Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 822 ｜ The Big Money Behind Big Medicine ｜ Guest： Dr. Roger McFillin

00:00:00.000 The massive industry behind mental health in the United States is largely corrupt,

00:00:05.400 and it's leading to unscientific methods for treating depression and anxiety

00:00:09.480 that then lead to poor outcomes, especially in children.

00:00:13.520 Explaining this corruption today and providing us with better solutions

00:00:16.940 is Dr. Roger McFillan, clinical psychologist and co-host of the podcast Radically Genuine.

00:00:23.620 This is part two of our two-part conversation.

00:00:27.320 This episode is brought to you by our friends at Good Ranchers.

00:00:29.700 Go to GoodRanchers.com.

00:00:31.360 Use code Allie at checkout. 1.00

00:00:32.540 That's GoodRanchers.com, code Allie.

00:00:43.860 Which question do I ask first?

00:00:45.920 I have about 10 that I've had circulating in my head.

00:00:48.680 Okay, what do they mean?

00:00:50.360 Let's ask this question first.

00:00:51.820 What do people mean when they say chemical imbalance?

00:00:55.080 When they've said that, well, you just have a chemical imbalance.

00:00:58.860 There's nothing to do with you, nothing to do with the factors in your life,

00:01:02.420 which is kind of like a trend culturally that we see because you shouldn't feel bad for anything.

00:01:06.880 You shouldn't have to be inconvenient.

00:01:08.120 You shouldn't have to sacrifice or do work that you don't want to do.

00:01:11.240 So we're told it's a chemical imbalance.

00:01:13.200 That's the reason.

00:01:14.040 What is even meant by that?

00:01:16.620 Well, again, we're going back to 70s where there was a theory that if depression could be related to low levels of serotonin for one.

00:01:25.220 And there's other neurochemicals like norepinephrine, dopamine.

00:01:29.360 And these are chemicals that are associated with mood, but it's much more complex than that.

00:01:33.560 And in fact, most of our chemicals are originated in our gut.

00:01:39.100 Gut health is so critically important.

00:01:41.440 But there was a review paper that was published.

00:01:46.400 Dr. Joanna Moncrief, she's out of the UK, was published in 2022.

00:01:51.180 And we've known for decades there's no such thing as a chemical imbalance.

00:01:55.380 But the commercials would be placed on like Zoloft may create a chemical imbalance in the brain and can correct that.

00:02:03.180 They just published the studies.

00:02:04.740 I say, listen, there's no differences in serotonin for someone who is severely depressed, moderately depressed or happy.

00:02:14.000 In fact, it's so complicated.

00:02:15.960 So, Ali, like our chemicals in our brain are so complex, we don't really even understand it.

00:02:22.280 So, I'm not going to try to create some bioreductionist simplified idea that our thoughts or our emotions are related to one chemical.

00:02:30.280 In fact, if we found ways to measure serotonin and it was after you did a run in the morning in beautiful weather and bright sun and after you meditated or you prayed and you did some gratitude work,

00:02:45.840 then the chemicals in your brain or areas of your brain are going to light up differently, right?

00:02:51.020 And if I had you think about or watch news or think about something that was war destructive, that might have some different changes in your brain.

00:03:03.580 Does that to say that you're outside of your control or you're biologically vulnerable to experiencing that?

00:03:10.440 No, it doesn't say that.

00:03:11.340 It's a complex experience.

00:03:13.260 But what happens is when you sell that to the American public, when anyone's struggling at any one given time, they can then internalize it as I'm broke.

00:03:22.120 There is something wrong with me.

00:03:24.200 And that's why I can't do these things.

00:03:26.340 And that idea is toxic.

00:03:27.960 That idea is so toxic for your mental health and to be able to respond to the adversity that life is going to bring because there's no doubt, you know, there's going to be pain.

00:03:36.860 There's going to be struggle.

00:03:38.100 And so that's why it's so nefarious because it changes the way that people experience their own emotions.

00:03:43.780 Yeah.

00:03:44.040 And, you know, I'm wondering also how our education system kind of plays a part in all of this and just like the need for conformity.

00:03:50.900 When I was growing up, 90s and 2000s, it was like there was this burst of ADD or ADHD.

00:03:59.460 And I'm not going to like lead us down that path, although I'm sure there's a lot of similarities there.

