Join us for a special milestone celebration—Episode 300 of Through a Therapist’s Eyes! We take a deep dive into our journey, reflecting on the personal growth, key insights, and unforgettable moments from the past 300 episodes. From behind-the-scenes stories to our top ten most-listened-to episodes, we celebrate the impact of the show and the amazing guests who’ve joined us along the way. Plus, we discuss the future of mental health, our evolving vision for the podcast, and exciting new segments like “The Shrink Wrap Up.” Don’t miss this heartfelt look back—and ahead—as we continue to grow, learn, and engage in meaningful conversations!
Tune in to see the 300th Episode Celebration Through a Therapist’s Eyes.
Think about these three questions as you listen:
- Looking back at your own journey, what personal growth or insights have you gained over the past 300 episodes?
- What are the key messages or lessons from the show that have resonated most with you and your listeners?
- As we move forward, how can we continue to challenge ourselves to grow, learn, and engage in meaningful conversations?
Links referenced during the show:
https://abcnews.go.com/Health/rfk-jr-studying-threat-ssris-weight-loss-drugs/story?id=118937552
Intro Music by Reid Ferguson – https://reidtferguson.com/
@reidtferguson – https://www.instagram.com/reidtferguson/
https://www.facebook.com/reidtferguson
https://open.spotify.com/artist/3isWD3wykFcLXPUmBzpJxg
Audio Podcast Version Only
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Episode #300 Transcription
Chris Gazdik: [00:00:00] Hello, this is Through a Therapist’s Eyes on, what are we at, February the 20th, and we are doing the 300th episode celebration of Through a Therapist’s Eyes. How about that, man? 300th episode, so.
Victoria Pendergrass: Isn’t that crazy? We’re kind of just gonna
Chris Gazdik: do a random run around with different things. Have fun today, talk about some different things that were on our mind.
We have a current event. But right off the get go, I want to do two things, okay? One is really happy, and one is kind of sad. Which one should we do first?
Victoria Pendergrass: Eh, sad.
Chris Gazdik: Sad first, so we can Only because I know what it is. So we can pick up and do the happy after. Yeah. I, I kind of like that. So, I need to say that we have received news from one of our community members at [00:01:00] Through Therapist Eyes.
I mean, look, over the years we’ve built a community with you, we love hearing from you, and we love doing this for you. Which is a free resource that we hope you enjoy. You get entertained a little bit and you get good information blowing up stereotypes and myths about mental health and learning some things along the way together, as we like to say.
But we are very sad to. Have received the news that we’ve lost one of us Cass has died and that has happened a couple of days ago. And so we want to honor her, her, her life and her amazing commentary and witty responses with with a moment of silence in a moment, but go ahead, John.
John-Nelson Pope: No, it’s just, it’s just an outstanding person.
She just, just is. Decent and caring and loving as she could possibly be. Yeah,
Victoria Pendergrass: we’ve had the pleasure of meeting her in person. So,
Chris Gazdik: yeah. So a moment, a moment of [00:02:00] silence for Miss Deer Cass.
We honor Cass and her beautiful life.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah, thank you Cass.
Chris Gazdik: 300th episode celebration and they talk about a celebration of life so, it’s kind of cool, bad news, very sad, but kind of neat that it’s a part of the celebration. She never
John-Nelson Pope: missed, she never missed an episode. I
Chris Gazdik: mean she was
Victoria Pendergrass: on point man. As far as I know she never missed an episode.
on point, you
Chris Gazdik: know, so if she did, she would
Victoria Pendergrass: be like listening to it the next day. Of course,
Chris Gazdik: she, you know, we, we figured a lot of stuff out together over the time. Dear Cass, we, we absolutely have. So what was the, what was the other thing? My brain’s kind of locked with the happy news was what I don’t even remember.
Look,
Victoria Pendergrass: this is what happens when we don’t have show notes.
Chris Gazdik: I
Victoria Pendergrass: have
John-Nelson Pope: plenty of show notes. We know all about her [00:03:00] ADHD. What about yours? I don’t know.
Victoria Pendergrass: Do you have undiagnosed? I think I have
Chris Gazdik: a learning disability, not ADHD. I truly believe that. Look, there are
Victoria Pendergrass: times where I feel like I’m dyslexic because my husband texted me earlier if I had any suckers in my car for our kid.
And I read it as stickers.
Chris Gazdik: Suckers to stickers.
Victoria Pendergrass: And I was like, yeah, no, I don’t have any of my car.
Chris Gazdik: I don’t know.
John-Nelson Pope: But I think the good news is that we do in our 300th.
Chris Gazdik: Well, it may have been just that. I, I, I, I don’t know. It’s going to come back to me, but that it. It may have, may have been Craig. I don’t know.
Oh, that, yeah, that was the other. That was the good one. Yeah. It was Craig. Okay.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: So my brain got a little fuzzled because of, you know, I’m sad because of Cass. That, that, that hurts my heart. But but we were going to have Craig join us today and we got noticed that he wasn’t able to do that. So on the YouTube live, I already did this.
So on this podcast, I want to, I want to really honor Craig and thank you, sir, because [00:04:00] Craig was here. on the get go right from the get go. Mm-hmm . He and I did it originally. He’s the OG of through a therapist’s eyes, affectionately called Tate, you know, may of 2019. Mr. Graves, we fired this off, kicked this off a little bit and it, it wouldn’t have happened without you.
So I’m eternally grateful to, you know, my boy Craig Graves you know, he. He, he actually I had somebody today say that they were excited to hear him on the show. So I’m sure they’re going to be sad they don’t get to hear him because they were like, Oh man, it’d be nice to hear him again, you know, cause all those episodes.
I
Victoria Pendergrass: say, if you come in, if you come in the office, sometimes I, when I. Remember to do my job Sometimes y’all’s videos are playing from the beginning on the tv in the lobby. Yeah, we play him
Chris Gazdik: in the lobby Yeah, we play him in the lobby. So he he he lives live lives large, you know 50 60 70 episodes that we did together So it’s a lot over half.
It’s over half. Yeah, so So, thank you craig
Victoria Pendergrass: Thanks, Greg. [00:05:00] We want to be here without you a little bit of applause for great grades. Great grades, everybody.
Chris Gazdik: So this is through a therapist eyes, a little weird introduction again. We’re doing a 300 episode celebration today. Just kind of going to wrap around, talk about different things that we remember things we’re thinking about.
We have our current event that we’re going to go through. But this is kind of a little different episode is not going to be the normal type thing that we do. But this is where you get insights from a panel of therapists in personal time in your car and in your home, but you know Victoria, we need to remember this is not what?
Victoria Pendergrass: The delivery of therapeutic services.
Chris Gazdik: In any way.
Victoria Pendergrass: In any way.
Chris Gazdik: All right.
Victoria Pendergrass: Whatsoever.
Chris Gazdik: Right. This is February the 20th, 2025. Wow. Again. May of 2019. To set Billy
John-Nelson Pope: Joe. 20,
Chris Gazdik: 21, 22, 23, 24, 25. Wow. It’s been about 6 years running. Wow. 50, 52 weeks in a year. We don’t miss many weeks. We didn’t start the fire. [00:06:00] We don’t miss many weeks.
Yeah. So episode 300. Wait,
Victoria Pendergrass: when did Joe start in 19?
Chris Gazdik: Somewhere around in May. In May. Yeah. Yeah. Somewhere around in that. I mean, we’ve, we’ve missed some weeks. We’ve taken a couple weeks off here and there. Yeah. You have
Victoria Pendergrass: holidays. People get sick.
Chris Gazdik: Recently, we just took a big chunk to get ready for.
Victoria Pendergrass: Gosh, we took like, what?
Like a month and a half or something? It was a while. It was weird, wasn’t it? Yeah. It was definitely, yeah, it was a little weird.
Chris Gazdik: Kind of weird. You subscribe on YouTube. We’re still trying to build YouTube up. You guys in this community that we celebrated Cas with really make this community. So, I really want to push that.
You know Neil, how do they subscribe? You don’t have a mic, do you?
Victoria Pendergrass: I got it. You don’t have a mic You can subscribe on. Look, I’m your social media girl.
Chris Gazdik: We gotta get your, we gotta get your voice on here a little, little bit though. We’re gonna have to pass mics around here. Yeah, dude.
Victoria Pendergrass: As your newly social media pointed person.
There you go. You can go to our YouTube page through a therapist size and you can hit the subscribe button there and you can also, it’ll show you videos of upcoming. [00:07:00] Things and you can select to have it remind you to notify you like, Hey, reminder that this is on the bell on YouTube. So and always like comment.
John-Nelson Pope: Yes. You know what? And also, if you are on a podcast, or you have some sort of like a
Victoria Pendergrass: You’re listening on Apple, yeah. Apple podcast, especially. Apple, Spotify, things like that.
John-Nelson Pope: Yes to give us a five star rating.
Chris Gazdik: These things are important, guys. And honestly, we really need to build up. the support from you.
We want to provide this for you. This is not an infomercial. But I don’t mind saying we, we really do need your support. And on the website, you can buy merch, you can buy things and you get stuff and we get profit a little kick from that. I actually just bought a puzzle.
Victoria Pendergrass: I was gonna say, did you ever send me those pictures?
Chris Gazdik: I don’t think I did. Did I?
Victoria Pendergrass: I don’t think you did.
Chris Gazdik: Dude, that puzzle is hard.
Victoria Pendergrass: Is it? How many pieces is it? That is
Chris Gazdik: hard. I got a 500. Do not, if you get onto the merch button on the website, is where you go. You go [00:08:00] to the merch button, and you find all these different things that you can buy that are pretty cool.
Do not get a thousand piece puzzle. Oh, I’m
Victoria Pendergrass: totally doing it. Do not get a thousand. I wouldn’t even do 2, 000. My dad is
John-Nelson Pope: nine Do not do that to yourself. My father’s 98 years old, and he does thousand piece puzzles. I do
Victoria Pendergrass: too. During COVID, I was doing 2, 000 piece puzzles. Okay. No.
Chris Gazdik: Look. I’m telling you. Please, don’t do that to yourself.
This thing is not very large. It comes in a smaller box, even.
John-Nelson Pope: So it’s smaller?
Chris Gazdik: It’s smaller. And a 500 piece puzzle, I’m telling you, is wicked. I don’t want you to experience this, Victoria. I’m afraid.
