ACT, MFT and ABA: Discovering a Unique Alphabet with Matt Tapia (Part I)

ABA on Tap is proud to present Matt Tapia (Part 1 of 2):

Matt Tapia is a dually-credentialed professional, holding licenses as both a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (LMFT) in Arizona and California and a Board Certified Behavior Analyst (BCBA). This unique background allows him to offer a comprehensive, integrated perspective on mental health and behavior, drawing from both clinical counseling and applied behavior analysis.

Matt's therapeutic approach is heavily influenced by third-wave behavioral therapies, including Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), Mindfulness, and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). His work focuses on helping individuals, couples, and families navigate a broad spectrum of challenges, such as anxiety, depression, trauma, relationship issues, life transitions, and caregiving stress, particularly for those within the autism and neurodivergent communities.

In addition to his clinical practice, Matt serves as a Subject Matter Expert for the Behavior Analyst Certification Board (BACB) where he helps develop and review national exam questions for aspiring BCBAs and RBTs. He holds a master's degree in Counseling Psychology from Santa Clara University and is an active member of several professional organizations, including the Association for Contextual Behavioral Science (ACBS). With a commitment to meeting clients where they are, Matt uses a collaborative, team-based approach to help people build meaningful and fulfilling lives.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:10

Welcome to ABA on TAC, where our goal is to find the best recipe to brew the smoothest, coldest, and best-tasting ABA around. I'm Dan Lowry with Mike Rubio, and join us on our journey as we look back into the ingredients to form the best concoction of ABA on tap. In this podcast, we will talk about the history of the ABA brew, how much to consume to achieve the optimum buzz while not getting too drunk, and the recommended pairings to bring to the table. So without further ado, sit back, relax, and always analyze responsibly.

SPEAKER_04: 0:54

Alright, alright. And welcome back to yet another installment of ABA on tap. As usual, I am your ever grateful co-host, Mike Rubio, with Mr. Dan Lowry. Mr. Dan, it's been a while, sir.

SPEAKER_00: 1:08

Very, very excited to be back. It's been a while since we've been in the Reptile studio. We have a really, really good guest and really excited to end the year on a high note. We've had such a great year and gonna go out with a bang.

SPEAKER_04: 1:19

You know, we've often talked about people that are double, triple threats, you know, have a lot of credentialing, a lot of experience. We've had the pleasure of meeting autistic individuals who are also BCBAs. And then there's today, which is now our guest adds a whole other set of letters that really brings a skill set I think which must be amazing and tremendously unique for our field. So what I'm talking about here is somebody who is familiar from receiving services end, perhaps, and then is now delivering and designing those services, and then on top of that has a set of credentials that allows him to understand the full family dynamic in a way that again I think is very unique. So very excited to talk to this uh young professional, this gentleman today. We thank him for his time. Without further ado, ladies and gentlemen, Matt Dapia.

SPEAKER_01: 2:14

Hi everyone. Thank you so much, Mike and Dan. Hi everyone.

SPEAKER_04: 2:20

All right, go for it.

SPEAKER_01: 2:21

Yeah, thanks, thanks, Mike and Dan. Sorry, I went a little early there.

SPEAKER_00: 2:25

It is all good, Matt. Um it's all good. Thank you for joining us. So, what we usually like to do, Matt, is thank you again for joining us on a Sunday, is get started with an origin story. So if you could tell us a little bit about yourself, you can start as far back as you want. Introduce the audience to yourself. We're very excited to have you on.

SPEAKER_01: 2:46

Yeah, well, thanks again, Mike and Dan. Appreciate the time. Yeah, so my name is Matt, Matt Tapia, and a little bit about myself. Well, a licensed marriage family therapist in Arizona and California. I'm also a BCBA. And yeah, I guess we can go back a little bit. I'm not gonna try to go back too far. But short story, I guess I'll sum it up. I was diagnosed with Osberg's syndrome when I was seven years old. And uh it came about a little later, I guess, in life, than some typical, most typical kids. But it was really noticed when so in school, I was in first grade, and you know, my teacher started you know talking to my parents, noticing, hey, you know, there's something going on here. Just seems really distracted in class, struggling to make friends, you know, so you could see the size. I think I think at first I thought it was ADHP. So, you know, talk to my parents about it, my parents were like, Yeah, we can pronounce the same thing at home. So they made an appointment with a psychiatrist, and uh and that's that's all she wrote. I was still in that hall, but I was diagnosed with Osbergers at the time, which come to know later would be part of that autism diagnosis uh with the DSM V. Right. So you know, but the services I got it was a lot different back then. This was like maybe like late 90s. Okay. So ADA wasn't quite as prevalent yet during that time. So my parents never heard of AVA, I never heard of ABA. The services were really limited, so the treatment at the time for me at least was basically medication, which is unfortunate.

SPEAKER_04: 4:20

Oh, interesting.

SPEAKER_01: 4:20

So first they tried it, yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 4:22

It's just a stimulant stimulant medication, like ADHD kind of crossover off-label use of it. I I imagine that's what they were trying at that day at that time.

SPEAKER_01: 4:30

No, that's that is what they were, yeah. So they tried Ritalin was the first one. I remember that very clearly. Only because my parents would later tell me, Oh, Matt, you know, we don't like you on Ritalin, you like the zombie. Oh, and I said, Oh, I didn't notice that. But I'm like, okay, so then they tried um Adderall and then eventually settled on BuSpar or Busparone, which is an anti for anxiety. Yeah, which I felt did nothing. But I guess they said, okay, that's helping a little bit. So I stuck with that for years. That's where we uh we kind of landed on in terms of treatment, was just anti-anxiety, or I guess. So yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 5:07

Behaviorally speaking, that's interesting in the sense that interoceptively you weren't feeling a change, but your environment is saying, you know, for lack of better phrasing, hey, we seem to like you a little better. Whatever it is you're eliciting from your environment, it's working better for other people. That's a that's fascinating. I mean, there's there's a lot of analysis to be done there. What what's your recollection of that? Did that make you feel somewhat conflicted that you didn't feel better per se? Or maybe you weren't feeling badly at all, but your environment was telling you that there was some concern. I don't know. I mean, there there's a lot of insight there that I think you could provide our listening audience with.

SPEAKER_01: 5:48

Yeah, so at at the time, uh as young, I didn't really notice much. So I didn't I didn't really care, I guess. Like I was just like, okay, my rats telling me that'd be great.

SPEAKER_04: 5:58

You were doing just fine. Right.

SPEAKER_01: 6:00

I'm doing just fine. I don't, yeah. Uh so I'm like, okay. I mean, did it help in some areas that I think could have been helped? No. I'll get into that in a little bit. So I guess the big thing is my parents noticed, my teachers noticed, of course. I didn't notice, but I was kind of content with it. But the part that really stuck with me that I thought I struggled with and I really wanted to fix was social emotional reciprocity. I struggled to make friends. I really struggled to understand people and connect with people, and that was so distressing for me growing up.

