Tara (00:50):
Welcome back to the Art of Estate Planning Podcast. I am so excited to let you know that today we have a special guest, so it's not just me.
(01:01):
In this episode, I'll be chatting with Tom Skatidas. Now, Tom is a family business psychotherapist. Tom, you're going to have to explain us what that even means. And today he has come to talk to us about the role of therapy and psychotherapy in family succession planning. So welcome, Tom.
Tom (01:21):
Thank you so much for having me.
Tara (01:23):
Can you tell our listeners a little bit about what you do? What does a psychotherapist even do? And your role and how you came to be working at Everpath and finding your way with helping families with their business succession?
Tom (01:38):
Thank you for the opportunity to be here and speak to your audience. I'm a master's qualified psychotherapist, and I launched a private practise in 2023, and I've been working with individuals and couples in that private practise. And about one in 10 of all my clients, Tara, proved to be family business leaders. And I noticed this trend, and every time I'd work with them, the complexity would be through the roof. Families dealing with multiple family members, personal matters, challenges, but also issues of wealth, succession, and other complexities that arise from owning a business or a family office. So I decided last year to launch Everpath, which is a psychotherapy practise entirely dedicated to business families. And when I decided to do that, it became clear that my ecosystem would be advisors and the professionals who already work with these business families. And as a result, I've been working since launch with wealth advisors, with chartered accountants, business strategists, and with lawyers and family lawyers and wills and estate lawyers.
(03:03):
And there's something about wills and estate planning and estate administration that is particularly emotionally charged. And I like to support both the advisors and the families during that time.
Tara (03:19):
Yeah. You hit the nail on the head there with the emotionally charged and challenging. So are there some sort of practical examples that you can talk our listeners through in terms of areas you focus on or the types of experiences families might be going through where they can particularly benefit from working with you?
Tom (03:43):
I'll give you a big example that comes up quite a lot is when a lawyer is working with a client and they're working on developing the will and the client suddenly goes cold, suddenly the process of building the will, their behaviour changes toward the lawyer. Maybe they drag their heels. Instead of being in contact every week, suddenly they don't hear from them for months. It's because the will, although just a document, it represents decades of emotional suppression and other conflicts and psychological injuries that maybe have been suppressed or covered over by a high-functioning family in business. But in reality, once that will hits consciousness, it becomes that ambassador for unsuppressing what was suppressed. So I like to work to support lawyers in this space to work with their clients during this time because the will is a much larger than the actual paper it's printed on.
Tara (04:58):
Yeah. Well said. And you absolutely hit the nail on the head. That comes up all the time. In fact, we actually had a question in our TT Precedence Club recently where one of our members had that exact thing. They're like, "We've pretty much finalised it. We've got a couple. The husband signed. The wife is just ghosting me. And what do I do?" And I mean, obviously we look at it too from a managing our risk, but we don't have that skillset to tap into all of the reasons or the blocks that someone's facing there. So yeah, I think a lot of people listening, this will completely resonate with.
Tom (05:46):
One of the things that my partners, I call them, wills and estate lawyers share with me is sometimes they're surprised at how a compliant family will suddenly become uncompliant or suddenly the pattern of their behaviour changes from harmony and compliance and collaboration to suddenly not collaborating or going quiet. I think that if professionals in this space realised that those documents are much more than just documents and much more than just important documents, but literally the business end of 20 or 30 or 40 years of trauma and psychological dynamics, I think that they would take more time to ask deeper questions that ensure that when the will's being prepared or other estate planning or estate administration is taking place, that there's greater flow to their work.
Tara (06:54):
Yeah, I think that's really well said. And I do have to admit as in the legal profession, I think estate planning has started out for a lot of practitioners as nearly transactional. And there's a lot of people now who are moving towards, as you said, the wills almost embody your entire life's legacy, which is pretty heavy. So we're definitely getting there, but you're absolutely right. We're still about like, let's get this turned around. You need to have really clear ideas and a vision about what you want. We'll tell you everything in terms of it not working out and what the legal rules that could complicate it are. But yeah, we're not diving into that heartfelt space necessarily and just supporting them in this huge. And also a lot of people do this once in their whole life. It's not something we're practised at. It's not a part of our heart and mind that we're used to navigating or exercising. So yeah, it's huge.
