Three years of #TherapistsConnect

In this episode, #TherapistsConnect founder and co-lead Dr Peter Blundell discusses developing a therapy community in a pandemic with co-lead and founder of #TraineeTalk, Caz Binstead.

To find out more about the work of #TherapistsConnect search for us on the usual social media platforms, or have a look at our website - www.Therapists-Connect.com

You can find out more about Peter's work via his website.

Caz's consultancy work is detailed on their website.

#TherapistsConnect is a platform for connecting therapists.
Website: www.Therapists-Connect.com
Twitter: @Therapists_C
Instagram: @TherapistsConnect
Facebook: @TherConnect

Origins of #TherapistsConnect

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction of the episode.
• 1:37 The changing faces of the community.
• 3:49 The start of therapist-connect on twitter.
• 7:24 The impact of social media on the therapy profession.
• 8:56 Not for profit vs. for profit.
• 13:16 How did you connect with the community?
• 17:43 Thank you to everyone who’s contributed.
• 21:45 Nothing can be your favourite if it's got SCoPEd in the title.
• 23:54 What’s next for the community?

Transcript

Peter Blundell: 0:00

Hello, everybody and welcome to a special episode of the Therapist Connect Podcast. My name is Dr. Peter Blundell, and I'm here with the co lead of Therapists Connect Caz Binstead, Hi Caz.

Caz Binstead: 0:11

Hello. It's great to be back on the podcast. I think the last time I was here was just before the private practice conference that we did. So it's been, it's been a kind of a while. But yeah, yeah, good to be back. Yeah. For anyone who doesn't know me. I'm Caz Binstead, and with Peter, we're the two co leads of Therapists Connect.

Peter Blundell: 0:32

It's lovely to have you here Caz I think it has been over a year since you've been on the podcast, which is like a really, really long time. shouldn't leave it so long until next time. So we've got

Caz Binstead: 0:43

We do chat in between.

Peter Blundell: 0:44

Yeah, we do So we've got a bit of a special episode today, because we were, we were hoping to do this podcast recording and before this point, but that we, I was second (inaudible), there was other things that kind of got in the way of us recording it. Because we wanted to reflect on the past three years of Therapists Connect, and leading up to our birthday, which was our third birthday, on the sixth of January this year. So we thought we'd just record this episode, and just have a bit of a chat really about everything that's kind of happened. I think there's lots of people who've been with us and listening to this podcast kind of since day one. But there's also probably a lot of people who have joined the Therapist Connect community over the past few years who don't kind of noticed things that we've been up to. So we thought we'd to kind of reflect on some of those things, and then maybe talk a little bit about some of the plans that we've got for the future.

Caz Binstead: 1:39

Yeah, yeah. Sounds good. So it's a really interesting point about people, you know, changing faces of people across the community since from when we began to where we are now. And people that are more forefront, take part in Twitter discussions, that kind of thing. People who were more in the background, but still very much part of the community. So yeah, I just want to say hello to everyone. This was meant to as Peter just said, there this podcast was meant to be out for the birthday, but we just couldn't make it happen. But yeah, just thank you to everyone who's, who's been in the community is in the community and makes it work. It's what we're all about. But I think we wanted to, we wanted to kind of start today with while going right back to 2019. Actually, didn't we?

Peter Blundell: 2:31

Yeah, absolutely, right, right back when we first met, I say met, but we met kind of virtually online, all online, and interesting events recently kind of like reminded us of kind of what brought us together in the first place. But we met on Twitter, and around the campaigning around this scoped project in the UK. So if any of our international listeners, it's a controversial competency framework, that is that's being discussed at the moment between different membership bodies in the UK. So we and it wasn't just us to actually there was quite a few different therapists who were connected, talking around that particular topic at that time. And that's where we kind of first met and started to chat and and talk about things all therapy related. I don't know I was quite exhausted in 2019. And

Caz Binstead: 3:24

Yeah, yeah. It's funny because one of the membership bodies is holding a SCoPED votes. It's open at the moment. And yes, so I guess we sometimes I say to Peter, it's like Groundhog Day is like, Oh, we're back here again. So we're back talking about SCoPED up. A little bit more exhausted than when we were in 2019. I wasn't I was like raring to go. But yeah, there were a few of us, it was actually Twitter back then I suppose, there were a handful of SCoPED campaigners. And we all met online. And maybe this was the first start of therapists in the UK beginning to connect really, on Twitter, because I think before that there was, you know, the odd, the odd group here and there. There was a bit of chit chat and stuff. But I think this was kind of the, I guess, the start of it. I mean, I don't know how you were feeling because obviously Peter you sent out the first Therapist Connect tweet in January 2020. So I don't know what had led you to feel like you wanted to do that.

