Rodrigo Nardi is a psychiatrist and psychologist. He obtained his psychology degree in the year 2000, and following that, he obtained a certificate in CBT, and a Master’s Degree in Clinical Psychology at Universidade EvangĂ©lica de ParanĂĄ. He obtained his M.D. degree in 2010, and in 2016, he completed his psychiatry residency at Penn State. Altogether, Dr. Nardi has worked as a mental health professional for more than 20 years, covering from individual psychotherapy to inpatient and outpatient psychiatry, substance use treatment, and interventional psychiatry. His passion for teaching and learning has led to the creation of the True Psychiatry Network and the development of a mentoring program designed to address the most frequent challenges related to psychiatric training.
The transcript below has been edited for length and clarity. Listen to the audio of the interview here.
Brooke Siem: You have a circuitous route to becoming a psychiatrist. Can you tell us how you ended up in the field?
Rodrigo Nardi: Once you start studying psychology, it doesn’t leave you. Brazil has a different system. It’s more like the European system. In Brazil, psychology is a full grad school program. Itâs five years of study and in the last year, you work as a psychologist under supervision. Medical school is six years and during the last one to two years, you work as a doctor under supervision. Before I finished my Masterâs in psychology, I said, âOkay, I think I’m going to go to medical schoolâ and I started all over.
When I was in medical school, I was an associate professor teaching psychotherapy techniques to post-graduates. I thought I might specialize in oncology, but every year, we would have to do data collection as a team and I would tell my colleagues, âIâll take care of it.â I was older than my colleagues and used to collecting data so it was effortless for me. I liked the behavioral-based questions and eventually realized I couldnât get rid of this psychology thing. Once you connect with the school of thought in psychology, your view of the world changes for good.
So when it came to choosing a residency, I applied for psychiatry and was lucky enough to get a position. Despite the limitations we have and the excesses of the field, it’s a beautiful career. It’s a lot of fun.
Siem: Given your background in psychology, what was your mentality going into the psychiatry arm of medicine at that time?
Nardi: Because I was a psychologist, the biochemical hypothesis never made any sense to me. If you read any author in psychology, that argument will die. Even if I can entertain the idea that maybe one in 1,000 people who with low mood could have a some biological issue, I never bought into the theory. But going to residency is a very humbling experience.
Imagine that you’re a black belt in karate, and you’re going to start Jiu-Jitsu. Suddenly, you’re a white belt again and nobody’s going to listen to you. I wasn’t a black belt in psychologyâmy development as a therapist is ongoing because it’s a very long art.
When I entered into psychiatry, I was faced with this data saying that psychiatric drugs do something. I thought I could manage to live with this division in my head, even though it didnât make too much sense and it was difficult for me.
Everybody knows [in medicine], of the influence of pharma, on the training, on the textbooks, on the overall paradigm of psychiatry. People gravitate towards thinking of research questions that could get you a grant with pharma companies. It didn’t occur to me that I was blind like everybody else.
I’m a big fan of human beings. I think we are the most amazing thing walking on earth. But I think I was also naĂŻve. Now, I believe in the integrity of the process [of being human], and I would come to that a few years later.
Siem: I was listening to an episode of your podcast, the True Psychiatry, and you said that when you’re going through med school and residency, you don’t really have time to be a critical thinker when it comes to the information you’re receiving. That was such a light-bulb moment for me because I keep wondering why so many doctors go off course. I think this is part of the answer. Can you talk more about what it’s like to be a psychiatric resident how that is influencing the situation we find ourselves in today?
Nardi: Medical school and residency are a compliance task. If you go through medical school and decide to question everything you see in front of you, the emotional impact will prevent you from learning. Psychological training in Brazil, for example, is different from the American training. We still have the behaviorists making fun of the Freudians who will make fun of some other clique, and that is an important learning experience because the Freudian is going to look at you and present a criticism and you have think through that criticism. This makes psychology in Brazil a very strong science and art. We have wonderful thinkers. Every average psychologist can sit and give you a class on something immediately that will be at a post grad level.
What this taught me is that if you don’t have an emotional affiliation to what you’re learning, your retention and understanding is limited. Â When you take that concept and apply it to medical school, if you don’t embrace what you’re reading, if you don’t comply with it, you will struggle. There is no time to look into all these things and question every bit of them.
Medical school is basic until you get into the specialties. Then you get into residency and have a set system based on a paradigm that is heavily biased and youâre given a limited amount of time to learn when you need to know. You cannot go in front of an attending doctor, question the method, and say, âIf I suppress the negative emotions of this patient with drugs, what motivation will this patient have to address his own reality?â
So I left training as a heavy guideline kind of a guy. I was still blind to the absurd amount of bias we had. That became very clear later and triggered my quest for an alternative paradigm of psychiatry that could survive in our society.
Siem: What did your practice look like after your residency ended?
Nardi:Â My first job was inpatient psychiatry. I was seeing excessive medication regimens that didnât make any sense but I was telling myself was it was okay because it was inpatient psychiatry. I pushed away thoughts like, âWhatâs the point of giving a drug to solve a quality of life problem?â But I kept pushing and playing cognitive tricks.
