The Clinician's Experience in Surrogate Partner Therapy with Vanessa Cushing LPC
In this episode, Michelle Renee and Vanessa Cushing discuss their experience working together in the triadic model of therapy, specifically surrogate partner therapy. They explore the meaning of saying 'I love you' and the nuances of expressing love authentically. They also discuss the importance of digging deeper in therapy and using conversation cards to spark meaningful conversations. They highlight the evolution of surrogate partner therapy and its impact on clients' lives. The episode concludes with a discussion on the experience of feeling loved in therapy. This conversation explores the goal and benefits of surrogate partner therapy, the importance of therapist involvement, and the challenges and rewards of working in a triadic model. It emphasizes the value of community and the role of supervision in supporting the therapist and client. The conversation also highlights the need for clear boundaries and the impact of personal experiences on the therapeutic relationship. It concludes with a discussion on the satisfaction and positive outcomes of surrogate partner therapy, as well as the importance of expanding the definition of this approach. In this final part of the conversation, Michelle and Vanessa express their appreciation for each other and their friendship. They discuss the possibility of working together again in the future and express their excitement about meeting in person. They conclude the conversation with a warm exchange of gratitude and well wishes.
Takeaways
Expressing love authentically is more important than saying 'I love you' out of obligation.
Digging deeper in therapy can lead to transformative experiences and personal growth.
Surrogate partner therapy can provide unique support and opportunities for growth in areas of emotional and physical intimacy.
The triadic model of therapy allows for collaboration and a holistic approach to addressing clients' needs.
Feeling loved and cared for in therapy can have a profound impact on clients' self-worth and well-being. Surrogate partner therapy aims to help clients learn and generalize skills outside of the therapy setting.
Therapist involvement in surrogate partner therapy provides additional support and guidance for clients.
Working in a triadic model allows for checks and balances and helps ensure the client's progress and growth.
The therapist's personal experiences and boundaries play a significant role in the therapeutic relationship.
Surrogate partner therapy can lead to positive outcomes and significant personal growth for both the client and therapist. Expressing gratitude and appreciation for colleagues and friends is important.
Building and maintaining professional relationships can lead to future collaborations.
Meeting in person can strengthen connections and create a sense of familiarity.
Closing a conversation with gratitude and well wishes leaves a positive impression.
Vanessa Cushing (she/her) is a Licensed Professional Counselor in Miami, licensed in both Florida and Virginia. Her specialty is in sexual trauma. You can find out more about Vanessa at https://www.cushingcounseling.com and follow her at https://instagram.com/cushingcounseling.
Michelle Renee (she/her) is a San Diego-based Intimacy Guide and Surrogate Partner. Michelle's website is https://meetmichellerenee.com and can be found on social media at @meetmichellerenee.
Notes from this episode:
36 Questions to Fall in Love
Andrew's Heartman's Class Collaborating with Surrogate Partners in Triadic Model through SurrogatePartnerCollective.org
Somatic Sexuality Professionals
Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving by Pete Walker
Rough Transcript:
Michelle Renee (she/her) (00:01.853)
Welcome back to the Intimacy Lab. I am so excited today because I have someone who I would have said was a colleague and now is a friend and colleague because I don't know how to not have dual relationships. I think that's what I've decided in my life is that I don't know how to not be friends with the people that I work closely with. It's just kind of who I am. So anyways, today I'm here with Vanessa Cushing.
Vanessa Cushing (00:16.082)
I'm sorry.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (00:29.989)
who we worked together on a case. Well, I guess we worked together on a couple of cases a little bit over the last couple of years now, I think. Time is weird, I don't know. It's been a while. And when our last case ended, it was kind of this, I don't wanna not talk to you. And so we just put like regular.
Vanessa Cushing (00:42.758)
Yeah, I think like two years, maybe longer. Yeah.
Vanessa Cushing (00:56.544)
I'm gonna go.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (00:59.565)
like meetings on our calendar so that we can stay in touch. So Vanessa was so nice to accidentally schedule this interview on my birthday. And we talked about canceling it. I was like, no, I think this would be such a lovely birthday gift to myself to just kind of get to talk about the thing I love and, you know, throw in some words of affirmation on top of it. And I'm a happy camper. So.
Vanessa Cushing (01:02.957)
Yeah.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (01:27.625)
Vanessa, do you want to let everybody know who you are, what you do and where you are?
Vanessa Cushing (01:33.906)
Yes, absolutely. And happy, happy birthday, Michelle. You are a very special person and deserve the best day. Yes. So I am currently located in Miami and I am licensed in both Florida and Virginia. And then I am the owner of Cushing Counseling, the private practice I started in March. And I predominantly do trauma and sex therapy and I am a sexual trauma specialist.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (01:38.018)
Yay!
Michelle Renee (she/her) (02:05.253)
Ah, that's, it's always a mouthful, right? I'm like, I have a, do you keep like a little like post-it note to remind you of all the things you're supposed to say, you're just good at it.
Vanessa Cushing (02:17.214)
You know, I kind of just wing it, Michelle. I'm like, okay, which one do I start with? Do I start with my location or do I start with, like, where do you kind of start with that? So I'm like, okay, this is where I am currently.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (02:25.629)
Yeah, it's such a great. I mean, what I mean, what a COVID was shit, right? Like COVID was not a fun thing to go through. But I think of how it's really expanded access as far as where people can work and where they versus where they live, because telehealth has become so normalized. I have doctors that I've never met in person before, like, and I'm not mad about that. Yeah. Yeah, when I.
Vanessa Cushing (02:32.62)
Well.
Vanessa Cushing (02:38.279)
Yeah.
Vanessa Cushing (02:45.351)
Yeah.
Vanessa Cushing (02:51.694)
Really? Like actual doctors?
Michelle Renee (she/her) (02:54.925)
When I had bariatric surgery, I mean, I met him at like the surgeon, like as I was going into surgery, but I never stepped foot in their offices ever. Even my post-op, which is a little weird that I never had to go in for post-op. I never stepped foot in their office. So it is interesting. Yeah. And I think about also the benefit of a lot more people being able to telecommute.
Vanessa Cushing (02:59.819)
Mm-hmm.
Vanessa Cushing (03:09.364)
Yeah.
Vanessa Cushing (03:14.462)
Interesting. I did not know that.
Vanessa Cushing (03:23.084)
Yeah.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (03:24.001)
that I think is a real, one of the silver linings of going through this weird pandemic, so.
Vanessa Cushing (03:33.43)
Yeah, and I also think it gives you the opportunity to see people where they feel most safe and comfortable. Like, it's an honor to be able to see someone like when they're in their bed or on the couch and like when they might not have been able to make it into the office. Like, I get to see them in their natural habitat, which is really awesome.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (03:47.363)
Yeah.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (03:51.697)
Yeah, yeah, I can understand that. I don't personally do a lot of telehealth kind of remote work. People say like, so do you work online? I was like, no, I touch people. Like, I never. Yeah, even during COVID, I kept a couple clients going just because that's what I do. And it felt like the risk to the client was more to not see me because they were so isolated. And it was only
Vanessa Cushing (03:57.166)
Thank you.
Vanessa Cushing (04:02.74)
Yeah. Make it a little difficult.
Vanessa Cushing (04:14.889)
Mm-hmm.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (04:21.641)
My, I was still useful. My brain was still kind of working in my career, kind of that brings me a lot of joy. And the clients got to have a little bit of contact and because they were so isolated, it didn't feel like it was a big risk to myself. The win-win was there, but okay. So we have a couple of things we have to do before we dive in to our conversation today.
Vanessa Cushing (04:35.393)
Mm-hmm.
Vanessa Cushing (04:39.758)
Yeah.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (04:49.849)
One of them is this is going to drop on Friday, November, what is the date? The third. And right before soft cock week, which I have recorded, I think seven really rich conversations, and everybody can go find it over on the soft cock week podcast. They're not going to be here on this channel. They'll be on the soft cock week podcast.
Vanessa Cushing (05:00.354)
before soft cock week.
Vanessa Cushing (05:08.594)
Oof.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (05:20.001)
And I'm just putting out interviews during the week of soft cock week, and then that podcast will sit dormant unless I like have like a pop up surprise cock or something. I don't know, like a surprise erection. We'll throw out a surprise episode once in a while, maybe, maybe. But it'll be a surprise. So I don't have to make any promises either way. But the other thing I want to do and I kind of did this solo on my last episode.
