Marvae: 0:00

Hi, welcome back to my channel. I'm excited to have Natalie Guray has been all on for the second portion of her three part series to talk about her journey to become a crisis intervention specialist and psychotherapists, along with tips and information on mental health. Please enjoy and like and subscribe to receive alerts on a revalue basis. Hi, Natalie. Welcome back.

Natalee: 0:28

Hi. It's nice to be here again.

Marvae: 0:31

I'm glad you're here for your second episode. Do you want to give an overview to our audience of what you're gonna talk about today?

Natalee: 0:40

Yes. Thank you. So this video's intention is to go over just a brief overview of my title, um, what I do for a living, how I got. There, um, some just important and fun facts that I've carried along the way, and, um, also some techniques and things that I use to ground myself. Um, so this is in general just a mental health talk. Um, and then if viewers have any questions or they want to follow up specifically about PTSD and depression, I'm absolutely happy to do that. So, um, without further ado, I guess I'll go ahead and get started and then I'm gonna go through each kind of subtopic. I kind of outlined what we were gonna, what I was gonna share with you today. So I'm a crisis intervention specialist and I am also a psychotherapist in practice, currently attaining, uh, supervisory hours. And I have been on a journey to get here. I do have lived experience. I was formally diagnosed with PTSD and also major depression disorder, and I also have experience with childhood sexual abuse. So I did preface that in my first video, and that is something that I certainly can talk more about, like I said in another video, but I wanna give it to. Its importance and attention that it needs. So this is not necessarily the video for that, but just as a reminder that that's the lens where I'm coming from is really my lived experience. It's just, it's the layers of processing that's I've had to go through to. Ground myself to feel safe within my body, to feel safe within my mind, and to learn how to cope with feelings that I don't welcome, but they come and when they do, I have to process and take time to do that for myself, for my own mental health and just overall self-awareness. So as a crisis intervention specialist, the short definition of that is that I am the person that someone would call if someone was having a mental health crisis, if they were at harm of. Risk to themselves or to someone else, or to the environment. And so what I would do is come in and do my best to deescalate that situation by using a calm voice and very open and calm, physical demeanor, and also offering. Empathy and compassion, trying to connect if I can and offer some options. And of course, there's different variations of a crisis, right? And so for myself, in the context of my role, I am at a space, I work for a, um, what we call the hub, which is a, um, resource center for youth. And so they come and they get what they need, food. Uh, a little bit of shelter for the day, access to computers and phone service, um, and showers. And so if for some reason they're just feeling like they're not safe, then I'm the person that they would call. So I'll read the definition of a crisis intervention specialist, just so your viewers have the formal contact. So it's to assess if someone's safety, stability, or ability to function is, is at immediate risk, which could be threats of self harm or harm to others, severe emotional distress or breakdown, sudden traumatic events, aggressive or erratic behavior. Any situation that feels overwhelming or dangerous. Now that is a mouthful, and it's a lot embedded in that definition, so that's why I try to give you more of the softened version of what that actually looks like. I'm the person that has always been very calm, stable, and grounded in my life. For some reason, this is the way that God made me and I lean into crisis. I lean into. Difficult things and difficult stressors, and I find that not only the person that I am, but my energy that I give off is very safe and calming. And so that's why I love what I do. Um, the second half is that I am working as a psychotherapist. So what does that mean? My formal title is Associate Clinical Social Worker. So that means that when I gain all of my hours and I take the exams in order to become licensed, I can practice psychotherapy. So I'll go through the types that I do offer and that I'm also practicing in now. And I will also share the proper definition of my title right now, which is to provide individual family or group therapy. Conduct psychosocial assessments and intake interviews, develop and implement treatment plans, monitor client progress, and adjust interventions. So the short end of that is I love to talk to people and I love to listen to people. And people come with many different types of life stories and some may not need any support as far as here, this is what you need to do. Some people just need a space to be validated and heard. And that's what I love about my work. So I've covered that part. Do you have any questions for me before I continue?

