Grad School Tips for Success: A podcast for therapists

Episode 56

What are the harder things about grad school?

How should I deal with working, school and having a life?

What should I focus on in school?

There’s little else you will invest more money into than your education. Sure, you’ll likely buy a house one day. But other than that, your biggest investment in time, money and effort is in school. It should be everything you want and more, right?

Grad school is what we wanted all of those years of school to be like. It’s all the subjects you want to learn. We’re able to get deeper into the details about our chosen field. It can be enlightening personally and professionally. It’s also a little daunting at times. Today I offer 12 tips for getting the most out of your grad school program.

Transcript

You’re listening to the All Things Substance podcast, the place for therapists to hear about substance abuse from a mental health perspective. I’m your host, Betsy Byler and I’m a licensed therapist, clinical supervisor, and a substance abuse counselor. It is my mission to help my fellow therapists gain the skills and competence needed to add substance use to their scope of practice. So join me each week as we talk about All Things Substance.

Welcome back to the All Things Substance podcast. This is episode 56. This week on the podcast it’s a student edition. We’ve talked about what it’s like to be a therapist, what pathway you should choose, considerations for choosing a graduate school and licensing. Now it’s time to talk about while you’re in grad school. I came up with a list of 12 tips that I think you should know about being in grad school.

I remember when I was getting ready to start grad school, I started to get sort of nervous. When I went to my undergrad, I went to a number of different schools. Part of this was because I was a drug addict in high school and so my grades were not awesome when I graduated. When that’s the case and you don’t have a great ACT score, mainly because you were high during it, you have to start somewhere and then build your way up to where you want to go. So I started with a state school that didn’t have an awesome reputation, moved to a couple other colleges, all the while working on the grades.

Eventually I went to Michigan State University where I would finish with my Bachelor’s in Psychology. Michigan State is a good school. It’s not necessarily impossible or as rigorous in academics as some of the other schools, but it was still challenging in its own right. I’ve always been pretty good at school putting in effort, but not necessarily busting my ass so to speak. When I got the letter that I was graduating with honors, a couple of my roommates were kind of upset. They didn’t feel like I put in enough effort to graduate with honors. And the truth is, that I did. It’s just that for some people school’s easier.

However, I was nervous about grad school because I didn’t know if I had what it took. I know that I’m smart and I know that I’m good at school, but this was graduate school. This is not the same thing. And you kind of can’t bullshit your way through something like that. The truth was, I didn’t really want to bullshit my way through it anyway. I was worried that I was getting into a medical school type situation, not necessarily medical school per se, but that it would be as hard as medical school and I’d have to study constantly.

I lived with someone when they went to medical school and they were studying near constantly, alternating with spraying everything with Lysol, but studying nonetheless. It would turn out that grad school was one of the best experiences of my life. I loved it. It was challenging. It was hard academically and it was invaluable in making me the therapist I am today.

I don’t know if all of you will have the same experience in grad school or even a similar one. I don’t know if some programs have the amount of work put into them as mind did. My professors and those running my program care deeply about our education and about us as people. I am grateful to the professors that I had, who really made a huge difference in my life. Dr. Mangis, Dr. McNeil, Dr. Watson, and the other Dr. Watson. I appreciate you all so much and thank you for the experience that you gave us.

As I thought about what I wanted to share with you. I thought about what I would want to tell someone who was going into graduate school. The following is a list of tips that I wanted to share with you.

Grad School Tip #1

The first and foremost. won’t be a surprise for those of you who have been listening for a while, because I’m pretty passionate about this topic. You need to start your own therapy. I would get started right away. Not necessarily because you’re going to be super fucked up right away, but because you need to have someone there to process things. To be sure I had had therapy in my life. I had a lot of therapy when I was younger. This was different though.

I had returned to my hometown to go to school. I was suddenly faced with memories of things from long ago. Therapy was not required, but strongly recommended. I’ve heard of some people saying that therapy was required for their programs and others saying that no one ever really talked about it. I am passionate about us doing our own work.

