Well this explains everything, I thought to myself. The fox is coaching the henhouse!
Author Lisa Selin-Davis explains the perpetuation of wokeism in her
recent The Free Press Substack article, How Therapists Became Social
Justice Warriors.
I had no idea social justice had infiltrated the mental health
industry, which makes me rethink whether greater resources for
affordable mental health help will alleviate or multiply pervasive
societal mental illness. Because wokeness is a primary driver.
Selin-Davis traces the short history of how therapists got ‘woke’ and
trained to view the patient as a collective part of a greater group,
whether it was a ‘dominant’ group or a ‘marginalized’ one, rather than
treating them, as therapists have historically have, as an individual.
God help you now if you’re unfortunate enough to be white, male, or
‘cis-heteronormative’. Because you and your privilege are ground zero
for what ails others. And their antidote to your mental distress is woke
mind poison.
The therapist training Selin-Davis describes sounds frighteningly
like those hellish DEI corporate workshops we read and hear too much
about.
First, start with a dictatorial commitment to ‘antiracism’, whatever
that means this week. Then be sure to give all the ‘right’ answers in
class, or risk being shamed and penalized.
What galvanized the social justice-izing of mental health counseling
was the rise of Donald Trump, the death of George Floyd and street
protests . One student described a ‘civility pledge’ she had to sign
toward the end of her training, stating her commitment to acknowledge
all the social justice warrior evils: Racism, ableism, sexism, classism,
nativism, heterosexism, politically incorrect country music, etc.
Vulnerable, unhappy people, oppressed by mental health struggles,
come to these freshly-minted head specialists and pay for more mental
poison.
Mental dis-ease begins with social justice
One woman in the article illustrates how Critical Social Justice ideology creates and perpetuates pre-existing mental illness.
The social justice warrior cared deeply about diversity and equity,
but found herself struggling with her ‘whiteness’ and her constant fear
she was oppressing others without even trying.
Critical Race Theory teaches a hopeless narrative for everyone, but
particularly for white people: They’re born into white supremacy and can
never escape it, and oppress others simply by existing. The woman felt
guilt as a lesbian, too, as Queer Theory teaches ‘cis’ is “associated
with colonization and white supremacy and oppression.”
WTF?
She’d internalized social justice’s self-hatred lessons that the only
acceptable authenticity is that of the marginalized. If you’re not—and
apparently someone granted privilege to lesbians when she wasn’t
looking, your only permissible response is a never-ending demand for
public confession for your sins of being born ‘privileged’.
Instead of working to achieve genuine social justice, and existing
happily lesbian with her girlfriend, the woman became consumed with
CSJ-manufactured guilt as she anguished over her alleged ‘internalized
white supremacy’. Social Justice created her unhealthy pathologies that
diverted her from a path of helping others, to counseling she might not
have otherwise needed, and, as it turned out, might have been better off
without.
She found a black therapist to help her with her race and gender
issues and all went very well for several months. It went tits-up,
ironically, when she began making real mental health progress. Getting
better weakened her ‘wokeness’ which threatened her therapist’s social
justice commitment to a victim-centered identitarian worldview. When the
patient criticized cancel culture the therapist accused her of
assimilating ‘white supremacy culture’ and making the black therapist
feel ‘unsafe’.
If there’s one word that must never pass a mental health
professional’s lips unless the patient has turned on them with a knife,
it’s ‘unsafe’. That’s a social justice distortion most often applied to
challenged ideas for which the recipient has no rational answer.
Eventually, the therapist ended the relationship with the patient for
being insufficiently attentive to her presumed birth-granted skin
power, which was even more harmful for the patient. She was in essence
‘cancelled’, the very worst punishment for the non-conforming social
justice warrior, by someone she’d trusted with her psychological
vulnerability.
Social justice activism drove the patient both into and then out of
therapy, when the good it did her did so-called ‘harm’ to the therapist.
Interestingly, a therapy modality that perpetuates the problem it
seeks to reduce results in a prolonged financially remunerative
arrangement for the therapist which can last for years, even decades.
