How can mental health leaders innovate while maintaining compassionate care?
Dr. Ryan Drzewiecki shares his journey from English major to Chief Clinical Officer at Sierra Tucson, following his path through special education and behavioral health. He traces his evolution from early leadership roles to developing trauma-informed approaches that meet clients where they are.
The conversation explores Sierra Tucson’s comprehensive treatment model and the importance of recognizing that mental health struggles are a normal part of the human experience.
Key people who shaped Ryan’s journey:
Matt Pierce – Early supervisor who built his confidence through empowering leadership
Fran Williams – Mentor at Hazelden who demonstrated the power of positive reinforcement
Early clients in group homes who shaped his understanding of behavioral health needs
His young children – Who help inform his perspective on mental health education
Current team members whose feedback drives continuous improvement
Don’t miss this powerful discussion with a behavioral health leader who transformed academic knowledge into innovative treatment approaches while maintaining a focus on human connection and dignity.
LISTEN TO THE FULL EPISODE HERE
Transcript
0:04
Welcome to another edition of Inspired Stories, where leaders share their experiences so we can learn from their successes, how they’ve overcome adversity, and explore current challenges they’re facing.
Welcome to another edition of the Inspired Stories podcast, where leaders share their experiences so we can learn from their successes and be inspired by how they’ve overcome adversity.
0:27
My name is Anthony Kotaspodi and today’s guest is Doctor Ryan Druzwicki, Chief Clinical Officer of Sierra Tucson, the premier residential treatment Center for drug and alcohol addiction and behavioral health located on a serene 160 acre campus in Tucson, AZ.
0:46
Their team of experienced professionals provide integrative evidence based care to all adults of all genders to achieve lasting recovery from addiction and mental illness.
Ryan is a licensed psychologist and has degrees from Northwestern University and the Arizona School of Professional Psychology.
1:06
We’ll hear about how his career started in special education and group home administration and morphed into treatment for population struggling with substance use and mental health issues.
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1:31
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1:49
Now back to our guest today, the Chief Clinical Officer of Sierra Tucson, Doctor Ryan Druzwicki.
I appreciate you making the time to Share your story today.
I appreciate the opportunity to come on.
Thank you so much for having me, Anthony.
Yeah, so let’s get into it.
Before we talk about Sierra Tucson, tell us a little bit about your own path.
2:10
There’s a number of waypoints in your career.
Give us a little tour.
Absolutely.
That’s a great question.
I, I think I always knew I was headed into behavioral health, but for some reason I, I, I fought it for a little bit.
2:26
I, I came out of undergrad with an English degree, but fell right away into special education and working with autism and just found that I was really, I found that it was really passionate about it.
2:41
So I worked, I used to work 5 or 6 years between special education.
I worked a bit with applied behavior analysis and ran, ran a group home for a little bit and decided it was time to go back to school and get my doctorate.
2:58
So I got my doctorate, ended up, you know, very involved with, with substance abuse and substance abuse treatment.
Did my my internship and my post doc at Hazelden and have stayed close to residential treatment and and outpatient treatment ever since.
3:19
Help us understand what a group home is.
So the group home I was working at was a therapeutic group home.
We had actually a very small number of clients with intense behavioral health needs.
3:35
So these were people that really certainly couldn’t live it at home and couldn’t live in any lower level of care.
So that we were staffed, we were staffed pretty significantly.
I, I remember at one point we had like five staff for three residents and just worked with them on daily living and, and conflict resolution and, you know, living successfully while they were going to treatment and attending schools during the day.
4:06
And so how is it that you found your way to Sierra Tucson?
That is a good question.
After I graduated with my doctorate, I bounced around a little bit.
I ended up in Colorado for several years at at All Points N Lodge, which was great.
4:28
It was a wonderful opportunity and a wonderful organization.
And we were there through COVID, which was a particular challenge because most of our family is here in Arizona.
So, you know, it was that it was that time when like, you know, my kids daycare, if, if, if somebody would get COVID, the place would shut down for two weeks and my wife and I were really struggling.
4:53
So we put out some feelers and I, I had always known of Sierra Tucson and known of its reputation.
And by chance they had a, they had an opening and we were excited to get down here and get back a little bit closer to family.
5:10
And I was excited to to join a great program with as much history as Sierra Tucson.
So Sierra Tucson is known outside of even the that state, that region there, it’s got a reputation that precedes it.
Yeah, Sierra Tucson is a great treatment Center for both addiction and mental health.
5:31
We just celebrated our 40th anniversary, so we’ve been around for a very long time.
And yeah, we tend to, you know, do very well on, you know, the news, the Newsweek polls.
And I think we’re very, very highly rated.
We have a great program here.
5:48
So in your own words, tell us what services you provide there at Sierra Tucson.
Sure.
So Sierra Tucson, we offer a variety of of levels of care for behavioral health.
So we have a small inpatient unit.
Most of what we’re known for is our residential program and we also have PHP and IOP services.
6:11
So residents often come to us, they stay for, you know, maybe 30 days in residential and you know, 4 to 8 weeks at at lower levels of care and have the opportunity to really work on whatever is going on for them, whether it be addiction, trauma, you know, relational or developmental trauma, mood and anxiety and those sort of presenting problems.
6:38
What does life after Sierra Tucson typically look like for a patient?
Is there some kind of a a step down program?
Is there like ongoing support available for them once they leave the facility?
Yeah, we, I, I love to say that that residential treatment is about getting to the starting line and not the finish line.
6:58
You know, when you go away for 30 days, it’s not to have everything magically healed and, and, and configured and ready to go.
It’s to really figure out what the rest of, of life is going to look like.
You know, one major piece of, of any program like this is talking about the next steps.
7:14
So from a 30 day residential program, you know, we expect people to kind of step down gradually.
The next kind of level of care is partial hospitalization, which is doing maybe 20 hours of programming and, and living independently.
7:30
And then below that is IOP, which is 9 or 10 hours of programming and, and then on to, you know, outpatient where you might see your therapist, you know, once a week or what have you.
And we also prepare people to say, you know what, what has to change in your life?
7:46
What are some of the, the day-to-day changes ’cause I think, you know, the thing about recovery of any sort is it’s tricky.
It’s, it’s terribly simple and terribly complex at the same time.
Yeah, a lot of ways we, we know what we have to do.
But it’s it’s really hard to make some of those little challenges or some of those little changes or some of those bigger changes in life to be able to deal with adversity well and to be able to deal as well when we’re when we are struggling and when we’re having a difficult time.
