Mental Health Awareness Month & Breaking the Stigma – Podcast

Jason Dorow 

We’re back with another episode of the Champions of Homecare podcast and we’re shaking things up just a little bit here for this episode. David’s been really, really busy, especially during the Minnesota legislative session. He’s now enjoying some well deserved time off. But we really didn’t want to miss the opportunity to discuss a very important topic here in the month of May. And that’s Mental Health Awareness Month. So I’m so excited to welcome a guest co host today, Val Patino, whose Accra’s Senior Program Director of FMS and Mental Health so Val, how are you doing today?

Valerie Patino 

Hey, Jason, I’m great. It’s a sunny day, a sunny spring day and happy to be talking about mental health and the program that Accra provides.

Jason Dorow 

It’s starting to feel less like spring and a little more like summer each day. Yeah, given your role, I know you have a lot of work with FMS. But can you tell us a little bit about your role with the mental health program at Accra? 

Valerie Patino 

Yes, so I’m the Senior Director of the Mental Health Program. And it’s a newer role for me. So I’m diving in and getting to know all the ins and outs of the programs and the two services that we provide, and working along wonderful staff, like Sarah, who will be joining us on the podcast today. And just learning as much as we can and and trying to grow the program and outreach to more and more folks; as many as possible.

Jason Dorow 

Yeah, given that role that you have with the Mental Health Program, we thought you were the perfect person to pitch in for David for this episode. And you mentioned it, we have a true expert in the room too, who will join us now, Sarah Boyd. She’s already been on the podcast once before, Sarah, how are you doing today?

Sarah Boyd 

I’m doing okay. Yeah, it’s a, it’s very nice out today. So that helps.

Jason Dorow 

Now, our avid listeners are already a little bit familiar with you. But would you mind sharing again, for those who haven’t caught that first mental health services episode, what your role is in Accra, and what you do to serve clients? 

Sarah Boyd 

Sure, I am a Mental Health Professional and the Program Manager in the metro here for our Mental Health Program. And I use the term Mental Health Professional, that’s just the title term for a therapist. So I’m a therapist here in the metro. That’s what my kind of day to day work is aside from managing the program down here.

Jason Dorow 

Well, thank you for taking some time out of your really busy schedule here to help wrap up Mental Health Awareness month. So this is an occasion to help address the challenges faced by millions of Americans living with mental health conditions. The National Alliance on Mental Illness reports that one in five US adults experience mental illness each year, but only half of them receive treatment. So those figures kind of underscore the issue. But in your mind, why is this month so important? How have you seen it have an impact? Yeah, just talking about it makes such a difference, right, and helping eradicate the stigma and open more conversations. Is there anything else that we can just be doing on a daily basis, not only during Mental Health Awareness month, but things we can carry forward to help break down that stigma?

Sarah Boyd 

Well, you know, I think that it, I mean, it just really what it does is it causes awareness, or it gives us an opportunity to remember that we should be aware about mental health and some of the challenges that we face. I think that the impact, Val and I were chatting about this a little bit yesterday, and with regard to impact, you know, even 5, 6, 7 years ago, I don’t think that people were talking about it as much as we are now. And that’s been a shift in society, I think. And I would attribute that, I mean, to things like Mental Health Awareness month, among other sorts of movements, but, you know, just the fact that people are talking about it more, it sort of brings it out of the shadows and into the light and there’s some normalcy in that I think for folks, and you know, there’s therapy and shared experience. And so when you know that you’re not alone, and experiencing some of those symptoms, or those diagnoses, that can be helpful. So I think we see impact in that way too, that people are kind of feeling like oh, okay, people experience this like me, I’m not weird or, you know, there’s not something wrong with me or whatever. It’s about, you know, more understanding. Yeah, you know, I mean, I think this might sound kind of pithy, but I really think part of it is just like the ongoing conversation that people are having. And being able to talk more openly, when people are experiencing things like depression and anxiety and other, you know, bigger types of illnesses as well, I think that we’re seeing a lot more. And maybe acceptance is the word, of your depressions and your anxieties. We are still seeing some stigma around serious and persistent mental illnesses like psychosis, or personality disorders, like borderline personality disorder, those sorts of things. But the conversation helps. I think also, one of the things that I think is important is when we hear negative attitudes about mental health, and/or about symptoms that people are experiencing, I mean, first and foremost, this is gonna sound a little bit soap-boxy maybe, but leading with empathy, I think is so important. When there’s a lot of negative attitudes out there, it makes it very difficult for people to be open and honest about their experiences. That’s partly where the stigma comes from. That being said, I think that most of the stigma that’s out there about anything, I guess, for that matter, really stems from lack of understanding. And so, with awareness come some education. And you know, for folks who sort of understand what that is, or who are willing to share some of their experience, it helps others understand it more, and hopefully break down more of that stigma.

