64_ You Can’t Fix A Problem That You Don’t Know Exists with Dr. Cherylynn Lee

Normalize PTSD

Dr. Cherylynn Lee is a First Responder Psychologist specializing in Police Psychology.
Social Media:

• Website: https://thecounselingteam.com/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-cherylynn-lee-6a1420120

Dr. Lee is a Police Psychologist and a full-time employee of the Santa Barbara Sheriff’s Office, overseeing the Behavioral Sciences Unit (BSU). The BSU houses four mental health co-responder teams, provides Crisis Intervention Training, engages in Behavioral Threat Assessment and Management (BTAM), and oversees the department’s wellness unit and peer support team. Dr. Lee serves on the crisis negotiation response teams for both the Santa Barbara Sheriff’s Office and the Santa Barbara Police Department, and she is a member of the Association of Threat Assessment Professionals (ATAP).
Dr. Lee is contracted with The Counseling Team International as both the Clinical Operations Director for the Tri-Counties and as a practitioner. She offers individual counseling and emergency response services across the state of California and has led dozens of critical incident stress debriefings for officer-involved shootings (OIS), line-of-duty deaths (LODD), and natural disasters for local and state agencies. Dr. Lee maintains a private practice in the Santa Ynez Valley, where she exclusively works with first responders, specializing in trauma and post-traumatic stress injuries.
Dr. Lee is a subject matter expert with California Peace Officers Standards and Training (POST), teaches officer wellness in the basic academy, and is a volunteer instructor for the FBI's 40-hour negotiators course. Dr. Lee was named one of the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) 40 Under 40 award recipients for 2023, and she has been recognized as Crisis Intervention Training International’s (CIT) Behavioral Health Practitioner of the Year for 2024.
I absolutely loved this conversation with Dr. Lee. She is so busy out there making a positive impact in our first responder community. So much of what we discussed is being integrated into how I now think about mental health challenges for first responders. If you’re not yet implementing some of her recommendations into your wellness programs, I encourage you to reach out to her.
I really appreciated how real Dr. Lee is. She has a realistic viewpoint on how trauma will—not can—impact the lives and mental health of police officers. We can’t expect our police and first responders to be superhuman. It really resonated with me when Dr. Lee spoke about being purposeful with exercise and lifting. That, along with eating healthy, were the two most important and impactful things I did for my mental health journey. I feel like those two habits gave me the emotional space to then address the deeper struggles in my mind that needed to be resolved.
I hope you all find something rewarding in this episode.
Resources Mentioned:

• Educate yourself on mental health
• Resilience building
• Keep realistic benchmarks for mental health
• Working out and having physical standards
• Healthy eating - Fuel your body properly
• Wellness checks are working
• Only way you fail is if you stop showing up
• Discipline
• Lift heavy shit
• Invest in yourself first
• Spend time in a world that has nothing to do with your job, detach.
• Writing and journaling
• Helping others

I am always looking for veterans or first responders who have PTSD to share how you have raised the quality of your life. Additionally, if you support, provide services for these groups, or have extensive knowledge of benefits available for these groups please reach out. I would love to have a chat and share that knowledge with the community.