We demystify what goes on behind the therapy room door. Join us on this voyage of discovery and co-creative conversations. This is The Therapy Show, behind closed doors podcast with Bob Cook and Jackie Jones. Welcome back to episode 92 of The Therapy Show, behind closed doors with myself, Jackie Jones, and the wonderful Mr Bob Cook. And what we're going to be talking about this week. It's a bit of a mouthful, this title, Bob, but it's a good one. The use of curiosity in the search for connection in the therapy process. Oh, what a lovely title. I love the titles that you're, you're in charge of the titles. I'm here as your sidekick. I would say most of the titles don't I? I love the titles that you bring. And I have no idea what's going to come up when we start talking about them. Oh, gosh, yes. Curiosity is a good one. Curiosity. I like that. Yeah. So I think connection, attachment, relationship, they're all very, very important in terms of enabling the client to feel safe, secure, and attached. And without that really, therapy is much harder to achieve. Yeah. Curiosity to me, quite a gentle way of inquiring. That's what I think about when I think about curiosity. It's not like the third degree. It's not putting the spotlight on them. No, I hope not. I think curiosity is a lovely world. And this is a, this is a gentle description, I think. It needs to be, how can I explain this? I think therapists need to cultivate the curiosity. And if they haven't got curiosity for the human mind, the human spirit, the changes that people need in front of them, the understanding of the human condition, then they're in the wrong job. Yeah, I agree. And then think about curiosity as well that says we haven't always got all the answers. We need to be curious. We need to be curious and we need to explore. Yeah. We need to inquire. We need to account for the person in front of us. And it's no wonder I like that as a value in therapy because I'm a detective addict.  And I go down to Torquay almost every year. And we go up the Darts, the River Darts. And as you go up there, you've got Agatha Christie's house on the left-hand side. So, and down there in Torquay, they do Agatha Christie trails. And they, in the theatres, they have Agatha Christie plays, usually Hercule Poirot or something like that. And I'm a detective by nature. And I think what's really to do the job as a therapist, you need to be a detective. You need to help decode, help the client decode what's usually understandable for them. Yeah. That's a really good way of putting it, is to decode things. Help them. You usually be aware of what's so challenging of them to be aware of. And it's usually understandable to them. Yeah. That's that's past the Scrabble Word. I know Scrabble Word is, when I was younger, I used to play with my mother Scrabble. And we used to have 12 letters. So it would have fitted a seven. So it would have fitted into an understandable fitted into the Scrabble process. But seriously, you need to help the client decode because they are so stuck in their stuck in their script or their default way of surviving. They need somebody who is a breaker of codes. Yeah. And I think as well, because we're detached from things, we can see the code a bit clearer. I know for me I can't decode my own stuff a lot of the time because I'm too emotionally involved or attached to it. So I need somebody outside to look in to point things out to me. Absolutely. And I think therapists define difficulty in cultivating curiosity are the therapists that get caught up in a rigid way of thinking. And they think this is the only way that change can happen. Or this is the only model you can use to help the client change. And if they get stuck in what's right and what's wrong, they lose the art of spontaneity and curiosity. Is that when our ego gets in the way, Bob? That this is the only way that? Yeah, yeah.  Yeah. Or when they get very yes, the answer is that or when the therapist gets very precious with the model they've been trained in. Yeah. For example. And they don't are unable to see that there's another way to help the therapist. Yeah. Or there could be other ways. So and as I said, the problem with that is it blocks curiosity and blocks spontaneity because the therapist gets fixed in a certain outcome. Yeah. Yeah. Because every client is unique. They might come with the same issues, but they're upbringing and they're experience and everything is unique about them. So we need to be able to look at different things. Yeah. Definitely. Flexibility, spontaneity, curiosity. Yeah. The most important qualities. Because if you had a tool bag for your 38 year career or however long your career is, Bob, what would be in that tool bag? Because for me, if something tweaks my interest and I want to learn more about it. So, you know, everything apart from the kitchen sink is in mind. Oh. Oh. And, you know, it's an evolution through my career to pick up and do different things. But your tool bag must be overflowing. Yes, it is. But, you know, it's a lovely metaphor for you to have that way of thinking that shows that you have an abundance of curiosity. Yeah. Yeah. If it tweaks my curiosity, then I want to learn more.  We need to want to understand what's brought them to the therapy office. What's, what is it that they want to change and how come they haven't been able to do that already? Yeah. We need to, you know, develop that quality of curiosity.  Because you're taking the time to be curious and to inquire. Oh. And if there's something else as well about not making assumptions, if we're curious, we're not making assumptions about what we think they need or should do or all those sorts of things as well. No, you're right. We're checking things out. Yeah. You're right. And the worst thing for a therapist to get caught up in is black and white thinking, right and wrong, certain way of being, and you mentioned it, by the way, assumptions. Yeah. Very hard for therapists to train themselves to move away from assumptions. But if you get caught up in that process of assumptions, you will miss the client in front of you automatically. Yeah. As you were talking then, I was thinking, I can understand, and I probably did do it when I was newly qualified, being quite rigid in what we were going to do in the sessions. And, you know, if they're coming with anxiety, then we need to do X, Y and Z, because I didn't have the confidence to be curious or to look outside the box or to explore anything else. But as you get more confidence in it, it's easier to say I don't have all the answers. Yeah. I think you've got a very good point. And it's a developmental point. Yeah. It's a developmental perspective. In other words, when you start off as a beginning therapist, usually you start off with the placement and training, and you get clients through the placement. Secondly, you then go on to go into private practice and build your practice up. So in these early years as you are evolving, it's very normal that the therapist gets very wedded to the psychotherapy model they've been trained in. Yeah. And to rights and wrongs. Yeah. What's right and what's wrong? Yeah. And kind of following a manual, if you will. This is what we do. Yeah. So it's like therapy by vote. Yes. Because you know, I think the reason is it's because it soothes the anxiety of the therapist. Yeah. Yeah. It did with me. I can remember having sheets and pages and pages of things, you know, in preparation and talking to other therapists who were much more experienced would just walk into the therapy room. And I can remember being in awe of what with nothing's planned. You've not got anything planned.  And that has to come with experience. Yeah. It's developmental. You can't just suddenly get to that place, you know, experience, confidence, the ability to develop curiosity, the freedom from anxiety, all comes later in your practice as you develop and get the experience and solidify, you know, security in yourself to allow yourself that freedom. Yeah. So curiosity, I think is a developmental quality in the sense that you need to be free of anxiety to allow yourself to have that sense of spontaneity, often to be curious. Yeah. And I know we've touched on it in the past.  