Tom (08:02):
Well, to that point, I have dozens of examples of meeting with advisors, not just lawyers, but chartered accountants and wealth advisors and other advisors that support business families. And they've said to me on dozens of occasions, "I never knew psychotherapy was an option until you approached me, Tom, or until I met you at that party and we talked. I never considered psychotherapy or having a psychologist come in and work with the family." And when I ask them, why is that? They'll say, "I don't know. I suppose either I tried to use my life skills to support the family based on my age and my education. I felt as if I could navigate this or I felt let's go straight to a mediator or some other profession that is quite well-known and acceptable within business." So part of my work is doing a massive education piece.
(09:08):
And I'm just one guy, but try my best. I'm on a mission, Tara, to create this education that psychotherapy, which is very normalised within individual and couple's work is an extremely relevant, timely, effective discipline that can be incorporated within an advisor's toolkit to actually create not just flow of work, flow of process, but also greater harmony and greater relationship building for the legal professional who wants to support that family, whether it's during the planning phase or the administration phase.
Tara (09:50):
Can you talk me through how it works? Does the lawyer identify a carer can say there's some roadblocks or decisions that you're having trouble making, or maybe even stakeholders have different ideas. Do they then suggest that the family go and talk to you and then sort all that out? I mean, I don't know how fast you just. I imagine it's not just a quick, easy fix necessarily. And then do they come back to us or is it collaborative? Is the lawyer involved in anything? How does it all work?
Tom (10:26):
Great question. It can happen in parallel or it could happen with me coming in and the work pulls in and then starting again after a month or two months. Or as I said, in parallel.
(10:39):
The way it works is if you think, Tara, the simplest way to think about when someone should see a psychotherapist is when their behavioural patterns and interpersonal patterns reach a level of extremity that they're consistently impacting those around them and themselves. There's a disruption that's taking place that can no longer be talked through and tolerated. And that doesn't have to be an extreme act. It can simply be a consistent disruptive behavioural pattern, which is wearing down others. For example, withdrawal. If a party, like you said, that the father signed off on the will, but the mother didn't and ghosted the lawyer, you said I think that type of ghosting, ghosting, although it happens a lot in dating, and we talk about it and we might even laugh about it. In that sort of situation, high stakes situation, ghosting, if it is literally the opposite of how the mother behaved prior to the ghosting, the ghosting would indicate a significant or extreme change in behaviour. That would be a signal to the advisor, to the lawyer to say either I have the courage to ask about the ghosting, and maybe I do, maybe I have the skills and inquire. But if the mother says, "Piss off, go away, don't call me again," or whatever it is or doesn't answer their phone calls, then they might call a therapist like me and have a quick 15-minute call and say, "This is doing my head in. What's going on here? I've been in a daze and I as an outside professional can ask questions about the behaviour patterns and then make informal diagnoses over the phone and help my partner, the lawyer in this case, make sense of what might be happening." Then they can choose whether they say, "Thanks, Tom.
(12:41):
I don't need you anymore," and go into the family and have these hard conversations or invite me in. So it comes down to those patterns, Tara. And if your gut tells you these patterns of behaviour are disturbing me, they're hurting the process, I don't think I have the right skills to deal with this, then seeking a psychotherapist is a brilliant move, even if it's just for short-term consult.
Tara (13:11):
And what are some other scenarios or family dynamics that you find your work really supports when it comes to estate planning?
Tom (13:21):
Well, can I give you an example of which is on the other side is when. Well, I'll give you an example for both estate planning and the other side. We know often that a will is prepared, and then it's executed, and the family then is told about what's in the will, and then there's significant conflict. So I work both at the will formation and my work as a psychotherapist is to help the testator or the lawyer working with the testator to determine a values-based approach to preparing the will. And one of the classic things I see, and I'm not a lawyer by any means, but based on my work, I'll see a lot of will language be phrased as George deserves the farmhouse, but not Melanie, or something in terms of deserving by including one family member and excluding another. When I work with a testator, I'm working on values.
