April 1, 2024 • 20 mins
Dr. Kevin Cameron possesses a Doctoral degree in Clinical Psychology and a Master’s degree in Counseling Psychology, he is a licensed psychotherapist and a highly decorated combat Veteran and holds an Honorary Doctoral Degree and Honorary Professorship from LADC.
Dr Cameron served nearly 14 years in the military, distinguishing himself in the US Army through numerous combat deployments and international operations, including Kosovo, Bosnia, the Balkans, Germany, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Kevin Cameron is also certified through the California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists (CAMFT) as a Continuing Education Provider (CEPA) for mental health professionals. He is Board Certified with the International Board of Coaches and Practitioners (IBCP). He has multiple patients and published research articles.
Dr Cameron served nearly 14 years in the military, distinguishing himself in the US Army through numerous combat deployments and international operations, including Kosovo, Bosnia, the Balkans, Germany, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Kevin Cameron is also certified through the California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists (CAMFT) as a Continuing Education Provider (CEPA) for mental health professionals. He is Board Certified with the International Board of Coaches and Practitioners (IBCP). He has multiple patients and published research articles.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:05):
Welcome to the Brett Davis Podcast.Well, good evening, everybody. It's
nice to be here tonight. I'mvery honored to have doctor Kevin Cameron with
me. I've heard very good thingsabout him for a while from doctor Robert
Garcia. What's his his tagline,the strategist. What's it called the strategist?
(00:28):
Strategists? Right? Thanks, likethe kind of like the Ben a
Flack character of the accountant. He'sgonna like that. I hope. Nice
to have you here tonight, Andthank you for your service. And you
were in two tours of was itIraq? Yeah? Two tours in Iraq?
(00:49):
Yeah, thank you for your service. I appreciate it. I saw
Iraq, Kosovo and Bosnia. Andat that time, were you ever imagining
the you would be a therapist atall? Anyway? Oh? Hell no,
hell hell no. I started offmy career. Yeah, I started
off my career as a combat engineerand then got kind of voluntold into becoming
(01:11):
dog handler in the army. Andyeah, not once I think it would
be working in mental health, letalone psychology. So let's talk about that.
So you go into the service,you do your tours, and how
did this all happen, and thenyou got into training dogs, which I
love dogs, by the way.Probably they were shepherds, oh, shepherds.
(01:33):
Melanwas labs. Yeah, so youend up working with the dogs.
That had to be a great experiencebecause those are beautiful animals. They're more
human than human beings are, Ithink a lot of ways. Sometimes sometimes
yeah, No, I had avery interesting career. I enlisted as a
combat engineer in the Army, stationedoverseas and in Germany, which I loved,
(01:57):
and then came Marie enlist in timewith all the things heating up with
the war, and after nine toeleven the army was needing more military police
and things like that. So abunch of us pretty much got voluntold though
to go become military police. AndI was getting a little disillusioned with that's
one of the politics of the militarypolice court. And I started a major
(02:20):
coming and goes, hey, whatdo you want to do with your life?
I go, well, I wantto make a million dollars and do
something for me in the outside ofworld. He goes, good, you
have to be in Canain in schoolby noon tomorrow if you like it,
staying if not, get out andgoing down to Canaine School. I loved
it, I really did. Itwas the It turned out to be one
of my greatest passions. After gettingwounded in Iraq, I got medically discharged
(02:45):
and ended up doing a service dogcompany and after doing so many helping so
many veterans, I did probably afew thousand dogs in the first couple of
years of doing that program. Twodogs in the first couple of years.
