Welcome to our second panel on bio-solution and in this panel we have five speakers who will be discussing bio-based energy and materials so I think this is a great opportunity to once again learn a lot. We're going to kick this one off with Ben Hill-Walker who is a technical affairs worker for BTEC which stands for the Biomass Thermal Energy Coalition. Thanks so much Carol. Thanks to EESI and the Sustainable Energy Coalition for putting on this great event. So I'm here to talk a little bit about really thermal energy and how it relates to biomass and really what policy can really help us with in terms of making a dent in our greenhouse gas emissions and our carbon intensity through use of this important resource. So the main idea that I'd really like to focus on is that you know we've in terms of American energy policy we've tended to very to do very well focusing on renewable renewable sources for electricity on reducing emissions in our transportation sector sometimes to the point where certain automakers have had trouble perhaps complying with all the the regulations so we you know we've done a really good job at that but I think one of the glaring errors are areas where our policy landscape could improve is in the thermal energy sector which heating and cooling depending on the estimates you look at counts for about 30 to 40 percent of our energy usage and the biomass thermal energy council was formed in 2009 to really promote the use of biomass for heating and combined heat and power uses in really addressing these needs and presenting a unified voice for using biomass such as forest residuals agricultural waste and a lot of different forms of woody and agricultural biomass that would otherwise essentially go to waste and use up energy being being dealt with in that way so we really see this as a great solution we have about 90 members in our organization all across the United States Canada and Europe representing most of most of the of the American States and in terms of policy some of the things that I'd like to highlight one of the initiatives that we're really excited to see taking root across especially state policy is the idea of thermal renewable energy credits which have the awesome acronym T Rex so you know they although hopefully they're not as scary but they're very useful not only for accounting for renewable energy from biomass but also from solar energy geothermal and we really think that this is this goes along ways to addressing some of these policy imbalances in terms of only considering electricity and transportation fuels as as areas that need to be addressed so Massachusetts has recently drafted some regulations in their alternative portfolio standard dealing with thermal metering and credits for these for renewably produced BT use also New Hampshire has been doing this for a while and they're they're a handful of other states that have started to implement this we're also excited to see in the most recent House and Senate energy bills language allowing federal agencies to utilize thermal energy for their renewable energy compliance goals so again another another way that we're seeing the federal government actually being a leader in this we're in terms of policy we're also very happy to see the there's a house biomass caucus which Kathy McMorris Rogers who's speaking at today's forum it is is one of the members of and we have a number of strong supporters in the Senate including Senator Franken and Senator King of Maine who have really been supportive of sort of leveling the playing field in terms of renewable energy tax credit structures so I think all of us are fairly familiar with how renewable energy investment tax credits have really helped out at key times with the solar and the wind industries this is essentially legislation that would address that would provide a similar solution for a number of other technologies that have not yet been been given that treatment so and a couple of other things that that BTEC does as an organization that you might be interested in and knowing about we're very big on really pushing pushing the industry forward in terms of efficiency and sustainability through codes and standards for for example boiler efficiency for grading different fuels for safe and proper storage of pellet fuels especially for example for developing a bulk delivery infrastructure for wood pellets as they much as they have in Europe and so and we also are partnering with a lot of our regional regional networks of sustainability advocates of folks in the forestry and agricultural and university sectors and in industry who are working on better solutions for for integrating biomass energy and making sure that it's really a good sustainable solution for us and so for example there's a new Yale University led feasibility of renewable thermal technology initiative which includes technologies such as geothermal heat pumps and solar thermal we also have the Pennsylvania biomass energy association a working group in the northeast called an I am a biomass thermal working group of the northeast and he in the Midwest so we really for you know folks who are in DC but also you know all across the country we're really seeing a lot of strides forward in in producing more of our heat and cooling from biomass and even producing a little bit of power from that as well so glad to talk to you about that and I hope you have a chance to stop by our booth thank you and I must say that biomass is often so misunderstood that there are so there's so much information that we need to know about biomass coming from all sorts of feedstocks all sorts of plant matters and it comes in many many shapes and sizes all over the country and so this panel is a great way to start to learn a lot more about all of that so we're not going to turn to Jennifer Jenkins who is the chief sustainability officer right thank you and it's my pleasure to be here really appreciate the invitation and so we'll talk a little bit about the practical sort of on the ground reality of sourcing biomass and making wood pellets I have four topics I want to talk to you about today the first one I'm going to talk a little bit about in Viva and our facilities and how we do business I'll talk about our supply chain sort of where we get our wood I want to set the stage for the Southeast US which is where we source the majority of our wood and where we make our pellets and then I'm going to talk to you a little bit about how we ensure sustainability so first with and even our facilities we are the world's largest maker of wood pellets are our facilities we have six facilities located in North Carolina Virginia Mississippi and Florida and we have we ship out of a couple of different ports from one from Port of Chesapeake near Norfolk Port of Wilmington Port of Panama City in Florida we do export at this point for now a hundred percent of our pellets mostly two customers in the EU and over in the European Union and in the United Kingdom in terms of our supply chain the thing I want to emphasize and this is sort of what my what what Ben had mentioned as well we when you go in and when somebody harvests a forest what they're really after are the big saw timber trees the pretty ones the ones without any crooks or you know eyes or any you know any any defects the ones that aren't crooked or forked but as part of the harvesting process you end up with a lot of other ones the ones that aren't so good-looking and those are typically the pulp wood they're smaller and the alternate fate for those trees is decay they would either lie on the forest floor or they or they would go to the pulp wood and paper industry which has a has a short-term turnaround and so the wood that we take really is the lower quality it's sort of the it is the residues from forest harvest it's the pulp quality trees it's not the saw timber trees we can't we can't afford those trees they're they're too big they're they're much more they're much more valuable in fact on average when we go into you know when we do take wood from a forest harvest and we're never taking all of it when we do take wood from a forest harvest on average we're taking about 37% of the of the wood that comes off that stand and it accounts for less than 10% of the economic value that's received so the saw timber trees are worth four to eight times as much as I said we do work in the southeast us so that we take wood from the forests that are there so for the most part those are mixed oak pine stands they are thinnings from southern yellow pine sort of an intermediate treatment when you go into improve the stand you take out trees that you don't want and then those are often the ones that we will take in terms of setting the stage for the southeast us there's more so this is a great place to work it's one of the world's biggest wood baskets there is more forest there now than there was in you know after World War two in the last 50 years there's even in addition to there being more forest acreage there's also more forest production so roundwood production in the southeast us has increased in all categories in the saw timber hardwood and softwood saw timber categories as well as the hardwood and softwood pulp categories 86% of the land base is privately owned so we don't actually own our own forests we do take wood from forests that the landowners are choosing to harvest often those forests are owned for their inheritance they're sort of a family asset and they're often used for revenue so it's a great place to do business the in terms of the three pillars of sustainability we we go beyond compliance in terms of the ensuring sustainability of the wood that we harvest that's as foresters we sustainability is our bread and butter right we don't have a forest resource if we don't maintain it and care for it appropriately so but in terms of how do we do that the the three pillars for us are we our certification we maintain all of the appropriate sort of third party certifications if you're familiar with this industry you know certification is a key part of it there are chain of custody and supply chain certifications that that are available for businesses like ours and we maintain them all so SFI is one for stewardship council is another PEFC which is a UK based certification we also maintain that for all of the wood that goes out of all of our ports we also choose to purchase whenever we can wood that has been grown on a certified forest now not much of the land base in the southeast u.s. is certified at all landowners find it's not worth their while often they don't get a revenue out of it so about less than 20% of the land base in the southeast u.s. is certified to any standard and so we do whenever we can source certified wood we end up with about 15% of certified wood in our supply chain the second pillar of sustainability for Enviva is our care for the forest landscape we as I said believe strongly in sustainability and and increased production and sustained production across the landscape we also believe there are certain forests that should not be touched they're just too precious and they're rare and they're too valuable and so for that we have two things that we have done that ensure that the first thing we do is we ensure that we don't source wood from those from those types of forest and we've identified them and we have indicators of what they are so that we stay away from them the second thing we've done is we have invested $500,000 a year for the next 10 years so total of $5 million in what we call the Enviva forest conservation fund which is a fund set aside for preservation of working forest landscapes and we do that because we believe that not only should we not harvest we don't believe those forests should be harvested by us or by anyone frankly and so we have made the investment in the company-wide commitment to save those forests from harvest. The third pillar is transparency so for every