Disability and Progress-April 17,2025-Children's Mental Health

[00:00:00] Speaker A: KPI.org it's. [00:00:59] Speaker B: This is KFAI 90.3 FM, Minneapolis. And kfai.org this is disability on Progress, where we bring you insights into ideas about and discussions on disability topics. My name is Sam. I'm the host of this show. Charlene Dahl is my research PR person. Hello, Charlene. I'll take it that you're saying hello. [00:01:19] Speaker A: Good morning, everybody. [00:01:22] Speaker B: Today we are speaking with executive director of Minnesota association for Children's Mental Health, Brandon Jones. And he will be talking about MACMH and the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Conference that's coming up. Hello, Brandon. [00:01:42] Speaker A: Hello. Hello. How are you? [00:01:44] Speaker B: Good, thank you. And thank you so much for agreeing to be on. I want to start out by asking you, who is MacMh? [00:01:56] Speaker A: Yes. Yes. So that is the acronym for my organization. It's Minnesota association for Children's Mental Health. That acronym is pronounced MacMah. We go by MacMah for short. I know when you look at the acronym it doesn't pronounce the same way that it reads. But, you know, that's what I inherited. So I keep rolling with that. We are an organization that we are actually a children's mental health education organization, which means that we don't provide any clinical services, but what we do provide is, is resources and support to parents, caregivers and young people. And then we also provide professional development opportunities for any professional who works with young children or just children in general that may have mental or emotional health concerns. [00:02:46] Speaker B: What is your background and what led you to get involved with macma? [00:02:53] Speaker A: Yeah, great question, great question. So my background is I've been in the social servicemental health field since 2008. 9. I actually started off as a case manager, just kind of doing more direct service work. And then in 2013 I went in. Or 2012, sorry, I went into. I became an actual mental health therapist. And I practiced many different spaces and places within the Twin Cities, from school based work, school linked work to private practice, to working for the health department of Minneapolis. So I've kind of done my rounds as a clinician throughout the Twin Cities. And then ultimately, to be honest with you, what happened was I got burnt out. I was a young therapist. I didn't know a lot. I didn't have the best network at the time. But what I did have was I did have kind of a alternative pathway to go, which was doing consulting and speaking. Because in 2013 I was awarded a Bush Foundation Leadership Fellowship. So that helped me get a lot of leadership training, a lot of exposure to some of my perspectives and approaches towards community healing. So that did open up opportunities for me to do other things. So even though I was burnt out being a clinician, I still was able to keep my focus and my energy in the mental health field. I just did a different way. And ultimately that led me to going into management, where I started off my management career at North Point Health and Wellness Center. And then once I left there at the kind of the beginning of the pandemic, I ended up going to another organization. Yeah, for. For about six months. And then Magma found me. They reached out, the board reached out and said, hey, you know, we're looking for executive director now. We know that you. I've had some. I had some ties with the organization. I spoke for them a couple times, and they said, but your name keeps coming up before, you know, the executive director position. Would you be interested in interviewing? And I took the interview, you know, really just to learn who was on the board and just kind of get some more exposure interviewing for, you know, executive position. And ultimately I got the job, and it's been a match made in heaven ever since. [00:04:59] Speaker B: Excellent. [00:05:00] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:05:01] Speaker B: How common is clinician burnout? [00:05:05] Speaker A: Very common, actually. We're. We're having an issue with it, I think right now in the entire field, where we're seeing a lot of clinicians, especially since the pandemic, either reducing how much therapy they do or completely leaving the field and doing other things, other interests. It's. It's very taxing. I don't. I don't think that people realize the emotional kind of tax that there is on clinicians. When you're. You hold a lot of people's secrets, you listen to a lot of pain. Sometimes you feel like you can't help people, you know, fix or solve the issues that are in their life. And that sits with you. And then you have to go home and deal with all the other things in your life. Your family, your own issues that you may have, pets, neighbors, all this good stuff, life politics, you know, it can be very emotionally taxing. And I think that a lot of therapists find ways to decompartmentalize their work versus their actual lives. And that can. That can be challenging for people as well, because they know, you know, they're doing their best, you know, from their profession, but at the same time, they're trying to hold their own life together and live their own life. So it can be. It can be. It can be challenging. Definitely. [00:06:16] Speaker B: Yes. That. That term, compound, compartmentalize, I feel like, is a. A big thing. What kind of things And I. I presume that the pandemic helped promote. Well, not promote is the wrong word, but caused a lot of burnout because so many people were online and, yeah, so much was so more. You know, you didn't have to necessarily come into the therapist's office anymore. You could just get on. And I presume that a lot of people were even needed more. [00:06:55] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:06:57] Speaker B: What are. How are. What are some of the ways to prevent burnout? [00:07:02] Speaker A: Yeah, preventing burnout looks different for different people. But what I usually talk about is some areas of life that you should focus on. And again, this may look different for you, but these are the areas to really zone in on. The first area I would is in your environment. Pay attention to the settings that you are in. And then you all. I think everyone should have kind of a comfort space. And what I mean by that, this is a space where you go to recharge your battery. This space usually has access to the things you need. For myself, one of the things that helps me recharge is I'm an auditory healer, which means that when I can listen to things, it kind of soothes me. So I like. So I have a nice pair of headphones in my comfort area. [00:07:44] Speaker B: Music. [00:07:45] Speaker A: Yeah, music. Sometimes music's a little too much stimulation, so I'll listen to, like, a podcast or some stream where conversations happening. Or