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A World Where No One Suffers with Michael Gershenzon · The Trauma Therapist

0:00
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Trauma Theriver's podcast. My name is guiming
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Speaker 1: Person and I interview incredible people who share the story
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Speaker 1: of how trauma has shaped their lives. And a big
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Speaker 1: thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to my guest
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Speaker 1: and our sponsors. So five four, three, two and one,
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Speaker 1: Our folks, welcome back to the podcast. Very excited to
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Speaker 1: happen with my guest today, Michael Grishnzen. Michael, welcome, come,
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Speaker 1: thank you for having me all right man. So Michael
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Speaker 1: is the CEO and co founder of the Stellar Center,
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Speaker 1: whose mission is to advance the understanding, destigmatization, and treatment
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Speaker 1: of post traumatic stress and other emotional trauma. Grounded in science,
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Speaker 1: rooted in compassion, and relentlessly committed to a world where
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Speaker 1: no person needlessly stuffers, Stellar Center is disrupting the mental
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Speaker 1: and emotional health industry by advancing breakthrough modalities that dramatically
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Speaker 1: reduced symptoms PTSD and other emotional trauma related symptoms. Oh, Michael, obviously,
1:05
Speaker 1: just a little bit about you. But before you go
1:07
Speaker 1: and share with our listeners, where you're from originally and
1:10
Speaker 1: where you are currently.
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Speaker 2: That's a complicated question. Originally, I was born in Moscow,
1:14
Speaker 2: rough moved to date.
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Speaker 3: I have that common migration path of Dayton and I'm
1:21
Speaker 3: sure you've read it, but I'd say I'm more of
1:24
Speaker 3: an Ohio and at heart, so we'll call it a Dayton.
1:27
Speaker 1: Home and currently Chicago, Chicago, sir, okay, So let's get
1:35
Speaker 1: into it here. How did all this start? For you?
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Speaker 3: Very great question. I guess have no business being in
1:45
Speaker 3: this business. I'll start with that, so I guess by trade.
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Speaker 3: Over the last fifteen years of my career have been
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Speaker 3: in finance, investment, banking, private equity. And the day after
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Speaker 3: Thanksgiving in twenty nineteen, UH kind of had it had
2:02
Speaker 3: a personal event. Someone, someone that I knew, died by
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Speaker 3: suicide and it was my first I guess for a
2:08
Speaker 3: into into.
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Speaker 2: Mental health from from personal lens.
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Speaker 3: And let's say that that tripped a litany of events.
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Speaker 3: So actually, at that person's funeral, I met doctor Whipoff,
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Speaker 3: that is our chief medical officer and co founder, who
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Speaker 3: was progressing innovation in in PTSD interventional psychiatry, and.
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Speaker 2: Three three weeks later we we.
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Speaker 3: Aligned on on the mission to bring UH at least
2:40
Speaker 3: at the time stell it gangling block for PTSD two
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Speaker 3: as many let's call it uh access points in the
2:46
Speaker 3: country as possible.
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Speaker 2: So started the business three.
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Speaker 3: Weeks before COVID descended upon the world, and very very
2:54
Speaker 3: quickly had to had to figure out how how we'd continue.
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Speaker 3: But would say for the first couple of years we
3:03
Speaker 3: partnered with a lot of mission oriented practitioners to let's say,
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Speaker 3: kind of execute the care delivery. And then over the
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Speaker 3: last couple of years we've actually been building out our
3:13
Speaker 3: own our own centers and offering a much broader array
3:18
Speaker 3: of treatments countrywide.
3:21
Speaker 1: All right, so let's go back a little bit here.
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Speaker 1: So this friend relative person close to you commits suicide.
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Speaker 1: You said that kind of tipped the litany or cause
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Speaker 1: a litany of what events take Take me a little
3:40
Speaker 1: more specifically into what was going on for you.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, no, of course I have lived a pretty charmed
3:47
Speaker 3: life myself, so.
