PART 2 -

[00:00:00] Ross: Hi there, and a very warm welcome to Season 5, Episode 24 of PeopleSoup. It's Ross McIntosh here.

[00:00:06] Sarah: And I did a, a 700 page thesis and Maynouth actually made me take out two chapters because their criticism was that it was too long. Not that it was like torture for other people to read this 700 page thesis on my mad ramblings on, um, on the intervention.

[00:00:24] Sarah: But at at the end of that we showed that um, we could raise human intelligence. With derived relational, responding so I mean it was pretty, pretty exciting that, and we, um, we wrote the first paper demonstrating that we could raise IQ with relational frame theory. Yeah. So it's this, this was a fundamental shift in, how we think about human intelligence.

[00:00:44] Sarah: So it's pretty, pretty exciting.

[00:00:46] Ross: PeeSup PeeSupers, we're continuing our chat with Dr. Sarah Cassidy, Educational Child and Adolescent Psychologist.

[00:00:54] Ross: And author. Sarah has co written an extraordinary book called Tired of Anxiety, a kid's guide to befriending difficult thoughts and feelings and living your life anyway.

[00:01:05] Ross: So in this episode, we learn about the behavioural roots of the book. You'll hear how Sarah discovered relational frame theory, or RFT, and acceptance and commitment therapy, also

[00:01:18] Ross: And how she's using ACT to support her staff using a training protocol designed by me and my mate, Paul Flexman. Hashtag Flexintosh. Hashtag Flexibabes. We'll also hear Sarah's views on labels and her song choice.

[00:01:33] Ross: PeopleSoup is an award winning podcast where we share evidence based behavioral science in a way that's practical, accessible, and fun. To help you glow to work a bit more often. Let's just scoot over to the news desk because I'm delighted to announce that I'll be running an Act in the Workplace Train the [00:02:00] Trainer course in April and May next year.

[00:02:03] Ross: It will be over four sessions in partnership with Joe Oliver at Contextual Consulting. and you'll find a link to all the details in the show notes. Also, an update on the live summer series of PeopleSoup podcast recordings. By the time this lands, we'll have welcomed our first guest.

[00:02:19] Ross: First up was Dr. Sarah Swan talking about her amazing book, Coping with Breast Cancer. Our second live guest will be Dr. Richard McKinnon, about loneliness at work. So come and join us and hear all about his research on how we can connect and thrive. And that's on the 28th of July. Free tickets via the link in the show notes.

[00:02:40] Ross: And finally, reviews are in for part one of my chat with Sarah. Donna Mae Linton on Facebook said, Fabulous episode. Looking forward to the next two. Roberta Hines on Facebook said, Dr. Cassidy is hands down one of the most influential speakers on mental health for children and adolescents. is a privilege to work alongside of her.

[00:03:01] Ross: Amy Russell on Facebook said,

[00:03:03] Ross: Some poolside listening. Very proud of my friend and mentor, Sarah O'Connor Cassidy. Incredibly talented and a genuine human being. and on the Twitter our friend Duncan Gillard said, one of the very best speaking here. Twitter EPs, if you want to know how to truly make the world a better place, this is one Ed Psych I'd advise you to listen to.

[00:03:26] Ross: Hashtag legend. Well thank you so much to everyone who listened, shared and rated part one of my chat with Sarah. your support is what makes the PeopleSoup community so special. So please do keep listening and sharing and letting me know what you think. If you make some noise about the podcast and our guests, we'll reach more people with stuff that could be useful.

[00:03:46] Ross: For now, get a brew on and have a listen to part two of my chat with Dr Sarah Cassidy.

[00:03:58] Ross: I want to [00:04:00] change text lately and talk about relational frame theory and act, but when did you first come across it?

[00:04:06] Sarah: they're so closely connected, So relational frame theory. I came across R F T kind of by accident. I had wanted to, so I had been working as an educational psychologist for the national ed psych service in Ireland. And I was living and working in rural Kerry. And mostly what I was doing was, educational assessments.

[00:04:25] Sarah: Mostly what I was doing was, was diagnosing. intellectual disability, um, emotional, behavioral difficulty, dyslexia, things like that, going around schools in Ireland and, and making those diagnoses. And I was really frustrated because it felt like that's all I was doing, uh, was the diagnosis.

[00:04:46] LABELLING

[00:04:46] Sarah: And, and by the way, I know like within, sometimes within behavior analysis or within, um, this field, sometimes we can be quite anti labeling and, you know, just for the record, I'm not anti labeling.

