speaker-0: name is Eric Larson. I'm a psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner.

speaker-1: What inspired you to get into the mental health field?

speaker-0: So I became a registered nurse in 2005 after I had become an EMT a little bit earlier. I worked in a number of settings as a nurse all in the hospital. And I spent quite a bit of time working in traumatic brain injury and spinal cord injury treatment. And in doing so, I saw a lot of mental health effects of those types of injuries and whatnot. And I got the opportunity to go back to school to become a nurse practitioner with an army scholarship that paid for my school. So I did that and then spent three years in the army as a psychiatric nurse practitioner, treating ⁓ soldiers and then other service members for ⁓ mental health concern.

speaker-1: What was it like working with ⁓ fellow veteran soldiers in that situation?

speaker-0: ⁓ I mean, was definitely rewarding. was, you know, I mean, similar to the civilian world, but it's great to see people who are struggling with, you know, with depression or anxiety or PTSD or something that, you know, is really affecting them, affecting their ability to work or, affecting their family, affecting their overall well-being and to watch them, you know, start to... feel better and like kind of get their life back is, you know, it's hugely rewarding for sure.

speaker-1: And with all that experience, what was it like creating your own practice?

speaker-0: It has been a journey and I have to give an enormous amount of credit to my wife, Sarah, who is the business mind of our practice and who has made the business side of this practice work exceptionally well and be very successful. You know, I focus on doing the clinical work and helping patients and things like that. And she is, yeah, she is a, she's got a great business mind. She's owned a couple of other businesses. She's an attorney. So she made this process go far easier and much better than I ever could have done it on my own. It's, it's, you know, like the healthcare world is confusing and difficult to navigate, ⁓ you know, not for patients, but it's also confusing and difficult to navigate as a healthcare provider trying to understand insurance and regulations, all the things that, you know, that run this system.

speaker-1: What are some of the type of methods you do to help your clients?

speaker-0: So at our practice, ⁓ all ⁓ of our providers are psychiatric nurse practitioners like myself. And so we definitely do medication management. So ⁓ nurse practitioners, and this varies a little bit from state to state, and specific rules and laws ⁓ vary. in Colorado, we're based. Nurse practitioners have full practice authority. we were able to function independently and diagnose conditions, prescribe medications and things like that. we definitely prescribe medications, anti-depressants, anti-anxiety medications, ADHD medications, things like that as appropriate for patients. But we also use therapy techniques ⁓ and it's usually a blend of different types of therapy, I think. A lot of, you most providers probably have certain things that they lean on more than others, but, you know, it's pretty common to use at least components of cognitive behavioral therapy, motivational interviewing, you know, things like that, kind of, and also kind of general supportive therapy, you know, in nursing education, like patient education is a big thing that you know, it's kind of always stressed for nurses. And so I think, you know, for nurse practitioners, that's always a big role too, is we focus on psychoeducation. So education specifically around a person's diagnosis and their, you know, how their medications work and that, you know, other things that they can do that might, you know, might help them feel better besides, you know, simply medication. you know lifestyle changes, nutrition, exercise, things like that as well.

speaker-1: What is mental interviewing?

speaker-0: motivational. Yeah, yeah.

speaker-1: Motivational, I'm sorry. This is motivational.

speaker-0: Um, I guess it's, uh, kind of think of like a concise way to describe this. It's, essentially, um, you know, like it kind of, we kind of act, I guess, asking people questions that they kind of get to what is, um, you know, what, is important to them and, and what might help them to make positive changes in their life, you know? And so, ⁓ A question that people ask often in motivational interviewing is something sometimes called the magic question. If you could wave a magic wand and one thing that's bothering you would get better, what would that one thing be? I wish I was less depressed or I wish I didn't have panic attacks or whatever it might be. And then we can kind of focus on techniques or things that can help specifically with whatever that is that they've stated. sometimes it might be medication, but also it can be things that the the person can do in the moment. What can you, what are things that you ⁓ enjoy doing, are things that have helped you in the past? Are there breathing techniques? Are there things that you can think of that kind of help you feel more happy, boost your mood, things like that. And it can kind of bring out a person's own ability to start making positive changes and manage some of their emotions or symptoms or whatnot. And it can be of motivating and empowering for a patient to be able to feel like they're able to start exercising control over some of these things. Sometimes when we feel bad, whether we feel bad physically or whether we feel bad mentally or emotionally, it can start to feel like it's something that is being done to us that you know, and we don't have control over it. And that's a bad feeling. Nobody wants to feel like something's being imposed upon them to kind of bring out our ability to exercise at least some level of control over some of those things. I don't want to paint the picture that we just tell people to make themselves better, but it's... it can be really helpful to start to realize that oftentimes there are some things that we can do to help ourselves feel better, even as we're getting help from other people as well.

speaker-1: With medication, ⁓ I take medication that's part of my treatment, but I know when I first started, I was ⁓ hesitant because I didn't know if it would change me or not. Do you see that when you're working with clients that they are nervous to start?

speaker-0: Yeah, oftentimes. And it's not unreasonable. mean, it is scary to start taking medication for something you because you don't know exactly how that's going to go. And part of our job is to explain the effects of the medication and what potential side effects might be, things to watch out for. and to keep a real open line of communication with the person so that they feel comfortable telling us, you know, like, hey, this doesn't feel right or I don't like the way this is going, you know. Sometimes people might, you know, if they're very depressed, their medication might help them feel less depressed, but there might be some things about it that are unpleasant or that they don't like. And we don't want people to feel like, well, I'm less depressed so I have to put up with these other things that I don't like. We want to be able to hear from people, know, hey, my depression is better. Man, I'm tired all the time or I feel like I gained weight or ⁓ any number of things that they might dislike about their medication because oftentimes there's changes that can be made. We can make adjustments. change the medication completely a lot of times. you know, I want people to know that, yeah, like you, it's totally reasonable to be a little wary or a little nervous about starting medication, but hopefully they feel comfortable being able to, you know, like describe to me what's going on so that, so we can address that. I'm not going to, you know, I can't make people take medication. I don't, I don't want to, I want to. I want to help them and if the medication is causing, you know, is not going the way they want, let's, you know, let's talk about it and figure out something else we can do.

