E07: hurtpeoplehurtpeople#3 Talking About Therapy ft. Shatarupa Chakraborty

This is Strictly a No-Key on Podcast. Listener discretion advised. So welcome to another episode of Successfully Stress in which Tanisha and I, so we'll be talking about the second topic that we have taken under our series on mental health which is called hurt people, hurt people, which basically means that people who are hurt inside also tend to hurt others who are closer to them. So in this episode we're basically talking about therapy from A to Z, what is therapy, what is the scenario of therapy in India, in a country like India, how do we talk about therapy with our parents and including the whole scene of social media and what it talks about therapy. Tanisha now you can introduce our guest. So our guest for today is Ms. Shaturupa Chakra Warty. I hope I pronounced your name right. Yes please just give us a brief introduction and tell us what you do and. So hi I am Shaturupa, very complicated name so you guys can just stick to Shatur. I am a counseling psychologist and an expressive arts-based therapist. I'll just briefly explain what does that mean. So as a counseling psychologist I obviously work with clients who are struggling with mental health issues, any kind of mental illnesses and I use expressive arts essentially which means music, dance, visual arts, all of those aspects. I bring them all together within the therapeutic setting so that we can work on our goals, we can work on building insight, we can work on just expressing and having a creative aspect to problem solving, creative aspect to being creative aspect to how we see ourselves. So that's generally that's basically my work, that's my day to day and beyond that I'm very much interested in philosophy, I'm very much interested in pop culture. I think I spend a lot of time watching memes and all of those things so yeah I think like a generic millennial there. That's pretty much my day today and that's pretty much my interest philosophy, creative arts and psychology. Wow like that comes off is so interesting. I remember seeing you first on YouTube with Suhanisha and then I discovered what about you and then I saw your streams with Siddharth Varya. So recently I was just watching the stream in which you talk about philosophy like the first episode I think and you start with a meme and you start with a meme about a nihilist and like the whole purity from sociologists to mathematicians. I found some interesting, we wanted to call you especially because you were also indulgent art therapy which is something that I haven't really heard before and you also look at therapy from a point of view of you know building rather than only like building insight and all of that. So I think that was very interesting. Yeah let's just start with the questions what exactly is therapy like if I go to a therapy session what what is going to happen like what is that person going to ask me or am I going to be talking about something or like what exactly happens in therapy in a session. So there are different types of therapy okay. For example there are different schools of practice as well. So something that I practice for example is expressive arts based therapy and I very core my one of my core schools is cognitive behavior therapy which means I look at cognition cognition includes your thoughts, feelings and then comes your behavior alright. So actually looking at your core belief, looking at your schema if you are thinking this way for example something very basic about CBT is we follow this triangle called thoughts feelings behavior right. So if you have a thought it has a feeling along with it and there is a behavior associated with it right. So if for example if you are feeling really stressed so you go back why am I feeling stressed right what is the thought behind it. So you could be feeling stressed because you think you're not going to do well in your exams or whatever it may be and then you look at the behavior so if you're stressed and your thought is that I don't think I'm good enough or I don't think I'm prepared well enough what is the behavior that comes up. You could behave in many many ways it might be debilitating that the stress in itself doesn't let you study or it could push you to study even more right. So how does it just how do you connect your thoughts feelings behavior that's something that we do all we work on and and again there is no set way of thoughts feelings and behavior. Everyone will have some different subjective experiences subjective understanding. So that's one so there is cognitive behavior therapy then there is psychoanalysis right. So psychoanalysis I'm not sure if you guys have heard of Sigmund Freud he's like very popular so. So Sigmund Freud actually was one of those early practitioners who you know brought into concept popularity to two concepts when they stopped therapy that you know talking and talking about your feelings and talking about your thoughts and talking about your experiences can be a healing process. He was actually a psychiatrist and he also brought out the aspect of the unconscious that almost biological in nature that there are certain elements within us that we are just not aware of. So he called it the it it not just it's sorry. I heard no I these are the familiar I sort of read some article of Sigmund Freud's I just basically have heard of them I don't remember much now. No so so basically I think Freud kind of became famous slash and famous because of his obsession with connecting it with sex which is I think slightly misunderstood as well after studying him for years and years I do feel his kind of misunderstood but he did bring us a lot of insight into deeper a sense of being and deeper states of being which did not exist in the scientific module. Now coming to therapy when you go to a therapist what happens. So it really depends on which therapist you're going to. So figure out what what kind of work do you need. So for example psychoanalysts does very deep rooted childhood work it's it's longer right it's longer. CBT for example is comparatively shorter and comparatively more solution focused more right now what's going on let's look at that and if you if you're someone who connects with art for example so go see an expressive art space therapist. There are some people who do not connect with art it just does not click with them and that's all right so you go for someone you connect to some people do connect to very data driven very very cut throat logical approach they obviously go and approach that kind of therapist so do your research I think therapists are out there like I do I'm on Instagram and I think you pretty much know the kind of person I am and that belief system that I have and the work the kind of work that I do. So yeah please