Dr Josef Witt Doerring on Deprescribing Psychiatry | The Gaslit Truth Podcast with Dr Teralyn Sell and Therapist Jenn Schmitz

When I started The Gaslit Truth, my goal was to have honest conversations about the questions people are often afraid to ask out loud. In this episode, Dr. Teralyn Sell and I sat down with psychiatrist Dr. Josef Whitt Doerring to talk about something many people experience in the mental health system: how quickly care can move from diagnosis to medication.

Most of us have heard the story about mental health—see a provider, describe your symptoms, receive a diagnosis, and often leave with a prescription. But as Dr. Josef explained, the system itself often nudges both clinicians and patients toward medication as the fastest solution.

We also talked about the “chemical imbalance” explanation many people have been given for depression or anxiety. The reality is that there’s no blood test or brain scan that can definitively diagnose these conditions. That doesn’t mean people aren’t suffering—it just means the science is more complex than the simplified story many of us were told.

Another topic we explored was the surge in ADHD diagnoses and the fact that stimulant medications tend to improve focus for almost anyone, which makes the diagnostic picture more complicated than it might seem.

We also addressed antidepressant black box warnings, which note increased suicidal behavior risk in people under 25, neutral results for most adults, and slight benefit for older adults. That kind of nuance is important, yet many people never hear it when making decisions about medication.

One of the most hopeful parts of the conversation was about what safe tapering actually looks like for people who want to come off psychiatric medications. The schedule itself is only part of it. The real work often involves rebuilding sleep, learning stress skills, and reevaluating life circumstances that may have contributed to distress in the first place.

This episode isn’t anti-medication. Medication can absolutely help some people. What we’re advocating for is something simpler: informed consent, honest conversations, and the recognition that people deserve options and context when it comes to their mental health.

At the end of the day, good care should help people feel more like themselves—not less.