Combatting Compassion Fatigue: Dr. Finneran on Improving Mental Health Support for First Responders

Jerry Dean Lund: 0:15

Welcome to today's episode of Enduring the Badge Podcast. I'm host Jerry Dean Lund and if you haven't already done so, please take out your phone and hit that subscribe button. I don't want you to miss an upcoming episode. And hey, while your phone's out, please give us a rating and review. On whichever platform you listen to this podcast on, such as iTunes, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify. It helps this podcast grow and the reason why, when this gets positive ratings and reviews, platforms like Apple Podcasts and Spotify show this to other people that never listened to this podcast before, and that allows our podcast to grow and make a more of an impact on other people's lives. So if you would do that, I would appreciate that from the bottom of my heart. My very special guest today is Dr Finneran. How are you doing?

Dr. Finneran: 0:56

Good, how are you doing, jerry? Thank you for having me.

Jerry Dean Lund: 0:58

I'm doing well. Yeah, thanks for coming on. Thanks for you know you're going to shed some light in maybe some different areas that I haven't really shed some light on, and you have some little eBooks that people come by to help, you know, absorb further what we're going to talk about, which is really helpful as well.

Dr. Finneran: 1:16

Yes, thank you. Yeah, the eBook is out on my website and I'll send you the link and everything so your audience can have can take a look at it. But, yes, this is a different type of approach I'm taking with first responders and service providers.

Jerry Dean Lund: 1:32

Yeah, tell the audience a little bit about yourself.

Dr. Finneran: 1:35

Okay, so I am a licensed mental health counselor. I got my license in 2009 in the state of Florida. I also have a PhD in conflict resolution and dispute analysis from NSU Nova Southeast University in Fort Lauderdale, florida. I'm a South Florida girl, so I've been in private practice for about 13 years. I've been in the field for over 20. I started very young, and so I started developing around COVID more of a niche for my specialty and my practice, and so my goal as a therapist and a therapeutic interventionist is to help people who help other people. So that is really important Help people proficiently to help other people and help themselves. So that's really kind of like my niche, and so I really focus on first responders and service providers that give their all to the people that they work with their clients, their customers, the community really and it's something that I've really grown a big passion for, because I think if I am able to help those who are helping other people, the help becomes more and more proficient and trickle down. So yeah. The ebook is called the Compassion Condundrum and the reason why it's called the Compassion Condundrum is because in the ebook I break down stress, burnout and compassion fatigue all different levels of severity. A lot of people don't really hear the word compassion fatigue. It was coined in the nursing field but the Compassion Fatigue and the book is about strategies for first responders and service providers to prevent fatigue.

Jerry Dean Lund: 3:30

Yeah, that's a real thing, compassion fatigue. I've personally felt it and it's just kind of an up and down cycle through your career where it just depends on different things that are going on in your life, where I feel like you can maybe feel like you're just fatigued in that area. They just have like no more to give, but that like it's a problem. Right, it's a ripple effect when that happens.

Dr. Finneran: 4:00

It's a really big problem, and the reason why I wrote this is because of such a such a it being such a problem in the area of caregiving or service providing, because that's what you're supposed to have the most compassion.

Jerry Dean Lund: 4:15

Right.

Dr. Finneran: 4:15

But when you give everything that you give and you continuously outpour, you know there's nothing left you, that this compassion tends to dissipate. And right now, when we service clients or the community, or our patients, you have to have the compassion or else you're not really doing due diligence with your clientele.

Jerry Dean Lund: 4:44

Yeah, For sure, For sure. And you can see those who are truly passionate about what they're doing or the care that they're giving. They go the extra mile for the person that they're giving care from. But why is that? I mean, it's kind of obvious to me, maybe, but why is that so fatiguing, Like? Why is it so hard to always give your all but not be able to fill up your own cup?

Dr. Finneran: 5:10

It's hard because as a first responder and as a service provider, that's what you're trained to do. You're trained to outpour, you're trained to give your all. I was talking to another person and we talked about first responders making everyone else first and that's an old mentality. That's an old mentality we have to actually become first. We have to be first in order to provide good care for our community and our client, our patients. So that old mentality of like outpouring and giving all your all without even thinking about yourself. You may not get the type of rejuvenation or reciprocation from your clientele, but there are things that you can intentionally do as a service provider or first responder to fill your own cup. It may not come from the people that you're serving. So that's something that I put in the book is like. With the book I put definitely about seven different common sense strategies that for first responders and service providers to really think about. That we have lost sight of and they're basic. They're basic but when I was doing the pandemic, when I was dealing with my first responders and counseling my first responders and my service providers, I was just dealing with like basic needs. I was making sure that their basic needs were okay, not really doing anything therapeutically, but making sure that things, that that they were getting what they needed basic, wise survival mode at that point. So this is kind of like the aftermath of the pandemic and it's helping first responders and service providers recover, because we're still in somewhat of a you know, pandemic.

