"Let's Talk" & ANOTHER social media platform?

How do you know if it's time to talk to someone? Plus ANOTHER social media platform hits Kentuckians, what's next? All this week in Kentucky Focus with Scott Fitzgerald

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Coming up this week on Kentucky Focus. May is Mental Health Awareness Month.
October's Mental Health Awareness Week, butyou don't have to wait until then to
address any mental health issues. Whenis the right time to see a therapist?
And what should you know before youapproach your therapist? We'll talk to
an expert. Plus, is theword thread the new buzzword for twenty twenty

(00:21):
three. We'll find out what that'sall about with an expert. I'm Scott
Fitzgerald and welcome to this week's editionof Kentucky Focus. Welcome to Kentucky Focus
on the Kentucky News Network, theshow that looks at issues affecting the Commonwealth
and its citizens. We cover statepolitics, in history, human interest stories,
sports, and even entertainment. It'sKentucky Focus on kNN Well. May

(00:45):
was National Mental Health Awareness Month andOctober first through the seventh this year's National
Mental Health Awareness Week. But youdon't have to wait until either of those
states to address any mental health concernsyou may have. So what should we
do? Maybe you're on the fenceabout seeking a therapist? Is there a
right time to seek a therapist?Joining us this morning, it is doctor
Charles Pemberton with dimensions family therapy.Good morning, doc, Good morning sir.

(01:08):
How do we know if it's timeto seek a therapist? That is
a great question, and I thinkit kind of falls on that same idea.
Well, when do we need tosee a physician? Well, if
something is bothering you and you can'tshake it, or if something is seriously

(01:29):
getting in the way of your life, then you probably want to talk to
a professional. And it gets intowell what is serious? Well, if
it's interrupting your sleep, you're eatingyour relationships, your work, if you're
turning to negative coping mechanisms, likeyou know, it used to be I
would come home from work and Iwould sit with my spouse and we just

(01:49):
have a glass of wine and enjoyeach other. And now I'm looking more
forward to that glass of wine ortwo than I am sitting talking. And
that might be an issue, youknow, if you are looking forward to
just I just got to get tobed early, not because I'm physically tired,
just because I need to hide awayfrom the world. Yeah, that's

(02:13):
another sign. And I'll leave youwith this. Most therapists would much rather
somebody come in early and be ableto say you know you pretty much got
this. Here's some things to lookout for. Now go away. Then
have somebody come in when the shipis completely off course and it's going to

(02:35):
take a lot more effort to help, you know, stabilize that person and
surround them with the structure they needto get there absolutely. Talking with doctor
Charles Pemberston with Dimension's Family Therapyliville dftdot com is his website and addressing some
mental health issues. When is thetime right to maybe seek some help and

(02:55):
maybe just you should go and justget a check up. So doc,
when okay, I made the decision, I'm ready. I want to go
talk to somebody. Where do Istart when it comes to looking for a
therapist? You know, in today'sworld, the first place to look is
going to be if you're gonna ifif you just want to talk to somebody
that's maybe not professional, you canalways go to you know, your church,

(03:19):
a good friend, a confidant.Okay, the next step might be
to talk to your physician. Womenwith ob GYNs, you know, that
might be the next step to geta referral. If none of those work
out, or you want to kindof flow out, I don't feel comfortable
going there, well, then lookfor your insurance. Your insurance provider can

(03:40):
provide you with a list. AndI always tell people look up all of
the specialties marriage and family therapist,clinical counselor, which is what I am.
You can go to social work,psychologist, will do some talk therapy.
A lot of times those are moreprotesting an assessment, but you can
do psychologist as well. So lookall of them up, all of those

(04:03):
forms and see if they aren't takingnew patients or you know that you can't
get there, then it's a matterof asking for other referrals from friends and
family members. And we wouldn't Wehave a hard time today asking people for

(04:24):
Hey, do you see a therapist? Do you recommend them? But if
I had a problem with you know, my I've just been out of breath
lately and I really need to seesomebody about my breathing, we'd have no
problem asking for a palmonologist or acardiologist. I think that asking your friends
and close you know, family membersfor their recommendations is a great idea as

(04:46):
well. That's a great point,Doc, because I can't tell you number
of times I've been sitting around conversationsaround the table, and people are so
open when it talks about every littleintricate detail that's going on with their bodies,
sometimes a little TMI for me.But when something's not right upstairs,
then we're hush hush, and wejust that's sort of taboo to talk about.
I'm glad you mentioned that. Thatis a great point along those lines