00:04:04.600 And because I always was talking in class, which is not really a surprise.

00:04:09.220 That's why I made a career out of it, because I've always liked it.

00:04:11.460 I had a hard time paying attention to what the teacher was saying.

00:04:13.880 I felt like, OK, got it, understood it.

00:04:16.180 I'm going to go talk to my friends.

00:04:17.540 And I was told or my parents were told probably kindergarten through fourth grade.

00:04:21.600 She's got ADD. 0.99

00:04:22.660 She's got ADD. 0.99

00:04:23.540 Put her on ADD medication. 0.99

00:04:25.260 Thankfully, my parents never did.

00:04:26.940 And I turned out fine.

00:04:28.320 And I actually made good grades and all that stuff.

00:04:30.880 And now I just, you know, have a job doing what I was always not supposed to be doing in class growing up.

00:04:36.860 But I had friends who did go on ADD medication who actually weren't really precocious like me, but they weren't doing that well in school.

00:04:43.220 And so the teachers would say, oh, she's not doing well because she can't pay attention because she has ADD. 1.00

00:04:48.920 And I remember in high school, friends who had ADD medication or who took it, we would joke, oh, she took her medicine today.

00:04:58.540 So she's not going to like laugh at your jokes.

00:05:01.240 She's not going to be chatty with you. 0.99

00:05:02.980 She's not going to want to like talk to you.

00:05:05.000 It was kind of like a joke that we all told each other that we knew that if that person took their ADD medication that day, they would be numb.

00:05:11.760 They would be antisocial.

00:05:13.720 And I just imagine that is multiplied today.

00:05:16.900 And with just how normal and mainstream it's become, not just ADD medicine, but depression, anxiety medicine for all these teenagers, it's become so normalized.

00:05:27.320 Yeah, you don't want to take me down that road because we could be here for a long, a long time.

00:05:35.000 I was in the schools probably when you were going to school in the early 2000s.

00:05:50.060 I did transition eventually into a school counselor before I got my doctorate, while I was getting my doctorate.

00:05:55.600 And so I saw this transition.

00:05:57.700 You know, it also, there's constant stimuli in modern day living.

00:06:01.840 So our computers, our tablets, our television, our video games.

00:06:06.360 So you take kids who have these developing brains who are looking to be what is most fascinating or interesting, right?

00:06:15.100 Especially boys who are just constructed to be more active and move around.

00:06:19.480 And then you stick them in this constrained environment around school that is really boring to them and not interesting.

00:06:28.580 Not for everybody, right? But some boys and some girls, they're meant to work construction or they're meant to be in media.

00:06:34.800 They're not meant to sit there and be a passive learner in a classroom.

00:06:39.020 So we create a disorder around it, which is what we've done with the Diagnostic Statistical Manual in Psychiatry.

00:06:46.260 There are now over 500 psychiatric disorders.

00:06:49.720 I mean, we can diagnose you with something at any given time if we wanted to, but we act like they're real.

00:06:57.080 We act like they're discrete, identifiable, scientific diagnoses that have legitimacy.

00:07:05.080 And people don't understand the history of all this.

00:07:08.460 It's really just constructs.

00:07:10.900 There are just a number of various symptoms.

00:07:13.560 And if you meet this criteria, if you meet that criteria, then we can give you this diagnosis or label and then we can sell you a drug.

00:07:20.360 And it's very connected to the allopathic kind of medical model that is really funded and pushed by the pharmaceutical companies.

00:07:27.660 The one thing that you find in these trials with the pharmaceutical companies, because people ask these questions, well, how does it get to this point?

00:07:33.920 Can this guy be, is this guy really for real on some of the things that he's saying?

00:07:38.680 Well, this stuff's out there.

00:07:40.220 This stuff is published.

00:07:41.680 There's books written about it, how the pharmaceutical companies would hire academics to ghostwrite their papers.

00:07:49.060 So people, I don't know if people understand that the pharmaceutical companies are the ones who control their trials.

00:07:54.880 And then they'll hire outside academics from some of the most elite institutions in the United States, Harvard and Duke and so forth.

00:08:02.980 And they'll have those academics be first authors on the paper.

00:08:07.000 They weren't even involved in the study, but they'll put their name.

