There is a phrase floating around healthcare policy circles lately that sounds harmless on the surface: deprescribing. Like many politically polished buzzwords, it sounds clean, reasonable, and compassionate until you realize how quickly it can become weaponized by people who have no business practicing medicine from behind a podium.

Recently, an excerpt from a New York Times article highlighted comments from Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. regarding reducing Americans’ dependence on psychiatric medications, particularly antidepressants such as SSRIs. The argument centers around what he calls an “overmedicalization” crisis, promoting alternatives like therapy, nutrition, and exercise instead of long-term medication use.

Now, to be fair, buried deep underneath the pile of political theater is a grain of truth: not every person who experiences depression requires lifelong antidepressant therapy. Some people experience situational or single-episode depression and may benefit from medications temporarily while they stabilize. That absolutely happens.

But here is the part conveniently ignored by people outside medicine: determining who should continue medications, when medications should change, and whether someone should discontinue them is not something you decide based on ideology or podcast rhetoric. It is something evaluated carefully over time by qualified mental health professionals.

Psychiatric medications are not magic. They are not perfect. They can have side effects, require adjustments, or even fail entirely for some patients. That is why competent psychiatric care exists. Good psychiatric care already includes continual reassessment, medication management, therapy, behavioral interventions, lifestyle changes, and monitoring effectiveness over time.

That is called healthcare.

What concerns me is not discussion about overprescribing. Medicine should always examine itself critically. Every medication prescribed to adults or children should be carefully evaluated for risks, benefits, and long-term necessity. That is responsible medicine.

What concerns me is the increasingly common trend of politically appointed individuals with no meaningful medical training attempting to dictate healthcare philosophy to trained professionals.

A Secretary of Health and Human Services can absolutely raise questions about healthcare systems, costs, access, or public health trends. That is part of the job. What they should not be doing is casually implying that psychiatric medications themselves are somehow evidence of societal failure while promoting vague “holistic” alternatives as if modern psychiatry has never heard of therapy before.

And this is where people completely misunderstand the word holistic.

Real holistic treatment is not anti-medication.

Holistic treatment means looking at the entire patient. Medication may be one piece of treatment, but so are therapy, diet, exercise, sleep habits, spiritual support if desired, occupational therapy, recreational therapy, social connection, and environmental stability. Mental healthcare has already been moving toward integrated treatment models for years. Contrary to internet mythology, psychiatrists are not simply standing at the door launching Prozac at people like T-shirt cannons at a basketball game.

There is also this bizarre fantasy circulating online that people are routinely “forced” onto psychiatric medications against their will. That is simply not reality for the overwhelming majority of patients. One of the foundational principles in healthcare is the patient’s right to refuse treatment. Outside of extremely narrow circumstances involving severe psychiatric crises and legal confinement, people are not being dragged into clinics and forcibly medicated because they are sad.

If you do not want antidepressants, you can discuss alternatives with your provider. That conversation already exists every single day in psychiatric care.

I have been on psychiatric medications for nearly thirty years. They have helped me function, helped stabilize my condition, and frankly helped keep my life manageable during periods where things absolutely could have gone off the rails. Have medications always worked perfectly? No. Some required adjustments. Some failed. Some caused side effects. That is why ongoing psychiatric care matters.

The medications helped. The therapy helped. The support systems helped. The combination helped.

That is holistic care.

I remain deeply skeptical anytime politicians—regardless of party—begin speaking confidently about complex medical subjects they are not trained to understand. This is not a partisan issue for me. I would say the exact same thing regardless of which administration appointed them.

Healthcare policy absolutely deserves debate.

Medical reality, however, does not care about ideology.

And honestly, at this point, if my dog and my mother both support evidence-based holistic therapy, that is probably enough peer review for me.