Anxiety and Mental Health Misinformation w/Dr. Birthe Macdonald (Episode 124)

SPEAKER_02 0:01

Second toughest job science communicator, no doubt in my mind.

SPEAKER_00 0:04

It's not easy, especially also, you know, for your own kind of uh mental well-being, it's not always the easiest job. Having to engage with a lot of uh misinformation, especially the kind that is very much pseudoscientific and trying to sound legitimate when it's not. A lot of the time the actual science is complicated and complex and very nuanced, and that's not always easy to follow. I suddenly got adverts for electrical vagus nerve stimulators. And that really, really made me upset. And I worked in neuroscience, emotion regulation. Like I've literally studied the topic on a neuroscience level since my second year of uni. I was like, I haven't heard of this.

SPEAKER_04 1:09

I'm Joshua Fletcher, also known as Anxiety Josh, and I'm a psychotherapist based in Manchester in the UK. I write books on the topic, prance around on social media, and tolerate my podcast co-host.

SPEAKER_02 1:23

Which is me, I'm Drew Linsolata. I am in New York. I'm a therapist uh practicing in the area of anxiety and anxiety disorders, a former sufferer of the stuff we talk about here on Disorder, uh, also an author, social media dude, guy with too many expensive microphones. And this week on episode 124, we have a special guest, a new friend of ours. She's awesome.

SPEAKER_00 1:43

And that would be Hi, I'm Birta MacDonald. Um, I'm a scientist, I'm a psychologist, and I've got experience in neuroscience as well. And um, I'm also kind of newly a science communicator on social media. Um, consuming too much pop psychology content and talking about it over there.

SPEAKER_02 2:05

Welcome, Birta. I don't you know who has the toughest job? Toughest job on the planet is the person trying to get people onto this podcast, booking agents. Second toughest job, science communicator, no doubt in my mind.

SPEAKER_00 2:16

It's it's not easy. It's not easy, especially also you know, for your own kind of uh mental well-being, it's not always the easiest job.

SPEAKER_02 2:26

Yeah. What's so difficult about it? What's the hardest part about trying to communicate accurate, actionable, safe, ethical, scientific information about mental health?

SPEAKER_00 2:38

I think it's two things. One is um kind of having to engage with a lot of uh misinformation, especially the kind that is very much pseudoscientific and um you know trying to sound legitimate when it's not. And I find that quite hard sometimes. And um the other uh difficult job is to kind of then be accurate about the science and do it in a way that is appealing and draws people in and actually makes people interested and also helps people understand because a lot of the time the actual science is complicated and complex and very nuanced, and that's not always easy to follow. So, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 3:24

Um, we're really excited to have you uh as a guest today, and thanks for taking the time out to join us. Um, if you're looking from the perspective of people who listen to this podcast, I would wager almost every single person going through an anxiety disorder has experienced the feeling of I need to know what's happening and I need to know what to do to kind of get rid of these feelings or to feel like myself again. Uh, I certainly felt that many years ago, and I often say to Drew, you know, I'm so glad I didn't develop an anxiety disorder now in the sea of information slash misinformation that we're bombarded with. And so what what I really respect about what you do is that you're taking the actual advice and you're debunking things uh to show people, you know, this is kind of what's happening, and this is why this certain advice and misinformation isn't helpful. And I personally really love your Instagram profile. It needs to, if you you need you need to go check it out because it's uh it's it's burgeoning, isn't it? It's it's it's it's it's you it's fresh and young, and it's uh I really um it was just refreshing to see on my feed because the the feed will only show you what it thinks you want to see instant fixes, quick fixes, stuff like that. And um, yeah, we thought we'd have it on. Um what's annoying you the most, Berta? No pressure.

SPEAKER_00 4:58

Well, no pressure. Um I guess I could say how I got into doing it because I hadn't planned on um becoming a science communicator at all. And that's the whole well I suddenly got adverts for electrical vagus nerve stimulators flushed into my sponsored content. Oh yeah, and that really, really made me upset. And then I sort of uh looked into the vagus nerve because I mean I I studied neuroscience and I worked in neuroscience emotion regulation, right? Like I've literally studied the topic on a neuroscience level since my second year of uni. So I was like, I haven't heard of this. Why haven't I heard of this?

SPEAKER_04 5:58

And yeah, it's sponsored in your fee. That's right.

SPEAKER_00 6:01

I know, right? There are companies making great things. Um that's I'm not being serious. Yeah, um and yeah, that really got me upset. And then I found out about you know all the the kind of basis for why the Vegas nerve is um everyone's favorite. And it's uh yeah, and suddenly I was like, no, I can't just sit here and do nothing, I have to start sharing about this. We should do that.

SPEAKER_02 6:36

It's top five nerves. That'll be our next episode. Top five nerves. Number one, Vegas nerve.

