Rebuilding community and mental health with ‘Dr. Nick,’ president of the NABC

In a world that the COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically reshaped, the importance of mental health and community support has never been more crucial. This episode of Health IQ features an insightful conversation between Munson Steed and “Dr. Nick,” a distinguished mental health professional and community leader. Dr. Nick brings a wealth of knowledge and experience to the table, shedding light on the essential role of counseling in maintaining the spirit, mind, soul, and body. Licensed in Virginia, Maryland, and the District of Columbia, Dr. Nick is a certified trauma specialist and Telehealth professional. He specializes in men’s mental health, BIPOC trauma, and LGBTQ+ issues, and is committed to nurturing future mental health professionals as an adjunct faculty member at Stevenson and Johns Hopkins universities.

Join us as we delve into the nuances of empathy, grief, and the challenges of post-pandemic life, and explore why everyone could benefit from some form of counseling.

[Editor’s note: This is an extended transcription. Some errors may occur.]

Munson Steed: Hey, everybody. This is Munson Steed, and welcome to another edition of Health IQ. I have the pleasure of being with my dear brother who is with the National Association of Black Counselors. Dr. Nick. How are you?

Dr. Nick: I am doing well. I am doing very well. Thank you for asking. How are you?

Munson Steed: Excellent. Why did you decide to even think about and become a counselor?

Dr. Nick: For me, the journey was kind of natural. Prior to being a counselor, I worked in human resources. I did a lot of employee relations, and I discovered that many of the problems that people brought into the office were things that were not related to the office. There were things that I could not actually treat as a human resources professional, so I decided to go into counseling.

Munson Steed: So, the calling. What are the three things that really speak to you when you really decide that counseling a human, in particular, is a thing?

Dr. Nick: I would say that you definitely have to be somebody that is empathetic. You have to be someone that is in tune, not only with your own emotions but in tune with how those emotions affect the people around you. The therapeutic process is parallel. So, while I’m working with a client, things are actually happening to me because I don’t stop being a person. Making sure that I’m aware of what’s going on in my body and how that is impacting the person that I am counseling. And then I definitely think the need to want to help. But with that, it’s the empathy part versus sympathy. I think a lot in our society, we focus a lot on sympathy. “Oh, I feel sorry for you,” but sympathy doesn’t allow me to make that human connection with you. It allows me to help you stay where you are.

But empathy is, “I understand exactly how you feel. I can relate to it. And because I don’t want to feel that way, I’m gonna help you get to a place where you don’t feel that way.” And so, I think that that’s very, very important when we’re looking at the skills that we need for a counselor. A lot of people come into this profession because they have a lot of healing to do for themselves. And they feel like, “Oh, I’ll go into this profession, and I can do my healing, and I can do the work with other people.” But you kinda have to work on your own issues and get to a place where you’re healthy before you can try to help somebody else be healthy.

Munson Steed: We came out of COVID-19 . We were isolated. We now can work from home or at least be mobile in how we log in and tune in. How has this changed the mindset of people when they have come out of isolation and have been isolated for so long? What are you seeing as people are entering back into the workplace with the new dynamic, maybe not wanting to go back at the same time, and maybe [losing] the feeling of kinship and friendship from even the workplace that it provided? What are those experiences as people are having to transform and find that they have a new reality?

Dr. Nick: It’s twofold. I think that you definitely hit the nail on the head when you said that people have lost the kinship; people have lost community, and work did create a community. But I feel two ways about it because work is also an interruption of life. What was happening for a lot of people during COVID-19 is they developed connections with people outside of work. A lot of people rekindled connections with their relatives and family members. And so going back into the office kind of curtails that because you spend most of your life, most of your day, waking hours in the office, so you can’t have those relationships. You can’t cultivate those relationships. So, you had that, but then you did have some people that during COVID-19 were in isolation by themselves. They did not create those relationships. And then they became very comfortable being by themselves and not engaging with people. And I tell people all the time, social skills are like a muscle. You have to use them. If you don’t use them, you lose them.