[00:04:57] Sarah: You know, I, I think sometimes that can be really, really helpful in fact to say, here's, here's our case conceptualization, here's what I think is happening for a person. And this is a really good starting point for, our intervention. And, I think if the shoe fits and it's useful to wear it, let's put it on, you know, let's, let's name what this experience is and, and let's say, you know, here's a useful way for us to go forward for this person.

[00:05:22] Sarah: And what I've found is with labeling, whether it is dyslexia, whether it's autism, whether it's a D H D, I've found that for a lot of people, that's an enormous relief to them to say. no, you're not stupid. No, you're not crazy. You know, here is a useful label, uh, or, or a way of collecting your experiences in a way that makes sense for you.

[00:05:42] Sarah: and so, just for the record, in case people are saying, should I give my child or my adult or you know, is it useful or helpful to give this label? I usually say, yes, it is actually. And that's been my experience.

[00:05:55] Ross: I have very limited experience, but I have friends of my age with [00:06:00] children and two, no three of them, their children have gone through an assessment and they've got a label and they found it's anecdotal, but they found it super, super helpful. So that explains why this and that.

[00:06:13] Sarah: Yeah,

[00:06:14] Ross: So that explains this behavior or, or that reaction to that event,

[00:06:18] Sarah: yeah,

[00:06:19] Ross: and they found it super useful for the family

[00:06:22] Sarah: Yep.

[00:06:24] Audiogram potential

[00:06:24] Sarah: And also adults. So I know a lot of your listeners are, are adults rather than kids. or, they could be adults or, or parents. Um, so some of them will later go back and if they do have kids, they will then have these questions. Well, what about me if my kid has X, Y, and Z going on?

[00:06:44] Sarah: What is that saying about me? And what's that saying about you? Is your kid didn't get that thing from nowhere? , so, it might also help explain something for you. So sorry, Ross. I, I, I kind of went on a, a tangent there. what was our original question?

[00:07:00] Ross: Yeah. Yeah. Discovering R

[00:07:01] Sarah: yeah, so I was going to go back and, and do, um, a PhD and I had kind of landed on more, I wanted to do, use more behavioral approaches because I wanted to do more intervention.

[00:07:16] Sarah: And I was really frustrated that all I seem to be doing in my job as an educational psychologist. And I was quite happy to be working in the education system, but I was really frustrated that I just seemed to be doing assessment, assessment, assessment, assessment. And I didn't seem to be doing any treatment.

[00:07:33] Sarah: And I don't know if that was, you know, just Ireland at the time, like Ireland at the time. I, I suppose we had really come through a period of recession and we all of a sudden had a little bit of money and we had these enormous backlogs where people just hadn't had received assessment for so long. So I probably, a lot of it was a function of that, but there just didn't seem to be any intervention and I was so frustrated with that and I, I kind of happened upon, um, Brian Roach [00:08:00] and, um, I, I was just talking about how I'd been working with a few kids and, I had just had sort of speculation, you know, well if, if, what if we did some of these things?

[00:08:09] Sarah: And, and I mean, I, I didn't know about relational frame theory, but I just had a few speculations If we did, you know, some of these things I. and kids seem to be getting better at some of the things I was sort of speculating about if we did some of these things and it seemed to be having an impact on some of their intellectual skill sets.

[00:08:26] Sarah: So I was having these sort of idle conversations and knew a little bit about behavioral analysis or about behavioral approaches, and I had a few meetings with Brian Roach and after our first meeting, it was supposed to be an hour long meeting. We wound up talking for about three hours and my dad was, actually, this was quite funny cuz my dad was minding my son Patrick at the time, who was, Patrick was about three.

[00:08:46] Sarah: And um, they were walking around the parking lot outside of, uh, Brian Roach's office. And I'll never forget it cuz my dad was very patiently walking around the parking lot, holding Patrick's hand. And Patrick was, um, just, uh, walking along the curbs for three solid hours while Brian Roach and I hash hashed this out.

[00:09:04] Sarah: And, um, and by the end of it, Brian had me talked into doing a PhD in relational frame theory and human human intelligence. And so that was it. And I did a, a 700 page thesis and Maynouth actually made me take out two chapters because their criticism was that it was too long. Not that it was like torture for other people to read this 700 page thesis on my mad ramblings on, um, on the intervention.

[00:09:29] Sarah: But at at the end of that we showed that um, we could raise human intelligence. With derived relational, responding so I mean it was pretty, pretty exciting that, and we, um, we wrote the first paper demonstrating that we could raise IQ with relational frame theory. Yeah. So it's this, this was a fundamental shift in, how we think about human intelligence.

