Kim Howard  00:04 

Welcome to the Let’s Talk EMDR podcast brought to you by the EMDR International Association or EMDRIA. I’m your host Kim Howard. In this episode we are talking with Indira certified therapist, trainer and consultant Rick Levinson about EMDR therapy and serious illness. Let’s get started. Today we are speaking with EMDR, certified therapist, consultant and trainer Rick Levinson to discuss EMDR therapy and serious illness. Thank you, Rick, for being here today. We are so happy that you’ve said yes.  

 

Rick Levinson  00:34 

Hi Kim. It’s good to see you. 

 

Kim Howard  00:38 

Rick, can you tell us about your path to becoming an EMDR therapist? 

 

Rick Levinson  00:43 

Sure. So I first of all, I’m old. I’m 70 years old. I’ve been in the field for 45 years now. And I’ve specialized in trauma, really my entire career. And so my first encounter with EMDR was getting an advertisement from Francine’s [Shapiro] organization for an early EMDR training probably in the early 90s. And I’m immensely entertained by the fact that I have memory of receiving that first advertisement. I was going through mail and I saw this piece it said trauma on it. And back in those days, trauma was not a subject in the mental health field that got any attention at all. And rarely was their training or workshop that focused on it. So I see the word trauma, and I go, Oh, what is this? And I read it, it says new eye movement therapy successfully treats trauma. And my response was to giggle out loud. And to say, like, yeah, right, as it went into the trash can. And so for years afterwards, an advertisement would come and it would just go right into the trash can. And so it wasn’t until I started having conversations with colleagues who I held in high regard, tell me that they had gotten trained and they were having really good successes, I started paying attention. And then I was at a party once. It will. It was actually I noticed in 1996, I was in a at a party where this well known psychiatrist in Austin was there and I knew a lot about him, I’d never met him been wanting to meet him. And he consulted with a lot of my colleagues and number more in a consultation group with him. And I had a friend who actually was as patient and he did really good therapy. And I knew that he had done EMDR. So I kind of cornered him, started asking him a bunch of questions. And one of the things I asked him was, what about EMDR? Here you’re doing it. And I was so impacted by what he shared that he got in the car to drive home with my wife and I turned to her and I go, I gotta get trained in EMDR. And so six weeks later, I’m in L.A., taking the training. Couple things I want to underscore just in terms of being on that path to so I got got trained but couldn’t really call myself an EMDR clinician yet. But there was a number of factors that contributed to me pursuing EMDR. And I think first and foremost was there were three therapists in Austin who were had been trained very early on Christie Sprowls, and Curly York and Sue Hoffman. And they very generously held a study group in Austin, Fridays noon, we would bring our lunch people come from all over once a month. And so for a year or more, that went on and I made as full use of it as I could. So that was one thing, the group of colleagues and myself, we organized a study group where we would just come together and share what we were learning and talk about problems we were having and eventually that became that group then went and started doing consultation with Carol York as a group and then we would come back and talk about how we were integrating what we were learning and, and so that went on for probably a couple of years meeting once a month, I think. And then the third was getting individual consultation. I consider myself a slow learner, I need to go over material a lot. I need lots of input, practice feedback. And so I spent years making use of consultation to help me integrate the basics, more and more solidly. 

 

Kim Howard  05:22 

That’s a good story. And you’re not the first person on the podcast to sort of scoff when they heard, what EMDR therapy? What does that do? That sounds like magic potion stuff a little woowoo? You know, we’re exactly in your magic wand kind of stuff. 

 

Rick Levinson  05:36 

So just as an aside, I have always told that a little bit of that story when I teach the very beginning of the training, and one of the things that I do is I ask, how many of you had a similar negative response hearing about this therapy that involves having clients move their eyes back and forth rapidly, this weird therapy. And I’ve been training now for 19 years. And up until about 10 years ago, lots of people would raise their hand. And what I find now is that fewer and fewer people raise their hand where if it’s a group of 50, people, there might be six or seven that raised her hand. That’s very cool. 