8:18
Talk to me about how you would describe your approach or approaches to treatment.
Sure, we really love to take a trauma informed approach here.
I think it’s that that framework is a great lens through which to see mental health rather than thinking, you know, we treat X number of different diagnosis.
8:43
We say, you know, we treat people, you know, knowing that that they’ve probably had a history of trauma.
What happens when you’ve had bad things happened to you in the past, when you’ve had, you know, different traumas of, of different sorts is, you know, it gets harder to stay in your window of tolerance.
9:00
It gets harder for you, your brain and your body to function normally and feel safe and feel secure and really, you know, blossom.
I think the, you know, the more difficult things that have happened, the easier it is to get this regulated and to get really emotional and for anxiety or mood or different behaviors to kind of start to take over.
9:21
So we like to frame our job for everybody who comes through our door as broadening your window of tolerance, kind of building resilience, building strength, building a good platform, and then simultaneously working on knowing that you know, you, you will get upset, you will get dysregulated, you will fall apart at times.
9:42
And how do we utilize all the resources around us to get ourselves back to a good place when that happens?
So we, you know, that’s kind of our general approach regardless of presenting problem.
But then you know, the, the wonderful thing about Sierra Tucson is we’re, we’re a fairly large treatment center.
10:00
We have all sorts of different therapeutic modalities and medical interventions.
We have fantastic doctors and nurses and we can offer a lot of more specific interventions.
We also focus a lot on the power of community and the power of the milieu.
10:16
You know, we’d like to tell people all the time, I mean, you come here or a program like this and you’re surrounded by absolutely amazing A+ providers and therapists, but you only have us for a very short time.
What we really want you to do is learn how to rely on each other, build relationships, rebuild relationships, you know, learn how to repair the relationships in your life that may have gone off track and also just understand that every relationship has its ebbs and flows.
10:45
You know, we in, in, in therapy speak, we talk about rupture and repair.
Any good relationship, you’re going to have arguments, you’re going to have fights, you’re going to have times when you’re supporting each other better and sometimes when you’re supporting each other worse.
So what do we do when our close relationships and the people we rely on aren’t there for us or when we’re in conflict?
11:04
So that community approach and that social approach and that relational approach is, is really fundamental to how we do what we do as well.
You mentioned having different modalities that you utilize there.
Can you maybe tell us about a couple of maybe your favorites?
11:21
Sure.
On the therapy side, we offer, you know, a lot of different therapies.
You know, EMDR is very, very popular these days.
Somatic experiencing is a really, really great framework that kind of informed some of our trauma informed lens.
11:41
We pull, we pull a fair amount from internal family systems.
The idea of no bad parts.
You know, a lot of times when people come to treatment, they, you know, that part of them that wants to use drugs or that part of them that’s having these suicidal thoughts or the part of them that’s getting depressed or anxious, You know, it’s easy to say, oh, I hate that part of myself.
12:01
And we like to talk about like that, that part of yourself is there and it’s there to protect you.
And in, in the right circumstances, in the right scenarios, you know, it those, those parts of us can, can do our can do their job pretty well, but we’re here to learn more skills.
12:17
So those are some of the fun kind of therapeutic modalities that we have.
And then we’ve got other great programs as well.
We have TMS, we have ketamine assisted psychotherapy.
We have a lot of integrative options as well, massage and Craniosacral and Reiki and just a whole lot of different opportunities to try different things and and see what works for our clients while they’re here.
12:43
When I ask about ketamine assisted treatment, read a lot of promising things about it got some bad press recently because you know, Matthew Perry, you know, is passing away from an overdose that was unobserved or what’s the word not outside of treatment.
13:09
It was a more of a recreational use case.
But tell me what you’re seeing in in a practical sense from use in a in a safe controlled setting.
I think, well, certainly the advantage of a safe controlled setting is we can do all the right legwork at first to make sure somebody’s appropriate for ketamine, both to rule out any medical Contra interdictions.
13:31
And you know, as well, I think we tend to lean away from it when people have had a history of substance use ’cause I think you do.
I think ketamine can be an amazing experience.
I’m a, you know, a big fan of the, the treatment, but I think it’s easy to get over reliant on it as well.
13:48
So we really screen out for some of those, you know, both those addictive patterns and we try to make sure that we understand what people are looking for for from treatment and make sure that they understand what good, effective, holistic, integrative treatment looks like.
14:05
If we get a sense that somebody wants to do ketamine because they think, oh, I’m going to do ketamine and everything’s going to be better, we’re probably going to say, let’s let’s put the brakes on this a little bit.
And you know, maybe it’s not the right thing for you right now, maybe it’s not the right time.
So we have a very, very careful and selective screening process for it and we make sure that a, we, we pick the right people and B, we, we monitor throughout to make sure that it continues to be beneficial.
14:33
You know, we also make make it pretty clear that, you know, ketamine as recommended is not a long term solution.
It’s not you do it every so often for the rest of your life.
Usually it’s a very prescribed number of sessions.
I’m curious if your interest or your research has expanded into nearby areas.
14:56
And there’s been a lot of talk about MDMA assisted therapy or psychedelic mushrooms being involved in that, both of which are not legal in most places.
Is that something that you and sort of looked into or you know, at least kind of kept up on the the discussion that’s going on?
15:14
It’s not something I’ve looked into a great deal.
I think I’ve worked enough in substance abuse and there’s always that sense of hesitancy around around some of those interventions.
So it’s not something that I’ve personally looked into a lot, but I’m certainly intrigued by it.
15:29
And I think it’s, it’s going to be very interesting to see how these things unfold in the upcoming years and what turns out to really have a good solid evidence base to support it and what and what tends to not work as well.
And then what we can determine about the difference.
15:45
You know, why would one approach work where as a very similar approach might not?
So it is something I’m I’m interested in learning more about, but not something I’ve dove into too much at this point.
I want to talk again about internal family systems that you brought up because I hear the name and I think, oh, like sort of the family dynamic that I have at home with my wife and kids or that I had, you know, with my parents and my siblings growing up.
16:10
But as I hear you talk about it, that’s not what it is at all.
Correct me if I’m wrong.
It’s more about, hey, there’s sort of these different pieces and parts of me, right?
Sometimes I’m confused and, and angry, sometimes I’m nervous, sometimes I’m confident or playful.
16:27
And like these are all sort of different parts of the same person.
And rather than getting angry or frustrated with the, you know, existence of sort of these lesser parts of me, as I’m going to call them, sort of embracing and understanding that they’re, they’re for a purpose.