Yeah, probably the first five yearsI did about three thousand dogs work with
three thousand dogs. And after thatI used my VA benefits through a vocational
(03:13):
rehab to really go get a degreein psychology. And I heard that your
stories are so vivid. I canalmost hear the dogs. I can't ken
he's grumbing in the background. Iapologize for that, But the whole thing
(03:35):
there is is I I did somuch work with the trying to get dogs
taken care of and working with somany vets doing basic mental health that the
VA set me to go, orthe VRE, I should say, set
me to go get my doctorate inclinical psychology. And that path is one
I never would have guessed and reallyshowed me where where the disparities are in
(03:55):
vetered mental health treatment. So youget into this, you're very successful,
you're passionate. You're probably like,wow, this has like been my calling,
and then how did the whole therapything happen? With vets? So
ended up starting to nonprofit out herein Sacramento. You're out of you get
(04:16):
out of the service yeah, right, and then you're in Sacramento and then
you decided the nonprofit. For thefirst nonprofit, I started with a service
dollar program, and then I gotinto doing actual mental health, and then
I started another nonprofit for specifically formental health for veterans and been doing that
for the last oh god, sinceabout two thousand and nine or two thousand
(04:42):
and nine, I'm sorry, twentynineteen. So how many nonprofits do you
have or did you? I've worked. I founded two of them in the
last in the last ten so years, twenty years. But right now I'm
just pretty much doing the non profitfor mental health, okay, because you
realize probably there's such a huge need. Correct, Oh my god. Yeah.
(05:05):
I still do service dogs and Istill do the mental health for vets.
But it gives a platform and aplace for the veterans to come in
and actually get treatment and give usa solid platform to voice the needs of
veterans, to be able to takecare of them, to share a different
(05:26):
point of view of what these menand women have gone through and the support
that they're so desperately seeking. What'sgoing on in mental health in this country,
in the United States, where youfeel we really are dropping the ball.
Oh wow, that's such a loadof question. There's a huge misconception
(05:50):
that the VA actually takes care ofveterans, and they don't. VA only
takes care of those eligible for VAhealthcare, and people don't realize that it's
such a small population that they onlytreat about twenty percent of veterans they're actually
(06:11):
eligible. And the funny thing isis they everyone's cried for veterans to be
treated as a culture for so manyyears in mental health and in research and
everything else. Because you know,veterans have a disportioned suicide rate. We
have a higher suicide rate than ourpeers. We were more likely to not
complete mental health treatment, We're morelikely not to actually follow through with treatment
(06:35):
protocols in the whole nine yards,and no one's been able to figure out
why. And the reason behind thisis because we have never been evaluated as
a culture. I mean, ourcountry is nearly two and a half centuries
old, and in that entire timeframe, no one's actually treated us or evaluated
(06:55):
us as a culture that we are. And the reason culture is so drastically
important for mental health is simply becausethat is how we determine if we need
mental health treatment or not. Imean, if you're hearing voices in your
head and you're talking to a voicein your head, you're either crazy or
(07:15):
you could be Catholic talking to God. So if you're not taken into context
it, you're automatically viewed as broken. And research has shown that that veterans
are perceived as broken and until we'reactually treated as the culture that we are,
(07:36):
nothing's going to change. In twentytwenty two, I did the research
as part of my doctorate to validateveterans as an independent culture, which means
that they now have to start takinginto account our culturally normative behaviors like our
training and receive in basic training,and determine the difference between is that part
of who we are now or isthat actually trauma that needs mental health health
(08:00):
treatment? And when we and we'veseen in our own clinic that when we
start taking into account the cultural normsof veterans that most of them are misdiagnosed,
most of them aren' getting the treatmentthey need because no one before has
separated what's culturally normative from what's actuallygoing on with them is part of that.
(08:22):
Also, how military is not beingtrained to properly adjust to becoming civilians.
Oh, that's a misconception, Ithink. So you can't ever for
the everyone who's learned to ride abike, you can't unlearn to ride a
bike, right, you can eitherimprove that skill, may become a cyclist
(08:46):
or yeah, it's been a minute, Right, I'm gonna stumble a little
bit. You cannot ever go backto being a civilian. You're a civilian
before you join the military. Thenyou go through one of the longest periods
of mental conditioning and classical condition thatyou'll ever receive. You learn a new
set of values, language, skills, are coping mechanisms while you're in service.
(09:09):
Then you evolve into becoming a veteran. You're never a civilian. And
that is one of those big misconceptionsas far as training to make that transition
from military service to after military serviceto veteran life. Ironically enough, the
military actually does train you. Becausethere's that disconnect between mental health providers and
(09:35):
military service members and veterans, they'reactually teaching them the same thing in mental
health therapy. They're teaching us tocreate schedules. They're teaching us to cope
with stressors. They're teaching us toplan, they're teaching us to do evaluations
of the activities and the things goingon in our life, and they're teaching
(09:56):
us how to communicate mental health outthere became actually broken down to a five
paragraph order, a risk assessment,and an after action report. It really
can't I even created an entire therapeuticmodality off of it. Why do we
(10:16):
have such a huge homeless population ofveterans more right now than we've ever had
in the United States? Friend,I lost you. I can't hear you.
