Dr. Matthew Pearson:
I never expected to be here. I first decided to become a physician. That was the first decision. I liked the science. I liked the challenge. I wanted to be in a respective profession that had a lot of options.
Ellie Pike:
When Dr. Matthew Pearson first started out in medical school, he had no plans to focus on mental health.
Dr. Matthew Pearson:
I started doing my rotations. You'll spend like a month doing family medicine, you'll spend a couple of months doing surgery. You'll go through all these different things.
Ellie Pike:
Somewhere along the way, he discovered something more tantalizing, the joy of taking care of the whole person.
Dr. Matthew Pearson:
We call it the biopsychosocial, right. So it's not just their biology and their body, it's their mind and it's their social situation, it's their life. It's the whole person.
Ellie Pike:
In our conversation, Dr. Pearson and I explore how depression and anxiety actually show up in real life. Why mental illness is so often misunderstood, the surprising ways emotional struggles can appear as physical symptoms and what recovery looks like when progress isn't a straight line. Along the way, we'll lay out practical tools, explore the cutting edge of mental health research, and find out why Dr. Pearson is more optimistic than ever about everyone's ability to find recovery. You are listening to Mental Note Podcast. I'm Ellie Pike.
I would love to just start with something that we all experience, like, stress, worry, low moods, right, like, the typical ups and downs of life. Can you share a story or maybe an example that helps people understand when those everyday feelings become something more serious? Like, when do I actually need to pay attention to this as something that might not be helping me in the long run?
Dr. Matthew Pearson:
Sure. Yeah. Stress, sadness, worry, those are really normal human experiences. Big picture, they become more concerning when they're persistent or they're disproportionate to the circumstance or they're really starting to impair daily functioning. So everyday stress that might look like feeling really overwhelmed before a deadline or a big project and you can't sleep as well the night before. That's really normal. And especially if after that deadline passes and the project is completed, then you start sleeping well again and you feel relief, you feel good. That's very normal. But something more serious would be like ongoing anxiety that continues even after the stressful event is over.
So constant worry, physical tension, feeling irritable, still having trouble sleeping, that's when we start to worry. So low mood is different from depression. We would say that's a low mood. You've been disappointed. It was a difficult week. You had a big letdown. Depression would be for weeks and weeks not interested in doing things, low energy, feeling bad about yourself or even having thoughts that life might not be worth living. So that's when we start to worry.
Ellie Pike:
I appreciate that you added in there what some of those thoughts might be, but also the physical sensations, like, lack of sleep or maybe physical tension or I know if I'm worried my stomach might hurt or I might get a headache or neck tension. So paying attention to some of those physical symptoms and also how long those last can really help us understand our stress or worry or if we're feeling depressed, not just having a low mood that day.
Dr. Matthew Pearson:
Exactly. I think it's important for us to check in with our bodies and to see those as signs that something could be wrong as well. Because if you're clenching your jaw or grinding your teeth at night, maybe that's a sign that there's some anxiety there, there's some stress that you haven't dealt with.
Ellie Pike:
Sometimes that's how a lot of people can manifest it without necessarily having the awareness piece, but just bringing awareness to our body can tell us a lot about our emotions.
Dr. Matthew Pearson:
Right.
Ellie Pike:
So have you ever worked with a patient whose experience completely changed how you think about anxiety or depression and what stood out to you?
Dr. Matthew Pearson:
Well, so when I was in my psychiatry residency many years ago, so that was training, I still remember I had a patient who came to us because she had experienced gradual behavioral changes that led her to become less and less functional. She was spending more time in bed, she wasn't showering, she didn't have an appetite. So a lot of the symptoms that you see in depression. But when I spoke with her, she didn't talk about feeling sad and she didn't talk about not enjoying herself. That was not the main thing she talked about. She was very focused on her stomach aches and she was constipated and bloated and things were just not right in that department for her and she was really fixated on it. So I started to appreciate the reality of how the body experiences depression and anxiety as well. So again, getting back to that idea of the physical symptoms.
