 Welcome to Think Tech Hawaii. I'm Sharon Thomas Yarbrough, host of Sister Power. Today we will have a conversation with psychologist Alana Coffey. Eleonation and Estrangement, Conscious Communication and Accountability. Typically discussed in family cases but not limited, Eleonation is a deliberate attempt by one person to distant others from another. Estrangement refers to the behavior one does that directly creates distance without the assistance of another of another. Sister Power's VIP guest, Dr. Alana Wade Coffey. Dr. Coffey provides individual, family and group cognitive behavior therapy for adults and adolescents. She has worked extensively with victims of domestic violence and sex abuse with patients experiencing depression, anxiety and trauma. She has taught anger management, parenting and self-esteem skills, worked in interdisciplinary teams of psychiatrists, social workers, nurses and primary care physician. Dr. Coffey, welcome to Sister Power. Thank you for having me. Thank you. So glad you're here. Finally. Finally. After all of these months we've been trying for so long. Like Sharon, me, me. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. But you know, always say if you want to get something done, give it to a busy woman. Right. I think it's done. So how was your day today? It was great. It was busy but it was great. I'm glad to be here. Started off with clients right up until about the time I walked in. Oh my goodness. Well tell us just a little bit about yourself. I grew up in Hawaii. My family is here. I'm wedged between parents, myself, my husband, my kids. So there are about three generations of us here in Honolulu. I did all my schooling here from Ewa Beach Elementary all the way up through Wai'i Middle, Radford. I went to every college on the island, LCC, KCC, UH, Shamanad. Finally got through about last month it seems. But yeah. Wow. In here, yeah. Dr. Alana Coffey. And May is Mental Awareness Month? Yes, yes. I think that probably every day. I mean what we're trying to do is have every day be mental health awareness time. Like we want to be mindful every day. But you know in May we have a lot of conversations about really honoring the health and the illnesses of the mind. We spend a lot of time worrying about our bodies but not enough, nearly enough on our mind and our spirit. I was just watching a video just recently and what struck the chord with me, Dr. Kelly said, be well within. Yeah. And I said, we don't think about the mind, the brain, that's within. It is within. You know, I think because we're sort of a group herd animal, you know, humans are not individual creatures. So we often judge our well-being by how we're getting along, how well we're getting along with others. So we spend a lot of time as a result thinking about other people and maybe not quite enough about thinking about ourselves as individuals. Now I do not think that people should become very individualistic or selfish thinking, but a little bit more time spent on what's concerning us, what's making us happy, what's bothering us. Because when we stuff all that, it actually spills out into the environment anyway. So a little bit of time spent reflective is good. Yeah, well if you're not well, if you're not taking care of yourself, it's really hard to take care of someone else. Yes, yes. I actually, Jerry, my husband and I started this work. I first worked with children and then about, I don't know, maybe eight years in, I was like, you know, wait a minute, the children are mostly fine. They're fine. So then I changed my, the focus of my practice to really work with the adults and parents specifically. Well, I did read somewhere that you do kicky talk on KHON2. Yes, once a month. Once a month. Yes. Tell us about that. It's been maybe about three years going and I started this work many years ago when I was at Kaiser Permanente, Leslie Wilcox recruited me just to do a little bit of talking on the news. And then maybe about three years ago, I was approached by Ron, and he said, come and, you know, talk to us and talk with us about kids. And I thought it was a great opportunity just to bring some information to the community. And, you know, people call in after the show and they're like, can you tell me more about that? And what I've noticed is that I've been able to maybe place people up to different services, not necessarily my service, but other services. So, kicky talk. It's been fun. All right. Good. Yeah. So, what is your most challenging case in the past and how did you accomplish a suitable outcome? Whoa. Just jump in there. Yeah, let's just dig right on it. You know, it depends. You know, it's really my most difficult case this week or each day because many of them each day are difficult. And what makes it difficult to me is when they're so, so hurt that it takes longer than I would like for them to start feeling better because it's a process. And so sometimes people come to therapy and they're like, I need to feel better right