Crossing Zero: The Art & Science of Deprescribing with Anders Sorensen

When you've been told your brain chemistry is permanently broken, the idea of coming off psychiatric medication can feel terrifying—or even impossible. But what if everything you've been told about these drugs is based on an outdated model?

Psychologist Anders Sorensen joins us to shatter the myths surrounding psychiatric medication and share evidence-based approaches to safely tapering off these drugs. With his PhD in psychiatry and years of clinical experience, Anders brings a unique perspective that bridges psychological understanding with pharmacological expertise.

At the heart of our conversation is SERT occupancy—the mechanism by which antidepressants affect brain chemistry. Anders explains why even "baby doses" can have powerful effects and why standard tapering approaches often fail. His hyperbolic tapering method follows the actual biological curve of how medications work, preventing the withdrawal symptoms that are often misinterpreted as relapse.

We challenge the chemical imbalance theory and explore how psychiatric drugs function not as disease treatments but as strategies for emotion regulation. This fundamental reframing opens up possibilities for therapists to play a crucial role in helping clients navigate the tapering process—something traditionally considered outside their scope of practice.

Anders' new book, "Crossing Zero: The Art and Science of Coming Off and Staying Off Psychiatric Drugs," offers both practical guidance and psychological insights for anyone considering discontinuation. The book deliberately places tapering instructions after extensive context about our relationship with emotions and challenging dominant narratives around mental health.

Ready to reconsider what you've been told about psychiatric medication? This episode might just change your perspective on healing and what's truly possible for your mental health journey.

Chapters

• 0:22 Meet Anders Sorensen: Tapering Pioneer
• 10:40 Understanding SERT Occupancy in Medication
• 21:20 Withdrawal vs. Relapse: The Critical Difference
• 31:46 Therapists' Role in Medication Tapering
• 43:07 How Psychiatric Drugs Actually Work
• 54:00 Alternatives to Long-Term Medication

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:02

You have been gaslit into believing that you will need psychiatric medication forever because there is no way off. We are your whistleblowing shrinks, Dr Tara Lynn and therapist Jen, and this is the Gaslit Truth Podcast. Today we have a special guest, Anders Sorensen, and I'm so excited for this interview. I'm like giddy.

Speaker 2: 0:22

I've been thinking about it for days.

Speaker 3: 0:27

She's been talking about you for weeks?

Speaker 2: 0:28

No, she has, I'm not even exaggerating.

Speaker 1: 0:31

And then when I saw you in a meeting that I was in, I was like what? This cannot be Anyway. So Anders is a psychologist with a PhD in psychiatry, which is fascinating. He's a pioneer helping people safely taper off psychiatric drugs and manage their life without them, and is the author of the brand new book which I'm going to show up here, called Crossing Zero the Art and Science of Coming Off and Staying Off Psychiatric Drugs, which I am three quarters of the way through right now and super excited to talk about that. Welcome to the show, anders.

Speaker 3: 1:02

How was that so fun? Interesting to see one's own book with these little marks in it. I love seeing that.

Speaker 1: 1:10

Oh yeah, like all the tabs, Like this is what my DSM used to look like, and Jen's DSM used to look like this too.

Speaker 2: 1:15

So we burned those. We burned those, Anders. They don't light on fire easily. That's what we tab as books like yours now.

Speaker 3: 1:25

People send pictures of their highlights.

Speaker 1: 1:32

It's always so interesting what people find especially relevant of the book. I love seeing that. Yes, so there's a couple of things in the book that I want to talk about, but I think the first thing that I think is one of the most relevant things that we're just going to get right into is the cert occupancy of medication. So if you want to do a little intro to all this how you got to this space that would be great.

Speaker 3: 1:53

And then I want to focus on that because I think that's one of the most important parts of tapering and it is and just to clarify the reason we talk so much about cert occupancy is because we mostly talk about antidepressants, which and their primary target in the brain and body is called the serotonin transporter. So it doesn't mean that these drugs don't do other things. They certainly do, but their main target is serotonin transporter and that's why we use that as a measure of the drugs.

Speaker 2: 2:21

Which is what? Sirt is everybody. So we have some people that are probably like what the hell is SIRT? Is this an acronym? What is it Right? So this is what we're talking about.

Speaker 3: 2:34

It's short for serotonin transporter. So that's the mechanism in the brain that re-uptakes serotonin and it's even in the name SSRIs selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitor. Now the mechanism responsible for that is just called serotonin transporter. And I see a lot of questions just to get the misunderstandings too, like asking well then, what's the third occupancy of mirtazapine or some other drug? It's like no, that's wrong, because mirtazapine, just to take an example, primary target is something else it's histamine. So we only talk about third occupancy in the context of antidepressants. For other drugs we would look at and that's in the book too for antipsychotics we look mostly at dopamine and all sorts of other things.

Speaker 1: 3:12

So the charts. When you show the charts in the book and most people might be aware of the charts they look like a curve and this is the occupancy. So it's really the occupancy of whatever they're targeting, correct?

Speaker 3: 3:25

Of the primary target. So antidepressants, mostly the SSRIs, are not even selective, but they're fairly selective and SNRIs obviously are not. So most drugs do target different receptors. So in reality you'd have to draw different curves for each drug. But exactly, yes, that's what it is.

Speaker 2: 3:48

There's our visual for people on YouTube my handwriting.

Speaker 3: 3:54

So if we wanted to map their full receptor profiles, there'll be numerous lines. But the question is if that's really relevant, because we really just want to understand their primary target and then base our reductions on that. So search occupancy is just a word for what the drug does and that's measurable. We can measure it in brain scans and that comes out on graphs. Because we plot dose which, to help people, is just the weight. It's just the weight of the drug. It doesn't say anything about how much the drug does at that dose. And if we plot dose against its effect, its biological effect, not necessarily your experienced effect, but the biological effect then we get these funny graphs that increase dramatically in the beginning and then even out. And that's what we use as argument for tapering, hyperbolically meaning reductions must get slower and slower.

Speaker 1: 4:50

So sorry, smaller and smaller, smaller, smaller, slower. I mean we have a lot of interchangeable things, but yes, so when we think about these curves, can you do the Reader's Digest version of what the curve is and what it means when the line is flat across the top? Because I think this is important, because I have a lot of clients that are on high, high, high doses, or the doses just get increased and increased and increased, because they're experiencing negative side effects of the medication or flattening or whatever. So then they'll get bumped up more, but there comes a time when more is not more.

