Welcoming Erotic Parts, with Larry Rosenberg

Full Transcriptions

Today on IFS Talks, we're interviewing and speaking with Larry Rosenberg. Lawrence Rosenberg is a Psychologist in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with a therapy and consultation practice for individuals and couples. Larry is a supervisor at Cambridge Health Alliance and an instructor in psychology at Harvard Medical School. He received his Ph.D. in clinical psychology in 1989 from Yale University, where being introduced to psychodynamic and cognitive behavioral models established his outlook as an integrative therapist.

During his internship and subsequent trainings, he incorporated trauma-informed hypnosis and behavioral medicine perspectives. Today, IFS is the primary lens through which Larry views the world, and he loves teaching it. He's on the staff of Tony Herbine-Blank's couples therapy program, Intimacy from The Inside Out, and assists annually at Richard Schwartz and Sarah Stewart's IFS workshop at Kripalu in western Massachusetts. He is particularly enthusiastic about sexuality and LGBTQ experiences. Outside of professional life, Larry takes delight in the arts, film, theater, museums, travel, dancing, exercise and baking desserts. Thank you so much for being with us today, Larry.

Larry Rosenberg: Thank you, Aníbal and Tisha. It's wonderful to be with you both today.

Aníbal Henriques: Thank you, Larry. Baking desserts, wonderful. You have also published two amazing chapters on IFS. One that I so much enjoyed Welcoming All Erotic Parts: Our Reactions to The Sexual and Using Polarities to Enhance Erotic Excitement and another Getting Unstuck also so relevant with Pam Krause and Martha Sweezy. The chapter focuses on Solutions for resolving stuck moments in therapy for both therapist and client. So, this one is a chapter on stuckness and how to overcome it. So relevant. So, you are doing so much for IFS. How is it for you Larry to hear this bio? What parts come up?

Larry: As I listen to the bio, I'm appreciating that my managers have been working very hard over the years to achieve lots of accomplishments and the bio also doesn't represent other parts of me who fulfill the rest of my life. My relationship with my very sweet boyfriend, Keith, and my delight in improvisational acting and other activities.

Tisha: Larry, could you please tell us a bit about your journey into the mental health profession? Was there something about in your personal life that was determinant for you becoming a psychotherapist?

Larry: So, probably for a lot of therapists, I started out as an unexpected family therapist in my own family of origin. Partly relationship with parents being a first born, perhaps being a sensitive child, all contributed to others turning to me for feelings that they might have had a hard time holding on to by themselves.

Aníbal: Oh, yes.

Larry: There are delights and burdens by that role, and probably lots of therapists can appreciate how growing up in that kind of family situation has its pleasures and challenges. So, I was always curious about what makes people tick and what motivates people in their actions. In high school was studying psychology. I read Freud. My dad gave me a copy of The Guide to Rational Living, Albert Ellis's treatise of Rational Emotive Therapy from the early sixties...

Aníbal: That one.

Larry: Because my dad viewed himself as a very rational person, and in many ways he is, but in relationships more emotionally ruled. So, it's a kind of ironic gift. But it got me on the way toward becoming a psychologist and in college sort of double majored in Psychology and Art History and had a couple of great professors at Brandeis University who were very inspirational. I did a senior thesis on the desynchronization of alpha brain waves as a measurement of attention...

Aníbal: Wow.

Larry: Sort of looking at differences in normal weight, and overweight people in men and women, and how they pay attention to emotional stimuli and using that brain wave measure to assess differences in attention. And I went on to graduate school, which was a very research-oriented program, seemingly to fit the research background I had as an undergraduate. But my advisor, Jerry Singer in graduate school, recognized at the end of the first year when I was procrastinating on writing the masters’ thesis and going to the library to get more references to avoid writing, he said "When you're hanging by a cliff from your fingernails, you don't go out to get a manicure."

Aníbal: Oh gosh.

