Selected Podcast
A New Approach to Mental Health: Part 1
Unfortunately, stigmas around mental health issues and treatment keep many from seeking the help they need. Are perceptions changing?. Linda Lindsey and Christopher Tafelski with ProMedica Employee Assistance Program (EAP) discuss the stigma, as well as how and when to seek mental health services.
Featured Speakers:
Linda holds a bachelor's degree in psychology and a master's degree in agency counseling from the University of Toledo. She is licensed in Ohio as a licensed independent clinical counselor and chemical dependency counselor. She is a certified employee assistance professional. Linda has over 30 years of experience working with individuals, couples and families, with over 20 years as an internal health care EAP consultant. She has experience providing human resource training and consultation in corporate, industrial and health care settings; regarding drug and alcohol policy, family issues, supervisory skills, stress management, sexual harassment, diversity, workplace violence prevention and other topics of interest to employers and their employees. Currently, she is a manager with ProMedica Employee Assistance Program.
Christopher Tafelski, LPCC, CEAP | Linda Lindsey, LPCC-S, LICDC-CS, CEAP
Christopher is a licensed professional counselor at ProMedica Employee Assistance Program (EAP), performing clinical tasks, presentations, coaching and case management. Christopher comes with 25+ years of management experience working with staff sized 6-120 people in various business settings. He earned his Master of Science degree in mental health counseling from Capella University and is a registered member of Chi Upsilon Chi (a national program for scholastic and professional excellence). Christopher is a two-time presenter for the All Ohio Counselor Conference and a three-time co-presenter with the Employer Association wellness group at the Toledo Human Resources Area Conference. He is an active member in the NW Ohio EAPA, currently serving as the President Past. His areas of specialty include depression, anxiety, marital/relationship therapy, leadership coaching, post-traumatic stress, stress management and grief counseling. Christopher is certified in PE-PC (prolonged exposure) therapy and was trained by the Veterans Administration trainers. Lastly, Christopher enjoys spending time with family and friends, travel, and is an avid golfer.Linda holds a bachelor's degree in psychology and a master's degree in agency counseling from the University of Toledo. She is licensed in Ohio as a licensed independent clinical counselor and chemical dependency counselor. She is a certified employee assistance professional. Linda has over 30 years of experience working with individuals, couples and families, with over 20 years as an internal health care EAP consultant. She has experience providing human resource training and consultation in corporate, industrial and health care settings; regarding drug and alcohol policy, family issues, supervisory skills, stress management, sexual harassment, diversity, workplace violence prevention and other topics of interest to employers and their employees. Currently, she is a manager with ProMedica Employee Assistance Program.
Transcription:
A New Approach to Mental Health: Part 1
Scott Webb: Though there's still some stigma about folks seeking or discussing their mental health needs, . Things are changing for the better. And joining me today for Part one of our series on a new approach to mental health are Linda Lindsey and Christopher Tafelski, and both our managers with the ProMedica employee assistance
Program. Welcome to Happily Ever After 40, a podcast brought to you by ProMedica, where we discuss midlife health and wellbeing. I'm Scott Webb. So I want to thank you both for joining me. We're gonna do two parts to this, new approach to mental health. And today is part one. So Chris, I'll start with you. I wanna have you discuss the stigma around seeking help from mental health professionals. I know there is some stigma and maybe you can address that for us.
Christopher Tafelski: That's a great place to start because I think so much has changed over the last few years, and I think perhaps maybe the stigma is really changing a lot, but we can point to a few things I think that are important to talk about. One of them is, and I love the work of Jason Dorsey, so you're gonna hear a lot about kinetic or generational differences, and so forth. And I think he really kind of hit the mark of why we're seeing so many changes to stigma now. But let's just start with the fact that every generation pulls the last generation forward. And it's interesting to think about because today's children, which would be considered the gen Z kids, they think very differently than we did.
You know, when I'm a Gen Xer and the Jetsons, to me, were still futuristic. But to the kids of today, the Jetsons are past tense. It's very interesting. But as we think about that, the interesting portion, what connects a lot of these kids is like social media platforms, right? And they're able to acculturate across the globe now and really kind of taken their own thoughts and really pulled. Us older folks forward with this. And so their views are vastly different. I think it's so funny, I think of the story that Linda had, , she had an eight year old come into her office and she's like, I thought it'd just be cool to have a therapist.
