Attaching to God: Neuroscience-informed Spiritual Formation

128 Why Therapists Are Reading "Landscapes of the Soul" (with Monica Mouer, LPCS)

• Geoff and Cyd Holsclaw • Season 7 • Episode 128

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In this special book launch episode, Geoff interviews Monica Mauer about why therapists are reading Landscapes of the Soul, and how it can help their clients.

Monica is a therapist, therapist supervisor, and founder of the Center for Family Transformation. Monica talks about the unique and very helpful terminology used in the book to describe the different attachment strategies, such as the JUNGLE, the DESERT, the WAR ZONE, and the PASTURE, and how helpful it is to focus on intimacy and independence over anxiety and avoidance. They also touch on the centrality of joyful connection in relationships and the transformative potential of secure attachments with God.

Find out about the "Life Model Informed Therapy" certification here. 

Dive deeper in our new book, Landscapes of the Soul: How the Science and Spirituality of Attachment Can Move You into Confident Faith, Courage, and Connection, and learn about our trainings and other resources at embodiedfaith.life.

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Introduction and Book Overview

 Geoff Holsclaw: All right. Here we go.

Landscapes of the soul is the book. Attachment Theory and spiritual formation is the intersection that it's speaking into. But why should therapists read this book? What might they get out of it? How might it help their work or be helpful to their clients? That is what we're talking about on this special launch week episode of the Attaching to God podcast.

Guest Introduction: Monica Mauer

Geoff Holsclaw: Today I'm very delighted to have therapist Monica Mauer on with us. Monica is the founder and clinical director of the Center for Family Transformation. She's both a counselor and a consultant. Monica is trained in a wide range of therapy modalities, including the Gottman Marriage Therapy Restoration Therapy, and then a bunch of letters here, [00:01:00] DBTD and Ms.

And a bunch of other things. EMDR, certified trained therapist she and her team are also developing the life model informed therapy certification that is approved for continuing education credits for therapists, which is really exciting. She's gonna talk about that more in a second. But Monica, thank you so much for being on with us today.

Monica Mouer: Geoff, I'm glad to be with you. I really enjoy talking with you, and I am really excited about the work that you and instead are doing.

Geoff Holsclaw: Yeah, we met, you and I met at the transform 25 conference in Denver just a couple months ago in April or something like that. I think Jim Wilder was like, Geoff, you need to meet Monica. And then right when we started talking, I was like, I'm so glad we met. So we actually have a bunch of things that we're scheming for the future, which are not quite secret, but they're not quite ready to be publicized.

Monica's Journey into Therapy

Geoff Holsclaw: But could you, tell us how you got into the work that you do. And then we'll jump in to the topic of this episode.

Monica Mouer: Yeah, and I'll just say, [00:02:00] first of all, I really enjoyed meeting you and Sid at Transform. That was a really fun conference. And I do remember Wilder coming up. You were the first person he introduced me to. It was like, I want you two to meet. And so it has been great. I've felt, just a synchronized connection with you and Sid in terms of the work that we're both called to do.

So it's exciting to collaborate and think about all these things, but I've been a therapist almost 20 years. I just had my 50th birthday this year, so almost 20 years. I've been in psychotherapy, was an educator before I taught high school English, and I decided to go into this. This field, because my husband was a youth pastor, so we were working with a lot of teens.

I was working with teens in the high school setting, and I had my own complex psychological background family of origin issues and mood issues, et cetera, et cetera. And so I was really interested and I felt called, like I, I had, just several encounters with the Lord where it was [00:03:00] obvious that this was what he was drawing me to.

And so I went ahead and took the plunge. I got my master's degree from Western Illinois University, their Moline campus, which was right across the street from the church where my husband was pastoring. And I was able to do their entire process. And you get, you graduate right before we moved here to North Carolina and I was able to start my private practice out of the church we were at, which then moved me into, a, a starting a medium-sized Christian private practice in our greater Charlotte area. And now I have a private practice with eight of us the Center for Family Transformation. That is a life model practice. And so what got me into it was just a passion for my own healing and wanting to help others heal.