now. But their feelings, the injury has been so long, it's been years. And, you know, one session, five, 12 sessions is not enough. So, some of the hurts that come in, you know, of course, the child abuse cases are very, very painful. But most recently, I've been seeing a lot of cases where the parents are getting a divorce and the children are feeling deeply divided. And then, you know, the parents of the divorcing parents are involved. And I've got one eight-year-old child that's just like, I think I'll run away because I don't know everything I do will make somebody upset and angry with me. And that's heartbreaking. I'm sure it is. You know, we had such a wonderful conversation this week about parenting and about the divorce and the mother's side and the father's side. And I love when you came up with alienation and estrangement, conscious communication and accountability. Just embark on that a little more and expand on that for us. So, if I could, I mean, you know, alienation is if I tell you, hey, Sharon, and you and I, we're going to, you know, I don't want you to like John because John did X, Y, and Z to me. Never mind that John hasn't done much to you, but I'm going to tell you how you're supposed to feel about John. This is a case of alienation. And it's not really fair to you because we teach you and we teach our children make your own choices and have your own mind about things, right? And don't be peer pressured. Yet, sometimes we go ahead and try to peer pressure a child into believing one way or another. They have their own relationship with everybody, and it doesn't necessarily have to do with my relationship with John. It has to do with how you are with John. Now, sometimes John just acts strange and might estrange himself from you without any of my assistance by me being disrespectful or not being accountable in communication or no scaring or being threatening. So in that case, you can feel however you want about John. And so one of the things I try to talk about regularly is we need to be careful about the insinuations and the implications that we tell a person about another person. That is so on point. That's very on point because you do find that not just with children, adults, we do that to one another. It's in the workplace. It's in the workplace. We call that ethical communication. It's when people around the water cooler talking stink about somebody and that's just the damage done. At first it seems like, oh, I just got that off my chest. But the damage done is deep. People get isolated and withdrawn and hurt. And those are adults. Imagine what's happening for children when that happens. So that's a part where the accountability part comes in. If I say, Sharon, I had a run-in with John and my feelings are hurt about John, that's me owning it. I'm not telling you what to do. And so that's a little different. I like that. I think that we should expand on that more because if people just told the truth about what happened from their perspective, I guess it's your deliverance to that person and not downing that person because we all are not going to like each other. And we can respect one another. Yes, yes. And we make mistakes. And so John may have just made a mistake that day. But if I set it up that that's who he is all the time permanently, that's where the damage comes to him. If I make a mistake in that, I need to be accountable and say, hey, when I said that about that person, you don't have to believe me. You have your own experience about that person. I like that. And so this is how we alienate. Is this the alienation that you're speaking of? Yes, yes. What about estrangement? Estrangement. You know the golden rule where I treat you the way you want to be, or the way I want to be treated? Yes. Well, that's well and good. But the platinum rule is I treat you the way you want to be treated. That's much more powerful. So if you can tell me. Say that again. Okay. So the golden rule that we all grew up with is, I treat others the way you want to be treated. Well, what if I like hugs all the time? I go around offering people hugs all the time because that's what feels good to me. But you don't like hugs. No. And I come in your space and hug you because I think that's the golden rule. The platinum rule is, Sharon says, you know, I'd rather have a handshake or a high five. It's uncomfortable for me. Once you tell me that, then it's my job to honor you that way. And if I continue to give you a hug, that's a kind of disrespect. Oh, and see, I'm a hugger. Me too. I really am. I am a hugger. I'm going to get along great. Absolutely. The handshake is good, I think, you know, on a professional basis, you're coming in, you're coming into a business meeting. Well, how do you find out what that person, when you first meet them, and you're trying to get to know them? Yeah. How do you go about finding the boundaries? The boundaries. Yeah, what that's a communication piece. And you know, when we just start communicating loosely, it's