SPEAKER_04: 6:35

That um that that leaves an impression that you had a drive to make a connection with people and and diagnostically that might uh be conflicting for some of us out here and saying, well, maybe there's a social disinterest that might be used diagnostically. What you're saying doesn't hold true that you're saying I wanted to connect, I just didn't know how to do so in a way that felt you know reciprocally, mutually beneficial.

SPEAKER_01: 7:02

Yeah, no, exactly. I I think that's a common misconception of autism is that people with autism or autistic people don't want friends, don't want social connection. And I think it's more of that skill of no, we do, we just don't know how, and we don't have the skills yet to do that. And it was frustrating too because it seems to come so natural to people, at least from my perspective, it was like, oh, these people get it so easily, and I'm like, ah, why don't I why don't I?

SPEAKER_04: 7:32

Someone's a little frustrating. So this is your uh, you know what, you're saying this is five, six, seven years old. You land on the Buse Bar, somehow your environment is responding or receiving that well. You're still sort of asking questions. Give us a little bit more. This is this is already uh off to a great start here. You're you're providing a lot of fantastic insight.

SPEAKER_01: 7:54

Wonderful. Yeah, and I I want to also just you know, the disclaimer of like my experience is my experience. This is not every person I talked to. But for me, yeah, I struggled with it a lot, and I kind of stumbled my way through. It's like stumbling in the dark without a light, without a flashlight. And somehow you get things right by mistake, and other times you don't. And um so I think I did try to overcompensate in a lot of areas. Like I was okay, I'm struggling with this, so I'll focus on school. I'll try to do well academically. And so for a while that was my strength. I really worked hard to get a good grades to please people, especially my parents, you know. My parents tried to help with that because they actually had contingencies in place for me to do well. Oh, you get an A, here's a dollar, here's five dollars. You know, you get me on a test, great. Congratulations. Here's a pat on the back, and here's uh five dollars for a dollar. But if you didn't, oh there was punishment for sure. You know, you grew up in that family, like, oh you didn't get an A, you gotta see. You know my dad was really strict when it came to academic performance. Like we gotta study. I remember staying up all night until like 11 or midnight just working on studying or doing just uh homework because it wasn't right. And so I yeah, I was it was it was expected in my family to do you know, perform well academically, get your grades, go to school. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 9:14

So that was your currency that that you found that kind of helped build your self-esteem was that you were able to see yourself being successful through schoolwork?

SPEAKER_01: 9:22

Yeah, yeah, exactly. So yeah, that that lasted for a while, and I still struggled to make friends growing up, even until high school. It was I just kept to myself, kept my head down, and just did score.

SPEAKER_00: 9:36

So with the the friends piece, I think that leads to an interesting discussion about masking, because you know, better than anybody, or at least better than we would, that oftentimes maybe individuals on the spectrum may have some different social behaviors than individuals not on the spectrum. So when you started interacting with people and and you said even at this point you still haven't really gotten out of your social cocoon, when you did, did you find that you had to mask to relate to other people? And and what was that experience like?

SPEAKER_01: 10:50

Absolutely, yeah. I did, I definitely had a mask for a long time. So, what was that like? Well, what's the best word of college? Uh college, you know, finally being wise at home for the first time. I I don't think my experience is entirely unique in this way, but definitely engaged in a lot of binge drinking. Using alcohol as a way to like help we've heard this, loop, you know, help social you know interaction.

SPEAKER_00: 11:12

So like that's so interesting, Matt, that you mentioned that because one of the other autistic BCBAs that we had on. Oh, I might that's okay. We don't have to relate. Yeah, anyway, she she talked about her collegiate experience, yeah, a lot of alcohol in the beginning. Anyway, go ahead. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 11:29

Yeah, yeah. So Yaka was like, ooh, okay, this is a godsend, yes. So, you know, at first everyone, you know, I I went to college, everyone, everyone's drinking, so like, yeah. And I felt wow, okay, I don't feel this pressure anymore. I'm not excited in a way. Ooh. So yeah, I I would say I definitely met criteria. Probably for some kind of binge drinking disorder, probably uh in college. But I found it was easier to socialize, easier to make friends, go to parties.

SPEAKER_04: 11:58

Yeah, it puts you right in the map.

SPEAKER_01: 12:00

It it does, it really does. And it's like, oh, okay, and so I overrelied on it without even realizing it in the at the time. Okay. And so, yeah, so that was and that plus me also learning to mask was pushing myself to do things that I would normally say, no, I wouldn't do this. For example, I I took jobs that involved working with people, customer service jobs, jobs where I had to sell to people, and I'm like, I cannot sell. I cannot like no, I couldn't, but I tried and sometimes failed. But yeah, no, I would mask in a lot of different ways. I would mask by what was I gonna do? I would not play up my interest. So I had like these very strong interests in things, and I would try to tone it back a little bit, like okay, yeah. Like, oh, I'll pretend like I don't know much about this topic because I don't want to seem like I'm super like a nerd or a geek in this area. So like, ah, I'll show it, I'll fade an interest, but not overplay it. Uh so that was one way of masking, other ways. Yeah, I missed the drinking. That was the big one, probably drinking.

SPEAKER_00: 13:01

The drinking's funny because I don't know if you watch do you like Bill Meyer or Bill Mayer? I guess I don't know if you're familiar with him at all. I've seen a few clips, I'm familiar. I've seen a few clips. His episode last night, he had Scott Galloway on, the professor, and one of the clips was people should drink more. And he was talking about the the process that Americans are drinking less. And it was just an interesting relating that as Americans drink less, they become less social. And he was saying, well, drinking allows people to get out and maybe reduce their inefficiency a little bit so they can interact more. And he was saying that in small amounts, alcohol could actually be a bet net a net benefit to society because it helps people interact more. It was just interesting, made me think of exactly what you were saying.

SPEAKER_01: 13:44

No, that's that's really interesting, actually. I didn't think of that before, but yeah, I think in small amounts, it definitely helps people become more social, willing to talk to other people that they normally wouldn't talk to, or talk about topics they normally wouldn't. It decreases that inhibition. So that's really interesting. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 14:01

Watch the uh real time with Bill Mayer from Friday night. You might uh find that interesting.

SPEAKER_01: 14:05

Oh definitely, thank you.

SPEAKER_00: 14:07

One other question. So you said that you've got jobs where you are interacting and then selling to other people. In order to sell to other people, you really have to relate to somebody and find out why they want to purchase whatever the product is or you know, connect with them so I can tell you what about this product is gonna be useful for your life. And I know you said you had some successes and failures, so can you talk about that experience of having to connect with some? Yeah. Oh, a lot of failures. Oh, okay. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to no, no, but it's okay.

