Mental Health Therapist Amy Wilhelmi

Intro: [00:00:04] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studio in Chicago, Illinois. It’s time for Chicago Business Radio. Brought to you by firmspace, your private sanctuary for productivity and growth. To learn more, go to firmspace.com. Now here’s your host.

Max Kantor: [00:00:21] Hey, everybody, and welcome to another episode of Chicago Business Radio. I’m your host, Max Kantor. And before we get started, as always, today’s show is sponsored by firmSpace, thanks to firmSpace, because without them, we couldn’t be sharing these important stories. And we’ve got a good one for you today. On today’s show, we have a mental health therapist, a traveling speaker, an author and an athlete. So please welcome to the show, Amy Wilhelmi. Welcome to the show, Amy.

Amy Wilhelmi: [00:00:45] Thank you for having me on.

Max Kantor: [00:00:46] I’m excited to talk to you so we can just jump right in. Why don’t you tell me a little bit about yourself and what you do?

Amy Wilhelmi: [00:00:53] Sure. So my training is I’m a licensed mental health therapist. Technically, I’m a marriage and family therapist and I own a therapy practice. So we see individuals, couples, families and children. And then personally, I am in bodybuilding, I do the Women’s Bikini Division, so I’m an athlete and then I consider myself a mindset mentality. Coach I just wrote my first book, it’s called Making Mental Gains, and I specifically work with the athlete community, all sports, and then I also work with teams to really kind of focus on mindset and mentality.

Max Kantor: [00:01:36] So why are you so interested in the topic of mental health and wellness for athletes?

Amy Wilhelmi: [00:01:43] Yeah, I think that there is a a gap there specifically. I think if most athletes or very high performers go to a licensed mental health therapist, it’s hard for them to find a provider that actually understands that the mental health struggles that a very high performer goes through. So I again, being an athlete myself, being ingrained in this sport, I, I quickly saw that there are a lot of mental health issues in bodybuilding. And then I started digging into other athletes and you know, 35% of professional athletes have mental health struggles and they just don’t know where to turn. So I was like, well, I can take my professional work and my life passion and kind of combine them and really help athletes stay on track so that they they feel well and then they can perform well.

Max Kantor: [00:02:46] This past year, really, like this past couple of years, we’ve seen a lot of athletes have their mental health struggles publicized, you know, people like Naomi Osaka and Michael Phelps and Simone Biles. So can you kind of describe what you feel like they were going through?

Amy Wilhelmi: [00:03:05] Yeah. I think that, again, they just don’t put it as as a priority. Right? I mean, they put their training as a priority, their nutrition as a priority. They all hold very strict schedules. Most of them are traveling, you know, and so there’s a really huge piece with with self care that’s important. And, you know, my whole goal in life is to make mental health and mental wellness less taboo than it used to be. I think a lot of these athletes are just burnt out and they’re just grinding and they just don’t have, again, that correct support system that can that can really understand what they’re going through and help them with their wellness. I think there’s also an issue when athletes get injured or they’re facing retirement and then their sport is over. Right. And they’ve worked so hard to do one thing amazingly well. And now they’re dealing with some sort of identity crisis. They’re forced to pivot, make something new of themselves. And they really have a difficulty, just like mentally separating themselves from their sport and just and moving on.

Max Kantor: [00:04:21] I’m I’m glad you brought up injuries because that’s what I was kind of thinking about. We were talking and I can imagine the struggle for an athlete when, say, they tear their ACL, you know, that has an X amount of time and then you’ll be back, you know what I mean? But when it comes to mental health, it’s kind of undefined. It could be a month. It could be a year. It could be five years. So how do you help athletes when they come to you kind of set that expectation that, hey, this might not be an overnight process?

Amy Wilhelmi: [00:04:48] Yeah, I mean, I think that luckily the athlete mentality already understands the work that you have to put in day to day, that those small, tiny steps that kind of add up to the large successes, they’re used to doing that, right? They’re used to running these drills where they’re like, this seems stupid, but they’re they’re doing it because they can see kind of that long game. And so I think mental health for an athlete in their mentality is very similar. It’s like we have to build in these self care activities, these, these mental wellness activities in order to see these kind of long term results. So I think it’s also just kind of talking them into like taking a break sometimes will lead you to those successors. Sometimes our bodies especially, you know, we’re human. They just can only handle so much stress and so much, like you said, injury. If we’re talking injury, that really taking a break for a while is really going to help them be more successful in their sport.

Max Kantor: [00:05:59] So what are some challenges that you see athletes go through from starting from an early age all the way through adulthood and beyond?

Amy Wilhelmi: [00:06:09] Yeah, I think that athletes that have a lot of success very early have really have trouble with their identity, like just separating themselves from their sport, right? So like, what do you do when your time runs out? Because it will your body will run out. We all know that the lifespan of athletes in their sport is not much beyond, you know, thirties. Maybe sometimes if you’re really well conditioned, you can make it up to 40. But, you know, really having that plan B and really having an identity outside of your sport, although when you’re when you’re in your sport, obviously you should be mentally all in. But the plan B is so crucial so that you don’t have that swing at the end where a lot of them are just struggling with like this thought of like, who am I? I kind of always compare it to almost like a divorce. Like you were married, you were you did have this family and these neighbors and these friends. And then all of a sudden, you’re not that person anymore. It’s it’s kind of very a similar mind shift and really trying to figure out who they are, what their next steps are. But if you’re planning ahead of time and kind of have all those things built in already, I feel like that transition period goes a lot easier.

