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The Science of Stress with Dr. George Slavich
Episode 629th March 2023 • Embark Sessions • Embark Behavioral Health
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In this episode of "Embark Sessions," Rob discusses the science of stress with Dr. George Slavich, Director of the UCLA Laboratory for Stress Assessment and Research, who has a Ph.D. in psychology. Dr. Slavich explains how his early childhood experiences with shyness led him to study psychology. Rob and Dr. Slavich dive into how psychology and biology are connected and how stress impacts our mental and physical health. 

Resources:  

UCLA Laboratory for Stress Assessment and Research 

California Stress, Trauma, and Resilience Network 

Related Blogs:   

Stress vs. Distress: How Do You Help Your Teen Navigate a Stressful World?

How Much Stress is Too Much? A Caregiver’s Guide

Related Videos:  

Personal Growth Through Social Support with Dr. Hansa Bhargava | Embark Sessions 

Deliberate Practice with Scott D. Miller | Embark Sessions 

About Dr. Slavich:  

Dr. George Slavich is an expert on the basic science, assessment, and management of life stress. He conducts research on how stress affects mental and physical health and provides expert stress consultation and management services to major public and private organizations. He is a standing member on several scientific working groups at the National Cancer Institute and National Institute on Aging and has also helped many large companies and universities design and implement brief social-psychological stress intervention programs using sophisticated, computer-based systems. 

Dr. Slavich completed undergraduate and graduate coursework in psychology and communication at Stanford University and received his Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University of Oregon. After graduate school, he was a clinical psychology intern at McLean Hospital and a clinical fellow in the Department of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. He subsequently completed three years of postdoctoral training in psychoneuroimmunology, first as an NIMH Postdoctoral Fellow in the Health Psychology Program at UCSF and then as an NIMH Postdoctoral Fellow at the Cousins Center for Psychoneuroimmunology at UCLA. Currently, he is an associate professor and Society in Science – Branco Weiss Fellow in the Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences at UCLA, and a Research Scientist at the Cousins Center for Psychoneuroimmunology where he directs the UCLA Laboratory for Stress Assessment and Research

About Rob

Rob Gent, M.A. LPC, is the Chief Clinical Officer and one of the founding members of Embark Behavioral Health. Rob has been with the company for 15 years and has led the Embark organization in the clinical development and growth of numerous programs. He is the lead developer of the proprietary CASA Developmental Framework, which is pervasive throughout Embark’s programs.

Through his dedication to advancing clinical development, practice, and research, he has become a nationally recognized expert in the field. His specialization in clinical development is enhanced by his therapeutic expertise and has yielded such accomplishments as the development of; The CASA Developmental Framework, Vive Family Intensive Program, Calo Preteens, Canine Attachment Therapy-Transferable Attachment Program, and other specialized programs.

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Have a question for our experts? We want to hear from you! Submit your questions to: askatherapist@embarkbh.com

Transcripts

Rob Gent:

Well welcome everybody to another episode of Sessions,

Rob Gent:

our podcast here at Embark I am just so privileged and super

Rob Gent:

excited. I've known we're going to do this interview for a

Rob Gent:

while, and I've been doing some research and just catching up

Rob Gent:

and it just, like I said, ecstatic to have Dr. George

Rob Gent:

Slovic, with us today to spend some time with us and to share

Rob Gent:

in his story. Dr. slavit, is certainly renowned professor at

Rob Gent:

UCLA for psychiatry, and bio behavioral science. We're gonna

Rob Gent:

get him to talk about him being the founding founding director

Rob Gent:

of the stress assessment and research lab, also at UCLA. But

Rob Gent:

before all that, Dr. Savage, thank you so much for being a

Rob Gent:

part of this podcast.

George Slavich:

Rob, thank you so much. And I'm a huge fan of

George Slavich:

what Embark is doing. And I think, you know, in this time

George Slavich:

and age we we need the world needs all the all the help that

George Slavich:

it can get to, to manage mental health and stay resilient. So

George Slavich:

it's, it's just a real pleasure to be able to talk to you about

George Slavich:

that today.

Rob Gent:

Well, great. Well, as excited as I am to talk about

Rob Gent:

stress and all of your work. I did want to say that, as a side

Rob Gent:

note, being a little bit, you know, certainly given my age, I

Rob Gent:

was looking through some of your publications and one that stood

Rob Gent:

out to me, I smiled and it said 50 years of giving psychology

Rob Gent:

away an interview with Philip Zimbardo even though it's

Rob Gent:

written back in 2009, I just I wanted to ask you like, oh my

Rob Gent:

gosh, what was that like?

George Slavich:

So the backstory is that I was lucky enough to do

George Slavich:

my undergraduate at Stanford. I'm a Bay Area kid born and

George Slavich:

raised. So you know, I traveled a whole 25 minutes away to

George Slavich:

college wasn't that far. And, you know, at that time, that was

George Slavich:

late, early 2000s, late 1990s. And, and Phil Zimbardo was one

George Slavich:

of the biggest guys on campus. I mean, his introductory

George Slavich:

psychology class would, you know, fill up and seven seconds

George Slavich:

after it was made available on you know, on the course

George Slavich:

registrar's website. Zimbardo is an amazing guy. I mean, he

George Slavich:

studied shyness and, and mind control and obedience to

George Slavich:

authority. And, you know, he's really his, his work is much

George Slavich:

broader than just the Stanford Prison Experiment. But long

George Slavich:

story short, you know, I, I took several courses from him ended

George Slavich:

up being a teaching assistant from him. And and I think, you

George Slavich:

know, the most indelible impacts that he's had on my own work in

George Slavich:

life, is that is that, you know, transfer of content to students

George Slavich:

is really important. But it's not going to be as important as

George Slavich:

making other people really excited about learning and about

George Slavich:

research. Because if you can make them excited about learning

George Slavich:

research, that's something that they can take with them and go

George Slavich:

off and make a career of their own. Whether or not it's in the

George Slavich:

same thing that you study or not. And, you know, I still

George Slavich:

finally remember him saying, you know, the most important thing

George Slavich:

for us to do as teaching assistants is to get students

George Slavich:

engaged, passionate and excited. You know, it reminds me of sort

George Slavich:

of the NC to a advertisements, you know, it's like most of us

George Slavich:

will, you know, you know, turned professional in something other

George Slavich:

than sports. I think that was that's, you know, Phil's

George Slavich:

approach to teaching. It's like most Stanford students will go

George Slavich:

pro in something other than psychology. Right? And so the

George Slavich:

best thing that you do for a student is really to instill in

George Slavich:

them, you know, thirst for learning, passion, excitement,

George Slavich:

and that has just really stuck with me.

Rob Gent:

Well, what if it struck me I don't know if other

Rob Gent:

people is just I was like, Oh my gosh, and so I opened it up and

Rob Gent:

I I had no idea that that said that actually, him and Stanley

Rob Gent:

Milgram, were actually classmates in high school.

George Slavich:

There are so many wild stories I mean, human

George Slavich:

standard, Milgram were were classmates, you know, in the

George Slavich:

Bronx together. Zimbardo moved almost 40 times before he

George Slavich:

graduated from high school because he grew up in poverty

George Slavich:

with no TV in his house living above a laundromat you know,

George Slavich:

almost died from double pneumonia at age six days before

George Slavich:

pennants at post MSL and so, you know, his his own personal story

George Slavich:

is really is really one of strength and resilience. And I

George Slavich:

think, as you said at the at the top, just, you know, giving his

George Slavich:

work away. Yeah.

