October 30, 2025 • 20 mins
In this enlightening episode of Advice From Your Advocates, Attorney Bob Mannor sits down with Dr. Fred Moss, a psychiatrist who’s redefining what mental health care can look like—especially for older adults. Together, they explore how genuine communication and human connection often achieve more than medication ever could.
Dr. Moss shares his decades-long journey through psychiatry, from witnessing the over-medication of elderly patients to discovering that true healing begins when people are treated as humans, not diagnoses. This conversation challenges traditional ideas about dementia, mental illness, and medication management, offering a fresh, compassionate perspective on what it means to care for the mind and spirit in later life.
You’ll learn:
- Why communication is the foundation of all healing
- How holistic approaches can improve outcomes in dementia and elder care
- The surprising ways medication can sometimes worsen mental health
- Why “there may be nothing wrong with you at all” might be the start of healing
- How connection—not correction—leads to better quality of life for seniors
Whether you’re a caregiver, elder care professional, or simply someone passionate about mental health, this episode will leave you rethinking what it truly means to heal.
Learn more about Dr. Fred here: https://welcometohumanity.net/
Host: Attorney Bob Mannor, CELA, CDP
Guest: Dr. Fred Moss
Executive Producer: Savannah Meksto, CDP
Assistant Producers: Samantha Noah, Shalene Gaul
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ABOUT US:
Mannor Law Group helps clients in all matters of estate planning and elder law including special needs planning, veterans’ benefits, Medicaid planning, estate administration, and more. We offer guidance through all stages of life.
We also help families dealing with dementia, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, and other illnesses that cause memory loss. We take a comprehensive, holistic approach, called Life Care Planning. LEARN MORE...
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_01 (00:00):
You're listening to Advice from Your Advocates, a
show where we provide elder lawadvice to professionals who work
with the elderly and theirfamilies.
SPEAKER_00 (00:09):
Welcome back to Advice from Your Advocates.
I'm very excited about thepodcast today.
We've got Dr.
Fred Moss, and this is a topicthat I've wanted to cover for a
long time, and it's somethingthat we've seen in the law
office a lot lately.
We're getting a lot more folksthat are coming into the elder
care journey with some mentalhealth issues, and it creates
its own serious set ofchallenges.
(00:31):
So, Dr.
Fred Moss, welcome.
SPEAKER_01 (00:34):
Thank you, Bob.
It's really great to be here.
I really appreciate it.
It's an honor and a privilege.
So I look forward to ourconversation.
SPEAKER_00 (00:39):
Tell us a little bit more about yourself and your
journey to become apsychiatrist.
SPEAKER_01 (00:44):
Yeah, so I think I was born a healer.
You know, I really do.
I arrived to a family that hadtwo brothers, 10 and 14 years
old, and there was a fair amountof chaos, disarray, and conflict
in a home.
And I think they were lookingforward to me coming in as a
bundle of joy and bringing somesort of peace and unity to this
family and, you know, so muchturmoil.
And I think I did a pretty goodjob for a few years, but I
(01:06):
became very enchanted with thewhole idea of communication and
the effect that communicationcould have on others.
And I remember that from a veryyoung age.
And I was always interested inlearning how to talk or how to
interact with other people.
I thought it would happen atschool, but of course, as you
and I both know, it doesn'thappen inside of those
classrooms, that's for sure.
And the more I learned that inelementary school, the more I
got disappointed.
(01:26):
But I was precocious.
I had these two brothers, so noteacher could stop me from
talking, and no teacher, youknow, no teacher has forgotten
having Fred as a elementaryschool student either, for those
of them that are still here.
Anyways, we move forward and Ireally start noticing that
people are leaning on me.
You know, people in high schoolfriends and colleagues are
leaning on me to tell me theirstory, and I'm very interested
(01:47):
in telling, you know, tellingand listening to stories.
So I become a communicator.
I mean, I really realize that Ican communicate, but the the
truth is I'm not learning it inschool.
I'm learning it in the streets,I'm learning it in between
class, I'm learning it afterschool, those kind of things.
And uh I dropped out of collegeand then went, got on a bus and
went across the country toCalifornia to find my life.
(02:08):
And I actually did find my lifethat summer, but it was
unsustainable and came back andtried college one more time in
the computer field, actually,and dropped out again because I
didn't like batch cards andpunch, you know, punch cards and
batch jobs.
And so off I went.
And my mom, you know, was okaywith me never going back to
school again because I told herthat was the case.
(02:29):
And she got me an applicationfor civil service work as a uh
childcare worker in theadolescent state hospital.
And I that was for the firsttime I was communicating.
That's what I was doing.
These were just kids who werenot even in unfortunate
situations as I saw it.
They were just who they were,living where they did and why
they did and all that.
And I got to communicate withthese, we call them kids, but
(02:50):
they were only like five yearsyounger than me.
And communication was a way toheal, and it was a way to heal
them and me.
And I didn't like the directionpsychiatry was taking.
And that's why I went into it.
I really felt that I could bringsome form of communication into
a field that was losing itsreliance on communication as
being a for a form of treatment.
(03:10):
And I felt like I needed to be astand for that.
So I came into the field reallyalready sort of disrupting what
was happening.
And as I was there, as I was inschool at medical school, there
was the advent of Prozac, whichchanged the world, as you know.
I mean, so totally changed theworld.
