Clinical Innovation in KAP: Changing the Story, Depathologizing Suffering, & Moving Beyond the DSM

Dr. Sandy Newes 17:29

challenge, meaning, making that’s really because what I talk about, I’m curious if you think this is like, you know, I’m a really somatic nervous system based person, you know, focus without, you know, lots of training and psychodynamic interpersonal things of relationship in a more psychodynamic kind of way. So you know what I’ve been that when, when your nervous system gets activated, then it actually distorts and shifts your meaning making, because the meaning follows along with that the level of kind of threat appraisal in the nervousness. So yes, mode network is always in that like high threat, then your meaning making is going to follow that

Jayne Gumpel 18:08

which I really try to approach with kindness, validation, right, standing, very important. We talk a lot about meaning making, and I write a lot of poetry about it that I’ll bring into session, but I really help them create a new story together with the awareness that came about. And it actually was, like I said before, it was like a little miracle. So in the prep session was really important, helping them understand the molecule, what was going to happen. I gave them some things to read. The medical interview was important. That was 45 minutes the process coming in, the dosing session, sublingual, 300 milligrams each person. 45 minutes of quiet, 45 minutes of sharing, the integration the next day, 90 minute session, that was my model in those days. And we did that person, obviously. And they got to share their direct experience, and they got to talk about how they’re going to integrate that into their marriage. So they talk about their relationship vision moving forward, and it’s a big relief, but it’s also like, who are we now without this story that’s living between us, you know? And how can we make best use of that? And then a follow up with them. And then they came to my retreat. After that, they came to my Couples Retreat, my first Couples Retreat, 18 couples people thought I was out of my mind.

Dr. Sandy Newes 19:48

Amazing. How many staff did you have, or how many 1111 staff

Jayne Gumpel 19:55

I wanted? I wanted a lot of support. I met. We met every. Other Monday for almost a year as a staff, to get to know each other, to talk about it, to create the timeline, to collaborate, to help they they support it, to help me, you know, execute on my vision for this. Because I thought, wow, how wonderful. How wonderful to make this be a group experience for couples, yeah, because we all know now, you know, five years later, the group is the medicine. It’s such a profound experience when you have the right context and you create safety for people. I mean, it’s just a mind blowing experience. But the first one, I didn’t know what I was. Mean, I I knew how to facilitate a workshop. I’m an Imago therapist trained by Harville Hendrix. I’m sir. I’m certified to do workshops by him, both for singles and couples. Nice of the work. I’m also an MBSR teacher stress reduction. I was trained by John Kabat Zinn, also a poet trained by Robert Bly right, among other people, you know, he was my teacher, rubber. So um, I, you know, I know what I’m doing. I don’t, I didn’t know what I was doing, dosing 18 couples all at once. I did it,

Dr. Sandy Newes 21:16

right? Well, that says something too. I want to just note, you know, highlight that for a moment, because you know people, you know trainees come in and I’m like, we have to step into the fact that you knew a lot when you came in, and just going through the training like, you know a lot more than many people doing the work. So kind of, you know, stepping into that with curiosity, like knowing what you do and figuring out how to integrate it like, that’s the innovation, right? Yes. So, because what I hear and what you just said, I mean, I want to just highlight some things, because I’m just sitting here and, you know, like the piece about meaning making and how, you know, getting the default mode network kind of offline helps to shift the meaning making. What I heard you say, tell me if I got this right. I mean, obviously there were a lot of pieces, but I think these things are important. What I just in terms of people or who are learning and wanting to understand, sure, sure, you know kind of what the narrative is going in, which is the meaning making, what the story going in is, and then how that might shift right through the work. And then you said, you even had them write that down, like how their story, how their narrative, shifts, right, you approach it with kindness and validation and understanding and acceptance,

Jayne Gumpel 22:30

no shame, no blame, right

Dr. Sandy Newes 22:34

and and no shame, no blame. These are just the stories that we’ve created based on what I say is our brains are meaning making machine, and every moment that you’ve had, right, it’s up to this moment influences it, so there’s no shame there that just is right. Like, I’ve always like, It’s a miracle that anybody can be in a relationship at all, given that right and the importance of the preparation and the medical screen and recognizing that all of these pieces come into it, you know, and then the integration and the noticing of the shifts that have occurred, and allowing what was learned through that then to integrate into regular life, is that is that accurate?

