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140. When Psychotherapy Creates Harm · Radically Genuine

• Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (00:01.828) Welcome to the radically genuine podcast. I am Dr. Roger McFillin. My criticisms of the mental health field can often be misrepresented and misunderstood. In fact, I care deeply about creating environments where people who are genuinely suffering and stuck in a debilitating episode can recover. I chose to be a psychologist for a reason. I respect the scientific method as a safeguard against harm. I believe it is our responsibility to mitigate biases and empirically validate medical and psychological interventions to ensure both their safety and effectiveness. We embrace the pursuit of truth and inform people of what we may and may not know. I became a clinical psychologist because I believe deeply in our capacities to overcome challenges. and the resilience of the human spirit. I believe psychological therapies, when conducted ethically and compassionately, can support this natural process. It can also be instrumental in facing fears, traumatic memories, learning new skills, and becoming more conscious and aware. I'm also fully aware of how psychotherapy is a modern invention and has existed for only a tiny fraction of the human existence. There have been other practices, rituals, and traditions that have supported growth and resilience that are not under the umbrella of mental health treatment. What is psychotherapy differs greatly depending on the professional you see. It's a splintered field with competing ideologies and theoretical orientations. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (02:00.516) and the pursuit of truth as science can easily be manipulated and corrupted to serve an industry or an ideology. Consider Talkspace as an example or other brands or organizations that attempt to monopolize the market on achieving mental well -being. What is not discussed enough or even acknowledged by many psychotherapists are the iatrogenic harms of therapy or even the harms of adhering to a modern diagnostic system. If it is not acknowledged, and many naively believe psychotherapy has universal benefits for anyone at any time, regardless of the condition, in my opinion that's a clear ethical breach and violation of a person's ability to fully consent to such an intervention. Some people exhibit debilitating conditions such as obsessive compulsive disorder or severe eating disorders and believe they can talk their way out of these conditions. as a therapist who may have little competencies and even understanding how to work ethically and scientifically with these conditions kind of promotes that environment. In some cases, the formulation of why the person is in an episode can be damaging. There are contradictions that exist when messaging, what is psychological health? I'm extremely concerned about the dumbing down of our mental health field. and its vulnerability to shift with changing cultural norms and move away from some established principles of psychological resilience. And of course, the legal rights we have to inform consent. We need a deep dive with this with another respected professional who will be radically genuine about this subject. Our return guest was last featured on the podcast in November of 2023, episode 111. He was also the first professional to sign up for the Conscious Clinician Collective. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (04:05.956) His name is Dr. Brett Deacon. He serves as an associate professor and program convener for clinical psychology at the University of Melbourne, Australia. His academic journey includes obtaining a PhD in clinical psychology from Northern Illinois University, followed by a postdoctoral fellowship at the Mayo Clinic over the past 15 years. He's contributed to academia and dedicated his five years to full -time private practice. He has expertise in a number of key areas, things that I definitely want to address on the podcast today. Most notably his proficiency in exposure therapy for anxiety. He co -authored the book, Exposure Therapy for Anxiety Principles and Practice. This was published by Guilford Press in 2019, second edition. His second area of focus revolves around critiquing psychiatry's biomedical model. of mental illness. His research encompasses the efficacy of antidepressants, publication bias and antidepressant trials, the impact of perceiving depressive experiences through a biomedical lens and the validity and societal implications of the biomedical model. I also think he's a deep thinker, a critical thinker and of the highest ethical standard, which I think all of us are called to have to do when we see the potential for harm. And I really want to pick his brain today on why he became a psychologist, where he sees our field going, the iatrogenic harms of therapy, what works, what doesn't work, and where are we going? Dr. Brett Deakin, welcome back to the Radically Genuine Podcast. Brett Deacon (05:45.87) Thanks, Roger, for that great introduction. It's great to be back with you. And we need to work on your pronunciation of Melbourne. It's Mel -bin, like -e -l -b -i -n. That's how it's pronounced here, Mel -bin. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (05:54.5) really? Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (05:59.012) Well, I'm a, I'm an American and you know, we, we pronounce it as we see it. Brett Deacon (06:04.462) I've had to undergo that transition, but it's great to be here. I'm looking forward to this conversation. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (06:10.852) Yeah, I want to pick your brain a little bit. I want to get a sense of why you chose this field. Why did you become a clinical psychologist? I want you to kind of go back in time a little bit. Brett Deacon (06:25.07) That would be Dr. James Tichner's introduction to clinical psychology class in my sophomore year at Northeast Missouri State University. I can pinpoint the exact moment in time. I was an undeclared major and I knew it was going to be somewhere in the humanities or social sciences or education. And I took one class and it immediately clicked. I know what I want to do. I want to do this. And so what was it? Going back, my father was a social worker who had his own private practice. And my mom was a school teacher who worked with kids with behavior problems. And so I think I was always interested in this general area. But what clicked for me was learning about the principles of operant conditioning and classical conditioning. And it gave me a language to. not just be interested in human psychology. I had taken abnormal psychology and thought that was interesting, but learning about behavioral principles allowed me this language to actually understand them. And I found it fascinating. And yes, I had the desire to help people and do good in the world. But what I became interested in is understanding how psychology works and how to use that knowledge. one applied to individuals to, now I would call it to formulate their experience and figure out how to help them move forward in life based on that formulation. And intro to clinical psych was the moment where that picture came together. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (08:12.772) So your first exposure to operant and classical conditioning had an impact on you. Yeah, how did it lead to your understanding of like human behavior and how you could ultimately help people? Brett Deacon (08:19.246) Big time. Brett Deacon (08:29.006) Well, that probably didn't come together until graduate school. And I just, I knew that I wanted to do clinical psychology. And in graduate school, I did the deep dive in understanding, well, we use the word psychopathology. I don't like that word very much anymore, but understanding the types of psychological struggles that people have and learning about cognitive behavioral, theory and therapy and formulation. And where the second time that everything came together was when I had an opportunity to work with my advisor, David Valentiner, doing work in our anxiety clinic. And this is where we had a specific framework for formulating problems based on credible scientific principles. And it actually was concrete. Because a lot of psychology is abstract. And formulations are often very vague, something about their childhood and something about their thoughts. But this was concrete. Like literally, you could draw a diagram on the whiteboard and map out the cycle that clients were in. And you could look at that cycle and say, we need to intervene here, and we need to intervene here. And these are the effective strategies that we can use. to do that and let's go ahead and do that and measure the process along the way and track improvement. And it all made sense. And that was really the foundation for my everything in my career, both in terms of research, practice, teaching, moving forward. And prior to that, I had a number of classes and... supervision experiences with approaches that were interesting but a bit more difficult to pin down. But that was the second time that it came together in a concrete way that I could wrap my head around. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (10:38.372) I always viewed human beings as like the default network is resilience. I always felt like I had a really positive viewpoint of human potential, certainly aware of the struggles, suffering, a relationship to fear, a reaction to trauma, pain and loss. But I think I always just naturally had this... inclination and belief that one can face it and overcome it and even come out the other side, you know, in this transformative state that enhances their quality of life. Like there was purpose in pain. Brett Deacon (11:18.734) Yeah. Well, I think that's the ideal mindset that you want your psychologist to have, because they will work with you from that understanding and help transfer it to you. I have the same idea. And if you think about it, that's implicit in exposure therapy, where we help people face their fears, the idea that they have the capacity to handle it, and that we don't need to protect them from their distress, and that we don't need to water it down with anxiety reducing, coping skills just to make sure that they don't lose control during the exposure task and that sort of thing. Really quickly, on that note, I'm giving a presentation in a couple of weeks on the topic of why therapists are uncomfortable with exposure. And I'm going to start out with a hypothetical case example of a guy in his late 20s who's a construction worker on a high rise in downtown in a big city. And he's working up on the top of the building toward the edge, has the fear of heights, and he's worried about falling. He's feeling anxious. And he goes to you for support. How would you formulate that? What strategies might you use? And we'll have a conversation about, you know, progressive muscle relaxation and diaphragmatic breathing and mindfulness. And then I'm going to say, well, turns out that he had a good outcome. And in fact, he sent me a photo of him and his coworkers, which really It shows that picture is worth a thousand words. And then I'm going to show that photo lunch atop a skyscraper. You know, that photo, one of the most famous photos of all time. And I just ordered that photo for my office. So next time I'm on here, that will be behind me because that to me is the best photo to advertise human resilience and the power of exposure and the fact that people have the capacity to move forward. in valued directions while being able to tolerate distress. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (13:21.572) Yeah, I actually believe that one of our necessary obstacles to be able to overcome in life is our own relationship to fear. Because that's really what, you know, holds us back in being able to achieve extraordinary things. I think the mind is essentially self -limiting. You know, I don't think that gentleman is actually afraid of heights. I think he's afraid of falling. Brett Deacon (13:45.678) Yes, well, I could be more. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (13:49.38) Yeah, I mean, that's the constructivist viewpoint here where, you know, we construct our own realities and, you know, just being up high to him is a kind of a reminder that he can fall. And if he falls, he can die. He can hurt himself badly. And that that idea of what fear is a representation of that, that inner reality that we kind of experience. And I think that's we can transfer that to a lot of areas of life. You can talk about that to your blue in the face until you get up there on that. skyscraper until you face that fear, you're still going to be stuck in this idea of what's been created in your mind. Brett Deacon (14:27.406) I totally agree and I think it's important to note that we have two mental systems, right? Sort of like the head versus the gut or ACT uses the terminology you versus your mind, which I like. And there's a difference between speaking to someone at the intellectual level about how it would be okay if they were to do something and then saying, yes, you're probably right. But that's completely different than actually experiencing it for yourself. And it's the latter that actually convinces people to move forward in life. And so many of our therapies avoid doing that so that neither the therapist nor the client have to undergo the discomfort. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (15:12.292) so well said and you know, we were emailing a little bit back and forth and you reminded me of a film you and I have the same age. So, you know, we both saw Good Will Hunting. I want to get a sense of, you know, what you thought therapy was like, you know, before you're a therapist and before you go to school, unless you were in therapy yourself, your information around that is kind of limited to what popular culture, television or media kind of presents to you about it. Brett Deacon (15:22.702) Mm -hmm. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (15:41.38) So I want to get a sense when you were a younger man, when you were a student, how did you picture therapy and what did you believe it was going to be able to provide somebody? Brett Deacon (15:41.39) Mm -hmm. Brett Deacon (15:55.374) I don't think I've thought about that question before. And what comes to mind is I don't think I had a lot to work with. Therapy wasn't much of a thing back when we were younger. I don't know anyone who went to therapy. I wasn't in therapy. You didn't see it much on TV. I probably would have pictured something more akin to psychoanalysis, clients laying on the sofa, the therapist is sitting in a chair and just sort of talking, free associating. I didn't have much of a model for anything beyond that, but I figured it would be in an office, speaking, not doing things, but just sort of talking, trying to gain insight into what's being discussed. And yeah, I think that's really it. Did you have an idea of therapy when you were a young man? You know, we're of the same age. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (16:46.148) I'm gonna say that that movie was probably a depiction for me of what it was. Because at that stage in my life, I wasn't preparing to be a psychologist. I didn't think I would be a therapist. But that relationship that was developed between Robert Williams or what's his name? Robin Williams. Yeah, Robin Williams and Matt Damon. Brett Deacon (16:54.574) Okay. Brett Deacon (17:09.966) Robin Williams. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (17:15.268) was a relationship that as I, as I later became a therapist that, you know, there were, there were aspects of it that I thought were critical and really important. And then there was things that were questionable, right? and that I think it's like, it's worthy of an open discussion about what modern therapy is. Modern therapy is quite boundreed. and limited. For the most part, it's done in an office. Systems can certainly prevent you from doing other things. The relationship, although discusses being authentic, it is really kind of a one way intimate relationship with not that much self disclosure, or at least there's certainly like concerns about self disclosure. Although it can be valuable if it's in the benefit of the client, but like there's so many psychodynamic roots that inform how we think and talk about therapy, especially when you start talking about things like the unconscious or relational patterns that play themselves out in the presence of the therapist. And then you can put the therapist up on a pedestal who's kind of like analyzing those to provide insight. And then there's this just belief that that insights will then promote behavior change. And I spent a lot of time in my career, somewhat being critical of that. And I think a lot of reasons why I got directed to cognitive behavioral therapy and focused on that, because I did view there were potential harms from that, from that model. And I just want to get your sense of like, you know, how you thought about it and how cognitive behavioral therapy then, you know, was a better fit for you. Brett Deacon (19:10.446) Sure, there's so much to say and unpack in there. Well, first of all, on the insight thing, I don't believe that insight by itself is sufficient. If it were, 95 % of the anxious clients I see wouldn't have an anxiety problem because at the intellectual level, they're aware that their fear is exaggerated. And now we're back to the difference between knowing it in your head and knowing it in your gut. If we go back to goodwill hunting, Don't forget that Matt Damon's character saw, what, two therapists prior to Robin Williams. And both of them put on display bad therapy. One was a pompous guy who just tried to tell him to stop. And that didn't work. And another was a bit of a quack who wanted to go back to his early childhood and try to uncover maybe a repressed memory of being abused. And Robin Williams was the first one who was just radically genuine, just totally authentic. And he wasn't wearing a lab coat with a clipboard asking Matt Damon to fill out the PHQ to add up his score and determine which skills or pills he needed. He just treated him like a human being, demonstrated genuine compassion and desire to get to know him, and also had a low tolerance for BS and just a great depiction of I think what a lot of us would dream of having as a therapist, you know, if I were to be able to pick a type of therapist, it would be exactly like Robin Williams in that movie. But to be fair, and I'm not saying this is a bad thing, I just want to throw that out there, he crossed a number of boundaries, right? So he left the office and he met his client on a park bench. There's a boundary crossing. He self -disclosed about some deep aspects of his personal life that to me were clearly relevant to his relationship with the client. And in that movie, it seemed clear that that was the pivotal moment that allowed them to move forward and Matt Damon's character to change his life for the better. But now I want to bring this back to... Brett Deacon (21:37.71) the modern day, I don't want to use the word obsession, but extreme concern about boundaries and ethics. And as you know, there's been a societal trend over the last few decades for safety. And this is chronicled in that great book, The Coddling of the American Mind. And harm -related concepts have become a bigger deal in society, and they become a bigger deal in psychology as well. And so I think trainees now and practitioners now are very concerned about boundaries and they want to make sure they don't cross boundaries. And I've always been interested in the type of people in our profession who are attracted to writing ethics codes. Because I think they tend to be the more risk averse types. I don't think Robin Williams' character is on the ethics code revision committee. And. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (22:33.252) Yeah. Brett Deacon (22:34.19) And I think, and they tend to be more psychodynamic and they tend to follow the better safe than sorry and a boundary crossing is a slippery slope and you don't leave the office with the client because next thing you know, you're going to be friends and you're going to have a dual relationship. And I am very grateful that I learned to be an exposure therapist straight away in my training because we cross boundaries all the time and expose, we don't violate them. There's a critical difference. But we leave the office happily if it's in the best interest of our client to do so. If we need to go out in public and practice interacting with other people or touching dirty surfaces, I do that all the time without any concern that it's going to blur the lines in our professional relationship. And obviously, there are sensible ways that you can handle that to keep that. professional relationships still intact. But often that can be incredibly helpful for the client to do. And I think over time people have become more squeamish about the sorts of things that often are important to help your client. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (23:53.156) Yeah, I think it does represent the fear based culture in which we do live in. And I think everyone feels that right now. You know, I want to go back to Robert, Robin Williams, because I think one of the things that is really important in training therapists is that conceptualization has to drive intervention. I think psychologists, therapists have to be really insightful, self -aware and adaptive. So Robin Williams knew exactly who that kid was. He was from the same neighborhood, right? He was from Southie. He knew his background. He knew that he was an orphan. He was abused. He knew around the issues of trust. And he allowed himself to be radically genuine with that client because he was gonna smell bullshit. The kid was gonna smell bullshit. And there was a reason what he was doing, right? And that's the important thing about self -disclosure. You don't self -disclose for you. You don't get anything from that, right? He's already dealt with his wife's cancer and the loss of his wife. He was sharing that for wisdom for this kid and to connect with this kid and for this kid not to feel like he was the broken one who was being treated. He was normalizing. Brett Deacon (24:57.294) Mm -hmm. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (25:15.908) the pain and struggle of this human journey. And, you know, how there's a dark night of the soul and a process that we have to walk through in order to come out the other side. You know, that's that brilliant part at the end of the movie I went to see about a girl, right? He was, he was, he was really breaking this pattern that he could never really love anyone. He couldn't take a risk because everyone hurt him. So love was associated with pain and you know, this is Brett Deacon (25:32.534) Hmm. Yep. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (25:45.124) I got the message from the therapy, but now it's action, right? Now like it's into action because listen, if you don't live at all, you're just kind of fear and death. You're not really choosing to live at all if you live in that fear and that kind of concept around it. So I think like those are critical teaching points is when boundaries and ethics are developed and they're communicated in such a fear -based way. it's usually to protect against the most criminal of the professionals, right? Like it's those people who shouldn't be doing the job anyway, who have no understanding of boundaries or the role or the impact they can have on that person. And so there's a lot of communication around that. So people can really understand that there's a code of ethics and there are boundaries in this therapy. who protect the vulnerable. You are in the position of power. This person is vulnerable. But on the other side of that, right, if you are risk averse and you are too boundaried, you will never be able to enter into that real authentic, genuine relationship with that person and walk towards the light, like be with the darkness and accept that process. And that's why, you know, I'm really concerned about where we are culturally and biomedically. Brett Deacon (27:02.222) Mm -hmm. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (27:12.516) is because we're in a distinct period of time where those human emotions, which are so necessary, and in my opinion, so divinely developed and inspired for our own growth and learning, are pathologized. That somehow in this oversimplified version of what it means to be mentally healthy, it is communicated that it is the absence of emotional pain. So it is the absence of fear. I have anxiety like it's a symptom of a disease. And now my only way I can live is if I get rid of it. And that is an opposition to what I know about the human spirit. It's an opposition to what I know about exposure therapy. And where I've been challenged as a psychologist is, boy, there's a lot of contradictions, right? We're gonna send them to the psychiatrist to numb out that experience, but yet I believe fully and then you walk towards it and you face it and there's value to it. Brett Deacon (28:09.838) Mm -hmm. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (28:09.892) And that's where I've been lost in these past 20 years since like when I first kind of entered it and had that viewpoint of resilience being the default network and these emotions are here to serve us. And I can really help people live an extraordinary life, even in the midst of pain and struggle and suffering that there's some value in that and you can get through it because I just believe in the human spirit in that way versus where we are now. Brett Deacon (28:35.726) Yeah. Wow, that's so well said. I'm going to throw another movie quote at you from around that same era from my favorite movie of all time, The Princess Bride. Life is pain, Highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (28:55.076) Bingo. Brett Deacon (28:55.47) I think that explains a lot. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (28:58.308) Yeah, so what's being sold right now? Brett Deacon (29:01.614) Well, I mean, it's difficult to disentangle the drive to pathologize psychological struggles as problems to be medicalized and treated away. It's difficult to disentangle that from the financial benefits, the end of the capitalistic nature of those who can capitalize on that. So. There's, I was thinking about this broad topic in preparation for our chat today. And I actually think there are two competing worldviews in our profession, the mental health profession. One is the DSM based biomedical worldview, which says you're not supposed to have quote unquote unwanted internal experiences like feeling sad or mad or afraid or worried that. those things are pathological, deviant in indication of poor health and we need to get rid of them. And doctors have the pills for getting rid of them and therapists have the skills for getting rid of them. And that's the pills and skills approach. And that is considered best practice around the world, as you know, and kids in school are being educated to have high mental health literacy, which means believing in the pills and skills approach. And... you know, our societal movement toward decreasing perceived resilience and wanting to protect people from the harm of things like feeling bad and sad and mad. That's where society is going. But then there's this opposite worldview, which is what you just said. And there's this odd unease where you can go to a professional conference and look around and some of the people walking around occupy One of those worldviews, most of the people walking around probably occupy the more biomedical worldview. And most of the people who, let's call it the humanistic, who occupy the humanistic worldview are practitioners, not academics, not researchers, not the rock stars. And the higher the prestige the person has by virtue of their... Brett Deacon (31:22.766) academic position at a prestigious university and publications and grants and leadership positions. Those are the people who are the most biomedical. And I think there's this implicit idea that we're all on the same team, that we're all pursuing the same thing. But I actually think these worldviews are entirely incompatible if we're really being honest. And I think what we're... What we're often trying to do, I work in a clinical psychology training program, is we're trying to pretend that they can coexist peacefully. That you can simultaneously see someone through a diagnostic lens and formulate them in a humanistic way. And they just don't go together because the underlying assumptions are the opposite of each other. And I go back to Good Will Hunting. I guarantee you that Robin Williams did not even think at any point about what Matt Damon's diagnosis might be. He couldn't have cared less. And if you would have asked him what is his diagnosis, he probably would have gotten annoyed. Like, who cares? Why are you asking me that? It has no relevance to anything, right? Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (32:37.444) So true. Have you been following this kind of transhumanistic movement? Brett Deacon (32:42.99) I don't think so, but tell me more about that. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (32:46.66) Yeah, I mean, it's very dangerous and scary. And I kind of equate our biomedical model to be under the umbrella of a transhumanistic movement. So transhumanism is, I actually wrote an article about it. The best way to describe the transhumanistic movement is it promotes that we can improve the human condition through advanced technology. Like it envisions a future where... scientific advancements like genetic engineering, artificial intelligence, brain computer interfaces, chemicals and pharmaceuticals help human beings overcome their inherent biological limitations. So like it could lead to enhanced cognitive abilities, never have to feel emotional pain, extend life, lifespans, even like merge with machines. And this sounds... it It sounds like it's a sci -fi movie, but this is like legitimate people in society who are writing about this and talking about this and believe that that is where human evolution has to continue to go on. And it's kind of pushed in various sections of... Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (34:13.636) the elite around the world, whether it's the World Economic Forum putting out writings about this and how to just use various tech, you know, technological advancements to try and alter human biology as if it needs to be altered, which is what I'm really concerned about because I think there is this divine order of things that we continue to mess with. And we did with vaccines and COVID vaccines and we do it with psychiatric drugs. And it's all under this disguise of scientific legitimacy that we can improve the human condition. But a lot of people are playing God and it's complete experimental, right? And I think it's very dark and it's very dangerous to communicate human emotions as if they don't have some profound and meaningful purpose. And rarely do we just, we... talk about the long -term safety and bioethics of this because what we're doing with these drugs have not been studied long -term and there isn't an agreement on their value and the risk to such these interventions are quite significant and I see that psychiatry as a form of science is not necessarily the the pursuit of truth it's the pursuit of an agenda because why would they Why would they reject evidence that contradicts their medical recommendations? And why wouldn't there be a greater effort to study the long -term impact of it? And I just see this as more under this transhumanism. It's a manner in which we see human beings. And I'm worried about that marginalization of people who are suffering and struggling and identifying that as if there's a brokenness or a disorder or a mental illness because... You can see that the number of people we're identifying is continuing to expand and continuing to grow. And we can say, well, one end there's a financial component. You know, the more people who identify as mentally disturbed or mentally ill or in an episode, well, the more customers you can have. But I wonder if there's just something a little bit more nefarious around it where there's this mass experimentation that's going on and it's trying to reshape the human condition. Brett Deacon (36:31.054) Mm -hmm. That is deeply disturbing. I wasn't aware of the label transhumanism, but I am aware of some of those initiatives that you described. My first thought is to follow the money, as you said, because no doubt there are vested financial interests that are driving this. And this is maybe an example of the tail wagging the dog. Where is this idea coming from that we need to... find increasingly sophisticated technological ways of reading people from emotional upset. Well, that sounds incredibly profitable if you have a technology that can achieve that. The last time we met, I mentioned this book by James Davies called Sedated. And it's also another example of using technology to distract people and sedate them from the increasingly unlivable conditions in society. And let's be honest, if the powers that be genuinely wanted to improve well -being, it wouldn't be that difficult. In theory, it would cost the richest people in society a lot of money. But the solutions would be employment and housing and a living wage. and, you know, like a retirement pension and social connection and, you know, all of the things that, like you said, you know, like throughout human history, there are things that have been conducive to our wellbeing that, that didn't require microchips and AI. And we all know what they are. And we all know that society is increasingly robbing people of those things. Brett Deacon (38:31.022) And so this just seems like a way of allowing the fundamental structure of our society to continue and to try to mitigate the increasing misery that we all experience as a result. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (38:46.244) I'm afraid that there's a couple generations right now that have been mass conditioned to believe that the expected state of human existence is to be happy. And if you are not, there is something wrong with you. Brett Deacon (39:00.462) Right. Give me a moment. I'm going to draw down my blinds. I don't know if you can see the sunrise coming up on my face here. It's the first light of day in one of the shortest days of the year here in Australia. So what you just described is the premise of one of my favorite little books, The Happiness Trap. You just described the happiness trap. So people equate happiness with feeling good. And if you don't feel good, then you're not happy. And you need to do whatever it takes to feel good and to avoid feeling bad. But the problem with that is feelings are fleeting. They don't last. You think about the happy, like the weather, the happiest moment of your life, even that didn't last very long. And so it's easy. If you can implant in someone's mind, Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (39:46.052) Like the weather. Brett Deacon (39:58.414) the idea that it's important for them to be happy and that happiness equals feeling good slash not feeling bad. And they start living their life based on that idea. They are going to go down a highly problematic path. And my favorite take home message from that book and indeed from that whole approach is to reframe happiness as behavior. And this is a radical idea. happiness equals living a rich, full, and meaningful life in accordance with your values while being willing to accept the psychological ups and downs that show up along the way. And that to me, that is not a technique for treating a mental health problem. That's a philosophy on a life well lived. And that's one of the... Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (40:37.892) us. Brett Deacon (40:51.534) That's one of the things that I really love about that approach. And we go back to Robin Williams. I think Robin Williams had a philosophy on a life well lived. And we see that coming to fruition in the movie, right? I gotta go see about a girl. That. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (41:06.372) Well, he gave up those tickets to the world series and that was Carlton Fisk's home run. Brett Deacon (41:10.222) I know. Yes. Yep. Son of a bitch stole my line. Yeah. And I'm not... Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (41:15.684) Yeah, I mean, that's it's such a great moment. And the things you just said are so important. I feel like we're losing that wisdom that we're not communicating to that. The expectations. How many people come in and we see therapy all the time and they say, well, I have anxiety, you know, and, you know, I don't I'm not happy all the time. It's almost like they're learning about what life is supposed to be like through TikTok or through Instagram. Brett Deacon (41:43.374) Yeah. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (41:44.836) You know, it's this image of what it should be. And if I'm not that all the time, then I'm defective and there's something wrong with me. And I think that radical idea of what you stated about talking about things in terms of behavior or actions is critically important because I think, you know, you don't really see a lot of people who are doing well in life when all they're doing is thinking about themselves. When they're in their heads, when they're ruminating, when they're worrying, when they're evaluating, when they're judging, when they're analyzing, that's just a way of creating. human misery. And I know my life is best served in the service of others. It's best served in learning. It's best served in experience. When I'm out of my head, there's the time for thinking there's the time for evaluation when we do it intentionally and mindfully. But, you know, so much about the modern mental health system, I think the therapy industry that exists as you try to solve thinking problems with more thinking. Brett Deacon (42:41.198) Right, I totally agree. And you know, the process of trying to help a client understand and adopt that happiness trap related definition of happiness, which is not, it's not feeling good. It's living well. That's like performing a brain transplant on the client because it's radically different from how people are conditioned to think. It involves just abandoning your previous assumptions and adopting opposite assumptions. Wait a minute. My unwanted internal experiences, my negative thoughts, my emotions, the sensations, the memories, that stuff's okay? I don't have to get rid of that. I don't have to try to make it go away. That doesn't mean that there's anything wrong with me. Those aren't symptoms of a mental illness that's based on my brain. None of that is true. And you're saying that I can just drop all efforts to get rid of those things or control them and instead focus my energy on trying to move forward in value directions. That's not what the doctor said. That's not what the teacher said. That's not what TikTok says. That is a completely different version of life. Right? So and but. You and I have both seen what happens when people embrace that. It's beautiful. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (44:14.916) And this is what I get concerned about some of this dumbed down version of cognitive therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy that's promoted out there. You know, it's really hard for me to come across somebody in the United States who really understands what CBT as an umbrella kind of approach actually targets because they're so focused on this, like your thoughts create or influence your emotions and your behavior. And so we spend time in session identifying distorted thoughts, challenging them, and creating new ones. And it's turned a lot of people off and it's put a lot of people in this position where they identify as cognitive therapy or cognitive behavioral therapy, and they're actually doing harm. So I want to take a step, I actually want to take a step back because I think what we're doing is we're starting together in this conversation, this agreement on what an effective way of living would be and how therapy could facilitate that. And, We spend our lives both in, you know, trying to understand the science of our profession, but I'm sure like, you know, like myself, you just, you kind of read philosophy and, you know, you're interested in kind of myths and stories and just, you know, the history of humanity and how we've had to deal with the challenges of living from, you know, for me, it's often like, you know, reading various forms of, of philosophy, especially the Stoics. And, you know, I am interested in how people create a life worth living, one of high value. And so when, if we pull back today, one of the things we're saying is feel it all. It's there to serve you and your emotions aren't something wrong with you. Your emotions are actually very critical, critical and important guides in this journey. And we often have to face what we're most afraid of. And our emotions, we have to accept their presence. And we have to have, I think as a culture, we have to normalize the full range of emotions that really represent the human experience. There's a rich tapestry where whether you're sorrowful or you're joyous, they interact beautifully to serve us. And in any way, the judgment of that, in any way, believing that a better life is decreasing the intensity of those. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (46:41.828) is missing the point because as you know from exposure therapy that there's a paradoxical effect to all this that once you actually do face your fears or you face your distress and it's something to overcome and it's serving you the paradoxical effect is you start feeling better and you start living better and the experience of fear has been altered right so that's one piece that we're we're talking about so and i also think the other part is really effective therapy promotes behavior change. That we look at from this radical idea that it is behavior change that is going to create these new experiences, these new experiences create this richness in our lives. And we are only limited by what our experiences tell us. And I think a great kind of discussion point around this is my wife's grandfather. who was in World War Two, Battle of the Bulge. He was pretty much stuck down in a ditch or whatever, a trench that you're trying to withstand the barrage from the German army through the winter in Bastogne, right? He's one of those. And once you get through that, right, everything else, your perception of what is hard changes. So it's, and you know, I had an grandfather who was in the Pacific War, same idea. When you get through something like that, your perception is different and understanding what life actually is and what's painful and what's hard is altered. And so you're not really afraid of much when you can get through something like that. And which is very challenging now that in our modern culture and society, we are thrown around the word trauma that anything that is painful is somehow debilitating and it's traumatic and it holds me back. Brett Deacon (48:20.718) Mm -hmm. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (48:38.404) And it's the reason why I can't do the things that I do, because you see I'm disabled by it, and they're so limited by their perception. So what is a typical normative experience like rejection or failure is now viewed from a perspective of that it's trauma and now it's an illness, right? And now you're going to get back in your head and now you're going to analyze. And it's the misrepresentation of these concepts and to think that everyone needs to be in therapy. And there's a therapy culture that's built that that is good for everybody. And that's where I think when you said this, that really important piece about, you know, something's being sold, it seems that even therapy is being sold, right? It's the commodification of our mental wellbeing and then selling these ideas around it. Brett Deacon (49:29.762) So many good points that you just made that I like to respond to. I'll see if I can keep track. So like... You began by talking about the superficial formulation. So imagine that you have a client in front of you, a real person with a real complex life, and you boil their experience down to, here's a triangle, thoughts, feelings, and behaviors, and they're all connected. So that's how we can understand you and your experience. You have these thoughts, these feelings, and these behaviors. And so that's the cycle that you're going through. And so we have strategies that we can use to... help control your feelings or to change your thoughts or to change your behavior. Let's save the behavior for later because that's kind of hard and distressing. Let's start with the low hanging fruit. You have negative thoughts and you're not really meant to have negative thoughts. You're meant to only have positive and accurate thoughts. So I'm going to give you some strategies for identifying your incorrect thoughts and we can find some correct thoughts to replace them with. And just the level of superficial, Nonsense underlying that approach is breathtaking, but that would be one of the more common strategies that therapists would use and people tend to delay or not even get to the behavior change and I think that I've been meaning to study this for a long time, but I think there's a whole set of beliefs around this like if a person has negative thoughts you have to talk about the thoughts in order to change them. as opposed to the idea that changing behavior gives you new information, which leads to a natural change in the way that you think. I mean, that's what we see in exposure, but many therapists believe you have to do cognitive therapy. And they also believe that you have to do cognitive therapy first, and then you have to do strategies for reducing unwanted emotions. And only when those strategies have worked and the client has become receptive, Brett Deacon (51:35.918) to willingness to change their behavior, only then can you get to the behavior change. And that might be 10 sessions and $1 ,500 later and three months later, and they still haven't changed their life. But what if you began with the assumption that the person is resilient and they can withstand the discomfort that is required to change their behavior? And they don't have to dive into the deep end right away. They can start to make small changes and work their way up. And that you don't have to. about thoughts in order to change them and you don't have to reduce emotions in order to make the person able to change their behavior. And in fact, you can just ignore those other things and help the person understand that yes, when you change your behavior, it's going to be challenging and it's going to make you uncomfortable and that discomfort will play out in a form of thoughts and emotions, but that's to be accepted. And you know, that's okay. Just give it time and you know, those things will naturally change as you... experience the positive benefits of behavior change. So formulation, when it's superficial, leads to superficial therapy, which leads to what I think is one of the major harms done in therapy. And this is opportunity cost, which is essentially wasting your time, money, effort, and faith in the profession on therapies that just aren't very effective. When you could have been investing that. in an approach that would actually work for you. And that's why I think I emailed you earlier saying that I think many people would be better off spending their money on a gym membership and meeting regularly with a personal trainer than engaging in this sort of superficial, you know, let's get rid of your unwanted thoughts and emotions type of therapy. But yeah. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (53:26.564) Let me ask you a question. What do you think the origins are of this fragilization of people? Because, I mean, you articulated very well. I mean, I see the same thing, that people are really afraid of another person's emotions and there's such a focus on having to reduce them in order to make changes. What do you think the origins of that is? Brett Deacon (53:53.838) I don't know if I have my head wrapped around that entirely. I know my colleague here at the University of Melbourne, Nick Haslam, has done some great work on this notion of concept creep, which is a phenomenon that's infiltrated society in the time from when I was a young person to now. And concept creep, Nick associates this with the... increasing dominance of what he calls a left leaning moral worldview or ideology. And this is an increased emphasis on reducing harm and safety, which two sides of the same coin. And so concept creep has led us to lower the threshold for defining things like bullying and harassment and abuse and mental illness and trauma. And when I was a kid, bullying was when you got punched by another kid. And now, I remember one of my daughters got accused by the school of bullying when she was in sixth grade because she and some of her other friends weren't playing during recess with another student who wasn't very nice. So the threshold for these harm -related terms has gone down. And they've also expanded sideways. So now more and more things count as bullying and trauma. Back when I was training, the kind of trauma that would actually count as being actual trauma that might lead to a diagnosis of post -traumatic stress disorder, the prototype would be combat -related trauma that military veterans would experience. Or maybe like life -threatening assault. But that was almost it. There weren't many other examples of what we would consider trauma. And now, trauma is what you feel when your boyfriend or girlfriend breaks up with you in high school. And Nick's research shows that when you lower the definition of these terms, they seem less serious and less harmful. It dumbs the term down, so it doesn't have so much meaning. But there's this obsession with safety now. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (55:57.732) Yeah. Brett Deacon (56:14.894) I swear I'm not making this up. If I walk down to the end of the hallway and I go into the bathroom and I go into the toilet stall, on the inside of the door is a sign asking if you feel safe and if not, here's a number that you can call to report being harassed or feeling unsafe. Signs like that all over the building. It's as if serial killers are lurking every stairwell. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (56:36.196) That's unbelievable. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (56:41.028) Yeah. Brad, I don't know if this is my conspiratorial mind, but I have to believe that's purposeful. This is, to me, it seems like it's purposeful fear of conditioning. Brett Deacon (56:51.31) Well, I do think it's purposeful. And I think the powers of that be are now obsessed with preventing harm and promoting safety. And here's where the concept creep comes in. Harm now is when someone says something that makes you feel uncomfortable. And that didn't used to be what harm was. Harm was physical violence. But now harm is emotional discomfort. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (57:08.676) Yeah. Brett Deacon (57:17.006) And that's why we have things like trigger warnings and that's why we have things like cancel culture and people protesting, let's say guest speakers coming into university campuses who talk about a perspective that you don't agree with. And it's just a really toxic societal change. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (57:37.54) Yeah, that's why I think when you speak to this ideology, I have to believe that there's something intentional around it because this is obviously going to fragile eyes, a generation of people to view their experience, you know, through the lens of fear, and it's going to create a exactly what's happening like a mental health crisis and where people feel, feel like they're fragile and they can't handle what life brings. And that ultimately serves, you know, usually some form of a revolution, or some totalitarian kind of government control where they become the, the people, you know, the ideas that you rely upon, you become dependent upon them. So there's, there is something intentional, in my opinion, about creating fear, dividing people and fragilizing a group of people. Like when you take away, we take away the language of resilience, when that's removed from your school systems, when that's removed from popular culture. That's going to have an effect on that culture. So sticks and stones will break my bones, but names will never hurt me serves us. Right. It means that you can't hurt me with your words. You don't have that power. I'm in control of my own life. I have personal accountability for that. And, you know, your, your words cannot create damage. And the moment you start creating a society where any emotional reaction to something is now viewed from the lens as. traumatic or as harmful, you're now creating a fear of those feelings. Right? You can't feel them and that's why you have to get rid of them. And that's why we have this sick care model, this allopathic model where here I'll get rid of these feelings. I'll numb you out with this drug. I'll sedate you. I'll tranquilize you. I'll eliminate you. You have anxiety. my God. You have anxiety. That is a disease state upon you. We need to get rid of that for because you can't live being uncomfortable. My goodness. Brett Deacon (59:33.998) Right. Let me go back to where is this coming from and whose interest is it to promote this stuff. It's interesting being in Australia because I think we're further down the path of this stuff being the way that the country runs than the US is in part because there's very little pushback here. in opposition to it, whereas the US does have more pushback. So let's imagine that we're really going to double down on this idea that people need to be protected from harm, shouldn't be exposed to uncomfortable ideas, controversial ideas. Australia has this e -safety commissioner whose job it is to police social media and remove hate speech. or problem. So, you know, we're censoring free speech. So I think censoring free speech is a big part of it. There's a move to pass legislation that will ban hate speech and provide criminal penalties for those who engage in hate speech. And who knows what hate speech is. But, you know, the big question is, what's the definition of hate speech and who are the people who are going to decide that and what is their ideology? And the state of South Australia, the capital was Adelaide, within the last couple of years in response to some of the COVID protests here, which were quite minimal compared to many other places, they essentially banned public protests. And so if a government wants to take control of its population, then they can use the need to protect people and keep them safe as a way of limiting free speech and essentially reducing the kind of pushback against the government that would, you know, stand in opposition to them gaining more power over its citizenry. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (01:01:42.212) Yeah, it's this dystopian future where there's a, there's a loss of freedom that you will own nothing and you'll be happy. And it's these bureaucrats and these technocrats have complete control. It's, it's ushering into a social credit system. But the dangers of this is that there can legitimately be a thought police. So if you actually have thoughts or ideas, or you resist this authority and it's outside what they deem the Brett Deacon (01:01:45.134) Yep. Brett Deacon (01:01:51.63) Yeah. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (01:02:11.332) acceptable, they can arrest you. And I do worry about psychiatry being an arm of this. Because if you look historically about what psych, the power psychiatry can do, they can deem you mentally incapacitated, they can deem you mentally ill, you can lose your rights, you can lose your own children. And we're dangerously close even in the United States to blurring that line. Because when you have doctors, who will threaten a parent, I'm gonna call protective services if your kids don't take this medicine, which is a psychiatric drug, or you don't hospitalize them. That's infringing on the rights of the family. And now they're up against this authoritarian figure that's saying, now you get to control what I do with my own children, regardless of what the law says, regardless of what the actual science says about that intervention, they are now the authority. And you have to follow that authority and this fear can, it can be used against you, right? It's the loss of your children. It's the loss of your freedom. And now we're really going to fear condition you. We're going to, we're going to monitor what you put on social media and we have the ability to cancel you, to pull you out. We can even arrest you. The fact that it's gone that far in a Western society in this world should be extremely frightening to everybody who's listening to this. Because this is exactly what's getting pushed in the United States. And the more fragile we are, you know, the more incapacitated mentally ill that we are, and that we're dependent on their drug or this medical intervention because there's something broken within us, we're not going to resist. Brett Deacon (01:03:53.326) Right. Right. Psychiatry always manages to be at the right hand of the government. You know, from eugenics in Nazi Germany to lots of more contemporary things. There are a lot of people, I think, don't know about this. There are parents who have had their kids forcibly removed from them by the government because they refuse to put their elementary school aged children on stimulants for ADHD. I think we're starting to see a similar thing with the gender affirming care model and parents being penalized for not allowing their children to undergo gender affirming care the way the school thinks they should. One element of this that I wanted to throw out there, you were talking about the social control system, there's been a lot of talk. in various world governments, the US, Australia, and others, about a central bank digital currency. And this is an absolutely essential element of this. So imagine, and this is already the case in China. So you have a social credit score, which is essentially how good of a citizen you are according to the totalitarian government there. And your money is digital and controlled by the government, and it's in your bank account. And if you... commit an offense, let's say jaywalk, and there are cameras everywhere in China that have the ability to recognize your face, so they will catch you jaywalking. If you jaywalk, money automatically gets deducted from your account. And now, when you ride the bus, you have to pay more to ride the bus for a certain period of time because you jaywalked. And the government has the ability to program your money. And that means the government has the ability to freeze you out from your bank account if they wish. And the more you behave in ways that the government likes, let's say praising the government on social media, the more perks you get, the cheaper things are in society. So it's an incredibly valuable tool for controlling the population. And it's definitely a space to keep an eye on. Because governments obviously love the idea of a CBDC because of the control it gives them. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (01:06:11.14) On that same vein there, I'm worried about how science can be weaponized. So I know first for someone like you, I think you see science as the search for truth and the empirical method and replication and really healthy debate. But here in the United States, Dr. Anthony Fauci has infamously said that he represents science. So. Brett Deacon (01:06:16.558) Mm -hmm. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (01:06:39.652) Because he is in a position of authority, what he determines to be truth, he uses science as a weapon. And you see this all the time, especially when it comes to what you mentioned before, transgender and the affirmative care model. They throw out all these numbers out of context as if the science is accepted. And there's a consensus that all psychologists and medical professionals support the idea that an affirmative care and gender transition, even for models for for adolescents who can't consent will reduce suicide and then we'll use the fear, you know, would you rather have a transgender son or a dead son? And it doesn't actually fit what the science is nor what the consensus is. There is no consensus. There's a lot of people who have concerns. There's a recent paper that just came out from the British Medical Journal that there's a 12 -fold increase in suicide following... gender transition surgery, I think that would fit possibly our understanding of the human experience. You can try to change your body all you want, but we don't really have good evidence that that's going to make you feel better because you're probably focused on the wrong thing or you're connected to this idea of who you are, who you should be. Just like in specific forms of body dysmorphic disorder, we're not recommending them to go get plastic surgery, if they're completely obsessed that their nose is too big, right? Because the outcomes aren't going to be very good on that. That's not going to solve the problem that exists. So the weaponization of science is that you do these things because it's scientifically proven. And now we're worshiping at this altar of science, a scientism, right? And now it's like a new God. That new God is the scientist and what they say needs to be done. you have to do or you're violating logical and reasonable and empirical evaluation. And you know who does that are people who are just not evolved enough, right? And we're still thinking we're creating that us versus them. And we saw that during COVID. Brett Deacon (01:08:49.486) Right, I have to say my faith in science has taken a big hit over the last few decades, mainly because of all those shenanigans that I've learned about the scientific publications of psychiatric drugs. But that's just the tip of the iceberg. There's a replication crisis in psychology, and we learned all of these famous findings can't be replicated, and we're probably just false positives. And I want to make a distinction between what the science says, like if you look at the scientific articles that are published, and there's a reason to be skeptical of some of that, but still on the one hand, there's what the science says. And then there's those who talk about what the science says or try to interpret it. And I think that's where it gets weaponized. And we see that in, certainly we see that with psychiatric drugs. We have... professional psychiatric associations like the APA who tell society what the science says. But then when you look at the actual science, it doesn't say that. And then when you look at the most valuable source of information, which is not the published versions, cherry picked published clinical trials, the ones that actually work, but when you are able to access the actual data from the actual studies that were conducted, all of them. That's what the data actually show. And it looks nothing like what the experts tell us it shows. So, and I think it's really easy to conflate what the interpreters of science say with what the actual science says. And as you see, there's a massive disconnect with the gender affirming care model, but you see it all over the place. You certainly see it with psychiatric drugs. You see it in psychology. And I still have this faith in the... hypothetical purity of science as the best method that we have in the search for the truth. But it's very easy to do science in a corrupt way. And it's incredibly easy for anybody to distort what the science says in the service of a political claim. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (01:11:05.7) Yeah, there's a lot of manipulation and distortion of what the data actually suggests. And, you know, there's really, there's some published studies that suggest 85 % of the research is distorted. The conclusions don't actually fit the actual data. And that's just a representation of it trying to serve an industry. And the inherent biases we all have in trying to prove our hypothesis correct, you know, I think we need to try to disprove. our hypotheses. I wanted to ask you a question about if you're aware of Abigail Schreier's new book, which is Bad Therapy. Brett Deacon (01:11:45.39) I haven't read it, but I've read a bit about it online. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (01:11:50.02) Yeah, I mean, she's really making her way right now on the podcast circuit. And I'm a big podcast listener. And, you know, there's some people that I really like to listen to actually spoke to Abigail Shrier prior to publishing the book, she interviewed me, and I got a little bit of a quote in there. But we talked about a lot of the things that, you know, we're, we're talking about right now. So if, if, if we're identifying that a really effective therapy, can normalize the emotions that can provide some education in that and really does promote behavior change and this umbrella and concept of exposure. And the science that I always kind of rely on with exposure is this inhibitory learning model of fear extinction. That's a long word like word of like the reflection of neuroscience in how human beings can be exposed to something that was previously viewed as threatening. And through that experience, they now learn something new that can override the previous fear modeling that provokes. Like it's very evolutionary, very adaptive, and we understand that we experience fear as a protective mechanism. But in order for us to progress through that fear and in order to take new risks and to create new things and to... Brett Deacon (01:12:56.11) huh. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (01:13:12.036) achieve better things in life, we have to be able to be willing to face that and experience new things. So I think that's Michelle Kress model. And I think that's really valuable and like pushing people into effective therapies. But then there's the harm, the iatrogenic harms of therapy. That if we do fragilize people, to an extent, we are suggesting that they don't have natural coping mechanisms to recover. That the only way that you can overcome something that's challenging or difficult, is to go and talk to a therapist about it. And I think, and I think the research supports this, that our natural default mechanism is resilience. And sometimes what's most important is we don't get in the way of that natural recovery process. We've seen that in some of the PTSD studies around like having somebody, I forget the term, after they have an event that can be deemed as traumatic, there is like a 30 day protocol for somebody to have to talk about it within 30 days of the event. That's it. That's it. Yep. Critical incident stress debriefing. And then what the science actually demonstrates is that worsens the condition. It increases the likelihood that person could experience post -traumatic stress symptoms. But most people don't know that. Brett Deacon (01:14:20.91) Critical incident stress debriefing. Yeah. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (01:14:38.308) And so in the therapy community throughout the United States, someone goes through something hard. The first thing they're doing is saying, you need to go talk to a therapist, not understanding that actually doing that gets in the way of natural recovery. We are resilient. The person, if they didn't talk to a therapist is going to take the time in their own minds, with their own families, with their own social support systems to deal with what has occurred. And they're likely going to take steps to face it. Maybe not on a four o 'clock on a Tuesday because that's their appointment, but in the natural way that they can to order to regain a sense of stability in their lives. And since most of us will not experience PTSD symptoms when we face something traumatic, we have to be aware that pushing somebody to face something and talk about it on your timeline, then when you have your appointment is harmful. And we don't talk about that. Brett Deacon (01:15:14.99) Mm -hmm. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (01:15:34.564) And then the other thing that we mentioned that was so important is you can't solve a thinking problem with more thinking. So you put somebody into therapy and they have to talk and they have to, whether they want to or not, they have that hour and you're going to go into your head and you're going to think about it. And you could be in therapy for years because that's what people are doing right now. So those are two like harms that really stand out. There's a lot more. How do you begin to think about the potential harms of therapy and how do we protect against it? Brett Deacon (01:16:09.294) Great question. You know, I was asking myself kind of a thought experiment as you were talking about critical incident stress debriefing. I'm thinking back to like the worst thing that's ever happened in my life. Maybe this would be good for the listeners to do. Imagine the worst thing you've ever been through. And then imagine that you got chucked into a therapist office a few days later and you were asked to talk about your reaction. Would you be happy to do that? Would it be too soon? For me, I would have been like, I don't want to talk about this right now. I need to take some time and reflect. I can easily see that making things worse, at least temporarily. So yeah, I think often what we do is we undermine resilience. And of course, we want to build that up. Like I have a number of core values as a therapist and building up resilience, assuming, first of all, assuming that people are inherently resilient. I mean, that's why I do exposure without. without a care in the world that the client won't be able to tolerate it. It doesn't mean it will be easy, but I believe that people are fundamentally resilient. And I believe that if clients believe that they are resilient, they will act like it. It will become a self -fulfilling prophecy, but it works the other way as well. And we're really good at undermining resilience by convincing people that there's something wrong with them for having these... bad thoughts, feelings, and behaviors, and they need to get rid of them. And the biggest way that we undermine resilience is by telling people that their brain is broken and the problems are due, you know, that it's a biologically based mental illness, which means that you can't control it. It's out of your control, no different than cancer is out of your control. And I'm convinced that that actually is seen as a benefit by doctors in the pharmaceutical industry because that keeps people coming back. And now I'm back to the two world views. That is the worst thing for me that I would want my client to think, that they are unable to control the problem and that they can't successfully deal with it and move forward in life without having to rely on an external thing to help them through it. But psychiatrists don't want people generally to think that. They want people to be dependent on the medication like insulin for diabetes. Brett Deacon (01:18:34.414) I want to come back to a term that you used, which I've changed the way that I think about this term, coping. I no longer like that word. And the reason why is every time that I hear coping, it's always in the service of a coping strategy used to get rid of or suppress or control unwanted internal experiences. And... Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (01:18:45.348) Interesting. Brett Deacon (01:19:04.142) you know, clients come into therapy often, can you teach me some coping strategies for getting rid of my anxiety? And so then we have the discussion of what's the opposite of trying to cope your anxiety way? That would be accepting it, being willing to have it. And one of the ideas that I try to impart in therapy is that the problem isn't that your You don't have the right coping strategies. The problem is your belief that you need coping strategies to begin with. And so I would rather have people, well, I was saying on my website, see if I can remember it, life is meant to be lived, not coped with. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (01:19:51.116) All right, so I have another perspective on this. And one of my mentors in my doctoral program, actually she self -identified as an expert in coping. Now the way you described coping, I would argue that those are generally maladaptive coping strategies. There are ways to, if coping is the way that you react to something that's challenging, right? They can either enhance your experience, lead you to overcome it. They're really valuable. They're aligned with your values or they can be harmful. Brett Deacon (01:20:07.502) Mm -hmm. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (01:20:21.028) So my dissertation research was examining the coping strategies of adolescent females who had eating disorders. So I had a clinical group, they were in a hospital -based setting who were diagnosed with either anorexia or bulimia, and it was severe enough that required hospitalization or partial hospitalization. And I compared it to a non -clinical control group. a group of same age peers who had no history in the mental health system. And we created these like hypothetical vignettes of social problems, right? So one example of them was homecoming is on Friday night, you go to lunch, you're sitting down with a group of friends, and they're all talking about going to a party after the homecoming dance at your best friend's house, and you weren't invited. And so that's the dilemma, right? So there's a lot of uncertainty. And then it's asking these questions. Why do you think this happened? So now it's your cognitive appraisal of the event. How will this make you feel and also rating it? So the emotions and then the intensity of it. And what would you do about it? And so you see this clinical group of these girls would widely recognize it as what's called a hostile intent attribution. So I must have done something, she doesn't want me there, right? I wasn't invited. What are the emotions? Negative, intense, it could be shame, sadness. And then it's what do you do about it? And there was, for the girls who were in the hospital program, it's an avoidant coping strategy, but there's something called intra -punitive avoidance, where you actually punish yourself. You hurt yourself. Could be cutting. You could be restricting food. You could binge and purge. So you're avoiding dealing with the entire situation. You're escaping that emotion. That's all coping. Okay. But obviously it doesn't serve that person. It interferes. And it's probably a maintaining factor in why they're struggling with an eating disorder. Now I compare this to the other group and the same age peers who don't have these same mental health difficulties. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (01:22:46.692) accepts certain things to possibly be true. While I didn't get the invitation yet, I don't have to be invited, I'm her best friend. So the intent attribution isn't necessarily hostile. They're open to the possibility it could be another reason, but they don't attach to it as true. So their emotional reaction is less, and it's not as negative, but here's the key point to this. What do you do about it? I would go talk to her. You're exposing yourself to it. You're facing and solving a problem. You're not relying on the illusion your mind creates about it. You're going right. That's an approach coping problem solving strategy. It changes the entire outcome of that person's existence. So that's why I think coping is so incredibly valuable, but understanding what is coping that is. serves a person's values that helps them overcome the problems that exist. And so you're describing a coping mechanism that's escape oriented, right? Get me out of this situation as if that's effective, right? And I think a lot of people have to learn it. And so if I'm a cognitive behavioral therapist and I'm working with an eating disorder and I'm conceptualizing, I'm saying that this eating disorder potentially is an intra -punitive coping mechanism that represents some legitimate deficit. So what's my... What's my treatment going to be? What's my therapy? It's going to be action oriented. I'm going to get them to do those things. I'm going to get them to face those problems. I'm going to help them to do this differently because now you're not stuck in your head in this story where everyone hates you and no one wants to be around you because your perceptions become your reality. We are creators of our reality. That's kind of stoicism right there. And now I'm trying to build this person to face their life. You might find out you did something wrong. Brett Deacon (01:24:38.382) Great. Yeah. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (01:24:40.388) but now you have that opportunity to also solve it. So do you see the distinction? Brett Deacon (01:24:43.118) Right, I totally do. I get the distinction between adaptive and maladaptive coping. And that was a really good point. I was reflecting as you were talking, why am I annoyed by the word coping? Because I feel like it's more than what I have mentioned. And here's what I connected to. The notion that therapy involves techniques. And. This is, I think, the common way that therapy is delivered based on the kind of superficial formulation. Therapists say to the client, well, OK, so you have an anxiety issue. I'm going to share some techniques that you can use to manage that. And they're usually the coping away your unwanted experiences variety. But I don't think of what I do as a collection of techniques. And I'm sure you don't either. I think of it as an approach. to living life. And I guess I also have an aversion to the notion of techniques. And it's this common metaphor that as a therapist, you're like a carpenter and you have a tool belt and you pull out a tool for the right problem. But a tool isn't a formulation -based overall approach to moving forward and living life. And I think coping often gets wrapped up in that. But, yep, I take your point. Really good points. Can I ask you a question? We were talking about the various harms of therapy. And I have to go back to the late, great Scott Lilienfeld, who wrote really eloquently about this, about three ways that therapy can cause harm. There's direct harm, like critical incidence, stress debriefing. There's opportunity cost. And I want to hit on the third one and ask you about your experience with this. The third one is reducing the credibility of the profession. And I think both you and I believe that we have something special to offer that is legitimate and based in science and based in sound philosophy that can transform people's lives for the better. And it's credible and it's ethical and it's helpful. And we've both seen countless instances of clients seeing other therapists and getting something that's just kind of ridiculous. And I can think of one example where, Brett Deacon (01:27:05.934) In the in Wollongong Australia where I used to live there's a practice that specializes in walking therapy every session involves walking and Little known fact the Medicare rebate that clients can get from the government is $20 more per session if you leave the office so this practice figured out that they can charge clients $20 more session by walking and I had an anxious client come to see me and her therapist took her to the beach and and had her dunk her head in the water while walking. And this evokes something called the dive response, which is meant to be a way of kind of resetting your mind when anxious. And the client thought that was ridiculous and didn't return to the therapist and came to see me. And I sort of shook my head at, once again, another example of... practice that kind of gives our profession a black eye and that rubs off on me. Clients who have that kind of experience think, well, why should I bother to see a therapist at all? They don't know what they're talking about. What's your experience? Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (01:28:15.364) Yeah, what I find is that there's often the misunderstanding of interventions that are misapplied to the wrong person at the wrong time. So it's interesting because I have a full model dialectical behavior therapy program here. And DBT is a pretty efficacious treatment and a lot of value to it. Like we've seen it really change lives and there are skills. that they learn, but it's applied to a specific person in a certain situation. So those clients have such severe emotion dysregulation and difficulties tolerating distress that they remain in active episodes of self -harm and potentially substance abuse or eating disorders or chronic suicidality. And there is the theory that drives that is they have to learn. to how to tolerate distress and regulate intense emotions to first change those behaviors because they just keep you in a cycle of self -harm and don't allow you then to create that life and face the things you really need to face because let's face it, those behaviors are used to escape. And I think what research shows is that they need something to turn to in the most difficult of moments. And that's why we have coaching and I provide coaching. So the use of the dive reflex to reduce the intensity of the motion is for somebody who's about to kill themselves or is in such intense emotional pain, they got a knife up to their arm and you're talking to them on the phone because they only know how to self -regulate through that cutting. And now you're going to say, okay, I'm going to get you to step back. Let's just go get some ice. we're going to just, we're going to dunk your head in there, which is going to lower your heart rate. And it's going to reduce the intensity of the emotion, maybe not dramatically, maybe from a 10 to a seven. And now we can kind of problem solve what's next. So it's not a strategy to change the way you feel necessarily. It really, it buys time and allows someone to now stop and think about what the next step is. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (01:30:39.076) And it's not an intervention for an anxiety disorder. It might be an intervention to get you to stop and do something different instead of cutting yourself, to maybe you kind of refocus, but I don't use it. I don't dunk my head in water because I don't face that problem. So there are some interventions that are valuable for a specific population in a specific time of their lives to stop something. And then if you take it outside of that and you apply it to just a way of being, right? Like, I don't like how I'm feeling, let me get rid of it, then it actually does harm. And I think that's, to your point is that we can actually misapply concepts in the wrong situation and, and create harm. And that's sort of the value of there has to be some credible way of evaluating what we're doing under some philosophy or theory that's grounded in a reasonable understanding of people who are flourishing and the human condition. and our own historical understanding of how we overcome stress and difficult conditions. So the credibility of our profession is really at risk because there's so much pseudoscience and there's so much nonsense and it's become so commercialized and it's become so connected to popular culture that, you know, people learn from TikTok and then they come into your session and they have idea what it means to be mentally healthy. And they're not talking about things in terms of diagnoses. Well, tell me about yourself, why you're here. Well, I have OCD, ADHD, I'm on the autism spectrum, borderline personality disorder and bipolar disorder. What? You know, like that's how some people describe themselves. And so that is harm, right? That's negatively influenced the credibility of our profession because there's no path to being well. Brett Deacon (01:32:18.286) Yeah. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (01:32:34.98) with identifying yourself in that way. Brett Deacon (01:32:40.43) I just piggybacking off your last point, I can't help but think that nowadays there's... Brett Deacon (01:32:50.094) What's the opposite of stigma? Social capital in being mentally ill and identifying with mental disorder diagnoses. Like you actually get attention and validation for being mentally ill. At the same time, that identifying with these diagnoses might disempower you and foster the lack of resilience, which are negative. People are embracing these labels because of the social capital that they bring, which... I guess doesn't give me a lot of optimism that this is going to change anytime soon. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (01:33:27.748) Brad, I'm actually in a little bit of a crisis of confidence and questioning what I want to do next because I'm finding it much harder to work with younger people who are coming in who don't want to lose their diagnoses. They're actually not really even coming in for change. They're coming in for validation. And I don't, it's harder for me to work with it because the perspective that we're sharing, which I think in at another point in time would be really understood and even valued because I think the intention of going to see a psychologist was I want my life to be better has shifted where people are coming into therapy wanting validation that they're ill and they actually just believe I need to be in therapy because that is justification and validation of my condition. There's no real intentionality of overcoming it. And they see these conditions as if they're immutable characteristics that they'll deal with the rest of their lives. Brett Deacon (01:34:39.118) So what are they looking for from you in that context? Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (01:34:42.788) I think it's validation, support. Brett Deacon (01:34:46.638) beyond validation though, but like what is the therapy meant to look like? Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (01:34:52.804) That's where they get stuck. I don't think the TikTok reels take them through that. And so, you know, I don't start therapy unless there's an agreement on goals and I don't start therapy unless there's a collaborative understanding of what the problems are. And so I've lost a little more, you know, I've just lost clients. I've just agreed like, I'm not the person to be working with you because this is what I believe or this is what I think your potential is. And... doesn't mean I don't get into some critical conversations about how they've adopted that mentality, but there is a resistance to what I'm saying. Brett Deacon (01:35:31.182) Interesting. Okay. I'm sure you've found what I have, which is in cases where you are able to share the alternative perspective and the person is receptive to it, they often end up being profoundly grateful that you've been able to take them out of that old mindset. and we could have a whole other conversation about what I'm about to say now, but often a problem with that is when you do that, you are now directly contradicting what their doctor told them. And you are actively working with them and their doctor and the doctor said, you have a broken brain and a chemical imbalance, and this is like insulin for diabetes for you. And now you're thinking that's all the exact opposite of what is true. And I really need to rescue my client from believing in that. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (01:36:02.148) Yeah. Brett Deacon (01:36:21.518) that dehumanizing and unhelpful mindset. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (01:36:26.788) I'm really good at that. Really good at that. Yeah. You know what I find? In my, I don't know, I can probably look at the last five or six years, I can recall only one psychiatrist who refused and debated on me and refused to collaborate with me. Only one. And, you know, this person had a real personality problem. You know, it was all about her way. Brett Deacon (01:36:28.142) Yeah? Yeah. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (01:36:56.516) usually when I, when I get on the phone and I say, I'm concerned the intervention, the drugs are causing harm. Here's my evidence. Here's what I know. I'm going to be working with this person once to twice a week. I'm going to assume responsibility and accountability for them. We have, we think we have things set up. Let's talk about how we can safely taper this person off these drugs and get to baseline. 99 % of these docs are like, sure, let's do it. Thank you. Because I think a lot of them understand that it's a bandaid at best and it's creating harm, but they're stuck in the system. What they believed it was is not what it is in reality. And they can't get out of it because they have student loans. You know, They've done all their residency. This is how they take care of their family and they act under the guidelines that are set up for their profession. But I believe in these private moments when you can look someone in the eye, you know, they're deeply concerned and aware. Now I don't take them off the hook because, you know, they still, they're part of the system and they're still doing harm and they find a way to rationalize it for themselves. But they've been willing to. Brett Deacon (01:38:17.582) Mm -hmm. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (01:38:20.58) to work with me and collaborate and get a lot of people off drugs, which is what I'm doing at my practice right now. When I get a 19 year old who's on seven, Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (01:38:32.708) And I do. You know, that's the families coming in. Even though they're an adult, who's your support? Who's your family? Who's taking care of you? This is a family meeting. And, you know, it's very clear I will not I cannot work with you under these conditions. And we need to start doing something about it. And yes, a lot of them are very appreciative of that. I mean, it's it's really bad out there. And in a four or five year span, it's become dramatically worse. Brett Deacon (01:39:07.15) Really? Well, it's great to hear that you're able to have those sorts of productive interactions with prescribers. And I'm guessing that the conversation you have with them is limited to the medication. And the conversation you have with the client is about the ideology and validity of diagnoses and the other stuff, which you don't really need to get into with the prescribers. Is that right? Yeah. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (01:39:24.58) Yes. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (01:39:29.764) Yes. Yeah. But the young people, so it's, it's the 17, 18, 19 year old, 20 years old who, who've attached to these diagnoses, right? I am depressed. I have ADHD. I am this. No longer it's I'm struggling with this and you take them through a course of therapy with it. They're completely attached to this idea of who they are. And it's actually threatening to consider that that wouldn't define them anymore. And of course, yes, there are environmental rewards for such, right? Like some of them are really attached to this social media world where it's even in their profiles. And it's, this is a disability characteristic that defines why they've struggled in certain areas. And it's very shame protective, right? I'm unable to do this because I have ADHD, which protects them from any of that growth process that we're talking about. Brett Deacon (01:40:28.75) Right. Well, now we're celebrating neurodiversity in society and, I don't know what to do about that. I'm sure that social media is the major driver of that. And now, thanks to the neurodiversity movement, being different from quote unquote normal by having a mental illness, especially certain types, is cause for celebration and privilege treatment. And like you said, also provides maybe a bit of an excuse for why people's lives are the way they are. I don't know what the solution is, but I do know... that there seems to be growing momentum for limiting the use of smartphones among young people. And I'm hopeful that that could be a potential solution. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (01:41:18.82) That is a potential solution. And I think young people even recognize how addictive that is and how a powerful tool in their lives that creates misery. that I see that they're able to articulate. And even I was listening to Jonathan height on a, on a podcast, his experience. And I think he's at NYU is the feedback he gets from the students is that if everyone else would give it up, they would, they would really, welcome that. It's the fear of missing out. So if everyone else is using it, then they have to use it. They would just need everyone to agree. And that's why you see these school systems who are doing really, seeing these really positive outcomes when they banned the use of the phone during the entire day, because now everyone is forced to have to interact and engage each other. Right. And you're just developing this detachment from that device. Now they're, it's almost like an awakening into their lives again, outside of the illusion. And so there's these really valuable outcomes. Brett Deacon (01:41:48.718) Yeah. Yeah. Brett Deacon (01:42:05.646) Right? Right. Brett Deacon (01:42:15.374) Yeah. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (01:42:18.34) I also think there's to move towards kind of an optimistic or positive stance, maybe to close out today's discussion, is I do think the pendulum is starting to swing back a little bit in terms of reason and logic and resilience, where a lot of people, the veil has been kind of removed and we've kind of peeking behind that veil of corruption. And a lot, how a lot of the ideas really do harm us because we're experiencing it, right? We, we, we know in our hearts inherently like what it means to have to live a life and then following their rules or doing these ridiculous ideas of like, you know, every negative emotion that is experienced in life. We have to talk about it or it's a sign of mental illness or we're retreating inward or we're going to our smartphone or we're doing this intervention or we're doing that. This intense focus on ourself really does drive misery. And we're starting to swing back the pendulum to, boy, what would a life be like if we're no longer attached to phones and, you know, we're taking some risks again and we're going to talk to people and we're going to stand for something and we're going to read more instead of, you know, be attached to those phones and parents are rethinking strategies that they've used in their lives and how to respond to kids. And, you know, I'm hopeful that that with the use of podcasts and alternative messaging and people who are willing to stand against what has become like standard mental health care or cultural misunderstandings of fragilization that we begin to rethink where we've gone wrong and we course correct. And we have more powerful influence by using our skills as a psychologist to be able to articulate our understanding, our vision. and how people can live a better life. And I think having a, just a discussion like this today is representative of that. Like I can get on a call and you're in Melbourne for me. I don't even know how do you pronounce that again? Melbourne, you're in Melbourne, Australia. And it's Friday morning there and it's Thursday night here. And we're having this conversation which thousands of people are gonna listen to. And that's meaningful. Brett Deacon (01:44:29.902) Albin? Yeah. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (01:44:42.18) because they're going to then incorporate some of these ideas and they're going to share it with somebody else. And these conversations are going on around the world. Brett Deacon (01:44:49.742) I totally agree. And the fact that you are in the top 1 % most downloaded podcasts, it says it all to me really. People care about what you have to say. They care about this message and it is getting through. And the pendulum does always swing back. And I agree with you. I do think it is starting to swing. I think there's increased recognition among professional communities, at least that, social causes of psychological suffering are really important and have been neglected for too long. I think people are starting to realize the harms of smartphones and the need to do something about it. I actually think that faith in medicine and science has been shaken by the pandemic in a healthy way where people don't just automatically believe everything that doctors and their representatives in the government tell us. The revelation about the whole Oxycontin fiasco, I think has given people a look into the black box of the marketing machine that leads people to take drugs that are harmful. And I remember when I was watching the Netflix show Painkiller, and the first, have you watched that? Yeah. In the first episode, I jumped up and I started shouting at the TV. That's the exact same thing that they did with Prozac. Like, they need to do Painkiller with Prozac. And maybe they will someday. Like, I do think the pendulum is swinging back. And I think it's... I think you're doing really important work in nudging it along. And I'm grateful to be a part of it and keep up the great work. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (01:46:41.156) really appreciate it. These conversations with you are so thought provoking. You know, I'd love to have you as a regular guest, because there's so many directions that we can go in that I think are valuable. Your last episode was heavily downloaded. So I think people enjoy this conversational approach where there's we're trying to articulate and understand this from different perspectives, but we're communicating very clearly because I think we're By our age and what we've witnessed is we were here before dealing with this stuff before the phones, right? Before the shifts, before the mass prescription of psychiatric drugs. And we experienced how I think society and the wellbeing of our community was just so enhanced. And then we just saw it really hijacked and the message is being hijacked and we see... Understandably, people, you know, becoming mentally, emotionally unwell and overwhelmed by stress and fear. And we can articulate it almost like we were, we've, we bear witness to all this and we've seen the shift. So it's the value of generation X, you know, where we're at in our lives, because it's been such a fascinating time to be alive because the technological shifts and then the messaging used to control human beings. Brett Deacon (01:48:09.998) Mm -hmm. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (01:48:10.404) has shifted so rapidly where younger people, this is all they know. You know, you know only what you know what you've been exposed to. But we haven't, we've seen and experienced different times. Brett Deacon (01:48:23.982) I was thinking back to when I was young, we had one screen in our house, one TV, and I had no control over what was on it. Except on Saturday morning, when I got to watch Saturday morning cartoons. But my parents watched the news and they watched their shows. And if I wanted to watch Hill Street Blues with them, I could, but I usually didn't. So I had to find something else to do. And by the time I had kids, Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (01:48:35.46) Yeah. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (01:48:39.3) Yeah. Brett Deacon (01:48:50.99) You know, every night was, you know, what Disney movie do you want to watch tonight? Look, SpongeBob is on. And something happened where the world became all about the young person. And, you know, they got to have whatever they wanted and they didn't have to be independent and figure out what to do. And just even within that 20 year period, there's a massive shift. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (01:48:54.436) Yeah. Brett Deacon (01:49:19.726) And that was brought about by technological innovations. And you're right, we have bared witness to this massive ship. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (01:49:24.484) Yeah, my. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (01:49:28.548) When my kids were young, I was seeing parents pacifying their kids with iPads and I knew it then that is, that's dangerous, you know, because I was at a completely different focus. You know, I was in school to be a psychologist when my kids were, were young. And I remember saying, Hey, they need to face these things. They need to experience these things. They need to be bored because boredom is going to promote creativity. Right. And I, our kids would say that they were bored and I would say, Brett Deacon (01:49:34.446) Yeah. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (01:49:58.372) too bad. So sad. Yeah. And so what you need to do is you know, it's not my responsibility to entertain you. So then you'd have to draw or then you'd have to play a game and you have to go outside. And I think this really, really served them well, where now we have this intolerance for boredom. And that's what they label as ADHD, right? They go to school, they're bored and now they're ADHD. And it's, it's embarrassing. And that's where we've lost the credibility of our profession. It's completely off the rails. Brett Deacon (01:50:27.95) Totally agree. Well, I love this conversation. I would love to be a regular guest. There's so much more that we can talk about. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (01:50:35.78) Yeah, I think we're almost two hours in. So I really do appreciate you starting your day with this conversation ending my day with this conversation. It's thought provoking. There's so much we got to talk about. Really do appreciate it. Any final words before we conclude today? Brett Deacon (01:50:44.11) My pleasure. Brett Deacon (01:50:54.734) Just a thought that I had, maybe this is a topic for a future conversation. I was, as a person who trains clinical psychology graduate students, within a system in which in order to be accredited, our program has to follow the mandates of the accrediting body, which are quite detailed and strict. How can students be... exposed to this alternative perspective with any meaningful depth within their course because I'm guessing I'm not sure what your education was like but almost everything I learned about this alternative perspective I learned on my own. And you know we're graduating students who have almost no exposure to this way of thinking and some might somehow find it on their own most probably don't but I wonder what we can do. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (01:51:38.628) Yeah, me too. Brett Deacon (01:51:54.062) to change that. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (01:51:56.26) Yeah, definitely. That's a long form discussion in itself. I do think we're on the verge of some major institutions kind of deconstructing a little bit and needing to be rebuilt and possibly away from these major controlling bodies that are really influenced by money or ideology. And that might be the benefit of all this struggle. is that we can try to remake some institutions that are in the betterment of society, right? And to improve humanity, we have to be aware of where the corruption and the harm has taken place and we can't fall into it. And it looks like what's happening in Australia is there's a real vulnerability that people are just going to become slaves of the government. And so it's going to take a lot of courage and a lot of mass resistance, but there's a lot more of us than them. You got to remember that we have to do it together. We have to mass resist against these ideas. We can't follow along like drones, right? We, that's why we have to be free, critical thinkers and have the willingness to share ideas and to stand up for what we believe is right. And that requires courage because remember memento mori, remember you will die. Right. It's all going to be over anyway. So you might as well stand for what you believe in. And we have John F Robert F Kennedy is running for president here in the United States. And he says things, there's a lot of things that are worse than death and being a slave is one of them. Brett Deacon (01:53:35.502) Yeah. Well, if you'll excuse me, I gotta go see about a girl. Roger K. McFillin, Psy.D., ABPP (01:53:36.676) All right. Great way to end. Dr. Brett Deacon, thank you for a radically genuine conversation. Brett Deacon (01:53:48.654) Thanks, Roger.