#107 - Dr. Kelly Brogan - Why Antidepressants Don’t Work & What’s Really Causing Mental Illness

Dr. Kelly Brogan challenges the belief that you’re broken by exposing how psychiatry focuses on managing symptoms instead of understanding them. We explore victim consciousness, the tendency to rely on external fixes, and why medications can reinforce the very problems they aim to solve. From her awakening during pregnancy to questioning everything she was taught, this conversation reframes mental health, healing, and what it really means to take responsibility for your life.

Timestamps: 
00:00 Why Psychiatrists Aren’t Trained To Take People Off Meds
13:52 How Kelly's Pregnancy Changed Everything
21:26 The Harsh Reality Of Being An Activist
36:15 How To Be Tactful When Talking On Sensitive Topics
45:47 Breaking The Rescuer–Helpless Dynamic 
49:44 Integration Over Healing
55:26 Mother Woundology
1:65:39 Connect With Kelly Brogan

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Transcript

Dr. Kelly Brogan challenges the belief that you’re broken by exposing how psychiatry focuses on managing symptoms instead of understanding them. We explore victim consciousness, the tendency to rely on external fixes, and why medications can reinforce the very problems they aim to solve. From her awakening during pregnancy to questioning everything she was taught, this conversation reframes mental health, healing, and what it really means to take responsibility for your life.

Tim Doyle (00:05.91)

Why are psychiatrists trained to put people on medication but not take them off?

Kelly Brogan MD (00:11.486)

Well, let's get into it. Let's just dive right in. So I have been studying the anatomy of victim consciousness, which is sort of a phrase that I use to summarize a whole realm of human experience that I actually think we came here to play with and dance with and explore. And

Because of that, I look for patterns, right? So if a psychiatrist is good at anything, she's good at pattern recognition. In fact, I think that's our primary skill set. And the patterns that I observe are really...

you know, within a certain ecosystem, quite fitting, quite appropriate, quite consistent. So the analogy that I sometimes use when people get indignant about the medical system, and I spent 10 years as an angry activist indignant about the medical system, so I get that, is that it's kind of like going to the butcher and demanding a vegan entree, right? Like they don't sell it there, they never said that they sold it there.

And in fact, it's kind of on you as the consumer to be aware of the vendor and what they're vending. And the reason that we don't see that is because we are a match for whatever that system represents. So when I went to medical school, I was 1000 % a match for the mechanical universe model of the human body.

Also for the belief that the body is separate from me, that it breaks down and that I need mechanics to help me manage it, and that anything that the body is doing is simply just like a problem to be fixed and solved. So it made a lot of sense to me in my training to learn about how, you know, in psychiatry, we're just specialized up here. This is our area. And to learn about how all of the way that...

Kelly Brogan MD (02:23.474)

the rest of the medical realms like work, right? So when you have diabetes, it's because your pancreas is making a mistake and every different specialty has its collection of mistakes that these mechanics are managing. Okay, so in my realm, it was very tempting to imagine that we had cracked the code of human behavior and it's all just a bunch of chemical imbalances that...

Unfortunately, probably you're born with and they just kind of get set off at a certain point, you know, under stress. And then the best that you can do is manage the imbalance. It's not your fault. That feels good. It's quite validating of a suspicion that you have that you're broken and damaged to begin with. And now it has a name you knew was the case anyway. So here's the here's the title for it. And you also get so much out of the experience.

both in the dominant position as the doctor and the submissive position as the patient, you get so much out of that relationship. That hierarchical power, consensual power dynamic is very therapeutic, it's very healing even in a lot of ways, right? So when I, as a patient, go to the doctor in that system, I get attention, I get care, I get direction, I get to...

feel that childlike fantasy revivified that somebody knows better than me and they're here to protect and serve me. And when I'm in the doctor position, I get to experience myself in mastery, right? Like I get to experience myself as knowing some of the mysteries of the universe and being able to impart direct control and, you know.

sometimes we can get into the nuances of it, but sometimes even punish, right? Because there's a lot, I mean, I'm sure most people listening have been to a doctor who has kind of a sadistic side to them, right? So it's almost built in. In fact, there's a book I love, I've sort of book reported it on my own podcast called Dark Heroes, and he talks about the sadomasochism of everyday life. I mean, it's quite real and relevant to the dynamics in medicine. But anyway, so...

Kelly Brogan MD (04:42.46)

It makes a lot of internal sense. If you are in the mechanical universe perspective and you believe that the body is rife with inborn errors that need to be managed by mechanics, by experts, and that we're doing our best to understand it and we're doing our best to offer medications to help and the medications do have effects. I mean, there's lots of people who love their Prozac and their Klonopin and

begrudgingly take their lithium and maybe even say that it saved their life. So it seems quite valid. That's all internally consistent. There's not actually a problem, right? It's like that quote that says like, you know, the system isn't broken. was built this way. And so it really only

It really only invites a broader perspective or a shift in perspective when you encounter the limitations of that, what I would call that poor bargain, right? You really wanted it to be so simple. You really wanted it to just be your chemical imbalance. Somebody knows how to manage it. You just take your pills, go to CVS every month and everything's going to be fine. Well, I wouldn't have had a two-year wait list for 10 years in Manhattan if that was the case.

Okay, because I became known as somebody specialized in de-prescribing and helping women to come off these meds. Why would I have been, you know, so sought after if everything in the system is working so well, right? So what becomes problematic is what the literature, non-industry funded literature, bears out, which is that the long-term outcomes in this system are no bueno, right? Like there is...

