Good Neighbor Podcast: Bergen
Bringing together local businesses and neighbors of Bergen County
Good Neighbor Podcast: Bergen
Ep# 7 - Navigating Mental Health Challenges with Dr. Carol Chu-Peralta
What if understanding the layers of trauma could unlock the path to healing? Join us for a compelling conversation with Dr. Carol Chu-Peralta, a licensed clinical psychologist whose journey from a nonprofit trauma clinic to owning a flourishing private practice is as inspiring as it is insightful. Dr. Carol's story begins with the deep-rooted influences of her Colombian, Peruvian, and Chinese immigrant parents, which shaped her focus on migration trauma. Discover how she connects the dots between generational trauma—from the Great Depression to World War II—and today's mental health challenges, offering a unique perspective on the complexities of trauma, depression, and anxiety.
Explore the unexpected turn that led Dr. Carol to transition from a nonprofit to her own practice, spurred by the challenges of balancing work and family life during the pandemic. Listen as she candidly shares the joys and hurdles of entrepreneurship, from the overwhelming demand for trauma therapy to the rewarding experience of building a group practice. With insights into mindset shifts and the importance of mentorship, this episode unravels the common misconceptions about running a mental health business. Tune in for valuable advice that will resonate with aspiring therapists and anyone intrigued by the intricate world of mental health care.
Center for Resiliency LLC
Dr Carol Chu-Peralta
160 Summit Ave Suite 205
Montvale, NJ 07645
(201) 661-3375
info@centerforresiliency.com
centerforresiliency.com
This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Doug Drohan.
Speaker 2:All right, thank you everyone. Thanks for that applause. I know we're going to have to add in some applause in the post-production, but welcome to another episode of the Good Neighbors Bergen Podcast. I'm your host, doug Drohan, and today we are thrilled to have the owner of the Center for Resiliency in Montville, new Jersey. It's Dr Carol Chu-Peralta. Dr Carol, welcome to the show.
Speaker 3:Thank you so much for having me, Doug. I appreciate it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's great. So you are a licensed clinical psychologist, both in New York and New Jersey? Yeah, and you can tell me what a PSYPACT provider is. But, most importantly, you specialize in trauma, depression, anxiety therapy treatments. Is that correct?
Speaker 3:Yeah, it really, really is like a broad range. So first, psypact certified just means that, thankfully, psychologists who are credentialed by PSYPACT are allowed to see patients through telehealth across I think it might be 36 or 38 states now, which really allows us to reach out to a larger amount of people who are in need. And so I'm licensed in New York and New Jersey but I can also treat patients across 36 or 38 states through telehealth. And I definitely do specialize in trauma. And the way that I like to tell the story is that from the day that I started my doctoral program, I knew I had an interest in becoming an expert in the treatment of trauma and in the evaluation of trauma, the treatment of trauma and in the evaluation of traumas.
Speaker 3:But as I started to study and treat patients within the trauma field, I quickly realized hold on, who's walking through the door? This person doesn't just come with trauma. This person really does come with a plethora of other things. Oftentimes they may come in with depression, they may come in with anxiety, they may come in with parenting issues, etc.
Speaker 3:So it made no sense for me to just become an expert in trauma and not have an equal expertise in what's called generalist training and being able to treat depression, anxiety, school refusal, parenting issues, you name it. That's really what a generalist is trained in. So I really do have equal training in both of them and that's really what I bring into the center into. So I really do have equal training in both of them and that's really what I bring into the center into. Everyone that I supervise there at the center is whoever comes to work at the center, they have to have a foundational training in trauma and also have equal training in generalists so that we could be able to give the most comprehensive treatment um to anybody that walks through the door got it it.
Speaker 2:So why trauma? Was there something specific in your life or experience or the people that you came across? Why focus initially on trauma?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I am the daughter of two immigrant parents, and my mom came from Colombia. My father came from Peru. His parents also migrated to Peru. His mom was from Peru, so she didn't migrate, but his father came from China. So we have just a long lineage of immigrants in our family.
