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Make It Mindful: Insights for Global Learning is a podcast for globally minded educators who want deep, long-form conversations about how teaching and learning are changing — and what to do about it.
Hosted by former classroom teacher and Banyan Global Learning founder Seth Fleischauer, the show explores how people, cultures, technologies, cognitive processes, and school systems shape what happens in classrooms around the world. Each long-form episode looks closely at the conditions that help students and educators thrive — from executive functioning and identity development to virtual learning, multilingual education, global competence, and the rise of AI.
Seth talks with teachers, researchers, psychologists, and school leaders who look closely at how students understand themselves, build relationships, and develop the capacities that underlie deep learning — skills like perspective-taking, communication, and global competence that are essential for navigating an interconnected world. These conversations surface the kinds of cross-cultural experiences and hard-to-measure abilities that shape real achievement. Together, they consider how to integrate new technologies in ways that strengthen—not replace—the human center of learning.
The result is a set of ideas, stories, and practical strategies educators can apply to help students succeed in a complex and fast-changing world.
Seth Fleischauer (00:00.584)
Yeah. All right. So we already recorded the intro and we are going to jump in at the first question. So our listeners have heard your voice before Dr. Chang, but let's remind them who are you? What do do?
Chandler Chang (00:17.583)
Gosh, there's so many directions you can go in with that question, who are you? But professionally, I'm a clinical psychologist, child and adolescent by training with that specialty. But I became an entrepreneur about six years ago when I started Therapy Lab, which was basically what I thought to be a better way to do therapy, which is time-limited evidence-based plans. And now we are using AI in our practice to even further our reach and our ability to help more people.
Seth Fleischauer (00:47.182)
time-limited, uh, plans. I've heard you describe it recently or in the past as like bite-sized therapy. Um, what, is this a, I assume this isn't just a belief that you're a clinical therapist, right? So you have like evidence that suggests that this is something that's better. What is better about bite-sized therapy as opposed to like a lengthier engagement?
Chandler Chang (01:10.285)
Well, first of all, I would say it's better for some people. It's better for a lot. It's good for a lot of people. Also, lengthy therapy or psychotherapeutic support might also be good for more chronic situations that need long-term support. So nothing against those people or people who need that kind of support. But interestingly, so I designed plans because I saw people going to therapy for a really long time and I thought it was weird because some people
had no interest in that and so just weren't interested in therapy. So I thought, let's just serve it differently. So basically it's sort of a, just a packaging issue. Yeah. But what's really exciting, there's a really famous, I mean, she's not famous famous, but famous for academic people. Her name is Jessica Slider and she's this researcher that she just has.
Seth Fleischauer (01:43.726)
Packaging.
Seth Fleischauer (01:54.848)
You
Chandler Chang (02:00.161)
amazing attention and well deserved because she's designed brief interventions that are just one session. So somebody took it even further than I did. everyone loves the concepts, right? It just means more people can get help.
Seth Fleischauer (02:05.755)
wow.
You
Seth Fleischauer (02:14.424)
Yeah. Yeah. mean, it's a, it's the modern day too, right? Like I was thinking, I was talking the other day on my other podcast about like, the difference in reaching different audiences and like with old people, like, like, with, as a teacher, you're constantly trying to like be interactive. but with older audiences, they're like, no, no, no, no. Like you're the expert. You talk, I'll just sit here and listen, you know? And it's like, it's from this like era of like, well, let's sit around the radio and listen to a program, right? Like,
Chandler Chang (02:36.663)
Interesting.
Seth Fleischauer (02:42.562)
this, this longer attention span. And so, you know, for better or worse, it seems like the idea of a bite sized therapy is at very least consistent with our modern times and modern attention spans. yeah, right. okay. So I love talking to people who have this like insight into young people nowadays and you have an emotional insight.
Chandler Chang (02:47.929)
Yeah.
Chandler Chang (02:56.311)
even thought about that. That's true. That's true.
Seth Fleischauer (03:10.438)
we were chatting before we started recording here about the word cringe and how, that has like come into the modern discourse with young people where like, you know, the worst thing you can imagine asking a kid to do is like go up to a stranger and like ask for something, right? Like go ask that person to like buy the thing you need to buy. No, no, no, no, no. That's so cringe. I'm wondering, I'm wondering like, what is.
the emotional landscape of kids right now. And I realize as much that as soon as it came out of my mouth, I'm like, your answer is probably going to be as different for everybody. But I'm wondering if there are like some through lines, right? Like are some things that you've seen like evolve over the years, like back when I was doing this before, it was more like this. Now it's more like this. Like what are some insights in the modern day?
