The Innovative Therapist Dr. Shawn Hondorp, PhD, ABPP

Episode 119. In today's solo episode, I'm going to share some of what I've learned about IFS and how it works based on both my personal and professional experiences thus far.







I'm also going to talk about learning to slow down, how it's a journey I'm still on, and how IFS helps me actually do it, specifically focusing on my example of my Overworking Part, which I learned as I talked through this episode is very linked with my "Optimizing my Experience" Part (also described in my episode with Randi Rubenstein).







In this episode I share my process of recognizing my Overworking/Optimizing Parts, appreciating them, and helping to do things (like record this episode for you!) from a more embodied and grounded place.







In the middle of the episode, I lead you through an IFS based meditation to get to know a Protector Part of yours, Overworking Part or otherwise. Then I cover 3 of the main lessons I've learned from experiencing IFS.







Without further ado, let's dive in!







But First, Words of Wisdom







“Compassion as a spontaneous aspect of Self blew my mind, because I’d always assumed and learned that compassion was something you had to develop. There’s this idea—especially in some spiritual circles—that you have to build up the muscle of compassion over time, because it’s not inherent. Again, that’s the negative view on human nature at play. To be clear, what I mean by compassion is the ability to be in Self with somebody when they’re really hurting and feel for them, but not be overwhelmed by their pain. You can only do that if you’ve done it within yourself. That is, if you can be with your own exiles without blending and being overwhelmed by them and instead show them compassion and help them, then you can do the same for someone in pain who’s sitting across from you.”― Richard C. Schwartz, No Bad Parts: Healing Trauma and Restoring Wholeness with the Internal Family Systems Model







The Top 3 Lessons I Have Learned Through Experiencing IFS









* Cognitive Self-Compassion is Very Different Than Heart Self Compassion. It's totally different. And I was definitely always practicing the cognitive type. This really came to light for me when I talked with Dr. Allyn Richards in episode 108 (you can listen here). We both experienced compassion for ourselves by practicing IFS in a way that was totally different than anything we've tried to do in the past.







* You Have to Life it to Give It. Hearing this always felt annoying to me. But also so true. I always heard that you shouldn't teach meditation if you don't have a meditation practice. Well, I occasionally taught it, but I definitely didn't have a practice.







* Talking About Parts is Very Different than Talking to and Building a Relationship with Parts. One of my trainers in my Level 1 mentioned that she often sees therapists saying they are doing IFS, when really they are talking about parts with clients, which can be helpful. Many of us, therapists especially, have developing amazing conceptualization and analyzing parts that helped us a TON. And also, they are still parts. When you truly build a relationship with and honor these parts, new levels of healing and embodiment open up, likely that you didn't believe were truly possible.

Episode 118. Today's episode is a special conversation with Dr. Amy Neeren who has shown amazing resilience in terms of finding a career in psychology that felt right for her, and a big piece of that has been pursuing a career outside of her full-time work as a psychologist in writing fiction.







She has published two children's books in the traditional publishing world (NO SMALL FEAT, as we learn in this conversation) and is working on a novel now. All of these writings have a tie to mental health, and to her story to some degree.







We talk about how writing can be so healing, and so hard, why she does it, why she chose traditional publishing route, and what keeps her going.







I really enjoyed this conversation and I'm sure you will too.







What to Expect in this Episode







We cover the following:









* Amy's journey to getting a PhD in Clinical Psychology and how stuck she felt after getting her degree and not finding private practice to be right for her







* How Amy got into writing (including whether she always wanted to be a writer or not)







* Why she chose traditional publishing over self-publishing







* How long it took Amy to publish her first and second books (these answers shocked me)







* The new project she's working on now







* How she feels about and deals with rejection (and how often she gets to practice this!)







* A discussion on how to incorporate creativity in our lives as therapists







* Why she wrote her children's book series Nellie in Knots (Book 1 in the series here, Book 2 here) (and how much my daughter and I LOVE this series!)







* What the two types of writers are (Plotters and Pantsers) and which one Amy is







* And so much more!









Join the Innovative Therapist Book Club Today!







Want to learn about the Top 4 books I wish I had read many years ago that have shifted my view of healing and human relationships?