Speaker 3:And when I was speaking with my parents and this didn't really happen until I was already in graduate school, but earlier on they had been sharing with me what their own experience was like coming into the United States and I kind of started putting all the parts together and it all just really clicked for me of just how much trauma they endured as they were going through their own migration history, but not just through the migration history.
Speaker 3:As I started to learn more about them, I learned about all of the traumas that they endured in their foreign countries before migrating, and then so, having that baseline of trauma that already existed in their lives, compounded by the trauma that they experienced once they migrated into the United States, it really, I think, just grew my interest in trauma, and so at first I really started to learn more and specialize in migration trauma. And then, when you start to work with migrants, you start to learn a lot about sexual abuse, trauma, emotional abuse, trauma, domestic violence, physical abuse you name it there. There is a type of trauma that exists within that population and that's really where a lot of my interest in trauma grew. Then fast forward. So many years later, when I was then blessed enough to become a parent myself, I began to work with nurtured the development of that specific specialty that I'm now really focusing on so much at my own practice. So it had a lot of influence from my parents and from the people that I've worked with over the years.
Speaker 2:You know it's interesting. I think about, obviously, current events with immigration and the people that are trying to come across the border are risking. Obviously they're leaving a country where there's tremendous amount of fear and you know we use the word trauma to travel a thousand miles, or whatever it is, with their families, with just their clothes on their back, basically to try to find a better life. But yeah, that trauma was, and I didn't grow up with immigrant parents, but my parents are from, they're older and they were born during the depression.
Speaker 2:And you know my mom is 89 and my dad they still. They imparted on me the the experiences. You know, whether you want to call it trauma or experiences of growing up in the depression, world War II. My mom was German descent, so that wasn't very cool being in Queens when your grandmother spoke German, although they said they were Swiss, they were the nice Germans. But the point I'm getting to is they impart their experiences on you. So as a kid you know you can't help but have those same, that same kind of you look through the world through the same lens in some ways, and certainly if you get married young and haven't had a chance and then have kids young.
Speaker 2:You haven't had a chance to really understand the way your parents raised you and how to maybe even just become yourself before you start raising kids and then just you know, kind of raising them the same way that you were raising them.
Speaker 3:The cycle continues. Yeah, the cycle continues, absolutely, absolutely. There's this concept. There's a very famous researcher called Dr Frank Putnam and he coined the term intergenerational transmission of trauma, and essentially what that is is what you've just described that the cycle will just continue and we will continue to transmit any residual trauma that we have, both genetically and through nurturance, if it doesn't heal. So you know, for me it's like tenfold valuable to really be much more insightful about what my upbringing was, what my parents upbringing was, so that I can make sure that the cycle is different when in terms of how I'm parenting my kids, but also in terms of how I'm helping other people parent their children, because it really does have such a significant impact on child development.
Speaker 2:Sure, now one of the other topics or, I guess, issues that you treat, issues that you that you treat, uh, which I've heard a lot and speaking with a lot of therapists and certainly in Bergen County, is anxiety and depression among teens.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And I know there's a lot of issues and people are becoming and I'm happy, not happy, but I'm thankful that my son is 11 years old and we are learning about social media and the dangers of things like that, whereas if you were you know, if you're you know, 20 years ago or 15 years ago, we didn't really know and our and our kids grew up with that and became teenagers and I think we're better equipped now as parents and as a society to understand the dangers.
Speaker 3:But are you seeing an increase in certainly since COVID of anxiety and depression among teens, Absolutely, Unfortunately, I can say yes without even having to think twice about that question. It is really unfortunate and I don't want to just blame social media, and in fact I actually don't even want to blame social media. Frankly. I think the content that children and teens are exposed to on social media can indeed trigger or worsen or maintain their depression and their anxiety, but I don't want to be so quick and steadfast to say that social media is to blame, because you know how or when our children are even exposed to it has a large part to do with why they were even exposed to it right, and how much it can then continue to influence them. But certainly, unfortunately, we are seeing a huge uptick and this maintenance in numbers of how many kids and teens we're seeing with anxiety now.
