mhm And my first day of training, you guys was the day of the Oklahoma City bombing and I'm sitting there in class and they came and told us what happened and we all ran upstairs to our hotel rooms and watched on the news. And then I went back to class and I'm like, well, okay, let's do this. Because you know, if this kind of stuff is going on, we gotta, we gotta be ready and I kid you not.
Two weeks later, I'm sitting across from an Oklahoma City firefighter and he was telling me about how he went into what was left of the murrah building and he found what was left of the daycare. I followed him through his whole career. He retired the battalion chief three years ago with zero problems. So this, this technique is awesome.
I always say that if you are a therapist and you're going to do this on, on first responders, you need to get the first responder protocol down because a lot of the MDR training's now are kind of geared towards, oh, you know, I'm a, I'm a soccer mom and I saw a bad record about a month ago and it really upset me. And you know, you guys, you're like, what? And so your trial is way worse. And when we opened Pandora's box, a lot of it all comes out right.
You guys are exposed to the worst of people and the worst days of their lives.
It's a hit after hit after a hit and uh, and with the psychic battering, it's just the continuous, just hit and then you throw on shift work and lack of sleep and changing shifts and rotating shifts and you're on night shift but now you're going to the 40 hour C. I. T. Class, you're on days and then you're back two nights and then you know your family is like, you know, it's complaining because of your shift work or because of your job.
It's this continuous just it's just hitting after hitting after hitting to the brain and it just wears first responders down. There's so many challenges you're listening to the HBO bridging the divide podcast brought to you by the Assistant Officer Foundation Since 1999 the A.T. L. was giving assistance to the first responders community and now we want to give a platform and you're there to cover stories. We also want to hear the stories of the many people that support us.
Our community is small but you're strong, we have differences, we don't always agree and we all made mistakes but together we can grow, we can heal and we can learn from those mistakes and together we can bridge Redivided.
Okay. Mhm. Mhm. Welcome back to the bridge and the divide podcast pain is inevitable, can suffer in his optional first responders are always trying to seek out and improve themselves whether it's higher education, the newest tactical firearm training, learning the newest trans and drug interdiction.
But there's one area I believe we need to continually improve on and I really don't think we do a good job of is mental health and wellness as we all try to seek out new and better way to improve and be a better version of us. Our guest today strives to helping veterans and first responders with 30 years of experience. She deployed to the Oklahoma city bombing In 1995 In 2001. She deployed to new york city. She was in New Orleans for Katrina and to Dallas in the aftermath of july 2016 attack.
She has recognized nationally noted author with numerous books dealing with mental health. PTSD with military and first responders. It is my great honor to welcome on dr Tanya Glenn dR Glynn, you had the stage. Thank you so much for having me on. Thank you. Thank you for an awesome introduction. I'm delighted to be here and I really any chance to spread the word about caring for first responders is a huge hit for me. Thank you so much. It took me a week to get that intro prepared.
I'm just kidding is well deserved your your your bio and your your resume is, It's 10 miles long and it's impressive and I can't thank you enough for all the assistance. You've given all of us over the years and what you're going to continue to do? Its I just can't thank you enough for that doctor in your many years to see and first responders and veterans and and suffering through pTSD, have you seen a shift in people seeking out help?
You know, I have, I'll tell you when I first started my career, I likened it to pushing a boulder up the hill And uh most recently in the past, you know, 5 to 10 years, we've seen the shift and I think that enough first responders have come forward, enough, first responders have been notably hurting um uh enough first responders have met their demise.
And I think that ultimately the result of all the pain and suffering of so many people has finally finally uh caught wind, made it okay to talk about post traumatic stress disorder, to talk about treatment, to talk about prevention and to uh to get our leaders engaged in finally providing good resources and programs to help them. So it has shifted and I love it because finally it's, you know, it's now on on the forefront.
Um, well it is now on the forefront, there is a little bit of misinformation going on, but but at least we're having the discussion and the dialogue and people are much more open, committing the resources necessary to put together a good programs for their, for their folks. Yeah. With with the Dallas pd and uh 60 Ultra Foundation, we we have a mental health program that we offer mental health therapy confidential uh, confidentially.
And we've seen a big uptick really, since the july july 7th shootings and it's a good thing people are now kind of trying to break the stigma and coming out and uh and get more involved in and getting help and recognizing they actually need help. Um reading through your bio. Um There was an incident 1993 in Waco texas, how did that event shape shape you and your mission and to be who you are today.
You know, I went home and I watched that go down on the news and like a lot of people, I was completely horrified and I couldn't stand it. I was three months away from finishing my Master's degree, University of texas. And I knew that day I knew I wanted to work with trauma and a crisis intervention, but I just didn't know like the exact sort of focus and that did it for me that day.
I decided I was, I was on board, I wanted to go to Waco, I wanted to help people like the A. T. F. Of course I couldn't because I hadn't finished grad school yet and I told my professors I was going to do that. They told me I was crazy. So here I am 30 years later, just as crazy as the rest of you and I love it Waco. I did end up with a widow in my practice and so that's how I was able to give back to that event. I did have an A. T f widow in my practice.
and so that was several years later, but that's how I was able to get back to that, but it's amazing how you have this one defining moment and it changes everything and I just knew that this was my thing. We'll help you find your. Y. Right. Exactly. Exactly.