00:08:10.240 And then they'll be hired by the pharmaceutical companies as thought leaders.

00:08:15.340 And then these thought leaders then write the books, the textbooks and the continuing medical education units that are required for doctors.

00:08:26.240 They're going to go to their conferences and these thought leaders are going to talk about this brand new drug that we have to be able to treat depression.

00:08:34.240 And mental illnesses are similar to diabetes and drugs are going to be insulin for diabetes.

00:08:40.880 A bunch of nonsense that just have brought us to a prescription drug culture and created so much harm.

00:08:47.820 The thing that is so important for me to communicate when I'm speaking publicly is informed consent is a legal and ethical imperative.

00:08:59.720 If your doctor isn't informed, then you can't consent.

00:09:03.860 So you have to ask, what are the alternatives?

00:09:06.860 What are the adverse reactions?

00:09:09.720 How is this going to be monitored?

00:09:11.040 What is the plan to get off this drug?

00:09:13.000 All these things that are just not asked, we just get that prescription, go home, and we take it.

00:09:18.420 And people will take these drugs for an extended period of time.

00:09:21.960 And I think we're taking episodic conditions, emotional conditions that come and go in episodes, and we're making them chronic.

00:09:28.780 We're creating an environment where, if you look at the disability statistics, the change that has occurred from the mid-90s to those who are now disabled due to mental illness is such an astronomical rise.

00:09:43.480 So we're creating a whole culture of disabled individuals from their own mental health that I often start with a very treatable and understandable condition. 0.92

00:09:53.740 I read your book on the plane.

00:09:56.080 I loved it, by the way.

00:09:57.500 But I originally, when I was in my doctoral program, I was studying, and I published in the field of eating disorders.

00:10:04.560 And so that's been a part of my clinical practice.

00:10:07.800 And I noticed, I believe, I'm going to ask you questions about this, but when you were struggling with your eating disorder,

00:10:14.260 you had this awareness that there was a lot of emotions that you were experiencing that were just being covered up with your eating disorder or alcohol or partying in your very vulnerable age at that time.

00:10:27.500 You know, you could almost sense the vulnerability.

00:10:29.740 There was a breakup that occurred, and you had this idea of how you wanted your life to be, and you struggled with that transition and that uncertainty.

00:10:36.540 And you just wanted to feel better.

00:10:38.760 And you can feel better if you get attention, and you can feel better if you're drinking, and you're partying, and if these guys are into you.

00:10:44.780 And then you're part of kind of that culture where if I can look a certain way or I can present a certain way,

00:10:50.660 that is going to provide me with a sense of wholeness and joy.

00:10:55.620 And your awareness of that led you to make changes in your life.

00:11:00.960 It was a clarification of values, and you decided to take steps that I think were probably transformative.

00:11:09.560 And so if we viewed our own mental health struggles as transformative instead of an illness, then there's opportunity.

00:11:16.740 Am I accurate in the way that I was kind of reading that?

00:11:19.620 Yeah, I think that's a great analysis.

00:11:21.200 Of course, I've never heard it summarized exactly like that.

00:11:23.800 But as you're talking about taking normal human emotions and struggles and kind of medicalizing them and making them chronic,

00:11:30.940 I'm thinking back to the counselor that I went to who couldn't have prescribed anything because that wasn't her capacity.

00:11:37.500 But I'm very thankful that that's not actually something that she recommended.

00:11:41.800 Actually, she told me a very difficult truth about bulimia, which is what I was doing, is that it's going to kill you.

00:11:47.500 That's what she said. 0.99

00:11:48.260 It's going to kill you. 1.00

00:11:49.100 You're 22 years old, and you're going to die from this. 0.99

00:11:52.680 Is that what you want?

00:11:53.540 And I know that's not what wakes everyone up, but that certainly did wake me up.

00:11:57.780 And I'm thankful.

00:11:58.900 Wow, I never thought about that, that that could have turned into like this lifelong medical treatment that I underwent for something that was really because of both internal and external factors that I just wasn't dealing with correctly.

00:12:13.120 Yeah, and if you'd follow the guidelines, and that's how our medical, at least on the primary care setting and psychiatric setting, there's these developed guidelines, and it's almost like they follow these rules.