Is it?
Did I hear you correctly with that?
16:43
Yeah, I think that’s a great explanation of it.
Kind of the strict IFS philosophy is, you know, they they kind of label some of the different parts.
They’ll say everybody has exiles.
16:59
Exiles are these parts of our self where we have like a deep shame.
And you know, we sort of try our best not to have that exile part of our self come out.
We also have protectors and firefighters and managers who try to, you know, keep us from going to that place of, of, of, you know, experiencing that exile or that shame or that try to protect us from those sorts of things.
17:26
Or so it’s a really interesting framework in that sense.
You know, we, we tend to take a little bit of a looser approach that really mirrors the way that you describe it, which is to say, you know, whether whether you want to use those specific terms or not, I think it is fair to say that everybody has all these different distinct parts.
17:44
One of my favorite quick little exercises I used to do with with patients when I was doing a lot more direct care was to talk about like who’s who’s on your, who’s on your board, who comes to the table in your, in your boardroom?
And let’s try to think about like, what are some of these component pieces of your mind?
18:01
A lot of people, you know, we’ll talk about like, Oh, I hear, I hear the voice of my father in my head when, whenever I’m making a decision or, you know, I, I see that boss that I had 10 years ago and I still hear that voice in my ear.
18:17
So I always found that that was, that was a lot of fun just to say to people who’s on the board and, and what role do they play?
And are there any parts of yourself that you want to bring to the table?
And are there any parts of yourself that you know in this, in this boardroom, you want to maybe ask them to, to take a seat and, and, and be a little bit more quiet and a little bit more observant.
18:39
So that was always a fun, fun kind of activity and a fun way to think about how our minds work and all these different pieces and voices and and figures that live on in our in our head.
You know, as I’ve gotten older, I’ve certainly done my fair share of personal development work, read a lot of books, talked to a lot of people who are smarter than I am, who have been, you know, able to kind of open my eyes and ears to things.
19:04
And this discussion I’ll put into that category as well.
And I, and I, I, I can’t help but think like, wow, this would have been like a really helpful foundation to have understanding some of these things when I was younger.
Are there ways to teach these things to younger kids?
19:23
You know, I’ve got two boys who are 8 and 10 and, you know, like every parent with kids that age, like, am I doing the right things?
Like, you know, how how can I be helping to sort of set them up for success going forward?
What would you say to that?
I would say I love that question because I think that’s a question that we we should really be asking ourselves as a, as a society.
19:44
How do we help our kids develop the right tools and skills and understanding of mental health to to prepare them for success?
Because I think it’s fair to say that, you know, even in the past, you know, 20 years that I’ve been working in the field, it’s been such a dramatic shift towards, you know, people feeling a lot less stable, I think a lot more severe mental health symptomology.
20:12
So I think it’s very worthwhile to hammer out a good curriculum for kids in school and talk about.
You know, mental health and help them to conceptualize, you know, mental health.
I really like, you know, some of the pieces we’ve already talked about are things that I think would be a great fundamental understanding for everybody to say, you know, just to talk about the internal family systems and the no bad parts, those parts of yourself you don’t like, they’re there for a reason.
20:41
They’re there to help you.
I also, you know, I, I really like normalizing mental health.
I think, you know, we talk a lot about destigmatizing and I would love to just eradicate the stigma entirely.
I think it’s natural to struggle.
I think it’s normal to go through periods of depression or anxiety.
21:00
And if as a society we can embrace that in our self and if we can support each other when other people are struggling, I think it would go a really long way.
I worry that we’ve reached a point where people who struggle with, you know, depression or anxiety or what have you feel like there’s something dreadfully wrong with me.
21:18
And my thought has always been, no, this is, this is a tough world to live in.
There’s so much stress.
There’s yeah, these days.
There’s financial stress, there’s political stress, there’s, there’s health related stress and, and the list just goes on and on.
I think it’s completely normal and natural.
21:35
And I would love to to really honor and celebrate the people who are struggling and say that’s perfectly normal.
And what can we do to help you and support you?
I like that sort of really flipping the script on its head.
Not something to be shameful over hype from, but in your words, celebrate it.
21:53
Let’s put a spotlight on it.
And hey, yeah, this is a human part of the human experience.
And how, as another human being, can I help you through this?
Absolutely.
Yeah.
So, you know, I studied a little bit, practice a little bit somatic experiencing.
22:10
And so like at a very basic level, I’ve, I’ve tried that with my kids.
You know, if they’re upset or it’s, it’s easier to talk to them when they’re feeling good and they’re celebrating, you know, something that you know, that they’re excited about.
22:26
And I’m like, you know, how does that feel?
Oh, it feels good.
I’m like, OK, where in your body can you feel it?
What?
I don’t know, like, yeah, I don’t, I don’t know how to explain that any better to an 8 or 10 year old or how to, you know, how to pursue that conversation.
I don’t know if you have any suggestions for me or if maybe like I’m just a little bit too early to the table with them.
22:46
I don’t think it’s ever too early to the table to introduce some of those ideas and concepts.
I I would say it’s, it’s tough with kids and I’ve seen that with my own kids as well.
It feels like you’re fishing sometimes.
I’ll say, you know, how was school?
They’ll say fine, even at 4:00 and 6:00, you still get the fine.
23:04
And I’ll say, how did you feel?
How, what, how did you, what did you experience?
What was it like for you?
What do you think about when you think about school?
And I, I don’t know that I’m getting, you know, solid well thought out answers, but I think you plant the seed for them to recognize that we experience, we experience our lives in a lot of different ways.
23:28
You know, I think some of the talking about what do you feel in your body and where do you feel it came from?
Recognizing that a lot of people, if you say, what are you feeling?
They have no idea.
But some people experience the world through feelings, some people experience it through images or sensations, and some people through bodily sensations.
23:50
So I think that language or just having these conversations just opens people up to recognize, oh, there there’s a lot of different ways that I might be experiencing the world.
There’s a lot of different ways that my emotional reaction to the world may be registering in my body.
You know, there’s two things that I’ve tried and had some success with in terms of getting my kids to kind of open up about their day.
24:13
You know what you’re talking about because I get the same thing with my like I was school today.
Fine.
What’d you do?
You know, nothing.
I don’t remember.
And so for a while, this first one worked, and then it stopped.
It was like, oh, well, yeah.
So I heard you guys were, you know, making clay sculptures.
24:31
What?
We didn’t do that.