From there, I went to substance abuse. I started to see all these patients talking about staying sober but being chronically prescribed Adderall chronically, benzodiazepines, gabapentin. Thatâs when I realized there was something wrong. I would have patients come to me and say, âRod, please let me see you because Dr. So and So prescribes the same thing to everyone.â It was like everybody had ADHD, everybody had generalized anxiety, so everybody ended up on the same drugs even though they were supposed to be staying clean. I became so displeased because when you’re in the outpatient setting, you are inheriting cases, and I started to feel like my profession sucked.
At first, I thought if we embraced guidelines, the excesses prescriptions would go away. I was still blind. But it but then I started to look deeper and I found literature from critical psychiatry, from Mad in America, and I started to learn from these folks. For me, it was like a shock. And then I said oh my God, how come I didn’t see this before?
Siem: How did you find the work of Robert Whitaker?
Nardi: Whitaker and Ron Bassmanâs experience with psychosis and the system back in the 1960s and 1970s helped everything fall in place for me. I felt terribly anxious and angry for being blind. Then I really started to dive deep in the hole.
Siem: When this transition was happening for you, what was your relationships with your colleagues like at the time, and how did that start to change?
Nardi: I remember a director telling me one day. He said, âYou have a fiduciary duty to your patient. Even if your employer is a place that takes Medicare or Medicaid money, that’s tax money.â
Siem: What do you mean by âfiduciary duty to your patientâ?
Nardi: It means you serve the person who is paying you. You don’t serve the hospital. You don’t serve the clinic that hired you. You don’t serve the CEO. You serve the patient.
Siem: You don’t serve the pharmaceutical company who might be paying you on the side.
Nardi: Perfect, right.
Siem: What makes you different? Why were you willing to go toward the discomfort whereas so many other folks in the field seem to go immediately to defense?
Nardi: I wish I could say I’m like some sort of Messiah, but if you like what you doâand I do love itâyou don’t want to see corrupted. I have seen psychiatric nurses quit, after all the training, and go back to a registered nurse profession because they could not live with what they were forced to do. In a sense, [my transformation] was selfish. I said to myself, âIf I can develop a way to work that brings me more satisfaction, if I can develop a paradigm that can survive considering the legalities, I think my life is going to be better.â
Siem: What is the current standard of care in psychiatry? And how are you making sure you’re meeting standard of care requirements while operating in this alternative paradigm?
Nardi: Because of the significant risk of litigation, doctors are afraid of doing anything differently. In psychiatry, informed consent is really not performed. For example, I asked my colleagues, âIf you were an insomniac, anxious, or depressed, would you take the antipsychotic Seroquel, with all the side effects that come with it?â Not once did someone say yes. My next question was, âThen why are your patients taking Seroquel when you offer it to them?â The answer is because an informed consent is not being done.
I’m not saying you should look at your patient and say, âHey, I’m going to offer you this med because this is what my training is about. But I wouldn’t take because of the side effects.â You don’t have to put those words. You tell them medication is an option and discuss what are the expected side effectsâthe ones you would think about before taking a pill.
To have informed consent, the patient needs to have a fair amount of information. When you give that information with any of the drugs, you start noticing that about 8 or 9 out of 10 patients wait another month.
I have a lot of patients that come to meâespecially maleâwho say, they have a problem with anger. I look for basic emotional needs based in Freud, Maslow, Seligman, and evolutionary psychology and explain [to the patient] that they are linked to survival. One of these basic emotional needs is to have relationships. What I find is that people are terribly deprived of different basic emotional needs that come right after, in terms of relevance, to the physiological needs. There’s no point in talking about your mother in therapy before we address your solitude, before we address the fact that you have no accomplishments, before we address the fact that human beings need novelty. Anxiety and anger, for example, is both endogenous and exogenous. It’s both a reaction to the environment but it also comes from the organism itself, just like sexual arousal. Anxiety and anger add to your capacity to survive, so anticipating threats and reacting to the absence of those threats should be built in our biological system.
I address these things [to the patient] and present my âdiagnosis.â I still use the DSM because I need to pay my bills and I cannot send a diagnosis to an insurance company and say, âThis patient is deprived of accomplishments, purpose, and social interactions.â So I say whatever DSM-ish form it takes but and I tell the patient, âIt’s not something you have. It’s just a name I’m giving to this thing. What you are struggling with is very basic things needed to have a decent life.â
Siem:Â That in itselfâjust informing your patient that what youâre writing down is a name for a cluster of symptoms rather than a diagnosisâis a radically different strategy than telling someone the meet the criteria for Borderline Personality Disorder or bipolar. Itâs a basic shift of perspective that can literally change a personâs life.
Nardi: And it doesn’t take too much more time than talking about drugs, but it’s so welcomed by patients. You start seeing patients say I want you to see my sister, I want you to see my neighbor, and they start sending you referrals. Itâs resonating with people. We are ripe for a change. And from a legal perspective, I’m just following the same rules in my textbooks. I’m performing actual informed consent.
I was recently interviewing Robert Haim Belmaker and Pesach Lichtenberg. They just published what I believe is the most important psychopharmaceutical book of our time. One of the things I said to them was that I can define my paradigm in front of a judge. Dr. Belmaker said that was one of the motivations for the book. Now you can show a judge [Belmaker’s work] and say this guy with this CV wrote this book about psychopharm that says this is what we can and cannot do.
