OnTopic with Empathia

Millions of Americans suffer the effects of Seasonal Affective Disorder every year, but what can be done? LMFT Therapist Therese Sorrentino returns to OnTopic to talk about home remedies, self-diagnosis, and the therapies she's used in her own practice to encourage healthier habits and more wholesome mindsets during the coldest season of the year. Whether it's delivering a high-value employee assi...

Have you ever found yourself feeling down in the winter? The days are shorter, the temperatures lower, and without some sunshine, things may start to look a little bleak. Seasonal Affective Disorder, or S.A.D. as it's more commonly known is a real condition, and millions of Americans are affected by it every single year. Rick invites LMFT Therapist Therese Sorrentino onto the show to talk about Se...

For a lot of us, Forgiveness can often feel impossible. Some trespasses may feel too great; some decisions too large to ignore when it comes to truly letting go. For Dr. Buck Blodgett, it's not so much an obligation, but a choice - you either choose to forgive, or you choose not to, and then you continue down the path that choice created. It's a core tenet of his book, 'A Message from Jessie', and...

Content/Trigger Warnings: This episode contains content including the death, violence, and sexual crimes from 2min30sec to 7min30sec and from 20min30sec to 22min. Listener Discretion is advised. It's easy to forgive the smaller trespasses in life - the occasional slip-up or minor accident often pale in comparison to some of life's greater challenges. Some of us may not even embrace forgiveness in...

How much of our brains are dedicated to remembering old jingles and theme songs? Why do certain songs make us so emotional? And most importantly - can Music Therapy work for just about anybody? Following up from Episode 22, Rick Hoaglund returns to the studio with Nancy Dexter-Schabow to talk about just how valuable Music Therapy can be as a tool for communication with nonverbal clients, by activa...

Have you ever heard the expression, "Music is good for the soul? "Turns out, it's good for your mental health too! Whether you can carry a tune or not, Music Therapist Nancy Dexter-Schabow says that every one of us has a song in their heart and that everybody, even the hard of hearing, can learn and grow through the benefits of music therapy. That's why she's sitting down with host Rick Hoaglund f...

Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise - or at least it would, if so many of us weren't suffering from sleeping disorders. In their follow-up from last week's conversation on the effects of sleep on mental health, host Rick Hoaglund and Dr. Rajesh Balagani dig into sleeping disorders - why they happen, how they affect us, and what we can do to curb the trend - before...

When you go to bed, are you one of the lucky people can simply turn off the lights and drift into dreamland? Or are you, like millions of other Americans, struggling to fall asleep? In Part One of this Two-Part exploration into Sleep and it's effects on Mental Health, Dr. Rajesh Balagani explains why sleep is so important on a biological level to our larger wellbeing, and how a few simple steps ca...

Is it better to run, hide, or fight? When it comes to responding to an active shooter, there's drills, strategies, and even testimonials that you can train on, but Dr. Schoenfeldt says that teaching's the real secret. Following up from last week, Kelly dives back into active shooter response management with Dr. Mary Schoenfeldt, an emergency management professional with experience going back to re...

Active Shooter. It's a phrase that strikes an immediate sense of warning in all of us; a notion so terrible that many of us can only hope we'll never be forced to face it in our own communities. But for some, tragedy may have already struck, and gaining a greater understanding of the problem may be one of the keys to developing a more empathetic, understanding community. That's what Dr. Mary Schoe...

Self care. It's a relatively new term as far as understanding mental health is concerned when it comes to the general population, but it's not often something people really think about in regards to their own well-being. Like in Mexico, where Deborah Loffler says people think about self care more as going to the gym to get physically fit rather than in their own minds. Or in New Zealand, where Jol...

North, south, east, west—no matter where you are everybody struggles with mental health. World Mental Health Day, on October 10th, is a chance to remember that none of us are alone. All over the world people share the same feelings of excitement, sadness, melancholy, and more, regardless of their situation. That's why, this week, Jill Sanchez is kicking off a two-part panel discussion from some of...