Rob Gent:

Well, it sounds like that profoundly affected you in

Rob Gent:

such an amazing way. But if I can ask I know this. To many of

Rob Gent:

our listeners, there'll be certainly psychologists and

Rob Gent:

therapists themselves, looking for a deeper understanding is

Rob Gent:

why I love to do this. So thank you for sharing your story. But

Rob Gent:

in a similar way, if you don't mind sharing us, you know, you

Rob Gent:

mentioned being from the Bay Area, but what was your early

Rob Gent:

life? Like? And how did that shape your goals of psychology

Rob Gent:

teaching, if you don't mind sharing with us weak,

Rob Gent:

fascinating.

George Slavich:

Yeah, and some of that not to compare myself to

George Slavich:

Zimbardo. But as I've learned over the years is some some

George Slavich:

similar elements around shyness, and we'll try to talk about but

George Slavich:

no, I mean, I grew up in his only child, my parents

George Slavich:

immigrated from Croatia. And I was, let's say, painfully shy,

George Slavich:

growing up, I remember not not feeling confident enough to ask

George Slavich:

to be able to go to the bathroom and preschool, I just couldn't

George Slavich:

get the courage to approach people I, I just couldn't sort

George Slavich:

of tolerate the anxiety, it was, it was really pretty bad. And I

George Slavich:

suppose I funneled my efforts into things that I could control

George Slavich:

and that were sort of predictable. So you know, work

George Slavich:

in school are good places to focus your efforts if you're, if

George Slavich:

you're a shy kid, because you can sort of put your head down,

George Slavich:

you know, close there, close the door, put your head down. And,

George Slavich:

and just, you know, work on whatever it is that you feel

George Slavich:

passionate about. And, and I still remember in college,

George Slavich:

having, you know, studying for tests, and just having so much

George Slavich:

anxiety that, you know, I felt like I was almost causing ulcers

George Slavich:

for myself. And, you know, it was, it was never debilitating,

George Slavich:

not like that. But I, but I certainly felt that it was

George Slavich:

something that I didn't, you know, it was not pleasurable,

George Slavich:

let's say. And then, you know, at some point, the pain just

George Slavich:

becomes too much. And you and I should speak for myself decided

George Slavich:

to try to do something about it and just go a little bit easier

George Slavich:

on myself and take some chances. And, you know, the funny thing

George Slavich:

about being shy, which Zimbardo also talks about in his 919 76

George Slavich:

book about shyness is that, you know, shy people essentially,

George Slavich:

are prisoners of their own minds. So a lot of links between

George Slavich:

the shyness work in the Stanford Prison Experiment work. But

George Slavich:

essentially, if you're a shy kid, you you don't lean into the

George Slavich:

world, you have thoughts that other people don't like you or

George Slavich:

won't accept you or that you'll make a fool about your of

George Slavich:

yourself that you'll say something stupid. And those

George Slavich:

thoughts prevent you from testing those hypotheses. You

George Slavich:

don't engage in, you don't engage in social relationships,

George Slavich:

you don't go and approach people at parties. And other shy people

George Slavich:

probably will resonate with me when I say this is that you

George Slavich:

never put those beliefs to the test. Right? You never, you

George Slavich:

never approached somebody, and then have the experience that it

George Slavich:

went well. And therefore, if you don't have the experience that

George Slavich:

it went, Well, you never have the opportunity to revise the

George Slavich:

belief that it wouldn't have gone well. And so yeah, long

George Slavich:

story short, I grew up as a shy kid and didn't didn't quite

George Slavich:

shake that until college and, you know, have just been trying

George Slavich:

to lean into social relationships ever since?

Rob Gent:

Well, I appreciate this so much. And I can't help

Rob Gent:

but ask certainly with your acumen and all your research and

Rob Gent:

your personal experience. What would you say for those couching

Rob Gent:

into shyness? What is the ultimate fear? Because you're

Rob Gent:

like, boy, that just being afraid that they're not gonna

Rob Gent:

like you? If we unpack that? What is the fear underneath? Oh,

George Slavich:

my gosh, I mean, at a very fundamental level, you

George Slavich:

know, fear, for me assumed some amount of cognition about the

George Slavich:

thoughts. I mean, you know, for me, in the beginning, it's

George Slavich:

really about temperament. You know, I mean, I was too young to

George Slavich:

sort of think about, obviously, what fear meant, or, you know,

George Slavich:

you just feel inhibited. You know, I'm, and I'm talking

George Slavich:

about, like, when I was, I don't know, three, four, and five, you

George Slavich:

know, you, you just, you feel like you are not socially safe.

George Slavich:

You don't feel like you can approach you don't feel like you

George Slavich:

have necessarily a voice. You don't really know how to use

George Slavich:

your voice because you haven't had the opportunity to practice

George Slavich:

it quite enough. So you know, when you get older, it sort of,

George Slavich:

for me became explicit thoughts, like, other people won't, you

George Slavich:

know, other people won't, you know, like you other people will

George Slavich:

laugh at you those kinds of things. But I think early on,

George Slavich:

it's not so explicit, you know, early on, it's just really

George Slavich:

feeling inhibited.

Rob Gent:

And I just, we could expand forever. I don't mean to

George Slavich:

Yeah, shyness. For me, it's fascinating, you

George Slavich:

know, to think about how your how it can change your life life

George Slavich:

course. Right?

Rob Gent:

For sure. And as you know, just my, in my own field

Rob Gent:

of, you know, my career, it's been one of attachment focused.

Rob Gent:

So I, immediately I'm thinking, Wow, I wonder how this

Rob Gent:

insecurity is that how does that relate to some attachment? Is

Rob Gent:

there a connection? And is, how does shame play a factor? You

Rob Gent:

know, what I'm saying? I, my mind is really going along the

Rob Gent:

continuum,

George Slavich:

all of those things. I mean, you know, for

George Slavich:

me, I felt very securely attached to my parents. I don't

George Slavich:

think it came from their although, although my mom is

George Slavich:

more, let's say, introverted than my dad is my dad is very

George Slavich:

outwardly outward and gregarious, my dad is a little

George Slavich:

more introverted. But you know, when you're three years old, you

George Slavich:

haven't done a ton of social learning yet. A lot of it's also

George Slavich:

just genetic predisposition. And I suppose that's what that is

George Slavich:

what mine was. But you know, us, us shy people have superheroes.

George Slavich:

And so, you know, I think what I've tried to do in my career is

George Slavich:

is superpowers, I should say, and, you know, I think my, I

George Slavich:

suppose my career and my scholarly work is just about

George Slavich:

finding how that social sensitivity can be, you know,

George Slavich:

flipped into a strength instead of a weakness. And so I think

George Slavich:

some of that is represented in my work, and certainly the type

George Slavich:

of the types of things that I study. And, you know, as the the

George Slavich:

joke saying, goes, you know, researches me search, and I

George Slavich:

think there's a little bit of a little bit of truth in that if

George Slavich:

you look at the things that I focused on.