sometimes I just listen to just like, you know, kind of like. I think they're called ams. Am. Amrs. Sounds where, like, you might hear people like raindrops or people might be, like, tapping on things like sometimes that kind of confidence. [00:08:05] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:08:06] Speaker A: So those are things that, you know, help me, but for someone else, it might be, you know, jogging or it might be yoga, or it might be meditation or prayer. Like, it's different things for different. But I think that we all need to find a space and a spot to help us with that. So that's one area. I would say health is a big one, too. Physical health, you know, getting adequate sleep, making sure you have an adequate diet for yourself, getting, you know, at least 30 minutes of physical activity a day. That could be walking, jump, roping, running, lifting weights, whatever. You know, getting. Just making sure that your body is engaged and active is another way to help prevent burnout. And then there's a few more ways, I would say, your relationships, paying attention to your relationships. Do you feel like you have support from people? Are your relationships relatively healthy? Do you have healthy boundaries for yourself? These are all things to focus on, you know, to. To prevent burnout. And then the Last two things I would say is paying attention to kind of what you're giving to others and what you're keeping for yourself. A lot of folks give way. We overexert ourselves, especially folks in the helping profession. We give a lot of ourselves to other people and we don't oftentimes we don't ask for a lot. And sometimes you do have to advocate for yourself and get some of that compassion and support back. But a lot of people struggle with that. And I'll be honest with you, we're in Minnesota. I think some of our Minnesota nice culture prevents us from advocating for ourselves as well because we don't want to. We don't want to be a bothersome. Right. We don't want to impose on other people. It's a part of our dynamic sometimes. Sometimes that can be detrimental to who we are and how we are because we really want that compassion, but we don't want to ask for it because we don't want to unsettle someone else. So sometimes paying attention to our culture definitely plays a role in our well being as well. So those are just some of the areas, like I said, that looks different for different people. But if I could categorize it, I would say look in those kind of spaces and places for some of your well being habits. [00:10:08] Speaker B: Well, I'm glad we touched a little bit on, you know, the people who help do the healing because I feel like that's a necessary thing and they are part of it. I want to just dive in. You had to know this was coming. But I want to dive into a slight amount of political thing just a little bit because I feel like the term DEI comes up all the time now. Diversity, equity and inclusion. And I want to remind people there's an A there that a lot of people don't talk about and it's accessibility. And I'm not sure why that's not included, but a lot of people don't think about that. But it really is there and people just don't say it. But I want to talk about that. I feel like I'm hearing more and more of that being stripped from schools, academia, curriculum type things, jobs. How do you feel or is it affecting mental health? [00:11:16] Speaker A: Oh, absolutely. I can speak from my peers, the executive directors of nonprofits, the folks who are leading social service programs and departments. There's a huge panic happening right now. It's like, what are we going to do? Do we have to change position titles? Do we have to change the direction of our programs? Does this mean that we have to stop serving particular communities. There's a lot of curiosity and anxiety right now and it's unfortunate, but it is a reality for a lot of people and it's causing issues. I believe that. I think that we have kind of reached a point in society where we can't ignore how much enmeshment we have amongst just different people, whether we're talking to ethnicity, accessibility, status, religions. Like we're meshed here. So I don't think that DI is going to go away in practice. It might go away in terminology and kind of in how we frame things, but it's hard to say we're just going to ignore certain types of people. We've set up a society where it's hard to do that. I do think that there will be some harm in this process for some people, but I don't think that this is the end in how we practice on being inclusive towards one another. You know, one of the things that, one of the ways that I'm trying, I'm coping with what's happening is I'm taking more of a wait and see approach. I think this is going to force us to be more creative and innovative on how we help one another and it's going to definitely going to change how we do it. But my hope is that the change is going to be for the betterment of all of us and not the detriment. But it's going to take some growing pains for us to get to that place and space. We're here, the administration that has come in has made the decisions and we have to respond in a way that we can help one another as best as possible given the circumstances. [00:13:04] Speaker B: I had just a mind flash of something that occurred to me while we're talking here and I'm wondering if you can tell me if you think this is correct. I feel like when somebody is diagnosed or whatever with some kind of problem, then once they've been diagnosed it, they're allowed X, Y or Z. And I'm wondering if one of the workarounds with some of this stuff of stripping away of things is that it becomes more of, as the one of the letter stands for, inclusiveness, things where it's just automatically available to anyone and if you need it, you use it. If you don't, you don't. [00:13:47] Speaker A: Right. So that's my hope. [00:13:50] Speaker B: So I, I, but then, I mean, I'm sure there's, there's things with that too, like cost effectiveness and things like that. But I think it's interesting to see how it's going to change and how what we're going to do to find the workaround so that there's this careful balance of if you don't use the wrong word, you won't get penalized. [00:14:15] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. And again, like I said, this time is going to force us to be a lot more innovative and creative. And honestly, I truly hope that this helps us work better in partnership and find ways to be more collaborative in how we support one another. I know it's scary and it's tough and it is affecting people, but my hope is that this brings us together to fight the good fight so that everybody has access, everybody has support, and we can kind of move together as a society. [00:14:52] Speaker B: What age does MACMA work with? [00:14:56] Speaker A: Yeah, great question. Our focus is from conception to 24 years old. We try to cover the lifespan of