Why do you? Can you hearme? Now? Can you hear
me? Okay? Are you there? I think we have lost him for
let me know if if he comesback on. We were getting what we
(10:41):
were going down some good areas talkingabout some of the things that are going
on in the country with homeless vetsand maybe possible ways that we could combat
what's going on? Some reason,we're having a little sound issue. Can't
hear me? I can hear you? Fine, you hear me? Can
(11:05):
you hear me at all? Iwonder if we need to reboot. I
can't hear you at all? Maybewe need to reboot. Let's try this.
(11:26):
Can you hear me? Now?No, that's interesting. This never
happens. So the thing is thatI'll talk a while. We're trying to
work this out. Is My questquestion to him was we're gonna try to
log in again. The question Iasked doctor Kevin Cameron was why do you
(11:52):
think that there's more homeless veterans inthe United States right now than we've ever
had? And then at that moment, there we go and then that moment
everything just went quiet. Can hearme? Okay? Now are you there?
Still can't hear me? Still can'thear me? This has never happened.
(12:18):
How about now? Okay? Sowe're going to keep trying to work
at this. But bottom line iswe need to find a way to help
our veterans. There shouldn't be somany of them on the streets. They
gave their time, their service tous, and we should be taking care
of them. Now, what isthe answer to that? I don't know.
(12:41):
That's why we're going to try tofigure out how we can work with
groups of people to find a wayto combat this issue of homeless veterans on
the streets. Can you hear me? Now? I can hear you.
But can you hear me? Youcan't hear me. It's not on my
end. Okay, how about yourcourt over there, Sarah? So I
(13:11):
guess the answer. I can hearyou, but you can't hear I can
hear you. Now. There wego. Okay, the AirPod disconnected is
what I just was told. Sorryabout that. It's okay, Okay,
(13:35):
can you hear me? Good?Yeah? Here you now? So here
here's a quick question. So letme ask you this. I know that
this is this is all very challengingstuff. Why do we have more homeless
veterans in the United States right nowthan we've ever had on the streets?
Oh? I mean, the researchI think is still out on a lot
(13:56):
of that, My personal of viewis a misunderstanding of what these veterans need.
Now. Don't get me wrong,some of them are out there by
choice. They'd rather retreat into somethinglike that than deal with the world around
them. But I do believe thatmost of it has to do with a
misunderstanding of the veteran culture. Ifevery veterans immediately looked at as if they're
(14:22):
broken, then would why would theyactually get the help they need? Right,
It's not that they don't want help, it's just they can't get the
help that they need because they lookedat as they're broken, and mental health
providers don't actually understand what they needbecause they can't separate the cultural normative behavior
(14:43):
from the issues that they have.So these men and women get lost in
the system. They they're fed drugsthat they don't need, they're they're over
medicated there, they're shipped off andtold to go, you know what,
just wait, right, and theyend up self medicating with alcohol or other
(15:05):
drugs and that's all they can theycan really do. So there's there needs
to be more work towards this.Do you feel like there's any positive things
happening where we're going to see moreimprovements in this area that you can share
with us. Yeah, I hopethere is going to be more improvements.
(15:26):
In twenty two, I did theresearch to validate veterans in independent culture.
It got published in like January Februarytwenty twenty three, and that's kind of
my mission these days is to getthat get that information out there, make
sure mental health providers across the boardunderstand that veterans are independent culture, and
that we're required by by our industryto actually become culturally confident. Mental health
(15:52):
assessments and treatments need to be normedor or or tailored to veterans and first
responders in the military so they knowwhat's really going on with us. In
my own clinic, I've seen itwhere, like I said, between eighty
to ninety percent of the men andwomen that come in there, they're misdiagnosed
(16:15):
around around cultural competence and trauma.Either a they are being treated they were
diagnosed with trauma that they don't have. They've been treated for PTSD when they
don't have PTSD, or they're beingtreated with some other crap diagnosed that's when
reality is they have PTSD and othertraumas they have to deal with. And
(16:40):
I honestly believe that if we canevaluate the veteran for the person that they
really are, that we're going toget rid of that backlog for mental health.