(14:26):
What are their values? What do they aspire to do as a person? It might be Melanie worked on the farm for 20 years and I value hard work and contribution and because of that, I'm giving her the house. So it's not about George or how he screwed up or something else that is excluding George. It's about a values-based decision, especially in the letter of wishes, right? That's critical when you're actually explaining a values-based approach to how you wish your will to be distributed. And on the other side, when the children or those remaining are angry about what's happening, supporting them to make meaning and sense that not that the patriarch who passed away is an evil person, but making sense of what's happened here so that years of grievances can be dealt with in the therapy room rather than creating a massive family blowup.
Tara (15:31):
Yes, that is all too common, I'm afraid. Do you work with the family together? Would you facilitate family conversations or meetings obviously before someone has died to do this? Or would you just really talk to the founder and the testator on their own?
Tom (15:51):
Yeah, good question. Usually when I'm brought in, not every family member wants to speak to a psychotherapist.
(15:58):
Often a lot of my partners tell me that it's a difficult conversation. It's easy to refer their clients to a wealth advisor or to an accountant, but to refer them to a psychotherapist, they're often worried that their client will turn around and go, "What do you think? I'm nuts. I'm insane. I'm broken. How dare you?" But that's temporary. And it's a cultural stigma, which is vast quickly and vastly being erased, especially after COVID. So when I speak to my partners, I also educate them on how to go about having that conversation. But it is a difficult one. But if they can have that conversation, usually to answer your question directly now, I don't work with the entire family usually because there's always one or two or three holdouts. They just don't believe in therapy or they just don't want to share any of their emotions.
(16:53):
So I'll work with one or two or three and working with them, help them change themselves so they can change the system. So I don't need to work with the entire family of seven people, for example. I could work with two or three and helping them transform their patterns, transform the others who they come in contact with.
Tara (17:15):
And you mentioned that you have a focus on working with people who run businesses. So do you do a lot of supporting succession planning? If there's a key child who might be earmarked to take over, but the founder doesn't think they're ready or there's hesitations or they can't pick. Is that the type of thing that you help them with choosing the succession plan or communicating issues that they need to resolve to get the succession plan where it needs to be? Am I on the money there?
Tom (17:52):
You're close.
(17:54):
I don't do advisory. I never advise, consult, mentor. That's usually a gold giving exercise. So all the advisors I work with, they take their gold, their experience, and they give the gold to the client. They advise, they consult, they mentor. I'm a gold miner, so I help my clients mine the gold that they already have. And what that means is if they've told me we've chosen Sam as the successor, can you work with Sam? My job is to work with her or his psychological dynamics. And by the way, sometimes when I work with clients, not a lot, but it happens probably one in 10 cases, the successor I work with decides they don't want to be the successor.
(18:43):
And that's a celebration, by the way, not because I've disrupted the plan. That's obviously awkward or inconvenient, but because the client has decided through their own values exploration and identity exploration and challenging behaviours of theirs that just don't reflect who they want to be, sometimes they'll go and say, "I don't want to be the successor." And often, well, not often, I believe that's a celebration because if the family knows the person's true wishes, that frees them up to decide who will be. But of course, with some families that can be very uncomfortable. But I always say discomfort, if it's housed within values, is the best solution. It's when discomfort is housed outside of one's values, that's the problem. So in the very least, I help the family decide what their values are, who they are, even if there is discomfort there.
Tara (19:41):
Yeah. I mean, I think I agree with you. Clear is always kind, even if it's uncomfortable. And when you're not clear, I think a lot of people can get stuck. So I love what you said about finding freedom. I've seen it in my own sort of family dynamic. There's a successor for a farm or a particular property and the successor doesn't want it, but they can't say that. So they just keep sort of being non-committal and then it stops the founders from actually taking action or doing anything. And everyone's in this sort of stalemate and nothing happens. And it's like it just gets worse and worse.
