Dr. Rus Chana Pechenik, Psychologist, State of NY Mental Health, Suicide Prevention #1-RC Dalfin

welcome to meaningful interviews with Rabbi Kim dolin I'm your host I'm here today with a very special woman her name is Dr Rus penik from Buffalo New York but originally from Ecuador and uh you don't know this Ruth Ru but Rus but my mother grew up in Costa Rica really that's right but she after the war she she was a Survivor and uh they came to Costa Rica but for some reason she didn't teach me Spanish so I wish I would know Spanish it would really be so much more helpful but that's that's not what it's about today I'm here today with rusana Dr penik uh who is is a uh clinical psychologist a social worker and particularly deals with the issue of suicide and more correctly prevention of suicide which I know is her passion to talk about it to teach it and to really implemented so we'll talk about that as far as your work is concerned I just want to read for everyone a little bit of her bio okay she's been in clinical practice since 1999 since 2008 Dr pchen has served in different capacities at the New York State office mental of Health providing a clinical leadership in suicide prevention and forensic Services being principal investigator in Federal grants and currently in prin as principal psychologist at the Buffalo Psychiatric Center where she is the director of the APA approved psych psych psychology internship programs and overseas the facilities centralized psychological testing services the last five years she's done a lot of work in the FR community in the Orthodox community in the observant Community I guess PR prob probably mostly through the phone and zoom uh I don't think you have many many from people in Buffalo um probably Muny Lakewood Brooklyn so that's very Park yes faral Park where I live where I'm sitting right now and that's something that's very important and I'll tell you why I uh ask you to come on it's because of this book that I wrote about a year ago called Tan on Mental Health I'm a teacher of Tanya and I realize that Tanya has so many facets to it including ideas suggestions for mental health as well I'm not going to tell you that that's the bulk of the Tanya and that's the way we literally learn the Tanya but when we delve deeper into it we could take out a lesson from the chapters and that's what I did here I chose per chapter one one or two ideas with um methods and lessons for chapter so it's kind of a more userfriendly book and I I really hope that uh you'll get a chance to um read it look at it and uh maybe learn it with me you know I mean in the course that I'm giving starting next week and hopefully you'll be able to improve it because this is just like a first step uh it has a lot of potential but we need professionals to take you know that's as much as you know I I dab a little bit psychology and things like that I'm not the professional I'm a rabbi a teacher a writer a researcher a historian you're the professional so it it's really special to have you here to deal with these things so the way we'll set it up is uh you'll tell us briefly a little bit about yourself then you we'll talk about your work and then in the second uh interview we the second installment we'll we'll talk more about uh your background and and other things so please take it from here well thank you for having me and I I have to say that years ago when I first started studying the I thought I learned this in graduate school this idea is what I was taught in graduate school so um I am looking forward to reading your book it's thank you thank you yeah yes so let me let me tell you how um my work began in the Orthodox Community specifically so back in 2016 um I hosted the first Suicide Prevention conference for the state of New York and um so we had a lot of attendees who were professionals who were providing services to different communities and at the end of one of my my presentations I had two psychologists who were working in state hospitals um that served the FR Community who came up to me and they asked me um what are you doing for the AR Orthodox population we primarily deal with the Orthodox community and their suicides and we really don't have resources so that was back in 2016 um at the time I was the director of the suicide prevention center here in New York state um I am no longer in that role I was in that role until 2020 so in 2019 that's when I started focusing on how can I make the transition from a leadership position for the state of New York to be able to provide more education and services um to this population that had a need and and that's how in the last five years this has been a major focus of my private practice I Contin to work for the state of New York but now I work at the uh at one of the psychiatric hospitals um here at in Buffalo okay so I see you grabbing the book is it because it's falling or because you're GNA reference to it no BEC because there was a uh a glare whatever oh okay okay all right so um so back in 2016 with this psychologist approached me there had been a very um a very public suicide in in the community that was followed by a second one um in which community in which Community um it was in the Brooklyn community so it it coincided that at the same time the Jewish learning Institute jli was starting uh a division specific to um the youth and to teaching uh emotional resilience in schools so I am one of the clinical board members with the um with J the um the Institute and it has been it has been one of the biggest honors of my life I think to be a to be able to work with jli with the wellness instit Institute pretty much from the beginning and to bring some of the research that I had done and some of the connections that I had at the time um to help frame what quickly became um a very successful organization um I have I have told my my colleagues at the wellness Institute that what they were able to achieve in the first two years was unheard of um so excuse me R the wellness Institute for those that don't know is a jli program or another program yes so it is the uh organization within jli that focuses on bringing Suicide Prevention and mental health education um to parents and to schools and they have also developed curriculums that are currently being implemented in Orthodox in um some Orthodox schools uh modern Orthodox and conservative schools across the country and and they provide also free workshops for parents and the curriculum that has been developed is implemented in schools to teach kids