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Olivia Verhulst, a licensed mental health counselor, joined the be Well team to clear up some misconceptions surrounding therapy. 

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0607BeWellMentalHealthTherapy_2023-06-07-09-27-53

be Well: Clearing up the misconceptions surrounding therapy

Our first guest is Olivia Holst. She's a licensed medical health counselor and she's joining us now for an important conversation about mental health and therapy. So, thank you so much for joining us, I guess. Let's just start with who's therapy for? Yes, it's a great question. Well, first of all, um thank you so much for having me, Shannon and Elizabeth. It's an honor to be here. Second of all, um therapy is really for everybody. There is this idea out there um that you need a Humdinger of a reason to come to therapy or a or a diagnosis. But at the end of the day, the human condition is condition enough to seek therapy. More specifically, we have people come through our door ranging from I'm experiencing symptoms of anxiety, depression, O CD, disordered, eating, whatever it may be where these symptoms are impacting my ability to function in X areas of life all the way ranging to I'm someone who's looking to understand myself, better, get to know myself more and how I show up in my life, relationships and no reason is really more worthy than the other. But you know, there are a lot of people that are functioning and their issues that they're going through. So, how does someone know when they should go see a therapist or a counsel? Absolutely. Well, um, so concerns that you'd like to look out for with your mental health, um, outside of being simply self curious and interested in improving your life. I mean, your relationships can look like I am going through um symptoms of anxiety, symptoms of depression, low mood racing, thoughts and truth of thoughts, whatever it may be that is impacting my relationships or impacting my ability to function in certain areas of life. Now, I feel as though especially for teenagers that, you know, we talk so much now about having anxiety or feelings of anxiety or suffering from, you know, depression. Is it that they have a greater likelihood of having it now or is it just that we're having the conversation now when you know, when I was a teenager, we weren't talking about it? Right. That's a great question. Um I think when it comes to teenagers and adolescents and young adults, you know, this is something that's been going on forever. We're definitely having the conversation more. But with that said, this topic is multi faceted, given the pandemic um as well as the ordinary biological environmental social changes that teens go through. Um So it is, it's layered. Yeah, you know, the National Alliance on Mental Health says that one in five adult Americans have mental health issues. Only 40% of them get the help that they need. Why do you think so many people hesitate to get the help they need? You know, I think the stigma around mental health does still exist. I think that we have made a lot of ground in it. But I think it's conversations like this that can make such a meaningful difference to just put the messaging in parents, to put the messaging in Children that mental health is health. It's a very normal thing that we go through, we go through struggles and the more that we talk about this, I think the more that people will feel comfortable enough to say, oh, I go through that too and begin to seek out therapy services that they're deserving of. I feel like I have to raise like the social media flag and talk about the impact that social media has on, you know, and of course, we look at, I have a teenage daughter so I keep saying teens, but, you know, I worry about what she's seeing and the impact that that has on her. But then as a mom, I'm also like scrolling through Instagram. So that's probably not, you're probably, I think it all comes down to our relationship to social media, right? We have a relationship to these things. Um Is it a relationship that we're really over spending time on it? Um Or is it something that we're doing in moderation. Um And is it something that we're finding that we're on social media scrolling, feeling worse about ourselves more often than lighter and connected to people, which is fundamentally the purpose of social media. So are there recommendations or things you can suggest for adults and kids to do our parents to do when thinking about how to navigate through social media without having the negative effects of mental health? Yes, I think very similar um to any mental health related conversation. We wanna start normalizing these conversations young and getting curious with our teens and Children and young adults about what's going on in the lives, how they're feeling who they're talking to. Um just really what's going on for them. And I think social media is a part of that conversation. Um How are you using this device? Right? How is it showing up in your life? I also wonder about like the social connection because sometimes I think like social media, you are connecting but you're actually not. So you're not going out and having that real experience with actual friends because you're on this device. So what if you're finding it hard to go to see those people in real life? Oh, that's a great question. Um I mean, at the end of the day, we wanna, we wanna encourage our Children to take those emotional risks when they can. Um and teens if you're watching Ray um don't be afraid to say, hey, is this some, is this someone that I can see? Is this some, is there somewhere safe that we can meet? Um It's something where it can feel vulnerable, I think to ask and go off this platform that kind of creates the that safety barrier, so to speak. And it can also be some of the emotional risks we're taking or some of the most meaningful risks worth taking for connection. Now, if these things are gone untreated, are there certain things that they can lead to like inability to work or take care of your kids or even get out of bed? Um So when these things are left untreated, can you say that one more time? Yeah, if they're left untreated, could they lead to problems that could escalate into worst situation? Absolutely. Absolutely. And I think that's why again, I getting on these things early when we're noticing symptoms and not allowing them to escalate to a place where we're on survival mode and then we seek out therapy that can be a recipe for success. So what about if you have that feeling of, you know, whether it's burn out or feeling overwhelmed by the life that you have? What should you do? You know, I would look inward and really ask yourself, what am I prioritizing over my mental health? Um I was reading something the other day that inspired this thought process around mental health is more important than your GP I right. Mental health is more important than this. Great on a test. Mental health is more important than being exhausted all the time work. These are things that we want to start prioritizing, putting closer to the top of our priority list. So that could be a clue that, oh, it's time to re evaluate and Reprioritize a little bit where I'm fitting in mental health. Right. All great tips and advice. Thank you so much to license mental health counselor Olivia. We appreciate your time here.

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