We've got to be open to getting it wrong sometimes, you know, asking questions and being curious, kind of make sure, and like you said, checking in, that we're on the right track with what we're doing. At the beginning therapists usually are mortified if they feel they have made a mistake or if they've got things right and wrong. Yeah. And again, it takes experience to move away from that position. I can remember in the early days, you know, and I don't know whether it was you or one of the other trainers in the Institute, you know, being really worried that I was going to damage the client. If I didn't get it right 100% of the time, I'm going to harm them in somewhere. And it was a real fear of mine in the early days. I think it's very common with early therapists. Yeah. And the real truth, of course, if you've got a good working relationship where the client feels valued, accounted for and validated, they will be able to cope with most ruptures in the psychotherapy process. They're repairable. The relationship, you know, the therapist can grow from any mistakes if you want to put it that way if the person makes. But again, I think it's a developmental process where the therapist needs to be, to have grown in that process to feel confidence, to allow themselves to be free of anxiety and to be spontaneous and to inquire and account and allow their curiosity to really have free way. Yeah. I think that's so easy at the beginning. But you see, that's true. On another side of this, in my experience, you get some therapists who are much more curious almost from the beginning. It's in their nature to be curious, to be adventurous, to take risks, to explore, to want to understand the process. And we'll ask many, many questions from a curious place. But other therapists, for example. Yeah. So I think even though the developmental perspective, you have to be able to see that the therapist comes from that sense of passion and curiosity rather than therapy by rote. Yeah. Yeah. And again, you know, like you said, being curious kind of allows for connection between the therapist and the client as well. Yeah, that's why I'm going with that. Because if a person feels accounted for, validated and valued and feels that the therapist is on their side, the therapist has got passion for the client getting better and they're curious to find out what went wrong, then connection is much, much, much more likely to happen. And once you get connection, you'll get relationship. Once you get relationship, that will foster template of security and safety. And once you have security and safety, that will foster trust. And the relationship will be much more solid for the journey ahead, if you like. Yeah. Yeah. And if a rupture does occur, that, you know, potentially you can mend it if you've got all of that in place, you know, along the way. So all those things that we've been talking about aids connection and connection is the building block for a good relationship. And a good relationship is a building block for effective psychotherapy. Yeah. So they sort of all go together. Yeah. And again, I know we've touched on it in the past, but we have an innate need for connection with other human beings.  It's a need in us to have a connection with other people. Yeah, we have a need, an innate need for social relationships. Yeah. Well, the human person is by definition, social. Yeah. And unfortunately, any connection is better than no connection. Well, yes, that's absolutely true. Absolutely true. Even by, you know, how can I explain this? We search out negative connection. If there's no, it's better than having no connection. Yeah. Yeah. And so I think, I think, I think it's very important for therapists to think of therapy, you know, in terms of connection. Transaction analysis is why training is a contact and connection oriented model. Yeah. On curiosity, I think builds the connections. If you're not, if you're not curious, if you don't inquire, if you don't have the passion to look at what brought, you know, how come the person came into your therapy room, then the client will feel less valuable. The connection will be harder to foster. And when you were talking earlier on about being a detective, that's sometimes what it's like because for the client, they know everything about their life. So it's like, it's very mundane for them because they've been a part of it.  And curiosity is a quality which needs cultivating. Yeah. And the therapist needs to put energy into that. And it comes with passion. And it comes with the desire for social connection. And it comes with the desire to understand how come the person sabotages their own life. And they all go together. If that's not there, usually the client will feel the therapist is not interested in them. Yeah. That's a big thing, isn't it? Well, do you want a therapist? Does any client want a therapist that's not interested in them? And in fact, the clients that stay with a therapist that they feel is not interested in them will be the clients who have had a history of caretakers that has not been interested in them. And they have a script where they believe that that's their norm. And of course, that is no template for change. No. It's a template for repeating history. Yeah. Yeah.  That's correct. Unless, as I've just said, you've had a history. But caretakers have not been interested in you. So you've switched off, you've dissociated, you've tried to cope in another way, and you don't know any different. So you may then pick people who have the same pattern of disconnection or pervading, you know, disinterest. And therefore, you may unfortunately expect or not be surprised when your therapist does the same process. However, I think that that will not lead to effective psychotherapy. No. That will lead to a repeat of history for the client. And actually, probably a repeated history for the therapist as well. Yeah. I can't imagine a scenario where a therapist would not be interested in their client. I can. I'll give you. And actually, what should happen in the training is that the person who starts off from that position is persuaded to go to therapy to explore how come they have chosen a profession, which they're not interested in, which is really may often be the case, or then don't realize that they are putting over an attitude of disinterest. So the therapy is the first call. The second call is that the trainers need to, you know, help the prospective trainee to be aware that they are putting over an attitude of disinterest and why that is. So hopefully, and usually, a trainee therapist won't finish the course from that position. Yeah. And they'll then go and look at, you know, the therapy process and how come they come into a profession, which, you know, needs the therapist to have some passion and change. I suppose there's a fine line as well in curiosity. As you were talking, then I would think, I'm too nauseous to be disinterested. But then there's a fine line in being curious and being, you know, nauseous and wanting to know everything about every part of the client's life and intrusive. Well, that's a different thing, isn't it? I mean, you're now onto an important thing to mention. If the client feels that you're intrusive to the extent that you just said, they probably will feel overwhelmed and switch off. So even though curiosity and the culture of energy and curiosity, I believe to lead to an effective relationship and therefore an effective road to change, there's a difference between the enteral curiosity and inquiry to intrusive processes or whether the other person feels interrogated. Yeah. I mean, I think there's a difference in those two processes. Yeah, definitely. The person will, if they feel, if they feel interrogated, if they feel their life isn't been intruded on without a contract or without some sort of process, then effective therapy will not happen either. Yeah. And for me, you know, I can think of times in the past where maybe I have gone past being curious, but I've picked up on a change in the client's behaviour, you know, then maybe being more defensive or the disconnect happens because I've obviously overstepped the mark and they didn't want to talk about where I was heading or something. Yeah. And another good way to look at this is think about personality adaptations or personality traits. Yeah. So for example, somebody who's withdrawn as a default process or as a