Marvae: 6:15

Yes. So tell us a little bit about the assessment that you might use. Are they based on the nature of the issue and so you tailor that assessment based on that person's issue?

Natalee: 6:35

That's a really good question. So psychotherapists will use an array of assessments to try to target what the stressors might be. If I am wearing the hat of a crisis intervention specialist, then I would want to assess for risk, right? Suicidal risk, safety risk. But if I am wearing the hat of a psychotherapist and an LCSW or licensed clinical social worker, then I am probably using the depression scale, which is most common or something else tailored to that. It might be paired with anxiety. Um, it might be paired with psychosis. So we have different. Assessments for different things, and so it can be common to go into an office when you first meet a psychotherapist for a psychotherapist to run along the lines of ruling out depression. Depression in my expertise seems to be the most common that I have come up against. Again, every psychotherapist is different and every demographic and population they have access to is different, but that's. My own, um, experience with psychotherapy and just the stressors that I've been involved with. So I hope that answered your question. In the next video that we have, I can certainly present and share screen and show you some of these assessments, if that's something that you viewers are interested in. And also I would say to that assessments are used as a tool, so. Sometimes we don't even use those assessments. Sometimes we just talk first, we talk through what is it that is mentally, physically, and emotionally causing some stress, and then we go from there. So I just preface that and say that because I would like viewers to know that it's not always about just assessing you and trying to figure out off of an assessment. Or sheet what your problem is. It's a helper, and it can help guide us in that relationship to help the person understand, oh, this is why I might be thinking this way, or This is why I might be saying these things, or this is why I might be repeating these behaviors. But in no means is it the only thing that we use to help our clients to move through big life events or crises or anything that's traumatic.

Marvae: 9:01

Okay. Thank you. Thank you for that.

Natalee: 9:02

You are welcome.

Marvae: 9:04

I have one more question. If you have a, a client or patient that comes in and you notice that they may need medical help, so maybe additional, maybe, you know, um, psychiatry, maybe, I'm not sure, how can you gauge that part of the behavior? To where it's like, sorry, I can't help this person. They need.

Natalee: 9:38

That's a great question and, and one that is common. So how I would explain this would, which would be to differentiate, is there a safety risk, right? Because we are always thinking about safety. Anytime we're engaging with clients, we wanna make sure that they have a safe place to go. That they feel safe in their body, that wherever they are, they're not at risk to harm themselves or anybody else. Then we go to the next step. Okay. Why are you here today? Can you tell me a little bit more? And so if we think or have any reason to believe that an individual is in psychosis or going through psychosis or possibly entering into that space, and psychosis means that mentally you are at an unstable point, which means you're not able to think straight or make decisions properly. And you might also have some behavioral things that you're showing like. Talking to yourself or delusions or saying grandiose things that do not connect anywhere to who you are, what you've done, or your environment. So those are layers of things that as a psychotherapist, we do have to work through. It is our responsibility to know that when we meet an individual, that is one of the first things that we're assessing is how are you? Are you stable? Where are you at? And let's roll that out first before we move into more of a. Long term or short term relationship about how we can support you.

Marvae: 11:05

Okay. good. Thank you.

