We dive into life's difficult question “How The Bleep Do I Deal With Aging Parents?" with Dr. Natalie Feinblatt – a licensed clinical psychologist based in Los Angeles, California who is an expert in trauma and addiction. We explore the financial and emotional toll experienced by both adult children and aging parents, and how trauma and addiction can compound the struggle to connect and cope with the inevitable process of aging and end of life. Drawing from more than 20 years’ experience helping survivors of trauma and addiction heal, Natalie shares her feedback on real situations with aging parents. Moreover, she offers practical advice and resources on how to get help with issues like trauma and addiction.
Dr. Natalie Feinblatt is a licensed clinical psychologist who earned her BA in Psychology from UC San Diego, and her MA and PsyD from Pepperdine University. Dr. Feinblatt is currently in private practice and specializes in helping people heal from addictions and trauma. Learn more and contact Dr. Feinblatt at https://drnataliefeinblatt.com. Follow her @healingwithdrnatalie.
Find a therapist on Therapist Finder: PsychologyToday.com
Resources on Healing from Trauma and Addiction:
Addiction Recovery Resources:
Catch Oxygen Plus at @oxygenplus on TikTok and Instagram
We dive into life's difficult question “How The Bleep Do I Deal With Aging Parents?" with Dr. Natalie Feinblatt – a licensed clinical psychologist based in Los Angeles, California who is an expert in trauma and addiction. We explore the financial and emotional toll experienced by both adult children and aging parents, and how trauma and addiction can compound the struggle to connect and cope with the inevitable process of aging and end of life. Drawing from more than 20 years’ experience helping survivors of trauma and addiction heal, Natalie shares her feedback on real situations with aging parents. Moreover, she offers practical advice and resources on how to get help with issues like trauma and addiction.
Dr. Natalie Feinblatt is a licensed clinical psychologist who earned her BA in Psychology from UC San Diego, and her MA and PsyD from Pepperdine University. Dr. Feinblatt is currently in private practice and specializes in helping people heal from addictions and trauma. Learn more and contact Dr. Feinblatt at https://drnataliefeinblatt.com. Follow her @healingwithdrnatalie.
Find a therapist on Therapist Finder: PsychologyToday.com
Resources on Healing from Trauma and Addiction:
Addiction Recovery Resources:
Catch Oxygen Plus at @oxygenplus on TikTok and Instagram
Welcome to the We're Not Blowing Hot Air podcast powered by Oxygen Plus. This season we're zoned in on mental wellness as we explore some of life's biggest, most important questions with fascinating guests. Get ready for a colorful, curious exploration of this thing called life with today's remarkable guest. We show up on this planet as vulnerable, dependable creatures that require the care of our parents or parental figure to survive. As the drum beats on, life asks us to return the favor of caring for our parents when they are more dependent and vulnerable. It's a circle of life.
Lauren Carlstrom:At this point in my life, I want to be there for my mom in her later years, giving her as much dignity and care as possible, without letting that interfere with my own family and career goals. On the other hand, I want to be at peace for not being a caregiver to my dad, who has been marginally involved in my life since high school. Landing here was hard. I had to seek counsel and sort through a lot of familial and societal pressures. Maybe there's no right answer, just one I have to live with. We each have to land on what's right for us when choosing how to deal with our wonderfully imperfect aging parents.
Lauren Carlstrom:Dr Natalie Feinblatt, our incredible guest is an expert in trauma and addiction. She's the kind of qualified mental health expert who's tough enough to address ambivalence around aging parents, especially if trauma and addiction is involved. A licensed clinical psychologist based in Los Angeles, California, she earned her BA in psychology from UC San Diego and her MA and Psy. D. from my beachside alma mater, Pepperdine University. With 20-plus years experience in residential, outpatient and private practice, natalie helps survivors of physical, sexual and relational trauma heal. I was impressed by her practical and emotional intelligence on a popular podcast about former cult members, a subspecialty of her trauma work. Whether you struggle with trauma and addiction or grapple with the prospect of how to cope with evolving family issues, get ready to dive into the illuminating world of Dr Natalie Feinblatt as we explore life's elusive question how the f*** do I deal with my aging parents? I'm curious to know what inspired you to say yes to share your unique perspective on we're not blowing hot air.
Dr. Natalie Feinblatt:Sure, I mean, as soon as you reached out to me, I looked into the show and I thought I really like the looks of the show of you. I listened to a few episodes and I thought this is an issue that is coming up more and more with my clients that are Gen X millennials, and so I definitely thought that there would be an audience of people out there who would benefit from hearing about this.
Lauren Carlstrom:Great. Well, we're very excited and honored to have you today. So thank you for saying yes to the show, and I think it's interesting to say you have a lot of Gen X and millennial. Do you happen to have any more senior clients as well that you work with?
Dr. Natalie Feinblatt:If I have any clients that are boomers, they are definitely the youngest boomers that there are. Mostly my clients are Gen X, millennials and now Gen Z.
Lauren Carlstrom:Yeah, yeah. Have any of your clients. We can get it, hopefully, into some of the details a little later, but are any of your clients actually coming to you talking about how it's hard with their aging parents right now?