And the whole definition ofmental illness got shifted.
The whole idea that there mightbe something wrong with us when
(03:34):
we felt uncomfortable wasintroduced to the world.
The idea that if you feel sad,if you feel angry, if you feel
scared, if you feel frightened,if you feel hopeless or
helpless, or if you feeldistracted or awkward, those are
the problems with you.
Well, that's not the case.
It's never been the case.
You know, having thoseexperiences in a life like this
(03:54):
makes total sense to all of us.
And as I became a stand for,well, maybe that person isn't
very sick, actually.
Maybe the treatments themselvesor the medications or the actual
therapies are perpetuatingconditions that they're marketed
to deal with.
And I spent my whole life sortof, you know, jumping, you know,
my whole career, anyways,working within the system from
(04:17):
the belly of the beast.
I've had about 30,000 patients.
I've written over 100,000prescriptions, but each of my
prescriptions that I've writtenhas been a little bit of a soul
sacrifice because I never feltlike medicines were the answer.
And I mean that, like all the100,000 prescriptions, I felt a
blip on every single one.
And that level of duplicitywasn't acceptable to me.
And I eventually had to breakand did.
(04:38):
So the levy broke, I'd say,first in 2006, but ever since
it's been gradually breakingwith a couple, you know,
fractures here and there.
And recently I've decided that Ineeded to create a way that was
more consistent with my corevalues and who I am as a
genuine, authentic person.
And that was this idea thatcommunication was at the heart
of all healing, all healingindeed.
(04:59):
And that psychiatric diagnosesand psychiatric medications and
therapies often actually induce,increase, perpetuate, or even
cause the symptoms they'remarketed to treat.
And they certainly secure thosediagnoses once you obtain a
psychiatric diagnosis and begintreatment.
And it doesn't not necessarilybe the healthiest way to deal
with our discomfort.
(05:20):
So I've designed many differentprograms to deal with that
discomfort.
You know, Buddha was among manyof our sages or philosophers in
the past who suggested thatdiscomfort was a very
significant and central part oflife.
And it is.
I mean, let's face it, I'vealready had some troubles today
waking up on getting out of bed.
You know, so like I've had tobattle some demons, and I think
most of us do in the morningjust to get out of bed.
(05:42):
And, you know, that's what lifeis.
Life is a challenge.
And so when we really respectthat and look at each other and
realize connection is what we'reafter in order to heal
ourselves, then we can startunderstanding that the
resonating harmonic nature of acommunication conversation that
leads to human connection isindeed what we're really after
and a much more potentmedication and much more potent
(06:02):
therapy than anything that'sever been designed by the
conventional medical or aconventional psychiatric system.
So that's who I am.
I've written a couple of books.
I've been on several stages,I've been a podcast guest for
over 250 different episodes, andI've been a podcast host for
over 300 episodes as well.
Just the whole idea is the sameobsession I had when I was
(06:22):
little Freddie, which was I wantto learn how to communicate.
I want to be with people, I wantto get the things out of the way
that prevent me from being ableto communicate effectively.
And I don't just want to speaknow.
I want to speak and I want tolisten.
I want to learn.
I always am a student.
And I think that we're all inthe same place.
So I like looking across thetable at my what they might call
(06:43):
themselves client uh patients.
I like leveling that ground,removing the power gradient, and
just being human to human withpeople because that's where the
real connection and that's wherethe real healing and you know
the real wealth takes place.
SPEAKER_00 (06:56):
I think you use the term holistic healing, which is
a term that I like a lot.
We use it in our practice withseniors and in the working with
families with a loved one withdementia, and we call it
holistic planning.
And I think it's a it is a gooduse of the term.
It seems like that's what you'rereally kind of talking about
here is the kind of looking atthe whole picture and the whole
(07:18):
person.
And I'd like to talk to you, Iknow that you have a particular
passion for working with theelder care community.
Talk to us about that and howyour work as a holistic healer
kind of interacts with those inthe elder care community.
SPEAKER_01 (07:33):
Yeah, that's a great question.
Thanks for asking.
Yeah, I've worked I've been amedical or a psychiatric
consultant or sometimes themedical director at multiple
different nursing homes, about40 of them.
And I've worked on geriatricunits as well.
And I have a good story out of ageriatric unit in Southwest
General Hospital in Cleveland,Ohio area.
And I was hired there as a uhtraveling doc to help a bunch of
(07:55):
people on a dementia unit,supposedly, I think they called
it an Alzheimer's unit.
And um, you know, when I arrivedthere, uh, most of the clients
were screaming at night or, youknow, falling asleep in their
soup or forgetting theirchildren's name or scratching at
the staff and all those thingsthat can really happen on those
units that make it make themundesirable for the most part
(08:17):
for to stay there, hard to workthere and hard to be with the
people, whether you're family orfriends or colleagues or or
caregivers.
And I waited for a couple monthsin there, and then I started
doing something pretty radical,which had a really remarkable
phenotype, a remarkable outcome.
And that was I started takingthese people off of all their
medicines.
You know, I with the help ofsome of the attending physicians
(08:40):
that were working with me inother specialties, we started
taking people off theirmedicines just to see what would
happen.
And it wasn't just thepsychiatric medicines, it was
really looking at what are themedicines that are superfluous,
anyways, and how can what can wedo?
And the more medicines I tookthese people off, the more
alert, aware, and conscious thatthey became.