Vanessa Cushing (05:40.183)
Mm-hmm.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (05:49.533)
was bring in a we're not really strangers question. My favorite game. So before we started recording, we picked, I picked out three cards, one out of each level and asked Vanessa to pick the one that we would answer today. So today's question is, and I'll let Vanessa, I'll let you decide which one of us answers first. How's that sound?
Vanessa Cushing (05:53.75)
your favorite game.
Vanessa Cushing (06:17.014)
You always put the ball in my court and I always give it back to you. So choice is important. I honestly, you can go first.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (06:20.617)
Okay, well choice is important.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (06:27.093)
Okay, I'm happy to do that. I don't think there's any, it's a 50-50, like it's a win-win. Okay, the question is, have you ever told someone I love you but didn't mean it, and if so, why?
Vanessa Cushing (06:33.43)
Yes, it is. We'll both go.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (06:44.217)
And this is a complicated question because it really, I think, puts the pressure on what does love mean because the idea that came to mind is nuanced, right? I feel like I live in gray everywhere and I think, I don't know if black and white really exist, at least after a while.
Vanessa Cushing (06:55.811)
Mm.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (07:14.149)
I don't know. The thought that came to mind, and I'll explain why I say this, why it's questionable on the definition of love. Excuse me. My ex-husband, my first husband, there was a routine to I Love Yous. It was expected. It was overused, so it was very diluted. And
Vanessa Cushing (07:35.668)
Hmm.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (07:43.093)
and I wasn't in, I didn't have, I don't know if it's autonomy or.
there was an expectation because of, I'm gonna say his insecurity, right? He needed to hear those words and it was like a soother, right? And if you didn't say it, then something was wrong. So I said it a lot out of obligation to say it because the emotional paperwork of not saying it was higher than being honest. And, but I mean, the truth of the matter is
Vanessa Cushing (07:58.658)
Mm-hmm.
Vanessa Cushing (08:15.278)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (08:21.077)
I still love that man. Like, we have a long history together, right? I care about him. And for me, love is about care, and I don't hate him. And I would never wanna be in that kind of relationship again with him, but I do hold a lot of care for him. He's known me longer than a lot of people in my life. He's been through...
Vanessa Cushing (08:42.524)
Mm-hmm.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (08:50.121)
If I made a list of the really hard things that happen in adulthood, like those devastating things, he's been through most of them with me. But did I say it when I didn't mean it? I said it when I was supposed to say it, not when I felt it. And I think that's my nuanced answer to it. And so why? Because it felt like an obligation. I felt pressured.
Vanessa Cushing (09:08.022)
Mm-hmm.
Vanessa Cushing (09:19.915)
Yeah.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (09:20.729)
to say it.
Vanessa Cushing (09:22.802)
And that makes a lot of sense, Michelle. I feel like, like what you're talking about, I feel like a lot of people and a lot of couples and even like people like family, like it's part of the routine, like, okay, every time you get off the phone, okay, love you, bye. Like, that's always part of the routine, even if you don't feel it. And I feel like, if you don't say it, the other person feels some kind of way. They feel insecure, they might feel like you might be abandoning them. Like, I feel like that is so prevalent. And it's a really good point.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (09:44.719)
Mm-hmm.
Vanessa Cushing (09:52.822)
Because you can always love that person and feel like care to them, but you might not feel love in that moment. Maybe you're mad, maybe you got in a fight, and the phone call ends and you don't say I love you. That causes problems in the relationship.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (10:09.921)
It reminds me of, in the Wheel of Consent, we talk about direct pleasure versus indirect pleasure. And it makes me ask the question, or it makes me wanna put the question out to the audience in why are you saying I love you? Is it to hear it back or is it to express yourself?
Vanessa Cushing (10:16.12)
Mm-hmm.
Vanessa Cushing (10:28.205)
Yeah.
You posted something on Instagram very recently, and it really stuck with me, and I loved it. It's like, do not love someone because you wanna be loved back. Love because you love. And that really resonated with me, because I think a lot of people say, I love you, hoping to hear it back. But I think when you get to a place where you can say I love you, and just express your love, and not need to hear it back, that's a really important place to be, and I think it's hard to get there.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (10:41.711)
Mm-hmm.
Vanessa Cushing (10:59.986)
I think that's kind of where I'm at. I say I love you to a lot of people, but I don't need to hear it back. I think when I was younger, I needed to hear it back. I needed that. But now I'm at a place where I can love unconditionally, and I don't need to hear that back all the time.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (11:17.877)
Yeah, it's a maturity, it seems, because it definitely correlates with how my emotional maturity has changed. And I can tell you, I say I love you a lot. I spread that shit around. It is free, right? And I say it to a lot of clients. And I say it because I feel like, I think for a little while I felt like
Vanessa Cushing (11:19.959)
Yeah.
Vanessa Cushing (11:30.143)
Mm-hmm.
Vanessa Cushing (11:37.429)
Yeah.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (11:48.401)
would be inappropriate to say it because what does it mean to them? But yeah, I realized that when I went ahead and took the risk to say it, the person on the other side of it just was like, I just don't get to hear that very often. And it meant a lot to them. And so I've kind of taken it from a place of if I say it and I get any kind of confusion or discomfort or whatever,
Vanessa Cushing (11:52.843)
Yeah.
Vanessa Cushing (12:03.831)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (12:17.397)
I look at it as an opportunity to talk about it and what that word means to me. If I have a client that is profusely giving me I love yous, I use it as an opportunity to talk about what does it mean to them? What is it about me that they love? It just seems like a great opportunity to help them spread more love.
Vanessa Cushing (12:20.366)
I'm going to go ahead and turn it off.
Vanessa Cushing (12:31.906)
Mm-hmm.
Vanessa Cushing (12:38.294)
That's something I love about you and your work is like you take everything as an opportunity to explore and dig deeper. It's like, okay, wait, let's take a step back. What does this mean for you? And like digging into like that uncomfortability. And that's something like a lot of even like therapists don't do. They like, okay, like we kind of skip over it and we go to the next thing.
because it kind of makes the therapist uncomfortable too, because there is uncomfortability in digging into that, like even for yourself and like the other person and the situation might not feel like super secure in that moment, but like after that work is done, like there's no connection like that.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (13:17.101)
I have to tell you, I wasn't always good at it, Vanessa. This is something I work on. No, no, no. I mean, okay, so I've always in my work have been really comfortable being like, joining with a client, like sharing a lot of my own personal experience. But I was digging in a while back, I was working with a friend, an acquaintance, somebody that I've been connected to here in San Diego, who does coaches around storytelling and things like that. His name is Nathan Young.
Vanessa Cushing (13:20.426)
I don't believe you.
Vanessa Cushing (13:28.907)
Yeah.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (13:47.149)
give him a shout out, I'll put him in the notes. He, I reached out to him to, I wanted to tell my story better. I thought, I feel like clients really resonate with my story. That's what I hope at least is that's why they come to me is they find my story somewhere and they go, oh, Michelle gets it, blah, blah. And so I reached out to him to kind of start figuring out how I wanted to tell that story. And as I started to really like think about
Vanessa Cushing (13:49.635)
Mm.
Vanessa Cushing (13:54.382)
Mm-hmm.
Vanessa Cushing (14:01.505)
Mm-hmm.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (14:14.365)
my past and how it shows up. I had this moment where I went, oh shit, I really struggled to ask more curious questions of my clients. And it's because questions were not safe when I was a kid. It was not safe to have people ask questions about our household. It was not safe to ask questions of other people. And so I really, I remember one of my early like memories of my
Vanessa Cushing (14:27.135)
Yeah.
Vanessa Cushing (14:32.213)
Yeah.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (14:42.077)
now ex-husband when we were dating, of really seeing this in retrospect of like, wow, I thought that was rude to ask questions. And all he was doing was asking more questions about my grandmother's experience that she was sharing. And I was like, why are you being so rude? That was the messaging that I had. So I still struggle with this. I love that you think that I've got this thing tied up, right? But I still struggle with it.
Vanessa Cushing (14:51.138)
Mm-hmm.
Vanessa Cushing (14:57.444)
Mm.
