On therapists as social justice warriors
On yesterday’s thread about anti-MAGA rage in the health professions, there was some discussion about the leftism of therapists. I’m unaware of any threats by therapists to kill MAGA fans. But then again – unlike nurses and doctors – they’re not in the business of directly tending to their clients’ bodily needs, so they don’t have as much opportunity – or is it temptation?
But I think it might be time to recycle a post I wrote in May of 2023 on the topic of the leftism of therapists, and the fact that many have been refusing to treat people on the right for many years prior to Trump. So the rest of this post is a repeat of that earlier post.
Here’s a long article on how therapists have become social justice warriors. I haven’t yet read the whole thing, although I intend to do so. But I’ll just point out that: (a) there have always been many bad therapists out there, although there are probably many more these days; and (b) the vast majority of therapists have been on the left for a long long time.
On a personal note connected with point (b), twenty or so years ago when I was newly divorced and newly conservative and wanted to discuss both issues with a therapist, I had an amazingly difficult time trying to find a therapist willing to deal with a client on the right. So this sort of ostracism is not a new phenomenon at all, although I’m virtually certain it is now far more common than it was back then, and it was already common back then. If anyone is interested, here’s a website which purports to list therapists willing to work with conservatives. I have no idea whether it’s reliable or not, however.
If anyone is looking for a therapist, I suggest being basically up-front about your politics when you first speak to each therapist on the phone. Explain that you are politically conservative and ask whether they’re comfortable working with a conservative, whether they come from an identity politics ideology, and that sort of thing. The therapist may be truthful in telling you yes or no. You can often get a good sense of this in even a brief conversation, and it doesn’t cost a cent.
But what a terrible mess.
I could have used a good therapist 3.5 or 4 years ago. I wasn’t willing to take the risk. I hadn’t thought about querying them first, though I think my concern and worries were a bit deeper than that. Many of them are rather nutty themselves, a few of those could be conservative.
A. Shut down social work faculties. Instead, recruit child protective investigators from the ranks of sheriff’s deputies, nurses, and junior grade psychologists and send them for cross training certificates.
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B. Shut down the state licensing boards for social work.
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C. Stop compensating clinical social workers, counselors, marriage and family therapists, and (more contingently) clinical psychologists with insurance re-imbursements. You live on your fees or you don’t live.
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D. Remove any provision in tax law or labor law which promotes the foundation and maintenance of EAP programs.
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E. In red states, ban politicized accreditation agencies from state campuses.
The article is as long as shallow, albeit not without factual substance.
The very demands of “social justice” are that everyone, with or without training, and certainly without compensation, followed the professional code of therapists and abode by the “therapeutical ethic”.
The reason that “social justice” infringes on personal beliefs and intimate spheres is that therapy _deals_ with personal beliefs, particularly those that its client holds irrational or undesirable, and the personal connection between the client and the therapist may be in many ways called intimate. Therapy just wouldn’t have worked otherwise. Your hired plumber won’t fix your plumbing unless you let him access it.
The difference between therapy and “social justice”, of course, is that therapy is based on consent and mutual trust. “Social justice” respects neither of these. But that always happens when the body politic “socializes” a field that’s previously been exclusively private.
That’s the essence, and everything else follows from that.
My sister’s partner is ex-SDS. Today she is a professional therapist. Years ago one Christmas she threw me out of their house for making mildly critical comments about Obama during the evening news. I was accused of endangering the life of her mother.
My sister still thinks I should have kept coming back for Christmas.
It wasn’t the only thing. If I hadn’t loaned them $30,000 when they needed it, they wouldn’t have had a house to throw me out of. They repaid about $500 and never another cent.
They live in their own lesbian-leftist world. My sister, a retired head nurse, was disappointed that Trump hadn’t been killed in Pennsylvania.
How do you live with such people? I haven’t figured it out and I am sad about it.
Therapists have been political forever. I also regard therapy as kind of a Jewish thing — 30% to 40% of Psychiatrists and Psychologists are Jewish — so not unrelated to the politics of the practitioners.
huxley:
I haven’t quite figured it out either. In my life, most of the people I’m close to tolerate me if I don’t discuss politics, which is okay with me because I don’t need to discuss politics. No one has ever thrown me out. But some have yelled and screamed at me. Also, some have stopped contacting me and never said why; I suspect the reason was politics.
