Mind Dive Episode 67 Transcript: Understanding Racial Stress and Finding Self-Love

Featured Guest:  Ryan DeLapp, PhD 

Episode Air Date:  June 16, 2025 

 

Dr. Bob Boland: 0:02 

Welcome to the Mind Dive podcast brought to you by the Menninger Clinic, a national leader in mental health care. We're your hosts, Dr. Bob Boland and Dr Kerry Horrell. 

Monthly we explore intriguing topics from across the mental health field and dive into hidden realities of patient treatment. 

Dr. Bob Boland: 0:18 

We also discuss the latest research and perspectives from the minds of distinguished colleagues near and far. 

Dr. Kerry Horrell: 0:23 

So thanks for joining us. 

Dr. Bob Boland: 0:26 

Let's dive in. 

Dr. Kerry Horrell: 0:33 

Welcome back to Mind Dive podcast. Today we have a very exciting guest. We have Dr Ryan DeLapp, Ph. D. Dr DeLapp is a licensed psychologist in New York, Washington DC, Maryland and Virginia and is the founder and director of the Racial, Ethnic and Cultural Healing Program (REACH) at the Ross Center. Dr DeLapp earned his PhD in clinical psychology from the University of Louisville, was an assistant professor at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and served as an attending psychologist at Montfior's Child and Adolescent Outpatient Psychiatry Division in the Bronx, New York. Welcome, Dr. DeLapp. 

Dr. Ryan DeLapp: 1:09 

Thanks so much for having me. 

Dr. Kerry Horrell: 1:10 

Thank you we are talking today about your work and including your new book on racial and cultural stress, and I wonder if we could start kind of typically where we always start, which is if you could tell us about your career so far and particularly how you got interested in naming and understanding this kind of stress, especially for young people of color. 

Dr. Ryan DeLapp: 1:34 

Yes, thanks for the opportunity to talk about my career journey. 

Dr. Ryan DeLapp: 1:37 

It's one of those things where it's hard to put it all together sometimes, the different directions you've gone. 

Dr. Ryan DeLapp: 1:42 

But, believe it or not, my career started off in undergrad when I was trying to think about what I wanted to specialize in. 

Dr. Ryan DeLapp: 1:49 

I thought I wanted to be an autism researcher, surprisingly. And then I actually did a term paper for one of my courses at University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and I learned about health disparities within early intervention and early assessment, and that kind of opened my eyes a little bit more to the intersection of kind of the haves and the have-nots in how healthcare and mental healthcare can pan out. And so for the past I guess 10 to 15 years, my career has been devoted to trying to address health disparities in a number of different ways, and somewhere along that journey I arose an interest in racial discrimination and understanding its manifestations, understanding how to support people, assess the impacts of discrimination, and all of that culminated in 2020 when I was trying to translate an idea and research that I've been doing into clinical practice and I realized that I had some gaps there and I wanted to really develop something that helped me to fill those gaps and that's kind of taken me to writing this workbook and developing the REACH program and all of that. 

Dr. Bob Boland: 2:55 

Wow. Well, let's talk more about the book. It's called Empower Yourself Against Racial and Cultural Stress. It comes across as a very practical book. I think you just called it a workbook and can you just tell us a little bit more obviously, writing a book is quite an endeavor. Can you tell us what motivates you to do that and what need were you feeling, and maybe tell us a little bit about the book? 

Dr. Ryan DeLapp: 3:15 

Yeah, the book was inspired by three different audiences. The first audience was teens and young adults, and particularly teens and young adults who are engaged in therapy and are looking for tools, practical tools to help them understand who they are and how to navigate experiences, or stressful experiences related to who they are. I had some young folks when I was working with teens and young adults in the Bronx who all were impacted by some of the things they were seeing in the news regarding Ahmaud Arbery, george Floyd, breonna Taylor, so forth, and each of them needed something different, and I wanted to have a resource or a workbook or a tool that can help each one understand what they need. The second category is clinicians us. I find that there's a lot of anxiety, a lot of discomfort sometimes around these conversations, and so I wanted to create an accessible tool for clinicians to more effectively and sensitively broach these subjects and to be helpful. And the third category is appreciating that there's a lot of people who will never step foot in any of our offices in person or virtually, and so I wanted to have a resource where it can guide them through this conversation in their communities, even if they didn't ever meet with a mental health professional. And so those are the three audiences that I hope really appreciates this workbook, and that was the inspiration. 

