47. RE-RELEASE: Alason Rides Again for our 2nd Anniversary! (ft. Alason Polanco, LPC)

Today, in honor of our 2nd (what!?!) anniversary, we’re re-releasing our very first ever interview with the fantastic Alason Polanco, who has been down for whatever with Therapy Tea Podcast from the start! We hope you enjoy hearing from her again because what she talks about is still relevant today. We also hope you revel in how far we've come...sound quality, editing, it's all getting super professional over here, but we're still just having a blast with our friends!

Alason is a Licensed Professional Counselor in Texas and holds a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from St. Edwards University in Austin, Texas and a Master of Arts in Professional Counseling from Texas State University in San Marcos, Texas. She is currently working for a company that specializes in the treatment of eating disorders and mood disorders as a Travel Senior Primary Therapist. While she is primarily Austin, Texas based, she is also working on getting her counseling licenses in both Washington and Maryland.

With Alason we discuss her experience growing up in a Hispanic immigrant family where emotions and mental health were not discussed, how she learned about setting personal and professional boundaries the hard way, and what it was like to white-knuckle her way through active depression and untreated ADHD while attending college. We talk about neurodivergence, the minority experience in eating disorders, and founding a queer teen group in a small Texas town. We discuss her passion for advocating and standing up for yourself along with the importance of therapists going to therapy, making friends in grad school, and taking every minute of your PTO.

Resources mentioned:

• PBS video-short series “Decolonizing Mental Health”: https://www.pbs.org/show/mysteries-mental-illness/specials/
• Institute of Chicana/o/x Psychology and Community Wellness: https://www.razapsych.org/
• One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
• The Giver by Lois Lowry
• River City Advocacy's LGBTeen program: https://rivercityadvocacy.org/
• OutYouth: https://www.outyouth.org/
• Fiesta Youth: https://www.fiesta-youth.org/
• RAICES Texas: https://www.raicestexas.org/about

Thank you for listening! By the way, if you're curious about how we produce this show, we use Alitu. It's straightforward to use and has made podcasting actually sustainable for us. Use code tea50 at Alitu.com for 50% off if you want to try it yourself!

Thoughts? Questions? Email us at therapyteapod@gmail.com

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Disclaimer: This podcast is not therapy and does not establish a professional, therapeutic counseling relationship. All statements made on this podcast by hosts and guests are their individual personal perspectives only and are not necessarily shared by anyone else. The hosts and guests on this podcast are not speaking on behalf of all mental health professionals or the profession as a whole.