Speaker 2:Wow. So what kind of drove you to start your own practice. Was there an aha moment? Did you always feel like you wanted to start your own practice from when you graduated med school?
Speaker 3:Absolutely not. Actually, I never envisioned that I wanted to open up my own practice. I have to be frank with you. For an entire decade I worked at a trauma clinic for a nonprofit company and that's really where my heart was and that's really where I envisioned myself retiring one day. And then the very similar stories of everyone else COVID hit and we started working from home and I had realized at that moment my children were very young back then and I had realized, wow, the amount of time that I'm spending commuting to this clinic takes away about three hours from my children every single day. And you know, once the youngest finally starts school, I'm never going to be able to take her to school, I'm never going to be able to pick her up from school, I'm never going to be able to do homework with her, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 3:And so all of that really just started building into my mind and I thought, you know what? I have this very, very tiny private practice. Why don't I go ahead and start to just, I'll you know, let go of the other job that I have and I'll you know, let go of the other job that I have and I'll just dedicate myself fully to just my own solo private practice? But you know, I don't know, it might have been like maybe a month or two into that, we started getting I started just getting flooded with phone calls for people seeking out treatment for trauma. And it made sense because COVID was really, I think, just starting to either develop these symptoms in people or worsen the symptoms in people who already had trauma responses built into their system.
Speaker 3:And so I you know, I'm only one person, obviously, and I couldn't take on so many cases. And at that point my husband said to me he's like Well, why don't you just expand to a group practice? And I said, absolutely not. I'm not like somebody who's hoping to have a business, a huge business, one day. But then at the same time I'm saying no to all of these people. They're calling back and they're saying well, nobody else can take my case, and so then at that point, ethically and morally, you're just thinking well, I'm leaving all of these people out to fend for themselves, and that's also not fair, or just and that's not what I went into this field for adjust, and that's not what I went into this field for.
Speaker 3:So I called up some colleagues that I had supervised previously in the past and I had asked them hey, what would you think about coming to work with me? And that's kind of sort of how it started. I already was familiar with their work practice. I was already familiar with their education and how dedicated they are to the people they've worked with, so it was kind of a win-win situation. It's kind of just grown from there.
Speaker 2:Right, Okay, Nice. But I'm sure you know, being a business owner has its yeah, has its roller coaster moments.
Speaker 3:I guess you could say Every single day sort of feels like a roller coaster, I will say that I don't think that you know A I have no formal training in this, obviously in being a business owner B. There's nobody in grad school, ever. There's no class on business, on being a business owner.
Speaker 3:So you kind of just learn through a lot of trial and error and then you start to connect with more people, you start to seek out mentorships and you know, slowly you start to kind of find your place in it. But I still think that there's a lot of ups and downs with it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, when I started six years ago, I leaned on a lot of podcasts.
Speaker 2:One of them which this is kind of modeled after, is called how I Built this. The host, his name is Guy Raz, and he interviews entrepreneurs and business owners and it's like an hour long. So this is only 15 minutes, but it was kind of reassuring to me because I was listening to the guy that started JetBlue or the woman who started up luggage or businesses I'd never heard of. But, regardless whether they were looking for VC funding, they used to work for EY or BCG and they were consultants from Harvard or they were just some guy who came up with an idea in his garage they all went through the same experiences that I was going through as an entrepreneur and as a business owner. And I think one of the great things about what I want this podcast to serve as is not only a platform for you to share your story, but maybe other people can learn from what you've done and what has been successful for you. And I think a lot of it is a mindset right. It's like how do you-.
