Latest / Radically Genuine / 159. Why They Want You Numb-Exposing The Mental Health Industrial Complex
Transcript
- Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (00:01.068) Welcome to the radically genuine podcast. am Dr. Roger McFillin. I'm sitting here in the studio the weekend after the United States presidential election. And regardless of where you might be on the political spectrum, there are certain principles that I believe most of us are united around. Probably more likely that the people who listening to this podcast adhere to the same principles. They tend to be supported by the US Constitution, and they're around freedom and individual liberty. Of course, freedom of speech, protection against censorship, and the limitation of a federal government highlight some of those principles. Many of you, just like me, in going through the COVID crisis. We're both angry and dignit and a bit fearful. Of the overreach. Of the US federal government. In its mandate. Of. Experimental vaccinations. The limitations of our personal freedoms. and an understanding of what can happen when we hand over that power and control. Now out of the darkness of that time, there has been an awakening. This podcast certainly became developed due to how I felt during that time and a lot about what I was learning about medical corruption, tyranny, and how the mental health COVID crisis was being responded to by our federal government talking heads on media and the misrepresentation of the impact of pharmaceutical drugs, the misrepresentation of psychiatric diagnoses. I saw it as an issue of freedom and liberty. remain really concerned about the next generations here in the United States. I do have hope. I have hope about the Make America Healthy Again movement. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (02:19.446) and believe in what Robert Kennedy is trying to change and bring attention to. But I also remain skeptical because of course, during my lifetime, the federal government has never served our best interests. In fact, we've accepted a lot that extends way beyond what I believe our constitutional rights are afforded. We sit here today in a mental health crisis. We're physically unwell. And if you've listened to previous episodes, I'm sure that you agree with me. It has been deliberate here in the United States. I know I have an international audience, but we've been deliberately poisoned. from our food source, the chemicals, pesticides, the dyes, banned in other countries, are freely used here in the United States. Our healthcare system has devolved into nothing more than a prescription drug serving industry. And in a lot of ways, I feel like we have lost our ability to critically analyze. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (03:32.322) We are not going to be able to address the Make America Healthy Again principles without reflecting on our own mental wellbeing. You cannot separate physical health from mental health, from spiritual health. They are all connected. And until the government looks at the widespread use of SSRIs, the propaganda that is pushed around mental health and how standard mental health is treated in the United States, we are not going to move forward to make the next generations resilient again. We deny a lot of common sense, wisdom that has been spoken about, passed down from generations, written. in traditional text, biblical texts, about how to face the struggles of living. It's been misrepresented and distorted in a way that is going to create more sickness. I feel like I have a responsibility to all my listeners, and I hope today that those who may be thinking about entering into the mental health system or are currently a mental health practitioner, can join me in discussions like this and asking critical questions in our institutions to those who are supervising. If you're a parent or you're an adult or young person who is receiving some form of mental health services, let's ask critical questions because I think this is a cultural issue. I do believe culturally speaking, there has been this push to create fragility. emotional vulnerability and weakness to externalize our own response to the challenges that everyone's going to face in this physical life. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (05:35.692) I hope to make a case today around principles. If I say politically, have principles around liberty, individual freedom, that the Constitution has afforded us, that our divine rights from God, then I think there needs to be principles that we communicate on what it means to live well, how to overcome challenges. And I think that has to be part of the Make America Healthy Again movement. It has to be around our mental spiritual well-being as well. Yes, does that coincide or overlap with everything that we do with lifestyle? There's no doubt. But here in the United States, we tend to divide our healthcare system into these little parts. Go here for your digestive system. Go here for psychiatry and mental health. Go here for orthopedics. Go here for immunology. It's all broken up in parts and we miss the whole. And if we're going to expand the conversation, one that asks critical questions, values scientific inquiry. is certainly humble enough to know what we don't know, to talk about how the mind and the body are integrated. And I think we have to have conversations like we're going to have today. Well, it's a conversation between me and you. have no one else here. But I hope that through this conversation that Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (07:17.55) You know, we can get people thinking. And we can change the way that we talk about mental health. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (07:29.816) Because I think the most profound irony in our mental health crisis, and I still believe it's a crisis, it's a crisis of consciousness, it's a crisis of morality. It's a crisis of meaning. It's a crisis of spirituality. I think it's an inherent struggle between love and fear. But I think the most profound irony in all of this is that the fear of our own emotional states, what we experience internally is now more damaging than the emotions themselves. When someone experiences deep sadness or anxiety, I don't think you're just dealing with the primary experience. They're also battling a terrifying narrative about what this means. Am I going crazy? What if this never ends? What if I can't handle this? What if I'm broken? All those things are experienced internally by the individual. And the secondary layer of fear tends to transform these temporary emotional states, which we could be responding to much more effectively, into chronic conditions. Because these natural responses become perceived as pathologies. And trust me, folks, it's purposeful. Over the course of my lifetime, powerful people have constructed campaigns to get you to fear yourself. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (09:08.354) your thoughts, your emotions, memories, the fear mongering around mental health as diseases that need to be treated as opposed to alternative conceptualizations. I understand the genuine concern. When we see someone consumed by anxiety, trapped in depression, contemplating suicide, I know what our instinct is. It's to help, it's to fix, it's to prevent harm at all costs. And I think these concerns come from a place of real compassion and a legitimate observation of human suffering. We don't want somebody to suffer anymore. We know the impact of prolonged emotional distress on people's lives is real and it shouldn't be dismissed, but here's what we've done that's gone terribly wrong. In our desperate attempt to prevent suffering, we've created this self-fulfilling prophecy by teaching people to fear and pathologize their emotional responses. The opposite occurs. It's paradoxical. The more you fear what you feel, the more you get attached to what your mind creates. You amplify the intensity of that suffering. You prolong the duration. Essentially, you make people sick. And that's what I believe has been occurring in the mental health industrial complex. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (10:49.728) It is creating sickness. We've become obsessed in our culture, consumed with having to get rid of what we're experiencing. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (11:06.606) That's been the message. And I want to really have people understand that where our attention goes, our full energy is going to flow. Okay. And what does that mean? Well, in a lot of ways, it does mean we are creators of our reality. And we're in a period of time where our attention is a commodity. Our attention, the aspect of what the mind focuses on. is where our reality is constructed. So when someone comes to me seeking help with their mental health, I find myself having to translate between two entirely different worldviews. In one worldview, which is promoted to us, emotional pain is a disease, something to be scared of, a disorder. We want to lessen that experience. We don't want to feel that way anymore. It's a carefully constructed narrative about the human experience. And it fits perfectly with our modern medical system. The underlying premise, it's simple enough. Just as physical symptoms signal bodily disease, our emotional states are treated as indicators of mental illness. So whether you experience anger, irritability, sadness, or fear that are neatly packaged into clinical labels that get assumed under the role of mental health, or we label them like clinical depression, or an anxiety disorder. What we are ultimately doing is we are creating a narrative. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (13:06.776) We're creating a consciousness around what the solution might be. It's how we've been able to push prescriptions. It's if you can get rid of this symptom, not have to feel it anymore, you return to normal, you find balance, you achieve peace. Feel less, because of course, that emotion is dangerous. In my world, which I believe is the real world, that this experience is a natural, necessary part of your human journey toward growth and authenticity. The challenge isn't in experiencing these or feeling these emotions. It's unlearning cultural programming that makes us interpret them as threats rather than teachers. Imagine the difference if we change the cultural narrative around these emotions being very important signals and indicators for you to use to teach you lessons to face things. It changes everything. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (14:14.178) I want to play a video that is from our own National Institute of Mental Health. And my hope is that this can at least begin to start communicating my greater point, because I want to get into what do we do now? How do we shift the conversation? How can we communicate things that are much more helpful to us? Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (14:39.756) And I think this video... Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (14:45.016) think it speaks volumes to what most people right now, not only in America, but across the globe, probably think about. Mental health. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (16:24.438) Okay, folks, that's from the National Institute of Mental Health. Now, I think on the surface, many people might not be concerned with that. But I want to make a case on on why you should be. So first of all, if you are just listening and you weren't able to see the video, it starts with a person doing public speaking and then having what appears to be some form of an anxiety attack. Now, to quote the great comedian Jerry Seinfeld, he once said, and did a whole bit around this, that Americans list their number one fear to be public speaking. Number two is death, which means a person would rather be at their own funeral than have to speak at a funeral, right? It's kind of insane, right? But it speaks to the role that fear has in our lives. how we can pathologize that into something that is external, like it's a medical disorder that has only these pre-scripted interventions, right? They're usually around talking or trying to do something to calm down or take a pill. Since talking and trying to calm down are not going to work, they're actually probably going to make the situation worse. I'll get into that. The ultimate solution for a lot of people is to then turn to a drug that will again in time make them worse. It doesn't matter what the drug is. You can turn to alcohol, you can turn to weed, you can turn to Xanax, you can turn to an SSRI. All of those things may have some temporary effect of numbing that anxiety, but you will only get worse. And I believe that this is purposeful and everyone knows this. You're pushing ideas. You're pushing solutions where other people. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (18:28.546) can commodify it, where institutions or professions can thrive off of those ideas. Let me share you some alternatives today. So I have to go back to when I was 20 years old, that exact experience happened. I played small college football, I've told this story probably on my earlier podcasts, where I was asked to do a presentation at a recruiting event. which was really thought quite simple at the time. I just have to talk about my experience as a student athlete. was early on a Saturday morning and I did not prepare for it. And as many 20 year olds do, I went out the night before, probably stayed up too late and figured I'd just kind of get up, throw on some nice clothes, walk down to the auditorium and just have a conversation with people. Well, that's not how public speaking tends to work. What I did do is on the way there, I started to get in my own head. I felt all those symptoms, racing heart, sweaty. I got really, really worried. And as I was approaching the auditorium and I saw that it was packed, it packed with probably top 50 recruits, their parents, their girlfriends. And I started to go into a panic attack. As I'm walking up to the podium, I get behind the microphone. And guess what happens? I shut down. Nothing comes out of my mouth. And it's embarrassing, which ultimately is what I feared. I feared making a fool out of myself. What were those physical feelings and sensations telling me? They were telling me I was afraid. was afraid I wasn't going to be good enough. I was afraid of being judged. I was afraid of failing. And that's exactly what happens. Now, after that, I can tell you that I started to develop now a phobia, an association with public speaking and that day. So just the thought of having to stand up in front of a class and to do a presentation provoked anxiety. I felt all those things that were discussed in the video. Do I believe in any way that talking about it more or trying to relax? Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (20:54.764) was going to make it better. Wasn't. The only way that I was going to get better was to face it fully. It wasn't going to avoid public speaking for the rest of my life. I didn't want to do that. It was an unbearable experience. I needed to face my fear of failure. I needed to face my fear of embarrassment, of being judged. And I saw this as a personal challenge. I needed to face it, tolerate the anxiety, overcome it. I wouldn't be on this microphone right now if I didn't find a way to face it. And so I just prepared really hard. Whenever I had to publicly speak, I wrote down things. So if I needed to turn to a piece of paper to get reoriented on what my thoughts were, I did that. I was horrible at it at first. And then I got better as I was able to tolerate the feeling. And so there's a vital truth that needs to be discussed. And I hope all young therapists or mental health professionals can begin to think about things a little bit differently. It's a vital truth. Emotions are energy. We are at our core energetic beings and our thoughts and emotions quite literally are energy and motion. They're powerful creative mechanisms that shape our reality. This is not a new philosophy. It's the fundamental nature of human experience. So let's consider sadness as an energy. In our current medical model, persistent sadness is labeled as depression, treated as a disease state to be eliminated. But what is sadness in reality? It's an energetic experience that might encompass feelings we label as loneliness, loss, profound yearning for something more meaningful. We're hurt by those we love. This creates an energetic state that reverberates through our entire being. It's influencing our thoughts, our sensations, our cellular activity. This is the mind-body that I'm talking about. We are whole beings, and emotional energy impacts us on every level of our existence. We know this. That's why people who are under consistent stress, they start to deteriorate physically. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (23:20.482) those stress hormones, they reverberate through the entire body, but your mind, which is consuming that threat, consumed by that threat, obsessed by that threat in a state of fear, it's going to affect every organ in your body. Yes, this energetic state is aversive. Yes, it's painful. Yes, it's uncomfortable, but that's precisely its power. It's meant to be uncomfortable. This discomfort is a catalyst. It's a vital force driving you toward change. You're supposed to feel that way. It's not a disease, it's not a disorder. Do you really believe that that is something broken in evolution? Or those of us who are spiritually inclined? That God made mistakes on that? No. That is for us. And that is what is missing from the conversation in mental health and how mental health practitioners are trained. You're not going to view your emotional states this way. When you are indoctrinated into a DSM disorder, you're seeing them from a medical model. Even if you're a social worker, even if you're a counselor, you're trained in this, you give the diagnosis, you see what they're feeling is something that is somehow has to be changed. You have a psychological disorder. Here's another message from our National Institute of Mental Health. Instead of anxiety this time, Let's see how they frame depression. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (26:02.734) Okay, so let's think about this. Depression as a construct is now discussed as something that happens to you. It has nothing to do with going on within you. You see, depression is not a disease, It's a state of being that results from how you respond to the initial aversive experience. It most certainly is no defect in evolution, no genetic misfortune. You haven't been inflicted with it. It's not outside you. Rather, it's an exquisitely designed system pushing us beyond our comfort zones into new territories of growth. See, through the pressure of emotional discomfort, we find ourselves compelled to move beyond stagnation, the ones that no longer serve us. If we don't see it that way, we're going to stay stagnant. It drives us to seek new forms. of love in our lives to search for deeper meaning in our existence, to force change. If you see it as some disease that you got that happened to you instead of a process in the way that you coped with the initial pain in your life, then you're going to miss the solution. Can talking with a trusted professional certainly help in that process? It can under the right conditions. But this discomfort is designed to break patterns that have kept you trapped, sometimes for years or decades. These are usually situations that diminish your spirit. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (27:49.686) It transforms our reality by making the status quo more painful than uncertainty of change. I think we have a profound intelligence inside us, our emotional nature. When we face this, it makes staying small more uncomfortable than growing large. This isn't something to numb, to detach from, to judge or escape. It's not something wrong with your brain that you go get brain stimulated. There's a reason you felt that way in my entire career. have never felt somebody who identifies themselves to be depressed, who doesn't have a reason for it, that they didn't have these things occur in their life. And then the way that they responded to it tended to make it worse. yet our culture has really inverted this natural process by labeling, pathologizing the energetic states, could have been that sadness, still loneliness. We label them as disorders. And we say, if you experience this for too long of a time, some arbitrary timeline, then we can attach this label and there's something broken. There's something wrong with you. Instead, we can completely change it. We can change it and see it as transformational. Okay. You're feeling this way for a reason and it makes sense given what you're, what you have gone through. We need to take a look at the way that you're living your life, the way you're responding to your life, how you think about your life. And most certainly understand that it almost always comes back to breaking free of chains that are self-imposed or imposed by others. Your sadness. is not a disorder. What we label depression is not a disease. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (29:36.266) It is actually a superpower. It's a divine experience of communication to tell you that something isn't right, and you have it within you to make the changes. When we drug away that feeling or we suppress the energy or we ruminate endlessly without action, this creates sickness in the body. The energy becomes stuck. It places us at a physical and mental imbalance. Those aspects are true, but we have to think about it from an energy standpoint. An energy designed to move, to be experienced, and to motivate change is not being utilized in that way. What's meant to be a transformational force of life. becomes demonized as a symptom to eliminate. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (30:39.906) Folks, I personally believe that this is purposeful because wise people understand that it is not the emotions that themselves are the problem, but how we respond to it and how we think about it. And I understand the questions, but my doctor, my therapist, they want to help me. I think they're good people. Why don't I trust them? And yes, I agree with you. Most are. Not everybody is. And that's what precisely makes this system so insidious. Your healthcare providers aren't consciously trying to harm you. They're caught in the same web of deception, conditioned by a system designed perfectly and maintained by forces that profit from your emotional imprisonment. It's bigger than just pharmaceutical companies getting rich, although they certainly do. We're also dealing with an entire paradigm built on a devastating illusion. and it's become culturally an inflicted disease upon all of us that, yes, we think that our lives must be without suffering. And what seems like pure compassion on the surface hasn't turned out to be that. The simple, seemingly benevolent impulse of to try to help people not feel so much emotional pain, which has become a foundation of modern mental health care, has transformed into something that I think provides the opposite of what we're looking for. Somewhere along the way, the natural human empathy transformed into something far more insidious. We've developed a collective intolerance for human suffering, not just our own, but the suffering of others. So healthcare professionals, despite their good intentions, they've assumed a role they were never meant to have, to be eliminators. of uncomfortable human emotions. Yes, they've been brainwashed into believing their brain diseases. This is discussed extensively on Radically Genuine podcast. But they see their fundamental responsibility in the same way it is to minimize symptoms of other physical conditions. They see it as another similar responsibility to remove you of your pain, your sadness, your anger, your fear. Yes, it sounds carrying on the surface and Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (33:07.896) For some people that might sound right, but here is the lie that you've been sold, that our natural state is not perpetual happiness. We're not supposed to float through life in constant peace and contentment. Any deviation from this state certainly does not represent a disorder to be corrected. This toxic positivity, it's not just wrong, it's a masterful form of control. Let's speak about the truth that's been buried under decades of pharmaceutical marketing and pop psychology propaganda. When we have these low vibrational states, anger, sadness, irritability, they're instruments of transformation. and they're precisely calibrated to catalyze specific forms of your growth and evolution. It's the way we are designed to be. We've been taught to fear what I believe is an arsenal of spiritual power. Anger, for example, far from being a problem to manage, is a sacred fuel that drives us to fight injustice. and create necessary change in the world where we are right now. It should be the fire that forges new realities from the raw material about what's been transformed. It should be a fire inside your soul. We are here today on the potential of a movement to fight corruption and to take a look at what has happened in our culture. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (34:46.038) It is my belief that we have been under attack by global elites who want to eliminate the population, decrease it substantially. What would have sounded crazy for me saying that five or six years ago is now clearly stated on the World Economic Forum website. If you listened to my previous episode with Amy Kelly, when we talked about the clinical trials, you cannot come to any other conclusion. Are we supposed to say that all the other messages that weaken us, that create mental health crises, that fragilize us, don't have the same intention? I'm a personal believer in the United States Constitution and the rights that are afforded to us by God. get in the way of global control and totalitarianism. You would have to eliminate the United States as a sovereign nation. Because a lot of us, and I know I have a large international audience, but a lot of us in the United States have something burning in our souls for freedom. Maybe that's from our ancestors and their willingness to leave tyranny. to immigrate to the United States. And there's a reason why people around the world want to be here. It's because of that freedom. We feel like I can get on this microphone and I can say this without fear of a police state showing up on my house later on. But we got closer and closer and closer to that, that at any other point in American history, Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (36:34.242) And you see that when you begin to censor alternative ideas, it is only one narrative that is going to hold. That one narrative that we've been facing over the past few years post-COVID. is one in my opinion that ultimately threatens the rights to individual liberty. Your own willingness to be able to speak out against tyranny and control was labeled as misinformation. Experts who want to have critical dialogue and want to protect your medical freedom by providing you informed consent were silenced, called names. And in this election, it was the majority of the American people standing up against the propaganda. And see, these emotions, they're really necessary for this independence. Same thing with other aversive emotions like sadness. Rather than a state to be eliminated, it should deepen your capacity for connection and empathy. It can carve channels in our hearts through which deeper understanding can flow. Fear, when embraced rather than suppressed, becomes our most honest teacher. It illuminates exactly what we must face to evolve beyond our current limitations. We are not meant to be stagnant. That is what creates mental and physical unrest when our souls are not growing and our souls are going to expand and grow through hardship. There is a polarity that exists in this life. There is good, there is evil, there is love, there is loss. There are good times and there are struggles. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (38:31.906) These emotions, they're not random misfirings of a disordered brain. This is a very sophisticated language of consciousness itself. And it's speaking to us, guiding us towards our next evolution. We do not want to sabotage the very mechanisms designed to elevate our existence to new levels of awareness and authenticity. don't want to numb ourselves to these vital energetic states. It's not a better life. But I understand the appeal of others. Whether that is a controlling and abusive government, medical establishment, spouse, parent, boyfriend, girlfriend, they much rather have you compliant, dependent, and easily controlled. You don't want to sacrifice your own power on the altar of this false comfort. Yes, to avoid is to escape that temporarily. Yes, to take drugs is to escape that temporarily. But life moves in cycles and waves. It's necessary. These opposites. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (39:42.54) You cannot deeply love anybody unless you accept the inevitable loss because everything is temporary. To achieve greatness in any aspect of your life, whether that's to be a parent or a teacher or in your chosen field, you have to be willing to face and move through fear. It is not something to be numbed or to avoid it. To create positive change in this world, you must harner. I'm sorry, harness those emotions, even if they're anger, because that transforms into action. Energy will transform into matter. These aren't pathologies. They're very mechanisms of our human evolution. We do not want to create paralysis. Listen, some of these discussion points have been spoken about and written about throughout history. It's only in modern times that we deny it on the altar of the medical establishment of the government authority. Look into various traditions, scripture, indigenous oral histories, we find this internal dance between two fundamental forces. To me, it's fear. and love. Those are two dialectical opposites of energy. And what does fear create? More fear. More situations that are going to create more fear. And all these negative, lower vibrational states of shame and depression are all associated with this lower state. But we have the capability to transform through this. Not by avoiding it, not by numbing it, by making room for it, allowing it, and facing it. In the Bible, John 4, 18, perfect love casts out fear, recognizing that these aren't mere emotions, but primordial energies that shape the very fabric of human consciousness. Native American wisdom tells us of the two wolves within us, one of fear, one of love, and warns us that the one we feed is the one that grows stronger. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (42:04.33) Even the Egyptian mystery schools taught us that the weighing of the heart against the feather of truth was not just about moral judgment, but about measuring one's liberation from fear. The Buddhist teachings speak of Mara, the demon of delusion who tried to prevent Buddha's enlightenment, not through external force, but through internal fear. These are stories. These are legends that talk about our battle, our struggle in the journey of life with fear. And let's face it, that's the only way we can be controlled. And we were controlled that way. People came in to my center to see me on some spectrum of fear. Fear can turn itself into depression. Fear can manifest itself into a range of problems, drug abuse, disorders. But it is those attempts to escape that experience create more problems. fear has always been the ultimate mechanism of control. It's always been, always will be, and what more clever way to control a population to make them fear their own internal experiences. to make you doubt the very emotional responses that would otherwise drive you to resist, to grow, to transform. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (43:30.882) When you can get people to fear their own emotional power, you don't need external chains. They're willing to lock themselves up in a prison of prescription bottles and pathology labels. This is what needs to end. Love in its truest sense, it's an energy of liberation. It's not the sanitized greeting card version of love that's pushed on us from Hollywood, but it's this raw transformative force that drives all authentic growth and healing. Love isn't always comfortable. Saying you're sorry isn't comfortable. Saying I'm wrong isn't sorry. Saying you're wrong isn't comfortable. Leaving a relationship that doesn't serve you anymore, and it's painful, that's not comfortable. but that's showing a deep love and respect for what you deserve. And this should burn like a fire because it's pushing you to evolve, to leave toxic situations, to stand up against injustice. That's why I think this is just as much a spiritual attack as anything, because you teach people to fear and pathologize this energy. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (44:43.266) the system that ensures that you will never fully access that spiritual power. Every time you're told your anger is inappropriate, your sadness is disordered, your fear needs to be medicated, you're being conditioned to disconnect from your soul's own guidance system. Because this is an emotional compass. This is something we have to pay attention to. We have to use it in those difficult moments. It's the very tool that will guide you. You don't want other people to disconnect you from this. And this is why a lot of these psychiatric drugs do. They disconnect you from your soul. So what's the answer, Dr. McPhil. Well, you know, when life's challenges and traumas come your way and they will, For all of those who are provided the blessing and opportunity to help people through it, you improve their ability to respond to it. We can change the messaging. Listen, you are strong, you are resilient, you're a child of God, you'll grow from this, whatever those messages are. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (45:53.976) we change the conversation. In psychology terms, we just call it coping. Like drinking alcohol and taking drugs is a form of coping with emotional pain, but it's self-destructive. Facing and feeling fear with the courage and skills to tolerate that experience, to overcome that fear and create something new in life, that's transformative, but that's also coping. Think of the messages in our schools right now. They're fostering attitudes, beliefs around emotional struggles as a... As being signs of disorders that you have to pay attention to and think about. I mean, they talk about that stuff in middle school. Do you talk about it as transformational? No. Do they talk about it as normal? No. Do they talk about it as things you need to overcome to grow in your life? No, social and emotional learning doesn't necessarily do it. It's going to be more related to those NIMH videos I told you. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (46:55.406) There's so more, there's such more depth that we can get into. And we don't want to follow that same model because that same medical model is going to drive us to exactly where we've been, sick. We're spiritually sick, we're physically sick, we're mentally unwell. And I'm telling you it's purposeful folks. John F. Kennedy in 1963, State of the Union. address stated that this country cannot afford to be materially rich and spiritually poor. And America's mental health crisis runs much, deeper than we're often willing to acknowledge because we're in such a reductionist, simplistic way of thinking about it with these dumb YouTube videos and tick tock and nonsense where you're pushing out these social workers and counselors after two years of indoctrination. I mean, that's what we've seen after this election. A lot of those therapists go on to social media and then they proclaim exactly what they think. They are so indoctrinated into the two-party system. They are so divided that they just repeat the messages. Is that who you want to go and talk to? Is that where you want to send your kids? Whether it's the gender ideology, whether it's a DSM diagnosis, pushing you to numb out your spirit, your emotions. Well, that's what's being pushed on the assembly line. There's not a lot of thought that goes into it. While we treat symptoms, we are not confronting the underlying spiritual vacancy that's in our culture. Our society's embrace of materialism has led us to worship hollow icons, products, celebrities, fame, all feeding the ego's endless hunger. There really is no path that way. But in my opinion, beneath the pursuit of this external validation, there is a human soul, and it does yearn for something much more profound. We are at our core beings wired for connection. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (49:07.896) connection to each other, to purpose, to wonder, to the divine. Our deepest fulfillment comes not from our consumption, but from our service, from learning, from expanding our understanding of what it means to go through this human experience together. So the emptiness that so many people are feeling today, in my opinion, also stems from a disconnection from the transcendent. Those aspects of existence that extend beyond our small self, that individual self, that ego. And I'm not saying this is about formal religion. Because I certainly understand the harms of formalized religion and how it's harmed many people out there. To me, though, it's a rekindling of our relationship for something greater. The web of human connection, the mystery of consciousness, the awe of existence itself. Until we reclaim a culture that honors these deeper dimensions of human experience, we may continue to find ourselves spiritually malnourished, regardless. of our spiritual wealth. And what does that manifest itself into? This deep, profound fear, anxiety, and emptiness that people label as psychiatric disorders. So what is the main takeaway today? What do I want people to understand? Is we have to move away from the pathologizing and categorizing of our emotional states as psychiatric diseases and move towards an understanding of them as energy. an energy of creation. That energy needs to move, that energy needs to be experienced, and that, most importantly, energy needs to manifest itself then into change, legitimate change, transformation, breaking free from the change and the patterns that have enslaved you. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (51:16.782) So that means an entire system has to be reclaimed, has to be decimated. And who is courageous enough and brave enough to go out there and join a movement around it? Can the Make America Healthy Again movement move away from the psychiatric medical establishment and the American Psychological Association? I mean, they're failures. What? institution is able to be maintained when it's very clear that the evidence shows it does more harm than good. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (51:57.932) That's the fundamental question. And so are we brave enough to go into uncharted territory, into the unknown? where we will face fear and uncertainty, where we will make mistakes. It's not easy getting behind this microphone today and having these conversations, putting myself out there, it creates fear, it creates discomfort. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (52:21.57) because it's not typically what we talk about when it comes to mental health. People want to I have ADHD, I have major depressive disorder, I have bipolar disorder, and they're not understanding that that exact label, that exact construction of their experience is what is limiting them. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (52:46.2) So that's what today is for me. Although I hold out hope that things can change, I also remain skeptical because absolute power corrupts absolutely until we allow freedom to be returned to the American people, to a global public, where we can have open discussions and ideas respectfully, and we can think about how our own systems of government and oppression, they themselves really do impact the human spirit. We want more. We need more. We can't demonize the low points in our life, the low vibrational states, because that polarity is normal. When I think about my life, when I think about my past, the struggles, the painful times in my life have always been something that pushed and provoked, prompted, motivated, whatever word, need a change. Because it's not within me to stay stagnant, and I hope it's not within you to stay stagnant. If you've been harmed by the system, I hope you speak out. That can save a life. When I think about where this podcast needs to go, I know we have to have these type of commune, these type of conversations philosophically. We have to talk about making all of us resilient again, because that's our divine birthright. Listen, the labels of mental illness, the labels of sickness create a consciousness, and that consciousness is powerful because we are creators of our reality and that will be felt on every level of your human existence. So let's change consciousness. Let's understand that although we were told that Western medicine was the beacon of scientific supremacy and had the best outcomes and it's about progress, the data doesn't support it. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (54:56.274) are physicians trained in the allopathic medical system. Many of them are complicit in a system that does more harm. We don't in any way anymore understand real root causes. And that has driven a movement. It's driven a movement of functional medicine. It's driven a movement of natural paths. There's evidence that's suppressed. There's science that's suppressed because it doesn't serve an industry. It doesn't serve their bottom line. The mental health industrial complex has become dumbed down to being able to jump on an app at any point and just talk to a complete stranger as if that talking in itself is what will lead to being feeling mentally well. No, it doesn't. That's not how it works. Maybe if you're distinctly lonely and you're hooked on technology and screens, that's a respite from that loneliness, having another human being on the other line, but that's not what we need and that's not what we want our mental health professionals to be trained to do either. We want our mental health professionals to be deeply caring but also to be ones who believe in you within your own innate capacity, your own spirit, to detach from the content of your mind and the cultural commodification and conditioning of mental well-being, to detach from the matrix and realize that you're a divine spirit and you can face what's in front of you. in a very nonjudgmental accepting way where it moves that energy into real change. There's no way that this happens without facing that fear of doing so, changing those patterns of behavior and pushing yourselves in ways that you have yet to at that point. It's the only way you move through stagnation. But what's at the other side of that is freedom, is love, is something new. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D, ABPP (56:54.232) So we almost pray for the next administration. I certainly hope that the divisiveness ends, but we've been divided for so long. It's certainly ingrained in our cultural consciousness. I don't think this should be an opportunity for one side to gloat. This is an opportunity to understand that there are a lot of people who are screaming for freedom, who don't want in any way to be told what they can say, who they, they don't want to be called names anymore. They don't want to be politically indoctrinated. They want to go back to just some core principles. And in those core principles, they want to live according to their values and their belief system. And they want to do so in a way where government is limited. Government doesn't become our new religion. Government doesn't become our God. The Hollywood star, the talking head on television, the political official, those aren't the people we are going to blindly follow. That's not going to be our new religion. We want to return back to what is spiritually within us, which is a love and a drive for transcendence. And so let's do that by rethinking about how we discuss emotions and struggles in our lives, and then use that to really drive transformative change. Thank you.