Veterans Care Today: Dr. Renetta D. Weaver Of Regain No More On How The US Has Improved Its Care For Veterans Over The Past Five Years
An Interview with: Eric L. Pines
Motivational interviewing allows therapy to feel more collaborative than combative: instead of the client being your opponent they can be your team member.
As a part of this interview series, I had the pleasure of interviewing Renetta Weaver.
For most of her life Dr Renetta used to be a yo/yo dieter losing and regaining the same 15 lbs over and over aging until she lost all hope. In 2016, her hope was restored when she had Bariatric Weight Loss surgery. A surgical procedure that led to a 75-pound physical weight loss. However, that procedure didn’t cut out the emotional impact of past traumatic experiences. After addressing the trauma and addictive eating, Renetta developed the SCALE method to help other people dig into the emotional route of their physical weight so that they can move the scale to the left in the right way.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series. Before we dig in, our readers would love to get to know you a bit more. Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?
The most interesting story since beginning my career is that I got into this field to help others, but it wasn’t working and I tried to leave the field twice because of burnout. I tried to go into the IT field, but I failed at left brain pursuits and I had never failed at anything in my life.
That’s when I realized I was created to be that bleeding hearted Social Worker that cared too much. Overtime, I discovered that I had to go back and do my own healing work so that it wouldn’t show up in my work. Especially after working in the addictions arena. You see, I had my own past childhood trauma of growing up watching the effects of my two older brothers who were addicted to alcohol and drugs.
As an addiction counselor, I learned so much from my clients. The greatest lesson was that all the principles I was teaching them about their recovery applied to my challenges with overcoming food addiction. I never thought my personal and professional experiences would lead me to specializing and building a whole movement around Bariatric Weight Loss surgery.
But the foundation for the work that I do today is directly because of my own challenges and everything my addictions clients taught me. Now instead of bleeding all over people who didn’t cut me I am a beating heart Social Worker who cares with boundaries.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
I do a lot of self-talk to retrain my brain. So, I come up with a lot of quotes that help me to navigate life differently. One of my favorite quotes is “Don’t be so busy becoming that you forget to just be.” As a visionary, I have a lot of creative ideas and I’m always working on something new. I’ll complete a goal and then I’m on to the next thing. This quote reminds me to stop, breathe, and celebrate myself along the journey of becoming. Which is funny because I keep pushing back my personal goal line for becoming. Just when I thought I made it I am pursuing another level up.
Are you working on any exciting new projects now? How do you think that will help people?
I’m so excited about what I am working on right now. I recently opened my company Regain No More where we specialize in helping people who’ve had Bariatric weight loss surgery to move the scale to the left in the right way using our SCALE method. In addition to the Bariatric Provider’s course, we also have programs for clients who have had Bariatric surgery. We want to address the missing ingredient in the recipe for weight loss which is the mental health component. In 2023, we will be launching our Bariatric training and resources academy for patients, family members and professionals.
Additionally, I am working on an upcoming two-week missions’ trip during Social Work month in March 2023 to Senegal, West Africa. As a member of the mission’s team, I will participate in various community service projects, speak at a girls’ conference and enjoy shopping and recreation too.
How would you define an “excellent healthcare provider”?
While I do agree that one’s education, degrees, training and certifications are important these qualities by themselves are not the total make up of an excellent healthcare provider. What distinguishes an excellent healthcare provider is a provider who consistently prioritizes their own mental and physical health so that they don’t injure clients because of their unaddressed wounds. As the saying goes, “Hurt people hurt people.”
Ok, thank you for that. Let’s now jump to the main focus of our interview. Based on your experience can you please share three recent improvements to veterans’ care that you are really pleased about?
- Everything I thought and taught about recovery changed when the pandemic happened in March 2020. Before then, in person treatment and meetings were required because the philosophy was that isolation led to boredom, loneliness and idleness and these were the ingredients to drinking. However, when the world shut down all of the ways we socially engaged shut down too. Luckily, the military pivoted and allowed us to provide virtual individual and group sessions so that the members could continue to receive mental health and recovery support through continuous care and resources.
- The creation of programs that provide supportive services for the education, training and treatment of members diagnosed with PTSD and/or who are suicidal is a huge improvement to veterans’ care. Including but not limited to the Wounded Warrior Project, Out of the Darkness movement and the satellite VA offices making services and more accessible to the Veteran community.
- The staff members who treat Veterans are receiving more specialized training to increase their own awareness of DEI and embracing Veterans of different cultures, gender differences and ethnicities. In addition, Domestic Violence, addictions, suicidality and PTSD have become less stigmatized and more normalized. This means that veterans who are complaining of one problem are being holistically screened and if necessary being referred and treated for additional physical or mental health concerns.
In contrast, can you highlight three areas of veterans’ care that still need improvement? What would you suggest needs to be done to address those challenges?
I applaud the VA for many mental health enhancements that have occurred over the past 5 years there are three areas that the VA could grow in to enhance these improvements.
- Ensure that staff members are cross trained to screen and refer Veterans for mental and physical services so that they are receiving holistic care. For instance, if they are stressed and can’t sleep screen them for financial stress or the adjustment challenges that accompany leaving the connectedness of the military system and feeling disoriented in the civilian world.
- Prepare veterans for transition beyond the separation briefing. At the time of separation things might look and feel a lot different a year or two later when the culture, customs and courtesies are not as present in the civilian world. My recommendation is that programs be developed to address how to talk, dress and be a civilian.
- It’s important to our veteran’s mental health and wellness that they still feel worth and value. So having some way for them to utilize their skills or retrain into something that can lead to a civilian job they enjoy. For instance, the skills bridge program is available however I am not sure that everyone knows about or has access to those opportunities.
From your perspective how does the US care for veterans compared to other comparable countries?