Such that, no kidding, this iswhat happened.
(09:00):
We had about 16 people on thatunit.
And before too long, they wereplaying volleyball with the
beach ball in the middle of theunit, and they were winning, you
know, playing trivial pursuitand shocking people with their
memory.
They were certainly rememberingtheir children.
They're no longer falling asleepin their soup, they're no longer
screaming all night, they're nolonger combative with the staff.
And we started realizing thatthe medicines themselves were an
(09:22):
absolute considerablecontributant to all the negative
behaviors that we had otherwiselearned was just a natural flow
of what dementia does over time,and that the geriatric unit were
housing organic concerns.
When in fact, more often thannot, what we learned is that the
geriatric unit was feeding uhgas to the flame, gas to the
(09:42):
fire by treating these peoplewith overarching, overwhelming
amounts of medication that weremessing with their whole
wherewithal, their wholecapacity to work with people.
We had people fall in love onthat unit.
The naysayers would be like, oh,Fred, you started getting a much
easier population, apparently,on the geriatric unit.
No, we didn't get an easierpopulation.
We just had a treatment plan atwork, and a treatment plan at
(10:05):
work was to remove thesemedications because they were
causing so much damageimplicitly.
And most people didn't reallyeven realize that.
And when we removed themedications and started treating
these people like humans, justlike I did on that adolescent
unit, we got healing at anextraordinary level, and that
was really rewarding.
SPEAKER_00 (10:21):
That's great.
We've noticed this, so we oftenget involved at the point that
the family member is in eitherthe hospital or has been
transferred to, excuse me, askilled care facility.
And what we've noticed withregard to medications is often
they were on perhaps too manymedications while they were at
home.
They go to the hospital, theyget they don't stop those
(10:43):
medications, but they add newones, sometimes that were
clearly meant to be temporary,like because of the agitation or
you know, being in the hospitaland how that can be
disconcerting.
And then they don't stop those,they go to skilled care.
And now the doctor at theskilled care was often adding
medications, and no one waslooking to take off the old
ones, and they're just addingupon them, adding upon and
(11:03):
adding upon.
And it's one of the things thatwhen we've advocated for folks,
of course, we're never going totell people stop taking their
medications, but we do advocatethat the family talks to the
doctor and says, is all of thisnecessary?
Uh, you know, was all of thisintended to be permanent?
SPEAKER_01 (11:19):
Well, it's a really good point you bring up too, and
it really shows that you aredeep in the industry to
understand that flow oftreatment.
And, you know, us doctors, wewere never trained how to
discontinue medication.
The public thinks that we weretrained to discontinue medicines
because of course that would bea doctor's job, but we were
never trained to that do that.
We're trained to add, increase,or change medicine.
(11:40):
So when symptoms happen, we addincrease or change medicine.
And like you said, you know, youdon't want to cross over your
scope and tell people to stopmedicine.
It's the same kind of thingamong my colleagues in that if
somebody else prescribes somemedicines, it's audacity for me
to go in there and remove thosesame medicines that someone
thought was useful.
So it's not simple to removesomeone else's prescription
(12:01):
because you don't know whatpatch they thought that they
were, you know, covering over.
And so, yeah, medicationsaccumulate.
And that's what the undoctor isall about.
As the undoctor, which is one ofmy monikers, I undiagnose,
unmedicate, and thenundoctrinate people by really
walking through safe processesto get off their medication, but
not only off their medication,get them off their diagnosis.
(12:24):
Because as soon as we startbelieving that we have a
diagnosis, then we start beingcompelled to treat that
diagnosis by fixing ourselves orfixing our parents or fixing our
patients.
And if we start realizing maybewe don't have a diagnosis, like
maybe we really don't, maybe wethe treatment itself is inducing
or perpetuating or causing thesymptoms, then we get a whole
new ground to start from.
(12:44):
And that's when we start gettingpeople a rise out of the clouds
and start winning trivialpursuit games at 85 years old
after having been declaredAlzheimer's.
SPEAKER_00 (12:53):
I'd like to get your opinion on something.
And it's my perspective thatwhen we're dealing with this,
there is a distinction, andmaybe not a medical one, I'm not
sure, but between a dementiadiagnosis and a mental health
diagnosis.
And maybe they overlap, but Ithink as soon as we start
calling in mental healthdiagnosis, a whole different
(13:15):
series of things happen withinthe long-term care community.
Often as soon as we call it amental health diagnosis, many of
the long-term care facilitieswon't take that patient.
And so is there a distinctionand how do you deal with that
classification?
SPEAKER_01 (13:31):
No, I of course I don't think that there's much of
a distinction.
They're both in the eyes of thediagnostician more than
anything.
Now, in the world, what you'retalking about is very real.
There's like a bi-modal way oflooking at it.
It's almost like a dualdiagnosis when you have dual
diagnosis like drugs and youknow, some drug abuse and mental
illness.
But in your case, there'sanother dual diagnosis here, and
(13:52):
that's the dual diagnosis ofdementia versus mental illness.
And I think the idea is if youhave dementia, it's permanent,
and the best we can do is slowdown the progressive
deterioration and that you'renot going to get any better.
And we know that, and thatsomehow your mental illness, you
know, whatever mental illnessdiagnosis that you've agreed to
take on in the past is going tonot be, is going to be
(14:13):
overwhelmed or outdone by thedementia.