every load of wood that comes across our scales we know what its GPS coordinates were who the owner is you know what kind of forest it was where exactly exactly where it came from how old it was you know how much volume was sourced from that particular forest how much of the volume we received so that's actually industry leading I don't think you'll find any other company that is in business like ours that actually does that and we can we can provide those data and we will as soon as soon as we can we expect in the next few months to have something like that published online so that is what we do hopefully it gives you sort of an on the ground assessment of what a business like ours looks like we're very proud of it we provide wood pellets as a substitute for coal in power plants as a renewable fuel where it reduces greenhouse gas emissions. Great thanks so much Jennifer and obviously sustainability is key and thanks for talking about that. We're not going to turn to Chris Plylin who is with Growth Energy and he is the Director of Regulatory Affairs. Great thanks Carol I'm glad to be here thanks you all being here this morning. Growth Energy despite the name we are actually the Association of Ethanol Producers we represent about 85 of the nation's 200 biorefineries and we produce ethanol predominantly from corn despite what folks may think this is not corn that you eat on corn on the cob this is predominantly animal feed and we literally take the starch out of the corn produce fuel and the rest which are called distillers grains goes right back into the animal feed system. You know we talked about sustainability this morning we are really in the transportation fuel business. Just out of curiosity for a little audience participation who has fueled their car with ethanol all right who drives a car just let's start there. Okay well if you fueled within a hundred miles of here you put at least 10% ethanol in your car that's a little I'm not sure many folks know that. We as a nation use about 142 billion gallons of gasoline each year and the ethanol industry represents about 10% of that we were able to produce between 14 and 15 billion gallons it's predominantly blended as E10 or 10 you see it as regular gasoline but it's really a 10% ethanol blend and why do we blend ethanol into our gasoline well there's a couple different reasons most importantly ethanol is an oxygen it so you're getting octane and it helps your fuel burn much more efficiently it reduces particulate emissions it reduces greenhouse gas emissions ethanol is about 34% on average better for greenhouse gases than gasoline it takes things like carbon monoxide benzene toluene a lot of these are you know known toxins or carcinogens out of the atmosphere and so you know those are the sort of the consumer reasons you really want to blend with ethanol and part of this is what's happened here in Congress about 10 years ago Congress recognized the benefits well Congress recognized several different things at that point we were importing about 60 60 70% of our fuel from overseas a lot from countries that we do not get along with very well particularly in the Middle East and so Congress seeing a need implemented the renewable fuel standard it called for at that time it called for 15 billion gallons of renewable fuel to be blended into our nation's fuel supply it didn't most of it was from ethanol but also get into other fuels which we'll talk about later on Congress then revised it in 2007 adding a greenhouse gas reduction component to it and so today's renewable fuel standard calls for 36 billion gallons by 2022 we're in the process of going through the 2017 proposed rule now which EPA has said at 18.8 billion gallons of renewable fuel to be blended it sounds like a lot but when you talk about 142 billion gallons of gasoline and what 50 billion gallons diesel 50 60 something like that you're you know we're really a small part you know we've got a nation's transportation system which has been built for a hundred years purely on on oil you know when you guys go fill up your pump you've basically got three choices at best you know it's regular mid-grade or premium we're trying to change that we're trying to give you lots of opportunities to you know as a consumer you can go to the store and buy I can buy Dasani water I can buy Poland spring water I can buy big ones small ones when you go to the gas pump you like I said you've got three choices at best we want to give you the opportunity to fuel up with higher ethanol blends E85 even further reductions in greenhouse gas emissions either further particulate reductions E15 is being introduced in the market today E15 can be used in any vehicle that's 2001 or newer you're seeing it at places like sheets particularly in North Carolina racetrack just agreed to put it in a hundred stores come and go you know and it's selling for between five and ten cents less who doesn't want like who doesn't want to buy cheaper gasoline that's better for the environment I mean it's a no-brainer the problem is is access and that's really what the renewal fuel standard does for us a lot of people complain that it's a mandate but we've got a few we've got a transportation fuel system that's been built solely on oil and you can't just unlike you know buying water you can't just go and put it in the store you've got to have access to the marketplace and right now when you see Exxon or BP above a station you better believe they control what fuel goes into those those stations they may not own the station they certainly control what's available and so we're at the we're at the precipice of changing that the renewal fuel standard basically looks like this and calls for higher volumes but the only way to get that to work is to have these higher ethanol blends in or higher biofuel blends into place and we're seeing that today as I said we're you know we've got major retailers who are now offering these transportation fuels we think it's a win-win for consumers it's a win-win for the retailers and really it's a win-win for our nation you're getting substantial environmental benefits you're getting economic benefits ethanol is produced here domestically you know we support nearly 400,000 US jobs nearly 40 45 billion dollars to the economy and you know we're having to we're having to import less crude oil from you know overseas so ultimately we think this is a real solution for our transportation fuel system you know I think the other piece that we talked about as well is there's been a big focus on reducing I'm sorry improving gas mileage fuel mileage for cars as I mentioned earlier ethanol is a high-octane fuel so as car builders go to smaller more higher efficient engines they need higher octane fuels well nobody wants to buy an expensive premium to put in their new car ethanol if you blend it's say a 30 percent ethanol rate you're actually getting a fuel that's cheaper than regular gasoline and at a premium octane level like a 92 octane so again it's we think you know ethanol is a winner we think biofuels are a winner we think they help all the goals that we're talking about today and with that I'll turn it back over thanks great thank you so we're not going to look at another very important biofuel and to hear about that we will turn to Ben Evans who is the director of public affairs with the National Biofuel well thanks Carol and thanks to the coalition for putting on another great expo this year and for giving us a chance to talk about biodiesel and the role that it's playing in the nation's energy mix again my name is Ben Evans I'm the director of public affairs for the National Biodiesel board we represent biodiesel and renewable diesel which is a similar renewable fuel diesel replacement it's made using a slightly different technology from from biodiesel we have about 200 members across the country we represent fuel producers fuel distributors feedstock suppliers and others there are biodiesel and renewable diesel plants in almost every state in the country from from California to Iowa to Rhode Island and they're making fuel from a wide variety of of feedstocks biodiesel can be made from any kind of fat or oil the leading feedstocks in the US are plant oils like like soybean oil recycled cooking oil animal fats rendered animal fats and the diversity in those feedstocks is actually a real benefit for the industry and for the markets last year the biodiesel and renewable diesel industry supported about almost 50,000 jobs across the country so obviously ethanol sort of dominates the conversation in in Washington over renewable fuels I think that's understandable given that it's by far the largest renewable fuel at about 15 billion gallons but we we think that the that the biodiesel story is really another sort of remarkable success story in the renewable fuel space that it doesn't get a lot of attention so I'm happy to have the opportunity to talk about it so if you look back 10 years biodiesel was really sort of an niche industry we you had some co-ops and small companies producing biodiesel we did about 25 million gallons in 2005 so fast forward to last year and American consumers used almost 2.1 billion gallons of biodiesel in 2015 it's 2.1 billion gallons out of a diesel market of about the on-road diesel market is about 40 billion gallons the overall if you take into account all industrial use is everything is about 60 so clearly the industry has grown a tremendous amount over the past decade and that's really a testament to policies like the renewable fuel standard and the biodiesel tax incentive that are stimulating investment and growth and hiring in the industry around the country we're now to a point where a lot of the truck stops around the country are selling biodiesel blends of 10 15 maybe 20% you have fleets corporate fleets school bus fleets you know utilities and municipalities are turning to biodiesel to reduce the carbon footprint of their buses and trucks and if you drive a diesel vehicle and you go buy diesel fuel in the United States you're likely getting up to 5% biodiesel at times without even knowing it biodiesel up to 5% meets the same technical specification as petroleum diesel doesn't even require labeling and that's an important point biodiesel doesn't require any sort of modification to your engine it can be used in existing diesel engines to as they are today so I think one of the one of the things we're most proud of is the role that that biodiesel is playing in and in delivering advanced biofuels to consumers there's a lot of talk about advanced biofuels not happening as quickly as folks had hoped certainly cellulosic has been cellulosic ethanol has been a little slower to develop than was anticipated but biodiesel is proving that we can develop advanced biofuels on a commercial scale nationwide in an economical way and deliver it to American consumers with real huge reductions in greenhouse gas emissions so what does that mean what is an advanced biofuel a lot of people throw that term around in different ways but we like to stick with the with the EPA's definition which is that an advanced biofuel reduces greenhouse gas emissions by at least 50% compared to petroleum diesel or the petroleum counterpart baseline fuel so in its analysis for the RFS the EPA found that biodiesel reduces greenhouse gas emissions by at least 57% and as much as 86% compared with petroleum diesel and that's including everything all the energy inputs that go into making the fuel the in any indirect impacts the tailpipe pollution it's really the whole shooting match it's 57 to 86% the California Air Resources Board and developing a low carbon fuel standard recently came up with a similar result of 50% reduction to 81% reduction again depending on which feedstock is used to make the fuel so you know I want to repeat that every gallon of biodiesel that we use instead of petroleum diesel is reducing greenhouse gas emissions by at least 