Community DC Robyn Mehlenbeck George Mason Center for Community Mental Health

Community DC Host Dennis Glasgow visits with Dr Robyn Mehlenbeck PhD from George Mason University and the George Mason Center for Community Mental Health. We'll talk about services, programs and how you can find out more to help yourself or someone you know fight any and all mental health issues. 

Episode Transcript

(00:10):
Good morning, and welcome to anotheredition of Community DC. I'm your host
Dennis Glasgow. This morning, weget a chance to talk about a subject
that's in the news a lot andit doesn't discriminate, and that's mental health.
We'll be joined by doctor Robin mellonback. She is the professor of psychology
at George Mason University and the directorat George Mason Center for Community Mental Health.
You'll hear all about the great programsthe center offers and how you could

(00:33):
educate yourself regarding mental health. Here'smy visit with Robin. I hope you
enjoyed the conversation as much as Idid. Good morning, Robin, Good
morning Dennis. How are you.I'm well. I'm so glad that we're
doing this. Mental health has beenon my radar for a long time because
I have a twenty twenty two yearold and Generation Z has been going through
something for the parents that have kidsat that age as something that's pretty remarkable.

(00:56):
And I'm not just talking about COVIDfolks. I'm talking about that generation
because of social media and all thedifferent things that they have going on in
their lives. And it's not exclusiveto Generation Z. Is Robin and I
are going to talk about and what'shappening out there right now. But I
think Robin, it really is timelyto have you on the program. You
know, the one thing I wantedto talk to you about first is about

(01:17):
where mental health was as far ashow people talked about and treated it years
ago. And I'm almost sixty now, so I came from a generation where
it just wasn't talked about, norwas there education about it. So you
just toughed it out right, suckedit up, buttercup and moved on.
But now, in the last say, ten to fifteen years, I think
because celebrities, athletes and people ofstature have talked about it publicly, which

(01:41):
is normalized, it would that befair. I think that's very fair.
Having said that, I do thinkthat there is still stigma around mental health.
It is not equal to physical healthat this point. But things are
a lot better, And you weretalking about the gen z and the young
folks are less afraid of speaking upand saying, hey, I need some

(02:06):
help, or I'm dealing with anxiety. You know, give me some tools,
help me get through this so thatI can feel a little bit better.
So I do think we have seendefinitely an improvement. I think we
still have a ways to go.Okay, So right now, you are
the director of the George Mason Centerfor Community Mental Health and the professor at
George Mason University. So I dowant to talk about what you do,

(02:29):
and I know you've been there forwell over a decade of doing all the
amazing things that you're doing. Canyou tell me about just the origin,
about how you joined up with themand how this all came about, Because
as I read about the center,and I've been on the website several times
to do my research for our interview, but I'm just amazed about how many
things are offered there. But canyou give us a little bit of history
about the place itself then how youjoined up. So our center really is

(02:53):
the main training clinic for doctoral studentsin clinical psychology, but we serve the
community and as when I first camehere, the goal was to really help
develop a center that was consistent withproviding mental health services to the community,
that had what we call an evidencebase, and what that means is that

(03:17):
there's some research that supports why we'redoing what we're doing. You know,
there's lots of different types of therapies, lots of different types of testing,
and our goal was to be ableto bring you know, affordable and accessible,
but really state of the art.What does the research say works mental

(03:38):
health services to the community. Andso I have spent you know, the
last fourteen years working with my colleagues, with George Mason to really expand the
different services we're able to offer toour community while we're training the next generation
of behavioral health providers. I didwant to talk specifically about COVID just for

(04:00):
a little bit if I could withyou as a regular person like everybody else
on this planet who went through it, and mentioned I have a twenty two
year old now and my wife ofwhat we experienced as a family, the
close lists that it brought us togetherwith and the time we hadn't spend with
each other. But also I sawthe effects afterwards with myself, my wife,