So we can't treat your dementiaif you have mental illness
because you know that makes ittoo complicated.
But we can't treat your mentalillness if you have dementia
either, because then we don'thave access to you.
And so there's this whole ideathat these two things are
different when in fact, as youheard of my philosophy, that
they're both essentially causedby the same thing, which is at
(14:35):
some point you take on thatthere's something wrong with
you, and then you take ongetting fixed, and the things
that you're using to get fixedaren't actually healing you.
And so they don't even slow downthe deterioration.
They appear to give littlebursts of it of slowdown, and at
the same time, they're worseningthe conditions more often than
not.
And we start looking atprogressive deterioration, which
is associated with dementia, orwe start looking at conditions,
(14:59):
major psychiatric conditions, atleast the diagnosis of those,
which essentially are consideredincurable and only containable.
So it's a mess either way, andthe bridge between those two
diagnoses, as far as I'mconcerned, is not very real, but
I see, of course, how it worksinside of the belly of the
beast.
SPEAKER_00 (15:16):
Yeah.
I had an opportunity, I mean, itseems to be in line with your
philosophy.
I had an opportunity to visitthe dementia village in Hokovic,
the Netherlands, this year.
And it seems that they reallyadopt this philosophy that
you're talking about.
There's really not a lot ofmedications.
They allow people to live theirlife, they try to keep them
active during the day, whichmeans that they're sleeping at
(15:38):
night, and it's a whole village.
I'm sure you're familiar withit.
Yeah.
What do you think of thatconcept?
SPEAKER_01 (15:44):
It's phenomenal, of course.
But it's natural, it's obvious,it's simple, it's real.
I mean, yes, it's phenomenal,but that's only because the
prevailing conversation hasgotten so far off of Main Street
that it looks like Main Streetis phenomenal.
And it's just like, no, we oh,we're gonna treat people like
people and see how that works.
SPEAKER_00 (16:01):
Right.
SPEAKER_01 (16:02):
Yeah, it's gonna it's gonna work okay, I promise.
Just treat people like people.
That's a good plan.
And instead, it looks phenomenalbecause there's a you know, a
majority of people are have gonedown the conventional allopathic
route and find themselves havingtheir conditions worsening so
that just staying on Main Streetlooks like a miracle.
Treating people like peoplelooks like a miraculous
(16:22):
intervention when it's like,hello, pretty, you know, pretty
straightforward.
SPEAKER_00 (16:26):
That's probably the best, you know, concise
explanation is just treatingpeople like people there.
And that they did talk about andwe observed they don't really
have a lot of behaviors there.
They don't have a lot ofsundowners or things like that.
Of course they don't.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (16:41):
That's because they're caused because those
conditions, behaviors andsundowners, are directly
associated with the diagnosis,the treatment plan, and the
medication.
SPEAKER_00 (16:53):
So I want to make sure that our audience can learn
more about everything thatyou've been talking about.
You mentioned that you haveseveral books.
Can you tell us about some ofthose books and what's the best
way to find them?
SPEAKER_01 (17:03):
Yeah, I have a couple books.
One book I have is called TheCreative Eight: Healing Through
Creativity and Self-Expression.
It's a fun, easy read, and Ipeople tend to like it.
You can find that one on Amazon,or you can find that on my
website, which is welcome tohumanity.net, or my other
website, which is the one Ireally want people to go to,
which is called drfred360.com.
(17:23):
So that drfred360.com, you getevery piece of who I am there.
It's a really cool, slickwebsite that people enjoy, and
you can contact me there too.
There's a place to contact me ifyou want to have a call to talk
about yourself or someone elseyou know or someone else you're
caring for.
It would be my pleasure.
Or it, you know, I also doexpert witness work for what
that's worth.
So I've done a fair amount ofcases, about 35 different cases
(17:46):
that I've been a consultant onand been retained on about 35
cases.
So I like doing that as well foryour friends and colleagues.
And my other book was calledFind Your True Voice.
And Find Your True Voice isexactly what it's aimed for,
which is the idea of moving thethings out of the way that are
in the way of you being genuineand authentic in your
interactions.
And then uh, you know, I teach alot of courses, and these days
(18:09):
I'm doing something called anundoctor reset, which is helping
people, in fact, take care ofthemselves and get off their
diagnosis, off theirmedications, and give their
lives back, no matter what theirage is and no matter what their
so-called condition was beforethey came insomnia.
SPEAKER_00 (18:23):
Very good.
What are some key takeawaysyou'd like to leave our audience
with?
SPEAKER_01 (18:28):
Yeah, so I think the one key takeaway that I like
leaving audiences with is theidea that maybe there's nothing
wrong with you at all.
Maybe there's nothing wrong withyou.
Maybe there's nothing wrong withhim or her or them either.
Like maybe there's nothing wrongwith them.
It's a challenging,obstacle-filled, ch you know,
hurdle-filled life.
And we don't have a manual.
We don't have it, we don't havean owner's manual, we don't have
(18:48):
a recipe book, we don't have atemplate to work from.
And it's a difficult life, youknow, it's difficult to be human
and we choose to do what we do.
There's some people better at itthan others, I suppose, or some
people who are meaner thanothers, some people who are more
sad or have taken on a sense ofdespair.
But the truth is we can changeour lives.
And at this moment, we are not aslave to the circumstances that
(19:11):
brought us to now.