Vanessa Cushing (15:01.122)
Mm-hmm.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (15:12.165)
It's something I have to practice. I have to remind myself to go a little deeper. And I watched my colleagues who do it really well. And I think I want to be more like them. And so, yeah, so it's just, we keep paying it forward and we surround ourselves with people that bring us up to another level, right? And so that's kind of like my long answer. So enough about me, Vanessa.
Vanessa Cushing (15:12.43)
It's amazing.
Vanessa Cushing (15:21.698)
That's how I feel about you.
Vanessa Cushing (15:30.914)
Yeah.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (15:39.257)
How would you answer the question, have you ever told someone that you love them but didn't mean it?
Vanessa Cushing (15:45.002)
I think you bring up a really good point about routine and saying it because the other person is saying it. The first thing I'll say is I also throw I love you around there because I genuinely feel a lot of love and a lot of different kinds of love for many people in my life. For therapists, I think it is a boundary to say I love you to a client even though I have felt a lot of love to a client. I don't know if I would ever say I love you to a client.
And I don't know why. I think I should probably explore that a little bit and I should explore like the ethics and boundaries around that for therapists telling clients, I love you because I do feel a lot of love for them. I also like to practice radical honesty. Is like that's something in my core that I find really fulfilling for me and like for my clients too. Like I'm a hundred percent genuinely authentically myself a hundred percent of the time and I don't lie.
And I tell my clients that because I think it's really important. So when I say I love you, I genuinely mean it. But you do bring up a good point in like routine and like phone calls. Like for example, with my mom, like we talk on the phone often, and sometimes we'll get into a fight and like, I won't actively feel that love, like I'll feel anger and I'll feel sadness and I'll feel pain, but like at the end of the phone call, I always say like, love you. Bye.
Like even when I'm angry, I'll say, I love you, bye. And like, I think if I didn't say it, my mom would be very hurt. And I do love my mom. Like I always will love my mom, but in those moments I don't feel that love. And like, maybe that's not, like, I don't know. It's a conflicting feeling for me, because I do love her, but in those moments I don't feel the love.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (17:32.161)
Yeah, I mean, I think an overarching, I care about you versus I'm actively loving you right now or loving who you're how you're presenting right now or loving how I'm interacting with you right now isn't always congruent. Yeah. Well, that I think was a wonderful kickoff. I'm loving I'm I could do whole episodes just off of pulling a card.
Vanessa Cushing (17:41.184)
Yeah.
Vanessa Cushing (17:48.674)
Yeah.
Vanessa Cushing (17:55.562)
Yes.
Vanessa Cushing (18:01.162)
I think you're good. The cards are so good. But some people feel very uncomfortable with the cards. I've done the cards with other people and other people don't like the cards.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (18:04.565)
Yeah.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (18:11.241)
Yeah, did I talk about that on my podcast yet? I talked about the fact that I brought these into my wedding reception, right? But yeah, some of the initial responses from people was like, fuck you and fuck these cards, right? Because it brought up a lot of feelings for people. And for some of those people, I got follow-up messages that was like, actually, I know I hated the cards at first, but it really started really powerful conversations in my relationship. And I just...
Vanessa Cushing (18:15.082)
with you.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (18:40.397)
that was good, right? And so, a little discomfort isn't always bad. We have to stretch, we have to stretch. And I go back to the 36 questions to fall in love that was in New York Times back in the day. I think it was maybe 2014, 2015. And the study there was that these, they gave these questions to people that were
Vanessa Cushing (18:42.377)
Mm-hmm.
Vanessa Cushing (18:47.294)
No, it's not.
Vanessa Cushing (18:55.955)
love this.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (19:09.801)
on their first date, newly dating. And the people that went through those questions had a much higher rate of continuing to date. Like the vulnerability was a connector. And it built intimacy, it built emotional intimacy. And that's what connects people together. I mean, we don't really pick people just based on a checklist of you meet these certain criteria.
Vanessa Cushing (19:12.258)
Mm-hmm.
Vanessa Cushing (19:19.294)
Mm-hmm.
Vanessa Cushing (19:23.476)
Mm-hmm.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (19:39.061)
It's really about what is the reason we're together? Like, what are, like, do we have this mutuality of a purpose or shared experience? A lot of it's, I love your heart, right? Where you've come from to get to where you are, I see your strength, you know, these different qualities.
Vanessa Cushing (19:47.411)
Mm-hmm.
Vanessa Cushing (19:57.742)
Yeah, connection.
Vanessa Cushing (20:06.21)
You see the person in all of the person.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (20:09.989)
Mm-hmm, yeah. But we gotta share it for people to find out and that's the scary part. And I know it's like, I wanna be like, it's so easy. It is for me usually, but I know it's a learned muscle and you gotta try it and realize that the benefit is worth the fear.
Vanessa Cushing (20:12.118)
Yeah.
Vanessa Cushing (20:16.456)
I know.
Vanessa Cushing (20:37.986)
the risk. Yeah.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (20:41.097)
Yeah. All right. Oh, so today Vanessa and I are going to talk about our experience in working together. There's something called the triadic model, which means that. Primarily my work, it means that we have a talk therapist, a client and me. Right. Whether I'm working as a professional cuddler.
Vanessa Cushing (21:02.638)
Mm-hmm.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (21:09.429)
or a surrogate partner, or whatever space in between some kind of intimacy coaching. I'm the touch person, right? And my client has the talk person. And we all talk together and work as a team between all three of us to collaborate around whatever the goals are for the client. And so Vanessa and I have shared a couple of clients.
Vanessa Cushing (21:18.56)
Mm-hmm.
Vanessa Cushing (21:32.969)
Mm-hmm.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (21:40.429)
And like I said, I guess I said that in the beginning, and we've stayed talking and now we talk about all sorts of things, not just what's going on with our clients.
Vanessa Cushing (21:52.674)
Things that are going on in their personal lives, anything, really.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (21:56.177)
Yeah, yeah, we kind of, I don't know, support each other. Just, yeah, yeah. So I have some questions. I'm borrowing these questions from my colleague, Andrew Hartman, who is a surrogate partner up in the Bay Area around San Francisco. And we have been throwing together like toying around with this project that we want to do. But my plate has been really full between
Vanessa Cushing (22:00.699)
Awesome. Yeah.
Vanessa Cushing (22:07.988)
Mm-hmm.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (22:24.573)
wedding this year, presenting at AASECT this year, moving across the, finishing moving across the country this year. They just keep adding up, right? Soft cock week, like I just, okay. So maybe come the first of the year, I also have to create a new certification for Cuddlist. Andrew and I are going to start this project where we talk to therapists that have worked with us.
to get their experience because a lot of times, from my end, I feel like the Avon lady where I'm like, knock, I wanna sell you my product. And it doesn't always feel good to be always pushing myself without, like it'd be better to have a client with me saying yes, or a customer, I love the lipstick, it's fantastic, right? Like I...
Vanessa Cushing (22:59.607)
Hmm
Michelle Renee (she/her) (23:18.762)
We need to broaden the conversation around, it's not just the client's experience, it's not just my experience, it's also your experience.
Vanessa Cushing (23:28.21)
you know? Honestly, like, I wish that wasn't the case, like with surrogate partner work is like, okay, like, this is what like selling, like, telling like clients what you can do for them, or therapists, like what you can do with them, because honestly, a surrogate partner can do more than a sex therapist in a matter of one or two sessions. Because like, we cannot touch our clients, but you can actually go in there.
and like fix the problem. Like I can't do that. We can talk about the problem all day, all night for weeks and weeks on end. But at the end of the day, Michelle you are in such a unique position to go in with the client and fix that problem. And that's something we can never do. So like.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (24:14.341)
I want to pause you. I get really uncomfortable with the word fix. So I want to like, can we dive into that just a little bit? I get to go in and maybe touch the problem or expose the problem, right? Or whatever the thing is that's happening that we haven't been able, or you guys haven't been able to really either clarify or like memory reconsolidation, like whatever it is that needs to happen. So this...
Vanessa Cushing (24:19.538)
I know, serve is better.
Vanessa Cushing (24:26.922)
I like that. Exposed to the problem.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (24:42.873)
the client can move forward, I get to go in and interact with where they're stuck. I'll say interact, right?
Vanessa Cushing (24:44.213)
Mm-hmm.
