Shifting Roles from Therapists to Podcasters

Episode Transcription

Julia Baum (00:03.131)
Welcome everyone to the very first episode of Keeping Secrets with myself Julia Baum and

Sabrina (00:12.681)
ends myself Sabrina Tropper.

Julia Baum (00:15.815)
So yeah, today will be our first introductory episode. We're going to be discussing how we got to the point of starting a podcast as two independent therapists in private practice. We'll discuss what we've been through to get here, some trials and tribulations, talk about our intentions.

Sabrina (00:23.117)
Yeah.

Sabrina (00:30.496)
Exactly.

Julia Baum (00:44.765)
for the podcast and here we go.

Sabrina (00:47.181)
Yeah.

Awesome. Thanks so much for getting us started, Julia. So this podcast has been a long time coming, I think, if that's the right way to say it. Julia and I started talking about this, gosh, how long ago now? Almost two years? Is that possible?

Julia Baum (01:12.001)
I was thinking it was like a year and a half, but maybe two years. don't know. Let's go with a year and a half.

Sabrina (01:16.718)
Let's say a year and a half, let's say a year and a half. Yeah. We started talking about this a year and a half ago because, know, well, first we wanted to just kind of collaborate and do a project together and, and, know, feel free to interrupt and let me know if I'm like forgetting something, but, um, we wanted to just kind of collaborate as two therapists. We both wanted to try something new, but also related to what we already know and do, which is.

Julia Baum (01:34.653)
Mm-hmm.

Sabrina (01:46.168)
psychotherapy, and we ended up just kind of landing on the idea of a podcast. And we were our initial idea. again, correct me if I'm wrong, was, you know, to do something that was sort of adjacent to what we already do in our day to day. So not completely psychotherapy and mental health, because that is, like I said, we do that day in and day out and love it, but we wanted to

add something and something that might make it to a bigger audience or just more people somehow. So that's kind of in a nutshell how we got to where we got. And it's been a journey for us because this is like, I've never done anything really like this. I know Julia, you haven't either, right?

Julia Baum (02:39.633)
Never ever ever.

Sabrina (02:41.262)
Yeah. So I know personally, was a struggle in a way that I wasn't anticipating in the beginning. Yeah, not sure how... I just, yeah, I didn't anticipate some of the hurdles, but we got through them and I'm so proud of us that we're here, we're doing it. What do you think?

Julia Baum (03:05.798)
Mm-hmm.

Julia Baum (03:09.689)
Yes, there were so many obstacles for us as trained therapists that have absolutely no experience in recording a podcast or anything like it. mean, even just determining what program do we use to record this? Which microphones do we buy?

Sabrina (03:13.07)
Yeah.

Sabrina (03:24.59)
Yeah.

Sabrina (03:33.601)
Yeah.

Julia Baum (03:38.237)
little foam thingy do we buy to put on top of the microphone? Just all these little details that took a lot of research because we both have no experience in this area. We're also both, I think this is fair to say, more of a listener type person. So it's really different.

Sabrina (03:52.438)
Hahaha

Sabrina (04:04.065)
It is fair.

Julia Baum (04:07.003)
role to be the one who's doing all the talking. so there's emotional hurdles and psychological hurdles, identity, explorations. Who am I if I'm the one being on the camera?

Sabrina (04:12.236)
Yes!

Sabrina (04:20.47)
Yeah?

Sabrina (04:26.816)
Yeah.

No.

Julia Baum (04:32.379)
So it's been a lot from, technical and even just logistically with both of us having a private practice, finding times to meet and being consistent with that has been a challenge. all of this has been the accumulation of, think, a lot of steadiness on our part, just staying the course, baby steps, and...

Sabrina (04:43.149)
Hmm?

Sabrina (04:57.09)
Yes.

Julia Baum (05:00.989)
We're here and we are not pretending to be experts in the podcast arena at all, but I think it's fair to say we are experts in therapy and in what we do, and we have a lot to say about that. We've both been in private practice for many years. Yeah.

Sabrina (05:21.134)
Yeah, and in the mental health field for a combined 20 years between the two of us.

Julia Baum (05:26.117)
Yes, combined 20 years of experience in the mental health field. So we have a lot to say, a lot of opinions. So yeah, maybe we could speak a little bit about our intentions for this podcast.

Sabrina (05:34.658)
Yeah.

Sabrina (05:44.94)
Yes, I'd love that. Thanks. And I want to just mention, this is a little random, but so both Julia and I have a prior background in the arts. I think that's, that may have been a factor in our desire to do something else or something new. Julia majored in fine art, I'm sorry, photography in undergrad and I majored in music.

music performance. So I thought, silly enough that I would be able to kind of remember all the stuff I had learned years ago and think about like, you know, but I wasn't a recording artist. wasn't in this. I also, you know, the equipment is foreign to anyway, my point is even with that background, it was, it was hard. It was a hard transition. So.

Julia Baum (06:41.693)
Mm-hmm.

Sabrina (06:43.762)
That said, shall we transition into our intentions for this podcast?

