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Fixing Mental Health Care with Kristian Ranta · The Trauma Therapist

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Trauma Therivers podcast. My name is Guimingferson
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  Speaker 1: and I interview incredible people who share the story of
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: how trauma has shaped their lives. And a big thank
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  Speaker 1: you for sponsoring today's episode goes to my guest and
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: our sponsors. So five four, three, two and one, our folks,
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  Speaker 1: welcome back to the podcast. Very excited to have as
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  Speaker 1: my guest today. Christian Ranta. Christian, welcome, Thanks so much, guy,
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  Speaker 1: I appreciate it. Thanks for having me all right. For
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  Speaker 1: the past fifteen years, Christian has been driving healthcare innovation
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  Speaker 1: across the US, Europe, and Asia. In two thousand and five,
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  Speaker 1: he founded Mendor, a company that developed the groundbreaking glucose
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  Speaker 1: monitor for people with type one diabetes, which earned the
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  Speaker 1: first place in Delawat's Rising Stars Award in twenty fourteen.
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  Speaker 1: During his time building Vendor, Christian experienced the tragic loss
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  Speaker 1: of his older brother Peter to suicide, a turning point
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  Speaker 1: that inspired him to found Meror Health in twenty sixteen,
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  Speaker 1: a company now redefining mental health care for the modern world. Christian,
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  Speaker 1: before we get going, once again, thank you for being
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  Speaker 1: here to share with the listeners where you're from. Originally
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  Speaker 1: and where you are currently?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah?
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  Speaker 3: Sure, so I'm from Finland originally. I'm actually from Helsinki,
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  Speaker 3: the capital of Finland. I was born and raised there.
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  Speaker 3: I went to school there, studying in the UK for
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  Speaker 3: some time, but I did my undergrad and graduate studies
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  Speaker 3: in computer science and information systems mainly in Finland.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, And is that where you are currently?
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  Speaker 3: Sorry, I'm currently in San Mateo in the you know,
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  Speaker 3: in the San Francisco Oay. I've been leaving here since
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  Speaker 3: twenty seventeen.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, So the obviously the bio gives us a sketch
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  Speaker 1: of your background, but let's dive a little deeper here.
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  Speaker 1: Talk about how you started getting into this field innovating
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  Speaker 1: founding companies, and then we'll talk about what led you
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  Speaker 1: to mental health.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: Sure, so, I mean like, I've been a technology enthusiast
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  Speaker 3: from day one pretty much, and I actually joined when
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  Speaker 3: I was still at school. I joined a clinical trial
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  Speaker 3: software company that was building software for pharmaceutical companies to
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  Speaker 3: conduct clinical trials in a more data driven way and
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  Speaker 3: collect more data to get better insights for drug development
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  Speaker 3: than approval processes. And basically that that was like an
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  Speaker 3: eye opener for me, I got so excited, like that
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  Speaker 3: was basically a place where you could combine technology while
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  Speaker 3: doing good things to help people, you know, with healthcare,
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  Speaker 3: And that really like hit the spot for me, and
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  Speaker 3: I realized that this is going to be my career.
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  Speaker 3: And after two years working for that company, after I
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  Speaker 3: graduated from university, I actually then left the company and
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  Speaker 3: founded my first own company, which was a medical device,
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  Speaker 3: you know, the one that you mentioned. Look, I was
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  Speaker 3: monitoring for type one diabetes patients.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, so pretty amazing in and of itself. What was
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  Speaker 1: the company called the Pharmaceutical Clinical Trial Company?
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  Speaker 2: What was that called CRF Health.
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  Speaker 1: CRF, and is that still in existence?
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  Speaker 3: It's nowadays called Signant Health, si NA and t Health.
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  Speaker 2: So it was crfalth.
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  Speaker 1: Okay. So now, obviously feel comfortable to talk about what
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  Speaker 1: you want or you know, to the degree you want
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  Speaker 1: and don't want, But can you talk a little bit
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  Speaker 1: about your brother in his situation? Yeah?
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  Speaker 2: Sure?
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  Speaker 3: So yeah, So I mean, like that's that's what real
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  Speaker 3: sparked me into mental health care. Why I wanted to
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  Speaker 3: like move from physical health to mental health care. So
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  Speaker 3: I sold my last company in twenty fifteen and then
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  Speaker 3: wanted to go into mental health care full on. And
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  Speaker 3: my brother, you know, he was unfortunately struggling from depression
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  Speaker 3: on and off, and he had like some pretty severe
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  Speaker 3: bouts and he was actually getting access to care like
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  Speaker 3: he was he had you know, he had medication for
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  Speaker 3: for years, and unfortunately, eventually the medication really made him,
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  Speaker 3: made him worse, and he really didn't benefit. He got
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  Speaker 3: a lot worse and then ended up committing suicide unfortunately.