not awkward anymore. So it's like you want a hug, a high five or a handshake. It's a quick thing. And a person's like, thanks, I get to choose. If we are weird about it, you know, then it becomes awkward. But we can just ask, how would you like to be treated? And if I forget, please remind me, because I'm so forgetful. But yeah. Oh, I like that. Because a fist bump will do too, you know, especially when you're just meeting a person. Yeah. Wow. Which are the most common disorders that you have treated? And how have you approached them? Right, right. So I'm a general, a general list. So psychologists that practice in a general way. So I don't specialize in things like eating disorder or substance abuse or any of those kind of things. All those things certainly come into our office. But really, I see a lot of depression. And I know, and a lot of stress and anxiety. These are maybe 80% or more of my case population. And there's just a lot that people have to deal with. And some of these disorders are biological, both depression and anxiety we see in family lines. So we know that it can be an endogenous trait. It's just something that, you know, anti-hazard uncle has. It just kind of follows in the family line. But most of it is situational. It gets triggered. It's expensive to live here. People have a lot of financial stress. Of course, our divorce rate, again, is 50%. Or higher. It's a lot of stress. And we have a wonderful way of living multi-culturally here. And that means that there's a lot of negotiation and navigation around each other's differences and similarities. And so when people have challenges in communication, that sometimes causes them stress. Because they want to guess, how am I supposed to act instead of just asking, right? Just asking something. Well, all of this is going on. And what do you do to relax? Well, tinker. You tinker. I tinker. You tinker. Because we have some beautiful, you do sculpting. I do sculpting. And that's one of your pieces. Tell us about that piece there. Oberon is a sculpt over foam. And I just added some clay and made some horns and nose and chin. And then Mosaic on top of Oberon. And Oberon was at the time that my son was doing a lot of Shakespeare with this theater group called Hawaii Young Actors Ensemble. This is a shout out to Eden Lee, who does another type of mental health work with kids. And she does Shakespeare. Really very classy Shakespeare education with kids. So that was my nod to that theater group that year. Well, we have more to talk about. And we'll come right back and pick up where we left off. Okay. All right. Aloha. I'm Stan Osterman, a host here on Think Tech Hawaii, a digital media company serving the people of Hawaii. We provide a video platform for citizen journalists to raise public awareness here on the island. We are a Hawaii nonprofit that depends on the generosity of its supporters to keep on going. We'd be grateful if you go to thinktechawai.com and make a donation to support us now. Mahalo. Aloha and welcome. And welcome to At the Crossroads. I'm your host, Keisha King. I'm live at five every Wednesday, where we have entertaining and educational conversations that are real and relevant, both here in Hawaii and across the globe. I'll see you at the Crossroads. Aloha. Welcome back to Sister Power. This is exciting. We're having a conversation with psychologist Alana Coffey. And the conversation has been very interesting. And I've learned a lot just in these few minutes, speaking with you. So let's move forward because we were talking about alienation and estrangement. When someone comes in, what can they expect? Right, right. That's a really good question because I think I'd like to demystify therapy. Again, if you go to a doctor's office, you call, make an appointment, part, come in, and then people start worrying, oh my gosh, what's going to happen when they come in. But it's a lot easier talking to us than a medical doctor. We don't do shots. We don't take your temperature. We don't weigh you. What we do, though, in order to assess where the hurt is, is we ask a lot of questions. And some of those questions are questionnaire. And some of them are just the conversation like what you and I are having. It's a back and forth, just a discussion. And part of that is so that people begin to feel more comfortable. We want them to feel comfortable with the space. My office kind of looks like a messy living room, sort of, that's what I've been told. But the space, we just want people to feel comfortable because when they begin to talk about their hurt, there tends to be a lot of shame because I think people are being taught that they should not hurt and that they should be brave and just suck it up. And in fact, some of the bravest people I know are afraid and scared. They just do it anyway. They're still brave. But we don't like to talk about weaknesses and vulnerabilities. So when people come in, I know the therapists in our group were all very careful to try to honor