00:12:22.520 So if you would have went into another setting, the guideline would have said, okay, we're going to combine cognitive behavioral therapy with Prozac for the treatment of bulimia.

00:12:33.120 And I think you ended up going to a counselor that was aligned with your faith and some of what was your personal values.

00:12:42.040 And that person, from a different perspective, knew who you were, understood who you were, and helped you on a process to be able to deal with what you were experiencing.

00:12:51.720 And that's so different than placing a label on top of you or saying that this drug is going to help you.

00:12:58.660 You said something about the American Academy of Pediatrics, which I thought was especially interesting.

00:13:16.380 And as a parent, of course, I'm super concerned about that.

00:13:21.800 I saw the dangers of just listening to these experts at somewhere like the AAP during COVID when it came to universal masking, how they would contradict their own findings from several years ago about things like that, seeing faces.

00:13:35.520 But then you said that they are kind of bought and paid for by these pharmaceutical companies.

00:13:41.300 And it reminded me of a story that I saw not too long ago that suggested that maybe treating obesity in young people, which you mentioned is a big problem, well, they should be injected with a drug.

00:13:51.560 And gosh, you know, as I mentioned, like there's so much culturally behind this, behind the whole movement to destigmatize everything, including things that are actually unhealthy, that can be fixed without medicine, that I think is a part of this.

00:14:07.620 Of course, it's money.

00:14:08.400 Of course, it's corruption.

00:14:10.080 Of course, it's politics.

00:14:11.020 But it's also just like a shift in how we think about life and struggle and identity and sacrifice.

00:14:18.260 And that really worries me for the next generation.

00:14:22.100 It worries me, too.

00:14:24.360 And I don't know how we kind of decondition a generation of people.

00:14:29.540 So even on social media, and I decided that I had to say something.

00:14:35.320 I had to do something.

00:14:36.620 I need to sleep at night.

00:14:37.900 I'm part of this system.

00:14:40.000 A lot of the negative feedback that I get is this idea that I am stigmatizing mental illness.

00:14:46.220 And that's so problematic because what I want to do is create environments where people can thrive.

00:14:54.800 And to do that, it takes an entire shift from how we're actually thinking about what's happening to us.

00:15:01.520 And I don't know if people realize that this is sold to us.

00:15:04.980 It's sold to us in kind of like a story with step by step by step that destigmatization means that what you're experiencing, you have no responsibility around.

00:15:20.320 And that relieves guilt and that relieves shame.

00:15:23.920 So if you act a certain way that harms somebody or hurts somebody, we should feel guilty.

00:15:31.180 We should feel shame.

00:15:32.480 Those aversive emotions hopefully would be something we'd want to avoid in the future.

00:15:36.780 We've become so emotionally illiterate to not think about the full range of human emotions that exist and that they're there for a reason and they're there to serve us.

00:15:45.740 So you just see this, people who feel like they haven't been able to accomplish the things they wanted to in life, who feel like they're on the outskirts of society, which I have empathy for, who might be struggling to be able to find love in their life or career or purpose.

00:16:00.220 Because they can attach to this idea that there's something wrong with them, that there's something broken with them medically.

00:16:07.420 And then they have a mental illness and in that idea, they can search out some medical solution that kind of justifies why they haven't been able to experience the things that they want to in life or the way that they compare themselves to others.

00:16:23.640 This word mental illness is loaded, of course, because when we say mental illness, what does that mean to us?

00:16:31.340 Does that mean somebody who is homeless because they're struggling with some sort of psychotic condition?

00:16:37.760 Or what about the 14-year-old that has social anxiety and doesn't want to give a speech in class?

00:16:43.980 When we lump them all together, I believe that's problematic.

00:16:47.540 And we use one word, and that's the limitations of our language.

00:16:51.020 We use one word to describe all people.

00:16:54.540 And so that makes this conversation difficult because what's going to happen is say, well, Dr. McFillin, what about someone with schizophrenia?

00:17:01.380 What if someone with a psychotic condition?

00:17:04.060 And then I tell them, well, that's a portion, that's a small portion of people who are labeled with mental illness, a small portion of people who are taking psychiatric drugs.

00:17:13.920 But even there, the drugs themselves, they're not as effective as they're communicated to the general public.

00:17:20.380 They are short-term stabilization for some, and they couldn't be helpful.