So we have an opportunity fromthis point forward to do things
different, to say thingsdifferent, to think things
different, to be a differentperson.
And we really do have thatcapacity, and each and every one
of us has that capacity, eventhe ones that we have cemented
into the corner with apsychiatric diagnosis.
So, in fact, maybe we don't haveanything nearly as wrong with us
(19:32):
as we think, and that bumbling,stumbling, and tumbling through
this world is sort of the statusquo to be expected.
SPEAKER_00 (19:37):
Great.
And thank you so much.
It's been a very interestingconversation.
If you've enjoyed thisconversation, don't forget to
subscribe to Advice from YourAdvocates.
And you can find us at any placethat you listen to podcasts.
So thank you for joining ustoday, and we'll see you next
time.
SPEAKER_01 (19:58):
Thanks for listening.
To learn more, visit ManorLawgroup.com.
You're listening to Advice from Your Advocates, a
show where we provide elder lawadvice to professionals who work
with the elderly and theirfamilies.
SPEAKER_00 (00:09):
Welcome back to Advice from Your Advocates.
I'm very excited about thepodcast today.
We've got Dr.
Fred Moss, and this is a topicthat I've wanted to cover for a
long time, and it's somethingthat we've seen in the law
office a lot lately.
We're getting a lot more folksthat are coming into the elder
care journey with some mentalhealth issues, and it creates
its own serious set ofchallenges.
(00:31):
So, Dr.
Fred Moss, welcome.
SPEAKER_01 (00:34):
Thank you, Bob.
It's really great to be here.
I really appreciate it.
It's an honor and a privilege.
So I look forward to ourconversation.
SPEAKER_00 (00:39):
Tell us a little bit more about yourself and your
journey to become apsychiatrist.
SPEAKER_01 (00:44):
Yeah, so I think I was born a healer.
You know, I really do.
I arrived to a family that hadtwo brothers, 10 and 14 years
old, and there was a fair amountof chaos, disarray, and conflict
in a home.
And I think they were lookingforward to me coming in as a
bundle of joy and bringing somesort of peace and unity to this
family and, you know, so muchturmoil.
And I think I did a pretty goodjob for a few years, but I
(01:06):
became very enchanted with thewhole idea of communication and
the effect that communicationcould have on others.
And I remember that from a veryyoung age.
And I was always interested inlearning how to talk or how to
interact with other people.
I thought it would happen atschool, but of course, as you
and I both know, it doesn'thappen inside of those
classrooms, that's for sure.
And the more I learned that inelementary school, the more I
got disappointed.
(01:26):
But I was precocious.
I had these two brothers, so noteacher could stop me from
talking, and no teacher, youknow, no teacher has forgotten
having Fred as a elementaryschool student either, for those
of them that are still here.
Anyways, we move forward and Ireally start noticing that
people are leaning on me.
You know, people in high schoolfriends and colleagues are
leaning on me to tell me theirstory, and I'm very interested
(01:47):
in telling, you know, tellingand listening to stories.
So I become a communicator.
I mean, I really realize that Ican communicate, but the the
truth is I'm not learning it inschool.
I'm learning it in the streets,I'm learning it in between
class, I'm learning it afterschool, those kind of things.
And uh I dropped out of collegeand then went, got on a bus and
went across the country toCalifornia to find my life.
(02:08):
And I actually did find my lifethat summer, but it was
unsustainable and came back andtried college one more time in
the computer field, actually,and dropped out again because I
didn't like batch cards andpunch, you know, punch cards and
batch jobs.
And so off I went.
And my mom, you know, was okaywith me never going back to
school again because I told herthat was the case.
(02:29):
And she got me an applicationfor civil service work as a uh
childcare worker in theadolescent state hospital.
And I that was for the firsttime I was communicating.
That's what I was doing.
These were just kids who werenot even in unfortunate
situations as I saw it.
They were just who they were,living where they did and why
they did and all that.
And I got to communicate withthese, we call them kids, but
(02:50):
they were only like five yearsyounger than me.
And communication was a way toheal, and it was a way to heal
them and me.
And I didn't like the directionpsychiatry was taking.
And that's why I went into it.
I really felt that I could bringsome form of communication into
a field that was losing itsreliance on communication as
being a for a form of treatment.
(03:10):
And I felt like I needed to be astand for that.
So I came into the field reallyalready sort of disrupting what
was happening.
And as I was there, as I was inschool at medical school, there
was the advent of Prozac, whichchanged the world, as you know.
I mean, so totally changed theworld.
And the whole definition ofmental illness got shifted.
The whole idea that there mightbe something wrong with us when
(03:34):
we felt uncomfortable wasintroduced to the world.
The idea that if you feel sad,if you feel angry, if you feel
scared, if you feel frightened,if you feel hopeless or
helpless, or if you feeldistracted or awkward, those are
the problems with you.
Well, that's not the case.
It's never been the case.
You know, having thoseexperiences in a life like this
(03:54):
makes total sense to all of us.
And as I became a stand for,well, maybe that person isn't
very sick, actually.
Maybe the treatments themselvesor the medications or the actual
therapies are perpetuatingconditions that they're marketed
to deal with.
And I spent my whole life sortof, you know, jumping, you know,
my whole career, anyways,working within the system from
(04:17):
the belly of the beast.
I've had about 30,000 patients.