SPEAKER_01: 14:38

Because uh, I look at it back now, I'm like, dang, I was like a robot. So like I would memorize scripts, like this is the way I did it, and this is probably the way we do it when we teach like social skills. I'm thinking now to like when we teach social skills to like clients, right? We took scripts, so I would memorize these scripts word for word and be like almost like ringing up a card, like not you know, my boss would tell me, Well, I'm glad you're doing script, but you are way too robotic, you're too scripted, and people can see it, and I'm like, Well, you gave me the script as a tool, like I'm using it, why isn't it working? And and she was like, Well, you drop the script, and I'm like, but you told me to use the script, and so I was so confused. I was like, Well, I'm using the script, I'm saying exactly. And she was like, Well, they're not feeling you're not authentic, you know, you don't care about the pro so to give some context to this, okay. I worked at You can Candle, and it was my first job, and it was it was in a mall. And I don't know how I got that job. I think I BSed my way through it to be honest. But uh she was like, you know, you know, you're you gotta enjoy the product, you gotta so she was like, you know what, take a few products home, go enjoy it. And I'm like, okay, okay. I have no interest in candles at this point, I don't care about it. But I'm like, fine, I'll try it. It's a free product, why not? Let's try it. So I lit it up. I'm like, okay, that smells nice, okay. I like this. My room smells nice and clean. And honestly, I I I was the only guy working there at the time, so I found it was a good way to relate to girls. You know, I'm like, ooh, okay, this is a good way to date. There we go. So I worked with a lot of coworkers who were girls, and yeah, I developed a crush on one of them. Hopefully, you know, I don't think she wanted to listen to this, hopefully. But um we were friends. I was definitely in I don't want to use that word friends, I think that's oh, I hate that word now, but we were friends. And um, yeah, we were definitely friends, but I was like, oh, okay. And she's like, you know, and I think she was talking about what I'm like, we were hanging out in my car and I had the fair freshener and she's like, Oh, it smells nice here. I'm like, yeah, the air fresher from work. For those of you who don't know, we have a candle, I think it's mid midnight, midsummer night or something. It's the black one. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It smells like a cologne. Sure. So she really liked it. I was like, okay, this is a good way to get ladies. So yeah, I used that, got some cows, made my place smell nice. Well, now you appreciate it. I was like, okay. Now you could sell. Now you sell you could sell. Now I couldn't sell the women, but I could definitely sell the guys. Um, you know, hey, like I see guys coming to us out with stab store. I'm like, hey, you know, hey, you got a girlfriend. You know what? Come in here for a second. Just trust me on this. And so I had a way to sell the people. I was like, hey, this will help you guys help you with the ladies. So put this in your car.

SPEAKER_04: 17:11

What a fascinating, you know, like like little anecdote you're lending there. Again, in terms of of how a topic like masking can be a little bit controversial, and then we can talk about how it also has some adaptive features and sort of runs across the board. And then what you're relating to and the connection you were able to make socially and now, you know, trying to get these jobs, you know, for whatever masking purpose, you know, fully was in your mind, and then realizing that you weren't successful, but you having enough perseverance, enough of a motivation to then find that connection socially, which is now, hey, this girl enjoyed the way my car smelled, and now I can maybe sell it to that dude. That's really complex, right? And and you made the illusion that uh how we do social skills training. And how we do social skills training is nowhere close to what you described right now. Uh aside from the script. Aside from the script. But that's kind of where I'm going, is like, okay, what we can learn a lot from this. I mean, I don't, you know, there's no question, but let's break that down. Like that it, you know, there's a lot to be taken from where it started with a simple masking motivating operation in a sense. And then all of a sudden, you're successful somewhat at this sales position, which is also putting you in in plain sight of social interaction, which is a great place to practice getting better at socializing. So, again, a lot of steps that that I don't know that we could recreate these things in treatment settings, but we could probably learn a lot from it, you know? Anyway.

SPEAKER_01: 18:44

Anyway. That'd be hard. I'm thinking how we could recreate this now in a clinical setting.

SPEAKER_04: 18:49

So, you know, again, what are the pieces that you had to connect there? Like again, anticipating, clearly anticipating the the reinforcing consequence in terms of this girl sitting in your car now appreciating the smell. We couldn't have that would have been a hard one to conjure up or contrive, right? For any of us. But yeah, that's again super cool story in terms of like this happened, and then finally it clicked. And then I could not only be better at my sales position, but I am now having interactions that are are less masked, and maybe you feel more comfortable about them. And it's a lot of it's probably small talk, but it still feels good to just go through those motions.

SPEAKER_01: 19:26

Absolutely. Yeah, it's a really good to go through those emotions and feel successful, like, okay, I'm finally because at this store, right? Like, I mean, I guess in retail, like they, you know, they put numbers, like they compare your average to, you know, they look at your sales, and I was consistently ranked at the bottom for a long time. And then finally starting, I started like, okay, I'm in the race now. I'm getting competitive. Like, oh, okay, I can I can sell now. So that really helped. I I still struggled a little bit with it, especially when it came to to women. I think the candle sales were like 90%, mostly women, and I struggled with that, of course. But uh, I still worked pretty well. I was able to sell some guys. A lot of guys bought air fresheners for me or the air fresheners. And I said, you know, you can make your bedroom smell like that too. You can get a candle. Hey, there we go now. So now it's getting real. Yeah. And I I was like 17, 18 at the time. I was in my first year of college. And so like I I think that was a big motivator for me too, is wanting a relationship, wanting, you know, that's when I started yeah, you know, started dating and getting I was like a late bloomer, so I didn't start dating in high school. I tried it was not successful. Uh but college was a successful time for sure. There you go.

SPEAKER_04: 20:37

Well that that's the that's it's supposed to be that way. Yeah, it's supposed to be that way. That's good.

SPEAKER_00: 20:41

Okay. Good to know. Very similar. Yep. High school wasn't. Yeah. I didn't, but college, college, a different story. What so you found yourself in college? What were you? So you're really good with the academics. What did you decide to pursue? Were you going the academic route or were you doing more psychology? Like what did you decide to pursue in college?

SPEAKER_01: 21:02

That was a I guess it was a mess of things. Okay. So I started engineering originally. Okay. I was studying biomedical engineering. Wow. And I I thought I would like that. And I like the engineering parts of it. I did not do well in math. I strove I hate calculus to this day. Yeah, I didn't like calculus. I I uh that was uh so I actually failed a lot of my calculus classes in in college and was actually at the point where like, okay, you're gonna be expelled from the university, you're on academic probation. I was also on a disciplinary probation because my roommate left a bottle of vodka in our room, and I happened to be in the room at the time, so like my association, it was on me. So, you know, with that, I was like, okay, you know, you're not probation. And I I think so you know, I realized like, okay, this isn't the field for me, like this is not the major I want to be in, and I want to study psychology. I was like, let me try that. And but the school made it really difficult to do that at the time because my GPA was so low. So I dropped out, studied community college for a little bit, and then picked up and that's where I studied psychology, and then went back to from community college to a four-year university and studied psychology. And that's kind of where my left for psychology grew, and and there had a lot of great mentors in college, a lot of great experiences, and discovered ABA in my final year of college.

SPEAKER_00: 22:29

So you were in doing the engineering, but then you decided that you wanted to get out of that in a psychology. What interested you what interested you in that switch to psychology as opposed to something random that also didn't involve math?