00:17:26.640 But the longer you start taking these drugs, they're implicated in metabolic illness and a number of problems.

00:17:32.080 So it's not like we've advanced the conversation.

00:17:35.600 We've advanced the science to be able to treat mental illness.

00:17:38.900 In fact, if you look at the outcome data, everything has worsened.

00:17:41.840 Something that I think is just emblematic of all of the problems that you're talking about is this rise in gender confusion.

00:17:52.980 I don't even think, I mean, you would know better just medically than I would that I could even call it gender dysphoria because I think it might be gender confusion or gender deceit. 1.00

00:18:03.120 Maybe some of the people in this group have gender dysphoria.

00:18:06.400 I'm not sure that we can label all of the people in that way.

00:18:09.900 But it's, you know, confusion is being medicalized, and there's a lot of money behind the treatments, so-called, that come with this and the pharmaceutical companies and all of that.

00:18:22.820 I mean, what's your take on that as a psychologist?

00:18:26.140 This is a relatively new area of mine that I've gotten into.

00:18:29.480 I've just recently met with groups of parents of gender dysphoric teens, and so I agree with you.

00:18:36.020 This idea of gender dysphoria as a label, as a term is complicated because it's new to society, and there is a social contagion effect that certainly exists.

00:18:49.700 So vulnerable teens, and we're seeing this rise, it's called sudden onset gender dysphoria or rapid onset gender dysphoria.

00:19:02.260 I think Lisa Littman is a researcher who's been able to identify that, is that we assume that at puberty, that when someone struggles with their own body or their emotional health,

00:19:13.500 it's something that we've normalized in the past, especially for young women, hating your bodies isn't anything new.

00:19:21.880 Because there is such a transition that occurs in puberty, 20% body fat changes and so forth.

00:19:30.680 And traditionally, girls during puberty have put them at great risk, vulnerably to boys whose hormones are going crazy.

00:19:38.880 And so this idea that there's body dysphoria or dysphoria of your own body is normal. 0.95

00:19:47.520 But the idea that if somebody, a child can come to us and tell us that I think I'm of another gender because I hate my body,

00:19:56.100 and that we would have to affirm that as if it's real, is the problem that exists in my field.

00:20:02.900 Because this is where ideology overtakes science.

00:20:07.980 And if you are a clinical psychologist and you have an ethical code,

00:20:15.060 and that ethical code is about understanding things like child development and first do no harm.

00:20:23.200 Affirming that condition as if it's true and it's real can do indelible harm.

00:20:28.880 And we're seeing it do indelible harm.

00:20:30.860 Because it's pushing young people into believing there is a potentially permanent medical condition

00:20:40.460 that they developmentally cannot consent for or even begin to understand.

00:20:46.360 And that's going to solve the sadness or the depression or the emotional struggles that they are experiencing.

00:20:54.180 That idea in itself is harmful.

00:20:55.920 And it shouldn't be a surprise that once you start putting things out there on social media and on YouTube,

00:21:07.000 that it spreads like wildfire.

00:21:08.720 We saw this in the late 90s and early 2000s around anorexia and bulimia.

00:21:15.380 We had these models on major television networks and covers,

00:21:20.880 and they were clearly underweight.

00:21:23.160 And this was establishing a new ideal body image,

00:21:26.480 which is nearly impossible for any woman to be able to obtain unless you became very, very sick. 0.97

00:21:32.340 So we saw this pro-ana website and all this push.

00:21:36.900 And you saw an increase in prevalence rate of anorexia.

00:21:40.780 It's not that different with what we're seeing now with gender dysphoria.

00:21:44.440 In some environments, it's reinforced.

00:21:48.220 It's praised.

00:21:49.100 I was talking to you about, you know, my children before we started this.

00:21:54.320 And my middle daughter went to an art school.

00:21:57.920 And in that art school, there was probably disproportionate amount of transgender teens

00:22:05.260 that were identifying at that time.

00:22:07.440 And teachers had a difficult time because one day they'd come in presenting one way

00:22:12.580 and the next day that they're presenting a different way.

00:22:14.620 And I think it was part of the artistic makeup of those individuals during adolescence.

00:22:21.720 And they were certainly looking for connection and an identity and a purpose.

00:22:27.520 And so this is so problematic in our culture.