do do your research and I really appreciate clients when they come to me and ask me about certain things. So for example very recently you applied asked me about my approach to social justice like social justice oriented therapy. If I'm queer affirmative if I'm all of those things so please when you're choosing a therapist honestly it truly depends on who you're going to but yes of course the basic question is like how are you what do you do your timeline your case is three all of those of course are standardized but what happens beyond that is completely depending on those schools that they practice and what you want out of them as well. Okay so one follow question I had was what is a psychologist and what is a psychiatrist like I mean I hear these terms use very interchangeably so what is the exact difference is the difference in qualification or there is that is so a psychiatrist only gives medication they do not give therapy and a psychologist only gives therapy and not medication. Of course there are certain psychiatrist who have done a course in say a side or a master's who also give therapy but primarily a psychiatrist would have gone the route of Mbbs and then an MD and a psychologist would have gone the route of a BAMA and a psychologist. Okay I think that clears everything up firstly. Especially like the way you answered our first question as to what is therapy that was so extensive that I can see Tanisha changing things in the doc because you've already covered our next like eventual questions so you covered a bit of this in your previous answer as to who is qualified and the whole thing between qualifications but then is it like recommended that we take therapy from someone who has a qualification has experience and stuff because on Instagram and on social media we see like okay my best friend is my therapist or you know something like that I mean I'm sure like they say it like jokingly or I don't know they don't take it that seriously but if I want to get therapy like does the qualification of the experience matter and if it matters and who is that person that we should go like apart from the fact that we should do our research and the type of therapy to figure it out but then how much does the qualification and experience matter? 200% please do not see someone who is not qualified because at the end of the day you're dealing with your brain you're dealing with a very fragile part of you very unseen part of you a friend friendship is not therapy friendship is care. Herpes extremely different therapy is not just going to make you feel good about yourself that's part of it and some sessions can look like that where you feel relaxed and you feel good about yourself but therapy is actually a lot of work if you're going for therapy for example if you have a cold you go see a doctor you get your medication yet you wear your sweater you do you take care of yourself there are things that you have to do right like so for example don't drink a cold water and don't have ice cream blah blah blah blah so there are certain things that come along with what you're feeling these are certain things that only a therapist is trained with right your friend can care for your friend is so I see this like people call shopping therapy and all of these things which is nice yeah like go for it it basically it's making you feel nice but nice feeling nice is not the entirety of therapy it therapy includes actually going deeper inside you learning about yourself finding certain things which are very difficult to face even and then finding the strength and rebuilding and coming out and doing it and there is we build structures there are therapy plans that go in so if I have if I'm seeing a client I have plans give what am I doing with them today it's not like oh hey let's have a chat it's a full-on plan there is especially when it comes to CBT there are structures around it even RDBT so for example if I'm working with OCD clients if I'm working with clients who are say claustrophobic right for example so there's something called system systemic desensitization your friend if you are claustrophobic in your friend can be like hey it's okay at what else can we do it's a systemic desensitization I'm just giving you a very simple example where we have a plan for us we do an imagery of the event right so for example if you're claustrophobic with elevators so let's imagine the elevator first we work on the anxiety how to self-souling we have anxiety self-souling techniques we have relaxation techniques and then we move on slowly so and we structure it over a course of time again therapy is all about you another aspect of it is therapy is all about you a friend will come from a place of bias as well right they will think you should do things a certain way therapists is completely trained to be non-judgmental we do really have no judgments like I know people don't believe it and it's very strange and they don't but honestly I think so how we are trained during our masters and my infill and all of that is that we are kind of shown the darkest part of ourselves and everyone around us so you kind of become so okay with all of it that you accept it as just human nature and then you work on things based on what needs to be worked on so there is genuinely zero judgment and there is this is why most you will find that most psychologists are also very progressive and liberal because they really do have that perspective of the word so yeah like therapy is very different than say shopping and friend and gardening it these are all nice things to do these are all good things to do they they can also be part of therapy but they are not therapy as a whole I'm not going to like mention the word therapy when I really don't mean it like I'm not gonna say therapy like now I know what it actually means and it what actually consists of so be more careful of how I think it's okay to sort of because I think this is something that we're seeing as a right like I think recently I read an article where therapy speak like we are sort of taking language from psychology and using it in regular day to day for example the word boundary like I'm building boundary this is such a new thing to hear nowadays like I'm creating my safe space and I'm creating my self-care community care these are certain things that come from therapy and I'm happy that like people I think Komal Pandey is one of those very famous people who says fashion therapy or something yeah so it's okay you can use it it is part of therapy but not therapy she's she also goes to a mental health professional she doesn't just rely on fashion yeah so one question I had now you talked a lot about what therapist do and how they go about their patients who should get therapy like is it like just anyone can go or is it just you