Episode 544 Brian Livesay The Truth About Treatment Resistant Veterans Transcript
This transcript is from episode 544 with guest Brian Livesay.
[00:00:00] Scott DeLuzio: Have you ever hit that point where you’ve done everything that you’re supposed to do as far as going to therapy, following the plan, uh, that you put together, and you still feel like you’re just stuck. Your sleep’s a mess, your patience is wearing thin, and you got that feeling in your chest that just never really goes away.
[00:00:18] You, you start to wonder if maybe you’re just built different, uh, maybe. This is just you, this is just the way you are. Uh, that’s where Brian Livesey’s story hits home. Uh, he’s a veteran who’s been through the same thing that a lot of us have gone through, and now he works inside the system trying to make it work better for people like us.
[00:00:43] Brian will be talking about what healing looks like and what the usual, where the usual approaches, uh, fall short and. How trust makes more difference than any kind of checklist that a therapist might have and why courage sometimes [00:01:00] starts with just picking up the phone. Before we get into this episode though, I want to take a moment to raise awareness for something that’s important to our community.
[00:01:07] The Global War On Terrorism Memorial Foundation. This organization is working to build a permanent national memorial in Washington DC to honor the service members, families, and civilians who are impacted by the global war on terrorism. This memorial will serve as both a tribute to those who served and a way to ensure that their sacrifices are recognized and remembered for generations to come.
[00:01:30] If you’d like to learn more or find out how you can support their mission, visit GWOT memorial foundation.org. Now, let’s get into today’s episode now.
[00:01:52] Hey, Brian, welcome to the show. I’m really glad to have you here. Looking forward to this conversation.
[00:01:57] Brian Livesay: Absolutely. Scott, thank you for having me. I’m excited [00:02:00] for this hopefully hour that we get to spend together and share a little bit of my story and hear more from you as well,
[00:02:05] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, no, abso absolutely. And and before we, we kind of jump into all of that, could you give us in the, and the listeners a little bit of background of who you are and, and kinda what you, what, what you’re, what you’re all about?
[00:02:15] Brian Livesay: Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, where does the story start? There’s always, there’s always a place in time, I suppose. Um, I, I could speak a little bit to my military career. It’s,
[00:02:27] you know, one that definitely was informed by a lot of family members and sort of a legacy of family, military, family. You know, great-grandfather flew recon in World War ii, you know, that’s, you know, one of my early memories of, of him younger brother, older brother who both served in the Army. My service started in, I guess would be the late aughts 2009. So I was in for about 10 years and enlisted into the quartermaster. So as a reservist [00:03:00] I was enlisted for about three of those years. And then I was able to work toward a commission.
[00:03:06] So I was able to get a commission and then a commission into the, the med service. As you can kind of see where my, my military experience is going. But in the med service, I was able to get quite a bit done. I had a command tour worked for mostly medical logistics and supporting, you know, our, our role in the, in the med battalion, the multifunctional med battalion was to support the cash, the, the combat hospital.
[00:03:32] So, um, you know, a lot of my experience was in a sense working with what would be a military hospital. And of course that informs later in my career where I am now. And I, and I work for a VA hospital. So there’s some continuity in, in, in a lot of ways. Things never really changed that much as IETS in 2019 began working for the va.
[00:03:57] And you know, in the meanwhile there was a lot of, [00:04:00] uh, opportunity for me to. I develop myself and to conduct research and learn more about how it is that, um, the things we encounter in the military in particular show up and how they show up for veterans, how they show up for us in, uh, so many ways that are perhaps more nuanced then nuanced and say a, a good clinical psychology training program might offer. I mean,
[00:04:26] and they can’t, they can’t give you everything,
[00:04:28] right?
[00:04:29] And maybe even more nuanced than I one might get in the va as a training program. You know, though there are caveats to that. I was able to get good mentorship and and good support in my efforts to conduct research and to develop a better sense of, you know, what are these things that our veterans are experiencing? You know, what is this idea of post-traumatic stress disorder and. Why is it so different from one person to the next? And why is it that our approaches to treating [00:05:00] this, this order, as they call it, uh, seem to have such a varied outcome for people? So really it’s like starting with this starting with the end of my military career.
[00:05:11] All of these questions and all of this drive to answer those questions because, you know, I’m, I’m putting the uniform down, but at the same time, I’m not leaving it behind. I’ve gotta keep doing, I’ve gotta, you know, keep working. I’ve gotta keep striving towards the answers to these questions, these questions that are coming up.
[00:05:28] So, you know, a lot, a lot really drove me to a lot of that really drove me to find something that wasn’t necessarily there, at least for me. I didn’t, I didn’t have it. I didn’t see it. And then to take that knowledge, that understanding, that depth of connecting to answers into my, into my practice, into every interaction with every veteran I’m working with. So as a backdrop, a lot of that really informs, you know, where I’m now and what I’ve been up to [00:06:00] now. The things I’ve been working on now really are meant to be the next phase of those answers discovered. Now taking those answers and developing into something that other therapists can use and and they be their answers to, and they can move forward and, and do good work in their practice.
[00:06:17] So, yeah, I don’t know. That’s a kind of a, maybe a soft launch into a lot of things, but definitely some of my background.
[00:06:22] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. No. Well, it gives a good, good overview kind of, of of who you are, your, your background and, and how you, you kind of landed into the work that you’re doing now. You know, probably wasn’t necessarily on the, on the roadmap from the beginning, you know? But, but you know, once when you, you start seeing you know, especially when, when you’re working with the veterans, like, like you were saying, you, you start seeing some of the, the problems that they’re dealing with and you know.
[00:06:46] Sometimes it seems, at least from an outsider looking in, sometimes it seems like the solutions are almost like a one size fits all solution. And as you were saying, there’s, there’s a lot of different factors that go into you know, the, the, the issues [00:07:00] that people are having. And you know, it’s maybe not necessarily a one size fits all solution.
[00:07:04] And, and so, you know, a lot of times veterans you know, they, they, they feel like they’re, they’re maybe just not being heard by, by the, the provider because it’s like, oh no, we’re just gonna go this, this one route ’cause this is the one that works for, you know, 75% of the, the population. It’s like, okay, well maybe I’m not in that 75% and
[00:07:22] Brian Livesay: But what about me? What if I’m not that?
[00:07:24] Scott DeLuzio: Right, exactly. And, and so sometimes, like I, I’ve found that I, I kind of get hung up sometimes with that because it’s like, well, okay, but maybe that’s not the right, the right path. Like, yeah, sure. I, I understand that, you know, statistically maybe they want to try the thing that’s more likely and.
[00:07:40] Brian Livesay: Right.
[00:07:41] Scott DeLuzio: But if it, if that doesn’t work, instead of just like, Hey, let’s go do it again.
[00:07:45] You know, like that, that may not be the right answer. Maybe we gotta try something different. And so there’s, there’s a lot of options out there and I, I think unfortunately, sometimes the, the veterans don’t realize that there’s a lot of options. ’cause they may only be presented with two or three different options and, [00:08:00] and they think, okay, well if, if I did these two or three things and they didn’t work, then I guess I’m, I’m just broken and defective or, or whatever.
[00:08:06] And that’s not the case. Right?
[00:08:07] Brian Livesay: Well, and more than that. And it is exactly that. It is all of that. What is available to any individual who shows up to the place they’re supposed to go to get help?
[00:08:17] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.
[00:08:17] Brian Livesay: Well, you’ve got option A or option B, maybe there’s an option C, usually not. Well, I’ve already tried both of those. So now what? And there’s this term, and I don’t know, I don’t know how, how, how well promulgated this term is. I don’t know how Well, you know, folks may have heard it or identified it with, with it, but there’s this term that says treatment resistant PTSD
[00:08:41] or the Veteran’s Treatment Resistant. It’s like, okay, well now they’ve got, you know, insult to injury or something. Right.
[00:08:51] And you know, it’s, I suppose, comes from a place of, of frustration or desperation or just trying to communicate something that [00:09:00] is. Baked in. It is, it’s baked into the paradigm. The, the conventional treatment approach to things like PTSD is that there are, there are limitations. If we adhere to something that’s a one size fit all and that you say, you know, I like that idea, or using that idea here, a one size fit all, you know what, if you know it’s someone like me, I’ve got a big head.