Jerry Dean Lund: 7:10

Something's always going on in the world.

Dr. Finneran: 7:13

Something's always happening. So I feel like writing this book will give service providers recognition that this is this is a real thing, and first responders that compassion, fatigue is a real thing and what we can do about it. What we can do about it how to get the help that you need in order to help yourself first, as someone who gives care, and and help those that you can give care to.

Jerry Dean Lund: 7:44

Yeah, how did we lose sight of taking care of ourselves? You know, you know, being input, putting everybody first in front of us. How did we lose sight of that? Like that, we needed to be taken care of as well.

Dr. Finneran: 7:59

Yeah, yeah, I mean, it's an old motto that we, a lot of people don't think, a lot of people don't know if they value themselves enough to give themselves the care that they need and they continuously outpour so much. And when you do that, it's the compassion. Fatigue is a different type of exhaustion, it's a different type of it's a different type of level of it's a higher level. It's like it's like burnout on steroids. It's a different level because you lack now empathy and now you lack, you just can't, you can't care anymore. It's the costs of caring the negative costs of caring, and so we've lost sight of that, just as caregivers, first responders and service providers, because it's really our nature, it's our training, it's our nature to serve others, and when you're serving others, you don't really think of yourself, but somehow, some way, we need to. We need to in order to better serve.

Jerry Dean Lund: 9:12

I couldn't agree with you more. I found myself and I see a lot of other first responders fall into the same trap, where it's very easy to get into a rhythm of working a lot. It's just the rhythm of your life is just revolving around work and getting up and going to work, making extra shifts or working you know two departments and you just go into that rhythm of life and then you kind of shut down yourself, I feel like, because you're not giving yourself time to process things. And then the next thing you lose is your hobbies, those things that you made you happy that you used to go do and have fun, refill yourself up with. They're now gone.

Dr. Finneran: 9:55

And now and now, what happens is it infiltrates into, not your professional life, but in your personal life and your family and your friends and your significant other infiltrates into that, and so that becomes impaired and damaging, because it's kind of a methodical bleed into. So it does. Yeah, we lose sight of, when sometimes we don't even know because we've ignored it so much what does make us happy, what does fill our cup, who does rejuvenate us? You know, so it's, it's it's realizing that. That's an important key, as being a first responder and a service provider and putting yourself first is going to be, is key in order to take care of ourselves. We live in a very, very busy time. We pack our schedules up, we're super busy and we don't even have time to just be silent and be alone. There's we have. We have mastered the art of distraction.

Jerry Dean Lund: 12:44

Yeah, very, very true. I. One of the things you know talking to a lot of guests and a lot of other first responders, is the feeling of just feeling dead inside, Like they just feel just dead inside and I can really. I've been there and I've had various degrees of filling, of filling that you know. Does that play a role into our compassion fatigue or is that something maybe we got from compassion?

Dr. Finneran: 13:13

It is, it's like you, just you have, you have. It's like. Charles Figgly is the it's the ecologist who coined the term compassion, compassion fatigue, and the reason why it's compassion fatigue is it's separate, it's designates a specific professionalism. It's not like burnout, where everyone can experience burnout at any job at any given time. Compassion fatigue is designated for people that give care professionally, personally, whatever that is designated, and he coined it as you know the negative cost of caring, because you become almost like autopilot and when you're in a field like this when you're in a field like this. You're not going to provide quality care for people if you're on autopilot and feel like you're dead inside. So it's. It talks a little bit about strategies and prevention methods, that kind of help with getting your fill cut, build up. What can you do? Basic and then intrinsic things that we can intentionally do, and it changes. It could change, you could tweak, you could tweak it, you can modify it to what works, what doesn't work, you know. It's just utilizing that. You don't have to feel dead inside as a first responder or service provider. You can. You're maybe not fill your cup up with them, but you can fill your own cup. It's part of what we need to do.

Jerry Dean Lund: 14:52

Yeah, because I believe it does bleed over into your family life and which then bleeds back over into work life. Right, it's just this you can't separate them. There's just no way to do that, and I think one of the things you talked about or you've written about is domestic violence.

Dr. Finneran: 15:14

Yes.

Jerry Dean Lund: 15:16

So I know there's so few studies when it comes to first responders in the domestic violence area, some of them just like very few ones dating back to the 70s that I know of. So domestic violence in first responder homes back there considering the study was very small and old was at a extremely high level, was like over 40% back then. So I'm like where's this coming from?

