Nutrition is the Revolution of Therapy: Josh Friedman, Psychologist

Discover the evolving landscape of mental health with us on the Gaslit Truth Podcast as we sit down with Dr. Josh Friedman, a pioneer in nutritional psychology. Dr. Josh's journey from traditional mental health treatment to embracing holistic and nutritional approaches offers profound insights into the biochemical and nutritional foundations of psychological well-being. He shares how his diverse background in psychoanalysis, yoga, and holistic health informs his unique approach, while also touching on the challenges he's faced, including an intriguing Facebook ban during the COVID-19 pandemic for discussing alternative health perspectives. 

In this eye-opening episode, we address a critical issue: the relentless pursuit of credentials in the mental health field, and the often-overlooked importance of hands-on work with individuals. Our discussion highlights the skepticism and eventual acceptance of innovative therapies, like amino acid therapy, and notes a shift toward integrative medicine, as evidenced by the rising number of therapists embracing more holistic views. We also delve into the stagnation within psychiatry despite the introduction of new treatments, emphasizing the need for comprehensive medical evaluations and the effectiveness of simple, foundational health practices.

Finally, we share our inspiring experiences from a recent conference that connected us with influential figures like Christina Veselak and Hila Cass. These encounters reinforced the importance of following one's path and trusting in one's capabilities. We challenge the notion of "treatment resistance," suggesting that it often indicates a need for new tools. By sharing personal triumphs and the fulfillment of making a difference, we hope to inspire mental health professionals to embrace their unique approaches, fostering a supportive community for future practitioners.

The Gaslit Truth Podcast will be live and in person at the Feed the Recovering Brain Conference in Dublin, Ohio

Join us with the top names in brain health, including Christina Veselak, Hyla Cass, and Julia Ross, author of The Mood Cure.

We’ll be bringing you interviews and behind-the-scenes content as we explore how nutrition transforms mental wellness.

Chapters

• 0:23 The Evolution of Mental Health Care
• 16:49 The Paradigm Shift in Mental Health
• 30:28 The Paradigm of Mental Health
• 43:35 The Return to Simple Health Solutions
• 49:54 Empowering Mental Health Professionals

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:24

Just because someone can't help you doesn't mean that you can't be helped. We are your whistleblowing shrinks, Dr Tara Lynn and therapist Jen, and this is the Gaslit Truth Podcast. Today we have a special guest and colleague, Dr Josh Friedman.

Speaker 2: 0:52

There he is. That did not work out. There he is. What? There he is. Put him in the middle. All right, we've got Dr Josh here.

Speaker 2: 0:55

Dr Josh Friedman. He earned his doctorate in psychology from New York University, did postdoctoral training in psychoanalysis from the Training and Research Institute for Self-Psychology in New York City, and, after working in the field for a few years, he realized something was missing from traditional mental health treatment. Curiosity and a chance meeting led him to discover the world of nutritional psychology, which teaches that many psychological issues are caused or made worse by the underlying biochemical nutritional deficiencies. And along the way, he became certified as a yoga teacher, incorporating emphasis on breathing techniques, meditation and movement into his work as essential tools for working with mental health at the deepest levels and to enhance his effectiveness in helping people heal and grow. He became certified as a holistic health counselor at the Institute for Integrative Nutrition in New York and went on to earn a diploma of comprehensive nutrition from Huntington College of Health Sciences.

Speaker 2: 1:58

Dr Josh has been oh, he has been lead, led to go deeper. I don't know if I'm reading this right. I think there might be a typing error. I'm going to read exactly what the words say he has been lead to go deeper. You have been lead to go deeper Josh, just so you know, into the biochemistry of mental health and he has become a functional diagnostic nurse practitioner, a certified functional medicine practitioner and studying with mental health nutrition greatss such as the Julia Ross, dr Charles Grant and Dr William Walsh. And, of course, dr Josh started the Alternative Mental Health Solution. Of course Helps people find and fix root cause of mental health struggles. That is a lot. That's a mouthful. That's a lot.

Speaker 1: 2:42

Woo, that is a lot.

Speaker 2: 2:45

I've had my head in a book for the last like 40 years Years, yes, you know what, even if there is a grammatical error in this, it don't matter, because there is so much clout on what I just read, you don't? It doesn't matter.

Speaker 1: 2:59

It doesn't matter.

Speaker 3: 3:00

Oh my gosh. Welcome to the show. Thank you so much for having me, yes, so I just.

Speaker 1: 3:06

Josh and I have been Facebook friends for a long time, and then we weren't, and then we were again, and then I finally got to meet him in person at the IMMH conference a few weeks ago, which I was so incredibly happy to not just meet you, but to listen to you speak there too, because your message is very clear to other mental health professionals and we are going to talk about that today.

Speaker 3: 3:33

Yeah, it was great to meet you there too. So, by the way, this is about gaslighting. So we fell off on Facebook because I got kicked off of Facebook during COVID. Fell off on Facebook because I got kicked off of Facebook during COVID for speaking about vaccines. I got kicked off for about four months so I had to rebuild for speech.

Speaker 1: 3:59

That is so fascinating.

Speaker 3: 4:01

Okay, I was shocked that that happened. There was a there, uh, that that was, and I was shocked that that happened. And I knew it was happening to like people with big, like much bigger names, but like it was happening to us little guys out there that were just like trying to share information ask and ask like questions about medical treatments that we weren't quite sure about.

Speaker 1: 4:23

Interesting. Maybe you are bigger than you think you are.