Psychology has multiple paradigms, so it makes no sense that psychiatry doesn’t have alternative paradigms of work. Emotions are our sixth sense, right? What is the biological program that tells you to run if you see a grizzly bear, which is useless because he’s going to catch you anyway? Itâs not just the sight of the bear. It is not just the smell of it. It’s the emotional reaction that your body gives you that says, run. Negative emotions have a role trying to tell you something about your reality. Just like tight shoes will make your feet hurt, that doesn’t mean your body is sick. Your body works exactly as it shouldâ
Siem: We don’t need a pill to make our feet smaller. Just need different shoes.
Nardi: Exactly. But here’s the beauty of it. Let’s say you ordered those shoes, they took forever to arrive, and they’re just fabulous. You don’t want to return them. You say, âI’m going to wear them for the party. I looked too good in them. I want to use them.â What do you do is you take a pill to suppress the pain or you have a few shots of tequila. This is desirable impairment. I don’t rule out the possibility of a desirable impairment to suppresses emotions, but in general, changing the shoes, is a smarter idea. The feelings you have deserve to be felt one way or another. I tell my mentees and the people I work with that if you suppress these emotions [with drugs], there’s a very good chance that not only are you inducing stagnation, but that I suspect emotion is going to come back later for you. There’s learning negative emotion. This may be what pushes you towards activity, connections, socialization, a new career.
Part of my dedication to psychiatry is the fact that my son lives in another country and I miss him terribly. I have to find a meaning to his absence. So I use all this extra time that I have to make a sense of things and try to do something meaningful. I what to be able to put my head in the pillow and when I am 80, look back and know I was not part of the problem.
Siem: Your nonprofit, the New England Psychiatry Mentorship Institute, is fairly new. Where do you hope this goes in the next three to five years?
Nardi: The mentorship is a sort of a cooperative network. I teach the paradigm, but it allows for your artistic expression, so to speak, because that’s what I believe psychotherapy is. It’s financially sustainable, and it can be done in a way that is legally safe [for the clinician] and safer for patients than the excesses that psychiatry permits. When I started this thing, and I thought the challenge would be to get people to be a part of it. It turns out thatâs not going to be the case. From a patient’s perspective, it’s not a challenge anymore. There’s more people looking for something meaningful that celebrates what a human being is versus, âHere’s the pill you take to stay put and keep living the life you’re living.â People are ready. What I expect is that doctors will join this cooperative and they will find a profession that is as gratifying as I find it now.
People are reaching out to me to join, but the task is teaching. It’s difficult teach the paradigm because it contrasts with years of training but it’s doable and I’m doing it. Â My hope is that folks will have a lot of fun, feel they’re actually helping people without hurting them, and that they will contribute. They’ll say, âI disagree with you, and I have this idea. How do you think this style of practice fits here?â
Now I’m not smart enough to be compared to a guy like Freud. But Freud had Jung disagreeing with him in real time, coming up with amazing contributions that Freud didn’t. And Freud is freaking amazing. So what I’m hoping is that people disagree and come up with [their own] paradigm. I believe in one truth, but the truth is so complex and so layered that we don’t ever reach the truth. Truth for us is a path towards truth, and some of us make a life out of that path towards truth.
So I expect being confronted and questioned and learn because the human experience is way too rich to be reduced to this thing we have been reducing it to. Human things are absolutely amazing. We are capable of unspeakable things and there’s much more room for positivity than anything else in our existence. Â My hope is that it causes enough noise that I can learn more from it, and that people join and say, âI’m having fun with my profession.â
Siem: Last question. What would you say to a young psychiatrist who’s just getting out of residency, who is questioning some of what they’ve been taught, but is too scared to express what they’re feeling? What would you say to a young doctor today?
Nardi: Donât let the feeling die. You may be the next big step towards a better psychiatry. Accept the fact that human beings are too complex to fit uniformly simple models. Even though I believe we need simple models to replace the one we have, or rather we have alternative paradigms that are simple enough to be taught. But don’t quit on that feeling.
However, learn the legalities. Learn the relationship between psychiatry and the law because once you are strong in that position, you can say, âAll right, I’m going this direction, and I’m going safely in that direction.â I would not advise anyone to ruin their career on account of that kind of [legal] pressure. If you need to fall back to standard, you fall back to standard. Do not sacrifice your career because you need to live to fight another day. But good things are coming. Great changes are coming. We have hallmark publications like the Maudsley Deprescribing Guidelines. We have Bill Macher and Lichtenburgâs book. W have the fact that I’ve been practicing psychiatry in a completely different way, and my phone isnât ringing with threats or anything like that. It’s a changing, exciting time, and we will be a field that is as rich as psychology used to be. It’s unavoidable because the truth always makes itself noticed.
Siem: Where can people find you if they want to reach out?
Nardi: They could find me at True Psychiatry Network.  You’re going to find an email there. You’re going to find a phone number. You can call, leave a message, text. Do whatever you want to do to discuss ideas or to talk on my podcast. To join the network, the only limitation for people joining is the finances involved in it. It has a cost until it become self sustainable.
