Reality Check – Chimela Soublet LPC-S (Xavier University of Louisiana)

Serena: Welcome to the Reality Check. Psychosis is real. So is Recovery podcast.

Ashley: I'm Dr. Ashley Weiss. I'm a child adolescent psychiatrist.

Serena: And I'm Serena Chaudry. I'm a clinical social worker

, and we are the co-founders of Epic NOLA, which is the Early Psychosis Intervention Clinic in New Orleans, and also the co-founders of Calm, clear answers to Louisiana Mental Health.

Serena: Hi, good afternoon. Welcome to Reality Checked Psychosis is real. So is Recovery Podcast. Today we have with us Chima Sole from Xavier University Counseling Department. Chimela, can you start by sharing a little bit about who you are and what you do?

Chimela: Okay. Hi. Thank you. I'm an LPCS here at Xavier University Counseling and Wellness Center.

I also do private practice with, Headway on the side. A little bit of that part-time because my job here takes a lot of my time. But I've been at Xavier for going on five years, but I've been in LPC for about nine and a half years. Okay.

Ashley: That's cool. So for those people not, that might not know what an LPCS is, maybe you could share that.

We're so used condition we always explain them. Licensed professional counselor. Licensed professional mental health counselor. Yes. That's what that means. I've been trained in that area. I received my master's of clinical mental health counseling from University of Holy Cross.

Very cool. I like to remind people that there's so many ways to enter into the mental health field and lots of different letters.

Yeah. But all it me off, but all for the greater good. Yeah.

Serena: And then I guess on that note, just for those who aren't familiar with mental health services at a university level, can you just tell us a little bit about how mental services are offered and how they operate at Xavier?

Chimela: Yes, we do function as a fully functioning.

Office of counseling, a department, like a center, but it's very clinical. They come in, they, we, they do an intake process with our office care coordinator, which is Miss Sheila August. We do try our best to let all of the parents incoming freshmen know at like orientation where we do, where we are located, so they can know as soon as they get here on campus what we do and where we are.

But they, when once, once they come in, they do an intake. We also take referrals from faculty and staff as well. Sometimes a faculty member may see a student that just needs to talk to somebody and they'll say, okay, here's a counseling center. This is where you need to go. Then they call us, and then that process is done.

But once they are, we have four clinicians, three LPCs licensed professional counselors, and one LCS W, which is a licensed worker, and our director.

Chimela: A large amount of them do come from student, student self referrals. Actually, we have found on our campus that that word of mouth piece is very important.

Yeah. The students here, they, when they connect with you, they really, they, and if they're having a good experience, which I hope they have, they will share with their friends. And so a lot of times in our case loads, we may have. People say, oh, my friend came to you. You know, they told me about you. Which is a good thing because we want them to know that therapy is okay.

And that is to reduce that stigma of mental health. Yeah, we've done a lot of preventive things on campus or just, I think trying to advertise, like last year we had a campaign saying it's okay to not be okay. And it was like we had signs everywhere. Decrease the stigma. Because when I realized when we got to, when I gotta Xavier was that some students didn't even know where we were.

Ashley: Do you guys, I guess what has been. A little bit of background about me. Oh, my first job out of fellowship was at the Uptown campus at Tulane. I was one of the psychiatrists there, and then when I got more into education and medical education, I had to leave because I was, couldn't be the psychiatrist for students, potential students that I was teaching.

I went there specifically because that's where. So that's where the age group is, where psychosis starts. And so I was like, oh, then I'm working on a college campus would be great because this is when, this is where it starts. And there was, it was really hard to keep people in care though long term at a college.

Things like this. I'm just wondering your experience with onset of serious mental illness psychotic disorders at Xavier.

Chimela: Yes. And I'm sorry, so I'm so sorry. I forgot to mention we do, we also have a po, a psychiatrist that's on staff as well. He's here, his name is Dr. Main. Got from Monday, Wednesdays, and Fridays.

That's cool. He's not here every day, but that's

Serena: really awesome. We

Chimela: do have a psychiatrist that's on staff there. There may be some changes coming on coming up in the fall because Osters taking over our health center side, so we don't know if he's gonna still, they may, they may have their own psychiatrist coming in, but we still need a psychiatrist, not get rid of him.

That piece that what you mentioned, it was so important, Dr. Weis. Is that saying, am I saying it correctly?

