The Trap Of Victim Consciousness | Dr. Kelly Brogan

Kelly Brogan (0:00)

There were dozens of instances where I had a little feeling of a no. I was pregnant. I'm writing a prescription for Zoloft for a pregnant patient of mine. And I had this little voice. I felt that I would never take this medication as a pregnant woman, that I'm not only prescribing, but I'm almost like assuaging her fears around, though I'm advocating for her right to take this medication. And that dissonance, I just suppressed it. And I've come to recognize that, especially for women, ignoring that little note is the root of all of our fragmentation. It's the root of so many toxic dynamics that we enter into with systems, with people. So I ignored that. And that rupture had to build, right? It had to build momentum.

Elisabeth McKay (0:46)

Your brain is wired for deception. But here's the truth. Patterns can be broken. The code can be rewritten. Once you hear the truth, you can't go back. So the only question is, are you ready to listen?

Hey, everybody. Welcome to another episode of Decoded. Today's conversation is looking at the foundations of how we understand the human mind. Over the last several decades, mental health awareness has expanded and we all know that the language has expanded, access has expanded. But at the same time, outcomes have remained largely unchanged. And to me, this raises some really deep questions about the models that we're relying on to understand behavior, emotion, and healing.

My guest today is Dr. Kelly Brogan. Kelly is trained and practiced as a psychiatrist inside the conventional medical health system before she started to question some of its underlying assumptions. And over the last decade, her work has evolved into broader inquiries around trauma, nervous system safety, sovereignty, and of course, what healing actually means beyond symptom management. So, Kelly, welcome to the show. I'm so excited to have you here. This has been many years in the making of me following your work and honestly, just loving every time your voice is in the public.

Kelly Brogan (2:02)

Oh, I love being here. I'm really excited for this conversation.

Elisabeth McKay (2:06)

So, let's start to go back, I would imagine, to somewhere toward the beginning of your career, although we've talked extensively on the show about how, to me, I always refer to it as just big academia. Big academia can kind of like funnel and shift how you see things. So, it might not have been the very beginning, but when was it in your career that you first started to question some of the assumptions that psychology and psychiatry are built on?

Kelly Brogan (2:33)

So, the tracking back probably goes to my childhood, as I know you appreciate, because in my generation, there are so many of us gals who have attempted to become the fathers that we didn't have, right? The present, attentive, solid planners who can execute without fail, who have integrity of word, who are fierce protectors, who are even saviors, right? Who can show up and deliver a certain kind of outcome, who are solution-oriented and productive, all of these qualities. So, I grew up really honing those skills and being supported by my mom, who encouraged me to challenge a lot of the status quo at that time, anyway, around what women were allowed to do, right? So, I end up going to MIT, this male-dominated school, and I decide that I'm going to become a doctor. And I was steeped in the psychology of what I now understand to be victim consciousness, right? This triangulation that requires a villain, a savior, right? And a victim.

And in that triangular orientation, I was always looking for who to blame, right? So, whether that was interpersonally, in my dynamics, I had like a very dramatic conflict-filled life. Like, I was a very provocative kid. I was always getting in trouble with every single authority, even though I was like also getting the straight A's. Like, I had this inner war being reflected on the outside. And so, I worked a suicide hotline, just like a volunteer position at MIT. And it was a big deal there. It's called Nightline. And in doing so, I was exposed to psychiatry, right? Because we were supervised by psychiatrists, and we had to report all of these cases of students who would call in struggling, you know, or actually in the contemplative stages of suicidality.

And I started to develop the belief that we've cracked the code of human behavior. And all that has to happen to fix this problem of human suffering, is to get them into a psychiatrist's office and get them on a prescription. And what I didn't recognize at the time was it also served to disburden me from the emotional immaturity and discomfort of another person's struggle. So actually, I needed to have this ready solution because I like to help people and maybe there is a little thread of altruism in there, who knows? But mostly because I could not tolerate being around somebody who was struggling. It was too uncomfortable for me, for my own emotional bandwidth. So if I had a solution, that felt good for me, it felt good for them. And then, of course, I got to play the rescuer, the savior, which is a very delicious role in the triangle to play. So I went to medical school to become a psychiatrist because I was so lit up by the concept that we have an answer. Nobody needs to struggle, nothing needs to be worrying, nothing needs to be sad. And certainly, if you're exhibiting weird behavior, like we got you, right? And I very, very, very much, I say all of this because I very much wanted to believe that these medications and methodologies were effective.