Radical Truths in Mental Health: Exploring Conscious Clinician Collective

welcome fearfully and wonderfully made human to another episode of the holistic counselor podcast I'm your host Diana s rice from through the valley therapy and blogger behind Liberation Lunas recently I was browsing through YouTube when one of those shorts caught my eye it featured Ali St interviewing Dr Roger mcfillin his boldness in speaking out against the pharmaceutical industry immediately intrigued me especially since he's in the mental health field I decided to dig deeper and checked out

his website where I discovered the conscious clinician Collective they stand for empowering clinicians to make informed independent decisions that prioritize patient well-being over profit and policy this Mission resonated with me deeply as many of my listeners know I began my journey in grad school back in 2001 and entered the alternative public school system in BR County in 2004 even then I questioned the diagnostic and statist statistical Manual of mental disorders particularly how it overlooks cultural nuances

I also found myself asking why are so many young people whose brains and bodies aren't fully developed being put on all these medications working with I was often frustrated that the adults in charge seemed more focused on diagnosis and medic medication management than on the souls we were trying to help now as of this year I did transition to working exclusively online um and with 18 and over anyway when I read more about what the conscious

clinician Collective was about I signed up right away feeling like I had finally found my tribe for those of you who are new to my podcast I go into detail more about this on episodes one and two so I reached out to Dr mcfillin and boom here he is Roger K mcfillin side D AB PP is a board certified clinical psychologist and founder of the conscious clinician Collective he also hosts the radically genuine podcast which has

propelled itself into the top 1% of global downloads and the top of the Apple podcast charts he is one of the leading critics of the psychiatric diagnostic system psychiatric drugs and standard Mental Health Care Dr mcfillin thank you so much for coming on thank you Dian it's an honor to be here and it's great to hear that you're one of the initial members of the conscious clinician Collective as we're in this uh initial fundraising phase of

the nonprofit so uh really are you know really really feel gratitude and feel blessed for your your willingness to uh to join because we need as many people to join as possible to to build this platform because I think it's just so critically important oh I'm in full agreement and that's the thing it's like I've been feeling like this for how many years decades and it's hard though um to talk to others when they don't see

it in that light or you know when you have insurance companies or you're working because now I'm in private practice a little more flexible in what I do but it's also having to keep that license yeah I mean there are systemic problems and and nothing's really going to change as long as there's a market for it and people just continue to work in the same manner that they always taught to work or whether rules restrict them

to work for transformative change to occur it requires people to choose ethics um as the highest standard right and and it is we do all uh we all we all do really adhere to uh to an oath an ethical oath and that supersedes law even and so that's the important thing that I must share with you know clinicians is that yes we do work in a system as it exists now but if that system creates harm

we have an ethical imperative to be able to speak out against that harm and try to take the necessary steps to prevent further harm yeah um so okay sorry um I want to know what in initially inspired you to pursue a career in mental health and how has your vision evolved in the years yeah it's a good question I mean people ask that quite frequently especially when you meet with a client sometimes you know they have

that opening you know what questions do you have for me and anything you want to know about who I am they often say well why' you become a psychologist and I don't think I ever chose to be a psychologist I think it um you know I think I was put on this Earth for for a specific calling and uh I knew I wanted to help people I think I started off in undergrad thinking I was going

to be a teacher and a football coach and it just transformed from experiences I've had uh in my life both personally and within career my first job out of undergrad was in a children's psychiatric hospital wow which was ages 5 to 10 and so that was my first experience to the harms of Western Psychiatric care and just the the experience of being uh you know 21 22 years old being really naive but really having a a

conscience and and just asking a lot of questions about the mass drugging and sedating of children as healthc care many of them who were coming from uh violent communities who were EXA who were victims to abuse and neglect and for us to to label them as if it's a medical condition for their uh behavioral uh problems that usually manifested into uh hospitalizations and behavioral problems in school to me it was clearly obvious that uh you know

that's and that does harm I mean that's an ethical violation it doesn't make sense uh this was during the really the biomedical revolution of Psychiatry so there were all these new drugs coming to Market so there's this Mass experimentation on the brain as if the brain was really complicit in why someone might have emotional and behavioral problems and the more I ask questions the less I got you know you you realized it was just a systemic

issue the psychiatrist who was the head of the unit was kind of revered by everyone underneath them and they just kind of followed along there was this deference to Authority that was never really my personality so you know I asked you know tons of questions and I had further experiences prior to ever choosing to become a psychologist I worked in in Juvenile Justice I was a juvenal pro ation officer I worked in public schools uh in