There is a whole body of literature I was introduced to by investigative journalist Robert Whitaker that substantiates the hypothesis that says, actually, the reason that we are struggling as a collective with so-called mental health disability is because of medication. It's actually the medication that is driving what's referred to as iatrogenesis that's driving doctor-induced long-term injury.

Kelly Brogan MD (06:55.686)

and harm and poor outcomes. That seems like hard to compute. of course you would do better with some treatment than none. Well, actually that's not what the long-term literature, which usually isn't funded by industry. They usually only fund studies that are about two months long, maybe six tops typically. And so when we look elsewhere and we study elsewhere how people do on these meds long-term, it becomes problematic. We also can talk to folks, right? In the grassroots

psychiatric awareness movement who talk about the development of very acute onset side effects, right, including violence and impulsive, you know, suicide, homicide, changes in behavior. get, you know, they go to their doctor for depression and they end up with a bipolar diagnosis three months later after they start on an SSRI. And the literature also supports this phenomenon, right, of the very

very severe and impossible to really risk stratify. Like we don't know who is gonna experience this. So it's a real role in roulette. Acute onset side effects. And then there's also the folks who, and side effects is really a misnomer. They're just all effects, right? Then there's also the person who, you know, maybe they got put on an antidepressant in the setting of a breakup in college. And now they're like 30 years old, starting a family life is...

Tim Doyle (08:02.734)

Mm.

Kelly Brogan MD (08:24.392)

good and maybe this was my patient population, maybe they're thinking about conceiving. So this woman's on her med and she's like, well, I don't know about taking this while I'm pregnant. And, you know, I was one of the first 300 psychiatrists in the world to look at that problem dilemma, let's say. We were called or are called, I guess, reproductive psychiatrists. And essentially I was trained to continue women on their medications. That was the angle that, you know, I was trained in.

But regardless, let's say you're that woman and you are like, okay, well, I'm just going to discontinue this. It was fine. I'm fine. It was fine. did its thing. I stopped worrying about the problem I was worrying about. I stopped caring about it and I'm going to discontinue it. anyone who has attempted to discontinue a medication they've been on for years, if not decades, might be able to shed some light on the extraordinary

habit-forming nature of these medications. And that became my special interest because I was never told about this in my Ivy League training. You I was just told like you cut it down by a quarter of the dose once a week, once every other week and it's fine. Well, what happens then is that people develop all sorts of symptoms, most of which are new. And what do we tell them? We gaslight them and we tell them that's your mental illness or it's a new.

diagnosis that you're now dealing with and you better get back on your meds. So I was literally trained to parrot that and you know the whole the whole realm of the Stockholm syndrome experience was something that for reasons related to you know my own existential journey is something that I needed to deeply explore. It's like why are people loyal to systems like this?

that are, you know, some might even say abusive, they gaslight, they breadcrumb, you know, there's codependency, there's all of the stigmata of dysfunctional relationships. Why would somebody not only subscribe to that, but then even defend it, right? So a lot of the folks who were triggered by my early activism were feminists. mean, like, liberal feminists were very put off.

Kelly Brogan MD (10:49.586)

by the suggestion that I was victim shaming, suggesting women could come off these meds and perhaps would benefit from considering it. And so that became really interesting to me. So if you look at it as like a field of consciousness, and there's a shift into a different field of consciousness that's predicated on different notions, like symptoms are meaningful, communications from you, about you, it's all you.

Or that you do have more responsibility than you've ever been told and that really illness is an existential question that only you can answer sucks and it's also awesome right that fact, right? So this is a whole other way of thinking and for a long time. I thought well, that's much better I don't think that way anymore. Like I don't think in terms of like Value assessment. I just think it's different. It's different. There's trade-offs and

anyone who's been on the, you know, sort of so-called awakening, truth or even holistic wellness journey will know there's trade-offs. And it's not necessarily more enlightened or easier. It's just a different way of relating to the body and to do so in a collective culture that still is afraid of things like contagion and cancer and

means that you will necessarily be living a more renegade existence, right? So then you got to find your people who agree with you and see life the same way. And it just becomes a real focus. I'm sort of, guess, like exiting that phase of my life where I just would rather focus on other things. You know, sort of decentralize this sort of...

debate, but that's sort of, guess, a long answer to the question that, we shouldn't be trained necessarily in how to discontinue these meds because that's not part of the belief system. The belief system is that you require these meds to function. So why? know, it just, there's nothing wrong. There's nothing actually wrong with the system, in my opinion. And when you protest, like I did, you know, to the system, it really is like a tantruming.

Kelly Brogan MD (13:11.432)

child demanding that their emotionally immature parents treat them differently. Like they can't actually. If they could, they would, and they can't. So there's no point. It's better to almost like seek that care elsewhere. Or of course, as an adult, learn to provide it to yourself.

Tim Doyle (13:30.68)

So like you mentioned, your specialty in psychiatry was reproductive psychiatry, which, you know, working with pregnant women or postpartum women.

working off of that, how did your own personal pregnancy really create the spark for you?

Kelly Brogan MD (13:48.158)

So I'm sure most people listening know the concept of cognitive dissonance and I had a couple of experiences with that phenomenon during my first pregnancy because I was a fellow. So you're an intern and then a resident and then if you want to further specialize and stay in that system even longer because it's so pleasurable.

you would become a fellow, right? So I became a fellow and I specialized in reproductive psychiatry. So I was pregnant during that year that I was specialized in, specializing in prescribing to pregnant women. So here I am pregnant and I have this patient who I'm prescribing to routine, like this is quite routine for me at this point. And you know, I would have two hour consultations with these women. When I...

