We started with accountant rage. We ended at grief, the body, and a grandmother who was home.

Melissa walks Evan through his first focusing session using the Felt Sense Polyvagal Model — Gene Gendlin's somatic framework for making meaning of what your body is already trying to tell you. What starts as frustration about cash flow lands somewhere much deeper. Then the conversation shifts to where the field is falling short — and the clients paying for it.

In this episode:

• The Felt Sense Polyvagal Model and focusing — live, unscripted
• Countertransference and when the therapist's stuff shows up
• Sex offender treatment, TikTok moral panic, and clinical nuance
• A woman fired from a jail job for having a nervous system
• Dunning-Kruger in the therapy field — and why it matters
• Why licensure and aptitude are not the same thing

Two licensed therapists. Unfiltered. No coaches. No pop psychology. No wellness rebrands. New episodes bi-weekly.

Therapy practice links

Evan Miller, LCAS, LCMHC

www.millercounseling.net

Melissa Martin, LCMHC

https://www.emdrtherapyworks.com

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Evan sits down with Rhiana Holmes Turner for a sharp, honest conversation about therapist burnout, private practice, money, ADHD, recovery, and the culture of over-sacrifice in mental health. They talk about brain drain, disaster psychology, community mental health, performative social justice, and why helping people does not mean destroying yourself in the process.

• brain drain, disaster psychology, and why good intentions can still miss the point
• therapist burnout and the culture of self-sacrifice in mental health
• why so many clinicians stay underpaid, overworked, and stuck
• private practice, private pay, and charging what your work is worth
• the overlap between ADHD, addiction, systems, and adaptation
• recovery, shame, and how culture treats addiction differently than healing
• criminalization, punishment, and why rehabilitation is more complicated than people want to admit
• therapist branding, authenticity, and the pressure to perform a professional identity
• what it looks like to stop over-identifying with struggle and actually build a life

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Have any questions or insights about this episode? Reach out to us at contactus@tellmeaboutyourmother.run

In this episode, we unpack one of the most misunderstood dynamics in therapy: masking.We start with the Felt Sense Polyvagal Model and how somatic work helps clients notice real shifts in their nervous system. Then we get into what therapists often miss — clients who look “fine” in session but are shutting down outside the room.

We cover:

• Why clients mask in therapy (often without realizing it)
• How therapists can misread progress
• Dorsal vagal shutdown and what it actually looks like
• When a memory is too big for the client’s current capacity
• Why some people stay emotionally stuck for decades
• How blame can block real healing
• The link between underdeveloped identity and addiction risk
• Short-form content, attention and ADHD brains
• The pressure to appear regulated in everyday life

If you’re a therapist, helper or someone trying to understand why change can feel harder than it “should,” this episode will give you a much deeper lens.

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Support the show

Have any questions or insights about this episode? Reach out to us at contactus@tellmeaboutyourmother.run