[00:09:19] You know, your, your hat’s not gonna fit. You know, it, it’s
[00:09:23] not a one size fit all. I need something larger or I’m gonna have a headache. And so what do we do with that? You know, that that is getting at in, in a lot of ways. Getting at some of my early questions in my career, it’s like,
[00:09:34] well, okay, well now what?
[00:09:35] So I’ve got this thing that’s telling me I’m supposed to do treatment a certain way for folks, and yet I’ve already, I’ve, I can already tell that this one size fit all is going to necessarily contort this person. Into something that may be less beneficial than nothing at all, perhaps. You know, maybe that’s a big picture idea.
[00:09:58] You know, the benefit and if it [00:10:00] doesn’t work, and then they also come away with this idea that I’m not workable, I’m not fixable, Then maybe we have done more harm than good. And so how do you get something that says, you know, a lot of this falls on the provider too. You know, a lot of this I was taking on as my responsibility.
[00:10:16] How do I take this thing that is one size fits all and and do something different with it? How do I find a all size fit? One approach? So anybody coming in the door, any individual that needs help, wherever they’re coming in, whatever their shape is, whatever their particular. Set of experiences, which is going to be always unique.
[00:10:38] There’s no, there’s no two people, right?
[00:10:41] Only one, one individual every time. And that’s you. So how do I take all of these different sizes and have them fit into something that says, as far as my approach or my modality or my, my therapeutic, how do I have that be welcoming and open and accommodating for every individual? You know, that’s, [00:11:00] that’s, that’s a good question. I suppose it was one of
[00:11:02] my
[00:11:02] questions. Yeah. It would be noble question to answer to, I suppose. Yeah.
[00:11:07] Scott DeLuzio: no, it, it would be, and, and it would be, I think, I think highly beneficial if, if there was such an answer. You know, and, and maybe there is an answer I don’t know if we’ve necessarily discovered what that answer is at, at this point. But you know, the, um, to your point that that one size fits all solution could actually, you know, potentially cause more, more harm than good.
[00:11:30] When. When you do have, have labels like treatment resistant or, or something like that because you know, like from an outsider looking in you know, if, if someone told me that I’m, you know, treatment resistant, that, that to me means like, nothing’s gonna work for me, so why am I gonna bother trying and,
[00:11:48] you know, so then maybe I just stop going to therapy altogether and maybe I, I don’t continue looking for something else.
[00:11:53] ’cause, well, I must, I must be defective and, and something’s wrong with me. You know, and a lot of times you know, the, [00:12:00] the, the treatment is, is something different than, than whatever we have in our minds. You know, like I know when I, I first started going to to therapy myself, I, I didn’t really know what to expect and I, I was thinking, you know, is this just gonna be me going and laying on some, some couch and, you know, telling, telling the guy, you know, kinda like in the, the, you know, TV shows from, you know,
[00:12:21] Brian Livesay: The far side comic
[00:12:22] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, exactly. Tho those types of things. Like, is, is it just gonna be talking about my problems and venting or you know, or whatever, or is it, or, or is there something else to it? And I had, I had no idea. I didn’t even know, like, was I gonna get locked up in a padded room or, you know, what was, what was in my future here?
[00:12:38] And, and so, so some of it, I, to me is, is just like the, almost the fear of the unknown when, when someone is starting to look into like, maybe, maybe I do need some sort of treatment, but I don’t know what’s on the other side of this, this phone call or this, you know, email that I send out to, to set up an appointment.
[00:12:56] You know, what does that treatment actually look like you know, [00:13:00] to, to, to help me. Because to me personally, it was probably one of the scariest phone calls I ever made. ’cause I was like, I don’t have a clue what’s, what’s gonna be on the other end. You know?
[00:13:09] Brian Livesay: yeah, yeah.
[00:13:11] I. think just holding onto that, that moment that you share there, that it’s, it’s an immense thing to pick up the phone. To schedule that appointment, you know, to send that secure message to, to your provider and say I’d like some help for this other thing
[00:13:30] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.
[00:13:30] Brian Livesay: moment. And that, and all the unknown is what’s packaged in that moment of, you know, immense amenity, right? I don’t know what this is going to show me. And I’ve done a dang good job for however long, however many years, however many decades of not looking at it.
[00:13:48] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.
[00:13:49] Brian Livesay: I’m good at not looking at it.
[00:13:51] Scott DeLuzio: Right.
[00:13:51] Brian Livesay: I’ve got, you wanna see skills, I’ll show you skills that, you know, at this particular thing is not looking at it. And now I’m saying, okay, I’m gonna go somewhere where I [00:14:00] might have to look at some things. I might have to explore some part of my inner world that I’ve done everything to avoid, to
[00:14:08] get away from, to not to not explore, to not encounter. And now, I mean, you’re just, you know, putting, you know, layers of and upon layers of unknown. And then stacking it all into that moment. And it’s like, it’s an immense moment, you know?
[00:14:22] And for the folks who do it, I see that in their eyes. You know, that moment of like, you’ve turned a corner here, you made the call, you came into the, the clinic. You’re, you’re sitting down for the intake. You’re at that point where you’re like, all right, you know, I’m gonna do it. We’ll see what happens. And that’s,
[00:14:41] look for any service member who gets to that point, like, you know, my heart, this has been my experience. I’ve got to meet and match that energy. That’s my role. That’s what I gotta do. You know, and my heart’s in it too. ’cause like, you know, these are my brothers and sisters already and now they’ve done [00:15:00] this great thing. And it’s like, okay, Now I gotta not get in the way of that. I gotta support that thing.
[00:15:07] I’ve got to honor it. And when the tools I have to honor it are like, you know, maybe creating, you know, distance from honoring it. Well, you know, that’s, that’s been my, that’s been my path, my career is to find a way to continue regardless of what convention might say I need to do or, or healing looks like, or disorders should be labeled as,
[00:15:31] I’ve got to still find a way to honor that effort that these veterans bring in. And, and if I don’t do that and I’ve already, you know, I’m, I’m already not doing it right.
[00:15:42] I’m already done. Right. Yeah.
[00:15:43] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. And, and, and so, you know, from, from my experience, and I, I’ve talked to a lot of other veterans too, like that, that initial, like that intake take appointment is for me anyways, it was kinda like the most nerve wracking one because it was like, I just didn’t know what to expect. And but then once when I [00:16:00] got into it and I, I started talking to the person, I got to know the person a little bit and you know, we, we kind of build up that little bit of a rapport.
[00:16:06] Then we were able to start, I was able to start trusting
[00:16:10] Brian Livesay: Yeah, yeah,
[00:16:11] Scott DeLuzio: and, and allowing myself to open up and, and share stuff that I, I didn’t really want to talk about, but I, I, I knew that I kind of had to unpack some of this stuff, otherwise I wasn’t going anywhere as far as the, the treatment was concerned.
[00:16:22] Right.
[00:16:23] Brian Livesay: Yep,
[00:16:24] yep. And that, that unpacking is, I find if like the courage shows up without them trying, I mean, it’s like, I’m not, I’m not consciously bringing this, this courage and all of this, you know, this depth out. It’s coming out like it is time, you know, because I’ve shown myself the door and I’ve walked through it and I’ve sat and I’ve gotten this far.
[00:16:47] It’s like this need begins to manifest. And,
[00:16:50] you know, it is interesting you say trust, because there is a, there’s a gate I think that has to be passed through for. For, let’s [00:17:00] say like the healing process. And it really does like that first gate is like, can I be safe with this person? You know, and trust is kind of like that. Can I be, can I be safe with this person? Maybe not even a question as stated, but do I feel safe with this person even though I’m not paying attention to that sense of safety, is it there? And if it’s there, whether you recognize it or not, that becomes the sort of you know, softening of the, you know, the loosening of all that stuff that’s coming out, all that’s being unpacked. It’s, you know, it’s, you’re popping the lock on it. And, and that’s what allows it to start coming out. And my goodness, you know, it’s, it’s really amazing how much just that those first few steps do. Like, we’re not even in the therapy yet,
[00:17:51] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.
[00:17:52] Brian Livesay: and something big and powerful and therapeutic is happening. Like taking inventory of that for me early [00:18:00] on was a step in the direction I needed to be taking, which is we, we haven’t even gotten to the protocol and things are already happening. What does that mean?
[00:18:08] Scott DeLuzio: right.
