TW: this episode discusses suicidal ideation and self-harm

In today’s Health Talk, we’re joined by Dr. Jaimee Arnoff, a licensed clinical psychologist, specializing in teens and young adults, including those in the deaf community. In this episode, we cover serious topics such as the rise in self-harm during COVID, how to manage and negotiate your role if you are a loved one or caregiver of someone struggling with their mental health, and even how Dr. Arnoff’s own experience with chronic pain has informed her work.

Celine interviews the co-founders of Neuro (www.getneuro.com) to learn about how they started, the mind-body (gut) connection and more.

Flowly (www.flowly.world) is a smartphone app that offers Virtual Reality (VR) experiences for pain and anxiety. Each VR experience engages you in biofeedback for relaxation training to help give you the tools to manage pain and anxiety. Flowly sessions are short, on your phone, and can be completed at home or on-the-go.

Carla Pulliam has been a practicing clinical psychologist for 20 years. She has worked in both in and outpatient psychiatric and medical settings, and has a longstanding psychotherapy private practice. 

In this episode, Dr. Pulliam takes us through different therapeutic approaches to managing various pain, mental health, and chronic conditions. Dr. Pulliam also answers listener questions on PTSD, ADHD, etc.

Dr. Pulliam has worked with many populations and concerns including depression, anxiety, parenting issues, health and medical issues like diabetes, chronic pain, and more.

In this episode, we chat with the producer and host of one of the most well regarded podcasts on chronic and invisible illnesses: The Uninvisible Pod, Lauren Freedman. As an entrepreneur, voice actor, producer, and chronic illness advocate, Lauren shares her daily routine, her inner resources, and journey to learning how to manage her chronic condition with her busy schedule.

Lauren has a wealth of experience advocating and sharing information around chronic illness, stemming from her own journey with depression, anxiety, and then being diagnosed with Hashimoto’s disease in 2017.

In this enlightening conversation, Kelly Mendenhall shares with Celine her work in highlighting medical gaslighting, what it is, and how she has personally experienced it as a Spoonie and chronic condition patient.

Kelly is the senior community leader for SpineNation, one of the leading patient advocacy organizations for back pain. Kelly is also an author, blogger, and journalist raising awareness of medical gaslighting which often leaves women permanently disabled or worse.

Kelly is a Spoonie who manages multiple invisible illnesses. She published her debut memoir last year called Skin in the Game: the stories my tattoos tell. She is now working on her second book, The Medical Gaslighting Project.

In this episode, Celine chats with an amazing young chronic illness warrior from North Carolina. Bella McCray is an advocator for Lupus, a member of Autoimmune Sisters, and a Lupus patient herself. Bella shares her experience with Lupus, her diagnosis story, and even how her identity as a young Black woman has shaped how she’s had to manage an invisible illness.

Celine chats with Kirsten Soong, a chronic pain patient who brings both her own experience as a public sector leader and her seven year battle with chronic pain into the conversation. Important topics like finding the right community to support you, the right doctors who believe you, and developing physical habits to assist in daily health management all come up in this Health Talk.

Kirsten has worked in the public sector as a leader in grassroots organizing for Planned Parenthood and ACLU, and she was recently at Google where she led the multinational strategy for Google Maps and Cloud products. Not only is Kirsten now an MBA candidate at Harvard Business School, but she herself is a chronic pain warrior. I’ve wanted to interview Kirsten because she brings not just her professional experience in the public sector to the table, but also her own learnings and experience managing her chronic pain.

This is an in-depth conversation about biofeedback with Dr. Richard Gevirtz, truly one of the most respected and pioneering experts in this space. How does biofeedback work? What does it do? What does it have to do with Olympic level athletes? In this Health Talk, Celine tackles these questions with Dr. Gevirtz.

Dr. Gevirtz is a distinguished professor of psychology for the California School of Professional Psychology at Alliant International University. He’s been doing psychophysiology and biofeedback research and clinical work for the last 30 years. Dr. Gevirtz was also the former president of the Association for Applied Psychophysiology and Biofeedback. His primary research focus is in understanding the physiological and psychological mediators involved in conditions such as chronic muscle pain, fibromyalgia, and gastrointestinal pain. Dr. Gevirtz has studied applications of heart rate variability, biofeedback of pain, anxiety, cardiac rehabilitation, etc.

Highlighting Black Invisible Illness Voices with Whitney West.

We’re particularly excited to share Whitney’s conversation with Celine. Whitney West is a health advocate, a chronic illness warrior, and works to bring more awareness to her own rare but significant chronic condition: fibrosing mediastinitis. In their conversation Whitney shares how she’s had to navigate her own challenging diagnosis journey, the role that anxiety has played in her daily health management, and how her identity has a Black woman has impacted her relationship with health practitioners.

This week Celine sits down with a world class mind-body practitioner, Pierre-Etienne Vannier. In this wide ranging conversation, they touch on different manifestations of trauma, methods we can employ to begin to acknowledge and manage trauma, and the challenges we still face in recovery.

Pierre is a program development specialist for trauma recovery and resilience building through nervous system regulation. Pierre has done this work at Huntington Memorial Hospital, UCLA Center for East-West Medicine, USC oncology, etc. Pierre has worked with cancer patients, pain patients, and is currently a co-investigator in clinical research focused on fostering post-traumatic growth among cancer survivors. You can also find Pierre at Healing Studio Online (www.healingstudioonline.com) for live classes for self-healing, using a wide range of approaches and modalities.