Rob Gent:

Yeah, I noticed one of the more than one, but one that

Rob Gent:

I noticed was really talking about, you know, the social

Rob Gent:

impact of stress and health and how that impacts and so your

Rob Gent:

must be a living example of a case study, if you will, of, you

Rob Gent:

know, being more social and interpersonal healthiness is

Rob Gent:

really

George Slavich:

connected. Yeah, you know, the social, and I

George Slavich:

can't claim to have experienced that much, you know, true

George Slavich:

adversity in my life. I I'm very lucky in that sense. But, you

George Slavich:

know, overcoming, as Zimbardo would say, sort of being a

George Slavich:

prisoner of her own mind, you know, is in and of itself, a

George Slavich:

challenge that I think resonates with a lot of folks.

Rob Gent:

So, thank you so much. And I'm curious, so you're, you

Rob Gent:

grew up in the bay area, maybe the shyness is related, but you

Rob Gent:

certainly must have been performing academically had a

Rob Gent:

focus in order to say, Hey, I'm going to a couple of minutes

Rob Gent:

down the road to Stanford, that that in itself is a pretty good

Rob Gent:

accomplishment.

George Slavich:

Yeah. And my life, I think, in a lot of our

George Slavich:

lives, whether we recognize it or not, is, is, you know, some

George Slavich:

combination of being hard working and being prepared, you

George Slavich:

know, that that, again, is saying, you know, Chance favors

George Slavich:

the prepared mind or the prepared person. And, you know,

George Slavich:

again, just to talk about my own personal experience, I wasn't a

George Slavich:

great student, in elementary school, and, and, and mill

George Slavich:

Middle School, I'm young for my class age, my birthday is in

George Slavich:

September, so I'm in at least in California, I'm right on the

George Slavich:

cusp of whether you sort of start early or wait a year, and

George Slavich:

that probably also has something to do with, you know, whether or

George Slavich:

not the shyness was compounded over time. But, but long story

George Slavich:

short, I joined a swim team and high school I, it was really

George Slavich:

small swim team, we had six swimmers only, and one of those

George Slavich:

people on the swim team was just an incredible role model. And he

George Slavich:

happened to be a senior and was preparing and then during the

George Slavich:

swim season, found out that he was going to Stanford and I was

George Slavich:

really curious to learn more about what that looks like. And

George Slavich:

he just seemed like he had his life. So well put together and,

George Slavich:

you know, also sort of preparing yourself or something in the

George Slavich:

future felt very controllable and sort of predictable to me,

George Slavich:

and he just had a huge influence on my mind, you know, on my own

George Slavich:

approach, and really, sort of taught me what it what it would

George Slavich:

take, you know, to have a chance to get in, you know, to a school

George Slavich:

like that. And just, obviously, on a swim team, you have a lot

George Slavich:

of time to ask people questions. You know, you're going through

George Slavich:

the season together, etc, etc. And so, you know, that's, that's

George Slavich:

what I mean about the serendipitous part is that, you

George Slavich:

know, I easily could have focused on something else, if it

George Slavich:

wouldn't, just off chance had been that I met him and, you

George Slavich:

know, he really taught me a lot about what it meant to sort of

George Slavich:

prepare yourself in a scholarly way. You know, fast forward to

George Slavich:

Stanford and I grew up in a business family of my my parents

George Slavich:

were owned and operated a hardware store when I was

George Slavich:

growing up. So since age three or four, I was sounds

George Slavich:

ridiculous, but mixing paint, cutting glass threading, pipe,

George Slavich:

all the things you do in hardware store, it was honestly

George Slavich:

the best sort of socialization and fun that you know kid could

George Slavich:

have. And when I got to Stanford, I really thought I was

George Slavich:

going to I was going to be a business major. Well, again,

George Slavich:

sort of as chance intervene, Stanford didn't have a business

George Slavich:

major. They had, and they have an economics major. And so I

George Slavich:

took, you know, introductory economics, and absolutely hated

George Slavich:

it. You know, it wasn't grab that the graphs wasn't what got

George Slavich:

me excited. Turns out that wasn't the part of business that

George Slavich:

I really enjoyed. It was really sort of psychology of business

George Slavich:

and people and I suppose marketing at that time point, in

George Slavich:

any case, I, I had a great friend in my dorm who was taking

George Slavich:

a introductory psychology course at the time. And I said, What

George Slavich:

the heck, I don't know anything about psychology, I never had

George Slavich:

psychology in high school. What I do know is that it's economics

George Slavich:

is not where it's at. For me, Stanford doesn't have a business

George Slavich:

undergrad, so it's not going to be business. So I'll try

George Slavich:

something different. I took introductory to psychology. And

George Slavich:

I had the experience that I didn't want to read anything

George Slavich:

from my econ textbooks. And when I opened up my psychology

George Slavich:

textbooks, I couldn't stop reading. And you know, the

George Slavich:

biggest joy in life, I think, is to just find something that you

George Slavich:

love so much that it doesn't feel like work. And that's what

George Slavich:

it was for me. So, again, it's I would not have ever, you know,

George Slavich:

gotten to Stanford if I wasn't prepared. But if you want to put

George Slavich:

the pieces together, I could never say that I ended up with

George Slavich:

this particular career, because I was somehow preparing myself

George Slavich:

for a career in psychology or clinical psychology, all of that

George Slavich:

is totally attributable to these chance events of, you know,

George Slavich:

Stanford not having a major me meeting somebody else in my dorm

George Slavich:

who introduced me to something that I just happen to fall in

George Slavich:

love with, and doing well in it. And I suppose also, that topic

George Slavich:

being a particularly good match for my DNA helps.

Rob Gent:

It's so fascinating. So very advantageous how things

Rob Gent:

worked out, you use the term serendipitous, it's so

Rob Gent:

wonderful. So you're in your you're in college, and you start

Rob Gent:

focusing it, I assume, at some point time you make it you

Rob Gent:

major, and you really harness that. Yeah, I'd be curious to

Rob Gent:

hear, you're getting towards the latter part of college, what's

Rob Gent:

the plan for you? So

George Slavich:

that just to put this sort of on a chronological

George Slavich:

timeline, that was I was an undergrad from 1996 to 2000. And

George Slavich:

I did a master's in Stanford and in 2001, so I was there from

George Slavich:

1996 to 2001. And, you know, incredible, incredible time to

George Slavich:

be at Stanford. So the 9096, on the earlier side of things was

George Slavich:

Yahoo, Netscape, you know, really the first and moments of

George Slavich:

the internet coming to life in the Bay Area, but also, I think,

George Slavich:

worldwide, you know, graphic web browsers, AOL, those things,

George Slavich:

around 9097 9098 was the beginning of Google. And, you

George Slavich:

know, the Google founders. The first search engine, some of

George Slavich:

your listeners might know, was, you know, google.stanford.edu,

George Slavich:

they were graduate students at Stanford, right? So the whole

George Slavich:

PageRank system and figuring out the DNA that ultimately became

George Slavich:

Google was all done at Stanford, and, and it was, you know, you

George Slavich:

would be sitting at a lunch or dinner table and hearing people

George Slavich:

talk about the.com industry and them selling their company to

George Slavich:

Yahoo for $30 million. And these just these crazy stories, and I

George Slavich:

really didn't know I suppose it was just a 5050 chance being

George Slavich:

from the Bay Area, do I sort of go and try to get a job at

George Slavich:

Google or Yahoo, or one of these companies just down the road? Or

George Slavich:

do I do an honors thesis and you know, try to take my stab at

George Slavich:

putting, you know, putting an independent research project

George Slavich:

together? I suppose your listeners can be the judges of

George Slavich:

whether I picked chose chose wisely or not?

