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Bill Lampton Ph.D.
Hi there. Welcome to the biz communication Show. I’m your host, Bill Lambton, the biz communication guy, bringing you tips and strategies that will boost your business. It’s not just my information and my ideas. I have a highly qualified, professional communication expert who will share ideas with us today. I’m very delighted to welcome to the program, and she’s been a guest several times over the years. Dawn Echols. Dawn is an aspiring author. She’s based in cumming Georgia and the Greater Atlanta metropolitan area. She’s a licensed professional counselor, former sales executive and classically trained pianist. A decade after beginning her sales career at the tender age of 19, during which time she was also earning an associate’s degree, Don took a sabbatical from corporate life to pursue a bachelor’s in music. She returned to sales for another decade, when a beloved member challenged her to consider becoming a psychotherapist. Don then sought and earned a master’s degree in clinical psychology and became a professional counselor. She has been the owner of donning Phoenix, a coaching counseling and conflict resolution practice based in North East Georgia, since 2012 Don Eccles began reducing direct services to clients a few years ago in order to shift her Focus to writing, coaching and mentoring other professionals. She speaks, writes and trains on topics of mental health. Don has always been interested in people seeking occupations that allow interacting with others on a daily basis. She gets excited about practical concepts that improve people’s lives and relationships. I know that you will be happy to join me in welcoming. Don Eccles to the biz communication show, hello, Don, hi.
Dawn Echols
Dr, Bill. It’s so nice to be back,
Bill Lampton Ph.D.
pleasure and a privilege, and I know a learning experience for me and for our viewers and listeners as well. Don one observation that I think everybody would agree with is that for a good while now, we have lived in what might be called the do it yourself world, or the do it yourself syndrome we think we can accomplish things on our own, and that even comes to solving problems we have. And so with that being such a widespread mindset, why, in your experience, would anybody voluntarily choose to come to a professional counselor for advice?
Dawn Echols
It’s a really good question, because there is a lot of material out there, in the words of a good friend of mine, where she said, you know, people think that. She said, I don’t know if I’m going to have a job. They can Google what I do and figure it out. And she’s a landscape designer, and it’s not quite the same as watching a YouTube video, but we can educate ourselves a lot with the push of a button. However, coming to therapy is always a brave and hopefully wise choice for a person, and they usually do that because they are seeking the input of an objective person in their life that’s not in their everyday life, and they want someone that they perceive to be both professional and confidential, someone where it’s a safe place to go talk about problems that may even be difficult to admit to themselves, so that, I think we do also face. I forget that there is still a stigma, or we all do hesitate to admit that we can’t handle them. I think we’ve always done that, probably, or certainly have done that in modern life, and maybe perhaps more now than ever. But it it’s all that’s why I say it’s a brave choice to seek therapy, because it does mean that you say this is something that I can’t really fix, or. Don’t know what else to do.
Bill Lampton Ph.D.
I know some counselors who have had the same clients repeat, return and be with them for one or more decades. Is that the experience in your practice
Dawn Echols
actually the longer that I’ve been in practice, the more common that became. And when I first started, it was very much in 2000 even prior to 2012 when I was working on all the different qualifications you do to work independently and launch a practice, which are two separate things, but still, there’s a lot of preparation that goes into that. And so counselors work under supervision after they graduate. And when I was doing that, I had clients that other people viewed that they were staying with me for a long time. When they stayed for a year, there was this focus on this short term cognitive behavioral therapy for rapid behavioral change, but insight oriented therapy focuses more on this person centered idea that these are two human beings that are sharing the human experience in a room. And in the words of that mentor that inspired me to become a therapist and challenged me, it’s at the end of the day, we’re both human beings trying to navigate life, the therapist simply has information for which it’s their job to share, like more knowledge, perhaps, and that’s the point of a master’s degree. So when we have that situation, I apologize, my brain just went in 10 directions. Please repeat the question. I’m
Bill Lampton Ph.D.
having a little trouble. The question was about having long term, long range clients who kept coming back decades, maybe.