I some time looking back and feeling myself so superior, you know, this is maybe like, I don't know, five, eight years ago, so superior to my past self who used to prescribe. I really had to contend with the fact that I really cared a lot about my patients, right? So that's, you know, that's a reality when we want to vilify, demonize, dehumanize the henchmen of the system. I was that person, so I...

I know that I was the same person then, essentially, that I am now. I just have different priorities, different self-awareness, and I have more emotional resources, right? So stuff that used to scare me, trigger me, lead me to all sorts of defensive behaviors, then I can be more unbothered and nonchalant about now. That's pretty much like the awakening journey as far as I can describe it. But back then, I was extremely invested and I would prescribe to...

almost 100 % of my patients. That was literally my specialty, right? So I'm providing a Zoloft prescription, I remember. And I just had this little voice inside that was like, I would never take this. I'm pregnant, remember, as a pregnant woman. I don't care about the 25,000, know, registry reported cases that demonstrate...

Kelly Brogan MD (16:09.304)

lack of teratogenicity, meaning that, you know, it doesn't look like it's going to impact the formation of the fetus if you take it. And for the most part, it's better than not taking some all of the, you know, consent that I was trained to provide. I don't care. I wouldn't take this. So that's confusing, right? Because why is it good enough for her but not me? So I just mostly ignored that. And it really

Tim Doyle (16:34.414)

Was that an uncomfortable feeling given like what you've dedicated your life to at the time?

Kelly Brogan MD (16:39.806)

So because my primary defensive strategy has always been intellectualizing, I never would let myself feel uncomfortable feelings. I would just immediately justify it, dismiss it, ignore it, right? And compartmentalize it into a little mental file. And it was quite effective, right? Like if I would get, 15 years ago, if I would get an email that was upsetting or triggering, I would just immediately, and I have like litigator level,

you know, sort of, I don't know, mental capacity when I'm feeling triggered. So I would just immediately shoot off, like within 90 seconds, a brrrr, like a whole, you know, that kind of thing, slice and dice kind of thing. And then I would just move on. Like I literally wouldn't feel a feeling at all. It was quite effective, actually, far more so, you know, than really laying down that defense and sitting with the dread emotion. But of course I've learned that.

the arc of an emotion is pretty much 90 seconds. So once you know that you can sort of commit with more zeal. anyway, I just ignored it. No, I didn't feel much of anything. And why I even remember that moment is interesting to me, right? you know, a Rolodex of moments, like, why do I even remember that? I'm not sure. Other than that, it was one of these, it's like the early tremors of an earthquake kind of a thing. And yeah, I,

would have a few more before I was 10 months postpartum, went to a routine physical as you do, and was diagnosed with my first diagnosis, which is Hashimoto's thyroiditis, unlike a routine physical. of course, was back at work six weeks postpartum and overwhelmed and double booking patients for getting my ATM pin number.

You know, all of the usual stuff that a new mom deals with and it was easy to dismiss. But when I got that diagnosis, it was like almost the same part inside, the same voice that was like, I'm not taking fucking Synthroid for the rest of my life. Absolutely not. Absolutely not. Also because I know that women never feel well on this. This is a synthetic hormone in this case. They just never really feel well.

Kelly Brogan MD (19:06.91)

So first of all, that sounds like a pain in the ass. Second of all, it sounds like I'm not going to even feel good on it. That sounds like a trap, right? So I don't want to do that. And that is what led me to go see a naturopath, which of course was like so out of character that I didn't even know if I told anyone in my life I was doing it at the time. And the rest is history, you know? So that led me down a path of putting this so-called recidivistic chronic illness into remission. Now, gosh, I don't know, 17 years later.

And a whole arc, right? From compliance to defiance. I became this really vocal activist, published a New York Times bestseller with an exploding bill on the cover. And that was my whole identity for quite some time. And of course, you know, I've been, from that pendulum swing, I've been finding this more neutralized, less...

charged perspective on reality that feels way more relaxed in my system over the past, I would say like five years or so.

Tim Doyle (20:18.486)

A term that you started off with in our conversation, victim consciousness, and you said victim consciousness is the only human pathology. I want to create a different term that I guess you would have resonated within a past life. What did that activist consciousness look like?

Kelly Brogan MD (20:38.002)

Victim consciousness. That's the big reveal.

Tim Doyle (20:39.342)

So just a synonym.

Kelly Brogan MD (20:44.134)

Yeah, exactly. And of course, again, it's not to suggest that that's like, it's not to participate on a meta layer, in a meta layer of victim consciousness and say, well, that's bad and wrong, right? The activists who are saying the system is bad and wrong, those activists are bad and wrong. I look at it as an arc and I look at it as an energetic, almost alchemy.

and that there's something that needs to swirl its way into a new form. However, I will say what I like to refer to as the shadow of activism is quite real. When I went from, we perpetrate from the victim posture. When I went from feeling like I was victimized by the medical system, by my $200,000 of debt and my thousands of hours of indentured servitude and you know.

questionable treatment by my higher-ups in the system. you know, when I looked at all the lies they told me, because now I had researched all of these more expanded evidence-based truths about the untold risks of medications and their very limited evidence of efficacy. So when I learned all this, I was really enraged. And I, like, you know, drew my sword.

and I was gonna like take Pharma down. That was what I imagined was my Dharma, right? Like I literally came here for this and I have all the tools to do it. Cause you know, I have an Aries South node, I was probably a warrior in a hundred past lives and I could do the shit in my sleep. However,

In that posture, I became simultaneously, right, through one lens, the rescuer, because I'm here to save the innocent from the villain, but I'm also villainizing, right? Like it's like most effective activists are out for blood. Like they want to take down whatever it is that they've identified. They want to destroy. It's a fundamentally sadistic impulse, speaking of which, right?