Julia Baum (06:49.501)
Yeah, for sure. But that is a great point. There is something creative about both of us that I think contributed to this point.

Sabrina (07:01.91)
Yeah, I just thought of that and needed to share. It's a little aside from where we were going. all right. So, yeah, so our intentions for this podcast, I think, are pretty straightforward. You know, some of that we've already mentioned a little bit about, but I think I'll just start us off with, you know, the...

Julia Baum (07:05.371)
Mm-hmm.

Julia Baum (07:09.074)
Mm-hmm.

Sabrina (07:26.698)
Some of our intentions, I think, were to sort of focus on what we've noticed in our therapy clients and practice in terms of like cultural changes out in the world and how they're influencing mental health and our therapy work, along with how trends in social media have also been shifting things. Feel free to add anything to that or what do you think, Julia?

Julia Baum (07:54.717)
Yeah, yeah, for sure. I like I say, we've been doing this a long time, but in the grand scheme of counseling, it's just, you know, a little subsect of time. But even within that, we've seen changes in terms of what people are coming, like the kind of things people come in wanting to work on or talk about.

Sabrina (08:10.679)
Yeah.

Julia Baum (08:21.595)
what they expect to get out of therapy, what they expect of the therapist. There's definitely been shifts, and it's really interesting as individual practitioners to see that. And I think we're both craving to kind of process that together. And because it's an interesting topic for us, we're thinking it's likely to be interesting for other people too. So why not share the conversation?

Sabrina (08:40.334)
Mm-hmm.

Sabrina (08:49.068)
Yeah.

Yeah, exactly. think that's the best way to put it. Things are really changing, not just culturally out in our world. We're in North America, in case anybody's listening from elsewhere. But also sociopolitically, things are changing. And we're not really going to focus as much on politics, if at all, really. think what our intention was

pretty clear from the beginning was to just kind of see how does that, how are people being affected now in the way that the world has changed? And a lot of that can be seen on, not on social media, but from social media. For example, I have clients all the time that come in and tell me about their interactions with social media and, I saw this thing on TikTok and I've been thinking about this and it's weird, it just came up because the algorithm is...

is based on your interest and what you spend time looking at. So it's gonna feed you sort of what you wanna see. And that is a challenge that we, not just as therapists, but I think just as people. When I was in high school, there wasn't really social media yet, not in the way that it is now. And things have just changed so much.

Julia Baum (09:59.292)
All

Sabrina (10:20.352)
Yeah, it's really like about a lot. It's been adapting. It's been a process of adaptation and kind of figuring things out as they change.

Julia Baum (10:27.407)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. And therapy itself has, you know, the stigma has gone down. It's still there for sure, but so much effort has gone into de-stigmatizing it. So I think more people are going to therapy, talking about their therapy experiences. And that's also coming up on social media. Therapists are also on social media.

Sabrina (10:49.92)
Yeah.

Julia Baum (10:55.537)
talking about how they work and their practices, which also informs expectations that people have going into therapy. There's also so many venues now that you can get therapy and even so many mediums that can come through, like from face to face to texting and everything in between. yeah, things have been changing rapidly. And you and I have

Sabrina (11:11.298)
So.

Sabrina (11:17.879)
Yeah.

Julia Baum (11:25.329)
been alone in a lot of ways professionally. But when we come together and we talk about it, we have very, very similar experiences and perceptions about how things are changing and how people are affected by the changes.

Sabrina (11:43.234)
Yeah, absolutely. And I think you made a really good point too in sort of the idea that like you and I are both in our own private practices, meaning that we're also kind of isolated in that way. A lot of therapists are. In fact, most therapists, you know, when you're working one-on-one or even in groups, it's a different sort of thing. And it's important for us to have a space to process, but this is also an opportunity for us to share.

sort of what we've been witnessing, I guess, working with and working through with a larger audience and maybe even a community of sorts in a way. Yeah.

Julia Baum (12:25.411)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. For sure. Yeah. And it's an exercise for us and just being in a very different role. And we're going to be as vulnerable as we can here without jeopardizing any of our clients' work, any of our clients' confidentiality. But just trying to give a little bit more of an insider's perspective into

Sabrina (12:48.376)
Yes.

Julia Baum (12:54.299)
what it's like being a therapist today. And for people who have no experience in the field at all, it'll be revealing. And for those that have some work experience in this world, it should be pretty relatable.

Sabrina (13:11.83)
Yeah, exactly. So really there's something for everyone. Like you don't have to have any knowledge or anything like that. We're not gonna be, you know, heavy on the jargon or the professional language with this. That's not our intention. We just kind of wanna talk through the process of it and yeah, what we're, maybe not the process, but the, you know, the profession, what we're seeing, how

our thoughts about things in therapy and in the world.

Julia Baum (13:44.881)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know if I've ever said this exactly out loud to you, but I kind of think about this podcast as like if you were at a cafe or something and you realize you're sitting next to two therapists and you just start eavesdropping. I think that's kind of what this podcast is. We're talking like we're in public, but it's real stuff.

Sabrina (14:05.462)
Yeah. Yeah.

