Podcast Host: Tammi Mac
Guests: Dr. Trayvonne McVay & Jarvis Sams
Tammi Mac – The 3 time NAACP award winning, Tammi Mac was hand-picked by the legendary Stevie Wonder to host the number one afternoon radio show, “The Tammi Mac Show” from 3-7pm daily on his Los Angeles owned 102.3 KJLH. Tammi Mac is voted best radio personality in Los Angeles by the Los Angeles Times. Her one woman show, Bag Lady has garnered best writer, best producer and best one person show and the spin-off webseries Bag Lady is award winning too. Her radio career has extended to television with her talk show, The Business of Being Black with Tammi Mac on the digital network Fox Soul, daily.
TrayVonne Mcvay, Psy.D. – is a graduate from The Chicago School of Professional Psychology with a degree in Applied Clinical Psychology. Dr. Mcvay has completed his Master’s in Psychology and Bachelor’s in Sociology from Grand Canyon University after being in the mental health field for over ten years. Dr. Mcvay also completed a post–doctoral degree of Science in Clinical Psychopharmacology. Dr. Mcvay is a Clinical Director and emphasizes raising awareness and providing psychoeducation. Dr. Mcvay has taught courses as a professor focusing on topics such as “Psychopathology of Adulthood,” “Family Therapy,” and Child & Adolescent Therapy.” In addition. He specializes in Cognitive Behavior Therapy, Trauma Informed Care, Applied Behavior Analysis, Dialectical Behavior Therapy, and Motivational Interviewing.
Jarvis Sams, AMFT – is an Associate Marriage & Family Therapist, in Los Angeles, has been a practicing clinician on and off for the last 12 years, working in private practice settings, community mental health and was an Administrative/Adjunct Faculty member for 4 years at a local institution in Pasadena, CA. Jarvis found this career path through his own personal therapeutic journey, in which he realized the field was lacking in diversity. He hopes to serve clients from underrepresented and underserved communities and hopes they will see someone from their community and feel comfortable with starting their own therapeutic process. At the urging of his late mother, Jarvis and his wife started Reconnect Marriage and Family Counseling (a private practice) in July 2021 with the primary philosophy of working in communities that may lack access to therapeutic resources.
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Full Episode Transcript
Tammi Mack:
I’m Tammi Mack. Hello, everybody. Let’s get well mentally. Yes. This podcast is all about you. You Are Not Alone. Your guide to mental wellness. It’s a podcast that is a joint production of KJLH and the Chicago School, which has been training and educating multiculturally competent mental healthcare professionals for nearly 50 years. Kudos to the Chicago School. Our program is committed to educating our community about mental health and wellness, and normalizing conversations about our mental health because they are just not as normal as they should be, especially today.
Our community disproportionately suffers from a number of serious mental health issues, including anxiety and depressive disorders. More than 16% have reported having a serious mental health issue in the past. Our program will explore mental health and wellness issues that impact us, well as explore ways that we can improve our wellness. Every week, I’m joined by mental and behavioral health experts who will share their experience and expertise to help us on our journey to good health and satisfying lives. I’m joined today with two mental health professionals based in Southern California, Dr. Trayvonne McKay and Jarvis Sams. Hi gentlemen.
Dr. Tray McVay:
Hello.
Jarvis Sams:
Hello.
Tammi Mac:
Black men and mental health. I am so excited about this podcast. All right. Please welcome Dr. McVay.
Dr. Tray McVay:
How are you? Thank you for having me.
Tammi Mac:
Thank you for being here. Dr. McVay is a graduate from the Chicago School of Professional Psychology with a degree in applied clinical psychology. Dr. McVay has completed his master’s in psychology and bachelor’s in sociology from Grand Canyon University after being in the mental health field for over 10 years. Dr. McVay also completed a post-doctoral degree of science and clinical psycho-pharmacology. Dr. McVay is a clinical director and emphasizes raising awareness and providing psychoeducation. Dr. McVay is interested in youth mentorship having come from an adverse childhood. Dr. McVay takes pride in supporting at-risk youth and teaching them lifelong lessons.
