May 13, 2025 • 59 mins
The truth about psychiatric medications is far more troubling than most people realize. In this eye-opening conversation with medical journalist Bob Whitaker, founder of Mad in America and author of groundbreaking books challenging psychiatric orthodoxy, we uncover the deceptive science behind the "chemical imbalance" theory and how it has harmed countless patients.
Whitaker shares his personal journey from conventional medical reporter to psychiatric whistleblower after discovering research that contradicted everything he'd been told about mental health treatments. Most shocking is his revelation that the chemical imbalance theory—the foundation of modern psychopharmacology—was debunked in psychiatry's own literature decades ago. "They knew it wasn't true starting in the 80s," Whitaker explains, "but then they kept saying it because it was a soundbite that made their drugs look good."
We dive deep into the corrupt research practices behind psychiatric drug trials, where exclusion criteria keep 85% of real-world patients out of studies, and "placebo" groups actually consist of people experiencing withdrawal symptoms. Even more disturbing is evidence showing psychiatric medications often create the very chemical imbalances they claim to correct, potentially explaining why long-term outcomes have worsened over decades of increasing medication use.
The conversation takes a powerful turn when we discuss how patients questioning their medications face dismissal and gaslighting from the medical establishment. As therapists who help people safely deprescribe, we share our perspectives on supporting clients through this journey and the pushback we've received for challenging dominant narratives.
Whether you're a mental health professional, someone taking psychiatric medications, or simply curious about the science behind mental health treatments, this episode will transform your understanding of psychiatry and medication. Join us in this crucial conversation about reclaiming patient agency and demanding better from our mental health systems.
Are you tired of being gaslit and want to DEEP THROAT some more truth? We want to hear from you! Message us your gaslit stories at thegaslittruthpodcast@gmail.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Dr. Teralyn (00:01):
Hey everyone, it's Dr Teralyn here.
I'm just going to do anothershout out for my book before we
start this episode.
So check out your Best Brain onAmazoncom.
It's there, it's there, and Iwant to show you chapter nine,
page 119.
Life is so damn short.
Just do what makes you happyand don't forget to shout Jenga
(00:22):
when everything falls apart.
Jenga, jenga, jenga.
Therapist Jenn (00:26):
Just so everyone knows this is a perfect
stocking stuffer, whether it'sfor a birthday or for Christmas
or you're putting together adonation package.
Robert Whitaker (00:32):
Mother's Day.
Therapist Jenn (00:33):
I may have bought five copies already for
different things, so get it shedid.
Dr. Teralyn (00:38):
She put it in a donation basket for a charity
event, which I really appreciateFor a charity event.
Robert Whitaker (00:46):
I made a whole brain health basket.
Therapist Jenn (00:47):
The book is in there.
It's very versatile it's verygood for bathroom reading as
well.
Dr. Teralyn (00:51):
And short, so you'll get it through in one
fell swoop.
All right, thanks everyone.
Thanks for your support on yourBest Brain.
Five-star reviews only, allright.
Therapist Jenn (00:59):
Now on to the show.
That's right, okay, everybody.
So here we go, super excitedabout today.
Are we all mad in America?
Listen, are you gaslit by badscience and bad psychiatry?
We are your whistleblowingshrinks Dr Tara Lynn and
therapist Jen here with probablythe ultimate whistleblowing
shrink.
(01:20):
Just want to put that out there, and this is a get well, not
quite Well, kind of.
He's the ultimate whistleblower.
Let's say it that way.
And this is a gas lit truthpodcast.
Our special guest today is BobWhitaker, and he is the author
of several books on the historyof psychiatry.
He's written Mad in America, hehas written the Anatomy of an
Epidemic and he's the founder ofMad in America, which is like
(01:43):
the world's largest platform forscience, psychiatry and social
justice, and we are huge fans.
Welcome to the show, Bob.
Robert Whitaker (01:53):
Well, thanks for having me here.
It's a real pleasure and honor,so looking forward to it.
Dr. Teralyn (01:56):
Yeah, yes, this is great, you know, I just have to
start this off by saying yes,when Jen and I were coming up
with this podcast, what, almosttwo years ago, Mad at America
podcast was our inspiration, andso it was.
We were like this podcast issomething that we need to lean
(02:20):
into and think about it from adifferent angle, and so your
podcast was our inspiration.
So thank you so much for thatinspiration.
You are changing lives, andyour book too this one I'm
holding it up Madden Americabook yeah, Because this one
changed my life and my practice,just so you know.
Therapist Jenn (02:39):
Yeah, it's all true and actually some of the
first like deliverables we everput out came from this book and,
like all of my likehighlighting and underline what
see the word what on that page.
This actually went into some ofour deliverables that we were
putting out because I keptreading this going.
(03:01):
This is what we have to talkabout.
This is the stuff that matters,and so thank you for this book,
bob is what we have to talkabout.
This is the stuff that matters,and so thank you for this book,
bob, and for what you're doing.
Robert Whitaker (03:10):
Thanks for that very nice introduction.
It was quite flattering and Ijust want to say, of course you
were recently on a Mad inAmerica podcast.
Dr. Teralyn (03:16):
Yes, thank you.
Robert Whitaker (03:18):
Yes, that was so awesome and I think really
one of the things about podcastsare so great.
They really do help build acommunity of listeners, so to
speak, and you also sit with thepodcast, you know.
You sit down and listen to themand it really becomes a great
way to sort of, you know,promote a different narrative or
(03:39):
reveal how we have been gaslitby psychiatry and so forth.
So anyway, real pleasure to behere.
Dr. Teralyn (03:44):
Yes, so I want to get to the meat of you.
Therapist Jenn (03:50):
Meaning like you better clarify that, terry.
Yeah, I mean Sorry, just sorry.
Let's clarify this please.
Dr. Teralyn (03:57):
I'm feeling a little edgy this morning.
Therapist Jenn (03:59):
I know he might be a silver fox, but you got to
get it together here.
Okay, all right, all right.
Dr. Teralyn (04:05):
That's funny.
Therapist Jenn (04:07):
We're going to make Bob lose his mind today.
Dr. Teralyn (04:10):
Anyway, so you're a medical researcher, correct, is
that?
Robert Whitaker (04:19):
Not really A journalist who's been writing
about medicine and scienceforever.
Dr. Teralyn (04:25):
Okay, a medical journalist.
Robert Whitaker (04:28):
I don't do the original research, but what I do
is report on it and dig intothe literature, the research
literature.
But I'm not a researcher myself.
Dr. Teralyn (04:38):
I'm sorry, I meant journalist when I said that I'm
starstruck today.
I need to get my languagetogether here.
Okay, so you are a medicaljournalist, which I find really
fascinating.
Can you share with us your kindof awakening moment, because
(04:58):
you did traditional reportingright and then something had to
have happened somewhere alongthe way you went what,
especially with psychiatry?
So I would love to hear that.
I think that's an importantplace to begin.
Robert Whitaker (05:15):
I'll try to be succinct about this because
actually it's a journey when youmove from where you initially
are treating medical doctors,medical researchers, as people
on a pedestal, as the fountainof truth, to where, next thing
you know, you're saying well,wait a minute, what you're
saying to the public isn'tconsistent with your own science
.
So really, what happened wasthis Even when I was doing
(05:40):
medical reporting for the AlbanyTimes Union, I began
understanding that financialinfluences were affecting
medical research.
So that was the beginning ofsort of the cataracts
disappearing from my eyes.
Then I went.
I was a brief, briefly, I wasdirector of publications at
Harvard Medical School in the1990s and this was a time when
(06:03):
they started talking a lot aboutwell, we have to do
evidence-based medicine, and theidea with evidence-based
medicine is doctors can bedeluded about their merits of
their therapies based on theirown impressions.
So there's a sense that sciencemight be a corrective to the
narrative that you've been toldand you've been listened to.
Anyway, then next thing was Ico-founded a publishing company
(06:27):
that looked at the business ofclinical trials, you know, doing
trials of new drugs and veryquickly I began writing about
how academic psychiatry wasbeing compromised.
Pharmaceutical companies weregiving money to academic faculty
academic psychiatrists.
They were serving as theauthors, studies were being spun
(06:47):
, adverse events were beinghidden, and so that really
alerted me to the sense ofcorruption that was present in
psychiatry.
Now it was also starting tobecome present in other areas of
medicine, but psychiatry wasreally the child, really the
poster child, of this problem.
And then, finally, I did aseries for the Boston Globe on
(07:12):
abuses of patients inpsychiatric research.
And now at this time I stillbelieved the chemical imbalance
story.
I still believed that, forexample, they had found that too
much dopamine was the cause ofschizophrenia and therefore
that's why you neededantipsychotics, because they
block dopamine.
Okay, and that was actually thefoil for one of this four-part
(07:33):
series.
We said look, it's awful whenyou do studies where you
withdraw patients fromantipsychotics, because you
would never do this with adiabetic.
You would never withdrawinsulin from a diabetic to see
if they became sick again.
But so why are you doing itwith schizophrenia patients?
The point of this is that Ithink is important for your
readers.
(07:54):
I began as a believer in thenarrative of progress
represented by the chemicalimbalance, but I had these other
sort of skepticism that wasbeginning to enter my thinking.
And then, while doing thoseseries, I came upon two studies
that really launched me intothis long history of writing
critically about psychiatry.
One was a study by Harvardresearchers who said that
(08:15):
schizophrenia outcomes, ratherthan improving, over the last 15
, 20 years had worsened and nowthey were no better than in the
first third of the 20th century.
Well, that belies thatnarrative of progress we're
being told.
Then I came upon studies by theWorld Health Organization which
compared outcomes in threedeveloping countries India,
colombia and Nigeria versusoutcomes in the US and six other
(08:38):
developed countries.
One was two years in length,one was five years in length.
The diagnosis was made byWestern doctors and each time
they find, the outcomes weremuch, much better in the
developing countries.
So much so they concluded thatliving in a developed country is
a strong predictor.
You won't have a good outcomeif you're diagnosed with
(08:58):
schizophrenia.
So I said, why would that be?
And then I read the studies andwhat they did is after the
first such study they said well,maybe the reason for the better
outcomes is in the poorcountries of the developing
countries.
Is they take their medications?
They're more medicationcompliant.
So they looked at medicationusage in the second study and
what they found was this In thedeveloping countries they use
(09:22):
the drugs acutely short term,but not chronically.
Only about 16% were maintainedon the drugs long term.
And that's what blew my mind,because my understanding was
schizophrenia was due to achemical imbalance.
The drugs fixed that chemicalimbalance.
The drugs were absolutelyessential.
And yet here was a study, twodifferent studies, challenging
(09:45):
that narrative.
So, anyway, when, after thatseries ran, I got a contract to
write Mad in America and I beganreally with this thought is the
narrative that we're being toldis it true, is it indeed based
in science?
And if you go forward with thatbook, it's really about a
(10:06):
history of psychiatry tellingone story to make itself look
good and patients living a verydifferent history.
So that's a long winded answer,but I think for your listeners,
what's key is I began as abeliever, number one.
Two, nevertheless, I did thinkthat we needed to go into the
(10:26):
research.
I needed to go into theresearch literature to see if
what we were being told was insync with the research
literature.
So I had a um, I had a, aprocess to follow as I, I, as I
wrote mad in america.
Dr. Teralyn (10:41):
Yeah, yeah, mad in america.
The book I have so many.
I don't know I'm notconflicting emotions, but I have
to be in a space to read it,like I have to be in an okay
place to read it.
And when I say read it, Iusually listen to it on an
airplane or taking a walk orwhatever.
(11:03):
And I had to do it in smallchunks because it questions
everything that I thought I knew, but I didn't know much.
Actually.
I think this book should be arequirement for high school
psychology class.
I think it should be arequirement for college
psychology courses.
Therapist Jenn (11:24):
That's the exact same thing.
When I read this, bob, I had acouple things pop in.
And same thing with Terry.
I had such a hard time readingthis because it's all stuff I've
learned for the first time, andthis is after multiple degrees
and internships and licenses andyears and years and years of
(11:44):
practicing and all of thetrainings that we have to do in
the field as psychologists ortherapists and it was like I was
learning this all for the firsttime.
And something that really stoodout to me in this is that I kept
thinking to myself why did Inever learn this side of it?
It was one of the first times Irealized how convoluted and
(12:07):
one-sided even the Westerneducation system is, and that
really blew my mind because I'mlike shit, everything I've
learned this was not part of it.
Even when we learned aboutasylums this is not how we
learned about asylum living.
When we learned aboutpsychiatry trying to bring
(12:27):
themselves into the field asdoctors and make a name for
themselves, which you talk a lotabout in this book and the
ability to do these crazy assbrain surgeries and craniotomies
and all these things we didn'tlearn any of that.
We learned about Phineas Gageand a stupid spike that went
through his head and severing acorpus callosum.