Larry: And he suggested that I might benefit from taking some time off from studying. And so I took a few years off from school and kind of lived life, worked as a computer programmer in Boston and then returned, finished graduate school and did my internship at Cambridge Health Alliance, which is a terrific multicultural institution that really serves folks struggling with poverty, immigrants, complicated family lives, trauma. And that was a great experience. There I worked with Dan Brown, who is nationally known in the area of trauma and hypnosis and joined a practice with him. And so, like a lot of other Boston therapists, there's a lot of emphasis on different kinds of trainings in the area. And so, I learned hypnosis, learned trauma therapy, psychodynamic, cognitive-behavioral, behavioral medicine. And then, as part of a peer group in the early 2000s, I heard from some colleagues of mine about this new model, Internal Family Systems, and Dan Brown brought Dick Schwartz to one of his trauma conferences and I was very intrigued by the model. Having learned Ego State Therapy through Hypnotherapy, IFS had a lot of commonalities to ego state, although IFS is a much more thorough and fuller system of personality. So, when my peer colleagues were talking about taking their Level 1 experience, it Sounded intriguing, but it also Sounded very experiential and I didn't want to have anything to do with that...

Aníbal: Researcher part.

Larry: That was a part. I didn't recognize it as a part at the time, but I kept hearing from them how fantastic it is and how it was making a huge difference in their clinical work with their clients. So, the next year, in 2005, I took the Level 1.

Aníbal: Back then you were... How seasoned you were as a therapist when you really got the cross with IFS?

Larry: Maybe about 15, 18 years at that point.

Aníbal: 15, 18 years, yes.

Larry: As a model, IFS fit in very nicely, integratively. But I'll share a personal experience at the very beginning of the training. So, the two trainers for that Level 1 were Tony Herbine-Blank and Mike Elkin...

Tisha: Good team.

Aníbal: Good team.

Larry: Great, great team. So, Tony was leading us through the first guided meditation. Go inside, notice what you're experiencing. And what happened for me is what happened a lot during hypnosis trainings, which is I hear the leader say, go inside and the next thing I noticed is "And now take a breath and come back to the room." And everything in between during hypnosis exercises have disappeared. So, as soon as Tony began to say "Go inside," I noticed I was starting to go away. And for the first time, I thought of it as "Oh, I have a going away part."

Aníbal: Absolutely.

Larry: That was very helpful. And so, it allowed me experientially to discover the power of IFS right at the very beginning of that training, and got very hooked on the model, both as a clinical, powerful tool, but also for personal growth.

Tisha: So, your parts that had inhibitions about the experiential aspect of the training were happily surprised?

Aníbal: And now going inside doesn't more trigger that part in you. That part that doesn't want to go inside.

Larry: Correct. That part has relaxed a ton over the years. There are sometimes other managers that need attention going inside before things really settle down.

Aníbal: Yes, it's a very common experience, isn't it? For beginners on going inside?

Larry: Yes.

Tisha: This is IFS Talks an audio series to deepen connection with the internal family systems model.

Tisha: How was it to make the shift to incorporating IFS in your practice?

Larry: I would say it evolves very naturally. Again, because I already had a concept of ego states through the hypnotherapy, the concept of parts felt very natural and people use the language of parts very colloquially. And so, clients took to it very well. I think it was a fairly smooth transition.

Tisha: Is there ever any overlap with hypnosis and IFS?

Larry: There is an overlap, but there are also differences. An overlap is the experience of going inside, can for many people be like a trance experience, where the external world, the peripheral world kind of fades a little bit and when it's focused on inner experience. So that's a shared component in those two modalities. What's different is that in hypnosis, the therapist gives suggestions. Like “The arm will become lighter...” or, let's say someone is wanting to stop smoking... “You'll find that the urge for a cigarette will grow smaller and smaller as time passes.” One does not make those kinds of suggestions in IFS, which is very phenomenologically is very client led. So, the language of hypnosis and the language of IFS are somewhat different, but the internal states are probably similar. Does that make any sense?

Tisha: Oh, absolutely. Yeah. I'm curious about whether people incorporate, you know, if we can use hypnosis and IFS together.

Larry: So, I do sometimes use them together. For example, a client who has a very traumatic background, her parts really settle down with hypnotic language and then we can do IFS more seamlessly without already having done the hypnosis.

Aníbal: So, you keep integrating somehow, and IFS continues informing your clinical work and then you became also a trainer, somehow, for IFS.

Larry: I'm not technically a trainer through the IFS Institute. I've been assisting and I do some teaching of IFS locally for various organizations...

Aníbal: And how is it for you? So, somehow you train and supervise on IFS also. Not officially, but in many, many ways...

Larry: Yes, it's fantastic.

Aníbal: And how was it for you to integrate this expertise of you the sexuality? It was easy to you to find this special interest and becoming interested in integrating IFS and sexuality? When did that start happening?

