Reclaiming Mental Wellness: The Power of Communication, Creativity, and Self-Expression with Dr. Fred Moss

summary

In this episode of The Catapult Effect, host Katie Wrigley speaks with Dr. Fred Moss, known as the Undoctor, about alternative approaches to mental health that move beyond traditional psychiatry and medication. Dr. Moss emphasizes the importance of human connection, authenticity, and self-expression as vital tools for healing. He critiques the psychiatric industrial complex, arguing that it often misdiagnoses and overmedicates individuals, leading to more harm than good.

The conversation explores the idea that many people may not have anything wrong with them at all and that the real challenge lies in navigating the complexities of human experience. In this conversation, Dr. Fred discusses the importance of authenticity in communication and the fear of being true to oneself. 

He emphasizes the need to find one's true voice and how creativity can serve as a powerful tool for healing and self-expression. The discussion also addresses the stigma surrounding mental health and the misconceptions that often accompany it, urging listeners to reconsider their perceptions of mental health diagnoses. Ultimately, the conversation highlights the significance of human connection and the potential for healing through creativity and open communication.

takeaways

• The concept of 'undoctoring' involves undiagnosing and unmedicating individuals.
• Human connection is the most powerful healer in mental health.
• Experiencing discomfort is a natural part of being human.
• Psychiatric medications can create chemical imbalances rather than resolve them.
• Many people feel pressured to accept diagnoses and medications that may not be necessary.
• Authenticity and self-expression are crucial for personal healing.
• Creativity can alleviate mental suffering.
• Stigma around mental health is perpetuated by the industry.
• Artistic expression is a fundamental human trait.
• We should embrace our creativity without fear of judgment.

Where to find Dr. Fred

Menu of Links

Resources

• Website
• Learn more about Cognomovement
• Try Cognomovement for yourself!
• Book a call with Katie

Credit: Tom Giovingo, Intro & Outro, Random Voice Guy, Professional ‘Cat‘ Herder

Mixed & Managed: JohnRavenscraft.com

Disclaimer: Katie is not a medical professional and she is not qualified to diagnose any conditions. The advice and information she gives is based on her own experience and research. It does not take the place of medical advice. Always consult a medical professional first before you try anything new.

Transcript

Katie Wrigley (00:00.681)
Welcome back to another episode of The Catapult Effect. I am your host, Katie Wrigley. I have an incredible guest with me today, Dr. Fred Moss, and he is known as the Undoctor. And we're gonna be diving into his methods and different things that you can do to help you manage your mental health without using pharmaceuticals. We're gonna go way beyond that in this conversation today, so stay tuned. That is coming up next. Thank you for joining us today.

As I mentioned in the intro, I have with me Dr. Fred Moss. He is a psychiatrist, a coach, a consultant, a keynote speaker, and a mental health advocate known as the UN doctor. As the founder of Welcome to Humanity and the True Voice Mastermind, Dr. Fred's work focuses on the power of communication, creativity, and self-expression as tools for healing. He challenges the traditional mental health system and helps individuals reclaim their authentic selves without over-reliance on medication. His books,

Creative Eight, Healing Through Creativity and Self-Expression, and Find Your True Voice, Guide People Towards Personal Transformation. With over 40 years of experience, he's passionate about helping professionals, first responders, and those in high stress careers manage stress and mental wellbeing through alternative approaches. Welcome to the Catapult Effect podcast, Dr. Fred. It is so wonderful to have you here with me today.

Dr. Fred (01:22.443)
Thank you for having me. Super great to be here. Thanks for having me. It's an honor and privilege. I appreciate it.

Katie Wrigley (01:27.989)
Well, thank you. But let's go ahead and dive right in. So what exactly does it mean to undoctor mental health?

Dr. Fred (01:34.764)
Yeah, on, doctor is a friendly affectionate moniker. I picked up a few years ago, a friend of mine at a, at a, men's event, like a vision quest type men's event gave it to me, after listening to me on the weekend about, know, what I was up to in mental health and it fits so well. And he, he's, he thought it would be a great name to carry on. I, you know, I've tried it on a few times and tried it on a bunch of people, and it seems like it works because it really does represent what I do at the core. And that is.

What the undoctor is all about is undiagnosing people, unmedicating people, and then undoctrinating people. So having people see that there are better ways to manage our mental health discomfort than coming through the psychiatric industrial complex. The psychiatric industrial complex is obviously built on the notions of diagnoses and then medication. Both of which is, see as not only unnecessary, but perhaps causing their own forms of massive trauma.

Katie Wrigley (02:08.862)
or you can.

Katie Wrigley (02:27.209)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Fred (02:34.522)
and irreversible trauma in some cases, or at least temporarily irreversible trauma. So, you know, when we start thinking that there's something wrong with us, we come to a psychiatrist and we want to know what is wrong with us. You see, it's interesting psychiatry is a little bit different than other fields in that, you know, if someone out in any other field, if you tell somebody that they're okay, they're happy with it. In our field, if you tell somebody they're okay, they're angry.

Katie Wrigley (02:48.981)
Mm-hmm.

Katie Wrigley (03:04.606)
Yeah, good point.

Dr. Fred (03:05.026)
It's very interesting. People don't want to here to find out if there's something wrong with them. They come here to find out what is wrong with them because there's a basic assumption that there is something wrong with them. So the first premise to really get over is that maybe, just maybe, there's nothing wrong with you at all. And never was. And never will be.

Katie Wrigley (03:27.385)
I want to pause there because that was big. I really like that idea in you planting that seed. is, yes. Yeah. And the other thing that's unique to me about mental health psychiatry, psychology is you're the only doctors that don't look directly at the organ you're dealing with.

Dr. Fred (03:45.058)
That's true too. Yeah. We don't look at directly at the organ we're dealing with. That's because we're not dealing with that organ.

Katie Wrigley (03:51.163)
Hmm, so what organ are you actually doing? Yes. Love that.

