02:47 9/8/24 Talk show Wel being - Englissh
Talkshow “Well–being: Reinventing Mental Health Care” 1. Introduction:
MC: Ladies and gentlemen. My name is Duyen, and I’m so glad that we are gathered
here today for this crucial discussion on reinventing mental health.
I would like to welcome all of you. I believe we can all agree on the starting point. Our
mental health care system is broken.
We are not reaching enough people, we are not providing the right care, and we are not
reducing the enormous suffering that mental illness causes individuals, families, and communities.
It is past time to address these feelings, both in the US and around the globe. I am hopeful
that this discussion will bring forward ideas that can help improve change.
As you will hear today, we are bringing sharp insights into both the mental health crisis
facing our society and some promising solutions. Both are important because there are solutions.
We do not have to accept this broken system. We can demand better care. We can do
better. I'll let the experts dive into those solutions, but first, I will share a few statistics
that speak to the depth of this crisis.
In the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently reported
that more than 40% of teens feel continuously sad or hopeless and 20% have contemplated suicide.
One in every three individuals suffers from anxiety and depressive disorders with
millions unable to obtain therapy or medication. And that is a worldwide crisis of depression.
Approximately 10% to 40% of people will have significant depression at some point in
their lives, and the great majority of these people will not be detected or treated.
It is evident that our mental health system is broken. However, it is never too late to act.
In some ways, this could be an excellent time to take action.
Let us talk about what is needed and how to achieve that.
With that, I am pleased to introduce our experts, Lana Swift a Chief Medical Officer of
BeMe Heath, and Thanh Truc a psychiatrist at University Medical Center, Ho Chi Minh City 2. Discussion: about:blank 1/7 02:47 9/8/24 Talk show Wel being - Englissh
MC: Thank all of you for being here with us. So now, I want to start with Ms Lana.
You have lived experience with serious mental illness. Could you tell us about how you
first received a diagnosis and what your path to recovery was?
Lana: Thank you for your question. First of all, it is a pleasure for me to be here today.
Well, I first noticed changes in my mental health when I was a teenager. I had done well
in high school and had been accepted into a medical school early admissions program.
However, during college, I went from being an excellent young scholar to being
a seriously ill person. By the end of my senior year, I was isolated from my community
and deceived myself. Fortunately, I got help from my family and my peers when my
bestie began to recognize something was wrong with me and she told my mom and my
mom asked me, "Are you really okay? If you don't mind, feel free to share with me", that was an important moment.
That allowed for an open discussion about my mental health and was the first step in
getting therapy for me. And it was my family and community that opened the way for my
recovery. Finally, helping others and advocating for mental health has given me a strong
sense of purpose, allowing me to deal with my illness and make sense of my adversity in
a healthy and selfless way. So that's how I first got the treatment I needed, as well as
some of the important supports that have improved my recovery.
MC: Wow, that's incredible, and thank you for sharing that. Lana just spoke about the
importance of family, purpose, and other people’s support in recovery. Are those three
elements the standard of care for the mental health care package today? And how do we
begin to get this to people who really need it?
Thanh Truc: Đây là một câu hỏi rất hay, để mà nói rằng thì đây cũng là vinh dự cho tôi
khi được tham gia chương trình này là một đặc ân của tôi. Tôi nghĩ những khán giả đang
ngồi ở đây và qua màn ảnh nhỏ họ luôn rất quan tâm đến sức khỏe tinh thần của mình.
Quá trình phục hồi tinh thần của một con người được phụ thuộc rất sâu sắc và gắn liền
với các mối quan hệ không chỉ ngoài xã hội mà còn ở gia đình đây cũng chính là yếu tố
rất quan trọng khi chúng ta chăm sóc sức khỏe mà cô Lana đã đề cập ở trước đó.
Một trong những điều thiết yếu mà chúng tôi đã và đang cố gắng tìm hiểu về quá trình
phục hồi là trò chuyện cùng những đã vượt qua được những lúc tinh thần họ đi xuống
nghiêm trọng và họ sẵn sàng chia sẻ kinh nghiệm để giúp những bệnh nhân khác để vực
dậy từ những tổn thương tinh thần. Lana cũng giúp bệnh nhân chúng tôi hết sức có thể
với những kinh nghiệm mà cô ấy đã tích tụ được qua nhiều năm tiếp xúc với từng trường
hợp thể trạng tinh thần khác nhau
Nhưng nếu bệnh nhân nhận được sự sẻ chia từ xã hội đặc biệt là gia đình. Nó có thể bao
gồm cả những người cùng hoàn cảnh, giúp đỡ nhau tìm được 1 mục đích sống thì sẽ ý about:blank 2/7 02:47 9/8/24 Talk show Wel being - Englissh
nghĩa hơn rất nhiều và tôi cũng rất thích cách Lana nhấn mạnh về việc lắng nghe và đứng
vào vị trí của họ, việc cho đi và nhận lại, cùng nhau tìm mục đích sống mục đích làm
việc. Đây cũng chính là 1 phần rất ý nghĩa, mạnh mẽ kiên cường trên cuộc hành trình
chăm sóc sức khỏe tinh thần.
