Occupation Interview

I was recently asked to complete what is called an “occupation interview” by a community student; we’ll call her “A.” To my understanding, A, was meant to find a professional in a field of interest and interview them by asking specific questions assigned by her teacher. After the completion of the (emailed) interview and a couple of permissions being granted, I was able to publish what I am now calling “a significant experience.” 

The Interview

1. If you are able to say so, what is your personal background? Include name, age, position in your company, how long you've been working there, etc.

My name is Amanda Gonzalez. I am in my late 30s and I am Co-Founder, Administrator, Community Marketing Specialist, and a Mental Health Specialist (therapist) with Empowering Relief Counseling, PLLC, “ERC.” My business partner and I began ERC in 2017, so I have been working here since May of 2017.

2. What is your job description? Please provide details on the day-to-day responsibilities, as well as your overall responsibilities in the field. 

Technically, I am a therapist first, but because of the nature of co-founding the business, I am also an administrator and community marketing specialist. My day-to-day responsibilities list is very long, so I will offer you categorical information, instead. As a therapist, I see clients, document that time, answer phone calls, respond to emails, and meet with my team for various reasons. As an administrator and community marketing specialist, I create and update policies and procedures to support our team, clients, and community. I am constantly following market trends to make sure we have an optimized experience with Google. I also manage the day-to-day concerns that arise within the practice or the building within which we work.

3. What education did you receive prior to getting this job, including degrees and other certificates? What education was required for you to get the job?

I received an undergraduate degree in Sociology with a Bachelor of Arts in Spanish, Certificates in Diversity and Criminology and Corrections, a graduate degree in Social Work, and a Women’s Health Certificate. For the 2014-2015 year, I also received the College of Social Work MSW Faculty Award for Promise in Social Work, which is a great honor. After that, I completed a licensing exam and 4,000 hours of supervised work; lastly, I applied for full licensure so I could see clients without supervision. To uphold my licensure, I am required to complete 40 continuing education hours every two years as part of a reapplication for continued licensure.

In order to get this job, I would have had to have undergraduate and graduate degrees from an accredited institution (college), proof of a passed licensing exam, proof of 4,000 hours of supervised work, and proof of full licensure from the State of Utah.

4. How do you get to your position from entry-level positions?

To get to my position from entry-level positions, you need time to complete the requirements, a willing supervisor at a W-2 based agency, money to invest in your licensure and continuing education requirements, and a willingness to understand and achieve all the inner workings of running a business.

5. What do you perceive the outlook of your industry to be in the future?

Due to the pandemic, we have already seen a significant rise in the need for mental health support. It may not be my perception, but it is certainly my hope that in the future, mental health and wellness will become as normalized and expected as physical health and wellness. My colleagues and I have discussed an additional hope: a way to be licensed across state lines – something to the effect of ‘a universal license’ to practice in the United States, or even internationally.

6. What are the pros and cons to your job?

The pros for me are in having a flexible schedule so I can be with my family, utilizing my leadership skills, working with people, the community relationships I have built, engaging in social justice and anti-racism work, using evidence-based research, referring to myself as a social scientist, consistently practicing creativity, and learning more and more as I age into the field.

The main cons to my job are the incessant amounts of documentation, the constant emails and phone calls, the occasional challenges of crises, and the (seemingly) forced relationship we maintain with insurance companies. I also don’t like renting office spaces; I’d really like to own a building.

7. What traits should a person have in order to be a good fit for your line of work?

In order to be a good fit for [this field], you have to be willing to leave your original self at the door and be open to growth, change, and daily challenges. It would benefit you if you were open to receiving therapy yourself (in a continued way), loved working with people, building relationships, and liked science.

Traits that might be helpful in being a good fit as a social worker or therapist are respectability, approachability, warmth, open-mindedness, kindness, intelligence, tenacity, coachability, and humility.