SPEAKER_01: 22:45

Yeah, I would say probably myself. I was like, okay, have this diagnosis of autism or Oscar syndrome, and I want to learn more about it. I want to learn how can I learn about more about myself and deal with my own stuff, my own problems, and also help others because that's gonna help me.

unknown: 23:05

Okay.

SPEAKER_01: 23:05

So it's kind of selfish reasons, really, very selfish. I think that's why a lot of us get into this, maybe. Sure, sure. Yeah. A lot of therapists probably get into this for similar reasons, right? Yeah. And so I was studying college, you know, I was studying psychology in college, and I remember how did I get into ABA? Well, this is fun. So I took a human learning class, I remember, taught by Sean Larry, who's a behaviorist who studied at Western Michigan with Jack Michael, and he was to teach, and this made sense to me. I remember like taking the class, I was like, ooh, I love this. This, I can understand this. This it was my first class I called patch. I'm like, okay, this makes sense. It spoke your language. It spoke my language. I was like, ooh, and then I uh ended up asking it, you know, seeing if I could become a research assistant for him. So I helped him in the in their lab for a little bit, did some projects at the worst thing, polysubstance use, drug use, you know, something like that. And then I found about ABA for my my younger brother, actually. So my my younger brother, Andrew, uh was studying cognitive science at Irvine, East of Irvine. And he got a job after he graduated, he got a job working as an ABA with the company, and he told me about it. I saw working and he posted on social media because it's his first big boy job, and I was like, ooh, okay, tell me about that. Because like I'm like, you're working with autism? I want to do that. So he told me about it, and I Google searched it, applied to the first thing that popped up, and started doing it ever since. Back then they called this what like behavior tech.

SPEAKER_00: 24:38

No, interventionist maybe there's the BIOS.

SPEAKER_01: 24:42

Before the RBT, yeah, yeah. So it's before the RBT. I was one of those two. Yeah, interventionists. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is back in 2012, maybe 20, yeah, 2012. So yeah, back before they had that credential. And so I learned about it, learned about all the stuff, and did it for actually about six years as a behavior interventionist. I worked at a few different companies though in that time. But that's when I really discovered my love for like, okay, AVA behavior science. This is what you know, teaching that class. So not teaching, but taking that class. Yeah, we did a project on ourselves to like, okay, so you have to pick a behavior of yours. You want to increase or decrease. You gotta design a plan and take data on it. So I was like, I picked exercise because at the time I was a little chunky and a little overweight. Still am, but that's okay. I was like, yeah, exercise. You look good, you look good. Thank you, thank you. Yeah, so I was like, I'm gonna do exercise. So I want to increase exercise, right? So I yeah, I chose exercise. That's um first minor walking, going to the gym, took data on it, both duration data, I think, and frequency data. Presented it, and we had to design a reinforcement plan. I think it's like a behavior. It's like you had to design a reinforcement plan, like, okay, what's your reinforcement? What's gonna help you get there? And of course the graphs look beautiful. Oh, it's going up, okay, beautiful. Sure enough, that when the class ends, you know, it goes away. There's no more contingency, right? Um there's no contingency because it's you know, it's not only was it uh yeah, I wanted to get more, you know, fit maybe, but the the grade wasn't the grade of the getting the A that was the reinforcer for me.

SPEAKER_00: 26:21

But once you lose that weight with those candles, then you're oh that's the oh yeah, that's the little weight, you gotta buy more candles and more air freshener, I presume. I have a a quick so you started in the ABA field. We've we've interviewed, like I said, a few people that are on the spectrum as well. And there's some interesting perspective because certainly it gives you the ability to relate. So did did you like juxtapose your ability to relate with was there any difficultness of trying to see them through their lens versus like your lens, right? So saying, like, well, this is how I was I went through things, so I would do it this way. So this is what I suggest to you. Does that make sense of what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_01: 27:05

Like experience versus I think that it was, and this is kind of where I learned, like, oh, if you met one person with autism, you met one person with autism. Sure, sure. I I did try to relate to these kids, and I was like, okay, how was I like back then, or when I was their age, and what was that going through? And wow, I I think I've learned this more, I was humbled quickly. Just because, you know, like I because I was on the spectrum doesn't mean I can always relate to these kids. I did on some with some kids, I think it gave me more patience and understanding more so rather than uh more patience and understanding. I was like, okay. Because I remember what helped me out when I was a kid, and I had a school counselor uh in grade school that was really patience with me. Like, I mean, we wouldn't do it, we'd play like board games, you know, I'd get pulled out of class for like maybe 20 minutes, play board games or play like checkers, and then go back to class. But just the patience, the understanding that that was the most helpful part for me. So that's what's something I could give to the kids I was working with is I could be patron, I can be understanding, I can create fun. And I think that and it taught me the importance of the relationship. And I think that that's you know, we say I at least I go the where was I going? Oh yeah. One thing I tell so as a BCBA now, one thing I tell all my RBTs is the most important intervention you are doing is a the relationship between you and your client, your patient, your child. So you guys, that relationship is this is probably a hot take or controversial, maybe, but that is more important of a variable than any other intervention you're doing by far. And so I still tell that people saying like you need to have that rapport. It's not just it means pairing with enforcement, but it's not just parents, it's so much more than that. It's do they trust you and can you trust them? It's that is the the crux of it, really. And so I think that's something I learned early on that was not valued very much, at least in my first ABA jobs at all. I mean, it really wasn't. It was like, okay, here's the techniques, here's the positive enforcement, here's prompting hierarchies, here's your DTT, your NET, your TRT, all these acronyms, right? But I was never taught to have that real like, yeah, we talked about pairing briefly, but not really building that relationship with a kid.

SPEAKER_00: 29:17

So one more question. Sorry, Mike, I'm I'm hogging all the questions here. So we did an episode, I want to get your opinion on this. So you talk about the relationship building with the RBT. We did an episode called RBT Person or Service. What is your uh and we spent a couple of hours, I forget if it was a two-part episode or not. We spent at least two hours talking about that. What is your thought? Is the RBT a person who comes into the house that provides services, or is it a service that could be provided by any person?

SPEAKER_01: 29:47

That's a wonderful question. We're glad you think so. I I think it's a great question because it's really getting me thinking here. And I want to lean towards, I like this. Actually, I was gonna talk about I was kind of talking about this, but this idea of paradoxes and you know, see or dialecticals, opposites, you know, like that can seem like be two different things, but really you can have both the power of and and not just or. I think it's a little bit of both. I think it's both a service and a person. You have to be human, you have to be a person, you're there as a relationship, you know, you have to care about this person. I think that's fundamental. And you're also doing a service because you're implementing interventions and you're you're doing things that are of a service to someone. It's it's both. And that's kind of how I see therapy is I see all therapy, even my marriage family therapy. I think I see it as both. That you know, if you ever have an RBT, or you're working with an RBT who doesn't, you know, is doing the I don't want to throw the RBTs on the bus. I hate doing that. I value RBTs. But once in a while you get an RBT who's like clearly, like they're in this field, but that you know they're they're here mostly because they know how to pay bills. This was an easy job. This was an easy job to get. And you could just tell their heart's not in it, they're doing it, yeah. They're going through the motions, but they're you can do the interventions and go through the motions, but you can feel it. It's the rapport is not there, the relationship's not there. They even don't want to be here, and you can feel that. And the kids can feel that too. And it's just not gonna be as effective. Yeah. It's not.

