- Hey everyone, it's Thursday!
And that means that I'm on Twitter answering your questions.
If you used the hash tag #katiefaq
or at the beginning of your direct message to me you said,
#katiefaq my question is blah blah blah,
I've read through them
and I'm gonna answer them for you right now.
And I have some really good questions today.
I'm actually excited.
So without further ado, my first question is:
"What is the difference
between a psychotherapist and a psychologist?"
Something that I'm learning the more that I do this,
the more I put out videos ... as therapists and
as professionals in the mental health field,
we use a lot of terms that you don't understand
because we never tell you what they mean.
Now, a psychotherapist is really a therapist.
Some people call themselves psychotherapists,
I personally don't, but I could.
That would technically fall under what my degree
and what my licensing is.
A psychotherapist is just a therapist.
That means that they have their master's degree,
that they've gathered their hours, they passed their exams,
and each year they continue to
get their education hours to hold their license.
A psychologist is someone who went to a four-year, for
graduate school instead of two, they went to four years.
They actually got their Ph.D. in psychology.
And so they're a psychologist and they have a different
licensing, kind of the same process,
but they're not a licensed marriage and family
therapist or a licensed social worker;
they're a licensed psychologist.
A lot of times the difference
between a psychologist and a therapist is,
psychologists can do a lot of research
and they can primarily find themselves in a lab
or running different studies and stuff like that.
They end up doing a lot of that and they can also do
a lot of testing, which therapists can do as well,
but some psychologists will specialize in doing that.
So yeah, that's the difference.
I hope that helps and makes sense.
And another term we use, obviously, is psychiatrist
is a medical doctor.
They've gone to medical school, they prescribe medication,
psychologists and psychotherapists, we don't prescribe,
we shouldn't even comment and tell you what we think
about medications that you should be on,
because we're not doctors, okay?
That always bothers me when people do that.
Okay! Question #2:
"I've been seeing my therapist for eight months.
How do I tell her about my eating disorder,
and will she be mad?"
First of all, she won't be mad.
As a therapist, it's not that kind of a relationship.
I don't get angry at my clients for saying things,
or not saying things.
I don't get angry at them for canceling an appointment,
it's not the relationship that I have with my clients.
I will wonder why you didn't tell me,
and I would probably ask you that.
I'd say, "I've been seeing you for a while and you haven't
said anything, can you tell me why that is?
What were you nervous about or worried I would do or say?"
Stuff like that, so that would be how I would get
into that conversation.
The way that I would tell her about it, is, I would,
since it's your therapist and that's a relationship,
I would say something, let's say you're my client
and you say, "You know, Kati, I know I've been seeing you
for a while, and I've just been really nervous to tell
you this, but I honestly think I have an eating disorder."
That's how I would say it.
I know that it's like, 'Oh my gosh, what's she gonna think?'
But it's your therapist.
We're there to support, we're there to seek to understand.
Yes, she will ask questions, but more likely she'll want
to know why you waited so long, and she'll also
want to talk to you about your behavior, so
we can figure out what we're struggling with,
and what help we might need, like a dietician,
or a check up from your doctor, et cetera.
I promise we're not scary
and we're just there to help and support, okay?
And let me know how it goes.
Question #3: "Is it true that self-harm is more common
in girls? If so, why or why not?"
This is a great question, and truthfully,
about 10 to 1, it is more common in women.
I actually looked up the statistics in the UK and the States
and it was 1,300 boys for every 24,000 girls.
So it might even be more than just 10 to 1, but
roughly it is more common in women.
And that happens, in my- and this obviously is just
my opinion, this isn't anything research shows.
Well, I guess, research does show that it's more common
for women to have eating disorders and it's more common
for women to have Borderline Personality Disorder.
Both of those disorders also tend to lead to self-harm
and can also have self-harm.
For many of you know,
I did my Borderline Personality Disorder video,
and another part of BPD can be self-harm.
I wanted self-harm to be its own diagnosis
because it doesn't always come with that,
but it's still just under BPD.
Because more women suffer from BPD as well as
eating disorders, and self-harm tends to happen with
a higher rate with people who struggle with those disorders
then our rates would be higher.
Also, more women tend to be depressed, as well.