Speaker 3: 5:24

Right, exactly yes. So first of all, these graphs are the average, and I stress that very carefully in the book because it means you can't just enter the graph with your drug and dose and see that you're exactly on that receptor occupancy, because it will vary within some range. Now the shape is the same. So it's a universal principle that the curve will increase dramatically in the beginning and then plateau. So these principles for hyperbolic tabering, I believe, are certainly universal, but we don't know exactly at what point you need to slow down and that's what the graphs show. Really, you just want to follow that graph when you reduce the dose and you can see the obvious problem, because it means you need to go below the lowest standard available dose. And anyone in the community will know this. If you stop at the lowest dose and you could enter any one of these graphs for any psychiatric drug on the market and the occupancy will be high, even on the smallest tablet you can buy, and even half or a quarter of that.

Speaker 2: 6:27

That is so important, right, right. What you just said there, anders, is so important because the clients that that Terry and I see that we help deprescribe there is so much like re, re, debunking and rewriting this narrative that they believe of.

Speaker 3: 6:42

Like it's a baby dose. I'm on the baby.

Speaker 2: 6:45

I'm on the tiniest dose of Lexapro. I take five milligrams and I'm like but that's not how it works.

Speaker 3: 6:52

No, no, well, it's, it's, it's, it's correct, it's the tiniest dose.

Speaker 1: 6:56

You are. That's true, that's true.

Speaker 2: 6:58

Right, if on a scale of zero to 20 milligrams. Yes, you are down in the quarter. Yes, the low 25%.

Speaker 3: 7:05

Tiniest is not tiny. That's the whole, that's what they show these graphs, and it also so, so, and it's even called placebo doses sometimes, and I'm confident that this is just because the community has been used to using too high doses, so the number just looks low. It just looks low, five milligrams, even one milligram of something. But in fact this is hardcore brain science. Like for anyone wanting to make the argument against these curves, I'd love to see them, because it's just the brain imaging identifying like an effect, a huge effect at a very small dose. So in the lower, lower dose range, because it's not actually low, that's what we're trying to tell here. But in the lower dose range, reductions needs to be smaller. And it has another implication, because these 5% to 10% reductions, or 3% to 5% or whatever rule of thumb you decide to go with I don't like any of them. But just to communicate the area how small they are-ish, we usually say 5% to 10%. The area, how small they are-ish, we usually say five to 10.

Speaker 3: 8:09

So, even though the main message in this book and in this community is to do it slower than we were taught, way, way slower and more gradual, it's not necessary all the way. So if you're on a high dose, clearly above that plateau, well then the irony of it all is there isn't really any difference, or at least a very small difference, between the doses, and that opens up for the idea to make some bigger cuts in the beginning for some people. So if that makes sense, so if you're clearly on that curve, there's no real need, if you're clearly above it, to do the very, very small reductions. And if you do, you end up maybe prolonging the whole taper unnecessarily because there's no real difference between the doses. The problem obviously is we don't know where that cut is. We can't just enter them because it's the mean, so we'll never exactly know when to slow down.

Speaker 1: 8:55

Yeah, I usually tell people, you'll know when you get there.

Speaker 3: 8:58

You know, when you get there and that can feel horrible because that means that reduction. When you go down below that bend on the curve, that saturation point, suddenly there's a huge difference, even though that reduction wasn't bigger in terms of a milligram from the previous ones. In fact it could be smaller. But really it's bigger. Yeah, you're there.

Speaker 1: 9:21

Yes, but I do feel like in the beginning, when, so let's, I'm just going to make up some numbers, right? Somebody is on 150 milligrams of something, right, and they're like oh yeah, my doctor cut that in half to 75 and it went great.

Speaker 2: 9:34

I feel fine I feel fine.

Speaker 1: 9:36

There's a false sense of security that they can keep doing that in half and in half or every other day, and all of that. So I feel like when we because common knowledge is to do it like that right, quick and fast, and so then when they hit that point where their wheels fall off, really, and then they're led to believe in, well, this is a return of symptoms. You need this medication forever. Yeah, what do you say to those people?

Speaker 3: 10:05

Yeah, Well, the first tool in our toolbox is to up the dose and go slower down to that dose that caused symptoms and see if it doesn't happen. So if you can reduce, get symptoms and up the dose again within days or weeks for the body to accept it, and if you then can get down to that dose that previously caused problems in whatever three, five, 10 steps and symptoms do not occur, well then it's a funny relapse, like then. To me it's just proof right there, because a relapse whatever that is, but let's play along with it A relapse, I think wouldn't really care how you got down to that dose, just show regardless. So I'll obviously theorize, if that's a word with my client, that there's a very high chance this is withdrawal. This is nothing about you whatsoever, it's just your body screaming for the drug to leave slower, really, yeah, To really take all the air out of it. It's just that the way to find out is to up the dose, see what happens, then reduce. So I'd always play along and like explore right.

Speaker 2: 11:13

So this idea of reinstating right, going back up to where you were, um is actually can I think it helps. It helps tell people the story because, as someone who's going through a taper myself okay, anders, and if we use numbers, I'm doing Lexapro. Anyone listening to the show knows this. I've been doing this two years now, okay, and I hope we could talk a little bit.

Speaker 2: 11:36

I'm curious to hear your opinion on micro tapering, and I know we've got clients out there and listeners that want to hear this too, because I'm like, standing here with my syringes now going I might have to microtaper, okay, but what's interesting is most people, I think, when they reinstate, it's phenomenal how quickly the symptomology goes away. I mean within 24 hours, I mean, depending upon the drug and what it is, it happens so fast and it's a great talking space for people. Is what it? When you're saying I like to theorize this with my clients, talk through this with my clients. It's a good space for them because it really puts them in a space to go. This isn't a me issue. In fact, this really was withdrawal.

Speaker 1: 12:18

And how do I know it was withdrawal, Except for the idea that some people would be like it's?

Speaker 2: 12:26

an indication that I need it Right, correct, and that's what I think this is what you're talking about, which was your question, terry, and kind of how you answered this. Anders was more about like when you experiment with it and you do this, I think for many people it helps them kind of understand two schools of thought. One, there's a narrative that I'm sick and I need it. Or two, is it this was withdrawal. You put the drug back in, the withdrawal went away.

Speaker 3: 12:49

And that's theoretically. I would and that's still theoretically possible, I wouldn't oppose the idea. Often, 9.5 times out of 10, I would say it's withdrawal. But still not to. And this differs between clients, obviously, because sometimes it's extremely obvious that it's withdrawal because the symptoms have nothing to do with whatever they took the drug for. So sometimes very obvious. But in the situation where there's genuine doubt was this A or B? I think it's just like a common psychology move to not argue too much with that, because we could spend the whole session ruminating, co-ruminating, even Co-ruminating. I like that, whether it's one or the other. So to counter that, I would just theorize okay, I don't, I don't, if you want my answer, I don't think it was you, I think it was withdrawal and I know how to test it. Let's see. And then I would just kind of go with it, go with the idea, and then challenge it or explore. It would be a kinder word.

