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There has been a sharp increase in the prescription of drugs for depression and anxiety in recent years, as well as mood altering medication for children.

What's really going on here? And what are the consequences of this alarming trend?

Today's guest clinical psychologist Dr. Roger McFillin has the fascinating answer. This is part one of our two part conversation on the truth about mental health and the powerful industry behind it.

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Dr. McFillin, thanks so much for joining us. For those who may not know, can you just tell us who you are and what you do?

Yes, first of all, thank you for having me. Congratulations, by the way.

Thank you. My name is Dr. Roger McFillin. I am a clinical psychologist. I'm also the co-host of the podcast, Radically Genuine.

I run a large group practice in Bethel and Pennsylvania, which is about an hour north of Philly.

And I think a lot of what's brought me onto various podcasts and here today is what I'm being vocal about on social media and through the podcast, which is to be honest with you, it's really just being critical of my field in general from the over prescription of psychiatric drugs.

What typical therapy has become, the ideology that's influencing it. In fact, I make pretty controversial statements that I believe that entering into the system, the mental health system does create harm and could create harm.

And I tried to provide information, science based information to help people make informed decisions as well as just try to communicate to parents who have children and adolescents who are struggling about what might be the safest, most effective course.

So you became a psychologist, but you are critical kind of of psychology that industry, how did that happen? Did you go into it critical and wanting to change things or did you kind of learn, like look around at some point and say, oh, this is not what I thought it was.

Yeah, interesting story. I don't think when I was in undergrad, my intention was not to be a clinical psychologist. I thought I was going to be a teacher and a football coach. And I accepted a job right after undergrad as I was determining my next steps at a children's psychiatric hospital.

And to be honest, what I observed in that setting, and this is back in 1999, 2000 was absolutely appalling. I worked on a unit ages five to 10. So these are relatively very young kids who came from very abusive and traumatic backgrounds.

So these children would react as you would expect anybody would who was under a trauma response, abuse in homes, very difficult upbringing and violence in their homes.

And I just observed how the mental health system worked with these kids. I there was a psychiatrist on the unit who would basically ask basic questions, what is your name, why are you here? And then write up a pretty thorough psychiatric evaluation and prescribe one or often multiple psychiatric drugs.

And I saw these kids deteriorate. I really did. It was my first observation of what mental health care was in a lot of ways. It was the sedation of behavior. And they viewed at that time, and I think still today, that an effective mental health treatment is when somebody numbs their own emotional states or they become sedative.

And we'd see kids who were sleeping 16 hours a day. The life was taken out of them after they were put on these prescription. They started sleeping.

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