Chandler Chang (04:01.159)
think on the positive side, kids and teenagers are a lot more self-reflective. And I think that that's our society. They're self-reflective. Like the idea of something being cringed, it requires someone to check in with how something would make them feel. So there's this silver lining. It's an evidence of self-reflection. But also, to me, what comes to mind is mind reading.
Seth Fleischauer (04:23.086)
haven't thought of it like that.
Chandler Chang (04:29.593)
So when you're saying, something's gonna be cringe, that's gonna be cringe, you're imagining what someone will think of you, which is almost always affected by a million other things besides what is true. Like it involves so many, yes, it involves so many cognitive biases. So if I were working with a kid, perhaps that person has social anxiety or is depressed and actually needs to be interacting more.
Seth Fleischauer (04:43.808)
Yeah, what the person is actually thinking.
Chandler Chang (04:56.419)
that would be a ripe opportunity for exposure. So, you know, also there are these groups that, I think a lot of nonprofit groups are groups advocating for mental health. I feel like a lot of slogans are embrace the awkward or something of that ilk, like embrace the cringe. So I think it's really cool. I'm always thinking paradoxically, it's like so cool to tell kids like not only would that be
not only do you think that would be cringe, like what if you just spent a week trying to do as many cringe things as possible and see who can get the most points and like notice how that feels because for most people when they do the thing that makes them that they would imagine might feel cringe or scary, it's so emotionally liberating. Right? Yeah, and that felt great. The world did not end and that person seems to think nothing negatively about me.
Seth Fleischauer (05:44.16)
Yeah, yeah. my gosh, I'm still here. Yeah, I survived.
Seth Fleischauer (05:54.126)
You
Chandler Chang (05:54.319)
So I think it's kind of fun to be playful with kids around, yeah, that's scary, then that's exactly what you should do. As long as it's safe.
Seth Fleischauer (06:03.598)
man, I love that. know, cause as like throughout this conversation, I'm going to try to be pulling it back to the education sphere. And obviously there's a lot of overlap, right? We're in terms of adolescent psychology and education. are both trying as, as industries to promote self-improvement in young people. Right. and so I'm looking for these like through lines. and I, we always talk about.
resilience in education, right? Like how do you get through those challenges? And then on the other side of that challenge, what did you, you can reflect back and see what you learned and how you got stronger. And of course there is that same thing going on in, in the mental health, areas of growth, where, where you are, you know, if you can't overcome that cringe, that assignment to like beat, do as many cringe things as possible one day. Like I think my daughter would rather die. Like I think she, like she, but she, you know, she is.
She is like almost 13. So we're, we're like in it, right? We're in the thick of it. but, maybe we'll get to the point where she can seek out those types of things. but yeah, like, like discomfort breeds growth. Right. And so like, how do you, I guess that's one question is like, you know, for you as a therapist and, know, bringing this into like the education sphere, like how do you, mod modulate between
This is a challenge that if you can get past it, you will feel stronger. And this is a challenge that has made you feel so unsafe that you are going to shut down or be traumatized, right? Like there's an, is there, is there a point at which one becomes the other and how does one identify, especially externally?
Right? Like even identifying it internally, suppose is difficult, but how does one externally, if you're working with young people, how do you identify that line of when you're pushing too hard?
Chandler Chang (08:04.302)
So that is a really interesting question because almost all of the time, if there is avoidance of, I mean, this is really kind of baked into psychology research, behavioral health research is that anytime there's an avoidance of something, it's going to make you think about it more and it's going to potentially create
Seth Fleischauer (08:32.311)
Ha, ironically.
Chandler Chang (08:34.797)
Yes, that's right. That's exactly right. And so even if someone is trying to avoid something that's triggering or that doesn't make them feel safe, I would gently introduce the idea of mindfully just feeling that and feeling if that actually creates more of a wound if you're actively trying to avoid looking at the wound.
our trying to yeah it's tough
Seth Fleischauer (09:05.812)
it's so hard. Yeah, it's so hard. So, so, and this is where, in our previous conversation, we talked a lot about, the, it, it, it was, it was closer to COVID the last time we talked about two years ago. And so teachers, think felt that they did have this like mental health responsibility, and, to, to be both like teacher and like quasi parent and definitely therapists. Like they were like, assuming all of these roles as education was in a
Chandler Chang (09:20.599)
Ahem.