Just seeing the pain in the teens I was working with. And not knowing how to really help feeling at a loss. I can help you with English, I can help you with the Bible, but I don't know how to help you psychologically. And just [00:04:00] wanting to figure that out so that I could live with more peace and freedom and offer that to others.

Geoff Holsclaw: That's great. And it's so powerful because, sid and I are our pastors primarily, and we've done other things, but this whole thing has come out of our own journey, our own personal journey, spiritual as a healing journey. It sounds like it's similar for you where we're all trying to learn just enough to help ourselves, but then also help some of the people that God has placed behind us.

So that's really great.

Monica Mouer: Exactly.

Geoff Holsclaw: like I said, so Sid and I are not trained therapists, but we are deep in the neuroscience, deep in the spiritual information stuff. 

Discussing the Book: Landscapes of the Soul

Geoff Holsclaw: But we know a lot of therapists and we got to know you, and I was like, Hey, you're gonna read the book anyways for other reasons, but.

I would wanted to get your take on, our book. I'll just say for those, everyone's like probably knows all about it, right? So Landscape Landscapes of the Soul subtitle is how the science and spirituality of attachment can move you into confident faith, courage, and connection. Our publisher was behind that very long subtitle, but we, [00:05:00] we've poured a lot of energy into this.

We're both kind of educators but we've talked to some people like you and you. The question I had was like, why would a therapist need to read another book on attachments? Especially since attachment isn't necessarily like a real strong therapeutic modality that people get trained in.

Like it wasn't in all the things you've been trained in, you didn't have attachment in there. So how does, yeah. So I don't even know if there's a better way to an, to ask that question from your side

Monica Mouer: No, I think it's a great question and it's something I've been thinking about as I've been reading the book, but also I just wanna mention that I had a little bit of a. A heads up on what the book was about because of the Transform conference, you did present the quadrant chart in terms of attachment and the verbiage that you use for attachment.

And so that conference was on church hurt and recovering from church hurt. And I was, listening to your keynote speech or your keynote talk. And I was [00:06:00] really impressed with. The unique, like the novel way to ex explain attachment and you did a great job. Because I remember you told a story about, I think it was like a bike wreck or something like this, or maybe it was a swimming accident or something.

Geoff Holsclaw: it was a swim race and then later it was a bike wreck.

Monica Mouer: Okay, so two I got 'em. Okay. And so you were able to weave in a personal note, which I've noticed with the book as well. It's great. It's, I think there's such a push for authenticity and openness and just vulnerability from leaders. And so that's a big deal for all of us to be able to read your story, to read Sid's story.

But when you were talking about all of that at the conference and then you. You slowly explain what's going on in the church in terms of attachment styles and how the pain is coming forward and helping us to see, hey, this is how we're gonna heal, but this is where the pain is. I thought it was [00:07:00] great.

It was very helpful. And so as I've been digging into the book and noticing how your terminology with the jungle pasture, war zone and desert, your terminology is very unique and that's similar to how Wilder does things, right? He uses this unique terminology almost to engage the subconscious, the right brain, and rethink some concepts you already think you know so much about.

And I think that's. With therapist and attachment. We've had a, an emphasis on attachment for what, the last 15 years or so, where, you know, we've got Sue Johnson, we've got Dan Siegel. We've got so much understanding about the four types of attachment and what's going on. But the way that you explain it, especially with the intimacy and independence concept.

Like I've been meditating on it for my own life, like how does this work? And then [00:08:00] I've been speaking it to family members. I've been speaking it to clients in terms of what does it mean to balance those two things, intimacy and independence. And so I really think those novel. Ways of explaining are worth a read from any therapist who thinks or who all is very educated in attachment because it's bringing kind of new light and depth to the concepts in a way that as I'm passionate about, will help us heal our own attachment wounds.

