WMH Season 4 Ep 10: Stopping Stigma: Religion, Sex & Therapy

This is a transcript of Watching Mental Health Season 4, Episode 10 which you can watch and listen to here:

Katie Waechter:  All right, hi everyone and welcome to watching Mental Health. And I am so excited because today I have a very special guest on our show, Nicholas Neubauer.

He is a Las Vegas native. He's the clinical director of Vegas Stronger and the president of Neubauer Mental Health Services. He's also a husband, a father, and a priest. And as a licensed clinical social worker and therapist and a board certified sexologist, Nicholas has been providing clinical services for over 17 years and has really helped establish one of the largest private outpatient behavioral healthcare organizations here in Nevada with offices across Nevada. And on this episode of watching mental health, we're going to be breaking down mental health treatment here in Nevada, religion and sex. And these are really three of the most stigmatized topics still today in our society. And they're topics that I think everyone deals with. And unfortunately, you know, there's a lot of shame around talking about these things. And I think that it's important to talk about them and to talk about the role of trauma and addiction and shame and how that plays a part in things that really we're dealing with every single day. And so with that, I'm so excited to welcome to the show Nicholas Neubauer. Thank you so much and welcome to watching Mental Health.

Nicholas L. Neubauer: Well, thank you very much. That was one heck of an introduction. That certainly sounds like a lot, but you're 100 % accurate. That is me in a nutshell. And I very much appreciate the invitation. And as you stated, bringing the topics that you mentioned up for discussion, I think that what those things all have in common is, like you said, is that they absolutely can be stigmatized. And therefore, when all the oxygen is sucked out of the room in regards to those topics and people tend not to talk about them and when things are anaerobic like that, traditionally doesn't work out well for anything along that subject matter. So the more that we can have dialogue about it and encourage folks to talk about these subject matters, I think that's a win for everybody.

Katie: Absolutely, and I mean you're right like that is a very stigmatized these are stigmatized topics and the more that we can talk about them the less stigmatized they can be the more open people can be in talking about maybe different problems that I think that we all experience when it comes to these topics, but before we get too far into that I just want to ask I always ask my my guess first off is And it just tell me a little bit about yourself and your story. What brought you to this type of work?

Nicholas:  Thanks. Well, like he said, I'm a lifelong Las Vegas, Nevada native and resident. That also means that I went to UMLB for both undergrad and graduate school. I am a father of four children, boy, girl, boy, girl, 22, 16, 13 and 10. I've been married for 18 years and I'm also a priest in the Episcopal Church.

I serve as the chief health officer and clinical director for the nonprofit Vegas Stronger, which includes Vegas Stronger here in Las Vegas, Nevada. It also includes Reno Stronger of North and Washoe County, as well as Nevada Stronger ⁓ over the hump in Perush, ⁓ as some of us say.

And of that, I would like to say that I have this eclectic, exciting collection of hobbies. But between all the things I just named, my cup tends to runneth over. that is without a doubt a majority of where I spend my time. And I'm not working. And outside of also chosen church obligations and responsibilities, I'm with my children and with my family. And what brought me to this?

Katie: That's so cool!

Nicholas: ⁓ sorry, to finish the question, what brought me to this profession, I was actually meeting with a student earlier who asked me the same thing. Originally, the credit goes to the 1986 campy movie Clue, based off the board game in which Christopher Lloyd plays Professor Plunk. Now, it's certainly not a character to idealize by any means.

I hope doesn't represent the profession well, but is a character of himself in that movie. that pretty much introduced me to psychology ⁓ in which I then started asking questions about and I lived with my aunt at the time or my aunt lived with us at the time and she had a psychology textbook. So it was way above my head, but I started thumbing my way through that and big people ask you what it is that you're going to be when you grow up. And I would say a psychologist, psychiatrist, therapist, those kinds of things. ⁓ And I kind of pursued that all the way up until I got myself into college when they said, well, you got to declare a major. That became rather easy for me, in which I said psychology. And then I just kind of followed the bouncing ball from there, got ⁓ thoroughly involved in psychology labs. ⁓ To all different kinds of programs, ultimately the NSW program at UNLV as well. And then based on all the return letters and where my life was at the time, I decided to stay home, pursue the NSW clinical track. And then from there, the story continues, got placed in a practicum, and then kind of, it all just kind of continued from there.