 

Kim Howard  06:33 

Yeah, that’s good. That’s good. Do you happen to remember what that psychiatrists told you that made you have this lightbulb moment?  

 

Rick Levinson  06:42 

It was really more just he consolidated, verified, and kind of deepened what the my colleagues were saying that this was really effective. And that somehow I think his language was somehow it, the structure of the process helps folks to be able to connect with their traumatic experience or their painful experience and the distress that’s associated, even when there are walls up to protect, that it’s able to, without having them to drop all of that access, the disturbance and help it metabolize. You know, it was still pretty early on ’96. And there really wasn’t a lot of understanding why it works are even much in the way of hypotheses, but it was more observational somehow it you know, that it works. 

 

Kim Howard  07:50 

Yeah, well, and he was somebody who was held in high regard within your community. So it would be it’s, I think, when people provide those testimonials, and you quote, unquote, consider the source, it becomes a lot more weighted with some people. And you’re like, oh, this person is, yeah, he knows what he’s talking about. So this must be a good thing. So that’s, I’m glad that you were able to connect with him and do that, because we’re grateful for having you in our community. So thank you. What’s your favorite part of working with EMDR therapy? 

 

Rick Levinson  08:19 

You know, I know people talk about people talk about that, you know, there’s, it’s a wonderful seeing trauma dissolve, and, you know, people have, you know, this whole new frame of reference, and that’s really lovely. And, you know, it can be so powerful for folks. And we stopped being amazed by that. But my attempt to go in, you know, hearing that question, my attention goes to something much simpler. Let me talk about it in the context of training, but it’s exactly the same thing. So my favorite part of teaching, therapists EMDR, is, is participating, guiding the practicum experiences where they pair up with folks and work on a dress a as a client, a very mildly disturbing past events, nothing big at all. We don’t even allow them to do anything sizable. And so here’s a memory, and they do all the setup work. And this therapist, too, doesn’t know EMDR is reading from a script. And they go through the procedural steps. And here’s this memory. When they were a kid when they were eight years old. They had a teacher that embarrassed them in front of the class. And when they think about it, there’s some anxiety and some sadness, but but nothing big. And they then allow their therapists to guide them through the process. And they do sets of eye movements thinking about that event. And whatever comes up as they’re thinking about the event. Until it’s clear, no longer any disturbance, the positive belief about themselves that they want to hold feels completely true, though somatic activation, oftentimes, I’ll sit with them and say, Okay, I want you to remember what the incident was, like, 20 minutes ago, 30 minutes ago, when you first started talking about it? How it was that memory held that? Was it like, bringing up that memory? And they go, Oh, well, yeah, it was like, it had life to it. And it was, there was all this. There was emotion connected, and, you know, felt all this tightness in my body remembering it. Okay, so let that go. Now, I want you to just turn to the memory now, what’s it like to bring up the memory now? What’s the experience bringing it up? In the Oh, yeah, it’s like, it’s a little bit harder to find it’s there. Probably, if I really turn and look at it, I can, I can find it and connect with information associated with it. But I’m not pulled to it. It’s flat. It’s like it has no energy. It’s like a balloon losing all of its air. It’s like, yes. So that shows you how well your brain can process painful events, how well your brain can heal. It is built in to the functioning of your brain and your information processing system. And here’s the evidence of it. That’s a big thing. It’s such a big thing. And when working with clients around really awful experiences, how profound it is that here’s this horrible experience that they went through. And then providing the ingredients as the EMDR clinician providing the ingredients and helping them turn the memory on. And doing sets of eye movements, both of us staying out of the way, helping them to maintain dual awareness and not fall into the memory and not get overwhelmed. And you know, at the end of this 30 minutes or an hour, or maybe it’s three sessions, here, it is no longer any disturbance. They can think about this awful event. And it has no charge to it. So the evidence that our brains can heal all this awful, all this awful stuff from the past. That’s a huge thing. It’s a huge thing. And for clients, it’s like, helps them to have confidence in one, their ability to heal, but also hopefulness about, oh, well, then we can then start working on all this other stuff that needs to be addressed. 

