Episode 8

full
Published on:

9th Nov 2022

Part 1 - Medicine and Healthcare: The History of Superhuman Expectations with Megan Cohoon

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Welcome back to Therapist Expanded! Today I’m interviewing Megan Cohoon.

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  • Megan describes her clientele and her relational approach, as well as her love for working with couples and families
  • I love her quote, “I don’t work with disorders, I work with people,” and how the DSM is not grounded in science and is “so confining”
  • She reports her frustration about the narrow view of humanity, therapy, and the medical model
  • Being a blacksheep in a room full of therapists is something we share, and how we both relate to people without the pathology model
  • Megan lays out the roots of Marriage and Family Therapy, and how psychology and marriage and family therapy have melded over time
  • Megan has researched the history of medicine, including Chinese and Western medicine
  • She describes the origins of sleep deprivation and superhuman expectations of medical professionals born out of the late 1700s (this story has to be heard to be believed!), and how what translated and lingered in the medical culture is astounding, considering what has been forgotten about this timeframe
  • The paradigm shift of working faster and surgically in western medicine was born out of the need and creativity necessitated by WWI, so surgery became a “love affair” that lingers today. Then during WWII, the focus became antibiotics. She lays out how these two branches of medicine have dominated Western medicine since.
  • She asks, “Why do we talk about mental health, why don’t we just talk about health?”
  • She shares how Chinese medicine does not separate the brain from the body
  • Megan describes how the most exciting healthcare revolution is about alternative medicine and the tremendous opportunities there, because allopathic medicine is so ineffective at managing and curing chronic conditions
  • Megan wants to see a Health revolution; not specific to mental health, and to her that looks like incorporating other health approaches into Western medicine (like the Integrative Psychiatry model, and Functional Medicine model)
  • Megan recommends looking for the readily available functional medicine information available on the internet
  • We talk about some other important historical factors, and Homeopathic mindsets and practices
  • Megan asks, “where’s the curiosity?” in science and how that applies to healthcare
  • We discuss the discomfort as the opportunity to be curious, and how curiosity and not knowing can lead to amazing changes (and has lead to amazing changes historically)
  • Megan describes the shocking history of handwashing 

https://fmpha.org/free-resources/ Free Functional Medicine Resources

https://www.ifm.org/functional-medicine/patient-resource-center/ More resources and questions to ask functional medicine practitioners as well as other medical professionals https://p.widencdn.net/iymmsf/Questions-For-Functional-Medicine-Practitioners

Thanks for listening!


*Hey! What's Your Therapist Fulfillment Flavor? Take the QUIZ to find out and see how much your fulfillment really is like ice cream! 

On a serious note, this quiz could illuminate the beginnings of a path to your fulfillment so take the QUIZ  today and receive curated content just for you! 

I hope you enjoy the podcast! Please Subscribe, share, rate and review if it feels genuine to you!



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About the Podcast

Therapist Expanded
Reaching past industry conditioning to the source of our creative power
Host Erin Gibb is a therapist, clinical supervisor, group practice owner, Therapist Fulfillment Coach, and early adopter of the weird and wonderful.

Through interviews with relatable guests, controversial outside-the-box thinkers, solo episodes, and coaching demos, you'll see how therapists are uniquely conditioned for fear, responsibility and unfulfillment. Therapist Expanded then points the way to reaching past industry constraints to the source of our creative power, because when we therapists dare to live our deepest dreams, we start a mental health revolution.

Wondering how living your core desires freely and fully could start a mental health revolution? Well as Carl Jung said, we'll only take our clients as far as we've gone, and your host has seen the incredible growth of those surrounding a therapist when they courageously dream outside of their conditioning.

So are you curious yet? Join us and let's expand together and watch our field grow!

About your host

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Erin Gibb

Erin Gibb is a Therapist Fulfillment Coach, group practice owner, clinical supervisor, therapist, and outside the box thinker inciting a mental health REVOLUTION.