00:22:29.520 And it takes mental health professionals like clinical psychologists to be able to identify

00:22:33.860 the complexity of this, to be able to support parents and teens to not make a decision that

00:22:39.940 is going to affect them the rest of their life.

00:22:42.040 And so that's kind of the stance that I've been taking right now.

00:22:45.660 As a clinical psychologist, we have a code of ethics.

00:22:48.220 And in that code of ethics is that there is self-determinism, that everyone has a right

00:22:53.700 to live the life and that they choose.

00:22:55.560 So you're often walking a very thin line as a mental health professional under that code

00:23:00.560 of ethics, but we also have a duty to warn.

00:23:04.440 We have a duty to be up to date on the science, to inform parents about what is cultural or

00:23:11.280 influential and what is scientific.

00:23:13.840 And you try to give people the best information that they can to make their decisions for their

00:23:18.760 own health care.

00:23:30.560 What role, because you mentioned when you put some, like something, an idea, any idea

00:23:36.520 online, it can spread like wildfire.

00:23:38.560 In the 90s and early 2000s, we had TV, we had advertisements, but obviously ideas spread

00:23:44.220 even more quickly today when they can go viral on TikTok, et cetera.

00:23:48.180 What role do you think social media and just addiction to technology plays when it comes to

00:23:55.360 not just gender confusion, but when it comes to all of these mental health issues that we

00:24:00.740 are seeing rise so much among young people?

00:24:04.680 It's powerful.

00:24:05.920 Absolutely powerful.

00:24:07.520 We started to see a significant rise in self-injury and suicidal behavior around 2007.

00:24:17.500 And it's been on this really kind of continued incline.

00:24:21.500 And in 2007 is really when smartphones became part of the day-to-day for most young people.

00:24:30.660 When I look into the data around this, girls tend to be more vulnerable. 1.00

00:24:36.520 And I think that's the relational component of females. 1.00

00:24:40.660 And there are, obviously there are gender differences that exist between males and females when

00:24:45.500 we just look at biology.

00:24:48.340 Females are more relational. 1.00

00:24:49.700 And so when you are going to be going on social media and connecting with your friends and

00:24:56.640 you're going to be scrolling on Instagram, there's that social comparison component of

00:25:02.680 this that drives emptiness.

00:25:05.240 And you used to go to school and if you had a problem with one of your friends, you know,

00:25:09.320 it could stay there.

00:25:10.300 There's respite.

00:25:11.060 You could go home and not have to deal with it till the next day or the weekend.

00:25:14.820 And, you know, with kids, a lot of this stuff kind of blows over, you know, by the next

00:25:19.780 day, but not in the social media connected world of adolescence is that you're dealing

00:25:25.140 with it all the time.

00:25:26.260 And the more that your face is in that screen, the more disconnected you are from actual reality.

00:25:32.400 And so what we're seeing, I think, is just an entire generation who has created this alternative

00:25:38.660 world that only exists in social media.

00:25:42.380 And that's that brand, that brand development that maybe you were speaking to before is that

00:25:47.540 teens aren't really growing up or young people aren't really growing up knowing necessarily

00:25:52.840 what's normal.

00:25:53.720 They're actually being so influenced by those images and those messages that are being bombarded.

00:26:00.500 And so if you can go on YouTube and you can find someone identifying as autistic or that

00:26:04.960 they're a part of this marginalized group or they have this mental illness, you can say,

00:26:09.460 yeah, that's me.

00:26:10.500 We used to have this joke about the DSM when we were learning about it in graduate school

00:26:17.960 is that you can point out all the different disorders.

00:26:20.500 Yeah, I'm that, I'm this, I'm that.

00:26:22.640 Now imagine the untrained, the child who's like going on social media and then there's

00:26:28.640 actual like TikToks or other things that's saying my ADHD or my anxiety or my PTSD.

00:26:34.380 And now they're identifying with these labels and then they're communicating it to their

00:26:38.880 parents or they're communicating it to their doctors.

00:26:42.340 A story that I always tell is, I remember I had one precocious 14 year old that I was working

00:26:47.680 with who was just chuckling at me, how she went to her psychiatrist and said, 0.75

00:26:52.640 and played that she had OCD.

00:26:55.440 So she went to her psychiatrist and she just wanted to act out OCD.