[00:18:09] Brian Livesay: Something about me that I don’t fully understand, something about them that they don’t fully understand is already getting this process of healing going and we haven’t even gotten to the protocol. So the human nature is showing healing already. Perhaps. Maybe that’s something to be thinking about, or maybe even more specifically, is this individual has what they need for this healing process. They’ve already got it. Like, look how far we’re getting already. It’s like, okay, well what’s next? You know, what’s the next step? You know, that’s where the question comes from. You know,
[00:18:44] you know, what do I do? What do I do to not to spoil this or to spoil this, this natural process that’s happening here?
[00:18:49] Scott DeLuzio: And, and so. Let’s kind of maybe go into what, what are some of those next steps and, and maybe talk about some of like what, what the treatment options actually look like, because [00:19:00] again, it, there are several options that are available to, to veterans and you know, you might go in just thinking, okay, I need therapy kind of as a, a generic general term, but there’s specifics in, in terms of like what the actual program is that you’re going through.
[00:19:16] Something like a prolonged exposure or EMDR or,
[00:19:20] Brian Livesay: Cognitive processing therapy. Yeah. Yeah. Those are, those are kind of the big ones. And you know, for the veteran, the service member, you know, we don’t know that
[00:19:30] before we make the call, it’s unlikely. Maybe we’ve heard or we might recognize it, but we’re not aware of what that, you know, that modality of
[00:19:39] Scott DeLuzio: Right.
[00:19:40] Brian Livesay: So that’s waiting on the far end, and you’re gonna encounter that at some point. But what the, what the veteran is experiencing is like, okay, things aren’t working. And they’re not working with my sleep, and they’re not working with my relationships. They’re not working with my sense of like being effective at work. You know, these, all these things are [00:20:00] showing up. I feel like I can’t connect to people. I’m angry all the time. You know, I’m jumpy all the time. You know, I cannot focus on the important things. It’s just every, my focus is everywhere else. This is the experience. And then beyond that is the experience of all the ways that we try to solve those problems for ourselves. Well, I’ll isolate more, I’ll work more. I’ll stay more busy. You know,
[00:20:24] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.
[00:20:25] Brian Livesay: if I’m busy enough, I don’t experience that. If I just don’t come home. If the kids are in bed already before work ends, then nothing. You know, these are the solutions that we reach for drinking. I mean, what a great way to knock a bunch of experience out that’s happening in the moment. It works. It’s effective, it’s a solution. Why not? I got nothing else. And at some point those solutions stopped working for us too. And maybe they never did, but we recognize like, you know, now I’ve created more problems. So this is where they’re coming from. This is what we start with [00:21:00] before we even say, I gotta make the call.
[00:21:02] Scott DeLuzio: you’re right.
[00:21:02] Brian Livesay: So you’re heading in and it’s like, okay, this is it. This is everything. This is what I’m showing up with, and you get these options. Well, this has been my experience is that what folks are showing up with seems to be, well it is in all cases, very complicated, very complex. It is oftentimes not the fact that they’ve experienced some, you know, threat to life sort of critical event from which all of these sort of symptoms show up. It didn’t bother me that I was in a life-threatening situation. That wasn’t the hard part. I’ve heard that so many
[00:21:40] times. Well, there are treatments that are designed for these sort of threat to life reactions. So if I’m doing a treatment for this sort of, you know, experience, this threat to life experience, I’m using this treatment for all of these things, and I don’t really find that, that’s what bothers me.
[00:21:55] Well, am I in the wrong treatment? You know, perhaps, and that’s what I’m, you know, [00:22:00] that’s what I’m looking at. That’s what I’m thinking. That’s what I’m wondering. Um, if I have experienced something in my, you know, my time, my time in country where there were, there were these events, there was these circumstances that there weren’t, we might take a bit of a detour here, Scott,
[00:22:20] but,
[00:22:20] or maybe I’ll put a pin in it.
[00:22:22] But here, yeah, here’s a road sign that the things that I experienced while I was in, they violated something that I find to be of the utmost importance, like this moral code within
[00:22:34] me, the thing that I had to do, or the thing that I couldn’t do. Resulted in something that meant I had betrayed something within me and I betrayed something that I should have been in the world in that moment or those moments, the experiences could be just ex, you know, having some betrayal sort of befall upon them the way the way [00:23:00] command might have treated them. You know, we saw it a lot with our Vietnam veteran. So
[00:23:04] I’m getting at this idea of moral injury, and I think I want to come back to this,
[00:23:08] but when you have, when that’s your experience and you’re showing up for therapy and the, the modality is saying, well, we want you to think about your trauma this way, that your thoughts and your thinking about what went wrong needs to be changed.
[00:23:28] They’re distorted. How you’re thinking about it, that prescribed killing that you had to engage with in those settings. You need to think about it differently and then the pain will go away. Okay. There’s a fundamental problem in that though, when I’m not thinking about it incorrectly, I’m actually thinking about it exactly the way it happened and exactly the way it affected me.
[00:23:54] I’m thinking about it the right way. That is where the pain is coming from. And so [00:24:00] any sort of intervention that says, you need to think about that differently, we need to do some cognitive restructuring for that moral pain, well, that’s gonna land flat or it’s gonna fall short, or it’s gonna position the veteran in such a way that they have to, like I said earlier, they have to contort into that one size fits all approach.
[00:24:19] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.
[00:24:20] Brian Livesay: You know, other therapies are working toward identifying and isolating just aspects or components of that, that very broad range of what it means to be an experience of trauma. And all of the, you know, critical components of that experience. And as they manifest as different symptoms, you know, bodily symptoms, emotion symptoms, thought symptoms, all the behaviors, there are a bunch of different things, a bunch of different dimensions here. And some, you know, interventions will really just sort of target a component of that and really try to knock it out. Like, well, we got those symptoms down so we’re good. You know, we have clinically significant change [00:25:00] or abatement in a symptom profile. We, I mean, what about everything else? You know, what are, what are we doing with the rest of the, of the person?
[00:25:08] So, you know, despite our best efforts, we still fall short. That’s been my experience. Despite our best you know, research, our best sort of therapeutic technology, technology, there’s something that doesn’t seem to be enough. And yet, and I’ll say this, okay, pause, time out and yet. As I described some of the limitations of these different approaches, veterans find a way to get better veterans, find a way to engage with these, with their therapists, with these modalities, and to come out on the other side, healthier, stronger, more who they are more accessible to the people who matter to them and more capable of that growth and
[00:25:55] that, you know, heading in the directions that they want to head in their lives. [00:26:00] So we get back to, for me, this is my analysis. We get back to that place, that truth that I recognize in those very first few moments of meeting someone that despite the limitations of, of our, of our therapeutic paradigm for PTSD, et cetera. Individuals have this capacity within them that’s greater than the limitations.
[00:26:23] Okay. Well I believe that, and I’ve seen it and it does seem to be that, um, you know, maybe there’s something to that. Maybe we could measure it though. It doesn’t seem like we are yet
[00:26:32] Scott DeLuzio: Hmm.
[00:26:34] Brian Livesay: now. Yeah. What, yeah, just curious what you think about that, because I’ve kind of been going for a while and, you know, set up the idea of moral injury, which we can talk about a bit too, but
[00:26:42] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. You know, and, and moral injury is something I actually, I, I did want to touch on a little bit too because you know, like, like you said, there, there are those things that, that happen that don’t necessarily involve a traumatic event where you know someone necessarily, you know, loss of life or, you know,
[00:26:58] severe injuries or, or things [00:27:00] like that.
[00:27:00] It could just be a, you know, like you said, like a betrayal from your, your command. Someone, someone in leadership who,
[00:27:06] who did something or didn’t do something.
[00:27:08] Brian Livesay: they’re supposed to take care of you.
[00:27:09] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah,
[00:27:10] Brian Livesay: Right. You’re supposed to do the right thing. We’re supposed to not leave anyone behind. There you go. The
[00:27:14] Scott DeLuzio: Right. Exactly.
[00:27:15] Brian Livesay: first,
[00:27:15] you know, no band left behind. Okay, now what?
[00:27:18] Scott DeLuzio: right, and, and so when, when you experience something like this you know, you may not even realize that you’re experiencing this, you know, in, in the moment until, you know, weeks, months, years later. And, and then you’re, you’re thinking about it and it’s like, holy crap. That, that actually affect me pretty in, in a pretty significant way and.
[00:27:37] Brian Livesay: right.