home family therapy after I got a master's program and what I saw was the same proliferation of the of the same ideas you know like what you stated on this opening is that it's just turned into a fast food Care Medical system is you slap a diagnosis on like the same as if you would be diagnosing strep throat and it was a a way of just kind of pushing Pharmaceuticals to try to control behavior and I

did you know eventually go uh into a doctoral program and research and uh clinical work and it just took me down the road of investigating the history of of Psychiatry and and psychology psychiatric diagnosis the the relationship between the pharmaceutical industry and the Western allopathic medical establishment and right you know I I've been in clinical practice for you know 20 some years in various capacities but as a psychologist close to 15 years and the same things

are clear I mean the the more diagnoses the more drugs the worse we get and uh you know I think 2020 was a certainly a Awakening for many you know the veils kind of been lifted you know I think a lot of us accepted what was pushed to us in education or on the media as if it was kind of the beacon of scientific Supremacy and the United States was kind of certainly uh you know the

advancement of all science and and you realize it's it's it's really a lot of pharmaceutical fraud you realize the fraud of the trials and how these drugs were brought to Market um you know many of us believe the FDA keeps us safe and so forth so it was really just having to speak out and I did that through social media developing the radically genuine podcast and um you know to where I am now just recently starting

the the nonprofit but my full-time work is um I I run a large group practice here in betham oh Pennsylvania and I'm a I'm a clinician so um you know most of my work is directly with with patients and I'm also writing on substack and so it's really each day I wake up and what's my purpose uh you know I I know a lot from uh doing so much of the background work into the research having

so many critical conversations with academics and clinicians and medical professionals from around the globe and so I just feel like I have a a calling to have to communicate that to the general public um because really if you're not consent if if you're not informed how can you consent and that's kind of my purpose right now well this is what I saw too because I come from the urban inner city background like I'm I'm a a

product of a single mother immigrant single mother in South Florida so I saw I mean I'm in the middle of a lot of different cultures okay and and that's what I think was the most frustrating for me was to see that um people being diagnosed quickly you know it was never like hey this person has a ace score of of a nine I mean I know that now as a therapist had no idea about that back

in the day right no one talked about the adverse childhood experiences ever especially when I was in grad school I didn't so to me you know you're fighting against it's like you're a salmon swimming upstream and very brave brave you know because when I heard you speak and then I'm listening I'm starting on episode one by the way just yeah because I really wanted to know like oh my gosh somebody that's brave enough to talk about

it because I know during Co when that was happening and I was at the alternative school and I'm the only therapist at this school and there was a couple hundred students there and then we shut down and every you know and people were and I'm here asking questions like wait what's going on and I know about double blind studies and how long it takes I'm probably am not as um versed as you are because I'm not

you know into that that much but I'm not dumb either and I had to take statistics and and I'm like wait something's up here and these kids were like you know it it got bad I'm sure you saw it it got really really bad and then you're forced online and then the school I hate to put him under the bus but um you know they were forcing mandate it was an alternative school so it was Charter

so they had different rules to go by and I was the last person standing I did not get you know I'm not going to even say the word because it could I have no idea like but anyway for you to understand that um and just how things are pushed so quickly and it's about money or profit right because I know that's part of like what I read on the conscious clinician Collective I want to know more

about that can you explain to the audience in Lay in terms too like maybe for us clinicians but I have like clients that listen to this and just regular people that have no idea and they're wanting to learn what would you say to them about this uh Collective so the conscious clinician Collective is a my response to what has been daily emails hundreds if not thousands you know over the past three or four years when I've

been more outspoken what I generally get from people is where can I find someone like you you know my my kid or my family member or I myself are are struggling and we're concerned about multiple things like what happens is they're just pushing drugs or we're concerned about you know how therapists are trained you know they're we're afraid of this kind of ideological induction and and maybe losing our kid you know like really feeling like we

are isolated from what happens in that therapy room we're just looking for someone who's who's honest and uh you know does the work and will protect myself or my family from do intervention and I didn't really have an answer to this I didn't know who to refer to I don't have a strong trust in in my field in the tribe that I'm a part of I mean generally what I I see is that there's this mass

production of therapists thrown out into the assembly line who were all trained under the same model and uh we work in a greater medical system where we've medicalize the emotional states and it's automatic and normal to just throw mood and mind altering drugs at at people despite the pretty significant and dramatic negative adverse health effects and the lack of any efficacy it's just accepted you know you label drugs like anti-depressant then the language is powerful people