3:51
Speaker 2: That was that was pretty shocking, I guess. So confusion
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Speaker 2: was the first thing.
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Speaker 3: Actually I had been speaking with this person about this
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Speaker 3: this concept, and in a note QF behind you wished
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Speaker 3: me and us a look in in progressing this. So
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Speaker 3: I would say, I don't know, you tell me as
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Speaker 3: as the clindician in the room. Shock awe confusion, not
4:23
Speaker 3: knowing what to do necessarily, and I would say, h once,
4:30
Speaker 3: once that wore off, I mean again, I'm kind of
4:34
Speaker 3: fortunate to be in an ecosystem, having at the time
4:37
Speaker 3: been working at a private equity firm that is now
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Speaker 3: our kind of core investor, with a ton of incredibly
4:43
Speaker 3: supportive people. That turned into action, I would say, and again.
4:50
Speaker 1: Well, that's kind of what I want to get at here.
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Speaker 1: So how does that turn into action for you? I mean,
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Speaker 1: obviously this impacted you, a tragic event like this, but
5:00
Speaker 1: how does that How did that for you turn into action?
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Speaker 1: For me?
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Speaker 2: That turned into action? I wished that.
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Speaker 3: I wish there was some very articulately well thought out plan.
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Speaker 3: It was just kind of like, I don't know, we
5:15
Speaker 3: got to do something, or like, well.
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Speaker 1: That that's it. You're like, w TF, what the hell
5:22
Speaker 1: is going on here? Yeah? Did you feel like you
5:25
Speaker 1: didn't know what to do or there weren't like why
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Speaker 1: didn't why was it? My friend identified how come she
5:33
Speaker 1: couldn't get any help with what was What was it? Specifically?
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Speaker 1: Why did you take action? I guess that was my question. Why?
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Speaker 3: Well, first, again, I have no no background and mental health.
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Speaker 3: It was it was it was the why I mean,
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Speaker 3: you just said it it was, Well, that's very confusing.
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Speaker 3: I mean you read about all the horrific stats, but
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Speaker 3: you don't really ingest stats the way you do a story.
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Speaker 2: Or a personal outcome. So it was a lot of confusion.
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Speaker 3: So this individual was outwardly gregarious and very likable and successful, and.
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Speaker 2: And you're doing the whole what did we miss thing?
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Speaker 2: If that makes any sense.
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Speaker 1: So yeah, it makes perfect sense. So let me just
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Speaker 1: stub you. So this obviously was a friend of yours
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Speaker 1: or very close friend.
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Speaker 2: Of yours, fairly close friend.
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Speaker 1: Okay, okay, and just no idea type thing or.
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Speaker 2: Uh, just no idea type thing.
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Speaker 3: So so again he had gotten to know doctor Whipoff
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Speaker 3: and was actually irony and all of this was.
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Speaker 2: He was furthering this.
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Speaker 3: Concept with doctor Whipoff to bring these treatments out into
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Speaker 3: the world. And we can all credit I would say,
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Speaker 3: this person with with with the founding here, So that
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Speaker 3: compounded the confusion, I would I would say, in so
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Speaker 3: far as it was a mission oriented person that outwardly
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Speaker 3: you couldn't see any issues, that was furthering helping others,
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Speaker 3: and it was a passion project of his.
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Speaker 2: All all the more, all the more confusion.
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Speaker 3: So I would say that turned into what he's like,
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Speaker 3: you asked action, and so far as I was just
7:39
Speaker 3: more or less picking up the baton of of what
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Speaker 3: it started with doctor Whipoff in bringing these treatments out
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Speaker 3: out into the world.
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Speaker 1: So you start talking to doctor whip Off and what
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Speaker 1: were you initially saying? What we? What we? Was your
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Speaker 1: what was your idea?