50% and as much as 86% and that is a tremendous reduction there's not a fuel on the planet that delivers that level of a carbon reduction at least it's you know in commercial scale production on a widespread level nationwide and and so we're very proud of that biodiesel in fact is the first and it's so far the only advanced biofuel that's designated as such by the EPA with with commercial scale production on a on a nationwide basis so and I think that's particularly important and Chris Chris got to this a little bit the the transportation sector accounts for more than a quarter of us greenhouse gas emissions there's a lot of talk with the clean power plan about the utility sector that's about 30% of us greenhouse gas emissions the transportation is second in in terms of the sectors at 26% so clearly if we're going to do something about greenhouse gas emissions in the United States we have to do more with finding alternatives petroleum and the RFS is doing that you know I think everybody hope once things to change overnight nothing's going to change overnight but we're making real progress with the RFS in displacing petroleum and we can continue doing that with with with with smart policy moving forward so I think with that Carol I'll stop there. Okay thank you. Thank you so much. Well our final speaker on this panel is Claude Condesur who is the CEO and general counsel for plant oil powered diesel or POS. Claude? Thank you Carol I'd also like to thank our hosts the energy the environmental and energy study institute the sustainable energy coalition and the United States Senate and House of Representatives renewable fuel and energy efficiency caucuses. Plant oil powered or pop diesel is the first company in 2013 to win US EPA approval to sell 100% ordinary plant oil as fuel to power diesel engines when I say plant oil I'm speaking basically of vegetable oil like the stuff you buy at the grocery store. The engines have to have our special EPA approved and patented auxiliary fuel system installed on them which doesn't change the engine at all it's just a secondary fuel tank to hold the plant oil but other than the brief startup and shutdown period on petroleum diesel the engine runs on 100% ordinary plant oil this fuel is better performing than petroleum diesel in the engine pop diesel will be able to sell it for 50 cents a gallon less than petroleum diesel even at the lowest prices that petroleum reached in the last year and that takes into account the use of 10% additional plant oil fuel to power the compression ignition or diesel engine because of the fact that it has slightly lower energy content still 50 cents a gallon in real cost savings to the trucking customer and with our equipment installed the engine runs on 100% plant oil pop diesel has gotten approval from the EPA for a specific kind of plant oil from the Hitropha tree whose fruit and seeds are inedible and therefore don't compete with the food supply if they're used to make biofuel and let me just distinguish a little bit between Hitropha plant oil fuel and biodiesel because we're commonly confused our fuel is commonly confused with biodiesel biodiesel starts out as as plant oil the molecule pictured on your left and then it undergoes and very energy intensive and costly transformation which actually restructures the molecule into something else which is called biodiesel then the biodiesel is restricted by nationwide standards adopted by the petroleum industry to being blended for on-road use and only a 5% concentration so when you hear of biodiesel being used by a municipality or a trucking fleet typically it's going to be 5% biodiesel and 95% petroleum diesel there are some engines that can run on as much as 20% biodiesel but then it's still 80% petroleum diesel studies done by the national renewable energy laboratory a survey conducted and commissioned by EPA conducted for EPA found that when you take the ordinary plant oil and you process it into biodiesel you basically double the amount of energy that's invested in the fuel the European Union EPA made its finding that Ben spoke about concerning biodiesels providing 50% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions I think it was in 2008 the European Union did a revisit of that issue in the last year and found that basically biodiesel when you process the plant oil into the biodiesel you produce more overall greenhouse gas emissions not just out the tailpipe but in the manufacturer etc of the fuel you end up with between 1.3 and three times more overall greenhouse gas emissions put into the atmosphere than if you just left the plant oil in its ordinary state so because we pop diesel does not further process the plant oil into biodiesel we can sell the fuel for the low price that I mentioned 50 cents a gallon below the price of petroleum diesel let me speak to you a little bit about our method of growing hetropha hetropha tree grows in all of the non-arid tropical areas of the world pop diesel works only in non forested areas savannah land that does not have trees on it or at least forest land it's not forest land we partner with small scale farmers they grow the trees on their own land for every acre of hetropha trees that a farmer plants in partnership with pop diesel we support the farmer to grow between one and three acres of food crops some opponents of biofuels say that there's a choice between using land for to make biofuels or to grow food crops and this is simply not true if you're growing in areas that are savannah land that are not forested and there are vast expanses of the tropical world in Africa Asia and South America that are not forested and that are not being used or that are agricultural land or past agricultural land that's lying fallow where farmers can grow both hetropha trees and food crops when pop diesel supports a farmer to grow food crops the farmer gets yield of the food crop between two and five times more than if the farmer were growing it on his or her own so we don't think there's a choice between hetropha by the method that pop diesel has adopted on growing the trees on non forested savannah land and supporting the local farmers to grow food crops as well the hetropha tree is a remarkable tree in some respects well first of all let me just say that we believe that it's nature's best carbon sequestration device because it produces the highest yield of oil per acre of any tree or crop other than palm oil trees and palm oil of course is a food product so if it's used to make biodiesel or some other biofuel then you're diverting that supply away from the food commodity in addition palm trees extend their roots shallow and wide and they tend to extract nutrients out of the top soil and that's created a lot of problems for the image of biofuels in developing countries because palm trees do take the diminish the quality of the soil in contrast the hetropha tree it's a softwood tree and it extends its roots deep and they take minerals and other nutrients from below the top soil and bring them to the surface and when the the fruit and the leaves and the branches decompose when they fall to the earth and decompose you contribute those additional minerals and other nutrients back to the soil so hetropha trees actually enrich the soil and leave it better for later on I've seen land that was completely cleared of top soil hetropha trees were planted on this barren land and were allowed to grow the fruit sleeves and trees fell to the ground and decomposed and also the hetropha has a very high nitrogen content so when that decomposes it enriched further and reaches of soil four or five years later the hetropha trees were cut down and you had very rich dark top soil with lots of earthworms in it ideal for growing additional crops so with with that in mind pop diesel has the idea that if we take an area the size of the Amazon rainforest and we planted that in West Africa half in hetropha trees and half in food crops then we could supply all of the petroleum diesel needs of the United States both on-road and off-road in addition we would generate enough food crops to feed 1.5 billion people this is entirely feasible to do this book which is titled collapse how societies choose to fail or succeed by Pulitzer Prize winning author Jared Diamond in its chapter 9 explains that the country of Japan was on its way to becoming denuded of trees several centuries ago the leaders got together made a conscious decision to reforest and today Japan is one of the most highly forested countries in the world as being as well as being one of the most highly intensely populated with the highest population density within the industrial world so this has been done already in Japan and with the hetropha tree we can do this in areas of of the world that are presently not forested and when pop diesel will be planting by 2018 45 million hetropha trees in a concentrated area of 30,000 acres in partnership with small-scale farmers in West Africa and when you plant that many trees in an area the trees transpire they give moisture back to the atmosphere and if this is done in a systemic way then indeed you can begin to add more moisture to the atmosphere and ultimately reverse the the desertification that is occurring from North Africa spreading down up to the Atlantic coast and and change the the climate there and produce more moisture as well as I said producing enough potentially hetropha plant oil to supply America's needs and additional food crops briefly on policy matters pop diesel is not allowed to sell our products to the US market although we've proven to EPA that the emissions from hetropha plant oil are no worse than petroleum diesel EPAs greenhouse gas regulations are not based on life cycle emissions they look oddly only at tailpipe emissions and because of the particular structure of the plant oil molecule plant oil produces higher tailpipe emissions but has much lower overall net life cycle emissions but because EPA in its in its regulations of which engines can be sold to the US market looks only a tailpipe emissions unless EPA adopts revised regulations which they are supposed to be announcing next month we will not be able to sell these engines to the US market one last point I know my time is expired okay is that the EPA regulations on which hetropha plant oil can come into the US are overly restrictive because they prevent essentially this kind of oil from coming from Africa and Asia because those countries didn't keep paper records of what the land was used for back in 2007 so as a result pop diesel believes that the renewable fuel standard in the hands of a government agency is really not the way to go and we would support adoption of a fossil fuel tax and elimination of specialized credits and subsidies that are presently awarded to certain kinds of fuels and technologies not only in the motor fuel area but in other areas as well when solar etc thank you very much thank you Claude we are running a little short on time but I just wanted to mention that here again it's an example of how there are so many different kinds of feedstocks appropriate in different places that can make such a difference and obviously we should remember that our transportation sector as as you've heard is so dependent upon petroleum and we now have more greenhouse gas emissions from petroleum in this country than we do from coal so it's just important to keep all of that in perspective and I think there's a clarification I just wanted to make clarify a couple of things you talked about 20% 5% by it is the vast majority of vehicles and it sold in the United States support 20% blends of biodiesel there's a few brands that don't the vast majority do the state of Illinois has had a tax incentive for 11% biodiesel for five years almost every vehicle in the state of Illinois runs on 11% biodiesel if it's a diesel vehicle so that there was a little misinformation there about the 5% limit and then you mentioned the EU study there's all sorts of studies about renewable fuels I think we all we all know that about the emissions of biomass and renewable fuels but the EPA analysis was in 2010 in the California Air Resources Board was just in the last year when they analyzed biodiesel and found the 50 to 81% and I don't think anybody would argue that carb is a regulatory pushover that is for sure and that they have been moving forward on all sorts of greenhouse emissions standards and also a low carbon fuel standard as well so I want to thank all of our panelists and if you've got questions you know please see them like out in the hall and we look forward to having our next panel prepare and come up thank you very much