Dr. Teralyn (12:48):
She always talks about Phineas Gage.
Therapist Jenn (12:49):
I know and I'm like this is the dumbest shit,
because here, like this is wewere.
I had a hard time with itbecause this is what actually
not a hard time, it was a hardtime, but it got me to a good
spot where I went.
I have to unlearn what I'velearned, because I've only
learned like this much.
Robert Whitaker (13:04):
Yeah, well, I can understand.
I hear this a lot from people.
First of all, there is a senseof betrayal.
Yes, yes.
Dr. Teralyn (13:12):
Yes, why wasn't I?
Robert Whitaker (13:14):
taught this information.
Why was this information keptfrom me?
And I'm investing.
If you're a therapist, you'reinvesting your life, your heart,
your future in a certainnarrative.
By that I mean as you're beingtold as you go to school we do
this and it's evidence-based andit's good for people.
You're invested in that.
And then, all of a sudden, youread Mad in America and you see
(13:35):
that that story that you've beeninvested in is a story told by
a guild that is interested allalong about making itself look
good and making sure that itsproducts drugs look good.
And so what they do is theyexclude information, they
exclude research results thatcall that into question and
frankly tell of harm done.
And, of course, the reason theydo that because, well, what
(13:59):
happens if their drugs are doingharm in aggregate?
Well then, what are they leftwith?
So psychiatry gets in this bindwhere and you can see this
through in history whateverthey're doing, they're going to
say is good.
When they were doing lobotomies, after Phineas Gale, the
inventor, won the Nobel Prize inmedicine, and in 1949, I think
(14:20):
it was there was a reviewpublished in an American journal
said lobotomy can't hurt you.
You're either going to getcured, improved or no change.
Therapist Jenn (14:29):
I probably marked that page in here
somewhere.
Robert Whitaker (14:32):
The point is when you go to universities and
you study, really what you'rebeing told is what the guild
wants you to learn in order tomove into how they've designed
the practices.
And then you go into thescience literature and there's
this whole different story therewhich actually tells and this
(14:53):
arises from like NIMH fundedresearch that tells like, wow,
we're probably worseningoutcomes, we're doing damage on
the whole, on the whole, in theaggregate, we're worsening
outcomes.
And of course then the biggestthing, I bet you were taught
about chemical imbalances as youwent right oh yeah, they still
(15:14):
are.
Dr. Teralyn (15:15):
I talk about this my son just graduated college
and took an intro to psych classor whatever.
There was a whole chapter aboutthe serotonin imbalance theory
and all of these things and I'mlike I said to him.
I said don't pay attention tothis chapter at all.
Like don't, please, don't,please, don't pay attention to
this, but it's still beingtaught in colleges today.
Robert Whitaker (15:37):
Yeah, you know what's so distressing about the
chemical imbalance story is sortof rises in 1965 based on an
understanding, or at least apreliminary understanding, how
antidepressants orantipsychotics act on the brain.
So antipsychotics blockdopamine.
They hypothesize too muchdopamine is the cause.
Antidepressants they block thereuptake of serotonin, so
(16:00):
serotonin is staying in thatsynaptic cliff longer, upping
serotonin activity.
So they hypothesize that.
Okay, maybe depression is dueto too little serotonin.
Now here's the distressing part.
That's 1965.
Now if you start charting now,of course once they have that
hypothesis they have to see dopeople with schizophrenia have
(16:22):
too much dopamine prior to goingon the meds or do people with
depression have too littleserotonin?
Well, now you can trace it andthink about how long ago this is
.
Take the low serotonin theory,1973, you get people saying
we're not finding serotonin isdeficient in depressed patients.
In 1983, I think it was, theNIMH does a big investigation of
(16:44):
it and says it doesn't looklike there's a deficiency in
serotonin.
Okay, that's 1983.
1998, textbook of Americanpsychiatry says this serotonin
hypothesis didn't pan out.
That's what the textbook says.
It says we investigated allthese different ways, we just
(17:06):
didn't find it.
There's no evidence for it.
And they even make fun of it intheir own textbook.
They said there's really noreason that a drugs, that the
pathology is going to be theopposite of a mechanism of
action of a drug you're using,so it was declared dead in 1998.
And you can go forward.
And what was Americanpsychiatry telling us on its
(17:27):
website, in press releases, inmagazine articles?
They're telling us we now knowthat depression is a brain
illness caused by serotonin, anddrugs fix that.
So here's what's so outrageousand why you should be outraged.
And frankly, I'm outraged thatyour son is being taught this
(17:48):
nonsense.
The profession knew it wasn'ttrue.
They knew it really starting inthe 80s, but then they kept
saying it because it was asoundbite that made their drugs
look good and it made it looklike they had made all this
medical progress, discoveringthe pathology of disorders.
In other words, we had a guild,a medical guild, that thought
(18:12):
it was okay to lie to patients,lie to the public and really lie
to itself, and even training ofyoung doctors for a while.
We're hearing this.
Yes, can I tell you one reallyquick, funny story about this,
please?
After I wrote anatomy of anepidemic, I was um asked to give
a grand rounds at massachusettsgeneral hospital, which was
(18:34):
like the number one hotpsychiatric department in the
country in terms of researchfunding.
Now they invited me to crush me.
Basically, it was a setup, oneof the things they said.
They said you made it, theywere lambasting.
They said you made it seem likewe believed in the chemical
imbalance story.
They said we knew that wasn'ttrue in 1987, 25 years ago.
(18:59):
So why did you lie about us?
And I said you know what You'reright.
So why did you lie about us?
And I said you know what You'reright.
You did know it hadn't pannedout in 1987, but I said I think
you forgot to tell the public.
Dr. Teralyn (19:13):
Well, this reminds me what was it in 20?
Well, was it in 2022 when MarkHorowitz did the meta-analysis
paper and said, basically, theserotonin theory.
You know, like we knew.
Therapist Jenn (19:29):
Yeah, oh, there goes her volume.
Hang on one moment, right whenyou're asking a great question
about Mark and your volume goesout here.
Are you back, terry?
Yeah, no, she's got no volume.
Well.
Robert Whitaker (19:44):
I know what a question I think is going to be.
Therapist Jenn (19:46):
Yeah, I was going to say you could probably
answer this before she even getsit all out.
So yeah, go ahead.
Robert Whitaker (19:51):
The point of the paper was by Mark Horowitz
and Joanne Moncrief.
They said we reviewed all theresearch 50 years of research
into this, 55 research and therewas never any evidence for a
low serotonin as being the causeof depression.
So what was the response ofother psychiatrists?
Well, one of the responses.
(20:13):
We've known this all along.
So why are you even botheringwith this?
This isn't news, right, and thepublic listening to this goes
well, it's news to us.
Yes, yeah, so that was the.
There was various responses bypsychiatrists, but they were
trying to downplay it.
But they made it seem like theyhad never told the public about
(20:34):
chemical imbalances.
And yet what we did on Mad inAmerica we just published the
list of all the times they saidexactly that yes, and that the
buses fixed the chemicalimbalance.
I don't mean to be laughingbecause, just to finish this up,
so many people's lives werechanged by that story.
They were having difficulty alittle bit of things.
(20:55):
They go in to see a psychiatrist, or maybe even their general
practitioner, because they'retold they have a chemical
imbalance Of course there was notest which tells them there was
something defective inside themand told them that, in essence,
they had to take this drug forlife.
Now, just as we try tounderstand the morality of this,
imagine if you went to acardiologist and they told you
(21:16):
oh, you have a problem with yourheart, I need to put in a stent
, and you didn't have thatproblem.
What would we say about thecardiologist Quack Do that?
Why were psychiatrists allowedto tell people they had chemical
imbalances in the brain whichrequired a drug, when they knew
that wasn't true?
Therapist Jenn (21:37):
And that is still that narrative.
As deprescribers, terry and Iare working with people
constantly and that's questionsthat I do ask because it's
something that we have to debunkand educate our clients on,
because they get curious aboutgetting off medication.
But these are the statementsthat they hinge on, that we have
(22:02):
to deprogram for them and thenoffer some research on, offer
them other personal experienceon, because they're still being
told that.
People are still being toldthat.
I had a client this last weekwho said those exact words to me
and I just sit and listen andthen I said, okay, let's talk
about the other side of thisright now.
So then we bring that in andthey're dumbfounded.
(22:23):
It's as if they have learnedsomething that is brand new,
even though this is somethingthat has been out for so, so
long.
Robert Whitaker (22:35):
It's been out in the research literature.
It's been out in Madden America, it was in my books, but the
media also betrayed us.
Because the media wasn'treporting this.
You still heard for the longesttime that depression was due to
low serotonin.
So the media betrayed us aswell.
Therapist Jenn (22:51):
Well, and I have to.
This leads into a question Ihave.
So this last week or two weeksago, I rewatched Medicating
Normal Okay, and they in thatdocumentary.
You were filmed in that.
You did a great job, by the way.
It looks so good.
Dr. Teralyn (23:07):
I love that film.
Therapist Jenn (23:08):
I know it's so good no-transcript passed on to
(23:38):
the people that are conductingthe research to approve, et
cetera.
Can you explain that to ourlisteners and how this process
of research actually works forthese drug companies?
Robert Whitaker (23:49):
This is really key because when we talk about
the efficacy of antidepressants,for example, what they cite are
studies done, funded by drugcompanies.
Okay, yeah, and they last aboutsix weeks usually, and the
whole goal is to is to find outif their drug reduces depressive
(24:09):
symptoms on a like the Hamiltonscale better than placebo.
Now, the first thing, evenbefore we get into the
corruption studies are designed,are biased by design, to make
the drug look good.
So, first of all, they useexclusion criteria and about 85%
of real world patients can'tqualify for these trials.
(24:31):
Okay, yeah, so they're aselected group.
That's first, first.
Second, there's no placebogroup in these trials.
What happens is you take peopleyou generally that are on
antidepressants, or maybe theythey have exposure to, but
mostly they're onantidepressants.
Then what you do is you taketake one group off okay, you
take both groups off, and thenone group you put okay, you take
(24:52):
both groups off, and then onegroup you put back on an
antidepressant.
After you do like a four-daywashout, they call it.
So, everybody off.
There's even a hope that thiswill spike depressive symptoms.
By the way, yes, correct,that's what you have withdrawal.
Therapist Jenn (25:08):
So yeah, it works great.
Robert Whitaker (25:09):
And then what they do is they take one group
after the four-day washout andput them back on an
antidepressant, and the other isnow the placebo group.
So your placebo group isactually a group going through
withdrawal.
Now the amazing thing is, after, at the end of six weeks,
there's actually, in terms ofdiminishment of symptoms, very
little difference between thetwo.
(25:30):
Okay Now, so what happens?
So that's the design betweenthe two.
Okay Now, so what happens?
So that's the design of thetrials.
Now the drug companies.
They've designed the trial.
They get the case report forms.
They hire people to collect thedata and write up reports.
Okay, here's what we're goingto say.
They even have a ghostwritingfirm and then they go to their
(25:51):
people and the academic peoplewho maybe have supposedly
recruited a few patients forthese trials and ask them to be
authors.
And this went on for a longtime.
And, by the way, those academicpeople are getting paid now
lots of money to be what'scalled key opinion leaders.
They know these people who areat prestigious universities.
(26:12):
If they author the articles,they then write about them in
the textbook.
So antidepressants areeffective.
They give CEU courses, theyspeak at the annual conference
of the American PsychiatricAssociation.
They help form the opinion.
But beneath all this story ofthe short-term efficacy of
antidepressants is a story ofbiased design, no real placebo
(26:37):
group and the results beingpromoted to the public by
academic faculty who were makingthousands and thousands of
dollars, and sometimes in thehundreds of thousands of dollars
, to influence opinion among thepublic.
So that was what you see in theshort-term studies Now.
(26:57):
So in other words, we reallycan't even trust that these
drugs are effective over theshort term.
But let's even grant that maybethey are.
I actually don't.
For example, I'll give you onething real quick when you give
antidepressants in real worldpatients, the response rate is
much less, the remission rate ismuch less than in these
(27:19):
industry funded trialsdramatically less, which tells
you that those trials are sortof an artifact.
Then the other part of this isand now you as therapists are
seeing this all the timelong-term.
So many people worsen on thesedrugs Not everybody, but a lot
and in aggregate outcomes overand over again in the studies
(27:40):
are worse for the medicatedpatients long-term than for the
unmedicated patients with asimilar diagnosis.
But we never hear about thatresearch, do we?
They don't tell us thatresearch.
Your patients don't come in andgoing like, hey, I just read
that very few people stayed wellin the largest antidepressant
trial ever conducted.
Could it really have been?
Only 3% were well at the end ofone year.
(28:01):
They don't know this.
They don't know anything aboutthe real world patients.
They don't know about the biasdesign.
What they see is oh, the NewYork Times say antidepressants
are effective.