 

Kim Howard  13:34 

We interviewed somebody, gosh, I think it was back in the fall about EMDR therapy for first responders. She cited a client that she had who had been roadside when a young child died. And he could not move past that for obvious reasons.  

 

Rick Levinson  13:52 

And, that’s usually, of all the awful experiences that first responders have. The injury to a child is, is usually the ones that catch them. 

 

Kim Howard  14:05 

Yeah. And, and he after he did his series of EMDR sessions with her, he said I can no longer see her face or his face. I can’t remember if it was a boy or girl, but you know, that shows the power of how your brain is healing. The memory is still there. You know what happened? It’s in your it’s on your history, you can’t change that. But it’s not as vivid as it was. It’s not as detailed as it was and it’s not it. It doesn’t tie your body up like it did before, you know, and I thought that was a good example. So today we’re gonna talk about EMDR therapy and serious illness. Rick, can you tell us what you mean by serious illness? 

 

Rick Levinson  14:47 

Well, I just use that term really as a general term. It’s any illness or health struggle that could be life threatening or that it just significantly impacts their life, their emotional well being impacts their loved ones. And it can be for any, any period of time it can be for months, and then it gets resolved years or even decades. So I think the area that I probably work with the most, in the last 10 years or so has been cancer, all different kinds of cancer. But it can also be chronic pulmonary disorders. So is it really serious asthma or COPD, and there’s life becomes so impacted and have to manage it. Neurological and neuromuscular disorders, Parkinson’s, I’ve worked with a number of folks over the years with multiple sclerosis, muscular dystrophy, muscular skeletal disorders, folks who have really bad back pain, disc problems, stenosis of the spine, folks up, pushed through with having really bad joint knee or hip and either haven’t had the insurance to cover the surgery or other things, blocking them getting surgery and, and years past, it wasn’t so easy to get all of that it was much a much bigger deal. But also infectious diseases, historically, AIDS, just so massive. But now long COVID really is impacting so many people. 

 

Kim Howard  16:52 

Are there any specific complexities or challenges with treatment for people with serious illness? 

 

Rick Levinson  16:58 

So if someone has a serious illness, there’s so many different aspects of life that can be affected, there’s so many different ways that they are, that they are impacted, and so many different ways in which they struggle. And one of the things I really want to underline is that therapy can make such a difference, that just even being able to have a therapist, where they can go to and talk about what’s hard to get support, even if it’s just on that level of supportive talk therapy, it can make such a difference. One of the dynamics that oftentimes is there with serious illness is that that the the person wants doesn’t want to burden family members and loved ones. And so they they’re not all that forthcoming about what’s going on with them and the different ways in which they struggle, and they want to insulate their family from from that. And so, you know, there’s a lot of caretaking, that folks with serious illness, especially chronic stuff that they you know, that they feel like that they need to do with their loved ones. So having a place to go to to get support and to just focus on themselves, that and of itself can be transformed. What I find important is when it’s possible for therapists to then look at the struggle with serious illness through the lens of the adaptive information processing model, to look at it through a trauma lens. And what we see then is the depth to which therapy with EMDR can help even more. So, as you well know, but just for any folks in the general population listening in the field of trauma, we talk about the impact of both major traumatic events. Big, awful oftentimes life threatening experiences are perceived to be life threatening experiences where there’s an over whelming emotional response, high state of arousal, sense of being out of control, but then there’s also mild to moderately distressing experiences and oftentimes that repeat, and that the accumulation from DC accumulation of distress can be huge. And so folks who struggle with illness, usually are dealing with both in their repast also underscoring what we know that trauma is so highly treatable. And we also know both from research and from our collective experience over the decades, our collective experience as being EMDR. Therapists, that EMDR is the most effective approach in treating trauma, but it’s also the most efficient. And so to be able to then identify these areas of struggle, and to effectively and efficiently go in and address those is freeing for the client in big ways. Let me talk a little bit about that. All these different areas in there’s just such a wide range of painful experiences, big awful experiences that commonly show up. So I would say the most commonly reported worst experience is receiving the diagnosis. So unexpectedly finding out you have cancer, shock, overwhelming fear. Oftentimes, that experience is exacerbated by how the diagnosis was given the doctor, just very matter of factly shared the information didn’t offer much in the way of broader information, what treatment directions, you know, giving them any sense of hope. I was told just a few weeks ago, that someone received their cancer diagnosis from an email that they got from the lab. Oh, my gosh, and the email had the lab report, along with the diagnostic findings from the pathologist. And that’s how they found out it was a mistake. And of course, it made it all the worse it took. It took, I don’t remember how long, at least most of the day to be able to get a hold of the the doctor’s office to get more information is just terrible.  