And then also, that's the only way really we can offer that level of healing to the clients we work with.

Attachment Theory and Its Applications

Geoff Holsclaw: let me, let me say what Sid and I were trying to do in the book, and then from someone who's trained in these concepts, like you could tell me how they, like, how it responded and the intimacy and independence was one of it. But, so like I'm, I'm a researcher. I'm reading these things and you mentioned Dan Siegel and Sue Johnson, and they come [00:09:00] not from different schools, but one is very much in the developmental side.

Of and the neurobiological side of attachment, which would be Dan Se Siegel. And then you also have the romantic kind of partnership marriage kind of side social science side tradition of attachment research. And they speak totally different languages. And so you get like the developmental side, it'll talk about ambivalent, anxious, preoccupied, and then the relationship side will then.

Talk about like anxious and avoidant and the disordered attachment or fearful attachment, right? You have all these terms that. When I was trying to teach it to other people, it was like they didn't know. It was like, is anxious the same as preoccupied? It's yes, is avoided the same as right.

And and I'm a very visual learner, so I was doing this for myself. I was like, is there a way to have a word picture that'll just like. Cut through all these diverse kind of languages. And so that's where the jungle, for those who don't know, that's like the anxious or preoccupied kind of attachment as the language goes.

And the desert [00:10:00] is the avoidance and detached. And so that's where that came from for me personally. Have you struggled that same way, or does is, are you, have you been in and around that conversation and just 

Monica Mouer: yes, for sure. Because when I first was studying attachment theory, I was learning the A words, the anxious, the avoidant, ambivalent. And then when I came across life model, they were using the disorganized, dismissive. And I was like, how do these fit together? How does this all work? And so I had that same struggle myself.

And so as I've been developing, curriculum, had to join them together and have poured over Siegel's work to figure out how this, the research states it. So I found that the way that you and Sid gave those, the jungle pasture, war zone desert conceptualizations and images really helped to bring it into fullness.

And I think that's why, yes, therapists should definitely read this, but also I'm, I can't wait until it comes [00:11:00] out because. I'm having clients read it as well, like I've, it's not gonna be like, they can't, it's so clinical, they won't be able to read it and really get a lot out of it. The clients will get a ton out of this book as well.

Therapists and Attachment Styles

Geoff Holsclaw: that was gonna be one of my questions is whether you feel like you could give it to clients to help them with the process.

Monica Mouer: Yes, I've already referred several clients and they said, oh, I've ordered it, but it is not released yet, so I'll be getting it very soon.

Geoff Holsclaw: Next week on August 5th, people should be getting the books. So then the other terms that you mentioned already were intimacy and independence. And so I'll just give my take on these things is attachment. Theory starting with John Bowlby, he was at odds with the psychoanalytic traditions about the second generation of like Freud and his followers about looking at.

adult pathology and then retroactively looking back at your childhood and trying to figure out what happened. And he said why [00:12:00] don't we just start the opposite way? Why don't we just watch children and figure out how they deal with life and what kind of patterns evolve? And he was much more what's the, you would probably know the right word, but Right.

So he wasn't trying to pathologize like the different things. He was like, there's these different. Developmental trajectories. And

Monica Mouer: developmentally appropriate to have these kinds of things happening.

Geoff Holsclaw: right and he was. Wanting to bring together the idea of his words, like the old Emerson kind of self-reliant, as well as other reliant capacities is that sometimes you need help from other people, so you're relying on others. Sometimes you can do it yourself, and you need to have both those things, and a secure attachment enables both those capacities.

And then the history of the conversation was went with. The romantic attachment is they flip those things and then started talking about we have this anxiety about relationship. We have avoidance by, and that's, those are negative terms that then filled out the whole literature.

and I was reading through [00:13:00] it and especially the attachment assessment. So when you take an assessment, they're like, like a securely attached person is just considered to be low anxious and low avoidant. It's just shouldn't we be aiming towards something good rather than just trying to mitigate something bad?