believe we have an anti-depressant drug you know they believe we have repackaged sedatives or mood stabilizers they believe that DSM uh is scientific and that these these condition are discreet medical illnesses that require medical intervention I mean there's just a lack of basic knowledge about the limitations of all of this and so there's so many people out there who believe what I believe but I think they have a hard time maybe articulating it or understanding it

um you know there's fear of stepping outside your license the boundaries of that because let's face it everyone has to put food on the table for their families and for them M themselves and they've invested into their education and so I think we're at a unique time in history and we're going to require people to kind of step outside what they've been told or what they've been taught and so the conscious clinician Collective is kind of

really two steps I mean the first part is trying to create a large platform where people can go on to the website okay put in information around their locality and find somebody body who attested to the conscious clinician compact it's a declaration you know if anyone goes to the CC collective.org you can read that declaration really I think it's quite reasonable yes um it's quite scientific based and it's of a high ethical standard and informed consent

and medical Freedom are uh legal and ethical imperatives that we have to demand because if we don't demand them we don't receive them and that's kind of what's going on most therapists don't have enough information to provide informed consent Psychiatry and uh Primary Care certainly do not have enough information to provide informed consent they're uh really exaggerating any benefits to these drugs and they're misrepresenting and minimizing the suff the severe harms and in fact the iatrogenic

harms of drugs are often misrepresented as worsening mental illness and so people get stuck in the system you get on the drugs you take what is often an episodic condition and response to stressful events normal and expected and it becomes a chronic illness and now you even self-identify with these diagnoses uh you become a patient for life because there's really no escape from it you don't go into the mental health system and really improve you actually

manage your condition and that's kind of what's communicated uh by the medical establishment and the pharmaceutical companies are beholding to their shareholders I mean they're not beholding to your Health they do better the sicker you are the sicker we are and so it's about creating customers for life and so I'm looking for people to join this movement so the first part is you know you join and uh you know we'll get you up on our website

when we have enough money to create it yeah and uh you know people can search uh they can trust that you're going to reach a high ethical standard this isn't just mental health clinicians this is all healthc care clinicians and a lot of them a lot of them are leaving in Mass droves right you go into the allopathic Med medical environment they're just drugging symptoms a lot of people have legitimate Health Care conditions that you know

manifest themselves as psychiatric conditions whether it's hormonal conditions um or other medical conditions that are you know just then because they have mood or anxiety related uh symptoms associated with those medical conditions they're also mislabeled and misrepresented and then the second part of it was just to to build that platform where people can access information right so you can understand what are the Alternatives if informed consent is you are provided the risks the benefits of any

medical intervention as well as Alternatives well we know no one's getting that so where can people get accurate information and we need platforms where people can easily access it then so that's kind of ultimately the vision okay so the goal would be like a directory per se like in okay yeah the first part so all right so that's okay that's wonder and it's for all medical and anybody licensed I mean can you explain it a little

more what would it be like for health coaches too or you know what I or chiropractors or can you just explain it a little more or is it someone that has to have that license like in Western medicine I don't know how else to put it no I mean in fact I want to engage those who are more Alternative Healthcare practitioners right I mean because when you talk about informed consent what are the Alternatives I mean

there's just all this supportive research that um is kind of left out of the mainstream you know whether it naturopaths or um you know other approaches to medicine that are outside of Western allopathic medicine and chiropractor is another good example of that but so are you know more Eastern philosophies and so forth that you know acupuncture like acupuncture I mean they have centuries of uh of uh and I don't know if people truly realize how um

I mean our our scientific the the the scientific knowledge of most people is low right we we we require trust into a a medical Authority and right now in mental health 85% of drugs are prescribed in Primary Care by by doctors who have no Specialties in in this area so um yeah we we need to have uh the medical professionals who are questioning things in the same way that uh many of us are questioning to be

part of this Collective um and you know medical professionals are critically important in our culture and Society so yeah we're trying to engage all those people oh wonderful good to know I am part of a holistic business Network and I think they're becoming National we just had a meeting yesterday and that would I would I'm going to pass this on definitely because I did not know I at first I thought it would might have been just

for in the mental health field but now I'm seeing this is a bro you started something really big man that calling you have on your on your life like wow well it yeah requires all of us to be able to take that step out right like it's only kind of a western idea that mental health and physical health are separated from each other you know so like um you know ultimately our our spiritual health our Medical