Dr. Kerry Horrell: 4:36 

I'm curious clinically, do you typically work with teens and young people? Has that kind of been your clinical audience? 

Yeah, that's also the group I tend to work with, I know listeners will be familiar. I work with young adults and I feel like again, when I was looking through your book and reading parts, I was like this is very hopeful and I think it's one of the reasons why we've been really excited about this episode is because I don't think it's a surprise to anyone. This is a very topical, important-. 

That's what I was saying, right. 

Dr. Kerry Horrell: 5:09 

Yeah, I mean not that we've had any time in the history of our country where this hasn't been topical, but this is clearly such a part of life right now. But I still imagine there might be some clinicians like you did mention people can get kind of clammed up around this topic who might even still be like, well, what is racial stress? What is cultural stress? Like, what is that and how is that different than other kinds of stress? And I wonder if you can say a little bit about how you define this and how you can help people think about, like that is what you're experiencing and then, yeah, obviously, then how you help especially young people identify that happening in their own life. 

Dr. Ryan DeLapp: 5:39 

I think that that's an important question because I've noticed, particularly working with younger ages, terminology is everything right, there's so many people jockeying for influence over our younger generation, and so there's a lot of buzzwords out there, and so I intentionally wanted to use terms like racial and cultural stress, because it's not a buzzword. 

Dr. Ryan DeLapp: 6:00 

I don't see too many posts out there that are titled racial and cultural stress, and so it creates an opportunity for me to educate rather than having to deal with some of the preconceived like terminologies and the relationships to those terminologies, and so the way that I invite people to that discussion is by just a general question: 

Dr. Ryan DeLapp: 6:19 

Have you ever felt like you've been negatively judged or mistreated or felt like an opportunity was denied to you and you question that it had to do something with your background, particularly your racial and cultural background? 

Dr. Ryan DeLapp: 6:31 

And that, to me, is an inclusive question, because it doesn't mean that I'm just asking that to youth who have a certain skin complexion. Everybody has a cultural background, and so it allows me to ask that without any kind of self-selection that I'm doing saying, oh, this is the only type of youth, the only type of person this question is relevant for, and so I wanted to have that terminology to be a little bit broad so that I can allow youth who maybe are saying yes because of racial purposes or because of religion or because of a culture and civic experiences, to be able to say, yes, I feel like that has happened for me. And then I invite them to kind of say do we want to talk about this a little bit more? And then you asked a really great question in terms of orienting people to this topic and orienting people to like the experience of racial and cultural stress, I mean. 

Dr. Ryan DeLapp: 7:20 

I think there's a number of ways that I think this workbook does that. I think one it gives them examples, right with characters in the book of different kind of backgrounds, to say this is how racial and cultural stress has affected their lives, and then hopefully that gives some like exemplars so that then young people can be thinking to themselves have I experienced anything similar to this? And then helping them to build out their own language and then see how these experiences have impacted their lives. And then we launch into the journey throughout the rest of the book. 

Dr. Kerry Horrell: 7:49 

I will say I really liked that part of your book that you have these running characters who like their stories you can follow throughout and therefore you can. Yeah, it puts a. 

Dr. Bob Boland: 7:57 

Yeah, I was kind of hoping you could actually share one with us now of just an example that you use in the book. 

Dr. Ryan DeLapp: 8:04 

Yeah, so there's a particular character by the name of Amiya, who is a female-identified character from a Middle Eastern country who practices Islam and wears hiijab and whose family recently transitioned to the United States or immigrated to the United States. 