Jason Dorow 

And with that, May is also Children’s Mental Health Awareness, Sarah. So I was curious, when I learned that they made them the same month, why did they create that differentiation or that distinction between the two so that we’re recognizing that there are some differences between just mental health in general and the approach that we need to have for children’s mental health?

Sarah Boyd 

Yeah, I think what they’re good at children’s mental health, the thing about that is you’re talking about, you know, when you’re an adult, you have a fully formed and developed brain, you’ve gone through all your critical periods of development, your identity has developed that sort of thing. With kids, you know, you’re hitting different critical periods that are going to impact how we interpret symptomology. You are working within family systems, we’re working with school systems. There’s a whole lot of things that we have to consider when we’re working with children, not to say that we don’t consider those things as adults, but those things have already been developed and solidified. And in theory, so when we’re working with kids, part of the awareness for children, I think also is, you know, being able to identify how those different things enter, like the development and the family systems, and then whatever mental health symptomology is presenting how those things intersect, getting awareness around that, because that helps us understand that behavior because oftentimes kids mental health presents in behaviors. And so then there’s like this whole, you know, they get dumped like a bad kid or something. And I think, when we have awareness centered around children specifically, that helps us to educate people specifically to kids and how their mental health symptomology might present. And then, you know, I think that also speaks directly towards how we approach interventions.

Jason Dorow 

You mentioned the bad kid stereotype for maybe some misbehavior at times. Is that a stereotype? Are there other stereotypes or myths about mental illness with kids that we need to work on dispelling that confuse people often?

Sarah Boyd 

I am sure there are a lot of them. And I would say, generally speaking, just sort of that idea when kids act out, that just kind of means they’re naughty or bad. And I could probably speak at this at length. So I’ll try to keep this more concise. As you know, I joke about sometimes getting into the weeds, so I’m going to try not to do that here. Not always my strong suit. But, the thing about it is that if you have okay, I’m gonna get into the weeds for a second I lied. Okay. If you have a kid who’s experienced a whole lot of trauma and they go to school. And they start acting out in class, oftentimes in a classroom setting, and understandably so in a classroom setting, and they need to be able to serve, you know, 20, 30 students. But if you’ve got a kid who’s acting out, or heaven forbid, lashing out at another child, they there’s sort of this idea behind it that like, oh, man, this kid is like, man, they’re really naughty. Like, what are we going to do with this kid? And there’s frustration and there’s exasperation. And it’s understandable to some extent, but then if you find out, say, the kids getting abused at home, they’re exposed to drug and alcohol use or whatever. And you could list all kinds of things that could potentially trigger trauma symptomology, but they’re not a bad kid. They don’t have well, we’re getting into family systems, there’s family systems issues. There’s developmental stuff, if they’re having to work through an environment like that, than any kind of tools and coping skills that they have to manage their emotions or to feel safe or anything like that. Those are out the window. So when you put it into that kind of context, then it’s easier to understand like, No, this isn’t a bad kid, this is a kid who’s experienced a whole lot of trauma, then we can target interventions towards that. And hopefully, if we adjust our perspective, if we think somebody’s just being naughty, our interventions, they’re going to trend towards punitive punishment. But if we understand that there’s an underlying need there, then our interventions are going to be targeted in a more therapeutic way. So I don’t know if that was a good illustration or not. But there’s just there’s an awful lot to it, I think, yeah.