Seth Fleischauer (09:35.545)
point of crisis during the pandemic. Now you are doing some work where you are coaching teachers at schools, whether it be about their own life's journey or how they're supporting students. like, how do you, how do you support a, sorry, let me back up. Lucas cut this out. Let me think about what my, what I want my question to be. It's, it's something around like,
Chandler Chang (10:02.575)
I'm gonna clear my throat.
Seth Fleischauer (10:05.044)
Yeah, yeah. Okay, you were just talking about being a yeah, looking at the wound. God damn it. Okay.
Chandler Chang (10:07.855)
He
Chandler Chang (10:11.661)
looking at the wound.
Seth Fleischauer (10:18.176)
As a teacher is getting into that wound, something that you can do without like training, or is it so dangerous to like poke at that, that you just want to stay in like a safe place and figure out how to make things as safe as possible for people, right? Like to what extent does investigating that wound mean that you need like clinical training to be able to like deal with that?
Chandler Chang (10:47.183)
So I'm tempted to ask you to provide an example, but I'll start by saying if something like that is coming up at school or in the classroom, I would encourage teachers to try to stay aware in that moment of what actually the student is saying or feeling and be okay just
as an observer and as a curious person versus feeling that load of needing to figure out, figure it out for the student. Because I believe, and maybe this is a bit of a soapbox, but I believe that students and children and teenagers have a lot of baked in resilience and maybe just need like a sounding board to talk it through. And so just giving space and giving
attention and giving a minute, I think is like the most therapeutic thing to do, even if you do nothing else. I don't know, but I don't know how that lands if that feels cold or tough. And maybe I'm maybe I'm not aware of what the teachers actually experience.
Seth Fleischauer (11:56.233)
No, I mean...
Well, what I'm struck with there is that what you just described takes some time and awareness. And a lot of times like teachers are just slammed, right. And they don't necessarily have that beat to take. I was thinking, excuse me, Lucas, cut that up. I was thinking about what you were saying in the context of this podcast that I'm listening to called the homework machine. It's by MIT systems lab. Actually Justin Reich is going to be on this podcast here soon. he's the host of that podcast.
Chandler Chang (12:14.105)
Mm-hmm.
Seth Fleischauer (12:30.014)
but he was talking about how journalists can actually get, some, they're really good at like making students feel young people feel like they are being heard and listened to because that's like their whole job. And so a student is more likely to maybe open up to like a journalist that they're sitting down with that they trust than they might with a teacher. And I'm like, well, then what's the, what is the teacher doing wrong? Right. And I think it's about that, like that time issue, right? Like I've just like, like we're.
they're too overstressed. And I'm wondering in coaching and working with teachers, like what are some of the things that you are working with people on? Like what are some of the through lines that you're getting in terms of like the support that they need in both supporting themselves and in supporting young people?
Chandler Chang (13:19.087)
So I would say that similar to therapist, teachers tend to be a certain type of person. I count myself as one of you and one of us. Therapists and teachers are highly sensitive people. And I think it's so interesting in our culture that word is often used as a criticism. I think it's the best kind of person, not by itself. We're sensitive.
Seth Fleischauer (13:44.404)
Hahaha
Chandler Chang (13:47.353)
thoughtful or conscientious, we want to be helpful. And so a lot of the conversations, I think a lot of the support is around interpersonal relationships between administration, other teachers, different points of view of teachers themselves. And then the students,
supporting students, but also being mindful of boundaries with students, of setting limits with students. It's also coming up, I think, more and more. There's a realization that the limits actually, and setting expectations and rules actually do create also, also create emotional safety for everyone if there are expectations in place. Tell me what part of your question I'm not answering also.
Seth Fleischauer (14:37.846)
no. I, that was, that's funny. Yeah, that's, I see that you're good at what you do. no, that's great. I mean, one of the things you didn't answer my question, one of the things that came out, in your answer is this exploration of boundaries, which, I'm working on personally in my own, mental health journey right now. And like, I think is, the word expectations comes into that as well.
Chandler Chang (14:39.959)
Did you like the way I asked that question?
