Speak To Understand is a wellness organization providing psychotherapeutic services as well as coaching, consulting, and mental health and wellness commentary and advocacy.
Speak to Understand is a wellness organization based on my belief that in sharing our narratives, and providing witness to the narratives of others, we form deep connections to ourselves and to one another. It is through those connections we experience growth, healing and a feeling of belonging…
Learn more about Speak To Understand >
Joe Bolduc, LMHC
Joe is a licensed psychotherapist based in both New York and Miami, and also the founder of Speak To Understand.
One of the most powerful lessons I have learned in my life - and in my work - is that all people everywhere desire the same things:
To feel truly loved and seen and appreciated;
To truly love and see and appreciate others;
And to feel a part of the human experience… to feel as if you matter… to feel as if your existence – matters.
And while those may seem like simple things, achieving them is not always so simple.
You were born to be authentically you. You came into this world with the potential to be the very best version of yourself you can be… to contribute the gifts that only you have to give - in only the ways you can give them. It is your birthright.
And then life happens - and we get diverted from that path.
How have you been diverted? What is getting in the way of your ability to be fully present in your own life? Loneliness? Shame? Trauma? Rejection? Self-sabotage? Health issues?
I like to think of individual therapy as an opportunity to remove the roadblocks to our happiness. To remove the obstacles that have obscured our original path – including those obstacles we placed there ourselves. It can be, if we are courageous enough, the most meaningful work of our lives – understanding our humanity… understanding the stories of our past - and how we have allowed them to shape our present - and then becoming actionable in writing the future we say we want.
Individual therapy with me is highly interactive, using a multitude of treatment modalities including cognitive/behavioral therapy, narrative therapy, Buddhist psychology, positive psychology, attachment, mindfulness, and creative arts.
My clinical experience has taught me that trauma has many faces – from sudden, unexpected episodes of violence (emotional and/or physical) to systemic, ongoing emotional or physical abuse and neglect (including bullying and emotional battering) - or the threat of imminent physical harm or death.
PTSD can feel as if it has hijacked your life, stealing your sense of identity and your sense of safety in the world. It can include a complex range of symptoms including depression, anxiety, social withdrawal and debilitating physical manifestations of the trauma.
In children, trauma and PTSD show up somatically – in their bodies – and in their neural pathways – setting off a negative chain reaction which impacts their ability to focus and to socialize. The trauma response can lead to behavioral problems that impede their education and leads to further isolation putting the child at even greater risk for depression, anxiety and withdrawal.
Trauma reactions are physiological, neural and emotional and require a multi-faceted approach in treatment. Breakthroughs in our understanding and treatment of trauma (from people like Judith Herman, Bessel van der Kolk, Bruce Perry and Peter Levine) have led to treatments that incorporate mind, body and spirit.
The foundation for treatment of PTSD is to create a safe, empathic environment to explore, not just the trauma itself, but your specific reactions to the traumas that are now negatively impacting your quality of life.
My approach is holistic: gently look at the traumatic event or events, and explore what is happening in the here and now. It is a collaborate therapy, sometimes working with other therapists, that incorporates the trauma into the larger narrative of your life, while working to restore a sense of safety and balance.
As a gay man myself, I understand that being LGBTQ+ in today’s world can come with its own set of challenges (especially for our vulnerable gay youth). I have extensive clinical experience working with:
Shame Gender expression Coming Out (or Not) Healthy Sexuality Dating Maintaining Romantic Relationships Depression/Anxiety HIV/AIDS Body Image
Under the best of circumstances, adolescence can be a challenging time.
From a burst of neural development, to sexual and social development, to the formation of what will be the adult personality – adolescents are coping with complex and mercurial emotions.
Adolescence is about growth – and growth can be messy.
From the beginning of my professional practice, I have always taken a special interest in working with young adults… exploring identity, self-respect, bullying and consequences. I have experience working with young people in crisis, as well as young people who are struggling with finding out who they are and who they want to be.
As you can see in the description of Speak to Understand, I am a passionate about our innate need as individuals to connect with others. We live in interesting times. Although on the one hand, through technology, we are more connected than ever, many people find themselves feeling emotionally isolated and lonely. Group therapy offers an extraordinary opportunity to foster connection and explore the ways we interact – as well as the ways we sabotage our own efforts to successfully build relationships with other people. Whether or not it surrounds a particular theme, (dating or job satisfaction or sexuality or grief or medical issues, etc.) group work provides an incubator to work on authenticity and relationship building that can be transformative in your life outside of group.
When a health crisis strikes, it can take a toll not only on your body but your sense of self, your sense of safety and your sense of connectedness to others. Therapy can help you explore: Fear and Anxiety Your sense of self beyond the illness Anger Coming from a place of personal power Whether working with women diagnosed with breast cancer, or people struggling with chronic issues such as diabetes, lymes disease or krones, I have direct clinical experience helping people cope with the impact of their own illnesses, or the illnesses of friends and loved ones.
At their core, successful corporations are a collection of people - human beings with lived lives and different experiences - agreeing to collaborate and pool their talents in the service of common goals.
Understanding your employees and learning how to maximize their efforts, tapping into the specific gifts of the individuals on your team (as well as their unique needs and challenges), can mean the difference between success and failure.
How can your team work together to bring its fullest vision to life?
Given the unique DNA of your business, and the specific needs and personalities of the people that created it, who would be good strategic partners for you? How can we identify potentially problematic relationships or personalities? Where might conflicts arise? And how do you successfully either avoid or solve those conflicts?
Just as in my individual work, my consulting work helps businesses identify and clarify their goals, as well as identify and clarify the obstacles in the way of your team achieving those goals – creating a strategy for “business self-actualization.”
Business is people.
People are human.
Understanding them matters.
Ironically, with more communication platforms available than ever before, people are yearning for authentic connection, to feel part of a community. If your brand is “you”, how are you effectively connecting with your audience?
When you communicate, who are you telling people you are?
What about you? What unique parts of you are you utilizing so that people feel seen by you? What parts of you are you truthfully, but strategically, sharing so that your target audience feels connected to you?
Through media consulting we identify your unique “voice.” What is it about your message or product that can only be conveyed by you – in only the way you can? And once we identify your voice – which lies at the heart of your humanity – how can we then use it as a tool for human connection?
This rewarding work explores who you are, what you want to say and how best to say it so that people hear you - and connect to you and to each other – through your vision.
I am available for media commentary from a mental health and wellness perspective on a wide variety of issues— from the traumatic effects of COVID, to the psychological effects of our political environment, to our culture’s current epidemic of loneliness and isolation. My background in writing, panel speaking and on-air experience can provide “human context” to the events of the day and help people personally connect to the stories that shape our lives.
Reach out to learn more.
03.30.22
And so it’s here… this thing you feared…this thing you had hoped would never come…this darkness…this visitation.
this diagnosisthis career issuethis changethis end of the relationship
this deaththis separationthis humiliationthis loneliness.
this thing you said you couldn’t handlethis …
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