Behavioral Health Today

 In this episode, Dr. Erin Elmore joins Dr. Graham Taylor in a discussion about treating anxiety. They talk about how to put anxiety into a proper perspective, respond to stress in manageable ways, and how to befriend anxiety and to listen to what it's telling us. The conversation continues with ways to manage our stress by deep breathing, meditation, physical exercise, eating, sleep, gratitude practice, pro social behaviors, and early morning routines. There’s are all tools we can use to keep our stress in a manageable place, and actually enhance our performance to benefit our lives.

We know that anxiety disorders are the most common mental illness in the United States, affecting about 18% of the adult population every year. The good news is that they are highly treatable yet, only about 37% of the people suffering from anxiety really receive treatment.

If you would like more information on the various self-care apps, please visit:

And for more information on Dr. Erin Elmore, please visit: https://drerinelmore.com/

On today's podcast Dr. Graham Taylor speaks with the founder and director of TogetherWell, Michele Haley, Ph.D. Together, they discuss the importance of workshops, collaboration, and the benefit to therapists by being involved in professional workshops. TogetherWell provides educational workshops for therapist to help manage their practice and stay up to date with best practices, a community for mentor support, and education for early career practitioners. They also offer workshops to help spread mental health education within local communities.

If you are an early career therapist looking for more information to guide your practice, network, find a mentor, or if you’re a veteran therapist looking to expand your network and help your community, we encourage you to visit TogetherWell at https://www.togetherwell.org/

And, if you are a therapist interested in joining TogetherWell, visit: https://www.togetherwell.org/join

You can connect with TogetherWell on social media:

• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/togetherwellorg

• Twitter: https://twitter.com/togetherwellorg

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/togetherwell/

• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCU5IYy3v0UepcZpJKtnAALQ

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/togetherwellorg/

Families and the holidays, what could possibly go wrong? In this episode Dr. Graham Taylor speaks with Dr. Kristen Wilkenson about the relational stress brought on by the holidays and some solutions that can help navigate relational conflicts. Together they discuss differing personality styles, shared goals, empathy building, how to set boundaries and how to craft the language. "If we can focus on our feelings and needs it equips us to have difficult conversations." Berné Brown states “clear is kind”, the clearer we can be the kinder we can be to ourselves and also the relationship.

For more information about Psychology Today, visit: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us

If you are looking for additional help to find a therapist or a support group, please visit: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/therapists

In part 2 of our conversation, Dr. Graham Taylor continues the discussion with Dr. Jana Martin, CEO of The Trust, and Dr. Lidia Michel around vicarious trauma. In the last episode, we talked about vicarious trauma, its effects, and some of the warning signs that might harm our world view. In today's episode, we discuss preemptive self-care solutions and solutions you can use while in a session with a client. Additionally, we discuss vicarious resilience and the benefits to therapists gained through witnessing human resiliency. 

For more information about The Trust and ways to engage yourself and empower your clients visit: https://www.trustinsurance.com/

For more information about Trauma Stewardship by Laura van Dernoot Lipsky with Connie Burk visit: https://traumastewardship.com/inside-the-book/

For more information about Real Happiness at Work by Sharon Salzbery visit:

https://www.sharonsalzberg.com/real-happiness-at-work/

In part one of this discussion, Dr. Graham Taylor speaks with Dr. Jana Martin, CEO of The Trust, and Dr. Lidia Michel about vicarious trauma, its effects, and some of the warning signs that it may be harming our world view. Part of a practitioner’s work requires them to listen, to and sit with their patients, and hear to their stories of significant challenge. But there is a cost to this for therapists, a cumulative and a lasting impact on the practitioner.

We encourage practitioners to talk with colleagues and put this kind of trauma into context. Ask people “how have I changed since I started this work?”, ask “how does my anger show up now?” and invite these conversations around vicarious trauma so we can carry it in the healthiest way possible. We need to have special care for ourselves and to even see our own self-care as a form of honoring the work we do.

