Change Your Brain Every Day - First Responders & Mental Struggles: Who Helps the Helpers?

Episode Date: September 9, 2019

Dr. Amen is joined by Dr. Nancy Bohl-Penrod to discuss her work as the Director of The Counseling Team International. They talk about Dr. Bohl-Penrod’s husband’s struggles as a police officer and how that led her to the work she does, as well as the stigma around seeking help as a first responder.

Welcome to the Brain Warriors Way podcast. I'm Dr. Daniel Amen. And I'm Tana Amen. In our podcast, we provide you with the tools you need to become a warrior for the health of your brain and body. The Brain Warriors Way podcast is brought to you by Amen Clinics, where we have been transforming lives for 30 years using tools like brain spec imaging to personalize treatment to your brain. For more information, visit amenclinics.com. The Brain Warriors Way podcast is also brought to you by BrainMD, where we produce the highest quality nutraceuticals to support the health of your brain and body. To learn more, go to brainmd.com. Welcome back.

We are so excited this week to have Dr. Nancy Bull Penrod with us. And Dr. Bull Penrod is a psychotherapist and trainer to first responders. And so this is going to be one of the first weeks we actually dedicated the whole week to heroes. Here at Amen Clinics, we did the world's first and largest study on active and retired NFL players. And I realized they're not really heroes. They're entertainers, that the real heroes in our society are firefighters and police officers and paramedics and the people who respond when you need them. So I'm very excited to have Dr. Bull Penrod with us. So she's got a PhD in clinical psychology. She's the founder and director of the Counseling Team International, also known as the Southern California Critical Incident Stress Management Team, which has taught over 12,000 first responders throughout the U.S. and

Canada. She's the past president of the International Association of Police Chiefs Psychological Service Section, vice president of the National Sheriffs Association, Psychological Service Section, and I could go on and on. But welcome, Nancy. Tell us about how you got interested in helping first responders. Okay. And thank you very much, doctor, for having me on. I first got interested because I married a police officer and I watched how some of the incidents that he experienced impacted him and how he found himself withdrawing, drinking too much alcohol, not really being engaged in a social life. And when that occurred, he had a critical incident, which was a car accident that ended up forcing him to retire early at a young age.

When he retired, I watched how his police department did absolutely nothing for him. They didn't do anything for me, our family. They actually said, hey, it was great having you around as long as you were and sent him on his way. And he was not prepared for that. None of us were prepared for that. So I was like, what do you mean they're just saying goodbye? I mean, in our minds, we thought that he would be a police officer for 30, 35 years, put in his retirement and life would go on. When that didn't happen and it became very difficult, our marriage became really difficult, I went to his police department and said, I'm getting my degree in education counseling. I would like to help out your officers when they're involved in a critical incident. And the chief at the time, I actually call him my bullet in the back chief. He said, you know what?

I have a bullet in my back from a shooting years ago. I didn't need to talk to anybody because my family didn't need any help. And so I said, well, it's a little different now. He goes, no, cops don't need help. So he sent me out the door. So I was a little frustrated, but my personality is I'm not going to let that push me down. I'm going to still try to help law enforcement. So I went to the local sheriff's department and it took me quite a while to get an appointment, but I did get an appointment with a lieutenant at the sheriff's department. He's retired now. His name's Jim Nunn and said, finally got an appointment with him and

said, look, you need to do something for your deputies when something bad happens to them. And he listened and said, let me take this to the sheriff. And he took it to the sheriff at the time who was an cowboy, somebody who didn't really believe in counseling or any kind of therapy. And he sat there for a while and he said, you know what? My son was in a shooting. He got divorced. He turned to drugs. He turned to alcohol. He became angry. And he said, I had to fire him. And I was the sheriff. And I'll tell you what, he said, I think you have something there I did nothing for him and that's how I started I did an internship I did I went back to FBI academy at Quantico several times to learn about law enforcement and what I was doing and then as soon as I got licensed I opened

up a private practice and started going out to all the fire and police departments saying, I want to help, I want to help, because I didn't want another family to go through what I went through. And I didn't want cops and firefighters and police officers and deputy sheriffs to be out there without any support. And that's how it happened. Wow. That's really a great story. What are some of the biggest lessons you've learned? And over the next three podcasts, we'll unwrap those. But I want to preview some for the people listening um psychological and emotional trauma is so rampant in our society but it's almost part of the job when i think of the firefighters that i have seen i've actually not met any firefighters that have not experienced some pretty horrific events.

So when you just think over the time you've been helping first responders, what are the top three or four big lessons you've learned? I've learned that they mask and they don't share readily, that you have to build a rapport with them and that because of what they're trained, what they're given at the academy, they're actually trained to stuff it, to push it down.

Don't let it bother you. Get over it as quickly as you can because you're going to go on another call. Because of that, it's not an easy position to just walk in and think that you're going to build an instant rapport with them and have them share their life story with you. So you have to, as a clinician, you have to take your time. But as for departments, just based on the story I just told you about what happened to me personally in my family, is that there's a trickle-down theory, definitely, meaning if a police chief, a fire chief, a fire battalion chief, a captain on a department, they don't believe in the helping process. They let everybody know that. So everyone's afraid to ask for the help. They don't reach out because their commanders are telling them that it's not a good thing. I think the third thing is that they are such kind people that so many of the incidents that they work on a daily basis impact them.

And not just them emotionally, but it impacts their family life. It impacts the way they view the world. Some of it negative, but also some of it's positive. They also know how to enjoy life. And the fourth thing is that they are very family oriented and they so often push the family aside, even though that they love their families, they push them aside because of the job. The job demands their time, their energy, and it zaps them of some of their joy. And so they push their families aside and they don't know they're really doing it. So let's take a step back and just talk about many of them are kind. So they're in a

service profession. They chose to be in a service profession. But I think that that might not be a word people would associate with police officers or firefighters. So say more about that. I always, when I talk to them, I tell them that they picked the job. The job didn't pick them. And the fact that they picked the job, what that means is their personalities are a lot alike.

They're rescuers. Many of them come from a background where they rescued, whether they were rescuing an alcoholic father from hurting their mothers, or they were rescuing the kid that was bullied at school, or the female that didn't have, you know, good parents. They're rescuers from early on. They're rescuers. And so out of that personality that chooses the job is their kindness. They truly have a calling. And many of them, if you ask them when they're getting hired, why do you want to do this?

And I don't think that it's just something that they want, they just say, I believe they really feel it. They say they want to make a difference. They, they want to stop crime. They actually want to be able to physically and emotionally help people. You'll hear firefighters say, I met a firefighter when I was five years old who rescued my cat and I wanted to do that because I know how much joy it brought me. I mean, they really are kind people. I see the very best in them and I get an opportunity to experience the best of them. It's wonderful. When we come back, we're going to talk about first responders

and some of their common mental health struggles. Stay with us. If you're enjoying the Brain Warriors Way podcast, please don't forget to subscribe so you'll always know when there's a new episode. And while you're at it, feel free to give us a review or five-star rating as that helps others find the podcast. If you're considering coming to Amen clinics or trying some of the brain healthy supplements from brain MD, you can use the code podcast 10 to get a 10% discount on a full evaluation

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