SPEAKER_04 6:43

But again, you if you're really anxious and you've got this this very convincing thing, and it pops up on your feed, and it's not even just in your feed, I know therapists that literally promote this stuff now, and it it gets on my tits, and it's like you check what this is first, you know. If we were able to reach in and fiddle around with our vagus nerve on demand, you know, after I as Drew says, after thousands and thousands of years of human oh oh, have you seen this, lads? There's a button around the back, just press that and you'll feel largely better. Yeah, or just or just put something vibrating on your lobe and and watch it just not, but but to an anxious person, when when you see the advert and it's someone lying down, being serene, a feeling that we've craved for years, it it annoys me because it's exploiting people that feel really, really anxious. Um, how many Vegas nerve stimulation devices do you have, Drew?

SPEAKER_02 7:42

Oh, my closet is just full of them at this point. I just I have garage sales every weekend where we just sell our old Vegas nerve stimulators. It you know, it it's the target that we probably it's the easiest pick-ins for us. We're always picking on the whole polyvagel thing and all that all that stuff. But like I what's even tougher, I think, beer tent, and I know you've seen this, is number one, social platforms who supposedly are in the business of like being safe and making sure that aren't people aren't injured on the platform had no problem taking money to have a company promote that device.

SPEAKER_03 8:13

That's a problem.

SPEAKER_02 8:14

But then we also have people who appeal to authority with their credentials or their they will abandon the principles that got them the credentials, but still use the credentials and tell you that here's here's the one thing you needed you need to know about how to calm a panic attack by rubbing your earlobe. And like that is such a powerful message when it comes from somebody with the title doctor, or I'm a therapist, or I'm a specialist, or I'm an expert, and they have 500,000 people following them on Instagram and two million people on TikTok. It just seems true. So we have the the perfect storm of as an anxious person, I really want this to be true. And somebody who seems to be an expert and should be trustworthy is telling me that it is until it's not.

SPEAKER_00 9:01

Yeah, I challenged um someone, I'm not really gonna say who it was. I challenged someone with a huge profile um who suddenly had an advert for literally an advert for the one of these stimulators.

SPEAKER_01 9:17

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 9:18

Um and I said, Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:22

Uh oh.

SPEAKER_00 9:22

Who's paying you? I guess they're sponsored by. And yeah, they were very uh offended.

SPEAKER_01 9:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:31

They were, I mean, I didn't get blocked, I guess I wasn't um I wasn't threatening uh straightforward enough, but uh yeah, they were extremely offended and very much defended the thing and said, you know, there are clinical trials on it, and yeah.

SPEAKER_04 9:48

Yeah, there is one that the there's one in the UK, I don't know if it's in the US, and they've taken liberties with the NHS have trialed this device. Yeah, like I've anyone can trial a device. It doesn't say the NHS have endorsed and now use this advice, and so they've pr they've pr proper spun a little wheel there. Like just because you've trialed something doesn't mean that you endorse it. I mean, I trialed um what was it, Turkish Delight the other day. I'll never be in that again. It's great. Doesn't mean I endorse it. Um let's let's let's let's look at the um so let's let's break this one down and we'll move on to others. So what does these devices promise you? What's the pseudoscience and why is it nonsense? So particularly for this one, and we'll look we'll go through other topics later.

SPEAKER_00 10:43

Well, the devices and uh the it's the devices and it's like all the other vagus nerve techniques, right? The they they promise that they kind of mechanically stimulate the vagus nerve and give you like instant relief from whatever feeling you don't want to have at that moment. And um it's and it's just I mean it's just not that easy, is it? You know, it's not that easy. I know it's not that easy. Uh the even just from the fact the vagus nerve is really quite deep in the body, right? It's not somewhere on the surface most of the time, and it's um it it's it's probably not that easy to stimulate. And I mean, you can have vagus nerve stimulators that are kind of implanted and they they work for some disorders, like for treatment-resistant depression, for example, there they can be indicated, but that's a surgical procedure.

SPEAKER_04 11:42

That's really interesting. I didn't know that.

SPEAKER_00 11:44

Yeah, yeah, but that's a surgical procedure, you know, and that's actually goes on the nerve. Wow. Um I think I I so I think with these um vagus nerve stimulators that go on like your ear or around your neck or whatever, I think there are people out there studying sort of what they do to to the brain and and to the to the nerve and to like the system. Um and maybe there's something in it. I don't think there's uh there's any sort of conclusive science on that yet. And if it turns out that there is, then probably it's not what is sold kind of commercially, right? And then there will be a difference between the um input parameters and you know the the level of stimulation and all of that stuff. It's just not as easy as just clipping something onto your ear. But the I think what bothers me more probably than the those stimulator devices is the people who sell you all these techniques, right? Like humming or like tapping or uh you know, say, oh, you can just do this for free at home and you'll you'll be cured. Uh and and a probably um the thing that really bothers me and that I'm really trying to get across is that A, you're you're probably not stimulating your vagus nerve when you do that, and you might get some benefit from whatever you're doing, but probably not because you're mechanically doing anything to your vagus nerve. And B, there's it's just not that easy. Like there's a huge population of people that this is not gonna work for, and then often this messaging comes with like this promise, right? This is this works for everyone, and like 150 people have commented that it's just so amazing, and they've had great success with it, and these people have 500,000 followers, and you know, so it must be true, maybe some credentials, I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 13:52

Um, and then wallet, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:55

Yeah, and then some and then the people who are desperate for solutions come along and maybe it doesn't work for them.