It’s an ironic position for a mental health professional: If you do your job well, success is rewarded with profit loss.
I can’t help but think the patient could have saved herself many
months, and a lot of stress and money, by reading books outside her
social justice bubble that might have challenged and illuminated her in
more psychologically healthy ways, especially books challenging the
myopic social justice self-flagellating prison.
The therapist, treating her patient as a presumed ‘oppressor’ rather
than an individual with her own unique neuroses and traumas, worked to
reinforce the pervasive ‘woke’ ideology of helplessness and hopeless
oppression. She told the patient, ‘You’re not free because of homophobia
and sexism. You’ll never be free.’
What a supremely bleak and depressing view of one’s future, not to
mention humanity. How utterly demoralizing it must be to believe that
ultimately, struggle is useless, including against genuine oppression -
so why even bother trying? Why protest in the streets, why bother
striving to become a better person, if you remain forever either an
assigned victim or an oppressor, regardless of your most sincere
efforts?
Ideology vs empowerment
Under the old therapy modality, the patient was guided toward
healthier mental perceptions, coping, and resilience skills, along with a
growing inner strength, the exact opposite of the victimist mindset,
the very definition of powerlessness.
In fact, it’s victimhood that often drives people into therapy, the
point being to not allow whatever makes her feel like a victim control
her life.
In the proper setting, one is encouraged to grow mentally stronger
and develop personal power, which is what the aforementioned therapy
client did until her therapist pulled her back from the cliff edge of
psychological health.
Selin-Davis’s article notes that some ideologized newbie therapists claim they could never take on a Trump-supporting client.
I can’t imagine another group of people as much in need of real
mental health help as the MAGAs. They’re subject to their own toxic,
victimizing, self-defeating and self-destructive ideologies, greatly
resembling their social justice antagonists.
MAGAs, like SJWs, need to challenge their self-perception as victims,
whether they were victimized against their will with a neglectful
childhood or an abusive partner, or whether they agreed, consciously or
not, to adopt identitarian victimhood.
But ultimately, if you can’t find a marginalized group to join,
simply make up your own label! If you’re a group of one,
congratulations! You’re marginalized! So none of it is your fault!
Empowerment, genuine empowerment, not woke-warrior lip service, is
the sworn enemy of victimhood ideology. The less you see yourself as a
victim, the less you act as a victim. The more you see your power to
change your life, and you engage that power, your life will most likely
improve.
It’s a direct threat to those who prefer to reject personal responsibility because they’re marginalized.
The message of covert disempowerment promoted by emotionally
unintelligent social justice warriors self-oppresses and benefits those
with real power unwilling to share any of it.
I wonder if the SJW’s therapist felt threatened by the very freedom
from psychological pain to which she’d led her patient, perhaps longing
to seize some of that freedom herself but risking her job and potential
ostracism when her peers found out she questioned the core tenets of
social justice ideology.
It would lay to waste everything she’d been taught and believed in.
Donald Trump and his lackeys play to this same mindset for Team MAGA,
blaming everyone for the working class’s plight without ever
challenging them to aspire higher, educate themselves, to take charge of
their lives more, or to demand better politicians to address their real
interests. It benefits Trump and the Republicans to keep their base
feeling victimized - if the voters took charge of their lives rather
than blaming immigrants and progressive elites, they might not need the
GOP anymore.
Who needs a saviour when you can save yourself?
The futility of eternal victimhood
Mental un-health is socially contagious. It includes anorexia,
suicide, and depression, but happiness is also contagious. One study
found that having a happy neighbor increases one’s happiness probability
by 34%.
Hanging out with a more positive crowd and taking breaks, whether
it’s vacation or just some time off from thinking about systemic racism,
rape culture or colonialism, might be more beneficial, not to mention
time and money-saving, than a therapist with an unexamined sense of her
own self-imposed victimhood.
It’s frightening to think that people in real mental distress visit
professionals who feed their pathologies and turn them away from the
timeless skills of empowerment, self-challenge, coping and resilience
that results in stronger psychological health.