SPEAKER_00: 31:21

You're saying both. Yeah, I think we I'm saying both. Maybe that's a cheating answer, but I'm saying both. We feel like uh the field kind of makes it unfortunate that it's more as it's a service, and a lot of the companies, the first company that Mike and I met at that we we left. One of the main reasons that I left is they literally said to me it's a service and it should be interchangeable. I didn't necessarily agree with it, meaning that anybody can go implement the service, and I didn't agree with that. Uh so we had a good discussion about that. I do agree it's both, but it definitely takes some nuance for companies to just make sure that they can provide the person with the training and the credentials and the motivation, like you said, to make sure that they're delivering the service that's becoming of the company. Because at the end of the day, the RBT is the company. That's who's in that client's house most of the time. You can have the best BCBAs in the world, but if you have crappy RBTs, doesn't matter what the insurance reimbursement is, whatever, that's going to reflect poorly on your company. Thank you for that, Mike. I'll pass it to you. I know you got a lot to talk about.

SPEAKER_04: 32:22

I will now have to talk about this a little bit, but I think that's that was our concern, is is just that to your point, I do think that RBTs should be interchangeable. And then you made this clear, given that they've been provided the adequate support and training to develop to match up to the other person they're supposed to be replacing. And that's where I think our industry falls short. That's where I think we like to do a lot of work and and saying, no, we you know, you can't compare somebody who's been doing this three years to somebody who just did their 40-hour classroom training. There's certainly exceptions to that rule. There's certainly a lot of people with the deep intuition that are very intuitive in their work and that are very child-oriented, for example, that know how to play, that have a lot of those unteachables. And sure, maybe those people step right in, they can almost fake it a little bit because they're interested. But yeah, we we lean on the fact that, sure, you have to cultivate that person to be able to provide that blanket service in a way that you can say, yep, that person can do something that's equivalent to that other person, although we hope they're going to be different enough to promote that generality across those people. So yeah, no, we agree. Your answer was fun. I mean, there wasn't there's no right or wrong answer here, I don't think, either. I agree. Talking about intervention and treatment, um you mentioned that school counselor you made a connection with. Tell us a little bit more about what that meant. Age seven, you get this diagnostic label. That means something in school, that means something now different. Tell us a little bit about your experience, what you remember being, you know, more of what you remember being fruitful, and then maybe walk us into some of those things you may have experienced that are modern day concerns and grievances with the neurodivergent community, for example, and them saying, hey, it's ABA stuff, it's flat out evil, which, you know, I can't agree with that statement in a blanket form. However, when I listen to those people, I can 99% of the time go, oh yeah, I know what you're talking about. Yeah, I've done that before. Oh man, uh, I'm glad we stopped doing that. So uh again, there's a lot, you know, uh we're glossing over a lot of things here. Fill in some of the blanks for us.

SPEAKER_01: 34:26

Yeah. So I'll start with the yeah, what I remember most about seeing that school counselor was just how I felt. And I felt valued, I felt seen, I felt trust, I felt safe. That was a cool thing. And I don't remember what she I remember board games, that's what I remember. I don't remember even her name because I was so young. I don't remember exactly what she said, I don't remember the words, but I just remember feeling I feel safe here. That was the biggest takeaway. And I think that's such an important thing, that's a lesson for me to carry. Like that's what I want my clients to feel. Like this person cares, and that's what I felt. So that's that's pretty much it there. So it's to answer the second part about I guess getting into the anti-ABA side of things. Oh, uh I've gone back and forth a lot, I had a lot of change in this. So, you know, when I first became a behavior interventionist, when I was first in ABA, I drank the Kool-Aid hard. I was like, ABA is the way, it's gonna save the world, it's it's it's the end all be all of all things, right? Very rich in the world. You're in good you're in good company. You're in good company. You know, and then you know, as you go on Facebook as you do, right? And you join these communities and you have these people, and this you know, popular group of different people, parents, people, autistic adults, and they're like, you know what, I had ABA as a kid, it was evil, it was it was abuse. And I look at it and I'm like, well, part of me is like defense, like ah, I can see where you're saying that, but and then it's not, you know, it depends. You know, I came up with all the arguments you could say. Ah, that's the people, you know, depending, you know, who's intervening, you know, it's who's doing it. It's that's not real ABA, that's you know, that's Lobos, you know, that's you know, which does no one's doing Lobos nowadays, right? And me like saying that was from the 1970s, and then I had a little hard look at myself. I was like, well, actually, yeah, oh, I've done some things I am not proud of. Sure. Yep. I, you know, escape extinction was a big one. That was the gold standard. I was told by my BCBA, you know, this kid is refusing to eat. You hold that food up there and you don't move it away. You just hold it and you wait. And I remember doing that for an hour, hour, two hours. And I'm like, and I would I would try to get fun. I'd be like, here it comes. Like, no, Matt, you're not, no, just hold it there. I'm like, oh, okay. I'm like, uh, she's like, you're removing it when you're doing the two-too. You're you're negatively reinforced. I was like, oh, okay, I'll just hold it there and then, you know, and I'm like, fine, I was trying to get fun at least, but okay.

SPEAKER_00: 36:59

I remember waiting an hour and a half for a kid to eat a strawberry, which I've shared on this pod before. So same thing.

SPEAKER_01: 37:05

Okay. Yeah. And I asked, okay, why are we doing that? Like, is this something the parents want? And she's like, yeah, the parents want this. This is what the parents want. They want him to eat this food. We're gonna make him eat this food. I'm like, oh. I mean, at least we didn't shove the food in there, but still holding it in trying. The kids sitting at the table in tears, crying, wanting to leave, and I had to redirect them back to the table, hold the spoon with the food in it. I'm like, oh, it was it was so crushing. And at the time, though, I'm like, I'm following the instructions, so I'm doing what I needed to do. And you know, you rationalize it. Ah, this person who's an expert told me what to do, so uh they must be right. Yeah, I didn't question authority back then. I was, which I should have probably because you know we learned all about the Milgram experiment in psychology class, but there I am, one of the little You gotta shock the person, dude.

SPEAKER_04: 37:50

They got the wrong answer, man. You gotta push the shock button. Come on, man.

SPEAKER_01: 37:54

Uh yeah. So I would argue a lot with people online, is the short story. I would go back and forth, like, hey, it's not abusive, but then I also realized I never received ABA as a kid, and so I didn't have the same experiences that they did, you know. And so who am I to tell them what their experience is? And so I I went through a lot of cognitive dissonance. I was like, well, I do ABA, I'm autistic, and I the way I do ABA can't be that bad. And but I try to rationalize it in my head. I do a lot of mental gymnastics. I was not proud. I was I was very conflicted, but I would argue still with everybody online. I got kicked out of two Facebook groups doing it for sure. You know, which is nice. It's a badge of honor.