Natalee: 11:07

You're welcome. So going forward, let's talk about psychotherapy. So one of the, um, modalities that psychotherapists use is called cognitive behavioral therapy. And basically my definition of that is it's working through all the ways that we think. Okay. Why do we think this way? What are we thinking? What is triggering us to think that way? Is it a product of our biology or is it a product of our environment? The focus of CBT is to identify and change negative thought patterns and behaviors. Now I personally support and really enjoy CBT therapy because thinking and mental capacity is really at the heart and epicenter of what we do. It's how we move through space, literally 24 hours a day. So if we have a healthy relationship with our mind, that helps us to have a healthy relationship with everything else, every other aspect of our life. So CPT is used for depression, anxiety. P-T-S-D-O-C-D, phobias and eating disorders. Now that list is not exhaustive. There's other things that we could add to that, and I would say that. Anytime that I recommend someone to go into psychotherapy or be thinking about it, always think about a goodness of fit, just because one therapist might be good at one modality, they might not be good at another one, so you just wanna make sure that you feel it out and probably do a little bit of research about the different types of therapies that you have questions about. The next one is interpersonal therapy. This one is close to my heart because as an individual, I am very introspective and I love to go inward, and I love the layers of trying to understand myself, my self-identity, my self-worth and everything about me, and that's what. Literally this therapy does it, it causes you to go inward and really kind of do checks and balances within yourself. So the focus is to improve interpersonal relationships and social functioning. It's used for depression, uh, grief, life transitions, and relational relationship issues. So again, it fits right because it's focused in on you. It's focused in on, again, your mental capacity. Where are you at with what's happening in your life, in your, in your world. Um, and the approach is structured and it's focused, and I like that because I generally move towards a focused and time sensitive type of therapy, but I'm always open to extending that as far as needed. Right. As far as the client needs the. Next one I wanna talk about is trauma-informed therapy. This one, again, is important in my personal definition because yes, this word is thrown around a lot, but the word has unpacks a big punch. Trauma is trauma, and trauma means that you have either. Physically, mentally, emotionally gone through something that has pretty much pulled the rug out from under your feet, and there is just no way to get back in the boat and take those oars and start swimming away from it. There's a hole in the boat, so you start sinking. So trauma-informed therapy, the focus is safety, empowerment and healing from your trauma, whatever that is. Um, it is used for complex PTSD abuse survivors and childhood trauma. So this is one that I went through because I knew that that's exactly what I was looking for. I needed to work through the layers of my childhood and what happened to me and why it happened to me, and why I, um, generated these unhealthy coping skills to try and move through this. Again, there's many different types of modalities. My best suggestion is to research a little bit and have some questions ready to try and figure out what best suits you. There have been situations where modalities have been paired together and blend in together, so it's not necessarily cookie cutter. We do use layers from each one. The next one I wanna talk about is yoga. Yoga is. Amazing. It really does work with all of your body and it really helps you to ground, to focus, to breathe, and to maintain that for a sustained amount of time. Yoga has been used for quite a while. It's focused is it integrates physical postures. Breath work, meditation and physical healing. This is one that I have used since the onset of me even knowing that it existed. Then I went and got a certification for it because I wanted to be able to teach this. So again, there are. People who move towards a holistic way of healing, not necessarily their traditional psychotherapy therapist client relationship. So that's why I say there's a plethora of things out there, and I would encourage viewers to at least try or talk to friends and family and see if they've tried any of these things and talk about their experiences that they've had. And last but not least, art. Art is another really close one to my heart. I think that sometimes words are not enough and we need to actually express what it is that we're thinking, what we're feeling, and what we're seeing in our mind. And art. Isn't just necessarily a paintbrush and paint, right? Art can be in many forms. So art in the sense of dancing and movement and drama and music. There's so many things and ways that you can go about this. I dabbled a little bit in, um, gardening and there is a. They call it nature therapy, but it's basically immerse in yourself in the naturalistic ecosystem. And the foundation of that is that nature gives us life. And so when we're immersed in it, we also share in that energy. So there's a lot there. There's a lot out there. So I would definitely encourage, uh, listeners to just be curious about yourself and you know, what you think you can get out of these things. So, do you have any questions about those modalities that I went through?

Marvae: 18:13

I do, if so. you can just recap quickly again, what is a modality and does hypnosis fit into that? Uh, somewhere at all, or is that can be that a modality.

Natalee: 18:31

Great question. So modality is a word that I like to use that viewers will probably see a lot when they're doing research online for psychotherapy. But in general, modality is just, it's, it's a, it's a driver, right? It's, it's a, it's a thing that we can use. It's a tool that we can use to help something. So when I talk about modality in the context of psychotherapy, that's what I'm talking about is this particular set. Of, uh, roles and frameworks and, um, thought processes and exercises that we use to help with a certain type of, um, mental health issue or stressor. And to answer your question about hypnosis or hypnotherapy, yes it is. A option, and I don't personally have experience with it, but I have talked with friends, uh, along the way who have used it and have a lot of great things to say about it. So, like I said, you could easily reach out to a psychotherapist who is practicing and just ask some questions about what it is and what it might do for, for the viewer or the person who's interested.

