Interview: Melissa Lapides on Psychological Safety and Consumer Rights
Melissa Lapides is a licensed Psychotherapist and Trauma Expert. She is the Founder of the SafeSpace Institute which provides trauma-informed training for Corporate leaders.
What’s the difference among a psychotherapist, a life coach, a counselor, a mentor and a wellness consultant?
A psychotherapist or mental health counselor works with helping a client understand how the environment they grew up in has shaped who they are and their behaviours. A life coach helps a client move forward and helps them stay in the right mindset and cheerleads them on and holds them accountable to reach their goals. A wellness consultant focuses mostly on physical wellbeing, nutrition and diet. As far as a mentor goes it depends on what context you are using a mentor for. Usually it’s someone who is further along in an area you wish to grow that helps you to find your way based on their expertise.
What are the 4 pillars of psychological safety at work?
– Integrity
– Belonging
– Workplace Inclusivity
– Collaborative Professionalism
What are the 5 stages of healing?
Creating a safe and nurturing living environment
Processing grief and loss
Learning to regulate your nervous system
Creating secure and healthy relationships
Learning to love yourself
What’s your definition of mental health?
Mental health is the cumulative state of a person’s psychological, emotional and relational wellbeing.
What’s your definition of trauma?
Trauma is the impact of any event that may be perceived as life-threatening to the individual (even though it may not be).
What’s your definition of self-sabotage?
Self-sabotage is when you cognitively know when your decisions are not healthy or harmful and you knowingly do it anyway.
What’s your definition of achievement?
Achievement is taking the next best step forward!
What’s your definition of mindset?
I honestly have a distaste for the word. I believe the mind is set in a certain way depending on so many different factors such as trauma and genetics. So it’s not always as easy to change as people think.
What’s the difference between psychotherapy and coaching?
Psychotherapy supports you to explore and heal your emotional and relational development as a child until the present. Coaching is more about goal setting and supporting you to stick to and achieve those goals.
What are the red flags that indicate that we are suffering from emotional trauma?
Anxiety, chronic fear, feeling stuck, digestive and sleep issues, chronic confusion or not trusting yourself, and toxic relationships.
What’s the difference between emotional trauma and mindset block?
Emotional trauma is stored in the body, it’s a felt experience, a feeling, or an emotion caused by your survival feeling threatened, whereas a mindset block is a thought that prevents you from believing something is possible.
Can we prevent emotional trauma?
We can minimize it by creating psychologically healthy environments but it’s not 100 per cent guaranteed because it can be passed on through generations.
What are the most common mindset blocks for professional development?
What I hear most is people experience impostor syndrome.
How is self-esteem related to skill development?
It’s very hard to pick up new skills if you don’t believe you can! Research has consistently shown that self-esteem plays an important role in skill development. Individuals with high self-esteem tend to be more confident in their abilities, which allows them to take risks and persevere through challenging tasks. Furthermore, high self-esteem provides motivation and optimism, allowing individuals to be more open to feedback and criticism and less likely to give up. Self-esteem can also be improved through skill development, which provides a sense of mastery and increases feelings of competence. By building self-esteem, individuals can create a positive feedback loop in which skills and self-esteem reinforce one another.
What’s the difference between self-confidence and self-esteem?
Self-esteem is something that is built in us as children by proper mirroring, attunement and validation from our primary caregivers. Self-confidence is a result of that being done. The terms self-confidence and self-esteem are often used interchangeably, but there is an important distinction to be made between the two. Self-confidence is defined as the belief in one’s abilities to accomplish tasks or reach goals, while self-esteem is the evaluation of one’s self-worth. Both of these traits can affect how we think, feel, and act in any given situation. Self-confidence gives us the assurance and courage to take on challenges and set our sights on goals, while self-esteem provides us with the belief that we are valuable and worthy individuals regardless of our accomplishments. By cultivating both self-confidence and self-esteem, we can foster a more positive and successful mindset.
What are the causes and consequences of low self-esteem?
The lack of self-esteem usually stems from a lack of emotional attunement and validation as a child and can impact many things in life such as missed opportunities, failed relationships, lack of boundaries and values and chronic depression and anxiety.
What’s emotional regulation?
Emotional regulation is the ability to recognise when your emotions are out of your “healthy” zone and learn to bring yourself back into an emotional state that is not harmful to your physical wellbeing. It involves learning how to effectively cope with feelings, make rational decisions, and stay in control of one’s emotional reactions. It is an important skill for healthy living, as it helps people handle stress and respond appropriately to different situations.