Speaker 1: 13:48

Yeah, but I think there's a well, there's not a missing piece, but a piece that I think that's critical is for the prescriber or the care provider that's working with the person to understand the person's origination story, because sometimes that origination this is my opinion sometimes that origination happened 20 years ago, 25 years ago, and so they think that the return of symptoms looks like this because now, maybe this medication you started off taking it for depression and then you've been an anxious patient for 20 out of those 25 years and so you have a return of anxiety when really the original symptomology was depressive symptomology or something very different. That we forget that that was the origination of why you were on it in the first place. Right? So you, you start off as a client for this problem, you turn into a client for this problem and now you forget why you originally. And it's funny because when I talk to people I'll be like why'd you get on it in the first place? They're like, huh, I don't know, I've been on it for so long.

Speaker 3: 14:56

I can't even remember. You know I'm like lines to follow here, like yes, sometimes symptoms do overlap completely and sometimes, when you talk a little bit about it, they're different. Yeah, the anxiety you can even take it for anxiety, but the anxiety you experience coming off is different if you just dig into it a bit. But still, and this is why I spent, I think the first mention of a dose reduction is on page 100 or something in the book Like it takes a long time.

Speaker 1: 15:22

It's a ways in.

Speaker 2: 15:23

It's a ways in. Here's the psychology behind this right yes.

Speaker 3: 15:26

Right and that's deliberate.

Speaker 3: 15:28

So there's a lot of chapters in the beginning which really, behind the scenes, aim to explore and challenge one's beliefs of what a mental, so-called mental illness even is.

Speaker 3: 15:38

And a lot of people think that it's kind of how to say that it's kind of, you know, detached from context or whatever situation you were in back then. And then they, because they've been told, so it's not their fault, but they really believe that there is this underlying something entity that we call something, that's there, and the only reason it's not there in their lives right now is because the job is keeping it at bay. So just to gently and carefully, over a lot of pages, move that idea because because even if okay, so even the part that's not withdrawal, and not a hundred percent, is withdrawal, because these are largely mind altering or emotional numbing drugs, so obviously it is different to be off them than to be on them. So part of the things that resurface is not withdrawal. That's true, that's you underneath, but that's not the same as saying that it's an illness or disorder. It's just your feelings and stuff coming back.

Speaker 1: 16:37

Well, by the way, if you've been on this stuff for 10, 15, 20 years and depending upon the age you were when you started them, you're not going to recognize the you that's coming out because that you have not experienced like this before. And I think it is funny when you say like, literally in his book, the drug tapering part is like this big sandwiched in the middle of this book. Okay, this big sandwiched in the middle of this book. And I've been talking about this because I think, yes, we need to understand the drug tapering, but so many people want off, they just want the plan, they want to know how to taper and they're forgetting about all the other psychology and their life and all the things around that. And I think your book did a really great job of like just a reminder of it is more than just a taper plan and a chart, you know.

Speaker 2: 17:33

So that's actually the well.

Speaker 3: 17:34

Some of the easier parts, like when I talk with people about this like the tape we're going to play with dosing and you're going to that part is actually the easier part of this for lack of a of a better word right now Anders, as much as this is how I describe it.

Speaker 3: 17:46

That's the easy part. Theoretically the tapering can be. It's complicated in a sense that it hurts so much and the technicalities can be difficult to sit with. But I don't think the mechanism of the theory or the knowledge is that complicated when we introduce, like the body just adapts and then it has to readapt and we want the body to leave according to its effect, hence the curves and it's a very surprisingly basic mechanism that we shouldn't overcomplicate and it's really important to understand. Obviously it's the most important thing to understand why withdrawal occurs and how to avoid it. That makes it easier to be in too, if you really really understand the mechanism. But there's no need for more pages to describe it. I just use some metaphors and homeostasis as an example. And then people to understand that the curves are hyperbolic. Okay, but you don't know exactly when. So you just need to know what to do when you hit that curve and go back up and slower down.

Speaker 1: 19:50

Yeah, yeah. Well, so, even the mildly deprescribing guidelines, like I always stress, this is guideline, Like. So it's like adding ish on the end of something like this is the guideline ish that you might, you know, do it. It's just examples, right? It's examples, and every you're talking about everybody is psychologically different, physiologically different, on levels like and how long you've been on something, what you're on, where you're at in your life. Now, all these things play a huge part. So that's why the the sandwich in your book is the meat that everyone's looking for is slight, but it's powerful, right, you don't need to over-describe it, but I think people look for this prescribed, like I want to know, like step by step, like yes, and that's what got you in the shit storm you're in in the first place.

Speaker 3: 20:46

At least it contributes a lot to it. And if you approach tap, you in the shit storm you're in in the first place. At least it contributes a lot to it. And if you approach tapering in the same way, that's part of the problem and I understand it. It's not ridicule or anything. It's as normal as it's ineffective. Yes, and obviously if you've tried to come off too fast before you know what's waiting, so God knows, of course you'll be hyper-focused on not doing that again, but it can take over that mindset right. So we need to respect it without being afraid of it when tapering. Really, because there's no danger in making that too big reduction and going to severe withdrawal as long as you act and introduce it and then go slower. It's only if you stay in the severe withdrawal for long without with the body screaming and screaming and screaming for you to up the dose because it thinks it's missing something and the homeostatic mechanisms can't do their thing, but they try anyway because you've introduced too big a reduction. That's where it gets dangerous to stay in it.

Speaker 1: 21:42

So when we talk about the SIRT occupancy, so you're talking about how many molecules of serotonin, or the percentage of molecules of serotonin that are occupying this cell, right, like they're, they're plugging up the holes of the receptors, right? So when you take something out and it's like now you're ish again down to you know, 52 ish um of occupancy occupying those receptors, what are the receptors doing that are not occupied? Yes, yeah.

Speaker 3: 22:11

So it's really so that the receptors that are occupied just in this with as as antidepressants, they just don't function. There are different ways the drug can. They can, they can like, they can activate it or deactivate it or block it, or they can even be in inverse, inverse agonists, right, so they can make it produce the the opposite effect of what is normal. But that's completely irrelevant here. But in this sense it blocks it, meaning it doesn't reuptake the serotonin, therefore it increases. So it's kind of like a double minus. So it's not that there's serotonin in, therefore it increases. So it's kind of like a double minus. So it's not that there's serotonin in the drug. You must meet those people who've been told that too, but there's actual serotonin in them.

