring a problem to this therapist and get this therapist expertise in solving that problem. And they are looking to the therapist as an authority who knows more than them.

Someone who is looking for a coach, I would say is more often someone who has a particular goal in mind, less about something they want to solve and get rid of like a problem, but more more often a goal that they want to reach or achieve. And they are looking for someone who's maybe like walked the path already who might know more by virtue of being further along on the path that they want to walk on than they presently are.

So kind of like a a mentor and they're looking to do the work and have someone's guidance and support. And I'm curious, you prefaced that by saying this is controversial. What part of that statement was controversial? Because it sounded like a good. Differentiator. I think the controversial part is that I see the difference more as being about the

marketing aspect. Whereas what I generally hear from therapists and coaches, but particularly from therapists, is that, you know, a therapist is first of all, delving into the past and also, you know, has particular training so that they are qualified to work on certain diagnosable disorders. And whereas a coach is future focused, but also they're, you know, they're not qualified to deal with certain diagnosable issues. And those should be left for a

therapist. I think there is, you know, there are, there are situations it's, it's very important to know the limits of your scope. Honestly, even if you're, if you are a licensed therapist, like I'm not an expert in eating disorders, for example. So that's really out of my scope. It would be irresponsible for me to take on a client to say, you know, I'm going to help you heal

from this eating disorder. I don't have that training or that expertise, but I know coaches who have great expertise in eating disorders and and tons of experience in that field who help people in that realm. I think what's, what's controversial is in my opinion, it's about the relationship you have with the client and your personal area of expertise more so than to me, it's, it's really not that important if you have the letters after your name or not. Do you have but legally you know?

Do you have coaching clients who ask if they can run you through run their invoices through their therapy bills? I've had that question, but I'm very, very clear with that with folks like right at the beginning of working together, I, I say, you know, what we're doing is coaching. And one of the things that means is that this is not billable through insurance. When you think of the shifts going on, why do you think they're happening? Why do you think there are more coaches coming up?

Is it that they don't want to go through school like you did, they don't want to deal with the licensing? Or is it just plain a different mentality? I think it's a different mentality. And what do you think that is? I think it's a different mentality and what what I see is there are a lot of people in the field who similar to me. Our do have a therapy license and they're either they're leaving their license to go into coaching or they're adding coaching and they're doing both.

And in the broadest terms, the the main reason is it just gives you a lot more freedom in a lot of different ways. It gives you more freedom. I feel it gives you more freedom to be yourself more authentically. And to me, that's a really useful tool in helping people grow when I'm being myself authentically. Like what do every one of my clients want?

They want to be themselves authentically at the end of the day, you know, whether they're coming to me because they they want to heal from chronic pain, which was a specialty of mine for about five years. Or whether they're coming to me because they want to grow their own business or they want to write a book, or they want to put their art out into the world, which are some of the things that people are coming to

me for. And now at the, you know, the underpinning of it all is they want to feel like they are being their authentic selves, that they're authentically expressing themselves and sharing that with the world. And so if I'm not doing that as I'm working with them, it doesn't really, it's not conducive to them growing into that either. Well, that to me is where I

would draw the line between therapy and coaching. If you're, if you're going to share your experiences to me and to guide someone, I would think that leans a little more into the coaching. I mean, because even leading a group, you know, you know, even if it was a group discussion, it's still you have the moderator who's leading it. That is not necessarily sharing their, his or her opinion.

Yeah, yeah, I coaching is certainly a lot more conducive to the coach sharing themselves authentically. And I think that's one of the big reasons that a lot of people, whether they're coming from being a therapist and having a license or not, are being drawn to coaching now. And some of the other reasons are, as I was mentioning before, when you're a therapist, you can only work with clients who are residing in the state in which you are licensed.

And it's kind of a pain in the butt to get licensed in multiple states, although people do it, but it's just more paperwork. Do you think this shift happened when people started to work from home? Yes, yes, that's exactly what I was going to say. Yeah. So when the COVID lockdown started, we all went remote. My work went remote. I was not happy about the reasons it was happening, but I was happy to go remote because it just gives you a lot more freedom and flexibility in lots

of ways. And then you start thinking, well, why am I only working with people who live in my state? There's so many people around the world who need and want my help, and it just feels so limiting to be limited to those who live locally. When you know, we're we're working with each other on Zoom, so you could be anywhere. What? How do you define your work set today? Let's say in the coaching area, What would be your area of expertise? So my area of expertise is the nervous system.