It wasn’t long into the first semester of my program when I started thinking about different things in my life. It was probably family systems class, to be honest, that started me on the path of thinking about my own history. The role of doing your own therapy has many purposes, but a couple that are the main ones for my recommendation.

One is that it’s a lot of learning about things and thinking about how they affect others in your life. You’ll be thinking about situations you’ve had and how those came about, how you felt about it and potentially needing to deal with your own stuff on that.

You’ll also be thinking about siblings, friends, relatives, and other things that have popped up. You’re going to have feelings about it and you’re also going to have the stress of just being in grad school. Having someone to talk to who knows exactly what you’re talking about and exactly the experience of being in grad school to be a therapist I found extremely helpful.

I would encourage you to make sure that you’re getting the right therapist. This is another topic that I’m pretty passionate about. I’ve told you the story of seeing nine therapists before I found the right one, she made all the difference for me. When I work with people that is one of the main things that ends up coming out of it for them is that they built a relationship with someone who would truly see them and accept them for who they are faults and all. You deserve this too.

I saw a person for a whole year and she was a lovely human being and likely a good therapist, but we didn’t click and it wasn’t really for me. I knew it the day I laid eyes on her. It wasn’t about her. It was about my own stuff and who she reminded me of. I encourage you to not make that same mistake.

If you are already into grad school or for whatever reason already into being a therapist, and you’re listening to this, if you haven’t done your own work, please go find a therapist. In your work as a therapist, your own history and your own experiences will come up. It is not an if, it is not even really a when. It’s going to happen and you owe it to your clients to make sure that you are aware of your own blind spots, weaknesses, and areas where you might be tempted to blur your boundaries. So my number one tip, get your own therapy.

Grad School Tip #2

Number two, don’t be shy about using financial aid. My opinion on this might be controversial. There are lots of people who have a lot more conservative money boundaries than I do. My opinion is that you’re in grad school pretty much one time. This is the most important investment of your life, other than maybe buying a house in terms of financial investment. I encourage you to go all in. Take out the loans you need, be cautious about how much you have to work and use the money to help you make ends meet and get your needs met while you are in grad school.

I am encouraging you to take the money that they offer and to take supplemental loans, if you need to. And of course, to be wise with that money. I’m not suggesting that you take breaks and go to Cancun or something. I’m suggesting that when you’re in grad school, you treat that like your primary job. It’s just money.

When you are past grad school, you’re going to have student loans. That is something that you just accept. You pay them as you’re able, and you’re on the lookout for payment programs that are going to help you pay them off. But frankly, I was of the mind that if I had student loans till I died, like whatever, it’s just money.

I’m going to school to fulfill a life purpose, to create a career that I love and the money is a means to an end. I don’t love having debts. I didn’t love having $120,000 in student loans, and I believe that it was worth it for me. To be sure where I’m sitting is a little different than a lot of folks.

There are a number of different payment plans that are already offered through a federal student loan service in terms of a 10 year repayment plan, where you make payments every month and you do not miss and after 10 years they write off the rest of your debt.

There are also programs like the National Health Service Corps. That is sort of like AmeriCorps or the Peace Corps and encourages providers to work in underserved areas. There are certain places and types of agencies that are eligible for people to apply for these programs and it’s tax free money to pay off your loans. That’s what I did.

I worked in an underserved area and I did a five-year term and it paid off $120,000 of my student loans. I didn’t know that existed when I was in graduate school. I knew that I needed to be able to keep my sanity and that meant that I couldn’t work a whole lot. I was also living in the Chicago land area, which is not cheap. I did not have family support or some kind of trust fund or anything like that. I’d been on my own since I was about 17.

There are programs that exist. When you’re done with grad school they may or may not exist. But in the current conversation, in the political realm, I do think there is going to be some kind of reformation in the student loan industry. I would encourage you to use federal loans, instead of the private loans. I would encourage you to not fall for any of the “consolidate with us” and this is your variable interest rate. I would stick with the tried and true and the less risky involvement.

