Most therapists crack a joke in session at some point, but very few have actually studied the clinical art of using humor in therapy. If you've ever wondered whether that offhand comment landed the right way, or held back because it felt too risky, this episode is going to change how you think about it.
In this episode of The Traveling Therapist Podcast, I sit down with Glenn Maloney, psychotherapist and author of Finding the Humor in Psychotherapy: A Primer on the Clinical Art of Joking with Your Clients. Glenn has presented on this topic everywhere from the Minnesota Psychological Association to the International Federation of Social Workers in Oslo, Norway, and he brings a genuinely fresh perspective on how humor fits into serious clinical work.
In this episode, We Explore…
Connect with Glenn:
Website https://www.mostexcellentpsychotherapy.com/
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LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/glenn-maloney-6a447b28b/
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Instagram: @thetravelingtherapist_kym
The Traveling Therapist Facebook Group: www.facebook.com/groups/onlineandtraveling/
Signup to learn more about life as a Traveling Therapist: https://www.portablepracticemethod.com/free-training
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Transcript:
[00:00:00] Kym: Hey everybody. Welcome back to another episode of The Traveling Therapist podcast. I'm excited to have our guest today. I'm ready to laugh. We have Glenn Maloney here with us, and it's gonna make more sense in a little while.
[00:00:11] But Glenn, welcome to the podcast. So glad to have you here. Could you just start out and just tell us how'd you go from being like a typical therapist to a traveling therapist?
[00:00:21] Glenn: Yeah, Kim. So happy to do that for you all. So I wrote a book, it's called Finding the Humor in Psychotherapy, A Primer on the Clinical Art of Joking With Your Clients. So it's provides sort of basic guidance for therapists and especially new therapists about safe and ethical use of humor as intervention in the clinician's chair.
[00:00:43] And it's created all kinds of travel opportunity, like as a speaker to talk about the things that are in my book. So, travel has always been a love of mine, and especially the past few years as I've gotten close to 50 and my daughter has aged, you know, and I have a traveling partner, it's become more and more a part of our lives.
[00:01:05] So it's like, how do we, fit in, travel with our careers and like make it both as enjoyable and, you know, mind opening as it always is, as well as like contributing to our livelihood and our productivity.
[00:01:20] Kym: Absolutely. I love talking about this as traveling therapists or just therapists in general. I think a lot of us like kind of have a book in us, you know, like, that book that one day we think we could write or that special like technique that we do.
[00:01:33] And I, I really love this topic. I think it's so fun and I'm gonna enjoy talking about it. I like what you're saying about you can use this as an opportunity to travel if you're gonna promote your book or I'm assuming like booking speaking gigs or, you know, maybe we could talk about that a little bit.
[00:01:47] Like I'd love to hear about how you like wrote the book and got it published and all of that, but then how do you do that next part of it? Like, now I'm gonna like make this an opportunity to travel and see the world just for therapists that are listening that are like, wait, how are you doing that?
[00:02:00] Glenn: Yeah. Well, I mean, writing a book I think creates a lot of implied legitimacy, right? And, I always say like a joke I'll make when I speak at a conference is that I'm one of the world's premier speakers about humor in psychotherapy, and there's only like two or three of us. So I'm like premier by default, right?
[00:02:22] So I'm lucky enough to have found a topic that one so many people are interested in. You know, the research shows that 90% of therapists use humor in their sessions, but that two are field isn't like inundated with speakers on humor. So, as the guy with the new book. I've gotten a lot of opportunity and then each opportunity leads to more opportunity.
[00:02:47] You know, last year I traveled to Oslo, Norway to speak at the International Federation of Social Workers Regional Conference there and then yeah, people are like, wow, you must be good. Right? Whether or not I am
[00:03:01] Kym: It's like wait and see. You don't know. Maybe I'm
[00:03:03] not,
[00:03:03] Glenn: and see. so I do think I'm funny, right? But. my feedback from my presentations, I'm the only one who's like, I thought this would be funny, right?
[00:03:13] Yeah. Like, nobody is ever, like, I thought I would leave this trauma presentation traumatized. But one of the central points I make is that humor is such a subjective thing that really, as therapists, we wanna be thinking not about what we think is funny, but what our clients think is funny.
