2025 Year In Review – Ep338

2025 Year In Review – Ep338

In this special Year In Review episode, Through a Therapist’s Eyes looks back at a year of growth, connection, and meaningful conversations in mental health. We celebrate reaching 58,462 all-time downloads, surprising platform shifts (hello Firefox!), and listeners tuning in from across the U.S. and around the world—from Brazil, Hong Kong, and Europe to Japan, Africa, and beyond. The episode has a special “Down the Rabbit Hole” challenge pitting Adam vs Kyle, and highlights chosen by the team. With Kasie’s return and honest reflections from the team on what they love—and struggle with—about being therapists, this wrap-up blends insight, humor, and gratitude while setting the stage for what’s ahead in 2026.

Tune in to see the 2025 Year in Review Through a Therapist’s Eyes

Links referenced during the show: 

https://www.throughatherapistseyes.com/category/podcasts/addiction

https://www.throughatherapistseyes.com/category/podcasts/individualdiagnosis

https://www.throughatherapistseyes.com/category/podcasts/kidsand

https://www.throughatherapistseyes.com/category/podcasts/anxietyanddepression/  parenting/  

https://www.throughatherapistseyes.com/category/podcasts/marriageandfamily

https://www.throughatherapistseyes.com/category/podcasts/mentalhealthtips

https://www.throughatherapistseyes.com/category/podcasts/monthinreview

https://www.throughatherapistseyes.com/category/podcasts/personalstories

https://www.throughatherapistseyes.com/category/podcasts/relationshiptoothers/  https://www.throughatherapistseyes.com/category/podcasts/selfmanagement/

Intro Music by Reid Ferguson – https://reidtferguson.com/
@reidtferguson – https://www.instagram.com/reidtferguson/
https://www.facebook.com/reidtferguson
https://open.spotify.com/artist/3isWD3wykFcLXPUmBzpJxg 

Audio Podcast Version Only 

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

 

Episode #338 Transcription 

Chris (00:01)
All right, and hello, this is Through a Therapist Eyes. I am Chris Gazdick, the host of Through a Therapist Eyes, and we are coming to you with kind of a special, unique, and fun ⁓ show, actually on the holiday of January the 1st. And we're gonna proudly and happily welcome you into 2026. How about that, Victoria Deer Snaps? We have a little bit of a unique show, if you're finding us for the first time. This is Through a Therapist Eyes.

where we believe that mental health is important for all of us and becoming more important as we go forward. So we give you insights at home or in your car, but knowing it's not the delivery of therapy services in any way. We usually have three content questions we get you to think about, because we cover real topics that we talk about all the time in our real practices every day, all day, except for Saturdays, definitely except Sundays. ⁓ I don't know, Casey, do you work on Saturdays anymore on your thing? Did I just lie?

Victoria (00:51)
Thank

Kasie (00:57)
I I do.

Chris (00:58)
You do? Okay.

Except for Sundays. I don't think anybody works on Sundays. We have a fun show tonight. We're just going to kind of go down and we really, do a month in review at the end of every month, kind of the shows that we talked about. And we decided we were going to take a break in December. So we're firing our jets back up, getting ourselves geared up and ready to go for 2026. And we're to do like a review of 2025. So we had some fun things go on, great content, good shows. had a transition from

Kyle King (01:01)
Thank

Chris (01:26)
uh... mister adam cloninger to kyle king that does the uh... rabbit holes in the month in reviews with us we got neil behind the curtains we got john hanging out with us victoria and myself and we have kacy that came back this year to us and we're probably going to be able to have a guy that was a guest on our show uh... mister zay gratzley is going to pop in and say hello so we got some fun conversations of fun things to do if you're finding us for the first time we've been doing this for

Adam (01:31)
.

Okay. Okay.

Victoria (01:50)
You want help me? You want to say hi?

Chris (01:54)
I don't know man, Neil, how many years? Like, three? Four?

Neil (01:58)
This is getting close to six

actually almost seven

Adam (02:01)
Yeah, it's about six years.

John (02:02)
Six years.

Kyle King (02:02)
Bye.

Chris (02:03)
Six years! ⁓

Adam (02:04)
Chris, I was doing that for over two and a half years and you had people before me doing it, so yes.

Chris (02:09)
I know,

time just blows by, I cannot keep up. So subscribe, click the bells, click the whistles, Mr. Pope really gets upset. Bye.

John (02:18)
Five. Five.

five stars so that we go like a bullet to the very top, that we're the crème de la crème of podcasts, particularly in mental health.

Chris (02:24)
We need

Kasie (02:29)
Mmm.

Adam (02:33)
Watch out Joe Rogan.

Chris (02:35)
Hey baby, don't

Kyle King (02:35)
Hahaha!

John (02:35)
Yes.

Kasie (02:35)
I'm

Chris (02:36)
get,

Kasie (02:36)
so sorry.

Chris (02:37)
don't get John upset with you. So five stars Apple podcast, Spotify. We're really pushing YouTube. We, we love our YouTube channel. ⁓ find us, tell a friend. Our job is to create content where, like I said, we are trying to give it through a therapist size as the name of the show where we really have real experiences that we engage and share to figure out the human emotional experience. We endeavor to figure that out.

John (02:39)
No, that's...

Chris (03:04)
together and so we're going to kick it off with talking a little bit about like you know what we've done I mean Neil and I kind of looked at some numbers in the back end of things and yeah well six years got time goes by we have Neil 58,462 downloads which is kind of a cool number you know

Adam (03:21)
Thanks.

Neil (03:27)
It's really crazy. We're almost at 60,000, right?

John (03:27)
Right.

Chris (03:30)
And that's just the actual podcast things. He's got a slideshow popping up. But did we did we get any YouTube data?

Neil (03:37)
Oh yeah, I got YouTube dead in there. Did you not look at the slide there, Chris?

Kasie (03:42)
Mm-hmm.

Chris (03:42)
I

it may have been up late last night. It was two o'clock in the morning, man.

John (03:43)
Yeah.

Neil (03:43)
So first.

Yeah,

so yeah, like you said, we had 58,000 total views last year. Our ellipse and numbers dropped a little bit because we've been focusing on YouTube. But you can see we had some big spikes part of the year because Chris was helping make sure things got published. Here's kind of the top countries. I know, Chris, in your notes, you mentioned there were a couple of weird countries that you saw that we were being listened to. What were some of the weird ones you saw?

Adam (03:51)
.

Chris (04:10)
Indeed, I mean, we have we have the Russian Federation.

John (04:12)
Okay, be careful how you say weird. Okay, because we don't want to alienate

Neil (04:15)
unique or

John (04:17)
any of our listeners.

Kyle King (04:18)
Thank

Chris (04:20)
We have wonderful people all around the world from all walks of life. Absolutely.

John (04:23)
All around the world were brotherhood, sisterhood.

Neil (04:27)
Unexpected,

that's the term. We had unexpected countries listening to our shows. How about that? Is that better, John?

John (04:31)
That's excellent.

Adam (04:32)
That's what I was getting ready to say.

Chris (04:34)
Unexpected from Hong Kong, ⁓ Brazil. We have the Russian Federation. have Chile, the Chileans down there. Most of the countries in Europe. I don't think there was one Europe country that we hadn't had downloads in Japan, Australia, India, some folks in Malaysia, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Algeria, Ethiopia. We even had one. I'm curious in the panel. Do we know where Burkina?

Victoria (04:48)
Thanks.

Chris (05:03)
Faso is anybody.

John (05:05)
It's on the west coast, near the Ivory Coast of Africa.

Chris (05:13)
Bang! John bangs it! He rings the bell in the new year with a perfect answer.

Neil (05:19)
And going back to the dates, our first show was published back on August 31, 2018. So as of this year, we'll be around for six years in August. So and then I'm going to.

Chris (05:30)
pretty cool. Yeah, the biggest downloads

we have from us of course, we are United States based folks. ⁓ And then Brazil, wait a minute, the biggest ones were yeah, Brazil, I was kind of surprised at that. ⁓ And then we had

Adam (05:36)
Okay.

John (05:44)
I got relatives

in Brazil, so be careful.

Victoria (05:45)
Do we have the break?

Do we have the breakdown of ⁓ states? Can we see what states are more listen to us more?

Chris (05:49)
What's up, Victoria?

Yeah, we could, but...

Neil (05:57)
I'll look

at that as we go through the show today and I'll let you know who the top ones if we have that data.

Victoria (06:00)
Because I think that would be kind of cool,

like, to see within the United States, like, which, ⁓

Chris (06:06)
Absolutely.

think historically when I've looked at it, Victoria, ⁓ I don't know what it is up there with Dakota, South Dakota and North Dakota and Montana. Usually we, I don't know, we don't hit those folks as much. I'd be curious, Neil, if we've grown our reach to those folks.

Neil (06:24)
I'll check it out as we go through. But then I did give our Spotify numbers for this year. We don't do a lot with Spotify, but

Adam (06:28)
you

Neil (06:29)
even without going on, I mean, we had 400 plus plays just on Spotify. ⁓ And then finally YouTube's the big one we're pushing this year. We grew 116 subscribers this last year, mainly because of our shorts. ⁓ lot of traction going on. This is the big push. This is the big push for us this year is get to thousand subscribers. So if you guys know people that use YouTube,

Adam (06:32)
you

John (06:35)
Excellent.

Adam (06:41)
Okay.

