Challenges and Advocacy in Trauma Care with Dr Malasri Chaudhery-Malgeri on The Healers Café with Manon Bolliger

while we were on an upswing, you know, like now, there is a little bit of regression and fear in, you know, surrounding just admitting again that we need help. You know, that people might need help. We can get into that. But again, long, long answer to your question, you know, I, I, I can confidently say that the reason why I got into this profession was because I had some experiences, also, aside from my own trauma, where I would see people enduring and going through their own mental health issues, whether they were temporary or permanent, and. And my childhood thought was, I don’t want anybody to feel that way, you know. I want to be there for them. I want to support them. I want to, how can I help? You know? And I had that ever since I was a child, despite, again, my own journey with trauma, and that is what, what my initial motivator was so I was on the path to being a provider very early on. I actually used to say, from from early childhood, I wanted to be a doctor, an MD doctor, and I did all the right things. I went to school. I graduated early from high school, got into an accelerated program for my medical degree and started to work in the hospital systems. And when I was, you know, going in and out of the rooms, I essentially got in trouble for sitting down and talking to my patients, you know. So, so the the commentary was, you got to get out of there, you know, like, don’t if you’re spending five minutes in there, you’re spending too much time. And I just shut down. You know, with that commentary, I was like, I can’t do this. This is not no, like, I need to sit down. I need to talk to people. I need to get to know them, because I need to understand, you know, where they’re at from a biopsychos, you know, socio spiritual perspective, because that’s all, all of that is impacting the person as they’re sitting in front of me now. But that was not the way things worked back then. And functional medicine also was not really a thing. Naturopathic work, Ayurveda, anything holistic, was considered, woo, woo. So I felt a bit lost, and decided to, you know, come out of that program, but then happened upon a biopsychology class, and felt like I was in heaven, and enrolled with it. So that’s where my journey officially started from an academic standpoint, was when I took not just the courses for the medical degree, but rather the course in biopsychology was what really did it for me, and I was able to make the switch and major in that, and roll with it, you know, and push forward. So, yeah, yeah.

Manon Bolliger  07:28

Well, I can see what you’re doing now that it would make zero sense not to be able to talk. Yeah, yeah,

Dr Malasri Chaudhery-Malgeri  07:36

yeah, yeah. I

Manon Bolliger  07:38

had a bit similar, but, you know, different I had also, I didn’t know which way to I wanted to do homeopathy, and I applied both as an MD and an MD, got it both. And then I was kind of like, wait a minute, Here am I looking for solutions where I’m going to be able to help people actually get to the cause and to the root, which means talking to them, finding out, really going up, yeah, yeah, you know, find a diagnosis and then send them off with pills, you know. I mean, I’m walking it a little bit in this exaggerations, but yeah, I think we’re hopefully integrating a little bit more. You know, you mentioned that in your trauma work, you use sort of the East, Eastern approach and Western approach. Can you sort of expand on what what that means?