I have to say right now, that’s dope. But secondly, I do not know any of this that you have studied my brother, like psychopharmacology. I have to know what that’s about. And psychoeducation, what is that?
Dr. Tray McVay:
Psycho-pharmacology, the degree gives psychologists prescriptive authority. So psychiatrists are not the only ones in our field that’s allowed to do it. And psychoeducation is just bringing awareness to people, teaching them why they go through what they go through or deal with some of the things that they deal with, the challenges they have.
Tammi Mack:
So then psycho-pharmacology means that the psychologists can prescribe medication?
Dr. Tray McVay:
Yes.
Tammi Mac:
Am I getting that right?
Dr. Tray McVay:
Yes. So they’re bringing that to California. They’re working on that now. And we are, I believe, six or seven states where psychologists are allowed to prescribe.
Tammi Mac:
Y’all getting fancy on us, regular people, but that’s why we here to learn.
Dr. Tray McVay:
Yes.
Tammi Mac:
Jarvis Sams is an associate marriage and family therapist in Los Angeles and has been a practicing clinician on and off for the last 12 years, working in private practice settings, community, mental health, and was an administrative adjunct faculty member for four years at a local institution in Pasadena, California. Jarvis found this career path through his own personal therapeutic journey in which he realized the feel was lacking diversity. He hopes to serve clients from underrepresented and underserved communities and hopes they will see someone from their community and feel comfortable with starting their own therapeutic process. I hope the same thing for sure.
At the urging of his late mother, Jarvis and his wife started Reconnect Marriage and Family Counseling, a private practice in July of 2021 with the primary philosophy of working in communities that may lack access to therapeutic resources. Welcome, Mr. Sams.
Jarvis Sams:
Thank you. Thank you so much.
Tammi Mac:
And thank you for keeping Black love alive. For sure. So let’s begin with you, Mr. Sams. You are a licensed marriage and family therapy counselor. So what does that mean and what kind of work do you do?
Jarvis Sams:
So, a marriage and family therapist, there’s a little bit of a difference between psychology and marriage and family therapy. The long and short of it is family systems. So marriage and family therapist is going to look at it from a family systems point of view. And to make that in a layman’s term, how your family affects how you function in the world.
Tammi Mac:
Ah, got it.
Jarvis Sams:
Okay?
Tammi Mac:
Yeah.
Jarvis Sams:
So that’s what a MFT does is we’re looking at it from a family systems point of view.
Tammi Mack:
Before you go on.
Jarvis Sams:
Yes ma’am.
Tammi Mac:
How the family affects how you work in the system. Can I get an example?
Jarvis Sams:
Yes. So there’s this term that I’m sure the doctor to the left of me will understand is something called modeling behavior. So an example of modeling behavior would be if you are a parent, you’re showing your child how to actually work in the world, you’re showing them the behavior of how to be in the world. And it may not even be your child directly. It could be your niece, your nephew, your younger cousin, your sister, your sibling. You’re modeling the behavior for them to go out into the world and actually function appropriately. What if, perhaps in your family, it is dysfunctional? So what’s being modeled for you is dysfunction. So what do you bring to the world, you bring dysfunction to the world.
Tammi Mac:
Oh, I was looking for something more specific, but that’s pretty general, but I get it. It clicked.
Jarvis Sams:
It clicked.
Tammi Mac:
It’s clicking. Yeah. Yeah. So I do get it.
Jarvis Sams:
Okay.
Tammi Mac:
So if you don’t have a dysfunctional family.
Jarvis Sams:
Then you more than likely are functioning in a world and a society that seems typical or the normative.
Tammi Mac:
So let’s say you are a person who plays the victim all the time, is that that a way that would have worked within the system of your family?