It’s an awful situation.
LXE is an AI response.
If you’re familiar with the former military guy who had to flee Sweden to keep the state from siezing his kids, he’s a therapist. I can contact him for a recommendation.
https://x.com/Careerflex
The pinned first post tells of his Swedish odessey.
There are such things as ” Christian Therapist” . Not that all of those people would necessarily be conservative, either. I have a niece with that degree. My niece is almost completely uninterested in politics, though socially conservative on things like abortion and transgenderism.
Politics is supposed to be about the art of governing.
The myth that Marxism offers a perfect world of equality is a religious belief. It is based on faith in something that has never succeeded. Religious beliefs, once ingrained, are hard to change. And the country has been infiltrated by preachers of this Marxist catechism. Their numbers have been growing steadily, unfortunately.
Our daughter has been a practicing therapist now for 26 years. She has been a conservative since she got her first paycheck from McDonald’s in the1980s. She saw the withholding and FISA deductions and asked why she had to contribute so much to the government. I explained the details to her, and she decided she weas a fan of small government and has voted accordingly ever since.
Most of her clients are libs, this being Washington state.
Her practice has always been to stay as politically neutral as possible.
She often turns clients away after the initial interview shows the client’s issues center around leftist politics.
So far, she has never wanted for clients, and she has some who have been seeing her for years.
Therapy is useful for those who want to deal with psychological issues and are willing to work at it. During my days of therapy, I hired several therapists that were a bad fit for me. It was like wandering in a forest looking for some magic elixir.
When I finally found a woman therapist that correctly diagnosed what was going on with me (survivor’s guilt, unexpressed grief, and repressed anger) it was like a light bulb going on. Six months of work with her and an anger management specialist got me to the point where I could recognize and deal with my issues myself.
It can be helpful. It’s a shame it’s become politicized and has such animus against it by some. The Marxist theology is like a cancer, IMO. It’s eating away at our nation’s bone and sinew.
That Swedish story is horrifying.
It appears that I have been very lucky (of course, this was in the 1950s through the 70s.)–
K-12 did feature a sadistic, drawing blood old spinster first grade teacher who liked to dig her nail into your chin until it bled-I sure remember her, and hope she rots in Hell today–but it was free of any political slant or any overt political messaging.
No such slant in undergrad classes, but a few non-political whack jobs as professors, and one kid who erased my name on a physics test and substituted his own, which I just happened to discover looking over the shoulder of the TA as he was marking papers.
I actually took it as a compliment that he (a criminal justice major wouldn’t ya know) thought I had a much greater mastery of the subject than I thought I had.
Graduate school, again some faculty nutjobs and quirky personalities (a professor who had written several of the major textbooks I had studied as an undergraduate, who I discovered actually hated students, and would pass you by on the street never acknowledging your greeting), but no overt political slant there either.
But, perhaps, since I was studying China and, as part of my studies, Chinese communist ideology and propaganda (Chairman Mao is the Great Red Sun in our hearts), I would have instantly recognized what was being fed me, if someone had tried to feed me any of that crap.
jrod:
LXE an AI bot or AI dreck posted as “his” own thoughts? He lost all credibility with his “Holocaust religion.”
Put it where the sun don’t shine, LXE.
The more committed the leftist, the less civilized their reaction when confronted with disagreement.
And the point is?
They are not going to like it when righties start returning the favor.
“Your heat is out and it’s 10 degrees? Lemme check your Facebook… Sorry, no can do.”
“Your basement is flooding from a busted pipe? Sure, I’ll be there in a few… Wait, your Instagram shows you demonstrating… I’m backed up til Tuesday.”
“Your car won’t start? Take your mask off and get back to me.”
I guess Conservatives can use AI for some mental therapy, until it’s programmed to rat you out.
I try to convince myself that extreme leftists are small in number, but then I watch Facebook and other social media get flooded with ICE/Trump propaganda and of course the DemMedia wholesale lie now.
Will it ever moderate?
Doesn’t the fact that it was already hard to find a “therapist” who treated conservatives indicate there is something fundamentally wrong with the whole enterprise in the first place? Thinking along the lines of “crooked lawyers give the other 5% a bad name”.
@om @jrod Thank you, I love you too.