Marvae: 19:45

Okay, good. I got some good clarification then. Thank you.

Natalee: 19:50

You're welcome. So let's go into education. Of course, I didn't just wake up and become a crisis intervention specialist, uh, slash psychotherapist, so this part. Is close to my heart because it has taken me an extremely long time to get here. But I was a mom and I was caring for two kids and also trying to go to school. So I made it happen and I had a lot of support and help along the way. So the first thing to keep in mind is that most likely someone who's looking to get a degree and to go into licensure will wanna start with. Your general education, you can do that at a community college. You can get an aa. Uh, if it were me, I would've gotten an AA in psychology. But in the beginning, I wasn't looking to go into this. I actually was looking to go into early childhood education. So I got an AA in ECE, but thought process wise in going back, if I had to redo it, I probably would get an AA in psychology. So you start there and then once you're ready to transfer to a four year college, you would get your bachelor's. Um, I got a bachelor's in psychology. However, there's other areas of study that would still apply to social work, so you would wanna talk to your academic counselor about what those other degrees could be, because I don't wanna be a tunnel vision when it comes to psychology. Psychology is a, is a, a, a massive topic and. I don't feel like I will ever be an expert at psychology. So with that said, it's interesting and you could easily pick up some recommended books on the shelf and start reading about it and see if it's something that you want to be degreed in. So I have my bachelor's in psychology. From there, I went to a two and a half to three year school, and I got a degree in social work, so a master's in social work. So to get to the higher levels, you will, you will need to get to the higher levels, excuse me, to be able to do what I do, which is psychotherapy. So you'll want to get your master's and you can also, uh, you'll wanna make sure that the school is accredited. So that's really important, especially if, well, for any higher level, you wanna make sure that it's accredited. I know there are some colleges that don't give accreditation or are not accredited, um, so you'll just wanna make sure you double check that. Um, but it is required to practice therapy. And so you'll wanna make sure the school is accredited. And it took me about two and a half years, and this was all online, so I was not physically in person for my master's, but I was for my bachelor's. From there, once you. Uh, graduate, then you will find an internship opportunity, and that is where you will get your first exposure to the topic of study, which for me was social work. And you'll start working with clients and start accruing hours. So for an A CSW, you need to complete 3000 supervised hours over a two plus year timeframe. And you also. Need to pass the California Law and Ethics Exam and the A CSW clinical exam. So there's two powerhouse exams that we have to do to be licensed. Now this information is tailored to the state of California, so please keep that in mind when you are going to do your research. It will be different for different states. But that in its in a sense is, um, how I got to where I'm at. In a nutshell, everything is accessible online. You could easily talk to an academic counselor about this, and if you're more concerned about whether you want to do social work or more specialized like. Marriage and family therapy. The only reason why I chose to do social work is because I felt that there was far more job opportunity and my scope could be wider, so I could work in many different types of areas of social work with my licensure. So, for example, I worked for a short term residential facility for about three years, and that's where I did my internship. So I was case carrying, meaning that I had a caseload of about 13 clients, and I would rotate and meet with them and offer them group therapy throughout the week. Then I transitioned over to becoming a crisis clinician Different. And so in that space I am assessing for suicidal risk and possibly putting on a 51 50 hold. So psychiatric hold and moving that client to stability, uh, longer term. Then I moved over to, uh, the county of Santa Clara, where I worked as a dependency investigations, um, social worker. Again, three different positions. If I was a marriage and family therapist, I believe that I could still have done all those things, but marriage and family therapy is a specific type of therapy, so that's something that viewers would wanna keep in mind is understanding. What, how exactly do you want to serve the population? Do you wanna serve a large group? Do you wanna serve individual? Do you wanna do one-on-one? Do you wanna do family? So those are just layers of things to think about when you're going to look at your academic schedule and, um, your goals. So going back to doing school in person and online. So I did get my bachelor's in person and I loved. Every moment of that experience. I met some great people and we shared four years together, and I think it was just really awesome to be able to talk with those people about real life things that were happening in real time and have access to them, like right there. I literally went to school in the city that I lived, so I was very grateful for that. So the flexibility and the convenience was. Absolutely great, and I really loved the face-to-face interaction. Like that was a, a big one for me. And of course there's always the campus experience too as well. Um, there's many groups that you could be involved in. Sports, you could be involved in clubs. So if that's something that's more your style, then certainly in person can be fantastic because it can tailor to your learning styles. Now I did my master's, um, online. And so again, it still offered flexibility and convenience, and it also offered accessibility because as a parent, I needed that. I needed to know that I could log in at certain times. I had a schedule for me, but I didn't have the pressure, didn't have to have the pressure of physically driving to campus to try to be there on time. So those are two ways of thinking about, uh, in-person or online. Any questions about, about that part?