Yeah.
In our class, you guys were making clay sculptures.
Well, Dad, we were.
We we colored today.
Oh, that’s right.
And everything had to be in green, right?
No, I used red and green and yellow because I was making a Santa Claus thing.
24:47
And so if I said something that was incorrect, they really loved the process of correcting me.
And so I was able to kind of start a dialogue.
I, I’ve done that enough where they see through that.
And so the only other thing I have found success with, and I would love to hear if you’ve got any other suggestions, is I wait for them.
25:08
And most of the time when they want to talk is when it’s bedtime.
Because one, it’s a little bit of a stalling tactic.
But two, it’s the part of the day where they’re coming down.
They’re the most calm and relaxed and they’re they’re more apt to be open and just share on their own without me asking all these prying and proving questions.
25:32
Yeah, I love that.
I, I think that that’s the right answer probably is, you know, you do ask the question sometimes so that they know that you’re open, but just let them, you know that, that lets them know that, that you are safe to come to when they do need to talk about something.
I, I, I think that that’s the, the only official solution to the problem.
25:52
I, I tried, my wife and I were trying for a while just to say like, what was the best part of your day?
What was the scariest part of your day?
What was the angriest part of your day?
But then we were, you know, overanalyzing that.
And we’re like, is it, is it good?
Is it healthy to have them think about their day in that way?
26:10
Do we want them to be like ranking their day?
Are we getting them to focus on the negative?
Is that going to call their attention to the bad stuff?
I don’t know.
Yeah, sometimes we overthink things so.
Oh yes, very much so.
I I overthink everything so.
26:25
So, Doctor D, tell me, what does your role as a chief clinical officer look like?
What?
What is?
What do you do?
As a chief clinical officer, I oversee all of the different therapy departments here.
26:41
We have a lot of different subdivisions there.
We’ve got primary therapists, specialty therapists, residential therapists, equine and experiential and, and I would say day-to-day my job looks very different.
26:58
I think it’s how do I need to support the team right now?
You know, I, my, my biggest guiding principle is, is trauma informed leadership.
I want everybody to feel safe.
I want to feel like I’m being transparent.
27:13
I want to be good at communication.
I want to be good at collaboration.
And that’s, that’s already, you know, multiple full time jobs there, but sort of balancing like what, what do I need to do today to try to make sure that the people feel safe ’cause I think in a, in particular, in a setting like this, I’m sure in every setting, but I think our job with our residents is to create a safe trauma informed environment for, for healing.
27:40
And if we don’t have that for staff, we’ll never have it with the residents.
So I, it’s funny, we just, we just promoted a new clinical director, which is fantastic.
And we’ve been sitting down the last week or two and kind of saying, what is this job?
27:59
What is this job breakdown into?
Because we want to figure out what is this new person really good at?
Where do we want to stick her in?
What, what duties do we want to follow to her?
And how do we reallocate all the other duties?
And turns out we had, we had two whiteboards full of probably 100 different duties in terms of the clinical leadership things that we do here.
28:19
So day-to-day I, I try to just, I look at some of the big projects I’ve got and then I look up at that board and I say, what is there anything that I’m missing?
Is there anything that I’m not doing?
Is there anything that’s fallen by the wayside where I need to spend a little time or attention?
28:36
You know, a lot of folks I talked to Ryan still talk about it being a pretty tight labor market.
You know, whether you’re hiring sort of at the high, higher end, the demand or lower end of the pay scale.
I’m curious on your side what you’ve seen and you know, maybe some different creative things that you’ve tried to recruit and retain folks that you have found to be successful.
29:01
Recruiting can be a challenge.
We’re a little distance away from Tucson, so it’s A at least 1/2 hour for, for people in terms of a commute, often times an hour for people that live, say in central or or South Tucson.
29:16
So recruiting’s a challenge.
I, I think that we can be successful through, through reputation and word of mouth.
I think we have, you know, a decent reputation in that way.
And we get a lot of people that come in and say, you know, I’ve just, I’ve just heard about you.
29:35
And so I thought I’d give it a shot.
I where we really invest most of our energy is in the retention.
And that’s something that is critical to me.
I think in a, in a residential facility, you often see that therapists come in at the associate licensure level because they need to get clinical supervision, they need supervised work hours.
30:00
You know, a facility like this is a great place for a therapist in training.
But a lot of times once a therapist gets their independent license, they’re going to want to go hang their shingle and start private practice.
So our whole, one of our major priorities is how do we hang on to our independently licensed therapists And you know, that involves to me, I think that you know, the trauma informed leadership, making sure people feel heard and seen and respected and valued.
30:28
We like to pour on trainings and training opportunities.
That’s a great thing about Sierra Tucson as we have a great budget for our staff.
If they want to go to an IFS training, we can do that.
We trained everybody in somatic experiencing last year and we did EMDR the year before that.
30:46
So training is valuable and, and making sure that people feel valued and feel utilized and feel heard and respected.
And so we’ve managed to really shift the numbers.
I think when I started here, give or take, I think we had two independently licensed therapists and now we’ve got to have, I mean, close to a dozen people like either right there or they’ve submitted their, their paperwork for it.
31:12
So, and then our associate license therapist, we put so much time and effort into training that our associate license therapists are rock solid.
It’s fantastic, you know, fantastic clinicians and and really talented at what they do.
How would you sort of characterize the breakdown either by number of percentage wise of and and I don’t know what the different categories are sort of your licensed therapist, your associate licensed therapist, clinicians, so.
31:41
How would I?
Like, yeah, like what?
Like how many of them do you have or like percentage breakdown?
I’m just kind of curious to better understand like, you know, here’s the the number of people who are providing therapy and here’s the number of other kind of support people that are necessary to do all the other things.
32:00
Sure.
Within my department, we’ve got, we’ve got about 15 primary therapists.
We have 6 or 7 specialty therapists.
We have a great group of therapists in training our our residential therapists and there’s say about 15 of of those.
32:21
They run a lot of our groups and do a lot of support as well.
Our equine and experiential teams are about 5 therapists apiece.
We also have, of course, a couple therapists at all of our outpatient locations.
So we’ve got a really, yeah, we, we’ve got the ability to have our residents have a lot of good, you know, clinical touches with a therapist throughout the week.
32:48
Ryan, you’ve got a special interest in organization, efficiency, company culture, morale, effective leadership.
Talk to us a little bit about how you approach these things.
Yeah, I think that we’ve talked a bit about, you know, the, the trauma informed approach and that’s that’s my big thing for, for morale is making sure that people feel safe.