So that's where the language flip came from. We saw a couple different people who had actually used the words intimacy and independence, and I was like, that's what I want. I want, like these positive goals that we're headed towards. So instead of avoidant, we're trying to grow intimacy and instead of being anxious, we're trying to grow, the capacity to have independence and all these things.

So how did that language, so that's the

Monica Mouer: Yes.

Geoff Holsclaw: came from, but how is that, like you said, it was doing good work for you. Could you just fill that out a

Monica Mouer: Yes, exactly. And I just wanna speak to what you were saying just now. I think that even when I give clients, maybe like the ECR, the experiences in close relationship scale, and it's almost like they're answering questions to try to get over to the secure quadrant because it's what looks.

Like that sh they should be that way because everything else looks negative and they [00:14:00] wanna be able to identify as secure. And if you don't, there's something wrong. There's something bad. And so I, I really, I love the idea of having a different verbiage that is more evening the playing field.

It's not pa positive or negative, it just is what it is. So let's just notice this, let's just notice this is going on in your life. And so I think it's wonderful and novel because it does help us all to to accept where we are in the quadrant. And knowing that we all want to be in the PO pasture, that is a place of peace, that is a place of healing, that is a place of growth.

But it is developmentally appropriate based on what we've been through in our life, that we would an land on any of those other three quadrants.

The first step is accepting where we are. And it could be that we're, we experience life differently with different people.

So we may show up avoidant or [00:15:00] dismissive with some people in the desert versus, more securely attached with others depending on what what's going on in that dynamic, in that relationship. Is that something that, that you think as well?

Geoff Holsclaw: Do I, were you asking me this question or was that, where? Could you ask it again? I was starting to look at, you caught me. I was like looking at my next question while you were finishing off, and then you asked me a question.

Monica Mouer: What I notice with people is they may show up. Yeah. I'm interviewing you now.

Geoff Holsclaw: I know. This is great now I'm ready. I'm ready. I'm fully present to this.

Monica Mouer: no, but just that people tend to show, all of us seem to show up. In different quadrants depending on the relationship that we are engaging in. And I always say to clients, it's mom, dad, and spouse, that really the main spaces where this is is being navigated in terms of a primary attachment style.

But we could show up avoidance, some relationships and anxious in others, and secure in others. And so the idea is just to notice. How we're roaming [00:16:00] around in that realm and be honest with ourselves about it.

Geoff Holsclaw: And I think for me the good use of all that language is not. That these are like attachment styles that it's I just am this way, but it's rather adaptive strategies, right? So depending on the relationship, I can shift my strategy a little bit for good or for ill, and I know for myself and Sid, and this is where we wrote from, is that it creates a lot of self-compassion.

Like you say, oh, I can understand why in these circumstances I start adopting. This kind of hyper vigilance or I shut down and want to withdraw. Not that it's like how I should always be because maybe there's a better self that I can grow into, but at least there's like compassion oh yeah, it makes sense that I'm doing these things.

And that's what I find really hopeful about the attachment research is that there's like this self-compassion. But then there's also, these like growth edges. Yeah so now we can grow these capacities.

Monica Mouer: Yes. I love it. I love it. Yes,

Geoff Holsclaw: So was there any kind of as someone who swims in these waters, [00:17:00] are there other things that stood out to you? I know I would suggest, and maybe you could speak to this for someone, you're in the life model kind of

Joyful Connection and Healing

Geoff Holsclaw: So the fact that we started with joyful connection right at the top was like a, not a big deal for you, but is that something that's spoken about?

So say for therapists who know a little bit about attachment, is that spoken about very much that kind of aspect of the attachment relationship? Or is there,

Monica Mouer: So I've noticed it most in the life model world in terms of the joyful connection being a starting place and that joy is that joy is a relational emotion. I still experience outside of the life model realm that's not really understood that joy is relational. Yet what I love about what life model helps us understand is it's directly from Alan Shor's study on the life brain, right?