After potentially experiencing the hardest work of my 20-year career and living through a pandemic (with no clear end in sight), I found myself to be functioning, rather than mindfully considering what I had (and have) been doing since March of 2020. As a result, I was taken aback by my responses to the interview questions. Often, my colleagues and I joke about the rarity of feeling surprised when one has worked in the field of therapy for a while, so being taken aback was a significant moment. In that moment, I realized that I was revisiting the reason why I started working in this field in the first place. It humbled me to be reminded and thoughtful of what has transpired in my professional life since I entered the field of social services in 2000. I simultaneously recalled that I stepped into this field because I was fascinated by the human experience; I still am, to this day… In re-reading my response to the interview, I was reminded of what it took for me to get here; I also felt the welling up of a great respect for my colleagues and the practitioners in the world today. 

Despite my years of training and the collective years of training of others, we were not prepared for what began in March of 2020 and we are learning “best practices” as we go. This may be the first time in the history of our field that we are learning how to treat in real time. Unfortunately, the uncertainty and burnout remain real, with feelings of consistent fear on the surface and typical coping strategies being impacted by a literal risk of becoming ill. I recently read a frame of a New York Times post on Instagram that summed my current feelings up nearly perfectly, “Usually therapists don’t experience the same concerns and traumas as their patients at the same exact time. But during the pandemic, everyone has been struggling to stay afloat (Cadmona Hall, [M]arriage and [F]amily [T]herapist).” That’s it. We, as practitioners, are experiencing the same concerns and traumas as our clients in real time and simultaneously. 

 Looking back about 20 years, I recall it felt like this field somehow chose me. In the early days of my college career, I was certain that I was going to be a vocal performer and that I might step into studying psychology for fun. In my first sociology class, which was meant to fill a general education requirement, I was assigned an opportunity to do an internship with the Salt Lake Metropolitan Jail within which I tutored male inmates through their GED programs. Even though I wasn’t confident in some of the subjects, I taught Math, English, and History. The inmates with whom I worked were polite, kind, and grateful that they got time to work on their education and I felt like I was making an important community impact, possibly for the first time in my life. 

When the semester was over, I continued with Salt Lake Metropolitan Jail (SLC Metro) and retook the sociology class so I could do a second internship. I applied for The KidStar Program at UNI (The University of Utah Neuropsychiatric Institute), now HMHI (The Huntsman Mental Health Institute), got accepted, and spent the semester working with children experiencing mental health crises and significant behavioral problems. This was my first time being inside of The University of Utah’s “5 West,” without being in the family room. I remember feeling nervous – possibly excited – upon my arrival to KidStar each time and I had an epiphany that I may have somehow been built for this field. At the semester’s end, I did not return to KidStar, but it was suggested to me that I apply for Odyssey House’s Children’s Services (CS) for an actual paid job working in a therapeutic daycare with children whose parents were experiencing residential recovery programming which assists those suffering from a substance abuse disorder. 

I had no idea what working in residential recovery programming would feel like, but I knew I loved kids and I was beginning to accept that I was built for this field. To commit to the idea of a job fully, I stopped volunteering for SLC Metro, which was a bittersweet moment in my life. I interviewed, got the job, and then spent 2 ½ years working at CS. 

After that 2 ½ years, I amicably left CS to pursue a different school schedule, work in adaptive aquatics with youth who experienced varying ability issues, and coach swim stroke development to pre-Olympic youth athletes. During this time, I took a pause on attending traditional college and went to massage school. My hope was to be educated in body movement, pathology, and treating sports injuries. Incidentally, massage school informed every part of working adaptively in the water and made me a much better swim coach. Going to massage school and working in the water was a dreamy time in my life, but as I neared the graduation of massage school, my scheduling options decreased significantly; I knew I wanted to graduate from massage school and then complete my undergraduate degree (even at a part-time pace), so I committed and returned to CS at the tail-end of my undergraduate career. 

Despite starting my college career with a major in vocal performance, I wound up graduating with a degree in sociology, a BA in Spanish, and dual-certificate foci in Diversity and Criminology and Corrections. After graduation, CS promoted me quickly and hoped that I would stick around if I decided to pursue a master’s degree in social work. It turned out that I needed more time to devote to graduate school than CS could offer me with my new position, so I left amicably, again.  