I work through a nervous system lens and the people that I work with are creatives, coaches and entrepreneurs, people who are very passionate about what they do. There are people who are a lot like me. They're they're, they have big passions about what they do. This very strong need to express themselves authentically to be seen and heard. And also they're sensitive

people. So along with that big passion is like very intense fears of saying what they really want to say, of putting themselves out there in a more authentic way, of truly letting themselves be seen. And so I am helping those people learn how to work with their nervous system so they can kind of dance with this passion and fear. They can help them work together and not have the the fear just be blocking the passion and be in conflict that way. You know, it's interesting.

One of the words you use a lot is authentic and authenticity. And they say in psychology courses, when someone repeats the same word over and over again, that's the word you should probably pay attention to because you're getting hidden clues about the person you're speaking with. Yeah. So considering you use the word authentic a few times in this interview, what does that mean?

Because it's, in many ways, it's a very, in my opinion, it's an extremely overused word that has lost a lot of its meaning because it's so overused. I mean, people want to be just plain jerks and say, well, I'm being authentic. And it's no, you're being a jerk. You know, your, your rights have gone beyond. So how do you define authenticity? Here's how I'll define what it means to me and I'll I'll describe this using the lens of the nervous system, which is the

lens that I find really useful. So the nervous system, our nervous systems are, are pretty simple like they're, they're

pretty, they're very similar to like the nervous system you. Touch something, it's hot. You know it in a second and. So you could say there's kind of like a switch in our nervous system and it has two basic settings.

One setting is fear, threat response, and the other setting I'll call flow. When we feel connected with ourselves and we're able to connect with other people, we're able to think expansively and consider that there are many different options. We can feel like we're in the creative flow. We feel in tune with our bodies. We feel present. That's what I mean by authenticity. When you feel connected to

yourself and to others and to your to your flow of energy. Where do you think the boundaries are on authenticity these days? What do you mean by that? Well, you know, someone could say I feel very connected with myself and therefore I feel I can say whatever I want. I personally, my opinion is that that I can say whatever I want like without any consideration for how that might affect other people. I feel that comes from a fear place to me like that fear setting.

When we're in that fear mode, we tend to either suppress what we think and feel or we express it explosively. Like we, we push it through, but when we're in that flow setting, we express things relationally. So we express to connect with other people. And when if I'm just going to say whatever the hell I want without caring how that's going to impact other people, that's not communicating relationally and that's not connecting, that's projecting.

Right, so there is that. There is that line you see in projecting verse. How would you define rejecting since you just said it? And I wouldn't even see it as a line. I would. I would. I see it as like, there's left and there's right. And those are kind of like the two fear directions. And then there's up, which would be the flow direction. So like fear. Yeah. It leads to either suppressing

ourselves or just black. You know, just like shouting at someone instead of communicating with someone. What do you think of the expression Think Before You Speak where the acronym is? Is it thoughtful, hurtful, intelligent, necessary, or kind? I mean, I, I think it's a good policy and I would maybe, I would maybe tweak it for myself to feel before you speak like feel and you know, I'll feel into my body like because I can tell by sensing into my body if

I'm in fear or if I'm in flow. And I don't want to speak from fear. If I'm in fear, I want to come have a conversation with myself 1st and melt through that fear and get into flow before I express this to anyone else.

What do you think comes first, the feeling or the thought? It really depends. It depends, and it depends how tuned in or not tuned in we are to our feelings which are, which are in our bodies, like fear. If I want to know what I'm feeling, I'll ask myself, like, is my body feeling like it's contracting or does it feel open? And if it's contracting, I mean, there's nothing wrong with that.

It's perfectly natural and normal and it's a sign that there there's some fear going through me, which is a common thing. I mean, we feel fear about a bazillion times a day. I do agree with you. I think there's a difference and there's a time 11 precedes the other. I would hate to rule out

instincts. You know, one of my favorite books was The Gift of Fear by Gavin de Becker when he talks about, you know, if you were in a dark building and you're about to get in an elevator and you see someone in the elevator, if you have that split second instinct of fear, don't get in. Just say, you know, turn around, you forgot your keys. You don't have to explain it, but he talks about how most people overrule that instinct and they get in the elevator

anyway. And so those are times I think you absolutely have a feeling 1st. And then there's times people ruminate. They get in the middle of a thought and that thought becomes obsessive to some degree or another, and now they're having little feelings of what they can do, what they can't do. You know how things are going to unfold.

