Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Hey, Hello. Welcome Trauma for an SLP here. Hello. And if you're on Patreon. Hey, thanks for coming. Nice to not see you here. Because I can't see you. I'm looking at a camera.
[00:00:11] I don't know. My brain does not let me script like that if it's just completely impractical. I just. I just can't. It just sounds wrong. Anywho, I saw a thing on Reddit that I just wanted to bring up a little bit in terms of like kind of a hot take up in here.
[00:00:26] I guess it's sort of a hot take and I might put this out on my regular podcast if not if I did. If you're just hearing this as audio. Hey, what's up? Even wanna. If you wanna see my fists, come on over to Patreon and join. And I don't think I have a free membership, so Patreon's weird. There's a lot of creators who've had a lot of older Patreons that have like a lot of free options. My Patreon does not let me do anything for free. So do. But I do have a link that provides some time for free if you would like to join. That would be awesome to have some people over there to maybe discuss this kind of stuff. Sort of. And that's because somebody put put on here. The title is CF SLP Feeling overwhelmed by Constant this is wrong post online. Does anyone else feel this way? And they say that they're feeling really overwhelmed? They scroll through Facebook groups or other spaces for SLPs and special ed teachers and it feels like it's constant posts or videos that are super condescending toward other professionals, like making fun of people for using certain strategies or acting like something is completely unethical or harmful with zero nuance. It feels like every time I go online I learn that something else I thought was normal is actually terrible practice. According to someone, as a new slp, it's making me second guess everything I do. I already feel overwhelmed with just learning my job, paperwork, ips, etc and now I feel like I'm constantly trying to keep up with what's right or wrong and I'm scared. I'm even making recommendations sometimes because of this feeling like how do you figure out what actually matters versus what is just social media being extreme? Do you just tune it out? Because right now it feels like I can't keep up and I'm doing something wrong no matter what.
[00:02:06] And first off, this is one of the most valid posts I've seen in forever. I am not much of a social media user in my private life. I got an Instagram account when I started this whole trauma informed SLP thing because like, oh, I should do like promotions and stuff and like, I still don't get a whole lot of traction over there but let me tell you, it is, it was weird to me. Honestly I. There are still so many SLP creators I don't know about. There are so many out there, so many.
[00:02:35] I don't tend to follow the ones that do a whole lot of clinical suggestions. I tend to do more like people who are advocates for more like diversity, equity, inclusion type things. Other trauma informed people like you know, people who are on autism advocates like I tend to more be more of like the meta level of things because I mean that's what trauma informed is. It's very meta, you know. So it kind of makes sense that I'm more that way. But yeah, I was like taken aback but I guess I would say not completely surprised at how many there are out there in terms of SLP creators because well, you know, when you think about the type of personalities who tend to go into our field and you think about the need for external validation that sometimes people with those particular personalities really strive for social media seems like the perfect place to go and get that. And also you think about wage suppression and people just wanting to make extra money on the side of their job, then yeah, content creation, clinical tools, etc. Etc. That becomes a big potential boom in some extra money for somebody if they're able to sell certain things online, right. PDFs of things or what have you.
[00:03:56] And so I think that's another piece of it as well. I think it's a lot of that like systemic kind of trickle down factor of like you have certain personality types that will be drawn to probably doing social media that happen to intersect with certain personality types that have to be drawn to our field.
[00:04:14] And then you also, once you dovetail that with like wage suppression and especially SLPs who live in big cities and stuff, who probably can't make that much like say at a school job, wanting, looking for more income then you know, getting online and creating some worksheets or something and trying to drive the narrative that they're the one who has a solution for a problem, then you know, that could be very appealing.
[00:04:42] I think there's also this issue of survivorship bias with the algorithms in the sense that more like kind it's when it comes to like people who are constantly telling other people they're doing things Wrong.
[00:04:54] I think that's kind of getting at sort of the rage bait of it all, especially for short form content about how like Instagram and TikTok and other short form type situations, if somebody says something really like hot take, controversial, this is going to tick a lot of people off. Like if you start a video that way it makes it really popular and it goes out to more people.
[00:05:14] So I think there is that too, which you do really do have to understand and like just try to like, because I don't like it either. I don't like that there's so much like so much rage bait actually honestly happening. And I think that's effectively, in my opinion anyway, let me know if you believe, if you agree.