Jayne Gumpel 23:14

So, yes, I would call that last piece crafting their relationship vision. Ooh,

Dr. Sandy Newes 23:20

I love that. That is nice. So you are definitely a pro. I love that your gift of language is clear, even in this talking. And then that brings me to kind of, you know, I have seen you post beautiful poems. I know you’ve already mentioned poetry is really important, you know, I know that you are an innovator in the space, and so, you know the poetry piece, and just also asking, you know, you said that you were writing this book, so tell us about that.

Jayne Gumpel 23:51

Yeah, well, for those of you listening, if you are interested in couples work, I have to say ketamine is the b’s and d’s. I used to think it was sort of a stepchild to MDMA, but because MDMA is also very amazing, but it’s very different, and I have changed my worldview about that for working with couples. And you can do psycholytic work with couples with 50 milligrams, sublingual, okay, I you know, I worked with 20 couples, four sessions each in a research project. So I highly recommend that you consider, you know, working with ketamine, with couples I mean, it’s just really a beautiful experience. I mean, people ask me, How long have I been a couples therapist? I tell them, since I’m three. But I decided that I wanted to write a book about it, and I’m creating this approach to working with couples, not just couples, but individuals. I would call it an approach. It’s not a modality, but it’s an approach. Uh, I’m using, you know, how we have to take notes after our sessions, right? And I used to dread that. It’s like, you know, I’d write a couple of lines in my in my calendar, in my book, my book once a month, or once every other month, I would put it in their folder, and it’s what felt like a chore, like something I had to do. Yeah, and I decided that I wanted to find a creative way that I felt passionate about to work with my notes after the sessions. So I take notes during the session, I’ll write down like a line or two, and then when the session is over, I write a poem about the session. Sometimes I’ll write it in the voice of the wife. Sometimes I’ll write it in the voice of the husband, or if it’s same sex couple, Partner A, Partner B, sometimes I’ll write it from the perspective of the therapist, and then, and sometimes I’ll collaborate with them. I’ll send it to them and say, you know, here, and I talked to them about my note taking, you know, and can you add to it or collaborate? And so sometimes we collaborate, and what comes out of it is an amazing experience. But if some so sometimes, the note is my view on them, and what I do is I write one column of all the things that they’re pissed off about, or they’re saying, or they feel misunderstood, all the division, you know, yeah, it’s you against me kind of feeling. And then on the right hand column, I write what I think each person is feeling, yeah, the real story is right? And using Imago therapy, what it’s connected to, yeah, and that’s the part where I try to get creative, right? And I have lots of examples. If you want me to, I don’t know if you want me to read one, how about,

Dr. Sandy Newes 27:02

let’s read one, and then kind of and then we’ll if we have more time, which I would love if we do, right? What feels good to you?

Jayne Gumpel 27:13

Yeah, picking one is the tough part. Totally, yeah. Let’s see if I can find one from the voice of me. So