As you’re approaching graduation from undergrad or graduate school, you’re going to get a ton of things in the mail about consolidation at certain interest rates. Personally, I would just go with the federal student loan program and consolidate your undergrad loans with them. While you’re in school, your loans are going to be in deferment, which means you won’t be making payments. And when you’re out of graduate school, you’ll have another six months before you have to make payments.

If you’re not able to make them and you’re not sure what you’re going to be doing, put them in forbearance. I know that there’s interest in that and there are people who would never make the same financial choices that I made. I’m only telling you my opinion. There’s a reason for it though. Money is an incredibly stressful thing.

I have had so many times where money has been at the heart of anxiety for me. It wasn’t even until into my thirties that I started to get a handle on money and get on top of it where it’s not something I stress about. It’s not that I make like a shit ton of money or anything either. It’s just that I figured out how to budget and I use a budgeting program that I absolutely love, and it helped me pay off the credit card debt that I got myself into.

So take my financial advice as I intend it. You need to do what’s right for you. You need to do what your anxiety can manage. I would encourage you to not take on more than you need to, whether it’s workload, financial load or other obligations and focus on graduate school. This is one of the only times in your life you’re going to be devoted to this kind of intensive learning. Get all you can out of it.

Grad School Tip #3

Number three, be intentional about what you choose for a job while you’re in grad school. Be careful what you do for a side gig and choose it with intention. You will likely have to have a side gig. Even if graduate school is your number one priority. I worked all through graduate school. Yes. I had student loans and I had extra loans to help with the bills.

I had roommates and I had a vehicle that I had paid for. I lived somewhat simply and I still worked. What I want to encourage you about is to figure out what work you can do, that isn’t going to make you nuts, and that will work around your schedule and that you are not burning the candle at both ends. I did two main jobs when I was in graduate school.

One was working on software testing for a nuclear service company. Sounds kind of strange. I know, but it was pretty cool learning about things like biometric scanning. I’m pretty decent at tech and it was a cool job. I worked a couple of days a week and worked long days on those days. A lot of graduate schools will pack their schedules into a number of days and leave a couple open because they know people have to work.

And in fact, in the 20 years, since I started grad school, it has been even better. I’ve heard of a lots of programs doing interesting schedules to go around work schedules. This is excellent news. The other thing I did was substitute teach. In most states, if you have a bachelor’s degree in something you’re eligible to student teach.

For me, it meant that I could choose to work or not work depending on how I felt that day. I picked a couple of the schools that I liked the best and got to know the support staff pretty well. If you’re a preferred sub, meaning that they know you, they like you and that teachers have good things to say, you can pretty much pick a couple schools and just work there.

I chose only high school because it’s well-known I don’t do well with middle school and I’m not a giant fan of the idea of being in an elementary school. You might be completely different. I loved substitute teaching at my own high school. It was super cool to come back and to see my teachers from high school and have them see that I’m not the fuck up that it might have looked like I was going to be.

Now they would tell you that they didn’t think I was going to be a fuck up they just thought that I was having a hard time and they had confidence that I would come out of it. I am grateful to those teachers who had faith in me, and it was really neat to show them that I had turned out okay.

Substitute teaching isn’t necessarily the most lucrative thing on the planet, but I got paid to hang out with kids and it wasn’t difficult. It was just super fucking early, but I was done by, I don’t know, 3:00 or 3:30. That was pretty awesome. When you think about a side gig and what you’re going to be doing for work while you’re in graduate school, I would encourage you to think about that.

Are you really going to want to be a server and closing restaurants at night and having to get up the next day? Are you really going to want to work in a field like the one you’re heading into doing maybe case management as a social worker or working at a residential facility. You may, or it might be a little much to handle all of the workloads, your own internal processing and to have all of the emotional needs of your clients. Those are just some things that I would encourage you to consider when it comes to what you’re going to be doing for a side gig while you’re in grad school.