(05:08):
before we deviate too far away fromthis difference between psychologist and psychiatrist. Okay,
great question, great questions. Sopsychiatrists are physicians. They're mds medical
doctors who have specialized in in theuse of medications with psychological issues. So

(05:32):
you're while you're general practitioner, yourinternist r obgyn can prescribe those Once you
need somebody that maybe maybe those medicineshaven't worked, you haven't found the right
answer, You're going to go toa specialist that is a psychiatrist. A
psychologist does not have an MD.They're in Kentucky and in most places they

(05:54):
do have a doctorate, but theystudy therapy to talk therapy. They also
traditionally focus on a lot of assessmentsand you know, ADHD test things like
that. Not all but stereotypically that'swhere they go Now let me just launch

(06:14):
into the other ones real quick.Marriage and family therapist traditionally focus more on
the family unit as a whole versusan individual. Again, I'm speaking in
generalities, and all my professional friendsout there, please don't beat me up.
Social workers. Social workers do alot more in the social sciences.
You know, they're going to workfor the community mental health agencies, so

(06:39):
they're going to be be focused onnot only your mental health, but social
supports. They do a lot withthat again stereotypically speaking, whereas clinical counselors
walk that line where we're still clinicallytrained, but we focus more generally on
the individual than we do on thefamily. But we're clinically trained a lot

(07:00):
more like psychologist. Some of allof those people have doctorates like myself.
Others just have masters. Great observationsfrom doctor Charles Pemmerton, he's with Dimensions
Family Therapy, Louisville DFT dot comis his website and doc breaking down really
what type of therapists should you belooking forward? Now? Doc, Let's

(07:21):
say I've settled in, I knowwhere I want to go, I know
what kind of therapist I need.What questions should I ask of my therapist.
I know they're gonna ask me questions, but what questions could I ask
them? So I would ask themwhat is their style? You know,
are they are they more of adirect person? Do they focus more on
building rapport first? How focused arethey on you know, getting to a

(07:45):
goal and keeping me on a goalor are they more open ended with they
let me kind of guide where thingsgo. Another question is is you know,
is it more individual or is itmore family? If I'm working with
a child, you know, ifyou're looking for somebody for your child or
adolescent, are you going to involvethe parent or is this going to be
just them? You know, isit going to be more focused on them

(08:07):
or are you more a family focusedtype of therapists? Those are some of
the good questions. The other pieceis is that if you're working individually,
what type of relationship do they havewith prescribers. That's another key piece because
if it goes to something where youknow, hey, we might need some
medication to help us long term orshort term, how well do they work

(08:30):
with the prescriber in monitoring my medicationand getting information back and forth from them
and to them. Doctor Charles Pembertonwould dimensions family therapists joining us. Of
course, we're talking about mental healthand sort of a mental health checkup time.
And what we had May was MentalHealth Awareness Month in October first,
and the seventh is Mental Health AwarenessWeek. You don't have to wait till

(08:52):
then to kind of take a lookat yourself and where you stand is maybe
you've got some downtime this summer.So doc, when when we talk about
sing a therapist, can I seea therapist even if say I don't have
an urgent need, almost like Iwant to go to the doctor and get
a checkup, you can um Andwhile therapists love that, the reality is

(09:15):
is that in today's world, withthe lack of of therapists that are working
with you know, there's just there'sso many people looking for services, it
might take you a while to getin the other pieces. And I didn't
bring this up earlier about you know, some of those questions. Another big
question is as insurance, what doyou charge the beef or service? Is

(09:37):
it going to be out of mypocket? Do you take help you know,
health insurance or flexible spending accounts?But if you come to a therapist
and you're billing insurance. Generally speaking, they have to have a diagnosis in
order to bill. We don't havea general checkup bill like a physician and

(10:00):
does if you come to us andwe're building insurance, we have to have
some sort of diagnosis in order tobuild. So to show up and just
be like I think, I'm okay, just checking in, right, we
don't have a way of building insurancefor that. Now, if it's fee
for service, no problem that youcan come in and talk to somebody,
but you're going to be paying forthat out of pocket. Got it?

(10:22):
Rider? That all right? Talkingwith doctor Charles Pemberton talking all issues mental
health, Let's switch gears, docand talk with some conditions folks may or
may not be dealing with. Andlet's start first with personal boundaries. Just
how important are these to our mentalhealth? I would say that ninety percent
of the people that I work with, one of the key issues is boundaries.