Katie: Wow, that's so cool. ⁓ First off, I've never heard anybody say that they got into the field after watching Clue. I think that's really awesome. I love that. I do.

Nicholas: And that's right. I believe that is unique to my story. I too have never heard anybody inspired to do anything based on having watched the movie clip. Other than maybe turn it off.

Katie: Awesome. But you know what else is really cool that resonates with me is, first off, I'm also a Las Vegas native. So born and raised, I love my community. And I also, from a young age, people ask me, what do you want to do when you grow up? And I would say, oh, I want to be a psychiatrist. I want to be a psychologist. I want to be a therapist. I want to help people, right? I want to talk to them about their problems. And my path has evolved a little bit, but it's touching to me that your path is so similar in that way.

Nicholas: That's it. ⁓ very cool. Yeah, because I mean, there is very few of us that, you know, when you go around the room, you would mention that that's what you wanted to be when you grew up. But always, I remember I kind of get sideways head nods from the adults that were asked me because they were expecting, you know, professional athlete, doctor, ⁓ police officer, fireman, something like that. So to say that you want to be a psychologist, you've usually ⁓ got a tilted head response back.

Katie: Yeah, absolutely. ⁓ So, you know first hand because you were here, you've been going through school here and going through practice here. What is it like having a practice in Las Vegas for mental health services? ⁓ Nevada is notoriously on the bottom of the list for mental health access. ⁓ How do you experience that first hand, essentially as boots on the ground?

Nicholas: Well, I can't say this. It's fortunate and unfortunate that I have not been, this is the scope we're going to look at it, I haven't been in another market to see what the advantages or the disadvantages in saying, I don't know, being in Los Angeles or being in Omaha, Nebraska.

Realize being a Nevadan and it's often times that things are quoted that our Nevada's education system is at the bottom of this or our health services are at the bottom of this list or school districts, whatever those things might be. However, I can say that being in this as long as I have, ⁓ the biggest change that's impacted pretty much all of the things that I've done in my professional scope had been the passing of the Affordable Care Act.

Prior to the Affordable Care Act, the marketplace was vastly different because there was a much larger portion of the population that was either cash-pay, uninsured, or just didn't really have access to mental health services. And some of that was true at the time as well for people who were, know, folks who typically insured through their jobs or through their place of employment benefits weren't necessarily attached to those plans at that time. So one of the positive things that I've seen, and I'm not speaking politics here, I'm speaking more so about the availability of healthcare coverage to where more folks are covered mental health is covered within the policies. So by those means, it has created a lot more access. So again, I haven't been in other markets to compare it to, but I would say that whether it is in Los Angeles, it's in Las Vegas or Omaha, Nebraska, that simply being in the profession of helping others presents its own set of unique challenges. But then when you pull back to a more macro level and you talk about simply being in healthcare and or in healthcare administration, well, that opens up to things that we see at national and societal levels. So, It's not easy, but one would argue that anything worth having is not easy, but specifically in this field it is one that is constantly changing, ever evolving, and I've pretty much just gotten to the point to where anytime that January 1 rolls around, I pretty much accept the fact that everything as I knew it is probably going to be different as we roll into the next year.

Katie: That's a really, really good point. ⁓ Things do keep changing, I think, as we're trying to figure it out. But I love your positivity and you're right. We're better than we were, but we have to keep going and we will keep going. And that's all there is to it, essentially. And it's important to keep being that space for people.