[00:05:30] But I, I think that that is something that happens in our field that's like the rage bait of our field and of education too. The like, you're doing it wrong. You've been doing it wrong all this time. You're a horrible clinician. And this is why, because you did this whole thing wrong, you know, and it's like it's rage bait in our field and it goes out to more people, it gets more views and then it prays, unfortunately it prays on that other side of our field of people who are incredibly self conscious about what they do, you know what I mean? Those of us who like constantly were internalizing every single mistake made in graduate school like I was, and constantly analyzing and trying to improve constantly and have that anxiety around I might be harming somebody and this is horrible, right? Like it's preying on those people in a really negative way. So I can see that definitely affecting mental health.
[00:06:24] I think another side of this that might be another problem, especially when you think of the meta side when it comes to trauma, informed care and when it comes to research based stuff is that research is like social change online and social discourse online about bias and stigma and all these other things. It's always going to outpace research, right? Research moves really slowly, especially like peer reviewed literature, the way studies are done, it's slow. It's good that it's slow because it can stay more meticulous, right? We want it to be as good as we can get it. We want it to be the best evidence possible. We want the best studies, we want, you know, the most applicable study designs, of course, but research is slow, man.
[00:07:15] That world moves slowly. It moves slowly. Back before the dawn of the Internet, it still moved really slowly. And now that the Internet has taken off and social media is happening and hashtags this and hashtag that and movement this and movement that, social movements, etc. Etc.
[00:07:31] It's like it's, it's impossibly slow. It almost feels like research isn't moving at all relative to all of that. Right.
[00:07:40] So we do have all this discourse online, like hey man, the way I was taught to do like stuttering, for example, that it was sort of in change when I was in grad school and I haven't been out that long, okay. Like I graduated in 2014 with my master's, so it hasn't been that long.
[00:07:57] And it's like the way we were taught to handle disfluencies, particularly stuttering, involved some very what is now, you know, and I 100 agree, are fairly ableist prompts and ableist feedback, you know, that promotes more self shame for the person with a disfluency. And I don't want to do that. But yeah, that's what we were taught. That was like the research of the time. And now we have these clinicians who, you know, have disfluencies themselves who have been advocating and saying like, hey man, please don't say that. That makes us feel horrible. Right? And so now we learn and we do better because we've heard from this other population. And I think especially when it comes to neurodivergent affirming care and stuff, we're still in that unlearning stage of the research is slow. There is some stuff coming out that is like promoting the more neurodivergent affirming take that a lot of neurodivergent clinicians promote.
[00:08:58] But it gets really muddy, things get confusing. What is best practice when it comes to, you know, how old can the article be before you don't really rely on it because it's based in a whole lot of ableism and bias or what have you, right? And quite frankly, there isn't really an age for the articles because there are still research out there doing. There's still plenty of research coming out that's like, it's still in that old school biased kind of paradigm.
[00:09:26] So it takes some discernment there, you know what I mean? And so I mean, I think that that's the other thing that makes it a lot harder is that you do have people coming out saying like, don't do this thing, this thing is potentially harmful to people. Maybe try this instead.
[00:09:41] And it's hard to be someone who wants to educate from like myself, I would like to come out and educate more about like what I think people like the approaches or the paradigms or the way of thinking about things, they might want to try, essentially. But I also don't want to read debate. I don't want to be like, don't do that. You should do this instead. You're doing this horribly. Like, no, I don't like the, you know, because I also feel like I don't want to trigger anyone's shame because that's definitely not trauma informed either, right? So I think that's, for me, one of the reasons, like, for me, I always go back to the trauma informed, like safety versus, you know, empowerment. Safety and empowerment being the big pillars there, right?
[00:10:20] Because if I can put what I'm doing under the underpinning of, regardless of how much I get done with someone's communication, at the most fundamental level, I'm still a human trying to help another human, right? So at the most fundamental basis, this is what I have to say about this. When it comes to, you're a new clinician, you don't know what you're doing and you're worried and you're scared and you think you're messing everything up and maybe you're harming kids, etc. Etc. Etc. Right? Like unintentionally, of course, I would say this at the end of the day, like one place to ground yourself anyway. All these racing thoughts and these concerns about maybe what I'm doing or that prompt is wrong or what have you. At the end of the day, I think it comes down to if you can focus more on making sure your students feel safe around you, they're safe in the speech room, they're, you know, you know, and, and you'll do your best to try to come up with like, feedback and prompts that are empowering and affirming for them. Right? But that's an ongoing process and that's an, that's never going to be something you're going to be perfect at, right? So you just have to accept, like, okay, I can't be perfect at being affirming all the time, but I can do my best to try, right? I can try to continue to learn. And that is an area that, especially when it comes to DEI and social movements and more awareness, the kind of prompts and feedback we give is really where we need to, in my opinion, adjust the most when it comes to are you being ableist or not? Or something like that, right?