[00:09:50] Sarah: So it's pretty, pretty exciting.

[00:09:52] Ross: Pioneering,

[00:09:53] Ross: groundbreaking. Yeah. And that's the, so that's raise your iq.com. I'll make sure this links in the show

[00:09:58] Ross: notes and [00:10:00] and like I say, spoke about it a bit with Shane as

[00:10:02] Sarah: And, and you should get Brian and Elle on as well. We're about to, we're going to launch an app and that's coming up very soon. So there'll be very cool things happening there

[00:10:13] Ross: great. And, and Fairplay to Brian for,

[00:10:16] Sarah: carrying on

[00:10:17] Ross: for, for working with you and

[00:10:19] Sarah: for working with me

[00:10:21] Ross: No, that didn't come up the right way. Sarah.

[00:10:26] Sarah: for many years. Yeah.

[00:10:28] Ross: Um, what I was trying to articulate was, was working with you to, over that three hour meeting

[00:10:34] Sarah: Oh yeah, I

[00:10:35] Ross: I'm gonna do a PhD.

[00:10:37] Sarah: I know, I know, I know. It's funny because actually I didn't know about R F T and I had, uh, he'd asked me in that meeting, did I know about R F T and, and I, I honestly didn't, but I, I kind of wanted to say, yeah, I, because r r RFT was like a really niche area in behavior analysis and I really wanted to say yes.

[00:10:58] Sarah: I didn't wanna tell a lie cuz you know, I'm quite precise in how I do things and I really didn't wanna tell this man a lie. And, uh, I was kind of like, yes and all I'd really done was Google R F T. so I was kinda like, I've heard of it. Um, but anyway, by the end of it, by the end of it I knew, knew R F T fairly well.

[00:11:18] Ross: Fantastic.

[00:11:19] Sarah: so that did lead me into act because I did want to do, um, and I, and I, so I studied ACT during my PhD because actually everybody. Who was in Manu at that time, whether you liked it or not, you were going to be doing some act. And so while Brian wasn't that super into act at that time, everybody, well, I won't say everybody else in the department, but a lot of other people in the department at that time were studying act.

[00:11:44] Sarah: So I studied ACT with others in the department at that time. yeah, so I, I was simultaneously studying act and did act all, all four years. Did a lot of training in ACT during that time.

[00:11:54] Ross: Wow. And it's a question I touched on during the intro, but how [00:12:00] do you fit all this in?

[00:12:02] Q re fitting it all in

[00:12:02] Sarah: You know, it, it's, this is only recently, become an interesting question to me because I actually did not know until very recently that I was actually doing more than other people. I actually genuinely never knew that. And, um, Ian Tyndall, my very good friend, and I think, you know, Ian Tyndall is a, is a very, very good friend of mine and he always makes comment on how much I do.

[00:12:29] Sarah: And I, I've only recent, relatively recently discovered that I, I'm a neurodivergent person and I've never been a person that sleeps a lot. In fact, never my whole life. my mom would tell stories about this and uh, I do remember like when I was a very, very small kid, my granny taking over trying to put me to sleep when I was about three years old.

[00:12:50] Sarah: And my younger brother came along and you probably remember me making reference to, you know, my mom carrying me around on her hip for years and years. Cuz I, I just, I just never, ever, ever slept. And to this, this day, this isn't a healthy thing. It'll probably give me Alzheimer's or something, you know, later in my life.

[00:13:05] Sarah: But luckily Raise your IQ is now being used with Nani Presti lab is, um, using it to treat Alzheimer's in, in Italy. So hopefully my research will later help me later on, help me in life. Um, but you know, Ian Tyndall would often say, make reference to that, you know, I'm doing more than everybody else.

[00:13:21] Sarah: But I actually never realized, that I might be doing more things in the hours in my day than other people are doing. But I, I wonder, is this part of like a neurodivergent brain thing where, I'm doing more things with the hours in my day and, and I think this might be part of Neurodivergence where, you know, you have sort of like the tendrils of, where your interest goes.

[00:13:44] Sarah: And because my interest goes lots of places and because I tend to sleep less than most people, I, I actually don't have an answer to that question. I think I just follow my interests and where my interests bring me. I, I follow those interests and I follow them until they're done. [00:14:00] And, you know, I think because my, my father instilled in me, when do you finish a job or like, when is a job finished?

[00:14:07] Sarah: Well, it's finished when it's done. Like, that's, that's what the answer is. It's finished when it's done. So like, if I make a commitment to something, I finish doing it when it is finished. And

[00:14:17] Ross: Hmm.