So we talk about the brain-gut axis, for example, and it's very real and I see it in my job. Many of my patients with anxiety or depression, they have symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome or another example could be chronic pain such as fibromyalgia. Antidepressants actually treat fibromyalgia. We don't call it depression because it doesn't check off all those boxes, but there's certainly something similar happening biologically. Chronic fatigue may be another example. So I think once I started to work with patients who had a lot of those physical symptoms, it started to help me appreciate that that may be the presenting concern or the primary concern sometimes for patients.
Ellie Pike:
You're right. What is it that is going to cause the most concern for a patient where they feel like it's worth going to the doctor about? It's typically going to be physical symptoms. And I'm hopeful that in our society we're really destigmatizing the mental health piece, but it's a lot harder I think as an individual to say, "I'm going to go because my brain doesn't stop racing," versus saying, "I'm having a physical symptom," that maybe there's an easier answer to. So thank you for sharing that piece. So from your perspective, if anxiety could talk, what do you think it would say it's trying to do for us and when does that message start to go off track?
Dr. Matthew Pearson:
Oh, that's an interesting question. Well, first let's talk about fear versus anxiety, because fear is an essential human experience. It tells us when there's danger, right. We obviously need that. Our ancestors needed to be alert to their environmental dangers in order to survive. If they saw a saber-toothed tiger, they needed to run. Today in the 21st century, if I'm crossing the street and I look up and I see a bus, I need to jump out of the way before thinking. And not just that, I need to have more energy to do it. My heart needs to be pumping blood. My pupils need to dilate. So our bodies have a fear response that keeps us alive. It involves an entire portion of our nervous system and it immediately causes our heart rate to increase, blood flow to direct to the muscles, our pupils to dilate. So it gets us ready.
It's fight or flight, right, and you have to have that. Now, let's separate that from anxiety, because anxiety is more about worry and it lasts longer than a fear response. And I think you can call this functional as well and then it can go awry. So in terms of it being functional, I think it's telling us it's a barometer that something isn't right. For example, if you're procrastinating on a task, you might start to feel anxious as the deadline approaches. That should be a clue that something's keeping you from jumping in. Perhaps you can't stand the boredom or you have an insecurity about how well you do. Another example might be when people are struggling to find their life calling or find meaning in what they're doing. So this is kind of a deeper kind of angst that people can experience. So maybe they're spending all their time in the wrong job and there could be this low level of anxiety.
So when there's anxiety like that, it's often there's some kind of an unconscious conflict or dissonance between different ideas that are going on in the subconscious and need to reconcile it. So when I see someone with situational anxiety like that, I'm wondering if there's something that they might need to explore in therapy. So yeah, I do think both fear and anxiety can actually have purposes for us. But again, anxiety can become counterproductive and that is when it's out of proportion to the trigger.
Ellie Pike:
When you said that, I was like, "Ooh, out of proportion." I picture it as a scale of one to 10, and if 10 is out of proportion ... I'll get to that in a second. But a one, two or three level of anxiety for me, for example, might be, "Oh, my alarm clock is going off. I really don't want to get out of bed, but I have enough anxiety about getting up and getting my kids to school on time that it's going to help me. It's actually going to help me get out of bed because I'm a little anxious about them being late." But if it's out of proportion, like a 10, like, I'm so anxious about X, Y, and Z, that's when it might work against me. It might make me freeze or it might make me so anxious I can't actually go do said thing because I'm so worried about it that I'm stuck. So I guess when you say out of proportion, do you think of it as a scale of one to 10? I know that's in my head at least.
Dr. Matthew Pearson:
No, absolutely. It's very subjective, right.
Ellie Pike:
Sure.
Dr. Matthew Pearson:
So you're kind of applying your own judgment to it.
Ellie Pike:
Yeah.
Dr. Matthew Pearson:
But yeah, that's exactly the point. A common one we think about would be public speaking. So if you're getting in front of a bunch of people to give a talk, you should be a little bit nervous. It just kind of means you're on your game and you're ready to go. But if your hands are shaking and your palms are sweating and your voice is trembling, that's too much and you're not going to do a good job. So that would be the kind of anxiety that's out of proportion that you'd want to treat. Now, that's just so common, right, but there are certain things that could happen, like, you could have panic attacks and things that just, again, counterproductive, it gets in the way.