That this is joy is a relational it. I'm glad to be with you emotion, and that when we start our healing process. [00:18:00] With feeling joyful connection. We're actually doing that, that right brain psychotherapy approach that sure has fathered and is bringing to the therapy communities. But what I've noticed even in trainings in the last several years, that trainings that will actually use some shor's work is they're like this work's.

Been out there for. 20 years. And for some reason the therapeutic community has not accessed it. Why is that? And I know Wilder accessed it when it was hot off the press, and that's where a lot of that early curriculum came from through Life model. And now the Thrive the Thrive trainings that are happening a couple times a year with that organization.

On on, on the brain skills, the relational brain skills. But it's like, why as a therapeutic community have we not accessed more of that and implemented it? And that's one of the primary, questions and [00:19:00] applications of the work that I'm doing here at the center and with life model informed therapy is that how can we as therapists do our own work so that the quantum physics of how our brain transfers to the other brain in the room, as Dan Siegel talks about with interpersonal neurobiology, it's like that is an effective transfer.

Because if I'm living in the jungle or in the war zone in the desert and I'm not facing that, and then I'm coming to session and trying to help a client get to the pasture, it will never work. That will never ever work. And so I have to be able to face it and not just be aware of it. I have to be able to metabolize it and heal in order to navigate it.

So I have another piece. That. I wanna say an answer to your question, but I will pause there because

Geoff Holsclaw: All right. You won't forget your piece.

Monica Mouer: don't think so.

Geoff Holsclaw: 'Cause so I'll speak I guess from my profession and then you could speak from your profession. Like my [00:20:00] goal or hope. Is that more pastors in churches would be able to minister from a secure attachment, but too often the church hurt or just like difficulties in churches happen because pastors are leading out of the jungle and they're hypervigilant, they're super anxious, or they're just like, shut down.

All head living outta the desert. Or they're like chameleons who live in the war zone, but people don't know that, which was the gist of my whole

Monica Mouer: And they might not even know it is what I

Geoff Holsclaw: Yeah, they don't know

Monica Mouer: right? They're thinking I'm a good person.

Geoff Holsclaw: so is it the case and my, my, I have a thought, but is it the case that therapists often do that too, is they could be really good at helping people get to this the pasture, but maybe they're not even there themselves.

Monica Mouer: Yeah, exactly. So I have a unique perspective in being in the church world, for my entire life. But marrying a pastor and being behind the scenes in the church world for the first, 20 years of our marriage, and then being in this level [00:21:00] of. a profession with my, my, my counseling profession as well.

Being at this level, seeing behind the scenes, knowing so many therapists, and it's, it seems very similar, right? In terms of we show up as leaders and we can hide behind that mask. And I think life model speaks so wonderfully about it because we talk about that elder level maturity, right? Elder level maturity is that I have.

Metabolized my issues. I have dealt with my THI stuff so that I am living from this place of peace and joy and secure attachment so that I can offer something truly free and real to the people I'm serving, rather than just hiding in these other places. But what I think. Just like you said with pastors and therapists, I think what's happening is we don't even know that's happening, and that's why it's so tricky because we can't really judge people for the fact that it's happening.[00:22:00] 

'cause they, it's like there's the level of unaware

Geoff Holsclaw: Yeah.

Monica Mouer: is high. How do you know it's happening until you start to really uncover it, until you're willing to take a look at yourself. And in order to do that. I think just what you said earlier, somebody's got to enjoy you enough in your dysfunction

so that you have the bravery to start to look at it from a more aerial perspective and see that things might not be so great under the hood here.

Geoff Holsclaw: Yeah. Yeah. So what was that the second point or another point that you were saving there

Monica Mouer: So what I was going to speak to was how. In, in the life model world, we talk a lot about the attachment to God, with what Carl Lehman's written and Carl Lehman and then what Dr. Wilder has written even in the book, renovated what does it look to be securely attached to God?

