The Surprising Link Between Technology and Mental Health: A Conversation with Dr. Cortney Warren

I think the journey is really how are you going to handle that? How much technology do you want in your life? When is it too much? Does it feel addictive when it gets to a place where it's really harmful for your mental health is when I would say

What's up everybody? This is Harsh from Qualtivate.com. And you're listening to the life sciences 360 podcast. On this show, I chat with industry experts and thought leaders to learn about their stories, ideas and insights, and how their role helps bring new therapies to patients. Thanks for joining us, let's dive in. All right, welcome to another episode of Life Sciences 360. My guest today is Dr. Cortney Warren. She is the clinical psychologist and the founder and owner of choose honesty, LLC. Welcome to the show, Dr. Cortney,

thank you for having me.

Your your background is so extensive on the academic side, you've written books, you're also in speaking events, and you're also working in public facing roles. So I want to start off by asking you with such a diverse background? Did you always knew that you wanted to be in this field? And if you had to choose a different profession, what would you be doing?

I love psychology, I think that it is a wonderful intellectual realm for all of us to explore. Because it's really the study of human nature. It's the study of who we are, and why we are the way we are and how to help ourselves, unpack our baggage and understand where we're coming from. And so even in high school, I thought I was going to become a psychologist, I really was so intrigued by people. And by trying to understand people and how to be close to people, as well as myself trying to figure out how to have successful relationships, how to be close to my parents, and to my friends. If I didn't go into psychology, I think I was very interested in drama and acting and writing. So I might have gotten into writing in a more creative space, as opposed to the writing that I do now, which is somewhat creative, but also very data driven, and self help focused. So it's not as storytelling as I might want to do if I could do something else.

Yeah, that's great. I liked the part where you said that you love psychology, just because it is understanding of just your own brain and how other people around you think, and how to make decisions. And that's so important, no matter what you're doing, whether you are self employed, or you do maybe, you know, work 10 hours a week, or you run a business, if you don't understand people and how to work with them, you really cannot be successful. So I see a lot of times myself as well thinking like if I read a book, and it has like this psychology backdrop where the author goes into talking about, oh, this is what humans do. And I, I look at myself, and I start thinking, oh man, I was in that situation, at this job, or at this client, I made this exact same mistake. So I you've traveled so much, you've talked to so many people, I want to ask you. So in life sciences, you know, we we talk about therapeutics and different drugs and like different innovative therapeutics that are coming. So I wanted to ask you how has traveling, and how does like different cultural backgrounds? How does that help a person with their therapeutics or like with their healing? Is there a correlation between those?

No question. culture matters. When I think about humans, we are inherently raised in a cultural context. Each and every one of us we have a family by background, we have a country that we're born into an era, a generation, a set of parents. And so no matter who you are, and where you are, you actually belong to a cultural background of some sort. And so culture shapes us, it influences us, it leads us to internalize norms or a value system, it leads us to sort of consider how we should be as humans because from a really young age, we look around and we start learning. We start learning what's valuable in my group of people here, how should I be how do people act? How do they not act? What happens when they act badly? What happens when they're really valuable? And so I think it's a mistake to to ever assume that you're not part of culture. You You're either accepting culture or rejecting culture or interacting culture, but we're social beings. And so in that way, part of understanding who we are, each and every one of us is not only focusing on you as an individual, with your individual experiences that all of us also have your siblings, your parents, your personality, your physical health, these aspects of us that are really specific to each of us, but also kind of turning that on its head and saying, How would I describe the cultural environment that I've been raised in, that I may not even see consciously? Because it's just a part of what I experience in life? And how has my cultural framework or social group influenced who I am becoming how I have evolved? And what I have learned about myself and other people in this world?

