Jodi is a licensed marriage and family therapist, a licensed professional counselor, a doctoral student earning her Psy D, and an adjunct faculty on Dominican University of California, and co-hosts a podcast called “Sex, Lies & The Truth”.
Jodi does a lot of psychological work surrounding trauma and has been pioneering a specialty called parental identity discovery writing a curriculum to work specifically with DNA surprises.
When Jodi was going through graduate school, she knew she would end up in a private practice because she was entrepreneurial and wanted control over her schedule. However, she wasn’t sure what she wanted to develop at the time. Jodi discovered her own DNA surprise which caused her to discover the vacuum in the psychology market for something like this.
Jodi's own DNA surprise
In 2014, Jodi decided to take a 23andme test for fun as a way to get to know her dad’s side of the family who she was not especially close to. Her test came back as 50% Scottish which she said was never a part of the folklore of the family. She connected the dots and discovered that her dad was not her biological dad.
Her dad passed away in 1996 and she always felt like an outsider with his side of the family and learning this helped her understand it all. An investigative genealogist helped Jodi find her biological father and a few months later she knocked on his door and learned that he knew she was her daughter and she also has a half brother and a whole new family to discover.
From DNA surprise to her own private practice
A big part of Jodi’s curriculum is helping people rebuild and explore their identity. Jodi coaches her clients on family systems and how to communicate with both sides of the family.
She became the first one in the country (and maybe the world) to create a curriculum for mental health specialists to help people discover DNA surprises because it triggers enormous identity crises and trauma. Jodi started the podcast with the genealogist that helped her find her biological family.
Sometimes you don’t know what it is you are looking for. One of Jodi’s pieces of advice is to be a receptor to the universe and listen to what people around you are saying.
You can find Judy on her website www.jkrabb.com or on her podcast Sex, Lies, And The Truth.
Sean McCormick 0:01 Today on the Earn More Tutoring podcast, Jodi Klugman-Rabb and I talk about her incredible story of accidentally discovering she had a different biological father than she was raised to believe after taking a commercial DNA test, how she used her mental health background to turn this discovery and story into the parental identity discovery curriculum, how she balances all that with her private practice podcast, and being a featured author for Psychology Today. Jodi Klugman-Rabb 0:28 I must have had some sort of sixth sense that something was coming down the road because it took about 14, 15 years before I discovered my own DNA surprise. And that's what led to me pioneering this curriculum. There's a vacuum in the market for something like this. So I became the first one in the nation. And I think quite possibly the world to create a curriculum for mental health clinicians to help people like me, discovering us because it triggers an enormous identity crisis, grief and loss and trauma, that for some reason, traditional psychotherapy wasn't handling very well there. There wasn't the right empathy and understanding coming from other clinicians. Sean McCormick 1:18 So welcome to the Earn More Tutoring podcast. My guest today is Jodi Klugman-Rabb. Jodi, welcome to the show. Jodi Klugman-Rabb 1:25 Hi, Sean, thanks for having me. Sean McCormick 1:27 Yeah, of course. So, first off, Jodi, I just love for you to share what your different offerings are, and the kind of work that you're doing with the audience. Jodi Klugman-Rabb 1:36 So I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist, as well as a licensed professional counselor. I'm also a doctoral student earning my sidey on the side. So that'll happen hopefully sometime next year. And I'm an adjunct faculty on Dominican University of California. So I have a lot of different hands in psychology pie, so to speak. I also produce and co host a podcast called Sex lies in the truth. So I do a lot of different things around psychology. So the sex lies and the truth podcast is really focused specifically on DNA surprises and people who learned that they didn't have the father or mother that they were raised to believe they have. And then I have a private practice that I utilize my LMFT and LPC, licensees for and I work with adult attention deficit disorder. I work quite profoundly with trauma and EMDR. If you're familiar, maybe your listeners are familiar with EMDR, eye movement, desensitization and reprocessing. So I do a lot of work with first responders and trauma. And then the specialty that I'm pioneering called parental identity discovery. So that's a curriculum that I wrote to work specifically with the DNA surprises. Sean McCormick 3:04 Yeah, that's great. It's, you know, one thing that many guests on this show talk about is, is having multiple revenue streams. And I know, it's not all about the revenue, it's about, you know, following your different passions, but oftentimes, the revenue follows, right? If you're, if you're focused on the things that you are passionate about, and you create an offering around it. So it tells what was the first one, you know, that I imagined the private practice was the first, you know, the foundation of your building your career? How did you get into that? How did you you know, and if that's not correct, let me know. But I imagine you know, that that was before the podcast and the parental identity discovery. So tell us about how you, you got into that. Jodi Klugman-Rabb 3:46 You're right, it started with the private practice. I always knew when I was going to graduate school, that I would end up in a private practice, I wanted control over my schedule. I'm entrepreneurial, just enough that I knew I wanted some freedom in order to develop what I wanted to develop. I just didn't know what that was at the time. But I must have had some sort of sixth sense that something was coming down the road because it it took about 1415 years before I discovered my own DNA surprise. And that's what led to me pioneering this curriculum. There's a vacuum in the market for something like this. So I became the first one in the nation and I think quite possibly the world to create a curriculum for mental health clinicians to help people like me discovering this because it triggers an enormous identity crisis, grief and loss and trauma, that for some reason, traditional psychotherapy wasn't handling very well there. There wasn't the right empathy and understanding coming from other clinicians. And I kept getting feedback from this from client ants who would come to see me as I started to market this and really take off that entrepreneurial spirit around this particular subspecialty of mine, then the podcast took off after that, and I co host it with the investigative genealogists that I hired to find my biological family. So we do this together now and looking at a revenue stream through that podcast...
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