Ellie Pike:
When you describe what a panic attack is, 'cause I know sometimes people use it as just in quick passing, but for those of us who may not have experienced a panic attack, I think it's really important to know what the symptoms are of it and what to notice and also maybe how to support someone who might be having a panic attack.
Dr. Matthew Pearson:
Well, again, very physical and it usually comes out of the blue. So it's actually a common reason people go to emergency rooms thinking they're having a heart attack, right. It's scary. So a panic attack, strictly speaking, is an out of the blue response where suddenly there's a sense of overwhelming fear, like, something wrong is happening or something bad is going to happen. And then there's this sensation of sometimes people feel trapped or claustrophobic or they can feel like they can't escape it. And then there's all these physical symptoms, right. So the heart races might get pressure and tightness in the chest, and that scares people. They think they're having a heart attack. You can feel really dizzy and it might just be that alone. All of a sudden you think you've got vertigo and you can't stand up. You have to catch your breath, your short of breath, the sweatiness.
It usually lasts five, 10 minutes up to half an hour, something like that. It's really distressing. It completely impairs somebody. And again, it comes out of the blue. You may not even realize that you've got something going on in your life that you're anxious about. And I've treated a lot of people who have never considered themselves to be anxious people, but suddenly in their 30s or 40s, maybe under a lot of job stress, for example, or marital stress or any kind of stress, just something that's going on inside they're keeping inside, it's popping out as panic attacks.
Ellie Pike:
I appreciate you diving into that one because I think it can feel like a mystery at some points, even for someone who experiences it. Like, what is that? Just like you said, feeling disconnected from the anxiety piece. So a lot of people describe depression or anxiety as feeling stuck. From what you've seen, what does that actually look like in someone's day-to-day life?
Dr. Matthew Pearson:
Yeah. One of the words we use a lot is rumination and just ruminating over the same thoughts over and over. That is one way that people feel stuck. So when people are anxious, it's like their brains are trying to solve the wrong problem or solve it in the wrong way. And so, because there's this perception that there's some kind of danger, the brain thinks if we can just keep replaying the scenarios, it will lead to answers or some kind of control or safety, but it's a cycle because it doesn't work. And so the mind just obsesses on what ifs or past mistakes, and that can actually worsen the anxiety. So people can really feel stuck and ruminate over the same things over and over again. And I think another way to think about this too, depression, that can feel like a pit. People describe it that way.
They're in a black hole or they're in a pit and they can't get out of it. And I think that's because, for one, the very things that would help somebody with depression, like, getting up and out of bed, showering, socializing or jumping into a task, those are actually the very hardest things to do because of the illness. So it can be really challenging to take those first steps. And so people can feel like they're just, like you said, stuck in a pit. When a therapist first starts to work with someone with depression, they do often, one of the first things is what we call behavioral activation, which basically means that they just help the person get up and start doing some of those things that are so hard to do and they provide whatever support, but let's help you get up and take a shower every morning, for example.
Ellie Pike:
What comes to my mind is if you're sick with the flu, the best thing for you is to lay in bed all day, right, and that's how you heal. And depression's the opposite. You can't lay in bed all day and it get better. You have to have that behavioral activation, that one step at a time actionable item to help move forward and to be unstuck slowly, right. And it's interesting that I asked the question about depression and anxiety together because they are very different. The energy levels can be really different. And for someone who is highly anxious, sometimes they might actually have a lot of energy to go, go, go in a day. Maybe the answer for them might be to slow down a little bit and then to give themselves a minute to rest, breathe, collect themselves, focus. So they can all look like different manifestations in different types of people, of course. What are some of the more subtle ways that you might notice that someone might be struggling with depression or anxiety in their day-to-day lives?
