Workplace Well-Being - Northern Magazine

The emphasis on inclusiveness was nurtured in the culturally diverse environs of Los Angeles, where Knapik spent a decade after earning his NMU degree. He had traveled there to pursue a doctorate at the L.A. campus of the Chicago School of Professional Psychology. During his grad studies, he worked extensively with the Latin American community. He also participated in “externships” that included supporting the chronically unhoused at the Los Angeles Mission on Skid Row, and assisting veterans of Operation Enduring Freedom/Iraqi Freedom through the U.S. Veterans Initiative.

Knapik completed a post-doctoral fellowship at the Renewed Freedom Center, which specialized in rapid relief from obsessive-compulsive disorder and anxiety symptoms. He had interned at the facility during graduate school and served nearly two years as its director of clinical training. Because of the facility’s L.A. location and close proximity to the entertainment industry, many of his clients were high-performing, creative individuals. They were typically struggling with anxiety that would manifest itself in behavioral issues, causing problems within their family dynamic as well as in their careers.

“I started drawing a certain clientele during my fellowship that was comprised mostly of producers, writers, actors and musicians. They have an interesting relationship with mental health because pain often inspires their creativity, so they worry if they talk about their problems and the pain goes away, they’ll lose their creative inspiration as well. I acknowledge that concern, but challenge people to have both. It is possible to increase mental health and creativity. ”

Upon relocating to Amsterdam, Knapik helped companies incorporate well-being and mental health materials into their relocation packages for expats. He also worked in private practice with clients from the city’s creative industry. He ventured further into the entertainment arena when he and his wife settled in London. Knapik served as an employee well-being consultant for “some of the world’s largest and most progressive technology, media and production companies,” including Netflix. When the subscription-based streaming service offered him the full-time position he now holds, Knapik relocated to Rome.

“My experiences abroad have expanded my view in terms of the different approaches to mental health worldwide,” Knapik said. “In the Netherlands, for example, there are employee benefits and protections built around it. Employees get two years of paid mental health leave, provided it is deemed appropriate by the occupational health doctor that major employers are required to have on staff.”

Working with creative industries has reinforced the value of neurodiversity, which Harvard Health defines as recognizing that people experience and interact with the world around them in many different ways. There is no one “right” way of thinking, learning and behaving, and differences are not viewed as deficits.

“It’s important to be mindful of that in order to get the best out of your employees,” Knapik explained. “When I worked with animation companies, I discovered those individuals tended to be introverted. The usual approach of personal engagement or interaction would not have been successful because they preferred online chats, so we modified it. Or with tech companies that produce video games, I would talk much differently to the engineers who use numbers and code to create something unbelievably artistic than I would to the sales people.

“You’ll never successfully meet employees where they’re at if you use the same approach all the time or only do things you believe are right. I started learning that in college at Northern. I would go from a creative writing class, where the professor talked while hiking and describing trees in unique ways, to a behavioral psych class with unique stories tapping into another part of my brain.”

It was the Chicago native’s first behavioral psychology class with Professor Paul Andronis that led him to switch his major. He was hooked by the notion that humans function and act differently based on variations in how their brains are wired. A psychology degree seemed like the perfect conduit from his original interest in special education to his newfound passion.

“In that degree track, we had practicums within the realms of psychology and special ed,” Knapik said. “One of mine involved shadowing a nurse practitioner in the psychiatric unit at [the former] Marquette General Hospital two half-days per week for two years. I also shadowed a teacher at North Star Academy. These motivating experiences helping individuals launched me on this trajectory. They were also unique, as I learned in grad school. Most of my peers never participated in structured practicums as undergraduates.”

When Knapik expressed an interest in continuing his education beyond NMU, Andronis tactfully suggested he pursue a doctorate in clinical/experimental psychology because his skillset was not as well suited to a research-based program. He followed his mentor’s advice and has never looked back.