Kelly Brogan MD (22:59.738)

And so there are some undisclosed elements of these triangles, including that the rescuer, let alone the villain, needs the victim. We need the ignorant, innocent people out there, anonymous. We need them to have relevance, to feel that charge in our bodies every day that we...

you know, go looking for new evidence that we are right about how wronged we are. And so, you the nature of the victim triangle is such that you just kind of like bop around each of the angles and you're occupying one sometimes hour to hour, you you shift. But the thread that they have in common is first of all, stress physiology, right? So you're either in your...

your freeze as the victim, you're in your fight and flight. There's an identification with, again, I'm interested in Eros and have looked at it through that lens, but there's an identification with the arousal of this. It becomes really almost addictive in the game of it. And what I started to look around and notice was,

that all the activists that I knew had, you know, personal lives that were totally neglected at best and like absolute interpersonal dumpster fires at worst. And I was arguably no exception, right? So I started to look at this and say, you know, who are we to imagine that we know better how reality should be, right? So we were fighting with reality, but

The implication is that we know what it should be. Well, we don't even know ourselves. Like we haven't even worked out the most fundamental dynamics in our lives, you know, to where we have, like I personally don't know, you know, a triangulating activist who has harmonious, healthy relationships in their lives. I imagine they wouldn't be doing that if they did. And I'll speak for myself, like it was a very elaborate avoidance.

Kelly Brogan MD (25:18.298)

strategy to focus on, for example, the anonymous child out there who might have parents who are under informed about, you know, the childhood pediatric pharmaceutical schedule, and I needed to save that anonymous child. Meanwhile, you know, I'm pouring over PubMed articles and my own kids are, you know, sitting at home hanging out with their grandparents because their mama is busy being an activist, right? So just as an example of what it's quite an effective

avoidance strategy, I didn't have to look at the ways I was you know, not emotionally ready to embrace motherhood earlier in my, you know, my own process. So yeah, I have really scrutinized mostly because I'm interested in how you can shift from compliance with the system to defiance from the system and you'll confront the exact same shadow material.

in both. And that's why as I navigate all of these choices, whether it's in the medical and health realm, whether it's in self care and lifestyle, whether it's in finance, education, like all these places where I have awakened to the truth and decided that I know now I know the truth and judged and blamed and condemned where I came from.

and those who are still participating, I eventually get to the point where I'm like, yeah, I'll take a little of that little of this. And it's not like greenwashed. It's not like integrative medicine, like a little fish oil with your chemo. It's just mature discernment. It's like now, I was rigidly gluten, dairy, sugar-free, basically paleo for 15 years.

Tim Doyle (27:00.654)

Ha ha.

Kelly Brogan MD (27:15.004)

And I believed so many foods were bad. And I could make the scientific case. I wrote books about this with hundreds of references. And there's truth in that. There's value in that. And I also am not gonna go back to eating friggin' McDonald's. Like that's not gonna work for me either. So now when I eat, like neither the good, bad split directs my consumption, if that makes sense, right? So I just make...

you know, decisions and I exercised discernment from the whole landscape. And it's really drained of good, bad, right, wrong, you know, to where now I will eat a croissant with my kids in, you know, in the bakery kind of a thing. I never would have ever done that before. And so that rigidity in my assessment really

it really benefits from a softening at a certain point. For me, it was 15 years that, you know, that was the certain point. Maybe for somebody listening, it's six months and really, you know, showing up with that, you know, I am declaration, right, is important, but everyone has their own arc. I just know that in every single case that I have developed an awareness around, I've swung to the...

activist side of things and I meet the same energies eventually there, you know, that I was running from.

Tim Doyle (28:47.241)

So within your medical life, it was your pregnancy and the work of Robert Whitaker that really opened you up and created this spark for you that ultimately leads you to your, I guess, activist lifestyle. Were there specific moments or external resources within this next chapter that gave you the similar sort of feeling of like, wait, like, what am I doing here? Or was it more of like a gradual

Kelly Brogan MD (29:01.714)

Yes.

Tim Doyle (29:16.887)

process.

Kelly Brogan MD (29:18.27)

Yeah, was quite, my journey has been quite gradual. I am, like I'm a double Gemini, I am very like shiny object syndrome. Like I have a lot of enthusiasm, I have a lot of passions and interests and I pursue them, I jump right in the deep end. Like whenever I'm interested about something, I like will spend thousands of hours obsessing about it and...

really fuck around and find out, right? I've been doing that for many, my whole life, arguably. So I'm sort of constructed this way. And even given that, when I've been evaluating, you know, these different arcs, like, for example, I, you know, was a compliant taxpayer, you know, back in the day. And then I in 2000, sorry, 2020 rather,

I started to research lawful means and sovereign paths to go into the private and exit the system. It's just another example of this phenomenon that I'm referencing where I found the same energies. I would call them vampiric. I found the same energies that I was rejecting.

in the IRS, in the system, in this other realm, in this other world. That took me, I mean, what are we now? 26 years, okay? My pendulum swing with medicine was about a decade. My personal journey in lifestyle and nutrition, that was 15 years, as I said, right? These are glacial processes.

I think we can really get into the habit of imagining that there's some destination, that there's some point of totality where we'll have it all figured out. And the more that we just chip away at that and do the hard work and engage in the practices and surround ourselves with people who are also in that kind of cult of self-improvement.