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  Speaker 3: So that was something which is kind of truly of
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  Speaker 3: course very dramatic, but that truly changed me in a way,
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  Speaker 3: that situation and the events there, that kind of thinking
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  Speaker 3: about like what's really working in this system, Like so
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  Speaker 3: many people are on these medications, and so many people
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  Speaker 3: are doing therapy, and I mean, like now even much
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  Speaker 3: more people doing therapy in the last five years, kind
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  Speaker 3: of mental health becoming more mainstream, which is beautiful, but
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  Speaker 3: like I really wanted to understand like what's going on
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  Speaker 3: in mental health care. And I actually, before I founded
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  Speaker 3: Mental Health, which is my current company, the Mental Health Company,
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  Speaker 3: I actually went into like a lot of research myself,
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  Speaker 3: so I really dug deep. I read a lot of literature,
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  Speaker 3: like science journals, you know, clinical studies, of mental health
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  Speaker 3: interventions meta analyzes. I really wanted to understand like what's
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  Speaker 3: working in mental health care and what's not working and
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  Speaker 3: where is psychiatry today because I wasn't like that familiar
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  Speaker 3: with psychiatry. I'm not an MD, so I just like
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  Speaker 3: really took a crash course in psychiatry and really wanted
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  Speaker 3: to understand.
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  Speaker 2: And I talked to a lot.
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  Speaker 3: Of psychiatrists, like doctors, holistic doctors, integrative doctors, you know, professors, researchers, other.
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  Speaker 2: People going to therapy.
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  Speaker 3: I just did a lot of research for months, and
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  Speaker 3: what I learned and realized was that actually was very
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  Speaker 3: surprising that like, actually most people really don't get better
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  Speaker 3: from medication. That there's only like roughly one third of
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  Speaker 3: people who really respond to antidepressant medications, and then two
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  Speaker 3: thirds sixty six percent do not, and they end up
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  Speaker 3: like trying to find something else. And then like even
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  Speaker 3: people who respond on the medication, most of them, like,
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  Speaker 3: I don't know, between seventy to ninety percent. It's like
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  Speaker 3: the data isn't like that accurate, but most people end
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  Speaker 3: up getting side effects, either mild or very severe side effects.
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  Speaker 3: And this is kind of like some of the things
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  Speaker 3: that happened to my brother, and then it started clicking.
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  Speaker 3: I was like, oh wow, like this like something that
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  Speaker 3: we thought is actually so effective is really not effective
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  Speaker 3: actually to be honest, if you look at the data honestly.
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  Speaker 3: And then also what I realized is that when I
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  Speaker 3: looked into therapy, I've done therapy myself. It was being
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  Speaker 3: very very very beneficial for myself, and I really really
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  Speaker 3: support therapy, and you know, we also offer therapy at
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  Speaker 3: Mental Health, although with a lot of holistic elements included.
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  Speaker 3: But what I realized also with therapy, when I looked
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  Speaker 3: at the literature, there's great large meta analysis on like
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  Speaker 3: psychotherapy CBT, DBT act all the different types of therapy,
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  Speaker 3: and you know, they're usually equally effective, but they are
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  Speaker 3: also really not that effective for clinical mental illness. They're
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  Speaker 3: effective for psychological things and stress like kind of dealing
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  Speaker 3: with life's challenges absolutely.
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  Speaker 2: Can be very transformative.
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  Speaker 3: But like if we look at you know, the clinical
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  Speaker 3: mental illness application of psychotherapy or talk therapy CBT, you know,
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  Speaker 3: roughly forty percent of people will get at least a
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  Speaker 3: fifty percent reduction for depression, meaning that like again, less
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  Speaker 3: than half of the people who do psychotherapy for depression,
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  Speaker 3: are really not getting like a real benefit from it.
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  Speaker 1: So one second, here are you talking about depression solely?
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  Speaker 2: This was like specifically data on depression.
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  Speaker 3: Then I looked anxiety and on the DSD and other things.
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  Speaker 3: But what I'm just, I guess trying to say is
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  Speaker 3: that it was a huge surprise to me when I
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  Speaker 3: really kind of double clicked and dug into this industry
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  Speaker 3: and into this science that actually what we consider like
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  Speaker 3: something that's this is very effective. We have an effective
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  Speaker 3: mental health system like bollocks like that gives my friends.