Dr. Ryan DeLapp: 8:22 

And this character, unfortunately, is experiencing a lot of cultural stresses related to their, her identity, her skin complexion, her religious background. Unfortunately, this is something that happens all too much for young people but that creates this kind of a little bit of a crisis of how do I present myself in this new environment. This is based off of cases where I've noticed that young people sometimes are reluctant to go to school, reluctant to engage in certain social experiences because of the accumulation of these cultural experiences. And despite Amiya, the cases that Amiya was inspired by these are very capable, very smart, very wonderful youth that are now just trying to figure out how do I bring this wonderfulness to this new environment. That's not welcoming of that. And so Amiya's story is trying to kind of showcase how this book was helpful to a kid like this and finding their sense of empowerment and finding and reconnecting with their cultural background and finding love for themselves in this new space. 

This is probably not a one-sized fits all question, but I do find myself curious if this is something that with the folks you've worked with before and I know your book is new but imagining in your clinical work as you've developed this work, if they know they're experiencing this and if they're more often like oh yeah, I know that, or if this feels like this is normal. 

Dr. Bob Boland: 9:48 

Or do they even know? 

Dr. Kerry Horrell: 9:49 

Yeah, or are they even aware of it? 

Dr. Ryan DeLapp: 9:51 

Yeah, that's a great question. I mean, I think it depends on a couple of factors. A couple of years ago, with my mentor, Dr Monica Williams, I published a paper that focused on the factors related to coping with discrimination, and in a literature review we found that there were three factors that can influence people's awareness or their acknowledgement of such experiences. 

Dr. Ryan DeLapp: 10:14 

One is their racial and ethnic identity right for younger generations or younger ages, they may have a lot of variability as to how much they've thought about and explored their race and ethnicity. And what's unique about this for young folks who've immigrated to this country is the concepts of race and ethnicity that are kind of entrenched in American history are not necessarily the same in other countries that maybe they're immigrating from, and so there's this new orientation for both the parents and the youth to like what does race mean in this country? And so that may not necessarily always allow some youth to be able to say, oh, that's racial and cultural stress, because that may not necessarily be something that is very normalized and talked about within the home Right. 

Another factor that I think is also important to acknowledge is this context called what they call like discrimination prototypes. So when we were sometimes taught that discrimination looks and feels like this so there's a box, essentially, that we kind of put all these experiences in. So if we run into something in our day-to-day lives that doesn't fit in that box, then it's going to make it a lot harder to say that that was discriminatory or that was racial and cultural stress, and so a part of my job is also helping young people to understand that that box can be vast, it can be big, it can include not just experiences with people who look different than you, but it could also include experiences with people who are from your community, from your family, and sometimes that can be really challenging. So I want to also expand that definition so that we can have talks about that. 

Dr. Kerry Horrell: 11:40 

It's reminding me of a couple of patients I've had recently who they've they put words to this of you know I grew up in. You know as somebody who, for example, is Southeastern Asian. I grew up in a predominantly white community and this person's sense was I was academically struggling, he had some academic disabilities and so I wasn't smart enough. I'm putting that in quotes. I'm smart enough for the Southeastern kids. I felt like I didn't fit in there, but I also wasn't quote unquote wide enough for the jocks and like just a sense of like I don't belong and I think really struggled to name that, even though, of course, like what inherently was naming this had to do with race, was also like it's just me, it's a problem with me, there was a lot of shame there and I think recognizing that is. 

Dr. Kerry Horrell: 12:29 

And another thing I just want to say is some of my background is in studying health disparities for women and one of the things that as I started that journey of researching that I was like women's a huge umbrella, because when you start looking at gender disparities then you notice how about women of color? How about trans women of color? How about trans women of color who are immigrants? It's like the overlap of trying to sometimes even like do. I think this really important work of like naming this gets messy because people's experiences are complicated we are not just one identity, and so I appreciate what you're talking about. I think sometimes people's experience can get lost because they're like well, this isn't quite about that, and maybe because it's because I feel like I didn't get a job because I'm an immigrant or because I'm trans or because I'm black it's like trying to put a name to it gets so messy that the people I think struggle to actually name like it has to do with this. 

Dr. Ryan DeLapp: 13:21 

Yeah, I mean that causal attribution process is one that is stressful. It's one that is, I think, natural. We want to feel like we're understanding our experiences and kind of what led to this, the causal cause and effect relationships. Again, this book doesn't necessarily say you have to go into every environment, every space, vigilant, looking for how you're going to be treated differently, but it's to be able to give voice to those moments where you're like that was that kind of felt off, that felt odd. 

