Shadowing Practice: Alternatives To Psychiatric Medications - Learn English Speaking with Video
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Good morning, Peter Gertz.
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I'm a psychiatrist.
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Alternatives to psychiatric medications.
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I'm a psychiatrist, like I said, and I prescribe psychiatric medicines all the time.
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Sometimes I feel good about doing that, sometimes not.
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Any medicine, aspirin, Benadryl, can have positive and negative effects.
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Unfortunately, any medicine is a double-edged sword.
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And adverse effects of psychiatric medicines can include some quite unpleasant things, weight gain, high blood sugar, sexual side effects, tardive dyskinesia.
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So movements like twitching in the long run that may or may not go away.
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Some psychiatrists advocate not prescribing psychiatric medicine at all.
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In my opinion, that's too extreme.
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And from what I can tell, the psychiatrists who recommend not prescribing psychiatric medicines at all, they don't work in emergency rooms,
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on psychiatric wards, in prisons, or they don't necessarily work with agitated,
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violent, demented, autistic patients or patients with intellectual disability.
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They don't necessarily also work with impoverished patients who might not have the resources to even have a good diet.
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So bottom line, in my opinion, I think it's too extreme to be totally against psychiatric medicines.
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And in general, my experience has been that people who advocate not prescribing psychiatric medicines at all,
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that they're not people who do clinical work with severely troubled psychiatric patients.
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Research about medicines can be flawed.
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So what are we supposed to do if we're not the ones doing the research?
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We don't really know what to believe, what not to believe.
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Based on my experience over the years, there is definitely a place for psychiatric medicines, a big place, but certainly there are alternatives.
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And like I said, any medicine is a double-edged sword.
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So we want to be very careful with our prescribing.
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And we also want to respect the the experiences of patients.
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So a lot of patients have problems with medicines, a lot of patients don't, and a lot of patients do very well on psychiatric medicine.
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So an open mind as usual is important.
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To back up, how can we improve the mental health of our population so that there's no need for psychiatric medicine?
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It sounds like a joke, but there is a serious aspect to that.
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Can we end child abuse,
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neglect, child neglect, poverty, racism, alcohol and drug addiction. That would be wonderful.
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And that would certainly change our society
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and make psychiatric problems less likely for people who grow up in a world without those things that I mentioned.
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Social reform may be a very good thing to look at.
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Can we change our prison system?
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How can someone be mentally healthy living in an environment where there's frequent assault, rape.
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It's, they're very difficult situations for people.
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And if we could look at those, that might be a very good thing for our society.
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Diet can be very helpful with mental health.
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Reportedly, a paleo diet could help.
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A keto diet could help.
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Gluten-free diet could help.
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When I was growing up as a child, I ate a lot of Froot Loops and other cereals, and I enjoyed them, of course,
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but they're definitely not the healthiest food.
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And 11 years ago, I had another period where I was eating a lot of cereal again, not eating healthily.
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I remember one particular dinner, to a large extent, my dinner consisted of famous Amos cookies and cereal.
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I think it was frosted flakes and maybe another cereal that evening.
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And I was eating, I was about to eat my fourth bowl of cereal that evening, and I noticed, my God,
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this bowl tastes very salty.
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And what had happened was my son had salted the cereal because he didn't want me to keep eating like that,
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in his words, he said, you're going to be a poster boy for a diabetic.
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So that gave me food for thought.
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And I was actually starting to get arthritis during that time, maybe partly related to the diet.
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I stopped eating gluten, so I stopped eating American wheat.
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And within weeks, as far as I recall, my arthritis disappeared.
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So that was wonderful.
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And I was then able to eat wheat, but not in America.
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So I have eaten since then a good amount of European wheat, so Italian, French, German wheat, without any problem whatsoever.
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So there's something about the American wheat that really was troublesome for me.
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So all that to make the point, diet can be very helpful with health, including mental health.
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And that's easy to say, of course.
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So again, if someone's incarcerated in prison, they're very likely not going to be able to order a paleo diet in prison,
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which would be quite expensive anyway, I think.
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We want to look at medical issues.
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If someone has mental health issues, for instance, the thyroid, thyroid problems can cause mental health issues, very well known issue.
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And for example, also look at someone's vitamin B12.
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So vitamin B12 deficiency can also cause mental health issues.
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If someone is using alcohol and or drugs and maybe concurrently on psychiatric meds or not.
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Rehab probably is a good option
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and once you're sober then we can look at would medicine potentially be a good option or not.
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Of course easy to say for someone to get sober.
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It can take a lot of determination, a lot of tries, a lot of work.
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If someone does not want to take psychotropic medication in the first place or wants to get off psychiatric medicines.
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Psychotherapy may be a crucial thing to do.
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Psychological factors can be very important.
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I remember a patient who was married for many years
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and then suddenly unexpectedly her husband died
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and she had always talked about her marriage as being a good marriage
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but I noticed that after her husband died the the patient was doing very well psychiatrically, surprisingly to me.
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And then she told me he'd been very controlling her husband and it seemed like the patient felt liberated.
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So again, psychological issues can be key to look at, especially if someone does not want to be on psychiatric medicine.
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And that particular patient actually ended up within several months of her husband dying being on a lot less psychiatric medication.
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Another issue that is well treated often with psychotherapy is obsessive compulsive disorder.