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Speaker 3: Yeah, so the idea was a pretty point solution insofar
8:04
Speaker 3: as antesiologists and pain practitioners do a very common procedure
8:08
Speaker 3: called the stellic ganglion block for pain and other what's
8:12
Speaker 3: called somatic indications. Well, twenty years ago he found out
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Speaker 3: and progressed the science along with others that well and behold,
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Speaker 3: there are physiological benefits to that as well, namely PTSD
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Speaker 3: symptom reduction, anxiety symptom reduction for reasons I will never understand,
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Speaker 3: but calming the fight or flight, calming the amygdala, and
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Speaker 3: well and behold, a common procedure executed probably thousands of
8:39
Speaker 3: times a day, can be delivered in a psych for
8:45
Speaker 3: psychiatric indications.
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Speaker 2: So from that same point, it's a.
8:48
Speaker 3: Very simple idea, which is hey, we've got this incredibly
8:53
Speaker 3: useful it's called tool or modality, which coincidentally that same
8:58
Speaker 3: week had put out a randomized clinical trial around the
9:04
Speaker 3: efficacy of this modality.
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Speaker 2: So there was just this odd.
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Speaker 3: Coincidental confluence of events where got this modality. It works
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Speaker 3: a lot better than anything for a chronic condition. PTSD
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Speaker 3: is incredibly difficult to treat, and I don't want to
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Speaker 3: say all we have to do, but all we have
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Speaker 3: to do is train practitioners where to put the needle,
9:26
Speaker 3: identify the patients, and handle the mental health care kind
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Speaker 3: of before and after this pointed procedure, and a lot
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Speaker 3: of people can get help. So I would say that
9:39
Speaker 3: was the idea. That's what we executed for the better
9:41
Speaker 3: part of two years in a bit of a different
9:44
Speaker 3: way than we thought we would. And so far as
9:46
Speaker 3: we thought we'd build centers of excellence, people would travel
9:50
Speaker 3: to us. Again, being born during COVID, all of a sudden,
9:53
Speaker 3: that's not so much an option.
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Speaker 2: So we went the inverse.
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Speaker 3: We brought the service delivery to as many backyards by
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Speaker 3: partnering with practitioners and training them on.
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Speaker 2: Doctor Whipoff's protocol.
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Speaker 3: So we try to bring access out to people instead
10:13
Speaker 3: of having people come to us, and that was what's
10:16
Speaker 3: called V one of of our of our care model.
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Speaker 1: So this modality, uh, and correct me if I'm wrong here?
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Speaker 1: Is it dual sympathetic reset DSR Y s R. Yeah.
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Speaker 3: So stella Gangway block is a single injection and it's
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Speaker 3: a commonly known kind of pain. So actually anesthesia version
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Speaker 3: of our enhanced protocol dual sympathetic reset, which is two
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Speaker 3: injections at various kind of vertebra rae level with C
10:46
Speaker 3: four and C six in in the neck.
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Speaker 1: And does someone come in, how does the treatment regimen go?
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Speaker 1: How does does someone come in for once or twice?
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Speaker 1: How long does this stay?
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Speaker 2: Perfect question?
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Speaker 3: So I'd say, first and foremost and maybe most importantly
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Speaker 3: a great biopsychosocial assessment on the front end to properly
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Speaker 3: diagnose the symptoms. So there's we start every care journey
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Speaker 3: with at least a one hour one hour assessment with
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Speaker 3: a psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner. Assuming there is an
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Speaker 3: indication of PTSD or anxiety, which is typically just indicated
11:32
Speaker 3: for then they would get scheduled for treatment. Now on
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Speaker 3: treatment date. The typical protocol is on the right side
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Speaker 3: of the neck. You would have two injections that day
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Speaker 3: at the C four and the C six level, and
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Speaker 3: many people within ten to fifteen minutes, by the way,
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Speaker 3: myself included, feel a kind of physiological alleviation of anxiety symptoms,
12:00
Speaker 3: almost kind of like this calm.