Marvae: 27:15

So, being that you're in that field, did you find that the online aspect of it was a little, um, not difficult because you're, again, you're logging in and you're posting, um, and it might be a little bit. Difficult if you have group projects together, maybe because you're

Natalee: 27:41

Mm-hmm.

Marvae: 27:42

You know, you're communicating online with them. So that can be an obstacle.

Natalee: 27:50

Absolutely. That is a really, really good point. So the way that the program was structured, the group projects and the communication was built into the program. So we were guided as to how we should connect. When we should connect. And then we had our own flexibility about coming up with the time of when it worked for everybody. So it actually did bring us kind of closer together.'cause we really did have to tag team and figure out,'cause I am on, um, I'm not on East Coast time, I'm on Pacific Standard Time. So we really had to like factor in. There were people from all around the US trying to figure out when are we gonna meet. So the other thing I would say is that the biggest thing is time management. And that's important because. You have assignments that you are given for that block of that week, and then it's your job to decide how many hours you're going to divvy up per day. And a set aside time to read, watch the videos, do the group discussions, and also do the assignments. So that's something to keep in mind. If you're a full-time worker and you have any other hobbies on the side, online is great, but you wanna have good time management if you're gonna. Gonna connect with what you're doing and absorb the learning of what you're doing.

Marvae: 29:07

It sounds like since you went, you had experience in both classroom, face-to-face online. Um, was a good, you, you had two different, uh, platforms of learning. So the experience is well-rounded and, and you have dedicated, your peers were dedicated to get the group projects done.'cause that, that could be a problem if that person, if they all decide that, you know, we have this group project done and initially you're trying to figure out schedules. And then maybe somebody drops the ball. So that can be, that can be a little bit hairy.

