Healing A Broken Mental Health System: Dr George Vergolias Of R3 Continuum On 5 Things That Can Be Done To Fix Our Broken Mental Health System
An Interview With Stephanie Greer
Reducing stigma and education in the workforce and public:
Awareness campaigns and education efforts are essential to reduce the stigma associated with mental health issues, and create an environment where people feel comfortable seeking help. Destigmatizing mental health can encourage individuals to seek help and create a more supportive environment.
The current state of the mental health system is a conversation that echoes in the halls of policy-making, the corners of social advocacy, and within the private struggles of individuals and families. As we continue to witness an unprecedented need for robust mental health support, the shortcomings of the existing system become more glaring. It is within this backdrop that we seek the insight of those who are at the forefront of behavioral health. In this interview series, we are talking to behavioral health leaders, policymakers, mental health practitioners, advocates, and reformers to share their perspectives on healing our broken mental health system. As a part of this interview series, we had the pleasure of interviewing Dr. George Vergolias, PsyD, CTM, Chief Clinical Officer of R3 Continuum.
Dr. Vergolias oversees and leads R3 Continuum’s Clinical Risk, Threat of Violence, and Workplace Violence programs, and has directly assessed or managed over 1,000 cases related to threat of violence or self-harm, sexual assault, stalking, and communicated threats. He brings over 20 years of experience as a Forensic Psychologist and Certified Threat Manager to bear in an effort to help leaders, organizations, employees, and communities heal, optimize, and ultimately thrive before, during, and after disruption.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series. Before we start, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your background and your childhood backstory?
I’ve known since my early college years that I wanted to pursue psychology, but I wasn’t sure which specialty area was right for me. In my doctoral studies I pursued a path in neuropsychology, the study of the brain-behavior relationship. I had some prior training in forensics but not as a main focus, and only after graduating did I decide to pursue a post-doctoral fellowship in forensic psychology. I then spent several years working in traditional forensic settings, and my work in school and workplace violence mitigation is what brought me into the corporate and employee assistance sphere. I’ve remained in that area ever since, consulting with companies and organizations on how to promote well-being and resilience, and how to mitigate behavioral risk and violence in the workplace. Over time my interest grew to incorporate how we build resilient workplace cultures, simply because having emotional and psychological resilience is the single best way to reduce incidents of violence. Those living an emotionally resilient life are much less likely to see violence as a feasible coping mechanism.
I’ve been with R3 Continuum for more than 12 years, and over that time I have worked in every service line and clinical product that we offer. I’ve served in my current role at the executive level for the past 10 years and have served as chief clinical officer for the past seven years.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
I have two favorites, each capturing a key value for living my life.
“Sometimes I go about pitying myself, and all the while I’m being carried on great winds across the sky.” (Ojibwe saying)
This captures for me the critical importance of gratitude. Even in our most dire moments, emphasizing the positive aspects of our life fuels the hope that allows us to rise up. Hope floats, but it doesn’t swim. Once we rise up, we need to take action to change our lives in the direction we wish to move, which leads to my other favorite quote.
“The single most important factor in determining your success in life, is the degree to which
you can keep a promise to yourself.”
This is a hard truth, but one with laser precision. How many times have we said, “I’m going to lose 10 pounds, or get in shape, or learn a new language, or be more communicative with my partner, etc.?” Sometimes we make good on these goals, often we do not. The month of February is littered with the broken promises we made to ourselves on New Year’s Day. When we reframe all those commitments to grow or change into a lens of making a promise to ourselves, it brings in full accountability for where we are in our life journey.
Practicing gratitude lifts us up. Practicing accountability with the promises we make to ourselves empowers us to change what needs changing.
Let’s now shift to the main part of our discussion. It is often said that “the mental health system in America is broken”. What does that statement mean to you? From your perspective what is “broken” today?
