The Family Express Kathryn De Bruin and Ronda Evans

Welcome back for the next adventure of The Family Express Podcast with Kathryn de Bruin and Ronda Evans where our destination is resilient and connected families. Today’s guest is Dr. Yamilka Urquiza.

All Aboard !

1:41  Dr. Urquiza tells us about her upbringing in Cuba in a multi-generational households.
10:50 Her research findings included a reciprocity of caregiving between the generations.
13:00 Another finding was for those now grown adults who had been a helper-caregiver during the ages of 8-13 as kids, they now had a positive attitude toward caregiving. Another finding was increased empathy.
16:30 Dr. Urquiza shares her childhood experience of caregiving for her great grandpa in Cuba.
18:14 She describes how through caregiving role/experiences, kids learn to think about others and the experiences of others and thus they grow their perspective-taking skill and empathy development.
18:55 Kathryn folds what she is learning about empathy-building in kids in Sweden through perspective-taking conversations.
19:48 Dr. Urquiza describes the experience of the research participants who described having their own empathy and consideration of others expanded through the caregiving role/experience.
20:24 Kathryn describes the multi-generational context her own kids are being raised in and how she helps them grow their empathy and perspective-taking through conversations with them.
23:49 Kathryn expands their multi-perspective context to immigrant families.
25:10 Ronda describes her sadness about her kid being raised physically separated from his grandparents, and thus this opportunity for exposure to multiple perspectives is more limited.
27:09 Kathryn describes how attachment can be developed across time and space.
31:01. Dr. Yamilka describes how her son now, without prompting, goes to the nearby senior facility to pay saxophone for the elderly.
33:44 Dr. Yamilka describes her joy in finding this positive benefit of fostering empathy from caregiving when previous research had found negative impact and stigma.

Thank you for listening! 

Kathryn is an ICEEFT Certified EFT Trainer. Kathryn and Ronda are both licensed marriage and family therapists, EFT supervisors and therapists, and AAMFT Approved Supervisors.

You can follow Kathryn de Bruin
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You can follow Dr. Yamilka Urquiza

Welcome back for the next journey of The Family Express Podcast with Kathryn de Bruin and Ronda Evans where our destination is resilient and connected families. Today’s guest is Allie Zangari, LMHC, LMFT from Florida.
All Aboard !
1:05 Allie tells us how she applied EFT for couples to EFT for families.
3:00 Allie and Kathryn talk about how the flexibility in the EFFT session structure is helpful and at times can bring on overwhelm for the EFFT therapist. They begin to explore the duality of the in inherent EFFT map and structure with the freedom that EFFT offers.
8:00 Allie shares where she can get stuck: in helping parents become accessible, and identifying and accessing parental intent.
10:45 Kathryn validates Allie that when "mining for parental intent" is a struggle, one intervention we do have is to make that explicit in an empathic way, and this piece of work for parental intent may be done in individual sessions.
19:15. Allie and Kathryn discuss the importance of being transparent about emotional safety with a teen or adult child is critical in helping the teen or adult child in adjusting their expectations.
24:55. Allie explores how parents can continue to have influence on their children as they grow up be embracing two goals.
27:00. Kathryn describes the importance of parents reflecting on how they are perceived by others when the parent is in their protective strategy.
27:35 Ronda tells a story from her life about when her child reflected back to her about her protective strategy.
33:07 Kathryn tells a story from her life about when her protective strategy was reflected back to her.
36:10 Allie empathizes that secure attachment comes from the process of rupture and repair. All parents (and people) will have reactive moments and it is in the repair that holds so much attachment value. 
37:10 Kathryn describes the depth and breadth of what can be included in a repair conversation such "what advice do you have for me as a parent? What could I be working on?"
38:09 We explore the complexity that an EFFT therapist needs to respond to when a reactive moment occurs in session in stage 1. We describe how we can keep (or regain :-) our emotional balance in these reactive moments by narrating the structure and safety priorities outloud.
Thank you for listening! 
Kathryn is an ICEEFT Certified EFT Trainer. Kathryn and Ronda are both licensed marriage and family therapists, EFT supervisors and therapists, and AAMFT Approved Supervisors.
You can follow Kathryn de Bruin
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You can follow Allie Zangari
Email:    allisonzangari@gmail.com
Website:   zangaricounseling.com

Welcome back for the next journey of The Family Express Podcast with Kathryn de Bruin and Ronda Evans where our destination is resilient and connected families. Listen along today as our guest Berenice Leon-Fonseca from San Diego, California shares her experience in working with families going through high conflict divorce cases using a family systems perspective. Our conversation is complete with Berenice’s process in the initial stage of assessment and alliance building.