Grad School Tip #4

Number four B=MA. Meaning that if you get B’s, you will still get a master’s degree. My program was fairly competitive. There were 30 people, and lots of people would apply and only 30 would get in. The students that I was with were all high achievers and what I would consider overachievers for the most part when they were in their undergrad. That is not necessarily me.

I like to do well. C’s are not acceptable to me, for myself. I did have two of them in my undergrad, and I believe both were in math. For the most part I got A’s because I’m capable of it. In grad school though, getting A’s means nothing. Nobody cares really what your GPA is when you get out of grad school, I’ve seen it on resumes and it’s like they got a 4.0. And yeah, it makes me think they did really well in grad school, but that doesn’t necessarily translate to whether or not you’re going to be a good therapist.

It’s a side note. It’s a curiosity to an employer. Not a requirement. Busting your ass for 4.0, does nothing. If it’s really important to you, then it could accomplish something in terms of a sense of satisfaction. But please do not think that as employers, that we generally care about what your grad school grades were.

You graduated, they gave you a degree. What I cared about when I was hiring therapists over my career is not their GPA. Their GPA being high just tells me that they studied a lot. It tells me that they could be persistent and that’s about all. So if you, for whatever reason, have to have a 4.0, because you need to have that, then that’s you. And you go ahead and do that. For the rest of you. B=MA or MSW, whatever the case may be.

Grad School Tip #5

Number five, it is generally not possible to read every single thing that your professors assign or suggest.

You’re looking for a balanced experience and gaining the knowledge that you need. When it comes to homework, it’s going to be a bit like college. There will be assigned readings. There will be papers. There may be some tests, although I think that’s more rare, at least in my experience. It’s not a big test focus. There’s projects, there’s reflections, those kinds of things.

I absolutely think you turn in all your assignments. Don’t fuck up on that. You don’t blow that off. You do them on time. It’s the assigned readings and then what my professors had, and I used to chuckle about this, was recommended readings.

My respect for my professors made me want to do the recommended readings and the required readings. I think I kept that up for like a month and then I was like, Nope, I cannot keep up with this. It’s also not necessary. There is a finite amount of information that you are going to remember when you’re being overloaded with a ton of new information.

The thing about grad school that I loved was that every class, almost every class was important and I really wanted to learn about it. Yes. There were a couple that weren’t quite as interesting, but this was my career, my chosen field, and I was excited to learn things. I actually understood the desire

It wasn’t a bunch of classes that I didn’t care about that I just had to get in order to finish my degree. I can do anything, but I can’t do everything. I had to choose what to put my energy into. I also wanted a pretty balanced life if I could do it. My first year in graduate school, I went to school Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. I was training in TaeKwonDo two or three nights a week. I worked 10 hours on Thursday and 10 hours on Friday, and I was also doing some volunteer stuff on Sundays and that was my week. It was decently balanced with downtime and studies.

It didn’t leave a ton for just screwing around. I don’t think I just watched movies and hung out on the internet, which at the time wasn’t the internet that we have now. Don’t get me wrong. I did my reading. I did all of my homework. I did not jack around with my assignments. I also did not wreck myself trying to do every single thing and be this overachiever student. I gave myself permission to be done when my brain was full.

If I didn’t finish a reading, I didn’t finish it. I was a grown ass woman. What are they going to do? Take away my birthday? I encourage you to take a little bit of an easier approach about studying and reading and homework. Prioritize, skim things if you need to, read the stuff that’s really interesting because you really enjoy it and get the grasp of what you’re doing.

The nuances, the tiny details will come in time. We’re talking about a general overview that they’re trying to give us of each topic. If you start doing this from the beginning of grad school, it will go easier for you.

Grad School Tip #6

Number six, get to know your professors. There are going to be professors that you have that are just there. They’re doing their job. They’re maybe decent teachers and you get to know their style and what they’re looking for so that you can gear your projects, papers, and assignments to meet the things that they want. Those people aren’t the ones that are going to stick with you.