Health our physical health our mental health they're all one but but we're in this uh we're in this age where you know there's all these Specialties as if the body and the mind work separate from each other you know like parts of a car it's kind of odd when you think about it yeah for sure that's one thing I say to my client or my new clients like I want to understand your biology your psychology and

your theology yeah and how to help you in all those ways so you balance okay so can we talk a little bit about the science because that's one thing when I heard that trust to science and then I'm like I I'm trying to look into the science but I'm you know it's not clear and all you so I know you've done some a lot of research and I would love the audience to hear about like the

DS your you know the DSM and just what you know about you know the pharmaceutical and everything it's just you know it's so weird I'm already at that nervous place because I'm speaking out with you and it's go it's like oh but medicine has its place like we we always have to say that medicine has it but because truly I believe it does but then there's a placebo effect and then no sibo effect and there's so

much out there so whatever you want to share with the audience please do yeah I mean what's what's challenging for most people who want to do research what that means is Google search and uh a Google search is that you are kind of just entering into the The Matrix or the Paradigm of of uh misinformation the how something becomes visible on a you know the first one or two pages of a of of a Google search

is really based on on money and website optimization so people think they're doing research when they're really just being exposed to the propaganda about what is health uh let's see I mean I don't that's a it's a very broad question that you asked so like systemically I call it the the sick care system not the Health Care system and I'm very careful of of using the word medicine when medicine isn't present so medicine is a is

really it refers to something that is medicinal and so what is medicinal I mean Med medicinal is a lot of the things we do that keep us out of the doctor's office right doctors in the in Western culture are treating symptoms but health is something different I mean that health is like is plants and food and what you put into your body and your nutrients and your sun exposure and your sleep and your exercise and your

spiritual health and your engagement and purpose in the community and so forth of course there's a place for medical interven itions but um you know what we're really good at in Western culture is is fixing things that are broke right so maybe we're good at emergency medicine or fixing broken bones orthopedic and so forth but that doesn't really help people live well and um um I think all available evidence that say the more time you spend

in the doctor's office you know the worse you're going to be it's not even it's not just the drugs they're providing it's also the ideas of sickness right and there's so much misrepresented science that exist out there that are industry funded and so that's from big food that's from Big Pharma and so it is a sick care system and it's going to feed off it itself and you go into the sickcare system you're going to get

sick ideas you're going to get wrong ideas right I think the greatest example of that is around cholesterol and trying to associate that with heart disease or how there was a war on saturated fat which was pushed by the sugar industry which has created widespread sickness and disease and obesity and now we sell obesity drugs I mean it's just if if you're not awake to that now I don't know if I'm going to ever awaken you

to that because it's so clear we're sicker and we're sicker and that's just not what health is you know health is restoring a a balance in in the body of of Mind Body Spirit purpose activity um when it comes to psychiatric care I mean that's probably the worst of it uh you know trying to see an emotion as a a symptom instead of understanding it it's a extremely valuable trans formative message that we need to learn

to pay attention to to help Foster change that doesn't deny the biology of this it's just not the biology in which it's pushed from our medical system so like people say well isn't our physical health and our biology instrumental in how we feel emotional well yeah of course I mean from the food we put into our body there's common nutrient deficiencies that manifest themselves as as anxiety and mood but that's again another transformative indication that you

need to do something different with your health right lack of sun exposure and lack of vitamin D has a number of widespread effects on our emotional and and Behavioral Health right in American population for example it's about 50% of people are magnesium deficient and when you're magnesium deficient that's going to manifest itself in anxiety gut health is so critically important you know in no way should we be talking about uh mental health is related to brain

conditions I mean that's such an an abandoned area of science uh genetics people probably don't even understand this but like there's no money in it anymore like they don't even fund it because there was never been able to identify any correlation with brain neurochemicals and uh behavioral disorders and what the DSM has has done is it's uh it it's really become a money maker for the APA which is the American Psychiatric association and a way to

keep people in the sickcare system by using categorical diagnosis to try to label every aspect of the human experience and to medicalize it you can't sell drugs for setbacks in life you can't sell drugs for uh grief or loss or anything that you can only do it for medical conditions so uh depression and the way that it's communicated in Western societies is a constructed version of it to sell drugs and so the DSM has no scientific

validity it's you know it really kind of has developed uh from you know key academics who sat around a table to try to categorize it maybe the intentions initially were to be part of a greater medical system uh for insurance to be used but the truth of the matter is it's got misrepresented since then and it's communicated that it these are medical conditions you know and of course you have indoctrinated medical professionals who've been uh exposed

to that medical education that's that's funded by the pharmaceutical industry to kind of just continue with these with these messages I mean you and I could talk for six hours on what the what the sick care system is yes but I think um I I don't think I can awaken anyone else to the obvious I mean if if you don't see the obvious as it exists right now I'm probably not going to make much of a