[00:27:38] Scott DeLuzio: I didn’t even, you know, realize it. Now, now, now you’ve, you’ve kind of maybe identified the, the source, the root of the, this issue. However, some people, they, they may have had just such a bad time with whatever this thing was that they kind of push it away. Like you were saying before, we we’re really good at pushing these things away and just not thinking about these things.
[00:27:58] That sometimes it [00:28:00] might take a little bit of digging and a, a little investigative work or, or whatever you wanna call it, to get to whatever the root of the, the problem is. And so that, like, I, I don’t envy, you know, people in your position at all, because that, that’s, that’s a lot to, to process.
[00:28:16] You know, you weren’t there, you don’t know exactly what this person went through. So there’s a lot of kind of probing questions that you kinda have to get into just to, to even identify what the actual problem is that you’re trying to address. Right.
[00:28:28] Brian Livesay: Perhaps, perhaps. Well, that’s a great question, Scott. How do we get to it?
[00:28:35] How do we get to the thing that we don’t, you know, how’s somebody gonna help me find and see the thing within me that I don’t even see, that I don’t even, that is a, you know, that exists in, in places with this, this, this, this, this legacy of, of, you know, covering and bearing and, and, and hiding from, or, you know, like getting away from, okay, how are they gonna find it if I don’t even know where it’s Okay.
[00:28:56] Scott DeLuzio: right.
[00:28:58] Brian Livesay: So. [00:29:00] This has been my experience. We go back to the, this this concept that I’m, I’m trying to set up because I, I think there’s a real big truism in this is that the, the person who’s sitting in front of me has something within them that is incredibly, it’s big, it’s powerful. It’s huge. It’s, it’s the immensity of, of what an individual can do. Is it, it never, doesn’t blow me away. And like, I mean that like as an understatement. Okay, but what does that mean when they’re in the thick of it? Not much yet. Yet. So I believe that to be true. Maybe they haven’t realized it yet. Where I’m going, when I’m working with somebody is I am looking for first how it is that these things that they’ve buried in their life are still showing up. Now, why do they still show up? Well, I think that the, that the bigness to greatness, the [00:30:00] capacity with an individual is sort of forcing the, and I use this word signal, forces the signal through and it shows up in so many different ways that might not be obvious to the veterans I’m working with. But I’ll draw the, I’ll draw the attention to it. You know, sometimes it’s like, you know, low hanging fruit examples are like, you know, I have these nightmares. Oh, that’s interesting. What are the nightmares about? Well, it’s always something different, but there’s a theme here, or it’s always the same nightmare or, I don’t remember ’em, but I wake up and this is what it’s like. Interesting, interesting. So here my analysis or my sense is that we’ve got a signal, a very strong, powerful signal, one that’s not gonna be ignored. ’cause I woke you up, you know, at two 30 and four 30 and you know, every night before. But it’s sending the signal as a message to say there’s something within you that needs to be addressed.
[00:30:52] It is here and it is not going away. That signal shows up in the, the conversation turned argument that turns into this [00:31:00] overreaction that I have this anger that shows and spills out that just doesn’t fit the situation. Okay. There’s a signal there. You know, these patterns, these themes in in life that just don’t seem to work for me.
[00:31:10] They keep showing up. I keep finding myself in these compromised situations. There’s signals in all of this. As people tell their stories, their signals begin to peak through. They begin to come out in sometimes very obvious ways and sometimes very subtle ways. Sometimes it’s the way that the conversation turns and steers and there’s a moment of like depth or like emotion or, or power or impact beneath the word. And as I say that, you might even kind of get a sense of what I mean, like when you’re talking to folks and you know there’s something deeper or heavier. Are our kids sort of betray this often, you know, little ones that you know when they’ve done something wrong or something ’cause it’s in their voice, whatever that means. Well, how is it that we notice it? Well, we’re great communicators. We communicate a [00:32:00] lot to each other. And it’s not just in our words. We have this whole system of sensing and feeling and emoting and expressing all of the things that are going on within us. We communicate that. So I’m sitting here, the therapist, I’m communicating things to my, to my veterans, but they’re communicating things to me. And I’ll pick up on something. Hey, there’s something there that has depth. I wonder if we can go back to it. Spend a little bit of time. You said that word. I think you felt something too. And now I’ll just ask you not to say what it is, but just notice it. Like you’re noticing something on the inside.
[00:32:38] Like there’s a feeling, there’s a sensation. So that’s where we begin and that’s this, this idea of probing. It was really just sort of that it starts there. It’s to notice these small little signals as they pop up. That’s kind of my job. Okay. So that’s kind of easy so far for
[00:32:53] me. All I’m doing is paying attention and listening and kind of being anchored in my own self, in my own nervous [00:33:00] system.
[00:33:00] I feel safe. They feel safe with me. I feel safe with them. And we’re getting them to the point where they feel safe with themselves too. And as this difficult stuff sort of seeps through and pops up, we go and we explore it as an experience and we work through that exploration in this iterative way. And in so doing, there’s more and more to be discovered. So the probing is like, no, it’s kind of like finding that, you know, that one little strand of the Christmas light sort of beginning to kinda untangle, right? It’s like, you know the answer here, it’s just gonna be some effort. You know? I’ve got the end of the Christmas light, so I know it leaves that much. So now we’re gonna work our way through this. Yeah. What do you think about all this so far?
[00:33:40] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. Yeah. And it is actually interesting that you use Christmas lights as, as an example. ’cause I’ve actually used Christmas lights as kind of an analogy of kind of how, how we we pack stuff away. We, we. You know,
[00:33:54] and, and, and we, we put it away. But you, you know, it’s still there. Like, you know, after Christmas you, you take all the lights down, you, [00:34:00] you pack ’em up in a box or whatever.
[00:34:01] You put ’em in, in a closet in the garage, the attic where, wherever it is that you, you put them they’re outta sight, they’re outta mind. But, you know, they’re there, they’ll be there again next Christmas. So you can take ’em outta the box and you can put ’em up and, and do with, with it what you will. But, but imagine for a second that you, you’ve got to un unplug one of the strands of lights and you, you still put it in the box and it ended up in the closet.
[00:34:22] And there’s still, there’s just like a faint glow coming out of the closet. So you, you know, it’s there,
[00:34:27] but it, but it’s not like top of mind and, and it’s enough of a glow that it keeps you up at night. It’s enough of a glow that it’s, it’s just a little bit of an annoyance. It, it’s just, it’s always present.
[00:34:39] It’s always there. And, and, and you, you wanna just shut the damn thing off, but, but you just don’t know
[00:34:46] Brian Livesay: Throw a blanket
[00:34:46] over it or, you know, maybe,
[00:34:47] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, yeah. You’re tripping
[00:34:49] Brian Livesay: shine a light at the door to drown out that light. You know,
[00:34:51] create more light, like,
[00:34:53] you know, all these solutions, right?
[00:34:54] Scott DeLuzio: right. And, and none of ’em are particularly helpful, you know, because you’re not addressing the root cause of it, [00:35:00] you know, of let’s, let’s just go and unplug those lights.
[00:35:03] And so that way it’s not, not not you know, being a, a, an issue anymore, but, but you really have to you know, go into that box and, and say, okay, what is, what’s even glowing? What, what is that thing? And you have to kind of unpack. ’cause maybe you have a, a, you know, a wreath in there and then the lights, and then you have,
[00:35:18] you know, other, other things that might light up.
[00:35:20] And you don’t know necessarily which one it is. But you gotta go through and you gotta dig through that box to figure out what specifically is causing this, this annoyance, this, this problem that you’re, you’re dealing with. And so I think that’s kind of like what you were talking about is, is just kind of unraveling that, that thread and that that strand to figure out where, where it’s all coming from.
[00:35:40] And you know. Like we were saying before, oftentimes we don’t even know where it’s necessarily coming from. There could be a multitude of, of reasons why we might be feeling the way we’re feeling or, or dealing with with things. But that’s kind of the, the, the job of not, not just the, the therapist [00:36:00] who, who’s sitting there, you know, listening.
[00:36:02] It’s also the, the job of the, the person who’s telling their story and, and, and everything to not leave out details that may be relevant. You may not think it’s relevant, you know, but gosh, it, it might be, you know.
[00:36:15] Brian Livesay: Well, yeah, it’s interesting ’cause it’s like, I, I love the analogy, so the therapist myself, I’m speaking for myself like. I can’t know what that looks like, what those, that that pack job is, you know what’s where, and you know how much of it’s, I can’t know. And even if I got the story, if I, even if I got the description so I’m outside, you know, in the living room and they’re shouting down, you know, or from the garage and saying, this is what it looks like, I
[00:36:45] still have no idea.