[00:03:31] and I don't need to do that when I present at a conference there. I just get to do what I think is funny. And you know, I think most people will find it amusing, but there's always one or two who have a different sense of humor than me, and they let me know about it, you
[00:03:47] Kym: Oh my God. Of course you're in the world of therapists. There's always gonna be that like really snarky, like critical one that's gonna say, well, I didn't think it was funny at all. I don't, I don't think that's appropriate. Yeah. Oh my gosh. I really feel for you on that.
[00:04:00] Glenn: Thank you.
[00:04:01] Kym: so could we talk about that ?
[00:04:03] Like how do you assess? I mean, I feel like just. I don't know. As a therapist, I've got sort of a good like intuition around like who can take a joke and who can't, maybe in my clinical practice. But it sounds like to me you kind of walk through a process of like, how do we assess that? How do we determine like how far do we go with it? Maybe we could just talk about that Some give the clinicians listening, some guidelines, especially new clinicians.
[00:04:27] Glenn: Yeah, well I think first, one of the most useful things we can do is like let our clients make the first joke. So we're waiting for them to make the first joke so we can sort of see what they think is funny.
[00:04:41] And then, you know, there are these sort of classic types of humor. One of the things I've done is look at how they sort of categorize humor in the arts, like in theater and in literature, right?
[00:04:53] And one of the classic types of humor is surprise type humor, which is when something unexpected occurs, sort of given context. So often what will happen in the first session is you'll have a client telling you about themselves, and then they'll let a swear slip, right? They slip out a curse word, and they're like, oh, I'm sorry.
[00:05:15] And they think because we're a therapist, we need to be very buttoned down and professional. Right? And then I'll swear back at them, right? I'm like, You can swear here. It's your office too. Right? We laugh together and, you know, I identify these sort of primary uses of humor in, the work.
[00:05:32] And one of them is connecting people. Like it's a social lubricant, and a great connector. and this is like we share this moment together and it kind of jumpstart that therapeutic relationship.
[00:05:44] Kym: So what happens if you get one that's not funny at all?
[00:05:47] Glenn: that's okay. Like there are clients on my caseload. I mean, honestly, so me as the humor guy, I think I attract clients who aren't interested very much in conventional therapists.
[00:06:03] Kym: Yeah.
[00:06:03] Glenn: they're coming to me because they know I'm gonna try to make it funny with them. Right? So, so I've got a fair amount of people that are like, you know, 30 5-year-old male HVAC technicians or like,
[00:06:17] Kym: Yeah.
[00:06:18] Glenn: Things like that. I work with a ton of other therapists and a lot of nurses and sort of like hardened professionals who need to laugh, you know.
[00:06:26] But certainly I've got people who want that very serious therapist and I'm capable of being buttoned down and serious as well. In my master's program, one of my professors said, you have to be careful with humor, and that is of course, sort of useful advice.
[00:06:46] I always need more than that, which is part of the, the reason I dug into the literature about humor and started to write my own book. I needed more guidance, but that basic idea, being careful with humor is a super valuable thing for sure.
[00:06:59] Kym: absolutely. So you mentioned the one kind of humor, like the surprise humor. Are there other types that we should be aware of in that therapeutic relationship?
[00:07:08] Glenn: Yeah. You know, there are two that I say we should be most careful with, and one of them is sarcasm. And we live in a very sarcastic society, which like I enjoy to a large degree out in my personal life, but sarcasm is, really based in deception, right? When you're like. Oh, that server at the restaurant last night did such a good job. And you mean that they were the worst server ever? Right.
[00:07:36] Kym: Yeah.
[00:07:36] Glenn: So as therapists, we wanna be speaking honestly, and we want to encourage honesty. And so nothing I say is like, don't ever do this. Right. But I think sarcasm is one thing to watch out for. And then defamation, early in my therapy career, I was working with a couple and I made this joke.
[00:07:56] I was like, oh, it's real weird that a couple would come to me for couples counseling. And I've gotten much better at relationships I hope. But, you know, when the research shows that belief in the therapist is a really important part of the therapy progression.