Dr. Natalie Feinblatt:Definitely. I work with a lot of folks who have developmental trauma, so they experienced emotional abuse growing up with their families, and that's typically one of the main reasons that they're coming to therapy. And those folks are now having to deal with their parents getting older and older and oftentimes starting to deteriorate in physical or mental health. Pardon me, I have a cat passing through here, so yeah, that's definitely a topic for quite a few of my clients at this point.
Lauren Carlstrom:Yeah, I know it's something that me and my peer group also is facing and considering. What I thought was. It's interesting when I given dealing with aging parents is emotionally difficult. What I think has compounded it is the financial situation that's happening. At least we can speak in America a little more clearly.
Lauren Carlstrom:We have, I think, the younger generation, maybe I'll just say Gen X and millennials have this expectation that their parents will be leaving some money to them in the form of an inheritance or another means. But the research really doesn't support that for a few factors. One of the reasons is that they didn't plan for it. In fact, 40% of Americans don't think they have enough assets to create a well and only 32% of Americans actually have a well, which is a decline from previous years. On top of just not planning for it, there may not be enough left, and that is because of things like inflation, monetary inflation, as well as the debasement of the dollar that's happening.
Lauren Carlstrom:Third factor is the high cost of long-term health care, and that can crack or crush a nest egg. I was researching this in preparation and I found that 40-hour-week home health aid or assisted living facility the average monthly cost is $4,600, which is $55,000 plus a year and a private room in a nursing home. The average monthly cost is $9,000, which is over $100,000 a year. So when we are thinking about how our parents are something or some entity we have to face and deal with. It's not just the emotional burden and it's the same economy that us younger people we don't even really have the income, most of us, to buy our own home like our parents did. So financial factor in this, I think, is something to acknowledge and consider as we really look at this issue.
Dr. Natalie Feinblatt:But I'm more interested in talking with you in the emotional and mental stress of this Sure sure, sure, yeah, well, and I think, just to tie the emotional and mental stress into the financial stuff, something that comes up often with the people that I work with is also that there is a lack of clarity and a lack of communication with their parents around the state planning what their assets are, and that adult children will often feel like they can't ask those questions of their boomer parents because they will be met with all sorts of potential negativity around that that they're not supposed to talk about that stuff or their parents don't want them to know specifics for whatever reasons, and that in and of itself can be stressful to feel like you don't have maybe the information that you need and the people who have it aren't really willing to give it to you.
Lauren Carlstrom:Have you had any success with ways to approach the boomer parent that maybe is not wanting to share that kind of financial information?
Dr. Natalie Feinblatt:Yeah, I mean I think the people that I've worked with who've had some success in that have made it. When they do try to bring it up with their parents, they will do their best to explain to the parent that they are asking these questions for the sake of their parent, not because they're nosy or they're wondering about their inheritance or they're trying to take money. It's none of those things. That they are just trying to plan ahead so that their parents can get the best care that they possibly can toward the end of their lives and that they don't blow through a bunch of money and then have nothing left in the long term. That tends to be the most successful approach, but it can still be tough because you can still run into parents who are like it'll be fine, just trust me, you don't need to know the specifics, and it's like well, if you get into a physical or mental state in your old age where you're not able to handle this stuff, like somebody has to have this information right.
Lauren Carlstrom:Yeah, yeah, compounds the relationship issues that are already there, yep.
Dr. Natalie Feinblatt:Very much so. Yeah, because it's also a communication issue. It's less like what is the communication about and more like why can't we communicate about this?
Lauren Carlstrom:And I would imagine trust is a very major factor as well when you talk about it.
Lauren Carlstrom:Yeah, and I think that's where, if we are to talk to our aging parents about how we can give them the most autonomy as possible and dignity, while also knowing that we might actually have a few things that will in our knowledge base or access and ability that can help them.
Lauren Carlstrom:I mean, I think to do that first we have to look at some of the relationship right Before we can get to the financial part. We have to talk about some of the emotional, mental and relational aspects of the relationship to get there, because where your money is, there your heart is also, and I think that if our parents are going to let the money go in a way so they can have the care that they want to need, they're going to have to have their trust in their heart, being what their kids are saying to them. So, yeah, well, that's pretty awesome. I do know you have quite an extensive experience in counseling people with trauma and addiction, so before we go into, hopefully, some case studies where we can talk about people Gen X and millennials who are dealing with these issues in real life, would you be willing to share all about what trauma and addiction is, how you see it in your work and also what pulled you into it, because I always love hearing the story.
Dr. Natalie Feinblatt:Yeah, sure, I mean, I first got into addiction treatment before trauma and that was pretty much just the result of being on track to be in school, to be a psychologist and having to work with a bunch of different populations Because, wisely, they want you to try out of several different things in order to decide what you're most interested in. Do you want to work with people who have mood disorders like depression or bipolar disorder? Do you want to work with anxiety, things like panic disorder, ocd? Do you want to work in addiction treatment, which is what I fell into? Because we don't.
Dr. Natalie Feinblatt:This is something I was just talking to somebody about earlier today is that not every mental health professional has experience working with every single issue, and sometimes folks will think, oh well, I have this problem, I'll just find a therapist and get some therapy and it's like OK, but what is the issue? And you need to find a therapist who specializes in that Because, for example, with addiction, not every therapist has much experience treating addiction and if you go and see somebody who doesn't and that's your main problem you're going to run into some issues.