[00:36:46] Maybe a little bit more of one.
[00:36:47] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.
[00:36:48] Brian Livesay: well if that’s a fact, then that’s a, that’s a, that’s a fact. Right? Then, then like you say, it actually becomes something that the, the veteran would have to do. [00:37:00] Okay. Okay. So the veteran’s got a big task. Okay, here’s what I have to not do. I have to not interfere with that big task. I have to not distract from that big cat task. I have to not like, well, you know what, if you go hit the circuit breaker, you know, solution like.
[00:37:20] Scott DeLuzio: Right.
[00:37:21] Brian Livesay: Like me and my good ideas, right? I have to allow the veteran to, to tap into these capacities that they have, the strength that they have, this ability to remain connected within themselves and curious about this more increasingly difficult thing
[00:37:38] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.
[00:37:39] Brian Livesay: to be in their sense of agency.
[00:37:41] That I can take another step forward and I can stand in this place of difficult and I can literally grow right here. I can expand my sense of self, I can map out the nuances and details of this, this confusion, this thing that was [00:38:00] confusion. It becomes less confusing, becomes something that is like organizing, like the strand of lights.
[00:38:05] I’m jumping back between metaphor and
[00:38:07] Scott DeLuzio: No. Yeah. I get
[00:38:08] Brian Livesay: metaphor, but that, you know, as you unravel the, the strand of Christmas lights, it’s, it becomes more coherent and the process for unraveling it becomes, the process itself becomes more coherent too. And, and there’s some sense of like, I’m getting better at this.
[00:38:24] I’m figuring this out, I’m making progress. All that is happening within the veteran and need, would, need to, would necessarily need to,
[00:38:32] that
[00:38:32] it could happen with for them and within them would require me to support it fully the best way I can to stay outta the way as much as I can and to not sort of like insert myself or insert some sort of like, set of rules or structure that might come from, you know, the therapy that would derail any of what the veteran needs to do. So I mean, okay. This sounds really complex, right? And I [00:39:00] guess I have set it up in a very complex way so far
[00:39:02] Scott DeLuzio: But.
[00:39:02] Brian Livesay: experienced. Go ahead.
[00:39:03] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. No, but, but ultimately, I, I, I think, I think you’re, you’re, you’re on the right track though, because it is ultimately the, the veteran’s job to do the healing work, right. And, and to find the, the path to, to healing someone, you know, like yourself or, you know, any, any therapist that you’re, you’re working with.
[00:39:23] They’re there as the, the way I think of it anyways, they’re there as a guide to show you like, Hey, this is the path that you should go down to get to the place of, of healing and, and being in a, a better place. And, and it’s kinda like the old, you know, adage, you, you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make ’em drink.
[00:39:42] And you can lead a veteran to therapy, but you can’t make ’em get better. You know, like, you kind of have to do the, the work yourself. And, you know, you can’t just go to therapy and expect that, you know. It’s just automatically gonna get better because you went to a few sessions. [00:40:00] You actually have to put some work in yourself.
[00:40:02] And that may even be outside of therapy too. And not, not, maybe it does include
[00:40:07] Brian Livesay: And most certainly will be.
[00:40:08] Scott DeLuzio: yeah. Yeah.
[00:40:10] Brian Livesay: Yeah. I think that, I think that you’re, you’re correct about all of that. I think that the, the discovery and, you know, this discovering answers to my questions has led me to this place. That, that I understand the role. Like you say, the role of the, of the veteran in this effort, in this journey is, is it, is like the hero’s journey.
[00:40:36] I mean, that’s kind of the idea. And I, I found that that’s, that archetype of the hero’s journey is so close to what actually needs to happen. You know, if we could just name the therapy, the Hero’s journey therapy, we might be closer to, well, it’s something like this. It’s like, you know, they’re asleep in life and then they get a call to action.
[00:40:58] There’s a call to adventure, you know, that [00:41:00] might literally be calling, you know, the, the VA or the local therapist telling me that and they say, Hey, I gotta do something about this. And they approach, they approach, and what they do is they interact with, and they encounter and they interact with the therapist.
[00:41:13] And this, the therapist is holding his personal a particular role. They’re in this role of the mentor. That’s the idea in the hero’s journey, that you’re a mentor, that you’re not on the journey or doing the journey for them or to them, or instead of them, you’re giving them a couple of things. And the, the, the first thing you’re giving them is your, is your presence. And what do I mean by that? I said earlier like, we’re great communicators. It’s not just the words. And I, in fact, very little of it is our words. We’re communicating something constantly, even in our conversation, you know, over these, you know, internet tubes and, and you know, cameras and microphones. We still connect and convey something that is beneath and beyond and around the words. The [00:42:00] therapist as the mentor has to give something. And that’s what they give. They give their presence, they give their connection. So to give my connection, to give my presence, that requires that I be something very specific. You know, it it, how would I say it? Maybe a little differently that necessitates something of me. What that necessitates is that I’m able to stay stable and connected within myself. That whatever it is that comes up doesn’t tip me sideways, doesn’t pull me out of my sense of stability and, and connection and attunement, et cetera. So my job is to be, to to know my, have done my own journey. That’s the idea.
[00:42:39] Who’s the mentor? Well, the mentor is the hero of the last story, right? So, so have done my work and that’s my veterans are expect me maybe not you know, maybe sort of tacitly. They’d need me to have done my own work. And so having done so, I’m in this place. Where I can now provide something, and I’m holding this space and [00:43:00] I’m holding this, you know, I, I use Star Wars analogies way too often, but remember Yoda at Deba and he’s standing outside the tree. Luke’s gotta go in there. Luke has to do the difficult thing. Yoda’s given him everything he can up until that point, but he doesn’t go in there with him. That’s what our veterans are doing.
[00:43:19] They’re saying, okay, I’ve got to explore this place in all of the ways, in all of the facets and all of the complexity and texture and um, and components of the experience.
[00:43:30] It’s not just a language experience. It’s not just something I can talk about. I’ve gotta feel it too. I’ve gotta be in the experience of the darkest, deepest, hardest place that that is held within me in my nervous system, while simultaneously being connected and stable and agentic like I’m choosing to do this. It’s not doing it to me yet again, I’m actually moving toward it. And so for the veteran, that is [00:44:00] the, you know, the journey into the underworld and recovering the thing of value, and that’s part of the hero’s journey. That thing of value is the connection and then the integration with that critical memory, that place within them that holds the pain, that holds the injury, that holds the hurt. We connect with that and we, in connecting with that, we are able to transform it. And this is just a description of what the nervous system does. I’m just laying claim to what we have actually and can measure what are our memories and what our nervous system is able to do. That we can change, we can modify, we can adapt, we can adjust these places that hold critical experience as critical memories. As trauma, as moral injury we can make, we can make like literal structural changes to ’em, then they manifest as changed in our lives. And, and it’s a, it’s a matter of connecting with it at the [00:45:00] depth and breadth of which it exists. It can’t just be, let me get rid of the, you know, panic symptoms. It’s not just the panic symptoms ’cause it’s everything else.
[00:45:11] And it’s not just the story, it’s all the feelings. Do we gotta get to all of it. So
[00:45:16] that’s, that’s what the hero is doing in the underworld. He’s getting all of that thing of value and he is bringing it back to the people who matter most.
[00:45:23] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. And, and to your point, it, it is all of it. It’s not any one individual thing that you’re, you’re addressing. You know, there may be one big thing that that. Is, is an issue, but there’s, there’s a, a lot of times it’s, it’s a very complex issue that you’re dealing with and it’s,
[00:45:42] it’s not just a singular issue.
[00:45:44] It, it’s many things that get piled on top of each other
[00:45:49] over the course of years. And it, you know, it may, yeah, sure, there may be some combat related trauma that that took place, but there also may be stuff from years ago, you know, [00:46:00] from pre-military
[00:46:01] Brian Livesay: usually is Scott,
[00:46:03] usually usually the things we experience in the military, and it’s not always, it’s not a rule, but so often the things that we encounter in these high stake situations, they, it’s like they configure in such a way that they attach to things that are already there. And like that’s what makes them, that’s what gives them that stability to become like PTSD type event. And it’s like what folks are exploring when they’re really exploring and they’re not kind of like in this sort of pseudo structure of how it should be done when they’re really exploring it for how it is. ’cause they’re the explorer and they determine where and how it is. Like the things they tap into are often, you know, they go right past and it includes everything.