 

Kim Howard  22:44 

That poor patient. 

 

Rick Levinson  22:46 

I was working with with AIDS, I had two patients that had similar experiences around diagnosis of what the both of them had gone by themselves to the doctor and received an unexpected diagnosis of AIDS. And one of the men went home to his partner and told him and he had died. Okay, hearing it, a lot of numbness and, and, you know, kind of insulating from it. But it was telling his partner and seeing the look of horror on his face. And the tears streaming down his face that it hit him. And similarly this other, this other man went to his parents house and sat down with them and told them and the excruciating pain on their face. It just erupted hearing from him. But there’s so much else, you know, that’s just kind of the common, most common worst experience. But there’s the awfulness of surgeries and the recovery process. The side effects of treatment sometimes debilitating. chemotherapy, radiation, feeling awful for so long treatment failures. Oftentimes folks can move through one or two of those they go on chemo. First round doesn’t work. They try a second round doesn’t work, oncologists decides to switch to another chemo that fails in at some point, the accumulation of disappointment builds to where they lose all hope that anything good. Any treatment is going to work. And certainly, that can be an indicator, but oftentimes, it’s not that there’s still plenty of reason to be hopeful. There’s still other treatment options. And so by helping them to address that, reprocess the experiences of treatment failures, it allows them to reset and go, Okay, what’s true about right now, and let’s move forward. There are always losses, sometimes lots of losses, the loss of functionality, temporary or permanent, the loss of energy strain. Life as they know it, the loss of so much time absorbed, focusing on their illness, folks lose their jobs, they lose money, opportunities, and sometimes it’s the coming loss of their life, the loss of relationships. If you seen the video that Bob Tinker did, with Mary, an older woman, need to see this, it was part of the basic training in the early days. And it’s this, it’s like a statement at the video, it is so sweet. And it’s this woman probably in I don’t know, maybe in her late 70s, early 80s. And she does a session with Bob, where her husband, she got diagnosed with cancer, and it was a terminal diagnosis. And her husband left her. Oh my gosh, and so, so the session focused on her pain, I mean, it was just deep pain, not about the cancer, not about dying. And leaving after, you know, they had been together forever. And so it’s this beautiful session. I don’t know if you know, Bob Tinker, sweetest guy, right. And so he’s doing this session, very simple, basic session with her. And all this pain moves through, and she suddenly has this broader perspective, you know, that just not that she looks for it and finds it, it’s like, Oh, I’m gonna be fine. And it’s his loss that he doesn’t get to go through this with me. And then there’s a follow up session, where just like a minute, where she reports, the week later, I think reports what’s happened in between, and she’s just prideful of life. Really lovely. So all these losses people, you know, people are in pain about not seeing their child or grandchild or friend, graduate, get married. Whatever folks struggle with fears of the future, could be possible future or likely future or an imagined incapacitation, the coming pain and suffering. Impact on loved ones, the possibility of death, in the fears can be huge and interfere so much, what can also come up in our negative beliefs about self tied to being sick. I think that it’s unusual for someone not to deal with that to some degree, because our it’s like that’s embedded in our culture, to some degree, and in certain communities to a huge degree. So it’s self judgment, this is my fault. My thoughts created this illness, I deserve to be sick. This is evidence that God doesn’t love me. And so all of the struggles, the negative beliefs, the fears, that struggle with losses, treatment failures, all of this is created or exacerbated by the accumulation of unprocessed, painful, disturbing life experiences and huge overwhelming traumatic events. And so, with just the most basic EMDR therapy, we have the ability to address these incidents and do so effectively and efficiently. 