a difference in trying to communicate to you um why we're all sick and why we're a sick culture physically mentally and emotionally we have over 20% of our population on psychiatric drugs we have 60% our population's obese over 60% of the people are popping some pharmaceutical and these aren't medicines these are these are chemical compounds that are created in a factory uh you know medicines we have to reserve the right for for medicines when we're actually

correcting something or healing something and so language is powerful we've lost that in our culture yeah so what would you do with a patient or client I don't like calling them patients but clients that would come in with and they hear you right and they're like needing change and what would be practical steps for them to be able to start the change because that's a you're right this is a construct that we all believe I believed

it back in the day until I realized what was happening with my own health my own physical mental health and then I started questioning and questioning and questioning and you know I mean I have a functional integrative doctor now who understands east and west and brings it together and does a lot of of um testing and all that but I'm also talking about mental health because here's an example a a teenager came in and he was

I realized after listening to him he was up all night and he was smoking pot right teenage stuff and the marijuana nowadays is not the marijuana we grew up with in the 80s okay so you're up all night and so he started going into psychosis ends up in the psych ward for two weeks mom has no idea what to do and he's now on like four different medications yeah well that's just Bad Medicine um listen that's

a drug induced psychosis which a lot you there's a high percentage of uh the psychotic episodes are are drug induced and so that's just a bad I mean that's bad medical care I mean that's clearly identifiable that uh uh that cannabis creates psychosis uh for a percentage of people much higher rates for teenagers the the the association is really really clear and then you again you made the point he does that client doesn't really know what

they're ingesting right so we don't know what that that kid ingested because of the the quality of the the Cannabis and or what else is mixed in that and so that needed to be viewed as a medical condition that was that was drug induced and there there needed to be uh not added more drugs that actually increased the likelihood that that he'll experience psychosis I mean that's just the insanity of this and so when we have

bad care right like and all that is is bad care you're going to have bad results yeah well he ended up like coming to me and then we found a functional psychiatrist you know and then by Little no there isn't but I am finding my own little tribe down here that are psychiatric nurses that are I mean I have like two or three I could count on and they go in oh and the aiman clinic they

opened one here in Hollywood Dr Daniel aan and so you know he he's into the integrative stuff more than anyone else I've known and that's helped a lot as well um so to me like like someone's listening and they are on a bunch of different they have anxiety and depression because that's what I say they're symptoms right they're not we have to get to the root cause of it what would you do like what what what

can where can someone start what what you know I know they have to become their own Advocate but when you're highly depressed or highly anxious you feel stuck you know fight flight fear or I mean or freeze or Fawn so what would you say to someone well this is why informed consent is so important I never start working with somebody until they're provided informed consent and the best kind of Medical Care the best kind of therapy

psychological care is you have to remove the poisons first um most of my a lot of the people that are coming into our into my Center here and we have a staff that's highly educated on this a thorough history and evaluation of how the treatment that has been provided has worsened their condition and then thorough education on what are the common adverse effects of these drugs and I rarely even see someone on one drug anymore most

people are on minimum of three and so we're working with slowly and safely tapering them off their drugs which creates dramatic Improvement we move away from the label I'm depressed or anxious and instead we learn I feel this when this has happened and I responded to this in this way and so just like a like in a a functional medicine practitioner would try to understand the origins and Roots then the functions of their's body's response I

mean really effective Mental Health Care is doing the same thing uh to live means to experience uh suffering and pain right like so every sing you it's it's it's a strange time that we're living in where people say I have anxiety like uh you know like they have bronchitis or something like well anxiety is a natural Human Experience right everyone has anxiety yes how you respond to the anxiety can certainly exacerbate it intensify it and create

an inner world where everything is so scary and and overwhelming and you don't trust your ability to cope with it but that gives us you know an Avenue for Effective help and facing your fears it's part of this life we have to face our fears and overcome them uh we throw a label depression has lost its value it's now it's just an umbrella term for sadness and anxiety and struggle and loneliness and boredom you know I

as a clinical psychologist and severe depression exists and I've certainly been exposed to that and treated and worked with it throughout my career but what we're seeing now is I you know I'll work with a 18 or 19y old or 20-year-old and you know let's sit down and say my depression came back this weekend when really they've lacked they've lost the language of suffering like they can't say that I was sad and lonely this weekend right