(04:24):
our family, and our daughter aswell too. And I'm wondering because
it's really hard to compare COVID toanything because we weren't around one hundred years
ago when it happened last time.But I imagine as each decade goes and
life gets more complicated because of socialmedia and technology, and our lives are
better. I'm going to make anassumption, and I'd love to hear what

(04:46):
you think about this, that COVIDhas amplified the mental health issue probably by
a billion times, because we stilldon't know the effects of what it really
did to us and we're only delvinginto it right now. Is that also
a fair statement. I think that'sa very fair statement. You've definitely done
your research, and I have twoyoung adult kids too, so it's interesting

(05:10):
both from the professional standpoint as wellas the personal seeing how the young adults
have really and the kids actually too, have gone through COVID and coming out
on the other side. We areseeing all kinds of effects of losing that
social interaction and learning how to interactwith people, and that is also amplified

(05:33):
by the social media and that everybodyhas their devices and the communication through devices,
and it's really changed the way theyounger generations even communicate with each other.
We also saw just a tremendous increasein anxiety that's probably even higher than

(05:54):
depression at this point, although againdepression, the rates of depression in our
youth have skyrocketed as well. SinceCOVID, and so you know, part
of that, I think is theemotional strain of what everybody went through the
lack of the social interaction. Butalso we don't know yet what are all

(06:16):
the physical the long term physical implicationstoo, which definitely interact. And I
imagine for you and your team that'swhere it really tests your metal because you've
obviously been doing this a long time. You're very good at what you do.
And we're going to talk about thecenter and all the resources you have
and different things, because it reallyis truly amazing at what you're doing there

(06:38):
with your people. But I imagine, you know, it's like technology Robin
that you know, the iPhone cameout back when it did and then it's
here now, and same with laptopsand all the tech and all the social
media. A lot of people thatare in that business say it's even moving
too fast for me to keep upwith. And I imagine that we can
equate that to what you do.Things now are moving so fast it must

(07:01):
be very difficult and challenging at timesto keep up with what's happening right now
with everybody. As you said,Dennis, we do our best, and
I think it does make it evenmore important to make sure that there is
some support behind what we do.When we think about the emergence of telehealth,
for example, you know, peoplecan now get therapy online, which

(07:26):
is great in making it more accessibleto people, but you also need to
pay attention to what are the qualifications, what type of therapy is it?
Is it effective therapy? You know? And again, as with any profession,
there are excellent practitioners and there arefolks who just haven't necessarily been trained

(07:53):
in the types of treatments that work. But as a parent, if I'm
going to get treatment for my daughter'sanxiety, I want to make sure that
that practitioner is doing, you know, what are some of the skills teaching
my daughter the skills that we knowwork. And that is a worry.

(08:13):
As the proliferation of telehealth is outthere, there's quite a range of what
is effective and what is not,and what's being offered. You know,
I'm always fascinating by people to dosomething for a living and then have to
execute it themselves. In another way, I'll give you an example. You're
a hair stylist, but you getyour haircut by another hairstylust and you're very
specific what you do. I'm dyingto get a backstage pass for you as

(08:37):
a parent because you talk to adolescentsand young adults all the time, and
then you have your two own.How old are they? By the way,
so my oldest is twenty three andmy youngest will be nineteen and a
month. Okay, very good,So congratulations guy, two wonderful kids.
So when you've had to deal withthem as mom and a parent and using
all your skills set that you useat work, how does it go at

(08:58):
home? I imagine it's been challenging, like every other parent out there.
Absolutely, And you know, bothkids will share that they did not come
out of COVID well, one inhigh school and one in college at the
time when things opened up. Andagain there's pros and cons to having a

(09:18):
psychologist for a mom. Both ofthem have since said to me that it
was helpful to know that people thetherapists we looked for knew what they were
doing. Yeah. Yeah, andyou know, and again, I being
in the field, I had abalance because I couldn't go to somebody I