For more information about The Trust and ways to engage yourself and empower your clients visit: https://www.trustinsurance.com/

For more information about Trauma Stewardship by Laura van Dernoot Lipsky with Connie Burk visit: https://traumastewardship.com/inside-the-book/

For more information about Real Happiness at Work by Sharon Salzbery visit:

https://www.sharonsalzberg.com/real-happiness-at-work/

Brandon J. Johnson, M.H.S talks with Dr. Graham Taylor about how introspection and empathy are the cornerstones of managing our racism. They discuss how compassion is unequivocally what we need for individuals to understand where some of their racist beliefs are and how we can begin to make impactful change. If we can just make room for the person's experiences, we might find ourselves expanding into a greater shared appreciation for and understanding of what's going on around us and in the lives around us. It's about understanding and loving each other in a deeper way. 

To learn more:

Black Mental Wellness Lounge: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCebATdInxniQlf12aJtmDpA

Black Mental Health Alliance: https://blackmentalhealth.com/

Visit PsychHub to take action against racism at: https://psychhub.com/taking-action-against-racism/

In this episode, Dr. Graham Taylor talks with Haesue Jo, LMFT and Clinical Operations Manager at BetterHelp about how clients are paired with practitioners in a confidential, efficient, and beneficial way. BetterHelp is the largest online counseling platform. Telemental Health options are available for adults, teens (with consenting adults), and couples therapy through BetterHelp. The accessibility of online counseling is helping to normalize the therapy experience, allowing clients to safely be more comfortable and vulnerable in their therapeutic discussions.

 If you are interested in learning more about BetterHelp, visit: BetterHelp.com

If you are a therapist interested in practicing online with BetterHelp, learn more here.

Today Gerry Grossman, LMFT and founder of Gerry Grossman Seminars, joins us to speak on his experience and the lessons learned from successfully advocating change. In 2020 Gerry Grossman successfully lobbied a bill that has helped change the legal landscape for mental health providers doing therapy with minors in California. Gerry talks about lessons learned along the way, and provides advice for those who want to advocate: "Your voice matters. Be patient, persistent, and perseverative."

For more information on the CA legislative process visit: https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/

For information on CAMFT and chapters near you, visit: https://www.camft.org/

In this episode, Dr. Jorge Petit is a psychiatrist veteran, behavioral health advocate and president and CEO of CBC, speaks with Dr. Graham Taylor about their successful work with providing clients access to services using telehealth or telemental health. Jorge and Graham discuss the measurable successes, and challenges of telemental health including permanent and regulatory relief, administrative flexibility, enhanced workforce capacity, and equitable payment.

About Coordinated Behavioral Care: The CBC network includes over 50 community based, not for profit, health and human service agencies. During this COVID-19 pandemic, telemental health services have helped the outreach and engagement of their clients to stay connected to services.

For more information about Coordinated Behavioral Care (CBC) visit: http://www.cbcare.org/

Information on Emerging Technologies by CBC - document

Telemental health services research - document 

On this episode, Lidia Michel, Psy.D. joins Dr. Graham Taylor in a discussion on trauma stewardship and how to care for those that care for others. Lidia speaks on the guideposts of stewardship: identifying your working role model, minimizing to make time for rest, hypervigilance and awareness of the speed of your work, and recognizing diminished creativity in your work, and ways to add self-care to your routine to be effective in our work. Self-care is critical and really essential to the longevity, within our careers and for the services that we really want to provide and for us to be effective in our work.

For more information about Trauma Stewardship: An Everyday Guide to Caring for Self While Caring for Others by Laura van Dernoot Lipsky and Connie Burk , visit: https://traumastewardship.com/inside-the-book/

For more information about The Gifts of Imperfection by Brené Brown, visit: https://brenebrown.com/books-audio/

For more information on the Positive Psychology Center, visit: https://ppc.sas.upenn.edu/