This insightful discussion highlights the importance of integrating mental health into holistic well-being. The conversation explores how unresolved stress and poor lifestyle choices contribute to physical and psychological challenges, emphasizing the need for approaches beyond medication. Key topics include the critical role of exercise in combating depression, the detrimental effects of social media on youth, and the significance of meaningful connections and purpose in fostering emotional resilience.

Practical advice, such as journaling, gratitude practices, and open communication, offers actionable steps toward better mental health. The discussion also underscores the importance of early premarital counseling, teaching emotional intelligence, and empowering youth to develop interpersonal skills. Accessible telehealth options provide a convenient solution for professionals balancing busy schedules, ensuring mental health care is within reach for everyone.

Highlights of the Podcast

00:01 - Holistic Mental Health

03:03 - Exercise as Antidepressant

04:23 - Impact of Social Media on Mental Health

06:40 - Overmedication Concerns

10:09 - Communication Challenges in Relationships

13:31 - Parenting and Socialization Post-COVID

18:07 - Purpose and Fulfillment

30:02 - Gratitude and Journaling

31:20 - Men and Emotional Functioning

54:29 - Emotional Intelligence

58:41 - Pre-Marital Counseling

01:03:00 - Therapy for Teens and Families

01:07:39 - Telehealth Accessibility

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:00:01] All right. Well, we can jump here. We can. Can get going. This is one of those I was excited about. We are. I'm a big you know, I'm real big on mental function and mental health because, yeah, when we started looking through all the all the gut issues and when I started finding out was that, you know, we can get the celiac, we can get the, you know, a lot of the gut issues to calm down. But until we fix that sympathetic drive that is pushing people with that stress function and shutting off gut, we're never going to get all the way there. And so, you know, going through stress function, trying to figure out, okay, how do we deal with our psychological stress has been a really, really big piece of it. And it's shocking to me how few people when I'm like, you know, you have a therapist you talk to talking about it. You you ask people like, hey, mental health is important. Like we agree on almost nothing. But we all agree that mental health is important. And people go, Yup, yup. And they go, Well, what are you doing for it? And they go, Nothing. So like, Coach, walk us through like the type of people who need to go see a therapist, counselor, mental coach, anything like that. You know, what are the types of things that you see in that people need to come work on?

Steven Scott [00:01:07] Sure. Well, I think I think the first obstacle is that most people have partitioned off mental health from health. And instead of looking at the the body systemically as a whole system, that mental health and mental stability and wellness is as part of an integral part of, you know, we we look at that as a society as a completely different thing. Then there's also the obstacles of we'll talk about men seeking mental health help later, but that's a whole different animal. But yeah, I think you and I are well aligned in that If you treat the body as a as a complete as a system rather than these separate parts, you know, everybody wins. Additionally, we've we've operated even from a psychiatric standpoint, from the medical model for many years where, you know, you have a symptom. You go to the doctor and you treat it usually with something that's. Varying degrees of effective or ineffective. And then we treat whatever side effects come from that medication with a different medication. And then before you know it, you know, a lot of people that that that hit my office are on 4 to 5 psych meds, you know, one one treating the initial symptom and then it just becomes a domino of of other medication to treat the you know what's going on here. I think if if again if we look at things holistically, it's a win win. And using things like encouraging people to exercise. I know that's a crazy thought. Physical activity is one of the best antidepressants out there.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:03:03] I think that most research has been done on depression has been, you know, shows that exercise is the number one way to cure or to treat depression.

Steven Scott [00:03:12] So but but it's one of the hardest things, obstacles to overcome and get people to to do. Because as you can imagine, a lot of the a lot of the symptoms of depression are the exact opposite of the possible cure. For example, when people are depressed, they want to be sedentary, they want to stay inside. They want to be inactive. They don't want to reach out to their social support network. Whereas the opposite of those three things being active, getting outside in green spaces and outdoors and moving and engaging with the social support network are integral parts of combating depression.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:03:56] So if we're looking at somebody who's trending more depressed. Let me ask you this way. If we have these kids who are sitting inside on their cell phones and the video games with their high fructose corn sirup cereal not doing stuff, are we are we looking at creating I don't know if we can legally diagnose why are we creating recipes? Are we creating the the environment to to trend towards depression by doing those things?

Steven Scott [00:04:23] Absolutely. And also, that's a whole nother soapbox of social media and Tik Tok and Instagram. They're constantly bombarded with a feed and a lot of these things and some of them are positive and helpful, but some of it is complete garbage. And actually, we've seen here at our clinic for Psycho Counseling Wellness, a huge uptick in kids. We just say kids sub 25, I'm going to go ahead and incorporate 25 and under. Because we've got a lot of 20, 22, 25 year olds functioning as children living at home. Still not. Not launching and leaving the nest and being completely dependent on parents, which, as you can imagine, is also very depressive. But they're bombarded with. This garbage that really propagates diagnoses. I see kids come to my office and, you know, they want a diagnosis. They're like, why do you think I have? You know, and they pick some wild ones, right? Do I have you know, you can tell I've done the research. Do I have a generalized anxiety disorder or do I have true obsessive compulsive disorder? And and I'm like, no, no, you just need to go hang out with your friends and get outside and, you know, get off the console and touch grass. So and, you know, that's that's not denying that there are true mental illnesses or psychiatric diagnoses that absolutely can be your children. Kids or adults can benefit from some of these meds. I just think it's I'm going to make a pretty brazen statement. It's almost like a 910 rule. 90% of those could be, you know. They could take they could do things to either help their medication work better and more effectively, or I've seen kids that are adults that change their lifestyle and they don't they don't need the medication that they were on anymore.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:06:40] I see that a lot. I see a lot here. I will bring people in and people be like, I'm depressed and we'll polar testosterone. Like your testosterone is a third of what it should be. You have you know, your gut flora is almost up, so you're not producing any serotonin, you know. So we change their diet. We get them moving a little bit, getting the testosterone. All of a sudden everything's fine. And so, you know, there's a lot of that. I think that one of the big problems is that we the access to information that these kids have now is unbelievable, which is great, which is good and bad because, you know, I love psych and I'm watching Dr. Peterson's stuff and Peterson University or Christian Academy. And I was watching the thing on narcissism, and I'm like, man, you know, if you were to watch that and understand the parameters of it, you'd be like, I'm a narcissist because, like, I like to be out with people and I say things, I do things and I like myself, so I must be a narcissist. And it's like the difference is like you're a for like you like who you are, the actual narcissist or the tens. And so I think a lot of these people, like you said, with the generalized anxiety disorder, they're like, well, I have some of those things, so that must be me. I'm just broken. I need medication, you know, instead of I need to change my lifestyle. And so that's going to be really fun for you to have to deal with all that stuff with these kids coming in with all this info.