Jarvis Sams:
You probably saw victimization in your family. And thus it makes you comfortable feeling like a victim, right?
Tammi Mac:
Okay.
Jarvis Sams:
Or victimizing someone. So I can go really deep on this one, I don’t know if you want me to go there.
Tammi Mac:
Hey, we here. I’m not alone, am I?
Jarvis Sams:
All right. You’re not alone. You’re not alone.
Tammi Mac:
Okay.
Jarvis Sams:
So I did not list this in my bio, but one of the jobs that I do is I’m a director where I work with formerly incarcerated individuals. Those individuals who are formally incarcerated. I’ll put it out there, they’re sex offenders.
Tammi Mac:
Okay.
Jarvis Sams:
Okay? These sex offenders typically were victimized. We say, about 90% of them has some type of victimization in their life. Thus, they perpetrate onto others. Because the behavior was modeled for them and now they’re doing the behaviors.
Tammi Mac:
So I have a friend who, the women that he picks, since we talking about Black men, the women that he picks are women that he has to save. He comes from the foster care system. So do you think it’s because he wanted to be saved that he saves?
Dr. Tray McVay:
So I come from the foster care system too, 10-year foster kid. So to answer your question is very likely. Either he wanted to be saved or he did a lot of saving in the foster home.
Tammi Mac:
Oh yeah, that makes sense.
Dr. Tray McVay:
So I think that term is called repetition compulsion, where he’s repeating what he saw or what he experienced growing up.
Tammi Mac:
Okay. So let’s talk about the stigma surrounding mental illness and mental health in our community when it directly involves Black men.
Dr. Tray McVay:
Well, I mean, we can go broad with it.
Tammi Mac:
But you know I like specifics already. And this little five minutes, you already know. I like to get deep.
Dr. Tray McVay:
It’s hard for African American men to go to therapy for numerous reasons. One is it’s predominantly White therapists. It’s hard for us to go to the people that we feel did the oppressing. So it’s a struggle. We feel judged. We feel that we’re frowned upon. So why would I come share what I’m struggling with, with you?
Tammi Mac:
Just in that statement alone, it really brings tears to my eyes because I have to admit, I’m one of those people who have maybe dogged men out, Black men out for not wanting to go to therapy. And I had the attitude of, y’all think y’all know everything. That’s why you don’t want to go. And so I think that that directly affects the woman that’s with the Black man, or the way that he handles or deals with women or the women that deal with them. So to hear that from you saying, “Hey, we don’t want to tell our problems to our oppressor.” That’s a whole different perspective, dude.
Dr. Tray McVay:
And the attitude that you get from the male is a defense mechanism. Right?
Tammi Mac:
Right.
Dr. Tray McVay:
So he probably would want help, but it’s also hard to go to the Black male if that guy is a therapist as well.
Tammi Mac:
Why is that?
Dr. Tray McVay:
That man wasn’t present in our lives as-
Tammi Mac:
Oh my God, stop it.
Dr. Tray McVay:
So why would we want to go there? And Black people, Black men are in competition with one another, rather than being there to help one another. So me coming to you it, and it’s a mindset. I would feel like if I’m going to a male therapist, that this man may feel bigger than me. He may belittle me in some sense. So that’s a struggle. So every way, every direction that we look in, we find some type of a resistance.
Tammi Mac:
A barrier, a wall
Dr. Tray McVay:
That keeps us back from doing anything.
Tammi Mac:
And I guess I don’t have to ask why you don’t want to go to the woman, Black, White, or any other woman, right?
Dr. Tray McVay:
Yeah. Because I don’t mean to-
Jarvis Sams:
No, no, no. I’m with you.
Dr. Tray McVay:
We go to the Black woman as a man it’s emasculating. So I feel like I can’t be the type of man that I need to be because I’m going to a woman for help. Then we’re taught in the Black homes that if we’re dealing with anything, just deal with it.