Dr. Matthew Pearson:
Yeah, there are definitely more subtle signs of depression and anxiety, like the physical symptoms, right, pain, headaches, the jaw clenching, teeth grinding, TMJ disorders, that all indicates muscle tension and muscle tension, that's completely silent, but it's a sign of anxiety. Brain fog. Brain fog would be another one. The loss of libido, that's embarrassing for some people, but it may not be something they bring up, but that is another less obvious sign that someone may have a mood disorder. Social withdrawal, maybe the person isn't outwardly depressed, but they're just kind of pulling back slowly, maybe just spending more time alone or on their phone or watching television, they kind of pull in and they start to withdraw. So I think a lot of times when we think about depression or anxiety, we're thinking about those core symptoms that really stand out. And again, we could talk about feeling sad or talk about feeling irritable, but sometimes not feeling anything at all is a worrisome sign. I worry about people who feel emotionally numb and they're just not feeling. And so that's a sign too, that something's off.
Ellie Pike:
Yeah. And what are some of the ways that you notice that folks might even be numbing themselves if their emotions feel so much like a struggle, like depression or anxiety? Those are also some clues, maybe not so subtle sometimes.
Dr. Matthew Pearson:
Right, right. The one we think about that we worry about a lot would be substance use, but even the more subtle, like, increasing the amount that someone's drinking where they're drinking several drinks every night because they just need to disconnect. They feel like it's kind of like a self-medication in that sense or using other substances to try to withdraw. Binge-watching episodes, that could be fun, but you also have to think about the possibility that it could be to disconnect because reality is just too hard to deal with.
Ellie Pike:
I was just talking to a friend recently where he was talking about the struggle he was having in his last job and one of the reasons that he decided to leave. And part of it was because he realized he was working so hard and he was just go, go, going and not slowing down that he actually started to realize he was getting angry when he came home and he was with his family and that his anger was a sign of depression, but he was still high achieving. He was still getting things done in a day, but it was too much and he was suffering internally, but it took months for him to recognize he was actually suffering with depression.
Dr. Matthew Pearson:
Yeah. No, and I like the example with work because that's one that we praise people for being really productive at work and achieving a lot and that's great, but some people are doing it for the wrong reasons. They're doing it because they feel so out of control in the rest of their lives and they want to pour themselves into something where they feel like there's some control and you give and you receive. You put the work in and you receive praise or the salary or whatever. And so it's a much different kind of environment. People pour themselves and become workaholics.
Ellie Pike:
And then there are some folks that are aware, they're noticing these symptoms and I think self-blame can be a big part of that. Like, "I should have done this," or, "I should have done that," or, "I'm not X, Y, and Z enough." Right. And so that self-narrative can be really destructive for many of us. And I'm curious for you as a psychiatrist, how you help patients rewrite that narrative and really see what's going on underneath the surface and really start to shift the thought pattern and also the brain chemistry.
Dr. Matthew Pearson:
Yeah, that's a great question. I mean, mental illness is not a sign of weakness, and I think people are particularly prone to that kind of thinking because of the social stigma that still surrounds mental illness. It seems like a mental condition is somehow different from a physical condition. So when we're struggling with mental illness, we internalize that. And actually, I think in addition, the conditions themselves lend to that way of thinking. So depression usually involves a sense of guilt or poor self-worth. A person with depression is probably already considering themselves to be part of the problem. Person with anxiety often feels like they don't have what it takes to do what needs to be done, that sense of self-efficacy, they lack that. So once again, that's how self-blame can creep in. So again, that's a great question. I think it's important that we reframe for the patient what their condition really is.
I take time to educate patients on their illness, and quite often, once people have a diagnosis and they have an explanation, there's a real sense of relief like, "Oh, it's not my fault," or, "Oh, now everything makes sense." And you can see it just, oh, okay. So helping the patient see an alternative perspective on their condition.
Ellie Pike:
I love what you're saying about getting answers and a name for something, and maybe that lessens some of that self-blame. Another piece that would be really interesting to me to learn about is how much there's a genetic tie to any kind of mood or anxiety disorder. Because I know in my family, we just joke about how anxiety just runs in the family, and is it nature versus nurture? Probably both, but I would love to hear your perspective on that piece.
