Pizza Party
Season 1, Episode 6
Have you ever invited a client to a pizza party? Well, Audrey Elbert found herself in a tricky situation when an intense couples therapy session is interrupted by her family's pizza night. Audrey shares her experiences working from home with a husband, two step-children, and pets. Allie and Kathryn also share their embarrassing interruptions.
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https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/therapists/audrey-elbert-bristol-ct/468129
investinwellneessct.com
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https://www.instagram.com/teletherapist.network/
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https://www.etsy.com/shop/TheJoyofTherapy
https://www.instagram.com/thejoyoftherapy/
Episode Transcript - Pizza Party
Allie Joy 00:07
Have you ever asked yourself, am I a bad therapist? Well, you're in the right place. I'm Allie Joy, a licensed professional counselor and registered art therapist.
Kathryn Esquer 00:17
And I'm Kathryn Esquer, a clinical psychologist and you're listening to am I a bad therapist?
Allie Joy 00:25
Join us each week for stories from behind the closed therapy door.
Kathryn Esquer 00:29
You'll hear experiences that made us ask, am I bad therapist? Including bloopers, jaw droppers and other difficult moments that normalize the unique struggles of modern day therapists.
Allie Joy 00:42
This is a space with no experts, no gurus and no hierarchies, just humans sitting in similar chairs.
Kathryn Esquer 00:50
And while we're not the gatekeepers for good and bad therapy, because we're about therapist too, we are here to shine a light on the difficult decisions therapists face on a daily basis and normalize that mysterious gray area of clinical practice that no one wants to talk about.
Allie Joy 01:13
So Kathryn, with working from home, as many of us have transitioned to, how do you deal with interruptions? How much do they come up for you in your sessions?
Kathryn Esquer 01:22
You know what? So all the time I have two toddlers and a husband and my sister lives with us. So all the time, but I think actually think I'm gonna share something really funny that happened before we hit record. And that is for those of you who don't know, if you're watching the YouTube, actually my office is in my closet. I call it my cloffice. And we set it up as a cloffice. Because when we all went to work from home we have we have a fairly large house with a lot of bedrooms, but my husband needed to work from home, my kids have their bedrooms, my sister lives with us like my husband and I we quickly used all the bedrooms. So I was like I can't keep working at my dining room table so we turned my my my like huge walk in closet into an office slash closet because I'm not I don't own that many clothes like my husband I are not like big clothes, people. Handbags, that's another story but clothes I'm not super into. And so before we got on, I was I we were waiting here speaking of interruptions, I ran to get a cup of coffee and I left the video on for Allie who is joining soon. And I was like, oh my goodness. Like we're recording in my in my closet and my husband works from home and I was so afraid that he was gonna walk in and get changed in his closet and have Allie sitting there. I love it. Yeah. So I think that's probably my most feared interruption is like having having my closet be used as a closet, when it should be used as an office. That hasn't happened yet. I haven't had that interruption, thank God, but I do. I do fear that sometimes my most common interruption is my kids or my dogs, or my husband knocking because he needs a sweater or something like that. So my home life definitely bleeds into my professional life in my closet.
Allie Joy 03:09
Yeah, it happens. And even for myself, I don't we don't have children. But we do have my cat her name is Tuna. And all of my clients have become very accustomed to seeing Tuna the cat because she loves to jump up on my desk. Actually, as you guys if you're watching the YouTube, you'll see even during this recording coming up, she came to say hello. So look for a special guest Tuna. But we just kind of try to roll with it. And we'll hear from Audrey about how she tries to roll with being interrupted.
Kathryn Esquer 03:41
Right, I hear she's gonna have a pizza party with her clients. So we'll see how that goes. And just a reminder that everything we say here is for entertainment purposes and is not a substitute for therapy, ethical guidance or clinical consultations.
Allie Joy 03:55
And this is episode number six of Am I Bad Therapist? Let's get into it.
Kathryn Esquer 04:02
Hi, Audrey. Welcome to Am I a Bad Therapist. Thanks for joining us today.