Nicholas: Absolutely, and for people who are listening, one of the things that I would like to impress is that there does seem to be a dialogue that continues to prevail that mental health services aren't accessible, that for one reason or another there are certain populations that fall through the cracks, and I'm not saying that it's by any means 100 % solid.

But I can say that with some degree of ⁓ certainty that if somebody is in need of services, let alone if they want to engage in services between folks who are insured, professional organizations, nonprofit organizations, ⁓ folks and entities like ours that provide pro bono services or have telehealth, community-based services, sponsored programs, scholarship, whatever else it might be, ⁓ I do believe that if there are folks that want to engage the process or folks that are in need, that there certainly are services available in southern Nevada to ensure that folks can get the care that they need and arguably deserve.

And sometimes that's not easy to cut by. It requires turning over a few stones, but you can get there for sure. And if I could ever support any of the listeners in helping navigate that, I certainly would be willing to help.

Katie: Absolutely. I think you're right. You know, there's a dialogue that prevails that even as the state continues to try to get better in our local communities, that dialogue still sometimes, you know, takes over. And oftentimes it's, you know, it's people not knowing where to go, not knowing where to look for those services when it's ready.

Nicholas:  Absolutely. Navigation is a huge deal as it relates to that. And also too, the navigation part alone, but just where do I begin? And then sometimes it leads to this dead end or somebody who gives maybe not the best information or basically doesn't provide information that allows it evolve to making that connection. But again, between health insurance policies, including mental health coverage, more folks being covered. ⁓ And also too, you know, one of the things that I've known a drastic change in is that, you know, when I entered the profession, know, seven, about 20 years ago in total now, although I've only been fully licensed about 17, ⁓ but in the field for 20 is that, gosh, it was almost as though that the LCSWs, professionals that were licensed clinicians, that you knew them on a first name basis or that there was a list of, there's this many in Southern Nevada. Well, one of the things that's changed is the education has responded to the needs for master's level clinicians and folks within our scope, and whether it be through online programming, increased brick and mortar curriculums that graduate folks within our scope.

And just other folks who are interested in becoming professionals in the health professions, taking those opportunities. There are remarkably more available, know, highly trained professionals in Southern Nevada than more today. I mean, it droves more so than when I started. So even having the providers to be able to see and meet the need of a population that's exploded like hours over the past couple helpful in that sense.

Katie: Absolutely, absolutely. Those are two really good points especially is that there are, we have made improvements, but our population has also exploded. And so it's been hard to keep up with that growth in many ways. So I wanna shift topics.

Nicholas: It's what we have, we've had a death.

Katie: It has, you know, I want to shift topics a little bit though, because I want to talk a little bit about the intersection of mental health and religion. And you're a priest and also you were born and raised in Las Vegas, is known to the outside world as Sin City, right? And we know that there's a community here, but the other people maybe would be confused by that. So talk to me a little bit about, you know, mental health and religion, especially here in this community.

Nicholas: Okay? as No, absolutely. honestly, mean, look, like any community, there's things that are specific to Las Vegas that help attribute characteristics to who we are. But gosh, I remember traveling on a plane when I was a little person being in a different state visiting family and people ask you where you live and you say, you live in Las Vegas. they have housing there? People didn't even realize that ⁓ there was a domestic community or that you could live there. That if you lived in Las Vegas you somehow had a room in a casino and that's where you laid your head. But there certainly is a community here. Granted ⁓ casinos and the gaming industry is a predominant industry with it.

Katie: Right.

