Good Neighbor Podcast: Tri-Cities
Bringing together local businesses and neighbor of the Tri-Cities region. Good Neighbor Podcast hosted by Skip Mauney helps residents discover and connect with your local business owners in and around The Tri-Cities.
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Good Neighbor Podcast: Tri-Cities
EP# 163: Revolutionizing Mental Wellness: Dr. Scott Marder's Journey from Navy Officer to Integrative Psychiatrist
What makes Dr. Scott Marder, Integrative Psychiatrist a good neighbor?
Curious about how integrative psychiatry can revolutionize your mental wellness journey? Dr. Scott Marder joins us to share his captivating transformation from a Navy officer to a leading psychiatrist who blends traditional and holistic therapies to treat the whole person. Explore with us as Dr. Marder debunks common myths about psychiatry and discusses his groundbreaking book, "Five Steps to Tame the Overwhelmed Mind," offering tangible steps to master emotional reactions and achieve resilience. His refreshing approach goes beyond the typical "pill-pushing" stereotype, proposing a dynamic and compassionate method to nurturing mental health.
Ever wondered how balancing heart and mind could unlock higher emotional states like love and peace? Dr. Marder enlightens us on the importance of maintaining this delicate balance through daily practices, preventing distress from escalating into larger issues. Discover how personal experiences, including the challenges of a demanding Navy internship, fueled Dr. Marder's passion for early intervention and personal development. Beyond his professional insights, Dr. Marder is an embodiment of holistic wellness, enjoying swing dancing, hiking, painting, and martial arts. Join us for an enlightening conversation on proactive change and emotional balance, providing transformative insights that could shift your perspective on mental well-being.
To learn more about Dr. Scott Marder, Integrative Psychiatrist go to:
https://www.scottmardermd.com/
Scott Marder, MD Integrative Psychiatrist
828-254-0368
This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Skip Monning.
Speaker 2:Well, hello everyone and welcome to the Good Neighbor Podcast of the Tri-Cities. So we have a very special guest with us here today, whom I'm sure you'll be just as excited to learn all about them and their practice. Excited to learn all about them and their practice Because today I have the distinct pleasure of introducing your good neighbor, dr Scott Marder, psychiatrist and author. Dr Marder, welcome to the show.
Speaker 3:Thank you very much. It's great to be here.
Speaker 2:Well, we really appreciate you taking time out of your extremely busy schedule to be with us and, like I said, I'm sure most of our listeners are going to be very interested to learn all about you. So, if you don't mind, why don't you start us off by telling us about your practice?
Speaker 3:Okay, well, I am what I call an integrative psychiatrist, which means I am a psychiatrist. I did go to medical school and did a lot of training and then, I think after my training, I decided I wanted to kind of do something a little different my own way of practicing medicine and I decided to learn more about holistic therapies, hypnotherapy, lifestyle changes and any root cause that I could find that would help a person's emotional well-being. I was also interested in doing so. In the end, I'm kind of left with a hybrid model where I really do practice traditional psychiatry, which is a lot of medicine nowadays, but then I also really try to go into other arenas if it's feasible, to help a person kind of get to a more optimal, healthy, functioning and kind of get to a more optimal, healthy functioning.
Speaker 2:Very good Well, Dr.
Speaker 3:Marner, how did you get into the psychiatry business? Well, it doesn't really start out as a business, unfortunately. It really starts out as lots of school. I think that was, let's see, college four years, psychiatry residency, another four I'm sorry medical school four years, psychiatry residency, another four years. So that's now 12 years. Then I owed three years to the Navy because they paid for medical school. So I was already in my 30s by the time I got done with school and became a psychiatrist. So then the business part really only happened later, in my 30s, by the time I got done with school and became a psychiatrist.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 3:So then the business part really only happened later and honestly it is a business but it's also a calling. It's just something I knew I wanted to do Early in life. I kind of knew I wanted to help people, although I wasn't sure how, and that's kind of where I gravitated towards as my education went in the direction of psychiatry.
Speaker 2:Very good Well, Dr Barter, what are some myths or misconceptions in the psychiatry industry?