Kelly Brogan MD (31:40.454)

that will finally arrive at some point. I like to quote and reference Alan Watts a lot. And he talks about this double bind because the one who needs improvement is the one who is seeking the improvement and determining the path of improvement. You can't possibly know what the fuck you need. And you certainly can't know what is right for other people because you can't know what's right.

for yourself. So if you're in that good, bad split of right, wrong, and I need to become more right, this is often referred to as spiritual ego, right? I am superior to those who don't yet know. I must educate the ignorant. All of that sanctimonious energy of certainty, which I've absolutely embodied in the course of my public career. For me at this point,

it does not feel compelling. so my North Star, my guiding light is my curiosity. It's my interests. And I just trust it's going to take me somewhere cool. And even if I end up in a whole messy so-called mistake, maybe it was a necessary one, a correct one. And I get to turn it into gems and

you know, wear them on my wrist and give them out to other people. And it's a non-linear, more experiential existence. And for me, as somebody who's very, you know, type A and very conditioned by feminism in my earlier life stages to be recognized for my achievements and productivity, this has been

an identity shift of massive proportions, you know, but at this point, I am, I believe that my activist era and my truth era, even though my closest colleagues are, you know, people that I look to for interpretations of reality that are quite alternative to the mainstream. It's not, it's not something that like I define myself by. Like there used to be a time

Kelly Brogan MD (34:04.2)

where I was like, I could never be with a man who doesn't understand, you know, about equity and common law or whatever. it's just like, smile at the version of me who thought that, right? Who thought that that's what mattered instead of like how something feels in my body. you know, how somebody's presence actually feels to me in real time. So yeah, it's...

you're catching me at a moment where I'm really doing like kind of a life review over the past, you know, couple decades and just appreciating like these arcs. I never could have imagined that I would become the version of myself that I am now. Like I absolutely did not see that coming. And I also needed every stage to be exactly how it, you know, of course, how it was in order to get here.

Tim Doyle (35:07.22)

You still do provide like a lot of good info and context though when it comes to medical issues. So my question for you is how do you feel like you're still able to do that, especially when it comes to medications and talking on topics like depression? How do you feel like you're still able to do that? But I guess have it come from a different energy that's not one of an activist.

Kelly Brogan MD (35:34.302)

I love this question. So I would say that I am embracing the aspects of my personality that drove me to medicine and to become a believer in that conventional medical model to begin with, which include that I'm quite an effective problem solver. I can think on my feet.

I have a very clear mind and I love organizing meta strategy, right? So I'm not a details girl. Ask anybody. You don't want me booking your dinner reservation because I'll book it for like, you know, a calendar year from now or flights, right? I'll book the AM for the PM. Like my sort of zone of genius, I guess, and my role even in my own experience of entrepreneurship and leading as a founder in my company.

is organizing very complex material into simple, executable strategy. And I'm very cool under pressure, so I am like undaunted by the unexpected, by problems. And it's not to say that I don't feel all the human things, but like I said, I'm quite effective at short-circuiting if I choose to. Of course, these days, you know, my practice is to...

take 90 seconds to feel the thing. because of that, because I am somebody who loves to solve a problem, fix a thing, I probably would still be somebody who is like, well, sometimes medication is a good thing and sometimes you need it because, I don't know, there's problems that medications solve.

Why I don't say that is because they don't actually fucking work. That's why I'm not a fan. They literally don't work. I mean, I had a friend recently who's like, you know, comes from the holistic mindset like me or whatever. And she had this like really persistent rash and it was like driving her nuts and she tried all, you know, whatever. She gets the...

Kelly Brogan MD (37:56.232)

German New Medicine and the Louise Hay and the spiritual significance that she just like for, you know, circumstantial reasons wanted some relief. Anyway, so long story short, she tries prescription grade hydrocortisone cream. Guess what? It fucking didn't do anything. Like it literally didn't work. And you know, I actually, fun fact about me, have...

Tim Doyle (38:17.516)

and it'll make you feel like you're broken. Like when it doesn't work, then it'll make you feel like, wow, like I'm even worse. I'm even worse, yeah.

Kelly Brogan MD (38:21.692)

Then it's on you. it's always you. That's the gas light. Yeah, yeah, it's your fault. my gosh, it's the same thing with these like sovereign remedies. They're like, well, you just didn't... Yeah, anyway, don't get me started. But it's the same gas light of like, well, it's always you or we need to just keep adding on another one. know, the efficacy data on all medications actually would shock you if you...

dug into the relevance of so-called active placebo and learned about what's actually driving what we're perceiving as the effectiveness of these meds. Oh, that's what I was saying, like fun fact about me, I've never taken Advil or Tylenol. And it's not because I just told you, it's not like I was some like, know, Bohemian earth mama. I was as matrix as they come, but I've just like never really for whatever reason, and now of course I know more of the data on it, like believe that they work. And then they have...

so-called side effects. So if you're going to take something, and of course my expertise in my books or whatever are about psychiatric meds, it's arguably the most extreme caricature of this phenomenon, where the efficacy is like less than 30%, it's basically placebo, and the side effects are like horror movie level. So why, that's just, that's not a good deal. Like that's not a good deal.

and they really aren't effective. And even if they have an effect, like benzodiazepines or so-called hypnotics like Ambien or whatever, it's extremely short-lived. Like your body in its brilliance adapts. And so you're losing that effect, you're just habituated, and now you have all side effects and no benefit, like within the space of months. So not a fan. Like that's just like not, I wouldn't buy that thing, right? Like that's not, it doesn't...

jive with my personality, which is interested in like fixing solving like actual outcomes. So I became an outcome junkie some years ago in my business. And you know, you'll find a whole wall of outcomes, you know, through my health program and