I always wonder, now I'm just thinking out loud
and I'm blabbing and need to move on to the next question.
But, a lot of times women are more apt to talk about it,
women are more apt to get help.
Men, I did that interview with Brad Feld and he was saying
a lot of people thought I would be "weak" seen as
a weak guy but a lot of his friends have since reached out,
and said, "Please don't tell anybody
but I also struggle with that."
And it just shows you that our stats are probably way off.
It's probably more half-and-half, but since women
tend to talk more, we tend to reach out for help, there's
more statistics showing that we do struggle with it.
I know that's not a cut-and-dried answer, but that's
just my experience and the research that I've done, okay?
Question #4: "Trauma and therapy. How do you know
what you need to talk about
and how do you control your emotions
when you're recounting the experiences?
Is it normal to feel guilty talking about these things?"
What you need to talk about, let your therapist guide it.
I would start by getting that 'Courage to Heal' workbook.
It's phenomenal and I think it's really helpful for anybody
who has had any kind of sexual trauma or trauma in general.
The way that it speaks to you as the reader
and has you going through those work sheets and work books
is so helpful and so amazing.
I would just bring it up, that you've had something happen
that you haven't talked about it,
and let the therapist guide you.
Part of our training is knowing what questions to ask
and when to ask them.
Something I would definitely work out with your therapist
is rating your anxiety or your overwhelm feeling
on a scale of 1-10 and stopping when you get to a 7.
Just say, "Okay, that's enough for today, I'm at a 7.
I don't want to feel so overwhelmed."
Now what was the other question?
How do you control your emotions?
Just that: taking breaks. I find it helps my clients
to talk a little bit and then, 'Okay, okay, that's enough,
okay let's talk about something easier.
What are your plans this weekend?'
We change the subject and take breaks and then
maybe come back to it, maybe not that day, maybe next week,
but taking those little breaks to help ourselves calm down
can really help us keep pushing forward.
And grabbing that workbook because that will really help.
Is it normal to feel guilty talking about these things?
Yes, it is. Especially if we've been keeping this secret
of someone who may still be in our family
or may be a friend of the family.
We can oftentimes, because we haven't talked about it,
that negative voice will say, 'It's your fault,
you brought it on,' and it's telling us all these lies.
But we've been believing them, and so now
that we're finally reaching out for help,
that guilt can kinda hang on.
But, know that it will go away,
it's not your fault, you did nothing to make this happen.
You are not at fault at all.
The person who did this to you-
The person who did this to you is at fault, okay?
Please get help and please start talking about it.
I'll do more videos on that, too, because I know
that a lot of you struggle with that. Okay?
The journal topic for today is one of my favorite quotes.
One of my friends, Jerry, and I doubt Jerry's watching this
but if he is, shout out to Jerry.
He was one of my best guy buds at Pepperdine,
and his dad had a quote that's similar to this,
but I'm just gonna share my quote
and then I'll share Jerry's quote.
This quote says, "This is your life.
This isn't a dress rehearsal. Don't wait to start it."
So that pretty much is, don't wait to start your life.
What are you waiting for? This isn't a dress rehearsal.
It's happening right now.
Today is almost already gone!
And Jerry's dad's quote was,
"This isn't the half-time show, this is the game."
Like, you're in the game. It's already happening.
And you can tell it's a girl version versus a guy version.
That always really stuck with me and I always thought
what am I waiting to do?
I really want to see so and so in concert,
or I want to get tickets to Miranda Sings,
she's coming to LA.
What am I waiting for?
Why don't I just buy them? What am I doing?
Sometimes we, 'I want to go to Europe, I want to do this.'
I understand financially we can be restrained
but what's to prevent us from putting a plan together,
making it happen?
So what are you waiting to do, and what's one thing
that you can either do this week,
or you can start the process and start the plan
to make sure you can do it. And share!
Tweet them to me, send me pictures on Instagram.
I love to hear what you guys are doing!
And let me know how it's all going,
because life is happening right now
and I don't want any of us to miss it.
I will see you all tomorrow,
I'll be on Facebook because it will be finally Friday.
So, check me out tomorrow and I'll see you all then!
Love you! Bye!