 

Kim Howard  29:34 

So a good segue to my next question, which is what successes have you seen using EMDR therapy for serious illness? 

 

Rick Levinson  29:43 

Yeah, one of the things that’s that nice about this work is that it’s it really relies on almost always just on the basics of EMDR therapy, standard information, gather During treatment planning, identify the areas of struggle, what are the past related events, and then systematically just start reprocessing the the memories and relief usually begins to show up pretty quickly. And so the responses, common responses are one, just that there’s so much in just dealing with the illness, the struggle, and it is the natural tendency for us to push it away and be as disconnected from it as possible. of just, you know, I’ll deal with what I need to deal with. But, you know, I want to keep it off into the periphery as much as I can. And that by clearing out more and more of the awfulness that’s there associated with it, there is more freedom for folks to more fully move into acceptance or more acceptance of the illness and more acceptance of the reality of whatever is so with it, that we help folks to reprocess treatment failures. And that allows return of hope, that they’re clearing out these past disappointments. And in doing so, they don’t need to protect themselves against another one company that they can handle it, if there isn’t reprocessing the memories that that are related to the negative beliefs, foundational to the development of those having to know through and through that their illness isn’t their fault, it isn’t about them, doesn’t have anything to do with them. It is biological, being able to find peace or some peace in the midst of some much loss, so much pain, addressing fears. And folks expand their ability to face various unknowns of the future, including the possibility of death. These are some of the natural outcomes, clearing out the debris related to this. 

 

Kim Howard  32:32 

I’m glad that you mentioned also, that EMDR therapy is not only for healing the trauma, but it’s also for giving you the skills that you need to continue on your path. So that if the trauma comes again, or something happens, again, you have some kind of coping skills that you can use to quite frankly, just you can deal with it. You know, I mean, I’m not saying that you can deal with all of it. But EMDR therapy also provide you that which is which is a great tool that we all need in our toolbox for life, you know,  

 

Rick Levinson  33:08 

So, yeah, and clearing out the clearing out the debris that’s in the way of being able to make use of, you know, inherent orientation, inherent skill, as you say, that’s just a natural, commonly unnatural, outpouring from, from that the stuff isn’t in a way and I can have this knowingness, I can have this, I can be grounded in more ease, looking at this approaching this dealing with this awful thing that happens. 

 

Kim Howard  33:52 

Rick, are there any myths that you would like to bust about working with EMDR therapy and serious illness?  

 

Rick Levinson  33:57 

Well, I’m not sure. It’s exactly a myth that years ago, when I, when I turned my attention to working with AIDS, from AIDS to cancer, I am amazed still, at how much therapy is utilized by folks who are facing serious illness, that it’s like, all bets are off. They don’t have time for messing around. They come into therapy, and they are focused, and in general, but in general, they are focused, they’re engaged, and they’re ready to work. And as a result, there are a few groups of people who respond as quickly and as fully to therapy and who benefit as much and so I used to meet with oncologists and I would go, I want you to pay attention to this. Your patients can benefit tremendous Only by therapy. And I’m not telling you this because I want you to refer people to me, if you refer people to me, I’m not going to be able to treat them that might help them find someone, I’m telling you, because this is an important additional treatment, complimentary treatment for your patients. And for years, I never got a single referral by an oncologist even though at the time I was one of the only therapists in Austin that treated that, you know, that expressly stated that they treated folks with serious illness. And so the myth is, is that that just taking a biological approach in addressing serious illness is what people need. And the truth is that they need much more, and they benefit from so much more. 