Neil (06:53)
which is kind of redundant because we're on YouTube, most people are watching it. know, make sure you share, make sure you get them to subscribe. And those are our top shows for this year, top shorts and top live streams. So

Adam (06:53)
Okay.

Neil (07:03)
yeah, it's kind of exciting. I'm intrigued to see where we go from here, Chris.

Kasie (07:09)
You know what I would be curious to see is the cross-sectional data between countries and regions that do not have infrastructure that support mental health in comparison to the downloads we have in those regions. Like that would be really cool to see if we're actually reaching those who are unreached by supports.

John (07:28)
You know, Cassie,

that would be a good dissertation topic, study topic, if you were to go back and get your doctorate.

Kasie (07:38)
Yeah, that's not going to happen, John, but thank you so much for that letter of support.

John (07:40)
⁓ I'm always encouraging people to get their education furthermore, but that would have been excellent.

Chris (07:47)
Kyle, we have some really, really wicked smart people on here, can you tell, brother?

Kyle King (07:51)
I can tell.

Adam (07:52)
.

Kyle King (07:53)
Absolutely. Smarter than me, for sure.

John (07:54)
Yeah.

Chris (07:55)
⁓ What's that he says we're recording hey listen as we go through like we said we are we are ⁓ You know just sharing our lives in a real way on a holiday. My brother just rolled in say hey, man So so we are we are legit he didn't expect that by the way, so we're

Adam (07:57)
Recording.

you

Neil (08:14)
you

Kyle King (08:14)
you

Victoria (08:20)
Yeah.

Chris (08:21)
We're just celebrating the

year with our families. Victoria's got Lucas, her son, that kind of jumps in a little bit. You might see from time to time, there's Mr. Lucas. he's got a good show on there. So, ⁓ you know, from our house is in a real way to yours. ⁓ Listen, so we do this.

John (08:32)
Spider-Man.

Kasie (08:37)
Yeah, I don't have on real

pants. I don't have on real pants right now.

Chris (08:43)
And leave it to Casey. Should we all stand up? No, we won't do that.

Kyle King (08:49)
Yeah.

Kasie (08:49)
I don't have on real pants, no.

John (08:49)
Okay, you gotta remember,

I'm the old man here. This is just too much information. My brain can't take it, so.

Adam (08:55)
I'm

Kasie (08:56)
Hahaha!

Chris (08:58)
Definitely TMI, All right, so one of the things that we do that we really enjoy, like I said, in the top end is we, you know, we do a month in review when we're, when we're ending the month to kind of talk about the shows that we've done. And ⁓ to start those shows off, we do a down the rabbit hole. The originator, the OG is with us back. Mr. Adam Cloninger. He's been a little quiet. How you doing, man?

Adam (09:23)
good. I'm good.

Chris (09:25)
Alright, and he has been followed up so graciously by, the man, the myth, the legend who's coming at us from the beach right now. Looks beautiful behind you.

Kyle King (09:36)
There you go.

It is wonderful. Little chilly, but that's all right. I'm at the beach.

Chris (09:39)
You got it. Yeah, you could.

You can't go wrong when the oceans with you, whether it's raining, whether it's sunshine and or chilly. So we do we do down the rabbit hole, which is just a little segment that kind of talks about something that they happen to find in the news in the real world. And we kind of talk about how it affects mental health and whatnot. So one of the fun things we thought we'd do is ⁓ maybe we do rock, paper and scissors to see who goes first. But Adam's going to present one. We'll kick it around. Kyle's going to kick.

kick one around with us that he created and we're gonna see who like wins by our vote, the rest of us I gather. So it's a win or lose, Adam, don't you roll your eyes.

John (10:15)
Okay.

Adam (10:18)
⁓

it doesn't matter, man.

Chris (10:21)
Kyle, telling you, he's setting himself up for the loss. You see how this is working.

Adam (10:24)
Tell you what,

if he wins, I won't be on next next month's show. If I win, I won't be on next month's show. How about that? ⁓

Chris (10:36)
Well, we very much appreciate you, Adam, for popping back on with us. We do miss you, brother. You really created some cool conversations and really all and truly, I appreciate you doing that. And Kyle, I'll say as well, man, I really appreciate you stepping in and it's been great to get to know you. I'm looking forward to getting to know you in 2026. So Adam, you spoke first. Let's go down the rabbit hole with Adam Clonin.

Adam (10:59)
Alright, so my rabbit hole today is, is brain rot real?

Is anybody familiar with what brain rot is?

Chris (11:13)
I know my ex was always concerned that my little nasal cleaning thing was gonna leave a brain-eating amoeba in me and it never has, as far as I know.

Adam (11:21)
⁓ that explains a lot. So Oxford University defines brain rot as a person's deterioration of a person's mental and intellectual state.

Kyle King (11:21)
Thank

Chris (11:23)
Yeah.

John (11:25)
Is it?

Adam (11:35)
So there is a recent study that came out in October. As a summary of 14 studies. And there are some concerns now, and this is where I'm wondering if y'all may have done an episode on this. Short form video.

John (11:54)
Yes, yes, that's a great.

Adam (11:58)
So basically what they're saying, of course, you know, they're saying that there needs to be some more long-term research, but according to the summaries of the studies, they're finding out there's issues with tension and cognition, increased depression, anxiety. Also there's, you know, I know we've had some episodes about ADHD, but as everybody knows, the ⁓ diagnoses of

ADHD has increased as years gone by so now the concern is maybe it's not actually ADHD, but it may be the brain restructuring because of How much we're exposed to short-term video and I gotta tell you I'm bad about it, too I'll be watching YouTube and I I'm like I just I can't I got a next episode

Like recently we got ⁓ HBO wouldn't get HBO premium and I'm watching a movie and as soon as commercial comes on I'm like the movies ruined. I want to go to the next thing I'm so I'm think there may be something to this. So what do y'all think?

Kasie (13:11)
Absolutely, there's a lot of research out there that suggests even this day and time. I was born in the 80s, up late 80s, early 90s. And when we were watching shows then, just as an example, it would be one frame.

Neil (13:12)
I

Kasie (13:29)
Every like three or four minutes before it would change and so all the action would even take place Inside of that one frame for an extended period of time I'm thinking about shows like full house family matters things like that and now I forget the exact research on it But now on any kind of show that you watch it's rapid firing a screen change at you I want to say like every two seconds is what it's down to now or maybe even less than that

And so if you think about it, like there's no delayed gratification for the brain anymore. We're constantly interfacing with a change of setting or screen. So I think it makes a lot of sense that when we have these handheld devices, when we're looking at material like movies even, or the way things are recorded now, those long shot things are a thing of the past. So brain rot is definitely real. Dopamine is definitely impacted. And I agree with

John (14:04)
I don't know.

Adam (14:06)
Right.

Kasie (14:27)
that it may not even be a tension deficit but a displacement of being able to have delayed gratification.

John (14:34)
So are

you suggesting Casey that there is, ⁓ even with toddlers and having screen time, their brain is being rewired? And so even if they were to change their habits later on, that might almost be a permanent change in their brain wiring. And so... ⁓

Kasie (14:43)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

John (15:01)
We have to be very proactive in being able to encourage longer attention spans. I don't think people can sit through a live play anymore because of this, because talk about time, it would be minutes or even a half hour or an hour in terms of an act now. I don't think people are capable of that anymore.

Kasie (15:12)
Mm.

Okay.

Chris (15:29)
That is really wild and I honestly, Adam, this hits my head and heart in a way because we have dementia as seemingly on the up line. Yeah, we've got a lot of baby boomers getting older, but the issue of dementia with my mom in memory care just kind of breaks my heart, to be honest with you. And I feel like there's increases in that for whatever reason as well. And then some of this probably contributes. I would think it would have to.

See, Kyle, it's not my fault that I have my brain the way that it works. It's another reason why the humanity challenge of information age is a real thing.

Kyle King (15:58)
Yeah.

It is 100%. And I'm sitting here thinking, you know, rewiring the brain. I don't know if you guys remember there, there was a study done is if they put in a, a frame in like a movie, somebody sitting in a movie theater and they put a frame in of going to the concession stand or, you know, popcorn or something that instinctively you would get up and go to concession stand and purchase that popcorn. And, you know, this kind of makes me. Yes.

Adam (16:35)
You talking about the hidden frames?

Kasie (16:36)
Mm-hmm.

Kyle King (16:37)
And it kind of makes me think the same thing is like that just that one frame that gave that impression that you've got to go do something different. And it didn't take much.

John (16:49)
There was a book called Subliminal Seduction ⁓ that was out in the late 60s, early 70s that talked about that.

Kasie (16:59)
Yeah, I think I'm gonna read, I'm read you my practice pad.

Chris (17:00)
It's funny, you know, we have known in the world

of advertising... Sorry, Casey.

Kasie (17:05)
no, I was saying, I think I'm gonna rename my practice that subliminal seduction.

John (17:09)
You

Kyle King (17:11)
Thank

Chris (17:12)
Nice.

mean, as, as an author, you know, that I've got two books out there, by the way, through therapist eyes, one on self, one on marriage, you know, people don't read anymore. People don't sit down, John, and read, you know, text because it takes too long. If, if, if anything, they'll do an audio book, ⁓ because it's quicker and you can do it while you're multitasking and all this stuff. mean, it's.

John (17:14)
Yeah.