All Aboard !

1:32 Berenice tells us the path she took to get to this destination.
5:19 Parental buy-in starts with a therapist who believes that the co-parenting relationship needs to be the focus.
6:14 Building a co-parenting relationship starts with the intake call.
7:20 The miracle question in the intake call
11:50 In the intake call, building alliance in these families means emphasizing to the parents that they have a voice with you as the family therapist
16:04 The first session is a parent-only session
20:00 To guide the treatment plan, Berenice will follow a court order including how much to involve a parent or whether or not to reach out to a parent
23:00 Getting access to the family system will be slower and the conceptualization will be slower, but it will get the family farther and faster.
23:50 Berenice tells us about a real life experience in which slowing down and leaning in to a parents’ experience can reveal so much about a family’s struggle including the negative cycle
32:35 Berenice talks about how therapists can equip themselves including facing our own fears
and getting support and hope from leaning on others.

Thank you for listening! 

Kathryn is an ICEEFT Certified EFT Trainer. Kathryn and Ronda are both licensed marriage and family therapists, EFT supervisors and therapists, and AAMFT Approved Supervisors.

You can follow Kathryn de Bruin
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You can follow Berenice
Email: Berenice@renovasandiego.com
Website

Welcome back for the next journey of The Family Express Podcast with Kathryn de Bruin and Ronda Evans where our destination is resilient and connected families. This episode’s adventure takes us to the diverse experience of neurodivergence. Our guest today is Kat Austin, LPC, LAC, LMFT from Boulder, Colorado, USA.

All Aboard !

2:40 Kat opens with the vulnerability that it is to be a parent, and that parental shame gets evoked.
4:14 Kat describes the anecdote for shame.
7:15 How shame can show up in a neurotypical parent and a neurodiverse parent.
9:58 Exploring the loss, the discovery of differences in brains, and psychoeducation and how making the implicit explicit for the whole family system (parents, siblings, grandparents, and more) can be helpful and organizing.
11:58 The family is learning together in real-time. Help the family adopt the reframe of discovery and experimentation
13:37 Families are getting stuck around difficulty with emotional regulation. Parents need to have their own strong emotional regulation skills. The goal is for the “most responsivity” to stay online.
14:46 Parents can get blocked by grief.
15:11 Families can struggle around organizational and structural needs such as sequencing, hyperfocus and time blindness.
19:00 Recommendations, resources and referrals for families.
22:50 How can we help families when they don’t know or recognize that neurodivergence is showing up in the family? 
28:15 Kat discusses the philosophical question of labeling or diagnosing, or not.
29:40 Being diagnosed or treated for ADHD can lower risk of depression, anxiety, and substance use and can improve self-identity and self-worth.
32:20 Advocate for your family, especially in the school system.
Thank you for listening! 
Kathryn is an ICEEFT Certified EFT Trainer. Kathryn and Ronda are both licensed marriage and family therapists, EFT supervisors and therapists, and AAMFT Approved Supervisors.

You can follow Kathryn de Bruin
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You can follow Ronda Evans
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You can follow Kat Austin
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Welcome back for the next journey of The Family Express Podcast with Kathryn de Bruin, LMFT and Ronda Evans, LMFT where our destination is resilient and connected families.

This episode’s adventure takes us to Egypt. Join us for a conversation about the changes in families and family therapy in Egypt with our guest Eman Onsy. She is the current director and co-founder of the Egypt Emotionally Focused Therapy Community and is a Certified EFT therapist.

All Aboard !

Eman tells us that Emotionally Focused Family Therapy is a culturally appropriate model for Egyptian families because of the humanistic foundation, and the focus on attachment and relationships. Eman reframes parental buy-in to a larger, macro shift about the changes in stigma about therapy: as the stigma lessens parents engage more in therapy, and as more people become professionals in the field of therapy, therapy becomes more accessible. 

We hear from Eman’s personal experience about the changing family landscape in Egypt. She describes that in the modern age of social media, she cannot rely on the same family rules and expectations from her upbringing. Now in the role of the parent, she is inviting conversation and a shift in the definition and demonstration of respect. Eman gives a real life example of this and she says how “slowing down” is a key reminder to process and digest the emotional experiences that come up in their interactions. Eman offers us a special and highly relevant Islamic quote to this conversation, “raise your kids not for your generation, but for the coming generations.”