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  Speaker 3: But that's not true, Like it's it's not true. It's
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  Speaker 3: not working like we are. We're just like pretending that
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  Speaker 3: it's working that well.
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  Speaker 2: So and that's what you know.
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  Speaker 3: My brother was lost to this thing, and I wanted
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  Speaker 3: to I wanted to build something that could change this
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  Speaker 3: because I think it's great. It helps you know, these
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  Speaker 3: things may help some people. I again I mentioned I
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  Speaker 3: benefited from therapy myself, but it's not like working for
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  Speaker 3: a lot of people. And that's just that's just the data.
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  Speaker 2: What it says.
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  Speaker 1: When you started this journey of research, you said you
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  Speaker 1: wanted to find out what was going on, what do
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  Speaker 1: you mean specifically.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a good question.
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  Speaker 3: So I mean specifically that like what is what is
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  Speaker 3: the current mental health system all about?
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  Speaker 2: You know, like why do we.
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  Speaker 3: Do therapy in the way we do, Why do we
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  Speaker 3: prescribe the medications we do? Why is psychiatry the way
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  Speaker 3: it is. I just like looked at the history and
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  Speaker 3: like really dug deep to understand, like where's all this
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  Speaker 3: is coming from? And I just realized that it all
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  Speaker 3: started making more sense when I started digging deeper. And
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  Speaker 3: one thing I also realized is that there's a complete
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  Speaker 3: neglect of physical health implications in mental health.
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  Speaker 2: So, you know, the kind of disconnect.
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  Speaker 3: I'm sure many people have been, you know, hearing about
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  Speaker 3: this lately or even a long time ago, that like
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  Speaker 3: the mind that the body, you know, like the mind
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  Speaker 3: is not separate from the body. So what I realized
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  Speaker 3: is that mental health and psychiatry historically has completely ignored
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  Speaker 3: the aspects of the physical health. So what I realized
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  Speaker 3: is that there's actually a lot of research already out there.
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  Speaker 3: It's not even reason that like inflammation in the body
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  Speaker 3: got health issues, you know, in environmental toxins, heavy metals,
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  Speaker 3: you know, in our you know, what we're constantly like
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  Speaker 3: getting in from foods and anything, like you know, there's
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  Speaker 3: the pregnant women shouldn't beating like tuna as an example. Unfortunately,
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  Speaker 3: a lot of heavy metals, mercuries, things like this. I
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  Speaker 3: started learning that all these things actually do make an
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  Speaker 3: impact on mental health and also physical health. But like
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  Speaker 3: the modern psychiatry is just completely ignoring all of this stuff.
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  Speaker 3: So these were like some of the insights that came
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  Speaker 3: to me, and like I was just baffled, like wow,
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  Speaker 3: like this is something. And that's why I founded Mental Health,
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  Speaker 3: which is basically like addressing all these things, and we
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  Speaker 3: are a kind of a holistic mental health company, a
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  Speaker 3: functional medicine approach.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, we're going to get into that now. When you're
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  Speaker 1: speaking here, are you speaking about the mental health situation
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  Speaker 1: in America or generally speaking across the world.
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  Speaker 3: I mean, like in the Western world. I mean it's
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  Speaker 3: mainly the Western world, I'd say, I mean, like, of
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  Speaker 3: course there's other areas where there's also mental illness, but
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  Speaker 3: there's also rural there's actually this has also been researched,
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  Speaker 3: and this is also pretty pretty fascinating. There's research by
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  Speaker 3: one of our advisors doctor Marcus Rantala on like looking
• 10:41
  Speaker 3: at indigenous populations on some remote islands, like very isolated
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  Speaker 3: populations that still live there today, and they have basically
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  Speaker 3: zero mental illness, like zero, like nothing, and our western
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  Speaker 3: population has like twenty five percent to thirty percent prevalence
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  Speaker 3: of clinical mental health problems.