00:27:00.280 And that psychiatrist took that seriously.

00:27:02.700 That psychiatrist prescribed a drug.

00:27:05.280 Wow.

00:27:06.160 A drug that wasn't approved for her age range based on the symptoms that this young girl told

00:27:14.700 this doctor.

00:27:15.260 And that is what our mental health system has become.

00:27:19.980 Yeah.

00:27:20.240 You know how you determine if someone's gender dysphoric?

00:27:23.440 They said so.

00:27:24.720 You know how you can determine if a teen is depressed in a primary care clinic?

00:27:29.340 Well, they told you they were.

00:27:30.900 Yeah.

00:27:31.240 And that's not, that's not science.

00:27:33.120 It's not science.

00:27:34.000 That's not how I was trained as a, as a psychologist.

00:27:36.620 Yeah.

00:27:36.960 I was trained to take time and understand all the factors that would lead somebody to experience

00:27:43.180 what they're experiencing.

00:27:44.100 even talk to family members or involve family and try to get a bigger picture, the culture,

00:27:51.300 the context of the individual, not in today's fast food world of healthcare.

00:27:56.540 Let me give you a diagnosis.

00:27:57.720 Let me recommend this drug.

00:27:59.600 Let me send you to this doctor. 0.90

00:28:02.940 Yeah.

00:28:03.480 I think we see the consequences of it.

00:28:05.540 Yeah.

00:28:05.780 One of those consequences, I'm sure you saw this too, of young people, like you said,

00:28:10.220 mostly young girls, like developing tics, like TikTok tics that they've picked up on,

00:28:16.300 whether it like kind of mimics Tourette's or OCD or something like that.

00:28:20.660 And they then do kind of develop some kind of mental illness.

00:28:25.560 That's not really Tourette's or really OCD, but they can't stop doing the behavior that

00:28:31.340 they've watched over and over again on TikTok.

00:28:33.900 Like we hear just like the destigmatization movement, I think is an overgeneralization and

00:28:39.620 swung too far in one direction has harm.

00:28:42.080 And so does the so-called representation matters movement.

00:28:45.200 Okay.

00:28:45.640 Yes.

00:28:46.040 In some ways that can be healthy.

00:28:47.480 It swings too far and you're not really representing things anymore.

00:28:51.000 You're actually teaching people to behave a certain way or whatever it is.

00:28:55.240 I think young people are especially vulnerable to that.

00:28:58.680 So suggestible.

00:28:59.940 Yes.

00:29:00.540 So malleable.

00:29:01.360 And they're just open to that suggestion.

00:29:03.880 And that's why it's so important that we vet the adults that are in our kids' lives.

00:29:08.580 Yeah.

00:29:08.840 You were talking about your concerns with school.

00:29:11.620 I mean, I have a fairly consistent problem with the way public schools are now communicating

00:29:16.960 to our kids about a number of different subjects.

00:29:21.420 And when it comes to like mental health, I had a teenager who went and spoke to a school

00:29:27.300 psychologist and that school psychologist said, maybe you should go talk to a doctor about

00:29:31.180 a mood stabilizer.

00:29:32.040 You know, it's almost like ingrained right away that they overstep.

00:29:37.460 They overstep their training.

00:29:39.880 They overstep their influence into our kids' lives.

00:29:44.600 There's not enough respect for the family.

00:29:48.160 And that's so critically important that we maintain parental authority in our homes and in our

00:29:54.900 school systems that these teachers and these school counselors and psychologists understand

00:30:01.460 there needs to be boundaries between what you're sharing and what you're communicating with

00:30:05.420 my child, that we in our home, our values, what we want to teach our kids is of the utmost importance.

00:30:14.400 And you don't violate that.

00:30:16.140 I want you to teach them math.

00:30:17.300 I want you to teach them science.

00:30:18.640 These things are important.

00:30:19.480 But once you start getting into the emotional health of my own, my own family and my own

00:30:23.980 children, then we should have, I believe we should have issues with that as parents.

00:30:40.900 I'm just so very, I'm thankful for people like you who are willing to stand up and talk

00:30:45.800 about these things and to be different because as reasoned and as balanced and as scientific

00:30:53.180 as you are, the irony is that someone who goes outside the bounds of what the pharmaceutical

00:30:57.860 companies say is typically called like a kook.