those vulnerabilities and not pick at them and really help people see how actually courageous and strong they are just by walking through our door. Wow, that's wonderful. So you feel at home when we come to see you. Yes. What variables, issues are of concern to you in working with specific populations? Right, right. Probably the biggest one is violence and domestic abuse. Very concerned because I do work with couples that when they leave my office, they don't continue the session and then get themselves in an argument that they don't yet have skills to get out of. So we're concerned with the physical safety of folks. And also sometimes people want to come in and talk about a huge drama in their life. And if I know that they don't have very good coping skills, I might try to slow down that conversation. I don't want them to excite themselves and then go home and drink a bunch of vodka because they were so agitated in the 40-minute session that we had or the 50-minute session. So I encourage people to let's do this in chunks and segments that are manageable and comfortable. They don't have to just come in and dump all at once. Other variables, I do work with teens a lot. And the teens are kind of being, they're being preyed on by older people. What do you mean by that? They've been preyed on by older people. So because we have the social media, 24-hour, seven days a week, access by strangers. And some of those strangers are learning them to malls and places. So again, when the internet and the computer first came out, parents were very worried about it and we gave our kids lots of education and we said, you can't use MySpace. Remember MySpace? You can't use MySpace. So we kind of fell off of having those conversations, but I recommend that parents go back and have those conversations with teen girls and teen boys really being preyed on, whether they're being lured into situations that are unsafe or they're being targeted or bullied or harassed online. So, you know, that online presence, it's always in the back of my mind. I mention it often. What age do you think is appropriate for, is it teens to start feeling where they have their own, they're responsible to be on social media? I think the rules of those platforms are maybe 12 or 13. So parents should always follow whatever the age rule is per app that they're using. But I like to start the conversation before that because they're getting their hands on, you know, their parents' social media even before they have their own account. So we should educate them like about eight. Oh, okay. Yeah. The brains are fresh. These days they're like, I mean, I don't know if you've seen it, but it's on to the TV. I mean, they're just... Well, this is their world. This is their world. This is their world. They want everything yesterday. And we just need to let them know that they can shut the door. It's like if it's their house, if somebody's knocking, when do you answer the same thing but online? We spoke earlier about boundaries. Yes. So that's another case of boundaries. What do you do... Well, we'll talk about that later and I'm interested in seeing more of your art work. With what multicultural or diverse populations have you worked? Everybody, because it's Hawaiian, right? Okay. So we've got salad. I love it. Not so much a mix. We're salads. So we're all mixed up in the same bowl and it's wonderful. But what I notice is that I don't get some of the ethnic minorities that maybe are more continental. So when people don't come in and identify themselves as ethnic Jews, for example, I just don't have that happen. I don't have a lot of Middle Eastern clients because they're just not here in Hawaii. But the local populations that are in Hawaii, they come in. And when we're at school, they're like, if you work with... And when we call Asians, we actually break that up because it's a very different group and very different psychology. Sure. So we're studying history as much as we can. I spend a lot of time in Japan to learn as sensibly as I could about that culture and even the language. So we're overtly talking about culture and race. Those are actually two different things, but we do talk about them. And people come in all the time. And what I'm really honored about is that people come in and put it out there. They're like, okay, and my family we're Korean and this means da-da-da. And you know, what do you think about that? And so it's part of the healing conversation because they know we all know we need our families to support our healing, right? So they bring it all in. It's great. Well, you know, there's a stigma with African-Americans about seeing psychologists and psychiatrists and has that changed a bit? Or now we get it that we all need to speak to someone and nothing is wrong with it. I think that we need to know that it's okay to seek help. So in the last maybe five years, my caseload almost had... Initially, I've been doing this for maybe 20 years or so, so it's 95. I don't know, math is