You Must Be Some Kind of Therapist

What impact does an identity-focused culture have on children with autism? Teva Johnstone is a licensed clinical social worker in California who works as a parenting coach for the respectful care of "spirited" and autistic youth.  Teva believes all children are worthy of developing life skills that are not predetermined by an identity defined by a mental health diagnosis. In this conversation, we...

Conflict in intimate relationships is a problem as old as time. While men are often perceived as the more privileged of the sexes, their lifespans are actually getting shorter. When it comes to intimate relationships, men often feel at a disadvantage. And male behavior that might come across to their female partners as angry, cold, or dismissive, is driven by fear more often than we might guess. ...

Many listeners in their 30’s and beyond fear losing their well-established careers, reputations, or livelihoods should they risk speaking out over controversial issues. But what’s it like for the odd 20-something heretic who dares to dissent from their peers straight out of college?  If anyone has “lived experience” of this, it’s Sasha. In 2020, she was fired from her first full time job. Her repu...

Parents are the ultimate authority in their child's emotional and mental well-being. Sexuality and identity are delicate, personal matters fraught with social and cultural baggage, best discussed in the home. Yet increasingly, K-12 public schools are taking on the invasive role of indoctrinating children into belief systems that have major consequences for their health, sometimes triangulating chi...

Early childhood relational experiences play a vital role in laying the foundation for health, happiness, love, security, and emotion regulation. Laura is an expert in this, as a CASA (court appointed special advocate) who has taken an oath to advocate for the needs of vulnerable children. In this episode, we explore how Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is limited in its ability to reach these de...

When Matt was 15 years old, he was told that he was an “Indigo Child” with a special “aura.” Today, he is an atheist who attributes his most mystical experiences to rock’n’roll. In this episode, we compare our observations of how quasi-mystical belief systems can rush to fill the religious voids left by our secular society, leading to magical thinking that idealizes children while neglecting their...

Long-time listeners of this show have heard from numerous voices in the post-trans community, all of whom feel that the beliefs and medical practices surrounding transgender identification have been harmful to them. Today’s guest, on the other hand, has a different perspective. Zander Keig is a "trans man” with no regrets after 17 years on testosterone. As it turns out, though, Zander and I have a...

David Teachout is a licensed therapist specializing in religious abuse, as well as the host of Humanity’s Values podcast and author of Journeys of a Spiritual Atheist . In today’s episode, we explore: what differentiates a religion from a cult? According to David, there’s no clear distinction, but much of it comes down to mind control. How do people who have been indoctrinated into mistrusting the...

The twentieth century saw enormous gains in our understanding of children’s psychological development. So why is our school system still designed as if children are miniature adults?  Education expert Deb Fillman fills us in on what’s broken in the American education system today. We examine the vital role of promoting embodied, experiential, naturalistic and age-appropriate learning that support...

In today’s modern world, we are constantly fed mental shortcuts that can influence our thoughts and ideas. We aren’t required to do a lot of deep thinking into what we’re consuming, because all too often, an algorithm does that for us. Where does the responsibility lie? How reliant are we on mental shortcuts and the absence of deep thought? Are we satisfied with only being shown part of the whole...

Society is divided over how to conceptualize “human rights,” particularly when it comes to transgender medicalization and school policies. Political scientist Leor Sapir is uniquely qualified to help us understand how we got here. He explains how the laudable legacy of the civil rights movement shaped Americans’ vulnerability to deceptive narratives about “social justice;” how the Office of Civil...

When you entrust a therapist with your personal struggles, you expect her to see you as a unique individual, and greet you with non-judgmental curiosity. The last thing anyone wants in their counseling relationship is to be treated prejudicially, stereotyped on the basis of their immutable characteristics, or made to feel guilty for the color of their skin. And yet, to students like Leslie, it’s b...

At times it seems that the institution of marriage is crumbling. Yet a happy, trusting, long-term intimate relationship is one of life’s greatest joys, and the ideal environment for raising well-adjusted children. People who are happily married live longer, healthier, and more financially successful lives. Fortunately, it is possible to develop the tools to build lasting and fulfilling relationshi...