way of surviving the world or coping with the world is very different from somebody who's paranoid as a way of coping with the world or someone who's hysterical or sees the world through feelings as a way of coping with the world. And I think you need to take into account the clinical aspect of the person in front of you. Yeah. When we're talking about you know, your levels of curiosity. Yeah. Because it may be too much for the person who's you know, got a process of withdrawing or feeling overwhelmed. Yeah. I'm thinking when you're talking about that, the client and I have had them in the past that dip in and dip out. They can connect for a period of time, but then they withdraw and then they come back and they kind of yeah, constantly dipping in and out. So I think you need to think about whether your transactions may be too overwhelming. Yeah. Even though you may think they're simply curiosity questions, they may actually be too many or too intense or they may be transactions which aren't contracted for. Yeah. All those things. So I think we need to think clinically as well. You know, when we're talking about the quality of curiosity and inquiry, we need to think clinically. And there's a point to it. We're not just being nauseous. No, no. No, you're completely right. You would do some educative therapy, but you know, so you do have to think clinically. And I still think that if a person feels accounted for, validated and feels they are of some value, effective psychotherapy and connection is more likely to happen. If they feel that the therapist is disinterested in some way, or doesn't want to understand them, or I don't know, intellectualizes rather than goes towards the heart of the matter, they may an effective psychotherapy is far likely to happen, I think, because the relationship would be much more fragile between the therapist and the client. Yeah. In TA, they've got that whole theory about strokes, positive strokes, negative strokes, conditions, strokes. For people who perhaps don't know, positive stroke is a stroke of recognition. Negative stroke is a stroke, a unit of negative recognition. So you've got positive recognition, negative recognition. And people thrive on positive recognition. Now, if they feel unrecognized by the client, then effective relationship building becomes much more harder. Yeah. And again, you know, it's what they're used to in their past as well. If they're used to getting negative strokes as opposed to positive strokes, you know, when we start to give them positive strokes, it can be overwhelming at times if we're, you know, piling them on. So it's about being in the moment with the client and noticing any changes and then being curious about how did that make you feel?  And again, just be curious about it. Yeah. Absolutely right. And also a positive intention to understand the process with the client is important here. Yeah. And again, the client's going to feel accounted for. But you are right. That's a really important tip. We've been talking about it for the last 10 minutes, is we need to think clinically and check out if we think we're overwhelming the person in front of us. Yeah. Because we are all different, you know, and like you said, if you know, the default is to withdraw or to not have that connection all the time.  They'll look away. They'll look over me or decide of me as opposed to looking at me because that's too intense for them. So quite rightly, you might check out what's happening for them. Yeah. Yeah. That particular time or at least help them be aware of the process that's happening in the room. Yeah. Without shaming them or anything which again could be quite a big thing in the therapy room. If we point something out, we need to be mindful of doing it gently, which is why I like curiosity because it's not intrusive. It's just being curious. Yes. That's, that's in our dialogue between you and me. Hopefully a lot of podcasts. We all know what curiosity means. Yeah. But it's easily mistaken, I think, for other things. So for example, a therapist who always asks a lot of questions may think that's being curious. And actually, the client may feel it as interrogation. So curiosity for one person might be different from another person in terms of definition. But I think that it is a general transaction. It's a transaction of inquiry. It's a transaction aimed at understanding. Yeah. It's a transaction aimed at relationship building. Yeah. I think we could, in life in general, we could all do with being a little bit more curious rather than making assumptions and presuming and all those sorts of things. I think curiosity would take us all a bit further in connections. Yeah. And I think checking out the person in front of us, what's happening if you feel them moving away from disconnection, from curiosity, because they might actually be sensing or feeling, you know, curiosity is intrusive. If we're checking out the person in front of us, helping be aware of their own process, then that's leading to building up an effective relationship, which then builds up to effective therapy. Yeah. I hope the people that are listening to this can kind of get a sense of what it's like to be a therapist. One of the criticisms that I hear a lot about therapy as opposed to counselling and coaching is the length of time that people are in therapy. But when we're talking about the different layers of connection and taking into account, you know, the client and their experience and everything, it does take time. What's behind the criticism? You said you hear a lot of criticism. Yeah. Yeah. That's behind the criticism. I don't know. I always get a sense that, you know, we're money grabbing and once they come in the door, we don't want to lose them. And that's why everything takes so long. And it's like, yeah, you haven't got a clue really. Well, you know, I understand why you're coming from there. You know, but you see, I think that for, how can I, I think for quite a lot of the time, maybe even up to a year. So that's going to be, I don't know, 50 sessions, maybe. Use that approximately. We're often seeing or experiences their behaviors. And we're often dealing with the impact of their behaviors on us or how the behaviors have gotten in the way of change, or we're dealing with the adaptations. And that takes time to deal with, plus the fact takes time to understand a person's, how a person's got to the way they've got to take time for us to, you know, pass that on to the client. So all these things take time. Now without that time being spent, then a person may feel all the things I've been talking about in this podcast, and the relationship may not be built and robust enough to challenge, to deal with the challenges that come underneath the behaviors. See, that's the key for me is what's underneath. That's right. Unless you deal with that. Yeah, you can get to the surface stuff quite quickly. As soon as they walk in the first session, you can get a sense of it, but it's what's underneath that. You're absolutely correct. Unless you can get to that, and it takes time, there's no other way around this, because these are well-constructed behaviors and defense systems that have worked for many years for the person to survive, even though it isn't perhaps the way that they want to survive, or it might be unhealthy, or they may continue repetitively to do the same things. Unless you can get underneath that, if you just simply, I don't know, tell the person to change different behaviors and put lists of positive things on a fridge and follow those lists of things on the fridge.  