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  Speaker 1: Fascinating. So you go on this journey to find out
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  Speaker 1: what the heck is going on with mental health. And
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  Speaker 1: when you say mental health under that, you mean or
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  Speaker 1: do you mean psychiatry is a branch talk therapy, somatic
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  Speaker 1: therapies under that as well. So you got to a
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  Speaker 1: point where you said, Okay, this is something's going on here,
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  Speaker 1: What the hell is going on here? I want to
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  Speaker 1: do something. How did merow health come about?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, So from these realizations, I realized that like it
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  Speaker 3: wasn't just my brother, that there's like coluntless my brother
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  Speaker 3: is out there, quote unquote. So I realized that and
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  Speaker 3: then basically, you know, figure it out that there's a
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  Speaker 3: way from a lot of my previous learnings as an
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  Speaker 3: entrepreneur and building medical devices and digital health applications, I
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  Speaker 3: realized that there's a way to kind of build a
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  Speaker 3: virtual clinic, an online clinic with real providers, where with
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  Speaker 3: real therapists and psychiatrists and care navigators and people like that,
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  Speaker 3: and couple that with technology and then build a curriculum
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  Speaker 3: around that that would be more geared towards a holistic
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  Speaker 3: education of mental health. What I mean by that is
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  Speaker 3: that in addition or instead of just doing CBT, which
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  Speaker 3: is something we also do because it's very effective and
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  Speaker 3: very important, but how about like adding you know, some
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  Speaker 3: basic information and understanding on diet, like what are like
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  Speaker 3: brain health diets and what are like detrimental to brain
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  Speaker 3: health and mental health. So like processed foods, we know
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  Speaker 3: it really really well now that like the more processed
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  Speaker 3: foods people assume, the more mental illness and physical illness
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  Speaker 3: they have. And then you know, I just like combine
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  Speaker 3: this as a whole with my co founders and with
• 12:47
  Speaker 3: couple of doctors. So we were roughly a five people
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  Speaker 3: team initially some engineers, some you know, entrepreneurs, and then
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  Speaker 3: one PhD MD psychiatrist, our first medical director. She had
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  Speaker 3: done a lot of research on these topics as well,
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  Speaker 3: and then we had a holistic MD more like an
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  Speaker 3: integrative doctor, a primary care doctor, but with an integrative
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  Speaker 3: training on top of that. So you know, we as
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  Speaker 3: a team kind of came up with the initial concept
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  Speaker 3: on how to build this and how to start how
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  Speaker 3: to start addressing not only the mental health or the
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  Speaker 3: cognitive sites of mental health problems, but go into also
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  Speaker 3: the diet and sleep exercise recommendations. We've also built in
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  Speaker 3: the biofeedback which is very effective for stress regulation. So
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  Speaker 3: that's kind of like broadly where it all came from
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  Speaker 3: and then how we started building it. And now we
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  Speaker 3: operate in every state in the US as as a
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  Speaker 3: telehealth provider or as an online mental health provider.
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  Speaker 1: Wow, in the wake of your research, what did you
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  Speaker 1: come what kind of conclusion did you come to regarding
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  Speaker 1: medication specifically for depression. Was that something you wanted to
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  Speaker 1: improve upon or bann upon or we like, let's just
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  Speaker 1: go a different route.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, we we decided to go a different route. I mean,
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  Speaker 3: like the evidence that I found in all my research,
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  Speaker 3: and I mean, like this is all out there and
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  Speaker 3: I'm happy to even share the links to any of
• 14:13
  Speaker 3: the listeners, but like the what I.
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  Speaker 2: Found is that there's.
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  Speaker 3: You know, there's unfortunately the evidence and the efficacy and
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  Speaker 3: the you know, evidence on psychiatric medication is very so
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  Speaker 3: like controversial, and that it's there's a lot of you know,
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  Speaker 3: like I mentioned like roughly one third will respond. One
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  Speaker 3: third of people with the depression will respond to an antidepressant,
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  Speaker 3: and then again like two thirds won't and then they
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  Speaker 3: they need to find something else or maybe try another
• 14:45
  Speaker 3: medication or another medication. And and that's something which we
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  Speaker 3: really wanted to provide people with an alternative, something that
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  Speaker 3: could help them, you know, figure out like what are
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  Speaker 3: maybe the are there maybe some issues with the basic
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  Speaker 3: lifestyle things, how we could help Like I mean, like
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  Speaker 3: what we do today as an example, we do blood
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  Speaker 3: work for people checking that like what are some potential deficiencies,
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  Speaker 3: and we always find deficiencies. People always have some deficiencies
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  Speaker 3: that can actually as a soul cause be like you know,
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  Speaker 3: as a soul kind of indication, be the reason for
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  Speaker 3: someone's mental illness or at least a strong contributor like
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  Speaker 3: be t well of dificions, it can actually cause mental
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  Speaker 3: illness and psychosis even and it's very very common actually
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  Speaker 3: among many people. Vitamin D deficiency, magnesium deficiency, iron B nine,
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  Speaker 3: B six, you name it. There's a lot of deficiencies
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  Speaker 3: that the population is struggling with or suffering from it.