Audrey Elbert 04:07
Good morning. Thank you guys so much for having me on.
Kathryn Esquer 04:10
Yeah. So Audrey, tell us before we get into some situations that maybe made you question your role as a therapist, what tell us about your practice and how you became a therapist.
Audrey Elbert 04:24
So I've been in the business for about 10 years now. And it doesn't feel like it because I've been bouncing around doing so many different things. But I started invest in wellness and I'm very excited about doing the work that I do. I specialize in couples counseling. So I got some Gottman training. I really love Imago emotional focused couples counseling, I'm all about it. But I became a therapist because I've always been very curious about people and behaviors. Just psychology in general. And I've always been a hopeless romantic so I geared toward couples counseling and I found a passion in it.
Allie Joy 05:02
That's amazing. Thank you so much for sharing that. Well, we're so excited to hear your story. So let's get into it. Tell us about why you felt like you were a bad therapist.
Audrey Elbert 05:14
So many situations, but a couple come to mind, given working from home that's kind of brought along along a bunch of challenges. And it makes me think of one situation that's happened several times over the past couple years is I am a step parents of two lovely boys and a dog mom. And my partner's a, or my fiance should say, is a really wonderful father to all of them. And so given that I work with couples usually goes into the evening, so I'm in my home office. And you know, I'm in the middle of a session with a couple or a client and we're like, really immersed into the work, doing some really communicating really, really want, excuse me, really wonderful communication work, focusing on emotions really kind of digging in there. And lo and behold, I guess it's pizza night. So the doorbell rings, and we have the ring. So not only my phone goes crazy with notifications, but then the dog starts to bark, and we have carpet in some of the parts of the house. But then you can hear his claws scratching at the hardwood floor and then the kiddos start running toward the door and like chaos, just utter utter chaos. And then I get kind of deer caught in headlights. Oh, I used to I'm much better at it now. Because like I said it's happened several times. So yeah. The chaos that ensues in the microphone picks it up, and I get thoroughly embarrassed.
Kathryn Esquer 06:44
Oh, I was just gonna say I think that we can all relate to that, especially during the pandemic. Did you, this is just for my own curiosity, did you have an in person office prior to the pandemic? Did this, did this at home, tell us about the shift from the pandemic, to or pre pandemic, pandemic telehealth work? And is this when this started to come up for you?
Audrey Elbert 07:03
Oh, absolutely. So the blessing of being in an office is obviously it's much more of a controlled environment. So every situation has its strengths and challenges. But doing in office work, it's much more quiet. It's the expectation. So having things being more controlled, and much more quiet and very little interruptions unless there was a significant emergency. But that was very, very rare. I can't even remember a time where I was in an office space where I got a knock maybe it was because somebody mistakenly showed up early or was the first time in the office and was knocking on everybody's door because, you know, sitting in the waiting room, but yeah, shifting to doing at home, the interruptions have become much more which is unfortunate. But I think that it makes at least from the client's point of view, more relatable, odd enough that having the chaos breakout behind my office door because it happens at their house too, you know their own kiddos knocking on the doors, their own pets kind of interrupting the sessions, things of that nature. It gives a realistic idea of we aren't just human beings in bubbles, that the only thing we do are therapy, that we have lives outside of this and we have to roll with the punches sometimes just like our clients do so. Yeah.
Allie Joy 08:27
That's like a silver lining, I think agreed of telehealth. And I don't know if you guys saw it. When we started recording my cat actually came up for a second. So it happens here. It happens with our clients. So it was pizza night. Kids are running around dogs running around. I'm curious, do you remember if this was at like a pivotal moment in the session? Did it disrupt the situation? What happened with your clients?
