Episode 448: Kate Hudgins. Managing in the Midst of The Current Outbreak with Spontaneity & Creativity

I’m very excited to have back Kate Hudgins, PhD, TEP - Therapeutic Spiral Model as my guest today as we continue with the series, Managing in The Midst of The Current Outbreak.

Kate continues from her previous episodes as we use the context of managing during the current pandemic as a backdrop for healing with experiential therapy, and specifically psychodrama. Experiential therapy, as you’ll learn in this interview, involves a certain immediacy from the people involved. It demands courage from both the client and therapist, and it has an incredible power to heal.

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First, a huge-thank you to my sponsors for making this podcast happen:

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This series came together quickly and unexpectedly, as did news of everything that’s been going on!

When things started getting serious with the virus and talk of it spreading was all over the news, I started to become very anxious. I’m already an anxious type, but this was a bit more intense.

My wife was continuing to go to work (fortunately, though now with a growing concern that she’s going to be infected), I continued to work at home, but now I was suddenly joined by my two kiddos (ages 4 and 11!). Crazy!!!

As someone who enjoyed reading the news, I was now becoming very anxious with all the numbers and tallies and imminent threat of sickness, and trying to manage my kids at home while also trying to keep my business going—I realized that if this continued, if I continued like this--that I was going to go nuts.

So, I just slowed down. I stopped reading the news as much and I said to myself, Okay, what can I do (my inspiration was Leo Buscaglia), what can I control, what can I do to take care of myself and my family, and how can I model for my kids during this time. This became my purpose.

This shift helped me a lot. It’s not easy. It’s not perfect. I still experience waves of anxiety day to day, and continually have to remind myself of what I can do and what’s important to me.

Creating something like this series was also something I could do, and reaching out to others in a time like this is also helpful to me. My hope is that it would offer some help or guidance or inspiration.

I want to thank the individuals who’ve taken part in this so far and who shared their time and thoughts: Bruce Perry, Manuela Mischke-Reeds, Sharon Salzberg, Mica Gonzalez, Peter A Levine, PhD, Cathy Malchiodi, Christine Drabek, Peter M. Bernstein, Fran S. Waters, and Kate Hudgins, PhD, TEP - Therapeutic Spiral Model.

You access the series here (interviews will be added as they become available): http://bit.ly/2kh8Gp5