youth development. Now, we work with all folks because everyone has a role in the development of a child. But our aim is to have initiatives, programs and services that really aim towards helping from when a baby is pretty much born or conceived all the way up to about 24 years old. And the reason why we've expanded our age range to 24 years old is because of the brain science that's out there. We know that a human being's brain is not, you know, fully developed to about 25, 26. So we just have expanded that support level and that focus level to that age. [00:15:42] Speaker B: Ah, excellent. All right, well, we need to take short station break. We're tuned to KFAI 90.3 FM, Minneapolis and KFAI.org I want to remind people that you are probably listening to this on a pledge week and KFAI appreciates what you can give and when you can give it. And this helps support our programming, keeps us on the air. We appreciate any and all [email protected] is an effective place to go that you can make those safe donations and not worry. This is KFAI 90.3 FM, Minneapolis, and KFAI.org, we're speaking with executive director of Minnesota association for children's mental health. Macma, we're speaking with Brandon Jones and he's talking about MacMah and the state of things to come. How common is it for children to have mental health issues? I always feel like, like people have mental health. I don't know what the statistic is, but I would think at least one time of everyone's life they have some kind of mental health challenge. And it may not be super serious. It may be a small bit, but I am just curious if there's any statistics out there. [00:17:13] Speaker A: Yeah, there's a lot of stats. It depends on how you break it down. Right. It depends on where you live, what your ethnicity is, age, et cetera. What I will say is that children with mental health issues is becoming more and more common every day, and we're increasing. Earlier, I made a differentiation between mental health and emotional health, and I think that's important. I think everyone's going to go through an experience where they have an emotional health concern or issue, which means that our emotions, our thoughts, our feelings, sometimes even our bodies are responding to various different things that are happening in our lives, whether it's adversity, just common struggles, frustration, etc. That we're going to have emotional health issues. Everyone's not going to have a mental health concern. A lot more people are having them, but everyone won't. It becomes a mental health concern when it gets to the point when you're meeting the criteria for mental health diagnosis. And again, everyone's not going to have that experience. Some people will have that experience and never go to a therapist or a psychiatrist or social worker or anything. They'll never get diagnosed. And then others, they'll. It'll be caught. So what we do know is that a lot more people are, quote, unquote, struggling with their mental health. But that doesn't mean it's the end of the road for them. But what it does mean is that they need to start focusing on how to better their situation, whether that means getting professional assistance or changing some life habits or patterns, things of that nature. But right now, as the United States Surgeon General has declared, we are in a crisis state when it comes to children's mental health because we just haven't seen numbers as high as what we are today. Such things as high levels of adversity, high levels of depressive symptoms and depression disorders. And then also we're seeing an uptick in suicidality, where folks are feeling like, you know, young people are feeling like their lives are, you know, worth ending at this point in time. So there's a. There's a lot taking place in, in our society right now. Some of this I also think we're seeing an uptick is because, well, our society has changed, but also I think the awareness has inflated significantly over the last 10 to 15 years. People know what's going on a lot more and there's a lot more clarity and conversation about it, which means that people are a little bit more intrigued to figure out what's going on. With me, which will raise, you know, diagnosis as they go get checked out or go get evaluated. [00:19:50] Speaker B: Yeah, I feel like there's a, there's always a. When you, when you start doing something like this or, or explode, so to speak, there's always this sense of, okay, how much needs to be. I, I won't use the absolute correct terms, but talked about. Right. And there's always to me, some kind of over done things. Sometimes it's like adhd. You know, there was, I do believe it's very common, more common than people think. Do I think it's been misused? Yeah, I do. Just like a lot of things have and I think at some point you just address the situation and figure out what to do rather than, I don't know that my. I, I get impatient. I think, okay, let's, let's not elaborate it to death. Let's figure out what to do and do it, you know. So I think it's interesting, I feel like. Are there specific things that you feel have made mental health more in the spotlight besides that people are talking about it more? Are there other things that has prompted things to be more unbalanced? More that people are talking? Why are they talking more about it? [00:21:20] Speaker A: Yeah, I think the why they're talking more about it is because there's just more information. You know, through, through the Internet, we have more access to understanding mental health than ever. Like you can go on any social media app and run into something around mental health. You can, I mean, you know, the old kind of joke within the industry was, you know, don't WebMD your symptoms. But you can do that. You can literally log in on to, you know, go Google, you know, what are the criteria for adhd? Or you can take an assessment like, you know, do I, am I bipolar? Answer these seven questions like this stuff's out there. So now people have more access and then with more access comes more things to learn about or things to understand it. So like we have more media that is covering mental health. You have shows Euphoria, which covers, you know, addiction and mental health. That was a very popular show. We have all different, you know, books, movies that cover it. There's all these things that cover mental health. So it's not, you know, back in the 1970s where we just got things about people in, you know, mental, mental asylums or psych wards. Yeah, it's way beyond that now. It's like, you know, your favorite influencer might talk about, you know, their depression diagnosis or being on, you know, psychotropic medications. Like, this is a very common thing. So that's. That's why. I think it's the why. I also think that there's another element here as well, is we have softened the experience of humans. Let me say it a different way. We've softened the experience of Americans. I'll say it that way. We have