Steven Scott [00:07:54] Well, they almost they want to wear it as a badge, Right? There's even I don't know if you're aware of it. There's something called menu anxiety and menu anxiety is an actual thing. If you don't believe me, check tick tock or whatever social media networks are out there that you're on. And it's it's it's actually not being able to figure out what you want to order on a menu. And I you know my personal opinion I guess it's professional opinion too. That's that's insane And but it's you know they're that this thing they see a tick tock about it. It's almost like they want to wear that as a badge and it's a okay, well you have this. yeah, I can commiserate with you because I have this. Yeah. You know, it's. I don't know that that's a real thing.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:08:50] Yeah. Now, not able to figure out what you want to eat. I think that's one of those. We call that the first world problems. Like, you know, there's so many great things on the menu. You can't figure out which one you want. Well, that's you know.

Steven Scott [00:08:59] If that's your concern of the day, I don't feel too, too bad. You know, I kind of maybe I experience that sometimes I'm like, hey, could you come back around? Like, I want to make sure I see everything on the menu and pick the absolute best thing because I love to eat. And it's, you know, I don't want to pick the wrong thing to make. Maybe I've got it, too.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:09:19] Well, you know, it's funny because people ask me all the time, like, you know, is this therapy? Is this the therapy I need? And it's kind of funny because I think that we've also blurred the lines on therapy now that we, you know, now buying a sweater is retail therapy. You know, I think that we I think that we've kind of broken down the idea of what exactly are we looking for therapy wise. But, you know, I think a lot of the stuff that we're talking about, you know, is is compounded by the fact that we don't communicate very well. I think that is the biggest issue. Like we have these feelings. We don't communicate very well. And I think that's one of the things we see the most with relationship issues. And so, like you deal, you do a lot of relationship stuff. So like, what are we typically seeing? What do you think? Because everyone says it's sex and finance. What are the things that that drive relationships sideways? You guys are saying.

Steven Scott [00:10:09] Well, that's such a loaded question. Yeah. So I do believe that that what we have here is a failure to communicate, and that's the demise of most relationships. I would add in sex and money, I always say, you know, the John Gottman, who I use a lot of his work, he says money, sex and kids. So if we're going to if we're going to argue plus and fight, it's going to be about money and how we spend money and allocation of resources. And usually we've got a spender and a saver. And it's kind of like that. You know, if we've got two spenders, that usually doesn't work out very well and two savers, that's just not very much fun. So, you know, sex is generally the difference in libido. And, you know, things can start out amazing, hot and heavy. And then we get, you know, five years in and have a couple of kids and stress. And, you know, I think I think that's a it's a function of our lives being way too full and not not taking time to invest in our partner and what's important and then parenting. I mean, jeez, parenting is not for the faint of heart. I've got three of them myself. And, you know, to think that my wife and I would agree on every parenting issue, whether it's empowering versus enabling or how much access to have to, you know, social media or iPhones, you know, kids getting iPhones at six years old now. Right. You just put it you're putting a lot of dangerous things and way too much access in their hand. So I think that we do agree on all that stuff is just is kind of silly. But yeah, I think at the core is communication. And if one thing we do is we teach couples how to communicate, we break things down. If, you know, even using like test test discussions or test arguments or issues, if you will. Because if we can. If we can. Make sure not to use any information here that's incriminating to anyone. But if we can if we can engage and resolve the issue of how we're going to spend Christmas, for example. Right. You've got two people that have always done things the same way they get married. You know, people you know, couples are getting married much later now, so they're much more entrenched in how they do Christmas. And lo and behold, we've got two people who both families and extended families do Christmas on Christmas Day, noon or Christmas Eve dinner or something. I mean, you've got to resolve that. And if we can resolve that, we can we can resolve things like parenting and and sex and finance. So using a small case, I mean, that's actually not a small case. Christmas is a big deal. And, you know, everyone can appreciate that as we're coming up on that season. But how has been our holidays? If we can figure that out, man, we can we can we can resolve if you have those core principles of communication, we can resolve anything.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:13:31] You guys actually sit down and come up with like, hey, here's a here's an argument you guys aren't really having, but let's walk through this like it was like it was real. And they kind of walk out, teach a communication off of that.

Steven Scott [00:13:41] Yeah, sometimes it's easier to use a hypothetical because there's it's not emotionally charged. Right. If it's an argument that they've butted heads on for nine of the last eight arguments. Right. It's like it's like they're coming to the table hot already. Yeah. And if we can come to the table on an issue that's like, where are we going to eat for lunch rather than, you know, I don't want to see my mother in law or father in law or your cousin or your sister because she's a whatever else like that's too hot to start out on. And most most people, most humans, most couples that I work with, I work with a lot of couples. Just don't know how to communicate. They've never learned how to communicate. And that's only becoming worse and worse with several things. Social media isolation during Covid. I think we are only beginning to see the full impact and the ramifications of the the impact that that's having on that generation, especially pool school age children, that we're you're at the core of learning socialization and how to communicate with with with other humans. And they were a lot of them were stuck inside for two years. Right. Yeah. Not only that, how to communicate and engage with the opposite sex. Right. And we've got kids that are, you know, they'll come in my office. I work with a lot of couples and I work with a lot of families with with teenage and young adult children. They'll come to my office and tell me they've got a girlfriend. And I'm like, okay, cool. Tell me about your girlfriend. And they'll tell me all about her. And I'm like, Well, when did you first meet her? And I'm like, okay. So they'll tell me when they met her and then ask enough questions. And I've been doing this long enough, about 25 years actually, that some start selling fishy and the girlfriend is in Idaho. And I've actually never met the girlfriend, but that's been the girlfriend for a whole year, right? Completely online. Not not touching or engaging. You know, real people, I think is pretty detrimental to building human interactions in relationships also.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:16:03] Yeah, that's one of those things I talk about a lot, you know, like, and I have this crazy, weird idea that we should be stuck teaching Trig and stuff like that and in school and start teaching interpersonal communication, you know, IQ, things like that.

Steven Scott [00:16:17] I mean, you've got to calculator.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:16:19] Yeah, like, yeah, I told me that it is like there's no reason for our kids to be learning all 50 states in all 50 capitals because we can Google that whenever we want to. But you know, we're not learning is how do I communicate with a person over there that they have different thoughts and ideas than I do? How do we have a conversation without getting too entrenched into tribal? Like, I think we should be teaching that instead of, you know, like I said, some of the some of the higher order, you know, math and stuff like that, which if you want to go be an engineer or go to college and then that's a that's great, but we gotta teach people how to function. And I don't think we're teaching that at all.