 

Kim Howard  35:47 

And, it’s almost harmful to the patient. Because the year I mean, yes, you’re treating the physical aspect of whatever their illness happens to be. But there’s an emotional and a mental aspect of being seriously ill, that go along with that and make that whole person and that should be treated as well. 

 

Rick Levinson  36:05 

Exactly. And I’m not saying that the mathematical model in treating cancer is not a good one, I’m absolutely amazed having watched cancer treatment over you know, 20 plus years, and the diligence they exerted back then, and continue to tracking every type of cancer and every type of treatment and variations of each treatment in gathering this massive amount of data that helps inform them of what treatments to try and how to administer them and all of that, it’s incredible. And as a result, the success rates in so many cancers have improved dramatically, but folks need more than just statistically driven treatment options. Another commonly unknown experience that I have at least is that it’s maybe more often than not, it’s the loved ones who need treatment, at least as much, oftentimes more than the person with the illness, because there are biological processes that are helping the patient that get triggered loved ones don’t have those. And so they are watching their, you know, their partner, their parent, their child struggle, and it’s really hard. And they, you know, it can be absolutely excruciating, their life can be massively limited, as well. And so for folks with loved ones who struggle with illness, to be able to get in there and process through their awful experiences and their fears of the future. And it makes such a huge difference. Such a huge difference. Thank you. Thank you for sharing that and getting that message out to broader community. That’s good. Thank you, Rick. What would you like people outside of the EMDR community to know about EMDR therapy for serious illness? it would be just that any therapy can be most any therapy can be helpful for folks with who are struggling with with illness and loved ones, and to then have access to an EMDR therapist, and you’re getting the best of both worlds because there is so much unprocessed awfulness from the past that tied in, that exacerbates the struggle. EMDR is a perfect fit for folks who are struggling with this. And so you know, there are lots of areas of treatment where EMDR is not the ideal choice. And in this case, my ongoing experiences is that it’s it is a perfect. 

 

Kim Howard  39:07 

Thank you. How do you practice cultural humility as an EMDR therapist? 

 

Rick Levinson  39:12 

I mean, that can be a big topic in and of itself, but let me just say one thing. So like many of us in the EMDR world, I was introduced to this concept of broaching from Dr. Norma Day- Vines who presented it at an EMDRIA conference a few years ago. And she presented on the critical illness in the context of therapy of broaching the issues of race and culture and ethnicity with our clients to not make assumptions about comfort levels of what needs to be talked about what needs to be addressed, that it’s critical to always Is broach the subject to open the door to have a conversation or to go into more broader work on relevant issues to find out, say how being black or gay or Muslim is certainly woven into their areas of struggle that they’re wanting to address, but also bringing it into the therapy rope relationship, to broach the subject, open the door, validate the significance by just asking raising the question when it’s like for this black young man from rural Central Texas to be in therapy with me, this older white upper middle class, man, so the how to how I practice, I have a couple of previous clients after a couple of Dr. Day-Vines’ lectures, I actually sat down and reviewed some treatment failures that I’ve had with Black and Latinix clients. And there were two folks that stood out, both of them were Black. Back then, I did not raise the issue. We thought about it, you know, I was instead just using my, you know, my attunement to see if it felt like there was comfort level there. But I never addressed it. And both of these men, I just feel like I didn’t really help them much both of them also, ended therapy were much earlier than I would have anticipated. And so one of the things that I do is that I keep an awareness of both of these men present enough in the back of my awareness, along with just enough of a sunk feeling in my stomach that goes with it, to just let me stay alert to what might need to be broached, and to act on it. So that I deliberately keep that with me.  