Vanessa Cushing (24:48.598)
Yeah, interact is a better word. I, you're right. I don't like the word fix either, but there are things that you can do that. Like I can't like, and it's hard. Like, like in some problems that the client has that they want to be, what is a good word for it? Like.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (24:57.45)
Absolutely.
Vanessa Cushing (25:09.694)
I don't know what a good word is for it, but like, there's some problems that like, we can't delve into. Like there are things in like the real world that we cannot delve into that like, you have the power and opportunity to delve into with them. And I think that's really powerful work.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (25:27.981)
Yeah, I remember being at my first Psych Networker Conference in 2019. A few like Madeline Guanazo, the co-founder of Cuddlist, myself at the time I was operations manager. And Maryam Brown, one of our Cuddlist, we went to this conference kind of in like a guerrilla marketing kind of way of like, we're just going to buy tickets.
Vanessa Cushing (25:48.686)
Mm-hmm.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (25:51.693)
come in with our Cuddlist swag on and try to start some conversations with clinicians to help explain what we do and how we can work together. And I remember one of them saying like, are you licensed? And I was like, no, isn't that great? Cause we can do all the things that you can't, right? It's a, but it's a collaboration. It's a...
Vanessa Cushing (26:07.53)
Mm-hmm.
Vanessa Cushing (26:11.968)
it is.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (26:15.609)
It is, it's filling in some of the gaps that you're not able to do because of licensing restrictions and just like ethics. This is what I love about working in the triad is that we have, so I can engage with the client in a much more involved way and have you not overseeing from like an I'm the authority, but from a bird's eye view, keeping an eye on how things are going.
Vanessa Cushing (26:31.071)
Mm-hmm.
Vanessa Cushing (26:43.65)
Like, yeah, like a theoretical perspective too. Like keeping theory in mind on the clinician side. And also like, I think in our dynamic too, like we looked out for each other and like we all looked out for the client. Like I think in our dynamic, like it wasn't like a bird's eye view. Like you were watching like me and the client interact. I was watching you and the client interact and we were all looking out for each other. So I think it's a very much a mutual thing.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (26:48.034)
Yes.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (27:09.006)
Mm-hmm.
Vanessa Cushing (27:12.31)
that we had going on. Like, we just, we were a team.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (27:12.932)
Yeah.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (27:16.745)
When I first got into surrogate partner therapy, my impression of SPT was that it was a hierarchy, that I was going to show up in the space. I know it's not now, but I think at one time, I think at one time it was though, that I would show up and the therapist would tell me what to do. Today, I want you to do this with the client and I would go, okay, but the reality is, is it's
Vanessa Cushing (27:29.058)
That that makes me sad.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (27:44.829)
not been the case for many reasons. One, I think the industry has matured and has become a much more robust modality because in the beginning when it started with Masters and Johnson, it was about specifically working on sexual dysfunction. You're going to serve as the partner to the single man primarily. They worked with
heterosexual couples and usually they were married couples, but when a single man came in they brought in a woman so that they could do these exercises which we call sensate focus. It was really about having a partner to do sensate focus with so that they could see that change the sexual dysfunction. Now it's not like that. We're there to work on like...
Vanessa Cushing (28:25.172)
Mm-hmm.
Vanessa Cushing (28:33.582)
Mm-hmm.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (28:41.117)
steps before that of how do we show up in relationship in a way that creates all the safety that we need for a healthy sexual relationship or a healthy platonic relationship. We're moving outside of just romantic relationship modeling. We're talking on a much bigger scale of just how to have healthy, mature relationships that are
Vanessa Cushing (29:02.074)
Mm-hmm.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (29:11.061)
autonomous and fruitful, like growing together rather than tearing each other down or blaming. It's like self-responsibility, but then interdependence and all these rich things that make up a healthy relationship, whether it's with your mother or it's with your partner or it's with your child, right? We can come in and model those things.
Vanessa Cushing (29:12.797)
Mm-hmm.
Vanessa Cushing (29:19.394)
Mm-hmm.
Vanessa Cushing (29:35.968)
Uh-huh.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (29:41.181)
And that's where I see that the industry has changed a lot over the years and why things like the hierarchy is not there anymore. I'm never doing anything I don't want to do. Nobody can tell me how to interact with the client. Right. It's more like, what do you think the client needs to work on? How can we together come up with an idea of how we might be able to touch on that space that you're not able to touch on?
Vanessa Cushing (29:45.142)
Mm-hmm.
Vanessa Cushing (29:52.584)
this.
Vanessa Cushing (30:01.518)
Thank you.
Vanessa Cushing (30:08.795)
Mm-hmm.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (30:09.909)
in your talk therapy space.
Vanessa Cushing (30:13.022)
And something that you taught me that I really like and like the foundation of your work and like who you are as an individual too, is like creating safety. Like that's the number one thing, is like you create safety in every relationship that you have. And that's something like I think not a lot of people even think about. Like safety is always number one and then everything else can come after that. Because once you have that safe, secure foundation, like you can move.
in every direction that you want because you know that foundation is safe and secure. And also I do think that like things have changed in our industry, but I do think that I see emails and they bother me and they still remind me of that hierarchy. Like people using the word sexual surrogate is like something I learned in Andrew's class was like, no. And like as soon as
Michelle Renee (she/her) (30:49.453)
Mm-hmm.
Vanessa Cushing (31:12.994)
conversations around surrogate partner therapy and recognition of the work that you guys really do incredibly well. And I wish there was. With every client, I think I'm like, oh my gosh, how could surrogate partner therapy be helpful for this client? And I see different ways in which it could be transformative for clients.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (31:35.829)
Yeah, I have a question. When you use the word sex surrogacy, what do you think that was that because you didn't understand what the actual work was? Was it just because it's what's been said a lot?
Vanessa Cushing (31:46.61)
I had no idea. It's what's been said and I had no idea what the work was like until I started working with you and I took Andrew's training. Like honestly, we don't have a lot of training in surrogate partner therapy. I had never even heard of it, like as a therapist until like a client came in and this is what they were looking for. And like that was years ago, of course. And like now like
We're in the somatic sexuality group, like, it's very clear to me now, but like, yeah, I didn't know what the work actually was, and I wasn't trained on it. And I think that it needs to be more widespread, and people really need to understand what surrogate partner therapy is. Because most people don't know what it is. And it's a shame.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (32:20.185)
Yeah.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (32:26.789)
Thanks for watching!
Michelle Renee (she/her) (32:31.681)
Yeah, when we do the short version of like, how do you explain what you do, right? Like what is surrogate partner therapy in just a couple words or I don't know how to, I always go to like, who is it for? And it is for people who struggle with emotional and physical intimacy. In the most simplest way, that is like who it's for, but to try to describe
Vanessa Cushing (32:46.936)
Mm-hmm.
Vanessa Cushing (32:51.976)
Mm-hmm.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (33:01.189)
how it affects people, like how the client interacts with it, is a much bigger conversation.
Vanessa Cushing (33:06.358)
Yeah.
Vanessa Cushing (33:09.602)
Yeah, because it expands in every direction of the client's life. Like it's not just emotional and physical intimacy. It gets everything. You get to know that person holistically and like it really changes the client's life on a large scale.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (33:27.034)
Yeah, I'm thinking about how does it change a client's life? And the words that come to mind is like, well, first of all, I think self-worth changes.
Vanessa Cushing (33:36.522)
Yeah, confidence.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (33:38.233)
Confidence, competence. I mean, I think, especially if you're somebody who hasn't had a lot of experience, if you walk through the world kind of with imposter syndrome all the time, right? That I don't have the baseline experience that a lot of my peers have, it automatically makes you feel a certain way. Like it just does.
Vanessa Cushing (33:43.5)
Yep.
Vanessa Cushing (33:54.269)
Mm-hmm.
Vanessa Cushing (34:01.507)
Yep.
Vanessa Cushing (34:05.592)
Yeah.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (34:08.457)
Sometimes that is like, I have clients that have, we think of this work around the sexual sphere, right? And I work so hard to talk about it in a bigger sense. So I'm gonna purposely kind of move away from that when I talk about this right now. We have people that feel like they've never experienced just affection. That, mm-hmm.
Vanessa Cushing (34:15.918)
Mm-hmm.
Vanessa Cushing (34:30.314)
Yeah, I was gonna say like we were talking about love, is like clients really feel loved with you.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (34:37.281)
Yeah, I have a client right now that said I've never felt anyone cared for me as much as you do other than my parents.