Tammi Mac:
Be a man, deal it with it.
Dr. Tray McVay:
Be a man, don’t deal with it. Don’t cry, don’t do anything like that, because that will cause more conflict in our already confrontational home.
Jarvis Sams:
So yeah, I’m going to piggyback off of that. So I want to first of all say don’t feel like that way. So I’m onto my second marriage. My first marriage, I actually told my ex-wife, I say, “Oh, if you find a Black male therapist, I’ll go to couples counseling.” It took her six months. Six months to find a Black male therapist. But she was diligent because she knew she wanted to save the marriage and that, hey, somewhere deep in Jarvis, he wants to save the marriage as well.
Why I say don’t feel that way, was one I was trying to stonewall. I was trying to make it difficult because I knew just innately, there’s not many Black men doing this. But then there was also, he may not even get me. That was another thing that was going on. Going in to talk to someone and feeling, hey, this person may tell me I’m wrong for feeling the way I feel. Emotions are very difficult for men in general to talk about. And that’s what therapy is about. It’s about talking about your emotions. So you’re asking men to open up about their emotions, and we’ve been told to bottle them. So now you’ve been taught that that has nothing to do with Black, White, indifferent, it has everything to do with what the western culture says to men. Bottle your emotions and don’t let them out.
Tammi Mac:
Do either of you believe that white men have this issue with therapy?
Jarvis Sams:
I think they have better access to the mental health component in this sense. I think they have been, use the word preordained, but that’s not a good word, but pre-
Tammi Mac:
Conditioned?
Jarvis Sams:
Conditioned to accept mental health as just part of their health system. Right?
Tammi Mac:
Yeah.
Jarvis Sams:
Whereas, because-
Tammi Mac:
They don’t have the stigma attached to it that Black and brown people have.
Jarvis Sams:
I mean, the look at are just our health outcomes in general as Black people. One of the things that comes to mind often is the Tuskegee experiment, right?
Tammi Mac:
Of course.
Jarvis Sams:
And how that affected African American men in the early 1900s. And to the 1960s, 1970s, when they finally got revealed that they had given these men syphilis as an experiment. So if you’re going to experiment on me, or if you look at Black women, it’s the field of gynecology was an experiment on slave women.
Tammi Mac:
Yes, it was.
Jarvis Sams:
And so therefore, that’s where it came from. So the stigmatization of being an African American or a Black person in this country and going into health systems and asking them to provide me with support, never going to happen. I don’t trust you. Even people that actually look like me-
Tammi Mac:
You don’t trust.
Jarvis Sams:
Sometimes I have a hard time trusting. That’s how most of us look at it from just the system point of view. So when I say underserved, underrepresented populations and giving them access, what I mean by that is, I like the fact, and I wish I had taken your cue. I would’ve rather come dressed like this because I’d rather you feel like, hey, that’s the homie. I’m going to come talk to the homie versus this straight lace business looking professional guy shirt and the patches on his elbows.
Tammi Mac:
The nice little cuff red cufflinks.
Jarvis Sams:
Right. Right. Right. That kind of stuff. The reality of it is, if you saw me in therapy, when I do therapy, I got my Tims on because I’m an East coast guy. I got my sweatshirts on and I’m just a regular dude.
Tammi Mac:
Because I thought you was the doctor and he was not.
Jarvis Sams:
Right. So the reality of it is, and that’s how I framed my entire practice. I wanted you to be able to feel accessible. So if I walk into whether the 7-Eleven or into a lecture hall, I want you to feel like you’re represented. And then you are going to be more comfortable coming in to talk to me.
Tammi Mac:
So when we talk about these issues that Black men have with therapists, what’s the answer?
Dr. Tray McVay:
Issues as far as?
Tammi Mac:
What’s the answer as far as how do you change what the course is right now? When you say, I can’t go to a white man, he’s the oppressor. I can’t go to someone that looks like me because he’s never been there for me. I can’t go to a woman. So then what is the answer? How do you change that course, that trajectory?
