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want to say hello everybody hope you're having a great day. My name is Michael Jones. No one welcome you to our newest episode of the thoughtful counselor podcast. And I am just ridiculously excited for new guests that we have today. Our guest today is Dr. Rocio Joe. And we've known her for coming about 10 years now a lot of association with her through the minority fellowship program, the presentation and just she's just good people. And so I want to have her on a day and give an opportunity to speak to you about a topic, I think it's really important. Let me tell you a little bit about her background in the council education and in counseling, and then we'll jump right into our interview today. Dr. Jay Rochelle, Joe is an associate professor of health education at the University of Central Florida, with extensive professional experience as a high school teacher, middle school counselor and family counselor in community and clinical settings. for over 20 years, Dr. Joe has served in rural, urban and suburban communities, working collaboratively with parents, families and community members to support the academic career and psychosocial needs of children, adolescents, our academic and research interests, focus on culturally responsive services for underserved and marginalized populations, including it individuals of color, and individuals and families affected by HIV. So good to have you on here today.
Thanks for having me. Excited to be here.
And I'll be looking forward to having you on here. Because that the topic that you bring up, I think is something doesn't really get talked about that much. And that's I got to have Rona, here. Get some education from the expert on this topic. So. So the first thing I just wanna know is tell a little bit about what gets you into the counseling field. What Why do you even become a counselor?
Well, as you read in my bio, I actually started my career as a teacher. So way back in the day, when I graduated from high school, I knew I wanted to be a school counselor, I had a phenomenal school counselor in junior high school and high school. And she encouraged me to go to the University of Virginia pursue a degree in teaching, because at that time, you needed the teaching experience to become a school counselor in Virginia. So I started my career that route. So I taught high school for eight years. And during that time period, I went back to school and got my master's to do the school counseling piece, and transitioned over to a middle school and absolutely loved it. I've worked most of my career with children, adolescents, and just about every capacity. And so as a school counselor, I was able to, you know, help them individual counseling and figure out their career choices and talk about issues at home. And I just absolutely enjoyed that experience as well. And so I went on from there to do some family work. I pursued my PhD where I was at the College of Mary that had a great family counseling clinic. So I got a lot of experience working with families in that setting, and have taken all of that to the counselor at Worlds. So now I get to teach people how to be a counselor. So that's the short version.
So what did you teach in high school? I'm curious now.
Yeah, I taught social studies. So mostly, I taught World Studies to ninth graders, which man they are a special breed. So I taught I taught well, studies also taught us history. I taught a multicultural course, that I've kind of developed for a little while. So yeah, it was all on social studies.
I gotcha. Nelson, are you an avid reader? You read quite a bit too.
I do. I do. I try to read at least four books a month. And sometimes it's more sometimes it's less depending on what's going on in my life. But yes, and now I have called myself a collector of books. And so I'm caught. I'm going through the process of cataloging my personal library. I'm up to today. I was entering in some more books, so I'm out And close to about 600 books.
You are a collection? Yeah. Well, I know our topic that we have today is talking about ending the HIV epidemic. And so like when I hear that, that seems like a really like a, like a bow stably, like a really big task helped me to kind of understand where that where that's coming from and what I guess what is so important to you?