What are the most effective methods, techniques and tools for managing emotions and achieving goals?
There are so so many great ways! Start with therapy of course as a foundation to understand your psychological make up and how you best operate. Other ways include mindfulness practices, somatic therapy, goal-setting, journaling, self-reflection, stress management, communication, and visualizations. Mindfulness practices help individuals recognise, observe, and become aware of their emotional and physical states. Goal-setting allows individuals to create an action plan for their goals and keep them accountable. Journaling is a great way to process and express emotions and allows for further reflection. Self-reflection allows individuals to analyse and adjust behaviours to stay aligned with goals. Stress management is key in managing emotions as well as meeting goals. Communication is a great tool for fostering healthy relationships and accomplishing goals. Finally, visualizations can help create a positive self-image that can assist in focusing on goals.
What are the benefits of trauma-informed coaching?
Trauma-informed coaching will help you to achieve your goals while being held in a psychologically safe space so that you don’t move forward in a way that will create more trauma in your system. Trauma-informed coaching is an approach to working with clients that recognizes the potential for trauma and its long-term effects. This type of coaching allows coaches to create a supportive, non-judgmental environment, helping to reduce the client’s anxiety and increase their ability to process information. Trauma-informed coaching also emphasizes self-care, empowering clients to make positive changes in their lives and learn to cope with past and present trauma. Through this type of coaching, clients can find the support they need to address and manage difficult emotions, develop a greater sense of control over their lives, and increase their overall wellbeing. Ultimately, trauma-informed coaching can be a valuable tool for individuals to gain greater self-awareness and develop healthier relationships with themselves and others.
How does your coaching programme help customers to understand, track and measure their progress?
It is broken down into modules that build on one another with built-in processing work and experiential coaching calls. There are multiple forms of teaching embedded in the program for different types of learners to learn at their own pace and move through the modules as they are really able to integrate them. There is required homework after each module that tracks the students’ progress.
What’s your definition of success?
With resilience and strength, success is the ability to persevere through life’s ups and downs with grace and poise. To maintain neutrality and the ability to tap into your own inner peace at any given moment.
What’s your vision for 2023?
I am determined to change the coaching industry and make sure that every coach is trauma-informed and to bring trauma-informed leadership to corporate leaders.
How do you cultivate self-confidence?
Cultivating self-confidence comes through intentionally reparenting yourself. Giving yourself the mirroring and validation you needed as a child in the present so you can have a reparative experience and heal the trauma. Instead of trying to reach perfection, focus on small successes and build on them. Reaching achievable goals will boost your confidence and motivation. Make sure you surround yourself with positive people who support you and will make you feel more confident. Avoid people who make you feel insecure or judge you. Stop and congratulate yourself often for doing the work to build yourself up!
What inspired you to become a psychotherapist and a coach?
If I am being honest I was inspired by growing up in a very dysfunctional family that has a lot of mental health issues. I wanted so badly to understand what makes people behave the way they do and how behaviours are formed and what it really takes to change.
What educational path did you follow?
I went to a 4-year college for a Bachelor’s in Humanities and then went to an amazing experiential graduate school for counseling psychology (California Institute of Integral Studies). I then went on to get licenced as a Marriage and Family Therapist. I am however always still learning and taking courses and training to expand and deepen my areas of expertise.
What are the required qualifications in the coaching industry?
My personal belief is that all coaches should be certified as coaches by a recognised accreditation and have ongoing supervision with a mental health professional and continuing education requirements. They should be required to be trauma-informed, and suicide-informed and have licensure requirements yearly.
Why did you decide to design an ethics board in collaboration with consumer rights lawyers?
I decided to form the Board with other mental health professionals/advocates and consumer rights attorneys so we could collaborate on creating a professional scope of ethical practice for the industry and help both coaches and consumers stay safe. My motivation for this was seeing how many “coaches” do not have any formal training and witnessing both financial and emotional abuse running rampant in both the coaching and personal development industries without any overseeing board to protect consumers.
What are the best practices and policies for consumer rights in the mental health sector?
When it comes to the mental health sector, it is important to have best practices and policies in place to protect the rights of consumers. These policies should cover a variety of topics, such as privacy, access to care, treatment, informed consent, dispute resolution, and service delivery. Consumers should be aware of their rights and the expectations for services provided, and should also have access to a fair and transparent disciplinary system should their rights be violated. Additionally, service providers should be trained to adhere to these policies and practices, so that consumers can receive the highest quality of care possible. These policies and practices are essential to ensure the protection of consumer rights and to guarantee that consumers receive the care they need and deserve.
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