SPEAKER_02 14:02

And the danger well, the danger there if it doesn't work for them is there's a psychological peril there.

SPEAKER_00 14:08

The exactly nothing works for me.

SPEAKER_02 14:11

I've tried, I mean, Josh, we hear it all the time, right? In our in the work we do, like I've tried everything, nothing works for me. And then they can accidentally draw the conclusion that the problem is them. Like, no, no, no, no.

SPEAKER_00 14:22

Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 14:23

Yeah, if I'm trying to get stronger, and the way I try to like strengthen my shoulders is is you know, I don't know, like doing squats, that was never gonna strengthen my shoulders. So, like, I can't draw the conclusion that my shoulders are defective somehow. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 14:37

And that's that's I think that's a huge issue with this like pop psychology neuroscience misinformation that you know it it won't work for a lot of people, and um then potentially might they might end up getting worse, or the kind of messaging that is often spread by the same people is um therapy isn't gonna help you. Try my stuff instead, and that dilutes actually content that is legitimate and might stop them from accessing therapy, which is even worse.

SPEAKER_02 15:13

And then there's the logical fallacy that gets used, like, well, it's true that for some people they don't have good outcomes in therapy. There's a million different reasons for that. So that is true, but because your therapist didn't help you, this must work. Since that was wrong, this must be right, is a logical fallacy, and it gets used all the time. Because my Western doctor failed me, then clearly the Chinese herbs must be correct. Then, no, no, no, they can both be wrong, you know, or they both might not work for you. So you gotta be careful about that, really, in a big way.

SPEAKER_04 15:49

I remember I did a tapping workshop once, you know, they're doing EFT stuff like that, and interestingly, there's actually some evidence to suggest EFT tapping does reduce anxiety. But me, I'm a grumpy old man, so I wanted to know why. And actually, after doing it myself, my theory is it's not the tapping or tapping special points and doing all these things, that's 10 minutes of you not focusing on how you feel. You have a rhythmic ritual to which you're committing all of your attention. Anxiety disorders thrive with your attention, it's like gasoline on a fire. And for 10 minutes, if you're solely focusing and remembering the sequence of tap here, tap here, tap twice. Now what do I do? Look up here, and and it and it does use different parts of your brain, this EFT stuff. And yes, if you do it, it will most likely make you feel calmer, but it's not because you've pressed the magic buttons, it's because you've decided for 10 minutes you to focus on something else, on anything that isn't how you feel, and and so I think that's my that was my two cents on that. So it's not this magic thing, it's actually you just have you noticed the more you focus on how you feel, the worse you are. Yeah. Have you noticed for 10 minutes you weren't focusing on how you feel, and now you're less anxious? The paradox, isn't it? You know, you want to fix how you feel, leave it the hell alone sometimes.

SPEAKER_02 17:25

And the danger there is twofold. It's either like I I have to do that now. When I start to feel uncomfortable, I must do the special tapping sequence because I don't get any credit for the fact that all I really did is use my brain's ability to like get distracted and move on to the next thing because that's what it gets paid to do. No, no, no, it's not that. I I literally somehow manually manipulated my nervous system. So I have to do this. The only thing that saves me, but that's not correct either.

SPEAKER_04 17:53

And you don't get the credit, right?

SPEAKER_02 17:54

And you don't get the credit. I think the other problem that you probably have, and like I commend you for being so chill. I mean, for all I know, when you we get up to school, you might be kicking the garbage can and like yelling at the dog. But science communicator.

SPEAKER_00 18:08

How do you know I don't?

SPEAKER_02 18:09

We don't. That's what's true. We actually don't. Like so, but I think neuroscience, that's one of those terms now in 2025 that has become right after AI, second most used term is probably neuroscience. Neuroscience says, neuroscience says it's the appeal to the word neuroscience has become like pseudo-proof that what you're selling or saying is correct. So like you gotta be pulling your hair out.

SPEAKER_00 18:34

I do pull my hair out.

SPEAKER_02 18:36

Don't do that.

SPEAKER_00 18:37

I I am I am obsessed with going to people's uh profiles and actually looking at their links and checking their credentials when they call themselves neuroscientists. You're quite unhealthy, actually. Most of the time, my time I don't find like PhDs.

SPEAKER_02 18:57

But you know, it's so funny too, because I hear you and I saw you a few weeks ago. I I love I love when I get to see your post. You were and I noticed that people were kind of getting on you a little bit. Like, hey, why you gotta be like dumping all over the why it's all your negativity? Why are you like dumping on this thing that I like? It's so hard. It's like I'm not trying to take away your fun or like invalidate your belief, but I kinda am. But also I do understand you have a right to believe what you want. That is a pretty common thing, too, no? Like, why are you not letting me believe in this thing?