Max Kantor: [00:07:28] Earlier you mentioned that there’s kind of like, you know, the stigma of mental health, especially, I feel, in the United States when when if someone reveals that they’re in therapy, they could be labeled as, quote, like, oh, they need help. They’re crazy, you know, all these stigmas that just aren’t fair. So I imagine for an athlete, some could see seeking out mental health help as weak. How would you address that for any athlete who feels that it’s weak to work on their mental health?

Amy Wilhelmi: [00:07:59] Yeah, I would say that the way to normalize it again is kind of just building it into your plan and just. Being open about it. I think we do a better job on the coasts of our country. I feel like California is kind of got a hang of it. New York’s got a hang of it. I went to graduate school in California and people are kind of like, yeah, you know, like I went to the gym today and I got my smoothie and I talked to my therapist. My therapist talked to my other therapist. And like, it’s, it’s it’s a normal part of what we do for wellness, right? So I think if we’re thinking about mental health in that wellness realm, like I’m taking care of my body, I’m taking care of my mind, I’m going to go to my chiropractor. I’m going to go get my massage when I need to. I’m going to drink my water. I’m going to have my sleep. You know, I think that when we think of it in that in that context, it becomes less taboo. It’s just one of those boxes that we’re checking off our list. I met with an athlete yesterday, actually, who’s young. She’s 23. And she was I was like, you know, what brings you in? And she was like, you know what? I feel like everybody should just be doing this. Everybody should be talking to someone. Everybody has issues. And that is the right mindset to have about all this. And I think our younger generations are actually doing a lot better at recognizing that that’s a thing, right? And being more proactive rather than reactive.

Max Kantor: [00:09:25] So as an athlete yourself, talk about the unique perspective that you can bring when an athlete comes to you versus, say, going to a therapist who may not have an athletic background.

Amy Wilhelmi: [00:09:39] Right. So, you know. I really believe that that you would need to find a provider who does have that experience, because there’s really no way to understand this drive unless you kind of practice what you preach. Right? So I’ve had a lot of athletes come to me after being told by other therapists like, Hey, you should just stop doing that, right? Or in bodybuilding, the nutrition is so specific that sometimes it could swing into kind of eating disorder type things, and most therapists just have no idea how to handle that. Instead of just like having a good mindset about the nutrition that you need to fuel your body to do your sport right. As far as like the the grind it takes to get up every day and do the same thing over and over and over and over, because that’s really the way that you’re going to get a result. I think that it’s just such a high level of functioning very specifically that it’s it’s really important, again, to just find a provider that understands all of that.

Max Kantor: [00:10:48] And now what kind of services can you provide to an athlete who has questions about maybe their goals or where their career is headed, things like that?

Amy Wilhelmi: [00:10:58] Mm hmm. Yeah. So I work with athletes that are currently in their sport, and there’s a huge gamut of sports that I work with as far as gymnasts to football players, to dancers, to baseball. I think that the mindset and the mentality are all the same. So they come to me for that motivation in their sport to keep doing it when the sport is hard, to keep doing it when they might have some performance anxiety to keep doing it, when they’re not making the team or not not performing as well as they should be because they’re having these mental blocks. So I work with athletes that are currently practicing whatever their sport is, and then I work again, like I explained earlier with that transition period. And that’s like a real, real important niche in this population is like, okay, I’m injured or I’m benched or I’m not sure if I’m going to recover or I’m thinking about retiring. And so then I help them kind of formulate those next steps and also connect them with resources to do so. Because especially pro athletes like when they’re playing their sport, they have all these resources available to them. Maybe they’re going to have sponsorships, maybe they have some visibility and people want to give them career opportunities. And then when they’re at that retirement piece or they’re injured, those career opportunities kind of fade away because the those opportunities are more focused on the athletes that stay in their sport, that are active and doing well. So then we have to kind of create almost I help a lot of people with business plans so that they can start their own thing and they can still feel passionate and involved and maybe they’re still in their sport, but in a different way. For example, in the bodybuilding community, a lot of retired pros become coaches or they make clothing lines or they have supplement lines or whatever, and they’re they’re not actively on the stage anymore because their body is just come to a point or they’re they’ve just decided that they’re done and then we kind of help develop their next steps.

Max Kantor: [00:13:16] So, Amy, if someone wanted to learn more about what you do or check out your books or speaking engagements or look to you for potential therapy in the future, what’s the best way they can learn more about you?

Amy Wilhelmi: [00:13:30] Yeah, my my website is w w w amy wilhelmi w l h e l m i dot com.

Max Kantor: [00:13:40] Awesome. Well, Amy, thanks again for being on the show today. It was great to talk to you and you’re doing really great work.

Amy Wilhelmi: [00:13:47] Thank you so much for having me.

Max Kantor: [00:13:49] And thank you for listening to another episode of Chicago Business Radio. I’m your host, Max Kanter, and we’ll see you next time.

Intro: [00:13:57] This episode of Chicago Business Radio has been brought to you by firm space, your private sanctuary for productivity and growth. To learn more, go to firm Space.com.