70% of people are in remissionafter one year, and they say
this based on a study that hidthe real outcomes.
(28:22):
Anyway, this is the point.
Sorry, I went on long term.
Dr. Teralyn (28:27):
No, it's just good.
No, I'm spellbound by you rightnow.
I'm just going.
Robert Whitaker (28:31):
Corruption in the short term is just part of a
larger story of how the publichas been misled, about how the
evidence is gathered, the roleof key opinion leaders and what
happens over the long term.
And let me now really get on myhigh horse.
They were told thatantidepressants fixed the
(28:53):
chemical imbalance in the brain.
Right, yes, what researchshowed was that a they didn't
have a chemical imbalance beforethey went on the drug, but the
drug because it created it.
Yeah, the drug now creates thevery thing.
So you have a drug that upsserotonergic activity.
What does the brain?
Brain do?
It says uh-oh, I have tomaintain a homeostatic
(29:15):
equilibrium.
It dials down its ownserotonergic machinery.
And, as Stephen Hyman wrote in1996, at the end of this process
, the brain is now operating ina manner that is both
qualitatively and quantitativelydifferent than normal.
He was head of the NAMH when hewrote this.
Have you had a single patientcome in and go, like I know?
These drugs induce the chemicalimbalance?
(29:38):
No, we're usually the ones thatare telling our personal stories
or educating on that, but no,we don't get patients that come
in and then, finally, this isseen as the mechanism, the
reason that long-term outcomesare so poor you can actually
read in the research literatureis inducing a change opposite of
what is intended and that maylead to a tardive dysphoria.
(30:02):
And, by the way, the latestdata shows that 50% of people
who go on an antidepressant endup with quote
treatment-resistant depression,oh God, as if it's their problem
.
You know what it was in 1990?
10%.
Obviously, what the drugs aredoing are inducing a chronic
(30:22):
depression in a significantpercentage of people.
But you guys read Mad inAmerica so you know this and
it's coming from the research,but the public doesn't know this
.
Dr. Teralyn (30:37):
Yeah, it's really.
It's funny because just thismorning I had a comment on
social media because I did apost about how when I was
prescribed it was a preventativefor depression, for postpartum
depression, I was not depressed.
So I'm actually the posterchild for becoming depressed
afterwards and numbed out andwhatever and not starting that
(30:59):
way.
And so I made a post about itand somebody goes you blamed
your husband and then you blamedthe antidepressant.
Why can't you just accept thatyou have treatment, resistant
depression, you have treatment,resistant depression and I was
(31:20):
like or why can't you acceptthat I was never depressed in
the first place and thisactually caused a cascade of
problems in my life during thattime?
Like this, is that spellbinding, you know?
Wake up call for people?
I feel like I'm the posterchild for that, because I'm the
perfect example of somebody whodidn't get on one because they
were labeled as depressed, andwhat it did to me after I should
(31:40):
have been in a clinical trial.
I was my own clinical trial.
Therapist Jenn (31:46):
Forget doing your original research right.
We need to go back and get youin your own little trial.
Robert Whitaker (31:51):
You could be the placebo group and the
control group and all the above,but notice the defense of the
drugs.
There they're discounting yourown personal experience.
You're not an authenticnarrator of your own life.
Therapist Jenn (32:05):
Yeah, you are not at all.
Robert Whitaker (32:07):
Right, yes, how dare I.
Therapist Jenn (32:10):
And that's one of the biggest things when we
are talking with our clientsabout this, how dare I at the
Maudsley guidelines and try tohelp create something for her
that's going to work?
And the amount of slanderingthat this girl got online was
(32:43):
just unbelievable.
And what they don't know isthat we put so much stock in her
own agency when we startedthese discussions.
How do you want to do this?
What makes sense for you?
Tell me about your lifestyle,like this drug is here, but
we're going to work.
It's going to be you that getsyou off of this and you're going
to pay attention to everythinghappening in your body and
(33:03):
that's going to dictate howpowerful this goes and how long
it takes.
And you know educating onwithdrawal and how there's so
much misnomer around.
You know, because that's thefirst thing her prescriber said
to her is, hey, when thesesymptoms come back, you know
it's because, like, you probablyneed to go back on, and you
know this language that is usedaround it and it just removes
(33:25):
anybody's own sense of agencywithin the process.
And it's the drugs that are thething that fixed everything and
they are the thing that you'regoing to have to go back on when
withdrawal occurs becauseclearly your original
symptomology is back.
Robert Whitaker (33:37):
Yeah, you know what's so disheartening about
this?
At the heart of good medicineis listening to the patient.
That's just it.
That's just it.
Dr. Teralyn (33:45):
That would be it right no it's not it is not.
That is a lie among.
Lies among I'm just kidding,yeah, that is Utopia.
Lies among I'm just kidding,yeah, like that is Utopia, it is
for sure.
Robert Whitaker (33:54):
And think about with even the literature of
antidepressants.
Okay, even if you believe it,most people aren't.
You know, the majority ofpeople are not responding well
to the drug.
They're not remitting.
The majority are not remitting,which means there's plenty of
people who say, well, I'm stilldepressed, right, well, that
actually fits.
You say, well, I'm stilldepressed, right, well, that
actually fits.
(34:15):
You don't even have to say thatthe depression to start here is
the drugs are causing thechronic depression.
You just know that drugs notworking Right.
Dr. Teralyn (34:21):
Yeah, I think people innately know when
something is not working or nothelping and we're led to believe
that it's a problem with us.
Like well, that's a you problem, you know you need more meds
then and you need another med,and you need this and you need
that.
And if this theory of chemicalimbalance and then the answer is
(34:43):
medication were legit and itactually worked, we would have
solved depression, there wouldnot be depression, there would
not be depression, there wouldnot be anxiety.
And how in the world does thesame medication address anxiety
and depression?
I don't understand that at all.
How does an SSRI address both?
(35:06):
What?
Therapist Jenn (35:07):
They should be two separate things Weight loss
and weight loss too, and weightloss too Weight loss too.
Robert Whitaker (35:10):
Let's put all the categories in there.
An unhappy marriage?
It's good for an unhappymarriage.
Therapist Jenn (35:16):
Those commercials, bob, those
commercials that were in thedocumentary in Medicating Normal
.
That's what the propagandaaround you know, the early
commercials of these andeverything you struggle with as
a wife or as a mother withinyour marriage with your kids,
like that is how it was fed tothe world Like pain point
(35:38):
marketing, and it's genius.
Dr. Teralyn (35:41):
And it works.
Robert Whitaker (35:43):
Because you get on the drive and next you know
you're walking on the beach witha beautiful person.
Therapist Jenn (35:46):
you know oh my God, he probably looks like Sean
.
Connery.
Dr. Teralyn (35:52):
It's okay that your anus is bleeding and you've
lost your lower limbs, though,because you're not depressed
anymore.
Therapist Jenn (35:58):
Yes.
Yes or you have some metabolicsyndrome now that is creating
such a problem within your lifethat now you have diabetes and
now your blood pressure istanked and yep, like all of the
medical implications that arebeing tied to not only these
drugs but also the removal ofthem from the body to the these
(36:19):
are life-saving, and how dareyou talk about something that is
saving lives every day and I'mlike they're also taking lives
every day, whether it's throughtaking their own life or just
(36:41):
taking the pleasure of life awaybut people can't see that.
Dr. Teralyn (36:46):
They can't see the other side of that at all.
Robert Whitaker (36:49):
You know there's an article that appeared
in JAMA, I think two weeks ago.
It's written by I think hisname is Oker Dost and he's the
editor.
He's a psychiatrist and he'sthe editor for psychiatric
topics for JAMA and here's whathe says, what he confesses to.
(37:10):
Now he's going to defend thedrugs in here, but he confesses
life expectancy and functionaloutcomes have deteriorated in
the last several decades formajor mental disorders,
including mood disorders andobsessive compulsive disorder.
(37:30):
So you just said that thenarrative is they save lives.
In fact, life expectancy forpeople so diagnosed has gone
down.
Yeah, functional outcomes havegone down.
Now he admitted that and that'sbecause the evidence of that is
overwhelming.
I wrote about this in anatomyof an epidemic.
Now he tries to say it's notthe drugs, yeah, it's just
(37:52):
conditions.
Therapist Jenn (37:53):
Other things yeah Conditions of living Right.
Dr. Teralyn (37:55):
It's your lifestyle .
Robert Whitaker (37:57):
But the point is, dr Terlan, you were talking
about this narrative that theysave lives.
It's just not true in theaggregate.
Ok, it's just, that's just likean anecdotal thing that gets
passed on and you know.
Just to go back, why did thatpatient of yours get trashed
online for saying that she hadproblems?
I think you mentioned somethinglike that, right, jen?
Therapist Jenn (38:17):
Yeah, yeah, so she was putting out something to
share with.
This was in a group.
Robert Whitaker (38:24):
It was in a tapering group.
Therapist Jenn (38:25):
actually, it was in a tapering group and she had
put a post out indicating howgrateful she was to have met a
therapist who also knowsdeprescribing and can speak this
language and also who haspersonal experience with it.
So that to me matters too, andto her mattered as well, because
it's not somebody who's justreading out of a manual.
And so she was putting that outthere to talk about how
(38:49):
grateful she is, and that she'sdone a couple titrations and
listed out like the numbers bywhich she was titrating and she
was slandered for that in thiscommunity and that was being
done wrong and you should really.
I hate to tell you, but yourtherapist doesn't know what
she's talking about and this isdangerous.
And then also her psychiatristwas saying to her you know,
(39:10):
you're going to get worse, yoursymptoms are going to be bad,
you are going to probably haveto go back on, et cetera, et
cetera.
So there's a couple differentthings there.
Robert Whitaker (39:18):
You know, I just just the reason that made
me stop and want to talk aboutthis.
It's just so hard sometimes toconfront another narrative in
this world of social media andbecause so often your journey is
going to get your decisions aregoing to get trashed.
(39:39):
And when we see a defense ofpsychiatry, defense of the drugs
, I think it's because oftenpeople are using the drugs, they
have to continue to believe inthem or or less they're going to
think that maybe I made a hugemistake so they have to sort of
like attack someone who's makinga different decision.
I mean I, the nastinesssometimes towards people who
(40:02):
challenge this narrative aspatients is stunning.
It's so nasty sometimes, it'sso dismissive and of course it
just adds to the difficulty ofgetting your life back.
I don't know how.
You know, dr Terland, you feltI mean I'm sure you've gotten
some pushback.
Dr. Teralyn (40:20):
That's the understatement of the century.
Therapist Jenn (40:22):
She gets it real hot on social media.
I do, I do.
It's entertaining for me.
Dr. Teralyn (40:28):
But I'm cool with it because if?
Um, but I'm cool with itbecause if it raises
conversation, you know, and Iget both sides, I get very
encouraging and I get extremelydiscouraging.
But I'm in the middle here now.
In the beginning I wasn't.
I was more hurt by like oh howcan you not see this?
You know, whatever, like it'snot me, it's not me.
(40:49):
And now I'm like good, let's,let's keep this conversation
going.
Let's keep this going as longas it's productive in some way.
Um, but it's.
It's this idea that, um, youknow, bringing in the
alternative is so hard forpeople.
I believe now that the peoplethat are saying these things
(41:11):
like it saves lives, and howdare you talk about it?
Like they don't believe ininformed consent number one,
because they think, if you'retalking anything negative about
an outcome, that that personthen won't take their meds and
how terrible would that be ifthey did not take their meds
because they decided that theseside effects wouldn't be worth
risking.
And I'm like, I don't eventhink that's the reality.
(41:34):
I think there was some researchout there that suggested that
the rapport and if you are openand honest with your client, the
more likely they are to complywith your treatment
recommendation.
But anyway, the whole fullinformed consent thing is no, we
can only say the positive stuffabout this.
But anyway, the whole fullinformed consent thing is no, we
can only say the positive stuffabout this.
But I firmly believe that themajority of people who are
(41:55):
bitching and crabbing on my pageand yelling at me are truly the
med harmed at this point.
I believe that they are soharmed that they can't see
outside of it.
They're so irritated andirritable and negative and
they're the ones who are harmed.
Therapist Jenn (42:10):
And so I'm like they're spellbound right, like
Peter Brigham coined right.
Dr. Teralyn (42:14):
They're in that state, so I'm like stick around
on my page for a while and maybethat'll help you to see some
new things.
But I firmly believe that theyare the truly harmed ones right
now, because how can you not beif that's the way you live your
life?
But I recognize the negativitybecause I was there when I was
(42:35):
on meds too.
So I see them, I see them andI'm like hang out here for a
while, let's see if we can doanything.
Robert Whitaker (42:41):
So that's where I'm at right now Thick skin,
Thicker skin.
I agree with you, by the way.
It's so.