And so, some people don’t have those social skills. And so, they get back into the office, and it is difficult because now you’re dealing with people that aren’t like you, don’t think like you, and we know that. I’m gonna touch a little bit on DEI. We know that being in the office brings diversity because you have different ways of thinking, different ways of being. So being around that when we’ve been so used to being by ourselves and oftentimes with like-minded individuals, and now you’re coming into a space where you have people that don’t think like you, sometimes don’t look like you, it’s an adjustment. What I’m finding for some people or a lot of people, is they have a lot of anxiety around returning to the office. A lot of fear and trepidation about returning to the office, partially because it is an interruption to life. Folks during COVID-19 developed whole routines for managing their children and living their lives. I think that the biggest impact, though, is really with children because you have a lot of children that weren’t exposed to other people.

So, they didn’t have to learn those social skills and learn how to adapt and deal with other people. One of the things that my mom used to tell us growing up that her mother told her is, “I’m not raising you to deal with me. I’m raising you to be with other people… I’m your mom. But other people, not so much, so I have to teach you how to navigate and relate and deal with other people.” But I think with Covid, not having your children around other people, you are teaching them, “Okay, when you’re around other people, you don’t do these things, or you don’t behave in this way, or you can’t yell.” People don’t have those social skills anymore, and especially younger people don’t have those social skills anymore. And so you see a lot of it just kind of coming out, and because they haven’t used those muscles and they haven’t developed it, it affects their mental health. They’re triggered very easily.

A lot of things that, for some of us older people, would be just kind of like, “Okay, that’s just a Tuesday, get over it.” They can’t. Because they haven’t developed that, because they didn’t have to. If you’re at home with Mom and Dad, you do whatever Mom and Dad tell you, and most of the time, if—I don’t know if you’re a parent, or if you’ve been around young children after a while, you just kind of give in. Like it is way easier to just let them do whatever it is. But once you get out of the house and you’re around other people, people are not necessarily going to give in that way. So, I think that with children especially, that is something. But a lot of adults have a lot of fear and trepidation. They’ve been traveling; they’ve been working remotely.

You have people that have been on vacation and working. Most people realize it does not take eight hours to do your work. Even when I was in HR, I said, “Most people work four hours a day. Take an hour for lunch, then you have the meetings that interrupt everything. And then you have the time that you spend just socializing.” When you really look at the time that you actually spent working, it’s about four hours. So, yeah, people have realized that. So that’s a change.

Munson Steed: Yeah, another question in relation to Covid, but more on the empathy side. Just identifying with the emotions is grief. We had a lot of grief during that—over a million people lost. Still, the number one killer. Nobody’s talking about Covid, even though there’s a new wave. But the idea of grief and how we are grieving. As a counselor, what have you found about our abilities to identify grief, the emotions that are there, and the period [of grieving]? People are like, “Snap out of it. You went to the funeral. It’s happened. Don’t worry about it. Don’t think about that again. Just move on.” What would you say to someone who’s lost their best friend and is really working to create what I would call some tools to manage that grief, which isn’t going to end in a day?

Dr. Nick: Well, first off, it doesn’t end. Grief is cyclical. You and I seem like we’re close in age. We’ve experienced the loss of people, and you know you could be driving, and it could be—it could have been a decade ago, and you hear a song, and it brings you right back to that place. I think that we look at so many things in our society really promotes making things very linear, like, “Okay, you have six weeks to grieve, and then you should be back.” No, the grief process could last your entire life. It’s a loss. It is a void that is never truly going to be filled. I think that recognizing that grief looks different, and everybody’s grief process is different. There is no right or wrong way to grieve. There are healthy ways to grieve and unhealthy ways to grieve, but there’s no right or wrong way to grieve.

So, a healthy way to grieve would be acknowledging those feelings, finding some way to honor the person that you have lost. We see people that will be—and we sometimes make fun of them. They go to the cemetery, and they sit and they talk to the person, and every holiday, they’re bringing them something for the holiday. But they’re acknowledging, they’re honoring. They’re still having that person as a part of their life, and they found a way to grow with their grief and not stay in that place where, “Oh my gosh! I’m lost! I’m depressed! I can’t move.” They’re trying to bargain with life. In the stages of grief, we think, “Oh, you’re just supposed to go through each stage, and then at the end, you’re in this happy place, and it’s wonderful.” And that’s not the way that grief works.