And I was like, wow, that's, a change. I think of my father who is the greatest generation, and he thinks vastly different. He finally saw a therapist for the first time this year. And he actually was like, I was really nervous and I was like, why dad, I do this for a living? And he said, but it's just, it's not what you do, you just don't talk about it. But Covid changed that conversation, we were stuck, you know, isolated remotely. And here the generation, this, gen Z kids are pulling us forward to think it's okay to talk about what's going on, now culturally across the platform again, because there's so many different like, thoughts to do with, we're all in one platform.
We're talking across the globe now even that's changed. I can think of like, when I first got into counseling, there was very much a thought process of you handle cultures vastly different, how you approach mental health. And some cultures just didn't talk about it. I think of like a lot of the Asian culture and so forth, the influences there were very much, you need to keep that very quiet. It's very family oriented. We deal with the problems internally, but again, the new generation's pulling us forward.
And I think it's pretty cool to see that the boundaries have dropped, but Covid did one other thing that I think that to me is, I'll use the word fascinating, and that is it made us stop and realize when we were you alone and kind of apart from our loved ones and not able to see the people that really supported us, we had to delve deep into our own, like, what's going on with me? And I think that shifted the focus of, I think I need to talk about. I had somebody in my office who was in her seventies. She's like, I've always been a worrier. I'm like, yeah, that's anxiety. She's like, nah, it's not anxiety. I said, yeah, that's anxiety. So we started talking about what does that look like for you?
But it's definitely starting to, I feel drift and become less of an issue, but I wanna be clear, it's still an issue. We still have certain cultures, like I think about now, like our firefighters and police officers. I love their communities. I love their culture, but it's still kind of taboo to talk about some of these things. They're getting better, but they're still not as, where there should be at this.
Linda Lindsey and Christopher Tafelski: And Chris, one of the things that you just triggered, it was during Covid I heard a EAP professional talk and he was located in India, and he said in that culture you don't talk about problems or feelings or anything like that. And he said he had a owner of a company that called him up and says, I want three full-time EAP professionals located in their office building. And he said, well, I don't have three. And he says, no, no, I'll pay for them. And so he said that was just so out of the box because they did not support mental health. But during 2020, we all had a new look.
Scott Webb: Yeah, we definitely did. And first of all Chris, I love that we can reference the Jetsons. And Linda, I think you're so right, in my experience during Covid people began to be more open in discussing mental health, that it was not just our physical health, but also our mental health. So it does feel like the stigma, the perceptions are changing. And maybe you can address that a little bit. What more do we need to do to continue having these conversations and putting mental health out front?
Linda Lindsey and Christopher Tafelski: Well in Linda. Linsey's Mind. Yes, they are changing. However, statistically and what studies are showing is we have a long way yet to go. In the past few years, we have a yes. That stigma is changing for depression. However, we have a no when it comes to substance use disorders. And people still carry a lot of stigma about people that have that illness, , whether it be themselves or their family members. But for depression, just this morning I heard of a politician that went to seek mental health counseling and was hospitalized. And they said the supporters that he had for that, well 21 million people they said have depression last year alone.
Well, most of us have either ourselves experienced depression or we have someone we care about and that we love that has experienced it. So that's made some changes. But like Chris said, every generation is making progress. And one of the things we're seeing is the commercials that are out there, the athletes, the stars, the politicians coming forward and talking about their own experience has actually helped mental health to become more healthy and normalized for people.
We're also seeing social media campaigns, and that's where our young people live. And so they're hearing these issues. They're talking about this and they are saying, I want a counselor because I wanna have somebody that I can talk to.
Scott Webb: Yeah, I think you're so right and Chris, I'm wondering, how do we know either for us or a family member or a loved one, how do we know when it's time to seek help from a mental health professional?
Christopher Tafelski: When I think about that question. There's so many things that go through your head immediately, but the one problem I think that a lot of us have is we kind of live with ourselves daily and we don't always notice the signs or symptoms of us, right? But I think the first thing that comes to mind is I always look at quality of work. When I noticed my quality's gone down and I was just telling this story with Linda earlier. I remember during the height of the pandemic, Linda and I were running from office to office and kind of trying to treat people and take care of things along the place.