Kelly Brogan MD (40:37.294)

that when I am signing up for a new service or something like I always want to speak to a past client, I want to know about real testimonials, maybe if it's relevant, if you publish literature like I did, of course, that's only relevant in certain situations or you've done your own little exploration to quantify in whatever way is possible what people have experienced. That...

is what I have focused on. So I have turned myself towards tools that have reliable outcomes. And interestingly enough, you know, my health reclamation program is, it's just lifestyle medicine. But I do think that part of why it's so effective is because of the shift in mindset to where you, you're translocating the...

power center inside of yourself. And that is why it does the things it does because your whole nervous system is now able to shift out of that stress physiology, that victim field, and shift into regeneration and already knows how to do all the things. And all you do is like sort of stand by, I guess, and just keep, I call it chopping wood, carrying water, like that sort of Zen perspective of like really focusing on the mundane.

knowing that you are initiating yourself. So I am a big believer in personal initiations and what it is to do the very courageous thing, moving in the direction of change. And it seems behavioral, but it's really identity. It's your identity. And however you find, you know, your initiatory practice and your mentors and guides, right? Because now we're in information era, I have programs and I know that

It's not the techniques and the information that I'm delivering in my business. It's the very specific mentorship support coaching facilitating, is that back to that dyadic experience that I had with patients in the office. It's just that now, especially in the coaching world, there's something far more collaborative, far less activating of that child psychology of like mommy, daddy, show me the way. And instead it's like a

Kelly Brogan MD (43:02.014)

good trainer, right? And who is facilitating your acquisition of essential skills so that you can develop mastery in an area of your life, whether that is self-care or emotional mastery. These days, I'm really lit up about aesthetics and beauty and learning skills I wish I had about self-care and adornment in my 20s. And it's kind of the same path. You put yourself around somebody who has more mastery than you and you...

resonate with and adopt all these skills. So because I'm a believer in that initiatory, you know, ritual practice journey, I still will say, you know, at some point when you see medications as the poor bargain that they are, or you want to avoid engaging at all, you'll want to shop around for something that you're attracted to because you are guiding yourself, of course, that

is promising something that makes you feel more alive. Because then whatever is hard about moving in the direction of that thing is actually going to feel like relief. That's the paradox. It's like doing the courageous thing actually feels like relief as you're doing it when you're ready to shift and change. And the more support you can have around you, you know, like I have a coach for, I've had a coach for every one of these transitions. Can't fathom.

what it would have been like to not have somebody a few steps ahead of me on the path, holding out a hand and saying, like, you got this, let's go. So I am a big believer in

Tim Doyle (44:39.115)

It's really cool because I feel like that goes against the rescuer helplessness mindset where it's more about giving your patients autonomy rather than being the one of like, I'm the one who fixed you.

Kelly Brogan MD (44:58.632)

Yeah, I mean, I don't practice any longer, know, clinically. When I did though, I would have patients, and some of them even public, you know, come out publicly or whatever and say like, you know, Dr. Brogan, you saved my life. And even then when I didn't know as much as I do about, you know, victim consciousness and hierarchical power dynamics and this kind of a thing, it still felt kind of like, just not accurate because I...

I didn't do it, you did it, okay, not only did you do it, but then I would think, okay, and I do have certain skills, right? I have certain gifts and I've been in my lane, I think for some time. So I would be like, well, what did I do? And that's when in conversation with one of my former patients, I really was able to crystallize. I did what came very naturally to me at the time and actually still does.

is I could look at a woman in front of me who was on five meds just out of state hospital, arguably a montage of brokenness, and I could look at her and I could see, not visually necessarily, but I could feel, her well, totally, and interact with her on that level. Now I understand it's like just seeing the God in somebody.

but I didn't have any sort of spiritual framework for that. I don't know why I was able to sit with a woman who had been discarded essentially, because a lot of the women that I would work with, I was like last stop, end of the road, like they had electric convulsive therapy and you know, still these meds are ineffective or whatever. I could see that, right? And I would treat them that way. And you know, I think a lot of the energy that I have recruited is almost like,

a benevolent father energy actually much more than a nurturing mother energy. And I would hold them to a standard of their own self-expression and you could even say performance that was pretty exacting. I, as a clinician, I vary no bullshit, go big or go home kind of an energy. And like for example, you wouldn't get a second appointment

Kelly Brogan MD (47:18.662)

with me after the consultation unless you did my protocol to the T. And otherwise don't waste my fucking time. Like that was literally my vibe. And you know, I practice in New York, so whatever New Yorkers can handle this kind of, this kind of energy. And now I'm in Miami and it's like, that would be kind of intense. And it worked. like, that's all I did. I saw them as not broken. I don't know how or why. And

Tim Doyle (47:33.751)

Hahaha

Kelly Brogan MD (47:48.058)

I held them to a behavioral expectation and standard that was far surpassed the kind of victim coddling they were used to. Right. And so it's, think, in a way, almost like we went through their maturational adolescence together. It's like, you know, again, I'm not a father. I don't know. But I think in many healthy father-child dynamics, there's a moment in the adolescent transition where they're initiating you.

right, to your adult identity and that requires, you know, sort of like leaving you out for your vision quest and knowing you've got it. Of course, like that's figurative mostly these days. But there was something in that alchemy that I think I very naturally would tap into.

Tim Doyle (48:36.82)

You prefer the term integration over healing. Can you talk more about that differentiation?