Speaker 1: 22:52

Yeah, then it makes more serotonin, that's what they've been told no one has ever said that.

Speaker 3: 22:58

Nobody claims that. But there's something in the drug that makes the brain's or body's own levels increase by blocking what would have normally removed it. That's the mechanism. So your question was what do those receptors do when they're blocked? Well, nothing. That's because they're blocked by the drug, just as your pain receptors whatever they're called are blocked by opioids or painkillers when you take them. So, even though they send a pain signal, you don't feel it because they're blocked by a drug.

Speaker 1: 23:32

So then you go down in a dose and some more of those become unblocked, and so the newly unblocked receptors.

Speaker 3: 23:35

What are they doing? They just start doing their thing of reuptaking serotonin.

Speaker 1: 23:38

But it takes a while, because I usually call it like. They're kind of sleepy now because they've been blocked and they don't really know what to do and so they have to become alive and awake and doing all the things. Is that an accurate thing to say, or not? Do they just automatically start doing their?

Speaker 3: 23:52

thing. I think it happens pretty fast. I think the delay is that the drug has to leave the body, so if enough for the body to detect it. So it's a half-life thing. So if you took 100 milligrams and go down to 90, it's not effectively 90 on the same day, you just feel like that because you only introduced 90 milligrams. But it's slowly decreasing from 100 to 90. And at some point between that it doesn't necessarily happen overnight. It has to decrease enough for the body to detect. Hey, I'm going to, I came to expect this.

Speaker 3: 24:25

The best normal word for adaptation is just to understand that the body starts expecting what we're doing to it. So now we've changed the course. So it starts, the expectation is not fulfilled and then it reacts and that can take some time. So I think the delay in when withdrawal happens is more about half-life and it gets a bit more complicated there too. And we have these graphs in the original paper, molecular psychiatry one. I didn't have this in the book because it was too complicated. But what we call half-life is really measured in the blood. But if you measure the half-life of the occupancy it's way slower, if that makes sense If you plot blood concentration or serum concentration. With occupancy, as it decreases, you'll see that it removes much faster in the blood than in the brain. So there's a delay. There's a discrepancy which can further make sense of why symptoms can be a bit delayed, even if we know the half-life.

Speaker 1: 25:22

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Thank you for your clarity on that. Go ahead, jen.

Speaker 2: 25:27

Well, I was just thinking about the idea of protracted symptoms and not experiencing something in an acute fashion right after removing, but weeks later, days later, months later, and there's this idea of protraction that happens and that is what you're describing here. As you're talking, I'm trying to think of like analogies. I'm like, okay, gumball machines, gumballs being reduced, okay, so if the serotonin just starts to really start working again, it's like never working out before and then going to a CrossFit gym and being able to, like you know, do like 14 total bars, just like that, like. So I'm trying to think of analogies as you're talking, which is why I have this look on my face I live in an analogy world signs.

Speaker 3: 26:10

So we have to use metaphors and I use that too, and it's like some of this stuff is unfair, complicated to understand, but I would still.

Speaker 3: 26:32

My main message will still be once you crack it and understand, it is very simple and a lot of the theoretically not to sit with necessarily Right, yes, theoretically. And really a lot of the action with withdrawal is on the other side. If we could draw it, and that's in the book too, that's on the other side of the synapse. That's what the brain does to compensate. So we block it on one side and then, as a response to chronically having your serotonin levels elevated, the body makes a down regulation. So it's really that. That changes more back to your question of what does the receptors do when you reduce the dose. Well, I think they're pretty fast unoccupied and then they start doing their thing and then that then sets off a chain reaction, meaning okay, now the serotonin in the case of antidepressants is less than it used to be, but the body has adapted to it being higher by downregulating the receptors that receive. That receptor is just a version of receive right.

Speaker 2: 27:34

So in the body's response of trying to even that out reach a homeostatic level it reacts and this is where withdrawal.

Speaker 3: 27:43

It does so by exactly by downregulating. Yeah, because that's its only weapon. Like we perturb it, we increase it artificially, and the body's not stupid. It knows that. Yeah, it knows that. So it'll start to downregulate and the only thing it can do is just make it less. It make itself less sensitive to the now excess serotonin. And as long as you take the drug over the years, well, you have the adverse effects that the drug creates and the effects, but you're not in withdrawal because you're kind of giving the body what it expects. So that mechanism is underneath, only triggered by the reductions that are too big.

Speaker 1: 28:22

Well, I find it fascinating because when we start doing this and you're experiencing withdrawal, to me I look at it like, okay, every time you're doing this, your body is doing its thing and you're noticing, even though it feels terrible, that is your body trying to heal, that's it trying to do the thing that it was meant to do before, but we haven't allowed it to do in quite a long time. So this kind of for me this goes back into the whole broken brain theory. Right, like, my brain is broken. I don't produce enough serotonin, so this pill helps me produce serotonin, which it doesn't Like. To me, that's we just said. That's like the biggest myth of it all. These pills don't do that. But also the broken brain theory. If your brain were really broken in theory, if your brain were so broken that it needed these medications, they wouldn't be trying to recalibrate after you are taking them away. They would just not do anything. Right, like in theory.

Speaker 3: 29:17

That's the final argument that I would like. So if you really analyze the chemical imbalance idea, it says that whatever mechanism's responsible for regulating it doesn't work, that they don't work. That's the idea. Okay, If that's true, then withdrawal wouldn't, adaptation wouldn't, exactly as you say. It wouldn't be possible because obviously, if the drug, if the body is capable of adapting well, then whatever's detecting that there's too much of something for it to adapt must work. So it's kind of the final nail in the coffin for that theory that this is even possible.

Speaker 1: 29:51

Yeah, yes. So I want to go back and just ask you a question. What got you so involved in this line of work, like, what was it that was so appealing for you to do this?

Speaker 3: 30:04

Yeah, so I'm a therapist by training. I'm a psychologist. That's what my initial interest was in psychotherapy helping people through their depressions and anxiety and psychosis and existential crisis or whatnot via the mind. So I take the word psychotherapy a bit too literal maybe, because I just mean how we can use the mind for that or train the mind or understand the mind enough to do that. So, long story short, part of that for clients already on medication, there's a point in therapy at least the therapy I do where it is a natural next step to manage without something that does it for you Numbs or distorts or alters or whatever you describe the drug. As for you numbs or distorts or alters or whatever you describe the drug as, whatever that does, there is a natural like. The next step in therapy is to see what's underneath that.