Seth Fleischauer (15:07.354)
I find that like when you're able to like navigate your boundary, more closely that you can kind of hold your own when you need to and, not, fold over when you don't need to. and that if you can kind of ride that line, then there's less like emotional, like defensiveness that gets brought into, like I gave up too much here, so I'm going to take more here. and, and I, I, I appreciate that. That's one of the things that you're exploring both.
between coworkers at a school, also between kids and, and, are in their relationship, with children. so I think it's, you know, I'm 46 years old. I'm still exploring it. I imagine like most people are, you know, if they are sensitive people like you and I, the, exploration never ends. and, and it's, it's, it's great that they have you as a way to.
Chandler Chang (15:58.287)
True.
Seth Fleischauer (16:03.182)
as, as a space within which in a format, a framework within which they can continue that exploration and feel like they've got like a tether that's going to keep them from, from falling down. I do want to shift gears here and talk about something. It was actually the reason I wanted to bring you on again, cause I saw on LinkedIn, you posted something about your new AI, assistant in, for therapy. And I'm super curious about it. I've had on this podcast, some people with,
The alongside folks have a, a bot that supports mental health within schools and their format is essentially like the AI part is just sort of conversational and it's trying to get the student to disclose the thing that's going on with them. But then as soon as that thing is assessed, it will push them into these like clinically supported, practices that they can use in order to,
be able to, build resilience or, or, gain understanding depending on what the issue is that they're dealing with, issues that are more, like red flag issues get booted up to the admin, the, the counselor. I'm wondering if that's how your bot works, how, how, what is different about it? how it comes in like.
where the line is between like what a bot can do and what a therapist should do. Like I think this is a large question for our time. So the floor is yours. What are you, what are you doing with AI?
Chandler Chang (17:35.939)
Well, first of all, I just wrote down the name of that company. That's really cool. I'd to chat with them. What are we doing with AI? Okay. Let me start with what we're doing. Then I'll talk a little bit about just theoretically what you asked about with what we call navigation or triage, like getting people to the right interface of service that they need that matches what they're going through. So at Therapy Lab, what we've got, and we actually just launched to teenagers two weeks ago.
This is a pretty big deal where there aren't that many therapy companies or practices that are offering AI companions for use with teenagers. And we've been extremely mindful of safety and privacy. But the reason we did it is because about 70 % of teens are talking with chat dbt or therapeutic or companionship, therapeutic support or companionship. And that is not HIPAA compliant. It's not, you know, it's not.
Seth Fleischauer (18:25.71)
70%. That's crazy.
Chandler Chang (18:31.393)
It's not actually private. All of that data just gets rewashed back into the model for training. And it's not necessarily, it's not clinically trained. And so we launched AI companions, first of all, that are clinically trained. It's a closed loop. So this information that a teenager would share with our companion does not get spit back. There's no connection to the internet. There's no connection to other larger open source models.
It's all contained, it's HIPAA compliant, and it's looped back with the teenager's therapist. So let me explain what that process looks like. Yeah, so it's really fascinating. I will explain it because I think it's so funny when I say we have companions. I've learned people imagine about 10 different scenarios. So this is what it is. Where are your robots? Okay, this is where they are. So you book a session.
Seth Fleischauer (19:07.32)
What? Yeah, thanks.
Seth Fleischauer (19:19.156)
Chandler Chang (19:29.199)
you meet your therapist and your therapist says, we have a companion and you get an app on your phone. The companion is also built in on the therapist side to record, to be in the session and to transcribe the session. And they're creating a progress note for the clinician. The companion's right in...
incredibly good and thoughtful progress notes. So clinicians love this. But what's really cool is that the companion then takes that information from your session and is available 24-7 throughout the week until your next session to say, your therapist Chandler said this, have you thought about that or have you tried that yet? And it's offering reminders of the session.
The client can also ask, remember, remind me what my practice was for meditation this week or something, and then it will check in on various things. So that's happening, and then it becomes more more personalized as it's there, present in your sessions, and also giving you support between sessions.
Seth Fleischauer (20:40.536)
So is the therapist also typing in to the AI? Like, cause you, said like your therapist said this thing. Do you remember that? Like how does, how does, how does the AI know is the therapist like putting their notes from the session in there?
Chandler Chang (20:55.821)
No, great question. It's called a scribe. And this is gonna be a common term that everyone will know in the next couple of years because it's just part of healthcare. Like even if you go to just your regular doctor, they often say, it okay if I scribe the session? That means that there's an actual recording happening, but it's turning into a de-identified version. So it's recording the session.
using the session notes to create a note for the therapist, a summary. I mean, it's incredible, Seth. It's incredible. So you...