(09:39):
already knew. But at the sametime, there were certain types of treatment
that I knew would be helpful forthe anxiety that they experienced. Yeah,
I was just thinking that. Youknow, sometimes when you have all that
inside baseball knowledge, it can alsobe a dectormentt oft times because you know
too much. And sometimes for yourkids who are so close to you,

(10:03):
know, they might want something alittle bit different than your recommending. You
were thinking about with all that youhave in your doctorates and your PhDs and
everything you do. So I justwant to deal in that for a second,
because I always find that part fascinatingfor everybody, because you have to
be a parent like everybody else.Yeah, and we do talk about sometimes
it's like the kids will say,take off your therapist hat. You know,
I need my mom. Yeah,and that's okay, Yeah, it

(10:26):
sure is. Well, listen,let's talk a little bit more about the
center. Let's do an overview aboutwhat exactly it does. So you know,
if you were to give a thirtythousand foot view and somebody's introduced to
the center for the first time,can you go over the things that it
actually does for people and what itexecutes. We are located actually in downtown
Fairfax, off campus because we servethe community and as I mentioned we're training

(10:48):
the next generation of behavioral health providers. So that's how we're connected to Mason.
It's all Mason graduate students who trainat our center. Actually, I
take that back, it's not allMason. We have some students from other
programs in the area as well whowill come and train at our center.
And then we provide a variety ofresources to the community from your traditional what

(11:11):
we think of traditional therapy, andit tends to be very skills based because
we want to teach people's skills asto what works, as well as psycho
educational testing, so thinking about achild or a college student or a young
adult with a learning disability who needstesting done so that they can get accommodations

(11:35):
in school or at work. Sothat's kind of the more traditional services.
But we also offer an emotional supportline seven days a week, twelve hours
a day, where anyone in thecommunity can call in. It's free,
anonymous, confidential, just to geta little bit of emotional support. It's

(11:56):
not a crisis line, work veryclosely with the crisis lines if somebody is
in danger of hurting themselves or thinkingabout suicide, but it does provide a
lot of emotional support. We havetwo lines, one in English and one
in Spanish, so that was kindof our latest expansion do that line.

(12:18):
It's you know, again, ourgoal is also to reach underserved populations,
and you know, we know thatfolks who speak different languages have an even
harder time finding services when they needit, and that the emotional support lines
are kind of the step one towhat we call our stepped care program.

(12:41):
So any adult can then go tostep two, which is three very low
cost like twenty five dollars a session, and we will lower that cost if
needed, skills based coping sessions.And what that means is again free meetings

(13:03):
with a therapist that is targeted oncoping skills for whatever you're going through.
So we're not going to get intoyour whole background, we're not going to
get into a lot of stuff.It's really focused on the coping skills.
But it's important to us that there'sno wait list for those three sessions.
And the exciting part is our earlydata shows that about sixty percent of the

(13:24):
people who take advantage of those threesessions don't need the longer term therapy.
So again and then that opens upthose spots for those who do need the
longer term therapy to be able toget in a little bit quicker. I
see. So those are some ofthe services. We also offer a monthly

(13:46):
community workshop that is virtual and freeto anyone in the community, although probably
at this point will be starting upagain in the fall, and we do
that with one of our community partners, Connor Strong Foundation, whose focus is
on preventing suicide. But those areon our website too that if anybody is

(14:07):
interested, we have one. You'vementioned social media a few times, and
we did one in January that Italked about how do you talk to your
kids about social media and devices?That's a big Those are free, those
are accessible, big, big conversationfolks. That one all alone alone,
So you know, we really areyou know, we do a lot of

(14:28):
community workshops too, if there's agroup in the community that would like us
to come speak about our particular mentalhealth topic. You know, again,
because we're connected with psychology at GeorgeMason, we're able to tap a lot
of different expertise as well. That'sgreat. You know. One of the
things that you make very clear onthe website is that it's affordable. And
when I heard the price that youjust talked about. Going wow, because