Yeah. I was working at A. Level two trauma center in Austin and I just started to ride and ride with police fire E. M. S. I worked weekend nights, I had a side job on the side because when you get out of grad school you have big student loans.
And uh and I had I was building my tiny little practice on the side as well and so I would switch my schedule to weekdays during the week so I could do my other stuff and then I have to flip back over the weekend nights for my my job at the at the hospital and so on thursday night to be up all night so I could sleep on friday. I would just go ride.
And I wrote, I mean just thousands of hours law enforcement fire E. M. S. And just got really really sort of into the culture and the terminology and that is the best things I've ever done. I do write about that my books a lot, I kind of get after therapists who think that they could see first responders, well they've never set foot into a patrol car or into a fire station.
You know, you gotta, you gotta know that stuff dr glenn, it seems like you've done your homework, I read your book, I read it this weekend and you've spent a lot of time with first responders and they have difficult personalities. It do you feel like there's pieces of your personality that are similar that fit in, that can relate? Yes, 100%.
Actually, when I was thinking was like halfway through grad school and one of my teachers, my my professors was saying, you know, hey Tanya, you're too type a to to be a therapist and I was like, well crap, I mean, I'm only like I'm halfway through this and she's like, you know, you need to, you need to just bring it back a notch and you know, and and not be so like determined and you know, and I was like, uh huh.
So I remember that and what I ended up doing is finding my my perfect patient population. I am a type a and so are you? I definitely, I'm, you know, I'm very straightforward and very direct, um I have fixed in and I I love to help people who want to be helped and I like to, I like to get people through their pain as quickly as possible and that's the first responder community, I think that my patients, their mantra as you know yesterday, Well, I'm the woman to do that.
Let me let me jump in and help you and I think that's, that's always been one of the biggest assets of of my career is the personality that I bring. I get it for my mother. My mother was uh she was, she's german and she lived in Berlin in World War two and so she's totally badass and she is, she created my resilience and she, I think she really built like the woman that I am looking back. I see it at the time, it was just you know, she was, she was pretty hard core as a mom.
But now I look back and I'm just so grateful for everything she did to to install this resilience in me to be able to do what I do. Don't have a question for you. Um well I had a privilege listening to you speak at the resiliency little conference we had in Richardson Texas, I think it was hosted by Richardson Fire Department back in 2019 November. Hey, at the beginning of this, you mentioned something, we're talking about uh people seeking some type of help.
You said there's a lot of uh some uh excuse me some of the misinformation out there. What misinformation are you referring to as far as when it comes to people getting treatment and so on and so forth.
No, I think the biggest thing is the biggest thing I see now is, you know, when people talk about the suicide epidemic in public safety, um, there's, they're making everything about trauma and while there is a lot of trauma, I think what happens when you make everything about trauma in terms of the suicide epidemic, we're overlooking things like for sleep patterns, poor sleep hygiene, you know, all the, all the resilience building things that need to happen.
I think that there's huge deficits in our annual physicals for our first responders, you guys with all of your fight or flight responses, your cortisol is doing all kinds of things to your hormones are out of whack.
And I think that when uh when PTSD became sort of the hot topic subject, everything kind of became about PTSD but really truly where we need to start with, you know, your healthy brain and your healthy body and really making sure that we're focusing on the whole picture and not just not just trauma.
I think social media is they make they make the suicide epidemic about trauma and again, while there is a lot of it, I think that we also have to look at, you know, when people aren't sleeping and when they're, their chemistry is off, hormones are off your brain does some really wacky stuff to you. Like tell you to kill yourself. And so we have to look at the big picture and not just make it about about trauma.
No, and I'm glad you mentioned that because as you know, there's, there's more to it than just sitting down and having somebody say hey I'm suicidal uh when you first go in for some type of panel they're probably gonna take a blood panel of you to make sure your vitamins are up to par your hormones are at certain levels. You know you're not deficient in something else and and it goes more in depth than that.
And that's why you and a few other doctors that I know of it, I really enjoy hearing talk and teach because there's show there's more to it than just hey I'm feeling suicidal or maybe I have a problem. But your problem could be the residual of a larger problem that people have overlooked including your own personal physician that you just have no clue that especially the seeped up uh having some form of sleep problem and what that does to a body.
And I don't think most people know especially those that work a deep night schedule right? Those that work on a deep night shift. You know they work that for years but they are deprived of so many different things that it causes them all kinds of mental fog and whatnot. I mean some people, I'm sure they deal just fine with it. But I mean that's that's good.
And I'm glad that you mentioned that when you think about, you know like if we take someone to the E. R. And and they appear like psychotic, well we're going to do lots of blood draws to see if they've taken something right before we before we call it like psychosis or a psychotic break. Like a mental health disorder. We're going to see if there's a physical reason.
And I think a lot of therapist forget that that's actually question our licensing exam in order to rule in any physical rule in any in order to rule in any mental health maladies. You have to rule out all physical ones. And a great example is I had a police officer who he felt like he was having anxiety attacks is what he called it. And he said you know I don't understand. I love my job I love my life I love my family.
And so while I was scheduling him I asked him to go to see a physician and it turns out he was low vitamin D. Low cortisol low testosterone and hyper thyroid and all of those combined. First thing the physician said all of those combined will manifest as anxiety. So he didn't need me right because he needed to get all that fixed. And so that's a really important pieces that we look at. We look at everything.
