Interview with Dr. Taryn Feuerberg
Today I sat down with Dr. Feuerberg, PsyD, LMFT, Founder and CEO of Community Mental Health Group. In her office, on her black, leather couch, she has an upbeat and easy demeanor as she points out a stack of pictures she plans to hang up on the wall to “cheer the place up.” I know Dr. Taryn from a past life we both share, bartending at a wine bar in Costa Mesa. In some ways, not a lot has changed. She was just as eager and willing to talk with our bar regulars about their lives and their personal challenges as she is eager today to meet with clients and guide and support them as they work through their life struggles today. At the bar we worked at, she was always with her books, studying for exams or doing homework when things were slow. Having completed her PHD, she hasn’t slowed down at all, continually studying new methods and obtaining certifications, always looking for new ways to improve herself personally and professionally and expanding her repertoire in new and proven ways to help people through their therapy journey.
Dr. Taryn isn’t much for formality, but we are both sitting at attention, me in the therapist chair and she in the patient’s seat as I do my best to pick her brain so everyone can see what makes her such a great therapist.
Me: Did you grow up wanting to be a therapist?
Dr. Taryn: I have wanted to be a therapist since I was 11 years old! I tell this story all the time to clients, but I grew up with intense anxiety, crippling panic attacks, and borderline agoraphobia. I don’t think I ate outside of my own house without a panic attack for years as a kid, and missed large chunks of school when I was 10/11. My parents took me to see a therapist who really helped, a psychiatrist for medication for a time, and things really got better for me as I got older and worked on the skills for managing panic attacks and anxiety tolerance/resistance. I remember when I started feeling better thinking to myself, “I want to do this for other people!!”
Me: What is unique about your work with clients?
Dr. Taryn: Every therapist brings their unique spin and personality to client work (which is why it’s so important to find a therapist with whom you connect), but I think what makes me different is that I really make an effort to shift my style to meet the needs of the person in my room at that moment. I think to myself, “Who does this person need me to be to them, how can I best serve them in the journey that brought them to me?”
Also I am just a super weird and silly person, and I often lean into that absurdity with clients.
Me: What is the best part about the work you do?
Dr. Taryn: One of the best parts of what I do is watching my clients’ pride as they are able to utilize a skill they struggled with or faced a terrible situation and came out the other side. You want so badly for them to overcome the things that brought them to your office, and there is nothing better than watching people get better in real time because of the work they are doing.
Honorable mention has to go to the moment when I hear clients say YES!! after I reframe/articulate/connect something they are describing. It’s the sound of feeling truly heard and seen. Makes everything I do worthwhile to know I am doing a good job too.
Me: What is the hardest part about the work you do?
Dr. Taryn: Right now, the hardest thing is not being able to give people physical human touch; a hand hold or a hug to let them know you are really there for them.
Me: In what ways do you think physical touch helps in ways that words can’t?
Dr. Taryn: Humans need 3 things: food, water, and social connection. We are hard-wired in our brains and bodies to connect with others, and sometimes words just fail. Sometimes there are no words to describe the magnitude of the pain, of the empathy. So we reach out and touch each other.
Me: What would you like everyone to know about therapy and/or the therapy process?
Dr. Taryn: You hear people say it all the time, but IT’S NOT A QUICK FIX for all the problems that brought you to therapy, but it is a long term solution. Ask for and practice the coping skills to manage your symptoms in the moment when they are most intense, but know that in order for things to get better more permanently, you HAVE to circle back to them, process them, sit with your feelings, be honest with yourself about what is really going on.
I know from personal experience how intense the process can be at times, but I want everyone to know that your therapist is here for the long haul, here to hear you, here to sit with you in your darkest moments. We trained for it, and we are not afraid of anything you’re bringing to the table. So bring it. Let’s talk about it.
Me: When people hear “it’s not a quick fix” do you think that ever discourages them from the process? Or that people may feel like: I need help RIGHT NOW, I am in crisis! What would you say to these potential clients?
Dr. Taryn: I think maybe it does scare people off sometimes, knowing that the process can be long and painful. I would tell these people needing urgent help that seeing a therapist can immediately help you reduce anxiety and depression symptoms for 3 reasons:
1) just taking even the smallest step forward by scheduling a call can make you feel relief that things are moving (hey there, serotonin!)
2) any therapist worth their salt can sense when a person is in crisis and needs like 5-10 ideas for immediate anxiety/panic/depression symptom reduction (breathing and grounding techniques, psychoeducation, etc)
3) talking about the problem during the first session often has the immediate effect of release or relief from dropping the thing you been white-knuckling for so long
These skills and experiences are important, of course, but they usually do not solve the larger systemic problems that may be occurring, and mental health relapses happen to the best of us, which is where the longer-term support comes into play.