The Married To Social Work Podcast

Have you heard of becoming Emotionally Flooded before? This natural process, that everyone experiences from time to time, occurs during a stressful event. Becoming Emotionally Flooded has complicated disagreements between people who normally care deeply for each other for... welp, forever! During today's conversation, Meagan and Clay define the concept of Emotional Flooding between intimate partners as identified by Dr. John Gottman. Real life examples are presented to help clarify what flooding looks like during daily life, how it gets in the way of resolving conflict, and how to handle flooding so that your relationships can survive and thrive!

Did you know that intimacy is more than just sex?  Clay and Meagan delve into the four types of intimacy. Experiential, Emotional, Intellectual, and yes - Physical. Injecting new doses of intimacy in your relationships can be easy and beneficial if we take a step back and learn what these four aspects consist of. We also discuss examples of what can be done to promote each because some people are better at different types of intimacy. Hopefully this conversation helps you understand the idea of intimacy in a new, deeper way!

Let's be honest for a second. Valentine's Day doesn't always go as planned. Even if you are with your perfect person, hitting the bullseye on with Cupid's Arrow can be challenging. On this episode, Clay and Meagan discuss some of the potential pitfalls that we step into on Valentine's. This may include incorrect expectations that point to a lapse of intimacy. Whether you feel like you have always been perfect at knowing your significant other or if you're able to admit that sometimes you mess up - just like the rest of us - we hope that this conversation gives you some good ideas on how to improve your Valentine's Day skills for the rest of forever!  

Let's talk Forensic Social Work! Today's guest, Ms. Joanne Terrell, earned her Bachelors of Psychology degree from the State University of New York and her MSW from the University of Alabama. She was a faculty member in the School of Social Work at the University of Alabama for 20 years. She retired from full time teaching in June 2015. She has taught in the BSW and MSW programs. Her areas of specialization include psychiatric and forensic social work in in-patient and outpatient settings as well as community organization and advocacy. She was the Clinical Supervisor for the Youth Services Institute's Continuum of Care Program at the School of Social Work for 13 years.  In that role she supervised the provision of outpatient treatment to juveniles with sexual behavioral problems throughout the state of Alabama.   Joanne has maintained a private practice in clinical and forensic social work for 30 years. She provides individual, marital and family therapy.  In her forensic social work practice, Joanne is a mitigation specialist on Death Penalty and other criminal cases both in state and federal courts.  She provides expert witness testimony in a variety of state and federal cases in many jurisdictions throughout the state of Alabama. She has provided mitigation services in over 250 capital murder cases in the last 25 years. She also provides therapeutic mediation services in high conflict divorce cases in the state of Alabama.

In this episode, Clay interviews Dr. Tom Cook.  Tom shares some of his history, including how he recovered from 'dismal' failure to embark on a successful 40+ year career in social work. Tom has held a range of positions through the field of social work, but his longest tenure was through Catholic Family Services where he held several roles over the course of 32 years until serving as Director until retirement in 2018. Tom also discusses how he created the most successful agency culture and empowered a successful staff. In 2017, Tom was inducted into the Alabama Social Work Hall of Fame. He continues to work at UAB (University of Alabama at Birmingham) in the Department of Psychiatry.

In this episode, Clay interviews Dr. Jason Newell.  We discuss his social work story before delving into professional resilience, compassion fatigue and the importance of paying attention to our empathy reservoir-- which is not limitless!  Dr. Newell has been in the fields of social work practice, education and research for over nineteen years. He currently serves as the Program Director for the social work program at the University of Montevallo. His research and specialty areas include clinical social work practice with the mentally ill; treatment of anxiety, trauma and mood disorders; self care and professional resilience, practice with veterans and military families, and child welfare.  In 2013, he received the college of arts and sciences outstanding commitment to teaching award. In 2016, he was awarded the Alabama-Mississippi Social Work Educator of the Year and was recognized as Montevallo's University Scholar in 2018. Dr. Newell has recently published Cultivating Professional Resilience in Direct Practice: A Guide for Human Service Professionals. 

Today, we branch out and speak to the other co-founder of Married To Social Work, Clay.  Clay shares his finding social work story after starting in a completely different career (Advertising). He discusses the struggle of going back to school years later, barriers that had to be overcome, dealing with social work stigmas, and yet - how rewarding working in his passion has turned out to be. Who could have guessed? (Besides Meagan) Clay also shares what it's like being a man both in touch with and able to speak to emotions - revolutionary! We hope you enjoy hearing from Mr. Married To Social Work in Episode 2!

In our pilot episode, we talk to one of the most authentic, empathetic social workers around - our co-founder Mrs. Married to Social Work! Meagan is able to share from some of her experiences working as a Transitional Housing case manager in a domestic violence shelter, Medicaid Waiver case manager, Hospital (psych unit) Social Worker and her current employment as a Suicide Prevention Coordinator for a local VA (Veterans Affairs) clinic. She discusses stumbling her way out of her initial plan to study nursing and the immediate connection that drew her to social work.  One of Meagan's passions is to stave off burnout and stay passionate about helping her clients. Hopefully, her genuine spirit shines through in our very first stab at podcasting!!