Thank you. I'm very glad to be speaking here today because food has always been something very, very close to my heart since a very young age. I became an orphan when I was seven years old and that is the time that I learned how to work to put food on my plate. And I was out of school when I was nine years old because I could not afford to go to school in the morning, make home work so I can have maize milk to make our only meal of the day. I left school when I was nine and when I was ten I was offered to marry a guy who was 30 years my senior so I could have food on my plate. And so from that background I understand food is something that can change a lot of the major issues of our time starting from early childhood marriages, violence against women, especially in the past of the world where I come from.  And that was me at ten. When I was eleven years old I learned about mushrooms and that was the turning point for me. I learned to farm mushrooms as a young girl of eleven years old and that was the first time I experienced how to put food on my table in the easiest way than I had been doing before. I was trying to farm we had a piece of land that belonged to my grandmother who was already over a hundred years old and I was farming at the end of each day all I had was just stalks with no corn on it and I could not do anything with it. When I learned to farm mushrooms I discovered to grow mushrooms you use agricultural waste that is available in all the poor families in any place we can say this is a struggling country as long as they practice some form of agriculture they will have this kind of waste material. Growing up as an orphan in sub-Saharan Africa I was one of the 34 million orphans who at one point have to be married off so they can have food on their plate or they have to withstand different forms of abuse so they can eat food before they go to bed. In Zimbabwe alone where we have a population of 14 million people 1.5 of that are orphans and about 3.5 of them they go to bed hungry now as a young girl of 11 finding out that by converting agricultural waste I can produce food I set out to understanding deeply about the art of cultivating mushrooms and simplifying it so we can reach as many people as possible and for me my commitment was to reach young orphans who were going through the same situation like I had to go through as a young girl. Mushrooms are very high in protein they also have a bit of carbohydrates and they have a lot of essential amino acids as well so they are very healthy food as a food but they also work as a medicine and I went as a young girl of 12 to a university where I spent time learning more about mushrooms learning how I can grow mushrooms from different kinds of waste material and this is from corn stalks from chicken manure from cow dung but also coffee and that is me when I was starting to grow mushrooms as a young girl and without any understanding of science and of course I decided I would simplify and travel to different places in the world and adjust the growing spaces mushrooms are growing in very small space but most of the times it's made to be a sterile environment where you have to do a lot of work sterilizing everything and I figured out a model how to simplify that so village women in Zimbabwe can do it on one square meter of land you can produce 75 kilograms of mushrooms in three months and this is a lot of food especially when you consider that one kilogram of these mushrooms can be sold for seven American dollars in a country where a lot of the times people who are suffering with HIV and AIDS they don't even get a dollar to get a supply of their medication for a month young girls who have an opportunity to go to school they have to stop going to school when they're having their period because they can't buy sanitary pads for when they have their period and in some cases they're actually using cow dung because they don't have anything else to use so for me it was important to simplify that and so we are growing mushrooms in different structures that can be built using what the people have available and for me this defines the future of food empowering people, capacitating people to use what they have, where they are to produce food learning from their cultural practices I was harvesting mushrooms in the forest with my grandmother as a young girl of seven and so cultivating mushrooms is really building a tradition that has been there for a long time and only now lost in the name of civilization and so we are working now with groups of women in different places, children and men together teaching them how to use the waste materials that they have to grow mushrooms and one would wonder, I mean yes you grow 75 kilograms of mushrooms on a square meter what amounts of waste and how does that work so you get, if you have 100 kilograms of waste you get 50 kilograms of mushrooms and then you have a waste material that you can use as a fertilizer for growing other food and so this is the work that we are doing with local communities, awakening individual persons with the little resources that they have that they can contribute towards the future of food production and what I believe in personally is that food production has to belong in the hands of everyone everyone has to own the means of producing their own food and everything, every system that we develop going forward in food production have to be adjusted so they can fit in the local practices of every place in question and we need to build collaborations that helps us to understand beyond just what we do in our little circle because the work that I have done with mushrooms that is a young girl who wanted to put food on her plate to helping communities around me but also to impacting the lives of others globally where we train entrepreneurs actually through converting coffee the waste from coffee that you have in your tea into mushrooms because for all the coffee that is produced in the world what we drink is only 0.2% of what is produced in total and the rest, 98%, 99% is thrown away and we take that waste material first on the farm convert it into mushrooms and then we go into cafes we have this happening here in the USA in San Francisco where I train them to convert waste material from coffee from the cafes from the Starbucks into mushrooms and we have adjusted the method of production so it can be implemented in different places in the basement of this place now we can turn it into a mushroom house and for us this is something that is important so in short I would say the future of food for me means collaborations collaborations that mess up this is a bit what's between me and the people from MAD where I grow food and I see what they do as the chefs and we actually plan to have a big event in Zimbabwe where we will produce food and we will work on processing that food together this year and these collaborations are what is going to change and everyone taking responsibility is going to redefine and reshape the future of food where we all get responsible to change it thank you


Hello everybody. Welcome to Recovery Monday, episode number 47. We're going to wait for the usual suspects to start to roll in. First guy's in. Let me know that you can hear me. Let me know you can see me. Let me know everything is working. I desperately need new headphones. These headphones are literally falling apart. New ones are on the way. They just didn't get here on time today. So yeah, we're doing this is episode 47 of this. Oh, look at that. I'm testing at a new thing. And sure enough, it actually works on my website. A new way to broadcast these. Anyway, today, we're going to do a little chat about choosing a therapist, what to look for, how somebody becomes a therapist, so you know where they're coming from, different theoretical orientations, making sure that somebody fits with you, the fact that you might have to switch therapists from time to time. That's pretty normal. That happens pretty often. So it's not failure for you that we're going to talk about all of those things today. So let's wait for everybody to start to show up. Let's put the chat up here so I can see what's going on. Hello, Sarah. Hey, Julie, what up? I'll put it up on the screen. While we're waiting for everybody to roll in just for posterity, a couple of things to remember is that if you're following along with this content, and you are digging it, I'm going to hide this and I put some stuff up on the screen. Remember that I have written three books about anxiety and anxiety recovery there here on the screen. And you can find them at this URL at the bottom of your screen, the anxious treat comm slash books. So that's kind of new. I'm playing with all the toys today. I will also remind you that on the 19th of this month, Lauren, not Lauren, Joanna Hardison, I'm going to do our distress tolerance webinar again. That seems to be going over pretty well. So if you pop on over to the URL below that bit.ly slash tolerating distress, you can check out that webinar. We do it once every month. It's limited to 20 people. So pop on in if you want to register for that. I will hide this now. We will put the regular stuff up on the screen so we can get rolling here. I'll put the chat overlay up like I usually do. Hello from Scotland. Debbie Ellis. Oh, licensed clinical social worker. Welcome, Debbie. Debbie's a therapist. We're going to talk about this today. So Debbie knows what we're talking about. Boston in the house. Hello, strong island neighbor. Long Islander. Decatur, Texas. Today I'm wearing my contacts, not my glasses. I'm playing with a new prescription. So hopefully that will work. Let's see. I might have to put the reading glasses on. No, these are working great. New contacts. Isn't it great when you get new glasses and new contacts and you can actually see. So I'm digging that. So we've got 25 people here. Fancy new background. Yes, I have a new fancy background. I decided to try something different today. All the new toys. We have a new intro and all that stuff today. So there you go. Who else is here? New Hampshire is here. Kathleen. Let me close this real quick. If you're coming from the Facebook group, I won't be able to see your name. I'll only see Facebook user. That's okay. That's just the way StreamYard works. That's okay. Hey, look, so we get another Twitch person as tech working. Welcome. Welcome from Twitch, Boston again, Penelope Cruzify, which that screen name just kills me every single time. I appreciate you for being witty and your screen name. That's really cool. Hey, Jim, what up? Good to see you, my friend. So let's get cooking here. We're a few minutes in and before people start to bail because they're getting bored of me here, hearing me just riff. Today we're going to talk a little bit about choosing a therapist, like tips on choosing a therapist. So first of all, you guys know that I'm a huge fan of professional help. I think if you can access professional mental health help, that's a huge win. It's a big bonus. It helps things along a lot. You don't have to. People do recover completely without a therapist. For the most part, I did all my work without a therapist. I did have a therapist for a little while, but she was not actually an anxiety specialist, believe it or not, but it still worked out for me pretty well. But I did most of my work without a therapist. You don't have to have one. But if you would like to work with a therapist, we'll talk a little bit today about things that you can look for. Remember that I am in the United States. So I am most familiar with the way it works in the United States. I'm currently a graduate student in clinical mental health counseling. I am in the thick of becoming a licensed therapist. So I'm familiar with how this all works. I cannot say how it works in your country. I'm somewhat familiar with the way it works in the UK, but beyond that, I'm not 100% sure. So most of what I'm talking about here in terms of legal stuff and licensing will be US focused, but so many other stuff will apply in just about any country. So hopefully it will be helpful to you guys. So let's see here. She is one of Joshua's Fletcher's colleagues and she's great. I'm super hopeful. Excellent. Love it. So it's always, it's great when you find a therapist that you click with. So let's talk about that. What people often ask, like, how do I find a therapist? I'm going to touch on a few things. People often ask, how do I find a therapist that follows like your method? First of all, I say a million times, it's not my method. I didn't invent this. I'm just seemingly good at explaining it, I guess. So that's my thing, but it's not my method.  