Victoria Pendergrass: You wanna know what I have at home? A thousand piece puzzle that is all black. It’s all black.
Chris Gazdik: Are you serious?
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah. I haven’t finished it yet because I got, got preg, I had a baby. But.
John-Nelson Pope: So that you wouldn’t have to do the puzzle. No, that was not it. But,
Look, I’ll,
Victoria Pendergrass: I’ll get the, I’ll get the, the Tate one and I’ll put it together and then we can hang it up.
Chris Gazdik: Well, that’s my plan. Yeah. We’ll have to. We’ll, we’ll, we’ll.
I might
Victoria Pendergrass: just put it in my office.
Chris Gazdik: I love that. Okay, [00:09:00] I love that, but you’re gonna do a thousand piece.
Victoria Pendergrass: Sure, yeah. I’ll have to do it here because my toddler will tear it up.
Chris Gazdik: Mad respect. Mad respect. You
Victoria Pendergrass: wanna tie me on it? See how long it takes me to do it?
Chris Gazdik: Good lord. That’s, I’m worried. I’m in thousand piece puzzle.
That’s I mean, but do you see this puzzle is like there’s nothing Yeah,
Victoria Pendergrass: he sent me a picture and it’s all it’s our logo. So it’s a lot of white. It’s a lot of white A lot of white.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah, this is white pieces. Like i’m like, dude All right. This is the human emotional experience which we do endeavor to figure out together.
I have said that 300 times it’s
Victoria Pendergrass: not insane
Chris Gazdik: and I mean it. Like, this is what we do. We, we really work with you in our work, in our office, in you guys as a panel. I’m so appreciative of you know, Adam with the month in reviews. I mean, he had such a nice flair and flavor. You know, from just a non clinical perspective, and Neil’s always on point.
I mean, when you [00:10:00] speak, brother, it is on point. So, we really figure these things out together with people that you are listening with us.
Victoria Pendergrass: Do you mind if I ask you a question?
Chris Gazdik: Sure.
Victoria Pendergrass: How did you come up with that?
Chris Gazdik: That is an excellent question.
Victoria Pendergrass: Cause you’ve said it, you’ve, I’ve been here almost three years, in May, and you It’s been that long?
Yeah, is that crazy? And you’ve said it. Basically since day one. Oh, yeah Since i’ve been here. You’re making
Chris Gazdik: me want to go back to episode one to see if I said it in episode one I don’t know I don’t know when that started.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah. But I would be more, I’m more interested, like, where does the saying come, like,
Chris Gazdik: Just
Victoria Pendergrass: Someone told that to you, you figured it out on your own.
Chris Gazdik: real and in the moment, related to this platform.
Victoria Pendergrass: Latched onto it.
Chris Gazdik: Yep. Just real and in the moment and related to this platform because it, it, it helped me realize that I actually do that in our, in my work, too. Yeah. Do you
Victoria Pendergrass: tell that to, like, your clients?
Chris Gazdik: I do not.
Victoria Pendergrass: Okay.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. I do not. It’s more for the show, but I do it naturally.[00:11:00]
John-Nelson Pope: Why did you come up with the concept of a podcast through a therapist’s eyes? Oh,
Chris Gazdik: gosh.
Victoria Pendergrass: Now we’re going to put you on the spot.
Chris Gazdik: I know. I have these questions. I didn’t expect
John-Nelson Pope: them. You said you were going to put me on the spot. That’s why I hope.
Victoria Pendergrass: Fair play. Fair
Chris Gazdik: play. It’s Judo. Absolutely. Jiu Jitsu, in Craig’s honor, Jiu Jitsu.
I think that I had just made the statement that I wanted to do a podcast, and Craig was talking about it. I think Craig and I really created it together. I might get in trouble here, though, because it might have been Craig’s idea. I named my cat Paradox, I thought, and I later found out my buddy Adrian named the cat Paradox.
So my memory disabilities I tend to fail. John Craig, I apologize if I’ve stepped on your toes, brother, but I really think Craig and I just created it together. We wanted to do something
Victoria Pendergrass: because this was after you had written your book though.
Chris Gazdik: No, it was definitely before.
Victoria Pendergrass: Oh, it was
Chris Gazdik: before it was before.
Yeah, it was before the book.
Victoria Pendergrass: I’m going to say, I didn’t know [00:12:00] that. I thought it was based off the book.
Chris Gazdik: Nope. Nope. We created the platform and the book through with
Victoria Pendergrass: Erica size came
Chris Gazdik: with the platform. And I, I mean, I had been thinking about
Victoria Pendergrass: yeah,
Chris Gazdik: the, the name and everything for a while. Well,
Victoria Pendergrass: I know that might sound, but I did not know that ,
Chris Gazdik: that’s why would you?
I guess you wouldn’t, it’s never really come up. You haven’t really asked. Well, ’cause you
Victoria Pendergrass: already had the book out by the time I started working here,
Chris Gazdik: did I? Yeah.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah. And so
Chris Gazdik: yeah, it’s been out three, four years. Yeah.
John-Nelson Pope: And I remember two, three with the first one we. We, you came up, but you asked me about what should we have for the cover and you, you came up with, oh, the, the b
Book title, book cover. Yeah. We did a little book cover survey and whatnot. Yeah, that’s right. I remember that. I was gonna say, you,
Chris Gazdik: John touched this show way before that. Do you know when you started?
John-Nelson Pope: No. No.
Chris Gazdik: You started before you knew you started.
John-Nelson Pope: Oh, okay.
Chris Gazdik: Right. Yeah. Oh. You started at, Neil, I don’t know if you were here when John [00:13:00] started with the old office.
It was the old office. The service dog show? Yeah. You weren’t here? No, I didn’t think so.
John-Nelson Pope: With Bob the dog. So, episode 50. Really? Wow.
Chris Gazdik: Episode 50, John Pope came with Bob the dog. And that was July 2019.
John-Nelson Pope: Oh my gosh. And
Chris Gazdik: your wife came in. Joy Pope. And we got to see Bob the Dog in action on episode 50. So.
Protecting your wife when you remember she got tired. Yeah. That was, it was so fascinating. So, I
John-Nelson Pope: mean he, he he alerted. Yeah, because he’s been trained specifically for
Chris Gazdik: the dog
John-Nelson Pope: and we’re going to get a new dog
Chris Gazdik: Yeah,
John-Nelson Pope: yeah, it’s gonna be
Chris Gazdik: Yeah, Craig and I loved that that was probably honestly one of our favorite shows I would have to say
Victoria Pendergrass: so the time this is just weird how this lines up with my time like so when y’all were starting The podcast I was graduating from Grad school.
Oh my gosh.
Chris Gazdik: For real. That’s funny.
Victoria Pendergrass: Second time that may of that year.
Chris Gazdik: That’s funny.
Victoria Pendergrass: [00:14:00] And then in July, July 8th. So, August 7th is when I started my first big girl job in therapy.
Chris Gazdik: Oh, wow. When we were starting the show, you were starting the. Yeah. And then. Profession.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah. And then, I got married short time after that.
That’s how I can. Oh my gosh. The years. Cuz.
Chris Gazdik: Wow.
Victoria Pendergrass: Got married in August of 19.
Chris Gazdik: You had a lot going on these last 4, 5 years. Right in the year. Yeah. And then COVID hit right after that.
Victoria Pendergrass: I haven’t had a.
Chris Gazdik: COVID, right?
Victoria Pendergrass: Regular year of.
John-Nelson Pope: So, you got married right before COVID. Wow.
Victoria Pendergrass: And I got a job right before COVID, and then So listen to some random
Chris Gazdik: things about the number 300.
300th episode milestones are very, very rare. There’s not a lot of places where it has 300 episodes. Like in any type of category. Yeah, well, in show, TV shows. Podcast programs. Yeah, it’s, it’s a, it’s a pretty
John-Nelson Pope: big number. The Simpsons is what over 600.
Chris Gazdik: [00:15:00] Well, is that that’s correct. You’re you’ve got one of them.
So very few TV shows reach 300 episodes, but some that have include the Simpsons. Go ahead
Victoria Pendergrass: I would say Grey’s Anatomy.
Chris Gazdik: You are on point. I wondered if you were gonna get that one. What if I love Grey’s
John-Nelson Pope: Anatomy? Supernatural
Chris Gazdik: No, I think the cheers must have though they didn’t cheers
Victoria Pendergrass: Things like days of our lives They have like
I’m thinking like Prime Time.
Chris Gazdik: They listed Law and order. Okay. Law.
Victoria Pendergrass: Oh yeah. Duh.
Chris Gazdik: And I don’t know what SVU is. Yeah. All order. SV Special Unit. Special Victims Unit. Special Victims Unit. Yeah. Okay. SVU had with a Marissa Haggerty or Hagerty?
Victoria Pendergrass: Mariska.
John-Nelson Pope: Mariska. I’m very
Chris Gazdik: angry that they didn’t have cheers on this, this list, although we probably Cheers.
Has to be. Because there’s like 15 season shears and huh? Shears only [00:16:00] has 275 Yay
Victoria Pendergrass: It’s
Chris Gazdik: all right. It’s all right. It’s all right. It’s all right. One of the most famous battles in history was the battle of Thermopyla. You know what that is?
John-Nelson Pope: Thermopylae. Thermopylae? Yeah, with the Spartans. Alright, there are
Chris Gazdik: 300
John-Nelson Pope: Spartans.
You’re on point. Yeah,
Chris Gazdik: that’s right. We had King Leonidas. We are Sparta! We had King, King Leonidas and his 300 Spartan warriors fought against the Persian army in 1480 BC. Right? There were 300 years of the Roman Republic. Right. Right? It lasted roughly 300 years before transitioning into the Roman Empire.
Yeah. So that’s interesting. 300 itself is a Hachard number. John, you are so smart. Do you know what a Hachard, Hachad, Harchad? H A R S H A D, H A R
John-Nelson Pope: S H A D. I wonder if it’s named after [00:17:00] somebody. But I have no idea. You
Chris Gazdik: have no idea because it’s math. It’s math, yes. A number divisible by the sums of its digits.
3 plus 0 plus 0 equals 3. And 300 divided by 3 equals 100. Pretty cool.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: Pretty cool. 300 seconds equals, how many minutes would you say? Five. He did the math. That’s correct. How’d you do that so fast? Seriously. Or did you just know that?