You know, I'm not quite sure why that happened and I'm really want to kind of have a space to kind of process and put the pieces together and understand how, if it did have to do with my race or this part of myself, how do I heal from that and then how do I continue navigating that space. And I think that's that, I think that's the goal for me is to invite that type of healthy self-exploration that then ultimately leads to that hope or that empowerment, right, because I think sometimes these conversations only stop at just the acknowledgement of the pain, the acknowledgement of the struggle, the acknowledgement of the stress, and doesn't really always build beyond that. And that was some of the things, that the acknowledgement of the stress and does it really always build beyond that? And that was some of the things that I wanted to also have within this space, as well as helping people to understand their story but then connecting that to coping responses. 

Dr. Bob Boland: 14:38 

Yeah, and can you talk more about that, because a lot of what you talk about is sort of teaching coping strategies and stuff, and what have you found to be some of the main healthy coping strategies that you use or teach? 

Dr. Ryan DeLapp: 14:50 

And this is one of the things that I find in my work and also in this book that is really unique is what is healthy depends right. 

Dr. Ryan DeLapp: 14:59 

Rather than having, I think sometimes we're in this kind of fast food, very quick, instant, kind of what are the three ways to navigate racial and cultural stress, and despite my best effort to keep it simple, it is not that simple right, and so within this book I've kind of created a couple of different decision trees where it depends on how you're affected. 

Dr. Ryan DeLapp: 15:21 

So if you are affected and you're struggling emotionally, well, I think there are certain constellation of coping responses that might be more indicated, which I can say more about, versus if you're impacted in some of the other ways the book talks about. And so my first kind of response to your question is that coping depends on the situation, on how you're affected, on your values, on your goals, and so I think I try to start there with folks in terms of understanding what their goals are, what their values are, and then how can we kind of help them to cope in ways that align with those goals and values. And that's a part of what I hope this book helps people to accomplish is to customize their coping efforts. 

Dr. Kerry Horrell: 16:01 

I'm just so appreciating what you're saying about, hey, like the messiness, and how much I think societally people look towards psychologists, psychiatrists, mental health providers to be like what are three ways you can deal with grief at the holidays? I think that was when I just went on the news and did, which was a great. I'm so glad we're talking about that. But I'm always when I try to prep for stuff like that, I'm like well, who are you and what are you grieving and what does your family look like? 

Dr. Bob Boland: 16:26 

It's never that simple. 

Dr. Kerry Horrell: 16:27 

It's never that simple, but I think that there's something important about saying that doesn't mean we're going to give up on it, and I just really appreciate this. 

Dr. Kerry Horrell: 16:34 

Again, when I was thinking about your book, you use the word empower a lot and I think it does seem incredibly empowering, hopeful, practical, because it doesn't then say, well then, everybody's got to figure it out on their own. It is like okay, so let's think then about some of the major ways you can cope, and I think that that's huge because, again, not ending the story of like yeah, this is tough and so what do we do about it, and I wonder if you can again share a little bit about your work that you've done and seeing how being able to name that this kind of stress is happening, help people cope, how you've seen kids, young people grow, because I think one of the things that you've you talk about in your book is self-love, self-acceptance, pride in who they are, and oh yeah, I wonder if you can speak a little bit about that. 

Dr. Ryan DeLapp: 17:17 

yes, I would love to like the success stories is kind of the things that really keep us all going as clinicians, you know. 

Dr. Ryan DeLapp: 17:24 

I think when you think of somebody who comes in and initially is kind of in this space of I'm not quite sure what I'm feeling or I'm not quite sure how to put it into words, I just know I'm overwhelmed and I'm having a hard time To be able to see somebody be able to build an emotional lexicon and a vocabulary to be able to name their experiences, to be able to help them to cultivate a sense of compassion, right. Very often this is one of the things I hear is that you know whether it's I know that racism exists, or I'm somebody who is going through this, navigated this before, or my family's talked to me about it, just because knowledge doesn't make you immune, right, and so sometimes having those judgments put on top of the emotional reactions inflames those experiences, and so one of the things I love to see is people having a kinder, more gracious acknowledgement of their emotions, and that's another outcome that I love to see. 