I've written over 100,000prescriptions, but each of my
prescriptions that I've writtenhas been a little bit of a soul
sacrifice because I never feltlike medicines were the answer.
And I mean that, like all the100,000 prescriptions, I felt a
blip on every single one.
And that level of duplicitywasn't acceptable to me.
And I eventually had to breakand did.
(04:38):
So the levy broke, I'd say,first in 2006, but ever since
it's been gradually breakingwith a couple, you know,
fractures here and there.
And recently I've decided that Ineeded to create a way that was
more consistent with my corevalues and who I am as a
genuine, authentic person.
And that was this idea thatcommunication was at the heart
of all healing, all healingindeed.
(04:59):
And that psychiatric diagnosesand psychiatric medications and
therapies often actually induce,increase, perpetuate, or even
cause the symptoms they'remarketed to treat.
And they certainly secure thosediagnoses once you obtain a
psychiatric diagnosis and begintreatment.
And it doesn't not necessarilybe the healthiest way to deal
with our discomfort.
(05:20):
So I've designed many differentprograms to deal with that
discomfort.
You know, Buddha was among manyof our sages or philosophers in
the past who suggested thatdiscomfort was a very
significant and central part oflife.
And it is.
I mean, let's face it, I'vealready had some troubles today
waking up on getting out of bed.
You know, so like I've had tobattle some demons, and I think
most of us do in the morningjust to get out of bed.
(05:42):
And, you know, that's what lifeis.
Life is a challenge.
And so when we really respectthat and look at each other and
realize connection is what we'reafter in order to heal
ourselves, then we can startunderstanding that the
resonating harmonic nature of acommunication conversation that
leads to human connection isindeed what we're really after
and a much more potentmedication and much more potent
(06:02):
therapy than anything that'sever been designed by the
conventional medical or aconventional psychiatric system.
So that's who I am.
I've written a couple of books.
I've been on several stages,I've been a podcast guest for
over 250 different episodes, andI've been a podcast host for
over 300 episodes as well.
Just the whole idea is the sameobsession I had when I was
(06:22):
little Freddie, which was I wantto learn how to communicate.
I want to be with people, I wantto get the things out of the way
that prevent me from being ableto communicate effectively.
And I don't just want to speaknow.
I want to speak and I want tolisten.
I want to learn.
I always am a student.
And I think that we're all inthe same place.
So I like looking across thetable at my what they might call
(06:43):
themselves client uh patients.
I like leveling that ground,removing the power gradient, and
just being human to human withpeople because that's where the
real connection and that's wherethe real healing and you know
the real wealth takes place.
SPEAKER_00 (06:56):
I think you use the term holistic healing, which is
a term that I like a lot.
We use it in our practice withseniors and in the working with
families with a loved one withdementia, and we call it
holistic planning.
And I think it's a it is a gooduse of the term.
It seems like that's what you'rereally kind of talking about
here is the kind of looking atthe whole picture and the whole
(07:18):
person.
And I'd like to talk to you, Iknow that you have a particular
passion for working with theelder care community.
Talk to us about that and howyour work as a holistic healer
kind of interacts with those inthe elder care community.
SPEAKER_01 (07:33):
Yeah, that's a great question.
Thanks for asking.
Yeah, I've worked I've been amedical or a psychiatric
consultant or sometimes themedical director at multiple
different nursing homes, about40 of them.
And I've worked on geriatricunits as well.
And I have a good story out of ageriatric unit in Southwest
General Hospital in Cleveland,Ohio area.
And I was hired there as a uhtraveling doc to help a bunch of
(07:55):
people on a dementia unit,supposedly, I think they called
it an Alzheimer's unit.
And um, you know, when I arrivedthere, uh, most of the clients
were screaming at night or, youknow, falling asleep in their
soup or forgetting theirchildren's name or scratching at
the staff and all those thingsthat can really happen on those
units that make it make themundesirable for the most part
(08:17):
for to stay there, hard to workthere and hard to be with the
people, whether you're family orfriends or colleagues or or
caregivers.
And I waited for a couple monthsin there, and then I started
doing something pretty radical,which had a really remarkable
phenotype, a remarkable outcome.
And that was I started takingthese people off of all their
medicines.
You know, I with the help ofsome of the attending physicians
(08:40):
that were working with me inother specialties, we started
taking people off theirmedicines just to see what would
happen.
And it wasn't just thepsychiatric medicines, it was
really looking at what are themedicines that are superfluous,
anyways, and how can what can wedo?
And the more medicines I tookthese people off, the more
alert, aware, and conscious thatthey became.
Such that, no kidding, this iswhat happened.
(09:00):
We had about 16 people on thatunit.
And before too long, they wereplaying volleyball with the
beach ball in the middle of theunit, and they were winning, you
know, playing trivial pursuitand shocking people with their
memory.
They were certainly rememberingtheir children.
They're no longer falling asleepin their soup, they're no longer
screaming all night, they're nolonger combative with the staff.
And we started realizing thatthe medicines themselves were an
(09:22):
absolute considerablecontributant to all the negative
behaviors that we had otherwiselearned was just a natural flow
of what dementia does over time,and that the geriatric unit were
housing organic concerns.
When in fact, more often thannot, what we learned is that the
geriatric unit was feeding uhgas to the flame, gas to the
(09:42):
fire by treating these peoplewith overarching, overwhelming
amounts of medication that weremessing with their whole
wherewithal, their wholecapacity to work with people.