emotional resilience so it's part of their curriculum so um it's called Upstream prevention so let's teach some skills for kids to be able uh to manage stressors um and to be able to communicate what's going on with their teachers and with the with adults before it's it becomes a crisis so it's it's a form of it's the most effect effective form of Suicide Prevention and also teaching emotional resilience okay I would like to um move along now and ask you the following why do you think there is such a such a peration peration of suicide and the Need For Suicide Prevention in our communities uh are there any statistics as far as has it been this way was it this way 40 years ago I remember a friend of mine a friend you know someone who I knew from Yeshiva 450 years ago very bright young man and one day he took his life and that was was an exception for us we thought it was an exception to a rule uh we didn't hear again uh about many of such such instances um it seems like since the popularity of the internet and from the mid 90s and on that thing have exploded in this area so number one my question is to you am I right and number two if if I'm not right please explain what is the what you see is the cause yeah so there is no one cause to Suicide um there are multiple the way that we understand suicide is there's risk factors and then there's protect Ive factors so what you're talking about right now the internet and social media that is a risk factor and unfortunately now kids are exposed to things that none of us were exposed to Growing Up um even if our children do not have direct access to the internet they will know somebody who knows somebody who does and some of the things that they're exposed to um I think it's very difficult to process in a brain that is just developing because kids brains are are being developed they're not fully grown so there's websites unfortunately that will tell kids how to kill themselves they will get give them uh methods to have a to succeed in their attempts so before we didn't have access to any of that um and um so I think that probably is the biggest change um also so so one second so so you do agree with me on that first point that's what I'm hearing it is it is a risk factor that was there that was not there before yes go ahead go ahead yes so if we're talking about different risk factors then you have um kids who have a history of trauma um kids who uh and I guess I can I can either talk just about kids or I can talk in general so let me just talk in general um so risk factors are for instance a history of suicide and the family having um a mental illness such as psychosis so some people will hear voices in their head that are telling them to kill themselves and if they're not properly treated they may act on those voices so there's also um bullying bullying has been found found to be a risk factor for kids um unfortunately there have been multiple cases where kids are bullied not just at school but they're bullied also throughout a 24hour period through their social media so in years past when bullying was taking place you can go home and be protected from that and now that is not possible so um there has been there have been cases in which kids are encouraged and end up taking their lives after in social media there may be things that are not true about themselves that they are threatened that they're going to post this and everybody's going to know this horrible thing about you even when it's not not true um so another risk factor would be um for instance a history of substance abuse when either kids or adults have uh problems with either drinking or using drugs their inhibitions are lower and they may be more likely to act on a thought that they wouldn't act on that if they were not under the influence of of a substance so that is a very big risk factor if somebody is smoking weed or doing other drugs um that is that's very concerning so yes go ahead thank you so would would it be safe to say would it be correct to say that if we if we were able to create a situation where more kids wouldn't have access to as much social media there should be a decline in the numbers of suicide by CH by kids so what we could say is that if there's not as much exposure that would be a protective Factor okay so it wouldn't be the only reason why the numbers would go down um but for instance if we think about communication um a lot of kids now their primary connection is through their phone or through social media and we have found that having social connectedness is a protective Factor so being able to be with friends in person doing things in person would protect them from exposure to social media right so with that logic going to the FR community and let's say theic community know or or or not just in the Orthodox world but not you know could be modern Orthodox but I'm saying in the more the community wouldn't you think that there's less suicide and it seems to me that that's not the case am I right or wrong well unfortunately we don't have statistics specific to the FR community so from and this is just anecdotal data from what I have observed even though there is an increase in the numbers in the FR Community it is still lower than that of um the general population so in your opinion what is what is what what block blockages do you encounter with from parents when it comes to these issues um I think it's a matter of awareness um that's why their part of suicide prevention is educating parents um in terms of what the kids are exposed to and how to be present how to be able to have difficult conversations with our kids um so even though because we think that our kids don't have as much access to social media doesn't mean that they don't so we also need to look at um the role that um having a history of trauma place in increasing somebody's risk um I think that what I am what I'm try what I have noticed in in the community is that when things when a kid is struggling usually we look at parenting what is it that the parents are not doing or not doing well um and if we only look at that kids struggles through that lens it's a very heavy burden for the parents because if we are dealing with an emotional um issue or if we were dealing with a mental illness parenting is not enough to protect our children so understanding the difference between healthy developmental adjustment to being a teenager versus understanding what may be the initial signs of let's say bipolar disorder or depression trauma um schizophrenia that would really be very