Dr. Fred (03:52.566)
We're dealing with human. We're dealing with the quality of the human experience. We're not dealing with the brain. The idea that the mind resides in a brain is already obsolete. That isn't where the mind is. That isn't where we do our work. That isn't where we think. It isn't where we do any of this. So the idea is that we are an organism, you know, I could say a spiritual being living a human experience, or we could say whatever we want to say about that. But ultimately,

You know, the idea is that we really are in a way looking at the organism that we're dealing, because that's called the human. And, you know, the psychiatric way of being, or, you know, what we don't have is we don't have a definition of what normal is.

Katie Wrigley (04:37.653)
Good point.

Dr. Fred (04:39.916)
And without a definition of what normal is, we have tremendous amount of hubris and audacity to suggest that we understand what abnormal is. Abnormal is built on the word normal. And if we don't even know what normal is, then we have no idea how to actually declare what's unnormal or abnormal.

Katie Wrigley (04:48.042)
I love that.

Katie Wrigley (04:59.359)
I love that and that's a really important distinction. So what have you noticed in your career? Why don't medications and these labels that we're talking about, why aren't these working?

Dr. Fred (05:10.287)
Well, it's from the ground up. mean, they're not, you know, they're not working a because they're not working. I mean, if you look around, have you noticed any decrease in mental health problems around the world recently, even though like one, one third of the people on the planet or one third of the people in United States have, or are taking any psychiatric medicine at this time, if you include the anti, anti anxiety agents and the sleep agents, it gets up even higher than that. And so,

Katie Wrigley (05:21.535)
No, it's the opposite.

Dr. Fred (05:38.508)
When we start looking at why are they not working, it's because we're telling people that there's something wrong with them. See, people are being given an idea of how to relinquish responsibility in their life. So I want to say a really important disclaimer for your listeners. You know, there may be people out there who are very excited about the diagnosis they have and about the treatment plan that they have and about the therapy that they have and about the medications they're taking. And they think that it saved their life and they wouldn't want to change it for the, you know, for any reason.

Katie Wrigley (06:07.071)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Fred (06:07.648)
And to those people I now say, please continue doing what you're doing. Because if you have reached that point in any area of your life where you wouldn't trade what you have for anything, congratulations. Like that's a seriously powerful place to be and you should never ever leave there. You should absolutely continue doing that. This conversation is more geared towards the hundreds of millions of people who don't fit that mold, who already know that the system is failing them. That they already know that they're either being

underdiagnosed, misdiagnosed, overdiagnosed, undertreated, mistreated, over-treated, and that the medications are causing way more problems than it's worth. And they don't like taking their medicine because it actually makes them feel worse. Other people declare that they should take their medicines for fear of being non-compliant. Or other people say, know, the doctor gave you a medicine, you need to keep taking it if you're going to be like a good patient, or even if you're going to be a good son, or if you're going to be a good partner.

You know for me, please keep taking your medicine But in fact these medicines aren't even geared towards anything that makes any sense There's no proven study that serotonin causes depression. There's never had been anything about the serotonin Depletion causing depression that is a proven worthwhile study and all the studies of what these medications actually do is that they don't gear themselves towards a particular mood or particular way of being

These medications sort of blanket us globally and therefore if we stay myopic enough, it'll seem at least on a short term that our symptom went away. But if you look at the far reaching nature of what happened when we took those medicines, many other costs took place at the same time. You know, one of the analogies I like to use is the analogy of a mosquito bite on your elbow. So let's say you had a mosquito bite, a very serious nagging mosquito bite on your elbow and you're like,

Katie Wrigley (07:57.333)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Fred (08:02.286)
Dr. Fred, I need some help with this. Do you know anybody? I'm like, yeah, I got somebody in Pasadena, go on over there and let them know I sent you. And these guys got a great track record, 100 % cure rate. You're like, okay, cool. And so, you know, next week you go over there, he meets you at the door with his white coat and a stethoscope wrapped around his neck and his name embroidered on the coat. He's got a, you know, white office with a few different, you know, pieces of art and maybe a bunch of, uh,

Katie Wrigley (08:13.449)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Fred (08:29.922)
Diplomats all around. He's got a sliding glass door with a pretty receptionist behind the door, know, welcoming you in and getting you all set up in his office. And then the doctor will see you now you leave the lobby and go back in his room. And he's got these glasses and you know, he reaches over and shakes your hand and then tells you who he is and he's gotten a hundred percent cure rate. And he asked you to roll up your sleeve and he takes out his magnifying glass and looks at your elbow and he steps away and he's like, wow.

You got a mosquito bite there. And you're like, yeah, I know I do. Yep. It's been bugging me for a long time. Well, you come to the right place. I take care of mosquito bites. I have a hundred percent cure rate. Let's just go for it. And you go, okay, let's do it. And he says, so it's only going to hurt for a moment. No typical doctor line. And you're like, okay, I can handle that. And he takes out a saw and cuts off your arm at the shoulder.

Katie Wrigley (09:29.244)
extreme.

Dr. Fred (09:30.357)
At that moment...

There's no more mosquito bite.

Katie Wrigley (09:37.353)
Ooh. Wow.

Dr. Fred (09:40.054)
And he asked you to come back in two weeks and we'll see if there's another mosquito bite. See if your mosquito bite has gone away. You come back in two weeks, there's no mosquito bite. Call it a success and off we go. So these psychiatric diagnoses and these psychiatric treatments do something like that. They're like the old dirty bomb. know, they're the idea that yes, they will take away that mosquito bite, but they will take away everything in the meantime. So not only will you not be able to feel depression, you won't be able to feel anything. Not only will you not be anxious, you won't be

excited, you won't be afraid, you won't be properly feeling the experiences of what it means to be a true and real human.

Katie Wrigley (10:17.735)
You blew my mind with that analogy of all the times that I've heard a similar analogy, like you really drove home the impact of numbing the bad stuff. It's like cutting off your arm for a mosquito bite. You miss everything else that you want because you're trying to get rid of that one little thing.

when there could be another way to deal with that. So what is the better way versus these labels and these medications, especially when we're talking about high stress individuals, first responders, the audience that you and I really love to help the most?

Dr. Fred (10:38.702)
for children.