[00:08:12] A joke that sort of weakens me as a professional potentially problematic. So that's like therapist self defamation, but then client self defamation is a really important thing to watch out for too. When they're making jokes about themselves. That's like a spotlight for where intervention needs to happen Often, like people will use humor to deflect, right?
[00:08:38] So they'll make a joke about something about themselves that they feel poorly about in order to deflect us from that idea. And so it's like, oh, I heard that joke. Let's talk about that. Why do you laugh about that? Is this actually something you feel poorly about?
[00:08:54] Kym: Yeah and I imagine with the sarcasm piece too, like when you were talking, I was like, yeah, it could go both ways, right? If you're being sarcastic as a therapist, I mean, it could un even like, it feels like to me undermine the relationship a little bit. 'cause it could be like, well they're gonna talk, you know, shit about somebody, like a server.
[00:09:10] Like what are they saying about me? Or like, is what they're saying to me, even genuine if they've got this like secret little, snarky dialogue underneath of everything. So I could see how that would backfire.
[00:09:20] And then having a client that's super sarcastic. I mean, I guess, you know, funny, sarcastic, like, being able, like you were just saying, like be able to break that down into defense mechanisms and like, you know, why do you feel like you got a joke about it? Did it really upset you that the server was terrible? You know, using that.
[00:09:36] Glenn: Yeah,
[00:09:37] Kym: Super interesting. I don't really think about that a lot. You know, the jokes people make and how they make them.
[00:09:42] Glenn: Yeah I pay a lot of attention to it clearly based on the work I've been doing. Right. But it's like, why do you laugh about that? We all know that idea that like, if you don't laugh, you'll cry or like, sugar makes the bitter medicine go down, right? Like, So when our clients are laughing, joking about important parts of their lives, that can often be, like I said, spotlight, this is a thing we need to be addressing.
[00:10:08] Kym: And us as therapists knowing, figuring out the nuances around it and not like going down the joking hole too with them and just like glazing over it, I would think. Yeah.
[00:10:17] Glenn: Yeah. You know, one of the things I say as therapists, we're not just listening to like what people say, but how they say it and the things around what they said. And I think humor is a super important part of that.
[00:10:30] Kym: Yeah. does your book get into those nuances? Like how to spot it, what to do, like interventions with that stuff or do you have advice around some of that stuff?
[00:10:38] Glenn: My book does a few different things. One thing I'll say is my book's been out for it came out early 2024, so it's been out about two years now, and I've learned a lot as I've continued to do this. Like, one thing I love, like I speak at a lot of conferences and I do a lot of presentations and every time I've got a line like 12 people deep with people who wanna come up and share their stories with me about humor from their sessions or humor from when they were in therapy themselves.
[00:11:09] So one of the things I love about this is that I learn so much as I continue to do it. And it's like there's gonna need to be a second edition or a volume two at some point because my understanding has deepened as I've done it.
[00:11:24] But The book kind of points to these three main uses for therapy where we like, sort of then start intervention from. So one of these is this idea of like connecting people, right? Humor as connection. And so it's like a rapport building, intervention technique, humor as a way to reframe, right? So making a joke in order to create, thinking about something in a different way or experiencing something in a different way.
[00:11:54] And then the other one would be like the way that a belly laugh really interacts with that polyvagal system and like, resets our bodies, right? So one of those things that resets the brain and the body when used in different ways.
[00:12:09] Kym: Yeah. I'm just thinking about even myself before I hopped on here, there's like construction in my building. I'm like so stressed. And then I hop on here and start laughing with you and I already feel better. It's like, okay, it's not a big deal.
[00:12:20] Glenn: yeah. You know, we talk about, oh, like that technique of like vu, right? Like those sorts of like belly impacting polyvagal techniques that are like classics and humor at times has been dismissed as an important intervention. And that's like a part of what I'm trying to do is just like bring it into the greater conversation as something that has a lot of use.
[00:12:47] So it isn't just that like technique, like VU or it isn't just like the deep breathing that interacts with the polyvagal and our central nervous system. Those things do that and you know, laughter does that too.
[00:13:02] Kym: Absolutely. So you know, I'm just visualizing you're at a speaking event. People are coming up to you after, and I'm wondering, do you get, I mean, I know we talked about the, critical ones, but do you get a lot of people coming up and just saying like, you know, in my grad program they told me to be the blank slate.