Larry: So, I'd been interested in sexuality for many years. In graduate school most of my research was on erotic fantasy and how we think about our partners in our sexual lives. So that had been a thread going through my life and my education. And I believe that IFS is a wonderful way for people to think about their sexual lives and their erotic parts, because IFS helps people identify the parts that carry judgements and reactions. And sexuality brings up so many judging parts, given the cultural messages that we all grew up with. So, it allows people to first recognize those judging parts, soften them enough so that they feel comfortable with their sexual parts.

Tisha: I really appreciated in your chapter in New Dimensions, the Welcoming all Erotic Parts, how much emphasis was placed on us as therapists, owning our parts around sexuality, around discomfort that we might have in the clinical office or judging parts like you said. How are you addressing that issue of clinician parts with the people that you teach and the people that you supervise?

Larry: I would say my friends and colleagues think of me as often trying to bring sexuality into conversations, whether it's in an informal basis or formally. I do a lot of teaching, for example, at Cambridge Health Alliance and other programs in the Boston area, in Tony Herbine-Blank's Intimacy in the Inside out for Couples and sexuality. Usually I begin with having folks notice what parts are they bringing into the room as we're about to talk about sexual matters. Almost all the time people are coming in with some nervous, anxious, uncertain parts. Some excited, voyeuristic, curious parts coming in with parts who feel like they know a lot or parts who feel like they don't know very much. So right at the start, even before we start talking about sexual topics in particular, we're getting right into the whole domain of parts that are surrounding the subject for each person.

Aníbal: Why is it so difficult for us, Larry, to share this energy, this sexual energy, and to talk on this so important part of our lives? Is really, really important for everyone, but it's so difficult. Why?

Larry: That's a big, important question.

Aníbal: It is.

Larry: So, this might sound a little Freudian for a moment.

Aníbal: We are ready.

Tisha: Even Freudian parts are welcome.

Larry: So, sexual desire has been obviously such a central force in human life, human civilization, not only the need to reproduce ourselves so that our tribe gets to continue more effectively than other tribes from an evolutionary perspective. But sexual desire also has to do with do we feel good about ourselves? Are we attractive? Our self-esteem, our attachments, intimacy, love, connection.

Aníbal: Okay.

Larry: And it also has to do with power, dominance, submission. So, spirituality brings together so many of the kind of psychosocial, spiritual dimensions of life. And because these desires are so strong in us, in order for us to live in a civilized life, societies have needed to establish certain kinds of controls to limit the expression of sexual behavior. Controls involving property, legality in psychiatry, what's considered normal and abnormal. And so, we're taught in our culture that this is a very private area of life, but we're given very polarized messages. Sex is used for advertising in music videos and film all the time, and it brings the viewer's attention. It gets the advertisers to get viewers to pay attention to whatever they're selling. And at the same time, we're given messages from a puritanical point of view that sex is bad. It should be kept under control. So, we're given many conflicting messages that make this topic very confusing for people. So many people put it underground. I think, for therapists, because it really is going into the most private world of an individual or a couple, even though our work is to invite people to enter those private worlds and for us to join them in those realms, many therapists feel uncomfortable about pushing that and are unsure that they may discover something about themselves as they're listening to their clients sexual stories and fantasies...

Aníbal: Like getting triggered?

Larry: That they might get triggered. They may hear something in their client's sexual lives that makes them uncomfortable, that they might feel as disgusting, carry judgments toward or they might discover something that excites them unexpectedly. It brings in the subject of erotic attraction between therapist and client, which is a topic that lots of therapists feel uncomfortable facing, So, just in society in general and then in the clinical room, there are a number of factors that work together to keep sexuality out of the conversation.

Aníbal: Yes. So, we therapists, we should also know ourselves sexually.

Larry: Yes. Yeah.

Aníbal: That would be very welcome. May I quote you on this polarization? I found this quote of you so beautiful. You say, in the United States where the dominant culture is polarized between sex obsession and sex phobia, we receive messages that oscillate between the extremes of hedonistic libertinism, gratify yourself, sex sells, boys will be boys, anything goes, if you are sexual you are popular and restrictive and puritanism like you will get hurt, disease, pregnant, ostracized, it's sick, it's sinful, deviant, illegal. If you are sexual, you are a slut. So, the culture invokes shame and guilt as well as physical restraint and violence to control people's sexual urges and to define what specific sexual desires and actions are judged to be right or wrong, blessed or damned. And I found this really beautiful as an illustration for this polarity. And I also found beautiful the way you work with therapists for helping them to know themselves, on the sexual... How would you say?