So, I think that definitely finding your rhythm and how you can acknowledge that loss, honor that loss, and talk about it and be around people that are supportive and empathetic to you. I think that one of the things that I do whenever I have a friend or a family member that has lost someone is, I don’t reach out to them immediately after. I wait. And the reason I wait is because immediately after, everybody’s reaching out to you…. If you go to church, you have the entire church; you have community; you have friends; you have your coworkers, everybody’s there. “How are you doing? Do you need anything?” I usually wait about three weeks, and then I reach out. And then I’m consistent after the fact, checking in on them. “I’m just checking in to see how you’re doing, making sure you’re okay. Do you need anything?” Because that’s usually our period.

After about three weeks, nobody cares about it anymore, and everybody goes on with their life. But for you, that void is still there, and you don’t know when that grief is going to hit you. You don’t know if you’re gonna become depressed. You don’t know what that is gonna look like when nobody else is around. Quite often, when we experience that initial loss, there are so many people that come in. You spend so much of your time and energy almost counseling and consoling them. You have no time to focus on yourself. It’s in those moments when it’s quiet that those voices in your head become so loud, and you realize, “Oh my God! This person is gone! What do I do?” A song comes on the radio, and you’re like, “Oh my gosh! That was their song.” You go to their house. You see their picture in your house.

So, like I said, I work with my clients. We come up with rituals. I had one family of four children. They lost their mother, and it was around the holiday time, and I said, “Well, how about our ritual be, every year we buy a new ornament for her?” Because every year, they would buy new ornaments for her tree. I’m like, “Every year, well, why don’t we buy an ornament for her as well and add that and celebrate and acknowledge that this person was here? They existed. They’re part of us.” So figuring out what those things look like for you, and it’s going to be different for everybody.

Munson Steed: I love that. When you think about the very movement now for us in terms of focusing… You’ve got a thousand other things…holding for your attention, football, and [you] can’t focus on [yourself]. For people who come to you because they are now in need to focus on figuring out who they are and where they’re going, how do you counsel them to really take agency back? Given that social media wants some agency over your life, work wants some agency over your life, and they’re feeling overwhelmed by all the other things. How do you get them out of that tsunami that they feel is on top of them to find peace in themselves?

Dr. Nick: One of the things that I have them do is I ask them to go on a diet. I mean, because when we think of diet, we think of the things that we eat, but we’re consuming things all the time. So I’m like, you have to cut back on your social media. You have to cut back on the news. You have to cut back on watching television, although I don’t think many people watch TV, but you have to cut back on these things. And what I will do is I will go to the extreme. I go to the extreme because if I go to the extreme, you’re not gonna do what I said anyway. I know it. You will probably come somewhere in the middle. So if I say, “Stop doing it altogether,” nobody’s gonna stop doing it altogether. But what you will do is you say, “Okay, so Dr. Nick said I need to stop. I can’t stop, so I’m only gonna do it for this amount of time a day.”

And then I’m like, “Look at what you’re consuming, and what does it bring to your life?” So stop taking some things. It’s almost like when you go to the doctor, and you have an allergy, and they start cutting things out to figure out which thing it is. “Okay, so stop doing this one. Stop doing this one. Stop doing it for a week and see how you’re feeling. See how it’s affecting you.” Because we take in all of these things, and we digest all of these things, and we don’t even realize the impact that they’re having on us until we’re way down the road. And so that’s one of the things that I have my folks do. I’m always like, “You have to watch these things.” So cut some of this stuff out. Take a fast and just see where you are.

Help with your health, mental, physical, and spiritual health. One of the things that I tell people also is, you have to remember, something happened between that picture being taken and that picture being posted. And you don’t know because you don’t get the full story. You just get a snapshot, and we get the snapshots that people want to share. And they’re always gonna portray themselves in whatever light they’re trying to be in. And it’s typically the best light, although sometimes that’s subjective. But that’s typically what they’re trying to do. We’ve also created a culture where people do a lot of stuff for clicks and likes, and there’s not a lot of substance. So I’m always like, “You need to do some research, and you need to…”

So, one of the things that I’ll do in a therapy session, if they bring up something, they’re like, “Oh,” so I’m like, “Hold on.” And I get my phone out, and I start Googling. And I’m like, “Well, did you read this? And did you read this? And did you know this?” So there’s so much more to it than just what you see. So I’m like, “You need to look into that.” And I oftentimes will email them things for them to research and look at. But it’s definitely—you have to cut. You have to get to a point where you cut it off.