Rob Gent:

I say yes,

George Slavich:

emphatically you chose, right. Yeah, you know, it

George Slavich:

was probably 51% Do the honors thesis and go to graduate school

George Slavich:

and make a career out of that versus 49% sort of take my

George Slavich:

interest in psychology and apply it, you know, to tech Health

George Slavich:

Tech in some way and 51% one out so I did my honors thesis,

George Slavich:

graduated with honors and then at the time happened to be doing

George Slavich:

a honors thesis with with a wonderful wonderful A professor

George Slavich:

at Stanford, Ian Gottlieb, who was collaborating with an

George Slavich:

amazing gentleman at the University of Oregon, Scotland

George Slavich:

row at the time. And so then the transition to the University of

George Slavich:

Oregon and becoming a Oregon duck was sort of an easy

George Slavich:

decision for me since my, my soon to be advisor in Oregon was

George Slavich:

already a known quantity to me, and also being I suppose, only

George Slavich:

child wanting to stay a little bit closer to my parents, the

George Slavich:

West Coast felt very attractive. Yeah.

Rob Gent:

Can I ask this? Because I have what was the

Rob Gent:

dissertation title?

George Slavich:

Yeah, cognitive mechanisms of stress

George Slavich:

sensitization, which feels a little bit like a mind mount

George Slavich:

mouthful. I'm glad I could remember it. So thanks for the

George Slavich:

memory, check it out. But the the basic idea there is we know

George Slavich:

that if you know each individual person, if they come to

George Slavich:

experience a major life stressor, like a divorce or

George Slavich:

getting fired, there are different thresholds that will

George Slavich:

put each of us over the edge and lead that stressor to turn into

George Slavich:

a depressive episode, or anxiety episode. And I was really

George Slavich:

curious, you know, what, what is it that sort of lowers the

George Slavich:

threshold for somebody to become depressed, you know, once

George Slavich:

they're faced with a major life event, and that dissertation

George Slavich:

really work really focused on something that the cognitive

George Slavich:

behavior therapists in the audience will know a lot about,

George Slavich:

which is, you know, negative thoughts, they dysfunctional

George Slavich:

thoughts and attitudes, negative core beliefs, and how it is that

George Slavich:

our, our thoughts and our perceptions of ourselves, other

George Slavich:

people in the future, can really, you know, make certain

George Slavich:

individuals to become more vulnerable to in the parlays of

George Slavich:

the dissertation, sort of sensitize us to stressors when

George Slavich:

they occur, that then allows a major life event to, to turn

George Slavich:

into a depressive episode for one person, whereas it might not

George Slavich:

for another.

Rob Gent:

So fascinating. And, I mean, obviously, I don't wanna

Rob Gent:

jump ahead, but but studying stress has been a continual,

Rob Gent:

even though there's a plethora of I mean, you've expanded your

Rob Gent:

scope of research. It's tremendous. It's just I know

Rob Gent:

that this concept of stress has been a variable throughout your

Rob Gent:

work.

George Slavich:

Yeah. And that was that felt like a harder

George Slavich:

thing to sell before the pandemic, especially in the

George Slavich:

United States? Because a lot of Americans, let's be honest,

George Slavich:

where stress is a badge of honor. So you know, in 2000, we

George Slavich:

all say, Oh, well, stress is not a problem, you know, I mean,

George Slavich:

yeah, we're all stressed out. Sure. But we're also functioning

George Slavich:

well, but I'll be honest with you, Rob, you know, the pandemic

George Slavich:

has changed all of that, you know, we've all been through the

George Slavich:

washing machine. And, you know, priorities have also shifted,

George Slavich:

and I think one, one thing that the world has come to realize is

George Slavich:

that, you know, feeling stressed out is no longer a badge of

George Slavich:

honor. It's, it's, it's not always, certainly not always

George Slavich:

advantageous to be stressed out. I mean, there is positive

George Slavich:

stress. But what I mean to say is that I think we've all come

George Slavich:

to realize the collateral damage on our mental health and our

George Slavich:

physical health from from being stressed. And I'm also I think,

George Slavich:

happy to say that we've all had a little bit of an awakening, in

George Slavich:

terms of work life balance, to say, Yeah, I'm willing to be

George Slavich:

stressed out, but only so much, you know, or only willing to

George Slavich:

take that so far, you know, I, my mental health is also

George Slavich:

important to me. So I hope in this country, we've had a little

George Slavich:

bit of an evolution in terms of our relationship to stress and

George Slavich:

how stress we're willing to be before we say, you know, enough

George Slavich:

is enough.

Rob Gent:

Well, you bring up such a fascinating point,

Rob Gent:

because I know, especially myself as a psychotherapist and

Rob Gent:

all the people listening as, as therapists, they think it's been

Rob Gent:

hard for we get parents and adolescents, even the parent

Rob Gent:

construct. There's no There's this awareness issue of like,

Rob Gent:

I'm not even sure when it's helpful stress or over stressor,

Rob Gent:

I've just been, I'm the frog in the boiling water, right? Like I

Rob Gent:

just, we just in so maybe speak to like, how do we how do we as

Rob Gent:

therapists can even give them a barometer of what's healthy

Rob Gent:

what's not How do you know when you're overstressed?

George Slavich:

Yeah, it makes sense that it's it's you know,

George Slavich:

that's that feels to me like a like a one week intensive

George Slavich:

workshop. We get first all of that, when I think about these

George Slavich:

things in overly simplified terms, but, you know, is stress

George Slavich:

working for our patients or is it not Right is are the families

George Slavich:

that the families that we work with, you know, mate, some of

George Slavich:

them may be high octane high functioning, you know, parents

George Slavich:

families, right, the dad or the mom is traveling all the time,

George Slavich:

they're coming back to, you know, throwing the stuff on the

George Slavich:

table, eating dinner scarfing dinner, you know, they get, you

George Slavich:

know, an hour or two of, you know, time with the kids before

George Slavich:

the kids go down. And then they, you know, sit down for an

George Slavich:

enjoyable evening, whatever it is, right read, reading the

George Slavich:

news, watching a Netflix show, whatever it is, you know, I

George Slavich:

think some families thrive on that. And if you really get to

George Slavich:

the bottom of it, they feel like they have meaning in their life,

George Slavich:

they feel joyful. They feel they really, truly feel well

George Slavich:

connected to their children and to each other as spouses. And

George Slavich:

you know, it just, it feels right. And they would say that

George Slavich:

it is right. You know, other families may say that everything

George Slavich:

is going well. And then you scratch the surface a little

George Slavich:

bit. And you realize quite quickly that what they mean is

George Slavich:

that their work, life is going well or whatever it is, but that

George Slavich:

they don't feel connected to their kids. Their kids don't

George Slavich:

feel connected to them. If you ask them what their kids have

George Slavich:

been up to, they wouldn't be able to tell you really? Do they

George Slavich:

feel connected to their spouse? Do they feel like they really

George Slavich:

have meaning and passion and joy in life? Do they feel like

George Slavich:

they're, you know, living their dharma, their their, you know,

George Slavich:

purpose in life? It's so, you know, the first answer is, yes,

George Slavich:

everything is hunky dory. But once you sort of open the hood,

George Slavich:

you realize that everything is going awry, and that you know,

George Slavich:

they're not really functioning as well as they you know, maybe

George Slavich:

initially let on that they were but also that there's no there's

George Slavich:

no joy meaning passion connection. And so obviously I

George Slavich:

think that's where as therapists psychotherapist myself being

George Slavich:

included, can help people reconnect with you know, meaning

George Slavich:

enjoying and and what it is that it they feel like they they want

George Slavich:

in their lives.