Seth Fleischauer (21:29.486)
Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. So, so, so this, so it's, it's also a scribe, right? So it's also in the session with the students. It's, listening. And so that's how it knows what the therapist said. And then it is getting your personal therapeutic context. Every single session that you go in, it's building understanding. And it's like, from, from there, of course it would be able to remind you like, Hey, what about this thing that I know that you're working on? Because I've been there with you in therapy.
Chandler Chang (21:34.83)
Yes.
Chandler Chang (21:59.683)
Yes. And what's really cool is that the student, there's a journal section if the person, and what we've found is that different people like to use different parts of this app, which is so cool and makes sense. Some people love to journal. Some people like to chat with the companion. Either way, the therapist can always go in the therapist dashboard and just get an update. You can read the actual information and clients know that.
Seth Fleischauer (22:00.612)
Whew.
Chandler Chang (22:29.807)
But usually we don't, there's no need to read word for word. We can get a summary. Okay, this is how the week's going. Here are some ideas for what to talk about in the next session. And so it's really like a companion for the therapist as well. Now it's also built in with some escalation protocols. So even if the student or adult is having a rush of energy, I'll get a notice. Okay, there's a change.
And obviously, if there's even more risk, I would get an escalation. But just it's built to be extremely conservative. If there's any kind of shift in mood or shift in behaviors, I get an escalation. And that's how it's built for now, just as we're training it to keep it extremely safe. But what's really cool about it, you could chat with ChatDBT for hours. think evidence is pretty clear that the longer you chat with these open source LLMs, the weirder they get.
Seth Fleischauer (23:26.766)
Yeah, yeah.
Chandler Chang (23:27.151)
So our companion is designed to keep things short and sweet and therapeutic, which is, and that's kind of the trade off when you're doing these really specifically trained models is there, there's a balance between entertainment and intervention. And you have to walk the line because you still want it to be engaging for people, but you don't want it to be more, more entertainment, which is more like replica or these other types of entertainment.
Seth Fleischauer (23:49.838)
Huh.
Yeah, yeah, Uh-huh.
Chandler Chang (23:57.872)
Isn't that interesting?
Seth Fleischauer (23:58.127)
Well, bite sized, bite sized and therapeutic. That's definitely on brand for therapy lab, right? to, keep, keep it short. I mean, that's, that's fascinating. I definitely like my brain goes into the, you know, what are all of these standard, issues with AI in the modern day that could potentially apply to this. I mean, you talked about privacy, and you've built in, safeguards against that. what about hallucinations? Is it.
Chandler Chang (24:03.801)
That's true.
Seth Fleischauer (24:27.734)
like, doesn't make stuff up. like, like, cause if it's, mean, if it is built on top of a large language model, right? So like, like the way those work, there's a certain amount of like, they modulate like the creativity of it, right? Cause like, if you put it all the way on the one side of like zero creativity, ends up just sounding really bland and boring. but if you juice it up too much, it just, the, the, hallucinations are just, you know,
overwhelming. But if you put it somewhere in between, sounds really interesting. It's right most of the time. But sometimes it makes stuff up, right? So like, so how like, are you concerned about that? Like, how do you know it's not doing that?
Chandler Chang (25:01.603)
Yeah.
Chandler Chang (25:09.987)
We are working with an incredible tech partner. The clinical, the AI team is at Stanford. The psychologist team is at Dartmouth and the CEO is from MIT. They have built it. I've never seen it hallucinate and we have 50 clients using it almost daily. It's built, it could, it could. That's why we're
we're still humans in the loop and that's, will probably always be, I don't know how much your audience knows about this stuff, it just means we're in there multiple times a week checking to see if it's hallucinating at this point. But it's so fascinating what you just said about creativity. If you dial up the creativity, it starts to hallucinate more, which is so fascinating because it also, that also maps onto humans because psychosis.
Seth Fleischauer (25:58.03)
Hehehe.
Chandler Chang (25:58.423)
And mental disorders tend to happen with more creative people. That's really interesting. I never thought about that being the creative part of an open LLM. Interesting.
Seth Fleischauer (26:09.652)
Yeah. Yeah. It's hallucinations are creative for sure. and I guess, yeah, I think another one of my, concerns are, I would say questions, things I'm monitoring, curi curiosities around, student interaction with AI is the way that it might impact, their sense of like, what is human and, and,
Chandler Chang (26:13.263)
That's really interesting.