Siem:Â Dr. Nardi, thank you so much for being here with us and for sharing your new paradigm and helping move this world forward. I know people like me really appreciate it. I’m glad you’re doing the work.
Nardi: I appreciate you. It’s very good to see you again, Brooke.
***
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Valuable and appreciated podcast. Thank you both.
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Good interview, but Nardi said some things that make me question his judgment:
1. His (seemingly) unbridled enthusiasm regarding Freud, considering the fact that many of Freud’s theories are now widely regarded as hopelessly sexist.
It’s important to recognize the fact that Freud only speculated on the unconscious—he didn’t create it.
2. What does Nardi mean when he uses the word ‘accomplishment’? Is he referring to what society sees as accomplishment, or what a person sees as accomplishment?
3. He then says, “I would not advise anyone to ruin their career on account of [legal] pressure. If you need to fall back to standard, you fall back to standard. Do not sacrifice your career because you need to live to fight another day.”
Where is proper concern for what’s best FOR THE PATIENT???
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When did it become okay to sacrifice a âpatientâsâ health in order to save oneâs own career???
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I had the same question, but mine was my life they wished to sacrifice because ….. what if the Police do their job?
Apparently the answer is; when your not sure the State will cover up your misconduct. Best get rid of the evidence the best way you can. ie ‘unintended negative outcome’.
Funny but the title of the article reminded me of the way a cat uses a litter tray….. leaving ‘biological psychiatry’ behind; lets just scratch some kitty litter over that part of history lol
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Exactly. But the stink remains—no matter what ‘network’ they come up with (imho).
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Yes Birdsong. I think that in the end we all know they will be back once someone else has cleaned up the last mess.
And wasn’t that the name of a Led Zeppelin album? The Stink Remains the Same?
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That I did not know, believe it or not.
‘Lingered’ was the first word that came to mind, but I thought ‘remains’ better conveyed psychiatry’s stench.
In any case, my father was the rock fan, not I. He played it constantly which made me a nervous wreck as all I wanted was peace and quiet, although I did learn to appreciate its artistry.
Peace and quiet was and still is the real music to my ears.
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And, btw, psychiatry never cleans up its messes—it just blithely introduces a new pile of diagnostic, pharmaceutical or ‘talk therapy’ bullshit.
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The books that the author mentions:
Psychopharmacology Reconsidered: A Concise Guide Exploring the Limits of Diagnosis and Treatment by Robert Haim Belmaker and Pesach Lichtenberg (note: “Belmaker” is mistranscribed as “Bill Macher” once in the transcript above)
The Maudsley Deprescribing Guidelines: Antidepressants, Benzodiazepines, Gabapentinoids and Z-drugs by Mark Horowitz and David M. Taylor
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so I bought and started reading both of these books now. the first one I finally realized is by Pesach Lichtenberg, who the doctor who did the Soteria experiment in the early 1970s or so that Robert Whitaker wrote about in both Mad in America and Anatomy of an Epidemic. that was the experiment that showed people with psychotic disorder recovered better given psychosocial support by minimally trained staff instead of antipsychotics by doctors. in it he carefully says he does not want to be lumped in with “antipsychiatry” voices although he seems to agree with most if not all of their tenets as far as I can tell.
fwiw the first book is available as an e-book from the publisher’s website for $16.99 (Amazon charges way more) and the other one from ebay
as a psychiatric provider I am very grateful to have found Mr. Whitaker’s treasure trove of information! not sure how his conclusions are so controversial – he gives good evidence and is not dogmatic about anything as his detractors seem to try to carelessly paint him. great information regarding the significant limitations of the meds currently available, as well as many details of the long history of mistreatment of the mentally ill in the USA
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Agree with Dr Nardi all the way. Ours is a medical culture of prescribed harms. The use of narrative in mental health eg take psychotherapy to the next level is the way forward. Need to replace drugs with this approach.
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Psychiatric drugs are only part of the problem. The DSM is where the harm begins.
‘Narrative therapy’ essentially means becoming your own best friend, or in today’s psychologically polluted lingo, becoming your own “therapist”.
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“I’m not saying you should look at your patient and say, ‘Hey, I’m going to offer you this med because this is what my training is about. But I wouldn’t take it because of side effects’. You don’t have to put in in those words. You tell them medication is an option and discuss what are the expected side effects—the ones you would think about before taking a pill.”
Why NOT put it in those words???
“Patients” not fully apprised of the dynamics at play surrounding their “treatment options” are NOT receiving informed consent.
Don’t “patients” deserve medical doctors who aren’t afraid of being completely honest with them???
Maybe if medical doctors stopped thinking of people as “patients” they might be less inclined to prescribe “medications” that could potentially harm them.
Biological psychiatry isn’t the only thing that should be left behind. The “power imbalance” should also go the way of the dinosaur.
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CLARIFICATION: “I’m not saying you should look at your patient and say, ‘Hey, I’m going to offer you this med because this is what my training is about. But I wouldn’t take it because of side effects.’ You don’t have to put it in those words.”
NOT putting it in those words makes this a manipulative exchange rather than what it needs to be: an honest discussion that includes the doctor’s full disclosure as to what he/she would do personally.