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  Speaker 2: Most people are ignorant, they don't know that that's going on.
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  Speaker 3: So we basically wanted to provide an alternative, so not
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  Speaker 3: to go down the route of like prescribing more medications,
• 15:46
  Speaker 3: but rather find other ways. And you know, of course,
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  Speaker 3: if people are on medication, we all support that and
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  Speaker 3: we'll be kind of helping helping them manage that and
• 15:54
  Speaker 3: whatever is needed. We have also psychiatrists, we can second
• 15:57
  Speaker 3: opinion stuff like that. But what we realized where we're
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  Speaker 3: really getting the biggest bang for the buck quote unquote
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  Speaker 3: is actually when we look at the lifestyle factors and
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  Speaker 3: when we help people learn skills that they can use themselves,
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  Speaker 3: you know, kind of skills that they learned to be
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  Speaker 3: more empowered to understand, like what are the factors for
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  Speaker 3: good mental health and how do I make sure that
• 16:18
  Speaker 3: I'm mentally well in the future as well.
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  Speaker 1: I just reminding everyone I'm speaking with Christian Ronta of
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: Merror Health. So all right, let's get a little more
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: specific here. Someone comes to you, who comes to you? Who?
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: Who is meror health for?
• 16:36
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so seventy five percent of our our users or
• 16:40
  Speaker 3: patients or customers are basically women in their like thirty
• 16:45
  Speaker 3: to forty five year old so it's mainly women in
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  Speaker 3: like working age women. That's the main population for us.
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  Speaker 3: And then there's you know, you know, we we also
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  Speaker 3: serve teams. We also serve serve people up until sixty
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  Speaker 3: five year olds or sixty four year old olds, so
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  Speaker 3: men like you know, working age populations and plus teams.
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  Speaker 3: And that's the typical type of person. And we are
• 17:08
  Speaker 3: insurance covered by many of the large insurance like Signa, Etna,
• 17:11
  Speaker 3: up them others. And people find us, you know, through
• 17:14
  Speaker 3: various different ways and maybe get a referral to us
• 17:17
  Speaker 3: from a PCP, or maybe they find us on some
• 17:20
  Speaker 3: online resource and then they can schedule a call with
• 17:23
  Speaker 3: a provider so they can find a provider in their state.
• 17:26
  Speaker 3: They can schedule a call like an intake call for
• 17:30
  Speaker 3: an initial evaluation whether they you know, maybe need need
• 17:33
  Speaker 3: some support, need some help. And then we'll kind of
• 17:35
  Speaker 3: do some diagnostic interviews. We'll do some motivational interview just
• 17:39
  Speaker 3: to determine and understand like, hey, what's going on here,
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  Speaker 3: like what do you need? What are you what are
• 17:43
  Speaker 3: you struggling with? And then might we be able to
• 17:46
  Speaker 3: help you.
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  Speaker 1: So first of all, primarily women. Does that track with
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: the proportion of people in therapy more women are doing therapy.
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  Speaker 2: Yes, it does track.
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  Speaker 3: So it's like it's roughly two thirds to my understanding,
• 18:04
  Speaker 3: two thirds women, one third men. So there's definitely like
• 18:07
  Speaker 3: generally speaking, more women going to therapy.
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: And the people who are coming to you, are they
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: coming to you for variety of complaints or issues or
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: is it primarily depression?
• 18:20
  Speaker 3: Ah, variety, So it's depression and anxiety are the biggest concerns.
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: That's the biggest volume.
• 18:26
  Speaker 3: We also have some PTSD, some bipolar, even ADHD, so yeah,
• 18:32
  Speaker 3: various different conditions, but we don't do eating disorders and schizophrenia,
• 18:35
  Speaker 3: so that's something which weak.
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: And people are coming to you with the end refer out.
• 18:45
  Speaker 3: Yeah, we would refer out people who are maybe like
• 18:48
  Speaker 3: not suited. So maybe if someone needs impatient, someone is
• 18:51
  Speaker 3: as you know, some like acute psychoses something like that,
• 18:54
  Speaker 3: we would refer out.
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: Okay, And people are coming to you with the understand
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: that everything is done via telehealth.
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: Yes, that is correct.
• 19:06
  Speaker 3: So we are a virtual provider, so we have real providers,
• 19:09
  Speaker 3: real therapists, real doctors, psychiatrists and real human care coordinators
• 19:14
  Speaker 3: and navigators that help you know, provide care. So but
• 19:18
  Speaker 3: it's all done via an app and video calls and
• 19:21
  Speaker 3: chat and different you know, online resources.