Vanessa Cushing (34:43.778)
Mmm.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (34:45.325)
Like, awesome, I'm so glad that I get to be that person for you. And that's where I think having the triadic model can keep that from getting potentially muddy because there could become a dependency. And it's understandable. But like, when you have a goal, this is kind of the difference between.
Vanessa Cushing (34:58.723)
Thank you.
Vanessa Cushing (35:03.941)
Mm-hmm.
Vanessa Cushing (35:07.318)
No.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (35:13.221)
Cuddle therapy and surrogate partner therapy, when I try to define the differences is that cuddle therapy can be looked at as just like maintenance, right? You go to your massage therapist, you go to your Reiki practitioner, you go to your hairdresser, like there's just things you do in life for upkeep, right? And cuddling can be totally about upkeep. It can be, I just need the shot of attention, attunement, affection.
Vanessa Cushing (35:24.002)
Mm-hmm.
Vanessa Cushing (35:32.728)
Excuse me.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (35:41.893)
and whoo, I'm off to the races, I'm good for another couple of weeks or whatever your schedule is, right? But in the surrogate partner world, we are looking at a goal. We are looking to help you learn to generalize how to take the skills in the growth that you're experiencing in surrogate partner therapy and translate them outside of the professional sphere.
Vanessa Cushing (35:54.593)
Mm-hmm.
Vanessa Cushing (36:10.283)
Mm-hmm.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (36:11.349)
And that's where I think having the therapist involved makes that a lot more clear. And it's always great to have another set of eyes to see where we have to practice maybe some tough love at times, to see where the client maybe has gotten maybe more comfortable than like they're, they're not.
Vanessa Cushing (36:17.632)
Mm-hmm.
Vanessa Cushing (36:28.11)
Mm-hmm.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (36:39.581)
uncomfortable enough to where they'll go out and seek organic non-professional relationship. And that's where it's nice to have like a team, a team approach to say, okay, we both agree. This is time. It's time that, you know, you start to integrate this into your personal life. Yeah. So I integrate. Yeah.
Vanessa Cushing (36:47.278)
Mm-hmm.
Vanessa Cushing (36:50.926)
Thank you.
Vanessa Cushing (36:59.018)
Yes. Yeah. I love that word, integration.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (37:06.617)
I, if I could have my way, I mean, I do, I do work that isn't triadic model, um, for lots of reasons. Sometimes it's because the client just really has whatever barrier they have to working with a talk therapist. Maybe they've had negative experiences in the past. I don't know. There's like lots of reasons. I am committed to supporting people. Um, as long as we're both on the same page.
Vanessa Cushing (37:11.886)
Mm-hmm.
Vanessa Cushing (37:23.64)
Mm-hmm.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (37:36.021)
But if I could wave my magic wand, I would only work triadic model. I would love if everybody had the benefit of having that supercharged experience because I do think it's fantastic, the work that can happen when you have a trained professional to process what's going on in their work with me. And not
Vanessa Cushing (37:41.651)
Mm-hmm.
Vanessa Cushing (37:46.286)
Yeah.
Vanessa Cushing (37:52.706)
Yeah.
Vanessa Cushing (38:00.482)
Mm-hmm.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (38:02.205)
either trying to process it on their own or trying to process it with me, the person that's involved in it with them.
Vanessa Cushing (38:07.746)
Yeah.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (38:09.609)
I only have so much ability to take myself out of it. That's the complication.
Vanessa Cushing (38:14.53)
Mm-hmm. And therapists, you too. Yeah, like we only have so much ability to take ourselves out of our relationship with the client too. And I also think like something we did was like we, it was like checks and balances. Like you check my work with the client, I check yours too. And I really appreciated that. Like sometimes like I would get activated based on like a situation that would happen and like we could talk to each other about
Michelle Renee (she/her) (38:31.781)
Mm-hmm.
Vanessa Cushing (38:41.334)
situation because you were dealing with the same thing maybe in a different way and I was dealing with the same thing and how to tackle this issue together to help the client in the best way that we can.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (38:52.617)
That is the beauty of community. Like, I mean...
Vanessa Cushing (38:54.783)
Yeah.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (38:58.838)
I think when you, it's one thing to have somebody you can talk to about your work. You may have a supervisor, a colleague, to have someone that's working with the same person.
Vanessa Cushing (39:05.033)
Right.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (39:12.357)
There's nothing like that because I think about like friendships. I have a girlfriend that I have known since elementary school. So she has known all of my family. She knows all of my background. And when I can just go to her and be like, this thing happened and she already knows all the stuff, right? She already has a really intimate relationship with my past. It's the same thing. Something happens with us and our mutual client. It's like,
Vanessa Cushing (39:14.269)
Nothing.
Vanessa Cushing (39:37.134)
Thank you.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (39:41.705)
Oh yeah, I don't have to explain the background. It's just, we're picking up, oh yeah, oh I can see that. Or remember to think about, you know, like things like, we have to watch our boundaries because we can want something more than our client wants it. Right, we have to work, yeah we have.
Vanessa Cushing (39:46.119)
Mm-hmm.
Vanessa Cushing (39:51.702)
Yeah.
Vanessa Cushing (39:59.723)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah. Yes. That's something I learned with you is I will want something more than my client wants to, and I think that's where you have to detach from the outcome. Sorry.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (40:13.669)
Mm-hmm. It's a really good practice. And to have checks and balances between us was really helpful.
Vanessa Cushing (40:17.904)
Mm-hmm.
Vanessa Cushing (40:21.706)
And it helped me grow as a therapist too. Like for all the other clients as well, like learning not to work harder than my client was something that I learned in our triadic process. And I don't know if I would have learned it any other way.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (40:37.853)
Yeah, it's a great place to see that happen because I know I'm trying and I'm not perfect at this, right? None of us are, but I'm trying to meet the client where they are. And there's something that I learned from my colleague, Lou Hanson. She took a, I think it was, she took a class with Akilah Riley Richardson around relational privilege. And
Vanessa Cushing (40:41.261)
Yeah.
Vanessa Cushing (41:04.726)
Mm.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (41:06.537)
The way it shows up in my work is that I come into work with relational privilege over my client. I come in with all these skills that my client is there to learn and I have to remember that they don't already have them.
Vanessa Cushing (41:18.268)
Mm-hmm.
Vanessa Cushing (41:21.854)
Mm-hmm.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (41:23.309)
They can't want something that they don't even know. And so reminding myself to meet them where they are is something that I have to actively practice it. And I'm not 100% at it by any means.
Vanessa Cushing (41:27.019)
Yeah.
Vanessa Cushing (41:42.534)
I mean me too, I'm the same way. Sometimes my brain goes like 100 miles an hour and I'm already on, like our mutual client, they told me, you are on step 20 and I'm on step one. I'm like, you're so right. I get excited and I get, my brain starts running and running and running and I remember that I'm on step 20 and they're on step one and I've gotta go back to step one.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (42:07.499)
Yeah.
Vanessa Cushing (42:07.638)
But I do think it always comes from, like, the intention is always positive, and it's always like for growth for the client and like their happiness too.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (42:14.437)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. And sometimes we get to grow in the process. And that's like a bonus. I'm thinking about, I know I had some of my own stuff come into play in our relationship with our mutual client. And it's happened with a few clients of mine, where it's nice to have a place where I can go and say, Hey, I noticed this personal part of my life.
Vanessa Cushing (42:21.099)
Mm-hmm.
Vanessa Cushing (42:34.67)
Mm-hmm.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (42:44.005)
pop up in this case, like.
Vanessa Cushing (42:44.322)
Mm-hmm.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (42:48.969)
just having a place to acknowledge that and work through it with someone so that I can, I don't want to say push that away in my work with the client, but there was a thing I heard years ago when I got started in cuddling about I need to do my own work so that I know what is my shit and what is not my shit and what is the client's shit, right?
Vanessa Cushing (42:51.501)
Yeah.
Vanessa Cushing (43:13.751)
Yeah.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (43:15.841)
And I think having somebody that can help you catch those things or question them, get curious, right? Where do you think this feeling comes from? There's more going on because we have this relationship, this interesting laboratory kind of based relationship with the client where we're practicing being in relationship, but it's ultimately for the client.
Vanessa Cushing (43:20.957)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Vanessa Cushing (43:37.454)
Nothing.
