Challenging the Norm: Yildiz Sethi's Journey to Revolutionize Psychotherapy

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to the Living the Dream Podcast with Curveball. If you believe, you can achieve. Welcome to the Living the Dream with Curve Ball Podcast. She has 25 years of experience and she wants to change her healing approach from just managing symptoms to treating the root calls of emotional and psychological distress. So we're going to be talking to her. She also has a podcast and talking to her about her company and uh how how she wants to change the status quo of modern mental health care. So Yelda, thank you for joining me.

SPEAKER_01 1:14

Hello. Um, I'm very happy to be here.

SPEAKER_00 1:18

Why don't you start off by telling everybody a little bit about yourself?

SPEAKER_01 1:22

Yes, I live in Australia. I am a psychotherapist. I've been that since about the year 2000. Um I came into psychotherapy really wanting to help people make deep change and was very disappointed with what I found in terms of counselling, in particular, psychotherapy traditional, and so then I started looking around at what's available and eventually um sourced a really good way of working, and then from that founded two three other modalities actually, three other ways of working, which I use on a daily basis now, with um yeah, really happy doing it because for me it's a win-win situation to see people turn around very quickly and move on in their lives, and um and that's kind of fulfills what I I wanted to do in those early days. So I I do I am the founder of emotional mind integration, which works with personal issues. Um, I'm also the founder of Rapid Core Healing that uses family constellations plus emotional mind integration in a holistic way of clearing disturbances from a personal and also a generational perspective as well. And that combination means you know I can help a huge range of people with normal, you know, health issues. Now I say the word normal. If you go to a GP, they'll diagnose you with depression, anxiety, or some other such uh diagnoses. Um, I actually disagree largely with that diagnosis. Um, so we can talk about that later. I've also an author, my latest book is called Let's Take the Crap Out of Psychotherapy. Um, and it was it's really taught you know explains what I'm going to be briefly talking about in this podcast. Is that enough to start with?

SPEAKER_00 3:45

Yeah, and that brings into my next question. I talk about what inspired you to write the book, Let's Take the Crap Out of Psychotherapy and what what crap are you looking to remove?

SPEAKER_01 3:55

Yes, exactly. Um, okay. I created EMI way back in 2006. I created Rapid Core Healing soon after that. I also created a trauma recovery program, all of them requiring one to three sessions only for most people. I won't say all. Um, in complex issues, and in particular, depression, anxiety, panic attacks, relationship issues, those kind of things all fit within what I call normal, um, crazy normal. I call it crazy normal. I've got a podcast called Crazy Normal for Better Mental Health and Wellbeing, where I really want to just change the trend that's gone on certainly over the whole time I've been practicing, of narrowing down from you know a wide range of what normal was meant to be or was thought to be to a very narrow corridor where you know everybody who's feeling a bit down gets you know a diagnosis of depression or a bit scared gets a diagnosis of anxiety. Um, and even the diagnoses themselves are problematic because um it's just going on a doctor or a psychologist or a psychiatrist's um inkling of what that is, that they do have a set of criteria, but you know, most people, myself included, if you took that test, you get ticked on as oh my gosh, she's got this or he's got that, so therefore we're going to diagnose them. So the crap is in the diagnosis um part, but also in the way mental health is set up, because mental health is still based on um 1700, right? That's a long time ago, basic beliefs that once something has gone wrong with your brain or mind, it cannot recover, right? So is a permanent damage to the brain or mind that uh is caused by an injury of some sort or uh hormonal problems or something like that. Um, now that would might have been fine for the 1700s, but to still have that as the main belief underpinning the mental health system now to me seems obscene, particularly in light of all the science, neuroscience, epigenetics, excellent science uh research dating back to the 1950s, 60s, that say our brains are have a plasticity about them, which can very easily rewire and can be recovered if you've got the knowledge and skills to help people do that. And that's really so you know the fact that we're still being told, well, look, you've got depression, you'll always be depressed, here's your medication, um, and it's for life, is unthinkable from my perspective because I see so many people all the time who've been in that place for 20 years, 10 years, 15 years, and just in a few sessions, we work with the cause of their depression and and also knowledge about how to process it, and within a very short time, you know, three sessions, let's say, um, they're feeling so good, they're feeling fine, and they've come to understand that depression is a normal state of being human. Who has never been depressed? I have, I'm sure you have too. Um, and and so it's it's crazy that everything is based on this, and obviously, because of this, the pharmaceutical industry or the pharmaceutical industry is very happy to latch on to this and maintain this belief along with the mental health industry, um, making it a closed loop, right? So people like myself with other ways of working that are getting excellent results don't even get a looking in terms of research money or uh having a say or even presenting to them uh the way I'm working to see whether things can be improved or you know, in the mental health system itself, which is is also problematic because they're spending more and more and more money on diagnosis and also pharmaceuticals, and people are not getting better because all they do is manage symptoms, because the underlying belief is it cannot be recovered. So uh, my book, Let's Take the Crap Out of Psychotherapy, is let's rethink, let's go back to basics and let's consider what goes wrong with somebody when things get tough. Um, and then what is required to help them process it and come back to normal. And I have found as a counsellor with a master's degree in counselling that talking about it, particularly if it's a deeply held problem, doesn't necessarily resolve it. Uh, like problems, yes, it does. It's great to share a problem and and band around you all your options and come to a new perspective. But if it's rooted down in a a deeply emotional um cause at the beginning when you were five or two or ten or you know, even in the womb or twenty, you know, um talking about it often doesn't help. In fact, it wires the brain into the problem rather than the solution. So I've got lots to say on all that, um, Curtis. So does that help a little to answer your question? I've gone uh uh uh fairly deeply into what I'm doing pretty much straight away.