We're going to get these men andwomen the systems and services they need,
and that twenty two a day isgoing to drop to almost nothing.
(17:00):
Tell us about how people could helpyour foundation, and do you have any
events coming up? No, weare already invests currently on our calendar right
now. But the best thing theycan do to support what we're doing is
is get this information out there.Yes, we're a nonprofit. We always
gladly accept donations to the cause,right because mental health therapy isn't free.
(17:25):
But at the same time, it'sgetting this information out there. One person
cannot change the world. And asmuch as I enjoy taking care of my
brothers and sisters, I don't havethe means of our ability to heal every
vet in the world, nor doI want to. I want to get
this information out to people to beable to really create change in the culture.
(17:48):
I mean, I can't fix oldveterans. I mean I can't prevent
the damage to send to us olderveterans, but I can help create change
for the next generation, for themen and women that are currently serving,
for the next war that comes upwhen these men and women get out of
the military and become veterans themselves,foster change to help improve the healthcare system,
(18:11):
get more of these veterans off thestreets, and really continue Abraham's Lincoln's
promise to take care of our nation'sheroes. There is a quote about Lincoln
saying that I didn't realize that.Yeah, yeah, Abraham Lincoln's quoted was
saying that the mission of the VeteransAdministration is to take care of the men
(18:33):
and women who risk their life inthe country. I can't tell you off
my head what it exactly says,but yeah, it's good. It's good
to know. Thank you for whatyou're doing. And I would love to
hear more about some of the thingsthat you're working on. As time goes
on, you come on the showagain sometime. Oh by all means,
most definitely. And I find whatyou're doing very fascinating, and because I
(19:00):
think there's a huge need for whatyou're doing right now, huge And I
know you can't help everybody, butI mean it's just it's heartbreaking to drive
around and you know, you cantell that there's veterans. I mean,
there's a lot just the way theyset up everything and they have their you
know, it's just it's just it'sheartbreaking, and I just it shouldn't be
(19:22):
that way. No, it shouldit really shouldn't. Yeah, the most
happy to come back on whenever youneed me. Thank you very much,
and I look forward to meeting youin person. Oh very much, so
too. Okay, everybody that that'sof course, doctor Kevin Cameron. I
appreciate him being on talking about allthe great stuff he's doing to help veterans
and it's a great guy. Thankyou very much, doctor, Thank you.
(19:47):
Okay, everybody take care, andI want to thank my sponsors for
being a big part of what wedo because without them, we would not
have our show. Everybody take care, being nice to each other, and
remember there's always a way around asolution. Don't get angry, take some
time, step back and figure itout. Let's be nice to each other.
(20:10):
Everybody take care and God bless
Welcome to the Brett Davis Podcast.Well, good evening, everybody. It's
nice to be here tonight. I'mvery honored to have doctor Kevin Cameron with
me. I've heard very good thingsabout him for a while from doctor Robert
Garcia. What's his his tagline,the strategist. What's it called the strategist?
(00:28):
Strategists? Right? Thanks, likethe kind of like the Ben a
Flack character of the accountant. He'sgonna like that. I hope. Nice
to have you here tonight, Andthank you for your service. And you
were in two tours of was itIraq? Yeah? Two tours in Iraq?
(00:49):
Yeah, thank you for your service. I appreciate it. I saw
Iraq, Kosovo and Bosnia. Andat that time, were you ever imagining
the you would be a therapist atall? Anyway? Oh? Hell no,
hell hell no. I started offmy career. Yeah, I started
off my career as a combat engineerand then got kind of voluntold into becoming
(01:11):
dog handler in the army. Andyeah, not once I think it would
be working in mental health, letalone psychology. So let's talk about that.
So you go into the service,you do your tours, and how
did this all happen, and thenyou got into training dogs, which I
love dogs, by the way.Probably they were shepherds, oh, shepherds.
(01:33):
Melanwas labs. Yeah, so youend up working with the dogs.
That had to be a great experiencebecause those are beautiful animals. They're more
human than human beings are, Ithink a lot of ways. Sometimes sometimes
yeah, No, I had avery interesting career. I enlisted as a
combat engineer in the Army, stationedoverseas and in Germany, which I loved,
(01:57):
and then came Marie enlist in timewith all the things heating up with
the war, and after nine toeleven the army was needing more military police
and things like that. So abunch of us pretty much got voluntold though
to go become military police. AndI was getting a little disillusioned with that's
one of the politics of the militarypolice court. And I started a major
(02:20):
coming and goes, hey, whatdo you want to do with your life?