Vanessa Cushing (43:44.759)
Yeah.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (43:45.805)
which is the difference I think between like an organic relationship where it's got to be mutually beneficial. And I'm not there to work on my stuff.
Vanessa Cushing (43:51.865)
Mm-hmm.
Vanessa Cushing (43:55.23)
Yeah, but it's gonna come up because yeah, and I think you also, you are a very genuine and authentic person. You put your whole self into relationships and like, I love that about you and like, of course your stuff is going to come up because like, that's genuine and authentically you in that moment. Like, you're not pretending to be anyone else but you.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (43:56.685)
That's, it's gonna come up.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (44:19.249)
Yeah. And it's also, but at the same time, it's acknowledging that that's not the client's problem, right? Like, it is about like, okay, how do I need to adjust myself? Right? How do I what maybe this is practicing, you know, great boundaries, and realizing when you need to make an adjustment. I thought I was going to be a yes to this. Maybe I'm not a yes to this anymore. Yeah.
Vanessa Cushing (44:31.863)
Yeah.
Vanessa Cushing (44:37.268)
Uh-huh.
Vanessa Cushing (44:40.718)
Mm-hmm.
Vanessa Cushing (44:45.598)
Yeah. And that's something I really appreciated too, like when we would meet with Brian Gibney and like we would discuss the case and we discussed like our own kind of things coming up is like, he kind of put us in checks and balances too. Like I learned a lot from him, like as like almost like a supervisor. He was kind of like the supervisor of our triadic model. Yeah.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (45:06.657)
Yeah, he was kind of holding the container for all of us.
Vanessa Cushing (45:10.97)
And it was amazing because like I would react to something and I'd be like, and he would be so good at pointing out like, okay, wait, maybe this isn't the best look like where is this actually coming from? And I'm like, wait a second, you are so right. So like, I enjoyed that part too, like about him being your mentor and like, he's awesome.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (45:24.078)
Yeah.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (45:31.545)
he is, he is, and he also has that curious mind. That is, he's really good at slowing things down and asking great questions. Yeah, and that's, I look at that as a model to where I strive to work towards is getting, that goes back to that being more comfortable with asking questions. It's because of the people like him that
Vanessa Cushing (45:35.406)
Mm-hmm.
Vanessa Cushing (45:39.87)
Yes. Great questions.
Vanessa Cushing (45:56.322)
Mm-hmm.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (46:00.233)
I watch ask really great questions that really, in this, like almost like a graceful dance, it's like they know what they're doing. And I don't know if they, if like he does that really well, my husband does this really well too, where they'll just ask the right question. And I'm like, fuck, how did you know how to do that? And then sometimes I, in true disclosure, sometimes at least my husband.
Vanessa Cushing (46:24.095)
Yeah.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (46:29.865)
ask a completely terrible question that sends me into a spiral. So I don't want to say this, anybody does this 100% well all the time, but Brian Gibney, the fact that he offered me mentorship when I moved to the East Coast was just the best gift I ever got. And the fact that it keeps growing to like, it's a gift that other people get to benefit from because I've had him mentor my cases.
Vanessa Cushing (46:54.067)
Mm-hmm.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (46:57.853)
It's not just that he's helping me, he's helping you, the clinician that's working with me. Ultimately, it's helping the client, it's helping our industry, it's helping grow like a little army of clinicians that are comfortable doing this work so that they can start to offer it to their clients. Yeah.
Vanessa Cushing (47:02.732)
Mm-hmm.
Vanessa Cushing (47:18.03)
Mm-hmm.
Vanessa Cushing (47:23.69)
Yeah, and I really love that. Like, I love the community that like you brought me into. Like, you invited me to the Somatic Sexuality Group and like I went and I met like a whole host of different individuals and like learned so much from them and also Brian and Lou and Andrew. Like, you really brought me into the space and I just like was like a sponge, like soaking everything up. It was awesome. It still is.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (47:48.609)
Yeah. It's community. It's an interesting family. Like, we're all better for being together. You know? Yeah. I'm looking, I have some questions. We already covered that you learned about surrogate partner therapy from your client making, your new client making the request, right? That's really what he was looking for was a therapist that would be willing to work with. In this case, it was me specifically because I had kind of
Vanessa Cushing (47:53.887)
Yeah.
Vanessa Cushing (47:57.472)
Mm-hmm.
Vanessa Cushing (48:08.663)
Yeah.
Vanessa Cushing (48:13.581)
Yeah.
Vanessa Cushing (48:16.92)
Mm-hmm.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (48:17.533)
adopted his case as a possibility. And he did all the legwork as far as finding a therapist that would consider collaboration.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (48:32.961)
Without giving identifying details, do you have any idea why, like, could you explain why you thought, as you learned, because I know you didn't take this to the client as a thing I think you should do, the client came to you, but once you took Andrew's class, can you say why you thought the client was appropriate for at least our version of SPT? We did it a little bit modified, but why do you think he was appropriate for it?
Vanessa Cushing (49:02.41)
I mean, the client was a perfect fit for SPT because there was specific things and trauma that the client had gone through that couldn't be worked out in a normal relationship. Like, he really had to have the container of safety and surrogate partner therapy in order to work through some of the things that he was going through. So like, for example, like a specific phobia of like bodies.
So that is something that we even can't do in therapy. I cannot show him pornography in therapy. I cannot get undressed in therapy. So how are we supposed to deal with a specific phobia of human bodies without a surrogate partner? And I think that...
Michelle Renee (she/her) (49:48.585)
I mean, as I was going to say, I mean, you can send people out with homework, but they're still on their own to do that and that isn't safe.
Vanessa Cushing (49:56.915)
And like even like we've had discussions about the ethics of like, okay, what kind of homework do I send? Like and I've had conversations with my AASECT supervisor Tamara Pincus about like, okay, like what are the ethics about? Okay, I'm choosing the erotic material for the client to see because if he just goes on Pornhub and all these ads pop up, that's going to send him into a panic attack. So like I think that it's really hard because like that's not really safe.
And also to just let them go off and like do whatever, like I think that would send, that does more harm than good. So like it is important to have the container of SPT and also to work on the relational stuff. Like I think it would be too much for just someone that you're dating to handle, like way too much.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (50:48.201)
I would question the person that would say yes to doing all of that work. I was that person. I mean, I would take on these relationships of here's how I can help them get better. I mean, I'm in one now. He's come a long way. I've said I won't do this for free again. But I had a co-dependent.
Vanessa Cushing (50:52.959)
I would too.
Mmm.
Vanessa Cushing (51:05.112)
Yeah.
Vanessa Cushing (51:13.026)
Well, mutually beneficial.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (51:15.469)
Yeah, I had, well, it was, but I had, I came into the relationship with such a codependent streak that I look at it now and I'm like, oh, Michelle, like, bless your hearts. You wanted to be loved so badly that you would do anything to make it work.
Vanessa Cushing (51:37.634)
Hmm.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (51:39.077)
And I think like somebody who will take some of this stuff on inside a partnership, I just, I gotta ask, like, unless like it's something that comes up once you've established a relationship and, you know, life changes and we go through hard times and things like that, we have to be willing to support our partner in maybe some limited ways sometimes. But if I, I'm just like...
Vanessa Cushing (52:04.078)
Mm-hmm.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (52:08.081)
If you're out there trying to date and you just really don't have a baseline idea of how to really interact with another person, how to consider the other person's experience, how is it to be in relationship with me? Am I able to self-reflect and take accountability without being activated?
Like all these things that we don't start out there, we learn a lot of these things as we grow older and mature and step in it, right? But for some people, they're really stuck and they're not able to move forward to even get into the relationship to work these things out. Yeah, yeah, it's.
Vanessa Cushing (52:43.053)
Thank you.
Vanessa Cushing (52:55.191)
Yeah.
Vanessa Cushing (52:58.498)
And I think that's exactly what would have happened. Like they can't get into the relationship to work it out. And then they're stuck in that like vicious cycle. And I also think it's like a self-defeating cycle too. It's like, oh, I'm this way, but I can't do this. And like, they really are trapped in that negative head space and negative emotions and not able to move out of it.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (53:17.941)
Yeah. I've had a couple clients that are also doing EMDR work. And from what I understand is that they need some positive experiences to pull from in that space. And so sometimes my work has been used to try to help create some of those spaces that they can tap into. So that's, it's good to, I don't know, how can I be of service? You know what I mean?