Dr Malasri Chaudhery-Malgeri  08:34

Yeah, sure. So. I mean, ever since, again, my upbringing was beautiful, you know, I I had exposure to the arts in massive amounts, and I’m so grateful and thankful for that. My parents were my first teachers, you know, my dad, we broke the norms. We’re a Southeast Asian family, you know. And my dad was, you know, an artist, and had an MFA and a double doctorate, and a whole bunch of, you know, different things he did, education and counseling and all these things. And my mom has a doctorate in English literature and is an English professor, you know. So we were not the typical traditional Asian family where, you know, we were only MDS or lawyers or engineers. And my mother is a classical Indian vocalist, and that was a big passion for her. She was also a dancer, the big passion for her. So she was our first teacher, you know, and you know, so grateful to them for giving us that. So, art, music, dance, yoga, related to dance, which I really honed in on as well as I was growing up. Um, was reversed in in the house from the beginning, and to me, like as a child, I thought that was normal, you know? I thought every. Buddy had that at home. So when my friends would stop and be like, What are you doing after school? And I said, Well, I’ve got dance practice, or I gotta do music. You know, they’re thinking ballet or jazz or this, and then they’re quitting within three months. Or where have you not necessarily always staying with it, you know, when I stayed with it. And when I’d say, I’ve got this performance, or my family and I are, you know, collectively, singing and producing music and dance dramas and what have you together that was outside of the box. And they were like, what like? So I didn’t realize that that was unique until much later, and when without even realizing it, you know, like when I was going through trying to figure out my own sense of identity as I was navigating through the traumas that I’d Experienced quietly and on my own, the artistic approaches, the yoga, the meditation, all became my safe haven. You know, they were, they were in my toolbox. There were tools that I used regularly, and then they very quickly became non negotiables for me, and when I went through, like I mentioned, the trauma that I did through the intimate partner violence and abuse during my masters, I, you know, stepped outside when I was getting treatment. I had this beautiful, beautiful setup where I had two mentors from two different schools of thoughts and theories from a psychological standpoint, giving me support and advice. And I very quickly realized, well, I need a little more than this. And what is that? Well, it fell back on dance and art and all of those beautiful things. And I very quickly said, I need to create my own program, because there’s nothing integrative that provides this comprehensively now, right now in that time, right so I did. I submerged myself in doing my own therapy, you know, with my mentors in, you know, engaging in dance, engaging in art, engaging in music and singing and diving into work in academia like nobody’s business. And that is what my recovery program was and consisted of, and I’m so thankful for that. So that’s when I realized, okay, the at the time, it was, you know, very, very black and white, you know, like this is considered Eastern. This is considered Western. And the beautiful part with Western theories and modalities for treatment and recovery are that they’re evidence based their structure to them, there’s, you know, definite help with being able to restructure and reframe narratives that are negative, that can be lifelong, you know, and and serve as continued tools. And that’s beautiful. But what the Eastern philosophies and what we learn in yoga and meditation and dance and expression, you know, and holistic approaches through even natural naturopathy and Ayurveda, is that we’re able to ask even more questions and that that really dive into in my mind, you know the spiritual essence of a person. You know the soul. You know in many ways that maybe not always, therapy, you know will dive into it can? You know, it definitely can, if the the provider has the wherewithal to be able to take you there, but, but at the time, it wasn’t existent. So I, you know, saw the benefit of both in my world. You know, like my healing is owed to both, you know, be through my journey and so then, coming out of my master’s program, first job out of the gate, you know, one of my recommendations was it for program development. Like, let’s do this integration. Let’s talk about not only multidisciplinary approaches, you know, utilizing different clinical forms to be able to heal and help individuals. But some of these more, what was considered, again, holistic and Eastern approaches as well. And there was a lot of resistance, you know, that I was met with, but I was able to integrate a couple of things here and there and combine them with CBT and, my goodness, the efficacy was, of course, you know, beautiful. We saw it. We saw the healing. We saw how those tools could be, you know, taken forward and with ease, sometimes even more ease than traditional therapeutic tools. And that was, you know, what kind. Have really sparked the passion in me for saying this is what I’m going to be standing on. I am standing behind integration, true integration, defining what that really should mean and look like, and integrating, not only again, cross collaboratively across disciplines, but you know, across the western and eastern approaches, so so that we can really cater to the person, from that whole person point of view, what

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Manon Bolliger  16:38

I’m curious. I find that fascinating and makes complete intuitive sense to me from my background. But I do bow in therapy, right? I run Bowen college, so that’s a it’s a physical modality, you know, we we say that it addresses pain, but it also addresses emotional pain, and obviously trauma, and trauma you know, whether you’re hit by a car and you a physical like, you know, a torticollis or something like that, or whether you have fear of death or shock or whatever it is, the traumas are complicated, right? So some of it lives well inside the body. And what I found interesting, because when I learned the technique, it was seen as a purely physical therapy, like a western view of body, physical pain. But what was happening because of my background and also some of my lovely experiences like yours. I, I, I became very interested in trauma work and and so what I found is that, unbeknownst to people, traumas would release emotional traumas. It’s working on the body. And it’s very light work. It’s not like heavy duty stuff. They would have memories. They would have even scar marks show up. Things would show up. And then we’d go, wow. You know, this is when you say soul work. It’s, it’s really, it could be past lives. You know, it could be all kinds of memories that show up like that. So my question is to you like intuitively, you’re, you know, you were dancing, you were singing. I see those mediums as the expression of the soul,

