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The third Wednesday in May came a little bit early this year because May 1st was a Wednesday. So the third Wednesday we get a visit with the folks from the McCall Behavioral Health Network and today we want to welcome back John Fecteau. He is Director of Mental Health. John, welcome back.
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Thanks for having me.
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Thanks for joining us on the program. May is Mental Health Awareness Month and the theme this year is “Take the Moment” to try to destigmatize mental health by normalizing the practice. You know I feel like every time we think about mental health we’re looking through the lens of the experience of the recent pandemic because in so many ways that put mental
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health into stark relief, don’t you think? It did, it did. It definitely brought it to the forefront and I think it got a lot more people talking about it as just a regular conversation during the day, which is very different than it was prior to the pandemic.
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Well, I think all of us had some kind of mental health challenge during that time. So maybe that helps us realize the folks for whom it’s a chronic or more severe problem gives us a little inkling of what they’re dealing with. It does, it does. It gives you a little bit a little bit more empathy for folks that have been struggling with this for a
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long time. The statistics show we’re looking at one in five U.S. adults experiencing a mental health issue nationally.
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It’s a big number. It’s about you know 20 percent, give or take, maybe a little more, that experiences some degree of amental health challenge. And among that group, only about half actually get help. And for that half that gets help, you know, there’s another sort of striking statistic it usually takes 10 or 11 years for someone who first starts to experience symptoms to the point where they actually get treatment, which is a long time. And it explains a lot of addictions,
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and it explains so much, but it just goes to show you that if you’re standing in a large room and you look at 20% of those people and only half of that is getting the help that they need. It’s pretty scary.
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You get a lot of it, seems like it’s sporadic, but with government, be it state government, be it federal government, every now and then, mental health issues will crop up and it becomes a priority or there’s proposed new funding or something like that. And then it goes away again,
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and we just don’t see as much of it. And as we know from mental health and the struggle with it, this is not something that is done in a short burst of time. This is something that requires a long-term investment of resources and patience.
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It does. Some of the reasons why people don’t actually get help is a stigma, but also the cost of it, the access to it, and just misunderstanding about what’s available for treatment out there. And plenty of people struggle with a loved one that has a mental illness and they don’t
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know what to do. Because still, even though we’ve come a long way, there’s still quite a bit of stigma around it. And you have to look at getting treatment and getting help for mental health conditions is definitely a marathon, not a sprint.
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It’s funny how the common culture sometimes can raise awareness, like Elmo saying, how’s everybody doing? And suddenly the whole nation’s listening. You know, I mean, it’s a good thing. You know, you get a simple, fuzzy character, popular character like Elmo asking
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about how everybody’s mental health is doing. So when we talk about a loved one that we know is battling, how can we help?
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What can we do?
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Well, I think the first two things that you always have to take into consideration is that it’s a process. You have to both be patient, which is sometimes really hard to do when you’re watching somebody struggle, but also be mindful of your own mental health needs and support during that period. Change is a process. No matter what you’re trying to change if you’re trying to quit smoking or lose weight, it’s a
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process to get you there. And, you know, generally speaking, the system, our mental health system, has made such advances over the years in how we approach change. We see it as a process now. There’s these things called stages of change, right, where, you know, they go from a pre-contemplation, contemplation, preparation, action, and maintenance. And each one of those is a distinct part of somebody’s change process. And so it goes from not recognizing that I have an issue at all to maybe there’s something
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going on to there is something going on but I don’t know what to do about it to now I’m getting help and then in maintenance you’re maintaining those gains. But helping somebody through that process can be really sticky. And so you always have to make sure that you A, keep up hope because at the end of that, there is recovery as possible. And also that there’s other resources out there to help support you through that as
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a family member and as an individual suffering with mental health conditions.
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And don’t you have to meet them where they are? Like you said, those components along the way, whatever stage they’re in, they might be in that stage of realizing, I have a problem, but I don’t know what to do about it. That could go on for months, depending upon the person.
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Oh, it could go on for years.
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And you’ve got to hang in there with them.
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You do. And as treatment providers, that’s one of the things we do, is if I try to treat somebody as if they’re in an action stage of change, but they’re in a pre-contemplative stage of change, I’m just going to push them away,
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because they’re not ready to hear that. So I have to meet them where they’re at. And when you look at Motivational Interviewing, which is, again, a staple of our treatment process now, is it’s about not pushing from behind or pulling from the front.
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It’s about sort of walking side by side with the person at their pace at that time.
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If you’re just joining us, John Fecteau is our guest this morning. We’re talking about May Mental Health Awareness Month. John, the Director of Mental Health for the McCall Behavioral Health Network. So let’s talk about some of the tools, resources
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that McCall’s got that can bring to bear because you guys have a lot of tools in the box that can meet people where they are. Yes, we do. And we have embedded, as our whole service system has gone from more of an illness-based model to more of a recovery-based model, our services have embedded APRNs that work with folks around medication management, to our outpatient, intensive outpatient, our outreach programs, and our mental health group homes.
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We have one in Torrington and two in Waterbury that really focus on independent skill building
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to move people from, say, a hospital setting back to a more independent setting.
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So we shine a light on mental health this month of May, but this of course is an annual problem. It goes on year after year every month of the year and we thank you folks at McCall for what you bring to bear to help people deal with it and to get to the best part of their
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lives. Thank you and if you’re looking for services you can you know reach out to McCall at 860-496-2100 even to ask some questions about what to do and you can also find us on the website at our website at McCall Behavioral Health Network and NAMI-CT is a great resource too for family support and education around this this issue.
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John Fecteau is director of mental health for McCall Behavioral Health Network. John, thank you for your time and for all the great work you guys do down at McCall.
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Thank you for having us. We’ll see you next time. Bye. Thank you for having us. We’ll see you next time. Bye.