[00:46:46] During deployment, they go right past and they’re that place where they’re five years old or three years old,
[00:46:51] or 11 years old. And that’s part of the story too. That’s part of what gets recovered too. It’s all of it.
[00:46:57] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. And, and, and when, when you’re, you’re [00:47:00] starting off, you know, if you’re building a house and you, and you have a crappy foundation the house is gonna be all that sturdy. It, it’s gonna be, you know, lopsided maybe, or it’s, you know, eventually gonna fall over and, you know, whatever. ’cause it’s just not a good, stable foundation.
[00:47:13] And so if you’re, if you’re piling on traumas on top of a not so steady foundation. You know, to begin with you can’t exactly expect great results coming from, from all of that. And so, you know, dealing with some of that stuff first, or, or maybe in conjunction with, with the rest of it you know, I’m, I’m not sure the, you know, order of operations there, but you know what, in dealing with that and not ignoring those other things is, is probably just as important as dealing with the, the PTSD.
[00:47:45] But I, I feel like, you know, from, from a veteran’s perspective, if, if I’m gonna go talk to the va, well it, it’s gotta be about PTSD or it’s gotta be about, you know, combat or, you know, the, the traumas that I experienced while I was deployed and,
[00:47:59] you know, those types [00:48:00] of things. Otherwise, they’re not gonna want to hear it and they’re not gonna care.
[00:48:02] And, you know, stuff like that. And if, and if that’s the attitude that, that a, a veteran has going into it, then they’re likely not going to even bring up some of the other things. And, and, and.
[00:48:15] Not end up getting the full kind of more holistic treatment that, that they actually need. Right.
[00:48:20] Brian Livesay: Yeah. Yeah. I, I think that’s, is sort of like a, it’s kind of baked into the system, this, this message that when you come here it’s for these things. And so you gotta present as though these are the things that are all the problem. And it’s like, you know, maybe that’s not the case. Can we, you know, I work with a lot of like awesome professionals and it’s, it’s these individuals who are able to, these, these therapists who are able to see all of that as necessary and make the adjustment to invite the veteran to open up and to move beyond what [00:49:00] might be, you know, conceptualized as the, the thing we’re supposed to be talking about or working on. Uh, and you know, that’s really my encouragement to, to providers out there and then also to the veterans who are encountering like. Ask your provider, like what their approach is, you know, what would your approach be if you were, there was things that came up from when I was before the military, but it’s all kind of related. You
[00:49:23] know, be
[00:49:23] specific. Ask your provider. Ask your therapist. Like, what, what is it that’s really important in the work that we do? And how would, how would you respond? And, and how would we address these things? How would we approach these things in therapy? Um, be curious, you know, put ’em on the spot. Do it. I know they have an answer because they’ve thought about this too. They’ve encountered this too,
[00:49:45] and you’re not the first to ask. And so I, I, I really think veterans who are approaching this, especially for the first time, who feel that, you know, like you described earlier, that sense of like, oh my gosh, I don’t know what to even possibly expect. When you get to that moment of feeling [00:50:00] trust for safety or comfort or calm with your therapist. Be like, Hey, I think this might be more and bigger than just this stuff with the military, but I don’t know yet. You know, and what, what can we do about it? You are like, bring it up, bring it out, let’s go for it. And that’s my encouragement. Yep.
[00:50:15] Scott DeLuzio: no, absolutely. And I, I, it, it won’t hurt to, to bring up these, these other you know, these other. Situations or the other things that you might be dealing with. You know, you know, and I’m, I’m, if you haven’t guessed by now or you know, caught on by now, I’m, I’m big on analogies and, you know, trying to make connections, you know, visual, like real life examples that, that we can kind of, you know, paint a picture of what’s going on.
[00:50:37] And I, I, I feel like a lot of times the, all the, the crap that we deal with in life just gets, you know, kind of thrown in a, a, a ruck sack if you will. You know, you just keep throwing these things in and you know, at some point that that ruck sack’s gonna get way too heavy to carry. and
[00:50:51] Brian Livesay: Right,
[00:50:52] Scott DeLuzio: you know, at that point that unfortunately that’s a lot of times when, when people decide, Hey, I need to go get some help.
[00:50:56] And, and so now it’s not just dealing with that last straw [00:51:00] that, that broke the camel’s back. It’s, it’s now dealing with everything that’s inside of that ruck sack. And it, it could be a lot of stuff. It could be years, decades worth of stuff that that’s in there. And you gotta start unpacking that and pulling that stuff out and, and it probably stinks ’cause it’s been in there for
[00:51:14] Brian Livesay: Yeah. Well, and I, I’m imagining, you know, the, you know, the Molly system that they’re
[00:51:18] also
[00:51:19] hooking D-rings with like, you know, a second Kevlar set, you
[00:51:23] know, on the back,
[00:51:24] so you know, your full soup sandwich mode and you just can’t march effectively when you’re like that,
[00:51:29] you know, if we, yeah, we gotta unpack, we gotta organize, we gotta drop some stuff, we gotta get this, we gotta get this tight the way it’s supposed to be for me so that I can be, you know, who I need to be and move toward, you know, my goals. Um, yeah. And that’s, it’s a big ask. It’s a big task. You know, there’s, part of my message is not just for veterans, but oftentimes this gets conveyed through my veterans. It’s like, you know, make sure you know that you want your, your therapist to be able to engage you at deeper [00:52:00] levels than conversation at deeper levels than some of these, like, you know, if I were to say cognitive behavioral techniques, I think a lot of folks might recognize that term, but that healing happens at deep, deeper levels than that, that, cognitive restructuring isn’t enough because our nervous system is more than just our ability to be sort of logical and sophisticated and, and, you know, language based.
[00:52:23] We have this, this meaning making system that we don’t even understand, but it works for us constantly. It’s how we know if we trust somebody before we’ve even really gotten to know them, how we know that we can feel like safe with them. Or that like, this is somebody, this is my people, or this is somebody who, you know, I, I just, I find that it transforms how I feel when I’m around them. What is that? We have a system that’s. Bigger, that’s greater and it needs, its atten. Those parts of us need attention and exploration and therapy too.
[00:52:54] So I need a therapist. Hey, what’s your, what’s your process? What’s your approach? Do you do [00:53:00] anything that’s experiential? Do you do any experiential therapy? You know, that’s what critical memory integration is. This therapy that we haven’t really gotten too much, but, and that’s fine. That’s fine because the, the things that are true about, about CMI about critical memory integration, they’re true everywhere that they’re found. And so for veterans to say like, you know, I’d also like my therapist to know something about, you know, experiential techniques or experiential therapy. Ask your therapist about it. Like, good therapist. And I’m maybe guilty of this too much. If I hear something I don’t know about, I’ll go and I’ll research and I’ll come back with something. I’ll come back like, Hey, I actually think I can modify some stuff I already like to do. And it’s not that much. And you know, we’re now digging into something that’s greater and deeper and more, you know, we’re getting into the whole box with all the Christmas light. You know, we’re getting into everything that we need to know.
[00:53:48] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. No, and, and I, I did want to, you know, get a chance to, to mention the, the critical memory integration and, and, and kind of talk just a little bit about that. But you know, one of the things that you, you mentioned though, before, before we [00:54:00] get into that it, you, you said, you know, there’s, there’s a piece of it that’s, that’s dealing with the, the, you know, the cognitive side, the, the logical side of things and, and, you know, telling yourself that, you know, you’re not a terrible person because X happened to you or, or whatever.
[00:54:15] And, and, you know, I think a lot of people can wrap their head around it, that, that type of stuff logically. I know, I know for me, I can, I can wrap my head around some of these concepts logically. But there’s a, there’s a show I was watching a few months ago. And, and what the show is, doesn’t matter, but the, the character in the show he as, as a kid, he was dyslexic and, or, you know, even still as an adult and the, the, the.
[00:54:37] Belief that was instilled in him is that he was slow, he was stupid. He, he you know, just, he was lazy. All all of those things were those things that were told to him and, and became beliefs of his, of, of himself. And, and someone, someone said to him, it’s like, you know, that’s not true. And he goes, yeah, but there’s a difference between knowing and believing.