Seth Fleischauer (26:39.838)
like a social responsibility to a bot, right? Like if there, if those ties start to happen, do you, do you see any danger of that? Like, like I'm just not like, like I got to tell my therapist versus like, what is it? Does the bot have a name? like is it anthropomorphized at all? Like, do you, do you see that that happening at all?
Chandler Chang (26:39.949)
Yeah.
Chandler Chang (27:05.901)
It's really interesting because that attachment is part of what makes it useful, but also keeping that within bounds is super important. I agree with you. And so for one thing, one thing that we've considered at TherapyLab is we don't give a teen access until the clinician has met with the teen and sussed out whether there is the reasoning ability to understand that this is.
technology and not a person, not a soul. And so for example, autism spectrum. So for example, individuals on the autism spectrum who are more impaired probably would not, we would not consider that a great use case, but we're going to be learning more and more about who are the good people who really respond to this and who might be more likely to have problems with that.
Seth Fleischauer (27:40.279)
as far as we know.
You
Chandler Chang (28:03.371)
I will also admit I understand why it's problematic to anthropomorphize. And yeah, and I'm saying this not because I think this is necessarily a good idea, but as the CEO of my company and the leader of my team, I did, we had a retreat this summer in July in Vegas. I mean, we went to Vegas because it was very inexpensive because it was mid July.
to train with our companions. And so I did a little, because it's important to me that the team welcome the companions and have an openness and a curiosity. Therapists, I don't know if teachers fit into this category, but therapists tend to be slower adopters of tech. And with that in mind, I really want to open up the therapist experience to the possibility that these things really could be very helpful. And so we're also thinking of them as supervisors for the companions.
Seth Fleischauer (28:30.552)
Ha?
Seth Fleischauer (28:35.725)
Yeah.
Chandler Chang (28:55.065)
But I'm also mindful, like, careful. They're not actually supervisees. They are bots. So yeah, it's an interesting question.
Seth Fleischauer (29:04.214)
And so, and so you're just talking about that as like something to be aware of. There's, there like, I dunno, is there a framework where the way, like it is a teammate in these ways, but not in these ways. Like, is there like, you, do you break it down any further?
Chandler Chang (29:20.995)
I don't actively talk about that, but I think that your use of the word framework, I do want to present a framework that this isn't like an external force coming into therapy lab. This is the tool for us to use and to put to work alongside us. mentioned the company's name. I like that.
It's not an external force that's being forced on us. It's really up to us to figure out how to integrate them into our team in a way. I don't know. It's really, it's just a really interesting time. And of course, a lot of people are worried about their jobs being replaced. And I'm assuring people that that's not going to happen here.
Seth Fleischauer (30:01.656)
Yeah. No, mean, not, not in that model, right? Because you need, you need it to scribe something in order to be able to function. Right. So you got to have the person there. I want, I want to shift gears again, just a tiny bit into a related topic, which is, digital citizenship in general. Right. Like this is obviously a, like AI literacy is I think a subset of both media literacy and digital citizenship. we've talked about how.
Chandler Chang (30:10.443)
Yeah. Yeah.
Seth Fleischauer (30:30.99)
people communicate differently in the online space. I do wonder, just within the bot that you're using, if you're seeing different communication styles, because it's a, a bot, even though they know it's being monitored by people. but this difference between like how we communicate online and how we communicate in person, we mentioned cringe at the top of the show. things are, I would say one of the reasons that, that IRL
Is cringe is because we have the safety of our screens to hide behind when we have a lot of our social interactions. I'm wondering to what extent the students that you work with are conscious of these different worlds or if they see them all as the same, if they recognize that there is a difference in the way that they're communicating in an online space or like that the emotional world created by
social media, by gaming, by group chats is like all of them are like slightly different from each other and different from real life. Like to what extent are you seeing an awareness of these things amongst the students you work with?
Chandler Chang (31:41.85)
think it's on a continuum, which is why it's good for parents or educators to be taking note. mean, really more parents, I would say, or caregivers. you have a child or teen who tends to be a little bit more, have a blurred sense of what's real, what's digital, to put boundaries in place, set limits on phone time.
And just, I guess maybe I'm an optimist, but I get the feeling kids are pretty savvy, which is good. They understand there's a difference. They understand the dangers that might happen if you get too swept up with social media. Even so, you know the feeling. I get it.
Sometimes you get on LinkedIn, you might get heated and you might make a comment, you're like, wait a second. And then you remember all of the different types of people on LinkedIn. The same thing for teenagers on TikTok or something, you might get swept up in the moment and post something. And I think explaining to kids different emotional states and posting and not taking in that information.