For the first time since I was very young, I decided not to work in some capacity and solely focus on graduate school. Thank goodness I had privileges lined up that allowed me to do this because that first year I basically had an unpaid full-time job of reading textbooks. Throughout my graduate program experience, I interned at The Road Home with Family Services, as a Spanish-speaking case manager, The Healing Group, as a therapist focusing on maternal mental health, and The University of Utah’s ER, as a trauma social worker. Those two years were a whirlwind, but allowed me to learn social work in high-risk, high-stress situations as well as in typical private practice pace. I also learned the value of my experience as an intersectional human and practitioner; I became an often-tokenized voice of representation. 

From that point, I decided that it would be imperative for me to work where anti-racism and social justice lead. To find that place, I cycled through three employers between 2014 and 2016 and then wound-up building Empowering Relief Counseling, “ERC,” with Jacob Jacquez, MSW, LCSW, in 2017. 

In 2017, I obviously did not know that I would be sharing a group practice with 6 other hand-selected practitioners and that all of us would endure years of a pandemic as of December 2021. However, without this team, there is no possible way that I would have continued in this field. Treating humans is both a privilege and a challenge - moment to moment - and learning as a we go is a skill that takes a specific kind of adaptability, one that I haven’t experienced in my life. 

In response to this specific kind of adaptability, ERC changed its slogan to “we’re here when you need us” during the early throes of the pandemic. We wanted the community to see us as a resource, even if we couldn’t immediately treat new clients due to the sudden and growing influx of need for services. The irony? I don’t think people realized that this slogan change also meant that we were literally there and at times, “struggling to stay afloat,” too. The significant experience of “experiencing the same concerns and traumas as their patients at the same exact time” is one that I will never forget and is likely to inform my skill-set and treatment style for years to come. 

Thank you to A* for reminding me of why I started, the unusual experience of what I am living with now and offering hope for what the future holds. I feel forever grateful. 

Thoughts from Your Practitioner, Sam Golden, LMFT, CMHC

Note: I found it very difficult to select an image for this blog, as I wanted to make sure I was not an advocate for diet culture. I also didn't want people who saw this image to feel under-represented or invisible, so I decided to choose an image that spoke of motivation, instead of what you "should" look like.

Part 1

Last week, I was on a zoom call with my former college roommate, catching up after 3 years since we last had a get-together. We are terrible at keeping in touch, and frequently work on opposite schedules and on opposite sides of the country. We were on the call for hours until, like teenagers at a sleepover, we could no longer keep our eyes open. We talked about our new apartments, what life has been like since we last saw each other 3 years ago…and our struggle with the ‘quarantine 15’. We were both able to talk directly about our shame around gaining weight during the pandemic, as well as our reluctance to do something about it. We laughed about “getting to it later, after the holidays, definitely” but after that conversation, I weirdly felt more motivated to do something about it. Likely because I had talked with someone, and instead of shaming each other, we normalized, and acknowledged the struggle together. 

This pandemic has turned everyone’s life upside down, and has created a lot of stress and uncertainty. In the beginning, some people just tried to cope and tread water, while others took this as an opportunity to catch up on activities and projects, they never felt they had time for when they were working full-time. I was definitely in that realm where I took the time to read the pile of books that had been staring at me for years, bake bread, cross-stitch and garden. I actually found myself overwhelmed with the number of projects I could do with this time, which lead me to be in a constant battle with myself over feeling guilty for not taking full advantage of my time, and actually enjoying the projects I was engaging in. I wanted to take the time to walk and enjoy the weather, but the one time I went to the park it was completely packed, so I decided I was going to literally “stay at home” hence the weight gain! I had been to this place before when I had gained 10lbs, got on MyFitnessPal, and took it off…and here we go again. The endless yo-yo of weight. I always know when this time comes because my pants magically start becoming uncomfortable one day, and it made me channel my inner Regina George, “These sweatpants are the only thing that fits me right now”. I become so annoyed and reluctant to buy a whole new wardrobe that I begin the process of working to remove the weight that I’ve gained. Health in general has been a long process for me, because it felt like I was being told what to do with my life, and I could rebel against it and do what I want. It took a long time to learn how to let go of the tight hold I had on unhealthy habits, be kind to myself, be vulnerable, and listen to what I was telling my clients. I want to be clear, this is not about body image, or me shaming you into having this goal. If you share this goal, great! If you don’t, that’s wonderful too. We are all different, beautiful, wonderful humans, and body weight will not change that. So, if this does happen to be your goal, here’s what I’ve learned, and am still learning: 