(14:52):
therapy folks at times, depending onwho you go see and where it is,
can be a tat expensive, especiallyyou know with health insurance covers it
or not. So I love thatyou do that for the community. Robin,
and I did want to ask you, because I know you mentioned a
couple of different types of people.Is there a criteria of age that you
can and cannot see that wants theservices. That's a great question. We

(15:13):
see kids as young as age fiveall the way up through the lifespan.
We have a special program for veterans, so just to really highlight any veteran
who needs either therapy or testing,we have a special fund that covers that
so they pay nothing if they're aveteran. But we do we see kids,

(15:33):
adults. We've seen parents of youngerkids than five. You know,
again we're not going to see thekids per se, but we've definitely helped
parents manage some of those behaviors thatshow up in the pre elementary years as
well. I'm going to ask youin just a few minutes about funding because
I know that's important. Donations andsponsors and clients that you work with and

(15:56):
so forth and so on, becausethat, folks, that's a really big
deal how this can keep going sowell at a very low price. But
I did want to talk to youabout just when people come visit you and
maybe you know, I don't wantyou to use any names, Roben,
because I know you can't anyways.But you know, there's probably a handful
of stories where you saw a family, a couple, some partners come in

(16:17):
children, it doesn't matter what itis, or something that was maybe pretty
rough and because of you and yourteam and your expertise, you know,
worked with them. And I knowthat you can't solve all the problems and
things don't happen overnight either, especiallywhen it comes to mental health, But
can you maybe just share maybe somefeedback or a story that was very special
to you that said, you know, this is why we get up in

(16:38):
the morning because we are changing livesand they're not going to change overnight,
but at least somebody's on the roadto recovery. Is something in the thirteen
plus years fourteen years that you've beenthere that is kind of special to you
that really made a difference. Ohgosh, we've been very fortunate in that
We've had quite a number of thosestories. The one too, if I

(17:03):
can come to mind. You know, we also we see a lot of
teenagers because we have graduate students doingthe direct service. Even though they're very
closely supervised by those of us licensedand experience, teens really connect, you
know, because these folks, thegrad students, tend to be a little
younger, little cooler, little sure, more up on the social stuff,

(17:27):
the social media stuff. But again, parents have to be involved. You
know, we don't see a teenagertake them back, do a session and
then bring them back to the parents. You know, even as a teenager,
if been a young adult, ifthey're living at home. You know,
parents are the ones who are soimportant to really making changes in the

(17:49):
home. And so I was thinkingabout one I think she was fifteen or
sixteen, young lady who when shecame in, she and her parents were
just not even talking at all.There was a lot of acting out there
was she was trying to sneak outat night, and the parents were just

(18:11):
kind of ready to give up onher. And through the work that we
did again, one of my gradstudents, who was phenomenal connected, was
able to connect with her and shestarted by saying, Oh, I don't
want my parents involved. We helpedthe two of them start to talk and
have a conversation, you know,even five minutes at the beginning of the

(18:34):
session, five minutes at the endof the session with the team in charge
of what she was going to share. By the end of treatment, not
only had she stopped acting out athome, but she and her mom were
able to actually talk about their differentperspectives and come to agreements on things.

(18:55):
So mom actually relaxed some of therules a little bit because was talking to
her, and that was very rewarding. I bet it was the other one
that she's coming to mind because shehas actually spoken to some of our supporters
and will be speaking again as aveteran who was diagnosed in the military with

(19:21):
a borderline personality disorder, and whatthat means if you're diagnosed with a personality
disorder in the military is that youget a certain type of discharge that doesn't
give you the benefits you need.We did a full evaluation, working with
her legal team, to an independentmedical evaluation, which very clearly showed that

(19:45):
she had a military sexual trauma.She had PTSB. There was no evidence
of a personality disorder with her legalteam submitted that to the board, and
we just found out that she gotfull They took it out of her record,
they changed her record, her dischargewas upgraded, and then she also