Yeah, so first of all, that's not my language, right. So I'm borrowing that from some, like federal initiatives. And I'll give a little bit of background on that. So during President Obama's first term in office, he, he issued what is called the national HIV AIDS strategy. And so it's basically an initiative for the country about how we're going to address HIV and AIDS domestically, there's all kinds of programs for us to support efforts internationally. And so the national HIV AIDS strategy was really the first time that we sat down and looked at like, what are some pillars for prevention for treatment? What are some goals that we can set to address HIV here in the United States, so that started in this and under President Obama, and has gone through multiple iterations, and it still remains now. So even under President Biden, there's like a newer, newer version of that. But in between Obama and Biden, we had another president who did offer one positive thing as it comes to HIV and AIDS. And that's the enemy HIV epidemic, a plan for America. And what the ending the HIV epidemic does is identify priority populations and locations, to funnel money to those particular areas to address HIV in areas where like, the rates are really, really high. So there's particular states, and counties, there's certain populations that are targeted, and just money comes through there. And it has goals of ending the HIV epidemic in a certain time period, you know, and there's all kinds of metrics that are associated with that. So that's where that language is coming from. So again, that's not something that I came up all on my own, I need to give credit to where that came from. But why I bring that up when we're talking about counseling is that mental health professionals have a key role in ending the HIV epidemic, we know that HIV, of course, is a medical condition. And so there's all kinds of medical treatment for it. And we have so many tools to treat HIV and to prevent HIV. However, this is an illness that has a lot of weight to it, psychological weight to it, there's a great deal of stigma, there has been for decades related to HIV. And a lot of that still exists, because there's just a lot of misinformation about HIV. And we know that people who are living with HIV have greater risk for mental health concerns such as depression, anxiety concerns, family relational issues, there's also concerns about substance use and abuse within that population. So mental health professionals can have a role in addressing those mental health aspects of the illness. And we know of course, mind and body is connected, right. So if we are treating those mental health aspects of it, it can have a very positive effect on people's physical health. It helps with adherence to medication, overall health and well being and just greater outcomes for people. And there's a place for mental health professionals, all along the HIV care continuum, some from the time somebody gets a diagnosis, there's a really important need for a mental health professional to be there to support them, as they're dealing with, you know, what can be a life altering condition, they might be also dealing with a traumatic experience, depending on the circumstances of that HIV transmission. So there's a need there, but also along the way to help people just sort of maintain to help people navigate their relationships to help people figure out how and when, and to who to disclose their status. Like there's a place for counselors all along that way to help the the mental health needs for people with this medical condition.
Gotcha. So how did you find yourself getting into this research? And when it comes to HIV?
Yeah, so part of it is personal part of it is professional. So I'll start with the professional first, and then I'll go to the personnel. So like, professionally, as I said, I was a school counselor, right. And I was in a middle school. And I wasn't thinking about HIV. As a counselor in a middle school. I was just there doing, you know, doing what I do with my students. But I had a student in sixth grade whose older brother died from AIDS related illnesses. And that information was not handled very well by some of my colleagues in that middle school. And that family had dealt with the loss of a loved one. But they also dealt with like the stigma, the shame, the mishandling of information by teachers. And I saw what that did to that young lady. And I was like, Oh, well, my, my counseling program didn't prepare me to, to address them to address this issue, right. So like that experience with her just kind of really opened my eyes to oh, maybe this is something that does have an impact on young people in schools. In addition to that, I, you know, years later, I was doing some community based work, and I was working with a young lady who was, you know, 17, about to turn 18 and was engaging in some, you know, behaviors that could put her at risk for HIV, engaging in, you know, unprotected sex, you know, not using not using condoms, or any other kind of prevention. And she didn't know a lot about HIV at all. But she was definitely afraid of it and had a family member who was living with HIV. And so in talking with her, we just had conversations about, you know, sexual health, and we connected her with the health department, so she could kind of get all of the services. And again, I was like, man, nothing in the training, mentioned, HIV, like nowhere was this mentioned in, in my master's program at all. So I was kind of relying on what I knew about the illness to try to support those clients in those instances. So those professional experiences just really kind of hit that light bulb moment for me that, you know, as mental health professionals, this is going to come up, this is something that we need to address, especially with young people, and we need to really engage in some training of our own to really support that. On a personal side. You know, HIV has impacted my family directly, I lost both of my parents to AIDS related illnesses when I was a teenager. And I know how that impacted me really early on, and kind of my early life and development. And, you know, just realizing things come full circle. And it's like, okay, so that isn't life experience that I can I can use for a benefit of other people. So I could use that in my work with the young people who who've been affected with HIV. But also, I feel like there's a need to do some advocacy around this, to do some research around this to inform people about the, you know, the implications of HIV, that aren't relevant for mental health counselors. So that's, you know, between the personal and professional, those two things kind of come together, and they give me my motivation to do all the things that I do and yeah, that's, that's pretty much it,
I guess. Yeah. I know, you mentioned about your master's program, you didn't really feel like they prepared you for that. Do you see any changes going on just just in general, as the council educated? Do you see that changing much at all?