I don’t prefer the word “broken” as it does not quite get to the core of the problem. The system is certainly faltering, but I would not say broken: however, I do understand the main sentiment — mainly that the system is not serving people as it should. And indeed, it does need fixing. I see two primary issues that need to be resolved. First, access to adequate mental health care is limited for people at all socioeconomic and demographic categories, particularly access to trauma-informed services and comprehensive evaluations. Of particular concern is access to these resources within workplace programs, including some employee assistance programs (EAPs). Second, the mental health system must get better at measuring real functional outcomes of its services, and then adapting those services in response to whether they are effective or not. As a whole, the system is not doing this well and not in synchronization between community mental health providers, hospital systems and workplaces. If I were to start a revamp of the system, I would include addressing these two issues on my bucket list.
What about any bright spots? Do you think there are any elements that we get right in today’s world that we wouldn’t want to reverse unintentionally?
Yes, indeed there are some things we are getting right, and which are promising for the future. First, the pandemic took a huge emotional toll on society, but it did significantly propel two things forward — increased awareness and sensitivity to mental health issues, and increased adoption of telehealth modalities so we can reach more people. Both of those have seen exponential increases across the population. Secondly, awareness of the role that mental health plays in the workplace has dramatically increased among business leaders, which has propelled a massive demand for effective and tailored mental health support programs. Third, we are on the cusp of massive expansion of how we can leverage technology to assist us in helping humans adapt and grow. Whether it is human-centered therapies augmented and supported by AI, advances in psychopharmacology, or a greater understanding of how the human interaction and drug therapies work together, all of these have seen radical growth in the past few years and show great promise for the future. One caveat, however, is my opinion that we will never remove the need for human-centered emotional support. Humans in our current form have been emotionally supporting each other for tens of thousands of years, and there remains a deep need for that human connectedness, both in and outside of the therapeutic context.
In your opinion, what are the 5 most impactful things that could help heal the broken mental health system? These could be on any level including training, workforce, policy, culture, equity etc.
1. Increased accessibility through funding and resources:
Adequate funding is crucial to expand mental health services, hire more mental health professionals, and improve infrastructure. This includes funding for workplace mental health programs, community mental health centers, crisis intervention teams, and research into innovative treatments.
2. Integration of workplace wellness programs with trained mental health resources:
Integrating mental health services into workplace settings can reduce stigma, improve early detection, and provide more accessible and holistic care to individuals. When this works closely with community primary care, the impact is even better. This would involve offering more workplace programs and training workplace leaders to recognize and address mental health issues before they become too severe or entrenched.
3. Continued integration of telehealth and digital mental health:
As noted above, I do not believe we can ever take out the human-centered impact of mental health service and support, yet we can improve upon that by augmenting with technology where and when feasible. Expanding telehealth services and digital mental health resources can improve access to care, especially in underserved areas. This includes increasing reimbursement for telehealth services and ensuring privacy and security in digital mental health platforms.
4. Reducing stigma and education in the workforce and public:
Awareness campaigns and education efforts are essential to reduce the stigma associated with mental health issues, and create an environment where people feel comfortable seeking help. Destigmatizing mental health can encourage individuals to seek help and create a more supportive environment.
5. Prevention and early intervention:
Focusing on prevention and early intervention can reduce the severity of mental health issues. This includes implementing mental health programs in schools, workplaces, and communities, as well as providing resources for individuals to address stress and mental health concerns before they escalate.
If all of the items on your list were magically implemented tomorrow what change might we see in the world? What are the signs (big and small) that would show us that the system is being healed?
While these changes would take time to implement, the noticeable impact would be almost immediate. At an individual level I think we can expect to see the following: decreases in anxiety and depression; decreases in substance abuse; increased life and job satisfaction; increased engagement at work; decreased absenteeism and presenteeism; reduced disability claims; and increased functional efficacy (which translates to productivity; happy and emotionally stable people are productive people). At an organizational level, we can expect to see an increased ability to attract and maintain top talent in their industry. More than ever, workers want to be at a place that supports them.
What is a project you or others are working on today that gives you hope? How can our readers learn more about this work?