Peter Blundell: 4:39

I mean, it's interesting thinking back because I remember feeling I think I had about 600 Twitter followers at the time and which is still quite a few followers, but not compared to what I have now. And I remember feeling like it was a nice community like it was it was kind of like I'd kind of go on I kind of know who was there and kind of we'd have these kind of therapy discussions. And it felt like, it wasn't just one community, I suppose it was lots of maybe smaller communities that grouped around kind of different topics and different areas. And I've told this story before, like sending out that first tweet was really, like it really wasn't thought through, it's like more of a spur of the moment kind of thing. And I think I'm still shocked to this day, kind of the response to that, because it wasn't just to the tweet itself, it was then the use of the hashtag, which then almost like took a like on took on a life of its own. But I think reflecting back on the things that I've learned and still see this now, day to day, not just in our Twitter account, but across all of our different platforms, is the desire for therapists to connect with each other and talk about talk about therapy, but talk about other topics as well, is still really there. And we might talk a bit about this, even though we've seen some people's behavior change with the different platforms that we're across now, actually, that that urge and that desire to connect with people and talk about things, I think is still really prevalent, I think,

Caz Binstead: 6:10

yeah, absolutely. And it was so needed such a simple thing a hashtag, but you know, to just be able to really bring people together. And and I agree with you, yeah, yeah, to be able to chat about things that I actually think it's changed. It's changed the profession. And of course, there's going to be many, many things that have been part of that, namely, something beginning with P, a pandemic, right. So we were all going we were all going online, there hadn't really been that opportunity. Before, you know, there, there have been Facebook groups, and there have been some big Facebook groups that have run for a few years. But I think that particularly on on other platforms like Twitter, you know, and, you know, thinking about expanding some of the more political conversations or stuff about our profession, you know, what therapy is things about me, we're a worldwide community now, you know, similarities and differences throughout the world in terms of therapy. It's such a, it's such a blessing to be able to have, yeah, to be able to have that, that space to be able to do that.

Peter Blundell: 7:24

Yeah, absolutely. And I think, for me, there is still a lot of learning that everybody has to do in terms of the impact of social media on the therapy profession. I think there's so many potential benefits that we can get from it. I think there's also some risks as well. And I almost feel like I mean, I don't think we're the only kind of therapy community that's kind of popped up. And seeing how all of those different communities evolve and change, I think is really, it's going to be really, really interesting over the next kind of, you know, 5, 10 years, as we all figure out kind of what works and what doesn't work necessarily.

Caz Binstead: 7:58

Yeah, I mean, I mean, Peter and myself, I've already been to a couple of academic conferences, we were invited to present in two academic academic conferences in was it was it last year or the year before?

Peter Blundell: 8:09

I think it's 2021.

Caz Binstead: 8:13

losing track of time, everyone is over this period. So 2021. And we talked a little bit about trainee talk, which I'll come to in a moment. And then we talked about therapists connect and activism. And absolutely, what Peter was saying there in terms of some of the benefits of social media and some of the pitfalls. There's quite a lot to explore there. And there's a lot that actually we've, we've experienced, as well experienced through the Therapist Connect community, and the observations and how it's worked, and then also experienced personally. So, yeah, yeah, lots and lots of things to think about.

Peter Blundell: 8:57

And honestly, I was gonna say, I think, because you talked about activism, then I think, maybe one, which links into this a little bit. But one of the things I think makes us stand out a little bit, in terms of a community is that we're not for profit. And so kind of not people don't necessarily know that about us. And sometimes we've got kind of all this funding and money kind of, you know, to kind of organize these things. But because we're not for profit, it gives us like the freedom, like we're trying to create stuff for the community and bring people together. But we haven't necessarily got this drive to kind of, you know, make money. And so I think that helps us stand out a little bit against some of some of the other communities which, you know, I'm not saying there's anything wrong with those, but they have a different process of what they're trying to achieve and do with those communities.