Speaker 3: 30:54

So the idea of long-term medication was just.

Speaker 3: 30:58

It just contradicted some of the foundations in the therapy I did and that then led to okay and this is 10 years ago before, like when there was even less awareness and data on tapering.

Speaker 3: 31:11

But I just found some clients early on 10 years ago that wanted to come off and accepted the premise and then we just tapered in the way that guidelines say, because, like, I wasn't told, and they certainly weren't told about how to taper. And then, long story short, I just saw right in front of me that these reactions they didn't make, it didn't add up to me that it was relapse. So we approached it as withdrawal, Just intuitively saying, okay, maybe this is a reaction to the drug leaving too fast, as if it was if you stop smoking or drinking or whatever Just applied the exact same mechanism and I went with it. So that's where, that's the road I've been walking ever since. So so I just I saw it and didn't believe it was relapse. I approached it as withdrawal. And then the rest is you know history as such, because things change as soon as you approach it as withdrawal.

Speaker 1: 32:03

Yes, did you your. So your other colleagues at that point? Were they also open to seeing it in this way, or was it a little bit different?

Speaker 3: 32:13

It was different and I didn't talk to that many. Well, they knew back in Aarhus, the second biggest city in Denmark, which is not big compared to your real cities, but it is still the second biggest one here and they knew there was this psychologist walking around doing the work. But you have to do the work on tapering, but but it is still the second biggest one here and they knew there was this psychologist walking around doing the work. But you have to do the work on tapering. But if you just present this idea, you have a lot of explanation to do, like why, why would a psychologist do this and not a doctor? And that's because they they, whoever they is.

Speaker 3: 32:42

But general people generally understand it as something treating something and from my perspective and I described this in detail in the book it's just a strategy. If you look at the definition of what emotion regulation is, it fits completely with what a drug does. So for me it wasn't that weird. It wasn't weird. Obviously you do need to know some basic pharmacology and tapering stuff, but it's not a lot. So for me it was very intuitive to help people come off that strategy, as opposed to, compared to what else we did helping people not avoid their emotions or not distract themselves or not cut themselves, Whatever strategies people have used understandably in their life. So for me it was. It was the same. Once you understand that a drug is just another strategy, on par with whatever other strategy we can find, it changes it completely. And from that perspective it wasn't weird for me at all as a psychologist to do it, but most people did think that and people still do.

Speaker 1: 33:47

They still do. Yeah, they still do Because you know. It's interesting how you just described that as, like you know, we would help people get off of alcohol.

Speaker 2: 33:55

Right, it's no different than any other intervention that we would do or try to help people to not do because it's not healthy for them. Right, it's like this idea of like emotion regulation and I'm going to work somebody through strategies of managing emotion regulation and if there are things you're doing to not allow yourself to feel or to numb yourself out or that are actually working against your amygdala and prefrontal cortex and all of the systems of the body, we would address that right, no different than we would address lifestyle stuff you do. That's unhealthy, right I'm glad you.

Speaker 3: 34:34

It's pretty intuitive, right, once you. But as far as you don't understand that these drugs are not targeting something specific, then it was no place for us as psychologists or therapists, because then you'd remove something in the body. But once you understand that's not the case, it changes everything and it's way less dramatic.

Speaker 2: 34:51

Okay, this is just such a good way to describe it. Anders, like I'm really appreciative of this right now, just personally in the field because terry and I have gone on the chopping block all the time for this um, for for a constantly. You are not qualified. You do not understand this.

Speaker 1: 35:12

You are not a out of briber.

Speaker 2: 35:14

You're not a prescriber you are so far out of your lane that you are now unethical and two ways from sunday. We've tried to explain this to people that actually know we are qualified, we can be experts in this, and this is no different than us trying to help somebody through something else. And, yes, it takes a little bit more knowledge, awareness, self-guided education, and let's put it right there, because there are no programs or things out here that teach us all of this. We read the books, we look at the papers, we help people through it, but the way you just described that, it is in our wheelhouse. As described. That right, it is in our wheelhouse.

Speaker 3: 35:49

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 35:50

As mental health providers. This actually is in our wheelhouse.

Speaker 3: 35:53

Yes, just have to understand how they work. That's. That's chapter two or three in the book.

Speaker 1: 36:00

It's in the sandwich, terry flagged it.

Speaker 2: 36:02

It's flagged four times, anders. Yeah, I just love how you described that. It's just very validating.

Speaker 1: 36:09

It was very validating.

Speaker 2: 36:10

It is very validating for us as deprescribers and people trying to help individuals do this Exactly.

Speaker 3: 36:16

Just to connect. This is exactly what Joanna Moncrief has been talking about all the time, and we kind of worked together on a paper for my PhD too, because what I called emotion regulation I approaching the whole thing psychologically she called the drug-centered model, so that whole language for understanding medications as drugs. They overlap completely and that's why I think we connected so well in the beginning so fast. So there was this whole language about drugs working as strategies. I'm not sure she would use, or the disease or drug-centered model would use the word strategy, but that's certainly what it means, that's what they say. So there was this whole language from Joanna Moncrief's work years before I even started describing the exact same. So there are definitely. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 37:06

The language is out there is what you're saying. The language is out there, what you're saying, like, the language is out there, it's given to you and, like anything else, if you're interested in some area, so not all therapists or psychologists are going to be interested in this area. It's like an area of expertise and guided interest. So not everybody's going to want to do this, but all therapists have medicated clients.

Speaker 3: 37:30

I would like to see that one very of not having any medicated clients. So I get why most clinicians wouldn't want to sit with the nitty-gritty stuff of tapering. But the knowledge of how these drugs work and don't work and how they can affect what you're trying to target in therapy, I would say everyone should. So I agree. Oh you're, you're trying to target in therapy, I would say everyone should be educated about it, I agree.

Speaker 2: 37:51

Oh, here you are. In our business model brain that Terry and I spend hours talking about God. We would love to be able to bring that to the mainstream. Continuing education revolves around shit that matters, not like the same ethics training we get every two years for our licensure. Okay, but you just said something. You said how the drugs work, but how the drugs don't work, and you had shared in the form you filled out for the show. You wrote that exact thing as a topic that you wanted to talk about. Can you touch on that, Because you just said it right, Like how?

Speaker 2: 38:26

they actually don't work, which I think is also part of informed consent. We're going to wrap that in here too. Can you talk just a little bit about that in terms of like these antidepressants and how these drugs actually don't work? What do you mean by that?