very convenient lives. We don't deal with adversity like we used to. And since we don't deal with adversity or struggles like we used to, what. What has happened is people have found that when the adversity and things do show up in their life, that it's tough to overcome. You know, there was a time where we. As this. Let's talk about children and children's development. There was a time where you can go play and get roughed up and shake it off and go back home. You could play a sport and lose. And losing was a part of learning. [00:23:30] Speaker B: Right. I still think it is. [00:23:33] Speaker A: I do, too. But now we have a society where no one loses. Everyone gets participation ribbons, and it's all fun and games. And then your kid doesn't learn how to deal with the disappointment of. [00:23:44] Speaker B: Because that's not how life works. [00:23:46] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. And I'm a father. Not how life works. I'm a father. And. And I've had to teach my children that because they're. They're in the society. Right. They go to school, they'll have track and field day, and everybody gets a ribbon. Well, when I did track and field day, I was one of the slowest kids. I didn't get a ribbon. Okay. I learned that I'm sl than most of the other kids in my class, and that's okay. I'm gonna just try to beat my best time. My kids have no concept for that kind of thing. But in my home, that's where we teach our children that losing is okay. So we'll have family game night. And guess what? We're playing Connect 4. And somebody. [00:24:21] Speaker B: Somebody's gonna lose. [00:24:22] Speaker A: Someone's gonna lose. [00:24:23] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:24:24] Speaker A: We play. You know, we play war with the cards. Someone's gonna lose, you know, And I always joke with my kids, like, taking an L is a lesson and a blessing. It's not a. You know, you're not. An L is just a short. It's like term for a loss. Like, you can take a loss and it's going to be okay. It builds character. And I think that we've. We've kind of. We've tried to make our children's lives so cushy. That we don't have a lot of character building experiences for them anymore. So when they are faced with adversity, people start to lose. It's like, this is not how my life's supposed to be. Like, you. You can't talk to me this way. Or you can't be in a. [00:25:00] Speaker B: And there's that sense of entitlement. You know, I always think that people are so entitled. Now it's like, whatever, you may not get that job. Guess what? There are people who are better than you. [00:25:12] Speaker A: Yeah. And that's okay. And that's okay. [00:25:16] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:25:16] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:25:17] Speaker B: And it happens all the time in everything. Everything in, you know, being a cashier and being a radio person, everything. There's always someone better, and it's okay. And you be the best that you can be. And. And you're also going to be different than other people. There's going to be different things that set you apart, that make you better or as good or better in a different way. I just feel like people get so caught up. And I think that's a great point that you point out, because I feel like it is very true right now. And why do you think we do that? [00:25:54] Speaker A: We do it because we've seen a lot of harm done and we. And we got overprotective. Right. You know, I think about, like. Like things like. And this is going to sound bad because I think this is an amazing thing, but this is what kind of kicked off this protective layer, that of parenting and just society building around kids. But things like Amber Alerts, right? Like, yes, those are scary things. We don't want those things to happen. We want to put measures in place. But that set off a whole chain reaction of keeping your kids safe. Watch your neighbors, you know, don't let your kids play themselves. And like, we've just created, like, a fear, like a. A level of fear and just like, trauma around protecting our kids that think we went overboard a little bit. And we haven't allowed our kids to really experience, like, things on their own independence because we're. We're fearful. We're scared of that. And I. And I get it. I'm a parent, too. I'm a part of this. Right. But I have to keep reminding myself it's okay to say, all right, go outside and play by yourself. I don't have to watch you. You're in the backyard. You're safe, you're good. Like, I don't have to be there. But my kids, they expect me to be there because daddy needs to watch me play. Daddy, yes, I may play with my kids, but then I'll retreat and let them just kind of figure out things. When I was a young kid, I used to run, run around the neighborhood, ride my bike all around the place, go to the corner store. Now parents are terrified to let their kid go two blocks down the street. Like, it's. We're just in a different time frame. And I think it really kicked off with some of the really nasty and negative things that happen in society and us saying we have to protect, protect our kids. We can't trust our neighbors. We can't trust people. I think there's been a detriment overall. And I'm not saying that things, bad things don't happen, they do. And we do need to have protective measures. But I do think that we just went a little bit too far. And we haven't allowed our kids to learn how to advocate for themselves, learn how to protect themselves, learn how to engage with each other without interference from adults in this cushion of always falling. And whenever they fall, we have a nice safety net for them. [00:28:04] Speaker B: And it feels like, too, that bad things have always happened. Right. It's not that all of a sudden, for the exception of. I will say there's an exception. The exception of the whole Internet thing, Right. Because we never had that until the last 20 years or whatever, where I think that that's taken a whole new height and thing. If I were people. People think that their kids are safe sitting in their room because they know where they are and they're on their computer. I would. I think that they're less safe there than playing in the backyard. Because if you don't know who they're talking to or you haven't, you know, kind of honed in on any of their friends online, any of them, that's a problem. I think that that is another unknown that you don't know, and not everyone thinks the way you do, you know. So, anyway, thank you for that. I want to talk a little bit about the conference that's coming up, I believe, at the end of this month. Can you give us a little bit of knowledge on that? [00:29:12] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. So April 27th through April 29th, my organization will be up in Duluth for our 29th annual children's and Adolescents Mental Health Conference. It's something we do every year in Duluth. We're going to continue