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Speaker 2: Washes over you. Run's experience obviously is different.
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Speaker 3: Some people are non responders about twenty percent, and that's
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Speaker 3: day one done on the right side of the neck.
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Speaker 3: For those that are non responders or don't have some
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Speaker 3: profound response, oftentimes the same procedure on a separate day
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Speaker 3: on the web side of the neck is incredibly beneficial
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Speaker 3: and can lead to either enhanced outcomes from day one
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Speaker 3: or if you're a non responder on day one, the
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Speaker 3: second procedure day on the web side of the neck
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Speaker 3: can can kind of have those breakthrough outcomes, and typically
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Speaker 3: that will be if it's going to if someone is
12:40
Speaker 3: going to feel better, it's within those.
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Speaker 2: Two procedure days.
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Speaker 3: Now, the maintenance regiment, I would say it's pretty hyper
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Speaker 3: dynamic with a person's lifestyle, the type of stress or
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Speaker 3: lack they're up, they're going to, how well they may
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Speaker 3: be maintaining their games with therapy and other modalities. We're
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Speaker 3: the first to say this is not not a cure.
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Speaker 3: It's just a meaningful kind of alleviation of symptoms, and
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Speaker 3: it creates kind of a what's called a breakthrough window
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Speaker 3: to maintain the gains.
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Speaker 2: So we'll typically see people one time.
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Speaker 3: I would say there are certain maybe populations first responders,
13:27
Speaker 3: active military that may be going back into stressful environments
13:32
Speaker 3: that we're retreating every six, six months, twelve months. But
13:36
Speaker 3: in short, it's a pretty short lived protocol and then
13:40
Speaker 3: thereafter it's what's called as needed.
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Speaker 1: When you start. So how long have has STELLA been
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Speaker 1: up and running.
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Speaker 2: We've been open running about five years.
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Speaker 1: Five years. Okay, what's been your journey personally, I'm curious
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Speaker 1: as as you've taken this on.
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Speaker 3: Wow, that's a it's a deep question. I would say
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Speaker 3: our journey has been My journey has been an evolving one.
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Speaker 2: So I think we and.
14:12
Speaker 3: I came into the industry maybe a little naively, frankly,
14:22
Speaker 3: thinking that kind of a cash pay modality can reach
14:25
Speaker 3: more people than it ended up, or that we can reach.
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Speaker 3: At the end of the day, our number one, two
14:31
Speaker 3: and three goal has always been access and and we
14:36
Speaker 3: thought still think but.
14:40
Speaker 2: Since the outcomes are so great.
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Speaker 3: Certainly soon enough this will be covered, and certainly soon
14:47
Speaker 3: enough patients aren't.
14:48
Speaker 2: Paying fully out of pocket.
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Speaker 3: And I guess maybe, unfortunately that's moved slower than than
14:55
Speaker 3: we thought. Though we are making progress putting out research,
14:58
Speaker 3: doing randomized clinical trials.
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Speaker 2: We have one with NYU kind of as we speak.
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Speaker 2: So I would say, in order to.
15:08
Speaker 3: Alleviate the patient and expand access, alleviate the need for payment,
15:14
Speaker 3: we brought in more modalities that are insurance reimbursable and
15:18
Speaker 3: in their own right very effective. So Bravado, which is
15:22
Speaker 3: a ketamine derivative as ketemine is reimbursed by insurance and
15:27
Speaker 3: provides incredible relief to people struggling with major depressive disorder
15:31
Speaker 3: and treamers as the depression TMS also insurance reimbursed and
15:37
Speaker 3: and has incredible outcomes. So maybe the benefit and I'd say,
15:43
Speaker 3: maybe we've we timed it luckily, or we entered entered,
15:47
Speaker 3: entered this space. And so far as there's a lot
15:49
Speaker 3: of really great innovation in some ways not done by
15:52
Speaker 3: us in interventional psychiatry, and so far as these additional
15:57
Speaker 3: modalities are coming to market, and I think our job
16:01
Speaker 3: is to be in some ways or in a lot
16:03
Speaker 3: of ways, modality agnostic, just whatever.