(20:07):
shared that the ability to talk aboutit and stopped keeping it in as such
a shameful secret gave her the abilityat work to be able to do a
presentation at a national conference coming up. Wow, which she's like, I
never would have done that. Andso again that was one of our grad

(20:29):
students working directly with her, andthat particular client was under my supervision,
so I had some interaction with heras well. But yeah, we see
some pretty wonderful things. I'm gladyou share those. I mean those those
that's absolutely the military one is reallyyou know, my curiosity is peak about,

(20:52):
you know, the system failing her, but then you know, full
circle it got it right, whichI love and that's wonderful. Thank you
for sharing all that. We didtalk about funding and I did. This
is important, folks. So Iwant you to hear what Rob nests today
because I know there are many differentways that people can partner with you.
And if you go on the websiteand we'll give that at the end of

(21:14):
our conversation here in about seventy minutesabout how you can get on there,
how you can donate and be apart of this as a partner or just
a one time or multiple donations,whatever you want to do. But can
you go the different ways that peoplecan donate and also partner up with you,
Robin, absolutely. So you know, our Center for Community Mental Health
does really run as a community nonprofitand we do have nonprofit status, so

(21:41):
that is important when people are donating, and we do rely on donors to
help us keep our sliding scale.So, as you mentioned, Dennis,
our highest prices for all of ourservices are a half to a third of
what they are in the community.Whether it's testing therapy, then we have
a sliding scale that goes down.I mean, we have people paying five

(22:03):
dollars a session for therapy because that'swhat they can do. And so really
our mission is to keep it thatway, and we do rely on donations
supporters. Some people will you know, make a donation for us to do
a community workshop. Some people willsupport become a sponsor for our annual fundraiser

(22:30):
that we we have that we hadjust this past month. We'll be having
our next one within the next year. We have our Circle of Champions,
which is a group of people whomake multi year commitments to supporting the center.
And you know it is important.Even though we are associated with Mason
and we get lots of support fromdevelopment and you know the programs, we

(22:56):
really are required to maintain our funding. And so I appreciate you giving me
the opportunity to share that with yourlisteners, you bet, and our pleasure.
And also just for full disclosure,we're a media partner here at iHeartMedia
d C and also DC one onone and DC one on one is when
it comes to mental health, hasbeen behind it for a very long time,

(23:17):
and I'm always proud of all thejocks on there and Dustin Matthews,
who's the program director. They doa wonderful job of supporting causes like yours,
nonprofits like yours, Robin. SoI'm just thrilled about that. Listen.
We only have about maybe three orfour minutes left and we're going to
revisit with you again because there's somuch to talk about with you. So
this is not a one and done, Robin. We're gonna we're gonna chat
again because I've loved our conversation,but I always like to give the floor

(23:40):
to our guests just about some finalthoughts about you know, what you do,
what you offer, and just sometakeaways for our listeners so they can
get a good scope of our conversationabout kind of capitalizing everything that we have
talked about, maybe a few thingsthat we have and as we close out
our conversation, so the floor isyours. Wow, Well, thank you.
I mean, I hope everybody isaware that May is mental health Awareness

(24:00):
months, and you know, everysingle person who is listening, everyone in
our neighborhoods or communities can be amental health ambassador. And so you know,
I was just reviewing some statistics andonly twenty percent of people who really
need mental health services ever get it. And so I really encourage people to

(24:25):
talk about it, just like youwould be going to your doctor. You
know. I also do some workin medical settings at a pediatric intocrine clinic,
and those families are not as afraidto talk with us as a mental
health professional because they recognize that thephysical and the mental health really interact and
can be and can cause problems orit can really boost the physical health,

(24:52):
if the mental health is okay.So, I guess what I'd just like
to leave people with is we area resource. You know, the Center
for Community Mental Health is a resource. And even if it's just calling the
emotional Support line just to kind oftest it out a little bit, that's