Larry: Their sexual self.

Aníbal: Their sexual self. Thank you. Their sexual self, yes. I find it beautiful the way that some of the exercises that you describe in your chapter for helping therapists to get acquainted and find out their sexual self. I found them very brave and courageous and interesting and I bet that we all could benefit from this kind of trainings on getting acquainted and comfortable welcoming our erotic parts. You do these kinds of exercises and supervision often with your supervisees? It depends on the material that supervisees are bringing in about their clinical work, but I'm always listening for an entree into the sexual realm if it's relevant to the material. So, I wouldn't say all the time, but quite often, yes.

Aníbal: And it looks like it's really welcome for these supervisees and they really do get comfortable with your exercises. How does it land in your supervisees this kind of exercises? I'm just remembering two of them. One is when you just say some slang words, sexual words and help these supervisees, these psychotherapists to get comfortable and detect what parts come up...

Tisha: Or maybe activated...

Aníbal: Or maybe activated...

Tisha: As they hear certain slang

Aníbal: And the other one, so interesting also is get aroused in the presence of someone, get comfortable. I understood like that, I don't know if I understood, well correct me, please.

Larry: So, I would say I would pick and choose when to do those exercises with a supervisee. I wouldn't necessarily do them regularly, but on occasion. It kind of depends how the flow of the consultation is going. And if it looks like the clinician is really open to doing some personal discovery, because this supervision can begin to blend a little bit into therapy, and it depends on the nature of the supervisory relationship, whether we both feel comfortable moving in that domain a little bit. But if the person's really comfortable and we have a trusting, safe supervisory relationship, I have done this a few times and I think people have found it really helpful. We go really slowly. So, the way it's written in the chapter with one word after another, in real life, we would go much, much more slowly and we wouldn't be using all of those words, maybe just a few words to really give people the opportunity to check inside and notice what reactions they're having.

Aníbal: Could you tell us more about why do parts develop extreme roles to manage our reactions to erotic desires? You say, you have one paragraph on this topic. You say parts develop extreme roles to manage our reactions to erotic desires. Why so extreme?

Larry: So, for many people who are either growing up with conflicting messages from their family or peers or society or for people who have experienced some kind of developmental sexual trauma, their parts seem to develop in polarized kinds of ways. Either their parts pull them back from sexuality in a kind of avoidant inhibiting kind of way or their parts move them in a more compulsive, can't get enough of sex, in the opposite kind of way. These are two common patterns for people. Sometimes we see one pattern predominant for a person. Sometimes we see both patterns happening for a person, where people are both overeager and compulsive and also inhibited in certain ways. So, those are strategies probably more in the “firefighterish” domain that our system develops to manage feelings that feel either unsafe or out of control, or we've been told that we're bad, we've been shamed for having these desires. Nevertheless, the desires need someplace for expression. We get shamed about our sexual desires, so our protector parts, primarily our firefighters, find strategies to manage those desires that need some form of expression. It's really, really hard to completely exile sexual feelings.

Aníbal: Yes, some people try.

Larry: So, they're coming out in some fashion.

Tisha: It's a hard job for the firefighters.

Larry: Yes.

Tisha: Yeah. That explains the extreme.

Aníbal: I also found it interesting. You call lusty parts, relational parts...Sexual energy can be taken from any parts in our system; can be used by any part in our system.

Larry: If you look at research on the bio evolutionary basis of sexuality, often there are at least three levels that are identified. One is sex for procreation, for the continuation of the species. Two is more carnal sex for pleasure, satisfaction. And three, is sex as an element of intimacy, romance, attachment, affection.

Aníbal: And they are all very welcome.

Larry: And they're all welcome. But they don't all cooperate.

Aníbal: They don't, yes.

Larry: They're sometimes polarized. So, let's say the part who's really lusty and carnal for certain people wants to be sexual with as many people as possible because it's fun, it's pleasurable. And let's say that person also wants to have a primary attachment and that person's partner does not want that person to be actively sexual with lots of other people. So, there is a polarizing conflict that goes on between, let's say, the intimate attaching parts who want to use sex for connection with one partner and the lustful carnal parts who want to be sexual with multiple partners. And there are some people who really struggle balancing those two either as individuals or in relationship.