So people ask all the time, like, how can I find somebody who follows your method? Well, it's not my method. It's not the clear weeks method. It's a theoretical orientation that's focused on cognition and behaviorism, right? So, and that's complicated, but that's kind of where you want to go. And you're looking for somebody who really specializes in treating anxiety disorders, if at all possible. A lot of therapists are going to include, like, if you look in the US at the psychology today, directory of therapists, and we're going to talk about therapist directories too, because there's some really shady stuff going on right now in the industry, which is not cool. But if you look, almost every therapist will put anxiety in the things that they treat, almost every one of them. But that doesn't make them an anxiety specialist. So that's one of those things we're going to talk about today. So what is the difference between the different types of help that you can access? Excuse me. So you have a few choices, at least here in the US. And again, this may or may not drive in your country, but guidelines are probably roughly the same. People often don't know the difference between a psychiatrist and a psychologist. A psychiatrist is its own form of mental health profession or helper, if you will. A psychiatrist is a medical doctor. That is somebody who went to medical school. They generally follow a medical model. So when you find people who are involved in treating anxiety, depression and that sort of stuff, and they are a psychiatrist, you know that that person has been through medical school, and they specialized in med school in psychiatry, they have the ability in the United States to prescribe and manage medication use. So if you're working with a therapist and therapist and psychiatrist rarely go together anymore, at least here in the West, we don't usually use those terms interchangeably anymore. So if you're working with a psychiatrist, somebody who is giving you medications and managing that, you're working with somebody who has gone to medical school. Is that better or worse than somebody who has not gone to medical school? It's just different. So I'm sure I'm not taking away from anybody who has been through medical school and obtained a medical license. That's impressive as all get at my respect all of that. But in the case that we're talking about here, is it better if you have a psychiatrist who has a medical degree? It's not better or worse. It's just different. And you keep in mind that a psychiatrist will tend to have a more medical model that they follow in treating these sort of things, mental health issues. But that's okay. I'm not faulting them. That's their training. A psychologist or somebody who has the term, the title psychotherapist or counselor, mental health counselor, Debbie's here, she's a licensed clinical social worker. These are people who are not medically trained. Like I will not be a doctor, I'm not going to be a medical doctor, I will, I'm going to be a therapist. So psychotherapy is also the realm of people who do not go to medical school. So if you are working with a psychologist or a mental health counselor or a clinical social worker, somebody like that, then you're working with somebody who is not medically trained and cannot prescribe or manage your medication use, because it's just outside of our belly wick. Sometimes those people will work as part of a team. And if you have a psychiatrist or in some cases a general practitioner who is working with you with meds, then your therapist, your psychologist, your counselor, your LCSW may work with that doctor, psychiatrist or GP to work together and consult with each other to make sure that everybody's on the same page. But a psychologist or a counselor is not able to prescribe or manage medications with you. And we'll generally steer clear from offering advice about medication because you just can't, that's not what we're trained to do. So that's a big difference between psychiatrist and psychologist, counselor, social worker. And I think it's a good place to start, because for a long, long time people would go to a doctor and wind up getting referred to a psychiatrist and think that that is therapy. In some cases, is a psychiatrist practicing psychotherapy? Yeah, I'm not going to say they're not, but in most cases these days, and I'm going by my own experience dealing with thousands of thousands of people, it's kind of rare to find a psychiatrist that engages in practicing therapy or psychotherapy. And copper clearly has an opinion on that too. So just note the difference there.  And a psychologist generally has a doctoral level degree. That is a PhD or in the U.S. a PSID, PSY.D. That means that that person has got an undergraduate degree and then a graduate degree beyond the master's level. They are a doctoral level. They've obtained a doctoral degree. So a PhD is a little bit more research oriented, where PSY.D. is somebody who's a little more clinically oriented. But in both cases, that person has earned the right to call themselves a clinical or a licensed psychologist. So I will not be a licensed psychologist because I am not getting a doctoral degree. I'm getting a master's degree. So other types of mental health helpers that you may run across. And this is probably the majority right now, I would think. Yes, you can, you could see if copper has openings, but he's not taking any new patients right now. But he, the vast majority I think these days, just because there's so much of a need for it, are people who are trained at the master's level. That will be me. So people who have a master's degree in not in psychology, usually it is a master's degree specifically in social work or in clinical, my master's degree, clinical mental health counseling, an MA in psychology, like a general psychology degree does not qualify you in most states to become a licensed psychotherapist. So at the master's level, you're getting somebody who is trained to be a therapist specifically. And we do not engage in the type of research activity that PSY.D. and PhD candidates do. So that is the difference educationally, right? You can have somebody, nobody that is at least in the United States, nobody who just has an undergraduate degree in psychology is qualified to be a therapist. So an undergraduate degree in psychology really kind of qualifies you to do nothing, which is true. That's, I don't mean to, I'm not, I'm not taking away from anybody who gets a degree in psychology. That's totally fine. I had a minor in behavioral psych is an undergrad. That's cool. But an undergraduate degree in psychology does not qualify you to be a psychologist, a therapist, or anything like that.  Sometimes you'd be LPC, licensed professional counselor. So you might have the title counselor, you may have the title psychotherapist, they're interchangeable, I would probably use the term psychotherapist, it doesn't matter in the end, but we are all trained at the master's level also. In many states in the United States, somebody who studies social work, it gets a master's degree in social work can be a licensed clinical social worker. And those people are also qualified to practice psychotherapy. And there are LCSWs, clinical social workers who do specialize in treating anxiety disorders. In every one of these cases, you're still looking for somebody who is specializing in treating anxiety disorders. So even if that's a psychiatrist, you might have to dig a little bit, but you'd want somebody again who is focused on anxiety disorders. So this is sort of the educational differences, at least here in the U.S. Again, it's really important to remember, nobody can get a certificate that says that they are a therapist in the U.S.  You can have an undergraduate degree, get a certificate and call yourself a therapist. You can't get a certificate for coaching and call yourself a therapist. In every state in the U.S., this is a licensed and regulated profession and I think probably rightly so. Now we can argue about the shortage of help and we need to be better at providing more helpers because we are literally in a mental health crisis, at least here in the States and I think pretty much everywhere, but there's not enough therapy to go around. That's true. So that's sort of the educational differences that you can find and the differences between a medical doctor, somebody who's not medically trained, somebody at the doctoral level and the titles they can have, somebody at the master's level and the titles they can have and the education below that does not get a title at all, nor would they be legally able to practice psychotherapy anywhere in the United States. Now in the U.K., I understand it's a little bit different and I could be wrong here, but with all the work that I've done with my friends in the U.K., Josh and that crowd, it would appear that anybody with no education and no qualification can call themselves a therapist and there is no law against that. Here in the States, at least in New York and in most States, somebody with an undergrad degree or no qualifications who's not passed the licensing exam could not legally say they are a therapist, but it seems to be that in the U.K. that is possible. I don't know about other countries, I can't really tell you. So what does it mean when you go and reach out to a therapist? Like what are you going to get from them? What do you have to look for? Really the probably the most important part of choosing a therapist is finding a therapist that you click with, that you connect with, that you can trust, that you can form a relationship with, that you feel is there to help you, that you see as an ally and a resource. Like the personal relationship between the client and the therapist is probably the most important part of the therapeutic endeavor to be honest with you. So there's a lot of evidence that says in therapy almost everything works if you have a good relationship with your therapist and that's true, but what you're looking for is somebody that not only in the U.S. this would be you are qualified to be a therapist, that's your qualification or your credential. So I will be licensed LMHC in New York or somebody might be LPC or licensed marriage and family therapist, LMFT is another one, LCSW, that is your qualification or your credential, but on top of that you might want to look for somebody who has a certification in certain modalities and treatment types that focus on anxiety