Dr. Ryan DeLapp: 18:17 

And in addition to that, the self-love piece for me is learning how to navigate the messages around you. 

Dr. Ryan DeLapp: 18:25 

In the book I talk about this kind of idea of identity filtration system, right, and what I mean by that is like if you have a filter, the filter kind of like filters out all the kind of messiness and kind of gets you the purest kind of elements of like the water or whatever you're looking at. 

Dr. Ryan DeLapp: 18:41 

And so when somebody, a person of color, is navigating through the world, they're inundated with messages from news, social media, friends, colleagues, parents, all these different commentaries about who they are. And what I love to see is somebody be able to root a more internal self-awareness of like what they love and what they appreciate about themselves, and then to be able to kind of filter through those messages, be able to say, like I am still somebody who has value, who has meaning, who has worth, even though I'm I'm like upset that this person said this thing about me. Right, being able to separate the emotional pain from having a deeply rooted self-awareness and self-acceptance. We can cope with that pain but preserve that sense of self love and self-confidence, and that's what I love to see people be able to do, and with using these approaches as well. 

Dr. Bob Boland: 19:32 

Do people ever push back? I mean, I'm just thinking in terms of like, in my very limited experience, the kind of attitude of like well, why should I have to cope with this? You know it's society doing this to me. I did nothing wrong. 

Yeah, the grief, the resentment, yeah the grief, the resentment. 

Dr. Ryan DeLapp: 19:47 

Yeah, I think I've had people who are actually angry if I even ask them about experiences related to racism or racial and cultural stress. Like you know, I remember a client very particularly who was like I understand why you're asking me this, but it you know, it pisses me off that we're even talking about this. I'm not even here to talk to you about that and yet you're asking me these questions. And I think you know for us as clinicians, it's important to acknowledge the why. Right, I'm not self-selecting you out because of your skin complexion to say I only ask people who look like you this question. It's being able to say, like, ask somebody who is trying to create a space for you to bring your whole self. I understand you came for these presenting concerns, but I also acknowledge that there are some people whose presenting concerns that we're talking about are also influenced by racial and cultural stress. 

Dr. Ryan DeLapp: 20:37 

So, I'm just here to ask if that's something we need to put on our plate, to kind of navigate and talk through, and if you say no, I will respect that. But I just want you to know I'm always open and so I think that invitation and that empowered sharing is something that I think it's important to kind of have in addition to asking these questions to help people to know why. 

This is, okay, the question percolating around my mind. I'm just going to preface that I think it's not going to be an easy question to answer, and then the question is going to be complicated. Okay, but here's where my mind is going. I'm thinking about how families, and particularly parents, tend to respond to their current generation, kid, young person's cultural and racial stress. 

Dr. Kerry Horrell: 21:22 

The reason why I'm thinking about this is because a lot of times when I'm working with a young person who has some area of their identity particularly when they share that with their family and they're struggling with it my sense is pretty commonly not always, but commonly they're getting some level of criticism from their own parents. 

Dr. Kerry Horrell: 21:38 

When I was a kid, this is coming from the parent perspective. When I was a kid, I just dealt with it. I didn't let this keep me from getting to my goals and there can be this kind of harsh, and I think there's a toughness there as a therapist because I do want to honor and appreciate that in other seasons and times in the history of our country and people's experiences, that probably was the only option to survive and to really be able to move through a career. It's just like you just need to buckle down and have a thick skin, and I also really I know that's hurting this person, so I'm curious how you might work with that in the clinical work around. This is when some of that pressure is coming from their own family. 