Kelly Brogan MD (48:44.166)

Yeah, because when I started to see sort of the swap that I was up to when it came to imagining that I had swapped out the bad me for the good me in my healing journey. And then I would gaslight myself by saying this is so much better. And meanwhile, I was like not feeling better, obsessing about

my traumas and a workshop and course retreat junkie and really getting into this place of imagining that I was really quite superior to others, including in my own family who were not doing this work and had never looked at their inner domain in this way, whatever. the healing...

I mean, it depends how you define healing, of course, but the way it's colloquially used, you know, it implies like that I was sick then and now I'm not. And I don't know that that's in my experience. So what is different? I told you it's that I'm aware. Well, I always had that, right? It's almost like noticing the things that were already there.

far more aware and I have trained and learned the skills of relaxation so that in a moment of duress I can command my system, move energy, release it, I'm more flexible in my own body. I have options that I just simply didn't have when I was less aware and less well

skilled and trained and practiced when it comes to relaxation. So I don't know, is that enlightenment? I don't think so. I think it's just embodied, you know, self exploration and the process of self mastery. And a lot of what's gotten me to this place is the worldview that says the villain outside, you know, somebody I experience as affronting me, offending me,

Kelly Brogan MD (51:11.176)

judging me, you know, taking advantage of me, whatever it might be, is through another lens, the guru, right, like is holding an energy that I probably imagine I do not have, right, and therefore have rejected in myself. And if I'm really honest, I call this wearing the villain crown, I probably find little flavors of that very same behavior profile in myself, at least in my potential, or I might want to

Just expand the permission field so that maybe one day, someday, if I ever am that tyrant, I don't have to extinguish myself in shame. So my relationship to, and this is a framework, this is like a mindset, my relationship to people that I would otherwise, and experiences that I would otherwise judge as like a portal of exploration.

And my friends believe this also. we kind of like, you know, all practice this. And why do we do so? Because it allows me to relax my system when I otherwise wouldn't be able to because I would immediately launch into stress physiology and I would probably persist there, you know, sometimes for years on end. mean, I'm pretty sure I was, you know, in versions of fight, flight and freeze for

decades. So that's, and then I can do more pleasurable, easeful, fun things. And I also can start to recognize, you know, when something is not useful, you know, like the new agers would say, like, if not flowing or whatever. But that's meaningful, right? That's meaningful, because now I've told myself, something should feel aligned. Like, if I meet somebody, and almost immediately, I feel like I want to correct how they're, how they're acting.

Like this, especially in the business realm, like how often, right? Do we like start working with a new vendor or whatever? And almost immediately we're like, we want them to see that there's something they could be doing a little different, like, but then we're like, but there's nobody else. I should just kind of work, work with them and it's fine. It'll be fine. It's good enough. All of that is what I call, you know, the poor bargain. It's the ingredients for experiencing yet again, that victim field. And it's fine. Like it's fine because

Kelly Brogan MD (53:38.8)

eventually it'll be uninteresting enough that you just don't take the bait next time because there's more fun, creative, interesting, pleasurable things to do. And if that's your priority, which it certainly is, I'd far rather be laughing with my daughters than feeling really righteous about my position in some conflict I'm managing professionally or personally.

It's just not compelling to me at this point anymore. Whereas I used to be, I will really subconsciously get off on it, I think, for a long time.

Tim Doyle (54:18.206)

find it interesting that you said earlier that within your work, you would embody the identity of benevolent father rather than nurturing mother. And you've said that in the past, you use a term that you suffered from mother woundology. What exactly is that and what was that experience like?

Kelly Brogan MD (54:40.37)

Well, yeah, that's Carolyn Mase's term. just to try to attribute, yeah, when I get this woundology concept, it's just a really like a delightful play on the word and also an implication that there is a whole cultural focus on our wounds and traumas and early life issues that becomes a way of thinking. It becomes like,

Tim Doyle (54:44.414)

Okay.

Kelly Brogan MD (55:10.162)

There's like an epistemology. It's a whole sort of place you can get caught and trapped identity-wise, identity-wise. so, you know, I think we exist in that realm of our woundology for as long as it's, again, compelling. And then often it feels like relief to move away from it and to focus less on it.

I have, and in my last book, The Reclaimed Woman, I talk about how I have distilled down the features of the father wound and the mother wound that I think all of us have experienced and in our own way. And of course, I can't know that it's everyone, but I just think it's part of the design is to recognize that.

healthy, securely attached, unconditional love is not routinely available from the caregivers who so often desire to provide that, right? It's like the emotional immaturity of most of our parents and their parents and their parents is a legacy that many of us imagine we're breaking. But then if we look at how often you're just not on your kids team,

how often you do imagine you need to teach them something they don't know, how often you gaslight them about, you know, that they're okay when they're crying or whatever. I there's these subtle ways that we participate in sort of a greenwashed version of emotional immaturity. And I'll speak for myself. It has been the growth of my lifetime to get to the place where I am unconditionally committed to being on my daughter's teams.

Now, my daughters are teenagers. It's, in my experience, despite the common tropes about teenage daughters, which I'm very dedicated to rebranding, because it's the absolute fucking best thing ever to have teenage daughters, and the little moments, like for example, my eldest is, you know, multi-passionate, multi-talented.

Kelly Brogan MD (57:30.11)

Both of my daughters are and she's she's at this place where she is looking at whether or not she would want to go to college now I am NOT a fan of College in general and I've you know had experts like from the degree freeway on my podcast etc and I also think it's like a dying and crumbling like relic that we're in this awkward transition around like it's like just starting to like wobble and

pieces falling off the side or whatever. And I'm like, really, you can go into like hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt. That's like the worst ROI ever on an investment. Okay, so I go on and on. like totally showed my hand. And I got to the point where I was like, thanks to one of my girlfriends helping me to see this, I was able to see that I really was like supporting the many interests that we share. And then when it would come to this topic, I was like, oh, that's her dad.

domain. He's going to take her to visit schools and I'm not involved and I'm not paying for it all this stuff. And I just was able to see that means that I'm not supporting her as a person. I'm not on her team. Okay? And what happens as a result of that? She will curate reality, share with me only selectively because there's already that split. Now, we do this in micro moments when your kid says, I hate tomatoes and you say, but they're good for you. You're not on the team.