our relationship with them for the next few years, where we offer over 66 workshops, at least three keynote panels or speaking experiences, and for folks who are in the profession and various different Professions. We offer continuing education credits as well. This conference usually gets over 1600 participants every year. So it's a big, you know, influx on the city of Duluth, which we're happy to have a partnership with and bring some economics to that city, at least for those three days. So it's a, you know, it's a way of us saying, hey, we're Minnesotans, and we want to make sure that we support our cities as best as possible. But we have a lot of folks coming to this experience. You know, it is a conference, but it's definitely an experience. It's kind of like our little mental health version of the state fair. Great. Mental health Minnesota. Get together where we learn, we engage, and we, you know, we support each other in this work. You know, like I said earlier, this work is emotionally taxing, and this is one of those times where we can kind of get together and learn from one another and also build relationships and networks as best as possible. So that's a little bit about the conference. We have amazing lineup of speakers. You know, we. We. We have a. It starts on a Sunday, which a lot of people like. Why would you start on Sunday? Well, for some professionals, they can. They can't get that Monday and Tuesday off. So we offer that Sunday as an opportunity to come up. Usually we have our supervision series on that Sunday and our legislative update on that Sunday. Then Monday and Tuesday, we have two great keynote speakers on Monday. And then Tuesday, I'm going to round it out for us with my keynote speech to end the conference. And I'm not one of those guys who speaks at his own conference every year. My team really pulled my leg and kind of forced me to be the keynote speaker. They said, we need you to do it. We need you to do it. I'm always selling them no. But this year, I finally said yes to close out the conference for my team. [00:31:33] Speaker B: Can you give us a brief overview of what you plan on talking about? And I realize that they kind of prompted you into this, but why'd you say yes? [00:31:45] Speaker A: Yeah, well, they asked me because one of the things that I've been speaking about for the last couple of years, because I do do some public speaking and trainings, is this thing called post traumatic growth. And it kind of dovetails into what we just got done talking about is one thing that took place during the pandemic was we had this huge response to our emotional health. And a lot of people said, I need to talk to a therapist. Professionals, non professionals. People are saying, we need to talk to therapists and we've seen this huge influx of people wanting to talk to therapists, where we had this massive issue around wait list and people saying, hey, I can't get in to talk to anyone for four months, five months, weeks. And what I realized was there's something taking place here. The pandemic has forced people to really look at who they are internally and say, hey, I need to deal with this and I need help. And from that, I think we experienced two things during the pandemic. I think one, some of us experienced trauma. It may not been for the first time, but that was a traumatic experience for some people. [00:32:55] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. [00:32:56] Speaker A: And then the second thing that I think most of us experienced and we, most of us probably don't realize, we experienced, we went through a level of grief during the pandemic. We lost a lot during that time. Now, a lot of times when we think about grief, we associate it with death, but grief is not just about death. It's about significant loss. And if you think about what were some of the things that people lost during the pandemic, we lost our routine, we lost some connections, we lost our ability to choose. Some of us did lose people. That definitely did happen. And we lost a lot of options and opportunities as well. We lost a lot during that time. We were forced through a global illness to not have our norm. And we've had to re normalize ourselves since then. And, and some people have not been able to recover from that. Even now. People are. I mean, there's a lot of people. We're still dealing with the ripple effects of the pandemic. But that made me think, okay, what about the folks who were struggling before that and are struggling during this? And that's when I started to really push forth with this idea of post traumatic growth. Now, I'd known about this concept before because I used to do what's called adverse childhood experience work ACEs, which talks about, you know, if a young person goes through a traumatic experience as a child, it will give. It will have impacts on their mental health, sometimes their social status and social, you know, social self and their physical health can all be impacted by child trauma. So for me, you know, as I was a trainer in that space, people would often ask, well, Brandon, yeah, we know about this trauma stuff. We got it. But what happens now that we know, and that's my answer for that, is post traumatic growth. And what ultimately, what post traumatic growth is understanding how you can continue to live your life. You can be resilient, you can find peace or salvation. However, you want to term it, you can move forward. Even though you've gone through a traumatic experience, there's still growth at the, you know, at the end of this thing, you don't have to be labeled by your trauma. You don't have to be labeled by the negative consequences that have happened in your life. If you're still here and you're still moving forward, you know, that's. That's a huge pat on the back right there. And that's a signal that you can keep moving forward. So ultimately, what I'm going to do is I'm going to focus on this concept of post traumatic growth and just talk about different pathways of being resilient, being empowered, and having a purposeful life, even in spite of some of the negative things that have happened. So. So that's my goal. You know, I think that we all have the ability to be resilient. I think some folks just haven't figured out how that can look in their life or they haven't given themselves permission to do so. [00:35:45] Speaker B: It's almost like that song you hear that what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. Absolutely. And granted, people are gonna say, wait a minute. And I think there's a difference between recognizing or saying, oh, poor me, I've been through this. And we all. I feel like many of us have had some significant trauma that has happened at some point in our lives, some more than others. But then there's the difference with. What do you do with that? Do you. Do you ruminate on it, sit with it, let it collapse you, or do you look at it and say, okay, what can I do with it? How