Dawn Echols
Thank you, my brain will shoot off in 1000 directions. These days, I think we’re all having a little trouble with focus at
Bill Lampton Ph.D.
times. I’ve, I’ve had that feeling for quite a while. I understand quite well. So go ahead,
Dawn Echols
younger people than me are now like now, you know how it feels, and I think it is the devices and information overload, but yes, so when I started, people would stay a year, and that was considered a long time. But the longer I’ve been in practice, the longer I’ve had clients that have and they don’t go back to when I first started, but some go back, you know, a while, and we, what we do is we focus on goals and what you’re trying to accomplish. What’s the purpose of therapy. And so when I would start with my new clients, you know, anytime I do that, I talk to them about finishing therapy and what we call terminating and having a termination session, where we talk about what the objectives were when you came in, what it was that was going on in your life, what has changed? What have you learned? And what do you want to keep doing when you when you say goodbye, and we’re then we say goodbye, and it’s a, it’s a difficult process. It can be hard to say goodbye to people you’ve worked with that you care about, and they feel the same way at times. And it’s a, it’s a good moment, but it’s a hard moment because you are saying goodbye to someone you’ve connected with when you’re seeing a therapist, and this is a trusted person who has earned your trust, or you wouldn’t have continued to come to therapy. And so what, what we see now is that people will say, I’ve invested in this relationship, and there’s an understanding the paradigm is, is in the context of my life. This person knows me. They know where I’ve been. They know my blueprint, as I call it, nadlerian therapy, about all the different people in their life. And I just want to be able to come back Dawn and talk about what’s going on in my life with someone who’s not in my life to help me keep my perspective for where I’ve worked to get I’ve worked to get here dawn. I want to stay and I want to keep growing, if I can. So we do a combination of things. We either talk about terminating because they’ve met their goals, we talk about whether or not therapy fits right now because of what’s going on in their life, whether or not they wish to continue. And often they’ll call that maintenance therapy. They won’t come in as often, and it’s more about just staying in touch and keeping the relationship alive, which is what we can do in lots of relationships in our life. And then there’s the idea that they terminate and come back when they need to. They don’t just stay, they don’t stay in my and I’ve had all of that happen where a client will end and they’ll come in for especially in the first, I’d say, five or 10 years, they would come in for two or three sessions after maybe a year later over a new problem, and then they’d feel okay and say, Thank you so much. It was great to see you. And then it’s determination again. And then I’ve had them come back, and they’ll come in for maybe up to six months and terminate again, versus the ones who say, You know what, I’ve done this twice now, where I came back, I’d like to just check in with you every three every month, and the longer, typically, I used to have a standard practice. I would see everyone at least once a month or they were not considered an active client. And it was really important to follow all those suggested guidelines to help me manage a case load as a therapist practice load. Code, all the different regulations that burden a therapist and things like that and so but then the longer that you do this, sometimes you have clients who will come in every three months instead, and they may be considered an active client, but typically, the standard in the industry is come in once a month to be considered active. And I would say that to any therapist who’s worked less than a decade, probably
Bill Lampton Ph.D.
well, it’s it’s clear from what you’re saying, that there’s no one size fits all, and secondly, that you really don’t determine at the first that there’s so many sessions and that’s it. And goodbye and don’t contact me again, because if the need continues or recurs, you are available in a way where you talk about the long term relationships. It makes me think of our other healthcare professionals. I’ve been going to the same family physician now because I haven’t moved I live in the same town, Gainesville, Georgia, and I’ve been going to the same family physician for 36 years now. That’s that’s a long time bond. And when the time comes when that that MD retires and I have to make a shift to someone else, of course, I will do that. And as we know the the trust factor is, is something that builds over time too, and when one of these professional relationships ends, then it’s up to a new professional to establish that credibility and that trust, right?
Dawn Echols
Yes, and it’s you’re not starting over. And that’s something I used to I’ve had clients come in who were in therapy somewhere else for a different reason. Maybe they saw someone briefly in the same practice where they took their child, for instance, and now they’re looking at doing something different, or they need a couples therapy. And so an individual therapist they saw before referred them to me because of couples. And they’ll say, and I’ll always keep in mind that this they’re not starting. I don’t have to go back and repeat. Like, we don’t need to go through all the steps of what I always did in the first five years of my practice. Been there, done that, been there. Like, where are we today? What is it you’re trying to accomplish? Yes, I want to understand your history. Tell me a little bit about you, but let’s start where you are. I don’t want to take you all the way back and make you do what you’ve already done in therapy for a year. Anyway, you’ve grown. That’s great.
Bill Lampton Ph.D.