Audrey Elbert 08:53
So in the early days of when this this happened, I didn't catch it in time. I didn't mute myself in time should I say so unfortunately, you know, deer caught in headlights, because I thought that I did enough prep work with the kiddos and my partner of I need to be quiet. We need to be calm in the house. I'm going to be in in potentially intense conversations. And a couple of times we were in the midst of having a very deep conversation about struggles and challenges and not on the verge of tears so to speak, but I'm encouraging the couple to really connect and really tell each other what's going on. And then all of a sudden ding dong chaos kids screaming dog barking. It was like oh no! Because it's hard to break the immersion of the session to get derailed like that because it's already difficult enough for a client or a couple to really kind of get into the mix of it and it is I can't it's part of our responsibility to create an environment and to create an experience. So just like with the movies, just like with television shows, you know that you're having a good session when you're immersed in it. So not only as a therapist, but also the couples. So it's hard to get a couple or a client to really commit to that emotional investment in that moment. So to, to have the real world kind of inject itself unexpectedly. Yeah. So it was noticed, and the clients didn't get mad or anything, but it did kind of break the immersion of the moment. And it did take a little bit of time to get back to the focus in what we were doing. And I did apologize. And so far, I've been very lucky that my clients have been very understanding. And we've laughed about it the majority of time, but I still have concerns of like, oh, what did they think of me, you know?
Kathryn Esquer 10:53
Yeah. And it's not just, you know, the real world interrupting the moment, but it's your real world that we did not as therapists have to consider too much. Prior to the big shift to work from home, which now many of us do full time. I had to laugh when you were saying about, you know, a rare knock on the door, when you were in person office. It reminds me of when I first started at my practice, which is integrated into primary health care. And, you know, it's nothing for the nurses or for the administrative assistants to knock on the door with the patient waiting for a physician and, and grab a supply or something like that. And so they thought that they could do that to my office. So I would be getting knocks on the door to like, collect my papers for shredding. And I'm like, we have to reframe this we have to really like, you can't knock on my door. So now they know I'm gonna bite someone's head off. If you're knocking on my door, my daycare better recalling, because otherwise, there's no excuse. So I totally get that, that when our worlds what will we bring into the therapy room interrupts the flow, and the moment and the deep emotional connection that's happening, especially in couples, that feels like a big weight that we kind of that we brought in. Right? And I can absolutely relate to you on that.
Audrey Elbert 12:10
Yeah, so definitely. Because again, I take my business serious, I take my job serious. And to have these unexpected, chaotic moments kind of present themselves. I've gotten used to it it you know, gotta go with the flow, gotta face the challenges in each environment that we come across. But yes, being caught between a rock and a hard place of to me it would be, and this might sound strange, but easier to kind of rebuff a colleague or a delivery person or something like that. Because it's like, hey, you know, it's a therapy office, there's expectations, there's rules. You know, there's a sign on the door, that kind of thing. But when the pizza man is just doing his job, and my fiance's trying to be a good dad by ordering pizza on a Friday night it's like, how could, who could I be mad at?
Kathryn Esquer 13:01
Great point we can't place the blame anywhere really.
Audrey Elbert 13:04
Yeah, just kind of have to go with it.
Allie Joy 13:07
So what questions do you think run through your mind then when this happened? You know, it's happened a few times. What goes through your head? What are those questions you're asking yourself?
Audrey Elbert 14:33
Oh, absolutely. Am I bad therapist? What am I going to do? Is this going to be so disruptive that the client is not going to be able to get back to focus? Especially in those harder moments of vulnerability. Sometimes they the client potentially could use that as a form of escape. So it's they lose the moment. It's like okay, then we'll just redirect and we'll focus on like, Oh, you have kids Do you have a dog? That kind of thing? Oh, that's so cute. What's it's like, I want to get back on focus. But I worry about being embarrassed about the client thinking poorly of my quality of approach, thinking, and I'll go in this direction of like, being bad mom, you know, that I don't have control over my own family. Not that I need control, so to speak of like, but, you know, sometimes clients do have that expectation of, I have to have it all together. And I know that's pressure that I put on myself. And I haven't been explicitly told that by a client. But I do hold myself to a high standard to be able to help people the best that I can. And having interruptions like that leads me to question about, is there a better way to approach this? Are the clients going to think poorly of me? What can I do to prevent this? And just like I've talked about before, because it's happened several times, I've had to just kind of go with the flow and recognize that I can't have control over everything. And if it becomes a point of contention with a client, then that is an opportunity to grow and discuss.