33:16
And I always said rather than try to guess or rather than try to break down what are all the components of trauma informed leadership?
You know, the number one most important thing is to have good systems for, for getting that feedback.
You know, meeting with staff regularly, getting their input, having them have different opportunities to provide feedback, making sure that everybody understands that their feedback is welcome.
33:43
That’s really critical.
We also really try to celebrate that this is a place where we we celebrate failure.
You know, this is a very difficult field.
And you know, people are going to have a group that goes poorly.
33:59
People are going to have an individual therapy session that just goes completely off the rails.
And we want people to be feel OK to come to leadership and say, I just, I just had a terrible group and not fear that there’s going to be retribution or not fear that we’re going to say, well, we’ll have to write you up for that.
34:20
You know, we, we create that good environment of learning and that good environment of, you know, just celebrating that any mistake is a learning opportunity.
So that’s, that’s really big for us on the organizational effectiveness side.
I’m, I’ve, I’ve always been a big picture person.
34:37
So I just love throwing out big ideas.
And then I have learned to figure out what it looks like to operationalize those ’cause, you know, having a great idea is, is one thing and being able to put it into play is a very, very different thing.
34:58
I remember I was a handful of years ago, I was on a, a wonderful executive leadership team with maybe three other people.
And each of us was, we were just idea people and we’d throw out all these brilliant ideas all the time and then scratch our heads around why, why did none of this ever happen?
35:20
So I took in this, I took a course in lean, I took, I took the Google data analytics certificate course.
I took a couple different kind of strategic leadership things and, and just learn how to take an idea, you know, break it into action items, break it into steps and, and start to operationalize it.
35:46
And that was, I think, a big, big leap forward in terms of my career or my my ability as a leader.
You know, I’ve, I would put myself in that category of big idea guy too.
And one thing I, I had to learn over time the hard way, you know, I have all these ideas and I would keep, then I come up with them and I immediately direct my team to start working on them and, you know, sort of divide up some duties.
36:12
And then, you know, a couple weeks later, I’m coming up with the next big idea.
And so I, you know, I’m having them shift gears again.
And it’s like, well, this isn’t good.
Like they’re going to get whiplash from this.
And so I kind of had to impose a process upon myself.
And I’m curious if you’ve ever tried this, which is you have a great idea.
36:28
I mean, you want to share it, right?
You want to put it into action.
So the first thing I do and, and this kind of sounds a little bit like what you were saying is like I, I, I have to put it down into words.
Like, I have to sort of script it out.
Like here’s the idea, here’s what the different steps would look like, the different roles.
36:46
And that process of just writing it out.
Sometimes I’ll find out that that really wasn’t such a good idea because there’s some, you know, pretty big gaping holes there.
Or if I get to the end of that and it still feels like a good idea, then I make myself sit on it for a week.
37:02
And if I come and I and I set a timer on my calendar so I, I don’t forget it and I come back to it.
And if it still feels like the the same great idea it was a week ago, OK, then I can start thinking about the next steps to to put it into action.
I love that maybe I should put that into play ’cause I definitely have that same experience, like one big idea, the next big idea and you know, I’m sure my team is like, why don’t we give this one a minute to see if it really sinks in For sure.
37:30
I think for me, what I, I think I had a good success in, in some setting, I, I think what I’m, what I’m learning or really developing right now is the, the selling the idea piece.
I, I think I always just had this idea in my head that, you know, if I had a great idea, I’d get everybody’s buy in right away.
37:51
And change management is so much about getting everybody on board, getting all the right stakeholders on board.
And I think I, you know, haven’t always put the, the time and energy into that step that, that I needed to.
So in doing that, I think some of these some of these big ideas become a lot more actionable.
38:13
I think you hit on something really important there that that buy in from other team members and a process that I’ve tried and would love to hear if you have tried something similar is I sort of go through my thought process with them.
Hey, here was the problem that I had in mind.
38:30
Here was the idea I had on maybe how we could solve it.
What do you think of that rather than here’s what we’re going to do kind of a thing like, let them give me some feedback first.
Yeah.
Absolutely.
It’s it’s, it’s a gentler way of sort of rolling it into people’s.
38:50
Minds, Yeah.
Yeah.
It also helps to yeah, I certainly let other people feel like they’re part of the creative process.
I think that’s another thing that I’ve where I’ve another, another, another mistake I can tend to make.
I’ll have the idea, I’ll write out the 22 step action plan to do it and then I’ll try to sell that.
39:12
Whereas instead, you know, maybe start with the idea, help, have other people contribute to the action plan so that there’s some buy in and that tends to go a lot better.
And it’ll make the idea ultimately better.
Oh yeah?
Oh, absolutely.
Ryan, talk to me about your thoughts on technology related addiction.
39:34
Oh, that’s a fun question.
Couple years ago I was doing a lot of presenting on technology and and technology addiction or compulsion as it, as it were.
I have a lot of interest.
I, I think it’s sort of the unheralded addiction or compulsion of our age.
39:53
I think between Netflix and the Internet and and cell phones and video games, I think a lot of people are really over utilizing technology for emotion regulation.
40:08
And I might be one of the worst, honestly.
I am so attached to my my phone and go to such great lengths to try to create some distance, literal physical distance between me and my phone.
But I think, like so many things, you know it.
40:25
These sorts of things create distractions and it can be healthy in small doses.
You know, there’s nothing wrong with, you know, binging a show on Netflix every now and again or playing those video games or what have you.
But I know that, you know, it can be, you can slip into where that becomes a person’s soul means or primary means of kind of self regulating.
40:50
And I think that that’s super problematic.
We always want people to have a lot of different tools at their disposal to just manage their mood and manage their anxiety and manage themselves.
Is that something that actually gets dealt with there at Sierra Tucson?
41:06
I mean, are you admitting and and treating people specifically for technology related addiction or do you maybe just see like the folks that come to you that like maybe that’s just like a small part of what’s going?
On absolutely.
41:22
I think it’s, it’s a big piece of what we’re doing with a lot of our residents.
It’s tends not to be.
And I think this is true for the the industry in a sense.
It tends not to be the presenting problem or the the reason why they show up because insurance doesn’t really recognize that as something that would necessitate this level of care.
41:47
But you’ll find that, you know, most of our residents and staff struggle with overuse of technology.
And then furthermore, you know, when you take people from their home and you put them in this environment and you take away some of their other coping strategies, some sometimes that technology use gets even worse.