So I mean, that's part of the reason I do what I do. If you look in the literature, no. Right? So if you look in the literature, in counseling, and counselor education, there is not much there. So if if we're thinking about counselor, educators who are considering what to infuse into their courses, and what to focus on, and what resources to give to their students, there's not a lot. So part of the reason why I'm so adamant about writing in the counseling literature about this topic, is so that counselor, educators can have something to go off of when they're, you know, trying to teach their students about HIV. You know, in the work that I do, of course, my students, they don't have a class with me and not here, but each, because I get I mentioned in just about about every course. And of course, my colleagues now, of course, recognize that, oh, this is something that is a pretty important topic as well. And anecdotally, as I've interacted with other people just kind of in my network, who are becoming more aware that, you know, HIV has didn't disappear, and it's not gone. It's it's still a very relevant and important topic. That I think there is some opening of eyes to that. But still within counseling in counselor education, the number of people who are focusing on this topic is really small, because a handful of people I know, probably all of them, right. So we definitely need more people to be engaged in and participate in research and scholarship and all different kinds of ways. When I look at psychology, psychiatry, and social work, they are lightyears ahead of us in relation to this like each of them has, like either a particular like division that focuses on it, or some sort of an office focus on HIV, or some sort of training for their professionals specifically related to HIV and have had that for a while. And counseling. We don't have that. So when it comes to A training materials, there's just there's not really much. So, you know, many Counselor Educators and practicing counselors are looking in other places to get information or learning on the job or just don't know. So yeah, there's work to be done in our fields to really catch up.
Yeah, and it sounds like we are way behind from where we need to be. And I got that for me. Sometimes I sometimes wonder is, mindset wise, are we still stuck in the 80s, because of when when we think about HIV, that's automatic. The first thing on people's mind is aid. But it's not. Those are two different things. But when we talk about it, those terms of use interchangeably.
Oh, man, that's so true. And it's an I mean, this is not just counseling. I mean, this is the general population, right. So because of the way that we learned about HIV in the 80s, and because aids had a name before, like HIV had a name, we're stuck there, and we haven't quite been able to move forward. So there's some efforts to get people to move forward. So for instance, aids.gov had existed for a long time as kind of the online resource for the government where you can get information. So now they've changed that to HIV DACA, right to try to, again, get people to understand that, in many cases, we are talking about the virus where we're not, we're not necessarily talking about people who have received an AIDS diagnosis, which is, which is which is distinct and different. And we need to know the difference. But most most people conflate the two, or think that they're the same or use the terms entered interchangeably. And part of that is because there's just less emphasis on education around that. And then, and then I mean, to be honest, like some of us are old, right? So when we first learned about this, it was in the 1980s. And trying to undo and unlearn things sometimes can be hard, especially if there's not a reason or motivation to unlearn and to learn new. Yeah,
that makes a lot of sense. I know, I know, we've had conversations before, you know, when you think about our code of ethics, and and when, especially when the type of HIV, we'd love to hear some of your thoughts on that. All of that, how will you kind of feel like we all right now, when it comes to our code, and maybe some things that could change it? Yeah, it'd be more helpful.
Certainly, we're definitely at a place where we want to think about what is in our code, and then the next iteration of our code, how language in it needs to be changed or altered or standards just need to be flat out removed, would be my opinion. So currently, in our in our ACA code, there is a standard in the section about confidentiality, about contagious and life threatening diseases. And what the standard says is that a counselor may be justified in breaching confidentiality and a case where their client has a contagious a life threatening disease. And there's a third party who is as at risk. And so it's, there's so many pieces of that that are that are really important to think about. So, you know, one piece is that this may be justified language, right? That also means it's like you may not be justified. And it's important to note that, in the ethics in our ethical code, there is no mandate for us as counselors to breach confidentiality. In cases where someone has HIV or any other contagious or life threatening disease, we don't have a mandate. And some people may read that as a mandate or saying, Oh, this is something that I can do. But I caution people to think about what the implications of that can be knowing that, you know, HIV is a highly stigmatized illness. And knowing that, what a counselor, sort of the knowledge that a counselor may have about this illness is likely limited. It could be incorrect. It could be David information, are they making a sound ethical decision if they decide