Dr. Ryan DeLapp: 22:24 

I'm really glad you acknowledge that, because, as a book that is tailored for a younger population, it's hard to talk to this younger population without acknowledging their family system and the system they're in. So I really appreciate that question. I think if I was kind of working with a family where this was happening first, I would want to talk to the parents individually and I would want to get a sense of understanding a little bit of their story and what is coming up for them whenever they see and hear their child struggling with these types of things. Is there something that is triggering for them, right, that is reminding them of past experiences. And then also, at the same time, I love to also employ the sense of intent versus impact, right. So your behavior right now that I'm acknowledging is that you're telling your child to kind of push forward, put your head down and get things done within this environment let's say it's school, and so tell me what's the intent behind that encouragement? Well, maybe the intent is very altruistic, it's very loving, it's very much like. You know, I've dealt with this and I want to see my child succeed and rise to the occasion. But I also want to understand to what degree are they, do they care or have interest in the impact of that type of messaging to their child? You know, do you feel like that? Your child responds in a way that utilizes that feedback, is encouraged by that feedback, or do you find that your child is stuck, your child is struggling. 

Dr. Ryan DeLapp: 23:47 

Despite all of your best tough love and resilience-related speech, your child is still struggling to go to school, still struggling to make friendships, still struggling with very intense emotions and struggling to love who they are, relationships, still struggling with very intense emotions and struggling to kind of love who they are. If that's the case, how can I help you to be responsive to those experiences where they're stuck, while also living in your truth? Right, the truth is the world is tough, the world is hard, and sometimes we can't get lost in our feelings. We got to just get the things done. But whenever you're behind closed doors and they're not in the face of the world, how can you also help them to heal and so that they can be better able to go back out there and do this type of resilience work that you're trying to do with them? And so I think starting with that kind of layout I think can help to validate their concerns, validate their experiences, but also encourage a level of responsiveness. 

Right, like, not criticizing them. It makes me think again. I feel like I don't know, and you guys tell me if this seems true for your experience as providers, but obviously, like Andrew Haidt work a bit on, like the coddling of the American mind, that's Andrew hate, right, I'm pretty sure it's Andrew Haidt. Yeah, yeah, Like, and just I think, Jonathan Haidt 

Thank you, I was like my brain but, I, I'm a, I'm thinking about this idea. I do think especially towards Gen Z and probably some of the younger generations after that. There's a lot of like lobbying of like you're too sensitive, like you're too sensitive, be better. And yeah, and I'm just imagining like that intersects here and that there's a way that, like I know, with the young people I work with across the board, there's a real resentment towards the word resilience. 

They're like I don't want to be resilient anymore. I don't want to hear that word anymore. That's not a strength, I don't want it. I got this feeling of like I'm tired of this and it feels so different. Generationally is my sense, and so again I'm appreciating the, not criticizing older generations or even people who have said like this is how we approached it or how I approached it, but also being like that might feel different than what your kid's going through right and I've seen some parents rather defensive about like you have no idea what I went through exactly yeah, right, like this is nothing compared. 

You know, you should have seen how people treated me and when you already have a like for a subset of of these kids like who are shame prone, who are already kind of going to a place of like. There's something wrong with me for struggling with this. Look at my parents were able to cope. You know this must be something about me. I just think that can be so. 

Yeah, yeah. 

Dr. Ryan DeLapp: 26:10 

Well, I think, even within this I go back to what we were talking about earlier in terms of hoping is depends, right, that there may be something in which they're like the parents, the caregivers have an awareness of their child's, like what their child needs, how their child responds best Like, and maybe like some of that kind of tough love or very much so like resilience related language is something that they found that their child really responds well to and is actually quite necessary for the environment that they're in. 

And so I think, like, while it's also important to kind of encourage them to be responsive to, like the new age of things, it's also trying to validate that they may have a knowledge of their child sometimes that maybe we don't, and so being able to kind of navigate that middle ground of, like their self-knowledge and having humility towards their knowledge of their family and the kind of their family's goals and values, while also in creating this invitation for being responsive right, like if, if you're here with me and we're talking about this, my gut tells me something isn't working right and let's see how we can put some things together, possibly even using some of the work from, like the REACH program or this workbook to see how we can kind of, you know, allow your strengths as a parent, and then also where your child is, to kind of come together and to offer support, and I think that together can be really helpful. 

Yeah, I mean, a lot of our listeners are clinicians and so I'm just thinking, as we're kind of getting to the end of this, you know, what advice do you have for them when they encounter patients where they suspect this might be an issue going on, but maybe, you know, don't have the skill right away to kind of know how to deal with it. 

