GREENWOOD VILLAGE, Colo. (KDVR) — A group of veterans and providers has created a new place for veterans and others to get mental health help, offering several cutting-edge therapies all in one place.
Mind Spa just opened in Greenwood Village. It was founded by Sam Peterson, Dr. Eric French and Dr. Ron Schwenkler.
Peterson served as a bomb disposal technician in the U.S. Army in Afghanistan. He says he suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder and anxiety, and he’s lost friends to suicide.
“That was the reason I got into mental health. I had a mentor of mine kill himself on Memorial Day — walked outside and shot himself with his three-year-old son in the house,” Peterson said.
Center offers treatment for depression, anxiety, PTSD
So, he and his partners opened Mind Spa. The center offers transcranial magnetic stimulation to treat issues like depression, anxiety and PTSD. It also offers medication management, psychotherapy and ketamine treatments all under one roof.
“If this place had existed when I was in the military, a lot of my friends would not be dead,” Peterson said. He said he has used all the treatments himself.
“They are absolutely life-saving,” he said.
This layered approach makes good sense to Schwenkler, the clinical director.
“We want good sound psychiatry, good sound psychotherapy to be layered and dovetailed into some of the other interventions that we are offering, like TMS and ketamine,” Schwenkler said.
Schwenkler hopes veterans, first responders and others will come and get the help they need, noting that Mind Spa does take insurance.
“Healing from trauma and working with mental health issues, it’s a full-contact experience. It is not a passive endeavor,” he said.