In today’s podcast, Rhonda and David are honored to interview Dr. Michael Greenwald, a courageous clinical psychologist who helped make the Atlanta Intensive a truly amazing event. Michael volunteered for the live demonstration to work on his lifelong problem with social anxiety, which seems to be a popular topic these days, and likely a personal problem for many podcast fans. My co-therapist was Thai-An Truong, a highly respected TEAM therapist and TEAM therapy trainer from Oklahoma City. Thai-An also joins today’s podcast via Zoom and dialogues with Michael for the first time since the intensive. The session with Michael was powerful and inspiring, with a good 50% of the audience in tears (of joy) at the end. Michael recorded the session on his cell phone, but the quality was not up to the quality of our podcast recordings, so he agreed to fly up to the “Murietta Studios” from his home in Los Angeles so we could at least describe what happened and share the magic with you. If we can find a way to do some sound enhancement on the cellphone recording of the session, we will likely publish it as a separate mid-week podcast for those who like to hear the incredible therapeutic process unfolding in real time. If you review Michael’s Daily Mood Log at the start of the session, you’ll see that he was feeling depressed, anxious, ashamed, worthless, lonely, self-conscious, discouraged and stuck, and all of these feelings were intense. In addition, he told us that he wasn’t feeling much joy, self-esteem, pleasure or satisfaction in his life. But the strongest feeling was anxiety. He said that coming up on stage to face his fears was an enormous challenge, and that this was the first time he’d ever done something like this. We will do T = Testing again at the end to see what changed, and by how much. We’ll also ask Michael to complete the Empathy and Helpfulness surveys, so we can find out how he experienced Thai-An and David during the session. You may be saddened by the upsetting event Michael recorded at the top of his Daily Mood Log, which was “sitting with my son and trying to make conversation with him.” He said their conversations were always pretty superficial, and that he would typically leave the room after short interactions with his son because he felt so anxious. Here’s an example of a typical exchange. Michael’s son, a graduate student in clinical psychology, was working on his applications to internship programs. Michael: What’s up? Son: I’m working on my applications to internship programs. Michael: That’s good. How’s it going? Are you getting them in on time? Son: Yah, it’s fine. Michael: Are you completing them? Do you want me to look at them? Son: All fine. If you review the negative thoughts on Michael’s Daily Mood Log, you’ll see that he felt like a failure as a father because he did not know how to get close to his son or how to tell him just how much he loved him. He was telling himself things like this: Something is wrong with me because I can’t talk to him. 100% I am failing him as a father. 100% He deserves so much better than me. 100% He must wish he had a different father. 95% And more. I was sad to see that Michael had been beating up on himself pretty badly for years, and I'm pretty sure that the therapists in the audience felt the same way, because it was so clear that he was a tremendously humble, giving and loving father who was totally devoted to his sons. I found myself thinking, "My gosh, I wish I'd been half the father that Michael is!" The E = Empathy phase of the session lasted about 30 minutes. Michael indicated that Thai-An and I had done a good job, and that he felt understood and accepted, so we went on to A = Assessment of Resistance in a step-by-step manner, using these tools: The “Invitation Step” to find out if he was ready to roll up his sleeves and get to work on his social anxiety The “Miracle Cure” question to find out what he hoped would happen in the session The “Magic Button,”