[00:11:51] So one of the areas, there are plenty of areas, but that's definitely an area because that's where like unintentional microaggressions and stuff tend to show up in the way we give feedback or prompts because we're thinking of what we want as a clinician and not thinking of, like, what actually is more empowering for that client to hear.
[00:12:09] Right? So that might be a way to think of it. It's like, what's more empowering for the student to hear in this moment? What would be the most empowering thing for me to give them?
[00:12:16] You know, is it practical strategies to help with that articulation placement? Or is it, you know what, man, you can still have a really great life. Even if you never actually say er ever in your life, you can still have a fantastic life. Maybe that's more empowering for that particular day, right? To use it in an articulation kid kind of way. Right? So that's how I would think about it, is like, what kind of day is this kid?
[00:12:40] Where are they on their journey? If this kid has been trying to make an R, and they're in fifth grade and they've been going to speech forever and they feel like they're never getting any better, then maybe what's more empowering for them more often is, you know what? I still want to hear what you have to say. Regardless of whether your R is correct. Your words are what matter the most to me.
[00:13:04] Like, tell me what you're thinking, man. Like, don't, don't clam up on me. You know what I mean? Or whatever. Or, please don't clam up on me. I had this kid with a stutter who. That was one of the biggest things I did with him, is I couldn't even hear him because he was so scared of having disfluencies around me. And he was just whispering and barely opening his mouth. And so we just spent. I spent months just encouraging just to talk nice and loud. Like, just tell me what's on your mind. I'm not even going to prompt anything about the disfluencies because I can't even hear your dis.
[00:13:34] You know what I mean? It's like whispering might be fluency enhancing, but I can't hear you. I want to hear your thoughts. I want to hear what's going on inside your head. I want to get to know you as a person first, right?
[00:13:44] Then if you have something, if you have struggles, and if you want tips, I can give you those tips. But let's start with your fellow human. And you have a right to talk and, and be heard and listened to and you should be, you know, listened to. So let's just start there. Right?
[00:14:01] So I think that's my biggest thing, and that's the thing that I love about being trauma informed, is that there is a huge amount of evidence from more of that psychology side in terms of trauma literature. When it comes to just at the basic human level, it's. We would call it rapport, but honestly, it's relationship. Right? It's building the relationship with the students. It's making sure you see them as humans, not just as, like, data sheets. Right. And not just as reports you have to write. Seeing them as little humans that you're trying to help and guide as best as you can. And so providing them a space where they can feel safe to be themselves within reason. Like, if they feel like being themselves is, you know, hitting another kid. No, no, no, no, no. We're not going to violate someone else's right to safety, physical safety, for that sake, but, you know, giving them that emotional and psychological safety, meeting them kind of where they're at. And then when it comes to, like, your decisions in, when it comes to goal setting or whatever, it's like, what would promote more safety and. Or what would be more empowering for this kid from the communication perspective? What can I do to help with both of those things? Those two main pillars, in my opinion, and I did a whole separate podcast episode on what, why I consider safety empowerment to be the main pillars that, that I go to always when I'm trying to think through these things, but when it comes to also seeing these influencers who want to tell you things are right or things are wrong. Look, it's not about.
[00:15:31] I'm not a very prescriptivist clinician, and maybe you're not either.
[00:15:35] Maybe you don't necessarily want the checklist of do's and don'ts. Maybe that doesn't help you as much. Maybe you do want more of that meta.
[00:15:45] Am I. Is it okay that I'm just, you know, wanting to connect on a human level first and then work on communication goals? Right. I think that's fine. My answer to that would be, yeah, that's good. And I think, honestly, better.
[00:16:00] Personally, I think one of the reasons our field has such a hard time with generalization is that we forget or we have essentially completely forgotten how deeply embedded communication is to just the human experience and to our emotional state and to, you know, whether we feel safe around people or not. Like, if you forget those, you know, it's going to be really hard to want to take anything out of that speech room into the real world. If you feel like the speech room itself is not real, if it's just another place where people drill cards with you or something, you know what I mean? If that makes any sense. I hope I'm making sense. I kind of babbling here for a bit, but anyway, I agree that things are rough. I think you do have that issue of that's what's getting fed through the algorithm because that's what goes viral more so there. You gotta understand that there's bias within the algorithm itself in terms of what they're showing you. I think there's kind of the interprofessional bias of like, people with certain personality types for whom content creation is their jam and wanting to sell things. Is there, is. Is. Is good, is beneficial to them in terms of economically where they're at and all that. Right.
[00:17:11] Gotta consider that.