And the thinking behind it is both arrogant and insulting: “We as doctors don’t want to unduly influence our patients!” Yeah, right.
It’s typical for doctors to overestimate their influence and underestimate their patient’s ability to decide for themselves what’s best.
I think there’s something radically wrong with doctors who lack the guts to level with ‘patients’ when it comes to ‘medication’ of any kind.
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This interview is the most honest admission of what I have suspected, as I tried to be a supportive and informed parent of a young adult woman enmeshed in a faulty mental health care system. Thank you, Dr. Nardi, for knowing our loved ones need a prescription for building a sense of purpose and belonging.
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It is encouraging to see real psychiatrists turning away from drugs. But this is in fact not a new phenomenon. My question then becomes: What do they turn towards instead?
They turn towards many different “paradigms” but one I never hear about is Dianetics. You’d think at least one would try it (some did in the past).
So we haven’t gotten there yet. There should be at least SOME discussion of the newer paradigms, and the role of Spirit in all of this. It was a psychiatrist, after all, who verified the existence of reincarnation. So, what are we waiting for?
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Sometimes meds, although in a much more limited way. Sometimes talk therapy. Exercise. Light and dark therapy. Eating pattern interventions. Emotional support. EMDR. Psychosocial support (such as housing). Neurofeedback. Yoga. Several other things – others please add to this list
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Yes, of course (and I appreciate you answering). But why not Dianetics, or the various past life therapies? It’s not like these techniques don’t get results. But they do push the “paradigm” of what could be possible too far, apparently. Most psychologists act like they’ve never heard of these techniques. And I don’t believe that is possible. They simply refuse to look into them or take them seriously.
It’s not that all the other interventions you mentioned don’t also get good results. But they don’t change the essential assumptions so many have about how people work. We need to examine those assumptions.
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Do you have anywhere that I could read more about Dianetics in a succinct way and which might lead me to support its use and/or efficacy? My exposure to it has been (almost) nothing. In general I am wary since it is structured as a money-making enterprise, although this criticism could be leveled at many things in our society
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Karl, you should really read the book. It’s not that it’s a “sacred text” or anything, but that way you do get it from the horse’s mouth. There are two shorter works, one written for Hubbard’s fiction audience and the other for academics. The first is called “Evolution of a Science” and the other called “Original Thesis.” They are much shorter.
There is at least one video on the church’s streaming channel on the subject. You should find it here: https://www.scientology.tv/films-on-scientology-principles/dianetics-introduction.html It actually consists of two 15 minute videos.
Yes the commerciality of the church rubs some the wrong way. But these days they advertise much less than the drug manufacturers! Any organization has to make money to survive, just like any individual does. The church actually operates on member donations; it’s a non-profit. Some health care companies are also non-profits, but the live off the insurance system. And these days, come health care companies are for-profit businesses, which I don’t think should be allowed.
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Excuse my language, please, but WTF: How on Earth can a guy who’s not yet read Eckhart Tolle POSSIBLY be this enlightened?
Please enlighten me, et QUAM CELERIME l.
Much love.
Tom.
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Perhaps Eckhart was not the only enlightened being to visit Earth in the past century…
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Of course he was not, thank you, Larry.
If Rod had read any of them, though, he might have mentioned that which Jung seemingly intuited, and which may have tantalized but mostly evaded Maslow (with his “peak experiences,” his “flow” and his pyramid – topped by transcendence/self-actualization), Seligman (with his “positive psychology”) and Freud (with his insights into psychosomatic illnesses and the Unconscious), as well as the “evolutionary psychologists,” don’t you think – the meaning of the meaning of human life (of which Viktor Frankl wrote so gloriously) –
“Transcendence,” right, “self-actualization,” enlightenment, awakening, spiritual consciousness, or what presumably Jesus actually meant when speaking of “The Kingdomef the Father/of the Heavens/of Heaven/of God,” redemption, salvation, metanoia/repentance – right?
I doubt you find anything of Eckhart’s you disagree with, but perhaps you do.
Every good wish, and thank you.
Tom.
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I am no fan of Tolle’s. I believe the best work has been done by Hubbard. For historical and political research, I favor Courtney Brown.
But of course, Tolle is among many who had an experience, similar I imagine to what happened to the Buddha, and decided he needed to share what he learned with others. He joins the group sometimes known as “spiritual teachers” who counsel people on how to, basically, pull themselves up by the bootstraps. And while that’s great for those who can do that, it’s not so great for those who can’t.
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https://youtu.be/eoo9nA8lwHM?si=x_VF_E_Y7lF5vNXq
Larry, many thanks for this clarification.
Two of my all time, divine and fav movies must be “Michael,” opening with Randy Newmanâs divine song, and “The Last Samurai,” and I have often wondered if John Travolta and Tom Cruise had to overcome any religious scruples to accept their roles, and hoped not…
Also often wonder if his parts in “Michael” and in “Phenomenon” helped John through the grief of losing or “losing” a child.
And also, too, as well, wonder why it is that I have taken an instant like to any Larry I have ever encountered, unless it is because they all seemed to be as happy as Larry.
WHAT a funny and absurd world, eh, Brother?
Much love.
MANY thy!
Tom.