I go, well, I wantto make a million dollars and do
something for me in the outside ofworld. He goes, good, you
have to be in Canain in schoolby noon tomorrow if you like it,
staying if not, get out andgoing down to Canaine School. I loved
it, I really did. Itwas the It turned out to be one
of my greatest passions. After gettingwounded in Iraq, I got medically discharged
(02:45):
and ended up doing a service dogcompany and after doing so many helping so
many veterans, I did probably afew thousand dogs in the first couple of
years of doing that program. Twodogs in the first couple of years.
Yeah, probably the first five yearsI did about three thousand dogs work with
three thousand dogs. And after thatI used my VA benefits through a vocational
(03:13):
rehab to really go get a degreein psychology. And I heard that your
stories are so vivid. I canalmost hear the dogs. I can't ken
he's grumbing in the background. Iapologize for that, But the whole thing
(03:35):
there is is I I did somuch work with the trying to get dogs
taken care of and working with somany vets doing basic mental health that the
VA set me to go, orthe VRE, I should say, set
me to go get my doctorate inclinical psychology. And that path is one
I never would have guessed and reallyshowed me where where the disparities are in
(03:55):
vetered mental health treatment. So youget into this, you're very successful,
you're passionate. You're probably like,wow, this has like been my calling,
and then how did the whole therapything happen? With vets? So
ended up starting to nonprofit out herein Sacramento. You're out of you get
(04:16):
out of the service yeah, right, and then you're in Sacramento and then
you decided the nonprofit. For thefirst nonprofit, I started with a service
dollar program, and then I gotinto doing actual mental health, and then
I started another nonprofit for specifically formental health for veterans and been doing that
for the last oh god, sinceabout two thousand and nine or two thousand
(04:42):
and nine, I'm sorry, twentynineteen. So how many nonprofits do you
have or did you? I've worked. I founded two of them in the
last in the last ten so years, twenty years. But right now I'm
just pretty much doing the non profitfor mental health, okay, because you
realize probably there's such a huge need. Correct, Oh my god. Yeah.
(05:05):
I still do service dogs and Istill do the mental health for vets.
But it gives a platform and aplace for the veterans to come in
and actually get treatment and give usa solid platform to voice the needs of
veterans, to be able to takecare of them, to share a different
(05:26):
point of view of what these menand women have gone through and the support
that they're so desperately seeking. What'sgoing on in mental health in this country,
in the United States, where youfeel we really are dropping the ball.
Oh wow, that's such a loadof question. There's a huge misconception
(05:50):
that the VA actually takes care ofveterans, and they don't. VA only
takes care of those eligible for VAhealthcare, and people don't realize that it's
such a small population that they onlytreat about twenty percent of veterans they're actually
(06:11):
eligible. And the funny thing isis they everyone's cried for veterans to be
treated as a culture for so manyyears in mental health and in research and
everything else. Because you know,veterans have a disportioned suicide rate. We
have a higher suicide rate than ourpeers. We were more likely to not
complete mental health treatment, We're morelikely not to actually follow through with treatment
(06:35):
protocols in the whole nine yards,and no one's been able to figure out
why. And the reason behind thisis because we have never been evaluated as
a culture. I mean, ourcountry is nearly two and a half centuries
old, and in that entire timeframe, no one's actually treated us or evaluated
(06:55):
us as a culture that we are. And the reason culture is so drastically
important for mental health is simply becausethat is how we determine if we need
mental health treatment or not. Imean, if you're hearing voices in your
head and you're talking to a voicein your head, you're either crazy or
(07:15):
you could be Catholic talking to God. So if you're not taken into context
it, you're automatically viewed as broken. And research has shown that that veterans
are perceived as broken and until we'reactually treated as the culture that we are,
(07:36):
nothing's going to change. In twentytwenty two, I did the research
as part of my doctorate to validateveterans as an independent culture, which means
that they now have to start takinginto account our culturally normative behaviors like our
training and receive in basic training,and determine the difference between is that part
of who we are now or isthat actually trauma that needs mental health health
(08:00):
treatment? And when we and we'veseen in our own clinic that when we
start taking into account the cultural normsof veterans that most of them are misdiagnosed,
most of them aren' getting the treatmentthey need because no one before has
separated what's culturally normative from what's actuallygoing on with them is part of that.