Speaker 3: 38:38

And what do we mean? Well, I mean the mechanisms we described just before and psychiatric drugs, either increasing or decreasing different neurotransmitters. They're increasing or decreasing different neurotransmitters. And you can, so you can plot all psychiatric drugs in the same model, the same, the same table, and just write the different, the different neurotransmitters and then the drugs and then the plus or minus and the amount of pluses and minus to indicate if they increase or decrease the level or activity. So that's just to say that's how they work, and no one disagrees that the drugs enter the brain and increase or decrease certain neurotransmitters, not necessarily the level, but their activity sometimes. So we but we, I don't think we need to be that detailed here but it can increase or decrease activity or level. No one disagrees about that. What we do disagree about is what that means here. But it can increase or decrease activity or level, no one disagrees about that. What we do disagree about is what that means then, and that's what I mean with how they don't work.

Speaker 3: 39:35

So do they fix anything Like was your problem caused by a lack or excess of whatever the drug fixed or didn't fix? Or is it just and that's where the drug-centered model comes in and the whole strategy talk or is our how to say experience of having our neurotransmitters affected. It just happens to be a psychoactive effect, that we then experience it as more or less emotions, and that's really where it diverges. That makes sense. So they don't work. And I don't even know if you can find a knowledgeable psychiatry professor or opinion leader anymore saying that the chemical imbalance thing, but it still lives in practice.

Speaker 3: 40:19

All other sorts of people having said that, obviously it doesn't fix any chemical imbalances. It still perturbs the neurotransmitters but that doesn't translate into them being curable, and that's what I mean with how they do and don't work. If that makes sense, so they do of the mechanism, but it means something else. It's far more simple than psychiatry wants to accept, because it's just a psychoactive drug. Is it useful and for how long? Whatever effect? That's the only question we should ask clients on drugs.

Speaker 1: 40:55

Say that one more time. What is the question we should ask them?

Speaker 3: 40:58

So whether it's useful or not helpful, like that state that the drug introduces, usually it'll be some degree of numbing or distance or distortion. Yes, is that helpful? Yes or no, and for how long? We don't even need to understand the biological underpinnings of it all. It's irrelevant. It's nice to know if you go into academia, if you want to explain the mechanisms and in terms of tapering, but the actual experience of the client sitting in front of you, it's rather, it's largely irrelevant what mechanisms bring about. You don't need to understand how alcohol works either, or a certain substance or marijuana to help a person talk about that. But we need to change our languages around it.

Speaker 1: 41:43

I agree, you know. It's interesting because when Moncrief what was it? It was in 2022 when she did the meta-analysis and that came out about the chemical balance theory or whatever. And the funny part to me was that there was a bunch of psychiatrists that came on and were like, well, we've known this for years, we don't really think about that in that way. And I'm like well, did you share that with the consumers? Because pretty much every consumer that I know who is a client or just someone on social media who is, you know, coming up against the chemical imbalance theory, thinks it's a chemical imbalance. That's why they're on this. And so then the next discussion is so if it's not a chemical imbalance, then why do the medications work and I'm air quoting work, because what does that mean? I don't know.

Speaker 3: 42:41

Yeah Well, they do work. They do have an effect. It's not necessarily a good effect. It can be a good effect in some situations. It depends on what you mean with work, like they can definitely numb something painful. So if that's what you mean with work, well then yes, and that can be incredibly helpful in periods of really dark periods, obviously. But that's not the same as saying that it treated it so. It just created another state that happened to be stronger, because that's what drugs do, and then that became your experience. But it doesn't mean that whatever it covers up isn't there. In fact, usually it's there even more because-.

Speaker 2: 43:36

Right, that's the iat connected to the entire body, right? So there's all of these variables, but the idea that there's an iatrogenic level here because you did do something that actually is causing more harm. There's a temporary state of relief, which is is it helpful? Go back to your question. Is it helpful? Right, yes, it's helpful. I'm not depressed anymore, I'm not having suicidal thoughts, I'm not crying every single day, I'm not feeling like pain throughout my body every single day. I'm not feeling pain throughout my body. But then the second question, though, is that isn't asked is but for how long?

Speaker 2: 44:14

I know you just said this and it's so simple, but it's the question that's not asked, right? So when you go back to your even the consumer or the provider, is the provider coming back and say, after the first 60 days of you taking that med, or 90 days and going, okay, was it helpful? Yeah, it was helpful, but for how long do we do this? Now? Because there is a potential iatrogenic level of care. That's going to happen because we have just taken away your ability to feel something.

Speaker 2: 44:42

We have changed the chemical state of the brain and the body. There are all of these things that can occur. Side effects, right, here's where the informed consent piece comes in. Right, that could occur with you. So, for how long? And we didn't actually fix what was happening, we just numbed it for you for a bit. So that's why you don't have your panic attacks. Right, we didn't fix it, we didn't root cause this. We actually kind of created more of a synthetic brain injury for you. Yeah, for a hot second right, so to say. But that's the question for how long there's no definitive answer.

Speaker 3: 45:15

But just reflecting on that is really what's missing really, and then you usually find something, but so so. So I know that that, like relief and feeling less can easily be confused with feeling better, because if you go from like it's not the same At least that's not the goal of where I come from on what therapy is, and like true healing, recovery, getting better, then pain is not necessarily bad. In fact, often it's something, it's a signal Like that's what emotions are. So the usual analogy I use is for people to understand how hunger works. Hunger is painful. It has to be because the body can't seek out nutrition, but it needs it. It has to motivate us to do it, to do the job, and it has to do that through something unpleasant that we then have to decipher or decode Okay, this is hunger, it means I need that, and then when I do that, that signal shuts off until we're hungry again. So it's kind of communication back and forth from our bodies and people usually understand that Now we don't just survive on food and sleep and oxygen.

Speaker 3: 46:21

We need all sorts of other things. We have psychological needs. We need to belong and to feel heard and to needs. We need to belong and to feel heard and to master stuff and to be competent and to be part of a group, and all sorts have identity. We have a lot of psychological needs that the body also knows, or the psyche, or wherever you want to put it. Something knows when something's missing compared to what we're made for, and it tries to tell us that too, through emotions. To what we're made for, and it tries to tell us that too, through emotions, and it's the exact same thing. So calling that a disorder or an illness or something with negative connotation is just a problem, and it changes when we try to understand it as signals, messengers to listen to, and that all resurfaces. So in that, that's a very long way to say. Are we sure we're helping people by enumming that long term, even though it may feel and pan out as symptom reductions? I'm not sure.