Speaker 2: 4:26

I was just going to say that, pretty sure what I just read Me and RFK. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 4:35

For sure. Well, that is very interesting because when Jen and I were looking for guests, I had said you know, I know Josh Friedman, I'm going to ask him. And then I went on Facebook and I'm like he unfriended me. So I got that from all these people.

Speaker 3: 4:53

People were like did I do something wrong?

Speaker 1: 4:56

Oh interesting.

Speaker 3: 4:57

Did you defriend me so I had to have all these conversations?

Speaker 2: 5:01

See, so all right, Now, Terry, you can take back all the shitty things you said about Josh. See, so all right, now, Terry, you can take back all the shitty things you said about Josh. You can take them back now, it's okay, sorry, anyway.

Speaker 3: 5:11

No.

Speaker 1: 5:12

Yes, I am so glad that you are here and I would like to get the conversation started with you. Were, it's seemingly in traditional mental health care for a while and you mentioned in your story you had some pivotal moments. So I'd like to kind of go back to your traditional care and how you evolved.

Speaker 3: 5:35

Yeah, so I trained in New York just as a sort of psychoanalytically oriented psychotherapist. I went to NYU as a sort of psychoanalytically oriented psychotherapist. I went to NYU and my wife at the time we're now divorced but she was having some hormonal problems so she ended up going to see someone that called himself a biochemical nutritionist and this was like pre-functional medicine. I'd never heard the term functional medicine and I thought what she was doing was kind of kooky. And he put her on what I now know to be like a paleo diet. He started giving her bioidentical hormones about him and his work and so we started sort of being friends with him.

Speaker 3: 6:28

And at the time I was working at a eating disorder center big eating disorder center in New York called the Renfrew Center and he said do you know? He said to me in talking, he said just chatting he said do you know why your patients don't get better on Prozac? So Prozac could just sort of hit the market and it was like the sort of go-to treatment for anorexia. And I was like, well, I think they're very psychologically ill and it's an entrenched disorder. And he said they don't get better because they don't have enough protein in their diets. And I was like, okay, what does that mean? And so then he educated me about amino acids and that proteins broken down into amino acids, amino acids become the neurotransmitters. And if you don't have enough protein and you don't have enough zinc, you're not gonna make the neurotransmitters like serotonin. If you don't have enough zinc, you're not going to make the neurotransmitters like serotonin. If you don't have enough serotonin, prozac's not going to help. And so that was like it was like a lights on moment for me and I all of a sudden realized everything, just that one little tidbit. I realized all the things I had never learned in grad school. I realized I had spent so much time learning all these amazing theories and I was a really dedicated student, but I realized no one had ever mentioned food to me in seven years of grad school. So I was really excited that I was like, oh, this is amazing.

Speaker 3: 8:05

And I worked. We worked on multidisciplinary IOP programs and day treatment programs the best eating disorder treatment available. At the time. Eating disorder treatment was pretty new and I was like I met this guy and he told me the story and we have to have him come to talk to our patients. We have to have him come to talk to the staff and no one was interested. And I was like, wait, didn't you hear me? I just said that this guy knows why our patients are not getting better. And they were like, and there were psychiatrists in the room and there were dieticians and there were therapists and there were dance therapists and art therapists and there were yoga teachers. There were amazing, it was an amazing place, but no one was interested. And so for me, for me that was like the first moment I got that that we were the field wasn't addressing the whole picture. And so there was a school, there was a school in New York called have you guys heard the school? The Institute for Integrative Nutrition.

Speaker 1: 9:11

Yes, I have.

Speaker 3: 9:12

Yes, it was this like amazing place and I went before they went online. I went before, kind of before the internet, where there were 3000 students in the room.

Speaker 2: 9:22

Back in the day of the wheel, there was a wheel. That was the wheel.

Speaker 3: 9:25

Now, that was the wheel like primary nutrition, secondary nutrition and so and so, uh, I saw mark hyman there. Yes, I saw like, and he was new. No, like, he was like like just like forming functional medicine. I saw like Neil Bernard, like all these people that became like huge and I was like, oh, these are my people.

Speaker 3: 9:52

And then I started bringing all this information to my friends and colleagues and they were like, what the fuck are you doing? Why are you studying this? How is this relevant to our work? I brought it to my psychoanalytic colleagues and they were like, no, we don't talk about nutrition, we analyze. And I realized like, oh, I'm not one of them anymore, and that didn't mean I wasn't going to be a therapist, and it didn't mean, but it meant I was going to and I didn't know where I was going. I had no idea. And so the same biochemical nutritionist, he told me to read. He was like you need to read the mood cure, which is Julia Ross's book. I read the mood cure in like two days. I called Julia Ross. I said, hey, julia, can you help me, can you? And she was pretty eager and so I went out to a training that she was doing in California.

Speaker 3: 10:46

That was probably about 20 years ago, and then I just started using amino acids with people, and then she would supervise me. And then, like, bird by bird, I started trying to figure out, like, oh, blood sugar, oh, like, and there was no, like there was no courses, there was. You know, the internet wasn't really starting. I didn't know where to look, so I would just like stumble upon something and I'd read, I'd go to like the strand bookstore and read a book, and then, but it was like so meandering, but so that that that was the time. I was like, okay, this, this is something.