⁓

Chris (17:39)
There are so many ways that we are affected by the way technology has kind of infiltrated our lives so intimately. Brain rot, Adam. Wow. Wow. All right, let's kick over to Kyle, Mr. Kyle King. What you got, brother? Down the rabbit hole with Kyle King.

Victoria (17:48)
you

Kyle King (17:53)
Well, you know, it's,

it is kind of funny and it's still, it's going to be, it's going to dovetail off what you just said, Chris. And you know, I'm a big guy in technology and I was researching something on AI and I stumbled across this article. And then as I started going down this path, the conversation turned into this, you know, do you ever feel like we're starting to outsource part of our brains? Memory, thinking, emotional regulation.

Victoria (17:58)
Not happening again.

Came in with a charger.

Adam (18:06)
Okay.

John (18:21)
Yes.

Yes.

Kyle King (18:23)
To the phones, to AI, and what brought me to this is I came across an article in People, it's an article written about a year ago, but a teen, because of his emotional connection to this AI chat bot, committed suicide because the AI lacked guardrails to talk about ⁓ suicide, and it lacked, and it started creating sexual.

Engaged messages to this team and it created this relationship this false relationship that the team would had no idea how to handle and then what it turned into as I kept going down there. ⁓ Again, not one in eight people young people use AI chat bots for mental health advice and that's concerning. Very concerning.

Adam (18:51)
Okay.

Kasie (19:11)
Mm-hmm.

Chris (19:11)
yeah.

yeah.

And I'll tell you what, man, talking and playing around with chat GPT is, my LLM of choice. The large language models. I can talk serious deep shop with this thing, man. It's wild.

Adam (19:19)
Okay.

Kyle King (19:25)
Right? Right?

Well, and here's a thought, something I stumbled across. If the actual algorithm finishes your thoughts before you do, are they still your thoughts?

Chris (19:40)
Sorry.

There's a parallel, there's a mirror there. mean, Kyle, this is an incredible topic and you're stealing my heart because this is my newest favorite topic to talk about in the mental health realm. I really feel like we got to get on top of this, get out in front of it. And in one of my more recent checkouts with this thing, the content made the point that when the industrial revolution came through, it replaced human beings need for strength. You no longer get a job.

Victoria (19:43)
I'm going run to the swirl.

Chris (20:11)
primarily on your physical girth or strength. And now we are moving rapidly, super rapidly to no longer getting a job based on your intelligence. There's, there's no need.

Victoria (20:14)
Okay.

John (20:25)
Well,

⁓ there is evolutionary ⁓ pressure for us ⁓ by Mother Nature itself that we don't necessarily need our intelligence through the eyes of Mother Nature or through evolution. And I think that's part of the issue is that we might become more of a hive mind.

and we're going to lose our autonomy, our... Let's say free will is an illusion. It's a wonderful illusion to have. But I think that would limit us.

in terms of our humanity and so we might be losing a lot. So we've become like the Borg ⁓ in a sense on Star Trek. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Adam (21:21)
That's what I was thinking. That's what I was thinking the whole time you were saying that.

Kyle King (21:21)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Chris (21:21)
I was too!

Totally.

Kyle King (21:27)
Well, you know,

and one of the things that, you know, uncovered is this, you know, it's a good statement is like, are we able to remember things any longer or are we just able to remember where to find them? And, you know, talk about an Adam brain rot. mean, this is perfect.

Chris (21:39)
We could go around the pa- Kyle, could-

Kyle, we could go around the table right now and I bet nobody on this panel is going to be able to cite by memory five phone numbers.

Kasie (21:53)
⁓ I got you. I got you.

Kyle King (21:54)
got me right.

Chris (21:55)
No shot. No shot.

Victoria (21:55)
Yeah, ah, I got you too. Whoa, whoa, yeah, whoa,

whoa, whoa.

Kasie (22:02)
yet. I got five phone numbers memorized.

Chris (22:02)
What, Victoria?

Victoria (22:04)
probably yeah

Neil (22:06)
OK, wait,

wait, wait. In context, who knows someone else's phone number on this call?

Can someone actually say some notes like on these, we have seven people.

Adam (22:15)
Nope. Nope.

Victoria (22:16)
Yeah, no. Not

on this call.

John (22:19)
I don't even know Metrolinus phone number. So that's fine.

Kasie (22:22)
I'm

sorry.

Neil (22:25)
Because I know my phone number from when I was a kid, but I to have to remember it. My wife's, my father, I know those. But right now, you seven, I have no clue what your phone numbers are.

Kyle King (22:28)
Yep. Yeah.

Victoria (22:29)
Yeah.

Chris (22:31)
Only.

Kyle King (22:34)
Right.

And what were we taught growing up? There's a couple of things you need to remember. Your home phone number, your social security number, when you got it, you got address, and then when you got a driver's license, your driver's license number. You know, those are the kinds of things that we remember.

Kasie (22:39)
address. ⁓

Neil (22:47)
Who remembers their driver's license number?

Chris (22:48)
I can cite my tax ID

number for Metrolina. Kyle, does that count?

Kyle King (22:52)
Hey, that's impressive.

Adam (22:55)
So do y'all remember what Einstein said about memory?

John (22:55)
I know my date of birth.

Chris (22:58)
What's that?

Neil (22:59)
What?

Adam (23:00)
There's no need to memorize something that you can read from a book.

Chris (23:05)
And there it is. There it is.

Adam (23:06)
So

now instead of books, we have phones.

Kyle King (23:09)
Right. Right.

Victoria (23:09)
Well, yeah, that's what our math

teachers would always say. Well, like you need to learn how to do math because you won't always have access to a calculator. Well, in today's day and age, we do have access to a calculator at all times. it's, you know, it's different. Now, yes, like if it comes to like testing.

Kyle King (23:19)
Guess what?

Adam (23:19)
Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong.

Kasie (23:22)
You're

wrong.

Kyle King (23:27)
Yeah, now they give them calculators and they don't ask.

John (23:31)
Does anybody remember any of the poems that they learned in high school or junior high? Poems, you weren't? No. I fear the ancient mariner. I fear thy skinny hand for thou art lank and long and brown as is the ripsy sand. So.

Victoria (23:32)
Yeah.

Chris (23:37)
Poems?

Victoria (23:38)
Yeah, roses are red, violets

Kasie (23:39)
Yeah. Hold on to fast dreams for if they die. It's like a broken ring.

Chris (23:50)
I could do the R-father, that's about all I got.

Victoria (23:54)
I can

do the preamble.

Kasie (23:54)
Two roads diverged

in a yellow wood.

Chris (23:58)
Alright, we got a tough vote. You guys really brought it to the house, man. I am genuinely super impressed and grateful for both Adam, like I said, OG.

John (24:01)
Yeah, you sure did.

Victoria (24:03)
Yeah, I missed that whole segment, so I feel like

I get I'm not included in this. Well, I mean, I was out for I had to get out of here when y'all started down the rabbit whole thing.

Chris (24:08)
You missed it? Well, you... Okay, well...

Not a problem. you, you, absolutely. What you got, Casey?

Kasie (24:19)
Can I say one last thing, Chris?

John (24:20)
That she's, she's wimping

out.

Kasie (24:24)
So in reference to the AI stuff, like I think what's interesting, and this is what people don't often realize, is that it's really text based on probability and not reality. And that's what I want our listeners to understand, that if me, you, Kyle, Adam, everyone on this call entered the same question into chat GPT based on conversations we had already had with chat GPT, we would generate different responses to the same exact

question because it's based on predictability and it's a generative model. It's a prediction machine. It's not filled with knowledge. It's filled with the probability based on algorithms of things you've already entered. So it's it's not sentient. Yeah.

John (25:08)
And that's why it's not sentient. That's... No.

Kyle King (25:12)
Correlate that to

Victoria (25:12)
Yeah. Well, because

that's why I also don't really trust mine either.

Kyle King (25:14)
Amazon when you go search for.

Chris (25:17)
What's

that car?

Kasie (25:19)
Yeah.

Kyle King (25:19)
I said, relate that to Amazon. mean, when you go to look for something on Amazon, it automatically is predicting based on your past history, you know, what you're looking for.

Kasie (25:29)
Yeah.

Adam (25:29)
So Kyle,

here's an episode for next month. You could do DARPA, Google, and YouTube. You start searching that, man, you're gonna find out all kinds of crazy stuff.

Kasie (25:38)
Yeah.

Chris (25:40)
So we had

vice from the OG moving back to Kyle. Guys, we got a tough vote. Let's do a quick vote and see what happens. I know I've got to go with my boy Kyle just because you're at my heart. You're at my favorite topic, man. mean, brain rot is absolutely amazing. You guys kind of piggybacked on each other, but you went right to the AI deal. So I got to give it to Kyle. What you got, John?

Kyle King (25:56)
We did.

John (26:03)
Well, I think they're pretty evenly matched and I, you know, that's my style is to be kind of strength, but I'm gonna give it to Adam. Okay. Because we have done a lot on AI, but I think Adam had a unique point of view. So thank you.

Adam (26:17)
you

Chris (26:21)
We got

one and one. Miss Casey, what you got?

Kasie (26:24)
I love Kyle's topic, but I'm voting for Adam because I think that the critical impact here is on the rewiring of the brain.

Chris (26:34)
Damn! Victoria, you wanna have a vote?