Steven Scott [00:16:51] Well, I agree with you on the math, and I disagree on the geography because that's a personal hotspot. I think geography is not being taught. And it it is just a personal vendetta of mine that my kids know geography and they know east and west. And I can't tell you how many adults hit my office. And I'm like, well, we're just west of the tollway on Lebanon, but I don't know which way that is. Let, though. So yeah, I agree mostly with that. But I do think geography is important. But to your point, yeah, you can Google it. Sure.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:17:27] The you know, I see a lot of people who are who are really stuck. There's the new apparently the new DSM diagnosis, which I think is is is a big umbrella, is the devoid or lack of purpose. You know, people who are you know, they're finding out that they're not really depressed or not really this or that. They just have no they have no purpose. They have they have no path to walk, you know, because there's so many things that life has gotten pretty easy for a lot of people. Are you seeing are you seeing any of that type of stuff or are you seeing like people who are just like, I don't know what to do with my life? I don't know what I don't know why I'm here. I don't know what the purpose is like, you know, what is there to do for me or what am I supposed to be here for? Have you seen any of that?

Steven Scott [00:18:07] Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Overwhelmingly, yes. I usually recommend a book. It's called A Man's Search for Meaning. It's by Viktor Frankl. He was in a Nazi concentration camp, and he didn't. After that invented or founded existential therapy, which is therapy about finding meaning in your life. And if you I do believe wholeheartedly that if if you wake up in the morning and you have something that that you're connected to, that you find value in or find meaning in, it's a game changer for depression or anxiety or really any most of these psychiatric diseases or illnesses. And on top of that, getting outside yourself. We live in a very egocentric world. You know, it's all about us. It's all about you. Let me let me post this. And I'm big on social media. I'm really not anti social media. I just think there's a lot of bad and negative out there and there's way too much of it and way too many hours spent on it. But you know, what can I post? What can I do? I need to post between 7 and 7:47 p.m. so I get the most likes or, you know, whatever that looks like. It's all about seeking that approval from an external source or you may not even know I never met. Rather than getting up and making a difference in your community, making a difference in your world. And when we get outside of ourselves, a lot of times I encourage people to to volunteer. Right. Is very it's very difficult to breathe. You talk about first world problems. And here, especially in the area that we live in, there's there's a lot of first world problems. And, you know, if you if you look at the fact that I think it's 87% of the world doesn't have clean drinking water and some of the things that we're upset about or going to therapy for is if you look at it through that lens, it's just it's insane. And so it's it's very difficult to be depressed if you get up and go down to, you know, Dallas Salvation Army and serve people, you know, a meal, a hot meal when it's 30 degrees outside, that wouldn't have that meal otherwise. So when you're externally focused and looking at serving other people, it's very difficult to be depressed. Depression is a very egocentric illness. It's a very real thing. It's it's it's based on brain chemistry and the the lack of neurotransmitter. And when that gets off in your brain, but also there's some things we can do. And if you're if you're out serving other people, you're not going to stay depressed generally, you know, look at the fact that, hey, my my life's pretty good and I'm helping other people. I've found meaning or purpose in today. And hey, I'm going to get up tomorrow and I'm going to do the same thing and I'm going to make the world a better place because I'm in it rather than expecting and being entitled for everyone to do something for you.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:21:26] You know, it's one of those things that one of the things that I like, too, because when I do this type of stuff, I like to work on, you know, shifting the filters, like because you can always find the bad in any day. But if you want, you can find the good in any day as well. And so I think a lot of times it's ends up happening is that we get shifted because of the news media, because of social media or whatever. We get shifted into finding the bad things and we just get obsessed with them. And so, like part of the thing I like to talk about for Legacy is what have you done for your community? Like, what do you do? Like once you kind of fix yourself, you get yourself to a point where you're like, okay, I'm functional and stable. As soon as you start going out to the community and helping other people, it really does change things. Like I was having people I usually, you know, teach gratitude and like just go to gratitude. Like, look, look for the things you're grateful for. And people come back and they're like, Man, that really changed my life. And, you know, now I see the things I'm happy about and I can go out and kind of help other people with that stuff, too. And it's it's been really kind of interesting to see people who have started going out and try to find that thing in the community. They can do it whether it's, you know, teach business, whether it's teach, you know, relationship function or teach, you know, exercise or whatever it is that they know how to do. You know, these people come back in and they're just completely changed. The guy, the guy who I was working with and he's done very, very well business wise, great family, the whole thing. And I'm talking to him and I can tell there's something wrong, right? Like when you talk to someone and they're not really there and they're thinking about something else, and he's like, What's going on? What's bugging you? He's like, Nothing. I'm like, Now come on. I can see that something's wrong. What's going on? He's like, I don't know, man. He's like his I feel kind of bad because my life is awesome. He's like, I got plenty of money. He's like my family. I have the best family in the world. My job is great. And it's not because I just feel like something's missing. And I ask him, I said, Well, what are you doing to give back? He's like, Well, I give $10,000 a month to church. And so, you know, I'm going to make. Yeah, but you make enough money that ten grand a month. Well, it's a giant amount for a lot of other people isn't a big thing for you. Like you're not going to be hurting because of it. There's like, well yeah, now is like, so good. Like we talked about it. He started going he started teaching, you know, younger kids entrepreneurship in like business, stuff like that. And he comes back in, he was like, Hey. He's like, I took your advice. He's going to sell my business. I'm going to do this thing over here. And I was like, I didn't tell you to sell your business. He's like, Yeah. He's like, I've got guys who who can run this business and everything will be fine. He was like, I started going out and serving my community. I started teaching these things and working with his kids, his, and that gave me the fulfillment that I've been lacking for the past ten years is like that filled the void. He was like, that was really what I what I what I do from here on out because it gave him purpose. Like he had all this purpose to build the business. He built it. And then we starting up top, he was like, I'm here. What do I do now? And so, like, going out in the community and helping people was something that there was a big, big change for him. And, you know, I've talked to people who that's their thing. They go to the church, they volunteer at the church, they volunteer at the school. They volunteer wherever, helping people, you know, do things. And that's always been the biggest thing for a lot of these people. You know, Petersen was talking about how, you know, the one thing we all have in common is that when you really help somebody and they turn around, they say, thank you. That's really help me. Here's like the vast majority of people find that that is the most rewarding feeling in the world is to help other people. And so that's one of those things that, you know, we can sit and flex about our cars and about our our vacations and stuff like that. And that just kind of separates us, you know, from each other. But but working with people to make their lives better has been really profound at making everybody in the communities lives better. So, you know, volunteering and looking for legacy things, I think is one of the best things that we can do. When you're in a position where you're like, I don't know, I'm swirling around and, you know, I guess I'm trying to find reasons to be pissy, you know? And so I guess I guess I'll find this thing like I don't have the right car. Well, I guarantee you, you've got a car that's better than 99% of the world. So go out and, you know, give back and might help you out.