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So again, psychotherapy can be a very helpful thing.
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Yoga, Tai Chi, meditation, acupuncture, they can all help balance the nervous system, help reset, so to speak,
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the nervous system, balance the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems.
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And if you make one of those, at least a regular practice, that can really help emotionally, psychiatrically.
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We want to ask our patients about exercise, their social life, their sex life,
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all those can be very important aspects of being a human being.
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And I remember a patient when we, after we had a hurricane here in New Orleans,
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I was seeing the patient for the first time since the hurricane, and she was looking a lot better.
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And I was thinking, what is going on?
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She seemed to be doing a lot better emotionally.
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and she said she evacuated from the New Orleans area for the hurricane
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and ended up spending time with family
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and it seemed to me like the socializing with family helped her a whole lot
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and I'm trying to remember she may have even been able to get off her psychiatric medicines during that time.
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So again people's lives can be very important.
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People are not just a bag of chemicals.
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Our patients are obviously humans and various aspects of their lives can affect them in positive or negative ways.
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If someone does want to taper off medications, it's a wise thing to do that slowly,
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very slowly sometimes, and also it's important to do that working with a psychiatrist.
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And if someone's tapering off medications,
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especially then it's wise to attend to other aspects other potential aspects of helping mental health
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so for example attending to diet then would be important psychotherapy yoga potentially etc thank you very much
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This video has 105 sentences and 1346 words to shadow. The speech runs for 10:02. The speaker talks at a steady 134 words per minute, a comfortable pace for shadowing. Only 80% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English, so the vocabulary is demanding.
Key vocabulary in this video
15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| psychiatric adjective | /ˌsaɪ.kiˈæt.ɹɪk/ | Of, or relating to, psychiatry. |
| cereal noun | /ˈsɪə.ɹɪ.əl/ | A type of grass (such as wheat, rice or oats) cultivated for its edible grains. |
| aspect noun | /ˈæspɛkt/ | Any specific feature, part, or element of something. |
| medication noun | /mɛdɪˈkeɪʃən/ | A medicine, or all the medicines regularly taken by a patient. |
| wheat noun | /ˈwiːt/ | Any of the several cereal grains, of the genus Triticum, that yields flour as used in bakery. |
| psychiatrist noun | /ˌsaɪˈkaɪ.ə.tɹɪst/ | A medical doctor specializing in psychiatry. |
| helpful adjective | /ˈhɛlp.fl̩/ | Furnishing help; giving aid; useful. |
| hurricane noun | /ˈhʌɹɪkeɪn/ | A severe tropical cyclone; an intense storm rotating around a central eye. |
| necessarily adverb | /ˌnɛs.əˈsɛɹ.ə.li/ | Inevitably; of necessity. |
| potentially adverb | /pəˈtɛnʃ(ə)li/ | In a manner showing much potential; with the possibility of happening in a given way. |
| sword noun | /soɹd/ | A long bladed weapon with a grip and typically a pommel and crossguard (together forming a hilt), which is designed to cut, stab, slash and/or hack. |
| psychological adjective | /ˌsaɪ.kəˈlɑː.d͡ʒɪ.kl̩/ | Of or pertaining to psychology. |
| advocate noun | /ˈæd.və.kət/ | Someone whose job is to speak for someone's case in a court of law; a counsel. |
| yoga noun | /ˈjoʊ.ɡə/ | Any of several Hindu or Buddhist disciplines aimed at training the consciousness for a state of perfect spiritual insight and tranquillity; especially a system… |
| emotionally adverb | /ɪˈməʊʃənəli/ | In an emotional manner; displaying emotion. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Meaning |
|---|---|
| end up verb | To bring to a conclusion. |
| get off verb | To move from being on top of (something) to not being on top of it. |
| back up verb | To move backwards, especially for a vehicle to do so. |
| go away verb | To depart or leave a place. |
| grow up verb | To mature and become an adult. |
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | people who advocate · people who do · people who grow |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | has been · have eaten |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | can be flawed · was frosted |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 17 contractions and reduced forms, such as don't, they're, I'm. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “th” sounds: arthritis /ɑːˈθɹ(a)ɪtɪs/, thyroid /ˈθaɪ.ɹɔɪd/, sympathetic /ˌsɪm.pəˈθɛt.ɪk/, psychotherapy /ˌsaɪkoʊˈθɛɹəpi/, parasympathetic /ˌpɛɹ.ə.sɪm.pəˈθɛt.ɪk/
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: medication /mɛdɪˈkeɪʃən/, potentially /pəˈtɛnʃ(ə)li/, emotionally /ɪˈməʊʃənəli/, crucial /ˈkɹuː.ʃəl/, determination /dɪˌtɜːmɪˈneɪʃən/
- Long words — get the stress right: psychiatric /ˌsaɪ.kiˈæt.ɹɪk/, medication /mɛdɪˈkeɪʃən/, psychiatrist /ˌsaɪˈkaɪ.ə.tɹɪst/, necessarily /ˌnɛs.əˈsɛɹ.ə.li/, potentially /pəˈtɛnʃ(ə)li/
How to practise with this video
- Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
- Shadow it sentence by sentence at normal speed, repeating each one until your rhythm matches the speaker.
- Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like psychiatric, cereal, aspect.
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.