Chimela: Um, but no, that the, you are so correct, and I know you already know this, but just saying that about the onset of some mental health. Issues. Do we have really seen that?

It does even sometimes come on when they're like 22, 23 bipolarism bipolar disorder or bipolar depression. Sometimes it doesn't manifest until those agents are once they're already here. So some students that we've had experience with have maybe felt like something was. Not working well, but just did not know how to seek the help.

We also find that once we, okay, so once we, what we've done here, once they are diagnosed or with something like that, or they come here with a pre-diagnosis as well, we try our best to follow with that care and continue whatever therapeutic needs that they may, any type of therapeutic needs that they may require, but also.

We know, but, or they just can't. Or sometimes it's transportation is an issue as well. It can be a barrier to them getting the help or getting off campus to those re to those referral resources. But sometimes when we have like wellness events and we can put a face to like a. And when they come sometimes with representative or like River Oaks or someone else, like from any other agency, that kind of helps the students to know, okay, there's a human behind this name.

Sure. And they can relate a little bit better. So I think as long as we continue to do wellness events like that, to push that out information out there and give them information that can help. With their needs. Yeah,

Serena: for sure. And you all are a great example of what community partnership can look like, I think, right?

Knew what the criteria was for someone to be referred to our clinic, followed up on the referral, and then engaged with us throughout. I would check in with Dr. Gantt. Oh, I'm just remembering all this now on a monthly basis about this student. And it was a way to support them while they were in school.

Fortunately now we at Epic Nola have a van that is able to help in, in where transportation is an issue because though you're not far from us in the eyes and lives of a college student, you are very far.

Ashley: Yes. The whole two miles. So. I have this fly that's circling, circling my head and it's sounds slightly distracting, but it's like you're talking and I'm like smiling because I'm about to bust out and laughing too because it's, oh, but that could be so

Chimela: aggravating.

Ashley: I dunno if you can see it, but did I like leave food in my

Just swat it when we're not talking.

Oh, get

Ashley: this. So I guess I would like to talk about, well, I, I talked at a senate hearing a few years ago about the struggles with transitioning from high school to college, especially people that had their first episode of psychosis in high school already had.

Established care. They had a care plan. They had accommodations in high school, and so that journey to go to college where all of that doesn't translate into a different setting and some of the topics that came up well, for one, why not? If you've already had, if you've already had testing, you already have a diagnosis, you have a medication plan, a therapy plan, then why do you have to reinvent the wheel?

Yeah.

Ashley: To get that kind of testing in order to determine academic accommodations.

And wouldn't it be lovely if it could more easily translate? Yes. Especially for the students.

Chimela: Oh yes, I totally agree with you on that. Dr. Weiss, we do a lot of communication with our disability services office. Mm-hmm. Because a lot of times our office are connected, of course, by just by the nature of of it.

We have really tried to explain to students who are coming in with accommodations needs. The process, what you have to do to, in order to get the accommodations in college. Some of them don't even know that they can still get them in college, which is really strange. I used to be a high school counselor too before in education and doing private practice as well.

And yes, it's a strain I think for them to have to go through all of that all over again and then finding that, that piece, because for us, I think the process is, okay, so once they get the diagnosis from an outside provider, because they, there is some type of. Stipulation, y'all know universities, they're also systems as well.

So we had, we did have a psychiatrist, but he wasn't in his contract, he was unable to do a D ADHD assessments, which was a huge issue for us because a lot of our students had, yes. So we did have a, some private contractors are, are, I wanna say, separate referrals that we would send people out to in the community and.

And sometimes in college even more. And we also find that sometimes f. Understanding with that. Um, so that's been director.

The

Chimela: law and uh, some things have to be in place regardless of what you may think and not making that student feel ostracized because they have an accommodation that is huge. A lot of them and some, and sometimes the rule, I know, I dunno if it's where you guys have worked or know about other college campuses, but some of, most of the ones that I know of, and we go to other conferences as well, we see the same thing.

Some of it.

Doesn't mean I, I can't learn. It just means I learn a different way than you do. Or I may need an extra piece of extra time on testing, test anxiety or whatever that may be. So a lot of times, and a lot of times, those students who get those accommodations, they also come to us as clients as well, because they're suffering really.