At R3 Continuum, our mission is to make tomorrow better than today, by leveraging mental health expertise to help workplaces address mental health issues and help their people thrive. Two things we are working on currently: One is growing our Business Leadership Wellness program, a program that offers consultation, training, and direct clinical support services to business leaders in high-stress industries — Legal, Consulting, FinTech, etc. We have 20 years in this space, and we have found when you achieve emotional health at the leadership level, it primes the energy to develop resources and support down the line for all employees. Secondly, we are working with an innovative company that is an industry leader in developing, measuring, and tracking functional workplace outcomes, so that the services we offer can demonstrate clear clinical efficacy and ROI over time. We realized that we must do more than just offer services, we have to offer effective services that impact people’s lives for the better — to do that, we must measure what we are doing, and when needed adjust accordingly, so that we can continue to have massive positive impact in the lives of others. Learn more about R3’s work by visiting our website.
How do you see technology shaping the future of mental health care and its accessibility?
As noted above, we will continue to see adoption of telehealth modalities which will allow more people access to services and will reduce previous barriers to treatment. We are also at the dawn of a new era, with a nexus occurring between technology and new drug treatments on the horizon — use of gamification to drive self-improvement; virtual reality to address trauma reactions; developments in hallucinogenics for certain disorders; monitoring devices that are more finely attuned to activity and mood states; the role of nutrition in mental health (in particular, the gut-brain connection); etc. There is too much to go into greater detail here, but there are lots of innovative and promising new interventions rapidly coming online.
In your view, how do social factors like poverty, education, and culture affect mental health care and its effectiveness?
These factors are critical to build an emotionally healthy group, workplace, or culture, and yet they are also the most overlooked. We know from the Harvard Life Adjustment Study, a longitudinal study going back over 70 years, that core pillars of life satisfaction are work, relationships, and purpose. Poverty is so often a result of breakdowns in work and breakdowns in relationships, and often results in a lack of purpose. Our education systems are there to prepare young people for work, hopefully with a sense of purpose, and is the core arena for adolescents to test out relationships. When that system is strained, those objectives are not as easily attained, and the outcomes suffer. The impacts of inadequate mental health care manifest across work, school, and social relationships, having a limiting effect on a person’s desire to strive and rise up out of difficult circumstances. As an example, it is very difficult for a single mother to make time for her own self-care when she is working three jobs, living at or just above the poverty level and caring for kids. The survival needs of the family often trump any time or resources to care for oneself. So, we must be very aware of the impact of those issues.
In light of the growing mental health crisis among young people, what innovative approaches or interventions have proven most successful for children and adolescents?
There are many programs out there showing great promise, but for me the single biggest impact is the growing awareness of mental health issues, and general de-stigmatization in our younger generations. This is very different from my Gen X upbringing, where any show of mental health problems was a sign of weakness. Of course, bullying still occurs, but I am optimistic when I see the decency, awareness and sensitivity that younger people are showing about mental health issues.
We are very blessed that some very prominent names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them. 🙂
It is a flat tie between two people. Brene Brown, leading author and prominent researcher on vulnerability and resilience. She has done so much great work through her research on the relevance of these concepts, and how they are visceral and gritty in the real world, and in particular in business areas. The second is Scott Galloway, professor at NYU, also an author and innovative marketing guru, who talks eloquently yet in a raw way about the psychosocial dilemmas facing corporate America and provides very tangible ideas to help move us forward. In particular, his commentary on the current difficulties facing young men provides a voice that few others have in the current culture. Both of these seminal thinkers would be amazing to have at the lunch table.
How can our readers further follow your work online?
The best avenue is to follow my contributions and posts on LinkedIn www.linkedin.com/in/drvergolias/
Thank you for your time and thoughtful answers. I know many people will gain so much from hearing this.
About The Interviewer: Stephanie Greer, PhD is the Co-founder and CEO of Akin Mental Health — a company dedicated to guiding families on their journey supporting a loved one with mental health challenges like bipolar disorder, schizophrenia and severe depression. Stephanie is passionate about this topic from her own personal experience growing up with a mother who struggled with bipolar 1 disorder and found a path forward to overcome the obstacles and live well. Stephanie’s professional experience includes a doctorate in neuroscience as well as design research roles at Hopelab and Apple. Stephanie brings this personal passion together with her world-class science and technology background to support families across the US in their personal journeys supporting loved ones with mental illness. To learn more about Akin Mental Health and join our community, visit us at akinmh.com.
Healing A Broken Mental Health System: Dr George Vergolias Of R3 Continuum On 5 Things That Can Be… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.