Transcription:

Scott Webb: Due to COVID-19, it seems that we are more mindful than ever about the wellbeing of our healthcare workers. Joining me today to help us understand what we can do to help heal the healers and the trauma recovery programs at Sierra Tucson, is Camille Drachman, Director of New program Development and Associate Director of the Trauma Recovery Program at Sierra Tucson. This is Let’s Talk: Mind, Body & Spirit by Sierra Tucson. Sierra Tucson- Ranked #1 Best Addiction Treatment Centers 2020 in Arizona by Newsweek. I'm Scott Webb. So Camille, thanks so much for joining me today. Could you describe what is likely happening to our healthcare workers regarding their mental health, as they respond to the COVID-19 pandemic?

Camille Drachman: What is likely happening is trauma. And we know that trauma is a wounding psychologically, spiritually, and physiologically. So we have to address all those aspects when we're talking about healing trauma, and specifically for our healthcare workers, it's happening every day to them, every person that comes in that's struggling and especially the ones that are doing very poorly or passing away, that is trauma. So these healthcare workers are having trauma, after trauma, after trauma happen, and trauma can be described like a stack of pancakes. And the more recent is toward the top of the stack. And if these healthcare heroes are, you know, sustaining daily stacks of trauma and adding to those stacks, they are really getting to a precarious place of functionality. It also very much depends on each individual's level of resilience, their level of sensitivity, and their previous trauma, but they're absolutely struggling on a daily basis with trauma.

Host: Yeah, no doubt. And that's a very interesting analogy about the stacks, can kind of visualize that. So when we're talking about the heroes who are the heroes that could need the help?

Camille Drachman: They are all the frontline workers, they might be in hospitals, they might be in clinics. They might be people standing on the side of the road, taking tests, you know, for individuals in their cars coming through. And it's anybody that is dealing frontline with this pandemic and trying to help these people get the care that they need. So yes, it's doctors and nurses, it's police, technicians, anybody in administration, social workers, all these frontline staff that have these firsthand accounts with everybody suffering from the pandemic. And then of course, they're also exposed.

Host: You know, I haven't heard this term before and I'm really interested to have you break this down for us. What exactly is vicarious trauma?

Camille Drachman: Yes, it's also referred to as compassion fatigue, and anybody that works in a helping profession is going to be subject to it. And they are going to need to make sure that they are doing lots of their own self care and staying very aware of when they're beginning to feel some burnout. And this can show up as basically how lower levels of trauma can show up, but it can be irritability. It can be anxiety. These are the more, less severe signs of it. More severe signs of course can lead to more debilitating symptoms like depression and high levels of anxiety. But the vicarious trauma is basically when an individual is working with other individuals and they're talking about their trauma, they're experiencing symptoms of their trauma and these helpers, these professionals that are in the helping field can take on or just hearing the recounting of these stories can literally add to their own stack of pancakes. It can add to their own history of trauma, which can then become more debilitating for themselves. And like I said, they've got to keep a close eye on their self care.

Host: So how does someone seek help and what are the options that are available?

Camille Drachman: You know, you bring up a really good point that, you know, the people that are currently working on the front lines of our pandemic, they're not going to have access to outside self care, and basically are going from the work environment to just sleeping and then going back to the work environment. So they're in a tough spot right now here at Sierra Tucson, we are offering a healthcare heroes program with three tiers of healing. And our first tier is the five day renew and heal program. It's basically a cohort of five to seven participants, and it is designed specifically for those frontline healthcare workers who have been dealing with this pandemic. So it allows them to come in and reconnect with themselves and reconnect with their truth and allow for them to rest and rejuvenate and bring their perspective back outside of where they've been for months.

I in this healing pandemic of chaos and allows them to just be here in this very serene environment to rest and heal. And like I said, reconnect with themselves so that they can go back and resume what they find so meaningful and important. That five day program is for people that are pretty high functioning, who do have a lot of resiliency that have really seen the major impact of the stack of pancakes, and what I mean by that is that their functioning hasn't really decreased, but they do need a break from what they've been doing. The second tier of healing is a 14 day trauma intensive, and individuals can come in for 14 days and will receive a lot of therapy and we focus at Sierra Tucson on integrative care. And so we do a lot of healing the physiology.

And so the therapies that will be making up the major portion of our 14 day trauma intensive is about healing the body. So it's healing the physiology, including the nervous system dysregulation. It's also about bodywork and other therapies that are physiologically based. So it's about helping people that really have been struggling because of their work with the pandemic and need a little more support, in order to go back to their normal level of functioning. The third tier is our signature trauma program, which is 30 or more days, depending upon of what an individual needs. And it includes all the physiologically based trauma healing modalities that we offer in our 14 day program, plus a whole lot more. We we've got many different modalities of healing because what we understand is that trauma, it's like a diamond, as well as that stack of pancakes, but it's like a diamond and regards to there's many different ways that it impacts the human being. And so there's many different modalities in order to address that impact, in order to begin supporting the healing process.

Host: Wow, you guys have really put a lot of thought into this. And I love that the three tiers based on the needs, you know, of the healthcare hero individual. Camille, as we wrap up today, lastly, how do we heal the healer?

Camille Drachman: It's important to address it from all those different facets of that diamond. We have to consider the psychological wounding and heal from that psychological perspective, we have to address the physiology and work on healing, the body. We also have to support some kind of spirituality and connection spiritually for each individual in order to help address all those different facets of how trauma can impact a person. So it is about helping to guide, educate support from a structured and supportive place in order for people to begin to learn what's happened to them and how they can move forward and improve functioning and regain their lives.

Host: Well, really amazing work. And the messaging we talked about before we got started today is, you know, let's do everything we can to heal the healers, to help the healthcare heroes. And it sounds like everybody is, you know, all hands on deck there at here at Tucson. So thanks so much for your time today, Camille and stay well. For more Information call (800) 842-4487, or go to Sierratucson.com. And if you found this podcast helpful, please share it on your social channels and check out the full podcast library for topics of interest to you. This is Let’s Talk: Mind, Body & Spirit from Sierra Tucson. I'm Scott Webb. And we'll talk again soon.