We had people fall in love onthat unit.
The naysayers would be like, oh,Fred, you started getting a much
easier population, apparently,on the geriatric unit.
No, we didn't get an easierpopulation.
We just had a treatment plan atwork, and a treatment plan at
(10:05):
work was to remove thesemedications because they were
causing so much damageimplicitly.
And most people didn't reallyeven realize that.
And when we removed themedications and started treating
these people like humans, justlike I did on that adolescent
unit, we got healing at anextraordinary level, and that
was really rewarding.
SPEAKER_00 (10:21):
That's great.
We've noticed this, so we oftenget involved at the point that
the family member is in eitherthe hospital or has been
transferred to, excuse me, askilled care facility.
And what we've noticed withregard to medications is often
they were on perhaps too manymedications while they were at
home.
They go to the hospital, theyget they don't stop those
(10:43):
medications, but they add newones, sometimes that were
clearly meant to be temporary,like because of the agitation or
you know, being in the hospitaland how that can be
disconcerting.
And then they don't stop those,they go to skilled care.
And now the doctor at theskilled care was often adding
medications, and no one waslooking to take off the old
ones, and they're just addingupon them, adding upon and
(11:03):
adding upon.
And it's one of the things thatwhen we've advocated for folks,
of course, we're never going totell people stop taking their
medications, but we do advocatethat the family talks to the
doctor and says, is all of thisnecessary?
Uh, you know, was all of thisintended to be permanent?
SPEAKER_01 (11:19):
Well, it's a really good point you bring up too, and
it really shows that you aredeep in the industry to
understand that flow oftreatment.
And, you know, us doctors, wewere never trained how to
discontinue medication.
The public thinks that we weretrained to discontinue medicines
because of course that would bea doctor's job, but we were
never trained to that do that.
We're trained to add, increase,or change medicine.
(11:40):
So when symptoms happen, we addincrease or change medicine.
And like you said, you know, youdon't want to cross over your
scope and tell people to stopmedicine.
It's the same kind of thingamong my colleagues in that if
somebody else prescribes somemedicines, it's audacity for me
to go in there and remove thosesame medicines that someone
thought was useful.
So it's not simple to removesomeone else's prescription
(12:01):
because you don't know whatpatch they thought that they
were, you know, covering over.
And so, yeah, medicationsaccumulate.
And that's what the undoctor isall about.
As the undoctor, which is one ofmy monikers, I undiagnose,
unmedicate, and thenundoctrinate people by really
walking through safe processesto get off their medication, but
not only off their medication,get them off their diagnosis.
(12:24):
Because as soon as we startbelieving that we have a
diagnosis, then we start beingcompelled to treat that
diagnosis by fixing ourselves orfixing our parents or fixing our
patients.
And if we start realizing maybewe don't have a diagnosis, like
maybe we really don't, maybe wethe treatment itself is inducing
or perpetuating or causing thesymptoms, then we get a whole
new ground to start from.
(12:44):
And that's when we start gettingpeople a rise out of the clouds
and start winning trivialpursuit games at 85 years old
after having been declaredAlzheimer's.
SPEAKER_00 (12:53):
I'd like to get your opinion on something.
And it's my perspective thatwhen we're dealing with this,
there is a distinction, andmaybe not a medical one, I'm not
sure, but between a dementiadiagnosis and a mental health
diagnosis.
And maybe they overlap, but Ithink as soon as we start
calling in mental healthdiagnosis, a whole different
(13:15):
series of things happen withinthe long-term care community.
Often as soon as we call it amental health diagnosis, many of
the long-term care facilitieswon't take that patient.
And so is there a distinctionand how do you deal with that
classification?
SPEAKER_01 (13:31):
No, I of course I don't think that there's much of
a distinction.
They're both in the eyes of thediagnostician more than
anything.
Now, in the world, what you'retalking about is very real.
There's like a bi-modal way oflooking at it.
It's almost like a dualdiagnosis when you have dual
diagnosis like drugs and youknow, some drug abuse and mental
illness.
But in your case, there'sanother dual diagnosis here, and
(13:52):
that's the dual diagnosis ofdementia versus mental illness.
And I think the idea is if youhave dementia, it's permanent,
and the best we can do is slowdown the progressive
deterioration and that you'renot going to get any better.
And we know that, and thatsomehow your mental illness, you
know, whatever mental illnessdiagnosis that you've agreed to
take on in the past is going tonot be, is going to be
(14:13):
overwhelmed or outdone by thedementia.
So we can't treat your dementiaif you have mental illness
because you know that makes ittoo complicated.
But we can't treat your mentalillness if you have dementia
either, because then we don'thave access to you.
And so there's this whole ideathat these two things are
different when in fact, as youheard of my philosophy, that
they're both essentially causedby the same thing, which is at
(14:35):
some point you take on thatthere's something wrong with
you, and then you take ongetting fixed, and the things
that you're using to get fixedaren't actually healing you.
And so they don't even slow downthe deterioration.
They appear to give littlebursts of it of slowdown, and at
the same time, they're worseningthe conditions more often than
not.
And we start looking atprogressive deterioration, which
is associated with dementia, orwe start looking at conditions,
(14:59):
major psychiatric conditions, atleast the diagnosis of those,
which essentially are consideredincurable and only containable.