John-Nelson Pope: I, well, I was, I had it beaten into me, I guess. It was, cause I’m, the old educational methods.
God, that’s scary. Neil, did you know that? I had none. He
Chris Gazdik: did know
John-Nelson Pope: that.
Victoria Pendergrass: He’s a math guy. Without having to think about it?
Chris Gazdik: I believe him. Huh. I believe him. I believe Neil.
Victoria Pendergrass: You know, I definitely did not know that.
Chris Gazdik: 300 Kelvin is the approximate room temperature in science calculations. Okay. Okay. The speed of sound at 300 meters per second.[00:18:00]
Right. Sound travels through the air at roughly this speed. Which is around
John-Nelson Pope: 700. So
Chris Gazdik: per hour biblical reference Gideon’s army John
John-Nelson Pope: 300.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah in the Bible had 300 soldiers much like the legendary Spartans Mm hmm and an angelic number 300 some believe it symbolizes growth creativity and embracing
John-Nelson Pope: The music of the spheres.
Yeah 300 it’s one it’s like a perfect number
Victoria Pendergrass: There’s a lot of facts about the number 300.
Chris Gazdik: So, three questions. Looking back at your own journey, what personal growth or insights have you gained over this past 300 episodes with Through a Therapist Eyes? What are the key messages or lessons from the show that have resonated most with you?
So, so much for listening throughout all this time. And then as we move forward, how can we continue to challenge ourselves to grow, to learn, to engage in meaningful conversations, blowing up stereotypes and myths about
mental health and substance [00:19:00] abuse, which is our current event today, by the way. We can talk the whole show about the current event.
I’m telling you. Yeah. Neil
Victoria Pendergrass: might have to cap us out.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah.
John-Nelson Pope: Are you talking about being censored or something? No, I can’t at
Victoria Pendergrass: a time limit.
Chris Gazdik: But these are, these are the goals that we have. These are the things that we do with our show. We really hope that you’ve been enjoying it along the way with us. What kinds of things behind the scenes do you guys remember?
Victoria Pendergrass: Behind the scenes? Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: What do you, what do you remember all the The sheer terror?
Victoria Pendergrass: I remember Chris always asked me, When are you going to lead a, when are you going to lead an episode? When are you going to do the show nuts? When are you going to, when are you going to take the reins? When are you going to do this or do that?
I’m waiting for you. Episode 199 or 299. I wonder. When you’re going to stop resting.
Chris Gazdik: I have asked you where are we at on that anyway?
What do you mean the sheer terror, John?
John-Nelson Pope: [00:20:00] Well, well that, but I mean, I, yes, it’s a little bit of stage fright all the time, but that’s, that’s okay. It’s good. That’s good. That’s good. It’s positive. It’s when it comes too much, but, but. It’s always coming like, Oh, we’re doing this tonight, or we’re doing this today.
Oh, here it is. Oh, first time I’ve ever seen this. Oh, this is the topic. Or it’s like
Victoria Pendergrass: today we don’t even get show prep for like, we’re just like driving it blind.
John-Nelson Pope: I’m so mean to them y’all. It’s so different from me. Okay.
Chris Gazdik: You’re making everybody hate the, the, the, the host Chris now. No, I know. We love it.
That’s,
John-Nelson Pope: that’s part of it. I love the spontaneity of it.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah. And, and you know, the thing is, is that we all do know, we know a little bit about something. And so it’s kind of like we can all provide, we can all provide insight in something. So, you know, [00:21:00] we
Chris Gazdik: have 53, 443 may not be an exact number, Neal downloads.
Wow. Yeah. Yeah. 53, 443 is our, is our, is our number. We’re famous somewhere. Yeah.
John-Nelson Pope: I looked up and got on YouTube. I was getting my wife on YouTube today for, for, for this episode. Hello,
Chris Gazdik: ma’am. How are you? Hi, Joy.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah. Hi, Joy. But anyway, and so I see these pictures and there’s Chris and there’s Chris. And there’s me, and there’s Victoria, and Sing it.
Victoria, the glorious, you are the only one, you are the best above all the rest.
Chris Gazdik: And Carolyn Baker says, congrats on 300, I can only imagine [00:22:00] how many people you have. Well, thank you. That is, that is what it’s about. You know, that is our, that is our goal. I will say,
Victoria Pendergrass: background, behind the scenes wise, I, for reverse, I tend to forget we’re on camera sometimes.
Chris Gazdik: You do a little bit, don’t you? And I’ll like,
Victoria Pendergrass: I’m sure there’s, there’s episodes out there where it looks like I’m just staring into the abyss. Cause I like zone out for a second. And I’m like there, but I forget that
John-Nelson Pope: we’re basically what we’ve done is we’ve mesmerized her. You know, it’s like how you pet the belly of an alligator or a crocodile.
It goes to sleep. I think it is. We get her thinking
Chris Gazdik: and
John-Nelson Pope: she
Chris Gazdik: just
John-Nelson Pope: goes,
Victoria Pendergrass: yeah,
Chris Gazdik: right. We are in, have been in most all countries around the world. Wow. Really? What’s the total? If you look at the map. There’s not many countries that we haven’t gotten into, so it’s, it’s, it’s [00:23:00] actually, yeah, we’ve picked up listeners in all of those places.
Do we have anybody
John-Nelson Pope: in North Korea?
Chris Gazdik: So, North, you know what, I didn’t see that, probably not, but I didn’t see that as one of the places we did. I we do.
John-Nelson Pope: I mean, it’s, it’d be glad if we did. No,
Chris Gazdik: you know what, I feel like we did.
John-Nelson Pope: Huh.
Chris Gazdik: I feel like we did.
John-Nelson Pope: Oh, good.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And we’ve been in China. We’ve been in different places.
So, in most all countries my,
John-Nelson Pope: my daughter has picked us up in China. Yeah. Oh, really? Yeah. Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: Things like that happen. Yeah. So, except several African countries. I don’t know what it is about Africa. But we, we just, there’s several in Africa,
Victoria Pendergrass: internet access,
Chris Gazdik: maybe. I mean, it’s, you think
Victoria Pendergrass: maybe, I mean, Starlink, but yeah,
Chris Gazdik: Starlink would have it everywhere.
And then in South, in South America, for some reason, we haven’t landed in Paraguay or your goal.
John-Nelson Pope: You’re quite,
Chris Gazdik: you know, your goal, you are a G U a L you’re a goal. Must be a small country [00:24:00] in South America. Yeah. And, the Uruguay is a country. And S V A L B A R D, Svalbard in South America, or, and we haven’t been in Jean Mayen.
And those are the islands up by Greenland. Okay. Well,
John-Nelson Pope: Mr. Trump will change that. Oh, yeah. He may. Sorry, Denmark. I didn’t mean to.
Chris Gazdik: We have not. I’m not agreeing to that. We have not been in Kazakhstan, Kazakhstan, Kazakhstan, Afghanistan,
John-Nelson Pope: or
Chris Gazdik: Mongolia.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah, probably there’d be, we just need somebody to pick us up in Mongolia, but it’s all
Chris Gazdik: about around Afghanistan in the
John-Nelson Pope: Afghanistan.
So Africa
Chris Gazdik: Afghanistan, you know,
John-Nelson Pope: they probably have a real Damper on that. Yeah,
Chris Gazdik: maybe so maybe so The biggest downloads of course is in the United [00:25:00] States, you know get most downloads, you know in the States and then Canada But the third is Brazil Brazil baby, we love you down there and then Australia and the UK are essentially tied for like the house
John-Nelson Pope: Argentina
Chris Gazdik: I don’t know off the top of my head, but Because
John-Nelson Pope: they’re big into the psychoanalysis.
Chris Gazdik: Why do you say that?
John-Nelson Pope: They’ve just always had a large people, a large number of interest in psychoanalysis in the country. Okay. With a lot of psychoanalytic thought.
Chris Gazdik: Interesting. Yes. I never, I’ve never heard that before, so that’s fascinating. It is how about we do and then we’ll come back to the 10 most listened episodes some things that you guys remember about episodes But let’s switch over to this current event.
I want to take a deep dive on this. We could have done the whole show but Yeah, stretch my neck. You need to you need to stay calm [00:26:00] Pointing to victoria like fighting over here stay calm stay calm, but we need to talk about this there’s an article that’s on the show notes that I want to take a deep dive on the title Trump.
Rfk Jr. go after antidepressants, weight loss drugs, and here’s what the science says. So this is from ABC News, I believe, or somewhere but I’m going to recognize and pull Trump card a little bit. We are experts in this. Okay? So we know what we’re talking about on this one.
John-Nelson Pope: Right.
Chris Gazdik: We’re not exactly prescribers, but we’ve been around long enough, so we don’t practice outside of our scope of practice prescribing, but we know what’s up with antidepressants and antidepressants.
Stimulants, medications, antipsychotics, antiallergic agents that are put into regimens of full rounded regimens for treatment of people that we work with. And they’re mostly talking about and concerned about kids. So you know anything, Victoria, about medications for kids with ADHD? [00:27:00] Yes. And
Victoria Pendergrass: this I would, I would give the same pretense that you gave that the same thing of like, even when it comes to kids, I don’t practice out of my scope, but it is obviously a daily part of my engagement with kid.
Yeah. Well, it’s not every kid, but some kids, you’ve, you’ve
Chris Gazdik: shared personally, you know, out of your own, you know, history since you were second grade, we literally be kiddo.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah. Second grade.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. So first of all, I have landed on this and I’ve said this on the show before, but I think it’s a perfect point.
Perfect. Position to take with this that thank goodness. We live in 2025 where we have medicational treatments that are really important elements to help us manage mental health, but they’re not solutions. They’re not the end all, beat all. We don’t have fixes in mental health yet. The science is not there for that.
So the medications help manage, you know, the symptomology along with a full plan of other things like therapy and whatnot. [00:28:00] There’s no
John-Nelson Pope: wonder drug and there’s no wonder therapy, you know, but
Victoria Pendergrass: that would be nice. It
Chris Gazdik: would be nice. Although your therapy is wonderful, John, I must say.
John-Nelson Pope: Oh, thank you very much.
Chris Gazdik: I mean, yeah.
John-Nelson Pope: Yours is too. We’re trying to get updates. Yeah. We’re we’re,
Chris Gazdik: we’re gonna get to. We’re going to get there. We’re working. Thank you. We’re working hard. I’m blushing. So shortly after J, Robert, I always want to say JFK when I think of Robert Kennedy, was sworn in as secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services.