Munson Steed: Are we able to—it’s an insatiable moment to be okay. Finding yourself as you age. How can we get a community that understands and counsels themselves that it’s just the process of life that you don’t have to look like your daughter, that you don’t have to be young and do exactly what your son’s doing? How can we understand that there are much more purposes in moving our lives as a counselor forward in understanding that each life movement is a cycle for us to mature into who we are?

Dr. Nick: Well, Munson, I was making those faces because I’m like, “Oh, he’s trying to take me down a path.” We have these friends saying stuff like this. But I think that it is so layered because part of it is when we look at television and things of that nature, you have 40- and 50-year-olds playing 20- and 25-year-olds. So there’s the perception that you’re going to look a certain way when you reach a certain age. So at 47, I look like I’m supposed to look at 47, but I also look like what people perceive a 20-something-year-old looks like because people my age play that age. So it’s kind of double-edged. I think that it is recognizing, and especially for the LGBTQ+ population, we focus so much on being young and being youthful. That’s what it is.

At 47, I’m a dinosaur. It’s realizing that you can grow old gracefully and that with age ought to—not necessarily, but ought to—come some maturity and some wisdom and being okay with that. But I think that especially for a lot of us Gen Xers, because we spent so much time raising our younger siblings, then we had our own families, now our parents are getting older, and we’re finally getting to an age where some of the things that we’ve accomplished, we can enjoy. We’re ready to do that, and it does come across and does very much look like, “Oh, I’m trying to be 25.” And for some of us—I have folks I graduated from high school with that have kids that are in their thirties. So for some of us, it is. You’re trying to be 25 because you couldn’t be 25 when you were 25. But for others of us, we’re just at a place where we’re enjoying the things that we have.

Now I think that we have to recognize, “Okay, while I may not look 47 all the time, my body knows I’m 47, and I can’t go out here and do the things that somebody that I look like is doing.” And just respect that and honor that. But when we also look at our parents and stuff, when they were 30, they were looking like they were 50 and 60, and that’s how they were living. When you look at the Golden Girls, you think they’re in their seventies, and you find out they were in their mid-fifties. But that’s how they were. They were retired. I’m like, “Who retires at 50? Who can afford to retire at 50?” So there’s a middle ground.

And I think that for us right now, we’re trying to find that because we’re not what the generations before us were, but we’re definitely not the generations after us, either. And it’s figuring out what that middle ground looks like and what is a healthy way to do it. And I think that part of it is what we’ve seen in television, and what has—because that’s what teaches us and tells us how we’re supposed to be. Art imitates life, imitates art. And so we’re learning, “Oh, this is how you’re supposed to be.” So even when you look at the movies and stuff, they come out with people my age, they’re trying to be young. So that tells people my age, “You need to be young.” We have to figure out what that is, and I think that one, for everybody, it’s different. Everybody has to find a way of calibrating for themselves, and it’s different. But as a larger society, we have to recognize, “Okay, getting older and maturing doesn’t mean that you get put out to pasture.”

Munson Steed: You mentioned LGBTQ. There is a movement, obviously, where people can now be themselves. Some feel free enough to come out, some feel free enough to tell their lovers, “This is what I need”, in their lives. Even if it’s not, I’m a member of a community, but this is what I need in my love space. How do you counsel couples who have been together for years and now keep needing excitement and spice in their lives because they know each other and they’ve been together 10, 15, 25 years? How do we love each other, respect each other, and keep romance as a part of what we’re doing because we want to be together? But how do we be together?

Dr. Nick: Well, you can grow together, or you can grow apart. So one, we’re checking in and making sure that we’re growing together, that we’ve been communicating the things that we need in a relationship, and that we’ve been on the same page. The other is, again, with the communication, recognizing, “Okay, this person loves me, and I love them.” And so, while some of the things I may say may not be lovely, it’s coming from a place of love. And I think quite often we get so caught up in what a person said and how a person said it, and we forget what our relationship is with that person. And you can go back and say, “Okay, so Munson, when you said this, this is how I felt. Now I know that you love me. However, when you said this, this is how it sounded to me, and this is the message that I received.” And then we can have that conversation.