not my thing. But no African-Americans on my panel. And I see maybe 40 people a week and there would be no black people on my panel at all. The last five years, they're coming more and more. And what I'm noticing about mostly women is African-American women, professional women with master's degrees or more, often time or at least in some pursuit of education, saying, what about me? I want to take care of me. I hurt. I have fears. I have thoughts. I have an ache and a pain. And I'm going to take time. Because it takes time to come to therapy. I'm going to take time for me so that I can better honor my family. And my husband said, you know, that's a compliment that they're coming. And if I was going to start crying, it would be because of that. I'm just really grateful that they're coming and really honoring themselves that way. Absolutely. Because we'll just keep on shouldering without really stopping to, you know, put the balm on the pains. And so they're coming. And I shout out to all the women and the men, too. I see a lot of men of all different ethnicities and backgrounds and talk about deers. They are so tender and they're so sensitive. And when they show up, my heart also breaks. Because they're like, I'm going to trust you, allow me to be vulnerable and maybe even cry. Yeah. You and I talked about that. Yeah. That men should just open up a little more. Oh, they're so sweet. They're darling. They're just hurt, too. Yeah. They're people, too. They come to find out. Okay. People, too. They hurt. Yeah. They get depressed. They are overwhelmed. Well, I think as women, we're raised that we have to be strong. Yeah. And that men are strong already and they don't need anything. Yeah. So we can be pretty hard on them and they were not often nice or soft or tender. We forget that they need that. They do. So we have a way of just kind of running them over and they come in and they're just like, wow, man, she's so hard. I'm getting it from the world and then I have to come home and get it, too. And then these kids, you know, who have been empowered to speak their mind, they need a little support. Yeah, because I've noticed that the parents and I want to be the kid's best friend instead of the parent. That's the hip thing now. I'm just going to be on their level. No, no, no. I think children want parents. They need parents. And so you can still be parents and have a child that says, this is what I think. Yeah. So in the past, let's say you had a family of four, dad, mom, two kids. And it was dad and mom making decisions. Now it's done by committee. And I don't, you know, support that. I'm okay with that. It's just poor dads. They just need a little bit of support because sometimes they get the small piece of chicken. Oh, they get the small piece of chicken. I like that. What do you do in your spare time to relax? Well, I do play tennis. I play some paddle tennis. Not necessarily very well, but I do it a couple of times a week. I try to do some yoga and exercise, hang out with the kids. I'm an avid film and book fan. I like reading. Civic genres. And again, I said, I like to tinker. So I do have a studio. Finally, I finally got my garage turned into a studio. Tell us about this painting. Is it a mosaic? This is a mosaic. And her name is Flora. And she had a sister named Fauna. And they were sold at a show that I did in 2016. But she's a tiled mosaic. And this is a glass mosaic. Oh, beautiful. Her name is Ka'u. And Ka'u was inspired by the volcano eruption on the big island. And so I did do this mosaic. And for a while there, I was actually making camera cases and selling like 50%, you know, for half of the camera case, I would donate it to the American Red Cross to do that relief. And so if anybody's interested, let me know. And I hope you get to links. And 50% of all these proceeds will go to American Red Cross. Give us your link. Oh, it's my website. It's your website. Give us a name of your website. My email. Oh, you can reach me at drlannacoffee.com. Okay. Drlannacoffee.com. Oh, man. What are you putting out of that little bag right there? So this is what I do when I'm not in the studio, but I, at home, just, well, cooking really. I decided to make fairy eggs. Oh, that is beautiful. Oh, thank you. I love gifts. Oh, my gosh. Catch that. Look at that. I like the idea of eggs and fertility. Oh, that is beautiful. And the possibility that all things roll. Right next to sister power. Oh, my God. This has been absolutely wonderful. Thank you so much for having me, really. Thank you. And you must come back. I will. You must come back. Thanks for having me. Thank you for coming to sister power in closing. Sister power offers this piece of advice. Know your worth. Then add tax because you are worth it. Know your worth. Know the difference between what you're getting and what you deserve. Dare to be great and walk in faith from all of us at think tech of IE and sister power. Thank you for spending part of your day with us. I'm Sharon Thomas Yarbrough.