President Donald Trump issued an executive order calling for the team to study the use of antidepressants, antipsychotics, and obesity medications in children claiming that these medications. May cause a threat to adolescents. I just, no, it doesn’t, it doesn’t. It does not cause a threat to kids. [00:29:00]
John-Nelson Pope: I, I’m kind of wondering about the man who, who talked.
I gotta be careful. Yeah, because this, this, we’re not
Chris Gazdik: a political show. And I guess I want to say up front, I honestly But I do
John-Nelson Pope: think he’s on anti science.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. I mean, there’s, there’s some fears of, of his, you know, anti science and all that. He’s not really an anti vaxxer. I mean, I’ve listened to him closely.
I’ve heard him on Rogan. I’ve heard him talk. And I actually liked some of the things that he says, be honest with you. I kind of fly down the middle with a lot of that kind of stuff. But this one here is just flat wrong. It’s not true. This stuff is not. And it’s troublesome because we’ve spent so much time over my entire career where we started out with the stigmas and the myths and the stereotypes and the fears that people have about this shit is absolutely being addressed.
We’ve made such great progress. It’s been 25 years watching us make some strides painstakingly so to where now people. [00:30:00] are okay or not, what
not, with, you know, medicines and all. And by golly, I am not wanting to see us take steps back, man. You don’t
John-Nelson Pope: want to take three steps back. No. To where we were before.
Just It was not okay. It
Chris Gazdik: was not okay before. And
Victoria Pendergrass: I would just like to say, as a reminder, that, like, we do still have a level of free will. And just because those medications are out there doesn’t mean that everybody has to take them. Like, depending on the parents and their, like, their choices. Oh, I’m
Chris Gazdik: very conservative with this stuff.
Yeah, like, I mean,
Victoria Pendergrass: I don’t necessarily, and I don’t exactly know specifically what age range they’re referring to as far as kids. But like,
Chris Gazdik: Yeah, 10, 15, adolescents.
Victoria Pendergrass: But, to my knowledge, at least, we’re not giving, like, anti psychotic medication to, like, a [00:31:00] 5 year old, 6 are we?
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. Okay. Oh, yeah. But then, if that is done,
Victoria Pendergrass: there is a, like, it’s not just willy nilly.
Yeah, these are, these are There is, like These are kids. Let me jump in. These are,
Chris Gazdik: these are kids that are really pretty destructively psychotic. And, and we, there’s early onsets of really heavy, severe and persistent situations.
John-Nelson Pope: Like
Victoria Pendergrass: I said, it’s not just given out willy nilly. Like there are assessments.
Things that have to be criteria that have to be met in order for like a prescription of that to be written would be very like, and I mean, I know every doctor, there’s bad apples, right? But the lot of them do the responsible thing, right?
John-Nelson Pope: I think you have to be careful. Like there, there was the idea that, that well, the teacher says the person is hyperactive or, or ADHD and then.[00:32:00]
The doctor writes a script. I have issues with that, but I think you have to have proper assessments
Chris Gazdik: and there
John-Nelson Pope: are wonderful assessments that would be able to help that you would get. Not only you would get the do the in office and clinic assessment, but you would also get the written report from parents and from, from teachers and collateral inflatable information.
You know, And so that helps you make the assessment and to be able to prescribe, I think, conservatively. Yeah, I didn’t
Chris Gazdik: know this was actually going on. I met a new nurse practitioner, prescriber that tipped me off to this. I looked it up, I’m sure enough, like, yeah, that’s been going on. And she was saying a lot of the same things.
She’s an awesome prescriber. I think she is, so I will get to know her over the months and years to come. But a quote from the article The goals of this commission that were set up with this executive order is to assess the prevalence of [00:33:00] and threat posed by the prescription of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, antipsychotics, mood stabilizers, stimulants, and weight loss drugs.
Kennedy has been critical of these medications in the past, falsely linking the use of antidepressants to school shootings. John. Oh,
John-Nelson Pope: okay. Excuse me. I’m sorry. I just, I think he’s flat. No, he’s flat out wrong. I, I think it’s not true. It’s not true. And it’s a, it’s a falsehood. The other thing is, is that I, I’m wondering about Kennedy’s motivation is that he’s very much been a liability lawyer.
And that he’s made his his fortune several times over as a result of that. I’m sorry just going on. Well, but not
Chris Gazdik: in his head I mean, I’m gonna give an altruistic belief. I mean, I think people have good intentions. I don’t I’m not I’m not into Okay, I mean, you know, I mean good people care they have well [00:34:00] intentions But but there’s gonna
John-Nelson Pope: be a lot of people that are victimized when you’re wrong.
You’re wrong. Yeah. Yeah, you’re wrong here, right? We have black box Warnings That are important to write in and that is that
Chris Gazdik: black box warnings are,
John-Nelson Pope: are in other words, warning, let’s say for serotonin that let’s say that, that it may actually increase what would be the, the working out of depression, but it doesn’t say for, for people having suicidal thoughts, but it doesn’t say And there’s no indication, I think, in the literature, and I may be wrong about this, that would say that it would cause you to do mass shootings it now a child might actually have start having more suicidal ideations.
And have the energy to, if they are severely depressed, it wants to have the energy that they could complete suicide. How many
Chris Gazdik: conversations I’ve had to ward off the myth [00:35:00] that antidepressants cause suicidality. And you just said it. Yeah. What it is. First of all, a lot of times. Unfortunately, people will go to just a medical doctor, don’t get me wrong, they can prescribe, I have no problem with it.
But the problem is, is if you’re heavily depressed and you go as an adult or a kid to a medical doctor, they’ll prescribe you an SSRI and whatnot, Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor. And what that does is, it helps you Gain a little bit of function, but they will prescribe you a six month supply. Wait a minute.
And you don’t see anybody again for six months. There’s no therapy. There’s no modality. There’s no plan. There’s no structured process, right? You need to have, and what happens is you feel a little better, John. And you just said you get a little bit energy. You get a little bit motivation, but you don’t really have a fix yet.
It hasn’t been in your system long enough for the deep, dark sadness and fear and the isolation that you’re stuck [00:36:00] in. So you’re a little bit more energy. You still feel really crappy and you end up being suicidal, right? And
John-Nelson Pope: you, and you’re not able to work through. And that’s what the other thing is, is that I’m starting to feel better and Alice stopped taking the medicine or I’m starting to feel better.
Now I’ve stopped going to therapy.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah, yeah, because
John-Nelson Pope: prematurely and besides that the insurance industry kind of likes to limit, you know with managed care Likes to limit how much it used to
Chris Gazdik: more so than now. It’s a little better now Little better now. Yeah, let me go a little further with this article, right?
So with SSRIs, they’re very safe treatments As are many of our antipsychotics, so they may have some side effects. Dr. Joseph Sassin, Associate Dean for Clinical Affairs and a professor in the Department of Clinical Pharmacy and Family Medicine at Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences in the University of Colorado, told ABC News, right?
This is who, [00:37:00] I just wanted to quote this whole thing. So the executive order has mentioned stimulants, which is a class of medications used to treat Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorder. The case of stimuli is a little bit different for their approved indication. Sassine says, you know, they’re considered safe and efficacious, but they do have potential for addiction.
So, they are stimulants. It’s like speed, basically. But Victoria. I mean, you got to sound off. I know this is your realm. This is you’re
John-Nelson Pope: talking about a ADHD medicine,
Chris Gazdik: right? Right. Yeah. Specifically for stimulants.
John-Nelson Pope: Stimulants.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. I mean, that’s what you’re thinking.
Victoria Pendergrass: I mean, as far as I know, and the science behind it that I know is that like, it doesn’t,
it doesn’t negatively impact kids as they get older. I, like, the way I always prescribe medication to especially people with ADHD or kids with ADHD is
like, if this is your baseline, sorry, if you’re just listening, you can’t see this, but if your baseline is like in the middle,
John-Nelson Pope: Her head’s up at her fore, her [00:38:00] hand is up at her forehead.
Victoria Pendergrass: Like, and you’re either like chillin way up here, cause you’re like super hyperactive, Her hand is waiting way above her head. Are you chilling down here? Medicine, like, brings you to your baseline so that you can actually, like, practice the techniques that you learn in therapy. You can actually, like, put into practice these different things and actually be able to make clear decisions and help with focus and
John-Nelson Pope: Can I hazard this, and that is, is that it actually enables you to be more you, the way you were intended to be, or, Without the ADHD.
Without the ADHD.
Chris Gazdik: It is a very, very effective component of mental health treatment, period. I mean, I know you’re right, John. I, I don’t want to go back, man, to days when people were fearful about this stuff and not taking their prescriptions and not having tools to help them. It’s just, it’s we can’t go back.
I have
John-Nelson Pope: a, [00:39:00] I, I worked on a psychiatric wing of a, of a naval hospital. Yeah. Not Navy. And, and these were Navy people and Marines and Coasties and they would be at the Naval Hospital and they would be having problems. This was before the new class of drugs. So this is 40 years ago and, and antipsychotics and medications.
And they did a number on people. They were and they put them in a chemical straitjackets. That’s not good, but that helped them horrible, but the medications are so much better. Now the next new generations and that people could resume their lives more normal, don’t have to be institutionalized. Don’t have to, what
Chris Gazdik: you just made me think, John is always kind of like cars, you know, like Ford truck, right?
You know, when it came out, they rusted a lot. You know, they had problems, you know, well, that’s West Virginia. Well, that’s West [00:40:00] Virginia. Cause we put a lot of salt on the roads. We actually need the salt. Anyway, we
had a snowstorm down around here, but the thing is, is there’s how many years now of development for the Ford truck.
They figured some stuff out.
Victoria Pendergrass: Now they’re making what? Like electric Ford trucks. Sure. Or whatever now. Like the point
Chris Gazdik: is we have four, five, six generation. SSRIs now, and they’ve gotten better and better at, at, at, you know, the compounds and the things that are, are helpful, right? Yeah, so, so, a little further with this, I think that using the word threat comes from people, I love this part of the article.
Well, I
John-Nelson Pope: think threat is, is absolutely an abhorrent word.
Chris Gazdik: Well, it’s being crashed on, right? The word threat comes from people that aren’t in the medical field because that is not a medical term that we would use, Sassine said. We would use the terms risk versus benefit. Threat is a non medical professional term.