So, we’ll practice that in the session. We’ll practice using that language so that we adopt that language in our communications. I think also, it’s being honest with yourself. Because even though you love somebody and you want to be with somebody, sometimes that relationship changes, and it’s not the same. Because I can love somebody and want to be with them, but if what I need they can’t give me, then we can’t be together in that way. And that’s why I said, you can grow together, or you can grow apart, because sometimes you grow, and what you need to continue to grow and to be happy is not necessarily what your partner can provide you. And being honest with yourself and having that conversation with your partner. If it’s a relationship that you want to save and you all want to be together, then you all have to find what that middle ground looks like and recognize you’re not gonna get 100% of what you want. I’m not gonna get 100% of what I want. But we can both get enough of what we want and need that this works.

Munson Steed: Thank you for that. Lastly, just when people are saying, “I don’t need counseling,” why does everyone need at least an accountability partner as they walk through this life to help them mirror and understand who they are, for maintenance checks, emotional checks?

Dr. Nick: I think you just hit the nail on the head. But I think that people have a misconception about what coming into therapy is. They have a misconception about the different helping professions as well. So, most people that come into therapy, most people that come and see a counselor, are not severely mentally ill. Most people have just got to an impasse in their life, and the coping mechanisms that they have are no longer working. And they need someone that’s going to assist them at this stage in their life. And so, we help them develop new tools and new coping mechanisms and ways of dealing with that. But most people put psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, counselors—all like they’re all the same thing.

Because I have some clients that will come to me, and they’ll be like, “Dr. Nick, can you write me a prescription?” I’m like, “I’m a doctor, but I’m not that doctor. You want a psychiatrist, an MD. That’s not me.” Psychiatrists are medical doctors. They’re going to give you a prescription for something. Most people that see a psychiatrist are severely mentally ill, and they have chemical imbalances. And that’s why they get the prescriptions. Then you have psychologists. People go to psychologists because they get testing done to see if they have a certain mental illness or a disorder. We, as counselors, do some testing as well, but we don’t do it to the extent that a psychologist will do it. And then you have social workers. Social workers, depending on what their license is, because there are different tracks for social workers, can be therapists.

So, they can do psychotherapy. They can be the traditional social worker that manages systems for you, but it just really all depends. They can be in an agency, and they can be an administrative person that does management of an agency. But we’re not all the same. And so, understanding what the different helping professions do is key and important. And then, understanding that you don’t have to be severely mentally ill—and I’m being very deliberate in my terminology and not saying “crazy” because most people say “crazy,” and “crazy” really is someone that’s severely mentally ill, right, and they need help. It’s not what we have labeled it. But most people aren’t like that.

And these things can happen when you have a death. They could happen when you lose your job. A lot of people go into depression when they lose their job because a job is a part of who we are, it’s part of how we define ourselves. They happen when you lose a relationship. And we talked about grief, but I even talk to my clients. A breakup, losing a relationship, is a grieving process as well. So grief can look very different and take on very different attributes. So, we talk about that. But most people that come in, that’s really what it is. You just need somebody that you can bounce things off of that is completely objective. I don’t have a dog in the fight. And I always say, like, a win is a win for me.

I’ve had clients that I have counseled, and I’ve been trying to get them to go down one path of thinking, and they go down another path. But it’s healthy for them, and I’m like, “You know what? That works.” That’s not necessarily what I was thinking when I asked you those questions. But if that works for you, that works for you, and you’re healthier. And I focus on being healthier, not being better, because better is so subjective, but being healthier. And again, that looks different for everybody. What’s healthy for me may not be healthy for you and may not be healthy for Kendrick, but it is making sure that we are healthy and are in a healthier space than we were when we came.

Munson Steed: Super. Well, doctor, I want to thank you for the time. We’ll come back to this. We really are proud of what you do at the National Association of Black Counselors. We really know that you’re there to serve our community, and we want to thank you for doing just that.

Dr. Nick: Quite welcome.

Munson Steed: This has been another edition of Health IQ with my dear brother Dr. Nick. Thank you.

Dr. Nick: Thank you.