There's a surprising amount of signs that can precede a suicide attempt. People may experience symptoms of melancholy, rapid moodswings, severe depression, and more. In this follow-up from our previous episode, Rick Hoaglund joins Clark Flatt, President and Founder of the Jason Foundation, to talk about the signs you may be able to spot for suicide prevention and the best ways to communicate with...

Warning: The following interview contains graphic depictions of suicide. Viewer discretion is advised. Suicide is one of the leading causes of preventable death in our nation today. Every week, Americans lose an average of more than 125 youths to this tragedy. As waters continue to rise, what can be done? How can parents help? And is there anything we can do to prevent it? Rick Hoaglund sits down...

How does a community recover from a devastating natural disaster? Where do businesses get started again? How are homes rebuilt? And when do families start healing? In this follow-up episode, Christchurch earthquake survivor Jolie Wills joins Rick Hoaglund once again to talk about how her community responded to the devastation, and how her own experiences would go on to shape her career in disaster...

On Tuesday, February 22nd, 2011, a 6.3 magnitude earthquake struck the city of Christchurch, New Zealand in what would go on to be the country’s fifth-deadliest natural disaster. Homes were lost, businesses destroyed, local monuments demolished and families were devastated by the rampant destruction that roared forth from the earth. And nobody knows it better than Jolie Wills, who not only served...

Following her cancer treatment, Jessica Storm was excited to get back to the usual hustle and bustle. With a new baby at home, normalcy would've been a welcome routine, if not for a fateful call from her oncologist when she discovered that her cancer journey was far from over. In this follow up from Part 1, Jessica talks through discovering a tumor in her brain, and the entirely new set of challen...

Bad news is never easy to hear, especially when it concerns the ones you love. But when you receive a diagnosis of a life-threatening illness, what do you do? That's what Jessica Storm faced when she was diagnosed with breast cancer while 28 weeks pregnant, along with the flurry of challenging decisions and difficult moments that followed. That's why she's sitting down with Kelly Parbs to tell her...

You may have heard of swatting before - the act of calling high-level police forces on others with false accusations of impending violence - but where did it come from, and how did it start? Is it dangerous? And most importantly, what can be done about it? Rick Hoaglund sits down with Jill Sanchez, employee assistance program counselor with over 25 years of experience performing critical assistanc...

Last time on OnTopic, Trauma-Informed Care Coordinator Scott Webb talked to Rick about the Six Principles of Trauma-Informed Care, a new approach to professional engagement that involves peering into a complete picture of any individual’s entire life and the traumas that have shaped their behavior since. But how does an organization start to implement trauma-informed care? What are the best practi...

Does adversity in childhood affect a person's health long-term? Organizations across the United States have developed a new way of understanding and managing employees - trauma-informed care - but does it really work? Rick Hoaglund sits down with Scott Webb, trauma-informed care coordinator at theUniversity of Wisconsin-Madison to talk about the six principles of trauma-informed care and how execu...

If so many Young Adults suffer mental health issues, what's the solution? Is there a 'fix' for such a widespread problem? How do individuals start to tackle an unseen issue in their communities Professional counselor and psychotherapist Bill Mulcahy returns to talk about developing twelve key coping strategies to help any adult, young or old, and how putting emphasis on community-oriented programs...

Over 48% of Young Adults say that they experience mental health issues in their daily lives, but what exactly does this mean? Are new adults today more deeply affected by the world around them? What are the causes for the hopelessness and despair many feel? And how does the newer generation’s deeper connection to technology affect them? Kelly Parbs sits down with licensed professional counselor an...

Compassion Fatigue affects millions of caretakers around the world, but what can be done about it? Philip Chard digs into the solutions that have proven effective in organizations around the country, for both the personal and the professional, to reveal how activities as simple as singing in the car can help to bolster emotion and stem the physical and mental problems that can come with Compassion...

What is Compassion Fatigue? This week on OnTopic with Empathia, host Kelly Parbs introduces herself and her guest, psychotherapist and author Philip Chard, to explain just how Compassion Fatigue begins to affect caregivers in all walks of life, both personal and professional, and reveal a few ways you can identify susceptibility and avoid what he calls the dreaded 'rain-barrel' effect. Whether it...