Dr. Matthew Pearson:
Yeah, it's both. You're right. And I think that's a very short answer, right. It's both.
Ellie Pike:
Yeah.
Dr. Matthew Pearson:
Teasing that apart is really complicated 'cause the brain is really complicated. But I'll tell you, in terms of research, because this is just really interesting, we have these cool techniques and research where we can determine proportionately how much of a certain disorder seems to be inherited and biological versus based on circumstances. And one of the ways we do that is with twin studies. So you can take identical twins and compare them to fraternal twins. They probably both had really similar upbringings and environmental experiences on average, but one group shares 100% of their DNA and the other group doesn't. They just share as much as any general siblings would. And so you can see how do the rates of disorders differ in those groups? Things like autism and schizophrenia, highly heritable proportionately. Things like anxiety, depression, a little bit less so. So yes, and trying to understand why, that's a big question.
Think about PTSD. You can have two people who are exposed to the very same trauma and they end up with very different responses and trajectories afterwards. Some people develop PTSD from it, some people don't. It might have to do with their temperament. It might have to do with their upbringing. Maybe they had a more challenging childhood in some ways. Maybe they have a certain temperament that lends them to struggle in different ways than someone with a different temperament. So it's just really a really complex kind of question.
Ellie Pike:
I just appreciate even just saying that, that it's not just an environmental concern or based on your own personal resilience and what you've learned or haven't learned in life about resiliency. There is this genetic component that I think is really helpful for some of us to see and to know about because the more we can lessen blame that could be associated with mental health issues, I think the better. But the important piece of that when I hear it is to remember that just because there might be this or there is this genetic component doesn't mean that it's incurable. And that piece I would love to dive in with you today about how to seek help and what help can actually look like because I'm a full believer that recovery really is possible for folks and mental wellness in different capacities is what I would hope for all people who are struggling.
And so there can be a lot of fear around getting help. That's no surprise to any of us, especially when it comes to talking about treatment and using words like inpatient or people can immediately think of this psych hospital with white walls and padding and it sounds horrible and many-
Dr. Matthew Pearson:
It sounds scary, yeah.
Ellie Pike:
Sounds so scary. And so what I would love to do, especially 'cause you do work at a hospital that has all these different types of levels of care, I would love to know how you walked someone through the journey of knowing what type of care is out there and how to discern that in just kind of layman's terms.
Dr. Matthew Pearson:
Yeah. I mean, I think first and foremost, it's important to normalize these as treatments when we talk with patients. So helping patients see that what they have been doing isn't working, it's not enough, right, so they need something a little bit more. So instead of therapy once a week, maybe they need to receive two or three times a week and go to some groups with peers who might be struggling in certain ways. So kind of framing this as a higher level of care is really about more support and it's just a little bit more intensive to get you back on track. Something I talk with parents about sometimes when they're concerned about pulling their child out of school, for example, to do something where they spend all day getting treatment is that most likely your child is going to get better more quickly if you pull them out and do an intensive program and then you can step back down to the outpatient world and they'll do well.
But if they stay in this outpatient setting, they're kind of just smolder with their struggles all school year and they won't be their best. So let's face the reality, they're struggling, outpatient's not working, let's kind of step things up. And some of the things that we do at ERC Pathlight, we give tours. Tours are a great way to demystify the program and to reduce that anxiety so patients, family members, they can see the facility and imagine what life would be like in our treatment program. We can also connect families with other families who've already gone through this process and have offered to be a resource. So I think really this is all just about destigmatizing, normalizing, explaining it, and really to just lower that hurdle a little bit so it's a little bit easier to take that first step.
Ellie Pike:
Thank you for sharing that piece. And yes, I can second that. I think just hearing from someone who's been through that journey can be so incredibly insightful and really paint this picture of what life can actually look like in the messy middle. And I'm calling it the messy middle because the treatment process or recovery process for people with mental illnesses is really challenging. And oftentimes I think whether it's social media or the news or even just in normal life, we oftentimes see the big struggle and then we oftentimes see what life might look like or in retrospect someone sharing about their recovery journey. But that messy middle tends to be a time, probably 'cause it's so time intensive, right, where the whole world is not really that aware of what it looks like. So if someone's family or someone individually is seeking treatment or going to therapy three times a week, they're working really, really hard.