Dr Malasri Chaudhery-Malgeri  18:41

100% um, you know, personally, when I was singing, dancing, whether it was for my, you know, for myself in practice, for on a stage, there are no words for the connection I felt with myself and what felt like energy that was outside of me, that in and of itself, was healing, you know, just to have that relationship with myself and know that I could utilize That to express in a place, in a in a way where words, you know, could not right, it is transcendent, you know, in my opinion, and and so I’m so glad now we’re living in an era where even, you know, like we’re looking at art therapy, we’re looking at music therapy. It’s, you know, there’s a lot of evidence behind all of it, adventure therapy, you know, the connection with nature and the efficacy of that as a healing modality and tool. You know, now, these are part of our lexicon, our repertoire of tools that we can apply as providers. And that just brings me so much joy. Joy. I still believe, though, that the you know, like the systems in place, the healthcare systems in place, do not necessarily facilitate true integration, and that, you know, there are barriers to collaborative integration that I think would benefit patients and individuals so much more, you know. So I, I continue to sing that song, you know, like, great, we’ve got all the modalities, but how are we connecting them together? You know, for that person, really

Manon Bolliger  20:31

up to us, you know, in the end, like, we can blame whichever government or whatever, but we’re the who are leading it. And, yeah, and patients come and they the, the truth is evident, yeah, the Truth Wins. It’ll come out. And it’s like, Oh, I did this and that, you know, I, I did an interview with a woman who was using horses, yeah? And just the, that whole appropriation of gentleness and connection and the fear and oh my gosh, I mean, it resolves things without words like you say. So, yeah, yeah, okay, oh my goodness, we have very little time, but I went down this path so you, worked also with the military, and might be things you cannot say, so don’t say them. That’s not are there traumas that you would be more likely to encounter? Or, yeah, can you speak a little bit about that, of course,

Dr Malasri Chaudhery-Malgeri  21:41

of course. I mean, you know, if you’re look, of course, like PTSD, and even trauma and PTSD related to injury, you know, is a big thing. One of my focuses and specialties there was pain management. And of course, you know it’s easy for providers to say, like, here’s the pain, treat it, put a band aid, take a motion, go back to duty. You know, that was the big. Return to duty is a big focus for the military that doesn’t heal, that doesn’t allow individuals to heal. So, you know, like, part of what my I experienced in my department, arguably experienced, was being able to give more longitudinally based care, you know, to our military members, you know, and justify that. Um, I think because, you know, the culture is very returned to duty, that’s always going to be a little bit of an uphill battle, not maybe not even a little bit a lot of an uphill battle. But, you know, one thing that I’m extremely proud of is that the more providers there are, and we did this, you know, to advocate for short term, medium term, long term care and make show, you know, make everybody see show, elucidate that being able to have that continued care actually is efficacious and beneficial to the military. You know, it is a journey that they’re on. It was on we were on it, you know, I was on it when I was working with them, and I know it’s still going on. So, so, you know, I think there are specific traumas. I particularly focused on PTSD, you know, and pain management and TBI work. And you know, for the individuals who are dependents and veterans, it’s usually like, if there isn’t an immediate injury that you’re addressing, it’s doing that retrospective and identifying, this is the journey that we’ve been through, or this is what we’ve had to witness and see, and this is what we’re bearing through, and this is how it’s showing up in me, right? And now I’ve gotta figure out how to work through that, you know. So hopefully that answers your question, but, yeah, yeah, is

Manon Bolliger  24:11

there something that you could add about pain, specifically, when people not, not mental pain, which is, you know, more like, PT, yeah, the relationship of physical pain and whatever else you see it related to, yeah.