Caz Binstead: 9:42

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And of course, our community evolved from you and I coming together. The hash tag started in January, which was before COVID, well, COVID was kind of around but it wasn't a pandemic and we hadn't gone into lockdown. And it was interesting because I was thinking a little bit before this podcast, I was thinking a little bit about my own process. Because I think this is really interesting, our own process as co leads in terms of how we've coped with a global pandemic, running a community, which is holding other therapists and supporting, as well as all the other members of the community. And therapists, of course, have just held so much I say a lot. You know, I believe therapists are like key workers. And most of us have kept working throughout this pandemic, and we have been holding a lot. So this all come kind of, I think, comes into what happens in community. So I was thinking about my own experience. And I was thinking about 2019. And Peter, I don't know if you know this, but in in September 2019, I got concussion, did you know that? No. So I knocked myself out, I'm not gonna tell you the how I knocked myself out. But what's really stupid reason, but anyway I knocked myself out, and I got concussion, and I was having to, you know, I was told by the hospital that had to rest for a period of time, or whatever. And I remember because it was the BACP private practice conference. And I was meant to be very involved in that. And, and I was thinking that was, that was when, for me, started the mark of things becoming very, very difficult actually, for me, like, that was probably the first thing that happened. And then a whole bunch of things as life does, sometimes a whole bunch of things were just going on for me in my own personal life, which continued into 20, throughout 2020. And when I approached Peter, in February 2020, I think a lot of that was because I was, I was having some difficulties in my personal life. And I needed a bit of a distraction. And I'd always worked with students, before, I've done a lot of work with students, teaching, supervising, facilitating all kinds of things. And when Peter had sent out his initial tweet, I'd actually put in, I think, my response, or I'd written my response. And then I've written one saying, you know, other were all the students out there, because I felt so passionately about working with students and wanting to give, you know, wanting students to be able to feel that they could speak out on social media. So I think that all of this kind of contributed. So you know, they say, good can come out of bad. This was the good that came out of the not so good. And yeah, I came up with this idea of Trainee Talk, which is our student community and our student project that we run every Monday on therapists connect on the Twitter account. And and I approached Peter, and then I think we started that in in March 2020. And that was the beginning really, of Therapists Connect beginning to, I guess, form as a community. And it's such a, I mean, it's, we still both do it to this day. And I know that for you, Peter, you feel the same about students and so close to my heart,

Peter Blundell: 13:16

I mean, it just aligned because I mean, obviously, I'm a lecturer so and so regularly see students every week, that's a key part of my job. So when you reached out to me, it just kind of aligned with kind of who I wanted to kind of connect with, and my passion that, and I say this to a lot of students, like, once you see your first client, you are a therapist, you know, you might not have that qualification yet, but you are that person's therapist, full stop, you know, you might not have the experience yet or whatever. But but you are. And I think that's important to acknowledge, and how much support kind of students do need at those early, early stages of work. And so I'm really glad that we continue, we keep doing that project. And that's still still something that we do every week, although it has changed and evolved a little bit over the time. But so many things came from that. I think that's that initial collaboration, we then, you know, set up our YouTube channel, and we've had different people contribute to that therapist introducing themselves reflecting on important topics, we've had so many debates, that we've kind of organized and facilitated and put up there free of anyone who wants to listen to those, as well as our lifetime achievement interviews. And you know, those things will be there now forever. You know, people can go and watch them whenever whenever they want. So there's so much so much that was achieved just in that particular year. I think so it's funny looking back now because I feel like the pace of what we've done is slowed down a little bit. So we haven't we didn't do as much, maybe last year in 2022. And so comparing it's interesting to look back and think about how much was achieved in in 2020. And how Yeah, how how far Last taste it was I think at the time?