Dr. Tray McVay:
I think that at some point in our lives, we have to face the music. I think that we can’t continue to use past things as an excuse to prevent us from moving forward. So what I mean is, at some point you figure out, how do I fix this? Maybe I need to challenge the perceptions. Do I need to challenge the perception that a White therapist can’t help me, challenge the perception that a African American male can’t help me.
Tammi Mac:
But if we’re talking about mental, and I don’t mean to cut you off Dr. McVay, but if we’re talking about the mentality, if we’re talking about the mentality, how do you even come to that mentality? That’s not something that I’m just going to change tomorrow. If I’ve had years of this distrust, as you say.
Dr. Tray McVay:
But that that’s still would answer the question. You still have to challenge the perception that you’re internalizing. Also, just seeing people like athletes come to the forefront with their issues. Friends starting to pour out.
Tammi Mac:
I want to talk about that. That’s a good point you make because so many Black celebrities have recently come forward to share their struggles with mental health. Athletes, singers, performers, actors, there has really been this, I don’t want to say trend, but trend of people saying, “Hey, look, I’ve got issues and they’re mental and I need help, and y’all need to seek some help too,” really.
Dr. Tray McVay:
They’re challenging the percept.
Tammi Mac:
So has that helped?
Dr. Tray McVay:
Yes. Absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely. We find more and more African American men are coming to therapy. You can tell that they, they’re emotionally dysregulated, that there’s a lot of resistance there, that there’s fear. But there’re starting to do it because of what they’re starting to see. We know the effects of social media.
Jarvis Sams:
It’s the modeling behavior. Someone’s modeling-
Tammi Mac:
We’re taking it back to, okay.
Jarvis Sams:
Someone’s modeling the behavior. This is okay. Okay maybe I can try. I mean, it can be a gift and a curse too. Sometimes someone is actually saying, I think of a lyric by one of these rappers, and this guy says, you don’t want to see, I’m not going to use the N word, this brother off his Lexapro. Right? When now-
Tammi Mac:
That’s a lyric.
Jarvis Sams:
Oh yeah.
Tammi Mac:
You be deep into them.
Jarvis Sams:
Oh, yeah. And I’m also a clinician. I’m like, whoa. Now we got people coming in asking about Lexapro.That they don’t understand that.
Tammi Mac:
It’s like when NWA was talking about Fatburger, Ice Cube was talking about Fatburger.
Jarvis Sams:
Everybody going to Fatburger.
Dr. Tray McVay:
Everybody going to Fatburger.
Tammi Mac:
Everybody going to Fatburger, right?
Jarvis Sams:
Right.
Tammi Mac:
Okay.
Jarvis Sams:
And so it’s like, no, you may not need Lexapro, talk therapy does work. That means you don’t necessarily need medication. You can actually just come and talk to someone for your depression, because Lexapro is a medication for depression.
Tammi Mac:
So they’re not just selling sneakers, they’re selling Lexapro,
Jarvis Sams:
But they don’t realize that they are opening up a Pandora’s box for clinicians in this respect that it’s like, okay, and now we got to put you back in Pandora’s box, which is very difficult. It’s explaining maybe that is a good thing, maybe it’s not mean. The reality of it is I am glad, I’m 100% excited about seeing athletes and celebrities in general coming forward because it is making people want to come out and have access to it.
Dr. Tray McVay:
Agree.
Jarvis Sams:
But I think what they have to do is consider, maybe say, I’m not a professional, go see a professional. Versus writing frivolously. I think of one guy in particular, an athlete, I remember it like it was yesterday. He had just won the World Championship with little Lakers and Metta World Peace, ran out and said, “I want to thank my therapist”.
Tammi Mac:
Yes, I remember that. I remember that.