Steven Scott [00:25:12] Well, to that point, you know, chasing money will make you miserable. Yeah. If you you know, money money buys comfort up to a certain dollar amount. And I only say 10 or 12 years ago there was some research done. It was up there a couple of times. And, you know, at some point in time, in net income, the happiness flatlines right up into a certain dollar amount. You know, money actually does buy happiness because why it can buy you a car instead of walking, it can buy you heat in the in the winter. You can buy you, you know, the, you know, heat in the winter. Right. So you're not outside under a bridge, you know, starving to death, buys food and you're up to a certain amount. It might buy a better cheeseburger rather than, you know, McDonald's cheeseburger. Right. Or whatever. Right. But a certain dollar amount. And I want to say, I don't remember exactly, but it was between it's I ask people this in my office all the time. They always overshoot. I say. I explain all that and I say, What dollar amount do you think it is? And again, we've experienced a little bit of profound inflation. So it's a little higher today than it was ten years ago. That's another animal. We'll tackle that a later time. But the dollar amount is less than 70,000 a year in income, right? Yeah, People are guessing, you know, especially high earners. You know, they're like, well, I don't know, maybe half million a year. And I'm like, no, it's like $67,000 a year. That up to that point, 67 you'll be happier than if you're making 37. Right. But from 67 to infinity, the the graph flatlines. And so, you know, money does buy happiness up to a certain point and then money. You know, I work with people that are. Multimillionaires and people that are living in poverty at the poverty level. And some of them are absolutely stoked about life and love life, and some of them are miserable. Doesn't matter how much money they make. In addition, you add that, you know, if you build your organization to a certain point where it's it's, you know, you've got managers running everything and you only have to show up in the office from about 10 to 2. But where's your purpose then? Right. You've got this organization that's just, you know. Print printing cash and you don't have purpose in your life because you're not growing that anymore. And you know, that's where people get depressed and get into trouble and don't anything to do with their time. You mentioned gratitude. I have met. Most people that I work with can benefit from journaling. And by journaling, I mean writing down your thoughts and feelings. I have to say journaling because, you know, I say diary or something like that. I usually say thought log men won't do any of that. So I have to just say, write what you're thinking and write what you're feeling. Right? And until I work with probably more women than men, but a large portion of my clients are men. And if they will just write down what they're thinking and feeling. Most men, I say, What are you feeling? They give me a thought. Right. Like what? What are you feeling? Well. I feel like it's raining outside today. That's not a feeling, I thought. But if we can target the feeling and you externalize that emotion and don't let it leave it stuck inside you and put it out on paper, you're arguably even better if you have some form of community that you can talk to. And most men don't have that either. Most men, if they have three good friends throughout the course of their life, they're beating the average and doing better than most. Most most men just work and work and work and then play and a little bit. Right. We and we don't have margin and don't take the time it takes to do that. But the journal if we if someone a struggle and gratitude to start a gratitude journal of what they are grateful for and the good things that happened to them yesterday and even I have people target like what what is the first good thing that's going to happen for you today? Right. So why do I do that? Well, because then they're looking for it. They're not looking for everything bad that's going to happen. They're looking for that first good thing. You know, Hey, it's a beautiful sunrise. All right. I've got this. Breakfast is bright and I've got food on the table. So targeting gratitude and writing about that is huge. And then you have a blog to look back on and see all these things that you're grateful for. Not all these things that you're miserable about.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:30:02] It's also kind of fun to kind of look back at the things that were bothering you six months ago, and now you look at them and you're like, Man, that resolved itself for me. And that really wasn't as big of a deal as I thought it was at the time. Yeah, because then you're like, Now I'm going to write down the things I'm worried about today. And sooner or later you go, You know what? Maybe the thing I'm worried about today isn't as big of a deal as I think it is right now. I can kind of take a breath and relax and kind of know that I'm going to get through it. And so the journaling thing is fantastic. And that's I've been a big fan of journaling for a long time, even though not a whole lot of people do it. So the big thing is, is that like, I think we're in a really weird space now. There's been a lot of. You know, women have been better with their emotional function forever. They will. They will tell you their.

Steven Scott [00:30:47] Emotions that they were designed that way.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:30:50] Yes. Yeah. But we're getting into a time where it's there are more and more pressures being put on men. I think for a lot of us, it's a good thing to actually kind of recognize that we have stress, we have psychological, emotional issues. It is our working through that. Are there any things that like when you when. That have been helping men to kind of overcome the idea that they need to get in and start working with people that, you know, others are some of the people need to hear so that they can start getting in and start counseling and start working with their stuff.