(25:12):
okay. If there's somebody who isthinking of hurting themselves, there is the
National Crisis Line nine to eight eight. You can call, you can text
anybody who talks about hurting themselves,killing themselves. Take it seriously that you
know it's not a manipulation. Takeit seriously. Call. So I guess

(25:37):
that's my wish is that everybody willbe a mental health ambassador's. It's great
to feel better and to know thatthe people around you can feel better and
there are things that can be doneto help you feel better. Well words
to live by in I like howyou say ambassador. I know that's very
strategic because it's like when you buya piece of furniture or get a haircut

(26:02):
and you recommend that place. Youknow they're going to give me great customer
service. To that place, you'regoing to get a nice sofa, or
I got this great color in myhair, you got to try it out.
Same with mental health. I can'ttell you how many people I've talked
to over the years where maybe there'sbeen a stigma in their life. Robin,
and I'm sure you run into thisjust about every day about oh that's
not for me, or I don'tfeel like talking about my problems. I
don't want to talk to a stranger. Da da da da da da da.

(26:25):
I mean, there's ten million reasonswhy people don't want to go.
But I can tell you from aperson who's had a lot of trauma,
including a dad dying when I wasfourteen, and then moving to a different
country, which is very traumatic andnot dealing with it for years, by
the way, and then all theother things that have happened in my life.
As you know, I've been marriedfor almost twenty five years, and
I have a daughter who's twenty two. And so whether you're going by yourself,

(26:48):
with a partner or a spouse,it really doesn't matter. And Robin's
going to echo this folks that youshould just try at least once or twice.
You might not get the person thatis hearing you out the way you
want to hear them, or maybeyou don't like to be assigned homework after
the session. That doesn't matter.It's about just trying it out and getting
the right fit and talking about allthe things that maybe you don't know about
what's going on in that big nogginof yours, Right, Robin, I

(27:11):
think absolutely that's fair, although Iwill say unless you absolutely don't connect with
somebody, I always encourage people tohave the rule of three, just like
baseball, because the first time yougo in, you're going to feel awkward.
It just feels weird, that's true. The second time you're starting to
get a sense of am I goingto get something out of this? And

(27:33):
is this a good fit? Thethird time, if you're not fully comfortable
and bought in, yeah, thengo. I think that's fair. Yeah.
I always encourage kind of the threestrikes and you're out or by the
third time you really know if you'regoing to get the skills you need to
manage whatever's going on. Yeah.I think that's great advice and good for

(27:55):
everybody out there. So I justfrom personal standpoint, folks, I highly
recommended. It really has been agodsend in my life with my family to
have some therapy and it doesn't meanthat all hell's breaking loose. You can
still go just to get better too. I think it is the other thing
I'd like to stress out there.You don't have to have massive problems to
go talk to somebody about what's goingon in your life, because life is

(28:15):
hard and complicated and anxiety written justto it every day, and with the
rold on fire the way it is, and you can't watch the news and
you can't do this and that,it's it's good to talk about things out
there. Well, listen, wetease the website. I'm sure a lot
of our smart listeners have already checkedout the website. But let's give that
web address for everybody out there sothey can find out more information. And
really, folks, it is aresource. There's so many cool things on

(28:37):
there that you can check out.It really is a wealth of information if
you want to check out the center. But Robin, went's that web address
for everybody. It's very simple thing. C C MH dot GMU dot b
du outstanding, Oh dot Okay,let me say that again. Go ahead,
go ahead. It is C CMH dot GMU dot edu. That

(29:03):
is correct. I'd stand Gary.Hey, Robin, thanks so much for
doing this. I really appreciate it. Once again, the thirty minutes doesn't
do justice about what you and yourteam do there at the center. So
we're going to visit with you again. And as Robin mentioned, made mental
health months, so that's a realbig deal at least to focus on things.
And I really enjoyed our conversation andcontinue success. Let's visit again.

(29:25):
But thank you so much for joiningus on Community DC. We really appreciate
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