In other words, it's what's underneath the behaviors, what's underneath the plaster. So you need to get to the plaster, which has been the sort of way that people have survived by putting a plaster on the herd that wound the trauma. And like you've just said, you need to be able to get to what's bubbling around and underneath all that, which is where the healing is. If you don't, behavioral change without anything else, in my opinion, will last a very short time. And then what happens is they'll either carry on in their unhealthy mechanisms, or they'll come back to therapy again, because the wheel processes haven't been touched. And therefore to do that, you need to have time. I agree. And be curious to get underneath the, you know, the defences, I love that word, that's what we do. We lay traps and put defences up because we've learned to do that, to protect ourselves. It's all about survival. So it takes time to, I don't want to say knock down those defences, but to allow the client to take them down in a safe and secure way. It takes time. Yeah. Now, one of the podcast titles I haven't zoomed over to you, but it would be challenged at therapy, really. And that is therapy of middle class profession. So in other words, when the challenge comes, people say, oh, you're just interested in money, and if they're there a year or whatever, it's very expensive, and we can do this in six sessions and XXX. In essence, that's true. Because A, we have to live. B, we spend a lot of money on the training. And C, you would just, we have to pay use for private practices and all the things that go with that. So unfortunately, you know, the therapist's time will, yeah, and they're qualified, will cost. And there's no way around that. If you, and therefore it will accumulate over time. And that's why I said I was thinking about podcasts and middle classes and people have got money are available, sorry, are able because they've got, you know, they've got that type of access to the financial process that are needed for psychotherapy. By definition, we might want to say, unfortunately, this type of therapy is open to the middle classes more. And maybe that's a good podcast for us to do. I mean, I went to low cost clinic, as you know, but I only managed to do that because the people who are training will give their time for voluntary for 50 minutes as a way of learning their, you know, it's like a prentice style, a way of learning their craft. And there are therapists who in private practice will have four or five of their clients maybe at a lower price. So it'd be a very good podcast to do. So, you know, I don't know where we go with this, except that therapy is by definition quite expensive. The longer it goes on, of course, it's more money. But you know, Jackie, in the end, some things are priceless. I agree. I agree. Yeah. And you're paying for the skill and the training and the continuous professional development and, and, and, and you know, that's, that's what costs the money. Yeah. Yeah. So it's another podcast I know because I could talk for another hour about it. But I think there is some truth by people who perhaps attack long-term psychotherapy to do with finance. But I don't think that a majority of therapists go out of the way to lengthen the psychotherapy to simply get money. No, not at all. It takes time to build a relationship. It takes time to look beyond the behaviors. It takes time to understand the person that we're actually dealing with. And you know, change is a process, never an event. Yeah. So Bob, we'll leave it there. Do you want to do that as the next topic? Not this minute, no. But I would like to have it sometime. We will, I've written it down, so we will use that. So what we're going to discuss next? Well, let me just say one other thing, because I felt I was getting on my sort of preaching box there.  So I've always been interested in politics. Psychotherapies where art and science meets. So I have an investment in doing that podcast. I do want to end though by saying that I do believe curiosity leads or that quality leads to trust, to authenticity in the relationship. And as the relationship gets more robust, therefore, effective psychotherapy will happen. And by definition, that is long-term psychotherapy. Mm-hmm. Hard to do in six sessions. Yeah. I mean, curiosity can carry on in six sessions. But the relationship, you know, in six sessions. The connection is a relationship and everything. Yeah, definitely. So it's a podcast I would like to do. But I hope the listeners can see the importance of cultivating authenticity, trust and curiosity in that process. Until next time, Bob. Yes, we didn't ask you a question. What do you think the next one is? What we're doing next time is understanding transactional analysis and how to use TA in the therapy process. Oh, you and I will love this. I hope the listeners, I hope the listeners enjoyed as much as probably we will talk about this because that's our major. Be prepared. So if we can't pass some tips about TA on the next podcast, we never will. No. So until next time, Bob. Yes, certainly. Okay. Bye. You've been listening to The Therapy Show, behind closed doors podcast. We hope you enjoyed the show. Don't forget to subscribe and leave us a review. We'll be back next week with another episode.


Hello, how welcome to condo insider it's Thursday at 3pm and we're going to have a very vibrant discussion today primarily because of some recent actions our legislature took with regard to condominiums and I like to say this show is about the go up and smoke. I say that because we're going to talk about smoking and what the rules are and what the proposed legislation is and I brought in a very good friend of mine Tim Epicella who has sponsored shows here have been a host of a show here who is I thought he was smarter than this but he served on board member zones in condos general manager of a condo you have condos in your blood welcome to the show thank you Richard thank you for having me and I'm glad you said it you thought I was smart enough apparently I'm not well my friends always say I say to them I'm smarter than I look and they say that's true no one can be that dumb and look that stupid you know but anyway back to the show tell us a little bit about yourself how you got to Hawaii what you do well I came here about 11 years ago and you know I've always been involved in condominium boards I only believe that if you're an owner you get engaged in the community in which you live that's always been my my modus operandi from the first condo I bought in 1991 I think it's way back in the day and I've always been involved in the boards and governance and trying to maintain and enhance the value of the buildings that you live in and invest in and so it just took a natural course from that so I've been on boards for over 23 years and I certainly did my own building management and this property in Seattle was over the water it was more of a shift than it was a condo so it took care of that building for many many years and you know there's a lot that goes into the care and maintenance of the building I'm going to ask you this question I didn't tell you I was going to ask you this question before we go into smoking you know we at the legislature see a lot of advocates come out and talk about how bad the boards are and how incompetent and self-serving has that been your experience in general a small minority ourselves serving a very small minority and I think those days are going away I think there's more emphasis on education of board members what their fiduciary responsibilities are what their roles are why are they there in the first place and I think the days of board members or people getting on the board to serve their own purpose I think those days are going away I saw it very much in the you know in the 90s and you know some part of the early 2000s but I don't see that so much anymore I think most people who serve on the board are dedicated and they want to see their investment grow and they want to take care of the building in which they live well I think today we're going to have a smoking I do want to say one thing we didn't mention with regard to your background you're on the board of the Hawaii council community association you're also on the legislative action committee for community association institute so you certainly demonstrated your interest in our industry and we thank you for that thank you Richard because it takes interest of people to do the changes you've talked about that the associations are getting better and stronger with their boards but let's kind of review from your perception the issue of smoking you know there's always the smokers and non-smokers and there's always one against the other what's your understanding of the current law and with regard to condos and their rights to address smoking well my understanding is that if an association feels that smoking is detrimental to other residents that they do have the right to initiate a change to the bylaws now that's not to say that's