"The First Rule of STAT is Don't Talk About STAT"

Disclaimer: I have no knowledge as to whether the STAT Program continues to exist in the form I experienced. The purpose of sharing these experiences is to offer insight, awareness, and/or validation to those who may benefit from hearing my story.

Some years ago, I attended the “STAT Program” hosted by the psychiatric facility in HSC. The reputation of the program was an intense, rigorous mental health course, requiring exceptional dedication to one’s wellness and personal growth. My doctor warned me of this when I asked to be referred, but my dedication was strong and I was not deterred.

When I went in for my assessment, before being accepted into the program, I was informed of the strict attendance rules; 8am – 4pm, Monday to Friday, for five consecutive weeks. To be counted as in attendance, one had to be inside the classroom before the door was closed at the beginning of each class, and three “absences” resulted in expulsion from the program. These high expectations were the first hiccup to the STAT program being helpful to me. Major aspects of the mental health issues which caused me to seek help in the first place were perfectionism, people pleasing, and panic attacks interfering with my functioning, all easily triggered by restrictive rules and authoritative measures. Throughout my attendance, I remained in a state of heightened vigilance powered by continuous stress.

It is also important to note, the only reason I was able to take the five weeks off from employment to attend the program was due to developing physical health issues which disabled me from employment. These additional health issues made the program’s high expectations all the more difficult to meet. Unable to afford transportation, I walked 30 minutes each way to attend the STAT Program using a drugstore-quality walking cane. Most days I was physically unable to eat more than a few bites of either breakfast or lunch. Through all the pain, I showed up because I felt this was my last chance at getting help. Although I’ll never know for sure, I suspect pushing myself that hard for those five weeks contributed greatly to the sudden loss of mobility and prolonged bedridden state I experienced less than two months after graduating the program.

Our personal barriers were not acknowledged, never mind validated, by any of the counselors or psychiatrists/psychologists who worked with us. I was certainly not the only participant in my group with chronic pain, fatigue, mobility issues, and/or digestive conditions. Many of us also experienced financial difficulty, most commonly associated with accessing transportation to the program, arranging childcare, and/or due to missing work for five weeks. These types of concerns were always downplayed by counselors and we were encouraged to “take responsibility”, and stop “blaming others” for our barriers in life. For me and for all the participants I spoke with, these personal barriers remained primary stressors throughout the duration of attendance. For those who “failed” the program, I strongly believe access to support for their personal barriers would have increased their chances of graduating.

The therapeutic models used by the STAT program were the Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Dialectical Behavioral Therapy models. Printed materials used to instruct us were pulled from a variety of sources and applied outside of their original contexts as pieces of the STAT program. Despite best intentions, the missing contexts and the application of concepts outside of their originally prescribed environments reduced, and sometimes eliminated, their therapeutic effectiveness. The intensive pressure to rapidly digest and apply these complex and interconnected, yet disjointed, collections of information set a faulty foundation for recovery, healing, or even learning.

For a long time after the STAT Program, I despised Cognitive Behavioral Therapy concepts. I thought they were basically useless, a sort of brainwashing framework rather than a therapeutic model. This is partially due to how these concepts were taught to us, but it’s also because CBT isn’t the right therapeutic model for me personally. A lot of my trauma responses express in the form of self-policing, including my actions and speech, but also my thoughts and “involuntary” actions like breathing. For me, applying most of the CBT concepts felt like doubling down on self-policing and just wasn’t helpful.

I also dismissed Dialectical Behavioral Therapy for a while, but once I read up on how DBT is meant to be applied that quickly changed. The STAT program took some of the ideas from DBT and asked us to learn them in five weeks, with strangers we are never meant to meet again, from counselors who hope to never see us again. The appropriate setting for learning to apply DBT concepts is in a long term group setting, where lasting relationships are able to be built, both peer to peer as well as therapist to patient. Outside of a trusted, supportive setting, DBT concepts are at best watered down and at worst a recipe for disaster. I found this to be true for myself during the STAT Program.

The clearest moment I can remember from the entire five weeks occurred at some point during my first week. We were being introduced to the concept of “Distress Tolerance” (from DBT) and one of the pages described when Distress Tolerance skills are appropriate. The page told us to use Distress Tolerance only during times of crisis. A “crisis”, the page went on, was defined as a “short, intense” period of stress where it feels very urgent to resolve the issue immediately. This struck me as odd, and so I raised my hand. What about when you’re in crisis long term or all the time, I asked naively. Well, the counselor replied, the page says a crisis is short term, so if it’s long term then it’s not a crisis, is it? She smiled at me and my question was dismissed.

The answer to my question was actually quite simple. If you feel that you are in continual crisis, you need more help than the STAT Program can provide. But for whatever reason, the counselors could not admit that to me or to themselves. Instead, they told me my lived experience was impossible, anomalous, bizarre, science fiction. Basically, they told me I was lying. They told me my pain didn’t matter. And they reenacted a scenario which caused me trauma in my past. I don’t believe this is responsible or acceptable behavior from mental health professionals towards clients.

I asked for a referral to the STAT program because I needed help. But I stayed in the STAT program because I needed their validation on my paperwork to secure financial aid. By the end of the first week I could tell this wasn’t a good fit for me, but the STAT program was the only option made available to me. The financial aid program required proof I was trying, and this was the proof, even if in the end I came out more damaged.

In my experience, the STAT program failed at everything it claims to accomplish. Leaving the STAT program, I felt more alone and hopeless than when I started. While I felt I had gained some tools and knowledge, I was unable to use them effectively until I had accessed further mental health education several years later. The STAT program did nothing to assist me in accessing further care or education beyond the program, nor were they expected to. I was given the impression if the program doesn’t improve my life significantly, I must be doing something wrong. In general, the program was not supportive to me and my needs.

Despite these major flaws, the information taught in the STAT program is incredibly important and useful. However, it was presented in such a simplified and expedited manner, the contents might be more appropriate as a high school or community program for general learners. I don’t believe the contents of the program were appropriate for who they claimed to have designed it for: mental health patients in the midst of serious mental health difficulties. Five weeks is just not enough time to help someone with problems as deep as ours, and the content was just too watered down to be of long term use.

For those seeking mental healthcare and struggling to find alternatives to CBT, DBT, and/or traditional mental healthcare models, there are many different modalities available through independent mental health professionals.

This glossary can help you identify which methods you might be more drawn to or interested in:

https://mentalhealthmatch.com/articles/therapy/glossary-therapy-approaches-modalities

And this reference can help you find a variety of different practitioners in Manitoba:

https://sharedhealthmb.ca/services/mental-health/mental-health-and-wellness-resource-finder/