Nicholas: influence over all things here in Southern Nevada. But I certainly have found that Las Vegas is that I would rather live with. Sometimes people look at me like I'm crazy, but there's a lot of folks that agree with me on that end as well. ⁓ But the intersection between mental health and religion and faith, gosh, I mean, honestly, there's lots of ways to answer that question. But where my mind tends to go with it being asked is that ⁓ I can see... ⁓ X amount of folks in which the integration of faith and mental health from a secular professional scope to where they complement one another. And there's an actual, you know… synergy that works together that helps the person ⁓ in multiple ways. And those things can actually be integrated and be supportive for the person and for whatever it is that they might be dealing with within a mental health scope. And in some cases, vice versa. But I can say as much as that's true, another truth that can co-exist is that there's no shortage of times in which somebody's experience and relationship to faith is very much a core contributor to some mental health problems that they're experiencing or have been experiencing for some time. So it's it's it's a, it's a, it's

Katie: Yeah, absolutely. And it seems like… I was just gonna say and it seems like addiction really is kind of one of those mental health challenges where you know, maybe somebody as part of their healing journey faith becomes a really big part of that. Have you seen that and have you seen that with other mental health challenges or are really in the addiction sphere?

Nicholas: Um, no, but I mean, I do think that, you know, within the addiction sphere, uh, it's not an uncommon practice that, uh, as people enter into recovery, um, and they find other methods, uh, to, uh, to help ward off the compulsions to instill, uh, new things in their life to, uh, to help, uh, validate, to fill time, develop new habits, new practices, uh, develop support systems, new communities, people to be around, those kinds of things. Oftentimes, whether it be somebody increasing their faith to a larger quantity, to becoming a gym rat, to getting involved in whatever else it might be, then yeah, there can be an influx going from the absence of into all into something, and reasonable argument in some cases ⁓ that… there could be an argument made that that is ⁓ pretty much some of the same underlying factors that led the person to become addicted or were further ingrained during the time of their addiction that essentially some of those underlying mechanisms are now simply being applied to whatever that next thing is. If we're talking about religion in this case, could certainly be a zeal for religiosity.

Katie: See.

Nicholas: Some cases as well. could simply be that along the lines of somebody's recovery or sobriety jury, that they were introduced to faith or they put... ⁓ they put more time, effort, energy, and realized that they had a different understanding of faith, or they put a different level of investment in that, ⁓ and what they were getting out of it was positive and validating, and something that was encouraging for them. So they just continued down that track and deepened their faith and deeper their involvement in regards to how they ⁓ effectuate that faith into their life. I hope that answered your

Katie: Yeah, no it does, definitely. ⁓ And as a priest, as someone who's both a priest and a licensed clinical social worker, how has mental health evolved in the church? It feels like it's more accepted now in the church than it was.

Nicholas: Yes, and to be I'm from a pretty open background faith. So I'm a I'm a priest in the Episcopal Church, right? So not speaking from you know again from a political standpoint, but We are by far one of the more less conservative We have a very large tent we have broad. It's a tent in which everybody's welcome to. And again, do we have certain tenets of faith and those kinds of things that are foundational? Absolutely. But again, rather inclusive to which things like mental health, subject matters, at least within my faith tradition, certainly, again, to my knowledge and my experience of it, very open, very encouraging of those kinds of things.

But I would say that ⁓ there certainly can be certain faith traditions that might not be ⁓ so open to taking things that are familial or things that might be determined to be intimate or might be determined to be private and taking it outside of whether it be church tradition familial environment ⁓ and addressing it through another scope as opposed to saying well you know what all things need to be addressed through the scope of our faith tradition or our theology or doctrines those kinds of things so i would say that that in total we can speak to some degree about faith tradition and faith tradition and I don't know how fair that would be but I think that in a global sense ⁓ especially if I'm just speaking ⁓ anecdotally from my own experience to where where we are now with with therapy being much more ⁓ encouraged ⁓ much less stigmatized folks can go out in public and say, you know what? I can't make it. I've actually got to go see my therapist that day. There's a different response to it now than there was five, 10, 15, 20 years ago. And all of that is absolutely wonderful to see. And I hope it's a trend that continues to do what it's been.

Katie: Absolutely, and you're right. It's a trend that is continuing mental health is much less stigmatized now than it was 10 15 years ago And we can continue to improve that trend Another topic that is really stigmatized ⁓ is sex and you are sexologist and for our listeners out there who maybe know what that is What is that?