does this change me? And can I use any part of it to make me better, to make me understand more why I do what I do or how I am and what can I do? Can you talk a little bit? Is it the same as. What's the same? What's the difference between like having that post traumatic growth or if a term uses bouncing back? Is there a difference with that? [00:36:56] Speaker A: Yeah, great question. Question. Bouncing back is more of your ability to withstand what has happened. Like an event. Like you bounce back from that event. Like you might got in a car accident, you've been able to bounce back and recover from that, or you might have lost your job, or you might have gone through a bad breakup, you're able to bounce back from that event. Post traumatic growth is more of what actions are you taking? It's more the practical. What actions are you taking to get. To keep moving forward, not to get to a space. It's about the journey. It's not necessarily about the destination. How do you keep going down that road? How do you keep forging that path for yourself? How do you keep moving along this journey called life as best as possible and being more proactive and prepared for the challenges that may come? And also, you're not stuck looking in the past of the things that have happened to you. You. So, yes, there's an element of bouncing back in post traumatic growth. There might not be too much of a quote unquote difference there, but post traumatic growth is really helping you figure out what pathways you need to take to move forward. You know, it includes figuring out healthy relationships, making consecutive constructive choices, you know, figuring out what your personal strengths are, and then also includes your own personal development. What do you need for yourself? Only you can answer that question. Question. But, you know, are you really being who you truly want to be? And if not, what are the things that you need to get there? You know, what are you investing in yourself? A lot of people don't slow themselves down to think of these types of questions because we live lives like the. I don't know if you remember the old video game Sonic the Hedgehog. I think some of your audience. Yeah, they may. Yeah, they may. But think. If you think about Sonic the Hedgehog, a lot of people live their life like that video game game. They start their week at the beginning of the stage. They try to blitz through the week as fast as possible. You know, it's like the hedgehog. You grab gold rings. We can say those are like moments of joy. Sometimes you have a partner with you, sometimes you don't. That's Knuckles in the game. And then there's a bunch of creatures. You know, these are your haters or your, the, the, the, the roadblocks in life. The potholes that try to slow you down. Sometimes there's shortcuts, sometimes there isn't. But the goal is to get to the end of the stage, which is the end of your week. A lot of people live their lives like Sonic the Hedgehog. What I'm saying is we don't have to have a Sonic the Hedgehog life. We can probably slow it down a little bit and figure out what's a better pathway for me to get from point A to point B without feeling like I'm rushing through things, I'm missing life and I'm doing things that don't bring me joy. And I think that during the pandemic, a lot of people decided, hey, I have to figure out what my purposes are in life and what makes me happy because the way that I'm living right now isn't it. And that's what post traumatic growth is about, is really helping people figure out what that those it's are in their lives. [00:39:57] Speaker B: You're tuned to KFAI 90.3 FM, Minneapolis and KFEI.org if this is playing on a pledge week, you will want to show us the love and go to kfai.org we do our best to bring you things that you want to know about, don't know about, or should be educated about. And, and your pledge helps us do exactly that. Everyone here is a volunteer. There's a very few select people who actually get paid. All our guests are volunteering their time. Your pledge helps that. KFAI.org is where you can go to help support us. We're speaking with Executive Director Brandon Jones. Brandon is the Executive Director of macmah, Minnesota association for Children's Mental Health. Brandon, I want to know if there is some misconceptions. Can you talk about what some common misconceptions are about trauma and healing? [00:41:06] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. Great question. I don't get to talk about this often, so thank you for asking that question. Yeah, I think one of the biggest misconceptions of trauma is that it's going to ruin your life. And we've done a really good job in my industry of saying that the trauma that has taken place in your life is the reason why you're struggling. And that may be true. [00:41:30] Speaker B: It's a blame game. [00:41:31] Speaker A: But the blame game, you're blaming the victim. Right. And the victim blames themselves a lot, especially children. Children are very quick to blame themselves for things that they don't understand or they feel like are wrong. It's like, well, what did I do? It's very egocentric, which is just because that's how their brains are developed. But, but when trauma shows up, we've said, you know, something happened to you and that's why X is going on in your life. Which I think is partially true. I think the other part of that experience is how you respond to the trauma. And sometimes we don't have the resources or the support or the knowledge to really know how to respond. We just do what feels natural in the moment and keep rolling with that. And I think that what I've learned about trauma is that it doesn't have to captivate you. You used a great term before our break. You said your trauma doesn't have to collapse you. And I Would love to borrow that. That's exactly. That's exactly what I mean. Here is. A lot of people are collapsed by their experiences, or they'll use that experience as a label and they'll say, I am someone who is this, right? I'm a victim of this. No, you had an experience where you have victimized. Doesn't mean that's who you are. [00:42:50] Speaker B: Right. [00:42:51] Speaker A: Doesn't mean that's your destiny. It means that it was an experience. Now, it wasn't great, shouldn't have happened, but it shouldn't be the thing that you identify with as you. You're still human. You're still a being in this world. You still have probably bigger purpose than what has taken place. You know, even myself, you know, I grew up in a domestic violence household. I don't go around and say that I'm a domestic violence survivor or anything of that nature, even though that definitely has had an impact on me. Most of my childhood memories are domestic violence memories. That things have happened in my home. Now I've been able to do a lot of therapy and a lot of personal development work where I can talk about that and realize that was an experience that Brandon had