Kathryn Esquer 16:18
It is quite common for therapy or for clients to look at their therapist and expect us to be the role model, right. And I think a lot of us do and try to lead by example. But we're humans, human therapists. So we're talking a lot about how it impact how at these interruptions impacted, or potentially could have impacted your therapy work and your response to that. But I'm also curious if you don't mind sharing, how has working from home impacted your family life? Do you have pizza Fridays? Like, what is it like being a step parent, a fiance and then having to like, work from home with all of this going on?
Audrey Elbert 16:57
Um, that's a really good question. That would take up the whole hour if I dived into every detail about that, because it's a lot. But yes, so having to put the boundary in place of just because I'm home doesn't mean I'm all access, you know. So when the kiddos even, even if Dad is home, unfortunately, there have been times where the kiddos, given that they're on the younger side, have knocked on the door. And I have to be like, hang on, even though I've set the precedent of like emergency only bleeding limbs falling off, like dog bit somebody, still their need for snack supersedes emergency because to a six year old that is an emergency. Yes, absolutely. And they can't find dad even though dad's probably on the couch. Right there. But it's been a definitely a transition sometimes. Given that I'm home a lot the dog has now gotten used to me being home so much that the dog has even snooted the door behind me. Hopefully that hasn't registered on the microphone, but it may have so his little tippy taps or whimpers at the door if he wants to go out or if he's hungry, or something like that. And I'm just like really hoping that my partner's like, oh, it's six o'clock, the dog needs to be fed, that my partner comes upstairs and corrals the dog because otherwise he sits at the door and keeps snooting it and bumping at it. And I think it's cute, but it again, it's very disruptive. Oh my goodness, what else?
Kathryn Esquer 18:35
It pulls us out of our flow, right? Even if clients don't notice it. Like I can relate to that having hearing just even hearing my kids down the hall. I know it's not registering but my head's going are they gonna interrupt? What are they doing? Why are they upstairs? Right?
Audrey Elbert 18:52
The anxiety that comes with, uh oh somebody's crying. Somebody screaming, oh they're arguing Oh, it's bath time. You know, sometimes we have those later night sessions. And the chaos that comes with transition from hangout time unstructured family time to aright, let's get into bedtime routine, you know, because I tried to make my home office in the corner of the house away from everything. And it's only gotten me so far. So I thoroughly know when I'm going to get interrupted because I can hear the steps across the first floor and then up the stairs and down the hall. And I'm like, up here it comes. Here it comes and then tick the tick. Like where's your father?
Allie Joy 19:36
How do you usually address it? Like if it's maybe like the dog or a smaller interruption? Or even the bigger ones? Do you acknowledge it first? Or has it changed? Like do the clients say something like how do you try to handle it? Do you try to hit it off and be like, Oh, I'm so sorry. There's a noise and deal with it or do you try to let it go unnoticed what's your approach?
Audrey Elbert 19:55
So I used to be much more reactionary and responsive. I I'm in a way of I'm so sorry, can you just hold on just a second, if there's a noise, let me take care of it. And I'll mute myself and pause the camera turn around, take care of it. If it's the dog, he loses interest after a couple seconds. So that's lucky. And usually my partner is very attuned to anybody any noise up here. So if the dog starts walking around upstairs, or whimpering or something, my partner is really good at coming to get the dog. But he doesn't always the catch, always catch the kids. But yes, so far. So I would pause myself, I would be like, Hey, kiddo, what's up what's wrong? And he would say, you know, I need to snack, I need to use the bathroom, I need something. Where's daddy, and I'm like, Sweetheart, I'm in the middle of session, you're gonna have to go find Daddy, do your best. Or I'll be done in 20 minutes, just hang out for a little bit, that kind of thing. But now, given that the interruptions, I've been able to do preventative measures, talk with the kids, let them know what I expect when I'm going to be in session when I'm going to be out of session. Because now that they're older, they can tell time so they can understand, okay, so she's going to be in session for another 10 minutes, 20 minutes, whatever it is, and they can hang out and wait until I have that break. So then I can pop out a session, and sometimes they're standing right there. And I open the door. I'm like, Whoa. But then they're like, where's my homework? Where's my backpack? I need my shoes where my practice pants. I'm like, I need to use the bathroom. I have all the five minutes. Let's go your pants are over there, your shoes are over here.