[00:13:17] Like, is that still a thing in grad school? It's been a long time since I've been in grad school. But you know is that still like, you just wanna go into the session with the blank slate? Or are you seeing like more interventions like this trending, like through the research and, for your book and everything. I'm just curious about that.
[00:13:33] Glenn: I mean, I see all of it. Like one of the things I love about the profession as well as one of the things that is a little hard about the profession is that there are so many techniques and things that work. That's what I love about it. Right? What's hard about that is like people buy into a thing and then they think like, this is the way, right.
[00:13:55] They become the Mandalorian. This is the way, so it's like the only thing that works is EMDR and everything else is bullshit, right? The only thing that works is IFS and everything else is bogus. People become impassioned about the work they do, which is cool, but then they become sort of exclusionary about the work others do.
[00:14:15] And I think, most therapists, like, we all know what we get paid, right? Nobody's like in it for the wrong reasons, most therapists are here for good reasons and they're doing their best and they use different techniques and like, that's a good thing.
[00:14:31] Kym: Yeah, for sure. It's just making me think, when I was in grad school, like we had an assignment like pick a modality, right? And I was like, no, I'm picking eclectic. that was literally my paper. And I remember getting like admonished for that a little bit. Like, you know, eclectic is too easy of an answer, you know, you've gotta like pick a lane.
[00:14:47] And I was like, I even remember thinking that. I'm like, why? Like I don't get it, you know? So hearing you say that, and then also coming up is just like, being a new clinician and feeling like you gotta stick to all these rules and then as your identity evolves over time, it seems like you kind of get a feel for yourself in the therapy room.
[00:15:03] Like, okay, like, oh, I cracked a joke. That seemed to work, that seemed to build some rapport with my clients that maybe I'm like, pretty funny. You know, like that, like I feel like we're evolving too over time with stuff like this, you know?
[00:15:15] Glenn: Yeah, I agree. And I think like many interventions can fit under many different theories, right? Like, I do a lot of solutions focused work, which is about like intervention, crafting, right? So we listen to the person story and struggles, and then we propose a solution that they hopefully will try.
[00:15:34] But We could just as easily say that we encouraged like a behavior change under like CBT, right? Or another modality I love is that relational, cultural, and in listening to them and trying to sculpt something around what they say, we could just as easily say that we're like engaging in a very relational intervention. Right. So, gosh, I think most therapists do good work and the good work they do probably fits within multiple theories.
[00:16:07] Kym: Absolutely. Yeah. I totally agree with that. Would you ever give an assignment, like go to an improv class or something to help somebody just loosen up? Maybe is
[00:16:15] Glenn: Yeah, I definitely would. Definitely would. I have you know, a story I share about somebody who deeply sad and very much engages with like, deeply sad music and media like all of the time. And I'm like, you know what you should do? You should put on a Will Ferrell movie tonight. Right?
[00:16:33] Kym: Yeah,
[00:16:34] Glenn: And just see what that does for you and like preposterous, silly comedy and how that impacts your mood.
[00:16:42] if somebody were to have a very similar story and include the idea that they like, never get out of the house, then yeah. Like, oh, go to improv. That's like a great idea. Get yourself outta the house, new environment, right? Unique experience, laugh a little.
[00:16:58] Kym: Yeah. I mean, I think everybody's, I mean, this is like kind of a critical derogatory term, but that EOR client that just. You know, it's just like everything is terrible, you know? And I, I just really like that idea of like, let's just put in a funny movie, something, something to disrupt this pattern that you're in.
[00:17:14] Glenn: Yeah. Well, and even, even that statement, I'm like, everything is terrible. Ha ha. The world is burning. Look at us. Gotta laugh or we'll cry.
[00:17:22] Kym: That's really funny. so what about for like a therapist that maybe is like listening and they're like, man, I'd love to use humor, but I don't think I'm that funny, or I'm not that nuanced at her. I'm not that witty, like. do you have suggestions for that? Like how do we get better with, using humor if we're not like even considering ourselves to be like funny people and if you know what I mean, or maybe it's not a good intervention for them. I don't know. I'm
[00:17:44] Glenn: Yeah. Well, that's totally fine. Like I said, like the research shows 90% of therapists use humor. That means 10% don't. Right. I think I'm like a riffer, like we talk and I make jokes. You are doing some of that too. We have a grand old time, right?