as if that's depression right and it's comes outside of them and they're inflicted by it like they've caught a disease right and that is the consequences of like how we've articulated this and how we've trained mental health professionals and what we've done with our popular culture I mean we're pushed these ideas through media we've been we're exposed to direct Pharma marketing and so we have a brainwashed generation multiple Generations at this point so yes education it

starts with education mhm and a lot of people just get better when they're educated and you remove the poisons and you help them cope with the original problems that brought them in to see the doctor in the first place and I think uh most people get better in in that regard okay so what about the you know in the DSM you have did dissociative identity disorder you have schizophrenia you have um things like d nois like

that where somebody comes in with multiple personalities or schizophrenia how would you treat a client like that well first of all I I don't believe there's a scientifically sound identification of did okay I think um that's more cultural myth than anything and I've never met uh any practitioner who's really faced that in in in clinical practice disassociation exists for various functions let's put that to the side I don't treat schizophrenia um schizophrenia in its truest form

is a a rare condition which I think the way in which we treat it probably makes it worse um and so there's there's evidence of psychosis in its in its form that exists globally right and cultures respond to psychosis in different ways um so never going to treat schizophrenia as a condition it's not my areas of expertise as a clinical psychologist there's no therapy necessarily for schizophrenia um and what happens is people who work with someone

who is schizophrenic just works with it in in the western model it's just some supportive therapy and you know take your drugs but we know the drugs worsen the condition in the long run they're probably part of the condition um we know the best outcomes tend to be people who've had had first Psy psychotic episodes and then there are placed in environments that are connected to Nature that are supportive that there's a focus on rest restoration

and good food and these type of interventions that exist not much so in the United States but in other countries have yielded much better long-term outcomes and you know we see it as a chronic illness in the United States because that's how we treat it it becomes chronic when we think about it we tend to think about the homeless person on the street who's talking to themselves and we label it schizophrenia but again we really don't

know the origins of that is that drug is that drug abuse is that a history of real severe trauma yeah how has that affected the brain what is the brain and it exposure to toxins and nutrient deficiencies and starvation and and drugs and how does that present itself we label it schizophrenia we we label it as a Med medical condition but we literally know nothing about it and uh so it it's not like we have this

uh this strong Medical Response that supports people with schizophrenia and as long if you as long as you take your antipsychotic drugs well then you're stable and you're fine no they those those drugs create metabolic illness um you're you're B if you've ever seen what the care looks like for people who are housed with schizophrenia you know they're obese they're overweight they Shuffle around they're sedated it's not care that's not medical care that's not treatment but

again I mean that's not most of the problems that we're facing here in the United States when we call mental health problems it's not like we have this widespread EP epidemic of schizophrenia we have this widespread EP epidemic of uh just mood and anxiety conditions that have affected the general population of this country in ways that we've never seen before we have these epidemics of Eating Disorders we have this epidemic of self-injury we have increased suicidality

we have people labeling themselves as ADHD we have we have metabolic illness and sickness it's just a general large scale sick culture and we've separated it in terms of mental health but I mean we're physically uh not doing well and of course look where we are in uh in just world history I mean our exposure to news our exposure to social media I mean we live in a toxic culture and so we should not be shocked

when we we feel sick yeah no it's true and so how do we not feel sick is the question how do we I mean I I know because this is what I teach it's psychoeducational really you know I have clients that come in and they really are into their label and it is it's like slowly and surely giving them a safe space to to be themselves and really go into what is hurting them right it's and

then working a plan with them to holistically you know know but there's so many people though especially in my um culture around me and they can't afford good quality therapy they just can't like you know they're on and that's what I think breaks my heart with that and I'm like trying to figure out because a lot of them will listen to my program because I am a bipac therapist and I want to help my people I

want to help all people not just my people but you see what I mean like they don't have that education and you know you hit it it's like starts with the food well I can't afford the food well you can't afford not to eat healthy or figure that out like I I tried to teach and teach those things so what is the approach in your Center about that like how do you do it holistically you said

you probably have a full assessment right do you ask about nutrition do you ask about sleep do you ask I mean I even know it sounds weird but I even ask like how are you going to the bathroom like how's your poop and they're like what no one in the mental health field has ever asked me that I'm like because your whole entire system is all related together mind body and soul so what do you do

or suggest to you know help those that think that they can't afford or like where to go where to start yeah I think first thing is that um of course you're you're referring to all the things that impact how we live so you know how does someone sleep you're talking about their gut health when you're talking about bow movements and all those things you're talking about their quality of their gut health uh you're you're taking a