Dr. Finneran: 15:42

Yeah, well, I mean, first responders have the highest rates of everything. They have the highest rates of divorce, they have the highest rates of suicide, they have the highest rate of alcoholism, they have the high, they have the highest rate. And the reason why is and this goes completely untapped is first responders and service providers see things that the norm doesn't see. It's trauma driven. They see things and you don't really realize it as a first responder because you're so desensitized to it, to the trauma. But all this is either PTSD, secondary trauma, vicarious trauma. That's experience that people on a normal day to day are not exposed to. So when you're not exposed to that, you don't know what that even feels like. So and have it be part of your day to day and then be in fear of maybe having to be having to be protective of your own safety, I mean it's a lot, it's a lot to do, it's a lot of responsibility and it's a very encompassing, all of its encompassing. So that is something that I think as a first responder, when I treat first responders, they go right into their personal life. They don't really want to talk about the trauma that they witness or experience, or maybe they're so desensitized they don't think it affects us then, but trauma stores in our body, trauma stores in our body, and so if it's not coming out psychologically, it comes out physically, it comes out somehow. So you know, we identify that.

Jerry Dean Lund: 17:36

Yeah, no, I totally, totally believe that. I mean the book the Body Keeps a Score. It's a pretty fascinating book and I do think that I do think we see a lot of elevated things in these first responder careers right, the highest of all these different things. So it kind of seems like, well, we're also a really tough group to go seek help or therapy or to do the hard work on ourselves. So where is it going to manifest itself? And that's in our bodies.

Dr. Finneran: 18:10

Yes. And it's a different type of profession because first responders and even veterans lean into each other, they lean into each other and we still, with this population, there is still a stigma attached to seeing a therapist or getting professional help. There still is that stigma that really just needs to be lifted. I mean this stigma. What has been going on since the 80s, the 90s and right now. Our mental health, you know, is pivotal, and particularly for first responders and service providers and for people that don't talk about their mental health. Who's a first responder and service providers? They're really doing themselves a disservice, because getting the help, getting the intervention, and not feeling ashamed or weak because you have to go get extra help or help in general, is still. It's still circling that.

Jerry Dean Lund: 19:18

But if we need help in other areas of our lives and careers or skills and things like that, we're certainly willing to go to extra training or pay extra money for extra equipment and do these different things. But why not ourselves? Like once again, why not invest some of that time, money, energy, personal responsibility right To work on ourselves, even if we know that the departments or the police academy or fire academy are not like doing a very good job, you know, of lifting the stigma or teaching about it. I think sometimes we know we're going into these career fields or we've been in them for long enough that there has to be something within us that probably needs to be dealt with.

Dr. Finneran: 20:01

Yeah, and in these municipalities and these cities they have to become more progressive. I mean, if you think about it, jerry, we go to a trainer physically to get fit. Why don't we have that for? Why don't we have that kind of coach or training for our mental health? It's the same kind of concept, you know, but because we go for help for mental health, or, looked at our stigma, something must be wrong. I see clients that nothing's wrong, just their day to day. It's just the day to day stressors. They don't have a diagnosis, they don't have a DSM for code, you know. But they come in because they're trying to deal with life and I'm not talking even at first responder, I'm just talking about a client that is wearing different hats. So you know, the investment in yourself, valuing yourself enough, in your mental health, and which is connected to your physical health, they're all interconnected to invest more in yourself. You know we don't do that, we don't think of ourselves in that capacity because of the stigma that's still attached, especially with this population. But cities could be doing so much better. Cities can be doing so much better. Municipalities can be doing so much better and being progressive when it comes to their employees, their mental health and being that as the forefront and just not utilizing each other, peer to peer. That's helpful.

Jerry Dean Lund: 21:51

It's very helpful.

Dr. Finneran: 21:53

And that's significant. But if the peer is unable to have the capacity to help, you know there has to be another level of intervention. And you know cities. I work with one city that really does just an amazing job of putting together a list of clinicians and do clinician awareness for firefighters and law enforcement and they're super progressive and their employees feel valued.

Jerry Dean Lund: 22:25

Right and feeling valued as an employee is I don't know right. It's just that, ah, feeling right, you feel valued in, like maybe you may not think it like in your paycheck or whatever, but just that, just feeling valued by what you're, who you're working for, helping you and doing things for you, is sometimes worth more than the money and also worse.

Dr. Finneran: 22:52

Yeah, actually, statistically. Statistically, getting monetary incentivization is not as meaningful as getting like you know what. I thank you so much for all your hard work. The validation, the actual words, affirmation that is higher incentive than an increase in pay stuff. Yeah, actually.