I realize my perspective might be skewed because I’ve only worked at Joint Base Andrews, which is in close proximity to Bethesda, Ft Belvoir, the Naval Academy, Ft Myer/Henderson Hall and the VA in the Nation’s Capital. With that being said, I believe the National Capital Region attempts to provide support and care for our veterans as do other countries. The major challenges are twofold. There’s a shortage of Mental Health care providers and the US simply doesn’t have the same universal health care system that other countries have. Those two factors create barriers to comprehensive veteran services in the US such as mental health care, family member services, housing, etc.
What exciting new technological or methodological innovations are being used to improve veterans’ health outcomes?
There are several exciting technological and methodological innovations that are being used to improve veterans’ health outcomes such as the use of biofeedback virtual reality therapy for the treatment of PTSD. The way this works is that a person is hooked up to a machine and views a simulated combat setting. The person’s heart rate and brain activity are measured and the provider who is administering the biofeedback assessment can observe when the veteran becomes activated. This can help inform the treatment strategies for PTSD.
There is a greater focus on brain and body-based trauma therapies such as the use of EFT tapping, EMDR which stands for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing and Brainspotting. All of these techniques are designed to heal hidden trauma that is locked in the brain and the body.
The most exciting change is the philosophy around how we view and treat addictions. Addictions used to be treated as a behavioral problem but not it’s starting to be treated as a disease. Meaning that there is no cure, but it can be managed.
And because of that the clinical practice guidelines include evidenced based models such as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy also known as CBT. The basic premise of CBT is that thoughts lead to feelings and those thoughts and feelings lead to behaviors so it’s all about changing your thoughts and feelings so you can change your behavior.
Motivational Interviewing also known as MI helps to elicit motivation and change talk from the client instead of the provider sparring with the client and working against what the therapist might perceive as the client’s resistance.
Also, there is the use of mindfulness as a treatment modality to help with the root causes of anxiety, stress and depression and to increase awareness of one’s thoughts.
This is our signature question that we ask in many of our interviews. What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me When I First Started My Career”?
- I might have expertise, but the clients are the experts on themselves: in the early part of my career, I thought my job was to fix, change and save others. I thought I had all their answers. Then I learned that people have their own answers and actually know what they need to succeed. However, they might doubt what they know because the noise of life has deafened them to their own voice and blinded them from seeing who they really are. So now I approach my job in a way to help them hear and see themselves differently.
- Motivational interviewing allows therapy to feel more collaborative than combative: instead of the client being your opponent they can be your team member.
- I must continue to do my work, or it will show up in my work: There’s no secret that a lot of healers get into this field because they needed healing. I am one of those healers and used to get burnt out in my work because people weren’t doing what I wanted them to do. When I don’t do my work, it can start to project my stuff onto my clients and try to control them. When I look at them, I see me instead of seeing them. But now that I have done and continue to do my work, I can separate my clients’ outcomes from my judgements.
- It’s ok not to know everything and to tell your client that you don’t know the answer: With graduation, degrees and our alphabet soup comes a big ego. We feel like we had all the tools they needed in our toolbox. Now when I meet with clients, I tell them I don’t have a hammer or a magic wand. I let them know that I’m the facilitator they are the participator and together we are gonna do this work. The biggest part of my job is to model for clients. It’s so freeing not to have to know everything and to just be curious.
- Niche down and work with clients in the area that makes your heartbeat: I was a jack of all trades master of none. I would stay in a job for 2–3 years and leave. However, when I focused in one area, I became an expert.
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
My movement would be around people remembering the unique essence of who they are. There are so many messages that are weapons of mass distraction. These messages cause us to forget who we are, so we strive to be something or someone else because we start to feel like we aren’t good enough. This leads to anxiety, depression and stress. However, when a person remembers who they are and accepts themselves flaws and all there is nothing that other people can say or do to knock them off their game or stop them from being great.
How can our readers further follow your work online?
@drrenetta on all social media and
RegainNoMore.com
This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for the time you spent with this. We wish you continued success and good health!
About the Interviewer: Eric L. Pines is a nationally recognized federal employment lawyer, mediator, and attorney business coach. He represents federal employees and acts as in-house counsel for over fifty thousand federal employees through his work as a federal employee labor union representative. A formal federal employee himself, Mr. Pines began his federal employment law career as in-house counsel for AFGE Local 1923 which is in Social Security Administration’s headquarters and is the largest federal union local in the world. He presently serves as AFGE 1923’s Chief Counsel as well as in-house counsel for all FEMA bargaining unit employees and numerous Department of Defense and Veteran Affairs unions.
While he and his firm specialize in representing federal employees from all federal agencies and in reference to virtually all federal employee matters, his firm has placed special attention on representing Veteran Affairs doctors and nurses hired under the authority of Title. He and his firm have a particular passion in representing disabled federal employees with their requests for medical and religious reasonable accommodations when those accommodations are warranted under the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (ADA). He also represents them with their requests for Federal Employee Disability Retirement (OPM) when an accommodation would not be possible.
Mr. Pines has also served as a mediator for numerous federal agencies including serving a year as the Library of Congress’ in-house EEO Mediator. He has also served as an expert witness in federal court for federal employee matters. He has also worked as an EEO technical writer drafting hundreds of Final Agency Decisions for the federal sector.
Mr. Pines’ firm is headquartered in Houston, Texas and has offices in Baltimore, Maryland and Atlanta, Georgia. His first passion is his wife and five children. He plays classical and rock guitar and enjoys playing ice hockey, running, and biking. Please visit his websites at www.pinesfederal.com and www.toughinjurylawyers.com. He can also be reached at [email protected].
Veterans Care Today: Dr Renetta D Weaver Of Regain No More On How The US Has Improved Its Care For was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.