00:31:01.760 Or if you question any of the establishment narrative, you're anti-science.

00:31:07.160 And there is some risk that comes with that, which is I'm sure why more people don't speak

00:31:11.860 up.

00:31:12.260 But where can people find you?

00:31:13.380 They can find you on Twitter, your Radically Genuine podcast, right?

00:31:16.480 Yeah, at Dr. McFillin on Twitter.

00:31:19.020 And I also am going to be starting over the next couple of months.

00:31:23.300 Our entire website at drmcfillin.com is going to be revamped.

00:31:27.740 I'm going to have to do a lot of writing because I think we need resources for parents to be able

00:31:33.380 to use in medical settings.

00:31:35.860 And when they're going to see a mental health professional or bring into school where there's

00:31:39.280 actual science and then there's questions that they should ask because informed consent

00:31:43.640 is absolutely important.

00:31:45.780 There's a lot of stuff in this field that are going to be said as if it's some scientific

00:31:51.360 legitimacy and it's not.

00:31:53.660 And you're right.

00:31:54.520 It's funny that I've put so much work into the science.

00:31:58.180 And then when I actually draw conclusions from what the science is, I'm on the extreme.

00:32:02.480 But the person who never did that work and just is kind of absorbing the messaging, then

00:32:09.700 they somehow have the moral high ground here.

00:32:12.460 But parents need, families need, and individuals, they do require resources.

00:32:17.160 And I think that's my calling now is to start writing.

00:32:19.980 I've done so much work on the research end, and I've done so much work consulting with

00:32:23.900 professionals globally.

00:32:25.000 I want to put this down in an organized fashion.

00:32:27.200 So watch out for drmcfillin.com over the next, we're about a month or two away from launching

00:32:32.920 this Radically Genuine Podcast.

00:32:34.660 Please check us out because I do think that is the opportunity to have these nuanced discussions

00:32:39.920 with professionals.

00:32:41.800 professionals, and hopefully we can speak in a way that is balanced and fair and respects

00:32:48.460 your individual rights to make the choices for your health and to be able to challenge

00:32:53.660 the medical authority.

00:32:54.680 We've been blind trust has been given to the medical authority.

00:32:57.620 We've seen this throughout COVID and the recommendations that have been made, and I think it's awakening.

00:33:02.040 So I do believe this has to be a movement.

00:33:04.500 Also check out Center for Integrated Behavioral Health.

00:33:07.220 I am interested in creating a center that focuses on all the integrated aspects of health.

00:33:15.000 So there are therapies that are active and goal-focused and skill-based and respectful,

00:33:21.560 and they're culturally competent and so forth, where they need to trust, parents need to trust,

00:33:26.900 and individuals need to trust that they're going to go in to speak to somebody who is not going

00:33:31.520 to be pushing an agenda on them, but only cares about them creating a life of purpose and value

00:33:37.720 as they define it.

00:33:39.260 And we have to change our relationship to food.

00:33:44.080 We have to develop emotional literacy.

00:33:46.840 We're going to have to have protocols to help people get off a lot of these psychiatric drugs,

00:33:52.840 because it's really important that once you're on one, that you understand that that's very

00:33:58.360 dangerous to abruptly stop a psychiatric drug.

00:34:00.740 And so there needs to be research around tapering these drugs.

00:34:04.040 I'm trying to find professionals who are willing to collaborate in that so people can safely

00:34:09.280 get off the drugs.

00:34:11.040 And there's other things that are important around meditation and yoga and other things

00:34:15.420 to focus the mind and a lot of things that are important for our overall health and well-being.

00:34:20.200 And so I think centers should be more focused on that than the drug and therapy model.

00:34:27.480 Yeah.

00:34:27.600 Well, thank you so much, Dr. McVill.

00:34:29.320 And I really appreciate you taking the time to come on.

00:34:31.400 Thanks for having me.

00:34:32.060 Thank you.

00:34:35.360 Thank you.

00:34:40.960 Thank you.

00:34:41.600 Thank you.

00:34:41.940 I'll see you there.

00:34:46.480 Thank you.

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - June 14, 2023

Ep 822 ｜ The Big Money Behind Big Medicine ｜ Guest： Dr. Roger McFillin

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