Dr. Fred (10:49.326)
Yeah. Well, what I have found over time in my travels all around the country and then all around the world, I've been, you know, like you mentioned, a psychiatrist for 36 years and sent to mental health field for nine years before that as a childcare worker is that the one thing that's the most potent healer known to humankind is a human connection.

Katie Wrigley (11:09.203)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Fred (11:09.88)
So when we actually find somebody who gets us, somebody who converses with us one way or another with or without words, who self expresses and can listen to us and really relate to us and, you know, genuinely and authentically connects with us. From there, there's a massive connection that takes place instantaneously. Actually, it doesn't have any side effects associated with it. There's no copays associated. You don't have to get approval. You don't have to get referred. You just get connected.

And once we have really found a way to connect to another person who really gets our pain and our distress, because look, life is hard.

Katie Wrigley (11:46.163)
Mm-hmm. It is.

Dr. Fred (11:48.62)
Life is hard. Like it's complicated and it's hard. And there's things that don't even appear hard that are really hard. It's hard. It's hard to wake up. It's hard to walk through the day. It's hard to have a reason why it's hard, you know, to honor that next feeling or the next thought. There's misery going on. There's pain going on. There's ruthlessness going on. There's suffering going on. There's, you know, tumult going on. There's heinous crimes going on. There's, you know, there's just,

you know, tragedy going on everywhere. Life is hard. And we tend to not like those kinds of things that are hard. So we turn away from those. But what modern psychiatry has taught us is that if we're having a hard time, that's on us.

Katie Wrigley (12:20.18)
Yeah.

Katie Wrigley (12:34.698)
Right.

Dr. Fred (12:35.798)
If you're having a hard time, that's not on you. That's the way it is. Having a hard time is part of being a human. We don't blame a log for burning in the fire. We should be very careful of blaming ourselves for being hot inside of this environment. There's lots of reasons to be depressed. How long would it take me and you to come up with a hundred reasons to be depressed? Maybe five minutes? If we took a break halfway through.

Katie Wrigley (12:57.543)
Maybe five.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. my gosh, yeah.

Dr. Fred (13:03.096)
How about to be anxious? Like five minutes? How about afraid?

Katie Wrigley (13:09.791)
we could, evidence is there left and right all over the place.

Dr. Fred (13:10.722)
How about distracted?

Hundreds, hundreds and hundreds of reasons to have these things. It is not your fault for picking those out and actually experiencing those emotions. That doesn't make you have a chemical imbalance. Not at all. You want a chemical imbalance? Start taking psychiatric drugs. They will give you a chemical imbalance. Then, in fact, since those drugs are designed to create the symptoms they're marketed to treat, now you will have the condition that you thought you needed the medicine for in the first place as

the medications that you're taking that are now causing that exact condition.

Katie Wrigley (13:48.127)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Fred (13:48.952)
So when that occurs, it's a great business model, right? Like if you and I could have created a product that actually requires you to continue buying the product in order to use it, it's really phenomenal. If that's what it does, that would create billions of dollars in profit margin per day in actual profit margin. Do you get that there's no industry who can run around with billions of dollars of profit margin per day and be legitimate?

Katie Wrigley (14:01.013)
Yeah.

Katie Wrigley (14:08.083)
Mm-hmm.

Katie Wrigley (14:17.045)
I totally get that. That was a distinction I had to make in my head is I can go, wow, Big Pharma has a really great business model, ethics to the side, but I'm not including ethics. I'm not including morals.

Dr. Fred (14:24.907)
They do.

Dr. Fred (14:30.41)
Yeah, no ethics, morals, and even legality are issues here. but what we really have is look, we don't have to enter big pharma. That's where the really cool thing is. You know, big pharma, you can, there's no such thing as big pharma, by the way, like we're going to pick up the phone and call big pharma. There's no such thing as big pharma. They want us to sort of point to this nebulous thing called big pharma. There's not big pharma. It's not big pharma's problem. Not at all.

Katie Wrigley (14:47.493)
Good point. Good point.

Dr. Fred (14:59.192)
You know, we don't, we're not upset with the rat poison industry. You know, and if in fact, you know, we're not, it's like, okay, they kill, they create a killer, they create a killer product. Well, we're not upset with them because it's a benign item. You just don't eat rat poison if you can help it.

Katie Wrigley (15:19.002)
Right, right. Fairly easy to avoid.

Dr. Fred (15:20.43)
This is the same thing here. You don't have to enter the psychopharmacological industry. They just make you feel that when you come in to get confirmed that there's something wrong with you and then the professional on the other side says, order to undo that which is wrong with you, I'm gonna give you this medicine that you've never heard of or never thought of or never researched or, you know, and that you should take because if you wanna be a good patient, you wanna be my patient, that's what you're gonna do.

And then you end up going and taking this piece of paper to an actual store called a pharmacy and then buying that product and eating the item. That is not the item's fault. None of that is the item's fault. The item is just an item. So when I started really realizing this in like 2006, I did something that at the time was thought to be fairly radical, but even now I'm not sure how it got deemed radical. And that was, I I started taking some of my clients.

Katie Wrigley (16:00.616)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Fred (16:19.64)
some of my patients, had a couple thousand patients in my outpatient practice at the time. My, you'll say lower risk patients. I started taking them off of medicines altogether. And I know that sounds radical. Like it's funny that that's even radical, right? Like it should be considered radical for me serving them up toxins. That's radical. Taking them off toxins. How is that radical? But there it was. It was like, people, whoa. You know, it's like, well,

Katie Wrigley (16:38.474)
Right?

Dr. Fred (16:49.186)
They no longer need these things and these things are hurting them. So let me see what happens if I take them off. And sure enough, each and every person got way better, much, much, much better, reliably and predictably better to the point where most cases did not have any sign of the actual symptoms they thought they had that needed the medicine in the first place. So their diagnosis totally disappeared.

Katie Wrigley (17:08.863)
Wow. Wow.

