Dr. Susan Swick: Mental Health Crisis and Our Youth

The American healthcare system is dealing with more mental health issues than ever before. What is the root of the uprising in anxiety and mood disorders? Why are more young people, children and teenagers, receiving this diagnosis and what can we do as a society to help understand? Today’s guest, Susan Swick, MD, MPH is the Executive Director of Ohana, the integrated program for child and adolescent mental and behavioral health and healing at Montage Health, and the Vice President and Chief Mental Health Officer at Montage Health. She began her career at Rikers Island, studying the mental health needs of the incarcerated, which led her to studying younger patients, specifically the field of child psychiatry and how these children can be helped at an earlier age. How much is environmental and how much is the neurology of the brain? There is a rise in mental health issues in children. Childhood, from a brain perspective, ends closer to age 25. Skills like socialization, communication, and bonding are still forming until approximately this age. We develop skills prior to this age which can affect our mental health for the rest of our lives. But, there’s good news and treatment is available! It can be corrected using a type of supportive mental health technique using skill-building so children learn to manage anxiety – it’s like a type of mental health “tutoring” so they can manage something new and challenging, even if frightening. It is possible to build skills toward stronger health and mental fitness.   Dr. Swick also talks about social media and how children become addicted to being online with a dopamine hit, especially in teenagers. Many compare themselves to others and eating disorders may start here. The reward part of the brain also does not mature until approximately age 26.   Over a distinguished 20-year career as a clinical psychiatrist and educator, Dr. Swick has helped transform how American healthcare systems meet the escalating demand for pediatric and adolescent mental and behavioral healthcare treatment and services. A graduate of Columbia University Medical School, she previously served as Chief of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at Newton Wellesley Hospital and as an instructor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital.   In addition to her clinical expertise, Dr. Swick is an advocate for the importance of mental fitness and has developed nationally recognized neuroscience strategies to help young people build and maintain a state of emotional health and positive self-awareness throughout their lives. Info: https://www.montagehealth.org/care-treatment/mental-behavioral/ohana/