I reserve my right to (untherapeutically) call out sensitivities wherever I see them, and your reaction proves I was right in your case.
For those who are late to the party, the Russian Federation definitely has a “WWII Victory Religion”. That the USSR did indeed take Berlin by storm, forcing Adie’s suicide and the German surrender, does not contradict the above statement. One can worship a true fact. It is still worship.
Your religion isn’t something you falsely believe. It’s something you hold dear above everything else.
@James Sisco
> I guess Conservatives can use AI for some mental therapy, until it’s programmed to rat you out.
I’d never use AI for therapy. It would only reinforce your own prejudices, most likely leading to self-immersion and suicide. (Robert Silverberg kinda predicted that in “The Pleasure of Their Company”.)
Find therapists in countries (=polities) other than your own. Mine is in France.
In the context of this discussion what is the goal of therapy?
LXE needs to spend a lot more time on the couch. His therapist may need a new boat.
In the context of this discussion what is the goal of therapy?
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https://static1.srcdn.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/ken_weatherwax_a_p-cropped.jpg?q=50&fit=crop&w=480&dpr=1.5
I wish people who include links would realize that the relevant link stops at the question mark.
It’s been stated here before, but often not paid much mind.
Or the point wasn’t read by them, of course.
Therapists … Well.
Sigh …
FOAF, 11:34 pm:
Yes, I agree. And re: lawyers … Lol!
Many licenced in the therapy field may be in it for more than what they tell themselves. 😉
Huxley, I’m sorry your sister & her partner are such nuts.
My MiL made visits traumatic, ambushing me about politics, while her kids (all Dems) pretended it was nothing.
And, after Renee Good’s death, my BiL told the FB world that any “orange man racist voter” best unfriend him.
Very much Austin like!
Neighbors are similarly raving mad.
Fun times!
On top of a crazy family (not local).
I have an acquaintance in his mid forties. His family, while not from Texas, spent thirty years in Texas for business purposes. They made sure they were superior to the red necks.
He moved to a large metropolitan area and his life choices seem to have had a very large component of “what would really gross out the red necks?”.
Hasn’t worked out, to be kind about it.
So….can a therapist-in-training be trained, should the instructors even think it’s a problem, to get over that for purposes of treating patients/clients?
His politics need not be described here.
“Therapists.” The term is as elastic as it is amorphous. Likewise, “therapy.” They are like “art,” in that they are in the eye of the beholder as well as in the mind of the provider. “Therapy” is our great panacea, which has come to mean the universal cure for all that ails us. It derives, however, from ancient Greece, where “Panacea” was a goddess; specifically the goddess of healing. We moderns, of course, reject the idea of “gods” or “goddesses,” preferring to seat “science” on that particular throne, so we place “therapists” on the throne of “therapy” instead. People in this therapeutic age seem to think (or more accurately, feel) that if they are not utterly mentally at ease and comfortable, there must be something “wrong” with them and if that is the case, then there must be something they can avail themselves of to make everything “right,” hence “therapy.” How silly. And supercilious, to think that we fallen humans can ever achieve a state of perfect mental or psychic equanimity by our own efforts or guided there by an equally fallen human using some form of “therapy.” Sadly, despite the good intentions of some “therapists,” it is all bunk and its practice is merely a modern replacement for sleeping with snakes, the preferred form of “therapy” among those ancient Greeks who also gave us the symbol of the “Rod of Asclepius” as the symbol for the healing arts. Ironically enough, it is frequently confused with the Cadeusius, which has two snakes entwined around a pole instead of only one, the irony lying in the fact that the Cadeusius was used as the symbol for commerce, by which it can be seen that “therapy” is merely a means of engaging in “commerce,” or why “therapists” charge so much for their “snake oil” “therapies”
Steve,
I have heard several people whom I trust proclaim that time discussing their mental health with a licensed therapist changed their lives for the better. And that makes sense to me. The act of “talking something out” can often bear fruit on its own, but why wouldn’t it also be the case that a 3rd party is sometimes able to analyze one’s circumstance and, relying on years of study and practice, provide beneficial guidance and advice?