SPEAKER_00 19:30

Um, luckily, I it's always very friendly when I get that sort of comment, or mostly that sort of stuff comes in messages. Yeah, but um I I always try to say in my posts, if like if you have something that helps you, do it. Like if you feel like you've found something that helps you, it doesn't matter what I say. Do whatever makes you feel good, right? I I'm just here to tell you what the science is and what kind of the most likely mechanisms are for why it works. And you know, people can do what they want and people can believe what they want. But yeah, I do I do get that sometimes that people and like I've I have some really bizarre uh conversations in my comment sections where it's like I'm I talk about kind of the latest best knowledge about uh what we know about emotions or something like that, and someone comes along and says, No, you but you're completely wrong. And I'm like, I could be.

SPEAKER_02 20:33

I I guess I could not be.

SPEAKER_00 20:35

Why do you think that? Well, I think that this is just what we know.

SPEAKER_02 20:39

It's so hard because it's it's well, you're completely wrong. But hang, but I here's all this, although forget that data. I I like what I like. This is what I want to be true. I don't want that data to be true. Yeah, so I'm just gonna say it's not true.

SPEAKER_04 20:53

Well, we we've had it on ours, like we we we when you talk about things like trauma and stuff like that, and bear in mind, you know, like a trained therapist, you know, for years and very trauma-informed. Oh, there's a word trauma informed. You know, like I've studied trauma, I'm just not my specialty, I know what to look for, but the word trauma-informed is one, and you can put that in front of any title. You know, I can say I'm a psychotherapist, I've done the work, I've done loads of work on my ethics, constant reflection, real reflexivity. Uh yeah, but it but put me next to a trauma-informed coach. Oh, I don't know. I don't know what trauma is. I my my job is irrelevant because this, and then people get attached to that word because a lot of people have been through traumatic, horrendous things, and they kind of want that to be true. Like, well, if this person can tap into my phenomenology and my experience, then I trust them. To do what's next. And this is where I end up with a lot of clients sometimes like maybe we should take a few steps back here. You know, particularly people with anxiety disorders and OCD and who are obsessed with how they feel. You may have been fed a narrative that doesn't help. So one of the ones I hear is you must get to the root to not be anxious. That's so harmful for so many people. Like there's one singularity that will regulate your nervous system. How unhelpful is that to someone who is desperately trying to find an answer for how they feel when actually the simple answer is kind of in front of you. It's the tricky one. It's well, we teach the brain and the nervous system that you know this this feeling's rubbish, but we can tolerate it, you know, and that's how you rewire the brain sometimes.

SPEAKER_02 22:53

So you know, uh let's talk about rewiring the brain for a second, but we have a neuroscientist in front of us, literally, like, hey, check it out. There's one in the building at the moment. Like that whole well, you know, I'm gonna play the side effects, but like the we we're gonna regulate my nervous system. We're gonna play the sound effect. I'll play the sound effect. Regulate like uh I always try to talk about I think there's two things we have to talk about. If we're gonna talk about how to become a more critical consumer of it, it's number one what's the word I want to look for here? Just because we know how something works doesn't mean we know how to work it. Like we know how the sun works, but we cannot work the sun. So I suspect that in your area of expertise and in the thing that you beat your head against the wall trying to do online, it's almost pointing at the difference because then we overreach. Like, hey, we we have this cool new study that seems to indicate that this is how things work inside of us. And then that immediately gets like it's almost like in the old days when you know science would like come up with stuff and over like 20 years, that would become commercialized and turned into maybe useful products. We don't want to wait 20 years anymore. So if we know how it works, we will insist that we know how to work it today, and we will try to commercialize that study within like two weeks, legitimately. So it's not that you can't change your state and influence how you feel, but how that's that thing where we don't want to wait for science to take its natural course and we jump right ahead to the application before it's actually ready. Is that a thing? Is this a problem?

SPEAKER_00 24:24

Um I'm not sure whether that's a problem in sort of therapy land or commercialization of therapy land.

SPEAKER_02 24:33

Um the second one, 100%. I think both. Both.

SPEAKER_00 24:37

I think what we there are two things. So one thing is that you know, like CBT adjacent um modalities that kind of use thought processes and change thought processes about what's going on, um, we are basically finding more and more evidence in terms of neuroscience that that is a useful thing to do. And um then the other thing I think is that people if you say, you know, we want to change something today, and if we put that onto like the social media consumer, then people really underestimate how difficult that is. So the changing the way you think about stuff is like it's a brilliant idea if you want to help yourself a lot of the time, but it's not as easy as just like trying to change your inner monologue, right? It's not as easy as like trying to override something just with one single I don't need to be scared right now. Like it's just not that easy because everything else and everything that you've learned before is interfering with that. So people really underestimate that, and then all that those sorts of modalities get a bad name because people are like, well, it didn't work for me. I tried it once.

SPEAKER_02 25:55

Well, I think that the implication there is because, especially with things like fMRIs, you know, functional MRI has been really cool. Like a lot of cool stuff has come now that we have that technology. And it's like, well, because that fMRI study showed us what parts of the brain seem to be lighting up when this happens, we jumped to the conclusion that I could skip the six months of exposure work and just use that data somehow to manually turn a knob. Now that we see where the knob is, now I can reach it and tweak it and feel better, which is that's the danger.