Jerry Dean Lund: 23:15

Not yet, and you're right. I've just recently read some newer studies, because they've been studying right this for quite a while now, and I know a lot of first responders are probably listening and like, well, you know, the value really comes to my paycheck and it does that too. It does that too, but I know people have been paid very well for their in their law enforcement career and they hated their job. It sucked, but the money was really good. So personally, I would rather have less suck, you know, and then just have a decent, you know income and feel valued like. If I have to go to work every day to make a living, I'm getting paid really well and I really hate it. Again, how's that going to affect me, my body, the people around me? It's probably all going to be fairly negative.

Dr. Finneran: 24:05

It's going to be miserable. It's you're going to. You're going to live a miserable life.

Jerry Dean Lund: 24:10

Absolutely. And what's it buying you?

Dr. Finneran: 24:13

Yeah, yeah.

Jerry Dean Lund: 24:15

Hobbies, toys, things we just talked about, that so many are not doing right, Like, oh, I got a boat, I got a camper out there, Like, but I only use it just a couple of times this year because I signed up for overtime shifts and I'm saving up my vacation and, like you know, I think part of this compassion fatigue is is sometimes a cultural thing too is just not taking the time off work. You know we have sick time, we have vacation time or PTO time, and this letting it accrue so high and so much when we probably should have taken time off, you know, to help ourselves and help our family.

Dr. Finneran: 24:52

Absolutely and plan something and once every three months, where you are, have something on the books here, Personal in Life, where you can actually look forward to. People work so hard. One of the things that they do not do is they do not reward themselves, and I'm not talking about huge successes, I'm even talking about the small victories. We don't even do that, we're not rewarding ourselves, we're not giving ourselves any credit. As a, as a culture, as a human race, we lean into the negative always. It's very. It takes three steps notch up to be positive and, as you know, part of that is, instead of leaning into the negative and talking about what you could be doing or what you should be doing, talking about what you need to be doing. You know what you want to do, what's going to bring you happiness. And yeah, taking a day off and if you don't have to give an excuse, you don't have to give a reason just because you want a day of really respite and rest and your mind to kind of calm down and be still isn't important.

Jerry Dean Lund: 26:11

Yeah.

Dr. Finneran: 26:11

Often, often and also to plan something out a little bit in advance, where you are feeling like you're working towards something and when you get to that spot where it's two months down the road and you've reached that, you can actually like look back and feel proud of everything that you worked hard for and now it's time to enjoy. I'm a I'm a friend of leader. If you work hard, you gotta have a little bit of play.

Ad: 26:36

I mean not not crazy play.

Dr. Finneran: 26:38

And not like maladaptive stuff but I'm talking about. You have to reward yourself.

Jerry Dean Lund: 26:44

Yeah, yeah, definitely. You know it's like I think culturally it's difficult to call in sick or take that time off or whatever like that mental health day will call it. It's really hard to do it because what's going to happen is you're going to be sitting at home thinking about all the people you left at work shorthanded.

Dr. Finneran: 27:02

Right.

Jerry Dean Lund: 27:03

And then that we could be.

Dr. Finneran: 27:05

we could be sitting still, but our minds are ruminating. Yeah, Defeats the purpose.

Jerry Dean Lund: 27:13

It does defeat the purpose. So that's why I think people don't call in, because I, like you, know that it's the guilt, even when I'm like was super sick at home I still. I knew that it left the department short, but like I'm just too sick, I just can't, I can't go, but you're still thinking about all day long.

Dr. Finneran: 27:30

Absolutely, absolutely. And now you're sick and now you're like mentally tormented right.

Jerry Dean Lund: 27:41

What are some other things that you know as first responders that we could maybe be working on, you know, to give ourselves a better quality of life? Because I recently retired and and it's been a massive change in my life, you know, so Trying to re-discover myself like that. So I kind of want Talk, maybe a little bit, about you know identity as being first responders, that our sole identity, you know, is a law enforcement officer, you know, a paramedic, a captain like that's also not good for our mental health.

Dr. Finneran: 28:18

Well, we spend so much time at the job, but we, we, we, you know, usually we're not wearing just one hat as an identifier, and this is where kind of what the bleedin kind of happens is we, we usually wear multiple hats. We're either a father, a spouse, a son, a daughter. We wear multiple hats and the first responder hat is definitely a big identifier. It because we're at it so often and so Frequent in wearing this hat and it becomes who we are. You know, it can become who we are. That's why it's so important to Do things in your life as a first responder or service provider that are going to Accentuate different spheres of your life, whether it be your relationship, whether it be your family, whether you know it's. You're just not One thing. We wear several hats but oftentimes we neglect the rest of the spheres, which creates problems in those spheres.