Aníbal: So, any of those three parts that you mentioned in this polarization, parts tend to exile other parts. Yes. I know so many of my clients that exile their lusty parts or exile their relational parts, sexual relationship parts. It's very helpful to think in this way that you are teaching us.

Larry: So, I don't think of it exactly as they're exiling, but I think of it more in polarization terms.

Aníbal: Yes, it is.

Larry: That the person may primarily be, let's say, focused on their attachment parts and that the lusty parts are right nearby in the wings. And so, when we're talking with our client and focusing on, let's say, deepening their relationship and their lusty parts are listening, they may feel sort of left out of the conversation. And so I'll often ask, even as we're talking about intimacy with your partner, might there be other parts sort of in the wings paying attention to our conversation who may not see it the way you and I are talking about it right now, to invite those other parts, so they don't try to come out in a back door fashion, but they're welcome into the conversation.

Aníbal: Yes, makes a lot of sense. How open are, in your experience, Larry, psychotherapists to reflect on this and to integrate this kind of work on welcoming our sexuality and bringing it into the office?

Larry: So, I'm a big believer in individual differences, so I think there is a wide spectrum of therapists’ comfort with this. Some therapists totally open, relaxed, knowledgeable, not a problem, not an issue. Other therapists, a lot more reserved, much less comfortable, want to talk about sex in a much more modified way. So, I'd say there's a continuum of therapists.

Tisha: Yeah. I was noticing just in reading your chapter that more than anything that I've read or kind of consumed in the IFS world recently, it made me incredibly self-reflective. Just because we don't really have or there's not that much opportunity to really to talk about sex and it's not emphasized in school. And it's not maybe something that's emphasized unless it really comes up with a clinical issue. But I love the idea of it being a growing edge for all of therapists, so that maybe our culture becomes more healthy in regards to sex, especially in the therapy office.

Aníbal: Yeah. And especially when it comes to couples...

Tisha: Right.

Aníbal: If you are doing some work with couples, how can you avoid sexuality? How can you cope with it? Because there is something always around sexuality when you sit with a couple. So, I can imagine that your work with Tony Herbine-Blank must be precious. She needs your assistance as an expertise on this field or these specifics.

Larry: So, Nancy Wonder and I, we're are both working with Tony, have been encouraging the topic of sexuality to come more into the couple's trainings.

Aníbal: Yes.

Larry: And we are doing that.

Aníbal: Makes sense.

Larry: So, you're absolutely right. For example, the issue of discrepant sexual desire is very common for couples where one partner wants sex more frequently than the other or wants a particular kind of sex more than the other. And many couples or partners are ashamed to talk about that. They feel there's something wrong with them. Either they want too much or too little. So, finding a way to welcome each partner's parts around difference in sexual desire or difference in sexual preference is a very rich avenue in couples work.

Aníbal: It's beautiful to see how IFS can inform in such a beautiful way our sexuality. And Larry, regarding the future. Your future as a trainer and a supervisor in IFS. What is coming up for you? What would you like to be happening?

Larry: This is a good question.

Aníbal: You enjoy so much what you are doing, right?

Larry: I enjoy it very much and I'm sixty-four and a current conversation with a number of colleagues has to do with slowing down.

Aníbal: Okay, yes.

Larry: And a core piece of my identity is as a caregiver and a therapist is obviously part of that role. And I have parts who are more and more curious about what life would be like outside of that role.

Aníbal: Okay.

Larry: So, this is all in wondering at the moment. So, it's not exactly answering your question about where to go with IFS in the future. But I think as I'm pondering where I want my life to go in the future, I know that IFS will fit into that, but I haven't exactly figured it out at the moment.

Tisha: Does baking desserts have anything to do with that?

[laughs]

Larry: I love desserts.

Tisha: What is your favorite dessert to bake?

Larry: One of my favorites is a chocolate walnut torte based on a recipe from Maida Heatter's Book of Great Desserts.

Aníbal: Don't you think you have a journey to complete? On bringing this sexuality into IFS?

Aníbal: Yes. In fact, through Tony's Intimacy from The Inside Out, Nancy Wonder and I are going to be doing an advanced sort of couples training on sexuality next spring...

Larry: Wonderful.

Larry: In the Boston area.

Tisha: Wow. That's near me. I'll sign up. That's going to fill up so quickly.