However, like you, I see it more as a “last resort.” Certainly not a first one. Try having good relationships with non-professional “shrinks” in your life; parents, spouse, family, friends, co-workers…
And, there is another, larger component. Modern life and the demands many of us put on ourselves are not conducive to homo sapiens. It’s like we are bears trying to ride unicycles and mad at ourselves because we keep falling. The number of people who have been diagnosed or self-diagnose with ailments like ADD, ADHD, anxiety, bi-polar, anti-social personality disorder… Of course most of us can’t sit still and focus for 8 hours a day. I know some people who can, but they are the evolutionary odd ducks, not the norm.
Far too many people are trying to flourish in environments anathema to human flourishing and believing they are flawed because they do not succeed. Which is exacerbated by too many of us having warped views of what success is. And, without a strong community; family and/or friends, homo sapiens cannot feel a sense of value and self-worth.
Humans didn’t evolve to spend long hours sitting and typing, or staring at a screen. There is not something wrong with one if one does not enjoy doing that, or is unable to do that. As the Clash sang in their brilliant satirical poem, “The Magnificent Seven,” “It’s no good for man to work in cages, hits the town, he drinks his wages.”
Who would spend a day observing a group of human children at play and assume the best method to educate them would be to lock them in doors 8 hours a day and sit them at desks in crowded rooms with their peers and insist they be quiet and not talk to those around them?
And if the bear can’t ride that unicycle, sedate him with drugs until he can.
When you put a space in “The rapist” it explains a lot.
Self-help with honest assessment is the best help, I’ve found.
Neo helped me understand therapy and therapists better with her commentary on Jordan Peterson’s interview with Channel 4 in the U K. We’re lucky they posted the raw, unedited interview.
Neo pointed out that Peterson is listening to the interviewer. That’s why there’s a pause before he answers her. He doesn’t formulate his reply until she is done. He’s not trying to score points.
An example is when she asks why he’s qualified to speak on women’s issues related to how they behave in the workplace.
Pause.
“I’m a clinical psychologist.”
She quickly goes to another topic. She is clearly trying to wrong-foot him, using interview tricks that work on others. She fails over and over, because he’s listening to her.
Finally he points out the obvious contradiction in what she is saying. You see her go into a perfect example of cognitive dissonance.
Therapists are supposed to listen.
All interesting comments. It seems like some of this is really focusing on issues the would/should be handled by counselors rather than therapists. Just using therapy as a generic term?
This little analysis very neatly sums up the two very divergent views of the nature of human nature, and their deep embedding in and influence in our societies.*
* See https://justinmichaelptak.substack.com/p/two-foundational-myths-of-modernity
— huxley
There is no solution.
What I’ve realized is that each of has (partial) control over only one person: ourselves. Others are beyond our control, except by main force, and even that has limits of legality and practicality. Sometimes, all we can do is live our lives and let others stew in their own hate or anger or pain.
Or to put it another way, ‘you can’t help someone who refuses to be helped’. Sometimes all you can do is save yourself and not voluntarily give them more time and energy than you have to.
— huxley
There is no solution.
What I’ve realized is that each of has (partial) control over only one person: ourselves. Others are beyond our control, except by main force, and even that has limits of legality and practicality. Sometimes, all we can do is live our lives and let others stew in their own hate or anger or pain.
Or to put it another way, ‘you can’t help someone who refuses to be helped’. Sometimes all you can do is save yourself and not voluntarily give them more time and energy than you have to.
— Rufus T. Firefly
THIS^^^^!
A huge amount of the problem in our modern societies, esp. the modern West, is that they are designed around fundamentally false assumptions about human nature. The premises of modern times conflict with human natural biologically, physically, and spiritually.
People have internalized this stuff, and try to live according to it, and are miserable because it doesn’t work. Note an interesting corollary: this would imply that the more completely someone internalizes the false premises, the more miserable they would tend to be because they would desperately want to live it, but can’t live it because they are human beings, or if they can live it they don’t enjoy the experience. It’s like someone who viscerally hates spinach, but thinks they should like it, forces themselves to eat spinach three meals a day, and turns meals into something to dread.
Who in our modern society has most completely internalized the assumptions of post-1970s society? Affluent highly educated professional liberals, esp. the women.
Who is reportedly the most miserable, mentally ill subclass of modern society?? Affluent highly educated professional liberals, esp. the women.