Victoria (26:38)
don't know what I'm voting on.

Chris (26:40)
Is she frozen?

Adam (26:41)
Remember

she said she had to miss part of it.

Victoria (26:44)
Yeah, I don't

know what we're voting on.

Chris (26:48)
Alright cool, what you got John? Or no, add- Go ahead and eat.

Victoria (26:48)
I mean, I could just say a name.

Chris (26:56)
Neil, what you got?

Neil (26:57)
I mean,

I like the topics. I think John hit on the head. I think brain rot to me is more important because I think brain rot leads to lot of the AI stuff too because I feel like there were so much. And funny, I hear my kids, my teenage kids talk about how the next generation, my nephew, he has brain rot. I'm like, you guys are just as bad as he is. But that was the first time I heard the term brain rot was when my kids were talking about their cousin, right? So, but I give it to Adam. We'll give him a...

That's three to one, Adam. You OG. You got it coming. Kyle, you got a big shoes to fill, like you said.

Kyle King (27:34)
Exactly.

John (27:35)
Well,

and you see that Adam, mean, Kyle is talked about something that ⁓ Chris has had on his mind for a long time. So maybe we need to make a hint to Chris that we're doing AI so much. No, so.

Victoria (27:46)
yeah, okay.

Chris (27:58)
It's my fault. It's my fault, Kyle. It's my fault.

Brain rot it is. Brain rot it is. Adam, I think you're going to bump off, man. was a pleasure to have you really, ⁓ you laid the foundation for something that's really, really cool. We live in a culture and we have this stuff in mental health all around us. Whether you're kind of going down a rabbit hole, watching the news or just checking out a magazine article. It's a really cool segment. We like to talk about on the show, current events, things that happen. And we kick that around as well. So really appreciate you creating the

John (28:03)
No, I'm teasing, I'm teasing. I'm just...

Adam (28:08)
I am.

Chris (28:33)
Down the rabbit hole.

Adam (28:37)
Thanks everyone. Y'all have a great day and congratulations on another year and another year beginning. right, man. Y'all have a good day. See ya.

Kasie (28:39)
Happy New Year.

Chris (28:44)
Appreciate it, brother.

John (28:45)
Thank you, Carolina.

Chris (28:47)
So we have a little segment that we're gonna kick around. We thought about two different shows that we really enjoyed and Casey was gonna think about two different shows that she wished that she was a part of because, but how cool is that? One of the biggest things I think, I really appreciate my colleagues, our panel and working with a group. I think all of us at this point in our career could certainly go off and just do our own thing, isolated as we can be in the field, but having awesome colleagues and having awesome panel.

Kasie (28:58)
the

Thank

Chris (29:15)
is really always been a key and partial to me. And so we really have enjoyed late in the year, 2025, that Casey's able to come back and join us. And Casey, I'm super happy about that.

Kasie (29:27)
Well, thank you. It's good to be back.

Chris (29:30)
Brilliant mind, we really have one here. You wanna go first then? What are the two real quick that you thought you would like to have been a part of?

Kasie (29:32)
Thank you.

Yep, I would have loved to have been on the panel and discussing episode 308, which was, is a one night stand worth it? I would have liked to have been part of the talent.

I think I would have had some colorful commentary to add in there. ⁓

Chris (29:55)
No doubt!

John (29:55)
Yes, I think you would have. ⁓

Victoria (29:56)
100 % 100

%

John (30:00)
I'm blushing. I have the vapors.

Kasie (30:01)
Yeah.

And then

the other one would be episode 316. What is love feeling or commitment? I would have loved to have been on that one as well. Kind of opposite ends of the coin, so to speak. Yeah, it's exactly what I thought of was like doing my head like that. Like night at the Roxbury. Yeah.

John (30:09)
It's love.

Victoria (30:11)
feel like those are very on brand for you.

John (30:13)
Baby

don't

Down, hat away, hat away.

Chris (30:22)
What is that that you said, Victoria? We didn't catch it.

Victoria (30:24)
said that's very on brand for Casey.

Kasie (30:27)
yeah.

Chris (30:28)
Most certainly. That's why I'm like just smiling inside myself. that is perfect, my dear. ⁓ Victoria, what did you got? What were the two that you were thinking about?

Victoria (30:29)
you

Kasie (30:32)
No. ⁓

Victoria (30:36)
Whoa. ⁓

that I like, wish I was on or that I remembered.

Chris (30:45)
Where should we comment?

Actually, before we move on real quick, guess let's comment real quick about those, by our sheer memory, what we kind of came to with that. Because I remember, obviously, yeah, because the one night stand, I'll cover that one and then maybe we'll kick around. I really feel like it's something that, wow, technology again.

Kasie (30:52)
Yes.

Victoria (30:55)
I don't believe I was on either one of those.

John (31:06)
I

got kind of moralistic on it because I'm a minister. So was a little bit of... So I remember that. Yeah. ⁓

Kasie (31:11)
Yeah.

Chris (31:14)
Fair enough, fair enough. And I think if I went

to where I remember talking about is just the dating apps and all the stuff that we experienced on that and how it's a bravado thing in the mirror world, ⁓ maybe more so, but I don't even think that applies as much anymore ⁓ because we all talk this up like it's a big deal and it's just not satisfying. It doesn't have any sustainability to it.

John (31:22)
Yeah.

Victoria (31:40)
Well, and I remember wanting to be on that episode, the one night stand one, because you and I talked about it before the recording. And then that was rude. Child, ⁓ but like, and then I ended up not being able to be on it because either I don't want a fruit loop, dude. You can, you eat a fruit loop because of this one.

Chris (31:53)
That's right, that's right.

Kyle King (32:03)
Thank

Victoria (32:06)
or some scheduling issue or something like that. And so then I remember, would agree with Casey that I wish I was also on that episode. Because you and I talked a little bit about it beforehand and about my thoughts and feelings about it and whether or not it would be like a good episode. then I ended up not being able to be on it. No, that, you will break my computer.

Chris (32:29)
I that now. Yeah, absolutely.

Neil (32:32)
Maybe that's

when we need to redo this year something similar to get Casey and Victoria's opinion on this one.

Victoria (32:35)
You can

Kasie (32:37)
Huh?

Victoria (32:38)
come

up here you just can't like

John (32:38)
because I think they would

knock it out of the park.

Kasie (32:43)
Yeah, would venture to say that people hide behind one-night stands to avoid rejection and fears of commitment.

Chris (32:43)
Making a note as we speak.

Neil (32:54)
think the one that I was interested about, I think where Chris brought up with it too, is when you have such a short one-night stand being so short, you don't know what kind of trauma you might bring up to the people you're trying to hook up with or vice versa. There's so much goes into that type of thing that they're very vulnerable. There was a lot of stuff in this. So yeah, I think that was a great show.

Kasie (33:02)
Mmmmm

Victoria (33:06)
Mm-hmm.

wait, was

I on this episode?

John (33:13)
Yeah,

I did.

Neil (33:17)
I have to go back and look.

John (33:17)
I-I-I-

Chris (33:17)
You...

Victoria (33:18)
Obviously

I can't even if I was it was when I was home we were doing virtual and then Lucas probably like made it so I couldn't really be a part of it Like what he's doing right now ⁓

Chris (33:19)
I don't think you are.

Kasie (33:30)
Mm.

John (33:33)
I think I remember

my input on this was people that would be friends with benefits kind of thing as well. ⁓ I kind of added that little bit of dimension to it as well. I couldn't understand that without commitment, sexual relations without some sort of emotional commitment.

Kasie (33:39)
Yeah.

Victoria (33:42)
Mm.

Kasie (33:54)
Yeah.

Chris (33:57)
Right. Right.

Victoria (33:57)
me.

Neil (33:57)
And Victoria,

you were on it. It was still in the office. So technically, you were there physically. Yes, I just looked at the video.

Victoria (34:02)
I was?

Kyle King (34:04)
Thank

Victoria (34:05)
Look, see,

John (34:05)
But Lucas was sending his...

Victoria (34:05)
look back to the brain stuff. don't. Cause I remember that's why, well, that's why I was thinking I was like, maybe I was a part of it because I remember bringing up the trauma thing. Like I remember that being said, and, ⁓ and so look like right now I'm multitasking. I'm trying to talk and trying to find the next step.

Chris (34:13)
Victoria has brain rot.

Kyle King (34:15)
Hahaha.

John (34:15)
Yes.

Victoria (34:33)
Thanks for my kid to watch.

Chris (34:36)
Alright well Victoria, we're gonna move on.

John (34:36)
That's the other myth

no one can multi-task.

Victoria (34:38)
Yeah, that's fine. Which one?

Chris (34:40)
We'll move on Victoria. I'm gonna do mine too real quick because we've already kind of kicked mine. mean it is episode 335 was one of the most recent ones that we've done. Technology, humanity's greatest challenge. We've already talked about it. And I hope I don't annoy people. Please write in, email, tell us if you don't want to hear about it. I what we, I know you're fine. I didn't say that because of that John, but I'm saying like, you know, we believe on this show that mental health is a really important factor in our lives for all of us.

John (34:58)
That was my fault. I apologize.

Kyle King (35:01)
Thank

Chris (35:10)
and is becoming even more and more important. And I just don't think that we can talk about this thing enough. It's why Kyle, I voted for you to get it, brother. I mean, I don't know what happened there, you know?

Kyle King (35:22)
Appreciate it.