Caz Binstead: 15:02

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, we sometimes joke together that we don't quite know how we actually did as much as we did. But I think that that, again, is all part of the experience of living through the pandemic, or it was, for me anyway, you know, we all just created a world online. And I think a lot of people have gone back to, you know, not so much on Twitter anymore, maybe gone back to their lives, their actual lives outside social media, which is as it of course, needs to be. Also we, we were thinking people have kind of migrated to other social media sites, there's a lot of change that happens. But of course, at those in those times, particularly during the lockdown, everybody really was online, and so it did become our world. And yeah, yeah, immensely proud of the amount of stuff that we did. Like, for instance, our first birthday, and like Peter just said, there are loads and loads of free content, and things that we were excited about kind of creating and doing and but yeah, there's a lot, you can obviously see our website, which is in the bio of all of our social media profiles and catch up on some of the work that we've got, we've got a YouTube channel as well. So do check that out. But I think what Pete was saying there about just slowing down and solidifying things, I was saying, I've recorded a reflections video for Therapists Connect, and I was saying, you know, it's really important for everybody, really, for us, for the team, for the community to find our feet, and reflect on what we've done as a community. And also to put in some structure, you know, to focus on how we were delivering our values, because our values are very, very important to us. We didn't want to just run a community like, Oh, we're just running it. However, you know, we wanted to run it in accordance with our values, and we wanted it to be we, we talked about this thing called Safer Spaces, it was originally called Safe Spaces. And then we changed the name to Safer Spaces, because we realized that, you know, actually, nothing can be 100% safe. And also, safety means different things to different people. But just having a kind of a set of guidelines about what that means, and being able to do some work on a project around that, that all became part of actually really going, who are we? And what is it we want to stand for? And how do we keep our community safe, as best as we can, as well as our team.

Peter Blundell: 17:45

And I think that word safer as well, for me is that idea of progression, as in, it's never, it's never gonna stop, you know, we're always working towards kind of creating those safer spaces. And I think there's things that we haven't got, right, and I think there's things that we have got, right, you know. And I think we've now maybe had a bit more of a space and time to reflect on some of that, and really kind of refine what it is that we're doing and how how we're doing that. Then the other thing I suppose I'd like to say is, like, kind of thank you to everybody who's contributed, you know, when you look across all the events that we've done, and everybody who's contributed something in some way, you know, we're looking at hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of therapists who have contributed across all our different platforms. And also, thank you to all of the volunteers that we've had over that time, people have come and gone. But they've all or all has, like, it's really important that they, all of our volunteers are passionate about our values, and how we do things. And I think the moment, we've got a fantastic team who all kind of on board and really understand what it is that we're trying to achieve. So just really appreciate everybody who's contributed in some way to the platform. Because without that, we wouldn't you know, we wouldn't have, we wouldn't have anything to kind of, we wouldn't have a community, you know, to kind of be supporting and facilitating.

Caz Binstead: 19:08

Yeah, yeah. Ditto, ditto. Thank you so much to our current team. And as Peter said, you know, any volunteer that we've had who've understood our values and acted in accordance with them and helped us create the community but yes, so many people who've contributed Yeah, we don't exist without our will is the community that's what it's about. So yes, thank you, you know, people have given their time they've given their time for free. I've had people say to me, you know, oh Caz I don't normally give my time for free for things, but I'm going to, I'm going to for you guys. And that's really felt like a lot of mutual respect, actually. Which is really meant something so thank you. Peter. I wanted to ask you what's been your favorite event or thing that we've done?

Peter Blundell: 20:03

Oh, gosh, put me on the spot. My favorite events? You know I think one of my favorites, actually, and I wish I wouldn't mind recreating this or having another discussion is the social media debate, actually, that we did, which is on our YouTube account, anyone can go and look at that. And I think that was really interesting, because I don't feel that you see many therapists actually talking about what it's like to be, you know, on social media and engage in kind of different discussions. And I felt like it was really nice to to have that debate and that discussion, really. And I'd like to see more of that I wouldn't mind doing and was one of those.

Caz Binstead: 20:46

Yeah, yeah, that was that was a fantastic discussion. It really was. And so much to talk about, I mean, I think. What's your favorite? Yeah, I think well, I think it's between two because I was gonna say we kind of, we did this private practice event. And I suppose, even though I was so tired, because I was the creative lead on that. And it was just that was at the when we're coming to the end of this very, very busy time. And I was absolutely exhausted. But it was just such an enjoyable event. It was a weekend event, and obviously, because my specialism is helping people with ethical and thriving practice, I think, for us to be able to do that, and again, have loads of people involved, it that felt really good. And we had a little bit of a social media discussion in there as well. But I think it's between that and probably the SCoPED debate. This is a podcast, but I can see Peter's face. I'll ask you what

Peter Blundell: 21:48

not nothing can be your favorite if it's got SCoPED?