disorders. That might be people who have certifications in cognitive behavioral therapy and dialectical behavior therapy and metacognitive therapy and acceptance of commitment therapy. There's a bunch of different CBT and CBT variants and subtypes that you would then after I finish my master's degree, I will get certifications in one or more of those. That is additional on top of your education. So some people think that you just finished your degree and as part of my master's degree I learned all about anxiety disorders, but the reality is that's not true. The reality is that after the master's level with a master's level therapist, that's when the certifications and specializations begin to kick in and we are taught at the master's level to pick a specialization if possible and investigate what it takes to be additionally trained and certified in those areas. So even though every therapist in the online directories will tell you that they do treat anxiety and that's true because anxiety is the single most common presenting mental health problem in any therapist's office, if somebody has some form of anxiety, it doesn't necessarily mean that that therapist is certified or specialized in treating anxiety disorders the way you hear me and people who sound like me talk about them. So if you're asking about that with a therapist you would want to specifically ask do you specialize in treating anxiety disorders? Not do you treat anxiety because almost all of them will say oh I do anxiety, yes I do that, I have patience with anxiety. You really want somebody who says this is my specialty, this is what I do. Like I have a professor this this term in my master's program that is what he does. He is a specialist treating anxiety disorders. When you hear me collaborate with people like Lauren Rosen or Joanna Hardis or Josh or Kim they specialize. These are specialists that's what I will be. So it's kind of important to do that because treating anxiety disorders it's almost its own thing. If you're not familiar with the mechanics, if you're not aware of how these things really work the people who specialize in treating anxiety disorders are like odd ducks in therapy circles. So even in my master's program when I talk about anxiety disorders people tilt their head and look at me funny because it's not intuitive. So much of what we talk about and you guys know this are not intuitive. These things go counter to common sense. They feel like this is not what I should be doing, I should be trying to feel safe, I should be grounding, I should be doing all the things to calm down. And me while you got guys like me out there saying no no no that's the bad lesson you shouldn't do that so we're often a little bit weird in therapy circles. We're the engineers, we're the mechanics, we're the odd ducks out in a way. And it's been fascinating as part of the educational process to have people say this to me and have professors say oh no no no he's one of them in the most respectful way that's not an insult. Like no no no if you run across this problem you listen to somebody like Drew he's not wrong about this. But a lot of therapists aren't interested in treating anxiety disorders and that's okay they don't have to in a way. So you want somebody who really is focused on treating anxiety disorders like panic disorder, agoraphobia, health anxiety, OCD really helpful if you can find somebody like that. Now I do understand it's hard to find a therapist as it is. Finding somebody who specializes in that who doesn't have right now like a two-year waiting list is really hard. Like let me I don't have an answer to that I wish I did. I mean I guess in about two years I'll be one answer to that if you live in New York. But I do understand that this is true. It is not easy to find a therapist so you really have three things that you're trying to accomplish. If you're listening to me because you're dealing with OCD or panic disorder or agoraphobia and you want to find professional help you want somebody who is qualified and credentialed which means they are a psychiatrist they're a doctoral level psychologist they're a master's level psychotherapist that's the first thing. So you got to find that you got to find somebody who has availability who can take new patients you have to find somebody who is well versed and potential and really preferably specializes in treating anxiety disorders and then most important you have to find that person and be able to build a relationship with them that's really important. Like even though anxiety specialists tend to be mechanical more so than other types of therapists that therapeutic relationship is very very important to us too like or to me too to those clinicians as well. Building a therapeutic relationship where there's a click you trust me you can get behind what I'm saying you know that I have your best interest in mind we just have a connection you know how that is the relationship with the therapist is like any other relationship some you click well with some you don't that's okay we all have different personalities right so I can tell you for sure that there are some very big names in this field some of which has been on my podcast and I know people that have had them those people who have very big names in the field sometimes are also practicing clinicians who get rave reviews from some of their past clients and terrible reviews from other others even though nobody would doubt their knowledge they're tremendous contributors to the field but they have personalities like everybody else so they don't click with everybody I wouldn't click with everybody right so those are the things you're looking for now let's talk for a quick second where are we here 20 minutes I have a lot to say today clearly let's talk for a second about online directories of therapists because this is this is becoming a thing now in the era of the internet you would think well this is great because now we have directories where I can go and find a therapist here in the states you can say what state you live in you could stay with zip code you are and I'm sure there are in other countries as well and find therapists of various types they might be doctor or level or they might be master's level whatever social workers that can treat because of the legal structure like yes you live in this zip code I can treat you no problem and they will tell you this is here's my bio here's my education here's my my view of therapy give me call maybe we could work it out okay what's happening is the good part of the internet is now being really cloudied by some really shady stuff so there are companies that do online therapy and you you know some of the names right so you've seen if you watch any youtube videos if you've watched any of my youtube videos and I bet you are seeing ads in your youtube stream from some of these companies that are providing online therapy services especially in the last three years that has exploded so some of those companies now are beginning to co-opt the other directories even the neutral directories so if you go to a therapy directory one there's one company I'm not going to name the name this is not okay but you have to be careful about that because if you go to find a therapist online and you find a therapist that you think you want to contact and that listing says oh yeah cool but this therapist is really super busy and might not be able to take you so click over here and you wind up in another directory that's proprietary to a particular company that particular online therapy company and that's what they are their companies red flag so now you're starting to see that those companies are beginning to game that's you got it that's exactly right those companies are beginning to game the system so I might not be in their directory because I don't practice with that particular company but they'll put me in there anyway make it look like it's not them and then when you click on my name they'll tell you he's really busy he can't take you but here's some people who can so they're beginning to actually leverage the internet and the SEO game to try to get business yeah in a kind of a shady way so just be aware of that too finding a therapist is not an easy thing and the other thing I'll say before I take some questions and comments here is in the end I think it's about finding the person you click with that's really important and that might mean that you change therapists you may interview a therapist have a session or two and decide this is not working out you may immediately on the phone before you ever have a session say this isn't working out you may get down the road six months and it was working great and now it's not anymore that's okay that sometimes we have to change that's normal it's really important to understand that if you feel like you need to change therapists or you go and talk to the therapist and you don't want to hire them that has nothing to do with them at all like it's just like a plumber in a way I'm being trained to know that that has nothing to do with me I mean we might not click I can't make you hire me I can't make you like me I can't make you do any of those things I could be as authentic as I could be I could be as congruent as I could be I could be transparent I could be knowledgeable I could be evidence-based and ethical but if you don't connect with me that's okay it's not your responsibility to manage your therapist's feelings ever so especially if you deal with a little bit of social anxiety or attachment based anxiety where you feel like you need the approval of your therapist or you can't stand the thought your therapist might not like you you don't have to worry about that your therapist is being trained to understand that if if you leave me I'm actually going to help you find somebody to replace me it's part of my job and it is not on you to make sure you don't hurt my feelings I'm not saying to be nasty or violent or disrespectful but changing therapists is very very common it happens all the time and we're actually trained to recognize when well maybe that is sure this is a good fit it doesn't this might not be a good fit is it okay like we're always trained to circle back and make sure is this okay to give you every opportunity to say I'm not really feeling it with you anymore and we talk about a change absolutely you can talk about a change so you don't have to worry about that if you're going to change therapist totally acceptable happens all the time it's really normal it sucks in this environment where it's hard to find a therapist to begin with much less a second or third but it doesn't mean you're failing if you connect with a therapist who may be this happens like yes I treat anxiety and it seems right but you know three months into it all you're doing is talking and there's no exposures and there's none of what you hear here okay well this isn't really working for me I think I'm going to switch no harm well I'm saying no harm no factor you spend some money that's true but that doesn't mean that you failed so you might change therapists for a variety of reasons therapeutic orientation of the therapist doesn't match your problem that happens all the time right and that's okay that's not that's not a failure by you in any way shape or form for whatever reason the personality of a therapist you're just not clicking maybe you started off great and that's sort of cooled off and it's not working anymore all of those things all of them are really common so if you have to switch it's okay to switch it doesn't mean you failed and you are not responsible for for the feelings of your therapist you're not going to hurt their feelings if you say that you want to you want to leave them and go somewhere else right it's really important so hopefully I've covered most of I think what this works out let's talk about insurance for a little bit I guess this is a hot topic I understand that