The ones that you really respect, the ones that you want to be like, those are the ones you want to cultivate a relationship with. You’re not doing this for any particular reason. This isn’t about getting recommendations or connections or networking.

Yes. Those things exist, but we’re talking about building relationships with people who have been in the field, know the field and who can help guide you as you’re moving through graduate school. Typically you’re likely gonna have these professors more than once during graduate school. That’s something that’s pretty important.

I built a relationship with two of my professors and I still talk to them 20 years later. They know who I am and I think of them often. When I started my podcast, I texted both of them to let them know and to make sure that they knew that I wasn’t criticizing our program about not having enough substance use information.

They both agreed that it didn’t and that generally the field as a whole doesn’t focus on it, but needs to. They were both gracious and excited about my future. I carry images of them in my head, the same way that we do, if we have a really good therapist or a mentor or somebody like that. I have a Dr. Mangis and a Dr. McNeil in my head.

I think of them in different things that they told me. Some of it was about my personal life and setting clear limits with my family. And some of it was about my practice. Some of it was about me as a person. Those two men we’re absolutely crucial to my development as a therapist and to who I am even now.

I encourage you to build relationships with your professors in a genuine and honest way for no other reason, except to gain the knowledge and the wisdom that they have to share with you. These are real people who actually give a shit about what they’re doing and they want genuine connection as much as the next person.

Grad School Tip #7

Number seven, you do not need to join any organization that wants you to pay them money. Honor society, student chapters of different organizations. I don’t find it necessary. There are people who will disagree with me. I remember getting ads for things that I should join, whether it was an honor society or something that would give me a credential or something to put on my resume or the student chapter for my particular license. You may wonder whether or not you should join those things or whether or not it’s important.

I just want to tell you as an employer I didn’t care. It meant nothing. It told me that my applicant paid money, and to be a part of this and that isn’t really impressive. The group that they joined will take anyone. It’s not competitive to get into and so it’s just letters and names on a resume, and it doesn’t really mean a whole lot to me. Spend your money elsewhere. Don’t stress out about joining those things and resist the temptation to give in to panic or anxiety about missing out. You don’t need that.

The next three are pretty intertwined. But three distinct points that I want to make.

Grad School Tip #8

Number eight, be intentional with your class choices. There will likely be a suggested track for each semester you’re in graduate school. There will be required classes and there will be optional classes. You are the one that is designing the graduate program outside of the core classes. Choose classes based on what will give you either information about something specific about an area of the field that you are particularly interested in. Or choose classes that will give you the biggest breadth of information.

When I was in graduate school, I took a couple extra classes here and there: a substance abuse class of course. I took a class on bereavement, which was actually really helpful. I took a class on psychopharmacology, which was not part of the actual curriculum, but really important and it turns out that it was needed for licensure. I also took lifespan and career development, which was also really helpful and something I didn’t know anything about. Look at when classes are available and which ones you want and make sure that you’re able to do them in the allotted time.

Grad School Tip #9

Number nine, match up your classes with your licensing applications. If you haven’t heard the licensing episode, I encourage you to go back and listen to it and look at the licensing application for your discipline in your state. Sit down with the application and look at your schedule and the courses that are available. Make sure that you are going to have the classes that you need.

If you are going to a school that is not in the state where you are going to practice, this is especially important. If you are going to school in one state and going to work in another, the license and the other state could be really different and have different requirements.

Once you get your degree, your financial aid is done. Anything you do after that will be out of pocket. I don’t know anyone coming out of grad school, who’s got a couple extra thousand dollars to take a class just because they didn’t make it part of their degree. It is a little confusing and if you dig in, you will be able to figure out what you need.

Grad School Tip #10

Number 10. My suggestion is that you get a 60 credit master’s degree. Some are going to be 48. Some might be 36, some might be 60. Who knows. Again, you are the one responsible for planning your graduate program. Do not rely on your school to tell you that this is what you need without checking on your own.