Caz Binstead: 21:52

Well, yeah, we'll just pretend we'll just say the S word. Not the actual word. But no, I think I think just because not my favorite, I'm going to reword it. The thing that I would be very proud of, because no one else was organizing anything like this at that time. And, you know, I'm gonna be I'm gonna be honest here. On at least one of those debates. It was a it was it wasn't easy organizing it. And we had a lot of pressure, a lot of people saying, You've got to have people for and against which we wanted anyway, we were putting out calls left, right and center. And, you know, and we got the membership bodies involved on one of those debates.

Peter Blundell: 22:41

So I think it's also fair to say that that nearly didn't happen, that event. I won't say more than that, but it nearly didn't happen. And, you know, there was a lot of hard work to try and make sure that it that it did get it did go ahead, you know, yeah,

Caz Binstead: 22:57

absolutely. Absolutely. So yeah. So I think if we're gonna pat our selves on the back about anything, it would certainly be, it would certainly be those those debates. And I believe that even even this week, and I think last week, Peter, you were saying that, you could see that people were clicking on the debates on on YouTube, so people are still watching them to get a little bit of an idea about what SCoPED's about.

Peter Blundell: 23:23

Yeah, and I think that's what I really like about some of the YouTube and the podcast stuff is that they are there for people to draw on when they when they need to. So when the SCoPED stuff comes back up, you know, people can go and and watch those debates, refresh the memory about what's happened, or kind of getting informed about different topics. So yeah, I think it's a great resource for people if they if they want to use it.

Caz Binstead: 23:45

Yeah. Yeah. So. So we talked about going forward,

Peter Blundell: 23:50

forward? Yeah. Well, I'm really excited. I think, last year, it felt like was like this solidifying is kind of where we're at and what centralizing that some of the things that we wanted to do, particularly with the volunteers, and all of our different platforms. So I think for me, 2023, and 2024 is like quite exciting. It's like, where are we? Where do we go from here? I know we've got we've got a few different, both of us are writers, probably more naturally, I would say then kind of social media and speakers. For example, I don't want to speak for you, but I'll speak for myself. So I know we've got some writing projects, which were reflecting on some of the work that we've done, and some of the things that we've been trying to achieve. So I'm excited about, about doing those and kind of trying to get that out into the world as like almost like little kind of ambassadors, if you like of of, of the Therapists Connect community and kind of what it is that we're trying to do.

Caz Binstead: 24:49

Yeah, yeah, definitely. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think it's, it's quite it's a bit of a reward as well to be able to spend a bit of time, you know, writing I do people know that I quite, I quite like talking on screen. I haven't done it done it so much recently. But yeah, I guess I've done. I do like that as well. But yeah, I think definitely these things are more natural to me being able to communicate stuff. So communication, isn't it and theorize about things and think about things, I feel much more comfortable, actually, in these places than I do, probably probably tweeting, on social media and all of that, although I've got used to it. So this is going to be great. And I think that, you know, for us that we, I guess we want to do more of that in some of our debates or discussions, or however, whatever mediums, you know, whatever mediums it might take, to think more about therapy and think more about our profession, perhaps be able to really get stuck into having some good discussions, thinking about things and, you know, acknowledging that, so many people may not get the opportunities to work within membership bodies, write for some of the flagship magazines, or whatever, but they may well have a lot to contribute. And I think that's something that we feel really passionately about, we like to we like to meet people who have stuff to contribute and want to, you know, want to give something to our profession, whether it's about therapy itself, or about where our profession is going.

Peter Blundell: 26:37

I think that's really important Caz and I think one of the things that we set out at the beginning of all of this was like an aim to kind of help elevate different voices and a diverse range of voices into the therapy community. So that some people who sometimes like do have something to contribute, but don't always get heard, because of the different ways that those voices are listened to, or highlighted. So yeah, I definitely think that's one of our further aims to continue with this year. Yeah, yeah. Okay, so it feel like a nice place to kind of draw it to an end. And again, I suppose just thank everybody, including all of the podcast listeners who have been loyal to us, since the beginning. We have got quite a few more episodes planned for 2023. So keep an eye out on this space. And thanks for all your support over the last three years.

Caz Binstead: 27:39

Yeah, well done Peter with the podcast and thank you to all the guests and I will try not to leave it another year before I pop back in again.

Peter Blundell: 27:49

Thanks Caz. Take care. Bye bye