(10:46):
And that might be personal boundaries.They can't stop themselves from eating too
much, or drinking too much,or sleeping too much. Sometimes that's also
related to other issues anxiety, depression, but also a lot of family and
friends issues are those lack of boundaries, And I tell people that in those

(11:09):
relationships, it would be great ifthe other person respected your boundary, but
you can't control that. You haveto be able to hold the boundary yourself.
And that's some things that we oftenas therapists teach and model and work
with our clients to be able tobetter themselves with And for those, do

(11:31):
you have any chips? And Iguess it's maybe a deeper conversation for another
day too, Doc. If wedo finally get our boundaries established, how
do we enforce them when sometimes Ican be a little difficult, especially dealing
with family members. And you knowthat's the whole piece of this is that
boundaries aren't like, they're not steelwalls. They're poorest membranes, and we

(11:52):
have to be able to open themup when we need to and close them
down when we need to. IfI'm in a great place and I've had
plenty of sleep and everything else isgoing well, I can let people intrude
upon my boundaries and hold my ownmental well being. But if I'm not

(12:16):
sleeping or other things are going onin my life, I have to be
able to shut some of those downto not let as much in. And
it's important to note that that's notjust with you know, your neighbor across
the street, but that could bewith your spouse or your child, you
know, someone close to you.There are days where it's just you know,

(12:37):
I tell my wife I love you, honey, but today I just
can't deal with that. And otherdays it's you know, give it all
to me, right, got it? Today? That's knowing where I am
with those boundaries, and that's knowingyourself and being confident that your relationship will
survive in those tough times. DoctorCharles Pemberton is joining us with Dimensions Family

(13:03):
Therapy Louisville, DFT dot com isthis website and we're talking all things mental
health and lastly, Doc, asfamily's approach changes this upcoming school year,
whether it be college, high school, or even heading off to school for
the first time, what advice doyou have for parents and kids and overcoming
maybe some anxieties associated with this typeof mover really any type of change.

(13:24):
So two things I would tell themis that one, if you've got a
child that is young or have alot of anxiety, practice practice the getting
up, practice knowing where your schoolis, practice what the bus ride's going
to be like, you know whereyou're going to get your lunch, practice
all of those things you can.Because I get more familiar with those things,

(13:46):
my anxiety goes down. The secondpiece I would say, and this
is for everyone, including the momsand dads out there, is start working
on your routine now. Don't waituntil the monday of school starting, if
you know, start a week beforeof working on getting that sleep cycle in

(14:07):
place, getting you know what dinneris going to look like, getting all
of those things in place. Andwhile your child or adolescent will fight you,
that's what they're supposed to do.They're supposed to push back on those
demands and on those boundaries. Asparents, we need to hold them and
we need to let them know what'scoming. So hey, starting Monday,

(14:28):
we're going to start getting into theroutine for school. Well, but school
doesn't start for another two weeks,right, But we're going to ease our
way into this. So start thoseroutines a little early so you can adjust
them rather than it being such adrastic change. And I think too,
and maybe you'll agree with this,doctor. Communication will probably be key regardless

(14:52):
because I'm sure both sides will havequestions and keeping an open dialogue leading up.
This is all too important as well. Absolutely, if you start early,
have more opportunity to give them somechoices, help them set some healthy
boundaries, give them a chance tohandle this before you have to kind of
step in as a parent, Satanthat's not working. We're doing it this

(15:13):
way. So the earlier you startthat, the more control you give your
child or idolescent, which is whatthey want, and a way that we
teach them how to make good choices. If we make them for them,
then they're not learning anything. Letthem have some time to do the right

(15:35):
thing or guide them to that rightthing. Well, Doctor Charles Pemberton,
you are one of the best dimensionsfamily Therapy and louimal dft dot com.
Folks can reach out to you agood starting off point if you have more
questions about seeing a therapist or youjust want to get some insight. I'm
sure folks can reach out to youif maybe you can point them in the
right direction where they need to go, as you always do for us here,

(15:56):
Doc, and we certainly appreciate youtaking the time. You are very
welcome. You have a great morningand a great rest of the day.
The word thread we often associate itwith what stitching, needling, etc.
Is it the new buzzword for twentytwenty three we'll find out coming up today.
Hi, we're the Google Dolls.We're fortunate that our daughters have what
they need to grow and learn,but that isn't the case for nearly thirteen