Natalee: 29:54

Absolutely. And it was, I'm not gonna say that I didn't experience that. I absolutely did. And so again, it's going to be accountability. If you are doing your work, you're putting in the work, then you're communicating with your professor, Hey, this person isn't quite meeting expectations, what should we do? So that was a couple of situations that I was in. For the most part, everyone pulled in and and pulled their weight. But yes, that is definitely something to think about. I think in general, you know, yes I did have a well-rounded experience educationally, but I also went to school in the city that I lived in. So I wasn't. Commuting very far to go to college. So that's another part of it. If you're a commuter and you love to be in the car and you know you wanna commute to school because you wanna be physically in person and and absorbed that way. Great. I liked online because it wasn't an overwhelming lecture. Every single time it was a video, it was timed. I watched it and then I could go back and watch it, so it was tagged, meaning that it was recorded and it was in the ether, so I could access it multiple times to help absorb the information. So let's move along. This is my favorite part of the talk, which is coping skills and. I love this part because I feel that in general, humans are built to do amazing things. We already have internal and external capacities to create magic, and I love reminding people of that, and that's where coping skills comes in. So of course, coping skills, it promotes mental health and it emotionally. Regulates you. So there's so many benefits to using different things to help move heavy energy. And I love it because I'm always telling my clients your coping skills. It helps to manage your emotions like anger and sadness and anxiety and fear. And we naturally, as humans, we are doers. We want to be doing things. We, we are, we naturally get up and we know we're supposed to do something. So what is that thing gonna be that day? Most of the time it's a nine to five job. Right? But then after that, when you disconnect from the work hat, then who are you? Right? Creatively, and that's the thing that I always like to remind people, is that you're not the sum of the job that you do, and you, you do it well. The other side of you is. The true humanness of you. What is your expression? What is your creative expression? Um, some other things that are benefits, um, reducing the risk of developing depression and anxiety disorders or emotional dysregulation. So it's really a preventative thing, and that's always something that we, I feel like as a society are really trying to do is prevent things from getting really bad. So why wouldn't we want to invest in taking time to figure out. What are those coping skills that's gonna make my life be the best life that I can live? The other aspect is prevent escalation of stress. Again, prevention. We want to avoid having chronic illness, chronic mental health issues, and we wanna have a healthy brain and body. We want that system to be connected and moving that energy. And so coping strategies are really, they're a helper, right? They're, they're a buffer. For all of the things that our bodies are trying to regulate throughout the day, and that's essentially what our bodies do. We we're regulating throughout the day, so that's why I go back to the epicenter of our mind. If we have a healthy mind, if our mental state is healthy, then everything else in our life can certainly. I'm not saying that there isn't gonna be bumps and bruises, right? There always is, but you will be able to bounce back much faster when you know what you need to get you to be grounded. So some things that I invested in was salsa dancing. I am a salsa teacher now. I spent years learning how to dance. I took classes, and then I just started going out into the community and finding places to move. I love the music and I love what it's taught me. It really has taught me to connect back with myself and my sensuality. Who I am and, and the expression that I love to give, and that is through movement. The second thing is yoga, and I did talk about it earlier. Yoga is a beautiful investment, and I have heard many different pros and cons about yoga and yoga therapy. Yoga in itself is meant for you to center ground, breathe, close out. All of the static and the white noise and come back to self. That essentially is what yoga is. Now, there's different ways that yoga has been commercialized in society. And so for me it's more of a spiritual journey, and that is okay if it's a form of exercise that is okay. If it's something where you feel like instead of working out today, this is what my body needs. There's nothing wrong with that. It's just for me in the way that I speak about it, I speak about it more in a spiritual sense because it really has connected me to, um, my higher self, connected me more to God and and appreciation for myself and my body. So those are some things that I've done. I could list a million other things, but those are probably the top two that I practice every week. Now, I will say that I do work out three times a week, and for me, working out is more of. The component of making sure my physical body is being activated. So that's why I do it. But again, it's another coping skill that helps you move this kind of tension and heaviness that you carry when things happen to you, whatever that might be. So do you have any questions about coping skills in general or anything that you want me to recap there?

Marvae: 36:40

No, I think that, um, what I would, will, what I'll do is ask you more questions on our third episode because there are some areas that I wanted to. Get into a little bit more detail, but I know that we're, you know, we're getting ready to kinda wind things up here. But, uh, is there, is there anything else that you wanted to, to share?

Natalee: 37:13

Yes, so I will leave your viewers with some fun facts about mental health. They are the top 10 that I think are essential to just. No, you can be curious about it. You could say, Natalie, I heard it, but I really don't care. Whatever you wanna do with it, you do with it. I just wanna make sure that I put it out there in the ether. So the first one is, everyone has mental health. Mental health. So a lot of times I have heard people refer to this word in a very negative way. Mental health means that your brain, your thought process is healthy. That's what that means when we use the words mental health. We are talking specifically about your mind and, and how those things process. So when we say mental health struggles, we really mean, okay, there's something going on in our mind that is causing us to be off scale. The scales are not balanced. What do, what do we need to do to get it back there? It's just like physical health. It's something that needs to be nurtured every single day.

Marvae: 38:25

I just wanna give Natalie a warm thank you for being here and giving of her time so freely and sharing her information. She's quite a remarkable young woman and she has been through quite the trauma in her life, and I hope that you're able to, uh, tune into our third episode. The third of the three part series,