“Why don’t you just detransition?” Corinna Cohn is tired of fielding this question, but gracious enough to address it with me on today’s episode. Corinna has lived as a transsexual woman for his entire adult life, and is over it. But the effects of cross-sex hormones and body modification surgeries cannot be reversed. In another frank and, at times, graphic discussion on the state of gender and se...

Ten years ago, at the tender age of 21, Brian needed professional help. He’d been severely bullied as a child, and the messages his father modeled about masculinity didn’t help Brian understand himself or accept his homosexuality. As a tormented young adult, Brian turned to drugs and pornography in futile efforts to escape his depression. A good therapist would have recognized that Brian had a lot...

Before he reached 40, Corey was told he had a 27% chance of surviving stage 4 prostate cancer. Up until this point, he had been pushing through grueling 15-hour days in the film industry, despite his body’s painful attempts to alert him that something was wrong. Corey’s cancer crisis finally forced him to face deeply ingrained habits of people-pleasing, overwork, and self-neglect that he attribute...

Jayme knows better than most people what’s like to feel “born in the wrong body,” and to be treated differently. Born premature with cerebral palsy, she had to grow up quickly, managing the pain, limitation, inconvenience, and treatment of her disabling illness. At puberty, she discovered she was same-sex attracted as well. Then came what she describes as “sex dysphoria,” a persistent feeling of d...

Abortion is a fraught issue many people can hardly step near without turning red. I’m pro-choice, while my colleague, Robin Atkins, LMHC, is pro-life. Yet we’re not at each other’s throats. What’s our secret? The magic happens when we lead with what we agree on: that people need to get better at having nuanced, respectful dialogues about contentious issues. As professional communicators who spend...

Karl Marx famously declared religion to be “the opiate of the masses,” implying we’d be better off without it. But can human beings really live without a religion of any kind? Perhaps when we try to suppress the spiritual instinct so innate to our humanity, it doesn’t disappear altogether; rather, it gets channeled unconsciously into cultish behaviors and modes of thought where we least expect the...

When our egos become entrenched in our views, life becomes stale, growth stagnates, and we lose out on valuable perspectives. Ada Akpala has made it part of her daily practice to challenge her pre-existing assumptions, as well as those of other people. She brings respect, curiosity, and discernment to her mission of providing a different voice and challenging the narrative. In this conversation, w...

When did it become okay to hate someone based on the color of their skin — as long as that skin is the color deemed the acceptable one to hate? More concerningly, when did it become okay for therapists, of all people, to openly endorse such race-based animosity? I invite clinical psychologist Andrew Hartz to explore how ideology has intruded into the practice of psychotherapy, posing ethical issue...

Half of our listeners are in the US and more than a quarter are in the UK, while the news on gender matters is rapidly evolving in both countries. So the time is ripe for a check-in with a gender critical therapist friend “across the pond,” James Esses.  Last year, James was on track to become a therapist when his masters’ program expelled him for expressing concerns about the impact of gender ide...

Ollie had no history of childhood gender dysphoria. But he was lonely, nihilistic, troubled by a legacy of intergenerational trauma he hadn’t yet unpacked, and reckless with his health. In his 20’s, toxic social influences exploited this vulnerability, in combination with Ollie’s guilt over being a man in the #metoo era, naturally fluid gender expression, and increasingly radical political worldvi...

British psychoanalyst Marcus and his wife Susan were among the first whistleblowers at the Tavistock Centre’s Gender Identity Development Service program. Together, Marcus and Susan wrote the book Gender Dysphoria: A Therapeutic Model for Working with Children, Adolescents and Young Adults.   On July 28, 2022 - between this episode’s recording on June 13, and its release on September 5 - the Tavis...

How can a culture obsessed with mental health be so unwell? Dr. McFillin and I explore the problems of diagnostic expansion and over-medicalization; secondary gain from identifying as ill; and the pathologization of normal human emotions. We discuss how evidence-based practices can be valuable, even as we challenge the flaws riddling the medical model of psychology. And we share practical knowledg...