Deez Interviews: Meet the journalist-turned-therapist who now helps reporters deal with secondary trauma
Happy Friday, Deezers! Our final Q&A for the year is with Melissa Stanger, a therapist from The Talk Suite who draws from her own past experience as a journalist and is also putting together a group for reporters dealing with secondary trauma. We talked about her ambitions for the group, why it feels like media coverage of gun violence is at a breaking point, and what all media folks (and like, folks in general) can get out of some good, solid therapy.
Enjoy! (And maybe take this as a sign to pause, take a deep breath, and take that next step toward tending to what you need right now.)
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The interviewee: Melissa Stanger, LMSW (here’s her website!)
The gig: Psychotherapist and clinical social worker at The Talk Suite
You were a journalist before you moved into social work and psychotherapy. What prompted that move?
I've wanted to be a therapist ever since I studied psychology in college, actually — but I decided to wait a few years, work, and get more life experience before taking the plunge. Working as a journalist gave me a lot of insight into the impact that stories can have on our lives, and it's a huge passion of mine to help people hone their stories — especially the meanings of their stories — in order to make sense of them and how they've shaped who they've become.
Do you think starting out as a journalist gave you a unique background that informs your work today?
Interviewing as a journalist does help somewhat as a therapist, but even more than that, it's listening — really listening — that has been the most transferable skill.
As a journalist I would listen for the "hook" in the story, and as a therapist, I listen for something too — in this case, what my client is really trying to tell me when they share certain information in a session.
Hearing my clients tell me about what happened to them in the last week isn’t just catching up on their lives, it’s also a gateway into the meaning that their minds impart on the things that happen to them. It's fascinating to explore these things in session, and it can be really illuminating for clients to explore them too.
You're starting a group at The Talk Suite for journalists struggling with secondary trauma. What do you hope the members get out of this experience?
I remember being in the newsroom during the shooting at Sandy Hook and how chaotic and apocalyptic it felt seeing it projected on multiple TV screens, watching it along with my colleagues in real time, and not even having time to process it before having to jump into action right away.
Fortunately I wasn't directly involved in reporting this event, but my co-workers were making phone calls, reaching out, hearing from survivors and victims' families while their pain was still so raw. It was a tremendous amount of emotion and not much emotional recovery.
Many news organizations are now starting to recognize the role that secondary trauma plays in the work of reporting on first-hand trauma and are becoming more supportive. Still, many journalists find it difficult to talk about how taxing their work is with supervisors and fellow reporters for fear of coming off as "too sensitive" or "unfit" to do their jobs, when this isn't the case at all. I hope that the group provides reporters with comfort and hope in knowing that they're not alone in how they're feeling and that they don't have to struggle with it alone.
I'm especially interested in the work you do with journalists who cover gun violence. Over history, there have always been journalists who've covered crime, violence, war, etc. over their careers, but do you think the current epidemic of gun violence — added to the combination of the 24/7 news cycle — is forcing some kind of breaking point for the media industry?
I’d say so. It’s hard nowadays to turn on the news without seeing or hearing another story about gun violence, and that’s just as a new consumer. So imagine what it must be like for those who are covering these events! Especially for younger journalists who were in college or even high school when the gun violence epidemic started to surge.
Even if they weren’t experiencing these incidents first-hand then, they grew up knowing it was happening to others around the country and attending schools that prepared them for the possibility of these incidents with lockdown drills, metal detectors, blinds or curtains on the hallway-facing windows.
They have been aware of these stories for so long, and to go into an environment where now, they’re face-to-face with the devastation, it does become a breaking point, and there has to be somewhere for all of those feelings to go.
Finally, most of the readers of Deez Links probably aren't dealing with explicitly covering traumatic topics, but they are dealing with the burnout and volatility that's basically endemic to the industry.
Based on your experience, what other benefits could the average media professional find in psychotherapy via Talk Suite or elsewhere?
Psychotherapy is incredibly useful for those struggling with burnout from work, because oftentimes, those who are having a hard time with this don't have a sufficient outlet to release their feelings about it.
Many people, media professionals and non-media professionals alike, also find that psychotherapy helps them find clarity in their lives, whether that's around relationships, family issues, identity dilemmas, or work stress. Therapy is a great way to gain a neutral, non-judgemental perspective on the way your mind works and who you are. It also helps you to become curious about and build awareness in your life, which is so important for healing and growth.
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Don’t forget to check out The Talk Suite online, and have a clarifying weekend!
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Deez Links is a dailyish media newsletter from @delia_cai. You can hang with us always at deezlinks.substack.com.