SPEAKER_00 10:39

It absolutely does help. So talk about why mental health diagnoses continue to rise despite more awareness and more treatment options than ever.

SPEAKER_01 10:51

Yes. Because okay, more treatment options that believe that your diagnosis, let's say of depression, I'm using the word depression because that's meant to be the biggest diagnosis in the world at the moment by the World Health Organization. Um so let's say if you're thinking about depression, if they believe you're depressed because something's gone wrong with your brain or your mind, therefore you are a depressive person, which is a dysfunction, then all they're going to do is prescribe mental health ways of therapy, such as there's a whole range of CBT cognitive behavioral therapies, which are developed to teach you how to manage your symptoms or challenge your beliefs, or that kind of stuff. That's working on the surface with the symptoms instead of helping the person resolve the cause of their depression. Now, there's loads of reasons why people can get depressed, right? I mean, sometimes terrible things happen, and sometimes injustice happens, and sometimes uh you feel helpless and hopeless because you know things are just awful, and and perhaps you've lost your partners, or you had a death, or um can't get a job, or so many reasons for depression, which okay, you can talk about them, but unless you go to the cause of what caused your thinking to go into a depressed state, um, it doesn't actually do anything other than manage the symptoms and prop up the pharmaceutical industry and also keep all the doctors really, really busy and psychologists in giving treatment that doesn't actually resolve the problem, only manages it. Now, for me, managing a symptom is not appropriate if there is the science out there, the neuroscience, the epigenetic science, and the innovations in psychotherapy that know how to go to the cause of that problem and help that person resolve it relatively quickly, you know. It really doesn't take long, and it's deep, it's safe, it's gentle. Um so that's kind of what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_00 13:35

Or can you break down rapid core healing and talk about how it combines emotional mind integration and family constellations?