MC: Thank Ms. Truc, Now a question for Ms. Lana. You work with youth, and, as we've
seen the media, the Surgeon General put out an advisory. And as I mentioned to that the
toll of the pandemic has brought a lens on what children and teens and youth are
struggling with. But some of the solutions might come from them as well in terms of
treatment. So I'm wondering what you're hearing from the young people that you're
working with. And what can we learn from them?
Lana: Thanks, Duyen.. I love that you asked what we can learn from young people
because they do think that in all of these conversations about mental health, about the
crisis, their voices are the most important and often the ones that are missing from the conversation.
And if we really want to do what we're saying and meet youth where they're at and
support their mental health, we need to start by saying, we see you. There's a lot that I've
learned from my medical work, and first and foremost, is that young people, especially
teens, deserve a lot more credit than we give them. And if there's one thing I've learned,
it's that this is a no-nonsense generation. There's a few things that I've learned from my
work at BeMe about how we might use technology in new ways to reach teens.
So for a little bit of context first, BeMe is a digital mental health platform that supports
all teens. But we've learned a lot from our teen advisory board, and I think a lot of it can
be applied to health care if we think a little bit creatively. And the last thing I'll share is
this, we may not like how teens use technology, but they're going to use it anyway.
So our best bet is really to lean into the parts of technology that they like in order to help
them but do it safely and with oversight and involvement of trained experts like clinicians
and researchers. I've learned that, at the end of the day, if you want to get through to
teens, you need to be relevant to their lives.
MC: Thank you for that. That's incredible. I've been covering-doing a lot of stories on
children's mental health and teen mental health. And I can't say I often hear about having
teen advisory boards and trying to- the conversation is so much about the negative
impacts of technology on teen mental health. But how do we use tap into what they want
to actually help them. Thank you for that. I want to turn to Thanh Truc now, most people
who work with mental health, most people who struggle with mental health problems,
sort of know that stigma is a big issue in terms of seeking help. And that's especially
strong in communities of color. So I'm wondering if you can talk about what you see with
your patients and how we might begin to shift norms to reduce stigma. about:blank 3/7 02:47 9/8/24 Talk show Wel being - Englissh
Thanh Truc: Kỳ thị là một vấn đề cực kì nhức nhối ở nước Việt Nam chúng ta hiện nay,
đa phần những vấn đề mà bệnh nhân gặp phải thường xuất phát ở việc bị kì thị ở một môi
trường mà họ đang phải tiếp xúc hằng ngày. Đây cũng chính là rào cản lớn nhất để khiến
cho việc bày tỏ trở nên khó khăn khi mà bệnh nhân muốn giải bày sự quan tâm hay lo
lắng về vấn đè nào đó. Điều này tạo ra sự quan ngại khi họ được tiếp xúc lắng nghe để
tìm ra phương pháp điều trị tinh thần cho bản thân.
Phòng khám của tôi ở Boston thường xuyên gặp những trường hợp những bệnh nhân da
đen hoặc da nâu. Họ bị kì thị bởi nước da của mình và điều này ảnh hưởng rất lớn tới tâm
lý của họ và khiến cho họ nghĩ rằng mình có vấn đề về tâm lý và nước da của họ không bình thường.
Vì vậy, tôi cũng hy vọng rằng chúng ta có thể tiếp tục làm và thông qua một số công việc
qua NAMI – Liên Minh Quốc Gia về bệnh tâm thần, mục đích chính của cuộc hội thảo
này để nânng cao và cũng như bảo vệ sức khỏe tinh thần của bản thân, đẩy lùi được vấn
nạn kì thị giúp cho đời sống con người dễ bày tỏ hơn về những điều mình quan tâm lo lắng.
MC: Yeah, Thank you. Now can I actually ask Lana. I wonder if you have any thoughts
on stigma, and how whether you’ve ever faced it and how you’ve seen that play out with others you work with?
Lana: Absolutely, well. I think it's important to differentiate that there's- the external
stigma one faces, the discrimination people face when they disclose or choose to share
their lived experience. And there's also the internalized stigma. I had my preconceptions
of what it meant to be someone living with a serious mental illness like schizophrenia.