Steven Scott [00:31:20] Sure. Yeah. Yeah. I think men, especially successful men, they don't want to take the time to to do what it takes to get into a therapy appointment. But also, anybody I'm working with, I'm having them do things outside the therapy appointment. Right. Because we can only do so much in 45 minutes to an hour here. But if you're doing homework, even if it's ten minutes a day outside of here is going to greatly increase our reach and greatly increase our chances of success. I do believe men have to have a very targeted, direct approach. If I have a man come in, I mean men, men. We're fixers, right? We want a solution which which is part of the problem. And to circle back around to the communication relationships then. Right. A lot of times women just need to talk and talk things out and they feel even in therapy or with their partner and they feel much better just by putting it out there and saying, this is what's going on at that kid's school. And these preschool moms are acting crazy. And this you know, I was this is terrible. What do we do, though? We hear a problem. And what do we do with a problem we fix? And I think that's probably ingrained in us, you know, for the last, you know, the billion years. Right. And for who we are. So when we try to fix the problem, what are women here? Women here? He doesn't want to listen. Right. He's just trying to get me to shut up. I mean, this is one of the most common issues with communication. So as men, if we can just listen instead of fix. But that's. That's 90% of the problem. Right. So I understand. I answered a question that you didn't ask, but I had to put that out there because that's like a personal goal of mine, is to teach men how to listen without fixing. Because fixing sounds like, shut up, you're unimportant and I'll listen to you, or I don't care. Right. We're really in our man. We're just. We're kind of simple, right? We're. We're pretty simple in a lot of ways, but it's an equation, right? And it's like, problem, solution. Move on. Done. When they don't actually want the solution. Always. They just need to talk about it. Right. Yeah. But obstacles remain to therapy is is cost and time generally. And this idea that that they're just going to come in and, you know, just talk about the issue and not have any real solutions, what we do here is a very solutions focused approach. It's you know, a lot of times man or woman, right? I mean, a lot of women benefit from this, too. Is that, okay, here's the issue. Here are three things A, B and C, These are the three things you're going to do between now and next Monday when you're going to be back in my office at 3 p.m.. Right. And if you do the if you do these three things, life is going to be better. You going to be less depressed. You're going to have you know, it's just going to be a better day. It usually takes a couple of weeks to get people off the ground to do homework. A lot of times I'm like, Hey, tell me, tell me about the Journal Man, and what have you been writing about? They're like, about that journal. That's the most important thing because it takes it takes about three weeks to make a habit. And I'm asking you to do something that's outside of the box of everything you've done for the last 40 years, basically. But being very direct and very solutions focused. I think that this is a whole nother subject also. But I think the model of therapy is is grossly broken, especially especially when it comes to young adults and teenage kids. I think we we have become a society that enables people who are struggling versus empowering people who are struggling. And, you know, let's say, for example, someone comes in and they've lost they've lost a parent, right. To cancer or heart disease or anything, anything like that. That's a that's a terrible thing. Right? That's a that's a huge life event to you to lose a parent at a young age. But if if if they are followed and, you know, in therapy for the next three years, every week of their lives, and all we're talking about is how terrible that is and how bad life is, and you've got a raw deal and you didn't deserve this. And, you know, I don't we really don't we don't deserve anything. Like we're not entitled to anything. So if we if we take a different approach and empower that person and it could be an 80 year old person that can be an eight year old person, empower them to say, hey, this this is tough, right? You're going through a hard thing right now and you're you're 15 and you're going through this grief process and, you know, 25 and you're going to go through a different grief process and 50 you're going to go through a different process. This is something that will have an impact on you the rest of your life. However. You know, you're. You're from tough stock. You're from a good family. Your parents did hard things. Your grandparents did harder things. Right. And, you know, all the way back. And it's up to you to rise to the occasion. Feel what you're feeling. Talk through those feelings, but work through that grief process and take this and figure out how to make yourself a better person. Right? Because I do believe we're the sum of everything that happens to us from birth until like this, this second. And there are some you know, there's hard parts about that. There's the grief process. It's very real. But to to work through that appropriately and figure out what what, what good how can I turn this negative event that's happened to me and make it make it good, find some positivity.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:37:32] Yeah, there's there's a school of thought within LP on the moving to the cause side of the equation. So you know, sort of sitting there and having things affecting you. All right. What are you going to do about this thing? Like, how are you going to take control and how are you going to move to, you know, now, again, you're back in control of what's going on? Yeah, things are things were bad, but you've got to kind of overcome and take over. Yeah, there's the funny thing is, is that, you know, when you when you look at it, it's always funny because I tell this people a lot, the only person you can change is you. And so if you have a problem, you're going to figure out how you change you to deal with that problem because you can you can beg, you can be you can do whatever you want to to somebody else, but you can't force them to change, but you can force you to change.

Steven Scott [00:38:16] I see that all the time. You know, it's I've got the person in my office that's wanting the other person in the relationship to change, and I'm like, Hey, we have the wrong person in here. So you either need to bring him. It's usually him because men don't want to come therapy, especially relationship counseling. You need to have him in here on the couch with you or. And I wouldn't do this exercise where I'll have them. I'm like, stand up there like that. I'm. I'm good. I'm like, No, stand up. Put your hands out and do a 360 degree circle. And they're like, okay, this guy's crazy. Like, what's what's really going on here? I'm like, All right. Everything within that circle is what you have control of. Everything outside that circle is absolutely out of your control. So you trying to control things? Outside of your locus. Your area of control is it will make you crazy.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:39:10] Well, that's that's, I think, where a lot of anxiety comes from as well, trying to control the things they have no ability to control and then worrying about that lack of control. And so if you can just accept at me like, well, you know what, You can't control the things that happen to you. This is Scott. This is so excited. You can't control the things that happen to you, but you can control the way you react to them. And so, you know, if you start recognizing that that's real and like, all right, cool. So, you know, look, I typical again as a challenge like life scene three challenges, three puzzles. You just figure out how to fix them. Like, you know, that's, that's the thing. So just expect that. And when new new problems come up, you know, figure them out. If you can't figure them out, go talk to somebody who's dealt with this before. Yeah, that's what the therapy thing is, is, you know, go talk to someone and figure out how to get through it. That's why, you know, anytime something big happens, those significant emotional events, you know, loss of a family member, you know, you know the physical issues, the rape issues, go talk to somebody who's dealt with this a lot and they can help you get through, but you still got to figure out how you're going to get through it. Now, once you get through it for you, you know, so, you know, those are some of the things that, you know, people are like, well, go to go get a therapist. What house talk about this forever. Going to help like you said? Well, it depends on who your therapist is. If they give you the abilities to deal with your stuff and change you and get through it, it'll help tremendously. If you're just gonna sit and wallow in it for a long time, that is. That's not gonna help anybody.

Steven Scott [00:40:34] Well, sure. And there's. There's plenty of bad. It's like anything. There's bad cardiologists, there's plenty of bad therapists out there. And so that's why it's very important to, you know, if you're on the Internet, if you're on the Googles, if you're on Psychology Today, you know, pick Matt, look at to pick ten that you like their profile. And the main question is, can this person help me get from point A to point B completely? Let them look them up on the Internet, figure out everything you can about then narrow it down to five. The narrowed down to three. And I don't think it's a crazy idea to pick three and set up an initial appointment with three clinicians. Right. What do you have to lose? Well, you got a little bit of money and a little bit of time to lose. But what you don't want to do is just to pick one off the Internet and, you know, then your, you know, eight sessions down the road and you're like, I really don't connect with this person. I don't I don't feel good with this person. And they really just sit here and don't give me any therapeutic recommendations. And I'm not getting anywhere. I'm spinning models. Then, you know, it's almost like you're not committed. It's like, well, to use a poker analogy, it's like, well, on eight sessions I might as well keep out of this one, or else I'm going to have to reinvent the wheel. Every clinician is not a good fit for everybody. I am not a good fit for everybody. I am a great fit for a certain group of people. And, you know, I pride myself on the fact that if I've got somebody in my office. And I'm not a good fit. Let's just say that they have an issue that I don't have a specific area of expertise. And usually that sorted out in my front office and my front desk before they even hit my office. But yeah, at least once a month I'll say, Hey, I'm not the clinician for you. Right. I don't I mean, I understand eating disorders, but I'm not an eating disorder specialist. This is not what I do. I need to get you in with Ali or Britney. Right. Or I've got we've got 14 clinicians here now at two different offices in Frisco. And we also do a lot of online telehealth. So our reach is way further than than the geographic reach here. And while I'm not a good fit for everybody. I've worked for the plant we've worked for the past 12 years on having someone who's a good fit for everybody. So. Fine. Read the initial stuff. Right. Everybody tells you the best stuff on their bio, but also look at reviews, right? Google reviews or Yelp reviews. If they've got 30 reviews and they've got 4.6 stars, it's kind of like a restaurant. I'm not trying to go to the top place that has 2.2 stars out of five. I'm looking for 4.2, 4.3 or higher. And that generally means that other people have had positive experiences with that person. But yeah, yeah. Set up the admitting there's a problem as the first step. Setting up that initial appointment is the second step, right? And then we we've got a lot of paperwork, right? We want to know everything about you before you walk in the office. And part of that for a reason, because a lot of people bail booked and they don't want to fill out paperwork and we really don't want you here if you are not willing to do the work. And so that initial paperwork is kind of a step. Okay. Well, they're willing to fill this out. So they're motivated to change because at the end of the day, not from a selfish standpoint, because I love what I do. I generally love getting up and doing this every day, and I've done it for 25 years. But if I've got people that are motivated to change and getting better, and when I walk out of here, I've got a little skip in my step and I'm feeling great. If I've got people that are just circling the drain and doing the same thing over and over expecting different results. I mean, that's not fun for me. I love my life. It's fun. I love life, and I want to make an impact and a difference. And I want people getting better. And that's our general focus or mission statement here at Frisco Counseling and Wellness.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:44:55] You know, that's the same that same same thing with what I do. You know, the people who come in and, you know, they've got an they got it. They got a reason why they can't do everything. I can't go to the gym for these reasons. I can't eat like that for these reasons. Like, yeah, I'm just like, my gosh. Like, you know, why don't you go, go, go try to figure it out somewhere else. Like, but the people who are in here, they're like, you know, like I they hit me on the app, like, you know, once a day or, you know, three times a week, like, Hey, I did this and that. And, you know, you can tell they're really working at it. And a month then they start to see change and they love it. That's that's what makes it worthwhile for me as well. So yeah, I feel you on that one. I will also say that, you know, we had my, my my oldest had a really, really terrible teacher experience and we got him in with Ali. And that, I think, helped tremendously. So, you know, and he was How old was he was kindergarten first grade at the time. And it was really interesting to me because I would I would talk to Zane afterwards about the stuff and he would tell me kind of what they did. And it was really interesting to see that like it while it was helping him, he didn't recognize because he's a kid, like what all was going on. But it was really interesting to see him kind of come through that. And so, you know, like you said, like, you know, so many different for each each each issue. And so, yeah.