Yeah, absolutely. I kind of feel like it's a chicken and egg thing, you know, like I think of the body reaction to fear and the mind reaction to fear as just different, different expressions of fear. You know, when I am in fear, I'll know it because maybe my body's contracting. Maybe I feel like my shoulders are tight, or I have a headache, or I might notice it because I'm talking to myself in a really mean way. Or maybe it's all the above. But these are all just

expressions. These are all the different ways that fear makes itself known to me.

One of the things you said was interesting. You said, you know, you'll with your coaching clients, for example, you might share some of your experiences. And I often think about professional sports, which I've never played and I'm completely uncoordinated. So no one's signing me up at any phase of my life for those. But I've often thought about, you know, the coaches that played the game and the coaches that didn't.

And if I was a player at the, you know, top of my game, which what it takes to be a professional athlete in this country, it's a, you know, funnel that really narrows it down. You know, would I, would I be able to shelve my ego and listen to a coach that maybe had never played the game, but really knew the game? Well, what do you think about that when it comes to coaching clients? If you're coaching a business leader, where where your. Yeah, you know, it's

interesting. So I have 2 answers to this. One is like when I look for a coach, I specifically look for someone who has already been on the path that I'm beginning to walk on. For example, as I mentioned, I had been working in the area of helping people recover from chronic pain, stress related chronic pain syndromes. And that's something I got into because I had struggled with migraine headaches for like 10 years.

And I recovered through the work of chronic pain therapists who speak a lot about their own recovery on podcasts and stuff like that. And that just helped me so much because they were showing me what, you know, not exactly what my path was going to look like, but what a path could look like because they had been on the path and then they had, you know, subsequently led many clients on that path. I work with two coaches at the moment.

I have a business coach that I work with, and I work with her because of her experience in business and her success in business. And I am a stepmom and so the life coach that I work with with for, you know, on all kinds of stuff, emotions, etcetera. I first started working with her because she is a stepmom coach, because she is a stepmom and she, you know, uses all of her experience to help other stepmoms who are just starting out in that role.

So on the one hand, I think it's very, very helpful when the coach has had a very relevant experience to you. And a lot of the people that come to work with me, a lot of them are creatives and I have a creative background. I used to work in film and TV, and before that I was a journalist and worked in publishing at the same time. One of my favorite clients is a corporate lawyer, and that work is like completely out of my realm. I've never worked in that type of setting.

I've never worked in law. But we're a great fit. And I think what makes us a great fit is that I bring the nervous system lens to the human experiences that this client is having. And while I may not have experience with that context, I certainly have experiences with feeling intimidated at a meeting full of other people even though I'm on their same level. But somehow I'm not. Like my nervous system doesn't know that I have the same level

of authority, you know? I really find it fascinating how you, when you speak, you zoom in on the nervous system, which is phenomenal and fascinating and endlessly worthy of exploration. And I've never heard of something, you know, I think of it as, you know, instant reactions to things. And it's very interesting how you're at, you know, pain pleasure, you know, the the scope of it. But it's very interesting how you are saying you're bringing that into your counseling process.

Yeah, I'm. How did you zoom in on that? Because of the pain. Yes, that was exactly it. So it, it was funny enough, it was while I was in Graduate School to become a licensed mental health counselor that I began studying the nervous system. But I mean, this will might seem surprising, but I was not studying it as part of my studies like, and I wasn't even initially thinking of it in that way.

The reason I was studying it was because I was, I had been experiencing migraine headaches for the last 10 years when I was working in reality TV, doing totally different work as a video editor. And then when I left my TV career and went to grad school to become a therapist, I thought that the headaches would subside because, you know, it's like leaving this very high stress, high pressure career. And I thought the stress is going to go down, the headaches

are going to go down. But the opposite happened. And the way I understand it now, I certainly was confused by it at the time, but the way I understand it now is that I thought I was going to be stepping into a new environment where I would feel free to be me. I would feel like I could just be fully self expressed and talk about my feelings and just, you know, feel all this ease.

But there were a lot of great things about grad school, but there were also, you know, a lot of rules and a lot of things I didn't agree with and a lot of situations where I felt like I had to sort of hold my tongue in order to pass the class. And so coming into it, like, ready to just open up and, like, melt. But then getting there and kind of like tightening up and contracting, I think that that just sort of sent my nervous system into a spiral.