16:05
Speaker 2: The best I'll call them tools available are.
16:10
Speaker 3: It's our job to create the ecosystem for our providers
16:14
Speaker 3: to be able to deliver these to the.
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Speaker 2: Right patient set. And by the way, we're learning, because
16:19
Speaker 2: we're pretty.
16:20
Speaker 3: Dogmatic about tracking outcomes, it's usually not a clean PTSD
16:27
Speaker 3: diagnosis where you just have one SGB or TSR. There's
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Speaker 3: usually comorbid depression, comorbid anxiety, and multiple modalities paired together
16:37
Speaker 3: are usually leading to the best outcomes. So, in short,
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Speaker 3: I would say my journey, our journey and the challenges,
16:43
Speaker 3: but the opportunity have been going from a point solution
16:47
Speaker 3: to a point indication DSR for PTSD to now we
16:52
Speaker 3: have general psychiatry, med management, and therapy and those four
16:56
Speaker 3: interventional modalities and bringing that into the clinic, bringing that
17:02
Speaker 3: to patients responsibly.
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Speaker 2: Has been incredibly.
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Speaker 3: Challenging, incredibly rewarding, and frankly will probably be a decade
17:11
Speaker 3: more of.
17:13
Speaker 2: An opportunity.
17:16
Speaker 1: What has been the challenge of getting it out there? Yeah,
17:25
Speaker 1: you said, you said, you got into this kind of
17:27
Speaker 1: naively hoping a cash paid system would kind of make
17:33
Speaker 1: everything equitable for people and be able to reach more people.
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Speaker 1: Why has it been so challenging?
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Speaker 2: How long do you got?
17:41
Speaker 3: But maybe the number one, two and three things that
17:43
Speaker 3: we've learned and have had to develop a core competency
17:48
Speaker 3: end as maybe boring as it sounds, but just the
17:53
Speaker 3: infrastructure to effectively build insurance and working those pay relationships.
18:01
Speaker 2: There's prior authoration.
18:04
Speaker 3: I'd say, hurdles maybe for good reason, that are put
18:08
Speaker 3: in place, and being able to seamlessly communicate with the
18:13
Speaker 3: payer who at the end of the day in some
18:14
Speaker 3: ways as your customer at least is cutting the check
18:17
Speaker 3: while engaging the patient. Right, we want to be patient centric.
18:22
Speaker 3: These admin processes can take a lot of time. Patients
18:26
Speaker 3: don't have time. They deserve to be tomorrow. So I
18:29
Speaker 3: would say it again as back office see and transparently.
18:34
Speaker 3: I kind of didn't think this.
18:36
Speaker 2: Would need to be one of the core and central
18:39
Speaker 2: roles of our company.
18:41
Speaker 3: But it's being able to seamlessly get prior authorization on
18:45
Speaker 3: the front end, treat a patient and get paid on
18:48
Speaker 3: the back end, and doing that at scale. We're still
18:51
Speaker 3: working on it. We're a lot better today than than
18:54
Speaker 3: certainly we were a couple of years ago.
18:55
Speaker 2: But I would say.
18:57
Speaker 3: That has been that is the challenge to ask to
19:00
Speaker 3: access and frankly, that is the opportunity to getting a
19:03
Speaker 3: lot of people treated.
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Speaker 1: So someone like yourself, who you talked about in the beginning,
19:11
Speaker 1: you know, your background has certainly not been in the
19:15
Speaker 1: space and the mental health space and trauma or PTSD,
19:19
Speaker 1: but it's been in investment banking. What how how do
19:28
Speaker 1: you how are you dealing with this? Because to me,
19:31
Speaker 1: this topic is however, I mean you got a friend
19:36
Speaker 1: who committed suicide. I mean it's it's it's it's very intense.