And there's a lot of a lot of pieces of the puzzle to the human body that we need to consider as we go through you know healing healing our warriors. Yeah that's a good point. You have to look at everything because everybody is different their chemistry and makeup and how they and how each individual is affected by any whether it's a critical incident or just the day to day wear and tear of this job or the test that we do dr.
Now, if you change your approach with first responders with responding to all these nation wide critical incidents over the over the years, everything is ever changing. How have you changed and evolved as as with all these different experiences you've had. I think the biggest thing is I've learned to really like start where the first responders are.
You know, in Oklahoma city there was such a push for the critical incident stress debriefings and you know, people, people need time and space and they, I always, the way I teach people now is to start with muscles, hierarchy of needs, which is like a it's like a pyramid and at the base of the hierarchy of needs of food, water, clothing, shelter and safety.
And we start there and we start to heal hearts and minds through our actions of providing water and changing gloves and pulling splinters out of fingers because that's what people need initially. And then as people move up hurricane needs and there is the more psychological needs that start to happen. That's when we really get in. And as soon as people feel like, okay, I'm ready to address my psychological needs. The focus now in my world with my practice is prevention prevention prevention.
So as soon as someone is ready to address the psychological cognitive stuff we get in and we mitigated as quickly as possible. So we start where people are, we bring them to safety and as as much health as we can and then when people are ready to talk about whatever it is that's happened or to address the trauma, I really like to get in very quickly and do prevention. We work hand in hand with peer support teams across the country and uh I absolutely adore our peer support teams.
I consider them an extension of my practice and the peer support team. So good at identifying when someone is really ready to deal with something. But prevention and that mitigation is the key in my opinion. Like we don't sit around and wait to see if someone's going to get post traumatic stress disorder. Let's go ahead and address that and mitigated. Well speaking on your peer support programs, you know, quite the reputation for going to agencies and actually setting up these programs.
What is your process and your recipe for success on these Because I've had I've had quite a few people reached out to me, we heard we were going to have you on and they wanted me to ask you about this. Awesome. I'm so I'll talk about their sport all day every day. So, so what So here's here's kind of where I started in Oklahoma City, we were doing the CS.
DS and the Police department told us very quickly that those were not going to work, but they were like to not pick ups in a circle did not make us talk about things and I'm like, yep, I see it and so I kind of floated around the country and I was in Tucson and was working with the border patrol in the aftermath of the brian terry murder. And so brian terry was one of their bore attack agents.
He was, he was one of the snipers and if you look that up, you'll find a whole host of information about brian terry. So I'm, I'm working with their S O. G. And and I, I'm writing along getting report going and getting to know the guys that were very traumatized. It was a very difficult time for them.
And one day we're riding out and we're outside of Tucson and we stopped to fuel up and I ran into a border patrol agent who was also refueling And he told me that he was on the peer support team and he said to me, he's like, hey when are you going to come spend time with us? And I said, well invite me. And so they did, they invited me to a peer support class in huma in august, it was awesome. It was like living in an oven.
And so I got to see their model and I really at that point, I knew like this, this is a great model and it works very, very well. It was born out of desperation. They have multiple suicides in 2000 and eight. That was the birth of their peer support team. So what I did is I took the best of the Border Patrol peer support team training and I kind of hold it to be more sort of fire E. M. S. And P. G. Friendly. And so what I do it's a it's a three day training.
Before we ever get to the training though I wrote a book it's called I've got your six and it has sample policies, a sample application. It has sort of an overview of the kind of team members that I'm looking for. Um and it has basically everything that you need to just set it up initially. And then we train and I train real hard. I teach people we educate the team members on how to educate normalize people's reactions. Um I teach them how to listen, I teach them how to not fix.
I teach people how to not interrupt. And so a lot of times they go home and their spouses are like why are you listening to me and not interrupting? And so I it usually starts a conversation and so um and by the end when I tell the team members is that you have the tools now to go do this. You will always be nervous.
You should always be nervous because the day you decide that you've arrived, you should not be doing for support and, and we really, we really get into all the skill building that they need. Day three also covers group interventions that do work, which doesn't include sitting in a circle and then I explain how to do those and that's model that I developed that's in my, in my first book, that's amazing. Dr glenn. Um, I feel like a lot of this comes after the math.
After there's already some issues going on. If we sent you out to our police academy and say you had 10 minutes can you give me a quick checklist that you could give recruits a way to keep their mental health in check of things that they can do. Yeah, Because we talked, we talked about sleep. But what are some of your other things? Oh yeah. So if I had 10 minutes and so you're giving me 10 minutes, right? So if I had to talk to your recruits, I would tell them that after bed calls.
It's normal to replay those calls. Pretty hard core for the first few days. But by seven days post incident, we want that thing that call as though it's starting to fade and bank in your long term memory And by 14 days post incident we want that bank in your long term memory. If at 14 days it is not banked in your long term memory and you're still replaying it, You smell it, your taste, you can taste it in your nightmares about it to get help.
And then I would flip over and talk about resilience and I would I would encourage them to start small hydration, nutrition, rest and exercise and then we go into your family, your faith, your friends and your hobbies your life outside the job. So if I had 10 minutes, those are the two most important things that I and I'd say in my brief, which is actually two hours. I say these are the most important things I want you to remember.