Yeah, it's, it's really interesting, as you were explaining this, that everyone has like the place where they're born, or the country, the state, and then they move, people who are born in Asia come to US, just like me, I came for work and school, I want to dig a little bit deeper on this topic of culture, but more from like an organization perspective, right. So I'm into consulting, and most of the clients that I work with are medical device, biotech, or pharmaceutical companies. And there's this big push about, we all need a culture that is continuously improving, that promotes quality, because most companies qualities like their top priority, they don't want, they don't want save, they want safe medicines, they want great quality medicine, so that the FDA or whatever agency, is there going to help them pass the regulatory pathway? So that was a long winded segue to the question. But the question is, as an organization, if I'm in the management, or somebody who's in the management, listening, how can they understand the culture of different people or the different teams, and then improve that? Do you have any exercises or things that you can mention to them to improve their company culture, I

would always start with an open dialogue. So if you go into conversations with your employees, and your leadership style, from the perspective of, we're all different in unique ways, and as a leader in this company, part of my job, ideally, is to bring out the best in every one of my employees, which might actually look different based on their cultural background, who they are their personality, their goals. And so leading by example, with an openness to learning and an openness to appreciating differences between your employees and between your colleagues, not seeing it as a negative and not seeing it as something you have to address in terms of well, they're from this culture, or this is someone who's African American who has these norms. This is someone who grew up in Europe, and they have these norms, but more from an openness to explore an experience of everyone that you encounter is I think, probably the framework that sets the tone of a very supportive work culture. And from there, also being willing to be wrong, being willing to learn from a leadership perspective where you say, you know, I realized that my style in leading people is a bit authoritarian. And that's because I grew up in a household where this is how my family was, this is how my parents were with me, I learned that, you know, really, I have to sort of be very anal and organized and rigid. But I'm seeing that that isn't necessarily working with this employee or with this company culture. And so I need to own that this is part of who I am in my style, but I also have to work with you so that we can all work together. And that might mean that you as the leader also need to shift as you learn about yourself within the cultural context.

Yeah, that's a that's a big one willing to be wrong. But I've seen this once people get to a certain level in their career, they have extensive academic background, they have accomplishments and a good career trajectory. At some point in their career, they start to think that they have the answer to every problem or their way is the best way to solve that problem. And just that willingness to take a step back and say, You know what, the best maybe there's somebody else in this room that has a different perspective on this. And maybe that's better than mine, or whatever it is, right? So just that that willingness to, to really It's not about being wrong, but it's about listening to all the different backgrounds and understanding because we're all different. But we're all the same. That's that's the Yeah.

Absolutely. I think so often as a researcher, too, that I go in with a hypothesis, and I bring my own biases to everything I do, as all of us do, right, even when I actively try not to. And oftentimes, that's the beauty of science and of research is that then you collect data. And sometimes your theory of what was going to work in a research study is absolutely flawed is wrong is not helpful. And I think if you, if you think about yourself, as a leader from that perspective of, I'm going in with the best of intentions, here's what I'm going to do and why here's who I am, and how I tend to be. And then I'm going to collect data, and I'm going to see how it works. And if something isn't working either for our entire company, or for a subgroup of my employees, or for whatever a client that I'm working with. The first place I'm going to look is at myself in the mirror to see what it is that I'm bringing to the table that isn't making this a helpful or effective work environment.

Yeah, it applies to work, it applies to personal relationships, family, everything, there, you start seeing trends once you once you understand yourself better. And I think COVID was, I've talked to so many friends, where COVID was a really good experiment, so to speak, because they spend a lot of time being with themselves, and take a deeper look at how they're like eating habits or sleeping habits or mental health is affecting their productivity because they weren't around people, they were more just by themselves or with their spouse or children. And that exposed a lot of different patterns that didn't, they weren't too close to that, right? I'm sure you've seen some of that examples as well.

Oh, everywhere. COVID was very much a social experiment for a lot of us. It tested our social relationships, and probably made it more obvious to people how much they need social support and companionship, people's eating was, on average, quite sporadic and different. And there were a lot of things that played into that there was food scarcity, like, am I gonna get healthy food? Can I afford healthy food? Am I eating for emotional reasons? Am I starting to binge eat because I just feel so emotionally uncomfortable that I'm not even hungry, but I'm just eating late at night. Yeah, or drinking behavior drinking and drug use was also very much affected, I think by COVID. And we have a larger body of emerging data on how COVID affected people. But one thing I can very clearly say is that rates of people seeking therapy post COVID, really dramatically increased. And just general struggles with symptoms of anxiety and depression, were absolutely heightened through COVID. And that doesn't mean that people would be diagnosed with a depressive disorder and anxiety disorder, but just that generally, people were more anxious, more stressed, more worried, felt sad, felt alone. It was a difficult time for a lot of people.