[00:54:56] And, and so, you know, a, a lot of times you might [00:55:00] know that all of these things are true. You know, the stuff that your therapist might tell you that, you know, you’re not a bad person because X, Y, z, you know, whatever. But there’s still that inner belief that is, to me, that’s the thing that needs to get addressed.
[00:55:14] And that’s something that’s really hard to kind of break through and, and, and so, you know, dealing with that. Anyways, I, you know, I, I kinda went off on a, a tangent
[00:55:23] Brian Livesay: No, I like that. I just wanna just touch on that for a
[00:55:25] second. Scott, if you don’t mind, like there’s a, there’s a profound difference between these, these parts of us. We’ve got a system of for knowing it’s very useful. It holds facts. It can manipulate facts. It can update facts very quickly. Like there’s like a you, not to get too far away from stuff, but like, you know what a banana is.
[00:55:46] Your brain’s got a, brings it up right away. Well, recently, like one of these, you know, AI systems came up with a new photo generator that’s called Banana also. I think it’s like nano banana or something,
[00:55:57] whatever the case may be. [00:56:00] brain very quickly made space for Banana. Also defining this AI system. It just like that, how easy that was to update.
[00:56:09] Well. That’s nice, that’s convenient. Well, what, why can’t trauma treatment be so easy? Well,
[00:56:15] you just tell me the facts and then I learn the facts and then that heals everything. Well, because there’s also a profound disagreement at times between what we know is true and what we believe, like what our body knows, what our emotion system knows.
[00:56:30] What these survival systems know, they know better. Trust me, they actually know better. You know, when it comes to meaning, it becomes to what we are for the most of the parts and the times of our lives. These systems know better, and we need to privilege these systems. We need to engage and encounter these system. We can’t just have a Socratic process to healing. We can’t, we can’t do that. That might be useful if my, if my trauma is related to, you know, you know, [00:57:00] misunderstanding what words mean, you know, there’s no diagnosis for that per se, but that would be a useful intervention for not knowing
[00:57:07] what things mean.
[00:57:08] Scott DeLuzio: Right. You know,
[00:57:09] Brian Livesay: Not knowing how to make meaning, not knowing how to, to place myself in the world and in who I am in this. Not having a clear sense of like, am I, am I safe? Am I safe for others? There’s a, there’s a system that that is like so profoundly deep. That belief only begins to allude to it, and we’ve gotta interact with that part of us. That’s the journey to the underworld.
[00:57:34] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. And, and, and to your point, like, you know, back when I was growing up and you know, prob probably to you know, when, if someone said Amazon to you, that was something that was, that was in South America only. And, and like it wasn’t, it wasn’t a you know, e-commerce site that wasn’t even a thing you know, back then, but
[00:57:57] Brian Livesay: It wouldn’t show, it wasn’t what showed up to my door [00:58:00] front every day, you
[00:58:00] know, as boxes at time.
[00:58:02] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. It didn’t have those, those
[00:58:03] Brian Livesay: I’m gonna use that, Scott. That’s a better analogy.
[00:58:05] Scott DeLuzio: It is, but, but you know, to, to your point when, when someone introduced the concept that, hey, there’s a, a company out there now called Amazon.
[00:58:16] Brian Livesay: right,
[00:58:16] Scott DeLuzio: I could, I can go, I could go to the, the website, I could type in amazon.com and now I, I can see it and it’s there and it, that’s proof that it’s there and it, it, regardless of what my previous beliefs were, that Amazon was only, you know what we previously knew it as I now know for a fact that it’s also something else.
[00:58:36] And so to that banana point that you, that you’re using it, it can be two separate things and I, all I have to do is just, you know, seeing is believing. All I have to do is just see it.
[00:58:45] But, but with these other beliefs that we have a about ourselves, there’s, there’s no, there’s no website I can go to that will show me that, yes, this is a, a, a truth, this is, this is a thing that I, I automatically am just [00:59:00] gonna believe because I, I now see it.
[00:59:02] Right. So it’s, it’s a lot more difficult.
[00:59:04] Brian Livesay: no. It, it requires, it requires interaction at a very deep level of experience. And when I say deep, I mean like probably the deepest thing you felt in the while type level of experience. And to be able to do that requires you to be in a place where, you know, in almost all cases you’re with somebody who can help support that sense of connection and safety. You know, like, look, there are, I use a distinction. There are traditional therapies, which I think really go way back. And there’s conventional therapies. We’re in the conventional, the era, traditional therapies. We’re talking like we’re sitting around the fire with the tribe. Right? Right. And we’re talking about stuff, we’re feeling about stuff we’re experiencing about stuff, and the depth of trust and connection with everyone around is, you know, not easily described, but what can come from that is a, a [01:00:00] way to process and interact with stuff that’s on the inside that is well, first necessary, I would say, I would say necessary in, you know, from the traditional lens readily available.
[01:00:12] It was always there and it was there very readily. Let’s say we’ve maybe lost a lot of that in modernity. You know, we certainly didn’t have it around the Vietnam War era. You’d be in, you know, be in Den Fu on, on Monday, and you’d be on grandma’s front porch in New Jersey Wednesday morning.
[01:00:29] Scott DeLuzio: Right.
[01:00:30] Brian Livesay: It was never like that.
[01:00:32] Coming back from war took time and you were with your battle buddies on the ships, sailing over the Atlantic. Marching back, you know, across wherever, you know, wherever wars used to
[01:00:44] be. We had a process for getting to these deep places of experience and connection with people we were safe with. And, you know, the therapeutic you know, paradigm now is meant to maybe bring us back to that or should, that’s what I advocate for [01:01:00] and for the veterans who maybe are hearing my voice now, is to go into the therapeutic relationship asking of that too. mean, our therapists are not perfect people, but many of them will try. If you say, Hey, I am hoping for something more like experiential. Do you know any experiential techniques? Could you look any up? Or could you, could we do anything like that? You know, identify and recognize it as something that’s important and then convey that sense of importance to your therapist. And that’s, I advocate for that. I
[01:01:32] Scott DeLuzio: abso Yeah, absolutely. Now, I, I, I, we, we briefly mentioned it before I, before we wrap up, I do wanna give you a chance to talk a little bit about the, the critical memory integration, kind of what that is. And, you know, that that was kind of a, a new thing to me, you know, kind of, kind of looking into it a little bit, seem, seemed kind of interesting, maybe innovative and, and you know, wanted to you know, at least let, let you talk a little bit about that so that, that folks who are are listening know that there is this, this you know, option out there that they can, they can maybe [01:02:00] investigate a little bit further.
[01:02:00] Brian Livesay: definitely investigate it. So there’ll probably be links as they usually are. So folks might check those out. So I’ll try not to remember what the links are, are, you know, www and all that.
[01:02:10] So go to the links. But yeah, look into it, you know, look deeper into it. And I’ll say something right out of the gate on this one, Scott, is that I’ve been actually alluding to a lot of this stuff all along.
[01:02:20] Scott DeLuzio: Okay.
[01:02:20] Brian Livesay: And so a lot of what I’ve been saying is at the heart and soul of critical memory integration. But let’s talk about it for a bit. So this is a modality that I’ve been working on indirectly or directly for a long time. It sort of coalesced into, you know, its, its current form and, and, and current name as critical memory integration over the last three years or so. Um, but this has been an effort from the developers for, you know, accumulation of decades of work, of clinical practice, that sort of thing. So a lot has gone into this. While it does appear new, there’s, there’s a legacy around this particular therapy. [01:03:00] And what we hope to do in critical memory integration is to begin with a therapist who’s in this place and position of holding for the veteran. This place where things can be explored. I’ve used, I use the analogy of like, you know, the baby bear falls into the, the water. We’re talking polar bears now. And mama bear dives into the water. You know, comes up around baby bear, he’s all freaked out, all splashing around and uncoordinated. And mama bear just holds the space.
[01:03:28] Two big bear paws on the ice shelf. And because of that, the baby bear’s able to calm down and begin to coordinate and be able to figure things out. So that’s, that’s the therapist’s role, to not push baby bear up out of the water, you know, to not keep them away from the edge, but to be there stable and consistent and calm.