The depression or some other type of. Multi-level diagnosis that may be affiliated with a ADHD as well. Anxiety and depression is one of my most common ones with adjustment disorders.

Serena: Yeah. Yeah. So I think for any listeners or younger listeners in particular, if you are graduating from high school and moving on to college and you have accommodations there, the transition doesn't have to be difficult.

Chimela: The first thing I would suggest is for that particular student to actually. Try their best to ask someone in either administration or the advisor committee where the counseling center is, if there is one, or where is the disability office, because that is what that, those are the places that they need to go.

I am applying for this type of accommodation. Now. I forgot how to form is set up exactly, but so that's the first step. And then the disability coordinator or director reaches out to that student to say, okay, this is what you need. I want you to come in at this time or whatever so we can discuss your case or, and then it, so it could go, I dunno, the exact procedure, but I know that's how it starts.

So for students who are just entering college, that email is important. They do everything by email. And you have to read it daily and, but if you're looking for a response for someone from a different office or whatever, that, that's just, that's an important tip. But I would say at least find out who those people are because those are the people that can get you to the other people that you may need to get linked to to get your services.

Yeah. Now

Serena: that's super helpful. Thank you for walking us through that process. Uh,

Mm-hmm. And then what to do. When you're referring to an outpatient provider, when the city or town doesn't have a lot of outpatient mental health clinicians, so they were just inundated and it becomes a kinda a resource, you know, a resource issue. That seems to be still the conversations on college campuses is how much do we provide and for how long, which is.

I think in an ideal world, it'd be awesome to have, you know, your, your medical home on campus for your life there, especially living in the dorms and stuff where you're like, don't have a car and you're walking around. But then when you need specialized services, like for instance, when you, you guys refer to us.

Do it in a way that the person's gonna take you up on the offer. Right,

Chimela: right, right. I, I, I, I, I did have one student I referred, I remember a while back who was, I think she was diagnosed with bipolar schizoaffective disorder, and this was a, well before I even go there, I wanna say that part, that piece you said about.

Sometimes we can request more depending on the case. Case by case, and we just get, you know, we have to go to the, a director, Dr. Again to say, you know, this student may need more sessions. You know, because of the need and if we're, and, and if, if we can work it in our schedule, we'll do that. I also will say that that piece, for some students, it works well.

However, I had a, well, but back to, to the student I had, that was with the bikes polar skid. So this was a, a client I had who she just graduated. My god, I was so happy and proud of her. Just, just spans me. Yeah, she's come, she's come a long way. But she was, she had, she had gone to a mental health professional before she became, came to college.

However, she had very, very negative experiences with them. Mm-hmm. So she came in resistant. Right.

So it affected her academics sometime. But in her case, the therapeutic relationship that I developed with her, where she was able to trust me, that was very important. That therapeutic rapport I think is very important, especially with this age group, because they're so delicate. They are so, they are so worried about image.

All these things that I didn't have to worry about when I was like 20. But, but, but, but, but, but it's also, and so for her, I would say from my particular experience as c her as some.

And I, I even told her when I did a warm handoff. 'cause we, we try to do that when they're here, you know, a warm handoff, bring them to the, introduce 'em to the psychiatrist, you know, and tell them, you know, this is, this is for further assessment. It's not, you know, to make you feel any worse. It's, we wanna get you more help, more resources.

I think as long as the, the clinician is doing that to help them feel like we are here to help you. Get more access to better care. That's important for them to understand. And once she understood that, she was more receptive to trying medication too. Mm-hmm. Because at first she was like, I don't even wanna think about it, but I know I need something to help me.

GaN had referred you guys to, we really try to explain to them. What you guys do and how supportive you are in their journey. And I think that is very, very important to rely to the client because they, we, we don't want them to feel like we're just pushing you off somewhere. We're still here for support.

It's a team of, it's a team of professionals that wanna help you. It's not like, oh, you go there and I don't wanna see you anymore. You know, like, so I, I think that's, that's important that that rapport and that trust clinician. So, if. They so they can feel comfortable enough to say, you know what, okay, I trust this other entity to help me.

Serena: Mm-hmm. Yeah. And I, I think you, I'd just like to emphasize a couple things. You said te the teamwork, right? This is a team effort and our goal for everyone who walks through our door is to help them get back to living their lives. Right? Like the fact that you identified that this individual graduated and how excited you were.

