Is Psychiatry Guessing?

In this episode of Wake Up, Look Up, Pastor Zach explores growing concerns over the overprescription of psychiatric medications and what leading mental health experts are now saying. He encourages listeners to practice discernment, ask thoughtful questions, and think critically about the advice they receive–especially when it comes to their health. Pastor Zach reminds us that wisdom means testing everything and holding fast to what is good.

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Creators and Guests

Host

Zach Weihrauch

Follower of Jesus who has graciously given me a wife to love, children to shepherd, and a church to pastor.

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Check out new episodes of our daily podcast, Wake Up, Look Up, with Zach Weihrauch as he interprets what's happening in our world through the lens of the gospel.

Hello everyone, and thanks for listening to Wake Up, Look Up, a podcast where we connect events happening in real time to the gospel of Jesus Christ. I'm Zach Weihrauch, and in today's episode we're asking the question, is psychiatry guessing? This is prompted by an article I read recently in the New York Times called Top Psychiatrists call for a greater focus on ceasing medication. In other words, here's the headline. Leading psychiatrists and psychiatric associations are calling for clear guidance to stop psychiatric medications. Many, of them, they feel being over prescribed, particularly in the anti anxiety area. increasingly psychiatry has become, in their minds at least, overly dependent on medication. what used to be primarily an industry built around talk therapy and helping a person untangle their trauma, their experiences, their emotions has increasingly become a pill mill. You sit down, you get your pills and you go. And psychiatrists are saying, hey, that isn't helpful. And they're pointing to a lot of reasons for that. One is just sheer numbers. 16.6% of US adults, roughly about 1 in 6, are taking medication for a psychiatric reason. And that's a staggering number. One in every six. Many of them, by the way, reported reporting pretty negative side effects and or withdrawal problems if they get off of the medicine. And what psychiatrists, psychiatrists are saying is like, look, there's still so much we don't know about brain chemistry. Brain chemistry isn't like blood pressure or heart rate. We don't have a hard and fast range where we say this is healthy and this is unhealthy. So when you sit down with a psychiatrist and you talk about anxiety and they immediately prescribe you, it's not because they've read your numbers. Those numbers don't exist. They're guessing. And of course guessing is sometimes a part of medicine. We don't always have hard and fast answers for something. But what people are leaving thinking is no, no, this is what I need. And even if they experience harmful side effects, they're going, well, what am I going to do? This is what I need. In fact, many people who have a history of drug abuse are saying that getting off of these medications is similar to going through withdrawal. think about that. That's a pretty powerful statement. So the Department of Health and Human Services is pushing this as well at a government level saying, hey, as America we have a problem with over prescribing. Of course we know we have had with things like opiates in the past. I guess here's what I'm saying. Paul says in 1 Thessalonians 5, 21. Test everything, hold fast to what is good. Discernment. That's the key here. Discernment. Look, when we go to the doctor, doctors are helpful, and certainly they have years of training that we do not have. They have years of experience that we do not have. I, don't want to create a cynicism towards people that have given their lives to helping other people get healthy. But I do want to say science is an inexact thing. And of course, the history of science is often a story of, hey, we thought this worked, we thought this was the answer, and. And then we found out it wasn't. In fact, that's often how scientific progress moves. We realize what we thought would work isn't working, and we go looking for new answers. That means, as Christians, we need to be paying attention to what the data is saying, because oftentimes the data is telling a different story. And in that case, we need to be willing to pivot. Is this actually helpful? Is this actually working? How do I know? How would I know if it's not? These are not unhelpful, unhealthy questions. Those are discernment questions. And any doctor, any teacher, shoot, even a car mechanic when they tell us, this is the problem, and here's what you need to do. Should expect that we're going to think critically about it, whether it's money we're spending, changes we're making, or, my goodness, the things we are putting in our bodies. Certainly there is a such thing as clinical anxiety, clinical depression, and I am not a mental health expert, but what the mental health experts are saying is that maybe we've been a little too quick to label things and maybe we've been a little too quick to prescribe. So this is just an encouragement. Ask the hard questions, do a little research, get a, second opinion. Because it's possible that. That the answer you've been giving is not the one you actually need. Hey, thanks for watching this episode of Wake Up, Look Up. If you enjoyed it, please help us get the word out by sharing it with someone you think might benefit from it. And while you're here, make sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel to get further content or even download the CCC app, where you'll find even more resources to help you grow in your faith and relationship with Jesus Christ.

Have an article you’d like Zach to discuss? Email us at [e-mail]!