So the, the migraines started to really take over my life at that point. And it finally, it hadn't been a huge part of my life up until then. But when it really started to take over, you know, like anybody who has a symptom that's really taking over their life, I finally went to Google and was like, what the heck do I do about this? And I have a holistic orientation. So I'm looking for, you know,

things that match that. And I discovered this whole world of mind body medicine and specifically nervous system education that was helping other people to recover from symptoms like migraine. And it ultimately helped me recover. So that was my motivation was to to fix the problem I was having of of migraine headaches.

You know, something you said that was interesting was the idea of, you know, I went to school and I thought this was going to be freeing and instead there were these different rules. That's actually something I hear

a lot from people now. And I also think about the, I think there's pluses of that and I think there's minuses because if you want to be, let's say, a brain surgeon, well, there are definite rules on how you put capillaries back together, you know, and you better know them, you know, but it's almost like there's a in a lot of different industries.

And it's also where I wonder about the impact of the Internet that people are saying, well, I want to skip that part of the learning, but it might be an essential part of the learning because when you learn it and you have to suffer a little through what you learn, you learn different forms of discipline going forward. And it's also how you decide what you like going forward or not.

Yes, I completely agree with you and especially on the brain surgeon point, but but also I'm really glad that I went to grad school. I'm glad that I went through the process of getting licensed. I learned so much and a lot of it was learning what I didn't agree with. But I, you know, coming to deciding that you disagree with something based on deep knowledge of that thing you're disagreeing with is very different from just skipping over it. That's an.

Excellent point. Yeah. And for me that for me that really helped me build a lot of confidence and self trust. I'm not saying that everyone needs to get licensed in order to work with people. Then as a coach, I work. I have been the client of many coaches who don't have therapy licenses. They have other life experience and expertise in training and they're fantastic. But for me, that was really a helpful part of my developing self trust as a coach actually.

Well, I. Your, your background is actually what drew me to want to speak with you. I get tons of people reaching out to me who are psychologists in different fields and I'm really looking for experts in certain areas. And then I, you know, get a lot, obviously the hurdles to becoming a coach are a lot lower than the hurdles of getting licensed. OK, so that let's just put that on the table. There's actually no hurdle to becoming a coach because it's

not a regulated field. Meaning like there are all kinds of certifications you can get if you want to, but there are no legal repercussions for just waking up one day and putting up a website and an advertisement and saying I'm a coach. Whereas if you put up a website and you know Psychology Today listing saying I'm a psychotherapist and you aren't licensed, that's a problem and you can get in trouble for it.

And let's talk about that since you're you said I'm giving up my license over here on therapy side and there's no restrictions to being a coach. How do you think people in general, obviously it would be great if they called you, but if

you're if you're not in their, you know, their issue is not your core expertise. How would you go about telling people to look for that coach or therapist that's going to be? Oh yeah, like, like my advice on on what people should look for. Yeah, yeah, people do ask me this a lot. And often times people ask me like, if I, especially if they're looking for a therapist, they'll say what, what modality

should I look for? Because there are all these different modalities and you know, they know that I, I'm familiar with these modalities. So what do I think would be best for them? And you know, if, if there is a particular mode, if I know them reasonably well and there is a particular modality I think they would like, I'll mention that to them. But then the caveat is the most important thing is how you feel when you're having a

conversation with this person. So prioritize that over what training or modality they say that they use. Because if you feel safe with someone and supported by them, that means your nervous system is feeling safe. And that means in their presence, you're able to soften and open up enough to for changes to happen in your nervous system, in your body and your mind and your spirit.

Like that means it's an environment in which you're going to be able to open up enough to make the changes that you want to make. Whereas if you have a conversation with this person and you're like, their resume really impresses me and it's like ticks all my boxes. And when I'm, but when I'm speaking to them, like I feel all tense and self-conscious and I don't really feel like I trust them on a gut level or I feel like I have to hide parts of

myself. It's just not going to be a context in which you're going to be able to do the work you want to do. If you were going to Fast

forward into five years into the future with the changes of what's going on in healthcare insurance, psychology, and being a therapist and licensed therapist versus a coach, what would your crystal ball, your gut say of where those changes are going to go? Just out of curiosity?