Vanessa Cushing (53:25.486)
Oh.
Vanessa Cushing (53:31.455)
Mm-hmm.
Vanessa Cushing (53:38.466)
well.
I love that. I mean, it's definitely something I use in my work is like going back to that positive experience the client had with you and just like expounding on it. Look at how far you've come in a year or two. You did things that you never thought you'd be able to do and I think that gives them a lot of confidence.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (54:03.989)
Yeah, yeah. And I mean, I don't know anybody who comes through the work that doesn't have a file folder worth of those experiences to be able to say, like, you started off in this spot. And this goal was a far off. A lot of times we have to start with micro goals, because we can't even see what the long term goal is, because it feels so out of reach.
Vanessa Cushing (54:12.427)
Yeah.
Vanessa Cushing (54:20.348)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Vanessa Cushing (54:28.599)
Yeah.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (54:29.621)
And then we start to make smaller goals and then it like just keeps snowballing, right? And super powerful.
Vanessa Cushing (54:34.766)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, it's amazing.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (54:42.177)
When you considered surrogate partner therapy, when this was brought up by this client, did you have concerns?
Vanessa Cushing (54:51.886)
Honestly, I wasn't sure what I was getting myself into. I certainly, I didn't know what I didn't know and I always like to approach things with curiosity and positivity. So I was like, okay, I'm gonna do some research as to what this is. And I think we talked first and you told me to do Andrew's training. And I did it. And then I was like, wow, this, and we didn't.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (54:55.949)
Like you didn't know what you didn't know, so.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (55:17.085)
And you had a supervising therapist that also had a positive view of SPT. Yes? I mean, Tamara...
Vanessa Cushing (55:29.006)
Tamara and I, yes, Tamara, at the time I was a resident. So I had another supervisor who was not a sex therapist who didn't really know that much about SPT. But I did have Tamara Pincus as my supervising sex therapy supervisor. And she is a yes. And she is very pro-SPT, which was very helpful too. But honestly, like it was our work that changed, like.
Like that was kind of like later on, but it was our work that really changed, not changed, but developed my view on SPT and how we can really change a person's life.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (56:12.761)
Um, thank you. I'm glad that you took a chance, that you were curious. Yeah. I mean.
Vanessa Cushing (56:15.585)
this.
As always.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (56:25.249)
Maybe this is just oversimplified, but I feel like, what is the, like if it ended up not being a good fit, we could end the work at any time, right? Like, I guess there's always that risk that, I don't know, if you don't know your practitioner, I suppose there could be this risk of setting the client back. But I think this comes down to, we need to educate clinicians.
Vanessa Cushing (56:35.306)
Mm-hmm.
Vanessa Cushing (56:48.521)
Yeah.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (56:54.169)
that it's available, but also how to choose a practitioner to work with. And not just because you like the person and you've connected well with them, but is this a good person for your client? Like it's not just about, it's like having a team of people and surrogate partner therapy is not widely available. There is not a ton of us and we're all spread out all over the country. And
Vanessa Cushing (57:01.934)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Vanessa Cushing (57:10.551)
Yeah.
Vanessa Cushing (57:14.583)
It is.
Vanessa Cushing (57:20.033)
Mm-mm.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (57:24.221)
I'm, you know, my dream one day is that, Vanessa, you have a handful of surrogates that you have worked with, not just that you know, and I know you know a handful at this point, just because I've connected you with enough of us, but that you've worked with them and you can say, oh, this client would be a great fit for this surrogate, right, that we have such, yeah, that we have such a rich, deep group of people to pull from that you could really dial it in.
Vanessa Cushing (57:33.07)
Mm-hmm.
Vanessa Cushing (57:42.606)
Oh yeah, like I know.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (57:52.541)
more effectively. Like for me, I sometimes get people, I'll have therapists or other surrogates or whoever refer to me and they'll say, oh, they need somebody with really good boundaries. Michelle will be great for that. Or they need somebody who is really compassionate. Michelle will be great for that. Like I think of those as the things that I bring to the table. And I'm sure we all have our different strengths. And so
Vanessa Cushing (58:08.236)
Yeah.
Vanessa Cushing (58:17.262)
Mm-hmm.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (58:19.021)
Like my dream, one day you'll have a whole little Rolodex on your team of people you pull from. The last question on my pre-prepared list is, were you and the client pleased with the results?
Vanessa Cushing (58:22.85)
I would love that.
Vanessa Cushing (58:39.23)
I mean, I honestly don't think, I honestly don't think my client or I ever expected what happened between like the three of us. Like I never expected to become part of like a somatic sexuality professional group. I never expected to have a group of like insanely amazing and intelligent surrogate partners that like I can go and talk to at any point.
And for my client, I honestly do not think he would have ever been able to have a regular relationship without you. Like, are we pleased? Like, we couldn't... I couldn't have dreamed of a better outcome.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (59:22.989)
Yeah, I mean, I have a lot of love for our client. And it was challenging. I will not sugarcoat this. This was a challenging, we had to pivot a lot in our work together. It was not the usual course. I think I mentioned that earlier, it was a bit modified. And in the end, I felt a lot
Vanessa Cushing (59:23.116)
Like.
Vanessa Cushing (59:28.398)
Yeah.
Vanessa Cushing (59:32.659)
I know.
Vanessa Cushing (59:39.639)
Mm-hmm.
Vanessa Cushing (59:45.111)
No.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (59:51.967)
of satisfaction.
Vanessa Cushing (59:54.446)
I mean, the client said, I love you, and he's never said that to anyone in our termination session. Like, it was really a beautiful thing.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (59:59.211)
Yeah.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (01:00:05.846)
Yeah, I hold him.
Vanessa Cushing (01:00:06.602)
I think at one point I started crying. It was just so emotional.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (01:00:10.177)
I think you told me, I think you kept it together on our triadic meeting of like our termination call, but I think I remember you sending me a text where he was opening up to you. Like everybody kind of kept it together when it was the three of us. And then if I remember correctly, I remember getting a text from you that's like, and I'm crying now. Like, yeah. And that's a
Vanessa Cushing (01:00:16.302)
Yeah.
Vanessa Cushing (01:00:23.054)
Mm-hmm.
Vanessa Cushing (01:00:27.543)
Yeah.
Vanessa Cushing (01:00:34.674)
Oh, yeah, because it was just so beautiful.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (01:00:37.289)
And that's a thing that is such a gift to our clients though, is sharing that emotion, whether they're crying with us or they're just seeing us emote. I used to be very like, is this a bad thing? Should I try to figure out how to hold this back? Because I'm really not good at it. Like I...
Vanessa Cushing (01:00:41.293)
This is.
Vanessa Cushing (01:00:49.272)
Yeah.
Vanessa Cushing (01:01:00.009)
Mm-hmm.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (01:01:01.217)
spent so many years not letting myself cry, or not even being able to tap into the desire to cry. I'd have to like, if I felt this need, almost like blue balls of the eyes maybe, like I would watch a sad movie to get the tears out of my body. And after I got divorced, the floodgates opened and I can't really control it and I don't want to really control it.
Vanessa Cushing (01:01:23.383)
Mm-hmm.
Vanessa Cushing (01:01:27.365)
Mm-hmm.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (01:01:27.449)
But I really questioned if it was good for the client or not. And what I can say now, I guess seven plus years into working directly with people is it is so good for the client. All of the things I've, all the feedback I've gotten was like, you were in it with me. You shared this thing with me. We connected on this.
Vanessa Cushing (01:01:31.17)
Yeah.
Vanessa Cushing (01:01:43.723)
Yeah.
Vanessa Cushing (01:01:50.606)
Yeah.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (01:01:53.493)
in a way that brought tears to your eyes, whether they were tears of joy or grief or I have tears for lots of reasons. It's so good to model that. So yeah.
Vanessa Cushing (01:01:57.111)
Mm-hmm.
Vanessa Cushing (01:02:06.222)
Mm-hmm. It is good to model that. I think therapists have this discussion all the time. It's like an ethical debate, like is it okay to cry with clients? And like will a client feel like they are taking care of you if you cry? And I think at some points it is, and some points it's not. And I think for some clients it's okay, and other clients it might not be okay. Yeah.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (01:02:28.309)
I've held back. One earlier this year, it was a brand new client and he came to cry. That was his goal that day was to have a place to just let shit go. He knew what would help him get there and one of those things was to listen to some sad songs.
