what we do

Help you to identify high touch patients before dental anxiety causes a negative impact to the treatment relationship
Teach you how to recognize and shift any dysregulation-driven behaviors to create positive and productive interactions
Show you how to attract, retain, and engage great team members
Provide you with tools and strategies to improve workplace wellness and work-life balance.

why we

do it

In a phrase... dysregulated autonomic nervous systems. An anctivated Flight/Fight will impact treatment relationships.
Mammals, in particular humans, are wired to connect. However, when nervous systems are expressing in non-ideal ways, then the connections can also less than ideal, even destructive.
The 10th cranial or vagus nerve
is an internal information super highway that we can harness to help us identify and prevent potentially problematic exchanges
between dysregulated nervous systems.
Anxious patients, stressed out team members, and overwhelmed dental practice leaders (humans) all have unique expressions of those systems and have individual requirements for psychological safety in any relationship.

Problem Expression #1

Patients

Your patients hate you. Okay, well not really. They hate what their nervous systems do when they have to see you. Dental anxiety affects some 6 in 10 adults. So more than half of the grown ups you see have some level of anxiety around sitting in your chair (Dental Market Research Study 2018). Nearly 1/5 of adults are moderately to severely anxious at their dental appointments (JDH 2017)

So, by the time they hit the office door they might be wrecked and unconsciously they will take their distress out on you or your team.

Post-pandemic things have gotten worse. Patients are returning to us after longer breaks, in worse shape, and with fewer internal resources to cope with their fears.

One major source of dysregulation in your patients' history may be their history of trauma. It may be from childhood trauma, dental treatment trauma, or currently traumatic life experiences. Whatever the source, the signs and symptoms are really obvious if you know what to look for.

Interestingly enough 6 in 10 adults have been impacted by childhood trauma and in 1/5 of cases it is severe enough to damage their physical health. (CDC, 1998)

If you never, ever want to be taken off guard by a freaky scared patient, there are simple things you can do to help.

Problem Expression #2

Practitioners

You hate your job, at on least some days you. Especially those long ones. You know, the ones with all the needy patients.

You don't need me to tell you that we are currently facing the worst staffing shortage in the history of our industry.

Also, thanks to happenings in 2020, which by the way has been called a collective trauma, we are coping with fewer team members to manage more demanding patients. This can shrink what meager reserves we may have had.

The teammates you do work with have shorter fuses and seem to want to contribute less. You feel like you carrying more weight than you ever have before, and you would be right.

You've been asking around among your friends if they know of any other career paths you might follow because you feel like you are just about done.

It's sad too, because you used to love this job. You were excited when you accepted your current position but now all the luster has gone out of it.

Your body hurts, you're tired, you have no energy for your family or social groups. This is common enough and regulating your nervous system can help put you back in charge of things and bring back your joy.

Problem Expression #3

Practice Leaders

This staffing shortage is killing you. You're starting to hate your life. Administrative staff are getting frustrated, because people are more testy on the phone than ever, since they can't get in for a prophy for at least 4 months.

Clinical staff are cranky because patients are doing less in the way of complying with recommendations or doing simple self care. Appointments are taking longer and are more difficult than they used to be.

You are killing yourself trying to keep staffing up to even minimal levels and costs are through the roof!

Staff meetings are feeling less productive because half of staff isn't there and those who are there are only half awake or half engaged.

Keeping good talent is a full time job, and it still isn't going as well as you would like.

The family is more challenging lately as well. School is harder for kids. Your partner's job is making them crazy too.

How in the world are you supposed to attract, retain and actually engage a phenomenal team when you barely keeping yourself together?

By building and trauma informed work place and wellness program and by implementing strategies and supports to create exactly what you need to crush it every day.

The Solution:

The solution is the same for all of the foregoing - trauma informed and trauma responsive patient care delivery and human resource practices. "What even is that?" I hear you ask. It means that we deliver care and build human resource practices that acknowledge the presence and impact of trauma in our patients, our team members, and ourselves. It implements that awareness in policies, practices, and procedures in order to

respond to trauma, actively resist re-traumatization, and build resilience.

That is a mouthful, but you'll get by with some help from your dental health and

workplace wellness BFF, me, Yvonne Posey.

I've been at this for 25+ years and I want to help you leverage my trauma informed care training and

35,000 hours of implementation experience.

These efforts have changed patient and practice experiences in nothing less than than transformational ways.

how we

do it

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what people are saying about it

Here is what others are saying about Yvonne and the Dental Fear Fix Programs...

-study club

attendee

Engaging AND Practical

Yvonne is a a great speaker! She's very interesting, enthusiastic and engaging.

-Webinar Attendee

Really relevant and interesting!

She brought the topic to life and gave us information we can use in the clinic tomorrow!

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