to breach confidentiality, and I, you know, I wrote a paper about this back in publishing back in 2018, in the Journal of counseling and development, and one of the points that I make in that paper is that like the language in the code says, it talks about diseases that are commonly known to be contagious and life threatening. So if we start basing our ethical decisions on what is commonly known, that can that's a very slippery, slippery slope. And HIV is an example of that, right? Because what is commonly known about HIV is incorrect. There are people who still think that like mosquitoes can transmit HIV. There are people who think that using a utensil after someone with HIV can The transmitted people who think that you can contract HIV from toilet seats, right? This is this is some of the common knowledge about HIV, which is, these are myths. These are misconceptions, these are not true. So it's it's really not prudent for us to make ethical decisions based on common knowledge, right, we need to use accurate scientific knowledge, right, in the decisions that we're going to make. And there are a number of some scientific pieces that a counselor really needs to think about in this instance, right? You may be dealing with a client who is living with HIV, however, they're adherent to their medication, and they have an undetectable viral load. And scientific study after scientific study has shown us that if someone has an undetectable viral load, which means that they're the amount of virus in their body is so small that it cannot be detected with our tests, that they're not going to transmit HIV to another person, even if there aren't any prevention methods used, right? This is called u equals u undetectable, equals untranslatable. And this is really important information to know if your client is under undetectable, because not a concern about them transmitting HIV to another person, we also have to think about like prevention methods, right? We all know, condoms are important for helping prevent HIV and other STDs as well. But for HIV, there's actually a medical prevention method known as prep pre exposure prophylaxis, which is a medication that someone who's not living with HIV can take. And it prevents the transmission of HIV. So prevent protects them from like contracting the virus. That's important to know as well. Because if someone who if you have a client who's undetectable, their partner, the person that they're, you know, engaging in sexual relationship with is on PrEP, there is no concern about transmission, right in those instances. And so that's the information that's not commonly known, but it's scientifically know. Right? So that's scientific knowledge. So counselors, like we can't be going on what's commonly known, we have to really make decisions that are fat, factual, that are prudent so that we don't cause harm. Because remember, like that's an ethical, do no harm. Yes, right. Do no harm. And if we think about our ethical code, there are a number of aspects of that code that are really relevant to clients who are living with HIV, right? So we No, of course, do no harm. We also know that like, our our primary responsibility is to the client and promoting their dignity, right, honoring their diversity, right, all of those things are primary. So that really comes first. In addition to that, we know that there are like cultural issues that are connected to HIV, when we look at like health disparities, that the populations who are mostly affected by HIV, we know that there are social justice issues surrounding HIV, like HIV criminalization, laws that disproportionately affect, you know, black communities. So there's all these other pieces to this that connect to like our ethical obligations to our client that we really need to consider. And unfortunately, I think the, the tendency is to jump to the confidentiality piece. Oh, do I need to? Do I need to tell, do I need to tell this third party? Do I need to breach? Well, hold up, hold your horses? Calm down for that? There are several other things that really need to be considered. Before we even think about breaking confidentiality to report to, you know, a third party.
Gotcha. So what I'm hearing you say is that there's a lot of changes, and they need to happen with this. Oh,
yeah, absolutely. I mean, guarding that standard in the ACA code, like, again, thinking about our other mental health professions, like that. It's not in those like that's not in their ethical code. And in fact, the American School Counselor Association and the most recent revision of their ethics code, which just came out this past summer, they had a similar code in theirs. It's the one at ACA, it's been removed. And the newest iteration of the ASPCA ethical code, I was so excited to see that I was like, yeah, so that's been removed. And I think that's a very prudent decision to remove that from the code. Because I think there's some miscommunication about what that means when it's in there that people are thinking this is a mandate, or they think that, oh, this is something that I can or should be doing. And that really needs to be removed. And what we really should be looking at is like how can we do some some more training to help counselors think about all of these dimensions, you know, to dealing with HIV, so that they can think in a much more complex way about what is a very complex condition?
Yes. So I'm thinking about, you know, the area We are living in and I live in a very rural place, and that I'm sure everybody has different places they live. So yeah, what what what would you say about advocacy? You know, as a, as a counselor boots on the ground? What are some things we can do to provide advocacy here?