[00:14:18] Sarah: so, I don't know if that answers your question, but like I, I continue to do a job until I have finished that job. And I, and I make too many commitments because if you say to me, Sarah, will you do this thing? And I say, yes, that's really interesting or that's really important, and so I will do it.

[00:14:32] Ross: That was, that was my follow up question. Do you ever say no?

[00:14:36] Sarah: That has been something that's been really difficult for me to do, I am learning the art of saying no. but it's been really difficult for me because if something feels important to me, if it feels important to me, I tend to say yes to it.

[00:14:50] Ross: Hmm.

[00:14:51] Sarah: but I am learning in the interest of self preservation to start to say no.

[00:14:57] Ross: Good, I think it's a skill a lot of humans could, could work on developing. And it, I had a right smile when there was an observation from Ian, who's a very good friend of the show, um, asked you how you, how you get so much stuff done when I see him as someone who, who is quite prolific in, in research and all his activities.

[00:15:17] Sarah: Yeah, I know. He's amazing.

[00:15:19] Ross: Absolutely.

[00:15:21] Potential Transition SPOONS ACT Ross and Paul's Protocol

[00:15:21] Ross: now I was speaking to a mutual friend of ours, Ariana Zi, earlier this week, and she was saying how you are training your practice in the Boston practice, in the protocol that me and Paul Flaman developed.

[00:15:37] Sarah: And Josh? Yeah,

[00:15:38] Ross: flexed into us. So just curious how, how is that

[00:15:41] Sarah: it's amazing so far. Yeah. So what I, I'm so glad that you brought that up because you've been actually big on my mind, because we're, we're actually using your protocols right now, so, uh, thank you for bringing it up. What has happened? You, you know, about nacoa, um, the New England Center for O C D and anxiety, [00:16:00] and you, we've, you know, we haven't really, actually, actually haven't talked too much about the book, but myself and our team are doing, this New England Center for O C D and anxiety and, it struck me that in all that we're doing with our, our new service and we're seeing all these children and families with high rates of anxiety and we're asking our staff to, you know, train up quickly and see children and families with much higher rates of anxiety and to do e r p with them and learn these new testing tools.

[00:16:35] Their rates of anxiety

[00:16:35] Sarah: And I thought, gosh, their rates of anxiety, their, our staff rates of anxiety, stress, burnout, are bound to be a lot higher than normal. And how are they gonna cope, you know, how are they going to cope with their own high rates of stress, mental health and stress and burnout whilst treating all these children families?

[00:17:00] Sarah: And I thought, gosh, I've talked to my friend Arianna, a fair bit about this, and I knew about the work that she was doing, and I knew, loosely about your role in this. And, and I knew about, Paul Flaxman and, Frederick Heim and, and Bonds. I knew about the, the book. And so I thought, God, I wonder, could I, um, put our team through this?

[00:17:24] Sarah: You know, wouldn't that be cool? Because, I suppose, sits in well with the, the way I, the way I view the world. And I care a lot about our, employee mental health and wellbeing too. So we are. Two sessions in. So we've had four hours of, uh, we've had four hours of flex and tos, and, uh, we're, we're collecting data, so I'll, I'll be able to tell you more at the end.

[00:17:47] Sarah: but we are calling it, um, weaving, trans-Atlantic Safety Nets.

[00:17:53] Ross: Beautiful.

[00:17:54] Sarah: you. I thought that was pretty cool because the thing is, we are, you know, [00:18:00] the New England Center for O C d, and anxiety, the Irish Midlands. We are taking a lot of supervision from the Boston team. There's also a New York team and there's an LA team.

[00:18:12] Sarah: And so I'm, you know, leading your, I'm leading your, your intervention. and I'm delivering it to the Boston team and our Irish team and the LA team are watching it asynchronously. And, and, um, the New York team are, are watching it asynchronously as well, and Yeah. Yeah. So that's, that's,

[00:18:35] Sarah: the, yeah, so I've made, I made a few, like just small tweaks, like if there are, um, if there are things that kind of fit more for our team or, you know, for our service.

[00:18:45] Poss intro - Flaxintosh protocol

[00:18:45] Sarah: But so far, um, everybody's really, really happy and um, really I think getting a lot out of it and we'll report back, but I mean, really, I just think it's so important because, we're working with a lot of families that themselves have a huge amount of stress and, and anxiety of course. And if, if our staff, are taking phone calls our staff are, are bound to be absorbing a huge amount of that stress and anxiety.