Steven Scott [00:46:12] I'm not too bad for a first grader, right? No, I'm a I'm a 13, 14 and up guy. Right? Generally, yeah. I just don't have that skill set or maybe patience or, you know, I start out my own kids, I'm like, Man, I want to be so happy to see them when I get home. I don't want to work with eight year olds, ten year olds, and I just don't have the training for that. But, you know, somebody like Ali or Holly and you know, that's their wheelhouse. And they you want to be with a clinician that crushes it with the the exact area that you're needing help on. Because at the end of the day, like, we're we're really we're just a coach. There's nothing magical about this process. A lot of it is common sense. We put people in the right direction. And you know what? What they need is someone that has a greater level of understanding than themselves about the the brain chemistry of depression or, you know, what helps, What doesn't help. But also someone that's on the outside looking in because, man, we've all got our blind spots. But I just look at parenting, but I've got blind spots that other people can see. And I thought that was really stupid, like what you did and it doesn't make sense. And how's that working for you? And I'm like, yeah, actually, it's not. I thought I was doing I thought I was an A-plus parent here and I'm a that was out. That was a B minus move, right? Yeah, because you're on the inside of it. So there's value in having. Someone on the outside looking in that can look at things rationally and logically, unemotionally, right. That they're not emotionally tied to things. And so they can see it much more clearly.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:47:52] One of the things I talk to parents about all the time is, you know what vertical you're at. And so, you know, it's funny because people come in all the time and like, I'll tell some kid, you know, you eat like this or drink more water or whatever, you know, lift like this. And they're like, yeah, I'll start doing that. Sounds like a great idea. And the parents like, just say I've been saying this for two years and I'm like, You have to understand, you're you're in a very, very specific vertical. Like you're there for, you know, as an example for love. But after a certain point, you need somebody else to tell your kids to do these things because they're trying to become their own person.

Steven Scott [00:48:29] 100%. I use that example at least twice a week of my oldest was in baseball coach badge or something, and we were at the batting cages. And I'm telling him I don't remember what it was. Drop your right elbow. I mean, he was missing. The ball was whiffing. Well, I want to say I was like ten, 11, 12, ten, 11. And then I went over to the other coaches. Buddy Miles said, hey, would you would you go tell tell him to drop his elbow and, you know, put his hands together and move his wrist a little bit. And he did it. And he starts stroking the ball, right. And I'm like, first I had to get out of my own feelings. I'm like I said that 18 times in the last five minutes, and you did nothing. And this guy says that. But yeah, it's we're we're parents, especially at that age, you know, especially as they get older, you know, hormones start going. We don't know anything like we've lived. No, we have no life experience and we are our IQ. I tell parents, your IQ takes a nosedive, drastic nosedive at about 12 or 13, your kid's 12. 13. And if you don't believe me as your kid, I'll tell you. Right. And it doesn't rebound. I'm like, Hey, your IQ will come back up, but it doesn't rebound until and generally they're a freshman in college and figuring out I try to figure out how to make Spaghetti Hamburger Helper. I don't know. It's something that college kid with ramen. Yeah. And it's like they're like, I don't know how to boil water. What am I doing here? I think I better call them. Usually they call Mom on that deal. Yeah, but yeah, then they get married and start having kids. And then, you know, of course, when it comes to, you know, babies, mom's IQ rebounds significantly. Finance. IRA as I was my reason when I was doing a seven hour raw. I'm like, All right, here we go. Buckle up. Yeah. So, yeah, that's where it gets fun. You know, my oldest is now 20, my middle is 17, my youngest is 15. So, you know, there is hope they will listen. You know, if you're consistent with them through that development process and they know you're someone that is there for them and loves them and you built that bond with them, your IQ comes back. They'll actually ask you your opinion on things and then it gets fun and then maybe they do it and then maybe they don't.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:50:58] Yeah, well, it's it's what I think is hilarious Is that so? Zayn was working with one of my NFL buddies, you know, being a sinner and move around like that and say it's hurts asking me all these nutrition questions and exercise questions and stuff like that. And Nate, like seven years, hey, he's like, You know who I ask when I have questions like that and say, you know, who who is your dad? He's like, What? He's like, That's how we know each other. He's like. He's like, he helps me with all that stuff. And he was just like, my gosh. Like, it was. It was it's hilarious to me that, like, my he had mind blown that, like, you know, that I have a purpose outside of wrestling with him and telling him, you know, to eat stuff. So, you know, it's it is kind of funny the way that these kids, these kids roll with it. But, you know, I will say that it is it's one of those things that knowing how important the psycho psychological function, the development is, having you guys there to help us out was really, really important. And I it's one of those things I tell people all the time, I'm like, you know, your it's not like I can find an easy reason why your kids need a mentor or a coach or a therapist. You know, bring me any kid, any, you know, 8 to 20 year old and I'll be like, here's the easy things at the top. And the parents are always like, Well, I've taught him better. And I'm like, You've given them the example. You're going to have to have somebody else kind of move them through. This is the whole like takes a village type of idea. You know, like I said, you talked about a very important vertical. You need a professional to kind of help them with the rest of the stuff. So, you know, I'd like to see more and more kiddos because like I'll do some mentor stuff with kids, especially young young people who are just getting married and you walk them through things and they're just like, I never thought of that. And I'm like, You should have thought of that day one. Like, again, this is one of those things, I think that if we could teach kids who, when they're 16, 17, you know, interpersonal communication and, you know, purpose in life and stuff like that, it would make our relationships later a lot better because these kids just don't I don't know if it's, like you said, like you were missing kind of that male group, that male friend group that the younger boys can kind of walk into and kind of sit and listen to and be kind of educated from that type of thing. But I really feel like, you know, the a lot of these kiddos and I I'll take the 25 year olds as kiddos too. I have all these NFL athletes I refer to as kids because they're 25. Right? But you know, getting, getting that secondary communication, getting somebody who's like yourself, who's set up to kind of ask the right questions and kind of point them in the right direction, let them figure it out on their own. But from a educated here's, here are the potholes that are coming for you. Like, let's start walking through these ahead of time, you know, I think is one of the things, the most important things that you can do for the development of a young adult is, you know, we talk about their nutrition, we talk about their exercise. We talk about, you know, learning their math and or their geography. But we're not doing anything to teach these kids psychological function, you know, emotional communication like any other stuff. And I think that's the the number one thing we're going to need because as you start looking at all the air and all the robots and stuff that's coming, like the people who can talk to other human beings, the people who can communicate and be part of a team are going to be the ones that are going to be matter the most. And so I think a lot of that comes from psychological development. And so if we're not having great coaches to help our kids out, I think we're doing a massive disservice to them. I mean, you'll spend thousands of dollars, teach me how to baseball. What do you how are you teaching them to communicate with other human beings? I mean, we need to focus on that.

