"Woke" Insanity Now Perverting Therapy!
Psychiatrist and AEI scholar Sally Satel has a terrif piece up at Quillette about the way social justice indoctrination is making therapy more about ideology than helping patients.
As Sally puts it in her piece, "Critical Social Justice Therapy violates core tenets of sound psychotherapy. Instead of addressing the individual ... in need, it applies a pre-programmed ideological agenda that classifies" one as oppressor or oppressed based on identity group.
A concerned London-based psychotherapist, Val Thomas, has warned of a new trend that she terms Critical Social Justice Therapy, or CSJT: "a practice that views people not as individual actors but rather as representatives of particular groups which are nested within systems of power and trains therapist-activists to diagnose patients through a collective lens." Last year, Thomas founded an online community, Critical Therapy Antidote, as a hub for practitioners and clients dedicated to "protecting the integrity of talking therapies."(Before proceeding further, it is worth setting out the somewhat confusing professional typology at play here. The word "therapist" describes anyone who talks to patients or clients with a view toward providing psychological aid. The term "psychotherapy" sounds more specific to a layperson--but, in practice, that term, too, is also applied widely. A "counselor" usually has a Master's degree in counseling, and a counseling psychologist usually has a PhD--though practitioners in these areas will use different terms, including "psychodynamic psychotherapy" or "behavioral therapy," to describe their work. Many psychiatrists, who are physicians by training, also provide psychotherapy. Finally, there are "analysts," who can come from a variety of educational backgrounds, but generally must attend a lengthy program of formal psychoanalytic training at a recognized institute. For a time, only medical doctors could train as analysts, but that has changed.)
To picture CSJT in its purest form, imagine a black patient whose white therapist systematically conceives of the patient's problems in love, work, and family life as products of racism. Odd as that may sound to anyone familiar with conventional psychotherapy, this overtly ideological approach is becoming increasingly prominent among a cadre of counseling professionals. At the Graduate Counseling Program at the University of Vermont, for instance, the coordinator has issued a proposal to "structurally align" the program with the Black Lives Matter movement and begin "the work of undoing systemic white supremacy."
...A therapist is free to personally believe that Black Lives Matter and Ibram X. Kendi should (or should not) serve as guiding lights in the creation of a new kind of social contract.
...When a therapist comes to the first session armed with an ideological program that dictates what the patient should become, such an alliance is doomed. Even insofar as a patient may agree to this program before treatment begins, what they will be receiving isn't psychotherapy so much as anti-racism cant delivered under the pretext of therapeutic treatment. Where the patient should be inculcated in the habit of self-observation, he will instead be taught to search outside himself for sources of all duress; instead of traveling a path to greater autonomy, he will be instead rewarded for adopting the victim role.
All of this is an obscene warping of therapy -- at the patient's expense.
Sally ends her piece like so:
No one disputes that social justice is (in theory, at least) a worthy political goal. But neither political activism--nor crude race-based stereotypes--have any place in the relationship between a psychotherapist and her client.
"No one disputes that social justice is (in theory, at least) a worthy political goal."
And there you see that disagreement with orthodoxy is unacceptable. You will express public agreement with the tenets of the faith at all times or you will be destroyed as a heretic.
Ben at May 9, 2021 5:25 AM
Anyone concerned about tyranny and defending freedom disputes that social justice is a worthy political goal, in theory or otherwise. "Social Justice" is a collectivist philosophy predicated on dividing society into groups (tribes).
Collectivism in power has always led to tyranny and slaughter. When the "whole" is put ahead of the "individual," it is the individual that suffers.
Eliminating "the other" (individuals) who, in any way, threaten the homogeneity of the tribe (the collective) - by whatever means - becomes acceptable, nay laudable. Subordinating yourself to the collective means accepting "the other" as "the other." On the other hand, demanding respect for yourself, as an individual, requires reciprocal respect for the other individuals.
Political philosophies have no place in therapy. The Soviet Union was famous for classifying political dissidents as "mentally unfit" and locking them up in "asylums" to be brutalized and tortured. Social justice as part of therapy" promises to be the beginning of that here.
Conan the Grammarian at May 9, 2021 7:27 AM
I absolutely dispute that social justice is a worthy goal. It is the opposite of justice.
Any time you place a modifier on the word justice, you no longer are talking about equal, unbiased justice. You contradict yourself by proclaiming that some people should have more justice than others.
Jay at May 9, 2021 9:30 AM
Not new, it's been there for a while. Part of the reason should never allow red flag laws. Remember the majority of female liberals are classified as having some mental issue and have been under this care for a while. so it us more indoctrination than a cure.
Joe J at May 9, 2021 9:40 AM
And by the time therapy is over, it will be all right, everything will be all right, the struggle will be finished. You will win the victory over yourself. You will love Big Brother.
Mustafa Sensayuma at May 9, 2021 10:44 AM
Feminism has infected therapy for quite some time now. This is just the next step in inculcating cultural marxism into every aspect of our lives.
Jay R at May 9, 2021 12:57 PM
A few decades ago, many therapists (particularly female) believed that all problems adults faced were due to sexual abuse as small children, which the adults had no memory of. They ruined families. Freudian analysis makes strange assumptions about people too. Some therapists as soon as you mention marital problems they say you should divorce. Others think they should only listen and never give advice. The whole enterprise of therapy is full of fads and crazy stuff. This is just the latest.
cc at May 9, 2021 3:07 PM
> It is the opposite of justice.
Iowahawk once said no college degree called "_______ Science" is actually about science. In this century, I feel the same way about academic fields called "Evolutionary _______."
Because Kitten, it's all evolutionary. If you met someone at a party who claimed to be an "evolutionary hematologist," you'd laugh in their face, right?
Remember parties? Those were great. Everybody got laid, and would laugh in the face of needy poseurs.
Crid at May 9, 2021 4:09 PM
There's no question that the woke need therapy, but this is a case of Garbage In, Garbage Out. They would get much better results from agricultural work and courses in double-entry accounting. These are genuine, objective disciplines. So soothing to troubled minds.
CRT is a bottomless basket of bullshit. They would be better off watching the Fantasy Island box set.
Spiderfall at May 9, 2021 5:21 PM
> They would be better off watching
> the Fantasy Island box set.
Condescension of the Year, 2021. Props! Amy's office will have your windbreaker and sports bottle in the mail by midweek.
Crid at May 9, 2021 7:16 PM
Frankly if the therapist a/o institutions offering therapy are candid about their orientation, this move could be for the better.
Because political ideologies have become embedded in many areas of mental healthcare without acknowledgement and often without the recognition of practitioners. It's a professional community that rivals Academia for its
homogeny of political beliefs and attitudes. Though Academics tend to be better at recognizing that they hold an ideology whereas therapists often come to believe that their ideological positions are the elements and outcomes of proper mental health.
So an explicit acknowledgement that social justice principles were being employed in the diagnosis and treatment of patients could serve two beneficial purposes. It would make the role and significance of those principles salient to both the therapist and patient. And it would enable therapists who don't incorporate those beliefs to differentiate themselves and signal that fact to patients hoping to avoid woke therapy.
I know that's unlikely to happen being that the intersectional elect don't want to give people the choice.
charli at May 10, 2021 1:10 PM
Thanks. If it's not too late, XL.
Spiderfall at May 10, 2021 10:01 PM
I mean, therapy needs to look at the factors that might make someone miserable. If someone is indeed being bullied, being discriminated against, etc. that can be a cause of misery. Sometimes outside factors matter. But ultimately we need the skills to deal with our circumstances whatever they may be.
NicoleK at May 11, 2021 4:20 AM
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