Eman ends by emphasizing how counselors are not authoritative experts, but rather bring their real genuine self into the therapy room and in this way the therapist models this different approach of humanistic, attachment-based, emotionally focused, “here and now” therapy, and this itself acts as a parallel process for the parents shifting their approach with their children and teens.

Timestamps
2:15    ICEEFT will formally introduce EFFT to Egypt in January 2024. 
Our own Kathryn de Bruin will provide this training!
3:59    EFFT is culturally appropriate for Egyptian families.
8:15    Eman reframes parental buy-in to changes in stigma about therapy,
and to improved accessibility to trained helping professionals
15:52   How has the parenting landscape changed in Egypt
18:28    “Raise your kids not for your generation, but for the coming generations” 
- an Islamic quote
20:12    Ronda and Kathryn summarize Eman’s perspective of how Egyptian counselors are helping families make these shifts: by tapping into the built-in magic of attachment and that every parent wants to feel like a successful parent

Thank you for listening! Join us for the next adventure in two weeks.

Kathryn and Ronda are both licensed marriage and family therapists. Kathryn is an ICEEFT Certified EFT Trainer, Supervisor and Therapist. Ronda is an ICEEFT Certified Supervisor and Therapist. They are both AAMFT Approved Supervisors.

Thank you for listening!

Kathryn and Ronda are both licensed marriage and family therapists. Kathryn is an ICEEFT Certified EFT Trainer, Supervisor and Therapist. Ronda is an ICEEFT Certified Supervisor and Therapist. They are both AAMFT Approved Supervisors.

You can follow Kathryn
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You can follow Ronda 
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You can follow Eman
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Welcome back for the next journey of The Family Express Podcast with Kathryn de Bruin, LMFT and Ronda Evans, LMFT where our destination is resilient and connected families. This episode adventure is all about finding the herd, and the safety that comes with being connected to one's herd. Our guest today is Dr. Ryan Rana, LMFT, LPC, Ph.D. of Arkansas. Dr. Rana is the current president and founder of Arkansas EFT Center and is the founder and current executive director of The Joshua Center.       
All Aboard !
Dr. Ryan Rana describes the significance of the felt sense of safety and connection for survival, and how losing one's herd is a threat to that safety. As Dr Ryan says, “outside of the herd, the body won’t down-regulate.” By contrast, when someone feels connected to their herd, “they can down-regulate stress and this leads to resilience.” This is exactly what The Family Express podcast is all about: destination connection and resilience. 
Dr. Rana and Kathryn talk about how play therapy helps children unlock stuck places and then family therapy provides the opportunity to restructure communication and create bonding moments between parents and kids, or between siblings. Kathryn, Ronda and Dr. Rana share in a collective wave of hope as they all take in that most kids want someone to "fight for their family."
Kathryn slows down the conversation with Dr. Rana as they note that family therapy is often seen as being about teaching parenting, and they acknowledge the disservice and shame this can have on parents. Emotionally Focused Family Therapy takes a different approach: we validate the unique role of parents in the lives of their children and we honor the inherent challenge of parenting. They discuss how family therapy sessions can be structured.
The conversation closes touching on the built-in vulnerability of the human condition, especially for children who are dependent on their caregivers. We are all in agreement that all humans need a herd as we look to each other for care, safety, protection and love.
4:12 Human behavior, driven by survival instincts, seeks to define relationships for connection.
5:13 Addressing students' mental health means addressing social connections.
7:09 Cultural challenges make it difficult to recognize systemic factors affecting children's behavior which makes effective intervention difficult.
14:03 To establish trust, Ryan focuses on building a personal connection with parents before delving into parenting techniques.
20:48 Ryan encourages giving parents space to express frustrations without the child present.
25:19 Ryan points out that establishing trust with adults takes time, whereas kids, lacking strong protective barriers, often build trust more quickly.
27:14 As a foster parent with both biological and non-biological children, Ryan acknowledges inherent vulnerabilities and attachment needs.
28:31 Finding a supportive community impacts brain function, aiding stress regulation and fostering resilience in individuals.
30:27 Ryan adds that creating supportive connections is crucial for adults too; even small social interactions positively impact emotional health.
Thank you for listening!
Kathryn an ICEEFT Certified EFT Trainer. Kathryn and Ronda are licensed marriage and family therapists, Certified EFT Supervisors and Therapists, and they are both AAMFT Approved Supervisors.

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You can follow Ronda 
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You can follow Dr. Ryan Rana
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The Leading Edge in Emotionally Focused Therapy Podcast
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