Steven Scott [00:54:29] It's all about emotional intelligence, which interestingly enough, is more prognostic li indicative of success in life than actual intelligence. There's a great book by Daniel Goleman called Emotional Intelligence. I think everyone should read it. And the great thing about emotional intelligence is that it can be taught, right? This IQ remains constant over time, through all life stages, within about four IQ points. Emotional intelligence is actually something that you can learn. So if you are inept at that and terrible at relationships with other humans, you can actually learn to do better. And then when you when you know how to do better, you can do better and have greater success. And, you know, unfortunately, a lot of most schools, they're teaching to a test because they get money from the government based on how well their kids do on these tests. And the emotional intelligence is not on the test. Right. Geography and Trig are. And so therefore, you know, I feel for teachers these days because it's it's you know, they're under the gun for these kids to perform. When actually I think back, if you look back 50 years ago, there were there were a lot. The skill set being taught in schools was much different than it is today. And I think you see that in our generation versus the generation that's that's getting pumped out into the world today. You hit a nerve. I've got to address if you're going to go to premarital counseling, it's a very, very worthwhile process. Don't go three weeks before the wedding, right, When gifts are already piling up and invitations are out. We've already paid the deejay and the caterer and everything else. Go before you even get engaged. Right. And this is this sounds like crazy talk, but like the it during, you know, someone I mean, you're not going to go after three dates, right? We got three hinge dates. And you're asking your, you know, this person to go to relationship counseling that's going to scare them off faster than just about anything. But go go early. Right. Because. We use an instrument called Prepare and Prepare. They get an email. Each partner gets an email. It takes them about 45 minutes. They fill out a bunch of questions. And then I get 24 pages of feedback on them as a couple on 12 different parameters money, sex, kids, extended family leisure activities. Like even like what you like to do with your spare time. Like if one of you likes to stay inside and play video games, I don't like to go hiking. Like, we're. We have to figure something out here, right? Yeah. And the answer is playing out a portable game console. But yeah, you do that early because you're seeing what the roadblocks are or the speed bumps are before you get in the relationship. Right. Most people don't want to bring it up and then, ah, geez, I get them. I mean, three weeks. I've gotten three weeks. Yes. But like, generally it's about two months before the wedding. And at that point, it's too late. Again, you're not committed. The invitations are out. But also to that point, one of the worst things you can to do if you figure out it's a bad fit. And I will tell couples, this is like this is a bad fit. You guys are going to have to do a significant amount of work to do to make this work. All marriages are significant in my work, but you guys got to figure out some really, you know, whether it's differing faith orientations or religious beliefs or like this is going to be really hard. And, you know, one of the worst things you can do is lay out the intentions already out, let's go and do this thing. And then we've got a mess on our hands. So do that work. Do the investigative work early with a qualified professional that can find what those blind spots are and identify the issues is very, very important.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:58:41] See, I'm a bigger fan of backing up even before that. Like what? I see a lot of people, they get married, they don't know who they are, let alone how they're going to react in a marriage. And then five years later they figure out who they are and they're like, this is not the right match for me. And I sit down and do this, do this self investigation. Who are you? What makes you tick? What makes you what do you enjoy? Like I go through that, prepare a questionnaire for yourself, figure out who you are and where you want to go. Then find somebody who's on that same path with you. That's gonna be a much better match for you. You guys have a much easier time staying together than just, you know, Hey, I've met some cool chick in a bar, and, you know, we're going to try to make it work. We don't know anything about each other, really, or anything about ourselves. So, you know, that that that would be, you know, getting together earlier I think is really important, Lou. And I did the the premarital thing when we were getting married. And the funny thing was, is that we matched really well. And when we went to counseling, it was kind of where those deals were like, well, here's the problem. Sort of like, we've already talked about that. And they're like, What? It was, it was so shocking to me that like, they're like, Well, we're going to talk about kids next week. And I'm like, What do you mean? Like, how how many kids do you guys want to have? I mean, we had the conversation she wants for I want to we're going to have to and figure out how we go from there and like, do people not talk about this? And she was like, no, nobody talks about.

Steven Scott [01:00:00] This answers now the answer's no. Yes.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [01:00:03] I was shocked at how little people actually talk about the things that are obviously important.