It's the one week mark and two week mark after a nasty call and it's um it's the resilience building through your life and having a life outside the job because at the end of it all, you know what happens when you hang it all up? You have your life outside the job. Yeah, that's important because I don't think a lot of uh first responders, they can't see themselves pass this job. And that's something that I think all of us need to prepare for it, including myself.
Doctor, can you tell the listener what firepower brasiliense he is? I know you're big on that. I want I want you to explain it for the listener please. So firepower resilience? It's a it's a brand new presentation I've put together, we're putting a brand new documentary together on firepower results. So the definition of firepower is the capacity to deliver effective fire on a target.
And so my belief is that firepower resilience means getting it right and restoring the health and the well being of all of our first responders in a timely manner. So hitting the target and making sure it's right. So the upcoming documentary which will be out in december, it's going to it's going to highlight for first responders who had absolutely awful horrible events happened to them.
And how with the combination of peer support and my team were able to get in very quickly and basically mitigate their traumas. So we're talking, you know one person had E. M. D. R. Date on day four post incident, one person had MDR while he was still at Ben Taub Hospital. I stood over his hospital bed and didi MDR. And so I'm talking about like this is kind of like resilience on steroids but I didn't want to call it resilience on steroids.
So I've got firepower resilience because it's effective fire on a target. Like let's let's hit it, right let's hit the bull's eye and let's do the very best we can instead of like hey you okay? Yeah I'm good. Okay well let me know if that changes because that's simply not enough. Right? So this this documentary is going to introduce the concept of firepower resilience and how quickly we get in to mitigate and prevent some of the really nasty stuff that could potentially happen down the line.
Yeah. You kind of hit on him and I was going to talk about the mitigating and preventing the possibility of PTSD because getting in before the incident is what you're about. You want to you want them to send basically a a template for themselves, right to to grow from initially. So at our practice we really focus on number one um customer service. Number two is the education. It's like that pre incident inoculation. Hey, these are normal responses to stress and here's what you do about it.
Um and then number three, the trust in us to come in very quickly to work through whatever it is that happened. So we can mitigate that. Um and that's that is that's a win all around. Dr glenn, you mentioned E. M. D. R. We have a lot of our listeners that have no idea what you're talking about. Will you explain it to us and then give us an example of somebody that has helped. Absolutely. So FDR thank you for asking is eye movement, desensitization and reprocessing.
And honestly, in my opinion, it's the biggest tool we have in our toolbox and what it does. It's a technique that we actually replicate rapid eye movement which is when you process trauma from the last 48 hours, but you're awake and alert and control hypnosis. We don't put you under a spell.
And what it does is by replicating the rapid eye movement is it gets your brain to move the trauma that's stored in the frontal lobe which is why you're replaying it and we get your brain to open the synapses in the frontal lobe and process and download and move those images into your long term memory.
So what happens with the call is it goes from like sitting in your face and replaying all the time to become the stating distant memory and then we noticed the triggers go away and the nightmares go away and people get on with their lives. So an example I'll give you.
So my first day of training, I actually flew to Baltimore to take this class and I at the time I wasn't even a believer 100% I was, I was really skeptical And my first day of training, you guys was the day of the Oklahoma city bombing and I'm sitting there in class and they came and told us what happened and we all ran upstairs to our hotel rooms and watched on the news and then I went back to class and I'm like well okay let's do this because you know if this kind of stuff is going on,
we gotta we gotta be ready and I kid you not. Two weeks later I'm sitting across from an Oklahoma city firefighter and because we deployed up there and he was telling me about how he went into what was left of the murrah building and he found what was left of the daycare. So he was the first person I did E. M. D. R. On and that at the time was firepower resilience. And I watched this transformation. He had really good fading because he was my first patient ever to do E. M. D. R. On.
I followed him through his whole career. He retired the battalion chief three years ago with zero problems. So this this technique is awesome. I do I always say that if you are a therapist and you're going to do this on on first responders, you need to get the first responder protocol down because a lot of the MDR training's now are kind of your towards, oh you know I'm a I'm a soccer mom and I saw a bad wreck about a month ago and it really upset me and you know you guys you're like what?
And so we're, your trial is way worse and when we opened Pandora's box a lot of it all comes out and so we have a very different protocol for for first responders. And so I always I always increase therapist to get more training to do this on first responders because once we open your floodgates we gotta we gotta be able to contain it. So so the process is amazing. I love doing it. I have people who come in from across the country.
We do two day intensive so we'll have a police officer or firefighter who will come in and we hit it all on day one and spend pretty much the better part of a day with them. And then on day two we do the follow up and really this cleans up about 95% of it. It's all the heavy lifting is done and then I can pass them off to a therapist back home who maybe doesn't do E. M. D. R. Or isn't isn't a savvy with the public safety population. And it's just absolutely phenomenal. That's amazing.
Um and we're talking about first responders. What if the first responder hasn't been in a traumatic incident that is carrying trauma from childhood, say sexual abuse or physical abuse. Is that something that would be effective as well? Absolutely, absolutely.
That was actually one of the first studies I engaged in as an E. M. D. R. Trained therapist was, it was a childhood sexual abuse and I was in the group that did, they got the patients got the MDR versus the control group that didn't and the group that got it was way, way, way better. So frequently we do have, you know, there's there is, I've noticed a really high rate of pretty gnarly child abuse for a lot of our first responders.