8 Tips for fighting off the Quarantine-15

1. Change your relationship with food. We have heard this time and time again that “comfort food” leads to unhealthy eating habits. That’s probably why we have a hard time breaking them; someone is telling us not to do it! When we talk about binge-eating, or over-eating, it often stems from people in our past telling us we couldn’t have a particular food, or it was limited in some capacity. As adults, we can buy our own food and give the middle finger to that person while we gorge on it. For me, it used to be Dr. Pepper. Soda was very limited in my household, which meant as soon as I got a job, I was drinking about 4-5 cans a day on a good day! It took a long time to realize that these people in my head that I was giving the middle finger to couldn’t see me, and didn’t care that I was doing that to myself. I eventually realized that no one is going to keep it from me, it’s not in short supply, and I am in control of my own intake. Now I drink mostly tea and water, and only reach for my emergency Dr.Pepper when I’m yawning a lot while working. The same goes for candy, donuts, and any other sugary surprise I could get my hands on. It’s realizing the power that you can have some of this food always, and savoring the little bit that you give yourself is a lot more enjoyable than eating your whole supply. 

2. Self-compassion. To the previous point, if we do end up eating our entire supply, we end up repeating the pattern if we shame ourselves for doing it. Self-compassion is the antidote to shame. As Brenè Brown says, guilt and shame are very different. Guilt means that you did a bad thing, but you are not a bad person, so you change your behavior. Shame means you did a bad thing, and that means you are a bad person, so why would you change? Self-compassion can come in many different forms, but sometimes telling ourselves “it’s okay” can be the simplest. We don’t even have to wait until the next day to do this. Challenge yourself to act differently during the next opportunity instead of the next day. This can increase compliance! A technique that can also help is saying the following things to yourself in the mirror at the end of each day: “I love you, I’m sorry, I forgive you, thank you”. It’s going to sound ridiculous and silly at first, but pay attention to which one of those words speaks the most to you at the end of the night, and reflect on that. Also remember, this is a pandemic, you’re allowed to be struggling and depressed. I wouldn’t be writing this blog if you were the only one struggling! Normalize the struggle, and look for growth, not perfection.

3. Baby steps. Change is not linear, and oftentimes it helps to make small changes over time instead of trying to completely re-route your life. Find a healthy recipe, get excited about it, and make it once during the week. Make a small decision to eat at home instead of eating out. Choose nuts over Halloween candy, put hummus on your toast instead of butter. Celebrate the wins instead of shaming yourself over the losses. Not only will this increase overall happiness, but it will increase motivation to continue to make small changes to eventually get to your goal. Remember this is a marathon, not a sprint.

4. Pivot. As I mentioned in the first tip, our relationship with food is important. Ask yourself, “Am I really hungry, or is there an underlying emotion/need I’m trying to fill here”? When we acknowledge the power it has over us, (yes, it does have power), we can take better control of that power, and pivot to something more beneficial. For example, when I’ve been thinking about that blue gummy shark all day, I’ll pivot to carrots and hummus, or I’ll get out of the kitchen all together, and go outside to get the mail, or go for a walk. Because it’s getting cold outside, I’ve transitioned to walking around my house while reading. To me, this rationalizes to my brain that I’m not wasting time, and I set my timer on my phone for 45 min, and pace around the house, sometimes up and down the stairs to get my heart rate up. I would recommend getting all the stuff off of the floor before doing this, and practice going up and down the stairs so you don’t injure yourself. You can also pivot to other things that give you comfort: make some tea, play with your fur babies if you have them, play with your human babies, read, journal, write in your planner, zoom with a friend, stretch. Basically, do those things that you tell yourself you don’t have time to do. 

Hit the FIND OUT MORE button to check out resources for Part I.