Steven Scott [01:00:09] Well, if you look at especially the younger generation, the amount of time that there's a phone in their hand that they're, you know, the hours a day that they're have, this external stimulus of the phone is generally in a place say the wrong amount of time. But like a 30s real means creates a very humans and young adults with a very short attention span. And we can't even have an extended conversation because we're used to scrolling or even like commercials on TV. The 30s Right. It's difficult to have a. Intentional deep conversation when you're not even used to digesting anything over 30s at a time.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [01:00:58] Well. So let me do this because I can talk to you about this is one of my favorite topics. And you talked about this for days, but who are the people that should be? You know, and I'm a big fan of saying everybody, but who would you say the people that you really need to kind of call you guys and get set up, you know, within the new year and stuff like that? Is there something about like if you're struggling with X, Y and Z, give me a call. Is there something specific like that?

Steven Scott [01:01:18] Yeah, that's a great question. And, you know, the easy answer is everybody. But I really don't believe everybody needs counseling a lot of this. Some of it's common sense and you do this out on your own. I'm going to say everybody. And if you have blind spots, right, it's been 1 or 2, three sessions. I do that pretty frequently. And I'm like, hey, I've taught you know, we've talked about these things. You've got your marching orders, you've got a treatment plan. Like, I don't want to see you for another month or you're going off to college, come back, you know, come back at spring break when you're back in town and do these things until then, then we'll reevaluate. Right. So it's very frequent that I tell somebody, hey, you know, I have to do it. Delicately, because when I first started doing this, I had people were like, you don't want to work with me. You don't like me, you don't think you can help me? I'm like, No, this is not it's not that. Like, your time is valuable. My time is valuable and your money is valuable, right? So why waste any of those? And if we can do things, this is how we're a little different. If we can do things every other week. I don't want to see you every week. Right. And if we can do things on a one time, once a month basis, you don't need to be coming every week. It's. It's wasteful. There's more important avenues to invest your financial resources and your time. But our goal here, I told you we had 14 clinicians. Now we our goal is to have someone for everyone and our front office, our office manager is highly trained to spend 3 or 4 or five minutes on a phone call and know who the best fit for that person is. Right? So, I mean, the easy answer is, everybody, we got someone for everyone. But if to get through that filter and get to the right person and sometimes that filter is I need appointments on Saturdays, you know, for my kid. My kids already missed eight days of school. We had flu, this, that and the other and we can't take off during the week or evening appointments, right? There's a certain number of clinicians here that do those things. Some of it is a is a price point or a fee level, right. We have all different fee levels here based on experience and expertise, right? So if someone says this is too much for me, especially if I'm I'm going to look at doing for my daughter the next three months every week and see if we can knock this thing out and get some resolution. That's too much for me. Okay. Well, I've got we've got someone that's at a lesser price point. Right. And it's interesting. I do have a kind of a belief that you learn a lot in school and graduate school for to become a counselor. But a lot of it you either have or you don't. Right. And so I've had some counselors. There's a associate program and an intern program before that where they're underneath a license supervisor. Right. And I've got you know, I've seen counselors that come out of school with a greater skill set. They can just talk to humans, they can identify things and figure out how to get from point A to point B, then clinicians that have been doing this for ten years. So don't don't be scared off if if the clinician is technically a LPC, a licensed professional counselor associate because they may be able to help you and it will cost you less money than seeing someone that's fully licensed and gone through that 3000 hour associate process. So me specifically, as I said earlier, I work with a lot of couples on relationship issues. I see a lot of depression, a lot of bipolar disorder, supportive therapy for family members of patients struggling with bipolar disorder, and a lot of teenage kids, 25 and older kids. Right. Where it's like and generally that's the parents coming in and saying, hey, my kid is not behaving how I've raised them to behave and fix my kid. Interesting. Lee A lot of times. That is a it's a kid issue, but it's also a parental issue. And in fact, we work with the whole family generally. And I will, you know, I like, okay, I'm going to work with your 16 year old, but I need you to see I need you guys to work on some co-parenting issues with Holly for three sessions. And it's amazing what we can get done. When we change the structure. We change the paradigm of how how the child is being parented. And if we can if we can switch that even just incrementally with we see the kids succeed and start figuring things out on their own. Because again, we are a society who enables kids rather than empowering kids. We don't want our kids to do without. We don't want to tell them no. One of the worst thing I know we've got to close this down. I'm ranting here, but like one of the worst things we can do is your kid makes a mistake. You apply some form of corrective discipline of like, hey, you're not going to have your phone for a week. What do those parents do? The kid needs the phone. They start whining. They're going to a friend's house. They need to communicate with the friend. Now it's homework because everything's electronic. I need my phone for homework. You give the phone back in two days, right? Don't tell them a week. Just. Just pick something else. If you can't follow through with it. Right? Yeah, that's. That's huge.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [01:06:57] Well. So that's you know, that's kind of what I was hoping that we could figure out kind of, you know, as people are kind of walking through this. And, you know, everybody understands that mental health is important, but they don't really know where to start. You know, that's the thing. I was kind of hoping we kind of we could touch on some glad that hopefully enough people will see this and be like, you know, I'm not doing anything for my mental health. Maybe I should go take a couple of sessions and figure out, you know, some homework that I could do for me to make my life easier. Better. You know, learn to communicate a lot better. So and I love the fact that, you know, when you're like, hey, go read this book. Like, the information is in this book. If you'll go get the book and read it, you'll be a lot further off. So, you know, so that's that's pretty spectacular. So you guys are first who counseling and wellness. You guys also do virtual stuff, right?

Steven Scott [01:07:39] We do a lot of virtual. About 30% of what we do is virtual. And that started during Covid. And actually, I lived outside the country for a couple of years. And so, you know, I was I was doing telehealth before telehealth was cool. And it can be very effective. It's very effective for some and not effective for some. I've got some people that I'm like, hey, we we need to get you scheduled for this week. And they're like, well, I absolutely want to come to your office and if you absolutely want to come the office, you should, right? Because this is kind of like there's two kinds of people and a lot of professionals that are doing, you know, Zoom meetings all day. It's it's second nature to them to do a Zoom meeting. Right. And it's like they're looking at it, let's say their offices in Fort Worth, they're looking at 45 minute drive to get here. Now we're here 45 minutes back, like that's three hours of your day. And to a large degree, time is money depending on what you do, but mostly for everybody. And so especially for executives, telehealth can be very helpful. They can they can jump in their office, shut the door to other admin, did not bother them for the next hour and then they're back at it an hour later. Right. So yeah, we do a lot of telehealth and all our offices are here in Frisco and yeah, man, this has been fun. Thanks for having me on.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [01:09:05] Absolutely. Yeah. So we'll, we'll post this up and hopefully we can get some people, you know, moving down the road and getting better of mental health, so. Well.

Steven Scott [01:09:12] Go.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [01:09:13] All right, man. We'll chat later. Thank you so much for being on helping us. Helping us out.

Steven Scott [01:09:16] All right. Thank you, sir.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [01:09:18] Absolutely. And have a good day.

Steven Scott [01:09:19] Bye.

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Dr. Matt Chalmers

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