SPEAKER_00 26:23

Like direct brain stimulation type stuff.

SPEAKER_02 26:25

Yeah, yeah, there's a bunch of that stuff.

SPEAKER_00 26:27

I don't know. I mean, people people um and there's no blame here. Like neuroscience is really hard. And by the way, I I kind of hesitate to calling myself a neuroscientist, by the way. I'm I'm kind of more a psychologist than a neuroscientist, so I've done neuroscience research just to clarify.

SPEAKER_02 26:46

Um but wait, can I jump in for just a second? See the difference? I'm gonna jump in for just and point something out. See the difference now. If Birta was in the business of trying to sell you something, she would never like correct that. So I said she's a neuroscientist. She would just be like, mm-hmm, I am, because I published the paper once. But like what we just saw here is what you're looking for. No, no, no, I'm not actually an expert in that. I know about it, but it's not my primary area. See that I don't know, I just wanted to point it out and I appreciate it.

SPEAKER_04 27:17

So yeah, and and that's someone who holds themselves account. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 27:21

Like, no, no, no.

SPEAKER_04 27:21

I'm not this other people in this space who don't do that and abuse the title of doctor to claim that they've worked out anxiety to sell books that are in white. Sorry, I've got very specific.

SPEAKER_02 27:37

Very good. I'm sorry, it totally derailed you, but I think that's important. You're looking for communicators and people who are going to do what Berta just did. Like, no, no, let me tell you, you have a right to know really my background. So here it is. Very good. That's what we're looking for.

SPEAKER_00 27:50

Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 27:50

You're very welcome. Thank you for being here.

SPEAKER_00 27:52

I think it's important because I, you know, I I kind of I would say that I'm a psychologist with like expertise in neuroscience, maybe. You know, I I understand how like the imaging works, I understand how the data is collected, I understand um what it means when a study shows something generally, and I have a generally a good understanding of how the brain generally works, right? But I'm not, I mean, I don't know if I I may or may not go back into neuroscience research, but I'm I'm I'm not one of these people who's like, oh, you know, and like your prefrontal cortex and this uh coordinate is um doing this when you reappraise something, for example. That's not that's not my main interest. I'm much more interested in kind of the psychological processes and then linking that back to how the brain works generally. And I think like that's I think what's exciting, and I think that's also what's potentially applicable for people, understanding what does the brain generally do, you know, day in, day out, all the time, and how do kind of emotions, feelings, how does that all fit in, and how does that explain why, for example, anxiety can be so overwhelming before before like you've even caught up with your thoughts. And that's also why, and and why does it not work to just you know be totally anxious and and then suddenly say, but there's nothing to be anxious about, you know, you can't just tell yourself that and then be fine. Just calm down. Why doesn't that work?

SPEAKER_02 29:32

Just don't worry about it. Yeah, just calm down.

SPEAKER_04 29:34

I don't worry about things that are out of my control. Thanks. Uh yeah, those people who um I was I love your post that you make, uh Alberta. Uh let's do some quick fire questions because this will be fun. Um I'm an anxious person and I use chat GPT to make me feel calmer. What is that doing to my brain? No pressure.

SPEAKER_00 29:59

No pressure. Um what's that doing to your brain? I mean, it's probably uh making you think that there's someone there listening, which is it's not actually the thing, right? Um we tend to assign intelligence to uh Chat GPT because it uses language just like we do, so we can kind of relate to it. Um, but it's not intelligent, it's just telling you what all the content that it's found uh on the internet, whether that's true or not, you won't know when you're sitting there.

SPEAKER_04 30:35

Um yeah, yeah, because it's interesting. I remember I I cleared mine out and I tried to um look back on when I was at my most anxious and I spoke about it, and interestingly, ChatGPT started talking about polyvagal theory and all this stuff, but it says it like it's fact, and I'm like, wow, this is really interesting. Or back when I had OCD and I'm just constantly seeking reassurance from it, I'm actually rewiring my brain each time I ask it for reassurance, yeah, and it makes me feel better, and it makes me feel better, and it makes me feel better. It's like that's that's that's not good for the long term. I know everyone, most people do it. People listening to this podcast have done it or are continuing to do it. I heed my warnings, that's one step away from simmering in the broth of uncertainty. You must simmer in the broth of uncertainty from time to time.

SPEAKER_00 31:32

Well, to British point, it's we've seen that how harmful it can be as well. I mean, there have been some really tragic cases where ChatGPT has been anything but helpful now. Um, there are cases of you know, worst-case scenario that someone ended their life. Uh, you know, with the impact of chat GPT, there have also been cases of psychosis. And and we and you know, language for us is like a that's like a sign of intelligence for us, and we kind of that's why it's called artificial intelligence, but it's not intelligence.

SPEAKER_02 32:18

I don't think it's intelligent at all because when it's not it should know, and and then you know it especially in my practice, people say, Oh, but I I say I have an I told it I have anxiety. It doesn't matter, it's not intelligent enough to interpret the context and say, Oh, then I shouldn't answer this question for you. It doesn't, it's going to do what you tell it to do. It's that's all it is. It's like if you ask it for an iced tea, it'll give you an iced tea if it could. Like it's not going to say, well, that's not good for you. You shouldn't have that because you're diabetic. It would just give it to you. It doesn't know.