SPEAKER_01 13:45

Yes, definitely. Um well family constellations I came across in 2005. Um interesting story actually. If we go back to 2002, I um if we go back to 2002, um I was in a book uh in a bookshop in Sydney and just looking around, and a little book with a brown cover seemed to jump out of the shelf at me, actually. Um it was very simple, very plain actually. But I looked at it, it said acknowledging what is by Bert Hellinker. Hadn't heard of him, hadn't heard of Family Constellations, but I read the first page, thought, wow, I need to buy this book, took it home, read it cover to cover very quickly. And it kind of showed me really exactly what I was searching for: a way of working with the cause of symptoms which are generational. A lot of the cause of many symptoms are systemic. They come from coming from people who've had trauma, injustice, um, have had to leave their countries, um, you know, starvation, you know, all sorts of things can happen. And also relational things within a family, deaths and sickness, famine, all that kind of stuff. So family constellations works with what we all hold, myself included, uh, from our family system. I come from a family system that is very multicultural, and so there is lots of uh stuff in there that's that I carry and my brothers and sisters carry and my parents carry, which come out in the way we relate, in come out in the way we feel, come out in the way we behave as well. So family constellations goes to the root of that very quickly in workshops or private sessions to help unlock or to help people come out of that uh dysfunctional way of thinking or being very quickly and easily. But what I love about family constellations is it has great respect for the family, great respect for your parents, great respect for what they've gone through. It's not like we judge them or we we we dump them with all of our problems or anything. No, it's it's a very respectful way of acknowledging what happened and then taking forward with us the wisdom and the what would you say, um resilience of those people with you as you go forward into the into the present. So that's working systemically, and that is a very brief experiential way of working, not an intellectual cognitive way of working with the emotions and what's what's going on, and tracing it back from where it came from and coming back into the future very quickly in a brief um process. So that's the family consolation aspect which blew my mind. And initially, when I I met I met that one, so I met I met that one in a bookshop, obviously, and I was thinking, okay, but Hellinger is in Germany, I'm in Sydney, not much chance of meeting him. But a few years later, I was traveling around India, 2005 with my husband, and we stopped at a place to rest, and next day, walking through our residence, a big sign in the middle of the place we were, family constellations, come and have a look. So I couldn't believe you know my luck. So, of course, we went and had a look, and then we took part in a three-day workshop immediately afterwards, and then we cancelled the rest of our holiday and took part in training, right? Um, so that was my introduction to family constellations, and when I first did that, I thought that was the be-all and end all of everything I needed, and indeed, for generational systemic issues, it's wonderful, it works really well, and I still use that so much. However, I found over time, certainly by about 2012 or so, that family constellations didn't work with what was left over from a constellation, which would have taken place in the personal subconscious mind of the person, such as you know, a bullying situation you were in, or you know, a beating up, or sexual abuse, or um you know shaming that took place at school, or all those kinds of things that took place in your personal life that were not part of your family system, which is locked in the personal subconscious mind and then puts triggers up into your awareness, giving panic panic attacks and making you fearful, or you know, all those kinds of things. So then I developed emotional mind integration to work with the personal side of your mind that also needs working with that the constant family constellations does not work with that well at all. Um, and then um I put them both together and called them rapid core healing. So when I see anybody, they tell me what they want to work with, and either it will be obvious to me it's a constellation issue, so I'll work there, or it's an emotional mind integration, personal subconscious issue, so I'll work with that, emotional mind integration, and often it's both, which is when I combine family constellations and emotional mind integration together to give a really powerful processing of trauma as well as disturbances and triggers which are coming up in their lives, um and and stopping them being the person they need to be, really. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:04

Well, you talk about achieving permanent change in one to three sessions. How's that possible versus the modern uh long-term uh traditional care?