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: Okay, now, when you were putting this together, what was
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: your understanding in terms of you mentioned, uh, their onboarding
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: processes and procedures and questionnaires and so forth. Walk us
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: through what that looks like. And is that done with
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: a person, a live person.
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: Yes, that is correct.
• 19:43
  Speaker 3: So when someone signs up, they can schedule an intake
• 19:46
  Speaker 3: call and they basically first answer a few you know,
• 19:49
  Speaker 3: surveys in our app, and then they kind of you know,
• 19:52
  Speaker 3: get on a video call like this like a zoom
• 19:55
  Speaker 3: call with someone or with a provider I mean, and
• 19:57
  Speaker 3: then that's a master's level clinician I use to begin with.
• 20:01
  Speaker 3: And then you know, in that call you basically discuss
• 20:04
  Speaker 3: and evaluate, like what are the needs you have? It's
• 20:07
  Speaker 3: a diagnostic interview. It's usually you know, maybe a forty
• 20:10
  Speaker 3: five minute video call. And then then we craft a
• 20:14
  Speaker 3: custom care plan for each individual from that instance, and
• 20:18
  Speaker 3: then you know, the person can decide whether they want
• 20:20
  Speaker 3: to continue and start start treatment with us in at
• 20:23
  Speaker 3: the Metal Health clinic and then if they do, then
• 20:26
  Speaker 3: they will kind of start a program like in the app,
• 20:29
  Speaker 3: in our app where they basically can you know, be
• 20:32
  Speaker 3: in constant contact with the with the provider by a chat.
• 20:35
  Speaker 3: There's a peer support group in the app. There's also
• 20:38
  Speaker 3: a lot of lessons and resources.
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: We will shape you.
• 20:42
  Speaker 3: A biofeedback device in the mail for you to keep.
• 20:46
  Speaker 3: So there's lots of resources and in the app, and
• 20:48
  Speaker 3: you know, devices and other things that we kind of
• 20:51
  Speaker 3: include into the package for someone who then starts, let's say,
• 20:54
  Speaker 3: working on their depression. Maybe they have moderated severe depression
• 20:57
  Speaker 3: and they they've tried maybe other things. We have quite
• 21:00
  Speaker 3: a few people coming to us that have tried therapy
• 21:03
  Speaker 3: or they being on like five medications and just nothing
• 21:06
  Speaker 3: has really helped them, and then they they're looking for
• 21:09
  Speaker 3: something else. And then you know, very often we can
• 21:12
  Speaker 3: help these people. Not always, I mean, like nothing's perfect,
• 21:14
  Speaker 3: but very often.
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: And that's something else. That differentiator is what is your
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: holistic approach? How do what does that look like?
• 21:24
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's definitely a differentiator. So like even starting from
• 21:27
  Speaker 3: just like doing blood work and looking at like what's
• 21:30
  Speaker 3: going on, like what are some physical issues that may
• 21:32
  Speaker 3: be present that we need to tackle first. So that's
• 21:35
  Speaker 3: something which we do with some patients, and then a
• 21:38
  Speaker 3: couple other things, like it's also just like dietary education,
• 21:42
  Speaker 3: so we we you know, we really educate people on
• 21:44
  Speaker 3: understanding like what are really important nutrients, what is the
• 21:48
  Speaker 3: body the brain need, and what are we may be
• 21:50
  Speaker 3: deficient in our society, you know, what are some like
• 21:54
  Speaker 3: things that are well known in research that like hey.
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: Process foods, ultra process foods very.
• 21:58
  Speaker 3: Very bad for mental health and things like this. Quite
• 22:01
  Speaker 3: simple stuff, but just like you know, comprehensive. And then
• 22:04
  Speaker 3: we also help people with sleep. So around ninety percent
• 22:08
  Speaker 3: of people who come to us have some sort of
• 22:10
  Speaker 3: sleep issues. So we then kind of we have like
• 22:14
  Speaker 3: content and support on sleep hygiene and like how do
• 22:17
  Speaker 3: you sleep better? How do you know, get sleep, how
• 22:20
  Speaker 3: do you fall asleep better, how do you stay asleep better?
• 22:23
  Speaker 3: You know, all sorts of different things like kind of
• 22:25
  Speaker 3: optimizing your sleep. That's a really important factor. And a
• 22:28
  Speaker 3: lot of people report that, like they've been had complete
• 22:31
  Speaker 3: insomnia when they came to us, and they've complete, reverse,
• 22:33
  Speaker 3: completely reversed that insomnia. So a lot a lot of
• 22:36
  Speaker 3: also great great feedback from people on improving their sleep.