insurance is different in the United States than it is in almost every other developed country I get that this is not a political debate I don't even want to go that way we have what we have right now who knows if it's going to change or what it's going to change too but right now this is what we have not every therapist will take insurance some do some don't unfortunately in the UK some therapists work with the NHS in Canada therapists are working with the National Health Service there I'm not sure what Canada's NHS is called so in some countries you can access mental health care as part of standard health care that everybody gets but there are also private therapists that do not participate in that public system that you have to pay and here in the US some may participate in the insurance that you have some might not and you would have to pay them out of pocket and that cost can vary most therapists will do at least some of their practice because it's sort of an ethical requirement and a professional requirement on a sliding scale or pro bono we all want to do that so we'll try to do the best we can with that but you'll see that depending on where you live the cost of an hour might be a little less if you're in a rural area where the cost of living is a little lower if you're in New York City or San Francisco your therapist is going to charge more that's just the way it is unfortunately but that you know that's going to work that way and then in other countries as well like you're going to find private pay therapists that charge in a very scale it's a red flag when any other therapist charges you know 90 to 175 dollars an hour in the US depending on where you are and then you find somebody who wants to charge you 450 dollars an hour that's a bit of a red flag they can charge that if you want if they want they they are welcome to charge that there's no law against it but keep in mind that why why would you be three times more than anybody else so just be careful about that too I wish I had better answers about paying and insurance I don't but unfortunately I don't is what it is okay so let's go through some questions and comments 28 minutes of rambling at you that was a lot to say hopefully it's been useful information I hope so let's see what we have here oh yeah okay bye so let's go up to the top here let's look at some comments the psychiatrist prescribed medicine but uh scroll up scroll okay here we go I've been recovering the podcast for the past two plus years thank you very much are you very welcome as tech working from twitch uh from not leaving kind of a lot more than before I got just got a new therapist one of John helped throw this I'll throw up some uh comments on the thing here one of Joshua Fletcher's colleagues she's great and I'm super helpful one thing that's kind of cool is if you find an anxiety specialist like Josh for instance or Kim or Joanna or any of the people that I that I you know that I work with all the time a lot of times people like them will be able to refer you to somebody like them it's a bit of a close-knit community so in any given area most anxiety specialists will know other anxiety specialists too so that might be a helpful thing um let's see here yeah this is true panel let me put this on the screen I wish this wasn't true but this is true it's extremely hard to find an ERP or CBT specialized anxiety and panic trained therapist that accepts insurance it is hard it is very hard I'm going to be totally transparent with you so as a therapist in training and in an unusual circumstance where I mean I it's I am in an unusual circumstance there's no doubt about that because I have an audience already so I face some of I face less challenges in building a private practice than say that my my classmates do which puts me in a weird place I don't have to take insurance and taking insurance in the US is a pain in the butt I think it isn't just about every place so I know in the UK a therapist that works with the NHS is buried in paperwork so many therapists choose I'm not going to do it though I'm just going to be private pay because there's a market for that so keep in mind also that therapists do have to eat therapists are running a business I'm not saying that it's it's a tough call because I know a lot of people feel like therapy should be free I don't disagree with that it would be great if it was or a therapist that has a lot of clients that charges a lot of money and makes a lot of money sometimes is vilified but unfortunately it is free market just like anything else so the the impetus for a good therapist this is reality market forces here in the US is that not taking insurance is certainly easier than taking insurance and if you practice in a large area where there's a lot of people you can do that and so unfortunately it sort of incentivize the best therapist to not participate in health plans that's true I wish it wasn't I'm just trying to be honest with you and let you know how it's sort of working it's thanks but that's the way it is okay oh let's put this up on the screen here this is good so those of you who have you don't know Kathleen yeah let's see Kathleen was on my podcast a couple weeks ago she checked that out so she has come so far in her recovery to the point where her therapist is asking do you even need me anymore that's a big deal like a therapist is also trained to understand when it's sort of time to begin we would call that separation right or termination if you will sounds really cold but it's there's a thing and that's really a happy day for a therapist like even though they are rooting for you and cheering for you and a part of your support system the happiest day is the day that you're done that you don't need us anymore right so this is normal an ethically trained therapist who practices ethically will circle back and say and why am I taking your money like what am I still doing for you especially when you have gone so far down the road like Kathleen has and she's so much better than she used to be that I would expect her therapist to say what am I tell me again what I'm doing for you now because you can't be in a situation where you're just taking somebody's money because they want to give it to you that's not ethical so I would expect your therapist to do that Kathleen totally and it's okay like your therapist is never going to should not abandon you but sometimes it's important that you be able to say no no you're serving this particular purpose but sometimes especially in this thing that we all deal with these anxiety disorders that thing where well I want to hang on to you just in case at some point your therapist is going to challenge that like what what am I going to do so if you have two panic attacks in a row tell me what I'm going to do to fix that right so you have to be careful about that just keep taking my money I get it I get it okay um let's see a psychiatrist prescribed medicine for me that was totally wrong that's a whole I mean I understand Carol that's a shitty experience I'm sorry that that happened to you I know that in many instances I have not been kind to the psychiatrist I can own that I have not been kind to psychiatry at all some of that is my own personal experience being colored to a certain extent and I'm very upfront and honest about that this is why I don't talk about meds very often at all because it's not a good topic to talk about but yeah when you have somebody who is more medication based like a psychiatrist often would be stuff like that can happen but in the same vein even when there's no meds involved put Penelope's comments up here I feel like I'm teaching them how to help me unfortunately is also pretty common too because when a therapist is not trained on the mechanics of anxiety disorders but thinks they should treat it anyway and I'll explain this for a second here I did a podcast episode called why hasn't my therapist ever explained it like this which was about a year and a half or two years ago remember but um that sort of explains different theoretical orientations every therapist is allowed to pick the theoretical orientation that they think is right that we're supposed to practice in an evidence-based kind of way that's an ethical consideration in practice like we should be practicing in an evidence-based way yet it's also perfectly okay for a therapist to decide well I think that you know whatever pick any old theory that you want I think that being completely purely rogerian is the way to treat everything so I do it that way and a rogerian therapist will sit and say almost nothing just nod at you and provide you nothing but a positive mirror of everything you say and you work it through yourself that's okay like that might work in certain cases but a therapist can decide I think that's what works for anxiety disorders the therapist is free to decide that and try that really and truly they should be if they're ethically practicing should really be able to look and say this isn't really working so well for my clients doing it that way so maybe I should either change that or start referring those cases out but it is acceptable and legal although not necessarily ethical and that's a gray area for a therapist to decide that they can use whatever theoretical orientation they want to treat your anxiety disorder and they do I'll give you a very interesting statistic and that would be that every therapist has some contact with the stuff that we talk about in their training somewhere they are taught about cognitive behavioral therapy right somewhere along the line they're at least made aware of the way this stuff sort of works but they may decide well that doesn't fit with me I don't like that and they want to use another orientation that fits with them a little bit more personally intellectually emotionally spiritually whatever it is they want to use that in their practice and that is the way they view the world so that can happen but then there are therapists who understand well this crazy guy with the beard in New York is is right like we know that that's a way to do this and it's really the most effective way to do this but even though I know that I'm not going to practice this way because it makes me feel bad to do it that's a real concern so especially when you see here some of the discussion in my Facebook group when you hear a therapist that's really upfront and a little bit aggressive with a client and says no no no you've been doing this exposure now for six months this way you need to to step it up now or you need to drop the safety behavior and they get really directive that way that's actually a good therapist but not every therapist is going to have it in them to do that and be that confrontative and when surveyed there was an interesting data that came out a couple years ago where in a survey and a study of a bunch of therapists I believe this was in the U.S. only the percentage of therapists who understand that exposure based therapy is the best treatment for anxiety disorders is huge but the percentage of them that are willing to do it is low right therapists are people too and they are fearful that they will traumatize you if they see everything in a trauma lens which is not necessarily a bad thing they worry about hurting you about putting you in a state of distress about traumatizing or retraumatizing so they will not use those modalities even though they'll tell you yeah I know that's really the best way I just can't do it I'm having a hard time with it so that's pretty common also that's why it takes almost a special kind of therapist to be able to do that and it I'll just say is my own from my own experience somebody who's been through it who's lived it understands like I know you don't want to do this I didn't want to either but it really is the best way so keep that in mind too some therapists know that people like me are telling you the right thing they can't bring themselves