Chris (35:24)
It's

such a dynamic topic and I have been amazed at how many intricate, intimate ways and I still keep on finding so many more every time we discuss it, how it's affecting all of humanity all around the world. It's really wild. ⁓ See the other one though, I'm sorry.

Kyle King (35:49)
And you can probably relate it to every

single segment you've done this year in some shape, form, or fashion.

Chris (35:57)
What a statement!

John (35:57)
Yeah,

and I would agree with that because one of, even though I've made a statement, the fact was, or for me was AI was a big thing, but I looked at it from the point of practice in terms of us as being therapists and the perhaps the erosion of the therapeutic alliance.

Because if you have using AI in the counseling session itself, you are actually displacing that intimacy between you and the, the, the counselor ⁓ or the client or the patient.

Kyle King (36:29)
Mm-hmm.

John (36:42)
as well. And I think there are some real ethical issues that are concerned with that because as Casey has said, the large language models go out to databases everywhere to be able to, what did you say? Probability of an answer and in terms of this. so, your data as a client,

Kyle King (37:02)
Mm-hmm.

Kasie (37:03)
you

John (37:10)
is going out at that time out into the ether and and I I

Victoria (37:16)
So you're saying, so you're saying John

that you don't really think that people should use like AI in a session? Is that what you're saying?

John (37:28)
Well, yeah, because there's therapy notes that actually do dictation and they then take the conversation and then it applies a diagnosis, an initial diagnosis. And actually, it's just the therapist gives up.

his or her responsibility, I think, to be able to do that intimate work that needs to be done, necessary work.

Victoria (38:02)
Okay,

Kyle King (38:03)
And I'll add on to that depending on what technology.

Victoria (38:04)
because I mean I do I do use

Chris (38:09)
Go ahead, Kyle.

Kyle King (38:10)
gonna say, depending on what technology is in use and the protections they have around it, now that potential has implications on data becoming public that you did not want to become public.

John (38:23)
Right. It can be it can be mined. I'm sorry.

Chris (38:24)
Yep, Victoria.

Victoria (38:26)
Well, I was going to say that I don't

like I don't use AI as far as like note dictation or whatever. But like I use chat GPT in session a lot like with a client if I don't know something like if I'm trying to find like factual things like I will

John (38:43)
Well, who's controlling

it? You are doing that. Yeah, you're doing it though.

Victoria (38:47)
Me, yeah, so I

will pull out my phone, but then I don't, which is why I think I was gonna say this earlier when we were talking about when Kyle brought up the stuff or whatever. like, so I think like, because I use Chad GPT for my personal use, I use the same account for my personal use as well as my work.

stuff. Like when I look up something in session. I probably smart thing would have been to like create a different account for work and then a different account for like my personal stuff. But whatever we're all through at this point. So like I don't really use chat GBT for like personal questions. I more use it like factual things. And so but I can see what you're saying about if you're using it more towards like

no dictation or like you're allowing like the client to use it in session, then yeah, because you leave it on the remote you Dodo.

John (39:39)
Yeah. I think one has to be careful. I'm sorry, I'm walking on you. ⁓

Kyle King (39:43)
Mm-hmm.

Chris (39:45)
You're okay, go John.

Kasie (39:46)
Thank

John (39:46)
I'm walking on sunshine, but HIPAA, you have to be able to be very scrupulous about that. And that seems to be a sort of a gray area. Is it HIPAA compliant ⁓ with that? Yeah.

Chris (40:00)
There's a lot of factors in what not. Casey

is raising her hand. Love that.

Kasie (40:04)
Yeah.

Well, one thing that I was going to say, it's not anything against anybody that uses technology or doesn't, but there is something very imperative about the therapeutic alliance if someone comes to a therapist and is looking for implicit trust in that foundation of that relationship.

And the therapist does not say things like, I really don't know, I will have to get back to you. Because there is something very trusting in a relationship when I as a therapist can say, that's interesting, and I don't know. That's something we should explore or as Chris says, endeavor to figure out together.

instead of just having the answer ⁓ available at our fingertips based on predictive software, that we actually go into an exploratory phase ourselves as the clinician in those examples. It's just about as much as a learning process for us as it is for the client. And if we're eradicating that, yeah, sorry, go ahead.

John (41:08)
You're doing the hard work. Yeah.

No, no, I'm sorry. You're doing the hard work. You're being an archeologist. You're digging up bones basically. And so you're using a fine tool and brush to be able to get into the very core and issue. And that means also doing some self-archaeology, self-evacuation.

Kasie (41:13)
Thank you.

Well, and I think

it, we don't wanna limit authenticity, right? And to me, that's the greatest thing that gets limited by technology is the authenticity of the relationship that you can't find anywhere else than if you're having intimate moments, like professional intimate moments with your clientele.

And that is what is missing when we default to AI. And that would be my biggest concern about introduction of those things.

Chris (42:06)
So I'm gonna move us along and but first I gotta say publicly Kyle I think you got robbed man. You see we cannot get off this topic. Okay You got robbed

Victoria (42:16)
you

Kyle King (42:17)
Yeah.

Victoria (42:20)
Look,

if I had a voting hand, because if I had actually been there the whole time, I probably would have voted for Kyle because I was very much on the.

Kasie (42:27)
Uh-huh.

Chris (42:27)
We're gonna give him

two. So my other show that I thought

Kyle King (42:29)
Thank you, Victoria.

John (42:31)
But it's tied into brain rot.

Kyle King (42:35)
It is.

Chris (42:36)
They are totally linked. The other one that I want to point out was, I don't know, Neil, we did a February month in review. I'm actually gonna bring that as one of my two from episode 301. But as I recall, we kind of combined the topic of emotion-focused therapy, which is, you know, I think foundational and one of the things that we operate on with close attachments and such. So, you know, we talked about it originally with Craig going all the way back.

you know to episode eleven and then we did one one and we did two one and so i just deduced that it was episode three one where we talked about in the middle of a month in review of february the emotion focus therapy it's a great model that i personally operate from allot with close attachments especially marital and marital work but it really goes in the individual therapies will we're going to talk about this one because we will talk about it again

Anyone want to guess when it'll definitely come up again?

Victoria (43:36)
402, 401, whatever number you said.

Kyle King (43:40)
Thank

Chris (43:41)
Victoria pattern recognition. Let's try that again. My dear we had episode 11 we had episode 101 201 and 301 There you go John what you got brother? What were you two?

Victoria (43:44)
Woo!

Sorry.

John (43:57)
Well, mine was, ⁓ even though I did say what I did, was more of the ethical aspects of AI in terms of counseling. that was a very, to me, something I've wrestled with.

And so, and you know, it's natural that we would talk about this because if we're really truly practitioners of this art, which is counseling and psychotherapy, ⁓ we are wanting to be the top of our game.

But anyway, and have as much knowledge as we can. The other one was episode 298, moral courage. And so it happened earlier in the year, overcoming anxiety and insecurity to stand strong. The only reason why I chose that is because I'm a hard and existentialist in terms of my understanding. And ⁓ it's a very, very

brave thing to go into therapy and do this and not even know exactly what your goals are. perhaps it's just discomfort or conflict in your life or whatever. And to say, I'm gonna dig in and I'm gonna examine my life. mean, Socrates said, an unexamined life is not worth living.

I think that's very important. So from the earliest days of philosophy, ⁓ self-examination and reflection is a very brave thing. It takes courage to change and to commit. In existentialism, you have the Kierkegaard who talks about taking the leap of faith.

which is going into the chasm of unknowing and not knowing, you know, my life is messed up. I've destroyed a lot of my relationships. I'm aware of that. How can I change?

Let's say I'm having some social anxiety or I don't want to ask that young lady out or to ⁓ talk to somebody and this is frightening. It's every bit as frightening as let's say making a decision about a job or moving. But for that person it is an extreme act of courage to go and make that first move.

Victoria (46:46)
⁓ Press

that top button. Press the top button. Press it. No.

Kasie (46:48)
Yeah. Well, I see Chris has a scene raised.

John (46:48)
What do you guys think?

Chris (46:50)
John, I did, following

Casey's lead and we're learning how to use technology even in real time on this show. helps to organize our conversation a little bit by raising our hands on the video platform that we're on. John, love that you, no, no, that was for next, like I was calling next. I love that you picked that one because there's, listen, we do through a therapist size and we cover mental health and substance abuse on this show. There's so much to cover.

Victoria (46:55)
Thank

Kasie (46:58)
we're gonna...

John (47:03)
I'm sorry. ⁓

Kyle King (47:05)
Thank

Chris (47:19)
that we've been doing this for six years and we have not replicated content on this show, hardly at all. Obviously we replicate EFT a little bit and we talk about it from different angles, but John, this is one that I have replicated on purpose because it is such a dynamic issue that I think we're all called to as human beings to kind of manage this issue of moral courage and people really struggle. My whole concept with this is we really struggle

John (47:25)
Yeah.

⁓

Chris (47:49)
We don't think that we do, but Kyle, from a non-clinician standpoint, you can maybe answer this in a real way. How easy is it to step into somebody else's marriage when you suspect domestic violence? How easy is it to go to your cousin whom you wonder if they've ever been sexually molested or abused? Kyle, how easy is it to step into some of these emotional depression situations or

John (48:13)
PC.

Chris (48:17)
talk about suicide in any direct way. Is that easy, Kyle, or is that difficult?