speaker-1: When you work with your clients, have you seen their confidence level rise as they go through the process?

speaker-0: Absolutely. ⁓ I mean, with almost anything, if someone has a lot of anxiety and it's difficult for them to be social or to speak up at work or things like that, getting anxiety treatment can make a huge difference. If someone's depressed and they just kind of don't feel like doing anything, they don't have much motivation or they don't, know, they're not, you know, that's holding them back, you know, socially or, or just, you know, keeping them from enjoying themselves, you know, like to kind of lift out of that, out of that funk can, can, you know, boost people's confidence greatly, you know, I mean, with any, any, you know, like any kind of, any mental health condition, you know, I mean, the, thing that makes it, you know, one of the things that makes something diagnosis is that it's having a significant impact on your life. Anxiety is a normal thing that everybody feels at some point, when it's constant and overwhelming and affecting your life negatively, it weighs you down. If everybody gets depressed or sad sometimes, there's obviously plenty of reasons why. might be down. if it's just again, if it's constantly hanging over your head and you can't get get out of it and it's, you know, again, and it's dragging you down like to get that weight lifted, you know, people, you know, their confidence really, really grows.

speaker-1: How does it feel for you when you're helping people?

speaker-0: Oh, it's great. mean, you know, I think that's why anybody gets into, you know, a caring profession like, like nursing or healthcare, you know, and people, you know, want to help other people, you know, and it's, and, you know, it feel really feels good to see somebody feeling better because, you know, because I've been able to help them, you know, but, it's, I think it's like it's the in mental health. I can help people, but I think the thing that's really rewarding is like people really improve because of the work that they do. Like, like my role is supportive and I can help them get there. But the, know, it's hugely rewarding to see the work that people put in to, to feel better for themselves. And then. And that's what really makes the difference. so seeing people succeed with that is great.

speaker-1: What do you do to help your own mental health?

speaker-0: ⁓ yes. So I've got a big family. I'm married and I four kids, so I definitely need to time with them, which is helpful, sometimes stressful, but generally is nice. ⁓ We have two dogs and anybody who has pets will... tell you that they love you unconditionally and just petting them, just hanging out with them, petting them, playing with them. Those kinds of things are hugely helpful. We have two cats too. And I got to be honest, the cats don't like me as much. The dogs, I take the dogs for a walk every day and spend time with them. I try and stay active. live in Colorado, so I spend a lot of time outside hiking and skiing and things like that, although the snow this year is pretty poor. self-care, things like that are important. And talking to people, sometimes ⁓ I don't want to, I guess, on my wife or my family, but talking to colleagues, talking to other people to be able to share how you're feeling and discuss things that can be hugely beneficial. try to do those things. pretty regularly. Try to get enough sleep. It's gotten easier now that my kids are a little bit older. They don't keep me awake all the time, so that's nice.

speaker-1: What are some of the things you've learned from your wife and kids?

speaker-0: ⁓ Patience, for sure. I still need to work on that. I still do get impatient, but I have f- worked a lot on that and definitely learned that particularly from my kids. That's definitely a big one. I ⁓ do think I've learned to be more open and share things more. think growing up as a growing up male in the United States, especially these You know, like my generation, I it might be a little different with, you know, I hope it's different with my kids. think it is, you know, but like Gen X, you know, had some, we've had some pretty kind of the firm, you know, like, like gender roles that have been, you know, that have existed and, know, the idea of like, you know, be tough, be man, you know, don't complain. stuff it out, you know, like there might be a place for that, there's also, you know, bottle all that up and it's not healthy. being able to, to share feelings and be, and be expressive and things like that is definitely something I've learned from, from my family.

speaker-1: Where do you want to see your mission practice in the next few years?

speaker-0: So we actually are expanding our practice a little bit to offer some new ⁓ treatment options. We're starting to offer something called transcranial magnetic stimulation, which I think it's not necessarily new. It's been FDA approved for about 12 years or so, but it has a lot of, at least from what I've seen, has a lot of potential to help with a number of diagnoses. mean, right now it's approved to treat depression and obsessive compulsive disorder and anxious depression. It seems as though the ⁓ applicability of it is going to continue to expand to other ⁓ diagnoses as well. And that's really exciting because I think it can, you know, I think it can help people, especially people with treatment-resistant conditions who medication hasn't worked well for. It's something that can really help ⁓ people who've not found relief with medication therapy and some of our more traditional or longer-term approaches. So, I'd like to see more people get access to that. ⁓ We've created this practice with a focus on hiring nurse practitioners and paying them well, what I think is appropriate for the work that we do. so being able to support the nurse practitioner community and make our contributions to mental health really count, those are things that I want to see the practice do for sure.

speaker-1: How can people reach out and learn more?

speaker-0: Uh, the easiest way is to go online and go to our website, LarsonMentalHealth.com. Um, and you can take a look at, you know, kind of what, you know, some, some information about our practice. can see the, the, the staff and providers that, that work for us now. have locations, um, around the, kind of the Denver metropolitan area. So Denver, Boulder, Fort Collins, um, car out of springs and if someone is feeling like they could use some help, you can go on our website and people can schedule themselves for an appointment right from there if they want to. It's a good place to see more information about us.