an easy thing to do we know changing the bylaws takes a lot of time and a lot of organization and sometimes a lot of money to pay for attorney's fees and opinions and the actual legal documents but it's something that I think all associations have the right to do and when it comes to smoking certainly on a generic sense about ethics is my rights and responsibilities stop where yours rights and responsibilities start and when it comes to smoking and in a tight you know quarters of you know people living next to each other in the close you know in closed quarters I think those rights have to be very much looked at well correct me if I'm wrong taking one step backwards even on that batter today state law says you can't smoke in the common elements period number two is the debate over the lanais because sometimes the declaration makes the lanai an apartment sometimes it's a limited common element then you get in this issue of noxious odors would it be smoke or some foreign food you're cooking on your lanai that causes or incense you know but the lanais has always been a debate within the industry about that issue depending whether it's a limited common element or apartment etc and then there is always within the apartment that if it's not otherwise specified in the bylaws you have a right to smoke period and there's nothing that board can do about it unless they change the bylaws and that's that's kind of the framework where we're going to begin I think that's a fair assessment of yes I think that's fair um again I I really think that um you know there is it's a balance because you know at what point if I'm doing a completely legal activity within the confines of my own unit and it's not adversely affecting any other resident doesn't association have the right to tell me I cannot um you know we talked about I have this feeling that you know associations per se are not legal governments but in a in a sense they are governments and so to what point does a government have the right to tell me that a legal activity that I've been doing all my life or maybe you know whatever is suddenly now forbidden and and to be prohibited so that's you know it's a fine balance on this yeah and I understand the issues I mean as we were chatting before the show began I'm one of these strange people who've never even tried a cigarette before but I do know I can tell when there's second-hand smoke in my eyes water and I don't want to say I'm allergic but certainly I'm I'm sensitive to the second-hand smoke and there's so many tons of articles written about the the damage of second-hand smoke I'm going to say if that's prevalent in your life I'm so we understand those issues but as I said before to show begin well if it's so bad why don't you just ban cigarettes all together you know I mean if they're going to allow them and say they're legal now you have groups pitted against each other with respect to that but going back to my next question is going to be all right we know that limited common elements are debatable in the eyes we know the common elements absolutely boards can enforce no smoking and you mentioned it briefly if they want to make it a non-smoking building if the majority of the owners here want to make it a non-smoking building under the current beliefs and the current laws everyone believes it takes a vote an affirmative vote of 67 percent of the owners to change the bylaws to be non-smoking and you've had experience with that I have and and the building that I am a board member of as well in Waikiki back in 2015 it came up as an issue it actually came up as in the at the annual meeting and some people you know voiced a concern about second-hand smoke and it just caught traction and before you knew it we were in the process of changing the bylaws was there a public process not a whole lot not a whole lot other than the open board meetings where it was being discussed there weren't you know special sessions you to identify who were smokers and who weren't smokers of that of that complex so these board meetings were they contentious at all or no no and I think what you're seeing in the population over the decades is that you know there are very few smokers there is not a whole lot of smokers so jumping ahead a little bit when the final vote was taken when we finally got to 67 percent which by the way took a year it took a full year to get to that point it was 10 percent were opposed to it because presumably they were smokers I voted no against it because I just didn't feel that you know a legal activity should be prohibited by an association as long as it's not adversely affecting your fellow residents yeah the way I kind of look at this is that because I would tell you I'm not a fan of smoking that being said I understand the argument on the lanais because you really are putting yourself in a position that it's likely that second-hand smoke is going to go to another apartment but within their own private unit I don't know how you can say to someone this legal activity because you're allowed to buy cigarettes today yeah I I suffered that dilemma as far as going back and forth as a board member we're trying to pass this but as a as a homeowner as well I had to you know weigh the counterbalance to that argument and I was I was conflicted so you guys passed the bylaw amendment say you're a non-smoking building we did so what did you do with the smokers well that's that's an interesting point we actually had to partake in a evaluate of mediation which is you know something you're it's near and dear to your heart my act 197 one of my favorite things that's right and that was a particular case where someone had purchased into the building apparently wasn't aware that this process was going on you know to change the bylaw it takes time you know it takes a year but you're even before that you're still working through you know getting legal opinions and things of that nature so all in all is at least a year and a half so he had purchased somewhere in that time frame and then said what do you mean you've changed the bylaws I'm a two pack a day smoker and so we did go to mediation and ultimately the association prevailed because in our minutes these things were being discussed when he bought the unit to begin with and his certificate you know of disclosure it was mentioned that you know in the minutes that we're going through this process of prohibiting the smoking I'm going to say this and you know even though I mold my recollections usually pretty good is that there was actually a lawsuit going back a few years ago where an association changed its rules from smoking to no smoking throughout the whole building and the judge ruled in that case is that when you're buying a condo you realize they're self-governing and that the owners control what the rules are going to be and you take that risk when you're buying a condo it may not be the same if the majority of the owners are in some cases a supermajority like 67 percent can change these rules and that's a risk you take when you buy an interesting was that a hawaii state law or is that mainland somewhere in the mainland that was a hawaii case it was it goes back in the early stages because a lot of condos I shouldn't say a lot a number of condos have become non-smoking and a number of condos have considered it abandoned the idea for similar reasons you stated you know but back to my question on the smoker so you have a non-smoking building now what are you doing to enforce it well Richard there's not only the $64,000 question but a whole lot more than that I see it's almost impossible to enforce unless you directly witness someone with a door open and you see them smoking but if that door is closed you know how do you enforce that you you have no legal rights to enter unless there is a maintenance emergency you know all it takes is someone to say don't they don't even answer the door so I mean well the the board or the resident manager goes along the hallway he thinks he smells smoke they don't open the door and he says I think you smell smoke in there and he says I'm using a smoked flavored aerosol can as my my way to smell the kitchen cooking you know I would yell through the door your nose blind go away so you know how do you prove some a smell that cannot be you know exactly proven unless you