 

Kim Howard  42:20 

That’s good advice. I think, and we’ve talked about this on podcast before, specifically mostly with David Archer. And I will, you know, I am a white woman. And I don’t know what it’s like to be Black or Latinix. And I think sometimes, quite frankly, as white people, we’re afraid to bring the topic up because it makes us uncomfortable. We don’t want to make the other person uncomfortable. And so we’re afraid to even as you said, broach the subject. And so I believe in the therapy room, it needs to be as open and as honest and as over communicated as possible. And that we we as potential clients should not be afraid to talk about it. And to all the therapists out there. Whether you practice EMDR therapy or thinking about practicing or don’t practice it at all, you should not be afraid to bring it up either. Because if somebody is coming to you for help, they’re coming to you probably with a much different story than you lived your life. And it’s okay to talk about that.  

 

Rick Levinson  43:21 

Right.  

 

Kim Howard  43:21 

Good advice. Thank you. Do you have a favorite free EMDR related resource you would suggest either for the public or other EMDR therapists? 

 

Rick Levinson  43:28 

I have two, both of them are for EMDR clincians. And the first is the what is EMDR therapy past president future article published in 2021, in the EMDR Journal [JEMDR], it is transformative in terms of stepping back, looking at EMDR throughout its development and its integration into the mental health field and where it is right now. And there’s this vision of where it can go. And it is just an amazing piece of work that all of these gifted, dedicated, very experienced EMDR experts came together and created. It’s just remarkable. So anyone who practices EMDR I strongly encourage folks to read that putting on my trainer hat for a moment. There’s nothing more important in EMDR practice than the basics that the standard protocol. The basic aspects of standard protocol are the centerpiece of all EMDR practice and so having as firm solid under standing of the basics, being fluent. And so I was thrilled when y’all published the animated video on the eight phases of EMDR treatment. It is such a great resource for anyone who’s been trained at any point in time. And they need just a 10 minute refresher on the basics of eight phases. It’s, it’s there. 

 

Kim Howard  45:27 

So, I will link both of those resources in the podcast, so that people can click on them and go find them. Rick, if you weren’t any of your therapists, what would you be? 

 

Rick Levinson  45:37 

My automatic response is a baker, but I don’t want to bake. I don’t want to bake for on demand. I think it would be I’d want to bake. And in, you know, take it to people who would want it. Yeah, I would never want to work at a bakery or anything like that. 

 

Kim Howard  46:01 

What’s the what’s your favorite thing to bake? 

 

Rick Levinson  46:03 

That changes my baking these days. I love baking bread. I love baking. I was really into tarts for a while. So pies and tarts are one you know, pastry is just really fun. And, you know, cakes, pastries. 

 

Kim Howard  46:21 

Yeah, the all the good things. I learned how to make scones during pandemic, like a lot of people. 

 

Rick Levinson  46:26 

Ah… 

 

Kim Howard  46:26 

That did more baking. I was like, you know, I’ve never made these. I’ve made cakes. I’ve made some cupcakes… 

 

Rick Levinson  46:33 

What’s your favorite scone? 

 

Kim Howard  46:35 

There’s a recipe in The Joy of Cooking. And I have the Joy of Cooking from like 30 years ago. So I do two older one.  

 

Rick Levinson  46:41 

So, I have one for up probably from 60 years ago.  

 

Kim Howard  46:46 

Oh, wow. So there’s a recipe in there. And it’s a basic scone recipe. But you can add some things to it until I like to add a little bit of chopped up pecans and dried cherries or dried cranberries, and then a little bit of lemon zest in there. Or orange just I think it’s oranges. So actually, and so I like that I as a child, I never had an appreciation for all the baking skills that my mother had. And definitely not like things like lemon zest. That was weird, you know? 

 

Rick Levinson  47:14 

And, so do you put that so does it have butter or cream? 

 

Kim Howard  47:18 

It has a little bit of both the recipe has an alternate option where you can do I think it’s only butter, and a little bit of cream or just the cream I can’t remember. And so I prefer the butter. And so I was in this Facebook Baking group and somebody said my mother or grandmother or somebody she knew I mean it was her she used to make scones for the Queen of England and said  

 

Rick Levinson  47:40 

Whoa! 