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Getting involved with Scientology does not tend to burden one with “religious scruples.”
I appreciate your kind words.
My sincerest hope is that more people will study Hubbard.
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Aw, thank YOU, Larry.
I, for one, most certainly do intend to, thanks to you.
And thanks to Rod, to Brooke and to MIA.
You have already convinced me that we are most surely all in this together, and forever and, in Randy’s words, “in a journey for a friend.”
Much, much love.
Eternal thanks.
Tom.
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Quotes from Dr. Nardi that I most appreciated in this interview:
“What I find is that people are terribly deprived of different basic emotional needs that come right after, in terms of relevance, to the physiological needs. Thereâs no point in talking about your mother in therapy before we address your solitude, before we address the fact that you have no accomplishments, before we address the fact that human beings need novelty…
I address these things [to the patient] and present my âdiagnosis.â I still use the DSM because I need to pay my bills and I cannot send a diagnosis to an insurance company and say, âThis patient is deprived of accomplishments, purpose, and social interactions.â So I say whatever DSM-ish form it takes but and I tell the patient, âItâs not something you have. Itâs just a name Iâm giving to this thing. What you are struggling with is very basic things needed to have a decent life.â
“I believe in one truth, but the truth is so complex and so layered that we donât ever reach the truth. Truth for us is a path towards truth, and some of us make a life out of that path towards truth.”
“My hope is that folks will have a lot of fun, feel theyâre actually helping people without hurting them, and that they will contribute. Theyâll say, âI disagree with you, and I have this idea. How do you think this style of practice fits here?â
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If Nardi’s so fond of truth, why does he practice psychiatry?
The truth is that truth isn’t always so complicated—if you’re willing face it.
It’s easy for anyone to talk a good game.
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“If Nardiâs so fond of truth, why does he practice psychiatry?”
Love it.
It’s like “virtually spotless”, “Light, yet filling” or “military intelligence” (to use the terms of Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy)….. “truthful psychiatry”. Oxymoronic language.
Tell that to the person being subjected to “the elegant method of overcoming resistance” (Frantz Fanon in The Wretched of the Earth) in a place wrongly called a hospital.
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Psychiatry uses verbal camouflage to cover its evil deeds.
And when all else fails, many use the word ‘nuance’ to avoid sounding stupid.
And who in their right mind finds psychiatry ‘fun’?
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You’d be amazed what some people enjoy doing. Have you met any psychiatrists (or psychologists) socially? Most of them think they are just being “normal” people.
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I’ve more than met them, I’m the daughter of one, long since passed away.
The worst are sadistic, while the rest are supremely disconnected, imo. My father was both but could also be incredibly caring and compassionate toward his patients. His family not so much.
At the very least I think they’re all a bunch of oddballs.
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“Youâd be amazed what some people enjoy doing. Have you met any psychiatrists (or psychologists) socially? Most of them think they are just being ânormalâ people.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUvcmGbtHWA
So did these guys. And no, I wouldn’t wish to spend time with them socially, though I’m sure there were ‘good ones’ among them.
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There is a world of difference between patient-centered, non-pharma-based, helpfully practiced psychiatry, and harmful, improperly practiced, treatment-as-usual psychiatry. I would argue that the problem is doing it wrong, not the literal existence of a psychiatrist. But then I’m a psych NP so I’ve got skin in the game
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Psychiatry is based on the false premise that psychologically troubled people have diseased brains that require psychiatric drugs or other biologically invasive ‘interventions’.
If psychiatry were patient-centered, non-pharma-based, and ‘helpfully practiced’ it wouldn’t be psychiatry.
Most people who work in the psych industry aren’t in a position to see things clearly.
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“…but… so I’ve got skin in the game,” may be the sanest – i.e. the most self-aware – clause I may ever expect to read on these pages, Karl: thank YOU.
Tom’s Silver Lining, inspired by First Aid Kit, thank you.
My Silver Lining https://g.co/kgs/WqoZ78U
I may the only one living
Who’s right when he’s wrong though I know
That there sure are some other ones out there
Who’ve still got a long ways to go.
I guess it’s just my silver lining
Being always surrounded fools
And to know that it’s all divine timing
And one day it’s I’ll make the rules.
I’m suspicious of folks suspicious.
The right-minded all think like me.
I alone see what’s truly vicious.
Would that all think like me.
Wrongheaded folk don’t get me.
All should share my lens.
Thank Christ I have no bias.
Not like them and them.
I am conscious of all my unconscious.
My blindspots no longer exist.
Thank God I could never be pompous.
My own poop don’t stink the slightest.
My sense of the absurd is awesome.
How I came to be I don’t know.
But, as God’s gift to Man in the long run,
I’m content to be act part of The Show.
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There are people who comment here who have been so badly burned by the current “mental health” system of wherever they live that they quite convinced the whole thing should be abolished. I am not one of those people, but I don’t blame them for feeling the way they do.
The “mental health” system is not going away, as it is needed. On Earth it is badly off course at this point, as is Medicine, and – frankly – many other human “professional” activities. People on Earth are so ignorant of certain basic truths that it makes them act extremely poorly. Though there are those who prefer it this way, I hope it can be changed to something better.
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Larry, I applaud your comments above.