Speaker 3:Oh dear, that's a big one. Well, you know, psychiatry has gone through some changes, I would say, in recent decades, and there was a day and age where we really did do psychotherapy and medications. You know we did it like a, we did treatment, you know, for the whole person. And then I guess in the last few decades really, psychiatry has kind of been more confined to just medication, it seems, and that could be for insurance reasons or other reasons. I was kind of trained in a time where we did both and that's kind of the model I continued.
Speaker 3:But I recognize that I would say 90% of psychiatrists really just do medication, uh, and I suppose with that goes the reputation of being a pill pusher and uh, and so that that would be one thing that probably is brought up a lot. And I would say the other, you know, those 90 percent give us other 10 a bad name because we, uh, you know I still like to treat the whole person and the medication piece. While it's important, it doesn't represent all that I'm interested in and helping the person with.
Speaker 3:So that's kind of a misconception is that psychiatry isn't all the same around across the board. I think people have different ways of practicing it.
Speaker 2:It's dynamic, it sounds like.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, it's dynamic. It sounds like yeah, yeah. And you know, I think when you're able to be self-employed, it helps to kind of do your own thing, obviously.
Speaker 1:And I suppose it also has.
Speaker 3:You have to have a willingness to you know, learn about what it is you want to offer beyond just medication. You know, what else can you offer someone? And there's a lot that can be done. It's just you have to have that curiosity.
Speaker 2:Very good. Well, as I mentioned earlier on, you're a psychiatrist. You're also an author, so I don't know.
Speaker 3:if you't like to tell us that, tell us about your book yes, definitely, the timing of this interview is very synchronicities, because this book just came out, really in the last few weeks, and so it's called five steps to tame the overwhelmed mind, and it is a method and a manual that helps a person deal with strong emotional reactions. You know, you don't have to be a psychiatrist to know that life has many unpleasant occurrences that can cause feelings of strain, overwhelm and reactiveness, and you know we all have our own triggers. It's not, you know, it's not just one thing. It really could be a small thing. It's not just one thing. It really could be a small thing. It could be a big thing. It could be. For one person, waiting on a long line is just too much, or being stuck in traffic is too much. It could be recovering from a natural disaster. It could be irritations at a project that you don't want to do, going through a scary health diagnosis, difficulties in a significant relationship. It could be just upsetting global events that happen.
Speaker 3:So I mean there's a lot that can happen in a person's life and a lot of times it makes sense to talk it out with a friend or counselor, close relative, but sometimes there really is no other person available and or if the person is available, they're not able to soothe you in the way that you need for that particularly particular situation, and that can be very frustrating and and so sometimes a person's just left with deep feelings that never get expressed or resolved and they just carry them around their whole life.
Speaker 3:And so the premise of the book is really kind of a reframe that could there be another way of dealing with emotions that we've overlooked, or is life really supposed to be like that, that we're just supposed to kind of get through things and maybe kind of use some life preservers in our culture, you know, distractions like the internet or shopping, being social or pretending everything's okay.
Speaker 3:But maybe you know, maybe there is another way to look at it. So this book, which I worked on for, I'd say, about 11 years almost the length of my education is really about offering a method and a visual map for navigating through unwanted and difficult emotional states and arriving at a more positive feeling, thought or choice. And so I actually have a co-author who is a somatic therapist, grace Elizabeth Wormwood, and together we kind of combined our skills to combine easy to learn steps, user-friendly exercises. It's more of a workbook and also a visual piece. It's like a map that we kind of keep repeating throughout the book to track the process, and so we're trying to redirect overwhelm into the positive realm you know empowerment, peace, positive choices, and so it's really a method that once you learn the five steps, you can pretty much take it wherever you go.
Speaker 3:It's for teenagers or anyone above. It could be for personal growth. I'm not claiming it solves all emotional problems, but I do think if you're in a relatively stable place you can definitely use it as an addendum. Definitely use it as an addendum. And you know, my hope is that you know people will realize that once they know what to do, that they're kind of responsible for their own emotions.