Yeah, yeah, so I'm not sure about the HIV rates right off the bat in Arkansas, but I do know, like, rural communities are very much affected by HIV. And part of the issue there is like access to prevention and treatment, right. So I mean, we know this, like just faxes for anything when you live in a rural community is challenging. And that is the same for for, you know, HIV prevention, testing treatment, there are some cases, people in rural communities have to travel an hour to get treatment, right. And that just makes an additional barrier. And so that part of the end of the HIV epidemic is to address that in rural communities. We also know that a lot of our rural communities have been hit by, you know, drug addiction. And those two, HIV and drug addiction are very much connected. And so when we think about like, what advocacy looks like, it's going to be about like access to care, access to treatment, like we definitely need to be advocating for, like more counselors, in as many places as possible, because that's absolutely something that's needed. We also need to advocate for like health care and all ways that people can receive the appropriate, you know, ad, you know, more than adequate health care that they need for both prevention and treatment for HIV. We need to advocate around HIV criminalization laws, because there are laws that are still on the books that were written in the 80s and 90s. And they're based on misinformation, or there are laws that criminalize spitting on someone, which we know, of course, is gross, we don't wouldn't want to encourage spitting on someone, but it's not going to transmit HIV, but there are laws that criminalize you know, behavior. And so we need those things need to be addressed. And I'll say to that, like, sometimes advocacy is smaller than that, sometimes advocacy is like, checking your language and checking your biases, right, as an individual. And, and being vocal when others are using stigmatizing language or making comments that are, are biased and harmful and hurtful, right. So that advocacy, on a interpersonal level on a kind of a smaller scale, all of us can do that. Right, we can all do that. And so, you know, I would encourage people to, you know, seek out some opportunities for professional development education, so that they can get the right information, you know, there's lots and lots of resources out there for that. So they can get the right language and be using the right language and when they're interacting with other people. And, and I think that those things are, are like small, but also really, really important. Like I mentioned language. And actually, I just thought about it, like earlier, I said something about, like unprotected sex, we really actually want to that's part of the language that we kind of want to move away from. And that's something that we're also used to saying, right, but we actually should, instead of talking about protection, we can talk about prevention, right? Because protect protection suggest that someone or something is harmful. So so and so when we move away from that, and like I said, I'm guilty of it, too, I just did it on this podcast with you here today. But when we when we start to really move away from that and use different language, it really changes perceptions, right? Because really, what we are talking about is prevention. And so we don't necessarily need to talk about protecting for someone who could be conceived as quote, dangerous, it's not about that at all. It's really just about preventing transmission, like we just we want to end the transmission don't want any more transmissions of HIV, really, that's what we want. And we actually have the tools to do that we have all the tools available to do that. We just really need to address this mental health piece, the stigma piece, you know, all of those access areas. So I think all of that is like really good ground for advocacy.
In the sounds like this is something that you know, we can tradition, think about multicultural class, this is something that definitely should be coming out and not just in that class, and ethics, but it's just what I'm saying is worth is obviously being left out at some place, and they're not getting the knowledge that they need. And so I think that that's an education issue that we definitely had to deal with.
It absolutely is so you know, you know, our good friend, Dr. Tiffany here since so she and I last year worked on a presentation about this about how to infuse HIV content into the counselor ed curriculum using the CACREP standards because there's ways to do that. So we did that presentation, we're actually working with another person, Dr. Rosie Britton on this, we're working on a manuscript. And we're going to be presenting at the stasis conference on this particular topic about how Counselor Educators can incorporate HIV into ethics into your intro class into the skills class into group into school counseling curriculum right into the multicultural course. There's, there's absolutely ways to do it. We just have to know how so we're, there's resources that are coming, and that are out there as well.
And I think to me, that's, that's very powerful to to know that, hey, you see, there's an issue that's out there. And yet, you're doing the research and everything, but it's not just a researcher, you're putting it into action and also encouraging other people, here's something you can practically do as well, like that. I think that I just think that's amazing that you get into that work.
Yeah, we definitely have to do it, because it's not about just the publications, right. It's not just about doing the research to say, I did the research, right, because there are people there humans, their lives, and families on the other side of this, right. So if we're just in our ivory tower, typing away at our computers, doing our stuff, those people's lives, their quality of life hasn't been improved. And as a counselor educator, I really feel it's a responsibility, that I'm able to take whatever knowledge I have whatever, you know, resources, share those with my students who are going to go out there and be you know, front facing to the population providing those services. And if I don't prepare them to do it, I can't assume that it's going to happen, like, you know, once they graduate, so this is an opportunity, they won't graduate from our program, or haven't had my class any one of my classes and didn't hear about HIV, that will not happen, they will have heard about it somewhere. So
and also think from notice from the counselor education piece, you know, it's gonna be a que crip thing is hopefully down down the road as we're as we're talking about it. But notice, we've there's so many other topics that we've seen, we must bring up as we're training our clients. So hopefully, this will be one of those things that becomes normalized, and we're talking about and it's not just what you teach, but it's like, what it's seeing necessarily taught everywhere.