Dr. Fred (17:10.274)
So when I got that, it was like, well, what do I do with this? I want to shake all my clinician friends. I want to shake all my parents of kids. I want to shake everybody that I'm taking, giving meds to like, stop doing this. If we want to really help people, this isn't how we do it. But that level of violence wasn't going to be received. Even if I screamed it from the top of the mountain. So I had to water it down a little bit and start asking, well, where do we look at here where I can calmly report what can be done to alter this trend?

And where we look at is back to what I said in the first line of this whole meeting, which is, you know, maybe there's nothing wrong with you in the first place. See, if you come in knowing there's something wrong with you, you're going to be eager to try to fix it. And if someone offers you a hammer to fix that nail, you're going to take it on. And once you take it on, now you actually have subsumed, have assumed a new level of chemical imbalance by definition.

Katie Wrigley (17:47.103)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Fred (18:09.602)
You took a chemical, now you're in balance. get it. Now you have it. But you didn't have it beforehand. You did not have a chemical imbalance. You were simply responding to the world as you were. And in some cases, leaving yourself in significant pain, misery, or discomfort. I understand. I've been in pain, misery, and discomfort many times already today. It's no big thing. In other words, it is a big thing. I hated it when I'm feeling it. I don't like it. It's a very uncomfortable experience.

Nevertheless, it's 100 % human. There has never been a human or a human population that declared that they figured out how to be not uncomfortable. That's never happened. And we're talking about sample size of several tens of billions of people. No one has ever declared that they figured out how to not be uncomfortable.

Katie Wrigley (18:50.324)
Right.

Dr. Fred (19:05.57)
very interesting. But now when we're uncomfortable, they just drop that. They, we, the whole society drops that there must be something wrong with me because I'm feeling so unpleasantly uncomfortable. But there actually is nothing wrong with me at that point at all. I'm just having trouble dealing with the fire, whatever that fire is, whether it's inside my head or whether it's in my relationship or in my community or in the world at large or in whatever I think is where the trouble is.

it stems from. And then in my effort to metabolize or incorporate that, I myself am acquiring a significant amount of discomfort. And I just assume find somebody tell me there's something wrong with me, by the way, because then I don't have to be responsible for what I'm doing about this. I can relinquish the responsibility of my own clumsiness, my own pain, my own discomfort, my own mannerisms, my own conversations. I can say, you know, honey, that wasn't me. That was my ADHD.

That wasn't me. That was my bipolar disorder. You know I have social anxiety. That wasn't me. That was my social anxiety. You know I'm on a spectrum. I'm on a spectrum. That's a new, people love that one these days. I'm on the spectrum and so is my kids. And you know, that wasn't me. That was that. But when we can say that wasn't me for the things we're doing that we're not proud of, we would, we are, you know, ready to line up to be able to do that.

If I can blame you for the troubles I've had this morning, and in fact, you are responsible for some of my troubles this morning, just to let you know. Cause while I was feeling lousy this morning, it was like, I have a 12 o'clock podcast. This is bothering me. Like, so I could blame you. You get that? Like, what are you doing setting this up on a day when I'm already uncomfortable in the morning?

Katie Wrigley (20:50.953)
dare I.

Dr. Fred (20:51.97)
How dare you? And if I can give that blame to you, there's a feeling of relief that comes from lifting that responsibility for being a fool or being a jerk or being un-present that I can then don't have to acquire for myself. I don't have to claim as my own. Now that's very, very, very attractive. So why do people wanna be diagnosed? Because of that.

Katie Wrigley (21:17.141)
Mm.

Dr. Fred (21:17.602)
Why do people want medication? Because they assume that that's the right thing to do. There's like an agreement reality that once you have a diagnosis, like the ones I just named or others PTSD or, you know, and narcissism, you know, whatever schizoaffective disorder or whatever you think you have, then you can go take a medicine. But what you don't know about that medicine is not only is it sort of like the mosquito bite on the elbow problem, it's also

designed frequently to increase, induce, perpetuate, or even cause the actual symptoms it's marketed to treat. That's substantial. That's a really worth noting. Like if I want to give somebody a panic attack, let's start them on some Xanax and pretty soon they'll have some panic attacks. I promise. If I want to make someone really depressed, let's start them on some Prozac. I'll have them depressed pretty soon.

Katie Wrigley (22:08.735)
Mm-hmm.

Katie Wrigley (22:13.578)
Yep.

Dr. Fred (22:16.438)
And they'll think that their condition got worse. You see, when you come in with already feeling lousy, maybe nervous because your mother-in-law is coming or nervous because, you know, you don't like the prospects of the next, of the next leader speech or something. Then, and then that same feeling is exacerbated after taking medicines.

all you will think is that your condition got worse and the medicines aren't strong enough. So at that point, you have three choices and doctors are totally willing to play that game with you. And that game is to increase, add or change your medicine.

You might notice that stopping your medicine in that case is not an option. You're worse. It would be unethical supposedly for me to stop your medicine if you're worse. We're already on the track. We're looking for medicine that works. If you got worse from my last medicine directly, by the way, then we're still looking for a stronger medicine or an increase in the dose or an adding of a medicine.

to look for. And when we do that, we're only perpetuating the problems and creating plenty of symptoms in other adjacent areas. In many cases, we call these things side effects when really they're just effects. That's just what this medicine does.

Katie Wrigley (23:47.125)
I'm loving everything you're saying, Dr. Fred, and I really love the passion that you're talking about. This quote from Christian Murti keeps going through my head, and you may be familiar with it, that it's no adjustment. is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a supremely unhealthy society. Yeah, some told me you know it. I figured you would. So what is a better way to do it than Dr. Fred?

Dr. Fred (23:49.592)
Thanks.

Dr. Fred (23:55.958)
I'm very committed to Yeah.

Dr. Fred (24:02.552)
Exactly. Yep, I use that quote frequently enough. Yep.

Dr. Fred (24:10.796)
Well, what we're talking about here is the method is really the honor or the gift that we have to humanly connect with another person. How do we do that? Well, we first got to connect with ourselves. mean, ultimately, you know, we've grown up in a world where we have learned how to be somebody else in order to protect the person that we really are. We have pretended to be somebody else. We have sat down when we should stand up. We have stayed quiet when we should talk. We have talked when we should stay quiet.