Tom (20:29):
If you think about successor who complies publicly and apparently with the patriarch or matriarch's decision to appoint them as a successor, that compliance is easy to justify because this is my family and I love my family and this is what I'm supposed to do. But where I work is in the underlying psychological dynamic. So working with a client, I often help them uncover that they have people-pleasing patterns and that the people pleasing goes beyond just wanting to make mom or dad happy. It's a nice thing. Who doesn't want to make their parents happy, Tara?
Tara (21:13):
Yeah.
Tom (21:14):
But it goes into pathological people pleasing where they'll say yes to everything. And even when others challenge them and say, mate, what are you doing? Just say no. Just say no. They'll say, yep, you're right. And then when it comes to saying no, they can't. People will often think of them as weak or confused or capricious or uncomfortable personality designations that are of a contemptuous nature. When I work with them, I don't do social or moral judgments. I do psychological judgement . And if I can see that this person from the age of zero up had to please their parents or their caregivers in order to belong, even if the parents are lovely people would have a way of making others comply with them or else, then you see the formation from an early age of people pleasing in order to belong with one's family because to not belong is a threat to one's survival.
(22:22):
So I will go all the way, I mean, I don't go down to zero, but usually I'll go all the way down to maybe even four or five years old when the client remembers clear examples of, yes, I had to comply. I had to say yes. And we'll work upward to see why do you show up this way today? What bumper car moments led to you having to adjust your behaviour to belong and survive? And that shows up in adulthood now as identity, which is actually not yours, but half of it is yours. The other half is merely rigid patterns of coping that have become so rigid, you think that they're who you are, but they're not. That's where I work.
Tara (23:13):
There's a lot of people pleasers in law, so hopefully we all just learned something. Got some value there. There's a lot of best in class people pleaser, can't say no. Okay. So Tom, to recap, because we have a lot of people who do upfront estate planning, so preparation of the will and helping to craft the estate plans. So just I guess some simple frameworks of when it could be helpful to suggest to a client to reach out to you. So one, if the client is getting stuck. So they're stalling, they're avoidant or they're not avoidant, but they're telling you, "I'm actually really stuck. I don't know how to make up my mind with what to do." Then maybe exploring some therapy with you could be helpful.
Tom (24:14):
Any therapist that they know they trust, not just me, of course, I'm here pitching myself, of course, but at the same time, I believe in psychotherapy as a incredible discipline. So any psychotherapist that they know that they trust, they can call for a short consult, ask for that free consult just to run a case study by them, a client, anonymized, confidential. Also, if the client has a disproportionate reaction, Tara, not just avoidant or silent, but an extraordinary demonstration of anger, which doesn't fit what's actually happened, and that's happened twice or three times, that suggests that there's a potential trauma response that should be investigated. And it may be nothing or it may be a lot. It might be 30 years of compressed history.
Tara (25:13):
Yeah. So maybe, and perhaps not for the estate planning lawyers, because we probably, they're just not calling us if they're having that reaction, but maybe for any accountants or financial advisors listening where you're trying to encourage a client to address the succession planning and you're just really hitting a brick wall in a pretty. They're just like, "Nope, stop it. Don't talk to me about this." Yeah, okay. You could help support them through that.
Tom (25:43):
Yes. If you're hitting a brick wall and you're not sure what's going on, and you're pretty confident that your skillset is top-notch and your relationship is top-notch with a client, and yet you have no idea what is going on here, what's usually happened is the accountant, the wealth advisor, the lawyer has presented a document or a request to sign off on something or do something that is binding, that has literally made 20 or 30 years of emotional history just go. And the client retreats or acts in a disproportionate manner. That deserves an inquiry with a psychotherapist.
Tara (26:27):
Yeah. Okay. So we're sending all our challenging clients to you.
Tom (26:33):
Thank you.
Tara (26:34):
All the problem clients. Okay. Well, in all seriousness, so what about if we are working on a family business succession plan and the client founder is sort of just acknowledging this is what I hope is going to happen, but my chosen successor is not there yet or they're not ready or there's just a few things I'm worried about. Could talking with you help or is that more, as you said, the domain of the financial guys?