Thank you for that. Don I know in previous times when you’ve been guest on the show, and from our individual conversations now and then, you subscribe to, as I remember, Adlerian psychology. And we’ll be back in just a few seconds, and I want to discuss with you what, what, what is meant by Adlerian psychology. Back on a couple of seconds,
Michael Stewart
do you wish you felt confident about giving speeches? Do you want to deal with difficult people constructively? And what about becoming more persuasive in sales? Then keep listening now to Dr Bill Lambton. He spent 20 years in management, so he knows the communication skills you need for success. I urge you to call the biz communication guy today for a no cost, but very valuable, 30 minute discussion about your communication challenges. Call now 678-316-4300, again, that’s 67831643001, 64300,
Bill Lampton Ph.D.
we’re on the biz communication show with our guest professional counselor, Don Eccles. Thanks to those of you who are joining us on the video portion and on the podcast. Don I mentioned before a short few seconds break that you from what I remember, advocate and practice Adlerian psychology. What? What is that? Please?
Dawn Echols
Yes, that’s based in Alfred Adler’s work, and he was a psychologist who followed Freud. He was younger than Freud, but they were of similar time. They actually had debates and even famous deep arguments over certain things, because Adler very much advocated for the concept of community, feeling the desire for human beings to strive to improve. And he would call it that striving for perfection. And today I call it striving for competency, to feel good at something. And he he would refer to it as a felt plot. If you feel this felt minus, like you’re not good enough at something, you strive. For a felt plus, where you feel like you’re better than than other people at that something, and you reach a felt equal place with others as you grow through life. And he was really big on this connectivity and community and the and he even is famously one of his famous lines is that social interest is a key indicator of mental health. He really believed in this sense of community and connectedness. And so when I was looking in grad school, I had one of my professors, we’re in the class, and he says, You have to pick a theory. And I’m like, Well, I want to be eclectic. You know, I’d been working in sales. I wanted to borrow from all these ideas, and I wanted to and always, one of the great things about, I believe, about working as a therapist is this person centered idea that each of us are unique, and we do have things we’re all the same about that we’re universal, this universal feeling of certain things, but we also are, you know, that whole idea that we’re all like snowflakes, we’re unique, and we’re our own person. And you want to meet a person where they’re at and what drew me to Adlerian theory at first, when I said to my professor, I don’t want to have to be locked into one. And he said, well, for the assignments, you’re going to have to pick one. Well, by the time I finished the class, I had fallen in love with this theory that I picked because a couple of these things he talked about, and one of the things originally that had Larry in theory Drew, drew me to it was this goal directed behavior. And as a salesperson, I understood goals very clearly, and it really fit nicely. And I didn’t think I wanted to do cognitive behavioral it felt too I don’t know my clients laugh, we laugh together as to why. You know, their therapy doesn’t include much of that, except for goals they have each week. And there’s some really good work you can do with what they call CBT, and it has a tremendous value. But this idea that our behavior was goal directed, that we were like homing pigeons, is the way I would think of it. We’re always aiming towards something. And this concept that Adler said, we have these themes in our life, and we have this lifestyle that we’ve developed from the way we grew up, in the things we’ve learned. And then when I have older clients come in, I think about what their adulthood has taught them. It’s not just the imprinting and the lessons and beliefs of their childhood, but the experiences of 30 years of being adult, perhaps like, what have they learned now that’s important to them, and how has that shaped their beliefs about things? Because our beliefs do drive our behavior, and it affects how we interact with each other. And so it really drew me, because I felt it was very inclusive. It was kind of it allowed you to borrow from these other ideas, these other theories, these other techniques, but yet it kind of stayed in this what kind of makes a person tick is, I guess, what drew me to it.
Bill Lampton Ph.D.