Jerry Dean Lund: 29:31

Yeah, yeah, definitely, definitely. And you know, this career is a marathon. I tell people it's not a sprint, it's a marathon. You got to take care of yourself in all the aspects of of your life. But once again, some of that comes on down to your own ownership of. Yes, you know doing things for you to fill your, your cup up, and then, when you're happy and your cups filled and stuff like that, it spills over to you know, everyone else and if it's not right, your cups low. It's like this. It's pulling it all in to the, to the bottom right, right, right right.

Dr. Finneran: 30:06

And what we may work for somebody as a first responder may not work for somebody else. So that's why you have to dig deep within yourself and figure out what, and maybe even rediscover. Like you are, you're rediscovering yourself. As a retired Law enforcement officer, you know so. You're, you're, you're rediscovering, and it's like rediscovering. What is it that I like to do? What is it that brings me happiness? And sometimes we change so much and we forget so the things we used to like to do, and then we try to do them again. We don't like Ms Mest. So we have to constantly tweak and modify because we're constantly evolving and changing.

Jerry Dean Lund: 30:46

Yeah, I think that's. That's a really good point. You know, and it's my, what I guess I'm trying to drive at is just like don't give up on those things that you loved, you know, just for this, for this job, because that balance is so important. I just think about some of the things, like you know there for a while is like I'd work on cars for a while, like just try to get In a different headspace of it other than just being that work. Right, let's just use my mind and, you know, my hands and things in a different way, like in a creative way and stuff like that, to Just help feel better, right? Just yes. Give us feel good hormones.

Dr. Finneran: 31:24

Absolutely. There's so many different types of outlets that can be used. There's creative outlets or physical outlets. There's, you know, relational outlets. Social, social, social networks are probably really high up there when it comes to who you surround yourself on a personal level and what you expose yourself to personally. Now, when you have a draining job, you know, like first responders and service providers, do you really don't want your circle to be draining? Really you really don't want your you know your social circle to be draining and emotionally tapping?

Jerry Dean Lund: 32:02

You're completely right. I just was reading that yesterday Talking about you know you should have three people out in your social circle that have nothing to do with the first responder world to bring some balance in, because If all your world is the first responder world, like socially, that kind of tends to be a very negative space. Like you can have fun socially and stuff like that, but then, like I still feel like it's very can be very negative. Right, very pessimistic about the world and everything. Right, because it's seen the bad of the bad most of the time. Right, that's your view of the world and that is not helpful To you right.

Dr. Finneran: 32:46

Right, it's switching it up and I think it's important for first responders and to lean into their peers, but also switch it up where they're people outside of their professionalism network that do a good job of balancing out the playing field, equalizing it a little bit more, you know yeah, because I think those people's Perspective is is different than the what you're gonna have and you're going to need that yes, Absolutely but what are first responders tend to want to do?

Jerry Dean Lund: 33:23

they just want to be with their other first responders because they don't want to be social.

Dr. Finneran: 33:32

Yeah.

Jerry Dean Lund: 33:33

Right, so then they're just, they're stuck in that group. They're all very unsocial being social together, you know yes, very true. How could we, as first responders, you know, maybe have better home lives like that bleed over, like how could we maybe stop some of that from happening Because families are so important to us?

Dr. Finneran: 33:56

family. Family is important to us and during the pandemic, we saw a rise in domestic violence, we saw a rise in substance abuse and we saw a rise in suicide. And now, therapeutically, what I'm seeing is a rise in marital discord and family dysfunction and disjointedness. So Right now it's pivotal to have your make your partner Really work on the relationship with your partner if you have one and your family and making those you know a Significant part of your life, the really the priority of your life. And I know it's hard for first responders to do that because their priority is really the job and the people on the job. But when you're in a, when you're in a relationship with somebody who's a first responder, they feel that yeah, it's really not. It's not a good. It's not a good feeling. So making sure that the relationship is healthy and your partner understands how to support you by communication, they having constructive communication and exchange back and forth where they know your need, they know and you know their need. It's reciprocated right, so you can't have one without the other. So it's making sure that you're equalizing the playing field with your partner, because they can actually be your biggest advocate and your biggest support system you have to be intentional, you know, right with that time and the communication and and setting that up.

Jerry Dean Lund: 35:35

I mean, a lot of times you go through rocky parts of your relationship and it's and it seems like, well, it's a commiss communication, right, there was just not the right amount of communication or there was this. Maybe the communication got heated, you know, and kept kept going or something, but it's just like comes down to like sometimes I feel like there's you're saying the same thing, you're right, but you're not hearing right. Either party's not hearing what the other person's saying, and that's a lot of a lot of.

Dr. Finneran: 36:08

It's not so much the content of what is being said, it's the delivery. The delivery kind of sucks sometimes. So it's really like you know having a controlled response or a controlled reply, emotionally regulated your conversations with your partner so things don't get heated, because once they get emotionally escalated with your partner, you know all logic and rational is out the window. So you know it's keeping it really like emotionally, like homo-sasus, and so you can come up with Expressing yourself safely With your needs and your wants and having that reciprocated back and forth.