verify it you can't was there did your board ever consider like having a a smoking area where the smokers could go or saying to the smokers we're giving you three years to pick the habit well yes that was discussed when it came to this mediation they thought well maybe we can have a place behind the pond behind the rocks against the next property as mitigation for this this dilemma and ultimately the board just said no we we passed it we not only is it on you know all the common area but it's also inside the unit and that's what we're sticking to so an unintended consequence of our passing or mending the bylaws about no smoking in the unit is now the sidewalk becomes smokers haven and so we have a number of residents who are out on the sidewalk in front of the property and that's where they're conducting their vaping or they're smoking and what an image that is I mean is that is that something that you know the association wants to have is a visual for the property and the answer in my opinion is not really well it's interesting I had a property on kawaii that passed no smoking for the building but they decided to do the opposite and create a smoking area so the residents could not smoke in units not smoke on the eyes not smoke at the pool we do have a smoking area and they put it right next to the trash contractor really so it wasn't exactly the most desirable place but believe it or not people used it but it seems to me we're creating an environment of smoker versus non-smoker we have people who are addicted when it's something that's lawful when I think that is the operative word addictive what do you say to those smokers that are addicted and remember quitting cigarettes is just as hard as anything else in fact times nicotine is harder than a lot of other addictions so what do you say to someone is is completely addicted and all of a sudden you're saying thou shall not smoke inside your unit well I know I'm addicted to red wine but I tell people I listen to people online all day long I drink red wine all night long I only have one glass but anyway we're going to take a short break and come back and talk about what our legislature is doing about this we'll be right back in a minute aloha and welcome to at the crossroads I'm your host Keisha King you can catch me every Wednesday alive at five I'll see you there aloha this is Winston Welch I am your host of out and about where every other week Mondays at three we explore a variety of topics in our city state nation and world and events organizations the people that fuel them it's a really interesting show we welcome you to tune in and we welcome your suggestions for shows you got a lot of them out there and we have an awesome studio here where we can get your ideas out as well so I look forward to you tuning in every other week where we've got some great guests and great topics you're going to learn a lot you're going to come away inspired like I do so I'll see you every other week here at three o'clock on Monday afternoon aloha welcome back to condo insider with my good friend Tim Epicella talking about how to keep I guess a project from going up in smoke or should say smoking you know we had some brief discussions about the current rules and we talked about the efforts it takes to amend the bylaws but the one where we didn't mention was marijuana so if you're a non-smoking building from your understanding can you prohibit someone from smoking marijuana well in the case of the condo that I'm a board member on in Waikiki this we we were grappling with us before the state actually did pass the medical marijuana bill so you know we have the argument is if if I have a license you know a medical marijuana license doesn't that allow me the freedom to do so because to say you can't smoke in your you have to go out on the street by de facto you're defining me as breaking the law because you're not allowed to smoke marijuana in public so if you can't do it inside your unit where are you supposed to smoke your medical marijuana yeah on our show it's an interesting argument because the lawyers and people we've had on our show have all said that if you're non-smoking building you can't smoke marijuana because there's other ways to ingest marijuana whether it be I guess in a brownie or through an IV needle or whatever you're not saying they can't use marijuana you're saying there's no smoking whatsoever and that would be the common industry practices if you have a non-smoking building you can't smoke marijuana that doesn't mean you can't grow your certain number of plants or you can't take it through other sources well that's the other sources I think is the solution is that you there's other ways of getting the the benefits of cannabis into your bloodstream than other through inhalation and that's the secret right there and subject to the lawyers who all have told me they're smarter than I am that uh that we should put it in a house rule is probably that if you have a non-smoking building this applies also to some kind of disclosure but let's talk a little bit about you know we get this almost every year but we have two bills that are still alive in the legislature today I want to get your take on them well first off they've made it this far now usually they don't even make it this far so what do you think the difference is in this session versus previous sessions why is this getting more traction with legislators well I think it's been the last two years anyway they've had this come up and and they haven't gone very far but um I think it's just they're continuing the pound on the desk and make this an issue the the uh these health organizations and I'm not saying they're wrong on their opinion but they're making it a bigger cry and let's let's face it probably 10 to 15 percent of the population's smokers 85 percent are not in my example the supermajority is going to say I don't want smoking because otherwise they'd be smokers right right so the odds are stacked against the non-smokers in some respect but let's look at what the legislature said they want to do the first first of all they were companion bills they came in with the same stated purpose the first one in the house basically says two things and I want to get your take on it number one that the board not the homeowners the board can set up a house rule and say one that the house rule says if you wrench your unit out not that you live there you rent it you're an investor owner the board can mandate you putting in your private lease rental agreement you have to put a non-smoking provision in your private rental agreement the second part was it gives the board the right to declare and make a house rule no smoking on the lanais so what's your take on it my take is it's one before the other is it's you know there's a maybe a priority and that is no smoking on the lanais because it's common area and two again if if the building saying there's not going to be smoking inside the unit then I think they have the right to enforce a provision that prohibits landlords from placing a smoker into the unit this is for me as black and white you know the industry our official position is we're monitoring the bills because the legislature is like a sausage factory what goes in is not what comes out and you don't want to watch it in process and so the bill that came in had this intended purpose and the first senior rose to our attention is was that the discriminatory to have a tenant can't have the same privileges because there's fair housing laws right and there's there's restrictions against having different rules for tenants than you have for owners right and that's fair housing federal law right so the first senior rose to our attention was well how does this fit into the fair housing laws where everybody's kind of saying well lanais kind of makes sense to solve that argument where everybody said it's like a sausage factory right the same bill went into the senate you know what they did they didn't take that bill they amended it that the board as a whole can make it a non-smoking building without the vote of the owners without the vote of the owners yes oh i have issues with that oh very much so i have issues with that i mean i i would really like to see us the 67 percent adopt a vote yeah well see here's the issue to me on this so this year's