[00:19:16] Sarah: So how can they cope with that? If they themselves have got high rates of stress and anxiety, and that's what the data shows us, that men mental health workers will have high ri, high rates of, of stress and burnout. So, so we need to help them cope so that they can carry, they can carry that,

[00:19:33] Ross: it's such important work and I'm delighted to hear how it's, how it's going down. So, and we also always encourage people to make it their own. There'll be contextual factors that won't land. So change it. We, the reason we give such a sort of step-by-step guidance is for those who are perhaps feeling a little bit less confident, but making it your own is so important.

[00:19:54] Ross: And we're working with, uh, Uganda at the moment, Roscoe and [00:20:00] Comisi, and they're doing a systematic adaptation of the protocol for a Ugandan audience. And that's just firing off everything for me. Cuz I often go into an organization like a big hospital and think how can we reach more people with these skills?

[00:20:16] Ross: Maybe people who maybe don't relate or don't resonate with metaphors or maybe who, people who English isn't their first language. How can we get this to a level that it's becomes useful for, for more and more people? I was talking to a hospital with, with Flex and Tosh were talking to a hospital in Sunderland and they were really interested in how they could adapt it for a neurodivergent audience.

[00:20:40] Ross: So there's lots of adaptations going on. That seems to be our theme for, ongoing work of the, the, the protocol is how can we adapt it, and I'm looking how we adapt it for shorter interventions, maybe to get people with some skills and maybe funnel them into the longer program.

[00:20:59] Sarah: well, talk to me. Talk to me as much as you want about Neurodivergence.

[00:21:03] Ross: I will, I mean, I, I. My, my expertise is kind of based on Google, so Yeah. But once I've got a clearer idea, I, I will take you up

[00:21:13] Ross: on that because Absolutely. I think I want to sort of democratize the, the access to these skills that are so important.

[00:21:22]

[00:21:23] Potential Transition point - song choice

[00:21:23] Ross: So Sarah, a question I ask all my guests is for a song choice that would announce your arrival in a room for the next few weeks, maybe a couple of months. So it's not forever, but when you go to the supermarket, when you arrive home, this song would play. So what would your choice be?

[00:21:40] Sarah: I think it would be Hold Back The River by James Bay. It's one of my all time favorites.

[00:21:45] Ross: why would you, why would you choose that?

[00:21:48] Sarah: They played this song a few years ago at my eldest son's graduation from secondary school, and it actually just made me cry. Lots of things make me cry, but it made me cry [00:22:00] because it reminded me of all the things we want to do that they're just not possible. And um, I often think it's, I often get this idea that we're searching for these things that we just can't find.

[00:22:14] Sarah: And a lot of them are here anyway, you know, but like, holding back the river is just an impossible task, but just slow down. Slow down. Let's look. Let's look inwardly, because you know, here you are. Here we are. And just pause.

[00:22:31] Ross: Love it. Pause. Get curious and have a look.

[00:22:35] Sarah: Yeah. Step inside yourself for a minute.

[00:22:38] Ross: Beautiful. Thank you, Sarah.

[00:22:46] Ross: that's it, part two of three in the bag. Thanks so much to Sarah for being, frankly, a legend. Next week, we reach the dramatic climax. Where we talk about Sarah's book that she co wrote with Lisa Coyne, Tired of Anxiety.

[00:23:02] Ross: A big thanks to my producer Emma, it's a joy to have you on board. And we'd love to get your reviews, and you can send them on the socials or even on Whatsapp. We're that modern. All the details are in the show notes.

[00:23:13] Ross: If you like this episode of the podcast, please, could you do three things? Number one, share it with one other person. Number two, subscribe to the podcast and give us a five star review. Whatever platform you're on, and particularly if you're on Apple Podcasts, the Apple charts are really important in the podcast industry.

[00:23:32] Ross: And number three, share the heck out of it on the socials. This will all help us reach more people with stuff that could be. I'd love to hear from you and you can get in touch at people soup dot pod gmail.com. On Twitter, we are at People Soup Pod on Instagram at People dot Soup.

[00:23:49] Ross: And on Facebook we are at People Soup Pod. thanks to Andy Klan for his Spoon Magic. And Alex Engelberg for his vocal. Most of all, dear listener, thanks to you. Look after [00:24:00] yourselves. Peace supers and bye for now. and then we'll talk about your book,

[00:24:05] Sarah: Okay, cool.

[00:24:06] Ross: oh my God, I got quite emotional reading it at times because I was thinking flip a neck, if I'd had this when I was a child, how amazing it would be to, to read this with my mom. It was just like touched me.

[00:24:19] Sarah: Thanks for saying that.