Thank you for that explanation. You mentioned the word community and the need for community, we’ve had a situation to develop, of course, over the past seven or eight years where people who ordinarily had a group of people that they spent at least 40 hours a week with in a physical workplace, an office building, a factory, other type businesses where you have a team. And over the past seven or eight years, beginning with COVID and the way going to a workplace was not possible. Many people now have had quite a lengthy experience of working at home alone. What type of emotional stress Have you seen resulting from this in your clients? We talk about the need for community, and all of a sudden, here you are by yourself. What What have been the emotional ramifications of that
Dawn Echols
isolation is never really good for human beings. That’s been my experience as a therapist, that the more isolated a person is when they come in. Sometimes therapy is the only place that they have some meaningful interactions when they’re severely isolated. And this goes back 15 years in my practice. This is way before COVID. I was thinking about and looking and working with clients that may have come in in various states of distress and in various settings where I worked, some were isolated because of conditions of their physical health, and I’m talking about as far back as like 2006 seven and eight and then some were isolated because of limited access to resources, sometimes not having a car. They lived alone. They were on extremely limited budget. I’ll never forget the one client who was very, very limited with finances, had limited mobility, not mobility, I think, but had some chronic illness situations. And I’ve been working in the health department, providing community based care for people who couldn’t afford it otherwise. And this client was so creative and taught me, and I can still remember the face of this person and the joy that he would bring to the sessions when he would walk in because he looked somewhat isolated and he was restricted from being able to continue, and he figured out that he would walk to the convenience store, sometimes every day, in order to kind of get out of the house. He couldn’t get his car fixed. He had a truck, but it wasn’t running, and he didn’t have the money to fix it. And one of the things we talked about that even brought any of this up for me to become more aware that he was struggling with that aspect, because he was very personable in the session, and it didn’t seem that he would be isolated. And he said, Don I’m spending too much money. I don’t have it, and it’s and it’s a risk, you know, and then we talked about it in the context of his personal history, but he was trying not to spend too much money, but he the the convenience store that was within walking distance was like his only option for interacting with people and getting out of the house and being outside and moving around with some of the illness he was struggling with, and he knew he needed to do that, so he came up with solutions. And the great thing about therapy was just a safe place for him to kind of own it for himself and then talk about it. And before we even came up with some ideas. He came up with some great solutions on a way to keep that balance. So to go back to your question about working from home and emotional repercussions, is, I think we I think about this, how we have to balance it, because I’m an avid reader, and I love reading Zane gray with all of his westerns and the sweeping descriptions, you feel like you’re standing on the side of a mountain somewhere, when you read and when he talks about the prairie and the purple sage and all these great descriptors that were in saying grace books. And I thought, well, you know, Westerners who who homesteaded these ranches and stuff, they lived alone and they were isolated. How did they balance that with the community feeling that we know is important. One of the things, of course, back then is they do barn raisings, or they would take their wagon and go a long way. And it might not be even once a month, we’d have, I’m not a specialist on that lifestyle, but I think if we did history, or talk to historian, they could tell us a little bit about how did they, you know, they might go to the next door Ranch, which might be more than a mile away, but they’d ride a horse. They created ways of doing that. Cowboys were isolated for long periods of time, and the thing we can learn from that is how to be quiet, how to be still. That’s another thing. Reading fiction of Zane Gray, I’m like, Wow, this guy’s, you know, these guys were riding these horses, but they did ride with each other when they were hurting. And so we have to kind of when I work with someone, or when someone comes in, or work with someone who’s working from home. I had some young clients where I was we were talking about career oriented goals. Gave up working inside a retail facility to do work that the company, same company, would offer that allowed them to grow and move upward and things like that, and allow them to meet goals about learning to become computer programmers. This is especially important for students who can’t just, you know, young people who can’t just afford to go to school at the cost that it is and and will come in and say, I’m going to have to give this up. This is not good for me to be home alone Now this person I’m thinking, I’ve made that decision because of some other things, they knew they needed it, versus the person we think of introverts and extroverts as having different needs for that. That’s not true. Introverts absolutely interact with people just as effectively and well as extroverts. They just don’t need as much of it and they the bigger issue is they don’t need as many people they interact with, one to 346, 10 people at a time in very quality, driven depth ways. And an extrovert gets their energy from interacting with lots of people and lots of stimulation at one time, coming from multiple directions. Yes,
Bill Lampton Ph.D.
at a networking event, the extrovert wants to greet and talk with everybody. Wants two or three people to have a an extended conversation with.
Dawn Echols
Maybe you’re so right, and this is because you do all this communication stuff. You absolutely know this. This is, you know, this cold and so we all need, though, and so I think during the pandemic, we kind of went back to this almost similar to a rural lifestyle of interacting only with our family. But remember, it only takes 21 days to change a habit, and unfortunately, we had one, two, even three years or more of. A change, like what we might think of as the new normal, and therefore we got into this habit, probably, of either being more alone because we had seen our family a lot, or leaning only on family and talking. And it’s kind of changed the habit of how often we speak to other people. We got used to being alone a little more, and there could be some good things to that. You know, as a therapist, we talk to people about learning to be okay with being with just loving yourself, learning to be sit quietly, especially like earlier in this interview, when my brain shoots over because we’re in all this overload. Like meditation has very great value, and that can be an alone or group thing. So I think we have to find ways to keep that community feeling and consciously invest in the relationships outside of our comfort zone. Would be the best way to put it for this interview is, how do we continue? I believe you’ve talked about speaking to your neighbors. We’ve talked about Georgia. You taking Georgia for walks and talking to people.