Jason Dorow 

Yeah, no, I think that’s a good way of depicting it. And you bring up the fact that there’s so many factors at play that can cause or relate to mental illness at an early age, which is part of the reason we put up on the screen here for a listening audience that 50% of all mental illness begins by age 14. So there’s some frequency there even with kids. Val, is there anything that you want to ask about Mental Health Awareness month or Children’s Mental Health Awareness month before we jump to some other topics?

Valerie Patino 

No, no questions about that. But just what Sarah said is, you know, that behavior is a language. And that’s how our children are expressing themselves and what may be going on at home. And I just always remind myself of that, too, when interacting with children, that that’s how they most express themselves through behavior. So it’s a good reminder, Sarah, thank you. 

Sarah Boyd 

Yeah, absolutely.

Jason Dorow 

And Sarah, before we talked about Accra’s, sorry about that Val, did I cut you off?

Valerie Patino 

No, no. 

Jason Dorow 

Sarah, before we talk about Accra’s mental health services, I know you did a lot of preparation around Mental Health Awareness month as well. Is there anything we didn’t ask you about that you think listeners and viewers should really know about as they try to maintain the momentum here for Mental Health Awareness Month and keep ending the stigma and maintaining conversations?

Sarah Boyd 

Yeah, that’s a great question. Yes, I think a couple things. One of the things that I see a little bit more hands on practical. One of the things that I think I’ve talked about on one of the other podcasts, but one of the things that really surprised me when I started this work, given the awareness that’s out there now, is how difficult it is for people to identify when they’re depressed. People, they have a tendency to be able to identify anxiety really easily because you feel it, you know, your heart raises, your palms get sweaty, you get that pit in your stomach. You might get irritable, that sort of thing. So people can identify anxiety pretty easily. What surprises me is how often people struggle to identify depression. Because I think we still sort of have this idea in our heads that depression means like, you’re really sad, or just sort of like, oh, you know, I’m kind of, you know, down in the dumps, like, sort of there’s an idea that people hold about it. What I see most often for folks who can’t identify it, is they’re telling me that, you know, I really, like I used to – we do an assessment process, which I’ve talked about before, but in the assessment, you ask what hobbies, things people would like to do that well, I really enjoyed painting, but I don’t really do that so much anymore. I like to play the guitar. I used to write songs, but yeah, I just I don’t know. I tried to pick it up, but I just can’t do it anymore. And you hear these things, people sort of withdrawing from not just their community or friend groups, but sort of withdrawing from things that they enjoy. And it comes in forms of lack of motivation, they struggle to complete tasks. They aren’t necessarily in bed all day. But that’s sort of the idea we have, but it takes a little longer to get out of bed, takes a little longer to get moving, everything’s just a little slower. And a lot of the stuff I’m talking about, we have criteria for that, when we’re diagnosing depression. The problem is that sometimes those things happen in such subtleties that you don’t even realize that you’ve withdrawn from, you know, activities that you’ve enjoyed, and you’ve gotten so far away from that, that you’re not really doing it at all, or you feel like you can’t. So what we see a lot, what I see a lot is sort of a general lack of interest, lack of motivation, really difficult, but really having a difficult time putting one foot in front of the other. But when it presents, like in an office, or in an assessment, or when I’m meeting with somebody, it presents anecdotally, I don’t know why I can’t do these things. And so they’re not connecting those dots. So in terms of awareness, I think some of it requires us to kind of be aware of that within ourselves. Like, is this happening? You know, I wonder, even just going, Man, I haven’t really been doing a whole lot of stuff that I’ve liked to do in the past for quite some time. I want and I’ve been kind of feeling like “meh”. And wonder, I mean, it really sounds kind of simple. But just even asking yourself, I wonder if I’m feeling depressed. You know,  I think that’s important to just have that, you know, have those subtle pieces on your mind too, because most people are going to identify it, or not going to identify it unless they notice that they’re really, really sad. And they’re seeing significant impairment and things. So that’s one thing.