Speaker 2: 47:16

I mean, that's the question bit about this, this idea of okay if we pose that question, instead of doing that, so, instead of doing the drug route, okay, instead of focusing on the disease model, what are alternatives? So, when we're talking about informed consent, we're talking about there are risks, there are benefits right, but there are alternatives. What are the alternatives to? You know, getting better lifelong meds.

Speaker 3: 47:53

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 47:54

What are alternatives that people are not introduced to people that we're missing?

Speaker 3: 47:59

Yeah, so. So now, most of the alternatives I would use is within the psychotherapy realm, and that's not to say that everything everyone then has to go through psychotherapy, depending what you mean. That is Because, for me at least, a lot of what psychotherapy is is a room to explore what's not explored in the medical model, which is the why, what's the root course of this? So we're really asking how can we make sense of the symptoms which, in this language, make sense of the symptoms which, in this language, we wouldn't call them symptoms. It would mostly be emotions or behaviors. That's really what, and you could just go through the diagnostic manuals for most diagnosis and you could just divide. It would either be strategies like behaviors, coping strategies or ways of having it, and then the way they relate to each other. So we strip it of this diagnostic language and talk about it using normal words for this. And so psychotherapy doesn't have to be an intervention, necessarily. It can be, but it can also just be a space to explore that and then see what happens.

Speaker 3: 49:00

And then sometimes, when you dive in, dig into the pain and the suffering and your your, on the surface, destructive behaviors, maybe. They usually have a function, and that's what we try to get to the core too. So sometimes it's it's something in your life that has to change. Sometimes it's your job, sometimes it's your relation to yourself, sometimes it's a it's a, it's a trauma, Like sometimes you don't need to change anything in your life, but something's haunting you. Sometimes it's your diet. Oftentimes it's the diet at least playing a part in it, and that's why I really really celebrate the metabolic psychiatry movement here. So so, but whatever it is, the alternative to long-term medication is to ask that question and then be curious about how can we make sense of this?

Speaker 2: 49:44

Yeah, yeah, and I think that part of the conversation is really important, because this piece of the conversation isn't isn't had when you're sitting in your prescriber's office and needing needing that relief, right. This is the part of the conversation that that isn't there, which is the alternatives. So there are multiple alternatives that you could consider. Before we start to to to look at a drug Right, we could, you could consider, before we start to look at a drug, right, you could look at doing some psychotherapy. You could look at actually like nutrition and maybe changing your diet a little bit. You could look at talking with someone about, maybe, some of this.

Speaker 2: 50:20

I know that you lost a spouse years ago and that this is when you came into my office in the first place, right, maybe you need to do a little bit of work in that area. Maybe you need to get back to your roots and get back to the earth and do some more grounding techniques, some more somatic work. Maybe there's alternatives within the holistic realm and herbal medicines, adaptogenic medicines right, like there are so many. Maybe you need to leave your shitty job.

Speaker 3: 50:43

Yeah, maybe.

Speaker 2: 50:44

Okay, Right, Like you know, and so I, this is the part of um, the, the risks and the benefits and the alternatives. I think the alternatives piece is the part that isn't isn't brought to people's attention at all. In fact, it's not part of the prescribing conversation at all, At least here it's not. It's the same here.

Speaker 3: 51:06

It's not better in Denmark at all, in Europe, and it's ironic because there's a lot of options out there. It's not because we lack people who can answer the question. Well then, what do we do instead, other approaches to emotional suffering than to numb it? There's loads of examples on that that are directly alternatives to long-term medication, and a lot of them also means to explore the how to say need to find relief and quick fix, like what is it that feels so good to not feel, like kind of play along with that. Okay, there's something here that feels good to not feel, because you're saying it feels better to be on the drug, so something's numbed. So it is obvious for me to ask what is that then? Could we try to be curious about that, just opening up a room for people where we're not afraid of it? Obviously we respect it, so it's not a way to don't hear it as like of if that's romanticizing it and glorifying just to sit with our pain and then you know, do something with it.

Speaker 1: 52:11

Obviously, but part of that can involve to sit with it and be curious about, I think I I want to bring this in, I think, from the therapist, uh side of point of view. Here too, there are a lot of therapists that can't sit with their clients being uncomfortable like that, and so I agree, but I agree.

Speaker 1: 52:33

But even if someone comes in and they're like so emotionally dysregulated or so all these things, instead of I mean they'll say they create the space for it. But then the next thing out of their mouth is you should and I will say that I used to practice like this you need to go back to your prescriber. Maybe you need to look at your medication list again. Maybe you need an increase in dose, maybe you need these things like that's, that's cause, that's what we were trained to do. You know, if this happens if there's, then you go back to the prescriber. You, you know, you push it out of your office and you put it onto a medication at this point. But I think we need to bring therapy back into therapy and not be afraid of your client's emotional state of being, because that's why you're a freaking therapist in the first place right and their reactions to it and their emotions and their reactions to it, even if that reaction is dissociation or paranoia or extreme overthinking or cutting or what else.

Speaker 3: 53:28

Again, there's strategies, what we've been used to call symptoms or strategies, meaning they don't have to be deliberate strategies, but it's just a way to say they're motivated behaviors. The person is trying to achieve something with it, usually to downregulate some pain. So they have a function in the person's life, but we call them symptoms. But we can't just remove the symptoms. We have to figure out why they're there and then it'll kind of resolve. So we can resolve the need for the symptoms, which is then behaviors right.

Speaker 2: 54:01

So I've often thought about this, Anders, and I know it really contraindicates.

Speaker 2: 54:03

Like, as a therapist, you know what I do and Terry and I have talked about this before and I just want to get your, get your opinion on this. So sometimes when I get in these deep, dark rabbit holes of thinking about the impacts of psychiatric medications on our patients so something you said earlier is, you know, I'll be damned if you find a therapist who, if you look at their entire caseload, 75% of their clients are medicated. Okay, it's, it's, it's very common, very common. And so we have people coming to us and they're trying to work through these psychological problems, these symptoms, these states of being whatever you want to call it that they've got going on.

Speaker 2: 54:41

And I sit here and I think about the idea that am I just creating forever consumers within my industry? Because it is very likely that in the context of psychotherapy, you're not going to get where you need to get for yourself because of your inability to think clearly, to hit higher order functioning, to actually feel emotion and connect that with the inner person, because that is all quite numbed out for you. And so I think about this idea of it's almost like I feel like sometimes I'm doing a disservice. And, yes, of course, naturally anybody who works with me they know I start talking about the role of medications on the brain and body right away, just like I would the role of your standard American diet on the brain and body right Same thing. But I think about this idea and people staying in an intervention that they actually can maybe never fully work through and get to those healing spaces because their brain it cannot do it. It actually physically cannot for some because of these drugs.

