Interview transcript

Terry Gerton It’s been a tough year for federal employees. There’s been lot of uncertainty about jobs and missions. We’ve had shutdown. They got paid, they didn’t get paid. What kind of a toll does that accumulation have on mental health?

Roz Beroza You know, it may look very differently for every person, but generally, it has been a traumatic year, which trauma is very specific. It has a long shelf life, but initially, it feels like you’ve been run over by a truck. You’re disoriented. You could be in freeze. This is not just a financial loss, it’s a multi-faceted loss, almost as though a tsunami took everything and internally you lose your identity, you lose your future as you always assumed it would be. The toll for this is huge.

Terry Gerton How does it manifest itself for folks on a day-to-day basis?

Roz Beroza As I said, Terry, It’s really different for people. Some people don’t feel it. They just start doing what they need to do. Other people cannot get out of bed. Many people feel panicky. We saw that in the Washington Post article in March. There was an article about the effects on the federal employees, and they talked about suicide in that report.

Terry Gerton So we’re taking all of that, and now we’re coming into a holiday period, which is always stressful in some way, shape or form. But for folks who’ve lived through these last nine or 10 months, and now maybe coming into the holidays with financial uncertainty, job uncertainty, how does that compound the situation?

Roz Beroza It compounds it a great deal because you come into this time of year when you had particular traditions that might have not felt like a financial cost, but this year cannot be — you can’t do the same things you’ve always done. It’s very painful. You can’t buy your kids everything you wanted to buy them. It’s a reminder, not just your thinking brain, but your whole nervous system. So it takes a lot of energy and people feel very, can feel very exhausted.

Terry Gerton Well tell us about therapy for feds and why you launched this initiative for former federal employees.

Roz Beroza Well, I launched it around May of last year, and, you know, I grew up around Washington, D.C., the government, everybody worked for the government, everybody’s parents worked for the government. That’s our industry here. And it felt like this can’t be happening. The numbers that were predicted, but they started to happen, these huge, massive layoffs. And honestly, Terry, it was an effort to deal with my own despair. I needed to do something, and I looked for a while to see, is there another organization who’s doing something that’s really focused on the mental health of these government employees? And nothing was there. So I just started posting on websites.

Terry Gerton I’m speaking with Roz Beroza. She’s the founder of Therapy4Feds. Roz, tell us about the programs that you offer and how it makes mental health therapy accessible, maybe for people who’ve lost their jobs or who might be struggling financially.

Roz Beroza Therapy4Feds is sort of like a clearinghouse where somebody who has lost their job because of this administration’s policies, so that’s in 2025, can seek help from a licensed mental health therapist at either no cost or maximum cost of $35 per hour. [There are] Five sessions and at the end of those five sessions they can either continue, they can use their insurance if they have it, it’s up to the therapist and the person that is seeking the service. We also have partnered with an organization called Give an Hour, which also has been in existence since after 9-11. And so they’re longstanding, and their mission is to give affordable, well-known, free health care to those in the military, people who have been victims of fraud, financial fraud, and people with rare illnesses. So we are working together to promote, and also if any of our people can draw from their pool of therapists, we’re using the same pool.

Terry Gerton Do you find with the former federal employees any resistance to seek mental health therapy?

Roz Beroza You know, I don’t really have a handle on that. I have a handle on the huge numbers that want it, that are at some time during this year, like after the CDC in Georgia, I received huge numbers of people who need it and they would email me about being desperate to get some help, and at that time, I had two therapists in Georgia. You have to have somebody who is licensed in your state. So I have a huge effort out to get licensed therapists to join our network.

Terry Gerton Tell us about how therapists who are interested can partner with you.

Roz Beroza Well, they can go to my site, which is Therapy4Feds.org and they can register on the site, and it’s very quick to register. You have to, as I say, be licensed, have malpractice insurance. And what happens then is those who are seeking therapy go to their state and they can choose somebody who’s licensed in their state.

Terry Gerton And for someone who’s listening who might feel overwhelmed themselves right now, what’s the first step they can take to get help? Same.

Roz Beroza Same. Go to Therapy4feds.org and there’s a section there that says “seeking a therapist.”

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