42:10
Do you have any recommendations?
I mean, you talked about and, and I’m guilty of this too.
Just last night, a long day, I was exhausted, just wanted to go right to bed after I got the kids down and I go and I lay down in bed and I’m really tired, just happy to be closing my eyes.
42:26
And I, I feel my arm reaching for my phone and I don’t have anything specific I’m looking for.
Was it an e-mail that I needed that not a phone call I needed to make, not a text message I was waiting on.
It was just, I, I just, I just wanted to open it up and see if anything had happened.
42:43
So, and I’m sure a lot of people can relate, you know, they’re listening to this.
So you have any suggestions, any coping tools?
You, you talked about how you, you know, try to create like a physical distance between you and your phone sometimes.
I think I, I don’t know that I have the ground breaking advice.
43:01
I, I do just try to really monitor what I’m doing and, you know, when I’m at home, I try to put it down in a specific place and leave it there at least until the kids are in bed.
And, you know, if I’m, if I’m noticing that I’m struggling with it at work and I’m going into a meeting where I know I’m going to be distracted, I will take my phone out and put it on a table centrally and I’ll say, hey, I’m, I’m putting my phone down here if anybody else wants to do it because I want to make sure that I can focus and pay attention.
43:35
One thing that I heard that actually, I think it did work for me.
You know, they, they, they say that, you know, some of the, just the, the bright colors and the flashiness and the icons is really visually appealing and in some ways, you know, appealing to our, our, our, our brain and our mind.
43:56
So if you you can actually go into your accessibility options and turn off the color and that makes checking your phone a lot less reinforcing.
Interesting, I hadn’t heard that there’s a setting where you can do that.
Yeah, I think I for for an iPhone, I know at least it’s under accessibility options and you can just turn it to grayscale and then when you look at it, you don’t see all the big fancy colorful icons and and all that.
44:21
I wonder if we did that on our iPad if my kids would bug me less about wanting to play video games on it.
It’s possible.
That is, I’m making a note of that right now.
Yeah, it’s, it’s worth a try.
Beyond that, I think it’s just, yeah, I try to overanalyze it as I do everything.
44:39
Like when I find myself reaching from my phone on autopilot, it’s like, well, what am I?
What, what is it that I’m trying to accomplish here?
Am I just trying to zone out?
And if so, why am I trying to zone out?
Is there something I’m trying to avoid thinking about?
Or am I just bored or, you know what?
44:56
What am I doing and what else could I do in this in this scenario?
So moving away from sort of the technology addiction piece and thinking about, you know, a family member maybe looks like they might be experiencing some addiction issues or maybe some other mental health issues.
45:16
What are kind of some warning signs that folks should look for that say this person’s in the danger zone, they need some help?
I think first and foremost, just trusting your gut is critical.
45:33
I think if you if you know somebody and you start to get a little concerned, it’s absolutely worth trying to start the conversation.
And of course, often times if you confront somebody in that way, they’re going to deny it.
But I think you can open the door for the conversation and just say you just, you don’t seem like yourself.
45:53
And if you ever want to talk, I’ll be here.
Absolutely.
So I think that’s the first thing to do in terms of just starting the conversation.
And then, you know, if it’s a family member and you’re genuinely concerned, I, I, I think it’s important to have the difficult conversations and to say, you know, I’m really seeing you drinking a lot lately.
46:19
I really see you very, very depressed and withdrawn.
Like I, I really think this is a problem.
And I, I really want to figure out what it takes to, to help you and what that looks like for you.
One of the things that I say all the time and when I do our, our new hire orientation is, you know, it doesn’t matter how many fancy letters you have after your name, if you’re in a, if you’re in a room full of people, the last person to know if you’re doing poorly is yourself.
46:46
Everybody else around you can see you more clearly than you can.
So I, I think that that’s something that I always tell people is, you know, got to, you know, listen to the people around you for sure.
Do interventions work?
You know, I see them on TV shows and movies.
47:03
I’ve heard some people talk about, you know, kind of a group of friends or family come together and surprise somebody and hey, you’ve got a problem.
We’re taking you to treatment right now.
Does that your experience?
Does that kind of thing work?
Absolutely can work, I think.
I think you could argue it either way.
47:18
I think, you know, sometimes in a treatment center like this, when you get somebody who’s coming in the door and is has 0% willingness to be there and is only there because of ultimatum, that can be difficult.
But those cases people also often can, you know, really have that moment be a wake up call.
47:41
I think it’s, I think the moment of intervention is less important than the family continuing to support that person and continuing to share their, their messages and their love and their concern for their loved 1.
So I think, you know, an intervention is certainly not guaranteed to work, but it, it really can it, it can really do wonderful things.
48:05
And I’ve heard countless residents say, boy, when I stepped in this door, no part of me wanted to be here.
But my family kept in touch.
They kept letting me know that they supported me.
And slowly I started to realize that there really was a problem.
48:21
And then one day it hit me that there was a giant problem.
And I’m so happy that my family, you know, forced me to be here because if they didn’t, I would still be out on the streets doing what it was that I used to be doing.
So yeah, I definitely, you know, I, I wouldn’t get scared away by, by the thought that the intervention might not work.
48:42
Ryan, what’s a serious challenge that you’ve had to overcome either personally or professionally?
How did you get through that and maybe some lessons that you learned going through?
Yeah, I think for me, I always knew I wanted to do leadership and I got onto the leadership track fairly early in my career.
49:09
But I think just that entire journey has been very eye opening because professional development as a leader, it really requires a lot of personal development.
Like I had to realize periodically throughout my career like, oh, I, I really have some some big deficiencies here that I need to work on.
49:33
I guess one example was I, I had done some leadership early on in my career.
I was actually chief program officer before I went to, to grad school for an outpatient clinic.
And my imposter syndrome reared up so, so mightily and, and hit me so hard, ’cause I was, I was young, I was really smart.
49:59
So I helped to get this place started.
I wrote out all the policies and procedures.
We, we made it work.
We launched.
And then all of a sudden, I mean, I hired all these people around me and I’m early 20s, in their 30s and 40s.
And I’m like, Oh my God, I don’t know a thing about anything that I’m doing right now.
50:17
And I’m surrounded by.
After you’ve done all the work now, now you’re doubting yourself now.
I’m doubting myself and you know, it’s a, it’s a trap, right?
Because the second I started doubting myself, I, you know, it absolutely became a self fulfilling prophecy.
50:33
I was full of insecurity.