Tom (27:12):
Yeah, great question. The founder, the patriarch, the matriarch, if they want to work through challenges they're experiencing with the successor,
(27:23):
I think the first port of call would be their advisors. Advisors have a wealth of not just technical knowledge, but also life knowledge. So the first port of call could be a trusted wealth advisor or a lawyer to say, "This is what I'm thinking about when it comes to the successor. What do you think?" So use mentoring or coaching or advisory. If however, there's a persistence of the pattern of the interpersonal disruptive pattern between them or the successor continue to demonstrate a pattern that simply cannot be optimised through goal giving as in advisory mentoring, that's when they should have an initial consult with a psychotherapist.
Tara (28:12):
Yeah. Okay. Tom, this has been fascinating. You are the first psychotherapist and even psychologist on our podcast and out of estate planning trainings. And I think as you sort of said, especially in Australia, there is not a huge cultural take up of supporting psychological health. I think there's a real she'll be right mate kind of attitude. But this has been really enlightening and interesting to know that there are services out there to have in our toolkit to recommend to clients if we're just finding. I think for us as lawyers, a lot of the time if a client disengages, we probably just send them a letter saying, "Well, up to you. Do what you want. We're not liable. We told you what would happen if you don't do it. See you later. Come back when you're ready and just wash our hands of it." And I think for a lot of us, that feels we have to do that from our insurer's guidance to make sure that we have got off risk and protected ourselves, but it's very unsatisfactory and it feels like there's an unmet need there.
(29:30):
Yes. And obviously we're not the ones to resolve that, but we could maybe nudge them gently in a direction that the client still needs to sign their will ultimately. Every Australian needs a will. So yeah, it's good to know that there are support services out there like yours.
Tom (29:48):
And I just want to also add that for those in your audience listening and thinking, "Oh, it looks like a therapy still. I'm worried about it. It might be too hard. Hard or too stigmatised for them is have an initial consult with a therapist and talk to them and see what it's like. It's not scary at all. It's actually once you invest in psychotherapy for yourself, it's a gift. And once you see the gift of how it changes your behaviour, you just want more. And I predict that once you start psychotherapy, you won't want to stop because think of executive coaching, mentoring, consulting, and all the best parts of it and how you can actually come to that through therapy itself. Now, that doesn't mean that those disciplines aren't critical, but you have so much knowledge as a human inside you that is under so much mud, life mud, family, legacy pressures, business pressures, other templates, cultural templates, and therapy helps remove that mud and show you who you are.
(31:03):
And that behaviour, once unleashed, you cannot unsee it. Once you see who you are and what you're capable of, you cannot unsee it, unhear it. And it's an incredible gift. And I hope that even one of your members will hear this and go, "I'm going to investigate this." And that would be wonderful.
Tara (31:25):
Oh, thank you so much, Tom. I'm really grateful for you sharing your knowledge and your insights today. Do we have anything else that you want to add or is there anything that we haven't covered off on?
Tom (31:36):
I'm grateful to have been here, Tara.
Tara (31:37):
I'm grateful for you. Well, we might wrap it up there. What's the best way for people to reach out to you? Is it through your website?
Tom (31:45):
They can visit my website, everpath.com.au, or they can find me on LinkedIn as well and send me a connection request if they want.
Tara (31:54):
I should just say, so you have a newsletter that you publish on LinkedIn?
Tom (31:58):
Yes.
Tara (31:58):
Or I can see that you do quite a lot of publication on there, even if it's not an official newsletter. So I think that could be a really great way for people to connect as well and get a feel of your approach and some more of the issues too. Yeah, because I checked that out and yeah, you're very generous with your insights on there.
Tom (32:20):
Yes, it's called Family Business Therapy. Yeah.
Tara (32:23):
Tom, thanks so much for joining me today. Thanks to our listeners for tuning in. We'll be back next week and have a great rest of the day. Take care.