Speaker 3:You never learned about it growing up or as an adult. It's never too late to learn, and so that's what the book's message is is really, if you can learn a method to deal with your emotions, you don't need to see me or a therapist. But you do need to deal with it in your own way, and it can be internal. You don't have to talk to anyone. But I do hope people will consider it over the course of their life about whether they can do better with their emotional regulation, whether that's something they need to work on, and that's what the book's message is about which is a hopeful one lord knows we need lots of hope, for sure, in all aspects of life.
Speaker 2:Yeah, um, well, what, in the five steps, do you do you utilize? Is it traditional methodology or thought process, or is holistic?
Speaker 3:you mentioned holistic healing earlier yeah, so it's really a whole combination of psychotherapy, hypnotherapy, positive psychology, somatic modalities, contemplative practices.
Speaker 3:You know, there is this idea of you know going inside and sitting with a feeling, and so that's kind of a somatic process.
Speaker 3:I suppose you know there is kind of a meditative aspect to it, but we don't really call it that as much.
Speaker 3:But it is the idea that you're, you're, um, you know, before you take action in the world, you're going inside to yourself and you're kind of going through these steps internally and you may be writing things down as well and up, and only then, once you get to a place where you're kind of shifting more into a positive realm and you get back into some kind of equilibrium kind of shifting more into a positive realm and you get back into some kind of equilibrium, then you can take your action steps in the world, whether it's a difficult conversation or making a difficult choice in your life.
Speaker 3:But the idea is that when you're overwhelmed and reactive you're not going to be doing your best thinking and so your decision-making will not be the best, and so it's a caution to kind of go inside and get back into some kind of balance before you, um, you know, go in a direction that may not be helpful for you I've interviewed quite a few uh, therapists and and uh, but you know holistic and traditional and uh, it amazes me the connection between mind, body and spirit, that how one of those can affect the other in a significant way.
Speaker 2:I don't know if you can talk, if you address that in the in the book, but we do.
Speaker 3:We do, actually we. We kind of get into this idea that, uh, there is a connection between the heart and the mind and that only when these two are balanced you're able to get more access to your real self, who you really are, and whether that's it could be a spiritual thing, it could be what people call a higher state of consciousness, but the idea is that if you're spending most of your day in a negative place, you know negative world you will never get access to. If you're spending most of your day in a negative place, you know negative world you will never get access to. You know your positive emotions that really can offer you a different way of looking at life, and so this book does offer a bridge in that way.
Speaker 3:I'm not claiming it's a spiritual book, but I do feel like it definitely provides a framework if you want to go in that direction, because ultimately, the higher emotional states have to do with love, joy and peace and a sense that there is no inner conflict in your mind or there is no distress. But if perhaps a person could stay more in the positive states, they would start to notice life in a different way, and that would be a great goal if it could happen. I do suggest in the book that it could be a daily practice. You know you could do it in the morning or you could do it in the evening if something upsetting happened. But the idea is that you would make time for it, because if you neglect certain things that are bothering you, it's just gonna build up in your system anyway and could end up, you know, causing bigger problems over time down the road.
Speaker 2:Wow, very good. Well, dr Martyr, outside of work, what do you do for fun?
Speaker 3:So yeah, I like to dance. I'm a big swing dancer and ecstatic dancing. I like to take day hikes in the woods all over western North Carolina and sometimes Tennessee. I will go there to go hiking, I like to paint.
Speaker 3:I do what I call creative geography or creative maps, and I'll take an outline of a country and I'll do something different with it. I actually put a few on my website, if you ever want to Google. I think one of them I labeled the case of the eight-year painting, and it's a painting that I worked on for eight years while I was writing the book. Funny enough, but I won't give the painting away. But it has to do with geography and you can see where my mind was at when I was painting it, and it's also a way to help learn geography for people that are visual, just a different way to learn things. What else do I do? I do martial arts. I cook. I guess I do. I do martial arts, I cook. I guess I write, but I'm not sure the writing was very fun. Actually it was in the beginning, but after a while once you get into too many years it's in the editing it's no longer a fun project. But now it's fun once the book is done.
Speaker 1:Absolutely.