[00:18:00] One of the sort of late eighties humor therapists wrote a lot about having like a joke library. So they had this collection of jokes in their brain that they would bust out in an appropriate moment when it felt like that joke fit the situation.
[00:18:17] so that's the technique people can, can explore, right? Or like some therapists love to pass out like cartoons from the newspaper, right?
[00:18:27] Kym: Yeah.
[00:18:27] Glenn: Yeah.
[00:18:28] And so.
[00:18:29] Kym: Yeah.
[00:18:30] Glenn: Old school comics from the newspaper, which still exists, I suppose. Right?
[00:18:35] Kym: I guess so.
[00:18:36] Glenn: I think that's like a thing people can be doing as well. Right. And then the idea that we can like assign humor, like I think our like crisis prevention plans, right? We should have a place on there that's like, what makes you laugh, who makes you laugh?
[00:18:53] What's your favorite funny film? What's your favorite standup comedian? Right? And like, the therapist doesn't need to be funny at all to like prescribe somebody's favorite comedian when they're feeling really down. And I think that that's a great idea that we don't do enough,
[00:19:11] Kym: I've never, literally never seen that on like, an assessment of forum. Like what makes you uh, maybe, maybe what makes you happy or something, you know, or what you grateful for maybe, but not like what makes you actually laugh or what's your favorite, who's your favorite, comedian? Like, that is a great question.
[00:19:26] Glenn: Yeah, that's like one of my other sort of projects I'm working on right now is a workbook that like takes all of our classic therapy workbook pages and finds where humor fits within them and then just includes them. Right. And anybody else using like, yeah, take, take your relapse prevention plans and just tack on that laughter and humor section. And there you go.
[00:19:50] Kym: Well, now I have to ask you to tell us a couple jokes from your library. Do you have some kind, give us, give us some therapist jokes that we can use today at our practice?
[00:20:00] Glenn: gosh my favorite joke and I'm not, I'm not, like I said, I'm a riffer more so than like a joke collector. But my favorite joke, oh, 20 years ago I was working at a, in a deli. In a small bodega in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Like I came to therapy sort of late and I did like a million things along the way, and this other deli worker told me this joke one day and she said, Hey, have you heard about that new kind of mad cow disease? Or, I'm sorry, I have to start over. She said,
[00:20:29] Kym: See, this is my problem with jokes. I can never remember the punchline.
[00:20:33] Glenn: I did the setup wrong. We'll edit this
[00:20:35] Kym: Okay. Okay. Let's start over.
[00:20:36] Glenn: So this deli worker said to me, there are these two cows in a field, and one says to the other, have you heard about that new kind of mad cow disease? And the other one says, well, what do I care?
[00:20:48] I'm a helicopter, right? So that's my favorite joke. And it's kind of a groaner and then a thinker. It's a play on that word madness,
[00:20:58] Kym: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:20:59] Glenn: and it points to the idea that like, one thing can be multiple things, which is about this like reframe that I'm talking about, right? My very favorite, like one of my proudest moments from in session, I was doing work with a client they had a lot of trauma.
[00:21:14] One of these exercises where I wanted them to bring their 4-year-old self into the office and give that little person a hug. And tell them that they're safe and they, the grown person, the grown version, is now responsible for their safety and they will take good care of them.
[00:21:31] This imaginal experience of hugging the CH inner child, right? And the client couldn't do that. And I said, why not? And they said, well, they brought their mother with them.
[00:21:40] Kym: Oh,
[00:21:41] Glenn: And I said, well, I've gotta check because I don't think your mom's on my schedule today. And we had worked together for like a year, year and a half at this point. So I knew them pretty well before I like made this joke, which could have felt as very dismissive.
[00:21:56] Kym: Yeah. Right.
[00:21:57] Glenn: But we laughed together and sort of it helped regulate right? created this shared experience in our office, my office, our office, which is our space that we control, right? And then they were able to do this exercise of like hugging their inner child, like mom disappeared from the office based on this joke, you
[00:22:20] Kym: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, It is such good intervention because it disrupts that, even that trauma pattern of like, just anytime you think of the 4-year-old, the mother's right there. Like it totally disrupts that like the way it's in the brain.