And I would end up at the wrong office because I was just overwhelmed and I was going through my own issues, just being overwhelmed and kind of stressed. But it wasn't until I realized, Chris, why are you showing up at the wrong office? This is not you. That quality of work that was declining there. , the other thing I think about is loss of interest of doing things for ourselves. I have a particular hobby, I will admit here on a podcast, it's birding. I like to get up in the morning and watch the birds. I think it's fascinating. And more importantly, something, if you told me five years ago I would be doing that, I'd be like, you're crazy.
Linda Lindsey and Christopher Tafelski: But when we lose interest in things like that, all of a sudden right, where we're not interested in getting up in the morning and watching the birds, or going out and doing our normal jog or our run or whatever it is that you do that gives you pleasure, you just lose at interest as a big kind of sign. The other part is difficulty managing multiple things. We think about moms and dads who do so many things that just, they work all day. They come home and they manage a house. But when all of a sudden that becomes almost an impossible task, either one or both are falling. We have to start to look and go, I normally can keep up with this.
Christopher Tafelski: What's going on? Maybe I need you to start to talk to somebody. And the last thing I think about, and I'll let Linda kind of add to this, is when you're emotionally distant, when you're normally people you reach out to and you talk to often, but it becomes a chore versus a pleasure thing. I think those are like big signs for me to watch. Am I slipping into a depression state or an adjustment state, or something along those? But I'll Linda s I know she has a bunch of other ones.
Linda Lindsey and Christopher Tafelski: Well, I think one of the things is when we start to hear messages from our family and friends that they're worried about us they have concerns, they may say, Hey, you don't seem to be like yourself. Is everything okay? And how do we usually answer? Yeah, I'm fine. But to be able to have that honest look at yourself when you're hearing those messages and recognizing what the signs of stress are, because it usually just doesn't hit you. Wham, you're stressed. It's usually baby step, baby step, baby step creeping into your life.
And I have to admit with Chris is, the one day I had to call him and laugh and go, I'm in the wrong parking garage. I'm supposed to be at the other one. And so that was one of the signs. We both knew that we were getting stressed at work. But has there been change in your eating? You know, are you eating more than normal? Are you eating and skipping meals? Are you having trouble sleeping at night? Or maybe it's the opposite, that you want to sleep too much , maybe you're having some thinking errors that you're forgetting things.
Maybe your body's starting to show some symptoms of stress, and you're saying I'm getting a lot of headaches. I have a lot of digestive things that are going on, maybe it's on the head side of things that you're seeing that you're snapping at people that normally you don't snap at. Maybe you're crying over something that you normally wouldn't cry over, or just finding yourself very moody and just not happy. But really looking at our social relationships, are they declining? Are we starting to cancel plans? These are all warning signs that we may need to seek.
Scott Webb: Yeah, it's really interesting. And of course, at the height of Covid I found myself just sort of wandering around the house and ending up in the kitchen and snacking a lot and thankfully that's subsided both for my waistline and otherwise. But good to hear from both of you today and in part one, you know about how we can sort of check in on ourselves, check in with others, know when it might be time to seek mental health professionals because we maybe just can't tackle these things ourselves. And in part two we're gonna talk about actually choosing those providers and how do we know who's right for us and so on. So I look forward to that. I'll talk to you soon. Thanks so much.
Linda Lindsey and Christopher Tafelski: Thank you.
Scott Webb: And for more information, please visit promedica.org. And if you found this podcast helpful, please do shirt on your social media. Thanks again for listening. I'm Scott Webb, and until next time, stay Happily Ever After 40.
A New Approach to Mental Health: Part 1
Scott Webb: Though there's still some stigma about folks seeking or discussing their mental health needs, . Things are changing for the better. And joining me today for Part one of our series on a new approach to mental health are Linda Lindsey and Christopher Tafelski, and both our managers with the ProMedica employee assistance
Program. Welcome to Happily Ever After 40, a podcast brought to you by ProMedica, where we discuss midlife health and wellbeing. I'm Scott Webb. So I want to thank you both for joining me. We're gonna do two parts to this, new approach to mental health. And today is part one. So Chris, I'll start with you. I wanna have you discuss the stigma around seeking help from mental health professionals. I know there is some stigma and maybe you can address that for us.
