Today's Guest: Gary Vann PhD of The Center for Relationships and Well Being in Traverse City, Michigan
Today's Host: Damien Allen
Listen to this Show
Publish this Show on Your Website
Show Sponsor www.garyvannphd.com
Center for Relationships and Well Being
Gary Vann PhD Transcript Page
Gary Vann PhD Expert PageANNOUNCER: Welcome to VTalk Radio Local Business Spotlight with your host, Damien Allen.
DAMIEN: Good Morning. Welcome to the VTalk Radio Local Business Spotlight. This morning we are in the studio with Dr. Gary Vann. He is a marriage and family psychologist in Traverse City, Michigan, and founder of the Center for Wellness and Relationships. Dr. Gary is gonna share with our listeners today about what he has to offer in his family practice. Good morning and welcome to the program, Dr. Gary.
DR. VANN: Good morning, Damien, glad to be here with you today.
DAMIEN: We're very happy to have you. What is the focus of your practice down there at the Center for Wellness and Relationships?
DR. VANN: Well at the center, what I provide in the Grand Traverse region is psychology based individual, marriage, child, family and family owned business development using a family systems model.
DAMIEN: What is a family systems model?
DR. VANN: Family systems model has been around for about 25 - 35 years, but it has the concept that the family interacts in a systemic way with each different person playing different roles with different communication styles and relationships and when those things go awry or if there is any dysfunctional patterns in communications or problem solving skills, the family or relationships can be in big trouble.
DAMIEN: And with a broad scope of psychology, what made you chose this type of practice?
DR. VANN: I was fortunate, Damien, as a young undergraduate, graduate at 22 to start working with a family service agency in the Chicago area working with teenagers, kids on the streets, and families who are in big troubles. Did that for a couple of years. Went back and got an MSW in clinical social work and then went on to work in the local Michigan area, the Department of Mental Health at the regional hospital, and then eventually went back to school to get a PhD in family psychology from the Union Institute in Cincinnati and have been doing that ever since. The Center for Wellness and Relationships, I started that organization right around 1985.
DAMIEN: So you've been doing this a little over 20 years now?
DR. VANN: Well actually, 1972 til now. It's been about 35 years.
DAMIEN: What do you like about this type of a practice as compared to something else?
DR. VANN: I like the opportunity to work with families and also to help family owned businesses to prevent conflicts and problems within the system that can lead to further problems in the relationships later on in individuals' lives. Watching and observing this process unfold in our sessions and seeing how this impacts what we call behavioral growth and the elimination of negative emotions like anxiety, depression, anger, and long-standing dysfunctional behavior patterns is just a very exciting thing to watch as people grow.
DAMIEN: Now, in today's day and age, you hear constantly about children being placed on medication for attention deficit disorder, hyper activity disorders, people with anxiety. Depression is one of the hugest industries as far as medicine from pharmaceuticals. What makes what you do different from that?
DR. VANN: Well, Damien, psychologists are trained in behavioral changes using behavioral and psychological techniques. So, a lot of focus we use involves cognitive behavioral therapy and a variety of other techniques. Teaching the individuals and family members on how to modify their own behavior. Communicate more effectively, handle stress differently, and use more of a wellness approach toward handling their own individual problems using psychological techniques.
DAMIEN: Do you have an example of a success story from using these types of techniques?
DR. VANN: Well, Damien, one recent success story and one that's typical of many over the years that we've worked with was a middle-aged couple of two older teenagers about 15 and 19 and this was a 20 year marriage that was in trouble after raising the teens and maintaining and developing their own two careers, the marriage was lacking in both excitement and passion. The wife was depressed, depleted, and she was considering divorce. Essentially the atmosphere had turned into frequent episodes of fighting and conflict after dinner and actually was even fuelled more by abuse of alcohol by the husband. Lots of verbal abuse by the wife. We used the curriculum, "Time for Better Marriage, and the Systematic Training for Effective Parenting of Teens" materials and were in about 3 - 4 months able to develop and teach the family several new and effective communication problem solving skills. The prevention of a ruptured home and repair of a damaged marriage was what was gained, but it was not perfect, but a whole lot better functioning family system.
DAMIEN: What is, "Time for Better Marriage" and the "Systematic Training for Effective Parenting of Teens"?
DR. VANN: They're two of my favorite books, Damien, and they both utilize an Adlerian focus both written by Dr. Don Dinkmeyer and also both very effective in teaching a variety of communication skills, problem solving skills, behavioral change skills, and personality development to prevent the breakdown of families, parent and teen relationships.
DAMIEN: We are in the studio today with Dr. Gary Vann and Gary, before we go into the commercial break here, could I get you give us the contact information for the Center of Wellness and Relationships?
DR. VANN: Sure. You can just go to www.garyvannphd.com.
DAMIEN: You are listening to the VTalk Radio Local Business Spotlight. We're gonna take a short break for these commercial announcements, and we'll be right after this. Please don't go anywhere.
ANNOUNCER: Today's VTalk Radio Local Business Spotlight is brought to you by The Center for Wellness and Relationships. Psychology based counseling and coaching for the individual couples, family, and family owned business. You can visit them on the web at www.garyvannphd.com or c all (231) 947-2990 for more information.