board votes for no smoking next year's board votes for smoking the following year board votes for no smoking this way well that's that's that's the dilemma of a house rule provision versus a declaration that's right so i'm saying if they give the board that authority so what happens if i'm a person i sign a lease because of the smoking building and i go in there and two months later a new board gets elected and they make it a non-smoking building i mean it seems discriminatory on its face yeah but then in the next year because i'm not happy the board shifts and now it's a smoking building or a non-smoking goes back and forth well if i'm the landlord i'm gonna have a provision my new lease stating the board may change things that are not mentioned in this lease but you know my question is it affect housing are we are we making it more difficult or easier to do rentals and get rental housing if we put restrictions they make it more difficult so where the smokers gonna go to get housing if in fact everybody takes that rule and the super majority are already non-smokers and how does that all fit into this whole thing you don't ask easy questions at all so these are tough ones no it makes me want to become a lawyer they're going to make all the money on this whole damn thing absolutely as ours did to help us amend the bylaws so you know i think we have to be cautious now i would be to answer your question clearly we just finished what's called first decking that means if the bill is not in the final committee that means it's dead well of the 40 bills that introduced this year there's maybe 15 left now of which two of them are these smoking bills of which if you go back there was another bill in the house that had the identical language and house deferred that bill but doesn't mean they deferred it for any reason they made this new we'll deal with it in the house bill 810 as our vehicle bill as we call it well right we'll defer that one because we're going to deal with the issue you're going to do it on the Senate bill yeah and one of those so i don't think anyone really knows where this is going to go but i think it's going to create issues where we're putting in the in the ownership or the occupancy of the residency smokers versus non smokers i think i think the not the smokers will feel alienated and i think in our case you know three years ago um those smokers were feeling alienated they feel like second-class citizens they're on the sidewalk right now um they may or may not throw away their cigarette butts in a receptacle versus on the sidewalk you know um there's you know there's indirect protests sometimes and and that we witnessed that again that's one of the unintended consequences of passing this years ago what what do you see the putting this in a more strategic perspective the social implications of this whole thing well i i really do see this very much as if it were a helmet law for motorcycles i see it very much that's very similar to the uh don't walk with the cell phone you know don't look at your cell phone when you're crossing the crosswalk here that was passed last year in Honolulu um these are bills that if you really look at the the the cause effect is what does the society's cost as a whole for health care and how much um does it cost in an er for someone who doesn't wear a helmet who has now you know a devastating head trauma how many hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical costs are incurred because of the irresponsibility of someone who wants to ride a motorcycle without a helmet um again from the motorcycle's perspective hey it's my life it's my freedom and don't tell me don't be a nanny state and tell me how to live my life but from a societal point of view when we all have to have shared health costs experience that's when you start seeing these kind of laws even back in their early days with seatbelt laws and you know things of that nature if i was going to propose a law that if you're a smoker you would sign an indemnity agreement against the health insurance the state of hawaii and everyone else that you're taking the risk of smoking and i won't come to you for my health care cost indemnity and hold harmless yes yes that's what you need to do you know because i don't see a way around because you brought up the cell phone bill i mean i'm sure you see every day people walking across using their cell phones both in the car as well as in the crosswalk so that gets back to how enforceable is it well and why is this coming to be um is it really the dangers of second hand smoke when you smell a whisper of smoke that might be coming through your vent it may be but is it the carcinogenic exposure that is you know the real hazard of second hand smoke on a prolonged basis i don't know so does that mean you're gonna run from governor and i can vote for you and you'll solve all these problems governor of an island we don't even know the name of sure well anyway we're on condo inside are talking about the challenges of smoking we've discussed the current rules the current practices if you want to be a non-smoking building you need 67 of the owners to vote affirmatively for it the legislature is kind of messing around with this a little bit trying to say well let's let the board make the decision which will create all sorts of hidden problems and conditions but we'll see where that goes in the legislature and i want to thank my guest him for being on the show Richard very much for having me appreciate it you're a wonderful guy i've not got to know you really well over the last 10 years or more and uh i thank you for all you do in the industry thank you very much we thank our audience for watching condo insider next week we're going to talk about the legislature again and proxies and who you can give your proxy to because now certain groups don't want you to have the right to give proxies to whoever you want to give them to they want to steer by the proxy itself and take away choices so we'll talk about that next week with Steve Lansing aloha and thank you for watching condo insider


Good afternoon or good morning. I should say on this beautiful day in Columbia, South Carolina, we're so excited to kick off the mayor's campaign against breast cancer for the month of October. The annual Isabel Law Breakfast is going to be held this Friday right here at Boyd Plaza. That's October 7th this Friday for those of you who might have missed that it's from 7 a.m. to 9 a.m. This is going to be the 20th year of this breakfast. We think it might be a little over, but we're sticking with 20. So tickets are for sale. They can be purchased at City Hall, which is at 1737 Main Street, Columbia Fire Department, which is 1800 Law Street, Columbia Police Department at 1 Justice Square, Columbia Water Service at 300 Hardin Street. Tickets are $10 each, but since it's the 20th year, we'd love for you to make it $20. Give that extra 10. Let's get to our goal. Our goal this year is aggressive, folks. We were going after $50,000 during the month of October toward the purchase of a prone stereostatic unit for Prisma Health Breast Center at Baptist Park Ridge. This biopsy technology helps not only access and visualize lesions with a 360 degree angle and view of the breast. It includes specimen unit, a 12 chamber system to take multiple and separate biopsy samples. So it's really a single process that makes things a lot easier on folks so we can get folks in there, make sure they get examined. And it really compresses the time it creates a better experience for each one of the patients going through it. You know, we're currently halfway through our goal and folks, we hope you will open up your wallets. You'll open up your hearts. You'll come down. If there are any folks who want to sponsor the event or continue to give donations, we're going to collect them throughout the year because if we get to the $50,000, I will stand on Main Street in a full pink suit with pink hair to celebrate our goal of $50,000. So please join us Friday from 7 a.m. to 9 a.m. for the breakfast. You can carry out. You can eat here on beautiful Boyd Plaza downtown. So call your friends, take your neighbors, swing by on your way to your kid's school. There's no excuse. It's going to be a beautiful Friday and we look forward to seeing you all. Thank you.