Speaker 3:I get to spread that message message, so that would be a fun thing for me over time awesome, very good, very good.
Speaker 2:Well, let's uh and that's fascinating to me the case of the eight-year painting. I love it. Um, let's switch gears for just a second. Can you describe a hardship or a life challenge that you've overcome and professionally or personally and how you came out the other side of that, stronger and better for it?
Speaker 3:Yeah, no, there were quite a few periods in my life I'd say were very challenging. I still believe the biggest challenge of my life was right after I finished medical school. I had been thrown into a Navy internship where I kind of felt like I wasn't a good fit for what was being asked of me. The internship had a high level of responsibility. I was on call every three or four nights for about a year and there wasn't much downtime every three or four nights for about a year.
Speaker 3:There wasn't much downtime and so I was highly sleep deprived and the physical stress had really taken a toll on my body.
Speaker 3:I think I was hospitalized with pneumonia after a few months and then had some irritable bowel stuff, and I really was not a happy camper for much of that year. But I did get through it and, um you know, I I could see light at the end of the tunnel, cause it was only one year and I kind of knew that. Um, but looking back at that period of my life, I could say that I was kind of overwhelmed more days than not and engulfed in stress that I really didn't know. I didn't have a clue how to manage at that point, and though I ultimately found my way out of it, I wish there had been more tools available at that time, and I would say this book developed out of that wish. I mean, I really just thought I wish there had been something more available, more accessible at that time, and I figure, now that I am coming 30 years into my career, I kind of want to leave something behind that I thought would help other young people that could be struggling with the same thing.
Speaker 2:Awesome, very good. Well, dr Marner, if you could think of one thing you would like our listeners to remember about you, your practice, your book, what would that be?
Speaker 3:I would say just you know, even if you think you know that your life has gone a certain way and you can't change it, I've you know that your life has gone a certain way and you can't change it.
Speaker 3:I've seen people change at all ages and unfortunately, sometimes change comes when you don't have a choice in the matter. And I would suggest to people that it's always good if you could be preemptive in your willingness to make changes in your life and not wait for a disaster to happen. And so I think that's kind of going back to the book. That's kind of my message is that if you learn how to deal with things early on in the best way possible, it's going to make life a lot better down the road. When things get challenging, when you wait till things get too challenging, it's not the best time to kind of use skills that would have been helpful. So I think that's my message is really be proactive about your mental health. If you really feel like there's something you need to do, then take the initiative and don't ask for help, but don't just put it under the rug.
Speaker 2:Great, great thing to remember rug. Great thing to remember, very good thing to remember. Well, dr Barger, I can't tell you how much I appreciate your time today to talk to us about you and your book and your philosophy. How can our listeners learn more about you and your book you mentioned earlier? It's available on Amazon. Yeah, all right, about you and your book.
Speaker 3:You mentioned earlier, it's available on Amazon. Yes, all right, so I'll tell you I have a website. Okay, yes, so there's a website scottmartermdcom and on the website you will see more about the book. It's also an online course, if you want to do it that way. There's also some video clips if you want to learn with the book.
Speaker 3:I also have some health articles that go into different topics about mental health, which could be related to medication, psychedelics, just lifestyle changes, and then, finally, the book itself can be purchased on Amazon and it's called Five Steps to Tame the Overwhelmed Mind. And yeah, I wish everyone happy rewards if they're able to go on this journey and check it out go on this journey and check it out.
Speaker 2:Awesome. Well, dr Marder, five Steps to Tame the Overwhelmed Mind. Look for it on Amazon and we'll also check out your website. And again, thank you for taking time out to speak with us and have this conversation and thank you for what you do to try to help others. Obviously, you're making an impact and we appreciate that very much. Thank you for having me on Absolutely and maybe we can have you back when you publish your next book.
Speaker 3:That could be a while.
Speaker 2:That's okay, that's okay. We can talk about what your next book might look like. That we can do All right Awesome.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much. All right, thank you for listening to the good neighbor podcast. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to GNP try dash citiescom. That's GNP Try dash citiescom. Or call GNP try-citiescom. Or call 423-719-5873.