Healing A Broken Mental Health System: Matt Codde Of Restored Minds On 5 Things That Can Be Done To Fix Our Broken Mental Health System
An Interview With Stephanie Greer
I think we as a society must prioritize a culture of health and well-being. In the United States we largely prioritize distractions and entertainment. We can see this because some of the biggest industries in our society include things like alcohol, tobacco, entertainment, and professional sports. All of these are designed to offer people a temporary escape and to distract from or mask emotions. Most people invest in distraction or escapism patterns, that are really preventing them from working on their mental and emotional well-being, as opposed to investing in things that benefit their mental health.
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 Matt Codde LCSW.
Matt Codde is a licensed clinical social worker and has specialized in helping people overcome OCD & Anxiety-related disorders for over a decade. Matt has developed a versatile and unique approach to OCD & anxiety recovery by combining personal experience with evidence-based practices. He is currently the host of the OCD & Anxiety Show and the director of the online mental health platform Restored Minds.
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?
My name is Matt Codde, and I am a licensed clinical social worker and founder of Restored Minds. I grew up in Southern California with a great family. When I was about 18 years old, I really began struggling with my mental health, specifically experiencing OCD & Anxiety. That experience put me on a journey of recovery and learning how to get better, where I discovered what is needed to truly improve one’s mental and emotional health. Along that journey, I encountered numerous roadblocks, struggles, and frustrations. So when I created Restored Minds, my goal was to establish an online platform accessible from anywhere in the world that would provide people with the guidance and resources they need to break out of the OCD and anxiety loop.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
“Whether you think you can or you can’t, you’re right.” — Henry Ford
The reason that this is one of my favorite quotes is because it demonstrates the power of belief. It also is a great reminder that we have the power to choose what we believe. Our beliefs drive our behaviors, and our behaviors are ultimately what fuel our results in life, in whatever we do. So, in my opinion, determining and choosing your beliefs about any situation that you are facing in life is the cornerstone to success. This is relevant to me because I know I operate from this in every facet of my life. And I would say that any accomplishments I have achieved in my life are directly related to what I’ve decided to believe as an individual.
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?
Well I definitely think it is fair to state that a large percentage of people in the U.S. struggle with their mental health in some capacity. And when we say that the mental health system is broken, I think there is a collective idea that it is the ‘system’s’ responsibility to fix individuals who are struggling with their mental health. But that would be like saying the system is at fault for the obesity epidemic in America. The reality is people choose to practice behaviors that lead to poor physical health, and as a result we have an obesity crisis.
But that’s not the system’s responsibility to fix, because the system can’t control (nor should it try to control) individuals. It is ultimately the individual’s primary responsibility to practice behaviors that will lead to good health on a mental, emotional, and physical level. The system can support individuals in that effort, but I think if we put individuals at the forefront and empower the individual as the primary cause of their well-being, it will have a more positive impact on a more widespread level. In my opinion, I don’t believe the system has the capacity in the first place to fix people who are practicing poor mental health, just based on sheer supply and demand.
However, if we look at the result we are actually aiming for as a society, which is improved mental health for people in our society, we can begin to work to solve that problem from micro and macro levels. From my perspective there are two main problems: the primary problem is we have way too many people that are practicing behaviors that lead to poor mental health, and the second problem is our primary mental health interventions tend to be short-sighted, symptom focused, and operate from the understand that the ‘helping profession’ is the actual solution and the cause of healing.
It is my belief that people have an innate ability to heal, and a helping professional’s primary role is to facilitate healing by equipping individuals with skills and solutions that will serve their long-term well being.
I believe we should shift to helping people understand that they have the capacity to heal and change, to teaching and promote good mental health practices, and to empowering individuals with accessible resources, especially digital resources, to engage in practices that are going to help them develop and maintain good mental health.
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?
I think one of the biggest bright spots that we have is that we have so many people who want to help and who want to enter the helping profession, whether that is through becoming doctors, clinicians, social workers, addiction specialist, coaches, or other professions that are involved with serving others. So, I think that one of the great things we have in America is a large number of people who want to help and serve others. And obviously, we don’t want to do anything that would try to take people away from this, because serving others and helping others is going to be a very important aspect of life in a thriving society.
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.
When I look at this question, I’m going to answer it from five different levels, and I think that by implementing these steps, we could really see a major impact on the quality of mental health for people in America.