Yep, I know, I have some friends who've who've gone through different things during that time. And also, a lot of positives came out of it, right, like people found certain strengths, or they found hobbies, or they found creative outlets to their to use their time, which they saved by not commuting to work or not getting dressed and going to work, whatever they're doing. So it was plus and minus A lot of people found joy out of it. And now they don't want to trade that back. They have to go back to the old ways of working. But there was also a lot of not so good thing that happened from COVID.

Well, I love that you're bringing up the positives, because there are there were a lot of positives for a lot of people, there were opportunities for growth that they didn't expect. There was an acceptance of the uncontrollability of life, that you can plan all kinds of things and in a heartbeat, they might all disappear and you have really no control over that. appreciating your relationships differently. A more grateful, general disposition towards what you do have in your life. So there were opportunities for for some wonderful things to happen through COVID too.

Yeah, absolutely. I want to go into the intersection of of technology and how that's shaking things up in your side of the world. So I want to ask you, how do you see technology either helping or complicating the understanding of different psychological patterns?

It's such a big question. The Internet, and use of technology in general, has really shifted so much of our experience as humans. And there are really benefits and negatives to that. On the one hand, being online makes information more accessible. It makes it easier in many ways to connect with people to stay in touch with loved ones to work in a safer environment where you aren't going into the office or potentially getting sick from social exposure. So there are lots of positives. It makes in some ways for mental health, a lot of the struggles of people less taboo, because there's also just more information on mental health and mental illness that, hopefully, ideally helps people see that they are not alone, that a lot of people struggle with emotional health issues at some point in their life, and that there are actually tremendously successful tools that you can practice and use to help yourself through them. So in many ways, technology is really a benefit. And we actually use tele mental health, we would call it psychotherapy over the computer online is very common at this point, and really got a boost of use since COVID. The flipside is, technology can be very addictive, it can shift the amount of privacy that you have in your life in various ways from not having any because everything is published about you online. And you may not even know it to almost feeling like you are indifferent. Like you can say anything in an online platform, because it's just this big, wide expanse universe. And people sometimes take less responsibility for their word choice or for how they present themselves. So I think that learning to navigate, how you use technology is really what the new journey is for humans, technology isn't going to go away. And technology has some really positive outcomes for many of us. But it also has these potentials for massive negative things in our lives. And so I think the journey is really, how are you going to handle that? How much technology do you want in your life? When is it too much? Does it feel addictive, which is a realm of mental health that a lot of us are talking about right now called process or behavioral addictions, where people are feeling addicted to social media, or addicted to gambling online or addicted to a lover where they can't seem to let go when they're searching for information on them online and looking at social media posts. So when it gets to a place where it's really harmful for your mental health, is when I would say it's time to pause. And really think about how you want technology to be a part of your life and set some boundaries around where you don't want it to be a part of your life.

Yep, yeah, it's the key message there is, you know, setting the boundaries, because as you were talking about technology immediately, you know, as of today, literally everyone's talking about artificial intelligence, and you know, different AI tools, and have come across some really strange artificial intelligence tools. And I, I don't know if it is good or bad, right. So like, for example, I was listening to a podcast, and there's this tool called replica, I think it's called replica AI or replica. And it's essentially an online artificial intelligence model, whatever you want that model to be male, female, whatever it is, and you're basically having a relationship with the online person that is non existent. But there are people who are, who are having strange interactions with this AI model, and that's affecting their real life relationships. So that is just one example of AI. But I'm sure there's so many other tools and chat bots, where it could be used for good. Or it could also be used for bad like, I can use Chad GPT to learn about something that will take me long to you know, surf the internet, but I can also if I don't know how I'm using it, or I don't have the right boundaries. I could just get sucked into it. And then it could, you know, trickle down and affect other parts of my life.