Much of this outrage is frompeople who actually aren't doing
well and they almost can't bearthe thought that they've gone
down a medical path that hasmade life so difficult for them.
(43:04):
They have to defend thatdecision to be on the drug and
stay on the drug and stay on thedrug.
Yeah.
Therapist Jenn (43:10):
I think.
Robert Whitaker (43:11):
Yeah, and that's why they attack people
who were saying but wait aminute, look, I'm getting my
life back by rejecting thiswhole narrative.
Therapist Jenn (43:20):
Yes, and that's a hard pill to swallow when it's
been part of, like your wholelife.
Right, and especially withclinicians, because we really
love to challenge that withclinicians, because we are
taught the opposite.
We are taught that there has tobe when you were saying,
evidence-based right, we like tomake fun of that a lot on the
show because that was how wewere trained the evidence-based
(43:42):
gold standard, right, and that'sit.
That is the level of care wegave.
But we were trained thatpsychiatry and mental health are
in a marriage and that is themost effective way to help a
patient.
And so that narrative right,even for a lot of people, like
even clinicians.
They challenge that a lot withus because they're still
(44:05):
learning it that way.
That's how it's being taught tothem too, because they're still
learning it that way, that'show it's being taught to them
too, and so that's a hard thingto get over when you have to sit
and go.
Yeah, I was taught somethingthat's wrong, that doesn't make
sense, or I've hinged mypractice on this for 20 years
and it's not right.
Robert Whitaker (44:20):
Yeah, one of the most heartfelt things that a
psychiatrist told me after sheread Anatomy of an Epidemic.
She says okay, I think you'reright, I think we're doing harm,
but now you have to tell me howI go to work tomorrow.
How do I save myself?
For the past 25 years and now,how can I even exist in a system
(44:40):
that's doing harm?
I didn't really have an answer,but that was obviously a
heartfelt thing.
She was saying Her mind wasopen to it.
But now she was saying, like,how am I going to?
How about myself?
How do I look at what I've beendoing for 25 years?
I thought I was helping peopleand this is what I.
So it is, and it's easier justto have cognitive dissonance.
(45:04):
You know what I mean.
Okay, I'm not going to give youthis information.
Therapist Jenn (45:07):
Yeah, no, it takes a lot of vulnerability.
You know what I mean.
Okay, I'm not going to get thisinformation.
Yeah, no, it takes a lot ofvulnerability.
I think one of the harderepisodes that Terry and I did on
this show was our 30th episodeand it was our we called it our
dirty 30.
And in that episode we listedoff the 30 most horrific ways
that we perpetuated harm to ourpatients as therapists, and that
(45:31):
was it was sad how easy it wasfor me to make that list.
We each made our lists rightand then we combined them and it
just flew, it just like flowedout of me.
So easy and I sat back lookingat this going there's so much
harm, I've done so much harm andwe openly talk about it.
But that takes such a level ofhumility and vulnerability
(45:53):
Because you don't know what'sgoing to come at you after you
tell the world something likethat on a podcast right, but
that's how we did it.
And to your point, with hersaying to you how do I move on?
Right, I think there's a levelof humility that you have to get
to in your own space and go.
This is harm.
And we had somebody on not toolong ago, nicole Lamberson, and
(46:17):
she talked with us about thisand she said she goes the most
unforgivable thing.
It's forgivable when you don'thave the knowledge and the
awareness and you're taughtsomething and you don't have the
other perspectives.
But what's really unforgivableis when you now have the
knowledge and the awareness andyou're taught something and you
don't have the otherperspectives.
But what's really unforgivableis when you now have the
knowledge and that there's moreto this right than what you were
taught, and yet you stillcontinue to operate in the same
(46:37):
fashion you did.
That's the part that'sunforgivable right.
Robert Whitaker (46:42):
That's what she said.
There is exactly right.
Yeah, when you're provided withother information, you have a
moral duty to do what you tellyour patients and change your
thinking, and what you tell yourpatients and all that.
Dr. Teralyn (46:57):
So I have a quick question, if my internet holds
out, so sorry about that.
Everybody.
All the research that you'refinding, how does the general
population find some of thisBecause, like you said, it's
just the high side of thingsthat this is working is readily
available everywhere.
(47:17):
You see it in pop news too.
Right, but how do you go aboutfinding some of this other
research on the other side?
How do you go about findingthat and how do you know the
legitimacy of that?
I think it's important for ourlisteners to understand this
part.
Robert Whitaker (47:34):
This is really a great question.
So even with my first book, madin America, I put up a website
where I had all the citationsand links to the articles and so
they could see for themselveswhat I was citing.
They could go read it forthemselves and they could also
see where it was published andthese things would be published.
(47:54):
They'd see that it was fundedby the NIMH or then it was
published in you know, americanJournal of Psychiatry sometimes,
or Archives of GeneralPsychiatry.
In other words, they could goto the source information so
they could read it forthemselves.
Now, the one problem with thissometimes is that the abstracts
are spun.
You have to be able to reallyget into the like look at tables
(48:18):
and the discussion and commentsthere, because the abstracts
are sung.
But nevertheless, I did thatNow with Anatomy of an Epidemic.
Initially I just did the samething on Mad in America.
It wasn't a webzine at thistime, but then gradually it did
become a webzine and now, forexample, we have daily science
coverage.
There's always a link to thestudy.
(48:39):
So the whole point is we'retrying to make available
research that never getspromoted by the mainstream media
.
We review it.
We review the methodology, thefindings how it fits.
And then there's a link Now,often this stuff is behind
paywalls.
So one of the things we'retrying to do is bring that
(49:00):
science from behind the paywalland make it available to the
public.
And then finally you can go onMad in America and you look at
the menu bar and you look atdrugs and there's a drop down
menu and it'll say likeantipsychotics adults or
antidepressants adults orstimulants children.
And then you'll go there andthere'll be a review of the
literature.
(49:21):
What is the evidence for shortterm?
What do we know about adverseeffects?
What are the long term studies?
And there's links, there'shyperlinks to every study.
So what we're trying to do thisis one of the reasons for Mad
in America is to make access tothis research known.
That you don't have to believeme, but you can now go read
(49:42):
these things.
But again, I do want to say oneof the small problems is they
never confess bad results in theabstract.
Yep, no they don't you reallyhave to be good about looking at
the tables and they'll make aline, a discussion, that's sort
of an admission of harm done,but then they'll move on.
(50:03):
Yes, rapidly, but it's there.
And can I say one thing?
Yeah, in Madden America andanatomy of an epidemic, I don't
know how many studies are cited.
I think there's over 700studies cited.
Yeah, there's a lot.
Do you know?
I've never had a single authorsay I miscited their findings,
never, Not once.
(50:24):
Oh, and the other thing isthey've never said I misquoted
them, because I quote them fromtheir own.
Dr. Teralyn (50:29):
Yeah, you do, yeah, you do.
I love it.
Robert Whitaker (50:32):
This is what they said yeah, exactly One of
the things.
Just to finalize this, it's notthat there's just like one
study that tells this and thenthere's this other data out
there that tells of drugsimproving long-term outcomes.
When you look at long-term data, it's consistent across
different types of studieslongitudinal studies,
(50:53):
epidemiological studies, studiesthat are looking about how the
drugs affect the brain overlong-term and then you'll get
researchers saying, uh-oh, Ithink we're worsening the
long-term outcomes.
Now, it's never promoted, butit's there, and it's there
because, in fact, that's whatscience is showing us.
So, terry, your question isreally a good one.
(51:14):
How can they believe thisinformation?
How can they believe thenarrative that we're telling?
Well, they can believe itbecause we have access to all
the research that's done bythemselves.
This isn't research by thecritics.
This is their research,nih-funded research, and that's
what we're making available.
(51:35):
It's the best we can do.
It's hard for people to switchnarratives, but I will tell you.
More and more people areswitching narratives and two
things have happened just onthis.
A few years ago, there was ameeting in India and I was at.
It was an interim meeting andit brought together people from
the World Health Organization,united Nations, and I was asked
(51:57):
to be a keynote speaker.
Dr. Teralyn (52:00):
Amazingly, was it a setup.
That's what I'm just kidding.
Was it another setup?
Robert Whitaker (52:04):
No, this was people themselves felt there was
something wrong, oh good,anyway.
One of the things that came outof that was my talk themselves
felt there was something wrong,oh good, anyway.
One of the things that came outof that was my talk was we need
a new narrative, because notjust a critical narrative, but a
narrative of what's possible.
That would fund up, that wouldhelp prompt a paradigm shift.
Well, you know what hashappened from representatives
who were there, the World HealthOrganization representatives
(52:36):
they have now called, sentseveral documents saying we need
a paradigm shift.
This biological model reallyhasn't worked.
We need a shift towardsenvironmental care and away from
this biological model.
The UN Special Rapporteur forHealth, who had a representative
there, daniels Puras he's nolonger, he's finished his term
he said we need a revolution, weneed a paradigm shift.
And the reason is becausethat's what you find if you're
at the World Health Organization, at least in one department,
(52:59):
and you confront this researchliterature, you say this isn't
working.
We need to be doing somethingdifferently.
So what I'm trying to tell yourlisteners is even at very top
levels now, increasingly,there's an acknowledgement
outcomes have gotten worse.
This isn't working.
The chemical imbalance storywas a fraud and we really need
(53:19):
to rethink this whole paradigmof care.
Dr. Teralyn (53:29):
Do you think in the next 20 years, somebody else is
going to write another book oryou're going to be able to write
another book about this and belike what were we thinking in
2025?
Do you think that it's going toshift at some point, that we're
going to look back on this timeperiod and be like, damn, we
just created so many problems.
What were we thinking?
(53:49):
Do you think that's going tohappen in your lifetime?
Robert Whitaker (53:54):
I hope so, and you know, one of the things is,
when there are paradigm shifts,you look back at the past and go
.
What were we thinking?
Therapist Jenn (54:02):
Right, it's always that right.
Robert Whitaker (54:03):
It's always that right.
Yeah, it is.
Therapist Jenn (54:05):
Yeah.
Robert Whitaker (54:05):
We got the drugs, we were like what were we
thinking when we were, you know, destroying the frontal lobes?
That wasn't so bright, but Idon't know really.
It's just, you know, corporateinfluences are so big on our
lives.
Now, yeah, you know, and andand they're.
The market for psychiatricdrugs just became huge.
It is Yep, and it got exportedaround the world.
(54:28):
You know, when we first startedmedicating our kids, people in
other countries said what areyou doing?
These are just kids.
Well, increasingly they'rediagnosing their kids with
autism, spectrum disorder, adhd.
I went to Poland and I wasinvited to speak in Poland and
Slovenia last November andpeople were telling me all their
kids are getting diagnosed withthese things.
(54:48):
So it's spread.
So I wish I could be optimistic.
There are a lot of calls now.
We need a paradigm shift.
There's really a grassrootsrebellion and there is this
happening in societies.
It doesn't work.
So your burden of mentaldisorders, rather than going
down, which means a cost, it'sgoing up.
(55:10):
So at some point you say we'respending all this money but it's
not solving the problem.
So maybe we do need to make achange.
I hope that happens.
But, as you know, politics,economics, influence political
decision big time.
Corporations have an outsizedinfluence.
The pharmaceutical industry hasan outsized influence.
(55:33):
So I don't know, is industrygoing to really let go of this
model of care?
Therapist Jenn (55:38):
I don't know it would be great to be a part of
that revolution.
I mean, like, here we are, aslike the tiny people you know,
trying to do that on our end andhelping people and educating
them and trying to help themsafely get off of these drugs,
(55:59):
which is a whole feat in and ofitself.
Right, there isn't a lot ofpeople out there doing that, you
know, but it's growing, whichis really cool.
But it would be neat to be partof this revolution.
Robert Whitaker (56:13):
You are part of this revolution.
You are part of it.
That's the point.
The Gaslight podcast is part ofthe revolution.
It's a rebellion coming up fromthe grassroots.
Therapist Jenn (56:23):
It is.
Robert Whitaker (56:24):
You're very much part of it.
Therapist Jenn (56:27):
I guess I want to see more.
I would love to just see thebig boom, which probably won't
happen because, as we know,there are these influences that
are pretty.
They are so much bigger than usand in fact, they could crush
us in a hot second if theywanted to.
So I'm kind of waiting forsomebody to show up at my door
and threaten my life and thenI'll be like, listen, I worked
(56:50):
at a prison for 15 years, youdon't fuck.
But then I'm sure at some point, right Like it, I've had people
say this to me.
They're like you guys arestarting to touch on some shit
that you need to be reallycareful with when it comes to
big food and big pharma, and I'mlike I'm too old to worry about
that at this point.
All right.
Well it's.
It's a good space to wrap upand thank you for being here,
bob.
You've changed so many lives.
(57:14):
If you knew how big of animpact you've had on the world,
I hope you know, can feel someof that.