Snow on Pine on February 1, 2026 at 8:06 pm said:
“This little analysis very neatly sums up the two very divergent views of the nature of human nature, and their deep embedding in and influence in our societies.*
* See https://justinmichaelptak.substack.com/p/two-foundational-myths-of-modernity ”
I agree. “… very neatly sums up…” is definitely true here. Thanks for the Justin Ptak citation.
RTF @ at 8:48 am: great response to Steve’s prior comment. His remarks led me to wonder a little about the qualifications or credentials of priests and clergy to be counselors or “therapists” on the occasions when they are called upon to help people with such problems. Hopefully the clerics receive enough training to know when they are out of their depth and can suggest their “patient” go see better qualified “professionals” (if they can even be found).
But for “Humans didn’t evolve to spend long hours sitting and typing, or staring at a screen. There is not something wrong with one if one does not enjoy doing that, or is unable to do that.”
Of course there are many stories of people who get “in the zone” and are deeply focused for extended periods. Perhaps those hunter gatherers who were able to spend long periods in the bush seeking animals to kill or tubers to collect also needed dedicated focus?
Then again, what about those of us who seem able to do that level of focus or concentration?
Part of my success in college (and HS) was the ability to sit down at 7pm and work until 11pm on my homework assignments. As a retiree I might now spend “way too much time” on the internet, although I will admit my focus is not as great with so many other distractions available.
Presumably this is the case for the 25 to 50% of us who are more introverted and are less dependent on other sources of social support [but still want and need a lesser level than the extroverts?]
“Far too many people are trying to flourish in environments anathema to human flourishing and believing they are flawed because they do not succeed.” This also plays into the idea that people who are not performing well in one environment [typically at work] would actually benefit from being “fired” and forced to seek and find an alternative better suited to their strengths and abilities. Unfortunately drugs and mental illness can still make things hell for that situation, too.
Part of the Gramscian, comprehensive, and very thorough march through the culture– with the aim of destroying our moods each day, destroying any good feelings we might have had–encompasses the takeover of Art and Architecture, producing not beautiful buildings which inspire us–which make us glad to look at them, or to walk through their doors, and to work in them–but rather ugly, pedestrian, no-talent buildings, which depress us, and drag our spirits down.
I’m reminded of “The Fountainhead.”
Cases in point, the FBI’s J. Edgar Hoover building, Obama’s new monstrosity of a Presidential Library and–take your pick–any one of a myriad of today’s public/commercial/medical/professional office buildings.
Therapists generally talk to people who want to talk to them. That is, think they have a problem they’d like to address with professional help.
People with TDS don’t think they need help. Everybody else needs help.
For “TDS” substitute about eleventy dozen other issues.
In addition, to make an exaggerated example; presume a client is from a family with an unbroken record of military service dating back to the Great Pequot War and which still lives in western Massachusetts. The therapist grew up in some version of the Beach Boys lifestyle with a fair amount of time sniffing around the near-SDS crowd in college, while being somewhat envious of the Greek lifestyle.
Can that therapist, no matter how hard he listens, avoid certain presumptions? And maybe the presumptions he’s trying to avoid…are valid?
.
I had a fantastic Life Coach. Better than a therapist — they tell you to get off your a** and DO something. He was conservative (He wrote a conservative blog.) We never actually discussed politics.
He disappeared, and I am afraid he may have passed away. He was great, though.
One problem with ‘therapy/mental health’ in general is that it’s almost impossible to define some aspects of it. A broken arm, that’s easy to define, as is the definition of treating it. Appendicitis, easy to define. Second degree flash burns? Definable.
The preferable alternative state is usually easy to define and agree upon too.
But for many mental conditions, even whether it constitutes a ‘illness’ is mostly a matter of opinion. Notoriously, the USSR at times defined disagreement with Communism as mental illness.
(Obviously not always. Sometimes mental disorder is fairly clearly definable. But often it isn’t.)
Licensing is only useful when it’s linked to something real. A licensed engineer, for ex, has passed (at least in theory) examinations based on the experience of a profession that builds bridges that stand, electronic devices that rarely catch fire, etc. The necessary mathematical and technical understanding are mostly measurable.
A lawyer who passes an honest bar exam has at least demonstrated a certain minimum understanding of the law in a State.
But what goes into ‘licensing’ psychologists and therapists? What is the base metric and what is it measuring?
At one time, the approved thinking for psychology was Freudian theory. Few people subscribe to that now. But what is the basis for what replaced it?