• 22:40
  Speaker 3: Then we recommend exercise, So we kind of explain to
• 22:43
  Speaker 3: people that actually exercise is one of the most effective
• 22:46
  Speaker 3: single interventions for clinical depression. And you know you can
• 22:50
  Speaker 3: start by walking, but you know, if you want to
• 22:52
  Speaker 3: do weightlifting, that's going to be even way better than.
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: We're just walking.
• 22:55
  Speaker 3: So we just explain the science and we recommend these
• 22:58
  Speaker 3: things to people who are like so that a more
• 23:00
  Speaker 3: holistic perspective of the human experience.
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it sounds amazing what it sounds like to me,
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: And correct me if I'm wrong here, But if one
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: goes to a therapist, a therapist is generally speaking, maybe
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: going to suggest some of those things that you've just
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: mentioned here. But from what you're saying, it sounds like
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: each of those topics you described are more so major
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: pieces of the puzzle that someone's going to get involved with,
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: which is different. It's not something that every therapist is
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: going to do. They're going to maybe suggest maybe could
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: do something about your sleep, But it sounds here this
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: is much more of a major intervention or piece of
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: the puzzle, if.
• 23:55
  Speaker 3: You will, Yeah, no, I would agree. And it's also
• 23:59
  Speaker 3: that's one thing it's much more like a broader dive.
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: Into each of these areas.
• 24:04
  Speaker 3: But it's also the way how we help people through
• 24:07
  Speaker 3: bite sized chunks learn these concepts and practice and like
• 24:11
  Speaker 3: kind of get the knowledge, like become empowered with the knowledge.
• 24:15
  Speaker 3: So it's partially like the app has been designed to
• 24:18
  Speaker 3: be very like gamified educational experience, so it's very so
• 24:22
  Speaker 3: like a journey where you learn with others, with your provider,
• 24:26
  Speaker 3: there's a pure support. So it's kind of also part
• 24:29
  Speaker 3: of the whole thing is that these things are like
• 24:31
  Speaker 3: all of this information is available on the internet. I mean,
• 24:34
  Speaker 3: like you can read it in the library and it's
• 24:36
  Speaker 3: in the internet. People still don't like learn these things because.
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: Of course we all know what we're supposed to do.
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but behavior change is really hard.
• 24:45
  Speaker 3: So what are major things What we're really really good
• 24:49
  Speaker 3: at is helping people with behavior change, like first of all,
• 24:52
  Speaker 3: explaining these concepts and then like helping people peace by piece,
• 24:56
  Speaker 3: week by week, learn these concepts and help them in
• 24:59
  Speaker 3: a these things to the extent that they're willing to
• 25:02
  Speaker 3: do that. Like we're not like forcing anyone to do anything.
• 25:05
  Speaker 3: It's just like suggesting and explaining and then it's people's
• 25:09
  Speaker 3: own of course, their own discretion on what they want
• 25:12
  Speaker 3: to do and.
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: How the peer support component talk a little bit about
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: that because I think that's crucial.
• 25:18
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so we, yeah, I agree, Like it's really important
• 25:21
  Speaker 3: to see that you're not alone, and especially like with
• 25:23
  Speaker 3: people with depression, very often they think that they're completely
• 25:26
  Speaker 3: alone in the world having this experience and that no
• 25:29
  Speaker 3: one can really understand them, and we build the peer
• 25:31
  Speaker 3: support group to show people that actually, there are like
• 25:35
  Speaker 3: a lot of people who are exactly struggling from the
• 25:38
  Speaker 3: same things that you are struggling from. So that's basically
• 25:43
  Speaker 3: the first piece. And you just see other people reflecting
• 25:46
  Speaker 3: on their journey in the mirror experience that hey, they
• 25:49
  Speaker 3: have similar experiences, like you can relate with these people,
• 25:53
  Speaker 3: and it's moderated, it's anonymous, so it's kind of very discrete.
• 25:56
  Speaker 3: And then there's also there's like these weekly themes and
• 26:00
  Speaker 3: people can share different insights when they're learning and going
• 26:03
  Speaker 3: through the materials each week they can share with other
• 26:05
  Speaker 3: people who are going through the same week at the
• 26:08
  Speaker 3: same time, so it's very so like peer learning and
• 26:10
  Speaker 3: peer sharing, and that's very helpful as well, because someone
• 26:14
  Speaker 3: may be you know, some people may be going through
• 26:16
  Speaker 3: like a week on worry, like how do I control
• 26:18
  Speaker 3: my excessive worrying?