look at what goes into their bodies I think it's a misnomer that um you know you can't afford good food there's been research studies on this uh yes the the packaged processed foods are cheaper but you tend to eat a lot more of them and then you're exposed to a lot more Health consequences of it so I've had Dr Christopher Palmer who's from Harvard Medical School uh Georgia Ed who uh you know who've done the research

on the ketogenic diet um and so if metabolic illness is is a a factor in in uh schizophrenia because some of the work that they're doing is they're getting their schizophrenic and chronic bipolar clients off all the drugs and they're implementing the keto diet which is high fat uh and high protein and they're restoring health and those symptoms are decreasing you know having ground beef and uh and just some chicken could C is is is more

cost effective than eating breakfast lunch dinner two snacks from boxes or fast food that are Laden with seed oils industrial based seed oils which create inflammation um not to mention all the sugars and the the cost in that manner I mean it's cheaper to eat that way you it's cheaper for medical bills it's a it's a higher cost of living uh or I mean it's a um it's a lower cost of living you know taking out

the sugary drinks uh you know just water and salt you know so there this goes back to education right those things are really really important um when we talk about quality of sleep you know that's exposure to light even even in uh even those who are impoverished have cell phones and are you know we're I'm looking at the amount of time screen time that people have I mean when you're have 8 to 12 hours staring in

this phone you know how is that going to impact your health how is it going to impact your sleep how's it going to impact your attention so there's all these things that are critically important are you up all night sleeping all day what's your activity level uh I mean these are the things that are much more important than any talk therapy to be honest with you making changes in in in those aspects will have much more

robust uh positive Health outcomes now if there's a a therapy that uh can facilitate that you know you're part of the Health Care System then that's great but most therapies aren't that um so my idea of good therapy is a little bit different it's shortterm generally speaking it's removing the poisons it's changing life it's changing Behavior it's it's education and it's getting them to face and solve problems and to get out of the brainwashing that exists

in our culture and I think that's what good therapy is yeah I agree I mean when they come in I'm like What's the narrative that you're believing right now and how are we going to change it yeah and and to try to get them to understand to empower them because they've Lo they felt they have felt they've lost their power I mean I've had clients that 30 years old come in and they were Baker act at

a teenager and then they come from very abusive households but they know that they didn't know that that's not normal and so they're oh my life is fine I'm like okay why are you in my office then and then we go slowly and surely and try to figure out to empower them to a point of no I have advocacy I'm able to have my own critical thinking skills I'm not going to let that go anymore to

everybody else and honestly because I am a faith-based therapist purpose I try to start where like who do you think God says you are and they're just like what cuz sometimes you know back now I'm in private practice I'm allowed to do those things but in the schools I would just ask them question over question over question it was and then listen and they would get better because they were like I'm I can't I have a

brain I'm you know and deal with the anger and stuff what do you think of somatic therapy you know you know like the movement of that energy coming out when you have everything bottled up or built in like that yeah I mean you'd have to you'd have to describe to me exactly what sematic therapy means to you and but if you're if you're saying about like the movement of of the body and seeing us as energetic

beings and uh you know energy in itself needs to flow and emotions themselves to are are energy and motion and thoughts are are energy and then I'm right there with you critical important uses of um Sound Health right not just mental health physical health right right okay so um with the collective focusing on empowering individuals with science based information how do you balance the scientific rigor with respect for personal aut autonomy especially in an era where

trust in science can be polarized because honestly like I realize I'm not a very political person I'm not I don't I like to just focus on Jesus Christ honestly and you have PE I have people from all walks of life I'm telling you right now like from different countries from different left to right I mean I and it's I'm like all right lord they're coming in let me help them um but that that whole follow the

science thing it be everything has become so political and we are now in a political season right coming in once again and so with the collective how do you you know balance that the scientific rigor and the respect for personal autonomy science is a is a process it's not something we trust so that's just a that's just a line that was uh thrown at all of us right where Public Health authorities could say I am the

god I am the authority trust what I say that's not what science is science is a a process that is empirical and everyone is an N of one right so there's a a global or or general sense of emerging scientific evidence across fields and then there's what's provided to us in Media or on a Google search um so to me we need to embrace science as an empirical process and so that means that if we're not

going to be empirically evaluating whether something is effective or works or not then what are we going to be doing we're we're only going to be blindly following an authority science is there to protect us right so if you go on an anti-depressant quote unquote marketing term and you're severely depressed that is a scientific empirical process I started this I still feel and experience this right so um that drug has not led to any positive changes