It’s a social term. It’s a polarizing term that may just unduly bias the way that we [00:41:00] would look at any assessment. So during his confirmation hearings late in January, Kennedy falsely suggested that antidepressants were harder to quit than heroin. Getting off of SSRIs, then they have been getting off of heroin he has seen in family members and stuff.
That’s just not true, it’s totally not, it’s like not the case.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah, I’m wondering, Kennedy struggled with addiction issues in his early life. Yeah, I don’t know. So, yes he did. Okay. Okay I’m sorry. Alcoholism or? No, no, heroin. Oh, really? Yeah. Okay.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. Well, and there are many people that have. And,
John-Nelson Pope: and good on him that he was able to, to do that, but to say and compare SSRIs to, to heroin.
I think is, is, is outrageous.
Chris Gazdik: Very inaccurate. Quote on, from the article, I know of no evidence because I don’t think it exists, Sassine said. [00:42:00] I think that those are extremely different cases, diseases. I think that really is demoralizing to patients who have serious mental health disorders. And that’s problematic.
We already have a problem with a stigma with mental health and language like this. Maybe there’s a good intentions behind it, but the negative effects are really bad. And I couldn’t echo that more. I mean, you know, like I said, I think there’s great intentions and I have no problem with us taking hard looks at things.
And there are problems in, in the medication realm. I mean, there are serious problems. I wouldn’t want to have to take them. I’ll be honest with you. You know I’ve, I’ve, I’ve been on them and they made me feel weird at first. It was like
John-Nelson Pope: but you didn’t have the electric shocks or no, didn’t
Chris Gazdik: have the zippers, the zappers, you know, I mean, there’s, there are side effects of all these things.
Appetite, sexual dysfunction is this, these are not perfect. And when you come off, you know, I believe we need to get better in our field of micro dosing, you know, these, these medications because some people,
John-Nelson Pope: and they’re talking about the GLP [00:43:00] ones. Is, is a way of you know, like the zimbics and micro dosing nose with that.
And that, I think
Chris Gazdik: I have heard that. Yeah. Which we’re not talking about the, the weight loss medication, but
John-Nelson Pope: the kids, but they were talking about obesity treatments. What was he saying specifically about children?
Chris Gazdik: I don’t know. I don’t know enough about it. I actually wish Cirilla were here. I really thought that I would want to, to, to try to get her to phone in with us or whatever.
She’s our registered dietitian. I can’t speak for her. I think that I can say that I heard her say though, that the preliminary research that she’s really dove into is
that these are, they’re very effective and very good. The trouble is when you stop taking them, your weight comes back and whatever, but.
John-Nelson Pope: And that’s, that’s the thing until we could actually change the, the brain itself internally. That’s
Chris Gazdik: yeah,
John-Nelson Pope: we don’t have fixes like that now, but the best way you can change your [00:44:00] brain is to be able to make new neural pathways and retrain your brain. But sometimes you have to be an SSRIs in order to get you stabilized so that you can actually intentionally make.
Those new neural pathways and slowly extinct the, the negatives.
Chris Gazdik: And you do this through cognitive behavioral therapy, rational modalities. You do this also through exercise. You do this through proper nutrition. There is a lot that we do do literally change. Oh, our
John-Nelson Pope: physically is, is that it’s if one exercises regularly, that actually is as effective in some ways as a, as A-S-R-S-S-R-I.
Yeah. As in SRI.
Chris Gazdik: All right. You guys are all on the lives. So, get in the chat, pop the chats, because we want to hear from you. Let’s, any closing words on this? We could go a long time on the current event, but let’s get back to some of the fun stuff. [00:45:00] Let’s
Victoria Pendergrass: not catastrophize.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah, Victoria, go with that.
Victoria Pendergrass: Catastrophizing is basically where, like, you think, like, the worst possible thing is going to happen, and, like, it always goes to times ten.
Like, let’s not do that.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. So, take a deep
Victoria Pendergrass: breath. In
Chris Gazdik: No need for it.
Victoria Pendergrass: Like
Chris Gazdik: lead us in a guided imagery. You want to
Victoria Pendergrass: take a chill pill? You want to lead
Chris Gazdik: us in a guided imagery activity? I’d rather
Victoria Pendergrass: not. Not
John-Nelson Pope: at this moment. So we’re, we’re like Debbie Downers, you
Chris Gazdik: know, a little bit, we’re, we’re, we’re fact checking.
We’re, we’re,
John-Nelson Pope: no, I’m talking about. That, that everything’s is going to fall apart, and I think that’s part of the, everything is a catastrophe. Oh, when we’re catastrophized. It is not. Yeah, it’s not. But it’s not. Well, you know, I’ve been on this earth 71 years. Yeah. And it’s amazing.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah, I can’t imagine.
John-Nelson Pope: [00:46:00] You know, I have seen so much positive change, even in terms of how mental health has changed.
Back when I was a little kid, when I was a little kid, they blamed mothers for causing the children children’s schizophrenia. That was, that is, and that has changed so much now, and now we understand the organic nature of it.
Chris Gazdik: I’m laughing, John, because I was talking to my brother just last night, and he’s, he was, he was, he likes some history shows and some things.
And he was talking about like Alexander Hamilton and somebody else, the vice president were going off and they were, they were in some political battles and stuff. And you know what the, the, the malingering fear was and the, the threats and the assessment and the, the back and forth and what everybody was saying?
What? We’re going to lose our democracy. Yeah, yeah. Our democracy is under threat in attack. Literally. Yeah, definitely. Eighteen oh [00:47:00] three was the same concern. And here we are in twenty five. Talking about Hamilton. Stop.
John-Nelson Pope: I mean, our our Republic has survived. Yeah. Assassination of by Aaron Burr and oh,
Chris Gazdik: it was brutal back then. Not assassination,
John-Nelson Pope: but his dueling with Hamilton. Brutal back then, man. Yes. And it’s a, it’s a real good musical. As I say, I have a quote from the
Victoria Pendergrass: musical on my wall. Love that one. From Aaron Burr. I’m the one thing in life I can’t control. I’m inimitable. I’m an original.
John-Nelson Pope: Huh.
Sounds like song lyrics. So he wanted
Chris Gazdik: to be king of the Louisiana area. Alright, so you’re interested in what our downloads most most downloaded shows? Yes!
John-Nelson Pope: Yes, what are they?
Chris Gazdik: So, I don’t know. Neil, you did your, you did your list, I guess. I had. I had.
John-Nelson Pope: I couldn’t figure it out. Yeah,
Chris Gazdik: I don’t think our stats were the same, Neil, when you went through this,
Victoria Pendergrass: from the spreadsheet?
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. No, you guys don’t have the information. Yeah. Yeah, you don’t have the information. [00:48:00] Well, you kind of do. Now, I actually took the numbers off of your show list. So, I had I don’t know what Neil had found there. I actually, I very much had different numbers. Oh, no, I know what I did with my numbers.
I, I, you’re probably, Neil, Neil’s more accurate. But just not, not in this order. But boundaries is being an open book or a private person, good or bad. That
was episode 152, right? Okay. And we had episode 151. 154, what helps make therapy successful and productive? People loved that. Mm hmm. What makes successful When, when was that, by the way?
My
Victoria Pendergrass: episode?
John-Nelson Pope: No, when was it? I don’t have the
Chris Gazdik: dates. Okay. I don’t, I don’t have the dates. Oh, he does. I’ll just go with what Neil was saying. We had one that went off mindfulness completion, immersion in being present. And I don’t know, we never did figure out Neil, what the heck that almost went like viral on that.
We just like [00:49:00] exploded. 159. Dang it. Yeah, it was like some country picked it up and like we had a huge download day or something happened with it. It was, it was very strange. But I
Victoria Pendergrass: love the mindfulness taken off there.
Chris Gazdik: Resentments in marriage was a big one. Yeah. Procrastination, do you want to stop this?
Neil that was a great show wasn’t
Victoria Pendergrass: it? I mean that one being a popular one.
Chris Gazdik: Huh. What is narcissistic personality disorder and how to cope with it? Everybody’s narcissist episode 176 What is intellectualization? Episode 207. I was kind of surprised at that. Yeah, that’s
John-Nelson Pope: interesting. Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: I like it though.
People were really interested in intellectualizing and that buzz term. Yeah, it’s
John-Nelson Pope: putting things in silos. Refute negative
Chris Gazdik: messages was up there. Yeah. New dating patterns. Move in together or wait. I love that that was one of the One of the popular ones. Should we? Should we not? Should
John-Nelson Pope: we? Should we move in?
Chris Gazdik: Should we
John-Nelson Pope: move in? Yeah. I had to, [00:50:00] yeah, I had to think about that clinically too. I mean, because my experience because I’m religious I’m a minister. On top of being a therapist, is that what has, what does moving in actually help you with your, once you get married, you know, if you wait a few years and then before you get married or a couple of years and then lo and behold, people move in together and then they, they break up after they get married, which is.
So, I thought it was, that was interesting. So, I’m going to
Victoria Pendergrass: guess that you did not move in with your wife before you
John-Nelson Pope: got married. No.
Chris Gazdik: No, he says. No, no, no. I love that the title, what helps make therapy successful or productive is one of the one of the higher downloaded shows. I thought about it.
Victoria Pendergrass: Josh and I live together.
May, June, July, August. We live together for three, 3 ish months before we got married.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah, I, I, yeah.[00:51:00]
Chris Gazdik: So, I wanted to do this Neal, I don’t know man, we need to get you a microphone. I told him that I was gonna get him the camera. Oh lord. This is what he does. I’ll show. Say hello. Hey. Is it even on him right now? Oh yeah. Yes, it’s on him. He makes everything happen.
Speak loudly. No, no , no. We pull him out on the Neil now, now I’ve messed up his key. He
John-Nelson Pope: is one of the very upset. He and his wife and family are some of the kindest, most wonderful people in the, yeah. We
Victoria Pendergrass: like Neil.
Chris Gazdik: Well, I gotta say, you know, Neil, for, for real I’ve seen the thing on the YouTube live now.
I’ve moved it around. No, I love what you do, Neil. I really am appreciative of, you know, you, he makes everything happen guys in the background. And, you know, we, he, he guides us, he helps us, he kind of sets everything up. He [00:52:00] kind of goes. Through you know, ideas, you know, the back end of all the computer stuff and all the energy that you put in.