A fun a fun question. I mean, I don't have a crystal ball obviously, but where where I see that things are going at the present is deregulation, meaning that a lot of people are leaving the licensure world to be free and do their own thing and not be limited by a lot of the restrictions that exist in

that world. And the other thing that I see is happening has to do with social media, like people are finding coaches that they want to work with on platforms like Instagram or through podcasts like this one. You know, they're, they just have access to getting to know people before deciding that they want to work with them.

And so, you know, I think things are moving more and more in the direction of things being based on forming personal relationships with people rather than with licensing boards or with names of well known modalities. What that will look like, I'm really not sure because, you know, somehow the the world of licensure is going to have to adapt and yeah, evolve. But it's certainly an intriguing thought, and I think it's going to shift. And where those shifts fall out, I'm not sure.

But one of the things I think about a lot because I'm constantly reading what's going on in the field of psychology, is I'll equate it to a makeup artist, OK, an Instagram makeup artist. I've been on set a lot of times doing commercials, advertisements and ads. And a few times someone would say, well, I hired this makeup artist because I've seen their Instagram page. It looks great. Well, that makeup artist comes on set and within 10 minutes the set is entirely destroyed.

The tension level has gone up exponentially because that makeup artist was really good at doing their own makeup. Yeah, but they weren't good at doing makeup on, let's say, somebody with a different skin tone or different skin texture or a different age skin or worse. They only bought their makeup kit for their own their own self instead of the entire makeup kit for a realm of ethnicities, ages, and everything else that a professional would bring.

Yeah, and I know it's say a stretch on an analogy, but it's not. And when everyone starts getting their advice from Instagram and I have a very big community, over 1,000,000 people read my contact content the month, I wouldn't necessarily tell them. And I tell them constantly, Don't take advice from me. I don't know you, you don't know me. So I am sharing thoughts I have, but I certainly don't suggest you.

You know, it's like my I maybe because I grew up with a mother who said, OK, so if John jumps off the Brooklyn Bridge, you're going to do it too. You know, so I were, I wonder about this. I wonder about it for future generations, grabbing their info and thinking just because someone has a lot of followers, they're the person I should listen to. I I think that's wrong. So I'm going to share the a flip side. To I love it, yes, that's what that's our goal in these

discussions. Yeah, I, I, I these are the most interesting kind of in conversations, right? When when we're not like exactly on the same page because we get to learn from each other and like. And we can do it without shouting, which is the goal of this show. When isn't that really what the world needs, especially right now? So, you know, I, I've been a, a therapy client since before this

age of social media. And when I first went about looking for a therapist, all I really knew about them was that they had a license. And I read their brief bio in Psychology Today. If that was even if they even had one, because I remember my, my first real therapist, I just my best friend was seeing a therapist and he said, you know, can your therapist recommend a therapist to me? Which is a perfectly legit way of going about it.

So I got this recommendation. I went to see her and, you know, I didn't even, I wasn't even going to shop around because how do you even shop around in those days? And I was pretty fortunate. It was I, I benefited from that therapy relationship. But I know lots of other people who had similar experiences where they just, you know, they're like, well, that person's licensed and they were recommended to me and they, you could have any range of

different kind of experience. I know people have had horrific experiences and they didn't know that this wasn't unusual because there's no context. They're not seeing other people on social media talk about what a good therapist is, right? They they don't. Yeah, they're they're not hearing other people's experiences.

Whereas nowadays, when I want someone to help me with an issue, like struggling with my role as a stepmom, for example, I can listen to all these different podcast interviews that this person spoke on. I can read everything they've ever written on Instagram. So I really get a sense of what is their point of view, what is their style? Who are they as a person? I can kind of get to know them and make an informed decision in a way that I couldn't have before social media and podcasting.

That's a very interesting perspective. And you you raised some very good points and I've been speaking with Anna Holtzman and you are really just very fascinating. I enjoyed every aspect of this conversation truly from start to finish. Me too, this is just a really enlivening conversation. Thank you so much. Everybody, I'm Diane Grassell. This has been the silver despedience perception Dynamics podcast and we've been recording in iconic Manhattan center.

We're in TV Studio 2 where, Oh my gosh, some greats have either practiced here or played here or filmed shows here. So it's a true honor to be here. Anna Holtzman was my guest. We had a great conversation and all her information is below. And I highly encourage you follow her on social media, get in touch, say hello, tell her how much you enjoyed her episode, and please hit subscribe. I'm Diane Grissel again, please hit subscribe and share this with your friends and come back often.

Thank you.