Hello and welcome to Best Friend Therapy. I'm Elizabeth Day, author and podcaster and

for over 20 years I've been best friends with a therapist.

That's me. Hello, I'm Emma Reed-Tarell and I'm a psychotherapist. In my private practice

I talked to clients about the challenges they face in daily life and we worked together

in a non-judgmental supportive space to increase their sense of well-being. And as her BFF,

I get all the benefit of her expertise and wisdom for free. Emma makes me feel better

about life but also helps me to understand why I act the way I do. Ah, thanks Liz.

She's also one of the only people allowed to call me Liz. We wanted to open the doors

to our friendship and throw a light on the therapy we all need in our everyday lives.

Each week we chat about what's on our minds to get deeper in our minds.

Two best friends, one therapist, no filter. That's Best Friend Therapy.

Hello and welcome to this week's episode of Best Friend Therapy, which is all about therapy

as spoken of by best friends. We thought it would be really interesting to devote an entire

episode on Emma's journey into therapy, what made her into a therapist because we've

had a few questions about how you do that and how you train and what to expect that

you're bitten by a therapist in the same way spider-man was made. I digress.

Your origin story is from the therapist's cinematic universe. So we're going to talk about that.

And we're also going to touch on how best to find a therapist, which is something that

I am constantly asked. And my experiences of therapy from the other side of the psychiatric

couch and mine, my goodness, there are some humdingers. Well, why don't we start with the

humdingers? No, why don't we start with why you became a therapist? Yeah, okay. I love

the idea that this is an episode on therapy spoken of by best friends, on best friend therapy

...