as a. That was experience that I. You know, those things took place in my life and they probably have led to my career and the way that I parent and the way that I even, you know, carry myself in relationships and in my marriage and everything. Yes, but I'm still Brandon. I'm still dad. I'm still executive director to the folks that I represent. You know, I'm still someone in the community that attempts to help. I don't let that stop me or to quote, unquote, collapse me in what I do. I find greater purpose beyond that traumatic experience. I think one of the biggest misconceptions is a lot of people's trauma becomes their purpose. And that's a scary space to be in because they found that that experience has been so significant that it's the thing that carries them. And what I'm saying is it doesn't have to carry you. It definitely is something that you've gone through, but it's not the end of your story. [00:44:26] Speaker B: There's two things I want to make sure we get to before the end of our time. So I will give them to you and you can gauge. So I want to talk about what role storytelling plays in healing and trauma. And also, is there. Is there anything that is. Is there such a thing as too much counseling or over counseled? [00:44:50] Speaker A: Amazing, amazing question. Oh, you're Gonna get me in trouble with that question. [00:44:54] Speaker B: Oh, I. Bring it. Bring it on. [00:44:57] Speaker A: So let's answer the first part, because I want to get in trouble at the end. So. So what role does story playing have in, you know, in healing? [00:45:08] Speaker B: Huge. [00:45:09] Speaker A: When you're able to identify with someone else's narrative, it means that you're not alone. And I think that a lot of people find comfort in that. It also gives you hope that, okay, if this person can overcome it, can I. It gives you that question of what else can be? And I think that that's so important when we're talking about healing is like, can I truly move beyond what I've gone through? And a lot of people feel so alone when they've been hurt that it gives a level of comfort that I'm not the only one. And I think that just those two elements can give somebody enough perspective to do something different for themselves. Doesn't mean you need to be like that other person. You need to idolize them. No, it just means that I'm not the only one who's gone through this experience, and I can overcome and persevere, and maybe I can even find a level of support in this person. And I think that's why books and movies and magazines and all these things are important. Even autobiographies, you know, if you think about most autobiographies, they talk about overcome and triumph because we all seek that. We seek that. That, you know, that hope, that glimmerance of something better. The grass is greener on the other side. And when you're able to hear that through someone else's narrative, it gives you a little bit more, you know, charging your battery to do something. So I think that's amazing. Now, let's get in trouble with your question. Is there too much therapy? Is there too much therapy? My short answer to that question is yes. Now, I know I'm not supposed to say that because I'm in this profession, but I honestly believe that we have. And this goes back to what we talked about earlier. Actually, now that I'm thinking about it, about how we've created the cushion in our society, lady, I think that we've gotten so good at showing up for other people that we haven't allowed people to show up for themselves. [00:47:03] Speaker B: Right. [00:47:03] Speaker A: And what I mean by that is, honestly, I think that if anyone goes into counseling, unless they are, you know, in a crisis situation, if it's not crisis, we should. We should stop the therapeutic situation after about three to four months. So what I'm saying Is after about, if you're going to therapy weekly at about session 14 or session 16, there should be a pause and that person should take at least two to three months of non therapy and apply the things that they learned over the last few weeks with their therapist. And then if they feel like what the application of what they learned isn't working, come back and it should be some time where you learn how to implement the skills, the tools, the affirmations, all the fancy bells and whistles of therapy that we offer in your own life. Because what I think we've created, I think we've created dynamics where clients, quote, unquote, people who come to therapy start to get enabled in their behavior and they start, their therapist almost becomes like part of that cushion. It's like, well, I'm going through, like you can just say I'm going through something with my spouse, but I know on Thursday I have my appointment with my therapist and that's where I'm going to talk about it. When you probably shouldn't wait, let's say it's Sunday night, You probably shouldn't wait till Thursday to deal with with it. You probably should be doing things between Sunday night and Thursday to work through your relationship. But a lot of people say, you know what, the place for me to deal with my stuff is with my therapist. So that's when I'm going to deal with it. That is a, that is not healthy. Because all the things between Sunday night and Thursday, you know, all the stuff that happens can make your situation more complicated if you're not applying those skills, tools, affirmations, all those things that you learn in therapy as you go. And I think we, we've become so supportive for folks that folks don't always know how to advocate for themselves or to quote, unquote, put their own healing in their hands and they're waiting for therapists to fix them or to figure things out. And I think that that's a bad sentiment. So I do think that there should be some separation time between when you're in session or working with your therapist and not now. Let me put a disclaimer here because this is where I get in trouble, because people think that I'm saying, what are you saying? We don't need therapists? No, I'm saying that people, if you're not in a crisis situation, you have to start applying the things you learn in therapy for yourself as you go forward. Otherwise you're leaning on your therapist as a crutch too much. And at some point that Relationship has to end. Right? It is a transactional relationship. [00:49:41] Speaker B: There's supposed to be. [00:49:42] Speaker A: It's supposed to, it's supposed to be, yes. Like I know someone, I have a friend and I talked to her about this periodically. She's been with her therapist for almost 10 years. And what I told her is that is abusive. You need to stop doing that. That is too long. [00:49:57] Speaker B: It's like being with a spouse. [00:49:59] Speaker A: Yeah, but even then there's growth with your spouse. Right? Like the two of you are growing together. Yeah, well, yeah, one would hope they're supposed to be, but what a therapist, like, they're supposed to give you