Kyle King (48:23)
Yeah, for me personally, I would find it very difficult. mean, just to be able to even A, bring the subject up, in a ⁓ face-to-face type of scenario. I think, not to go back behind the technology, but I think it's easier for people to get behind the technology, send a text or send a message, and it becomes easier that way. And they kind of hide behind that technology to kind of approach those subjects.

In a face to face scenario, you know, it takes, it takes a very strong person to be able to stand up in front of somebody and say these things. ⁓ best friend, right? That's what, what we always want is somebody to tell us, no, we messed up. No, we're doing the wrong. No, that's not what you need to be doing. You know, for instance, we talked about the one night stand. Yes. I would love if somebody did that. I would love to have a best friend that says, that's not what you really should be doing.

These are the kinds of things I think of.

Chris (49:22)
It's really hard to have those conversations. Neil, what you thinking?

Neil (49:25)
Bye and bye bye.

This last year I've had two instances where I do I'm gonna say I do the short straw. I was the guy that had to confront two people this year in my family about different things and I'll tell you what it is scary depending on the situation. So like with you guys I mean I could just imagine the stuff that get brought into your office that you didn't even know but it's it's hard to do but I mean I've seen the rewards with with the one person I confronted I mean it's great now ⁓ but man back then

it was tough and it was scary. like I said, we had a family thing got together and we drew lots and I drew the lot to be the person that had to confront the person. was...

Victoria (50:01)
you

Chris (50:08)
Wow.

Neil (50:08)
I was nervous, I was scared, I was like, how's the person gonna react? Am I actually gonna be helpful? What is this gonna lead to? But honestly, there was a huge breakthrough. Going there in person, talking to the guy, know, all that stuff, was like, this is really cool, but God, I was nervous.

Kyle King (50:10)
you

Chris (50:29)
Yeah, and I remember Neil, I appreciate you bringing that up and bring that out because we talked about that and and really kind of struggled with how to do that and how to go with that. I mean, you know, some of those types of things, whether you're talking about, you know, a marriage problem or, you know, substance abuse problem or confronting somebody with something like that, it's like, you know, you almost need a clinician's brain to be a part of that. And we do have systems that do that. But you're just doing it on your own, wicked hard. Victoria, what you thinking?

Victoria (50:58)
I was gonna say I, we actually have to get ready and leave the house. So was gonna go see if I could go ahead and mention mine. Okay, so like I said, I only have one because I ⁓ procrastinated and waited to the last minute. Like everything else I do. But mine is actually the one right before, should I say that? Mine is actually the one before the one John just mentioned, 297.

Chris (51:08)
Please, please do.

John (51:17)
That took more courage.

Victoria (51:29)
because I hosted ⁓ and that's the one I hosted this year. that is, and we did, so, cause we've talked before about like how we diagnose and like that process, but my episode that I led was about like why we diagnose, like what's the point.

Chris (51:35)
⁓ gotcha, love that.

Victoria (51:52)
Right? Because we've talked about how we do it, like the process we go through doing it and like how we get to a diagnosis. But we had never, at least to my knowledge, we had never talked about like what's like why, you know, because we, our clients ask why all the time. We ask why all the time. So, ⁓ that was a pretty cool episode to do. ⁓ when, ⁓ like just with John and I.

and Neil in the behind the scenes. And it gave me a little bit more of a taste of what Chris, you have to do on a week to week basis of like creating the content and then like finding the questions and then even tying it into like AI like I use chat GPT to help me like create my like layout of ⁓

Chris (52:28)
Yeah.

Victoria (52:44)
of like what I knew what I want to talk about but like I used it to help it like fine tune some of the things. ⁓

Chris (52:52)
Well, I love

Victoria that you picked that one and here's why. I actually was spinning through and I almost picked that one as well. I forgot that that was one that you created and led to be honest with you. ⁓ because, know, part what we really try to do on the show and one of the things I think is unique about Through a Therapist's Eyes is we mean the title, we mean what it says. We really want to give you a vision through our eyes and how we work and what we're processing, you know.

Victoria (53:19)
I'm going.

Chris (53:21)
what we're orientating ourselves with and how that works. And that's something I think people really, really wonder about, Victoria. It was a delightful show to listen while I was commuting to Nashville, I think, because those are questions that people wanna understand what we think and how we think and why we do that. So that was an excellent one.

Victoria (53:22)
One minute, I'm out of here.

Mm-hmm.

Okay, well, ⁓ it's been a great year with y'all and I Cannot wait for the rest of this year, but I do have to get on out of here So I will see y'all see y'all next time. Happy New Year

John (53:42)
This connection is, I'm sorry.

Chris (53:53)
Happy New Year, Victoria!

John (53:55)
Platybona.

Chris (53:57)
Thank you for letting us see ⁓ your guy there and Lucas. You guys have a great day. We'll talk to you. We'll talk to you bright and early Monday morning.

Victoria (53:58)
Okay, bye. ⁓

Chris (54:08)
peace ⁓

John (54:10)
I was just thinking you,

yeah, you had called in, I think, didn't you? Or you texted in or something. Yeah. Yeah.

Chris (54:16)
yeah, I think I called in or something.

Neil (54:16)
He was watching the show. He

couldn't take his control off of it. He's like, had to watch it make sure everything was okay.

John (54:23)
Yeah. Yeah. No, no, Neil's going to set up chat GPT.

Chris (54:23)
Wow, if he did say that, Neil, we're gonna chat,

Kyle King (54:26)
Yeah.

⁓

Kasie (54:27)
That's a show.

Neil (54:28)
Let's go. I'm ready to confront people.

Chris (54:30)
That was a stab, Kyle. Kyle, I just got ripped, man.

Neil (54:35)
Sorry,

John.

John (54:36)
No, ⁓ Neil's gonna set up chat GBT, so it'll sound like ⁓ Neil, but it won't really be him. He won't have to commit to being confronted by, okay.

Kasie (54:44)
Yeah.

Neil (54:47)
I'm not really here, guys. ⁓

Chris (54:52)
He is here. Yeah, he's gonna be our, uh... What was that show I watched? was our... Anyway, I'm not gonna be able to pull it. We need to move on, but, um... Yet again, Kyle, I think you got dumped! We keep on coming back to this topic! Do you see this?

John (54:52)
Here.

That's it.

Chris (55:08)
It's so dynamically a part of our lives. ⁓ It would appear that we...

John (55:11)
Yeah. No, I'm

interested in what AI does to us as humans. And so, so it's the, it is the moral rot. It's the brain rot. So.

Chris (55:18)
Salute.

It's...

Kyle King (55:28)
So can I ask a question, So

Chris (55:29)
So much.

Kyle King (55:30)
on that topic, do you, I mean, I don't think there's enough data to understand, you know, how it's impacting us to date. Would you agree? And, know, we just, right now it's, we see it as something that we can utilize, we can take advantage of, but we don't know how it's going to impact us down the road. And I kind of, you know, I've said this in a couple of other shows.

Where we are at with AI is kind of how we are with the internet 30 some years ago. It was just getting started. We didn't know about it. We didn't, we wanted to use it and now look at it. It's part of our everyday lives. We consume it first thing when we get up and that's where we're going to be with AI eventually.

Kasie (56:01)
Mm-hmm.

John (56:14)
We have to do, and I'm sorry, I'm supposed to raise my hand, but I don't know how to do this. The technology escapes me. we have to do longitudinal studies that go abroad. And we also have to do it over a period of years. And so it'd be generational. And so we need at least two generations. So in other words,

Kyle King (56:18)
Yeah.

John (56:39)
30 even 40 years to see what the impact would be on us. ⁓

Chris (56:45)
Yeah, and there's no shot John because my gosh,

4.0 is what we got now. 4.5 is coming out next month. How are you supposed to do a 30 year longitudinal study on something that changes every freaking hat six months? You just can't. Casey, what you thinking?

John (56:58)
You can't, you can't, you can't. Yeah.

Kasie (57:02)
Yeah, so I think like not to speak illy of anybody who's contributed so far to the discussion, but I think that the reverse can also be true. You know that yes, there are implications for what this is going to do to our brains and how it's going to mold and shape society, but there's also implications that we also need to continually improve the skill set to keep up. So instead of constantly being in criticism over AI, what are we doing?

doing

to stay abreast and on top of information so that we're able to keep up. Sometimes we look at what our children are doing as brain rotting activities when really there's some really cool things that are being accomplished, that are being done, that are advancing us societally to be able to take care of things like on the front end of different procedures. mean, my husband had cancer this year and the fact that his precise surgery was completed

John (57:36)
I certainly agree with that.

Kasie (58:02)
by a robot that was able to go in like a millimeter of a hole to be able to take out 14 inches of coal and is remarkable. know, things we wouldn't have even seen and it was all controlled remotely by AI and robotics, you know? And so I think that things like that, those advances...

John (58:11)
Is that Da Vinci?

Kasie (58:22)
Yes, we need to be responsible with it, but at the same time, we need not to slow down our thinking processes around it to basically call it the devil, you know?

Chris (58:33)
Yeah, it's very fair. Very fair. Kyle, you're thinking.

Kyle King (58:36)
Yeah, so I think technology and we've we've said in a couple of the month in reviews

Chris (58:40)
If I

could just tell the audience real quick, this is also a little bit, I mean, your professional expertise in the computer world with, yeah.