SPEAKER_01 20:15

Yes, absolutely. Because um I don't know whether you know, Curtis, how much of your mind is conscious? Have you got any idea at all about that? How much of our minds, your mind, my mind, is conscious. Um and I'm I'm asking the the listeners here to think about it for themselves. What do you think? Okay, I'm gonna tell you obviously. It's it's now said to be five percent only, five percent, right? So that's minuscule, it's tiny, isn't it, Curtis? And so um when we do counseling or talk therapy or cognitive therapy, we're only working with the five percent of our consciousness, very tiny, and that's what is conscious in our awareness, right? And so uh psychotherapy, long-term psychotherapy, works in the same way and attempts to go deeper, and it takes a very, very long time to go deeper. Now, the cause of trauma, disturbances, emotional problems are all locked in the subconscious mind, which is the 95%, right? And in particular, in the amygdala, which holds the memories of the feelings or the emotions or the visions of what happened at that time, right? So, all that so and so those ways of working are not equipped with the knowledge, beliefs, or the skills, or the processing to access the cause of. Of what's going wrong for those people if they're only working with the 5% and mainly through talk therapies, right? And talk therapies are usually around the story that we all have of ourselves, right? The people will often say, Tell me your story, you know, and it often, you know, if they're not well, it'll be a story of woe or a story of you know sadness or a story of injustice or whatever. But that doesn't necessarily solve the problem, right? Um, if you actually go deeper than that and say, Well, okay, tell me what's how does that feel in your body to have this feeling that you've never seen, never heard, um, things never work out for you, etc., go with that and then go back to the cause of that, it'll go way but beyond your story to the cause of it, which is buried in the amygdala. Now, how do I know that works? I guess that's a good question. Um, you haven't asked that yet, but I can kind of feel that might be the next thing, is because my clients tell me it works, right? And you know that they're this their symptoms are no longer there, they're no longer feeling depressed, they're no longer feeling fearful, um, they have more optimism, um, they're moving, you know, and and so I go session by session with people and say, Well, how are you today? Well, yes, I've still got this thing up that's bothering me. Okay, we do another deep session, and then the next session, how are we going now? Well, actually, I'm feeling really well, you know. I'm I'm I'm optimistic, and and that final session will be more about, well, look, you know, now that you have moved through whatever you was holding you back, what do you want to do with your life now? Well, how do you want to be in your life now? Are there any things that you've been dying to do but never quite wanted to do? Or, you know, it's that kind of session where they're moving on now, right? Um, and so that's how the way I'm working works really well in a very short space of time compared to the traditional approaches, which can take months, uh years, uh definitely many sessions, and you really are only adapted to managing your symptoms, not resolving them.

SPEAKER_00 24:29

Well, talk about how emotional mind integration works with triggers of PTSD.

SPEAKER_01 24:34

Yes, okay. People come to me with a trigger, and it can be, oh gosh, the way that person looks at me, you know, it's suddenly fired me up into anger or you know, road rage or or um sadness, you know, um, these waves of sadness that I keep coming over me all the time, or feeling not good enough, or whatever. So the first thing I was saying, well, okay, um tell me what do you say to yourself when these feelings or these triggers suddenly come up. Okay, yeah, I'm I'm it could be I'm I'm peed off, right? Or I'm or I'm you know angry or it's not good enough, or I don't feel good enough, or whatever it is. So I'm going with their initial their feeling and the words they say about the way they're feeling, and then going into their bodies, so it's highly somatic. So so going into the body and I put relax their mind, right? So um, this is the thing, you can't go into the subconscious mind unless you relax the mind. So I put them into a relaxed state very quickly, only takes about two minutes to do that, and put them into a place where they're in a state where they know exactly where they are, they're sitting in front of me, or we're on a Zoom session. Um, it's that place between waking and sleeping, uh, where you kind of know you're still here, you can hear everything that's happening, and you will be able to speak to me all the way through the session, right? I want them to be able to speak to me all the way through the session because I want to make sure I can respond to whatever they're seeing or feeling the whole way through. And then once we've got that place, we we I get them to um focus on that feeling or those those words, and then we go back to the first time this came into their life, basically, and then there's a whole process now of making it really safe because going back into a highly violent or you know disturbing situation is very uncomfortable, so we don't do that before they actually get to that. I make sure that they are very, very well resourced so that the damaged part of their psyche is not in the middle of it, it's put way back and is being looked after before we actually look at what needs to change. Because what I'm actually helping them do is helping them have a better ending, if you like, to whatever it was that happened. Because usually when things happen to us that we're out of control on, it's because our choice has been taken away, um, you know, our freedom's been taken away, we've been violated in some way. So we're heading into that amygdala that holds the memory, and then helping them finally stand up or speak up to whatever they needed to in a way that is healing for them as well, right? And then by the end of that, I help them integrate it back into their psyche, they'll be fully aware of everything that took place all the way through, and then I ask them to focus on the final bit, right? Um, which is a very healing thing for them. It's you know, we're working very much with the fight and flight response and helping them resolve it so that the adrenaline can relax back into you know a more normal level instead of being hyper-allergic. And and the trigger that we've worked with is now in a very passive way, it doesn't need to do anything anymore. Does that make sense, um, Curtis?

