We’re only human

08/12/23 • 31 min

How do you be a human first and a professional when it’s required?

In this episode, we speak with Jamie, a social worker in the mental health world. Jamie shares his unique perspective on what it’s like to experience his own mental health challenges and how that’s shaped the way he now works as a clinician and a person. Jamie talks about burnout, knowing when to take a pause and drawing on our humanity when facing distress.

Come and listen with:
Lucy (She/Her) – A big fan of pickleball, ice cream and storytelling

Rachel (She/Her) – Social Worker, Dialogical Practitioner, mad footy fan and wildly passionate about transforming the culture of mental health services to be person-led and human rights informed.

Incredible artwork @sharleencu_art

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT – We’re only human

LUCY This podcast has conversations around different mental health experiences that may be distressing for some people. If that doesn’t feel like something you want to explore today, you might wanna visit another podcast and come back to us another time.

RACHEL discovery college acknowledges the traditional owners of country throughout Australia and recognises the continuing connection to lands, waters, and community. We pay our respects to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures, and to the elders past and present. They have never ceded sovereignty.

LUCY In this podcast, we share stories that help us learn from each other, connect us, and inspire growth. We want to acknowledge that this way of being, of coming together to share knowledge and stories is a tradition that has already existed on this land for hundreds of thousands of years as a part of the culture of First Nations people.

RACHEL discovery college acknowledges the views shared in these podcasts are about mental health experiences, but are not a substitute for professional mental health advice and support. The views in this podcast are not the views of Alfred Health, but are the views of the individuals we’ve had conversations with.

LUCY The stories we share on this podcast aren’t just stories, but memories of the people who have bravely shared their experiences with us. Remember to take care of yourself as you listen, as well as to take care of the stories that you hear.

MUSIC

RACHEL Extremely human is a conversation about the profound experience of extreme states. When we speak about extreme states, we wanna explore a more humanistic way to understand people’s experiences that aren’t always shared by others.

LUCY Each extreme state holds different meaning for each person, including those related to psychosis, depression, grief, and addiction. As we chat with a variety of humans, we explore the important question, how can we respond to distress with greater compassion and humanity? Welcome to the first episode of the Extremely Human Podcast. My name’s Lucy.

RACHEL and I’m Rachel. In this episode, we speak with Jamie, who’s a social worker in the mental health world. Jamie shares his unique perspective on what it’s like to experience his own mental health challenges and how that’s shaped the way he now works as a clinician and a person. Jamie talks about burnout, knowing when to take a pause, drawing on our own humanity when facing distress. Just a little shout out the guitar music that you hear throughout this episode is also by Jamie. Really hope you enjoy the episode.

MUSIC

RACHEL Welcome, Jamie. Uh, thanks so much for joining us today.

JAMIE Thank you for having me.

RACHEL I wondered if you could tell us about yourself.

JAMIE Uh, my name is Jamie and I’m a social worker. I’ve been working in the mental health sector for, um, close to 15 years, and mostly working in youth mental health for the last decade. I’m happily married, father of two, and absolutely a adore a family and love cooking, play guitar, try to surf. I’m a comic book geek, um, and proud of it, . And yeah, I’m really excited just to be here today to talk about this stuff. I think it’s a cool idea. Yeah,

RACHEL We’re pretty happy to have you here too.

LUCY I first wanna start by apologising for the state of my voice. I was, um, at a music festival on the weekend, and speaking of extreme states, there were many people there in an extreme state.

RACHEL I bet there were.

LUCY Yeah. the good kind. So we wanted to ask everyone this question before we start the podcast. This is a bit of a warmup question, and feel free to answer it as lightly or as deeply as you choose. So the question is, can you tell us a disproportionate reaction you or someo...

How do you be a human first and a professional when it’s required?

Come and listen with:
Lucy (She/Her) – A big fan of pickleball, ice cream and storytelling

Incredible artwork @sharleencu_art

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT – We’re only human

MUSIC

RACHEL Welcome, Jamie. Uh, thanks so much for joining us today.

JAMIE Thank you for having me.

RACHEL I wondered if you could tell us about yourself.

RACHEL We’re pretty happy to have you here too.

LUCY I first wanna start by apologising for the state of my voice. I was, um, at a music festival on the weekend, and speaking of extreme states, there were many people there in an extreme state.

RACHEL I bet there were.

Previous Episode

Introducing: Extremely Human

In this first episode, we chat about what Extremely Human is all about.

Extremely human is a conversation about the profound experience of extreme states. When we speak about extreme states, we want to explore a more humanistic way to understand people’s experiences that aren’t always shared by others. Each extreme state holds different meanings for each person, including those related to psychosis, depression, grief, and addiction. As we chat with a variety of humans, we explore the important question: “How can we respond to distress with greater compassion and humanity?”

Come and listen with:
Lucy (She/Her) – A big fan of pickleball, ice cream and storytelling

Rachel (She/Her) – Social Worker, Dialogical Practitioner, mad footy fan and wildly passionate about transforming the culture of mental health services to be person-led and human rights informed.