I stand corrected, and apply for my insensitivity.
I happen to be among those very grievously harmed by psycho pharmacology and I feel personally to blame for not having done enough to expose it for what it is to bring about it’s complete implosion long ago.
That said, however, I also believe that to attempt to vilify, demonize or impugn all psychiatrists for continuing to be psychiatrists and for obstinately refusing to see The Truth as I do is arguably to try to do just that which I claim to so abhor and to condemn in them.
I believe the world owes Scientology much for having so assisted Thomas Szasz in publicizing his insights.
I believe it also owes Scientology much for demonstrating how some who feared Dianetics, rather than arguing against it, seem to have successfully resorted to ad hominem attacks on L. Ron Hubbard to try and discredit his ideas.
Ad hominem attacks I believe do not serve us well.
I believe we are all here on Planet Earth to serve one another, and can and do only find our true joy when
doing so.
I believe we all operate out of whatever level of consciousness we find ourselves – that we are all always actually doing the very, very best we know how.
I believe Hubbard saw this, too, from what I have read, but that, like all of us, he, too, forgot it at times.
I am grateful to those who criticized Rod for reminding me very powerfully that he, too, has been doing his best, no doubt, and that he cannot possibly see things as I do.
I have spent the past 15 years trying to get over the bitterness I feel towards all psycho pharmacology, convinced, as I am, that only when I can write with malice towards none and charity towards all can I do my very best to contribute towards ending state sanctioned coercive psychiatry worldwide.
The obvious insensitivity of my remarks, so elucidated by you in a kindly way has shown me I still have much work to do – on moi.
When I tried to blow a whistle on a government animal disease elimination scheme in Ireland, I not only quickly lost virtually everything and found myself locked up and drugged indefinitely, Larry…I also found myself experiencing a karma so exquisite that it still blows my mind -:as I believe those harmful drugs – neurotoxins – to some extent still do 15 years after stopping them abruptly.
I was badly trained as a veterinarian in Ireland. Any compassion and wonder was virtually trained out of me, too. I did not know the first thing about being a vet. (Yep, just as those kids say, “You gave to LOVE animals!”)
Then, guess what?
I find myself incarcerated,connected and drugged by “mental health professionals” who had been abysmally trained and who, for the most part, treated me with neither compassion nor humanity.
If only I could already have written the book to expose all this, but nicely, things might already be very different for a lot of people.
I try. I do my best. But I KNOW that everyone else does, too – “the right-thinking” along with ‘the wrongheaded,” and that it is only woolly mindedness that convinces anyone that any mental disorder or personality disorder exists, just as we once believed “sinfulness” did, too.
Obviously, I don’t know if Jesus of Nazareth ever even lived, let alone said any of the stuff attributed to him.
Presented with a man blind from birth, and asked whose son had caused this calamity – his or his parents’, reportedly Jesus replied,
‘”Neither this man nor his parents sinned,â said Jesus, âbut this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him.”‘
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John%209&version=NIV
Elsewhere, the same Jesus reportedly observed:
“Let them alone: they be blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch.”
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%2015%3A14&version=KJV
And elsewhere, again, that “the Kingdom” is within us, and that if our (blind) leaders tell us it is elsewhere, we should not heed them.
If all great spiritual teachers have always taught that our freedom and salvation lies within us all, we must know that those who tell us otherwise cannot possibly have discovered it there, within themselves, for themselves, and so they are to be pitied, sympathized with and HELPED, I suggest, not blamed for their ignorance/forgetfulness.
“No problem is solved at the same level of consciousness which caused it.”
Larry, heartfelt thanks, once more.
Tom.
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Thank you much for this, Tom.
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No, no, no: Thank YOU and Scientology and Hubbard and Szasz and the CCHR, Larry – and MIA, Bob Whitaker and Steve McCrae.
And âapplyâ early in my previous comment was meant to read âapologize:â sorry!
https://youtu.be/JgikdLHaAcE?si=011KZUYAl2GSA3ip
https://youtu.be/zQegsqYhuZE?si=4hfL4LxPA4zJiWph
https://cchr.org.au/cchr-co-founder-dr-thomas-szasz
https://youtu.be/FC9r3Gs8XuU?si=iflV8jIvoNHs-BAl
Best wishes.
Tom.
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I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Following from the comment by Muhmmad Ali that “No Viet Cong ever called me n%$#@er”.
No Scientologist ever called me [insert psychiatric slander here]
Ali’s comments at the time were not appreciated, mainly because black men were needed to die for white boys to live lives of luxury in Europe etc.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vd9aIamXjQI
I feel sure that my comments are not appreciated by a world that is profiting from the harm being done by these slanderers and frauds.
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So its okay to explain to someone that the DSM label you have given them so you can ‘get paid’ is just a label for a collection of symptoms, so easy, so light – er no, this label after your brief chat could be become a self fulfilling prophecy, could shift personality and treatment of the person by others – could risk a job, insurance, travel and impact child care in divorce. But hey as long as we’re getting paid its no biggie.
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I was thinking the same thing, Topher.
A myopic insensitivity seems(?) to come with the territory in the “mental health” field.
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I think that was awfully well put, Topher.