I was, you know, suspicious and distrustful of everybody around me.
I was hiding.
I didn’t want them to see who I really was.
And of course they they saw all of that, you know, And so that was, I think, a really big wake up call for me.
50:52
And then after grad school, I came out and, you know, I had this new self-confidence.
I knew that I knew what I was doing.
And I think my first job after grad school was where I was like, well, I’m a doctor.
Everybody should immediately respect me and know that I, that I know what I’m talking about.
51:10
And I didn’t realize it kind of like we talked about earlier, so much of leadership.
It’s not about having the best idea in the room at all.
It’s about selling it.
It’s about connecting.
It’s about, you know, networking and, and, and building relationships.
So I think that was another big wake up call for me.
51:30
And I think even currently I’m realizing like I think some of my strengths, I think I’m great at communication and collaboration and building bridges.
Got that whole middle child thing right.
But I’ve noticed when I get stressed out, that’s the first thing that goes out the out the door.
51:48
And that’s not the first thing that should go out the door.
So I’m trying to be very mindful of that right now with my leadership, which is, you know, if I get stressed out or things get tight or things get tense, I still need to really put in the time to maintain, you know, relationships across departments and maintain relationships with, with different stakeholders and, and be connected.
52:13
Whether it’s something that you might employ yourself or techniques that you teach to your residents, your your patients.
I’m curious, you already mentioned one or two kind of quick exercises.
Do you have some more that you can share with the audience that you know might be helpful things for them to try when they’re feeling stressed, overwhelmed, sad, anxious, depressed?
52:37
Yeah, I think one of the one of the interesting things, I think if you’re feeling really dysregulated, if you’re feeling, you know, like things are falling apart and you’re really struggling, sometimes the best thing to do is almost you.
52:55
You almost have to trick yourself into snapping out of it rather than trying to dive down the rabbit hole and psychoanalyze yourself and figure out what’s wrong, what’s wrong, Why am I feeling this way?
Like, you know, we always say to people, number one, you know, one of the best things you can do is get a change of scenery.
53:13
If you’re sitting in your office and things feel dreadful and and work seems overwhelming and you’re feeling super anxious, like go for a walk outside.
That is, that can really almost just trick your brain that the change of scenery can can be really powerful.
53:30
You know, going, going out and getting something to eat, really changing up your routine.
You know, breathing can be, can be super effective as well.
But a lot of times it’s just these physical interventions that can really snap you back into a place where where you can then think more meaningfully about what was going on for you and what got you so upset.
53:53
You know, I, that really resonates with me because I, I find sometimes that I’ll get stuck in my head on something, right?
Like you said, I’ll psychoanalyze it.
And I, I figured the more that I think about it, eventually I’ll figure it out, right?
And, and, you know, then release me from the, the stress of this worry that I have.
54:12
But I’ve often found that exactly what you’re talking about is a much better approach if rather than dwelling on it and sort of stewing in it, right?
I, I get up and I do something physical, I go for a walk outside, I, you know, fold some laundry.
54:28
I, you know, just something to sort of shift my mind into another gear.
And it’s, it’s one of the more effective strategies I’ve found.
The, the other thing personally that I find that works really well is just having conversations with people.
54:43
Get out of here and get back to here.
Right.
Absolutely.
Yeah, Yeah.
I think one of the questions that I encourage therapists to be considering when they’re doing their work is how far down the rabbit hole is appropriate to go here.
55:01
So I think sometimes we, yeah, we or, or we guide our clients to just analyze, analyze, analyze.
And sometimes, you know, getting up and getting out is, is much more helpful.
I’m thinking of like a long time ago when I was doing my clinical work, I had a client who was in distress and we were, you know, just sort of going out like, you know, what’s good?
55:24
Like she was in, in the session, she was getting very stressed and tense.
And I was falling into that trap of what’s happening for you right now?
What are you aware of?
What are you feeling or thinking or seeing?
What is this about?
And then all of a sudden I was like, wait, wait, let’s, let’s go for a walk, right?
55:39
And sure enough, after 2 minutes on a walk, then we were able to talk about what was happening for her.
But in that moment, I was doing nothing and being of no help to her.
So.
Ryan, any particular mentors, books, or other professional experiences that have been helpful for you and your professional development?
56:01
I’ve had some great mentors along the way.
I think what got me into leadership in the 1st place was a guy, Matt Pierce out here who was my supervisor at, you know, one of my earliest jobs post post undergrad.
56:20
And Matt’s whole trick was, you know, I would go into his office and say, what do I do?
And he would say, what do you think you should do?
And then I’d say it and he’d say, that sounds like a great idea.
And, and that was it.
Like that was it.
56:35
But I needed that so much at that time.
I, I was like, maybe I do have good ideas, maybe I do know how to, how to do this work.
And it was so, so powerful me, so powerful for me.
And I think it propelled me from, like I said, I, I kind of got an English degree, did not, didn’t know what I wanted to do.
56:56
And, and it propelled me right away to no, I want to do leadership and I want to work in behavioral health and I know that I’m good at it.
So Matt was fantastic.
And then when I was at Hazelton, I worked with Fran Williams, who was just a brilliant psychologist and brilliant supervisor.
57:15
And Fran’s trick was amazing too.
Fran, she just always focused on the positive.
So I was a fairly new therapist.
I had no idea what I was doing.
57:32
I was probably a pretty bad therapist, but I would tell her about what was going on and she would.
There’s that imposter syndrome again.
Yeah, well, I think it was accurate, though, at that time.
She would find something in there that was really good and just focus on like, wow, it sounds like you did this really well.
57:50
And there was a part of my brain that was like, you know, but what about everything else?
But through that, her way of calling attention to those things, it made me, it reinforced it.
It made me want to do it more.
And I leaned into the things I was doing well.
And I went from, yeah, I mean, at the beginning of, of, of that internship year, having all the imposter syndrome in the world and being a very socially anxious therapist to really finding my stride and really being able to finally say, hey, I can actually, I can, I can be good at this.
58:26
So that was phenomenal.
And I, I think I, I asked myself all the time, what would Fran do?
As I’m working with a lot of young therapists as well.
You know, sometimes people early on in their career, you want to be like, ah, you know, you’re doing this wrong, you’re doing this wrong, you’re doing this wrong.
58:42
And I try to go back to that place of, you know, what, what, what would Fran do?
And is that is that appropriate for this?
And I wonder how many people right now are saying, what would Doctor Dee do?
I, I hope some of them, I, I hope I can have that same impact that Fran had on, on me.