SPEAKER_04 32:49

So I have OCD and my compulsions are to seek reassurance. And it goes, okay, and just answers everything you say. That's exactly right. So uh some others, uh, I love that uh um I was going through what Bert puts loads of helpful things on online about polyvagal theory. Um, we've spoken about this on the podcast before and stuff, but uh when we're looking at kind of misinformation or cherry-picking information for stuff, um, it applies to a lot of popular books, doesn't it? You know, I've always I I was it was like me and one other person in my therapy training um fighting a whole room of trainee therapists, and I and I held up the body keeps the score, and I was like, am I the only person in here that's been like this isn't like empirically sound? Like, can I just throw this out there? Okay, I've not sold a hundred million books, you know. I've sold about 10,000, I'm very proud of that. But in general, I've not sold 160 million, but whatever. Just because lot everyone's reading it doesn't mean you know that that that we shouldn't question this. Oh no, no, no, no. As soon as you start to question Bessel or Peter Levine or Gabor Mate or all these people, you know, because they've sold millions of books, is you know, you you get kind of like, what don't challenge the status quo heretic. I'm like, no, I want I work with anxiety disorders. I need I need people to know what's helpful and what's not. Um so I wanted to ask you, like, how important is it to look just because people cite evidence, what should they look out for when they're picking up a self-help book?

SPEAKER_00 34:44

It's so hard, it's so hard to understand how evidence is collected and cited. And I mean, with the body keeps the score, you know, I did a few posts on that, and one problem in there is how the science is presented. Like, I think one red flag that is huge in that book is that um there is like single subject data presented as like evidence for psychological processes, and that's that's just generally not how brain imaging works. I posted about that yesterday as well, I think. Like we just from like if I scan like one brain, it it's not gonna tell me anything about your mental state. Anything. Um, because we work on averages.

SPEAKER_01 35:33

Thank you. That's exactly right. Mr. Mr. Spec scan.

SPEAKER_00 35:37

Um yeah, it's it basically like like referring to single participants is just that's always a huge red flag. Um, I think a general um overgeneralization um and like focus on sort of one particular thing is always a red flag as well. Like there are books that just tell you to apply like one mental strategy and that'll solve all your problems. And a lot of the time that ignores kind of the privilege that is involved in being able to do that for starters, you know, for societal or for mental health reasons. Um, and again, going back to what I said before, like how difficult it is actually also to change like your habitual cognitive patterns, right? Um, that's another one. Um, and I mean I it's it's hard because you can't really tell people to go back and read the studies because that's also difficult and not exactly accessible, right?

SPEAKER_04 36:39

Also really boring, incredibly boring.

SPEAKER_00 36:41

It can be, it can be. I don't think it's boring necessarily, but um, it can be really boring and it's just really hard as well, and you don't know um what you're kind of looking for. But maybe you know what people could do is if someone cites evidence, you know, at least just look at the abstract and see whether the topic is sort of aligned with what the person said. I mean, I've seen social media posts that have cited evidence in quotation marks, and then when you go and look at the study titles, you know, there's evidence for like one aspect of what that person's talking about, maybe, but not for the overall um essence of the social media post, for example.

SPEAKER_02 37:21

That's the slow pace of progress in research. And like before, when you were saying, Well, I'm maybe a psycholog a psychologist with an expertise or or an interest in neuroscience, that would mean by implication that it's not just you, it's you and all the other people in allied fields working together and like sticking information together over a long period of time, which is really hard to stomach. Like, but I want to feel better today. And so there's it is so rare that there's any one thing that one scientist comes up with that is revolutionary and by itself defines an entire category or informs an entire paradigm shift. It just doesn't happen. We've had like five of those people in history, and we don't have any of them now. Sorry, we don't. But it's it's so hard, I think. That's what makes it easy to get hooked in like into misinformation or believing or following misinformation, because I don't, I don't want it. I don't like that it's so complicated and that science is so conservative. I don't like that. I want I need answers now, but if we don't have them, we don't have them.

SPEAKER_00 38:28

And I think I mean that's a huge red flag, actually, that people can look out for, right? Anything that's kind of sensationalist, anything that's kind of, oh, here's this one thing that you need to do. And we've just found this out, like massive leap in science. That's probably what people should be most suspicious about.

SPEAKER_02 38:46

Yeah, Tuesday. We we figured it out on Tuesday. So I'm here on Thursday to tell you that everything has changed. The other thing I'm saying.

SPEAKER_00 38:52

Yeah, or even six months ago. I mean, even that would be incredibly fast. I mean, I've taken a year to just get a paper published or more. I've still got a paper that's not published from my PhD.