SPEAKER_00 28:37

Oh, yeah, it absolutely makes sense. Well, talk about how your work aligns with or challenges the uh latest findings in neuroscience.

SPEAKER_01 28:48

Look, I am totally in line. I don't I don't find neuroscience challenging at all. It's wonderful. It so totally supports exactly how I'm working, and I totally support neuroscience because that's that that's exactly what they say. They the neuroscience findings, and I've got lots of research um in my book, which I have quoted and put in the back of the book if people want to look things up, um, totally say that change can happen in a moment with under the right circumstances. It does not have to take you know months of persuading or years of therapy, uh, and it definitely, you know, for most people, doesn't require medication for life. Now, I do know that some people do require a mental health diagnosis, by the way, right? I'm not being flippant about things like schizophrenia, bipolar, um, DID. There's there's a whole range raft of things that are the extreme end of the mental health system, which absolutely do require diagnosis, medication for life, right? And if they go off those medications, they really can't cope and they can be dangerous to themselves or others, right? So I'm not talking about the extreme ends, I'm talking about the middle range, which I belong to and probably you belong to, Curtis, and most people belong to, um, that's you know that will that will work here. Yeah. Have I answered your question? Oh, what were your what was your question again? I think I lost it.

SPEAKER_00 30:32

How does your work uh challenge or align with the latest findings?

SPEAKER_01 30:37

Yeah, it doesn't challenge latest findings in neuroscience at all. It fully aligns with it. Um, and I'm very happy about that. You know, the more I see and the more research that comes out, and more excited I get that wow, okay, great. I'm I'm not I'm not you know working in in a totally crazy, crazy way. Uh, it really does align very much with what neuroscience is saying, that the brain is neuroplastic, that it can rewire and does rewire if it's given the right treatment, basically. Yeah. And of course, if a brain is physically injured, of course, you can't do much about that, right? Um, if there is actual brain injury, yes, you've had an accident and part of your brain has been irreparably damaged. Yes, you know, um great empathy for that, and there's you know, do what you can within the medical model for that, but that's not what I'm talking about for most people. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:40

Well, tell us about your podcast, tell us what we can expect when we listen to it and where we can hear it.

SPEAKER_01 31:45

Yeah, the podcast is called Crazy Normal for Better Mental Health and Well-being. Um, and it's about bringing back a sense of normal that's much wider. So um, you know, normalizing depression that people have, you know, most people have depression and and and let me know, oh no, it's not just depression, it's clinical depression. And you know, what I've found with that is that if they have come to the end of, let's say, 10 years of medication or 20 years of medication, uh and they're still on their medication and they still feel not depressed, let's say, um, then you know, there are people often who are so ready for change. So for people who are ready for change and ready to adopt a whole new belief system, this works. People who tend to book their husband in or their daughter in or their wife in to a session with me, usually it doesn't work because they they're not really ready for change, they're quite happy to stay in that state of depression, whether it's you know, clinical depression or lighter depression. Uh, but I know that even with very heavy depression, um, you know, what people might call clinical depression, when people are ready for change, change happens and relatively quickly. Yeah. So that's what my create my podcast is about. I also discuss relationships and what you can do to, you know, have better relationships, and I invite people on who have you know a bit of a zany way of looking at life, really, I guess, you know. Um, you know, it seems like those people who are a little bit different, you know, they have the little bit different way of looking at life, but have nothing wrong with them, you know, they're not any harm to anybody. Um, all those kind of people will enjoy crazy normal.