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: And that's like a CBT concept, caming behavioral therapy concept.
• 26:23
  Speaker 3: And then we you know, in the peer support group,
• 26:25
  Speaker 3: there may be like good discussions on like hey, I'm
• 26:28
  Speaker 3: really struggling, you know, these kinds of worries and these
• 26:32
  Speaker 3: kinds of worries, and then someone else may chime in
• 26:34
  Speaker 3: and say like, hey, that's like exactly like me, and
• 26:36
  Speaker 3: like this is how I overcame it. Then and our
• 26:38
  Speaker 3: therapist will be chiming in and it's kind of like
• 26:40
  Speaker 3: much more theme based peer support group in a sense.
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: So who do you have in terms of your staff
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: therapists you mentioned as a psychiatrist who's working for you?
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: And how do you find these people?
• 26:56
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so we have providers across the country working for us,
• 27:00
  Speaker 3: which many of them have multiple licenses so they also
• 27:03
  Speaker 3: can work in multiple states so they're cross licensed. We
• 27:06
  Speaker 3: have psychiatrists. We have of course, like a technology team
• 27:09
  Speaker 3: like developers, software developers, engineers, you know, people like that,
• 27:13
  Speaker 3: and then just administrative people, finance.
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: HR, human resources, things like this.
• 27:18
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, like we're a healthcare company.
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: We've been building this for the last nine years. We've
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: been hiring people.
• 27:25
  Speaker 3: We have offices in San Mateo in California in the
• 27:28
  Speaker 3: Bay Area, and one in Denver, Colorado, and one.
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: Also in Helsinki, Finland.
• 27:32
  Speaker 3: So we basically have over the years hired great people
• 27:37
  Speaker 3: who brought in more great people.
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: Now, when I'm just curious, what's the philosophy that you
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: want these people to come in with. What are you
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: looking for?
• 27:49
  Speaker 3: A very important for us is like our values. So
• 27:52
  Speaker 3: before we founded the company, we you know, sat together
• 27:55
  Speaker 3: with my co founders in a workshop where we went
• 27:57
  Speaker 3: through our values as individuals and why do we want
• 28:01
  Speaker 3: to do this work, Like why do we want to
• 28:02
  Speaker 3: build this company, why do we want to make this contribution?
• 28:06
  Speaker 3: And we basically all agreed on certain values and you know,
• 28:10
  Speaker 3: just to give you some examples, integrity, transparency, compassion. We
• 28:14
  Speaker 3: really wanted to build something all of our all of
• 28:16
  Speaker 3: my co founders are both of my co founders and myself,
• 28:18
  Speaker 3: we had all experienced mental health, mental illness in our families,
• 28:22
  Speaker 3: and we all felt that we want to build something
• 28:24
  Speaker 3: that could truly help help people, and we wanted to
• 28:27
  Speaker 3: challenge the current system because we felt that it's not adequate,
• 28:31
  Speaker 3: so we wanted to like create something new. So those
• 28:34
  Speaker 3: values are very important. The passion, you know, for all
• 28:37
  Speaker 3: of this work is, as an example, a very important
• 28:40
  Speaker 3: thing that we screen against when we hire people. And
• 28:43
  Speaker 3: just like people who are genuinely wanting to contribute and
• 28:45
  Speaker 3: who are eager to help. And there's a lot of
• 28:47
  Speaker 3: people at the company working for the company who have
• 28:50
  Speaker 3: had mental health struggles in their families or themselves, so
• 28:53
  Speaker 3: they truly understand and have experienced these things and how
• 28:56
  Speaker 3: how challenging they may be or can be.
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: Love it, Christian. What's the best way for people to
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: learn more about you find out about Merrow Health.
• 29:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah, well, Merrow dot us, slash podcast. That's that's a
• 29:12
  Speaker 3: good way to got to get started and check check
• 29:13
  Speaker 3: that out. That's a good page for general overview of
• 29:16
  Speaker 3: what Merrow Health is. And you know, if you're interested,
• 29:18
  Speaker 3: how to how to find us, how to maybe schedule
• 29:20
  Speaker 3: a call with a provider, or just to like learn more,
• 29:22
  Speaker 3: like what are we what are we doing?
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: Okay, we'll have that linked up here at the show
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: notes page at the Trauma theapispodcast dot com. Uh, Christian,
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: appreciate you being here and sharing your story and that
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: of your brothers really inspiring. Appreciate you. Thanks guy, I
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: appreciate it all right man, We'll be in touch.
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: Thank you.