Nicholas: Awesome. What's this?

So basically it's a certain certification. There's various credentialing bodies out there. But ultimately ⁓ what led to my specific certification is specializing in sexual deviancy. So what I mean by deviancy, it's not a judgment in regards to good, bad. It's more so just meaning outside of the norm or outside of the mean. ⁓ I particularly have spent a good portion of my last 20 years in practice working with persons who would be quantified as sexual abusers. Within that scope, have worked pretty ⁓ distinctly with certain sects of that population that have certain types of fetish-type behavior or certain specific sexual arousals that, if not managed appropriately and in healthy ways, could unfortunately lead to the victimization of other people and certainly negative consequences in their own life as well. ⁓

So again, a broad scope as far as sexologist goes, but that's more so of the scope in which I've worked in our field.

Katie: So that's really interesting because you're both a sexologist and a priest. So how did that come about? How did that happen? Just organically?

Nicholas: Well, I guess both happened organically. The best that I can say is that one is in no relationship ⁓ to the other. Two very distinct callings in life with two very distinct pathways in regards to how I got there. In regards to working with ⁓ the sexual abuser population.

My first year at UNLV was at an agency that still exists today in a different carnation. At that time it was Red Rock Psychological Services and my supervisor there, who was an LCSW, she ⁓ facilitated adult sex offender groups, rehabilitation groups. were contracted with the safety, parole and probation. And ⁓ we had a continuum of care, different levels of treatment for persons who were either ⁓ just convicted of, adjudicated of, or court mandated coming out of detention prison to participate in sex-offense specific counseling. So that's how I started working with that population as far as treatment itself. also that's where I started cutting my teeth on what are called psychosexual evaluations, which are clinical risk assessment documents a psychometric or a series of psychometrics that help determine a level of risk and recommendations in regards to treatment, placement, community safety, those kinds of things that are ordered through and submitted to the court ⁓ as folks are either going through the court process or graduating from one part of ⁓ a court process to the next, if that makes sense.

Katie: Yeah, that's so interesting. ⁓

Nicholas: So that's how I started working with that population. And then as far as becoming a priest, again, that was probably six, seven years later, and again, had its ⁓ very own ⁓ origin organic story in regards to what led me to that call and pursuing that and ultimately going back to school specific for that and going through all of

Katie: Mm-hmm.

Nicholas: discernment and the process through my national church and my local diocese. ⁓

Katie: Wow, that is so interesting. It just goes to show, you know, the beginning of your career, kind of what you're exposed to really can decide your path.

Nicholas: you ⁓ Gosh. Absolutely. If you would have grabbed me at any time during my undergraduate or even, I don't know, halfway through my graduate school degree and said, hey, in 2026, this is how you're going to be introduced on a podcast. I would say no way. That is certainly not me. Yes. But I'm grateful sitting here in 2026 that that is the introduction.

Katie: Ha ha ha!

Nicholas: That describes me very much so.

Katie: Yeah, absolutely. And so I'm to ask you another Las Vegas question. You know, this is the city of sin, the city of sex. Do you find that there are a lot of people here who are struggling with sexual deviancy or with, you know, these types of sexual problems that they struggle to bring to anybody else?

Nicholas:  No, don't do it. I mean, it would be very hard to argue that the propensity is greater ⁓ in southern Nevada due to reasonable argument. You know, a certain section of the entirety of the city of what, 2.5 million people that tends to sensationalize. ⁓

sex and granted we might have billboards that might be unusual for a 40-way sign in a different jurisdiction, in a different city, in a different state, somewhere in the United States. ⁓ I think that the same argument could be made on the other side in regards to ⁓ communities that might have... higher ⁓ find is there might be more accessibility to some of those things that could help, you know, help... potentially lend to somebody's problem of metastasizing due to access, if that makes sense. But then again, you think about the internet, right? And I mean, there's no shortage of porn on the internet, so pretty well accessible otherwise, if that makes sense. So I think that, again, lots of different ways to look at it. And it would be hard to say that there's cause and causality.