Dr. Sandy Newes 27:20

you’re saying that you use this as a note taking tool and and

Jayne Gumpel 27:25

I use it for therapy. Okay, just a note taking tool. I engage with the clients. Okay? I bring my poetry in, or I’ll send it to them after the session is over. Oh, that’s amazing. Times we do prompts and we write together. Yeah, right. So the chapter that I’m writing follows a couple, same sex couple. She was, she’s black, and her it’s a black woman and a white woman, and the black woman, she became really aware of being black, is having PTSD in her mind. You know her experience is to be black in this country, is to have PTSD for her. But she started to wake up to the sacrifice that she had to make throughout her life and her fear and looking over her shoulder and oh for sure, trying to explain that to her white partner, who loved her, and her white partner got very defensive, yeah, what are you talking about? I love you. I never cared that you were black. She didn’t get it, yeah. So they came into couples therapy to resolve it, which they did beautifully. Oh, I love that. It really did beautifully. So I wrote three poems, yeah by one from by one from her voice, one from the black woman’s voice, one from the white woman, and then my own poem to them, yeah and the one that they eat, the for the individual voices. I don’t know if I’m being clear. We collaborated on those, so I took their words and embedded them in the poems, right? And so it was collaborative. The poetry was collaborative, and we brought it into sessions over us, over time, yeah, but this is the one I wrote for them. Find it okay. This is called in the space between us, yeah, reframing, right? And this is from the voice of the therapist, nice, there is a space between you, not a gap, but a field. And in that field, everything you fear and everything you long for waits to be spoken. One of you is hurting, one of you listening, but with a shield instead of ears. This is where couples live before they wake. You said, I don’t want to blame you. You said, I just want you to see me. I just want you to see and so. We begin Joyce. You are the voice of longing to be seen in your fullness, to be held in your truth without needing to soften it for the comfort of another Barbara, you are the heart that wants to love but didn’t know how deep love must reach to become real. You thought, If I don’t see color, I can’t harm you. But love is not blindness. Love is presence. Love sees everything. And then it happened, the miracle of staying, the sacred pause, the breath before the reply, the question asked not to connect, not to correct, but to connect. Tell more. This is the hinge of healing. That is where the story changes. When Barbara, you could listen without flinching, when Joyce, you could speak without shrinking, when pain became a shared truth, rather than a private burden, you found the bridge you walked towards one another not to fix but to feel together. This is not blame. This is becoming conscious. And in that space, the relational space, safety was born, validation became real, and love finally had a place to land. I love that. Thank you. So I was able to, I was able to send that to them, I was able to read that to them, and they took the poem from their voice and read it to each other in the session. That’s so beautiful. It was amazing, right?

Dr. Sandy Newes 31:42

And let’s just also notice, right, that what you said before about the ketamine work, taking that default mode network off line enough to allow a new story to emerge. Yes, that’s right, a new way of making meaning. So. So to me, clinically, that means that we they softened enough that those words could land, yes, not be blocked by the story. I mean, would that be kind of accurate in terms of the clinical

Jayne Gumpel 32:12

process with that? Yeah, I would say, you know, the ketamine, sort of it softened the edges around what they were attached to their E could kind of release that. Okay, well, maybe there’s more here to it than my what I’m making it mean, yeah, you know, it makes it more inclusive, but it’s the work that happens through it. It’s one’s capacity to step into that field of consciousness, right? Yeah. And what happens in that space. So the ketamine is the portal.

Dr. Sandy Newes 32:46

I love that. So, so let’s just talk about your clinical approach a little bit more, if that’s okay. So first of all, just kind of applaud your innovation. I mean, you know, like this is so innovative, like the use of poetry, even going into couples and doing the first Couples Retreat, you know, and kind of you know, the integration of your different kind of clinical approaches and just the different ways that you approach that like I’ve not heard of anyone using poetry in that way clinically at all, much less with ketamine, and I can only imagine how beautiful that is for your clients. So thank you for sharing that with us and sharing your gift in that way. So, you know, you mentioned that you, you know, we’re trained in Imago therapy that you, you know, trained as a trainer in msbr by John Cabot Zinn himself, and by her Carl Hendrix himself. So that implies, you know, the use of mindfulness and kind of that use of the more relational, transactional approach, that’s probably not the best way to, you know, describe that. It’s about being a consultant on the MAPS, which is going to involve a lot of kind of somatic, different types of approaches. And so how would you describe your clinical approach, and what can people kind of learn from that?

Jayne Gumpel 33:59

Yeah, well, so I’m also a trained Gestalt therapist, okay, great. I studied psychodrama with Hannah Weiner, who studied with his name just flew out of my head, but the creative, creator of right? And lots of and I also studied with Alana rubenfeld, body centered psychotherapy, use of touch in the healing world, right? So my approach is meet, meet the well, my big approach is my and my mission is to de pathologize suffering. So I approach all my relationships with my clients, place of curiosity, and I hope you know to shift into the I thou dynamic, right, that I’m not deep. I’m not pathologizing people. I don’t label people if I have to give them a number so that they can get reimbursed for insurance we serve we talk about that, but we all suffer, all eight and a half billion of us, you know, and we. Have a way of pathologizing it and putting numbers on it and then handing it over to big business Pharma. People get just stuck in this cocktail of drugs. And anyway, that’s my that’s something that I kind of rail against. So I approach it. But you know, meeting people where they are, and choosing to be present, very present to what arises, noticing what’s happening with me, within me, and also appreciating what’s being shared. You know, that’s that’s important, and Imago therapy and theory has a big influence on me, because it helps, it helps me identify what the third rails are. You know, if they drop onto the third rail of their childhood, it’s really helpful to honor that, yeah, to allow it to be in the room, to create safety through noble communication training, you know, so that they can see it in each other and to say, Okay, well, what this is familiar, isn’t it, right? And so they can see how their meaning making gets tangled up in the here and now relationship that they have. Yeah, yeah. Love that. And mindfulness is very important. I teach everybody, all my couples, we start with a mindful minute, yeah, I encourage everybody in my practice to meditate. I mean, that’s really my medicine, meditation. Mm, hmm. I love that has a big, big influence. Yeah.