know who should who would advise to seek therapeutic help and I just want to add on to this question okay everybody has problems in life and those problems cause them some kind of stress so stress is not like completely you cannot remove stress from your life but then where and where you draw that okay now this is the point where shopping and talking to a friend is not working for me and I need to do more so where is that line or yeah I know it's very difficult to see this because it's subjective but then that is the whole question and there is a study on this I can definitely talk about it I don't think that is crazy enough there's a line that okay now you're crazy enough to go to therapy everyone can go even I go sometimes I also see a therapist now and I'm just to sort of check on what's happening again there are types of therapy so of course there are severely mentally ill people clients who who have to who don't have an option for example right so who are on medication who who might be institutionalized also now and then and they have to go to clinical psychologist so I'll just explain the degree thing counseling psychologist which is me I have done a bachelor's and a master's clinical psychology has done an M fill as well okay on top of it so in India to be a clinical psychologist you need an M fill as well so only clinical psychologist so for example places like NIM hands and all of these institutions have a clinical psychologist where severely mentally ill people go and they get that treatment then come people like us who can basically have a day-to-day functionality and day-to-day life without harming themselves or someone else actively and without losing touch with the reality yet need somehow right so yet which say can be relationship stress can be job stress can be anything which kind of leads you to feeling a little dysfunctional so so yes something that you mentioned they should know that there is a good type of stress and there's a bad type of stress if you don't have any stress at all that is also not functional then why would you do anything if it's too much stress that can lead to burnout and burnout leads to mental illnesses definition of a disorder right like a definition of a mental disorder psychological disorder is there is distress there is dysfunction and there is deviance so basically you are not okay with how you're feeling it doesn't feel right there is dysfunction and it's your basic job that you have to do it's you are able to do them and there is deviance so deviance from basic social norms right so behaving in a way which is not normal and in an unhealthy manner not in a very creative and a cool manner but almost in an unhealthy manner which is harmful so that's the definition of if you are experiencing any of them for sure for sure go and see some help and the help can look just like can just be therapy or can just be medication and can be both so you have to figure out you have to first see a psychologist get an assessment done and then you can figure out how it goes beyond that now other than that so people like us who are not exactly dysfunctional or deviant or distress but just want to figure themselves out figure their life out have a better understanding of their lives so something that I do is I go I often go for a therapy workshops myself right like not just me conducting but I because I enjoy that space I enjoy taking some time out for myself and working on myself so that's again so figure that out what do you need how much can you afford and all of all of those aspects right so there are three essentially different types of clients and different types of services available for you I think that really like I mean all your answers so comprehensive just like every we just really satisfied intellectually so another thing like I think this question is also segue into our next topic so what today if I ask you what is the general or average cost of getting therapy one therapy session and of course I don't think therapy like in one session you can really like achieve what you can what you need to so like if there are like a couple of sessions or like several sessions so what is the cost what would be the average cost to a person so see I think what we are struggling with and I since you guys are I'm going to ask you to advocate for this. We don't have insurance for mental health yet. We don't have insurance. So for any other medical services that you go for to a hospital or anywhere, insurance covers that. For mental health yet, we don't have it. So that's something, of course, that's a trouble, something. Right? Because you have to pay out of your pocket. Coming to that, there are different kinds of services. There are a lot of organizations who work on sliding scales. So for example, even I have some sliding scale slots. Then there are sort of, I'll explain what sliding scale is. So sliding scale is essentially. So for example, my range is 1200 to 2200 depending on your income capacity. So someone if they can pay 2200, please pay so that others can afford to just pay me 1200 and it was right. And understand this that a therapist cannot see more than say for two or five clients a day. So according to APA guidelines, you need to have one hour to one and a half hour break between each session. Otherwise you carry carry the burden and biases from each client to be. Overall, there are only limit. There is only limited time in the day and a therapist cannot see more than like for example, I cannot see more than four clients a day. Three to four is my limit. So I understand that we are still as a kind in the country. We are struggling with affordable, mental health care, but honestly, there are services available for cheaper. There are services available for free. There are headlines available, which I can understand not not. But you can try them out to save just to vent sometimes and figure out the even they have resources in fact they have resources to cheaper clinics. There are there is a size there is I call there are multiple. So if you cannot afford a lot, yes, but on average, I would say it is 1500 per hour and one session is definitely not enough. So on average, I see a client like four times a month. So once a week on average, it's 6000 per month that you have to kind of keep aside if you're going for that. So this was part one of our one-along conversation with Shotarupan therapy and part two is going to come out next Sunday in which she basically talks about whether therapy is a privilege in a country like India. And if it is then how can we make it more accessible to all she also talks about how social media views therapy and how do we talk to our parents regarding getting therapy. I really hope that you enjoy this episode and please stay tuned for the part two. Thank you for listening.