Allie Joy 21:31
So that brings up a good point. I'm wondering if you felt this at all, because I don't have children. But even I noticed when I switched to telehealth, when we were in the office, I would drive home and I'd have the drive to like process the day kind of sort through my stuff and walk home. But like you just said, you open the door. There is no pause. It's like you open the door and you're moving into family mode immediately. How have you felt that impact? Have you felt that impact? With no transition time? You're jumping from one thing to the next, probably a lot.
Audrey Elbert 22:02
Absolutely. It was it was hard at first. Especially because again, when the lockdown happened in Connecticut the first time for that first. Oh my goodness. Was it three months? Yeah, kids were still two or three months. Yeah, so my partner having that transition. And then I having that transition and the kiddos, having that transition all of the expectations of all of us needing all that attention in that time. And that focus. It was really, really hard. We got through it as I can imagine that both of you probably did the same. But we've gotten much better at a balance where communication couples counselor, of course, if the answer is going to be communication, about expectations about boundaries. But yes, I sometimes I really like being able to just open the door and go into mommy mode, you know, of how excited the kids get when I open the door and I'm done for the day. And getting those hugs and sometimes, sometimes, depending on the session is sometimes it's nice to open the door and get armful of hugs from everybody.
Kathryn Esquer 23:14
I can absolutely relate to that 100% I sometimes it's like I need to get home to hug them. During the pandemic, when my two little ones were downstairs with my sister, their aunt, she watched them throughout the day. And in between each session, I would go down and just like engage for a couple minutes. And it was just so refreshing to to connect to have that personal connection. For me personally, it was great. I had an amazing setup. Like not everyone had an aunt living with them. But I can I can absolutely really I miss it now.
Audrey Elbert 23:46
Yeah. And sometimes it's I need to take space. And again, communication and boundaries of sometimes I do open the door and I'm like, Hey, I love all of you. But like I need a second. So I'll give you some love again, some hugs. But like, I'm gonna go over here and just kind of decompress. And they allow me to and again, my fiance is really really good about boundaries and being able to secure me that space when and if I need it because he thoroughly understands doing several hours he doesn't under he's like, I don't know how you do it. Sometimes, but I think about it in realistic terms. I'm like, Yeah, we talk to people we talk all day, every day. For hours. It's hard. I'm like yeah, we do do hard work, right. But it's something that I can imagine just like both of you I'm very passionate about. So that definitely helps get me through the day. So sometimes I need that decompression time and maybe go for a walk or take a little space in the house. And Kathryn just like you said not everybody has the the benefit to have a large enough space to take that kind of space. So I can imagine for some people some of the challenge is not having a lot of space not being able to have a corner in the house to kind of escape to or to have an office to escape to. Because especially when the kiddos like, right now it's nice and quiet, because my partner is at his office, the kids are at school. Everything's good. But again, those first three months of lockdown it was just lots of anxiety around all the changes.