SPEAKER_02 39:03

So I I also think that one of the things that can be a little bit hooky or can get us trapped a little bit is that is a difficult process to be patient with or even accept. This is it's slow. This is we we work in cumulative knowledge over time and a lot of people working together in diverse areas that come together. Okay, fine. But I might make my selling point that I have figured out a way around that process. And I will I will show you that by telling you that this is the thing they, Berta and all her scientific gatekeeping elitist friends, don't want you to know because they're science and big pharma shills and they're shills for the universities. So I will tell you that they are hiding the truth from you under the guise of the scientific method. You should not believe that. Be brave enough to buck the trend and look under the hood, man, because there's an answer today. If you just pay me, I'll tell you.

SPEAKER_04 39:55

Yeah, I'll put a registered trademark out and the word technique or method. Yeah. Charge you 99 bucks for it. Because you know, I know, I'm the person that knows. I get it. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_02 40:08

That other red flag. The other red flag I might throw out there, and then feel free to chime in on this because we're gonna run out of time soon. But is the person telling you about the thing, is this the fifth thing they've told you about? Is this the fifth one thing in the last three months?

SPEAKER_00 40:23

Well, right that's that happens. It happens. Oh, on the daily.

SPEAKER_02 40:28

Yeah, on the daily. Like, how do you tell me the one thing that you wish you had known about your anxiety on Tuesday, and then you're a mess again on Thursday in a performative way? What happened to the one thing from Tuesday? It changed everything for you. How are you a mess again today? Or why was the one why is the one thing changed every three weeks, depending on who your sponsor is or what you're selling, or what workshop you're developing? So these are things you can look at. Today is a supplement and tomorrow it's uh Yeah, it's tapping or it's a big mindset shift or whatever. This one one exercise, the one movement that you need to know that calms your your nervous system as well. Uh what about what if it all goes right?

SPEAKER_04 41:05

I swear to god, I don't swear.

SPEAKER_02 41:09

What if I crash? Oh, but dear, what if you fly?

SPEAKER_00 41:12

Oh yeah, yeah, I know. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 41:16

The three of us.

SPEAKER_00 41:18

Well, I mean, but this is exactly the issue, right? You know, it's this portrayal of scientists and like evidence-based therapists as being under some sort of hood um of like hiding things, and um that's that probably actually discouraging people from getting evidence-based treatment. You know, that's I hate that.

SPEAKER_02 41:41

Because if I do my own research and I can just study and read and talk to other people that are brave independent thinkers, then you'll be out of business. So you're just trying to keep yourself in the business, Dr. McDonald. Yeah, but it's so funny. I mean, you see this. If you could see the video, the three of us look like whip dogs a few times, like and I think like evidence-based, like real stuff that you could probably trust, even though it's not glamorous or fast enough for you, it feels like a buzzkill. It just does.

SPEAKER_00 42:07

I know glamorous about it. Well, you know what really bothers me is that I think you could probably make like, especially with emotion research, like it's beautiful what we know, like how it all works, and we know we know a lot about it. And I I think you could probably turn it into something that's really quite simple, easily explained, and fairly workable for people. You know, you're still gonna need a lot of practice, and you're still gonna probably need a lot of help, but you might be able to understand why your brain's doing what it's doing and why you feel, therefore, how you're feeling. Um, and I think you could probably turn like not I you could you could probably uh do it well and and actually help people with the real science, and instead we've got the Vegas nerve. I think what we're seeing there is it's it it's really enraging, it's really frustrating for me because I'm like they've they've turned this whole Vegas nerf crap into such a machinery. I probably shouldn't say it to stop, maybe I should, but you know, they they they turn they they've turned it into this huge money-making thing and and and call it science, and and it's just a shame that the actual science, which is brilliant, uh is just not as popular.

SPEAKER_02 43:31

Well, you posted about how emotions are made, right? That's a great book. I'm gonna get to talk to at least. Yeah, I'm gonna get to talk to her in a few weeks. I'm so excited. But like when you go through that book, it does get a little technical. So she tried, but it does get a little dry for sure, and you gotta stick with it. But also, there's no part of the brain where she says, Okay, now that we know all this stuff about how emotions are constructed and how experience works and predictive models and all those things, here's what you do. Here's three things you do to fix everything. She never gets there. And I think the problem would be like you have a responsible reason. Researcher, academician, you know, expert who tries to communicate in a in a useful and I think an exciting way. I mean, but I'm a nerd. And you have to resist the draw to say, and now let me sell you how to I'm gonna package this into a solution that makes lets you turn the knobs. And she never gets there because you don't get there. Yeah. Yeah. You don't get there.

SPEAKER_00 44:21

Because you can't just directly work on the brain. You can't just directly work on the circuits, right? You've you've it's it's the it's the experience, it's the practice of what you're doing every day. Uh it's that that's why I I mean I have a huge issue with uh this whole neuroscience language that is employed all the time where people talk about dopamine and the amygdala as if you could directly influence it. You can't.

SPEAKER_02 44:50

They're talking about what?

SPEAKER_01 44:51

Amygdala.

SPEAKER_02 44:54

We we have a side we have a sound effect problem because actually we have to almost stop playing that because a lot of the data now is like, no, that's not really where fear comes from, FYI. So interesting. But it's it's cool anyway. Amygdala. I ain't giving it up. I'm gonna play that sound pro.