Rob Gent:

Well, I really appreciate your giving us this,

Rob Gent:

tying it into one of the litmus test is this interpersonal

Rob Gent:

relationship and how we're doing with you know, being connected

Rob Gent:

to our kids and how we're doing that is a really good barometer,

Rob Gent:

if I'm hearing you, right, what a wonderful thing.

George Slavich:

And I think, you know, the COVID pandemic has

George Slavich:

been the best demonstration of the importance of social

George Slavich:

connection and belonging that we ever could have imagined.

George Slavich:

Because, as we all know, one of the main things the pandemic did

George Slavich:

is cause complete upheaval of our social and relational lives,

George Slavich:

right? We were, we showed up to work every day, we had regular

George Slavich:

routines, regular roles in our job situations, as did kids, you

George Slavich:

know, who also showed up to school and had relationships

George Slavich:

with their teachers and with their peers. And the pandemic.

George Slavich:

You know, blew all of that up in a matter of months. And I think

George Slavich:

we're still quite honestly reconstituting our social lives,

George Slavich:

you know, we're just starting to return back to our work

George Slavich:

environments for some people and the kids are now back in school,

George Slavich:

but they have a lot of ketchup to do with friends and also with

George Slavich:

schoolwork. And I think we're still now in that transition

George Slavich:

period where we're trying to put our social lives back together

George Slavich:

and really feel grounded. I don't I'm not why should speak

George Slavich:

again, for myself. I don't personally feel there. But I

George Slavich:

feel like we were getting there again.

Rob Gent:

Yeah, I appreciate that. Especially, I mean, from

Rob Gent:

our business, I mean, Partial Hospitalization and Intensive

Rob Gent:

Outpatient and these resources. Yeah, have been super necessary.

Rob Gent:

Certainly, during and after the COVID It's been fascinating

Rob Gent:

because for lots of kids returning to schools, it's taken

Rob Gent:

on new meaning. It's been tough. It's been hard to go from COVID

Rob Gent:

to back to life as normal, and they need some supports, which

Rob Gent:

has been really fascinating for

George Slavich:

us. Yeah. And there is such a rich literature

George Slavich:

showing that you know, interpersonal major

George Slavich:

interpersonal stressors are some of the strongest precipitants of

George Slavich:

almost every major mental health outcome you can think of

George Slavich:

including anxiety disorders, depression, psychotic breaks,

George Slavich:

schizophrenia, you know, many of first onset psychosis events and

George Slavich:

even schizophrenia are precipitated by major life

George Slavich:

events involving high degrees of interpersonal stress. So, um,

George Slavich:

you know, and that's when people end up in partial

George Slavich:

hospitalization programs as you as you well know, and hopefully

George Slavich:

seek out therapy. So there's a lot there for us to understand.

Rob Gent:

Yeah, but thank you so much for that I just to go back

Rob Gent:

because I I love to ask and then so you can you go from Oregon to

Rob Gent:

McLean and working at the Harvard Medical Center just so

Rob Gent:

fascinated about that experience.

George Slavich:

Yeah, you know that my my big trip to the east

George Slavich:

coast you know was for a clinical internship in McLean is

George Slavich:

fantastic place one of the best years of my entire life was was

George Slavich:

working in McLean Hospital. If you haven't, if your listeners

George Slavich:

aren't, aren't aware of McLean, it's a fascinating read, Girl

George Slavich:

Interrupted is all about know patient's history at McLean

George Slavich:

Hospital, that's one of the top two or three oldest psychiatric

George Slavich:

hospitals in the country and has a rich history of seeing some of

George Slavich:

the most amazing, creative artistic people that have ever

George Slavich:

lived. The people at McLean who are incredible have some of the

George Slavich:

deepest understanding of the nature of the human mind, both

George Slavich:

what it means to function well mentally, and psycho socially.

George Slavich:

And also how people transition from feeling mentally well to,

George Slavich:

to where sort of pathology psychopathology develops. And

George Slavich:

then also to bring sort of the mind back from the state of

George Slavich:

being psycho pathological to be Well, again, and, you know, I

George Slavich:

think, the richest understanding of certain that line between

George Slavich:

abnormal, normal and abnormal thinking, you know, I learned

George Slavich:

incredible amount working with the clinicians, and the health

George Slavich:

care providers there. So it's was an amazing, amazing

George Slavich:

experience. And, yeah, I'll be forever grateful for that. And I

George Slavich:

think for all therapists, you know, the things that we all

George Slavich:

hope for, is to learn from, from people always who are much, much

George Slavich:

better than us, you know, sort of the experts at understanding

George Slavich:

the mind. And so, for me, that was a really incredible

George Slavich:

experience.

Rob Gent:

So I would imagine is you're finishing up at, at your

Rob Gent:

internship at McLean, how is that developing? And boy, what

Rob Gent:

is like, what am I going to focus on? How is that shaping

Rob Gent:

like, Okay, here's what my next step is,

George Slavich:

ah, I, that was 2006 I, my last year of my, my

George Slavich:

internship, and you know, at that point, fMRI was really only

George Slavich:

on the scene for, I don't know, six or seven years or so. And,

George Slavich:

and a lot of psychology, clinical psychology was still

George Slavich:

very behavioral. I mean, I'll use an example from my own work,

George Slavich:

like we were doing interviews, stress, like stress interviews

George Slavich:

with depressed patients in and trying to understand how it was

George Slavich:

that different life stressors, were impacting risk for

George Slavich:

depression. So you know, if you're thinking about that, in

George Slavich:

terms of like a mechanistic model, A to Z kind of story, A

George Slavich:

is the stressors, and z is the depressive episode. But in

George Slavich:

between the depression in between the stressors and a

George Slavich:

depressive episode, are all of the other letters of the

George Slavich:

alphabet. And you know, all of those other letters. In my mind,

George Slavich:

psychology wasn't doing a great job at grappling with primarily

George Slavich:

because we didn't yet have the tools. We were just starting to

George Slavich:

understand the use how fMRI could be used to image changes

George Slavich:

in the brain that occur while individuals were depressed, or

George Slavich:

when they experienced a particular type of stressor. So,

George Slavich:

you know, we were still in the early days of understanding what

George Slavich:

the neural mechanisms of the impact of stress on depression

George Slavich:

were, we would still in the early days, for example, taking

George Slavich:

blood samples from individuals who were depressed versus non

George Slavich:

depressed. I mean, there were some people who were doing this

George Slavich:

work very well. But that really was not adding in the biological

George Slavich:

piece was really not where psychology was, you know, in

George Slavich:

2000 2005 2006. So, really, in terms of my own training, what I

George Slavich:

realized was that if I didn't know anything about biology,

George Slavich:

then I wasn't going to have a career. Because I thought I

George Slavich:

figured we knew at that time, kind of as nuts as we needed to

George Slavich:

know that stress was important and that it increased people's

George Slavich:

risk for depression. But we didn't really know why or how I

George Slavich:

looked to see who could teach me something about psycho biology

George Slavich:

that I thought would be useful for my work. And I found an

George Slavich:

incredible person who is since retired, but who was at UCSF in

George Slavich:

San Francisco at the time, Margaret Kennedy Kemeny, who was

George Slavich:

a clinical psychologist played by training, but who had

George Slavich:

retrained in immunology, and I learned about her work and

George Slavich:

really what she was doing, was trying in her own way grapple

George Slavich:

with how stress was impacting the immune system. And then I

George Slavich:

learned a little bit more of that. And then I learned that

George Slavich:

the immune system is, was presumed to be involved in

George Slavich:

depression. So, and then that, for me was walawe. So here, I

George Slavich:

know that the immune system is connected to stress, the immune

George Slavich:

system is connected to depression in some ways, we

George Slavich:

didn't really fully understand that. But I said, that's who I

George Slavich:

need to. That's who I need to work with. So I, I came back to

George Slavich:

the West Coast, I lived in San Francisco for two years, worked

George Slavich:

with Margaret Kemeny, and the other incredible people at UCSF,

George Slavich:

Nancy Adler, and Alyssa apple and home team of other folks,

George Slavich:

and really just spent those few years trying to understand this

George Slavich:

field called psychoneuroimmunology, which is

George Slavich:

a really fancy word for connections between psychology,

George Slavich:

neuroscience, and Immunology. And in really, what I've been

George Slavich:

trying to do then is just apply this psycho neuro immunological

George Slavich:

perspective, to stress and, and health. And so that's, I suppose

George Slavich:

that's what I've been doing. Since then. That's the story.

Rob Gent:

But I appreciate so much knowing the story, because

Rob Gent:

there's such a pro flip lithic just deep well, of publications,

Rob Gent:

and so much stuff that you've done, and, and to get into that,

Rob Gent:

and maybe separate, uh, how do you get into teaching, and I

Rob Gent:

mean, it all goes together, but what leads you in the path of

Rob Gent:

the teaching and all of that stuff, if you don't mind

Rob Gent:

sharing,

George Slavich:

it goes back to I think your opening, your

George Slavich:

opening comments about early mentors, I mean, if, you know,

George Slavich:

if we're so humble, to look back on our own lives, and to

George Slavich:

understand how we got into the positions that we did, then

George Slavich:

hopefully, we realize that other people played a great role in in

George Slavich:

all of it, you know, not not just teaching us the content

George Slavich:

that maybe we're interested in, let, as I said, and in the

George Slavich:

context of describing my relationship, and the impact,

George Slavich:

Phil Zimbardo has had just more fundamentally making us excited

George Slavich:

about learning or whatever it is. And so, you know, I've just

George Slavich:

always been the type of person to want to give away what I've

George Slavich:

received. I have I owned at a very early age, in my own

George Slavich:

professional career, how much I owe to other people who got me

George Slavich:

to where I was, you know, and at that time at Stanford there,

George Slavich:

Phil Zimbardo was active, but so was Al Bandura, you know, the

George Slavich:

father of social cognitive theory and Dorsey and yes,

George Slavich:

social modeling. And I think I just really came to feel that,

George Slavich:

you know, if, if any student in their career has the opportunity

George Slavich:

to be excited by somebody else. And if that other person can

George Slavich:

show them how it's done, and give them a little bit of a

George Slavich:

path, a little bit of a kickstart, then they can go

George Slavich:

pretty far. And I think that my own story is somebody who

George Slavich:

benefited from other people really taking an interest in me

George Slavich:

as a scholar. And, as I said, not just teaching me some

George Slavich:

content, but also teaching me how to be excited and passionate

George Slavich:

about my work. And that was the greatest gift that was given to

George Slavich:

me, and I suppose I'm feel compelled compel, times 100 to

George Slavich:

you know, pay it forward and do the same for my students.

Rob Gent:

I normally don't say this, but I'm gonna say this, I

Rob Gent:

just, you have this wonderful balance. This is why I love to

Rob Gent:

do this podcast is because you have this beautiful balance of

Rob Gent:

academia, and humanism, like you're also human, along with

Rob Gent:

all the power.

George Slavich:

So this is also Bandura influence, which is what

George Slavich:

he would say, you know, we're all agents of change, right?

George Slavich:

Yep. Yeah, we are all agents in our own life history, but also

George Slavich:

in our work. And I think, first of all, you know, taking the

George Slavich:

agent out of scholarly work is, you know, would be sort of to

George Slavich:

try to disassociate to things in a way that doesn't really make

George Slavich:

sense, right? Because all scholars, poets, any, you know,

George Slavich:

philosophers, musician, musicians, right, our products

George Slavich:

are all they're all a product of our mind. So like, what can we

George Slavich:

talk about, about the scholarly work if we're not giving, you

George Slavich:

know, if we're not acknowledging ourselves as agents in that

George Slavich:

work, so

Rob Gent:

Yeah, terrific. Well, thank you so much. I. So I mean,

Rob Gent:

I just love to know that so you're teaching and doing this

Rob Gent:

and then there's I love to ask this There's so many amazing

Rob Gent:

publications that you have I love to ask the question. was

Rob Gent:

such a robust library of publications? What are a few

Rob Gent:

that were most meaningful? And why to? That's probably a loaded

Rob Gent:

question. But

George Slavich:

yeah, you know, you're making me choose between

George Slavich:

my children.

Rob Gent:

I, well, you've got hundreds of children. So I know

Rob Gent:

that's a tough, that's a tough lot to choose.

George Slavich:

Yeah. No, I haven't, I had a few clear

George Slavich:

favorites. I mean, you know, one paper, which was early, early

George Slavich:

paper in 2013, about human social genomics that I that I

George Slavich:

wrote with a good friend and collaborator of mine at at UCLA,

George Slavich:

Steve Cole, you know, Steve, Steve's work has really

George Slavich:

pioneered our understanding of how the human genome is impacted

George Slavich:

by different social experiences. And in that first paper, you

George Slavich:

know, we coined the term of this field that has since come to

George Slavich:

emerge called human social genomics. And the idea there is,

George Slavich:

is sort of more simple than it sounds at first, you know, the

George Slavich:

idea there is that as we grow up, we come to understand our

George Slavich:

biological selves as being pretty stable across time. And

George Slavich:

across situations, you know, we all have appreciation of DNA, we

George Slavich:

know we get sort of half our DNA from our mom and our dad, and

George Slavich:

that over the course of our lives, that DNA remains

George Slavich:

relatively unchanged. And, of course, we don't experience

George Slavich:

changes in our DNA from moment to moment, because we have no

George Slavich:

way of experiencing the genome, right, we can, we can feel

George Slavich:

changes in thoughts and emotions, but we can't feel

George Slavich:

changes in genomic activity. And, you know, the biggest

George Slavich:

discovery in the field of human social genomics is this idea

George Slavich:

that the activity, not our DNA, but our RNA levels, the

George Slavich:

expression of those genes changes on a moment to moment,

George Slavich:

hour to hour, week to week basis, not just as a function of

George Slavich:

sort of internal biological processes, but also as a

George Slavich:

function of our experience of the social world. And for me,

George Slavich:

that is just a game changer. That, you know, explains how it

George Slavich:

is that if we're chronically stressed out for one week or two

George Slavich:

weeks, why do we get sick? What, you know what, why don't we come

George Slavich:

down with a cold, the moment after the the, the the, the test

George Slavich:

is finished, you know what I mean? We've been holding it

George Slavich:

together for two weeks, we're doing well. But during that

George Slavich:

time, our genome has, has really reduced our antiviral activity

George Slavich:

at the level of the genome, we've sort of held it together.