And so when they come in, you know, they, a lot of times they don't realize why certain calls bother them or you know, or get under their skin so much until we get into, you know, their childhood. Now it's not really our style to be like well tell me about your mother and tell me about your father because most therapists like they want all of that and where we always start with whatever the first responder is.
But if they want to go to childhood we can and we do and it is it is intensely effective for that. I've actually went through some sessions of E. M. D. R. Therapy and it did. I had an effect especially with the dreams and an earlier episode chris webb.
Uh he couldn't he didn't have, he had so much so many good things to say about you and also E. M. D. R. And it unlocked a portion of his brain and he didn't really realize it until he went to sleep and he started having these really weird vivid dreams and I experienced the same thing. Um It's a it's a powerful experience. I had a quick question for you I think because I think the individuals are gonna listen.
I think some will associate themselves in some form or fashion and others will will refuse right. They've they're they just refuse to believe that there's anything wrong with them and it doesn't mean everybody has to have something wrong with them. But when we look at the mind, you know, I think one thing that a lot of people deal with it is just probably age uh an age perspective.
What would be like a mental fog and so on and so forth, is, can you not necessarily pTSD, but just just a generalized broad spectra of the first responders trauma that you have seen. Can you give like certain ailments that people may recognize or notice? And so when they hear that they're like, hey, maybe I can associate with something or is there any particular list? I know there's a gamut of them, but I don't know if that's a fair question, Can you answer that or is that not fair?
Yeah, absolutely. I think that, you know, the biggest thing, the most obvious one is usually when your family members talk about how you've changed and it's not necessarily for the better. That's a big one is, you know, your significant other spouse really kind of picks up on your energy and they'll indicate like, hey, that something is really different, like your sense of humor, your energy. I think the biggest thing we see with our first responders is they just feel so tired all the time.
And um, and of course that may be fatigued from the job. But you know, trauma takes a lot out of you two and living, you know, with, with certain things just bother you are triggering you. I think that the biggest thing to notice is that you've changed in your outlook, your perspective, how you view society and people think so often you guys deal with just a really negative side of society, and you miss out on the good side and you no longer see the good people who love you.
Um and I think that over time what you notice is that your you have less energy, you're more irritable, you're you feel like you're sweaty all the time, you don't feel good, you don't you don't you don't have quite possessed or or the, you know, the stuff that used to and then, you know, the family members pointing out things as well, and it doesn't mean you have pTSD, it might mean you have burned out,
it might mean you just have some some unresolved calls that you just need to process that aren't necessarily PTSD. But I think that the biggest thing is to notice that like we just feel different and when you are you're using coping mechanisms that maybe aren't so good if you're you know, if you're drinking too much, if you're, you know, engaging in risky behaviors or you know what I call Survivor High, which is kind of, you know, pushing the limits on things.
These are all things that you may not see, but your loved ones, we'll see. It's important to just pay attention with to those things dr glenn in your book, You say it is imperative that first responders receive help when going through psychic battering. Can you tell our listeners what psychic battering is. And give me like an example, like some kind of self talk that we hear in our brains.
Yeah so psychic battering is the just the continual pounding of people's worst days I always say and when I when I give my trauma and resilience class that no one calls 911 kids. Today's a good day. You guys see pain and despair and sorrow and death and violence and chaos and destruction and you see horrible things happening to Children and innocent people and you guys are exposed to the worst of people and the worst days of their lives.
And so it's just it's like it's a hit after hit after a hit and it's so easy to forget that there's happy healthy people who who abide by the laws and pay their taxes and really appreciate you.
And uh and with the psychic battering it's just the continuous just hit and then you throw on shift work and lack of sleep and changing shifts and rotating shifts and you're on night shift but now you're going to the 40 hour C. I. T. Class, you're on days and then you're back two nights and then you know your family is like you know is complaining because of your shift work or because of your job.
It's this continuous just it's just hitting after hitting after hitting to the brain and it just wears first responders down there's so many challenges of course now you know since Covid kicked off its psychic battering just amplified. And so these are all the many things that that, you know, that our folks need to just have an opportunity just to kind of refuel that internal fuel tanks so they can nurture their souls. That's that's what psychic battering is doc in your book.
First responder, resilience caring for public servants. You say the first session is critical. Why do you believe that? And how do you handle that? So every, almost every patient that calls us or emails us, they have picked up the phone 100 times, or they've started that email 1000 times and when they finally had send it is nerve wracking. It is very hard to sit in someone's waiting room knowing that you're asking for help.
And you know, if you've never been to therapy, you have no idea what to expect. And you you feel like, you know, you're worried the therapist can read your mind, which we can't and you're worried that, you know, we're going to we're going to have a horrible gut wrenching discussion and you know, all that stuff. And so everybody comes in with these these these preconceptions about what it is that's about to happen. They're nervous.
I mean, you know, I've done it sitting in a waiting room about to talk about your crap. And it's it's pretty scary. And so um that first session we uh we work really hard to call our people back right away. And if we don't get an answer, we leave a message, we send them a text. We we worked very diligently to get people in within three days of their first call. And so that way there's kind of that no, like waiting around with with the actual first session.
Um if I don't have a client before before that new person, I'll get them in quickly and you know, we, we honestly we're waiting, we're waiting for them to come. We have everything ready, we get them back as quickly as possible. I try as hard as I can when I have my first time client to not schedule someone right before them because if there's ever a time to decide, maybe I don't need to do this is when you're sitting in the waiting room waiting.