[00:17:13] And the rage bait of it all, you know, Gotta consider that sort of angle there.
[00:17:20] And then the other angle to consider with people who want to constantly tell people who's right and wrong is that, you know, there's a lot of binary thinking in our field because in my opinion, there's a lot of burnout, there's a lot of secondary traumatic stress, if not primary traumatic stress that a lot of people are struggling with. And that creates a bit more of a binary thinking.
[00:17:37] Just by having the person's brain go into survival modes more often, having more of that fight, flight, freeze, response to everything, that hyper vigilance toward everything, you start to get to that binary right or wrong. Because when it comes to. When you think about it broadly, like you think about an animal in survival mode. Yeah, like survival mode decisions, there is a right and a wrong one. There's a decision that'll help you survive, and it's a decision that, nope, that's it. Right. You're now food for some other animal. Right.
[00:18:05] So it makes sense that the brain's. Your brain kind of defaults more to that binary if you're in survival mode. But I do think a fair number of these influencers, very likely, at least from what I've seen my little armchair armchair psychology here, maybe they have their own anxieties and their own insecurities that they just aren't sitting with and. Or getting help with.
[00:18:26] Maybe they have their own issues with survival mode and anxiety and, you know, that's just where they are right now in their journey.
[00:18:37] And it's not where you have to be. You don't have to go along with them if that's not where you want to be. You really don't have to go along with them. And a lot of this, like, imposter syndrome stuff, I think it's incredibly natural to feel that way, man. I feel that way every time I get a new job. Anywhere I go in our field. I feel nervous. Like, I don't know what I'm doing initially. You know, I always feel kind of extra nervous by, like, oh, I gotta learn all these names. I don't know anybody or where I'm going or how I'm getting there. Yeah, it's very normal in schools to feel overwhelmed by the paperwork, not to what to say.
[00:19:11] Dealing with family questions and, like, different cultures within those families and what they might be looking for versus what you feel is the appropriate thing for the kid versus what they might want. Like, it's tough, man. It's super tough. But I think at the end of the day, acknowledge your own humanity in the situation.
[00:19:31] Don't expect yourself to be perfect because you can't. Right? Just try to do the least harm possible.
[00:19:37] Try to do the most good you can, and, you know, just take a breath and relax a bit. And at the end of the day, I think the humanity is the thing that your clients and your families will remember.
[00:19:52] The compassion side of your humanity is probably what they'll remember the most, unless they themselves are in such a survival mode that they just can't notice it. And that's not you. That's not something you're gonna have the power to change anyway. So that's my two kabajillion sense on that.
[00:20:08] I just wanted to mention it because I do think, you know, new batch of grad students are coming out soon. We're gonna have a lot of more CFs out there having this.
[00:20:17] This. This concern, feeling impostery about everything they do. And I just want to tell you guys, you know what?
[00:20:26] It's gonna be all right. Okay? You're gonna be okay.
[00:20:30] Try not to let the algorithm convince you you're something you're not.
[00:20:34] Right?
[00:20:36] You're a person in a helping profession trying to do your best to help people if you can. Hang on to that.
[00:20:41] Do your best, but also be good to yourself. Honor your own humanity. Right? Have compassion for yourself. That is also very important.
[00:20:51] Right?
[00:20:52] So if you feel like you're being a horrible clinician, it's not that you're. That's not an identity you have to hold on to. That's a. Well, yeah, maybe what I did wasn't the best, but I can do something different. Let me try something else.
[00:21:06] Let me try a different prompt. Let me try different feedback. Let's see what happens.
[00:21:11] Take some data on it, see if it works. And if it doesn't, readjust. It's okay. This career is definitely a marathon. It's not a sprint. Right? You just got out of school. You're probably used to, like, semesters being right.
[00:21:24] It's okay. Just take a breath. Especially in schools. You have time. Just who you know. Just take a breath. Take a deep breath. Slow yourself down.
[00:21:34] Oh, and there's my dog. Gotta go take care of her. Anyway, I hope this helped a little bit. Hope this message helped you a little bit. Let me know. You can if you're on Patreon and you can drop a comment. Drop a comment below. I think I put it. If it's free for people, everybody can post, but maybe they can't. I also have an email in the show notes. You can definitely email me anytime if you want to let me know these things because it would be great to get a little more feedback out there from you guys. Yeah. And all that said, really do take care of yourselves.
[00:22:03] Let's just be a little bit more kind to ourselves, which is for me, the hardest thing. So if it's hard for you, give it a good try.
[00:22:13] You're doing all right.
[00:22:15] It's all good.
[00:22:17] Okay, till next time. Bye.