George Slavich:

But as soon as after we're finished with the test, all of a

George Slavich:

sudden, now we're susceptible to those viruses that we picked up

George Slavich:

probably along the way. You know, likewise, how can how can

George Slavich:

a life history of chronic stress lead to increased risk of all of

George Slavich:

these inflammation related disorders like rheumatoid

George Slavich:

arthritis, cardiovascular disease, asthma, cognitive

George Slavich:

decline, Alzheimer's disease, you know, all of that really is

George Slavich:

explained by this really critical, critical process of

George Slavich:

changes in human gene expression occurring as a result of

George Slavich:

positive and negative social experience? So that paper is

George Slavich:

certainly bigger than just, you know, to others. I'll mention

George Slavich:

quickly we, a few years ago, wrote a paper which is called a

George Slavich:

meta analytic review, some of your listeners will be aware of,

George Slavich:

you know, that's when highly masochistic researchers like

George Slavich:

myself, look at the entire literature on a particular

George Slavich:

topic, and try to analyze data across all of those studies. And

George Slavich:

what we did in that paper was really a meta analysis of all

George Slavich:

the studies that had looked at connections between some kind of

George Slavich:

psychosocial intervention and immune system function. Because

George Slavich:

the question is, you know, here we are, as therapists, we're

George Slavich:

doing cognitive behavioral therapy, dialectical behavior

George Slavich:

therapy, you know, Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction, to what

George Slavich:

end? You know, do those kinds of interventions have a concrete

George Slavich:

impact on the function of the immune system? And if so, that

George Slavich:

feels like pretty concrete, empirical evidence to say, Yeah,

George Slavich:

we should use cognitive behavioral therapy or

George Slavich:

dialectical behavior therapy or some kind of stress management

George Slavich:

to improve both mental and physical health, because we have

George Slavich:

this demonstrated Association in randomized clinical trials that

George Slavich:

individuals who are randomly assigned to get CBT versus some

George Slavich:

kind of active control actually show improvements in immune

George Slavich:

system function. And if we can show that then, you know,

George Slavich:

hopefully we can get a little bit more traction for getting

George Slavich:

payers,

Rob Gent:

yet. That is amazing. Yes, yes. Wow.

George Slavich:

You know, I love that paper because it provides a

George Slavich:

really robust empirical demonstration that CBT group

George Slavich:

CBT, you know, reduces inflammation has other positive

George Slavich:

immune benefits, and I feel like that is something that, you

George Slavich:

know, we need in our arsenal of arguments for why pipe payers

George Slavich:

and insurance companies should, should should cover psychosocial

George Slavich:

interventions. So fantastic. And then the last one is just, you

George Slavich:

know, what my work is really congealed into, which is the

George Slavich:

social safety theory, which basically says that, again, as

George Slavich:

we started out social relationships are, are the

George Slavich:

fabric, you know, that that, that keep us together social

George Slavich:

relationships buttress our, our lives, they provide us direction

George Slavich:

and meaning and, and really make us feel grounded. And so whereas

George Slavich:

positive social relationships can imbue us with resilience,

George Slavich:

and meaning and direction. Negative social relationships

George Slavich:

can degrade our sense of self worth, can feel as though we're

George Slavich:

not, you know, moving or progressing in our lives can

George Slavich:

make us feel as though we're a flag waving in the wind. And

George Slavich:

although we're working really hard, there's just something

George Slavich:

that doesn't feel meaningful about our lives. And so this

George Slavich:

paper about social safety theories to really try to

George Slavich:

understand what are the types of positive, negative social

George Slavich:

experiences that impact our mental and physical health? And

George Slavich:

also, what are the neural and immunologic and genomic

George Slavich:

mechanisms that translate positive and negative social

George Slavich:

experiences into health and well being? And then finally, if we

George Slavich:

know what those mechanisms are, how can we use therapeutic tools

George Slavich:

in our toolbox like CBT DBT, stress management interventions

George Slavich:

to reduce risk for negative health outcomes, but equally

George Slavich:

importantly, to build in a positive experience of ourselves

George Slavich:

and our social world to really keep us resilient at the

George Slavich:

individual and collective level? And so? Yeah, that that's

George Slavich:

something that's near and dear to my heart as well.

Rob Gent:

Yeah, of course, it's so tremendous. I know, You've

Rob Gent:

piqued the interest of not only myself, but all of our

Rob Gent:

listeners. So I want to make sure they gain access to that I

Rob Gent:

am smiling at your last description. I'm like, oh, so

Rob Gent:

Martin Seligman was on to something all those many years

Rob Gent:

ago about positive psychology and all that stuff, just so

Rob Gent:

wonderful. Like,

George Slavich:

yeah, you know, and it's, he certainly has had

George Slavich:

an incredible impact on the field. And I think, you know, to

George Slavich:

your point, one of the most important impacts, I think he

George Slavich:

had was to remind us all as therapists and as researchers

George Slavich:

that the goal here is not just to get patients from negative 79

George Slavich:

to zero, right, you know, that's disease risk reduction, that's

George Slavich:

reducing psychopathology. There's also the other end of

George Slavich:

the scale, which is to get patients from zero to positive

George Slavich:

79, or whatever it is. And I think positive psychology

George Slavich:

certainly had a huge impact on reminding us that, you know,

George Slavich:

studying and understanding character and virtue and meaning

George Slavich:

in life, and life satisfaction is just as important as is

George Slavich:

reducing risk for depression and anxiety. Because just

George Slavich:

eliminating symptoms doesn't mean that you're doing well.

George Slavich:

Right?

Rob Gent:

Well, I just hear it Embark, we use the term, we use

Rob Gent:

the term purpose to Trump actually passion. So I would say

Rob Gent:

if it's fair to say for you, there's some clear purpose

Rob Gent:

driven life here for you, Dr. Savage, just thank you for

Rob Gent:

sharing it with his holy cow. It's an amazing,

George Slavich:

and I I suspect that that's nothing special to

George Slavich:

me. I mean, I think every, you know, therapist, you don't you

George Slavich:

don't become a therapist, because you're financially

George Slavich:

driven, right? You become a therapist, because you feel like

George Slavich:

you have a life that involves giving back and, and helping to,

George Slavich:

you know, keep other people resilient. So, I think I've done

George Slavich:

that in my own way. But I think that's probably something that

George Slavich:

resonates with a lot of your listeners as well.

Rob Gent:

Yeah, of course. Well, would you mind telling us about

Rob Gent:

your current project? I know that the stress lab is doing

Rob Gent:

some amazing things, if you mind sharing that with us would be

Rob Gent:

wonderful.