I mean, Neil, you’re, you’re, you’re absolutely amazing. I mean, I appreciate everything that you’ve done coming into the show. Do you remember when it was? We talked about that recently. I didn’t look it up, but you remember how long ago it was?
You feel like it went back to under 100? Yeah. Yeah. Because you and Neil, you and Craig did some stuff together. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, I
John-Nelson Pope: remember that.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it was, well, he wasn’t there in your original show, though.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah, that’s right.
Chris Gazdik: So, it was after 50.
John-Nelson Pope: It was after 50,
Chris Gazdik: but I would see the So,
Victoria Pendergrass: wait, who did Neil’s job before Neil was here?
Chris Gazdik: Craig, Craig pretty much. So he did that, yeah. Yeah, he did a lot of that stuff. So he was
Victoria Pendergrass: on the show and did the I did
Chris Gazdik: the content stuff and they kinda did the back end of things. Okay, cool. I have to create the content. So Neil, little round of applause. Yay,
Victoria Pendergrass: snaps for Neil. [00:53:00]
Chris Gazdik: Love you Neil, 91.
Episode 91 he’s saying, okay. Yeah, we need to get the we need to get another mic so we can get you on here We’re gonna get that fixed. I thought we had another man. We yeah broke. Oh, that’s So, what do you guys remember about some of the shows What I remember about like, you know, you’re you’re you’re you’re kind of favorite shows your thoughts about shows, you know, what stucks?
Victoria Pendergrass: Remember my our first like the first the first show I was on was when we introduced Like doing the panel of like having me John and Casey and you
Chris Gazdik: That’s right, Casey Right,
Victoria Pendergrass: we miss Casey and I remember being nervous as all get out.
John-Nelson Pope: I remember, I remember Casey and she could speak, she’s the most articulate person in the world.
Love
Victoria Pendergrass: Casey.
John-Nelson Pope: Just as articulate as you could possibly be. Yeah. And, and I’m just [00:54:00] felt like all I could do is like
Chris Gazdik: Take it Casey. I was sitting right
Victoria Pendergrass: where John was the very first session. Did you really? Neil went to
Chris Gazdik: high school with Casey, he says. I think I knew that. And
Victoria Pendergrass: Casey was my supervisor, and she’s the reason I’m at Metrolina Psychotherapy.
Yep. Associates, which is where we work.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah, Casey’s time on the show is a little bit too short. We lost it quickly. I’ve talked to her. Casey, come back. Yep.
Victoria Pendergrass: Baby, come back. That’s all I got.
John-Nelson Pope: See you, John. That’s, no, that’s great. I like that.
Victoria Pendergrass: Well, that’s one of the things I remember. It’s like, John singing almost
Chris Gazdik: John.
I love your addition to the show, man. You really are so quippy. You, you, you have such incredible memory for detail of things long ago and you add a science piece to this thing that is indelible. I mean, it’s, he, he, he breaks out on song all the time. Like I love what you do. Yeah.
John-Nelson Pope: You know, one of the things that I also love about this is, is that you get us to [00:55:00] talk about, because I would geek out in just minutiae.
Yeah, yeah. And,
Victoria Pendergrass: and A monologue of Yeah, a monologue of minutiae. Information.
John-Nelson Pope: Right. And what I like is that you kind of stretch me into areas I don’t think, well, that’s, is that really mental health? And then I’m thinking Yeah. Yeah, it is. It is. It’s living. Right. So it’s, it’s very much an idea that for example, some of these things that, that you were talking about, some of the dynamics, for example, with, with children and divorce, for example.
Mm hmm. You know, I would, I would, I would focus in on the pathology sometimes, and I think you guys would focus more on terms of, well, what’s some of the dynamics that are going on here in the system, living situation, living situation and that sort of thing. Yeah,
Victoria Pendergrass: for sure.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. Yeah. I love that. You know, we’ve had so many amazing guests [00:56:00] and, and honestly.
A lot of the guests, I feel like, were before you guys. Huh. Yeah, I’ve only been
Victoria Pendergrass: here for one guest.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah.
Victoria Pendergrass: Well, two.
Chris Gazdik: Two? I’ve been here for two. No. Huh?
Victoria Pendergrass: I was here for two.
Chris Gazdik: Okay.
Victoria Pendergrass: Do you want me to name them? Sure. Oh, Ben Higgins and Evan from First Horizon. Oh, Evan,
Chris Gazdik: yeah, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I was wondering what the second one was, but But Ben was awesome.
That was amazing.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah, so cool to get to talk to him. I wish I didn’t have such bad internet connection at the time. That
Chris Gazdik: was a terrible yeah. You were, you were hating your internet at the time, weren’t you?
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah, it was making me very laggy. Yeah. But, yeah, it was pretty cool. Like Mac,
John-Nelson Pope: Mac’s headroom.
Chris Gazdik: You don’t, he was, he was a max headroom figure. Right. So, so if you’re wondering who Ben Higgins is, cause I had no idea myself, he, he’s a bachelor. So we had the bachelor on the show and I was just impressed with him. Impressive young man. And I have, I literally just put his book out to somebody else just the [00:57:00] other day.
I had a really extensive conversation with a, with a young man who was dealing with the issues that Ben talked about. And I totally got him to buy his book and get into his content cause it was absolutely on point.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yep.
Chris Gazdik: Yep. Yep. Yep. But listen, I mean, we had so many guests, Neil, I want you to have a mic.
To, as a matter of fact, get him your mic, John, because the shows and guests that we had, Neil, I’m curious what you remember from some of these people. I mean, before you were here, we had Dan Miller, who is now deceased, actually, unfortunately, very sad. Yeah. But episode 10, we had MJ Vest that was before you also sharing her real life story of domestic violence.
I mean, very powerful, John. Very powerful. You know episode 27 was my favorite title. Decision making trust your gut or use your head. Like I love that, that title, but what do you think about some of the people that we’ve had guests in the, over the time? I mean, just a humbling group of people.
Neil Robinson: It’s, [00:58:00] it’s really cool to see some of the stories.
Cause I mean, I missed out on some of the really powerful ones. You and Craig did some crazy like guests before I even got involved, but he really did. I think Lavon Earl was one of the first ones I did with her stuff that she dealt with. Yeah. From those pieces, those, she was really cool. Religious trauma.
That was a, she came on I think a couple times. Yes. So, I mean, it’s always good, it’s always interesting to see the different stories and the people’s missions and purposes that they go through and what they went through, where they are now. The one lady I think that had the 99 problems, I don’t remember what she had, but she came in.
Janice, yeah. I liked her as a guest too. She was, she was fun. It was just a Fun personality, very light to everything. So I think that’s the fun part about the guest. It’s you just get different personalities. It’s mixes up the energy in the room. It really changes it. So that’s what I loved about having the different guests in there.
Chris Gazdik: The guests that we had recently, actually, you’ve had more guests in the time that we’re here because remember the lady that talked about homelessness, what was her name? I don’t know if I wrote it down and I don’t remember. Oh my gosh, her [00:59:00] name. I’m so far brain farting.
Victoria Pendergrass: Not,
Are you talking about guess why we were pur?
I’ve only been on the same episode as two other people.
Chris Gazdik: No, it, it not on the same episode. Okay. But we, we had guests that in the time, during my time here. Yes. Right, right. Yeah, because she
Neil Robinson: works, she works for guest account or something, doesn’t she? Janice? Some. Was it Janice or was it someone else? Because I know it was a different one.
I think I know who you’re talking about though. I remember that one, but.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah, I don’t know. We’ve had, we’ve had several actually since you guys have been on. And we’re
Neil Robinson: really hoping this, this next year, we’re looking at getting some other programs so we can do some more remote, remote remote sessions.
Yeah, I want to get confident
Chris Gazdik: with that again because I have wonderful people at Morgan James Publishing, shout out to them on our 300th episode. You know, Morgan James Publishing has wonderful authors with amazing stories. My personal editor was on here, Courtney Donaldson, talked about. Sex addiction with her husband.
I mean, powerful stuff. I gotta say you’re right, Neil. One of the, before you came on really, really powerful stories that Craig and I did in the beginning, Stephanie fast is one of the [01:00:00] ones that blows my brain apart and the trauma history that she had as a child, you know, being
John-Nelson Pope: fully
Chris Gazdik: abandoned at age five to roam the hills.
and fend for herself at age freaking five. And she shares her powerful story and the resiliency that she’s, she developed. Just, just absolutely on unreal Jim. Oh, Oh yeah. The that’s on my list s
got their books up. On my shelf, when somebody’s a guest, I will have books on their side.
It’s a little hobby that I do. I buy their book and work with them. Yeah, you’re right. We had Joshua Shea. You remember Joshua Shea with sex addiction? Tom Martin was amazing with sex trafficking. And his private investigative work that he’s done. Tom Dutta, amazing Tom Dutta and, and his, his high achiever and [01:01:00] CEO deals going on.
Hey, my son chimed in. We live, we live in. Hey, Aaron. What’s up? My son doesn’t, that’s awesome. My son kicked in. Barbara Brown does as well. Miss Barbara Brown, you know, grandma. I’ll tell you a tough one. Episode 78. Do you know what episode 78 was?
Victoria Pendergrass: No,
Chris Gazdik: chris’s personal story You
Victoria Pendergrass: as in you crit in the
Chris Gazdik: business of dying.
Huh so on this show We’re winding down I think a little bit but you gotta understand Probably should have wanted to say this off the get go, like we are really genuine and I purposely want to be genuine and real when stuff’s going on, you know, like with cast dying, you know, I mean, it’s tough stuff and I think I did two personal shows of really tough stuff that I went through.
One was actually fraud, the day of almost being nailed with fraud. We did a show on fraud and how people can get hit with this. And it was like weird. Cause my head was [01:02:00] ringing that day, Greg and I did that show on fraud cause I was almost a victim. And then when my sister died,
John-Nelson Pope: that’s right.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. Yeah.
And then I was like, I actually lost it at the end of the show. Yeah. And we played what song? Probably country roads. You know, take me home. You know, and I just my I lost my sister and and you know, that song is a very special song to me anyway and and I was just live. That was raw live on air you know, dealing with death and dealing with you know, my sister having passed away.
So
John-Nelson Pope: it was that that was after the funeral wasn’t it?