No question. We're really entering into a different era with what AI can do. And I think The question again is going to come back to when is this helpful for us as a person, as humans, as a community as a culture, and when is this crossing into a realm that is potentially really harmful. And especially if you're noticing any of us if we start to notice that it's negatively influencing our lived experiences, our relationships, our mental health symptoms, our overall happiness, our ability to focus, our ability to care about other things outside of our online life, those are kind of red flags for me where I would say it's time to pause and reevaluate the use of technology in your life. Yeah,

I mean, there's Yeah, it's, I've even heard people doing things like, there's this term called digital detox, where you're basically staying away from all your devices for certain hours of the day, or maybe a week. And some people are serious about it. And they're like, hey, evening, eight to 10pm, I don't touch any devices. And that's just something, but it's so hard to do. I tried to do it. And I could only do it for a week. But then I ended up going back. So it's, nobody's perfect. But there are people who are setting that's an example of a boundary, right, which that person setting to say, I'm not going to touch my phone, from eight to 10pm, because it helps me fall asleep. Or if I look up and scroll, then it's gonna be really hard to fall asleep. So

I really try to not use my phone, after I pick my kids up from school. And I talk to a lot of people who struggle with that as well, where particularly, we're all used to using our phones, our work is on our phone a lot of the time, that's how we get a hold of people. And there's something really important about being present in the present moment of your life, where you aren't distracted by a phone or a computer, where you really can just be there with whomever is in your life, whether it's your kids or friends or spouse, or whomever to appreciate that time without being distracted. And for me anyway, that's something that is very difficult, because I'm used to having my phone with me all the time, but but really a priority, because I also don't want my kids to be on the phone. And so just carving out that space where you say this is just not when we're going to use technology. There are times where we will and this is not when one of them.

All right. Great. Yeah, that's a great point I wanted to ask you about so you, you have written books, and you've have extensive academic background, you're doing a lot of research. Have you observed any trends in the mental health space of how different countries or cultures or companies are dealing with mental health? Have you noticed any differences like, oh, like people in US do this? But in Europe, it's it's something else? Have you seen any of that in your research?

Well, there are certainly many cross cultural cross country differences with regard to how mental health is handled how you diagnose a mental illness. Even in the United States, we predominantly use something called the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the DSM five, where as in much of the rest of the world, is the ICD 11, the International Classification of Disease. So even the way that we think about what is an illness from a mental or emotional perspective is different across cultures. I also think that the primary ways we treat mental illness differ dramatically across cultures. So whether you're using sort of a cognitive behavioral set of techniques, which is something that's I would say, very prevalent here in the United States at this point, or third wave CBT, like DBT, dialectical behavior therapy for anyone who likes mental health treatment. And there are other cultures where a psychodynamic or psychoanalytic approach is still pretty prevalent. We also find differences in terms of how willing people are to go to therapy, and what is actually therapeutic in the end. So for example, if you're coming from a more collectivistic background, let's say, in Central America, just to take one example, where there are some cultures and countries where it's very taboo to acknowledge that somebody has a problem and seek treatment. But if you do acknowledge that you have a problem, it's really a problem of the family. It isn't really even a problem of one individual. And so the entire family then may end up in therapy, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but For one person who's really struggling, and so, all of these cultural values like individualism versus collectivism, like how common is it to acknowledge that you're struggling? How normative is it for you to even express emotion. For example, in some Asian countries, emotionality is seen as a sign of immaturity. So for you to be emotional is really a double negative thing to show, it would be more appropriate for you to talk about your feelings, as opposed to crying or looking really anxious or feeling really upset. So I would say there are so many cultural differences. And for people who are really struggling with with any mental health set of symptoms, I would say, in general, most countries in the world are increasingly recognizing that mental health is important that it perhaps is as important as physical health, and that creating a country and a culture that acknowledges that mental health matters and educates its people about mental health struggles. And what we can do to help them is a trend that has been going on, I would say, for really decades at this point, over time that it's increasingly globally recognized that mental health matters.