Vanessa Cushing (01:02:39.777)
Hmm.
Vanessa Cushing (01:02:45.826)
Yeah.
Vanessa Cushing (01:02:55.44)
Yeah.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (01:02:56.685)
bring up tears for him. And we were reading lyrics and listening to songs together. And he picked a song that tapped on some of my old stuff. And I fought it back. I think I might've had a trickle run down my face, but I did not let him know because we didn't have enough of an established understanding of what it means to not take care of each other. Right? Like when people come in for cuddling, we have an agreement that
Vanessa Cushing (01:03:01.697)
Mm-hmm.
Vanessa Cushing (01:03:06.734)
Okay.
Vanessa Cushing (01:03:12.206)
Hmm.
Vanessa Cushing (01:03:21.581)
Yeah.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (01:03:25.557)
we're going to take care of ourselves. That if we're uncomfortable, we're going to do something to change it, but we're not there to care take each other. It's just one of our agreements. And when I have a client that's been established, those tears feel very different in that space than what I feared would happen with that client, which was that it would take the attention off of him and it would put it on me. And that's not what the goal of our time was together.
Vanessa Cushing (01:03:27.17)
Mm-hmm.
Vanessa Cushing (01:03:32.556)
Yeah.
Vanessa Cushing (01:03:47.778)
Okay.
Vanessa Cushing (01:03:51.075)
This is.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (01:03:52.329)
Having an established client where I share that with them is just a very different experience for everybody involved. So yeah, it's like a maturing. It's like a maturing of the relationship. Yeah.
Vanessa Cushing (01:03:56.714)
Yeah, it is. It's raw and it's real.
Yeah, yeah, I love that.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (01:04:09.174)
Oh, this has been such a lovely birthday gift to me, Vanessa.
Vanessa Cushing (01:04:13.782)
This is amazing. I'm so glad, Michelle, you deserve to be celebrated. The work you do is beyond. Like, I can't even explain it. It's so incredible and it's so juicy. It's so connective. It's so vulnerable. And it's so safe. And I think that, like, you deserve to be celebrated for the work. And I think all surrogate partners do, too.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (01:04:34.389)
Yeah, I think for my birthday wish this year is to expand what surrogate partner therapy means. Like I want surrogate person, a stand-in person to work through relational wounding. That would be if I could change, if I got to rewrite the history of surrogate partner therapy.
Vanessa Cushing (01:04:43.682)
Yeah.
Vanessa Cushing (01:04:48.45)
surrogate person.
Vanessa Cushing (01:04:53.878)
Yeah.
Vanessa Cushing (01:05:00.828)
be surrogate partner.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (01:05:03.925)
surrogate person, stand-in person. Like, it's about like...
Vanessa Cushing (01:05:06.082)
Mm-hmm.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (01:05:11.341)
just we need a safe person to experience life with, whatever that life part is, whether it's just being in attunement, like think of like childhood and the bonding of mother child, right? And the sharing of their nervous system.
Vanessa Cushing (01:05:16.127)
We do.
Vanessa Cushing (01:05:25.358)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (01:05:36.505)
and the building of those neurons around like oxytocin receptors. Like I can get real geeky about this, right, and break it down to like the minimal science of like connection. We need some of those baseline experiences that we didn't get.
Vanessa Cushing (01:05:57.398)
We do. It's like re-parenting. Yeah.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (01:05:58.881)
whether we're adults or not. Yeah, the Reparenting by Committee. You did read the book, Complex PTSD from Surviving to Thriving, right? Or did you start it?
Vanessa Cushing (01:06:10.442)
Did I have, I think I might have the workbook. I might not have the actual book, but I have the workbook and I've done the workbook.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (01:06:14.697)
Okay.
Okay, so you understand reparenting by committee and that you're one of the committee members, right? Yeah.
Vanessa Cushing (01:06:20.172)
Yeah.
Vanessa Cushing (01:06:23.438)
Mm-hmm. As well as other people too. Yeah.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (01:06:27.265)
Yeah, right. But sometimes you're the client's first person in that committee. If they haven't figured out how to build community yet, and then maybe, you know, we break away from our families of origin sometimes because they're just not good for us. And we have to kind of set a new baseline. And that's how I see the work is like, we're resetting the baseline.
Vanessa Cushing (01:06:31.214)
Mm-hmm.
Vanessa Cushing (01:06:37.111)
Yeah.
Vanessa Cushing (01:06:44.43)
Mm-hmm.
Vanessa Cushing (01:06:53.27)
Yep, I love that. Resetting the baseline. That is a good way.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (01:06:59.541)
Yeah, now to figure out how to write and talk about this stuff, it's so hard to put it in. Like, what do you do?
Vanessa Cushing (01:07:04.85)
It's so hard. Because I think if you don't see it, you don't really understand it too. Like you can conceptualize it, but once you see it, you can't unsee it and unfeel it.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (01:07:11.083)
Yeah
Michelle Renee (she/her) (01:07:16.917)
Yeah, yeah, I love how you sometimes will be like, I think I have this client, at least when I still lived on the East Coast, it was like, I think of this client, that'd be great for you. Right. And
Vanessa Cushing (01:07:24.944)
Oh, I have a lot of clients that would be great for you if only you lived on the East Coast still, but...
Michelle Renee (she/her) (01:07:29.005)
Yeah. Well, if they can do intensives, you know, little like shorter period intensives, which isn't for everybody. I mean, honestly, I just I haven't experienced a lot of my clients that could do that. They really need the slower, the slower work.
Vanessa Cushing (01:07:33.308)
I know.
Vanessa Cushing (01:07:40.426)
Mm-hmm.
Vanessa Cushing (01:07:43.732)
work. Yeah.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (01:07:48.949)
But, you know, either way, I still get to call you a colleague and a friend, whether we get to share a client again or not. I appreciate you being in my world. Thank you for playing in my intimacy lab today.
Vanessa Cushing (01:07:49.239)
Mm.
Vanessa Cushing (01:07:54.83)
them.
Vanessa Cushing (01:08:02.55)
Thank you so much for having me on such a special day too.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (01:08:06.773)
I'm sure you'll be back because I know we can talk about stuff.
Vanessa Cushing (01:08:11.15)
Probably all day. We could like fill the whole day with this.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (01:08:15.243)
one day we're gonna be in person, you're one of those people that I'm like, I can't believe we haven't met yet.
Vanessa Cushing (01:08:18.079)
I hope sooner than later.
Vanessa Cushing (01:08:22.902)
I feel like we have though.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (01:08:24.737)
I know. Well, guess what? From experience, when we do meet, we're going to be like, I can't believe this is the first time we're doing this.
Vanessa Cushing (01:08:31.27)
Yeah, it's gonna feel like we've done this for years. Really?
Michelle Renee (she/her) (01:08:34.209)
Yeah, it happens to me every conference. I'm like, I hug someone and I go, wait, this is the first time we're hugging. It feels so like I've known, I have known some of you guys for a really long time. And it's cool that sometimes we do get to cross paths and I look forward to the first time that we get to do that. So thanks for coming on. Vanessa, how can people find you? I know, you said where you work, like, are you like?
Vanessa Cushing (01:08:42.136)
Yeah.
Vanessa Cushing (01:08:47.63)
Mm-hmm.
Vanessa Cushing (01:08:52.398)
Mm-hmm.
I'm super excited. I look forward to that day.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (01:09:04.013)
whether you're taking clients, all that kind of stuff.
Vanessa Cushing (01:09:04.254)
Yes, I am accepting your clients. I have a website, it's just CushingCounseling.com. Psychology Today, Instagram, it's just CushingCounseling. Nothing too much.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (01:09:19.281)
We'll put the links in the show notes. And thanks for getting intimate with me. I don't know what my tagline is for this, but thanks for sharing intimacy with me, Vanessa.
Vanessa Cushing (01:09:24.462)
Thank you.
Vanessa Cushing (01:09:31.211)
Thank you. Thank you for letting me be a part of your intimacy and sharing it with me. Thank you, Michelle. Bye.
Michelle Renee (she/her) (01:09:37.709)
Yes, absolutely. All right, we'll talk again soon. Bye bye.
