The Canceling of the American Psychotherapist

 

In my review of the book, The Coddling of the American Mind by Haidt and Lukianoff, I focused on a cultural shift on college campuses that has often led to an environment characterized by political correctness rather than free and open debate between opposing viewpoints. Groups have even turned on their own members for deviating ever so slightly from a “party line.” I discussed how this is one way that groupthink can manifest itself.

A  new book by Lukianoff and Schlot talks about how this situation has apparently gotten much worse, and has spread to other educational institutions and vocational venues such as journalism.

One of the most problematic ideas of groupthink on campuses has to do with the so-called Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) philosophy. Of course, diversity, equality (of opportunity, not of outcome), and inclusiveness are virtuous and wonderful things when applied to individuals with all of their family and historical influences and experiences. Unfortunately, this has now morphed into defining people entirely by their ethnic group. Members of groups are either ALL victims (ALL black people) or ALL oppressors because they may have benefitted in some  way from their “advantages” (ALL white people). 

Apparently except for Jews, who have been just about the most oppressed group for the longest time over history but also somehow counted some of the world's most successful people among their numbers. This obvious rebuttal to “Critical Theory” has been solved by some people by seeing Jews as White colonialists, while by others seeing them as Colored. Whichever is convenient. These people are still trying to figure out how to classify Asian Americans who aren’t white but who are who also more successful on average than other American groups.

This is in fact exactly the opposite of what Martin Luthor King preached! He spoke of judging people by the content of their character and not by the color of their skin.

But no matter. The primary reason that I am reviewing this book is because this type of thinking has now spread to psychotherapy teaching programs! Your problems all now seem to originate, not from your family or personality or genetics, but from the fact that you are either an oppressor or a victim, according to your group identity, and you need to admit it! As the authors say, “It’s not about your problems. You are the problem.”  

Everything wrong with people is seen through this lens. Therapists are now lecturing patients who have “incorrect” political views. “Multicultural and social justice counseling competencies” has even been endorsed by the American Counseling Association. The American Psychological Association is beginning to follow suit. They endorse, for instance, the idea that the repression of feelings of males typically seen in many cultures (who, say, won’t cry), often modeled by parents, is an example of traditional masculinity invariably being “toxic.”

The authors of the Cancelling book believe that these approaches are counterproductive. They can cause patients to see themselves only as helpless victims, and discourage people who are automatically assumed to be perpetrators from seeking help. How do these therapists reconcile themselves to the fact that, in 2020, 70% of completed suicides were “privileged” white males (according to the American Suicide Foundation).

When I first read the chapter about psychology programs I was a little unsure how common this was, since I hadn't heard about it. But then I saw an advertisement for a book for therapists in the Psychotherapy Networker magazine. It was called Decolonizing Therapy by a PsyD named Jennifer Mullan. I quote from the ad: "Ignoring collective global trauma makes delivering effective therapy impossible; not knowing how to interrogate privilege (as a therapist, client, or both), and shying away from understanding how we may be participating in oppression is irresponsible." 

Well, I do believe a therapist has to understand what each family may have experienced in this regard to understand certain shared intrapsychic conflicts that are seen within a given family - but each family is unique. And hopefully the therapist is not acting out blatantly racist attitudes. To assume all white therapists are doing this is what is irresponsible.

Anyone who disagrees in some graduate programs is in high danger of being “cancelled” by fellow students. One student said the environment was so mean that a student who lost a family member to COVID was afraid to tell anyone lest they be told that they were crying “white tears” and lectured about how people of color were the real victims of the pandemic!

Now of course it is true that many people have been severely traumatized  by racial or group experiences and that such trauma can lead to psychopathology, but that is not the same as saying that other factors might not be equally or even more important.

This is a perfect example of one key feature of Groupthink: either/or or black and white thinking. No context, no subtlety. I recently had a negative personal experience with that type of thinking with psychology interns I used to lecture to. This one didn’t involve oppressors vs. victims, but there was a certain similarity in its misclassification scheme. And it’s something brand new.

I used to lecture them about borderline personality disorder (BPD). The interns came from the University of Tennessee Health Science center and another group of interns from the Memphis VA. Now admittedly I did discuss some of my own, outside-the-mainstream ideas, but I also discussed other current psychotherapy paradigms and theories about the disorder. 

After I retired, I was still invited back every year to give the talk. Then suddenly the person in charge who called me to do this stopped calling. It took me two or three years to find out why, but I finally was able to corner her. First the VA, and then the UT interns said they no longer wanted lectures about doctor’s individual practice experiences (mine was over 35 years), but only from people who did literature reviews or active researchers! 

This same type of thing was happening on my Psychology Today blog. One post I wrote was rejected because, they said, it was an opinion piece not based on research - when most of their posts are NOT research based. They just, for the first time in years, didn't like my opinion. So I stopped posting.

As readers of my blogs know, the literature in both psychotherapy and BPD is weak - and that's being generous. It is characterized by false assumptions, the fact that whole schools of therapy are evaluated but not the individual interventions which comprise them, the ignoring of many obvious impacting factors, and clinically-useless correlations between certain symptoms within one diagnoses or between two of them. People with a lot of clinical experiences in this area are a hell of a lot more knowledgeable than researchers. 

The interns even wanted solely literature-based reviews a about the treatment of transgendered patients, which has barely begun as a subject for any studies at all!

If a therapist is more interested in politics and your ethnic group than in you, drop them ASAP and find another therapist.