Valerie Patino 

Well, I was just gonna say with that, Sarah, do you think it’s easier for folks to maybe identify it in their friends and family members versus themselves? And those who have identified it in themselves, hey, I think I might be depressed. Do you see any, maybe, habits that those folks have that are, they’re a little bit more self aware? Or how do you create that self awareness?

Sarah Boyd 

When they do identify it?

Valerie Patino 

Yeah, you’re able to express or articulate? 

Sarah Boyd 

I think. I mean, it takes a little bit of insight. When we talk about awareness, I think that it’s knowing that that’s something to look for. And so I think anybody’s capable of knowing that it’s for the folks who do it already. And you know, they’ve had some insight into it. And they probably are aware that that is something to look out for. I do think, you know, from person to person, there is an element of just, you know, some of us just are in tune to that a little bit more than others, it’s not a good or a bad thing. It just is. But we do work through that in therapy, you know, how do you identify that in yourself? How do you? And then how do you resolve it? How do you resolve lack of motivation? It’s super challenging. I mean, this challenging, because it’s not, you know, it’s not something that we can, you know, assign a skill to specifically necessarily, you know, it’s something that you have to kind of work through. But we do it all the time. You know, we work through that all the time. But, yeah, I think a lot of it once you get connected, I think that’s where we do some of that work to resolve that lack of motivation, and to better understand maybe even where some of that’s coming from. 

Valerie Patino 

Exactly. So we really wanted to let our viewers know, too, about the services that we provide at Accra. And I know that you touched a bit on therapy right now. Can you explain to us about ARMHS, the Adult Rehabilitative Mental Health Services and how we go ahead about providing that service to clients, what it is, how are you eligible for it et cetera?

Sarah Boyd 

Yep, so ARMHS, as you said, it’s stands for Adult Rehabilitation Mental Health Services. It’s a mouthful. That’s why we say ARMHS instead. Yep, it’s a skills based service. And so it can be provided in the home or in the community. And really, what ARMHS focuses on is restoring functioning in areas of somebody’s life, that have been diminished due to their mental health symptomology. So it’s really a fancy way of saying if we go back to the example of like depression and not being able to put Oone foot in front of the other, say, I am experiencing depression, and I’m really having a hard time with getting out and getting groceries like I just, I can’t muster it up to get out of the house. And so ARMHS will come in, and they’ll work in skills because now your reduced functioning is that you’re not able to engage in your community or, you know, get groceries. And so an ARMHS worker is going to work on skills to help you get out and complete those tasks. But they’re also going to work on targeting and sort of the the underlying mental health symptomology that is causing you to be unable to complete those tasks, and they’re going to work on skills to resolve those. You have to be on MA, you have to qualify for MA, and you have to be at least 18 years old to qualify and obviously be diagnosed with a mental health disorder.

Valerie Patino 

And to be diagnosed with a mental health disorder, we can do that. Yep, at Accra.

Sarah Boyd 

Yep, so the start of any mental health service is a diagnostic assessment. So you have to, if we had somebody call in, when they wanted to start ARMHS services, one of the first things we ask is if they’ve had a diagnostic assessment elsewhere, because you have to have one within a year. And if they haven’t, then we get them scheduled, with a therapist, you know, at Accra, to get a diagnostic assessment done. And that is, it’s about an hour and a half to two hour appointment, where we’re going through all the different areas of their life. We’re gathering history and information about those areas of their life. Gathering information about symptoms that they’ve been experiencing, for how long, triggers, onset, that sort of thing. And at the end of it, we provide a diagnosis if in fact there is one to be had. And then from there, we make recommendations. And we then refer them to our ARMHS folks. They go through an intake, and then they’re kind of on their way with the service. 