Jarvis Sams:
And he was like, “This ring is for you.” Whatever her name was. I can’t remember what her name was, but it was pretty funny to me because I was like, wow. He literally just said, “I wouldn’t be able to do this if it wasn’t for her. Wasn’t because I was in this space and now I’m in this space.” And if you look at who formerly Ron Artest was right to who Metta World Peace is, it’s a completely different person. And so I love that story because that’s the story of what therapy can do for someone.
Tammi Mack:
So what is the impact of racism and discrimination of the mental health of Black men?
Dr. Tray McVay:
The impact is heavy. I mean, again, racism keeps us away from therapy because it’s predominantly Whites and other races. And why would we want to go to it? There would be no purpose. It appears counterproductive to us.
Jarvis Sams:
I think the impact of racism is just as Dr. McVay said. I also would like to add that hope. The hope is that they will get access to an African American or a Black therapist first to understand what therapy is and get a frame of what it can be. And maybe because there’s this whole thing, my thought process as a clinician is, maybe I can only take you so far and then I need to take you to pass you on to someone else. So that someone else may look like me or they may not look like me. But I hope that I’ve opened up the window of opportunity to you to see, “Oh, this is how this works.” And now I can actually go into there. I think what it is, I wonder if the clinicians on the other side of the table that don’t look like Dr. McVay and myself understand the culture that they’re talking to. African Americans, Latino Americans, Black and Brown folks everywhere have been acculturated to this Western society-
Dr. Tray McVay:
Of course.
Jarvis Sams:
That does not look anything like them. We know how to function in their society, but most of them come into our communities and they have no idea.
Tammi Mac:
So I want to ask you before we go, it’s almost time to go here. How do you convince a Black man to go to therapy? Dr. McVay,
Dr. Tray McVay:
You’d be the example.
Jarvis Sams:
That’s a good one.
Dr. Tray McVay:
I went to therapy. I’m a spiritual man. Part of my therapy consisted of church, prayer, worship music, things like that. But it just gave me the courage to go sit in front of somebody and have a conversation. So as he stated, when I go into an office and I look like them, they respond to that. And I can also inform them, Hey, this works. I did it. Let me show you how. And there’s a domino effect.
Tammi Mack:
Wow.
Jarvis Sams:
Yeah.
Tammi Mac:
Your answer, Jarvis?
Jarvis Sams:
I would agree. I would definitely agree. The irony of it is the start on this field, I lived right in [inaudible 00:23:11], I’ll never forget it. And I started to go to Chicago School back in 2011, and I was living in [inaudible 00:23:21], and I knew I was probably the only person in my area that was wanting to become a therapist or a psychologist or what have you. And I didn’t even know what was the difference at the time. But it was going to therapy and seeing my Black male therapist that look like me say, oh, I could do this not only as a therapist, but I can help my community.
Tammi Mac:
Excellent.
Jarvis Sams:
And so just by being accessible, it makes a major difference. They know that. I know their experience. They know that I have a very similar upbringing. And it’s easier for a kid that sees me on the block-
Tammi Mac:
Of course.
Jarvis Sams:
To be able to say, oh, he looks like me. He resembles me, and I’m willing talk to him.
Tammi Mac:
And he gets to say, I am not alone, right?
Dr. Tray McVay:
Exactly.
Tammi Mac:
Yeah. He gets to say, I am not alone. Thank you both for joining us today. Thank you. I want to thank my guest, Dr. Trayvonne McVey and Jarvis Sams for being on the program. We hope you learned a few things about mental health and wellness today. I have to say, I did. I really did. And if you want to find out more, visit our websites. We’ll provide those links in a bit. We’ll also have some helpful resources, as well as more information about our guests. So we hope you will come back and join us on our next program. And remember, we wish you well on your journey to good help and satisfying lives. You Are Not Alone. This is your guide to mental wellness. I’m Tammi Mack.
Mental Health Resources
Association of Black Psychologists