helpful in freeing parents to be able to seek treatment and not just focus on um their parenting so that is what I see that if if I were to focus on one thing it would be educating um parents on how real uh mental illness is and the impact of trauma so if we look at alcoholism in a family if we look at Addiction in a family if we look at domestic violence all those things even though we may not think that the children are exposed to to that that they don't know that's going on they can feel that in their environment in the home and when kids are not given a voice to be able to express that that's when we begin to see that they may begin to harm themselves as a way of coping which is not healthy right have you experienced shame have you found parents in the from Community to have great amount of Shame and very it's very hard to breakr to them because what's my neighbor gonna say what's my Yesa GNA say what's my Rabbi GNA say you talk for a few minutes about that please yes yes unfortunately yes there is a lot of Shame associated with not having a kid who is Stellar who's able to D well in Yeshiva or who may not have a good resume for for their for their shitch all those things all those things play a role um and what I have seen is that we may try to um protect the family or the children from it but eventually it does come out so and I think that the way to deal with shame is by talking about it understanding that it's nobody's fault and that there is a way to deal with these things um but I think that we have a very long ways to go before we we get there I want I want to share with you a personal experience that I had and I'd like to hear your your your response by May yes this happened about 15 years ago or so 20 years ago someone came to me from one of the communities and said that my child my teenager wants to kill themselves and they've tried numerous times and I'm not a I'm not an official counselor but as a rabbi uh you know try to help whatever I can and they came to me and they said um can you try helping my son I said look you know I this is not my strength but a nice person I'll talk to them and the day the person is married has children has a family wonderful but what and and if you think I did or know what what what what you're what you're teaching and sharing and your expertise the answer is no okay but and this is what I I want to mention and I want parents to hear this and I want principles to hear this I became this Young Person's Confidant and when I became their Confidant they opened up and they told me that sometimes they you know were just scaring their parents and sometimes they tried but they really wouldn't do it okay that's in this situation right what I feel R we don't have enough of this in our school system and specifically it's not a teacher it's not a parent what you what you were talking about is of course educating the parents very important no question but every young man and every young woman every teenager I feel needs to have what we call in a Mas what we call in the Orthodox World a m uh what I'm use what I'm calling and using the word a confidant a confidant becomes your friend although you know I'm much I I was I was so much older than this young person I can be his grandfather okay but I was so what they use the words they chilled out laid back let's have a pizza together let's talk let's smoo yes we need in our system I feel to bring in people and to pay them not freebies it don't work with freebies and volunteers to bring in such people who can put their hand around the young woman the teenage girl and walk around found the block with her and talked to her I could tell you yesterday was the yard site of my teacher Khan the master Genius of the reer and I can tell you personally that more than what I learned from him intellectually which was tremendous was you was when he put his hand around me that did more for me than all the classes that I took my father tells me of his experience in L Israel in the 50s with his mashia who would endearingly call his name in front of other students with like a nickname you know like not the regular name which was a cliche of Love of closeness and he felt like a million bucks what what what do you say about my my my thinking how this is so important and and I to me I a parent I don't see a parent being successful in do it sure a parent has to bond with their children and go bowling and rapping and but an outsider who stands as a kind of intermediary between a parent between a teacher a rebi a girl's Seminary principal or you know teachers in between where they're not official you know they're not looking at your grades and then and and you can really talk it out you know you know what I'm you know what I'm saying yes so so I I feel this is missing and if we would start incorporating this us you know what they I think in the world tell me R if I'm wrong they call it a big brother a big sister you know you know that concept and if we brought more of that into the Yeshiva World into basak world into the girl school Bas RIS whatever seminaries you know I think we would have another excellent tool not as a replacement for the education for parents that you mentioned before and the other things but an excellent tool to help these young men and women what's your comment on that I I agree so that is the role that unfortunately social media plays when there isn't somebody who understands you can reach out to somebody on the other end who's gonna listen um and most of the time that person on the other end is not helpful because they they may not know what you need because they may be a kid as well so um just building on on what you're saying when I was 16 so I I came to the US when I was 16 um Ru I want to say I want you to say this in the next segment oh no it's it's related to that having somebody to talk to actually okay but you have only two minutes otherwise you get cut off in this segment oh so so Le let's let's start next segment with W with with that is that all right oh absolutely okay okay so uh my friends I've been talking here one with a wonderful conversation with uh a new friend a professional and um a from woman uh Ru KH EIC from Buffalo New York who's a clinical psychologist worked for the state and now she's also doing work in the from community and suicide prevention and in the next segment which will be the next uh installment we will talk about some of your personal life your background as well as continue the conversation here so thank you very much for your time okay