Ep. 52 Mental Health and The Judiciary

In this episode, host Joette Giroux sits down with Judge Mike Spitzer of the 32nd Judicial District Circuit Court and Judge Woody Woodruff of the 21st Judicial District Circuit Court to explore the various forms of depression judges may face throughout their careers. They also discuss the resources available to support judges in managing their mental health and navigating the challenges of the profession. 

Transcript

00;00;00;05 - 00;00;26;28
Host
Welcome to Tennessee Court Talk. I'm Joette Giroux, Communications Writer for the Administrative Office of the Courts. I am your host for this episode featuring 32nd Judicial District Circuit Court Judge Mike Spitzer and 21st Judicial District Circuit Court Judge Woody Woodruff. Depression is becoming more commonly reported among adults and adolescents in the United States, but most are not getting therapy to help, according to a new report from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

00;00;27;00 - 00;00;55;06
Host
More than 1 in 8 people ages 12 and up in the US have been depressed in recent years, according to recent data published by the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics. Depression prevalence has nearly doubled, from 7.3% in 2015 to 2016 to more than 13% in 2021 through 2023. What you may not know is that depression affects people of all stripes, no matter their profession or socioeconomic status.

00;00;55;11 - 00;01;24;24
Host
For some people, the inherent nature of their job can make them more susceptible to depression, and that's what we're focused on today. Judicial depression refers to a state of clinical depression experienced by judges, often stemming from the inherent stressors and heavy workloads associated with their profession. This can manifest as persistent sadness, loss of interest, fatigue, difficulty concentrating, and potentially affecting a judge's ability to effectively perform their duties.

00;01;24;26 - 00;01;27;10
Host
Welcome Judge Spitzer and Judge Woodruff.

00;01;27;12 - 00;01;28;03
Judge Spitzer
Thank you.

00;01;28;06 - 00;01;30;08
Judge Woodruff
Thank you. It's great to be here.

00;01;30;10 - 00;01;47;06
Host
Thank you for joining us. Judge Spitzer, most people have an idea of what it means to be depressed, but sometimes it doesn't look like that classic definition describes some of the other forms of depression and what they might look like, such as high functioning depression and anhedonia.

00;01;47;08 - 00;02;09;13
Judge Spitzer
Yeah, a unique area for judges has to do with anhedonia and a high functioning depression. And that's not the classic form of depression that we all think about. For years at judicial conferences. I would I would stand up as a, as the Chairman of the T Lab Commission and mentioned to the judges that we're we want to help them if they're in the throes of depression.

00;02;09;20 - 00;02;38;16
Judge Spitzer
And in my mind, even I thought that depression was one where, the, the judge would wouldn't be able to get out of bed each day. They'd be weeping and crying. But we've discovered that that's not the case for judges at all. And judges, because of the the way that they function, high function, high efficiency stress each day, each one of the judges that we have have a job to do, and they focus on that job to the exclusion of themselves.

00;02;38;18 - 00;03;05;21
Judge Spitzer
And so what happens is, they are working each day in a high stress environment. They want to get the job done. So their whole life is surrounded by the thought process of, if this gets done, I have to do it. And so it's they're they're generally driven people. Most judges are driven. Most people, that are judges, have a past even where they were pushing to, to receive the benefits of being a judge.

00;03;05;24 - 00;03;24;06
Judge Spitzer
But what happens is they focus on that so much that they lose the joy of life. And that's what anhedonia is, is it gets they get caught up in it before they even know it's there. And so this type of depression is one that, that we need to tell judges. You need to balance your life.

00;03;24;13 - 00;03;42;08
Judge Spitzer
You need to think about other areas that you can focus on rather than going home. And I've even caught myself at going home and talking to my wife, for example. And, I keep thinking that I'm in the courtroom and my mind is saying, okay, is if it's she's a lawyer, okay, get over, get this over with. I know where you're going with it, and let's move on.

00;03;42;11 - 00;03;58;22
Judge Spitzer
You just take your job home with you and take your job out in the world, and you, you begin to focus on that so much, you're depressed and you don't even know it. And then one day, an event might happen that, that triggers everything, and you discover you can't function anymore.

00;03;58;29 - 00;04;02;21
Host
How does someone spot these symptoms and themselves and others?