But as I [00:23:00] am, working through landscapes of the soul and I see the way that you and Sid creatively have creatively, but also. Intellectually have broken that down. It's it's exciting. It is this exciting experience of. I was reading about, one of the quadrants and I was like, ah, that is so me.

Oh my goodness. I think it was the jungle one. I was like, they're describing this is what I am hardwired toward. Oh my goodness. And then seeing how we then are opening up to this is how our attachment with God really takes us into a place of healing for this specific pain. This pain that I'm hardwired to for no fault of my own.

It's just a wiring based on survival. But this is where the Lord wants to meet me in it. And so I just think you have a unique approach that I think is anointed by the spirit for this time in history, [00:24:00] right? The Lord is is doing something on the earth and preparing the church and those who call him Savior to. Come into a place of deeper healing so that we can be integrated souls and spread light, spread love, spread joy freely rather than just competing with each other out of fear and and need.

Geoff Holsclaw: Yeah. Thank you for that. That's really encouraging our like. Pastorally for the church. Our hope was to say something like what you just said is that like people in the jungle, their spiritual pathway and their growth edges are different than people in the desert. Like they almost need an opposite kind of discipleship pathway, but too often churches just all treat everyone the same.

They have their program or their kind of favorite kind of way of doing things. And so I don't know if that's. Similar in like the therapeutic world or if like kind of those different pathways would be useful to [00:25:00] you as a therapist. But that was our heart for people in the church.

Like their spiritual kind of pathways need to be different because their kind of life pathways led them to get really good at some things and not good at other things.

Monica Mouer: it's interesting because I was working with a couple, today is like a high conflict situation and just. Speaking to them about the difference between the anxious and the avoidant and how we in our couple shifts will say things like I would never do that. I don't understand why you're doing that, because I would never do that.

And so just being able to say, listen, the reason you do that, and he doesn't, or he does, you do that and she doesn't, is because you're wired from childhood completely differently. Your survival mechanism is completely different. It makes sense that this person responds like this, and it makes sense that this person responds like this. And we are all on a journey of healing if we choose to accept it.

Geoff Holsclaw: Yeah, speaking of being wired up, we can wrap up with this little story. So we had, Sid and I [00:26:00] were on vacation last week and we had to do like a podcast interview from a Starbucks. 'cause we were like in an Airbnb that had no internet, which was great, except for this needing to be interviewed.

And so we're outside. Surrounded by a parking lot, just about ready to go on. And this car comes tearing into the parking lot. The windows are down, the driver is yelling at the passenger at the top of her lungs. They just like skid into a parking spot and Sid immediately becomes flustered.

Like she is just like she's absorbing. All of that anxiety. She's much more from the jungle and I'm in the desert and I'm like, our task is this podcast. All the rest of reality does not exist. I am on this task. That person doesn't matter. And Sid, she could not, she couldn't just think her way into that space of no, there's two people who are like.

Angry at each other and they're like, behind the wheel of a car like this is, this could be really bad. And I'm [00:27:00] like, it doesn't matter, right? But she can't all of a sudden just make me care about all those things and it, I can't just make her not care about those things. Like that in a sense is impossible.

But we can be a little more self-aware. We can have grace for each other. We can also grow. So that's

Monica Mouer: Yeah. And 

Geoff Holsclaw: little example.

Monica Mouer: seems like what happens when we do that is that's the transformation zone. That's how we change, that's how we grow. That's how we are sanctified and becoming more like Christ because we're in that rub with each other of being empathic and kind and non-judgmental, even though we are completely different in our wiring.

Right.

Geoff Holsclaw: Yeah. Yeah. And the goal is that we could all use our best skills and gifts together from a healthy kind of integrated place. 