19:40
Speaker 1: However way you want to slice it, How have you
19:45
Speaker 1: been dealing with this topic as you've been going on
19:50
Speaker 1: in this business.
19:51
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a great question. I would say.
19:57
Speaker 3: My job is to be I'll almost say middleman in
20:01
Speaker 3: some ways between to your earlier point, I can't add
20:05
Speaker 3: value on the clinical side.
20:06
Speaker 2: I'm not a condition. I don't deserve an opinion.
20:10
Speaker 3: I am a uniquely qualified to connect capital and investors
20:17
Speaker 3: that are mission oriented to an industry that is still
20:21
Speaker 3: figuring itself out in a lot of ways, and there
20:24
Speaker 3: isn't a beautiful crisp business model. So connecting the ability
20:30
Speaker 3: to grow and scale and reach more people. Is I
20:34
Speaker 3: would say, how how I view my role in our
20:37
Speaker 3: role frankly again as middleman has maybe a derogatory connotation
20:44
Speaker 3: to it, but we're Our job is to deliver and
20:49
Speaker 3: be modality agnostic, deliver outcomes to patients. We don't deliver
20:54
Speaker 3: a shot in the neck.
20:55
Speaker 2: We deliver right.
20:58
Speaker 3: We don't deliver spravado or i ket. I mean we
21:00
Speaker 3: deliver someone feeling better. So being able to work within
21:05
Speaker 3: the confines of a business muhuddle deal with the insurance
21:08
Speaker 3: landscape as the industry is very much figuring itself out.
21:13
Speaker 3: I mean, psychiatry and psychology have been medications and therapy
21:17
Speaker 3: for the better part of I don't know, fifty one
21:20
Speaker 3: hundred years, and only in the last five to ten
21:23
Speaker 3: our novel, I would say, innovations coming to market, So
21:29
Speaker 3: being able to connect the capital with the ability to scale,
21:35
Speaker 3: with the business model and maybe most importantly the right clinicians.
21:40
Speaker 2: That's our job.
21:41
Speaker 3: That's my job, and every day brings a challenge from
21:45
Speaker 3: that standpoint.
21:45
Speaker 2: But I think really at Stellin, I'm sure at other.
21:52
Speaker 3: Companies doing something similar, it's frankly, the mission that keeps
21:55
Speaker 3: you coming back. We've got so many patient stories, so
21:58
Speaker 3: many data points. It's not about I don't know what's
22:04
Speaker 3: squeaking out another nickel of profit.
22:06
Speaker 2: It's about treating one more person.
22:09
Speaker 1: Let me just remind everyone I'm speaking with Michael Grshenzen
22:13
Speaker 1: of still at Mental Health. You mentioned some studies that
22:19
Speaker 1: have been done and that are going on. I'd love
22:21
Speaker 1: to be able to include a link to one of
22:24
Speaker 1: those in the show notes page. Can you tell me
22:27
Speaker 1: about one of those?
22:29
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely so.
22:31
Speaker 3: The one that we're pushing forward is a randomized clinical
22:34
Speaker 3: trial with NYU, and they are one of the foremost
22:39
Speaker 3: leaders in PTSD research. So that study is a double
22:43
Speaker 3: blinded randomized clinical trial where fifty people are getting a
22:48
Speaker 3: it's called shame injection, one hundred people get the real
22:53
Speaker 3: act of agent injection.
22:55
Speaker 2: And maybe most excitingly.
22:58
Speaker 3: Or I think what we're hopeful progress in the way
23:01
Speaker 3: of science here is thes are getting a fMRI before
23:06
Speaker 3: and after the procedure in mental health is maybe you
23:10
Speaker 3: can appreciate outcomes are quoted in the way of subjective
23:14
Speaker 3: scales GAD, p H, p.
23:16
Speaker 2: U PC, how are you feeling in some ways? Maybe
23:19
Speaker 2: that's the important thing.