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. Pretty. Soon after. Soon after. That was a beautiful service. Certainly single days. And I mean
Victoria Pendergrass: I’ve even shared my, when it was just you and I, Yeah. We did my, like my ADHD story and talked about like the Adderall epidemic and Your
Chris Gazdik: personal revelation and travels and journey.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah, yeah I mean I totally agree. We tried, I mean. [01:03:00] I would, I would like to say that who we are, who you see us as, is who we are in real life.
Chris Gazdik: We are genuine.
John-Nelson Pope: It’s the core conditions, that’s what that was very important. The idea of, in terms of counseling, is that you’re transparent, genuine, authentic.
Victoria Pendergrass: In unconditional positive. Unconditional
John-Nelson Pope: positive regard.
Chris Gazdik: We did a powerful show on Episode 232. Neal, I almost grabbed the mic again. With This Will Not Defeat Me.
Victoria Pendergrass: Oh yeah, yeah.
Chris Gazdik: Right? Launching our program to really help, which we need to get back into launching and do some stuff with that, but. Survivors of Sexual Abuse.
Oh yeah. Chris Davos shared. Powerful, powerful, personal experience of, of his torturous, horrendous abuse that he endured.
John-Nelson Pope: Right. And it’s It’s interesting to me that [01:04:00] a lot of our clients have had some area of sexual abuse, have been abused. Men. Many, many.
Chris Gazdik: I said men.
John-Nelson Pope: Men. Men.
Chris Gazdik: And as well as women. Men and women.
John-Nelson Pope: Both. Men don’t talk about it.
Chris Gazdik: No. We have no platform. No venue.
John-Nelson Pope: No safety. Just had one, one client today said, well, you know that he was, he was appalled when he was in high school that one of the teachers had, who was an assistant principal, sexually abused, had sexual relations with a couple of, of high school students that were kind of, they were on the verge of failing.
And so they basically joined in with her and that’s abuse. I mean,
Chris Gazdik: I got to turn it to a positive thing real quick. Can it, can it get positive before we get too sad? Because I’m glad that Aaron, I’m glad you buddy chimed into the week, the [01:05:00] YouTube live, because I wanted to celebrate with the idea that. You know, my son was on the show.
Yeah. You remember that Neil? Yeah. He came on with his buddy around the, around the time of year of graduation. And we talked about his experience graduating and what they did together in, in, in through COVID because he was class of 2020, he was the class of COVID. We had no graduation to this day. I had no pictures of my son in a gown
Victoria Pendergrass: and
Chris Gazdik: Aaron, that still hurts my heart, by the way, buddy.
Really? So, we ought to I don’t make you feel bad. I don’t make you feel
John-Nelson Pope: bad. It’s not his fault. Get him a gown. Get him a gown. I have a gown. You can put him in one now. You can borrow mine.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah.
John-Nelson Pope: With my little border board. Picture
Chris Gazdik: my kid in a gown. with the graduation. We would be remiss to say, as well, October month in review episode 204, I believe.
I don’t know when the date was for that, but that is when we began the months in reviews with Adam Cloninger. [01:06:00] Yay,
Victoria Pendergrass: Adam!
Chris Gazdik: Clicks and claps for Adam Cloninger, man. I love you Adam, doing that show with us. It is, it is absolutely cool because he adds such a component. With not being clinical, which we’ve had, you know, cogos on the show before we did the panel format, you know, with, with nonclinical people, which is fun for me, you know, to, to get your conversations with people.
I mean, our conversations are great, very informative, lots going on, but when you get like nonclinical folks and have these conversations, they, John, they make you think in a different way.
John-Nelson Pope: Yes. They have you think,
Chris Gazdik: well, outside the box, yeah. Yeah. And, and, and, and to see what they know already is also super cool because we’ve done a good job in getting information out to the world.
And there’s,
John-Nelson Pope: and people are, they could be very wise. You can have a lot of knowledge and not be wise, or you could be not trained.
Chris Gazdik: See, see, see, see Neil Robinson, right? This guy. Yeah. Oh, is that [01:07:00] his name? Okay. That’s, yeah. You
Victoria Pendergrass: didn’t know his last name?
Chris Gazdik: Oh, yeah, I did. He’s not trained, but he’s brilliant.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah,
Chris Gazdik: he is brilliant.
So, I, we don’t have a lot of time. We’re winding down here. Wait, did you
John-Nelson Pope: want to say about the future of mental health? Yeah, yeah. Well,
Chris Gazdik: I’m not, we’re not done. We’re not done yet. That, yeah. Because I wanted to spend more time on that. And I guess we can go over, we can go as long as we want. We could do another, we
John-Nelson Pope: could actually do a
Victoria Pendergrass: 300 part
Chris Gazdik: 2.
What do you think about the future of mental health care? John, what do you what do you think?
John-Nelson Pope: Well, I think one of the areas that you were going to about the future is talking about hormones.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah.
John-Nelson Pope: And that, yeah, that does affect us hundred percent. And that, that was not considered a big thing until recently.
I mean, it’s, is it
Chris Gazdik: yet considered a big thing? No, it’s not. Mm-hmm. A big
John-Nelson Pope: thing. I think it’s still, it’s cutting, talking about it, cutting edge. Another aspect of it is the [01:08:00] idea that perhaps a more targeted and, and a lot. Instead of having a blunt hammer dealing with some serious mental illness issues, depression, anxiety, is to actually have more targeted medications.
And so that would be a lot of research in it with the growth of AI. I wonder
Chris Gazdik: exactly, exactly. I wonder where we’re going with the addition of medical research and in our field specifically with mental health. With A. I. and what that does to medication. Whatever laser, whatever magnetic resonance, we have magnetic treatments.
I mean, there are alternative things that are out there that we don’t really understand a lot yet.
John-Nelson Pope: You, you actually can have stimulation of the brain. Huh. That would help, not just with, with diseases like Parkinson’s or something like that, the neurological diseases, but also help with profound depression.[01:09:00]
And and it’s their treatments that are done.
Chris Gazdik: I got an ex business partner that’s big into, I forget what he calls it, but there’s a sensory, you know, you lay on a bed, the bed moves you get a sound coupled with vision of things that you see with lights and this type of thing. And that combination sensorally makes a very high impact in the neurological process.
Well, I would also
John-Nelson Pope: Psychedelics do something very similar, don’t they? Oh,
Chris Gazdik: Joe Rogan loves talking about psychedelics, baby.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: Are we going to have psychedelics
John-Nelson Pope: you could
Chris Gazdik: Shave your head? Grow
John-Nelson Pope: up. Now, you can’t make
Chris Gazdik: jokes about, is this really a thing or not? It’s a thing, it’s a thing,
John-Nelson Pope: I think. And in fact, the VA has actually allocated a significant amount of money in research.
Chris Gazdik: I don’t know how I feel about that stuff. How do you feel about that?
John-Nelson Pope: About shrooms? Psychedelics.
Chris Gazdik: On mental
Victoria Pendergrass: health care. We’ll save that for another topic for another day. That’s
John-Nelson Pope: been a
Chris Gazdik: Well, we’re talking about the future though. [01:10:00]
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah. Yeah,
John-Nelson Pope: I think that would be, yeah, to me is Potentially. Potentially. I think LSD was originally there was an aspect of it that for mental health.
Yeah,
Chris Gazdik: well, cocaine was too, though. I mean, that’s not good. 7
John-Nelson Pope: percent solution.
Chris Gazdik: Right. Yeah. I don’t know. I, it’s, it, I’m, I’m a skeptic when it comes to the psychedelics. I really you know. S Academy. Well, we had a doctor on. You remember Neil Dr. Chepke?
John-Nelson Pope: Huh.
Chris Gazdik: Before you really, you had to, that was before you had
John-Nelson Pope: to,
Chris Gazdik: that was that long ago.
John-Nelson Pope: Didn’t you have two sessions with him?
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. Dr. Chepke was two episodes and he talked about esketamine. He did make me a believer in the esketamine, which I guess is a form of the
John-Nelson Pope: downsides to that. There are some downsides like with everything.
Chris Gazdik: microdosing. I didn’t mean to interrupt you, but micro dosing this stuff, guys, getting all tripped out on trees, but I cut you off.
John-Nelson Pope: No, no. Micro [01:11:00] microdosing. Yeah. I think they’re even doing a nasal spray with That’s the ketamine. Yeah. Yeah.
Victoria Pendergrass: I mean, I think people feel, I feel like people about have a heart attack when I tell them I’ve had fentanyl because I, I had what? Yeah, because I had it in my late when I was laboring. Did you get fentanyl?
Yeah. They gave me fentanyl when very small doses of it. I actually had two doses of it. Freak. Yeah,
Chris Gazdik: dude. Before I,
Victoria Pendergrass: before I had my epidural, they offered me fentanyl, and I was like, what the f Excuse me? And they were like, okay, it’s not, it’s not the stuff you get off the street. They
John-Nelson Pope: gave me propanol, what is it called?
Propanol? Yeah, that’s good stuff too, but fentanyl
Chris Gazdik: is like brutal, man. Like, what are we doing, really? Fruity.
Victoria Pendergrass: Did you like?
Chris Gazdik: It
Victoria Pendergrass: worked very well, . It worked
Chris Gazdik: very well for
Victoria Pendergrass: contractions.
Chris Gazdik: I, I had somebody tell me that as well that they were in terrible, terrible pain and nothing was working. We were just talking about that this week with somebody.
Anyway, they did [01:12:00] use the fentanyl and boom. Yeah, it.
John-Nelson Pope: I think the growth would be also to help with people with addictive personalities and brain structure. How that, how that could be targeted that there would be a medication
Chris Gazdik: about the brain a little bit, aren’t we? Yeah. So much to learn about the brain though.
Victoria Pendergrass: I’m hoping as far as in the future. Things more towards kids.
Chris Gazdik: You’ve got a lot of future, Victoria. Yeah. Where do you think 30 years from now, when you’re retiring age like John, that mental health field is going to be like? Isn’t that crazy to think about? Yeah, it’s hard to
Victoria Pendergrass: think about.
Chris Gazdik: You’re going to see it.
Yeah, I think
Victoria Pendergrass: about the basics, like more accepting, more, you know, more people are willing to like, trust in it and believe it.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah, more progress with that. More
Victoria Pendergrass: progress with, like, inclusion. More progress with evidence based things for kids and teenagers. Evidence based. [01:13:00] And, you know, adolescents at a young age and
John-Nelson Pope: I think breaking down the barriers, but I think we’re always a generate, we’re one generation away from having a dark ages because I think there has been an anti science scientific of movement it with recently in the last.