[00:22:31] Glenn: Yeah. I love that example because we wouldn't think necessarily, like it isn't an obvious idea that in treating somebody, like treating somebody's deep seated chronic childhood trauma that there is a place for a little bit of like lighthearted humor
[00:22:47] Kym: Yeah.
[00:22:48] Glenn: and it, like I said, gosh, mom just disappeared from the office, right?
[00:22:52] Kym: Yeah. so if a therapist is listening, I mean, you mentioned the workbook that you're working on. Are there like. is it like skill building for therapists in a way to get like more humor, like interventions involved in their work? Or is it more like, like, I don't even know.
[00:23:07] I'm just curious about it. And maybe you could think of a tip or something for a therapist. That therapist is listening and says like, gosh, I really don't use that much humor. Like, I would like to use more. Do you have some sort of maybe strategy or tip in there that we could pass along?
[00:23:20] Glenn: I bet we can think of one. You know, my first response is like the best indicator of progress in therapy is feeling like the, the client feeling like they're with the right therapist, right?
[00:23:30] Kym: Yeah.
[00:23:31] Glenn: So don't try to be something you're not. Just be yourself as the therapist and that's going to be the best thing for you and for your clients, right?
[00:23:41] I know a lot of therapists struggle to fill caseloads, and I wonder if it's because they're not just like being themselves. They're trying to be somebody they're not. Right.
[00:23:50] Kym: Absolutely. Trying to be everything to everyone. Like even that ni the niche problem, you know, like the gen, the generalist doesn't work that well. Yeah. Yeah, Mm-hmm.
[00:24:00] Glenn: and like I said, my niche is sort of like people who don't go to other therapists. And I'm lucky to have like found that niche and my caseload is pretty packed and I do well. But your niche is really driven by yourself, right? Being yourself. So that's the place to start. If you're not funny, don't try to be funny. That's okay.
[00:24:21] But I think probably everybody is funny. You know, in my presentations I talk about this sort of ancient history of humor and there's this research where they look at five species of great apes, one of which is the human being, right? Chimpanzees gorillas and a couple others, and they study.
[00:24:43] Tickling and responses in tickling and how these different great apes laugh while they tickle.
[00:24:49] Kym: Oh
[00:24:50] Glenn: then they created this like behavior tree based on this research about tickling, and they have similar sort of behavior trees shared in these five great apes related to other behaviors. And the conclusion of this study is that laughter from tickling is like 16 million years old.
[00:25:12] Kym: Oh my
[00:25:12] Glenn: So humor existed before we existed, right? and so I think everybody is funny. I think that it's like an evolutionarily beneficial behavior and
[00:25:24] Kym: Mm-hmm.
[00:25:25] Glenn: you know. We're a social species, so the idea that this is a thing that connects us, the other great apes are also social species, right?
[00:25:34] So like laughing together is such a relational thing. I would sort of, theorize that actually everybody is at least a little bit funny, and when they're like, I'm not funny. That's almost like, oh, let's talk about why you think that.
[00:25:48] Kym: Yeah. Why do you think you're not
[00:25:49] Glenn: Right. That's like a self-esteem issue, maybe more
[00:25:52] Kym: Yeah, yeah, So all you listening that might be thinking that heed those words, I guess. Yeah.
[00:25:58] Glenn: Yeah. I was actually on a podcast like a week ago, a very similar situation where we're on camera and. One of the hosts made that remark like, I'm not funny, so what do I do? But when they did it, they like rolled their eyes in like a really cute and funny way.
[00:26:13] And I like pointed that out to them. I was like, you just rolled your eyes perfectly like on prompts. Like where you rolled your eyes was the exact timing for the statement you were making. And it was actually a little funny, right? it's like I said earlier, right? There's like my presentations. I'll get one person who's like, this is the best presentation at this whole conference. And the next comment will be like, I thought this would be funny. Right?
[00:26:38] Kym: gosh,
[00:26:39] Glenn: And it's like, I'm not funny for everybody. And most people are not funny for everybody,
[00:26:45] Kym: right.
[00:26:46] Glenn: you find your people and you're funny for them, right?