And I would love for you to kind of paint a picture of what does that actually look like to dive into this process of I'm going to seek wellness, I'm going to seek treatment. Is it seeing a therapist and a psychiatrist? Are medications always useful? Just a little bit of a picture of what that therapeutic side actually can look like for someone.
Dr. Matthew Pearson:
It's true. It's a process. Recovery is a process and it's not always linear. I like to think of it more as two steps forward, one step back or kind of a zigzag path to recovery. So I mean the simple answer, the simple response would be that by the end, your mood is better, you're sleeping better, better energy, fewer panic attacks, you can do your daily tasks, you can enjoy socializing. And these are all real, but that's an eventual goal, remission from the disorder. And eventually there's this overall improvement in quality of life. That's what we're really after, but the process isn't linear. It takes time. There's progress and then there's a bump in the road, like a difficult life circumstance that seems to derail everything and derail the progress. And then it requires that someone kind of dig in and receive more support and grow from that and then get back on track again.
That's normal. That's not like, "Oh no, what's happening?" This is what we expect. So we help reframe that for the patient so they're kind of seeing it like that. What I worry about the most is when patients start to lose hope, because treatment can be fatiguing and with enough fatigue and enough setbacks, some people start to wonder if it's all worth it. So we really dig in and we take that seriously and we address that because we find ways to be encouraging and to support and surround that person with people who believe in them. So yeah, it's messy. It's a heroic thing to do. I mean, we celebrate when people recover and when they're on the path to recovery, we celebrate the wins because it takes courage and it can be heroic and it takes a team. It takes your treatment team, it takes support. But all these bumps in the road, it's all just part of the process.
Ellie Pike:
When you talk about the bumps in the road and the process, I kind of go back to where we started with thinking about the mental side and then the physical side. And if I had a major knee surgery or just a major thing happen to my physical body, I would need to rehabilitate it and I would need to teach my body how to relearn how to use its muscles and to walk and to do things maybe the way I used to. And that's what I think about when you're describing this process of two steps forward, one step back. It's this mental exercise of practicing new ways of thinking, new skills and tolerance to feeling stress. Just like we would for our physical bodies, it's just as important for our mental health. And I think about the folks that might be listening and especially those who are actually really struggling.
Sometimes that's the hardest time to really reach out for help because you're in that pit that you described or you're just buzzing on this constant anxiety that's making your brain ruminate and go in circles. So for someone who's listening, it might feel like that and they might be feeling like, "Ugh, my anxiety's not bad enough or my depression's not bad enough or I'm just simply too tired and I'm not worth the help." What would you say directly to them to offer hope or just support?
Dr. Matthew Pearson:
That's an important issue. Mental illness is real and no one is immune to it. I think it can come as a surprise to someone when they're struggling that they might actually have something more going on than just stress. And it can be challenging for someone to acknowledge that to themselves. We don't want to appear weak. We don't want to appear flawed. And like we said earlier, we tend to associate mental illness with that sometimes. So being able to stop and recognize and say, "Oh, I need help." And there's no shame in that. This is serious. It's not a moral issue. It is actually a real human condition that needs attention and it can happen to anyone.
So I think that's the biggest challenge initially for a lot of people is to stop and say, "Wait a second, this is happening to me and I'm living this right now and I need to stop and get help." And really, I think too, for some people, they struggle to think that they really matter and that they're worth that kind of treatment. So I would always say that to a patient who's struggling, you matter, you're worth it. Even if you don't believe it, everyone deserves help. Everyone deserves a chance.