58:57
I think that’s a lot of what you know, got me into into working in treatment centers as well as like I would love to be a Fran even if just for one person, if I can have that kind of impact, that would be fantastic.
Ryan, I’ve got just one more question for you.
59:15
But before I ask it, I want to do 2 things.
Everybody listening today, I know you love today’s content.
Please hit the like share subscribe button on your favorite podcast app.
And Doctor DI also want to let people know the best way to get in touch with you.
What would that be?
I think LinkedIn is a is a pretty good way to to shoot me a message.
59:33
So it’s Ryan Druzwicki.
Should be easy to find.
And we’ll have a link to that as well as the spelling of Ryan’s last name in there.
So it makes it easy on everybody.
But Ryan, last question for you.
I’m kind of curious to hear your thoughts on what you think the big changes are that are coming to your field in the next couple of years.
59:56
Oh, I like that question.
The big changes.
It’ll be interesting to see honestly I I think.
I think that we’re coming to a real realization about the limitations of the current model.
1:00:18
And, and I think that we’re at a breaking point.
And I don’t quite know what the future looks like, but I know that I know that the acuity of mental health is skyrocketing.
I know that a lot more people are struggling and a lot more people are struggling with more significant or more severe symptomology.
1:00:41
And, you know, within kind of the managed care system, there’s a lot of frustration that the system of these levels of care from inpatient to residential to partial to IOP just isn’t quite sufficient.
1:00:58
You know, and I think I’m not, I’m not anti insurance by any means.
I think there’s some really good goals that the insurance companies have.
But there’s a disconnect where, you know, there there certainly is kind of a disconnect between, you know, what the payers are seeing and how they’re trying to regulate the industry, what the treatment centers are seeing, what the different providers are seeing.
1:01:22
So something’s going to have to give and I think we’re going to have to rethink about what does effective treatment look like and how does it need to evolve to meet the needs of of society.
I think as things get well, seems like more and more tense and more and more stressful ’cause I think that that’s a really big piece of the spike in acuity is post COVID.
1:01:48
You know, there’s still, there’s still those anxieties about COVID and our, and our safety and our health and, and our, and our freedom and the role of the government.
There’s all these, you know, there’s political tension post election, whether the next couple of years going to look like for everybody.
1:02:04
And there’s, there’s all sorts of financial stress.
And I, I just think, I think that we’re all just a little, you know, a hair away from being dysregulated most of the time.
And so a lot of that’s going to look like prevention.
1:02:19
To your earlier question, how do we teach our kids to be fluent in mental health and talk about their mental health?
So prevention’s a big piece.
And then how can the treatment system evolve to really meaningfully support the people that are struggling?
And how do we then build structures and, and means of people maintaining their, their mental health maybe when they’re not in acute crisis, but how can we build community?
1:02:46
How can we build natural systems of support for people to continue to do well when they’re, when they’re, you know, not actively in treatment?
So.
So that kind of leads to a few follow up questions I want to ask because I’m in the camp that believes that mental health is in, generally speaking, a worse place for the country or maybe the world as a whole.
1:03:17
But that’s sort of anecdotal, right?
That’s sort of like what I’m hearing, what I’m seeing, what other people are saying.
I wonder, is there like hard evidence?
Is there data that says yes, like we’ve seen a huge uptick in mental health issues?
1:03:34
I imagine there is, I don’t know it offhand, but I can say that I, I think that the industry’s evolving already.
When you look at the sorts of presenting problems that you see at the inpatient level of care, there’s a much higher acuity now the residential level of care is, it’s an entirely different landscape than it was 10 years ago.
1:03:58
The clients that we used to refer up to inpatient now aren’t eligible for that level of care.
So I you know, and, and same thing all the way down the line with the, with the levels of care for behavioral health we’re certainly seeing in terms of our client population and our and our client mix just to dramatically more acuity, more self harm, considerably more suicidality.
1:04:27
And it’s interesting as well, too.
And this is a whole nother can of worms.
But through the rise of social media and through so many different people having a platform on social media, the public’s perception of mental health and the public’s understanding of mental health syndromes and disorders and diagnosis is changing so rapidly.
1:04:52
It’s, it’s, I think it’s fascinating to me that the public has really driven a drastically different definition of autism and autism spectrum disorders.
They’ve really redefined ADHD.
We’re talking in very different ways about about, you know, neurodiversity, that those aren’t terms that were, you know, in the latest DSM, but we’ve changed the language in the dialogue around around mental health.
1:05:20
And so that’s been a very interesting evolution just since the rise of social media.
It’s an interesting perspective because one of the questions I wanted to ask is what do you think the contributing factors are to the decline in mental health?
1:05:37
And I mean, you kind of touched on some of them.
You know, maybe COVID was sort of, you know, pulling really hard at a thread that, you know, we didn’t realize how loose it was.
And that’s led to even, you know, worse and more stresses over financial concerns.
1:05:55
You know, political tensions objectively really seem to be at a peak, at least in my my, my lifetime.
I was going to say social media itself and the devices, you know, sort of disconnecting us from safe, real human connection.
1:06:13
But your perspective there on social media, kind of shining a different light on it and bringing a different kind of attention to it in a way that I think I hear what you’re saying is the public is sort of redefining what mental health means.
1:06:28
Oh, I I think that they absolutely are.
And is that good or bad?
Both yes yeah, I guess is the answer.
I I think it’s to the extent to which it normalizes mental health and celebrates people who who feel, you know different or, you know, embraces or welcomes people who have been struggling.
1:06:49
I I love it.
I also, you know, I worry at the same time though, that it’s a lot of people are over pathologizing themselves or labeling themselves or, you know, in in the way that the the language that we use to talk about mental health can be.
1:07:05
I mean, it can be beneficial for some and it can be harmful for others.
So, yeah, I think it’s fascinating that the public has really taken the power away from the experts.
And I bet you like the top 10 things that are talked about on TikTok right now.
I bet none of them are in the DSM, but they will be because, you know, we’ve got to, we’ve got to adapt to meet what the public is telling us about their mental health.
1:07:27
That’s fascinating.
That’s wild.
I’d never thought about it that way.
Well, Ryan, Doctor DI, want to be the first one to thank you for sharing both your time and your story with us today.
I really appreciate it.
Yeah, thank you so much for having me on.
It was really great to talk to you and this was a it was a lot of fun.
1:07:43
Folks, that’s a wrap on another episode of the Inspired Stories podcast.
Thanks for learning with us today.