Lauren Carlstrom:Yeah, you won't get the help you need, right? Yeah, exactly.
Dr. Natalie Feinblatt:Exactly. Hopefully, if that's the case, the person you're seeing will say I don't specialize in that. Let me find you someone who does, instead of trying to just figure it out. So when I was in school, I spent a couple of years working in different addiction treatment facilities, because I'm here in LA, there's a million of them. It's a very easy place to get some training and I just liked it. I was like this is a population of people I can work with.
Dr. Natalie Feinblatt:I a lot of people find addiction to be difficult to work with. I mean, yeah, it's challenging, but not in a way that I don't like. So the more experience you get in something, the more likely you are to get hired in other places for treatment of that. So I just kind of kept working at one addiction treatment center after another and I think that's the best way to get. Honestly, the reason that I came to specialize in trauma as well is that, in my opinion, you can't really specialize in treating addiction without also becoming a specialist in trauma, because when you look at the overlap between those two groups of people, it's huge. I've worked with very, very few people who have an addiction, who had no sort of trauma in their history and who weren't self-medicating for post-traumatic stress with their addiction. I've definitely come to work with plenty of folks who have trauma and post-traumatic stress with no addiction, but my work in that absolutely sprang out of my work in addiction.
Lauren Carlstrom:Yeah, Do you think I have a couple of questions of my own curiosity. Do you think addiction is sometimes treated without addressing underlying issues of trauma?
Dr. Natalie Feinblatt:Yeah, it definitely can be. I think that's becoming less and less of an issue. I mean, at least in the major addiction treatment kind of hotspots like Los Angeles and Florida and bigger cities like San Francisco, new York, most addiction treatment facilities will have some degree of trauma treatment available in them as well. I think where we run into problems and this opens a whole discussion about the state of healthcare and mental healthcare in the United States but I think where you run into issues is at treatment facilities. Addiction treatment facilities that are largely a network with insurance companies or take Medicare and Medicaid. Those places will often kind of give like bare bones addiction treatment which won't involve a lot of assistance for trauma or any other co-occurring mental health issues. I think overall, healing from trauma is continuing to work its way into addiction treatment, at least in North America.
Lauren Carlstrom:Okay, okay. Well, I'd love for you to share with us how to look at trauma. Maybe you can kind of define or use some examples of real trauma that you see. I do have the also. There's this last question on this topic. If we clear up the trauma, does sometimes the addiction get cleared up?
Dr. Natalie Feinblatt:Well, I'll answer that first and then I'll go back to just kind of defining trauma. But in terms of if somebody is addiction sprang out of as a way to self-medicate away post-traumatic stress, yeah, if you are able to heal some of that post-traumatic stress, the addiction can definitely fall by the wayside. However, if somebody's addiction has gotten to the point that they are maybe it started as a way to self-medicate for post-traumatic stress but then eventually they developed a serious physiological dependence on drugs or alcohol that can kind of become its own thing as well Then it's like okay, yes, we definitely need to treat the underlying trauma here, but we also need to focus on sobriety and addiction recovery, because once you're physically dependent on things, that can make getting off of them and cravings to use again really intense, so that that can be tricky. And then, in terms of trauma, trauma is.
Dr. Natalie Feinblatt:Defining trauma is challenging. There's lots of different definitions out there. There's kind of the official American Psychiatric Association. It's anything that you either experience or witness that threatens your life or you think is going to threaten your life, that you might die from it. I think myself and probably many other trauma specialists think that that's a bit too narrow of a definition. I think it's really anything, in my opinion, that causes your nervous system to engage in a trauma response we kind of talk about the 4Fs If it throws your nervous system into fight, flight, freeze or fawn and your-.
Lauren Carlstrom:I'm sorry, is fawn is the last word? Or fun. Fawn? F-a-w-n, F-A-W-N. I just wanted to make sure I was hearing it correctly. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Dr. Natalie Feinblatt:And fawning is essentially a trauma response that involves complying with whatever is going on in order to try to make it stop.
Lauren Carlstrom:I had not heard that before.
Dr. Natalie Feinblatt:Certainly fight or flight, but not really, oh yeah so there's fight, flight and freeze, which most people are familiar with. Fight meaning you become aggressive, Flight meaning you try to run away. Freeze meaning you freeze in place and then fawn is when you kind of just go along with whatever the situation is as a means to survive and get through to the other side of it, and that is definitely a valid and legitimate trauma response. But any sort of extremely stressful life circumstance that causes you to respond in those ways could certainly be considered trauma.
Lauren Carlstrom:Okay, and a couple examples of trauma that happened?
Dr. Natalie Feinblatt:Sure. I mean the classic one that everybody thinks of is being an active military combat right, but people don't realize that it goes far, far, far beyond that. It is being physically abused or assaulted, verbal abuse, emotional abuse and childhood being sexually abused as a child or sexually assaulted as an adult. Things like domestic violence, natural disasters, mass shootings and many other types of things.
Lauren Carlstrom:We've spoken before about covert and overt abuse and how they're. I don't want to quote you, but essentially they're the same impact they can be on certain people, especially children. Now I would imagine there are people who would challenge that and or who would say that your trauma isn't really trauma. How can we confront and address that nonsense?