Valerie Patino 

And then they see a nurse practitioner, usually weekly, for a set amount of time, depending on what that intervention plan dictates, depending on the diagnosis and the need.

Sarah Boyd 

Yep, yep. Yep. When they start ARMHS they’ll do their first appointment, is typically an intake. The second appointment is typically completing what we call a functional assessment. And that’s identifying the areas of their life that have been impaired or where they’ve had reduced functioning because of their mental health symptomology. So, you know, if they haven’t been able to work, then that’s identified, if they aren’t able to complete some self care tasks, if they’ve had trouble in interpersonal relationships, that sort of thing. So they do a functional assessment. And then the third appointment is typically where they do the treatment plan. And they take what information is from the diagnostic assessment, and the functional assessment. So what’s the symptoms? Or what’s the diagnosis? What are the symptoms, what’s the, here’s the why, here’s how it impaired their functioning, the functional assessment and the true plan is, here’s how we are going to identify goals and interventions to target those areas. And so they develop that with the client. And then they decide together based on the treatment plan, and schedules, of course, that sort of thing, how frequently they want to meet. And typically it’s once a week, and it can be up to you know, can be a couple hours a week can be an hour week, most people need about an hour a week, but some need a little more.

Valerie Patino 

And we’ll focus usually on services for ARMHS for a year, two years, or does that depend on? 

Sarah Boyd 

Yeah, that’s a really good question. So I don’t have a typical, what I would say it really is case by case. ARMHS is a rehabilitative service, though. So the goal is to restore functioning. And with that in mind, in theory, somebody would, eventually somebody will meet treatment goals, and they’re going to discharge from ARMHS. But there’s not really like a specified timeline that we have. We update the treatment plans and the functional assessments, we update those every six months, diagnostic assessments get updated every year. So we are evaluating that all the time with our clients to ensure that we are developing or we were implementing the appropriate treatment interventions and that we’re monitoring you know, progress.

Jason Dorow 

So you’ve covered ARMHS, the thing that most people don’t know about. Accras other service line within mental health services is individual therapy, which is probably going to sound a lot more familiar to people, but can you help distinguish between therapy and ARMHS? And should people know coming in which service line they’re going into? Is that something that you help them sort out when they first come to Accra?

Sarah Boyd 

Yeah, that’s a great question too. Some people know what they’re looking for. And of course, that’s helpful. It’s always helpful. But oftentimes distinguishing if they like, what would be better, or maybe a combination of both. It’s more of a discussion. And oftentimes, that happens during the assessment process. So like, when I’m doing a DA with somebody at the end of that diagnostic assessment, I’m providing a diagnosis, but I’m also providing recommendations for treatment interventions. And those recommendations will say, you know, so and so would benefit from participation in individual therapy, sometimes I’ll put like a specific type, depending upon what was in the assessment, they would benefit from arm services, maybe they will benefit from, you know, waiver services, stuff like that. So I’ll put all that in the recommendations based on having to do that assessment with somebody. Ideally, if somebody is, if somebody is utilizing ARMHS services, ideally, they should have been, best practice would be they should also be participating in individual therapy. Doesn’t necessarily have to be with us, although that’s helpful, just because it’s easier for continuity of care. But the reason behind that is ARMHS services are a skills based service. And so they are working on the skills to restore functioning. Therapy really works on processing and exploring, and we do skills work in therapy, too. But we’re working on what like, here are the symptoms, this is a diagnosis, why are these present? How do we address them? How do we work through them? How do we resolve them, if possible? Or how do we learn to manage them? Where did they come from that sort of thing. And then ARMHS Services is working on helping people function when those things have made it difficult to function. They’re not necessarily doing that in depth therapeutic work. So the reason why if you have both of those together, we can work on those things in therapy, and then the ARMHS workers get to put some of those principles in practice with the clients. And so it really is sort of like a one two punch in terms of therapeutic services. It’s pretty effective when you can combine them Really helps explain how those two things work in coordination to be most effective. So where is individual therapy available? Is it throughout Minnesota? Can it be done via telehealth? Yep, so we see we have offices in Duluth, Virginia, Hibbing and in Minneapolis. And we can see clients in person at those offices, and then we can provide telehealth services throughout the metro.