1. Prevention
The first step is simple, prevention. It is easier to solve a problem by preventing it in the first place. This begins by understanding mental health as a practice, just like physical health. We know that if you are practicing poor physical health you are more likely to develop diseases. It’s not the disease itself that is the problem, but the ongoing unhealthy practices that were being implemented by the individual.
For example, we should not wait until someone has diabetes before we implement proper diet and exercise. In the same way, we really should not be waiting until someone has significant mental health issues to be helping them engage in practices that promote better mental health.
So to be preventative, and to really put in the work early on is going to be the biggest thing I think we can do to help see a significant change in the quality of mental health for most people in the United States, and in the world, for that matter.
I think we should be teaching skills and interventions for mental health practices in primary schools, just like we teach physical education. In fact, in most cases, we mandate physical education. We should be mandating some aspects of mental health training, including emotional release, meditation, and nervous system regulation and understanding the importance of giving mandatory time to these practices to really set the foundation and show the benefit of these practices.
2. Individual Responsibility
The second step would be to work at this from an individual level. I think we really need to promote the idea of individuals taking responsibility for themselves and empowering individuals with strategies and skills to improve their mental and emotional health. When it comes to the individual, it is really important for us as a collective to understand the individual is the primary source of their well-being.
So, if you as an indiviudal practice a very sedative, non-active lifestyle, that’s going to lead to poor physical health. And much like if you are practicing isolating yourself, and you are practicing suppressing and repressing emotion, you are consuming negative materials for a large portion of your day, that is going to have negative consequences on your mental health.
If we don’t take responsibility as individuals, we will project the cause of mental health onto something outside of ourselves and attempt to change that. This is the whole idea of blaming the system in the first place. If we can say the system is the problem, we never have to consider changing ourselves. The only way we will ever be able to achieve good levels of mental health as a society, is if each individual takes responsibility for themself first.
And the great news is, we live in a time where there are so many resources that are available to help people. This doesn’t mean that everyone needs to go to therapy or work with someone one-on-one, because there are so many resources online, and more and more resources are being developed and put out every day that people can access for free or at a very low cost. There are books, YouTube videos, apps, and online programs. It really is an amazing time to be alive.
3. Employment/Workforce
The third place we can work from is from a company and employment level. A lot of companies look at their businesses through numbers and spreadsheets only, and they forget that humans are what create companies. They see revenue or output as the primary measures of success of their company and are often neglectful, if not completely ignorant, of what is going and the personal well-being with the people in their company.
In my opinion, the healthiest companies in the world have healthy individuals as the foundation.They prioritize individual health, they prioritize cultures that are not driven by fear. So from a company standpoint, whether it is government, private, non-profit or entrepreneurs, there should be direct financial incentives for the companies and people who run companies to invest in resources for the individuals that work for the company, such as including mental health apps or holding mandatory company workshops as a benefit of employment.
I’m not saying that the company should necessarily pay for therapy, but companies should care and support their team’s mental and physical well-being.
4. American Culture
Next, I think we as a society must prioritize a culture of health and well-being. In the United States we largely prioritize distractions and entertainment. We can see this because some of the biggest industries in our society include things like alcohol, tobacco, entertainment, and professional sports. All of these are designed to offer people a temporary escape and to distract from or mask emotions. Most people invest in distraction or escapism patterns, that are really preventing them from working on their mental and emotional well-being, as opposed to investing in things that benefit their mental health.
From a cultural perspective, most Americans have a very difficult time just being with themselves. And what they are doing in most cases, is really distracting themselves from themselves. In order to change that as a culture, we have to really start prioritizing and investing in products and services that will improve our mental and emotional state rather than products or services designed to help us escape and distract.
5. Medical Treatment / Interventions
Finally, from a treatment and medical standpoint, we have to prioritize interventions that are focused on the cause of mental illnesses instead of the symptoms. Let’s just take a simple and more widespread concept, like anxiety. Tens of millions of people struggle with anxiety to some degree in the United States. The first intervention offered by most medical practitioners is medication. I am not saying medication is bad, but medication should be a secondary intervention to a primary invention that is teaching people skills that are going to help them regulate their nervous system, because anxiety is really a symptom of excess fear stored in the nervous system.
So the primary interventions should include things like teaching people emotional release techniques, cognitive diffusion techniques, exposure and response prevention strategies, strategies for regulating the nervous system, and trainings on consciousness.
