Episode 8: Angela Ficken with BestViewsReviews

Apurv : so welcome to another episode of the product life this is your host Apurv Sibal from bestviewsreviews where we provide you with unbiased reviews for thousands of products today with us Angela she is a full-time psychotherapist in private practice she specializes in OCD eating disorders and eating disorders and anxiety related concerns so hi Angela can you tell us and our listeners a little bit about yourself

Angela : sure absolutely thank you again for having me today and for this opportunity to to speak with you um I am a psychotherapist and I specialize in Stress and Anxiety concerns like obsessive compulsive disorder eating disorders and I worked at Harvard University as a primary therapist there for many years before being in full-time private practice and now I've kind of created an online brand where people can access all the skills and strategies that I teach in my private practice with my goal of trying to reach as many people as I possibly can that learning to manage your stress is doable and attainable.

Apurv : well that sounds very impressive so how did you actually come up with the idea of creating a brand

Angela : um I uh in my private practice when I got started I was hearing from a lot of people that I'm in Boston Massachusetts um in the U.S and it's not a big city um you can pretty much walk all the good parts of the the city in a day and people were having won a hard time finding me but when they did find me what I was teaching them was helpful they were saying that their Stress and Anxiety was markedly improving and they had strategies finally to kind of work with and use outside of our sessions rather than just the standard talk therapy of tell me more about that how does that make you feel that they were coming away with strategies uh and I thought if they're finding it helpful which is great but I'm a hard find in a small City I wonder who else is out there that could benefit from what I teach and what I teach is really is research based I don't conjure up strategies that I'm like I think this will work um I'm trained and certified in behavioral therapies that are proven to help people specifically with Stress and Anxiety and that's what I teach and so I thought why don't I just start writing articles and blog posts on Stress Management and um ranging from anything from intuitive eating to mindfulness work too when I was a new mom kind of how to manage stress as a new parent and then through that started developing products online products where people could access through Kindle or like a workbook how to kind of access the skills I teach in practice without having to see me in session I know it's not the same as seeing somebody in session but if you're on the go and don't have time to be in therapy or as an app you know add on to therapy that these workbooks and skill packets I've created can be helpful so that's kind of how I went from just being a therapist with my shingle and people you know coming into my office to creating an online brand knowing that I think people can really benefit from this people are telling me that they're getting better um and they wanted more so that's how I kind of shifted gears from just a private practice clinician to kind of doing some online work go ahead

Apurv : that makes sense so um what are listeners so like you have four kits and ranging from everyday coping kit to the stress busting guide so could you tell us how they are different from the talk therapy?

Angela : sure so with talk therapy I mean when people tend to think about traditional talk therapy you go into an office and you talk and your therapist listens uh and they're listening and they might say something back every once in a while um and it's really just a space to learn how to process your feelings and kind of get some feedback on the work that you want to do the difference with the work that I do I do some of that but I focus a lot on skills and strategies so if you're feeling anxious for example if you're feeling really stressed I want to make sure that I get you some tools to cope as soon as possible so that you can feel better and that once you start to feel better then we can start talking on well what do you think is stressing you out in the first place how do you think you got here uh what do you think you can do differently it's harder to think through those questions when you're so stressed your body at your heart rate is up uh you're not sleeping well your brain is going a mile a minute it's just harder to kind of process what's going on if you don't have the tools to calm down your body and if you can calm down your body you can start to think more clearly your brain starts to slow down so it's important to give people strategies first kind of the armor you want to have some armor to kind of manage those stressors so that you can start to think more clearly so I really focus on how to give people the tools they need to take care of themselves

Apurv : got it so like how big are these guides and like uh are these exercises that people have to do or is it more like a book

Angela : yeah or um there's a range so on Amazon I think all the products are about you know 9.99 right trying to make them really affordable and accessible for for um many people and they range in terms of length so the everyday coping kit I think it might be the shortest at like 13 or 14 pages and then the stress Buster guide is a bit more robust that has I think 75 coping skills in there among some other kind of worksheets in there so the idea is to give people a range of like what they feel um they're able to kind of focus on and what they want to Target and the everyday coping kit for example has like a mindfulness exercise where you can do one item on the list or you can do all all the items on on the list but it's just a way of teaching people how to stay in the present moment and ground yourself in the present moment when you're feeling so stressed out you can't regulate your body and your mind is going a thousand miles a minute or you just feel like you're not able to think about anything because you're so stressed out so all the products that we have on Amazon range in terms of length and the tools they have um and they're just dependent on kind of where somebody is in their life and how much time they want to give and donate to learning how to manage their stress

Apurv : got it and what is the differentiator between all the four guides and kits so if someone wants to deal with stress like how do they select which one is the most ideal for them?

Angela : sure so if someone is really looking kind of for a starter kit of I I'm feeling pretty stressed out um and I'm not really sure where to start I think the everyday coping kit is a nice place to start because it just gives you an idea of like is this for you um so you get a touch on different strategies and there's I try to make each kit or each kind of workbook and kind of product fun right when we're stressed out it's not a fun place to be but when we learn strategies I want to try to entice people that it doesn't have to be moving mountains or uh heavy lifting to take care of yourself and when you start to practice it it can kind of be fun you look forward to those skills so I would say the everyday coping kit is probably the place to start because it does give a shorter version of kind of getting your feet wet on how to manage yourself uh care how to regulate your body if you're feeling stressed and how to think things through more clearly if you're looking for a more robust I need more skills give me everything you've got um then the stress Buster guide is probably for you because it has 75 coping skills it has mindfulness activities it has journal entries so it has places for you to really think through um where your stress is coming from and practicing more skills

Apurv : got it that makes sense wow so thank you Angela for coming on our show it was great having

Angela : you so thank you so much for having me I appreciate it.