Dr Malasri Chaudhery-Malgeri  24:29

I mean, people take for granted pain and pain management. I mean, you know, we we want to remember that when we feel pain, pain is a survival skill. You know, essentially that our body has a mechanism of to be able to say, hey, something’s wrong when we get into pain management. I mean, there’s so many different directions we can take this in, but the part where I guess I’d have to just like, make. An umbrella statement with is, if your body is saying something to you and screaming and shouting, it’s screaming and shouting because it wants help, and there’s usually something deeper related to that that needs to be worked through and worked on. Okay, even if it’s as simple as I broke my arm. I went through the rehab, but I’m still having pain related to that. Something else is there that needs to be addressed, right? So pain management requires digging. Treating the surface isn’t going to be enough. And you know, go through, allow yourselves, not only individually, but also with your providers, to go through the why game, as I like to call it, okay. Be like, okay. Why is this hurting? Why? You know why, and then why and why, until you get to that root cause. But do the dig work because it is connected? You know, whether the injury itself or the pain itself is starting because of physiological reason or because of an emotional reason, mental health reason doesn’t matter. The Pain is pain, and it’s a message, you know? So let’s dig and find the answers. Yeah, and it doesn’t matter if it

Manon Bolliger  26:21

appeared through psychology or through reality, through the body, but it can as of them of the mind, right? So absolutely, yeah, okay, well, we officially have one more minute. I’m going to give you the last word, but it’s been fascinating so far to hear your perspectives, you know, on trauma. So what, what would you like to leave us and and maybe, how can people get hold of you? Or, sure? Yeah,

Dr Malasri Chaudhery-Malgeri  26:53

I mean, I think my, what I would like to leave everyone with is that there, you know, oftentimes finding help and finding support may feel daunting and feel overwhelming and maybe not even realistic, but what I’m here to tell you is that there is care out there, there is help out there, and it’s not as hard as you think It might be. And with all of that you know, the other thing that I would say is be your own advocate. You’re always going to be your own best advocate. So advocate for yourself. Advocate to be able to, not only in helping yourself, have other people you know, get on that journey to find recovery and to also tie into how people can find me, one of the best resources there is out there is recovery.com. This is a resource that I personally wish was in my realm when I first started, you know, 25 years ago as a provider. And it is just amazing, because what we’re [email protected] is removing those barriers and trying to help with connecting patients and families and loved ones, connect to care effectively, you know, and in a way that really suits them the best you know, best way possible you can filter to your insurance, to your location, to everything, and ask the questions that you need to ask directly to the treatment centers and providers. You can also get education on there, you know. So if you have questions about different things, you know. So the whole point is to remove those barriers. There’s empowerment to be had in educating and to advocating for yourself. So please, you know, don’t stop. Advocate for yourself. Recovery.com. Is a beautiful resource. I am on that website. I’ve got articles on there. We’re doing a lot of work. I’m the Chief Clinical Officer there, so we’re doing a lot of work in the realm of research, because we know that your voice matters. Whether you’re a provider, you’re a patient, a family member, loved one alike. So we’re doing a lot of work around that. You can also find me on Dr mala.net and I’m also on socials at at the official Dr Mala, which is my handle,

Manon Bolliger  29:20

great. Well. Thank you so much for sharing your wisdom with us.

Dr Malasri Chaudhery-Malgeri  29:24

Sure, no, thank you so much for having me on your show. Thank you with

Manon Bolliger  29:28

our discussion with Dr Mala it really reminds me of the importance of the physical component to trauma, right, as in how the body not because it suffers the pain or whatever, but it is our soul expression. It is what allows us, or true natures, to express themselves fully. So I was making the point how with Bo and Sarah. P A lot can come out during a session without even knowing that this is where you’re going to go. It’s just the body is at ease. You’re in parasympathetic mode, and you know, things come out of you that need to come out. It’s all a question of timing, but if it’s your time, then it’s going to come out during the session, and you’re going to have, you know, you’re going to remember things, you’re going to re witness events, you’re and it’s gentle, you know, nothing comes out that isn’t supposed to. It’s really like your body can’t hurt you. You’re, you’re in tune with it, in that sense, it’ll bring consciousness to areas where you you need it. But I found it a good reminder that that Bowen is done to you, that this process you can start yourself by honoring what you’re feeling, and whether you need to paint, whether you need to, you know, draw it out, whether you need to sing, dance, whatever it is, you know, you can follow some sort of dance, but allow the the dancing that’s innate in you, the awkward part that’s that has a Slightly different beat, or a little tone that’s different, whatever that expression is, this is your true self, and that’s what we need to learn, to to honor and to realize this really part of the journey with releasing our our trauma

ENDING: 

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