SPEAKER_04: 38:42

I think that's a badge of honor, man. You should put that in your background.

SPEAKER_01: 38:45

I should got kicked out of this and this and this ABA group.

SPEAKER_00: 38:49

You see what happens when we post episodes on Facebook, even if they're talking, not I wouldn't say negatively about, but critically about ABA. Yeah, we would get kicked out of the groups because people don't even want to listen or read them. But it's like, oh, this is even about ABA. It's terrible. Oh, but go ahead, totally hear you on that.

SPEAKER_01: 39:08

No, yeah. And you know, maybe we need a I don't know, rebrand or something. Anyways, but okay, so then as I kept going, you know, we got more into like the feel is going more towards Ascent based. You know, you have compassionate ABA, which I wanted to bring up, which I really I really enjoy. I like the way the field's going. I think we're you know, when you learn better, when you know better, you do better.

SPEAKER_02: 39:32

You know, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 39:34

And I really embraced Ascent. I was like, yeah, duh, we should be doing that. It makes sense, you know. I'm surprised we haven't addressed it sooner. So I like to say that I do those things.

SPEAKER_00: 39:45

Um, what's your company's name and my company's name?

SPEAKER_04: 39:49

Well, we're ascended.

SPEAKER_00: 39:50

Ascend and ascend.

SPEAKER_04: 39:52

But it's a get higher based on the idea of ascent. It was a play on words, right? Now I like that I like the game you're pitching because now you you you alluded to Lova. There's a it's easy to rebrand, to your point, but not do anything differently. And then what you're talking about is I was a misfit in this place to begin with. So I was already talking about that different stuff, knowing that maybe we were applying these very powerful contingencies in this very blanket form because we're also socially talking about populations that were otherwise marginalized that are now up to a norm. I don't know if that makes any sense. But I think historically, and I've talked about it here. I think historically there's a lot to be said for society, a greater society, and I'm not making any Excuses for anybody, because I think as a as a whole we can be gentler, more compassionate, especially to this idea of you know now the the tails on a normal distribution to use that term mathematically. But the idea that, you know, right around the time that Lilvas was starting his thing, for example, I think you still had something like upwards of 90% of individuals with then so-called childhood schizophrenia, which then became the autism diagnosis in 1980 and the DSM III, the revision, were ending up institutionalized. So we're talking about the Civil Rights Act, a lot of those places closing down in terms of hospitals. So everything just kind of flows together, you know? So it's it's interesting to think about the fact that this ABA stuff I could argue, and I'm sure people could argue against it, but it was very prominent in bringing the civil rights of certain populations and society up to a different standard. But then to our greater point, I think we're making here, if you just stick to that initial catalyst, you're still treating people the same way that they were before you brought them up, or you were able to integrate them better into society. So I've said a lot there. I don't know if it makes any sense. But uh that's where I think that that it is important to know better. And then maybe the argument could be made that that that the criticisms have been a little harsh, but it is up to us to make sure that we're adapting and we're evolving and that we're actually innovating. I know that innovation is a nice buzzword we all kick around and then okay, are you just adding a scent to your pamphlets or are you really changing your methods and procedures? And I don't know what your experience with that is. Again, I I I packed up a lot there. You guys helped me unpack it.

SPEAKER_01: 42:26

Any thoughts? Any thoughts on that? Yeah. So yes, I think you bring up some good points about a lot of companies just putting ascent on there, oh, we're a scent-based, and then on the pamphlet, right? No change. Work for a lot of those companies, absolutely. And you know, I think it's really prevalent, actually. Now that I think about it, every company I work for, yes, they talk about ascent. And it's not part of the culture, yeah. It's not ingrained at every level. It's like, okay, here's a payout on set, here's a presentation on a set, and then we're done. And we never talk about it again. Uh it does become an afterthought, I think, at major, at least companies I've worked at, is it it's it's mentioned once, you put it on the pay applet, and then you forget it. So it's a it's a con we have to continually revisit it, keep practicing it, call it out when we don't see being practiced, practice it ourselves, acknowledge when we haven't practiced it and see if we can do better next time. And I I to the point also about you know ABA is abuse. Well, yeah, that's feedback. That is valid feedback, and maybe it's not packaged in a way we like to hear, but yeah, we can't discount the experiences that ABA has caused harm to many individuals. And so as a science, we have to learn from that. We have to move forward and yeah, like to do better and learn. We we learn new, more compassionate methods. I think you know, as long as we can move forward in the field and we're not saying stagnant and we're not, you know, we're dropping the things that didn't work and bringing up new things that are working. Yeah, as long as we can remain open-minded and adaptive, willing to change. I can get into the next thing about this, like having that psychological flexibility to be saying, okay, like you know, maybe this didn't work, so now we're gonna pivot into this new way of doing things, I think is really helpful.

SPEAKER_00: 44:07

So yeah, I think that should be can you elaborate on that a little bit on that the act methodology? I know that's been something that's been fairly prevalently discussed on the podcast. So would love your take on that.

SPEAKER_01: 44:17

I love act, yeah. I love act. I actually use it pretty much almost every session that I see adult clients and then my family uh my family guidance or caregiver family, whatever you want to call it, parent training. So yeah, I can elaborate. So with ACT, right, this whole goal is psychological flexibility. What is that, right? These set of processes, these uh repertoires that when practice can help you to be more adaptive, take flexible, like just take different perspectives, hold contrary ideas together and still find wisdom in them. So yeah, I mean, I I really I practice it myself every day. You I think to be a great to be able to do act, you have to be able to do it on yourself. Uh, I know you've talked about in the past on the podcast. I thought I thought I'd bring it up because one of my interests. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 45:05

Um please we don't know nearly enough about it. So whenever we come across somebody that that's into it.

SPEAKER_00: 45:11

It was to open up the form. Yeah, please talk about how you use it in your daily practices.