Robert Whitaker (57:21):
Well, thanks, it's really been a pleasure
being here.
I've really enjoyed theconversation, and when I hear
words like this, I think, okay,it's worth continuing.
Yes, I think that's theimportant part isn't it?
Therapist Jenn (57:33):
These little encouragements, right, but thank
you for being on Everybody, ifyou've stayed to the end.
Here we are the Gaslit TruthPodcast.
You can find us anywhere thatyou listen to your podcasts.
We are on all the socials andwe'd love for you to give us
some reviews.
And, as Terry said with herbook, we only want five stars
with our podcast too.
Otherwise don't even review,and if you're not willing to
think critically or go throughthat, then I guess we're not the
podcast for you.
(57:54):
If you want to send us yourGaslit stories, you can email us
at thegaslitruthpodcast atgmailcom.
Thanks for being on, bob.
Robert Whitaker (58:03):
Again, it was a real pleasure.
Hey everyone, it's Dr Teralyn here.
I'm just going to do anothershout out for my book before we
start this episode.
So check out your Best Brain onAmazoncom.
It's there, it's there, and Iwant to show you chapter nine,
page 119.
Life is so damn short.
Just do what makes you happyand don't forget to shout Jenga
(00:22):
when everything falls apart.
Jenga, jenga, jenga.
Therapist Jenn (00:26):
Just so everyone knows this is a perfect
stocking stuffer, whether it'sfor a birthday or for Christmas
or you're putting together adonation package.
Robert Whitaker (00:32):
Mother's Day.
Therapist Jenn (00:33):
I may have bought five copies already for
different things, so get it shedid.
Dr. Teralyn (00:38):
She put it in a donation basket for a charity
event, which I really appreciateFor a charity event.
Robert Whitaker (00:46):
I made a whole brain health basket.
Therapist Jenn (00:47):
The book is in there.
It's very versatile it's verygood for bathroom reading as
well.
Dr. Teralyn (00:51):
And short, so you'll get it through in one
fell swoop.
All right, thanks everyone.
Thanks for your support on yourBest Brain.
Five-star reviews only, allright.
Therapist Jenn (00:59):
Now on to the show.
That's right, okay, everybody.
So here we go, super excitedabout today.
Are we all mad in America?
Listen, are you gaslit by badscience and bad psychiatry?
We are your whistleblowingshrinks Dr Tara Lynn and
therapist Jen here with probablythe ultimate whistleblowing
shrink.
(01:20):
Just want to put that out there, and this is a get well, not
quite Well, kind of.
He's the ultimate whistleblower.
Let's say it that way.
And this is a gas lit truthpodcast.
Our special guest today is BobWhitaker, and he is the author
of several books on the historyof psychiatry.
He's written Mad in America, hehas written the Anatomy of an
Epidemic and he's the founder ofMad in America, which is like
(01:43):
the world's largest platform forscience, psychiatry and social
justice, and we are huge fans.
Welcome to the show, Bob.
Robert Whitaker (01:53):
Well, thanks for having me here.
It's a real pleasure and honor,so looking forward to it.
Dr. Teralyn (01:56):
Yeah, yes, this is great, you know, I just have to
start this off by saying yes,when Jen and I were coming up
with this podcast, what, almosttwo years ago, Mad at America
podcast was our inspiration, andso it was.
We were like this podcast issomething that we need to lean
(02:20):
into and think about it from adifferent angle, and so your
podcast was our inspiration.
So thank you so much for thatinspiration.
You are changing lives, andyour book too this one I'm
holding it up Madden Americabook yeah, Because this one
changed my life and my practice,just so you know.
Therapist Jenn (02:39):
Yeah, it's all true and actually some of the
first like deliverables we everput out came from this book and,
like all of my likehighlighting and underline what
see the word what on that page.
This actually went into some ofour deliverables that we were
putting out because I keptreading this going.
(03:01):
This is what we have to talkabout.
This is the stuff that matters,and so thank you for this book,
bob is what we have to talkabout.
This is the stuff that matters,and so thank you for this book,
bob, and for what you're doing.
Robert Whitaker (03:10):
Thanks for that very nice introduction.
It was quite flattering and Ijust want to say, of course you
were recently on a Mad inAmerica podcast.
Dr. Teralyn (03:16):
Yes, thank you.
Robert Whitaker (03:18):
Yes, that was so awesome and I think really
one of the things about podcastsare so great.
They really do help build acommunity of listeners, so to
speak, and you also sit with thepodcast, you know.
You sit down and listen to themand it really becomes a great
way to sort of, you know,promote a different narrative or
(03:39):
reveal how we have been gaslitby psychiatry and so forth.
So anyway, real pleasure to behere.
Dr. Teralyn (03:44):
Yes, so I want to get to the meat of you.
Therapist Jenn (03:50):
Meaning like you better clarify that, terry.
Yeah, I mean Sorry, just sorry.
Let's clarify this please.
Dr. Teralyn (03:57):
I'm feeling a little edgy this morning.
Therapist Jenn (03:59):
I know he might be a silver fox, but you got to
get it together here.
Okay, all right, all right.
Dr. Teralyn (04:05):
That's funny.
Therapist Jenn (04:07):
We're going to make Bob lose his mind today.
Dr. Teralyn (04:10):
Anyway, so you're a medical researcher, correct, is
that?
Robert Whitaker (04:19):
Not really A journalist who's been writing
about medicine and scienceforever.
Dr. Teralyn (04:25):
Okay, a medical journalist.
Robert Whitaker (04:28):
I don't do the original research, but what I do
is report on it and dig intothe literature, the research
literature.
But I'm not a researcher myself.
Dr. Teralyn (04:38):
I'm sorry, I meant journalist when I said that I'm
starstruck today.
I need to get my languagetogether here.
Okay, so you are a medicaljournalist, which I find really
fascinating.
Can you share with us your kindof awakening moment, because
(04:58):
you did traditional reportingright and then something had to
have happened somewhere alongthe way you went what,
especially with psychiatry?
So I would love to hear that.
I think that's an importantplace to begin.
Robert Whitaker (05:15):
I'll try to be succinct about this because
actually it's a journey when youmove from where you initially
are treating medical doctors,medical researchers, as people
on a pedestal, as the fountainof truth, to where, next thing
you know, you're saying well,wait a minute, what you're
saying to the public isn'tconsistent with your own science
.
So really, what happened wasthis Even when I was doing
(05:40):
medical reporting for the AlbanyTimes Union, I began
understanding that financialinfluences were affecting
medical research.
So that was the beginning ofsort of the cataracts
disappearing from my eyes.
Then I went.
I was a brief, briefly, I wasdirector of publications at
Harvard Medical School in the1990s and this was a time when
(06:03):
they started talking a lot aboutwell, we have to do
evidence-based medicine, and theidea with evidence-based
medicine is doctors can bedeluded about their merits of
their therapies based on theirown impressions.
So there's a sense that sciencemight be a corrective to the
narrative that you've been toldand you've been listened to.
Anyway, then next thing was Ico-founded a publishing company
(06:27):
that looked at the business ofclinical trials, you know, doing
trials of new drugs and veryquickly I began writing about
how academic psychiatry wasbeing compromised.
Pharmaceutical companies weregiving money to academic faculty
academic psychiatrists.
They were serving as theauthors, studies were being spun
(06:47):
, adverse events were beinghidden, and so that really
alerted me to the sense ofcorruption that was present in
psychiatry.
Now it was also starting tobecome present in other areas of
medicine, but psychiatry wasreally the child, really the
poster child, of this problem.
And then, finally, I did aseries for the Boston Globe on
(07:12):
abuses of patients inpsychiatric research.
And now at this time I stillbelieved the chemical imbalance
story.
I still believed that, forexample, they had found that too
much dopamine was the cause ofschizophrenia and therefore
that's why you neededantipsychotics, because they
block dopamine.
Okay, and that was actually thefoil for one of this four-part
(07:33):
series.
We said look, it's awful whenyou do studies where you
withdraw patients fromantipsychotics, because you
would never do this with adiabetic.
You would never withdrawinsulin from a diabetic to see
if they became sick again.
But so why are you doing itwith schizophrenia patients?
The point of this is that Ithink is important for your
readers.
(07:54):
I began as a believer in thenarrative of progress
represented by the chemicalimbalance, but I had these other
sort of skepticism that wasbeginning to enter my thinking.
And then, while doing thoseseries, I came upon two studies
that really launched me intothis long history of writing
critically about psychiatry.
One was a study by Harvardresearchers who said that
(08:15):
schizophrenia outcomes, ratherthan improving, over the last 15
, 20 years had worsened and nowthey were no better than in the
first third of the 20th century.
Well, that belies thatnarrative of progress we're
being told.
Then I came upon studies by theWorld Health Organization which
compared outcomes in threedeveloping countries India,
colombia and Nigeria versusoutcomes in the US and six other
(08:38):
developed countries.
One was two years in length,one was five years in length.
The diagnosis was made byWestern doctors and each time
they find, the outcomes weremuch, much better in the
developing countries.
So much so they concluded thatliving in a developed country is
a strong predictor.
You won't have a good outcomeif you're diagnosed with
(08:58):
schizophrenia.
So I said, why would that be?
And then I read the studies andwhat they did is after the
first such study they said well,maybe the reason for the better
outcomes is in the poorcountries of the developing
countries.
Is they take their medications?
They're more medicationcompliant.
So they looked at medicationusage in the second study and
what they found was this In thedeveloping countries they use
(09:22):
the drugs acutely short term,but not chronically.
Only about 16% were maintainedon the drugs long term.
And that's what blew my mind,because my understanding was
schizophrenia was due to achemical imbalance.
The drugs fixed that chemicalimbalance.
The drugs were absolutelyessential.
And yet here was a study, twodifferent studies, challenging
(09:45):
that narrative.
So, anyway, when, after thatseries ran, I got a contract to
write Mad in America and I beganreally with this thought is the
narrative that we're being toldis it true, is it indeed based
in science?
And if you go forward with thatbook, it's really about a
(10:06):
history of psychiatry tellingone story to make itself look
good and patients living a verydifferent history.
So that's a long winded answer,but I think for your listeners,
what's key is I began as abeliever, number one.
Two, nevertheless, I did thinkthat we needed to go into the
(10:26):
research.
I needed to go into theresearch literature to see if
what we were being told was insync with the research
literature.
So I had a um, I had a, aprocess to follow as I, I, as I
wrote mad in america.
Dr. Teralyn (10:41):
Yeah, yeah, mad in america.
The book I have so many.
I don't know I'm notconflicting emotions, but I have
to be in a space to read it,like I have to be in an okay
place to read it.
And when I say read it, Iusually listen to it on an
airplane or taking a walk orwhatever.
(11:03):
And I had to do it in smallchunks because it questions
everything that I thought I knew, but I didn't know much.
Actually.
I think this book should be arequirement for high school
psychology class.
I think it should be arequirement for college
psychology courses.
Therapist Jenn (11:24):
That's the exact same thing.
When I read this, bob, I had acouple things pop in.
And same thing with Terry.
I had such a hard time readingthis because it's all stuff I've
learned for the first time, andthis is after multiple degrees
and internships and licenses andyears and years and years of
(11:44):
practicing and all of thetrainings that we have to do in
the field as psychologists ortherapists and it was like I was
learning this all for the firsttime.
And something that really stoodout to me in this is that I kept
thinking to myself why did Inever learn this side of it?
It was one of the first times Irealized how convoluted and
(12:07):
one-sided even the Westerneducation system is, and that
really blew my mind because I'mlike shit, everything I've
learned this was not part of it.
Even when we learned aboutasylums this is not how we
learned about asylum living.
When we learned aboutpsychiatry trying to bring
(12:27):
themselves into the field asdoctors and make a name for
themselves, which you talk a lotabout in this book and the
ability to do these crazy assbrain surgeries and craniotomies
and all these things we didn'tlearn any of that.
We learned about Phineas Gageand a stupid spike that went
through his head and severing acorpus callosum.
Dr. Teralyn (12:48):
She always talks about Phineas Gage.
Therapist Jenn (12:49):
I know and I'm like this is the dumbest shit,
because here, like this is wewere.
I had a hard time with itbecause this is what actually
not a hard time, it was a hardtime, but it got me to a good
spot where I went.
I have to unlearn what I'velearned, because I've only
learned like this much.
Robert Whitaker (13:04):
Yeah, well, I can understand.
I hear this a lot from people.
First of all, there is a senseof betrayal.
Yes, yes.
Dr. Teralyn (13:12):
Yes, why wasn't I?
Robert Whitaker (13:14):
taught this information.
Why was this information keptfrom me?
And I'm investing.
If you're a therapist, you'reinvesting your life, your heart,
your future in a certainnarrative.
By that I mean as you're beingtold as you go to school we do
this and it's evidence-based andit's good for people.
You're invested in that.
