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| Lucas Hansen, DO Child Psychiatrist |
Board certified Child Psychiatrist Lucas Hansen sees a bright future for young people that doesn't include phones.
What does it take to become a child psychiatrist?
You have to get into medical school for four years, take several tests, and after a couple of years of residency then you can transition into being a fellow and then after two years of fellowship and several other tests you are a child psychiatrist.
Why did you choose this career path?
I was going to be a radiologist and then I found out that radiologists don’t talk to other humans that often and I was like oh, that’s not going to work for me.
I love radiology and anatomy, but I also like hanging out with other people.
What is the difference between a therapist and a psychiatrist and how would parents know which to see?
A therapist is somebody who can do therapy. Therapy is like physical therapy for the brain. When you have a thought, that’s a bunch of neurons or your brain cells communicating in a line.
If you have a negative thought, it uses that same line to communicate all your negative thoughts. When you have a positive thought, you use a different line — like a freeway essentially. If you get really depressed you’re working out that depressive freeway a lot and so you’re adding lanes to that freeway and it’s easier and easier to have depressive thoughts.
A good therapist will help you utilize those positive tracts that you have been neglecting.
Psychiatrists, we know a lot about the medications. The psychiatrist would tell you hey, these are the tools available to you. We might recommend therapy or exercise or social interaction or different types of medications.
Obviously I’m biased, but essentially we are the starting point and then we can show you which way to go.
Do you specialize in any age group or particular problem?
No. I'm board certified in general psychiatry and adolescent psychiatry so that’s everybody and everything from 3 years old to death.
There are people with certain types of problems I prefer to work with — suicidal teenagers and young adults, like early 20s.
What issues do you deal with that are unique to this generation?
I would say the phone. The phone and social media. Back in the day if you had a bully, school sucked and then you went home and it was a place of safety, but now if you have a bully, you go home and your bully’s in your pocket. And it’s every time you look at your phone which is four to five hours minimum a day.
If people can make that jump to taking their phone away from their kid and just having no phone for their entire teenage years, that's gonna be even better. Very difficult though.
So, at what age do you think someone should get a phone?
Ideally, right before they go to college — just a couple of months to kind of figure out how the whole social dynamic thing works because you don't want to be sending your child off to college with no tools and not knowing how the world works, but you also don't want to expose them to all that crap that's on our phones for as long as possible.
How do patients find you?
I work in the hospital so people get taken to me. If you’ve had a really bad day or if you’re having really dark thoughts or if you tried to kill yourself, you come and talk to me.
What are red flags for parents?
Isolation. If they find their kid is isolating more from their friends and family, spending more time in their room, grades going down, don’t really want to do sports or things they love anymore, those would be your most common red flags.
What would you suggest to parents of young children to help before the teenage years?
I mean that phone conversation, right? So, just not giving them a phone for as long as possible, or if you have to give them a phone, no social media.
If you have to give them social media for some reason, have access to all of their passwords and let them only go on social media with you watching.
Also, I always recommend that people lock up their guns and medication — most specifically Tylenol and over-the-counter stuff.
Tylenol is the most common medication that kids will kill themselves with so if you lock up guns and medications, it mitigates 95% of completed teenage suicides because even kids who are super depressed who get in the car and go to the store to by pills, by the time they get there, they’re not interested anymore.
Most teenage suicides, if not all of them, are very impulsive in nature. If you can mitigate that risk around the house, it will save a lot of kids.
Do you love what you do?
I love it. I love it because, it’s obviously very dark and heavy, but I’m also in this very unique position where I get to talk to people on the worst day of their life and that is such a blessing because you get to be the person who shows them that there’s something worth living for. That’s why I really like working with kids. They’re so young and have such a bright future — every single one of them.
Photo Credit: Lucas Hansen
What does it take to become a child psychiatrist?
You have to get into medical school for four years, take several tests, and after a couple of years of residency then you can transition into being a fellow and then after two years of fellowship and several other tests you are a child psychiatrist.
Why did you choose this career path?
I was going to be a radiologist and then I found out that radiologists don’t talk to other humans that often and I was like oh, that’s not going to work for me.
I love radiology and anatomy, but I also like hanging out with other people.
What is the difference between a therapist and a psychiatrist and how would parents know which to see?
A therapist is somebody who can do therapy. Therapy is like physical therapy for the brain. When you have a thought, that’s a bunch of neurons or your brain cells communicating in a line.
If you have a negative thought, it uses that same line to communicate all your negative thoughts. When you have a positive thought, you use a different line — like a freeway essentially. If you get really depressed you’re working out that depressive freeway a lot and so you’re adding lanes to that freeway and it’s easier and easier to have depressive thoughts.
A good therapist will help you utilize those positive tracts that you have been neglecting.
Psychiatrists, we know a lot about the medications. The psychiatrist would tell you hey, these are the tools available to you. We might recommend therapy or exercise or social interaction or different types of medications.
Obviously I’m biased, but essentially we are the starting point and then we can show you which way to go.
Do you specialize in any age group or particular problem?
No. I'm board certified in general psychiatry and adolescent psychiatry so that’s everybody and everything from 3 years old to death.
There are people with certain types of problems I prefer to work with — suicidal teenagers and young adults, like early 20s.
What issues do you deal with that are unique to this generation?
I would say the phone. The phone and social media. Back in the day if you had a bully, school sucked and then you went home and it was a place of safety, but now if you have a bully, you go home and your bully’s in your pocket. And it’s every time you look at your phone which is four to five hours minimum a day.
If people can make that jump to taking their phone away from their kid and just having no phone for their entire teenage years, that's gonna be even better. Very difficult though.
So, at what age do you think someone should get a phone?
Ideally, right before they go to college — just a couple of months to kind of figure out how the whole social dynamic thing works because you don't want to be sending your child off to college with no tools and not knowing how the world works, but you also don't want to expose them to all that crap that's on our phones for as long as possible.
How do patients find you?
I work in the hospital so people get taken to me. If you’ve had a really bad day or if you’re having really dark thoughts or if you tried to kill yourself, you come and talk to me.
What are red flags for parents?
Isolation. If they find their kid is isolating more from their friends and family, spending more time in their room, grades going down, don’t really want to do sports or things they love anymore, those would be your most common red flags.
What would you suggest to parents of young children to help before the teenage years?
I mean that phone conversation, right? So, just not giving them a phone for as long as possible, or if you have to give them a phone, no social media.
If you have to give them social media for some reason, have access to all of their passwords and let them only go on social media with you watching.
Also, I always recommend that people lock up their guns and medication — most specifically Tylenol and over-the-counter stuff.
Tylenol is the most common medication that kids will kill themselves with so if you lock up guns and medications, it mitigates 95% of completed teenage suicides because even kids who are super depressed who get in the car and go to the store to by pills, by the time they get there, they’re not interested anymore.
Most teenage suicides, if not all of them, are very impulsive in nature. If you can mitigate that risk around the house, it will save a lot of kids.
Do you love what you do?
I love it. I love it because, it’s obviously very dark and heavy, but I’m also in this very unique position where I get to talk to people on the worst day of their life and that is such a blessing because you get to be the person who shows them that there’s something worth living for. That’s why I really like working with kids. They’re so young and have such a bright future — every single one of them.
Photo Credit: Lucas Hansen
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