SPEAKER_01: 45:15

So how do you use it? Yeah. Yeah. So the way I see Act is that there's these you know six core processes. Well, I I like to call them repertoires, their behaviors, their skills. And you practice them, right? So I I'll talk about the first one. I guess the first one, my favorite, one of my favorites is cognitive diffusion. Being able to get distance from thoughts. So part of that is in your daily life, noticing thoughts, just being aware of them. And so I really love this strategy of saying to, you know, catching yourself having a thought, like, okay, huh, what am I thinking right now? Well, I'll give you an example, right? Before this podcast, I was like, wow, Matt, you're gonna say something really stupid online here. You're gonna make a fool of yourself, right? Every time you're gonna make a fool of yourself, right? There we go. Oh, you don't know what you're talking about. Oh, CSOL, ah, you know, I struggle with imposter syndrome really hard. That's probably why I got so many credentials because I had to prove it to myself and other people that I know what I'm talking about. So I can't just get a DC today. I also have to get my letters, my MST as well to prove that hey, I am credentialed, I know what I'm talking about. And I think I was proving it to myself more so because I felt like I'm an imposter here. So that voice comes up reframing it, or not reframing, but distant that distant. So I would say, I'm having the thought right now that I'm gonna mess up this podcast, you guys. Oh, I'm having that thought right now. Just labeling it, detecting that thought. Okay, it's a thought, it's there, it's verbs, it's words in our head, you know. But I'm still gonna do it. I'm the committed action piece. And the reason I do committed action is because it lines with my values. My values are I want my voice to be heard, I want to not stay quiet anymore, right? I wanna be out there, I want to be I want to show up, I want to be present, I want to connect with people, and so that is helps that that value, remembering that value, using the kind of diffusion strategy can really help you to stick to your committed actions and do them and help you improve your life. And so I really love that because it's helped me deal with a lot of the things that I struggle with. With autism, I also struggle with anxiety a lot. It's one of my specialties. I label it anxiety is one of my specialties, depression is one of my specialties, autism is one of my specialties because I struggle with all three of those. So I I really get in there with clients and I'm like, yeah, yeah, I'm I'm here with you. Like I I know you got those thoughts, you have that voice in your head. I have a client, so we work on bringing this out in client. So what I do in therapy, uh in my nursing family therapy, is I'll help bring this out to clients. I'll be like, okay, so let's tell you because I'll I'll pick it out in line when they're talking to me, right? I just pick out a word, I'll I'll write down a word that they a thought that they say, like, I'm too old. And a client tell me that. And they're going back to school, and they feel they're too old. I'm like, okay, there's a thought right there. Let's write it down. Okay, it's there. Let's do some kind of diffusion around it. I want you to say, I'm having the thought that I'm too old. Say that a few times. Repeat it, like you know, like um the repetition. What was it? I think Steve Steve Hans does this in his TED Talks. Like, repeat it over and over and over until it loses its meaning, right? Write it down bubble letters. I don't know. Put a voice to it. Say it. I uh my favorite is it's because it's the one I can kind of have to so have to, but I'll put it in celebrity voice. So one of my favorites to do is Arnold Schwarzenegger because he has such a distinct voice. So I'll say, I'm really old right now. I'm so old I can't go to school. You know, and I'll say that to my clients. I'm like, now you try that. And they say it and they look dumb and they're like, nah, this is dumb. I said, okay, now say that thought out loud. I this is dumb right now. And so I'll keep playing like that. I'll be like, let's take those thoughts, let's mess with them, let's play with them, let's sing them out loud. And so I do that in my life. I'll I'll sing thoughts out loud. I'll go on walks and I'll have these thoughts, and I'll be like, let me sing it out loud. Let me put the phrase I'm having the thoughts that be front. And I'm like, huh, okay, just a thought. Doesn't need to help direct my actions.

SPEAKER_04: 49:21

What a what a cool connection. Now, because ABA can be so sterile at times, this gets this creates such a cool bridge between the whole idea uh of action and thought from like a mentalistic perspective. Like what a cool connection. And then and then furthermore, we might have to do the rest of this podcast with you doing the Arnold Torch and ever voice. I don't know if you're up for that. That was pretty fantastic, Matt. That was we'll we'll bring it back here and I'll just practice I'll kiddie you.

SPEAKER_00: 49:56

I also am gonna have to reach out to you after the the podcast because I was somebody who never really experienced anxiety, but recently that's been creeping up. So definitely something that's that's prevalent. So I don't know if you're taking new patients, but let's chat on the side.

SPEAKER_04: 50:10

Without taking uh you know, getting too personal, but you can if you want. Let's talk about that behaviorally, because that's something that's uh educationally we walk into settings as behavior analysts, and somebody say, Yeah, this kid has anxiety. And then depending on what kind of a purist you are as a BCBA, you might be like, well, that's not a behavior. Okay, that we're all talking the something. We're we're all talking something that we're describing differently. So give us your impression on that because I do like the way you you're bridging those things together and and you've got personal experience. So what does anxiety mean behaviorally to you?

SPEAKER_01: 50:45

Sure, yeah. So I'm not gonna describe it behavior, I'm gonna try, but oh yeah, no, describe it however you want.

SPEAKER_04: 50:50

Yeah, no pressure.

SPEAKER_01: 50:52

So you can think of anxiety as well, it's like a behavior pattern. So, like I'll describe this. So, right, you have these behaviors. Actually, I like to share that I like to share this. There's a there's a graph on you can look it up online, the cycle of avoidance. This is one thing I like to share with a lot of patients. Basically, what it is is there's an antecedent, right? Something that might trigger anxiety, this emotion, this healing. Let's let's call it an antecedent, right? So for me, I'll say talking on this podcast, right? There's the antecedent. Okay, you have to talk on this podcast and that's a people. And I'm comfortable talking with you guys, but like the fact that it's gonna be heard by people kind of makes me a little nervous. So there's that, right? There's an antecedent, and there's the behavior. Usually for anxiety, it's an avoidance behavior. Something, you know, not doing it, right? Not, oh, I'm gonna opt out, I'm gonna avoid this. Steve Hayes does a great job talking about this in his TED talks about like how he would have grad students give his own toss because he wanted to avoid giving the toss. Social anxiety or performance anxiety, whatever we call it. So usually it's an antecedent trigger, right? Then there's a behavior of avoidance, let me get out of this, and then there's a consequence, which is really negative reinforcement. And so it's that cycle that keeps going over and over, right? And that cycle builds and it re it reinforces the avoidance. And so next time that happens again, you're more likely to avoid. And the anxiety, the emotion gets bigger and bigger, it gets stronger and stronger. You're because you're getting rewarded by avoiding it and reinforcement, it's affecting you know your brain because you're getting you're removing particularly like decreasing cortisol, because that's a stress form, yeah. Cortisol is decreasing, relief, and you're increasing dopamine and serotonin in there, so it's gonna act like the reward system. So it's like, oh, okay, nah, now feeling better. I'm gonna keep doing that. So the body you keep doing that over and over again. That's anxiety, it's that pattern over and yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 52:46

So the idea that somebody behaviorally might come in and simply impose a certain behavior to then have access to reinforcement is counterintuitive to the dopamine part. It's actually adding more cortisol. I I'm I'm really glad the way you described it because I think that's kind of where I was going is in saying and and and I was just in a meeting this past Friday at a school where and and I I love educators and teachers have a tremendous amount of respect, but this can be tricky for them in terms of like wanting to impose discipline or rules. Yep. And in saying, I know that what I'm telling you to do feels like you're succumbing and you're weak in the light of that escalated behavior or that anxious behavior, but just telling a kid who's avoidant that he has to do something, we can do better than that. You know, how do you make them comfortable in that situation which they're otherwise trying to avoid? And this kind of harkens back to what you were saying with with acceptance and commitment, the idea that if now I can be at ease with this thing that I'm otherwise avoiding, I might have a chance to go through with it. But the idea that I can't be with at ease at all with this thing that I'm avoiding, and then somebody is just pressuring me to go to it and even hanging out some sort of extrinsic reinforcement, that might not make the difference. It might actually increase the anxiety.