(16:18):
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(16:45):
arrived this week and it comes fromMeta joining us to take a look at
what it is and what we needto know is Mike Tubowski. He is
ABC News is technology reporter and couldthe word thread be the new buzzword in
twenty twenty three? Thanks are takingtime to join us, Mike, So
tell me what is threading? Whyis it creating all this buzz? Right?
So, threads is Meta's answer toTwitter. If you've been on Twitter

(17:10):
at all, this will all soundvery familiar, but it is a scrolling
feed of character limited posts up tofive hundred characters per post. On this
platform, you can like, comment, reshare posts, you can add pictures
and videos. You can go followpeople, they can follow you. It
all sounds a lot like Twitter,and that's very intentional on Meta's part.

(17:33):
Adam Messi, who is the headof Instagram, kind of the team behind
building this new app, said thatrecent volatility and unpredictability at Twitter is what
allowed them to launch this product.Now. They think that Twitter's recent decision
making when it comes to features,maybe limiting tweets as we've seen in recent

(17:55):
days, is what gave them thisopening. That's what allowed them to launch
this now. As we say,in the real estate market, it's all
about location, location, location,it seems like in the social media space
it's all about timing. Mike Dbuskiis joining a s ABC News technology reporter
talking about Threads and Mike, I'veseen a lot of people say, hey,
by the way, for following mehere. I'm over here on threads.

(18:15):
This is where I'm at now.We've seen this before with Elon Musk
and Twitter, and people said,I'm fed up, I'm not using Twitter
anymore, and yet Harry are stillon Twitter. Does Threads have the staying
power? Meta hopes they do.That's the big question. They're certainly off
to a very strong start. MarkZuckerberg, who's the head of Meta,
which owns Instagram and also now Threads. He posted on Threads that within the

(18:38):
first seven hours of this app beingonline, they added ten million users,
which is a lot of people.Other apps that we've seen crop up challenging
Twitter, things like Mastodon has beenaround for a few years, but they've
seen explosions in popularity as Elon Muskhas made some decisions that people maybe didn't
like. A Twitter Blue Sky isanother one, but those all kind of

(19:00):
operate in a smaller scale. Right, We're not seeing millions of users,
We're seeing hundreds of thousands. SoI think part of what makes Threads interesting
is that close relationship to an existingsocial network like Instagram. As I mentioned,
the Instagram team was in charge ofthis project, and that means that
those two apps are very interoperable withone another. If you have an Instagram

(19:22):
account right now, you're about eightyfive percent of the way to having a
Threads account. That means that whenyou log onto Threads, it will present
you with an option screen saying,hey, do you want to follow all
the people who you follow on Instagram? But over here now? And then
you click yes and your feed populates. It's very low friction, it's very
easy, and I think that's goingto be very appealing to people with huge

(19:42):
followings on Instagram who say, youknow, I can just port my following
and the people that I follow fromone app to another. Why wouldn't I
do that? It's very easy,whereas with some of these other Twitter clones
that we're seeing. You kind ofgot to start from square one. Absolutely,
Mike Dvoski, ABC News Technology youreported talking is about Threads that is
online now. So what you're tellingme, Mike, is that if I'm

(20:04):
an active Facebook user and Instagram user, much like I can Instagram allows me
to post on both, I cando the same and just throw Threads into
the loop with this. Correct.Yeah, and then kind of vice versa
as well. If you post somethingon Instagram, like a photo that you
like, you can very easily reshareit over to Threads. And that's not

(20:26):
something that we saw at least inas easy a way over on Twitter.
If you were trying to cross sharebetween different platforms. Obviously, Threads,
Instagram, Facebook, they're all ownedby the same company, so they would
want to make them work together prettywell, and we're seeing that kind of
come up in a pretty big way. But that also Scott gets at this
other sort of thing that's happening inthe background with Threads, which I think

(20:47):
is important to mention. This operateson what's known as a decentralized protocol,
which sounds very technical, but it'sessentially a base of code that allows people
to build apps. Right if youwant to go build a clone of TikTok,
for example, Scott, or Redditor whatever your favorite social media network
is, you can go to thisprotocol that this runs on and build that

(21:11):
app. And that means that thisnew Threads app and your app will be
able to talk to each other,your accounts and the people that you follow
and your following will be able toport over as well. It's this future
that is called the feda verse,the Federated Internet. It's sort of a
more decentralized way of thinking about socialmedia. And it's been the thing that