Jerry Dean Lund: 36:51

Yeah, do you see that not happening a lot in the in the first responder world? Do you see that just is kind of neglected and they have one partner feels neglected or the other.

Dr. Finneran: 37:03

I Feel like sometimes first responders have a hard time expressing. They have a hard time Expressing because I feel that there's a fear there that made me look. They don't want to look vulnerable, they don't want to look weak, you know, even with their partner, you know. So it's. It is a. It is a barrier for a lot of first responders because of you know what you're exposed to and what you're trained and how you're trained and everything, but it is a barrier that you have to some. Some people have to learn how to have constructive communication. I had to go through formal training to learn. Yeah, I had it.

Jerry Dean Lund: 37:48

It ain't come from my family of origin. I actually had to go through formal training.

Dr. Finneran: 37:53

So that is important to get to reprogram some things that are not working, understanding, recognizing what's not working and then reprogramming and making some shifts and some changes and some some modifications, and Figuring out, with experimentation and implementation, what does work and then build from there.

Jerry Dean Lund: 38:17

Yeah, I think this is where, like an outside person can be, you know, a therapist, a coach or whatever can be really helpful in these areas to help maybe see some of the blind thoughts, maybe help you understand some different perspectives. I think sometimes this can be really hard to do on your own right To make these changes. That's why there's, once again, there's professionals out there. You're not going to be as successful a marathon runner, you know, without a marathon runner coach, you know. So, like having these different people that you add into your lives, you know, also right, I feel like, can help solve the problem faster. Isn't that what we all want? Right, the results fast.

Dr. Finneran: 38:59

Well, it's not. It's not no results that are fast or good. It's too good to be true. But it's not it's not too fast and it's too good to be true. The results, yes, yes, systems in place that are strategic and implemented and executed absolutely. And that's all a process. That's a process that takes work and it takes time and it takes investment in yourself and your partner and within your mental health. Anything that comes quick is probably either a scam or it's too good to be true. We live in such a society. We want that instant gratification. We've got to learn to live in a society where we have actually delayed gratification, which makes the reward so much more rewarding.

Jerry Dean Lund: 39:50

Yeah, yeah, I guess the fast results that I'm kind of talking about is just having that other person that's, you know, your coach, right, your coach, or your therapist or whatever that person that's helped guiding you, can give you that results. Otherwise, you know, I've found different areas in my life, right, where I'm just stumbling through things because I don't have that person to turn to, to lean on to, to help guide me, you know, through a certain section.

Dr. Finneran: 40:17

So definitely guiding, but in a therapeutic and my therapeutic approach with clients, particularly first responders, is I'm going to work hard, I'm going to meet you halfway, but I'm not doing all the work. This is where you come in. You got to meet me halfway too. This is a working relationship. Like I'm, I need you to do work. I need therapy. Therapy is hard If you're not going to always walk out with Skittles and Rainbows you know it's hard, it's challenging and I, as a therapist, my goal is for my clients to live a quality, optimum level of functioning. And that is only happens with us working together, systematically, together for one common purpose and that's to improve spheres in your life. And it starts I start out small, in which not to overwhelm, and we just, we build, we just build, we're building, we're building, we're maximizing, we're optimizing. You know, but there's a strategy to it and, yes, there's. Always the goal is to have a good outcome, but the system is actually in which to get to. The outcome is actually more important than the outcome. So we have to perfect the system, we have to individualize the system, we have to modify it according to the individual or couple.

Jerry Dean Lund: 41:37

Yeah, totally, I totally agree with that and definitely one one size doesn't fit all and it's definitely, I think, far first responders. You know we're talking, going back a little bit, you know, but trying to communicate and I think sometimes we have that dead feeling inside of you. Or you know, someone's asked like what's going on? What are you feeling Like? I don't really know, because I have like 10 different emotions that I'm feeling right now and I don't know that they really actually match the situation. You know what I'm going to express, if that makes sense.

Dr. Finneran: 42:14

Well, I think I think what happens is a lot of a lot of people, a lot of first responders kind of really taper down the emotion because they're afraid of emotion. What's called emotional flooding it was when you have 10 different emotions coming at you at one time and you're getting bombarded with all these emotions, like opening a floodgate up. Yeah, so I think I think that scares a lot of people and a lot of first responders, because if that happens, then you're not in control. And so I think it's very much. First responders do a good job of tapering down and decompartmentalizing things where there's not an emotional floodgate. And I, you know, in a therapeutic process, of course you don't want to open up the whole floodgate completely because that's a little unsafe and dangerous emotionally. But you have to open up a little bit, a little bit of floodgate, and then we work methodically, a little bit by little bit. And you know the reason why I do that and I reason why I think that's the best way is because when you have 10 different emotions coming at you, it's very overwhelming. It's very overwhelming and it's actually paralyzing. So the goal is not to have the first responder service provider lose control or get out of control or paralyze like the fight, fight and freeze response. So we open up the floodgate safely, carefully, a little bit at a time. So we're dissecting not all 10 emotions at one time, but one at a time, gradually.