Larry: And she and I, both together and individually, have presented a lot at the IFS conference on sexual topics, So, yes, I definitely want to keep bringing this subject to a wider audience.

Aníbal: Yeah, that would be precious for us, for the whole community. You are doing it so well. You and Nancy Wonder.

Tisha: Yes, so needed. Do you have any ambitions for the model as it grows and shifts and changes? What do you see happening with the IFS model or community?

Larry: So, I think most people are seeing that IFS is beautiful, well beyond the clinical office. It's a world changing model...

Aníbal: And paradigm, yes.

Larry: And it's fantastic for conflict resolution. You know, my fantasy is that people in positions of power, who lead institutions, medical institutions, legal institutions, government institutions would all get IFS training so that we're not so much led by extreme protectors who are being driven by their fearful exiles. But could we lead in a more equanimous, curious, creative and courageous way. That would be my fantasy for how IFS could change the world.

Aníbal: Very welcome that fantasy, Larry.

Tisha: Did you teach a workshop on touch at one of the conferences?

Larry: Yes.

Tisha: With...Was it Nathalie?

Larry: Nathalie [unintelligible]...

Tisha: That was incredible.

Larry: Were you there?

Tisha: I was. It was one of the most powerful pieces of training that I've taken.

Larry: Three years ago, maybe?

Tisha: Yeah, it was it was so good. We all looked into each other's eyes and walked closer. Yeah, just that conversation around physicality and really appreciated your teaching style too.

Larry: Thank you. That's an example of how I might use touch to address sexual issues with a couple. For example, many couples struggling with sexuality come to therapy because their sexual desire has kind of died over the years for a variety of reasons. And if they're interested in trying to rekindle that, one exercise I might do is called a touching pinkies exercise, where I have one partner touch a pinky to the other partners pinky. So, it's very, very light touch and just have each person notice what parts are coming forward inside themselves as they're making this very light touch with their partner. And it's quite remarkable that this seemingly innocuous touch brings up so many feelings and parts for people of desire and fear and sometimes people start playing with their pinkies and you see one pinky trying to get on top or underneath the other person's pinky. And so, we just slow down the process and hear from all the parts who are coming up in each partner, because that little exercise is an illustration of the bigger dilemma that they're struggling with around physical intimacy and affection.

Aníbal: So interesting. Yes.

Larry: So, the touching pinky exercise is a great example of the principle in Tony Herbine Blank's Intimacy from The Inside Out where differentiation of the two partners is essential for healthy attachments. With this exercise, the two people are staying connected, yet they're paying attention to their internal experience while they're connected.

Tisha: That exercise is illustrative of how experiential your teaching was that I participated in, which is interesting because there were avoidant parts around the experiential. Did you come up with these exercises with the pinkies and the eye gazing? Was there a good resource?

Larry: The pinkie's I probably came up with that one. The eye gazing, that's used in a lot of exercises, I think Nathalie brought that more to our workshop, but that it's often used around developing trust and safety with another person. Kind of looking into the other person's eyes and noticing what parts come up. And as you both see the other person and the other person is seeing you. So, I think the eye gaze can be used in many different contexts.

Aníbal: Wonderful. You should not stop. You should keep going. Larry please going.

Larry: So that's what someone might say around sex.

[laughs]

Tisha: That’s what Anibal says around sex.

Aníbal: It's a delight to be here with you. I wish we could sit again together maybe for a conversation on the stuckness in IFS?

Tisha: Oh, yeah.

Aníbal: Maybe in February or March, we can we can keep in touch and see if we can schedule another short conversation around the stuckness and IFS, the wonderful chapter that you did with Pam and Martha. Yes.

Larry: Great

Aníbal: So, Larry, thank you so much for having us. It was a joy to be here with you and Tisha, and I hope we can keep meeting and sharing this model.

Larry: So, thank you both. It's been a pleasure, really delighted to be with you both.

Tisha: Thank you so much.

Aníbal: And we hope we can keep in touch and have another sitting together. And happy holidays, it's holiday time.

Larry: Yes. Is it raining in Vermont?

Tisha: It sure is, yeah. It's warm, feels like spring. Thank you so much for the time.

Larry: You're very welcome. Thank you both. And thank you for what you're doing. This is a great contribution you're making. And good holidays to you both.

Tisha: Thank you.

Aníbal: Thank you.

 

Recorded  the 21st December 2019
Transcript Edition: Carolina Abreu