So definitely correlations, I think that you can find correlations that explain the inverse in different communities as well. And also too, being here in Las Vegas, granted, maybe this being my only experience that there's a desensitization to it, I mean, it's certainly different from the town and the setting of the movie.

Katie: Yeah. Exactly.

Nicholas: Footloose for example, so maybe there is a certain level of desensitization to where we're not so sensitive to it. So that very well could be an influence. So I do think though that as far as accessibility and also too, some of the things that lend themselves to people finding themselves with... you know, kind of presenting concern related to their sexual health. Oftentimes, it's not to a contributing factor such as, you know, we live in a town that has, that might sensationalize or glorify sex to certain degrees or, you know, put it in the marketplace to the capacity that it does.

Because sex sells is not specific to Las Vegas, Nevada. I mean, all you gotta do is go to any magazine rock and any grocery store in any state in the country, turn on the television, go to the movies. I mean, it's pretty prevalent throughout our society and our culture otherwise.

Katie: Right. Yeah. That's such a good point. know that in some ways there is a lot of sex in our culture here in Las Vegas but it destigmatizes it in some ways. So it's like there are pros and cons on both sides.

Nicholas: Absolutely. Without a doubt, absolutely. Yeah, and I think that more so that it depends on.

Katie: So are there sexologist here in Las Vegas. ⁓ I haven't seen that too much.

Nicholas: You know what, that I'm not sure of. I think that the last time I checked there was no more than four of us. ⁓ And again, all varying. think that another person was specific to arts. ⁓ I think that there might have been another person with a clinical setting. The other party was I believe it was an academia, but again, I haven't checked in years. But I know that there's not many of us running around.

Katie: Wow. Well, so let's talk a little bit about your organization. You're the president and CEO of your mental health services organization company. Do you offer this type of service and what kinds of services do you offer and how can someone get a hold of you if maybe they're interested in seeing if they can be a patient?

Nicholas: That's it. Absolutely. So New Barre Mental Health Services, we are an outpatient behavioral health care provider. we are insured on private insurance panels, EAP, which are employee assistance programs. We also work with, so basically public and private insurances. We also have sliding scale for cash pay folks. We also have pro bono services for people who are either not insured or underinsured.

But ⁓ within the collective of our entity in which we are comprised of many master's level clinicians, ⁓ so LCSWs, LCPCs, and LMFTs in terms of the same, as well as we also have a nurse practitioner for psychotropic medication prescription management, psychiatrists for the same. But I guess the broader point is that

Although there's many of us, each one of us comes with our own background and our own specialty. So although myself and my colleagues might very well work with certain populations, it doesn't mean that all of us do. So again, I work with this and about four or five of my colleagues work with some of these same presenting concerns as I do. And in that, for example, we have contracts with the county and the state and the courts and parole and probation, the Department of Juvenile Justice Service parole probation. So ⁓ various levels ⁓ of municipalities throughout Southern Nevada to where we work with using detention facilities who have been adjudicated ⁓ of sexual related crimes. Again, folks who are under supervision within the community.

Also certain departments of the state and also because we have the contracts that we do and work with some of the ⁓ different programs and outfits that we do, ⁓ it certainly lends itself to private referrals for the same presenting concerns. ⁓ So ⁓ we do provide a variety of services and they can be again in the generalized mental health space, but certainly in specific niches as it relates to ⁓ problematic sexual behavior, ⁓ sexual abuse, sexual abuse victimizers, sexual abuse victims themselves, ⁓ family reunifications, risk assessments, all things under those scope we provide. And again, how you, those things are on our website, but most of our work within that scope comes from other agencies that refer directly to us because they're typically the first points of contact and they help navigate treatment for...

Katie: Wow, that's amazing. And again, this kind of goes back to what we were saying earlier, which is that these services are here and it's just a matter of knowing where to find them. And it sounds like you're doing so much.