[00:26:48] Kym: Absolutely. Yeah. There's so many different types of comedians. My sister will send me like a, like a TikTok of a comedian, and I'm like, this is not funny to me at all. Like, I don't get it at all. But then I'll send her one and she's like, huh, you know, so, so I really like that.
[00:27:03] Glenn: Yeah. Different senses of humor, right?
[00:27:05] Kym: Exactly, exactly. Yeah. what a great topic. Thank you for coming today. So do you have any like, trips planned? Like good trips for speaking engagements? Would love to hear
[00:27:16] Glenn: Well, you know, this weekend I'm doing an online training. Every like few months or so, I train for like six hours online. So I'm doing that this coming weekend. By the time your episode airs, it'll be like few weeks ago, right? But, my partner is in hair and makeup for tv, film and theater.
[00:27:34] And so she's arranging some trips to Cleveland and Seattle right now that I'm going to go along with and just bring my computer and do teletherapy. I have applications out to conferences in Oklahoma, Denver, two in Chicago. I got offered a spot in Nairobi this summer, but like, unfortunately I couldn't make that one work. But I'm like, right now I'm sort of planning all of the travels, right? And.
[00:28:06] Kym: So fun.
[00:28:08] Glenn: Yeah, longer term, my goal is to really, you know, I've been listening to your podcasts and I hear a lot of people like living in Spain or like going to Thailand, and I would love to do those things too. But my like longer term goal is to like, have a sweet RV with a therapy office in the back of it and just like, Hey, it's your therapist Glenn, and I'm in Yellowstone today you know.
[00:28:29] Kym: Yeah, come meet me.
[00:28:31] Glenn: so doing, doing Teletherapy um from around the country into Canada and Mexico, central and South America, like traveling on the road and doing teletherapy is sort of what I really hope to do in the future.
[00:28:44] Kym: That's awesome. You'll have to come back and tell us about it once you get that
[00:28:47] Glenn: Yeah, I would love to do that.
[00:28:49] Kym: Yeah. Very cool. Um, So how do people find you if they wanna take your workshop?
[00:28:53] Glenn: Yeah, well, Instagram is probably the best place. My private practice is called Most Excellent Psychotherapy, so my Instagram is most excellent psychotherapy. You can find me there. I've also got a personal Facebook. I do have a website, but it's kind of my therapy specific. I recently completed another book that I think is going to launch next year.
[00:29:14] It's a fiction book. It's actually a cozy fantasy novel about a therapist who goes to another world and then does therapy with like dragons and fairies and like
[00:29:24] Kym: Oh, nice.
[00:29:27] Glenn: very cool. It explores sort of fantasy trope, therapy trope. It's got it's interspersed with clinical notes, right? So there's a diagnostic assessment of a centar in it, right. And
[00:29:38] Kym: Oh, that's awesome.
[00:29:40] Glenn: very cool. And as that sort of launches, then I'm planning on having a more like Glen Maloney website, right? So for now. Follow me on Instagram. Super interested in any opportunities. I'll come out and speak to anybody anywhere about anything or we can do it online.
[00:29:58] So, you know, if you wanna offer me opportunities, hit me up. Otherwise, if you wanna learn about my trainings and where I'm going to be and stuff like that, I share all of that on social media.
[00:30:09] Kym: Nice.
[00:30:10] So cool. Well, thank you so much for coming today.
[00:30:14] Glenn: Oh, such a pleasure, Kim. Thank you for having me. Really excited to be here. Have been enjoying your podcast and all of the great stories. You know, what I do really is I collect stories and I share stories, and I think that's what a lot of therapists do, and that's what I've loved about your podcast is like, it's really people telling stories,
[00:30:31] Kym: Yes. Yeah. I that, that's what I love about it too. I didn't want it to be just like this super boring, like, here's, here's some interventions or something. You know, I, when I started it, I really wanted a story. And even when you told your joke, you started with a story, which I loved, like you were like, I was working in. What was it, the drugstore? I mean, that stuff sticks with you. You know, even with a Thera being a therapist with clients, when you kind of like personalize it around yourself like that, I think that's so powerful. You know? So really, really great. Yeah.
[00:30:59] Glenn: I agree. Thank you.