SPEAKER_01: 54:06

Yeah, no, exactly. That's exactly right.

SPEAKER_00: 54:09

Let me add another caveat to that without making it too much of a damn therapy session. I think the things that cause me anxiety, and again, I would have labeled it completely how you did with my ABA mind, always putting it through the ABC contingency, are more of things that I can't control. So, for example, like this is gonna sound ridiculous, but my girlfriend got chickens a while ago. A couple of times they got like attacked by raccoons at like 3 30 in the morning, and I just wake up to this like terrible sound. So sometimes now when she's like gone, I like can't sleep because like I'm just like playing that in my head, right? It's only happened like a couple of times, so it's really infrequent. Or like with the company and insurance changes, like we've got one insurance moving to another insurance. Are they gonna take us in network? I've done everything I can do, but now it's on them. I mean, certainly I could send follow-up emails that aren't gonna do anything. I can't really avoid I'm just so I'm just sitting here like, what's gonna happen? Is this gonna happen? What's gonna happen? Or like the the other day with like the the the kiddo, like, are they gonna stop the contract because he's not coming to like things that I have no literal control over? So I don't necessarily the last thing, like, you know, we have a dog who's super friendly. One time he jumped on a kid being friendly, trying to get a ball, and now I'm always like, if I'm taking him on a walk, is he gonna like jump on somebody? That I do have a little control over so I can take him on less walks, but the other things I don't have any control over, but I'll just be sitting at night sometimes just like ruminating on it. What are your thoughts on that in terms of the anxiety spectrum or maybe even the ABC spectrum on things that we don't have much control over?

SPEAKER_01: 55:50

Yeah. Well, from an ad perspective, you know, we always want to embrace what we don't have. We like acknowledge we don't have control over it, embrace it and accept it. Acceptance, right? That's one of the other processes of act, it's in the main accepting what is out of our control and recognizing what's in our control. I always like to do this little bubble like spend a diagram thing where I show clients here's what's in your control, this bubble, here's what's outside your control, and it's outside the bubble, or something like that. And helping just recognize it, but also recognizing it doesn't mean acceptance doesn't mean you're giving up. It doesn't mean you're you know just saying, okay, it's not on my control, why bother trying, right? Why bother doing this or that? Like it's not that. It's accepting the situation for what it is in a non-judgmental way. Being open, like I think literally what acceptance means is it's like put this, I want to say this right, is to take what is offered, like, okay, this is the way things are, take it when it's offered, and then we have some choice there how we want to respond to it and what's in our control. And we can choose to ruminate. Well, we don't choose to ruminate, I guess. That's that's but we uh we can choose how we want to respond to it emotionally and behaviorally, like we can choose like our actions from it. Yeah, I I would argue with people who when you ruminate a lot, you're actually in some ways still avoiding it because you're you're doing an avoidance thing when you ruminate about problems because you're trying to get control over it and you're trying to see if you can problem. We think ruminating is problem solving. Yes. Like, oh, if you're thinking about enough times, we could solve this issue, right? We could figure it out. But when you look at the actual consequence of it, it's we're not getting anywhere, really. We're just making ourselves worked up and struggle more. Which is ruminate.

SPEAKER_00: 57:36

Maybe I'm I like to think I'm pretty aware, and maybe that means that I'm not aware, because if I was aware, I'd realize that I'm not aware. Maybe it's some Donnie Krueger stuff going on there. But that's what a lot of times I end up at, which leads me even more frustrated because I'm like, dude, I've been ruminating about this for an hour. I realize no matter what I do, I can't stop, I can't change this insurance, or I can't change the wild lights in the backyard. Like, no, so why am I now I've wasted an hour of my life ruminating about it and I've gotten zero to show for it. You know better than that. The last four times this happened, you've so it creates like a cycle.

SPEAKER_01: 58:13

It does, yeah. And so I have to go back to like, okay, what can I do? What are some things? Can I accept it? Can I you said writing emails doesn't work, right? I like to go I have to try to catch myself when I go in problem solving mode because I think sometimes in therapy, and this is I guess going after therapist, like the the therapist part of me, you know, there's part of me that wants to problem solve your switch, like right there, like I'm gonna offer solutions. Like, okay, we can try this, try that, right? You know, oh I mean try going, sending a letter in person, right? But at the end of the day, like I gotta take a step back and say that is not our job. Well, at least from a therap, from a therapist perspective, our job is not to solve the problems, our job is to enable, give the tools to someone else, give them the perspective to either accept or move forward in a way that they want to, but that's in alignment with their values.

SPEAKER_00: 59:02

Okay.

SPEAKER_04: 59:02

I just thought of something. I think that oftentimes, or at least these recent times, you brought me into it, and what we did is we kind of did a quick checklist. So you've done this, you did that, you did that. Is there anything else we can do, knowing that then the email is just spinning your wheels. It's really not gonna do anything. And in fact, it's gonna create some circumstance where like, well, they're not answering yet, and I already sent that email and I sent another email. But I think that's I mean, you just made me think of that. And the other thing, a little bit more sarcastically, is it it truly I think at the root of this is that Dan cares deeply about his chickens.

SPEAKER_00: 59:34

Oh, this is not true. Okay, Mike.

SPEAKER_04: 59:38

Thanks, thanks, Matt, for uh jumping right into that with me. Of course about that because I mean what do you think? Thank you, thank you. What is it that you can take away from this in terms of Dan's relationship with his chickens?

SPEAKER_00: 59:49

Oh god. Mike sends me these chicken gifts or chicken little videos, probably like three times a day now of chickens just like bobbing their heads to like these random songs. They're awesome, they're incredible.

SPEAKER_04: 1:00:01

They're incredible.

SPEAKER_00: 1:00:02

Mike lives vicariously too much, and he really loves chickens.

SPEAKER_04: 1:00:05

I do, I do really want chickens. I don't think I can have them, but I live vicariously through Dan's passion for his chickens.

SPEAKER_01: 1:00:12

So you're okay with eating chickens then, right?

SPEAKER_04: 1:00:15

So they're chickens. Let's get this. They're my and their eggs.

SPEAKER_00: 1:00:19

And like if the raccoon like got the chickens and I woke up to like dead chicken, I'd be like, okay, I wouldn't feel good about it. I'd be like, wow, that sucks, and I'd feel a little bit bad. But it's more like waking up at like 3 30 in the morning, like in a good dream, just chilling, like what the more I gotta go figure it out.

SPEAKER_04: 1:00:35

Like I gotta go, like that's that's the end of part one of our interview. With Matt Tapia, perfectly ended talking about Dan's chickens. Please make sure you do return for part two and always analyze responsibly.

SPEAKER_03: 1:00:52

ABA on tap is recorded live and unfiltered. We're done for today. You don't have to go home, but you can't stay here. See you next time.