Speaker 3: 11:25

And then, years later, I found IMMH. I actually, I actually my, I had a daughter and she was chronically ill and she lived in the hospital for about a year and then she needed, she needed to have a small intestine transplant. And so I moved from New York City to Omaha, nebraska, and just by chance, dr William Shaw, who created IMMH, was in Kansas and so I got word that he was starting to do like workshops. This is like 10 years, five years before um, before IMMH started. So I would go down there and sit amongst like a bunch of doctors, and I don't know if you went, terrilyn, if you saw Dr Walsh, dr Shaw speak at all. He was, he gave. The guy is like the guy is a complete brainiac, like complete, he's a genius.

Speaker 1: 12:32

So we feel like everybody there was a brainiac, but anyway he's a brainiac amongst brainiacs.

Speaker 3: 12:37

And like I was like, oh my God, like what's this guy saying? I know, I know, intuitively, it's important, important, but I understand none of what he's saying. Because I, because I, I failed out of freshman biology in college. Like I was like, oh, I'm a failure, I'm a failed person I thought I'd go to medical school.

Speaker 2: 12:57

Yeah and I was like up, you failed biology everyone's like I failed psych 101. I had to take it twice. I'm like shit, I can't be a therapist.

Speaker 3: 13:06

Oh, I'm totally. Yeah, it's amazing to me now because I had terrible learning disabilities when I was a kid and so like to be on any to like do any of this is sort of funny to me. It's like, it's like ridiculous and and it's just like OK, I guess I'll just go on their podcast, so that's sort of. That's sort of how I started and I didn't. I was very unintentional about it, I just like and I just followed my.

Speaker 3: 13:40

There's a Joseph Campbell has a line like this idea of following following your bliss, and like I've never needed to do this.

Speaker 3: 13:48

I've always like had the like my psychotherapy practice and so I would just take money. I would just like take whatever money I had and go learn something and I just I think really I just never stopped because I've been insanely interested in it and my life has been a series of like periods where I was like about 10 years where I've been really interested in something. So I want to be a photographer. So I was like very passionate and not very good at it, like I was pretty good but not great, but I was like very enthusiastic. And so with this stuff I'm sort of the same way, like I'm very enthusiastic and I just keep showing up and when you keep and like that's how you do, I said I realized like you do things by showing up, earnestly, having an open heart, and like just learning what you can learn and the thing I've learned as I've gotten older like doing things before you're ready and also like you don't have to be perfect to do to like help people and the more real you are the kind of, the better.

Speaker 1: 14:59

So yeah, because I think so many therapists, psychologists, whatever, get caught up in the idea that we do have to know everything in order to give knowledge out right, like Jen's pointing out, I say this to her all the time and she's like, will you stop it, like you're enough of an expert Go.

Speaker 2: 16:17

Just go with it and I'm like but I'm not, I got to read another book, I gotta if I gotta get more research, I gotta meet more people. I can't deprescribe people. I need this and I need this.

Speaker 3: 16:27

And she's like no, no, I taught you amino acids go yeah, I stayed on the sidelines a long time and I had the illusion I've always had the illusion that people know more than I know. So what? Why should I be helping anyone? Yeah, because everyone knows more than me and I'm like. My basic assumption about myself is I don't know and so I don't know. If you ever saw Garden State the movie when the guy goes into the neurologist's office and he has all the diplomas on his wall and then you look up and there's all the diplomas on the ceiling. So I've always thought, if I have another piece of paper like if you saw my office.

Speaker 1: 17:06

Oh my God, the affliction. I have the same affliction, yes.

Speaker 3: 17:11

And it's like with. It's like guys are like this idea, the illusion that that the next piece of paper is going to be the one that's going to make you feel worthy enough, smart enough, like skilled enough to go and do it, and really, the only thing, like all of us are at the place where there are people to help. And the truth is we're like people on the ground, like we're people working with people every day that are desperate and suffering. The people that write the books. You can't like refer someone to Mark Hyman unless they're like a famous person or something.

Speaker 2: 17:47

Such a good point.

Speaker 3: 17:54

Yeah, and I think we all fall into this, like I, my, I have friends in LA and New York and I'm like oh, you can probably find someone super easy that does amino acid therapy and you, you actually there are people, but it's not like there's a million people, it's not like there's like a small number of people that are stupid or brave enough to do what we've done, which is to like why. My father is very practical. He grew up poor, he became dentist, he worked as a dentist. He's like why don't you just do your work? Why do you need to go spend $10,000 and learn neurofeedback or whatever? He can't understand, one he doesn't realize. It's a pathology sort of.

Speaker 2: 18:38

I was just going to say there's a whole pathology to this. Let's be honest, listen.

Speaker 1: 18:43

I prefer the word affliction. It's an affliction, yes.

Speaker 3: 18:49

Oh boy.

Speaker 1: 18:50

What do you think so? Did you get pushback from other people in your field and tell us about that?

Speaker 3: 18:58

Yeah, other people in your field and tell us about that. Yeah, so so, uh, I got my wife my wife is a yoga teacher.

Speaker 1: 19:07

Um, and she's going to be on the show. Yeah, she is.

Speaker 3: 19:10

Oh, I heard she's going to be on the show. She's amazing. She just wrote a book. She worked in the Dean Ornish program for reversing heart disease without drugs and surgery. She's a really good big public public speed speaker. So when we got together she encouraged me, kicked me in the ass to start speaking publicly and I was like I don't know, I don't know, I'm little, I think you can't do it. And she's like you know enough, you don't have to know everything. Go and give a talk on lifestyle medicine, Go give a talk on amino acids.