SPEAKER_00 33:58

Well, tell us about any upcoming projects that you're working on that people need to be aware of.

SPEAKER_01 34:03

Yes, good. Um, I have I'm just in the well, I've just done a research with a um research psychologist and also with a professor uh with the with family constellations. Um I was the practitioner holding the sessions, and the name of the research is called What Difference Can One Session Make? And you know, I knew I was being put on the spot a bit one session only, right? Uh a bit scary, but um I did that, and I did that towards the end of last year. Uh, the research now has all been done, and um it's over now to the researcher and the professor. Now they are looking at the results and um and what it means, and they're going to be presenting it to APA and all of the other big research institutes of the world that will accept uh you know research like that. So I'm really excited to be involved in research because I'm not just somebody who advocates for what I do, I would also love to be involved in a research with EMI as well, and you know, the combination rapid core healing as well, uh particularly for triggers, uh, mental health issues and um trauma recovery. Um, so I'm absolutely open to that. I come from a science background actually, Curtis. Um, I was a physics and chemistry teacher for 15 years before I made the change into therapy. Um so I, you know, my I do have a you know a scientific way of looking at us as people and uh what goes wrong and what could possibly be, you know, the way of helping people to recover. So all of that plays into it. So I'm really over the moon to be involved with any research that is um yeah available in this area.

SPEAKER_00 36:12

Well, to watch your contact info so people can keep up with everything that you're up to.

SPEAKER_01 36:17

Yes. Um I have a Substack called Be Free to Be You. That's one way, my Substack, uh, which I go on to regularly. Um, I have a website called yildasethi.com, and on that website you'll be taken to um training. I train a lot of people in the way I work as well, um, and I'm just also um yeah, I train a lot of people in the way I work so that because I've been doing this for a while now, and I know that the way I work could possibly die when I'm not doing it anymore, you know. And so I'm very much interested in training um counselors, psychotherapists, psychologists in these ways of working so that it can go out into the world in really making a difference, you know, in a way that I can't as a single person. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:17

Alright, we'll close us out with some final thoughts. Maybe if that was something I forgot to talk about that you would like to touch on any final thoughts you have for the listeners.

SPEAKER_01 37:26

Yes. Um okay. All right. I'll I'll just share a little bit. I I also come from a bit of a spiritual uh part of me, um, which I became a Vedic astrologer as well in the early late 90s, and that taught me so much about karmic cycles, spirituality, life purpose, and all of that. And that's really what got me into counseling, thinking how can I help people, myself included, um, really make the most of their lives because I really believe we all have a right to be who we are and who we're meant to be, and to full our potential as human beings. And so my next question to that was well, what stops us? And that's what made me realize people feel not good enough or they feel fearful, or they don't feel they have enough self-worth, or you know, they're depressed, or they're anxious, or whatever. So that's really me uh with an optimistic bent, I suppose, um, realizing that those who are ready to actually step into who they really are and who they they can be, you know, the bigger selves of who they are, the fuller selves of who they are, um, that's really what I'm about overall. Yeah. So be free to be you, yes.

SPEAKER_00 38:59

Hallo, ladies and gentlemen, visit yeldazelfie.com to keep up with everything that she's up to. The website will be in the show notes. Please be sure to follow rate review, share this episode to as many people as possible. And also please be sure to keep up with all things living the dream by visiting www.curveball337.com. Leave us a voicemail. We might play it on the show, give you a big old shout out. If you haven't done so, sign up for the newsletter, leave us a review, drop us a line, any guest suggestions or show suggestions or feedback you might have, and please share the website of the show to everybody you know. Thank you for listening and supporting the show and yielders. Thank you for all that you do, and thank you for joining me.

SPEAKER_01 39:48

Thank you. A pleasure.

SPEAKER_00 39:51

For more information on the Living the Dream with Curveball Podcast, visit w dot curveball337.com. Until next time, keep living the dream.