We have done all sorts of things to alter who our base person is in order to protect the person we really are. So if we're really going to take a look at this, that if we're going to be able to resonate with another human, we're going to have to show up closer to who we really are than we typically have become over time. Cause the crack in the cement got larger and larger over the years and we never went back to fix it. And this crack in the cement, could say, when did it get its start? It probably started before.

for elementary school, but certainly in elementary school, that's what you were told. Sit down, be quiet, listen to the teacher, regurgitate what he or she says. The closer you can do to copy them exactly as they gave you that information, we'll pass you with honors. And that's not a place for open discourse. Open discourse has to have an open discourse possibility, a playground that really invites open discourse.

And I say playground because maybe that did happen a little bit at recess or maybe that happened a little bit after school. But when you went to the place to get your basic education, you were really told to alter who your real self was and to sit down, be quiet and regurgitate things that you found no interest in. Hello. That's just education, right? We write that up and we continue to serve that up to our kids and we expect them to be able to manage that. They can't do it. We didn't do it. No one can do it. It's not possible.

So you do it, you end up creating a different persona than the one that's really living inside of you. And as the crack in the cement grows more and more, we end up being people that we're really not in order to protect the person we are. And we end up saying things we don't mean. And it's even gotten to the point, which I just think is the essence of absurdity, that we often say things that even we don't believe. That is just insane. Like, what is your justification for saying anything you don't believe?

Katie Wrigley (26:28.702)
Right.

Dr. Fred (26:29.438)
You really have a good reason for that? Because that's just absurd. mean, you're letting yourself be author of something that you already know when you're delivering it isn't what you mean. Like that's that's like the ultimate bummer. And, you know, speaking of Krishnamurti, there's another another quote that comes from, I think, Henry David Thoreau, which is the massive men go through life in quiet desperation and go to their graves with their songs still in them.

Katie Wrigley (26:55.434)
Mm.

Dr. Fred (26:55.532)
And that is the greatest tragedy that I know of mankind going through life without ever having anybody actually know you. Also we do, you see, we think that's okay. We have all developed ways of being inauthentic, know, ungenuine, not really leaning up against what we think or what we say or what we believe and no longer speaking it for fear that we'll be disruptive or dismissed or, you know, essentially thrown off the island, disrespected, et cetera.

Katie Wrigley (27:01.309)
Yeah.

Dr. Fred (27:24.384)
And if we get thrown out of a group, that's a bigger fear than anything else out there. So we end up saying stuff that we don't even believe in order to stay in the group. So if we're going to get a handle on that, we're going to have to kind of be able to throttle some of that down. We're to have to start being closer and closer to our real self. So authentic conversations with the people in our world is a good way to start that. In other words, telling people in your inner circle like you, that you love them or that you care about them or that you

stole 20 bucks from them three years ago, whatever you have to tell them, you tell them whatever that is and you start getting, wow, when I speak my real truth, I don't stutter. I don't have to remember what I said yesterday. I don't have to do anything. You see all this remembering what I said yesterday is like, well, did I tell this person some other fib? If I did, maybe someone they know probably already told them what I think about. my goodness. That's how we live life. We spend so much energy.

filtering out what it is that we can say to another person because we're afraid that they might actually see who we really are. Now the truth is, we're going to, or worse, exactly, if we're going to...

Katie Wrigley (28:24.255)
Mm-hmm.

Katie Wrigley (28:29.437)
or worse, as I say, we start buying into the lie and we actually start believing these things that we did not believe and get further away from who we are.

Dr. Fred (28:39.446)
Yeah, sure. Yeah, yeah, if he or she believes it, then it must be true. So I'm to believe that now too, even if I don't. And, and then it colors the way that we communicate with other people. So the first thing is, is to really come to grips with your true voice. And that's what Find Your True Voice book is really all about. It's a, it's a manual, if you will, a short, easy read that helps people find out where their real true voice is.

And then we start looking at my other book, which was written before that. And that's a book called creative eight, healing through creativity and self-expression. And what that book is about is really just helping you realize that there are many ways to communicate. When I say communicate, most people think I mean speech. And I, they really think that I mean talking. Well, even if I was talking about speech, actually communication is a two way street. have to talk, but you have to do something even more important than talk. And that is you have to listen. Right.

Katie Wrigley (29:32.991)
Listen.

Dr. Fred (29:35.442)
And so in the world of self-expression, there's talking and listening, but that's such a limited media. The world of speech is so limited because it's binary and linear in its construct. And we're talking about a multi-dimensional thing called life that we're trying to describe. And as soon as we send that beam of a sentence through that middle of that life, we are creating some sort of essence about us, about a certain little thread that's going on in this massive multi-dimensional life at the same time.

And it's not hard to see that when I say something, I'm generating it without rehearsal as it's going on. I'm picking my words as I, and my next word is coming at the same time that I'm speaking. And I think that I'm saying something authentic and you have to own the fact that you're thinking that what I'm saying is a directly an essential aspect of who I am, that I wouldn't have said that if I didn't mean it and all of that kind of thing.

And then it has to go through the airwaves all the way to you and your ears and all the stuff that you're dealing with in your life and any given moment, including any kind of daydreaming or different separate thoughts that you had about this or that or your culture or your upbringing. And you then have to translate what I said in a way that is in any way near accurate to what it is I thought I was saying. All of that, by the way, took a nanosecond.

And that's what we call pure communication. It's not where communication lies. There are multiple ways to self express and there are multiple ways to be creative. And I think creativity is just other forms. Other will say alternative, but sometimes more robust, more honest and more accurate forms of, of, self expression, which include I'm looking out in my porch right now and all three of my cats are lounging on the porch. It's like completely awesome. They are.

Katie Wrigley (31:21.684)
love it.

Dr. Fred (31:22.254)
So they are like, what would a cat do is often my next line. Like when I don't know what to do next, I'm like, what would a cat do? Like these guys, all three of them are out there enjoying the sun and they're just fantastic. Incredible. So.