And then, all of a sudden, youread Mad in America and you see
(13:35):
that that story that you've beeninvested in is a story told by
a guild that is interested allalong about making itself look
good and making sure that itsproducts drugs look good.
And so what they do is theyexclude information, they
exclude research results thatcall that into question and
frankly tell of harm done.
And, of course, the reason theydo that because, well, what
(13:59):
happens if their drugs are doingharm in aggregate?
Well then, what are they leftwith?
So psychiatry gets in this bindwhere and you can see this
through in history whateverthey're doing, they're going to
say is good.
When they were doing lobotomies, after Phineas Gale, the
inventor, won the Nobel Prize inmedicine, and in 1949, I think
(14:20):
it was there was a reviewpublished in an American journal
said lobotomy can't hurt you.
You're either going to getcured, improved or no change.
Therapist Jenn (14:29):
I probably marked that page in here
somewhere.
Robert Whitaker (14:32):
The point is when you go to universities and
you study, really what you'rebeing told is what the guild
wants you to learn in order tomove into how they've designed
the practices.
And then you go into thescience literature and there's
this whole different story therewhich actually tells and this
(14:53):
arises from like NIMH fundedresearch that tells like, wow,
we're probably worseningoutcomes, we're doing damage on
the whole, on the whole, in theaggregate, we're worsening
outcomes.
And of course then the biggestthing, I bet you were taught
about chemical imbalances as youwent right oh yeah, they still
(15:14):
are.
Dr. Teralyn (15:15):
I talk about this my son just graduated college
and took an intro to psych classor whatever.
There was a whole chapter aboutthe serotonin imbalance theory
and all of these things and I'mlike I said to him.
I said don't pay attention tothis chapter at all.
Like don't, please, don't,please, don't pay attention to
this, but it's still beingtaught in colleges today.
Robert Whitaker (15:37):
Yeah, you know what's so distressing about the
chemical imbalance story is sortof rises in 1965 based on an
understanding, or at least apreliminary understanding, how
antidepressants orantipsychotics act on the brain.
So antipsychotics blockdopamine.
They hypothesize too muchdopamine is the cause.
Antidepressants they block thereuptake of serotonin, so
(16:00):
serotonin is staying in thatsynaptic cliff longer, upping
serotonin activity.
So they hypothesize that.
Okay, maybe depression is dueto too little serotonin.
Now here's the distressing part.
That's 1965.
Now if you start charting now,of course once they have that
hypothesis they have to see dopeople with schizophrenia have
(16:22):
too much dopamine prior to goingon the meds or do people with
depression have too littleserotonin?
Well, now you can trace it andthink about how long ago this is
.
Take the low serotonin theory,1973, you get people saying
we're not finding serotonin isdeficient in depressed patients.
In 1983, I think it was, theNIMH does a big investigation of
(16:44):
it and says it doesn't looklike there's a deficiency in
serotonin.
Okay, that's 1983.
1998, textbook of Americanpsychiatry says this serotonin
hypothesis didn't pan out.
That's what the textbook says.
It says we investigated allthese different ways, we just
(17:06):
didn't find it.
There's no evidence for it.
And they even make fun of it intheir own textbook.
They said there's really noreason that a drugs, that the
pathology is going to be theopposite of a mechanism of
action of a drug you're using,so it was declared dead in 1998.
And you can go forward.
And what was Americanpsychiatry telling us on its
(17:27):
website, in press releases, inmagazine articles?
They're telling us we now knowthat depression is a brain
illness caused by serotonin, anddrugs fix that.
So here's what's so outrageousand why you should be outraged.
And frankly, I'm outraged thatyour son is being taught this
(17:48):
nonsense.
The profession knew it wasn'ttrue.
They knew it really starting inthe 80s, but then they kept
saying it because it was asoundbite that made their drugs
look good and it made it looklike they had made all this
medical progress, discoveringthe pathology of disorders.
In other words, we had a guild,a medical guild, that thought
(18:12):
it was okay to lie to patients,lie to the public and really lie
to itself, and even training ofyoung doctors for a while.
We're hearing this.
Yes, can I tell you one reallyquick, funny story about this,
please?
After I wrote anatomy of anepidemic, I was um asked to give
a grand rounds at massachusettsgeneral hospital, which was
(18:34):
like the number one hotpsychiatric department in the
country in terms of researchfunding.
Now they invited me to crush me.
Basically, it was a setup, oneof the things they said.
They said you made it, theywere lambasting.
They said you made it seem likewe believed in the chemical
imbalance story.
They said we knew that wasn'ttrue in 1987, 25 years ago.
(18:59):
So why did you lie about us?
And I said you know what You'reright.
So why did you lie about us?
And I said you know what You'reright.
You did know it hadn't pannedout in 1987, but I said I think
you forgot to tell the public.
Dr. Teralyn (19:13):
Well, this reminds me what was it in 20?
Well, was it in 2022 when MarkHorowitz did the meta-analysis
paper and said, basically, theserotonin theory.
You know, like we knew.
Therapist Jenn (19:29):
Yeah, oh, there goes her volume.
Hang on one moment, right whenyou're asking a great question
about Mark and your volume goesout here.
Are you back, terry?
Yeah, no, she's got no volume.
Well.
Robert Whitaker (19:44):
I know what a question I think is going to be.
Therapist Jenn (19:46):
Yeah, I was going to say you could probably
answer this before she even getsit all out.
So yeah, go ahead.
Robert Whitaker (19:51):
The point of the paper was by Mark Horowitz
and Joanne Moncrief.
They said we reviewed all theresearch 50 years of research
into this, 55 research and therewas never any evidence for a
low serotonin as being the causeof depression.
So what was the response ofother psychiatrists?
Well, one of the responses.
(20:13):
We've known this all along.
So why are you even botheringwith this?
This isn't news, right, and thepublic listening to this goes
well, it's news to us.
Yes, yeah, so that was the.
There was various responses bypsychiatrists, but they were
trying to downplay it.
But they made it seem like theyhad never told the public about
(20:34):
chemical imbalances.
And yet what we did on Mad inAmerica we just published the
list of all the times they saidexactly that yes, and that the
buses fixed the chemicalimbalance.
I don't mean to be laughingbecause, just to finish this up,
so many people's lives werechanged by that story.
They were having difficulty alittle bit of things.
(20:55):
They go in to see a psychiatrist, or maybe even their general
practitioner, because they'retold they have a chemical
imbalance Of course there was notest which tells them there was
something defective inside themand told them that, in essence,
they had to take this drug forlife.
Now, just as we try tounderstand the morality of this,
imagine if you went to acardiologist and they told you
(21:16):
oh, you have a problem with yourheart, I need to put in a stent
, and you didn't have thatproblem.
What would we say about thecardiologist Quack Do that?
Why were psychiatrists allowedto tell people they had chemical
imbalances in the brain whichrequired a drug, when they knew
that wasn't true?
Therapist Jenn (21:37):
And that is still that narrative.
As deprescribers, terry and Iare working with people
constantly and that's questionsthat I do ask because it's
something that we have to debunkand educate our clients on,
because they get curious aboutgetting off medication.
But these are the statementsthat they hinge on, that we have
(22:02):
to deprogram for them and thenoffer some research on, offer
them other personal experienceon, because they're still being
told that.
People are still being toldthat.
I had a client this last weekwho said those exact words to me
and I just sit and listen andthen I said, okay, let's talk
about the other side of thisright now.
So then we bring that in andthey're dumbfounded.
(22:23):
It's as if they have learnedsomething that is brand new,
even though this is somethingthat has been out for so, so
long.
Robert Whitaker (22:35):
It's been out in the research literature.
It's been out in Madden America, it was in my books, but the
media also betrayed us.
Because the media wasn'treporting this.
You still heard for the longesttime that depression was due to
low serotonin.
So the media betrayed us aswell.
Therapist Jenn (22:51):
Well, and I have to.
This leads into a question Ihave.
So this last week or two weeksago, I rewatched Medicating
Normal Okay, and they in thatdocumentary.
You were filmed in that.
You did a great job, by the way.
It looks so good.
Dr. Teralyn (23:07):
I love that film.
Therapist Jenn (23:08):
I know it's so good no-transcript passed on to
(23:38):
the people that are conductingthe research to approve, et
cetera.
Can you explain that to ourlisteners and how this process
of research actually works forthese drug companies?
Robert Whitaker (23:49):
This is really key because when we talk about
the efficacy of antidepressants,for example, what they cite are
studies done, funded by drugcompanies.
Okay, yeah, and they last aboutsix weeks usually, and the
whole goal is to is to find outif their drug reduces depressive
(24:09):
symptoms on a like the Hamiltonscale better than placebo.
Now, the first thing, evenbefore we get into the
corruption studies are designed,are biased by design, to make
the drug look good.
So, first of all, they useexclusion criteria and about 85%
of real world patients can'tqualify for these trials.
(24:31):
Okay, yeah, so they're aselected group.
That's first, first.
Second, there's no placebogroup in these trials.
What happens is you take peopleyou generally that are on
antidepressants, or maybe theythey have exposure to, but
mostly they're onantidepressants.
Then what you do is you taketake one group off okay, you
take both groups off, and thenone group you put okay, you take
(24:52):
both groups off, and then onegroup you put back on an
antidepressant.
After you do like a four-daywashout, they call it.
So, everybody off.
There's even a hope that thiswill spike depressive symptoms.
By the way, yes, correct,that's what you have withdrawal.
Therapist Jenn (25:08):
So yeah, it works great.
Robert Whitaker (25:09):
And then what they do is they take one group
after the four-day washout andput them back on an
antidepressant, and the other isnow the placebo group.
So your placebo group isactually a group going through
withdrawal.
Now the amazing thing is, after, at the end of six weeks,
there's actually, in terms ofdiminishment of symptoms, very
little difference between thetwo.
(25:30):
Okay Now, so what happens?
So that's the design betweenthe two.
Okay Now, so what happens?
So that's the design of thetrials.
Now the drug companies.
They've designed the trial.
They get the case report forms.
They hire people to collect thedata and write up reports.
Okay, here's what we're goingto say.
They even have a ghostwritingfirm and then they go to their
(25:51):
people and the academic peoplewho maybe have supposedly
recruited a few patients forthese trials and ask them to be
authors.
And this went on for a longtime.
And, by the way, those academicpeople are getting paid now
lots of money to be what'scalled key opinion leaders.
They know these people who areat prestigious universities.
(26:12):
If they author the articles,they then write about them in
the textbook.
So antidepressants areeffective.
They give CEU courses, theyspeak at the annual conference
of the American PsychiatricAssociation.
They help form the opinion.
But beneath all this story ofthe short-term efficacy of
antidepressants is a story ofbiased design, no real placebo
(26:37):
group and the results beingpromoted to the public by
academic faculty who were makingthousands and thousands of
dollars, and sometimes in thehundreds of thousands of dollars
, to influence opinion among thepublic.
So that was what you see in theshort-term studies Now.
(26:57):
So in other words, we reallycan't even trust that these
drugs are effective over theshort term.
But let's even grant that maybethey are.
I actually don't.
For example, I'll give you onething real quick when you give
antidepressants in real worldpatients, the response rate is
much less, the remission rate ismuch less than in these
(27:19):
industry funded trialsdramatically less, which tells
you that those trials are sortof an artifact.
Then the other part of this isand now you as therapists are
seeing this all the timelong-term.
So many people worsen on thesedrugs Not everybody, but a lot
and in aggregate outcomes overand over again in the studies
(27:40):
are worse for the medicatedpatients long-term than for the
unmedicated patients with asimilar diagnosis.
But we never hear about thatresearch, do we?
They don't tell us thatresearch.
Your patients don't come in andgoing like, hey, I just read
that very few people stayed wellin the largest antidepressant
trial ever conducted.
Could it really have been?
Only 3% were well at the end ofone year.
(28:01):
They don't know this.
They don't know anything aboutthe real world patients.
They don't know about the biasdesign.
What they see is oh, the NewYork Times say antidepressants
are effective.
70% of people are in remissionafter one year, and they say
this based on a study that hidthe real outcomes.
(28:22):
Anyway, this is the point.
Sorry, I went on long term.
Dr. Teralyn (28:27):
No, it's just good.
No, I'm spellbound by you rightnow.
I'm just going.
Robert Whitaker (28:31):
Corruption in the short term is just part of a
larger story of how the publichas been misled, about how the
evidence is gathered, the roleof key opinion leaders and what
happens over the long term.
And let me now really get on myhigh horse.
They were told thatantidepressants fixed the
(28:53):
chemical imbalance in the brain.
Right, yes, what researchshowed was that a they didn't
have a chemical imbalance beforethey went on the drug, but the
drug because it created it.
Yeah, the drug now creates thevery thing.
So you have a drug that upsserotonergic activity.
What does the brain?
Brain do?
It says uh-oh, I have tomaintain a homeostatic
(29:15):
equilibrium.