Speaker 3: 19:43

So I started giving public talks about 15 years ago. I mean nothing like IMMH, just like at the yoga center where we work for our professional therapist organization in Omaha, Nebraska, to nurse practitioners and everything. People would literally 15 years ago people would. I would be giving talks about tryptophan and 5-HTP to raise serotonin and zinc levels, being connected to hydrochloric acid, like and proteins and blood sugar and like the same stuff I talk about now. And on more than one occasion people stood up in the back. People left. First of all, these are colleagues, some of them psychotherapy colleagues, some of the medical people nurse practitioners, physicians. On more than one occasion people stood up and screamed you're lying, oh really, I wasn't expecting that.

Speaker 3: 20:43

I wasn't expecting that, yeah, and this was about 15 years ago and this information, none of this information was new 15 years ago really.

Speaker 1: 20:53

Yeah, like this information.

Speaker 3: 20:55

The orthomolecular psychiatrists were talking about this stuff in the 50s. You know some of these. You know the amino acid work was in the 60s, 70s I think, so 15 years ago, josh, do you think it's because you were saying there was a lot of colleagues?

Speaker 2: 21:12

Do you think it's because our professions are so siloed in what we are allowed to learn and use?

Speaker 3: 21:22

Yeah, but I think this nutritional information, while it's in the psychiatric and psychological literature, Like if you look at the literature you know zinc, but we no one learned, we don't, we're not taught it, though, Like you what you said about seven years ago.

Speaker 2: 21:36

Right Like Terry and I've talked about this so much. We have never once the word amino acids that those two words were never in one single damn thing worth of eight years worth of school that I learned ever.

Speaker 3: 21:49

It didn't exist.

Speaker 2: 21:49

It's like we couldn't touch that. That's right. It wasn't part of what we do.

Speaker 3: 21:54

Yeah, I think for all of these audiences it's quite far abreast from their knowledge base. And I think in psychotherapy we are very much stepchildren to psychiatry, to medicine, and I think that what we're taught is you do your psychotherapeutic thing. If it doesn't work you can do a little bit of lifestyle. You want to ask people about alcohol, maybe sugar, exercise, sleep, but then if people have real serious problems you refer them to a psychiatrist, to a nurse practitioner. But I think this nutritional piece has barely penetrated any of these fields, Though I do want to say that we were at IMMH this year, Integrative Medicine for Mental Health. The last live conference they had was five years ago and five years ago there might have been 30 or 40 therapists there. So this is a very academic, biochemically oriented medical conference, Lots of doctors, lots of MDs there, mostly MDs nurse practitioners, prescribers.

Speaker 3: 23:14

This year there were 300 therapists there.

Speaker 1: 23:21

And.

Speaker 3: 23:21

I think no one was prepared for it. So I spoke there at this last one and I only spoke cause I, I went to the uh. I went to the online uh conference that they did last year and it was like completely biochemical and there were great talks. If you had 10 years experience, so for me, for Terrilyn, for you, if we, but you probably you have the knowledge base where you can I can understand 50 percent, 60 percent, because I'm self-trained, so it's a second language to me, but, but biochemistry is a second language to most physicians anyway. But so what was I saying? That I just lost my place.

Speaker 1: 24:09

The amount of therapists that were there this year.

Speaker 3: 24:11

Oh and I. I spoke to the director, kiki, and I was like you need a track for therapists, you need to like cause. This field is changing. We're in the middle of a paradigm shift. People are actually starting to be interested in this. Um and uh, she was like, okay, why don't you do it? And I was like, oh, little crap, there must be someone smarter than me. And I was like, and she was like, no, you can do it. And I was like, okay, so I spent a year fretting about it.

Speaker 1: 24:47

I would never have known, I would never you did such a good job and you were so calm up there about it.

Speaker 3: 24:55

It felt so good. And the thing that felt really good was that I got that people needed this, that there's a huge interest, that I've been around Tara Lynn's been around a long time, that like at the beginning we were weirdos and that people were like why are you doing? I remember in 19, in in like around 2000, 1998, when I was finishing grad school, my colleagues being like what are you doing going to nutrition school? Like it made my colleagues being like what are you doing going to nutrition school?

Speaker 2: 25:29

Like it made to them it made zero sense.

Speaker 3: 25:31

And I, and, and, and it didn't make a lot of sense to me. I was like I'm just feeling it, so I'm going to do it. And it was like I just felt that it was intuitive. I was like I think this is something I'm going to, I'm going to do it, but but there is, there's a huge change in the zeitgeist, so I'm going to tell you something. Uh, I got. This is amazing. I got called by the american psychological association this week and they asked if I would do, I would.

Speaker 3: 26:01

And the director of continuing education I hope I'm not speaking of the turn, but the director of continuing education was at immh and he saw the talk and he was like our members would really benefit from this approach. So, wow, this is. It has nothing to do with me, it's just no, the field is pregnant, the field is exploding. There. We are part of a new field that is emerging, that there's a new field of nutritional psychology, nutritional psychiatry. That's going to be something. Functional medicine, mental health, integrated mental health, whatever you call it. This. This is a something and where and we are, we're that generation that's going to like help bring it forward. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 26:54

And then the next generation.

Speaker 3: 26:55

You know, like I was shocked and pleased to see how many 30, 28, 25 year old like newbie therapists were there, cause it's their language, it's not our language. They intuitively understand like, what do you mean? Like, how can't what you eat be connected to how you feel emotionally? Like to them, it makes complete sense.