ANNOUNCER: Unlocking the potential of individuals, families, and family owned businesses. VTALK RADIO.
ANNOUNCER: We now return you to the VTalk Radio Local Business Spotlight with your host, Damien Allen.
DAMIEN: Welcome back to VTalk Radio's Local Business Spotlight. I'm your host, Damien Allen and today we are in the studio with Dr. Gary Vann. He's a marriage and family psychologist in Traverse City, Michigan, and the founder of The Center for Wellness and Relationships. Welcome back to the program, Gary.
DR. VANN: Welcome back.
DAMIEN: Well, we've been talking about what you focus on in your practice, and we touched a little bit on some of the things that you do. What's the process you go through when you're trying to help families, or teens, or couples, or even business groups? What are the steps you take to do that?
DR. VANN: Well, Damien, one of the most important things I believe has to happen is we first have to develop a trusting bond with the individual and family members. If there is no rapport, there is not going to be any door. In other words, the family allows me to enter and I join the couples and the families' system as their family psychologist. Without this connection between the client and myself, there is simply just not going to be any growth and development in therapy. Next we uncover the personality and behavioral quirks that are at the root of the symptoms using several instruments using the Kern lifestyle scale and the Dinkmeyer marital inventory. Then the client and I complete a lifestyle inventory including an in depth family history to identify the roots of the problems that the family is presently experiencing. Finally we contract for behavioral growth and goals with the individual family members using a variety of different techniques. We use cognitive behavioral therapy which involves taking a look at the self-talk and the internal thinking patterns of the individuals. We help them to stay away from things like catastrophic thinking or "ican'tstandititis" or condemning themselves or others. This only leads to lots of negative emotions that we want to stay away from. We use Adlerian therapy which follows understanding the lifestyle and the personality of the family members as they grow up in their own family origin. We use energy psychology even which uses acupressure points and more of an EFT tapping procedure where we eliminate the negative emotion through helping the person to desensitize themself to the negative emotion, and we use guided imagery and Be Set Free Fast (BSFF) which have some similarities to hypnosis. And, I find effective that it's important to individualize these different techniques to the personality of the individual person.
DAMIEN: What type of person qualifies as a candidate for these therapies or who needs to go to a psychologist for these kinds of things?
DR. VANN: Well, what I'm focusing primarily on when working with families and even family owned business owners who find themselves plateaued or sometimes derailed or derailing within the family owned system or within the system. Their motivation is clearly a factor that I work very hard to develop with the family members for them to make the behavioral changes in themselves and within their own personality. If the family members are stubborn or resistant or in other ways what we call "psychologically reversed" then these traits need to be eliminated first as part of our work. If we don't eliminate those resistances, they're seldom going to be effective growth and development as part of the psychological and transformational process.
DAMIEN: In what ways is your practice unique?
DR. VANN: Our practice is unique in that we combine traditional psychological services along with alternative and innovative techniques such as guided imagery, energy psychology, and we also use and provide family owned business coaching.
DAMIEN: How does someone find Dr. Gary Vann? Where do you get your client's from?
DR. VANN: Well, Damien, over the years a lot of the clients I work with are sometimes referred from someone else who has worked with me in our local community. Also, frequently family physicians realize that many of the stress related disorders they see such as addictions, depression, anxiety, gastric, back pain, insomnia, obesity have deep roots in the family system and toxic and chronic levels of stress as well. There's a powerful, what we call a mind, body dynamic or connection, but trained in medicine and not in psychology they often see the need to refer out for family psychological treatment. Also, local human resource directors in businesses also are aware of the need to help employees who are experiencing problems and stress and if they have toxic stress, the employee may not be able to perform very well on the job. They can encourage the employee to utilize their health care benefit of his or her insurance company.
DAMIEN: In today's day and age stress is most definitely a factor in everybody's life. Is there any other sources or websites or people that you tend to find helpful that you would like to share with listeners that would be on the same path or something that would help somebody find their way in the dark?
DR. VANN: One of the resources we use are the two books we like to have our families access are called "Time for a Better Marriage" and "Systematic Training for Effective Parenting". They can get those from www.cmtipress.com and they can start to immediately read those materials themself and they very helpful self-help materials.
DAMIEN: And one more time before we let you go. Could you please give your website and contact information for the listeners.
DR. VANN: Sure. It's www.garyvannphd.com, and we're at 3491 Hartman Road in Traverse City. Area code (231) 947-2990.
DAMIEN: We'd like to thank you very much for joining us today in the studio.
DR. VANN: Thank you, Damien, it's been great.
DAMIEN: Well there you have it VTalk listeners. More information on our guest today, Dr. Gary Vann, marriage and family psychologist in Traverse City, Michigan. The website is www.garyvannphd.com. If you have problems relating to this subject or if you're just curious and want some information, go on out there and check it out. You've been listening to VTalk Radio's Local Business Spotlight. I'm Damien Allen, have a great afternoon.
ANNOUNCER: If you want to get a copy of "Time for a Better Marriage" or "Systematic Training for Effective Parenting" by Dr. Don Dinkmeyer, please go to www.cmtipress.com.
ANNOUNCER: You've been listening to the VTalk Radio Spotlight only on Vtalkradio.com radio for the 21st century.
go to top of the page