Dr. Natalie Feinblatt:I would be willing to bet that anybody who would say something like that either is a perpetrator of covert abuse and doesn't want to look at it, or has been the victim of covert abuse and doesn't want to look at it because that would be scary for them to consider. Just to clarify, when we're talking about overt versus covert sexual abuse, specifically of children overt is what we all consider when an adult physically lays their hands on a child and does something sexual to them, but covert sexual abuse of children nobody ever has to touch anybody. It can be things like having really sexually inappropriate explicit conversations with children. It can be showing pornography to children. It can be getting naked and or engaging in sexual acts in front of a child things along those lines.
Dr. Natalie Feinblatt:In terms of trying to confront or push back on people who say, well, the covert stuff isn't as bad as the overt stuff because nobody actually laid their hands on you. I would counter that by saying talk to some people who have survived covert sexual abuse and see the impact that it has had on their psyche and their sexual development as a teenager and an adult, because you're going to see people who are struggling with pretty much the exact same things that people who were overtly sexually abused struggle with on a regular basis. I think that people want to put things in like tidy little boxes, like, well, this is what sexual abuse is and that's what it's not, and it's like well, I think we have to broaden our perspectives about sex doesn't just mean flesh touching flesh. It can be psychological in nature. When children are exposed to really inappropriate things that will leave a lasting scar on their psyche.
Lauren Carlstrom:Yeah, well, thank you for saying that. It's really hard and important stuff. Yeah, we need to know. Thinking about that. Power abuse, right, like sex is really sexual abuse, is power abuse? Yeah, and as I'm thinking about some, the parental role that a child, especially in child abuse, you must, as a therapist working with survivors of physical, emotional and sexual abuse, you must somehow come to fill a part of that parent role as you work with a client. Is that correct? Like in a good way, not like in the where they can't think of the term, right, but it's where they like replace you as that, but they they might. But there's a form of that, that bonding that happens in therapy, correct? Yeah, and that can be. I just want to like, kind of, as we talk about the trauma issues and how we care for our aging parents, how can that healing relationship with a therapist help a child, a child's survivor, help deal with their own issues, to eventually like deal with all the relationships that they work with?
Dr. Natalie Feinblatt:Sure. So there's a lot of different, you know terms we can utilize here, but you know, what I'll say is is one of the theories about why therapy is helpful is that it is a corrective emotional experience. So the idea is that, you know, at least in our society, there is kind of a bit of a hierarchy, with the therapist as the professional and the client as kind of the lay person, and the idea is that, you know, through this healthy relationship with a therapist, that can be a corrective emotional experience for a person who maybe has, you know, going far back as their, their childhood with their parents, had really difficult relationships with people in a position of authority and I'm putting quotation marks around that because parents definitely have authority over their kids. I mean, a therapist is in the professional authority position, but it's not quite the same, you know. No, my clients don't have to do what I say or whatever, right, but a way that I know that it can be helpful and this is an example that you know I've seen played out many times is that when a client let's say that I do something and this happens with every therapist let's say that I do something that inadvertently, you know, bothers my client, hurts their feelings.
Dr. Natalie Feinblatt:You know something like that and they're able to bring it up to me and talk to me about it, right, and whereas maybe they've never been able to do that with their parents or possibly anybody else. That will be a corrective experience for them, because even if we disagree I mean most of the time that this happens I am just apologetic and then we explore what it means. But we can, they can bring that up in our relationship and maybe have a difficult conversation about it, one that ultimately like is healthy and goes well, and that we're able to move on from right. And being able to do that with your therapist can then lead to you being able to do that in other relationships also, potentially with your aging parents. And I'm not saying that just because you bring something up with your therapist and it ultimately goes well means that you're going to bring something up with your aging parent and it's going to go?
Lauren Carlstrom:well, probably not, is what you're actually saying.
Dr. Natalie Feinblatt:You may not know, well, yeah but it will go well for the client because they will have the experience of speaking up for themselves and also knowing that, even if the response they get back isn't great, they're going to, they're going to survive and they'll make it through.
Lauren Carlstrom:Yeah, empowering, it's about taking your personal power. Yeah, I love that. That's great. Well, I have talked to two people in my world who gave me their permission to give an anonymous synopsis of their current real life situation with their aging parents and I'm going to share with our listeners. I gave you a little preview as to what it is I want to share with you. They allowed them to pick their own names. So the first one is red Individual is in their 40s. There's a book by Lindsay C Gibson, I think so. In her book there's a couple of surveys that I pulled from and there's one survey about the emotional like how well kind of their childhood was growing up. So this individual, red scored low, like so had a healthy sort of growing up.
Lauren Carlstrom:Three out of 15 so he has or she has no issues working on recovery or trauma. The parents have their own savings for health care, so the financial issue is an a burden. This person reports that the work considerations for themself is a concern because they can't go into work if they're needing to take care of their parents who live four and a half hours away and they resist talking about care and of life moving out of the house. The parents do. They and the kids keep hammering them to move or find someone who can help them with some caregiving in some way, and the dad is not being open about the medication and prescriptions that just in case he forgets, or the mom needs something that the kids want to know. So that's that situation. What advice, what life tips would you give red?