Perhaps the only accurate psychiatric diagnosis that exists today is the only one missing from all DSM’s:
“Burnout.”
This shows some of the wooly thinking around it:
https://www.ama-assn.org/practice-management/physician-health/who-adds-burnout-icd-11-what-it-means-physicians
I think the cure for burnout MIGHT include changing the work place radically, but it might also mean prescribing a long, long, LONG paid vacation, something I doubt any medical code, anywhere, yetâŠâŠ
Do you have any advice for Rod or any other psychiatrist wishing to avoid burning out, and/or who prays for the courage to break from the ranks but to avoid losing their career, while knowing that they lack the wherewithal that graced either a
Joanna Moncrieff,
https://youtu.be/sET4vkkDL0M?si=Z2k_HLe8NCnTIiqf
a Daniel Carlat,
https://youtu.be/XOCM88LzCOY?si=qCSX1Vfh9V8425OV
or a Thomas Szasz
https://youtu.be/JgikdLHaAcE?si=hf8QgctxjVYA0BkV
to survive and thrive in his chosen profession – as, for instance, the last named did as a safely, securely tenured professor of psychiatry while becoming its most outstanding critic?
Unlike a great many psychiatrists, Topher, perhaps you may agree that, rather than telling folks they should not be who they are, what they are and where there are RIGHT NOW – âIf I were you, I wouldn’t start from here, at all!â kind of thing – WE can try to find folks, shrinks included, right where they are, try to sympathetize, to put ourselves in their position AS THEMâŠand go from there, together?
In my own profession, I fell on my sword. If I had had kids depending on me, I am not at all sure I could have found the courage to do that.
Could you, do you think?
Best wishes, and thank you.
Tom.
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Its incredibly hard Tom and this is the crux of so much that is wrong – our neoliberal systems and homoeconomicus. The celebration and weaponisation of greedy self and vested interest, encouraged at every turn.
When I first started to emerge from my biomedical indoctrination as Social Worker many years ago its was utterly destabilising – very few people had any interest in listening, supervisors minimised my questions and emerging consciousness or felt attacked and refused to discuss it. I banged my head against this for a while and then I had to leave.
I escaped to primary care and retrained as a ‘therapist’ a term I feel is over sold in the culture – Sadly, then IAPT came to town, now Talking Therapies and the gradual medicalisation of primary care has occurred.
I never use DSM terminology and try to help people develop some informed consent but the tsunami of vested interest, ignorance and incentives is overwhelming.
I was also banned from emailing the team with relevant articles and papers from respected sources encouraging debate on all of this after someone complained.
The latest ‘neuro’ so called diversity movement is completely out of control. People are now dispensing with the nonsense of diagnosis and just self diagnosing – connecting with millions of others online and we see cult like behaviour with hoards of believers in ‘adhd’ or whatever in constant reinforcement loops, most often in a bid to be thrown some scraps from the disordered school or disordered work place in the form of reasonable adjustments.
I am just reading a horrifying book ‘aspergers children’ and the human capacity for conformity, ignorance, bias, and belief in doing good while doing evil is chilling – lets hope the culture doesn’t return to fascism and a ‘diagnosis state’ as Nazi Germany was, otherwise the nonsensical distinction of ‘neurotypical’ will be about 10% of the population – we’re all mentally ill now it seems, sorry I mean diverse or different but hey lets legitimise the DSM and swallow its drugs all the same.
Its really frightening to witness.
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Topher, I feel sure you must have more to say, and I hope you will please say it here.
If indeed you think “neurodiversity” is a nonsense term (as I do), given that every human being, identical twins/sibs included, is obviously neuro-unique, do you agree that the same applies to “ADHD” and to “autismâ – that, given that any such apparent pattern of human behavior occurs along a seamless continuum or spectrum, with no clear demarcation line, ever, between what may be declared fully normal and what deemed absolutely deranged/disordered/diseased, even in the of case ânonverbalâ folk diagnosed “autistic?”
In spite of being frightened by what we are witnessing, I wonder if you can, perhaps, detect any evidence, synchronicitous or otherwise, to lead one to hope that
“No doubt, the universe is unfolding as it should,”
so that itâs also true that
“Life will give you whatever experience is most helpful for the evolution of your consciousness”?
Heartfelt thanks for such an inspiring personal story, Topher, for acting as courageously and nobly as you have done, and now for such powerful and moving writing.
I think the late Loren Mosher paid an enormous price for his courage, tooâŠand that he did not regret it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnryFXxl7yU
Have to tell you I am very curious as to whether “Topher” is an assumed name, assuming it is indeed short for Christopher, and in light of this discussion.
With very best wishes, and begging for more, please,
Tom.
âIf you talk to God, you are praying; if God talks to you, you âhave schizophrenia.ââ – Thomas Szasz, I believe.
“On rĂ©siste Ă l’invasion des armĂ©es; on ne rĂ©siste pas Ă l’invasion des idĂ©es.” – Victor Hugo.
Literally: “One withstands the invasion of armies; one does not withstand the invasion of ideas.”
Monseigneur Charles Francois Bienvenu Myreil, Bishop of Digne to the police, referring to Jean Valjean in Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables:
“He didnât steal that silver: I GAVE it to him!”
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Great point Topher.
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