Jason Dorow 

Are most people, I know a lot of people run into waitlists or a hard time accessing services, does Accra have a waitlist right now and how do people get started?

Sarah Boyd 

No, we don’t. Diagnostic assessment scheduling – the scheduling out a couple of weeks, but we don’t have a waitlist. So you might get scheduled out a bit, but we don’t have any of those waitlist things. In terms of accessing services, if you want to put in a referral, you can call our main line and ask for our mental health department. The main line is 952-935-3515 and then ask our mental health department, you can do a referral over the phone, you can email us at armhs@accracare.org. Or you can go to our website accrahomecare.org If you click on Services, and then scroll down to Mental Health Services, and then when you’re there, you scroll all the way down and there’s a link to submit a referral online, you can also submit them that way.

Jason Dorow 

It’s super helpful. Is there anything unique about Accra’s therapy philosophy or how you personalize services? With so many other of Accra’s other homecare services, it’s about a person centered approach and individualizing services. Is there a similar approach to how you address mental health concerns?

Sarah Boyd 

Yeah, I think the nuts and bolts of it is that same it’s a person centered approach, you know, everybody’s different. I can treat 10 people with depression and they’re all gonna present 10 different ways. You know, I mean, and it can be present for 10 different reasons. So it’s really person centered. It’s one of the things I’m going to say I’m gonna toot our team’s horn just for a second, because we have this really phenomenal group of ARMHS workers, I feel like such a proud mom, half the time. They excel at really fostering trust in therapeutic relationships with their clients, they connect so well. And it’s because each and every one of them, they value that also it’s super important to them. And they really, really genuinely care. And so some of that, and we have our philosophy as a person centered approach, that that’s what we do. But then it’s also like, we’ve just built this really incredible team down here who, they have it in them. And it’s some of the stuff is just, you know, the things you can’t always teach somebody, you know, they have the heart and they have the desire, and they care. And the work is important to them. And so, you know, I think what I see, and granted, this is a very recognize this a biased opinion, it’s not, you know, this is what I see out of them. But what I see if, in all of this, we’re seeing a lot of, we’re seeing a lot of progress in our clients, we’re seeing a lot of willingness to accept feedback. And all of that comes back down to that relationship. You know, if you develop a trusting relationship with somebody, you’re way more inclined to engage in a conversation that might be difficult, or, you know, some of what we do is challenging. If somebody’s having a hard time going out and getting groceries, we might tell him to go out and get groceries, you know, we’ll be there with you. But nobody’s gonna do that if they don’t trust their worker. So I think what I see that sets us apart quite a bit right now is it’s really the people that we’ve got right now. They’re just they’re so fantastic.

Jason Dorow 

I’m glad to hear that your team is helping so many people make progress in their lives. I have just one more question for you here, Sarah. And then I’ll let Val fire away if she’s got any final Qs as well. Earlier, you were talking about how people often find themselves in that spot where they’re kind of teetering, you know, am I experiencing depression, some of the things that I used to be able to do just so easily aren’t coming as naturally. And they’re kind of wondering, am I experiencing some sort of mental illness? Or is this just sort of a down period? Do you have any suggestions for people who are kind of in that gray area about what to do? Should they have conversations with family and friends? Is it time to maybe set up an appointment with a provider like Accra, because so many people are, again, getting back to that stigma of getting help and talking about mental health, they see that barrier and don’t want to jump through it. But sometimes it’s not getting help. It’s just starting a conversation with someone like yourself. So do you have any tips for someone in that gray area?