Getting them from one provider to another and showing that, demonstrating that there's trust. In the bra, so to speak.

Ashley: Yeah, I was think I was, it just made me kind of go back to like the early detection piece and thinking, well, I'm not supposed to say I am thinking anymore. No, that's edit. I just edit myself early.

This person needs to get to specialized care, ASAP, and keeping. Keeping all like both those balls in the court in your mind as a clinician of, yes, I've gotta develop therapeutic rapport, keep, you know, the person's perspective and choice like in the room, but also this is super serious and this is something that we need to.

And so I just. I think as you know, clinicians in the room keeping, keeping that balance of trust and rapport and also seriousness and a, a sense of urgency is so, so important and, and a, and a skill. Like it's hard, it's hard to do those things.

Chimela: It is, I, I, I totally agree with you because that this.

That's been, I think, a struggle for us, even when we do presentations on campus, because a lot of the students, we know people in, they're gonna indulge, right? In college, they're gonna do things. Mm-hmm. They're gonna try things. Right. But the marijuana piece sometimes what's going on today and how it's being laced with all these different things mm-hmm.

Can cause psychotic issues. So this year as we came to the table, what we did with our consultation meeting, we talked.

Related to related, just information wise. We're not judging you because you're doing it, but we want information is because a lot of them, what we found in the audience is saying, oh, it's fine. Oh, I'm not addicted. Oh, I'm not gonna get that. It's not gonna happen to me. But we've seen it happen. We know one, my previous worked here, one of her clients, it.

It's, it's very hard to treat. Mm-hmm. So sometimes it's a time thing and people would come out it, or, you know, flushing it outta your system with IVs and fluids and all. Just having that sense of know, I think that piece of knowledge for them is very helpful in this generation because I, I see it even on my own.

I mean, I, I have young adult children as well. They, I mean, they don't indulge, but they have tried it. So just give, as a parent, you don't even say mm-hmm. You know, Hey, be careful. You know, you shouldn't do this. I mean, thank, tried.

Ashley: Mm-hmm. Yeah, for sure. We did. This is why we, we did this billboard. Can you see? Oh, I love that. Yeah. It was up in New Orleans. That is, that's awesome. Right? Yeah. Maybe we, yeah, we'll make some, talk about some, we should make some cards and drop a off on campus. Yes. Or see if we can get a billboard near

Serena: Xavier.

Yes. This is, yeah. The whole, the whole goal of Calm is to educate and raise awareness with some of these facts and details that just aren't in the minds of young people or their families. Yeah. And. Hope. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And

Yeah. Just kind of the real world information about it and some of the statistics and research. Oh, I totally agree with you. Yeah,

Chimela: I totally agree because that even with the Unla, I mean, I'm reading the statistic that I had from that conference and one of 'em was about cannabis and it said that cannabis use associated with risk of psychiatric disorders by hall.

A study done by Hall and I think, and it schizophrenia. Those who had used cannabis 10 times by the age of 18 were two, three times more likely to be diagnosed with schizophrenia, and 13% of cases could be Ted. If cannabis use was prevented. That was huge to me. I was like, oh my gosh. You know, like, I mean, we knew this, but just to see it up, you know, on the screen, we were like,

Serena: right.

It's not for you. Right,

Chimela: exactly.

Serena: And you know, I think too, layering risks.

Chimela: Mm-hmm. Yes. I be like, and incorporating other ways to cope.

Ashley: Mm-hmm.

Chimela: Other, because now what I see in this generation is they don't wanna cope with anything. It's just they.

But you have to learn how to in the of the problem. Mm-hmm.

Without relying on, something's gonna make. Mm-hmm.

Chimela: Yes. Yes. Well, thank you guys for having me. This was awesome. I love that you guys were very, very welcoming and I appreciate it.

Ashley: Uh, thank, thank you so much. If you have a, if you have a like Instagram handle or anything, please email it to us so we can tag you and collaborate with you on social I'll,

Chimela: I will.

I will. Okay.

Ashley: All right. Thank you so much, Tamla. Okay. Thank you guys. Have a good day. You have a good day.

Serena: Until next time, thanks for taking the time to get your reality check. And remember, psychosis is real, so is recovery.

Ashley: If you have enjoyed this episode or found it useful, please subscribe wherever you get your podcast from.

And check out the website calmnola.org.