Katie Wrigley (31:37.397)
because my cat was headbutting me earlier and I was thinking we should all be more like cats like because they're like aww hi baby

Dr. Fred (31:40.486)
Your cat, your cat. You see that? That's like your cat. This guy here, that's Winston. He's like, he looks a little bit like yours.

Katie Wrigley (31:50.141)
Yeah, is right over here to the side. And I was just thinking earlier, I'm like, I wish humans are more like cats because they have no shame about asking for whatever way they want, when they want it. Like you are going to love me now. Now, I don't care what you're doing. You're going to love me right now. I want it. And you do.

Dr. Fred (32:01.006)
Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Well, what would a cat do is actually a really great line. You know, there's all the what would blank do, ways of being, or the thesis or something like that. But really, in the end, you know, the way cats handle their life, my cats have been homeschooling me my whole life. And, you know, they're, they're, the idea here is that they, they really get a way of living that, you know, they, they can rest easy all day long, even if they just had a little

Katie Wrigley (32:14.673)
I do.

Katie Wrigley (32:22.879)
Thank

Dr. Fred (32:36.168)
snit with one of their buddies. It's no problem. They go to the top of their cat tree and turn over into a ball and sleep for the next four hours. You know, they have some skill sets that we can certainly benefit from. You know, in this world, we're so fractured right now. You know, we're letting our belief systems or what we think we believe separate us from our loved ones. And it's really, really tragic.

Katie Wrigley (32:45.493)
Yes.

Katie Wrigley (33:02.897)
It is. is. So what about creativity helps people come together, helps with some of these, I'm going to use air quotes because I don't really have the language to speak to it properly, these mental health issues, quote unquote, that people are dealing with? What is creativity going to do to help someone?

Dr. Fred (33:20.27)
Yeah. So the creative aid identifies eight different ways of being creative. And since sender has been some add-ons, uh, just for people who read the book and had ideas. And I just haven't rewritten the book to the creative 11 or creative 12. Um, so there's art, music, dancing, singing, drama, cooking, writing, and gardening. These are your basic, um, eight ways to express ourselves and create. And so when we do those things, I noticed that all the symptoms, all this pain, all the suffering, all the misery, all the, you know, the

problems and discomfort that we were talking about earlier actually disappears when I'm in the act of creation. So if that's true that they actually disappear when I'm done with the act of creation, I now have to then make a decision to go back to get my misery.

Katie Wrigley (34:06.357)
That's a good point. That's a very good point.

Dr. Fred (34:10.818)
Like, I don't have to go back to get my misery. It's not waiting for me to finish my art piece.

Katie Wrigley (34:16.261)
Nope, nope, can just leave it in the past if you don't want to go back to it.

Dr. Fred (34:19.086)
There it goes. So that's a real, very real possibility. And when I do those self-expression, which, know, cleaning and photography were the add-ons as well as poetry. Those are three of the add-ons afterwards. The possibility here is that, you know, and the highest level one in that book, you know, just kind of like...

spoiler alert, the highest one on that is called being of service or helping anybody do anything. So if none of the other stuff works and all you want to do now is just like feel better, go help anybody do anything, you'll feel better instantly, I promise. So when we get to that level, that's what happens is that we form the possibility of connecting with someone and getting what we have to say heard or hearing what someone else has to say with a broader

Katie Wrigley (34:52.681)
Mm-hmm.

Katie Wrigley (35:00.271)
Absolutely.

Dr. Fred (35:14.734)
expression or a broader definition of what heard means. Like I'm not just saying heard what your ears do when I'm speaking. I'm now saying heard what happens to you when you look at a Van Gogh or you look at a, you know, Dali, what happens to you when you listen to Mozart? What happens to you when you listen to Led Zeppelin? What happens to you? What, what's really there in those conversations? And it can be, you know, it doesn't have to be, um, uh, Dali and Mozart. It can be anybody. It can be you.

Like it can be you, can be your daughter, it can be your friend. know, if you want to be involved in art, we've been told so long again, pointing a finger a little bit at our conventional education, we've gotten red checks before for doing art wrong. What the hell are you talking about?

Katie Wrigley (35:59.859)
Right, there is no wrong way to do art.

Dr. Fred (36:01.802)
What do you even, how did I get a red check ever doing art? Or not singing right? Or not dancing right? What the hell are you talking about? Like how did we, how did that get served up to us? And then how did we buy it such to the point that most adults at this time say, I'm not an artist. Cause they've been told they're not an artist, but they're absolutely an artist because it takes remarkable amount of creativity to get through the next second of life.

Katie Wrigley (36:30.377)
Yeah.

Dr. Fred (36:32.747)
You have to handle so many things to get through the next second of life. No matter who you are, wherever you're living and whatever your circumstances are, you're an artist. I promise you, you're doing this stuff, you're an artist.

Katie Wrigley (36:45.557)
Absolutely, especially if you're not living by what you've been quote-unquote told you should do. If you're actually living from your heart and doing things that you enjoy, you are definitely an artist.

Dr. Fred (36:51.63)
Yeah, a hundred

Dr. Fred (36:56.014)
100%. 100%. Yeah.

Katie Wrigley (36:59.943)
So there was another point I wanted to touch on before we wrap and you tell her Betty where we can find you and then make sure all this is in the show notes as well. But there is still this huge stigma talking about mental health and saying, hey, I don't feel right right now. Like I've just gone through a traumatic event. Maybe I'm a police officer that had to be involved in an officer involved shooting. Maybe there's been something else. Maybe I had to watch a kid that looks like my kid get

carried away in a gurney and I don't know if that child's gonna survive or not. And despite the fact that these are things that we are not equipped to deal with without a high level of discomfort, there is still so much stigma around saying like, hey, like I don't feel right right now. So how do we start to break through that Dr. Fred because this, you know, all the time the suicide rate keeps going up and it's killing me to watch.

Dr. Fred (37:48.536)
Well, yeah, I think.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, those people should stop taking their medicines.

Katie Wrigley (37:58.9)
Yes.