If you think you might want to work in another state someday, like let’s say you’ve always wanted to live in California. Or you’ve always wanted to live in Maine or New York or whatever. Take a look at their statute and their requirements. Once you’ve done it for your state, it’s easier to look at other states.

Getting a 60 credit master’s at this time of recording is I think your best option. There are some states that require only certain classes and the number of credit hours isn’t as important. And there are others that require that you have certain credit hours in certain domains like development across the lifespan might have, 20 credit hours or something like that. And there are some who say that the master’s degree has to be 60 credits or more.

I would encourage you along with everything else I’ve said, use your graduate education to its fullest. Take the classes that you need. Take the classes that you want to on top of that and be really intentional because you’re planning for your future career. You’re planning for your license and this is the time when you get to give yourself the luxury of having time to do education. You won’t have this kind of time again. You just won’t. Not unless you’re independently wealthy and don’t really need to work all that much. Typically that’s not most of us.

Grad School Tip #11

Number 11 only do summer school if you have to. This might seem a little counterintuitive to my advice about using graduate school to its fullest effect. You might think that going full force all through the school year and summer is the best idea. I don’t think so.

When I was done with my first year in grad school, I did do a couple summer classes, but they were like intensive weekend classes, like one credit hour or something. Those were okay. I don’t regret that.

I did summer school, one time in college and it was not awesome. I only did one of the sections. Thank God. I had to because I needed a math class and something else. So I did it, but what happens when you finish the spring semester? I had a little bit of a break and started summer school in July. By the time I was done, I was ready for a break. And it’s fall semester right there. I didn’t have another break until the following summer.

In the moment when you’re at the start of that happening, it seems like not a big deal. And at the end man, I was regretting that decision. I would have rather added one more class during the semester, and then given myself time to have a break. Then what I did in the summer.

Remember, this is my opinion and based on how I function. I encourage you to trust your own data. You know yourself best. What I’m encouraging you to do is to not think that you are going to be on top of your game, a hundred percent through your whole grad program and to account for things like stress, family issues, death of a loved one, natural disasters, pandemics, whatever. That things will come up and to be gentle with yourself and allow some space. Summer can be a really good break for you. Be cautious, and while planning your schedule to take into account that you will need a break.

Grad School Tip #12

Number 12, take the big fat test as soon as you humanly are able to. Each one of the disciplines, the MFTs, the LPCs, and the MSWs have a big fat test. It depends on what your discipline is what it’s called. Could be the ASWB, which is the social work test, or it could be the NCE, which is the National Counselor Exam, which is the one for LPCs. There are rules in different states about when you can take that exam.

For me, I ended up taking my NCE after my two years, when I was ready to apply for my full license. The test happened to be offered only a certain number of times a year. Some of that still is the case today although sometimes it’s offered often, and you don’t have to worry about that. It just really depends on what state you’re in and what discipline you’re in.

I took my test three weeks after I got married. That was really stressful. I had also been out of school for two years and wasn’t used to studying the way that I needed to study for that test. I studied more for that test than in my entire undergrad put together.

I knew somebody who had been pre-med and had gotten wait-listed for medical school. So he decided, Hmm. I think I’ll be a therapist instead. He was crazy smart and he failed that test. I was terrified because I’m decent at school. I’m decent at tests, but knowing what they were going to ask about this huge amount of information was super stressful.

I wish that I had taken that test at the end of grad school or shortly thereafter. I would have been in the mode of studying, I would have known where other people were using for study guides and I think it would have been way less stressful.

There are rules about whether you can take it before or after you graduate. There are rules about getting the approval from the board and it really depends. I would encourage you while you’re looking at your licensing application and while you’re reading statute to figure out when you can take your first test.