Dr. Sandy Newes 36:34

I open every session with a like a body scan, with a specific emphasis on, I do with all preparation and integration, with the specific emphasis on noticing the places where your body is touching a surface, so that we can pull that into the ketamine, work into the ketamine. That’s beautiful, yes, drawing them to that kind of trying to incorporate the body into that mindfulness.

Jayne Gumpel 36:59

That’s music to my ears. Yeah,

Dr. Sandy Newes 37:01

well, it’s, it’s, it provides a nice plate, like platform for people to return back. If they get either too far out into the medicine, or they get too, you know, they get kind of too deep in the story or the trauma, they can always return back. And so there’s a titration piece that can be worked in there. So, so, yeah, so, you know, there’s mindfulness, there’s a Mago, there’s a relational emphasis, there’s that kind of, you know, I hear that sprinkling of humanistic, unconditional, positive regard pieces, which I am delighted to see that emerging. There’s creativity, there’s innovation, you know, if you, I mean, you are undeniably an innovator in this space. So you know, what else would you like to say about your contribution in terms of innovation, you know? And then I’m just going to kind of ask it before we close, just what do you see as important in the cap space these days? That might be training, that might be, where’s the medicine going? Any concerns, you know? So in these last couple of minutes, where would you like to go with those things? Wow.

Jayne Gumpel 38:06

Well, I think where I’m going now is I ask myself, What do I want to do with my one wild and precious life as Mary? Maybe I had five years ahead of me to work, and I’d like to use my life force to bring group work to the fore. The group is medicine. And I’d like to use my time to craft messages and trainings that really help therapists find hopefulness and find a way to cultivate joy in the world in their own practice, and by collaborating with other people, like, I train therapists in the business of creating, cultivating joy, retreats and groups, right? And I want to use my time to do that. And I’m writing, you know? I want, I want to look at, how can we reach the ineffable? Yeah, that’s words, and poetry is like a little precious jewel there, yeah? And how can we bring that into the sessions? So that’s kind of my, my current frontier, you know, to drop into creative process and to share it. I love that. Share it with people. So

Dr. Sandy Newes 39:15

let’s talk about cultivating joy. How do we, I mean, like, we all know the importance of that, right? But you know, as I’ve said in other, you know, interviews, and we talk about in training, our training is, I believe that one of the things psychedelic medicine is doing is helping us. I just name, notice, tolerate and sit with, well, being my, you know, and that is a critical part of trauma recovery. And I specialize in working with complex PTSD, relational trauma and so. So you know, just to go back to what you were saying, Tell me about your philosophy and cultivating joy, and then do any thoughts that’s specifically to like for people who want to do that in their work, like, what are some tools, strategies, conceptual frames that we can use for that? Right? I’ll hold that in a minute, in five minutes, different ways we could go with that. Now, summarize your whole career and what you’re doing,

Jayne Gumpel 40:12

right? Yeah, in a minute, AI, um, oh, you know, again, it’s like cult, the whole idea of cultivating joy, and I put an ing at the end of it. And I created this, by the way, with my son, David. Oh, nice. We co created the retreat business together. Yeah. We also created a non profit organization called Access mindfulness. Uh huh, I can’t tell you that is joy working with my child, my grown child. He is amazing. And he’s like the ballast in my boat, and he works for fluence. He’s there of operations. Oh, nice. Uh huh. So, and we run retreats. In fact, we’re doing one this weekend for couples at menla. I love that. So you know that that’s beautiful. That’s really beautiful. But cultivating joy and in ING, instead of cultivate Joy cultivating because it’s something that we can do in the midst of it, and oftentime, we miss those moments of joy because our brain is focused on survival, fight, flight, over stimulated in a world where, you know, it’s pretty crazy. What’s happening, right? It’s hard to wrap one’s brain around it. So I wouldn’t say it’s easy, but we, you know, we get stuck in it. People watch the news, which I do not, right? Watch the news in three years. I mean, I listen to NPR, and believe me, I know what’s going on, because everybody tells me all day long, right? I know it, but I don’t. So cultivating Joy really comes from my belief that there’s promote the majority of us, yeah, we have capacity, yeah, to experience joy in our life. And I’m not focusing on the negative in the retreats, but the fact that I know the group becomes the medicine and people have a corrective experience when they drop in and they participate in it, right? It’s an amazing thing to have a corrective experience in group and with individuals that maybe a person hasn’t had in a very long time. Yeah, because we isolate, we’re suffering from burnout, depression, and I don’t just mean individuals, professionals, also, we do professional retreats, but for personal reasons, right? Yeah, right,