00;04;02;23 - 00;04;28;23
Judge Spitzer
One of the ways is what I was just saying. Begin looking at yourself. And, we, all of us judges are any anyone who is in a high efficiency career needs to begin, self analyzing themselves and taking a break. We look at vacations as a way to stop and think just a little bit, but self analysis, this is a great greatest way to do that and meditate a little bit on what am I doing day by day?

00;04;28;23 - 00;04;31;26
Judge Spitzer
Am I functioning in a way that I'm enjoying life now?

00;04;31;26 - 00;04;39;10
Host
According to the CDC, cases of depression have doubled in recent years. Is the judiciary also experiencing an uptick in cases?

00;04;39;11 - 00;05;04;28
Judge Spitzer
It is. Everyone is. I'll give you an example from the Tennessee Lawyers Assistance Program. When the when T lap was founded, our focus was on addiction and sobriety. Last year, in the year before that, we had over 50%, generally in the area of 60 plus percent of the referrals that came to us, self referrals and referrals from the BPR or BLE that were stress and anxiety related.

00;05;05;03 - 00;05;25;22
Judge Spitzer
So it began really with Covid, with the stress that came from Covid. And we see now that the not only the judiciary but most of most of the lawyers who are in stressful situations, they're calling for referrals, that we can give them and also give literature at times, to help them recognize that this is this is so common for all of us.

00;05;25;29 - 00;05;38;21
Judge Spitzer
What we really want to press is people should not be hiding that. They should not be shamed. But everyone is is a human being. And we all have a human nature that pulls us away from the things that are valuable in life.

00;05;38;23 - 00;05;44;01
Host
And you mentioned some of these already, but what are some of the things unique to the judiciary that do cause depression?

00;05;44;05 - 00;06;07;20
Judge Spitzer
Judiciary, is a, is a vocation that causes judges to see and to hear things, that are not helpful. It's a very rare domestic case, and I hear both domestic cases and criminal cases, but it's a very rare domestic cases that I don't in that case telling. And my judges in my district, I already know this because I'll usually say, what, what am I?

00;06;07;24 - 00;06;28;02
Judge Spitzer
What are my two words? And at the end of every domestic case, the two words that I have are poor children. And so we're seeing where children are destroyed by parents who are fighting in a domestic situation. Alienation issues are huge now where they didn't used to be. But parental alienation is a huge area, co-parenting is very difficult for people to do.

00;06;28;04 - 00;06;49;26
Judge Spitzer
In dysfunctional homes, is rampant. Now, let me just say one other thing, too, because, in the criminal area judges see and hear things that, the public is not aware of, speak at different places. And I try to give some statistics about, homicides and assaults. Human trafficking, child sexual abuse is up probably 30, 35%.

00;06;49;29 - 00;07;01;13
Judge Spitzer
And the kinds of things that, that are happening to victims, we, we need to have in most of the time do have therapists for jurors who are hearing those kind of cases. Things are so bad.

00;07;01;19 - 00;07;06;14
Host
Now, judge Woodruff, you've actually experienced depression yourself. Would you share your story with us?

00;07;06;16 - 00;07;37;09
Judge Woodruff
Sure. Joette, I'm glad to. First of all, I want to tell you how fortunate I am to have the privilege of being a judge. I love it, I love everything about it. For me, it's the the pinnacle of the career path that that I started out on when I first started law school in 1978. I, tell people that this feels like this was what I was put on Earth to do.

00;07;37;11 - 00;08;02;01
Judge Woodruff
I enjoy everything about it. I enjoy the complexity. I enjoy the variety of cases as a trial judge that I get to see in my judicial district, where we're not we're not stovepipes where we just have just criminal or just domestic. We in our judicial district, we have what I call the combination pizza docket. You take the pie, you put every kind of conceivable case on it.

00;08;02;01 - 00;08;29;27
Judge Woodruff
You stick it in the oven, and when it's done, you cut it in four pieces and each judge takes their slice. It's at you. I enjoy the interaction with, lawyers and I. One of my favorite days of the week is Thursdays, because that's my non-criminal motions docket. And having the variety of cases and interacting with, with clients, litigants, lawyers is just very, enjoyable.

00;08;29;27 - 00;08;57;11
Judge Woodruff
And it's something I take a great deal of satisfaction in. A few years ago, I had a health issue arise that where I ended up, I had to have surgery to, to address. And, the surgery was highly successful and, and I had great outcome returned to work on time after hour after post-op. I was astonished at how work.