Kyle King (58:48)
Yeah, yeah. So with the advances in the technology, Casey's absolutely right. We want to take advantage of it. Everybody's going to use it. And we've said this in a couple of the month in reviews. We can't not, we can't get away from that personal relationship. We have to have those friends. We have to have those family members around us. If we just totally relying on the technology to do our thinking for us, we're not in a healthy, we're not.

in a healthy space for ourselves at all.

Chris (59:21)
Absolutely, John?

John (59:25)
I'm lowering my hand because, ⁓ yeah, because I think Casey ⁓ addressed it and so did Kyle. ⁓ I'm just, I think it is incumbent upon all of us as therapists and people that are interested in therapy and ⁓ progressing ⁓ the profession.

Chris (59:26)
all your love.

Kyle King (59:27)
Yeah.

John (59:52)
that we would be at our best and that we would be at the learning edge all the time. That we are able to always reflect and even think ahead, not just try to keep up, in order to immerse ourselves with the ability to think ethically. And I think that's important, ⁓ essential. Keep up with the technology, yeah.

Chris (1:00:19)
Yeah,

is like I said few times man. There's so many aspects to this that Keep on coming on so fast that we just our emotional systems our psychology Process as just humans around the world. It's not a United States issue Politics and everything else that we just we just can't cope We're in fear. We have massive isolation our anxieties

Suicide rates are all going up and it's just becoming even more of an issue ⁓ with mental health. Casey, do you have another thought and whatnot before we move? Yeah, okay. Yeah, so let's get into this quick question that I thought would be fun to kick around. And I know we'll go over an hour a little bit if you guys are cool with that, ⁓ because it's a year in review, but.

Kasie (1:00:59)
No, I'm good.

Chris (1:01:16)
I thought it's interesting like through a therapist eyes for us to think about for a moment. You know, what do we really love about this? Like we have an amazing panel, I feel like with John being our senior member having worked for, mean, John, how many years have you been doing therapy in the mental health realm?

John (1:01:36)
1979? 1979? It's been a...

Chris (1:01:41)
79

to 2005, do that math Neil. You know, ⁓ it's it's a, it's a while. And then you have Casey and I that are kind of, you know, in, mid life, mid, mid career more back end, maybe Casey, I don't know. We're moving quickly, but, ⁓ and then you have Victoria that is newer in the field. She was the most recent one to be trained in, college in the way that, you know, we teach therapists to be therapists. And so.

Kyle King (1:01:46)
the

Kasie (1:02:00)
Ahem.

Chris (1:02:10)
You know, we have really a cool panel and and I'm curious about like what what brings you in like question I thought would kick around is what do you love about being a therapist and and and what do you what do you struggle with the most? What what is something that you you get frustrated the most? ⁓ Either Casey or John, you can go first.

Kasie (1:02:35)
I love being a therapist because it's a challenge to me, right, to be honest. Like it's such a challenging and rewarding experience to be able to come alongside of a person in something that they're dealing with to seek out some sort of clarity or hope.

It's a very hopeful profession from my perspective. And so I love to be a part of that process. And I love to assist people in coming to their own understanding of where their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors come from.

and what they can do if they want to help themselves. It's not providing answers, but it is arriving at a place to where you feel like you can move forward from stuck points in your life. And that's where resiliency lives. And that's my big buzzword all the time is resiliency. But I really believe in that because we can't predict and we can't undo the things that have happened to us, but we can grow from them. And that's where I

John (1:03:36)
You and I. ⁓

Kasie (1:03:46)
see my lens as a therapist coming from. So that's why I do what I do. And being a part of this process I think is a great professional way to kind of interact with other brains and see what other people think and throw around ideas and so I'm glad to be part of it.

Chris (1:04:08)
still the highlight of my week, honestly.

John (1:04:10)
What is the ultimate, at least for me, is the gift that clients give you by inviting you into their lives. And they may have chaotic lives that just seem to be tossed to and from.

and it seems like and you get the privilege of joining them in their vortex and into the whirlwind and you ⁓ help them, you journey with them, you cry with them, you laugh with them, you join with them. The other thing is

And this is happening more and more to me as I'm maturing, getting older, is that sometimes I would wonder, you know, what's, is it worth it? mean, that I do this. Out of the blue, I've had several people that have contacted me over the years, recently, within the last two or three years. Somebody is back as 40 years ago, got back in touch with me.

and said, you were with me during the hardest time of my life and my life was headed in exactly the wrong direction. I was going into, I was contemplating suicide or I I made a mess of everything.

and you were with me during that time and I got a call the other day. Guy talked to me. He was a hot mess. I mean, I will say it. He will say it. And now he's happily married. He's happily being a father. His life has meaning and purpose. And I got that privilege of being a part of that. That makes it worth it. Yeah.

Chris (1:06:20)
Yeah, yeah.

You know, one of the things that I struggle with myself when I was really kind of contemplating these questions is the frustration of not.

Casey and John, I'm sure you would agree, much more common, much more often than we do. We really don't get the end of the story. Because I think in a very humble way, I would say there's so many wonderful men, women, and children lives out there that we've touched that we don't know. We don't know. And that's both humbling and a bit of a bummer because

John (1:07:00)
Yeah.

Chris (1:07:02)
perfect funny example of this that I will share. I got in trouble in one of my very first jobs of some sort, something was going on. And I went into human resources to talk about this thing. I really don't even remember what was going on, but I caught wind of something. I went to HR and I pulled out the blocks, man. I was like, look, pull out my personnel file. Let's look at some stuff. Let's talk about what's going on. I was like, you know, I'm not going down for this stuff and whatever. And while I was engaging with that issue,

John (1:07:04)
Both and, yeah.

Kasie (1:07:07)
in trouble.

Chris (1:07:32)
What happened in that human resource meeting was that they identified a letter that was written to me. I was the only Chris on the mobile crisis team. And I still go back and read this letter sometimes just when I need an emotional bump or something going on. Because John, I mean, it's just so humbling that this person and that we do hear the end of the story sometimes where they were down on their luck. They were ready to commit suicide. They were ready to check out.

Kyle King (1:08:01)
you

Chris (1:08:01)
everything was going

wrong and they simply talked to me on a, I mean, was, dude, I was just an undergrad in grad school at the time. And, but I was present with, I was there for this person that, claims, God, it's even humble. It's weird to even say that, you know, that she, she recognized I saving her life, which, you know, I don't know. It's just, it's such a humbling honor.

To be a part, John, as you were talking about people's lives in such an intimate and private way that they're able, because we provide an environment, young therapists don't necessarily understand sometimes that the conversation that is facilitated for you, focused on you, is unlike any conversation or any relationship otherwise that you will have on this earth. And to be a part of that, it just blows my mind. Casey.

John (1:08:59)
here.

Chris (1:08:59)
Got thoughts,

girl?

Kasie (1:09:00)
Yeah.

So one thought that I had about what you and John both were saying is that I really feel like my charge as a therapist in a lot of ways is to get an individual two coping skills away from the next thing that they may have intended to do, whether that be kill themselves or disrupt their family or blow up a situation that they have going on at work or whatever the thing is. I always think about it in increment of two coping skills away and I don't know why

came to mind, but it was just something that I always focused on, that if I can give someone the tools that no matter what situation that they're in, they can be two coping skills away from making the worst mistake of their life or ending their life.

then I've done due diligence on that. I don't know if that ever comes to fruition, if that's ever true. But I also even go back to my roots, which are heavily based in faith, know, like lots of things were promised even in the Bible to people like Abraham and people like that. And they never saw it come to fruition, but the promise was always there. so blessing always comes on the other side of obedience. And so I think if we, as clinicians, set up things that we're obedient to, like even these made up rules, like I

for myself, then we're able to achieve great things with people whether we see it or not.

Chris (1:10:23)
Absolutely. Well said. Well pointed. Yeah, there's a lot to cover today in 2025. I think we did ⁓ as good a job as we can and shared, you know, from a through a therapist, besides what we experience as challenges and what we enjoy. want to give Neil and Kyle an opportunity. know, Kyle, I don't know if we, prepped you for that. So we're definitely going to go Neil first to give you a minute to think, but you know.

Kyle King (1:10:49)
Thank

Chris (1:10:53)
From a non-therapist perspective, I really value that as a part of our show because it is real life. It is what we all are experiencing and from a non-therapist perspective, you guys bring it. And I'm just curious, like, you know, like what draws you to mental health? What draws you to substance abuse? You know, ⁓ besides being the wonderful, cool people that the two of you are, you know, when we think about alcohol and drug addictions and substance abuse, how does that pull your heart a little bit?

Neil, you're going to go first, so Kyle has chance to think.

John (1:11:26)
Yeah.

Neil (1:11:28)
I mean, your mental health is the most powerful thing that you can do. You can have the control over it. You think about it. And sometimes, like I said, it can build you up, can tear you down, can destroy your world, it can rebuild it. It can do so much stuff for you. I think mental health, because of the complexities that tie to it, it's, like I said, it's, as Casey said, two coping skills, because sometimes one's not enough.

having those things that, having community, having those things. And Chris, you didn't ask me what my favorite two shows were for this year too, which I'm kind of disappointed at. Like you skipped me. And so I think part of the one, my number one show for this year was the value of vulnerability. I think there's so much that we talked about that we don't have that anymore. And I think part of that vulnerability comes when we struggle with mental health or when we know someone else struggles with mental health. Once again.