Six months into America's COVID-19 pandemic, cases are surging, small businesses are faltering, playgrounds are empty, and unemployment is at 11%. Our best hope for ending this nightmare is a vaccine, and there are more than 165 in development. But when a vaccine becomes available, how many Americans will refuse it? Bill Gates' vaccine is magically ready, but in order to get the vaccine, you also have to receive the biometric tattoo. Will you take it? I don't trust the vaccines. I never did.  Vaccines are the greatest health care advance of our time, preventing an estimated 4.5 billion infections since their advent. So what explains the reluctance of so many Americans to vaccinate? It's a combination of bad science, the government's long history of misleading the public, and the collapse of confidence in public health authorities because of their catastrophic failures in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. But if the government responds by attempting to force Americans to take a COVID-19 vaccine, it will only help the conspiracy theorists. Public health officials can begin to undo the damage of the past six months by rejecting authoritarian and paternalistic approaches in favor of careful persuasion and brutal honesty about the limits of their own knowledge. Though most Americans surveyed say they'll probably take the vaccine, there's a real possibility that a sizable block of refusers could allow this novel coronavirus to continue spreading based on what's happened with measles. And vaccine refusal tends to happen in clusters, according to researcher Tara C. Smith. 2019 was the worst measles year in a generation. When you have some of these groups of individuals where vaccination rates are low, it just takes one person with measles to get in there and spread it through a community. Vaccine skeptics often focus on the claim that childhood vaccines cause autism. I think they need to wake up and stop hurting our kids. The vaccines are dangerous, if not given a dangerous to certain people who are more susceptible. Two years old, two and a half years old, a child, a beautiful child, went to have the vaccine and came back and a week later got a tremendous fever, got very very sick, now is autistic. The claim famously was amplified by a British researcher named Andrew Wakefield. I started getting calls from parents who said my child was developing perfectly normally and then they had their MMR vaccine in many cases and then they just disappeared. His 1998 paper linking vaccines and autism was later retracted and the UK General Medical Council found him guilty of multiple ethics violations for lying about his test subjects and failing to disclose a financial link to an anti-vaccine lawsuit. But concern about vaccines is rising among parents, along with objections to the use of mercury preservatives, which both haven't been proven to do harm and haven't been present in childhood vaccines for nearly 20 years. An ecosystem of anti-vaccine information has emerged and according to the American Journal of Public Health, bots and paid Russian trolls participate in online vaccine debates far more than the average social media user. And the trolls don't always join the anti-vaccine side of the debate, but aim to elevate the visibility to create false equivalency eroding public consensus on vaccination. You have some people that really don't know what to think. So we think of them as kind of fence sitters and they're really just trying to figure out what is going on, what do I believe, what do I trust. Largely those people in the middle are the ones that I try to reach. But US public health authorities have sometimes misled the public about vaccines and other public health interventions, which has made the job of convincing skeptics more difficult. The United States government did something that was wrong, deeply, profoundly, morally wrong. The Tuskegee experiment so deep distrust of the government and public health, particularly in black American communities. In 1932, government doctors recruited mostly poor black sharecroppers at the Tuskegee Institute for a study of the impact of syphilis. The participants, the majority of whom had the disease, were told they were getting an experimental medicine when in fact they were all given a placebo. Scientists running the study were actually interested in the progression of the illness when left untreated. The experiment continued until well after penicillin became available in 1947 and many participants died. They were lied to by their government. Another incident to damage trust in public health occurred in 1976 when a novel virus called the swine flu broke out at a U.S. Army base. And scientists believed that it bore a genetic similarity to the 1918 flu that had killed more than 100 million people worldwide. You will offer every American the opportunity to be inoculated against a swine type influenza virus. President Gerald Ford authorized $135 million to develop and deploy a vaccine. And the government injected 25% of Americans in a 10-month period. But the global pandemic never came. The disease died out. And the rushed version of the vaccine likely resulted in some injuries, though probably not as many as reported by the media at the time. Smith says more humility is called for in public health communication. It's hard, but I think we have to emphasize that uncertainty. And I think that may have been one thing missing with the masks and I was probably guilty of it myself. You do not have to wear masks because there is no evidence that they protect people who are not sick. Over the weekend, the U.S. Surgeon General urged people to stop buying masks, saying in a tweet, they are not effective in preventing general public from catching hashtag coronavirus. Wearing a mask might make people feel a little bit better and it might even block a droplet. But it's not providing the perfect protection that people think that it is. After reversing their position on face masks, authorities claimed their earlier message was motivated by a desire to preserve protective gear for medical workers without ever acknowledging that they were wrong to say that masks wouldn't slow the spread of the virus. Do you now regret not advising people more forcefully to wear masks earlier? I don't regret that because let me explain to you what happened. At that time, there was a paucity of equipment that our health care providers needed. Public health authorities also issued contradictory messages on the safety of large gatherings following the Black Lives Matter protests. The WHO failed to properly investigate the original outbreak in China, perhaps leaving the world less prepared than it should have been for the emerging pandemic. The Trump administration repeatedly played down the threat of the virus and the CDC botched the early rollout of testing. If there is any hope of winning back public trust in a vaccination program, which unlike the 1973 swine flu vaccine will have been subject to extensive safety testing, public health authorities should acknowledge their past mistakes. We did not want to divert masks and PPE away from them to be used by the people. If warning against face masks was a so-called noble lie to preserve supplies for health care workers, they should own up to that rationale and stop condescending to the public. Doctors should acknowledge that vaccines can carry some risk, but that it's a risk often worth taking because there are no perfect solutions only trade-offs. The lesson of the last six months is that authoritarian mandates and noble lies tend to backfire. Fact-based persuasion, which is the basis of good science, is our best hope for stopping COVID-19 and restoring the personal freedom that's been eroded by the governmental and societal response to it.