Speaker 1: 27:18

Well, I think that they were raised. The younger generation was raised in a time where we did start looking at food and fitness and that kind of stuff differently, not necessarily connected to mental health, but connected to physical wellbeing. That stuff, when I was growing up, wasn't a thing. We didn't even drink water Like you know so, the younger generation. It makes a lot of sense that there's going to be a group of those, those therapists and social workers that are going to take a keen interest in this Right.

Speaker 2: 27:49

Yeah, and I want to tie this in, josh, to something that you had said to us in correspondence about this idea of treatment-resistant mental health and, as you two are talking, I'm thinking about the idea of generationally how the narratives have played out in terms of that idea, because treatment-resistive pieces made more sense to me in saying that terminology when I first started in the field 17 years ago, versus to hear it now. I view it very differently and I think that newer therapists that are coming into the field, the idea of treatment resistance almost seems some of it almost seems like taboo a bit, because, well, how could you be resistant? Because their, their ideas of what treatment is is so much broader than what ours were, and you talked about this in correspondence you sent to us. So I wanted to just like slide that one in here and talking about that, because the idea of how gaslighting that is and I wonder if part of it is as you're talking I just wonder if it's a level of knowledge that we I don't know I wasn't given early on and I would have believed people can be more treatment resistant because, guess what?

Speaker 2: 30:06

The meds didn't work for you, guess what. The psychotherapy didn't work for you, guess what. The CBT we've been doing isn't working for you, so I guess you're not helpable. Versus now, there's all these other pieces that could really matter and that do matter.

Speaker 3: 30:20

Right.

Speaker 2: 30:20

Yeah, so talk a little bit about that in terms of the gaslighting piece of that and what your experience is.

Speaker 3: 30:29

I don't think. In my experience, I think we've one thing. I think that's different in psychotherapy is we've discovered the body. We've, you know, I think the somatic approaches somatic experiencing, emdr, yoga therapy approaches I are sort of revolutionary. So I think psychedelics revolutionary and I think we have much to offer psychotherapeutically.

Speaker 3: 30:59

My experience with interfacing with psychiatry is that it hasn't changed much at all in the past 20 years, past 30.

Speaker 3: 31:07

I mean, I've been doing this about 30 years and I think there's like very simple algorithms that they use, that there's like a limited number of medicines. I think they have a few new tools, tms being one, transcranial magnetic stimulation. Now they're like sort of stepping into psychedelics using ketamine therapies and they're still using electroconvulsant therapies. So I think, and these are and there are people that I see that are getting the label treatment resistant or treatment refractory, who have never had basic labs done, so like the most basic things have never been done. They've never had their thyroid checked, they've never had a B12 level taken, they've never had a C-reactive protein taken for inflammation, they've never had even vitamin D D. And I just heard I was on Dr Greenblatt is doing Dr James Greenblatt is doing a lecture for like a workshop like a five-session workshop on functional medicine for therapists, and in the last class he just said it should be for any psychiatrist or any prescriber to not test vitamin D levels and vitamin B12 levels should be malpractice. So I agree.

Speaker 1: 32:35

I will 100 percent agree.

Speaker 3: 32:39

I think there is amazing gaslighting that still happens, that people are told that they just need to live with this, that people are told that they just need to live with this, and very few patients are told this is as far as I can take you, but there are other fields that ask different questions. You know, there's fields that look at all kinds of underlying biochemical triggers, whether it's methylation, whether it's mold, mycotoxins, whether it's infections, whether it's minerals, like I mean there's a million things and there's, you know, there's thousands and thousands of skilled practitioners that could help to address like take, you know, take the next phase of treatment. But I don't think much of this information has really penetrated the field. I do think more people are interested around the edges. So and I think it's very so my wife again, she's going to be on your podcast, but so she's worked at a Medicare approved program that's been proven to reverse heart disease without drugs and surgery.

Speaker 3: 33:52

How many? So this is an incredible thing Through lifestyle alone they're reversing heart disease. And how many cardiologists, young cardiologists, do you think know about the Ornish program Zero? So I ask every single cardiologist I meet oh, have you heard of the Ornish program Zero? So I ask every single cardiologist I meet oh, have you heard of the Ornish program? I've never met one cardiologist that has even heard of it. So this is a program that they did 20 years of research to get Medicare approval. That means it's been approved at the highest level for cardiac rehab by the fucking government.

Speaker 2: 34:32

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 34:33

And even and doctors don't even know about these programs, I actually do. You know what? David and Merlene Miller is that a name that rings a bell? So they are very, very interesting people that will fit this conversation Well.

Speaker 3: 34:54

With their friend, terry Gorski, they created the relapse prevention movement within substance abuse treatment. He, she, was a big writer, he was a psychologist, he was also a chronically relapsing alcoholic, and so he tried everything. He went to treatment. He kept on relapsing. They decided to go to Mexico and try IV amino acid therapy with Dr Hitt. Yeah, and so they went down for IVs. He did 14 days of IVs and he was cured, never relapsed again.

Speaker 3: 35:31

They then spent the next two or three years trying to convince Dr Hitt, who was getting older, to give his recipes up so that they could introduce them to the world. Finally they got him to turn over the recipes he was using. They were a big deal. They had sold millions of books. They had friends at Hazleton, they had friends at Betty Ford, all the big clinics around the country. They went to each of the clinics. They spoke to the clinic director and none of the clinics were interested in incorporating amino acid therapy drips.

