Dr. Judith Joseph On Understanding High-Functioning Depression & How to Reclaim Your Joy
Balanced Black Girl
She's So Lucky
4.8 • 2.5K Ratings
🗓️ 10 June 2025
⏱️ 57 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
#295: The times we look like we have it all together can actually be the moments we’re struggling the most. When we’re busy creating our own luck, we can miss the signs that it’s time to tend to our mental and emotional well-being.
In today’s episode I’m sitting down with Dr. Judith Joseph, MD, MBA. Dr. Judith is a board-certified psychiatrist, researcher and award-winning content creator who specializes in mental health and trauma.
We discuss why the commonly understood signs of depression don’t tell the whole story, the ins and outs of high-functioning depression, and how to overcome it and reclaim your joy.
We Also Talk About…
- The hidden signs of high-functioning and hidden depression.
- Understanding anhedonia, or lack of joy, and how to work through it.
- Why high-achieving women are more susceptible to high-functioning depression.
- How to tend to your mental health when the state of the world feels hectic and overwhelming.
Resources:
- Check out Dr. Judith’s book High-Functioning: Overcome Your Hidden Depression and Reclaim Your Joy
- Follow Dr. Judith on Instagram @drjudithjoseph
- Follow Dr. Judith on TikTok @drjudithjoseph
- Check out Dr. Judith’s podcast, The Vault
- Download my free Best Case Scenario Journal Template
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Keep in touch:
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The following podcast is a dear media production. |
| 0:12.3 | Welcome back to She's So Lucky. My name is Les. I'm your host and this show Spotlights |
| 0:16.9 | Ambitious Women who create their own luck. And if you are listening to this, that probably |
| 0:22.3 | describes you as well. But sometimes when we're busy chasing our goals and creating our |
| 0:27.4 | own luck, we can be more susceptible to quietly struggling with high functioning depression that often |
| 0:33.3 | goes undetected because depression is often associated with lower functioning symptoms. |
| 0:39.6 | Candidly, this is something I have been experiencing for most of this year, so I was really |
| 0:44.1 | excited to sit down with today's guest, Dr. Judith Joseph. Dr. Judith is a board-certified |
| 0:50.8 | psychiatrist, researcher, and author of the new book, High Functioning, which I highly |
| 0:55.9 | recommend giving a read. I just finished it, and it has helped me so much. In this episode, |
| 1:02.6 | we talk about how some of the signs of high functioning depression can impact us at various |
| 1:08.3 | seasons of life, and we talk about solutions and ways that we can start |
| 1:12.3 | feeling joyful again. So let's get into today's episode with Dr. Judith. |
| 1:21.8 | Dr. Judith, welcome to the show. Thank you for having me. I am so excited to have you because I've |
| 1:27.1 | been following your work for a little while, and I've've been feeling this has been a little too relatable lately. |
| 1:32.2 | But I'm realizing that if I can relate to it, I think a lot of members of my audience probably do as well. But before we get into that, I have recently on the show been liking to talk to guests about lucky moments that they have. |
| 1:44.7 | The show is now called She's So Lucky, where we talk about creating our own luck. |
| 1:48.6 | So I would love to hear if you've had any little magic or lucky moments lately that you want to share. |
| 1:55.5 | Well, lately, I've had so many lucky moments. |
| 1:59.0 | I don't know if I would call them luck because it's a lot of hard work that led to these moments. But I remember one lucky moment that didn't seem like luck at all. It seemed like work. And it was when I was in training. And at first I felt lucky because my program director was like, |
| 2:19.6 | come into the ER. |
| 2:20.6 | There's a journalist here. |
... |
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