Dr. Fred (38:00.974)
And stigma is created by the industry itself, by the way, this industry pretends to want to take away stigma, but stigma is created by the industry because it makes, it makes talking to each other about this, not very possible. All of a sudden there's big old boundaries and blockades that are in the way of talking about either ourselves or somebody else, because we're afraid that we're going to be labeled sick enough that they're going to take us in a white coat down to the, to the psychiatric hospital, which by the way, is the last place you want to be placed. No question. Now.

Katie Wrigley (38:28.298)
yeah.

Dr. Fred (38:30.508)
The only place that's similar to a psychiatric hospital is a prison. And I've worked in both those places extensively and they're remarkably similar. I mean, it really is. And being clinician in a prison is very similar to being a clinician inside an inpatient psychiatric facility. you know, these are, we become so afraid that the, that we will be misunderstood if we speak our truth such that someone will think we're crazy enough that we will be hauled away.

That's where the stigma comes in. We're not free to speak our real truth. The truth is, this shit is hard. It's hard to be a human. Congratulations, and I'm sorry for you getting this far.

Katie Wrigley (39:03.401)
Right.

Dr. Fred (39:19.158)
It's hard. It's difficult to be a human. It's difficult to juggle all the many things that we have to do just to live a full day. Now, if we're going to speak to that truth and the anxiety of what might happen that I might screw up down the road or this and that could happen, or this could happen to the economy, or this could happen to the government, or this could happen to our environment. It's like, okay, you're right. Or this could happen to me. I get it. That could happen. And it's really anxiety provoking to consider that any of those things actually really could happen. For real.

Katie Wrigley (39:48.244)
Right.

Dr. Fred (39:48.554)
Or that I'm really depressed and regretful for things that have happened in the past that I didn't do right or I didn't foresee or I didn't prepare for, I didn't manage myself as optimally as I now can being a Monday morning quarterback. Those are the ideologies, by the way, of anxiety and depression right there. And if we start, which are supposedly the two major psychiatric conditions in the world, it's like, dude,

Those aren't psychiatric conditions. Let's just be honest. But if we're ordered, if we're going to be, I get to say that pretty out loud and pretty importantly, because I've been gifted or cursed with having this MD psychiatry label for the last 36 years of my life. So what I say is actually holding some water. It's very interesting. I mean, if I would have said this and I would have been a plumber my whole life, people, I've, no one would even care what I have to say.

But because I'm a psychiatrist and because I've danced in this field and had, you know, somewhere between 30 and 40,000 patients call me their doctor, because I've written for 100,000 more prescriptions than any, probably the general public has written none of that, you know, because I've seen people from all walks of life, all over the country and all over the world. And, you know, people who think that they might be sick or like people come dancing into my office to tell me that they're psychiatrically ill. And then I'm, I'm left with like disappointing them by telling them that they're not.

or agreeing with them and giving them something that's going to make them ill. That's my two choices.

Like this is shitty job. This is a tough job and I have quit this job four times in the last 36 years. Like quit, I'm, no, I'm not gonna do that. And not only that, here's the keys, I'm out of here. Like I've done that four times.

Katie Wrigley (41:37.737)
Want me to go back?

Dr. Fred (41:37.926)
You know, not a two week notice, not a four week notice, not an eight week notice. No, no, no. No, I can't do what you just asked me to do. And in fact, I can't do this job anymore. got to go because my soul's being sacrificed. And what is the price of a soul sacrifice?

Katie Wrigley (41:50.805)
Yeah.

Ugh. It's everything. It's everything. It's your... I can't even put it into words. You don't want to sacrifice your soul.

Dr. Fred (41:57.613)
everything.

Dr. Fred (42:03.896)
Yeah, it's your essence. perfect. It's all it's really all we have. So in order for me to do this, in order for me to even still be here and to declare myself a psychiatrist, you know, I do work in a corporate environment right now, there is a company that was able to hire me a year and a half ago, and they allow me to play with my elbows out, maybe not my wings spread. That's what I like to say. They allow them, they know what I'm doing, and they appreciate me. But they don't want me to really do everything that I'm doing, you know, they

Katie Wrigley (42:09.417)
Yeah.

Katie Wrigley (42:25.444)
You

Dr. Fred (42:33.74)
I still have to diagnose everybody who comes in because actually if you go to a psychiatrist and you don't get diagnosed, they won't get paid.

Katie Wrigley (42:40.638)
Right.

Dr. Fred (42:41.698)
There's no such thing as a well baby inside of psychiatry. You don't get to tell the insurance company there was nothing wrong with the patient you just saw. They will not get paid.

Katie Wrigley (42:53.524)
Yep.

Dr. Fred (42:55.342)
So the incentive to die, if you go to a barber shop enough times, which by the way, I'm going to later today, and I could be mad at them for screwing up my morning too, by the way, because they're at three o'clock, is you go to a barber shop enough times, you get a haircut. That's the way that goes. You go to a psychiatrist enough time, you're gonna walk away with some diagnosis. People come in, I got seven different diagnoses. was like, oh, you've seen seven psychiatrists? Yes. Okay, how did I know? Because it's obvious.

Katie Wrigley (43:23.988)
Yep.

Dr. Fred (43:24.878)
They all want to put their mark on you. They all want to say, no, that's not bipolar. That's ADD. No, that's not ADD. That's narcissism. No, that's not narcissism. That's social phobia. No, that's not social phobia. That's generalized anxiety disorder. No, that's not that general anxiety. That's, you know, major depression. No, that's not major depression. That's, and then the story goes on and on and on and on. And these diagnoses frequently got created after the treatments just to add more insult to injury.

So the pill would be formed and then they'd find out what condition fits the need for that pill. It's like just insane. Look, just pull back the curtain on this nonsense. Let's go. I love you, it's fine. I don't even care what you think about that, that or that. Wouldn't that be great if I didn't give a hoot about what you thought about that, that or that? But in reality, what's really happening in the world is that people are actually simmering their connections.

Katie Wrigley (43:57.749)
Ugh.

Dr. Fred (44:18.882)
because someone they used to know or used to love or used to care for now thinks this about that and therefore you're going to disregard them as a human. What the hell are you doing?

Katie Wrigley (44:30.077)
I know, I know. It's horrible to see how much we're getting disconnected and how much we're letting these outside forces drive us apart.