Speaker 3: 36:10

This would have been about 20 years ago. They live outside of Kansas City. I went and visited them a few times. She's passed, sadly, but they were amazing and they were in tears as they were describing like it's like having the cure to cancer that no one cares about, like they had the cure to cancer and would it have helped every addict?

Speaker 3: 36:34

Probably not, but but it would have made a huge dent in stabilizing the brain chemistry, body chemistry of many addicts. There's no doubt it would have. I mean, as the doctor hits, work, shows, and now other clinics are using them, truth-tellers to penetrate and truth-tellers can have small enthusiastic followings. But I think it is very, very difficult to go against the machine in a way that is going to threaten the bottom line. And I think it's cute when it's a little clinic at Cleveland Clinic, like a little functional medicine clinic, but when it threatens the way business is done, it's very, very difficult to break through. And even if you have a demonstrated cure and that's like the ultimate gaslight in a way. And so you can look at someone like RFK Jr and I know probably he's an inflammatory person to bring up, but this is a man who I'm kind of intrigued by what he's doing, uh huh.

Speaker 3: 37:48

In my mind he is taking on the establishment as huge to himself. Yes, he is, and it you know like it's just interesting when someone comes along with incredible courage and bravery, and what the establishment will do to a person like that to invalidate him, to silence him, to assassinate him. They don't have to kill him, they just have to make people think he's a lunatic and crazy and selfish and narcissistic. But I'm very, very interested in whistleblowers. I'm very interested in people that are courageous enough to step up at huge risk to themselves, and I believe he's one of those people, believe he's one of those people, and I think I think there are lots of people that presented during COVID that would fit that description, um, and I think you guys are. I mean, you know, and if you're, eventually you're going to attract enough attention that people are going to start slandering you in the new time.

Speaker 2: 38:52

Yeah, I, I'm waiting for it. I can't wait, like I've just waited for us to get that big where we get noticed and the whistleblowing shrinks get noticed in this way, where we can be like okay.

Speaker 3: 39:04

Do you know about quackwatchcom?

Speaker 2: 39:07

Yes, no, what the hell is that.

Speaker 3: 39:11

So it's a slandering website that keeps track of doctors that are doing bad things in the world, but every single doctor on there is a trailblazer. So I say I tell people, if you're looking for a new doctor or you're looking for someone to read, go there. Go to quackwatchcom and read anyone on quackwatchcom. You have to assume that there's someone that is, uh, innovative and threatening the status quo, and so I I have a lot of interest in, just in, anyone thinking outside the box and anyone willing to to like, undo the programs. We're all, we've all been programmed, we're programmed in whatever field we're programmed in. This is right, this is wrong, this is good practice, this is bad practice. And those boxes are limited.

Speaker 3: 40:15

I think, and I think most people you know like the people that are making connections this box to this other box. So nutrition, functional medicine, psychotherapy, you know like, and we're ahead of. We're ahead. We are creating a paradigm that is no longer contained by any of the boxes. You know somatics and yoga and journeying and all of these things. There's like new space being created, but the people that are doing it are putting themselves at risk in certain ways. Yes, because there's going to be blowback, and there is blowback in small, in small ways. So I wait, I practice, I have a, I have a license in psychology, I have a board here in a in a, a conservative state in the United States, and I, for 10, 15 years I've been waiting to hear from my state board. Do you know?

Speaker 2: 41:23

how many people?

Speaker 1: 41:23

on TikTok have threatened to turn me into the board.

Speaker 2: 41:27

I'm just waiting. I'm just waiting. I'm just waiting for the day Right.

Speaker 3: 41:33

But to get asked to speak at the American Psychological Association means that this is the highest kind of the highest authority. I mean, it's not, it's a professional organization, but this is like kind of like. This is like the home planet and they're the people that set the tone For the American Psychological Association. And I spoke to Dr Greenblatt and I said, hey, the American Psychological Association is interested. He said I tried three years ago to get in there, and so this is like a very big doctor who tried three years ago. He said the zeitgeist is changing so they were not interested, they didn't have the. He was, he was infrared and they couldn't see infrared.

Speaker 1: 42:24

Yeah, and so the, the field is catching up to us and I I want to say I, I agree with you and I'm going to tell you why because, uh, maybe it was a year ago or so, the APA also reached out to me Okay To to have me be a professional that when they get media inquiries, wow, come to me Right as one, as one of them, and I thought to myself I was like this is pretty incredible because I can be pretty controversial, and they were okay with having that as a contact and I'm like I had to take that in for a small second Well, the APA has not reached out to me yet, so you two can just have your little APA party, and I'll just watch from the side.

Speaker 3: 43:12

This way, you're next. It'll happen. It'll happen.

Speaker 1: 43:15

That's right, that's right.

Speaker 3: 43:18

Have you gotten inquiries?

Speaker 2: 43:20

no I have no, I, oh you I don't know terry does, terry gets them all the time. I have not gotten any yet, and I'm I'm pretty loud and vocal and obnoxious and so I'm just like, well, maybe I'm too much for people I think it's good to be too much for people, I mean.

Speaker 3: 43:36

I think the truth is you have to be willing, because when you're doing new things, you have to keep on doing them and wait for people to catch up. It's like it's, it's. It is interesting. It's interesting to have been doing something for long enough that people are starting to catch up. I find that super interesting. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 43:59

I find it super fun, actually, because, especially when you can apply this stuff in practice, where you've never been able to do this before, and you see results, that's right. You know, when you, when you have the sickest people come to you and you make small changes, like something as small as eat more protein more frequently, and they're like, oh okay, or even better, have a little protein before bed and see if you sleep a little bit better. You know, I had somebody that I did that with and they did, and they said why did I struggle all these years when I really just needed to stabilize my blood sugar to sleep? You know, like some of this, we overcomplicate everything.