but yet if you don't trust an empirical process what people do is they come to brainwashing my doctor told me I'd be worse with without it right so it is ultimately a respect for uh people's bodily autonomy their medical Freedom by being able to have a process to assess analyze and measure any improvements so you can try a ketogenic diet for severe depression and metabolic illness um but you'd have to measure your outcomes is there a

loss of of weight is there improve m in blood pressure uh is there are they no longer pre-diabetic right so that's what that's what science is and there's a science base for lots of things right there's a science base in alternative medicines there's a a science base in Psychotherapy there's a science Bas in Clinical Psychology there's a science spas that they push out for you in Psychiatry right but if we're scientifically illiterate we won't necessarily know

what that means so uh for example ssris which are anti-depressants were brought to Market you only need two uh positive clinical trials to bring something to Market that means you can you know go through 15 clinical trials and find two that had only a statistically diff a statistical difference between that and the placebo effect and you can publish it you can push it onto market and you can sell it to your your medical professionals and medical

professionals can believe that that's a evidence-based treatment but if you're scientifically illiterate you don't really know what that means you don't understand that the totality of the evidence doesn't demonstrate that an SSRI is effective you don't understand that just something is statistically significant over a placebo doesn't mean it's clinically relevant so if we remain scientifically illiterate how do people consent so that's why I think it's an important piece to have on the on the conscious clinician

Collective because people have to be taught on what this what a drug is and what it isn't what a what Psychotherapy is and what it isn't what Healthcare interventions are and what they are not and trust people to make the best decisions for themselves in their life Journey it is their lives we give them information we give them options and they choose their course here's what I can provide here's what I can't provide here's what I

can promise here's what I can't promise right and then you agree together to do it scientifically so um you know yeah if you just if you just accept the mediad driven narrative about what science is and then you enter into you know exactly where we are right now it just becomes a political force to for more argument yeah for sure so I mean I Pro yeah you're right I could talk to you about so many different

things that pop into my head because like to find someone that's likeminded is rare and I'm I'm so appreciative um are there any final practical tips or words of encour encouragement you would like to leave the audience with oh boy um well you know first of all um I I do believe that uh you know everyone's life has incredible purpose there's a Soul's Journey that we're all on and within that Soul's journey is going to be

a number of challenges that are going to arise in your life and they're meant to be there in my opinion that's a spiritual aspect of of my life and just because you struggle with what we're late in as depression or anxiety doesn't mean there's something wrong with you it means there there's something right with you right and you're you want to be able to pay attention to what that means for you because it is a is

a it's a challenge that you're going to have to face right like light and the dark exist together uh and uh the light always shines through every crack in the dark and so even in dark periods of Our Lives they're temporary and they're there for us to face things I think if we look at things through the Western medicine model then we see those challenges or those dark times as if there's something wrong with us like

there's something wrong with our brain like there's something wrong with who we are we're ill we're mentally ill and all those labels we have to be able to transform past them yeah and we have to I think really change the way that we communicate what it means to be a human being in a life so that's a return of stories that's a return of uh our Collective language of suffering it's normalization of struggle it's supporting each

other in that process and to really get out of the brainwashing that really has taken place over much of our lifetimes yeah and so where can the listener find you so you can go to my website which is uh Dr mcfillin dcom and on there you sign up for my substack which is Dr mill. substack docomo media platforms one is X which is where I'm probably most frequently posting and that's Dr MC Filman I'm also on

Instagram uh radically genuine so that supports my podcast you'll see clips from my podcast and uh you know just various ways of trying to kind of communicate import important messages that uh are part of what my purpose is now radically genuine podcast you can download that from any major platform and I uh also post a video portion on substack so I'm writing on substack posting my my podcast on substack and of course uh very early stages

of the conscious clinician Collective the CCC collective.org we really do need support if you are a healthcare practitioner or clinician please please consider joining if um if you just believe in the mission we need donations they're all tax deductible um and so we're really hoping to kind of build a movement and that's really what this is It's it really is a Health Care Mental Health Care movement that we're trying to get as many people on board

as possible I love that I will put all of that excuse me in the show notes so thank you so much for being here I really appreciate your time H it's been an honor and remember dear one to trust in the Lord guard your heart and renew your mind bye and now for the disclaimer to make sure you understand that you are responsible for you the content provided on the holistic counselor podcast is for entertainment and

informational purposes only and is not intended as a substitute for professional medical advice diagnosis or treatment always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified mental health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical or mental condition never disregard professional medical advice or delay seeking it because of something you have heard on this podcast the views expressed on this podcast are my personal opinions and do not represent the views of any professional organizations

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