Ellie Pike:
Thank you so much for those words. And I do hope that anyone listening can take that in and just know that on the other side of a phone call about treatment, whether it's at ERC Pathlight or at a local therapist office, I mean anywhere, there's a reason why we're here and we're compassionate and we want to be able to support the folks who are hurting the most. So like we talked about it at the beginning of the episode, we all can struggle with worry or stress or just low mood. Maybe some of us struggle with the more clinically diagnostic mood issues, but no matter what, we all can work towards mental health. And I think that takes a lot of mental hygiene. And so from your perspective, what are some of those baseline mental hygiene tips that you would recommend that we all be practicing just to support our own mental wellness?
Dr. Matthew Pearson:
Yeah. Well, I think some of the basic things that we still don't do a good job of in reality is diet and exercise, getting enough sleep. So if you're getting fresh air, if you're out staying active, if you're sleeping seven to eight hours a night, that's going to make a big difference for a lot of people. The other things, I think practicing relaxation and mindfulness in our stressful day-to-day lives, being able to stop and turn it off and get pretty skilled at being able to take a deep breath, maintain perspective. I think another real life thing right now is limiting screen time. And that goes for us as well as for our kids that we need to really foster social connections and we need to not spend hours a day staring at a screen. So these are the kinds of things that I think can really help our mental health.
Ellie Pike:
One thing I'm going to add to that just from the peanut gallery over here is caffeine intake and noticing that. I just switched to half-caffeinated coffee because I was getting too anxious. And so I think that that's one that's the everyday normal for a lot of us. We could probably just pay a little bit more attention to what are the substances we're putting in our body, even if they are legal substances and how are they affecting us?
Dr. Matthew Pearson:
Absolutely. Absolutely.
Ellie Pike:
So where do you see the future of the mental health field going, just from your perspective?
Dr. Matthew Pearson:
Well, I think it's a really exciting time because we are starting to understand more and more about the brain and how it works and how it goes wrong. And so for many years, a lot of our treatments have been just kind of like slight variations of the previous treatment. So all the medicines, a lot of them work really similar to the other medicines, for example. Psychotherapy, often people will kind of make a new adaptation to some similar types of therapy, but we're developing these revolutionary treatments now. So some of the more recent ones, TMS or transcranial magnetic stimulation, it's been out for about 15 years now. We're learning more and more about other brain areas that we can stimulate and other ways to stimulate the brain and what it can do. Ketamine is a drug, it's a medication that can actually work very differently than our other antidepressant medicines and it can work very quickly.
So we're developing more drugs that can work in a really quick way like that. So I think as we go along, we're going to see a lot more what we kind of call interventional psychiatry, interventional approaches to treating mental illness. And I think that's going to be a major way. And I think just big picture because of that and because of social changes, I think we're going to see less and less stigma over time about mental illness.
Ellie Pike:
Thank you, Dr. Pearson. I really appreciate your time and your expertise, and thank you for doing the work that you do.
Dr. Matthew Pearson:
Oh, you're welcome. Thanks for having me.
Ellie Pike:
Thanks for listening to this episode of Mental Note. One of the ideas that stayed with me from this conversation is how often we expect mental health struggles to look obvious. We imagine depression as sadness and anxiety as worry, but sometimes they show up as headaches, stomach pain, exhaustion, irritability, numbness, or simply just feeling disconnected from your life. Dr. Pearson reminded us that mental health exists on a spectrum. Feeling stressed, worried, or down is just part of being human. But when those experiences become persistent, overwhelming, or begin interfering with daily life, it's worth paying attention to. Today's show is brought to you by Eating Recovery Center and Pathlight Mood & Anxiety Center. If you'd like to talk to a trained therapist to see if in-person virtual treatment or a relapse prevention program is right for you, please call them at 850-7199. If you need a free support group, check out eatingrecovery.com/support-groups and pathlightbh.com/support-groups.
ERC and Pathlight offer support groups for patients, loved ones, and alumni of their programs, while also partnering with nonprofit organizations that provide outstanding community-based and peer support for those looking for additional resources. If you enjoyed today's conversation, please subscribe, leave a review, and share this episode with someone who might need it. Mental Note is produced and hosted by me, Ellie Pike, edited by Carrie Daniels and directed by Sam Pike. Till next time.
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