 

Kim Howard  47:41 

 And I was like holy cow. And the trick is that the butter needs to be frozen and you need to shred the butter and it doesn’t get too soft as you’re mixing the dough.  And, so I like that technique. And I so I always have one or two sticks of butter in the freezer at all times in case I decide to make scones.  

 

Rick Levinson  48:01 

So, have you ever made soda bread before? I recently made soda bread. I did not make it the St. Patrick’s Day, but I made it in the last couple of years I’ve made for you.  Yeah, cause I really like soda bread. A colleague of mine I knew her mom was Irish, and her mom baked a loaf of soda bread for me. And I was I’d never had it before I was blown away by it. So I got her recipe. And I lost it for a number of years because during I think it was during the pandemic. I just had this urge to make sourdough bread and I couldn’t find it. So I use the New York Times recipe. But what I the reason I’m bringing it up is that one soda grade is so great because you mix it together and five minutes, throw it in the oven, can you get this loaf of bread, right? But the recipe that I use is a little bit sweet and it uses buttermilk so has a little bit of a tang to it and butter but and then you dust it with some sugar on top as you throw it in and my favorite scone and soda Brad has uses currents. And what I like about currents is that because they’re so small, if you put a bunch in, you always have that flavor of sweetness in every bite that you eat, right. So I eat this soda bread and I go God, this tastes so much like a scone, that it’s this nice big loaf of bread and it takes no time. It’s so much easier, because you don’t have to be careful with the butter. Right? 

 

Kim Howard  49:42 

It’s a little more more forgiving. Yes. 

 

Rick Levinson  49:43 

You know if you want me to send you the recipe… Oh, that’d be great. 

 

Kim Howard  49:46 

Thank you. And the other thing that I make the children loved growing up and my husband loved as well is homemade pizza dough. Oh, we back in the day when we were newly married. We lived around the corner from an Ollie’s discount store And we found this pizza brick oven pizza. I remember when that was a big thing like 20 years ago, 25 years ago. Pizza. So cool.  

 

Rick Levinson  50:08 

Yeah.  

 

Kim Howard  50:08 

And so this recipe book had the recipe for the wheat one and the regular white flour one. And then all the variations of pizza options. You could think of toppings and that kind of thing. And that’s where I pick that dough recipe rather. And I still feel like it and it’s like, Yeah, same one. So it’s really simple, and it’s quite tasty.  

 

Rick Levinson  50:28 

And so do you have a pizza oven? 

 

Kim Howard  50:31 

We do not have a pizza oven. But we do when we make it. We follow the recipe that’s in the book. And I think we basically make the pizza 500 degrees. So it’s almost like being in a pizza oven. 

 

Rick Levinson  50:41 

Yeah, yeah. 

 

Kim Howard  50:42 

Not exactly the same, but, and it doesn’t take very long to cook. You know, eight to 10 minutes. 

 

Rick Levinson  50:46 

Yeah. 

 

Kim Howard  50:47 

Temperature. I think the trick to that pizza dough is there’s a little bit of olive oil in it. Yeah, well, not a little bit. Probably a couple of tablespoons. And there’s Parmesan cheese in it. Oh, I think that might be the trick to it. That’s not a it’s not plain pizza dough. So. Yeah. Is there anything else you’d like to add? 

 

Rick Levinson  51:05 

I don’t think so. Thanks for inviting me to come talk about this.  

 

Kim Howard  51:11 

Yeah, absolutely. We appreciate your insights. And thank you very much. 

 

Rick Levinson  51:15 

Yeah, wonderful connecting with you. 

 

Kim Howard  51:17 

This has been the Let’s Talk EMDR podcast with our guest Rick Levinson. Visit www.emdria.org for more information about EMDR therapy already is our Find an EMDR Therapist Directory with more than 16,000 therapists available. Like what you hear, make sure you subscribe to this free podcast wherever you listen. Thanks for being here today.