something for you to, you know, continue to move forward. And I'm like, at this in the way that my friend talks about her, her therapist, they, they're almost like best friends. And I'm like, this doesn't, this doesn't sound right. Like there needs to be a disconnection between this relationship because it sounds like you're just having, you know, tea time with your girlfriend every week. And that's not. That is that really helping you? And, and I had to. And she talks to me about this because she knows what I do for profession. And I'm like, I don't know if you're really getting help. I think you're just having like girl time with it. Like just become her friend at this point. [00:50:39] Speaker B: And, and I feel like it's like the therapy therapist looks at it like, this is my, this is my assured income. [00:50:48] Speaker A: It could be. Yeah. Now for some, I'm not gonna say that's all therapists, but for some therapists, yes, you do have to keep your numbers going for, you know, to get your payments. But there's so much help that's needed in this world. I don't think that that should even be a concern. You can find clients. It's not hard. Like, there's wait lists all over the place. You can find clients. We have to. And we have to encourage people to put the healing in their own hands and to say, hey, you can do things too. I'm here to help, but I'm not the end of your activity. You can do things. And that's why I'm starting to talk about post traumatic growth and other forms of just like, how do we kind of get. Take a public health approach towards mental health and encourage folks to take better care of themselves in general? How do we do that? How do we lean on our community assets to help with our well being? Because just leaning on a therapist is not going to get the job done. Because at the rate that we're going, we're not going to have enough therapists to support the amount of help that we need. And also therapists need help. We're not perfect. We need support too. So I don't want to create a wicked problem here. I don't want this thing to get out of control. I'm saying let's take a more logical approach towards well being and let's understand that therapists are important, but so are you in your healing process. [00:52:03] Speaker B: I also wonder if it doesn't if we would inspire, you know, take some accountability. You need to do stuff for you. No one. [00:52:14] Speaker A: Absolutely. [00:52:15] Speaker B: You also need to understand and learn how to give yourself advice. You know, it's great to lean on somebody sometimes and everyone needs that. But there is also a, you know, what do you need to do if that person isn't there? You need to be able to take care of you. Can you give us quick recap again on the conference, the dates, how someone can get involved, does it cost things like that? Where can they go to find out more? [00:52:45] Speaker A: Absolutely. You can go to www.macmh.org that's macmh.org to find all the information. The conference does cost. You know, we, we've already ended our early bird special. So if you want to attend the conference, it does have a cost. If you want to go full three days, it's $435. And then there's other prices below that. That's the highest amount. Now a lot of folks attend our conference. They'll get support. We don't have scholarship offerings anymore. That time frame has passed. Usually we do. So if this is not your year, next year, maybe your year, you can definitely apply for a scholarship or you can volunteer for free and you can attend our conference for free. But volunteering, our volunteering experiences are amazing. We know that you're there to experience the conference. So we're not going to overload you and you're going to get to have some fun while you volunteer and engage. Those are two ways to attend our conference for free. Again, the conference is April 27th through the 29th. It's in Duluth, Minnesota. This is our 29th year. [00:53:49] Speaker B: Yeah, I was gonna say I was gonna just quickly touch on we are global show. So we do air everywhere and we podcast after this. And I'm wondering is there any concept or thought about somehow making this this a global thing so like people could attend online for a fee or something? [00:54:12] Speaker A: We're exploring those options for Some of the future conferences we do offer online trainings and parent pop ups and things like that. Just check us out at our website again. Macmh.org yes, we are a Minnesota association, but we are here for any and everyone who's looking for resources or support. We have that there for you. So yeah, there is some conversations that we're having. Do we have maybe like an additional portion to our conference where it is more, where it is virtual where more people outside of state can attend still get some of the same information from what we did inside. But one thing that we've learned is that exclusiveness together. Those three days are pretty magical. So if you can, if you are considering something in person, you would love to come to Minnesota. We'll love to have you keep an eye out. Go ahead and sign up for our newsletter. We always send out resources and information there every month. Good stuff that you can utilize and share within your communities as well. So just, you know, get in contact with us and we'll love to be there for you, support you and provide whatever you need. [00:55:15] Speaker B: Brandon, thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate it. I know you need to jump off but I hope to have you back again and I've had a lot of fun and I know learn a lot. Thank you. [00:55:27] Speaker A: Absolutely. It's always a pleasure. Whenever you want me back, just let me know. [00:55:30] Speaker B: Thank you. Thank you. [00:55:31] Speaker A: All right, take care. [00:55:33] Speaker B: You're tuned to KFAI 90.3 FM Minneapolis and KFAI.org showing us that you care is pledging and actually it's volunteering as well. We do the same thing and we hope you will consider doing that by giving to KFAI.org it helps us do everything for from our equipment to keeping everything running smoothly. KFAI.org is where you should go. Right, Charlene? [00:56:08] Speaker A: Absolutely. Don't forget about us. [00:56:12] Speaker B: Well, this has been a good show. I hope you guys have enjoyed it. I have learned a lot and I really enjoy doing these type of interviews. So I do want to let people know that if you have an interest in sharing or have an idea of something that should be on Disability and Progress, please tell us. We're very open to ideas, topics and discussions and ideas of who should be on. So you can email me at disabilityandprogressamjasmon.com that's disability and [email protected] thank you for joining Disability in Progress. The views expressed on the show are not necessarily those of KPI or its Board of directors. My name is Sam. I'm the host of this show. Charlene Dahl is my research PR person. Aaron is my podcaster KPI.org.