The Buddha, 3,500 years ago, taught human beings the secret to
happiness and mental well-being not by wallowing in the injustices of
the world, but in learning to co-exist with and alleviate it with good
deeds, to strive not to contribute to others’ unhappiness, and to
challenge one’s own self-harming mental perceptions. He deconstructed
how our beliefs can cause us as much, and arguably more, pain than any
actual victimization we’ve experienced.
The more new-ish mental health treatment Cognitive Behavior Therapy,
or CBT, closely resembles Buddhist teachings. CBT seeks to challenge
‘cognitive distortions’, the ‘mental constructs’ Buddhists encourage
followers to root out. It challenges thoughts, beliefs and attitudes
that may or may not be real, that may hurt us.
One such cognitive distortion in the social justice movement (and
Judaeo-Christianity) is the distasteful notion of original sin - that
you can be born into a negative state through no fault of your own. It
was the putative basis of the Genesis tale of Adam and Eve, purporting
to explain why humanity is so ugly (it’s our fault for disobeying God!)
and it’s extended into CRT-based antiracism, which teaches the cognitive
distortion that you can be born into an inescapable white supremacy,
just as Jews and Christians believe you can never escape the taint of
Adam’s and Eve’s original sin, and all you can do is strive ever harder
to be a better person.
Ideological victimhood dies without validation from others, and
people who abandon victimist thinking and take charge of their lives,
are deeply threatening to those who won’t. The ‘woke’ and the MAGAs each
hew to a toxic, self-limiting, self-destructive self-image in which
nothing is ever their fault.
Rejecting victimhood is the Kryptonite of ‘wokeness’ and MAGAtry.
Evidence, logic, rationalism, reason and hard data are their sworn enemies.
Mental health is the primary tool in the arsenal of The Silent
Majority, those of us who want to take back our power from the
perma-victims of modern discourse, who hold themselves, not to mention
others and their social justice causes, back.
Therapy can still be beneficial, and Selin-Davis’s articles lists the
rebel therapists banding together to offer un-woke therapy for those
who don’t want their therapists to dictate some issues are ‘off the
table’ because it makes them feel ‘unsafe’.
If you can’t afford therapy, no problem! Good books will challenge what you think you believe to be right in social justice.
You can read them for free from the library or order them on-line, used copies super-cheap.
I just saved you a whackload of money, and maybe hastened your journey to a healthier mental outlook.
You’re welcome ;)
Not all mental health struggles can be addressed with a few books, so
if you need a therapist’s help Selin-Davis’s article offers non-woke
therapy sources to start. Also research and interview potential
therapists to make sure they won’t undermine your progress. It’s okay to
be liberal or progressive or supportive of social justice, but the key
thing to remember is they shouldn’t be pushing any particular political
worldview on you.
If your mental health issues come from your social justice work, start with a few of these books:
The Righteous Mind - Why Good People Are Divided By Politics and Religion - Jonathan Haidt
Cynical Theories: How Activist Scholarship Made Everything about
Race, Gender, and Identity―and Why This Harms Everybody - Helen
Pluckrose and James Lindsay
Woke Racism: How A New Religion Has Betrayed Black America - John McWhorter
I Feel, Therefore I Am: The Triumph of Woke Subjectivism - Mark Goldblatt
The Content Of Our Character: A New Vision of Race in America (this
book is over 30 years old but it’s as fresh and relevant today as it was
in 1990) - Shelby Steele
Trans: When Ideology Meets Reality - Helen Joyce
My Problem With Everything: My Journey Through the New Culture Wars - Meghan Daum
The Morning After: Sex, Fear & Feminism - Katie Roiphe
War Before Civilization - Lawrence Keeley (On how violent pre-colonial Indigenous cultures were)
Emotional Intelligence 2.0: Harness the Power of the #1 Predictor of Success - Dr. Travis Bradberry & Dr. Jean Greaves
This last is one of the best damn books I’ve ever read that will put you on the road to more highly fortified mental health.
Grow Some Labia! by Nicole Chardenet - https://www.growsomelabia.com/