Yeah, I think I mean, I think so. Because if you think about not just HIV, but other illnesses, chronic illnesses, terminal illnesses, right, like that there's a mental health component there. And that absolutely can be incorporated into kicker upstanders in a way that makes sense. Like if we say mind body connection, that should be evident, right, in our in our curriculum, so.
So what have I not asked you? I've just I've got a couple of things in my head. What else is something you feel is important?
Um, well, I mean, I can talk about some research I'm working on. Yeah, well, I'm this actually does connect to kind of some of the things that we're talking about, especially with the multicultural piece, right. And we've mentioned this earlier, but I'll come back to it and say a little bit more. So if we look at HIV prevalence and incidence rates, we see some disparities, right? So gay bisexual men, or men with other sexual contact are most affected by HIV and have been since the very beginning. We also see that communities of color are impacted, specifically, at Black, African American and Hispanic, Hispanic, Latin X communities are disproportionately affected. However, heterosexual cisgender black women are grossly impacted by HIV. And people are unaware of this for some particular reason, right? When people think HIV, they don't think, black sis women. And we need to think about flexes on that. And in fact, in the ending the HIV epidemic and in the national HIV AIDS strategy, black women are mentioned as a priority population, because black women are disproportionately affected. So some of the research that I'm really, really passionate about doing now is about prevention in that population. So I have partnered with a colleague at another university here in Orlando, who is a medical medical anthropologist, as well as with a pharmacist who leads in HIV Organization for Women and Girls. And we're doing some research on the barriers to HIV prevention for black women here in Orange County, Florida. We're so excited about this. Again, that's what we've seen is that and this happens with black woman lot. Our concerns are not addressed. And there's lots of funding for HIV. Here in the Orlando area. There's lots of organizations that do HIV work. However, they, when it comes to the needs of black sis women, they're not really considered Senate considered. They're not centered in those conversations, and then kind of lost. And so we're trying to put a spotlight on that, like what's going on here locally? And to see what might be some implications like nationally, right? So how can we address the needs of blacks as women in a unique way that pays attention to like the cultural context, right? When it comes to prevention, when it comes to treatment, all of those pieces, so I'm really excited about that research that we're getting off the ground and doing. But it's an example of, again, how we can think about the cultural piece intersectionality intersectionality, plays out into that, how systemic racism in the healthcare system really amplifies those barriers to care for black woman. So really, really great project that, if you see me around, I'll be talking about every chance I get.
And I can I can definitely tell you very passionate about that topic as well. Absolutely, yeah. But this is, this has been fun. This was very fun. And it's helped. I know, it's helped me to get a better understanding of about HIV. And I think, once again, is just one of the things that we, if it's not talked about didn't say earlier, we stay with the old old ways. And so it's really neat to hear the work that you're doing and others that you're collaborating with, to say, hey, we're here, this is what we need to talk about. And you need to be talking about it too, as this Hi, we're doing so I'd really appreciate the work that you're doing, and getting the word out and also just helping others to be able to not just advocate but do something about it in their own communities and in their classrooms. Because I feel like the more this happens in a more normalized, then then these are conversations we won't have to have in five to 10 years from now because they will actually start doing the work that needs to be done. So really appreciate the work you do
and yeah, thank you. Thank you for giving me the chance to talk about it. I can go on for another hour if you want.
We can do that one day without I really appreciate you and I appreciate everything that you are doing for in our counseling field and I'm so thankful to be associated with you and looking forward to that new researchers when we come out with thanks. All right, you have a good day.
You too. The thoughtful counselor is DISA Daniel, Raisa Miller, Aaron Smith, Jessica Tyler, Desi Diane Aranjuez, Lea, Tom and me, Megan speciality. Find us online at the thoughtful counselor.com. Our funding is provided by Palo Alto University's Division of Continuing and Professional Studies. Learn more about them at Palo Alto u.edu forward slash concept. The views and opinions expressed on the thoughtful counselor are those of the individual authors and contributors and don't necessarily represent the views of other authors and contributors nor of our sponsor, the Palo Alto University. So if you have an idea for an episode, general feedback about the podcast, or just want to reach out to us, please drop us a line at the thoughtful counselor@gmail.com Thanks for tuning in, and we hope to hear from you soon.