Yeah, it's so complicated, isn't it? It's hard and it's stressful. It's anxiety provoking. I know with my own 12 year old right now, he's just very, he's relatively new to having a phone and he's just very much on TikTok and I'm pretty hands off, but I do check in with him and say, are you feeling? I've seen you on your phone for the last hour. How do you feel? And he'll say,
Seth Fleischauer (33:02.807)
you
Yeah.
Seth Fleischauer (33:24.43)
Hmm.
Chandler Chang (33:27.823)
I feel kind of jittery or something. I think it's at least everyone's different, but I think it's important to have kids check in with their emotional state and think about what they want to do about that versus you need to get off your phone right now. It just tends to not be as productive.
Seth Fleischauer (33:46.831)
No, that's, that is honestly, that's the first thing I tell parents about digital citizenship is like just check in with the emotional piece, like see if they can recognize how they are feeling. Uh, so cool, cool therapist educator on the same page there. Um, that yeah, the, uh, well, I do. And, and that emotional piece, I think is it's the first step, right? Um, because otherwise you are.
Chandler Chang (33:55.362)
Awesome, okay. I love that, actually I do, yeah. But I'm curious if you have other thoughts on it, because I think you must think about this all the time.
Seth Fleischauer (34:15.736)
working with like a different version of reality, right? If you can't acknowledge that there that this is making you feel a certain way, then all you're getting is the dopamine hit, right? Like, and that's what you're that's what you're going to pay attention to. That's what you're going to argue for. The other thing that I bring in a lot after the emotional piece is talking about like goals and like, what are some of the other things that they might want to accomplish with their day?
and bringing and like, might that make them feel to accomplish that thing or not? And then bringing that into the conversation of, okay, there's only so much time in the day. how are we going to modulate our screen time, given that we also want to accomplish these other things. and that's just trying to take the conversation out of this contentious, like you're on your phone too much or like, even, even some of the like tools that you have to like say, you know,
45 minutes of screen time, and then it goes on downtime. Uh, even that is like, you know, kind of contentious, right? Um, and I find sets up a dynamic where the kids are like, Oh my God, I gotta get my 45 minutes in, you know, uh, which is also unhealthy, even if it is being limited. um, you know, ideally you're building them up so that they can get to the point where they can modulate on their own, but they're up against like some pretty.
Chandler Chang (35:18.649)
Mm-hmm.
Chandler Chang (35:28.559)
Mm-hmm.
Seth Fleischauer (35:36.515)
strong forces, right? Like, there, these are billion dollar companies who are designing things, to not be put down. So it's, it, I can't, I can't imagine the challenge of like, you know, it's like, I'm talking to my, my nine year old about addiction, right? Like, like it, that is something that didn't need to come into the conversation until much later before these things came around. I mean, maybe sugar, but, but even sugar I think is less powerful than.
Chandler Chang (35:39.054)
Mm-hmm.
Chandler Chang (35:45.206)
Mm-hmm.
Chandler Chang (36:01.742)
Mm-hmm.
Seth Fleischauer (36:05.58)
the dopamine kick of 99 nights in the forest. that's a Roblox game. and it's a great game. Like that's the thing. It's a great game. Like not all, not all screen time is created equal. It's a cooperative game. They're playing it with other people that in my kids' case, other people that they know, you know, they're talking to each other about strategy is they're trying to survive these 99 nights in the forest. They're like learning, foresting skills, you know, like there's, there's a bunch of great stuff. It's just, they might get a bit jittery.
After they've been on the, on the call for an hour. Right. So, so bringing those other things in the feeling that the goals.
Chandler Chang (36:40.111)
Okay, that's, I love that. It sounds like Oregon Trail a little bit.
Seth Fleischauer (36:48.942)
Yeah, except it really, truly is cooperative, right? Like different people need to bring different things in order to be able to be, to, like survive as a group, right? Like I'm going to go get the wood, you go get the, the Flint, right? Like, uh, to build the fire, right? Like you have to ha you have to be, you have to coordinate and then accomplish individual things and then come back together and coordinate again. Um, yeah. Yeah. It's super cool.
Chandler Chang (36:52.567)
Okay, yeah.
Chandler Chang (37:05.998)
Okay.
Chandler Chang (37:11.593)
that's cool. It would be cool to have teams play that. Like, work teams.