Victoria Pendergrass: It’s science. Yeah. Like it’s. Yeah, I think
Chris Gazdik: it’d be twisted that Victoria is science, but some people will do, you know, science studies for their own agenda. You could do a lot of bad science out there, guys.
John-Nelson Pope: P hacking. There’s a lot of that. I’m going to repeat. And I think there’s a lot of bad
Chris Gazdik: science out
John-Nelson Pope: there.
But you see, I think science does a lot of that on its own because it’ll make, And then science reporters will, will make and say things that, that there’s speculation about saying that it’s going to be the be all and end all and of course it doesn’t turn out [01:14:00] that way. Right.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. As a general rule, moving forward, when you talk about cannabis use for mental health or you talk about psychedelics for mental health, when, when you, whenever you hear like we did say that about cocaine, it was the end all be all John.
This and the other and trauma and mental health and depression. I remember when it wasn’t like it wasn’t
John-Nelson Pope: addictive and there was, there was a movement in the 70s. When someone, some scientists or doctors said,
Chris Gazdik: well, it’s not addictive. Yeah. Cocaine. Cocaine. That’s what I’m saying. Like, there is no end all, be it all.
So anytime you hear somebody that has a long list of things that something is wonderful for, just be skeptical. Like, come on, we’ve, we’ve had this before and that’s going on right now with wheat, THC, CBD specifically, and especially is supposed to help with like a list of. 20 things including depression and trauma and all like, come on.
I don’t, we don’t, that’s not, it’s not that great.
Victoria Pendergrass: [01:15:00] But I would like to see more, like, nevermind. What? Like more studies and things that say whether or not that is yes or no.
John-Nelson Pope: So, sure, needs research. But we need to make sure that there’s sufficient funding for science. Right, that is also.
Victoria Pendergrass: I think like lobbying and things for mental health,
Chris Gazdik: hopefully
Victoria Pendergrass: in 30 years will be way better, especially for people like John and I, who are licensed clinical mental health workers.
Our lobbying and advocacy has a much shorter history than social work is very strong. And so I would, as far as like the LCMHC realm for there to be people that step up and like, you know, Yeah, but you finally
Chris Gazdik: got on Medicare. That’s a political thing for LPCs can now be on Medicare.
Victoria Pendergrass: We T. W. and I still have to finish my application.
Oh, get busy girl. Get on [01:16:00] Medicare. But still. So, yeah, I mean, there are definitely lots of things that I hope that mental health is moving and hopefully it is a upward progression and not linear or If you,
John-Nelson Pope: you know, if, if you knew how much, and I think Chris, you could attest to this as an MSW and us as LCMHC’s, there is so much we have to know and there’s so much that we are not even prepared for in our education because I’ve done this.
I,
Victoria Pendergrass: oh that maybe is another thing, I kind of would like to see some changes in our grad, in the grad school programs.
Chris Gazdik: Oh boy, lots there. Yeah,
Victoria Pendergrass: yeah, just as far as like the content and the quality and like what exactly because I think I’ve mentioned this before, like.
Chris Gazdik: Actually, I don’t think I’ve heard you talk much about this.
Victoria Pendergrass: Right, like. You go to grad school, and then your internship is what you have to do usually to graduate, and then [01:17:00] that’s kind of like dipping your toes in the water, but a lot of programs either focus heavily on private practice or they focus heavily on agency work, and so then if you go into the opposite of whatever your program kind of like focused on, you’re kind of like a fish out of water.
You’re like, okay, nothing I just learned in grad school, they teach you the academic side of it, but they don’t. At least in the program I was in, like, there’s not as much, like, hands on. Experience or like,
John-Nelson Pope: right? What am I trying to say? No, no. The VA for example, has this is John’s
Chris Gazdik: expert area of a
John-Nelson Pope: psychologist.
They get through their, their their years. And they’ll do they’ll actually do a year’s internship at a, like a VA hospital and Okay. And work as interns there. And they get, they get a really well rounded education that way. We [01:18:00] don’t because we, it’s a master’s level. Yeah. But you see, I’m, I’m someone who believes actually that there should be two levels of practice and in terms of two levels of education.
One would be a doctor of of, of mental health counseling, clinical mental health counseling. And of course, then there would be the PhD. I
Chris Gazdik: got to jump in and pull you, John, because you’re, earlier you said that I pull you out of the, the minutiae of the thing. Like, I feel like you could go down this rabbit hole because I, I, I just feel you geeking out on this.
John-Nelson Pope: Do I? Study’s over. Me goes. Bye. But, but I, I think that, that there needs to be some sort of a, like a a year internship. I just know this is your total jam, man. I know. This is your jam. I, I, I, I’m very passionate about the profession. But I, I, I belong to the the ACA, but also the American Psychological Association.
The
Victoria Pendergrass: APA.
John-Nelson Pope: The APA, because I feel like [01:19:00] actually I’m heard more in the APA than the ACA. All right, let’s, let’s get, let’s get into wrapping
Chris Gazdik: up a little bit with we’re actually, I’m going to end with something that John and Neil have no idea. That we’re going to start doing. They have not heard this yet.
Yes, Victoria knows. So, what are we doing with the the posts? The media gal, Victoria.
Victoria Pendergrass: Okay, so I am your new social media person. We’re still working on some, like, logistical things. But I would just say kind of be on the
lookout for more posts on Instagram. Hopefully I can get us started, like, a TikTok page soon.
I’m worried about TikTok, but can’t do. But, so just kind of, you know, don’t be afraid to interact. We like comments. We like, you know, we try to respond to all the ones that we get. We will, if you follow us, we will follow you back.
Chris Gazdik: That’s the plan. Him. Yeah. That’s the promise we’re making. No brag, just
John-Nelson Pope: fact.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yup.
John-Nelson Pope: John, what’s [01:20:00] up with the newsletter? Well, I’m gonna get started on it. I’ve had, I’ve had age related issues. So, oh,
Chris Gazdik: age related issues? Yes.
John-Nelson Pope: Not not memory, okay? That’s
Chris Gazdik: good.
John-Nelson Pope: So that’s good.
Chris Gazdik: Are you okay?
John-Nelson Pope: Yes. Yes. I I have for the last 6 months have had sort of a it’s called neurosar sarco, sarco dosis and it sounds real serious, but I’m inactive right now.
So that’s a good news. Yeah. So,
Chris Gazdik: okay. Neil and I still do the nuts and bolts. We’re going to be doing as we go along content still free, hopefully you enjoy it and helpful in the background. And I, and I want to spend just a moment, Victoria on, you know, thank you for stepping in and doing some of the media posts.
I love what you add to the show. It’s a, it’s a, it’s a, yeah, it’s clips and claps for me for Ms. Victoria. I mean, you know, it looked like you, you add just such a, a fun flair. [01:21:00] A fun energy flair, a, a, Looking for a while there, I was
Victoria Pendergrass: unmedicated.
Chris Gazdik: Oh yeah, we know that. For a while I was unmedicated, Victoria. Did you see her
John-Nelson Pope: on the walls?
She went a little
Chris Gazdik: bit crazy. Crab walk backwards. Unmedicated ADHD energy. And I love it. It’s so cool to have the mentor moments. to have the things early on in the career. doing those.
Victoria Pendergrass: I think we’ve talked about trying to do one, like at least one a month.
Chris Gazdik: Maybe so. Yeah. Or just whenever that
Victoria Pendergrass: it kind of pops up.
Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: So, I just, I just appreciate your addition. I think that you’re wonderful on here. I like being a part of this. Yeah. It’s, it’s the highlight of my week in a lot of ways. Yeah. Honestly. Alright. And so, we are wrapping up now, and we’re gonna tell you about how we’re going to add a new feature. John and Neil, listen up.
Victoria, what is the shrink wrap up?
Victoria Pendergrass: Okay, the shrink wrap up is going to be what we do at the end of [01:22:00] every session. Or not session. It’s a session! Yeah, end of every episode. Do I get to charge you? I get the bill.
Chris Gazdik: No. This is covered under my insurance. This is definitely a negatory on that.
Victoria Pendergrass: But anyways, it’s just going to be a time for us to each kind of, in like two or three sentences, kind of just summarize what we would, how we would take action.
So
John-Nelson Pope: it’s called the shriek rap. The Shrink Wrap Up. Shrink Wrap Up. I think Shrink Wrap.
Chris Gazdik: Shrink Wrap?
John-Nelson Pope: I’m joking. We can take the Wrap Up
Chris Gazdik: off if you want. But we’ll take a moment to highlight what we thought was the big answer or an important piece and how we articulate that, how we succinctly say that. And then Neal, maybe you’re going to decide who did the best one.
Victoria Pendergrass: Maybe.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah, which one, which one’s the most important, which
Victoria Pendergrass: one it sounds. But like a quick, short, four sentences tops of just like, pull away, put into action, anything around those times. So we’ll play around with
Chris Gazdik: that [01:23:00] guys. Listen, we’re gonna get out of here today. But we really appreciate you listening.
We really enjoyed doing the show. We really hope that you help, you do your part. You know, share this with friends, share this with people, tell them about us. We really want to blow up stereotypes and stigmas. We really want to disseminate information about mental health. We really want to help you understand the things that affect us from a day to day.
And we appreciate you along with this ride with substance abuse and addiction and literally what our experiences are through a therapist’s eyes. It’s not just the title, it’s the way that we operate, the way that we see things. Our genuine input and gift to you is what we endeavor to figure out together with you.
So, it’s been a hell of a ride for 300 episodes. Very special. We pray for
John-Nelson Pope: 300 more.
Chris Gazdik: Yes. We want 300 more. And
Victoria Pendergrass: I, as your social media gal, challenge you to go find your favorite episode and send it to someone that you think might benefit from it [01:24:00] or Who you wanted to share with.
Chris Gazdik: Please do that. Any thoughts, John?
John-Nelson Pope: No, this is perfect. Thanks for being here, guys. I’m not going to be in the wrap up to this week. None of us are in the wrap up to this week.
Chris Gazdik: Oh, okay. None of us are in
Victoria Pendergrass: the shrink wrap up.
Chris Gazdik: Guys, we will see you for episode 301. And that will be a month in review. Take care.
John-Nelson Pope: Thank you.
Chris Gazdik: Bye.
Victoria Pendergrass: Snaps, yes