Bill Lampton Ph.D.
That’s my social life. That’s right,
Dawn Echols
and it’s important. It’s even in that I had dinner with some, a friend I’ve known for a long time that I reconnected with in recent years, and introduced me to another person that I really like and hit it off with. And I thought, when I left, I thought, you know, even though I spend a lot of time working with people and I love them, there was I realized, even in my own habits. And that’s probably what’s prompted when you ask these questions. Brought that up today, I’m like, I feel more energized through having conversations that require me to think, and I get to do that in my job anyway. You know, it’s, I mean, I already have the great privilege of having people come in and talk to me, and I get to listen at a deep and I do, I say, get to because it is truly wonderful to get to do that with people and to be trusted and and I learned. And just like that, that client, I was telling you that I can still remember his face, he inspired me because he overcame things that I didn’t I wouldn’t have even known how to help him out. It was a great, humbling moment as a therapist to remind us that we are two human beings on this journey called life, trying to figure it out and we can learn from each other, and it is a back and forth process, so we have to consciously invest in those relationships and make time for them, whether it’s a phone call. I skipped doing something fun recently because I had an opportunity to be on an extended phone call on a Saturday evening with someone I had not talked to. And I’m like, You know what? I either can go do this, I plan to do, which I wasn’t obligated to do, or I can focus on this in depth conversation. It wasn’t in person, in face to face. We weren’t able to do that, but it still was something important that I needed to do so we can, knowing it’s okay to make time for that.
Bill Lampton Ph.D.
Don This is been so highly informative and very, very helpful. We appreciate your being with us today on the biz communication show. And let me ask you, I’d like to ask a guest in 30 seconds or so, what would you like to leave with our viewers and listeners
Dawn Echols
to invest in yourself through both time of things you need, whether it’s with a therapist and with friends and not just family, and to know that it is a brave choice to seek therapy if you do and to it’s okay to to pursue growing and not always know how to do it all by yourself, or even when Google’s not enough.
Bill Lampton Ph.D.
Thank you. Don I know there are people who would like to contact you. You’re a valuable resource and human relations, mental health, personal growth, what contact information would you like to share?
Dawn Echols
They can read my therapist corner blog at dawning Phoenix com, and they can also place a phone call and leave a voicemail at 678-802-9591,
Bill Lampton Ph.D.
thank you. And now that you’ve given your contact information, I’m very happy to give mine starting with my YouTube channel. Ever since 2007 I have been posting communication videos, instructional videos, on my YouTube channel. There are over 500 of them there, and the best word is they’re free. So I invite you to go to my YouTube channel, Bill Lambton, PhD, and while you’re there, subscribe, you’ll have access to all of those interviews and individual instruction, and also you will see a. Post as they come up. So be sure to subscribe to that hit that subscribe button, and then also my website. Logically, since I’m the biz communication guy, my website is biz communication guy.com, and while you’re there, speaking of subscribing, that’s where you can subscribe to the podcast. Also, as dawn did, I’m happy to share a telephone number. You’re invited to call me at no obligation, just an initial exploratory call where we talk about the challenges and problems that you face in communication and how I can assist you in solving those. So certainly invite you to do that. Don Eccles, it has been such a privilege to host you. Thank you again. So much for being with us in the closing thought,
Dawn Echols
I just always truly appreciate the collaboration we’ve had over the years. It has bettered me as a professional, and it’s contributed to my professional growth, and I am always been so stimulated. I just really appreciate meeting you and having the opportunity to collaborate together. Thank you so much.
Bill Lampton Ph.D.
You just stole the words from my mouth. We’ve had, we’ve had not only the On Air, as this is conversations, but we’ve also had the privilege of some times of just coffee and conversation and catching up with what’s happening with each other, professionally and personally, and so having as a guest is is just icing on the cake for the other times that I’ve gotten to, as we would say, pick your brain and also be enlivened by your spirit. Thank you so much, and thanks again to those of you who joined us on the biz communication Show. I’m your host. Bill Lambton, the biz communication guy, be with us for another version of the biz communication show next week.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