Dr. Natalie Feinblatt:Yeah, I mean, this is this. This is a situation that has its its pluses and minuses. Right, it is great to know that the parents do have savings for health care. That's a big load off. But I can see how this could be frustrating for red in terms of, you know, trying to nail them down on. You know, are you guys going to move closer? Are you going to go into a senior living community and then even trying to get you know the specifics of the medication from them and feeling like they don't even want to give that up?
Dr. Natalie Feinblatt:I think that you know if they're in a position where because I know that in California there are certain areas that are kind of like health care deserts, where, like one that I know, for example, I will go into how but is kind of in like the San Luis and so and surrounding areas in like central California, is that for some reason, there's just not a lot of doctors up there, not a lot of specialists and not a lot of caregivers, and so even if, just because somebody has the money for health care, well, if there's no, there's not enough caregivers to hire to come and take care of parents in their home, but that's not a great situation to be in, right?
Dr. Natalie Feinblatt:So if they're in a place where, okay, we can afford health care, when the time comes there will be people to hire to come and help at the house, it's like, okay, well, if that, even though that's a more expensive option than going to live somewhere, if the parents can afford that and that is what they prefer, Okay, you can't make them choose otherwise in most cases.
Dr. Natalie Feinblatt:But if we're dealing with, like you know, if mom and dad start to kind of become incapacitated and there's really not much in the way of caregivers to hire, what do we do? This could be. You know, time is of the essence in terms of trying to have a conversation where you know, as unpleasant as it can be, to try to, you know, not let mom and dad change the subject or get up and leave, or whatever it is, and, again, really try to frame it as we are doing this for your safety and protection, right, Because I know you want to think that you're going to be able to take care of yourself until the day that you peacefully pass away in your sleep or whatever this ideal scenario is, but none of us know if it's going to happen like that.
Lauren Carlstrom:Yes, yeah. It almost seems like the child in that case has the responsibility of helping their parents accept end of life. I mean, isn't that ultimately what we are facing when we talk to our parents about how they want to manage their latter day care?
Dr. Natalie Feinblatt:Yeah, yeah, Absolutely. I mean we. I think we're making improvements, but we are historically not a society that like handles I mean, like American, North American white culture is, we don't handle end of life and death very well, right, it's just we're quite ages and it's just like people get old and then I get they die and that's all we need to think about and it's like, well, no, it's actually a little bit more complicated and nuanced than that.
Lauren Carlstrom:Yeah, and I think that's why it actually this episode and issue is important, because it is societally and culturally. We're suppressing it. We focus on beauty and youth and what can keep us alive, right, like the last thing we want to think about is how we're not going to be here one day. Yeah, yeah, okay. Well, we have one more real life example from my world. Anonymous, this person chose the name, chad Thundercock, so I'm respecting that.
Lauren Carlstrom:It was a dare as well to say that this individuals in their fifties. They were a five out of 15. So a little bit more maybe struggle as a child at home, but still pretty, pretty healthy growing up. No issues that they're working on for recovery or addiction or trauma recovery. Parents have means for and a policy for long term care. As a child, mom was more emotionally available than dad and currently Chad Thunder Thundercock every day is cooking meals, doing the shopping, preparing everything for the parents, and his or her concerns are, if the parent falls, he's doing all the chores. Just really, the complaint for the child is the huge emotional polar drain that it is constantly a burden on Chad Thundercock's mind and even afraid to travel and also, similarly, like red, is trying to find someone to care for them and to have the parents accept that care for them. How can we help Chad Thundercock?
Dr. Natalie Feinblatt:Well, I would say, you know Chad is at a little bit of an advantage and that they are already there, kind of performing some of the tasks that a caregiver would perform. Why I think that might be an advantage is that you know, if Chad is able to go in there and do these things, hopefully there would be some space to, you know, swap out a caregiver for that, and I understand that that. You know Chad is saying that their parents resist this help and it's like okay, well, this is, this is where you might, you know, have to hear your parents out and validate their feelings and then also say I understand that this is hard for you guys. The caregiver will be coming tomorrow for two hours to help you, right, like you know, if, if you continue to acquiesce to, to what they're asking, then you know, then it's going to be Chad that is doing this all the time. However, if they, you know, start trying to maybe do it half time and then bring in and somebody else is another caregiver to do that half time, you know the parents might have resistance to it and be unhappy about it, but, you know, is what it is like. They can, they can deal with that, that's okay.
Dr. Natalie Feinblatt:It's not not the end of the world, and this has got to be a tough situation, given that the dad has Parkinson's and the mom has, you know, memory issues and things like that. You know, one thing that I know from what you told me about this is that and let me know if I'm reading this correctly that you know, mom, they don't really have much of a social life. Oh, yes, the mom does want a social life, correct, yeah, yeah, so I mean that is a great selling point for entering, you know, a senior community is that they can have independent or semi-independent living and, at the same time, all of a sudden be thrown into a whatever size community of people who are meeting in various clubs and playing games and you know meeting, for you know crafting or whatever it is Like. It's just like you don't have to do anything, just show up at the right place and time and there's your social support.