Download the free guide today to find out – I bet some of them will surprise you! You can grab it at DrHondorp.com/Books















Disclaimer: This blog and podcast is for informational and educational purposes only. It is not a substitute for individual professional advice or treatment, including medical or mental health advice. It does not constitute a provider-patient relationship.

Episode 117. In today's solo episode, I'm going to share some of my healing journey and a bit of an update about where I'm a today. This will include reflecting back on what really helped me heal from binge eating disorder and the chronic dieting cycle, as well as what continues to help me build trust with myself today as I work to build a life that's aligned, joyful, and helps me avoid feelings of regret (as much as possible, since regret is a valuable teacher!).







I'll cover how Internal Family Systems has factored into this for me over the past 2 years, and how this model really helps me understand healing on a whole other level, even before I learned it.







I've gotten a few questions lately basically asking me, "Given our culture, what's truly possible when it comes to trusting myself with eating decisions?"







I also have been reflecting on how overall I feel more self trust than I ever have in various decisions, so I'd like to walk through some of the steps that helped me get there, with examples of how I shifted my relationship to food in the past and how I'm now learning to apply it to my podcast and other aspects of my business.







Without further ado, let's dive in!







But First, Words of Wisdom







“I’ve learned that whenever I decide something with an open heart, I usually make the right decision.”







- Maya Angelou







3 Truths That Shifted Everything When It Comes to Binge Eating & Self Trust









* Truly Understanding What Restriction is and How to Stop It. I've been reflecting lately on what helped me heal from binge eating disorder. For the part of me that restricted (and for those who don't know my story it wasn't extreme restriction in any way, basically I was just following advice I'd get from plans like WW), it really took around 13 years of trying before that part finally realized it's well-intentioned efforts were not working at all. Things to note: I had a lot of factors that made this healing journey easier for me, and still do to this day, most notably size privilege among many others.







* Continuing Until You Get to the Root Cause. I actually didn't really do this, well not until many years later when becoming a mom pushed me to do more healing. It's so common to exchange one protective part for another. No longer restricting or binge eating, but maybe occasionally using food to cope (without guilt, but still avoiding the underlying feeling), or overworking, or finding ways to avoid triggers (e.g., sometimes people will develop parts of them that really just compartmentalize, and bring all of their emotions and shame to therapy, which is great, but they are still disconnecting from the pain outside of the one hour a week which doesn't feel great to them).



















* Knowing that Deeper Healing and Releasing Beliefs is Actually Possible (Even Though the World Ain't Changing Anytime Soon). This is the part that IFS really helped with for me. I think for so many of us, we just deeply believe that we will always have parts of us that hold shame and beliefs like "I'm not enough" that get triggered by various things, anything from glancing in a mirror to making a mistake in a meeting. It's important to note here, that there are many different ways to heal parts of ourselves outside of therapy too. Sometimes being in certain social groups, participating in certain group or solo activities, or other environments can heal parts of us in ways we don't even know we needed or maybe even understand at the time. For example, maybe finding a great therapist is your next step in pursing healing, but maybe it's finding an amazing local community of artists and taking up painting,

Episode 116. Today’s episode was a super interesting conversation with Sharon Depcinski, LMSW. Sharon is a Certified Sex Therapist and wonderful human being (that I actually got to meet in person a few hours after our conversation at a local therapist meetup!).







Sharon reached out to me to share a newer therapy modality she was learning called TRIP, Trauma Regulation and Integration Processing which is a modality developed by Monique Hoving-Smeets.







From there, we chatted about the fact that she's a certified sex therapist and the important of this topic (which we have never discussed on the podcast yet!), and her personal and professional interest in exploring neurodivergence and how crucial this can be for people to experience true healing.







To be honest, I'm still processing all the information in this conversation and I believe it's incredibly important in many, many ways.







What to Expect in this Episode









* Sharon shares her journey to doing the work she does today, which includes taking a human sexuality class at Central Michigan University but soon realizing that West Michigan wasn't quite ready for her to do sex therapy in those early years...







* What is sex therapy? Why should we care about it? (and everyone should!)







* What is desire differential in couples and is it normal?