Ha!

It is, it's not, we're talking like we're in public, but we're not in public. So you are going to hear some stuff that we wouldn't just say anywhere or in any setting. And I think that's the best analogy is to think of it as like, we're in a coffee shop right now catching up as two therapists. This is our spot to do that and to talk through some of the challenges, the...

Julia Baum (14:20.039)
huh.

Julia Baum (14:36.316)
Right.

Sabrina (14:44.51)
the highs, the really wonderful things and everything else about it.

Julia Baum (14:49.081)
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, yeah. And all while leaving out any personal information about our clients. That's super important, but we're going to be as revealing as possible about our own perspectives. And it should be a pretty fun conversation. It's definitely one I've been craving for a long time. So I'm happy to do this with you.

Sabrina (14:56.172)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Sabrina (15:03.214)
Thank you.

Sabrina (15:11.148)
Yeah.

Me too. Same. I'm so happy that we're doing this, Julia. And, yeah, I think that we're off to a good start. just, there's one other thing I wanted to mention, but I think I'm forgetting what it is. yeah. You mentioned a little bit about this earlier. It's that sort of the discomfort with, you know, both of us are kind of very comfortable as listeners, which is what we do all day. That's our job.

I think there's another element too, that's related, which is that as therapists were, you know, we're taught to be, to keep things private, to keep things to ourselves, to keep our clients, private, that's a way that we take care of them. That's a way that we protect them. And some of this is also just from a professional perspective, a little, it has been.

challenging to get used to, I think for both of us. So I think that's been a long process and it's been really interesting and eye-opening for me anyway.

Julia Baum (16:16.943)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Julia Baum (16:26.703)
Yeah. I guess maybe before we say goodbye for today, maybe we could each share what we found to be the most surprising aspect of this journey through to the start of our podcast.

Sabrina (16:42.358)
Yeah.

Sabrina (16:48.074)
Yeah, that's a great idea. Okay. I think for me the most surprising piece was, there were many, I, but I think...

Selfishly the most surprising piece. And I think this actually was for both of us a little bit. How uncomfortable I am in front of a camera. Just, you know, being center stage is not something that I'm used to, which is strange because, you know, I was a musician for, or professional musician for years, but a very long time ago, that was my main thing. And I felt comfortable.

but I was comfortable holding an instrument, not singing into a microphone or something like that. So that's probably a part of this too. Yeah. Yeah.

Julia Baum (17:44.071)
just like how exposed and vulnerable it feels. Yeah. Yeah. And as a therapist, you get to pay attention to other people all day and the focus is on them. we've become so comfortable with that. mean, that's just kind of my natural inclination. So that's an easy default for me. this is, yeah, not.

Sabrina (17:57.036)
Yeah. Yeah.

Julia Baum (18:13.307)
where I gravitate, but it's good to challenge yourself and do things that feel uncomfortable. Yeah, I mean, that's a good one. think also just, I know I talked about this before, but like how many technical aspects need to be sorted out to do this? Because when we first started talking about it, we saw articles, know,

Sabrina (18:35.486)
Yeah

Julia Baum (18:41.671)
Three steps to starting your podcast or, you know.

Sabrina (18:46.328)
So misleading. It's not that easy.

Julia Baum (18:47.397)
Yeah. And just, yeah, kind of going through this process of like, do we, are we just missing something? Why does this seem like it would be easy? But it's not. But I think after going through all this, I can confirm it's not. And, and, and therefore I'm proud of us for pushing through. But I mean, yeah, I don't know why

Sabrina (18:58.958)
Yeah.

Sabrina (19:12.002)
same.

Julia Baum (19:16.925)
I don't know why it's so pervasive that it's so easy to start a podcast.

Sabrina (19:23.532)
You know, I was thinking about that because you and I had spoken, we've been, you know, talking about the process also for a while. I don't know, but one thought that came to my mind is because there's so much like content online and things are so content driven with social media and stuff like that. People are just kind of vying for everybody's attention. That's how, that's how influences influencers make their money. Right. So.

It's advantageous for people to be able to write a how-to that's simple, simplistic, and can make anyone want to do anything. That's my theory. But the truth is that maybe it is, I don't know, maybe it's easier for some people, but it wasn't easy for us.

Julia Baum (20:07.281)
Alex

Julia Baum (20:14.863)
Yeah, I think it's fair to say if you don't have experience in this world, it's not easy. But it is kind of a nice little example of how the real world and what you're seeing written in articles and tips and tricks and all that stuff don't necessarily match up.

Sabrina (20:31.586)
Yes.

Sabrina (20:36.064)
Yeah, I think it's a really good reminder. Yeah, they often don't match up.

Julia Baum (20:38.365)
Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, so we'll be continuing to learn and chat. And we'll talk with everyone again next episode.

Sabrina (20:47.116)
Yes.

Sabrina (20:53.26)
Yeah, I hope you tune in to the next episode. And we're really excited to be here. And feel free to let us know if you have any thoughts. Bye.

Julia Baum (21:02.843)
Yep. Bye.