Speaker 3: 44:46

I think that's right.

Speaker 3: 44:47

You know one thing that's really interesting like having gone down the functional medicine rabbit hole and done training and taking stuff on all these weird co-infections and mycotoxins and all these arcane little things, I think the field more and more is moving back to helping people make simple changes in their lives have protein, have 75 grams of protein, have 25 grams of protein the size of your palm three times in a bed, like just like very simple things.

Speaker 3: 45:26

Yeah, and I, because I'm and I don't know, because that's my basic assumption, I thought I had to know everything, but really like these simple things are enough. And in the talk I gave at IMMH I basically said the whole talk was like hey, can you be a functional medicine practitioner if you can't order functional medicine tests? And there's a Dr Dan Kalish. He has this quote. He basically says 80% of functional medicine is lifestyle change, it's diet, it's rest, it's your relationships, it's stress management and like that's a revolution, especially when the world of functional medicine has become so specialized. But you don't have to be a brainiac to tell people to eat more protein.

Speaker 1: 46:29

But it's interesting because I feel like when you do say things like that, a lot of times people want a more complicated answer.

Speaker 2: 46:37

They do yeah.

Speaker 1: 46:39

They're like, like it can't be that simple water and protein, like I don't. Yeah, you know and and it.

Speaker 3: 46:45

I think that's right because I think with the internet everyone's gotten. You know, oh, do you have mold mycotoxins? Like here are the symptoms. Oh, this is symptoms of candida infection, like all this fancy, fancy stuff. So when you tell someone, it's sort of like when the Dalai Lama says, just be happy, it's like with the weight of all the llamas since the beginning of the earth, like these are great, like the people want to complicate things. It can't be that simple and a lot of this and sort of like you're. I know one of your teachers is Christina and she's like great at simple stuff. Julia Ross and and in some ways, like 10 years ago, they got left in the dust and oh, you're not doing it, you're not doing the organic acid test.

Speaker 3: 47:40

Oh my God, you must not be a real functional medicine practitioner. And the really smart ones just kept their practice going and they kept on doing the same things. And now the world is coming back. So I keep on talking about my wife. But so she teaches a very simple kind of ashram style yoga. That's, she just teaches basic Hatha yoga that she learned in an ashram from a guru like 40 years ago.

Speaker 3: 48:10

And so I watched her during the 90s when hot yoga happened and yin yoga happened and everyone wanted flow yoga and everyone wanted to wear lululemon pants and do handstands and headstands. And she just like, I watched her. I mean not that it wasn't a struggle, but I watched her just do her practice, yes, and and people just dwindled. There might have been two or three people in the class where they had been 25 because they were going to do beak room and ayahuasca and all kinds of stupid shit. Yeah, not that. And and she like now, and she would do ayurveda and she would tell people to eat proteins and she would say, like, massage your proteins. And she would say, like, massage your face, like just simple, beautiful, like stuff that your grandma would know.

Speaker 1: 49:03

Yes.

Speaker 3: 49:04

You know, eat real foods, like don't drink soda so much, like just the basics. And now it's so funny because all the young kids that used to want to be like all hot and do handstands and headstands are like, oh, nervous system, and I want to like be in parasympathetic. So they want to study with the old lady that does parasympathetic yoga, she doesn't call it that.

Speaker 1: 49:30

The vagus nerve is making a comeback Right.

Speaker 3: 49:34

And she's always been the vagus nerve lady. She didn't know, what she was supposed to call it. But now she doesn't know what she was supposed to call it. But now she knows.

Speaker 1: 49:40

But I think it's really interesting.

Speaker 3: 49:42

It's such a nice conversation.

Speaker 1: 49:45

Yeah, so it's funny that you talk about Christina. When we talk about Christina, it's Christina Veselak and she was actually on the show a few episodes ago. Wonderful episode. But when I was at the conference, I saw many of the original gangsters in this space right.

Speaker 1: 50:02

So Christina Veselock, hila Cass there was several and I approached Hila and I said I have been following you for years and I wanted to say that I feel like you've gotten overlooked, like I feel like you didn't get your chance in the sun, you know, like whatever. And she looked at me and she said I never wanted it. She goes all I wanted to do was help people and I was like well then, then help people, you did.

Speaker 1: 50:32

So I was like this is very interesting to me and I, I feel Christina and some of the other people, but I think that's a generational, generationally meaning the next generation of this type of thinkers and you know.

Speaker 1: 50:49

but those are the people that I learned from, you know, and it's been a very interesting journey and I resonate so deeply with the idea of I don't know enough, you know, um, I'll never know enough. And but then also, at the same time, just getting back to the basics of what I do know, you know, we don't need to know all this other stuff.

Speaker 3: 51:12

You know, I'm just starting that Like I'm starting it together. Yeah, I'm just starting that Like I'm starting it together.

Speaker 3: 51:18

Yeah, I'm just starting to realize, like, I'm enough, like, and that's my mantra, and out of IMMH, there's things that have happening for like, all these opportunities are happening for me that I didn't expect to happen and it's like breathing into, like being enough and knowing that I'll figure it out as I go and saying yes and not deferring to others as inherently being smarter and better and just saying I have a lane. I know my lane and the more I embrace and I'm clear on my lane, the more helpful I can be. And my job isn't to help everyone. It's to be of service to humans and to know when it's time. If I can't help someone.