Dr. Sandy Newes 42:36

oh, yeah, that’s a nice thing to say. I mean, that’s what I find that, you know, it’s again, there’s that default mode network then, meaning making, you know, if your hyper vigilant brain is busy scanning the world for signs of threat, well, you’re going to see it, and that’s at the top of the he survive, and you’re going

Jayne Gumpel 42:50

to search. You’re going to start to look for it. It becomes a habit. Mm, hmm, yeah,

Dr. Sandy Newes 42:56

yeah. So it sounds like the focus of that work is about helping orient people to that, about helping people orient to the corrective experience in the group. And then to me, there’s that piece. This is my interpretation. So tell me if it’s right. About, can you, can you tolerate that? Can you receive that? What are the I call them the Yeah, but yeah, but yeah, but yeah. But what are the blocks? Right? Being able to drop

Jayne Gumpel 43:21

into the couples, especially in the couples work, we’re doing a couples workshop this weekend. We’ve done 15 retreats, right for me, right? The couples, what happens? Which was a side effect that we didn’t realize until we did one, right? Yeah, is they all fell in love with each other. Oh, yeah, the group really became the medicine, and they got to hear and see other people who wanted better relationships, who wanted to deepen their commitment. You know, because couples retreats, there’s only one qualifier, one important qualifier, and it’s for couples that want to stay together. So this, these retreats are not for high conflict couples, right, right? So for couples who are capable of self regulating, right? And who really want to be together, and we tell everybody that, so every couple knows they’re in a room full of people who want to be together, who want to have better committed partnerships, right? And that helps a lot.

Dr. Sandy Newes 44:21

I love that as like a mindset variable, like, can you add the conversations that happen in advance? Are we in that? Are we doing this? Are we? Are we both in, right? I mean that in and of itself, becomes like a preparation piece. Like, they say, We’re comm together. Are we

Jayne Gumpel 44:37

right? Yeah, that’s right. We say the retreat begins once you made the decision to join it wait. So we give people poems to read to each other. We give them things to think about.

Dr. Sandy Newes 44:47

Oh, that’s so beautiful. So, so if people want to follow you, people want to find you, people want to learn from you, you’ve got this upcoming Couples Retreat. I don’t know if it’s next weekend. I don’t know if you still have places, and

Jayne Gumpel 44:59

there’s. Day, and we’re, yeah, right. You don’t have any opening, okay? What is your website? Relationship resources, dot info, great, really. Also on Instagram. I, I just started posting my poetry on Instagram, okay? And I’m for a big tent, and I post there quite often, and I encourage people to join Big Tent. It’s a fantastic community of really knowledgeable people. Yeah, I love that so

Dr. Sandy Newes 45:34

well. Jayne, I really appreciate it. I appreciate your time. I appreciate your sharing of your wisdom and your poetry and your knowledge and your invitation and your warmth, so in your creativity. Thank you. This is very inspirational. Like, you know, what I’m hearing loud and clear is the use of innovation and changing the meaning, and you know, let’s kind of come together and explore the potential here. So I’m really grateful to you for that. So thank you so much. Anything else you want to say?

Jayne Gumpel 46:04

Just I feel really grateful, and I’m so happy to share my wisdom with people who are just coming into this work and to inspire them to just drop into who they are, right? And that’s where the approach needs to come from, the modalities of the framework, but being real, being present, showing up,

Dr. Sandy Newes 46:23

that’s where it’s at. That’s nice. Yes, thank you.

Outro 46:29

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