“If you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu”: Advocacy, systems, and who shapes healthcare with Tammie Lee Demler
Therapist ConfidentialShow Notes
Travis Heath sits down with Dr. Tammie Lee Demler—board-certified psychiatric and geriatric pharmacist—for a wide-ranging conversation on psychopharmacology, stigma, loneliness, and what clinicians often miss when they talk about “meds.” From deprescribing and the realities of polypharmacy in older adults to the ethics of access and affordability, Dr. Demler offers a grounded, collaborative perspective that’s especially relevant for therapists who work alongside prescribers.
They also unpack the Surgeon General’s framing of loneliness (and how it differs from social isolation), the importance of “noticing,” and why directly asking about suicide can be relieving—not harmful. Along the way, Dr. Demler shares research on teaching to reduce stigma, explores why testing “taboo” hypotheses can still be good science, and breaks down what’s notable (and challenging) about a newer antipsychotic option with a novel, muscarinic-based mechanism.
The post “If you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu”: Advocacy, systems, and who shapes healthcare with Tammie Lee Demler appeared first on Psychotherapy.net.
More from Therapist Confidential
What happens when the “text me” is better than the actual me?
“In a dimensional approach, no person is left behind … no two people fit in exactly the same place.”
Who are you, really, underneath everything else? In this solo, Travis Heath questions a common assumption in therapy and everyday life: that a true, authentic self is waiting beneath our cultural expectations, family influences, and insecurities to be uncovered.
What do you say when a stranger in line at Universal Studios taps you on the shoulder and announces, “We all have a bet going — what are you?” Derrick Paladino, professor of counseling and department chair at Rollins College, has spent decades turning that question into “me-search.”
What if the goals we chase are quietly working against us? In this solo episode, host Travis Heath admits something that feels almost taboo for a therapist to say out loud: he thinks goals are overrated. He unpacks why the clients and grad students he works with so often hit a wall of “what’s next?” right after reaching a long-sought goal, why “achievement culture” quietly raises the bar until yesterday’s dream becomes today’s minimum expectation, and why chasing “more” may be the most dangerous goal of all.