SPEAKER_00 45:09

It's cool, but I mean maybe that's that makes it cooler that uh we actually know that the amygdala is absolutely not the fear center.

SPEAKER_04 45:16

Yeah. Yeah, but we what we do with the amygdala is we don't say you can switch it off. Right. Or people who ask for like amygdala actually. You can switch it off. You just can't switch it off when you want.

SPEAKER_02 45:29

Yeah. There's no knob on it.

SPEAKER_00 45:33

But that that's exactly the point, right? You can't get directly into it under the hood. You've you've got to do it via your experience and self-talk and crazy talk.

SPEAKER_02 45:45

Experience. It's not get out of here.

SPEAKER_00 45:49

It's not as appealing as if I say, oh, you can optimize your dopamine by doing these three things. But I will never measure your dopamine though.

SPEAKER_02 45:58

That's right. I will well, can you measure it? Can you measure the dopamine in my brain? Can you tell me how much I got? What's the answer?

SPEAKER_00 46:04

Uh there are yeah, you can, yeah. But with like certain scans, you can. I don't know if you can do blood tests, actually. I'm not I'm not sure, but you can do like um now I've forgotten the name of the brain scan. See, I'm not a neuroscientist. Uh I had a colleague doing my PhD who did that.

SPEAKER_02 46:22

I I can do that.

SPEAKER_00 46:23

Do you know how much you have? Yeah?

SPEAKER_04 46:24

Yeah. Three. How much do you have? Three. I have three dopamine. I have three dopamine.

SPEAKER_00 46:30

Three dopamine. I think that's a good level.

SPEAKER_04 46:34

I think that's a good level. Neuroscience.

SPEAKER_00 46:38

I'm I'm a neuroscientist. Hashtag neuroscience.

SPEAKER_02 46:42

Uh in this episode, Josh reveals that he has three dopamine. Hashtag neuroscience. Everybody listen. Buy your book. Goodness. Anyway, we could go on. We could probably do this for two hours. We should probably wrap it up. I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 46:54

Quite easily, I think.

SPEAKER_02 46:55

Yeah. Any closing thoughts? What do you think, Josh? What should we wrap up this?

SPEAKER_04 46:58

Yeah, I'd like to ask Berta. So the one of the cornerstones of this podcast um is encouraging people to do things scared, because that's how we rewire scary, scared brains. That's how I did it. You know, oh, do we have to do the scary things? How Drew did it. Do we have to do the scary thing? And if you do the scary thing minus compulsions and safety behaviors, the brain learns, you know what? We didn't die. And so we call them did it anyways. Do you have a recent did it anyway that you would like to share?

SPEAKER_00 47:31

Well, this is a little bit of a did it anyway. And starting, you know, starting to be kind of more public-facing with talking about um science is not something that I engaged in while I was actually employed at university. So that's quite scary sometimes. Putting my face out there and you know, even talking into a camera sometimes and filming myself and doing all of that stuff. I I found quite scary. And now, you know, this conversation, I didn't really know what to expect. So I'm I'm doing it anyway. It's not that, you know, it doesn't feel so scary now.

SPEAKER_02 48:08

I love it. You know what you get for that.

SPEAKER_00 48:14

Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 48:16

Very good, very good. You can come on anytime. You're a great pair, too.

SPEAKER_00 48:19

Really great. Thank you. Yeah. Where can people find your Instagram again?

SPEAKER_02 48:23

Yeah, where well if you go to disorder.fm slash one two four, I'll make sure all the links are there. But where where can people find you? Send them to you.

SPEAKER_00 48:30

Um so my Instagram is drb. And that's a difficult name to spell.

SPEAKER_03 48:38

Disorder.fm slash one two four.

SPEAKER_00 48:41

Yeah. Um and you can, but you can also probably find me via uh Drew or Josh or the episode website. And I have a website, um www.burtonmacdonald.com.

SPEAKER_02 48:56

See, that's the difference between a legit scientist and someone else. BurtonMcDonald.com, how boring. It's supposed to be like change your brain forever right now.com. Like that's that would attract much more attention.

SPEAKER_00 49:09

The Burton MacDonald method.com.

SPEAKER_02 49:11

Yes, the McDonald method.com. I love it. Uh oh.

SPEAKER_00 49:16

That's not what it is. Don't go there.

SPEAKER_04 49:18

I was laughing at one of the other posts. It was a the case that distraction can be survival, not avoidance. How online pop psychology and life coach grifters cannibalize nervous system regulation.

SPEAKER_00 49:30

I was like, Yeah, I can't take credit for that one. I can't, I didn't write that, but um that's someone else's. But yeah, I I very much agree with it.

SPEAKER_04 49:41

Yeah, I think it's wonderful. Anyway, thank you for so much for joining us on Disordered. And um, guys, if you're listening and you want to put your more helpful content in your feed that uh coincides with anxiety disorder stuff, we highly recommend um giving Berta a follow. Um, yeah, thank you for coming on, and thanks once again, always also to my wonderful co-host Drew.

SPEAKER_02 50:06

Yeah, you're very welcome. Disorder.fm slash one two four will have a light.