Speaker 3: 55:52

Yeah, and there's no access to the, to the emotions we want to or the depths of what we want to to to target, and and that really, and that's a that's an unfair situation. If you haven't correctly categorized the drug as part of the problem, right, Then I definitely need to remain in treatment because I don't feel better yet, and that just creates this illusion that if you forget the drug from that equation, then maybe it's become the problem, like the drug's the problem, or at least part of it, Not to say it's the drug for everything, but it can certainly block the process we're trying to achieve.

Speaker 2: 56:29

Just like any other thing could block that process right. Like alcohol or anything like that we sit down with our clients and yes, you're struggling with alcohol, you're using other drugs. Your diet right A good old hype, ultra-processed diet right. As clinicians, we're going to sit there and we have those conversations with our clients.

Speaker 2: 56:47

Like these are the things that are creating these blocks for you. These are the things that are keeping you from healing, but yet we don't. Often, clinicians are not trained and we are not taught to actually go, and actually the other big elephant in the room is the drug, and that's keeping you from doing the things you need to do as well and that's keeping you from doing the things you need to do as well.

Speaker 1: 57:10

But we're often but hold on. We're often told the opposite is true. Right, you take the drug so you can do the work.

Speaker 2: 57:13

That's that's what I'm trying to say. So this is a conundrum that keeps me up at night anders, like I can't fucking sleep with this, because I'm like I don't, I don't, I don't know what to do, because now I know and I can't unknow this.

Speaker 3: 57:27

Yeah Well, you should learn how to have a lot of trigger thoughts without answering them. Then you should learn how to not illuminate. It's in the book.

Speaker 1: 57:37

It's in the book. I've got that part.

Speaker 2: 57:40

I've got to get through this whole book, jeez, all right, fine, fine, use your work. Use it against me. I'm open to that, all right.

Speaker 1: 57:47

He just weaponized his book against Jen. That's funny.

Speaker 3: 57:53

But yes, that is, and I think as long as we have it categorized as a treatment.

Speaker 3: 57:58

obviously it is a treatment, but it's a drug before it's a treatment. So we have to move around with our mental categories. As long as you think it's a treatment and why would you look to that as the problem it's the treatment, right? I think there's some mental work of of of sheer categorization that needs to, because as long as you understand, as soon as you understand as a drug, it makes perfect sense that that, that that effect can be in the way of what you're trying to achieve.

Speaker 1: 58:26

Yes, yeah, well, because I think there are certain classes of psychiatric medication that we view more as a drug than a treatment. Yes, yeah, like benzodiazepines, right, like they're, they're moving into that category of a drug rather than a treatment. Ssris, snris, those things are or even stimulants, haven't gotten to that place yet. You know, a drug before treatment, it's treatment before drug. How dare you call this something that could be bad for us, like a drug of addiction, right? So, yeah, there are certain classes or categories of meds that we do that with, but instead we glamorize SSRIs and SNRIs as being the treatment of choice for a broken brain. Yeah, so?

Speaker 2: 59:13

interesting.

Speaker 1: 59:15

I could have 10 more hours of conversation with you, like 10 episodes.

Speaker 2: 59:22

I know Like, okay, we're almost two minutes from our wrap up here, so I'm like we're going to have to have you back.

Speaker 3: 59:30

There's so many and that's why the book is so long too. And these talks because there are so many different lines to follow, Like there's the tapering and how the drugs work, and that opens up its own range of questions if they didn't work like that, Because that pushes our ideas of what mental, so-called mental illness, even is. So this is all related how to taper, how the dogs work and what it even is Three major questions suddenly in the same pack.

Speaker 1: 59:56

Yes, I want to say the book is for anyone listening. This book is very well written towards the consumer, easy to follow, I'm not that deep and I can get it, so we're good there. But, as I was reflecting on this book, it is less about tapering and more about humanity, and that's what I really appreciate about this book bringing the person back to the person and I think that's important. So, if you're listening, get your hands on Crossing Zero. If you are a therapist or a psychologist or anyone in the mental health space, you need to read this book Like this. This book should be on everybody's desk. It should be on everybody's to-do list. So I think it's a. It just so happened that it came out after we scheduled you on the show.

Speaker 1: 1:00:48

He was already scheduled to be on the show and the book hadn't even been released yet. At least in English it hadn't been released. Yes, I've been doing it for a year and a half.

Speaker 3: 1:00:56

Oh, okay yeah the. English version.

Speaker 3: 1:00:58

Yes, I'm glad you say that, and really what I hope to bring to the table is the emotional part, the after part and how to drop stuff to, but definitely also the tapering stuff. So so it is, even though it still is very I hope people get that sense very specifically about tapering, like it answers all the common questions about it, does how not to. Yeah, and that is really that's what also all my therapeutic and clinical work is in psychology, and then my PhD is all about tapering geeky, geeky, tapering stuff. And so I'm glad you said that it's easy to follow, because and I think I even outlined that in the introduction the goal for me is to spread this knowledge in a easy to understand way, and some of the topics, as we talked about, are unfairly complicated for the average reader to understand. We talked about are unfairly complicated for the average reader to understand.

Speaker 1: 1:01:50

So my idea my mission was to spread those ideas in normal language, using metaphors and just saying that I love you, did, you did and I really love it. When you said it's unfairly overcomplicated. Sometimes I think that, oh, this is going to be a controversial, like we complicate something so that they don't ask questions or they stop, you know. So keeping it simple allows for more curiosity, more questions and opens up dialogue, which is something that you've done very well today, so thank you for being here.

Speaker 3: 1:02:19

Thank you so much.

Speaker 2: 1:02:21

For those of you that stayed with us here to the end. You have listened to the entire episode with Anders on the Gaslit Truth Podcast and you can find us anywhere that you listen to podcasts. You can also hit us up on any of our social medias. We're on the Facebook and the YouTube and the Instagram. We got all the things there and if you want to send us your Gaslit Truth stories, please do so at thegaslittruthpodcast at gmailcom. And one last plug for Anders' book Terry, hold that up, because mine's upstairs I don't have it here we go.

Speaker 2: 1:02:48

Yes, crossing zero. Get your hands on this book everybody. Um, especially if you're curious about tapering and even even if you're already tapering, but if you're thinking about the idea. For me, this book is a lot for people who are thinking about the idea of like, what if the drug actually could be the problem and it isn't what I was told. It is that, that curiosity, once you get there, this is a must read for that. So thanks for the kind words.

Speaker 1: 1:03:16

It means a lot. Thanks for being here. We'll have you back for episodes two through 10. All right, goodbye yeah.