And so we typically try to not schedule someone the session before a new patient and then as soon as they walk in the door they're straight back. And so that way we don't, we don't scare anybody or make them in the waiting room for too long and decide not to not to do this. Our office is very, it's not like a typical therapy office. We have all kinds of cool stuff on the walls. We at our practice. We also have an extra door as a side door.
And so that door is for our law enforcement officers who are involved in high publicity critical incidents because you know, if you're involved in a shooting or you're involved in something that the media is all over, you don't want to be seen. And so we give them a code to that door and they come into side entrance and just wait for us there. So that's that's the kind of stuff that we do to increase the likelihood that people will will really just come in and feel comfortable.
They have to feel comfortable. And in that first session, we you know, we try to develop as quickly as possible what I call a plan of attack, which is technically a treatment plan, but we call it the plan of attack. And so they know that they're on a path to healing and that there's steps to get there and we're not just going to be like welcome to therapy and we're going to spend 18 months talking about one thing we're on a mission.
And so I really try to develop a plan very quickly and give people a sense of how long I think it'll take, give or take. And uh and so people have a sense of where we're going dr glenn, how do we recognize progressive desensitization? How do we recognize that?
So what that actually is progressive desensitization is something that we do after E. M. D. R. And so for example, if you're involved in a shooting, um and it's a horrible shooting and we would MDR the shooting and then we would take you out to the range or for example when you know someone is involved in a really nasty wreck in the middle of an intersection. We do M. D. R. And then we go drive through the intersection or flight nurse who was involved in an incident.
We do MDR and get on a helicopter and go fly. So that's actually what that is. And so what we're doing is we're mitigating all the stress and anxiety about being back in the place or the moment that caused the trauma and that that's what that is. So it's I call E. M. D. R. Plus progressive desensitization. I call them the +12 punch. Can you tell us about somebody that that specifically has helped, Can you give us a story so others can relate. Absolutely.
Yeah. Absolutely. So what am I well known uh progressive desensitization because I I use it in my training. Was a flight nurse for an air medical company hit the side of a cell phone tower and it tore off the last kid and they ended up having to land on a stack of firefighters mattresses at the san Antonio airport. And she was like she was way freaked out.
I mean she was beside herself and she was not good and she took seven shifts off and I knew she was going to quit her job and so during her seven shifts off which you know in a 24-48 world is about a month I was working with her and I told her we're gonna MDR. And she told and I told her I said we're going to do E. M. D. R. At the base that the company put the aircraft out of service and the only other person at the base of the time was the pilot just kind of waiting on us to to be done.
And I told her I was like bring a fly suit because after E. M. D. R. We're going to go fly and she's like that's that's insane. I I cannot know you're gonna wave your fingers in front of my face for a couple of hours and then I'm gonna want to go fly. And I said yes she's like that's the craziest thing I've ever heard. And so sure enough she showed up she brought her flight suit. We did MDR. And as soon as we were done she was like let's go flight.
So we went up in the air the pilot kiss around he's like let's go look for new towers and wires because this area is growing so rapidly and we will so we gotta land again and we took off again and we headed back to the base and the pilots like I'm just gonna fly a few approaches if you don't mind.
And I'm like totally fine we're in the back were high fighting taking selfies and she told me mid flight she's like you know I was going to quit my job and I said, I know and actually she just retired from the company. So, so that's when were you know, I just, I just love doing that, love doing, just get back to the thing that caused the trauma and overcome it.
Let's, let's not, have you go out to where it happened and the first time you know, you go out there, you're on a call, I want it to be off duty so we can just go, just work through it and breathe and focus and get your skills back and get your confidence back. That's yeah, that's awesome. It's Just helping one person and you've helped God knows how many, there's probably people you've helped that have sit through your seminars and read your books.
You don't even know, you know, you it's so impressive and And I can't tell you how excited some of our eight HBO therapists were. They're excited. They're they can't wait to hear your episode once we air it and they've actually sent me some questions for you and they've set through your seminars and and Melissa Macklemore, giving her a shout out. She owns all of your books and yeah, she's, she can't, she's, she's got a crush on you. But that is so sweet. Thank you.
I am thrilled that other therapists are finding it useful. Yeah, very useful. Um I want to ask, I want to get your thoughts on moral injury. I just recently watched the video that you put out and former DPD, uh, swat operator chris webb, he, he dealt with a death of an infant hostage and he spoke on that. Can you explain to the listener what what moral injury is? Absolutely. So the moral injury is when something happens and you cannot get there fast enough, you can't change the outcome.
It's the sort of the responsibility that you take on when things go wrong. So the biggest moral injury the term came from, of course the military. So for example, when insurgents use women and Children as human shields, no value for women and Children, obviously in that situation. But our armed services of course have high value for saving women and Children.
And when you put an Ak in their hands and you tell them to point that a K at the marines, you know, it's the options are, Are pretty much just one. And so the moral injury is, you know, I had to take these actions that the outcome wasn't what I wanted there not that's not consistent with my morals. And so what happens with the moral injury is you, you feel it, you take it on your, your stand, you're embarrassed. You're horrified. You're angry. You're hurt. You feel betrayed.