Yeah, no, it's like the golden trifecta, your mental health, your physical and, you know how, like, everything sort of has to fall in place. For for, for you to be able to function properly. I'm loving this whole discussion, and I want to go on maybe to a very simple question that I get a lot of times from people is how do you? How do you manage everything that you have going on? Right, like, so from my side, I have consulting projects, I'm a parent, I have other responsibilities. I'm a business owner, I have to hire people. From your side, you have your academic stuff that you're doing research speaking events. So any general advice just for anybody listening to this? How can they manage everything that's thrown on their plate?

Yes, I think one thing that's often difficult for professionals, especially people who are really skilled at what they do and love, what they do is that it's, it's very difficult to say no to things, it can be really, really tricky to say no for a lot of people. And so one thing that I see happens a lot is that people will say yes, and they have their hands in all of these buckets, right? You have your family bucket, you have your personal life bucket, you have work bucket and consulting, you have work bucket and research your work bucket in public speaking or technology, whatever it is, and at some point, you have to pause and really look at your core priorities. How much time are you willing to give to each of these facets of your life. And when you notice that you in fact, are getting burned out, because you have exceeded the possibility of hours that you could allocate to all of these things in your life and still do them? Well, you have to learn to say no, you have to learn to set boundaries with yourself. And so that is the journey that I am on, along with most people probably listening out there. At various times of my career, I have shifted how much focus I give to any one arena, because it became clear to me that my priority was one area or a few areas, but I couldn't really keep up all of them very well. And so I had to pare down. And that can be a really difficult process. But I think it's really critical to your own mental health and your own well being to be sure that your time is allocated towards what really matters to you the most right now. And that can change. Right? Maybe right now, you need to devote more time to your family because you have young children, and that's a priority of yours. But as they age, that time is going to be freed up and you're going to want to devote it to this other arena. And so remember that it's a fluid process that can shift what you said today, it doesn't have to be that way forever. It may just be that way for a day or a month or a year. And then you can re evaluate.

Yeah, that's that's a great point. Because again, you said that you're in that same situation I find myself I've thought like you're talking to me and I'm, I'm in a session with you and you're talking directly to me. When you said you have hands in so many buckets because that's how I feel sometimes but then I have to go with my son to a doctor's appointment and I I just have to make that decision and email five people and say, Hey, sorry, I cannot meet, I have to leave right now. And go to this doctor's appointment, we can talk tomorrow. And it's that day. That's the decision I have to make. And it's hard. But it's, it's much needed. Because otherwise, I would keep saying yes to everything.

Agreed. And you know, at the end of our lives, the hope is that we look back with the least amount of regret possible that we look back and say, you know, I really lived the life that I wanted to live based on what mattered to me, based on what I believe matters to humans. What makes a life worth living? And if you don't set boundaries, oftentimes, you will look back with some regret.

Yes, yes. Yeah. Listen, I really enjoyed this conversation so much today. Thank you for coming to the show. And thank you for, for giving us your time. For our listeners who listen to this episode, or who want to connect with you or learn more about the projects or engagements that you're working with, what's the best way for them to get in touch with you?

My website is Dr. courtney.com. I am active on LinkedIn on Instagram, I post information oftentimes for the general public. I just wrote a self help book on breakups called letting go of your ex. And I also wrote a short book on the psychology of self deception called Lies We Tell Ourselves, for anyone who's interested in that as well. Yeah,

I'll have to check those out. Especially the second one, because I've thought about that topic, and checked myself when I caught myself doing that. So that's a really interesting topic. So I'll have to check that one out. Do you have any closing statements, anything any message you want to give out to the listeners or anything you want to say what we discussed today?

Life is a journey. Take it one day at a time. Use the information that you get to make the best choices that you can. And you do that every day. Sometimes that means you have to change your choices. But it's really as good as it's going to get for us as humans, you you take in the information you can you make the best choices you can. And really and truly, that is the greatest empowerment that we're ever going to have as humans is our ability to choose not to react, not to be impulsive, not to give into our instincts, but to say I'm in this situation. What response am I going to choose to live the best life for me? Yeah,

that's that's a great one. I have nothing to add. That's that's a great ending to this. Thank you so much.

Thank you Harsh.

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