Lauren Carlstrom:Yeah, yeah, it's really sage advice and interesting things for both our real but anonymous people to think about, so and all of us. So thank you for that. It does show me, too, how the importance of the brains, of clinical advice, can be really helpful in these things, like not necessarily something a friend might suggest, yeah, yeah, so I think that is important to point out. Well now, as you are an expert in healing from trauma and addiction, natalie, I'd love it if you could perhaps share from your own life and work, maybe, how a more severe case of emotional immaturity and all of those things play in it could be on the parents who have the issues of trauma and addiction, or emotional immaturity, or the children. Yeah, what do you have to share about that?
Dr. Natalie Feinblatt:Well, I can, you know, I can kind of make an amalgam of a few different. You know people that I've worked with in this position where you know the one or both of the parents you know has an addiction or post traumatic stress that they are clearly struggling with. Even if they won't, you know, specify that that's what their problem is. And you know that they've raised an adult child who you know has their own post traumatic stress as a result of being raised by. You know two people with these particular issues who maybe didn't engage in a lot of help for those issues. They kind of stay stuck in, you know, stasis as opposed to moving forward in recovery. And you know I can think of of. You know a particular person that I've worked with where they very much want to be there for their parents and help them, but they are also torn because their history with their parents is incredibly loaded and triggering and their parents really don't want to take any accountability for anything that has happened in the past that might make the relationship difficult and triggering. And you know, just recently I've, you know, dealt with some clients who who knows how long it'll last for, but they've decided that they have to go no contact with one or both of their older parents because their parents just, you know, are too combative or continue to be too verbally or emotionally abusive for them to feel okay maintaining the relationship. And you know, that's definitely kind of the extreme end of the spectrum.
Dr. Natalie Feinblatt:But there are plenty of people that get there, unfortunately. And it's really difficult because on the one hand, in spite of everything that's happened, the adult child still feels very concerned for their parents. They know that their parents don't have great planning for what is ahead and that their parents are only going to continue to become at least more physically disabled because we all do as we age, but if not more, you know, mental health stuff as well but that they feel like, for their own well being and safety, that they have to make that kind of extreme choice for some period of time. And it can be difficult because sometimes families will become so used to an adult child being the one who is dealing with this one or two difficult parents, that when the adult child finally says, no, I'm not going to be dealing with this anymore, that it's quite a shock for some of the extended family to be like, oh, we might have to deal with these people. Yeah, and you know, sometimes it gets pushed to that degree.
Lauren Carlstrom:Yeah, when we had chatted earlier, natalie, you had said that it's about being safe, like if you're not feeling safe with your adult aging parent in the situation, that's a time and sign that you need to pull back. Do you want to, could you? That really struck me before. Could we talk a bit?
Dr. Natalie Feinblatt:Yeah, I mean, if you are dealing with you know aging parents who, when you interact with them, continue to verbally, emotionally, possibly even physically abuse you. That is not a safe situation. Like even a person who has been through tons of therapy, you know, has all these coping skills right, Like that doesn't change the fact that being in the presence of someone who has been abusive towards you since you were very little, if they're abusive to you in the present day, is going to be emotionally damaging. Like maybe not as emotionally damaging as if you were three years old, right, but like it's still not okay. And if a person has gotten to the point where they feel like they can kind of put a wall up and not feel most of the effects of that, okay, fine.
Dr. Natalie Feinblatt:There's still going to be plenty of people who will reach a limit with that and will feel like their mental health is in danger when they are interacting with an abusive parent. And nobody wants to get to the point of going no contact with a parent. I've worked with plenty of people who have gone both ways, who have decided to maintain some degree of a relationship with an aging parent and people who have decided to stop having a relationship with an aging parent. There's no one right way. It's highly specific to the situation, but I think anybody who gets pushed to that point it is their last resort Nobody wants that.
Lauren Carlstrom:Very, very tough and think about also the experience from a senior whose child is being abusive, Like elder abuse is something that is somewhat talked about but not enough. How then does trauma and addiction, I mean, does that fuel a lot of what you think is related to elder abuse or not much? Is there any research or not experience you have on that?
Dr. Natalie Feinblatt:Yeah, I mean, luckily, I have not worked with a ton of people, you know, the, the how do I say this? The, going back to that term populations, the populations of people that I tend to see in my private practice tend to be more victims or survivors of abuse as opposed to perpetrators of abuse, which that's just my own personal preference. There are people who want to work with folks who struggle with abusive behaviors and they find that that's their population of people, and if so, great, it's not my population. But does that happen Absolutely? I mean, there are plenty of cases of, you know, aging parents who are, you know, a largely healthy or at least neutral people who, through life circumstances, have an adult child who maybe struggles with, you know, a serious addiction, a serious mental health issue that they're not getting help for, that perhaps leads them to be abusive toward their aging parents. You know, one thing that I find really unfortunate and I'm only going to speak for California here, because that's where I am is that in cases of child abuse, you know, when it gets reported to the police and to, you know, the Children of the Department of Children and Family Services, you know things can be done to step in and say, ok, we have to remove this parent or we have to remove this child, and we you know everybody has to do what we say to try to fix this situation.