Kyle King (1:12:00)
Thank

Neil (1:12:19)
We control our mental health as far as us because I know there's medications, there's people that have all these other stuff. I'm not going to.

take away from that. But when it comes down to it, I can't control how you think Chris, I can't control how Kyle thinks, I can only control how I think and how I feel through this process. Well, can't control how I feel, but I can control how I think and react to that, right? So mental health is super powerful for a person. I think that's why it's so important to be aware of what's going on, help people understand when I'm struggling, here's some coping mechanisms to help you. And I do think, Casey, I think two is great because I think the first coping skill helps you kind of address the issue. The second one helps you then solve the problem. So I think your unwritten rule, I think is great.

Chris (1:12:37)
Mm-hmm.

Neil (1:12:56)
I think that's an awesome thing and I agree with you wholeheartedly. with that being said, I'm drawn to it because the power it gives a person, take it once again, build it up, tear it down, whatever it is, I think it's super important for people to be aware of it. That's why I'm drawn to this. That's why I'm still the producer after Lord knows how long, four years, five years, right? Because I think this is super important for people to hear.

Chris (1:13:17)
So I'll jump in, Casey, I'm getting to 2026 off to a rough start. had to offer a most humble and sincere apology to John earlier and now, Neil, I have to follow up most humbly and apologize as well in a sincere manner. I totally had you written on the thing and can you forgive me?

Neil (1:13:38)
try. We'll see.

Chris (1:13:42)
So, so, so before we clip over to, to Kyle, we need to cover the second show that you thought was cool. Cause I love that the power of vulnerability was a really good concept and a really deep conversation on that one. What, what number was that again?

Neil (1:13:57)
That was my top show. That was 327.

Chris (1:14:00)
327, yeah. What was the other?

Neil (1:14:03)
Politics, community, and mental health. Politics, community, and mental health. There's so much we avoid.

John (1:14:05)
Yeah.

Chris (1:14:06)
I'm sorry,

say again?

Look ⁓

John (1:14:09)
Yes.

Neil (1:14:12)
because of those things and I think it's so important to bring it back to the forefront. And so those are my two. And I think the vulnerability plays into the politics and community because there's a lot of people when you bring up politics, they just get defensive and shut down and they don't wanna talk about it, but you have to be vulnerable. Everybody wants the best for society, right? But I just think we don't talk about it anymore. I think it's really hard. So once again, as I challenged back then, it's good to talk about politics. Don't run from it, talk about it, right?

Chris (1:14:39)
Love you brother, that's absolutely, absolutely on point. That is a good one. You picked two good ones, man. Kyle, what you thinking, man?

Kyle King (1:14:51)
For me personally, ⁓ mental health is been a big aspect of my life. And most importantly, when I started getting into teaching exercise classes, I saw the great shift in people's mindset as they started coming to my class. They saw improvements in themselves, their personal worth to themselves. They started, some people that did not interact well with others, they started interacting with others because now they're part of a group exercise setting.

And they started making those relationships and they started building that trust. And to me, when I hear stories about like that and people would come tell me those stories directly, when they would be in class, that made an impact on me. And it got me to thinking, you know, how much, how many people's lives that I'm not aware of and how I don't realize the shoes that they walk in from every day.

And that changed my mindset and to, you know, what's this person's story? How, how did they get to this point where they did not have many friends? How did it get to this point where they chose to take a step out? And I think about that all the time. And even in the current job I'm in now as a manager, I've become part therapist because I hear a lot of stories, ⁓ where my team members are, you know, will come up to me and they will start talking to me about various things.

And some of them are ⁓ very impactful, personal stories that if I respond in the incorrect way, what path does that lead them down? And I just think that how much mental health is personally, I think about all the different relationships we need around us. Neil said it already, the community that we have to build around us, we don't need to isolate ourselves. So, you know,

At the end of the day, I'm thankful for to sit here and listen to all of you, impart your knowledge and what you do day in and day out. So now I can take that out into the world, not to be a therapist, but to have a better understanding of how people could think.

Kasie (1:16:57)
Thank you.

Chris (1:17:03)
Absolutely. Man, don't Neil, I'm getting charged up for 2026, man, to be honest with you. I tell you. I think we're going to pull an audible and we're not going to do a full, I don't know how we would have done it, Casey, anyway. We're going to wrap ourselves up to do a whole review of 2025 would just be, I don't know how we would do that. Neil, in 2025, actually, I'll show you again my, hey, Vic. He's waving.

Kasie (1:17:10)
Yeah.

Kyle King (1:17:33)
the

Chris (1:17:33)
⁓

Neil, I think that you said you were going to keep track of the ⁓ shrink wrap-up. So at the end of every episode, one of the things we do is we take turns, the therapists, and we kind of just talk about what we heard, what we're thinking and sort of wrap up that show. And in a fun, love-hearted way, we compete and Neil gets to vote to see who won for that particular week. And Neil, you're going to keep a tally this year. We're going to 2026 keep a tally. Is that true or am I lying?

Neil (1:18:03)
have the file started it's gonna I'm just gonna mark the winners so I won't be able to keep track of who's you know as the year progress I'm not gonna know who it is and at the end of the year we'll just add it up. Try to keep it as unbiased as possible.

Chris (1:18:15)
We probably gotta put something on the line, Casey. feel like John, are you- he says no immediately!

Kyle King (1:18:19)
Yeah.

John (1:18:20)
God,

that is antithetical. I still do this podcast because I love you.

Chris (1:18:29)
He doesn't want the pressure. I'm going to wrap us up this way today guys. ⁓ As you know, the founder of Metrolina and as guess the creator of Through a Therapist Eyes, the concept and the theme, I mentioned earlier, I am too small a person. I'm not smart enough a person to make the impact that I would like to make onto the world with something that

has been a passion of mine and my life's work as a consequence. And so I believe deeply, as you said, Kyle, in not being isolated and working with people. And one of my biggest professional privileges is being able to be around not just now, but the people that I've learned from, the people that have come before me, the people that have trained me and that I've garnered so much professional knowledge and experience.

humbly working with people in the intimate ways that we've talked about today. And so I personally am just super grateful for anyone that contributes to what we believe and what we do. I'm gonna start saying at the top of every show, we believe that mental health is the very most important thing to all of us and becoming more important as we go. And I mean what I say at the top of every show that

This is the human emotional experience which we endeavor to figure out together. That has to be done together. It cannot be done with one mind, one heart, one soul, one spirit. It's all of us because, well, that's kind of obvious. But I'm just very appreciative of Craig from all the way from the beginning. If you're listening to this, got another shout out, brother. It wouldn't have happened and started without him and his generation of ideas and whatnot.

And, you know, Neil came along very early on and is still banging with us. Neil, appreciate you and I'm so grateful for what you do in the background and coming into the front round. You know, we've had guests, co-hosts through the years, and I'm appreciative of all of them, you know, that have sat with us and give us a non-therapist compared to therapist experience with these topics. you know, the current group that we've got, I said earlier, we have a kick-ass panel, in my opinion.

John the senior, Casey and I in the middle and Victoria the new and Adam, you know, creating the rabbit hole in such a genuine and ground level way in the way that we experience the world and Kyle being willing to follow that up. I'm just so appreciative of what we got, what we got going on. I invite you to come along for 2026 because I think that we're going to keep our steam engines rolling. got our holiday spirit.

Kyle King (1:21:01)
Thank

Kasie (1:21:15)
Hmm.

Chris (1:21:20)
In mind, my brother just rolled down from West Virginia. I know a couple people, Victoria had some family events and, you know, John, you moved down to Florida. That's another thing, by the way, that we had this year that changed. John is no longer with us in person, face to face, other than the virtual, but we still get to keep him along. Still seeing clients, still with us, still with us. And isn't that awesome, Casey, that you point out technology can help us in so many ways as much as hinder us.

John (1:21:39)
Still seeing clients.

Kyle King (1:21:41)
Thank

Kasie (1:21:48)
Yeah.

Chris (1:21:50)
So, to-

Kasie (1:21:50)
I also think it's awesome that you still think we're on the same level, even though you're 10 years older than me, that we're still in the middle. Yeah, there's a generational gap, this FMI. Love you.

John (1:21:56)
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!

Chris (1:22:01)
And we are gonna end this 2025 year in review

John (1:22:03)
Ageism!

Kyle King (1:22:04)
you

Chris (1:22:04)
with

Casey's very appropriate slam of me, girl. My younger understudy, I guess we should call ya, huh?

Kasie (1:22:11)
You're

apprentice, Yeah.

Chris (1:22:15)
Fantastic,

John (1:22:15)
Protégé, Casey

is a protégé, Victoria is your intern.

Kasie (1:22:17)
Thank you.

Chris (1:22:20)
⁓

I don't know John, we can only be proteges of you my friend. Neil, anything to say? ⁓ Technical side signing off.

John (1:22:26)
Yes sir.

Kasie (1:22:26)
Yeah.

Neil (1:22:30)
we're good. welcome to 2026. It's January 1st. Let's go!

Kasie (1:22:35)
Woof woof!

John (1:22:36)
Let's

Chris (1:22:36)
From our professional

John (1:22:36)
go, let's do it.

Chris (1:22:36)
family to yours and from our personal family as well to yours, Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, 2026, let's kill it.

John (1:22:46)
Thank