Final Thoughts and Resources

Geoff Holsclaw: Do you have any other last thoughts or kind of things before I ask? One last question. Anything

Monica Mouer: I just, I love what you've done and I hope that lots of therapists and other, pastors. Everyone in every other [00:28:00] profession, just human kind, is able to access the book because I think it's a, it is a unique and creative lens and I actually found it, sometimes when we read in non-fiction book to be like, okay, I'm gonna get through this, right?

But more I found that I am. Really, speeding through it because it's very interesting and well written. So thank you for what you've done there, Geoff.

Geoff Holsclaw: Oh, I appreciate that. People think that when you co-write a book, it'd be like half as much work, but for Sid and I, it's like twice as much work but we're glad. We're really proud of it. Was there any last and I know you're swimming deep in these waters, so maybe not, but any like last good news kind of thing that you came across or maybe new thing where you're just like, ah, that you just kinda onto or that felt

Monica Mouer: I really like the images, right? So you have two, two images that, you access several times throughout the books. And so those images are, the the graphic that you use, right? I think is something that can be studied, [00:29:00] understood, and transferred easily, and especially in the therapeutic.

World. We, do a lot of handouts and explanations in order to help clients saturate in information. And so I love the way that, that, that came out in the book, and I think that would be really helpful for clients and therapists alike. But I, the main good news is that this can heal.

Geoff Holsclaw: Yeah.

Monica Mouer: the way that it heals is through relationship with our creator in that there is a love relationship that can bring us into that security, into that pasture that where we can finally rest from all of the difficulty, the striving, and I think that is. That's the best news. That's the best news, and I'm really excited that you and Sid were able to work together. I did think that Geoff, like this is amazing as a married couple that you could, synchronize enough to come up with a work that's so [00:30:00] beautifully done, but that you are bringing this to our communities.

So I just thank you for being you in the world.

Geoff Holsclaw: Yeah. Thank you. That's the good news we wanted to share too, is that. God meets us in whatever pasture we're in, but Jesus, the good shepherd is then helping move us into the, into the pasture. So that idea of God meeting us and helping us move is that's the good news in a sense.

Thank you for your time to, read. We do. Could you tell people then, I know you've been working around it, could you tell people the life model informed therapy where people can find that

Monica Mouer: Yes,

Geoff Holsclaw: yeah.

Monica Mouer: of course. Yes, definitely. So our organization is called Center for Transformation Institute, so it's C-F-T-C-F-T institute.com and on CFT institute.com. We're going to be having several different offerings we're gonna be selling. Or making available some on-demand trainings from a variety of organizations.

But the main offering that [00:31:00] we have is life model informed therapy. So first time anywhere. We are offering continuing education credits to therapists. NBCC approved. We are credentialed with NBCC all therapists in the United States and who are licensed with their state can actually get, continue education credit for life model training.

So I know a lot of a lot of people know about the life model and love the life model. Some people haven't dove into it at the level that they would like because they need to get continuing education from other realms, but that's why. Our organization decided to tackle this feat. And so we have our first, our three modules done.

The basic training is done, so we encourage people to come check it out on our website, cft institute.com, and we are in the working stages of getting our advanced training out. We're gonna be at the A CC conference in September for all of the [00:32:00] therapists who are gonna be there, come by and see us at our booth.

And we're looking forward to getting this in having the life model informed therapy become an actual credential that therapists will be able to get. So that's kinda the long-term plan and vision.

Geoff Holsclaw: That's so exciting. I'm so encouraged and I, when I found out when we first met, I was like. This is exactly what needs to be done. For those of you therapists or others that are interested in this, that will be in the show notes. And the part of the project that Monica and I are working on is we're doing our second annual Attachment to God summit in October.

And so we're partnering with your organization to offer five to 15 CE credits also for that content. So there'll be more news about that coming. But thank you so much for being on, and thank you for all the work you do. Yeah. It's been a, it's been a pleasure.

Monica Mouer: Thanks, Geoff. Good to see you today. 

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