Um, and actually a lot of people are diagnosing moral injuries as PTSD, but you have to be very clear and differentiating with a moral injury. You won't have the living in the flashbacks, but you will have all of the emotional distress. And so when first responders are going through academies and going through training, you're of course trained to change an outcome or create an outcome that's positive. This is how we save lives, this is how we intervene.
And when you can't get there, what happens is it logs this feeling of helplessness And I will tell you helplessness is the number one emotion that gets processed in the MDR in our office. And helplessness is very foreign to you all because you all are trained to be in control and maintain control and stay in control. You're in charge, you're seeing and when you can't get control, it feels very, very horrible.
And so the moral injury is that I could not get there fast enough and I could not, I could not change this outcome. But before help. What happens unfortunately in the mind of a first responder who's got a moral injury is the self talk is not so much. I couldn't get there fast enough. I failed or expect or I'm horrible at my job or I'm a horrible human being. That's what the brain does. The brain and any sort of any sort of mental health problem. It always goes too bad.
And so the self talk of first responders with moral injuries is really, really awful. And when we do the MDR, what we get people to see is that, you know, it's not that you didn't do your job is that the outcome was already pretty much done by the time the The number is 911 were hit on the first phone you know and so it's the ability to put that into perspective is huge, huge for our first responders. Doc when you talk about educate normalize, what does that mean to you?
So I I I love doing the brief that we do the trauma and resilience brief. I start with fight or flight. I joked that the f word is feelings. We don't use that word, we use the other one quite a bit but not feel. We also use fight or flight quite a bit right? So I start fight or flight is the foundation and we describe the chemistry of the stress response and what happens to the brain and the body and then I weep fighter flight through the four types of stress.
So acute delayed, cumulative post traumatic stress disorder and I make it about the science of stress and physiology and this is the language of first responders and the whole time as I'm pointing out all of the awful things that happened and you know an acute stress response. I'm normalizing all of it.
And I think when people hear that they start to realize like oh oh that's normal and here's why you know it's I talked about shunting and I talk about you know throwing up and I talk about pooping and peeing on yourself and all the reasons why are all connected to survival. And so when we when we do that, everything starts to make sense. Now The biggest compliment I get from my brief is everything makes sense. Now it all makes sense.
So it's important that that first responders have that knowledge and you know, that's um that's what I put my first book. Chapter two is educate, educate, educate. And I think that's a really important thing to do because if you don't, then people wonder they tend to think, oh, I'm so weak or I can't handle it or you know, that kind of stuff.
So, so that's what we didn't educate normalized talk suicide is in law enforcement and military and really all first responders becoming more prevalent and it's more talked about can from a therapy standpoint. I know getting in first and early intervention is critical. But can you talk about something else that indicators that we could look for? Because we've lost we've lost a lot of officers uh to suicide.
You know, I think that where we start is we start at the beginning, we start with our recruits, we reach out to the people we care about that are already on the force and we have those discussions. You know, I mean, everybody puts those memes about how I'd rather listen to your story than attend your funeral, but that really needs to be put into action, right? And so I think what we do is we start to really change the culture.
So we know that a lot of first responders contemplates suicide and unfortunately a lot of them you know a lot of them complete suicide and so where we start is with the culture that it really truly is okay to reach out and what has to happen is that people who are feeling that desperation have to get good help but have to be allowed to come back to work to me. I think the biggest prohibit er of people reaching out is they're afraid they're gonna lose their job.
And so they feel like well by the time they're so depressed and their brain is telling them to kill themselves. They feel like it's just a better option to just kill myself because my family and everybody else will be much better off without me. And that couldn't be further from the truth. So I think departments have to put their money where their mouth is and really allow officers to receive help to heal to recover and come back successfully.
And I think when that happens you're going to have a lot more people who are going to be a lot more honest about where their where their mindset. Yeah doc we're just looking at the numbers on the blue help for this year it's at 106. I mean that's pretty astronomical. Not compared to the years previous but we're we're really not even through this entire year with a few more months out with the holiday season coming up. I think he touched on a lot.
I'm really glad joe asked that question about the about the moral injury. I think that's something that all of us suffer no matter where you're at whether you're a U. S. Veteran or a first responder. And I think a lot of people get tied up and get wrapped up in, especially in our profession. I've seen it in the past where uh therefore uh well with good reason there is a lot of help for our U. S. Veterans for sure. I've had the privilege of speaking to many of them.
And when they go to compare uh you know um how they are hurt. Uh if you if you ever try to compare yourself to them, most of them will be the first to say no no no. You you have it just as bad as I and and it's a very hard thing to accept. And it's not a comparison a tip for tat or let's see who's got the worst. But I think it's first responders we all forget that um it that we do suffer. We just don't necessarily see it.
You may not be in a war zone or if fought your way out of a crisis but at some point in time throughout your career you've done that on a daily basis. And I think most people forget the second you walk out your door, our bodies go into the red, Most people should be in their defensive mode. The second they walk outside their door, especially if you have a take home vehicle and not to say not.
Then you come home to your house still in the red and you go to decompress and then now you're gonna add in some family problems, whether it be divorce, child custody, the death, just no matter what it is or just your own personal grief and now deal with the thought of suicide. And I think, uh, I'm very grateful that you mentioned all of that and including the peer support.
I think the other piece of the peer support is a lot of departments don't want to touch it because they feel like there's some type of liability or some type of legal issue with it. They don't realize that there is training from a guided therapists such as yourself, a doctor with, with, with high education and very great experience in doing such and a lot of peer support programs fall short.