Dr. Natalie Feinblatt:My experience in California thus far has been that there are far fewer protections for seniors than there are for children. My experience through my clients so far is that obviously, if somebody is being abusive and it can be proved to be abusive toward a dependent adult, there can be some legal recourse for that. But if you know adult protective services gets involved in a situation and perhaps that that aging parent is scared to tell the truth and they lie and say that everything is fine and that they don't want any help, case closed, which is definitely not the case with children, right, if a child says everything's fine, the police don't go. Ok, well, let us know if you have any trouble. Right, like there's an investigation, right. My experience has unfortunately been that that is not the case with elderly people and that abuse can be perpetrated a lot more than you know parents of young children are ever able to get away with.
Lauren Carlstrom:Yeah, I wish there was more we could do right about getting, protecting and advocating for seniors as they grow older. I think the one thing is what you're doing is helping people heal who do have trauma and do want to face the issue of how to grapple with the issue of aging parents. A couple treatment options that I know that you are I don't know if you say licensed in or certified in, but EDMR and brain spotting I think I have done and know what EDMR is. I think I know what that is. I'd love for you to explain that one and why it's used. And then also brain spotting I had not heard of but until I read more about you and your work and what that is, and so I thought that was awesome too, especially in light of video and doing everything kind of in our online world now.
Dr. Natalie Feinblatt:So if you would, so EMDR is a type of trauma treatment that's been around for 20, 30 years, at this point, I think, all told and essentially it involves EMDR stands for eye movement, desensitization and reprocessing, which is why we call it EMDR, because that is a mouthful.
Dr. Natalie Feinblatt:So it was originally done with eye movements, as the name would suggest, but we've come to understand that it can be done with any sort of stimulation it can be eye movements, auditory or tactile. Essentially it is a type of trauma treatment that involves alternating left and right stimulation pardon me while working through trauma in a specific kind of way following a certain protocol, and there's a lot of evidence to show that it helps reducer, eliminate symptoms of post traumatic stress, which can be great. It involves picking specific targets, so things that have happened to you in the past, using the right, left stimulation to lead you through thoughts, feelings, memories, physical sensations literally anything can come up during that and then kind of debriefing with the therapist about it and using that as a way to reprocess what you have been through in such a way that it doesn't cause symptoms of post traumatic stress anymore.
Lauren Carlstrom:And then the neural level. What's happening in the brain?
Dr. Natalie Feinblatt:Great question. So at this point in time, there is a ton of empirical evidence to show that EMDR reduces symptoms. Why? We are still working on that. We don't know exactly why the right left stimulation does this. Maybe we'll get answers one day. They're working on figuring it out. Maybe the right left stimulation causes the information to go back and forth between the right and left hemispheres of the brain, but why? That helps reduce post traumatic stress. So it's kind of in the same boat as psychedelics.
Lauren Carlstrom:maybe how that helps certain types of trauma, we don't know, but we know it works.
Dr. Natalie Feinblatt:There's way more empirical, and I say this as somebody who also does ketamine-assisted psychotherapy, so I am not talking about this.
Lauren Carlstrom:Oh, you do that.
Dr. Natalie Feinblatt:Yeah. So I'm not by any means knocking that, but at this point in time there is more empirical evidence to back up EMDR than there is psychedelics. But that's I'm sure that will change in time.
Lauren Carlstrom:Yeah, yeah, okay and great. So brain spotting Sure.
Dr. Natalie Feinblatt:So brain spotting. The idea is that where you see affects how you feel, and that certain eye positions can be tied into kind of unlocking trauma in the subcortex, which is instead of that's not where your thoughts are, that's where kind of your emotions and your physical sensations are, and so the idea is that you're able to identify eye positions that correspond to trauma, process the emotions and physical sensations that come up when you're holding that eye position. That will help reprocess trauma on all levels instead of just the thinking level.
Lauren Carlstrom:Can you give an example of that? So like I turn my eye to a certain, like I literally look down the lower left corner and hold it there?
Dr. Natalie Feinblatt:No, so the way that it's done.
Lauren Carlstrom:Yeah, are you going to do it to me right now? This is great. No, oh, okay.
Dr. Natalie Feinblatt:But I'm just kind of showing you. So I've got my little pointer right and my little pointer, let me see, here, is in the center of the screen right, and so I would ask you to think about a specific trauma that you've been through, and then we would move the pointer very, very slowly in a variety of directions and you would let me know if you feel any emotional upset coming up. Let's say it's like right here you feel something. Okay, so then we would kind of play with going up and down, if it increased or decreased, and then we'd find a place where you'd feel the maximum amount of emotion around it. Then we would hold that eye position for however long it takes for you to kind of feel all of the physical and emotional things that are tied to that, before we would then do some things to kind of help make sure there's nothing left there.
Lauren Carlstrom:And true or false, because that's why I wanted to ask you about EDMR. Yeah, I said that right. Okay, so you don't have to talk about your issues. In brain spotting I could say I have an issue, I don't want to tell you what it is. I'm going to pay you for the session, but we're just going to do the mascara pointy thing that you just showed, right.
Dr. Natalie Feinblatt:Yes, yep, you do not have to. The important thing is that you, as the client, know what's going on. I don't have to know.
Lauren Carlstrom:And that is as effective as EDMR.
Dr. Natalie Feinblatt:I don't know that there's as much research again on brain spotting as there is on EMDR, but I mean, there's not one thing that works for everybody, because otherwise we'd all be doing that, right, okay. So for some people it's EMDR that will help them process, finish processing some trauma. For some people it's brain spotting.