It dials down its ownserotonergic machinery.
And, as Stephen Hyman wrote in1996, at the end of this process
, the brain is now operating ina manner that is both
qualitatively and quantitativelydifferent than normal.
He was head of the NAMH when hewrote this.
Have you had a single patientcome in and go, like I know?
These drugs induce the chemicalimbalance?
(29:38):
No, we're usually the ones thatare telling our personal stories
or educating on that, but no,we don't get patients that come
in and then, finally, this isseen as the mechanism, the
reason that long-term outcomesare so poor you can actually
read in the research literatureis inducing a change opposite of
what is intended and that maylead to a tardive dysphoria.
(30:02):
And, by the way, the latestdata shows that 50% of people
who go on an antidepressant endup with quote
treatment-resistant depression,oh God, as if it's their problem
.
You know what it was in 1990?
10%.
Obviously, what the drugs aredoing are inducing a chronic
(30:22):
depression in a significantpercentage of people.
But you guys read Mad inAmerica so you know this and
it's coming from the research,but the public doesn't know this
.
Dr. Teralyn (30:37):
Yeah, it's really.
It's funny because just thismorning I had a comment on
social media because I did apost about how when I was
prescribed it was a preventativefor depression, for postpartum
depression, I was not depressed.
So I'm actually the posterchild for becoming depressed
afterwards and numbed out andwhatever and not starting that
(30:59):
way.
And so I made a post about itand somebody goes you blamed
your husband and then you blamedthe antidepressant.
Why can't you just accept thatyou have treatment, resistant
depression, you have treatment,resistant depression and I was
(31:20):
like or why can't you acceptthat I was never depressed in
the first place and thisactually caused a cascade of
problems in my life during thattime?
Like this, is that spellbinding, you know?
Wake up call for people?
I feel like I'm the posterchild for that, because I'm the
perfect example of somebody whodidn't get on one because they
were labeled as depressed, andwhat it did to me after I should
(31:40):
have been in a clinical trial.
I was my own clinical trial.
Therapist Jenn (31:46):
Forget doing your original research right.
We need to go back and get youin your own little trial.
Robert Whitaker (31:51):
You could be the placebo group and the
control group and all the above,but notice the defense of the
drugs.
There they're discounting yourown personal experience.
You're not an authenticnarrator of your own life.
Therapist Jenn (32:05):
Yeah, you are not at all.
Robert Whitaker (32:07):
Right, yes, how dare I.
Therapist Jenn (32:10):
And that's one of the biggest things when we
are talking with our clientsabout this, how dare I at the
Maudsley guidelines and try tohelp create something for her
that's going to work?
And the amount of slanderingthat this girl got online was
(32:43):
just unbelievable.
And what they don't know isthat we put so much stock in her
own agency when we startedthese discussions.
How do you want to do this?
What makes sense for you?
Tell me about your lifestyle,like this drug is here, but
we're going to work.
It's going to be you that getsyou off of this and you're going
to pay attention to everythinghappening in your body and
(33:03):
that's going to dictate howpowerful this goes and how long
it takes.
And you know educating onwithdrawal and how there's so
much misnomer around.
You know, because that's thefirst thing her prescriber said
to her is, hey, when thesesymptoms come back, you know
it's because, like, you probablyneed to go back on, and you
know this language that is usedaround it and it just removes
(33:25):
anybody's own sense of agencywithin the process.
And it's the drugs that are thething that fixed everything and
they are the thing that you'regoing to have to go back on when
withdrawal occurs becauseclearly your original
symptomology is back.
Robert Whitaker (33:37):
Yeah, you know what's so disheartening about
this?
At the heart of good medicineis listening to the patient.
That's just it.
That's just it.
Dr. Teralyn (33:45):
That would be it right no it's not it is not.
That is a lie among.
Lies among I'm just kidding,yeah, that is Utopia.
Lies among I'm just kidding,yeah, like that is Utopia, it is
for sure.
Robert Whitaker (33:54):
And think about with even the literature of
antidepressants.
Okay, even if you believe it,most people aren't.
You know, the majority ofpeople are not responding well
to the drug.
They're not remitting.
The majority are not remitting,which means there's plenty of
people who say, well, I'm stilldepressed, right, well, that
actually fits.
You say, well, I'm stilldepressed, right, well, that
actually fits.
(34:15):
You don't even have to say thatthe depression to start here is
the drugs are causing thechronic depression.
You just know that drugs notworking Right.
Dr. Teralyn (34:21):
Yeah, I think people innately know when
something is not working or nothelping and we're led to believe
that it's a problem with us.
Like well, that's a you problem, you know you need more meds
then and you need another med,and you need this and you need
that.
And if this theory of chemicalimbalance and then the answer is
(34:43):
medication were legit and itactually worked, we would have
solved depression, there wouldnot be depression, there would
not be depression, there wouldnot be anxiety.
And how in the world does thesame medication address anxiety
and depression?
I don't understand that at all.
How does an SSRI address both?
(35:06):
What?
Therapist Jenn (35:07):
They should be two separate things Weight loss
and weight loss too, and weightloss too Weight loss too.
Robert Whitaker (35:10):
Let's put all the categories in there.
An unhappy marriage?
It's good for an unhappymarriage.
Therapist Jenn (35:16):
Those commercials, bob, those
commercials that were in thedocumentary in Medicating Normal
.
That's what the propagandaaround you know, the early
commercials of these andeverything you struggle with as
a wife or as a mother withinyour marriage with your kids,
like that is how it was fed tothe world Like pain point
(35:38):
marketing, and it's genius.
Dr. Teralyn (35:41):
And it works.
Robert Whitaker (35:43):
Because you get on the drive and next you know
you're walking on the beach witha beautiful person.
Therapist Jenn (35:46):
you know oh my God, he probably looks like Sean
.
Connery.
Dr. Teralyn (35:52):
It's okay that your anus is bleeding and you've
lost your lower limbs, though,because you're not depressed
anymore.
Therapist Jenn (35:58):
Yes.
Yes or you have some metabolicsyndrome now that is creating
such a problem within your lifethat now you have diabetes and
now your blood pressure istanked and yep, like all of the
medical implications that arebeing tied to not only these
drugs but also the removal ofthem from the body to the these
(36:19):
are life-saving, and how dareyou talk about something that is
saving lives every day and I'mlike they're also taking lives
every day, whether it's throughtaking their own life or just
(36:41):
taking the pleasure of life awaybut people can't see that.
Dr. Teralyn (36:46):
They can't see the other side of that at all.
Robert Whitaker (36:49):
You know there's an article that appeared
in JAMA, I think two weeks ago.
It's written by I think hisname is Oker Dost and he's the
editor.
He's a psychiatrist and he'sthe editor for psychiatric
topics for JAMA and here's whathe says, what he confesses to.
(37:10):
Now he's going to defend thedrugs in here, but he confesses
life expectancy and functionaloutcomes have deteriorated in
the last several decades formajor mental disorders,
including mood disorders andobsessive compulsive disorder.
(37:30):
So you just said that thenarrative is they save lives.
In fact, life expectancy forpeople so diagnosed has gone
down.
Yeah, functional outcomes havegone down.
Now he admitted that and that'sbecause the evidence of that is
overwhelming.
I wrote about this in anatomyof an epidemic.
Now he tries to say it's notthe drugs, yeah, it's just
(37:52):
conditions.
Therapist Jenn (37:53):
Other things yeah Conditions of living Right.
Dr. Teralyn (37:55):
It's your lifestyle .
Robert Whitaker (37:57):
But the point is, dr Terlan, you were talking
about this narrative that theysave lives.
It's just not true in theaggregate.
Ok, it's just, that's just likean anecdotal thing that gets
passed on and you know.
Just to go back, why did thatpatient of yours get trashed
online for saying that she hadproblems?
I think you mentioned somethinglike that, right, jen?
Therapist Jenn (38:17):
Yeah, yeah, so she was putting out something to
share with.
This was in a group.
Robert Whitaker (38:24):
It was in a tapering group.
Therapist Jenn (38:25):
actually, it was in a tapering group and she had
put a post out indicating howgrateful she was to have met a
therapist who also knowsdeprescribing and can speak this
language and also who haspersonal experience with it.
So that to me matters too, andto her mattered as well, because
it's not somebody who's justreading out of a manual.
And so she was putting that outthere to talk about how
(38:49):
grateful she is, and that she'sdone a couple titrations and
listed out like the numbers bywhich she was titrating and she
was slandered for that in thiscommunity and that was being
done wrong and you should really.
I hate to tell you, but yourtherapist doesn't know what
she's talking about and this isdangerous.
And then also her psychiatristwas saying to her you know,
(39:10):
you're going to get worse, yoursymptoms are going to be bad,
you are going to probably haveto go back on, et cetera, et
cetera.
So there's a couple differentthings there.
Robert Whitaker (39:18):
You know, I just just the reason that made
me stop and want to talk aboutthis.
It's just so hard sometimes toconfront another narrative in
this world of social media andbecause so often your journey is
going to get your decisions aregoing to get trashed.
(39:39):
And when we see a defense ofpsychiatry, defense of the drugs
, I think it's because oftenpeople are using the drugs, they
have to continue to believe inthem or or less they're going to
think that maybe I made a hugemistake so they have to sort of
like attack someone who's makinga different decision.
I mean I, the nastinesssometimes towards people who
(40:02):
challenge this narrative aspatients is stunning.
It's so nasty sometimes, it'sso dismissive and of course it
just adds to the difficulty ofgetting your life back.
I don't know how.
You know, dr Terland, you feltI mean I'm sure you've gotten
some pushback.
Dr. Teralyn (40:20):
That's the understatement of the century.
Therapist Jenn (40:22):
She gets it real hot on social media.
I do, I do.
It's entertaining for me.
Dr. Teralyn (40:28):
But I'm cool with it because if?
Um, but I'm cool with itbecause if it raises
conversation, you know, and Iget both sides, I get very
encouraging and I get extremelydiscouraging.
But I'm in the middle here now.
In the beginning I wasn't.
I was more hurt by like oh howcan you not see this?
You know, whatever, like it'snot me, it's not me.
(40:49):
And now I'm like good, let's,let's keep this conversation
going.
Let's keep this going as longas it's productive in some way.
Um, but it's.
It's this idea that, um, youknow, bringing in the
alternative is so hard forpeople.
I believe now that the peoplethat are saying these things
(41:11):
like it saves lives, and howdare you talk about it?
Like they don't believe ininformed consent number one,
because they think, if you'retalking anything negative about
an outcome, that that personthen won't take their meds and
how terrible would that be ifthey did not take their meds
because they decided that theseside effects wouldn't be worth
risking.
And I'm like, I don't eventhink that's the reality.
(41:34):
I think there was some researchout there that suggested that
the rapport and if you are openand honest with your client, the
more likely they are to complywith your treatment
recommendation.
But anyway, the whole fullinformed consent thing is no, we
can only say the positive stuffabout this.
But anyway, the whole fullinformed consent thing is no, we
can only say the positive stuffabout this.
But I firmly believe that themajority of people who are
(41:55):
bitching and crabbing on my pageand yelling at me are truly the
med harmed at this point.
I believe that they are soharmed that they can't see
outside of it.
They're so irritated andirritable and negative and
they're the ones who are harmed.
Therapist Jenn (42:10):
And so I'm like they're spellbound right, like
Peter Brigham coined right.
Dr. Teralyn (42:14):
They're in that state, so I'm like stick around
on my page for a while and maybethat'll help you to see some
new things.
But I firmly believe that theyare the truly harmed ones right
now, because how can you not beif that's the way you live your
life?
But I recognize the negativitybecause I was there when I was
(42:35):
on meds too.
So I see them, I see them andI'm like hang out here for a
while, let's see if we can doanything.
Robert Whitaker (42:41):
So that's where I'm at right now Thick skin,
Thicker skin.
I agree with you, by the way.
It's so.
Much of this outrage is frompeople who actually aren't doing
well and they almost can't bearthe thought that they've gone
down a medical path that hasmade life so difficult for them.
(43:04):
They have to defend thatdecision to be on the drug and
stay on the drug and stay on thedrug.
Yeah.
Therapist Jenn (43:10):
I think.
Robert Whitaker (43:11):
Yeah, and that's why they attack people
who were saying but wait aminute, look, I'm getting my
life back by rejecting thiswhole narrative.
Therapist Jenn (43:20):
Yes, and that's a hard pill to swallow when it's
been part of, like your wholelife.
Right, and especially withclinicians, because we really
love to challenge that withclinicians, because we are
taught the opposite.
We are taught that there has tobe when you were saying,
evidence-based right, we like tomake fun of that a lot on the
show because that was how wewere trained the evidence-based
(43:42):
gold standard, right, and that'sit.
That is the level of care wegave.