There are a lot more things I could say about graduate school, but I think these are the most important, at least at this moment in time. So just to recap:

Get your own therapy and start it as soon as possible.
Don’t be shy about using financial aid.
Be intentional about what you choose as a side gig or a job while you’re in graduate school.
B=MA. Don’t stress about your grades. Concern yourself more with getting the gist of what they’re trying to teach. Grades are not everything. Especially in graduate school.
Don’t wreck yourself trying to read every single thing or watch every single thing that they assign and or recommend. There will be no points or achievements for completing at all.
Build relationships with professors that you really respect and feel connected to.
Don’t feel pressured to join organizations for any reason. Unless you feel like they will be of benefit to you and not because you think some future nameless faceless employer might like it.
Be intentional with your class choices.
Match up your classes with your licensing application.
Consider a 60 credit hour master’s degree instead of going for something with less hours.
Only do summer school if you absolutely have to. Prioritize taking a break.
Make sure you take the big fat test as soon as you possibly can. You want to prepare accordingly, but don’t put it off until much later.

Graduate school can be one of the coolest experiences you have. It’s sort of like going to college and living in the dorm. You get a chance to experience being on your own in the safety net of the school. Graduate school gives you a chance to participate in the therapist community via classes, conferences, potentially helping with research or papers and doing your internship all in a way that feels like a training ground, like it’s supposed to, for the field. Enjoy it and immerse yourself in it.

The next student edition is going to be about internships. This is one of the biggest things that you will do in grad school and your internship continues to be important for several years into your career.

There are lots of questions I’ve seen online about internships and how you go about getting them, what you do while you’re on an internship, what about conflicts that come up with a supervisor and many more questions. I’m going to do my best to answer the ones that I’ve seen. If you have any comments or questions about internships, please send them to me.

It could be that you’ve done one and you’d like to offer a piece of advice to the listeners. It could be that you’re in one now, and that you’re struggling. It could be that you’re super freaked out about an internship. I would love to hear your thoughts, comments, and questions. You can send an email to betsy@betsybyler.com. I will read and respond to your emails. The student edition always comes out the second week of the month and so we’ll be talking about internships when November rolls around.

I have one last thing to ask. Social media is something that I am learning to embrace. It is a necessary part of sharing information. If you would please open your social media accounts, whatever they are, and look for betsybyler.com on those social media sites. If you would, follow, like, comment, those kinds of things, it would be super helpful.

It is something that when there are new likes or new activities or people like a post or something, it really does help the algorithm. There’s no money attached to this podcast. My goal is to get it in front of as many therapists as possible, because I’m truly passionate about the information. It would really help me if you would go and like, and follow on the social media that you use.

Now, I’m not on Tik ToK yet. I just haven’t brought myself to do it. So I’m on Pinterest, Instagram, which is the brand new one so I don’t even know that there are followers yet Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. I would love it if you would like and follow those pages on your social media and if you see posts hit him with alike. It is a small way to help support the podcast.

I appreciate each and every one of you and the way that the community has shared the podcast with friends and colleagues. I love seeing new subscribers come through for the treatment planning tool or just for the email updates on the website. If you aren’t getting those, you can head over to betsybyler.com and put your email in either for the treatment planning tool or just to get the email updates, which I promise I don’t spam you. They come about once a week.

Next week on the podcast we returned to talking about drugs of abuse. We’ve covered some over-the-counter medications in different episodes. Next week, I’m going to be putting them all together and talk about different over-the-counter medications and the ways that they’re misused. This information can be helpful for parents and for others who want to know what’s in their medicine cabinets and potentially make decisions about whether or not those belong there.

Hope you’ll join me for the next podcast and until then have a great week.

Thank you for listening to the All Things Substance podcast. For show notes, links and downloads, please visit betsybyler.com/podcast. If you loved what you heard today, it’d be great if you would share those with your therapist friends and colleagues. If there are topics that you think would be useful and you’d like to hear me cover them, please let me know. Just send a message to podcast@betsybyler.com. I’ll see you on next week’s podcast. And until then have a great week.

This podcast is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regards to the subject matter covered. It is given with the understanding that neither the host, the publisher or the guests are rendering legal, clinical or any other professional information.