So it's a mess either way, andthe bridge between those two
diagnoses, as far as I'mconcerned, is not very real, but
I see, of course, how it worksinside of the belly of the
beast.
SPEAKER_00 (15:16):
Yeah.
I had an opportunity, I mean, itseems to be in line with your
philosophy.
I had an opportunity to visitthe dementia village in Hokovic,
the Netherlands, this year.
And it seems that they reallyadopt this philosophy that
you're talking about.
There's really not a lot ofmedications.
They allow people to live theirlife, they try to keep them
active during the day, whichmeans that they're sleeping at
(15:38):
night, and it's a whole village.
I'm sure you're familiar withit.
Yeah.
What do you think of thatconcept?
SPEAKER_01 (15:44):
It's phenomenal, of course.
But it's natural, it's obvious,it's simple, it's real.
I mean, yes, it's phenomenal,but that's only because the
prevailing conversation hasgotten so far off of Main Street
that it looks like Main Streetis phenomenal.
And it's just like, no, we oh,we're gonna treat people like
people and see how that works.
SPEAKER_00 (16:01):
Right.
SPEAKER_01 (16:02):
Yeah, it's gonna it's gonna work okay, I promise.
Just treat people like people.
That's a good plan.
And instead, it looks phenomenalbecause there's a you know, a
majority of people are have gonedown the conventional allopathic
route and find themselves havingtheir conditions worsening so
that just staying on Main Streetlooks like a miracle.
Treating people like peoplelooks like a miraculous
(16:22):
intervention when it's like,hello, pretty, you know, pretty
straightforward.
SPEAKER_00 (16:26):
That's probably the best, you know, concise
explanation is just treatingpeople like people there.
And that they did talk about andwe observed they don't really
have a lot of behaviors there.
They don't have a lot ofsundowners or things like that.
Of course they don't.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (16:41):
That's because they're caused because those
conditions, behaviors andsundowners, are directly
associated with the diagnosis,the treatment plan, and the
medication.
SPEAKER_00 (16:53):
So I want to make sure that our audience can learn
more about everything thatyou've been talking about.
You mentioned that you haveseveral books.
Can you tell us about some ofthose books and what's the best
way to find them?
SPEAKER_01 (17:03):
Yeah, I have a couple books.
One book I have is called TheCreative Eight: Healing Through
Creativity and Self-Expression.
It's a fun, easy read, and Ipeople tend to like it.
You can find that one on Amazon,or you can find that on my
website, which is welcome tohumanity.net, or my other
website, which is the one Ireally want people to go to,
which is called drfred360.com.
(17:23):
So that drfred360.com, you getevery piece of who I am there.
It's a really cool, slickwebsite that people enjoy, and
you can contact me there too.
There's a place to contact me ifyou want to have a call to talk
about yourself or someone elseyou know or someone else you're
caring for.
It would be my pleasure.
Or it, you know, I also doexpert witness work for what
that's worth.
So I've done a fair amount ofcases, about 35 different cases
(17:46):
that I've been a consultant onand been retained on about 35
cases.
So I like doing that as well foryour friends and colleagues.
And my other book was calledFind Your True Voice.
And Find Your True Voice isexactly what it's aimed for,
which is the idea of moving thethings out of the way that are
in the way of you being genuineand authentic in your
interactions.
And then uh, you know, I teach alot of courses, and these days
(18:09):
I'm doing something called anundoctor reset, which is helping
people, in fact, take care ofthemselves and get off their
diagnosis, off theirmedications, and give their
lives back, no matter what theirage is and no matter what their
so-called condition was beforethey came insomnia.
SPEAKER_00 (18:23):
Very good.
What are some key takeawaysyou'd like to leave our audience
with?
SPEAKER_01 (18:28):
Yeah, so I think the one key takeaway that I like
leaving audiences with is theidea that maybe there's nothing
wrong with you at all.
Maybe there's nothing wrong withyou.
Maybe there's nothing wrong withhim or her or them either.
Like maybe there's nothing wrongwith them.
It's a challenging,obstacle-filled, ch you know,
hurdle-filled life.
And we don't have a manual.
We don't have it, we don't havean owner's manual, we don't have
(18:48):
a recipe book, we don't have atemplate to work from.
And it's a difficult life, youknow, it's difficult to be human
and we choose to do what we do.
There's some people better at itthan others, I suppose, or some
people who are meaner thanothers, some people who are more
sad or have taken on a sense ofdespair.
But the truth is we can changeour lives.
And at this moment, we are not aslave to the circumstances that
(19:11):
brought us to now.
So we have an opportunity fromthis point forward to do things
different, to say thingsdifferent, to think things
different, to be a differentperson.
And we really do have thatcapacity, and each and every one
of us has that capacity, eventhe ones that we have cemented
into the corner with apsychiatric diagnosis.
So, in fact, maybe we don't haveanything nearly as wrong with us
(19:32):
as we think, and that bumbling,stumbling, and tumbling through
this world is sort of the statusquo to be expected.
SPEAKER_00 (19:37):
Great.
And thank you so much.
It's been a very interestingconversation.
If you've enjoyed thisconversation, don't forget to
subscribe to Advice from YourAdvocates.
And you can find us at any placethat you listen to podcasts.
So thank you for joining ustoday, and we'll see you next
time.
SPEAKER_01 (19:58):
Thanks for listening.
To learn more, visit ManorLawgroup.com.
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