* Her winding path as an LMSW for 25 years, and how only in recent 1-2 years has she discovered that both she and her partner are neurodivergent







* Sharon's diagnosis with ADHD at age 49 and how that's impacted her as a therapist and otherwise







* Sharon's partner's diagnosis of autism, and how she felt shame that she "should have known" and why she chooses to share their story







* The role of neurodivergence and Sharon's hunch about how common it is







* The role of understanding perimenopause and menopause in understanding our physical and psychological symptoms







* Why swearing makes Sharon a better therapist and the sign she has about swearing in her office (that I totally want now!)







* Why Sharon pursued Trauma Regulation and Integration Process (TRIP) training and her experience with beginning to learn this modality







* And so much more!









Seriously, y'all. If this conversation doesn't get you thinking differently about a few things, I don't know what will.







Can't wait for you to check it out!







Resources Mentioned









* Trauma Regulation and Integration Process (TRIP) training: https://relationshipworx.newzenler.com/professional-home







* Neurodivergent Conversations podcast: https://www.divergentpod.com/







* Emily Nagoski's website









Join the Innovative Therapist Book Club Today!







Want to learn about the Top 4 books I wish I had read many years ago that have shifted my view of healing and human relationships?







Download the free guide today to find out – I bet some of them will surprise you! You can grab it at DrHondorp.com/Books















Disclaimer: This blog and podcast is for informational and educational purposes only.

Episode 115. Today's episode was another "this sounds like a fun idea" that quickly came to fruition. I logged into the YouTube TV app on my phone and saw that the Oprah Special on the weight loss GLP-1 meds was being recorded.







The show was titled: An Oprah Special: Shame, Blame and the Weight Loss Revolution







I watched a little bit of it, but then decided to come back and watch the recording the next day. I quickly sent a Voxer text to Dr. Kim Daniels to ask if she was watching and if so, if she wanted to record a podcast episode about it.







Mainly, I noticed quickly in the part that I watched that very little focus was put on the potential root causes of the food noise. I thought, "this would be fun to review with Kim" and so here we are.







What to Expect in this Episode









* Kim and I have a conversation about our general impressions of the TV special including some of the many things we believe they failed to address







* In the episode we try to be as un-biased as possible, but we recognize we have major biases and a lot of privilege that impacts how we approach this situation







* We talk about some of the aspects we wish were discussed and how we had hoped for a more balanced conversation







* We talk about the concept of obesity as a disease and also the statements like "release the shame" and our thoughts on these nuanced topics







* We also talk about how Internal Family Systems theory can help us understand the many strong opinions as it relates to these topics, and how an IFS approach could really be useful as we are trying to truly examine root causes







* We talk a bit about the concept of food noise and early relationships with food and how they might contribute to symptoms as an adult







* My hope and belief is that this conversation is not pro or anti medication, but simply an expansion on the aspects of weight loss and these controversial medications coming from two psychologists









Join the Innovative Therapist Book Club Today!







Want to learn about the Top 4 books I wish I had read many years ago that have shifted my view of healing and human relationships?







Download the free guide today to find out - I bet some of them will surprise you! You can grab it at DrHondorp.com/Books















Disclaimer: This blog and podcast is for informational and educational purposes only. It is not a substitute for individual professional advice or treatment, including medical or mental health advice. It does not constitute a provider-patient relationship.

Episode 114. This week's episode is special. I was on the Mastermind Parenting podcast with Randi Rubenstein, my beloved parent coach recently. And the convo was so good, that we are replaying it here.







So if you want to learn a little more about my story and how I got here, and hear me chat about it with one of the people who have been most influential in getting me here, this episode is for you!







What to Expect in this Episode







What to Expect in this episode:









* Some of my training and background and what I thought I was going to do for a career







* When I learned about IFS and what continues to keep me aligned and pursuing training in it







* How Randi has used it and is still using it, and a discussion about our understanding of it







* How our relationship is very "power with" dynamic and how parenting, and therapy can often be a "power over" model and how that can be less helpful and even harmful at times







* How watching Randi coach has shifted my view of how healing happens and my role as a therapist







* A story about shifting my relationship with one of my protector parts recently (I got teary sharing this one!)







* And more!









Disclaimer: This blog and podcast is for informational and educational purposes only. It is not a substitute for individual professional advice or treatment, including medical or mental health advice. It does not constitute a provider-patient relationship.