You know, we're trying to kind of create or mock something up with the assist the officer foundation in order to help support. And that's, that's all that this foundation is for. Uh, but you know, we'll have to steer into that as is, but I think most departments just don't want to talk about it. The wellness piece.
Um, being able to talk and just like you mentioned, two people want to go to the departmental psychiatrist, they're they're extremely fearful that no matter what they say is going to be drawn back upon them. They would rather go seek outside source and help. But yeah, I think that's that's great that that you're out there doing what you do and and we appreciate it very much. So you and all the others like you. Yeah, thank you. Thank you.
You know what I always tell first responders um is that you are supposed to be impacted because you're not a sociopath. The first thing that my patients say when they start to, yeah, you're not associate. And the first thing my patients do when they start to cry as they apologize, I'm sorry is the first words that come out of their mouth and I'm like, don't ever apologize for being a human being. And then I tag on by the way, congratulations you're not a sociopath. And then they start laughing.
So they're laughing and crying at the same time, which is awesome. Right? The other thing is, you know, our first responders come in and they'll say Tonya, I didn't have to storm through Fallujah. You know, I didn't have to go to combat and I'll tell you what are What you said, they say. Well, you know, I only had to do it for a year. These guys have to do it for 25.
And so it's very interesting to see because everybody kind of comes in with their own kind of reference point and our veterans are like hats off to these guys that have to do this for 25 years because they understand what you're going, through it's just your yours is so much more prolonged and so it's a it's a really cool way to kind of bring people's walls down when they say, well, you know, I didn't have it as bad as I always, always tell them what the other,
what the other group says about their group. So that's a really good way to kind of bridge that gap. Okay, doc, you know, we're a bunch of amateurs here doing this podcast for the assist the Officer Foundation, we before MDR cure my stuttering. Can you help me get through this? That's one reason. That's that's why I want to go through it.
So I don't know if there's any of your protocol for stuttering, but you know, you can write, I'm it's a daily struggle, trust me and and the listeners know that by hearing me doc to, to wrap this up, I want, I want to ask you what's next for dr glenn, what do you have on the horizon to the that you're going to continue to do, to help us keep us safe and keep our mental health as best as it can be to serve and protect.
So, you know, I'm so excited where we're heading um what a great question, thank you for asking. Um So at the practice, like I said, we have another new documentary coming out, that's the sort of the short term goal, the long term goal is um I have really created a team that will be able to take this practice from me when I retire. Um you know, if if I die suddenly unexpectedly someone, one of my team members is in my will to take over the practice.
So this continues, but in the past year, year and a half, I have really started to cultivate those therapists to start to travel and do the level of intensity work that I do.
Um and they really are, we have, we have instead of just seeing patients kind of all day every day, I started to ask them to step up and do more stuff to do, you know, peer support training to travel, to respond to crises to two am to the officer who was involved in the shooting and to have those experiences because my goal is to leave my practice to a team of very, very competent people who who all basically hand the practice over two.
So that's kind of where we are now, is just training training the group to continue on and kind of being a force multiplier now because because I've got, you know, several of them and so we're headed that direction, we're going to continue to really, really hit the preventative aspect of, of trauma response versus the, Well, you know, let's wait around to see if something goes wrong with your life and your brain and your heart, your mind. Let's let's prevent it.
So I think pushing the prevention, um, that's probably going to be one of my next book is the preventative aspects. And I'm also considering doing a book with combat veterans. That will be a book for veterans. So it's a good stuff on the horizon. I'll probably 85 when I retired if you, you're continually helping people. It. That's good. That's what you're, that's what you're about, right? I just love it. I do love it, doc.
That's, that's good to hear that you're handing off the torch because as we push forward in the future here, there's gonna be more and more people that are gonna need that help. And, and there's only one of you. And uh, so there's, there's a few, there's a few other doctors I know, I wish we could clone, but we can't clone them quick enough. Right? So it's awesome to hear that you're going down that road. Thank you. How do officers make an appointment to get that information out there.
Yeah. So they just just go to my website, which is www dot T A N A glenn with two n so tiny glenn dot com. And on the contact tab, there's our email and our office phone number. And so you could call or you can send an email. Um you're gonna hear back really quickly uh within the day if you call, you know, call at seven o'clock at night it will be the next morning. But we uh we'll get back to quickly and we'll get you in as quickly as we can. So it's super simple.
Dr I think it's the perfect way to wrap it up. I want to thank you for taking the time out of your very busy schedule and meeting with us and I look forward to work with you. You hear from me in the future? I'm looking forward to your next book and also your documentary out recently. Thank you so much for coming on. Thank you. Thank you guys. Thank you for having me. Thank you so much. It was an honor. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Hey brother. Hey sister, I'll never give up on you.
Hey, Mrs A Mr I'll see this all the way. No matter how far sun in the moon, I never give up on you down when you're lonely, I'll pull you up. Path is you have the calling is I'll be your shoulder together. We'll run from the bottom. Hey brother. Hey sister, I'll never give up on you. Wait no matter how hard son in the movie, I never give up on you. I'll never give you Hey brother. Hey sister, I'll never give up on you. Hey missus.
Say mr I'll see this all the way through no matter how far golden and blue, I never give up. Only Yeah.