to tell you to go do scary things because they think that's counter to what I'm supposed to make you feel better but in the end like it's feel better comes later so it's this is a crazy topic it really is um so let's see here it's really common for people to say I feel like I know more than my therapist unfortunately or what I just said like what Penelope's just agreed with the therapist knows that what you're asking for is kind of what you really need especially if you go in and aggressively say no no no I need you to help me do exposures I need you to do ERP this is what I want to do I want to do this and I need your help sometimes it's really hard for them to reconcile that like I know you're asking me to do that but I don't want to make you do scary things so that's a tough one really tough okay let's see here well this is good let me throw this out here one of the best things is if I can joke with my therapist too that's totally okay now your therapist is also trained not to become your friend you have to be super careful about that we'll do a whole another topic on that one day the difference between a therapist and a friend because it's an important difference it really matters but it is good when you have that kind of relationship but you can joke with your therapist that's a connection and that helps in a big way so let's scroll down here I think we're going to get near the end very shortly yeah I get this Carol this is true is a problem the trouble of spending so much money to find the right one yeah I get that that is a problem for sure let's see um I'm just going to scroll scroll scroll so you're saying Josh Fletcher could actually just be a florist this I almost need to I'm going to screenshot this and because I can't not that is the funniest comment that I've heard in a long time and yeah I guess it's possible he could literally be a florist then we wouldn't know it just in the UK anybody can call themselves a therapist evident I found a good therapist excellent Ellen and when you do find a good therapist a great thing it really is therapy can be a wonderful thing tremendously beneficial I'm a big fan of it if you can access it if you can afford it if you can find somebody that helps it is a big deal it's really really helpful so it can be a wonderful thing if you find the right person 100 so let's see click pretty well my therapist I know that if I get along well okay let's put this up here I can maybe address this I click pretty well my therapist that's good my deal is that I know I'll get along well with them if they put their spin on how maybe they did this and they I'm not sure that I understand the comment to be honest with Julie if they put their spin on how maybe they did this and that I can tell you that as a therapist in training the word spin is a red flag for me like recognize what you're bringing into the relationship also now the therapist brings their own things into the relationship we try to take it out if possible we do our best and that's why a therapist has a clinical supervisor even in a private practice working for myself I will have a clinical supervisor I have to somebody that's looking over my shoulder that I can bring things to hey am I being impartial here am I looking after the best interests of the client am I doing anything wrong we need that so just be careful because a therapist is not there generally to put a spin on anything so if you're seeing your therapist as somebody who is going to try to spin things to make you look one way or the other or to try to frame a narrative in some way that's something you might want to consider because a good therapist should not be doing that that's not a thing that we would want to do with you so let's scroll down to the bottom here I call over 50 therapists yeah that's a real thing that's a problem you're a veteran here they really therapists I'm sorry I'm just going to scroll down to the bottom here let me put this up this is a very nice comment first of all thank you so much these are very very kind words and I appreciate them it's really important though for me to say that my podcasts are not therapy like they're not they're not therapy that's really important there's a difference there's such a difference between just creating psychoeducational content and actually providing therapy now I appreciate that there's a very kind words I do appreciate I'm glad I'm able to help but sometimes we do the best we can if you can't find help you try to substitute in use maybe people like me or Kim or Josh or whoever to try and fill the blanks which is great but I always remember that we don't actually know you I don't I don't really know any of you guys so it's I cannot I can't give you like personalized advice it's really important to remember there is a line for sure well let's see here private pay horrible advice sorry Kathleen it was a learning experience you should start a recommendation list I would love to that's just another thing it's a good question for sure I started recommendation lift I would love to do that at some point that might be a thing people have asked me to do like help me find a therapist you know it's it's not a bad thing maybe one day I'll do that I don't know I just don't have a I don't have enough time to do that sort of stuff so I'm going to scroll to the end here what if you need okay it's a good question here throw it up here what if you need a therapist for gore phobia but other things like childhood trauma do anxiety specialists also cover that too some are look we should all be making an effort to understand that not and how often do you hear me say this not everything is a clear weeks problem not every single thing is a floating accepting and surrender problem not everything is an exposure problem that's 100 true so the thing that I always find amazing in the therapy world is that anxiety specialists will be the first ones to tell you when we don't apply like this is not my thing I cannot tell you to float and accept through an abusive relationship that's not right yet other therapists will tend to take their theories and try to shoehorn them into anxiety I don't know why that happens this is one way thing but an anxiety specialist should understand and be able to identify when there's trauma there can they work with it sure in certain instances they will in other instances they may want to refer out and therefore you work as a team either one after the other or at the same time if that's at all possible but every anxiety specialist should understand be able to recognize when that is there and take steps appropriately to make sure you get the best treatment either directly from them from somebody else or somebody else with them hopefully that answers the question no no no every therapist yeah yeah this is a this is a problem for sure can I get this every therapist thinks they're an anxiety specialist an expert I get it because there are people right now I'm there are people in my class right now my classmates my peers my colleagues that are convinced 100 that every panic attack has some sort of deep rooted emotional meaning and if you don't find that you're never going to get better I have been in that discussion already and I'm not even done with my school so yes that's possible it can happen let's see I was going to hospital follow-up office person with direction to go in okay it's good I wasn't real okay this is good too I was in a I wasn't real interested in the soft treatment like I said before sometimes that's a little tricky because a therapist when you come in and say no no let me have it like I want you to make me do hard things some of us will like light up and like your that's it we're good match we're going to get along really well together others will be like well you know I don't I can't I don't want to be responsible for you being afraid is I think that we're a lot of therapists are and I understand that I really do I'm not picking on that I understand okay Julie thank you for clarifying that I understand I like it when they put how they got their personal situation yes and sometimes that's called self-disclosure sometimes a therapist will share some of their own experiences to help you understand how they did it or for some perspective that's a case by case basis sometimes a therapist will tell you those things other times we're we're not going to tell you stuff right so people who treat anxiety disorders like people like me when I wind up in practice we often share that because we've been through it before so we can understand what you're saying or that it helps to be able to say well when I felt this I did this doesn't mean she's your therapist is telling you how you're supposed to do it but a therapist who has lived the same experience as you that is willing to self disclose in an ethical way with good supervision can help you give a little perspective like hey I did it this way this might help you to think about it that way that's good Julie I like it very good uh let's see here do you feel like virtual therapy is effective as in person to be honest with you I think it can be I think I totally think it can be it's important to me I think it's super important to see the person now we we can see the person now like I can see you on a zoom call so that does work fairly well in that situation because I can see you is it always a hundred percent as effective as being in a room with somebody not so much but I think it's it's quite effective I don't think it's I don't think it's not I'm trying to be noncommittal here I don't it can't be I'm never who am I since why am I noncommittal yeah it's really it's quite effective I would always prefer in person if possible but tele therapy is a really good thing especially dealing with these type of problems but you got to be able to see the person that's so important just being on the phone in a pinch sure texting I cannot imagine that there are virtual therapy companies that will allow you to text with your therapist now one of the things we learn is you got to meet the client where they are so it's not a bad way to start but text based therapy ouch that seems difficult on the long run and I think we're open at the end here that is it another issue is having a high standard after hearing your thoughts and anxiety okay well um you know I'll throw that out there again it's a very nice words thank you Martin I appreciate you saying nice things about me but keep in mind that I'm not setting a high standard I'm just giving specific information about a specific theoretical orientation so in a way it's not like well you know I have such I'm the gold standard here the theoretical orientation that I'm bringing to this is the gold standard so that I get that I get but it doesn't mean that a therapist that doesn't sound like me is worse it's just not applicable right so it's like a tradesman like if you need a carpenter you get a carpenter if you need a plumber you get a plumber doesn't make one is better than the other so in a way that's kind of how that works all right well we did pretty well you guys listened to me ramble a lot I gave you a lot of words today thank you so much for hanging in still 43 people here I am amazed at that um this will stay on my youtube channel in the facebook group even though it's super hard to find in the facebook group because you got a search around it'll stay in my facebook page but subscribe to the youtube channel if you're not because it's the easiest way all these go into playlists call recovery monday go back and watch them again we'll come back and do it again next week well maybe next week we'll maybe do q and a I was talking about that last week but then this topic came up so maybe I'll throw like a q and a post up on instagram and I'll gather questions and we'll answer them and talk about talk about them in the comments or whatever it is so guys thanks for hanging out today appreciate it I will see you again