But we were trained thatpsychiatry and mental health are
in a marriage and that is themost effective way to help a
patient.
And so that narrative right,even for a lot of people, like
even clinicians.
They challenge that a lot withus because they're still
(44:05):
learning it that way.
That's how it's being taught tothem too, because they're still
learning it that way, that'show it's being taught to them
too, and so that's a hard thingto get over when you have to sit
and go.
Yeah, I was taught somethingthat's wrong, that doesn't make
sense, or I've hinged mypractice on this for 20 years
and it's not right.
Robert Whitaker (44:20):
Yeah, one of the most heartfelt things that a
psychiatrist told me after sheread Anatomy of an Epidemic.
She says okay, I think you'reright, I think we're doing harm,
but now you have to tell me howI go to work tomorrow.
How do I save myself?
For the past 25 years and now,how can I even exist in a system
(44:40):
that's doing harm?
I didn't really have an answer,but that was obviously a
heartfelt thing.
She was saying Her mind wasopen to it.
But now she was saying, like,how am I going to?
How about myself?
How do I look at what I've beendoing for 25 years?
I thought I was helping peopleand this is what I.
So it is, and it's easier justto have cognitive dissonance.
(45:04):
You know what I mean.
Okay, I'm not going to give youthis information.
Therapist Jenn (45:07):
Yeah, no, it takes a lot of vulnerability.
You know what I mean.
Okay, I'm not going to get thisinformation.
Yeah, no, it takes a lot ofvulnerability.
I think one of the harderepisodes that Terry and I did on
this show was our 30th episodeand it was our we called it our
dirty 30.
And in that episode we listedoff the 30 most horrific ways
that we perpetuated harm to ourpatients as therapists, and that
(45:31):
was it was sad how easy it wasfor me to make that list.
We each made our lists rightand then we combined them and it
just flew, it just like flowedout of me.
So easy and I sat back lookingat this going there's so much
harm, I've done so much harm andwe openly talk about it.
But that takes such a level ofhumility and vulnerability
(45:53):
Because you don't know what'sgoing to come at you after you
tell the world something likethat on a podcast right, but
that's how we did it.
And to your point, with hersaying to you how do I move on?
Right, I think there's a levelof humility that you have to get
to in your own space and go.
This is harm.
And we had somebody on not toolong ago, nicole Lamberson, and
(46:17):
she talked with us about thisand she said she goes the most
unforgivable thing.
It's forgivable when you don'thave the knowledge and the
awareness and you're taughtsomething and you don't have the
other perspectives.
But what's really unforgivableis when you now have the
knowledge and the awareness andyou're taught something and you
don't have the otherperspectives.
But what's really unforgivableis when you now have the
knowledge and that there's moreto this right than what you were
taught, and yet you stillcontinue to operate in the same
(46:37):
fashion you did.
That's the part that'sunforgivable right.
Robert Whitaker (46:42):
That's what she said.
There is exactly right.
Yeah, when you're provided withother information, you have a
moral duty to do what you tellyour patients and change your
thinking, and what you tell yourpatients and all that.
Dr. Teralyn (46:57):
So I have a quick question, if my internet holds
out, so sorry about that.
Everybody.
All the research that you'refinding, how does the general
population find some of thisBecause, like you said, it's
just the high side of thingsthat this is working is readily
available everywhere.
(47:17):
You see it in pop news too.
Right, but how do you go aboutfinding some of this other
research on the other side?
How do you go about findingthat and how do you know the
legitimacy of that?
I think it's important for ourlisteners to understand this
part.
Robert Whitaker (47:34):
This is really a great question.
So even with my first book, madin America, I put up a website
where I had all the citationsand links to the articles and so
they could see for themselveswhat I was citing.
They could go read it forthemselves and they could also
see where it was published andthese things would be published.
(47:54):
They'd see that it was fundedby the NIMH or then it was
published in you know, americanJournal of Psychiatry sometimes,
or Archives of GeneralPsychiatry.
In other words, they could goto the source information so
they could read it forthemselves.
Now, the one problem with thissometimes is that the abstracts
are spun.
You have to be able to reallyget into the like look at tables
(48:18):
and the discussion and commentsthere, because the abstracts
are sung.
But nevertheless, I did thatNow with Anatomy of an Epidemic.
Initially I just did the samething on Mad in America.
It wasn't a webzine at thistime, but then gradually it did
become a webzine and now, forexample, we have daily science
coverage.
There's always a link to thestudy.
(48:39):
So the whole point is we'retrying to make available
research that never getspromoted by the mainstream media
.
We review it.
We review the methodology, thefindings how it fits.
And then there's a link Now,often this stuff is behind
paywalls.
So one of the things we'retrying to do is bring that
(49:00):
science from behind the paywalland make it available to the
public.
And then finally you can go onMad in America and you look at
the menu bar and you look atdrugs and there's a drop down
menu and it'll say likeantipsychotics adults or
antidepressants adults orstimulants children.
And then you'll go there andthere'll be a review of the
literature.
(49:21):
What is the evidence for shortterm?
What do we know about adverseeffects?
What are the long term studies?
And there's links, there'shyperlinks to every study.
So what we're trying to do thisis one of the reasons for Mad
in America is to make access tothis research known.
That you don't have to believeme, but you can now go read
(49:42):
these things.
But again, I do want to say oneof the small problems is they
never confess bad results in theabstract.
Yep, no they don't you reallyhave to be good about looking at
the tables and they'll make aline, a discussion, that's sort
of an admission of harm done,but then they'll move on.
(50:03):
Yes, rapidly, but it's there.
And can I say one thing?
Yeah, in Madden America andanatomy of an epidemic, I don't
know how many studies are cited.
I think there's over 700studies cited.
Yeah, there's a lot.
Do you know?
I've never had a single authorsay I miscited their findings,
never, Not once.
(50:24):
Oh, and the other thing isthey've never said I misquoted
them, because I quote them fromtheir own.
Dr. Teralyn (50:29):
Yeah, you do, yeah, you do.
I love it.
Robert Whitaker (50:32):
This is what they said yeah, exactly One of
the things.
Just to finalize this, it's notthat there's just like one
study that tells this and thenthere's this other data out
there that tells of drugsimproving long-term outcomes.
When you look at long-term data, it's consistent across
different types of studieslongitudinal studies,
(50:53):
epidemiological studies, studiesthat are looking about how the
drugs affect the brain overlong-term and then you'll get
researchers saying, uh-oh, Ithink we're worsening the
long-term outcomes.
Now, it's never promoted, butit's there, and it's there
because, in fact, that's whatscience is showing us.
So, terry, your question isreally a good one.
(51:14):
How can they believe thisinformation?
How can they believe thenarrative that we're telling?
Well, they can believe itbecause we have access to all
the research that's done bythemselves.
This isn't research by thecritics.
This is their research,nih-funded research, and that's
what we're making available.
(51:35):
It's the best we can do.
It's hard for people to switchnarratives, but I will tell you.
More and more people areswitching narratives and two
things have happened just onthis.
A few years ago, there was ameeting in India and I was at.
It was an interim meeting andit brought together people from
the World Health Organization,united Nations, and I was asked
(51:57):
to be a keynote speaker.
Dr. Teralyn (52:00):
Amazingly, was it a setup.
That's what I'm just kidding.
Was it another setup?
Robert Whitaker (52:04):
No, this was people themselves felt there was
something wrong, oh good,anyway.
One of the things that came outof that was my talk themselves
felt there was something wrong,oh good, anyway.
One of the things that came outof that was my talk was we need
a new narrative, because notjust a critical narrative, but a
narrative of what's possible.
That would fund up, that wouldhelp prompt a paradigm shift.
Well, you know what hashappened from representatives
who were there, the World HealthOrganization representatives
(52:36):
they have now called, sentseveral documents saying we need
a paradigm shift.
This biological model reallyhasn't worked.
We need a shift towardsenvironmental care and away from
this biological model.
The UN Special Rapporteur forHealth, who had a representative
there, daniels Puras he's nolonger, he's finished his term
he said we need a revolution, weneed a paradigm shift.
And the reason is becausethat's what you find if you're
at the World Health Organization, at least in one department,
(52:59):
and you confront this researchliterature, you say this isn't
working.
We need to be doing somethingdifferently.
So what I'm trying to tell yourlisteners is even at very top
levels now, increasingly,there's an acknowledgement
outcomes have gotten worse.
This isn't working.
The chemical imbalance storywas a fraud and we really need
(53:19):
to rethink this whole paradigmof care.
Dr. Teralyn (53:29):
Do you think in the next 20 years, somebody else is
going to write another book oryou're going to be able to write
another book about this and belike what were we thinking in
2025?
Do you think that it's going toshift at some point, that we're
going to look back on this timeperiod and be like, damn, we
just created so many problems.
What were we thinking?
(53:49):
Do you think that's going tohappen in your lifetime?
Robert Whitaker (53:54):
I hope so, and you know, one of the things is,
when there are paradigm shifts,you look back at the past and go
.
What were we thinking?
Therapist Jenn (54:02):
Right, it's always that right.
Robert Whitaker (54:03):
It's always that right.
Yeah, it is.
Therapist Jenn (54:05):
Yeah.
Robert Whitaker (54:05):
We got the drugs, we were like what were we
thinking when we were, you know, destroying the frontal lobes?
That wasn't so bright, but Idon't know really.
It's just, you know, corporateinfluences are so big on our
lives.
Now, yeah, you know, and andand they're.
The market for psychiatricdrugs just became huge.
It is Yep, and it got exportedaround the world.
(54:28):
You know, when we first startedmedicating our kids, people in
other countries said what areyou doing?
These are just kids.
Well, increasingly they'rediagnosing their kids with
autism, spectrum disorder, adhd.
I went to Poland and I wasinvited to speak in Poland and
Slovenia last November andpeople were telling me all their
kids are getting diagnosed withthese things.
(54:48):
So it's spread.
So I wish I could be optimistic.
There are a lot of calls now.
We need a paradigm shift.
There's really a grassrootsrebellion and there is this
happening in societies.
It doesn't work.
So your burden of mentaldisorders, rather than going
down, which means a cost, it'sgoing up.
(55:10):
So at some point you say we'respending all this money but it's
not solving the problem.
So maybe we do need to make achange.
I hope that happens.
But, as you know, politics,economics, influence political
decision big time.
Corporations have an outsizedinfluence.
The pharmaceutical industry hasan outsized influence.
(55:33):
So I don't know, is industrygoing to really let go of this
model of care?
Therapist Jenn (55:38):
I don't know it would be great to be a part of
that revolution.
I mean, like, here we are, aslike the tiny people you know,
trying to do that on our end andhelping people and educating
them and trying to help themsafely get off of these drugs,
(55:59):
which is a whole feat in and ofitself.
Right, there isn't a lot ofpeople out there doing that, you
know, but it's growing, whichis really cool.
But it would be neat to be partof this revolution.
Robert Whitaker (56:13):
You are part of this revolution.
You are part of it.
That's the point.
The Gaslight podcast is part ofthe revolution.
It's a rebellion coming up fromthe grassroots.
Therapist Jenn (56:23):
It is.
Robert Whitaker (56:24):
You're very much part of it.
Therapist Jenn (56:27):
I guess I want to see more.
I would love to just see thebig boom, which probably won't
happen because, as we know,there are these influences that
are pretty.
They are so much bigger than usand in fact, they could crush
us in a hot second if theywanted to.
So I'm kind of waiting forsomebody to show up at my door
and threaten my life and thenI'll be like, listen, I worked
(56:50):
at a prison for 15 years, youdon't fuck.
But then I'm sure at some point, right Like it, I've had people
say this to me.
They're like you guys arestarting to touch on some shit
that you need to be reallycareful with when it comes to
big food and big pharma, and I'mlike I'm too old to worry about
that at this point.
All right.
Well it's.
It's a good space to wrap upand thank you for being here,
bob.
You've changed so many lives.
(57:14):
If you knew how big of animpact you've had on the world,
I hope you know, can feel someof that.
Robert Whitaker (57:21):
Well, thanks, it's really been a pleasure
being here.
I've really enjoyed theconversation, and when I hear
words like this, I think, okay,it's worth continuing.
Yes, I think that's theimportant part isn't it?
Therapist Jenn (57:33):
These little encouragements, right, but thank
you for being on Everybody, ifyou've stayed to the end.
Here we are the Gaslit TruthPodcast.
You can find us anywhere thatyou listen to your podcasts.
We are on all the socials andwe'd love for you to give us
some reviews.
And, as Terry said with herbook, we only want five stars
with our podcast too.
Otherwise don't even review,and if you're not willing to
think critically or go throughthat, then I guess we're not the
podcast for you.
(57:54):
If you want to send us yourGaslit stories, you can email us
at thegaslitruthpodcast atgmailcom.
Thanks for being on, bob.
Robert Whitaker (58:03):
Again, it was a real pleasure.
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