How One Therapist Embraced Teletherapy and Is Thriving with Tralana Eugene
Is Teletherapy the new normal? Health as we know it is looking a little different these days and Teletherapy can be a useful tool, for both therapists and clients. In this episode of the Building Us podcast, we are joined by Tralana Eugene, LPC, LMFT, NCC, a Licensed Counselor at Dr. Matt Morris & Associates, with hosts Erik Garcia, CFP®, and Dr. Matt Morris, LPC, LMFT. Tralana talks about her knowledge and expertise in counseling and the challenges and benefits of teletherapy.
Episode Highlights:
- Matt introduces Tralana Eugene. (2:56)
- Tralana mentions that she’s been counseling and doing teletherapy for several years. (3:22)
- Tralana shares that conducting sessions via teletherapy has developed new avenues since the pandemic occurred. (3:48)
- Tralana shares that teletherapy provided better accessibility for her clients without having to drive long distances and take significant time. (6:13)
- Tralana mentions that teletherapy allows clients to have more access to have more options for specific preferences that they need. (11:17)
- Erik shares that the process of counseling is as significant oftentimes as the council itself. Therefore, the conversation in those touchpoints is part of the process of counseling. (12:12)
- Tralana mentions that Matt always encourages them to think about marketing and how to make teletherapy more accessible. (13:33)
- Matt mentions that teletherapy certainly could, and is disrupting the way that mental health providers provide therapy. (15:48)
- Tralana believes that being able to hear out her clients and feel what they’re feeling has contributed to building a rapport with her clients. (23:07)
- Tralana shares that teletherapy has challenged therapists and counselors to push themselves out of their comfort zone. (29:46)
- Matt shares that for therapists in Louisiana to deliver teletherapy, they have to be certified in it, and they must have special training and certification in teletherapy. (31:05)
- Tralana shares that counselors follow two models, ethical and legal. The ethical part is somewhat the gray areas of what’s right and what’s wrong. While the legal part is the things that you can and cannot do. (34:43)
- Tralana mentions that the training for teletherapy taught her the best practices, what you need to know, and it allows you to ask questions about those gray areas. (34:58)
- Tralana mentions that she specializes in trauma, and when they’re working with trauma, it’s significant for the therapist to be consistent. (51:23)
Key Quotes:
- “As a trained clinician, it’s your job to pay attention to everything anyway, every client does not present the same way. You have to take into consideration the culture, how comfortable a person is in the session, how comfortable your furniture is in a session.” – Tralana Eugene
- “I do believe that it has challenged therapists, challenged counselors to kind of push themselves to get us out of our comfort zone so to speak, and whether it’s like learning new things or learning how to be a little bit resilient in the face of adversities.” – Tralana Eugene
- “Thinking about accessibility, we also have to think about the world that we live in, right? Like, this is a tech world, some clients feel more comfortable experiencing counseling via teletherapy.” – Tralana Eugene
- “I think this is what this pandemic is asking of us, to kind of get out of our comfort zone, let our stuff go, let our biases go, and really meet the client where they are, and sometimes you have to model that.” – Tralana Eugene
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