And so the practice of interesting yourself in your child's experience over your own is one of the deepest so-called spiritual technologies out there possible. mean, there's literally nothing in my whole life that has inspired me to change and shift out of my know-it-all, like dominating authoritarian energy than

my deep desire for intimacy with my daughters. It has humbled me on a level that has rendered me somebody like, you now and we have very beautiful dynamics and relationships and I'm not an expert at anything. Like they don't think of me as really knowing, like that's not why they value me. And I thought that that was...

Kelly Brogan MD (59:46.994)

what I was supposed to do was like impart all of this hard earned wisdom to them and make sure that they understand it and see reality through the conspiracy theory lens and whatever else. And that's not a priority. And I got a letter from my daughter in December and she said that I am the embodiment of beauty and femininity in her life. my God, makes me want to cry. Like who knew that that's

What was the most important thing to me? I thought it was supposed to protect and guide them or whatever was driving my earlier sense that I needed to make sure they use the natural cosmetics and eat the organic food and put their gadgets away at night and all this kind of stuff. So the shift is like any shift, quite humbling. wait, why am I talking about my girls? I always end up talking about my girls.

Tim Doyle (01:00:46.153)

It's what any mom would do.

Kelly Brogan MD (01:00:51.518)

my gosh.

Tim Doyle (01:00:52.955)

I guess to not to play devil's advocate, but I guess how do you balance?

playing on the team, but also having like a little pushback and I'm coming at this not from as a parent, also, but as the child, like there definitely have been moments within my life where it'd be like, I don't want to do that or I don't think that's good for me. And then it's my parents, like, especially my dad be like, you are going to do this, this is good for you. And then I'm like, wow, that was.

Kelly Brogan MD (01:01:17.928)

Yes.

Yeah, that's a great question. And my massive caveat is that I don't have sons. it's different. I know how at this point, how I would mother a son, and I do not think that's a mother's role with their son. I think trusting your son to make his own decisions

Tim Doyle (01:01:28.399)

That definitely plays a difference. Yeah.

Kelly Brogan MD (01:01:46.372)

over listening to you and the emotional incest that can arise from his imagining that he needs to make you happy, please you, and honestly regulate your nervous system is very problematic. Like that's what I deal with in the adult realm. And I know the root of it to be how mothers are mothering their sons, right? From this father wounded place. So I really, I really don't know. I suspect that it's quite different with fathers, but I will say that

with my girls when they tell me that they are interested in something. And then there's like a wobble in commitment, in follow through, in sort of proactivity. I absolutely will support them in doing the damn thing. Right? Because I experience that. I love dancing, okay? I go to dance classes and every...

I can't remember when I've left a class and not felt better than when I went. And I would say literally nine times out of 10, especially if it's an evening class, before the class, I don't feel like fucking going. And I'm like, oh, I need to relax. All I talk about is relaxation. I need to relax and, you know, I'll just go next week. It's fine. But the yes is underneath. It's already there. So working with that.

No is what a disciplined adult can have mastering it, right? And if the no is underneath, if fundamentally, like my daughter decided that she wanted to be homeschooled after being in school, and that no was also complexified.

by the desire to be with her friends and be at a school and whatever. So it's like messy, but there was a no under there. And so I was able to connect to what's underneath and then work out the meeting of the rest of the needs in support of her. So I like to sort of track like what's underneath, the no or the yes, and then allowing for that. If your kid is a no,

Kelly Brogan MD (01:04:03.186)

to something like school and you are in that authoritarian place of saying, that's good for you, you need to go. Like that's something that child's gonna have to unwind as an adult. Like the domestication that they experienced through the school system and so many of us do. And who knows like if that's what they are, that's their path, right? So again, it's just not necessarily an ethical thing. It's more an attunement thing.

Right? So attuning to what is underneath. So if your dad pushed you to do something that you were sort of like, ugh, about, odds are he knew you were a yes fundamentally, right? If it's like a sport or something like that. And that's teaching the value of discipline. I like the etymology of discipline. I learned from Marion Woodman, a Jungian analyst, which is that it's the gaze of the teacher who loves you.

And I have experienced amazing things through my own self-discipline and alignment with my will, which I think of as my yang, my masculine container, right? The gaze of that teacher who loves me that holds me to that standard. And again, maybe that's what I also offered, you know, my patients to hearken back to that energetic signature.

Tim Doyle (01:05:31.283)

Kelly, it's been great talking with you today. Where can people go to learn more about you? Anything else you'd like to share?

Kelly Brogan MD (01:05:39.582)

Sure, yes, this has been a total pleasure. Thank you. And yeah, I'm over at kellybroganmd.com and we now are really focused on shifting women out of these old identities and being catalysts and facilitators for that transformation across all of these different domains from health to relationships to business. That's a big one I love too.

Support women in is, you feminine leadership and even, you know, midlife glow up. That's like my new favorite topic. And so we offer a suite of support, one-on-one support for that these days. So yeah, it's all over there.

Tim Doyle (01:06:24.039)

Awesome, great talking with you today.

Kelly Brogan MD (01:06:25.438)

Pleasure.