Jerry Dean Lund: 43:58

Yeah, that's you know, just thinking about myself, right, it's just, that's the way I would want it to go, right, I wouldn't want to just like try to unleash all these emotions, because they would be probably so jumbled, I like I don't even know what I'm like. You know what I'm saying or what I'm like, how I'm feeling. It's just, it's just. Nothing is matching.

Dr. Finneran: 44:18

Yes, yes, I know a lot of first responders that are feeling so much and they find it very hard to even identify. There's so much, and what I do is I just take my time with them. I just take my time with them, it's okay. They can't find the words, they have a hard time articulating it, they have a hard time expressing it, and it's okay. It's okay, we're going to take our time. We'll sit in this for a little bit until we can figure it out together.

Jerry Dean Lund: 44:49

I don't think you get taught very well about any of these emotions. I mean not to put anything onto my parents, but I don't remember a whole lot of emotional education about what you're feeling and maybe how to work through some of these things. I don't really feel and I try to do a better job with my kids, but I still think there's this massive gap still and still in the world, like all over. The emotional intelligence is pretty low. It just doesn't get talked about a lot.

Dr. Finneran: 45:19

It doesn't. But the good thing now that we have is people can get into the know. With podcasts like yours, with e-books like mine, people can kind of have access to get into the know if they have a desire to. We can use social media to our detriment or we can use it to our benefit, so we can go either way. So the good thing now is, if you're not in the know and you know you're not in the know, you have so many resources to get into the know. Hence your podcast, hence the e-book.

Jerry Dean Lund: 45:50

I mean they're at our fingertips. Yeah, you just have to take the time and make it a priority. And maybe that priority, like is the listening to the podcast, or maybe I'm going to read five minutes of the e-book today or just, and then five minutes more tomorrow and just start building off that, because if you look at it in, like I've got to read the whole e-book today and then start implementing, you know, things in this e-book, like that's really not very practical, right? That's once again you're flooding yourself.

Dr. Finneran: 46:23

Yes, and you want that. You're acquiring that instant gratification. You want it fast and we want it fixed now. And it doesn't work. Everything that comes worth anything is a process that takes time and it takes energy and it takes work. Everything good comes fast and we're in a we are in a microwavable society where we're just sticking in the microwave and we reheat it and then we're going to have dinner, you know, and that's the instant gratification.

Jerry Dean Lund: 46:57

Yeah, which makes solving some of these more difficult problems in our lives more challenging because, like you said, it is going to be a process.

Dr. Finneran: 47:08

Yes, it's a process and an investment and understanding that it's going to take a little bit of time and some patience. And you know, having a therapist that knows therapeutically what they're doing strategically to get the results and having the client come into the session to strategize a game plan, because out there in the world is where we're going to execute and we're going to implement, and then you come back. You come back into the session, back from Michelle this is what worked, this is what didn't work. Let's figure something and you create your own individualized recipe.

Jerry Dean Lund: 47:47

Yeah.

Dr. Finneran: 47:48

And that's how it works, like the world is our experiment.

Jerry Dean Lund: 47:52

It's like nutrition. I mean you can read a million different things and like this is going to work for this person. That's not going to work for you. The same thing, it's just all the post once again. Right, you have to have that person that's customizing it to help. You see that you know those things aren't working and give you options to change them.

Dr. Finneran: 48:11

Right, or like brainstorming together.

Jerry Dean Lund: 48:14

Yeah.

Dr. Finneran: 48:15

I might think what works for me and I can come from a personal perspective in my therapeutic approach. But I have to assess, you know, really, and maybe get in a little bit deeper of what may work for me. It's not going to work for my clients, you know. So it's really getting taking time and staying with the client to have that come up, have that surface up and then formulate the game plan and the individualized strategy and recipe so they have an eclectic laundry list of things that they can put in their toolbox that actually work for them.

Jerry Dean Lund: 48:53

Yeah. Yeah, that's great, dr Michelle, we're like. So you have the webpage Like. What else is on the webpage that you have there for resources?