George Slavich:

Yeah. So I'm, you'll probably post this

George Slavich:

somewhere, but all the work that we're doing is available in the

George Slavich:

life on our UCLA a laboratory for stress assessment and

George Slavich:

research, you know, which is UCLA stress lab.org. One of the

George Slavich:

things I'm most excited about is that in the state of California,

George Slavich:

we've put together this statewide network of

George Slavich:

stakeholders, clinicians, healthcare providers, scholars,

George Slavich:

and and working on now insurance companies and benefit companies

George Slavich:

to come together to the table to really address this issue of

George Slavich:

health disparities and moving toward health equity. And that

George Slavich:

project is California stress trauma and resilience network,

George Slavich:

Cal star network for short, also creatively at Cal star

George Slavich:

network.org. You know, that really, that really, I think,

George Slavich:

tries to the goal there is to really to bring the science of

George Slavich:

stress and resilience to bear on our understanding of what

George Slavich:

healthcare providers and other stakeholders can do to reduce

George Slavich:

health disparities at a population level, and to

George Slavich:

hopefully move us a little bit toward health equity. So some of

George Slavich:

the things we're not really particularly well poised to deal

George Slavich:

with the structural issues, you know, being a clinical

George Slavich:

psychologist or, you know, well, you know, reducing the

George Slavich:

structural drivers of racism are, of course, the most, you

George Slavich:

know, social stratification, you know, are probably the most

George Slavich:

important things that we can, you know, we could, as humans

George Slavich:

spend our lives doing, you know, the purpose of the network is to

George Slavich:

focus more on the public health issues related there, which is,

George Slavich:

if we know, for example, that early life adversity or adverse

George Slavich:

childhood experiences have a huge impact on lifelong

George Slavich:

trajectories, lifelong opportunity and health

George Slavich:

disparities, which we know that they do in the state of

George Slavich:

California, for example, almost 20% of California's experience

George Slavich:

for more adverse childhood experiences. And, you know, over

George Slavich:

70% of these health disparities are linked back in one way or

George Slavich:

another to early life adversity in the state of California,

George Slavich:

again, almost $112 million per year, you know, can link be

George Slavich:

linked, excuse me billion dollars per year can be linked

George Slavich:

to stress related health outcomes, you know, this is not

George Slavich:

just the cost of health care, but also, you know, lost days of

George Slavich:

productivity, etc. And, you know, the focus of the of the

George Slavich:

stress trauma and resilience network is really to bring the

George Slavich:

science of stress and resilience to understand which aspects of

George Slavich:

scholarly work and stress and resilience can be used to

George Slavich:

understand how we can transform healthcare. You know, if

George Slavich:

healthcare providers do not know, what kinds of stressful

George Slavich:

life experiences their patients have had, then what hope do we

George Slavich:

have for a health care provider to take stress as a treatment

George Slavich:

target? You know, yes, if you don't assess it, you can't

George Slavich:

address it. So if you have a patient in your room, therapy

George Slavich:

room who has been traumatized, it's going to be quite difficult

George Slavich:

to turn those experiences into treatment targets, if you don't

George Slavich:

know that they've been traumatized in one way or

George Slavich:

another. And so we've developed some tools for assessing

George Slavich:

lifetime stress exposure, along those lines that help you know,

George Slavich:

healthcare providers, really put major life stressors on the map

George Slavich:

on the radar of both patients and providers so that they can

George Slavich:

work collaboratively to really turn those you know, those

George Slavich:

experiences into treatment targets to hopefully, again, not

George Slavich:

just get not just reduce their disease risk, but you know, you

George Slavich:

know, build resilience, hope, resilience and purpose in their

George Slavich:

lives.

Rob Gent:

Well, tremendous. Thank you so much for raising

Rob Gent:

awareness, right? I mean, I love to hear you say cash where the

Rob Gent:

ACES is, is an amazing assessment tool to use even to

Rob Gent:

access that trauma and how it's related to all the related

Rob Gent:

mental health problems and physical problems. It's just as

Rob Gent:

fascinating in your efforts,

George Slavich:

that aces questionnaire you know, I say

George Slavich:

tongue in cheek that stressors don't stop when you're AJT aces

George Slavich:

questionnaire has been around for a long time but we've really

George Slavich:

taken a life course perspective on that and you know, your

George Slavich:

listeners can can go to the Lab website and and look at the tool

George Slavich:

we've developed the the stress and adversity inventory or

George Slavich:

strain, which is really a life life, an assessment of lifetime

George Slavich:

stressors across the entire life course, from early age up until

George Slavich:

the date of the interview, because I really do believe that

George Slavich:

you know, it is the case Is that early life adversity is

George Slavich:

tremendously impactful. But like I said, stress doesn't stop when

George Slavich:

you're age 18. And in some cases, you know, they're the

George Slavich:

things that our patients really come into the room with, or

George Slavich:

things that have happened after that, you know, most most people

George Slavich:

don't get divorced before age 18, for example, you know, they

George Slavich:

get divorced, after age 18. And so I think it's really important

George Slavich:

just for all of us as, as, as a therapist and healthcare

George Slavich:

providers to understand that life course, history of stress,

Rob Gent:

just tremendous. So it's, I think I know the answer,

Rob Gent:

but I always love to conclude our time together with what

Rob Gent:

legacy will you leave? It's clear, you have a legacy to

Rob Gent:

leave, and you've got it. But I'm curious to hear a quick

Rob Gent:

response.

George Slavich:

Now oh, gosh, you know, it's it. I'm not sure

George Slavich:

if you think it's going to be psychology related. You know,

George Slavich:

what, what I think is that every, you know, all of us

George Slavich:

deserve the opportunity to live, to live a life that, you know,

George Slavich:

marries our personal passion, and our occupation. You know, I

George Slavich:

don't think that I would be as successful as a psychologist,

George Slavich:

if, if my DNA and my temperament and my own personal experiences

George Slavich:

didn't provide me with rich information about my work life,

George Slavich:

if that makes sense. You know, I think I'm good at my work life,

George Slavich:

because I can rely on my personal experiences and my

George Slavich:

passion. And I think, you know, the legacy that I, that I would

George Slavich:

love to live is to help as many people as possible, you know,

George Slavich:

suss out what their personal, their personal experiences and

George Slavich:

the personal passions are. And honestly, if it's in psychology,

George Slavich:

then I can help a lot, because I can help them professionally.

George Slavich:

But if it's not, I suppose I also really want them to know

George Slavich:

that, because it's, you know, there's no worse nightmare than

George Slavich:

to be stuck in a job that when you go home every day, you

George Slavich:

realize it's not for you. So, you know, I hope to teach as

George Slavich:

many students about science and psychological science and

George Slavich:

psychotherapy as possible, but I suppose, I hope, also hope that

George Slavich:

the others fail quickly in psychology and go on into other

George Slavich:

things. And of course, pursue their passions, whatever it is,

George Slavich:

in whatever area of life, you know, really, maps on most of

George Slavich:

their, you know, their personal, as you said, personal purpose

George Slavich:

and meaning. So, you know, helping as many people realize

George Slavich:

their dharma and pointing them in that direction would be

George Slavich:

something that I would love to be able to give back.

Rob Gent:

Well, you've given me a gift in our time together, you

Rob Gent:

certainly have given the readers a gift. Thank you for this

Rob Gent:

really living and exemplifying exemplifying this integrated

Rob Gent:

life, if you will, that's certainly what I like to call

Rob Gent:

it. So just invaluable. We will certainly be able to, you know,

Rob Gent:

your website and all that. We'll certainly post it on there. I

Rob Gent:

want to thank you so much for your time. I've just I've got a

Rob Gent:

million more questions, but I'll riff I'll refrain from doing

Rob Gent:

that. But to our listeners, just thank you for joining us. Please

Rob Gent:

access this podcast where every how and how you access podcasts

Rob Gent:

would be wonderful. And again, I want to just extend my deepest

Rob Gent:

gratitude for spending time with Dr. George Slavic. Thank you,

Rob Gent:

everybody. See you next time.

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