Speaker 3: 52:15

I never think they're treatment resistant, not because I don't know enough that's what I used to think but because there's a million ways to heal right. There's a million people in the world and what are the chances that my brand of beauty is going to be what this person needs? I mean, maybe there will and maybe there won't. And I, I, I, yeah, it's interesting, yeah, I think it's really. I've, I've learned how to be humble without being too humble. Like I want to be a humble badass, I want to own power, but I don't want to be arrogant, because I've seen what that looks like. Oh, that's sort of like we.

Speaker 3: 53:20

I feel like we're on the ground in a way where we just are working, trying to be of service to the world and like hi, like you said about Hila, like we're just, we're just here, we're part of the army and we're going to raise the next year. We're going to raise the youth as much as we can to be, to be courageous people, to question authority, to not accept, you know, to not accept anyone ever saying someone's treatment resistance Like OK, like what does that mean? Because, really, treatment resistant means that this particular person hasn't found a way in the tools to help them. Yep, it doesn't mean that those tools don't exist. And and that's like you know, it's like letting go of hubris, it's not leaning in too much, like to our doctorates. It's like saying, yeah, like this is a beginning, like I want to flex so I can get a good table at a restaurant.

Speaker 1: 54:22

But I don't.

Speaker 3: 54:23

No, I never, I never do that. I want to. I remember my therapist used to say to me he's like when I would be in the middle of my doctorate and say I can't do it, I'm never going to make it. He's like, you know, get the get the fuck out, get the biggest degree you possibly can. So they have to listen and like we should you, like we should all be. We're few in numbers, so we have to have loud voices and you should be uh, you should, jen, you should be so loud that people can't ignore you in your glasses, in your glasses. I think it's amazing, I don't know. I feel really grateful to be here and really grateful to be part of this whole emerging thing and I'm just trying to enjoy. You know, like when I got off the stage at IMM, mmh, my typical thing would be the downplay, everything and it was okay. Yeah, but.

Speaker 3: 55:22

I was like fuck, that was fucking awesome I actually was awesome and people stayed. My daughter's 20 years, my daughter's 21 years old and I. I got on the phone with her and I was like daisy, I just did this thing. It was the best thing of my whole life. And she said well, didn't you have a baby? Because I actually I was like thank you so much for giving me this opportunity, but it was like I've been doing all this in silence for years and I've never felt that.

Speaker 3: 56:04

I never felt really validated. I mean, I've been validated in my little work, in my little office. But to feel the validation and like to feel like, oh, I had something to help these people with, and it felt like it was like, really, it was very unexpected. I hadn't. I went in thinking I was gonna have a stroke up there, so I didn't think it was gonna. I never thought it was gonna go like feel like rich and and so I just like took it all in. I was like, okay, I'm just gonna, I'm gonna open my heart to this, I'm gonna take as much in, I'm just going to, I'm going to open my heart to this, I'm going to take as much in and I'm just say, yes, that was great. I know, it was fucking awesome.

Speaker 1: 56:43

It was awesome.

Speaker 3: 56:46

And just like to be to have that moment like nothing more, nothing less. Like it was just like oh, this is good and it. I felt like it said more about us, like us as a field, us as therapists, us as people like moving beyond the box. That like this is us. We're being born. It was the first time a therapist had ever spoken at that conference, so it was awesome. I thought and next year will be more awesome one of you guys should speak yeah, that's.

Speaker 2: 57:22

That is going to be a thing. I've already told terry that it's happening, and so yeah, I spoke to, we did it.

Speaker 3: 57:30

I did a debrief with kiki, who ran the conference, and was like okay, so you realize what happened. That has to happen.

Speaker 1: 57:38

We need more therapy, more exactly there's lots of therapists.

Speaker 3: 57:41

There are lots of therapists. It was like I'm no more special than 50 other people. They would have their own flavor of this. We need more therapists up there because next year you're going to have 400 therapists. You know you're going to have I think there were 1200 people. There were, there was yep, you know there's so 800 therapy, 800 doctor types and 400 therapists. There were 300. Next year there's going to be 400, because the fire, like it's happening, like the, the energy is, is going to only combust.

Speaker 2: 58:15

It's going to happen it's the age Aquarius, Josh. You know this is happening right now.

Speaker 3: 58:20

Yeah, it is, it is and they need us. They need us. Hopefully they won't kill us.

Speaker 1: 58:29

Well, on that note, this is a good one to wrap up on here.

Speaker 2: 58:33

All right. So everybody, you have been listening to the Gaslit Truth podcast. We got to thank Dr Josh Friedman again for coming on. So everybody, um, you have been listening to the gas the truth podcast. Uh, we got to thank Dr Josh Friedman again for coming on.

Speaker 3: 58:43

Thank you so much, it was, thank you for being here.

Speaker 2: 58:45

You have fully enlightened us and actually I feel pretty energized after listening to you for an hour that I feel like I need to go do some humble, bad-ass shit right about now. I know what that's going to be, but for all of you that are listening, um, please make sure you like subscribe, give us the stars, give us the comments. You can listen to the guest podcast anywhere that you listen to podcasts. And for today, we humble badasses are out.

Speaker 3: 59:11

Bye, bye.