Sarah Boyd 

Yeah, absolutely. I think, you know, ideally, if somebody is identifying that we would love to see them, you know, because that’s part of the assessment process, you might go through the assessment, and we might go, you know, I don’t think you’re quite at that level. But, you know, maybe there are some things that we can do to kind of help you work through it. Or we can kind of give you some tips and tricks, you know, sort of as you know, until you can kind of boost your mood a bit. Or maybe they do meet criteria. And we’re like, Yeah, this is something that would be really appropriate for therapy or ARMHS or whatever. That would be ideal. But I also recognize most people aren’t going to take that first step right away, because that seems like a lot. And so I agree with you, Jason, I think taking the time maybe and talking with family and friends, if you have folks in your life that you feel comfortable talking with. And they might give you some insight to you know, like Val said, sometimes we identify it in others before ourselves, I mean, they can hear that for you a little bit. But also another thing that people can do, if you regularly see your primary care provider, you can make an appointment with your primary care provider too. Most primary care providers are trained more especially in like depression and anxiety, having a conversation with them about what their experience which feels less, sort of looking forward, taking the step to okay, feel this, I’m gonna jump to go like have an assessment for therapy. Most people aren’t going to do that. That feels like too much, but going into your primary care doctor, just the same as if you had like, you know, like a sore throat or whatever and you need to get checked for strep like going in there and saying, Hey, I’ve been exposed I think this is it’s really, it’s starting to become kind of a problem. I’m wondering if I should like, what you think should I, you know, participate? Or should I try to? You know, is something going on with me? Is it more mental health? Is it this or that, and they’re gonna be more inclined to give some feedback and potentially a recommendation for therapy. Also, you don’t need to do that. You can make your own referral. But that sometimes seems a little bit less threatening than, you know, calling and scheduling our DA first.

Jason Dorow 

So I think everyone could use that example of something that’s a little less threatening if one in five people are experiencing mental illness. I’m just imagine there are a lot of people in that gray zone, and can really use the words that you just shared. Val, anything else? 

Valerie Patino 

Yeah! If folks are hesitant to maybe even just say it out loud, and they’d like to check their symptoms online, I know, we all kind of jump to do that at first, are there any reputable tools or assessment tools that folks could access to, you know, plug in their symptoms and see if they may have a diagnosis? Or are there websites maybe to avoid or tools to avoid that may give a false diagnosis? 

Sarah Boyd 

Yeah, I’m kind of hesitant to say anything like that only because we do a lot of differentiating between diagnoses when we’re assessing. And this is probably more out of like my own theoretical orientation. But it’s really, really easy. If we have some like, I guess I don’t even know if the right way to say but we have some like the the more heavy diagnoses they get, they get diagnosed, in my opinion, much quicker than they should like, there’s some best practices that we should be doing with personality disorders, that sort of thing. That no, we’re not talking here, and we’re talking about that. But I just get really hesitant to say, hey, go check out this tool online or whatever, only because I don’t want as a mental health professional, I don’t want to get in the habit of having people go to those tools and like sort of using them as a self diagnosis and then running with that, and I don’t know, it gets a little hairy. What I will say is if you’re curious about symptoms, I think that a good place to start is your primary care provider. If you want to go online, like the the American Psychological Association, that’s a reputable source to just do some research there. But ideally, if you’re experiencing some of those symptoms, picking up the phone is probably your best bet. Sometimes those can also just be done over the phone, you can call and say hey, I’m experiencing this, I don’t really know, should I set up an assessment? Like what do you think I should do? Like we can triage some of those calls too. 

Jason Dorow 

Well, thank you so much for your time today, Sarah, and sharing all your expertise. And Val, thank you for being a fantastic co pilot and filling in for David on this episode. Any parting words or bits of insight that you wanted to share that you haven’t got to share yet?

Sarah Boyd 

No, maybe we’ll save those for another episode.

Jason Dorow 

We’ll probably wrangle you back in here eventually. 

Sarah Boyd 

Yeah, sounds good. Okay. 

Jason Dorow 

Thank you both. Thank you everyone for tuning in to another episode of the podcast. Make sure to follow and review us on YouTube, Apple podcasts and Spotify and we’ll see you next time. 

Valerie Patino 

All right, sounds good.