Seth Fleischauer (37:17.098)
Yeah. Yeah. And, and what I get into with my kids and digital citizenship too, is like, more than anything short form media, right? Like that's what I feel is like the most problematic screen, is, is the like two to three second, I'm bored with this. Now I'm going to flip to the next thing. short form media that I, that, you know, we're all guilty of, like it's, it's out there. It feels good to be able to get that up.
Chandler Chang (37:44.015)
Mm-hmm.
Seth Fleischauer (37:45.869)
that next dopamine kick so quickly, but it's, it's ruining our brains, right? Like it's literally making us unable to focus on stuff. so it's, like, like I'm having them, I'm raising awareness to that and they see to like my daughter's friend, like got a smartphone when she was like nine or something. And she's like, I think our brain is broken. Like, like she comes over to hang out with us. She's here for five minutes and then she gets bored and wants to leave. Like, I think, I think something happened to her.
Chandler Chang (37:49.081)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Chandler Chang (37:54.479)
same.
Chandler Chang (38:08.903)
no.
interesting.
Seth Fleischauer (38:14.444)
You know, and it's like, I mean, I joke about it, but it's sad, right? Like it's, you know, in, as parents, it's cut that constant push and pull of like, much, how much freedom are you giving them? But in turn, how much risk are you exposing them to? Where's that line today? It's, it's hard.
Chandler Chang (38:16.217)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Chandler Chang (38:30.475)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah, very. it's so complicated. I mean, even in our car, like even in our cars, we're gonna be, I feel like they're gonna be hooking us up to different, you know, sources of digital exposure. It's just really interesting how exposed I think we're going to increasingly feel in all ways. So we have to be mindful.
Seth Fleischauer (38:36.948)
Well, thank you. Go.
Seth Fleischauer (38:57.782)
Yeah. And how, and then how to balance that with like the real legitimate utility of certain technological innovations that we can bring into our work. And yeah, it's, yeah, it's tricky. You see what I did there.
Chandler Chang (38:59.023)
and work together.
Chandler Chang (39:11.225)
Yeah.
I'll just, make a quick note on that too. One of the hopes that I have for kind of wiring up the therapy experience a bit more is that there's actually a lot that we don't know about mental health, like about bipolar disorder, psychosis, which is actually more common than people think. And so I think having more data that we can gather.
you know, on behalf of our patients to start to have a clinical scientist join our team and do other things with that information. I feel like we could prevent and even save some lives down the road as we grow and start to have more data to use. And multi we talked last time about multimodal data and just having more understanding of how to help people. That's ultimately what what it's for.
Seth Fleischauer (39:40.974)
Hmm. Hmm.
Seth Fleischauer (39:58.391)
Yeah. yeah. It's so, you know, it's like, it's, we've already given up so much of our privacy. Like obviously my big brother, like radar kind of goes up when you talk about like, you know, that degree of surveillance of mental health, at the same time, like with your bot, the kid is like voluntarily putting stuff in there, right. And they know it's going to their therapist. So it's a certain, there's, there's a human relationship there.
And I totally see how, being able to identify those changes in moods that you're talking about, you know, correlating what you've saw in the AI in the chat window, which is a more consistent monitoring system than weekly therapy sessions and correlating that to eventual results that are happening, having that paint a clearer picture of what some of the warning signs are that something bad is going to happen. Yeah, absolutely. I see that.
Chandler Chang (40:39.01)
Mm-hmm.
Chandler Chang (40:55.51)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Thank you.
Seth Fleischauer (40:56.654)
It's fascinating. well, Dr. Chang, thank you so much for coming on the show again. Where can our listeners find your work on the internet?
Chandler Chang (41:07.862)
Well, Therapy Lab is therapylab.com and you can reach out. We have lots of ways to reach out to us there. And if you want to get in touch and just get more information, they can reach out to info at therapylab.com. And if you want to get in touch with me in particular, you can email that there and they'll forward that to me or Chandler at therapylab.com. Let's just go all in. Just reach out there Chandler at therapylab.com. I trust your listeners are of,
Seth Fleischauer (41:29.558)
Awesome. They're all good people. awesome. Well, thank you so much again for being here for our listeners. If you would like to support the podcast, please tell a friend, leave a rating, a review, follow us. thank you as always to our editor, Lucas Salazar. And remember that if you want to bring positive change to education, we must first make it mindful. See you next time.
Chandler Chang (41:37.679)
wonderful. So just get in touch. Yeah.