Dr. Fred (44:38.798)
100%.

Katie Wrigley (44:41.129)
Yeah, we could talk for hours. And I love everything that you're talking about in your messaging. Where can people find you, Dr. Fred?

Dr. Fred (44:49.262)
Well, there's a couple of places, you know, I have this new site that I'm pretty excited about. It's on Mighty Networks. And I think if you look up Mighty Networks, Welcome to Humanity, you'll find the site. That's a cool place for me and a community that I'm building. And it has about 50 members right now, but we're looking to create a thousand members in there where this kind of discussions can be free flowing. I really like Mighty Networks and that's a cool site. My main website is called, uh, welcome to humanity.net and, um, don't forget the.net. and.

that's a very cool website that, kept pretty much up to speed with all my podcasts and all my writings and, all my offers and my, you know, free creations and things like that and keynote speaking and books, et cetera. so, and you can get, a discovery call with me. If there's something here that resonates or you're curious, they can call and do that. And then a more, concise version of that exists at, drfred360.com.

Tom, which sends you to essentially it's a more slick way of compartmentalizing everything that's unwelcome to humanity. And then I buzz around social media. I'm embarrassed to say, although I did just delete my Facebook. Have you ever known anybody who deleted their Facebook? It's kind of awesome.

Katie Wrigley (46:07.677)
I'm about to. I'm about to delete my Instagram, my TikTok, and my Facebook because it's not doing anything to yield the business and all every time I go in there, my heart breaks a little bit more because there's so much anger. can't do it anymore. I won't do it to myself anymore.

Dr. Fred (46:11.628)
Yeah.

Dr. Fred (46:19.63)
So, you know, with Facebook, it's a little bit tricky. And I think that any of the meta, I think Facebook and Insta probably have a similar issue, which is, you know, you let them know that you're deleting, they warn you, you don't want to delete it, you want to deactivate it. So you can always reactivate it by the push of a button. I'm like, no, dude, I don't want to reactivate it ever. So I want it, I want it to be gone. And my 5,000 friends, sorry about it. But it's true. It hasn't really resulted in any real conversations or a real business or

moving the needle forward in any real way and it makes me miserable every single day that I'm addicted to it and I read it for an hour or two instead of doing something important. It's like it's such crap. So I do buzz around on social media and you can find me probably the only site that I think is somehow still worth buzzing around is LinkedIn. So I do hang on LinkedIn a little bit and I you can get access to me that way or

Katie Wrigley (46:57.343)
Yep.

Dr. Fred (47:15.534)
through the discovery call that you can get on DrFred360.com or on WelcomeToHumanity.net.

Katie Wrigley (47:23.271)
Awesome, thank you for that. And just want to ask, what would you want to say as parting words to that person who's just about to go to the doctor to figure out what's quote unquote wrong with them? What would you say to that person right now, Dr. Fred?

Dr. Fred (47:36.224)
I want you to consider one thing that's what I would say to them. One thing is there may be nothing wrong with you. It's just really important to get that. It's really important that even though you feel lousy, there might be nothing wrong with you.

Katie Wrigley (47:41.269)
I love that.

Katie Wrigley (47:49.256)
Yep. Yeah, there is a client that I'm about to work with that had a very, very severe situation, huge grief, shock, trauma, all that. And when I talked to them, like she's bawling her eyes out. I'm like, you know what? Like, I know you feel terrible right now. And I would be a hell of a lot more worried about you if you felt good. You are having a normal human reaction to a horrific event.

Dr. Fred (48:11.15)
100%.

Katie Wrigley (48:17.139)
and I'm right here with you.

Dr. Fred (48:19.128)
That's great. love that. all of it. That's where healing is going to take place, by the way. It's not going to take place inside of a post-traumatic stress disorder diagnosis or some antidepressant or anti, I don't know, mood stabilizing medication. That's not going to do it. It's just not going to do it. And if you want to do, if you want to help your clients, the only way that really, that everything has to start from is at least considering the capacity of the strength and potency.

Katie Wrigley (48:24.991)
Thank you.

Dr. Fred (48:47.99)
of creating a resonating harmonic human connection with that human being right over there. Yeah.

Katie Wrigley (48:52.405)
Mm-hmm. Absolutely. Yeah, that's where the healing takes place. And that was when my healing first began. I was put on every psychotropic family under the sun, and it wasn't until I started to work with a coach who saw me, really saw me for the first time, that I started to heal.

Dr. Fred (48:57.166)
Good luck.

Dr. Fred (49:10.75)
Exactly. then, you know, so my work has morphed as well, you know, in order for me to be a coach.

Dr. Fred (49:20.212)
as a doctor.

I'm actually restricted from saying things in public.

Katie Wrigley (49:27.093)
What?

Dr. Fred (49:30.124)
Yeah, because otherwise I can like, if I say something to somebody in another state that sounds like a doctor, then I'm giving them medical advice without a license of being in their state. As a coach, I can say whatever the hell I want. Well, I just reduce myself to a coach or I, or I maybe promote myself to a coach. And now I'm a coach for anybody everywhere. I'm a transformational restorative coach. That's what I can do. But when you hire me, I have zero chance of medicating you.

Katie Wrigley (49:43.591)
Kind of like that about coaching I gotta say.

Dr. Fred (49:59.67)
and then zero chance of hospitalizing you because I am not your doctor. I am just another human being that you can have great conversations.

Katie Wrigley (50:08.153)
Nice, I love that. As a wonderful note to end on, thank you so much for your time today, Dr. Fred, and thank you for the messaging you are putting out there into the world. It is so, so important that people hear this. Thank you.

Dr. Fred (50:14.702)
course.

Dr. Fred (50:20.652)
I appreciate you. Thank you, Katie. I appreciate it very much. Thanks for having me.

Katie Wrigley (50:24.281)
And thank you to the listener for being with us today. I know you have your lot of choices of what you listen to on the internet and I love that you chose to listen to this show where you can take these things into your life and help improve your quality of life and make your human experience a little bit easier on yourself. And until next week, please be well.