Nicholas:  Well, we certainly give it a shot, that's for sure. I would say that outside of New Vata Mental Health Services, it's probably less than a dozen, which means that there's much more room ⁓ for any healthy professional that would like to work in specializing in this area or to help, ⁓ to give us a hand in working with all the folks that get benefit from some such specialized services. ⁓ again, ⁓ not many of us choose to work as exclusively as I have within this population and reasonable argument that there can be a stigma and I certainly run into stigmas about working in supporting roles with some of the populations that I choose to work with. ⁓

Katie: Yeah, definitely. You probably experience a lot of that first hand, that stigma and probably a lot of maybe shame and trauma that people are bringing to these conversations. Is that true or is that ⁓ a myth that there is a lot of shame and trauma that maybe can lead to these types of problems or can come from these types of problems?

Nicholas: Of course, absolutely without a doubt. mean, shame and trauma, I don't believe that I've met a person regardless of what their presenting concern was in regards to ⁓ a sexual health space ⁓ in which shame wasn't rolled into it at all.

So shame is pretty much going to be present in one form or another when somebody comes in with a sexual health related problem. ⁓ Alternatively, trauma, I I think I'm yet to meet a person yet who doesn't have trauma. ⁓

Katie: Yeah.

Nicholas: Sharing the human experience and trauma in some form has bound to found each one us unfortunate throughout our time.

Katie: Yeah, absolutely. And I just wanted to make that point because...

Nicholas: Now again, causality and correlation, correlation causality, right? So, for example, and this is ⁓ on the subject, but not necessarily what we're talking about, because somebody has had ⁓ some degree of sexual trauma doesn't mean that they will go out and traumatize another person.

Sexually if that makes sense. there's a correlation, a rather high correlation between people who go out and sexually abuse another person that there is a statistical likelihood that they've experienced sexual trauma but it's certainly not 100%. And that that also means that people. That's right, who have experienced sexual trauma doesn't mean that they're going to go out and become sexual abusers or traumatize other persons.

Katie:Exactly, yeah correlation is in causation. Exactly, No, that's true. And that's an important point to make. And I think it's also important just to highlight that it's feeling shame and, like you said, experiencing trauma. That's a human emotion. And I think a lot of us hide behind that. And we think that we're the only ones that might be experiencing this problem. But that's not true.

Nicholas: Thanks, No, without a doubt. I mean, the amount of people that I've worked with over the course of the past two decades that believe that carrying around things like shame or guilt actually serves as some kind of device for them ⁓ to help correct or to not engage in the behavior again. ⁓

I see that all the time and I have to be the one that dives in there and says, look, I completely understand how you might have come to that position, but that is one of the things that we're going to be addressing while we work on this because both shame and whether you believe me now or not they're actually more likely to lead you to engaging in the behavior again, as opposed to preventing you from not engaging in it.

Help educate people and guide them through the treatment process as it relates to topics that are very sensitive such as shame and guilt.

Katie: It's so valuable to have somebody who can guide them through these really difficult topics and conversations and to have somebody who can dive in there deep, right? Not everybody's willing to do that with people who have these problems.

Nicholas: Thank you. No, without a doubt. look, from the perspective that myself and my colleagues within this space, the main goal that we come from is no more victims. ⁓ So the best way that we can help contribute to that mission ⁓ is to work with folks who have victimized other people to help them understand things that are unique to them and things that are unique to unhealthy sexual behavior practices that could offend or hurt somebody else, victimize somebody else helping to understand how they got there, why they did what it is that they did, and help impart on them the skills to be able to understand the mechanisms that led them up to so they can, one, ⁓ change their lifestyle, and two, be much more self-aware ⁓ when they're going down a road that could potentially lead to that same previous destination that we want to avoid.

Katie: Yeah, that's so, so important. ⁓ I'm gonna ask you one more question, just as we kind of wrap up here, to kind of follow up on this. this is, do you think that a mental health challenge or a diagnosis or even a problem like this is something that people can overcome and be done with? Or is it something that will always kind of be a part of you, something you always need to be working on?