And the good news is we can develop programs and applications that walk people through this from the comfort of their home, or right on their phone. We can literally meet people that are struggling right where they are. Live virtual seminars or live group and individual sessions can be run from platforms like zoom. Technology must be at the forefront of mental health treatment if we ever expect to impact the masses and improve our current state as a society.
In my opinion, those are really the five levels we should work from in order to improve our society’s mental health.
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?
The bigger picture here is that we are really aiming for more people to experience good mental, emotional, and physical health. Our goal is for people in the United States (and the rest of the world) feeling better and demonstrating good health in all aspects of their life.
In order for that to happen, we can’t see the system as the primary channel to solve that. We must see the system as a secondary resource that supports the primary source which is the individual.
Each one of us needs to prioritize our own mental and emotional health, each one of us needs to take responsibility for our well-being. And if we do this, I believe we could orchestrate great change.
And I believe the secondary effect of more people experiencing good mental health would be a reduction in addiction, criminal behavior, domestic violence, alcoholism, homelessness, and other major societal issues.
What is a project you or others are working on today that gives you hope? How can our readers learn more about this work?
I developed an online mental health platform called Restored Minds, where we primarily focus on providing people with training, resources, and skill sets that will help them with OCD & Anxiety Related Disorders.
A significant part of this involves cognitive-behavioral therapy, exposure-response prevention, and emotional release techniques. These resources are made accessible to people through our app, where our clients can access online trainings, guided meditations, guided releases, and access to live support. In addition, I have a free podcast and Youtube videos, and we have low-cost books, and online workshops. My goal is for individuals to be able to access and implement these resources directly through their phones wherever they are in the world.
Along with the digital resources, we also conduct online individual, and group Zoom calls for our clients. This provides individuals with the opportunity to connect with others in our communities, offering a safe space to discuss their experiences.
How do you see technology shaping the future of mental health care and its accessibility?
I believe technology should be at the forefront of most, if not all, interventions currently being created and implemented. Technology provides a giant opportunity for reaching people who are struggling. At Restored Minds, we aim for people to be able to get the help they need right through their phone or computer. We want to meet them right where they are. Most people have their phones with them 24/7, so technology is great because it allows us to bring information, resources, tools, and guidance to people.
Rather than having people try to come to practitioners, technology allows practitioners, coaches, and helping professionals to go to them and create resources that can help the masses, as opposed to specifically focusing on one-on-one intervention.
In your view, how do social factors like poverty, education, and culture affect mental health care and its effectiveness?
Well, obviously there are a lot of factors that play into a person’s mental health, starting with their family system, as well as where they grow up, the environment, and the culture of that environment. But at the end of the day, the people that I see have success when it comes to healing themselves from mental health issues, have to at some point take responsibility for themselves and say, “If I want to get better, I need to make this happen.”
If we’re looking at factors that are beyond our control and seeing them as the primary cause, we are not going to create change because we are always going to displace and project the blame on factors that are outside of our control, which will oftentimes prevents the individual from taking action. The primary trait of people that are successful in any aspect of life is that they take full responsibility for making sure they are successful.
In light of the growing mental health crisis among young people, what innovative approaches or interventions have proven most successful for children and adolescents?
I think one of the most successful approaches for working with young people, including children and adolescents, is creating an environment where they feel safe to share and are not worried about being judged when expressing what they are experiencing. Because in that stage of life, oftentimes there is a hyper-focus on what other people think about you.
So with that said, the best thing is to really create safe environments, as well as resources that they can access on their own with their families, with trusted people, so they are not having to publicly disclose things, especially in front of their peers or close social circles. I think it is important to give them apps, courses, material they can go through on their own and still save face amongst their social circle.
Are there any books, podcasts, or other resources that have helped you understand or manage your condition better?
I’d say my favorite books that have helped me the most would be “Letting Go” by Dr. David Hawkins, as well as the book “The Untethered Soul” by Michael Singer and “The Levels of Energy” by Fredrick Dodson. These are some of the most transformative books I have read.
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. 🙂
Michael Singerand Fredrick Dodson. I’m a big fan of their collective work.
How can our readers further follow your work online?
Readers can further follow my work online on the links below
Website — www.restoredminds.com
Youtube — https://www.youtube.com/restoredminds
Podcast — https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-ocd-anxiety-show-with-matt-codde-lcsw/id1485758572
Book — https://www.restoredminds.com/book
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: Matt Codde Of Restored Minds On 5 Things That Can Be Done To… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.