Lauren Carlstrom:Any other besides ketamine assisted therapy, which I know a little bit about as well, but not enough to facilitate. Do you want to share any other modalities of treatment that you find particularly helpful?
Dr. Natalie Feinblatt:Sure, I mean definitely ketamine assisted psychotherapy I have started. I got a little bit of training in internal family systems, which is a whole other model that I think is really great and can be extremely helpful. I also do cognitive behavioral therapy, acceptance and commitment therapy. If you're in the field long enough, you get trained in a lot of different stuff, but that's all the stuff that I do the most of.
Lauren Carlstrom:How do you know when someone's ready for some help to face their own trauma and addiction issues and or helping their aging parents deal with those issues? How do you know you're ready? And then, what are some ways to get help with those things?
Dr. Natalie Feinblatt:You or they are ready, when you're willing to look outside yourself for assistance when you know that you can't figure it all out on your own. Maybe that doesn't mean therapy, maybe that's reading books, listening to podcasts, watching videos, going to a retreat, I don't know, but anything that's not just originating from you. I would say the best ways to go about getting help if you can afford therapy either through your insurance or out of paying out of pocket. Individual therapy is great because it's one-on-one, tailored to you. I would suggest going to the Psychology Today Therapist Finder. Just Google that Psychology Today Therapist Finder. There's also InclusiveTherapistcom. Those are a couple of, I think, the biggest or best directories to utilize online.
Dr. Natalie Feinblatt:If you're looking for somebody who takes your insurance, you can go through a company, again online, like Headway or Alma. That can be much easier than trying to find somebody through your insurance company. If therapy is not an affordable option for you, or just not for whatever reason, it's not an option, start researching online. Find books, find podcasts, find videos. I know that it's important to verify the information that you're looking at. If somebody is presenting some miraculous cure for a psychological problem, request backup, be like how do we know this? What does the research say Don't just take people's word for it, but look and see what's out there with a discerning eye, it's hard to find a good therapist.
Lauren Carlstrom:I think that you've suggested looking for 10, because ultimately then you end up with someone, maybe at the end. What's your process for? Actually, if you can get therapy, you want therapy. How do you suggest we go through the process of finding a therapist that will fit us?
Dr. Natalie Feinblatt:Again, it really depends on if you're looking through your insurance or not, because they're kind of different pathways. I would say something that you should do, whether you're private paying or looking through insurance, is reach out to five to 10 people, because you're not going to hear back from everybody. If you just reach out to two people and never hear back from them, you might end up discouraged and think that you can't find a therapist, when the reality is you just need to reach out to a lot of people in order to hear back from folks.
Lauren Carlstrom:You had said there are some low-fee clinics for $20, $30 that might be in your area, that maybe you don't have the most experienced people, but it's something.
Dr. Natalie Feinblatt:I would suggest looking for, Googling low-fee therapy and then the name of your city or the name of your state, because you can do video therapy throughout your state and see what kind of clinics come up. Yes, typically there are people who can offer services at a very low cost Low-fee but it can be tough to find. You really have to persevere through the search.
Lauren Carlstrom:Yes, like life, natalie, we've also put together, you've put together, and I'm going to share, a list of other resources that people can find online and some websites and books that deal with both addiction recovery and resources for healing on trauma and addiction. Thank you for that. Thank you for sharing all that with our listeners, since I did originally find you on a cult podcast talking about that subspecialty of your expertise, and I've learned from a previous episode that we did with Rick Allen Ross, who is an expert in cults too. He shared that when we're vulnerable, that's another time that cults can take advantage of people. You had mentioned groups like a support group or anything you can find for a resource, but a word of caution you want to offer people about how to avoid some of the red flags of cults if you're vulnerable and looking for help.
Dr. Natalie Feinblatt:Absolutely, regardless of what kind of help you are getting therapy, support group, literally anything. I would look up three things. I would look up Steve Hasson's cult criteria. He's got something called the Byte Model B-I-T-E. I would look up Margaret Singer's cult criteria and I would look up Robert Lifton's cult criteria. I would have those handy and keep track of if any person or group that you are involving yourself with meets a number of those criteria, because if it does time to look for help elsewhere.
Lauren Carlstrom:Awesome, very sage advice. Natalie, it's been a profound honor having you here today. Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it Thank you? Yeah, it's been really great. How are your parents, by the way?
Dr. Natalie Feinblatt:Let's put it this way they are aging boomers. All of us get into this profession for a reason. It's usually because we have complicated backgrounds and have had struggles of our own. Just leave it at that and you can use your imagination.
Lauren Carlstrom:That's good. Well, thank you for sharing about trauma, addiction recovery and how we can care for our aging parents and for all the color that you bring to our world. Thank you, thanks for listening. Do us a solid and smash that subscribe, share and five star rating button or link for the show. That way, more people can elevate their mental wellness as they explore some of life's biggest, most important questions with remarkable and fascinating guests. Oxygen Plus powers. this episode of We're Not Blowing Hot, Air Nice Guy Creative Services is our producer. Leslie Blennerhassett is designer. I'm Lauren Carlstrom, concepting and host. Arlene Appelbaum is editor. Thank you, valued listener. Keep breathing easy so together, we can color our world.