23:21
Speaker 3: But I think we're trying to take some of that
23:23
Speaker 3: subjectivity and bring it to the objective, namely through uh,
23:29
Speaker 3: these brain scans. So someone gets scanned prior to and
23:32
Speaker 3: after a procedure, and in some ways they're their own
23:35
Speaker 3: control control group. Notably the people that get the sham injection,
23:40
Speaker 3: they do have the option to get to get the
23:44
Speaker 3: real thing after they are unblindedge towards at the end
23:47
Speaker 3: of the study. So happy to happy to share the link.
23:51
Speaker 3: But that's uh, we're hopeful we'll come to a conclusion
23:55
Speaker 3: here in the next quarter or so and and the
23:57
Speaker 3: outcomes will be published maybe in six to nine months.
24:02
Speaker 1: So someone come to Stella. Do you do you folks?
24:07
Speaker 1: You mentioned you offered kind of a variety of premium modalities.
24:12
Speaker 1: Do you offer groups or individual sessions? How does it work?
24:17
Speaker 2: Yeah, great question.
24:19
Speaker 3: I would say there's a little nuanced by market. We're
24:23
Speaker 3: we're kind of scattershot across the country. But yes, generally
24:27
Speaker 3: we offer one on one therapy, we'll offer obviously medication
24:31
Speaker 3: management and those interventional modalities.
24:34
Speaker 2: Group is something we're working towards.
24:37
Speaker 3: I think it's it's done a little more sporadically, not
24:40
Speaker 3: that we're not believers in it. We're trying to do
24:43
Speaker 3: do what we do well rather than maybe maybe deluting
24:46
Speaker 3: our focus. But yes, we definitely, we definitely do offer
24:52
Speaker 3: therapy and our huge believers that the interventions offer a
24:57
Speaker 3: window to actually make lifestyle changes.
25:01
Speaker 2: And it kind of and again I'm.
25:03
Speaker 3: Speaking from my own personal experience as a patient multiple
25:07
Speaker 3: times of our own services. It gives you a window
25:11
Speaker 3: to breathe, and therapy is a critical part in uh
25:16
Speaker 3: in maintaining and accelerating those gains. So it definitely a
25:20
Speaker 3: key part of our care model.
25:23
Speaker 1: I'm curious, Michael, if your experience with your friend's suicide
25:31
Speaker 1: if that kind of opened the door to reflect on
25:34
Speaker 1: your own self. I mean, I'm sure it did, but
25:37
Speaker 1: I'm guess curious how did that reflect on you? And
25:42
Speaker 1: because you know, I've been doing this for for several
25:46
Speaker 1: years and one of the things I realized is we've
25:49
Speaker 1: all got stuff going on, right, I Mean, no one
25:53
Speaker 1: comes out of this life unscathed. But I'm curious to
25:57
Speaker 1: what degree did and how did that experience and make
26:00
Speaker 1: you reflect on on your you?
26:03
Speaker 3: Yeah, in some in some ways, like I mentioned, I was,
26:10
Speaker 3: I was pretty naive to mental health and and I'm
26:14
Speaker 3: sure was in hindsight walking past people suffering. I think
26:19
Speaker 3: the way that it's impacted me is again haven't had
26:22
Speaker 3: my own experience and treatment, And I think it just
26:27
Speaker 3: opens you up to the exact statement you made that
26:29
Speaker 3: the person you're talking to, the person you're walking by,
26:33
Speaker 3: they've got their own stuff going on and and the
26:37
Speaker 3: benefit of the doubt is something that or or just
26:41
Speaker 3: being aware of that is is something I've tried to
26:44
Speaker 3: take into my own personal life.
26:47
Speaker 2: So I'm not sure if that.