[01:03:48] So that’s the therapist role and that’s where we start in CMI, is helping therapists get to that place where they can be everything they need to be. And then from there, the therapist is providing this, this process [01:04:00] that goes, you know, and it begins with this kind of invitational stance at all times. The therapist is extending their curiosity to the client, to the veteran to say, Hey, can we explore this first thing followed by this next thing, this next thing, this next thing. And at all times it’s never. What the therapist suggests or requires, or thinks should be explored. It’s always this, what do you notice there? Ah, anger. Can we spend time with this? Can we explore this? Could we dive into the depths of anger as an experience? Expand it as an experience, know every facet, every texture, every component of this anger. And then let it ebb and flow away. And then we move on to the next thing. Betrayal isolation empty. And then it goes on and on. They, and they’re moving through experience. The therapist being able to use this process of invitation to, you know, think of those Christmas lights,
[01:04:57] unravel, unravel. And as [01:05:00] they do, it becomes more coordinated, this unraveling that they get closer to this bigger piece, this bigger knot that we call the critical memory.
[01:05:08] And that’s where the, you know, critical memory idea is that we’re working through the components of the critical memory until we get to the very core and the very center of it. Then we engage with this critical memory, using a connective experience, again, where the therapist is providing this place of invitation, the stance of support and this capacity to hold the space while the veteran is doing all the work, doing all the connecting, doing all the exploring, being in this place of feeling all of the pain, all of the hard, all of the difficult, all of the suffering, while also being in this place of feeling connected and being agentic.
[01:05:46] I am doing this now. I’m fluent in all of these feelings. I can feel them all, and it doesn’t destabilize me. Being in those places simultaneously defines this capacity to integrate and to update something that [01:06:00] has yet to be updated, that’s been lingering and waiting for its opportunity to integrate. And so we reinforce that process as well.
[01:06:07] You know, when that happens, let’s, let’s export. What did you just do? What does that mean about. Did you know that you had all that within you and that greatness to connect to it? Did you have any idea? I mean, I did before you got here, and I didn’t wanna spoil the ending for you, but you did and you did it, and you got there and you made it happen. That’s my experience over and over again. So, critical memory, there’s a simplicity and an elegance to it, though. The way in which it can function is that all sizes, all veterans, all individuals, all people fit one has that’s been replicated over and over and over again. So we found a way to get out of the way and to be just where we need to be as a therapist. We found a way to maximize what the client, what the veteran can do, which is they bring their capacities, their greatness, that shows up on day one and was [01:07:00] there all along. They, they amplify that and nothing gets in their way. There’s no sort of artificial structure that might curtail that or. Or redirect that greatness.
[01:07:13] So that’s what critical memory integration wants to do in a very like, low resolution description. That’s what we’re trying to do.
[01:07:18] And then we work on that. We iterate on that. We come back, we, what’s next? What’s the next box with Christmas lights that need to be, you know, entangled? Yeah,
[01:07:25] Scott DeLuzio: right. And, and you know, to you just kind of build off that analogy that that box might be full of lots of stuff and, and you might need to pull out lots of individual strands of light that need to be untangled and, and kind of, you know, cleaned up and, and sort sort it out. And you know, you’re, you’re not necessarily, you know, to your point, you’re not necessarily the one who is doing the sorting.
[01:07:50] You’re just kind of facilitating like, okay, what, what’s, what’s that next thing that, that we need to take out of this box? And, you know, there, there might be some things that are in that box that don’t really need to [01:08:00] come out right now. Maybe, maybe there’s some, some bigger knots, you know, that that might be more pressing and maybe, maybe we focus on those first and, and you know, so, so you’re kind of acting as a kind of a, a tour guide of the mind, if you will.
[01:08:14] Like where, where
[01:08:15] Brian Livesay: it’s
[01:08:15] like a tour guide from afar and it’s, it’s interesting is like the veteran has the path and it reveals itself as a continued to advance. And what has always been the case in my experience, is that they explore what they need to for today. I’m never pushing ’em further. I’m never moving ’em in a different direction. What reveals itself is what’s needed. There’s something about the intuition of the, of this place within us where the belief systems are seated. There’s something about what that part of us, the wisdom that’s there, and when we tap into what’s revealed and what can be integrated is what’s needed. And it’s not more than can be tolerated, it’s just, it’s such a fascinating thing. There’s also another thing that’s kind of a, a phenomena of the human [01:09:00] experience, which is like. We, our bodies, our tissues want to organize, they want to be efficient. You know, we go into outer space and we lose all our bone density, right? Not that I’ve been, but I hear about it, right? Or, you know, you don’t work out for a while and you lose all the muscle. You know, we want to be Efficient.
[01:09:15] Our bodies wanna do that. Our bodies’ very, very good at organizing things. And when we begin the process of untangling that, I found that sometimes folks will come back the next week and so much organization has happened while they were sleeping. ’cause they could stay asleep finally, while they were interacting with their loved ones because they took a different path and they’re able to, you know, integrate and organize and, and, and sort of like make sense of the moment of emotion that was coming up and stay connected with the people they wanted
[01:09:46] to. That the self-organization, the system of self-organization continues to do its thing and people heal very naturally, very quickly. And so, you know, folks may come back and then they say, oh yeah, I’m, I’m well way [01:10:00] beyond that. I wanna look at this now. This other thing’s been coming up. Can we go over here?
[01:10:03] You know, somewhere entirely different. It’s like I see that over and over and over again. It’s a testament to how amazing human beings are, how amazing these veterans are, how amazing our people are. And it’s like, I’m gonna stay out of the way of that because I can’t, there’s nothing I can come up with that can match, that can keep pace with whatever that phenomenon is.
[01:10:23] Scott DeLuzio: sure. Yeah. And you know, the like to your point, the, the human mind is, is pretty incredible. You know, we, we can do a whole lot of things, unfortunately, sometimes we do a whole lot of things that are not really helpful and,
[01:10:38] Brian Livesay: Yeah. Kind of look how much I can stuff into this box.
[01:10:41] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.
[01:10:41] Brian Livesay: Figure out how to tangle this up even better.
[01:10:44] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. We, we get, we get stubborn.
[01:10:46] Brian Livesay: 7-year-old can make knots outta anything. Like I look at him, I’m like. This has gotta be some kind of like, you know, genius, hidden genius. ’cause the way that like the mind can also work against,
[01:10:56] which is interesting
[01:10:57] because it’s like maybe what it’s doing is it’s [01:11:00] coming up with a solution that it can come up with. And maybe it’s not a good long-term solution, but like give it credit. It’s come up with something as best it can for this moment. And I honor that. I respect that and I say, okay, let’s see if we can go another way. I’m curious about that. Let’s, you know, let’s invite an entangling of this, this complex shoelace.
[01:11:18] Right?
[01:11:19] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, no, absolutely. And it is, it is certainly a complex situation
[01:11:24] Brian Livesay: analog on you. ’cause my 7-year-old in her shoelace knot. So
[01:11:27] Yeah.
[01:11:28] But Christmas light knots.
[01:11:29] Scott DeLuzio: Oh, I, I, I get it. Yeah. I’ve had, I’ve, I’ve had kids with Knot in their shoes too, and I, I look at ’em sometimes and I’m like, how in the world did this happen? But I’ve also, I’ve also had privates in the military who
[01:11:41] got, you know, knot and things too. And I’m like, I don’t know how you did this, but you gotta
[01:11:46] figure out how to undo that.
[01:11:48] Brian Livesay: Yeah
[01:11:49] Scott DeLuzio: so. I, I, I know we’re, we’re kind of a little over on time here, but I, I, I really enjoyed the conversation. I, I, I think, you know, we kind of touched on a lot of deep points here and, and, and things that [01:12:00] hopefully for the, the listeners are, they’re, they’re gonna take away something from this, that, that, you know, there, there are solutions out there, there are things that you can do and, and you’re not, you’re not broken.
[01:12:10] You’re not, you know, you know, whatever term your, your mind is telling you it’s not true. You know, there are things that you can do. You know, it’s, yeah, probably gonna take some work, but, you know, it, it’s, in the end, it’s gonna be worth it. So, you know, I, I think you know, you, you had a lot of good points here and I, I wanna thank you for, for coming on the show you know, sharing all these these tidbits that you, you kinda had to offer here.
[01:12:31] I, it was really great. And you know, thanks, thanks again for, for all the work that you do. You know, I, I think it’s certainly valuable. So, so thanks for coming on and, and thanks for everything you do.
[01:12:40] Brian Livesay: Thank you, Scott. I appreciate the time today.
[01:12:42] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, Yvette.