00;08;57;14 - 00;09;25;12
Judge Woodruff
Held no joy for me, I didn't. It wasn't that I had a negative feeling towards. It wasn't like I didn't, I disliked it, it was this neutral feeling of like, there's no joy here. I had intrusive thoughts about my own mortality that I had not experienced before, even though I'm in an age where nothing's going to happen to me prematurely.

00;09;25;15 - 00;09;56;29
Judge Woodruff
Still, that that was concerning, that in the just in the middle of trying to work on something, that the thought that I might die before the end of the day unexpectedly would intrude and distract me. And it was just this absence of any kind of enjoyment in what I do for a living. It was like everything was in black and white as opposed to Technicolor.

00;09;57;01 - 00;10;43;23
Judge Woodruff
I called Mike Spitzer at T lap, and I told him what was going on, and within an hour I got a call back from one of the behavioral health experts at T lap, and we had a very productive conversation on the phone. We had a couple of follow up calls and interactions. What became clear to me was that I was still experiencing some of the effects of the anesthesia that that I had had, the general anesthesia that I had had in this surgical procedure, and that even though my body had fully metabolized the anesthesia and I.

00;10;43;26 - 00;11;17;27
Judge Woodruff
That was all well and good from a physical standpoint, that, biochemically and in my, my brain chemistry, it's still not completely recovered from the anesthesia and, my ability to enjoy what I did for a living, my about my ability to experience positive emotions and, and joy had been adversely affected by the anesthesia. Within a few days.

00;11;17;29 - 00;12;00;21
Judge Woodruff
I got some some good coaching on some behavioral health approaches and some things I could do on my own, which I which I did. And, that didn't require any medical intervention or any medication or anything like that. But I would say, well, within a week to ten days, I was back to the same level of engagement and enjoyment of the work that I've undertaken in my profession and delivering judicial services in the same self actualization that I achieved from practicing this calling I had had returned.

00;12;00;21 - 00;12;24;05
Judge Woodruff
I am eternally grateful for t lap. If it hadn't been for that, I'm not sure exactly where where I would have gone. I was kind of at at lost at sea before and it was it was a a great solution quickly achieved through the confidential, totally free service that is available to judges through t lap.

00;12;24;07 - 00;12;30;10
Host
You consider yourself recovered from depression or did you still use some of those techniques along the way and through the years.

00;12;30;15 - 00;12;36;17
Judge Woodruff
You learned some self-care techniques, and those are always handy to have in your toolbox.

00;12;36;17 - 00;12;44;18
Host
What advice would either of you give judges experiencing depression, and just again, what resources are available to them? Programs, websites, etc..

00;12;44;22 - 00;13;06;00
Judge Spitzer
At every judicial conference, I almost begged judges to call me or make referrals. If you if you know of a judge who's having issues at t lap, is, as Judge Woodruff said, every call is totally confidential. The judicial family is a very close knit family, and, we do care about one another, and we love what we do.

00;13;06;06 - 00;13;26;20
Judge Spitzer
The best advice I can give is if you feel that you are depressed, or if you feel that you're lacking joy, that really is. The thrust of anhedonia is just a lack of joy in life. We all experience that. And judges need, need to recognize it, that it's not going to hurt their profession. It's not going to hurt their standing.

00;13;26;22 - 00;13;49;06
Judge Spitzer
It's not going to hurt their position in the community, because there's not a single person today that could tell us, I've never felt alone, or I've never felt as if I'm not functioning like I should. Everyone can say that's truthful. And so my best advice is call someone that you know cares about you and t lap cares about all of the judges and lawyers in the state.

00;13;49;08 - 00;13;50;24
Host
Judge Woodruff, do you have anything to add?

00;13;50;24 - 00;14;13;28
Judge Woodruff
Well, I would simply say that depression, whether it's clinical depression or high functioning depression or anhedonia, is about isolation and recovery is about community. And we have great community in the Tennessee Judiciary. And T lap is an indispensable part of the community.

00;14;14;03 - 00;14;24;25
Host
Judge Spitzer and Judge Woodruff, it was a pleasure talking with you today. Thank you for joining us on Tennessee Court Talk. To learn more about the Tennessee State Judiciary, please visit us at tncourts.gov.