And that, at least initially during my diagnosis, didn't involve work. It didn't involve
graduate school. It didn't involve meaningful relationships. But fortunately, if there's an
antidote to stigma, it's storytelling. It's the sharing of narratives of people that are living
well with serious mental health conditions and sharing of hope. And for me, that has been
through family members and through caregivers and through friends that held
expectations and a vision beyond what saw for myself, especially initially early on. They
saw a future for me that I couldn't initially see due to the fog of stigma and so forth. So
it's little important to share hope with others early on in their journey.
MC: And Truc, I'm wondering what you've seen in your work in terms of how helping
people you work with find the social support and have that help with the stigma as well. about:blank 4/7 02:47 9/8/24 Talk show Wel being - Englissh
Thanh Truc: It helps because, when they have that social support, it makes people feel
like, in those moments, in those interactions, they are being truly seen for their whole entire selves.
And I think for so long, for so many people they have to live in the shadows of their
mental health condition, that they feel as though they can't be their full self because
there's this other part of them, that they hide away from others.
But if you have that social support coming from a community of individuals who know
exactly what you're experiencing, who have the tools to be able to best support you
during times in which you may be experiencing more acute episodes.
Being able to lean on people can be incredibly encouraging because it allows you to think
beyond yourself, to realize that you truly have an impact that exceeds beyond your body.
And that's truly powerful when you're able to connect with people in that sort of way. So
it's one way to give people hope. It's one way to be fully seen. And it also helps to melt
away some of the stigma, and again, stigma with the fear of discrimination, that fear of
being treated differently. That, both internal stigma. And also, hopefully, it helps to
address the more externalized version of stigma.
So this community that supporting you can also, hopefully, support other people by the
type of language that they use when they're talking about individuals living with mental
health conditions, when they are reaching out and offering up support and asking people
the question, how are you today? So support, this community is so important, and that's
just one other way to reduce stigma.
Lana: Can I jump in? Truc, I had an adventage of chatting with you about this today, and
you made, I thought, a fantastic comment, which I hope you'll share with others because I
think a lot of people need to hear this. You talked about hope and your role as a purveyor
of that. Could you unpack that a little bit for this group because it was a beautiful thing that you said.
Thanh Truc: Thank you for that, Lana, because I really think if we are talking about
mental health looking forward into the future, we have to talk about hope as well, right?
And what is important for all of us who are on this journey of ensuring that people have
better access to mental health treatments, to make it such that people are empowered with
the knowledge and understanding about various mental health conditions.
We also as providers need to instill hope in the people that we're working with because
it's a system that is so overwhelming and so complex that one can feel hopeless. And so
when I have the opportunity and the privilege to be able to meet with patients in my
office, I talk about being on this journey with them. about:blank 5/7 02:47 9/8/24 Talk show Wel being - Englissh
And focusing on this journey towards recovery. And to let people know that it's a team
effort. It's not just you patient. And sometimes, it's hard for people to want to come
alongside you and to engage in that process. But what I remind people is that I am hopeful for the recovery.
And it's the idea that I'm literally reaching down to them, stretching out my hand of
support and guidance to them during a time that may be quite difficult and overwhelming.
And my hope is that they just grab on to the hand so I can pull them towards that hopeful
journey towards recovery. And we need to operate like that when we are providing care to our patients. MC: Thank you. 3. Audience Questions:
1. What are the signs that a person has psychological problems?
 Common signs of psychological instability include feeling sad or empty, insomnia or changes in
sleep patterns, negative thinking, eating disorders, feelings of anxiety, stress, paranoia, emotional changes and personal concerns.
2. Nowadays young people tend to live in an unhealthy way due to the workload. In order to
maintain a positive mindset, what kind of lifestyle will help that?
 Depression can be overwhelming and prevent you from enjoying things you once had interest in.
It affects everyone differently, but it can interfere with your daily activities, work, and life in
general. There are some ways can improve your lifestyle: healthy eating, do exercise (yoga), have
enough sleep (especially do not go to bed too late).
3. I see women usually have a problem about mental health more than man. Does mental
illness affect women and men differently?
 Yes, there are gender differences when it comes to mental health. Women are more likely to be
diagnosed with anxiety or depression because they tend to ruminate on their negative emotions
and problems more than men. On the other hand, men are more likely to externalize their
emotions, leading to aggressive, and violent behavior.
4. What is the link between mental illness and violence?
 There is a link between mental illness and violence, but it isn’t the one most people suspect. The
stigma around mental illness has caused many to believe that those with a mental illness are
prone to be the instigators of violence, when in fact people with a mental illness are more likely
to be the victims of violence. Only 3%-5% of violent acts can be attributed to individuals living with a mental health. about:blank 6/7 02:47 9/8/24 Talk show Wel being - Englissh about:blank 7/7