Yeah, I mean. I think that is a question of both preparation and also responsiveness. So what I mean by preparation is my hope is that, as clinicians, we are not solely relying on our clients and our interactions with clients to build our ability to have these conversations. Right. And so the first time that you're asking somebody about, or helping somebody to explore or listening to how they've responded to racial and cultural stress, in my opinion shouldn't be when your client first talks about it. My hope is that in consultation spaces or in your friendships or in some other kind of group setting, you're having the opportunity to both explore your story and also to be humble and sensitive to somebody else sharing theirs. So that would be my first recommendation is, if you're feeling nervous and you're feeling uncomfortable with this topic, don't, yes, get the book or, yes, look at all the research and look at all the things, but take action in your personal life to really build your comfort level with all of this. And then the second thing is I really encourage clinicians to, in their screening processes, build in some way of opening the door to this topic. 

Dr. Ryan DeLapp: 29:01 

For me, one of the ways that I try to do that is when I'm taking a social history and I'm asking questions about friendships, or who do you spend time with, or relationships with family. I got this idea from the ATIS, (Anxiety Disorders Interview Schedule) and in there, for the child version, it has questions regarding peer victimization. It asks questions like have you ever felt isolated, have you ever felt excluded, rejected, or something along those lines. And so what I've done is try to add on an additional question which is like, if you felt like you've experienced some of those adverse experiences, have you ever questioned does it have anything to do with your background? And then that general question kind of doesn't make allow me to assume that it's for a particular part of their background, but if they say yes, then it opens the door for me to explore specifically what those aspects of their background may be. So I think you know, building that into your, your intake process and opening that door early on can be really fruitful. 

Dr. Kerry Horrell: 29:58 

One thing I've. I've seen that I I teach some of our interns and fellows and residents about doing spiritual and religious assessments and I think one of the big things people are concerned about is like I have to get through so much. I don't have time to do a whole and I'm like that's right, you probably don't, but sometimes it is one question Like I have a series of three questions, but you could really even just do one to even just say like is any of the current stuff that you're coming into treatment for related to, or even improved by, your religion and spirituality? 

There you go. 

Dr. Kerry Horrell: 30:28 

It just like the door. And again, if a patient goes, no, not really, that's not really part of my life, it's like all right, we don't need to further flesh that out. But for so many patients are like oh, thanks for asking. Yeah, I'm really struggling. I feel like God's abandoned me. And again, just as an example, I think if you really get down to like, what would this actually look like? A lot of times it's like one more question. It is attending to this part of a person's identity. Just give it a second and I think that invitation and you're going to have some patients, like you know, you spoke about it. It's going to be like thank you for appreciating that. That might have something to do with what brought me here. 

Dr. Ryan DeLapp: 31:02 

Absolutely. I think that I've experienced those times where it's really taking the conversation in a different direction than I think may have been initially the case and, again, my hope is that people understand that their whole self can be brought into the room, and this is, I think we're talking about, one way to invite that. 

That's great and once again the book is Empower Yourself Against Racial and Cultural Stress. A strong recommendation. 

Strong recommendation from us. 

And we've been listening to Ryan DeLapp. Dr DeLapp is a licensed psychologist running the REACH program and it's been such a great chance to talk with you and hear about this. 

Dr. Kerry Horrell: 31:43 

a great learning experience, Thanks so much, yeah, thank you for your work. I really feel like again, it feels incredibly usable, practical, hopeful, empowering, and we're grateful. 

Dr. Ryan DeLapp: 31:53 

Thank you all. Thank you so much for the opportunity to speak with you and also for creating this platform for listeners and other professionals as well. I really appreciate that. 

Awesome. Well, we've been your hosts. I'm Kerry Horrell. 

Dr. Bob Boland: 32:05 

Dr Bob Boland, and thanks for diving in. 

Dr. Kerry Horrell: 32:08 

The Mind Dive podcast is presented by the Menninger Clinic. If you're curious about the professional experiences of mental health clinicians, make sure to subscribe wherever you listen. 

Dr. Bob Boland: 32:18 

For more episodes like this, visit wwwmenningerclinicorg. 

Dr. Kerry Horrell: 32:23 

To submit a topic for discussion. Send us an email at podcast at menningeredu.