Kathryn Esquer 25:18
We were all making do, absolutely Audrey and you know like you said thankfully those those the first phase of lockdown like kids are back in school, we have more help, we can, we can use more help, we can reach out to our social circles. But these interruptions like pizza night like kids are always going to be home on a full moon are always going to be home on a Friday night, but this age they are and you're gonna have pizza, so you know, these interruptions are still going to continue as we integrate as we choose as therapists thoughtfully and purposefully choosing to integrate our practices into our homes. Right. And like you mentioned, there's a huge benefit in terms of relatability and being able to see the human side of therapists. But yes, you're exactly right. And about the clinical implications of breaking that emotional moment or breaking that deep dive, as well as you know, the thoughts and the worries of the transference. So I think it's it's beautiful that you brought such a relatable example to the show that I think I would I would love to meet someone who couldn't relate to this. The thoughts and parents or not, like everyone's had these types of interruptions. And the thoughts and the questions that you ask yourself, I think are the more important steps to, to mitigating the situation as opposed to brushing it under the rug.
Audrey Elbert 26:43
It's really challenged me to face my own self compassion against my professional perfectionism to give myself much more patience and understanding and lots more flexibility around what I deem is professional. It's also opened up opportunities to have conversation with clients where in the office, I could keep my personal life much more private. But here, it's sometimes it's impossible, because that reality kind of injects itself into the session. But I've been able to use it as a relatable point to make myself much more relatable to make make myself much more real. And to be able to let the client know that they aren't alone in this process, just as none of us are. And to encourage them to kind of roll with the punches sometimes that we can't prevent everything. We can only do so much to create boundaries and expectations. And not everything is going to go according to plan. So just as I've had to give up some control. I also continue to encourage my clients to do the same.
Allie Joy 27:57
That's so wonderful. And what would you say to another clinician who is experiencing again, I would love to find someone who hasn't maybe they're out there. But what would you say to another question who was experiencing this?
Audrey Elbert 28:07
Good question. Probably what I have tried to to have to tell myself, pull on that self compassion. Make adjustments to what you find to be professional or not kind of expand the definition of what professional is. Expand expectation of yourself. How can you use it as a strength in session? How can you advocate for yourself with people or the things that are interrupting if you have any sense of control? Give disclaimers that's one thing that in the beginning of working with a client or a couple I say like hey, just as an FYI, I do you have kiddos on the younger side, I do have a dog I have neighbors who will be mowing their lawn or doing snow removal or such. And again, busy street as a motorcycle drives by I don't know if either of you could hear that one. But these things are going to come into play. So to let potentially a client clinician know if you wanted to give a couple of disclaimers about the reality of doing telehealth or in home or even in office of what potentially to expect and what the client might need in relation to those expectations. If they have an auditory sensitivity or if they get if they struggle with focus, maybe they have some ADHD or something and then working out an understanding surrounding how you could meet their needs in real time and then help that client advocate for themselves. So how can you capitalize on it? How can you roll with the punches?
Kathryn Esquer 29:48
That is beautiful. How can we capitalize on it? Absolutely every I like how you take it and you say how can we use this as an opportunity for deeper, deeper or different from our diverse clinical work that we might not have had an opportunity to address in other scenarios. I love that. So Audrey, where can our listeners go if they want to connect more with you.
Audrey Elbert 30:14
So a couple of different places, they can find me on Psychology Today, I have a Psychology Today profile. So that's a really wonderful place to gain access to not only therapists in general, but also information about myself about my practice, Invest in Wellness LLC, and I am in works of putting together investinwellness ct.com. And I am actively hiring my first employee, so I'm super excited about that. So she'll be taking applications and requests from clients really, really soon. And yeah, I'm excited to kind of grow things from there. So yeah, right now, Psychology Today and the website. So we might expand beyond that to maybe Facebook, maybe we'll go Twitter, maybe Instagram. But we'll see, I've got my hands full with kids clients, dogs, pizza, podcasts. Yes.
Allie Joy 31:10
And we will link those in the show notes. So if people if you didn't catch it or didn't hear it, check out the show notes. You know, check out all the great stuff, Audrey. And that's so exciting. Congratulations on hiring your first clinician.
Audrey Elbert 31:23
Thank you so much. And thank you both for having me on. This has been really, really fun.
Allie Joy 31:28
Thank you so much.