(08:22):
Also, how military is not beingtrained to properly adjust to becoming civilians.
Oh, that's a misconception, Ithink. So you can't ever for
the everyone who's learned to ride abike, you can't unlearn to ride a
bike, right, you can eitherimprove that skill, may become a cyclist
(08:46):
or yeah, it's been a minute, Right, I'm gonna stumble a little
bit. You cannot ever go backto being a civilian. You're a civilian
before you join the military. Thenyou go through one of the longest periods
of mental conditioning and classical condition thatyou'll ever receive. You learn a new
set of values, language, skills, are coping mechanisms while you're in service.
(09:09):
Then you evolve into becoming a veteran. You're never a civilian. And
that is one of those big misconceptionsas far as training to make that transition
from military service to after military serviceto veteran life. Ironically enough, the
military actually does train you. Becausethere's that disconnect between mental health providers and
(09:35):
military service members and veterans, they'reactually teaching them the same thing in mental
health therapy. They're teaching us tocreate schedules. They're teaching us to cope
with stressors. They're teaching us toplan, they're teaching us to do evaluations
of the activities and the things goingon in our life, and they're teaching
(09:56):
us how to communicate mental health outthere became actually broken down to a five
paragraph order, a risk assessment,and an after action report. It really
can't I even created an entire therapeuticmodality off of it. Why do we
(10:16):
have such a huge homeless population ofveterans more right now than we've ever had
in the United States? Friend,I lost you. I can't hear you.
Why do you? Can you hearme? Now? Can you hear
me? Okay? Are you there? I think we have lost him for
let me know if if he comesback on. We were getting what we
(10:41):
were going down some good areas talkingabout some of the things that are going
on in the country with homeless vetsand maybe possible ways that we could combat
what's going on? Some reason,we're having a little sound issue. Can't
hear me? I can hear you? Fine, you hear me? Can
(11:05):
you hear me at all? Iwonder if we need to reboot. I
can't hear you at all? Maybewe need to reboot. Let's try this.
(11:26):
Can you hear me? Now?No, that's interesting. This never
happens. So the thing is thatI'll talk a while. We're trying to
work this out. Is My questquestion to him was we're gonna try to
log in again. The question Iasked doctor Kevin Cameron was why do you
(11:52):
think that there's more homeless veterans inthe United States right now than we've ever
had? And then at that moment, there we go and then that moment
everything just went quiet. Can hearme? Okay? Now are you there?
Still can't hear me? Still can'thear me? This has never happened.
(12:18):
How about now? Okay? Sowe're going to keep trying to work
at this. But bottom line iswe need to find a way to help
our veterans. There shouldn't be somany of them on the streets. They
gave their time, their service tous, and we should be taking care
of them. Now, what isthe answer to that? I don't know.
(12:41):
That's why we're going to try tofigure out how we can work with
groups of people to find a wayto combat this issue of homeless veterans on
the streets. Can you hear me? Now? I can hear you.
But can you hear me? Youcan't hear me. It's not on my
end. Okay, how about yourcourt over there, Sarah? So I
(13:11):
guess the answer. I can hearyou, but you can't hear I can
hear you. Now. There wego. Okay, the AirPod disconnected is
what I just was told. Sorryabout that. It's okay, Okay,
(13:35):
can you hear me? Good?Yeah? Here you now? So here
here's a quick question. So letme ask you this. I know that
this is this is all very challengingstuff. Why do we have more homeless
veterans in the United States right nowthan we've ever had on the streets?
Oh? I mean, the researchI think is still out on a lot
(13:56):
of that, My personal of viewis a misunderstanding of what these veterans need.