Dr. Finneran: 49:05

I have on the webpage on backandassociatescom we have, you can see a little bit bio about me. There's a bio about my team. There is a shop site where I have two presentations and the e-book on there that you can kind of you can kind of look through. I have platforms. I have Instagram and Facebook, and I have Pinterest and I have LinkedIn, so I have all those platforms. You don't get, you get snippets of that, and I post daily on my social medias. I develop the content, and my social media manager and my virtual assistants, you know, put that into beautiful design. The content is for me, though, and but the design is from the people that are a little bit younger and a little bit more tech savvy.

Jerry Dean Lund: 50:06

Know your strength. Know your strength, yes.

Dr. Finneran: 50:09

I know what I'm good at and I know what I'm not, so it's understanding that. So I have a team of people that helped me. I'm really fortunate to have this team. We work really well together and the goal is to bring the best services in my local community and two municipalities to provide education, the platforms and the ebook and the videos all educational. The clinical the clinical team that I'm building process of building just hired somebody this year who's amazing Provide therapeutic intervention that is going to give out good results to the people that come to us and back at Associates.

Jerry Dean Lund: 50:52

And that's as part of that, because, like you, spend time on being culturally competent. I think you talked about like doing, spending some time in that area, about understanding the culture of first responders.

Dr. Finneran: 51:03

Yeah, I had training on it, I've trained on it, I, I, I, um, um, affiliated with some departments. So I, you know, I, uh, as a unit, as units, specialized units and individuals. So, yes, it's, it's, you know, it's, it's becoming culturally competent in knowing what this specific professional realm needs and what they're going through. Yeah, so, and that's why, as the pandemic continued, I began um really developing this niche of me helping people that help other people efficiently.

Jerry Dean Lund: 51:43

Yeah, I think you know it's. It's a great niche to be in. Yes, Um, because we can't afford to have. I mean, it's already difficult finding people to want to be in the well, it's called the customer service business, but that you know, in law enforcement, firefighting, nurses, like things that are actually talking to people and touching people and like they're just hard to get those people in there. So we need to do a really good job when we find someone that wants to be in there, keeping them and working on them and like investing in them, not like we talked about, it's not just the dollars, it's the, it's the programs that help them be successful, both on and off the job.

Dr. Finneran: 52:26

Yes, and when cities set up their insurance plans or their EAPs or employees assistance programs, and when they set up in services, they surround themselves with things that are in training and getting into the know. Employees have a lot of power to do this and they need to start maximizing their power to help their employees and work with their employees so they can be, you know, a dependable, you know agency. So it's really starts with not just the, the first responder, but the city that there are, ms Pally, that they're associated with needs to be more and more progressive and cities are very slow to pick up on the needs and we can't afford to, to, to, to wait, we can't afford to be slow. We have to understand this is probably where the instant gratification comes and we have to understand, as a municipality, what, what really is the need of their employees so they continue to do a good job and feel supported and valued by their city.

Jerry Dean Lund: 53:39

Right right, which makes them go the extra mile right for the person that they're serving. They feel supported.

Dr. Finneran: 53:45

Absolutely. You know you want to work hard for people you want to work hard for that are going to incentivize you in a way that you feel valued and appreciated. I feel I've always had, you know, when I work with directors that were directing kind of like. You know I'm not really a passive, aggressive person, but someone who's directing kind of give me kind of like the, the, the constructiveness and the positiveness I want to work hard for them. You know I want to, I want to do a good job for them. And same thing with any job that you go to, that you, you, you have a supervisor or director, a manager that takes mental health and their employees and their physical health into consideration and not just look at them as a number.

Jerry Dean Lund: 54:35

Right right, totally, totally agree with you. Yeah Well, thank you so much for being on the on the podcast today and a lot of great like wisdom and perspective that you shared.

Dr. Finneran: 54:48

Thank you so much, Jerry, for having me. I appreciate your, your time and what you do and what you've done and your amazing podcasts.

Jerry Dean Lund: 54:57

And vice versa. You know, I appreciate, you know someone that looks after first responders and then invest in them and then their, their niche is them, and then the just, the more understanding and then we'll help other first responders. May, you know, stomp out that stigmatism right by. I'm going to the person that I trust, you know, dr Michelle. She's totally culturally competent. Like I don't have, you know, a problem talking to her and I, and I feel better and I feel more resilient and I'm going to go back to work and I'm going to, you know, be better at work and be better at home. You know, just those are the great things.

Dr. Finneran: 55:32

That's, that's, that's the goal. That's, the goal is to continuously work on improving in every sphere of your life. It can you know, we don't attack every sphere at the same time, but we, we do, we do. The goal is to strive to continuously improve and continuously progress and you know, and continuously, you know, invest in yourself and value yourself enough to do so.

Jerry Dean Lund: 55:56

Yeah, yeah, definitely Well, thank you so much.

Dr. Finneran: 55:59

You're welcome. Thank you for having me.

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