(21:33):
people have been discussing in the techworld and in the social media space for
a long time. Meta making abig bet on this. I don't think
that the average user will care justyet, but maybe if this goes down
the line and we see people joinThreads as opposed to Mastadon or as opposed
to blue Sky, you know we'regoing to see that become more of a
thing as people try to transfer theirfollowings and their data from one platform to

(21:55):
another. Mike Debuski joins us ABCNews technology reporter talking about Threads, the
I guess counterweight to Twitter now andMike, we know Meta has Facebook specifically
has head problems with security concerns,etc. Do we see any of this
happening with Threads? Should we beconcerned about it? With Threads? We
actually jump the gun a little bit. We were expecting Threads to launch ten

(22:17):
am Thursday, July sixth. Itseems like July fifth, little after dinner
here on the East Coast, peoplestarted getting in and getting access to it.
Again, that comes down to thattiming question we were talking about Scott.
With recent turmoil at Twitter, itseems like Meta maybe pulled the trigger
a little early here to capitalize onsome of those people who are dissatisfied with
decision making at Twitter. But yeah, you're absolutely right. Meta has had

(22:41):
its own fair share of turmoil ofeverything from content moderation questions to election security
moderation questions to the mental health ofteens and younger users on their platforms.
I don't think we've seen anything reallyexplicit in that regard on Threads just yet.
But again, it's a very youngplatform. You can imagine that regulators

(23:03):
and people who think about this sortof thing are going to be watching it
very closely to see how Meta approachesthose questions going forward. A final question
for you, Mike again, MikeDuBowski, ABC News technology reporter talking to
us about the new social media outletThreads. Do we expect Twitter to maybe
counter was something to this? Whatsort of reaction are we hearing about her,
maybe thinking about her speculating on whenit comes to Elon Musk and Twitter,

(23:26):
That's going to be a really goodquestion. I mean, let's not
forget that in the background of allof this, Elon Musk did challenge Mark
Zuckerberg to a cage match recently,so like, maybe that's going to be
their response. But I mean,here's the thing. Meta copied Twitter here,
So it's not like Twitter could comeback and copy Meta because they already
they had the original projects, right, They had the original products here,

(23:49):
And the team behind Threads is upfrontabout that. They say, you know,
Twitter made something that people really respondedto. More than three hundred and
thirty million people use Twitter, right, It's a very popular app, and
they're not shy about saying that.That is their influence here. When it
comes to Twitter's direct response, Imean, they're in kind of a strange

(24:10):
position. Advertising is lower on Twitterthan it was a year ago, and
a lot of that has to dowith those content moderation decisions that we've been
talking about. People have been dissatisfiedwith recent feature changes to Twitter. We
saw that in recent days when ElonMusk said that they're limiting the amount of
tweets that you can see on adaily basis. There's been reports of Twitter

(24:33):
being behind on certain bills to vendors, and they're in fact facing legal action
in a couple of instances in thatregard. So I think they're keeping a
close eye on this. I canimagine that there's some discussions happening in Twitter.
We haven't seen anything explicit just yet, and certainly they've got other things
to worry about, at least atthe moment. Mike Dabuski, he is
ABC News is technology reporter. He'sfantastic. You're fantastic with us during a

(24:55):
week on Kentucky and his morning newsMichael, thank you so much, my
friend, and we look forward totalking to you down the road. Love
doing it, Scott, take care, And that's gonna wrap things up for
this week's edition of Kentucky Focus.I want to think doctor Charles Pemberton would
dimensions Family Therapy here in Kentucky again. His website is Louisville DFT dot com.
Should you have any more questions surroundingmental health or if you have questions

(25:15):
about finding a therapist. And Ialso want to thank ABC News Technology reporter
Michael Debowski for joining us, ofcourse talking about the new buzzword in twenty
twenty three, could it be threads? And most of all, I want
to thank you the listener for takingtime to join us as you do each
week here on Kentucky Focus again.If you have a topic that you'd like
to hear or something you'd like toaddress, Free to shoot me an email.

(25:37):
It's very simple. Scott Fitzgerald andiHeartMedia dot Com. Make it a
great week everybody, for all ofus here at the Kentucky News Network and
of course Kentucky Focus. I'm ScottFitzgerald. We'll talk to you next week
on Kentucky Focus. Kentucky Focus onthe Kentucky News Network, the show that
looks at issues affecting the Commonwealth andit's citizens. Cover state politics, in

(26:00):
history, human interest stories, sports, and even entertainment. It's Kentucky Focus
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