Incredible artwork @sharleencu_art

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT – Introducing Extremely Human

RACHEL discovery college acknowledges the traditional owners of country throughout Australia and recognises their continuing connection to lands, waters, and community. We pay our respects to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures and to the elders past and present. They have never seeded sovereignty.

RACHEL discovery college acknowledges. The views shared in this podcast are about mental health experiences, but are not a substitute for professional mental health advice and support. The views in this podcast are not the views of Alfred Health, but are the views of the individuals we’ve had conversations with.

MUSIC

LUCY I am Lucy and I’m a co-host on the Extremely Human podcast. I work at discovery college and I’ve definitely tipped my toes in some extreme states myself. I feel like it’s fitting that I’m on a podcast called Extremely Human ’cause. My best friend actually used to call me the Extreme Artist and used to make comic strips of me doing extreme activities like chasing after Rubbish that had blown away in a storm. A little bit about me is that I love story sharing, ice cream and my inner Nana loves sleeping.

RACHEL And I’m Rachel, also a co-host on the Extremely Human Podcast. I’m a mental health social worker at Alfred Health. I chose social work as a profession because of my values of social justice and human rights. I believe in the importance of social connection and relationships. I’m also an open dialogue practitioner. This helps me to bring my values, beliefs, and all of myself to my work in mental health. I’m a mad footy fan and some of my best friends have fur and four legs.

LUCY For those wondering what discovery college is. discovery college is a learning space that creates and runs courses with and for the community on mental health and wellbeing from these spaces. The seed for a podcast grew. So Rach and I ended up deciding to make a podcast, which is the extremely human podcast. And it’s basically just a conversation talking to different people about their experiences of being in an extreme state. And I think when we first came up with the idea, you sort of spoke about the extreme states and it wasn’t a term I’d ever heard before. Can you please sort of explain what an extreme state is?

RACHEL Yeah, I’ll do my best. Uh, you know, I think it was for me, I really like the term extreme states. I don’t know where I first heard it or how I first came to start using it, but it really helped me because I was a bit troubled by the labelling of human experiences as symptoms of illness. And you know what? I meet people every day who have different ways of expressing distress or psychological distress or emotional distress. And they’re often met by services and society in a way that’s labelling and pathologizing of those experiences. When I first heard the word extreme states or the term extreme states, it felt like it really freed things up. And, you know, for things that we would usually refer to as psychosis or bipolar or depression or eating disorders or anxiety, you know, it, it really helped me to think about those things a bit differently.

LUCY Yeah, I really love the way that you’ve phrased that ’cause it just, it makes it more of a human experience rather than trying to put it in a box and a label. I think it’s just such a nice way of looking at things. I’m so glad that we finally got the ...

Next Episode

Extremely Human: Trailer

How can we respond to distress with greater compassion and humanity?

Sometimes as humans, we have experiences that aren’t shared or understood by others. Often these experiences can feel extreme, scary, unreal or even euphoric. Experiences like psychosis, depression, grief and addiction.

Here is a little taster of highlights from some of the conversations Lucy and Rachel have had so far with incredible humans who vulnerably share their different perspectives on these ideas.

Come and listen with:

Lucy (She/Her) – A big fan of pickleball, ice cream and storytelling

Rachel (She/Her) – Social Worker, Dialogical Practitioner and wildly passionate about transforming the culture of mental health services to be person-led and human rights informed.

Incredible artwork @sharleencu_art

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT – Extremely Human Trailer

MUSIC

RACHEL This podcast series called Extremely Human Looks at the profound experience of extreme states from both personal and outsider perspectives. When we speak about extreme states, we are exploring a more humanistic way to describe and understand people’s experiences that aren’t always shared by others.

LUCY Through sharing stories, we strive to understand and describe the unique journeys that may feel unusual, confusing, distressing, or even wonderful for individuals. Each extreme state holds different meaning for each person, including those related to psychosis, depression, grief, and addiction. As we have conversations with a variety of people, we explore an important question, how can we respond to distress with greater compassion and humanity?

MUSIC

RACHEL The Extremely Human Podcast came about because we started to realize there were many untold stories about extreme states that needed to be heard about what had been helpful to people and what hadn’t.

LUCY We discovered a theme about the importance of compassion and here are some of the snippets of what we heard.

JAMIE The more I was able to spend time with people in extreme states, the more I realized what a naturally human experience it needs to be viewed as in order to be helpful in that space. So as a clinician, I think we spend time around people and we find ourselves wanting to find the on and off switch at times to just help, to change, to fix professionals. Um, in general, and you know, this is without judgment at all, but can see distress as a black and white state. Respond according to the book and apply the theory and the knowledge, the low and slow and the de-escalation. And sometimes de-escalation is not always the best first thing to do. If someone has an experience that needs time to expel itself, to exhaust itself or, or to simply have that distress expressed in a way that they feel they need to in the moment. Then jumping in with de-escalation and you know, tell me how you feel and all that sort of good stuff that has its place. I think sometimes rushing to that approach can be perhaps sometimes missing the human element of, of what’s happening in front of you with someone in distress. You know, how do you be a human first and a professional when it’s required? To me, that’s the order that, um, for my ...