Nicholas: No, I think it kind of depends on what the subject matter is, right? So the ones that I can say ⁓ with certainty that we ⁓ wouldn't... When you're in our field, we try to stay away from things like cured or curative or those kinds of things, right? So one thing I know is that you can never guarantee what somebody is going to do. Regardless of how great they did in treatment or how well they progressed or what they've been able to demonstrate, right? But specifically from a sexual perpetration model, a sexual abuser model, ⁓ even pornography addiction, for example, we look at all those things as ⁓ conditions that require lifelong care.

So it's not ⁓ that you engaged in this behavior or you had this specific problem engaged in this level of treatment you have now been absent the behavior for this period of time wipe your hands of it off you go and we we no longer you know need to be mindful and self-aware about that right so we very much aching to what you would see in addiction models in which that if you've had this problem once, we want to treat it as ⁓ something that we're self-aware of for the rest of our lives and that we need to live our lives in a particular way to ensure that we do not regress and fall back into whether they be emotional conditions,  circumstances or certain lifestyles that might lead us to going down the same path that ⁓ causes us to hurt ourselves or to hurt somebody else in the past.

Katie: Yeah, most definitely. I think that's interesting that you approach it similar to an addiction.

Nicholas: And again, it doesn't mean that person is bad. It's not that kind of judgment. It is more so that this is something that we need to be very self-aware of and very mindful of because there are a lot of contributing factors. And again, it's not that we're trying to make folks paranoid or label folks, but we do want to make them vigilant in regards to the choices that they make in their life, ⁓ how they're checking in with themselves, how they maintain various standards of their quality of health and life ⁓ to set themselves up for success, again, to keep themselves and to keep other people safe and healthy.

Katie: Most definitely. Thank you so much. This was such a great episode. can't believe I'm already out of time. I learned a lot here. This was really valuable.

Nicholas: Yeah. Well, thank you very much. I appreciate the time and I appreciate you having me on. Absolutely.

Katie:  Absolutely. So for anyone who's interested, I know that you mentioned ⁓ your organization and all the services you have. Please reach out. What's a good website that somebody could go check out? And if somebody's struggling with addiction, ⁓ a little bit more maybe about Vegas Stronger too.

Nicholas: Absolutely, website would be www.nmhslv.com. So acronym for Neubauer Mental Health Services, lasvegas.com. I see that my name is posted up here. My direct email address is simply my name, Nicholas Neubauer at gmail.com. Anybody's more than welcome to email me with any questions or if I could be support in anything that we talked about throughout this podcast.

To answer any questions, help navigate, resources, whatever I can do to help support somebody that way. And then in regards to the substance use disorder space, again, at Vegas Stronger, our mission is to end homelessness through treating what we believe to be the two root causes, which are mental health conditions and substance use disorders. So that physical offer, that can be found at vegastronger.org online as well as it's physically located on 916 Main Street, North Main Street. Folks can walk in right in the door at any time. We can begin treatment immediately. Treatment, case management, start to provide, you know, try to find resources to make sure that somebody or somebody's unhoused, that they got a roof over their head starting that evening. Whatever needs we gotta meet, whatever we gotta figure out to help get people well, sober, and back on their feet.

That's what we're there for.

Katie: Beautiful. ⁓ I love everything you do for this community. think it's so valuable these conversations, these services. So thank you so much for being a guest and for you know being a Las Vegas you know native and for loving your community. I love my community.

Nicholas: The pleasure is all mine, and so do I.

Katie: Wonderful. Well, thank you to everybody who's watching. This has been a great episode of watching mental health and we are live on Spotify, Apple and YouTube as well as my website at katierosewector.com. You can catch all our episodes and you can catch this episode on Wednesday. So have a good one everyone and we will see you next time.

Nicholas: Bye everybody.