Christopher Tafelski: That's a great place to start because I think so much has changed over the last few years, and I think perhaps maybe the stigma is really changing a lot, but we can point to a few things I think that are important to talk about. One of them is, and I love the work of Jason Dorsey, so you're gonna hear a lot about kinetic or generational differences, and so forth. And I think he really kind of hit the mark of why we're seeing so many changes to stigma now. But let's just start with the fact that every generation pulls the last generation forward. And it's interesting to think about because today's children, which would be considered the gen Z kids, they think very differently than we did.
You know, when I'm a Gen Xer and the Jetsons, to me, were still futuristic. But to the kids of today, the Jetsons are past tense. It's very interesting. But as we think about that, the interesting portion, what connects a lot of these kids is like social media platforms, right? And they're able to acculturate across the globe now and really kind of taken their own thoughts and really pulled. Us older folks forward with this. And so their views are vastly different. I think it's so funny, I think of the story that Linda had, , she had an eight year old come into her office and she's like, I thought it'd just be cool to have a therapist.
And I was like, wow, that's, a change. I think of my father who is the greatest generation, and he thinks vastly different. He finally saw a therapist for the first time this year. And he actually was like, I was really nervous and I was like, why dad, I do this for a living? And he said, but it's just, it's not what you do, you just don't talk about it. But Covid changed that conversation, we were stuck, you know, isolated remotely. And here the generation, this, gen Z kids are pulling us forward to think it's okay to talk about what's going on, now culturally across the platform again, because there's so many different like, thoughts to do with, we're all in one platform.
We're talking across the globe now even that's changed. I can think of like, when I first got into counseling, there was very much a thought process of you handle cultures vastly different, how you approach mental health. And some cultures just didn't talk about it. I think of like a lot of the Asian culture and so forth, the influences there were very much, you need to keep that very quiet. It's very family oriented. We deal with the problems internally, but again, the new generation's pulling us forward.
And I think it's pretty cool to see that the boundaries have dropped, but Covid did one other thing that I think that to me is, I'll use the word fascinating, and that is it made us stop and realize when we were you alone and kind of apart from our loved ones and not able to see the people that really supported us, we had to delve deep into our own, like, what's going on with me? And I think that shifted the focus of, I think I need to talk about. I had somebody in my office who was in her seventies. She's like, I've always been a worrier. I'm like, yeah, that's anxiety. She's like, nah, it's not anxiety. I said, yeah, that's anxiety. So we started talking about what does that look like for you?
But it's definitely starting to, I feel drift and become less of an issue, but I wanna be clear, it's still an issue. We still have certain cultures, like I think about now, like our firefighters and police officers. I love their communities. I love their culture, but it's still kind of taboo to talk about some of these things. They're getting better, but they're still not as, where there should be at this.
Linda Lindsey and Christopher Tafelski: And Chris, one of the things that you just triggered, it was during Covid I heard a EAP professional talk and he was located in India, and he said in that culture you don't talk about problems or feelings or anything like that. And he said he had a owner of a company that called him up and says, I want three full-time EAP professionals located in their office building. And he said, well, I don't have three. And he says, no, no, I'll pay for them. And so he said that was just so out of the box because they did not support mental health. But during 2020, we all had a new look.
Scott Webb: Yeah, we definitely did. And first of all Chris, I love that we can reference the Jetsons. And Linda, I think you're so right, in my experience during Covid people began to be more open in discussing mental health, that it was not just our physical health, but also our mental health. So it does feel like the stigma, the perceptions are changing. And maybe you can address that a little bit. What more do we need to do to continue having these conversations and putting mental health out front?
Linda Lindsey and Christopher Tafelski: Well in Linda. Linsey's Mind. Yes, they are changing. However, statistically and what studies are showing is we have a long way yet to go. In the past few years, we have a yes. That stigma is changing for depression. However, we have a no when it comes to substance use disorders. And people still carry a lot of stigma about people that have that illness, , whether it be themselves or their family members. But for depression, just this morning I heard of a politician that went to seek mental health counseling and was hospitalized. And they said the supporters that he had for that, well 21 million people they said have depression last year alone.
Well, most of us have either ourselves experienced depression or we have someone we care about and that we love that has experienced it. So that's made some changes. But like Chris said, every generation is making progress. And one of the things we're seeing is the commercials that are out there, the athletes, the stars, the politicians coming forward and talking about their own experience has actually helped mental health to become more healthy and normalized for people.
