The Collaborative Care Approach and Future of Mental Health

In Part 2, of this video Psych Congress Steering Committee Member, Samantha Lau, MSN, FNP-BC, PMHNP-BC, CEO of ELEVATEHER LLC, Santa Barbara, California, sits down with Heather Flint, senior digital managing editor, Psych Congress Network, to discuss the role of collaborative care in mental health as well as the future of mental health, especially relating to empowering patients to “know that their voices are supported.”

In the previous Part 1, Lau talked about her private practice, ELEVATEHER LLC, her commitment to women’s mental health, as well as trauma-informed psychotherapy.

Heather Flint:  We were talking with Dr. Manish Jha earlier about anxiety. He mentioned about collaborative care starting at the ground before you see the patient. Is that something that you approach in your practice? Are you already integrated with other providers so that you can have a collaborative treatment plan?

Samantha Lau:  Yes, definitely. Again, if you link that back to trauma‑informed approach, you want to have that foresight, or looking back at how these people have come...Before they come to you, they have this accumulated amount of desperation and maybe trauma of a lifetime.

You have to have that sensitivity and have that structure, planning. How you approach this patient with that sensitivity is very important. That should be not just the direct providers. It should be the receptionist, whoever pick up the phone should have that education.

Heather:  That's excellent. That's an excellent tip. Are there other advice or tips for clinicians around this integrative approach, but also, pacing yourself with a patient that you think would be important for them to understand? Especially around things like trauma, PTSD, abuse, things like that, that you would think that they would need to know.

Samantha:  I would say, you always want to empower the patients and know that their voices are supported. That they are trusted. We trust your experience and the suffering we see. It's real to you. We see that way too often in child abuse. I have seen a lot of adults who have past abuse and trauma.

When they were younger, when they verbalized that trauma, they were not believed. That's trauma on top of trauma. It's important to trust their experiences and their suffering. That's real to them.

Heather:  That's an amazing approach. That's important for clinicians to understand. Sometimes these patients have never had anybody believe them. It's really important.

Samantha:  During assessment, I would invite the provider to say something like, "I know, you've gone through a lot. We want information, but you don't need to give you everything all at once."

Heather:  That makes a lot of sense. Thank you for that. I want to come full circle with ELEVATEHER. I know on your website and your mission, you talk about a mental health care makeover. I wanted to finish up and talk about what that means to you. What that means in informing your treatment plans with your patients.

Samantha:  I see mental health as just health. It's included in your body, how you carry yourself, and your energies. We know when people suffer from mental illness, they're different. I want to lift them up and send a message to them to come home to their vulnerable self. That's where the power is from, when they can transform those difficult emotions into empowerment.

Heather:  That's an amazing mission. It's definitely necessary as we get more into learning about mental health care and mental health care being more open. You did mention less of a stigma now, especially with the younger generation.

A final thought on mental health care and looking at the future. Where do you see the future of mental health care going, and having more of an openness, and being less stigmatized for people?

Samantha:  I love when you said openness. That's both ways, from the population and from us as providers. Keeping an open mind to approach things. Maybe sharing a little bit more about your background. People who seek for mental health, they want to look at someone who might have experienced it, without disclosing too much, of course.

Also, your background. I'm Asian. I'm Chinese from Hong Kong. The culture there, it's not so great, in terms of seeking for mental health care. I'm being myself. I'm being that person who encourage people to, "Hey, I look like you as well. Open up that dialog."

On your profile, specifying what languages that you speak. We do care for people who don't speak English and find ways to help them.

Heather:  That's amazing. Fantastic approach, especially when we talk about different forms of health care, too. As we're moving more open, like we were talking about, too. Even into the transgender space, which probably causes other trauma. We have sessions here at Psych Congress about that.

Do you have patients in that space as well? Any tips or advice for clinicians, if you do, on how to be more receptive to them, and making sure that they have a full practice approach of being open and educating even their staff? How important do you think it is for staff education?

Samantha:  That's very important. By the way, my private practice, even though it's geared toward woman, I do treat all genders. Yesterday, we had a lecture on transgender care. It was excellent. It gave us some insight on how the process is. How does it change the person's state of mind as they're going through gender‑confirming surgery? How we can support them.

How can we help them to have the surgery? There was a letter example there. I was like, "Oh, that's so cool that we have that information, and use that to improve our practice."

Heather:  That's excellent. I'm appreciative of you sitting down with us today.

Samantha:  You're welcome.

Heather:  Talking about women and empowering women through mental health care, which is extraordinarily important, and we need to do more of. Opening up about trauma can be anyone, can be all genders.

Samantha:  Exactly.

Heather:  We can't just fit those into boxes, which is so important. Thank you so much for your time today.

Samantha:  You're so welcome, Heather.

Heather:  We look forward to having you back again, hopefully soon in the future.

Samantha:  Of course.

Samantha Lau, PMHNP-BC, FNP-BC & a ketamine psychedelic therapist, is the CEO of ELEVATEHER, LLC, a personalized mental health care company that provides result-driven psychiatric care and transformational inner makeover for busy young women who are ready to unveil their vulnerable-badass selves to feel better, work better and love better.

She has more than 12 years of experience in psychiatry. She has served as a planning committee member at Psych Congress since 2017, a national medical conference that provides cutting-edge research translated into clinical application by the leading minds in psychiatry and a co-chair at Elevate by Psych Congress, another national medical conference for practical psychopharmacology and future- focused education tailor-made for early career and forward-thinking mental health clinicians, ready to make waves in the field. Samantha is proud to be part these important conferences in their goal of building a better world-class mental health care system in the United States.

She worked as a West Coast manager and a psychiatric nurse practitioner in behavioral health at Landmark Health, enhancing the collaboration between physical and behavioral healthcare. She received both undergraduate and graduate degrees in nursing at the University of California, Los Angeles and completed her post-graduate psychiatric nurse practitioner program from Johns Hopkins University. She is double-board-certified in family medicine and psychiatry.

Her earlier career focused on becoming a more effective leader in the effort to influence health policy, with the goal of having the psychiatric field a more fluid partner in an integrated healthcare system for the betterment of both fields. Prior to Landmark Health, Samantha was an accomplished mental health care specialist, a manager of nurse practitioners and a mentor in the field at CareMore Health, Anthem Inc. She developed a quick guide for psychopharmacology and disease management and a tool for primary care practitioners to facilitate patients with mental health needs. It gives her great satisfaction to educate the public and help train the future workforce in psychiatry. She spoke to senior citizens in the community about mental illness and undergraduate students in healthcare policy at local universities.