Now. Don't get me wrong,some of them are out there by
choice. They'd rather retreat into somethinglike that than deal with the world around
them. But I do believe thatmost of it has to do with a
misunderstanding of the veteran culture. Ifevery veterans immediately looked at as if they're
(14:22):
broken, then would why would theyactually get the help they need? Right,
It's not that they don't want help, it's just they can't get the
help that they need because they lookedat as they're broken, and mental health
providers don't actually understand what they needbecause they can't separate the cultural normative behavior
(14:43):
from the issues that they have.So these men and women get lost in
the system. They they're fed drugsthat they don't need, they're they're over
medicated there, they're shipped off andtold to go, you know what,
just wait, right, and theyend up self medicating with alcohol or other
(15:05):
drugs and that's all they can theycan really do. So there's there needs
to be more work towards this.Do you feel like there's any positive things
happening where we're going to see moreimprovements in this area that you can share
with us. Yeah, I hopethere is going to be more improvements.
(15:26):
In twenty two, I did theresearch to validate veterans in independent culture.
It got published in like January Februarytwenty twenty three, and that's kind of
my mission these days is to getthat get that information out there, make
sure mental health providers across the boardunderstand that veterans are independent culture, and
that we're required by by our industryto actually become culturally confident. Mental health
(15:52):
assessments and treatments need to be normedor or or tailored to veterans and first
responders in the military so they knowwhat's really going on with us. In
my own clinic, I've seen itwhere, like I said, between eighty
to ninety percent of the men andwomen that come in there, they're misdiagnosed
(16:15):
around around cultural competence and trauma.Either a they are being treated they were
diagnosed with trauma that they don't have. They've been treated for PTSD when they
don't have PTSD, or they're beingtreated with some other crap diagnosed that's when
reality is they have PTSD and othertraumas they have to deal with. And
(16:40):
I honestly believe that if we canevaluate the veteran for the person that they
really are, that we're going toget rid of that backlog for mental health.
We're going to get these men andwomen the systems and services they need,
and that twenty two a day isgoing to drop to almost nothing.
(17:00):
Tell us about how people could helpyour foundation, and do you have any
events coming up? No, weare already invests currently on our calendar right
now. But the best thing theycan do to support what we're doing is
is get this information out there.Yes, we're a nonprofit. We always
gladly accept donations to the cause,right because mental health therapy isn't free.
(17:25):
But at the same time, it'sgetting this information out there. One person
cannot change the world. And asmuch as I enjoy taking care of my
brothers and sisters, I don't havethe means of our ability to heal every
vet in the world, nor doI want to. I want to get
this information out to people to beable to really create change in the culture.
(17:48):
I mean, I can't fix oldveterans. I mean I can't prevent
the damage to send to us olderveterans, but I can help create change
for the next generation, for themen and women that are currently serving,
for the next war that comes upwhen these men and women get out of
the military and become veterans themselves,foster change to help improve the healthcare system,
(18:11):
get more of these veterans off thestreets, and really continue Abraham's Lincoln's
promise to take care of our nation'sheroes. There is a quote about Lincoln
saying that I didn't realize that.Yeah, yeah, Abraham Lincoln's quoted was
saying that the mission of the VeteransAdministration is to take care of the men
(18:33):
and women who risk their life inthe country. I can't tell you off
my head what it exactly says,but yeah, it's good. It's good
to know. Thank you for whatyou're doing. And I would love to
hear more about some of the thingsthat you're working on. As time goes
on, you come on the showagain sometime. Oh by all means,
most definitely. And I find whatyou're doing very fascinating, and because I
(19:00):
think there's a huge need for whatyou're doing right now, huge And I
know you can't help everybody, butI mean it's just it's heartbreaking to drive
around and you know, you cantell that there's veterans. I mean,
there's a lot just the way theyset up everything and they have their you
know, it's just it's just it'sheartbreaking, and I just it shouldn't be
(19:22):
that way. No, it shouldit really shouldn't. Yeah, the most
happy to come back on whenever youneed me. Thank you very much,
and I look forward to meeting youin person. Oh very much, so
too. Okay, everybody that that'sof course, doctor Kevin Cameron. I
appreciate him being on talking about allthe great stuff he's doing to help veterans
and it's a great guy. Thankyou very much, doctor, Thank you.
(19:47):
Okay, everybody take care, andI want to thank my sponsors for
being a big part of what wedo because without them, we would not
have our show. Everybody take care, being nice to each other, and
remember there's always a way around asolution. Don't get angry, take some
time, step back and figure itout. Let's be nice to each other.
(20:10):
Everybody take care and God bless
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