26:49
Speaker 3: That crispally answers your question, but I'm rather than jumping
26:52
Speaker 3: to conclusions and judgments, I would say I'm a little
26:56
Speaker 3: bit more able to take pause, and I appreciate exactly
27:03
Speaker 3: what you said. We're all on we're all scathed in
27:06
Speaker 3: our own way, we're imperfect and I and if we're
27:10
Speaker 3: just if we believe that the other person's doing their best,
27:13
Speaker 3: everything generally generally falls into place there after.
27:18
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, I mean to me, what you're doing
27:22
Speaker 1: and who you are is very inspiring. You know you
27:25
Speaker 1: you kind of opened up this interview by saying, you
27:27
Speaker 1: know you have no business being in this field, et cetera,
27:30
Speaker 1: et cetera. But not everyone who has an experience like
27:36
Speaker 1: yours turns around and does something like what you've done,
27:43
Speaker 1: you know, so from my perspective, and not that you are,
27:46
Speaker 1: but I don't. I don't think you need to sell
27:48
Speaker 1: yourself so short. I mean, I think it's incredible to
27:51
Speaker 1: take an experience like that, or to go through an
27:53
Speaker 1: experience like that, and two yes, recognize how tragic it is.
27:59
Speaker 1: But to do something, I mean, that's what that's what
28:01
Speaker 1: it's about. From my perspective. You know, what can we
28:03
Speaker 1: do to help other people?
28:05
Speaker 2: You're making me blush? No, I really do appreciate you
28:09
Speaker 2: saying that.
28:11
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't know exactly exactly where to to take
28:15
Speaker 3: that other than the safe thank you, and and I agree, yeah, yeah,
28:21
Speaker 3: so you got to take take life changing events, I suppose,
28:26
Speaker 3: and do something with them.
28:31
Speaker 1: All right, Michael. What's the best way for people to
28:34
Speaker 1: learn more about what you're doing? Get in touch with.
28:36
Speaker 3: You, absolutely, Stella. Mentalhealth dot com probably the best way
28:41
Speaker 3: to find.
28:41
Speaker 1: Us, okay, And I'm just looking at your website now,
28:48
Speaker 1: I see here, I see a mental health quiz on there.
28:53
Speaker 1: So who would this before? Ye with this before?
28:56
Speaker 2: And actually that's that's very topical.
28:58
Speaker 3: We're working on publishing are our kind of internally collected outcomes.
29:04
Speaker 3: So we've got for twelve thousand, five hundred patients, we
29:08
Speaker 3: have kind of longitudinal data about how they felt before
29:11
Speaker 3: they started with us.
29:12
Speaker 2: And how they fell out over time with us.
29:15
Speaker 3: So actually we will be connecting those outcomes to that
29:18
Speaker 3: exact quiz you're you're mentioning here in the next month
29:20
Speaker 3: or so. That quiz is for anyone that doesn't know
29:23
Speaker 3: where to start, I would say, and and I'll say,
29:27
Speaker 3: it's not a some magical ho stella quiz. These are
29:32
Speaker 3: kind of developed instruments p C, L, GAD pH Q
29:36
Speaker 3: that are that are kind of well recognized to help
29:40
Speaker 3: people better understand their own symptoms or at least clinicians
29:44
Speaker 3: understand how how their patients may be feeling. So again,
29:48
Speaker 3: nothing proprietary there, It's just it's an ability for for
29:51
Speaker 3: folks to answer some questions and and kind of receive
29:55
Speaker 3: confidentially a stop very short to calling it any diagnosis,
30:01
Speaker 3: but how they quiz may place them into mild, moderate,
30:05
Speaker 3: or severe criteria across depression, anxiety, and and PTSD.
30:11
Speaker 1: Awesome, Okay, we'll have that linked up here at the
30:14
Speaker 1: show notes page at the Trauma Therapist podcast dot com Michael,
30:18
Speaker 1: awesome man. Thank you so much for taking the time
30:21
Speaker 1: to be here and again super inspiring. I appreciate that
30:24
Speaker 1: you have all right man, We'll be in touch day