Speaker 3:Absolutely, absolutely. Well, you're talking to the right person if you're going to think about mindset right, of course, like all of us, therapists are really sold on that concept it really is about your mindset, and of course, there's so many other ingredients that go into the success of someone or the success of a business, but definitely if you're living in the scarcity mindset, then it's going to be a much bigger hill to climb, I think, versus somebody who's really just more so, looking forward and looking at it as, like this is one big life experiment. I have something to learn from it, I have some value to gain from this, regardless of what the outcome is.
Speaker 2:So you're right, it is about growth, growth and fixed mindset. Is that the?
Speaker 3:the two terms you got it.
Speaker 2:I always say a BL equals ABG, which is always be learning equals always growing. Yeah, so what is like, are there any misconceptions or myths about your business? That you'd you know that you hear a lot that you'd you'd kind of want to quell, or or you know that you hear a lot that you'd kind of want to quell, or you know, just explain.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think you know.
Speaker 3:I think one of them that we oftentimes hear is that well, I don't want to be in therapy forever.
Speaker 3:So I think one of the myths sort of like you start and there's never an end day and you're kind of just like sucked in and you're going to be in there forever, but the truth is is that therapy really is not meant to be forever.
Speaker 3:Right, think about this as, like you at some point want to get to like the maintenance phase and you want to be able to maintain whatever skills you've built in therapy on your own. We want you to be able to work independently with the skills that we've taught you in therapy. So, while it's nice, of course, if you would love to have our support for the rest of your life, we're here for you if you'd like to come in every single week and have us support you, but that's another type of therapy that's more like supportive therapy, but in terms of really helping you get unstuck and move forward, that's not something that's a lifetime. So I would say that's probably one of the biggest myths that we that we oftentimes hear that people are so fearful to get started because they think they're going to be in it forever.
Speaker 2:Right, you're going to be laying on a couch like Woody Allen.
Speaker 3:Exactly, but there's options you don't have to lay on it.
Speaker 2:Right, right. So kind of segueing into this, like what is it? Is there one thing or two things you wish listeners could should know about your business? Like what's one of the key takeaways from today's?
Speaker 3:episode at Center for Resiliency, a group of people that are very passionate and very dedicated to you. I mean, once you become our patient, we will care for you for as long as you need us to, even once you've graduated from treatment. We have people that will email us like updates on their life when they've gotten married, their first kid or their kid's graduation, or they'll email us when they've successfully transitioned into like another part of their life. Or we'll have people give us a call like, oh my gosh, I haven't seen you in like four years, but I really need a booster session. Can we please have one? So we're we've really got your back. I mean, and when we're talking about helping you move forward in life, we're not talking about, like, just during the time that we're meeting with you consistently. There are going to be other times in life where you might feel stuck and we're still here. So I really want people to know that, like we are very dedicated to you.
Speaker 2:That's great. And then how can people find you?
Speaker 3:Pretty easily. You can either call us, you can text us to our main number website.
Speaker 2:You want to share that with us.
Speaker 3:We have social media. We're at Center for Resiliency NJ. We're on Facebook, we're on Instagram. Um so yeah, you could probably reach us really through any outlet.
Speaker 2:And what's your website and your address?
Speaker 3:Our website is wwwcenterforresiliency. com and our phone number is 201-661-3375. And we are at 160 Semidev in Montvale.
Speaker 2:So it's right across from Sloan Kettering right.
Speaker 3:We used to be right across from Sloan Kettering. We just moved in January, so we are up the street. We are right by DiPiero's farm. I think it's DiPiero's. Is that the farm that's right in front of us?
Speaker 2:Right, right, right. Oh, great, okay, Very good.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:All right. Well, this is great. I really appreciate you sharing with us and with our listeners. And just stand by a second. We're just going to close this out with our narrator and I'll talk to you in the other side.
Speaker 3:All right, awesome, thanks, doug.
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening to the Good Neighbor Podcast. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to gnpbergen. com. That's gnpbergen. com, or call 201-298-8325.