We're also seeing social media campaigns, and that's where our young people live. And so they're hearing these issues. They're talking about this and they are saying, I want a counselor because I wanna have somebody that I can talk to.
Scott Webb: Yeah, I think you're so right and Chris, I'm wondering, how do we know either for us or a family member or a loved one, how do we know when it's time to seek help from a mental health professional?
Christopher Tafelski: When I think about that question. There's so many things that go through your head immediately, but the one problem I think that a lot of us have is we kind of live with ourselves daily and we don't always notice the signs or symptoms of us, right? But I think the first thing that comes to mind is I always look at quality of work. When I noticed my quality's gone down and I was just telling this story with Linda earlier. I remember during the height of the pandemic, Linda and I were running from office to office and kind of trying to treat people and take care of things along the place.
And I would end up at the wrong office because I was just overwhelmed and I was going through my own issues, just being overwhelmed and kind of stressed. But it wasn't until I realized, Chris, why are you showing up at the wrong office? This is not you. That quality of work that was declining there. , the other thing I think about is loss of interest of doing things for ourselves. I have a particular hobby, I will admit here on a podcast, it's birding. I like to get up in the morning and watch the birds. I think it's fascinating. And more importantly, something, if you told me five years ago I would be doing that, I'd be like, you're crazy.
Linda Lindsey and Christopher Tafelski: But when we lose interest in things like that, all of a sudden right, where we're not interested in getting up in the morning and watching the birds, or going out and doing our normal jog or our run or whatever it is that you do that gives you pleasure, you just lose at interest as a big kind of sign. The other part is difficulty managing multiple things. We think about moms and dads who do so many things that just, they work all day. They come home and they manage a house. But when all of a sudden that becomes almost an impossible task, either one or both are falling. We have to start to look and go, I normally can keep up with this.
Christopher Tafelski: What's going on? Maybe I need you to start to talk to somebody. And the last thing I think about, and I'll let Linda kind of add to this, is when you're emotionally distant, when you're normally people you reach out to and you talk to often, but it becomes a chore versus a pleasure thing. I think those are like big signs for me to watch. Am I slipping into a depression state or an adjustment state, or something along those? But I'll Linda s I know she has a bunch of other ones.
Linda Lindsey and Christopher Tafelski: Well, I think one of the things is when we start to hear messages from our family and friends that they're worried about us they have concerns, they may say, Hey, you don't seem to be like yourself. Is everything okay? And how do we usually answer? Yeah, I'm fine. But to be able to have that honest look at yourself when you're hearing those messages and recognizing what the signs of stress are, because it usually just doesn't hit you. Wham, you're stressed. It's usually baby step, baby step, baby step creeping into your life.
And I have to admit with Chris is, the one day I had to call him and laugh and go, I'm in the wrong parking garage. I'm supposed to be at the other one. And so that was one of the signs. We both knew that we were getting stressed at work. But has there been change in your eating? You know, are you eating more than normal? Are you eating and skipping meals? Are you having trouble sleeping at night? Or maybe it's the opposite, that you want to sleep too much , maybe you're having some thinking errors that you're forgetting things.
Maybe your body's starting to show some symptoms of stress, and you're saying I'm getting a lot of headaches. I have a lot of digestive things that are going on, maybe it's on the head side of things that you're seeing that you're snapping at people that normally you don't snap at. Maybe you're crying over something that you normally wouldn't cry over, or just finding yourself very moody and just not happy. But really looking at our social relationships, are they declining? Are we starting to cancel plans? These are all warning signs that we may need to seek.
Scott Webb: Yeah, it's really interesting. And of course, at the height of Covid I found myself just sort of wandering around the house and ending up in the kitchen and snacking a lot and thankfully that's subsided both for my waistline and otherwise. But good to hear from both of you today and in part one, you know about how we can sort of check in on ourselves, check in with others, know when it might be time to seek mental health professionals because we maybe just can't tackle these things ourselves. And in part two we're gonna talk about actually choosing those providers and how do we know who's right for us and so on. So I look forward to that. I'll talk to you soon. Thanks so much.
Linda Lindsey and Christopher Tafelski: Thank you.
Scott Webb: And for more information, please visit promedica.org. And if you found this podcast helpful, please do shirt on your social media. Thanks again for listening. I'm Scott Webb, and until next time, stay Happily Ever After 40.